Unlike ancient and modern products of the western tradition of political thought, the classic texts of formative Judaism offer no explicitly architectured statements of political philosophy in which a monolithic corpus of constitutional doctrine is systematically extrapolated, step by theoretical step, from fundamental postulates concerning the nature of man and the purposes of human society. Nowhere do the Bible or early rabbinic writings formally summarise the wealth of political concepts which they contain. Characteristically elliptical where such matters are concerned, they seem deliberately to eschew discussions of political theory and to prefer cameo portraits of political behaviour. Jewish political teachings, it is thus suggested, are inherently dynamic in form. If they are not conveniently distilled in a written canon, it is because they can better be inferred from an empirical study of the behavioural dimensions of Jewish public life. Retrospective analyses must perforce accommodate themselves to that style. Specifically, the content of Jewish political traditions can best be identified by an examination of the constitutional structures and arrangements which have periodically regulated relationships within and between the component segments of the polity referred to in the Pentateuch as the ‘congregation of the children of Israel’ (‘adat benei yisra'el). Indeed, only through the examination of those arrangements do the ultimate implications of Jewry's early political experience become fully manifest.

The present study is designed as a contribution to that enquiry.