At the Crossroads 22

Who Truly Are God’s People, Israel?

The identity of the people of God emerged in the conflict between the worship of Yahweh and the dominant ideology of Baalism in the land of Canaan.

I Sam 8 and 1 Sam 12 gave the contrasting views of these two opposing ideologies. The Yahwist ideology (worship of Yahweh) warned Israel of what would happen should they insist to have a king similar to that of the other nations. This king would take away from them their sons and make of them soldiers of the empire; their women would be carted off as workers in the perfumeries of the queen; the fruit of their land and labor would be collected as taxes and food for the empire. They would live as slaves and the king would lord it over them. This is to worship Baal: to do violence and injustice to the people and the land. In contrast, Yahwism exhorted the people to believe in the primacy of their being doers of the Justice of Yahweh. The task of their king from within them was to fulfill the will of the people, that is to say, to administer the Justice of Yahweh. Should they fail in this mission, they and their king would be destroyed.

And so it happened. The slaves that participated in that great liberation march from Egypt to Canaan were not purely ethnic Hebrews. They were joined in too by other slaves of other races and ethnic groups that longed for the fullness of human life, in a land of freedom and productivity. Hence, in that great long march, Israel ceased to be – as it really never was – just an ethnic category that referred to the children of Jacob and Abraham. Rather, Israel became a class category: the poor, the oppressed, the sick, the violated who would now march to claim their life and land, their lineage and liberation, who would dare to struggle and dare to win!

At that time, Baalism ruled the land of Canaan. Kings were oppressing their people. But the oppressed peoples, the slaves, were slowly punctuating their miserable submission with remarkable determined uprisings, bereft of any alternative ideology and alternative way of life. The entry of the Israelites provided a guiding ideology to these uprisings, and turned the pristine indigenous initiatives of the people of Canaan into a revolutionary project of the oppressed. It was a struggle between Yahwism, the ideology of life, justice and social egalitarianism and Baalism, the ideology of class oppression, social plunder and death.

Thus there were three moments in this liberation process of the people. There was the march from Egypt. Then, there was the gradual infiltration and settlement of the land. And finally, there were the pockets of invasions against oppressive kingdom territories. The people’s just, revolutionary and liberating project won. For the cause of the justice of Yahweh. For the poor and by the poor of Yahweh. – Fr. Ben Alforque, MSC