Hundreds of years before the people of Israel took over the land known as Canaan, their ancestors came from Mesopotamia, a land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers far to the east. In fact, the word Mesopotamia means, “land between two rivers.” Israelites trace their history back to Abraham, whose father Terah came from Ur (Genesis 11:26-28). Abraham and his wife Sarah traveled north with Terah along the Euphrates River valley to a place called Haran, which was located in the far northwestern part of Mesopotamia. Terah wanted to settle in the land of Canaan, to the southwest and near the Mediterranean Sea, but he died in Haran (Genesis 11:31–32). At Haran, God spoke to Abraham and told him to go to Canaan, the land promised to Abraham's descendants. Abraham followed God's commands and went to Canaan around 1900 B.C.

Chapters 12-50 of Genesis tell about Abraham and Sarah's journeys and how their children and grandchildren lived as wandering herders (nomads). One of Abraham's grandsons, Jacob, was also known by the name Israel, which means “one who wrestles with God” (Genesis 32:27–28). Jacob had twelve sons, including Joseph, who became an important leader in Egypt (Genesis 41:37-57). At the end of Genesis, Jacob and his family, who were the ancestors of the people of Israel, travel to Egypt and are about to become the slaves of the Egyptian people. How would God's people become the nation of Israel and live in the land God promised to give them if they were slaves in another land? More will be said about this later. First, it will be helpful to take a look back to the centuries before Abraham was born and find out more about the peoples and nations that existed in the ancient Near East.

A Time Before Abraham and Sarah

The most important civilizations of the ancient Near East developed in great river valleys. In the east was Mesopotamia, located in the river valleys and plains between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In the west was Egypt, which grew to be a strong nation beside the Nile River, the longest river in the world. In between lay the land of Canaan, west of the Jordan River. The Jordan River, fed by mountain streams, flowed past fertile land that could be used for growing crops. Perhaps even more important, Canaan was a kind of land bridge that connected Egypt and other peoples of the Mediterranean kingdoms to the people of Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Assyria.

Discoveries at Jericho show that people lived in villages in Canaan, Egypt, and Mesopotamia even before 5000 B.C. (For more on Jericho, see the article Archaeology and the Bible.) However, the first true civilization arose around 4000 B.C. in southern Mesopotamia near the Persian Gulf. At that time, the Sumerian people moved into the area, possibly from south central Asia. The Sumerians built cities, made canals to bring water to their fields, and created hand-painted pottery. Around 3500 B.C. they invented a system of writing called cuneiform. From 2860 to 2360 B.C., the Sumerian culture was made up of a number of powerful city-states. Each city-state had its own ruler and another leader who was in charge of the city's temple, which was built to honor the god of that city. Sumerians worshiped many different gods. These gods formed a kind of heavenly council led by Enlil, god of the storm. When conflicts arose between city-states, they were thought to be a result of conflicts among the gods. The Sumerians were one of the first people to develop a legal code, laws that reflected their sense of right and wrong. They believed that earthly (human) laws should reflect the laws of the gods.

The Akkadian people also lived in Mesopotamia, just north of the Sumerians. Around 2360 B.C., the Akkadian rulers gained power and created a true empire in Mesopotamia. They built palaces, which replaced the temples as the centers of power. Gradually, their language began to replace the Sumerian language.

While cultures were developing in Mesopotamia, Egyptian culture was developing in Africa. Before 3000 B.C., Egypt was divided into two main kingdoms, one in Upper Egypt (south of Cairo) and the other in Lower Egypt. (Though called “lower” because it is downstream in the Nile Delta, Lower Egypt is actually in northern Egypt.) The kind of writing known as hieroglyphics had already been invented. Around 2900 B.C., Egypt began to unite into one kingdom. This period (2675-2180 B.C.) is known as the Old Kingdom.

Egyptian religion centered on the nation's leader, the pharaoh, who was not simply appointed by a god (as in Mesopotamia) but was considered to be a god. All of Egypt and its resources belonged to the pharaoh. No law code was developed in Egypt because the word of the pharaoh was the law. Egyptians believed that the world existed in a changeless order from the time of creation, and had a repeating rhythm like the floods of the Nile River. In this period, the Egyptians believed in many gods, but the main one was the pharaoh, the god-king, who was thought to live in the world of the gods after he died.

During this period, many cities sprang up in Canaan as well, but no single city-state dominated the others. The language of the Canaanites was likely the ancestor of the Hebrew language, the language spoken by the Israelite people. The Canaanite peoples also believed in a number of gods, such as Baal, the most powerful of all gods, and Astarte, the goddess of fertility.

Two centuries or so before the time of Abraham, the great kingdoms in both Mesopotamia and Egypt suffered confusing and difficult times. The Guti and other peoples from the north invaded Mesopotamia and defeated the Akkadians. Eventually, in Egypt, rival pharaohs each claimed to be the true leader of Egypt. Without one leader, local towns formed their own governments. Then, nomadic peoples (wandering herders) entered Egypt, causing more confusion. Irrigation of fields was not kept up, which led to food shortages and starvation (famines). In Canaan, nomadic peoples invaded and destroyed many cities. The area became dotted with small, poorly constructed villages.

In the century before Abraham, the Sumerian people, led by the kings of Ur, defeated the Guti people and once again ruled in Mesopotamia. But soon after, the Sumerian language began to disappear as the Sumerian and Akkadian peoples became more mixed. The Akkadian language became an important international language used throughout much of the ancient Near East. In Egypt, a powerful family in the city of Thebes (Upper Nile) was able to reunite the land and finally put an end to confusion. Egypt then entered a stable and prosperous period known as the Middle Kingdom.

Writing in the Ancient World

It is difficult to say exactly when human beings first began to record their thoughts in writing, but sometime before 3000 B.C. a pictorial method of recording language was being used in Mesopotamia. Hieroglyphics were a form of pictorial writing used by the ancient Egyptians. A scribe in the pharaoh’s court would have needed to know seven hundred different hieroglyphics to keep the court records. At Sumer, however, the pictorial symbols developed into what is called cuneiform, a combination of pictorial and phonetic (sound-based) symbols to represent sounds and words. Alphabetic writing is a system of recording language that uses purely phonetic symbols (letters). Most cultures can represent all the words in their language using fewer than thirty letters. The Phoenicians, who lived on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, are credited with having invented the alphabet around 1500 B.C. The Greeks and the Hebrews quickly adopted alphabetic writing.

From Abraham to the Time of Moses

During the nearly six hundred years between the time of Abraham and the time of Moses, Amorite people who were centered in Babylon ruled the land of Mesopotamia. Later, the Assyrians from the north took over the area. Cities such as Mari and Babylon became powerful and had many beautiful temples and palaces. The Babylonian ruler named Hammurabi (1792-1750 B.C.) is known for his famous law code, which has similarities to laws in the Old Testament. For example, the “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” law in Exodus 21:23-25 is similar to some of the laws in Hammurabi’s Code. When Hittite invaders from the north defeated the Babylonians and ended their rule, much of the Near East entered a period of confusion.

Also around this time, Egypt had moved into a period known as the Middle Kingdom (around 2181 B.C.), which followed the Old Kingdom. The Middle Kingdom lasted until the Hyksos people invaded around 1800 B.C. The Hyksos were probably from northwest of Mesopotamia, north of the Mediterranean Sea, and they may have worshiped the gods of the Canaanites (see above). They ruled in Egypt for nearly two hundred years, until Egyptian rulers, who created what is known as the New Kingdom around 1600 B.C., drove the Hyksos out. Some time around the beginning of the New Kingdom, the descendants of Jacob (Israel) traveled to Egypt seeking food, because of a famine in Canaan (Genesis 41:56–42:2; 46:1-4). They apparently stayed on in Egypt for many generations. Eventually, these descendants of Abraham, who were known as Hebrews, became slaves in Egypt (Exodus 1:8-14). A child called Moses was born to Hebrew parents in Egypt at a time when the pharaoh of Egypt was trying to cut down the Hebrew population by having Hebrew male babies killed (Exodus 1:1-22). Moses’ mother and sister were able to save Moses from this fate and eventually he was adopted by pharaoh's daughter and raised in the royal household (Exodus 2:1-10). When he was a young man, Moses killed an Egyptian guard and had to escape from Egypt (Exodus 2:11-15). He later returned (Exodus 4:18-20), probably during the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh Rameses II (1279-1212 B.C.). Finally, with God's help, Moses led the Hebrew people out of Egypt and toward the land God had promised to give Abraham and his descendants–Canaan.

Egypt

The life-giving waters and fertile banks of the Nile gave birth to one of the great civilizations of the ancient world, thousands of years before the time of Christ. Some of its oldest monuments, the Great Pyramids (tombs of kings called “pharaohs”) and the mysterious Sphinx, were as ancient to the people of Jesus’s day as the Coliseum in Rome is to us today. The Egyptians built the Temple of Karnak, with its great columns, as a model of the universe, and the Temple of Luxor as a model of the human body. Rameses II, famous for his building projects, erected a huge statue of himself at Abu Simbel. Some believe he may have been the pharaoh ruling Egypt when the Israelites set out for the promised land.

One God, One People

The people who left Egypt with Moses were not yet known as the people of Israel. They did not yet really know the God who had chosen Abraham and who called Moses to return to Egypt to free his people. This God was known by the name “I Am,” or Yahweh in Hebrew (Exodus 3:13-15). Yahweh later gave the Law to Moses as the people wandered in the Sinai desert. The very first commandment in the Law said that the people were not to worship any other gods except Yahweh (Exodus 20:1-3). While the peoples of the ancient Near East worshiped many gods, the people who eventually entered Canaan and became known as the people of Israel were to worship and follow only one God.

The people of Israel lived in a world that had seen many struggles and wars between peoples. The lands of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Canaan had changed hands many times. Wars would be part of Israel's history as well. But the Israelite people also lived in a world that had already made great progress in terms of building, writing, and art. Just as God had acted in history to open the way for them, they now were about to take their place in world history and make contributions that continue to affect us today.