As seen in the variety of evidence for collaborative patterns outside the Near East, and equally distant from Greece and Rome, this dimension of political life is a factor in many settings. Within the Near East, Israel's decentralized political tradition and the more particular framework of associated groups are far from rare, and they are illuminated instead by the contrast visible in the distinct structures of Israel and Judah. To build a context for Israel, I began with the phenomenon of collaborative politics, pointing out its widespread expression by examples from historically unrelated situations. The Mari evidence then provides a starting point for understanding how such political patterns could take form in the Near East, though northward and centuries before the appearance of Israel. For one more contextual aid, I turn to the Arameans, a population first distinct in the late twelfth century in the region roughly corresponding to that occupied by the Binu Sim'al and the Binu Yamina, roughly covering modern Syria. These people and their political habits stand in even more direct continuity with the Amorites of the early second millennium than might those of Israel, yet the Arameans are Israel's contemporaries and offer an ideal final comparison before turning to matters of history.

Aram and the Arameans: Neither Polity nor Ethnicity

Thanks to incorporation into biblical geography with its continuous audience across two millennia, Aram has never been entirely forgotten. In the Bible, the name applies both to the kingdom centered at Damascus (e.g., 1 Kings 15:18; 20:1; etc.) and to a territory that overlaps that kingdom and stands in uncertain relation to it, as with the identification of Laban as an Aramean (’ărammî) who speaks Aramaic in Genesis 31. The books of Daniel and Ezra include substantial sections in Aramaic, and this language never dropped out of Jewish use in various dialects. Although these facts have little to do with modern study of the Arameans, they shape the basic definitions that still inform such study. In a way, the Aramaic language offers clearer boundaries for identifying Arameans than any other evidence – or at least it is allowed to do so.