3.4. The Internal Organization of the Hebrew People

The people of Israel originated in Egypt from twelve brothers, the sons of Jacob. These progenitors of the people, despite their blood kinship, bore upon themselves such pronounced marks of individuality—distinguishing each from the others—that their distinctiveness was expressed, among other things, in the prophetic blessing of them by their father, who in accordance with the particular features of their character foretold for them also different destinies (Gen. 49). Consequently, even in their descendants they did not constitute one shapeless mass, but produced twelve distinct tribes, which preserved their individual character and formed the basis of the organization of the people. These tribes—or, as they are commonly called, shevatim — constituted the first subdivision of the people, the largest members of the popular organism, possessing their own genealogy, their own history, their own internal structure, and their own self-governance. Each tribe in turn was subdivided into several smaller units, descending in a progressively organic gradation to the most primary collective unit—the family or household. The first of these subdivisions is the clan (mishpachoth) or generation, representing a whole group of families bound to one another by descent from a common ancestor, who was himself descended from the chief progenitor, the father of the tribe. The clan was thus divided into families or houses of fathers (battim or beth aboth), understood in the broad sense, since each of these households was itself subdivided into several separate establishments and dwellings. But in general this unit appears to have been considered the last one having political significance in public life, since the principal passage on which the described subdivision is based ends with it, presupposing beyond it only individual persons. Here is the order in which these subdivisions appeared in one criminal case—consequently with the full rigor of the legal process: “Come near by tribes; and the tribe that the Lord takes shall come near by clans; and the clan that the Lord takes shall come near by households; and the household that the Lord takes shall come near man by man” (Josh. 7:14; cf. Josh. 7:16–18). Thus in official public life the gradation of three degrees of articulation of the popular organism was taken into account and had public significance: tribe, clan, and family. In accordance with these degrees the political structure of the people also developed.

In the patriarchal period of the people’s existence, when it did not yet constitute a people in the political sense but was an insignificant tribe, it was naturally governed on the principles of clan life—when all authority, both political and religious, is concentrated in the hands of the head of the tribe, the father of the family. In this way the people were governed under the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But already in Egypt, when from one family twelve distinct tribes had formed that recognized themselves as independent members of the people, the patriarchal order proved outdated and unsuited to the degree of the people’s development, and was therefore replaced by a representative one, in which the people were governed no longer by a single head but by representatives of the tribes—the so-called “elders (zekenim) of the sons of Israel” (Exod. 3:16; 4:29). These “elders,” consisting of men made wise by life and experience, were already heads of the individual tribes not in the patriarchal sense—that is, not as all-powerful lords of the tribes, possessing authority assigned to them solely by virtue of the tribal principle—but as representatives of the people in the public sense, as the chosen voices and spokesmen of its consciousness. Representation in full force already asserted itself in Egypt. Thus we see that Moses, with his proposal regarding the liberation of the people from slavery, addressed himself to the “elders of the sons of Israel” in full confidence that their consent or decision would be the consent and decision of the entire people (Exod. 4:29). And indeed, when Aaron (speaking for Moses on account of Moses’ well-known speech impediment) conveyed the words of Jehovah to the elders, and Moses performed signs before them, the elders believed in the mission of the two great brothers, and their decision so fully expressed the decision of the absent people that the text entirely identifies the elders with the people, saying: “And the people believed. And when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped” (Exod. 4:29–30).

Such was the historical foundation in terms of everyday life upon which the lawgiver was to build the new state.