Jebusite
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According to the Hebrew Bible the Jebusites (Hebrew יְבוּסִי, Standard Hebrew Yəvusi, Tiberian Hebrew Yəḇûsî) were a Canaänite tribe who inhabited the region around Jerusalem in pre-biblical times (second millennium BC). Jerusalem was known as Jebus until King David conquered it, an event estimated to have occurred in 1004 BC. The date was commemorated in an Israeli medal issued in 1996 [1].
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Ethnic Origin
The Bible is the only surviving source that uses the term Jebusite to describe the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Jerusalem. It identifies them in the Table of Nations as belonging to a Canaanite tribe. The book of Genesis (10:15-19) gives the cultural affiliations of the Jebusites, related to the city of Sidon, expressed in terms of genealogy:
- "Canaan became the father of Sidon his first-born, and Heth, and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the families of the Canaänites spread abroad. And the territory of the Canaänites extended from Sidon, in the direction of Gerar, as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha."
The books of Genesis (10:16; 15:21) and Exodus (3:8,17; 13:5) mention the Jebusites as one of seven nations doomed to destruction.
Whether such ancient kings of Jerusalem as Melchizedek and Abdi-Heba (the latter attested to in the Amarna letters) were Jebusites is not known. Abdi-Heba's theophoric name invokes a Hurrian goddess Hebat, but it is possible that the Jebusites themselves were heavily influenced by Hurrian culture, that they were dominated by a Hurrian maryannu class, that they were, in fact, Hurrians themselves, or that the Jebusites as identified in the Bible were a different ethnic group entirely from that which dominated Jerusalem during the Amarna period.
Deuteronomy 20:17 mentions the Jebusites (along with a number of other Canaanite tribes).
An increasingly-popular view, first put forward by Edward Lipinski of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, is that the Jebusites were most likely an Amorite tribe. Lipinski identified them with the group referred to as Yabusi'um in a cuneiform letter found in the archive of Mari, Syria. Lipinski noted, however, that it was possible that more than one clan or tribe bore the name, and thus the Jebusites and the Yabusi'um may have been different branches of a single ethnic group or entirely separate people altogether.Template:Ref
During the Israelite period
When the Israelites arrived in Canaan around 1200 BC the Jebusites were ruled by a king named Adonizedek (Joshua 10:1,23), whose name, according to the midrash means "master of Zedek" or Jerusalem. An alternate translation is "my Lord is Zedek", suggesting that Zedek was a god worshipped in ancient Jerusalem. Adonizedek participated in a coalition of kings from the neighboring cities of Jarmut, Lachish, Eglon and Hebron against Israël. Joshua defeated the coalition and slew Adonizedek.
Despite the death of Adonizedek, the Jebusites remained well established in Jebus itself, although their role in Canaan was significantly reduced. They remained in their mountain fastnesses, and they dwelt at Jerusalem with the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (Joshua 15:63; Judges 1:21).
Jebus was the strongest fortress in Canaan and its defenses were considered impenetrable. This is the reason why the Jebusites said that they could defeat David's army with the blind and the lame, when David asked the Jebusites to give the city to him as his capital. But David and his men took Jebus by surprise after breaching its fortifications through the water tunnel which supplied the city with water.
The last mention of the Jebusites in the Bible occurs when David purchases from Ornan the Jebusite, also called Araunah (2 Samuel 24:16-25), the threshing-floor on Mount Moriah, a place apparently already consecrated to the grain goddess, in order to build an altar to God. The transaction is recounted in 1 Chronicles 21:22-25.
It is unknown what became of the Jebusites, but it seems logical that they were assimilated by the Israelites.
In Rabbinical literature
The Jebusites, who are identical with the Hittites, derived their name from the city of Jebus, the ancient Jerusalem, which they inhabited. Within their territory lay the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham wished to buy. But they said to him: "We know that God will give this country to your descendants. Now, if you will make a covenant with us that Israel will not take the city of Jebus against the will of its inhabitants, we will cede to you the cave and will give you a bill of sale." Abraham, who was very anxious to obtain this holy burial-place, thereupon made a covenant with the Jebusites, who engraved its contents on bronze. When the people of Israel came into the promised land they could not conquer Jebus (comp. Judges i. 21) because the bronze figures, with Abraham's covenant engraved thereon, were standing in the center of the city.
The same was the case later with King David, to whom the Jebusites said: "You can not enter the city of Jebus until you have destroyed the bronze figures on which Abraham's covenant with our ancestors is engraved." David thereupon promised a captaincy to the person who should destroy the figures; and Joab secured the prize (comp. II Sam. v. 6; I Chron. xi. 6). David then took the city of Jebus from its owners; the right of appeal to the covenant with Abraham had been forfeited by them through the war they had waged against Joshua; and after the figures themselves had been destroyed, David had not to fear even that the people would reproach him with having broken the covenant. Nevertheless he paid the inhabitants in coin the full value of the city (comp. II Sam. xxiv. 24; I Chron. xxi. 25), collecting the money from all the tribes of Israel; so that the Holy City became their common property (Pirke R. Eleazar xxxvi.; comp. David Luria's notes in his commentary ad loc.; on the money paid for Jerusalem, comp. Midrash Shemu'el xxxii., beginning; Sifre, Num. 42; Zeb. 16b).
According to a midrash quoted by Rashi on II Sam. v. 6, the Jebusites had in their city two figures—one of a blind person, representing Isaac, and one of a lame person, representing Jacob—and these figures had in their mouths the words of the covenant made between Abraham and the Jebusites.
References
- Template:Note Lipinski, Edward. Itineraria Phoenicia, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 127 (Leuven: Peeters, 2004). p. 502.