People: from Moses to the kings
The leaders who brought Israel out of Egypt and into the land, the judges who followed, and the first kings.
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Who was Moses?
The Hebrew raised in Pharaoh's household whom God called at the burning bush to lead Israel out of slavery, and through whom God gave the law at Mount Sinai.
As a baby he was hidden in a basket in the Nile to escape Pharaoh's order to kill Hebrew boys. He fled Egypt after killing an Egyptian and spent forty years as a shepherd before God called him. He led the people for forty years in the wilderness but was not allowed to enter the promised land. Jewish tradition regards him as the greatest of the prophets.
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Who were Aaron and Miriam?
Moses's older brother and sister. Aaron spoke for Moses before Pharaoh and became Israel's first high priest; Miriam was a prophet who led the women in song after the crossing of the sea.
Aaron's descendants became the priests, so every priest in the Old Testament is a "son of Aaron". He is also the one who made the golden calf while Moses was on the mountain. Miriam's song after the sea is among the oldest poems in the Bible.
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Who was Joshua?
Moses's assistant and successor, who led Israel across the Jordan into Canaan and through the conquest of the land.
He was one of only two spies, with Caleb, who told the people they could take the land, and so one of only two of that generation allowed to enter it. His Hebrew name, Yehoshua, means "the LORD saves"; the Greek form of the same name is Jesus.
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Who was Rahab?
A prostitute in Jericho who hid the Israelite spies and was spared, with her family, when the city fell.
She told the spies she knew their God had given them the land, and hung a scarlet cord from her window as a sign. She married into Israel, and Matthew names her in Jesus's family tree as the mother of Boaz, which makes her an ancestor of David. Hebrews and James both hold her up as an example of faith.
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Who were Deborah and Gideon?
Two of Israel's judges. Deborah was a prophet and leader who summoned Israel to battle against a Canaanite army; Gideon was a fearful farmer God used to defeat the Midianites with just three hundred men.
Deborah is the only judge in the book shown settling the people's disputes, and the battle she called for ends with a woman, Jael, killing the enemy general. Gideon asked God for signs using a fleece of wool, which is where the phrase "putting out a fleece" comes from. God cut his army from over thirty thousand to three hundred so that Israel could not claim the victory for itself.
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Who was Samson?
A judge of Israel with enormous strength, tied to a vow never to cut his hair, who was betrayed by Delilah to the Philistines.
He was set apart from birth as a Nazirite, but he broke almost every part of the vow and chased Philistine women. Delilah was paid to find the secret of his strength, and when his hair was cut he was captured and blinded. He died pulling down a Philistine temple on himself and thousands of others. He is a portrait of great gifts wasted, which is the pattern of Judges as a whole.
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Who was Samuel?
The last judge and a prophet, who anointed Israel's first two kings, Saul and David.
His mother Hannah prayed for a child and dedicated him to God, and he grew up serving at the tabernacle, where God called him in the night. He warned the people what a king would take from them, but gave them one when they insisted. He marks the hinge between the time of the judges and the time of the kings.
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Who was Saul?
Israel's first king, tall and impressive, whom God rejected for disobedience and who spent his later years trying to kill David.
He was from the small tribe of Benjamin. He offered a sacrifice he had no right to make and spared what God had told him to destroy, and Samuel told him that obedience is better than sacrifice. He grew jealous and paranoid, and died by his own sword after defeat in battle against the Philistines.
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Who was David?
The shepherd boy who killed Goliath and became Israel's greatest king, the writer of many psalms, and the ancestor of the Messiah.
He is called a man after God's own heart, yet he committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband killed, and the Bible tells all of it. God promised him that his throne would last forever, which is why the promised Messiah is called the "son of David". He was from the tribe of Judah and the town of Bethlehem.
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Who was Jonathan?
King Saul's son and heir, and David's closest friend, who protected David from his own father.
By rights Jonathan should have been the next king, and he knew David would take the throne instead, yet he made a covenant of friendship with him. Their friendship is one of the great loyalties in the Bible. When Jonathan died in battle beside Saul, David mourned him in a famous lament.
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Who was Bathsheba?
The wife of Uriah, a soldier in David's army, whom David took and then had Uriah killed to cover up her pregnancy. She later became the mother of Solomon.
The prophet Nathan confronted David with a story about a rich man who stole a poor man's only lamb, and when David was outraged, told him, "You are the man." The child of the affair died. Bathsheba later secured the throne for her son Solomon, and Matthew includes her in Jesus's family tree as "the wife of Uriah".
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Who was Solomon?
David's son and successor, famous for his wisdom and wealth, who built the first temple in Jerusalem but was led into idolatry late in life.
When God offered him anything he wanted, he asked for wisdom to govern. His reign was the high point of Israel's power. But he married seven hundred wives, many of them foreign princesses, who turned his heart to their gods, and the kingdom split after his death. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs are all associated with him.
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Who were Rehoboam and Jeroboam?
The two kings the kingdom split between after Solomon: Rehoboam, Solomon's son, kept Judah in the south; Jeroboam, a former official, ruled the northern kingdom of Israel.
Rehoboam threatened to make the people's burden even heavier than his father had, and the north broke away. Jeroboam set up golden calves at Bethel and Dan so his people would not go to Jerusalem to worship. For the rest of Kings, northern kings are condemned for walking "in the sins of Jeroboam".