The book tells how the children of Israel leave slavery in Egypt through the strength of Yahweh, the God who has chosen Israel as his people.

The Bible tells a story in which the Israelites escaped from Egypt, met Yahweh on a mountain-top in the wilderness, agreed to become his chosen people, and conquered Canaan with his help.

' In the book of Exodus, God tells Moses that his name is Yahweh, and God hasn't had a peaceful moment since.

Yahweh tells Moses to tell the elders of the Israelites that Yahweh would lead them into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites, a region generally referred to as a whole by the term Canaan ; this is described as being a land of milk and honey.

Samuel appeals to Yahweh, the Philistines are decisively beaten, and the Israelites reclaim their lost territory.

Samuel answers the description of the " prophet like Moses " predicted in Deuteronomy 18: 15-22: like Moses, he has direct contact with Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, acts as a judge, and is a perfect leader who never makes mistakes.

Saul is the chosen one, a king appointed by Yahweh, God of Israel, and anointed by Samuel, Yahweh's prophet, and yet he is ultimately rejected.

The solution, set out in the series of history books from Joshua and Judges to Samuel and Kings, was to interpret the Babylonian destruction as divinely-ordained punishment for the failure of the kings to worship Yahweh alone.

For instance, in 1 Samuel 4, the Philistines fret before the second battle of Aphek when they learn that the Israelites are bearing the Ark of the Covenant, and therefore Yahweh, into battle.

The account in 1 Samuel 5. 2 – 7 relates how the ark of Yahweh was captured by the Philistines and taken to Dagon's temple in Ashdod.

The word Elohim occurs more than 2500 times in the Hebrew Bible, with meanings ranging from " god " in a general sense ( as in Exodus 12: 12, where it describes " the gods of Egypt "), to a specific god ( e. g., 1 Kings 11: 33, where it describes Chemosh " the god of Moab ", or the frequent references to Yahweh as the " elohim " of Israel ), to demons, seraphim, and other supernatural beings, to the spirits of the dead brought up at the behest of King Saul in 1 Samuel 28: 13, and even to kings and prophets ( e. g., Exodus 4: 16 ).

The book of Samuel records Hannah's beautiful prayer to Yahweh.

The sons continue in their sinful behavior, and so, according to the text, after a vision from Yahweh, Samuel prophesies to Eli that Eli and his family will be punished for this, with all male descendants dying before reaching old age and being usually placed in positions subservient to priests from other lineages.

When Samuel hears Yahweh speaking to him, he at first thinks it is Eli ; Eli, who doesn't hear Yahweh calling Samuel, eventually realizes the truth, and instructs Samuel on how to respond.

Eli asks Samuel what he had been told, insisting that he be told the whole truth, and so Samuel does ; Eli reacts by saying that Yahweh will do as he judges best.

But ’ Elyōn is in other places firmly identified with Yahweh, as in 2 Samuel 22. 14:

The narrative in Joshua argues that the territory was taken by the Levites right after Joshua's conquest of Canaan, but this cannot be correct, as it is contradicted not only by archaeological evidence, but also by narratives in the Book of Judges, Books of Samuel, and Books of Kings ; Kedesh, for example, appears to have actually remained as a shrine to deities other than Yahweh.

The account also states that two golden statues of cherubim were placed at each end of the mercy seat, facing one another and the mercy seat, with their wings spread in order to enclose the mercy seat ; according to the Books of Samuel, these cherubim together formed a seat for Yahweh.

Kings begins with the death of David, to whom Yahweh, the god of Israel, has promised an eternal dynasty, and the succession of his son Solomon.

As a consequence of Solomon's failure to stamp out the worship of gods other than Yahweh, the kingdom of David is split in two in the reign of his own son Rehoboam, who becomes the first to reign over the kingdom of Judah.

The kings who follow Rehoboam in Jerusalem continue the royal line of David ( i. e., they inherit the promise to David ); in the north, however, dynasties follow each other in rapid succession, and the kings are uniformly bad ( meaning that they fail to follow Yahweh alone ).

* Promise: In return for Israel's promise to worship Yahweh alone, Yahweh makes promises to David and to Israel-to David, the promise that his line will rule Israel forever, to Israel, the promise of the land they will possess.

David, displeased because Yahweh had broken forth upon Uzzah, called the place where this occurred Perez-uzzah.

Yahweh then blessed Obed-edom and David went and brought up the ark of God into the city of David.

The narrative continues by stating that Abigail manages to meet David and his men before David could reach Nabal and she pleads for David to accept the gifts she has brought with her, and begs that there be no bloodshed, asking to take Nabal's blame herself, and complimenting David by stating that Yahweh would make his dynasty long lasting, and David sinless and divinely protected ; as a result of her actions, David recognized that he is about to sin and calls off his threat and sends Abigail home in peace.

In the coda of the account, Abigail doesn't tell Nabal about what she has done until the following day, as, when she returns, Nabal is drunk and high spirited due to a kingly banquet, but when she does tell Nabal he has a heart attack, and dies ten days later ; the coda ends with David hearing about the death, recognizing that it was a punishment from Yahweh, and asking for, and receiving, the hand of Abigail in marriage.

It is the most extensive inscription ever recovered that refers to the kingdom of Israel ( the " House of Omri "), it bears the earliest certain extra-biblical reference to the Israelite god Yahweh, and, if French scholar André Lemaire's reconstruction of a portion of line 31 is correct, the earliest mention of the " House of David " ( i. e., the kingdom of Judah ).

Alternatively, since David says " Yahweh burst-through " ( פ ָּ ר ַ ץ י ְ הו ָ ה ) " like bursting of waters " ( פ ֶ ר ֶ ץ מ ָ י ִ ם ) it may be a reference to waters.

" This section is a " covenantal land grant ": Yahweh, as king, is issuing each tribe its territory.

With the emergence of monarchy at the beginning of Iron Age II the king promoted his own family god, Yahweh, as the god of the kingdom, but beyond the royal court religion continued to be both polytheistic and family-centered, as it was also for other societies in the Ancient Near East.

According to the theology of the Deuteronomists the terms of the treaty with Yahweh were that he would preserve both the city and the king in return for their worship and obedience to the law-code.

The Hebrew Bible credits Solomon as the builder of the First Temple in Jerusalem, and portrays him as great in wisdom, wealth, and power, but ultimately as a king whose sin, including idolatry and turning away from Yahweh, leads to the kingdom being torn in two during the reign of his son Rehoboam.

According to the Bible the first king, Saul, was a Gibeonite, a tribe with its roots in Edom, and in order to unify the new kingdom and cement his own authority Saul promoted his own god, Yahweh, as god of the kingdom ; previously, each extended family or clan was the " people " of a particular god, but now the entire Israelite community became the " people of Yahweh ".

In the political sphere the king was understood as the appointee and agent of Yahweh.

If the nations were tools of Yahweh, then the new king who would come to redeem Israel might not be a Judean as taught in older literature ( e. g. Psalm 2 ).

Ahaz (; Akhaz ; ; an abbreviation of Jehoahaz, " Yahweh has held ") was king of Judah, and the son and successor of Jotham.

Using methods already well established in the study of the Classics for sifting and assessing differing manuscripts, he drew up parallel columns and assigned verses to each of them according to what he had noted as the defining features of the text of Genesis: whether a verse used the term " YHWH " ( Yahweh ) or the term " Elohim " ( God ) referring to God, and whether it had a doublet ( another telling of the same incident, as for example the two accounts of the creation of man, and the two accounts of Sarah being taken by a foreign king ).

c. 790 BC ), whose name means “ Yahweh has given ,” was a king of the ancient Kingdom of Israel and the son of Jehoahaz.

Uzziah (;, meaning Yahweh is my strength ; ; ), also known as Azariah (; ; ), was the king of the ancient Kingdom of Judah, and one of Amaziah's sons, whom the people appointed to replace his father (; 2 Chronicles 26: 1 ).

, literally meaning " healed by Yahweh " or " supported of Yahweh "; ; ; c. 649 – 609 BC ) was a king of Judah ( 641 – 609 BC ) who instituted major reforms.

) priest of the god Ieuo ( Yahweh ), that Sanchuniathon dedicated his history to Abibalus king of Berytus, and that it was approved by the king and other investigators, the date of this writing being before the Trojan war approaching close to the time of Moses, " when Semiramis was queen of the Assyrians.

In 622 Josiah launched his reform program, based on an early form of Deuteronomy 5-26, framed as a covenant ( treaty ) between Judah and Yahweh in which Yahweh replaced the Assyrian king.

' Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth hath Yahweh, the God of heaven, given me ; and He hath charged me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

: Malchijah – Yahweh is king

In an attempt to demoralize the Judeans, the field commander announced to the people on the city walls that Hezekiah was deceiving them, and Yahweh could not deliver Jerusalem from the king of Assyria.

Though there was certainly a movement against goddess-worship at the Jerusalem Temple in the time of king Josiah, it did not long survive his reign, as the following four kings " did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh " ( 2 Kings 23: 32, 37 ; 24: 9, 19 ).