Why Another History of Israel? Oppression and Deliverance

For a number of years, I played around with possible titles for A History of Ancient Israel. I developed a list of over twenty titles, and several times I surveyed students in my class to learn which title they preferred. The title that I favored toward the end, however, was not to be, because I discovered in a roundabout way another book being written with a very similar title. I didn’t know when that book was coming out, but I thought it best to not risk confusion or ill will. That discarded title came to mind as I considered today’s look at the “fall and rise” of Israel and Judah between Jehu’s accession and the ends of the reigns of Jeroboam II and Uzziah. I call this era “Oppression and Deliverance,” a reference to the period from 841 BC to 750 BC. During the first four decades, the fortunes of Israel and Judah declined dramatically, but the following decades brought an extraordinary reversal, culminating in the prosperity of the reigns of Jeroboam II and Uzziah. This is the period of Israel’s history I’ve spent more of my life in than any other, because I wrote a master’s thesis on the second half of this period and a PhD dissertation on the first half, both focused on the no...