The following day, the Israelites came and accused Moses and Aaron of having killed his fellow Israelites.

By that time, however, the plague inflicted on the Israelites had already killed about twenty-four thousand persons.

With God's protection taken from him, Balaam is later listed amongst the Midianites who were killed in revenge for the " matter of Peor ", which is where Balaam showed King Balak how to trap the Israelites so that God might destroy them.

His walled towns were captured and the complete Amorite country was taken by the Israelites, who killed the king and " all his people.

While the Israelites / Hebrews were captives in Egypt, Moses killed an Egyptian who was striking a Hebrew, for which offense Pharaoh sought to kill Moses.

Because they had " caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam ," to sin against the Lord and had sent a plague into the congregation of Israelites, Moses decreed that every male child and non-virginal woman be killed ( since it was the Midianite women who led the Israelite men into sexual sin ).

** A place at which the Bible states that the Philistines had encamped, while the Israelites pitched in Eben-Ezer, before the Battle of Aphek in which the sons of Eli were killed.

Some years later, when Samuel had become an adult, the Philistines attacked Eben-Ezer, eventually capturing the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites and killed Eli's sons, who accompanied the Ark to battle as priests.

These wars of extermination have been characterized as " genocide " by several authorities, because the Torah states that the Israelites annihilated entire ethnic groups or tribes: the Israelites killed all Amalekites, including men, women, and children ( 1 Samuel 15: 1 – 20 ); the Israelites killed all men, women, and children in the battle of Jericho ( Joshua 6: 15 – 21 ), and the Israelites killed all men, women and children of several Canaanite tribes ( Joshua 10: 28 – 42 ).

Therefore he sent elders of Moab, and of Midian, to Balaam ( apparently a powerful and respected prophet ), son of Beor ( Bible ), to induce him to come and curse the Israelites.

Balaam was finally taken by a now very frustrated Balak to Peor, and, after the seven sacrifices there, decided not to seek enchantments but instead looked on the Israelites from the peak.

Later, Balaam informed Balak and the Midianites that, if they wished to overcome the Israelites for a short interval, they needed to seduce the Israelites to engage in idolatry.

Balaam refused to speak what God didn't speak and would not curse the Israelites, even though King Balak of Moab offered him money to do so.

According to Numbers 31: 16 and St. John ( Revelation 2: 14 ), Balaam returned to King Balak and informed the king on how to get the Israelites to curse themselves by enticing them with prostitutes and unclean food sacrificed to idols.

The main story of Balaam occurs during the sojourn of the Israelites in the plains of Midian, east of the Jordan River, at the close of forty years of wandering, shortly before the death of Moses, and the crossing of the Jordan.

Balaam finally gets taken by a now very frustrated Balak to Peor, and, after the seven sacrifices there, decides not to seek enchantments but instead looks upon the Israelites from the peak.

St. John, while prophesying from the isle of Patmos, had this to say of Balaam: " There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality.

" ( Revelation 2: 14 ) Evidently, Balaam returned to King Balak and explained how he was unable to curse the Israelites due to God having control of his tongue, but instead explained to the king on how he could get the Israelites to curse themselves, thereby removing the protection God had on them.

This worked, because Numbers 31: 16 states: “ They were the ones who followed Balaam ’ s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the LORD in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the LORD ’ s people.

The Talmud also recounts a more positive view of Balaam, stating that when the Law was given to Israel, a mighty voice shook the foundations of the earth, so much so that all kings trembled, and in their consternation turned to Balaam, inquiring whether this upheaval of nature portended a second deluge ; the prophet assured them that what they heard was the voice of God, giving the sacred law to the Israelites ( Talmud, Zeb.

Nevertheless, it is significant that, despite the apparently positive description of a Prophet blessing the Israelites, given in Numbers 22 – 24, in rabbinical literature the epithet rasha, translating as the wicked one, is often attached to the name of Balaam ( Talmud Berachot l. c.

The Moabites were to be excluded from the assembly of worshipers, because: “ They did not come to meet you with food and drink when you were on your way out of Egypt, and even hired Balaam, son of Beor, to oppose you by cursing you .” ( Deuteronomy 23: 3-5 ) The Israelites were allowed to harass Moab, but were forbidden to wage war on them, so they defeated Midian as a result of the advice that Balaam gave that led to a plague in punishment for the worship of idols at Baal Peor.

Having finished his sacrifices, Balaam views the Israelites on the plain below, and although hired to curse them, pronounces a blessing over them, prophesying their blessed nature and destruction of Moab.

He reveals that Balaam taught the Israelites to sin as the canaanites did.

There is an inference that after Balaam failed to curse the Israelites directly, he instructed King Balak as to how Moab could persuade the Israelites to curse themselves.

The Daughters of Zelophehad () were five sisters in the Hebrew Bible who lived during the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, and who raised before Moses the case of a woman's right and obligation to inherit property in the absence of a male heir in the family.

There is a void in the Biblical account as to what happened to the kingship of the non-Judah tribes of the Israelites during the five years following the murder of Ish-bosheth, as the united kingship of David is dated as 1000 BCE.

According to the Tanakh, Cuthah was one of the five Syrian and Mesopotamian cities from which Sargon II, King of Assyria, brought settlers to take the places of the exiled Israelites ().

The Israelites, to whom Isa was sent, had a traditional practice of anointing their kings with oil.

The Israelites have already defeated two kings on this side of the Jordan: Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan.

Adoni-Bezek was known to the Israelites as a king who removed the large toes and thumbs of kings he subjugated to render them harmless as warriors, presumably so they could no longer wield weapons or run.

Andronicus proved from the Scriptures the historic continuity of the Jewish high priests ; and from the great respect which was accorded the Temple of Jerusalem even by the non-Jewish kings of Asia, he argued that the claim of the Samaritans that Mount Gerizim was the sacred place of worship for the Israelites was unjustified.

Moses orders the Israelites to massacre the people of Midian.

Aaron held up one arm, Hur held up the other arm, and the Israelites routed the Amalekites.

He aided Aaron to hold up the hands of Moses when Moses realised that the Israelites prevailed in battle while his hands were raised: " Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side ".

In his great and glorious wisdom, he knew that our enemies the Israelites must not be able to read therein what we planned ''.

He represented the priestly functions of his tribe, becoming the first High Priest of the Israelites.

( It should be noted that in the account given of the same events, in rabbinic sources ( b. Talmud Shabbat 99a ; Exodus Rabbah 41 ) and in the Qur ' an, Aaron is not the idol-maker and upon Moses ' return begged his pardon as he had felt mortally threatened by the Israelites ( Quran 7: 142-152 ).

The New Perspective scholars propose that the 1st century, Second Temple Judaism understood election primarily as national ( Israelites ) and racial ( Jews ), not as individual.

This encounter ends with Elijah victorious over the official Baal prophets of Israel in a contest held for the sake of the Israelites and their king, Ahab.

Israelites of course abstained from pork, but Ahab was married to a Phoenician / Tyrian princess Jezebel, who was one of the most " powerful and notorious women of monarchic times " yet who died of a similarly seemingly random death like her husband, and his capital of Samaria was said to follow Canaanite gods.

The covered ark with golden staves carried by the priesthood ( Ancient Israel ) | priests, and seven priests with rams ' horns, at the siege of Jericho, in an eighteenth-century artist's depiction. The biblical account relates that during the Israelites ' exodus from Egypt, the Ark was carried by the priests some 2, 000 cubits in advance of the people and their army, or host.

After its creation by Moses, the Ark was carried by the Israelites during their 40 years of wandering in the desert.

Whenever the Israelites camped, the Ark was placed in a special and sacred tent, called the Tabernacle.

The Ark was again set up by Joshua at Shiloh, but when the Israelites fought against Benjamin at Gibeah, they had the Ark with them and consulted it after their defeat.

After the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan, the Ark remained in the Tabernacle at Gilgal for a season before being removed to Shiloh until the time of Eli, between 300 and 400 years ( Jeremiah 7: 12 ), when it was carried into the field of battle, so as to secure, as they had hoped, victory to the Hebrews.

After their first defeat at Eben-ezer, the Israelites had the Ark brought from Shiloh, and welcomed its coming with great rejoicing.

In the second battle, the Israelites were again defeated, and the Philistines captured the Ark ( 1 Sam.

After the Ark had been among them for seven months, the Philistines, on the advice of their diviners, returned it to the Israelites, accompanying its return with an offering consisting of golden images of the tumors and rats wherewith they had been afflicted.

During the turn of the 20th century British Israelites carried out some excavations of the Hill of Tara in Ireland looking for the Ark of the Covenant – the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland campaigned successfully to have them stopped before they destroyed the hill.

* Carew, Mairead, Tara and the Ark of the Covenant: A Search for the Ark of the Covenant by British Israelites on the Hill of Tara, 1899-1902.

The Old Testament story of Judith illustrates how a woman frees the Israelites by tricking and assassinating Holofernes, a warlord of the rival Assyrians, with whom the Israelites were at war.

A number of biblical scholars suspect that the distinction of the Joseph tribes ( including Benjamin ) is that they were the only Israelites which went to Egypt and returned, while the main Israelite tribes simply emerged as a subculture from the Canaanites and had remained in Canaan throughout.

Its 24 chapters tell of the entry of the Israelites into Canaan, their conquest and division of the land under the leadership of Joshua, and of serving God in the land.

Joshua forms part of the biblical history of the emergence of Israel which begins with the exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, continues with their conquest of Canaan under their leader Joshua ( the subject matter of the book of Joshua ), and culminates in Judges with the settlement of the tribes in the land.

The book is structured in two roughly equal parts, the story of the campaigns of the Israelites in central, southern and northern Canaan and the destruction of their enemies, followed by the division of the conquered land among the twelve tribes ; the two parts are framed by set-piece speeches by God and Joshua commanding the conquest and at the end warning of the need for faithful obedience of the Law ( torah ) revealed to Moses.

The Gibeonites trick the Israelites into entering into an alliance with them by saying they are not Canaanites ; this prevents the Israelites from exterminating them, but they are enslaved instead.