Yitskaq (No Supernatural Intervention)

The life and times of Yitskaq Ben-Abram
Yitskaq, the second and favorite son of Abram, had been matched to a second cousin. Ribqah, was lovely, and young. Abram and Hagar hoped that she would bring more children to the tribe after Ishmael had moved away to start his own family. However, Ribqah had been unable to have any children. Hagar, having recieved an herbal treatment from her homeland in order to conceive and bear Yitzkaq, suggested that such a treatment would be good for her new daughter-in-law as well. The family was thrilled when the treatments worked -- doubly so, for Ribqah bore twins!

However, on her trip to Mitsraim, Hagar had become infected with a parasite that slowly weakened her to the point of death. She would not live to see the birth of the twins, but had counseled Ribqah that she had a feeling that the youngest of the two might be the mightier twin. Her suspicions would only be partially right.

As the twins were being born, the second son came literally "on the heals" of the first, his hand grasping the heal of his brother. The two could not have been more different, for the first one was born covered by a fine red hair while his brother was a slick and pale. Ribqah immediately favored the younger, perhaps feeling sorry for him. The firstborn was named `Eshu, meaning "hairy," while the younger had the descriptive name of Yaqob, meaning "surplanter," for he had grabbed that which was not his.

As the youngsters grew, `Eshu was especially close to his father Yitskaq. He became a mighty hunter and herder of cattle. Yaqob, on the other hand, eschewed the wilderness and stayed near the camp, working the garden and the flocks of goats and sheep. He continued to be his mother's favorite. Favoritism, naturally, would lead to decisions based on selfishness.

Before the boys had grown, though, Yitzkaq would lose his father Abram to old age. In the four centuries since the flood, the lifespans of mankind had begun to decline. The earlier generations had even misunderstood the trend and considered the original survivors from the ark to be Gods, even to the point of the independent "creators" of the world. Abram had seen Ur, Noakh's grandson, and knew him to be just a man. And then he had met Sem, Noakh's son and knew that he too was just a man. It had been his belief that mankind "must" have been created by the mere fact of his being a very complicated creature. Abram - and Hagar - had instilled this belief into their children as well. When they buried their father, Yitsqak and `Eshu had reconciled their differences and had drawn closer together.

The sibling rivalry that had characterized the life of Yitsaq, however, passed on to his sons. The main reason of this had been his favoritism. A favorite son had a favorite son, and while not unexpected, the lesson from history had not been learned. Through a series of tricks, in fact, Ribqah and Yaqob had plotted to reverse the favoritism into Yaqob's favor. It turned out that `Eshu was not all that concerned about an "inheritance" since it seemed that he could on his own make a fortune greater than that of his father and grandfather. However, when he was tricked out of both the kind words ("blessing") of his father AND the right of the firstborn to the double portion, it was only out of respect for his father that he did not kill his brother.

Yitskaq would send Yaqob to his homeland to once more chose a bride from among his own people. Yitskaq wished to continue the line of Terah at least one more generation to preserve what he thought were "superior" qualities. Though he could not reverse the Mitsrai blood in his vains, he wished to keep the Khami traits from redefining the family heritage. Yaqob would find where his craftiness came from when he met Laban, his uncle. He would be fooled into marrying an older sister, Leah, when he had expected the lovely Rakhel. It would be over twenty years later, after the birth of thirteen children by two wives and two concubines, that he would return to his father's tribe. On the way back he would meet and reconcile with his brother `Eshu, and the two would re-unite with their father. However, their mother Ribqah had died several years earlier.

The Nation of Yitskaq
As the Abrami tribes lived and worked beside each other, they knew relative peace. The Paleseti tribes mostly stayed on the coast, but occasionally there would be skirmishes over pastureland in the lean years. Yaqob, having seen no advantage to selecting from family (Abrami) for his children's brides, found that it was not the physical traits that were the most dangerous. The lifestyles of the Palesetim, as well as the "religious" aspects of their belief systems, were far more dangerous. The "religion" of his father-in-law had proved dangerous enough, but he had managed to instill in most of his family a rudimentary understanding that any god but the Creator was not a god but a man.

The rise of the Yaqobi
Yaqob, however, had not learned the lesson of the danger of showing favorites among ones children. Unlike previous generations he had multiple wives and a favorite wife at that. And when that wife, Rakhel, had been slow to have children, his two wives had started a contest using their servant girls as surrogates. Rakhel had produced two sons, dying as she brought forth Ben-Yamin. But it was her first son, Yosep, that had become his favorite. By the time Yosep had been born, Leah and the surrogates had produced ten sons and a daughter. Yaqob's favoritism, coupled with the wretched lifestyles of the ten older sons, brought out the worst in the older siblings. By young manhood, Yosep had left home to join up with a band of merchants made up of Ishmaeli and `Eshui, his cousins.

While his brothers continued to marry Paleseti women and participate in their religious practices, Yosep ended up living among the elite in Mitsraim. Demonstrating his expertise in trade relations, Yosep rose quickly within the ranks of the upper class of what had become the most advanced civilization in the world. As chief financial adviser to the Pharaoh, he had been instrumental in managing the storage of excess grain and other essential foods during an unprecedented period of plenty that had lasted seven years. Back among his brothers, the crops had been about normal, and when the great famine came, they had been unprepared. Joseph had been ready when they came, offering them access to the storehouses if they would bring the whole clan - Yitsqak, Leah, the concubines, and all their families - down to Mitsraim. That is how the province of "Yitskaq" came to be in the delta of the great Nile River.

Over the course of three centuries, though, the province of shepherds grew too big for the Mitsrai government to easily control in uncertain times of war. There were a surprising number of Abrami tribes - most from Abram's brief marriage to Keturah in his old age - in the great peninsula was a cause of alarm. The Mitsrai came to consider all Abrami, even the Yaqobi, as a threat. This led to increased subjugation and then finally slavery to all Yaqobi inside of Mitsraim. Even slavery, though, did not diminish the numbers. It seemed that this people had an elevated sense of "family." Because of this, a program of infanticide was begun to cull the population of babies. The program, though, depended on Yaqobi servants to actively report the babies being born. And the law was ambiguous, calling for the babies to be thrown in the Nile to feed the "god" of the river. One baby, at least, was spared by gently placing him in the waters in a sealed basket just where he would be found.

And found he was! By none other than the Pharaoh's daughter. The woman named the baby "Mosheh," the common word for lifting things out of the water. Not wanting to act as a mother, the woman asked a young Yaqobi girl who suddenly appeared on the bank (it was the baby's sister) if she knew of a woman that could nurse the baby for her. Of course the girl, named Miriam, directed her to Mosheh's mother. Learning the traditions of his family in the precious years leading to the age of schooling, Mosheh never forgot the conditions of his "real family." However, he would not reveal his true feeling for nearly forty years.

Mosheh would begin planning an uprising among his people when he was thirty-five years old. He had been able to convince his adoptive family that he could manage the slaves more efficiently in the fields with them. And that is where he began covertly raising up his army. His brother Aharun, a few years his elder, was instrumental in building a base for the rebellion. However, Pharaoh's spies had found about the plan, and sought to kill the leadership. Mosheh and Aharun, along with a handful of co-conspirators, had managed to escape before the uprising was squashed in a rash of executions. Mosheh and Aharun had managed to place a spirit of discontent among the people, but it would take forty more years before another attempt would be possible.

Ordinarily, old men of eighty and above are not very good warriors. But they can be good organizers. And forty years of organizing proved effective among the Abrami in the great peninsula. With Mosheh and Aharun in the lead, a band of over a hundred thousand desert-hardened bedouins marched across the Sinai peninsula intent on freeing their cousins from bondage. When they arrived, they found a Mitsrai government in turmoil as thousands of slaves had begun to refuse to work, even with threat of death. It seemed that a great number of them held to a belief in an unseen god greater than even Ra. None of them, though, claimed to know what the god looked like or what he was capable of doing for them.

Seeing the myriad of warriors on the border, and the unrest in the midst of the Yitskaqi province, the Pharoah agreed to a treaty whereby the Sinai peninsula would be a buffer between the Abrami and the Mitsrai. He offered incentives to some of the former slaves to stay on as paid workers, adjusting prices of exports to Paleset and Tsur to compensate. Probably a third of the Yaqobi remained in what had seemed the better choice.

For nearly forty years the Yitskaqi refugees sought to assimilate into the territory of their cousins, the `Eshui in the region south of the Salt Sea. However, four hundred years among the Mitsrai had changed them so much that many began demanding a land of their own. A lieutenant of Mosheh's, a man named Yeshu`a had risen to prominence in that time and became the leader of the first bands of raiders to sweep north into the lands long held by the Peleseti peoples. They were merciless in their attacks, rarely leaving a male alive, while taking the women and children as slaves. Strategic port cities, though, were not only guarded well, but also had large fortresses that proved impenetrable. The cities along the Jordan River, though proved easier. Soon, the twelve tribes of Yitskaqi had staked out land on both sides of the river all the way past the region of Galil, a circuit around the great lake out of which the Jordan flowed toward the Salt Sea.

The rise of the united kingdom
All this land, though, was not occupied evenly. Nor was the victory over the inhabitants of the lands complete. For centuries the tribes attempted independecy under a series of regional "kings" which would take control when the Peleseti continued their counter raids into the interior. Finally, a man named Samson, of impressive physical physique, arose in popularity in the southern tribes. It was suspected that he had been using a drug regiment that was said to have been passed down from the Ancients. But whatever the case, he proved stronger than five normal men -- maybe more. Only the giants of Gath were stronger, but during the early years these direct descendants of the Ancients were still untrained youth -- a secret program they hoped would defeat the Yitskaqi for good. Sampson proclaimed himself as king of the Dani, a small tribe in the middle of the twelve and adjacent to the large tribe of Yahuda. He proved so successful in his raids of Paleset, though, that he had followers in Yahuda, Benyamin and Levi as well. Some even claimed he was "king of all Yitzkaq," though he never ventured north of Shalem. When after twenty years Samson's womanizing proved his downfall, he was succeeded by another Dani by the name of Samu-el, the protege of Eli the captain of king Samson's army. When Eli was defeated in battle, Samu-el ("gift of the Mighty One") rose to fill the void and take a stand against the Paleseti insurgency. As his name indicated, Samu-el's parents had believed there is a Creator, whom they called "the Mighty One," assuming that only One with might greater than all the peoples on the earth could create those same people.

Samu-el was successful, though nowhere as impressive in stature as his predecessor. When he reached the end of his life, he sought out someone as close to Samson as he could find. This man was Saul Ben-Kish of the Benyami tribe. Taller by a head from among his kinsmen, Saul was also dashingly handsome. He had proved himself in battle, and seemed the best choice to rule a new "united kingdom" that Samu-el had been working on for a decade. He had decided that he needed the added strength of the northern nine tribes to win the battle against the stubborn Peleseti. Saul proved to be an able leader, but his raids of the enemy camps were not as complete as they needed to be for complete victory. This proved a problem in keeping the morale up among his troops. Had he not recruited a young shepherd -- a teenager who had come with supplies for his older brothers -- as his armor bearer, the plan for a united Yitskaq would never have come to pass. This young man had dared to face one of the Peleseti giants with his deadly sling. The weapon was ideal for striking a blow from a close, but safe, distance, and it had been a stroke of genius to use it against the "super warrior" the Peleseti had put forward to intimidate the Yiskaqi army. Soon this young man, David Ben-Eshi, was training others in the use of the sling. For his valor, David was awarded the hand of King Saul's daughter Michal. The young Yahudi warrier had become in line to the throne.

David's best friend was his brother-in-law Yenathan ("He is given"), beloved son of Saul. That is, when Saul was in the right mood. And that was not often. Saul, for all his perceived valor on the battlefield, was in fact quite unstable at home. Had Yenathan not ruled at his side, the nation would have fallen to Peleseti rule half-way into Saul's rule. About that time, though, David had come on board and the kingdom seemed on the way to peace again. But Saul became jealous of David soon after making the younger man "part of the family." For almost 20 years, Saul's moods swung widely and David was on the run. It was not until Saul and Yenathan both died in battle on the same day that David came to rule the large tribe of Jahuda and parts of surrounding tribes. For a time Saul's other sons tried to hold power in their father's name, but David's forces finally overpowered them. After a few years David was able to take the ancient city of Shelem, now called Yeru-Shalem, and make it his capital. Tribal legends claimed that it was in Shalem that the father of all Semi had conferred with the progenitor of the Abrami. The one many still proclaimed as a god had insisted that no man on the earth should be called a god. Instead they agreed that only the Creator should be so honored. It was He that they claimed was THE "El" - The Mighty One, or The One Lifted Up.

No one knew what the Mighty One looked like, though most figured he must be somehow like man. Others, though, insisted that he had no "form" for He had existed before "form" ever came to be. No wonders had been done by this unseen God, though some claimed that things were in some way directed by Him. This belief in some Creator led to the establishing of a center for the adoration of this god, whom Abrami everywhere claimed existed. The adornment was simple, with artwork displaying the history of mankind under the Mighty One's watchful eye. In the center was a garden, kept artificially alive by daily irrigation. The excesses of the "worship" of so-called gods that were but memorials to dead men were meticulously avoided. For the most part, El was only to be "visited" by those wishing to meditate on his existence. The temple was open to all who wished to come, with its caretakers managing the volume of visitors. For the most part, that proved to be no problem. El worshipers were a distinct minority.

The Edomi
As the Peleseti had continued to be adversarial, King David called upon his friends to the south, the Edomi. The Edomi were closely related to the Yaqobi, being descended from Yitsqak as were the Yacobi. "Edom" was the name that `Eshu had begun being called after he "lost the birthright"). Edom had become a kingdom while the Yitskaqi were in Mitsraim.  It became clear that a closer alliance should be put together to assure that the Abrami from Mitsraim to Aram would be secure.  By the end of David's forty years, Edom had joined the nation of Yitskaq as  an equal province to Yahuda.  With their help, the Peleseti were reduced to a few autonomous city states along the coasts.  Attempts to eradicate them, however had proved impossible.

It had taken nearly a millennium, but the sons of Yitskaq had finally become one. It would be almost another millennium, however, before an Edomi would sit on the throne in Yeru-Shalem. The dynasty of David Ben-Eshi would last longer than any dynasty in world history up until the Roman era, if not in all of time (some dynasties have made unverifiable claims). Some would claim after the fall of the Yeru-Shalem in 2418 TM (833 AU) a member of the Davidic dynasty would return to take the throne some day. As of this writing, that has not happened.

Under David's son, Shalomoh, the kingdom would reach its greatest splendor. His armies would conquer all the lands up to the edge of Abram's adopted "homeland" among the Arami, in what had become the rising power known as the Ashuri. He would make treaties with both the Mitsrai to the south and the Ashuri to the north as he commanded tribute from subjugated Abrami peoples from the Euphrates to the Great Sea. Like the two kings before him, Shalomoh would reign for forty years. He was honored widely for his wisdom, having personally written thousands of proverbs about a myriad of subjects. But he was plagued with too many wives -- most as political arrangements -- and had very little control over his children. Consequently, when he died the future of the United Kingdom of Yitskaq came to an end.

The Kingdom of Yaqob
More to come ...

The Kingdom of Yahuda
More to come ...