David Ben-Gurion (First Prime Minister of Israel) pronounces the Declaration of the State of Israel
Israel’s Declaration of Independence and the Biblical Right to the Land
Israel’s Declaration of Independence defends the Jews’ right to establish a state by invoking their connection to the land going back to biblical times. Does this declaration conform to biblical thought?
Published April 15, 2018
Ben-Gurion was not the sole author of the declaration. It was produced in stages. The first draft was composed by Zvi Berenson, developed further by Moshe Shertok (Sharett), David Remez, Pinhas Rosenblueth (Rosen), Moshe Shapira and Aharon Zisling. The final version was created by Ben-Gurion, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Fishman (Maimon), Zisling and Shertok. See Jay Harris, “The Israeli Declaration of Independence: ‘A Camel Is a Horse Produced by a Committee’,” Journal of Textual Reasoning Old Series, 7/1, (1998).
Jay Harris, “The Israeli Declaration of Independence.”
For the conception of Israel as outsiders, see Nili Wazana, “Natives or Immigrants: Biblical world view of Origins of Israel and Other People,” in Shai le-Sara Japhet: Studies in the Bible, Its Exegesis and Its Language (eds. Moshe Bar-Asher, Emanuel Tov, Dalit Rom-Shiloni and Nili Wazana, Jerusalem: Bialik, 2007): 37-59 (Hebrew). For an earlier English version see Nili Wazana, “Natives, Immigrants and the Biblical Perception of Origins in Historical Times,” Tel-Aviv 32.2 (2005): 220–244.
Eretz Israel appears in likely pre-exilic books in 1 Sam 13:19; 2 Kings 5:2, 4; 6:23. The other seven of its eleven occurrences appear in the exilic and post-exilic books Ezekiel and Chronicles (Ezek 27:17; 40:2; 47:17; 1 Chron 22:2; 2 Chron 2:16; 30:25; 34:7).
The theme appears again in the description of the return from exile in the Persian Period in Ezra-Nehemiah.
For Abraham’s entry into the land, see, e.g., Gen 12:1-5, 15:7, Josh 24:3, Neh 9:7. As for the entry of the Israelites into the land after the exodus from Egypt and the wilderness wanderings, this is premise of the entire narrative arc of Exodus through Joshua, and prevalent in historiographical, prophetical and poetic historical surveys (e.g., Judg 2:1; 6:8-9; Amos 2:10; Ps 78:43-55; 80:9; 105:23-45).
All translations of the declaration follow the official state version.
The exodus story is the most dominant of Israel’s foundational myths, appearing in almost all biblical literary genres such as law, historiography, prophecy, early poetry and psalms. Editor’s note: For more on this, see David Frankel, “Integrating the Exodus Story into the Festivals,” TheTorah.com (2014).
See also Exod 19:4-6, Lev 18:24-30, and Deut 14:2.
See also Lev 18:28, 26:14-41, Deut 28, 32. There is a strong apologetic ring to the notion of divine promise and threat of punishment, and this ideology can conveniently justify after the fact both destruction and exile. This is one reason why many scholars assume that the “predictions” found in the Torah were written after the fact.
For Ben-Gurion’s advancement of the Bible see, Alan T. Levenson, The Making of the Modern Jewish Bible: How Scholars in Germany, Israel, and America Transformed an Ancient Text (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011): 115–130; Anita Shapira, “Ben-Gurion and the Bible: The Forging of an Historical Narrative?” Middle Eastern Studies 33.4 (1997): 645-674.
David Ben-Gurion, Biblical Reflections (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1969 [Hebrew]): 94. The book was translated by Jonathan Colatch into English: David Ben-Gurion, Ben-Gurion Looks at the Bible (New York: Jonathan David, 1972); translations in this paper are mine and not taken from this volume.
See discussion in, Rachel Havrelock, “The Joshua Generation: Conquest and the Promised Land,” Critical Research in Religion 1.3 (2013): 308-326.
The idea seems to be Ben-Gurion’s own creation. In his opening to a paper entitled “the Beginning of the Hebrews” (קדמות העברים) he states:
שלא הסתמכתי בהשערתי זו על חוקרי התנ”ך מישראל או מגויים, אלא על התנ”ך עצמו, ורק עליו.
In this assumption (i.e., the indigenous origin of Israel) I did not rely on biblical scholars from Israel or from goyyim, but on the Bible itself, and only the Bible.
Repeatedly in the collection of his biblical studies Biblical Reflections. The introduction to the Hebrew original, signed by “The Israel Society for Biblical Research” (החברה לחקר המקרא בישראל) states:
דוד בן-גוריון חוקר ומחפש בצניעות ובזהירות פתרונות לתופעות אחדות עיקריות בקדמוניות ישראל בארץ
David Ben-Gurion humbly and carefully researches and searches solutions to a few major phenomena in the beginnings of Israel in its land.
Biblical Reflections, 164
Biblical Reflections, 60. See Michael Keren, Ben-Gurion and the Intellectuals: Power, Knowledge and Charisma (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1983): 100–107.
Although the meetings of the Bible study group and the formulation of his ideas occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, it is clear from the declaration of independence that Ben-Gurion fostered them long before.
The first scholar to systemically argue for this reading of Chronicles was Sara Japhet, a biblical scholar from Jerusalem, who published a paper in 1979—six years after Ben-Gurion’s death—outlining the Chronicler’s view of Israel’s origin; see Sara Japhet, “Conquest and Settlement in Chronicles,” JBL98.2 (1979): 205–218.
Editor’s note: For more on this story and its implications, see David Frankel, “The Book of Chronicles and the Ephraimites that Never Went to Egypt,” TheTorah.com (2015); Tzemah Yoreh, “The Northern Tribal Tradition of Settling the Land,” TheTorah.com (2015).
