ABSTRACT
Military intelligence is an important part of warfare, but it has generally been underappreciated throughout history. This was particularly true for the ancient Near East, where kings focused more on their victories in battles than on their preparations for battle. This chapter will survey military intelligence by the large empires of Egypt and Assyria before moving on to study the topic in more detail for ancient Israel. In addition to the standard methods of scouting and spying, divine beings also sometimes played a role in learning about the enemy. It will be shown that for Israel the results of spying and scouting served as a kind of spiritual test to see if the people of Israel would trust YHWH.
