Tribe of Naphtali

In the biblical account, following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes.

Kenneth Kitchen, a well-known biblical archeologist, dates this event to slightly after 1200 BCE,[1] whereas other scholars dispute the historicity of the Book of Joshua.

Bordering the Sea of Galilee, there was the highly fertile plain of Gennesaret, characterised by Josephus as the ambition of nature, an earthly paradise,[6] and with the southern portion of the region acting as a natural pass between the highlands of Canaan, several major roads (such as those from Damascus to Tyre and Acre) ran through it.

[7] The prosperity this situation brought is seemingly prophesied in the Blessing of Moses,[8] though textual scholars view this as a postdiction, dating the poem to well after the tribe had been established in the land.

However, Arthur Peake views this as a postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation.

In the ancient Song of Deborah, Naphtali is commended, along with Zebulun, for risking their lives in the fight against Sisera;[18] in the prose account of the event,[19] which Arthur Peake regards as a much later narrative based on the poem,[17][20] there is the addition that Barak, the leader of the anti-Sisera forces, hails from the tribe of Naphtali.

[22] In the Blessing of Jacob, which textual scholars date to 700-600 BC - and thus a postdiction, Naphtali is compared to a hind let loose, and commended for giving goodly words.

In c. 732 BCE, Naphtali's territory was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and king Tiglath-Pileser III had the entire population deported.