The Military History of Ancient Israel

the long version

"The goal was not to produce merely a description and analysis of Israelite battles in chronological order, but to attempt to discern the military history of ancient Israel as a continuous narrative from the exodus through to the breakup of the imperial state following Solomon's death. The idea was to search the biblical texts for all references to military matters and see if sense could be made of them from a purely military perspective, all others for the moment being disregarded ... [The author has confined his] analysis to the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and I and II Samuel, texts that encompass the time of the Israelite descent into Egypt through to the death of Solomon. It is only after Solomon that our information concerning Israelite military history can begin to be corroborated from other sources outside the biblical text. The analysis presented herein, then, is confined to the earliest sources of Israelite military history"--Preface.