By the end of the ninth century, the eastern Mediterranean was coming back to life as the northern kingdom of Israel became a major power. The ancient Canaanite strongholds of Megiddo, Rehob, Beth-shean, and Taanach were destroyed by the invasion of Egyptian pharaoh Shishak in 926. Canaanite culture never recovered from this invasion and Israel expanded into these old territories and began exploiting the skills of its inhabitants. The new king, King Omri built a new capital Samaria, and had a son named Ahab who began to create a culture of combined beliefs.

Ahab established trade links with Phoenicia, Cyprus and Greece and married Jezebel, a Phoenician princess who imported the cult of Phoenician Baal into Israel. This was important because it integrated the region with these new beliefs. A small minority who solely worshiped Yahweh alone became upset with this new integration. Archaeologists have discovered that up until the 6th century, most of the population worshiped other local Gods but these numbers began to be cut down by the 9th century.

People believed that Yahweh had no competition from other Gods, but an “assembly of holy ones” and “sons of God”. People would worship these other holy ones because Yahweh had no expertise in agriculture or fertility, but a warrior god so many Israelites performed the ancient rituals of Baal and Anat to ensure a good harvest.

An important part of ritual in the Middle East involved the teachings of prophets. There were Israelite prophets who wanted to worship Yahweh alone. An established spirituality of the ancient Middle East was prophecy and prophets would “speak for” their gods. Little is known about these Israelite prophets but there are tales about a bitter clash between the 9th century prophet, Elijah and Ahab. These tales present Jezebel as an evil woman who supported the prosecutions of prophets. It’s also shown in old Middle Eastern theology that Elijah appointed a god to each of the nations. Baal stayed in Phoenicia, because Elijah believed he should because he was not the god of Israel and Yahweh remained.

A severe drought in Israel presented Elijah’s opportunity to challenge 450 of Jezebel’s priests to a contest. Elijah felt it was time for the people to decide between Baal and Yahweh once and for al. He had two bulls to represent each deity and placed them on separate alters. The Baal priests called upon Baal to send down fire and consume the sacrifice to prove his power, but nothing happened the whole morning. But the second Elijah called on Yahweh, fire fell and consumed both the bull and alter. Elijah ordered all the prophets of Baal to be slaughtered and left to go atop the mountain and ask Yahweh to end the drought. Yahweh did just that.

The worshiping of one God caused many people tension because they were required to give up Baal, an important and valuable divine resource. They felt the cult of Baal had enhanced their understanding of the world, made their fields fertile and gave meaning to the struggle against sterility and famine.

Elijah fell into depression and feared for his life for upsetting Jezebel causing him to leave Israel and hide away on Mt. Sinai in Yahweh’s shrine, awaiting a revelation. This revelation came in a transcendent moment. Elijah heard Yahweh sentence Ahab’s successors to death while standing outside the cave, covered in his cloak. He said they would all die, saving only those “who have not knelt before Baal.” Elijah took away the people’s freedom, which was an essential value of the Axial Age, by forcing them into a spirituality they were not ready for.

A new conflict emerged with the contest Elijah held with the prophets of Baal and prophets began to see Yahweh in a different imagery. Instead of an image of a divine warrior, prophets had visions of Yahweh in the divine assembly, but still, even this became competitive and agnostic.
Yahweh won leadership of the divine council and accused the other deities of neglecting the primal duty of social justice and insisted on compassion and consideration for the poor. It tells of a time when Jezebel had a man stoned to death for refusing to give up part of his vineyard that adjoined Ahab’s property. Yahweh sentenced Ahab to a horrible death and when he heard the oracle, Ahab felt remorse and Yahweh relented.

Justice was an essential pillar of religion in the Middle East and good pragmatic policy. The tales of Elijah and Elisha are long told, but they do not indicate the beginning of a new Axial Age spirituality because social justice was already deeply rooted in the ancient traditions of region.
In older texts, it tells of Joshua and how he bound the Israelites solemnly to Yahweh in a formal treaty when they first arrived in Canaan. This treaty states that if they wished to become Yahweh’s people, they needed to put away their other gods they had worshipped on the other side of the Jordan River. In the 9th century, there were other alluring gods but they stayed on the other side of the Jordan River. The rituals of the Middle East say to us that if no other gods existed, making such huge choices as the Israelites had to make would be unnecessary. The Yahweh alone movement urged Israelites to offer sacrifice only to Yahweh and to ignore the cult of other deities. These choices the Israelites had to make, however, sent them on a lonely and painful journey of severance.