As discussed in Chapters 1–2, the History of Israel is a single, largely unbroken narrative extending from creation of the world in Genesis to the destruction of Judah at the end of the book of Kings. The History is focused on the emergence of Israel as a people, and on the rise and fall of the kingdom established by this people. One of its central concerns is evidently to offer an account of the causes of the rise and decline of the Israelite kingdom, a question that would have been of more than scholarly interest to the Jewish exiles in Babylonia and Egypt. At least some of them blamed the catastrophe on the weakness or irrelevance of Israel’s God, and argued for the embrace of foreign gods instead. The History of Israel was evidently composed in opposition to this view, and its account of the rise and decline of the Israelite kingdom suggests that the calamity was entirely the result of decisions the Israelites themselves had made. Better choices by human beings, the History suggests, could have saved the Israelite kingdom, had they been made early enough. Moreover, the option of making right choices was open to the exiles even now, and might yet bring about the restoration of Judah and Jerusalem, and the establishment of a more enduring kingdom than the one that was lost.

What kind of an account does the History of Israel provide of the rise and collapse of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah? What kinds of causes does it see as having brought about the collapse of the kingdom?