© Charles Chandler

 

Thereafter, the effective local leaders were Canaanite judges, such as Deborah, Barak, and Gideon. Richard Friedman notes,

The Song of Deborah was composed in Israel in the 1100s bce or 1000s bce. After the Canaanites suffer a major defeat, Deborah summons the victorious tribes of Israel. In uniting the tribes, which constitutes the founding event of Israel's history as a nation in its land, 10 of the tribes are summoned — but noticeably absent is Levi.

He doesn't explain why this "founding event" occurred after the appearance of Hebrew settlements during the 1200s bce, and after the destruction of Israel by Merneptah. Anyway, he maintains that Deborah didn't invite the Levites because they were still in Egypt. But that begs the question of how the Levites, who were Atenists in so many respects, persisted in Egypt through the reign of Horemheb. It makes more sense to think that the Levites were the priests from Amarna who were in the first wave expelled from Egypt in 1329 bce. By the 1100s bce, Merneptah had suppressed the Israelites, and though it wasn't mentioned, he would have gone after the Levites as well. For Deborah not to include the Levites in an assembly of the tribes was just survival instinct on her part.