This paper intends to revise the concept of ethnocentric nationalism applied by certain authors to the case of Israel, from its birth as a people until the total loss of autonomy in 135 A.D. With the help of religious texts and historical studies it intends to show that the nationalism of this people was not based on the supreme leadership of a high priest, since there existed three powers –prophetic, priestly and political– and the one with the utmost moral weight was the prophetic since it corrected the two others. In some periods the priestly and the political powers were held by the same person, although the fields of action were separate.