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A B
PALESTINE
AND THE
SURROUNDING COUNTRIES.
THE OLD TESTAMENT
FOR LEARNERS
BY
DR. H. OORT DR. 1. HOOYKAAS
•ROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL LAKGUAGES, pAST0K „ E0TTEKDAM
ETC., AT AMSTERDAM
WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF
DR. A. KUENEN
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AT LEIDEN
SUNDAY SCHOOL EDITION
autijorijta Sfomslatton
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1900
Copyright, 1879,
By Roberts Brothers.
Copyright, 1900,
Bv Little, Brown, and Company.
Shittoersitg IBitss:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
CONTENTS OF" VOLUME I.
FAQS
Translator's Preface 1
A Word of Preface 8
PART I.
Introduction: Sketch of the History of Israel ...... 17
BOOK 1.
HHAPTER
I. The First Account of the Creation (Gen. i. 1-ii. 3) ... 8S
II. Paradise (Gen. ii. 4-24) 42
HI. Paradise Lost (Gen. ii. 25-iii.) 46
IV. Cain and his Posterity (Gen. iv.) 53
V. The Patriarchs before the Flood (Gen. v.) 62
VI. The Flood (Gen. vi.-viii.) 69
VII. God's Covenant with Noah (Gen. ix. 1-17) 78
VIII. Nimrod (Gen. x. 8-12) 84
IX. The Tower of Babel (Gen. xi. 1-9) 89
X The Migration of the Terachites (Gen. x., xi. 10-32) . . 94
XI A Word about the Patriarchs in general (Gen. xii.-l) . . 100
XII. Abram the Believer (Gen. xii.) ; . 108
XIII. Abram's Generosity (Gen. xiii., xiv.) . 113
XIV. The Oath of Yahweh (Gen. xv.) 120
XV. Hagar (Gen. xvi.) 126
XVI. The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. xviii.,xix.) 131
VI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PiOB
XVII. The Son of the Promise (Gen. xxi. 1-21) . . ' . . . 139
XVIII. The Last Ordeal (Gen. xxii. 1-19) 143
XIX. The Purchase of the Cave of Machpelah (Gen. xxiii.) 160
XX. The Faithful Slave (Gen. xxiv.) 156
XXI. Isaac (Gen. xxvi.) 161
XXII. Jacob obtains the Birthright and his Father's Blessing
(Gen. xxv. 19-34, xxvii. 1-46) 166
XXIII. Jacob's Dream (xxviii. 10-22) 175
XXIV. Jacob and Laban (Gen. xxix. 1-xxxii. 3) 182
XXV. Jacob's Return to the Fatherland (Gen. xxxii. 3-xxxiii.
20, xxxv.) 192
XXVI. Joseph, the Favored of Yahweh (Gen. xxxvii., xxxix.-
xli.) 201
XXVII. Joseph, the Lord of his Brothers (Gen. xlii.-xlv.) . . 211
XXVIII. Jacob in Egypt (Gen. xlvi.-l.) 223
XXIX Retrospect 236
BOOK II.
I. The Youth of Moses (Ex. i. 1-ii. 22) 242
II. Moses in Midian (Ex. iii. 1-iv. 28) 254
III. Yahweh compels Pharaoh to let Israel go (Ex. iv. 29-xi.
10) 263
IV. The Night of Deliverance (Ex. xii. 1-xiii. 16) . . . . 273
V. The Exodus (Ex. xiii. 17-xv. 21) 280
VI. From the Red Sea to Mount Horeb (Ex. xv. 22-xvii.) . 287
VII. Moses represents Yahweh (Ex. xix., xx. 18-26, xxiv. 1,
9-11, xxxiii. 7-11 ; Num. xii.) 294
VIII. The Forty Years' Wandering (Deut. i. 1-ii. 1) . . . . 304
IX. The Work of Moses (Deut. v. 6-21 ; Ex. xx. 2- 17 ;
Num. x. 33-36) sl2
CONTENTS. VU
CHAPTER PAGK
X. The Conquest of the District East of Jordan (I)eut. ii.
2-iii. 22, 325
XI. The Death of Moses (Deut. iii. 28-29, xxxiv. ; Num.
xx. 1-13) 331
XII. The Israelites at Jericho (Josh, i.-viii. 29) 336
XIII. The Conquest of Canaan (Josh, ix.-xii.) 343
XIV. Caleb the Eenizzite (Judges i. 1-21 ; Num. xiii., xir.) . 355
XV. Deborah and Barak (Judges iv., v.) 363
XVI. The Origin of the Sanctuary at Dan (Judges xvii., xviii.) 375
XVII. Gideon (Judges vi.-viii. 28) 383
XVIII. Abimelech (Judges viii. 29-ix. ; Gen. xxxiv.) .... 394
XIX. Jephthah (Judges x. 6-xii. 7) 403
XX. Samson (Judges xiii.-xvi.) 411
XXI. Ruth the Moabitess (The Book of Ruth) 424
XXII. The Birth and Youth of Samuel (1 Sam. i.-iv.) ... 433
XXIII. Samuel's Work (1 Sam. vii. 2-17) 448
XXIV. How Saul became King of Israel (1 Sam. viii.-xii.) . . 459
XXV. Saul delivers Israel (1 Sam. xiii., xiv.) 475
XXVI. Saul rejected by Yahweh (1 Sam. xv.) 487
XXVIL Yahweh's Chosen One at the Court of Saul (1 Sam. xvi.,
xviii. 5-13) 494
XXVIIL Jonathan and David (1 Sam. xvii. 1-xviii. 4, xviii. 17-
xx.) 501
XXIX. Saul persecutes David (1 Sam. xxi. 1-10, xxii. 1-xxiii.
15, 19-xxvii. 4) 513
XXX. The Last Hours of Saul (1 Sam. xxviii. 3-25, xxxi.) . 525
XXXI David at Ziklag and at Hebron (1 Sam. xxvii. 5-xxviii.
2, xxix., xxx. ; 2 Sam. i. 1-v. 3) . 534
CHAPTER
I.
II.
in.
IV.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
x.
XI.
XII.
£111.
XIV.
XV
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
BOOK HI.
PA8D
Jerusalem the City of the King and of Yahweh (2 Sam.
v. 17-25, 8-9, vi., vii.) 1
The House of Saul under David's Rule (2 Sam. ix., xxi.,
1-14) 13
The Might of David, King of Israel (2 Sam. viii., x.) . . 19
Gad and Nathan before Yahweh's Anointed (2 Sam. xxiv.,
xi., xii) 26
Intrigues at Court and Civil Dissensions (2 Sam. xiii.-
xx.) 37
The Last Days of King David (1 Kings i. 1-ii. 11) . . . 56
Solomon (1 Kings ii. 12-xi. 25) 69
The Curse of Canaan (1 Kings ix. 15-22; Gen. ix. 18-27) 88
Jeroboam (1 Kings xi. 26-xiv. 20) 96
Ahab (1 Kings xv. 25-xvi., xxi.-xxii. 40) 110
The Fall of the House of Omri (1 Kings xxii. 51-53; 2
Kings i., iii., viii. 7-15, 28 b, 29, ix. 1-x. 28) .... 124
The Conflict between Yahweh and Baal (1 Kings xvii.-
xix.) 138
Elisha the Prophet (2 Kings x. 29-36, xiii., ii.-viii. 6) . . 149
The Kingdom of Judah in the First Century after the
Disruption (1 Kings xiv. 21-xv. 24, xxii. 41-50) . . . 165
Baal Defeated in Judah (2 Kings viii. 16-29, xi., xii.) . 171
The Earliest Israelitish Law Book (Ex. xxi.-xxiii. 19) . 180
Israel under Jeroboam II. (2 Kings xiv. ; Psalm xlv. ;
Deut. xxxiii.) 186
The Legend of Balaam (Num. xxii. 2-xxiv.) 199
CONTENTS.
IX
OHAPTKR FAGS
XIX. Amos and the Prophets by Profession (Amos vii. ; Num.
xi.) 209
XX The Prophet Hosea (Hosea xi., i.-iii.) 221
XXI. The Bright Side of the Picture (Prov. x.-xxii. 16, xxv.-
xxix. ; Song of Solomon) 228
XXII. The Fall of the Northern Kingdom (2 Kings xv.-xvi. 9,
xvii. 1-6) 237
XXHI. The Call of Isaiah (Isa. vi.) 248
XXIV. Isaiah in the Reign of Ahaz (2 Kings xvi. 10-20; Isa.
vii.-ix. 16) 256
XXV. Image-Worship Condemned (Ex. xxiv. 3-8, 12-18, xxxi.
18-xxxiii. 6, xxxiii. 12-xxxiv. 35) 264
XXVI. Hezekiah's Reformation (2 Kings xviii. 1-8) .... 275
XXVII. The Assyrians in Judah (2 Kings xviii. 13-xx. 11) . . 286
XXVIII. Judah under Manasseh and Amon (2 Kings xxi.) . . . 298
XXIX Psalms and Proverbs (Ps. xxii., cix., xxix. ; Prov. i. 7-
ix.) 308
XXX. The Beginning of Josiah's Reign (2 Kings xxii. 1, 2;
Jer. i.-ii. 13) 317
XXXI. Josiah's Reformation (2 Kings xxii. 3-xxiii. 26) . . . 326
BOOK rv.
I. Josiah's Defeat at Megiddo (2 Kings xxiii. 29-35 ; Jer.
xi. 18-23) 338
IL The Preacher of Repentance (Jer. xxiii. 9-40, xxvi.,
xvi. 1-9, xx. 7-18) . . 346
III. Jehoiakim and Jeremiah (2 Kings xxiii. 36, 37; Jer.
xxv., xxxvi.) 366
IV. The First Deportation to Babylon (2 Kings xxiv. 1-17 ;
Zech. xii.-xiv. ; Jer. xxxv. ; Habakkuk ; Ps. xlii.,
xliii.) 363
V. The Fanatics in Jerusalem (Jer. xxvit-xxix., xxxiv. ;
2 Kings xxiv. 18-xxv. 1) 371
x CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
VI. The Fail of Jerusalem (2 Kings xxv. 2-21 ; Jer. xxxii.,
xxxvii.-xxxix. 10) 378
VII. The Remnant in Judaea (2 Kings xxv. 22-26; Jer. xl.-
xliii. 7a) 887
VIII. The Exiles (Jer. xliii. 76-xliv. ; Ps. cxxxvii., xiv., xc.) . 397
IX. Ezekiel (Ezek. i.-iii. 21, xx. 1-44, xxxvii. 1-14, xl.-
xlviii.) 406
X. The Suffering Servant of Yahweh (Jer. xxxi. 29, 30;
Ezek. xviii. ; Isa. Hi. 13-liii.) 417
XI. Eeviving Hopes (Isa. xiv. 4-21, xxxv., xl.) 425
XII. The Return under Zerubbabel (Ezra i.-iii. 6; Isa. liv.,
lv., lxi.) 435
XIII. The Rebuilding of the Temple (Ezra iii. 7-iv. 6, v., vi. ;
Haggai; Zech. ii.-iv. ; Joel) 445
XIV. Is not Yahweh Righteous? (The Book of Job) .... 457
XV. Ezra the Scribe (Ezra vii.-x.) 472
XVI. Nehemiah (Neh. i.-vii., xi., xii.) 484
XVII. The Introduction of the Mosaic Law (Neh. viii.-x., xiii. ;
Malachi) 493
XVIII. The Mosaic Law (Num. v. 11-31; Lev. xvi. ; Num. vi.
1-21; Ex. xxxi. 12-17; Lev. xxv.) 508
XIX. The Unsuccessful Opposition (Num. xvi., xvii. ; Isa. lvi.
1-8, lxvi. 1-4,20,21; Jonah; Psalm L) 520
XX. Rejoicing in the Law of Yahweh (2 Chron. xxix. 25-
30, xxx. 18-20; Ps. Ixxxiv., cxx.-cxxxiv., cxix., xix.
7 " 14 ) 681
XXI. The Jews under Greek Supremacy (Dan. viii. ; Esther;
Ecclesiastes ; Psalm xliv.) 544
XXII. The Hope of the Oppressed Believers (Dan. i.-vii.;
Psalm cxviii.) eg-
XXIII. Conclusion .„„
Index .»,
• . . 571
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
In preparing the first volume of the "Bible for Young
People " for the English reader, it has been my wish never
to pass from the functions of the Translator to those of the
Editor. In other words, I have endeavored faithfully to
give the meaning of the original, without in any case modi-
fying it to suit my own taste or opinions, or thinking it neces-
sary to signify my dissent where I cannot personally adopt its
conclusions.
On the other hand, in a few passages where the original
contains allusions and explanations the point of which depends
entirely upon their being addressed to Dutchmen, it has been
necessary either to omit a few words altogether, or to sub-
stitute the best English equivalents that could be found. In
the same way, where the readings or translations adopted by
the authors simply differ from those of the Dutch " States'
Translation," no notice has been taken of the fact ; but when,
in the better-known portions of the Bible, they 'differ in im-
portant points from those of our so-called " Authorized Ver-
sion" (executed by the command of James I., and completed
in 1611), a note has frequently been added to call attention
to the fact.
The proofs of this translation have always been submitted
to the examination of Dr. Oort, and he has thus had the
opportunity of assuring himself and the public of its faith-
fulness, at least in all essential points, and at the same time
of introducing a considerable number of modifications of more
2 TRANSLATORS PREFACE.
or less importance, suggested by his own continued studies, or
by works of other scholars which have appeared since the
original publication of this volume.
I have also to express my obligations to Mr. W. Blake
Odgcrs, of the Middle Temple, who has looked through all
the proofs, and, while by no means responsible for any blem-
ishes of style yet remaining in this translation, has done much
to reduce their number.
I must also offer my warmest thanks to the friends whose
liberality has enabled me to publish this volume.
It only remains to give the reader some indication of the
share which each of the three scholars, whose names appear
on the title-page, has had in the execution of the work.
Dr. Oort is responsible for the portion which deals with the
Old Testament; but his work has always been submitted,
before publication, to the careful examination of Dr. Hooy-
kaas and Dr. Kuenen. By this means the chance of any
inaccuracies finding their way into the book has been made
as small as possible, and at the same time the author has
secured the advantage of suggestions from two independent
sources.
In the same way, Dr. Hooykaas, who has undertaken the
New Testament, has throughout enjoyed the assistance and
advice of Dr. Oort and Dr. Kuenen.
P. H. W.
A WORD OF PREFACE.
Dear Reader,
Be good enough not to skip this Word of Preface, for we
have one or two things to tell you which it is absolutely neces-
sary for you to kndw, if you are really to understand what
follows ; things, too, which may serve to show you the quick-
est way into the heart of our book.
We are ready to take a long walk with you ; and if we did
not think ourselves pretty well acquainted with the district
through which our path will run, we should not venture to
offer ourselves as guides. But our studies, our social call-
ing, and our personal inclination have led us through the
country so often that we know where to look for all the
lovely little spots, all the magnificent views, all the wonder-
ful panoramas, which it will be our delight to point out to you.
And if there are places with which we are not very familiar —
the way is so long and we have so many little excursions to
make to the right or left — if there are places, then, to which
some one else perhaps might be a better guide, we trust that we
shall always keep in the right direction at least. Be this as
it may, we venture to promise our companions that they will
not regret having accompanied us.
You may see from the title-page of our book that the
country through which our walk will lead us is the Bible.
Of course you have already gained some knowledge of this
book. And yet, properly speaking, it is not a book at all, but
two collections joined together. The first of these collections,
which includes thirty-nine books according to the usual reck-
oning, is the Sacred Book of* the Jews ; while this same col-
lection, together with the second, which embraces twenty-seven
writings, makes up the Sacred Book of the Christians.
Several of the most important religions have a Sacre J
Book of this sort. Thus, the Koran is the Sacred Book of
the Mohammedan, the Zend-Avesta of the Persian, the Veda
4 A WORD OF PREFACE.
of the Brahmin, the Kings of the Chinese religion. Of
course we Christians attach most importance to the Bible;
and, indeed, every impartial judge must allow that no other
Sacred Book can bear comparison with it, or approaches it
in beauty, truth, and value. It does not lie in our way, how-
ever, to make any such comparisons ; but we hope that what
we have to say will convince you that we may safely call our
Bible a mine of gold, and that some parts of it are of price-
less worth. So we will not speak in praise of it just now,
as it will be better for you to end, than for us to begin, by
doing so.
Just one remark, however, on the character of the Bible.
From various points of view it deserves to be highly prized.
It is of inestimable value, for instance, for our knowledge of
antiquity, since it contains almost our only authorities for the
history of Israel and the origin of Christianity. Some parts
of it, too, have seldom been equalled as works of art, and
may therefore serve to ennoble our taste and elevate our sense
of beauty. But, above all, the Bible is the book of religion.
, Observe, we do not say — the book of our religion, but of
religion. Not that we would treat the other Sacred Books as
of no value. Far from it. Hindoos and Persians, Egyptians
and Greeks, have thought of God and the invisible as earn-
estly as the Israelites ; and what the men of greatest piety
and genius among these peoples have believed, what the
founders of religion or the philosophers among them have
declared, so far as it has been preserved to us in writing, not
only in their sacred books but elsewhere too, furnishes no
small amount that might safely be placed by the side of many
portions of the Old Testament at least. Nor can we assert
that every part of the Bible gives us a pure reflection of God's
being and God's will. Time after time we shall be compelled
to allow that the writers of the books of the Bible were men
— constantly going astray, as such, in their search for the
way to God. But we call the Bible the book of religion
because the place of honor in the religious life of mankind
and of each man in particular belongs to the person of Jesus,
and because it is upon Jesus that the whole Bible turns. In
this lies the value not only of" the New Testament, a great
part of which refers to him directly, but of the Old Testament
as well. It is true that many of the Israelite writings are
important eyen in themselves, for they give us a glance into
the spiritual life of the nations of antiquity, into their social,
political, moral and religious condition; but yet the Old
/
A WORD OF PREFACE. 5
Testament would lose very much of its charm, and the whole
course of the Israelite religion would have much less interest
for us, had not Jesus been a child of Israel, and were not
Christianity in so many respects connected with the religion
of this race.
We hope that we shall never lose sight of the fact that the
Bible is the book of religion while we are speaking of its
stories, and that so we maj- gradually find a direct or indirect
answer to the questions, "Who and what is God for us ? ; '
and " What are we to do and what to leave undone ?" for it
is our heartfelt desire and the highest object of our efforts, to
quicken the conscience of our readers, and to make their
religious feelings deeper and purer. Nor do we leave this
object out of view in contributing to their knowledge, more
especially of the history of the Israelite and the Christian
religion, for we believe that this history clears our insight
into the ways of God with man, and gives us the key to
many perplexing facts in the region ' of religion.
In thus looking at the Bible from a distinctly religious
point of view, we are in perfect harmony with its writers ;
even with such of them as adopt the narrative style, and
will therefore engage the greatest share of our attention.
For when the books of the Old Testament were set aside
and preserved as a Sacred Book by the Jews, and those of
the New Testament were added to them by the Christians, it
w as with no idea of drawing knowledge of nature or history
from them, but because they recognized them as the rule of
faith and conduct ; and in the same way the writers them-
selves prepared their works and gave publicity to them, not
simply or chiefly in order to make their readers accurately
acquainted with the past, but to promulgate and recommend
what seemed to them to be religious truth. Even the histori-
cal writings, both of the Old and the New Testaments, were
composed with a religious object, to instruct and to guide, to-
rouse or to encourage, to exhort or to console contemporaries
r posterity.
Up to a certain point it falls in very happily with our pur-
pose, that the writers of the Bible made use of their narra-
tives as the vehicle of religious truths ; for it gives us the
opportunity, without our having to seek it, of treating them
in the same spirit. But, on the other hand, it throws many
difficulties in our way. For, in the eyes of the writers, every
thing was subordinate to their object, so that they often sacri-
ficed what we consider very important interests to it — histori-
6 A' WORD OF PREFACE.
cal truth, for example. As a rule, they concerned themselves
very little with the question whether what they narrated really
happened so or not ; and their readers were just as far from
exercising what is now known as " historical criticism." If
a narrative was edifying, if its tendency fell in with the tastes
of the readers, then they called it true ; while those whose
point of view or whose sjnnpathies were opposed to theirs
called it untrue, and sometimes set up another story, purely
invented, which agreed better with their ideas, in opposition to
it. Thus a legend might serve the purpose of the writers just
as well as the true account of something that really hap-
pened. This is why the Old and New Testaments are so
full of legends.
Now, if our only object were to make religious and moral
sketches, then these characteristics of so many of the Biblical
narratives would give us but little trouble ; but since we wish
at the same time to explain the history of Israel and its religion,
of Jesus and the apostolic age, the character of many of the
narratives from which we draw, in the first place, makes it
our duty always to apply a severe criticism to them, to see
whether they are reliable or not, and, in the second place, com-
pels us to prefix an introduction to our exposition of the nar-
ratives of the Old Testament, and another to those of the
New, and now and then to speak of them in a different order
from -that in which they come before us in the Bible.
II.
We must illustrate this matter more in detail. We have
spoken of " legends," and before we go on we must give our-
selves some account of their significance and value. Let us
take one that is not borrowed from the Bible as an example.
Do you know the legend of the Drachenfels ? l
When the tourist, as he ascends the Rhine, has left Bonn
behind him, he comes to the Siebengebirge. Right in front the
Drachenfels rears its head to a height of nearly a thousand
feet. The aspect of this mountain when looked at from
below is very impressive, and there is something about it
which works powerfully upon the imagination. If you climb
its slope to enjoy from its summit one of those entrancing
views far away over the river, on the ridge of the mountain
1 That is Dragon Cliff.
A WORD OF PREFACE. 7
you find a gloomy chasm. Ages ago, when all were heathens
yet, so your guide will tell you, this was the den of a horrible
dragon, the terror and the curse of all the country round, for
its food was human flesh. That they might not fall victims
to its ravenous appetite themselves, the inhabitants of the
district were compelled to pacify it at regular seasons. So
they made war upon the neighboring tribes and brought their
prisoners to the monster. And this went on for many a year.
But once upon a time they had taken captive in one of their
marauding expeditions a girl of extraordinary beauty. They
all agreed to offer her to the monster, in the hope that so choice
a prey might satisfy its thirst for blood for a long time to
come. The youthful captive, when they told her of her fate,
gave no signs of despair or terror, but begged that she might
be led to the murderous den just as she stood, with everything
she had about her. Her wish was readily granted. Then she
stepped, in her white garment, calm and resigned, up to the
place of horror. There, roaring and breathing flames, the
dragon shot into sight to hurl itself upon its victim. Its
claws had already darted forth, and its jaws gaped upon the
prey, . . . when she drew from her bosom a wooden cross,
and held it up before the monster. At this sight — to the great
amazement of the lookers-on, who did not know what the cross
was, and saw nothing particular in it — the dragon drew back
confounded, shrank together in convulsions, with a frightful
howl, and vanished into its den, never to show its face again.
It had sunk before the magic power of the cross, and in grate-
ful joy the whole population of the district was converted as a
single man to the religion of the crucified.
Here we have a German legend ; and its meaning is not
hard to find. It is the conquest of Christianity over Heathen-
ism painted in living colors for us. The dragon is the Heathen
religion which demanded so many human sacrifices, especially
of prisoners of war. These sacrifices were generally made on
the mountains, which were looked upon as the dwelling places
of the gods. From this curse, which weighed heavily upon
the land, the inhabitants were delivered by Christianity, which
is represented by the beautiful young maiden, in her spotless
garment, who steps boldly forward and puts the hellish power
to flight by the sign of the cross. In this legend, then, we
seem to catch the joyful shout of those redeemed from the
power of heathenism, with all its abominations, and their
grateful recognition of the heavenly purity and invincible might
of the Gospel.
8 A WORD OF PREFACE.
We shall use the word legend — originally the name of the
highly embellished traditions about the saints of the Roman
Catholic church — for every narrative which is not trust-
worthy, but is nevertheless given us as history. By this
characteristic it is distinguished from the fable, the hearers or
readers of which are warned beforehand, as it were, that the
story is invented. In this sense the legend includes the myth
— properly a Greek word, which means "story," and was
applied to accounts of the gods, fables of animals, and all
kinds of tales. As a rule, the words " legend " and " myth,"
as well as " saga," are used for one another, and in a dif-
ferent way by almost every writer on this subject. We shall
call those stories myths in which the powers or phenomena of
nature, represented as gods or men, are introduced as agents.
An example of this, too !
We borrow it from the Hindoo theology, from the songs of
the Veda, which mention it repeatedly ; and we choose this
specimen because it is one of the oldest myths of mankind,
and we find traces of it in the Greek and Latin mythologies,
under the form of the labors of Hercules, as well as in the old
literature of the Persians and Germans. In brief, it runs as
follows : — India, the national god, keeps a herd of purple
cows. Vritra, a wicked spirit with three heads and the body
of a monster serpent, steals the cows and shuts them up in
his den. India pursues the thief, breaks through into his
abode, gives him a sound thrashing, and brings the cows back
to heaven, while their milk is poured out over the earth.
The meaning of this myth can be given in a single word.
It is the description of a thunderstorm. The purple cows are
the clouds which hold the gentle rain. Indra is the god of
da j', and when the wicked spirit tries to carry away the clouds
and so parch the earth with drought, he compels him to release
them. But in giving this account of the meaning of the myth,
we must bear in mind that what we now regard as poetical
personification, was looked upon as a complete expression of
the truth by the ancients ; we must put ourselves into the
position of men who saw the immediate activity of Divine
beings in all the phenomena of nature. Imagine, then, the
sudden approach of a heavy thunderstorm, as seen in
mountainous districts. The earth gasps for rain. Prayers
lise on high continually to India, the god of blessings. They
seem to have been heard, for see ! the clear-colored clouds
rise above the horizon ; they are the cows of Indra, and he is
going to milk them to make the earth fruitful. They come.
A WOKD OF PREFACE. 9
Soon may they yield their treasures ! . . . But, alas ! they
seem to be drawing off again. A dark shadow falls ove:
them. Vritra, the serpent, whose breath parches the world,
shuts up the cows of Indra in his gloomy den. A rumble of
the distant thunder ! It is the smothered lowing of the kine.
Indra, the benefactor of mankind, advances to the battle, now
alone, and now surrounded by the bands of howling winds.
The thundering blows of the divine battle-axe may be heard,
falling upon the cave. It bursts, and flames pour out from
it. The trident spear of the serpent flickers through the
darkness. At last the battle is over. The heavy shadow of
cloud changes its shape, bursts, vanishes. At the same time
the waters which it held imprisoned stream pattering on the
earth below. Hurrah ! Indra is milking the cows of heaven,
and then, as the blue sky, he appears himself, in all the triumph
of his glory.
You will see from these few hints that legends may be of
very various nature and origin. Sometimes historical recol-
lections play a chief part in them, and sometimes myths ;
here they have sprung up spontaneously, there again th;y
have been .expressly elaborated to give a visible shape to
the author's impressions or thoughts. In either case th^y
are of great value to us. It is true that they are not always
improving ; sometimes an unholy spirit speaks through
them. That depends on the character of the men in tae
midst of whom they had their origin. But in every case
they reveal something of the inner life of these men — of their
thoughts, beliefs, hopes, fears ; and now and then they make
us acquainted with historical facts.
It stands to reason that we must go to work with the
utmost caution when we draw our inferences from a legend,
or use it as a contribution to our knowledge of the past. As
a rule, indeed, it teaches us nothing about the period in
which it places us, but it does teach us something about
that in which it was invented, or in which it sprang up. We
consult the legend of the Drachenfels in vain for the particu-
lars of the contest of Christianity and its conquest over the
German heathenism ; but it gives us a picture of the thankful
joy of the Christians on the banks of the Ehine, as they
looked back upon the wretched condition in which they had
lived as heathens. From the myth of Indra we can draw no
knowledge of nature or of God, but it introduces us to the
religious views of nature held by the Hindoos.
The same holds good of the Israelite and early Christian
l*
I 1 ) A WORD OF PREFACE.
legends. The accounts of the fortunes of the patriarchs
teach us very little about a hoary pre-historic age ; those of
the birth and childhood of Jesus hardly anything about the
first years of his life. If we took up the legend of Balaam
in connection with the Mosaic age, we should form a
thoroughly untrue conception of it ; if we looked to the
Transfiguration on the mount for light on the history of
Jesus, we should be bitterly disappointed. The evidence
put in by all these narratives concerns times long after those
into which they transport us ; so that they cannot be under-
stood or consulted to airy purpose until we are acquainted to
some extent with the character of these later times, with the
modes of thought, the diverging tendencies, the social or
religious condition of the men in the midst of whom the
legend arose. So, for example, if we are to understand the
story of Balaam, we must keep the condition of the Israelites
under King Jeroboam II. before our eyes ; and the legend
of the Transfiguration on the mount cannot he explained
until we are at home in the disputes of the apostolical com-
munity on points of doctrine.
It would be very troublesome to us, however; and not a
little wearisome to you, if every time we took up a legend we
were compelled by anticipation to transport ourselves to an
entirely different condition of things from that described m
the narratives which precede and follow ; if, to confine our-
selves to the same examples, while in the middle of our
treatment of the Mosaic age, we had to describe the century
of Jeroboam II., or in the midst of the details of the life of
Jesus to speak of the factions of the first century which fol-
lowed him. But yet we must not treat such a legend care-
lessly ; it must be explained in every point as thoroughly
as possible. The way in which we have attempted to meet
these difficulties is as follows : —
In the first place, we have prefixed a review of the history
of Israel to our treatment of the narratives of the Old Testa-
ment — a sketch of the history of Jesus and the Apostolic
age to those of the New. In this we have been as brief as
possible ; but in the sequel of our work we suppose you to
be acquainted with the principal features of the history.
You must look upon these introductions, therefore, as the
rapid sketch in outline of the drawings which will be worked
up afterwards when we come to treat of the separate narra-
tives.
ft] the second place, we shall transpose some few of our
A WORD OF PREFACE. 11
narratives, those, namely, which would compel us to make
wide digressions if we took them up in the connection in
which they are found in the Bible, but which are particularly
valuable in throwing light upon the age to which they really
belong. Thus, you would look in vain for the blessing of
Balaam in the Mosaic age, but the narrative will find its
place in the eighth century ; and that of the Transfiguration
will be considered when we are dealing with the Apostolic
age, but not in the life of Jesus.
ni.
Without intending it, we have enlarged a good deal on
the unhistorical character of many of the Biblical narratives;
and the influence which it has had upon the arrangement
of our work. It really was a matter which could not be
settled in a couple of lines. But it is possible that we may
have led one or two of our readers into the mistake of sup-
posing that it is the essential point in our eyes.
This is by no means the case, however. As we said just
now, our greatest care has been to make these narratives
speak to the heart and conscience, and in explaining them
to offer wholesome and pleasant food to the religious and
moral sense. It is our heart-felt wish that they may do our
readers good, bring God nearer to them, and lead them to
the knowledge of the highest truth.
Now, if any one thinks that these narratives can hardly
serve such a purpose, because, after all, they are to a great
extent, " mere" legends, he is under a mistake. When we
ask, What took place? then, of course, a legend has much
less value than an accurate account drawn up by an eye-
witness, or at least a trustworthy contemporary ; and for
many a period of the history both of Israel and of Jesus and
his apostles, we have to lament the absence of reliable
accounts. But it is quite another matter if we use a narra-
tive as a means of nourishing our religious and moral life.
In this case its value depends entirely upon the spiritual
stand-point of the composers, who lay before us in this
symbolic form of expression their aims and opinions, their
hope and fear, their love and their hate, their struggle after
clearer light, their faith and their doubt. Now, the legends
of the Old and New Testaments are the work of the
I'vaelites and Christians, and may therefore serve in an
12 A WORD OF PREFACE.
eminent degree to enlarge our horizon, to purify our feelings,
to enrich and strengthen our 'inner life. For the Israelites
stand before all the nations of antiquity in their grasp of
religious subjects, so that Israel is rightly called the people of
religion. And if even they, who only walked in the twilight,
and so had very imperfect, nay, often very perverted ideas
of God and their own vocation, deserve a hearing, how
much more instructive and refreshing must it be to share
the thoughts and feelings of the disciples of Jesus, by whom
so much light has been thrown upon the problems of the
inner life !
But what is it that we keep saying about the inner
life ? Eeader ! do you quite understand us ? As we formed
and settled our plan, as we spoke together about the contents
of our narratives before beginning to carry it out, the fear
crept over us from time to time that we might not be al-
together understood by "young people." Are we running no
risk, we asked each other, of rising too high or plunging too
deep? The danger threatens us from more sides than one.
It is true we do not imagine our readers to be children — to
understand the Bible is anything but child's work ! — but
young people who have already completed their early educa-
tion, and from whom we may therefore expect a certain
amount of general information. But in dealing with the
Biblical narratives so much has to be taken into account !
May we not, without intending it, pre-suppose more knowl-
edge on the part of our readers than they possess ; greater
familiarity with different branches of science, for example,
with history and geography, with the disposition of society
and the life of nature ? We will try to escape this danger,
and shall rather insert a remark or explanation which may be
superfluous to some, than run the risk of being misunder-
stood. But, for all that, it is still possible that everj-thing
will not be clear to you at first, and that you will only enter
by degrees into some parts of our work. In one respect —
and it is specially to this that we wish to call your attention
now — it will certainly be the case. You will not understand
at first what we have to say to you of the inner life of man.
This inner life is the experience of man, considered as a
spiritual being : — all his inward consciousness of God and
feeling towards him. Now, though you have a life within
already, yet its development cannot be either high or varied
till you are older. As our experience of life increases, if we
-keep in the right way — that is to say, if we not only grow
A WORD OF PREFACE. lj
older, but braver and more earnest, wiser and better too —
then our spiritual life is always growing richer. For you it is
impossible as yet to sound the depths of the sense of guilt,
or to climb to the joyous heights of the feeling of forgiveness
and redemption ; and yet without more or less experience of
all this it is impossible to understand the Bible — even to
grasp the true meaning and comprehend the full value of
many of its narratives.
But what are we to do ? Are we not to catch up and give
out again those sounds of gloom and heaviness of heart : "
God, be merciful to me, a sinner ! " and " Where is an offer
ingfor my transgression?" or to interpret the prophetic word,
"The Lord hath spoken to me?" Are we to stifle the ex-
pectant cry, "The kingdom of God is coming!" and leave
unuttered that glad sound, "Redemption and eternal life ! "
because all this can only find an imperfect echo in the hearts
of young people ? To do so would be to renounce the holiest
truths ! No ! Whenever we tread the ground of religion and
morality under the guidance of the Biblical writers we shall
endeavor (of course under the simplest possible forms) to
work out the deep and lofty truths of the spiritual life without
reserve, even at the risk of being only half understood at
first by many of our readers. Though these impressions
and emotions may still be partial mysteries to them at then
present time of life, they will surely suffer no harm from a
moment's reverent contemplation of them.
Hereafter you will understand all this far better, unless the
world engross your souls. God grant it ma}' not, — but the
danger is great. For our age makes great demands upon
young people. Far more knowledge of the world, and a far
more varied scientific education is expected now than formerly :
life is more restless than ever, and the necessity of earning a
livelihood, together with the natural wish to get on in the
world, put an almost irresistible pressure upon us, which is
always urging us forward. As the demands of society become
more urgent and more numerous, the facilities for acquiring a
wide and varied education are constantly multiplied. Who
would not rejoice in this ? But amidst it all the heart is still
cold and poverty-stricken. Some counteracting power must
be found, for we men have a pressing need of godliness, and
the pulse of our spiritual life must beat strong. The great
questions, " What am I in the world for? where am I going
to ? what does duty lay down for me to do or leave undone ?
how am I to be made what I can and must be made — truly
14 A WORD "OF PREFACE.
good and truly happy ?" — these questions must emphaticaJ
be asked, and each one must earnestly seek the answers
them for himself ; or else we shall sooner or later find ou
selves unhappy in spite of wealth or sensual enjoyment, na;
in spite of all knowledge and external culture.
"We must make ourselves good and pure, and it is no eas
task ! Nay, even if we strain all our own powers to the u
most it is not enough, unless we take advantage of all tl
help that lies within our reach as well. There are, no doub
some men who would make young people believe that i
matters of religion and morality they can manage for then
selves and want no guides, that a man can really always d
right if only he choose, and more idle talk to the same effec
Any one who says such things betrays his own deep ignoranci
It is so terribly hard for us to become men whom the worl
has cause to value, who can retain their own self-respect, an
on whom God can look down with pleasure, that our ow
strength is insufficient for the task. We must have stron
help from without us. Unless our moral and religious sense :
surrounded by good influences it becomes more and more wea
and impure. Unless our spiritual life is steadily nomishc
we become famished in the end. If we have no guides i
spiritual things we are sure to go astray.
The Bible is one of the most precious means of help in a
these things. We hope to teach you to value it. The Bibh
as the book of religion, is a treasure-house of truths, an
bears witness to a nobler guide than any other you can fin
— to Jesus.
May the Bible, as it speaks to you of God, quicken yov
sight and open your heart to see Him in our time and in ov
life.
And God give you strength for the hard task of life whic
lies before you I
BOOKS I. AND II.
INTRODUCTION; THE GENERATIONS BEFORE
MOSES; FROM MOSES TO DAVID
Prepared by Dr. H. Oort
INTRODUCTION.
SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL.
ABOUT the year 1320 before Christ, certain shepherd
tribes threw off the yoke of slavery under which they
bad long been crushed in Egypt, and spread themselves
with their flocks over the peninsula of Sinai. They knew by
tradition that their forefathers, together with other tribes,
had come from the heart of Asia, from beyond the Euphrates,
whence they derived their name of Hebrews, — that is, men
from the other side, — and that they had wandered about for
some time in the land of Canaan before they had taken up
their abode in Egypt.
Besides community of interest, the principal clans amongst
them were bound together by common descent and similarity
of customs and religion. Some of these families — the heart
of the tribes of which we are speaking — called themselves
" the sons of Israel."
The manners of these Hebrews were rude. In religious, as
well as in social matters, thej' stood as yet upon a vevy low
level. Of an intimate national union, of civil government,
of legislation, there was not a trace. Their religion was a
motley polytheism. They believed in sacred stones and trees,
and worshipped the powers of nature. They were disposed
to look upon these powers under their forbidding aspects, as
hostile to mankind, and under the names of " God Almighty"
(El Shaddai), "the Lord" (Baal or Adon), "the Dreaded
One" (Elohim), "the Strong One" (El), "the King" (Mo-
lech) ; they worshipped gods whose character is most clearly
expressed by the symbol of a consuming fire. Bloody sacri-
fices, too, were the chief part of their worship, circumcision
was practised, and even human sacrifices were not unusual.
Besides this, the seventh day of the week, and the day of the
18 HISTORY OF ISRAEL.
new moon, were observed as sacred. But, of course, no
complete similarity of usages and opinions existed among
these hordes. On the contrary, the differences among them
were very considerable.
At the head of these tribes stood Moses., of the clan of
Levi, whose name they had good reason to immortalize.
Not only was he the soul of their confederacy in Egypt, but
he also laid the foundation of their future national unity, by
strengthening the connection between the tribes. This he
accomplished, chiefly, by introducing the worship of Yahweh
as Israel's god, and by giving out, as a fundamental code of
laws, the so-called " Ten Commandments."
The name Yahweh is probably unknown to most of my
readers. Jehovah has hitherto been used instead. But for
some time past the conviction has become general that the
name which Israel used for its god must not be so pronounced.
Nor does "Jehovah" appear for the most part in the trans-
lations of the Bible. In the Authorized Version we almost
always read " the Lord " instead of it. 1 For some time past
the incorrect form of the name has been superseded by a better
one in more or less technical works. Why should not we, too,
follow their lead ? It certainly looks rather strange, but we
must some time give up the use of an incorrect form, and we
soon get accustomed to an unusual orthography. We shall
therefore write it — Yahweh. It is not easy for us Europeans
to pronounce the name as an Israelite did, for in our language
we never pronounce an h at the close of a syllable. The last
vowel (on which the accent falls) must be pronounced like
the e in "wet." What this name means, and where Moses
got it from, we shall inquire further on.
The "Ten Commandments" probably ran as follows: —
I, Yahweh, am your god. Worship no other gods beside me.
Make no image of a god. Commit no perjury. Remember
to keep holy the Sabbath da}'. Honor your father and your
mother. Commit no murder. Break not the marriage vow.
Steal not. Bear no false witness. Covet not.
The great value of this fundamental code lies, in the first
place, in the fact that by forbidding every other religion, it
paved the way to the recognition of the unity of God, and,
secondly, in the close connection which it established between
religion and morality. What else Moses did for his tribes-
1 " Jehovah " only occurs by itself four times in the Authorized Version. The
most important case is that of Exodus vi. 3. It is also found live times in
rroper names, as in (Jenesis xx ii. 14.
HISTORY OF ISRAEL. lil
men is unknown. The principal sacred object of his time ap-
pears to have been the ark, near which, or in which, it was
thought that Yahweh lived.
For half a century, or more, these Hebrew tribes led the
life of wandering shepherds in the Arabian desert. This
name included not only the wilderness bordering on Egypt,
but also the great steppes which lie between the Jordan and
Mount Sen; on the one side, and the Euphrates on the other.
At the end of this period, assisted by the peoples of Moab
and Ammon, who were related to them, they made themselves
masters of the district east of the Jordan, and gradually
pushed into Canaan, supported by Midianite and Edomite
tribes, partly from the southern, but chiefly from the eastern
side ; and there the}' won themselves a home after a despe-
rate struggle, under the leadership of Joshua, of the tribe of
Ephraim.
II.
During the first two centuries of the residence of the Israel-
ites in Canaan, their history presents a scene of great con-
fusion. National union can hardly be spoken of. It is true
that the different clans which belonged to the same tribe were
conscious of their relationship to each other ; true, too, that
the various tribes recognized more or less distinctly a mutual
tie ; but this feeling was not strong enough to make them
stand by each other always. Yet there was pressing need of
this mutual support, since their independence was anj'thing
but secured. For although the Canaanite tribes had been
expelled, rooted out, or subjected, some of them gradually re-
covered strength, and gave the invaders a great deal of trouble,
compelling them to treat with them, not always on very honor-
able terms, and in some places even making them pay tribute.
Besides this, the Philistines, a warlike people, not of Canaanite
race, who held possession of the southern coast, kept their
neighbors, the tribes of Dan and Judah, fully employed, while
other surrounding peoples — as the Edomites, Moabites, and
Ammonites — took advantage of the feeble condition of the
new inhabitants of Canaan to oppress them ; and even maraud-
ing shepherd tribes, from time to time, poured over the country.
Yet the mutual jealousy of the Israelite clans was such that
they not only often left each other to their fate, but sometimes
even fought against one another ; and there was a special
20 HISTORY OF ISRAEL.
want of good- will between the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh
in the north and Judah in the south.
So it often seemed as if " the sons of Israel" would melt
away amongst other peoples, and never gain an independent
national existence. But a mighty power was slumbering in
these tribes, and whenever their need was sorest this power
was awakened by heroes, who called the tribes to battle in
the name of Yahweh, succeeded in uniting several connected
clans under their banner, and preserved the hard-pressed
people from destruction. After their victory they generally
continued to rule the people, or at least the tribe, which they
had rescued ; and since they bore the name of ' ' Judges " as
supreme chiefs, the centuries in which their deeds were per-
formed are generally called the Period of the Judges.
It became clear, however, that the independence of the
Israelites was not permanently insured by the rise of these
judges, and that the tribes could never become a united nation
on the strength of religious revivals and the personal author-
ity of the men who offered themselves as leaders. Samuel
was the last to make the attempt, and in spite of all his efforts
the Philistines on the one side, and the Ammonites on the
other, would have entirely subdued the " sons of Israel" had
not the latter made up their minds to adopt the regal form of
government. No doubt it cost them a great struggle to bend
their proud necks beneath the yoke of an absolute ruler, but
they were driven to it by necessity.
During the two centuries in which the wandering, loosely
connected shepherd tribes had grown into a nation cultivating
the soil and governed by a king, they had unavoidably mingled
to a great extent, in many districts, with the Canaanites, whc.
were nearly related to them and spoke the same language.
They had much to learn from them, for the Canaanites were
skilled in various arts and sciences ; but contact with them
was extremely dangerous to the worship of Yahweh. For the
religion of the Canaanites had many points of similarity with
the primitive religion of the Israelites. The worship of the
Baals occupied an important place in it, and the licentious
rites which were often performed in honor of the powers of
nature had deeply corrupted the manners of the Canaanites.
In various places the Israelites were sadly polluted by inter-
course with the Canaanites ; but in general the worship of
Yahweh, according to Mosaic principles, triumphed. The
chief sanctuary of the country, that of Shiloh, was conse-
crated to him ; and from time to time the offended dignity of
HISTORY OF ISKA11L. 21
Yahweh was maintained, often after a very bloody fashion, I
and a rough penal code carried out against apostates. And
yet, though Yahweh was always the chief god, all kinds of
Baals were worshipped by his side, even by zealous contend-
ers for his honor.
In matters of religion the widest freedom ruled. Temples
and altars stood everywhere. There was no definite priest-
hood to whom sacrificial and expiatory rites and the consul-
tation of the deity were entrusted. The priests who were
attached to the great sanctuaries, such as those of Dan, of
Shiloh, of Bethel, and of Beersheba, had a great deal of in-
fluence, and the members of the tribe of Moses (the Levites)
were often preferred to others for the office of priest, if they
could be got.
Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, was the first acknowledged
king of all the " sons of Israel." His reign was short, but
not inglorious. He waged successful wars ; and also appeared
as a powerful and zealous defender of Yahweh's honor. But
he was unable to keep himself upon the throne, for he had a
quarrel with Samuel, and this seems to have impaired his
power to such an extent that he was no longer a match for
the Philistines, and after his death his son Ishbosheth re-
tained nothing but a shadow of power. Through the influence
of the party of Samuel, David the son of Jesse was now pro-
claimed king by the tribe of Judah (about 1058). After
two years of civil war, Ishbosheth fell, and the strong hand
of David grasped the reins of government over all the tribes.
III.
Samuel had left his people an institution out of which a
formidable political power was afterwards developed, namely,
the schools of the prophets. Prophets were men who, fired
with enthusiasm, spoke as if inspired bj some deity ; and
Samuel drew young men of this character together in schools,
and kindled their enthusiasm by music and other means, and
at the same time gave them such a training that they came
forward in the name of Yahweh as advisers and as guides of
the people, with ever-increasing boldness. The people, full
of reverence for the men of God, lent them a willing ear, and
their influence, therefore, was very great. David was their
friend, and that of the priests as well. He began his reign
by the conquest of Jerusalem, which up to this time had been
22 HISTORY OF ISRAEL.
in the hands of the Canaanites. He then removed the ark to
the same city, and took up his own abode there. Thus, he
made his capital the central point of the religious life of
Israel, and so bound up his own interests and honor with
those of Yahweh. His ideas about this god, and the way in
which he was to be worshipped, were, however, very imper-
fect and rude. He, too, invoked the Baals, and sometimes
made frightful offerings to avert the wrath of Yahweh.
Though music and poetry were cultivated with success in
liis days, and even by him personally, yet it is a great mis-
take to suppose him the author of most of the Psalms.
In consequence of a number of successful wars, David, in
spite of repeated internal disasters, left Israel as a powerful
kingdom to his son Solomon (about 1018), who succeeded,
though not without difficulty, in holding it together. His
reign was very brilliant. He kept a dazzling court, and his
costly palaces, the magnificent temple which he built for
Yahweh at Jerusalem, and the commerce in which he en-
gaged, spread his fame far and wide. And as the Israelites
from this time forward came into closer contact with a num-
ber of foreign nations, their horizon also was enlarged.
Solomon himself is called the father of wisdom — that is,
of the art of making proverbs and setting riddles — and
from his time forward the "wise men" are a recognized
power in the development of the national character.
But however brilliant, the reign of Solomon brought no
happiness to his people. The cost of all this splendor was
heavy, and the taxes were therefore oppressive. This fed the
ancient jealousy of the northern tribes against Judah to no
small degree. The prophets, too, were very far from content.
Indeed, Solomon had not only set up a sanctuary for Yahweh,
but had done the same for the gods of other countries too,
and he troubled himself very little about the exclusive rights
of the god of Israel, while even the temple itself, in the eyes
of many, bore, with good reason, a decidedly heathenish
character.
Meanwhile, by the erection of the temple at Jerusalem,
Solomon had laid the foundation of the power of the priests
who did duty there ; for though there were hundreds of sanc-
tuaries in the land, though no one thought as yet of limiting
their number, much less of contesting the legalit}' of the
worship on the " high places," yet it stands to reason that
the magnificent sanctuary, made illustrious by the royal pres-
ence, attracted a host of pilgrims, and gradually became the
HTST0RV OF ISRAEL. 23
central point of the worship of Yahweh. It is therefore of
importance to remark that there was no image of Yahweh in
the temple, and that the most prominent of the priests who
were attached to the sanctuary were of the tribe of Levi. At
their head stood Zadok.
After Solomon's death, the fire that had so long been
smouldering burst out, and most of the tribes revolted from
his son Rehoboam. Only Judah, with that part of Benjamin
in which Jerusalem lay, remained faithful to the house of
David, while Jeroboam of Ephraim became king of the
northern realm, which is called the kingdom of the ten
tribes, or of Israel (97S B.C.).
IV.
The northern kingdom was much larger than Judah,
and when it came to a war between the two, Judah had
generally to give way before Israel ; but while the Judseans
were always very faithful to the family of David, in the
northern kingdom one royal house kept following another,
and the constantly recurring wars with the Syrians were a
gieat cause of weakness. In the form of their Yahweh-
worship the two kingdoms were opposed to each other to
a certain extent from the beginning, for Jeroboam I., in
O] (position to the worship of Yahweh without an image in
the temple of Jerusalem, encouraged the adoration of this
god under the form of a steer, and, for instance, set up
images of this description in the great sanctuaries at Dan and
Bethel. This gave great offence to many of his subjects ;
amongst others, to some of the prophets, by whose influence,
to some extent, he had gained his throne ; and to various
Levites who did duty at different sanctuaries. Some of
them even left the country in consequence of it. But the
question whether the image-worship was allowable or not
soon fell into the background, when, under the reign of
Ahab, the worship of the Syrian god Baal gained ground
amongst the people to such an extent that Yahweh was in
danger of being pushed aside. This roused the utmost
efforts of the prophets, whose activity has been recorded by
tradition under the representative names of Elijah and
Elisha. B3' their efforts Baal was defeated, and Jehu, who
was placed on the throne by them, restored the worship of
Yahweh to its former honor (884).
24 HISTOET OF ISRAEL.
In Judah, too, the same battle raged, though not sio
.iercely, when King Jehoshaphat had allied his house wil.h
that of Ahab ; especially when Athaliah, the daughter of
the latter, had gained possession of the throne ; but here
the contest was soon decided in favor of Yahweh. The
priests of the temple of Jerusalem played a more important
part in this affair than the prophets, and, indeed, these last
had by no means formed so active a political-religious party
in Judah as they had in Israel.
In consequence of the victory of the Yahweh-worship
over that of Baal, the conception of Yahweh's being became
more and more exalted. If he had hitherto been a god
standing by the side of others, he became henceforth for the
guiding spirits among the Israelites the god of gods, who
had chosen Israel as his people, and established an eternal
covenant with them. At the same time, the moral demands
of Yahweh were brought more into the foreground. This
exalted conception, however, was the portion of but few. The
mass of the people was far from embracing it, and even
most of the members of the prophetic schools did not rise
much above the common notions of their day, and were more
like soothsayers than " spiritual men."
The kings of Jehu's house (from 884 to 770) were in
many respects admirable princes. Under Jeroboam II.,
indeed, Israel realized a prosperitj- it had never known before,
and even after the fall of this dynasty some of Israel's rulers
swayed the sceptre not without glory. But like so many
greater kingdoms, Israel was unable to resist the formidable
power of the Assyrians, who subdued first one province and
then another, until at last, in the year 719, under King
Shulmaneser, they took Samaria, the capital of Israel, and
earned off the cream of the nation into captivity.
Judah, whose king, Ahaz, had called in the help of the
Assyrians against Israel, was in consequence reduced to a
position of dependence upon them; but Hezekiah again
refused to obey them, and though the kingdom was thereby
brought into great danger, yet Sennacherib was foiled in his
machinations against Jerusalem.
At this period (the eighth century) there lived a number
of prophets, whose words have been preserved to us in
HISTOKT OF ISRAEL. 25
writing, so that we are able to make out from them what
were the ideas of the most highly developed Israelites of
those days. They are : — Amos, Hosea, The writer of Zecha-
riah, ix. — xi., Isaiah, and Micah. According to their con-
viction, Yahweh is the lord of hosts, the inaccessible and
holy, who rewards every man righteously' according to his
works, and whose spirit rules over all things, both the king-
dom of nature and the mind of man. These prophets do not
exactly deny the existence of other gods (whom they gene-
rally identify with their images) , and though their Yahweh
is too exalted to allow of other deities by Ms side, yet they
themselves can hardly have been clearly conscious that they
really recognized only one god. In spite of Yahweh's great-
ness, the mount of the temple, Sion, is still called his dwell-
ing place, and Israel is the only people with whom he has
made a covenant, so that Canaan is also called "the holy
land." These prophets knew or recognized no written law of
Yahweh. Their god revealed his will through his servants
the prophets. They did not show much reverence for out-
ward adoration, sacrifices, fasts, and the Mice, and they
always insisted on repentance and good deeds.
These prophets often came before the people and the king
as advisers in affairs of state. In this respect thej- occupied
a peculiar position of their own, for their belief in the omnip-
otence of the righteous and exalted god of Israel led them
to declare that every alliance with a foreign nation ought
to be rejected, that no yoke of a heathen oppressor was to be
borne, and that the people must rest upon Yahweh's help
alone, so that even preparations for war were a proof of want
of faith.
As to the future, their conviction of the nation's sins led
them to expect retribution from Yahweh's justice ; but their
faith in Israel's election and destiny inspired them with the
hope of the restoration of the glory of the people of God,
while they often looked back upon the time of King David
as upon a golden age. For the most part, they expected the
sal ration of the people at the hands of a righteous prince of
the house of David, and comforted themselves and others
with the hope of his ascending the throne. This is called
" the Messianic expectation." These prospects were all the
more absorbing to the Israelites, inasmuch as the belief in
man's personal immortality was altogether unknown to them.
But although these prophets, both by their words and
then - writings, exercised a great influence over the people,
VOL. i. 2
26 HISTORY OP ISRAEL.
yet they and their followers formed but a small minority.
Over against them stood the mass of the people, whose
representatives wen: vigorous upholders of the worship of
other gods beside Yahweh, of image- worship, and of many
heathen practices. Indeed, under Ahaz, through the in-
fluence of the Assyrians, there was actually a religious re-
vival amongst the members of this heathen party, as we
may call it, which showed itself in the building of Tophet,
near Jerusalem, for the use of those who wanted to sacrifice
their children to Molech, and in the spread of star-worship
and the astrology connected with it. This movement was
so powerful that even the worship in the temple of Jerusalem
was modified bj' it.
The prophets, then, whose names we mentioned above,
led the party of progress. Up to a certain point they
were supported by the Levitical priests of Jerusalem, as well
as by the "wise men," who were indeed distinctly at one
with them, though they do not seem to have taken any
decided practical action.
Hezekiah was the first prince who was guided in his con-
duct of the government by the prophets of what maj- be called
the Mosaic school. He attempted not only to root out the
worship of strange gods, but also to confine that of Yahweh
to Jerusalem. With this view, he destro.yed a number of
sanctuaries of Yahweh, to the great indignation of manj' of
his subjects. Besides all this he threw off the yoke of As-
syria, and was very near bringing his people to destruction
by so doing.
After his death the heathen party once more got posses-
sion of the helm of state, and raged under Manasseh and
Amon against the upholders of the exclusive worship of
Yahweh for more than half a centmy. But under oppres-
sion the latter had grown in numbers and in power. The
prophets and the Levitical priests now pulled together.
They made a clear statement of their demands in the Book
of Deuteronomy ; and in the eighteenth year of King Josiah's
reign (626) the religion of the country was violently reformed,
as far as possible in accordance with their views. Hence-
forth no other worship was to be allowed than that of
Yahweh in the temple of Jerusalem, where none but Levitical
priests did duty.
As Assyria was now much weakened, Josiah was enabled
co bring the northern provinces — at any rate, partially —
under his power, and to regulate the exercise of religion
there too, in accordance with his own ideas.
HISTOKY OF ISRAEL. 27
VI.
The reformation of Josiah is a turning point in the his-
tory of Israel, for the religious tendencies which have ever
since distinguished the Jewish people then first gained the
ascendant. But at the same time it caused, or at any rate
hastened, the fall of the kingdom. For tty the triumph of
this party, the prophets who declared in the name of
Yahweh's righteousness that his faithful people was invin-
cible, acquired great influence, and carried princes and
people with them. Josiah himself fell in a war in which
he had rashly involved himself against the Egyptian king,
Necho ; and when Necho in his turn was conquered by the
Chaldees, Judah became the prey of this powerful people,
and their king, Nebuchadrezzar, finally, laid waste the city
and the temple, and carried off the cream of the people into
captivity (586).
This blow, and the misery that followed it, gave the
greatest weight to the words of a Jeremiah and au Ezekiel,
who, one in Judoea and the other in the land of captivity-,
had ascribed Israel's humiliation to the sins of the people,
for which Yahweh, the only true god, was punishing them.
Soon after the beginning of the captivity, the whole history of
Israel was worked up, from this point of view, by a Judaean,
whose history we still possess in the books of Judges, Samuel,
and Kings. The principles of Deuteronomy, moreover, were
strongly impressed upon the people by the captivity, and
the belief in Israel's election, together with the hope of
a return, still lived in the hearts of many. Hence, when
Cyrus, the king of the Persians, gradually subdued the prov-
inces of the kingdom of the Chaldees, he was hailed with
the utmost joy, as the instrument in Yahweh's hand for the
chastisement of his enemies, and the deliverance of his
people. Yahweh's glory accordingly rose higher and higher
in their eyes ; and when Cyrus gave them leave to return to
their fatherland, thousands of them availed themselves of his
permission under the guidance of the governor, Zerubbabel,
and the high-priest, Joshua, trusting that through the might
of Yahweh, who had foretold all that had happened by his
prophets, they were now about to establish the Messianic
kingdom (538).
To this expectation, however, the event by no means
answered, for the Judseans, harassed by their neighbors
28 HISTORY OF ISRAEL.
(especially by the Samaritans) , giving offence on every side
by their national pride, sometimes, too, suspected by their
Persian rulers, could only just manage to build and to pre-
serve their temple and their city walls. Independence was not
to be thought of; and T\hen the Persian empire fell, their
country passed over, without a blow or a struggle, into the
hands of Alexander the Great (332).
During these two centuries, though no great change took
place in the outer. lot of the people, their religion in many
respects underwent great alterations, and the work was vigor-
ously carried forward on the basis of Josiah's reformation.
But while the Judseans who returned with Zerubbabel had
to wrestle with a host of difficulties in finding the means of
livelihood, in defending themselves against their enemies,
and in rebuilding their temple, there still lived in Babylonia
many thousands of their brothers in the faith, whose interest
in their people, their fatherland, and the temple had not
died awa}', and who were earnestly attached to the service
of Yahweh. Amongst them a priestly tendency gained
ground, which had already found a powerful exponent in
Ezekiel. During the eighty years which followed the per-
mission to return, the disciples of this school had reduced to
writing a number of laws relating to the distinction between
clean and unclean, the celebration of the Sabbath and other
feasts, the different kinds of sacrifices, the dignity of rank
among the priests, the arrangement of the sanctuary, and so
on ; and Ezra, who came to Jerusalem in 458, brought these
laws into operation, with the assistance of the governor, Ne-
hemiah, though not without much opposition. The suprem-
acy of the Law among the Jews dates from this moment.
Those who were opposed to this legal tendency, and would
not consent to the limitations imposed bj r the Law upon their
freedom, found a place of refuge with the Samaritans and
elsewhere, and a central point for their worship in the temple
on Mount Gerizim.
In a certain sense the longings of the great prophets
before the captivity were accomplished by the introduction
of this law. Its object was certainly to make Israel a people
sanctified to Yahweh. But in many respects what was now
realized was something altogether different from what the
bold champions of the Mosaic tendency before Josiah had
intended. The very law itself, which became supreme
among the Jews, under the name of " the Mosaic law," was
in some points of heathen origin. Different usages of the
HISTORY OP ISRAEL. 29
old worshippers on "the high places," elements of the pop-
ular religion, were incorporated in the laws, while the priests
who drew them up did not stand so high above the religion
of the people, as did men like Michah, Isaiah, Jeremiah,
or Ezekiel. And, moreover, religious liberty was now, once
for all, relinquished. Prophetic independence was not to be
tolerated. The distance from Yahweh at which each one
was placed at his birth was accurately defined by the Law.
According to it the children of Israel had indeed a more
liberal portion in the holiness of Yahweh than the heathen
had. Yet nearer to him stood the tribe of Levi, amongst
whom the " sons of Aaron" rose pre-eminent as priests, and
at their head again the high priest stood as the holiest of all
mankind. This arrangement of the priestly ranks is very
characteristic of the sanctity demanded by the Law. Every-
thing it required was precisely defined. Thus as the Law
was introduced, prophecy at the same time died out. The
Written Word took the place of the immediate revelation of
Yahweh to his servants the prophets. The prophets were
succeeded by the Scribes.
VII.
From Ezra's reformation onward the scribes exercised a
decisive influence over Israel's religion, and also, to a certain
extent, over the fate of the people. By their teaching, which
they mostly gave in the synagogues, they impressed the Law
upon the Jews, and at the same time elaborated what they
"ailed "the Tradition," and applied it to varying circum-
stances of life. The Jews who had staj-ed behind in Baby-
lonia now came into frequent contact with the Persians, and
as some of them had kept up close and continuous communi-
cations with their brethren in Palestine, more than one idea
insensibly passed into the Jewish religion from that of the
Persians, which resembled it in many points.
The people sympathized deeply with the scribes and their
work ; felt as much respect for them as for the priests, often
even more ; and vied with each other in glorifying the temple
of Jerusalem and the law of the Lord. We still have the
most beautiful examples of this in the book of Psalms, which,
although older poems have found a place in it, is as a whole
the hymn book of the second temple. Religion became more
and more the special characteristic of the Jews and the great
80 HISTORY OF ISRAEL.
mainspring of their policy. The supreme power in the coun-
try of the Jews — subject, of course, to the Persian governor
— was lodged with the high priest, by whose side we soon
find a council established, which is generally called by a Greek
name "the Sanhedrim."
The incorporation of their territory into the empire of
Alexander the Great exercised a powerful influence upon the
Jews. A new world was opened to them by this event — the
world of the genius of Greece. During the century and a
half in which Judsea was the bone of contention between the
Kings of Egypt, the Lagidse, and those of Syria, the Seleu-
cidae — now subject to the former and now to the latter — it
remained continually exposed to the influence of Greek science,
art, and culture ; so that it became a question whether the
Greek would overpower the peculiar Jewish spirit, or whether
the Jews would preserve the characteristics which, distin-
guished them from other peoples.
While the Greek influence was making itself felt, the
scribes and priests still continued their work. The former
applied themselves to the development of the Law, the latter
to that of the ritual. With reference to the efforts of the
priests, the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah are
especially noteworthy ; for we see from them how they looked
at the historj' of the people from their own point of view, and
the means they took to give a priestly tinge to the past. Mean-
while the directions taken by the activity of the scribes, and
by that of the priests, departed more and more widely from
each other, until the attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to root
out the Jewish religion (167) roused all those who were at-
tached to the customs of their forefathers to exert their powers
to the utmost to prevent the absorption of the people of Yahweh
into the nations, and the loss of its special character. The
struggle was short but fierce. Mattathias and his sons, gen-
erally called the Hasmonoeans or the Maccabees, stood at the
head of the "devout," who fought successfully for the free-
dom of their country (138). In the midst of this mighty
effort of the faithful servants of Yahweh, the Messianic
expectations, which had for some time been pushed quite
into the background, experienced a powerful revival. The
book of Daniel gives us a clear insight into the beliefs that
inspired the Jews in this contest, and into their desires for
the future.
The event, however, did not answer to the high-wrought
expectations of this book. The Hasmonseans did indeed
HISTORY OF ISRAEL. 31
govern the land for some time as kings and high priests at
the same time, and one of them, John Hyreanus, conquered
his neighbors, the Galilseans, Samaritans, and others, and
even compelled the Idumseans to embrace Judaism ; but after
his death (106) his house was ruined by internal divisions,
and in the year 37 the Idumaean (Edomite) Herod made him-
self master of the throne by the help of the Romans.
All was now over with the prosperity and internal peace of
the people. A Jewish state did indeed exist for another cen-
tury, but whether a prince of the house ©f Herod was nomi-
nally at its head, or whether the Roman governors exercised
their power immediately, the Romans were always masters of
the country, and the strength of the most fiery champions of
Israel's liberty was wasted in hopeless struggles against their
power, until in the year 70 after Christ Jerusalem was taken
and destroyed by Titus. This was the end of the Jewish
state. The tumultuous risings which afterwards took place
were speedily, though not always easily, suppressed. As a
Jewish city, Jerusalem was never rebuilt.
But Judaism was not annihilated by this. Since the Bal>3 r -
lonian captivity Palestine had indeed been the central point
of the Jews, and the temple of Jerusalem their great sanctu-
ary, but even in the midst of foreign nations many thousands
of them had preserved their peculiar national character,
together with a passionate interest in their religion and
their people. In Babylonia and Egypt especially there
were flourishing Jewish communities which even exercised
some influence on the religious development in Palestine.
Now that Jerusalem had fallen, it appeared that Judaism
could still exist, even without a political centre. The scribes
— -sometimes in peace, sometimes under persecution — con-
tinued to build upon the foundations laid by the fathers.
Numerous schools of these learned men watched faithfully
over the preservation of the Holy Scripture, and worked
zealously at the more accurate definition of the Law. The
results of their labors are registered to a large extent in the
Talmud. So the influence of the scribes has preserved Juda-
ism from destruction down to our day ; but has too often
resolved the religious life of the Jews into the frivolous ob
3ervauce of hundreds of religious usages.
SiS HISTOKY OF ISRAEL.
VIII.
In a few pages we have run through a period of fourteen
centuries. It has been a gallop through, and nothing more,
just to get a general view of the whole. We shall now take
different groups from this great field under closer inspection ;
and then a great deal that has seemed obscure in this sketch
will become clearer and will spring into life before us. Just
in the same way we have a general but rather hazy recollec-
tion of the character of a country through which we have
passed in an express train ; but only those scenes live in our
memory, and make a strong individual impression upon us,
in which we have lingered long enough to observe all their
details.
The long history, of which we have taken a hurried survey,
leaves a mournful impression at its close. It is true that we
have watched Israel issuing from the night of superstition and
immorality, and have seen how the light arose to some extent
upon the people ; but we have to close by dwelling upon the
fact that this light was in a great measure quenched again,
and that the efforts of the noblest of Israel's sons could not
prevent the Law from stifling to a great extent the freedom
of the spirit.
A sad result in truth !
But about half a century before the fall of Jerusalem, in
the former territory of the ten tribes, there rose a man in
whom the spirit of the greatest prophets and the devoutest
psalmists lived again, in whom all that had been true and
beautiful in the religion of Israel was restored and purified.
Jesus of Nazareth wakened a new life. But although he
sprang from Israel, his creation in the spiritual world be-
longs no more to the history of the Israelite religion, but
forms the material of a new one.
Although in Israel, then, the light goes down, in Jesus of
Nazareth it rises with fresh glory.
Book I.
THE GENERATIONS BEFORE MOSES.
Chapter I.
THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION.
Gen. I. 1— II. 3.
SOMETIMES it happens that a child, not more than a few
years old, perhaps, gazing out of the window at the trees
and flowers or over the snow-covered fields, or looking up at
the kindly moon and the twinkling stars, asks all at once :
Why, mother, wherever does the world come from? The
child's question is often asked by grown-up people too. We
know that everything we see around us comes into existence
in the natural course of things — that animals are born, and
plants grow up from seeds ; and children at school are taught
much more about the laws of life and nature now-a-da}-s than
formerly ; but this is not enough to satisfy us. We want to
understand how things began as well as how they go on ; and
the questions : Where did the first egg from which a bird was
hatched come from ? Where did the first grain of seed that
grew into a fruit-bearing plant come from ? Where did the
sun, that inexhaustible fountain of warmth, come from?
What was the beginning of everything that exists?- — such
questions as these are always rising in the minds of mer
who take any interest in what they see, or reflect at all
about it.
Now, the learned men who study geology and astronomy
are seeking the answers to these questions to the best of their
power ; and, thanks to their industry, they are getting on
from step to step. That is to say, though the questions which
have the greatest interest for us — how was the matter formed
2»
34 THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION.
out of which everything is made? and, how did the princip
of life in plant, animal, or man itself, come into existence ? -
still remain unanswered ; yet the condition of the earth mai
centuries before human beings lived on it is revealed; tl
' great changes which its surface and the various races of i
inhabitants have undergone in the course of time are broug
more and more to light ; the laws of nature, by which 01
solar system is held together and kept in motion, are e:
plained ; and the size, the weight, and the distance from ca<
other of many of the heavenly bodies are calculated. Bui tl
further a man advances in the knowledge of nature the mo
frankly does he admit that he knows comparatively little, ai
that there is much that he would gladly understand — su<
as the origin of things, for example — to which he canni
penetrate. Science is modest.
There is, however, another faculty which may be used 1
answer difficult questions, such as how the world was forme
and came into existence, and that is the imagination whic
rests a great mass of supposed knowledge upon quite insufl
cient grounds of observation. The less knowledge a man hi
the more freely does he give the rein to his imagination ; an<
since very little was known in ancient times of the laws <
nature and of the construction of the universe, it is not su
prising that representations, not only of the history, but of tl
origin of the world, were produced by the imaginative powei
of many different nations. The Greek name " cosmogony
is often given to these representations.
The Israelites, amongst others, did what has just bee
described ; and the Bible begins with a cosmogony. I wi
tell you the story, a little expanded to make it cleare:
and illustrated by other passages from the writings of tl
Israelites.
First of all, God made the heaven and the earth ; that ii
everything that exists. But the world was as yet in utt<
confusion, — a shapeless mass; earth and water were indii
tinguishable ; and though the earth stood fast on its found!
tions, the water covered everj'thing l so that nothing lik
trees or animals could exist. Nay, darkness co/ered a
things, and as yet there was no light of heaven. But a powi
was there to create order out of this confusion or chaos. Tl
Dreath of God hovered over it.
This state of things was not allowed to last, for God sai<
1 Psalm civ. S, 6.
THE FIKST ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION. 35
Lei there be light ! and lo ! the light was there, and he
pronounced it good. Then God gave the light the name of
day, while he called the darkness night. So the first day-
went by.
When it was evening again and the second day had begun,
God called a spacious dome into existence to divide into two
parts the huge mass of water which made up the greater
portion of the chaos. So he made the vault that, firm as a
metal mirror, 1 rears itself high above the earth, and is sup-
ported by the mountains. 2
Above this vault, which he called heaven, God collected the
greater part of the waters which covered the earth ; and then
he enthroned himself above them, and made them the store-
house of the rain. 8 So the second day went by.
The work of the second day was continued on the third.
Like thunder, God's voice re-echoed over the waters, which
still covered everything ; 4 and, lo ! they were gathered to-
gether into the ocean, which washes the main land, 5 and all
the other seas and watercourses, while the mountains rose
up and a part of the earth was made dry. At once all kinds
of plants came out upon its surface, by the divine command ;
the grass covered the ground like a green carpet, the herbs
sprang up with their means of propagation, the fruit-trees
with seed-bearing fruit. God saw that it was good.
When the fourth day had broken, glorious new works
were made by God. There was light beneath the firmament
already, but the heavenly bodies which regulate its coming
and going did not exist as yet. God made them. He fixed
the sun upon the firmament, and commanded him to give light
to the earth by day ; he appointed the moon as empress of
the night, and then he spangled the vault of heaven -nith
stars. The heavenly bodies were to serve as a distinction
between night and clay, as well as "for signs," th:-,t is, to
announce God's judgments by their shining or eclipse, by
their unexpected appearance, and by their relations to each
other, 6 and for fixing the feast times, 7 and marking out the
months and years. And when the heavens were beautified
with these lights, then God pronounced it good.
On the fifth day the waters were peopled with fishes, and
the space above the earth with birds. Wondrous sea mon-
1 Job xxxvii. 18. 2 2 Sam. xxii. 8. Job xxvi. 11.
8 Psalm xxix. 3, 10 ; civ. 3, 13 ; cxlviii. 4.
* Psalm civ. 6-8. 6 Proverbs viii. 27.
6 Jeremiah x. 2. Joel ii. 30, 31. ? Psalm civ. 19.
36 THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION.
sters, serpents, and crocodiles were formed by God, and the
waters teemed with fishes and other animals, while the winged
creatures hovered in the air and soared up to the canopy
above. Divided into many races, they added life to the
scene of creation, and God blessed them and made them
fruitful, so that they should multiply and fill the earth.
But however good the creations of the fifth day seemed in
I he eyes of God, the sixth was to crown his work ; for on this
day he commanded the earth to bring forth the four-footed
beasts, both those which were to be man's domestic animals
and the creeping things, and those that live in jungles and
deserts, and beasts of prej r , and wild game. Many kinds of
ah these appeared at once. Now the earth was ready to
receive her master. Let us make man after our image ! said
God, speaking in the plural, as kings do ; let them be rulers
over all that has been made — the fishes, the birds, the four-
footed and creeping animals. At his command it was so.
He made mankind — men and women — after his image,
-id gave them the blessing of frmtfnlness, as well as dominion
■ fev all the animals. In distinction from the beasts, which
uad to feed on grass, he gave them grains and herbs and
fruits for food. Then God looked upon all his work, and
pronounced it good.. And so the sixth day ended. The
work of creation was finished. Heaven and earth, with all
their inhabitants, were made, and God could cease from his
creative work.
On the seventh day, therefore, God created nothing more,
but rested ; and to commemorate this fact he blessed the
seventh day of every week and declared it a holy day, conse-
crated to rest.
, There you ha,ve one of the Israelite representations of the
creation of the world. We shall soon see that it was not the
only one ; but since the Bible opens with it, it has attracted
more attention than the rest, and is even thought sometimes,
by those who are imperfectly acquainted with the Bible, to
be the only one.
We have many grounds for valuing this legend highly;
but we cannot regard it as a faithful description of the
formation of the world. It is a great question whether the
Israelites themselves accepted it as such. At any rate, this
opinion was not held by the compiler of the book of Genesis,
who placed, as we shall see in the following chapter, a
second cosmogony, of quite different purport, immediately
THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION. 37
after this first ; nor was any such idea in the mind of the
poet who made God ask the censurer of his works : *
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?
If thou hast the skill, declare !
Who took the measure thereof, if thou knowest,
Or who stretched the line upon it ?
Whereon are the columns of her foundation sunk,
Or who laid her corner stone,
When the morning stars rejoiced together
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
For a long time, however, this cosmogony was regarded
as a true history of the creation. But now the number of
those who hold this view is always diminishing. And it is
only natural that it should be- so ; for in times past, when
people knew but little of the construction of the universe and
of the former condition of the earth, they might suppose,
in their ignorance, that the first chapter of Genesis gave an
account of the real circumstances of the creation ; but when
the students of astronomy and geology had given an entirely
different history of the earth, it was not so easy to accept
this biblical account, and the old opinion could not be
retained without doing considerable violence to common
sense. People have wearied themselves in vain in the effort
to reconcile the story which opens the Bible with what the
men of science tell us. All kinds of crooked ways to this
end have been tried ; and that not only in learned books
and in dry technical treatises, but in popular works such as
Hugh Miller's " Testimonj r of the Rocks." The more talent
this and other such works display, and the more charmingly
they are written, the more must we lament that their authors
have made all their powers subservient to the hopeless task
of reconciling the account of the creation in the first chapter
of Genesis with the results of scientific study; for it is im-
possible to gain even the appearance of success without
doing injustice both to the biblical narrative and to the scien-
tific discoveries.
What is the origin of this story of the creation? The
celebrated German, J. G. von Herder, has suggested the idea
that it is simply the description of awakening nature at the
dawn of day, when the darkness of night yields before the
morning twilight, making everything gradually distinguish-
able, while the animals begin to make themselves heard and
seen, until at last man comes forth and goes out to his work.
This is an ingenious idea, and, as we shall soon see, there is
1 Job xxxviii. 4-7.
38 THE HKST ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION.
a certain truth at the bottom of it. But the belief that our
account of the creation, in the form in which we have it, is a
description of the dawn of clay, is not correct ; for how could
any one, in giving such a 'description, make the sun, the
moon, and the stars come into existence at the same time ?
The latter vanish out of our sight just when the former rises.
The beasts of prey are made after the sun in the narrative ;
but really they go away and hide themselves as soon as the
sun appears ; and the Israelites were quite aware of this fact. 1
Our narrative is not a myth, that is to say it is not a
figurative description of anything that takes place in nature.
Examples of such myths may be found amongst all peoples.
Just read, for example, the following account of the creation,
which arose amc ng the Chaldees : Once all was darkness
and water ; wherein all kinds of monsters lived, over which a
woman, Homoroka or Thanath, that is the ocean, held
dominion. But the highest God, Bel, divided the darkness
and cut the woman into two halves, out of which he formed
heaven and earth. Upon this the monsters perished, for
they could not endure the light. Then Bel cut off his own
head, and from the earth, moistened by the drops of blood
that fell, he made men, who are therefore endowed with un-
derstanding and have a share in the divine reason. This is
in all probability a mythical description of the dawn of day.
Before the rising of the sun the heavenly ocean rules over
the monsters, that is the constellations, but the sun makes
these latter vanish of themselves, and forms out of the ruler
of the darkness, heaven and earth, since these two can be
distinguished from each other as soon as the sunlight chases
the night away.
Now, mythical representations such as this were not un-
known to the Israelites. They, too, often thought of the
heavenly bodies as of living creatures, as will appear from a
glance at the passage from Job, quoted above, where the
morning stars are placed in the same line with the sons of
God, that is the angels. There are also some indications in
the first account of the creation that the poet was acquainted
with a myth not altogether unlike the Chaldean, though they
are so slight as to be altogether lost in a translation. But
the account of the creation we are considering is not, as is
the case with myths, to a large extent, the product of unbri-
dled imagination. It is indeed highly probable — and that is
the truth in Herder's opinion combated above— that the mate-
1 Psalm civ. 20-22.
THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION. 39
rials of this narrative were furnished by a mythical description
of the dawn. But these materials have been worked up by
the author into an artistic whole. Probably several features
of the old account, those for instance which seemed to the
writer unworthy of the deity, fell away from it when it was
thus worked up, and certainly one addition was made to it to
serve to glorify the day of rest. We shall speak further on
of the origin of the custom of celebrating the sabbath ; but
il is clear that the writer of Gen. i. 1-ii. 3 holds it in great-
reverence as a holy day, and endeavors to explain its institu-
tion from the fact that God completed the work of creation in
six days, and rested on the seventh day, himself.
As a scientific product the narrative has no value ; for the
writer had only a very defective knowledge of the construction
of the universe to go upon. A moderately good school-boy
of our days could easily find him out in mistakes. That the
earth is a ball which is always turning upon its axis, ,and at
the same time pursuing its rapid course round the sun ; that
the whole earth, which seems so great to us, is no more, in
comparison to the universe, than a single grain of sand on a
sea-beach miles in length, and that the sun alone is a million
and a half times as large — all this was unknown to the
Israelites. For them the earth was a disk, washed round by
the ocean, over which the firmament rose like a giant cupola,
while sun, moon, and stars moved on the inner surface of this
vault.
An Israelite could easily imagine that, in six days of four
and twenty hours each, the earth was changed from a chaos
into a dwelling place for beasts and men. But now-a-days it
does not take much learning to know that many ages elapsed
between the time when the firm land gradually appeared and
the day upon which a human being first drew breath upon it.
We shall not easily be convinced that the sun and moon an-
nounce God's judgments, or that they were made for the pur-
pose of fixing man's reckoning of time. But we must place
ourselves at the stand-point of an Israelite who was unac-
quainted with the causes of many of the phenomena of the
heavens, for example of the eclipses of sun and moon, and
who regulated his religious feasts principally by the reappear-
ance of the moon after it had been for a time invisible without
his being able to account for its disappearance. We shall
then find nothing unnatural in the rise of such beliefs, although
they are altogether beside the truth.
40 THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION.
, If the value of the first account of the creation is very
'slight, when looked at from a scientific point of view, as
a work of art, on the contrary, it is in the highest degree
remarkable. If we compare our cosmogony with that of the
Chaldees, which we just now glanced at, how far the latter
falls short of it in beauty ! The first chapter of Genesis has
always been considered a masterpiece, and with good reason
too ! The tone of the narrative is simple and dignified. There
are no extravagant conceptions, such as those of the Chaldee
story, and this is certainly not the most grotesque which has
been handed down from antiquity. There are no strange
representations of the way in which God formed everything.
God only speaks, and what he wishes to create exists. " He
said : Let there be light ! and there was light." That thought
is nobly expressed !
The purity of taste with which our writer has composed his
narrative bears testimony also to his reverence for God. The
strange representations, which we meet elsewhere, did not
rise, of course, from contempt for the Deitj'. The Chaldee
saw nothing irreverent in the representation of the god Bel
cutting his head off to make the dust into slime with his
blood, and thence to shape a human form. It was only his
way of expressing his belief that man is related to the Deity.
We are in danger of being unfair towards those who express
their feelings under forms which do not seem fitting to us. But
yet there is something in these sj'mbols which goes against
our feelings. We can never speak of God in language dig-
nified enough. Every representation, every description, is
defective. And if we cannot keep silence on these matters,
but must speak as best we can about Him and what He does,
a sacred awe compels us to express our thoughts about God
and his work in the simplest language possible. From this
point of view the first biblical account of the creation has a
refreshing tone, which raises it above many of the stories
and poems even of the Israelites. It seems to cry in our ears :
Let honor be rendered to God !
We must not suppose, however, that the conception which
the poet had formed of God was free from narrowness. That
God rested from his work on the seventh day is an unworthy
representation, for God is always working. Moreover, it
sounds very strange to say that man was made after God's
image. What, we ask, did the writer mean by this? Did he
think of man as like God in soul or in body? It admits of
no doubt that he meant in soul and body "both. Of course
man's spiritual characteristics, his intellect, his capacity for
THE FIKST ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION. 41
morality and piety, stood in the foreground of the winter's
thoughts when he spoke of his being formed after God's
image. But the Israelites of old times thought of God, as
we shall often notice in other stories, as having a body like
that of a man, and as enthroned above the heavenly sea ; nor
did they consider it impossible to see God. And so, too, our
writer could think of man as being, even in body, God's like-
ness, just as a child is the likeness of his father. 1
There are several things in the narrative which do not ac-
cord with our purer conception of God's being. We must not
disguise this fact. If a man of our own time, brought up
under Christianity, entertained such opinions, we could feel
but small respect for the clearness of his understanding and
the purity of his religious perceptions. But we must judge
the writer by the times in which he wrote, and, so judged, he
stands very high. •,
All the peoples of antiquity worshipped a number of supe-
rior beings, and made the powers of nature into gods. At
first the Israelites, like others, stood upon this level. They,
too, once recognized the existence, of numerous gods, and
worshipped the powers of nature and the heavenly bodies,
together with a great variety of other objects. It cost them
much time and great efforts to shake themselves free from
these ideas, and rise to the belief in one God, who is exalted
above nature, and can be distinguished from her. Yet in the •
first account of the creation we find this belief. From the
chastened simplicity of this poetical and childlike description
of the formation of the universe, a voice falls upon our ear :
There is one supreme being, whose plan is fulfilled, who must
be adored as the creator, whose work praises its maker. And
if upon the earth man has dominion over everything that ia
created, and all is subject to him, it is because he bears God's
image.
Lord ! how great is thy name upon earlh,
Whilst thou hast revealed thy glory in heaven !
When I look on thy heaven, the work of thy ringers,
The moon and the 6tars thou hast placed thereon,
What is man that thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man that thou carest for him?
Thou hast made him but little less than a deity,
And hast crowned him with honor and majesty.
Thou makes* him to have dominion over the works of thy hands,
And thou puttest all things under his feet,
Small and great cattle together,
And the beasts of the field also, »
The birds of the air, and the fish of the sea
That go by the paths of the seas.
Lord ! how great is thy name above all the world ! 2
1 Genesis v. 3. 2 Psalm viii.
42 PAEADISE.
Chapter II.
PAEADISE.
Gen. II. 4-24.
THE first book of the Bible is generally called by a Greek
name, Genesis, that in, Origin. It is the first of a
group of five books called, in Hebrew, the Thorah (that is, the
Law) , and, in Greek, the Pentateuch (that is, the book in five
parts) , the writing of which is referred by tradition to Moses,
since the laws which make up the greater part of it were as-
cribed to him. We have already told you how little ground
there is for this tradition, in the Introduction, and by-and-by
we shall establish, the point more fully.
Now, this book of Genesis comprises a great number of
legends, all of which take us back to a hoary antiquity, and
make up a kind of preliminary history of Israel. In speaking
of the earliest generations of mankind, and especially of the
tribal fathers of the Israelites, they give us an insight into
the modes of thought of the writers, and on that account are
very precious contributions to our knowledge of the Israelite
religion. Besides this, they give us a certain amount of in-
formation, though of a very vague description, as to the origin
of the Israelite people and the tribes connected with it.
The book of Genesis was not written by one man, but was
put together from works of very different dates ; works, too,
whose authors by no means all stood upon the same religious
level. This very chapter will furnish us with illustrations of
the fact, for immediately after the first account of the creation,
which we have just examined, a second follows, which by no
means agrees with it.
Here, then, is the second account of the creation : —
When Yahweh made earth and heaven, no plants were to
be seen growing upon the earth, and no herbs coming up, for
as yet he had caused no rain to fall, and there was not a man
to till the ground. But then a mist rose from the earth, and
there came rain out of it, by which all the earth was watered.
Then Yahweh made the body of a man out of the moistened
dust of the earth, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life.
So man became a living being. Yahweh then made a garden
in the eastern portion of the land of Loveliness (Eden) , and
PARADISE. 43
there he put the man whom he had formed. Then he made
all kinds of beautiful fruit trees come up out of the earth, and
planted the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of good
and evil in the middle of the garden.
Now, from the land of Loveliness a river flows, which
waters the garden and then runs off into four branches —
namely, the Pison, which washes all Havilah, that is India,
the land where fine gold and spices and precious stones are
found in such abundance ; the Gihon, that is the Nile, which
runs round all Ethiopia ; the Hiddekel, that is the Tigris,
which flows through Assyria ; and the Phrat, or Euphrates.
Into this garden Yahweh brought the man, to cultivate
and watch it. He gave him leave to eat of all the fruit trees,
except of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, for he was
to die at once if he ate any of its fruit.
But Yahweh saw that it was not good for the man to be
alone, and determined to make a being for him similar to
himself, who might be able to help him. But first he made out
of the earth all the beasts of the field, as well as the birds,
and brought them to the man to see what he would call
them, intending to keep as the name of every living thing
the word which he used for it. And the man gave names to all
the animals, but he did not find one like himself among them.
Then Yahweh made a deep sleep fall upon the man, and
when he was buried in this sleep, he took one of his ribs, and,
having filled up the hole that it made with flesh, he formed a
woman out of it and brought her to the man. At once he recog-
nized her as like himself; and, since she was bone of his bone
and flesh of his flesh, she must, he said, have the name of
" woman" (the Hebrew word for " woman" is derived from
that for "man;" as if we were to speak of "man" and
"she-man"), and the bond between man and womarl must
be closer than any other, even than that which binds the son '
to his parents.
It is obvious that this account of the creation departs in
many points from the previous one. In this account the
earth is at first a dry plain, in the other the world was a J
chaos, covered with water. While in the former account;
God first creates the plants, then the animals, and finally
man, here the "succession is quite different, for the plants do
not grow up until after the man has been made, and the
garden in the land of Eden has received its occupant before
the animals are made, while the creation of the woman closes
14 PARA1USE.
the series. There are other points of difference which we
shall have to notice when we speak of the sequel of the
two narratives. Thus, for example, in the first account of
the creation, grain and herbs are given to man as food from
the moment of his creation, whereas, according to this writer,
he only eats fruits at first, and the use of grain for food is
treated as a consequence of his sin. This narrative is far
more varied in its coloring, and, therefore, more lively than
the first, which excels in lofty simplicity. Of Yahweh, who
makes a man out of clay, and blows the breath of life into his
nostrils-, lays out a garden, and forms a woman out of a rib
of the man, we gain a very different impression from that of
the God of the first account, who, throned above the sky and
the clouds, calls everything into being bj' his creative word.
Even the idea of man's being formed out of dust moistened
by rain, and being made a living being by Yahweh's breathing
into him, may seem rather childish in our eyes, but the idea
of the woman being made out of a rib of the man strikes us
as almost ludicrous. But, to avoid misunderstanding the
people of antiquity, we must always bear in mind their love
of clothing their thoughts in tangible forms. This repre-
sentation, like so many others, is symbolical. The ribs lie in
a man's side, and so the story that woman was formed out of
a rib of man signifies that she ought to stand by his side. It
is, therefore, a part of the same whole as the words which are
put into the man's mouth when he sees the woman, in which
he expresses the closeness of the marriage tie.
While the writer of the first account places the creation of
mankind on the sixth day, without saying how many men
were created or where they lived, here we have a detailed
statement on these points. It is true that the writer does not
say in so many words that all mankind are descended from a
single pair, and indeed he soon forgets altogether, as we shall
see by-and-by, that, according to his account, there were only
two human beings upon the earth ; but he only tells us about
a single man and a single woman, and gives us detailed infor-
mation as to the place of their abode. This was the land of
Eden, between the four rivers that rise out of a single stream
flowing through Eden, all of which he mentions by name.
Two of these can be pointed out with certainty, namely the
Euphrates and the Tigris ; nor is it difficult to' recognize the
Nile in the Gihon, which washes the land of Cush, that is
Ethiopia; and even the first, the Pison, is indicated with
sufficient clearness by the further statement that it flows round
PARADISE 45
the region of gold, that is India, from which it appears that
the writer had either the Indus or the Ganges in his mind. It
will be useless to look in the maps, however, for anyplace
where these four rivers rise out of a single stream, and we
must forgive the ancient Israelites for not being very well up
in geography, and for imagining that the sources of one of the
Indian rivers and of the Nile were to be found close by those
, of the Euphrates and the Tigris, for they had no maps in those
days, and were almost entirely without the means of forming
a correct idea of the position of the various countries of the
world. But it is evident whereabouts the writer looks for the
cradle of our race, namery in central Asia, on the table-lands
of Armenia. There are other ancient legends of the Israelites
which allude to these regions, from which they originally came.
It is worth noticing that one of the Persian accounts of the
creation has certain points of similarity with this Israelite
story ; in the description of a pleasure garden, for instance,
the position of which is defined by mentioning the rivers near
it, and agrees with that of Eden. This has made some people
think that the ancestors of the Israelites and the tribes re-
lated to them once lived with the ancestors of the Persians, at
the foot of Mount Caucasus, and that there one and the same
cosmogony was current amongst them all, but that when the
tribes had separated from each other it gradually got so much
altered that the stories made out of it only just betray their
common origin in one or two features. This is quite con-
ceivable ; but it is also possible that when the Israelites came
into contact with the Syrians and Assyrians they picked up a
certain cosmogony from them, and that the writer of this nar-
rative worked it up in accordance with his own ideas, and gave
an Israelite tinge to the story. This opinion is supported by
a certain trait in the narrative which is altogether un-Israelite,
as we shall see when speaking of what follows.
The picture of the condition in which, according to this
writer, the first human beings lived, is a matter of greater
interest to us than the fixing of the site of their abode. They
lived in a garden in the land of Loveliness. In the middle of
this garden stood a tree — the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. As yet they had not eaten of its fruit, and they
were even forbidden to taste it. So they were not morally
and religiously developed human beings, for so far from bear-
ing themselves bravely in the good fight — the fight against
sensuality — to say nothing of having gained the victory, they
had not as yet so much as entered upon such a contest at all.
46 PAEADISE LOST.
So they were happy in their ignorance. The Apostle Pai
thoroughly understood the old story of Paradise when he said
that in contrast to Jesus, whom he called the second Adan
the first Adam was earthly, sensual. The golden age, then
fore, or rather the golden day, with which the history of mat
kind begins, was a state of ignorance and innocence, soo
succeeded by strife, by sin, by misery.
Each one of us has lived in a paradise like this ; for as Ion
as we were children we were ignorant, and, therefore, innocem
There is something so pure and sweet in this condition that
is easy to understand why Jesus loved and blessed the childrer
But the careless joy of ignorance which falls to the lot of
child soon passes by, for it learns before long what duty means
Its parents strive to teach it what is good and what is bad
and, as soon as it has eaten of the tree of this knowledge, il
paradise is lost.
Chapter III.
PARADISE LOST
Gen. II. 25-111.
THE same writer whose work we have just been coi
sidering continues his narrative as follows, and tells i
how paradise was lost, chiefly through the guilt of the woman
Happy in their childlike condition and their ignorance tl
man and his wife lived in paradise. They went entire!
naked, but with no sense of shame, and did not eat of tt
tree that stood in the middle of the garden for fear of tl
threat that they would die at once if they did so. But or
of the beasts of the field that Yahweh had made was eleven
than any of the others ; it was the serpent. It knew tl
secret thought of the Creator, and betrayed it to the womai
For one day it said to her : "Has not God forbidden you 1
eat of some of these trees ? " To which the woman answerec
" We may eat of all the trees except the one that stands :
the middle of the garden, for if we so much as touch that 01
— so God told us — we shall die." But the serpent repliec
" That is not true. God knows very well that if you eat <
* 1 Corinthians xv. 45-47.
PARADISE LOST. 47
it, your eyes will be opened and you will attain to the knowledge
of good and evil, and that will make you like God." Shaken
in her trust in Yahweh by these words, the woman went to
examine the tree more narrowly, and since the fruit had a
beautiful and delicious appearance, her heart soon went after
her eyes. She gathered, she ate, and gave some of it to
her husband as well, and he followed her example.
Now it appeared that the serpent had spoken the truth, for
hardly had they eaten of the forbidden fruit, when their e3"es
were opened, and they began to be ashamed of their naked-
ness, which they tried at once to cover, as best they could,
with fig leaves fastened together.
But when, as the sun went down and the evening breeze
began to blow, 1 they heard Yahweh, who was walking in the
garden, drawing near to them, they were ashamed of their
insufficient clothing, so they hid themselves among the trees
to escape being seen by him in such a state. But Yahweh
called to the man : " Where are you ? " The answer was that
he had hidden himself because he was ashamed of his naked-
ness. Then Yahweh replied: "Who enlightened you so
much that you are ashamed of that ? Have you eaten of that
tree which I forbade you to use for food ? " " Yes," answered
the man, " the woman that you gave me offered me some of
it. That is how it was." On this, Yahweh spoke to the
woman ; " What is this that you have done?" She answered
in her turn that the seipent had tempted her to eat the fruit.
Then Yahweh turned his wrath upon the serpent : "A curse
upon you," said he. " I will degrade you below all the cattle
and all the beasts of the field. Henceforth you shall creep
upon your belly, and lick up the dust all your life long. And
I will wake up enmity between you and the woman, between
your offspring and hers. Men shall try to stamp on your
head, and you to bite them in the heel." Nor did the woman
escape her punishment ; she was "to bear children, and bring
them into the world with pain ; and while she felt herself
strongly drawn towards the man, he was to be her master.
Then God said to the man : " Because you allowed yourself to
be tempted by your wife, to disobey my commandment, the
earth shall be cursed for your sake. It shall bring forth
thorns and thistles for you ; and, meanwhile, instead of
living, as j-ou have done hitherto, on the fruits of trees, you
Y- shall henceforth eat grain and potherbs, which you will have
to wring from the earth by the sweat of your brow, until you
1 After an amended version.
48 PARADISE LOST.
pay the debt of nature, for dust you are, and to dust you
shall return again."
Then Yahweh, to enable the man and woman to come into
sight again, gave them a covering of the hides of beasts, by
which the whole body was clothed, instead of their fig-leaf
aprons. But there was still one thing which Yahweh feared.
" See ! " he said to the divine beings around him, " in knowl-
edge of good and evil man has become as one of us. Now,
if he goes a step further and stretches out his hand to the
Tree of Life and eats of it, then he will be altogether like
us." So Yahweh drove man out of the garden of Eden to
cultivate the soil out of which he was made, and stationed the
cherubs with a glittering sword at the entrance of the garden
to guard the approach to the tree of life.
^ If there is one Bible story more than another that has
suffered from the artificial efforts of commentators, and been
dismembered and distorted by them till it is hardly recogniz-
able, it is this story of paradise. Treading in the steps of
the Apostle Paul, 1 but going much further than he did, the
teachers of the Christian Church have run up a whole block
of doctrinal edifices on the basis of this story. They have
taken it as history, and have supposed it to state that Adam
and his wife were created in absolute holiness, that they were
perfect in bodj', healthy and free from pain and violent pas-
sions, and that their souls in like manner were endowed with
perfect knowledge of Gocl, with the power of loving him, and
with immortality. But they allowed themselves — and it was
supposed that this too was written in the ancient document —
to be tempted by the Devil, and so all kinds of disasters fell
to their lot, amongst others death, and inability to know or to
serve God. This corruption passed clown to all their descend-
ants, who are therefore guilty before Gocl. This is called
original sin.
Not a word of all this is to be found in our story. "We
have seen already that the first human beings, according to
this description, were not perfect, since they did not even
know the difference between good and evil. Moreover, a
serpent does no doubt appear in it, but not a devil. Nothing
i is said of a fall, but only of progress. And, so far from
death being represented as the consequence of the sin of the
first man and woman, Yahweh dreads, even after their tres-
pass, that their presumption may sometime tempt them to lay
1 Romans v. 12. 1 Corinthians xv. 22, 45.
PAKADISE LOST. 41
their hand upon the tree of life. According to the writei ,
then, they were not immortal before their sin, and did net
become so after it.
Let us try to understand the legend of paradise.
The story about the loss of paradise is not altogether orig-
inal. Certain traits in it appear in similar legends amongst
various peoples, so as to make it probable that one and the
same stoiy lay at the foundation of all these sagas. Hence,
doubtless, our writer borrowed, amongst other things, his
representation of the monsters called cherubs, winged creat-
ures in the shape of animals, griffins, which serve as the
guardians of a treasure ; for, as " cherub" is not a word of
Hebrew origin, the whole idea is, in all probability, derived
from elsewhere. We do not know how the original story ran. )
But the comparison of other versions of it, for instance that
of the Persians, is instructive. " Mashia and Mashianeh ">
(that is " man and woman " ) , so we are told by one of them,
"were created in holiness, and had received commandment
from the supreme God, Ahura, to cherish good thoughts, to
speak good words, to do good deeds, and not to sacrifice to
the evil spirits. But after some time their thoughts were
polluted by the Evil One, and the}' began to worship him.
After that they wandered about for thirty days without food
and in black clothes, and then they caught a white goat and
drank some of its milk. This sin was followed by a still
greater one, the eating of flesh, and then by another still
heavier yet, for when they had discovered iron the}' felled
trees. At last the}' worshipped the evil spirits."
From this story we can ascertain the moral standpoint of
this Persian writer, in whose eyes drinking milk, eating flesh,
and felling trees were just as much sins as idolatry. In the
same way, from the Israelite story of paradise, we gain an
insight into the ideas of its writer. We shall see presently
that all the Israelites did not agree with him.
The story is an attempt to explain the conditions under
which the writer saw mankind existing. He noticed round
about him certain mysterious facts. In the animal creation,
his eye fell upon that wonderful creature, the serpent, that
goes hissing about on its belly, that animal of which man is
the mortal enemy, and against the insidious attacks of which
he must always be on his guard, although • — for in the land
of the Jews there were no poisonous or gigantic serpents —
he can easily overcome it. That creature, thought the Israel-
ite writer, is apparently under a curse, and he asked : How
vol. i. a
50 FAKADISB LOST.
has it brought this curse upon itself? Then he was struck by
the sad lot of woman. That she could only taste a mother's
joys at the price of so much pain excited his pity. But his
sympathy was most strongly roused when he saw how she
longed for the marriage bond, although it made her nothing
but the slave of her husband. But even he was not happy.
It was, in the East especially, a hard task to force her fruits
from the earth. Why is this so ? asked our writer. Why do
so many weeds grow as to make the husbandman's task a
burden ?
He looked for the answer to these questions, and he thought
he had found it in the supposition that the deity, angry with
the serpent and mankind, had laid these woes upon them to
punish them for their trespasses. The sin which had drawn
all these evils upon mankind was the search for knowledge.
The state of nature was far more simple and happy than the
present condition of man. The infant danced naked in its
mother's lap, with no sense of shame. Some peoples knew no
clothing, others were content with a scanty covering. This
condition of innocence was indeed lower in the writer's opin-
ion than that in which man existed when possessed of moral
knowledge and cultivation, but yet it was really happier.
God surely had not intended that man should grow out of it.
Why had not he been content with his humbler position?
Why had he not left the knowledge of good and evil to God, to
whom it belongs ? Alas ! man had striven after things too high
for him, and he had actually reached that higher point, but only
at the price of his own peace. His higher dignity had brought
pain with it. Much sorrow accompanied the gathering of wis-
dom. 1 So the paradise of the childlike state was lost and gone.
In the description of the confusion of the man and woman
as they stand ashamed — he throwing the blame upon her and
she upon the serpent — great knowledge of human nature is
displayed, and great talent in reproducing what has been
observed. There is a fine point in the man's excuse : I was
tempted by the woman "that you gave me," — as if he
intended to make Yahweh partly responsible for the trespass.
But in other respects, and very important ones too, our
writer dots not stand high. In the first place, as we have
already noticed, 2 his conception of Yahweh is defective. We
must add a few words to what has been said on this subject
already. Yahweh's walking in the garden, and clothing man
1 EcqloBJ&stes, j. 18. i gee p. 44.
A
PAKADISE LOST. 51
in the garments made from the hides of beasts, are only such
actions as we saw him doing in the former story, at the crea-
tion of man. We do not expect any one who makes such a
representation of his god to think of him as the only god ;
and, indeed, our writer does not so think of him.
Strictly speaking, this follows from the use of a particular
divine name. For, if there is only one god, why should we
give him a proper name? As long as there was only one
man, he was called " the man," as is the case all through this
story, even after the woman has been created ; and it is not
till afterwards, when other men are spoken of as well, that the
name, "man," is used as a proper name, Adam. So every
one who recognizes only one god calls him God, and nothing
else. It is true that the Israelites who had risjen above the
standpoint of polytheism, and recognized no other God but
Yahweh, long continued to use this name ; but this only shows
the influence of the old custom of language. Our writer, on
the other hand, unmistakably recognizes the existence of many
gods ; for he makes Yahweh say, " See, the man is become
as one of us, knowing good and evil;" and so he evidently
implies the existence of other similar beings, to whom he
attributes immortality and insight into the difference between
good and evil. Yahweh, then, was, in his eyes, the god of
gods, indeed, but not the only god.
But there are other things to notice in this story besides
the fact that the writer thinks of his Yahweh under a human
form and only as one of the gods. These are to a great extent
mistakes of the intellect ; but it shocks us more to find that
he ascribes very ignoble dispositions to Yahweh. For we
cannot conceal the fact that the serpent, when speaking to
the woman, tells nothing but the truth. Yahweh had really
deceived the man and woman when he threatened them with
death if they ate of the tree of knowledge. Not death, but
the gift of distinguishing evil from good, by which they were
made like to God, was the result of their tasting this fruit.
Yahweh evidently kept them off this tree from jealousy, and
he drove them out of the garden because he was afraid that
by eating of the Tree of Life as well, they would become
altogether like the gods. Now this idea, that the gods are
jealous of the men who aspire to a share in their privileges, is
found elsewhere, in some of the Greek writers for instance ;
but it certainly is not worthy of God.
Our writer thought with the prophet Michah, 1 that to be
1 Micah vi. 8.
52 PARADISE LOST.
righteous and to walk humbly with his God was man's voca-
tion. He could have repeated the words of the poet, 1 —
Lord ! I am not proud hearted.
And mine eves are not lifted in pride;
I have not conversed with things too high and too wonderful for me
Truly, I have brought my soul to rest and quietness:
As a weaned child, without desire, lies on his mother's breast,
So my soul is passionless in me.
Aiid certainly there is something enviable in this rest of the
soul. Nay, it may even be the glorious reward of the con-
quest over the earthly inclinations, and the subjection of our
desires to the will of God. But there is also a humility of
disposition, a freedom from passion, which is bought at far
too dear a price, and springs from an unhallowed source.
For if we do not long to go onward, — if we do not strain all
our powers in the struggle for knowledge and blessedness, —
if we allow needless ignorance and misery to exist in ourselves
or in others, — -then this contentment is the fruit, not of
humility, but of idleness, which brings moral death in its train.
The psalm of submission must be no lullab}*.
It was not unnatural for an Israelite who saw how many
woes, how hard a struggle fell to the lot of man, saw too that
they were the result of the pressing claims of society, and that
wants were increased by civilization, to look back sometimes
with a kind of homesickness towards the state of nature in
which men did not feel these wants and life was simpler.
Any one who knows something of life can understand this
well enough, for sometimes it is very weary work. We agree
with the poet of the story of paradise, as he perceives and
describes how the raising of man's rank brings with it a
greater task to perform, and how he has to pay a heavy price
for his noble privilege of being like God, and knowing good
from evil. But we can by no means allow with him that this
is contrary to the will of God. No, we are more at one with
the poets of the first chapter of Genesis and of the eighth
Psalm, who glory in the thought that God has made man after
his image, has crowned him with glory, and has therefore given
him dominion over all creation.
And so, however sweet that murmuring song ma} - sound,
" I have brought my soul to rest and quietness/' the rousing
war-cry of the sons of God rings back upon our oars : " No
rest for us ! work, search, learn, for that alone is life ! "
The state of innocence is lost, the state of simplicity and
1 Psalm cxxxi.
CAIN AND HIS POSTEEITT. 53
ignorance. ~We are no longer children. Are we to mourn
over it? No. This condition cannot and must not last. But,
whenever, as stained by many a sin and broken by many
a sorrow we pursue our way, the state of childhood seems
enviable in our eyes, then let us listen to the words of him
who urges us indeed to become children once more, 1 but, also,
lo be perfect even as God is perfect. 2
Chapter IV.
CAIN AND HIS POSTERITY.
Gen. IV.
BUT though paradise was lost — so we are told by the
same writer — the first human pair stiil dwelt in the
land of Eden. It soon appeared that the man had good
reason to call his wife Eve, that is the life-waker, for she
presented him with two sons, the elder of whom she called
Cain, that is, the gained, " for," said she, " with Yahweh's
help, I have gained a son, a man." The second was called
Abel, that is, evanescence. The younger chose the shep-
herd's life, while Cain became a husbandman. Once on a
time they both determined to bring some of their posses-
sions as an offering to Yah well. They gave of the produce
of their labor, — Cain of the fruits of the field, Abel of the
first-born of his sheep and goats, especially the fat of these
animals ; and with this last offering Yahweh was pleased,
but not with that of Cain. We are not told how this fact
was made known to the two sacrificers, but the idea probably
is that Yahweh, who was with them in person, told it to
them by word of mouth. Now, Cain could not endure being
placed below his brother ; and his sullen countenance! fixed
on the ground, betrayed clearly enough how he was eaten
up by anger. So Yahweh came to give him a warning.
" Cain," said he, " whj- do you hang down your head in
anger? Can you not lift up 3-our face boldly if you do well? 8
But be careful ! If you enter upon the crooked way, sin
lies in wait for you, as a beast of pre}' crouching at the door
of your house ; but you must master it." Cain, however,
1 Matthew xviii. 1-3. 2 Matthew v. 48. s After an amended version.
54. CAIN AND HIS POSTERITY.
far from attending to this good advice, dogged the footsteps
of his brother, 1 and as soon as ever they were in the field
together, struck him dead.
Then Yahweh came again to Cain and asked : " Where is
Abel, your brother? " And Cain answered : " I don't know.
Am I my brother's keeper? " But Yahweh replied : " What
have j-ou done ? The blood of your brother cries to me from
out of the ground. Now, listen : Be thou cursed, and cast out
from the land which has opened its mouth to take up the
brother's blood which you have spilt. When you work upon
it, it shall not put forth its strength to serve you. For you
it shall be unfruitful, and so j-ou shall roam and wander up
and down the earth."
Then Cain, terrified by this curse, cried out: "The pun-
ishment is too hard to bear ! See, you have banished me
from this land, and will never think of me again ; and likely
enough as I roam and wander over the earth, any one that
happens to meet me will kill me." But Yahweh answered
him : " Yes ! but to avert that danger, Cain shall be avenged
sevenfold." Moreover, to protect him as far as possible,
Yahweh fixed upon a sign by which any one who was about
to raise his hand against Cain should be warned.
As soon as his sentence was pronounced he left Eden,
where Yahweh dwelt, and, after journej-ing eastwards, settled
in the land of wandering (Nod). There his wife presented
him with a son, after whom he called the town which he
founded Enoch. Enoch had a son Irad, and Irad a son
Mehujael, who was the father of Methusael and the grand-
father of Lamech.
Now Lamech took two wives, called Adah and Zillah,
whose children were very celebrated men. Adah's sons were
Jabal and Jubal, the first of whom instituted the wandering
shepherd life, while the second was the discoverer of various
musical instruments, such as the lyre and the pipe. Zillah
gave birth to Tubal-cain, the copper and iron smith, and
his sister, Naamah.
Then Lamech, proud of his metal weapons, said to his
mves : —
Adah and Zillah ! heav my voice,
Ye wives of Lamech hearken to my speech !
Truly I slew a man for a wound,
And a lad for a stripe he had given me !
If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
Then Lamech seven and seventy.
1 After an amended version.
CAIN AND HIS POSTERITY. 55
After Abel's death, and Cain's banishment from Eden,
Eve had a third son there, and she gave him the name of
Seth, that is the given, " because," said she, " God has given
me a compensation for Abel." Seth's son was called Enos,
and in his days the worship of Yahweh began.
This story is not only from the same hand as the previous
one, but is so closely connected with it that the same idea
plays a chief part in both. As we have seen, the writer of
the story of paradise considered the state of nature, that is,
the condition of ignorance and of the innocence which goes
along with it, as the state of man which God willed, and he
explained man's struggle for something higher as a conse-
quence of sin. In the story of Cain and his posterity he
worked out this notion further. He pointed out the progress
made 1_ >v men In every direction ; how they had invented
musical instruments and discovered the art of forging copper
and iron ; how towns had been built by them, and the wan-
dering shepherd life established too. But what men had
invented all this? The Cainites, the posterity of the mur-
derer of his brother, the exiles from Eden, where the worship
of Yahweh was not introduced till their connection with that
land of paradise had been severed. And what advantage
had this progress of the Cainites brought with it? What
fruit had they gathered from this art of bending the hard
metals into the form that pleased them? None. Surely it
had taught them how to make a sword, and to tip their
arrows and spears ? Yes ; and the discovery made them all
the more savage and overweening. Strong in the possession
of copper and iron, Lamech could swear sevenfold ven-
geance on anj 1 one who should kill him, for his sons would
avenge him. And woe to the man who wounded him, for
even that offence would meet the penalty of death ! That
is what conies of all this progress and knowledge, thought
the writer. Such was the course of man after the loss of his
innocence. The history of Adam's eldest son and of his
race begins with a murder and ends with a wild song of
vengeance.
This is the main idea of the story which we are now to
examine in detail. It would be an important addition to
our knowledge of antiquity if we knew the source from which
the writer took the names with which he connected the
various inventions of which he speaks, and the original
meaning of these names, which are met with in the following
!i6 CAIN AND HIS POSTERITY.
story in quite a different order. The writer treats them as
men, but it does not follow that that is what the}' really were.
If asked : What else can they have been ? we might
answer : Perhaps they were the names of gods, to whose
teaching the origin of these occupations or the knowledge of
these arts was ascribed. This is not unlikely. Several of
the names are to be found amongst other nations as well as
amongst the Israelites. Thus Jabal is a good deal like the
name of the Greek and Soman god, Apol(lo), and Tubal-
cain is the Hebrew pronunciation of the name pronounced
Vulcan by the Komans, and used by them for the smith of
the gods ; while Set was an Egyptian god. Moreover, it
quite agrees with the ancient usage, which we find among
all kinds of nations, to attribute the earliest discoveries and
inventions, and everything that brought about a great change
in human life, to the immediate revelation of a deity. No
wonder ! Who first built a town it was surely impossible
to say ; for necesshVy must gradually have forced people to
hedge or wall-in their dwelling-places as a defence against
their enemies, whether beasts or men. Gradually some of
them would begin to wander round about to look for pastures
for the beasts which they had tamed and used as domestic
animals. The possibility of producing various sounds by
striking or blowing upon strings under tension, and upon the
horns of animals or lengths of reed, was certainly often
noticed before, step by step, man learned to make musical
instruments. The case is the same with forging. Since it is
natural to men who are at a low stage of development, and
have not been accustomed to think much, to deifj- all the
powers and gifts of nature, and even individual objects, it is
not unnatural that they should worship a god " Copper-
smith," or " Shepherd- life," or "City-building." And it is
very natural that they should attribute to the revelation of
the Sun, or of some other god, their knowledge of all kinds
of useful arts.
We ought, however, to be very cautious in venturing upon
guesses such as these ; for it is almost like groping about
in the dark to speak of such ancient times, and the thoughts
of the men who lived in them. There are many other ways
in which these names may have become connected with such
inventions and social changes. They may have been names
of men or tribes which were afterwards deified by certain
peoples. We must be all the more cautious, as the meaning
of the names is generally unknown to us, nor can we even
CAIN AND HIS POSTERITY. 5?
saj r from what language they are derived. The writer cer-
tainly gives us translations of several of them, but they rest
apparently upon nothing but conjecture, for Seth cannot
really mean "the given," nor Cain, "the obtained." On
the other hand, the names Abel and Nod, as well as A Jam,
Eve and Eden, are pure Hebrew words, and were probably
invented by the writer himself. The Israelites were certainly
no masters of the art of translating foreign names, whether
the}' had come down to them from former days, or had been
transplanted from other lands. None of the translations,
which appear in great numbers in the book of Genesis and
elsewhere, hi.vf, any value, except in so far as they show
us what the writers thought about the names in question.
In future we shall not notice the incorrectness of their der-
ivations, except when there is some important reason for
doing so.
However much we should like to know the origin and the
meaning of these names, and the way in which they came to
the knowledge of our writer, we must be content to give the
question up ; and fortunately our ignorance does not prevent
our reading the writer's heart, for whatever may have been
the original meaning of these names, it is evident that in
his eyes they were simply the names of men. As' we are
not considering a historical record, we need not stop to ask
such questions as, " How did Cain come by a wife? " " How
can he have been afraid that people would kill him, when as
yet there were none ? " " How can he have built a city, when
he had only one son ? " We must examine the writer's ideas
about the god he worshipped, about his will, and the way in
which' he revealed it.
As a matter of course we find the same narrow conception
of Yahweh here that we noticed in the story of paradise. It
is not, indeed, expressly stated that the reason why Yahweh
preferred Abel's present to Cain's was, that the one brought
him a sacrifice of flesh, while the other only consecrated
fruits of the field to him. It is possible that the writer had
that higher conception of what constitutes the value of a
sacrifice, which led one of the Christians of the time of the
' Apostles to explain that Abel brought a better sacrifice than
Cain's by faith. 1 This is possible, for the idea was familiar
to some of the Israelites ; but it is not likely. At least the
account of Yahweh's acceptance, of the one sacrifice and rejec-
1 Hebrews xi. 4.
a*
58 CAIN AND HIS POSTERITY.
tion of the other follows so close upon the mention of the
nature of the gifts that the difference between them really
seems to have been taken into account in the sentence ; nor
did the Israelites ever offer a sacrifice of grain or anything
of that kind, except when they had not an animal to give. 1
But, however this may be, we see that his conception of his
a;od was not very exalted, from Yahweh's giving immediate
expression to his approval or disapproval of the sacrifices
offered him, and holding a conversation with Cain, and still
more from the fact that he lives in Eden only, so that an
exile from that land can no longer share his protection.
Equally childlike is the writer's idea of nature. She feels
for man, and is angry with his sin. No doubt, as we read
in the story that the voice of the blood spilt by a brother's
hand cries out for vengeance, and that the ground which
has drunk it up refuses to bear fruit for the murderer, we
are inclined to consider these expressions as metaphorical,
and to regard them as poetical forms of speech. So, in
exalted style, we too speak of a sin " which cries to heaven,"
and say that things are " enough to make the angels weep."
Such expressions are figurative ; but, when they were first
used, they were figurative only in a very different sense from
that in which they are so now. To us they are metaphorical,
but to the men of primeval times they were a full expression
of the truth. In those days full grown people thought, as
children do still, that everything was alive. Their idea was
that blood literally cried out for vengeance, and that the earth
itself punished the murderer. How could Yahweh have
known that Cain had slain his brother, if his blood had not
revealed it? Hence the popular belief, not uncommon among
the Israelites and others, that when innocent blood was spilt,
it cried for vengeance louder if it remained uncovered, than
if it had sunk into the ground and was hidden by earth. 2
But, however childlike we may consider the writer's ideas
of nature and of Yahweh's character, they did not prevent
his feeling the deepest reverence for his god, and ascribing
great power to him. Why was such a barbarous law of
vengeance observed, among the Cainites? Why must a
murder be avenged amongst them sevenfold? The answer
he gives to this question is very clear. In the land of the
Cainites, the land of Wandering, Yahweh did not dwell.
Cain was withdrawn from his eye. In consequence, there
wa6 less security there, and human life was in greater danger
1 Leviticus v. 11. 2 j b xv i. 18. Ezekiel xxiv. 7, 8.
CAIN AND HIS POSTERITY. 59
than in the place where Yahweh dwelt, and could protect his
favorites. It is true that although Yahweh did not follow
Cain into the land of exile, yet he exercised some power
even there. For there, too, he appointed signs; there, too,
the leaves rustled ominously, or the light of the sun was
reddened, or a night-bird gave a threatening screech, when
any one would raise his hand against the life of a fellow man.
But, as Yahweh could not prevent the murder there, the law
of vengeance must be made all the fiercer.
A lively gratitude for his privileges as an Israelite evi-
dently filled the soul of this writer. For in mentioning the
cruel customs of those outside Eden, within which land alone
were prayers to Yahweh offered, he was doubtless quite aware
that this bloody law of vengeance did actually exist among
the peoples who lived outside Canaan. In his estimation,
Canaan was an Eden ; it is true that Paradise was lost, and
even there the earth bore thorns and thistles, but yet it was
well with those in the holy land. There the just and gentle
law of compensation was acknowledged. There the rule,
" Eye for eye, stripe for stripe," was observed, and no further
punishment was inflicted on the evil doer. Outside Canaan,
on the other hand, among hordes of barbarians, this limita-
tion of vengeance did not exist ; there, if the injured one
were strong enough, a sevenfold payment of the debt was
sometimes exacted. For this milder law of punishment,
Israel was indebted to his god, who was honored in Canaan
alone. Where Yahweh did not rule, a savage code of laws
was necessary for the protection of human life,
In his views of social life, our writer cannot be acquitted
of one-sidedness. We may, perhaps, consider him a man of
old-fashioned views, looking with suspicion on all progress in
arts and sciences, and turning with a kind of home-sickness
towards a simpler mode of life. He seems to have thought
that this style of life existed chiefly among the inhabitants of
villages, as he finds a place both for the wandering life of the
shepherd tribes and the building of cities among the practices
introduced by the exiles from Eden, the descendants of the
murderer of his brother. He was certainly a townsman
therefore, for any one who is acquainted with the country
knows very well that there is just as much immorality there
as there is in the towns. Moreover, our writer believed that
a greater purity and simplicity than characterized life in hia
days had been the portion of the earliest generations of man-
60 CAIN AND HIS POSTEEITT.
kind, but had been lost by the development of arts and
sciences. Was he right in this opinion? Was tbe old state
of society really the best ? Surely not. It is not easy for
us, who have known from infancy so man} 7 means of sustain-
ing life and giving it a grace, altogether to transport ourselves
to the position of men of the earliest ages, when it was con-
sidered a new idea, quite a valuable discover}-, to throw a
wall round a few houses that stood near together ; •when the
use of copper and iron was as yet unknown, and there were
no musical instruments, not even a shepherd's pipe or an ox-
horn. But ancient and modern travellers have certainly told
us enough of the life of the races who are still at this low
stage of development, and the diligence of antiquaries has
certainly made out enough from the remains of the dwellings,
weapons, food, furniture and tombs of the men of prehistoric
tunes, to prevent our wishing their da} _ s to come back again
to us.
The earliest period from which sufficient remains have as
yet been discovered to enable us to form airy idea of human
life at the time, is called the Age of Stone, because wood and
stone were the only substances then known, out of which
implements could be made. Next came the Age of Bronze,
in which this mixture of tin and copper was used to make
implements, weapons, musical instruments and ornaments.
Finally, the Age of Iron succeeded. It is easy to imagine
how much toil it must have cost the men of this Age of Stone,
or even of Bronze, to make their houses and boats. Even in
the Age of Stone, it is true, many arts were practised, both
in our quarter of the globe and elsewhere. Enough was
known to enable people to construct regular villages upon
stakes in the middle of lakes ; they cultivated the soil, and
kept great flocks and herds ; nay, even at that early age, the
art of weaving and plaiting was understood, and a bartering
trade was carried on with distant tribes. But, for all that,
the}' must often have felt a pinching want of the necessaries of
daily life. No doubt the population of the different countries
was thin, the mortality very high, and life utterly comfortless.
With the discovery of the art of forging iron, a new path
of progress was opened up. As man's resources increased,
he was better and better able to work out his destiny, and
become the lord of nature. Life grew richer and fuller, less
monotonous and more interesting. As better means were
discovered for forcing nature to yield her treasures, people
were enabled to live together in ever greater numbers. It is
CAIN AND HIS POSTERITY. Gl
true that the instruments of destruction, so often turned by
men against each other, became more terrible, and theit
mutual conflicts therefore bloodier ; but, on the other hand,
this very fact drove them to come to some mutual under-
standing, to found states and to make laws.
It cannot be denied that music, for instance, often causes
mischief, that it is often used to rouse impure ideas, that the
multiplication of the means of enjoyment, of which this is
but one, has often been a snare to mankind. But are we,
therefore, to wish that time back again when men were so
incapable and uncultivated as still to be unable to practise
any of the arts ? Just as if these arts could not raise holy
as well as evil thoughts !
Everything can be abused ; nay, everything is abused. But
the fact that God's gifts are often applied to a bad purpose
must not tempt us to declare that they are the fruits of sin.
So the writer of the story of the Cainites is altogether wrong,
when he brands social progress as the source of moral degra-
dation. Those who ranked the first discoverers among the
gods were nearer the mark than he ; for it is in truth God's
will that mankind should raise themselves out of the state of
ignorance, that is of barbarism. Progress in science and art
is not indeed the highest of which man is capable, and it may
be coupled with growing immorality ; but, for all that, it is a
good gift, and lie that works earnestly for its sake does some-
thing towards increasing human happiness, and, in so far, is
doing the will of God. Culture, indeed, is not devoutness,
but still less is the absence of culture. Science and art alone
do not make a man all that he ought to be, but ignorance and
insensibility to what is beautiful are surely no quickeners of
piety, but are great blemishes on the character of any man,
and are often ruinous in their effects.
But, however one-sided may be the view of life which our
writer takes, there is something in his one-sidedness which
makes us respect him. For his reason for looking so unfa-
vorably upon social progress is, that he sees a danger to
morality in it. He objects both to life in cities and to life in
tents ; to the first, no doubt, because of the greater luxury'
which generally accompanies it ; to the last, because of the
rudeness and fierceness of the wandering tribes. He curses
the invention of iron-founding, for the warrior, emboldened
by the possession of a sword, has small respect for human
life. Music is an unholy thing to him, for are not drinking
touts graced by it ? Although these views are mistaken, yet
62 THE PATRIARCHS BEFORE THE FLOOD.
they show that a deep moral feeling filled the writer. Horn
of sin, of luxury, and of cruelty dictate his words, and he
drawn towards simplicity and purity of life.
He has a quick eye, too, in tracing the first movements c
sin in the heart of man. His Cain is drawn by the hand of
master. Jealousy makes him cast down his sullen counti
nance ; for the man whose heart is not right cannot look tl
world in the face. This evil disposition is not checked. Si
leaps upon him. He becomes a murderer. He gives a surl
answer when he is questioned by God about what he had done
just as we always notice, both with children and grown-up pe(
pie, that when they have anything on their conscience whic
disturbs their peace of mind, but for which they are not pen
tent, they try to carry it off with a bullying air, as if the
intended to shout down God and man, just as they try t
silence their own conscience. " I don't know where m
brother is. Am I my brother's keeper?" So speaks th
murderer, but as soon as he hears his sentence, his audacit
breaks down and is succeeded by the utmost terror. No woi
der ! His sin cries to heaven. The earth accuses him. Abel
blood still speaks, even after he has been murdered, an
cries out, " Vengeance P Vengeance on the murderer of hi
brother ! " And he goes forth upon his wanderings, bereft o
God's guidance, and becomes the father of a godless offspring
whose posterity is ever more and more godless 3 r et. So miser
treads upon the heel of sin. In Eden, meanwhile, the place
of the murderer and his victim are filled again, and befoi
long Yahweh is worshipped there, though the murderer's rac
has forfeited his blessings.
Chapter V.
THE PATRIARCHS BEFORE THE FLOOD.
Gen. V.
THE story of the Cainites is followed in the book of Ger
esis by a family tree, drawn up by the same writer wh
gave us the first account of the creation, a reference to whic
occurs at its commencement. It runs as follows : These ai
1 Hebrews xi. 4, xii. 24.
THE PATRIARCHS BEFORE THE FLOOD. 63
the family archives of Adam. When God made men, he
made them after his own image. Male and female created'
he them, and he blessed them, and gave them the name of
' ' man " (Adam) . Now, when Adam had lived a hundred
and thirty years he begat a son after his likeness, as it were
a copy of himself, and called him Seth. After his birth lie
lived eight hundred years, and had sons and daughters. So
altogether Adam was nine hundred and thirty years old.
Then he died.
In this style the narrative goes on. The same particulars
are given us concerning Adam's eldest son; viz., his age
when his first son was born, how long he lived after that event,
and how old he was when he died. The same information is
given us of his descendants, one after another, of Enos, Cainan,
Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah ;
but the death of Noah is not mentioned here. The monoto-
nous series is only broken by the story that Enoch walked with
God three hundred years after the birth of his son, and "was
not, for God took him," and the statement that Noah's father
gave him his name " because he must comfort us concerning
our work and the painful labor of our hands, because of the
ground which is cursed by Yahweh." This addition, from
which we learn that the word Noah was understood by the
writer to mean " comforter," is not from the same hand as
the family register, and was inserted afterwards.
The men of the age before the flood are usually called fore-
fathers, or patriarchs (that is, chief fathers) , but this last word
is more specially used for the ancestors of the Israelites, Abram
and his sons. All these patriarchs before the flood are repre-
sented as reaching a great age ; for Enoch, who died youngest
of them all, was three hundred and sixty- five years old, and
Methuselah, who reached the greatest age, was nine hundred
and sixty-nine.
The last-mentioned patriarch is usually called Methusalem,
but the cause of this has never been explained. It is easy to
understand why we always speak of Eve and Abel, instead of
Chawah and Habel, as the names stand in the Hebrew, for in
these cases and many others we follow the usage of our own
translation of the Bible, which, in its turn, often follows the
Greek and Latin versions ; but in this case the old translations
write Mathusala clearly enough, and the same spelling is
adopted in our Bibles in the only place where the name occurs
in the New Testament, 1 while in the Old Testament it is always
i Luke iii. 37.
64 THE PATRIARCHS BEFORE THE FLOOD.
spelt as above, — Methuselah. The spelling Methusalem is
very old, and is found as early as the beginning of the Chris-
tian era, but it is curious that it should have had so much
influence over the language of the people as to supersede
the pronunciation supported by the written tradition. This,
however, in passing.
These names suggest more interesting subjects for our con-
sideration. No one who has read them carefully and remembers
the particulars of the preceding story can fail to notice that
almost the same names occur in both narratives. Not only do
both writers mention Adam, Seth, and Enos, but Enoch and
Lamech too appear both among the Cainites and among the
descendants of Seth, while Cain and Cainan, Irad and Jared,
Mehujael and Mahalaleel, Methusael and Methuselah, bear so
close a resemblance to each other (still closer in the original
than in our Authorized Version) , that it is as good as certain
that they are the same names grouped together somewhat
differently, and in some cases more or less corrupted in the
process of handing down. This idea is very much strength-
ened by the fact that the compiler of this family tree knows
nothing of Adam's sons Cain and Abel, and speaks of Seth as
of Adam's eldest son. Here, then, we have an example of
two Israelites treating the same material in different ways.
Both of them had got hold of certain names, either from tra-
ditions which may have been extremely old, or from foreign
legends ; but their original meaning seems to have been entirely
forgotten, and accordingly one of the writers worked them into
a story about the murder of a brother, and the ever-growing
corruption of the murderer's race, while the other set them in
the list of Noah's ancestors.
As we read the statements made with such an appearance
of accuracy about the age of each of the forefathers, when his
son was born, and when he died himself, we cannot help feeling
as if the story were a very faithful historical record. However
unwilling we may be to allow the possibility of a man's living
to nearly a thousand years of age, this accuracy of statement
makes us ask, " May it not be true after all? If not, how did
the writer get hold of all these numbers ? " For a long time
no answer could be given to this question ; nor is it fully an-
swered even now ; but so much is certain, that many of these
numbers were not taken from any old tradition at all, but were
invented by the writer himself, and are parts of a chronological
system. This fact becomes clear when we compare the family
tree we have just been considering with the other sections of
the book of which it is a part.
THE PATRIARCHS BEFORE THE FLOOD. 65
For this story is only a piece of a larger work, generally
called " The Book of Origins," which was written soon after
the end of the Babylonian captivity, by a priest. Both the
names and the events which he brings into his narrative are
taken from several different sources, but the grouping and the
coloring are his own. It is clear from every part of his work
that he thought the course of history could be mapped out
according to a regular system of chronology, such as is often
found among the Egyptians and Babylonians. He believed
that the world would last four thousand years, and that the
Israelites came out of Egypt when exactly two-thirds of this
period had elapsed ; that is to saj-, two thousand six hundred
and sixty-six j-ears after the creation. He makes the Israelites
dwell in Egypt just twice as long as their fathers wandered
about in Canaan, that is, four hundred and thirty years.
More calculations of this kind are to be found in the work ;
and when once we have discovered the writer's passion for
reducing everything to a calculation, and bringing it under
a system of numbers, of course we can no longer accept his
statements as true.
But though most of the figures which occur in this family
tree are parts of the writer's chronological system, there is
one which is probably taken from ancient tradition, and that
is the age of Enoch. "We shall return to this presently.
Now, from this Est of the forefathers and their ages it has
been calculated how many years after the creation Noah was
born ; and, as his family tree is afterwards continued 1 in the
same style, it has been thought possible to calculate the age
of the world, or at least of the human race. In certain old
books the dates of events from the creation of the world are
given, and we can see in our almanacs that according to the
Jewish reckoning this year, 1873, 'is the year 5633 from the
creation. In the margin of many large Bibles, however, as
well as in many books of dates, we find it stated that the crea-
tion was four thousand j r ears before the birth of Christ (four
thousand and four years from the commencement of our era) ,
which would make the year 1873 of our era the year 5877
after the creation. This difference is caused bj" the obscurity
of the data and the contradictions between the various ac-
counts to be found in the Bible. But the difference between
these two calculations sinks into insignificance when we con-
sider how far they are both wide of the truth. The Bible
cannot really teach us the age of the world or of mankind ;
1 Genesis xi. 10-26.
66 THE PATRIARCHS BEFORE THE FLOOD.
and people who are determined to make it do so only get laughed
at by those who understand the subject, for being so prejudiced
as to rely upon such erroneous statements. For geology and
astronomy teach us that the universe must at any rate be
hundreds of millions of years old, and that even our earth
counts its centuries by the thousand already ; and though the
historical researches which have brought to light the remains
of the lake dwellings, the tombs of the age of stone, and the
inscriptions of the Egyptian monuments, give us no certain
information as to the antiquity of the human race, yet they
make us smile at the figure 6000 ; for before this date a
flourishing kingdom certainly existed in Egypt. Even the
statue of the Egyptian king Chephren, that was to be seen at
the last international exhibition at Paris, was hewn about forty
centuries before the beginning of our era.
While leaving it to the students of geology and history to
fix the antiquity of the human race to the best of their power,
we must answer another question before we leave this story
from " the book of religion," — the question, namely, why the
author ascribed such long lives to the forefathers, and what he
intended to show by it.
But first one word about Enoch. The account of him is
perplexingly short: "He walked with God, and he was not
[that is, he suddenly disappeared] ; for God took him away."
Nothing has ever been made of this except that he did not
die, but was removed to heaven as a reward for his piety. 1
Perhaps this is really what the writer meant, but the curious
brevity of his account, and the strange expression, " God
took him away," which we should certainly have expected to
find explained or worked out to some extent, make it probable
that he look his story from some old tradition. Indeed, we
can still make out with great likelihood what this traditioii
meant ; for Enoch, whose age is lower than that of any of the
other forefathers, is just as many years old as there are days
in a solar year, that is, three hundred and sixty-five ; and the
name Enoch may be translated " Renewal." We can ha/dly
help thinking, therefore, that the story is a short version of
some ancient myth, and that Enoch is a personification of
" the year, that after three hundred and sixty-five days, is
not."
The shortness of the account of Enoch gave the imagina-
tion abundant occasion to work out the storj T in the Bible
1 Hebrews xi. 5.
THE PATRIARCHS BEFORE THE FL( OD. 67
more fully ; and the Jews of the last centuries before Jesus
certainly did not let the opportunity slip. They represented
Enoch as a preacher of righteousness and a proGlaimer of
God's judgments ; and this gave one of them occasion to
write a book in the name of Enoch that became very famous,
and is even quoted in the New Testament ' as sacred (ca-
nonical) scripture. It has lately been rediscovered in an
Ethiopic translation.
We will now return to the statements made as to the
great age reached by the forefathers. Properly to under-
stand what the compiler of the family tree meant by them,
we must compare this story with others bythe same writer.
When we do so, we see that he believed the life of man to
have grown shorter step by step. For after Noah such high
numbers as appear in the time before him are no longer
mentioned, although in another family tree, similar to the one
we are now speaking of, ages between two and six hundred
years still occur ; 2 whereas, in the time after Abraham,
usually called the patriarchal age, no one lives to two hun-
dred, though many still live to more than a hundred ; but
after Moses such high ages are no longer met with. Man-
kind — such is the lesson this Israelite wishes to teach us —
have been growing gradually shorter lived. The idea that
this was the consequence of sin is, indeed, supported by
another writer, who makes Yahweh decide even before the
flood that his life-giving spirit shall not exercise its power in
man for ever, and that his life shall not exceed one hundred
and twenty years ; 8 but the writer of the " Book of Origins "
does not teach this doctrine. To have a long life, to drop
into the grave " full of daj's,'' as they called it, was one of
the most glorious gifts of God which an Israelite could
imagine. When he painted a joyous future for his people,
one of the features of the picture was that no sucking child
should die nor any one who had not reached the full measure
of his j-ears ; that if an} 7 one died at a hundred he would be
said to have perished in his youth ; nay, that even a sinner,
who was snatched away for his wickedness, would not die
before his hundredth year. 4 So thought the writer of this
family register. Like the poet of the story of paradise, hf.
imagined that there had been a happier time in the past ;
and the principal feature of these golden days, he thought, was
a long life. The same idea is found among many ancient
i Jude w. 14, 15. 2 Genesis xi. 10-32.
8 Genesis vi. 3, after an amended version. * Isaiah lxv. 20.
68 THE PATKIAKCHS BEFORE THE FLOOD.
peoples. Indeed, nothing is more natural, for it is a mel-
ancholy thought to all of us that we must die. In general
we trouble ourselves very little about it, but from time to
time we are reminded of the fact that we must die, in such a
way that we cannot help thinking about it, and then the
thought invariably gives rise to the most painful feelings.
Though careless flippancy may tiy to put it off, and set
aside all thoughts of the future with a laugh, j'et whenever
the certaintj- that we must sometime die does come before
our eyes, it moves us deeply, and every one who feels and
thinks requires some comfort against the mournful thought
that he is mortal.
We are made to live. But it does not follow that the wish
to spend hundreds of years upon the earth would be a wise
one. Such a lengthened life would be full of sadness even
if it were not impossible. We must acquiesce in our lot,
therefore, and the more quietly and contentedly we do so,
the better it will be for us. But, after all, we are created to
live, and we may make our life long, even upon this earth, if
we will.
It is true that we sometimes saj-, with a sigh, that life
passes by like a dream ; but it is a bad sign to make such
complaints as this, for if a man sleeps away through* a do-
nothing life, it seems short when he looks back upon it ; but
if we work hard and think hard, then our life becomes full
and rich, nay it even seems long as we look back upon it,
because so much has happened in it. Whole years of a
dawdling or selfish or licentious life are worth less than a
single day lived by an earnest, thoughtful, God-fearing man.
So thought and felt a poet of Israel when he sang : 1
A day in thy courts is better than a thousand.
I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than dwell
in the tents of wickedness ;
For a sun and shield is God ;
Grace and glory are given by Yahweh;
No good will he withhold from them that walk uprightlv.
Yahweh of hosts ! blessed is the man who trusteth in i.Miee !
What this psalmist said of abiding in the temple we repeat
after him of walking with God. Blessed is the man who
looks up to God, and abides with him. Let us not wish for
a long life so much as for a holy and an active one ; for this
alone is truly life, and thus alone does the hope of life eternal
spring up within our hearts.
1 Psalm lxxxiv. 10-12.
THE FLOOD. 69
Chapter VI.
THE FLOOD.
Gen. VI.-VHI.
AMONGST almost all ancient peoples we i.nd a tradition
that, when the world was buried in sins, a great flood
destroyed it, with the exception of some few persons who
escaped. The Chaldees, for example, told of a certain
Xisuthros, the tenth and last ruler before the flood, to whom
the highest god foretold that the beginning of the judgment
would fall upon the fifteenth day of the month Daesius. On
this he buried the written archives of ancient times in Seph-
arvaim, 1 the city of the sun, embarked with his relations and
friends in a great ship, into which he took every kind of
quadruped and of flying and creeping thing, together with
the necessary food, and then sailed to Armenia. By letting
birds fly out of the vessel he frequently tested the state of
the earth. When these birds came back the second time
they had mud on their feet, and when they flew out the third
time they did not come back at all. Upon this Xisuthros,
with his wife and the steersman, left the ship ; but, in reward
for their piety, they were suddenly carried up to the dwelling
of the gods, and Xisuthros was only able to cry out from the
air, to those who were left behind, that they must go back to
Babylon and restore the books, which he had buried, to man-
kind ; which accordingly they did.
A similar story is found among the Phrygians, who even
mention Enoch's preaching and ascension in connection with
it. The Syrians, Phoenicians, Persians, and Hindoos, all
had stories of a flood, which agreed in some points with those
of the Israelites, and differed from them in others. In the
same way we find them among the European nations, too.
In the Greek story it is Deucalion and Pyrrha who are
spared on account of their piety ; with the Celts and Germans
the persons saved have other names ; but everywhere we find
some story of the sort. This fact, with others like it, points
with the greatest likelihood, to a common fatherland, the
cradle of these nations, from which they all came, taking
these traditions with them. Perhaps this country wa»
1 See map 1.
70 THE FLOOD.
Armenia, in which the Israelite stories, as well as others,
place us.
In the legends of which we have so far spoken, we have
discovered the work of two writers, the first of whom speaks
of the Supreme Being under the name of '• God," and gave
us the first account of the creation, and the family register of
Adam down to Noah, while the second uses the name Yah-
weh, and gave us the storj* of paradise and the account of
the Cainites. It is natural to ask, therefore, from which of
these writers the story of the flood is derived ; but it is not
easy to answer the question. In the three chapters which
contain this story there are two documents mixed up together,
and though we can sometimes distinguish the stj'le and the
peculiar ideas of the former writers, it is at other times very
hard to say whether we have either of the two before us,
rather than some third writer. For the most part they quite
agree with each other, and consequently the stoiy is not free
from repetitions, but here and there the accounts are unmis-
takably contradictory.
It is not necessary for our purpose to go into the question
of the composition of the story any further. As far as it
forms a single whole, I will retell it straight through, and
then point out a few contradictions.
Here, then, is the story of the deluge or flood : —
When men began to multiply upon the earth, their wicked-
ness grew greater and greater. Among the other inhabitants
of earth, there rose up giants, who had earthly mothers, but
whose fathers were divine beings called sons of God ; and
these giants in their turn became the fathers of others. These
were the heroes of the olden time. All the earth became god-
less. Violence was universal. All flesh — that is, man and
beast — grew more and more rude and wild.
Then Yahweh, seeing that there was nothing but evil in
mankind, repented that he had made them, and determined
to destroy them, and all the beasts as well. Noah alone
found favor with him, and he therefore commanded him to
make an ark or chest. This vessel, built of resinous timber,
and covered outside and in with pitch, was to be three hun-
dred cubits long, fifty broad, and thirty high. It was to be
divided into three, stories, and subdivided into chambers,
with an opening to let in light and air, and a door. God
told him that he must prepare this vessel, because all living
things upon the earth were to be destroyed ; while he himself,
bis wife, his three sons — Shem, Ham, and Japhet — and theii
THE FLOOD. 71
wives, were to seek refuge in this ark. Moreover, he was to
take with him a pair of eveiy kind of animal, a male and a
female, besides the necessary food for man and beast.
This warning and the directions that accompanied it wer
given to Noah seven days before the flood began. He obeyed
and on the seventh daj- the flood of waters came. It was the
six hundredth year of Noah's life, the seventeenth day of the
second month. On this day all the flood-gates of the great
ocean burst open, and it poured its streams over the earth.
At the same time the windows of heaven were opened, and
the waters collected above the firmament fell clown upon the
earth in torrents. Forty days long this deluge of rain went
on. Everything that had life perished in the water. In vain
did man and beast flee to the mountains. The water rose
fifteen cubits above the topmost peak. But Noah and his
family were safe in the ark, and with them all the creatures,
quadrupeds, reptiles, and birds, which had come in to them.
A hundred and fifty days had the water covered every-
thing, when God bethought himself once more of Noah and
his famiry. So he caused a strong wind to rise, and the waters
began to abate. The fountains of the ocean and the windows
of heaven were already closed. Little by little the water
flowed away again, and upon the seventeenth day of the
seventh month the ark settled upon one of the mountain
peaks in the land of Ararat, and the peaks themselves be-
came visible once more upon the eleventh day of the tenth
month. Forty days later Noah opened the window and let
out a raven, that went on flying backwards and forwards until
the earth became dry again. After the raven he sent out a
dove, to see whether the water had gone awaj' jet ; but she
could not find a resting place aivywhere, for everything was
covered with water still, so she came back to the ark and was
taken in again. After waiting seven days, Noah let out a
dove the second time, and towards evening she came back
again with a leaf fresh broken from an olive-tree in her beak.
So Noah knew that the earth was delivered from the excess
of water. After waiting another seven days, he once more
let out a dove, but she did not return.
So in the six hundred and first year of his life, on the first
day of the first month, when the earth was delivered from the
water, Noah took off the covering that was over the ark. On
the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was
quite dry. Then God said to Noah, " Come out of the ark,
with your wife and children and all the animals. Let them
72 THE FLOOD.
spread themselves over the earth and people it once more."
Noah obeyed, and when he had come out of the ark, he made
a thank-offering to Yahweh.
Now when Yahweh smelt the odor of the sacrifice, he
thought : "I will never curse the earth again for the sake of
men ; for they are evil from their j T outh up. So, why should
I ever destroy all living things again ? No. Henceforth shall
seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter,
day and night, follow each other undisturbed."
Many a brow has been bent over this story before now !
Indeed, if we are to suppose that all the stories in the Bible
are historically true, we shall find difficulties enough in the
representation of this ark, in which all the animals — quad-
rupeds, reptiles, and birds, — were kept alive for about a j-ear ;
and it is not easy even to imagine a flood rising to fifteen
cubits above the highest mountain-tops, even if we suppose
(what the writer certainly did not intend) that it only covered
that part of the earth which was inhabited at the time. Some
people have given themselves an incredible amount of trouble
about this story. One scholar has calculated how much space
there was in the ark, and how many kinds of animals could
be accommodated in it, allowing for a pair of each and the
necessary food. An inhabitant of Hoorn, in Holland, act-
ually built a ship in the year 1609, on the model of the ark,
and found that a vessel so constructed was capable of bearing
a specially heavy freight ! No doubt it is a very creditable
thing to spend labor and money in convincing ourselves of
the truth of our opinions ; but those who liave tried to sup-
port the historical reliability of the story of the flood by
these means have lost their labor ; for they leave the princi-
pal difficulties where they were. How can we believe that
Noah collected all these animals and the food they would
require, in seven days? We must suppose that he did so,
however, if we follow the account given us, for he was only
warned one week beforehand. 1 Besides this, there is at least
one contradiction to explain between the two accounts that
are worked together. For one writer says that Noah was to
take one pair of every kind of animal into the ark ; " while the
other writer makes a distinction between the clean and unclean
animals, and makes Yahweh tell Noah to take one pair only
of the unclean animals, but seven pair of the clean ones with
him. 3 And so it is only this writer who can say that, aftei
1 Gen. vii. 4, 10. * Gen. vi. 20. a Gen. vii. 2, 3, 8, 9.
THE FLOOD,. 73
his deliverance, Noah made a sacrifice of all kinds of clean
animals to Yahweh ; * if the other writer had done so he
would have made him destroy his whole stock of cattle and
all the edible birds. ,
We will not trouble ourselves to speak of all the difficulties
of the story, taken as a true account of a fact. We will not
even answer the question, what historical foundation there is
for the story. There may have been many great floods, the
memory of which was preserved, though we can hardly believe
any of them ever rose above the peaks of Ararat. It is not
unlikely that the foundation of all these legends of the flood is
to be found in some myth, in which nature has become degen-
erate, as it were, in the winter, and is buried and for a time
destroyed by the overflowing of a river in the spring, but wakes
up afterwards to fresh life. At least it is remarkable that from
the beginning of the flood to the day on which Noah leaves the
ark, just about a year passes by ; and also that most of the
legends of the flood, amongst others that of the Israelites,
take us to countries in which the rivers rise above their banks
every year.
But whatever the source may have been from which our
writers drew the old story, they clothed it according to their
own ideas, and we can therefore learn from it what thej- thought
of God and of his relation to mankind. From this point of
view the story inspires us with no great respect. On the con-
trary, its leading ideas are perverted and superstitious. Nay,
the writer who uses the name Tahweh, to whom we owe the
stories about paradise and the Cainites, actually repels us.
For how does he make his god think and act with regard to
man? Yahweh repents that he has made mankind. He is
deeply grieved because there is nothing but evil in man . 2 Noah
alone is an exception to the rule. So all created things, to
which life has been given, are destroyed, except the men and
beasts secured within the ark. But after the flood, when
Yahweh smelt Noah's sacrifice, half pleased by the offering,
half vexed to think of the futility of what he had just done,
he said : " I will never destroy the earth again for the guilt of
men, for they are bad from their very birth ; so what is the
use of my destroying them ? " 8 Of whom is this Israelite
writer speaking ? As for . his representing his Yahweh in the
form of a man, we knew that he did that before, and all through
the writings of the. Israelites we come upon this anthropomor
pliism (representations of the Supreme Being under human
l Gen. viii. 20. 2 Gen. vi. 1-8. 8 Gen. viii. 21, 22.
VOL. i. 4
74 THE FLOOD.
forms) again and again. Even this we do not always) find
edifying ; but, mindful of the fact that man can never form a
true conception of deity or find adequate expressions in which
to speak of it, we need not be distressed when any one speaks
of God's hand or foot, God's heart or eye, God's anger or love.
We ourselves sometimes use expressions of this kind without
the smallest hesitation ; and therefore, even when we read
that God smelt a sacrifice or that he repented of having made
mankind, the necessity of using forms of speech concerning
God, which are borrowed from the life of man, may be admit-
ted as an excuse ; although we know that "God is not a man,
that he should repent." 1 But in this story the whole conduct
of Yahweh is unworthy. "We should be offended by such be-
havior in a man. To destroy his work because it had not
turned out particularly well, and then to say dryly that he
really need not have done so, for after all the result will never
be any better, — such conduct would not speak very well for
the character of a man, and' yet it is ascribed by this writer to
his god ! Surely, a writer who can make such representations
can have no very exalted conception of his god.
The other narrator, the writer of the ' ' Book of Origins," gives
us no such unworthy representations of God's work either in
this story or in the first account of the creation, or in Adam's
family register. In those parts of the story which come from
his hand, however, we find what appears to us a very extraor-
dinary idea, though there was nothing strange about it to the
Israelites. The readers of the story, as given above, will
probably have noticed with surprise that the moral corruption
spoken of was not confined to mankind, but was to be seen
in the animal world as well. This is the real meaning of the
expression that " all flesh," that is man and beast, shall be
destroyed, " because they have filled the earth with violence,
and have corrupted their way's before God." - What, then!
Does our writer believe that the animals too have a share in
the knowledge of good and evil ? Can they be spoken of as
guilty? We shall see by a subsequent story that this idea was
not altogether foreign to the Israelites, and we need not say
any more about it at present, therefore ; but it is pretty clear
what the writer meant by the change which had come over the
animal world, calling for punishment, together with the sins of
man, by the great deluge. In his accountof the creation, he told
us that God had given all the beasts of the field, all the birds,
1 Num. xxiii. 19. a G en . v ;, n_i3.
THE FLOOD. 70
all the creeping things, everything in fact that has life, the
grass for food. 1 When he complains, therefore, of the violence
of which all flesh had become guilty, what else can he mean but
that some animals had become carnivorous (flesh-eating) ?
This lamentation agrees most remarkably with the expectation
of the prophet Isaiah, that, when the golden age of the future
dawned, the beasts of prey would forget their savage nature,
the wolf would dwell with the lamb, and the lion would eat hay
like the ox. 2
But, however great the difference may be in the special
views of the two authors, whose work is combined in the story
of the flood, the leading thought of both is the same ; namely,
that God punished the sins of the world by a flood. "We must
dwell upon this matter at some length, for in every part of the
Old Testament we shall find the idea that God punishes men
for their unrighteousness by disasters which are not the natural
consequences of their sins, but are only attached to them as
penalties by God's good pleasure. Once for all, we must
stamp this idea as superstitious ; and how injurious to true
piety and pure morality this superstition is, we shall have many
opportunities of remarking in the course of our work.
The belief that every disaster was a declaration of God's
displeasure might very easily arise in ancient times, when the
mutual connection and the causes of the phenomena of nature
were unknown, and the immediate activity of some deity and
the revelation of his will was seen in everj-thiog. Then, as
we saw in the story of Cain, it might be imagined that the
earth refused to j r ield her fruit to one who had murdered his
brother, so that he would plough and sow in vain. Then, as
the same story teaches us, the phenomena of nature might be
regarded as warnings and as omens. Then, a revelation of
the wrath of the deity might be found in every failure of the
crops through drought or any other misfortune, in every storm
that stranded vessels and overturned dwellings, in every fever,
in every disaster, and in everything which was not understood
but had a threatening aspect, such as an eclipse of the sun or
the appearance of a comet ; while pleasant sunshine, balmy
showers, recovery fron sickness, in a word all that was
favorable and pleasant to man, was taken as a proof that the
Supreme Being was well disposed towards him. No one can
seriously hold this opinion now. We have learned the causes
of many of the phenomena of nature, and therefore see no
signs of God's pleasure or displeasure in them ; for now that
i Gen i. 29. 2 Isaiah xi. 6-9.
76 THE FLOOD.
we can imitate the lightning on a small scale by the electrical
machine, and can guide it by conductors where we will ; now
that we can draw up storm-charts and can predict successfully
the direction and the strength of the wind a day beforehand,
by the aeroclinoscope ; now that we have discovered means of
preventing or curing so many diseases, and arm ourselves
against small-pox by vaccination, or extinguish pain by chlo-
roform ; now that the science of agriculture has placed so many
means in our hands of making the earth more fruitful ; now
that the invention of the locomotive and the steamboat is
making famine ever more rare, by making it easier to bring
the necessaries of life from one place to another ; in such
times as these, it will not do to look for a sign of God's dis-
pleasure in the misfortunes of which we know the causes, and
which we have therefore found the means of resisting ; and it
is mere folly for a man to consider himself particularly virtuous
and a darling child of providence, because he enjoys excep-
tional prosperity.
The belief that God's anger and his pleasure are revealed
;'n events which are propitious or the reverse to us, was the
result of the primitive nature- worship, in which the deity was
identified with visible objects or with powers of nature, a form
of worsliip from which the Israelite began to shake him-
self free when he uttered his belief that God made heaven
and earth, but from the influence of which he was never able
altogether to withdraw himself, any more than many of those
who live in our own times can do so now.
The leading idea of the story of the flood is therefore wrong,
and so we cannot give any high position to the legend itself.
And yet the story is a very striking picture of what God,
the almighty ruler, is ever doing. Whole worlds are brought
to destruction by him. Egypt was once the seat of a mighty
kingdom, in which art and science flourished. What is there
left of it? Pyramids and obelisks, sphinxes and ruins, call
xp the past before the mind of the inquirer; but where is
Egyptian society? Gone ! Babylon and Nineveh were once
the centres of the whole world, where men thought and worked
and strove. And now their remains, which the sands of the
desert have kept buried ages long, are being laboriously dug
out, and are telling us of a past that has gone by so utterly,
that it was long supposed to have vanished and left no trace
behind. Where is the ancient world of Eome and Greece?
The relics it has left behind are many, but it has passed awaj
THE FLOOD. 77
itself. And so we may see even now that the very centres of
human life are sometimes swept away as by a flood.
Why is this? Why have the ancient worlds, with all their
culture and development, passed away? Is it because they
had fallen out of the march of progress and had sunk into
corruption? Is it because they had forgotten God? We
cannot boldly answer these questions in the affirmative, or
ascribe the destruction of these worlds to their sins alone ; for
so many things work together to bring about the fall of a
nation, and among these causes there are many which have
no connection with its moral condition. But, whatever it may
be to which we ascribe these great events, it seems as if God
were always doing his work over again. He builds up and
then casts down again, to raise a new world upon the ruins of
the old.
And this is certain, that where men have forgotten God ;
where culture and the sense of artistic beauty are not accom-
panied by moral elevation, but only serve to give empire to
refined forms of sin ; there sooner or later the varnish is
rubbed off, and the mouldering structure is revealed ; there
thrones are overturned and peoples humbled ; there the old
order of things is swept awaj r to make room for something
better ; and so a stern sentence, a judgment of God, goes out
orer the world.
Most men think but little of all this. They trifle away the
hours, " eating and drinking, marrying and giving in mar-
riage," 1 till the day of reckoning comes. They say, in deeds
if not in words, "It will last our time! We shall be gone
when the deluge comes ! " Until the deluge really comes.
There are but few who believe in the judgment of God, and
while the world around them takes no notice of it and disguises
every danger, they see it drawing nigh. They are, like Enoch
and Noah, the preachers of righteousness, 2 and when they
are disbelieved, they build, for themselves and for those of
kindred spirit, the ark of the inner life with God, and there
they are lelivered from the judgment.
3 Luke xvii. 27. * 2 Peter ii. 5. Jude w. 14, 15.
78 god's covenant with noah.
Chapter VII.
GOD'S COVENANT WITH NOAH.
Gen. IX. 1-17.
THE subject of this chapter is connected immediately with
that of the last, for it is itself a part of the story of the
flood. We have seen how the writer who uses Yahweh as the
name of his god, and distinguishes between clean and unclean
animals, makes Noah offer a sacrifice to Yahweh as soon as
he has come out of the ark, upon which Yahweh determines
never again to destroy the world. Now the other narrator,
the author of the " Book of Origins," knows nothing of this
sacrifice, but makes God bless Noah and his family, as soon
as they have left the ark, on which occasion he gives them
certain commandments to observe, together with a promise of
his favor accompanied by a certain sign. Both the command-
ments and the sign are of sufficient importance to deserve
Bpecial attention.
When God blessed Noah and his sons, he said, as he had
done when first he created man, 1 "Be fruitful and multiply
and fill the earth. All beasts of the field and all birds shall
be in fear and dread of you, and all creeping things and all
fishes shall be in your power." All this had been so from the
beginning, for even then man had received dominion over the
animal world ; but violence having become so common both
amongst men and beasts, this lordship was no longer to be
peacefully acknowledged, but was to rest upon the fear of man
entertained by the animals ; and since some of them had
become carnivorous., they were henceforth to stand in a differ-
ent relation to man as well as to each other ; for whereas
grains and herbs merely had been given him as food at the
creation, he was henceforth to be allowed to eat flesh as well.
God gave him permission to do so in these words : " Every-
thing in which there is a living soul shall be food for you. I
have given it you as I have given you the grains." One
limitation only man must be content to accept. He must not
eat flesh in which there was still life, that is blood.
Two points in this story call for our attention. In the first
place the writer does not make the smallest distinction between
1 Genesis i. 28.
GOD S COVENANT WITH NOAH. 79
clean and unclean animals ; but we cannot be sure from this
that the distinction was not known to him. All we can say is
that he did not suppose the custom of abstaining from the flesh
of certain animals to be so ancient as the other writer thought
it, when he made Noah save seven pair of the clean animals,
and only one pair of the unclean.
The distinction between clean and unclean animals appears
to us a very curious one, in many respects. No doubt we too
are accustomed to avoid using the flesh of some animals for
food, though it is very suitable for the purpose — horse-flesh
for instance. But we should never think of making it a reli-
gious duty to refrain from it. To do so, however, was quite
in the spirit of antiquity, for then all kinds of things, that
seem to us to have no sort of connection with religion, were
commanded in God's name. The origin of the distinction be-
tween clean and unclean animals in Israel is not known with
certainty. The rule 1 given out by the priests was that no
quadrupeds might be eaten except those that had a properly
cloven hoof and chewed the cud ; and only those fishes that
had fins and scales, which would exclude the lamprey and the
eel, for example, as well as oysters and all shell-fish ; while
certain kinds of birds mentioned by name and all creeping
things (among which the- weasel, the mouse, the tortoise, the
hedgehog, the crocodile, the toad, and the mole, were reckoned)
were unclean. There are certain differences in the law in the
two versions in which it appears. For instance, the locust is
said in Leviticus to be clean, but in Deuteronomy unclean.
The law of Deuteronomy is the earliest, and dates, as has
been said, 2 from the last century before the captivity. All at-
tempts to find definite reasons for which the Israelites pro-
nounced some kinds of animals clean and others unclean, have
been unsuccessful. It seems that some of the unclean animals
inspired them with a feeling of disgust, that they considered
others, rightly or wrongly, to be unwholesome, and that others
again accidentally gave them the impression of being unclean.
Thus habit gradually established the distinction, until the
priests confirmed it by attaching a religious meaning to it, and
commanding its observance as a religious duty. Though some
of the Israelites believed this law to be as ancient as the human
race, our writer knew quite well that it was of comparatively
recent date, and so he made God give Noah all kinds of animals
n«ii. 10-14; xix. 26. 2 Leviticus vii. 26.
Acts xv. 20, 29. * 1 Samuel xiv. 32 ff. After an amended version.
GOD S COVENANT WITH NOAH. 81
" smiting the soul of an animal ; " 1 and since thej" believed that
every animal had a soul, thej' felt a kind of reverence towards
it. This belief explains many of the customs of uncivilized
peoples of ancient and modern times, for instance their dislike
of pronouncing the name of an}' beast of which they are afraid ;
the practice, when they have hunted and killed an animal, of
asking it to forgive them, and even pacifying it with sacrifices ;
and the worship addressed to all sorts of animals. It was
very natural for people to think that the soul was connected
with the blood ; for when the blood of man or beast was shed
the breathing ceased, and the life departed, and the obvious
inference was that the blood was the seat of the principle of
life, that is the soul. It was this idea, too, that led the Israel-
ites to refrain from using the blood of animals for food, until
at last the Law commanded this abstinence in the name of
God. After that it passed into a commandment that every
one observed mechanically, without troubling himself about
the grounds on which it rested.
These remarks have interrupted us in the middle of our
account of what God said to Noah and his family ; but that
which follows stands in close connection with the sub-
jects of which we have just spoken. As far as it concerns
the commandments, the whole speech runs as follows :
" Be fruitful and fill the earth. Fear of .you shall come upon
all the animals. You have power over them. You are even
free henceforth to eat the flesh of all that has life, as well as
grains and herbs, as long as jou do not eat the blood, for the
soul of the animal is in it. On the other hand, to protect
your soul (or your life) I shall demand your blood from any
one who sheds it. Whether it be a beast or one of your
fellow-men, he must pay back the soul of a man which he has
taken away. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shal!
his blood be shed, for God made man after his likeness. And
as for you, increase and fill the earth."
In opposition, then, to the blood of animals, which might
be shed without fear, the blood of man was holy and invio-
lable. Murder, therefore, was punished in the Israelite laws
by death, 2 not because of the extreme wickedness of the man
who robbed his neighbor of life, but simply because com-
pensation must be paid for the soul that had been destroyed.
And this is why it made no difference whether a man had
1 Leviticus xxiv. 18. After an amended version.
2 Exodus xxi. 12. Leviticus xxiv. 17, 21, 22.
i*
82 god's covenant with noah.
killed another on purpose or by accident. In either case he
had forfeited his life. Even an animal, that had killed a
man, must be stoned. 1
This last practice appears very absurd to us ; but it was
not confined to a high antiquity. In Christian countries,
and even in Western Europe, many an animal has been
brought to justice at the hands of the hangman, for killing a
man. As late as in 1486, the hangman of Ypres, in Flanders,
was ordered to execute a boar upon the scaffold, because it
had killed a child.
So, if a man had killed any one, on purpose or by accident,
he had forfeited his own life. The blood that had been shed
cried out for a recompense, and it was the duty of the nearest
relative to demand the debt by slaying the murderer. Foi
this reason he was called the blood-redeemer, for the Hebrew
word must be so translated, not blood-avenger. The redeemer
was not only allowed but obliged to destroy the murderer.
He was not allowed to follow the practice of other nations,
sometimes adopted doubtless in Israel too, and accept a
ransom in money. To do so was a sin ; for when blood was
shed it defiled the land, and the stain could only be washed
out by the blood of the murderer ; 2 for man was made after
the image of God, and was therefore inviolable. The god of
Israel was a stern god, and no one who marred his likeness
could escape his punishment.
The difference, however, between a man who had killed
his neighbor intentionally and one who had accidentally
caused the death of some one — possibly his dearest friend —
was so obvious that a natural feeling of fairness required
some softening of this stern law. There were certain places
of refuge, therefore. In the earliest times this privilege
belonged to the temples, and the altar especially protected
the murderer. Afterwards, when the number of sanctuaries
was limited, there were certain cities of refuge in which any
one who had killed a man, without anj' guilt on his own part,
might sojourn. But if any one had committed a murder out
of hatred, it was no use his escaping to one of these cat ies,
for he was given up to the blood-redeemer, and was killed
by him. His life was protected only if he was guiltless, and
in that case he might go back in safety to his own home, on
the death of the high-priest. 8
The expression : ' ' Whoever sheds the blood of man, by
1 Exodus xxi. 28-32. 2 Numbers xxxv. 31-34.
' Deuteronomy xix. 1-13. Numbers xxxv. 9-34.
GOD'S COVENANT WITH NOAH. 83
man shall his blood be shed, because he is mude after the
image of God," is frequently quoted in defence of capital
punishment as the legal penalty for murder. Of course, if
we are to frame our penal code after the model of that of
Israel, this is all fair ; but in that case we are bound to
execute anj f animal that has killed a man : for if we recognize
a certain commandment as divine, and therefore binding
upon us as well as those to whom it was given, we have no
right to observe one half of it and throw the other half to
the winds. But this is the way in which the words of the
Bible are abused. However useful the law that the murderer
must be punished by death may have been in ancient times,
it must not be accepted and observed as a divine law by us.
The later Rabbis increased the commandments about
attaining from blood and the inviolability of human life to
the number of seven. To these the}' added : obedience to
the authorities, and prohibition of blasphemy, idolatry, incest,
and theft. They called these the Noachic commandments,
and considered that every one, whether Jew or heathen, wj.s
bound to observe them, inasmuch as they had been issued
before the promulgation of the Mosaic law. For this reason
they were imposed upon the so-called " proselytes of the
gate," that is, the heathens who had half gone over to Juda-
ism. All this, however, only dates from a period centuries
later than the Babylonian captivit}'.
Such was man's side of the covenant, and God, on his
part, promised that he would never send a flood of waters
upon the earth again. As a token of this covenant he made
the rainbow that, whenever he gathered the clouds together
over the earth, it might appear to remind him of his promise,
which was to hold good for ever.
It is not surprising that so splendid a phenomenon as
the rainbow made a deep impression upon the peoples of
antiquity. The cause of its appearance was not in the least
degree understood, but it was observed that it was connected
in some way with the rain. This gave rise to all sorts of
speculations, and the rainbow, consequently, plays a part in
the mythologies of many nations. It is often called the
bridge by which the gods come down from heaven to earth,
or by which the souls of the departed reach the abode of
bliss. This idea is not found among the Israelites. In our
story the ' ' bow of God," is the sign of the covenant ; but
that does not mean that it was intended to reassure mankiroi.
84 NIMROD.
According to the Israelites, the rainbow no more served this
purpose than did the sign of which Yahweh spoke to Cain ;
but just as the latter was meant to warn any one who was
about to raise his hand against Cain or the Cainites, 1 so the
former was meant to remind God of his promise. What
childlike ideas of God people had in ancient times ! As if
the memory of the deity needed to be refreshed in this way.
In their expectations as to the future, then, the two
authors who tell us about the flood are quite agreed. They
do not expect that such an all-destroying flood will ever come
upon the earth again ; but they cherish this belief upon very
different grounds : or rather, they ascribe very different
motives, to their god in giving this promise. According to
the one, God's motive is humiliating enough to man: viz.,
that he is really incorrigible ; while the other rises to a higher
pointof view, and ascribes to God good-will towards all that
lives, both man and beast ; while the life of man, who is made
after his image, is inviolable. In this he approaches to some
extent the position of Jesus, who dared to call God, Father,
and reverenced in man, in spite of all his shortcomings and
all his want of holiness, the child of God.
After the story of the flood comes that of Noah's drunken-
ness and his cursing Canaan. It is from the same hand as
the account of the flood in which the name of Yahweh is used,
the distinction between clean and unclean animals made,
and the sacrifice of Noah mentioned. We shall speak of it
afterwards in another connection.
Chapter VIII.
NIMEOD.
Gen. X. 8-12.
IN the mountains of Armenia, there rise, not far from each
other, two great rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris.
The Euphrates, which rises north of the other, takes a wide
sweep to the west, round the mountains of Armenia, while
the Tigris flews south-east from the first. Then they both
1 See pp. 54, 59.
NI.MR0D. 85
I
flow through a plain, a considerable height above the lev(.l
of the sea, some parts of which, especially near the banks of
the rivers, are moderately fertile, though the rest of the tei-
ritory between the two streams is diy and barren. This
region was called by the Greeks Mesopotamia, that is, the
country between the rivers. This district, together with
that to the east of the Tigris, was formerly inhabited by the
Assyrians, whose capital, Nineveh, was situated on the left
bank of this river. On issuing from this region the two
rivers approach pretty close together and then part again ;
and so, sometimes nearer and sometimes further from each
other, flow on in the same direction until they pour them-
selves into the Persian Gulf. A fruitful plain stretches down
from the place where the two streams approach each other
most closely. It is called the plain of Shinear, that is, again
" of the two rivers," and was inhabited by the Bab3'lonians. 1
From the eighth century before Christ onwards the Isra-
elites came into very close contact with both Assyrians and
Babylonians ; and it is not surprising, therefore, that they
felt an interest in the earliest history of their countries.
The following account is given us by one of them : —
Nimrod, the Ethiopian, was the first tyrant upon earth.
He was a mighty hunter before the face of Yahweh ; and
that is the origin of the proverbial expression: "a hunter
like Nimrod before Yahweh." He ruled at first over Babel,
Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinear. Then he
went to Assj'ria, and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and
Resen, which is situated between Nineveh and Calah, — this
is the great city.
What is told us of Nimrod in this passage does not give
us a very favorable impression of him, and we cannot be
surprised that the later Jewish writers draw a portrait which
is anything but flattering of this first tyrant and mighty
hunter. One of them (Flavius Josephus 2 ) combines the
story of the tower of Babel with this notice of Nimrod, and
represents him as having tried to cany heaven by storm,
and as having been slain bj T the wrath of God in punish-
ment for his audacity. All this, however, is quite contrary
to the intention of the old story, in which nothing is told to
the discredit but everything to the honor of Nimrod, and he
is represented as one of the benefactors of mankind. There
is certainly nothing noble in hunting or shooting defenceless
game, either for pleasure or profit, in our day ; but to undor-
1 See map 1. 2 On Josephus, see vol. iii., Introduction viii.
815 NIMROD.
stand the story of Nimrod we must imagine a country thinly
inhabited and swarming with beasts of prey, with wolves
lions, tigers, eagles, and serpents. In such a country a
powerful and valiant hunter who risks his life in protecting
men and cattle, is beloved by every one. It is but natural
too, that such a man, renowned for his strength and skill,
honored for his courage, and the benefits he confers, proud
of the power his arms have won for him, and accustomed to
brave every danger, should be the leader of his tribesmen in
war and the umpire of their disputes in times of peace, and
so gradually become their acknowledged ruler. And though a
power which rests on the sword is not our ideal, yet even this
was a blessing in ancient times ; for the political institutions
of our day were 1 mknown ; and unless there were some one
to preserve order by force and by the fear which his person
inspired, a whole district might easily fall a prey to strife
and disorder. Hence establishing a personal rule was a step
in the path of progress and increased civilization. All the
influential princes of antiquity were ty-rants, mighty hunters
in time of peace, and warriors when threatened by the enemy ;
and the sagas of the most different nations attribute the
slaughtering of monsters and giants to their gods and demigods.
Such were the deeds of the god Thor in the belief of our fore-
fathers ; and of Orion and Herakles (Hercules) according to
the Greeks. I do not mean to assert that there really were
men who bore these names, and that after their death they
were worshipped as gods ; but by ascribing such exploits to
their gods, the ancients showed how much they thought of
them, and how highly mighty hunters and tj-rants were honored.
Now we understand how Nimrod could be called a mighty
hunter "before the face of Yahweh ; " for this expression
does not mean, as is sometimes said, a hunter who was
rebellious against Yahweh, but a hunter upon whom Yahweh
looked, that is, whom he appointed to struggle mightily, and
to prepare the way for civilization and progress in the coun-
tries over which he ruled.
The name of Nimrod has not as yet been discovered upon
the ancient monuments of Babylon and Assyria ; nor can we
even explain its meaning with any certainty. We are, there-
fore, quite unable to tell whether it was originally the name
of a god, a tribe, or a man ; but in any case Nimrod is one
of those mythical beings in whose fortunes and exploits the
history of a country is recorded.
Now let us read the account once more : Cush, that is
NIMROD. 87
Ethiopia, gave Nimrod being. He was the- first tyrant on
earth. A mighty hunter before Yahweh, he ruled at first
over the four cities or districts of the plain of Shinear, and
then extended his dominion over the four great Assyrian cities
which make up all together what is called "the great city,"
for this seems to be the true meaning of the last words of the
passage. The meaning of the story is this : The first settled
state ever founded upon earth must be looked for in Babj-lo-
nia. This kingdom was of Ethiopian origin, inasmuch as it
was founded by a tribe that had migrated from Ethiopia.
Babel and the three other places mentioned were its principal
cities. In the course of time the Babylonian civilization
spread over Assyria, and thither the seat of empire over Asia
was afterwards removed.
This story agrees with what the Greek traditions tell us of
migrations of the Ethiopians to the plain of Shinear, in pri-
meval times, and their expeditions from this country north-
ward ; and the spread of the Babylonian civilization over
Assyria is painted in rich and varied colors in all the legends
of Semiramis which we find in the writings of the Greeks.
This warlike and yet voluptuous princess was said to have
been married first to Oannes and then to Ninus. After this
second marriage, and especially after the death of her hus-
band, she conquered half the world, but was defeated at last
by the Indians, and then carried up to heaven, or, according
to others, murdered by her son. To her the legends ascribed
not only all the conquests of the Assyrians, but also all the
magnificent buildings both in Assyria and in Babylonia.
Now the word Semiramis means "the high-exalted name,"
and is the appellation of a goddess. Oannes is the name of
the god who civilized the Babylonians, according to old Chal-
dean myths ; Ninus is a personification of the Assyrian peo-
ple. The meaning of the legend, therefore, is as follows :
After the rude and warlike people of Assyria had come into
contact with the culture and religion of Babylon, and the seat
of empire had passed from Babel to Nineveh, the Assyrians
came forward as the conquerors of the world, and not only
made conquests on every side, but also left traces of their in-
fluence in countless monuments.
The researches of later times have confirmed what these
legends teach us. An incredible amount of labor has been
expended upon the examination of a number of Babylonian
and Assyrian ruins ; and many scholars, of whom Botta, Place,
88 NIMBOD.
Layard, Rawlinson, Oppert, and recently Schrader, are the
best known, have devoted their powers to the difficult task of
deciphering the inscriptions which have been found in great
numbers. Much obscurity still hangs round this ancient his-
tory, but some facts at least have been disclosed ; and so far
they agree with what the legends tell us.
The scholars who are engaged in these studies think it prob-
able that the population of Bab3'lonia and Assyria was made
up of two different races, and that the original inhabitants
were subjugated by an Ethiopian immigration, whose language
gained the supremacy over theirs. Perhaps the Chaldees, a
tribe of priests in Babylonia, after whom the whole nation is
commonly called that of the Chaldees, were the remains of
these ancient inhabitants. About the year 2300, the kingdom
of Mmrod, as we might call the old Chaldean monarchy,
according to the story in Genesis x. , was already established
in the plain of Shinear. The chief god was the same Oannes
with whom we met in the legends of Semiramis. Amongst
the other gods, of whom we shall have more to say hereafter,
were Bel, Mylitta, and Dagan, and their worship was often of
a very immoral character. In the eighteenth century before
Christ, the old Chaldean monarchy had fallen into decay, and
in the seventeenth it was conquered by the Egyptians, under
whose supremacy Assyria gradually arose, until its monarchs,
during the same period as that in which the Israelites came
out of Egypt, made themselves masters of Babel, and ruled
the whole " land of the two rivers" from Nineveh. Thus
" Nimrod went to Assyria." We shall come upon this
Assyrian empire again in the course of the history of the
Israelites, and shall see how great an influence it exercised
upon them, both by its religion and its arms.
Once more let the figure of Nimrod rise before us, as it is
here described. He is not an attractive figure — this mightv
hunter, this despotic ruler ! Conscious strength and courage
are seated on his brow. He rescues the flock from the claws
of the dreaded lion. He enables the industrious to cultivate
their land, and equip their fishing boats in peace. He pro-
mulgates laws and preserves order. Woe to the man who
seizes his neighbor's wife or who slays his brother ! The ruler's
grasp is upon him, he has hurled him to the ground, he has
struck him dead ! Woe to the man who attacks him himself!
He leaves no injury unavenged. It needs but little provocation
to make him slay the offender. So a heavy price is paid for
TOWER OF BABEL. 89
safety, since freedom is thrown into fetters. The rule of the
wild beasts is changed for that of a man, ai d a man ma} 7 be
more terrible than a wild beast, in his rage.
But the maintenance of order and justice, even after a rude
fashion, paves the waj' to development in ever}- direction. It
is the first step towards the formation of a healthy society ;
and the second step is soon made by the people, and this is
followed by others yet. Let no one despise the day of small
things ! Nimrod a tj-rant and a mighty hunter ! Yes, but
before Yahweh's face. God, who created all that is good,
makes use even of tyrants to realize his ends. They may
be the forerunners of better and gentler times.
Chapter IX.
THE TOWER OE BABEL.
Gen. XI. 1-9.
ON the western bank of the Euphrates, a little to the south
of Babylon proper, on the spot marked Borsippa on
our map, the traveller may still see a mighty ruin which rears
itself above the naked plain around, and serves as a land-mark
to the wandering shepherds. It is the basis, two hundred and
eighty feet in height, of a colossal building, a «mall part of the
first stoiy of which still crowns it. This ruin is known amongst
the people of the country as " the mountain of Nimrod." It
is all that remains of the Temple of Bel, formerly one of the
most enormous buildings of the magnificent Babylon. Ancient
writers vie with each other in describing its glories. It was a
four-cornered building of baked clay bricks cemented with
asphalt, in which the surrounding plain is very rich. This
gigantic basis measured a hundred and fifty yards each way ;
and a tower rose from it in eight stories, each smaller than
the one below it, to a height that far exceeded that of the
great Egyptian pyramids. The building was for the most
part solid right through, and a sloping passage that swept in
wide circles round it conducted those who desired to ascend
the tower, to its upper portions. In the top story, however
there was a chamber where stood a golden altar, and a bei
90 TOWER OF BABEL.
prepared for the god Bel. In the bottom story, too, there
was a chamber, in which was a golden image of the same or
another god in a sitting posture, with a throne and footstool
also made of gold. Before this image stood an altar upon
which, when the yearly feast of Bel came round, thousands of
pounds of incense were consumed. The idea of the architects
in raising the temple of their god to such an enormous height,
and preparing a residence for him at its summit, appears to
have been that Bel only visited the high places of the earth,
and could therefore stay upon the cool heights of this artificial
mountain, but not in the warmer air at its foot.
As soon as the Israelites had any communications with
Babel, as they certainly had in the time of Hczckiah, and
probably still earlier, they would of course become acquainted,
amongst other things, with this colossal building. As usual,
Lhey gave free play to their imagination in connection with it,
and clothed their ideas on the subject in the form of a narra-
tive. One of them borrowed the material for his story, to
some extent, from the name Babel, which seems realty to
mean "god's gate," but which he translated "confusion."
The following legend, accordingly, came into existence : —
In primeval times people all spoke the same language ; and
were therefore able to live together. Accordingly, they all
went from the land of Ararat towards the east, and so came
to the plain of Shinear. When they had settled there they
discovered the art of baking clay into bricks, and using
asphalt for cement. Delighted with their discovery, they
said to one another, "Come! Let us build a city, and a
tower, the top of which shall reach to heaven ! So will our
fame be known, and we shall not be scattered all over the
earth." Then they set to work at once. But Yahweh came
iown from heaven to see what this city and tower really were,
Lhat mankind was so busy building, and when he had seen
what they were doing, he said, " See now ! All mankind are
but one nation, and they all speak the same language. This
is only the beginning of what they will undertake ; and unless
% stop is put to it, it will be impossible to keep them back,
in future, from anything they take it into their heads to do.
Come, then, let us go down and throw their language into
sonfusion, that they may no longer understand each other ! "
So Yahweh scattered them thence over all the earth, and they
stopped building the city ; and it received the name of Babej
(confusion) , because it was there that Yahweh had confused
the languages of men, and scattered them over the earth.
TOWER OF BABEL. 91
The chief point in this story is the writer's explanation of
the difference between the languages of the various peoples.
The subject is certainly well worth thinking about, and endeav-
oring to understand. " How is it," we ask, " that we speak
English, and our neighbors Gorman, French, or Dutch? How
is it that such an enormous number of languages are spoken
in different parts of the world? How are we to explain the
fact that the natives of every part of the same country even,
and we might almost say of every town or village, speak
different dialects, so that their pronunciation or way of speak-
ing often shows us where they come from ? " The students of
the science of philology are attempting to answer these ques-
tions, and man}' others on the same subject, and the}' have
already bestowed a vast amount of labor upon them. This
science, like so many others, has made rapid progress during
the last half century, and such scholars as Grimm, Bopp,
Renan, and Max Miiller, only to mention a few of the greatest,
have already done much towards bringing this mysterious
question somewhat nearer a solution. It is an excessively
complicated subject, and scholars are not yet agreed even
upon some of the fundamental points. For instance, while
some believe that one original language lies at the root of all
the languages of the world, or at all events that several hun-
dred roots of words are common to them all, there are others
who declare that languages having nothing in common with each
other have risen among the various races of men.
The most interesting question of all, that, namely, of the
origin of language in general, is as yet entirely unanswered,
just as the origin of religion, the history of which has many
points of similarity with that of language, still escapes our
observation.
The want on the part of men of some means of communi-
cating their feelings and thoughts to each other compelled
them to express what was going on within them by sounds ;
and the more highly they became developed, the more knowl-
edge of all kinds they gained, the more they thought about
everything they saw, and the more they had to say to each
other in consequence the better they succeeded in indicating
special objects, by clearly articulated sounds and then in
reproducing ideas, while they declined words and formed sen-
tences, until gradually a language had come into existence.
But all the human race did not live together, as they parted
from each other for all kinds of reasons, — to find food for
instance — and so lived and settled in different districts.
92 TOWER OF BABEL.
There they became acquainted with various products and p]
nomena of nature, and had their own special experiences a
sensations to express. Their way of life, the.degree and i
ture of their civilization, and a hundred other circumstanc
exercised an influence upon the form and the inflections
their words, and the construction of their sentences. 1
climate and the nature of the soil especially produced gn
alterations ; until at last their language grew into somethi
quite different from what it had been at first ; just as is alws
happening even now.
For every language keeps gradually altering, until at 1
it can hardly be recognized as the same, and seems to hi
been succeeded by an entirely new one, and people begin
call the old way of speaking a "dead language." Amc
civilized nations, this change only goes on very slowly, becai
they preserve then- words in writing; but the languages
uncivilized peoples are subject to very rapid change. Th
are regions in which an almost entirely new language grc
up within the period of one generation, and where every villi
and hamlet has one of its own, quite different from the n
made to meet the requirements of the moment, and destii
after a time to be forgotten again.
The difference between the languages and dialects of natio
then, is the result of difference in their origin, abode, histo
character, and modes of thought and life ; so that we <
often make out more or less of their past history from tb
language. In particular it shows us in what relations tl
stood to each other in former times. Those nations wh
forefathers lived together for a long time after they 1
reached a certain stage of development, and had therefon
more or less considerable number of words, express tin
selves by similar sounds, modified however by the circr
stances in which they have since lived. Those, on the ot
hand, whose forefathers parted at an earlier period do
show any such resemblance.
The science that deals with the origin, the history, and
mutual connection of the various languages is called comps
tive philology. The Israelite who wrote the legend of
tower of Babul had no idea of such a science. He tried
explain what seemed to him a strange phenomenon, not
finding out its natural causes, but by ascribing it to an
mediate dispensation of Yahweh, who intended it to prev
men from living together any more. In doing so, howei
he represents what really was one of the causes of the dif
ence between the languages as its effect.
TOWER OF BABEL. 93
We may be sure that this impression of the tower of Babe]
was not shared by all the Israelites. Most of them, no doubt,
like the Babylonians themselves, were dazzled by the magnifi-
cence of the building and its gigantic size ; for in every age
people have admired great works and all else that is dazzling.
If, as appears from the story, the tower of Bel was not finished
in the time of our writer, many of his contemporaries no doubt
found this circumstance tantalizing and vexatious enough, and
longed to be able to see the work completed. Quite another
spirit, however, inspires the composer of our story. He takes
no delight in thinking of the skill of the men who discovered
the materials for such a building, or their perseverance in going
on with such a work, or the sacrifices they made to prepare
what they thought a suitable abode for their god. All he sees
in it is a work of vaingkny, the first step on the fatal road,
the beginning of an attempt to storm the very heaven, the
result of a mad audacity, which Yahweh did well to put under
due restraint, or there was no saying what would have been
attempted next !
In this story we recognize the hand of the same writer who
made Yahweh express a fear, in the story of paradise, that
man might become immortal, who declares the desire of
knowledge to be a sin, and is afraid of nothing so much
as of presumption. 1
There is a Greek myth that breathes the same spirit, ac-
cording to which the gods decreed that men should speak
different languages, because they desired immortality and
perpetual youth. " Divide and rule " was thus the motto of
the gods, that they might hold the reins of power in their
hands ; while man's duty above all things was to submit to
them, and not to aim at too high a position. There are
other stories of Greek as well as Eastern origin, that speak
of the fear entertained by the gods of the presumption of
man. So the Greeks tell how when mankind, after having
lived a life of purity at first, had gradually become corrupt,
and impiety had gained the upper hand on earth, heaven
itself was no longer safe against the passions of mankind ;
for there rose a race of giants who attempted to storm the
dwelling of the gods, and piled the mountains one upon
another to enable them to climb up to the vault of heaven.
But Zeus (Jupiter) , the highest of the gods, smote the heap
of mountains with his thunder-bolt, . and buried those who
were besieging the seat of the gods under the fragments of
the mass.
l gee pp. 60 S.
94 MIGRATION OF THE TEKACHTTES.
However one-sided this view of life may be, yet the wa
ing it conveys is well worth laying to heart, and the ' ' mo
tain of Nimrod " has still a precious lesson for lis. For
proudest schemes are often framed by men, and even pai
carried out. Love of glory has always played a great pari
them, as our Israelite writer clearly saw. Mighty empires
founded. To unite the whole human race as far as possi
under one sceptre, and range it round one central point, '.
been the constant effort, age after age, of princes and
peoples. And it is so still. The United States of No
America, Russia, and Germany are the giant states of our d
A thoughtful observer is often alarmed by the projects of
most powerful princes and peoples ; for sometimes it see
as if nothing were impossible to them, as if the fate of
whole world lay in their hands. But the temple of Bel ci
aloud : Believe not in the omnipotence of man. The pro
est schemes may be baffled. Among the architects of
great states, some unlooked-for confusion of tongues n
rise, and then their work will go on no more. The un
that is the work of ambition alone is shattered ; for it is ]
the will of princes or of peoples that governs the world, 1
God.
Chapter X.
THE MIGRATION OF THE TERACHITES.
Gen. X., XI. 10-32.
IN the course of time the Israelites obtained some kno
edge of a number of different nations, partly by com
into contact with them themselves, and partly by hearing
them from their neighbors. The more thoughtful, therefc
felt an interest in foreign countries, and were anxious
define as closely as possible their relations to each other s
to Israel. This desire led some one to draw up a register
the nations of the earth, which we still have in the te
chapter of Genesis. This table embraces seventy greatei
smaller nations, and arranges them in three groups as
scendants of Noah's sons, Shem, Japhet, and Ham. 1
form of this composition is curious, for it is that of a fan
MIGRATION OF THE TEKACHITES. 95
tree. " Japhet's sons" — so the account begins — "were
Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, &c. ; Gomer's sons, Ashkenaz,
Riphath, and Togarmah ; " and so the enumeration goes on,
broken only by the story of Nimvod, 1 the mention of the
boundaries of the land of the Canaanites, 2 and of the Joktan-
ites, 3 and the statement that Heber's son was called Peleg
(division) , because in his time the world was divided, 4 which
means that the human race parted into two groups. At the
close of the list we are assured that in this way all the nations
are descended from the three sons of Noah. Then follows
the story of the building of the tower.
It is quite certain that the names contained in this register
are not to be taken as signifying men. Thus the name Canaan
appears amongst others ; and since this word means Nether-
lands or Lowlands, it must be the name of a country and not
of a man.
The register, however, does not give us a correct scientific
division of the nations ; as would be shown, even were there
no other proof, by the fact that the compiler mentions a
couple of tribes twice over, and even places them in quite
different branches of his family tree on these two occasions. 5
But since the list was long thought to be historical, the terms,
" Shemitic," ° " Hamitic," and "Japhetic" peoples have
come into use.
The rule which the writer followed in assigning their
places to the nations and tribes that were known to him, can-
not be made out with certainty from his work. All sorts of
conjectures have been made on this subject. Some think he
made his division according to the color of the skin of the
various peoples ; others that it was the position of their
countries that decided him, the Hamites being the inhabi-
tants of the hot countries, the Japhetites the nations dwelling
to the north, and the Shemites those that lived between the
two other sets. But the fact of the Canaanites being placed
among the children of. Ham is fatal to all these conjectures ;
for these former inhabitants Of the land of the Israelites,
whose descendants went on living in the midst of their con-
querors, were very nearly related to them, and their being
put among the children of Ham rather than those of Shem,
shows that love and hate were not without a voice in the
composition of this list. The question, however, is too com-
plicated to be entered into any further at present. We need
i Genesis x. 8-12. 2 v. 19. 8 v. 30. * v. 26.
6 Genesis x. 7 and 28, 29. 6 Generally written Semitic.
96 MIGRATION OF THE TERACHITES.
only notice that Sliem is called the first born of Noah,
because the eldest son was always considered the chief.
Among the sons of Shem the first rank is given to Heber, 1
the representative of the group of nations to which Israel
belonged ; but we are not told in this register how Israel was
descended from Heber.
This information is given us in a second family tree, which
we find in Genesis xi. 10 ff. Its form reminds us at once of
the register of Adam's descendants down to Noah, 2 of which
it seems to be the continuation. It begins as follows :
" These are the family archives of Shem : Shem was an hun-
dred j'ears old when he begot Arphaxad, two years after the
flood. After that he lived five hundred years more, and had
sons and daughters." In this style it continues, giving us
similar information about Selah, Heber, Peleg, Reu, Serug,
Nahor, and Terah. We are told something more of Terah,
however, for three of his sons are mentioned by name,
Abram, Nahor, and Haran, the father of Lot. Haran died
before his father in Ur of the Chaldees, and Abram's wife
was called Sarai, but he had no children. His brother Nahor,
on the other hand, who had married Haran's daughter Milcah,
had children. "Now Terah," so we read, "with Abram,
Lot, and Sarai, left his- dwelling-place, Ur of the Chaldees,
to go to Canaan, but, during their stay at Haran, he died."
We need not stay to inquire into the original connection
between this and the former register. The one we are now
considering seems to have been artificially compiled ; for
just as there are ten generations from Adam to Noah, so
there are ten more from the latter to Abram. In speaking
of the names in the former register, we noticed 3 that, in
all probability, they did not, in the first instance, indicate
men ; and it is quite evident that the names we are now
considering did not ; for we know the real meaning of some
of them. Arphaxad — however strange the assertion may
seem to those who have not seen the word in the original —
is nothing but another pronunciation of " Ur of the Chaldees ; "
Selah signifies " sending away ; " Heber, " crossing ; " Peleg,
" separation." The names that follow are unfortunately of
unknown, or at least of doubtful, meaning, except that Haran
is the name of a district. But from those of which we do
understand the meaning, in connection with what the former
register teaches us, 4 we can make out the chief lines of the
1 Genesis x. 21. 2 Genesis v.
* See pp. 56, 57, 66 f. * Genesis x. 25.
MIGRATION OF THE TEEACHITES. 97
probable history of the tribes to which Israel, among others,
belonged. It comes pretty much to this : ' ' Once the fore-
fathers of Israel and other related tribes lived in Arphaxad,
or Ur of the Chaldees. Then they left this country, and
crossed the Euphrates, and for this reason they were called
Hebrews, that is men from the other side. After this they
separated into two tribes, and while the Joktanites took a
south-easterly course and settled in South Arabia and along
the Persian Gulf, the others passed, through the territory
of Reu and Serng, south-west. Among these were the an-
cestors of the Israelites and their nearest neighbors, who may
be called the Terachites. Some of them stayed behind and
settled in Haran ; the rest went on to Canaan." This is all the
historical information we can gather from the register ; and
even this is far from certain.
These accounts of the origin of the Israelites are but
scanty, and it is only natural that they should be so, for it is
the same with nations as with men ; — they enter the world
unconsciously, and have no recollection of the beginning of ■
their lives. It is not until they begin to think, to work, tc
feel that they have a calling to fulfil, in a word, to lead a
life above that of the animals, that they can retain the past
to any extent in their memory, or that it deserves any
interest when preserved. A people must have reached a
certain stage of development before it can have a history at
all, and many must have floated down the stream of time
without its being worth while to record their fortunes. The
origin of them all, however, was alike insignificant. What
recollection could be preserved of such a life as that led by
these rude shepherd tribes? They ate, drank, slept, mar-»
ried, had children, fed their cattle, protected themselves
against beasts of prey, went hunting, looked for wells, pitched
their tents, broke them up again, fought for a stream or piece
of pasture land, — that was the life of these wandering shep-
herds ! In a life such as this nothing of any consequence
ever occurred. It is true that even they had their joys, their
sorrows, and their religious emotions, that one was superior
to another and, doubtless, that some of them were above
their surroundings in disposition and cultivation ; but the
animal nature was still supreme among them, the wants of
the body kept all their powers busy, and there were none to
raise themselves above the great masses by profound reflec-
tion, freshness of thought, and higher views of life. And so
VOL. i. 5
98 MIGRATION OF THE TERACHITES.
generation after generation might pass away, until t
posterity could not even fix the time in which their ances
had inhabited this or that country, or lived under such
such circumstances ; and their memory had altogether
ished, except perhaps that some few facts in the histor
their tribe — a general migration, a separation into
tribes, or the securing of a new abode — might be preserv
This absence of anything like proper history is clo
connected with the constant changes made by these warn
ing shepherd tribes in the places of their abode. The ear]
recollection of most nations is that of a migration. Of coi
it was necessitj" for the most part that compelled these tri
to change their place of abode, and to brave the dangers
volved in travelling to unknown regions, but yet they re
became attached to their nomad (wandering) life, and un
they came to countries whose inhabitants had settled dwelli
already, they went on wandering backwards and forwai
and showed but small affection for the soil on which they lh
until their increasing numbers gradually compelled them
.choose settled homes, and bid farewell to their wandering ]
This was a turning-point in the life of these tribes,
long as they were wandering about the land, they only thou
of the wants of the next few days, or at most of the half-j
during which thej r remained on the same spot, — just sow
a single crop in order to take its produce with them on tl
further wanderings. Whenever they dug a well or discove
one, they filled it up so as to keep it for their owu use w
they visited the same pastures again. These were the higl
objects of their lives. But when a settled habitation has b
secured, men work for different objects. They think of tl
posterity : they cultivate the land, and develop the art
permanently increasing its fruitfumess. They plant fr
trees and rear them carefully, for if they never gather tl
fruits themselves, yet their children will do so. Houses
built of more lasting materials, and the desire to make tl
suitable to their purpose, and then beautiful and luxuric
gradually calls a number of arts into existence. Dykes
built to protect the country from floods. Increased wa
call commerce into life, and enlarge people's views of
world. Navigation begins to be practised, and the difncul
connected with it quicken the intellect of those who engage
it. Gradually all those who do not earn their bread by ■
tivating the soil, go and live together, so that villages :
towns spring up. Living together makes it necessary to i
MIGRATION OF THE TERACHITES. 99
ulate all mutual intercourse by certain fixed rules, ar,d so
laws are made, and a regular society springs up. The rela-
tions of the villages, districts, and countries to each other are
regulated in proportion to a growing feeling of the necessity
of some such steps ; and the undisturbed life in settled abodes
makes the exercise of all kinds of arts and sciences possible,
until gradually a higher life grows up.
It is not true, then, as some people declare, that the love
of our country is the fruit of narrowness of mind. Our
country is that portion of the earth upon which our ancestors
have worked, and we are bound in our turn to consecrate our
powers to the task of making its inhabitants as richly blessed
as possible. The sajing " My comfort is my country" is the
expression of mere selfishness, and is the rule that is followed
by the brutes. But for us men there are hallowed recollec-
tions bound to the soil on which our cradles were rocked,
where we have gathered the fruits of the toils and the battles of
our fathers, and where we ourselves first woke to the thought
that God has work for us to do as well !
No such fatherland belonged to those Hebrews fifteen,
sixteen or more centuries before Christ, as they journeyed
southward from Armenia, and, whether driven on by ene-
mies or seeking better pasture for their herds, migrated to
Canaan. Indeed, they did not want a countiy of their own,
and were well content with their wandering life, so they were
half savages still, and their histoiy was not worth remember-
ing. Children of nature as they were, they lived and died
with their cattle.
But in the midst of these hordes were the germs of some-
thing greater. Many nations were to spring from them : the.
Arabs, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, and
finally that people which has rescued most of the tribes con-
nected with it from forgetfulness, the people of Israel.
100 PATRIARCHS IN. GENERAL.
Chapter XI.
A WORD ABOUT THE PATRIARCHS IN GENERAL.
Gen. XII.-L.
THE rest of the book of Genesis is taken up by accounts
of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob and his family, or, as they
are usually called, " the patriarchs," though this word, as we
have seen, is also used for various personages belonging to a
still higher antiquitj'. Before we begin examining the stories
about them, we must stop a moment to consider the question,
whether" we have now the firm ground of reality beneath our
feet, or are still wandering in the realm of legend.
The nature of the scenes we are going to look upon will
at once prove to us that many of their features are invented ;
for it needs no proof that stories in which a deity goes about
with men, holds conversations with them, and even eats in
their tents, do not give us accurate accounts of real events.
But although we cannot accept the accounts of the patriarchs
as completely trustworthy, we might easily suppose that they
had a historical foundation, that such men as Abram, Isaac,
Jacob, and the rest did really live, and that the stories give
us, on the whole, a correct account of their fortunes, though
in an embellished and exaggerated form. But when we come
to examine these stories closely, and to compare them with
each other, we find that this is not the case, and that the
names of the patriarchs must be explained in the same way
as those of Arphaxad, Heber, Peleg, and others, of which we
spoke in the preceding chapter. That is to say, thej- do not
signify men, so much as groups of nations or single tribes.
Abram, for instance, represents a great part of the Terachites :
Lot, the Moabites and Ammonites, whose ancestor he is
called ; Ishmael, certain tribes of Arabia ; Isaac, Israel and
Edom together ; Jacob, Israel alone ; while his twelve sons
stand for the twelve tribes of Israel.
Some of my readers, no doubt, consider this a most extraor-
dinary assertion ; and they will not be sorry, therefore, to
hear some of the grounds upon which it rests. We must be
very brief, however, for fear of falling into repetitions ; as in
dealing with the separate stories we shall be obliged from
time to time to keep this meaning of the names of the patri-
PATRIARCHS IN GENERAL. 101
archs well in view, in order fully to understand what is told
us about them. We must therefore be content at present
with a few arguments which will show at any rate that this
view of the names, Abram, Isaac, Jacob, &c, is not a mere
groundless fancy.
We must begin by forming ,a clear idea of the main object
of these stories about the patriarchs. They are intended, in
the first instance, to give us information as to the descent of
Israel and certain related peoples, and to tell us which nations
are descended from Abraham. These are, first, the descend-
ants of Ishmael, Hagar's son, the inhabitants of Arabia
Deserta ; and, secondly, to follow the order of age through
Abraham's family, the Edomites and Israelites, who are
descended from Isaac ; lastly, we read that Abraham took a
wife of the second rank, or concubine, called Keturah, who
presented him with six sons, from whom most of the tribes of
Arabia Felix and Arabia Petrnea sprang. 1 We will not at
present dwell on the fact that the story of Abraham's marriage
with Keturah, contracted long after he was a hundred years
old, is quite incredible, but will only ask how we are to believe
that all these nations, including the numerous Arab tribes,
are descendants of Abraham. Even if we confine our atten-
tion to the Israelites, it is impossible to accept this represen-
tation ; for according to the old narrators, all the Israelites
are children of Jacob, whose descendants numbered seventy-
two when he went to Egypt. 2 It is true that, according to
Genesis, the patriarchs, as princes of their tribes, had slaves
as well as children. Thus Abraham had three hundred and
eighteen slaves, capable of bearing arms, that had been born
in his household, and Jacob returned from Haran with a nu-
merous band to Canaan ; but these serfs were not among the
"sons of Israel," and the question is still unsolved how the
descendants of seventy- two individuals could become a mighty
nation within a few centuries. Since the name of Keturah
means " frankincense," and all the Arab tribes that are called
the descendants of her sons lived in the land of frankincense,
the meaning of the story of Abraham's marriage with her is
obvious. It means that the Arabs and the Israelites were re-
lated to each other ; and in making Keturah only a secondary
wife of Abraham, the story represents her children as of less
honorable descent than the offspring of Abraham by his prin-
cipal wife Sarah.
Here and there the writers of the old legends themselves
1 Genesis xxv. 1-4. 2 Deuteronomy x. 22.
102 PATRIARCHS IN GENERAL.
point out, as it were, that the patriarchs whom they bring
upon the scene as men are personifications of tribes. This
is the case for instance in one of the stories about Esau, in
which it is said in so many words, " Esau, that is Edom,"
and " Esau is the father of the Edomites." *
This is still clearer in the account of the close of Jacob's
life. A poem is put into his mouth on this occasion, in which
he pronounces a blessing or a curse upon each of his sons. 2
But the twelve tribes are evidently in the writer's mind, and
he altogether forgets that the form under which he is singing
of the character and the condition of these tribes, is that of
the patriarch's farewell to his sons. Thus he makes Jacob
use his own name as that of a people, when he puts this pre-
diction into his n.outh : " I will spread them (the Simeonites
and the Levites) abroad in Jacob and scatter them in Israel," 3
and "Dan shall judge his people like one of the tribes of
Israel," 4 and the whole poem is closed by the explanatory
words, " All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is
what their father said concerning them." 6
How striking is the story of Jacob's love of Benjamin, his
youngest son, and after Joseph's disappearance the only child
of his beloved Kachel that was left to him ! How touching
his unwillingness to let his darling go to Egypt with his
brethren ! And how it surprises us therefore to discover that
this Benjamin was alread}' the father of ten sons. 6 This
shows Us that the writer is telling us the fortunes of tribes
under the form of a family history.
The idea of representing a nation or a tribe as a man in
whose history the fortunes of the tribe were reflected, so to
speak, however strange to us, was very common in ancient
times. Thus the Greeks or Hellenes traced their origin to a
certain Ilellen, who was called the son of Deucalion and
Pyrrha,' and whose sons Dorus and Eolus, and grandsons
Achseus "and Ion were said to be the fathers pf the four Greek
tribes, the Dorians, Eolians, Achaeans, and Ionians. In
something the same way Englishmen are sometimes called
" Sons of Albion," and a still nearer parallel is furnished by
the Dutch poets, who sometimes speak of their countrymen
as the offspring of Bato, and by the Frisians, who call them-
selves Frizo's sons, without, of course, intending to assert
that such men as Bato or Frizo ever really lived. Just in
1 Genesis xxxvi. 1, 8, 9, 19, 43. 2 Genesis xlix. 1-27.
8 v. 7. 4 v. 16. 5 v . 28.
6 Genesis xlvi. 21. 7 See p. 69.
PATRIARCHS IN GENERAL. 103
the same way, then, Abraham and his sons are not literally
the ancestors of all the peoples that are called their descend-
ants in Genesis, but are only their representatives.
If this is so, the question rises : Have we really the prime-
val history of the Israelite and other related tribes before us
in these stories? Do they really transport us to the pre-
Mosaic period ? The more we try to go into the- question of
*;he origin of the legends, the more doubtful do we find the
ground upon which we stand ; and, therefore, while we have
not the least hesitation in explaining the names of the patn-
archs on the principles already stated, yet we cannot give an
equally confident answer to this question as to the historical
value of the traditions about them. It is possible that in
some of the stories, historical traditions from the pre-Mosaic
period have been preserved. The account, for instance, of
Joseph's being sold as a slave by his brothers, and of his ele-
vation to the rank of a prince in Egypt having given them
the opportunity of migrating thither, maj- possibly embody a
recollection of the fact that the tribe Joseph paved the way to
Egypt for the other tribes. But this is not certain, nay it is
not even likely. It is undeniable that some of the stories at
least give us information, under the form of the history of
these patriarchs, about the fortunes and exploits of the tribes
long after the time of Moses. We shall meet with some ex-
amples of this presently.
Lastly, it may be asked: If the contents of these narra-
tives, even when understood as tribal history, bring us down
to a later period, what is the real origin of the names Abram,
Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, &c. ? As to this, we are almost entirely
in the dark. Some scholars suppose that at any rate some of
these names were originally those of gods, and point out that
"Abram" may mean "exalted father." But satisfactory
grounds have never been made out for this view. No doubt
the names of the sons of Jacob were simply those of the
Israelite tribes, which might easily be used as the names of
tribal fathers, since the tribes were in the habit of calling
themselves " the sons of Judah, Reuben, Napthali, &c."
We have already had examples in the names of Canaan and
Heber, 1 of the way in which the names of countries and peo-
ples might be treated as those of men.
It is not easy for us to form a true idea of the way in which
these legends of primeval times came into existence ; but
1 Pp. 95, »6, U7.
104 PATRIARCHS IN GENERAL.
some of the motives of the compilers can still be detected,
understood, and estimated by us. Let us try to sketch, in
broad lines, a history of the rise of these legends.
In the time of Moses, and even long after his death, when
the Israelite tribes stood to a great extent alone, and were
not yet united into one people, their religious customs were
very varied and capricious. No doubt all the Israelites wor-
shipped Yahweh as Israel's god, but every tribe and every
clan, nay,' many separate families or individuals, had their
own special god or gods besides. In some parts of the land
of Canaan ancient forms of worship were already established,
and the invading tribes took part in them, either retaining
the ancient gods of the place, or superseding them by others.
These " Holy Places" were the centres of the national life in
the districts to which they belonged. Such, for example, was
the sanctuary of Beersheba. There, on the southern boundary
of Canaan, where the Israelites were in constant commu-
nication with the Edomites, was a much-frequented sanc-
tuary to which the ' ' sons of Isaac " brought their offerings.
The centre of Judah's religious life, on the other hand, was
Hebron, and there the ancestor of the people was known by
the name of Abram. So, again, there were sanctuaries in
Shechem and in Bethel which were sought by pilgrims from
the surrounding district of the tribes of Benjamin, Ephraim,
and Manasseh, who called themselves the " sons of Jacob."
In the northern portion of the country Baal-Gad, i.e., "the
Baal of Good Fortune," or " of the Gadites," was worshipped,
and in the north-west of Judah, at Bethshemesh, i.e., "house
of the Sun," some form of the worship of the Sun-god was
established. Among the objects worshipped and held to be
sacred were stones and trees, especially oak and terebinth
trees.
In David's time, however, the unit}"- of the people was
established, and though it was broken again after Solomon's
death, the recognition of the close relationship of all the
tribes was never afterwards lost. The Israelites of the north
and those of the south felt that they were brothers, and at
certain periods were very closely united. The two portions
of the nation were called collectively, " the people of Yah-
weh," and in both the influence of the Mosaic party continu-
ally increased. This party was, of course, very hostile to
the ancient local forms of worship, inasmuch as they were
injurious to that of Yahweh. They would gladly have re-
moved these sacred trees and stones, therefore, and wiped
PATRIARCHS IN GENERAL. 105
Out the names of the idols. But it was not easy to do so, as
the people were much attached to their local customs. The
zealous upholders of the exclusive worship of Yahweh saw
no chance, therefore, of getting rid of the religious usages of
centuries all ajfc once. The course they adopted, accordingly,
was to try to attach a different meaning to them, to give them
an orthodox coloring, if I rnajr so express myself. The names
of the various tribes and districts were made into those of
men, and were then brought into connection with each other.
Abram, the patriarch of Hebron, Isaac that of Beersheba,
and Jacob of Bethel, became grandfather, father, and son.
The anointed stone at Bethel, the consecrated oaks of Mamre
(near Hebron) , the sacred tree at Shechem, and the well of
Beersheba, were all of them gradually made into monuments
of the lives of these patriarchs. These were the spots on
which they had pitched their tents, these the trees that they
had planted, these the wells they had dug, and these the
memorial stones or the altars they had erected. In this
manner the ancient names and venerated objects were made
not only harmless but actually favorable to the purer form of
worship, for the patriarchs were represented as favorites of
Yahweh, and as his faithful worshippers, and the holy places
as the scenes of the revelations of this god of Israel.
In this sketch, I have purposely expressed myself am-
biguously here and there, and have left it quite an open ques-
tion what the names of the patriarchs originally meant ; for
this, as well as many other points, is very doubtful. But the
main idea of this account of the origin of the legends of the
patriarchs rests on a firm basis ; the upholders of the exclusive
worship of Yahweh gave them the form which they assume in
these stories, so as to find a place in the worship of Yahweh
for certain elements of the old-Israelite or heathen religions,
such as sacred names, places, usages and objects.
In acting thus the zealous worshippers of Yahweh do not
stand alone, for we can trace a similar effort amongst very
various peoples, and at very different periods. Thus, in cer-
tain Asiatic states, the god Baal was made into a king, to whom
the founding of a number of cities was attributed, and whose
grave was pointer 1 out in different places. The case was the
same with other gods and goddesses in Egypt, Asia-Minor,
Babylonia, and Greece. 1 The cause was partly a misunder-
standing, but partly the desire to supersede ancient forms of
i See pp. 87, 88, 89.
5*
106 PATRIARCHS IN GENERAL.
worship. This method is often called Euhemerism, after a
certain Greek philosopher, named Euhemerus, who lived in
the times of Alexander the Great, and systematically made all
the Greek gods into kings and generals. But we need not go
so far or climb to such a height of antiquity, to find examples
of this procedure. In our own country it was practised by
the preachers of Christianity, for when they brought the Gospel
to our land they found its inhabitants just as much attached
to their gods and feasts, their sacred usages and consecrated
trees, as were those ancient Israelites whose conversion to
the exclusive worship of Yahweh was the object of the writers
of the legends about the patriarchs. They were ready to ac-
cept Christianity, but if only it could be managed they were
very anxious to retain the names and usages to which they
were accustomed. So the preachers of Christianity allowed
them to keep a great many of them, but gave them a Christian
interpretation. Sacred stones were marked with the cross
and became memorial stones, sacred wells were made into
baptismal fonts, images of gods transformed into images of
saints. The consequence is that remains of the old heathen
forms of worship have survived to this very day in Easter
eggs, yule logs, and, on the Continent, Whitsun fires, the
customs of Santa Claus, aud many others. The very name,
for instance, of Easter (in German Ostern) reminds us im-
mediately of the worship of the heathen goddess Ostara, whose
feast was celebrated in spring.
It is quite common, then, for religious reformers — seeing
that they cannot have everything as they would wish, and
that they cannot attain their object unless they make some
concessions — to try to gain people over by taking a middle
course, and so toning down their requirements as to allow
their converts to retain some portion of their ancient beliefs or
beloved usages.
But however often this path has born and is yet trodden,
we have still to ask, Is it right ? Does it bring us to the goal *
If the goal is the triumph of some form of worship, some doc-
trine, or some ecclesiastical system, thou doubtless it is much
easier to reach the desired end by this means than by conceal-
ing nothing that we think, calling everything by its right name,
forbidding what we feel is not" right, and yielding nothing.
But by " mixing wine with water" we degrade the view of
truth for which we desire to find access, and allow many ele-
ments of the old view to creep into the new. In consequence
of these proceedings on the part of their champions, both the
PATRIARCHS IN GENERAL. 107
Taliweh-worship of Israel and the Christian church have taken
up into themselves much that has been disfiguring and injurious
to them.
Those who are determined to see a great and immediate
result of their preaching, and are content if they can count up
a large number of converts, without examining verj- closely
how much alloy has mingled with the purity of their faith,
must adopt this method. But those who are truly zealous for
God and for the truth go right forward, are content with
nothing short of the full demands of God, and prefer weighing
their converts to counting them. What the result to them-
selves often is we are taught by the cross upon which Jesus
died, because he would make no treaty with the world, and
because his followers were therefore few in number. But just
for that reason he became more than the founder of a church,
he became the Saviour of the world.
One more general remark must be made about the stories
of the patriarchs. Here, again, as was the case with the first
eleven chapters of Genesis, we have the work of more than
one writer before us. We have no difficulty in recognizing
here and there the st}-le and the thoughts of the writers who
told us of Adam and Noah, of Cain and Enoch, though we
cannot always make out with certainty how the accounts of
the two have been woven together, and then united with those
of yet others.
Sometimes the writers do not agree together. An instance
occurs quite at the beginning ; for while the "Book of Origins"
makes Terah and his clan leave Ur of the Chaldees and go
to Haran, where Terah himself dies, without assigning any
religious motive to him, the older writer, without mentioning
Terah at all, begins: "And Yahweh said to Abram." *
Whence he supposes the patriarch to depart is anything but
clear. Since the departure from Ur of the Chaldees imme-
diately precedes this narrative, it is natural to suppose that
that is the place referred to here as well, as is stated indeed
elsewhere ; ' 2 but in another passage 8 Haran, that is Mesopo-
tamia, is indicated as Abram's country. When we come to
the stories themselves, we shall find other instances of mutual
disagreement between the narratives.
The two writers, as might have been expected, show the
same peculiarities in the stories of Abram and his sons that
we have already noticed. The accounts of the later write*
1 Genesis xii. 1. 2 Genesis xy. 7. s Genesis xxiv. 4. 7, 10.
108 ABEAM THE BELIEVER.
are rather colorless, but the older stories are full of life and
variety, for in them the most ancient times are painted with
all the traits and colors of a comparatively recent period ; with
the worship of Yahweh for instance, and most of the religious
usages of the Israelites.
This is, to a great extent, what gives these narratives theii
charm. The deeper we penetrate into their meaning, the
clearer is the insight they give us into the life of the people
in whose midst they arose. But if this had been their only
value they would certainly never have become so universally
known and loved as thej 7 are, for this meaning is sometimes
far enough below the surface, and escapes the ordinary reader.
But they are precious even as sketches of character ; for in
the patriarchs, especially in Abraham and Jacob, we have
before us the images of pious men after the heart of the
writers, and since they are drawn b}- the hand of a warm
affection, they often speak to our conscience as well as our
imagination.
We shall therefore treat these stories chiefly as sketches of
character. We shall indeed point out, whenever we are able,
the interest (hat animated the compilers, and the objects they
had in view in telling their stories ; but for the rest, we shall
speak of Abram, I-Iagar, Esau, Joseph, and all the others, as
if they were men who really lived, and shall try to strengthen
our moral life by marking their faith, and to take warning
f fom the description of their sins.
Chapter XJJ.
ABRAM THE BELIEVER.
Gen. Xn.
SURROUNDED by his relatives and friends, in the plain
of Haran, in the northern part of Mesopotamia, dwelt
Abram ; and hard by his tents his friend and nephew Lot
would often feed his flocks.
The two shepherd princes were rich in cattle, and a host of
dependents obeyed them, while they were bound to each other
by the closest ties of friendship. A striking proof of this
friendship was given by Lot, when he lent an ear to his uncle,
ABEAJt THE BELIEVER. 109
who urged him to accompany him on a distant journey he was
about to undertake. He was going awa}^ south-west, across
the Euphrates, and then ... as yet he did not know where
next himself.
Why was he going to change his abode ? "Was he driven
to it by necessitjr ? Was there no more pasture for his cattle ?
Had enmity risen between him and his relatives? Or did
love of change and hope of booty urge him on? Had he
forgotten that all kinds of unknown dangers threatened him
on his way through the lands of strangers? Not at all.
However poorly his country had been blessed by the beauties
of nature ; nay, however parched and dry it was during many
seasons of the year, still it was dear to him, and he was on
the best possible terms with his relatives, the men of Nahor,
and even in religion was at one with them. 1 He must go
because Yahweh, his god, told him to go. Why he did so,
and where he would take him, he did not know ; his duty was
but to obey.
So they started on their journey, these men of faith, sure
that Yahweh would bring them to a good land. He had
distinctly promised Abram that he would bless him and make
him a great people. His friends should be blessed and his
enemies cursed, and the fame of his prosperity should spread
so far amongst all nations, that when any one wanted to pro-
nounce the greatest possible blessing, he would only be able
to say, "God make you blesse # d as Abram!" 2 Thej' relied
on the power of this god, who had given them such glorious
promises.
They passed over the Euphrates and through the Syrian
desert ; through those wide steppes where only here and there
a fruitful spot, such as those upon which Palmyra and Damas-
cus were afterwards to rise, invited them to stay, still south-
west, till the}- crossed the Jordan and came to the shores of
the Mediterranean Sea, which they found thinly populated by
certain Canaanite tribes. They passed through this land too,
trusting in their good swords and the might of Yahweh.
They felt that they had a right to be there, and no one asked
toll of them.
The first spot at which thej r sta3*ed for any length of time
had a strange appearance. Two mountains, of moderate
height, rear themselves over against each other there. Ebal,
the more northern peak, is parched and barren, but Gerizim,
the more southern, rather loftier than the other, has a some-
1 Genesis xxiv. 31. " Genesis xii. 3, after an amended version.
110 ABRAM THE BELIEVER.
what more pleasing aspect. In the valley between the3e
mountains, where Shechem was afterwards built, an oak of
more than ordinary beaut}' raised its head ; it was the oak of
Moreh, that is, "the teacher's oak." There the wanderers
pitched their tents, and Abram soon discovered that it was a
holy spot, where Yahweh revealed himself and loved to receive
the offerings of his servants ; for here his god appeared to him
and told him that he had now reached the goal of his journey,
for this was the land that his posterity should receive as an
inheritance. So Abram built an altar to Yahweh there, and
the spot became a sacred place in Israel. The oak of Moreh,
under the name of " the soothsayer's oak (Meonenim) ," ] was
destined to become famous in all the country round, and to be
regarded as the sanctuary of Shechem ; and there the wor-
shippers bowed down before the deity who had chosen this
tree for his dwelling-place, as the}' approached him with suppli-
cations and with offerings, or listened to the whispering of the
sacred leaves, and, full of awe, received from the lips of the
soothsayers the interpretation of the sounds thej- had heard.
From Shechem the patriarch pursued his journej- to the
height of Bethel. Between this city and Ai he pitched his
tents, and found again that Yahweh was with him there, and
so built an altar in honor of him. This place accordingly, the
name of which means ' ' house-of-god," was no less sacred to
the Israelites than Shechem.
Still pursuing their way in the same direction, the Hebrews
reached the most southern regions of Canaan.
So Abram had passed through the whole of his promised
land, from north to south, when he discovered that it had in-
deed been promised to his posterity, but not to himself; for a
famine compelled him to leave the barren region of southern
Cauaan for the fertile Egypt, and to sojourn in a strange land,
instead of in the country, which his hopes had already taught
him to regard as his home.
But even there he was to receive a wonderful proof of the
faithfulness and power of his god ; for when he drew near to
Egypt his faith grew weak, and he was afraid, lie came there
as a stranger ; and his wife Sarai, who was very beautiful, was
with him. Suppose — thought he — the inhabitants of the
land cast their eyes upon her, they are sure to kill me, and
then make her marry one of them. So he told his wife to say
she was his sister, so that if they seized her they might give
him rich presents as her brother, instead of killing him as hei
1 Judges ix 37.
ABRAM THE BELIEVEK. Ill
husband. It all fell out just as he had expected. The king
himself, hearing of Sarai's beauty, had her brought to him to
become one of his wives, and presented Abram, supposing
him to be her brother, with a great number of sheep, cattle,
asses, and male and female slaves, so that he became very
rich. But this was not the greatest blessing that Yahweh in-
tended to confer upon him. He was about to make his ser-
vant utterly ashamed of his previous fear, and to show that
he could defend him even in a foreign country. At his com-
mand, one disaster after another fell upon the king and his
household, and he soon perceived that all this happened to him
because he had taken a married woman into his harem. So he
sent for Abram, and reproached him with the deceit by which
he had brought him into danger of committing so great a sin.
Then he ordered his people to protect and to help Abram, and
all that he had.
This adventure of Sarai's is told not so much to Abram's
disgrace as to Yahweh's honor. The writer does not appear
to have seen anything wrong in Abram's conduct. This
shows that he had no very exalted idea of integrity, as we
shall see indeed from other passages as well as this. It is
very instructive to compare our story with the account of
the same event given by another writer, 1 for it shows Us how
low a position the Israelites took in matters such as these.
This other writer removes the scene of the adventure to
Gerar, in the land of the Philistines, and says that Abimelech,
the king, who had taken Sarai away from Abram, was warned
by God in a dream that she was a married woman, and
reproached the patriarch for his deceit. But he defended
himself by saying that Sarai really was his half-sister, and
that ever since they had left their fatherland and begun their
wanderings, he had begged her to call herself his sister for
fear he should be injured for her sake. Abimelech was per-
fectly satisfied by this excuse, loaded the patriarch with gifts,
and made a present to Sarai also, with the words, " May
this make j'ou close your eyes to all the wrong that has been
done you. May justice thus be done you." 2 It looks very
much as if this writer wished to acquit the patriarch of the
he by which he was disgraced in the older narrative ; but if
so he did not see that he failed to make the affair any more
credilable to his hero after all. For such shuffling is just as
oad as a he ; nay, a premeditated, persevering, systematic
1 Genesis xx. 2 After an amended version.
112 ABRAM THE BELIEVER.
deceit really tells more against a man's character than a lie
which is the result of a momentary fright.
And, again, neither writer seems to have felt how unut-
terably base it was in Abram to tell this lie, not for the sake
of rescuing his wife, but for the sake of turning it to account
in his own private interest if she were taken away from him.
But enough of this. The whole story represents Abram as
the believer, who, " in obedience to Yahweh's commandment,
goes out indeed to a land which he shall receive for an in-
heritance, but without knowing whither he goes." 1 In this
character we shall meet him again and again, and in this
lies the deep and lasting significance of Abram, as he is
represented in Genesis. He is the hero of faith.
There are people in the world who shrug their shoulders
when they hear any one speak of faith, and take a special
pride in not having any themselves. Very often they are
better than their word, and have more faith in their hearts
than they are at all aware of ; while their contempt for faith
is the result of their not understanding what it means. If
it were not so we could have but small respect for any man
who thinks that faith is worthless, for it is just in having faith
that the noblest of mankind differ from the common herd.
Property to understand what faith is and what it is
worth,- we must first understand what is meant by God
speaking to a man. In this story, and in many others, God
is represented as holding conversations with men, and
telling them various things in actual words. It needs no
proof that this is not what really takes place, for no man
can hear God's voice with his outward ears. He speaks in
our conscience. Whenever our duty becomes clear to us,
then we hear the voice of God giving us commands ; and
whenever we feel that our true happiness lies in obedience to
this voice, we receive promises from God. Now, if we are
firmly convinced that these commands and these promises
are not merely imaginary but are true, then we may be said
to have faith.
Faith shows itself in various ways. It is often mingled
with products of the imagination, that is with superstition.
If, for instance, Abram felt, as the later Israelite writers
say he did, 2 that he must flee from the land of his fathers,
because he was in danger of falling into idolatry there ; if
he saw that Yahweh would bless him elsewhere too, and
1 Hebrews xi. 8.
2 Joshua xxiv. 2, 14, 15. Flavius Josephus. Judith v. 6 fl.
abram's generosity. 113
that it is better for a man to be a wanderer on the earth and
to worship his god in uprightness than to remain in his
fatherland and live a life or" sin, then that was faith. But if
he thought that the land of Canaan was the precise reward
assigned to his obedience, then that was all imagination, and
therefore superstition. For though in the legend this
promise is both made and kept, yet in reality earthly pos-
sessions are not the reward of piety. We shall often seo
from our Bible-stories that, as a rule, the faith of the Israel-
ites was clothed in imperfect forms, that it was mingled with
superstition. Even with Christians this is very often the
case. But in whatever form it shows itself, however far it is
from perfect purity, faith is a treasure always. A man with
faith is in every case something more than a man without it,
for faith is a power that rescues him from the tjTanny of his
sensual nature and gives him strength to make sacrifices. .
All reformers and all the noblest benefactors of mankind
have had faith, and one of the followers of Jesus said in
honor of him that he was " perfect in faith." 1
Chapter XIII.
ABRAM'S GENEROSITY.
Gen. XIII., XIV.
WHEN Abram — so the narrator goes on — had escaped
this danger in Egypt, he returned with his wife and
all his possessions to the south of Judah. Lot still accom-
panied him, and they returned along the road they had
come by, always halting in the same places as before, til]
they pitched their tents once more between Bethel and Ai.
There Abram offered a second sacrifice to Yahweh on the
altar he had already erected to him.
But gradually it became clear that the two shepherd
princes could not live together much longer ; for they were
both of them rich in flocks. Not that this would have made
it impossible for them to remain in the same neighborhood
if only they had had free play ; but the Canaanites and
Perizzites had possession of a great deal of the land, and the
1 Hebrews xii. 2.
114 ABRAM'S GENEROSITY.
Hebrews had to be content with the portions that these tribes
did not require for themselves. So the land became too
small for them, and though Abram and Lot still continued
to be good friends, their dependants were always quarrelling
about pastures and wells. Now, as each of them kept hear-
ing his own shepherds complain of the other's, and was
naturally inclined to side with his own servants, there really
seemed to be some danger of their falling out with each other
in the end.
Abram was the first to see this, and however much he
would have liked to go on living with his dearly-loved kins-
man, he thought it better for them to part in peace before
it was too late, than to remain together and endanger the
bond of brotherly love which united them. So he proposed
to Lot that they should separate, and, with open-hearted
generosity, left him the choice as to which way he would go.
He had no wish to dictate to his nephew ; if he went to the
right, he would go to the left himself, or if Lot took the left,
he would take the right.
Lot was far inferior to Abram in generosity. He bad
followed him from the distant land, and so had had faith in
the glorious promises made by Yahweh to Abram. But now
self-interest overpowered hiin. Instead of asking what was
the wish of his uncle, the chief of his tribe, he took advantage
of his open liberality, and chose as his portion the valley of
the Jordan. From a worldly point of view he had make a
very wise selection, for the valley of the Jordan was a splendid
country, and the southern portion especially, where the
Dead Sea now is, but where Sodom and Gomorrah formerly
lay, was a true " garden of Yahweh," a paradise, like Egypt
in fruitfulness. But there was a dark side to the settlement
in this region, for Lot's heart was drawn towards the cities.
And though he did not desert the simple shepherd life at
once, yet he pitched his tents hard by Sodom, and before
long settled in the city itself. This was a source of misery
to him against which no fruitfulness of the soil could weigh,
for the inhabitants of these cities were great sinners before
Yahweh, and his wrath would sooner or later blaze forth
against them.
So Lot's covetousness led him on to misfortune, and,
moreover, by choosing to go to the extreme limit, and as
it were to quit the land, he forfeited all the claim of his pos-
terity to Canaan.
On the pther hand, Abram, who obeyed the will of Yah-
ABkAM'S GENEROSITY. 115
weh, received a renewal of the promises when his nephew
had departed. It was as though his god would make it
plain to him that the departure of Lot in no way affected his
promises, and that he himself, and not his nephew, was to
be the father of the holy nation that would possess Canaan.
"Look round 3-ou!"— such were the words of Yah weh —
"Look towards every quarter of heaven, towards Lebanon
and towards the boundary of Egypt, towards the Jordan and
towards the Mediterranean Sea ; all this land shall be an
eternal heritage for jour posteritj r , which I will make as
countless as the dust of the earth. Pass through the country
in every direction, and know that you are the father of its
future possessors."
Abram obeyed, and journeyed southward. Thus he came
to Hebron, or more properly to the district iu which a city
was afterwards built, called Kirjath Arba until it was con-
quered by the Israelites, and after that Hebron. Here there
were splendid groves of oak-trees belonging to the Canaanite
Mamre. For whole centuries the Canaanites, and after
them the Israelites, would worship their gods at this spot,
and gaze with especial awe and reverence at one gigantic
oak. Down to the first century of our era the people in the
neighborhood of Hebron would tell how this tree was as old
as the world, or would boast that it had grown from a stick
thrust into the ground by Abram. By this grove the Patri-
arch pitched his tent after receiving Yahweh's promise. There
he was to learn how well it was for him that he had not gone
to the valley of Jordan, that seemed so tempting, and how
constantly his god protected and helped him.
For it happened that several princes from the north-east, of
whom Kedor-laomer, an Elamite king, was the chief, declared
war against the kings of Sodom and four other cities that lay
in the so-called valley of Siddim. For twelve years the inhab-
itants of the valley of Siddim had been tributary to Kedor-
laomer, but then they threw off his yoke. Hardly had a year
gone by, however, before this prince appeared with an army
to reduce them once more to submission. The march of the
eastern kings was triumphant. They came down from the
north, defeated the Eephaites at Ashteroth-Karnaim, con-
quered several other tribes east of the Dead Sea, marched
round Mount Seir, and penetrated into the desert of Arabia
Petrsea as far as Hazezon Tamar, to the west of the valley of
Siddim. Then the King of Sodom and his allies advanced to
meet him, — five against four ! But, in spite of this, they
116 abram's generosity.
were defeated and dispersed, while numbers of fugitives fel]
vnto the wells of asphalt, of which the valley was full, and the
rest escaped to the hills. Thereupon the eastern kings took
off the cattle and the provisions that they found in their ene-
mies' cities ; and, amongst other captives, Lot, who lived in
Sodom, was carried off, with all that he had.
News of all this was brought to Abram, who had pitched
his tents in the neighborhood of Mamre, Eshcol, and Aner,
with whom he had entered into an alliance. No sooner had
he received the dismal tidings than he determined to hasten
to the rescue. Thinking nothing of the danger to himself,
and forgetting how badly Lot had behaved to him, he called
together all those of his dependants who had been born his
serfs, thinking that he could rely upon their fidelity more
confidently than upon that of the slaves he had bought. They
were three hundred and eighteen strong, and Abram's allies
added some bands of their own dependants to help them.
With this force Abram set out in pursuit of the foreign
princes- Overtaking them at Dan, one of the most northern
points of Canaan, he divided his men into three companies,
fell upon them by night, and scattered abroad the whole army
of the four chieftains against whom the five kings of the valley
of Siddim had not been able to hold their ground. Right on
to Hobah, north of Damascus, he pursued the fugitives ; and
all the booty they had made, including the captives of war
whom they were carrying off as slaves, fell into his hands.
Thus Lot was rescued with the rest.
As the victorious Abram was returning, the humbled King
of Sodom met him in the valley of Shaveh (afterwards called
" King's Valley" 1 ) and implored him to be content with the
cattle and the other booty he had seized from the enemy, but
to give their liberty to the captives that had fallen into his
hands, and were therefore his slaves according to the rights
of war. At the same time Abram was visited by Melchizedek,
the King of Salem ; who brought him bread and wine, and,
being a priest of the most high God, blessed him with the
words: "Blessed be Abram of the Most High, of the All-
ruler ! And glory be to this Most High, for he has put your
enemies into your power ! " And Abram gave him the tenth
part of all he had. This did not prevent his being bountiful
and generous to the King of Sodom, to whose prayer he an-
swered : " I swear by Yahweh the All-ruler that I will keep
nothing that was yours, no not so much as a thread or a shoe-
1 2 Samuel xviii. 18.
abram's generosity. 117
string ! — - for you shall never be able to say, ' I have made
Abram rich ! ' Of course I am not bound to make good what
my men have eaten, nor can I dispose of that part of the
booty that falls to the share of my allies, as a reward of the
help they have given us ; but as for me, I will never enrich
myself at your expense."
There is nothing in the chapters containing this narrative,
that has excited the attention of the commentators so much
as this meeting between Melchizedek and Abram, and many
a brain has been sorely perplexed by the questions, " Where
did the city of Salem lie ? " " How came there to be a priest
of God most high, to whom Abram did homage, in the midst
of a population that is always branded as idolatrous ? " Indeed,
there is something enigmatical about this figure, and it is hard
to explain how Abram, who had not his possessions with him,
could give him a tithe of them all. We leave it, however, to
those who look upon the narrative as history, to remove these
difficulties. If we take it to be a legend, and only ask what
the compiler meant by it, then the explanation is simple enough.
Melchizedek — the word means "king of righteousness'" —
is a symbolical name ; Salem is Jerusalem. Not that this city
ever really bore the name of Salem, for until it was conquered
by David it was called Jebus ; but the writer called the city
by the last half of its ordinary name, that is Salem or ' ' peace,"
because he wanted to speak of Jerusalem, but yet not to use
its old Canaanite name. The main point in the story is that
Melchizedek is a priest, and as such blesses Abram and re-
ceives the tithes, and its object is to exalt the priesthood
of Jerusalem, which claimed homage and tithes from every one.
The account of Melchizedek does not appear to come from
the writer of the rest of the story, who never hesitates to use
names taken from his own times when speaking of earlier ages.
Thus he speaks of Bethel, Ai, Hebron, and Dan as if places
so called had existed before the conquest of Canaan by the
Israelites, and he would, therefore, have been at no pains to
choose such expressions as "Salem" and "the most high
God," but would have spoken of "Jerusalem" and "Yahweh"
without more ado. Besides, the meeting with Melchizedek is
very strangely placed in the story in the middle of the account
of the meeting with the King of Sodom. In the Israelite lit-
erature we only find one single reference to this story, 1 but, as
if to make amends, the Christians are never tired of dwelling
i Hebrews vii. 20 ff.
118 abram's generosity
upon it. First of all comes the writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, who sees in Melchizedek an indication of the high-
priestly rank of Jesus, and explains the statement thatAbram,
the father of the priestly tribe of Levi, paid him tithes after
having received his blessing, as a prophetic allusion to the
doing away of the Jewish laws about the priesthood of the
Levites. 1 Later teachers of the church followed the example
of this writer, and discovered in Melchizedek all kinds of
meanings, which were furnished them by the so-called " all<
gorical interpretation of scripture."
The great number of the proper names that occur in tht
account of the campaign of the eastern kings against the
princes of the valley of Siddim has led many historical stu-
dents to hope that they might find in this narrative an ancient
and trustworthy monument of history. But when we look
more closely into it we are disappointed in this hope, for it is
quite evident that some of the names have a symbolic meaning.
Thus one of Kedor-laomer's allies is called " king of the hea-
thens" (authorized version "king of nations"), which is
surely a strange title. The name of Bera, the king of Sodom,
means " son of ungodliness," and Birsha, the name of the
king of Gomorrah, "son of the wicked." We can hardly
suppose that these are historical names ! Besides this, — the
main incident in the story, — the defeat of the eastern kings
by such a little band as Abram's, is improbability itself.
It seems to be true, however, that in very early times
there really was a powerful kingdom, the seat of which was
in Elam, that held sway as far as to the borders of Palestine.
The names of the monarchs of this kingdom often began with
Kudur (Kedor) , and as one of their gods was called Laga-
mar, it is quite possible that Kudur-lagamar (Kedor-laomer)
is the real name of some ancient king of Elam, though it
has not yet been found upon any inscription.
For the rest, the legend needs no elaborate explanation.
The main thought is that Abram, the believer, is under Yah-
weh's protection ; for when Lot lias gone his way Yahweh
confines his promises to Abram alone, lends him his help so
that he can conquer these mighty kings with his little band,
and makes him so rich that he has no need to keep any of
the booty he has won by war.
Abram, on his side, appears in this narrative as the dis-
interested and generous hero who gives Lot the first choice of
1 Hebrews vii. 20 ft.
abram's generosity. 119
country, risks his life to rescue him, refuses to keep the
spoil of war, and freely gives his tithes to the priest. A noble
figure! What a different spirit these actions breathe from
that which is commonly met with in the world ! Just think
how often men quarrel for the best portion of anything, stand
upon their rights, seize everything pleasant for themselves,
consider whether they are called upon to give up the smallest
thing to which they have a legal claim, hesitate to help a man
; ' because he never did as much for them," will run no lisk
for another's sake for fear the.y should suffer themselves, like
to be paid for any services they may have done, and calcu-
late for how little they can get off when they are asked for
a contribution to religious or any other useful institutions !
Self-interest is a most powerful incentive, and such a charac-
ter as Abram's is but rare !
This is only natural, for man enters life as a selfish being.
Look at children quarrelling over some trifle, and see how
each begins by looking after himself! A power must come
into their hearts that can blunt the eagerness of their self-
seeking, a power that can resist their inborn selfishness of
disposition.
Now faith is such a power. , Why should not Abram be
generous when he trusted so perfectly in his god? Why
should he not be ready to give Lot his choice as to the coun-
try he would take in possession? Yah web took care of him.
Why should he hesitate to go out to battle ? Did not the
angel of Yahweh encamp round about them that feared him ? :
Why should one who had Yahweh's promises keep the spoil
of war for himself? It was not for the sake of booty that he
aad done as he did.
So powerful has faith been in every age ; so powerful is it
still. This is why a man who has faith is generous and liberal,
and rises by his faith above the common run of men, who
seek nothing but their own advantage. Those who have faith,
no less than others, like to grow rich, and their carnal nature
urges them, too, to take the best -for themselves and to run
jo risks for any one else ; but they find a yet greater treas-
are in contentment, cheerfulness, quickness of sympathy,
ove ; in a single word — a rich inner life ; and they trust that
his spiritual happiness will ever increase within them. Those
who are so rich cannot be mean. Those who feel that they
are happy, and cherish in their hearts a living hope, cannot
bring themselves to be for ever calculating what will be most
1 Psalms xxxiv. 7.
120 I THE OATH OF YAHWEH.
to their own advantage ; and, without any effort, they bring
into practice that command of Jesus which sounds so strange
and exaggerated : " Give to him that asks of you, and torn
not away from him who would borrow of you." "
Chapter XIV.
THE OATH OP YAHWEH
Gen. XV.
THE battle was over, and Lot had gone on his way.
Abram could return to his tents and once more engage
in his peaceful occupations, keeping his sword and his arrows
sharp for the bear and the lion only. But now a heaviness
of heart he had never felt before overpowered him. In the
might of faith he had lived and worked, he had overthrown
his enemies though far outnumbered by them, and had gener-
ously given away the treasure, and as long as he had been
active he had felt no weariness. But now his lower nature
re-asserted its claims and made itself felt bj" his very soul.
Abram was sad at heart. He thought of the fatherland he
had left. He thought of the dangers that surrounded him.
He strained his e3'es in vain to see into the darkness of the
future. Yahweh had promised him the land that he had
passed through ; but how was this promise to be fulfilled ? and
who was to enjoy its fulfilment '< He had no children, and
both he and his wife were now so old that they had given up
all hope of ever having any. His relations all lived far away.
Lot had left the promised land of his own free will. So he
had no heir but his slave Eliezer, who had indeed been born
in his household, and was almost as dear as a son to him, but
yet was not " his own." Abram was in deep depression.
But his god knew how to relieve this weariness of spirit,
which might easily have led to loss of faith. Yahweh, who
had already appeared to him more than once, came to hira
again. It was night, and Abram heard Yahweh in a vision
calling to him, " Fear not, Abram! I am your shield, and
will give you a rich reward." But he answered in despair,
" Lord Yahweh ! what fortune can you give me? I go on
1 Matthew v. 42.
THE OATH OF YAHWEH. 121
my way childless, and Eliezer will be my heir, for I have no
children."
Such was his complaint ; but the answer that fell upon his
ear was bej-ond measure comforting: "Not your slave, but
your own son shall be your heir." And when Yahweh led
him out of his tent he saw that this promise was not meant
for a mere idle word. It was a glorious night. The moon
had not risen, and the stars twinkled by thousands in the
sky. "Look up!" said Yahweh. "Can you count the
stars? Even so countless shall your descendants be." And
however wonderful this word appeared, yet Abram kept down
the voice of doubt in his heart. Yahweh's promise was so
sure ! He ooald not help accepting it with firm belief. Thus
rest was brought to his soul. All that had troubled him waj
gone, as if by a magic touch. He no longer thought of his
fatherland with pain, no longer saw dangers all around him :
and, as for the future, his posterity should possess Canaan.
How could it be ? Nay that was as Yahweh should direct.
Now that his faith was established as to the main point, he
was to gather the fruit of his trustfulness, and to learn how
completely he had gained Yahweh's favor by it. "I Yahweh
have brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees " — so his god
went on to address him — " to give you this land for a heri-
tage." Abram now believed in this promise without reserve ;
but he knew by experience how easily the shadow of doubt
might fall upon his soul, so he answered, " Lord, give me a
sign, that I maj- know it certainly." And Yahweh granted
the request.
By the direction of his god the patriarch was to make
the needful preparations for a solemn sacrifice in confirma-
tion of a treaty. For this purpose he took an ox of three
yea^i old, a goat and a ram of the same age, and a pair of
doves. He cut each of the larger animals into two parts, but
left the birds undivided ; then he arranged all these parts
upon the ground, the two halves of the same animal opposite
each other. When the vultures and kites, attracted by the
flesh, flew forward towards it, he chased these unclean
creatures away. The bleeding flesh must lie there unpol-
luted, so that when Yahweh came to conclude the treaty he
might pass between the parts.
In patient, but eager expectation, Abram watched till the
sun went down. When it had vanished behind the horizon,
a deep sleep fell upon him ; all at once he was wrapped in
darkness, but it was not the natural darkness of the night.
VOL. 1. 6
122 THE OATH OF YAHWEH.
Amazement laid hold of him ; the thick black darkness in
which Yahweh dwells closed round him and weighed upon
his breast. Hark ! it is the voice of Yahweh : ' ' Know that
your posterity shall sojourn in a strange land ; there they
shall be enslaved and oppressed. For three generations they
shall remain among the strangers, because the measure of the
sins of the Amorites, who are to be punished by your posterity,
will not be full till then. But, though I leave them there to
sigh so long, I will not forget my promise. And the people
that oppress them shall fall under my avenging justice ; the
fourth generation shall rescue itself from the 3-oke of slavery,
and shall return to this land, its heritage, laden with boot}'.
As for you, O Abram, in a blessed old age you shall go to
your fathers in peace and be buried."
Such was the promise of Yahweh that sounded from the
darkness after the sun had set. But look ! What is that
appearing suddenly like a smoking furnace and a flame of
Are? Yahweh himself was there, and passed between the
parts of the sacrificial animals to confirm his promise with
an oath.
Thus Yahweh swore to Abram that his posterity should
possess the whole land of Canaan, from the river of Egypt to
the Euphrates, the land of the Kenites and of all the other
tribes that were settled there.
There is one passage in this story that I have intentionally
avoided rendering accurately, because there is a contradiction
in it, that calls away the attention of any one who notices it
from the general drift of the story. When Yahweh is fore-
telling to Abram all that is to befall his posterity, and how
they are to be oppressed in a strange land, — in saying which
the writer is of course thinking of the slavery in Egypt — the
promise is added 1 that the fourth generation shall depart
thence. 1 All this I told you, but did not add that side by
side with it stands this other prophecy, 2 "for four hundred
years shall the strangers oppress them." These two predic-
tions do not agree together, for the space of four generations
is far less than that of four centuries. This contradiction
shows how the story is put together from the work of two
writers, one of whom (the older) estimated the length of
the stay of the Israelites in Egypt at four generations, 8 while
the other put it at about four centuries. 4 This little fact also
1 Gen. xv. 16. 2 v< 13.
8 Exodus vi. 16, 18, 20, and elsewhere. 4 Exodus xii. 40.
THE OATH OF YAHWEH. 123
shows ns what free use an ancient Israelite author made of
his materials, and how very uncritical people were in those
days.
But this only refers to a point of minor importance ; and
we have one or two things of more consequence to notice in
this story. To understand it rightly, we must remember
that it was customary among the Israelites, as well as among
other nations of antiquity, to confirm a treat}' that was being
made, by sacrifices. And as sacrificial animals, therefore,
were slaughtered on these occasions, concluding a treaty was
called " striking," or " slaying a treaty." Even we still use
the expression, "to strike a bargain." It seems that the
solemnities practised by the Israelites on such occasions were
not always the same, but what is here described was one
form of them. At-any rate, it is referred to several times
elsewhere. 1 They cut one or more beasts into halves, and
laid the pieces along the two sides of the path by which the
parties making the promise were to go, so that they would
pass between these parts. The meaning of the ceremony,
which was most likely expressed in words at the same time,
appears to have been as follows : " Maj- the fate of this sacri-
ficial beast, hewn into two halves, fall upon him who violates
this treaty and breaks this promise ! " What the Israelites
themselves were accustomed to do when they took their most
solemn oaths, is here related of their god Yahweh. When he
prsmised Abram a numerous posteritj-, he did so in the most
solemnly impressive manner possible, hy passing between
the parts of all the animals suitable for a sacrifice, so that
Abram might never doubt the certainty of his promise again.
The way in which Yahweh is here described gives us a
glance into the ideas of the Israelites about their god. A
terrific darkness is the first indication of his presence, for
Yahweh dwells in the darkness.' 2 For this reason there was
no light in the inmost compartment of the temple, in the
holiest place, where Yahweh was enthroned. Strangely in
contrast with this is the form under which Yahweh himself
appears — the flame of fire. This symbol occurs not only
in this passage, but in so many others as to make it perfectly
evident that the Israelites thought of Yahweh under this
form more than under any other, and believed the consuming
fire to be the true expression of the being of their god. 3 As
1 Jeremiah xxxiv. 18, 19. Genesis xxi. 27.
2 Exodus xx. 21. Deuteronomy iv. 11.
3 Isaiah iv. 5, x. 17, xxx. 27 &., xxxi. 9, xxxiii. 14. Amos v. 6. Ezekiel
viii. 2, x. 4, &c.
124 THE OATH OF YAHWEH.
an illustration of this idea, 1 will quote part of a psalm, 1
containing a description of Yahweh coming to help his
favorite. The age of the song, which is ascribed to David
in the superscription, is uncertain, but at any rate it is from
the time before the captivity.
I will praise thee, Yahweh, my strength !
Yahweh is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer.
Mv god is my rock, on which I trust,
My shield and the horn that saves me, my tower.
When I cried " Praise ye Yahweh "
I was saved from the might of my foes.
Billows of death surrounded me.
Streams of terror made me afraid.
The bands of the shadow-land had already laid hold of me.
The snares of death were round me.
Then I cried to Yahweh in my distress,
Yea, I cried aloud to my god.
He heard my voice from his palace,
And my cry broke through to his ear.
Then the earth trembled and heaved,
The roots of the mountains shuddered
And heaved because he was wrath.
Smoke rose up in his nostrils,
A consuming fire from his mouth,
Coals blazed forth from him.
He bowed the heavens and came down
With storm-clouds under his feet.
He rode on a thunder-cloud and flew,
And shot forth on the wings of the wind.
He veiled himself in a mantle of darkness,
And shrouded himself in dark waters and masses of cloud.
By the brightness before him his clouds were broken,
By hail and coals of fire.
And Yahweh thundered in the heavens,
The voice of the Highest was heard.
He shot forth his arrows and scattered my foes,
Countless flashes of lightning to confound them.
The beds of the waters were uncovered,
The foundations of the earth laid bare,
At the rebuke of Yahweh,
At the blast of the breath of his nostrils.
He stretched out his hand from on high and took me,
He drew me forth from the stormy waters,
From my mighty foemen did he deliver me,
From those that hated me, and were stronger than I.
Such a description as this shows us how the religion of the
Israelites, like that of other peoples, was at first a worship of
nature, and how nothing made such a deep impression upon
them as the thunder-storm, with the flickering and flashing
lightning. The thunder-storm, therefore, more than anything
else, made them think of the action of some higher power,
and they thought of their god for the most part as a dreadful
being who inspired them with terror, as a consuming fire.
l Psalm xviii. 1-17. 2 Samuel xxii. 2-18.
THE OATH OF TAHWEH. 1?,5
Gradually their religious life was more or less shaken free
from the impressions caused by the phenomena of nature.
For us, such a representation of the deity has little or no
value. At best it only speaks to our imagination and not to
our heart. When we speak of the thunder as God's voice,
and the lightning as his messenger, we are simply making use
of a poetical form of speech, that has nothing to do with our
real religious life ; and, indeed, we should be shocked by such
descriptions as that of the Psalm just quoted, if any one of our
own day were to give them as the genuine utterance of his own
heart.
There is certainly progress here, but it is not genuine prog-
ress, unless our reverence for God is as great as ever. God's
majesty is not revealed in nature alone. He speaks sternly
to us too, in our consciences, in the severe demands of the
moral law, in the inexorable punishment he inflicts on sin, in
the self-reproach and misery by which he teaches us that lie
cannot be "mocked." x
Our god dwells in the darkness. He is a consuming fire.
So spoke the ancient Israelite as he gazed, with a shudder,
h?.to the black gloom of night or the dark depths of the
thunder-clouds, and trembled as he saw the heavens all a-glow
with lightning, as if wrapped in flames. Our god is a consum-
ing fire, he said again in later times, when his conscience was
troubled, and he felt ready to sink under the burden of his sins.
Our god is a consuming fire 2 — that word still expresses an
awful truth, felt by every man who understands the extent of
his duty, who is weighed down by the thought of his trespasses,
who knows not how he can be rescued from the black night
that sometimes falls upon his soul.
He who has never felt anything like this is not able to
enjoy as yet the full comfort of the faith that God is our
Father.
* ualatians vi. 7. 2 Hebrews xii. 99.
126
Chapter XV
HAGAR.
Gen. XVL
ABllAM'S faith in the promise of Yahweh was severely
tested ; for ten years went by, after he had reached the
land of Canaan, and still he had no hope of offspring. Then
Sarai grew impatient, and began to wonder whether she was
destined to be the mother of the future chief of Abram's tribe.
For in promising a son to him, Yahweh had never promised
one to her, and in her doubt and sadness she believed that she
was never to have the joy of clasping a child of her own to
her bosom ! But she could not acquiesce in this. She could
not bear the thought of going down to the grave childless.
No ! This misery, this shame — for so it was considered in
Israel — must not be hers ! There was one way to escape it,
a way which strikes us as very extraordinary, but in which
there was nothing shocking to the ideas of antiquity or at
variance with' its customs. She gave her slave-girl to her
husband as a secondary wife, intending, should she have any
children to adopt them as her own. Thus she tried, as the
Israelites called it, " to build up her house by her slave-girl."
The slave who was thus made the wife of her master was
Hagar, an Egyptian.
It is easy to imagine how unpleasant the relations between
Hagar and her mistress gradually became. The servant,
especially when she began to have hopes of being a mother,
forgot more and more completely the respect she owed to
Sarai, and began at last to treat her childless mistress with
undisguised contempt. The latter complained of her conduct
to Abram, and reproached him indirectly with paying the
slave-girl too much honor. " May the reproach I suffer fall
upon you!" she said, "Now that my slave is expecting to
become a mother she despises me. May Yahweh judge be-
tween you and me ! " Abram could only remind her of the
authority she had over her own servant, and the mistress,
now enraged by envy, made such ample use of it that Hagar
could no longer endure the treatment she experienced, and
forgetting that her flight would take away all her hopes of
ever seeing her child exalted to the rank of Abram's heir and
HAG AH. 127
the chief of his tribe, she left the tents of her master and set
out for her own country.
But she had not got far on her journey before the-angel of
Yahweh met her by a well, on the way to the wilderness
of'Shur, and asked her where she came from and where she
was going. She answered that she was trying to escape from
her mistress Sarai. But the angel said, "Go back to your
mistress and humble yourself before her. If you find this
hard to do, comfort yourself b} r thinking v^hat the future has
in store for you. I will give j'ou countless descendants. The
son to whom you are about to give birth shall be called Ish-
mael, that is God hears, for Yahweh has heard the complaint
of your oppression. Your child will be a man like a wild-ass ; *
he will be against every one, and every one will be against him ;
and he will dwell to the east of all his brethren."
Then Hagar called the name of Yahweh, who had spoken
to her, "Thou art a god that lets himself be seen," for she
said, " Do I really live, after I have seen (him) ? " So they
call the well at which this meeting took place, the well Lahai-
Roi. It lies between Kadesh and Bered. So Hagar went
back to Abram and soon saw the angel's promise fulfilled, for
she gave birth to a son, and called him " Ishmael."
The object of this story is to give an account of the Ish-
maelites, as the Israelites called the wandering Arab tribes.
It shows us that the Israelite did not deny his relationship to
these Arabs, but looked upon them as his brethren, though
he did not consider them his equals. According to him they
were indeed Abram's children, but their mother was nothing
but a slave. It was true* that Ishmael was older than the
forefather of the Israelites, or in plain language, that the
Bedouins, or " sons of the desert," had existed as an inde-
pendent people before the Israelites, and were their own
masters when Israel still bowed beneath the yoke of slavery
in Egypt ; but their mother was an Egyptian, that is to say,
they had not preserved the purity of their blood, but had
intermarried with the Egyptians.
This legend, like many others, is associated with a par-
ticular spot. For the well Lahai-Roi, according to the story,
owes its name to the appearance of the angel who foretold
the future lot of her son to the Egyptian handmaid. The
statement that the well in question lies between Kadesh and
Bered gives us but little help in finding it again, for the name
1 After an amended version.
128 HAGAE.
of Bered is quite unknown to us. Nor does the repeated
mention of the well in the stories about Isaac 1 bring us much
further. Nor again does the name itself give us any indica-
tion about the well, for the real meaning of Lahai-Eoi, which
our writer seems to have translated ' ' there is sight for the
living," is uncertain. From very early times, however, the
natives have pointed out a well a little to the south of Beer-
sheba, which they call "the well of Hagar." Its position
suits the direction of Hagar's flight from Hebron to the wilder-
ness of Shur, which stretches along the coast of the Mediter-
ranean Sea, between the south-western border of Palestine
and Egypt. "We may therefore suppose this well to be the
one intended.
Let us turn for a moment to the country and the people of
the Ishmaelites !
Arabia is the name given to the vast extent of land washed
on the south-west coast bj- the Red Sea, on the south-east by
the Indian Ocean, on the north-east by the Persian Gulf, and
bounded on the north by Palestine, Syria and the Euphrates.
Geographers usually divide it into three parts, Arabia Felix,
Arabia Petrsea and Arabia Deserta, that is Fortunate Arabia,
Stony Arabia and Desert Arabia, but the natives know noth-
ing of this division. Arabia Felix is by far the greatest, for
this name is given to the whole peninsula between the three
seas just mentioned, while the extreme western corner only,
together with the peninsula of Sinai and Mount Seir, is called
Arabia Petrsea, and the desert that lies between Palestine and
the Euphrates, Arabia Deserta. This third portion of Arabia
was the dwelhng-place of the Ishmaelites, of whose ancestor
it was foretold, as we saw just now,' that he should live to the
east of all his brothers. 2 It is a hilly and desert land, lying
rather high, and almost always scorched beneath a burning
sun. Its vegetation is thin, and it swarms with serpents and
beasts of prey. The wells are but few, and most of them are
brackish and sulphurous, and in many cases most offensive to
the smell. Sometimes the scorching and suffocating blast of
the terrible Simoom sweeps over these steppes.
Of the tribes who inhabited this country twelve were known
to the Israelites, and were called the sons of Ishmael bv
them. 8 Among these the Nabateans (Nebajoth) and the
Kedarenes (Kedar) were the most important. The Israelites
1 Genesis xxiv. 62, xxv. 11.
2 Genesis xvi. 12, xxv. 18, after an amended version.
8 Genesis xxv. 13-18.
HAGAR. 129
distinguished between these Ishmaelites and certain other
Arab tribes, most of whom lived in Arabia Felix, but some of
whom, such as the Midianites, were often to be fouud in
Arabia Deserta or Petrsea. They called these other Arabs
the sons of Abram and Keturah. 1
The angel told Hagar that Ishmael would be " a wild-ass
of a man," and we may see what an Israelite understood by
this expression from the addition, "his hand against every
man, and every man's hand against him," and also from the
following description of the animal to which he is compared,
tiken from the book of Job : 2
Who has let the wild-ass go free,
And who has loosened his bonds ?
I (Yahweh) have made the wilderness his home,
And the barren moor-land his dwelling,
He scorns the wealth of the city ;
He heeds not the driver's cry,
He ranges the hills as his pasture,
And searches out every green thing.
Brave, free, and hardy, uncomvpted by luxury, but restless
and rapacious, — such were the Bedouins. The land in which
they lived had made them so ; for but a small part of it was
fit for cultivation, and though the inhabitants differed from
each other in their modes of life, some dwelling in open vil-
lages and others in tents, 8 in no case could anything like 'cities
be raised. Organized society could not exist where the
population was for the most part unsettled ; and the dryness
of their country, in which one miserable well was considered
a valuable possession, and many parts of which became abso-
lutely uninhabitable for the time, if no rain fell, brought the
various tribes into constant collision with each other ; and
want often drove them to make war upon one another, or to
plunder the more fortunate regions that lay upon the borders
of their desert. They were troublesome neighbors, therefore,
and a great curse to the merchants ; for they were constantly
attacking their caravans, and could not well be subdued them-
selves on account of the ease with which they escaped on their
swift camels and horses, and disappeared with all their pos-
sessions, on the approach of a hostile camp, into the heart of
the desert, to which their enemies could hardly follow them.
A wild-ass of a man, and every one's enemy ! This is
surely not an attractive picture, and if it is a faithful likeness
we can have no great respect for the people it represents,
1 Genesis xxv. 1-4. 2 Job xxxix. 5-8.
s Genesis xxv. 10, after an amended version. '
130 HAGAR.
since they must have stood low in the scale of development
" But," it may be said, "is it fair to throw the blame upon a
tribe when the country in which it lived almost compelled it
to lead a marauding life ? We saw just now that the nature
of their country made the Ishmaelites what they were. "Was
it their fault, then, that they were what their country made
them ? " Let us not deceive ourselves and each other ! The
character of a people, like that of an individual, is formed to
a great extent by circumstances ; but for all that we are not
guiltless if we allow ourselves to be drawn into sin by our
surroundings. Each one's lot in life brings its special temp-
tations with it, and each one must learn to overcome them.
It is just the same with nations. The character of every
country brings some temptation with it. A rich and fruitful
land has an enervating effect upon its inhabitants, and makes
them luxurious, lazy, and licentious ; just as a barren land,
whose inhabitants have a hard struggle with nature, may
easily make them rude, cruel, quarrelsome, restless, and
rapacious. But no people must allow itself to be 1 made bad
by its climate and its circumstances. It must make itself
master of them. It is no use saying that this is impossible ;
for even if the poverty of a country, for instance, makes its
inhabitants impatient, and sets them fighting with each other,
yet after all they would overcome the difficulties with which
they have to contend more easily, and would experience
greater prosperity and enjoy more happiness, if they helped
each other and joined together to rescue themselves by cour-
age and perseverance from the dangers with which they are
threatened by nature than if the}' went on making war upon
each other. It is only b} r learning to resist such temptations
as these, and to overcome the evil influence of circumstances,
that a nation can become a blessing to mankind and a joy to
itself.
A barren land and straitened circumstances may even
benefit a people if it knows that there are other and better
treasures than great flocks or swift horses, if it loves religion
and goodness. But, in spiritual things, the Bedouins never
excelled. The wants of the moment, the satisfaction of their
daily necessities, were the points of chief importance with
them. Their old religion, like that of the Israelites, was the
worship of stars and stones. But no Moses rose among "the
sons of the East" to teach a higher view of the being and th«
service of the deity. Like so many other peoples, they went
on standing where they had always stood, until they gradually
DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH. 131
ceased to care for spiritual things at all. From this people
" like a wild ass" no light has streamed. It is true that the
tribe from which Mohammed, the prophet of the Arabs, sprang
boasted its descent from Ishmael, yet it was not among the
wandering hordes of the north, but among the inhabitants
of those regions in which agriculture and commerce were
practised, and even there to a large extent under Israelite
influences, that Islam rose.
Chapter XVI.
THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH.
Gen. XVIII., XIX.
IN the remaining stories about Abram, this patriarch is
always called Abraham, and his wife Sarah, not Sarai.
The occasion of this change is told us in a story J (the prin-
cipal contents of which we shall speak of in another chapter) ,
in which it is said to have been commanded by God.
What "Abram" means we are not told; but "Abraham,"
according to. this writer, is " the father of a multitude," and
the name embodies the prophecy of a numerous posterity ;
many peoples and kings were to descend from him. The
name "Sarah," no translation of which is given, may mean
"princess." This change of names is reported not by the
oldest writer, but in the "Book of Origins." From this point,
however, the compiler of the book of Genesis, who collected
the different accounts together, has changed the names of
Abram and Sarai into Abraham and Sarah in all the docu-
ments ; and we shall follow his example.
First, then, we will tell the story of the fall of Sodom and
Gomorrah. It runs as follows : — ■
When Abraham was living by the oak-tree of Mamre, he
had repeated proofs of the favor with which he was regarded
by Yahweh, the terrible avenger of wrong. Thus he was
sitting one day, when the sun was at its hottest, in the door
of his tent, when he saw at a little distance before him three
men in whom he recognized at once his god Yahweh and two
angels. It need not be said that he hastened to meet them,
1 Genesis xvii.
1U2 DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH.
and, throwing himself upon the ground, addressed the foromost
of the three with the words, " Lord ! he gracious to me, and
pass not by the dwelling of j - our servant. Let me wash your
feet, and do j 7 ou then lie clown under the tree until the meal
is ready, that I may set a piece of bread before you, to
strengthen you for the rest of your journey. Surely it is for
this that you have visited your servant." The guests yielded
to his invitation, and Abraham made haste to prepare a meal
for them. He had modestly spoken of what he could set be-
fore them as "a piece of bread ;" but, of course, he gave
them the best he had, and a plentiful meal of cakes and meat,
with fresh and curdled milk was soon prepared. According to
the custom still prevalent in the East, Abraham did not join
his illustrious guests at table, but waited on them himself.
After their meal, Yahweh asked where Sarah was ; and
when Abraham answered that she was in the tent, he declared
" within a year I will come again, and then Sarah shall have
a son." Sarah, who was in the front part of the tent, laughed
to herself, and thought, ' ' I have a son, indeed ! Impossible ! "
But though she was standing behind Yahweh, so that he could
not even see the incredulous look upon her face, he knew
exactly what she was doing and thinking. " Why is Sarah
laughing ? " he asked. ' ' Does she think that anything is too
wonderful for Yahweh? I tell you again, at the appointed
time I shall return, and then Sarah will have a sou." Sarah
nciw tried to make out that she had not been laughing, for she
was afraid of Yahweh, but he would not allow himself to be
deceived, and said again " you did laugh."
Then the three men rose and went towards Sodom, while
Abraham made readj r to accompanj' them. He little knew
what he was now to hear.
Yahweh had fearful things on hand, and could not refrain
from telling Abraham all that was going to happen. Should
he conceal from Abraham, the ancestor of so many mighty
peoples, Abraham whose fortune would become proverbial
among all nations, what he was now about to do? " No ! "
he thought, " Abraham must know it; for did not I choose
him for my friend, that he might teach all his posterity to
serve me and to deal justly ? For only on these conditions
can I fulfil my glorious promises to him. Abraham, then,
must be told what is about to happen."
So Yahweh said to Abraham, "There is a rumor of gross
wickedness in Sodom and Gomorrah, and I am going to sec
whether the measure of it is full, that I may know what 1
DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH 133
must do ! " When Yahweh had thus declared his intention,
his two companions went on their way to Sodom, but he
himself still staid behind.
Abraham was deeply troubled, and ventured to come for-
ward to plead for the sinful cities. He could not but admit
the truth of the accusation. Yes ! Sodom and Gomorrah
were full of ungodliness ; he could not contradict it. Bnt
yet. . . . "Lord!" said he, "You will not destroy the
righteous together with the ungodly? Perhaps there may
be fifty good men in the city, would not you spare it for their
sake ? Nay ! I know it full well, you, the judge of all the
earth, will surely do no wrong. You will not surfer the
pious to perish with the ungodly." Moved by this entreaty,
Yahweh answered, "Well! If there are fifty righteous men
in Sodom, I will forgive the whole city for their sake."
Abraham might now rejoice in the success of his mediation,
but the fear came over him that even yet his intercession
might prove fruitless. "See," he reluctantly began, "I
have ventured to speak to the Lord, though I am but dust
and ashes, and . . . suppose there were just five short of
the fifty ! Would the city be destroyed for want of them."
And Yahweh's answer reassured him, for he said, " If I can
find but five and forty good men in the city, I will spare it."
This was a great point gained, but still Abraham went on,
and asked, " But what if there were only forty?" and when
he had received the same answer as before, he began again :
"Lord! be not angry! . . . but suppose there were only
thirty?" "Even for them will I spare Sodom," was the
gracious reply of Yahweh. Encouraged by his clemency,
the patriarch put the case that the godless city might contain
but twenty pious men, and then even brought the number
down to ten, and Yahweh promised him that he would forgive
the whole city if he found ten righteous men in it. It was
with feelings of relief and hopefulness that Abraham saw
Yahweh depart upon his way.
But his hopes were idle. In all Sodom there were not
so many as ten men whose sinfulness did not cry to heaven !
This soon became apparent to the two angels who had gone
to look into the matter. When they reached Sodom they
were asked by Lot, who was sitting at the gate of the city,
to be his guests. But when at last they yielded to his
repeated and pressing request, and accepted his frank invita-
tion, all the inhabitants of the city, " from the oldest to the
youngest," collected together, and,, in violation of the most
134 DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH.
sa6rod laws of hospitality, threatened the strangers with vio
lence. No further proof was required. The messengers of
Yahweh need not go into any closer examination of the
affair. Lot was the only righteous man, and Sodom must be
destroyed.
Before the angels began the work of destruction, they
uttered the words of warning to Lot, ' ' Leave the city, with
all your relatives," and added " Make haste, for we are sent
by Yahweh to execute his avenging justice." In vain Lot
visited his sons-in-law and foretold the destruction of their
country to them. They heeded not ; and at daybreak the
angels urged him to make haste, and said, " Leave them all
behind if they will not go with you. Take your wife and
your two unmarried daughters and escape, or you will perish
with the rest." Lot could hardly make up his mind to leave
all his other relatives to their fate, but the angels compelled
him to do so, and led him with his family outside the city,
for Yahweh had mercj r on him.
Once more they urged him to make haste. " Fly," said
they, " for j r our life. Look not back, and rest not in all the
valley of Siddim, but fly to the mountain, or you will perish ! "
Lot was now fully convinced that he must make the utmost
speed, and cried, "Ah! my lords! you have been so good
to me as to spare my life ; now redouble your goodness to
me ! It may be too late for me to escape to the mountain ;
destruction will come upon me and I shall die. But this
city here is close by, and it is but a little one. Let me find
a refuge there ! " His prayer was granted. The avenging
angels promised that this little city should be spared for his
sake, but they urged him to make all the greater speed, for
they could do nothing till he was in Zoar. From this prayer
of Lot the city took its name of Zoar, that is " little one."
When the sun rose and Lot drew near to Zoar, Yahweh
rained brimstone and fire from heaven upon Sodom and
Gomorrah, and so destroyed not only the cities themselves
but the whole valley of Siddim with all its inhabitants. Lot
escaped ; but his wife was so foolish as to disobey the angels
and look behind her, whereupon she was changed in a mo-
ment into a pillar of salt.
That morning Abraham stood once more on the spot where
he had entreated Yahweh to have mercy on the godless
cities, and he soon saw that his intercession had been of no
avail. A cloud of smoke, like that of a kiln, rose from the
whole country in which Sodom and Gomorrah had stood, and
DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH. 135
told him of the dreadful fate that had fallen on these cities
and of Yahweh's avenging justice.
Let us make ourselves more closely acquainted with the
place to which this story carries us.
In the south-east of Palestine there is a sea, about forty
miles long, and, on an average, nine miles broad, which was
usually called by the Israelites " the Salt Sea." Its many
peculiarities have always excited the greatest interest, and
within the last forty years it has more than once been made
the subject of scientific investigations. A promontory, of
considerable size, runs into it from its south-east coast, but
otherwise its oval form is nearly unbroken. It forms a con-
tinuation of the valley of the river Jordan, which enters it
from the north, but does not leave it again at the south ; all the
waters of this river, therefore, together with those of the nume-
rous but for the most part inconsiderable streams that enter
the sea from the east and west, evaporate from this great basin.
It is surrounded on all sides 1)3' hills which reach close up to
the water on the eastern side, but are separated from it by
rather a broad strand on the west. This strand, like the
plains to the north and south, is bald and sterile, and every
thing on it is covered with a crust of saltpetre. This is the
result of the exhalations of the waters of the sea, which are
extraordinarily salt. At some seasons of the year, moreover,
great quantities of asphalt or bitumen float on the surface of
the sea, and give a leaden appearance to the whole sheet of
water. At the south-west corner a rock of salt, about Ave
miles long, but not very high, rears itself. It is called " the
hill of Sodom," or " the stone of Sodom." Round its edge
all kinds of petrified formations of salt appear, sometimes of
the grotesquest shape, and after a time they plunge back into
the sea, or undergo great changes from the exhalations of the
water and the influence of rain and sunshine.
Love of exaggeration has still further increased the gloom-
iness of this scene. It has often been declared that the vapors
rising from the water form a heavy pestilential cloud that
never passes away, that no living creature can stay near it,
that the birds that try to fly across it fall down into it dead,
and that its waters are never stirred by the wind. All this is
gross exaggeration. The fact that the district is inhabited,
though but thinly owing to its barrenness, is sufficient to show
that the exhalations of the water are not poisonous. Besides,
whole days have been spent upon the sea itself or in journeys
136 DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMOJIRAH.
along its coasts by travellers. Nor is it true that storms are
unknown there. But it is undeniable that the Salt Sea has a
dismal aspect, and it is not without reason that it is called
the Dead Sea.
Now the origin of this " Dead Sea" is the subject of our
story. The southern portion of the sea, we are told, was once
called the valley of Siddlm, and was then a fruitful plain.
Several towns were built upon it, the best known of which
were Sodom and Gomorrah, while others bore the names of
Admah, Zeboim, and Bela or Zoar. 1 Several of the Israelite
writers, 2 and some other ancient authors, speak of the devas-
tation of this region bj r earthquakes and subterranean fire.
The great quantity of bitumen that is found there, largely
composed of petroleum, makes the occurrence of these terrible
phenomena quite credible. It seems, therefore, that the tra-
dition of which we are speaking is a true one.
The recollection of such a devastation would not easily be
blotted out from this region that had suffered so much at the
hands of nature. The gloomy spectacle furnished by the sea,
as it lay between its salt-bound shores, was constantly calliug
the havoc of a by-gone age to mind, and, to those ancient
spectators who saw the hand of an avenging deity in all the
destructive agencies of nature, it told of wrath and chastise-
ment. Here was food enough for the imagination ! That
little city Zoar, on the south-east coast, appeared to have
been spared through special favor, for the destruction must
have swept round it on three sides. What was the reason of
this? If we make the inquiry in a scientific spirit we see that
the strip of land on which it lay was on a higher level than
that of the rest of the plain, so that when the plain became a
prey to fire, and the water of the northern part of the sea
overflowed into it, this piece of land very naturally remained
above water. But in ancient times they never thought of this
explanation, and saw a sign of God's favor in the fact that the
city had escaped. Grotesque pillars of salt were to be found
in. abundance by the Hill of Sodom, and imagination often
traced the petrified human form in them.
Thus other legends, besides the one we have given, would
doubtless spring up among those who lived on the shores of
the sea. We have seen alreadj' how rumor has exaggerated
its dismal nature. About the beginning of our era the people
1 Genesis xiv. 2. Deuteronomv xxix. 23.
2 Jeremiah xx. 16 ; xxiii. 14 ; xlix. 18 ; 1. 40. Lamentations iv. 6. Zephaniati
ii. 9 &c,
DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH. 137
of the neighborhood spoke of thirteen cities that had been
destroyed. We will take one more example of this kind of '
thing !
The Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, tells us that fruit
grows on the shores of the Dead Sea all full of ashes.
" They look as if they were tit to eat," he writes, "but if
any one takes hold of them with his hand they break up into
dust and ashes." The Roman historian, Tacitus, refers to
the same thing. The origin of this story of the " apples of
Sodom" appears to be found in the fact that a certain kind
of fruit really does grow in the neighborhood which becomes
soft as it ripens, but which bursts with a clap when squeezed,
and leaves nothing but a thin shell and a few fibres in the
hand. In the substance of this fruit, the legend saw the ashes
of the cities that. had perished.
Our writer selected two of these local traditions, and
brought them into connection with the patriarch he desired
to glorify.
But what an extraordinary idea of his god he had ! And
what strange contradictions there are in his representations
of him ! On the one hand, Yahweh is a most exalted being
who sees the future and knows all that is in the heart of man,
— a god for whom nothing is too wonderful, and who acts
as the judge of all the earth ; but, on the other hand, this
same god is also represented not only as conversing confiden-
tially with Abraham, but even as eating and drinking, with
his angels, in the patriarch's tent. These two sets of ideas
can hardly be said to harmonize with each other. The only
way of explaining this inconsistency is to suppose that the
writer, in working up into a single whole certain old legends
about Abraham's dealings with Yahweh and the promises he
received from this god, together with stories about the destruc-
tion of Sodom and Gomorrah, tried to preserve all the features
of the old accounts, but, at the same time, involuntarily
ascribed to the god, whose actions he was describing, the
attributes which he himself believed him to possess.
The later writer of the stories of the patriarchs says that
Lot was spared " because God remembered Abraham," 1 but
this is not the iclsa of the ancient legend itself, which was
better understood by one of the New Testament writers, 2 who
declared Lot to have been a righteous man, rescued because
of his piety. No doubt Lot stands far below Abraham in our
i Genesis xix. 29. 2 2 Peter ii. 7, 8.
138 DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH.
story, but still he is a man who deserves to find favor in the
eyes' of Yahweh. He offers the most liberal hospitality to the
angels, and when they, in return, warn him of the coming
destruction he gives heed to them at once. Not only does he
rise far above the godless inhabitants of the place in which he
lived, but his readiness to leave all he had contrasts favorably
with the unbelief of his sons-in-law. For his sake, therefore,
Zoar was spared.
While Lot is the believer who hastens to escape the coming
destruction, his wife who looks behind her in her flight, and is
therefore changed into a pillar of salt, is also a believer, but
only half-hearted in her faith. Why must she not look back?
Perhaps the idea that lies at the bottom of this prohibition is
the thought, familiar also to heathen antiquity, that the higher
powers will not suffer themselves to be watched when at work.
But it may be that it contains the idea borrowed from it by
the Gospel of Luke 1 that he whose heart still clings to his
possessions in the day of God's judgment, so that he cannot
unhesitatingly leave everything that he has to save himself, is
but half a believer, and will be destroyed with the rest.
The noblest figure in all the scene is that of Abraham, the
trusted friend of Yahweh, from whom he will conceal nothing,
because the patriarch must teach his offspring to fear him,
Abraham the humble, faithful advocate of the unhappy coun-
try. It need not be said that the way in which Abraham
prays, constantly beating down the demands of the retributive
justice of his god, and persuading him to offer more and more
favorable terms, cannot be made the model of our prayers,
but this is an objection to the writer's idea of God rather than
to his account of Abraham's piety. Deep sympathy with the
doomed cities is expressed in his bold but humble intercession.
It is a noble thing to "say a good word" for others, however
wicked they are, and however much we hate their wickedness :
for it shows that we love our fellow-men.
It was very natural that the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah should pass into a proverbial expression for any
terrible disaster among the Israelites ; natural, too, that
together with the flood, it should become the type of God's
severest judgments, iu the writings of the early Christians. 2
Nor is this injurious to the religious and moral life if only we
clearly understand that when so used it is an emblem of the
terrible consequences of sin, and nothing more ; but the
superstitious view of the phenomena of nature which lies at
l Luke xvii. 32. * Luke xvii. 28. 29.
SON OF THE PROMISE. 139
the basis of this story, and about which we spoke when treat-
ing of the flood, is very hurtful to our inner life.
The volcanic eruptions, the earthquakes, the explosions of
the naphtha wells, and the way in which they had changed the
country from a fruitful plain to a salt sea with barren shores,
— all this spoke to the ancient inhabitants of the district of
the punishments of God ; and the aspect of the Dead Sea
ever reminded them that their god was a consuming fire who
could punish them in fearful ways. So if one of our rivers
overflowed its banks in spring time, and its waters, tumbling
over the fruitful land, converted it into a swamp, and caused
incalculable misery to the inhabitants, we might imagine that
the sufferers were more sinful than those who lived on the
other side, and who were rescued by the very fact of the river
having overflowed on the side removed from them. But this
is a miserable idea, for it not only makes us slothful in dis-
covering and applying the best means of preventing or avoid-
ing the danger, but it is apt to make those that escape
self-satisfied ; and in any case produces a fear of God that
may indeed lead to a slavish obedience and a cringing submis-
sion, but can never be united with a free surrender of the heart
to God or genuine love of Him. For love is cast out by fear.
Chapter XVII.
THE SON OF THE PROMISE.
Gen. XXI. 1-21.
ABRAHAM'S faith in the repeated promises of his god
was not put to shame by the event. For what both he
and Sarah had thought impossible until it was promised to
them really happened ; his wife at ninety years of age became
the mother of a son, and he was called Isaac, that is, the
laugher. In child-like jo}' Sarah exclaimed when he was born :
" God will make them all laugh at what has happened to me.
Every one who hears of it will laugh. Who will go and tell
Abraham Sarah gives children suck ? For even in his old age
have I borne him a son ! "
It was not customary in ancient times for a child to be
completely weaned till it was about three years old. When
140 SON OF THE PROMISE.
Isaac had reached this age, the event was celebrated by a
festal gathering. Then Sarah looked round her with a
mother's pride, and her eye fell upon Ishmael, who was
happy, playing. He was an eyesore to her. Had lie not
been treated but now as Abraham's heir and the future chief
of the tribe ? And yet his mother was nothing but an Egyptian
slave ! As long as she had had no son herself she had
smothered her vexation, and was even glad to have this other
child, though only hers by adoption. But now she had a son
of her own. The reign of the slave child must come to an
end. He was not the son of the promise. Away with him !
Sarah " the princess " went in wrath to her husband.
" Drive out this slave and her son," she cried, " for the child
of a serf shall never share mj' son's inheritance ! " Abraham
was grieved by this violent demand, not so much for Hagar"s
sake as for Ishmael's, who was, after all, his son. He hesi-
tated, therefore, to comply with Sarah's desires. But in the
night his god appeared to him and said : " Let not the request
of Sarah trouble you. You need feel no anxiety for your son
and his mother. The descendants of Isaac shall indeed be
called especially after you, but I will make a mighty people
of the posterity of the slave-girl's child as well, because he is
your son."
Thus persuaded and urged to compliance, Abraham called
Hagar to him in the morning, and told her of this sentence of
banishment. He gave her bread and water for the journey
through the desert ; and she took her child upon her shoulder,
and entered the desert of Beersheba.
Poor Hagar! How had she fallen! Ever since Isaac's
birth she had seen the arm uplifted that struck her now;
but the blow fell none the less heavily for that. In her imagi-
nation her son had been the heir, nay even the tribal chief,
and now . . . rejected! All the glory of which she had
dreamed had vanished ! Alone with her child she entered the
inhospitable desert — an exile.
She pursued her way until the water was all gone, and then
there was nothing left her but to die. What did she care for
that? All joy in life had ceased for her, and as for her son,
what enjoyment could he ever taste — the disinherited ! But
yet she could not look on him while he died of thirst. So
she laid him under a bush, and threw herself down a bowshot
off, so as not to hear his cries. But now her strength and
spirit were exhausted too — her mother's heart was so deeply
smitten — and she burst into tears.
SON OP THE PROMISE, 14]
Consolation was near the mourner. God had compassion
on her son, and his angel cried to her: " Hagar ! why do
you weep? Your son, rejected as he is, is not forgotten by
God even here. Raise him up and support him ; and despair
not of his future lot, for he is the father of a great people."
Thus encouraged, Hagar raised herself; and now that her
eyes were cleared by hope, she saw a spring. Life smiled
upon her once more for her child's sake. She soon refreshed
the fainting Ishmael, and then she pursued her journey.
In the desert of Paran Hagar and her son continued to
dwell, and God protected the boy, and he grew up in the
hardy life of the desert, and became a skilful archer. His
mother took him a wife from Egypt.
So Ishmael, as Abraham's son, was saved and blessed ; but,
as the son of a slave, he could not be his father's heir, but
must yield to the son of the promise.
Is this touching story a legend too ? Undoubtedly. This
appears not only from the repeated mention of immediate
communications from God, in a dream or by the appearance
of an angel, which always show that we have the work of
imagination or invention before us, but also from the fact
that Ishmael, according to the foregoing narratives, 1 must
have been seventeen years old three years after Isaac's birth,
and was therefore no longer a lad that his mother could carry,
as is here supposed.-
In many points this story resembles that of Hagar's flight,
of which we have spoken already, 3 though they are not both
by the same writer. In either case we are placed in the
desert of Beersheba, and by a well. The chief point in both
stories is the prophecy of Ishmael's future greatness, though
he is not to be as great as Isaac. Just as in the other account
Hagar is expressly called the Egyptian woman, to signify that
the Arabs had mixed themselves with the Egyptians, so it is
told us here, with the same object, that Ishmael's mother
took him an Egyptian wife. There is one point, however,
besides the form, in which they differ from each other ; for in
this story no mention is made of the wildness of the Bedouins,
referred to in the other ; the only allusion to the mode of life
of the inhabitants of the desert is contained in the statement
that Ishmael was celebrated as a skilful bowman. Nor is it
said — though people have often seen it there 4 — that Ishmael
l Genesis xvii. 24, 25; xxi. 5. 2 Vv. 14, 15, 18, 20.
8 Pp. 126-131. * Galatians iv. 29.
142 SON OF THE PROMISE.
had behaved insolently, or had irritated Sarah by mocking o.
teasing his younger brother ; it is simply stated that he laughed
or played. 1 The whole story expresses good-will towards Ish-
mael.
But high above him, in the writer's estimation, stands
Isaac, the son of the promise, for whom the slave child has
to make room. This is the main idea of the legend. The
writer makes Sarah imperious past bearing, and cruel to her
slave in the extreme, and Abraham shamefully weak ; for who
would drive out a woman and her child, helpless and unat-
tended, into the desert? But he does not think about all
this. Before his eyes stands nothing but the picture of the
son of promise, for whose sake the son of the slave must be
expelled. In this he saw the presage of the higher privileges
granted to Israel " the chosen people " above the Ishmaelites.
Although the people of Yahweh was younger, jet it rose far
above the inhabitants of the desert, and advanced towards a
more glorious and blessed future.
Centuries after this narrative had been written, one of the
greatest of the followers of Jesus, Paul, was thinking it
over. Ishmael, the son of the slave, who was expelled by
the divine command in order that Isaac, the child of the free
woman, might inherit Abraham's blessing, floated before his
mind, and it seemed to him as if this old history foreshadowed
something similar, which he saw going on in his own days.
For the Jews in his time bowed down beneath the j T oke of the
law, and were therefore like Ishmael, the son of the slave.
The Christians, on the other hand, were delivered from the
pressure of the law, and so might be considered children of a
free mother. Just as Isaac was the child to whom all the
promises of God belonged, while Ishmael had to make way
for him, so too the Jews must take a lower place than the
Christians who received God's greatest blessings.' 2
Is it true that there are such " children of the promise?"
Is it true that one man is more richly blessed with spiritual
gifts than another — that one people throws another into the
shade — that one community rises above another in its re-
ligious capabilities? Is it true that the older is sometimes
pushed aside by the younger who is more richly gifted than
he ? All this is true without a doubt. There are men, com-
munities, peoples who are, as it were, chosen by God to plat-
an important part in the world, whose dispositions are nobler
than those of others, and who, when under circumstances
i Genesis xxi. 9. 2 Galatians iv. 21-31.
THE LAST ORDEAL. 143
favorable to their development, easily surpass those who
have shone before them. So was Israel, " the people of
religion," pushed aside by Christianity. So did the Greeks
and Romans far outstrip the Eastern peoples as Christians.
So again did their light pale, in its turn, before that of the
Germans when the reformation of the sixteenth century took
place. Nay a fresh generation ought always to rise above
that which has preceded it. This should be so from the
very fact that it learns from the older generation, and, as it
were, stands upon its shoulders. But the path by which
mankind advances towards its golden age has many windings.
It often seems to keep at the same distance from the goal,
and sometimes even to lead further away from it, rather than
to draw nearer to it. But ever and again there stand up
men in whose heart God's voice sounds clearer, who tower
above other men in insight, love, and piety, and by their
faith give mankind a fresh impulse forward. These are " the
children of the promise," for the world is blessed by them,
and others must make way for them.
"But in God's dealings there is much that is strange!
According to this God seems to be partial ! " He does. Did
you expect to find it a simple thing to see into all His ways
of educating the world ?
Chapter XVIII.
THE LAST ORDEAL.
Gen. XXII. 1-19.
ABRAHAM had already given the brightest proof, on
many occasions, that he was ready to obey his god in
all things. For at his command he had left his fatherland ;
trusting in his protection, he had wandered all through
Canaan ; nay, had he not, though it cut him to the heart,
cast out his own son Ishmael, at the same high command ?
But his god was not yet satisfied. He determined to try his
servant yet once more, and this last trial should be a hard
one.
Once on a time, while Abraham was still at Beersheba,
his god appeared to him and cried " Abraham ! " " Here am
144 THE LAST OKDEAL.
I, Lord, prepared to serve thee," was the patriarch's ready
answer. But how his ears tingled when he heard the com-
mand : "Take your son, your only son, your loved one,
Isaac ; go with him to the land of Moriah, and offer him there
for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains that I will
show you " !
However dreadful this command might sound, it was no
unheard-of thing, for Abraham knew that the Canaanites
often slew their children and burnt them upon their altars in
honor of their deities, for they believed it to be the way to
serve these gods and to show their absolute devotion to them.
But Abraham had never thought that Yahweh too desired
such a sacrifice. And yet the command was plain, and it
was not for him to ask the reason. He had only to obey, and
obey he would.
80 he rose early on a certain day and saddled his ass. Two
servants and his son were to go with him. They cut some
wood for a sacrifice, and everything was soon in readiness for
the journey upon which they were to start. It took them
two days to reach the place of their destination. Leaving the
mountains of Judah on the left, they journeyed northward,
by Hebron and Bethlehem, until at last, on the third day,
Abraham saw Mount Zion in the distance. Then he told his
slaves to stay behind with the ass. ' ' My son and I," he said,
" will go to that mountain to worship our god, and then come
back to you." The sacrifice he had to make was harder than
words could say, but there was no need that any human eye
should watch his agony in making it.
So the last part of the journey was performed on foot.
The two went on together, through the valley of the Rephaites,
over the low range of hills that parts that plain from the val-
ley of the sons of Hinnom, then down again, — and the dry
limestone ridge, the most northern peak of which had been
indicated to the obedient friend of God as the place of sacri-
fice, stood right before them.
The two went on together, the boy bending beneath the
weight of the wood that was to consume the sacrifice, the
father with the pan of fire and the sacrificial knife.
The two went on together ; the father silent and sad at
heart. The voice of doubt kept speaking, "Can Yahweh
demand such a sacrifice ? My son ! my only son ! It is
too much to require." But it was his god who asked it, it
was that awful god, that consuming fire ! How could he open
his mouth against him to complain? Must Yahweh render
THE LAST ORDEAL. 145
an account of what he did ? Was he not God, and could he
not ask whatever he would ? Be still, rebellious heart ; for
this must be !
The two went on together ; the son careless and happy,
full of enjoyment of life, full of health and strength, but yet
more or less subdued by the character of the landscape, by
the solemnity they had come to perform in solitude, and by
the gloomy silence of his father. Not that his father's silence
surprised him, for Yahweh was a terrible god, a god that must
be appeased by bloody sacrifices ; the whole aspect of nature
round about them, too, was gloomy, and that white mount
that rose so steep before them out of the valley looked to
him like Ihe dwelling-place of a stern Being.
So the two went up the mount together, till Isaac broke
the silence all at once by crying iu surprise : " Why, father ! "
— "What is it, my son?" was Abraham's reply. — "We
have the fire and wood," said the boj-, "but where is the
lamb for the sacrifice ? " — Poor father ! The question
pierced like a dagger to his heart. Where was the lamb for
the sacrifice ? asked the innocent child. What was he to say
to him? As long as he could he would conceal from his
child the terrible demand of his stern god. Be still, com-
plaining heart ! " Our god himself will provide a lamb, my
son ! " was his mysterious reply.
So the two went on together.
Go on, thou faithful servant! It is a word of truth
that thou hast uttered ! God will indeed himself provide
a lamb. He will not accept the sacrifice that you intend to
offer!
When they had reached the top of the mountain Abraham
built an altar in the place that had been pointed out to him,
arranged the wood upon it, bound his son Isaac and laid
him on the pile. But as he stretched out his hand to slay
him. the angel of Yahweh cried to him from heaven,
" Abraham ! Abraham ! " Even as when his god appeared
to him to give that frightful order he had now almost fulfilled,
so now the patriarch replied, "Here am I;" and a ray of
hope broke through to his soul. Could it be that Yahweh
was satisfied by his willingness, and would not have him
actually perform the sacrifice ?
Aye ! Lift up your head, Abraham, and rejoice. Let
that dull glare, through which the soul of a fanatic speaks,
depart out of jour eye, and let the glow of thankful joy come
iu its stead ! Your God did but try your faith. Listen !
146 THE LAST ORDEAL.
" Lay not your hand upon the lad, nor do him any harm ; foi
now I know that you fear God, and hold not back your only
son from me." His son was delivered, as though given him
a second time ! He was soon unbound, was standing at his
father's side, and the two were hanging upon each other's
necks. " Praised be Yahweh who has taken the will for the
deed ! "
l."iere stood the altar! The wood was all in order. The
fire was ready burning. The knife was' whetted. Well
might Isaac ask, " Where is the lamb?" If they had but
an animal with them now to sacrifice, how gladly the) - would
offer it. The spot on which they stood was holy ground ;
Yahweh was present there ; what would they not have given
for a beast to sacrifice. And, lo ! in the background Abra-
ham perceived a ram, with his horns entangled in the brush-
wood, as if brought to the place and kept a prisoner there
by God himself. So even this last wish was fulfilled. In a
moment he had seized the ram and offered it in the place of
his son.
As the smoke of the sacrifice rose on high the patriarch
bowed down in prayer, and said, " This place must be called
Yahweh shall appear ! " l Then the angel of Yahweh called
to him again : "I swear, says Yahweh, that because you
have done this thing, and have not spared your son, your
only son, that I will bless you and make j-our offspring
countless as the stars of heaven and as the sand upon the
sea-shore. Your posterity shall rule over their enemies, and
all the peoples of the earth shall bless themselves in the
name of your descendants ; 2 they shall say : God make us
blessed as the tribe of Abraham ! All this shall come to pass
because you have been obedient."
Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they all went
back to Beersheba together.
The remembrance of this event is still preserved in the
name of the mountain, "Yahweh will appear." 8 The spot
upon which Abraham had shown his readiness was held
sacred ever after, and was even considered worthy of sup-
porting the great sanctuary of Israel, the temple, where
Yahweh dwelt in darkness, and was honored by the songs
of praise and the offerings of his worshippers.
The most various nations of antiquity practised the
horrible rite, still found here and there amongst uncivilized
1 After »n »wen(Jcd version. 2 n,^, s ibid.
THE LAST ORDEAL. 147
tribes, of sacrificing human beings, and especially children,
in honor of the deities. It is undeniable that this was the
case with Israel too, and our story furnishes a contribution
to our knowledge of the custom. For though the chief object
of the story is evidently to glorify Abraham's unlimited
obedience, yet it surely would not have taken this form if
the custom of sacrificing children had never been observed.
However horrible the subject may be, we must try to discos er
how the practice came into existence ; and it is not very hard
to do so.
For whenever any one offered a sacrifice to express his
thankfulness, or to make atonement for a sin he had com-
mitted, he went upon the idea that this present would be
pleasing to the deitj r , and would dispose him favorably
towards the offerer. The idea that the matter of chief im-
portance was the disposition of the heart occurred, indeed, to
some few who were in advance of their times, but was, gene-
rally speaking, unknown to the ancients. They imagined their
god to be like themselves in thinking more of a great th.in
of a small present. He valued an animal more than a sheaf
of corn, and a sheep more than a pigeon. He preferred an
ox to a sheep, and was better pleased with a man who
brought him ten oxen than with another who only brought
him one. And on solemn occasions an immense number of
animals were accordingly slaughtered and burned. Thus
Solomon sacrificed a great number of oxen and sheep at the
consecration of the temple. 1 We need not be surprised,
therefore, to find people trying to raise the value of their
sacrifices by considering not only their number but also their
nature, and arguing that since a man is of far more value
than an animal the deity must set a higher value on the
sacrifice of a human being, a prisoner of war, for example,
or a slave, than on that of a number of animals. And so at
last it came vto their offering up the most precious of all
possessions — their own children. Great thankfulness and,
above all, a growing sense of guilt must have led them to
this terrible extreme.
That this is really the way in which people learned to make
such horrible sacrifices appears from these words of the pro-
phet Micah, 2 amongst others : —
Wherewith shall I come before Yahweh,
And bow me before the high God?
Shall I come before him with offerings,
With bullocks of one year old?
1 1 Kings viii. 5. 2 Micah vi. 6, 7.
148 THE LAST OTtPEAX.
Will Yahweh be pleased with thousands of rams,
With countless rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my sin,
My own child, to obtain forgiveness?
No ! He has shown you, man, what is good,
And what Yahweh requires of you.
It is to do right, to hold justice dear,
And to walk humbly with your god.
bufh -words give us a glance into the religious life of the
Israelites of the eighth century before Christ. The prophet
does indeed reject the sacrifice of a firstborn child, but he
does so not because it is something horrible in itself, but
simply because, like sacrifices of oxen and of oil, it is insuffi-
cient to cover the guilt of man, since Yahweh asks nothing
but justice and humility.
While many of the neighbors of the Israelites sacrificed
children to their gods, and the custom was indeed followed by
many Israelites, and even observed as a part of the Yahweh-
worship, our writer preaches on the other hand that Yahweh
only demanded the sacrifice of his son from Abraham in order
'to test his faith, and being satisfied by the patriarch's willing-
ness to make the offering, took care himself that there should
be a ram as a substitute for Isaac on the verj- spot where
Abraham gave proof of his obedience.
This spot was the mount of the temple. In retelling the
legend I have brought out this point quite clearly, but, as the •
story stands in Genesis, this information is not given us in so
unmistakable a form. Indeed the place of the sacrifice is
described so indefinitely that the interpreters are not yet agreed _
as to its position. The stoiy speaks of " one of the moun-
tains in the land of Moriah "or " one of the mountains of
Moriah ; " but though Moriah, as a name of the mount of the
temple, was in use in the last centuries before Christ yet it
only appears in one other passage in all the Old Testament. 1
Everywhere else the mount of the temple is called Zion.
Now, since "the hill of Moreh" appears as a place near
Shechem, 2 some people have transferred the scene of the
sacrifice thither, especially as "the oak tree of Moreh" is
mentioned in the stories of Abraham as the sanctuary of
Shechem. 8 It is quite possible that some more ancient legend
lies at the bottom of our story, according to which Abraham
performed at Shechem some action similar to the one here
described. But, in the account as we have it, the reference is
certainly to the mount of the temple, which is called especially
i 2 Chronicles iii. 1. » Judges vii. 1. s Genesis xii. 6.
THE LAST ORDEAL. 149
the mountain of Yahweh. The writer tries to give an explana-
tion of the name " Moriah," which he translates " appearance
of Yahweh." So the writer of the book of Chronicles sees
in the same name a reference to Yahweh's appearing to David. 1
Yahweh — such was the writer's intention in this story —
who dwells in the temple and has chosen Mount Moriah as his
favorite place of revelation, Yahweh might demand the sacri-
fice of a first-born, nay of an only son, just as other gods have
done. Indeed he does really desire that his worshippers should
be willing to make this offering. But he does not insist on
the sacrifice being actually performed, for on the mount of the
temple he has appointed a beast to take the place of a human
child.
The idea that God can ever ask such a sacrifice from us
never even comes into our minds ; but yet the disposition that
revealed itself in that custom, horrible as it seems, inspires
every true believer still. We must be ready to g\ve up all
things, even what is dearest to us, to God ; for we must love
him more than friends or relatives, more than our own life ;
nay, we must hold him dearer than our very children.
Thus if in times of persecution a man urges his own son to
endure death rather than be faithless to the truth, he offers
his child as a sacrifice.
If a father urges his son to risk his life for his neighbor,
when some occasion requires him to do so, while his heart
bleeds at the thought of his child's offering himself up and
being taken away from him, he is making the sacrifice of
Abraham.
God often requires great sacrifices from us. He would
have us hold all things cheap for his sake and truth's sake,
for the triumph of right and the salvation of mankind ; and
though he does not always take what we are willing to give,
though we may even, as a rule, enjoy much happiness while
still fighting for him, yet we must be prepared to accomplish
even what is hardest, to sacrifice even what is dearest, if he
requires it.
1 See the passage quoted above, 2 Chronicles iii. 1.
150 PURCHASE OF THE CAVE 01 MACHPEI.AH.
Chapter XIX.
THE PURCHASE OF THE CAVE OF MACHPELAIL
Gen. XXIII.
WHILE Abraham was living at Kirjath-arba (afterwards
Hebron),. Sarah died at the age of a hundred and
twenty-seven. As soon as the days of mourning were over,
Abraham requested the chiefs of the Hethites, to whom the
country belonged, to grant him an interview. They invited
him, therefore, to meet them at the gate of Kirjath-arba, and
when he came he addressed them thus : " I dwell amongst
you as a stranger, and therefore possess no land ; but let me
have a tomb amongst you in which to bury my dead." This
request was favorably received by the Hethites. " Dear sir,"
they said, "you dwell amongst us like a prince of God. Bury
jour dead in the best of our graves ; for there is not one of
us who would refuse you his." Touched by their kindness,
and grateful for their readiness to grant his request, Abraham
bowed down before the Hethites ; but he did not accept their
offer to place the corpse of Sarah in one of their graves, as
he wished to have a burying-place of his own. So he said :
" If you are so good as to allow me to bury my dead amongst
you, then plead my cause with Ephron the son of Zohar to
let me have the cave of Machpelah, that lies on his estate, at
its proper price, for a family burying-place." Now Ephron
himself was sitting there, as an elder, among the rest, and he
answered at once, in the hearing of all present, by offering
the cave and the land on which it la}' as a present to Abraham.
But Abraham, turning to him and assuring him that he had
rather buy the land, begged him to name its price ; upon
which Ephron made the courtly answer, "Nay, do but listen !
What matters a piece of laud, worth no more than some four
hundred shekels, between men of substance like ourselves?
Bury j'our dead there ! " So Abraham learned the value of
the land, and at once weighed out four hundred shekels in the
currency, and so became the owner of the cave, together with
the land that belonged to it and all the timber that was growing
on it.
Then Abraham buried his wife in this cave, which lies in
the land of Canaan, to the east of Mamre, that is, Hebron.
PURCHASE OF THE CAVE OF MACHPELAH. 151
So Abraham bought this piece of land, the cave of Machpelah,
from the Hethites, for a family burying-place.
In itself all this is of little interest ; but the writer evidently
attached the greatest importance to it, for it is almost the
only story about the patriarchs that is given, with any detail
in the "Book of Origins." Generally speaking, the writer
of this book gives us but brief indications of the fortunes of
the patriarchs ; hut in the case of this interview between
Abraham and the Hethites he paints the scene in the liveliest
colors. He describes the position of the cave of Machpelah
more than once, and evidently attaches great importance to
its purchase by Abraham. We must trj' to find out why he
did so ; but, first of all, I maj T take this opportunity of making
one or two remarks upon the customs of the Israelites in
mourning for their dead, and the way in which they buried
them.
When an Israelite lost any of his nearest relations he
mourned for a certain number of days, — never less than
seven, and sometimes as many as thirty. Most of this time
he spent in the chamber in which the dead body lay, sitting
there upon the ground, or among the ashes of the fire-place
which was in the middle of the room. Unwashed, unshaven,
with dust upon his head and his face covered, he sat down,
for the most part fasting, wrapped in a dark garment, usually
called ' ' a sack," that had not been cut out or fitted. In former
times the Israelites followed the custom, common among most
uncivilized peoples in every, age, of mutilating their bodies
in token of grief ; and the practice of shaving a bald place
"between the eyes" is especially mentioned. But this is
forbidden in the law of Deuteronomy as heathenish. 1
We know but little of the treatment of the bodies of their
dead by the Israelites of early times ; for though there are
some traces of the custom of embalming the dead — ■ which is
known to have existed in Egypt and elsewhere — there are no
clear proofs that the practice was generally followed by the
Israelites. The corpse, whether more or less protected from
decay, or simply wrapped in linen cloths, was carried on a
bier to the grave, while hired female mourners went before it
with mournful music and cries of woe, and the relations of the
deceased followed.
To lie unburied and be devoured by dogs and birds of prey
was a frightful idea to the Israelites, for they all thought a
1 Deuteronomy xiv. 1.
152 PURCHASE OF THE CAVE OF MACHPELAH
great deal of having a regular funeral, and especially of being
laid in the family grave. The practice of burning the dead is
but seldom mentioned in Israelite literature, and seems only
to have been followed in exceptional cases. As a rule, they
committed the bodily remains to the earth. They had a
special preference for graves hewn out of a rock ; and tombs
of this description are still to be found in Palestine in great
numbers.
The subject we are considering naturally turns our attention
to Hebron, and makes us ask whether any remains of tne
grave of the patriarchs, of which our legend speaks, are still
to be found there.
Tradition still points it out. Hebron is now called el-Khaliel,
that is ' ' (the city of) the friend (of God) ," by which Abraham
is meant, for the Arabians too hold him in high honor. The
city lies in a deep, narrow valley, and the hills slope up from
it on either side. On the south side of the city, at the foot of
the eastern slope, the Haram, that is, the sanctuary, rises
above every other building, and in the inmost portion of this
sanctuary are the graves of the patriarchs. Ths Mussulmans,
who are the present possessors of Palestine, as you know,
allow the Jews to look through a little lattice in the wall, to
the left of the principal entrance, into the vault in which the
graves are said to be. Many of them avail themselves of this
permission, and come to the holy place to weep and pray.
The date of these tombs is unknown, but they existed
and were magnificently adorned as earry as in the clays of
Josephus, that is in the first centuiy after Christ. If Euro-
pean scholars could gain admittance to the interior of the
sanctuary, with permission to investigate its oldest portions,
they might get some light as to the age of the tombs and
their immediate surroundings. But every one who is not a
Mussulman is strictly forbidden to enter the holy place. It
appears, however, from the curious architecture of the most
ancient portions of the walls and arches, that the building on
the foundations and ruins of which the present modern sanc-
tuary is reared, must have been built many ages ago.
It appears from our legend that even before the exile there
was a place at Hebron that passed for the tomb of the patri-
archs. At least the easiest explanation of the origin of such
a story as the one in question is to suppose that there was
some place to which the popular tradition had given this name.
Who can say what was the cause of this ? It may have grown
out of some misunderstanding, or the zealots for the worship
PURCHASE OF THE CAVE OP MACHPELAH. 153
of Yahweh may have given the name to some cave in which
heathen rites were practised, to give the affair an orthodox
color. All this however is mere guesswork as long as we
know so little of the tombs themselves. All we can say is
this, that most likely our writer was furnished with an oppor-
tunity for composing this story by some spot that passed for
the tomb of the patriarchs.
But the most important point we have to inquire into is the
great interest felt by the writer of the ' ' Book of Origins " in this
purchase of the cave of Machpelah. The importance he at-
tached to it appears from his repeated mention of the cave in
other passages as the place in which not only Abraham, but
Isaac, Rebekah, Leah, and Jacob were buried. He is never
tired of repeating that it was bought by Abraham for money. 1
The same writer also tells us that the piece of land near
Shechem, on which Jacob pitched his tent, was bought by
that patriarch. 2 We can only think of one reason for his laj--
ing so much stress upon these purchases, namely, that he
looked upon them more or less as establishing the right of the
Israelites to conquer Canaan. If this is so, we have a remark-
able example in these stories of the manner in which moral
ideas gradually make their way.
The ancient sons of Israel, who conquered Canaan undex
Joshua's command, certainly troubled their heads very little
with the question of what right they had to the country.
They had only one right, namely, that of the strongest. Their
god Yahweh had given them their land, just as Chemosh, the
god of the Moabites, had given them theirs, 8 and just as all other
peoples had received their possessions from their special gods.
During the centuries that followed the conquest they were
more puzzled to understand why there were so many Canaan-
ites left in the country, and why they had not all been rooted
out 4 than why their own forefathers had been allowed to
slaughter or expel so man}- thousands of them. When the
belief in Yahweh's righteousness began to develop itself
among the most advanced Israelites the sins of the Amorites
and the other inhabitants of the country were brought forward
as the reason for which Yahweh had given them into the hands
of the Israelites. 6 But it seems that the author of the " Book
1 Genesis xxv. 9, 10, xlix. 32, 1. 13.
2 Genesis xxxiii. 19. 3 Judges xi. 24.
4 Exodus xxiii. 29, 30. Deuteronomy vii. 16. Judges iii. 1, 2, 4.
* See p. 122 (Genesis xv. 16). Deuteronomy, ix. 4, &c.
7*
154 PUBCHASE OF THE CAVE OF M4.CHPELAH.
of Origins " felt how little right the immorality of the former
possessors could give the Israelites to take their land from
them ; and that he tried to meet the difficulty in another way.
We have already had an example in a former story of prog-
ress in the knowledge of good and evil ; for wc saw how the
oldest writer in Genesis, without feeling that he was disgrac-
ing his hero, put a lie into the mouth of Abraham, namely,
that Sarah was his sister; while a second writer tried to
improve the work of his predecessor by glossing over this
untruth. 1 We shall see again from other passages that this
oldest writer had no clear notions of honesty or love of truth.
Now, this story from the " Book of Origins " does not point
back to any other legend, but it refers to the fact of the con-
quest. The writer felt that Israel's claim to Canaan was not
very well founded, and so tried to find some justification of the
conquest of the land. This he found in the purchase of a family
grave by Abraham and of a piece of land near Shechem by
Jacob. So, according to him, the Israelites did but recover
by force of arms what had been unjustly withheld from them.
It is true that this was but weak ground upon which to rest
their right to the whole of Canaan, but yet it is something
that the writer felt the conquest of a country to deserve con-
demnation unless it could be justified in some way.
The right of the strongest is the oldest, the original right.
For a long time there was none higher. Gradually, in the
intercourse of individuals, it had to make way for a better
right, and the prohibition, "Thou shalt not kill nor steal,"
came to be reverenced as a divine command. But long after
this had been recognized the old right of the strongest re-
mained in force in the dealings of nations with each other.
When one citizen took away anything from another by
J'orce or fraud it was called theft ; and if any one killed his
neighbor he was a murderer. But when the Israelites fell
upon their neighbors and robbed them of their land, simply
because they wanted it themselves, they called their wars
' ' the wars of Yahweh ; " and all ancient peoples acted in the
same way. The Jewish priest who wrote the "Book of Origins"
at any rate began to see that the right must be upheld in the
dealings of nations as well as of individuals.
This fact is now recognized by all the more civilized nations.
No people is justified in attacking its neighbors unless they
have wronged, plundered, injured, or insulted it. A war of
conquest is universally condemned. Itmiay be asked whethei
i See pp. Ill, 112.
FAITHFUL SLAVE. 155
such wars are not still waged, whether the right of the strongest
is not still reverenced, as a matter of fact. Undoubtedly.
But all this is no longer done avowedly. Even the most
ambitious prince, however little he cares for the right, will
find out some pretext for a war. Let us be thankful for this ;
for even the fact that evil disguises itself, and no longer dares
shamelessly to display itself in its true shape, shows some
progress at any rate. It is an involuntary tribute to the right
Chapter XX.
THE FAITHFUL SLAVE.
Gen. XXIV.
ABRAHAM'S days were numbered. He saw that he was
not long to outlive his wife, and that he would soon
be gathered to his fathers. Now that he could see in Isaac
the future ancestor of that posterity, to be called especially
after himself, that was to inherit Canaan, he could go in peace.
Yahweh had fulfilled his promise. But before he quietly laid
down his head to die, he wanted to see his son happily mar-
ried ; for he had learned by his own experience that Yahweh
was no more indifferent to the mother than to the father of
the tribe, and that the holy people which should inherit the
promise must not spring of an ignoble race on the mother's
side. No Canaanite blood must flow in its veins.
And so, anxious to the last to labor for the accomplish-
ment of God's promises, he called Eliezer, his chief servant,
who had the superintendence of all his affairs and was there-
fore the appointed guardian of the 3 r oung chief, and made
him swear that he would seek a wife for Isaac from his former
country, where his relatives, the tribe of Nahor, still dwelt.
In no case must he marry him to a Canaanite wife, yet he
must not allow him to return to Mesopotamia himself. The
faithful slave was willing to do all that was possible for his
master, but urged that perhaps the woman he chose might
refuse to follow him. Abraham answered that in that case
he would be free from his oath and the curse he had called
down upon himself, should he break his promise, would not
fall upon Win. But the patriarch thought it very unlikely
156 FAITHFUL SLAVE.
that his fears would be realized, for Yahweh, the god of
heaven, who had brought him out of his fatherland and had
promised Canaan to his posterity, would provide for this too.
He would send his angel before Eliezer to enable him to
find a wife for Isaac.
Thus persuaded, Eliezer took the oath required of him
and set out on his journey, taking with him ten camels laden
with treasure for the bride. He accomplished his journey
prosperously and reached Haran, the city of Nahor, in "the
land of the two livers," safe and sound. Night was begin-
ning to fall as he made his camels kneel down to rest at the
well that lay close by the city.
So far all had gone well ; but now how was he to find
the right wife for Isaac ? Was he to ask for the relatives of
Abraham, and then demand the richest and most beautiful
girl he could find amongst them in marriage for his master?
Some such course would have been taken by human intelli-
gence, by the wisdom of the world ; but for the pious
worshipper of Yahweh there was another way. His god,
who had guided him so far, would himself point out to him
the wife he had chosen for Isaac. He would trust in him,
and ask him for a sign. So he prayed, " O Yahweh, god of
my master Abraham, be gracious' to my master and grant
that I may find her whom he desires ! Let me appoint this
sign with you. The girls of the city will soon be coming,
as I stand by the well, to draw water, and if I ask one of
them to give me some water to drink, and she says, ' yes,
gladly ! and I will draw some for your beasts of burden
too ' — then let her be the wife you have chosen for Isaac.
This will be a proof of your kindness to me."
Yahweh heard the prayer, for the last words were still
on Eliezer's lips when lo ! the beautiful Rebekah, an un-
married girl, the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Abraham's
brother Nahor and of Milcah, came out of the city with her
pitcher on her shoulder. She went down to the well, filled
her pitcher and came up the steps again. No sooner had
she heard the request that the stranger made her, with a
heart so full of hope, than she granted it to the full, resting
her pitcher on her hand while he quenched his thirst. As
soon as he was refreshed she saw the camels and said she
would go and draw water for them too, till they had had
enough ; and suiting the action to the word she emptied her
pitcher into the drinking trough, ran down to the well to
replenish it, and so went on till the beasts had drunk their fill
FAITHFUL SLAVE. 157
Eliezer followed every movement with liis eyes, in speech-
less amazement and thankfulness. Had Yahweh really come
to his aid so fully ? Was she the chosen one ? Though he
had no longer any doubt that this was so, yet he must make
assurance still more sure by finding out whether she was
unmarried and of Abraham's kindred. Hoping to learn this,
he addressed her again ; "Tell me, maiden, who you are, and
whether we can have a night's lodging in your father's
house." Transported with delight he bowed himself to the
earth when she answered, " I am Bethuel's daughter. There
is plenty of fodder and straw at home, and you are welcome
to spend the night with us." The words of thanksgiving
welled up in his heart: " Praised be Yahweh, who has
directed my steps to the house of my master's brother ! "
Then he gave Rebekah a heavy golden nose-ring and two
bracelets, and she hastened home to tell them all that had
happened. The sight of such handsome presents disposed
them all, but especially Rebekah's brother Laban, very
favorably towards the stranger. So Laban hurried to the
well and found Eliezer with his subordinates and camels still
waiting there. Then he said, " O favored of Yahweh ! come in
with me. Why do you stay without ? I have had my dwelling
put in order for you, and there is stabling for the camels."
Of course Eliezer had no need of any long deliberation
before accepting his hospitality. He was soon in Bethuel's
house, the beasts were unloaded and fed, and water was
brought in for a foot-bath for the guests. But when the
master of the house would have them begin the evening meal
Eliezer refused to taste anything before he had unburdened
his heart. So he asked them to listen for a moment to
what he had to saj-. When they had promised to do so be
made himself known as Abraham's servant, and then enlarged
upon the wealth of his master and told them how he had had
a son in his old age who would inherit all he had. Then he
told them of the oath that Abraham had made him take, and
how Yahweh had not only led him prosperously to their home,
but had pointed out to him, as clearly as could be, that no
other than Rebekah was the destined wife of Isaac. This
last circumstance was so conclusive that when Eliezer wound
up by asking for an immediate answer to his request for
Rebekah's hand, Laban and Bethuel exclaimed, as if with
one mouth, "It is the finger of Yahweh! We can urge
nothing against it. You may take Rebekah to be the wife
of your master's son, as Yahweh has commanded."
158 FAITHFUL SLAVE.
On receiving tliis reply the slave of Abraham fell down
upon the earth to give Yahweh thanks. Then he opened all
his treasures, rich bridal presents for Eebekah and many
costly gifts for her mother and brother — such was the custom
of the Israelites — as the price that must be paid for her.
Then they took their evening meal.
Next morning Eliezer begged them to let him go home
again at once, and even when Rebekah's relatives pressed
him most earnestly to put off his return at least for ten days
or so, he still insisted upon going back at once. As they
cc uld not come to any agreement in the matter, they asked
the bride herself to decide between them, and she- declared
that she was ready to go at once.
Submitting to her decision, the members of Rebekah's family
let her go, with her nurse, under the guidance of Eliezer and
his men. As she was parting from them they all blessed her
with the words, "0 our sister! may your descendants be
countless in number, and may they possess the cities of their
enemies ! "
Eliezer's return was as prosperous as his outward journey
had been ; and sooner than he could have hoped he was able
to give Isaac his bride ; for though he generally lived by the
well Lahai-roi, Isaac had just now come northwards, and was
in the neighborhood of Hebron, the so-called "South of
Judah." Still sorrowing over his mother's death, he had gone
out in the twilight of a certain evening to lament her l undis-
turbed in the open field, when he saw the caravan approach-
ing. He, too, was observed by the others, and Rebekah
seemed to have some presentiment that he was her bride-
groom, for as soon as she saw him she lighted from her
camel. "Who is that coming to meet us?" she asked
Eliezer. " It is my master," lie replied, and, in acco-dance
with the customs of the laud, Rebekah must veil herself at
once.
Informed by Eliezer of all that had happened, Isaac took
Rebekah into Sarah's tent.- She became his wife, and he
loved her, and in her love he found comfort for his mother's
death.
By all that is told us here we are drawn towards Eliezer,
the faithful slave of Abraham, bom in his house, 2 the steward
of all his possessions, fixed upon as his master's heir until
the birth of Isaac. What thoughtfulness we trace in tha
1 After an amended version. 2 Genesis xv. 3.
FAITHFUL STATE. 159
difficulties lie suggests ! What . tender care he showed in
accomplishing the task he had undertaken ! What true zeal
inspired him, when weary as he was with his journey, he
refused to eat anything before he had delivered his message !
What diligence he displayed in carrying out his mission !
He is the ven pattern of an old and faithful servant such as
existed in the writer's mind, such as he had probably met in
real life too, though hardly in such perfection. We are drawn
towards Eliezer too by his earnest piety, none the less genuine
because we must admit it to have been coupled with very
mistaken ideas.
Yes ! the whole idea of Eliezer, or rather of the writer of
the story, as to the way in which God helps those he loves is
mistaken and superstitious. Abraham expects that the wife
whom Eliezer chooses will follow him, because Yahweh will
send his angel to show him the way. Apparently Yahweh
does so. Then he gives ear to Eliezer when he fixes upon
a certain sign by which to know the chosen maid. She is
pointed out by Yahweh himself, as her relations see at once.
The belief that such things may happen, and that God
sometimes uses outward means of warning men, of showing
them their way, of helping or resisting them, — this belief
was very common in ancient times. We shall meet with
numbers of examples of it in the Bible, and it was long main-
tained by Christians too; nay, it is ei r en now the faith of
thousands. This idea has made people attend to omens, try
to discover the meaning of unusual natural phenomena, and
attempt to read the future bj' means of lots and other such
contrivances. Thus it has not been unusual for Protestants,
even in recent times, to use the Bible as a book from which
they can ascertain what is going to happen to them, and
which will expressly intimate to them what they are to do or
leave undone. They opened a Bible, for instance, and took
the first word they happened to see as a sign from God.
So-called Bible-almanacs are often used in the same way by
people who look at them when in any difficulty to learn from
the text of the day what line of conduct to pursue.
Sensible people, however, no longer observe such practices
as these ; but there are still many remnants amongst us of the
belief from which they rose. Thus, certain books of history
lay great stress upon deliverances by the sudden rise of a
storm, by the death of a dreaded enemy, or other unforeseen
events ; and they delight to point to them with some such
exclamation as "It was the hand of God!" Many a pious
160 FAITHFUL SLAVE.
man can tell you of strange circumstances in his own life and
in that of his friends, through which they escaped some
danger or gained some great happiness in a way of which
they had never thought, and which they refer, therefore, to an
immediate dispensation of providence. Irreligious people say
nothing about ; ' the hand of God," but so-called coincidences
and accidental combinations sometimes make them betray a
certain remnant of the old belief, that some mysterious power
has a hand in their fate, by exclamations such as " But really
it is very remarkable ! "
This belief is connected with a very defective idea of God's
relation to the world, and with a misunderstanding of the
natural connection of events and phenomena. It is a mistake
to suppose that God gives us any special revelation of his will
in these unexpected occurrences. God has given us no mys-
terious signs, no lots or other such contrivances, to teach us
our way through the world. Our reason is the guide he has
given ns, and he reveals himself in the fact of our learning to
use it, and to avoid dangers and promote our happiness by its
help, far more than in one or two accidents that turn out in
our favor.
In ancient, times, however, people did not think so; and
we shall see that the most pious Israelites kept " asking the
mouth of Yahweh," that is, trying to penetrate the future by
some means or other, — by lots, for example, or by the aid
of the priests or the prophets, or by dreams. Like all other
superstitious ideas, this belief, that God informs us what is
about to happen in such ways as these, is verj' hostile to
progress and injurious to our character. For it fills us with
dread of a mysterious world that surrounds us, and takes
away the clearness of head and freshness of heart that enable
us to find our way through life.
Though we cannot but think, then, that the ideas of Abra-
ham's servant about his god and the way in which he helped
him were untrue, yet we cannot help looking on him with great
affection. In his case, as in that of many other men, especially
of ancient times, we must learn to value what is good even
when accompanied by much that is imperfect, and especially
by superstitious ideas. AVe must never become attached to
the mistakes, but still less must we withhold our admiration
from those who make them, if the key-note of then- character
be true. Eliezer's faith may have been marred by mistaken
notions, but at least it was coupled with self-sacrifice and
fidelity. His piety is of the true stamp, for it inspires him
ISAAC. 161
with zeal, and makes him forget himself while he watches
over his master's interests. He is the type of what a
certain Christian of the first century 1 had in mind when he
said in exhortation to the slaves of his own time: "Ser-
vants ! be obedient to your earthly masters in everything ;
not with eye-service as men-pleasers ; but in simplicity of soul,
fearing the Lord. Whatever j^ou do, do it from your heart,
as for the Lord, and not for men ; knowing that you will
receive from the Lord the reward of the inheritance."
Chapter XXI.
ISAAC.
Gen. XXVI.
THE accounts of Isaac are very scanty. The ' ' Book of
Origins" passes over him almost in silence, simply
mentioning that he was born, that at the age of forty he mar-
ried Rebekah, that he and his brother Ishmael buried their
father Abraham, who died at the age of a hundred and seventy-
five, in the cave of Machpelah, 2 that he had two sons, that he
lived by the well of Lahai-roi, and that he died there. One
of the older writers is certainly rather fuller, but the tameness
of all he tells us under this head contrasts remarkably with
his detailed accounts of Abraham and Jacob, and convinces
us that he dwelt with no particular interest on the fortunes of
Isaac.
The name of Isaac, however, is repeatedly explained. It
may be translated by "laugher," and this meaning of the
word is referred to in several stories. When God foretold
the birth of a son to Abraham the patriarch "laughed," upon
which, in allusion to this expression of unbelief, God com-
manded him to call his son Isaac. 3 When Yahweh, reclinLig
with his angels before Abraham's tent, foretold that Sarah
should give birth to a son she laughed, 4 and when the promise
had been fulfilled, she cried, " God will make them all ' laugh'
at such an old mother ! " 5 Besides these there are two other
1 Colossians iii. 22-24. 2 Genesis xxv. 7-10.
8 Genesis xvii. 17-19. 4 Genesis xviii. 12-15.
6 Genesis xxi. 6.
Ifi2 ISAAC.
references to the name of Isaac ; for Ishmael is expelled, to-
gether with his mother, because he had "laughed" 1 as if no
one but Isaac had a right to do so ! and King Abimeleeh dis-
covers from the vray in which Isaac ' ' laughs " with Rebekah
that she is not his sister but his wife. 2
Except the account of the danger he ran of being sacrificed
by his father, and that of the manner in which he obtained
a wife, in both of which he took a very passive share, together
wjth the stories of Esau and Jacob in which he sinks into the
background, while his sons take the chief parts, there is but
one legend of any extent about Isaac. It runs as follows : —
Once there was a famine in the land, so that Isaac was
obliged to leave it. On his way to Egypt, to which he in-
tended to go, he came to the land of Abimeleeh, king of the
Philistines, at Gerar. Here Yahweh appeared to him, for-
bade him to continue his journej 7 , and commanded him to
remain in this country, promising that he would bless him
there. Mindful of the promise he once had made, upon oath,
to Abraham, 8 he would give the land for an inheritance to
his posterity, because his father had been obedient to the law
of his god.
In obedience to this command, Isaac remained at Gerar.
In fear of his life he imitated the conduct of Abraham in
Egypt and declared his wife to be his sister, but as soon as the
king had discovered this deception, Isaac saw how unneces-
sary his precaution had been, for the king forbade his subjects
upon pain of death to injure either him or his wife in an}'
way.
An unusually rich harvest, gathered in by Isaac, gave him
another proof of the favor of his god, and his wealth con-
tinually increased. At last the number of his flocks and his
dependants became so great as to excite the envy of the Phil-
istines. They tried to thwart him, therefore, by filling up
the wells that Abraham's men had dug in then- country, and
finally Abimeleeh himself insisted on Isaac's leaving his terri-
tory, as he had become too powerful for him.
The patriarch yielded to his wishes, and pitched his tents
in " the valley of Gerar," where his men reopened the former
wells of Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up, and
gave them their old names again. But when they discovered
certain new wells the Philistines, on two occasions, disputed
the possession of them. So they called the wells Esek and
Sitnah (*> violence " and " hate ") . They remained in undis-
1 Genesis xxi. 9. a Genesis xxvi. 8. » Genesis xv.
ISAAC. 163
turbed possession of a third well, however, and therefore
called it Rehoboth, that is "room," because Yahweh had
made room for them.
But Isaac left this district too, and chose Beersheba as his
home. It seemed to be a holy place, for Yahweh appeared
to him there, making himself known as the god of Abraham,
and promising to protect Mm for his father's sake. So Isaac
built an altar there in honor of Yahweh. There, too, his
dependants once sank a well, and just at this time Abimelech
came to visit him, with Ahuzzath, " his friend," that is to say
his first minister of state, and Pliichol his general. Isaac
asked, in some surprise, " What brings you here, — you who
drove us out of your country because you hated us ? " Upon
which Abimelech replied, " We have seen that Yahweh helps
you, and are, therefore, desirous of making some agreement
with you. Remember, now, that we never injured you, but
allowed you to depart in peace ; swear, then, that neither
will you devise any evil against us, for you are blessed of
Yahweh." Isaac, who was of a peace-loving disposition,
granted their request, and prepared a banquet for them. On
the following da}- they confirmed their alliance with an oath,
after which Abimelech and his followers departed in peace.
That same day Isaac's men told him of the well they had
found, to which accordingly he gave the name of " Sheba,"
that is oath. So the city that lies close by it is still called
Beersheba, or " the well of the oath."
Not without reason has this story been called an echo of
the legends of Abraham, for almost every point in the former
stories reappears in this. The measure adopted by Isaac at
Gerar to escape the danger into which Rebekah's beauty
might bring him is twice ascribed to Abraham. 1 And not
only is this latter patriarch brought into connection with
Abimelech on one of these occasions, but a scene takes place
between them 2 almost exactly like the one just described.
For Abraham, we are told, when dwelling at Beersheba
received a visit once from Abimelech and his general Phichol.
The prince desired to make a treaty with him, for he was>
convinced of God's love towards the patriarch. Abraham
consented, but rebuked Abimelech because his dependants had
robbed him of a well that was his own, upon which the Philis-
tine excused himself by pleading his ignorance of what had
occurred. After this they concluded a treaty. On this occfi-
1 Genesis xii. and xx. • 2 Genesis xxi. 22-34.
1 64 ISAAC.
sion Abraham set apart seven lambs, and when Abimelech
asked him why he did so, he said that they were intended for
a pledge, by the receipt of which the King of Gerar was to
declare that he recognized the well as Abraham's property.
So the well was called Beersheba, that is " the well of seven,"
because the oaths had been taken by it, and in Hebrew the
word that means " oath" is derived from the sacred number
"seven." When Abimelech was gone Abraham planted a
tamarisk at Beersheba and worshipped Yahweh there.
We see at a glance that this story agrees, not only in its
main features, but even in details, such as the proper names,
with the one given above, in which Isaac is the agent. Indeed
this latter story appears to be expressly intended to throw
Isaac altogether into the shadow of his father ; for all the
wells he finds had been already sunk by Abraham, though
afterwards stopped up ; and even when Yahweh promises to
bless him it is always expressly added that he does so for
Abraham's sake.
If the accounts of the patriarchs were supposed to be his-
torical, then the scantiness of the information given us about
Isaac would require no explanation, for we should only have
to say that nothing more had been preserved by tradition,
though even then it would be curious that nothing should
be said of him that had not been told of Abraham before.
But if these accounts are legendary, we ask with greater curi-
osity, " How is it that the writers take so much more pleas-
ure in telling us of Abraham and Jacob than of Isaac, and
that the latter has become such a colorless figure, and, in
fact, a mere name?" Though this question cannot be an-
swered with certainty, yet we are not quite in the dark about it.
Remember what has been said already 1 about the origin
of the stories of the patriarchs, especially that each of them
seems to have belonged to a different district — Jacob to have
been the patriarch of the northern tribes, and Abraham that
of Judah ; and then look for a moment at Isaac's country.
It is evident what country this is. The saga represents
him as always living at Beersheba or the neighborhood, at
Gerar, or at Lahai-roi, and since it is the exception for him
to appear at Hebron, 2 it is probably a simple mistake by
which he is represented in one passage 8 as having generally
lived there. Let us see what, is known of Beersheba.
The city "of the Seven-well" on tjie southern border of
the land of the Israelites was an important place, for it was the
i Pp. 103-105. 2 Genesis xxiv. 62. 8 Genesis xxxv. 27.
ISAAC. 165
first resting stage for travellers from Egypt who had crossed
the desert and were on their way to Jerusalem by Hebron.
When the Israelites had gained possession of this city, they
naturally came into frequent contact with strangers there ;
for to the west of Beerslieba lay the land of the Philistines,
while to the south and east of its territory lived the Edomites.
A sanctnaiy and a sacred tree stood there. It is not known
with certainty under what name the deitj r was worshipped
there ; but it is remarkable that in a certain legend, of which
we shall speak hereafter, mention is twice made of " the
Dread " or " the Terror " of Isaac ; * and this name agrees
very well with the character of all the old Israelite gods, for
they were looked upon as stern powers that inspired fear. a
Isaac is called the ancestor both of Israel and of Edom, and
the Temple of the Terror of Beersheba was, doubtless, the
common sanctuary of the members of these closely related
tribes. There they made their vows before beginning the
journe}- through the wilderness, or brought their thank-offer-
ings when they had accomplished it successfully. There,
too, they laid aside their quarrels with the Philistines about
wells and pastures, and made their treaties with them.
The Israelites who settled in Beersheba and the neighbor-
hood belonged to the tribe of Simeon, 3 but the district was
afterwards considered part of Judah, and the Simeonites alto-
gether disappeared. The misfortunes suffered by this tribe
and the causes of its disappearance are unknown, and we
must, therefore, be content with the remark that the inhab-
itants of this region, the worshippers in the sanctuary at
Beersheba, who called themselves the sons of Isaac, lost all
their influence and power. The natural consequence was that
their worship lost in importance, and that Isaac, although
admitted into the series of the patriarchs, took a secondary
rank and was so completely overshadowed by Abram, the
patriarch of the mighty tribe of Judah, that the saga trans-
ferred to him all that had originally been connected with the
name of Isaac. The expressions " house of Isaac" in place
of " house of Jacob " or " house of Israel," and " high
places of Isaac" by the side of " sanctuaries of Israel," do
still occur, 4 however, and that too in the mouth of Amos —
the one prophet who mentions the worship at Beersheba. 5
This prophet lived in the time of Jeroboam II. , and we need
1 Genesis xxxi. 42, 53. • 2 See pp. 17, 123.
8 1 Chronicles iv. 28 ; Joshua xix. 2.
* Amos vii. 16, 9. 6 Amos v. 5 viii. 14.
166 JACOB OBTAINS THE BIRTHRIGHT.
not be surprised to And him, rather than another, using this
name and betraying some knowledge of this ancient worship,
for he came from Tekoa, which lies north of Hebron, in that
same "South" of which Beersheba was the furthest limit.
He must therefore have lived in the midst of these " sons of
Isaac." Josiah's reformation probably gave the last blow to
the worship at Beersheba, or if it survived this storm, it fell
more and more into decay after the fall of Judah, until at last
it disappeared.
While, for these reasons, Isaac, as preserved in the tradi-
tion, is but a lifeless figure, the pictures of his sons, Esau and
Jacob, on the other hand, are sketched in very vivid colors,
which give them a look of real individuality, and make them
far more interesting than their father.
Chapter XXII.
JACOB OBTAINS THE BIRTHRIGHT AND HIS FATHER'S
BLESSING.
Genesis XXV. 19-34, XXVII. 1-45.
BETWEEN the southern end of the Dead Sea and the Gulf
of iElana lies a broad, sandy valley called the valley of
Arabah, along the east side of which stretches a steep range
of hills. This is the range of Seir. Its highest peak, Mount
Hor, rears itself to nearly five thousand feet above the level
of the Mediterranean Sea. On the east these mountains touch
the plains of Arabia Deserta. The name Seir may mean
"rough," "bristling," and it is usually supposed, therefore,
to indicate a mountainous and well-wooded district. Between
the masses of rock, of which the mountains are largely com-
posed, lie a number of fruitful valleys, with green pastures
and rich plough land, and many spots well suited for the culti-
vation of the vine ; but, on the whole, the country is bare, and
the western hills especially are said to be very barren and un-
fruitful. The air is pure, however, and the heat is tempered
by cool winds, so that the climate is very healthy.
This mountainous district was inhabited in early times by
the Horites, concerning whom we know little but the names
of certain of their tribal chiefs. 1 The name "Horite" is
1 Genesis xxxvi. 20-30.
JACOB OBTAINS THE BIRTHRIGHT. 167
often translated "cave-dweller," and though the correctness
of this translation is open to doubt, yet the character of the
country certainly led its inhabitants to choose dwelling-places
which would have made the designation quite appropriate ;
for the district was full of caves, and not only the tombs, but
many dwellings for the living, and even public buildings, were
hewn out of the rocks.
Now these Horites had been conquered by a branch of the
Terachites ; and even before the time of Moses, accordingly,
the mountains of Selr were in the hands of the Edomites,
whom the old Israelite stories represent as a mingled race of
Terachites, Horites, Canaanites, and Ishmaelites ; for this is
the meaning of the assertion that Esau, who is expressly called
the ancestor of the Edomites, 1 was the son of Isaac, and was
married to Adah, a Hethite, that is a Canaanite, 2 to Aholi-
bamah, aHorite 3 (who is elsewhere 4 also called a Canaanite),
and to Bashemath, an Ishmaelite. 5
Long before the Israelites had obtained fixed abodes the
social life of the Edomite tribes was settled and regular, and
consequently while "the sons of Israel" were still divided
amongst themselves, and were a prey to the surrounding
nations because they had not yet succeeded in rising to any
national unity, the inhabitants of Seir, so closely related to
them, were already governed by kings. 6 In the language of
the legend this is expressed by saying that Esau was older
than his twin brother Jacob.
But this was a mystery to the Israelite, for the elder was
also the chief. The eldest son succeeded to the rights of his
father, and became his heir and successor. The eldest son
was chief of his brothers. Was Edom then Israel's superior?
Impossible ! Jacob, although the younger brother, had ob-
tained the rights of the first-born.
Now, until the time of Saul, the relations between the
Edomites and the Israelites were very friendly, and the recol-
lection of their brotherly connection with each other was kept
up long afterwards. But as soon as the national unity of
Israel was established, the Edomites seem to have grown
jealous of the sister nation. At any rate there was war be-
tween the two kingdoms from the time of Saul onward.
David conquered the Edomites, and after his death they still
remained subject to the kings of Judah, until the days of
1 Genesis xxxvi. 1 , 8, 9, 19, 43. 2 Genesis xxxvi. 2, xxvi. 34.
8 Genesis xxxvi. 20-25. i Genesis xxvi. 34.
6 Genesis xxxvi. 3, xxviii. 9. 6 Genesis xxxvi. 31-43.
168 JACOB OBTAINS THE BIRTHRIGHT.
Ahaz, but not without making repeated efforts to recover their
freedom.
The higher antiquity of the people of Edom and the higher
privileges of that of Israel, the greater fruitfulness of Canaan,
as compared with the mountains of Seir, the subjection of the
Edomites, and the reluctance with which they bore the yoke
of their brothers, — all this is referred to in the following
legend : —
When Isaac and Bebekah had been married twenty years,
their hearts were gladdened by the birth of their twin sons
Esau and Jacob, the only children they ever had. The elder,
Esau, received this name, which means "the hairy," because
his skin was so extraordinarily shaggy that he looked as if he
were all wrapped up in a garment of hair. His character
agreed very well with his appearance, for when he grew up
he delighted in the wild hunter's life or in wandering through
the country far and near. But Jacob, whose name means
"the deceiver," was a respectable kind of man, and lived
in his tent like a shepherd. Isaac was more attached to
Esau, for he was very fond of venison, but Jacob was Re-
bekah's favorite.
One day when Esau came home hungry from the chase,
he found Jacob busy with preparations for a meal. Some
red-looking lentil porridge that was just ready excited the
famished hunter's longing ; so he asked for it, somewhat
impatiently, and said, " Give me some of that red stuff to
drink, for I'm tired ! " Seeing that his brother was terribly
hungry, Jacob seized the opportunity to demand, as the price
of the meal, that Esau should give up his rights as the first-
born son to him. His rough brother, longing for the food,
said in reply, "I may be dead to-morrow! Why should I
trouble myself about my birthright ? " But Jacob would not
be put off with a careless word hke this, and insisted on
Esau's solemnly renouncing all his rights as the eldest son
upon his oath, which accordingly he did. Then Jacob gave
him some bread and the lentil porridge, and he ate and drank
and went on his way without a care or a thought !
So lightly did Esau value his right as the first-born son,
that he sold it in this way to Jacob ! From his exclamation,
"That red stuff, that red stuff there!" he got the name of
Edom, that is " the red."
By this stroke Jacob had secured the birthright for himself;
but he was to get the better of his elder brother in yet another
JACOB OBTAINS THE BIRTHRIGHT. 169
way. For one day, when Isaac had grown old and blind, he
called Esau and said to him, " I am old, my son, and know
not when I may die ; but before I go I would fain give you a
father's blessing. So take your bow and arrows and go out
into the fields and shoot some game, and when I have eaten
it I will bless you in the presence of Yahweh." So Esau
went out with a right heart to hunt.
But Rebekah had overheard the conversation, and it dis-
turbed her greatly. For if Isaac did as he intended, there
was no longer any chance that her darling Jacob would re-
ceive the best portion of the inheritance. She knew what to
do, however. She called Jacob without loss of time, and told
him to bring a couple of kids and prepare them to set before
his father for venison, so that he might receive the blessing
himself as if he were Esau. Jacob objected that, since Esau
was rough and hairy, and he himself was smooth, he was
afraid of being found out by his father, in which ease he
should stand before him in confusion, and receive a curse
instead of a blessing. But his mother removed this scruple
by saying, " May the curse fall upon me, my son ! Only do
as I tell you." So Jacob allowed himself to be persuaded.
The meal was soon ready. Jacob had put on Esau's clothes,
and had covered his hands and neck with goat-skin, so that if
his father were to feel him, in doubt whether he really had the
right man before him, he might not notice the difference be-
tween Jacob's smoothness and the roughness of Esau. Thus
prepared, he went into his father's tent.
" My father ! " " Here am I, my son ! who are you ? " "I
am Esau, your eldest son ; I have done as you desired ; come,
eat of my venison and then bless me." " How soon you have
got it ready, my son!" "Yahweh, your god, brought the
quarry across my path," was the traitor's answer. "Come
near," said the blind man, suspiciously, " and let me feel you,
to be sure that you really are Esau." The precautions of Re-
bekah appeared successful, and Isaac, after passing his fingers
over the rough hands of his son as he stood before him, was
half convinced, and murmured, " It is Jacob's voice, but the
hands are Esau's." Yet once more, however, he inquired, " It
is really my son Esau, then ? " and when he had been assured
again that it was, he suppressed all his doubts, and allowed
the meal to be set before him. When he had eaten the meat
and drunk the wine he made ready for his solemn task. "Kiss
me, my son ! " said the blind old man, and as Jacob kissed
him, and he perceived the smell of his clothes — the smell of
170 JACOB OBTAINS THE BIRTHRIGHT.
the hunter's garments — all his doubts and hesitation disap-
peared, and he broke out in passionate fervor, " My son is
fragrant as the field that Yahweh has blessed ! " And now
the old man's hands are raised, and laid upon the head of his
kneeling son. " God," he cries,
" God shall give thee of the dew of heaven,
And of the fatness of earth,
And abundance of corn and wine!
Peoples shall be thy servants,
Nations shall bow before thee!
Be thou thy brothers* ruler,
Let thy mother's sons fall down before thee!
He who curses thee shall be cursed,
He who blesses thee blessed."
Of course Jacob made away with all possible speed, and left
Isaac deep in thought. It was some time before the latter
was roused from his reflections by a voice that had always
been dear to him, but filled him with terror now. "My
father ! " cried Esau, as he entered the tent full of bright
anticipations, "rise up and eat of your son's venison, that
you may bless me." "Who are you?" the old man asked.
"Your son, your eldest son, Esau!" was the reply; and
Isaac, betrayed and horror-struck, grieving for Esau's sake
and knowing that his blessing could not be called back,
exclaimed, "Who was it then, that was here but now, that
brought venison from his hunting, of which I ate before you
came ? I have blessed him, moreover, and he shall be blessed
indeed ! " A loud and bitter cry escaped the defrauded Esau
— "Bless me, me too, my father." "Alas! your brother
has come and has stolen away j'our blessing, my son ! " In
scorn and indignation, Esau burst out, " Truly he is well
named Jacob ' the deceiver,' for this is the second time he has
deceived me, first he took my birthright from me, and now he
has stolen my blessing ! " and then with more of sadness in
his voice he went on, *' Father ! have you no blessing left for
me ? " His father, who would so gladly have given him some-
thing, but was bound by his own words, answered mournfully,
"I have made him yo\ir master, and all his brothers have 1
made his servants, corn and wine have I given him, and what
have I left, then, to give you, my son?" Esau burst into
tears aud could only say, " Have you but this one blessing,
father ? Oh father ! bless me too ! "
As the rude hunter sinks sobbing to the ground, his father
lays his hand upon his head. He longs from the bottom of
his heart to bless him, but he has no power to turn fate aside,
JACOB OBTAINS THE BIRTHRIGHT. 171
and the words that rise involuntarily to his lips sound more
like a curse than a blessing : —
" Bereft i of the fatness of earth shall thy home be,
Bereft of the dew of heaven.
A freebooter's life shalt thou lead,
And be subject unto thy brother;
But in restless freedom tliou shalt break his yoke
And shake it from of thy neck."
No wonder that Esau hated his brother for what he had
done. He plotted vengeance ; but, as he loved his father, he
determined to wait until after his death and then to destroy his
brother. But when Eebekah heard that Esau had declared
that this was his intention she called Jacob and said to him :
" See, your brother comforts himself for the injury you have
done him, by the hope that he may kill you. Fly therefore
to my brother Laban, in Haran, and stay there till Esau's
wrath has cooled and he has forgotten the whole affair. Why
should I lose both my sons at once ? "
Before retelling the story, we glanced at its object, and
at the way in which the nature of the countries inhabited
by the Israelites and the Edomites and the history and
mutual relations of the two peoples are as it were reflected
iu it ; and we need, therefore, spend no more time in specially
pointing out these matters. There are, however, several
points in the stor}- which still call for our attention.
The legend places us in a world full of amazing super-
stition. Esau, the writer assumes, since he was the eldest,
would have been the chief as well, had not Jacob seized his
opportunity and succeeded in buying the right of the first-
born from him, and so stepping into his privileges. This does
not mean that Esau was constantly injuring himself by the
carelessness of which he gave proof on this occasion, and that
Jacob got on in the world as a natural consequence of the
shrewdness of which this was a specimen ; nor does it mean
that, in consequence of having sold his birthright, Esau was
obliged to give up certain privileges, the exercise of which
made him Jacob's superior. No, the stoiy means to say that
Jacob came into possession of the power and consideration
that Yahweh had destined for Isaac's first-born son.
The same remark holds good of his stealing his father's
blessing. Unenlightened people still think very seriously of
the blessing or curse of others. The} - are delighted by a
hearty good wish, and, still more, appalled by a bitter curse,
1 After an amended version.
172 JACOB OBTAINS THE BIRTHRIGHT.
not because the blessing or curse shows their neighbors to
be well or ill disposed towards them, and it is pleasan'.er to
receive signs of friendship than proofs of enmity, but because
they believe that these blessings and curses exercise some
influence upon their lot, and that their prosperity and
adversity are, to some extent, dependent upon them. In
ancient times this was a general belief.
But of course people did not attach the same weight to
every man's words. They declared the favorable or un-
favorable predictions of certain individuals to be especially
rich in happy or disastrous results. Who these specially
powerful individuals were, was a question variously answered
uccording to the various mental attitudes from which it was
asked. Those who attached most importance to religion
believed the most pious men to have the greatest influence ;
but others were especially anxious about the words of those
whom they considered cleverer than others. It often hap-
pened that the boldness with which certain people declared
themselves to have power over the forces of nature and the
lot of their fellow men, made such an impression on the
ignorant multitude that they bowed down before them in
terror. Moreover any circumstance that threw any sort of
mystery over a man was enough to make people think that he
had power over the lot of his fellow men. This belief then in
soothsayers, magicians, witches, rain-doctors, and enchanters,
which was once very general and has by no means disap-
peared even now, rises from a want of reflection, from igno-
rance, and most of all from fear, which is alwa3 _ s powerful
amongst those whose intellectual life is poorly developed.
It is not surprising that people who held such beliefs
thought a great deal of the blessing or the curse of a father.
Who would not shudder involuntaril}-, however innocent he
might be, if his father cursed him? In such a case, though
the intellect repeated after the Israelite sage, "Asa sparrow
flies away, as a swallow disappears, so a curse for which
there is no cause shall not come," l yet no one would be able
to get rid of a very bitter recollection of it, and many a one
would be in clanger, when some misfortune happened to him,
of thinking of this curse as if the two things had some con-
nection with each other. And yet we know very well that such
a connection does not really exist, and that no man's words
have power to fix our weal or woe. How very differently
the ancient Israelites thought upon these matters and how
1 Proverbs xxvi. 2.
JACOB OBTAINS THE BIRTHRIGHT. 173
far most of them were from sharing the common . sense of
the proverb just quoted we may see from the story of Isaac's
blessing.
Isaac wishes, before he dies, to bless Esau and to make him
lord over all his brothers. If he fulfils this intention Esau
will really receive these blessings. So Isaac himself and
Esau and Rebekah and Jacob all believe. The last of these
disguises himself and receives his father's blessing in his
brother's stead ; he obtains the promise of a fruitful country
and of the rulership. Esau is in despair when he finds out
what has happened, and Isaac too is downcast, for his words
aave decided the future of his sons. He perfectly under-
stands that Jacob came " with deceit" and stole the blessing,
but in spite of this the blessing itself does not lose its power.
"And now he will be blessed," he declares emphatically.
jSow it is all very well to try to soften down this most
extraordinary and indeed shocking representation by saying
that Isaac's mistake was brought about by Yahweh because
he desired to make Jacob the superior, and that Isaac, there-
fore, though he did not know it himself, blessed his sons
"through faith;" 1 but nothing is gained by this way of
putting it, for it simply brings more clearly to light the
amazing imperfections in the conception formed by this
writer of his god. For if Yahweh desired to make Jacob
chief of the brothers, could he not have clone so in spite of
Esau's being the elder and of Isaac's having blessed him?
Must Jacob deceive his brother twice in order that his god
might be able to bless him ? Had the words of a man such
a powerful influence over Yahweh?
We observed just now that this superstitions set of ideas
springs from a low stage of intellectual development ; and it
may perhaps be affirmed that the story tells quite as much
against the writer's morality. For when he represents Jacob
as being blessed by Yahweh by means of the birthright he
had bought from his brother in an unguarded moment, and
the blessing he had stolen from him, we might very well
suppose that he saw absolutely nothing wrong in these pro-
ceedings. But this would be doing him an injustice. - Ap-
pearances in this case are misleading.
Let us examine the characters of the two men here por-
trayed !
We are most attracted by Esau. Not that even he is a
very noble figure ! The levity with which, to still his hunger,
1 Hebrews xi. 20.
174 JACOB OBTAINS THE BIRTHRIGHT.
he sells his rights as the first-born son, with the exclamation,
" Who knows how soon I may die ! " is a striking type of the
lightness with which many a one sacrifices peace of conscience
and health of soul to some momentary pleasure or passing
enjoyment, 1 and is as much to be condemned as his violent
burst of passion against Jacob. But this levity is accom-
panied by a certain freshness and naturalness. He loves his
father, and, for his sake, puts off his vengeance. There is
something impressive in his passionate grief when the bless-
ing is stolen from him ; for it speaks of something more than
mere disappointment at the loss of wealth and honor. Esau
is rough, but straightforward ; a man of the field, and, though
not our ideal, yet more attractive than Jacob, the smooth,
cautious, crafty man, who seizes his opportunity of getting
hold of the birthright, has but one objection when his mother
urges him to deceive his blind old father, namely, that per-
haps he may be found out and cursed, and unhesitatingly fol-
lows his mother's advice as soon as she declares her readiness
to take the curse upon herself ! The word used by the writer
to describe the character of Jacob 2 is peculiar. I have trans
lated it "respectable." Most of the translations, both an-
cient and modern, render it " simple," " upright." The
word that is used in the original properly means ' l perfect,"
" sound," and the writer's meaning in using this word of
Jacob is explained bj- the connection. Esau is called a man
of the field,- rough, quick, and changeable, but Jacob is a
" perfect " man, dwelling in tents. Gentle manners, courtesy
in the intercourse of life and culture distinguished the dwellers
in tents from the rough, wandering hunters. These are the
qualities, then, celebrated in Jacob.
We must not suppose, however, that because the writer
placed the respectable Jacob above the ruder Esau he there-
fore approved of the conduct of the former to his brother and
his father. It is only among some few tribes of savages that
such ignorance of what is right can be found as to make them
think there is nothing wrong in cheating their nearest relatives,
and the writer sees well enough that Jacob's conduct can be
described by no gentler term than that of cheating ; he him-
self calls it so without reserve. 8 His mistake is in calling
ill-gotten goods a blessing of God, and so making his Yahweh
a party to Jacob's knaveries ; not in having approved of the
deception, which he never did.
In the main, then, we agree with the writer in our judg-
l Hebrews xii. 16, 17. 2 Genesis xxv. 27. 8 Genesis xxvii. 35, 36.
JACOBS DREAM. 175
ment of this dexterous double dealing on the part of Israel's
ancestor. But we go further than he does, and should call a
man like Jacob anything but " perfect." Cultivation may be
worth something, and pleasant manners in society may be pre-
ferable to a rough way of speaking and acting, for roughness
often causes mischief and is a source of strife. But if an
ugly mind lurks behind the urbane exterior, if the pleasing
manners throw a veil over scheming treachery, then all the
outward cultivation is as nothing. Nay, sometimes it is even
worse than nothing, for we are attracted by it in spite of our-
selves, and so the deceiver has free play. A rough, straight-
forward man is at any rate better than a ' ' smooth " individual
Chapter XXIII.
JACOB'S DREAM.
Gen. XXVIII. 10-22.
FEW forms of worship were so universal in ancient times
as the homage paid to sacred stones. Amongst unciv-
ilized tribes, or so-called savages, it is to be found almost
everywhere to the present day ; and among the most various
nations, which have long ago struggled out of the state of
barbarism, sundry reminiscences of the worship of stones are
still preserved. The savage looks upon certain unhewn stones
as deities, and worships them accordingly. It is very diffi-
cult to make out what his ideas in doing this are, and so too
with respect to many other elements of his worship it is very
hard to understand what goes on in his mind, just because
there is not much that does go on there. He reflects but little
or not at all. Involuntarily we look for too much depth in him.
The lowest stage of religion that we can discover is gen-
erally called fetishism, sometimes animism. Its characteristic
is the worship of all manner of miscellaneous objects that
happen to make an impression on its votaries. Among the
collections of these sacred things are found the strangest ob-
jects, products both of nature and of art, side by side. The
n&me fetishism is not really at all appropriate to this form of
worship, since it owes its origin to a mistake. For when the
Portuguese voyagers came to certain regions to which but
1?6
JACOB S DKEAM.
little civilization or knowledge had penetrated, and to which
no Europeans had ever found their way before (such as the
countries of the Negroes in Africa for instance) , they saw the
natives worshipping certain objects, and supposed that they
were instruments of Magic. So they called this form of relig-
ion after their word fetisso which means a charm. The name
animism, derived from the Latin word anima, " soul," implies
that the savages think of their sacred objects as living and
having souls. We shall use the word fetishism as the one most
generally employed.
Now among sacred objects of this kind, unhewn stones
occupy a prominent place ; and in the history of the religion
of even the most highly civilized peoples, such as the Greeks,
Romans, Hindoos, Arabs, and Germans, we find traces of
the attachment felt by the masses to their stone-gods, an
attachment often so deep that in znairy cases the reformers
who desired to supersede these rude forms of worship by
better ones, saw no chance of getting rid of the sacred stones.
They tried therefore to find some explanation of the homage
paid to them. Among the Eomans they made them into
boundary stones, raised in honor of Terminus, the god of
boundaries. In other places they explained the homage paid
them by declaring that they were meteor-stones that had fallen
from the sky. In other districts they were made into monu-
ments or altars of the forefathers. When the simple faith in
the consecrated stones began to languish, the learned men of
the Greeks and Romans, among others, gave all manner of
profound interpretations of their sanctity, and taught that
these stones were the dwellings of the gods, or petrified sun-
beams. But this throws no light upon the real significance
they had to the minds of their ancient worshippers. Perhaps
the gigantic dimensions and grotesque forms of certain masses
of rock gave them the impression of strength and of some-
thing mysterious. Then some concourse of events might
lead them to believe that a certain stone had exercised a
beneficial or injurious influence upon their fate ; and imagina-
tion, unrestrained by habits of reflection, had thus free play.
The belief that all objects were alive, contributed its share
towards increasing the reverential awe for anything that had
once attracted the attention, and finally the fame of the sanc-
tity of certain stones was preserved and magnified by tradition.
However this may be, the worship of stones reappears in all
manner of countries. They were honored by sacrifices and
were anointed with blood, wine, or oil in sign of reverence.
Jacob's dream. 177
One of the most celebrated of all sacred stones is the Black
Stone, in the Caaba, at Mecca, formerly the common sanctuary
of the Arab tribes, and afterwards down to the present day,
the temple of Islam. When Mohammed rose, this stone was
considered the most sacred thing in the temple ; and though
the worship offered to it was as little in keeping with his
religion as the homage paid to the other idols, yet he did not
venture to attack it, and when he had conquered Mecca, though
he banished all the other idols from the Caaba, he reveren-
tially kissed this stone. In later times the learned Arabs
invented all kinds of wonderful stories about it ; such as that
it had become so black because of the sins of men ; and that
the angel Gabriel had brought it to Abraham when he was
building the Caaba, and so on. The stone still continued to be
the most sacred object of Islam, so that in the year 930 a.d.,
when an hostile tribe wanted to break the neck of this religion,
they could think of nothing better than to steal the black Stone.
This plan accordingly was violently carried out, amid the lam-
entations of the inhabitants of Mecca. But it was no good
after all, for now the faithful worshipped the place in the wall
where the stone had been imbedded ! At last it was bought
back again for an enormous sum of money.
Among the ancient Israelites, too, the worship of stones
was very general. The reformers among them, prophets and
priests of Yahweh, certainly did their best to wipe out the
remembrance of the fact, but they were not altogether suc-
cessful in doing so. In Euherueristic fashion, 1 they attempted
to make the stones which were honored by the people harmless,
by finding a place for them in the Yahweh- worship ; and many
narratives owe their origin to this attempt ; but in these stories
the original signification of the sacred objects shines through
everywhere.
The old stone worship has also left traces behind it in some
of the Israelitish proper names ; as Elitsur, i. e., "the rock
is my god ;" Tsurishaddai, " Shaddai, or ' the mighty one,'
is my rock;'' Tsuriel, "God is my rock;" Pedatsur, "the
rock delivers." Yahweh too is frequently called the rock of
his worshippers, or the rock of Israel. Now, it is quite true
that this is metaphorical ; just as Yahweh is often called the
mountain, the shield, or the fortress of those that trust in
him; but the marked preference shown for the expression
" Israel's rock," and the emphasis with which it is used, show
that there must have been a special reason for selecting just
1 See pp. 104-106.
8*
1 7fc? Jacob's dream.
this metaphor so often ; and we can find no other than thai
derived from the ancient worship of blocks of stone. Here ia
one out of many examples : - 1 —
The Rock, his work is pure,
For all his ways are right.
The Rook that produced thee thou hast rejected,
And thou hast forgotten the god that bore thee.
How should one (Israelite) pursue a thousand,
And two put ten thousand to flight,
Except their (the enemies') Rock had sold them,
And Yahweh delivered them up!
For their Rock is not as our Rock.
In these lines "the Bock" is used in exactly the same
sense as the word, god. The name generally used to signify
the sacred stones, which were found- in great numbers by
most altars and also standing alone, was massebah, a word the
literal meaning of which is simply " something which is set
up." In the Authorized Version it is translated "an image." 2
The Eomans called them ' ' anointed stones " on account of
the manner in which they were usually worshipped.
Now Bethel was one of the places at which there was a
sacred stone. This city, the name of which signifies " God's
house," was, as is well known, of the greatest importance in
the religion of Israel, especially after the division of the king-
dom ; for there Jeroboam raised one of his golden oxen, and
since Bethel was situated on the southern boundary of the
kingdom, not far from Jerusalem, this sanctuary was the most
important of the rivals of the temple of Sion. It was called
the king's sanctuary. 3 But although by the setting up of this
image of an ox it was consecrated as a temple of Yahweh, the
pilgrims who came there were also much given to the worship
of a certain stone, which was probably situated within the
consecrated area of the temple, while a. sacred oak in the
neighborhood of the place had also a powerful attraction for
them. This oak was called, for some unknown reason, "the
oak of weeping." Now the priests and prophets of Yahweh
were bent upon rooting out these primeval forms of worship ;
and on account of the importance of the city, they gave them-
selves more trouble to do so in this case than in that of similar
national sanctuaries in other localities. This is why such re-
peated mention of the worship of Yahweh at Bethel is made in
1 Deuteronomy xxxii. 4, 18, 30, 31.
2 For example in 2 Kings xxiii. 14. Hosea iii. 4. s Amos vii. 13.
Jacob's dream. 179
the legends about the Patriarchs ; 1 but it is not certain that "
the same stone is referred to in every case. The following
story amongst others was called into existence by the desire
to proclaim the high antiquity of the sanctuary there as a
temple of Yahweh, and to make a sacred stone harmless : —
On his journey from Beersheba to Haran Jacob came to the
Canaanite city Luz. Near this place he had to spend the
night, for the sun went down, so he took a stone, which he
found 'there, laid it under his head and fell asleep. But his
sleep was not undisturbed, for in his dream he saw a ladder
set upon the ground, the top of which reached to the vault of
heaven, and on which angels of God climbed up and down.
Meanwhile Yahweh stood by him and said, " I am Yahweh,
the god of Abraham and Isaac ! The land on which you are
now sleeping I will give to you and to your posterity ; and your
descendants shall be innumerable as the dust of the earth, and
you shall spread to all the countries under heaven, so that "all
men shall bless each other by making mention of you and of
your posterity, 2 saying, ' God prosper you as Jacob and his
children ! ' And, as for the season now coming, I will be
with you and will protect you everywhere, until I have brought
you back again to this land and accomplished all my promises
to you."
Full of reverential awe and a certain holy terror Jacob
woke, and as he thought of all he had seen and heard, he said
in glad surprise : " Truly, Yahweh is here too ! I knew not
that. What a dreadful place is this ! It is no less than a
house of God ; it is a gate of heaven ! " In the morning Jacob
took the stone which had served him for a pillow and set it up
as a massebah, and then anointed it with oil.
He took occasion from this appearance of the deity to call
the citj', which had hitherto been known as Luz, Bethel, that
is " house of god." At the same time he made a vow that if
Yahweh protected him on his journey, and provided food and
clothing for him, so that he returned in prosperity to his
parents' home, he would acknowledge him as his god, and
would give him tithes of all his possessions, while the spot on
which the anointed stone was raised should be a god's house
to him.
Let us be careful in thinking over this story not to water
down its contents by ascribing modern notions to Jacob or
the writer. To the question "Where is God?" we have
1 For example, Genesis xii. 8, xiii. 4, xxxv. 1 sqq.
2 After an amended version; see also p. 109.
1610 JACOB'S DREAM.
' been accustomed from childhood to hear the answer " Every-
where," so that it is difficult for us really to enter into the
thoughts of men who had no idea of such an answer, but
believed that their god was onry present in certain places.
If we are to understand antiquhy, however, we must try to
place ourselves at this point of view. In the conception of
the Israelite who wrote our narrative, and of all those who
surrounded him, Yahweh was confined to a definite place,
just like a man. He lived in heaven, and sometimes came
from thence to visit the earth. He did not come down to
all places alike, however, but only to some few selected spots
where he revealed himself in dreams and visions, or in per-
sonal intercourse, and where he heard the prayers of the
faithful, while the offerings that had been brought there, rose
up to him. It is true that Yahweh sometimes sent one
of his messengers or angels with those he loved, so that they
were under his indirect protection everywhere, but he himself
was only to be found in certain places, which were considered
sacred on this account, and were often up on hills, but some-
times on lower ground. Any one who would see him, who
had a favor to ask of him or an offering to bring him, must
seek him at these spots.
This seems to us a very mistaken idea, and we are ready
enough to accuse those who cling to it of narrowness. We
are quite right in doing so ; for the idea that the deity is only
present in certain places shows a want of reflection ; but it
may well be that it was sometimes coupled with a far greater
measure of religiousness than is to be met with in those who
declare without hesitation that God is everywhere.
For it is not so much the contents of our creed as the way
by which we have arrived at our convictions that determines
our religiousness ; not what we believe, but how or wiry we
believe it. If we declare that God is everywhere, only
because we argue it out, as we ma}- easily do, it proves
nothing for the earnestness of our spiritual life ; with this
belief wc may still live like heathens. On the other hand,
take Jacob — to make the truth apparent in his person — as
a type ! He has to leave the tent of his father. It goes to
his heart to do so, for it is sad to say farewell to those whom
we love, and all the little spots to which tender recollections
are bound. But the heaviest blow to him is this, that he must
wander away from the sacred Beersheba. There Yahweh
dwelt. There he had appeared again and again to his grand-
father and father. There he had received their offerings and
Jacob's dream. 181
had blessed them. Nay, had not he himself passed many
hours, he could never forget, in the shadow of the sacred
tree? Had he not in times of trouble felt the consoling
presence of his god ? Had he not been terrified by the dark-
ness that surrounded Yahweh, and filled with awe and
wonder by the consuming fire? Now he must leave that
consecrated spot and wander awaj- through regions where
Yahweh was not ? How would it go with him on his journey ?
He would have to pass through deserts, to cross rivers, to
brave the fury and the cunning of wild beasts — and all this
without Yahweh by to help him ! Or would this god, who had
been so good to his family, send an angel to accompany him ?
Yahweh dwelt at Beersheba and by the well Lahai-roi, but
yet he dwelt by the oak at Mamre and elsewhere too ; might
he not have a place of revelation somewhere here ? How the
wanderer longed to make him an offering ! It would be such
a comfort to him on his journey ! Amid such thoughts he
lays himself down in weariness to rest. He does not fear the
wild beasts now. Yahweh, he hopes, will send a messenger
to protect him. And in his sleep he sees the ladder reared
between earth and heaven, he sees Yahweh standing by him,
and he hears the promise of protection, and then he wakes
and cries out, "Yahweh is here too! This is a house-of-
god ! "
A faith which springs up in such a way as this is the
fruit of religiousness ; and this is the wa} T in which the belief
in holy places rose. Where the pious saw themselves par-
ticularly blessed or where important revelations were vouch-
safed to them, where good thoughts rose within them or
dangers were averted, there they said, " Our god is working
here ! " A great deal must often have taken place !n the
life and soul of a man then before he came to recognize a
place as holy ; naj', it often needed more reflection than it costs
many a one to argue that since, as he has always heard,
there is one almighty Being — God, this God is of course
everywhere, because if he were not he would not be infinite
and almighty.
For us ever}' place is holy in which we have felt by expe-
rience that God exists, where we have mourned over our
trespasses or have formed good resolutions, where holy
thoughts have risen within us or some true consolation has
fallen to our lot, where our vocation has become clearer
before our eyes and faith in our destiny has been quickened.
So we do not believe in our hearts that God is everywhere
182 JACOB AND LABAN.
until we hare found out that we can experience his presence
in all places, and can receive his blessing everywhere if our
heart is rightly tuned.
Chapter XXIV.
JACOB AND LABAN.
Gen. XXIX. -XXXII. 3.
TWO reasons for the departure of Jacob to Haran are given
in Genesis. We have been told alreadj' that he went
there through fear of Esau's vengeance ; but we find another
account besides this that differs very widely from it, and is
evidently by another writer. It runs as follows : 1 —
When Esau was forty years old he took two Canaanite
wives 2 and they vexed the souls of Isaac and Rebekah.
Rebekah, therefore, said to her husband, "I am grieved
about these Hethite women. If Jacob were to follow Esau's
example, and many a woman of this country, I should wish
to die." Acting upon his wife's exhortation, Isaac called
Jacob to him, and, after having blessed him, gave him this in-
junction : " You must not take one of the inhabitants of this
country for your wife ; but go rather to Padan Aram, to the
house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and choose a wife
from among your kindred. And God Almighty (El-Shaddai)
bless you and give you a numerous posterity, so that many
tribes may spring from you ! May he lay upon you and your
posterity the blessing of Abraham, that 3-ou may have pos-
session of the land in which you are a stranger, that he prom-
ised him ! " Thus Isaac sent Jacob away to Padan Aram to
Laban, the son of Bethuel the Aramaean (or Sj'rian). Now
when Esau saw that his father had blessed Jacob, and sent
him to Padan Aram to bring a wife thence, and had told him not
to marry a Canaanite wife, he was reminded afresh of his par-
ents' strong disapproval of his own marriage with women of the
councry ; so he married a relative, anlshmaelite woman, as well.
It is easy to see that this story differs considerably from
the one related in our last chapter but one. There Esau is
the favorite of Isaac, who desires to bless him, and only
makes Jacob the head of his brothers by mistake. Here, ou
1 Genesis xxvi. 34, 35, xxvii. 46-xxviii. 9. 2 See p. 16T.
JACOB AND LAB AN. 183
the other hand, Isaac thinks just as Rebekah does about Esau.
His marriages with Hethite wives are a thorn in the flesh of
both, and induce Isaac knowingly and intentionally to call
down the blessing of Abraham upon Jacob's head. There
Jacob obtains the birthright and his father's blessing in an
underhand manner. Here he is the obedient son, who goes
to Mesopotamia to seek a wife after the heart of his parents,
so as not to forfeit their favor as Esau had done. Now
attempts have been made to bring these two stories into
agreement with each other, by saying that Rebekah repre-
sented to Isaac how desirable it would be for Jacob to marry
one of his own kindred, simply in order to gain his consent
to the departure of his younger son : but there is not a single
word that points to this conclusion ; and if it is correct, then
surely Isaac is made out a most feeble creature, for he renews,
of his own free will and without a word of reproach, the bless-
ing gained in the first instance b} r a fraud. Nor can we un-
derstand how Esau could determine to marry an Ishmaelite
wife "because Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him to
Padan Aram to fetch a wife" if the blessing had really been
stolen already.
In the account of Jacob's departure from Beersheba to seek
a wife among his kindred, we have a portion of the " Book of
Origins " before us ; and here as elsewhere 1 that work gives but
colorless figures to the patriarchs. There were some old
legends, on the other hand, that gave Jacob very character-
istic features ; for his name that was interpreted " deceiver" 2
led the popular tradition to describe him as a crafty man, and
in this character he actually appears in one set of the legends
concerning him. In others, on the contrary, he is simply
sketched as the blessed one of his god, whose help he can
never celebrate enough. Here is the story that has grown
out of the union of these two sets of legends, in the form in
which we now have it : —
After he had received the promises of God's protection at
Bethel, Jacob went on to the land of the men of the East.
When he reached it he came upon some flocks of sheep and
goats pasturing round a well in a plain. Jacob was surprised
to see this, for it was before noon, and he wondered why the
shepherds did not water their flocks and then drive them
furthe.' on their wa}'. As he wanted to find out the reason
of their conduct, he entered into conversation with them and
asked them where they came from. " We are men of Haran' ;
1 Sre pp. 107, 108. 2 Genesis xxvii. 36.
184 JACOB AND I.ABAN.
was the reply. Haran ! then he had reached hie journey's
end already ! He asked for information about his kindred at
once. "Do you know Laban, the son of Nahor?" They
said they did, and in answer to further questions Jacob learned
that his uncle was doing well, and that they were expecting
his daughter Rachel to arrive with her flocks every moment.
This brought him back to the point that had first led him to
address them, so he asked, "Why are you wasting your time
at the well here? For it is too soon to collect the flocks."
"We cannot water our flocks," they said, "till we are all
here and can unite our strength to roll away the stone that
lies over the mouth of the well."
He was still talking with them, when behold Rachel drew
near with her father's flocks. No sooner did Jacob see her
with the cattle of his mother's brother, than he strode up to
the mouth of the well and with the strength of a giant rolled
away the stone, and then watered the flocks. Rachel looked
on in amazement, which soon made way, however, for jo3 - ful
surprise, when the stranger came up to her and, greeting
her with a kiss and bursting into tears of joy, made himself
known as her cousin, the son of Rebekah. She hurried
back to her father, who came with all speed to meet Jacob,
and when he found him, embraced and brought him home
affectionately. Then Jacob had to tell his stor}', and when
it was over Laban cried, " You are my own flesh and blood !
Look upon niy house as upon that of your father !"
Now, when Jacob had been with Laban a month, helping
him to pasture his flocks, his uncle said to him, " See, 3'ou
are like a brother to me ! why should you serve me for noth-
ing? Tell me what your wages shall be." Jacob soon had an
answer ready ; for he had fallen in love with Rachel, his
younger cousin, who was far more beautiful than her sister
Leah, whose eyes were dull. He offered, therefore, to serve
his uncle seven years for the hand of Rachel. Laban con-
sented. For Jacob the seven years flew past like a few days,
for lie loved Rachel so, and when they were overlie demanded
her in marriage, and Laban, like a man of his word, consented.
But when the wedding day came he made difficulties about it,
and compelled Jacob to marry Leah instead of Rachel, since
it was not right, he said, for the younger to be married before
the elder sister. To make it right again, however, he pro-
posed that Jacob should marry Rachel as well, and then
«erve him for seven more years, and to this the disappointed
Jacob consented.
JACOB AND LAB AN. 185
But though the precedence had thus been given Leah, Jacob
still loved Rachel most. It seemed, however, as if Yahweh
had determined to make up for this slight, for while her
sister remained childless Leah gave birth to four sons, Reuben,
Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Rachel, in her jealousy of Leah,
determined to "build up her house by her slave girl," as
Sarah had done. 1 So she gave her servant Bilhah to Jacob
as a secondary wile ; and she had two sons, Dan and Naphtali,
of whom Rachel was just as proud as if they had been her
own children. But Leah, fearing to be outdone by her
sister, determined to adopt the same means of increasing
the number of her own sons. So she gave her slave girl
Zilpah to Jacob for a wife. Gad and Asher sprang from
this union, and when Leah herself had a fifth son, Issachar,
and then a sixth, Zebulun, and finally a daughter, Dinah,
Rachel was thoroughly defeated. But at last Yahweh
thought of her, and she too had a son. This child, for
whom she had waited so long, she called Joseph.
When this happiness had befallen Jacob the desire rose
in his heart of returning to the land of his birth, and be-
fore long he asked Laban's leave to go. But the latter by
no means fell in with the plan. He declared at once that
Jacob had served him well, and even that Yahweh had
evidently blessed him for his sake ; and so he pressed
him earnestly to stay with him. If he would' do so he
might name his own terms. Jacob declared that though
he was quite aware that while he had had charge of his
uncle's flocks they had increased enormously, yet he would
be content with but a small reward, one of no significance
at all in fact — all the speckled and spotted sheep and
goats should be his share. Laban agreed, and as soon as
the animals were sorted he separated his flocks so far from
those of his son-in-law that it was impossible they should
get mixed. But Jacob was too cunning for him. He him-
self fed the flocks of his uncle, who had a high opinion of
his skill as a herdsman. But this skill now enabled Jacob
to look after himself. He knew all kinds of tricks for
managing that most of the lambs should be born spotted
or piebald, and he plied his arts so cleverly that he soon
became very very rich, not only in small cattle but in male
and female slaves, in camels and in asses.
But a rich man is soon envied, as Jacob now discovered.
Laban's sons complained that their father suffered great loss
1 See p. 126.
186 JACOB AND LAB AN.
by the arrangement he had made. They could not bear the
sight of Jacob's prosperity. Their words gradually began to
have some effect upon Laban himself, and Jacob soon per-
ceived that his father-in-law was no longer so favorably
disposed towards him as he had formerly been. Then Yahweh
commanded him to go back to Canaan. So Jacob called
Rachel and Leah and put the whole matter before them :
" Your father," he said, "is no longer what he was to me.
But it is not my fault. The god of my father has helped rne,
and j'OU know how faithfully I have served your father. But
he has not treated me well. He has altered the terms of my
service ten times, but God has not allowed him to injure me
by it ; for if we had agreed that I was to have all the piebald
lambs and kids, then all the sheep and goats dropped piebald
young ; but if on the other hand we had agreed that my wage
was to consist of all the speckled ones, then speckled j'oung
kept coming into the world. Thus God has given me all
your father's wealth. Indeed he foretold as much to me in a
dream, in which he said that he would make all the lambs
just of the very sort that was to be my share, because your
father treated me so badly. Moreover he made himself known
to me as the god of Bethel, where I raised that anointed
stone." Rachel and Leah thought that their husband was
quite right. They declared that they were altogether severed
from their father's house and had still more to complain of
than Jacob had himself ; for they were indignant with theii
father for having sold them as if they were strangers, and were
of opinion that the whole of the wealth that God had taken
from their father's property belonged to them and to their
sons. They declared, therefore, that they were quite ready
to comply with Jacob's wishes.
So once when Laban was at a sheep-shearers' feast, Jacob
took the opportune of making off, taking all his property
with him, and at the same time Rachel took her father's house-
hold gods (teraphim) with her. Jacob set out on the way to
Canaan, crossed the Euphrates, directed his course towards
the mountains of Gilead, and had just reached them, on the
seventh day, when he was overtaken by Laban, who had not
heard of his departure till the third day after he had gone.
Laban was very angry, especially about the household gods
having been stolen, and had no very gentle thoughts as re-
garded his nephew. So the meeting might have been a very
unpleasant one and might even have ended in bloodshed,
if God had not helped his favorite and warned Laban not to
JACOB AND LABAN. 187
do him any kind of harm. As it was, all went off quietly,
though Laban reproached Jacob for having slipped away with-
out warning, and declared that if he had known of his inten-
tion he would have given him a festal escort. Jacob excused
himself by saying that he had been afraid that Laban would
not leave his daughters free to accompany him.
But when Laban accused hiin of having taken away the
teraphim, he stoutly maintained his innocence, and gave his
father-in-law leave to search all the tents, declaring that any
one in whose possession the stolen goods were found should
be put to death. This was a rash promise ; for he ought to
have remembered that a great deal might have gone on that
he knew nothing about. Rachel, however, who had not told
her husband what she had done, managed to escape detection ;
for she hid the teraphim in the pannier that was usually fixed
on the camel's back to carry the women, and then went and
lay down on it herself, pretending to be ill ; and when her
father came to search the tent, she begged him not to be
offended with her for not rising, as she was unwell. So he
could not find what he had lost ; and Jacob assumed a tone
of injured innocence and said : " Now just see what you have
been hunting me down in this way for ! What injmy have
I done you? What have I stolen from you? Have I not
always served you faithfully these twenty years — fourteen
years for your daughters and six years for your cattle ? Have
I not looked after your interests at the cost of my own ? And
all you have done has been to change my wage ten times, so
that if the god of Abraham and the Terror of Isaac had not
helped me, I should have been a beggar when I left 3*ou."
-Laban now dropped all hostile intentions and proposed to
Jacob that they should make an alliance together. Jacob
agreed, and raised a massebak. Then the dependants of both
of them raised a great heap of stones, by which they took
their meal. They called this artificial hill of stones "the
heap of the witness," which is " Gilead" in Hebrew. It has
given its name to a certain district beyond the Jordan. Then
Laban cried, ' ' God bear witness that when we have left each
other you are to treat my daughters well, and marry no more
wives ! Moreover this heap of stones and this massebah are
witnesses that we will never cross this boundary with hostile
intentions towards each other. May the gods of Abraham
and of Nahor judge between us ! " Then they swore to ob-
serve this covenant — Jacob's oath being in the name of the
Terror of Isaac. After that Jacob prepared a feast in cele-
188 JACOB AND LABAN.
bration of the covenant, and next morning each of them went
on his way.
When Jacob was pursuing his journey again there came
angels of God to meet him, and when he saw them he ex-
claimed, " It is a camp (Makanim) of God ! " So the place is
called Mahanaim.
We should certainly have placed but small reliance on
this oath of Jacob, and for the best of reasons ! How can we
rest anything upon the faith of a man who plays such a shame-
ful part as Jacob does in this affair? He cheats his father-in-
law, — who is certainly just as bad as he is himself however, —
he sees his own possessions constantly increasing and those
of Laban diminishing in consequence of all kinds of tricks
that he practises, and yet the name of God is ever on his lips,
he speaks to his wives of their father's injustice, complains of
his want of kindly feeling towards him, and talks about the
blessing of God by which he has grown rich. A most repul-
sive figure ! Nay, a depth of immorality that makes us shud-
der is opened before us, for what is more detestable than for a
man to have the name of God in his mouth and faithlessness
in his heart.
Not to do the Israelites the injustice of supposing that they
saw no harm in such a dishonest waj' of life, we must bear in
mind what I mentioned before beginning to tell the story,
namely, that it is put together out of two legends. In the
one Jacob becomes rich at Laban's cost by his dishonorable
practices, whereas in the other he is represented as an honor-
able man who is cheated by Laban, first of all on occasion of
his marriage, and afterwards by constant changing of his
wages ; but all this only brings out more and more clearly the
faithfulness of his god, who blesses him with children and
with wealth, who restrains Laban from injuring him, and
whose angels he meets by the Jordan.
The writers of these original stories had of course certain
definite objects before them. One of these objects comes
very clearly into view. The writer, namely, who gives us
such a detailed account of the birth of Jacob's children, add-
ing the explanation of their names — which I have omitted,
however, because it can only be understood when we have the
Hebrew words from which they are said to be derived before
us, — this writer desired to assign its proper rank to each of
the tribes of Israel. With the exception of Benjamin, whose
birth has not been mentioned jet, the tribe of Joseph, that is
JACOB AND LABAJN. 189
of Ephraim and Manasseh, occupies the first place in his esti-
mation. It is true that Joseph is not the eldest son, that is
to say, that other tribes had gained settled abodes and become
influential at an earlier period ; but he is the son of the dearly-
loved Rachel ; he is the long expected one, after whose birth
Jacob desires at once to return to Canaan as if the object of
his stay in a foreign land were now accomplished. After the
twofold tribe of Joseph came Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah,
Issachar, and Zebulun as being of purer Israelite blood than
the other tribes. This is why they are called the children of
Leah, a wife of the first rank. The tribes on the other hand,
that are said, to be the children of the slaves, are of less noble
blood in the writer's estimation.
Again, these legends teach the lesson that friendly rela-
tions ought to subsist between Israel and Aram or Sj-ria ;
explain the origin of the worship of terapMm in Israel ; and
above all declare emphatically that the Israelites, unlike the
Edomites, have no Canaanite blood in their veins, and in
this way vehemently oppose matrimonial alliances with the
Canaanites, in which many Israelites saw no harm. In later
times we shall hear of this disputed point again and again.
The accounts of Jacob's cunning lead us to ask what idea
of honor the writer can have had. In speaking of the legends
of Abraham we could not help noticing that the feelings of
the ancient Israelites on this point were none of the finest ; 1
and here we have a further proof of the fact. But we must
be careful not to exaggerate. We must not suppose that at
the time when this story was composed, that is to say after
the division of the kingdom, the Israelites had still so little
idea of honesty as not to disapprove of Jacob's conduct
towards Esau, Isaac, and Laban. They were not so morally
dull as that, or at least the more enlightened amongst them
were not. The commandment : thou shalt not steal ! had not
been a dead letter amongst them. The law-givers settled a
penalty for theft, namely that the thief was to restore at
least twice as much as he had stolen. 2 The proverb-makers, or
sagas, whose object was above everything to promote goodness,
condemned both stealing and underhand trickery in the strong-
est terms. They considered it quite right that a thief should
be punished even if it were to satisfy his hunger that he had
stolen s They were zealous against the use of false weights
/ 1 Pp. Ill, 112. 2 Exodus xxii. 4.
8 Proverbs vi. 30, 31, after an amended version.
190 JACOB AND LABAN.
and measures, and called a deceitful pair of scales and a
double ephah (a certain measure for dry wares) an abomina-
tion in the sight of Yahweh. 1 They uttered warnings
against removing boundary stones and thereby appropriating
a part of the fields of orphans.' 2 The truth that ill-gotten
wealth does not thrive, lived in their hearts, and was ex-
pressed in their predictions, " Who sows iniquity shall reap
adversity ; " 3 "A possession that grows too fast at first will
not be blessed at last ; " 4 " However good stolen bread may
taste after a while it turns to sand in the mouth." 6 Nor did
liars or men of a double heart 6 find mercy at the hands of
Israel's preachers of righteousness, for they mentioned ihe
tongue of deceit among the things that Yahweh hates, 7 and
spoke in praise of eyes that look straight before them. 8 It
need hardly be said that the prophets of Israel never spared
the thief or cheat, but inveighed against dishonest}' and under-
hand proceedings with all their power."
Now the writer of our story no doubt quite agreed with
those who were so zealous against all kinds of cheating. He
never thought of approving of the conduct of Jacob, accord-
ing to his own account of him. And yet we can see, from the
way in which he tells us about him, that he had no very high
standard of honesty ; for he evidently took a certain delight
in Jacob's cunning. He speaks of the patriarch's tricks with
the same kind of pleasure that many of us too feel in hear-
ing of ingenious plots and cleverly executed knaveries. But
the one thing that is worst of all, and that really does need
some explanation, is that the wealth obtained by Jacob, in
consequence of all this cheating, is called a blessing of Yah-
weh. How is it possible ? That a man may grow rich by
dishonest means is but Loo true ; but if any one who had done
so were to say that he had become possessed of his wealth by
the blessing of God,' we should consider him a hypocrite.
And yet this writer, who represents Jacob as a cheat, and
condemns his conduct, acknowledges at the same moment that
these knaveries enabled him, by the blessing of his god, to
obtain the right of the first-born son, his father's blessing,
and the greatest wealth. How is this to be explained? In
this story we have one of the results of nature-worship before
us. The Israelites saw the hand of their god especially in the
1 Proverbs xi. 1, xx. 10, 23. ' 2 Proverbs xv. 25, xxii. 28, xxiii. 10.
8 Proverbs xxii. 8. 4 Proverbs xx. 21. 6 Proverbs xx. 17.
6 Proverbs xi. 20. ' Proverbs vi. 17. 8 Proverbs iv. 25.
9 Amos viii. 5, for example.
JACOB AND LAB AN. 191
phenomena of nature and in prosperity or adversity ; so that
riches, honor, health, and a number of children, were re-
garded as the consequences of the favor of their god ; and
poverty, sickness, and childlessness were signs of his dis-
pleasure. Such a god is not a morally good being, and may
do all kinds of things from mere caprice or even from ignoble
motives. Is not nature often fickle and capricious? Can
we find any reason connected with the demands of the moral
law why the lightning should strike one man's house and
spare another's ? Surety not ! A successful man was said by
the Israelite to be blessed by God. But suppose a man had
become rich by cheating ? Well, in that case' he was a bad
man ; but still he was blessed by God. They could not argue
otherwise ; for a nature-god is not a morally good being.
And so it was possible for a man to attribute base actions to
his god and yet be religious ; to be zealous for his honor and
ready to sacrifice himself to him if need were, and yet at the
same time to be of a veiy low moral type.
This was the position of the Israelites, as of all ancient
peoples. It is true that from the time of Moses onward the
moral requirements of God were placed more and more in the
foreground, but they were never very closely connected with
religion property so called ; and the Israelites never got quite
beyond the imperfect views of nature- worship. Even among
Christians there are many who still hold them. We must not
think it hypocrisy, then, if a king, who takes violent possession
of a part of the territory of his neighbor, calls upon the Lord
of hosts as he does so, and appears to see in the victories he
has won a proof of God's approbation of what he has done.
It is conceivable that lie is quite sincere in this. He may be
a religious man. But in this case his god is a nature-god and
not much more.
It is only when we have learned to see in God above all the
perfectly Good, the morally Holy, so as to feel that our con-
sciences are bound by him and that we are dependent on him
in all we do or leave undone ; it is only then that it becomes
impossible for us to tell a lie and yet be zealous for God, 01
to think that he will send his blessing upon the frauds of men.
192 Jacob's return to the fatherland.
Chapter XXV.
JACOB'S RETURN TO THE FATHERLAND.
Gen. XXXII. 3 - XXXIII. 20, XXXV.
WHEN Jacob had broken up his camp at Mahanaim, so
the account goes on, he began to fear that a meeting
with his brother Esau might lead to anything but pleasant
consequences. They had so little in common ! So he sent
an embassy to Mount Seir to inform his brother that he had
grown rich with Laban, and now desired his friendship.
The messengers soon returned with the news that Esau, at
the head of four hundred men, was coming to meet his
brother. Terrified by this information, Jacob separated his
servants and flocks, with a heavy heart, into two caravans,
anxiously thinking as he did so, " Even if Esau attacks and
destroys one of them, yet the other may escape ! "
When he had completed these precautionary arrangements
he prayed, " O Yahweh, god of Abraham and of Isaac ! thou
who hast commanded me to turn again to the country of my
birth, and hast promised that all shall be well with me ! I am
unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness thou hast shown
thy servant, for I crossed this river Jordan with nothing but
the staff I held in my hand, and now I have grown into two
companies. O rescue me from the power of my brother Esau !
For I fear that with unsparing ferocity he will destroy every-
thing, even the mother that hides her children with her body.
O rescue me, for thou hast said to me, ' I will make all well
with you, and will multiply your offspring as the sand on the
sea-shore.' "
Next morning he took still further precautions. He pre-
pared a rich present of hundreds of sheep, goats, oxen, camels,
and asses . Each kind of animal was given separately in charge
to several shepherds ; they were to be driven, a flock at a time,
to meet Esau, and the shepherds were all instructed what to,
answer when Esau met them and asked whose dependants they
were, where they were going, and for whom all these animals
were intended. They were to reply, " We are servants of
Jacob, who sends this present to Esau, and is following us
himself." By this means he hoped to make a favorable im-
pression upon his more powerful and warlike brother, and so
to secure a gracious reception at his hands.
Jacob's return to the fatherland. 193
When it was night again he sent his wives and children and
all his property across the ferry of the river Jabbok, while he
himself remained behind alone, and no human eye, therefore,
witnessed what now took place. A man came and wrestled
with Jacob until break of day, and when he saw that he could
not overcome the patriarch he grasped his hip, twisted it
out of joint as he wrestled with him, and said, " Let me go,
for it is day already ! " But Jacob answered, "No! not
till you have blessed me ! " Then his adversary asked him,
" What is your name ? " and on being told that it was Jacob
he said, " Henceforward you shall no longer be called Jacob,
but Israel (striver-of-god) , for you have striven with god and
man and given proof of your might." Still only half content,
Jacob said to him, " Tell me what is your name ; " this, how-
ever, the unknown visitant refused to do, but he pronounced
a solemn blessing upon him and disappeared. Then Jacob
called the place Penuel, that is face-of-c/od, because he had
seen God there face to face, and nevertheless remained alive.
Then as he crossed the Jabbok the sun rose. The patriarch
limped in consequence of the dislocation of his hip ; and that
is why the Israelites never eat the hip-sinew of any animal.
When Jacob had reached the further side of the Jabbok,
the meeting he so much dreaded must soon take place. In
the distance he sees Esau with four hundred warriors drawing
near. There is just time to carry out one more measure.
The two slave- wives and their children are placed in the front
part of the caravan, then comes Leah with her children, and
lastly, quite in the rear, the most precious treasure of all, —
Rachel with her son Joseph. Jacob himself takes the lead.
Then Esau draws near, while his brother falls humbly seven
times upon the ground before him. But see ! his fear was
needless, for Esau hastens to meet him, falls upon his neck
and kisses him. The two brothers burst into tears of joy.
"' Who are these?" asks Esau, glancing at Jacob's wives and
their children. ' ' These are the sons with which God has blessed
your servant," is Jacob's humble answer. Bilhah and Zilpah
draw near with their sons and bow down before the mighty
Esau, then Leah with her six, and lastly the most dearly
loved of all with her one son. "And for whom is all that
army that met me on my way ? " asks the Bedouin prince.
" It is a present for you," answers Jacob, " that you may be
gracious to me." "I have abundance already," replies the
lord of Seir, " keep what is your own." But Jacob, to whom
his brother's favor is of such vast consequence, presses it upon
194 Jacob's return to the fatherland.
him, saying, " Ah no ! do me the favor of accepting my pres-
ent, for I am rejoiced to see your fa;e, that is like the face of
a god to me, and you receive me so kindly ! Take what 1
offer you, for God has made me rich."
Esau soon proposed to Jacob that they should stay together ;
but the shepherd prince, much as he rejoiced to see his brother,
did not think this a suitable arrangement, and objected that
his caravan included little children, and sheep and cattle still
suckling their young, that would die if driven too hard even a
single day. He must accommodate himself to the state of his
own affaire ; which was more than could be expected of Esau.
It would be better therefore for the latter to go on to Mount
Seir in advance, and he would join him there. Esau's offer to
leave part of his escort to protect his brother was also declined ;
and the two went on their several ways, — Esau to Seir and
Jacob to Succoth. Here he built a house and some cattle-
sheds, after which he called the place Succoth, that is sheds.
From Succoth the journey led to Shechem, and — Jacob was
once more in Canaan ! At Shechem he bought the piece of
land on which he had encamped from the inhabitants, and
raised an altar there and called it "the god of gods of
Israel." l
At Shechem he received commandment to go to Bethel,
and to raise an altar there to the god who had appeared to
him on his outward journey, when he was fleeing from Esau.
In order to perform this duty in a becoming way, Jacob first
ordered his followers to put away all the foreign gods they
worshipped, and to purify themselves by changing their clothes
and washing themselves. All these gods and the amulets that
the members of his household carried in their ears were buried
at the foot of the sacred tree, the "teacher's oak,"- at Shechem.
Great fear took hold of all the surrounding tribes, so that they
let Jacob pass in safety ; and when he came to Bethel he raised
an altar there, and called it " the god of Bethel," because the
deity had formerly appeared to him there.
Here Deborah, Eebekah's nurse, died. They buried her to
the south of Bethel, under an oak, which was called after this
circumstance Allon-bachuth, "the oak of weeping." Hence
they travelled southwards, to the region of Ephrath, but
before they reached it Rachel had a second son, whose birth
cost her her life. The dying mother called her son Ben-oni,
" son of anguish," but Jacob called him Benjamin, " son of
the light hand," that is to say, " son of fortune," for when a
1 After an amended version. 2 See p. 110,
Jacob's return to the fatherland. 1 s)5
wizard stood with his face to the east appearances in the south,
which would be to his right, were considered fortunate. An
anointed stone was raised at Rachel's grave, and was after-
wards known as " the stone of Rachel's grave." Thence they
passed on to Migdal-eder, "the tower of the flock," where
Jacob pitched his tents.
Thus had the wanderer returned to the land of his birth.
This story does not come from the same hand as the pictures
of Jacob deceiving his brother, father, and uncle ; nor should
we say, from reading it, that Esau had so many good reasons
for hating Jacob. The latter is indeed afraid of his brother,
looks forward with anxiety to the meeting, and even says that
his present " must appease the countenance of Esau," 1 but
neither in his prayer for help nor in what he-says to his brother
is there a single word about any offence he has committed,
nor does Esau appear to think of any for a moment. Now,
we have no account from this writer of the occasion of Jacob's
departure to Haran ; for all he said on the subject seems to
have been dropped when the legends were thrown together.
We may, indeed, gather from one or two expressions that,
even according to his representation, Jacob's fear was not
without sufficient grounds, for when God reminded, him of his
having appeared to him at Luz he said ' 2 that he had revealed
himself to him " when he was fleeing from Esau ; " but it by
no means follows that Jacob had given him cause to feel bit-
terly towards him by practising deceits at his expense. The
only word that seems to refer to anything of the kind is the
one just quoted, namely, that Jacob desired to "appease"
Esau ; ancl even this does not prove thai; Jacob was conscious
of having done anything wrong ; for the author of Proverbs
xvi. 14, for instance, in saying that "the king's wrath is a
message of death, and a wise man, therefore, seeks to appease
him," does not mean to say that a king is never angry without
sufficient reason. As it is uncertain, therefore, whether any
account of Jacob's deception preceded this account of the
meeting of the brothers, I have not ventured to represent
Esau as the pattern of a forgiving disposition, which he would
certainly have been, to a great extent, if he had had such good
reasons for anger as those mentioned by the other writer. I
have only represented Esau then as a powerful and rough, but
liberal and generous, Bedouin chief, kindly disposed towards
Ms weaker and more cultivated and prudent brother.
i Genesis xxxii. ^0. a Genesis xxxv, 1, 7.
196 Jacob's return to the fatherland.
The materials from which the portion of the legend of
Jacob, of which we have now spoken, is formed, are of many
kinds. The desire to explain names and usages was evidently
a powerful incentive to the author. He gives us derivations
of the names Mahanaim, Penuel, Jabbok (an allusion to
which is contained in the Hebrew word that means ' ' to
wrestle"), Israel, Succoth, Allon-bachuth, and Benjamin;
and the significance of the practice of refraining from eating
the hip sinew, of the sacred oak, and the consecrated stone
at Shechem, of the massebah at Bethel, and of Rachel's grave,
is pointed out.
Here we have another account of the stone at Bethel.
This writer had indeed mentioned that Jacob had a dream
at Bethel, but the account of his raising a massebah 1 was
from the hand of the writer who uses the divine name Yah-
weh. The great interest felt by the Israelites in this stone,
this "god of Bethel," as it is called in so many words 2 in
this story, is shown by the fact that both these writers devote
their attention to it. Moreover it is mentioned again in the
' ' Book of Origins ; " for though the author of that work treated
the fortunes of the patriarchs so briefly, he devoted several
verses 8 to the remarkable stone at Bethel and to the origin of
the name of the place. He tells us that God appeared to
Jacob after his return from Padan Aram, blessed him, altered
his name from Jacob to Israel, and foretold that there should
be kings amongst his descendants, and that the}' should have
possession of Canaan. After this appearance of God, Jacob
gave the Canaanite city Luz the name of Bethel, "house-of-
god," and anointed a sacred stone there.
A word must be said about the account of Rachel's grave.
It is said, by way of fixing the spot, that she died after they
had left Bethel and were still some distance from Ephrath,
and that Jacob having buried her on the spot, went on and
came to Migdal-eder. 4 Now to the name "Ephrath" an
explanatory note "that is Bethlehem" is added, both here
and in a later passage where Rachel's grave is mentioned. 5
Rachel's grave accordingly may be found marked on the maps
near Bethlehem. On our map, however, it has a note of
interrogation placed after it there, 6 because this addition,
" Ephrath is Bethlehem " is perhaps a mistake. The district
1 See chapter xxiii. 2 Genesis xxxv. 7.
8 Genesis xxxv. 6 (first part), 9-15.
4 Genesis xxxv. 16-21. E Genesis xlviii. 7.
• See map iv. Jerusalem and its neighborhood
Jacob's return to the fatherland. 197
of Ephrafcc: lay in the territory of Benjamin, a little to the
south of Bethel, north therefore of Jerusalem, as is indicate,}
indeed in the story itself.
The point that excites our attention most in the account of
Jacob's return, is his wrestling with God. To us there is
something so extraordinary and even shocking, alike to head
and heart, in the representation of a man wrestling bodily
with God, that we can hardly imagine how thoughtful and
religious men could ever have related such a story. Yet this
is clearly what is meant ; for though the Being with whom
Jacob has been wrestling gives him no answer when he asks
his name, yet the fact that he is a divine being comes out
clearly enough in the explanation of the name Israel, " You
have striven with God (or with gods) and men," and also in
Jacob's exclamation when he calls the place Penuel " face-of-
god," namely " I have seen God face to face and am j - et liv-
ing." So too the legend is understood by the prophet Hosea,
when he mentions, in allusion to it, Jacob's wrestling with
God or with an angel. 1 We see moreover that it is no sym-
bolical wrestling, — no continuous entreaty, for instance, —
but a veritable bodily conflict that is intended, from the trait
of the dislocation of Jacob's hip, from which the custom of
never eating the hip-sinew is explained. The real origin of
this custom, which is only referred to here and in a single
passage in the Talmud, is quite unknown.
We cannot help asking how in the world people got hold of
such ideas. To find a proper answer to this question, we
must remember in the first place that we are now in the region
of polytheism (belief in many gods) . The belief that there
is one only God is entirely wanting in the old Israelite legends.
We have often noticed this fact already, and the name of the
anointed stone at Shechem — ' ' the god of gods of Israel " — is
a fresh proof of it. Even if we translate the expression here
used, " El is the god of Israel," which it may also mean, it
makes no real difference ; for if a man can speak of " a god
of Israel" or " a god of Bethel," he does not recognize the
unity of God. It stands to reason that if a man believes in
the existence of a number of gods, the interval between gods
and men is far smaller and the intercourse between the two
far more familiar in his conception than if the name ' ' God "
make him think of one single, infinite, perfect Being.
Stories of struggles between gods and men, in which the
1 Hosea xii. 4, 5.
198 Jacob's return to the fatherland.
immortals sometimes come off second best, are to be found
amongst the most different nations. Thus, we are told in
Homer's "Iliad" that the Greek hero Diomede, who was
protected in the fight with the Trojans by the goddess Athene,
at her instigation wounded the goddess Aphrodite (who was
hastening to the help of her son .ZEneas) , with his lance.
The god Apollo, however — though the bold warrior did not
shrink from even him — - compelled him at last to retreat ; but
when the fierce and warlike god Ares mingled in the fight,
Diomede was not only protected by Athene from the lance
hurled at him bj r this god, but was even enabled by her help
to wound him so severely that he went back, with a frightful
shriek, to heaven again ! So, too, among the Hindoos it was
the duty of kings to take the field with club and bow against
the supernatural powers of evil ; and in their heroic poems
and dramas, the scenes in which the princes attack these
spirits are vividly put before us. In the same way, too,
according to the myths of our forefathers and the peoples
related to them, not only do the gods often fight with each
other, but the god Thor in particular is frequently challenged
to fight by the giants, and the heroes again and again defy
these superhuman powers.
We will select one example from the Norman sagas.
There was once a king called Heidrek, who was at enmity
/vith Gestr the blind, because the latter, who was very un-
righteous, would not pay him tribute. Once on a time Gestr,
as he thought, came to see him, but in reality it was no other
than the god Odin himself, who had taken the blind man's
shape. The king promised to let him off the debt if he could
beat him at riddles. Gestr accepted the offer, and asked
Heidrek one-and-thirty riddles, all of which, however, were
answered by the prince, till at last his blind guest asked him
what it was that Odin whispered in the ear of the god Balder
when he lay dead upon the funeral pile. On this Heidrek
recognized the god ; but far from showing him airy reverence,
he called him a wicked devil and a dragon, and drew his
sword upon him. Odin changed himself into a falcon, but
the feathers of his tail were cut short by the stroke of Heid-
rek's sword. That is why the falcon still has a stumpy tail.
Odin flew away with threats of vengeance.
Clearly to understand how it was possible for stories of
conflicts between gods and men to spring up, we must form
a vivid conception of the origin of these gods themselves.
They are the powers of nature. Man had often to jdeld to
Jacob's ketuhn to the fatherland. 199
these powers ; and when he worshipped them, therefore, he
did so in fear and under a sense of dependence ; but he often
defied them too, and must not always yield to them.
A good example of the conflict between man and the
powers of nature may be found in Longfellow's poem of
" Hiawatha." It is founded upon the traditions of the North
American Indians : —
Kabibonokka, the fierce north wind, dwells among the
icebergs and perpetual snowdrifts in the land of " Wabasso,"
the white rabbit.
Once the fierce Kabibonokka
Issued from his lodge of snowdrifts,
From his home among the icebergs,
And his hair, with snow besprinkled,
Streamed behind him like a river,
Like a black and wintry river,
As he howled and hurried southward,
Over frozen lakes and moorlands.
Here he finds Shingebis, the diver, lingering in the cold
regions, whence all his tribe, and even the heron and the
wild goose, have long departed.
Cried the fierce Kabibonokka,
'Who is this that dares to brave me ?
I will go into his wigwam,
I will put his smouldering fire out! "
And at night Kabibonokka
To the lodge came wild and wailing,
Heaped the snow in drifts about it,
Shouted down into the smoke flue,
Shook the lodge poles in his fury,
Flapped the curtain of the doorway.
But Shingebis has plenty of fuel and plenty of food, and
only laughs at Kabibonokka. Even when the latter comes
in to him, though he feels his icy breath, he only gives the
log a turn, and sings and laughs as before, till Kabibonokka
can bear it no longer, and rushes out into the cold again, and,
stamping on the frozen lakes, freezes them yet harder, and
challenges Shingebis to come out and wrestle with him naked
upon the ice. Shingebis accepts the challenge, and Kabi-
bonokka wrestles all night with the bold diver.
Till his [Kabibonokka's] panting breath grew fainter,
Till his frozen grasp grew feebler,
Till he reeled and staggered backward,
And retreated, baffled, Deaten,
To the kingdom of Wabasso,
To the land of the White Rabbit,
Hearing still the gusty laughter,
Hearing Shingebis, the diver,
Singing " Kabibonokka,
You are but my fellow mortal ! "
200 Jacob's return to the fatherland.
So in the celebrated poem of the Swedish Tegncr, the
Frithiof s saga, the hero Frithiof kills Ham, the winter wind,
and Hejd, the hailstorm, with his spears.
What we now consider a poetical mode of speaking was
literally true to the ancients. With spear, club, arrow, or
sword the heroes fought against the hostile powers of nature,
against the gods. The Israelite, too, when he had to brave
the violence of storm and lightning, of the scorching east
wind, or of a water-spont, recognized in these phenomena
gods who desired his destruction. His highly wrought imagi-
nation, the fruit of fear and ignorance, taught him actually
to see these beings rushing wildly about him. If he was
killed b}' the lightning, people said he was overcome b}' the
deity ; but if he escaped the danger bj- his intrepidity then he
had triumphed over the god ; and even if he had been
wounded he could still boast of having won the victory, for
though the mighty god had wounded him, yet he had been
unable to kill him. So too a stroke or a fit of epilepsy was
supposed to be an attack by some god, and even an accident,
such as being struck by the fall of a tree or stone, or any-
thing else, was believed to have been designed by some deity
who was intent on taking the life of the individual in ques-
tion. If he escaped uninjured therefore, or only wounded,
he had parried the onset of the god.
These ideas gave rise to the stories of conflicts between
gods and men ; for the poets worked out the mythological
expressions until they had made them into legends. The story
of Jacob's wrestling was naturally suggested to the writer
who recounts it by the name Israel, which he desired to
ascribe to the patriarch of whom he was speaking, as the
ancestor of the people of Israel, and which he interpreted,
quite incorrectly however, as " warrior-of-god."
.Of all these legends, as we saw just now, the "Book of
Origins " has nothing but the mention of the stone at Bethel.
It does not even tell us that while Jacob was away Esau
moved to Seir. It simply gives the names of Jacob's twelve
sons and tells us ] that when he came back from Padan Aram
he returned to his father Isaac again, and, not long after, the
latter died at the age of a hundred and eighty, and was
buried by his two sons. They lived together like brothers,
until their possessions became so numerous that they could
1 Genesis xxxy. 23-29, xxxvi. 6-8.
JOSEPH, THE FAVORED OF YAHWEU. 201
no longer stay together. Then they parted, as Abram and
Lot had done before thern, and Esau settled in Mount Seir.
In another connection we shall speak of a saga that is
told us in connection with Jacob's stay at Shechein, 1 but
which could not be understood at present without a longer
digression than our readers would find pleasant.
Chapter XXVI.
JOSEPH, THE FAVORED OF YAHWEH.
Gen. XXXVII., XXXIX.-XLI.
FROM this point in the patriarchal narratives Jacob steps
into the background, and Joseph becdmes the chief
character, and his greatness the favorite theme. We shall
divide the stories about him into three sets. First we shall
see how the blessing of his god was always upon him, then
how he became a mighty ruler and lord even over his own
relatives, and finally how he protected them.
Israel's son Joseph, a lad of seventeen, served his brothers,
the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, as a shepherd, 2 and as he
always told their father when they did anything wrong he was
thoroughly hated by them. Israel loved Joseph more than his
other sons, because he was born to him in his old age ; and
he clothed him in a regal robe. But this preference of Joseph
by his father roused the envy of his brothers so strongly that
they could not speak a friendly word to him. Matters became
still worse when Joseph told them once a dream that he
had had. " I dreamed," said he, " that we were all binding
sheaves in the field together, and all at once my sheaf stood
up on end and stayed upright, and all your sheaves came
round it and fell down before it." "Oh, indeed!" sneered
his brothers, " so you're to be our king and to rule over us,
are you ? " If all this increased their hatred, it became more
bitter yet when something of the same kind happened again,
and Joseph told them that he had had another dream, and
that this time it was the sun, the moon, and the eleven
1 Genesis xxxiv. 2 After an amended version.
9*
202 JOSEPH, THE FAVORED OF TAHWKH.
stars that bowed down before him. ' Even Ms father, however
much disposed to find everything that was good in his best
beloved son, rebuked him now, and said to him, "What!
shall I and your mother and your brothers — shall we come to
do homage to you?" But while the only effect of these events
upon Joseph's brothers was to increase their hatred towards
him, his father thought a great deal of them, and pondered
over them deeply. And he had good reason ! For these
dreams were sent by Yahweh to announce the future greatness
of Jacob's son, and this repetition of the same idea under
various forms was a most emphatic prediction.
For the present, however, there did not seem much chance
of the dream being fulfilled ; and Joseph soon had a very sub-
stantial proof of the hatred of his brothers. For once upon a
time they were pasturing the cattle near Shechem, and Joseph
was sent by Jacob to ask after their welfare and that of the
cattle. In obedience to his father's commands, Joseph went
to look for them. On his way he understood from a man
whom he met at Shechem that they had gone on to Dothan.
So he followed them there. Now when they saw him in
the distance they conceived the thought of murdering him.
"There's our dreamer coming!" said they. "Let us kill
him and throw his body down a well, and say that he has
been torn to pieces by a wild beast. Then we shall see what
comes of all his dreams ! " But one of them, Reuben, who,
as the eldest brother, felt his responsibility more than the rest,
sprang into the breach. He did not venture, however, to de-
clare outright that he disapproved of the plan altogether, so
he had recourse to a stratagem to rescue his brother. "We
had better not murder him with our own hands," said he.
"We can throw him down this well here in the wilderness,
and then he will die without our having killed him." This
suggestion was adopted, so when Joseph came up to them
they dragged him out of his splendid robe and threw him down
a dry well, where he would die of hunger and thirst.
Delighted to have satisfied their vengeance, Joseph's brothers
had just sat down to their meal, when they saw a caravan draw-
ing near. It consisted of some Arab merchants, Midianites
or Ishmaelites, who were on their way to Egypt with balsam
and spices. As soon as he saw them coming .ludah cried out
"Really, brothers! what is the use of our killing Joseph.
Remember he is our own brother after all. Suppose we sell
him to these Ishmaelites." The idea was taken up by the
vest, and Joseph was soon sold to the merchants for twenty
JOSEPH, THE FAVORED OF TAHWEH. 203
shekels of silver (twenty-five shillings) — the usual price of
a slave. 1 This threw Reuben out of his calculations, and when
he came to the well to rescue Joseph and found that he was no
longer there he ran in terror to the others and cried out,
' ' The lad is gone ! Where shall I hide myself now ? " To
conceal what they had done Joseph's brothers killed a goat,
dipped his splendid coat in its blood and sent it on to their
father, while they themselves soon followed, and, pretending
to be much horrified, said to him, "We have found this coat.
Is it not Joseph's ? " Jacob recognized it, and cried out in
dismay, "My son's garment! A wild beast has devoured
him ! Joseph is torn to pieces ! " For many days the father
sat down in mourning, while his sons and daughters stood
round him to console him. But he would not accept any com-
fort, and kept repeating, "I shall go down mourning to my
son to the world below ! " Thus was Joseph bewailed by his
father.
Meanwhile the merchants had taken him to Egypt and sold
him as a slave to Potiphar, the captain of the royal lifeguard,
But even in the strange country Yahweh did not forsake him,
and everything he took in hand turned out so successful that
Potiphar, who saw more and more clearly how this Hebrew
slave was helped and blessed by his god, gradually intrusted
more and more to his care, until at last everything was under
his control. Nothing could have been more to Potiphar's
advantage. Yahweh blessed him for Joseph's sake. The
harvest was a specially good one. The cattle had numbers of
young, and were sleek and healthy. The yield of wool and
milk was wonderful. The household slaves did their work
faithfully. Spinning and weaving were more industriously
performed than ever before. The food was beautifully pre-
pared. It seemed as if the handmills themselves had never
ground so well before. In a word there was not one single
cause for dissatisfaction ; and the master of the house had
no occasion to look after anything, for Joseph saw to it all.
Thus he proved himself to the fullest extent worthy of his
master's confidence.
Moreover, he showed himself deserving of this confidence
in other respects as well, by resisting a sore temptation. For
Potiphar's wife let her eye fall upon the powerful and comely
slave, and endeavored to persuade him to commit adultery
with her. Glowing with holy indignation, Joseph answered
her" in proud and earnest language. " My master," he said,
1 Leviticus xxvii. 5.
204 JOSEPH, THE FAVORED OF YAHWEH.
" has intrusted all to me. I am next in rank to himself, and
am acquainted with all his affairs. You only must be sacred
and inviolable to me, for you are his wife. How should I do
such great wickedness, then, and sin against God ! " It was
of no a\ail. She would not desist. Day after day Joseph
had to reject her vile requests, until at last, thwarted and
embittered as she was, she accused him to Fotiphar of having
attempted to seduce her ; and he, believing the accusations of
his wife, threw him into prison.
Thus Joseph was once more the victim of others' wicked-
ness. First the son of the shepherd prince had become a
slave, and now the trusted and honored servant was doomed
to imprisonment. But even there his god did not forget him.
The prisoner soon won the jailer's confidence. Just as it had
been in Potiphar's house, so was it here. Everything that
was intrusted to Joseph went on well, so that he was allowed
to go about and look after the other prisoners in comparative
freedom. Everything that he looked to was looked to well.
When he had been in prison some time a conspiracy was
discovered against the king, and the chief butler and the
chief baker were thrown into close confinement on suspicion
of having attempted to poison Pharaoh. Joseph had charge
of them, as he had of the other prisoners, and when he came
to them one morning he noticed that they were much dis-
turbed b}' something, and so asked them, " What ails you ?
1 can see by your faces that something is troubling you."
" We have both of us been dreaming," was the reply, " and
we cannot tell what our dreams mean, or who can interpret
them for us." " Let me hear them," said Joseph, " God can
interpret dreams. Only tell me them." Then the butler
told his dream. He had found himself standing by a vine-
tree with three branches. He had seen it spring up and
blossom and form clusters of ripe fruit. He had held the
kir.g's cup in hie hand, and had squeezed the juice of the
grapes into it and presented it to the king. Joseph under-
stood the meaning of the dream at once. "Listen to its
interpretation," said he. "The three branches signify throe
days. At the end of that time you shall once more occupy
your former place of honor at the king's court. And then,"
he added, " when it is well with you, think of me and make
mention of me to the king that he may release me from this
place. For I have been kidnapped from the land of the
Hebrews, and have done nothing wrong to deserve to be shut
up here." Now, when the chief baker heard the favorable
JOSEPH, THE FAVORED OF YAHWEH. 205
interpretation which Joseph had given of his companion's
dream he hoped for the same lot himself ; but his hopes were
disappointed. For when he had told him how in his dream
he had seen himself with three baskets upon his head, the
topmost of them full of all kinds of baked food for the king's
table, and how this food had all been eaten up by the birds,
he heard to his dismay that the three baskets, like the
three branches, represented as many days, and that he too
should be exalted, as well as the butler, after three days,
but exalted in a very different sense ; for he should be hanged,
and should be a prey to the birds.
What Joseph foretold took place. After three days it
was the king's birthday, and he had a feast prepared for all
his courtiers. Then he restored the chief butler to his former
office, and allowed him once more to hand him his wine-cup,
but he had the chief baker hanged. And now the hour for
Joseph's release might soon have struck if only the butler had
borne him in mind. But he forgot all about him.
The victim of persecution, treachery, and ingratitude on
the part of men, Joseph remained in prison. But Yahweh
still remembered him. He determined to set him at liberty,
and therefore quickened the chief butler's memory. For, two
years after what has just been narrated, the king too had a
dream. There was not one of all his interpreters who could
explain what he had seen. As he stood in his sleep by the
bank of the Nile he saw seven oxen rise out of the river.
They were fine and fat, and they went quietly grazing in the
pastures along the river. Then all at once seven more oxen
rose out of it, and these were ugly and lean, so that the king
had never seen their like for ugliness, and they went up to
the fat ones that came out first and ate them up, all seven
of them, but yet they were still as thin as ever themselves.
When he had seen this vision the king woke up, but soon to
fall asleep again and to dream a second time. This time he
saw seven rich heavy ears of corn, growing out of one si-ern,
and then seven lank thin ears, parched by the east wind,
and these ate up the first. Terrified and disturbed, the king
next morning, summoned all the wise and learned men of
Egypt to explain the dreams to him. But they could not
do so. Then the past came back before the chief butler's
mind, and he said to the king, "My lord, I remember my
sin. Two years ago you were angry with me and threw me,
together with the chief baker, into prison. Now, once when we
both of us had had dreams, there was a Hebrew lad there, a
206 JOSEPH, THE FAVORED OF YAHWEH.
slave of the captain of the life-guard, and when we told him
our dreams, not only did he interpret them in a moment, but
what is more, the interpretation proved to be true. For he
foretold that I should be restored to honor, and that he would
be put to death."
The king sent for Joseph at once. The}' shaved his head
bare, according to the custom of the Egyptians (for they
never let their hair grow unless they were in mourning) , and
gave him a suitable garment for appearing at court. Thus
prepared he entered the palace. Then Pharaoh addressed
him and said, " I have dreamed a dream, which no one can
interpret for me. Now, I have heard that you can interpret
every dream as soon as 3 - ou hear it." " Not so," was the
young man's modest answer, "but I trust that God will
foretell something acceptable to the king." Then the prince
recounted his dreams, and they did not remain uninterpreted.
" Your two dreams have but one meaning," said Joseph,
" the fat oxen and the full ears signify seven j'ears of plenty,
while the lean beasts and lank ears of corn foretell seven
years of famine. The famine thus foretold will be so dread-
ful that the plenty which has gone before will be forgotten,
and all Egypt will sink under it. As to the repetition of the
dream, it is a proof of the certainty of the prediction that
the same truth is declared in two different ways." Having
assigned this meaning to the dreams, Joseph added a piece
of good advice on the subject. '' The king," said he, " should
set some intelligent and competent man over the whole of
Egypt, and should have granaries made for him in which
to collect one-fifth of the produce of the laud during the
years of plenty to be saved for the times of want that will
follow."
The king was much relieved to understand the meaning
of the warning he had received, and was no less pleased
with Joseph's sensible advice. The conduct of the latter
had made a favorable impression on the courtiers too, and
they quite agreed with the king, therefore, that a more
suitable person could hardly be found to carry out these
extensive plans than Joseph himself. For clearly the spirit
of God was in him. So Pharaoh said to Joseph, " Since
God has made all this known to you, there is no wiser man
than you, and you shall be the ruler of all the land of Egypt,
responsible to no one but me." No sooner had the king
uttered these words than he drew his signet ring from off
his hand and gave it to the newly appointed grand vizier
JOSEPH, THE FAVOKED OP YAHWEH. 207
Then he told them to provide him with the royal garb of
the priesthood, and to throw a chain of gold round his neck.
Immediately after this he received homage. He rode all
through the capital, in the second royal chariot, while the
heralds that went before him cried to the people " Kneel
down ! Kneel clown ! "
This new dignity was matched by a new name, and Joseph
received the high-sounding Egyptian title " Saphnat-Paneah,"
which means, according to some authorities, "deliverer of
the world," and according to others "food of the living."
Moreover, he received Asnat, daughter of Potipherah, priest
of On, in marriage.
The prediction was soon fulfilled. There came years of
unheard-of plenty. The corn was laid up in the cities by
Joseph's orders in amazing quantities, and the harvest was
so great that it was no longer possible even to measure the
stores that were gathered together. But after seven years
this abundance was followed by scarcitj-. The crops failed
year after year, and the helpless people were directed to
Joseph, who now opened his granaries and sold the corn.
So all the Egyptians streamed to Joseph to buy bread. Nay,
the whole world came to Egypt for provisions, for the famine
was universal.
If we read this story straight through it runs pretty
smoothly, and we should hardly guess that, like most of the
legends of the patriarchs, it is put together from two ac-
counts. So it is, however. Here and there slight contra-
dictions and repetitions betray the joints and fastenings, and
show us that the work is not all of one piece. In many pointg
the two traditions differ considerably from each other. Ac-
cording to one, for example, Joseph is sold to some Ishmael-
ites by his brothers, while the other relates that he was
thrown into the well by his brothers, and was found there
by some Midianites who were passing by, so that he was
really stolen, as he tells the chief butler in prison, from the
land of Canaan, which is here described, somewhat prema-
turely, as the land of the Hebrews. According to one tradi-
tion he is imprisoned on the accusation of Potiphar's wife ;
the other knows nothing of this circumstance, and brings
Joseph to the prison not as accused of any crime, but simply
as the slave of Potiphar who had charge of the prisoners. If
we could separate the two stories accurately we should have
mentioned each of them separately. But as that is at present
208 JOSEPH, THE FAVORED OF YAHWEH.
impossible, we have given the narrative as it lies before us iu
Genesis.
In whatever particulars the two legends about Joseph may
have departed from each other, it is evident that they both
mention him with honor ; but while the one dwells more on
his strict morality and especially his chastity, the other repre-
sents him as the man to whom his god revealed his pleasure,
especially by means of dreams and the gift of interpreting
them. For the whole story hinges upon dreams. Joseph
ireams ; the butler and the baker dream ; and Pharaoh
Ireams. And it is clear that very great importance is at-
tached to these visions, for they all come out true, and are
evidently looked upon as communications from God.
This seems strange to us, who use the word dream as the
symbol of all that is vain and unreal, but it was not bj' any
means so in ancient times. It was the common belief of all
nations that dreams were sent by the gods, and of course, as
a necessaiy consequence, that the art of interpreting them
was a science. It is easy to see how this belief came to be
held. The dread of everything incomprehensible played an
important part in the formation of the religious representa-
tions and ideas of the ancients, and it need not surprise us
therefore if the mysterious phenomena of dreams, the clear-
ness with which one sometimes sees all kinds of things in
one's sleep, the misery or delight one experiences on these
occasions, the recollection, sometimes so clear and sometimes
so confused, that is left behind, — it need not surprise us, I
say, if all this made a deep impression upon people's minds,
and was ascribed to the action of a deity.
There is a characteristic passage about dreams and their
interpretation in the works of the celebrated Roman author
Cicero, which helps us to understand the views of the ancients
in the last century before Christ, in a time, that is, when
people were beginning to give themselves some account of
their beliefs. Cicero attaches great importance to dreams,
and says that " what happens to a seer or soothsayer in his
waking hours is experienced by ordinary people when asleep.
For then, while the body is prostrate and almost dead, the
soul is awake, and is free from the influence of the senses, and
from all distracting care. Since the soul has existed from all
eternity and has held intercourse with countless numbers of
other souls, it sees everything that lies in the nature of things,
if only it is not too much disturbed by excess of eating and
drinking to be able to keep awake while the body is asleep.
JOSEPH, THE FAVORED OF TAHWEH. 209
Thus it is that the dreamer has power to read the future. The
power of interpreting what the dreamer sees is, then, no natural
gift, but an artificially acquired power. And so, too, with
oracles and predictions. In all these cases the interpreters
explain these phenomena just as the grammarians and com-
mentators explain the poets. What use could we make of
the metals if we were not taught how to find them ? Of what
use would timber be to us, but for the carpenter's art? So to
every good gift that the gods have given man there is attached
an art by which he can make use of it. Inasmuch, then, as
there is a great deal that is obscure and ambiguous in dreams,
oracles and predictions, we have recourse to the explanations
of the interpreters." Such was the argument of a philosopher
from whose mind simple unreasoning faith had long vanished.
In earlier times no such arguments as these were used, but
people believed — without ever for a moment doubting the
truth of their belief — in the first place that it was often
God's will to reveal the future to man, and in the next place
that dreams were amongst the means by which he did so.
And thus in Israel, too, the dream, together with the vision
of the prophet and the oracle of the priest, was looked upon
as a very common means by which Yahweh revealed his will ;
and the " dreamers" are mentioned by the side of the proph-
ets and the priests. 1 The proverb'-writers or "sages" of
Israel appear to have attached less importance to dreams,
and at any rate to have called in question their value as means
of prediction. Thus, in the latter portion of the book of Job,
which was added to it at least a century after the Babylonian
captivity, 2 Elihu says : 3
God makes himself heard in this wise
And in that wise ; but men mark it not.
In dreams and in visions of the night,
When a deep sleep falls upon men
And they slumber tranquilly on their beds;
Then he opens the ear of man
And stamps the seal on his exhortations,
To hold him back from the deed of horror,
And to estrange him from pride ;
To deliver his soul from the grave
And his life from the arrows of death.
Here then, as in another passage, 4 a dream is said to be
sent by God, but only as an exhortation to men. Later
sages deny the predictive value of dreams still more emphati-
1 Numbers xii. 6. 1 Samuel xxviii. 6, 15. Joel ii. 28. Deuteronomy xiii.
1-5. 2 See vol. ii., chapter xiv. p. 165.
8 Job xxxiii. 14-18. * Job iv. 12 f£.
210 JOSEPH, THE FAVORED OF YAHWEH.
cally. One treats them as parallel with " vanities," 1 and
another says straight out : 2
Vain and deceitful hopes befit the senseless man,
And dreams make fools rejoice.
Like one who grasps at a shadow and chases the wind,
Is he who puts trust in dreams.
A dream is a reflection of something that is,
The reflex of face against face.
How then can the clean come out of the unclean ?
Or truth out of a lie ?
Oracles and soothsaying and dreams are deceit,
Mere imaginings of the heart, as of one racked b}* pain.
Then if dreams are not sent by the High One,
Set not thy heart upon them in trouble.
Dreams have led many astray e'er now,
And [hey that trusted to them have fallen.
At the very time, however, when this Israelite was deny-
ing, with such quiet good sense, that dreams had any value,
the old superstition still lived in undiminished strength in the
minds of the masses ; and the art of interpreting dreams, to-
gether with its character as a gift of God, was glorified in the
person of Daniel. 3
At the time when the stories about Joseph were written,
no doubts had yet risen as to the divine origin of dreams, and
there was no difficulty, therefore, in sketching the ancestor
of Ephraim and Manasseh as a man who enjoyed, by God's
favor, the privilege of Having prophetic dreams himself, and
being able to interpret those of others.
Joseph is described as the favored of Yahweh ; and in the
next chapter we shall consider the connection between this
fact and the moral excellence which is ascribed to him. We
will close this chapter by citing an Israelite song, which shows
how much importance was attached to the favor of Yahweh
by his worshippers : i
Preserve me, God ! for I trust in thee.
I say to Yahweh, "Thou art my lord,
My bliss can be found in thee alone."
Yahweh is my heritage and my cup j
t'hou holdest my lot in thy hand.
Lovely places have been given to mo,
And my heritage is fair in my eyes.
I will praise Yahweh, for he gives me counsel,
And my heart teaches me by night.
I set Yahweh ever before my mind.
For if he stands beside me I shall not bo shaken.
Therefore my heart rejoices,
Therefore my soul is glad,
And my body shall dwell in safety.
1 Ecclesiastes v. 7. 2 Jesus son of Sirach xxxiv. 1-7.
• See vol. ii., phapter xxii. p. 237, 4 Psalm xvi.
JOSEPH, THE LORD OF HIS BROTHERS. 211
For thou wilt not surrender my soul to the shadow-land, 1
Nor surfer thy favored one to look on the pit,
Thou wilt teach me the way to abide in life.
Joy is before thy face,
Beauty in thy right hand, for ever.
Chapter XXVII.
JOSEPH, THE LORD OF HIS BROTHERS.
Gen. XLII.-XLV.
CANAAN, — so the ste«y goes on — like every other
country, felt the effects of the famine that Joseph had
foretold ; and Jacob and his family soon began to be in want.
They were alreadj' reduced to great distress when the father
said to his sons, " Wiry do you look at each other in that
helpless way? See, they tell me that corn is to be had in
Egypt. So go there and lay in provisions to keep us alive."
Joseph's brothers attended to their father's sensible advice,
and all the ten of them set out for Egypt. But Jacob would
not let Benjamin accompany them, for fear some accident
should befall him on the jounie}-.
So once on a time, when Joseph was busy selling corn, and
people from all quarters of the world came before him, his
own brothers appeared amid the crowd and bowed down in
reverence before him as the governor of the land. Now,
though the}* did not recognize him, he knew who they were
at once, and all the past rushed into his mind. So now his
dreams had come true, and his brothers were bowing down
before him ! What sufferings they had brought upon him
because of these dreams ! They deserved a heavy punish-
ment ; and though he had no intention of dealing with them
after their deserts, yet they must not be allowed to escape
entirely unchastised. They must be made to feel that sin
never goes unpunished. So he met them with the words,
"You are spies! You have come to see at what point the
country is open to attack." His brothers answered in dismay,
" No ! no ! We are all sons of the same father ; honorable
men and no spies." ' ' I don't believe you," he replied. ' ' You
are come to see where the frontier is exposed." "No! my
Lord," answered thej', repeating their first assertion at greater
1 After an amended version.
2] 2 JOSEPH, THE LORD OF HIS BROTHERS.
le.igth. "There were twelve of us once, but the youngest,
has stayed at home with our father, in the land of Canaan, and
one is no more." But Joseph put an end to all contradiction
bj- saying, " I don't believe a word that you have said, but
we must find out the truth of the matter. Send one of 3'our
number home, while the rest stay here as prisoners, and have
your youngest brother brought here. Unless what you have
said is true then as sure as Pharaoh lives you shall be treated
as spies." So he kept them three days in prison, and then
sent for them and said, " Listen to me. I am a God-fearing
man, and will not act unreasonably. Let one of you remain
here, while all the rest go back with provisions for your family,
and then come here again with your youngest brother."
Then Joseph's brothers said to each other in their misery,
" "We have deserved it all ! For did we not see our brothers
anguish when he begged us for mercj" without being moved
by it. It is for his sake that this misery has come upon us."
And Eeuben said to them, ' ' I told you not to injure the lad,
but you would not listen to me. Now his blood is required
at our hands." So they spoke amongst themselves, not know-
ing that Joseph could understand them ; for he kept up his
Egyptian character well, and always spoke with them through
an interpreter. But now he could hardly contain himself, and
hurried away from the hall to weep aloud. As soon as he had
recovered his self-command he returned to see his sentence
earned out. One of his brothers must remain behind. He
spared Reuben because he knew that he was guiltless, but
Simeon, the second brother, was put into fetters in the pres-
ence of the others, and led away as a hostage.
By Joseph's orders his brothers' corn-sacks were now filled
with grain, and their money was secretly put in at the top,
besides which they had provisions for their journej* given them.
Now, as they were going home one of them opened his sack
at an inn to get out some food for his beast, and there, to his
great surprise, he found his money. This mystery filled
them all with fear. " What has God done to us now !" they
cried in amazement.
So they came back to Jacob, and told him all that had
happened ; and when each one of them found his money in
his sack thej- and their father were again greatly disturbed.
Jacob, in despair at the dreadful demand of the Egyptian
ruler, cried out: "How you are robbing me! Joseph is
not ; Simeon is not ; and now you will take Benjamin away
from me too ! Everything goes against me ! " Reuben now
JOSEPH, THE LORD OF HIS BROTHERS. 213
showed once more that he was worthy of his position as the
eldest of the brothers, for he came forward and offered his
two sons as surety. He gave his father leave to kill them if
he failed to bring Benjamin back alive. It is true that his
father would not have gained much by doing so, but the offer,
which is quite in the spirit of the age, at any rate showed
how thoroughly he was in earnest when he said : " Trust I'm
to me; I will take care of him." But Jacob would 'not be
persuaded, and refused to let Benjamin go. Now that Joseph
was dead, was not he the only child of his beloved Kachel
that was left ? If any accident happened to him on the way,
his gray hairs would go down in sorrow to the world below.
But after a time they were pressed by want. The corn was
all used up, and Jacob himself urged his sons to go to Egypt
to get some more food. But they objected to going unless
they might take Benjamin with them ; and indeed roundly
refused to do so, as well they might, f° r it would have been
certain death ! Jacob, whom his agony of mind made utterly
upreasonable, exclaimed, " What business had you to tell
that man that you had another brother at home at all ?"
" He asked us about our father," said they, " whether he was
still living', and whether we had another brother. How were
we to know that he would saj r , Bring him here ? " Then
Judah took the lead in pressing his father and urging him to
consent. " I will go surety for him," he said ; " you may
claim him back from me. If I fail to bring him back safe
and sound you may hold me responsible all my life, and may
do what you like to me ! Only give 3-our consent, to keep us
and our children alive. If we had not wasted so much time
we might have been there and back twice over by now."
Thus persuaded, Jacob at last gave way. "If it cannot
be helped, then so be it," he said. "Take presents of the
most precious products of the country with you, as a token
of respect for this man, and double money, so as to be able
to return what you found in your sacks. Perhaps it was an
oversight." And then he added with a sigh, " Take your
brother with you, then, and go back to this man, and God
Almighty give you grace in his eyes, so that he may let
Simeon and Benjamin come back. As for me, if I must be
left utterly childless, I cannot help it ! " Joseph's brothers
started upon their journey at once, and reached the capital
of Egypt in safety.
Then they stood once more in the presence of Joseph ; and
when he saw them again and recognized Benjamin in the
214 JOSEPH, THE LORD OF HIS BROTHERS.
midst of them, he ordered his steward to take them to his
house, and to make everything ready there for them to take
their evening meal with him. But Jacob's sons had been
made suspicious (and no wonder) by all the disagreeable and
n.ysterious adventures they had met with in the foreign land ;
and they were afraid, therefore, that some trap was being laid
for them. " Ah, sir!" they said to their guide, "last time
we were here our money came back again, we know not how,
into our sacks, but we have brought it with us now." But
they were set at peace at once on this point, for the Egyptian
told them that he knew nothing about it except that he had
received their money. " No doubt your god and the god of
your fathers made you find a treasure in this way in your
sacks," he said.
Reassured to some extent, they went into the palace, and
there they were soon joined by Simeon. They thought it a
good sign that they were politely received, that some slaves
came to wash their feet, and that their beasts were provided
with fodder ; and they spread out their presents and awaited
the viceroy of Egypt with greatly decreased anxiety.- When
he came he graciously accepted the tokens of their respect,
and asked them in a friendly manner, "How do you fare?
And the aged father of whom you spoke, how is he? Is he
still alive?" "He still lives," they answered, prostrating
themselves on the earth again, " and we all are well." So far
Joseph had easily restrained his feelings ; but when he looked
at Benjamin, the son of his own mother, he could hardly utter
the words, "Is this your youngest brother, of whom you
spoke? God bless you, my son." Then he hurried away to
another chamber and found relief in tears ; and after he had
washed himself, to remove every trace of his emotion, he came
back again and ordered them to prepare the meal.
Here was fresh matter to excite the wonder of Jacob's sons.
For while a separate table was spread for them (since an
Egyptian might not eat at the same table with foreigners,
especially shepherds, such as these Hebrews were) they were
all arranged in the order of their ages. Was it an accident,
or did this man know their ages ? He seemed to feel himself
especially drawn towards Benjamin ; for though they all had
dishes sent to them from his table, yet Benjamin's' share was
alwaj's five times as large as that of any of the others, which
was a great sign of favor. For the rest, their reception left
nothing to be desired, and they drank — even to excess —
with their host, and forgot all their cares.
JOSEPH, THE LORD OK HIS BROTHERS. 215
Next morning they set out on their journey in good spirits.
But what a mysterious country this Egypt was ! What was
the meaning of all that had befallen them, and what possessed
this viceroy? They could not make it out, but "all's well
that ends well," and the brothers, all eleven of them, went on
their homeward way, carrying their corn with them. With
all the greater weight did the blow dealt them b}- Joseph now
fall upon them ! lie had ordered not only that their money
should be hidden in their sacks once more, but that his own
silver cup as well should be placed in that of Benjamin. Now
they had not gone far on their way before they were overtaken
by a band of horsemen, headed by the very man who had con-
ducted them to Joseph's palace. They are accused, with bitter
reproaches, of having stolen the cup from which their host is
in the habit of drinking and of divining the future. In vain
they protest that they are innocent. A thorough search must
be made. So be it then ; and let him in whose possession
the cup is found be the Egyptian's slave ! But however cer-
tain that none of them has stolen the cup, they feel uneasy
enough, for so many strange things have happened to them.
Reuben's sack is examined first. There lies the money in its
mouth again, but no cup ! The same with Simeon, with Levi,
with Judah, and so on all through, till at last they come to
Benjamin's sack, and there — oh horror ! — by the money in
the sack's mouth lies . . . the cup ! They stand aghast.
They tear their clothes. Before long they have put the corn
upon the beasts again, and are all on their waj' back to the city.
Once more they stand before the Egyptian ruler, in that
same house in which they had feasted with him the day before.
They fall to the ground, with Judah at their head, but are met
with the reproachful words, "What have you been doing?
Did you not know that such a man as I am would discover
your guilt? " Then Judah came forward as the representative
of them all, and said, " What are we to say to my lord? We
have nothing to bring forward in our defence. God is bring-
ing your servants' trespass home to them. See, we are your
slaves, all of us, just as much as he in whose possession the
cup was found." " Not at all," was the reply. " I have no
wish for that. The one in whose possession this cup was
found must remain here as my slave, but the rest of you may
go back in peace to your father." Then Judah spoke once
more in the agony of his soul, and said, "Oh, sir, listen to nry
words, and be not angry ; for you are as great as Pharaoh.
When first we came here you asked us whether we still had a
216 JOSEPH, THE LORD OF HIS BROTHERS.
fathei or another brother, and we answered that we could still
rejoice in the life of our aged father, and that we had one
more brother, still young, born to him in his old age, and that
his only whole brother was dead, so that his father loved him
more than us all. And then you asked us to bring him with
us because you wished to see him, and though we stoutly
declared that it could not be, because he was so young that
he would die if he were parted from his father, yet 30U drove
us to compliance by threatening that you would never let us
come into j'our sight again without him. So when our father
urged us to come here again to buy corn, and we insisted on
taking the boy with us, he reminded us, weeping, of all that
had taken place, how he had only had two sons by the mother
of this boy, and how the elder had disappeared in such a way
that he could not choose but think he had been torn to pieces,
and he told us that it would be the death of him if the boy
perished on the way. So if we go home without him, we shall
make our gray-headed father go down with sorrow to the
world below. And now, my lord, I have gone surety for him.
Let me stay, then, instead of him, and let him go back
with my brothers ; for how could I ever go into my father's
presence if the boy were no longer with us ? I could not bear
to look upon the anguish which would seize him."
Joseph could now hold out no longer. He hastily ordered
his retinue to retire, and almost before they were alone he
burst into tears and cried, " I am Joseph ! Is ray father yet
alive ? " His brothers stood riveted to the ground, and could
not believe their ears. When they had all recovered' them-
selves a little, Joseph made them come nearer and said: "I
am indeed your brother, whom you sold as a slave to Egypt ;
but now do not mourn or be disturbed about that airy more, for
God sent me before you, as it were, to deliver j-ou from the
famine. Besides the two years that have gone there are still
live 3 r ears of famine coming, and God has led me here to pro-
tect you from dying of starvation, for you are to grow into a
great nation. So it was not you, but God, that sent me here.
He has made me the king's adviser, and the ruler over all his
possessions and the governor of the whole of Egypt. Go '
then to our father with all speed and invite him in my name
to come here and settle with all his belongings in the land
of Goshen, near to me, and I will maintain him there for the
five coming years. Surely none of you doubt that I am really
he ? Benjamin, my brother ! surely you remember me ? Tell
my father, then, what honor I have come to in this land, and
JOSEPH, THE LORD OV HIS BROTHERS. 217
bring him here with all speed." Then Joseph fell upon Ben-
jamin's neck and kissed him, and Benjamin wept as he em-
braced him. He greeted with kisses and with tears the rest
of his brothers too ; until at last they found words again in
which to speak to him.
Meanwhile the king had been informed of everything. The
very fact that as soon as Joseph was left alone witli these
Hebrews he began to weep had excited attention in itself ;
and it soon became known that they were his brothers. The
king confirmed the arrangements made bj- Joseph for his
father's migration, and gave his brothers vehicles for their
wives and children and provisions for the journey, telling
'hem that they need not trouble themselves about the furni-
ture, but might leave it behind them without any anxiety, as
they should have full command of the wealth of Egypt.
When Joseph took leave of his brothers he gave them each
a complete suit of festal garments, presented Benjamin with
a large sum of money and five robes of state, and sent his
father ten asses laden with precious Egyptian wares and ten
she-asses laden with necessaries of life.
Now, when Jacob's sons came back to their father and said
to him, ' ' Joseph is still alive and is governor of the whole of
Egypt," he was utterly amazed and could not believe it was
true. But when they had told him all Joseph's words, and
when he had seen the chariots that he had sent him, he came
to himself again, and his overflowing heart found relief in the
joyful cry, "It is too much! Joseph my son, still living!
Let me go and see him before I die ! "
The story of Joseph often reminds us of a telling drama or
a thrilling romance. For it works powerfully upon the feel-
ings, and has a certain fascination throughout, while its life
and movement keep the attention constantly fixed, and an
unexpected and happy conclusion brings the story to an end.
The pleasure that children take in listening to it shows the
skill of the authors. I speak of authors (in the plural) because
this portion, like what has gone before, is put together from
the work of two writers. But if once children's feelings are
worked upon so that they can live with the heroes of a story,
or, still better, s^ that they can cry with them too, they let
many defects pass unnoticed, and are not at all troubled by
improbabilities or even impossibilities. Nay, still worse, even
their moral perceptions are sometimes lulled to sleep when
their imagination is taken captive by a telling and fascinating
VOL. l. 10
5J18 JOSEPH, THE LORD OF HIS BROTHERS.
story. Both these facts are strikingly exemplified in the
favorable reception given by children to the story of Joseph.
No thoughtful person can long remain in doubt as to the
historical or unhistorical character of what is here related.
For we cannot possibly look upon a story as historical when
sundry dreams, regarded as divine revelations, appear in it,
and its development hinges to a large extent upon these
dreams and their fulfilment. But we have spoken of this
already. Now let us examine the portion of the narrative
that we have dealt with in this chapter. The representation
here given is impossibility itself.
Only- think for a moment of these points.
The famine was foretold seven years before it began, and
during the whole interval the king did everything that could
be done to lighten the miseiy that was to come. Yet no one
else in Egypt or elsewhere appears to have taken any precau-
tions, though there was nothing to prevent every one's know-
ing all about it. Moreover, the whole world suffers from the
famine, and is obliged to go to Egypt for corn. This is nec-
essarily involved in the story ; for why else should Jacob's
sons have chosen Egypt for their second as well as their first
purchase of corn ? Is such a state of things credible in real life ?
Again, Jacob sends ten of his sons, each with his own ass,
to buy corn. One cannot help asking why- he did not send
one son at the head of a caravan ? What little provision was
laid in in this way, however, cannot have gone far toward sup-
porting the whole family, especially, if, as we are told, part
of it had to be used as fodder for the beasts on the way.
And yet the story tells us distinctly that each one of Jacob's
sons took his own sack with him upon his own ass ; else how
could it be said that the cup was hidden, and afterwards
found, in Benjamin's special sack? In Egypt things are
managed after a somewhat homely fashion. Joseph sells corn
to all the world in person. This is almost impossible to imagine,
but it is distinctly the meaning of the story ; for if Jacob's
sons could have managed to obtain corn from any one else,
they would certainly have done so on their second journey,
since it was not to obtain Simeon's release, but simply to
escape dying of hunger, that they returned to Egypt and
came once more into Joseph's presence. It would appear
from the story that there were no merchants in Egypt, and
that no creature could carry corn to Canaan without buying
it from the viceroy in person. Finally, as already observed
in another connection, 1 the representation of Benjamin as a
1 See p. 102. "
JOSEPH, THE LORD OF HIS BROTHERS. 219
boy whose life would be in danger if he were separated from
his father, hardly agrees with another piece of information
according to which he was at this very time the father of ten
sons.
It would hardly be worth while to stay to inquire expressly
whether Joseph's conduct will bear testing, had not his char-
acter often been described as noble, and even as one of the
the most exalted to be found in the Old Testament. But
since our moral perception ma}- easily suffer from such per-
verted judgments, we must enter an emphatic protest against
this excessive praise of him. Joseph as a boy, repeating a
dream in which his own exaltation is foretold, twice over, and
telling his father tales about his brothers, is surety no one's
ideal ; but the brutal chastisement inflicted on him by his
brothers seems at least to have had the effect of taking down
his conceit. At any rate, when in Egypt he is the model of
a -faithful and pious slave, and Ins answer to Potiphar's wife —
" How should I do such wickedness and sin against God? " • —
is full of nobility and earnestness. But his conduct towards
his brothers, which is the main point after all, is anything but
generous, and shows that he took an unfeeling and spiteful
pleasure in annoying them. He conceals the fact that he rec-
ognizes them at once, and knowingly and purposely brings a
false accusation against them ; he puts them in prison three
da}^s — keeps Simeon back — compels his brother Benjamin,
whom he is said to have loved tenderly, to undertake a jour-
ney which his father fears may be fatal to him — disturbs and
alarms his brothers on two occasions by means of the money
which they find mysteriously returned into their sacks —
relieves them from their anxiety by his friendly reception, only
to make them still more uneasy about the cup that is found in
Benjamin's sack of corn — and, most inexcusable of all, en-
tirely overlooks the great and bitter sorrow that his conduct
inflicts upon his gray-headed father. In the story it all turns
out well, but, supposing it to be true, "more by good luck
than good conduct."
Though the writers intended their Joseph for a sketch of a
model son and brother, they have not been successful. Joseph
certainly seems very tender-hearted, and weeps when he sees
his brothers on the first occasion, and again when he meets Ben-
jamin afterwards ; but for all that he is hard-hearted enough
systematically in cold blood to punish them for the suffering
they inflicted on him. It is sometimes thought that his con-
duct may be defended by supposing that his object was to see
220 JOSEPH, THE LOUD OF HIS BROTHERS.
whether his brothers would behave any better towards Benja-
min than they had done towards himself ; but we must remem-
ber, in the first place, that no such object is hinted at by a
single word in the story ; and, in the second place, that it
does not make out a better case for Joseph after all. Has a
man a right to test his neighbor's disposition by putting him
to the torture? Is that unassuming and amiable conduct?
Surely not.
There is one point in the story which is only a minor feature,
but which must not be overlooked in forming an estimate of
Joseph's person. We are told of a divining cup used by him.
The kind of divination here indicated was known to various
peoples of antiquity, and was conducted as follows : Little
bits of gold or silver were thrown into a cup full of water, and
sometimes precious stones, with certain characters carved
upon them, were added. From the figures found in the water,
by the reflection of these objects, those skilled in the art made
out the future. Others did something the same with melted
wax, and read the events of the future from the combinations
of the little pieces. This kind of divination was well known
in Egj'pt, and apparently in Israel too ; for the writer of the
legend of Joseph finds it quite unnecessary to explain the
nature of the cup to his readers, nor does he utter a single
word of disapproval of its use. Indeed, any such disapproba-
tion was not in the spirit of his age. We shall presently have
occasion to notice more than once, that though sorcery was
opposed by some of the most advanced Israelites, until at last
it was forbidden in the Law, yet the sorcerers, wizards, and
necromancers played a great part in the national life of Israel,
by the side of the seers, dreamers, priests, and prophets.
The prophets especially were given to meddling with these arts.
In our story, this trait in Joseph's character agrees very well
with his power of reading the future in his dreams and inter-
preting the visions of others.
Nothing is further from the intention of the writers, how-
ever, than to cast a slur upon Joseph's character. On the
contrary, the}' desired to give him the place of honor and to
sketch him as ruling over his brothers and as rescuing Egypt,
or rather all the world. But in pursuing this object they make
the extraordinary favor with which he was regarded by Yahweh
far more conspicuous than any nobility or exaltation of his
own character. For instance, when we are told that Potiphar's
house was blessed for Joseph's sake we think of the natural
consequence of the industry and care of a faithful servant
JOSEPH, THE LORD OP HIS BROTHERS. 221
making order and prosperity supreme in Potiphar's house and
. lands. But the writer does not tell us this, and, indeed, he
did not mean it. He calls Joseph ' ' a man in whose hands
everything succeeded because Yahweh helped Mm, and whom
Potiphar set over all he had because he saw that Yahweh was
with him." * In the same way Joseph becomes lord of Egypt,
and saves his brothers from the famine, because his god had
willed it so. 2 Now, when we speak of God's blessing and
God's help we think especially of the blissful fruits of virtue
and faith ; but this divine blessing was not connected with
piety in the same way to the mind of the ancient Israelites.
Yahweh had his favorites and they were blessed in consequence
of the protection of their god, while those whom he hated he
blinded and tempted to folly, and so brought to destruction.
They would say, "he who is blessed by Yahweh acts wisely
and well " rather than ' ' he who acts wisely and well is blessed
by Yahweh."
In this they were at one with all antiquity, as we can easily
understand, for the ancient conception of the character of the
deity, as we have already seen repeatedly, was that of a nature-
god. In the sun, the wind, the rain, the thunderstorm, and
other favorable or destructive phenomena of nature, the an-
cients saw the hand of the gods. And so they ascribed no
righteousness to their gods, for the sun never troubles him-
self about the virtue or vice of man, and the lightning strikes
good and bad without distinction . They had no difficulty, there-
fore, in regarding their gods as capricious. They were wise, —
but their wisdom was that of the power that no one could resist ;
they dealt according to right — - but their right was might.
Yea truly I know that it is so ;
How should a man be held just before God?
If he sees good to contend with him,
He cannot answer him one to a thousand.
Wise of heart as he is and fearful in might,
Who has opposed him and has not suffered?
Who removes the mountains before they know it,
And in his wrath overthrows them, &c.
The poem from which these lines are taken 3 dates from
a period at which a more exalted idea of the nature of God
had already found a place in many minds by the side of the
old one, yet here, and all through the poem, the strongest
proof of God's justice is his omnipotence.
Among the prophets of the eighth century before Christ 4
1 Genesis xxxix. 2-6. 2 Genesis xlv. 8.
8 Job. ix. 2-5. 4 See p. 25.
222 JOSEPH, THE LORD OF HIS BROTHERS.
there was a living conviction that Yahweh was a righteous god
who rewarded the good and punished the wicked, and thus the
way was prepared for the recognition of the truth that the real
happiness of men depends on conditions of their inner life.
But the leaven of the old nature-worship could not be expelled
at once, and prosperity and adversity were still looked upon
as tokens of the favor or the displeasure of God. But since
prosperity does not fall to the lot of the virtuous alone, nor
disaster to that of the wicked, the want of agreement between
goodness and prosperity always remained a source of painful
doubt ; and piety was thought to consist chiefly in the confi-
dent belief that Yahweh would really give what was good to
those whom he loved. This belief, as we shall presently see,
more than once decided the practical line of action taken by
the people, and we find utterance given to it in some of the
most beautiful of the psalms of the Israelites. We may close
this chapter with one of them. 1
Blessed is he who abides under the protection of the Most High,
Who passes the night in the shadow of the Almighty,
Who says to Yahweh, ''My refuge and fortress,
The god upon whom I trust I "
For he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,
And from the terrible pestilence ;
With his pinions shall lie cover thee,
And under his wings shalt thou find a refuge,
His faith is a shield and an armor.
Thou shalt not fear for the terror by night,
Nor for the arrow that flieth by day :
Nor for the pestilence creeping round in the darkness,
Nor the plague that wastelh at noonday.
At thy side shall a thousand fall,
Ten thousand at thy. right hand,
But it shall not come to thee.
But thou shalt see with thine eyes
And behold the reward of the wicked.
Because thou hast called Yahweh thy refuge,
And hast made the Most High thy dwelling,
Evil shall not come nigh unto thee. "
Nor disaster draw near thy tent.
For he shall give his angels charge over thee
To protect thee in all thy ways.
They shall bear thee up in their hands,
That thou dash not. thy foot on a stone.
Thou shall tread on the roaring beast and the adder,
And trample upon the lion and dragon.
Because he trusts in me I will deliver him,
[ will exalt him, because he knows my name.
When he calls upon me I will answer him,
In time of need I will be with him.
I will deliver him and will give him honor.
I will lengthen his life till he be satisfied,
And will make him to see my salvation.
1 Psalm xci.
JACOB IN EGYPT. 223
These verses require little or no explanation. In the last
few lines it appears that Yahweh is introduced as speaking.
One word, however, on lines ten and eleven, in which men-
tion is made of a terror by night and an arrow that flies by
day. The meaning of the arrow is obvious. It is the sym-
bol of a sunbeam, to the influence of which the origin of the
pestilence was attributed in ancient times. The " terror by
night," therefore, is some other cause of sickness that was
supposed to be active at night. The idea contained in these
lines, therefore, is exactly the same as that of the two next.
This is very common in Hebrew poems ; for they seldom or
never have any measure or rlryme, but are distinguished from
prose, in outward form, by the repetition of the same thought
in different words two or three times in succession. This
may well seem strange to us, for we are accustomed to rhyme
and rtrvthm, or at any rate the latter, in all our verses.
Yet neither the one nor the other is by any means insepar-
able from poetical language. The peculiarity of poetry is
that in it a man who is inspired by some passion, whether
noble or the reverse, gives expression to his feelings ; and
the more artificial the form in which he does so the smaller
the chance of the substance being really poetical. But when
a man, in a highly wrought frame of mind, is driven by
pressure from within to utter what is going on in his heart
and to pour out his soul in words, nothing is more natural
than for him to repeat the same thing in different forms two
or even three times over ; for passion never stints its words.
This repetition by which the second member of a sentence
fills in the first, even a third being sometimes added, is called
" parallelism." In the poem just quoted almost every couplet
or triplet is an example of what has been said.
Chapter XXVIII.
JACOB IN EGYPT.
Gen. XL VI.- L.
THE arrival of Jacob, or Israel, in Egypt — his settlement
in the land of Goshen - — his adoption of Joseph's sons
as his own, immediately before his death — his burial in
the land of Canaan — Joseph's continued protection of his
224 JACOB IN EGYPT.
brothers and all their belongings after his father's death, till
he himself paid the last debt of nature — such are the events
recorded in the remaining chapters of Genesis. The narra-
tive is not very interesting, and it is easy to see why ; for it is
put together from various sources — at least three narrators,
who agree with each other in the main points, but are here
and there at variance, having had a hand in it. This has
naturally given rise to repetitions and confusions. We will
first run over the narrative as briefly as possible, and then
dwell upon one or two special points.
Jacob departed with all speed for Egypt. As he passed
through Beersheba, on his way, he made an offering to the
god of his father Isaac, who had always lived there ; and in
a vision by night he received a renewed assurance of God's
protection. His heavenly guide would be with him in Egypt
too, and Joseph should close his eyes. The company now
migrating to Egypt; seventy in number, reached Goshen
without interruption, and there Joseph, informed of the
arrival of his kinsmen by Judah, who had gone on before
them, came in his chariot to meet them. "Now that I
have seen you once again, I can die in peace ! " cried his
father, overcome with joy.
Joseph promised his kinsmen that he would tell the king
that they had come, and advised them, when questioned by
him as to their occupation, to tell him at once that they
were shepherds, and therefore wished to live' in the land of
Goshen. For the disgust in which the Egyptians held all
shepherds and goatherds made it desirable that they should
settle in some border district, the population of which was not
pure Egj'ptian, and was rather more accustomed to inter-
course with strangers. Five of Joseph's brothers waited on
the king, who heard them graciously and granted their re-
quest. Jacob, too, was brought into his presence, and blessed
him with a patriarch's authority. When questioned by the
king as to his age, he answered that he was a hundred and
thirty, but he could not help adding a remark that showed
nc great contentment with his lot, namely, that his ancestors
had reached a much greater age, and that his life had been
full of trouble.
An enviable lot was that of Israel's sons in the land of
Goshen, or Ramses. For, during the continued famine in
Egypt, they were supported by Joseph, while the native
Egyptians were compelled to make heavier and heavier sac-
rifices to keep themselves and their families alive. In the
JACOB IN EGYPT.
225
very first year of the famine the Egyptians spent all their
money and even gave up their cattle in exchange for the
necessaries of life ; and in the second year they sold them-
selves and their land to the king. Thus the prince became
absolute master of the whole of Egypt. He made ample
use of his power, and commanded that henceforth a tax of
one-fifth of the produce of the land should flow into the
royal coffers. The priests alone kept possession of their
land, for they had a sufficient supply of food given them for
nothing.
The Israelites meanwhile had greatly increased in num-
bers. Seventeen years after his removal to Eg}-pt Jacob
felt that his end was drawing near. He died in Joseph's
arms, after having made all necessary dispositions as to
his own burial and the future of his sons. Joseph com-
manded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father's
body in the most costly manner. This preparation occupied
forty days, after which the Egyptians went into public mourn-
ing for seventy days for the father of their viceroy. Then
Joseph, who could not appear before the king in person
while still in mourning, asked leave through his courtiers to
go and bury his father in his own grave in Canaan, as he
himself had wished. As soon as he had received permission,
he went with all his father's sons and grandsons and a great
host of Egj T ptians to Canaan. At a certain place called
" the plain of thorns," on the other side of the Jordan, they
stayed their course and spent a week in lamentations, from
which circumstance the place was afterwards called by the
inhabitants Abel-mizraim, that is lamentation of Egypt. Then
Jacob was buried by his sons.
Now that their father was dead Joseph's brothers began to
fear that he would pay them back for their evil deeds of long
ago, so they said to him in the greatest anxiety : " Our father
told us, before he died, to implore you to forgive the sins of
your brothers, the worshippers of your father's god." On
hearing these words Joseph burst into tears, and said, as they
fell at his feet with every sign of absolute submission, " Fear
nothing ! Am I in the place of God ? Though you plotted
evil against me, yet God has turned it to good, to rescue a
great people, as has actually come to pass. You have nothing
to fear. I shall preserve your lives and the lives of your little.
children." With such words he comforted them.
Joseph lived to a hundred and ten and saw his grand-
children's children. When he felt that his end was drawing
10*
226 JACOB IN EGYPT.
near, he called his kinsmen to him and made them swear that
when their god brought them back to the land that he had
promised to their fathers, they would take his boues there
with them. In order to be able to fulfil this promise they
embalmed his body and kept it in Egypt.
In the account just given we have barely mentioned the
dispositions made by Jacob on behalf of his sons ; but in the
original narrative they occupy two whole chapters. Three
times we read of prophetic blessings pronounced by the
patriarch on all his sons or on Joseph's children, and these
accounts are derived from three different writers.
According to one of them, as Jacob lay on his death-bed
he called his sons to his side to foretell their future lot to
them. A poem is put into his mouth * on this occasion in
which he speaks of all the twelve sons. Some of them, how-
ever, receive but a very short and uninteresting sentence.
Thus Zebulun is informed that he will live by the sea-shore,
and Dan that he will rule his tribe just like one of his brothers.
So too Gad, Asher, Naphtali and Benjamin have each to be
content with a single line. Far more bitter was the lot of
others, who received a curse instead of a blessing. Thus
Eeuben is degraded from his place as first-born, Levi and
Simeon are told that they will be scattered up and down in
Israel, and Issachar must hear the prophecy that he will
become tributary to strangers. But the patriarch dwells
longer upon Judah and Joseph, and pours out a profusion
of blessings upon their heads. We have already observed,
in another connection, 2 that under the form of a prophecy by
Jacob as to the future of his sons, the actual condition of the
Israelite tribes is celebrated in this poem, which takes us into
the period of the Judges, or still later.
It should be noticed that in this poem Joseph still appears
as a tribe, by the side of the rest. It is otherwise in the
account of the last days of Jacob given by the "Book, of
Origins." There we are told 8 that when Joseph visited Jacob
on his death-bed, his father told him how God Almighty had
appeared to him in Luz and had promised him a numerous
posterity and the possession of Canaan. " And now," con-
tinued the patriarch, " 3'our two sons, who were born before
I came to Egypt, I adopt as my own. Ephraim and Manasseh
shall take rank with Reuben and Simeon. If you have other
children they shall be counted yours, but their descendants
1 Genesis xlix. 2 g ee p . ]Q2. * Genesi9 xlviii. 3-6.
JACOB IN EGYPT. 227
shall be assigned to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh."
This legend places us in a period at which each of these two
tr^ies was (or had been) as powerful as any of the rest, naj
stronger than several of their brethren ; and it agrees with a
representation, to be found in the book of Joshua, of the
manner in which the land of Canaan was divided amongst the
tribes. We shall deal with this matter presently.
There is another account x older than that of the " Book of
Origins," according to which Jacob, feeble and almost blind,
received a visit on his deathbed from Joseph and his two sons.
"Who are those ?" asked the patriarch, pointing to the two
boys. "The children whom God has given me," was the
reply. " Let me bless them ! " said Jacob. Deeply moved,
he kissed and embraced them, and said to Joseph: " See, I
long despaired of ever seeing you yourself again, and now I
see your children too ! " Joseph removed the boys from their
place between their grandfather's knees, and bowed down to
the earth in reverence. Then he led his sons to his father
again, and placed them so that when the old man stretched
out his hands he would naturally lay his right hand on the
head of the elder, Manasseh, and his left on the younger,
Ephraim. But when Jacob stretched out his hands he crossed
them, and so laid his right hand on Ephraim's head. He did
so, not by mistake but on purpose ; for when Joseph wished
to alter the position of his hands he would not allow it.
"No, my son!" said the old man, "I know well enough
what I am doing. Manasseh, too, shall be the father of a
great tribe, but his 3-ounger brother shall be mightier than
he." Then he blessed them with the worcls : " May you be
such an example of prosperity that the richest blessing in
Israel may run : God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh ! "
Thus did he place Ephraim above Manasseh. This is the chief
object of the story, and it takes us to a time when the tribe
of Manasseh, that had been the mightiest in North Israel at
first, was overshadowed by that of the Ephraimites.
We see from several slight traits in these stories that all the
writers quite lose sight of the patriarchs as individuals, and
only think of the tribes themselves. Thus Joseph's sons, who
are spoken of as "lads," stand between their grandfather's
knees, and he blesses them. Yet they were born before Jacob
came into Egypt, and he had spent seventeen years in that
country before he died. The same forgetfulness of the fact
that time never stands still, and that little children grow big,
r Genesis xlviii. 8-22.
228 JACOB IN EGYPT.
is shown by the writer who makes Joseph still his brothers'
anxiety after Jacob's death by the words : ' ' Fear not ; I will
take care of you and 3'our little children." ' The remarks
made on a previous occasion 2 apply to the whole of the storj
of Joseph. The representation made to us is not that of a num-
ber of tribes migrating to Egypt, but that of a family, con-
sisting of a father and eleven sons, with their wives and
children — seventy souls ; a family which, leaving the furni-
ture behind, could move to Egypt in a few wagons sent for
the purpose by the king. 8 A childlike and homely represen-
tation, but one that is quite at variance with history.
We must touch upon one more detail, and then we will pass
on to an examination of the country to which Jacob and his
family had come. The ' ' Book of Origins," the writer of which,
as we have seen, 4 took a great interest in the cave of Mach-
pelah, tells us at full length here too how Jacob himself was
buried there. 6 It may be doubted, however, whether this
statement agrees with the oldest tradition about Jacob's last
resting-place. For Joseph sends word to the king that his
father wishes to be laid in the grave that he himself had
made," and this cannot refer to the cave of Machpelah, which
Abraham had bought from the Hethites. Now, between the
two accounts of the blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh, 7 the
following sentence 8 is very oddly inserted : "When I came
from Padan Aram, Eachel died in the land of Canaan, while
I was still some way from Ephrath ; and I buried her there." 9
This verse is out of place, and probably belongs to the ac-
count of Jacob's last wishes, 10 which, with this addition, would
run : " Bury me not in Egypt, but take my body hence, and
lay it in the grave that I have made ; for, when I came from
Padan Aram, Rachel died near Ephrath, and I buried her
there." Then Joseph answered: " 1 will do as you desire."
If this conjecture is well founded, then, according to the oldest
account, Rachel's grave, south of Bethel, 11 was Jacob's grave
as well. The writer of the ' ' Book of Origins " thought it more
suitable, in some way, that Jacob should be buried at Hebron,
and accordingly said that he was.
This story draws our attention to Egjpt, for it gives ua
several pieces of information, which are not without interest,
1 Genesis 1. 21. 2 See p. 102. s Genesis xlvi. 5.
* See pp. 153, 154. 6 Genesis xlix 29-32, 1. 12, 13.
» Genesis 1. 5. 1 Genesis xlviii. 3-6 and S-22.
8 Genesis xlviii. 7. 9 See p. 194.
W Genesis xlvii. 30. " Compare pp. 196, 197.
JACOB IN EGYPT. 229
about the condition of that country. In the first place, that
all shepherds and goatherds were an abomination to the
Egyptians, s< that Joseph, the Eg3*ptian, could not eat at
the same table with the Hebrews, and the sons of Israel had
to live in a border district. In the next place, that the
king was the absolute master of the land, and that all its
inhabitants were his slaves, 1 while the fifth part of the har-
vest fell to his share, except in the case of land belonging
to the priests. The story gives us an explanation of this state
of things which, if true, makes the defence of Joseph's conduct
a hopeless task. For the king must have got all the corn by
which he supported Egypt and ' ' all the world " for seven
years, either for nothing or for a very low price, from his
subjects. Ought he then to have sold it at so high a price
in the time of want that all the Egyptians were stripped of
everything they possessed, and were compelled within two
years to give themselves up as slaves? This is no more
right than — possible !
Let us glance for a moment at the country and the people
in question.
In the north-east corner of Africa, bounded on the west
by the great desert of Sahara, and on the north by the
Mediterranean Sea, and separated from Arabia on the east
by the Red Sea and the peninsula of Sinai, lies Egypt, the
valley of the mighty Nile. This stupendous river, even
before it has left the highlands of Abyssinia and entered
Egypt proper, is already more than three thousand feet in
width. The valley fertilized by the Nile and wrested, as it
were, from the sands of the desert, is on an average about
eight miles broad. On the west it is protected by a range
of hills from the all-engulfing sands of the Sahara and the
terrible blasts of the desert wind, while it is cut off on the
east also by the range of crags and sand-hills that runs along
the shore of the Red Sea.
All Egypt is supported by the Nile. Every year, soon
after midsummer, when the snow melts on the tops of the
mountains among which both streams of the Nile (the Blue
and the White Nile) take their rise, and there is a heavy fall
of rain, the Lower Nile gradually rises in its bed. Towards
the end of July it overflows its banks and floods the whole
valley up to the foot of the hills that enclose it, till by the
end of September it stands more than twenty feet above the
lowest witer-mark. Then the river sinks again as slowly as
1 Genesis xlvii 21, after an amended version.
230 JACOB IN E&YPT.
it has risen, and after covering all the land for four months
it is once more confined within its banks again. In con-
sequence of its gradual rise and fall, the water leaves a layer
of rich mud behind it all over Egypt, and the air is pleas-
antly tempered during the hottest season of the .year by the
extraordinary increase in the expanse of water. It hardly
ever rains in Egypt, except in the northern portion, the so-
called Delta, which is cut up by the numerous branches into
which the Nile is here divided as it flows through its seven
mouths into the sea. The nearness of the Mediterranean Sea
sometimes causes a fall of rain in this district.
This country was called by its inhabitants " Chemi," that
is, the black, because of the color of its soil, which stood off
darkly from the glittering white of the downs and the yellow
of the plains of sand by which it was surrounded. The name
' ' Egypt " was given to the country "by the Greeks ; and we
find a corruption of this word in the name of " Copts," given
to the Christian population of the country.
All the northern coast of Africa, as well as the whole
valley of the Nile up to the Ab3 r ssinian mountains, was
inhabited by peoples whose complexion, language, and cus-
toms formed a sharp contrast to those of the Negroes who
possessed the greater part of Africa. A branch of then-
language still survives in that of the Berbers. Chief among
them all in cultivation and knowledge was the people that
dwelt on the banks of the lower Nile, and founded one of
the most ancient of the civilized states of the world.
Our knowledge of Egyptian history goes back to a very
high antiquity, though little more than lists of kings have
come down to us from the earliest times. More than forty
centuries before Christ there was a regular state in Egypt,
and arts and sciences flourished there. 1 Indeed the country
was well calculated to make its inhabitants thoughtful and
energetic. For, though it was very fruitful, it required
careful cultivation. The yearly overflowing of the Nile made
it necessary to take many precautions for the protection of
flocks and other possessions from the water ; to observe the
period at which the stream rose and fell ; to collect the pro-
visions required for the support of man and beast for months
together, while the land was transformed as it were into a
sea ; to build boats and pass a great deal of time on the
water; and accurately to fix, measure, and mark out the
boundaries of the fields, to avoid constant disputes about them
» See p. 66.
JACOB IN EGYPT. 231
As the population increased, it gradually became neces-
sary to find artificial means of bringing the fertilizing water
to the land that stood too high for it to reach of itself, to rid
the marshy districts of their excessive supply, and to pre-
vent the water in general from running off too soon, so as
to secure as great a deposit of mud as possible.
Thus the Egyptians were raised, alike by the advantages
and disadvantages attached to the nature of their soil, into a
thoughtful and industrious people.
Love of freedom, however, was certainly not one of the
qualities by which they were distinguished, at any rate in the
times of which the memory has come clown to us. The oldest
monuments of the Egyptians bear witness to their servile
disposition. At the head of the nation stood the king, or
Pharaoh ; for this is a title, and not a proper name, as might
be supposed from certain passages in the Old Testament. 1
The meaning of the word is uncertain. It is generally taken
to mean "the king," while some translate it "the son of
Ra" (an Egyptian god), and others "the gate.'' This last
explanation is not so out of the way as it sounds. Thus,
ever since the time of Osman (about 1300 a.d.) the govern-
ment of the Turkish Empire has been called ' ' the Sublime
Porte," or simply " the Porte," that is, the gate. This name
was first given to the principal gate of the palace, and was
afterwards transferred to the power which issued its orders
through this gate. If " Pharaoh" is correctly translated the
gate, the word does not properly apply to the person of the
monarch, but to the government. It is natural enough,
however, that the name should have been applied to the
prince himself. For Egypt was a country whose king could
say with Louis XIV., the most royal of modern princes : "I
am the state." On the Egyptian monuments, accordingly,
we see not only laborers and soldiers, but generals, govern-
ors, and even priests lying prone upon the ground, bowed
down to the dust, in the presence of the ruler. In the begin-
ning of 'things, so the priests taught, the gods had ruled
upon the earth, but they had handed over their jurisdiction
entirely to the kings, who were not only called the sons of
the gods, but the very gods of the country themselves. They
bear the names of "the sun that is given to the world,"
"the lifegiver," or " the mighty Horus," while the queen ia
called "the mighty Isis ; " Horus being the name of an Egyp-
1 Genesis, xli. 46. Exodus vi. 11, &c.
232 JACOB IN EGYPT.
tian god, and Isis that of a goddess. On the monuments,
too, we often find representations of the kings sacrificing to
their ancestors, and of the gods serving them. One of the
Egyptian princes (Amenophis III., about 1500 B.C.) went so
far as to raise a temple for the worship of himself.
Where royalty was regarded in such a light, the authority
of the kings must have been unlimited ; and a proof that it
leally was so may be found in the gigantic works they
executed ; for they could never have carried them out unless
they had had free command of the labor of their subjects.
Hundreds of thousands of laborers had to toil year after
year not only upon canals, from which the people at least
derived some benefit, or temples to the building of which .
their piety maj T have contributed, but also upon the magnif-
icent palaces and the gigantic pyramids, which only served
to immortalize the names of princes, and furnish them with
dwellings in their lives and mausoleums after their death.
Sometimes the laborers perished by thousands from exhaus-
tion and insufficient food ; but what price was too high to pay
for the glory of an Egj'ptian prince ?
It follows naturally from the unlimited character of the
royal authority that the Pharaoh was really the sole pro-
prietor of the land ; for since he had absolute command of
the ver}- lives of his subjects, how much more must he have
had power over their possessions ! This was more or less
characteristic of all eastern countries. But in Egypt the
rights of the princes with regard to the soil and its produce
were more accurately defined than elsewhere, and so attracted
the attention of the foreigners who visited the country. The
accounts they give, however, do not agree with one another.
Our writer tells us, for instance, that all the land belonged
by law to the king, who let it to his subjects for the payment
of one-fifth of the yield, while none but the priests possessed
land of their own. A certain Greek writer on the other hand
tells us that the land was divided into three parts, of which
one belonged to the Icing, one to the priests, and one to the
soldiers. Another says that King Eamses the Great, of whom
we shall have more to say presently, had the whole country
divided into equal squares and gave one of them to each
Egyptian.
Whether the account of the Israelite or that of the first
Greek writer is the true one, in either case the state of things
described must have arisen gradually. It is impossible to be-
lieve that within the space of a few years a free people became
JACOB IN EGYPT. 233
a nation of slaves and that their laud passed out of the hands
of the people into those of the king. That the inhabitants
were suddenly compelled by want to put all their goods and
their very bodies at the king's disposal, is just as inconceiv-
able as that once upon a time a prince divided the country
into square fields of equal size and gave each of his subjects
one of them. And yet there must be some reason why the
king's rights over the land were so much more accurately
regulated in Egypt than elsewhere. This reason is not diffi-
cult to find. The state, that is, the king, could not fail to
gain great power in Egypt, from the fact that a regular and
settled government was a pressing necessity there not only on
extraordinary occasions, but at all times. For as we have
seen already, the fertility of the soil, the welfare of the country,
and the peaceable disposition of the citizens towards each
other, all depended upon the manner in which the overflow-
ings of the Nile were regulated and the boundaries of the
fields marked out. It could not be left to the citizens them-
selves to make provision for all this. The matter must be
taken in hand by the prince himself, who soon gained enor-
mous power by this control of the public works. The feeling,
then, of the pressing necessity of co-operation and unity had
been stamped upon the Egyptians by their peculiar circum-
stances from the most ancient times. Thus the two primeval
kingdoms — that of Memphis in Lower and of Thebes in
Upper Egypt — were united together as early as the year
2300 B.C., and the king was consequently called " the lord of
both the countries." One of these kings, Amenemha III.,
called Moeris by the Greeks, had a lake of enormous dimen-
sions dug out near Memphis. A canal conducted a supply
of water from the Nile into this lake, where it could be col-
lected and retained when the flood was so high that there was
danger of marshes being formed. It was allowed to run off
again when the river did not rise as high as usual, and the
flood was therefore slight. This artificial sea existed for
centuries. At last the works were neglected by a careless
government, and the water inside broke through and formed
a natural sea near the present Fayum.
Now the construction and keeping up of such works as
these, the necessity of testing the condition of the river, and
opening and closing the sluices at the right time, so as to
regulate the supply of water in the stream, all this not only
gave the kings a great deal of power generally, but also gave
them a special right over the land, the fertility of which was,
234 JACOB IN EGYPT.
to a large extent, dependent upon their care. If we take
the story of Joseph, then, in a typical rather than a literal
sense, it is perfectly true. The prince who knew how to lay
by in time of plenty, so as to have a supply ready for times
of want, might well be called Saphnat-Paneah, or deliverer of
the country, and no one in Egypt must " raise hand or foot"
against his will. It was but right that he should deal with
his subjects just as the general interest required, and that
they should always have to pay a heavy tribute ; for was not
he who had command of the waters of the Nile the " life -
waker " of the people ?
According to our Israelite narrator, the priests of Egypt
enjoyed many privileges. They were supported by supplies
sent them directly from the king, so that they had no occa-
sion to sell their lands. This sounds simple enough ; but the
real state of things cannot, of course, be so easily described.
For in Egypt, as in every other ancient country, there was a
motley mixture of various religions. The Egyptian gods and
goddesses were numerous, and their temples, great and small,
covered the land. Now one god, and now another, rose to
the highest honor, as the preference of the king or some other
circumstance dictated ; and with the greater or smaller amount
of honor that fell to the lot of any deity, the income of the
priests, of course, rose and fell ; but, generally speaking, they
were not only free from the cares of want, but lived in abun-
dance, and exercised a great deal of power, for the Egyptians
were a very superstitious people, and nothing is more profit-
able to a priesthood than this.
According to the story in Genesis, Joseph is taken into the
priestly caste ; for the fine linen garment in which he is clothed
forms the costume of the priests, who were never allowed to
dress themselves in anything but linen. Moreover, he marries
the daughter of the priest of On. At the same time the dis-
tinctive mark of royalty, the golden necklace is hung upon his
neck, and he is placed in the same rank as the ro}"al princes,
for he rides in the king's second chariot, and every one has to
kneel down before him. These two sets of distinctions go
very well together, for in Egypt the king was also the high
priest. Every other Egyptian had to approach the gods
through a mediator, but the king had not.
It appears from what has been said already that the writei
of the legend of Joseph was pretty well acquainted with some
of the conditions and ideas of Egyptian life ; and he shows
JACOB IN EGYPT. 235
the same familiarity with them in his remark that shepherds
and goatherds are an abomination to the Egyptians, that
Joseph the Egyptian might not eat at the same table with the
Hebrews, and that the border land of Goshen was assigned to
them as their dwelling-place. But we should be quite mis-
taken if we were to suppose from his words that the Egyptians
possessed no sheep or goats, or that the keepers of these ani-
mals were held in dishonor among them ; for this was by no
means the case. Our knowledge of Egyptian life is princi-
pally drawn from the pictures upon the pyramids and the walls
of palaces and temples ; and in these pictures we often find
flocks of small cattle both at the stall and at pasture ; and,
indeed, the story of Joseph itself speaks of them. 1 Ancient
historians tell us that the Egyptian shepherds were very clever
at their trade, and, amongst other accomplishments, showed
great skill in the treatment of their sick beasts. In some
districts we even find sheep and goats used for sacrifices.
The Egyptians, then, did not hold all shepherds and goat-
herds in abomination, but they had a rooted aversion to the
foreign shepherd tribes that hung upoti the north-eastern
boundary of their country pasturing sheep and goats. Dislike
of all foreigners was remarkably intense in Egypt, but it was
more especially against these special tribes that the hatred of
th-3 native population was directed. This hatred was not
upfounded; for about the year 2100 B.C. the whole kingdom
of Memphis fell into the power of certain tribes of Syrian
shepherds. The} - had pushed into the country unexpectedly,
and, after having conquered it without much difficulty, had
maintained themselves there for more than four centuries.
They were called the Hyksos, that is, the shepherd kings. At
last, about the year 1660 B.C., Upper Egypt rose against
them, under the leadership of King Amosis, and succeeded in
regaining its freedom ; but Lower Egypt long remained in
their power. On the eastern bank of the Nile the Hyksos had
built themselves a fortified camp, in which they placed their
possessions in safety, and from which they ruled the Delta.
At last King Thutmosis undertook the siege of this fortress,
but he was obliged to consent to a treaty by which the Hyksos,
with a force of two hundred and forty thousand fighting men,
went off to Syria. The site of this camp was called Avaris
[that is, Hebrews (?)], and afterwards Pelusium [that is,
Philistines (?)]. By the year 1580 B.C. Egypt was once more
free. So, at least, several scholars have read the old monu-
1 Genesis xlvii. 17.
236 RETROSPECT.
ments of Egypt ; but much of all this is uncertain, and other
scholars dispute the justice of this view of the history. It is
a fact, however, that the land was oppressed for a considerable
time by tribes of Arab shepherds.
It was not unnatural that after this the Egyptians should
feel the strongest aversion to all foreigners, and especially to
the shepherd tribes that came from the desert of Arabia.
The ancestors of the people of Israel were soon to feel this
hatred to their cost, as we shall presently see.
Chapter XXIX.
RETROSPECT.
AT the end of our First Book we may well pause for a
moment, for it would not be surprising were the picture
beginning to swim before the eyes of many of my readers, and
were they somewhat at a loss to give a reasonable account
of what they have been reading. All these legends that place
us in such a strange world, and are sometimes at variance
with each other, and sometimes so marvellously woven together
that it is almost impossible to keep hold of the thread that is
to lead us out of the labyrinth, — all these legends begin at
last to get so inextricably confused that we find it impossible
to take a general view of them at all. How utterly different
the final impression one retains as a child, when, with no deep
thought on the matter, and content with any kind of solution
of the difficulties that arise, one drinks in the stories of the
first human generations and of the patriarchs, — delighting in
them, more because they feed the imagination and work upon
the feelings than because they are good for the heart or head !
Let us cast a glance backward then, that, while each of the
stories still speaks for itself, we ma}- take a general view of
the whole.
The first point that excites our attention is the extraordinary
manner in which the book of Genesis is put together ! We
cannot help asking, " How could sensible men by any possi-
bility write such a book?" For what is it that we have
observed? That this book is made up of portions of at least
three works. First of all, to begin with the ?atest, there was
a "Book of Origins," from which, however, but few of tha
RETHOSPECT. 237
stories were borrowed. The first account of the creation and
Adam's family register formed a part of it. And it also con-
tained an account of the deluge and of God's covenant with
the rescued persons, followed by a family register from Noah
down to Abraham. But there was not much about the patri-
archs in it. The migration of Terah to Canaan, the covenant
of God Almighty (El Shaddai) with Abraham, the institution
of circumcision, the birth of Isaac, the purchase of the cave of
Machpelah, a summary of Ishmael's descendants, the birth of
Esau and Jacob, a short account of Jacob's stay with Laban
and the mention of the separation of Isaac's two sons, one of
whom went to Seir while the other stayed in Canaan, a list
of Esau's descendants, the migration of Jacob and his family
to Egypt, the adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh by their
grandfather, as his own children, and the burial of the lat-
ter at Hebron, — this is almost all. It is little more than a
short epitome of the contents of the traditions current during
the writer's lifetime, and does but serve as the introduction
to a rather extensive work ; for, though we have already gone
through Genesis, we have not taken our leave of the " Book
of Origins " yet. On the contrary, we have still to examine
its most important sections.' Not only are some of the biblical
accounts of Moses borrowed from this book, but we shall also
find an elaborate system of Israelite law in it, together with a
description of the Mosaic religion, according to the writer's
idea of it. His review of the fortunes of the generations
before Moses is a very suitable introduction to the rest, for he
shows us how preparations for the Mosaic religion were grad-
ually made ; how God revealed himself to the early generations,
not as Yahweh, but as "God" or "God-almighty;" and
how certain commandments, such as the abstinence from
blood and the circumcision, had been given to Israel already,
before God made his law completely known by Moses. We
shall return to this subject in our Fourth Book.
If we remove from the book of Genesis all the stories
drawn from the "Book of Origins," and leave out of con-
sideration the alterations introduced by the Bedactor (that
is, the man who made up a single whole out of the older
works), we have still a collection of legends which were
written by at least two authors, whose accounts, especially
in the stories of Jacob and Joseph, are often opposed to
one another, but yet are so woven together that it is ex-
ceedingly difficult to separate them and read each of them
straight through by itself. One writer, whose hand we
238 RETROSPECT.
can trace all through the book, from the storjr of Paradine
down to Joseph's death, ascribes Mosaic usages quite freely to
pre-Mosaic antiquity, whereas another never lets these early
generations speak of Yahweh or offer sacrifices, but on the
other hand represents them as raising anointed stones, a
practice which the patriarchs never followed, according to
the former writer. There are many reasons for suspecting
that this writer, who avoids the name of Yahweh (he is
sometimes called the older Efohist, because, like the later
"Book of Origins," he always speaks of Elohim, " God"),
was an Ephraimite, while the other (the Yahwist) lived in
Judah. We shall meet with both these writers again in our
Second Book.
We have now given a slight sketch of the way in which
Genesis was probably put together. I say "probably," for
I have made no attempt, either here or in speaking of the
separate stories, to conceal the fact that it is veiy difficult to
arrive at certainty upon every point. No doubt my readers
have sometimes become quite perplexed in listening to these
legends so strangely fused together and worked up into a
single whole, and now and then the scholars who are trying to
separate the whole into its parts feel just the same confusion.
Since the middle of the last century, when a French physician
published a book to show that Genesis is made up of differ-
ent fragments, many Biblical scholars have devoted their
powers to this question, and though great progress has been
made already, we are not at the end of our labors yet.
Many of my readers may be ready to cry out at this point,
"How could the Redactor of Genesis possibly go to work
in such an extraordinary manner? Why did he so often
retain the very words of the old documents, even when they
contradicted each other?" No doubt it is strange; — so
strange indeed that we can quite understand the ridicule
which some people throw upon the idea that the book of
Genesis was really produced in this manner. And yet
this opinion is no mere idle theory, but is forced upon
us by the work itself; for the repetitions and contradic-
tions it contains cannot be explained in any other way.
To take a single example, no one who reads the first chap-
ters of Genesis in an unprejudiced spirit can fail to see that
two accounts of the creation stand over against each other
there ; and in the sequel too, we have numerous examples,
from the history of Jacob for instance, that speak unmis-
takably enough. It certainty does show a want of thought
RETROSPECT. 239
on the part of the Redactor, but his case by no means stands
alone. We shall notice a similar phenomenon in other books
of the Old Testament, especially in Exodus, Samuel, and
Kings. Moreover, the students of other branches of Oriental
Literature tell us of the same thing. The Arabian historians
go to work in the same way. There is an old chronicle, for
instance, called the chronicle of Tabari, which is nothing but a
collection of traditions, strung together without the least pre-
tence of criticism, full of repetitions, contradictions, and impos-
sibilities. Other writers have drawn from this work ; that is
to say they have given us the same narrative but have
altered a little here and there, removed some of the contradic-
tions and omitted some of the most hopelessly improbable
stories ; hut have also inserted words of a far later date.
Lastly, one writer, of somewhat higher culture, who has a
definite plan, and may be compared in this respect to the
writer of the "Book of Origins," uses only so much of the
traditionary matter as he requires for his purpose, and makes
it into a single whole. But in most cases there is a total
absence of all criticism.
Where facts speak we must yield to them, even if we can-
not explain them. However strange it may seem, then,
we must admit that Genesis, like many other books of the
Bible, was put together in this extraordinary manner.
Of the origin and the earliest history of the Israelites, and
the tribes related to them, we know, in spite of all the stories
furnished us by the book of Genesis, sadly too little. Before
Moses, indeed, the Israelites had no history, properly so
called. 1 All that we know of their fortunes, and of those of
the people with whom they were brought into contact, comes
to this : —
A number of Semitic tribes of Arphaxad began, in primeval
times, to cross the river Euphrates, and passing onward
towards the south-west, pushed into the district that lies
between the Mediterranean Sea, the Euphrates, the Persian
Gulf, and Egj'pt. The greater portion of these wandering
hordes, the Joktanites, passed into Arabia. Here they
gradually established themselves ; but we have no means of
knowing whom they found already living there. As to the
coast of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Jordan, and the
district on the east bank of this river, we have, on the other
hand, reason to believe that it was inhabited about sixteen
l See pp. 97-99.
240 RETROSPECT.
centuries before Christ by the Rephaites and Anakites m
Canaan, the Horites in what was afterwards Edom, the
Zamzummites in the land of Ammon, and the Emites in
that of Moab. These tribes long survived, as races of giants,
m the imagination of the Israelites, even after the conquest
by Joshua.
The Semitic tribes that penetrated in those early ages
from the other side of the great river into this district by the
sea-shore fought for life and death, of course, with the wild
aborigines (earliest population), and the result showed that
the invaders were the most powerful. They were afterwards
called Canaanites, that is, Loivlanders, and consisted of
various tribes, such as the Sidonians, the Tjrians, Ihe
Avvites, and the Amorites. They gradually settled first in
Sidon and then elsewhere, and not only expelled the ancient
inhabitants, but before long began to fight for possession
with one another. For all these tribes did not come at
the same time ; and it was long before the stream of im-
migration was stayed. There was a constant forward and
backward movement — a succession of efforts to gain a
country. Other "men from the farther side" (Hebrews)
followed those that had first arrived ; and even of this rear-
guard, of the continuous migrations of centuries, one section
was more successful than another. "•The sons of Lot"
soon found a dwelling-place east of the Jordan and the
Dead Sea; "the sons of Esau" established themselves on
the mountains between this sea and the Gulf of Elath ;
the Ishmaelites wandered out eastward into the desert ;
others, "the sons of Keturah," penetrated southward and
took possession of a portion of Arabia ; and some turned
towards Egypt and settled in the district east of the Delta.
They were not the first of their race with whom the Egyp-
tians had made acquaintance. They had still a lively rec-
ollection of all the misery they had suffered from those
shepherd tribes of Asia, the Hyksos, and all the difficulty
they had had in getting rid of them ; but however strong
their aversion was, they were obliged to put up with the
presence of these shepherds on their border lands. Never
since the days of Thutinosis, probably, had they been alto-
gether rid of these hated neighbors, who certainly wandered
backwards and forwards after their expulsion from Egypt,
endeavoring to penetrate into Canaan again, or contenting
themselves with the desert of Arabia, and repeatedly coming
into collision with other tribes from across the Euphrates.
RETROSPECT. 241
Who knows how many of the forefathers of the Hebrews who
pastured their flocks in Goshen about 1400 B.C. may have
belonged to the former oppressors of Egypt ? The Hebrews
themselves, however, had preserved no recollection of anything
of the land. This much alone is certain, that the social con-
dition of the land between the Euphrates and Eg}'pt fourteen
centuries before Christ was in a veritable chaos. All kinds
of Semitic tribes clashed together there, and fought for a
settled home against each other and the fierce tribes of
older inhabitants. It was a struggle for life. From some
of these tribes, then settled in the land of Goshen, the
people of Israel sprang.
The history of Israel, then, begins with Moses. Before
his time there did indeed exist certain uncultivated shepherd-
tribes,, capable, as the result showed, of great things ; but it
was impossible to see what would become of them. Moses,
by his mighty personality, moulded these rude tribes into
something higher, and laid the foundations of a national
existence amongst them, while stamping the impress of his
own spirit upon their union. But "one sows and another
reaps." He who lays the foundations of a national existence
does not live to see the nation. Not years, but centuries
must pass away before the national unity was really estab-
lished, and from the Hebrew shepherds that inhabited the
land of Goshen fourteen centuries before Christ, a nation
had been formed with its own special character and its own
special mission. This only came about in the age of David,
and his accession to the throne, therefore, is a turning-point
in the history of Israel.
In describing this second period we would gladly stand
entirely upon historical ground, but it is impossible that our
wish to do so should be fulfilled. We shall still meet with a
host of legends, and with regard to the fortunes of Moses and
his contemporaries, for instance, we shall have to content our-
selves with the knowledge of one or two particulars. But the
main lines of Israelite history are clear, many facts are
established, and, most important of all, several of the chief
actors in the history are known to us as individuals. From
the darkness then we are coming into the twilight. We can
distinguish several great personalities clearly. And, when
we look closely, we gradually see a most intensely interesting
spectacle rising more and more distinctly into view ; — it is
the birth of a nation !
VOL. 1. 11
Book II.
FROM MOSES TO DAVID.
Chapter I.
THE YOUTH OF MOSES.
Ex. I. l.-II. 22.
AT the head of Israel's history stands the mighty figure of
Moses. He lived in times when his people were as yet
in a state of barbarism, and for many centuries afterwards no
historian appeared amongst them ; so it is not surprising that
we know but little of his life. Legend plays a greater part
than history in the accounts which we possess of him, and it
is impossible to give a sketch of his life and character which
we can confidently declare to be true. But Israel never lost
the memory of the man who was considered the spiritual father
of his people. A grateful posterity named him — and to a
large extent with justice — the founder of Israel's national
existence and of the worship of Yahweh. As such, then, he
may claim a place of honor amongst the men whose lives have
moulded the history of the world.
The book of Exodus opens with an account of his birth and
early life, which runs as follows : —
The youth of Moses fell in evil days, for his people were
in great distress, on account of the fear with which they were
regarded by the Egyptian king. Nor was the monarch's alarm
without good cause, for after the death of Joseph and his
generation, the posterity of Jacob multiplied beyond measure,
so that they filled the land. Now the king under whom Joseph
had served as viceroy was dead, and his successor, who knew
nothing of Joseph's services to Egypt, looked upon this in-
crease in the number of the Hebrews with great anxiety. So
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THE YOUTH OF MOSES. 243
he said to his advisers : " See how numerous these tribes have
grown. Nay, they are more powerful than we are ourselves.
We must take steps to prevent their increasing still more ; or
else, when war breaks out, they will take the side of our
enemies, and at last, after turning their arms against us, leave
the country altogether." So the Egyptians began systemat-
ically to oppress the Israelites. All kinds of toil were forced
upon them. For instance, they were compelled to build two
fortresses, Pithom and Ramses, in Goshen, the district in
which most of them lived. A hateful task ! For the sole
object of these fortresses was to keep them down, and to pre-
vent their kindred tribes of the desert from coming to their
rescue. They were compelled to perform other kinds of servile
work as well, and in some places heavy labor in the fields was
required of them. Thus the Egyptians oppressed them out
of fear ; but the more they oppressed them the more rapidly
did they multiply.
Then the king bethought him of another and more cruel
plan. He ordered the Hebrew nurses to kill all the male
children as soon as they were born. But the nurses — all
honor to them ! God gave them a numerous posterity as a
reward ! may the names of Siphrah and Puah never be for-
gotten by the sons of Israel ! — the nurses would not lend a
hand to the king in the execution of this treacherous design,
so the project of the tyrant came to nothing.
Next came a still more fearful decree. The Egyptians re-
ceived orders to slay the children of the Hebrews. The girls
they might suffer to live, but the boys must be thrown without
pity into the Nile.
It was in this time of misery that a woman of the tribe
of Levi — another writer tells us that her name was Joche-
bed — whose husband belonged to the same tribe, brought a
son into the world. She could not bear to think of it being
killed, it was such a splendid child. It was true she ran
fearful risks by keeping it concealed, but for three months
she persevered. Then some way the secret oozed out, and still
striving to do what could be done towards rescuing her child,
she wove a basket of papyrus, made it as water-tight as she
could, laid her little baby in it, and then put it among the
bulrushes on the banks of the river. Who could tell ? God
had power to save the little one ! His sister — she is called
Miriam elsewhere — was to stand some way off, but to keep
her eye upon the basket with such a precious treasure in to,
to see what would become of it.
24 i THE YOUTH OF MOSES.
She had not been watching long when, behold ! the king's
daughter, with all her train of slaves, came to bathe in the
Nile. It so happened that the basket among the bulrushes
caught her ej'e, and she sent one of her attendants to fetch
it ; and when they opened it they saw the child lying there
and wailing bitterly. The tender-hearted princess was moved
with pity, and exclaimed : " Surely it must be some Hebrew
child." Then Miriam came up and said : " Shall I find you
a Hebrew nurse to suckle it for you ? " And when the prin-
cess showed by her consent that she intended to keep the
child alive, Miriam hastened to her mother with the glorious
news. We may think how jo3'fully the mother obeyed the
summons of the king's daughter.
"What a strange scene it was ! There lay the baby crying
for food, and his mother, yearning all the while to lay him to
her breast, stood by as if she were a stranger, without daring
to betray how much better her right to the child was than
the princess's ! " Will you take this little one with you and
sickle it? I will pay you if you will," said the princess.
H ow Jochebed longed to cry out to her : ' ' The gods of my
people and the gods of your fathers reward you for taking
p' ty on this slave-child ! " But she must restrain herself.
She agreed to the wages offered, and took her own child
with her, as if she were an hireling. So Moses was brought
uji in the house of his parents during his early years, and
his first impressions were derived from amongst his own
people.
But when he grew older and could do without the first
care of a mother, Jochebed had to take him to the king's
daughter again. She did it with a bleeding heart. What
would become, of him now ! No doubt the princess would
take good care of him and have him well taught. The great
Egyptian lady could do everything for him far better than his
own mother could have done. But there was one great danger.
Would not the child, with his courtly education, learn to de-
spise his own people ! Would he not become an Egyptian,
every inch of him ! Would not his position make him forget
his origin? She feared it would be so.
The princess did not do her good work by halves. When
the boy was brought to her she called him Moses, i.e., the
drawn, " for," she said, " I have drawn him out of the water ; "
and she did not bring him up as a slave, but as if he were her
own son. So it seemed likely enough that he would forget his
Hebrew origin, or would feel ashamed whenever it came into
his mind.
THE lOUTH OP MOSES. 245
But it was not so. The voice of nature cried aloud within
him, and he was too noble to deny his kinsmen. In spite of
his Egyptian education, in spite of the contempt with which
his countrymen were regarded by those amongst whom he
lived, in spite of his own high rank, he was still a Hebrew at
heart. And so he was deeply troubled by the sad condition
of his own people. His blood would boil in his veins when ho
heard at court how they sported with their lives ; how thou-
sands of them were driven to the most exhausting toil — the
building of pyramids, palaces, temples, or fortresses ; how the
news that this or that number of them had again perished from
heat and weariness, thirst and hunger, was received at court
with perfect indifference, and only raised a question as to the
best way of bringing up another batch to take the places of
those that had perished, without its being necessary to stop the
work. And he shuddered to think how many of his kins-
men were banished, for resisting orders, to those stone
quarries from which death was only a release.
He could not bear it long. Hardly had he grown up and
begun to feel his strength, when the places where his kins-
men were driven to their servile tasks drew him more and
more irresistibly to them. He saw them panting under their
burdens ; he heard the swish of the driver's lash as it fell
upon them ; he must stand by and see them fall to the ground
in exhaustion, disease, and death — others at once taking
their places only to meet the same fate at last. He heard
them murmuring over tr-pir misery, cursing their oppressor,!,
praying for deliverance. Should he not — ? Nay! whut
could he do ? It was utterly >ut of his power to release them ;
and were he to betaiy any symptom of all that was going on
in his heart, it would simply bring him into the utmost danger,
without doing them the smallest good. Yet, was not he too a
Hebrew ? By birth he was ; but Egypt was a second father-
land, the princess a second mother to him. If he was patient,
it might be that hereafter, when he had risen to power and
distinction, he might take up the cause of his people and suc-
ceed in lightening their yoke. That would be much more
sensible than to stand by them now. He must wait then.
He must close his eyes to their misery and his ears to their
cry.
But yet he felt himself drawn irresistibly to the scenes of
the Hebrews' sufferings — dangerous spots for one in his pres-
ent frame of mind. If he was really to be patient he must
keep far away, or it would be impossible for him in the end
216 THE YOUTH O* MOSES.
to hold himself in cheek. It was impossible. He is standing
at a solitary spot, not far from one of the scenes of toil. A
Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk, sits down there to rest a moment,
for all his strength is gone. But one of the drivers has spied
him out. " How the lazy rascal is dawdling ! This is no time
for resting. If he breaks down under his burden, it is but a
small matter, for another can take his place. There is no
3tint of the villains. To your task there ! " The lash is raised.
It falls with a sharp, cruel sound. But it does not bite the
exhausted slave more fiercely than the tender-hearted man who
sees it, and has seen the Mice so often. All his prudence is
scattered to the winds. His wealth, his honors, his prospects,
are as nothing to him. He, too, is a Hebrew, and he feels
the blow as if it had been laid upon himself. A glance to the
right — a glance to the left. No one is in sight. His sword
has leapt from its scabbard ; a momentary gleam, and the
Egyptian falls ! No one has seen the deed except the res-
cued Hebrew, and surely he will not betray his deliverer.
The corpse of the slaughtered man is hurriedly covered with
sand.
A host of thoughts and questions crowded through the brain
of Moses. If the Hebrews were all at one ; if they rose to-
gether against their oppressors ; if each of them did what he
himself had done ; could not they rescue themselves ? If
they would listen to him, and put themselves under his guid-
auce, might he not succeed in — ? His heart beats high
at the thought. He feels that he is called to some great
task.
But a bitter disappointment awaits him. On the following
day he is once more at the same spot. Again he witnesses
a sight that grieves him. Two of his fellow-tribesmen .are
quarrelling with each other. At any rate this must not go
on. Unity alone gives strength. He goes at once to the
one who is evidently in the wrong, and asks : " Why are
you striking him ? " But what is his dismay on hearing the
answer: "Well! What business is it of yours? Who
has made you our judge and leader ? Perhaps you mean to
kill me as you did the Egyptian ! " What ! Was his deed
already known? The man he had delivered had told all
about it, and yet it had not been the signal of revolt to his
tribesmen. Were they ungrateful, then ? Had thej no love
of freedom?
Alas ! Moses knew little of the heart of a slave. Hereaftw
he was destined to learn only too much of it.
THE YOUTH OP MOSES. 241
He soon discovered that news of his bold deed had reached
the ears 'of the king, and that orders had been given for him
to be seized and put to death ; so he took flight at once, and
passed through the peninsula of Sinai to Midian. The inhab-
itants of this region were related to the Hebrews, so he hoped
to find a dwelling-place amongst them.
Fortune favored him ; for as he was sitting by the well of
the district, the seven daughters of Eeuel, the priest of the
Midianites, came to water their flocks ; but just at the same
moment some of the neighboring shepherds came up to drive
them away. Then the same chivalrous instinct which had led
Moses to take the part of his oppressed tribesmen urged him
to defend these sorely harassed maidens. The selfish shep-
herds soon saw how bold a champion the priest's daughters
had found, and kept their distance, while Moses watered the
maidens' flocks. It was not the first time that the girls had
had to suffer from the violence of the other owners of the well ;
nay, it was such a common occurrence that Reuel was quite
surprised to see his daughters back so soon. When they told
him all that had taken place, he reproved them for having
been so inhospitable as not to ask the Egyptian home, and
hastened to make up for their neglect.
"With Eeuel Moses found no mere resting-place for the dajr,
but another home ; and when he had married 'Zipporah (one
of Reuel's daughters) he felt himself united to his new sur-
roundings by the tenderest ties.
It is an undoubted fact that the ancestors of the Israelites
were oppressed by the Egyptians ; and it is but natural,
therefore, that our first inquiries should be : How long did
this period of oppression last? and, When did it cease?
We may look for light in two directions, and ask : What did
the Israelites say about it? and, Have the Egyptians pre-
served any recollections of it? The answer is not easily
given. The traditions of the Israelites differ widely from
each other, and so deserve but little confidence. In one
place 1 we are distinctly informed that the Israelites left
Egypt four hundred and eighty years before the building
of Solomon's Temple ; and elsewhere a that the slavery
lasted four hundred years, and the whole sojourn in Egypt
four hundred and thirty years. But then, again, there are
other accounts, according to which the Israelites returned to
Canaan as soon as the fourth generation after their settle-
1 1 Kings vi. 1. 2 Genesis xv. 18. Exodus xii. 10.
248 THE YOUTH OF MOSES.
ment in Egypt. 1 Now four hundred and eighty is obviously
a round number, and stands for the lifetime of twelve genera-
tions, each generation being put at forty years, which is
certainly too high. We have already * seen that the number
four hundred and thirty was also obtained artificially. The
narrative in Exodus implies that the oppression did not last
long, for it began as soon as the generation of Joseph had
passed away, and a king who had not known him sat upon
the throne. 8 It was in this king's reign that Moses was born,
and under his successor 4 that the Hebrews left Egypt. More-
over, it is in itself very unlikely that the slavery lasted long.
Had it done so, it would have succeeded in its object, and
completely broken the independent spirit of the Hebrews.
As to the Egyptian accounts, they are borrowed chiefly
from the work of an Egyptian priest, called Manetho, who
compiled a history of his people, from ancient authorities,
about the year 250 B.C. The work itself is lost, but Josephus
and others give us fragments of it. These extracts tell us
something of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, and pos-
sibly, though this is very uncertain, of their departure from
it. The opinions of the learned as to the succession of the
Egyptian kings and the length of their reigns also rest to a
large extent upon the same authority.
We have also gained some light from deciphering the inscrip
tions upon pyramids, palaces, obelisks, and temples ; though
it is only in the present century that scholars have taken this
work in hand. In 1799, on the occasion of Napoleon's expe-
dition against Eg3*pt, a stone was discovered at Rosetta, upon
which there was one inscription written in three languages, —
the hieroglyphic character, the demotic or popular Egyptian
character, and the Greek. This discover}- laid the foundations
of the art of deciphering the ancient inscriptions. Silvestre
de Sacy made some progress, and since his time the two
Champollions, Lepsius, Rosellini, Bunsen, and Brugsch,
amongst others, have rendered valuable services upon this
field o : study. But although the hoary past of Egypt is being
gradually unveiled by the labors of the learned, the task is
surrounded by many difficulties, and the work proceeds but
slowly.
It is no wonder, then, that with regard to the question we
are now considering we find students of the subject disagreeing,
and are therefore unable to lay down anything as certain.
1 Genesis xv. 16 ; cf. p. 122. Exodus vi. 16-18, 20, &e.
2 P. 60. 8 Exodus i. 8. •' Exodus ii. 2!).
THE YOUTH OF MOSES. 249
Bul the following conclusion is constantly gaining a more and
more unanimous support : —
When, about 1580 b.c, King Thutmosis III. had expelled
the Hyksos from Egypt, 1 the country rapidly rose in prosperity
and power. As the emancipation had proceeded from Upper
Egypt, the Pharaohs chose Thebes, instead of Mfmphis, as
their seat ; and there they built their magnificent temples and
palaces. They turned their weapons successfully against the
inhabitants of the valley of the Higher Nile, and Amenophis
III. (about 1500) built a temple to his own godhead there. 2
None of the kings, however, could rival the fame of Sethos
and his son Ramses, the former of whom reigned for fiftj r -one
"years (1445-1394), and the latter for sixty-six (1394-1328).
They triumphed in various wars over their enemies, amongst
others the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, and raised many mon-
uments of extraordinary magnificence. The number of their
captives of war was so great that, as a Greek writer assures
us, they had no need to exact servile labor from a single
Egyptian. This king, Eamses II. (Miamun, as he is called
in the inscriptions, or Sesostris, as the Greeks named him),
was probably the oppressor of the Hebrew tribes who pastured
their flocks in the land of Goshen. One of the cities which
the Israelites were compelled to build was accordingly called
Ramses. 3 This Ramses the Great was succeeded by his son
Menephthah, who reigned nineteen or twenty years ; and it
was in his reign, between the years 1328 and 1309 that is,
that the Israelites departed from Egypt.
Here we may leave the matter for the present to return to
the story of the youth of Moses, though we shall have to go
back to the history of Egypt presently.
" The j'outh of Moses" is certainty not a correct title for
this chapter, if it is true that the hero was eighty 3-ears old 4
when he began to emancipate his people ; for, in that case,
even if we admit the statement of an early Christian writer, 6
that he spent forty j'ears with his father-in-law, still he was
no longer in his 3'outh when he fled to Midian. But this
statement as to the age of Moses has a ver3* suspicious look.
We shall often find forty used as a round number to signify
a longish period •• and the story in Exodus says distinctly,'
" And it came to pass when Moses grew up that he went out
1 See p. 235. 2 See p. 232.
3 Exodus i. 11. 4 Exodus vii. 7.
5 Acts vii. 30. 6 Exodus ii. 11.
11*
250 THE YOUTH OF MOSES.
to look upon his brethren, and saw an Egyptian strike one of
his kinsmen."
When we examine the story of the youth of Moses closely,
we very soon see that it is a legend. Imagine a people so
powerful as to excite the fear of the Egyptians, and yet only
having two midwives, who were consequently in a position to
check the increase of the whole race ! It is as inconceivable
as the order to drown all the male children. It is evident what
gave occasion to the invention of the story. It was the belief
that the birth of a great man must be marked by something
extraordinary. The name Moses, too, which is derived from
a Hebrew word, signifying "to draw," played an important
part in the formation of the story. The writer fell into an
obvious mistake in making the Egyptian princess, who surety
did not speak Hebrew, give him this name. Attempts have
therefore been made, even in ancient times, to show that the
name of Moses is derived from two Egyptian words which
mean ' ' water " and ' ' to draw ; " but even if this were possible
it would simply be an accidental coincidence, for it is evidently
the Hebrew word to which our writer refers in his explanation
of the name.
Although he gives us a detailed account of the early days
of Moses, yet he never tells us the names of his parents.
They were evidently unknown to tradition. The "Book of
Origins," J however, calls his father Amram, the son of Kohath,
the son of Levi, and his mother Jochebed, Ainram's aunt, and
a daughter of Levi.
Our legend contrasts favorably in many respects with the
florid description of the youth of Moses which Josephus gives
his readers. It is astonishing to see how much he has to tell
us about it. The main features of his narrative are as follows :
The Egyptian king, who made the Hebrews Work as slaves
because his own people were lazy and were jealous of the
prosperity of these strangers, heard a prophecy that about that
time a child would be born among the Hebrews who would
humble the power of Egypt, deliver his own people, and be
celebrated all over the world for his wonderful valor. In order
to prevent its coming to pass, the king gave orders that all
the Hebrew boys that were born should be drowned, and for
fear the babies might be hidden by their parents he ordered
that Egyptian midwives should attend the Hebrew women.
Now when Amram's wife was expecting to become a mother,
her husband prayed to God for help, and God told him that
l Exodus vi. 16, 18.
THE YOUTH OF MOSES. 251
his child would be the promised deliverer. When the baby
was born its parents hid it for three months ; but then Aim-am
began to be afraid that he might be found out, and that in
that case both he himself and the child would be killed, and
God's promise brought to nothing. So he thought it better
to trust entirely to the promise rather than his own efforts to
hide the child, for God would doubtless find means of making
good his word.
This is a curious example of the way in which the determi-
nation to defend anybody's conduct, at all costs, leads a man
into every kind of obliquity. What we call the result of
fear becomes with Josephus the fruit of trust in God ! It is
surely nearer the mark to think it a proof of faith in the child's
parents that they did venture to hide him for three months,
and this is the view taken by a Christian writer of the Apos-
tolic age. 1
But to return to the story of Josephus.
The parents of Moses now laid the child in a little chest
made of papyrus, and let it float down the Nile while Miriam,
their daughter, followed it along the bank to see where
it would rest. Thus God showed how powerless is all the
wisdom of man, and that they who selfishly attempt the
destruction of others (referring, no doubt, to the king),, fail
in their efforts, while those, on the other hand, who run into
clanger in obedience to God's will, are rescued from it, even
against all hope. For Thermouthis, the king's only child,
found the little one, was delighted by its size and beauty,
and determined to keep it alive. But it was in vain that the
Egyptian women laid it to their breasts. It would not let
them feed it. The princess and her attendants were at a loss
what to do, but Miriam came up and said that the Egyptian
women were but losing their labor, though perhaps the child
would let a Hebrew woman feed it. On this Miriam was
commissioned by the princess to go and find a Hebrew
woman, and of course she brought her mother.
Now the Egyptians call water " mo," and one rescued
" ises," so that Moses signifies " one rescued from the water."
The boy grew up most wonderfully, excelling all around him
both in mind and body. He was so beautiful that when he
was three years old people stood still in the streets to look at
him, and so fascinating that they could not take their eyes
off him.
Thermouthis, who had no children of her own, adopted
1 Hebrews xi. 23.
252 THE YOUTH OF MOSES.
him, and presented him to her father, begging him to name
him as his successor if she should not have a child herself.
The king took the child in his arms, to please his daughter,
pressed him to his bosom, and playfully set the crown upon
his head. But Moses flung it to the ground and trampled on
it. This seemed a bad omen, and just at that moment came
in the very priest who had prophesied before that a boy would
be born destined to rescue the Israelites to the cost of the
Egyptians. He cried out, " O king ! this is the child ! Kill
il on the spot." But Thermouthis managed to save him, and
educated him with the greatest care, and Had him taught all
the sciences.
When Moses was grown up he rendered the Egyptians an
important service. The Ethiopians had made an inroad upon
them, and had penetrated as far as Memphis. The Egj-ptians^
were at their wits' end, and went to consult their gods, who"
told them to call in the help of the Hebrew, whereupon the
king requested his daughter to send him Moses. She con-
sented, after her father had taken an oath to do him no harm,
and reproachfully asked the priests whether they were not
ashamed of calling for the help of one against whose life they
had plotted. Egyptians and Hebrews alike rejoiced, though
for very different reasons, that Moses had been chosen as
general ; and he did not disappoint their expectations, but
defeated the Ethiopians, and finally married Tharbis, the
daughter of their king.
But when the Egyptians, repaying his service with ingrati-
tude, endeavored to put him out of the way, he fled to Midian,
where he was hospitably received by Eeuel.
Some of these particulars about the birth and j'outh of
Moses are evidently invented by Josephus himself, while
others were already current amongst the people in his time.
In the same way various additions to the Biblical story about
Moses are to be found in other writers, both Christian and
Jewish, after the beginning of our era. 1
A comparison of the story in Exodus with this account of
the events by Josephus is altogether favorable to the former.
Not only is it delightfully simple, while the other is gaudy and
overloaded, but, singularly enough, while Josephus praises
Moses extravagantly for his wonderful beauty, valor, and skill
in warfare, delights to enlarge on his fame and power, and
mentions the opportunities he enjoyed for gaining knowledge,
he omits the one really noble feature in the character of Moses
i E.g., Acts vii. 23.
THE YOUTH OF MOSES. 253
as sketched in Exodus. For, according to Josephus, he has
to flee simply because the king is afraid of him, not at all
because he has taken the part of his unhappy tribesmen.
Worldly men place a high value upon all that glitters, upon
all earthly greatness. With men of a spiritual type, on the
other hand, the highest privileges of such a nature do not
weigh against one single deed of virtue. Worldly men,
therefore delight in speaking of riches, beauty, and honor.
Spiritual men dwell rather upon traits of moral grandeur.
Josephus passes over both the courage of the midwives and
the self-sacrifice of Moses. The writer of Exodus, on the
other hand, only mentions the beauty of Moses in passing, and
fixes our attention on his brilliant prospects only in so far as
this was necessary, to show us howmuch he sacrificed for his
people's sake. This proves that he knew the worth of moral
greatness.
But are we to praise Moses for that deed of violence?
Did he not commit a murder when he slew the Egyptian ?
and must we ever speak of such an action with approval ?
This question certainly never entered the head of the
writer of Exodus. Murder was indeed considered a sin in
Israel; but a human life was much less highly prized in
ancient times than is now the case. At a time when it was
considered the duty of the relative of a murdered man to
exact vengeance for him with his own hand and slay his
murderer, no one would dream of condemning a man for
leaping to the rescue of his own flesh and blood and slaying
a stranger. But to us, who have learned to value every
human life so highly, the question does arise : Is the action
of Moses in all respects worthy of approbation ? And we can-
not but answer : No ; a murder is never to be commended !
The end never justifies the means ! Even if the noblest
motives urge a man to strike another dead, j-et, if his con-
science be sound, he must sooner or later repent. A murder,
even if no human judge can punish us ; nay, even though
half the world should rise up to thank us for it ; a murder,
committed in self-defence or to rescue a neighbor, still con-
taminates us and makes us unclean in the sight of God. But
there are circumstances under which the noble impulses of
the heart can only speak in deeds of violence or even blood-
shed ! The warrior who, burning with love for his father-
land, strikes down the foe, is stained in the sight of God ;
and, if he has a feeling heart, he shrinks from himself in
after times when he thinks of what he has done. Yet he stands
254 MOSES IN MIDIAN.
far, far above the coward, caring for nothing but his own
security, who sneaks away and keeps quiet, leaving his
fatherland to its fate. In the same way, though we cannot
commend Moses for the murder he committed, yet the feel-
ings that inspired him at that moment do deserve the highest
praise. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews dwells
with fine perception upon this point when he says: 1 " By
faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called
a son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer afflic-
tion with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of
sin. for a season."
Honor to the man who takes the part of the weak — who
lisks his own interests for those of his neighbor — who " en-
dures as seeing the Invisible ! " 2 While he loses all earthly
reward and throws away a crown, he gains a glory greater
than the treasures of Egypt.
Chapter II.
MOSES IN MIDIAN.
Ex. III. 1-IV. 28.
THE place which the Israelite biographers of Moses called
" the land of Midian " lies, iu all probability, south-east
of Horeb, in the southern portion of the Ninaitic peninsula.
Greek geographers, who visited these regions in the second
century before Christ, found, on the shore of the Elanite
gulf, a grove of palm-trees and a plentiful supply of water,
valued all the more highly on account of the dryness of the
country round. The office of priest at the sacred grove was
filled by a man and woman, wbxkwere clothed in the hides of
animals, ate the fruit of the palms, and slept in huts built
upon the trunks of the trees, for fear of beasts of prey. They
were consecrated to the priesthood for life, and knew by tra-
dition that their ancestors had filled the same office time out
of mind. A great feast was celebrated in the grove every
five years, and on these occasions well-fed camels were sacri-
ficed to the gods, and the frequenters of the festival took
water home with them from the well, believing it to possess
1 Hebrews xi. 24, 25. 2 Hebrews xi. 27.
mos.es in midian. 255
healing powers. To this very day there is a harbor in the
neighborhood called ' ' the harbor of the well," near which may
still be seen a well and an old funereal monument which
the Bedouins and sea-men hold in high honor, and to which
they make all kinds of offerings. Here we imagine Reuel,
" the priest of Midian," as he is always called, to have dwelt.
The name Reuel, however, only occurs twice. 1 Everywhere
else that of Jether or Jethro is substituted. Perhaps this
was originally a title signifying " chief" or something of the
kind, and has been taken for a proper name by mistake.
We are not told by the narrators in Exodus how long
Moses dwelt in Midian ; but they give us a detailed account
of the close of his sojourn there. It runs as follows : —
Moses used to tend the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro,
the priest of Midian ; and once, when he was pasturing them
near Horeb, the mountain of God, he witnessed a most
extraordinary sight. He saw a bramble-bush all in flames,
but however fiercely the fire burned, the sprays and leaves of
the bush were not consumed. So strange a sight drew Moses
to the spot, to trj' to find out how it was that the shrub was
not destroyed ; but, prepared as he was for something out of
the common course of events, he was far from thinking of
any such glorious revelation as he was actually to receive.
For the fiery glow was nothing less than the token of Yah-
weh's presence ; and when the deity perceived that Moses
turned aside to the flame, he cried out to him: "Moses!
Moses ! " Filled with amazement and awe, Moses stood still,
and, declaring his readiness to receive the message of the
deity, answered : " Here am I ! " " Come not nearer," was
the command, ' ' and take your sandals from off your feet ;
for the spot whereon you stand is holy ground."
With naked feet, Moses stood still to listen, and veiled his
face in terror lest he should see the deity with whom he
spoke. His heart trembled when he heard the words: "I
am the god of your forefathers, the god of Abraham, of Isaac,
and of Jacob." He waited in reverential silence for what
should follow, and Yahweh's voice was heard again: "I have
seen the misery of my people that is in Egypt, and have
heard its cry because it is oppressed. I know how great are
its sufferings. Therefore I have come down to deliver it from
the hand of the Egyptians, and to lead it to a good and ample
land overflowing with milk and honey, the dwelling-place of
the tribes of Canaan. Come, then, I have chosen you as
1 Exodus ii. 18. Numbers x. 29.
256 MOSES IN MIDIAN.
my messenger to Pharaoh. Go ! and deliver my people from
Egypt."
Deeply conscious of his own weakness, Moses was amazed
and bewildered by this command, and answered: "Lord!
who am I that I should have power to do this thing ? " But
the answer came back : "I will be with you. When you have
brought the people out of Egypt you shall worship me upon this
same mountain. Such is the proof that it is I who send you."
Moses now began to familiarize himself with the trust
that had been laid upon him, and to weigh its difficulties.
" When I go to the Israelites," he said in reply to the deity
that addressed him, " and declare that the god of their
fathers has sent me to them, then they will say to me,
' what is the name of the god who spoke to you ? ' " Then
God answered, " I am what I am. Tell the Israelites that
Yahweh, the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has sent
you to them. By this name I will be addressed to all eter-
nity. Go, then ! call the elders of the people together, and
tell them that Yahweh, the god of the patriarchs, has looked
upon them, and upon all they have had to endure in Egypt.
Promise them that you will deliver them from the oppression
of Egypt, and lead them to the land of the Canaanites. And
if they give heed to your words you must go together to
the king of Eg} T pt, and saj r to him that Yahweh, the god of
the Hebrews, has met you, and that }'ou desire to go three
days' journey into the desert to make sacrifices to him. I
know full well," continued Yahweh, " that the Egyptian king
will not freely grant the request, but I shall afflict his land
with many fearful plagues, which' you will see, until he is
forced to let you go. And then I shall make the Egyptians
feel kindly towards my people, so as not to let them leave
the land in poverty ; for the Hebrew women must ask their
neighbors for gold and silver cups and vessels, and for pre-
cious garments, and you must load your sons and daughters
with them, and so plunder Egypt."
But Moses was not yet silenced. "Lord!" he said,
" what must I do if the Israelites will not believe that Yah-
weh has revealed himself to me ? " This difficulty, like the
others, was removed by the deity. He commanded Moses to
throw down upon the ground the shepherd's staff which he
held in his hand, and then he changed it into a serpent,
from which Moses fled in terror, but when he seized it by
the tail it changed back again into a stick. Then Yahweh
made him put his hand into his bosom, and when he drew it
MOSES IN MIDIAN. ' 257
6ut it was white as snow with leprosj-, aud afterwards it was
restored to health again. If his tribesmen would not believe
that the god of their fathers had appeared to him, he was to
convince them by showing them these two wonders. If this
was not enough, he was to pour some of the Nile water upon
the bank, and it would turn to blood.
Still Moses had a difficulty. " Lord ! " he said, " I have
not the gift of speech ; I never had it, and I have not received
it by thy speaking to me." But this was of no account with
Yahweh. " Who gave a mouth to man?" he asked the hesi-
tating shepherd ; " who makes men dumb or deaf? who causes
them to see or to be blind? Is it not I, Yahweh? Go, then,
I will be with you, and will teach you what j'ou must say."
Moses had now no farther difficulty to urge ; but yet he
shrank from the task — it was so hard. "Nay, Lord," he
cried, " do but send some other ! " Then Yahweh answered
in a voice of anger : " Is not Aarou the Levite thy brother?
I know that he is eloquent. He will come to meet you and will
rejoice when he sees you. You must put the words into his
mouth, and I will help you both, and I will tell you what to do.
Aaron shall speak to the people for you, and serve as it were for
your mouthpiece. Go ! and take your magic staff with you."
Then Moses went to Jethro, and asked him to let him go
back to Egypt, to see whether his relatives were still alive.
When he had received permission he began his journey. On
the way, Yahweh said to him : ' ' Remember to do all the
wonders, for which I have given you the power, in the pres-
ence of Pharaoh. But it will be all in vain, for I shall
harden his heart, and he will refuse to let the people go.
Then you must saj- to him : Thus says Yahweh — ' Israel is
my son, my firstborn. Let my son go, that he may serve
me. If you refuse to do it, I will slay your eldest son.' "
Meanwhile Yahweh had appeared to Aaron also, and had
commanded him to go out from Egypt to meet Moses in the
desert. At the mount of God he met him, and joyfully em-
braced and greeted him. Moses told his brother what Yahweh
had commanded him, and what wonders he could perform.
Then they went to Egypt together.
It cannot be denied that this story is somewhat prolix*
though, as given above, it has been freed from several repe-
titions which make the original still more so. It is obvious,
from many passages in the story, that it has been put together
from various sources ; and this comes out with special clear-
258 ■ MOSES IN MIDIAN.
ness towards the end, where, after Moses has already got
leave from Jethro to return to Egypt, the following words,
strangely enough, occur: "And Yahweh said to Moses in
Midian, ' Go ! return to Egypt. For all who sought your
life are dead.' Then Moses returned to Egypt, taking his
wife and his sons with him, upon an ass, with the staff of God
in his hand." This is evidently part of a story in which Moses
is first called to deliver Israel, when he is already in Egypt,
as we afterwards read. In the early chapters in Exodus, in
fact, besides the account taken from the " Book of Origins,"
which knows nothing of the abode of Moses in Midian, 1 we
have two other stories agreeing in the main, yet differing from
each other in special details, which have been completely mixed
up together.
In one important point they disagree ; for while the one
calls Yahweh the god of the patriarchs, the other represents
this name of God as being revealed to Moses on this occasion
for the first time. We shall speak hereafter of the origin of
the worship of Yahweh, and at present need only make a few
remarks as to the pronunciation and signification of the name. 2
At first sight it seems incredible that the Israelites themselves
should have forgotten how to pronounce the name of their god.
In reality, however, it is very easily explained. In ancient
times they only wrote the .consonants of their words in inscrip-
tions and books, and so expressed the name of God by the
letters Y H W H. Now every Israelite knew quite well how
to pronounce these letters ; but after the captivity they began
to entertain a superstitious fear of this holy name, and to avoid
pronouncing it, until at last it was strictly forbidden to utter
it. In reading Holy Scripture therefore they generally sub-
stituted Adonai "lord," but sometimes Elohim "god," for
this name. Now when the Jewish scholars of a later age
added the vowels to the text of the Bible, for four the pronun-
ciation of Hebrew should be gradually lost, they added the
vowels of these words Adonai or Elohim to the consonants
Y H W H, so that Yehowah or Yehowih appears to lie written.
As the first of these forms occurs b}- far the most frequently,
the name Jehovah has come into use, — simply through the
affectation of half-educated students, — though hardly a single
translation of repute has committed the blunder. 8
There is no Jewish tradition, therefore, as to the pronuncia-
l Exodus i. 1-12, ii. 23-25, vi. 1-24. 2 See p. 18.
8 Perhaps our own "Authorized Version," in which " Jehovah " occurs a few
times, is the only exception. See p. 18, note.
MOSES IN MIDIAN. 25'J
tion of the proper name of Israel's god. But at a time when
the Israelites were still in the habit of pronouncing it, it was
picked up by certain foreigners, and therefore occurs in a
few Phoenician and Greek inscriptions. These inscriptions,
together with the laws of the Hebrew language, show that
something like Tahweh must have been the pronunciation of
the name.
What is the meaning of the name ? The writer of Exodus
iii. 14, attempts an explanation, and finds the word " I am"
in it ; but the glimpses we get of the knowledge of languages
possessed by the old Israelites inspire us with no great confi-
dence in their derivations ; for, as observed already, 1 the ex-
planations of names which occur so frequently in Genesis, for
example, are almost all wrong, and are evidently invented just
to suit the sound. So, too, in this case the interpretation is in
all probability a mistake. It is almost impossible for Yahweh
to mean " I am " or even " he is," though the real explanation
of the name is uncertain. There is a great deal to be said 'in
favor of the translation " He makes to be " or " The Creator -, "
and it is much easier to believe that the ancient Israelites ex-
pressed this idea in the name of their god, rather than the
philosophical conception " he who is." The use of such an ex-
alted name appears especially incongruous in an age when us
yet the recognition of God's unity was not even thought of.
In speaking of the legend of the fall of Sodom and Gomor-
rah, we noticed 2 the wonderful inconsistencies in the idea of
Yahweh which the writer had formed. In some respects lie
was a very exalted being, but in others he stood but little
above mankind. Just the same thing is apparent here, and
very naturally, since it is probably the work of the same writer
that we have before us. On the one hand, Yahweh is a mighty
god. He makes man deaf and dumb, or he gives him the
power of speech. He makes him blind, or causes him to see.
He rules the powers of Nature and can help his servant, so that
Pharaoh is compelled to let Israel, Yahweh's eldest son, 8 de-
part. On the other hand, this same Yahweh reveals himself
in a burning bramble-bush, which is, accordingly, regarded as
his dwelling-place. 4 Once, it is true, instead of mentioning
Yahweh, the writer speaks of his angel, 6 as if he meant that it
was not the deity himself, but only one of his messengers, that
was manifesting himself. But everywhere else Yahweh him-
1 See p. 57. * See p. 137.
8 Compare Hosea xi. 1. i Deuteronomy xxxiii. 16.
6 Exodus iii. 2.
260 MOSES IN MID IAN.
self is introduced as speaking ; and Moses, too, veils his face
so as not to see God. It is easier, however, to forgive the
writer his narrow conception of Yahweh than the low standard
of honor which he attributes to hirn. Here we have another
proof that the ancient Israelites were not very particular about
speaking the truth or keeping faith. Yahweh commands Mo-
ses to ask Pharaoh's leave for the Hebrews to go three days'
journey into the desert to do honor to their god, while his real
intention is to take them away from Egypt for good. At the
same time he shows Moses how to plunder the land of bondage ;
every Hebrew woman is to ask her neighbors to lend her gold,
silver, and apparel, and Yahweh is to incline the Egyptians to
treat the request favorably. Actions for which we have no
names except lying and stealing are here attributed to Yahweh.
We cannot be surprised, then, that the writer tells us, without
a word of disapproval, how Moses deceived his father-in-law
by telling him that his object in wishing to go to Egypt was to
see whether his relatives were still alive.
The main purpose of the writer was to show us how Moses
had been called by Yahweh to deliver Israel from Egypt,
and the manner in which he carries it out shows that he un-
derstood what is meant by being called of God, and so had
something of the spirit of a prophet in him. Let us distin-
guish clearly between the form and the substance of his story,
that we may be able to attach its true value to what he tells
us. The form — a long conversation between Yahweh and
Moses — seems strange to us ; but it appears that the prophets
and their pious contemporaries found nothing extraordinary, or,
at least, nothing impossible, in it. It need hardly be said that
good men in ancient times never really held such conversations,
any more than we do so now ; but when they looked back upon
their inward experience, the conflict between their carnal and
their spiritual nature, or, in other words, between flesh and
blood on the one hand and God's voice in their heart on the
other, took this form, almost without their knowing it. Thus,
where we should speak of sympathy and the sense of duty urg-
ing us to action, and of fear of men and slothfulness of spirit
drawing us back from it, or of the vacillation caused by inward
conflicts, an Israelite prophet would speak of a conversation
between God on the one hand and the man who was chosen to
fulfil some task of God on the other.
Let us endeavor, then, to realize the writer's thoughts
about Moses in Midian,
MOSES IN MIDIAN. 261
An exile, fleeing for his life, he had found in the desert
more than a place of refuge and security ; he had found an-
other home. Wife and children held him fast to Eeuel's
country. An occupation after his own heart, the honored
and ancestral task of pasturing sheep, was open to him.
Why then should he cast another thought towards that land of
Egypt where his tribesmen were suffering, it is true, but only
by their own fault, and where his brave deed had waked no
echo ? They were slaves indeed, but did they not deserve
their fate ? And yet his heart would burn within him when
he thought of them. Were they to be left there for ever to
groan beneath the yoke, until they sank exhausted by their
toil ? It could not, it should not be ! But j r et what a hope-
less task to attempt their deliverance ? In the first place the
people themselves would have to be roused from their leth-
arg}', the thirst for freedom wakened within them, courage to
risk a rebellion stirred in their hearts, a host of difficulties
overcome. And then the struggle with the ruler of Egypt
would begin, for most certainly he would not let his slaves
escape if he could help it. Who was there that could do s.U
this ? Who was appointed to undertake the task ? ' ' You
yourself," said a voice within. But he drew back from the
task in fear. He ? No. It was utterly beyond his power. —
But it was vain to excuse himself. The impulse that urged him
on was too mighty for him, and all his difficulties were borne
down by it at last. He perceived more and more clearly that
it was a god who urged him on. Who was this god ? How
could he doubt that it was the god of his fathers, mightier
than all others, Yahweh ! In his name he would call upon the
Hebrews to rise. He could bow the heads of the Egyptian
gods. If the Hebrews would put their trust in Yahweh, then
he both would and could deliver them out of the hand of
Pharaoh.
Horeb was a holy mountain, where the gods appeared to
men. Upon this sacred spot, this place of revelations, the
last struggle took place in the mind of Moses. " Go," said
the voice of God, "release Israel!" "What is thy name,
Lord of this mountain?" "My name is Yahweh. To
me j'ou shall offer worship here when you have rescued your
people, and are on the way to the fertile Canaan." But will
the Israelites be ready to hear me ? Will not their spirit be
crushed by oppression? — Yahweh will reveal his might to
them. He can do wondrous things. — Am I the right man
after all ? I have no eloquence ! — I must, do it ! Help will
262 MOSES IN MIDIAN.
come to me. Aaron will stand by me. — I dare not. — Yahweh
will help me and teach me. I must. To work, then !
Resolved to undertake the giant task, Moses returned to
his home. But none must know what was going on in his
heart, and what far-spreading plans had come to maturity
within him. For if they knew, would not those dear to him
keep him back, or, at least, make the straggle harder for him?
He had fought with himself, but he evaded the conflict with
his friends. "Let me go to Egypt," he said to his father-
in-law ; " I long to know whether my relatives are still alive."
Reuel let him go, never dreaming what dangerous schemes
his son-in-law had framed.
On his journey the old difficulties came into his mind afresh.
Pharaoh will oppose him, that at least is certain. So be it.
He fears him not. But will he really succeed ? will he deliver
Israel? How! Will not Yahweh's might be too great for
Pharaoh ? Yes ! He will compel him to give waj\ Force will
be met by force. Courage, then ! Yahweh is the strongest !
When he met his brother at Horeb, he told him his plans,
and inspired him with courage to undertake the work. His
doubts were vanquished. Full of faith Moses began his work.
Reader ! do you know the meaning of this calling and this
strife ? If not, God grant that you may soon learn it ! There
are many men who never understand it. Sorrow is in the
world, but they feel no impulse to relieve it. Sin spreads
havoc round them, but they are fired by no indignation.
Their life is altogether worldly, spiritually they are insensate
and dead ! But if you truly know and honor God, there is a
work set apart for you individually — a work in delivering the
wretched, in fighting against every kind of misery — a work
in which you must defy the wicked world fearlessly as Moses
faced Pharaoh. You will not be left in ignorance as to what
this work may be.
When such a noble task invites you, and yet seems too
hard for you, because of all the sacrifices it demands, you hesi-
tate, and flesh and blood cry out against it, and you say, " I
cannot, I dare not."
Alas ! too often, when noble thoughts well up in a heart
that is warm towards man and warm towards God, this "daie
not " is the end.
Blessed are we if the good impulse is stronger within us
than fear or sloth, so that the voice of God, " Thou must, " is
victorious in the mental strife !
fAHWEH COMPELS PHAEAOH TO LET ISRAEL GO. 263
Chapter III.
TAHWEH COMPELS PHARAOH TO LET ISRAEL GO.
Ex. IV. 29-XI. 10.
AFTER the necessary consultations — so says one of the
oldest writers — the two noble brothers, whom Yahweh
had chosen for the great work, went on their way from Horeb
to Egypt. When they had reached their destination they
called all the elders of. the sons of Israel together, and in
their presence performed the wonders which Yahweh had
given them power to do. The staff became a serpent, and
then turned back into a staff again ; and Moses' hand became
leprous, and then recovered its healthy hue. How could the
people withhold their faith from men who gave such clear
proofs that Yahweh had seen the misery of his people and
had come to visit them ! All that were present bowed down
in reverence. The leaders could reckon on their support.
And now the perilous task was begun ! Moses and Aaron
went to the king to make the demand upon which so much
depended. " Yahweh," they said, " the god of Israel, sends
you this message : ' Let my people go, that they may hold a
festival in my honor in the desert ! ' " These bold words
caused the prince no little amazement and indignation.
"Who is Yahweh, that I should obey his command?" said
he. "I know not such a god ; and I will never let Israel
go." Undaunted by this rough refusal, the valiant brothers
answered: "Yahweh is the god of the Hebrews. He has
appeared to us. Let us go three days' journey into the
desert, then, and worship him there. If we do not, some
plague of sickness or of war may befall us." But Egypt's
ruler would not listen to them any longer, and exclaimed
" See how you make the people hate their tasks ! Begone .
Set to work again, instead of making your people idle."
So the first step which Moses and Aaron had taken on
behalf of their people had not brought them any nearer to
the end they so fervently desired. Nay, they even seemed
to be further from it than ever ; for, in a burst of passion,
Pharaoh commanded the overseers of the Hebrews to give up
providing the straw that the laborers had to mix with the
clay in making bricks, and yet to require the same amount
264 YAHWEH COMPELS PHARAOH TO LET ISRAEL GO.
of work from them as before. "They are lazy," he said,
" they have too much time on their hands, and so they cry
out, ' Let us hold a religious festival ! ' They must have
more work given them, and then the}' will have enough to
do without listening to nonsense of this kind."
The unhappy Hebrews, so sorely oppressed alread}', now
learned that still heavier services were required of them.
With bitter complaints, but urged on by fear of punish-
ment, they spread all over Egypt in search of stubble,
to serve instead of straw in the manufacture of the bricks.
Meanwhile they were to make the same number of bricks as
before. It could not be done. Their oppressors had demanded
impossibilities of them. The first to suffer were the Hebrew
overseers that the Egj-ptian drivers had set over their tribes-
men, and made responsible for the work of those under them.
It was not long before they felt the lash of their masters.
Still they hoped that this iniquitous conduct was not approved
of by the king, and so they appealed to him. But he dis-
missed them in bitter scorn. " You are a pack of sluggards,"
said the prince. ' ' That 'S all that j T our ' sacrifices to Yahweh '
mean. Work ! I saj', work ! You shall have no straw given
you, and you must bring up the full number of bricks." In
bitterness of soul the Hebrew overseers left the palace. They
were to go to their tribesmen and tell them that the cruel
decree was irrevocable ! At the entrance the}* found Moses
and Aaron waiting to hear whether the statement of their
grievances had been favorably received. Need we wonder
that they looked upon the two brothers with no friendly-
eyes — that they spoke hard words to them, and reproached
them with having caused the increase of their burdens ? No ;
we need not be surprised, for people are generally inclined to
consider the results of any efforts made to help them rather
than the good intentions with which they are made ; we need
not be surprised, for when people are angry, or in trouble, or
at a loss what to do, they are glad enough to have some one
upon whom to vent their ill-temper. But, however easy to
understand, their conduct was not right ; and it was very
hard for Moses to bear.
What a tumult there must have been in his heart ! Were
not the reproaches which these poor creatures launched
against him, in their bitter disappointment, but too well jus-
tified ? What good had all his agitation clone them ? None
at all. Their yoke was even heavier than before. In doubt
and sadness Moses turned to his god. " Yahweh," said he,
YAJTWEH COMPELS PHARAOH TO LET ISRAEL GO. 265
" what wilt thou do ! Why is this people so tortured ? "Whj
have I been sent here? Ever since I went to Pharaoh, to
speak to him in thy name, he has persecuted this people,
and thou hast not delivered them." And Yahweh answered
his complaint : ' ' Now you shall see what I will do to Pha-
raoh; for he shall let the people depart with a high hand.
Ay ! he shall chase them out of his country. Go, to-morrow,
early, to the king, as he comes out to examine the water-level
in the river. Stand over against him on the bank of the
stream, with your magic staff in your hand, and denounce
my judgments upon him."
Obedient to the divine command, Moses appeared before
the king, and said to him ; " O prince ! Yahweh, the god of
the Hebrews, sent me to you before to command you to set
his people free, that they might serve him in the desert. But
you have persisted in your disobedience. Now Yahweh tells
you by my mouth that you shall behold his might ; for as
soon as I strike the water of the Nile with this staff it will
turn into blood." No sooner said than done. He struck the
water with his staff, and, to the amazement of all beholders,
it was turned into blood, so that it became undrinkable and
the fish died in it. But the tyrant did not trouble himself
about it in the least.
In seven days Moses was again commanded by Yahweh
to punish the king for his obstinacy. A wave of the magic
staff, and the land swarmed with frogs, until the very beds
and baking troughs were polluted by them. The king was
fairly frightened at last, and promised to give the people
leave to hold the festival they desired, if only Moses would
pray Yahweh to make this plague cease. Moses agreed, and
allowed Pharaoh himself to fix the time at which the prayer
should be offered ; and, to make it quite clear that the plague
was sent by Yahweh, the frogs were to disappear from the
laifd at the time appointed, and only to remain in the Nile.
"Do it to-morrow ! " said the terrified prince. On the fol-
lowing day, when Moses called upon Yahweh, the creatures
suddenly died by thousands, and the country was soon rid of
them, except that an unbearable stench rose from the rotting
bodies of the frogs that lay about in heaps everywhere. But
as soon as the rod was taken from his back, Pharaoh forgot
the flogging and broke his word, as, indeed, Yahweh had
foretold would be the case.
Then followed another plague, of which the king was
again forewarned. Innumerable hosts of flies annoyed the
VOL. x. 12
26G YAHWEH COMPELS PHARAOH TO LET ISRAEL GO.
Egyptians to such a degree that Pharaoh sent for Moses
and Aaron once more. " Celebrate your festival here in this
country," he said to them. " Impossible !" was the reply;
" our religious usages are so utterly opposed to those of the
Egyptians that they would stone us if they witnessed them.
No ; we must go three days' journey into the wilderness, as
Yahweh has commanded us." "So be it, then," said the
king, assenting to their request ; ' ' but you must not go too
far. Now pray for me." Moses promised to do so, after
giving the king a sharp warning that he had better not break
his word again. At his prayer the plague ceased. But
Pharaoh became obstinate once more.
This time Yahweh had shown clearly enough why he had
sent the calamity ; for the land of Goshen, where the Israel-
ites dwelt, had been spared its visitation. This was again
the case when he made Pharaoh feel his wrath afresh, by
causing all the cattle of the Egyptians — oxen, horses, sheep,
camels, and asses — to die of the pest on a certain day men-
tioned beforehand, whereas the Israelites did not lose a single
head of cattle. The king saw all this well enough, but still
he remained obstinate.
No better result attended a further visitation, by which,
however, Pharaoh might well have been convinced that it was
no other than Yahweh who was chastising him. For he had
foretold it to him, and at the same time had expressly
declared that he had power altogether to destroy both him
and his people by the pestilence, but that he allowed them
to exist in order that his might should be revealed. 1 When
Moses waved his magic rod at the command of Yahweh, the
whole land of Egypt, with the exception of Goshen, was
visited by such fearful lightning, such terrible thunder, and
such an all-destroying storm of hail, that every living crea-
ture out of doors was killed, and all the fruit trees and the
crops that were above the ground destroyed. Several of
Pharaoh's courtiers, who feared Yahweh, had secured their
cattle and their slaves under shelter when they heard the
catastrophe foretold, but the rest lost every thing. Once more
Pharaoh entreated Moses to pray for him, but as soon as the
frightful storm abated, he became obstinate again.
Moses and Aaron foretold a plague of locusts next, and
then his advisers urged the king to let Israel go. So he sent
for the agents of Yahweh's will, and asked them whom they
intended to take with them to the festival. " All !" they re-
1 Exodus ix. 15, after an amended version.
YAHWEH COMPELS FHAKAOH TO LET ISRAEL GO. 267
plied ; " old and young, men and women, even the very cattle
must go with us!" "Then," returned the prince in mock-
ery, ' ' may Yahweh bless yon if I let you go ! You mean
mischief. If you want to hold a festival, your full-grown men
may go, but no others." Having thus announced his deci-
sion, Pharaoh drove them from his presence ; but full soon
did he send for them again, for hardly had Moses stretched
his staff over Egypt before an east wind had risen and filled
the country with unheard-of swarms of locusts, that devoured
everything that the hail had spared, till the land became
utterly naked. " Pray for me ! " cried the humbled prince ;
" I have sinned against Yaliweh and against you." But as
soon as Moses had complied with his request, and a west
wind had carried all the locusts into the Red Sea, Yahweh
hardened the king's heart, and all went on as before.
For three days Egypt — Goshen again excepted — was
covered with a darkness so thick that people could not so
much as see each other, and dare not leave their .beds. This
brought the oppressor of the Israelites so far to his senses
that he proposed letting them all go if only they would leave
then- cattle. But even this proposal was rejected by Moses,
on the ground that they must take animals for sacrifice with
them, and that it was impossible to tell beforehand which
beasts their god might desire as offerings. But Pharaoh
refused to let Israel go upon any other conditions, and he
drove Moses out from his presence, threatening that if ever
he came back again he should be put to death. " So be it,"
said Moses, " I shall not see you again ; for this very night
Yahweh will go through Egypt, and at midnight he will slay
all 3'our firstborn, from the heir to your throne down to the
son of the humblest slave-girl, and the firstborn of the cattle
too. Then shall there rise a wail from Egypt such as was
never heard before and shall never be heard again. Mean-
while not a hair on the head of an Israelite shall be touched,
that it may be clearly known that Israel and Egypt are not
alike to Yahweh. And after that, these your ministers of
state shall come and bow down before me and implore us to
depart. Then we shall go." With these wrathful words
upon his lips, Moses left the palace.
What he foretold took place. But we shall speak of it in
the following chapter.
Before examining more closely the portion of the legend
of the plagues of Egypt with which we have so far been deal-
268 YAHWEH COMPELS PHAKAOH TO LET ISRAEL GO.
ing, we must place another version by its side. Readers
who are familiar with the Biblical narratives will have missed
certain traits in the account given above. Two of the well-
known " ten plagues," for instance, are wanting. It is easy
to guess the reason. Here, too, we have different accounts
of what took place in Egypt — accounts which agree in some
respects, but differ in others, and have been worked into a
single whole by the compiler. Here, too, the three writers,
whose hands are constantly detected in the narratives already
discussed, may be traced, though we cannot say that the
work of each has been preserved complete. The story we
have just told is by the Elohist, 1 who gave us the detailed
account of the calling of Moses at Horeb. Now let us take
the version of the writer who made Moses leave Midian on
being told by Yahweh that his persecutors were dead. a His
story is as follows 8 : —
When Moses had reached Egypt, he was commanded by
Yahweh to go into Pharaoh's presence, and ask him to let
the Israelites go. Moses objected that he was slow of speech.
But Yahweh set aside his difficulty by saying : " See, I make
you as a god with regard to Pharaoh ; you have only to or-
der, to demand, to punish, to promise. Aaron, your brother,
shall be as it were your prophet, and shall bear your mes-
sages and carry out your decisions. Let him begin by com-
manding Pharaoh to let the people go free. But I shall
harden the king's heart, and reveal my might in Egypt by
many signs and wonders, that the Egyptians may know that
I, Yahweh, stretch out my hand over Egypt and bear Israel
out of their midst." Then Moses and Aaron did according
to the divine command.
Before the time when they were to go before Pharaoh,
Yahweh spoke to them once more : " If," said he, " the king
should ask you to show him a sign, then do you, Moses, com-
mand your brother to fling down his staff, and change it into
a serpent." So when they were in the royal presence, Moses
turned Aaron's staff into a serpent in the sight of the king
and his servants. But Pharaoh, nothing daunted, sent for
his magicians, and they performed the same miracle by means
of their charms. So Pharaoh, even when Aaron's serpent ate
up all the others, remained obstinate, and would not let
Israel go free.
Then, at Yahweh's command, Moses told Aaron to stretch
his vcndrous staff over all the waters of Egypt, and when he
l See p. 238. * See p 258. « Exodus vi. 28 ff.
YAHWEH COMPELS PHARAOH TO LET ISEAEL GO. 269
did so all the water was turned into blood. Bat the Egyptian
sorcerers did the same. So the king remained obstinate.
Yet again Aaron waved the magic staff over all the streams
and wells of Egypt, and at once they teemed with frogs. But
the magicians were not yet driven off the field. They could
do this too.
It was in vain, however, that they tried to imitate the fourth
miracle that Aaron wrought with his staff, in changing all the
dust into vermin. Man and beast were covered with them,
and the magicians themselves said to the king: " This a
God's doing ! " But Pharaoh was still obstinate.
The impotence of the Egyptian sorcerers was still more
completely exposed when Moses and Aaron, in the king's
presence, took up a few handfuls of ashes from a furnace and
threw them into the air. These ashes produced a fearful
eruption upon man and beast ; and the magicians were not
only unable to produce the same effect on others, but became
its victims themselves. Still Yahweh hardened Pharaoh's
heart, as be had said he would.
But the end was now close at hand. ' ' Yet one more blow
will I bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt," said Yahweh to
Moses, " and then they will drive you out in hot haste. Now
tell the Israelites to borrow gold, and silver, and costly
apparel." They did so, and Yahweh made the Egyptians feel
kindly towards the Israelites, while Moses, in particular, be-
came very famous both at court and among the people.
There is still a third account taken from the " Book of
Origins," interwoven with these two. But we shall deal with
it in Chapter IV. We will now proceed to the comparison of
the two stories we have given.
The main course of events is the same in both. It is of
no great importance that eight plagues are enumerated in the,
first account, in addition to the miraculous conversion of the
staff into a serpent and the momentary leprosy of Moses'
hand, which were intended to ensure the faith of the Israel-
ites ; whereas the second mentions but five miracles, including
the transformation of the staff. It is certainly not accidental
that in the second narrative Aaron comes more to the front,
and that it is his staff by which the wonders are performed ;
whereas, in the other, it is Moses himself who waves the
magic rod, and offers prayers for the king. But even this is
not the most characteristic difference.
There are two other points, however, which specially de-
serve our attention. They refer to the conduct of Moses,
and to the meaning of the miracles.
270 YAHWEH COMPELS PHARAOH TO LET ISEAEL GO.
The first story does not make any attempt to represent
Moses, the messenger of Yahweh, as more noble or true to
his word than the impious Pharaoh. It is simply a contest in
which Moses, by his cunning and audacity in adhering to his
pretence of only desiring leave to celebrate a religious festival,
succeeds iu outwitting Pharaoh ; and the victory of Yahweh is
not one in which truth triumphs over falsehood, but one in
which the strongest and most cunning succeeds in getting his
own way.
In the second story, on the other hand, Moses plays his
game above-board from the first, and demands the complete
liberation of his people. But although the second writer is
better than the first in this respect, the}' both of them tell
us, without a word of condemnation, how the Israelites at
Yahweh's command took advantage of the bewildered state of
the Egyptians, and the haste with which they were leaving the
land, to borrow the goods of the native population, without the
smallest intention of ever returning them. Both of them tell
us, too, that Yahweh himself hardened Pharaoh's heart on
purpose to have an opportunity of displaying his great power.
Really, in a moral sense, the Yahweh of one writer is no more
holy than that of the other.
In the second place, we must observe that the signification
of the miracles by which Pharaoh is compelled to let Israel go,
is very different in the two narratives. In the first, they are
especially intended as punishments. Stress is laid upon the
fearful nature of all that Moses foretells and does in Yahweh's
name. The disasters by which Egj^pt is afflicted are even
colored so highly as to betray the writer into occasional
contradictions. For example, he makes all the cattle of the
Egyptians die of the murrain ; but the\ r re-appear, to be killed
by the hail ; yet again, when the last plague comes Yahweh
slays the firstborn of the beasts as well as of man. These
disasters are intended, according to the first narrative, to
move Pharoah's heart and bring him to repentance. Then'
object is the same, according to the second, but they are to
accomplish it in quite a different way ; namely, bj* convincing
the king that Yahweh is so mighty that all attempts at resist-
ance are idle. In his account, therefore, the miracle of the
staff is classed with the plagues, and the Egyptian sorcerers
enter the lists against Yahweh's messengers. There is a gen-
uine trial of strength between them. The Egyptians succeed
in performing the first wonders, though even here Yahweh shows
his mastery by enabling Aaron's serpent to eat up the others.
YAHWEH COMPELS PHARAOH TO LET ISRAEL GO. 27l
Gradually the Egyptians are driven off the field. First, they
themselves exclaim that it is God's work they behold. Then
they become victims of the plague. At last they disappear
from the scene altogether. Thus whilst the first writer repre-
sents Yahweh as determined to make his power felt, it is the
object of the second — though even he makes the miracles more
and more painful in their effects — simply to prove that Yahweh
is the god of gods. ." The god of gods," I have said, rather
than " the only god." For, observe, the writer by no means
intends to represent these Egyptian sorcerers as impostors.
Had it been so, he would utterly have failed in his object. No,
they really were able to turn sticks into serpents, and water
into blood, and to produce frogs ; but Moses and Aaron were
still more powerful, and the god of the Israelites, therefore,
was stronger than the gods of the Egyptians.
We have spoken already of the superstitious idea that dis-
asters reveal God's displeasure, and of the bad effect upon
piety and morality which such a belief exerts, 1 and need not,
therefore, dwell upon it here. Nor is it necessary to consider
in detail how far these narratives remind us of natural phenom-
ena which actually take place in Egypt. The writers appear
to have been well acquainted with the country, and to have
been aware that at certain seasons the water of the Nile has a
blood-red appearance — that an alarming increase of frogs is
not unfrequent — that the conntr}' is sometimes visited by a
murrain among the cattle or a plague of locusts — and that a
species of stinging fly and a painful skin disease, from time to
time, afflict bbth man and beast. But all this does not take
away the miraculous character of their stories. The very be-
lief that these disasters succeeded each other at the command
of Moses, and with the express object on the part of Yahweh
of humiliating Pharaoh, is a mistake from which true piety can
only suffer.
We must still dwell for a moment on the representations of
the second story, which speaks of the conflict with the magi-
cians, for it calls our attention to the belief in magic. Ir. an-
cient times this belief was universal, and indeed it still exists,
closely connected with the belief in soothsaying or fortune-
telling, in the minds of uneducated people. People used to
think that there were men and women who, by uttering cer-
tain forms of words, or by some other secret art, had power to
influence the weather, for example, or the crops, or the health
and life of man and beast ; in a word, could do things which
l See p. 75 if. 139.
272 YAHWEH COMPELS PHARAOH TO LET ISRAEL GO.
surpassed the power of other men and could not be brought
about by natural means. Certain men, in all ages, have really
believed themselves to be magicians, while great numbers
have simply taken advantage of the ignorance of those about
them to make themselves pass for such. This belief is by no
means confined to ancient times or uneducated people. Among
Christians it even held its ground long after the Reformation of
the sixteenth century, especially in the form of that belief in
witches that has cost thousands upon thousands of lives.
Amongst the Israelites the magicians were known by very
different names, the meaning of which is often uncertain, for
they remained in use long after their origin was forgotten.
From those names which we can explain, and from the ac-
counts of magicians which we meet in the Israelite literature,
we see that they were looked upon as men who muttered
magic formulae, charmed serpents, "excited-the dragon" (i. «.,
stirred up the constellation of that name to eat the sun or the
moon) , made a day unlucky by their imprecations, 1 and called
the dead from the world below.
In ancient times magic was an object not only of fear, but
also of reverence. A true messenger of Yahweh must show
his credentials, so to speak, in the miracles which he per-
formed, and tradition has chosen the character of a wonder-
worker under which to glorify many a prophet. But while
belief in the possibility of magic continued to exist, while, in-
deed, no one thought of disputing it, the thing itself fell into
bad repute. People gradually discovered that they had been
deceived in some of these wonder-workers. For even the wor-
shippers of other gods than Israel's were sometimes able to do
most marvellous things, and even to perform genuine miracles
of which they had given due notice. Sometimes Yahweh put
the love of his worshippers to the proof, by allowing an up-
holder of idolatry to perform a well authenticated miracle.
Such a deed, then, could not in itself prove the truth of his
preaching. 2 Bj degrees magic came to be pronounced a
heathenish practice ; the zealots of Yahweh opposed it with
all their might, and every one who practised it was threatened
by religious reformers and lawgivers with death. 8 So the
proof by miracle, which comes out so prominently in our story,
was at last altogether rejected. But the great masses of the
people still clung to it.
1 Job iii. 8, after an amended version. 2 Deuteronomy xiii. 1-fi.
3 Exodns xxii. 18. Deuteronomy xviii. 10-11. Leviticus xix. 26, 31, xx
2?
NIGHT OE DELIVERANCE. 273
Many centuries after Christ, magic was still considered
possible. But the Eeformation of the sixteenth century gave
a heavy blow to the superstition by denying the truth of a
number of miraculous stories, especially those in which the
saints of the Roman Catholic Church played a part. The
belief in magic still survived, however ; but just as ancient
Israel held it to be heathenish, so the Protestants declared
it to be the work of the Devil, who taught men the black art.
Our increased knowledge of Nature has gradually undermined
the belief in the possibility of miracles, and the time is not
far distant when in the mind of every man, of any culture,
all accounts of miracles will be banished together to their
proper region — that of legend.
Chapter IV.
THE NIGHT OF DELIVERANCE.
Ex. XII. 1-XIII. 16.
" r I ^HIS night shall Yahweh put to death all the firstborn
\ in Egypt." Such had been the words of warning
uttered by Moses to Pharaoh ; and what he predicted had
come to pass. That same night the king's eldest son died
suddenly in the royal palace, and even in the very prisons
the eldest sons of the captives likewise died. In every home
rose the wail for an eldest son or an eldest daughter, and at
every stall the sheep or ox that was its mother's firstling fell
dead. In deep affliction the monarch rose from his bed, while
every home in Egypt was filled with cries and sounds of woe.
At once, without even waiting for the morning, he sent for
Moses and Aaron to the palace. ' ' Go ! Go ! " he cried to them.
"Depart from me, you and your people. Serve Ya"hweh, as
you said you must. Take your sheep and oxen with you too,
as you desired. Depart, and bless me too ! " The king's
ministers were still more urgent. They implored the Israel-
ites to make the utmost speed, "else we shall all perish,"
they cried. And the Israelites made such haste that they
had no time to think of leaven, but put their dough, baking
troughs and all, upon their shoulders, just wrapping them
round in their upper garments.
VI*
274 NIGHT OF DELIVERANCE.
So the Israelites departed that night from Ramses to
Snocoth, with all their cattle ; and a great host of people, not
really belonging to them, went along with them. The dough
from which they prepared their food had never risen, and
accordingly they ate unleavened cakes. So Moses said :
"Remember this day upon which you have conic out of
Egypt, and Yahweh has led you thence with a high hand.
In remembrance of it you must use no leaven upon this day
of the month Abib on which you have come out from Egypt.
When Yahweh shall have brought you into the rich land of
Canaan, then you must observe this religious ordinance ;
seven days long in this month you must eat unleavened
bread, and on the seventh celebrate a festival in honor of
Yahweh. No barm, or anything that is leavened must be
seen in your land during those days, and you must declare
to your children, This serves as a remembrance of what
Yahweh did for us when we left Egj-pt. To the end of time
you must observe this law." 1
Surely, no elaborate proof is necessary to show us that
this story leads us far away from the field of history. Only
try to picture the scene. The death of the firstborn ; Moses
and Aaron summoned to the palace ; the command given to
depart ; the emigration of a whole people — all in one single
night ! If we say nothing of the astounding number of six
hundred thousand men, since it is another writer who fur-
nishes it, 2 and on the same grounds pass over the circumstance
that it was just at that very moment that the Israelites asked
their neighbors to lend them the gold and silver vessels and
the garments, 3 yet, even according to this writer, the Israelites
occupied a whole district of their own, and were a decidedly
numerous .people. Such quick movements, therefore, are
inconceivable. But yet we cannot allow them a longer time,
for it is just this extreme rapidity upon which the story
insists as the reason why all the Israelites had to eat bread
that had not risen the next day.
The origin of this feature of the legend is easily explained.
The true connection of things has been exactly reversed in
the story. Here the custom of eating unleavened bread once
a year in the month Abib is derived from the haste the
Israelites had to make in leaving Egypt ; but the truth is
that the feast of unleavened bread was established in some
way quite independent of this emigration, aud that our
i Exodus xii. 29-34, 37-39, xiii. 3-JO. a Exodus xii. 37.
» Exodus xii. 35, 36.
NI&HT OF DELIVERANCE. 275
writer is here attempting to give an explanation of the cus-
tom, the real origin of which he did not know. Elsewhere, 1
the unleavened bread, which is not very palatable, is called
bread of affliction, as if it were intended to commemorate
the misery which Israel suffered in Egypt. This, however,
would be very inappropriate to a feast of deliverance.
The "feast of unleavened bread" was one of the most
ancient of the Israelite festivals, and was celebrated in the
month Abib or Nisan, about our April. The real explanation
of the use of unleavened bread, from which the festival
derived its name, was probably as follows : As soon as the
leaven works in flour, it ferments, that is to say, it begins
)o decompose. Now in ancient times everything in which
the smallest trace of decomposition could be discovered was
regarded, not only in Israel but elsewhere, as, to a certain
extent, unclean. Unleavened bread was holy bread, fit for
the priests. The use of it, therefore, might express the idea
that the Israelites were a nation of priests, called to holiness.
Originally, the feast of unleavened bread was a festival of the
husbandmen, at which a sacrifice from the first-fruits of the
harvest was made to Yahweh.
The second ancient writer, whose account is woven into
a single whole with the one of which we have just spoken,
also mentions the last plague, the death of the firstborn.
But he does not lay so much stress upon the haste with
which the Israelites left the country, though he too mentions
it. He also tells us of Moses' orders to the Israelites to bor-
row all manner of valuables from the Egyptians.- But he
fixes our chief attention upon the death of the firstborn,
since he desires to explain a religious usage of the Israelites
by it. Accordingly, he makes Moses issue the following
commandment, in the name of Yahweh : 8 " Consecrate all
your firstborn to Yahweh ! The first youngling dropped by
a clean beast, whether ox, sheep, or goat, you must sacrifice
to him. The young of an unclean beast — an ass, for ex-
ample — -must be redeemed by a lamb, or else got rid of.
And in place of your eldest son or eldest daughter, too, a
sacrificial beast must be offered."
The origin of this custom, which is extremely ancient,
and probably even dates from a time before that of Moses,
is not difficult to explain, after all that we have said of the
character of the old Israelite gods, Yahweh among the rest,
1 Deuteronomy xvi. 3. 2 Exodus xi. 1-3.
8 Exodus xiii. 1, 2, 11-16.
276 NIGHT OF DELIVERANCE.
If they were reverenced principally as stern beings, nothing
is more natural than that their worshippers should seek to
win their favor by a great and bloody sacrifice, and so should
consecrate to them the firstborn of man and beast, as being
the strongest and best.
No doubt the death of the firstborn, or at any rate of
Pharaoh's son, 3 formed a part of the most ancient traditions
as to the emigration of Israel from Egypt ; and we may see
from the works of these writers how each took advantage of
it in a different way. The .one explains from the horror of
this event the hot haste with which the Israelites were driven
out, and thence again the custom of eating unleavened bread.
The other finds in it the explanation of the Israelite's duty
to consecrate his firstborn to Yahweh. Still ampler use was
made of it, however, as we shall see, by the latest author, the
writer of the "Book of Origins."
In the " Book of Origins " the story of the doings of Moses
in Egypt was preceded by no account of his calling in Midian.
H began as follows : 2 God said to Moses, "I am Yahweh.
To the patriarchs I appeared as God Almighty, but under
my name Yahweh I did not reveal myself to them. I also
made a compact with them, by which I promised them
Cmaan, the land in which they sojourned as strangers, for
an inheritance. Now I have turned my ear to the wailings
of the sons of Israel, whom the Egyptians are oppressing,
and I have bethought me of my compact. Tell the Israel-
ites, therefore, that I, Yahweh, will free them from the yoke
of the Egyptians, and deliver them with a high hand ; and
that, moreover. I have chosen them as my people, my own
possession, and I will be their god, to bring them into the land
that I have promised by oath to their fathers." Moses re-
peated these words to the people, but thej r were too completely
crushed by slavery to listen to him. It was no wonder, then,
that when Yahweh told Moses to command Pharaoh, in his
name, to set Israel free, he hesitated and cried : " See, even
the Israelites themselves would not listen to me ! How then
can I expect Pharaoh to hear me? Besides, I am slow of
speech." But Yahweh repeated his command.
Here the narrative is broken by a list 8 of certain Israelite
families of the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, in which
that of Levi occupies the chief place, and the whole is closed
by an account of the descent of Moses and Aaron, whom
1 Exodus iv. 23. 2 Exodus vi. 2 ff. » Exodus vi. 13-26.
NIGHT OF DELIVERANCE. 277
the writer represents as eighty and eighty-three years old
respectively, when they spoke to Pharaoh. 1
Here followed originally an account — probably a short
one — of the judgments which Yahweh brought upon Pharaoh
without effect. This was dropped by the Redactor, because
he had taken up the more detailed accounts of the same
events furnished by the older writers. Then came the last
plague, the death of the firstborn, which gave occasion for a
long digression on the celebration of the Passover.
We shall return hereafter to some of the special features
of this story, more particularly to Yahweh's express declar-
ation that hitherto he had only revealed himself as God
Almighty, and to the unbelief of the Israelites. At present
we must speak of the Passover. The account given of it is
as follows : 2 —
At Yahweh's command, Moses ordered every head of a
family to get himself a lamb, one year old, and of the male
sex, on the tenth day of the month Abib, with which the
year commenced, to keep this lamb till the fourteenth, ar.d
then to slaughter it in the evening. Since the whole larch
had to be eaten, two families might join together if the
members of one were too few to finish it. We may notice
in passing that the Jews of a later time reckoned that one
lamb would do for more than ten, but not so many as twenty
persons. The lamb was to be roasted whole — entrails and
all — and eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened bread.
What was left when all who joined the festival were satisfied
must be burned. In eating the meal they had to stand,
with their outer clothing tucked up, their sandals on their
feet, and their staves in their hands, as if they were in haste.
This feast was called Pesach, that is sparing; because when
Yahweh passed through Egypt in the night to slay all the
firstborn, he would spare the Israelites. To make sure of
this, they must put a streak of the lamb's blood upon the
doorposts and thresholds of their houses. Wherever he saw
this sign the angel of Yahweh would pass by the house.
The week of unleavened bread began with this feast, and its
first and last days were to be observed as days of rest. As
for the strangers who were dwelling amongst the Israelites, all
those who had submitted to circumcision, the token of the
covenant, were to observe the Pesach.
We cannot fail to notice how badly this story agrees with
that of the other writers, who make the Israelites leave
1 Exodus vii. 7. 2 Exodus xii. 1 ff.
' 278 NIGHT OF DELIVERANCE.
Egypt in such haste that they have no time to let then
bread, rise. For here they are informed four days before-
hand that they are to depart on the night of the fourteenth,
and are commanded to have no leaven in their houses at the
time, so that the circumstance of their taking unleavened
bread with them is anything but accidental, as the other writers
make it.
The history of the Jewish feast of Pesach is far from
certain. Probably it was an old Israelite new-year's feast,
and this may be the meaning of the name Pesach, which is
best translated by "transition," and has given rise, by a
misunderstanding, to our name "Passover." This feast,
with all its usages, which were in anything but harmony
with the pure woi ship of Yahweh, seems to have been faith-
fully and zealously observed by most of the Israelites, espe-
cially the adherents of the heathen party. It fell at about
the same time of year as the strictly Israelite feast of un-
leavened bread, and since the champions of the Mosaic
principles saw no chance of getting rid of this feast of
Pesach, which was such a thorn in their sides, they found a
place for it in the worship of Yahweh, and connected it with
the feast of unleavened bread. This explanation, indeed, is
only conjectural, but it is certain that the most ancient laws
deal with the feast of unleavened bread alone, 1 and that the
earliest regulations of the Passover only date from the time
of King Josiah. 2 Even they make no mention of a paschal
lamb as yet, but allow the Israelites to offer "sheep and
oxen " on the occasion. The first trustworthy accounts of the
actual celebration of a Passover likewise place it in the reign
of Josiah. 8
The narrative we are now considering dates from the first
century after the Babj'lonian captivity, and contains the oldest
description of the details of the feast. The regulation that the
Israelites were to eat the lamb as if they were standing ready
to start on a hurried journey, certainly was not borrowed
by the writer from the existing usage, but was supplied by
himself to bring into prominence the meaning he attached to
the feast. The same may be said of the "command about
streaking the doorposts with blood. But such practices are
not easily impressed upon a people, and as far as we know
the precepts were never observed. The Bible contains no
further regulations concerning the feast, except with refer-
1 Exodus xxiii. 15, xxxiv. 18. Deuteronomy xvi. 16.
2 Deuteronomy xvi. 1, 2, 5. 8 2 Kings xxiii. 21, 22.
NrGHT OF DELIVERANCE. 279
ence to the so-called little Passover which was to be held on
the fourteenth day of the second month by those who had
been prevented from celebrating it on the fourteenth of
Msan. 1 The Rabbis, of course, have made a number of
special rules about the various observances.
The Passover has become the great feast of the Jews,
and is always zealously observed. It is but natural that it
should be so. The observances connected with it have struck
deep roots through the unbroken usage of centuries ; for
nothing has such desperate tenacity of life as ancient customs.
Even when no longer understood they are obstinately retained.
After the captivity, no one really knew what was the origin
of that roasted lamb and those bitter herbs, any more than
we do now ; but as long as the Temple stood, in the fore-
court of which the lamb was to be slaughtered, so long was
the custom kept up. Then it fell into disuse ; for the old law
laid down so distinctly that the paschal lamb must not be eaten
just anywhere that happened, but at Jerusalem alone, 2 that it
was impossible to overlook this point. Still, the Passover
itself was observed as the festival of the nation's birth.
Under the hands of reformers the ancient feasts of the har-
vest and the new-year had become for Israel days of com-
memoration of Yahweh's goodness, and as such they were
still kept up. This change of the old festivals from the
ploughman's and reaper's feasts to days of national commem-
oration, is a mark of progress ; for though it is a matter of
interest to every man that he is entering upon a new year, or
sees a good harvest ripening, yet it is of far greater importance
to a people to keep in mind its origin and the most important
facts of its past history. It exerts an exalting, hallowing
influence over it.
Yahweh released Israel from Egypt ! It was this that the
Jews remembered with such thankful joy during the centuries
in which his people were for the most part in a state of deep
humiliation. " Why was Israel made a nation at the time we
are commemorating ? What does Yahweh require of us ? Why
are we the chosen ones of the Almighty, so insignificant and
rejected ? What is to become of us ? What is this people's
destinj ? " Such questions forced themselves upon the minds
of thoughtful men during the festivities and usages with which
these memories were connected, and filled them with earnest
thoughts.
It could not but have a good effect upon the faithful Jew
1 Numbers ix. 1-14. 2 Deuteronomy xvi. 2, 5, 6.
280 THE EXODUS.
when, at the celebration of the Passover, he joined in singing
the great Hallel, i.e., Psalms cxiii.-cxviii., with all its depth
and joy of religious feeling. Listen, for instance, to the song
with which it opens : —
Halleluyah! (i.e., praise Tahweh),
Te servants of Yahweh praise,
Ay, praise ye Yahweh's name !
Blessed be Yahweh's name
Henceforth, for ever and ever!
From the east unto the west
Let Yahweh's name be praised !
Exalted above all peoples is Yahweh,
His glory is higher than heaven !
Who is like Yahweh, our god,
Who is enthroned on high V
Who looks' down from above
Upon all things in heaven and earth I
Who raises the poor from the dust,
And lifts up the needy from the mire !
Sets him by the side of the nobles
Among the great ones of his people !
And makes a childless woman
A joyful mother of sons !
Halleluyah !
Chapter V.
THE EXODUS.
Ex. XIII. 17-XV. 21.
IN the last chapter we spoke of the religious usages in which
the Israelites celebrated the memory of their forefathers'
deliverance from Egj r pt. But we have not yet quite done
with the old legends that tell us about the deliverance itself.
A few more words, however, will suffice.
Instead of going straight from the land of Goshen in a
north-easterly direction towards Canaan, the Israelites turned
south, and came to the northern extremity of the so-called
Bed Sea. Meanwhile Yahweh had once more hardened
Pharaoh's heart ; so he set out with an army in pursuit of his
runaway slaves, and hemmed them in between the sea and
his own troops. But Yahweh, cleaving the waters of the gulf,
led them across its bed to the other side in safety ; and when
the Egyptians boldly followed them along this wondrous path-
way, he made them pay for their rashness by destroying them
THE EXODUS. 281
amid the returning waves, and not a single man was left alive.
Full of triumph in their escape, the rescued Israelites raised
the song : ' ' Sing to the glory of Yahweh ! for he is great.
The horse and his rider he dashes into the sea ! "
Here, again, the account is made up from two old legends
that give us different representations of the event in many
particulars. According to the one, God led his people south-
wards into the desert, instead of straight to Canaan, because
otherwise they would have come into immediate collision with
the Philistines, and fear of this warlike tribe might have made
them desire to turn back to Egj-pt ; 1 whereas the other narra-
tor says that Yahweh deliberately led the Israelites from
Ramses to Succoth, 2 thence to Etham, thence to Pi-Hachiroth,
on the western shore of the sea, with the very dishonorable
purpose of tempting Pharaoh to pursue the Israelites, since
they appeared to have lost themselves. This would give
Yahweh one more opportunity of showing by Pharaoh's de-
struction how mighty he, the god of Israel, was. 3 This writer
also tells us of a special sign of the divine presence ; namely,
a column of Are by night and a column of smoke by day, which
went in front of the army and showed it the way to go. 4 Now
when Israel was passing through the Eed Sea, this column
placed itself behind the people and gave them light, while its
dark side was turned upon the Egyptians, so that the two
armies never came to close quarters all the night. 6 This idea
apparently owes its origin to the ancient custom of carrying a
fire before a caravan or an army in the desert. By night it
sent up a clear flame, and by day it was supplied with such
fuel as would form a column of smoke. It would, therefore,
be a kind of ensign which every one could always see. The
other narrator has not a word of this. • According to one
legend Israel went out "with uplifted hand," that is, in oar
military language, "with flying colors;" 6 according to the
other they fled, and when they saw Pharaoh's troops drawing
near were greatly terrified, until Moses quieted their fears. 7
One story makes a strong east wind dry the sea ; 8 the other
says that Moses dried it with a wave of his magic -.taff. 9
According to the one the Irymn of triumph was sung by
Moses' sister, Miriam the prophetess, who led the girls in
the festal dance, timbrel in hand, and was the first to raise
the alternating or responsive song ; 10 the other puts into the
1 Exodus xiii. 17. 2 Exodus xii. 37. 8 Exodus xiv. 1-4.
* Exodus xiii. 20-22. 6 Exodus xiv. 19, 20. 6 Exodus xiv. 8.
' Exodus xiv. 10-14. 8 Exodus xiv. 21. <• Exodus xiv. 15-18.
1° Exodus xv. 20, 21.
282 THE EXODUS.
mouth of Moses and all Israel an elaborate song of praise, 1
which could not possibly have been composed until some
time after the passage of the Red Sea, since it speaks of the
conquest of Canaan as of something already accomplished. 2
The so-called Red Sea or " Sea of Rushes," through
which the Israelites are said to have passed, is now con-
nected by the Suez Canal with the Mediterranean, and
appears in early times to have extended further north than
it does at present. This Red Sea is subject to a violent ebb
and flow of the tide, and more than one traveller has in-
formed us that a little north of Suez it is possible to wade
across the gulf at low water, not indeed dry-footed, but yet
without danger. It is remarkable that the tide rises and
falls very suddenly there. These peculiarities of the place
have probably given rise to the formation of our legends,
but they cannot make the story credible as it now stands.
For it is no ordinary ebb, with the succeediug flood, of which
it tells us, but a miracle, worked, according to one of the
narrators, by the staff of Moses ; and it is expressly said
that the water stood up like a wall right and left of the
Israelites as they passed through, and that it rushed back
into its bed at the command of Moses.
Instead of dwelling any longer upon these points, we will
now see what the Egyptian tradition has to tell us of this
" Exodus" or going oat of the Israelites which has given its
name to the second book of the Bible.
Manetho, 8 then, tells us the following story : — King
Amenophis desired the privilege, which had been granted
to one of his predecessors, of seeing the gods. One of the
priests told him that there would be no difficulty about it if
he would cleanse Egypt of all who were unclean or leprous.
In order to comply with this condition, the prince assembled
eighty thousand of those unhappy men, and condemned
them to work as slaves in the stone quarries east of the Nile.
But amongst them were certain priests, who, as such, were
favorites of the gods. So the priest who had told the king
the condition upon which his wish might be accomplished,
began to be afraid that the gods would take the part of their
servants, and accordingly punish him. He was so terrified
that he put an end to his own life, having first sent the king
a written prophecy that these lepers, assisted by foreigners,
would rule over Egypt thirteen years. At the request of the
unhappy convicts in the stone quarries, the king released
1 Exodus xt. 2 Exodus xv. 13. s See p. 248.
the exodus. 283
them from their painful toil, and let them dwell in the city
of Avaris, which had been built by the Hyksos. Then Osar-
siph, a priest of Heliopolis, put himself at their head, gave
them laws which violated all the customs of the Egyptians,
and with the aid of the remnant of the Hyksos conquered
Ejfypt. Their rule was terrible beyond description ; but
after thirteen years they were driven out by the king's son,
Stthos or Ramses by name, and pursued to the borders of
Syria. This priest afterwards took the name of Moses.
If this last piece of information were taken from the
ancient traditions there would be no kind of doubt as to this
being the Egyptian account of the Exodus of the Israelites.
But this is not the case. The concluding words in which
we are told that Osarsiph afterwards called himself Moses,
simply give us the opinion of Manetho himself, who be-
lieved that the lepers of the old tradition were no other than
the Israelites. This stoiy has very few features in common
with that in the Bible ; and doubtless there were other
occasions upon which tribes of shepherds left Egypt with or
without the consent of the inhabitants. The Philistines,
amongst others, probably came from Egypt, 1 and accordingly
some scholars have found in the Egyptian story a rem-
iniscence of the emigration of this warlike tribe. The
enemies of the Jews took advantage of the story to represent
them as descendants of leprous Egyptians, and for this
reason Josephus does his very best to throw doubt upon its
truthfulness. It is very difficult to come to any decided
conclusion ; for, after all, the two traditions do agree very
remarkably in some few points, as, for example, in saying
that the tribes were expelled by the son and successor of the
king who had oppressed them, and that there was a relig-
ious question at the root of the whole.
At the heart of these legends lies some such representa-
tion of what took place, as follows: — -The Hebrews, who
lived in the province of Goshen, were oppressed by Eamses
II. ; heavy burdens were laid upon them, and the cities of
Ramses and Pithom were built partly to keep them in sub-
jection and partly to protect the frontier against the Be-
douins. As long as Ramses lived every attempt at a rising
was in vain. But when he died and was followed by his son
Menephthah a successful conspiracy, of which Moses and his
brother were the soul, was formed by the sufferers. After
several vain attempts, the object of the insurgents was ac-
1 Genesis x. 14.
284 THE EXODUS.
complished, and they threw off Pharaoh's yoke, inflicting a
defeat upon him on the shores of the Ked Sea, which ds-
prived him of all hopes of keeping his slaves in his power.
It is certainly true, moreover, that there was some new rev-
elation of the nature of the deity, just before the effort on
the part of these tribes to gain their freedom ; for in ancient
times it was generally a religious movement that stirred the
life of a people and led to a political or social revolution.
Perhaps, also, it is historically true that just at the time
Egypt suffered a number of disasters, which discouraged the
king and his people, and of which the Israelites took ad-
vantage to throw off the yoke, looking upon them as signs
that their god, or rather their gods, were helping them, and
that they were stronger than the gods of the Egj'ptians. It
is also quite possible that the stories of the passage of the
Red Sea preserve the memory of the Israelites having taken
advantage of the ebb to cross a ford of the sea and having
thus escaped, while the Egyptians were surprised by the
flood as they hurried in pursuit of them.
But the whole of this history becomes unintelligible if we
believe the statement that the sons of Israel numbered six
hundred thousand men, when they left Egypt. 1 For if we
add to this, not only the women and children but the " mixed
multitude " as it is called, which was thought sufficiently
numerous to be mentioned separately, 2 we shall reach a figure
of about three millions. If this were so, it would not only be
impossible to conceive of the whole people getting into order
for their journey in one night, but even of their being op-
pressed in the manner stated in Exodus, or crossing the
sea in a single night. To form some idea of all that would
have been involved in this, we have only to remember
that in 1812, when Napoleon crossed the river Niemen, it
took his army of about two hundred and thirty thousand
men three days and nights to cross the river, by three
bridges, in close file. If we bear in mind that the Israelites
would have about three times as many fighting men, en-
cumbered, too, with all those women, children, and flocks,
the impossibility of what we are told becomes obvious. In
the same manner it is easy to say : " And Moses said to the
Israelites : Rise up ! " but where no telegraph was available,
it would take one or two days for an order to break up to
reach- the furthest quarter of a camp in which there were
about three million people. The sequel of the history, the
' Exodus xii. 37. 2 Exodus xii. 38.
THE EXODUS. 285
wandering in the desert, the fruitless efforts to gain a father-
land, — everything becomes equally inexplicable, or rather
impossible, on the supposition that the Israelites were as
numerous as is here stated.
Where does this enormous figure come from? Probably
some writer used it in the first instance as a round number,
to signify a great multitude ; but the writer of the " Book of
Origins " means it seriously and literally, and gives us, on one
occasion, the number of six hundred and three thousand five
hundred and fifty men over twenty ; 1 and, on another, that
of six hundred and one thousand seven hundred and thirty, 2
besides the Levites, who were twenty-two thousand strong. 3
Moreover, he goes so far as to tell us how many men belonged
to each of the tribes. 4 But although such detailed statements
give the narrative an air of truth, they are in fact utterly un-
trustworthy, and perhaps rest upon calculations just as artifi-
cial as the estimate of the time which the Israelites spent in
Egypt. 6 How strong the Israelites really were we cannot tell ;
but when we think how much difficulty they had in conquer-
ing Canaan, and that they only partially succeeded after all,
v
may suppose that they spent about half a century in the
desert.
Half a century in the desert ! The storj' has often been
called incredible, and, indeed, it really is utterly inconceiv-
able if we adopt the usual representation of the affair. Even
if we put the numbers of the Israelites far below those given
by the " Book of Origins," nay, even if we accept as history
the stories of the dew of manna, and the shower of quails
and the waters flowing from rocks, — it is still impossible to
accept the story, since the peninsula of Sinai was too small
and barren to support the Israelites in addition to the other
tribes who lived there. At any rate, their flocks would be
able to find no pasture there. But we may understand
"the desert" to include the great plains stretching east of
Palestine, which we have already described, 1 and in that
case there would be room enough in it.
If we are to suppose, however, that the Israelite tribes
maintained themselves in these regions, we must once for
all break with the representation of their life in the desert
given us in the Pentateuch. According to its narratives the
Israelites proceeded as a single army, marching in a certain
fixed order, and resting in one general camp. These narra-
tives represent them as a thoroughly well-organized people.
Let us look into some of the stories which present this
picture to us.
We will first examine the beginning of the story with
which we opened this chapter, and which we find at greater
length elsewhere. 2 When the Israelites, we are told, had
escaped from Egypt and reached Mount Horeb, Moses was
rejoiced by a visit from his father-in-law, who came to
bring him his wife, Zipporah, and her two sons, Gershom
and Eliezer. Jethro, delighted by all that Moses told him
of the severity with which Yahweh had treated Egypt for
Israel's sake, acknowledged that Yahweh was supreme above
all gods, and offered a great sacrifice to him, inviting the
leading Israelites to the feast which formed a part of it.
Then, on the following day, he saw Moses at his work.
From morning till night he had to administer justice. " How
is this?" asked Jethro in surprise. "I cannot help it,"
answered Moses; "every one comes to me for oracles.
Whatever difficulty they have to settle they bring it before
me. They call upon me to decide all their differences, and
i See pp. 128, 129.
2 Exodus xviii. , compare Deuteronomy i. 9-18 (see p. 305).
310 FORTY TEARS WANDERING.
to make known the commandments of God." But his father-
in-law thought this most foolish, for Moses, he thought,
would never be able to support the work. It was far too
heavy for one man. " Attend to my advice," he said, " and
may God be with you ! Be their mediator with God. Speak
of their interests with him ; and, on the other hand, make
known his will to the Israelites. All this really is necessary.
But select men of understanding, who fear God, who will
behave honestly and not allow themselves to be bribed, and
make them heads of thousands and hundreds and fifties and
tens. Let them administer justice as a rule, and only submit
the more difficult cases to your decision. In this way they
can easily lighten your burden. If you do this, God will
give you strength to continue your work, and the people will
reach the place of their destination." Moses accepted this
sensible advice, and gave effect to it at once. Then Jethro
returned home.
This narrative obviously treats the Israelites on their arrival
at Horeb as a well-organized and duly subdivided nation, with
an established government, enjoying the blessings of a reg-
ular administration of justice and capable of advancing or
halting as a single man.
Nor does the writer of the " Book of Origins" allow us to
doubt for a moment that this was really his idea of the
march of the Israelites. For he carefully enumerates all
the places at which they halted, 1 gives in elaborate detail 2
the numbers of each tribe, the bearers of the banner of
each, and the order in which they were rauged round the
tabernacle. Na3 r , he even mentions the signal to be sounded
on the sacred trumpets, at which the various tribes were to
commence their march. 8 The larger we suppose the arnry
of the Israelites, the more absurd does this representation
appear; especially when we remember that the women and
children marched with the men capable of bearing arms,
and that they had to take all their possessions and all their
flocks with them. And this for forty years !
We shall probably not be far wrong if we suppose the
course of events to have been something as follows : When
the tribes had shaken off the yoke of Egypt, they tried to
make good their escape. The greater part of them appar-
ently turned southwards at first, then northwards from Sinai
to the boundaries of Canaan. There they were repulsed and
1 Numbers xxxiii. 1-49. 2 Numbers i. and h.
8 Numbers x. 1-8.
FORTY YEARS WANDERING. 31 1
turned south again along the mountains of Edom, after
which they entered the Eastern desert by the only pass which
leads to Arabia Deserta, namely, that of Elath. And where
next ? Wherever they could find a subsistence ! Some
kept wandering about in the peninsula of Sinai. Some set-
tled on the southern boundaries of Canaan or the western
boundaries of Seir, and entered into alliances with the native
peoples. Some wandered to the east, as far as the Euphrates ;
others to the south, and who knows where they may have
found a dwelling-place at last ? others to the north, till they
came upon the land of Moab. But although it was impos-
sible for any of the tribes to remain near together, on account
of the pasturage they required for their flocks, yet some of
them kept up a close connection with each other. They stood
by each other, took common counsel, and allowed themselves
to be led by Moses. Such, we may suppose, was the life of
the refugees from Egypt for about half a century.
One word more. What an extraordinary and impossible
representation both of Yahweh and of the people the narra-
tives of the Pentateuch give us ! On account of a fit of
despondency which comes over the Israelites, Yahweh changes
his plan. He had intended to bring them into Canaan, but
now he will not let them enter it. They must die in the
desert. In a still later account than that of Deuteronomy,
this is taken so literally that all the Israelites who were above
twenty years of age when they left Egypt, with the sole ex-
ception of Caleb and Joshua, are made to die. ] So Israel
wandered from north to south and from south to north, back-
wards and forwards along the mountains of Edom, for eigh'.
and thirty years. Nothing happens during all this time
Not a single word is said about it. The people simply wan-
dered up and down and — died out. Is such a thing con-
ceivable? Not even bands of ascetics, whose self-inflicted
penance has utterly deadened and stupefied them, have ever
supported such a purposeless existence, such a veritable hell
on earth. Can any one imagine a rough and warlike people
enduring it for a single week ? or feeling so much reverence
and fear for the god whom they had only learned to serve a
year ago as to submit to such an unbearable chastisement ?
It is vain to attempt to justify what we are told was God's
action by supposing that he did it in order to humble and
educate the Israelites, for a generation growing up amid such
surroundings could not but be feeble and enervated. Surely
1 Numbers xiv. 29, 30.
312 WOEK OP MOSES.
the true means of preparation for our work of life lies in a1>
tempting to find our own way, in advancing in spite of error,
gaining wisdom through loss and shame, learning to see with
our own eyes, and in joy and sorrow, in careful work and
anxious thought, ever moving forward.
Such was realty the education of the Israelites too. In-
stead of dreaming of a promised land, they looked round for
the finest country they could master. No bread fell down
from heaven for their food, and thej- found it toilsome work
to seek out pasturage for their flocks, trying meanwhile to
make allies of the inhabitants of the desert, such as the
Midianites, that they might be their " eyes " or guides. 1
God's glory in the guidance of Israel is not revealed in a
people kept in leading strings and compelled to turn this way
or that by physical expedients, but in the growth through the
ages of so much that was glorious and noble out of those rude
tribes seeking a fatherland.
Chapter IX.
THE WORK OF MOSES.
Deut. V. 6-21; Ex. XX. 2-17; Num. X. 33-36.
IT is due to Moses in the first instance that the uncivilized
hordes that wandered through the Arabian deserts in
the thirteenth century before Christ, and afterwards con-
quered Canaan, finally produced such noble results. We
must therefore form as clear a conception of his work as
possible, and must not allow ourselves to be misled by the
Jewish tradition which ascribes to his hand the whole of the
priestly legislation contained in the Pentateuch. In reality,
it would be nearer the truth to call it the work of Ezra. The
prophet Malachi, 2 who lived after the captivity, is the first to
use the expression "law of Moses," and the only claim of
the Jewish legislation to this title is derived from the fact
that the religion it defined and regulated so minutely was
originally founded by Moses. The worship of Yahweh, with
"the Ten Commandments" as its fundamental code, is the
chief legacy which Moses left his people.
1 Numbers x. 29-32. a Malachi iv. 4.
WORK OF MOSES. 313
Let us begin, *hen, by examining this code.
The ordinary expression "Ten Commandments" is hardly
correct, since the first of the ten — "I, Yahweh, am your
god " — is not a commandment at all. In the Hebrew they
are called "the ten words" for the expression word is often
used in Hebrew, as it is in several modern languages, for a
short sentence as well as for a single word. Unfortunately
we have no similar expression in English, and shall therefore
be obliged to retain the incorrect form, " ten commandments,"
except when we use the Greek word Decalogus or Decalogue.
The Decalogue, then, occurs twice in the Bible, and, as
the two versions differ in certain points, we see that we no
longer have it in its original form. It is remarkable, too,
that while many of the commandments, such as "Thou
shalt do no murder," "Thou shalt not commit adultery,"
" Thou shalt not steal," " Thou shalt not bear false witness,"
are very short, others, on the contrary, especially those refer-
ring to the worship of images and the observance of the
sabbath, are worked out at considerable length. The two
versions of the ten commandments give different reasons for
observing the holy day. According to the earlier version,
that of Deuteronomy, the male and female slaves, as well as
their masters, were to be exempt from work on the " sab-
bath" day (that is the day "of rest"), for the Iraelites must
think how they had once been slaves themselves in Egypt.
Here, therefore, the commandment rests upon principles of
humanfty. According to Exodus, on the other hand, the
Israelites must observe the day of rest because God created
heaven and earth in six days and rested on the seventh.
Here there is an obvious reference to the first account of the
creation, which was part of the " Book of Origins." Now it
seems highly improbable that this commandment, together
with those about the worship of images and the honor due
to parents', should from the first have been so elaborate,
while the rest were so short ; and we have every reason to
suppose that they were all equally short originally, and that
these elaborations are of later date.
How the commandments are to be divided and the number
ten retained, is. a question of the greatest difficulty.
The precept against covetousness has long been divided
into two ; the first words, " Thou shalt not covet thy neigh-
bor's house," being counted as the ninth, and "Thou shalt
not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his land, nor his male or
female slave, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is
vol. i. 14
314 WORK OP MOSES.
thy neighbor's," as the tenth commandment. The opening
words of the code, " I, Yahweh, am your god," together
with the prohibition of the service of other gods and the
worship of images, are then thrown into one first command-
ment. This division is most unnatural ; and if we admit
that originally the last commandment was simply "Thou
shalt not covet," it is no longer possible to split it into two.
It would scarcely have been worth while to mention this ar-
rangement of the ten commandments if it were not the one
adopted by the Roman Catholic and the Lutheran Churches.
It explains the fact that sometimes, especially in German
books, the commandment as to the sabbath is called the
third instead of the fourth, as with us ; the commandment
to honor father and mother the fourth instead of the fifth, and
so on. But we need not dwell upon this point any longer.
There is no special difficulty in arranging and numbering
the last eight commandments. The third is, " Take not the
name of Yahweh deceitfully," that is, " take no false oath ;"
the fourth — to which we shall return presently — " Keep the
day of rest holy ; " the fifth enjoins respect not only for the
father, but also for the mother, which is very remarkable
when we consider the antiquity of the code ; the sixth, sev-
enth, and eighth forbid murder, adultery, and theft ; the ninth
teaches that less open attacks, by means of false witnesses
before the judge, are equally hateful to Yahweh ; while the
tenth, which condemns covetousness, appears to be the fruit
of a much higher moral development than that implied by the
rest, for it condemns not only the evil deed but the ungenerous
disposition.
This last commandment and perhaps some of the others
may give rise to many questions, but at any rate there is no
difficulty in counting them. This cannot be said of the two
first, for even when we have dropped the long digression upon
the worship of images, there are still three distinct sentences
left, namely, " I, Yahweh, am thy god ; " " Thou shalt have
no other gods by my side ; " and ; ' Thou shalt not make any
image of a god." How are we to escape from this difficulty 'i
The division usually adopted in England follows Josephus and
other ancient writers in taking the words " I, Yahweh, am
thy god " as a sort of heading to the whole code rather than
one of its clauses, and making the first commandment forbid
the service of other gods, and the second the worship of
images. The Jews, on the other hand, count "I am the
Lord, thy god " as the first commandment ; and are doubtless
WORK OF MOSES. 315
right in so doing. This point was indeed the most important
of all ; and had to be kept before the Israelites more emphat-
ically than anything else. Those who regard it as a sort of
heading or introduction go on the supposition that it would
be taken as a matter of course, and did not need to be taught
as something new, but simply to be brought to mind. But
this idea is quite incorrect, for if there was one thing new in
the ten commandments it was this recognition of Yahwch as
the god who had redeemed Israel. 1
Our only course, then, is to make "Thou shalt have no
other gods by my side, nor make any image of a god " the
second commandment ; and this is what the Jews still do.
But this is not one commandment. The worship of other
gods besides Yahweh is something quite distinct from the
worship of images. How is it that these two precepts have
been fused together ? When the Israelites had risen to the
belief in one God who had created heaven and earth, and of
whom no image could be made, they made no distinction
between the worship of other gods and the worship of images ;
and we need not be surprised, therefore, to find the two pre-
cepts treated as one in the versions of the ten commandments
which we still possess. But in earlier times the distinction
was still clearly felt, and the two commandments could not
then have been run together. Probably one of them is a later
addition to the other, but it is very difficult to say which.
Most of the scholars who admit that we must make a choice
between them, reject the commandment against the worship
of images as not having been uttered by Moses. But there is
just as much, or perhaps more, reason to suppose that the
commandment forbidding the worship of other gods is of later
date. This at least is certain, that, as far as we can make
out, there was a party amongst the Israelites, dating from the
time of Moses, that zealously opposed the use of images of
gods, so that we are safe in saying that the school of Moses
was characterized by its aversion to the worship of images.
Whereas it is clear that, during the first centuries after Moses,
no one ever thought of worshipping Yahweh alone, far less of
denying the existence of all other gods. Indeed, this latter
doctrine is not even taught in the commandment in its present
form ; for the very prohibition to worship other gods is a tacit
admission of their existence, or at any rate does not deny
it. No doubt, however, the precept to worship only one god
paved the way to the belief that there is but one.
1 See pp. 285-287.
316 WORK OF MOSES.
In the spirit of these ten commandments Moses labored
among the sons of Israel ; but in order to comprehend the
true value of his work, we must examine the character of the
tribes he had rescued from Egypt. They called themselves
the sons of Israel, but we must not for a moment suppose
that they were all of the same origin. Certain old Egyptian
stories say that the ancestors of the Israelites were leprous or
unclean Egyptians, and although this is certainly untrue, there
is no doubt that a good deal of Egyptian blood flowed in the
veins of some of them. The Israelite legends themselves
point to the same conclusion, for thej' represent Joseph as
married to a daughter of the priest of On, 1 which we may
take as an indication that the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh
were of mixed blood. We may draw similar conclusions from
the story that Moses married an Ethiopian wife, 2 and the
statetnent that a great "mixed multitude" came out with
the sons of Israel. 8
The Hebrews had intermarried not only with the Egyptians,
but with other tribes related to themselves, such as the Mid-
ianites, — a fact to which the legend of the union of Moses
and Zipporah refers ; 4 and we may take for granted that
during the half century between the exodus and the conquest
of Canaan, they mingled with the Edomites, Moabites, and
Ammonites as well. We shall see presently that in later
times, when the Israelites attached the greatest importance to
purity of descent, they still found it impossible to denj- that
large sections of the tribes were made up entirely of strangers.
We must be careful not to form too high an opinion of the
social condition of these tribes. The}' were but a mingled
group of nomadic shepherds. And 3-et there was a nucleus
amongst them of kindred spirits, who had acted in concert in
Egypt, with whose leaders Moses had brought about the
insurrection, upon whose support he could rely in the desert,
and who doubtless closely resembled each other in religious
ideas and usages. These families called themselves "the
sons of Israel," and the rest were led by fear or self-interest
to group themselves round them with or without their leave.
Thus various tribes were formed, the most important of them
being Judah, "the house of Joseph," and "the sons of
Reuben," together with Simeon and Levi.
Now these sons of Israel, with their allies, had gods and
religious customs of their own ; and we must toy to ascertain •
1 Genesis xii. 45. ^ Numbers xii. 1.
8 Exodus xii. 38; Numbers xi. 4. 4 Exodus ii. 21.
WOKE OF MOSES. 317
their general character in order to form a better idea of the
kind of people among whom Moses had to work.
At the time of the exodus the Israelites were worshippers
of many gods. This would not necessarily follow from the
admission of some of their later writers ' that it was so, were
it not obvious from the whole course of their history. While
some of them worshipped stones and other such fetiches, 2
others adored the powers of Nature. The lowest stage of
Nature- worship is the adoration of the moon, traces of which
may be found amoug many different nations. The waning
of the moon till she disappeared altogether was witnessed
by them with amazement and alarm, and her reappearance
greeted with festivities and acclamations of joy. This was
the case among the Israelites too, and from the earliest
times the feast of the new moon was held in high honor by
them. It appears that the very name given to the desert of
Sin and the mount of Sinai signifies the moon-god ; and, if
so, then one of the Canaanite tribes, that of the Sinites, de-
rives its name from the same deity. <
Probably not only the feast of the new moon but the
celebration of the sabbath existed before the time of Moses.
The origin of this usage cannot be explained with certainty.
The week of seven days is not found elsewhere except
among the Egyptians, and even there no day of rest was
observed. It is quite possible that the sanctity of the num-
ber seven is connected with the worship of seven of the heav-
enly bodies — namely, the sun, the moon, and the planets
Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn ; and it appears
that some of the families of the Israelites worshipped Saturn
under the name of Kiwan, which may have given rise to the
religious observance of the seventh day. If we look upon
the week of seven days as a quarter of a month we may
bring the observance of the sabbath into connection with the
worship of the moon. But this is not a ver}^ probable theorj T ,
for it must soon have been discovered that the interval be-
tween the appearance of one new moon and that of the next
was not precisely four times seven days. But whatever may
have been the origin of the custom of observing the last day
of every seven as holy, the Israelites themselves had already
forgotten it. "Whether they inherited the custom from their
ancestors, or borrowed it from the Egyptians, they had
learned quite early to observe it mechanically.
There are other ancient practices of the Israelites which
l Joshua xxiv. 14, 23 ; Ezekiel xx. Iff. 2 s ee pp , 175 g.
S18 WORK OF MOSES.
are doubtless connected with Nature-worship. Such, foi
instance, are the separation between certain clean and un-
clean animals, the consecration of the tithes and of the first
fruits of the harvest, the performance of religious ceremonies
on the high places (bamahs) , the use of images of the sun
(chammanim) , and of straight branches of trees stripped of
their leaves and fixed near the altars (asherahs) .
But the powers of Nature were worshipped by different peo-
ples in very different waj's. The worshippers of the heav-
enly bodies might regard the objects of their adoration under
two aspects — as beneficent fruit-giving powers, or as stern
destructive beings. The warmth of the sun, for instance, is
sometimes fostering, but sometimes scorching ; and the char-
acter of the worship of the sun-god depended upon whether
he was regarded as a gracious and beneficent, or as a destruc-
tive and pitiless god. A fruit-giving deity loved to see his
worshippers gentle and cultivated ; was honored by scenes of
joy and festivity, and was rather gratified than offended by
the indulgence of sensual passions. Hence the tribes that
worshipped the powers of Nature as friendly beings, at-
tached great value to gentleness of manners, but gave them-
selves up in a shameless manner to the grossest inchastity,
even in honor of the gods themselves. On the other hand a
stern, destructive, cruel god was believed by his worshippers
to delight in the development of their strength, in the suffer-
ings they inflicted on themselves, and in the bloody sacrifices
which they offered. Hence self-mutilation, human sacrifices,
and abstinence from marriage in honor of the deity are found
amongst them, and their manners are chaste and severe but
cruel. Amongst the Semites, as amongst other peoples, we
generally find a goddess by the side of each god. Thus the
fostering sun-god, for example, is accompanied by the earth
whom he fructifies, and the scorching destructive sun-god by
the chaste and austere moon-goddess. It is but natural that
we should often find both these conceptions adopted by the
same peoples. In some cases, especially, when a people was
composed of different elements, we find a temple consecrated
to Moloch, for instance, the destructive god, who must be ap-
peased by bloody sacrifices, and a pole standing by it dedicated
to Mylitta, or Asherah, the goddess who delighted in sensual
enjoyment. But it is also obvious that one of the two views
would on the whole prevail in each nation according to its own
character, the nature of the soil and climate of its abode, and
the circumstances by which it was surrounded. Among the
WORK OF MOSES. 319
Israelites too we find both sorts of religion, bit it seems that
they were most inclined to think of the gods as stern powers.
For instance, there is one of their ancient usages which has
always awakened the deep interest of those who desire to
comprehend the religion of Israel, and which points to this
conception of the gods as austere beings. It is the custom
of circumcision.
This strange and to us repulsive practice was performed by
the Israelites upon their male children on the eighth day after
their birth. 1 It was observed by many peoples to whom
Israel was related ; but amongst the Ishmaelites it was de-
ferred till the* boy was twelve or thirteen years old, 2 and
amongst the Egyptians the priests alone had to undergo it.
The origin of this curious usage is not known with certainty.
In all probability it was originally a sacrifice to appease the
stern deities. 8 An old tradition informs us that the Israelites
neglected the circumcision in the wilderness, but were after-
wards deeply ashamed of having done so, and as soon as
they had restored the usage shouted in triumph, ' ' This day
is the reproach of Egypt turned awaj' from us ! " From this
circumstance the place where it occurred is said to have
derived its name of Gilgal, i.e. " turning away." 4 The
Israelites were afterwards so proud of the circumcision that
one of their bitterest terms of reproach was that of " uncir-
cumcised." 6 They had forgotten the original meaning of the
usage, however, and the "Book of Origins" tells us that
Yahweh commanded Abraham to practise it as a sign of
the covenant between himself and Abraham's posterity, but
offers no explanation of it. 6 However little understood, the
custom was handed down from generation to generation, and
is still kept up by the Jews.
Not only the circumcision but the consecration of the first-
born child to the deity 7 shows us that the ancient gods of the
Israelites required cruel sacrifices from their worshippers ;
and we are led to the same conclusion by many other usages
and b}' certain religious symbols which came down from the
times before Moses. Such for instance are the Ban, and the
image of a young bull, of which we shall have to speak again.
We must never forget, however, that there can have been
nothing like unity of ideas or usages amongst the hordes of
1 Leviticus xii. 3. 2 Genesis xvii. 25.
8 Exodus iv. 24-26. i Joshua v. 2-9.
6 2 Samuel i. 20, and elsewhere.
« Genesis xvii. ' See pp. 275, 276.
320 WOKE OF MOSES.
which the sons of -Israel were the heart, as they gradually
formed themselves into the various tribes. The most influ-
ential families doubtless worshipped the austere deities, of
whom we have spoken, but not under the same names or by
the same usages in all cases. Some of them worshipped
Kiwan, while others bowed down before Molech — the former
consecrating the last day of a week of seven days to their god,
and the latter devoting the first-born of man and beast to
theirs. Others again pleaded in word and deed for the wor-
ship of the more sensual deities, and celebrated the feast of
the new moon in licentious dances and dissolute festivities.
The future of these tribes depended largely upon the charac-
ter of the gods in whose name they had been released from
the land of slavery.
Now this god, as we know, was Yahweh, whose worship
Moses introduced. He became the national god of Israel
through the efforts of the same hero, and there is not the least
doubt as to his character. He was an austere, a holy, and a
fearful god. He must be appeased bj' offerings of blood ; fire
was his symbol, 1 and the firstborn of all living things must be
devoted to him. A human being devoted to Yahweh must be
put to death, and a city or country consecrated to him de-
vastated and left untilled.
But the ten commandments taught that Yahweh must be
served above all things by a moral life, and that is one of the
noblest features of the work of Moses. The Israelite was
commanded in the name of Yahweh to reverence his parents,
to hold the life, the wedlock, and the property of his neighbor
sacred, to injure nobod}- by ljing words, and even to restrain
his covetous desires. The last commandment is the hardest
to explain; for "not to covet" is such a far-reaching and
exalted commandment that we should not have expected to
find it in the month of Moses, for the early Israelite moralists
were content to condemn the evil deed without speaking of the
principle from which it flowed. It is generally supposed,
therefore, that it is simply meant to forbid the use of dishonest
trickery for the sake of gain ; and, at any rate, we must not
lay too much stress on the penetrating nature of the tenth
commandment, since it stands almost alone. But, independ-
ently of this doubtful point, the fundamental code of Israel
deserves our admiration, on account of the close connection
which it establishes between the worship of Yahweh and a
moral life.
i See pp. 123-125.
WORK OF MOSES. 321
The gods of many other peoples were as austere as Yah-
weh ; but their austerity only made their worshippers seek to
honor them by shedding torrents of blood, by frightful sacri-
fices, unnatural abstinence from everything that gratifies the
animal nature of man, exhausting fasts, cruel penances,
abstinence from marriage, and so on. Now similar sacrifices
were no doubt made to Yahweh too ; but the direction which
Moses gave to the religion of his people did not encourage
any such practices. He taught them that the best waj- to
honor their god was by leading a moral life. Such a doctrine
was capable of producing noble results. Following this path,
Israel must grow into such a nation as had not its like on
earth.
It is not impossible that Moses was largely indebted to the
Egyptians for his high moral conceptions. In many respects
the religion of the Israelites was diametrically opposed to that
of their oppressors, and their experiences in .Goshen certainly
tended to increase their aversion to Egyptian ideas rather
than to win them over to them. For although one nation
often borrows some institution or idea from another in times
of peace and when there is a good understanding between the
two, yet the gods of an enemy always share in the hatred with
which their worshippers are regarded. When Yahweh led
Israel out of Egypt, he executed judgmerit on the gods of the
land, and the Israelites knew that their god was at war with
the gods of the Nile. But if there is any truth at all in the
tradition that Moses was educated amongst the Egyptians and
instructed in their wisdom, he certainly could not have bor-
rowed anything better from them than their high estimate of
morality. The moral teaching of the Eg3~ptians was already
highly developed at the time of the stay of the Israelites in
Goshen. Even then, as their writings show, they taught that
" a son who obeys his father is rewarded by a long life," and
that "obedience or disobedience comes out of the heart of man."
They declared that it was a sin to oppress the poor, to live
loosely, to cause grief or pain to anyone, to murder or steal,
to falsify weights and measures, or to torture animals.
To this exalted moral teaching the Egyptians united a great-
variety of very extraordinary forms of worship. Thus they
worshipped various kinds of living animals, such as cats, ibises,
crocodiles, and the steer Apis. The number of their images,
too, was something extraordinary. We find nothing of this
kind in the teaching of Moses, from whose time onward, in-
deed, there was a party among the Israelites which opposed
14*
322 WORK OP MOSES.
all worship of images whatever. The Yahweh of Moses was
a genuine Israelitish god ; and thus, by grafting the moral
teaching of Egypt upon a truly national religion, Moses pro-
duced something altogether new.
We know nothing of the forms of worship as modified or
introduced by Moses, except that the ark was the most im-
portant of all the sacred objects. If only we knew the original
meaning of this consecrated symbol, it might throw great
light on the early religion of Israel ; but unhappily we are
almost entirely in the dark about it. It is true that we have a
detailed account of an " ark of the covenant," or " ark of the
testimony," 1 but it is part of a description of the tabernacle,
which is of no historical value. 2 The zealous reformers, about
the time of the captivity, had little regard for the ark, 8 and
though the Deuteronomist describes it as a chest containing
the stone tables on which the ten commandments were cut, 4
we may be sure that it had really some much less orthodox sig-'
nification, and that his account is only an attempt to counter-
act its dangerous tendency, by bringing it into connection with
what he considers the true form of Yahweh worship. We
shall hear of the ark again from time to time, and shall then
see that it was looked upon as nothing less than the dwelling-
place of Yahweh. This idea may still be clearly traced in a
short account of the Mosaic period, 5 which appears to contain
two very ancient forms of blessing, though it calls the ark by
the more modern name of " the ark of Yahweh's covenant."
It runs as follows : —
The Israelites marched three days from the mount of Yah-
weh, and the ark of Yahweh's covenant went out before them
to seek a resting place for them ; and bj' day the cloud of
Yahweh hovered over them as they left the encampment.
When the ark went out, Moses said, — ■
Rise up, Yahweh! let thine enemies be scattered abroad;
And let those that hate thee fly !
And when it halted, he prayed, —
Return, Yahweh ! to the ten thousands,
To the tribes of Israel !
The word "ark" means simply chest. What was to be
found in this sacred chest, in or near which Yahweh dwelt,
we cannot tell. The importance of the worship of stones
1 Exodus xxv. 10-22, xl. 20, 21. Numbers iv. 5, 6, 15. 2 See p. 304.
» Jeremiah iii. 16. 4 Deuteronomy x. 1-5. 6 Numbers x. 33-36.
WORK OF MOSES. 323
among the Israelites 1 certainly favors the suggestion that
there was a sacred stone in the ark ; and though this is and
can be nothing but a guess, it is a fact at any rate tbat, ac-
cording to the belief of the time, Yahweh himself went and
came to the Israelites with the ark.
Beyond this we know nothing of the forms of worship to
which Moses gave the preference ; nothing of the usages
which he introduced, supported, or combated ; nothing of
the institutions which he bequeathed to his people ; and we
must be careful not to form exaggerated ideas on airy of these
points. No doubt Moses was reverenced in the wilderness
chiefly as the representative of Yahweh. His commands ob-
tained a ready hearing, and he made use of his authority, as
the ambassador of God, to draw the various tribes closer to-
gether — to control their concerted movements — to settle their
disputes — to oppose and, if possible, root out everything that
conflicted with the worship of Yahweh — to preach the law of
his god on every opportunity — and to impress the ten com-
mandments upon all the sons of Israel, but especially upon
their chiefs, when they came to consult him. There must
have been families or powerful individuals in various tribes
who were so faithfully attached to him and to his ideas as to
consult him constantly, to act according to his divine re-
sponses, and to strive to establish his authority round about
them. In this way they would form a bond of union be-
tween the various tribes. We might almost have guessed
from the nature of the case where to look for these fami-
lies, and history confirms our expectations. The Levites,
to whom Moses was related, certainly supported him faith-
fully ; and we find them again, at a later period, together
with the closely connected Simeonites, showing their zeal for
the cause of Yahweh. 2 No doubt the Levites and those who
sympathized with them checked the dispersion of the tribes
in the time of Moses, and furthered the general good.
. If the Israelites would not listen to his exhortations of
their own free-will, and he saw a chance of carrying out his
measures by force, then doubtless he called his faithful allies
together and drew the sword to put down what was evil. We
are told that he did so, for instance, when the Israelites fell
into sin after having conquered the territory east of Jordan.
The storj', 8 in its present form, is of very late origin, but the
tradition tha,t is at the bottom of it is at any rate perfectly
1 See pp. 177-179. ' 2 Seejvost, chapter xviii.
i * Numbers xxv. 1-15.
324 WORK OF MOSES.
faithful to the spirit of the time. The Israelites — so we
are told — had formed a close friendship with the Moabites,
and had actually begun to take part in their worship of
Baal-Peor, which was grossly immoral in its character.
Thereupon Yahweh said to Moses : " Take all the leaders of
the people and hang them on a cross against the sun, to
appease Yahweh. 80 shall Yahweh's wrath be turned aside."
What Moses actually did does not agree with this command,
for he ordered the judges of the people to put all the guilty
individuals to death, and Phinehas first began to carry out
this sentence.
If we had to sum up in a few words the debt which Israel
owes to Moses, we should say : He introduced the moral
worship of Yahweh among his people. If asked whether his
conception of this god was very pure and exalted, we should
answer : As far as we know anything about it, it was very
imperfect. If the commandment, " Thou shalt have no other
gods before the face of Yahweh," is from him, then he recog-
nized the existence of other gods, though denying their right
to be worshipped by Israel. Even this is uncertain, however,
and it is not impossible that even to Moses Yahweh was
nothing more than the special god of Israel. A chest, perhaps
containing a stone, was the sacred object to which the pres-
ence of Yahweh was attached. Certainly when we compare
all this with our own thoughts about God, it appears very
unsatisfactory and in the highest degree defective. But the
fact that Moses insisted on the moral demands of Yahweh
outweighs a host of mistaken beliefs. Surely the worship of
a stone or a star, in the name of which reverence to parents
and an upright life are enjoined, is more glorious and more
rich in promise than the adoration of even an invisible, infi-
nitely exalted, spiritual being, enthroned above the clouds
and sky, and reverenced as the creator of heaven and earth,
whose chief commandment is to offer sacrifices and observe
outward ceremonies. The religious superiority of one form
of worship over another depends above all upon the value
which it attaches to morality.
Was it a new doctrine that Moses 1 might? This question
may be answered in two ways. Strictly speaking it was not
"new" in the sense of "invented by Moses himself." His
god had been worshipped by his forefathers before he was
born, and had certainly not been unknown to the other sons
of Israel. His moral teaching was perhaps borrowed from
CONQUEST EAST OP JORDAN. 325
the Egyptian priests ; the observance of the sabbath he prob-
ably found already established amongst certain classes ; and
the usages which he maintained were already recognized by
the most influential families. It cannot be said, therefore,
that his work was entirely new. But what founder or reformer
of a religion ever has produced anything entirely new ? Who
can help standing upon the shoulders of the generations that
have passed away ? Who can help borrowing his ideas from
those who have been at work before him? The services of
those who have succeeded in any great work consist in rid-
ding old truths of defects which have hitherto clung to them
and made them barren ; in so grouping these well-known
truths as to place them in a clearer and unsuspected light ; in
saying the right thing at the right moment, and being so
filled with the truth to which they cleave as to secure its
acceptance by the power of their preaching. Such men give
a quickening impulse to the development of those around
them, or perhaps of a whole nation.
Such was the work of Moses. In many respects his char-
acter was moulded by that of his age, but the direction
which he gave to the powers of Israel opens a new era.
Moses, the founder of the moral Yahweh-worship, stands at
the head of the spiritual movement which culminated in him
who said : ' ' Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God ! "
Chapter X.
THE CONQUEST OF THE DISTRICT EAST OF JORDAN.
Decjt. II. 2-II1. 22.
WE may now take up once more the thread of the sloiy
which our review of the work of Moses has broken.
When the Israelites had wandered many years in the district
west of Mount Seir, and a new generation had grown up
worthy of inheriting the promised land, Yahweh put an end
to their wanderings and commanded them to turn north-
wards. Their way led through the mountain pass between Seii'
and the Elanite Gulf, where the seaports of Elath and Ezeon -
geber were afterwards built. The Edomites, along the eastern
boundary oi whose land they must pass, were already in terroi
326 CONQUEST EAST OF JORDAN.
at their approach ; but they were commanded not to molest
them ; for Yahweh had given Seir as an inheritance to Edom.
Far from plundering the inhabitants, they must pay for
their necessary food and even for all the water they required ;
for had not Yahweh blessed his people, and supported them
for forty years in the great desert, so that they were in want
of nothing?
The Israelites strictly observed this order, and went on
to tie land of Moab. This country had formerly been inhab-
ited by the giant race of the Emites, but the Moabites had
expelled them from it. In the same way the Ammonites,
who dwelt further nortu had driven out the Zamzummites,
another race of giants. This was, in fact, the history of
all the surrounding districts. The Edomites had taken the
place of the Horites and the Caphtorites (or Philistines)
that of the Avvites, a Canaanite tribe that had formerly held
possession of the land as far as Gaza. 1
The brook Sared was the boundary of Moab, and the end of
the wandering's of the Israelites. Before they crossed this
stream the rebellious generation had altogether died out. But
the land which Yahweh had destined for their children was not
yet reached. They had still to pass through Moab and Am-
nion, upon whom they were to inflict no injury, for to them,
too, Yahweh had given their land.
But when they had crossed the brook Anion, they came to
a country which they were no longer forbidden to conquer.
It was the land of Sihon the Amorite, with its capital, Hesh-
bon. " Henceforth," said Yahweh, " will I begin to make all
the nations that hear of you tremble and shake before you."
Then I sent — sa}'s Moses — messengers of peace to Sihon, to
ask leave to pass through his land. I told him that the land
which Yahweh had given us lay on the other side of the Jordan,
and promised that if he would let us pass through his land, as
the Edomites and the Moabites had done, we would not turn
out of the highway either to the right hand or to the left, and
would pay for all the food and drinking water we requited.
But Sihon refused ; for Yahweh had hardened his heart on
purpose to give us his land. So Sihon came out with a great
army to meet us at Jahaz, but we defeated him, and took pos-
session of his whole kingdom. The inhabitants of its cities,
men, women, and children were laid under the ban, and not
one of them was left alive ; but the cattle and the rest of the
booty we kept. From Aroer to the banks of the Arnon, and
1 See p. 240.
CONQUEST EAST OF JORDAN. 327
from Ar-Moab even to Gilead, no city was too strong for us.
Yahweh gave us everything ; but the land of the Ammonites
we left uninjured.
Then we went northward to Bashan, where Og was king.
He was of the old race of giants, as his iron bedstead shows.
It measures nine cubits in length and four in breadth and is still
preserved at Rabbath Amnion. When he advanced to Edrei
to oppose us, Yahweh bid us be of good courage, and promised
that Og should share the fate of Sihon. And it was so. All
Bashan fell into our hands. We took sixty great cities with
walls and gates and bars, besides numbers of unfortified places.
We dealt with the land of Og as we had dealt with that of Sihon.
All the human beings we laid under the ban, but took the cattle
and other valuables as booty. Thus did we conquer the whole
land from the Arnon to Mount Hermon. The Sidonians call
this mountain Sirion, and the Amorites call it Shenir.
Then I gave the land from the Aroer to the Arnon, together
with half the mountain land of Gilead, to the tribes of Reuben
and Gad, and the land of Bashan to one-half of the tribe
of Manasseh, because Jair the Manassite had conquered it ;
whence it is still called " Jair's villages" (Havoth Jair).
Gilead I gave to Machix, another family of the tribe of Man-
asseh. But the Reubenites and Gadites received their inher-
itance upon condition that their fighting men should help the
other tribes to conquer the land of Canaan, while their women
and children, together with their numerous flocks, remained
in the cities that were now assigned to them.
When I had arranged all this, continued Moses, I bid Joshua
be of good courage, saying to him : " See what Yahweh has
done to these kings. So will he do to all the kingdoms against
which you march. Fear not, for Yahweh, your god, fights
for you."
In the book of Numbers we find a narrative which essen-
tially agrees with the one just given. It tells us 1 that the
Israelites sent from Kadesh to ask the Edomites to allow
them to pass through their country, but that they refused to
do so, and set out with a powerful army to oppose them.
Upon this the Israelites changed their plan, and took a circuit-
ous route round Seir. When they came to the Arnon, 2 Moses
sent messengers to Sihon to ask leave to pass through his ter-
ritory. On his refusing to grant this permission the Israelites
conquered his land. Here we find it noted that Sihon, king of
1 Numbers xx. 14-21. 2 Numbers xxi. 13-35.
328 CONQUEST EAST OF JORDAN.
the Amorites, had taken Heshbon and the surrounding terri-
tory from the former king of the Moabites. 1 The conquest of
Bashan followed that of the land of Sihon.
The narrative of Deuteronomy is still more highly colored
than this other, and the account it gives of Israel's triumphs
is embellished most profusely. Within a few weeks, or at the
outsile months, the whole country east of the Jordan, from
the Anion to Mount Hermon, is conquered ; and if the Edo-
mites, Moabites, and Ammonites are left in the independent
possession of their territories, it is simply because Yahweh
commands Israel not to attack them. But these peoples were
already in great terror. For every nation that heard of Israel
— of that people countless as the stars of heaven, 2 to whom
Yahweh visibly lent his constant aid — trembled before its
power. A people that won such easy victories, and had only
to pick and choose the country it would take for its own,
ought surely to have been above sending a Irypocritical mes-
sage of peace to Sihon.
But the real course of events was very different. As far as
we can recover it, the true history of the conquest of .the land
east of Jordan is as follows : —
East of the Dead Sea, and further north along the banks of
the Jordan, the " sons of Lot" had expelled the original in-
habitants and won themselves a home. The Ammonites dwelt
furthest to the east, while the Moabites held possession not
only of the land south of the Arnon, but even of the territory
north of this stream, as far as the Jabbok. But the Amorites
who lived west of the Jordan had made an inroad into Gilead,
expelled the Moabites from the district between the Arnon
and the Jabbok, and made Heshbon their capital. The sons
of Lot, under this stress of circumstances, called in the assist-
ance of their near kinsmen the Israelites, who were wandering
about over the steppes that stretched from the eastern bounda-
ries of the sons of Lot to the Euphrates. The Israelites were
only too glad of an opportunity of exchanging their barren
plains for more fruitful regions ; and with their help the Amo-
rites in their turn were conquered. Probably the circumstance
that about this time Ramses III. , of Egypt, made an incursion
into Canaan, 8 prevented Sihon's obtaining help from his kins-
men on the west of the Jordan, and in this way contributed
to his fall. Thus Israel gained possession of the district
which was afterwards called the territory of Reuben and Gad ;
i Numbers xxi. 26. 2 Deuteronomy i 10. » See p. 308.
CONQUEST EAST OF JORDAN. 329
and now there was nothing but the Jordan to separate the
people of Yahweh from the fertile land of Canaan.
As for the conquest of Bashan, the account that ascribes it
to Moses is utterly inconsistent with the date at which it took
place. It is probable that even the " sons of Machir " did not
take possession of Gilead till after the conquest of Canaan,
since the " house of Machir " lived west of the Jordan at first. 1
We cannot fix the exact date of this event, however. On the
other hand, it is certain that Jair, the Gileadite, the conqueror
of Bashan, after whom thirty places were called Jair's villages,
lived in the time of- the Judges, 2 and that one part of Bashan
was conquered at a still later period by a certain Nobah. 8 In-
deed, the very narratives of the Pentateuch itself prove that
the conquest of this district of half Manasseh did not take
place in the time of Moses ; for in fixing the conditions upon
which the transjordanic tribes were to be allowed to enter
upon the possession of their territory, no mention is made of
the Manassites, either in the short account of Deuteronomy
or the more elaborate one of Numbers. 4 In both cases it is
the Reubenites and Gadites alone who are required to help
their brothers. 6
In reality, of course, the transjordanic district was not
assigned in this peaceful way to two of the tribes. The
ancient legends represent Reuben as Israel's firstborn son by
Leah, 6 while Gad is called the son of Leah's slave girl.' No
doubt, therefore, Gad was more or less dependent upon
Reuben. The two are called collectively "the house of
Reuben." It was this house of Reuben that bore the brunt of
the desperate struggle against the Amorites, and then, by the
right of the strongest and the first upon the field, took pos-
session of the rich pastures between the Jabbok and the
Arnon for itself, but was not indisposed to help the other
sons of Israel afterwards.
The writer of the first chapters of Deuteronomy could never
believe that these ancient events had taken such a course.
He thought of the Israelite tribes as acting with perfect una-
nimity, conquering a fatherland under the command of
Moses, and assigning the first portion of the land that fell
into their hands to the tribes for whom it was best suited, on
condition of theii faithfully helping their brothers to com-
1 Joshua xvii. 3 ff. Judges v. 14. 2 Judges x. 3, 4.
8 Numbers xxxii. 41, 42. 4 Numbers xxxii.
6 See Deuteronomy iii. 16-20 ; Numbers xxxii. 1, 2. 6, 25, 29.
6 Genesis xxix. 32, xlix. 3. Exodus vi. 14. Numbers xxvi. 5.
' Genesis xxx. 10, 11.
330 CONQUEST EAST OF JORDAN.
plete the conquest. He imagined the possession of the land
east of Jordan to have taken place with the unanimous
consent of the tribes, in compliance with law and order, at
the command of the divinely appointed leader of the people.
He was mistaken in his conception of the facts, but his very
mistake bears witness to the progress Israel had made. An
Israelite of about the time of the Babylonian captivity could
not possibly imagine that the people of Yahweh was once
but an ill-defined group of tribes, amongst whom might was
right, and over whom even Moses, the delegate of Yahweh,
could exercise but small control. It was not so in his time,
nor had it been so for centuries. A king ruled in Israel, and
men no longer followed their own devices uncontrolled. At
a word of command, issued by a single man, the tribes sent
their bands of warriors to the battle ; the booty was regularly
divided amongst the conquerors ; the respective rights and
duties of the different sections of the people were duly regu-
lated ; and no one family or clan could take to itself what was
the property of all.
This was a great advance ; and if the writer's ideal does
not appear to us so glorious as it did to him, it is because we
are familiar with a still better state of things, in which society
.is more adequately regulated, the rights of the various sec-
tions of the people more justly defined, a. share in the direc-
tion of public affairs secured to every one, and all are subject
not to the will of a single man, but to laws of the State,
made, promulgated, and maintained with due regard to order.
In social institutions, as in all else, the light breaks but
slowly, and the world takes but one step forward at a time.
Although our writer's false views of the history of the
past are themselves the proof that he rejoiced in a clearer
perception of justice than was known in earlier times, yet
even his ideas are sadly limited in one direction ; for he tells
us with evident satisfaction how Israel conquered Sihon and
Og, slaughtered their subjects, and appropriated their land;
and how Edom, Moab, and Ammon escaped the same dan-
ger, not because the Israelites had no right to their land —
for what right had they to the countries they did take ? — but
simply because it was the will of Yahweh, Israel's god.
Thus, while in regulating the mutual relations of the different
sections of the same nation, right was more than might ; on
the other hand, when affairs were to be settled between
different nations, might was still the highest right.
And yet our writer proclaims a principle which must lead
DEATH OF MOSES. 331
in the end to the recognition of right as the first considera-
tion even in the dealings of nations with each other. It is
Yahweh, he says, who gave Moab and Ammon and Edom
their land, as well as Israel his. This was not the old belief.
At first Yahweh was Israel's god, but had nothing to do with
any other nations, except in so far as his own people came
into contact with them. Israel, according to the old idea,
had received his land from Yahweh, and Moab his from
Chemosh. 1 The relations between the gods Yahweh and
Chemosh, like those between their peoples, were regulated
by the right of the strongest. But gradually Israel rose
above these ideas, and reached the conviction that it was
Yahweh who not only led the Israelites from Egypt, but also
brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from
Kir. 2 All peoples, then, are governed bj r one will, are mem-
bers of one body, and their mutual relations must be regu-
lated on the same principles as those which govern the affairs
of a single people.
We have already seen 8 that this consequence was actually
perceived by a few Israelites of a highly developed type.
We ourselves live in an age in which it is generally acknowl-
edged, but we have still to wait for the time in which the
truth will be fully acted up to. Patience ! the human race
advances slowly.
Chapter XI.
THE DEATH OF MOSES.
Deut. III. 23-29, XXXIV.; Num. XX. 1-13.
THE time and manner of the death of Moses were as little
known to posterity as the place of his grave. Nor is
this surprising ; for when his people had so far emerged from
their barbarous condition as to have a history and to com-
memorate the particulars of the lives of their great men,
Moses was already enveloped in the gray mists of a far-off
past. His work still lived, and his name lived with it, but
his person was sketched by legend alone. One thing only
was known — namely, that it was not Moses but Joshua who
1 Judges xi. 24. 2 Amos ix. 7. 8 See pp. 154, 155.
332 DEATH OF MOSES.
led the people into Canaan. Moses, then, must have died
before his people entered into the land that had been prom-
ised to their fathers. This could not but seem strange to
the thoughtful Israelite. Surely he, if any one, ought to
have lived to see the prosperity of his people. This raised a
question which could not be left unanswered ; and six or
seven centuries after his death, the writer of the introduction
to Deuteronomy answered it in the following words which he
puts into the mouth of Moses himself : —
" When I had given the land east of Jordan to Reuben
and Gad, I prayed to my god, and said: ' Lord Yahweh,
thou hast shown me the beginning of thy great works and of
the revelation of thy power. So glorious are they that no
god in heaven or on earth can do the like. Ah, let me now
go over with the people and see the good land on the other
side of the Jordan, that glorious mountain land and Leba-
non ! ' But I prayed in vain ; for Yahweh was angry with
me for 3'our sakes. He would not hear my prayer, but
answered : ' Enough ! speak to me of this no more. Climb
the summit of Mount Pisgah, and look well round to every
side, for 30U shall not cross this Jordan. But first appoint
Joshua in your place, and speak words of courage to him,
for he shall lead the people, and bring them into the land
which you may only see from afar.' This was when we were
encamped in the valley over against Beth-Peor."
So when Moses had proclaimed the law to his people — • we
are told at the end of the book of Deuteronomy — he climbed
from the plains of Moab to the summit of a mountain peak of
Pisgah, which lies over against Jericho, and is called Mount
Nebo. From this peak Yahweh showed him all the land.
First he turned his eyes northwards, where the rich land of
Gilcad, with the mountain range that bore its name, was
divided by the Jabbok ; the nearer half was fertile but com-
paratively bare of trees, the further was covered with thick
forests of oak and pine, broken by the fresh mountain pastures
upon which Reuben had set such longing eyes. Then further
north, along the seas of Gennesareth and Merorn, his gaze
fell on a wild and barren land, with steep mountain peaks and
inaccessible caves, that favored no life but the brigand's ; and
at last his eye rested far away on the eternal snow of Hermon,
at whose foot was the city of Lais, the future seat of a portion
of the tribe of Dan. To the left he beheld the broad table
lands of Lebanon, with their far-famed cedar groves, the steep
slopes of the mountain land, and the swampy plains, with their
DEATH OP MOSES. 333
thick growth, of rushes. There herds of wild swine and oxen
found a home, though the marsh fever made it almost unfit
for human dwelling-places. This was the land which after-
wards fell to the sons of Naphtali. Between himself and these
distant regions Moses beheld the lovely sea of Gennesareth
and the far-extending territory of Manasseh and Ephraiin,
with the ranges of the lesser Hermon, of Carmel, of Gilboa,
and the long mountain chain of Ephraim. Then, as he grad-
ually turned to the west, the land of Judah lay stretched
before him ; in the distance the rich and smiling plain of
Sephela, and nearer to him the drj r , inhospitable mountain
land, with its endless limestone rocks, of which Jebus, after-
wards Jerusalem, was the central point. Further to the left
lay the deserts, broken here and there by fertile spots, and
what was afterwards the southern territory of Judah. Thus
his eye reached the steppes of the " sons of Isaac," 1 and then
dropped naturally upon the region that lay nearer to him,
where the gloomy Dead Sea lay, with its barren shores and
that strange promontory on which Zoar was situated. At last
his e} 7 e rested upon the valley of Jordan and upon Jericho,
right opposite Mount Pisgah. He had seen the future heritage
of his people.
"This is the land," said Yahweh, " of which I promised
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, under oath, that I would give it
to their posterity. I have shown it to you ; but you shall not
enter it."
Then Moses, the servant of Yahweh, died there, as Yahweh
had said. They 2 buried him in the valley over against Beth-
Peor, in the land of Moab ; but no one knows his grave to
this day. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when
he died. His eye was not dimmed, nor his vigor abated.
For thirty days the Israelites mourned his death, and his
place was taken by Joshua the son of Nun. He was full of
the spirit of wisdom, which Moses had imparted to him by
laying his hands on him. The Israelites obeyed him, there-
fore, according to the command that Yahweh had given
Moses.
Never did another prophet rise in Israel like Moses, to
whom Yahweh made himself known face to face. Nor could
any other ever do the signs and wonders which Yahweh did
through Moses in the land of Egypt and in the desert.
There is a tone of sadness in this story. The words
' ! Speak to me of this no more " sound harsh, and it was but
1 See pp. 164-166. 2 Aftei an amended version.
334 DEATH OF MOSES.
poor comfort for Moses to be allowed to see the promised
land, if he might not enter it. In answer to the question why
this must be, the writer of Deuteronomy says : l Yahweh was
angry with Moses because the Israelites had sinned against
him. Even Moses must make no exception to the general
sentence that condemned the disobedient generation to die in
the wilderness.
Such was the view of our writer ; and to the majority of
his readers it would certainly present no difficulty. The pious
Israelites were deeply conscious of the fact that they were all
members of one body — the people. They rejoiced with their
people, they suffered with their people ; nay, their very life
was wrapped up in its welfare. A gross violation of the mora'
law deserved punishment chiefly because it was " foolishness
in Israel" and made the land unclean. To be rooted out from
the people of Yahweh was the most terrible of all threats. In
thinking of the future they were less concerned about their
own affairs than about the fate of their people. From such
a point of view they found it anything but unnatural or unjust
that Yahweh should suffer Moses to die because of the sins of
his people.
And yet this did not satisfy every one. At the very time
in which the book of Deuteronomy was written, the belief
was gaining ground that Yahweh was too righteous to punish
any man for another's sin, and that he chastised each one for
those sins only of which he had himself been guilty. Thus
every misfortune was looked upon as the consequence of some
sin committed by him upon whom it fell. 2 Those who held
this belief could not rest in the assertion that Moses had not
been allowed to enter the promised land because of the sins
of the people. They were certain that if, in spite of all his
prayers, Moses was forbidden to enter the promised land, he
must have brought this punishment upon himself. This
conviction was embodied in the following story : —
In the first mouth — we are not told the year — the Israel-
ites retched the desert of Zin, and pitched their camp at
Kadesh, where Miriam died and was buried. But there was
not water enough for the people there, and a tumult broke
out, in consequence, against Moses and Aaron. " Oh ! would
that we had died," cried the sufferers, "when our brothers
perished before Yahweh's face ! Why have you brought the
people of Yahweh into this desert, where we and our cattle
shall die of thirst ? - Why did you bring us out of Egypt to
1 Deuteronomy i. 37, 38 ; iii. 26. 2 See vol. ii. book iv. chapter x.
death or moses. 335
take us to this wretched place ? There is no harvest to reap
here ; not a fig-tree, a vine, or a pomegranate to be seen ;
nay, we have not so much as water to drink." On hearing
these complaints, Moses and Aaron went to the door of the
tent of conference and threw themselves upon the ground in
prayer. And behold ! Yahweh's glory appeared to them, and
his voice was heard commanding Moses, and saying, " Take
your staff, and call the people together. Then do you and
Aaron speak to the rock in the sight of all the multitudes,
and a stream of water shall gush out from it. Thus j'ou may
quench the thirst of man and beast by the water that 3011
cause to flow from the rock."
In obedience to this command, Moses took his wondrous
staff from the tent, and when he and Aaron had called the
people together in front of the rock, he cried, " Hear, now,
you rebels ! Can we make water flow from this rock for
3'ou?" Overmastered by his indignation, Moses, instead of
simply speaking to the rock, raised his arm and struck it
twice with his staff. A stream of water gushed from it on the
instant, and man and beast were satisfied.
So Israel was rescued once again ; but, alas ! the two broth-
ers had sinned. Yahweh pronounced their sentence at once.
" Inasmuch," he said, " as you did not believe me, and did
not honor me before the Israelites, neither shall you be per-
mitted to bring them into the land which I have destined for
them."
Now these are the waters of Meribah, that is strife, where
the Israelites strove with Yahweh in the wilderness of Kadesh,
that is holy, where he revealed himself to them as the holy one.
According to another writer, 1 Meribah lay not in the
desert of Zin, but in that of Sin, which does not lie near
Kadesh, on the southern boundary of Canaan, but near Mount
Horeb. The sin here 2 laid to the charge of Moses and Aaron,
by which they forfeited the privilege of entering the promised
land, consisted in their incredulous language ; for Moses had
said: " Can we make water flow out of the rock for you?"
as if it were not perfectly easy for Yahweh to do so ! And
besides this he had struck the rock twice.
We have now heard two answers to the question : " Why
was not Moses allowed to enter Canaan?" both of them
given by thoughtful Israelite believers. One said "he suf-
fered the common punishment of all the Israelites ; " the
other, " he drew the penalty upon himself by his own sin."
1 Exodus xvii. 7. 2 Compare Numbers xxvii. 12-14.
336 ISRAELITES AT JERICHO.
We cannot be content with either answer, for both are false.
Shall we go on, after rejecting these solutions, to attempt one
of our own ? It would be labor lost. We must confess once
for all that we cannot tell how far any single event, which
seems painful or even cruel to individual sufferers, is the ex-
pression of His will who rules all things for his glory and
the establishment of his kingdom. Our "why?" must ever
remain without an answer. However much we long for such
an answer, however much we torture ourselves by seeking
one, all our efforts are simply useless.
And j r et we have much to learn from such facts as these.
What are the lessons that Moses teaches us from Mount
Nebo ? He had been called to release his fellow tribesmen,
he was the founder of the religion and the national existence
of Israel, and he had been faithful in the accomplishment of
his task. Yet he saw but little of the fruits of his labor,
and another led Israel into the promised land and expe-
rienced the joy of gathering in the fruits of his toil. Such
is our lot in life. It is often, " one who sows and another
who reaps." 1 If we love our work, be our circle wide or
narrow, and do that to which God has called us, let us not
imagine that we shall reap the fruits of our toil. If our
object is a really lofty one we can never see it realized except
in a very small measure. In following the call of God, there-
fore, we must renounce all thoughts of our own glory, and
even of the joy and satisfaction which .success would bring.
We labor not for ourselves, but for the glory of God and the
welfare of our neighbor. Though we never enter the prom-
ised land ourselves, let us be content with the thought that
those for whom we toil will some day inherit it ! Such are
the lessons which Moses, on the summit of Mount Nebo,
teaches us.
Chapter XII.
THE ISRAELITES AT JERICHO.
Josh. I.-VIII. 29.
ON the death of Moses, Joshua became the leader of the
people ; and as soon as the time of mourning was over,
he made the necessary preparations for crossing the Jordan
and attacking the Canaanites. He commanded the Israelites
1 John iv. 37.
ISRAELITES AT JERICHO. 337
to prepare provisions for three days, and reminded the tribes
to whom the land east of the Jordan had been assigned,
of then' promise to help their brethren. Then he sent two
spies to Jericho, which was the first city he intended to
attack. They reached it in safety, and took up their
abode with a certain Rahab, who lived on the city wall.
They had not entered unobserved, however, and it was not
long before the king sent to Eahab and ordered her to give
them up as spies. So now their boldness would have cost
them their lives had they not found an unexpected ally in
their hostess. She managed to draw the king off the track
by assuring him that her guests had already left her, but
might perhaps be caught if they were pursued at once.
Meanwhile she had hidden them on the flat roof of her house
under some freshly gathered flax that was lying there to dry.
When the king's warriors had left the house, and were making
for the passage of the Jordan at the top of their speed, hav-
ing closed the city gates behind them, Rahab went up to the
house-top and told the spies that she had rescued them
because she feared Yahweh. It was well known in Jericho
what this mighty god had done — -how the Red Sea had
become dry at his command, and the lands of Sihon and
Og had fallen into the hands of the Israelites. So every one
trembled before them, and no one dared withstand them, for
Yahweh, Israel's god, was the god of heaven and earth.
"Swear," she cried, beseechingly, "swear to me, by him,
that you will spare me and my relatives when you take
Jericho." The spies took the oath she required, condi-
tionally on her proving faithful to the end ; and arranged
that when they took the city she was to shelter all Iter rela-
tives in her own house, and show the besiegers where she
lived by the sign of a red cord. Then she let down the two
Israelites through the window over the city wall, and they
hid for three days among the mountains, and then crossed
the Jordan. They reached the camp in safety, and could
truly say : "Yahweh has given us the land, for its inhabi-
tants tremble for fear before us."
It was now four days from the Passover. The Jordan
was swollen, and here and there had even overflowed its
banks. It was impossible to ford it, therefore. But neither
was it necessary ; for the way in which the Israelites were
to cross the river was destined to show once more that the
living god, the lord of all the earth, was in their midst. At
the time appointed by Yahweh, the priests took up the ark
VOL. I. 15
338 ISRAELITES AT JERICHO.
of the covenant, and hardly had their feet touched the watei
when the stream stood still some miles above Jericho, and
all the water below flowed off into the Dead Sea, leaving the
river bed dry along the whole intervening space. So Israel
could cross dry-footed, for the waters were held back until
the bearers of the ark had left the bed of the river. Then the
Jordan streamed on again, and even overflowed its banks.
This stupendous miracle confirmed the authority of Joshua
in no small degree ; and two monuments were raised to
commemorate it. Each was built of twelve stones, in ac-
cordance with the number of the tribes of Israel. One
stood in the middle of the Jordan where the ark had rested,
and the other on the site of the first encampment of the
Israelites, at Gilgal. The manna-dew ceased as soon as they
had crossed the river, and the people ate of the last year's
corn and the other produce of the country. All was now
ready for the attack on Jericho ; and the city was laid under
siege. No one was allowed to go in or come out. The brave
inhabitants were prepared to offer a desperate resistance ;
but of what avail were walls and gates, swords and lances,
against the will of Yahweh, who had chosen this land for his
own peculiar heritage ? This thought was deeply impressed
on Joshua ; for before he attacked the city a being appeared
before him, with a drawn sword in his hand, and to the
general's challenge : ' ' Friend or foe ! " answered that he
was the prince of Yahweh's army, that is, the chief of the
angels. Full of reverence, Joshua threw himself to the
earth, and asked what were his commands ; upon which he
ordered him to remove his sandals from his feet, for the place
was holy.
Yahweh had power to bring the city into the hands of his
worshippers, who would consecrate it to him ; but it was not
to fall by man's device. On six successive days the bands of
Israelite warriors marched round the city once each day.
First came the vanguard ; then seven priests with the sacred
trumpets, the sound of which brought the wants of Israel to
Yahweh's mind ; 1 close behind them came the ark of the
covenant, supported by other priests, and then the rear
guard. They marched in silence, and nothing was heard
save the sound of the trumpets. On the seventh day they
marched round the city seven times in the same order as
before, and when the trumpets sounded for the last time, at
a sign from Joshua a deafening war-cry rose from the army,
1 Numbers jf. 0.
ISRAELITES AT JERICHO. 339
and, behold ! Jericho's walls fell down in ruins, and the citj
was in Israel's power.
A fearful lot was in store for it. It had been laid undei
the ban, declared holy to Yahweh, and accordingly even-
living thing within it was slaughtered. Not a single human
creature, except Rahab and her relatives, was spared. The
precious metals were consecrated to Yahweh, but all else —
cattle, houses, furniture, in short, everj'thing — was burned in
one frightful sacrifice ! Then Joshua cried over the hideous
scene of devastation : " Cursed before Yahweh be the man who
shall dare to rebuild this city ! Maj- he lay its foundations
upon his eldest son, and rear its gates on his youngest ! "
But one of the Israelites laid a hand on this devoted
treasure. A man of Judah, Achan by name, took a rich
Babylonian robe, two hundred shekels of silver, and a golden
buckle that weighed fift}' shekels (a shekel being rather less
than a quarter of an ounce troy weight) . He could not make
up his mind to burn this robe, or to throw the gold and silver
into Yahweh's treasury, so he hid them in his tent.' Did he
think that Yahweh would not see him? Surely that great
and holy god would make the entire nation answerable for
the crime of this one man. And so he did ; for an expedition
against Ai (a place near Bethaven, east of Bethel) , for which
the spies judged a force of three thousand men sufficient,
proved unsuccessful. The Israelites were defeated, and
Joshua lay before the ark of Yahweh, with the elders of the
people, weeping and fasting, till he learned from his god that
this defeat was caused by a crime of which Israel had been
guilty. Achan was selected by lot from the whole people as
the offender ; and he himself confessed his guilt. Then
Yahweh's wrath must be appeased by a fearful sacrifice. At
Joshua's command, Achan and all his belongings, his sons
and daughters, his oxen, his sheep, his asses, his tents, and
everything he had, were brought into a neighboring valley.
Then the general pronounced the words of doom : ' ' How
have you troubled us ! Now may Yahweh trouble you ! "
At once he and his were crushed under a shower of stones ;
fire was cast into the confused heap of tents, furniture,
robes, and corpses, and a huge pile of stones, under which
the whole lay buried, soon marked the spot where Yahweh's
holiness had been vindicated. Thus Yahweh was appeased ;
and the place is still called the valley of Achor, that is, of
troubling.
Joshua was now certain of Yahweh's help, and prepared
340 ISRAELITES AT JERICHO.
for a fresh attack upon Ai. This time, however, he formed a
less contemptuous estimate of his enenry's strength. Having
first placed five thousand warriors in ambush behind the city,
he determined to entice the enemy outside their walls b}- a
pretended flight, and so give these hidden troops, who were
to watch their opportunity, a chance of taking the citj r and
setting it on fire. The stratagem was successful. Joshua
fled with his army, but turned round at a certain point and
raised his lance on high, upon which the forces concealed on
the other side of the city fell upon it, and in a moment it
was wrapped in flames ! The terrified garrison which had
pursued the flying Israelites was slain to the last man. The
king alone was taken alive. As Moses at Eephidim had
secured the victory to his people by raising his staff on high,
so, on this occasion, Joshua lifted up his lance and never
let it sink till the battle was fought out, and twelve thousand
warriors of Canaan had fallen. Ai shared the fate of Jeri-
cho ; but this time the Israelites were allowed to keep the
booty. All the inhabitants were slaughtered, the city itself
burned to the ground, and devoted as an " everlasting hill
of devastation." Where the chief gate had stood, a great
heap of stones pointed out the spot upon which the corpse
of the king had been cast, after hanging on a cross for a
whole day.
It needs no elaborate argument to prove that we do not
owe these narratives to an eye witness. The book of Joshua,
from which they are taken, is of much later date than the
events it records, as is obvious from the constant repetition
of the statement that such and such a monument exists " to
this day," and that Eahab's family dwells amongst the
Israelites " to this clay." This expression would be quite
pointless unless a considerable time had elapsed between the
occurrence of the events and the composition of the narra-
tive. A careful examination of the contents of the book
soon shows that it consists of two parts, the oldest of which
breathes precisely the same spirit as that of Deuteronomy.
It is, indeed, a sequel to that book, and describes the fulfil-
ment of the promises there given. The later portion, on the
other hand, formed a part of the "' Book of Origins," so often
mentioned. The former portion, then, was composed shortly
before or during the Babylonian captivity, and the latter por-
tion in the succeeding period.
Of course the writers drew their materials from popular
ISRAELITES AT JERICHO. 311
tradition. The great monuments in the bed of the Jordan
and on its bank, the enormous heaps of stones in the valley
of Achor, near Jericho, and on the spot where Ai had
once stood, were all of them associated with some tradition ;
and the conquest of the land was kept in mind by barren
spots covered with the ruins of ancient cities, and regarded
with a fearful reverence as devoted to Yahweh. It was well
known, too, that Jericho had once been a sacred place of this
kind ; and many a pious man of the sixth century must have
doubted whether it was not against the will of Yahweh that
it was ever rebuilt. Nay, it was reported that in Ahab's
time, three-and-a-half centuries after the conquest, and three
centuries before the composition of the book of Joshua, when
a certain citizen of Bethel had rashly ventured to rebuild
the city, Yahweh smote two of his sons to punish the
sacrilege, though he did not prevent the continuance of the
work. 1 Popular traditions, then, especially those of Jericho
and its neighborhood, in which the glory of Israel was dis-
played in the strongest light, doubtless provided the mate-
rials for the narratives we have been considering ; while the
origin assigned to the name of Achor's vale, and the position
of Rahab's family (of 'which we shall speak again) , furnished
some additional matter.
Our writer has worked up these traditions in accordance
with his own ideas. He looks upon history from his special
religious point of view, and colors it accordingly. Regarded
in this light, his account of the fall of Ai is very curious. To
what does he attribute the defeat which the Israelites suffered
in their first attempt upon the city? To the sin of Achan,
who had taken to himself property already devoted to Yah-
weh. Why were they afterwards successful? Because, he
tells us, they had appeased Yahweh by the execution of the
offender. But his own account of the expeditions against Ai
makes the course of events appear perfectly natural. The
city mustered twelve thousand fighting men ; and since the
Israelites at first despised their foes, and only sent three
thousand men against them, it is not surprising that they
were repulsed. On the second occasion they were more cau-
tious. The whole army advanced, a stratagem was attempted,
and five thousand men rushed from an ambush upon the
deserted city. Surely it needs no special interference of
Yahweh to explain such a defeat and such a victory.
The writer evidently attaches great importance to all thai
1 1 Kings xvi. 34.
842 ISRAELITES AT JERICHO.
concerns Rahab, who concealed the spies. We can easily
guess why ; for he tells us that "her family exists to this day."
This puts the key to his meaning into our hands. No doubt
there was some powerful family of Judah in his day that suf-
fered under the reproach of Canaanite origin, and whose
members were often taunted with the fact that the blood which
flowed in their veins was not pure. Our writer took up the
cause of this family, and, while he admitted the fact of their
descent, represented their ancestress as a worshipper of Yah-
weh, although a Canaanite by birth, and as one to whom Israel
was under a deep debt of gratitude. Rahab never appears
again in the Old Testament, but in one of the genealogies of
Jesus she is called the wife of Sahna or Salmon, the father of
Boaz the ancestor of David. 1 Of course the Evangelist did
not invent this himself, and his story therefore proves that a
Jewish tradition represented the ro3 r al house of Judah as hav-
ing sprung from Rahab. Perhaps our writer had this house
in view when he said that Rahab's family still lived among the
Israelites. Another Jewish tradition makes her the wife of
Joshua.
The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews i holds her up as
an example of faith while the writer of the epistle of James
opposes his view, 8 and says that she was received into the
grace of God because of her good works. This contrast be-
tween faith and works, however, was unknown to the writer
in the book of Joshua. He praised her for rescuing the spies ;
but she would not have done so had she not been convinced of
Yahweh's might. As for us, we do not feel attracted by Rahab
when in search of noble examples of faith. In plain truth,
she is nothing less than a traitress, who deceives her king and
brings destruction upon her city simply for her own advantage
and that of her family. Treachery is always contemptible,
and it does not speak well for the writer's moral perception
that he praises Rahab's deed because it was beneficial to Israel
and was done to the glory of Yahweh.
Moreover, the frightful custom of the Ban shows us how
little trace of a moral character is to be found in the early wor-
ship of Yahweh . This usage consisted in devoting kings to
Yahweh by destroying them. Jericho, as the first fruits of
Israelite conquest, was unconditionally laid under the ban ; so
was Achan, with all his belongings, as a punishment for his
s*crilege ; and so, too, with some limitation, was the city of
Ai. The sites of these two cities must lie waste for ever
1 Matthew i. 5. 2 Hebrews xi. 31. 8 James ii. 25.
THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN. 343
Cursed be he that rebuilds them ! A human being, if laid
under the ban, must be slain : and the death usually inflicted
was that of stoning. It is but natural that this fearful de-
mand should have been evaded, and a sum of money or the
sacrifice of animals substituted for the person ' ' devoted to
Yahweh." But according to the old and strict law this sub-
stitution was not permitted J After the captivity such re-
demptions were allowed, 2 and property that lay under the ban
was handed to the priests instead of being destroyed. 8 But
by that time the original character of Yahweh was more or
less obliterated, and such softenings of the old customs were
therefore possible. When the wild Israelite warriors broke
into Canaan, and showed no pity on the dwellers in the land,
reckoning it a crime in them to defend the inheritance of their
fathers, then Yahweh was still the cruel fire-god, in whose
honor cities were burned and their inhabitants slaughtered,
children punished for the sins of their fathers, and all manner
of bloody sacrifices offered ; and when the Israelite saw the
waste patch of land covered with ruins, that reminded him of
the unquenchable wrath of his fearful god, the thought of
Yahweh's holiness sent a' shudder through his frame.
At the conquest of Canaan we are still far from the position
of Mm who spoke of God as " Our father, who is in heaven."
Nay ! his preaching would not even have been understood by
any one in those days. But we must remember that there
were still twelve centuries to pass before he came.
Chapter XIII.
THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN.
JoshUa IX.-XII.
" A LIVING dog is better than a dead lion ; " that is to
S\. say, "life, though branded with infamy, is preferable
to the most honorable of deaths ! " So thought the writer of
the book of Ecclesiastes, or "the Preacher," 4 and his creed
has found many disciples both before and after his time.
According to the book of Joshua it was adopted by the inhab
i Leviticus ixvii. 29. 2 Leviticus xxvii.
z Numbers xviii. 14. 4 Ecclesiastes ix. 4 b.
344 THE CONQUEST OP CANAAN.
itants of several Canaanite cities, of which Gibeon was the
chief. For we are told that, after the fall of Jericho and Ai,
the inhabitants of these other cities were seized with terror
and had recourse to a stratagem to save their lives. They
sent ambassadors to the camp of Israel, with instructions to
represent themselves as coming from a distant land ; and in
order to give the appearance of truth to their story, they
loaded their asses with old, patched-up provision- bags and
wine skins, put on old sandals and worn-out clothes, and took
dry and crumbled bread with them. In this condition they
presented themselves at G-ilgal, the headquarters of the
Israelites, and asked Joshua to conclude an alliance with
them. The Israelites were not without their suspicions, and
even expressed a doubt whether the strangers were not really
Canaanites, but when they declared that they had heard of
Yahweh's mighty deeds in Egypt and the district east of
Jordan, and pointed to the condition of their provisions and
garments as a proof that they had realty come .from a dis-
tance, the Israelites at last allowed themselves to be deceived ;
and, without previously consulting the oracle, Joshua and
the princes made a treaty with them( promising to spare their
lives, and confirming the promise with an oath.
It was but three days before they repented of their- oath;
for they discovered that the ambassadors were Hivites of
Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim. Upon this
the people murmured against their leaders and clamored for
the destruction of the Canaanites ; but Joshua was true to his
oath, and accepted the excuse of the Hivites that they had
been driven to this act of deception by fear for their lives.
Nevertheless, he condemned them and their posterity for ever
to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for the altar in
" the place that Yahweh should choose."
This desertion of the common cause by the Gibeonites was
a great blow to the other Canaanites, for Gibeon was one of
the most powerful cities in the land ; it was greater than Ai,
and its inhabitants were famed for their skill in arms. The
news of their submission to Israel, therefore, caused no little
dismay, and the remaining princes combined to punish the
cities that had deserted the common cause. The king of
Jebus (afterwards Jerusalem) called to his aid the kings of
Kirjath-arba (Hebron), Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon, and
they all advanced upon Gibeon together. But Joshua's as-
sistance was called in by the city, and Yahweh encouraged
him to go : so he suddenly broke up his camp and fell upon
THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN. 345
the five kings. At Gibeon the armies met, and Yahweh him-
self threw Israel's enemies into confusion. They fled in frantic
haste towards Beth-horon ; and Yahweh hurled huge hailstones
upon them as they fled, so that more of them perished b, the
storm than by the sword of their pursuers. " Then, on that
day, when Yahweh brought the Amorites low before Israel,
Joshua spoke to Yahweh and cried in the hearing of his people,
' sun, stand still in Gibeon ! and moon in the vale of Ajalon ! '
Then the sun stood still and the moon staj-ed till the people
had avenged themselves on their foes." So it is written in the
1 ' Book of the Upright." On that day the sun did indeed stand
still in the mid-heavens,. and did not stoop down towards his
setting a whole day long. Never before or since has there
been such a day on which Yahweh has listened, in like man-
ner, to the voice of a man ; but Yahweh himself was fighting
for Israel that day !
At first the five kings escaped from their pursuers, and
concealed themselves in a cave near Makkedah ; but in the
midst of the slaughter they were discovered and a guard set
over them. When the pursuit was over, and the remnant of
the Canaanites had escaped to their cities, while no one had
dared to raise a hand against the Israelites, the doom of the
kings was pronounced. They were dragged out of their cave,
and, further to humiliate them, five of the Israelite chieftains
set their foot upon their necks in token of absolute triumph.
Then they were put to death. Their bodies hung for the rest
of the day upon five trees, and were then thrown into the
cave that had served them as a place of refuge, while a great
heap of stones was raised at its mouth to preserve the memory
of the event.
Who could stand before Joshua henceforth? Makkedah
fell before him, and its inhabitants were massacred. The
same lot came upon Libnah, Lachish, Gezer, Eglon, Hebron,
Debir, and manj' other cities. In a word, the whole of south-
ern Canaan was not only conquered, but laid waste ; and the
slaughter was so complete that there was not a human creature
left alive, even as Yahweh had promised. The whole of this
district was conquered in a single campaign, for Yahweh
fought for Israel.
And now the time had come for the invasion of northern
Canaan. The princes of the north imitated their southern
countrymen in uniting their forces to expel the Israelites. At
the sea of Merom they assembled in countless hosts, deriving
additional strength from the number of their war chariots
15*
346 THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN.
But Joshua fell upon them and scattered them abroad ; and
then, at Yahweh's command, burned their chariots and ham-
strung their horses. Hazor, the headquarters of the confed-
eracy, was the first place that fell before the arms of Joshua,
and all its inhabitants were put to death. The same fate
overtook the other cities, but those that were situated on hills
were not burned down.
Thus Joshua conquered the whole land of Canaan, from south
to north, within five years, 1 and defeated one-and-thirty kings,
We need not stay to prove that this narrative gives an
exaggerated account of Joshua's victories ; for Yahweh's join-
ing in the fight by hurling hailstones, and his making the sun
and moon stand still at Joshua's prayer, are features in the
story which so far exceed the utmost limits of possibility as
unmistakably to betray the presence of legendary embellish-
ments. Thus put on our guard, we find other improbable
statements in the narrative. The writer repeats again and
again, with evident satisfaction, that the inhabitants of the
cities taken by the Israelites were so mercilessly put to the
sword that not a single one was left. Such statements cause
us horror instead of satisfaction, and for the honor of the
Israelites we hope that the massacre they effected was not so
frightfully extensive as is here represented. But their severity
only makes it all the more surprising that the country should
have been conquered within so short a period. For the writer
constantly speaks of the valor of the Canaanites, and even
says expressly that Yahweh hardened their hearts, in order
that they might deserve destruction, 2 which means that they
made a brave resistance. It is apparently by an oversight
that he declares in one passage that " no one dared to move
his tongue against the Israelites." 3 In reality, of course, the
Canaanites resisted. They were well armed, and even pos-
sessed war chariots ; and if the Israelites massacred them
whenever they fell into their power, they must have defended
themselves with the courage of despair, and maintained the
contest to the last man. When we think of all this, it becomes
still more surprising that the whole of Canaan should have
been conquered by the Israelites so quickly.
Such considerations drive us to the conclusion that the
stories of Joshua's fame and success in war are very much
exaggerated. But after making every allowance for this, we
should still be far from having a true conception of the course
* 2 Joshua xiv. 7, 10. 2 Joshua xi. 20. a Joshua x. 21.
THE CONQUEST OP CANAAN. 347
of events if we had no accounts of his victories but these.
Luckify, however, we have others, not only in the book of
Joshua itself, but in that of Judges also. 1 The subsequent
history of the people, too, throws great light upon this period,
and would be simply inexplicable had Joshua really done all
that is here ascribed to him. A careful comparison of our
various means of learning the truth leads us to the conclusion
that if we desire to form a thoroughly false conception of the
conquest in every respect, we can hardly do better than accept
that of the book of Joshua ; for in reality two-and-a-half
centuries were required for the gradual accomplishment of
what is here said to have been finished within the space of five
years. The conquest of the land, and the complete subjection
of the Canaanites, were not effected until the time of Solomon.
However strange these assertions may sound, it is ea.sy to
prove their truth ; and the following are some of the grounds
upon which they rest. Amongst the cities Joshua is said to
have conquered and laid waste with fire and sword we find
Hebron, the well-known city of Judah, together with all its
dependencies, one of which was Debir. 2 But elsewhere, in
this same book of Joshua, we are told that Caleb and his
brother Othniel conquered these places ; 3 and the book of
Judges confirms this account, adding that the conquest oc-
curred after the death of Joshua. 4 In like manner we hear
that the king Jebus, or Jerusalem, fell before Joshua, who
took possession of his land ; 5 while another account informs
us that this city likewise fell into the hands of the Israelites
after Joshua's death ; 6 but again, in the very same chapter,
we are told that the Benjamites have not expelled the
Jebusites " to this day;" 7 and it is a well-known fact that
David was the first to subdue them and to take possession of
their city. 8 Again, the honor of having subdued the princes
of north Canaan, who had fixed their headquarters at Hazor,
is assigned to Joshua ; 9 but we shall soon see that the people
of these districts kept the hands of the Israelites full long
after Joshua's death. The king of Gezer, too, according to
our story, was utterly defeated and his land seized by Joshua ; 10
but elsewhere we read that Israel could not expel the Canaanites
that dwelt there. 11 The fact is that the Israelites themselves
were never able to conquer this city at all, and only gained
l Judges i. and ii. 2 Joshua x. 36-39, xi. 21, xii. 10.
8 Joshua xv. 13-16. 4 Judges i. 1, 10-13, 20.
6 Joshua xii. 1, 10. « Judges i. 1, 8. 1 v. 21.
* 2 Samuel v. 6. « Joshua xi. i» Joshua x. 33, xii. 12
11 Joshua xri. 10 ; Judges i. 29.
348 THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN.
possession of it when the Egyptian king, whose daughtei was
married to Solomon, took it and gave it to her as a dowry. 1
It is easy to explain why the Israelites failed to conquer
many districts of Canaan. They were too weak. " Too
weak!" it maybe said. "How can that be? How could
such an army as Joshua commanded be too weak ? " In the
first place, let us remember that the Israelite tribes were not
nearly so numerous as some of the writers would have us
believe. They were by no means " as the sand by the sea
shore ; " nay, they were actually inferior to the Canaanites
in numbers. 2 Nor must we suppose that all the sons of
Israel were assembled, as the book of Joshua says, in a single
camp at Gilgal, where they acted with unanimity and preci-
sion. How could they have obtained provisions there ?
W; must rather think of them as pushing on from time to
time, as occasion offered, into the land of the Canaanites,
whose power was probably broken by the war with Ramses
III., of Egypt. 8 It seems probable that thej- entered, not
only at different times, but from different sides. 4 The main
force, which bore the brunt of the conflict, was " the house of
Joseph," under Joshua's command ; while other tribes either
joined this "house" on an inferior footing or followed after
■it and contended for the spoil. The mountainous districts
were the first to yield. There the Canaanites were con-
quered, expelled, slaughtered, or made tributar3 r . But the
invaders found many of the cities too strong for them, and,
indeed, they hardly dared to show their faces on the plains,
for fear of the war chariots of the Canaanites. Thus the
relations between the ancient inhabitants of the country and
its conquerors were far from being equally honorable to the
latter in all cases, and were very different in the different
districts. Here the Israelites had effected a definite con-
quest, and had rooted out the Canaanites or reduced them
to slavery ; but there they had made treaties with them to
regulate their mutual rights and obligations. In other places,
again, they forced their way amongst the Canaanites, but
were soon made tributary by them. In some districts the
former inhabitants lived upon good terms with the invaders,
and the two intermarried till they became a single people.
Elsewhere there were little Israelite and Canaanite king-
doms side by side, whose inhabitants lived in armed inde-
pendence of each other, frequently breaking, by marauding
1 1 Kings ix. 16. 2 gee pp. 284, 285.
8 Compare p. 308. 4 See next chapter.
THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN. 349
expeditions or regular wars, the peace which existed between
them.
Amongst the independent Canaanite kingdoms, with which
the Israelites had made treaties, was that of the Gibeonites.
The story of the device by which they passed themselves off as
ambassadors from a distant country, and so saved their lives
but became slaves of the temple, appears at first sight credi-
ble enough ; but when we look at it more closely it seems
very improbable. Indeed the Israelites are taken in by this
clumsy trick, with their eyes open ! For they themselves ex-
press their doubt whether these men, who represent them-
selves as having come from a distance, do not really live
somewhere near. Then we are told that Joshua promised to
spare their lives — a promise which would be out of place in
dealing with a distant people, though natural enough with
regard to Canaanites ; and yet he only takes this oath on the
supposition that they are not Canaanites. They make a
treaty together, and yet the Gibeonites are afterwards con-
tent to become slaves of the sanctuary. " Of what sanctu-
ary?" we ask. "The place which Yahweh shall choose,"
is the answer. Now this is the expression, constantly re-
curring in Deuteronomy, for the temple of Mount Zion, which
was, in fact, the first great sanctuarj' of all Israel at which
work could have been found for so many slaves ; but Joshua
can hardly have assigned the Gibeonites to the service of this
temple two-and-a-half centuries before it was built. We
shall meet these Canaanites again in the history of Israel ;
not as slaves, however, but as free men complaining that
the oath made to them had been broken. We shall consider
hereafter why the writer of the book of Joshua gives such a
distorted account of what took place, and must be content at
present with calling attention to the fact that Joshua made a
treaty with the Hivites of Gibeon and the surrounding places,
and that each of the parties to this treaty recognized the other's
independence.
How such a false account of the conquest came into exist-
ence it is instructive, in many waj-s, to inquire.
In the first place, exaggeration is inseparable from popular
tradition. It knows no middle course, but either praises be-
yond measure or condemns with the same excess. Its favor-
ites are raised to- heaven, and their exploits magnified till they
become miraculous ; but woe to him who incurs the ill-will of
posterity, for his character is painted in ever darker and
darker colors ! Popular tradition, too, frequently compresses
350 THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN.
whole periods together — as a dramatist often does — attribut-
ing to a single man what was really the work of a nation,
and forgetting all the secondary circumstances in its desire
to glorify its hero alone. Thus the Israelite regarded the
deliverance from Egvpt, and the whole legislation of his
people as the work of Moses ; he looked upon all the psalms
as the work of David, and attributed to Solomon alone the
fruits of the collective toil of all the proverb-makers. All
that the prophets of North Israel had accomplished was put
down to Elijah and Elisha; and, in the same way, posterity
gradually forgot less conspicuous heroes of every grade to
glorify Joshua the son of Nun as the successor of Moses and
the man who had led Israel into Canaan. Each generation,
therefore, magnified the importance of his exploits.
But these characteristic tendencies of popular tradition
alone could not have given birth to the representations we
find in the book of Joshua. In later times people knew well
enough how much trouble it had given their forefathers to
complete the conquest of the land, and the figures of Caleb
and Othniel, of Deborah and Barak, of Jerubbaal and Abim-
elech, were preserved from forgetfulness to bear witness to
the struggles of the tribes even after the death of Joshua.
The religious point of view from which the writer looked upon
the history of his people contributed largely to the formation
of his narrative.
We call the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings
historical books ; but it is not uninteresting to observe that
they were known under quite another title by the Jews who
collected the Sacred Writings. They were called the " Former
Prophets," and preceded the works of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Eze-
kiel, and the twelve minor prophets, which were known as
the " Latter Prophets." They were not regarded as histories
so much as works of admonition and consolation. This view
of their character was certainly the truest, for it was that of
the writers of the books themselves, as well as of their first
readers. We. must, therefore, never forget to take this relig-
ious point of view of the narrators into account, for it always
colored their representations very strongly.
The book of Joshua, especially the portion of it we have
now considered, is a sequel to Deuteronomy, to which it was
probably attached originally. Now the book of Deuteronomy
contains a great number of laws which it commands the Israel-
ites to observe, and which it sanctions by glorious promises
and terrible threats. The writer saw in his mind's eye an
THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN. 351
ideal Israel, faithful in its service of Yahweh, and therefore
blessed. Surely, thought he, in those good old days Israel
had no pity on the Canaanites, but utterly destroyed them to
the glory of Yahweh ; or if any of them saved their lives it
must have been by some stratagem. What an example for
the times in which he wrote ! But zeal in rooting out the
Canaanites was not the only point he found to praise in the
Israelites of Joshua's day ; for, according to him, they were
faithful to Yahweh's commands in other respeots as well.
Let me add a few traits from the portions of his work not
yet noticed, that we may have as complete an idea as pos-
sible of the picture that was present to his mind.
" When you have entered the land of Canaan," he makes
Moses sa,y to the people, 1 " you must write the words of this
law upon plastered stones, set them up on Mount Ebal, and
build a stone altar by them. Then six tribes shall take
their stand on Mount Ebal and six on the opposite Gerizim,
whereupon the Levite-priests shall pronounce the curses of
Yahweh over those who break his commandments, and the
people shall say ' Amen ' to every curse." Upon this follows
iu the book of Deuteronomy, as we now have it, a very long
blessing 2 upon the obedient, and a curse, 3 far longer yet,
upon the disobedient. If the Israelites obeyed the words
of Yahweh, they would obtain the land that their god had
promised to the patriarchs, but if they departed from his law
they would go into captivity. When these chapters were
written, the men of the northern kingdom had long been
taken captive to Nineveh, and even those of Judah, in whole
or in part, to Babylon. Such a disaster could only be attrib-
uted to the sins of the people. Under the influence of this con-
viction , the writer painted the past in ever fairer colors. Surely,
he thought, Israel was obedient in Joshua's days. He saw, in
imagination, the people solemnly renewing the covenant at Ebal
and Gerizim, in obedience to the command of Moses, 4 and Israel
closely attached to the law of the Lord. And this explained
to him how Joshua had been able to gain so many victories.
When Joshua had conquered the land, the writer says
elsewhere, 6 he summoned the chiefs of the people to Shechem,
reminded them of all that Yahweh had done for them, and
then solemnly proposed that they should henceforth worship
this faithful god ; but they must decide for themselves ; if
they had rather worship the gods that their fathers had
1 Deuteronomy xxvii. 2 Deuteronomy xxviii. 1-14.
8 Deuteronomy xxviii. 15-68. 4 Joshua viii. 30-35. 6 Joshua xxiv.
352 THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN.
served in Haran, or the gods of the Amorites, that was for
them to consider, but as for him and his family they would
obey Yahweh. " No ! " answered the people, " we will have
no other gods, but Yahweh only, for he has been good to us.''
But Joshua made them think of all that this promise meant,
and reminded them that Yahweh was a stern and jealous
god, who would not forgive them their sins, but would punish
them if they broke his commandments. Still the people per-
severed in their promise to serve him. "You declare, then,
openly," cried Joshua, "that you have chosen Yahweh for
your god ? " " We do ! " they answered. ' ' Then put away,"
he cried, exhorting them, " the idols which you still possess,
and incline your hearts to Yahweh, Israel's god." The people
promised to comply. Thus did Joshua conclude the covenant
between Yahweh and the people ; and when he had written
it all in a book, he set up a great stone under the oak by the
sanctuary of Yahweh at Shechem. Then he repeated the
solemn promise, and said: "This stone be witness! for it
has heard all the words of Yahweh. It shall be a witness
that you deny not your god." Then the tribes returned to
their several places. At last Joshua died at the age of a
hundred and ten. Now as long as this faithful servant of
Yahweh lived, and all these elders could bear witness to the
mighty works of Yahweh, Israel served his god. But then
another geneiation rose 1 that knew neither Yahweh nor his
work of deliverance. So they were faithless to Israel's god,
and that was the beginning of all the troubles !
The writer of the " Book of Origins," to whom we owe the
later portions of Joshua, follows in the same path. He tells
us with great detail how Joshua assigned the several tribes
their inheritance. First of all he gave the district east of
Jordan to Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh, and an accu-
rately defined portion of Canaan to Judah and the two divi-
sions of the tribe of Joseph, Ephraim, and Manasseh. No
reason is given for their receiving these in preference to an-
other districts. 2 Then the Israelites set up the tabernacle 3 at
Shiloh, and requested Joshua to measure the land that was
still unassigned, in order that he might be able to divide it
fairly among the seven tribes who had as yet received no
territory. The lot was to decide which portions should fall
to the several tribes. 4 Finally the priests had their cities
assigned to them. 6 The writer concludes his account of this
1 Judges ii. 10. 2 Joshua xiv.-xvii. s See p. 304.
4 Joshua xviii. xix. 6 Joshua xxi.
THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN. 353
division of the land by assuring us that all the promises of
Yahweh were fulfilled, that no one could stand before the
Israelites, and that they inherited the whole land and dwelt
in it 1 — an assertion which contrasts strangely with accounts
of districts which the Israelites saw no possibility of con-
quering, and complaints of want of room to live in, inter-
spersed in the book of Joshua, as we now have it, in the very
midst of these flourishing descriptions. 2
The writer tells us, further, how faithfully the Israel of
Joshua's time observed the commandment of Yahweh, to wor-
ship him only in one single place — in those days the taber-
nacle at Shiloh. 8 For when the warriors of the transjordanic
tribes had fulfilled their promise to' help their brothers in the
conquest of the land, Joshua thanked them and blessed them
and allowed them to depart to their own homes. On their
way, however, they raised an enormous altar somewhere (we
are not told where) on the border-land. Now this was against
the regulations of the Law, and the other tribes immediately
sent an embass3", under the direction of Phineas, the son of
Eleazer the priest, to expostulate with them. "If," said
they, "you think your land unclean because it lies outside
. Canaan proper, then come over to us, for we have the taber-
nacle with us, and choose a dwelling-place in our midst ; but
in any case remember Yahweh's judgments and sin not."
But the transjordanic Israelites had a ready answer, for they
had not raised the altar with any idea of offering sacrifices
upon it, but simply as a monument to serve as a bond of
union between them and the brother tribes in Canaan. The
deputation returned with this answer, and every one was
satisfied with the explanation that had been given. So
faithful was Israel in the good old daj-s !
We have seen that whatever differences there were be-
tween the two writers of the book of Joshua, they quite
agreed in one respect, for they both praised ' ' the good old
times " as a period of piety and of consequent prosperity.
They did so with a most admirable object — namely, to induce
their contemporaries to bid adieu to their sins, to relinquish
their perverse religious practices, and to worship Yahweh
with all their hearts.
On the whole, too, .they doubtless acted in good faith
when they painted the far-off past in such bright colors ;
1 Joshua xxi. 43-45. 2 Joshua xy. 63, xvii 12-18.
8 Joshua xxii
354 THE CONQUEST OP CANAAN.
and yet we can hardly help suspecting that they were more
or less aware that their picture was not a faithful one. For
instance, when one of them makes Joshua set up a stone
under the oak " by the sanctuary of Yahweh, at Shechem,"
and puts the words into his mouth: "Let this stone be
our witness, -for it has heard all the words of Yahweh ! " '
We should not have thought he could have helped ask-
ing himself whether the old story, from which in this in-
stance he drew the substance of his own, did not teach
him that the religion of Israel in Joshua's time was very
far indeed from what he desired that of his own contem-
poraries to be. We should have thought that these writers
knew enough of the old stories to see pretty clearly that
Israel was neither so devout nor so prosperous in ancient
times as they tried to make out it was. We have less
hesitation in adopting this supposition because we know
that the earlier writer's ideas of honesty were not very scru-
pulous, since he accepts the excuse of the Gibeonites for de-
ceiving Joshua as quite sufficient. 2 " Surely," he would have
said, " a man inay tell a lie when his life depends upon it ! "
We cannot be accused of want of candor, therefore, if
we suppose that this writer purposely represented the past
in too favorable a light, in furtherance of the good object
upon which he was intent.
And yet, after all, the want of truthfulness may have
been unintentional, for people are often inclined to think of
a past generation as superior to their own. A deep sense of
the imperfections of the present, coupled with a deficient
knowledge of the past, and sometimes with small confidence
in the future, leads inany people into this mistake. Thus we
still hear certain persons praise the good old times in which,
they say, people were so much better and more religious, and
social welfare so much greater ; but :i closer acquaintance
with the past of our own people, and that of others, teaches
us very different Wessons. Those who exalt our forefathers at
the expense of our contemporaries are as far from the mark
as the writers of the book of Joshua were when they extolled
the Israelites of the thirteenth century before Christ, and
held them up as models to their own fellow-citizens.
They did all this with the best intentions, but they did
no good by it ; for it is so discouraging to be obliged to look
upon one's contemporaries as a degenerate race ! The truth
was much more consoling. The histoiy of Israel — and the
i Joshua xxiv. 26, 27. 2 Joshua ix. 24, 25
CALEB THE KENIZZITE. 355
same may be gaid of all other peoples and of the whole race —
is not represented by a period of piety, and consequent pros-
perity followed by a fall, and then a series of unsuccessful
efforts to recover from it. The truth is, that the Israelites
of Joshua's time were half-civilized barbarians, amongst whom
the activity of Moses had scattered some seeds of nobility
which would in time bring forth fruit. But at present they
gave but little sign of this-better future, and were still fierce
and rude to the last degree. Their prosperity was that of a
horde of nomads who had been tolerably successful in gain-
ing a home by conquest. Some of them were lucky enough
to get possession of rich pastures and fertile corn-lands,
while others had to be content with more barren districts ;
some became masters, and others were reduced to slavery ;
and this not because some were more virtuous than others,
but because capricious fortune throws abundance into the lap
of one, and withholds it from another.
It is true that, in the end, great things came of these
wild invaders ; but this was the result of long and painful toil,
and its price was paid in tears and blood.
Chapter XIV.
CALEB THE KENIZZITE.
Jcdges I. 1-21; Ncm. XIII. and XIV.
AFTER the death of Joshua — we are told in the book of
Judges — it was time for the Israelite tribes to take
possession of their territory. So they asked Yahweh which
of them should begin. The oracle chose Judah, and he made
common cause with Simeon. First they fell upon Bezek,
the position of which is unknown, and took her king alive,
upon which they cut off his thumbs and great toes, so as to
disable him for war. He recognized the punishment of
God in this mutilation ; for in his cruel pride he had himself
treated seventy princes in the same manner, and made them
crawl under his table to pick up the crumbs that fell from it.
He died in Jerusalem, which now fell into the hands of Judah.
Then 1 they turned their arms successfully against the
inhabitants of various parts of the future territory of Judah,
l Compare Joshua xv. 13-19.
356 CALEB THE KENIZZITE.
Tbey conquered Kirjath-arba (afterwards Hebron), where the
Enakites, Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai dwelt. Then they
rushed upon Kirjath-sepher, that is " the city of the scribe,"
afterwards known as Debir. " Whoever takes it shall have
my daughter Achsah to wife," cried Caleb ; and when his
own brother, Othniel the Kenizzite, took the place he kept
his word. But Achsah was not content with her future
home, and when Caleb brought her to her husband's house,
she urged the latter to request a more fertile allotment from
her father ; and when she found she could not persuade him
to do so she undertook the task herself. She allowed her-
self to slip from her ass in token of distress, and when Caleb
asked her what was the matter, she answered: "Grant me
a boon ! You have given me a dry land, give me some wells
with it ! " Caleb granted her request, and that is how the
Kenizzites came to.possess the higher and the lower wells.
The sons of Keni, the father-in-law of Moses, came with
the men of Judah from the " city of palms" (Jericho) to the
desert of Judah ; and when they had taken possession of this
desert, the men of Judah and Simeon marched upon Zephath,
which they conquered and laid under the bau. The}' called
itHormah, or "the banned." Judah also took Gaza, Aske-
lon, and Ekron, together with the land in which these cities
lay. Thus Yahweh helped Judah to conquer the mountain
land ; but the inhabitants of the vale's could not be con-
quered because they had iron chariots. The conquerors gave
Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had commanded, and he expelled
the three Enakites from it. Of his brother Othniel, we are
further told, 1 that when the king of Mesopotamia, Chushan
Rishathaim, oppressed Israel, he arose and delivered the
people from his tyranny.
We have seen that the book of Joshua represents all the
Israelite tribes as united in a single camp, under Joshua,
fighting against the Canaanites in concert, and dividing the
conquered districts amongst themselves by friendly agree-
ment. The same conception, thoroughly unhistorical as we
have shown 2 it to be, underlies the stoiy we have just given ;
for it represents the men of Judah and Simeon, together
with the sons of Keni or the Kenites, as starting on their
campaign from Jericho, if not from the common camp. The
real course of events was very different ; and though we have
ao direct accounts of it, we can make it out with .tolerable
i Judges iii. 8-11. 2 See pp. 347, 348.
CALEB THE KENIZZITE. 357
oertainty from various traces it has left in the history of
these son them tribes and the relation in which they stood to
the inhabitants of the north country. We must begin, then,
by reversing the order in -which the book of Judges mentions
the conquests of the men of Judah, and must make them
begin from the south ; for it is highly probable that while
the house of Joseph, under the command of Joshua, worked
its way into Canaan from the other side of the Jordan, and
settled in the central district, Judah and his allies entered
from the Arabian desert, along the coast of the Dead Sea.
Let us turn our attention for a moment to these allies of
Judah. In the first place there was the tribe of Simeon, with
which that of Levi was always so closely allied that we shall
be safe in supposing that a number of Levite families, if not
the whole tribe, were to be found in the camp of Judah. But
in addition to these sons of Israel, troops of shepherds of quite
another origin ranged themselves under the same flag. We
have already 1 pointed out more than once that an Israelite tribe
by no means consisted, as some would have us think, of the
descendants of a single man, and that Judah, Simeon, and the
other sons of Israel were not persons at all, but mere person-
ifications. We have also observed 2 that the Israelites were
anything but an unmixed race, and that the sons of Israel
did but form the nucleus of the tribes, while all manner of
other elements were taken up into them. We are quite un-
able to discover the real composition of some of the tribes of
Israel, but we still know a good deal about that of Judah.
This tribe included many families, such as the Calebites, the
Kenites, the Kenizzites, and the Jerahmeelites, that were cer-
tainly not of Israelite but of Edomite and Midianite origin. 8
This is only natural ; for the men of Judah and the other
Israelites who had made common cause with them had doubt-
less spent a considerable time on the southern boundaries of
Canaan before they succeeded in gaining a footing in the
country itself. These regions west of Mount Seir were in-
habited by Edomites and Midianites, some of whom, no doubt,
had settled habitations, while others wandered about with their
herds in search of pasture. These shepherds, doubtless, cast
longing eyes upon the fertile glades of Canaan, and from time
to time, as opportunity served, made marauding expeditions
against them, though they were not strong enough to expel
their inhabitants. In the course of time however, they were
1 See pp. 102,103; 226-228. * See p. 316.
8 Compare Numbers x. 29-32.
358 CALEB THE KENIZZITE.
strengthened by the " sons of Judah," whose habitual attitude
of hostilitj' towards the Philistines made them the natural
allies of these border tribes. At first, perhaps, the alliance
they formed was disturbed by occasional quarrels, but event-
ually they all made common cause with each other, visited
the sanctuarj- of "the Terror" at Beersheba 1 together, and
at, last felt strong enough to venture on an attempt to conquer
the land of Canaan.
Of course this enterprise was surrounded with difficulties.
It will be remembered that a story in the Pentateuch repre-
sents the Israelites as having been actually repulsed by the
Amorites in an expedition against Zephath.' 2 Another ac-
count tells us that Moses took this city, 3 while the book of
Judges, as we saw just now, sa3's that the Judseans and their
allies conquered it after the death of Joshua. Zephath was
evidently a border fortress and the key to the land ; and it
is probable that its fall gave the signal to the shepherd
tribes that lived on the southern border of Canaan to seize
the opportunity of making a regular invasion. As the first
fruits of the spoil, Zephath itself was treated by the Judaeans
as Jericho was bj T the sons of Joseph — it was devoted to
Yahweh, and the place where it had stood was called Hormah,
or " banned." Pushing on from this point of vantage, the
invaders came upon a formidable foe to the west ; for there the
Philistines, a warlike tribe that had come, like the Israelites
themselves, from Egypt, 4 held possession of the seaboard.
We are informed, indeed, both in the narrative we have just
given and in a passage in the book of Joshua, 6 that the Israel-
ites took the Philistine cities Ekron, Ashdod, Gaza, and As-
kelon ; but if this is so, the triumph was but short lived, for
we soon find all these places once more in the hands of their
former owners. The invaders were more successful towards
the north, where they took Kirjath-sepher and the mountain
land round Hebron, and extended their conquests up to the
district of which the house of Joseph had taken possession.
Thus did Judah and his allies win themselves a home, which
they diyided according to the rights of war — that is to say,
the right of the strongest. Most of the foreign clans ranged
themselves under the flag of Judah — whether because the
chief of this tribe was the bravest and most successful, or for
whatever other reason — and Judah, therefore, became far
1 See pp. 161-166.
3 Numbers xiy. 40-45. Deuteronomy i. 41-44 j see also p. 306.
a Numbers xxi. 1-3. « See p. 283. 6 Joshua xv. 45-47.
CALEB THE KENIZZITE. 359
more powerful than Simeon and Levi, who gradually sank
almost into the position of dependencies of the larger tribe.
The Simeonites did indeed retain a certain amount of inde-
pendence, and gained some territory of their own ; but many
of their families, together with all the Levite clans that had
entered Canaan from this side, were scattered amongst the
Judeeans, while others penetrated as far as Shechem, where
we shall meet with them again. Of course the Kenites, Keniz-
zites, and other kindred tribes acquired land of their own just
as the Judeeans and other sons of Israel did. What each ob-
tained depended upon his valor or good fortune. Caleb, the
son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, 1 and Othniel, "the son of
Kenaz " (which means that he too was a Kenizzite) , are
mentioned by tradition as valiant and successful warriors, who
drove the warlike Enakites from Hebron and the surrounding
district, and took possession of it themselves. The Kenites
settled in the desert of Judah, and still further south. From
the nature of the case, the boundary between the territory of
the Israelites and that of the Edomites must have been very ill-
defined, or rather the two must have run into each other, so that
in travelling from north to south one would constantly meet
fewer Israelites and more Kenites, Kenizzites, and kindred
tiibes. Hence the legend represented Esau and Jacob as
twin brothers, and called them both sons of Isaac.
At the time of the conquest of Canaan the national con-
sciousness of Israel was not yet roused. Centuries were still
to pass before the rise of a true Israelite nation. The
northern tribes paid no attention to Judah : Judah knew
nothing of Joseph, or at least felt no interest in him. But
when the sons of Israel began to feel their connection more
deeply ; when the worship of Yahweh, which was common to
them all, took a fresh flight, and the peculiar Israelite charac-
ter began to be strongly marked, — then the question as to
the origin of the inhabitants of the various portions of the land
emphatically demanded an answer. The idea took root that
none but true Israelites ought to have an inheritance in the
land of Yahweh. And yet it was still perfectly well known
that the inhabitants of Hebron were not Israelites, but people
of another stock. This was strange and even shocking. The
legend of Caleb's faith in the might of Yahweh was intended
to explain this fact, and to answer the question, "What right
have these strangers to an inheritance in the midst of the sons
1 Numbers xxxii. 12. 1 Chron. iv. 13-15.
360 CALEB THE KENIZZITE.
of Israel ? " The legend, as we now have it, is full of contradic-
tions and repetitions, for it is composed, as we have already
hinted, 1 of two different stories. But the old legend may still
be recovered completely, and if we omit the later elements we
can read it in its original form. It runs as follows * : —
When Israel had reached the southern boundary of Canaan,
in the desert of Paran, Yahweh commanded Moses to send
twelve men to inspect the land. Moses obeyed, and ordered
the spies to pass through southern Canaan as far as the moun-
tain land, and to observe everything closely — whether the
people were powerful or weak, few or many ; whether the
cities were fortified or not; whether the soil was rich or
dry, well wooded or bare of trees. If possible, too, they
were to bring back specimens of its products. It was just
the season when grapes are ripe. The spies fulfilled their
task, and penetrated as far as Hebron, which was built
seven years before Zoan, in Eg3'pt. Here Ahiman, She-
shai, and Talmai, the sons of Enak, dwelt. When the spies
reached the valley of Eshcol, close to Hebron, they cut a vine-
twig, with a single cluster of grapes, which was so large that
two of them had to carry it on a pole between them . They
also gathered some samples of pomegranates and figs. It was
from the cluster of grapes that they cut there that the valley
took its name of Eshcol, that is, " cluster." Thus laden they
returned to Moses, in the desert of Paran, and showed him
the fruit, exclaiming at the same time : ' ' The land that we
have been in is a glorious land, flowing with milk and honey,
and see what fruit it bears. But the inhabitants are mightj',
the cities are appallingly strong, and we have actually seen
descendants of the Enakites there." This was true enough ;
for at that time the Amalekites lived in the south, the Hittites,
Jebuzites, ,and Amorites in the mountain land, and the Ca-
naanites on the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan. Now
Caleb, who was one of the spies, did not dispute the truth of
what his companions said, but when he saw that their report
had instantly set the people murmuring, he tried to restore
their courage. " Let us attack them," he cried. " We shall
conquer the land, for we are powerful enough for the task."
But the others still declared : ' ' We are far too weak ! " On
hearing this the Israelites burst into tears, upon which Yahweh
said to Moses : ' ' How long will this people vex me by its
want of faith, in spite of all the miracles I have done ? 1 will
i See p. 307.
a Numbers xiii. 1, 2, 3, 17-20, 22-24, 26 (partly), 27-31, xiv. 1, ll-25a, 39-45.
CALEB THE KENIZZITE. 361
destroy them by a plague, and will make a far mightier nation
of your posterity!" But Moses said: "Lord! thou hast
made the Egyptians feel that thou hast redeemed this people
with might, and they have spoken of it to the dwellers in this
land. They have heard that thou, Yahweh, dost abide in the
midst of these tribes, and art seen face to face ; that thy cloud
stands over them, and thou showest them their way by a
column of smoke and fire. If, then, thou bringest them all to
nought as a single man, it will be said that thou hast slain
them in the wilderness because thou couldst not bring them
into the land thou didst promise them. Let thy might be re-
vealed, and forgive this people, according to the greatness of
thy mercy, as thou hast done from Egypt until now." Then
Yahweh answered : "I will forgive them at your prayer. But
as surely as I live and as mj' glory shall fill the whole land,
not one of those who have witnessed all that I have done in
Egypt and in the desert shall see the land that I promised to
their fathers. For now they have tried my patience ten times
by refusing to hear me. But my servant Caleb is of another
spirit ; he has fulfilled his duty towards me. I will bring him
to the place he has visited, and it shall be the possession of
his posterity." At that time the Amalekites and the Canaan-
ites were still in the valley. Then Moses told all these words
to the people. They were terrified and repentant, and, even
though Moses forbade it, they were now determined to attack
Zephath. But they were repulsed.
In this, as in most other Israelite legends, there is more
than one object in view. Its main purpose is to answer the
question, why Israel wandered about so long in the desert. 1
Incidentally the name of a valley near Hebron is explained.
This name, Eshcol, is derived by another legend 2 from one
of the early magnates of the neighborhood of Hebron ; but
here we are told that the valley derived its name from the
"cluster" that the spies took from it. In addition to all this,
however, the person of Caleb plays an important part in the
story, and an explanation is offered of the fact that this Ken-
izzite had gained an inheritance amongst the Israelites. We
find the same representation of the case elsewhere. 3
Although, as we have seen, this is not the true explana-
tion of the fact, yet it speaks well for the writer's spiritual
perception. He could not deny that, extraordinary as it might
appear, a stranger had actually obtained a share in the prom-
1 See pp. 307, 308. 2 Genesis xiv. 24. a Joshua xiv. 6-15.
vol. i. 16
362 CALEB THE KENTZZITE.
ises which Yahweh had given to Israel ; so he found the solu-
tion of the mystery in the supposition that this stranger had
earned the privilege by his faith, by his fidelity and persever-
ance in the service of Yahweh* This shows true spiritual
perception.
If only Israel had remained faithful to this principle, that a
heathen might be raised by piety to th# level of the Israelite !
But it was not so. To most of the Jews after the captivity
this solution of the difficulty was by no means satisfactory.
Caleb's faith, however great, would have availed him but little
in the eyes of some of them ; for their chief pride was in their
descent and in the purity of their blood. If Caleb was not of
the true " seed of Abraham," he was no child of the promise.
Away with him then ! The men who passed this judgmeut
supposed it to be sanctioned by the practice of their fore-
fathers. They could not imagine it otherwise. If Caleb, then,
according to the old accounts, had received an inheritance in
Israel, they argued that he must of necessity have been a
descendant of Judah. Before long, accordingly, the following
genealogy came into the world. Judah had a son Pharez, and
he a son Hezron ; Caleb and Jerahmeel were sons of this
Hezron, and Caleb in his turn had several sons, amongst
whom was Hebron (Caleb's dwelling-place). A number of
Judaean families were also included among Caleb's descend-
ants. 1 The spirit that inspired these genealogies is that of
intolerance. There is but one people, it says, that stands in
the grace of God and is good in his sight. That people is
Israel. Whosoever does not belong to it is a heathen. But
suppose he is full of devotion and love ? That has nothing to
do with it. He is a mere heathen. But suppose he loves the
people of God and does them good? It is all the same. He
has no share in God's favor.
So completely was Israel's religion petrified ! Such was the
dream of spiritual pride from which that teacher strove to
rouse it who placed the merciful Samaritan above the pitilesa
Jew, even though the latter was a priest.
1 1 Chronicles ii. 3-5, 18, 25, 42-55.
DEBORAH AND BAKAK. 363
Chapter XV.
DEBORAH AND BAKAK.
Judges IV. and V.
HAVING spoken in the last chapter of the conquest of
southern Canaan, we shall now turn to the north again,
and shall see how hard it was for the Israelites to maintain
themselves there. But first we must say a word or two about
the book from which we derive almost all our knowledge of
this period. It is the book of Judges.
This work embraces a number of old and trustworthy
traditions about the centuries between the conquest of Canaan
and the time of Samuel, the last of the Judges. The writer
has drawn most of his narratives from trustworthy sources,
and in following him, therefore, we are, as a rule, treading
upon firm ground. Our gratitude to Mm would indeed be
still greater than it is, if he had given us all that he found in
his authorities unmixed and unaltered. But to an Israelite
historian this seems to have been a simple impossibility.
The book of Judges, like those of Joshua, Samuel, and
Kings, is a prophetic work, 1 and the author makes history
subservient to his object of admonishing the people. This
tendency, of course, influenced his representations of the
past. *
In the first place he knows but one cause of disaster to a
people — faithlessness to Yahweh ; and but one way to pros-
perity and power — obedience to Yahweh. He tells his con-
temporaries, therefore, that Israel suffered much, in ancient
times, because it was faithless to its god. The Israelites had
not rooted out the Canaanites, and they worshipped idols.
So Yahweh punished them by selling them to all their foes.
Bill; when Israel repented of its sins, Yahweh raised up a
deliverer, and as long as he lived and ruled all was well.
When he was dead, however, the people fell into sin again,
and the same series of events recurred. The writer himself
tells us, in a sort of introduction which follows a short
narrative of the conquest and precedes the account of the
exploits of his heroes, that this is the point of view from
which he looks upon the history of the period. 2 But this
i See p. 350. 2 Judges ii. 6-iii. 6.
364 DEBORAH A.ND BARAK.
view of the connection between piety and prosperity and
between faithlessness to Yahweh and adversity is not true.
We shall even see that the great fidelity of Israel to Yahweh's
commands was one of the very causes which now and then
seriously endangered its independence during the period of
the Judges and at other times. Such a mistaken idea could
not but influence the writer's conceptions of the past. Sup-
pose, for instance, that one of the deliverers of the people
had been a worshipper of Baal ; the writer of the book of
Judges would certainly have been unable to believe anything
of ,;he kind, and would have represented the hero as a faithful
worshipper of Yahweh ; for had it been otherwise, he would
have thought, how could he have received power from Yahweh
to deliver Israel? We shall see presently that this example
is not merely imaginary.
Again, neither the writer of this book nor any other
Israelite Historian possessed in any high degree the power of
placing himself in imagination under different conditions of
national life from those with which his own experience had
made him familiar. Our writer knew, for instance, that
the Israelites had no kings during the first centuries after
the conquest of Canaan ; but he had not the slightest
conception of the terrible confusion consequent upon this
state of things. He imagined Israel to have been quite a
compact nation, governed by judges, and waging war or
living at peace as a single whole. This conception is utterly
untrue. The connection between the different tribes at this
period was for the most part as lode as possible. Each one
looked after itself, and it often happened that the misfortunes
of one gave no concern to another. As a rule, the so-called
judges were as far removed as possible from regular magis-
trates, by the j'ears of whose government the course of the
national history could be measured. Only a few of them ever
bore the name of prince or ruled over even one or two of the
tribes. For the most part they were heroes who rose up to
deliver some oppressed district, and afterwards returned to
the plough or the crook, with which they had earned their
bread before. If the}' had other gifts, as well as valor,
then no doubt for a longer or shorter period their advice was
asked bj r their neighbors in cases of difficulty, and their word
carried weight in the assemblies of the inhabitants of the
district in which they lived ; but their influence was wholly
moral, that is to sa,j, it depended entirely upon personal
qualities, such as bodily strength, courage, penetration, or
DEBOBAH AND BARAK. 3C5
jiistice. A kter generation, accustomed to regular magis-
trates, and taking for granted that there must have been such
in the times of their ancestors also, called these heroes
"Judges;" but they bore no such title during their lives.
Before the establishment of the monarchy, in that period
of restless violence and war, numberless heroes must have
risen among the Israelites ; but while the majority of them
were forgotten some few survived in the memory of the
people. Of some little but the name has been preserved,
while the exploits of others have been more or less fully
recorded.
Since our writer" thought of the judges as regular magis-
trates whose power was recognized by the whole people, and
imagined that their regular succession was interrupted only
by intervals during which their help was unnecessary, be-
cause Israel was at peace, it is but natural that he should
have endeavored to fix the length of their respective rules.
His principle was to assign such periods to them that, together
with Moses, Joshua, and the first kings, they would just
fill up the time between the Exodus from Egypt and the
building of Solomon's temple, — a period which a passage in
the book of Kings, from the hand of the same writer, fixes
at four hundred and eighty years. 1 In reality the period of
the judges was much shorter. Little more than two cen-
turies elapsed between the conquest of. Canaan and the time
of Solomon. We may therefore neglect, without misgiving,
all the notices which our writer gives us of the time during
which this or that judge governed the land, for they all belong
to his own artificial system of chronology.
The series of his judges begins, immediately after Joshua's
death, with Othniel. We are told, in a single word, that
this hero overcame a Mesopotamian king, and that the people
afterwards had rest for forty years. 2 Then we are informed
that the Moabite king Eglon, with the help of the Ammon-
ites and Amalekites, took Jericho — that is to say, no doubt,
established his headquarters on the spot where Jericho had
formerly stood — and oppressed Israel for eighteen j-ears, till
Ehud, a Benjamite, treacherously murdered him and touk
advantage of the confusion that followed to call the Israelites
to arms and so restore his country's liberty. After this the
people had rest for eighty years. 8 A certain Shamgar, who
slew six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad, 4 is mentioned
1 1 Kings vi. 1; compare p. 247. 2 Judges iii. 7-11.
s Judges iii. 12-30. * Judges iii. 31.
366 DEBORAH AND BARAK.
uext. Then follows the first detailed account of a judge — an
account which we know to rest upon firm historical grounds,
because most of the particulars are confirmed by the song of
Deborah, the most ancient Israelite poem of any extant
which we possess. I should like to give this song at length,
but there are so many unintelligible passages in it that I
must be content with borrowing a number of details from it
in describing what took place, and with finally quoting a por-
tion of it.
Between the range of Carmel to the west, and the lesser
Hermon and Gilboa to the east, lies the plain of Jezreel,
about one-and-twenty miles in length, and thirteen in width.
It is eminently suited, from its nature, to serve as a battle
field ; and the stream of Kishon, which receives part of its
waters from Gilboa and part from Tabor, runs through it in
a north-westerly direction. Long after the conquest the re-
gions north of this great plain remained to a large extent in
the possession of the old inhabitants. West of Lake Merom
lay the city of Hazor, the abode of the Caiiaanite king Jabin.
We are not told whether this monarch had suffered a defeat
when first the sons of Israel penetrated into his land ; but it
deserves notice that the father of the tribe of Naphtali, which
inhabited this district, is called in the Israelite legend a son
of Jacob by Eachel's slave-girl. 1 This shows that his blood
was not considered noble. Zebulun, too, which dwelt further
south, and certainly experienced the tyranny of Jabin, is
called the 3 T oungest son of Leah, which means that the tribe
did not rise to importance till a comparatively late period.
And the so-called " blessing of Jacob" 2 sings of Issachar,
who dwelt still further south, as follows 8 : —
Issachar is the beast of strangers,
Lying down within the enclosure;
When he saw that rest was good,
And that the land was fair,
He bowed his shoulder to carry burdens,
And became a tributary.
All this seems to indicate that a few bands of Israelites had
penetrated as far north as lake Merom, or perhaps even far-
ther, and had taken special possession of the coast land where
the Asherites and some divisions of Zebulun 4 found a home;
but that only a few families had settled in the western pari
1 Genesis xxx. 7, 8. 2 g ee p . 226
* Genesis xlix. 14, 15, after an amended version. 4 Genesis xlix. 13.
DEBORAH AND BARAK. 367
of north Palestine, in the marshy districts near the lakes of
Merom and Gennesareth, whereas the fertile and beautiful
country between Gennesareth and Carmel had indeed fallen
to the lot of certain clans of Zebulun and Issachar, but only
at the price of their freedom, since they became tributary to
the Canaanites.
The plain of Jezreel, then, formed a kind of boundary be-
tween the country over which the Canaanites still held sway
and that of which the Israelites had become the masters. On
the plain itself certain wandering tribes of shepherds pitched
their tents. They were Kenites, and had perhaps penetrated
to their present position from the south. But though they
had gained an entrance into Canaan by the aid of the Jucte-
ans and other Israelites, they wer*e not on good terms with
the kinsmen of their former allies, but took the side of the
Canaanites.
No wonder ! For Jabin's power was terrible. Not far from
the plain of Jezreel his commander, Sisera, had established a
camp in which there were nine hundred war-chariots ready for
action. The name of the place, Harosheth (perhaps ' ' camp ") ,
of the heathen may be derived from this circumstance. We
cannot be sure of the form of these chariots. They may have
been provided with scythes and spikes to plough down the
enemies' infantry, for we know that some peoples of antiquity
employed chariots of this description ; but it seems more
probable that they simply served to bear the warriors with
their charioteers to battle, and to furnish them with a vantage
ground from which to hurl their spears and shoot their arrows.
In anj' case they were regarded with great terror by the Israel-
ites, who hardly dared to show their faces in the valleys, where
these "iron chariots" were, of course, more formidable than in
the hill-land. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Kenites,
who lived in the plain of Jezreel, submitted to the owners of
these dreaded engines of war ; but the fact that they did so
still further reduced the chances of the Israelite tribes north
of the plain of ever tearing themselves out of the iron grasp
of the Canaanites.
The great highway from Syria to Egypt ran through the
plain of Jezreel, and whoever held possession of it was, there-
fore, master of all the commerce of the country, had the
whole sea-board more or less in his power, and could lay
imposts upon all kinds of merchandise. Jabin made ample
use of these powers. The result was that commerce was
brought almost to a standstill, and it was not long before the
368 DEBORAH AND BARAK.
consequences made themselves felt even south of the plain.
The roads were deserted, and everything languished. The
Canaanites grew more insolent every day. Their troops kept
penetrating further and further south. Not one of the great
highwaj's was safe. Travellers were compelled to find their
way by hunters' and shepherds' paths. Dread of the Canaan-
ites rose higher and higher. The flocks were plundered, and
the Israelite husbandman never knew whether he would be
allowed to cany home the harvest that he saw ripening on his
land. But woe to him if he resisted the tj-rants ! He was a
child of death. Young men and girls were carried off as
slaves. No one dared to resist the plunderers. And still
they kept advancing. Who should deliver their victims ? In
the south, Shamgar, who 'fought against the Philistines, was
still living, and a certain Jael, 1 of whom we know nothing
more, enjoyed great fame. But perhaps they felt no concern
for " the sons of Issachar and of Joseph." Or did their
courage fail-becau'se old age had robbed them of their strength ?
Or did they not know what cry would wake an echo in the
hearts of their brethren? Be this as it maj-, they did not
deliver the people. Where must they look for help? The
Asherites were powerful indeed, but like the sons of Dan
they were too busy with their ship-building, their fisheries, and
their commerce to give heed to the sighs of the down-trodden. 2
Often did the victims gaze across the Jordan wistfully, for
there too their brethren dwelt. Had the} r not heard over there
of their distress ? • They had, indeed ; and when the bold
shepherds of Reuben sat together in the evening on the banks
of their streams they often spoke of the weary days passed by
their brothers on the other side of the Jordan. Then they
would tell of the fearful power of the Canaanites, of Sisera's
strength, of those dreaded chariots, or of the cruelties prac-
tised on men, women, and children, while a curse of muttered
wrath or a cry of indignation broke from the hearers. Then
they began to think what could be done. They could not
leave their brethren to their fate. Shame on them if they
did ! And yet how could they help them ? All hands were
needed for the work at home, all weapons to ward off beasts
of prey and robber bands. Well ! they would consult the men
of Gilead. They would — do a hundred things ; but they
did nothing. And often enough they forgot the sufferings of
their neighbors as they lay stretched at ease upon the grass
listening to the bleating of their flocks. It was very sad that
1 Judges v. 6. a Judges v. 17.
DEBORAH AND BARAK. 369
their brothers should be so cruelly oppressed ; but, then, what
could they do ? 1
The suffering grew more and more intense. It could not
last. The names of Naphtali, Zebulun, and Issachar were in
danger of utterly perishing. Help yourselves then ! Stand
up and fight for liberty ! There were heroes enough among
the oppressed tribes ; but who was to place himself at their
head? Who was to inspire them with courage, and, girding
himself to the fight, conquer or die at their head ?
In the north-eastern corner of the plain of Jezreel the stately
Tabor raises its broad crown. Close by this mountain, or
perhaps on its summit, was situated in those days the little
city of Kedesh. It is called Kedesh of Naphtali in one passage
of the narrative ; 2 but it cannot possibly have been situated
so far off, by lake Merom. It must be looked for near Mount
Tabor. In this Kedesh dwelt Barak, the son of Abinoam.
Many an anxious eye was turned towards him. Why did not
he urge on the fight? Dared he not? No! he dared not.
Brave as he was, he shrank from such a task. Those war-
chariots of Sisera ! Those dreaded chariots !
And still the burden grew heavier to bear. Lamentations
rose from the worshippers at every feast of the new moon,
or whenever else the gods were invoked and sacrificial meals
were held. Then, amidst the sobs of the people, the priest
would pour out water upon the ground and would sigh,
" We are like water that is spilled and can never be gathered
up again ! 3 O Yahweh ! help us ! "
Help was to come from the south. In the mountain
land of Ephraim, between Rama and Bethel, stood a palm
tree long known as Deborah's palm. Near this tree lived a
certain Lapidoth, whose wife was celebrated far and near
as a holy woman, who received revelations from the deity,
and whose word was accepted as a divine response. Many
a one came to consult her or to call in her aid, for she was
the refuge of all the oppressed. And the pilgrims would
often assemble, on a holy day, at the stone of Bethel or some
other sacred spot near Deborah's palm, while she held judg-
ment amongst them. Woe to the man who had removed
the boundary marks or had driven his cattle into his neigh-
bor's corn-field ! Woe to the craven who had accepted a fine
instead of slaying his kinsman's murderer ! Woe to the
libertine who had laid hands on his neighbor's wife ! The
1 Judges v. 15 b-17 a. 2 Judges iv. 6.
3 Compare I Samuel vii. 6 ; Psalm xxii. 11.
370 DEBOEAH AND BAKAK.
holy woman turned her flashing eye upon him and it pierced
his' inmost soul. Unable, in his conscious guilt, to bear hei
aflful glance, he was driven to confess his sin, though he knew
full well that to do so was to issue his own death-warrant.
Yes, she was indeed a holy woman, for she could read the
souls of men and interpret the language of God in Nature.
In those days Deborah was a frequent witness of the
depression of her neighbors ; for the Israelites who came
from the north could speak of nothing but the tyranny of the
Canaanites, and the woes of the sons of Israel, or of Barak
and the other heroes staying at home and doing nothing.
Then Deborah's blood would boil and her eyes flash, and a
word of God would seem to hang upon her lips ; but it died
away, and she was silent. Had she any power to help them?
No ! deliverance was of Yahweh. He was the rock of Israel.
And still he seemed deaf to his people's prayer. How often
had she watched the flight of the birds and listened to their
cry ! But the omens were never favorable. There was noth-
ing to show that Yahweh would come to help his people, or
was mighty enough to withstand the gods of the Canaanites.
And she would often bow down in prayer, or spend the whole
night on the summit of a lonely hill or beneath the sacred
trees, sighing, "How long? Yahweh! How long?"
One evening she was waiting to hear the voice of her god
once more. The morrow was a holy day. They would come
to her again from all regions, from the down-trodden districts
of the north, and ask her for a word of God. What answer
was she to give them? Had she none but the old one,
' ' Wait ! " How long must she mock them with it ? Her
eyes are fixed upon the furthest south. What is this she
feels? A stream of warm air is wafted against her face.
See ! the thunder-clouds are gathering over Seir ! Hark !
The voice of Yahweh bursts upon her ear ! The earth trem-
bles. The mountains shudder. Tis time ! He comes ! l
The morning breaks. In deep depression, as heretofore,
the sons of Benjamin and Ephraim gather round the palm.
Where is Deborah ? There she comes ! But how changed
her glance! What triumph in her step ! " The spirit of God
is upon her ! " they whispered in awe. And they said well.
' ' Praised be Yahweh," she cries ; ' ' deliverance is at hand.
He comes. He has whetted his sword and grasped his
shield, and his spear trembles in his hand ! Fear not the
might of the, Canaanite, for as a Hon roars over his prey
1 Judges v. i-
DEBORAH AND BARAK. 371
when a flock of sheep approach him, so does Yahweh roar.
The beast of prej r shudders not at the sound of then- bleat-
ing, though they be many, nor trembles at their numbers,
for they are helpless. 1 So Yahweh fears not the war-cry
of Sisera's warriors." Then a great shout of "Who is our
leader? ' rises on every side. "Barak ! " she replies. " Where
is he ? " Deborah's eye soon rests on him as she cries :
" Yahweh commands j-ou to gather the heroes of Naphtali
and Zebulun at Tabor. He himself will bring Sisera and
his army to the vallej- of Kishon to meet you. There shall
the slaughter take place. He has given the foe, with all his
chariots, into your hand. Then the hyenas shall hold feast
and the vultures shall feed fat ! To arms!" "To arms!"
the cry re-echoes through the air. ' ' The sword and the
spear of Yahweh ! For Yahweh and for Barak ! " But
Barak pauses still. "O Deborah! Inspired of God!" he
replies to her appeal. ' ' I am ready. But what can we do
without your help? Come thou with us, and the victory is
ours ! " " Yes ! " cry the people ; " Yes ! Deborah with us !
Glory to Yahweh ! " And Deborah is ready.
The news of what has happened spreads like fire through
the land. Night after night the beacons glow on the hill-tops
in sign of war. The notes of the rams-horn trumpets ring
through the air; and hill and valley echo to the cry: " For
Yahweh, and Barak, and Deborah ! " The men of Naphtali
and Zebulun have assembled at Mount Tabor, and the war-
riors of Issachar have joined them. Sisera calls out his
troops in haste to crush the insurrection, and rumors of his
strength are brought to Tabor. How can they hope to resist
him? The sons of Israel are brave even to desperation, but
are they not as good as defenceless? Not one, except per-
haps Barak and a few more, possessed a lance or a shield.
Stone choppers, wooden clubs, and arrows pointed with flint
or bone — such are the weapons with which they must fight,
baring their naked bosoms meanwhile to the iron weapons of
their foes. But what of that ? " Yahweh is with us ! Glory
to him, for thousands are assembling of their own free will ! "
"Who are these at the head of the troops?" " Elders and
nobles riding on she-asses ! They, too, are risking their
lives in the holy war ! " " Who are those coming from the
south?" "Glory to Yahweh! The heroes of Issachar!"
' l And those behind them?" "The sons of Ephraim, from
Mount Amalek." "And those?" "The bold slingers of
1 Compare Isaiah xxxi. i.
372 DEBORAH AND BARAK.
Benjamin! Do you see them? The sinews of their right,
hands arc broken in childhood — all their strength is in the
left, but never does the stone from a Benjamite sling fail to
find the mark." x " Glory to Yahweh ! for the people come
to battle." " For Barak and Deborah ! "
The battle soon began in the southern portion of the
plain, near Megiddo and Taanach. 2 The Canaanites had the
advantage of the ground, for the Israelites could fight better
among the mountains than on the plain, where the war
chariots of their enemies had free scope. Think of those ill-
armed bands ranged against hundreds of chariots yoked to
fiery horses, and bearing warriors cased in mail, closely fol-
lowed by the infantry. But if only they could keep cool, and
aim the missiles at the horses, — or, at a signal from their
leader, all raise a piercing yell or a deafening shout of battle,
sounding the horns at the same moment, and so scare the
horses, — the ranks of the foe might be broken, and the chariots
set dashing against each other, and perhaps trampling down
the infantry of their own side. These chariots, in fact, were
not so formidable as they appeared, and were very apt to
convert a slight reverse into a great defeat. So it was on
this occasion. "Yahweh threw the army of Sisera and his
chariots into confusion before the face of Barak," says the
historian. 8 A panic seized the Canaanites. The terrified
horses dashed together, trampling the warriors and overturn-
ing the chariots. They rushed in wild and hurried flight
towards the Kishon ; but the river was swollen high, and so
fought on Israel's side. Man}- of the fugitives lost their lives
in its waters. The pursuit was hot. Some of the Canaan-
ites fled to Meroz. What? to a city inhabited by Israelites?
Yes ! And they were received as guests, while the chy gates
were closed against the conquerors who followed hard upon
them, and all help refused. " A curse," cried the indignant
Deborah, when all was over, " a curse on Meroz ! A curse
on her inhabitants, for they would not come to the help of
Yahweh ! " And probably the city paid by utter devastation
for its want of faith in Yahweh's victory and of fidelity to
Israel.
Meanwhile Barak had fixed his thoughts upon the hostile
general, whose arms he longed to display as trophies. Sisera
had a long start of him, for he rode in a chariot ; but after a
time it broke down and he had to pursue his way on foot. It
1 Judges xx. 16. 2 Judges v. 19.
8 Judges iv. 15.
DEBORAH AND BAKAK. 373
was a race for life. Behind him the victorious Israelites ; be-
fore him, O joyful sight ! the tents of his allies, the Kenites.
Thither he directs his steps. He can go no further. The
darkness is coming on. He need not fear recognition, and
may hide himself among his friends. A little rest at least be-
fore he goes on ! He sought the tent of Heber, the Kenite
chief. Jael, the wife of Heber, stood at the entrance of her
dwelling, recognized him, hastened to meet him, and asked
him to rest there. He crept into her abode — surely he was
safe in the tent of the women ! — and fell down exhausted.
She threw a cloak over him. " A draught of water ! " he
gasped. In a moment she brought him the best bowl she had
full of delicious milk. Sisera felt absolutely safe. This woman
would not betray him. She would still be faithful to him, de-
feated as he was. " Go and stand at the entrance," he mut-
tered, as he dropped into the sleep of weariness, " and if they
come, tell them there is no one here."
His eyes are closed. See what a sudden change has passed
over Jael's face ! There lies the foe of Israel asleep. Her
husband has made peace with him — but in fear, not love. As
for her, she hates this man. Has he not oppressed, tortured,
enslaved, and slain the children of her people? Her people?
But, surely, she is not an Israelite ? By birth she is not, but
in spirit she is. She is deeply attached to these tribes with
which her own has wandered for now at least a century, and
with whom it entered this noble land of Canaan. It is true
that they, the Kenites, have never made up their minds to
imitate their allies, settle in towns and villages, and cultivate
the soil. They are still free shepherds. But this difference
has not quenched their sense of brotherhood. She herself
is a worshipper of Yahweh, Israel's god, who is now chas-
tising his foes for their insolence. He has gained the victory,
as she had fervently hoped, and indeed expected that he
would. And now . . . there lies Sisera, the enemy of Yah-
weh, and therefore her enemy. Should she not hate him
whom her god hated? She must not betray him, he had
said. Betray him ! No. Woman as she is, she can do
more than that. He sleeps — he shall not wake ! Where
can she find a weapon? She sees none that she can trust
to deal a death-blow. But stay ! A thought has struck
her. In a moment she has pulled out one of the sharp
wooden pegs which holds the cords of the tent to the ground ;
she has grasped the mallet with which they are driven in. She
draws near him. Is he asleep? Yes, sound asleep. . . .
374 DEBORAH AND BARAK.
And e'er long Sisera lies dead, with the tent-peg driven through
his temples. She has struck the great blow! Praised be
Yahweh ! There comes Barak ! Ha ! he is swift of foot
and stormy in pursuit ; but he will soon see that he has come
too late. Jael goes out in triumph to meet him. She leads
him into her tent. ' ' There lies the man you seek ! "
Thus was the battle won, and Jabin's power broken ; and
as the wearied warriors gathered round the watch fires, loud
crie 3 of triumph rang through the air. ' ' Long life to Barak ! "
" Long life to Deborah!" " Blessed be Yahweh!" And
here and there a mocking jest was aimed at Barak, who had
missed the glory of striking down the enemy's commander,
and had been anticipated by a woman. "Ah!" they said,
with a laugh, " that is because he was afraid to go to battle
without Deborah." 1
And she, Deborah the heroine, the inspired messenger of
God, flushed with triumph, glowing with zeal for Yahweh and
for Israel, and with hatred of the vanquished foe, burst into a
song of victory, as the smoke of the thank-offering rose on
high. She sang of the glory of Yahweh, who had revealed
his might ; she spoke of herself as the mother in Israel who
had risen up and come to the rescue ; she thanked Yahweh
because common people and nobles alike had freely gathered
under Barak's flag ; she praised the tribes that had joined in
the battle, and cast bitter taunts upon the cravens. Then she
described the battle, in which the stars of heaven had fought
against Sisera, and finally sang of the general's death, —
Blessed be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite,
Blessed be she above all women of the tent !
When he asked for water, she gave him milk —
Gave him rich milk in her costliest bowl.
She laid her hand on the tent-peg,
Her right hand grasped the workman's mallet.
Then she smote Sisera, pierced through his head,
She crushed it, she pierced it as he slept.
Between her feet he bowed, he fell, and lay low.
Between her feet he bowed and fell.
Where he bowed down, he fell disfigured.
The mother of Sisera looks through the window;
She looks through the lattice lamenting.
"How long is his chariot stayed!
How long ere we hear its wheels ! "
Her prudent court ladies reply,
While she keeps repeating her words: —
" Has he not spoil to divide V
A slave-girl — nay, two — for each hero,
1 Judges iv. 8, 9.
THE SANCTUARY AT DAN. 375
And splendid array for Sisera,
A booty of dyed and glorious garments,
A clotH of gold for his loved one's neck ! "
So perish all they that hate thee, Yahweh !
And be they that love thee like the sun going forth in
his might.
"We turn with a certain feeling of horror from a woman
who, herself a mother, could thus mock a mother's grief, and
praise the treacherous and cruel act of Jael. May this horror
never grow less ! Yet we must not forget that such cruelty,
treachery, and bloodthirsty triumph are but the dark back-
ground of the patriotism and religious devotion which strength-
ened these heroes to make the heaviest sacrifices and to brave
death itself in the cause of their people and their people's god.
Chapter XVI.
THE ORIGIN OF THE SANCTUARY AT DAN.
Judges XVII. and XVIII.
FROM the southern flank of the plain of Jezreel, right down
to the desert, Canaan is intersected by a range of moun-
tains, the northern portion of which used to be called Mount
Ephraim, while the southern part, though separated from the
other by no natural boundary, bore the name of Mount Judah.
Now, somewhere in Mount Ephraim there laj*, in the time of
the Judges, a village called Michah-stead, in honor of its
chief inhabitant, round whose house the huts of his laborers
were ranged. Michah had also a private chapel provided with
a teraphim and an ephod. We know but little of the form of
these objects or the method in which they were used ; but it
appears that the teraphim was an image about the size of a
man, and partly, at least, of human form, 1 and that the ephod
was the priestly garment, worn officially at the consultation
of the oracle. Michah had appointed one of his own sons as
priest, and paid him wages for his services. This was a time
of confusion and caprice ; every one did what he thought fit.
Thus a wandering Levite of Bethlehem in Judah happened
once to visit Michah's village. He was hospitably received at
1 1 Samuel xix. 13, 16 where teraphim must be read for " image."
376 THE SANCTUARY AT DAN.
the great house, and was asked by Michah who he was, whence
he came, -and whither he was going. When the Levite told
him his descent, and said that he was on the look-out for some
engagement which would enable him to settle down, his host
proposed that he should stay with him and be his " father and
priest." Besides board and lodging, he would give him ten
pieces of silver a year and a suit of clothes. The Levite ac-
cepted the offer, took up his abode in the village, was treated
by Michah like one of his own sons, and received his wages
punctually. Michah himself was delighted to have the young
man with him, for he said, " Now I am sure that Yahweh will
bless me, because I have got this Levite for a priest."
"We have already said that this was a time of disorder, and
there was no king in Israel. The circumstances of the tribe
of Dan may serve as an example of the state of things that
existed then. This tribe had never yet acquired a suitable
territory, and some of its families were still without settled
homes. The Danites were probably prevented from spreading
southwards both by the Philistines, who were now recovering
from their first shock, and by the Judseans, who were pushing
northwards ; and, on the other hand, the " house of Joseph"
had seized all the land north of them. Be this as it may,
there were certain families about Zorah and Eshtaol who des-
paired of obtaining any lands in that neighborhood, and were
compelled to look elsewhere for an escape from their difficulty.
They had heard that in the far north of the land there were
still districts that they might conquer ; so they sent five of the
bravest and most trustworthy of their number to go and see
whether it was so. These men happened to pass by Michah-
stead on their way, and were hospitably received there. As
they spent a night in the place, they happened to hear the
3 T oung Levite mentioned. They were so much interested in
what they heard that they questioned the Levite himself as to
his history, and then, fully relying ou his knowledge, asked
him to consult the oracle for them. The Levite put on his
ephod, consulted his terapkim, and gave them the assurance
they desired ; namely, that Yahweh would grant them success.
The five Danites now went on further northward till at last
they came to Lais or Leshem. 1 This place was situated in a
beautiful and fertile valley at the foot of the great Hermon.
Moreover, it seemed likely to prove an easy prey, for the in-
habitants were not warriors, but lived peaceably, like the Sido-
nians, by commerce, and as a rule, therefore, no one ever
1 Joshua xix. 47.
THE SANCTUARY AT DAN. 377
troubled them. They were too far from Sidon to be able to
gain assistance from that city. Their safetj' consisted in their
being forgotten.
Now that they were discovered their fate was sealed. For
as soon as the five Danites had returned and given an account
of heir discoveries to their tribesmen, the latter perceived
that "their god had destined that good land for them," and
set out for it as quickly as possible, with a strength of six
hundred fighting men. Their first halting place was behind
Kirjath-jearim in Judah, at a place which is still called after
them, "the camp of the Danites." Then they entered the
mountain district, and came to Michah's village.
As soon as they caught sight of it the five scouts said to
their companions, "Do you know that a teraphim and an ephod
are in this hamlet? Now, you know what to do!" Yes!,
They needed no further hint, but entered the village, found
the Levite's house, and asked him- for a blessing. While they
kept him engaged in this way, the five scouts ascended the
hill upon which the chapel was built, and took out the image
and the priestly garment. But the priest saw them, and
called out, "What are you doing there?" "Hush!" they
replied. " Your finger on your lips ! Come with us, and be
our father and priest. Surely, you would rather be the priest
of a whole clan of Israel than go on serving the dependants of
one single man ! " The priest found the prospect a pleasant
one ; so without making any further resistance he went with
them, and even consented himself to carry the ephod and the
teraphim in the middle of the band. The Danites now hurried
on their waj', and placed their women and children, together
with their baggage, in the van for fear of being attacked in
the rear by the people they had plundered. It was a wise
precaution, for Michah called his dependants together and
gave chase to the robbers. Though the Danites had a long
start, Michah succeeded in overtaking them, and shouted out
to them to halt. They did so, and asked with shameless im-
pudence, " Well ! what do you want with us ? " " What do I
want with you ? " he answered bitterly. " You have taken my
god, that I made myself, and carried off my priest. I don't
know what to do. And then you ask me what I want with
you ! " Evasion ^vould serve no longer, so the Danites threw
aside the mask and answered plainly enough, "You had better
not make such a noise about it ; for some of our people are not
to be trifled with. If they set upon you, there will be an end
of you and all your dependants." Upon this they went on
378 THE SANCTUABY AT DAN.
their way, and Michah, seeing that they were too strong foi
him, turned back without having accomplished anything.
The Danites continued their journey till they came to Lais.
The fate of her inhabitants was soon decided. Peaceful as
they were, and far from every source of help, who should
deliver them ? They were all put to the sword. The Danites
did not leave the city as exposed as it had hitherto been, but
fortified it, and called it Dan after their tribal name. By-ancl-
by they established a temple there, in which the former priest
of Michah did duty, and was followed by his descendants as
long as the sanctuary at Shiloh existed. Now this Levite was
no other than Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of
Moses.
The object which the writer of this narrative had in view
was to give his readers some information as to the origin of the
celebrated temple of Dan. It is not quite clear whether he in-
tended his story to reflect credit or disgrace upon this sanct-
uary. On the one hand we can hardly believe that he would
have dwelt so minutely upon the faithless conduct of the Le-
vite, calling special attention at the same time to the kind
treatment he had experienced from Michah, and saying that
he was loved by his patron like a son, unless he had intended
to cast a slur upon the priesthood of Dan. How can he have
approved, we ask, of the conduct of those five scouts who
made such a base return for Michah's hospitality ? But the
feelings of the old Israelites on those subjects were not very
sensitive, and their ideas of good and evil were far from being
perfect. In their eyes, for the most part, the strongest was
the best, and must be right. Was not the theft of the Dan-
ites crowned with success? Were not the children of this
Levite priests at Dan for centuries — as long as the temple
of Shiloh stood? And even if the writer disapproved of
the manner in which the Danites came by their sacred objects
and their priest, he can hardly have mentioned the great name
of the grandson of Moses, except with the idea of conferring
honor on the sanctuary.
But this old story has come down to us in only a modi-
fied form ; and the motives of the writer who altered it, and
the view he took of the sanctuary of Dan are as clear as day-
light. He lived after the people of north Israel had been
taken captive and their temple destroyed. He hated the
sanctuary, for it had contained one of those golden images
of a steer "with which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, had
THE SANCTUARY AT I/AN. 379
made Israel to sin." The old narrator had said nothing of
any image of a god, and had spoken only of a teraphim and
an ephod; and though the difference between a teraphim and
an image is not very clear to us, the ancient Israelites cer-
tainly did not think them equivalent, as we should be inclined
to do. The teraphim and ephod, which went together and
seem to have been specially used in consulting the deity, had
been longer established amongst the Israelites, and were
regarded by many as less objectionable than a cast or carved
image. One of the objects of the writer who worked up this
old story was to throw a slur upon the golden (or rather gilt)
image of a steer which had stood in the Danite sanctuary.
With this object he prefixed the following introduction to the
story 1 : —
Eleven hundred silver coins had been stolen from Michah's
mother, and she had cursed the thief in her son's hearing.
Now Michah had stolen the money himself, and he was so
terrified by the curse that he confessed his guilt, upon which
his mother, fearing that her son might fall into trouble in
consequence of her curse, exclaimed, "May Yahweh bless
my son ! " Then she told him that she had made a vow
to have an image of a god made with part of the monej', if
ever she got it back again. She kept her vow, and two
hundred pieces of silver were given to the smith to be melted
down and made into an image. This image was afterwards
set up in Michah's chapel.
The interpolator alwaj r s introduced this image, the in-
famous origin of which he had explained, wherever the tera-
phim and ephod appeared in the original narrative ; 3 and he
concluded with the statement that the Danites set it up
in their temple, where it remained until the captivity. This
last note proves that the writer had Jeroboam's golden image
of a steer in view, for it was this image that was preserved
in the temple of Dan up to the date he mentions.
A scribe of still later date than the interpolator, not con-
tent with the slur thus cast upon the image, attempted to
vilify, as far as he could, the priesthood connected with it.
Was this Jonathan a Levite, and even a son of Gershom, the
son of Moses ? 3 Impossible ! He, at least, did not believe
it, and he hit upon a simple but adequate method of remov-
ing the difficulty. He altered the name of, Moses into that
of Manasseh. 4 This was easily done, for in the old Hebrew
1 Judges xvii. 1-4. 2 Judges xviii. 14, 17, 18., 20.
a Exodus ii. 22; xviii. 3. 4 Judges xviii. 30.
380 THE SANCTUAKT AT DAN.
character, which had no vowels, 1 Moses was written, M S H,
and Manasseh, M N S H. The names, therefore, only dif-
fered by a single letter. Thus altered, the name of Jonathan's
grandfather naturally reminded the reader of the godless king
of Judah, Manasseh, the idolater. To strengthen the impres-
sion still further, this scribe adds on first mentioning the
Levite of Bethlehem in Judah that he was " of the famiiy of
Judah." 2 This makes no sense, however, for the man was
either a Levite or a Judsean by descent. He cannot have been
both at once ; and the very reason why Michah was so delighted
v, ith his priest was that he was a Levite, and therefore not a
Judsean. The scribe, however, added the note to indicate that
this Jonathan was not worthy to belong to the tribe of Levi.
On hearing this explanation my readers ma)' not unnaturally
ask: "How do you know all this? Is it only a guess?"
Even suppose it were, it should not be rejected on that
account, for at any rate it gives some explanation of that
odd expression, " A Levite of Bethlehem of Judsean extrac-
tion," which is as absurd as "a Frenchman of London of
English extraction." But as a fact my explanation does not,
in this instance, rest upon mere conjecture, but is supported
by tradition. You must know that in the centuries after
Christ, when Hebrew had long been a dead language, the
scribes took inconceivable pains to fix the text of their Holy
Scripture as accurately as possible, and to preserve the pro-
nunciation of the words from being forgotten. Now in this
passage they wrote the N of the word M S H in a peculiar
way — "hanging," as it was called — -and added a note to
show that this was not an accident, but was done on purpose ;
and we are told by the Jewish tradition that the N was writ-
ten thus because this Levite was really the grandson of
Moses, but his actions made one think of long Manasseh,
and that he is said to be "of Judsean extraction" for the
same reason. The translation of the Romish Church, the
Vulgate,* still reads " Moses."
After this digression we may return to the original story,
which throws some light on the early religion of Israel.
Nothing could be more misleading than the idea of the
Pentateuch, and the book of Joshua that the Israelites had an
elaborate code of religious laws, fixed forms of worship, and
a regular priesthood, when they conquered Canaan. Centu-
1 See p. 258. 2 Judges xvii. 7. » See p. 304.
THE SANCTUARY AT DAN. "381
lies later the greatest latitude was still allowed in matters of
religion. The most important sacred object was the ark of
Yahweh, 1 which was placed in a sanctuary at Shiloh, 2 be-
tween Bethel and Shechem. 8 But no one thought as yet of
unity of worship. Every religious man who could afford it
raised altars and massebahs, or built a chapel, as Michah did,
and had worship conducted in it for himself and his depen-
dants. Such chapels were by no means rare, and certainly
gave no offence. Michah appointed his own son as priest, but
it was only because he could not get a better, for he preferred
a Levite as soon as he could find one. Nor was he alone in
this preference, for the Danites also desired Jonathan to be
their spiritual father. The history of Israel's religion shows
• that the Levites were everywhere preferred to others for the
office of priests, and at last, in the course of centuries, ac-
quired an exclusive right to its exercise.
We can readily conceive why their countrymen were so
anxious to secure their priestly services. But before we ex-
plain this preference we must say a word or two about the
time at which Michah lived. If this Jonathan was really the
grandson of Moses, we must place these events, which took
place while he was still young, very soon after the conquest
of Canaan ; and the fact that some of the Danites were still
without a settled home seems to strengthen this conclusion.
But, on the other hand, it is easier to place the expedition of
the Danites to the far north, through the territory of the
Canaanite king at Hazor, after Deborah's victory than before
it; and we know that long afterwards certain clans, from
time to time, still left their settled homes, if they had ever
had any, in search of others. These migrations occurred as
late as the time of Saul. It is quite possible, therefore, that
this Jonathan was a descendant of Moses, through Gershom's
branch, but not literally his grandson. The chief interest of
the narrative, however, does not depend upon the exact
period to which it refers.
What was the idea in the mind of such a man as Michah
when he exclaimed : " Now I know that Yahweh will bless me,
because I have got this Levite for my priest " ? To answer
this question we must have a clear idea of the duties the priest
had to perform. The most important of them all was that
of consulting the deity. Clothed in the ephod, and with the
help of the teraphim, he inquired the will of God. We do
1 See pp. 322, 323. 2 Judges xviii. 31. 1 Samuel i ff.
8 Judges xxi. 19.
382 THE SANCTUARY AT DAN.
not know for certain how he did this, but sometimes the 1
was employed. He asked, then, as occasion rose, whether
journey must be undertaken or not ; whether a descent up(
a neighboring Canaanite district would prove successfu
whether a sick child would recover or die ; and so on.
was not a matter of indifference, however, in what way Gc
was consulted, and the answer was not fixed beforehand, f<
the deity might be made propitious or the reverse, and th
might sometimes affect his decision. Before consulting hin
therefore, a sacrifice was made to induce him to give tl
desired answer. Then, again, in case of disasters, the wral
of the deity must be appeased by sacrifice and penanci
People wanted to know how they had excited the divir
anger, and how to keep the Might}' One their friend. For a
this a priest was needed. Now when Michah, for instanci
emploj'ed his own son for this purpose, he can hardly hav
supposed him to know any more than he did himself aboi
the way in which the deit}' ought to be served. But no doul
he thought that wisdom came with the sacred garment, an
that a priest, by being constantly employed in the things c
God, gradually learned better how to manage them. Arguin
thus, a man might appoint his son to be his "father am
priest." And yet, as a matter of course, he would prefer
Levite. For was not Yahweh the god whom the Israelit
served above all others ? And what did he know of Yahweh
That he had revealed himself to Moses ; and moreover tha
he was a mighty god, for it was b}' his help that Israel had con
quered his inheritance. But how must he be served? Ead
deny had his own special desires. How was Yahweh to b
consulted and appeased ? Michah, for instance, could not tell
nor could his son learn it except by degrees. But the Levites
the tribesmen of Moses, his fellow-workers, who had helpei
him to introduce the worship of Yahweh, in whose servio
they were so zealous, surely they understood these things
Happy the man who could get one of them to be his spiritua
father !
Nothing could be more natural than this. And so then
gradually rose a priestly caste in Israel, powerful and am
bitious as such a caste everywhere and at all times is. Thi
germs of a rule of priests, or hierarchy, were already present
and nothing can be more disastrous to the religious an(
moral life of a nation than such a rule ; for it is the mothe
of fanaticism and stupidhVy. And yet it must spring u]
wherever people suppose that the deity can be consulte(
GIDEOX. 383
by means of ceremonies which are not generally understood ;
wherever they fancy that his favor can be won or his wrath
averted by sacrifices offered in a special manner, or by puri-
fications and atonements ; wherever they believe that he
issues external commandments, such as abstinence from cer-
tain kinds of food, or the adoption of particular doctrines. In
a word, the priest becomes powerful wherever the service of
the deity is supposed to require knowledge which is not ac-
cessible to every one. This was the case in Israel as in all
other ancient nations.
No wonder that the priests hated and persecuted him who
taught that God requires from his worshippers nothing but
obedience to the law of love. This truth puts an end to their
power.
Chapter XVII.
GIDEON.
Judges VI. -VIII. 28.
FOR some time after the conquest of Canaan the Israelites
only possessed a certain part of the district east of the
Jordan. It consisted of the territories of Reuben and Gad
and the district of Gilead, north of which the King of Bashan
ruled. The power of this monarch, however, seems to have
been but small, and his country was far from serving the
Israelites as an effective bulwark against the Bedouins.
These wandering tribes maintained themselves on the wide
steppes between the Jordan and the Euphrates, and their
rapacity was constantly excited by the fruitful Canaan, into
which they made frequent raids, especially about harvest time,
when rich booty might be easily obtained. From across the
Jordan, along the great route of the caravans, these Midian-
ites, Amalekites, or sons of the East, as they are indifferently
called, penetrated to the plain of Jezreel, and then dispersed
southwards over the territory of Manasseh. They spread
terror and destruction everywhere. The Israelites were un-
able to resist them, and were compelled, in some places, to
desert their homes in the valleys and to hide themselves in
caves in the mountains, or to build strongholds among the
rocks. But though they saved their lives in this way they
884 GIDEON.
could not protect their crops, which fell year after year, t(
gether with a great part of their cattle, into the hands of th
Midianites, for their bands followed the great highway c
commerce, and overran the land as far as, Gaza. The Isrs
elites lamented their lot bitterly, but what were they to do
These sons of the East swarmed like locusts, and thei
camels were innumerable.
One of the places rendered unsafe by the Midianites wa
the village of Ophrah, the abode of the Manassite house o
Abiezer, whose chief at this time was a certain Joash. On
day Gideon, the son of Joash, was employed in thrashin
wheat, but it was in a most unusual place. The Israelite
used to thrash their corn in some open place, perhap
upon a hill, where the wind could carry away the chaff; bu
Gideon dare not do so now for fear of the Midianites, so h
was thrashing in the covered shed where the grapes wer
pressed. "While he was thus employed — • naturally somewha
dejected — the angel of Yahweh came to him and said
" Yahweh is with thee, thou mighty hero!" His word
fell upon the young man's ear like bitter mockery. "Ah
sir!" he answered, " if Yahweh were with us, would a]
these misfortunes come upon us ? Our fathers have told u
what wonderful things he did when he led them out o
Egypt ; but we see small sign of it ourselves. He has let
us to our fate, and we have fallen into the power of th
Midianites ! " So spoke the hero in the bitterness of hi
soul ; but he was terrified and ashamed when Yahweh turnet
upon him in all his majesty, and cried with a loud voice
"Go forth in the might now given you, and deliver Israe
from the hand of the Midianites ! Have not I sent you ? '
But Gideon shrank from the task thus laid upon him, am
said : ' ' Lord ! How can I do this thing ? My clan is thi
smallest in Manasseh, and I am the youngest member of m;
family. Can I put myself at the head of the Israelites ? '
But his courage rose when he received the answer : ' ' Yot
will smite the Midianites like a single man, for I will helj
you." Half convinced, he cried in supplication : " Give me i
sign that it is indeed Yahweh himself that speaks to me. Le
me bring a present, and do thou wait here till I have pre
pared it." " I will wait till you return," was the reply : an(
Gideon went to prepare a meal. When the food was readi
he returned with meat and cakes, which he set before his ex
alted guest as he reclined beneath the sacred terebinth tree
But instead of eating the food he ordered him to put it on i
GIDEON. 385
mass of rock that lay beneath the tree, and to pour the broth
over it. Scarcely had Gideon obe3'ed when the other touched
the food with the end of his staff, upon which a flame of Are
shot up from the rock and consumed everything. At the same
moment the angel disappeared. Gideon was now convinced
of the divine dignity of his visitor, and cried out : " Woe is
me ! I have seen the angel of Yahweh with my very eyes ! "
But Yahweh quieted his fears by saying, ' ' Be not afraid '.
Peace be with you ! You shall not die." Then he built an
altar in honor of this god, and called it "Yahweh blesses."
It is still standing in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
Gideon was now ready to obey his god, and desired, in the
first place, openly to break with the Baal-worship to which
the men of his village and others had become addicted, and
to restore Yahweh to the honor due to him. On the top of a
hill near the village stood an altar consecrated to Baal, and
close by it was an asherah, that is to say, the branch of a tree
stripped of its twigs, such as was often placed near an altar
as a religious symbol. In the night, therefore, after Yahweh
had called him to deliver Israel, Gideon went to this idolatrous
spot. He took ten servants and two oxen with him. With
the help of his men he overturned the altar and built another
of earth and stone in honor of Yahweh. Then he placed the
wood of the asherah upon it, slaughtered one of the two beasts
he had brought with him — a seven-year-old ox — laid it upon
the wood and consumed it with fire, in honor of Yahweh.
He had done all this by night, for fear of being interfered
with by the villagers ; but no sooner was it dajiight than
every one saw what had been done, and it did not long re-
main a secret who had done it. The friends of Baal rushed
at once to the house of Joash, and called upon him to give
up his son that they might put him to death for his Sacri-
lege. But Joash answered : "What! will you take up the
cause of Baal? Will you come to his rescue? Surely, who-
ever encounters his wrath will die before it is morning. If
he be a god, then let him contend against the sacrilegious
man himself ! " Ever after Gideon bore the name of Jerub-
haal. that is, "Let Baal contend against him," in memory
of this answer.
The time soon came for him to begin his work. The
" sons of the East" crossed the Jordan once more in count-
less hordes, and encamped by thousands on the plain of
Jezreel. Then Gideon's warlike zeal burst into a flawe.
The trumpet rang through the air; the Abiezrites gathered
vol. i. 17
386 GIDEON.
round him ; his messengers hastened to summon the men
Manasseh and Asher, of Zebulun and Naphtali. "Warric
streamed from every side to the mountains where Gide
had pitched his camp. Courage grew as numbers increase
but the hero placed his chief reliance on the aid of Yahwe
Was he certain to obtain this aid, however? He must pla
hie assurance on this point beyond the reach of doubt. 1
to guard against moments of unbelief he prayed to his go>
" O God! grant that when I have spread a fleece of wc
on my thrashing-floor to-night it may be wet with dew
the morning, while the ground is dry all about it ; then shal
know that thou wilt deliver Israel by my hand." His reque
was granted, and in the morning he could wring a bowl fi
of water out of the fleece. But he prayed again: " Lon
be not angry with me for coming to thee again ! Let r
repeat the trial of the fleece ; but this time let the result 1
just the reverse." The miracle was performed, and in t!
morning he found the fleece dry, though the ground up<
which it lay was drenched with dew. Gideon was now coi
pletely satisfied.
To arms then ! He soon took up a position with his arn
upon a range of hills above the Midianites who held t]
valley. Then his faith was put to a severe test by Yahwe
"You have far too many people with you," said his goi
" If you win the victory thus, Israel will exalt himself, ar
attribute the victory to his own valor and not to my hel;
Order every one who is afraid, to return home." Gideon d
so ; and although all the Israelites in the camp had con
there of their own free will, yet twelve thousand of the
deserted their standard oil hearing the proclamation. Tt
thousand remained. " There are still too many," said Yal
wen -once more to Gideon. "Take them to the brook ;
the valley, and I will show you how to decide which c
them to keep with 3'ou." Gideon obeyed, and leading h
warriors to the bank of the stream, he gave them leave 1
quench their thirst. Upon this most of them went dow
upon their hands and knees, but some few remained stan<
ing, and scooped up the water in the hollow of their hand:
Gideon was instructed to set these last apart, for it w£
with them that he was to triumph over the foe. Thei
were but three hundred of them ! " Dismiss the rest," sai
Yahweh. " With these three hundred you shall smite tli
Midianites."
, Gideon had need of faith to undertake his task I And thi
GIDEON. 387
it might not fail him, another sign was divinely vouchsafed to
him. For, by Yahweh's command, he went with his armor-
bearer to inspect the camp of the Midianites by night. There
it lay before him ; even like locusts for multitude, and camels
countless as the grains of sand on the sea shore ! The reg-
ular troops alone of this great host were one hundred and
thirty-five thousand strong. Gideon approached one of the
outposts of the camp, and there he overheard a conversation
between two of the enemy's men. " I dreamed," said one,
"that a loaf of barley bread came rolling into our camp right
against the general's tent and threw it down. There it lay
stretched upon the ground ! " "I can interpret that dream,"
sighed the other ; " it can only mean the sword of Gideon, the
son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given all this army into
his hand."
On hearing this Gideon fell down and worshipped. Yahweh
had thus foretold their lot to the Midianites themselves. He
hurried back and roused his three hundred men. He provided
each of them with a trumpet and an earthen vessel in which
a flaming torch was hidden. " Do everything that I do ! "
he said. " As soon as I sound my trumpet do you all sound
yours, and at the same moment raise j*our war-cry, For Yah-
weh and Gideon ! " All was soon readj*. The warriors,
parted into three bands, watched for the signal. It was the
dead of night. Just as the enem3 - 's sentries were being re-
lieved, the sign was given. Then suddenly the trumpets rang ;
the earthen vessels crashed and fell in fragments ; and from
three sides at once the war-cry rose, " The sword of Yahweh
and Gideon ! " Panic seized the army of the Midianites. The
three hundred never stirred a foot, while their enemies fled
shrieking through the camp in utter confusion, or strove to
conceal their treasures. The trumpets sound again. The
confusion rises still higher. The Midianites draw their swords,
and wildly attack one another. Then the}* rush eastwards to
the Jordan in panic flight, some of them crossing the river,
and others flying southwards.
On the following day the surrounding tribes of Israel were
summoned to the pursuit. Gideon hastened to send messen-
gers to Mount Ephraim with the command: "Let none of
the Midianites escape ! Cut them off from the passage of the
Jordan ! " This appeal found an echo. The Ephraimites
came out to battle as a single man, and slew two of the
Bedouin princes — Zeeb, or "the wolf," and Oreb, or "the
raven" — at "Wolf-press" and " Raveja-rock." They seat
388 GIDEON.
their heads to Gideon, but accompanied them by anyth:
but a friendly message. For now that the great blow 1
been struck, every one wanted a share in the glory. 1
Ephraimites complained that they had not been summoned
take part in the enterprise from the first. This reproach \
cast against Gideon so angrily that, if in the pride of vict<
he had given a sharp answer to their unreasonable complain
a fatal collision would have been inevitable. But he answei
gently and modestly : " How have I harmed you by not ci
ing on you before ? Is not the gleaning of Ephraim rid
than the harvest of Abiezer ? God has given Oreb and Zc
into your hand. What have I done in comparison with you
By this answer the malcontents were pacified.
This interview took place east of the Jordan, for Gid€
had crossed the river in pursuit of Zebah and Zalmunna, t
other Midianite princes. In great exhaustion he reach
Succoth and demanded bread for his three hundred men. I
the inhabitants of the city, though Israelites themselves,
fused his request for fear of the vengeance of the Midianit
whose fall they did not yet consider certain. Justly incensi
the warrior exclaimed : " Let me but first lay hold of Zet
and Zalmunna, and I will scourge jt>u to death with the
bushes ! " At Penuel he experienced the same unfrieni
treatment. " Your towers shall be overthrown when I reti
in peace ! " he cried to its inhabitants.
Zebah and Zalmunna had still fifteen thousand men. j
the rest — one hundred and twentj- thousand — had alrea
fallen ! The army was encamped near Nobah and Jogbehs
in Bashan, never dreaming of an attack, when Gideon si
denly fell upon it, dispersed it, and captured both the leade
Then he returned in triumph, and it went hard with the
habitants of the cities that had doubted Yahweh's might !
young lad from Succoth that they picked up outside the c
gave Gideon the names of its seventy-seven elders, and
fulfilled upon them his fearful threat. The towers of Penu
too, were taken, and all the men of the city put to deal
Then came the turn of the captive princes. Fixing his ste
gaze upon them, Gideon asked : " What were those men li
whom you put to death on Mount Tabor ? " " Like you
answered the captives, undismayed. " Like sons of kings
" They were my own brothers," he went on; "the sons
my mother. I swear by Yahweh that if you had spared th
lives I would have spared yours now." Then he said to Jethi
his eldest son, " Come ! rise and slay them ! " But he m
GIDEON. 389
still quite young and was afraid of the two princes. " Kill us
yourself," said the Midianites, who shrank from the thought
of falling ignominiously by the hand of a boy, " for such as
we are deserve at least to fall by the hand of a man." In
compliance with their request, Gideon drew his sword and
slew them. Then he took the golden crescents which decked
their camels' necks as booty.
When Gideon had thus delivered the land, the Israelites
came and pressed him to become their king. But he refused
to accept their offer, and declared that neither he nor his son
should rule over them, for Yahweh was their only king. But
he asked them to give him the golden rings which they had
taken as plunder; for the Midianites, like all other Ishmaelites,
were in the habit of wearing rings. The Israelites granted
his request at once, and threw the ornaments upon a cloth
which was spread out to receive them, until there was seven-
teen hundred shekels weight (about 321bs. troy) of golden
rings alone, besides all the other costly articles which they had
taken. Gideon made an ephod of this gold and placed it in
Ophrah ; but it proved a snare to Mm and his family, for
divine honors were afterwards paid to it. Meanwhile the
power of the Midianites was broken for good, and Israel en-
joyed another " forty years'" rest, while Gideon dwelt as a
private citizen in his own house till he died, and was buried at
Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
The great victory gained over the Midianites, especially
the defeat at Baven-rock, was held in thankful recollection
by the Israelites. 1 It is but natural, therefore, that the story
should have been told again and again, and that in the course
of time Gideon's exploits should have been greatly magnified.
Indeed, it is quite obvious that the account iu the book of
Judges is full of exaggerations. To say nothing of the
miracles which form a part of the narrative, it ascribes
altogether fabulous numbers to the MidiaDite army ! The
two bands of Israelite warriors, which had to march round
it in order to throw it into confusion on the night of the
surprise, would have had at least a day's journey to accom-
plish, and would certainly have been unable to hear anything
of Gideon's signal. The sound of the trumpets would not
have reached a hundredth part of the Midianites, and in the
centre of the camp the blaze of the torches would only have
appeared as a faint spark in the distance. Nor was there
1 Psalm lxxxiii. 11 : Isaiah ix. 4, x. 26.
390 GIDEON.
food enough in the whole of Canaan for such a host of m
and beasts. And as tradition magnified the numbers of t
enemy, so it under-estimated the means by which they we
defeated, to the glory alike of Gideon's faith and Yahwel
power. Indeed, the desire to make Gideon accomplish evei
thing with the smallest- possible number of men leads t
tradition to contradict itself. For we are told that after t
night on which Gideon had raised a panic in the Midiani
army by the aid of his three hundred men, the warriors <
the surrounding tribes were called to the pursuit. But wh<
he himself crossed the Jordan and fell upon Zebah and Zs
munna, he was only accompanied by his faithful three hu
dred. The victory at Raven-rock was won by the Ephraimit
alone. What were these warriors of the northern trib
doing all the while? Are we to suppose that they d
nothing but despatch the fugitives ?
It is in the nature of popular traditions not only to exs
the fame of their heroes by depicting their exploits on
magnificent scale, but also to clothe them as far as possib
in the garments of a later age. It is exceedingly diffici
for most men to imagine the great ones of a former aj
entirely different from themselves in manners, religion, wa;
of thought and customs. So, too, certain facts which seerm
to the faith of posterity unworthy, or even infamous, we
gradually removed from the history of the conqueror of tl
Midianites. The writer who collected the popular traditioi
concerning him, and assigned him his place in the series c
Israelite judges, carried this process still further, and tran
formed his Gideon into a man after his own heart. It is
him, of course, that we owe the statement of the number c
j-ears during which Israel was oppressed bj- the Midianite
and the forty years' rest enjoyed by the land after the ti
umph. It is he, too, who represents the whole of Israel :
having taken part in Gideon's struggle, and offered him tl
regal crown ; whereas all the tribes of the South, includii
Dan, Judah, Benjamin, Simeon, Reuben, and Gad, a
passed over entirely without mention in the narrative itsel
But in other and more interesting respects the character <
this conqueror has been disguised almost past recognition.
In the first place, what was his real name? Not Gideo:
This word means ' ' hewer," and was a title of honor. ]
the same way the Hasmonean, who delivered the Jews fro
the power of the Syrian King, 1 was called Judas Maca
l See p. 30.
GIDEON. 391
baits, or "the war-mace," and the Frankish hero who drove
the Arabs back across the Pyrenees was called Charles
Martel, that is, " the hammer." The real name of the con-
queror of the Midianites was Jerubbaal, 1 or " Baal contends."
In the narrative itself, however, this name occurs but once. 1
Ever3 r where else the hero is called Gideon, and the writer
makes a surname of Jerubbaal, which he translates, "let
Baal contend against him ! " It is easy to see why he did so.
He could not bear to think that Israel's deliverer should
have had a name in which Baal's might was celebrated ; for
it suggested the question whether he was not a worshipper
of Baal. The fact is that he was. No doubt he was also a
worshipper of Yahweh, in whose name he called the tribes to
battle ; his family, too, evidently worshipped the same god,
for the first syllable of the name of his father Joash is an
abbreviation of Yahweh, who was indeed acknowledged by
eveiy Israelite as the god of his people. But in the time of
the Judges numerous Baals were worshipped as well as Yah-
weh. It is exceedingly difficult to make out the relation in
which these Baals stood to each othel' and to Yahweh ; but
this is only what we should expect, for " baal" means "lord,"
and is, therefore, a common name of deity, as well as a proper
name of certain special gods. Now the Israelites, before the
time of Moses, worshipped a number of Baals, and the ser-
vice of these gods was by no means superseded by that of
Yahweh. Moreover, the Canaanites, amongst whom the Is-
raelites settled, had their own Baals to whom they consecra-
ted sanctuaries, stones, and trees, or offered sacrifices. The
fresh settlers mingled with the old inhabitants, and entered
into alliances with them at their holy places. Only think
what confusion this would cause ! , For instance, suppose a
tribe, whose special god was called Baal-Gad, went to battle
in the name of Yahweh, and finally concluded an alliance
with a Canaanite tribe whose sanctuary was dedicated to
Baal-Peor, — at this shrine Yahweh, Baal-Gad, and Baal-Peor
would all be invoked by the same persons. Now were they
three gods, or only three names for the same god ? One can
easily believe that the worshippers themselves did not exactly
know, and that Joash, for instance, though a faithful subject
of Yahweh, might call his son " Jerubbaal." In doing so he
did not for a moment suppose that he was insulting the
majesty of Yahweh.
1 Judges viii. 29, 35, ix. 1, 2, 16, 28, 57; 1 Samuel xii. 11; 2 Samuel xi. 21.
2 Judges vii. 1.
392 gideon.
But in a later age a war against all mese Baals was waged
in the name of Yahweh, and his servants were passionately
convinced that the worship of these gods tarnished the glory
of the god of gods, the one only god, Yahweh. To find a
champion of Israel with such a name as Jerubbaal could not
fail to perplex and mortify them, and our author attempts to
get rid of the scandal by making Jerubbaal a surname, and
explaining it in such a way as to render it harmless, while
he employs the title of honor, " Gideon," as a proper name.
Others, however, seeking the same end by different means,
slightly changed the name Jerubbaal. They altered " baal"
into "besheth"or " bosheth," which means " shame," and
so made the name into " Jerubbesheth." 1 There are other
examples of exactly the same thing. Two of Saul's sons were
called Meribaal, that is, " Baal's warrior ; " and Ishbaal, that
is, " man of Baal ; " and David himself gave one of his sons
the name of Beeljada, that is, "Baal knows." But in the
book of Samuel the names are always given as Mephibosheth,
Ishbosheth, and Eljada, that is, "God knows," 2 so that we
should never have known the idolatrous sound of the real
names of these men if they had not been preserved in their
original forms in the book of Chronicles, which was not in
such frequent use among the Jews, and therefore escaped
alteration. 8
Tradition plainly declared that idolatry was practised in
Gideon's neighborhood, and that he himself was not free from
responsibility for the existence of a kind of worship which was
very far indeed from reaching the standard of orthodoxy rec-
ognized in our author's day. But he could not believe that an
idolater and breaker of the law could ever have received such
aid from Yahweh ; so he said that it was not until after he had
won the victory that Gideon set up an image at Ophrah.
Oddly enough he styles this image an ephod, though the word
is always used of a priestly garment elsewhere. Gideon's con-
duct appears to have departed in some respects from the rules
laid down, even in his own day, by those who were most zealous
for the worship of Yahweh according to the principles of Moses.
These points can still be made out with tolerable certainty from
the history of Gideon's son, and we shall, therefore, speak of
them in the next chapter. We shall also return in another
connection to the subject of Gideon's declining the crown.
And now one word on the most remarkable trait in Gideon's
1 2 Samuel xi. 21. 2 2 Samuel ii. 8, iv. 4, v. 16, and elsewhore.
8 1 Chronicles viii. 33, ix. 39, 40, xiv. 7 (iii. 8).
GIDEON. 393
character, as sketched in the book of Judges, — I mean his
faith. It is at Yahweh's command that he stands up to deliver
Israel ; it is on the help of this god that he relies when he makes
ready for the fight, and at his command, therefore, he makes
his attack upon the Midianites with no help but that of his little
band of three hundred men. It is quite in the spirit of the
prophets of Judah of the eighth and following centuries highly
to commend this conduct ; but are we to imitate them ? With,
reference to Gideon's call, we must notice that in reality no
such thing ever takes place. No one is ever called to any work
by God in a supernatural way. Jerubbaal was a brave man,
and it happened when numbers of heroes were longing for the
fight, but none of them dared as yet to begin it, that he had
special cause to come forward and call his tribesmen to arms.
For the Midianites had murdered his brothers, and the duty
of avenging them and slaying the murderers devolved upon
him. 1 This was to him a call from God. We shall not blame
him for girding on his sword in such a cause. On the contrary,
courage is a virtue — even military courage. Love of his people
and, his family places the warrior, whom it urges to venture
his very life in their cause, high above the craven. But it
can never be easy for the Christian to feel any great admiration
for a man whose hands are stained with the blood not only of
armed foemen but of defenceless captives ; nay, a shudder
comes over us if we try vividly to realize that scene in which
the hero says to his son, " Slay these princes ! " and, when
he is afraid, does it in cold blood himself ! In ancient times
people looked upon such an act with admiration ; but, thank
God, we cannot.
As for attacking a numerous enemy with a small force, we
must bear in mind that it is not as a successful stratagem but
as an act of faith that Gideon's conduct is held up to admira-
tion. But we cannot let it pass as such, and should simply
call it recklessness. " Gideon's band" has become a prover-
bial expression for a small but valiant knot of warriors ; and
a small nation fighting for its altars and hearths against the
overpowering forces of a mighty foe, preferring an honorable
death to a life of shameful slavery, does indeed excite our
admiration. We honor the heroes whose love of their father-
land and their rektives inspires them with courage to take up
arms without so much as counting their foes. Nay, sometimes
even a small army, by dint of superior valor and determination,
gains a victory over a large one. But, as a rule, ten are vic-
1 Compare pp. 81, 82.
17*"
394: ABIMELECH.
torious over one, without reference to tlio virtue or vice of
either, or the respective merits of their causes. The shafts
and bullets of the godless find the mark as well as those of the
pious. The highest virtue is no protection against a sabre
cut or a bayonet thrust. It is mere recklessness, therefore,
deliberately to throw three hundred men into an engagement
which careful consideration assures us would tax the powers
of ten thousand. To do this on religious principles, and thus
systematically to neglect the proper means of securing victory,
is simply fanatical.
But ' ' Gideon's band " is justly used as a term of honor
when it is applied to those who fight for God and the truth
against sin, against wrong, and against misery. For in this
battle it is not by their own wish that the champions of the
good cause are so few. Their numbers are small from the
nature of the case, and sorely against their wall, and they
always have to face a foe that outnumbers them a hundred-
fold. If the battle were fought with earthly weapons their
chance would be small indeed ; and when their enemies have
recourse to the sword the little band does often sink for a
time : but in the long run it must always triumph. Its sol-
diers only fight with the spiritual weapons of their word and
their example. Their object is not to slay their foes, but to
raise them to higher virtue and greater happiness, and thus
to convert them from enemies into allies. The power which
inspires these "Gideon's bands" is faith in the irresistible
force of truth, — that is, of God, — and in this faith they
overcome the world.
Chapter XVIII.
ABIMELECH.
Judges VITI. 29-IX.; Gen. XXXIV.
GIDEON had seventy sons, sajs the book of Judges, for
the number of his wives was great. And besides all
these, he had a son whom he called Abimelech, by his mis-
tress in Shechem. Now, after his death, the Israelites not
only returned to their idolatrous practices, but forgot all the
benefits they had experienced at his hands, and repaid them
ABIMELECH. . 395
with base ingratitude. For Abimelech conspired with the
chiefs of Shechem to expel Gideon's seventj r sons who now
ruled the city ; and, when the Shechemites had given him
some money from the treasure of the temple of Baal-berith, or
" Baal of the covenant," to carry out his project with, he hired
crtainmen who would do anything they were paid for, and,
with their help, murdered all his brothers at once. But the
youngest, Jotham, concealed himself and escaped.
Then the Shechemite chiefs crowned Abimelech king, under
the sacred oak that stood by the city ; but Jotham took the
opportunity of addressing them from Mount Gerizim, and
told them a fable (which we shall give at length in another
chapter) 1 about the trees, who desired a king, but could only
gut the bramble-bush to accept the honor. Finally^ he re-
proached them with ingratitude towards his father, and
prophesied that their new-made king would bring them little
joy-
Within three years this prophecy was fulfilled. To punish
both Abimelech and the chiefs of Shechem, for the hideous
murder of Jerubbaal's seventj' sons, God sent a spirit of dis-
trust and dissension amongst them ; and the Shechemites
lay in wait for every one who passed by their city. Abime-
lech himself dwelt in Arumah, while a certain Zebul governed
Shechem in his name. In the course of time Gaal, the son
of Ebed, came to Shechem with his brothers, and won the
confidence of the chiefs ; and at last, on occasion of the feast
of grape-harvest, celebrated in the temple of Baal of the
covenant, the Shechemites threw off their allegiance to Abim-
elech, at Gaal's instigation. "Who is Abimelech?" he cried.
"Who is the son of Jerubbaal, 2 that we should serve him?
Is he not the son of Shechem ; and is not this Zebul his dep-
uty? Let him hold the men of Hamor, the father of Shechem,
in slavery ! 2 But why should we obey him ? " " If I had but
command of this people," he ' added, "1 would drive out
Abimelech full soon ! "
Zebul, who knew what was going on, immediately sent word
to his master, and urged him to come with all speed to She-
chem, and put an end to Gaal's proceedings. Abimelech
acted upon this advice ; and one morning, as Gaal was stand-
ing at the city gate with Zebul, he saw troops appearing from
various quarters. At first Zebul only laughed at him, and
told him he mistook the shadows of the mountains for men ;
but, when he could deny the fact no longer, he cried defiantly,
1 See chapter xxit . p. 459. 2 After an amended version.
396 ABIMELECH.
" You spoke brave words but now. Well ! There are Abim-
elech's people ! Go out to meet them ! " Gaal hastily accep-
ted the challenge, but was driven back into the city with heavy
loss. This reverse impaired his influence so seriously that be
was soon afterwards expelled by Zebul, while Abimelech him-
self remained at Arumah.
But Abimelech was meditating a fearful vengeance on the
Shechemites for their disobedience, and had resolved to
compass their destruction. He collected troops, fell upon a
number of the Shechemites (who were at work in the fields,
suspecting no danger), slew them, and then laid siege to the
city. As soon as it fell into his hands, he massacred its inhab-
itants, razed it to the ground, and " sowed the site with salt."
The nobles, however, who lived in the citadel, assembled un-
der the hallowed dome of the god of their covenant, hoping
that the sanctity of the place would protect them. But what
did Abimelech care for holy places ? With a bill-hook in his
hand he set off, at the head of his men, to a neighboring
thicket. " Do as I do ! " he cried, as he hewed a branch off
a tree, and laid it on his shoulder. Thus laden, his troops re-
turned to the sanctuary. They piled the wood upon the roof,
and, before long, the thousand men and women, who had
sought shelter beneath it, were burned to death or suffocated
by the smoke.
Then Abimelech turned his arms against the neighboring
city of Thebez, which had made common cause with Shechem.
The place itself was soon taken, but the inhabitants had fled
for refuge to a strong tower, situated in the middle of the city,
which still held out. Abimelech determined to apply the torch
once more and burn down the gate. But when he came under
the wall to accomplish his design a woman hurled down a piece
of a millstone and struck him on the head. Borne to the
ground, with his skull fractured, he hurriedly commanded his
armor-bearer to draw his sword and kill him, that no one
might say he had been slain by a woman. His attendant
obeyed. Such was the end of Abimelech ; and his warriors
dispersed, each to his own abode.
Thus did God requite both him and the Shechemites for the
evil they had done in slaying the sons of Jerubbaal, and thus
was Jotham's curse fulfilled.
The purpose of this story is so clearly explained in its closing
sentence that we cannot for a moment misunderstand it. But,
nevertholess, it presents some features of peculiar difficulty.
ABIMELECH. 397
The relations between Abimelech, the Sbechemites, and this
Gaal are most perplexing. What was the object of Gaal " and
his brothers"? Was it simply to create a disturbance, and
then fish in the troubled waters ? Or was he guided in his
actions by some principle ? And then, what is the meaning
of tKat curious expression: "Let the men of Hamor serve
Abimelech ; but why should we serve him ' " Who are the
"we" that must not stoop to obey Abimelech, whatever the
Hamorites may do ?
J'eruaps we should never have been able to answer these
fflfcstions were it not that some light is thrown on the events
m Shechem by a story of the patriarchal times. I mean the
legend of Dinah contained in the thirty-fourth chapter of Gen-
esis, the only story in which the daughter of Jacob appears.
It runs thus : —
When Jacob had returned from Padan-Aram and had
pitched his tents in the neighborhood of Shechem, Leah's
daughter, Dinah, went out one day to visit some of the girls
of the neighborhood ; and, Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hi-
vifce, the ruler of the land, fell in love with her', and enticed
her with fair words and seduced her. Shechem, however, had
honorable intentions, and asked his father's leave to marry the
stranger. Hamor consented, and went to Jacob to request
Dinah's hand for his son. When Jacob heard what had oc-
curred he kept silence until his sons came home from the field,
and when they heard of Shechem's unworthy conduct they
were filled with grief and indignation. It was " foolishness in
Israel." But Hamor still pressed the marriage upon Jacob
and his sons ; for Shechem had set his heart upon it, and
Hamor himself had nothing against it. " Come ! " said he,
" let us make alliances on either side. Give us your daughters
in marriage and take ours. Choose any place you will, and
dwell amongst us. Go round our country unrestrained, and
take up your abode with us." And Shechem himself added :
"As for Dinah's purchase-money, you need not be afraid of
taking advantage of the opportunity and asking a heavy price.
I shall not draw back, if I can but get the girl for my wife ! "
But the sons of Jacob answered treacherously : ' ' What you
ask is impossible ; for we cannot mingle our blood with that
of the uncircumcised. If you will be circumcised yourselves,
then we can intermarry and unite into a single people ; but if
not, then we shall take Dinah back and go on our way."
Hamor and his son agreed to the proposal. Shechem's love
for Dinah was so great that nothing seemed too hard for him ;
698 ABIMELECH.
and he had great influence with his fellow-citizens. He and
his father persuaded them to comply with the conditions im-
posed by representing to them the great advantages they
would derive from an alliance with Jacob and his sons ; for
they had numerous flocks, and there was plenty of room for
them in Shechem's territory. So the Hivites were persuaded
to comply, and underwent the operation of circumcision. But
on the third day, when the wound inflicted is most painful,
Dinah's brothers, Simeon and Levi, grasped their swords, fell
upon the city, where no one suspected any danger, slaughtered
every male creature, snatched Dinah out of Shechem's palace,
and then went on their way. Then the sons of Jacob came and
plundered the city. Now when Jacob heard what Simeon and
Levi had done, he said to them: "I am utterly undone,
for you have made me hateful to the dwellers in the land, the
Canaanites and the Perizzites. Think how few we are in
number ! If they fall upon us we are all undone." But they
only answered : " Shall they treat our sister as a harlot?"
In the form of a family history of the Patriarchal period,
the narrator has here given us a fragment of the history of the
Israelite people, or at any rate of some, of the tribes. He
betrays this fact with unconscious simplicity when he, makes
Jacob's sons speak of "foolishness being done in Israel,"
using this name as that of a people. The legend deals with
one of the burning questions of the period of the Judges —
the question whether Israelites and Canaanites might inter-
marry. The practice was very advantageous to both parties, '
and especially to the conquered race ; but to the Israelite of
pure blood, who looked down with contempt upon the old
inhabitants of the place, it was an abomination. The Canaan-
ites are represented in the legend under the person of She-
chem, the son of Hamor, which shows that this question was
debated in the city of Shechem, where the Hamorites, a Hivite
tribe, were settled. This fact enables us to bring the legend
into connection with the history of Abimelech, and to find the
counterparts of the zealots, Simeon and Levi, in G aal and his
brothers.
If, then, we put together all the information we have gained
about both Gideon and Abimelech, we shall have the following
history : —
Certain cities in Mount Ephraim, including Shechem,
Thebez, and Arumah, had entered into an alliance for the
purposes of mutual protection and the maintenance of their
independence, The inhabitants of these places were partly
ABIMELECH. 399
Canaanites and partly Israelites. They had laid aside their
mutual jealousies for the sake of the common good, and
though not yet united into a single people, they had already
laid the foundation of such a union, especially by the adoption
on the part of the Canaanites of the circumcision. The allies
had a common sanctuary, that of " Baal-of-the-covenant," at
Shechem ; and there they worshipped Yahweh, the God of
Israel, together, it may be, with many other deities.
Now when the cities of the league were brought into dire
straits by the Midianites, the common danger united the Israel-
ites and the Canaanites still more closely. At last Jerubbaal
of the Abiezrites put himself at their head and defeated the
common enemy, thereby earning the title of honor, Gideon.
As long as he lived the covenant was faithfully observed.
His redoubtable name and his strong arm restrained the vari-
ous parties within the cities from expressing their differences
in, action.
But when he was dead, and the} 7 were no longer threatened
by a foreign foe, everything changed. In the territory over
which the alliance spread, there were, indeed, seventy local
chiefs of families — represented as sons of Gideon in the legend
— but none of them succeeded to Jerubbaal's influence or
power. At last the Shechemites grew weary of the constant
disorder, and furnished Abimelech with the means of seizing
the Government. Indeed, he was actually proclaimed king —
the first instance of the regal dignity in Israel. He was a
valiant warrior : his body-guard of mercenaries inspired fear
on eveiy side, and he restrained the restless spirits of the place
by force. But, in the end, party feeling ran too high for him.
There were many malcontents at Shechem, at Thebez, and
elsewhere. The Israelite zealots for the Mosaic principles were
specially loud in their condemnation of the alliance with the
Hivites. A certain Gaal placed himself at their head, and
fostered their hatred against the Hamorites. " What if they
had adopted the circumcision ! There must be no communion
with those unchasteworshippers of foreign gods ! " In short,
Gaal inflamed the Israelites to such a degree that at last, on
occasion of a harvest feast in the temple of Baal-of-the-cove-
nant, things came to an open breach. (It may be noticed, in
passing, that the presence of the Israelite zealots, on occasion
of a feast in this temple, proves that Yahweh was worshipped
there.) "Who is Abimelech?" they cried. "Is he not a
heathen on the mother's side ? That is why he has no princi-
ples, but tries to keep in with both sides. Half Israelite, half
400 ABIMELECH.
Canaanite as he is, let the Hamorites serve him ! But why
should we, who are Israelites, obey him? Down with him ! "
As the Israelites were in a great majority at Shechem, the
city fell into their hands without a blow. Zebul, Abimelech's
gc vernor — himself, no doubt, an Israelite — appeared to fall
in with* the change, and raised no opposition ; but he secretly
gave Abimelech notice of what had occurred. Doubtless the
Canaanite inhabitants had a hard time of it, as long as Gaal
was master of the place. Some of them would be murdered,
the houses of others plundered, and many would be expelled
from the city : for Shechem must be purged of all that was
foreign to Israel. The course of events was the same at
Thebez.
But Abimelech was not to be dethroned so easily, and
before long he defeated Gaal's adherents in a battle. Zebul
was now once more powerful enough to expel his rivals ; and
the partj' that desired peace above all things, and therefore
wished for the closest possible union with the Canaanites,
rose once more to power. But this did not content the
exasperated ruler. Every Israelite who had taken part with
the zealots must be punished for it. An example must be
made of these rebels, for the benefit of Shechem and Thebez !
Abimelech accomplished his wish, but fell at the tower of
Thebez. This was the end of his rule ; but what became of
the league amongst the cities we cannot tell.
Such, in all probability, was the course of events at
Shechem and in the neighborhood. Gideon and Abimelech,
who are represented in the book of Judges as exactly opposite
in character, were, in reality, kindred spirits, and followed the
same line of action. It is easy enough to understand why
tl.ey are presented by tradition in such different lights. A
successful man is sure of praise. All the blame falls on those
who fail. It is the way of the world. Jerubbaal had de-
livered the land in which he lived from the power of the
Midianites, and posterity, therefore, pictured him as a pious
hero who had enjoyed the favor of Yahweh. Abimelech
had failed to retain the inheritance of his father, his reign
had ended in bloodshed and in ruin, and the consequence was
that nothing was too bad to find ready belief concerning
him. In reality, Abimelech trod in Jerubbaal's footsteps ;
but it is not difficult to understand why their supremacy
came to nothing, for it had never rested upon firm founda-
tions. Common interest had drawn the inhabitants of
ABIMELECH. 401
certain cities together and kept them united for a time, but
the differences of character between them were such as to
prevent any real friendship. Fear of the Midianites held
their animosities in check at first, and Jerubbaal's rule had
ended in peace. But the bond of union between the parties
disappeared as soon as the common danger had passed.
Abimelech had to maintain himself by the aid of a band of
mercenaries. Such a supremacy can never last, but must
sooner or later fall.
Gaal appears as an opponent of the policy of Jerubbaal
and Abimelech. His father is called Ebed or " slave" in the
Hebrew text ; but his real name was probably Jehobaal, or
" Yahweh is Baal." So at least we find him called in the
Greek translation of the book of Judges, and we can easily
understand why the scribes should dislike, and, therefore,
alter, this name. 1 We know nothing more of this Gaal ;
but we see from the legend of Dinah that the Levites and
Simeonites were distinguished as zealots. This also appears
from the way in which they are mentioned in the so-called
" blessing of Jacob." 2 The words run thus 3 : —
Simeon and Levi are brothers,
Their swords are the tools of violence;
May my soul never enter into their plans,
Nor my heart ever join their assembly!
For in their wrath they strike men dead :
Whenever they will, they ham-string oxen. 4
A curse on their wrath, for it is so heavy !
A curse on their anger, for it is so fierce !
I will divide them in Jacob
And scatter them in Israel.
Simeon and Levi, or rather the Simeonites and Levites,
are here charged with tyrannical violence ; but their conduct
evidently does not spring from mere delight in "slaughter or
desire of spoil, for they do not take possession of their
enemies' cattle, but'" ham-string the oxen," — that is to Say,
disable them by cutting the sinews of the hams. They must
have acted from some higher motive than rapacity. Many
of the Simeonites and Levites were champions of the Mosaic
principles, and were, therefore, zealous in preserving the
purity of Israel and opposing alliances with the Canaanites.
We shall meet with them again in the same character. The
author of the ' ' blessing of Jacob " speaks of their conduct
with great severity, and ascribes their scattered condition
among the tribes to the violence of their actions. It is only
1 See pp. 391, 392. 2 See pp. 102, 226, and 366.
8 Genesis xlix. 5-7. 4 After an amended version.
402 ABIMELECH.
too easy to understand his disapproval ; for comparatively
few men have the courage to carry out a principle which
they believe to be good without asking what the consequences
will be. Most men are too timid and faithless to do right
without counting the cost. " You are destroying me ! " cries
father Jacob, in the legend of Dinah, to his indignant sons.
" You are making the Canaanites hate me. We are but few.
They will root us out." The remonstrance was most natural.
From a worldly point of view it was far more sensible to join
the Canaanites than to repel them. It would strengthen the
Israelites against all their foes, and they might pasture their
flocks, engage in commerce, and cultivate the fields undis-
turbed. If a nation could enjoy no greater blessings than
these, if the possession of such things ensured its well-being,
then it would indeed be mere folly to disturb such a peace.
But if prosperity, peace, and abundance are no set-off
against the degradation of a people, then the folly of dis-
turbing peace is sometimes the highest. wisdom. Shechem's
conduct towards Dinah and her relatives was shameful ; but
Jacob thought, " Ah, well ! let us have peace in spite of it all !
It is better for us to overlook such things." "Shall they
treat our sister like a harlot ? " is the only question for Simeon
and Levi. Surely this is far nobler. Of course we cannot
approve of the methods adopted by these fierce zealots of
Yahweh, who tried to reform the world by blood and iron ;
but they stand far higher in our estimation than those
ignoble, commonplace, order-loving creatures, who will sub-
mit to any humiliation, and sacrifice the noblest principles,
" for the dear sake of peace."
" I will divide Uicm in Jacob,
And scatter them in Israel,"
sang a poet who saw the Levites and Simeonites scattered
amongst the people. Some of the Simeonite allies of Judah
may formerly have had a territory of their own, but it was
only a small one, and was soon lost in that of Judah. Other
portions of the tribe lived among their northern brethren. 1
As for the Levites, they were so completely scattered that there
was no district in any part of the land inhabited exclusively
by them. Many centuries later, when Levi had become the
priestly tribe, the Israelites said that the Levites had received
no territory, because they had been priests from Moses' time
onward, and as such possessed separate cities in every part
1 2 Chronicles xv. 9, xxxiv. 6.
JEPHTHAH. 403
of the land, and were supported by the sacrificial offerings. 1
But this is not true. Had it been so, the writer of " Jacob's
blessing " would never have regarded their dispersion as a
punishment, or put the Simeonites in the same class with the
Levites.
We have already noticed 2 the real reason why the families
of these two tribes were so completely scattered amongst the
rest. It was probably the Levites and Simeonites who sup-
ported Moses in furthering the common interests of the
tribes, and introducing the worship of Yahweh. To accom-
plish this task they must, from the very nature of the case,
have been dispersed among their brothers ; and this is prob-
ably the explanation of the fact that some of them penetrated
Canaan from the east with the tribes under Joshua, and
others from the south with Jndah.
The zealots did not grow rich in this way. It was not in
the natural course of things that they should. Mixing water
with wine is a better road to fortune than uncompromising
truth to principles and fidelity to the common weal. Simeon
disappeared altogether amongst the other tribes. Many of
the Levites, as we shall see, had to contend with bitter
poverty, unless they were lucky enough to obtain some
lucrative post as priests.
Most of these zealots, then, reaped no advantages them-
selves from their uncompromising firmness. But they did
their people a truer service than Jerubbaal, "the hewer,"
who delivered them from the power of the Midianites ; for
they preserved Israel's most precious treasure — its special
character as a people, and the worship of Yahweh, in the
spirit taught by Moses.
Chapter XIX.
JEPHTHAH.
Judges X. 6-XII. 7.
THE writer of the book of Judges, assuming that the
heroes of the olden time followed each other in regular
succession, tells us 8 that, after the death of Abimelech, Tola of
Issachar delivered Israel, and ruled as judge for three-and-
i Deuteronomy x. 8-9 ; Joshua xxi. 1-42. 2 See p. 323.
3 Judges x. l-o.
404 JEPHTHAH.
twenty years. He lived at Shamir in Mount Ephiaim, and
was buried there when he died. After that, our- author tells
us, Israel was governed for two-and-twenty years by Jair,
the Gileadite, of whom it is said that he had thirty sons,
riding on thirty asses, and that thirty places in the land of
Gilead were called "Jair's villages," after him. We know
rather more of this Jair than is told us here, for he is men-
tioned in some other passages, 1 in which, however, his con-
quests are attributed to Moses. From what we learn of him
in all these passages we can make out pretty well how he
gained his place among the "judges." He was a Manassite
of the clan of Machir, and appears to have crossed the Jordan
at the head of a number of families in hopes of winning a
better heritage in Bashan. Taking Gilead as his starting
point, he made himself master of the district that was after-
wards called in his honor Havoth-Jair, or "Jair's villages."
Our author says these villages were thirty in number, but
elsewhere 2 they are said to be three-and-twenty. Each
separate place was called, as usual, by the name of the hero
who had conquered and settled in it ; and since the heroes
themselves were all subject to Jair, and all positions of
dependence were compared in ancient times to the relation
of sons to their father, these village chiefs were called Jair's
sons. In virtue of their rank they rode upon asses. A
similar description occurs in the accounts of Gideon, Ibzan,
and Abdon. 8
Gilead, the land to which Jair had led his men with such
success, is also the scene of the history of Jephthah, to which
we must now turn. The writer of the book of Judges pro-
vides this story with an introduction, 4 in which he tells us that
the Israelites had served all manner of gods and had been
oppressed, in consequence, for eighteen years by the Philis-
tines and the Ammonites. Then they confessed their guilt
before Yahweh, and he promised to deliver them if they
would relinquish their Baals. This as we know already
was the style of remark by which this writer always strung
together the old traditions about the heroes of the period
of the judges. Then comes the story of Jephthah, which
runs as follows : —
Gilead, the district east of the Jordan, was sighing under
i Deuteronomy Hi. 14; Numbers xxxii. 41; Joshua xiii. 30. Compart
p, 329. 2 1 Chronicles ii. 22
8 Judges viii. 30 ff. Compare pp. 394, 399. Judges xii. 8-15.
4 Judges x. 6-16.
JEPHTHAH. 405
the oppression of the Ammonites. It will be remembered
that before the Israelites bid adieu to the Arabian desert
these Ammonites had been deprived of a part of their pos-
sessions by the Amorites ; but that these invaders were ,
themselves expelled by the tribes of Reuben and Gad, who
thus became the neighbors of the Ammonites. 1 Now the
mountain land of Gilead was a most desirable possession,
and the Ammonites and Israelites were constantly struggling
for it.
Just at the time of which we are speaking, the Israelites
had been brought very low in this contest. Their leaders^
well nigh at their wits' end, held a council at Mizpeh, a
place on the border-land, where there was an anointed stone
(afterwards looked upon as the monument of an agreement
between Jacob and Laban 2 ) and a sanctuary of Yahweh,
connected, no doubt, with this massebah. The Gileadites
were keenly alive to the necessity of uniting under a single
leader; and, however little inclined to give up their freedom,
they made up their minds to obey the orders of any one
who could rescue them from their miserable plight. Accord-
ingly, they began to consider whom they could induce to put
himself at their head, and they soon remembered a famous
warrior of the name of Jephthah. He was a Gileadite by
descent ; but no one -knew to what clan he belonged. He
had enjoyed but smaU success as yet ; for he possessed no
land of his own, anfl had penetrated into the neighboring
district of Tob, with a band of freebooters, in the hope of
conquering a horns, as Jair and others had done before him.
It was this bold warrior to whom the elders of the Gileadites
determined to appeal.
But Jephthah was not inclined, at first, to comply with
their wish. He had no very pleasant recollection of his
former home, and by no means desired to return to it. But,
on the other hand, he was fascinated by the thought of being
Prince of Gilead for life ; so when the chiefs swore by Yah-
weh that they would recognize him as such, he yielded to
their persuasions, and followed them to Mizpeh, where the
compact was solemnly renewed in the sanctuary.
First of all he sent an embassy to the Ammonites, to
induce them to lay down their arms, but without success.
There was nothing left but an appeal to the sword. Then
the spirit of Yahweh came upon Jephthah ; and, burning
with warlike zeal, he passed through Gilead and Jair's vil>
1 See ante, chapter x. p. 325. 2 Genesis xxxi. 45-52.
406 JEPHTHAH.
lages, summoning the inhabitants to battle for the honor
of Yahweh. He even sent messengers to their kinsmen, the
Ephraimites, on the other side of the Jordan. The Ephraim-
ites were deaf to his appeal ; but in Gilead and the neigh-
borhood his words found an echo, and an army had soon
assembled at Mizpeh. And now the battle upon which so
much depended must be fought. If Israel were defeated
then Gilead must give up all hope of retaining its indepen-
dence, and must bow beneath the yoke of the sons of Ammon,
while Jephthah must flee the land once more and rove about
an a freebooter. The risk was enormous. The enemy was
powerful ; the Gileadites but too familiar with defeat. But
the affair was far from hopeless. Under their new leader
the warriors were full of enthusiasm. Their war-songs
echoed on every side. The}' recounted with pride the ex-
ploits of their fathers, and boasted of their own heroic deeds
against beasts of prey or the former inhabitants of the land.
Listen to the various bands, gathered round their watch-
fires, as they vie with each other in hurling taunts at the
Ammonites, bragging of what they are going to do, and
vowing sacrifices to their household or tribal gods should
they return home in safety ! The spirit of the people was
excellent. If Yahweh would but help, the victory was cer-
tain. If he would but grasp his shi^M and spear, and go
forth before his people thirsting for %e battle, if he would
but march before them in thunder and^ hurl his arrows into
the midst of the foe, then panic fear would seize them and
Israel would strike them dead. But wouM Yahweh yearn
for the battle? Would he put forth all his strength in the
fight with Chemosh? Day after day the priests made the
meatoffering smoke before him, to secure his help. The
massebah flowed with oil and blood. Bands of warriors were
ever marching round the altar with their gifts. At last the
general himself, burning for victory, made a solemn and
terrible vow. Stretching out his hand towards the door of
his home, he cried : " As sure as Yahweh lives, if I return
in triumph from the fight with the Ammonites, whoever first
comes out from yonder door to meet me shall be made a
sacrifice to Yahweh ! " The priest has accepted the oath.
The vow is made. Unhappy father ! Think who it may be
that comes from that door to meet you ! It may be a slave,
perhaps. Yes ! but you have an only child at home. Will
you pay that price for the victory? Are you ready to give
U[: your child should Yahweh require so great a sacrifice?
JEPHTHAH. 407
The vow that was made in a moment of fierce enthusiasm
must be fulfilled when the excitement that dictated it had
passed away ; for the Ammonites were utterly defeated, and
twenty of their cities fell into the hands of the Israelites.
There was no doubt as to the victory, and it only remained
to be seen what was the sacrifice that Yahweh had chosen.
Jephthah returns in triumph. He draws near to Mizpeh
and comes in sight of his own home. A troop of girls come
out to meet him, waving branches, sounding tambourines
and cymbals, preparing to sing the victor's praise, to strew
his path with flowers, and accompany him .with festal dances
to the shrine of Yahweh. At their head comes Jephthah's
daughter — his only child. A sharp cry escapes the father
when he sees her in the distance coming towards him. He
rends his clothes, and breaks into bitter lamentation. " Ah,
my daughter ! You have caused me more woe than all my
enemies ! " What can it mean ? A fearful presentiment
comes over the triumphant warriors. The joyous music
dies. The troop of girls draw near in silence. Every one
gazes in an agony of suspense at the hero, who stands before
his child the picture of despondent misery. At last the fear-
ful words escape his lips. " Alas, my child ! I have made a
vow to Yahweh, and I cannot take it back ! " Horror seizes
upon all who hear him. They divine his meaning but too
well. They understand the glance he turns upon his daugh-
ter. Her life is the dread price of victory which Yahweh
claims, and they shudder to think that the father must give
up his only child, and that she — so young and beautiful —
must die.
But though the rough cheek of many a bold warrior in
Jephthah's train was blanched, though the musical instru-
ments fell from the hands of the shuddering girls, there was
one still calm and brave. She, whom all are bewailing, has
soon mastered her own emotion, and breaks a death-like
silence by the words : " Father ! if that be so, your vow shall
be fulfilled. I am content that, by Yahweh's help, you have
triumphed over the sons of Ammon." All eyes are turned in
admiration upon the heroic girl, whose contempt of death puts
to shame the boldest warrior ; and even her father draws some
comfort, in his agony, from the deep and self-forgetful love
which she reveals for him. She speaks once more. "Father !
I have one boon to ask. Give me two months before you fulfil
your vow, and let me spend the time upon the mountains with
my friends, to bewail my lot in dying unmarried." Of course
408 JEPHTHAH.
her modest prayer was unconditionally granted ; and she went
with her companions to the retreat she had chosen.
Meanwhile Jephthah was not permitted to give himself up
to his grief undisturbed. His sword must not rust as yet.
Now that the Ammonites were defeated, the Ephraimites
became jealous of the victor's fame, and accused him (as they
had formerly accused Gideon 1 ) of not having called upon them
for help. It was in vain that Jephthah reminded them how
he had asked their help, and how they had disregarded his
request. They crossed the Jordan, to " burn down his house
over his head." So Jephthah was compelled to meet force
with force. He summoned the Gileadites, who were flushed
by the victory they had won, and in no humor to put up with
the insolence of their brothers from the other side of the
Jordan. The affair ended in a pitched battle, and the Ephra-
imites were defeated.
Their insolence now cost them dear. They had incensed
the Gileadites to the utmost, by contemptuously styling them
runaway Ephraimites, and declaring that Gilead really belonged
to them, since it lay between Ephraim and Manasseh. The
conquerors of the Ammonites could not forgive this insult.
Indeed, they were so exasperated that they refused all quarter
to the fugitives. Nay, they even kept the passes of the Jor-
dan, and if any one came to ford the river, and declared in
fear that he was a Gileadite, they put him to the test by
making him say the word shibboleth, which the Ephraimites
always pronounced sibboleth. All who betrayed themselves
by their pronunciation were pitilessly put to death. The
number of the slain was estimated at forty-two thousand.
So Jephthah had conquered all his foes, and become the
undisputed lord of Gilead, over which he ruled for six years.
But, alas ! what a fearful price he had to pay for his success !
Two months after his return from the victory over the Am-
monites, he fulfilled his vow. The victim, crowned with
flowers, was led round the altar with music and song in honor
of Yahweh. She met her cruel fate without shrinking. But
who shall say how sick at heart her father was, when he struck
the fatal blow with his own hand, and saw the blood of his
darling child poured out upon the sacred stone, while her
body was burned upon the altar ! Thus Yahweh received his
own, and the price of the victory was paid.
The father can never have thought of the sacrifice without
a shudder ; but his countrymen soon recovered from the shock,
1 See pp. 387, 388.
JEPHTHAH. 409
and only remembered the courage and self-sacrifice of Jeph-
thah's daughter. All honor to the heroic girl, who freely
gave herself up to death, and rejoiced that Yahweh had given
her father the victory, even though her own 3-ouug life was
the price he had paid. The memory of her patriotism, and
contempt of death, did not perish with her, but was long pre-
served in an annual festival, celebrated by the people on the
day of her death in the mountain-land round Mizpeh. At this
festival the girls spent four days in celebrating, with dance and
song, the memory of the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
I have barely alluded, in the above narrative, to the nego-
tiations carried on between Jephthah and the king of the
Ammonites. 1 The king, on his part, pleads that when the
Israelites came out of Egypt to Canaan they deprived him
unjustly of his land ; but Jephthah denies this, and recounts,
in proof of his position, the events which occurred three hun-
dred years before . These negotiations certainly formed no part
of the old tradition, but were inserted by the compiler. It
was not at all in the spirit of antiquity to inquire into the legal
right by which this or that territory was held, still less to call
to mind the history of the remote past in order to throw light
on the question. Besides, the calculation that makes three
hundred years elapse between the conquest of the district east
of Jordan and the time of Jephthah is certainly incorrect ; for
the whole period between Joshua and David was not more
than two and a half centuries at most.
The point in the history of Jephthah which has always ex-
cited the most attention is the appalling fact that he offered up
his daughter as a sacrifice. Commentators have often tried
to explain it away, and to make out that Jephthah did but
consecrate his daughter to the service of Yahweh and compel
her to remain unmarried to the end of her life. This idea
was suggested by the remark, repeated more than once in the
story, that she was never married, and by a certain unwill-
ingness to admit that she was really sacrificed ; for such an
admission would leave a deep stain upon ancient Israel ; and
it appeared impossible to believe that a judge of the people,
a man whom Yahweh had blessed, should have publicly per-
formed such a frightful act. But, however difficult it may be
to understand, the simple fact remains. "We have no reason
to suppose that the ancient Israelites believed Yahweh to pre-
fer a single to a married life in his votaries, and if Jephthah's
1 Judges xi. 12-28.
VOL. I. 18
410 JEPHTHAH.
vow meant nothing more than these commentators suppose,
surely his daughter need not have asked for two months in
which to bewail her maidenhood, for she might have done
that all the rest of her life. Moreover, we should have abso-
lutely no explanation of her father's agony at their meeting,
and of that festival at which the people sang of her for four
days every year. But the whole question is in fact decided
by the vow itself, which admits of no mistake : "I will
dedicate to Yahweh, and offer as a burnt sacrifice, the first
person ' who comes to meet me." Nothing can be clearer than
this. He promises a human sacrifice.
After what we have already learned of Israel's religion, we
shall hardly be surprised at this. We need only refer to what
was said with reference to Abraham's intention of sacrificing
Isaac. 2 Indeed, we are quite unable to reverence the ancient
Israelites as men of extraordinary piety and goodness. They
were rude and uncivilized in the highest degree, and were
still at a very low stage of religious development. liven those
heroes by whose arm the people were rescued from their foes,
and who performed their exploits in the name of Yahweh,
were very far indeed from realizing our idea of piety. Be-
sides, Jephthah stands lower than Deborah or even Gideon,
for he would not gird himself to battle for his people until
they had solemnly promised to make him prince of Gilead.
As for the sacrifice of human beings to Yahweh, the story
of Jephthah not only shows us unmistakably that such a thing
did from time to time take place, but also indicates the point of
view from which we must regard it, if we wish to be fair to
the Israelites. It arose from their belief that the deity might
be persuaded, by promises, to accomplish the worshipper's
desires. A person holding this belief — and in ancient times
it was universal — might rise step by step, until at last he
promised to offer up the most precious of all things — a human
life. However horrible it may seem, it was the necessary
consequence of a false principle. We can, therefore, under-
stand not only that people admired the daughter — who sub-
mitted so courageously to her fate, and was content that her
life should be the price paid for the victory — but also that
they praised the father for keeping his word. It was not
every one who was so scrupulous. A man would often make
a vow like Jephthah's, and then, when the time had come for
payment, would draw back, and substitute something else for
that which he had promised. This was called "redeeming,"
1 After an amended version. 2 Chap, xviii. p. 143.
SAMSON. 41 1
and was practised by some more freely than by others.
Finally, when manners had grown gentler, and human sacri-
fices were banished from the worship of Yahweh, these re-
demptions were regulated by the Law. 1 But, in the time of
the judges-, the old rule was still in, force, that a human being,
dedicated by a vow to Yahweh, must be sacrificed to him,
and might not be redeemed. From this point of view, it
seemed to argue disobedience and laxity if any one shrank
from the strict fulfilment of his vow.
So far, then, we must honor Jephthah, for he would not
break the commandment, ' ' Thou shalt not take the name of
Yahweh on a lie ; " and kept his vow. In that frightful sac-
rifice that he performed — • breaking the holiest domestic ties
— we do but see the disastrous results of a mistaken faith.
Chapter XX.
SAMSON.
Judges XIII.-XVI.
AMONG all peoples who have begun to issue from a state
of ignorance and barbarism, and to reach a higher stage
of religion than that of the rudest and lowest fetichism," 1 we
find indications of the worship of Nature and of the various
heavenly bodies ; first of the moon and then of the sun. And
since the ancients were in the habit of throwing their relig-
ious thoughts and emotions into the form of stories or
myths, we meet almost everywhere with " solar myths," or
stories in which the sun appears as a person. His rising
and setting, his fostering power in the spring, his consuming
heat in the summer, and his failing strength in the autumn
are described as the birth, the conflicts, the triumph, the
defeat, and the death of a hero. Feasts were held in many
countries at various seasons of the year in honor of the
sun, or rather of the solar deity or sun-god. After the
longest day, for instance, there was a time of lamentation,
because the days began to grow shorter, and a day of rejoic-
ing after the shortest, because they then began to lengthen
again. Sometimes lamentations for the death of the setting
1 Leviticus xxvii. 2 See pp. 175, 176.
412 SAMSON.
sun were immediately followed by rejoicings over his return
to life. As a rule, the women more especially celebrated
these feasts with passionate earnestness, and sang dirges
such as, " Alas! the lord of the earth, the giver of life, is
dead, slain by his enemies!" or cried, "Rejoice! «the world
receives new life, for her deliverer, the fountain of joy, is
born ! "
Many ancient solar myths have come down to us, b"t
never in the original forms. This is only natural, for these
myths are poetical effusions rather than precise descriptions,
and though their main features may long remain unaltered,
the details must be constantly changing. Moreover, when
they were at last put into writing, it was by men who
no longer retained the old simplicity of faith in them, and
who, therefore, dissected and endeavored to explain them,
and treated them more or less euhemeristically. 1 Thus the
sun-god became a king, a priest, a hero, or a hunter, at the
pleasure of the writer or to suit the habits of the people.
To take an example : The Egyptian Osiris was repre-
sented as a king of primeval times who not only fought
against barbarism within his own domains, but journeyed
through the world to spread the blessings of civilization
everywhere. During his absence his wife and sister Isis
carried on the government in the spirit of her absent lord.
But Set or Typhon, the brother of Osiris, longed to restore
the former state of lawless violence ; so he conspired with a
number of the nobles to murder king Osiris. To accomplish
his design he had recourse to stratagem. He made a splen-
did chest, exactly fitting his brother's body, and then invited
trim, together with the conspirators, to a banquet, and offered
to make a present of the chest to the man whom it should be
found to fit. Hardly had Osiris got into it when the lid was
clapped upon it, and the .chest securely fastened and thrown
into the Nile. It was carried away by the stream and across
the sea to the Phoenician city of Byblus, where it was caught
in the branches of a tree ; and there it remained until at last
the bark grew over it. Meanwhile Isis was wandering about
the world, with her sister Nephtis, seeking her lost husband
and lamenting him. At last she found the chest that con-
tained his body, in front of the palace of the king of Byblus,
inside the tree, which the king had felled, intending to make
a column out of it. Then she returned, rejoicing, with hei
treasure. But in the joy of meeting her son Horos. she
1 See pp. 105, 100.
SAMSON. 413
neglected for a moment to keep watch over the chest, and
Typhon found it, opened it, took out the body, cut it into
fourteen pieces, and scattered them over the land. But Isis
succeeded in finding every one of the pieces, and she buried
each where she found it. Then Horos fell upon Typhon, to
avenge his father, took him prisoner, and gave him over to
his mother's care. But she allowed him to escape, and Ho-
ros, after severely reproving her, attacked his enemy twice and
completely defeated him. Thenceforth Horos reigned over
Egypt, while Osiris became ruler of the world of the dead.
The significance of the actors in this story is for the most
part obvious. Osiris is the beneficent and fructifying sun,
Isis the earth, and Typhon or Set the scorching heat, the
cause of all material ill. This destructive sun-god conquers
his beneficent brother and compels him to conceal himself;
but Horos, the beaming sun, the successor and representa-
tive of Osiris, conquers Set, in his turn, and blesses the earth.
Many traits in the story, however, are difficult to explain, —
the passage, for instance, of the body of Osiris to Byblus.
On the other hand we can easily guess the origin of the four-
teen pieces into which the dead Osiris was cut. His worship
was celebrated in many parts of Egj-pt, and was essentially
the same everywhere. There were many places, therefore,
in which his death was celebrated with lamentations and the
grave of the good god pointed out. It was to explain this
fact that the body was divided in the legend into so many
parts. This example will suffice to show what a mistake it
would be to suppose that the story as we have it is the original
myth itself. It is only a legend founded upon it.
The same remark applies to all the solar myths that have
come down to us. Thus we find a legend in Syria of Adonis,
the beautiful youth that was slain by a wild boar when hunt-
ing, and thenceforth spent four months of the year in the
lower world and eight upon the earth ; a legend in Greece, of
Herakles (Hercules) , who performed twelve great labors, and
then died on a funeral pyre and rose to heaven ; in Phoenicia,
of Baal, the ancient king, whose tomb was pointed out in so
many places ; in Babylonia, of Thammuz, the prophet, put
to death by the king for trying to induce him to worship the
stars. On his death, we are told, the image of the sun in the
temple of Bel told the images of the gods which had gathered
there from all the ends of the earth what had happened.
Among the Norse-men we find the legend of Balder the good
god, who wa3 murdered by LoM, — but all these stories, and
414 SAMSON.
many more, though originally solar myths, have been more
or less transformed by those who put them into writing.
Sun-worship was bj- no means unknown to the Israelites,
and was still more prevalent among the Canaanites. There
were two places in the country, one in Dan : and the other in
Naphtali, 2 called Beth-shemesh or Ir-shemesh, that is " house
of the sun" or " city of the sun," and the deit}- worshipped
under the names of Baal and Molech was really no other than
the sun. 8 We do not know whether the name of the Danite
cit}' Beth-shemesh was of Canaanite or Israelite origin. The
question is of no great consequence, however, for in this neigh-
borhood the old and the new inhabitants soon became very
friendly with each other, and before long all distinction between
them was lost, though the population was still mainly com-
posed of Danite and Judtean Israelites. The myths that were
circulated amongst these people show that they were zealous
worshippers of the sun. These myths are still preserved, but,
as in all other cases, they are so much altered as to be hardly
recognizable. The writer who has preserved them for us
lived at a time when the worship of the sun had long ago died
out. He transforms the sun-god into an Israelite hero who
chastises the hereditary enemies of his nation terribly, but at
last is conquered by them and dies, though not unavenged.
The legends to which I refer are those of Samson, for a
solar myth doubtless lies at the bottom of them, as we may
see by the very name of the hero himself, which signifies
" sun-god." In some of the features of the story the original
meaning may still be traced quite clearly, but in others the
myth can no longer be recognized. The exploits of some
Danite hero, such as Shamgar (who " slew six hundred Phil-
istines with an ox-goad" 4 ) have been woven into it; the
whole has been remodelled after the ideas of the prophets of
later ages, and finally it has been fitted into the framework
of the period of the judges, as conceived by the writer of the
book called after them.
It would delay us far too long were we to attempt to explain,
point by point, the origin of all the stories about Samson.
We must content ourselves with giving the legends themselves,
only adding here and there a hint as to their meaning.
When the Israelites had given themselves up to all manner
1 Joshua xv. 10. 1 Samuel vi. 9 ff. 1 Kings iv. 9
2 Joshun xix. 38. Judges i. 33. 8 Compare p 318
4 Judges iii. 31. r
SAMSON. 415
of evii again, Yahweh sold them into the hands of the Phil-
istines for forty years. In those days there lived at Zorah a
Danite, called Manoah, whose wife was childless. But one
day an angel of Yahweh appeared to her, and said, "Woman !
hitherto you have longed in vain for a mother's joy, but now
you shall have a sou. Refrain, for his sake, from wine and
strong drink, and eat no forbidden food, for he shall be a
Nazarite of God from his birth upwards. The hair of his
head shall never be cut ; and he shall begin to deliver Israel
from the might of the Philistines." The woman told her hus-
band what had occurred. " A man of God has been to me,"
she said. " I did not ask him whence he was, nor did he tell
mo his name ; but his look inspired me with awe, like that of
an angel of God ;" and then she repeated his words to her
husband. Never doubting for a moment the truth of what she
said, Manoah prayed to Yahweh, "0 Lord! let this angel
come to us again, to teach us what we must do with the son
that shall be born to us." Yahweh heard his prayer, and his
angel appeared again to the woman. She happened at the
time to be in the field, without her husband ; but she hastened
to fetch him, and cried, "The man that appeared to me
has come again." Manoah hastened to the spot. The mes-
senger of Yahweh was waiting for them ; and, when Manoah
asked him whether it was he that had visited his wife before,
he answered that it was. Upon this Manoah said, " Then if
what you foretold us comes to pass, what kind of life is the
boy to live?" The angel replied, "Above all things, your
wife must attend to what I said to her. She must neither eat
nor drink of the produce of the vine." With these words, the
divine messenger prepared to go ; but Manoah, not knowing
that it was an angel of Yahweh, said, " Stay with us a little
while, and let us prepare a kid for you ! " To which the angel
answered, " Though I stay with you, I will not eat of jour
food ; but if you desire to make ready a burnt offering to
Yahweh, do so." Manoah, perceiving that his visitor was no
ordinary being, now said, " Tell us your name, that we may
know whom to honor if your prediction is fulfilled." But the
stranger answered, "Ask not my name; it is a mystery!"
Then Manoah took his sacrificial kid, and all that was needed
to make it complete as a sacrifice to Yahweh. He had hardly
laid it on a mass of rock, and offered it to his god, when, be-
hold ! the angel of Yahweh rose to heaven in the altar-flame,
before the very eyes of Manoah and his wife. At this sight
they fell to the earth in awe and reverence ; and,, when they
416 SAMSON.
looked up again, the angel had disappeared. Manoah now
perceived with whom they had been speaking, and said to his
wife, " Shall we not die? for we have seen a god ! " But his
wife made the sensible reply, " Had it been Yahweh's will to
destroy us, he would not have accepted our sacrifice, or. sent
us all these messages." The result confirmed the angel's
prophecy. Manoah's wife had a son, and she called him Sam-
son. "When he grew up, thej' saw that he was loved of
Yahweh, for the spirit of this god began to inspire him in
Mahaneh-Dan, or " the camp of the Danites," between Zorah
and Eshtaol.
At this point we will pause for a moment. Samson is
called a Nazarite. We shall presently see who these Naz-
arites were ; but their chief peculiarities are indicated in the
narrative itself. They refrained from all the produce of the
vine, protected themselves from ceremonial impurity, and
allowed the hair of their heads to grow. The last point
was the most essential, and it is also the only Nazarite
peculiarity that is mentioned in the stories of Samson that
follow. He was remarkable for his long hair. The meaning
of this trait in the original myth is easy to guess, and ap-
pears also from representations of the sun-god amongst other
peoples. These long hairs are the raj's of the sun. As for
the other points of the story of Samson's birth, it is likely
enough that the mere desire to shed lustre on the origin of
celebrated men, and especially to represent them as children
for whose birth their parents had long waited in vain, led to
the invention of the scenes in which the angel appears. But
it is not impossible that they are part of the old solar myth,
and that the angel who rises up in the flame of the sacrifice
signifies the glow of dawn, that blazes against the heavens, and
heralds the approach of the sun who brings the world fresh life.
We may now pass on to the account of Samson's exploits.
One day he went to Timnath, where he fell in love with
a Philistine girl. When he begged his parents to ask her in
marriage for him, they disapproved of the alliance, and said,
"Can you find no Israelitish girl? Must 3-ou needs take
one of these uncircumcised ? " But they knew not what
they said ; for they little thought that Yahweh had ordained
all this because Samson sought a quarrel with the Philistines.
When their son persisted in his request, they granted it in
spite of their disapproval, and set out with him to Timnath.
On the way, as Samson was passing through some vineyards
near the city, alone, he encountered a furious lion. But the
SAMSON. 417
spirit of Yahweh came upon him, and he tore the bea3t as
one would tear a kid, though he had no weapon in his hand.
It was such a simple affair with him that he did not so much
as mention it to his parents. His betrothal to the Philistine
girl took place in due course, and a month afterwards he
returned to Timnath to marry her. On his way he turned
aside to look at the skeleton of the lion, and saw that a
swarm of bees had settled in it, and had already stored it
with honey. He took some of the honey to eat on his way,
and gave some to his parents, but without telling them how
he had got it.
The wedding took place, and Samson gave a feast, accord-
ing to the custom of the place. But the Philistines were
afraid of him, 1 and gave him a guard of thirty men, who ac-
companied him everywhere.
Now Samson asked these thirty men a riddle, and bet
them thirty under-garments . and thirty robes of state that
they would not guess it within the seven days of the feast.
It ran, "From the eater came forth food, from the strong
one sweetness ! " For three days they tortured themselves
in vain to find the answer, but on the fourth 1 they went
to Samson's wife, and said, " Unless you manage to get
your husband's secret out of him and tell it us, we will
burn down your house over your head. Have 3^ou asked
us here to rob us?" She was so much frightened by
the threat that she did as they desired, and tried to coax
Samson into telling her the answer. "If 3'ou really loved
me," she said, " you would tell me the answer to your riddle."
At first he would not listen to her. " Wiry, I have not even
told it to my father and mother," he said, " and shall 1 tell it
you ? " But she persisted in her entreaties, and at last lie
yielded to her blandishments and told her the secret. He soon
saw that she had betrayed him, for before sun-set his body-
guard came to him and cried in triumph, "What is sweeter
than honey? What is stronger than a lion?" But Samson
answered in wrath, " If you had not ploughed with my
heifer you would not have guessed my riddle." Then the
spirit of Yahweh came upon him once more, and he went to
Askelon, slew thirty of the inhabitants, and gave their robes
to the men who had guessed the riddle. But now, it seemed,
he would have nothing more to do with his wife, for he went
home to his parents. So she married one of his companions
or groomsmen.
1 After an amended version.
18*
418 SAMSON.
The chief features of this story are borrowed from the
solar myth that lies at the foundation of the whole legend.
To understand them we must remember the path which the
sun appears to pursue in the heavens as the year goes by.
In consequence of the earth's motion round the sun,_ the
sun itself appears to us to be constantly changing its position
in the heavens, as we see by its relation to the various con-
stellations. In the twelve months of the year the sun rises
and sets with twelve different constellations, which are called
the signs of the Zodiac. They are, the Ram, the Bull, the
Twins, the Crab, the Lion, the Virgin, the Scales, the
Scorpion, the Archer, the He-goat, Aquarius (or man with
the watering pot), and the Fishes. Now although it is tol-
erably certain that the Israelites' knowledge of the zodiac dates
from before the invasion of Canaan, it is nevertheless highly
improbable that the old myth described the passage of the
sun through all the twelve signs. At any rate there are no
clear traces in our story of any of them except the Lion.
Samson rends a lion — that is to say the sun passes through
the constellation of that name. This also gives us the clew to
the riddle and its answer. As given in the story it is utterly
unintelligible. In the first place it is not really a riddle at
all, for the answer requires no ingenuity, but simply the
knowledge of a fact of which no one could be aware. And, in
the next place, such a question could never have been put, for
bees do not build in putrefying carrion. Probably the riddle
originally ran, " How can the sweet food, hone} 7 , proceed
from a strong and ravenous lion?" and the answer, " When
the sun passes through the Lion, the bees make their combs,
and when he leaves it the honey is ready."
When the wheat was ripe for harvest (about April) , con-
tinues the story, Samson went to see his wife again. He
took two kids with him as a present, but of course her father
would not let him see her. He expressed his deep regret,
and endeavored to excuse himself by saying that he sup-
posed Samson had taken a dislike to his daughter on account
of what occurred at the wedding, and had therefore given
her to one of his companions ; but he was ready to give him
her younger sister in her stead. It was all in vain. Samson
was mad with rage, and exclaimed, " No one can blame me
now if, I punish the Philistines ! " He caught three hundred
jackals, tied them in pairs, tail to tail, with a burning torch
between them, and drove them over the lands of the Philis-
SAMSON. 419
tines. The terrified animals rushed about in all directions,
and set fire to the wheat that was standing in sheaves, a3
well as that which was still uncut, and even the olive gardens
too. When the Philistines heard that it was Sainson who
had done all this, and learned what was the cause of his
hostility, they vented their rage upon his wife and her father
by burning them and all their relatives alive in their house.
But Samson made this another pretext for revenge and
slaughter of the Philistines.
Upon this the Philistines raised an army, and attacked
the men of Judah, in whose territory Samson had established
himself. The}- had got as far as Lechi when the Judseans
came to ask them why they were making war upon them.
They answered that they had come to punish Samson for
the injuries he had inflicted upon them. Upon this three
thousand men of Judah went to the rocky cleft at Etham,
where the fierce warrior was to be found. He admitted that
he had given the Philistines cause to hate him, and was even
ready to allow the Judseans to bind him and give him up to
his enemies, if they would only promise to do nothing against
him themselves. They gave the promise, bound him with
two new ropes, and carried him to Lechi. When the Philis-
tines saw their enemy approach in bonds they raised a deaf-
ening shout of joy. But the}' rejoiced too soon, for at that
very moment the spirit of Yahweh came upon Samson, the
ropes by which he was bound snapped like burned threads,
and the fetters melted from off his hands. His eye lighted
on the jaw-bone of an ass. He seized it and slew a thousand
Philistines. Then he shouted in triumph, —
With an ass's jaw-bone have I slaughtered them, 1
With an ass's jaw-bone have I slain a thousand.
Upon this he threw away his weapon and called the place
Eamath-lechi, which the writer translates " cast of the jaw-
bone." Immediately afterwards he grew faint for thirst and
besought Yahweh to help him. " See, Lord, thou hast won
so great a victory by my hand this day, and must I now
perish for thirst and fall into the power of the Philistines ? "
In answer to his prayer God split the hollow of the jaw-bone,
and water flowed out of it for him to drink. This refreshed
him. and the well at Lechi is still called "the well of the
beseecher." Thus Samson judged Israel, in the days of the
Philistines, for twenty years.
1 After an amended version.
420 SAMSON.
Now all this far exceeds the limits of possibility. It is no
more possible for a single man to catch three hundred jackals
alive than it is for him to slay a thousand men with the jaw-
bone of an ass. It is strange and mysterious, not to say
unaccountable, that just after the victory at Lechi Samson
should find himself all alone, and should be afraid of falling
into the hands of the uncircumcised. What had become of
all the men of Judah ?
Literally understood all this is absurd, but if we treat it
as the language of mythology we shall see that it has a very
intelligible meaning. In the reddish-brown jackals, with
torches between their tails, we easily recognize the lurid
thunder-clouds, from the projecting points of which the light-
ning flashes seem to dart ; and the myth of Indra, given in
the "Word of Preface," 1 comes in most appropriately to
explain the meaning of Samson's exploits with the ass's
jaw-bone. This is in fact nothing but a symbol of the jagged
thunder-clouds from which the lightning shoots. It has this
meaning in the mythology of more than one nation. This
explains why it is expressly said that Samson threw away his
weapon after the victory, and that a spring rose from the hol-
low of the jaw-bone. When he has triumphed over his foes,
the sun-god no longer uses the thunder-cloud as a weapon, but
makes the rain pour out of it.
In this story the sun-god is still victorious over his oppo-
nents ; but we shall now see him winning his triumphs with
increasing difficulty, until at last he falls before the attacks
of his enemies and dies.
Once, when Samson was paying a visit to a woman in Gaza,
his presence in the citj was betrajed to the inhabitants, and
they determined to lie in ambush for him, and take him cap-
tive ; but, as they did not suppose he would go away before
daybreak, they took no measures to seize him that night.
About midnight, behold! Samson rose up, seized the city-
gates, gate-posts, bar and all, hoisted them upon his shoul-
der, and carried them to the top of the mountain that lies east
of Hebron.
After this he fell in love again with another woman, whose
name was Delilah, and who lived in the valley of Sorek. As
soon as the Philistine princes heard of this, 'they determined
to take advantage of his passion, and promised to give Deli-
lah over a thousand shekels each if she could succeed, by hei
i * See pp. 8, 9.
SAMSON. 421
endearments, in coaxing Samson into telling her the secret
of his great strength. The traitress undertook the task, and
said to Samson, ' l Do tell me how you could be bound so as
to overcome your strength." He answered that nothing but
seven cords, twisted of fresh, undried cat-gut, could hold him
fast. These she got, and bound him with them as he slept ;
but hardly had she cried, " Samson ! the Philistines ! " when
he snapped them as one would snap a thread scorched by the
fire. His secret was evidently still his own. . But the faithless
woman persevered. "You have deceived me," she said,
"and only told me a set of lies. How can you really be
bound fast?" " With seven new ropes that have never been
used before," he answered ; but a second failure showed that
Delilah had still failed to learn the truth. Teased for his
secret a third time, he told her that she must weave in the
seven locks of his hair with a piece of cloth, and pin them to
the wall, 1 and that he should then be no stronger than an ordi-
nary man. She followed his directions ; but as soon as she
awoke him with the cry of danger, " Samson ! the Philistines
are coming ! " he plucked the pin and all that it held right out
of the wall. And yet, in mentioning the locks of his hair,
he had come nearer the truth than before. Delilah went on
teasing him, day and night, to tell her the truth, till at last
he was so, worried that he told her all. " I have been a
Nazarite of God," he said, "ever since my birth; and my
head has never been touched by a razor. If my locks were
shorn my strength would desert me, and I should be like an
ordinary man." Delilah saw that he had told her all the
truth this time ; so she sent for the Philistine princes, and
they came at once, bringing the bribe with them. Then
Delilah sent Samson to sleep, with his head resting on hei
lap, and called a man to cut off the seven locks of his hair.
Then his strength did really leave him, as he was scon to
learn. When she roused him again with the same cry, " The
Philistines, Samson ! " he sprang up, as if to break his bonds,
but felt at once that Yahweh had deserted him, and that his
strength was gone. Then the Philistines laid hands on him,
put out his eyes, and carried him off to Gaza, where thej -
threw two brazen chains upon him, and made him grind in
the mill.
Meanwhile his hair began to grow again. After a time the
Philistine princes assembled to hold a great sacrifice and feast
in honor of their god Dagon. "Our god has put Samson.
i After an amended version.
422 SAMSON.
our enemy, into our power," they shouted in triumph ; and
when the people saw him they took up the cry and praised
the god who had broken the strength of the warrior who
had laid waste their land and destroyed their countrymen.
" Come ! " thev cried in glee ; " Samson shall show us some
tumbling ! " Samson submitted, and was placed between the
two chief pillars of the temple by which the whole block was
supported. Then he asked the boy who led him to allow him
to lean against these pillars for a moment. The whole place
was crowded with people, including all the princes of the land.
On the roof alone three thousand men and women were assem-
bled, and all were intent on Samson's feats. Leaning upon
the pillars, he prayed to Yahweh, "O Lord! look upon me,
and give me back my former strength this once, that I may
avenge myself on the Philistines for the loss of my eyes."
With this prayer in his heart, he embraced the two pillars
upon which the building rested, one with his right arm and
the other with his left, and bowing himself together with all
his strength, he cried, " Let me die with the Philistines ! "
The temple fell in with a crash, and crushed all who were
within it. So Samson's death brought heavier losses on the
Philistines than all the exploits of his life had done. Then
his relatives came and buried him in the grave of his father
Manoah, between Zorah and Eshtaol. He had judged Israel
twenty 3'ears.
The myth that lies at the foundation of this story is a
description of the sun's course during the six winter months,
The god is gradually encompassed by his enemies, mist and
darkness. At first he easily maintains his freedom, and gives
glorious proofs of his strength ; but the fetters grow stronger
and stronger, until at last he is robbed of his crown of rays,
and loses all his power and glory. Such is the sun in winter.
But he has not lost his splendor for ever. Gradually his
strength returns, at last he reappears ; and though he still
seems to allow himself to be mocked, yet the power of aveng-
ing himself has returned, and in the end he triumphs over his
enemies once more. This final victory is represented by the
scene in the temple of Dagon. But here the ancient myth
appears to have been superseded to a great extent by the
conceptions of the narrator, who has recast it. It is he who
makes Samson the Philistine-slaj-er, and represents him as
praying to Yahweh,' while his enemies call upon Dagon. The
death of the sun-god, and his burial at the very place from
wh'oh he began his course are features common to all solar
SAMSON. 423
myths. They are explained by the belief that the sun- lived
and ruled for one year, after which he descended to the nether
world and was succeeded b}- the next year's sun.
How strange is the world of ideas and feelings to which
such a myth transports us ! The ancients saw the lurid thun-
der clouds, from which the lightning darted, and perhaps
wrapped the corn or the olive gardens in flames ; and not con-
tent with comparing these clouds to jackals, with naming
torches hanging between their tails, they went on to consider
what it could be that caused the sun-god's wrath. They
could only attribute it to the fact that when he had reached
the highest point of his oourse in the heavens he had to de-
scend again. Genuine scientific observation was thus grafted
upon a childlike form of religion and a poetical view of
Nature.
This world of solar myths is gone. Tn fact, it had already
lost half its reality when priests, who knew something of
science, brought the popular n^ths into connection with what
they knew of astronomy, and worked them up into these elabo-
rate forms. Gradually even the most uneducated lost all
sj'mpathy with them. Observation and reflection banished
them. The posterity of those who invented the solar myths
could no longer understand them. They had no longer any
sympathy with the struggling and dying sun-god. On the
other hand, they did feel an interest in struggling men — in
heroes who slew their enemies and laid waste their lands.
The beaming sun-god, who hurled the lightning, became the
savage warrior, Samson, the slayer of the Philistines, whose
strength lay in his hair.
This marks a certain progress, for man is a nobler creature
than airything else the world can show, and the passions of
man belong to a higher order of things than the raging of the
powers of Nature ; yet those who first recast these ancient
myths had but a low ideal of heroic life themselves. There is
nothing noble in the Samson of their legends. They are con-
tent to make him rude, vengeful, and unjust ; and he dies with
a prayer for vengeance on his lips because he had lost his
eyes. His only title to admiration is that he was physically
3trong, and that he slew the enemies of Israel. Just as a bold
and successful hunter was exalted above all men, and honored
as " a hunter before Yahweh's face " 1 in a land swarming with
beasts of prey, so when Israel was struggling for life and death
to hold its own against its foes, a hero who gained victories
1 See pp. 85, 86.
424 BUTH THE MOABITESS.
over them was hailed as a messenger of Yahweh, without
much reference to his moral character.
Somewhat higher ground was taken by the writer who
fitted the legend of Samson, almost without alteration, into
the series of stories about the judges, and made the savage
slayer of the Philistines into one of Israel's rulers. He rep-
resented Israel's misfortunes as the result of sin, and gave
the deliverer at least the name of a judge— though he never
makes him act as one ; and this alone is enough to show
that he could appreciate something more than unbridled
violt nee and unconquerable strength, that he attached some
importance to moral qualities.
It has sometimes been lamented that the age of myths is
gone, that we can no longer picture Nature instinct with life,
as she appeared to the ancients. For us, it is said, she has
ceased to be divine. It is but an idle complaint. There is
a fairer world than that of material nature. There is a fai
more fascinating spectacle than the thunder-storm and the
succession of the seasons. The human heart reveals a fairer
world, and the strife of human passions a scene of grander
interest. In the days of the ancient myths men had no eyes
for these nobler things ; it was only later that they learned
to understand them. We see God now less in the sun and
moon, in the thunder-storm and hurricane, or the changing
seasons of the year, than in all that is pure and virtuous in
the human breast, in the triumph of good over evil, of duty
over inclination. Surely this latter faith bears richer fruit in
our lives and brings us sweeter comfort in our sorrows.
Chapter XXI.
RUTH THE MOABITESS.
The Book of Roth.
THIS book, which appears in our Bibles as a sort of ap-
pendix to the book of Judges, is really an independent
work by a different author. It was certainly written long after
the period of the judges, into which it transports us, nay even
after the Babylonian captivity, and as late as in the time of
Ezra. The writer's main object is evident enough. He wishes
RUTH THE M0ABITES3. 425
to tell us something of David's ancestry, and obviously intends
to show honor to the family to which he belonged, rather
than to bring it into contempt. We shall speak of the cir-
cumstances that gave occasion to his work, when we treat of
the times in which it was written. As we have no knowledge
of the sources from which the writer drew his materials, we
cannot tell how far the particulars of* what he relates are his-
torical ; but the main fact that David was partly of Moabite
extraction is indirectly confirmed elsewhere, 1 and is most
likely true. But whatever may be its historical value, the
picture sketched in the book of Ruth contrasts sweetly with
all the rude scenes of bloodshed and violence which fill the
writings that treat of the ancient history of Israel. It shows
us that the eyes of the Israelites were open to the gentler
virtues of domestic life, and to the beauty of pure affection.
The manners to which this work introduces us are pure ;
and even where our sense of propriety is startled by a touch
which jars against our customary notions, yet the laws of
morality are never disregarded.
We must begin with a special explanation of a certain
custom of the ancient Israelites ; for without a knowledge of
it the story cannot be understood. It is the so-called levirale
marriage, or "marriage with a brother-in-law," 2 and the
redemption of deceased relatives' former property, which
appears to have been connected with it. It is true that we
cannot explain all the allusions in the story of Ruth which
hinge upon this custom, but certain indications contained
in other Israelite writings give us at least some light.
A law dating from about the time of the Babylonian
captivity, 8 enjoins the levirate marriage in the following
words: "When two brothers live together and one of them
dies without a son, leaving a widow behind him, she must
not marry a stranger, but must become the wife of her
brother-in-law. Should this marriage be blessed with chil-
dren, then the eldest of them is to be considered the son
of the first husband, so that his name may not perish.
Should the brother be unwilling to perform his duty, then
the widow may complain to the elders of the place, and
if, in their presence, he still persist in his refusal, she must
draw off his shop and spit in his face, with the words of
infamy, ' Thus be it done to the man who refuses to pre-
serve his brothers family.' And ever after his house shall
i 1 Samuel xxii. 3, i. 2 From the Latin levir, " a brother-in-law. '
* Deuteronomy xxv. 5-10.
426 RUTH THE MOABITESS.
bear the nick-name ' House of the bare-foot.'" To under-
stand these regulations we must remember that the Israel-
ite laws almost always differed widely from those of modern
peoples, in not defining with any accuracy the matters of
which they treated, or even attempting to provide for all
possible cases. Thus the law we have just quoted admits of
many different interpretations, and leaves a host of questions
unanswered. For instance, what are we to understand by
" living together"? Does it mean in the " same house," or,
"with their lands adjoining"? Might the widow refuse to
marry her brother-in-law ? It is assumed that the latter was
unmarried, for it was only the first child, or the first son, that
was to be considered the offspring of the former marriage and
the first husband's heir, while the woman's other children were
to belong to her second husband. But suppose the surviving
brother had a wife and children already ? Must he take the
widow as well ? Or might he then decline to do so ? If so,
did the duty pass on to a younger brother? We could add
many more questions of the same kind, none of which are
answered in the text. Like most other Israelite laws, it was
more a description of what the writer thought desirable in
certain cases than a regular ordinance by the letter of which
the judges were bound. It points to a usage of the Israelites
that was sustained not so much by written laws as by the
power of public opinion and the perception of what was de-
sirable and right. It was, therefore, more carefulty observed
in some places than in others. The custom rested on the
belief that it was not only a misfortune but a disgrace to die
without children. One of the most awful threats conceivable
was that a man's name should be rooted out. Thus if a male-
factor was executed it was felt as a terrible aggravation of his
punishment to kill his children too. So if any one died child-
less, it was considered the duty of his brothers, and after
them of his other near relatives, to prevent his widow from
marrying into another house, and to continue the family of
their lost relative if they possibly could ; and the very com-
mon practice of polygamy made it comparatively easy to do
so. The law of which we have just spoken deals with an ob-
vious case, that of an unmarried brother living in the same
' house as the deceased ; but no doubt some were more con-
scientious than others in this matter, as the book of Ruth
itself will show us.
In the little city of Bethlehem, in Judah, there lived, in
RUTH THE M0AB1TESS. 427
the time of the judges, the family of Elimelech, whose wife,
Naomi, had presented him with two sons, Mahlon andChilion.
Things went so badly with him that, when the land was visited
with famine, he could no longer gain bread for his family in
Bethlehem. So he removed to the land of the Moabites,
where, soon afterwards, he died. His widow went on living
there with her two sons, and, in the course of time, they both
of them married wives belonging to the country. One was
called Orpah, and the other Ruth. So Naomi had almost be-
come a Moabitess, and yet her heart still clung to her father-
land. When she had been ten years in Moab, she lost her
two sons, and was left alone with her daughters-in-law, both
of whom were childless. Now, when she heard that Yahweh
had remembered his people once more, and had given them
bread, she so longed for her old home that, before long, she
and her daughters started on their way for Judah.
Alas for Naomi ! How sadly she left the land in which she
had sojourned as a stranger ! What treasures she had buried
there ! And yet she had one great comfort left in her children-
in-law. Not only had she witnessed the happiness which they
had both of them given to her sons, during their married life,
but they had shown themselves full of affection for her, the
afflicted mother, after the death of their husbands. They
were like her own daughters to her. But now the question
rose in her breast, whether she had any right to take selfish
advantage of their love ? Had she any right to take them
with her into a foreign land ? What would become of them,
young as they were, when she was dead ? Thinking over all
this, as she went on her way, she turned at last to her daughters-
in-law, and said, " Turn back, each of you to her mother's
home ! May Yahweh reward you for the goodness you have
shown the dead and me ! May he bless you with happy mar-
riages once more ! " So saying, she gave them her parting
kiss, and burst into tears. It cost her a hard struggle to part
from the widows of her sons, whom she, too, loved so tenderly.
How lonely she would be when they were gone ! And Orpah
and Ruth, on their side, loved her so dearly that they could
not bear to let her go alone. « It was not easy to bid their
homes farewell, and go to wander through a foreign land, and
to serve other gods. By doing so they would give up, with
so much else, all hope of second marriages. For who would
wed a poor stranger in Judah? An uncertain future,' full
of danger, awaited them. But yet they could not desert
the mother of their husbands. They fell, weeping, upon
428 RUTH THE MOABITESS.
her neck, and cried, "We will go with you to your fathei-
land ! " « „ . • , A
But the generous contest still went on, for Naomi persisted.
"No, my children," she said; "turn back again! Why
should you go with me? I have no sons to be your hus-
bands. And even were it possible that sons might still be
born to me, would 3-ou wait for them and refrain for their
sakes from enjoying the blessings of a married life at once ?
No, my daughters, it must not be. Join not your lot to mine ;
I am more heavily afflicted than you are, for Yahweh's hand
is against me." 1 ' At last Orpah jielded to the representations
of her mother-in-law. She reluctantly took leave of her and
returned.
But Ruth persisted in her determination to accompany her
mother-in-law. Naomi appealed in vain to the example of
Orpah, and again reminded her that she was bidding farewell
to her country and her religion. Ruth never swerved from
her resolve, and at last solemnly adjured her: " Entreat me
not to leave you or to return to my own people ; for where
you go, there will I go with you ; where the night finds you,
there will I be also ; your people is my people ; your god my
god; where you die there will I die, and there be buried.
Nought but death shall part us. I swear it by Yabweh, and
may he punish me if I break my oath ! " This put an end to
all further opposition.
So the mother and daughter-in-law pursued their journej-
till they came to Bethlehem, where Naomi's arrival created no
little interest, for she was still well remembered there. " Is
that Naomi ? " they asked, rejoicing in her return, and pitying
her depressed appearance. " Alas ! " she answered, in sad-
ness of heart, " call me not Naomi (or loveliness). But call
me Mara (or bitterness) , for the Mighty One has made my lot
bitter. Rich in a husband and two sons I went out, and Yah-
weh has brought me back bereft of all. I am no longer Naomi.
For Yahweh lias bowed me down ; the Mighty One has afflicted
me."
So Naomi was once more in her native place. But what
was she to do ? Beg assistance from her relatives ? Alas !
poverty makes those who are unaccustomed to it so timid and
abashed, and there were so many people asking help ! And
yet something must be done. Luckily for her she found a true
support in Ruth. It was love of her mother-in-law that had
brought her to Bethlehem, and now she would toil to support
1 After an nmended version.
RUTH THE MOABITESS. 429
her. No work was too humble or too hard for her. She was
ready for anything that came to hand. It was just the time
of barley harvest when she came to Bethlehem with her
mother-in-law, why should not she go and glean after the
reapers ? True enough the bread she earned in this way would
be hardly won and scanty. It was weary work to spend the
whole day in the open field, under a burning sun, parched
with thirst and constantly stooping, following at a distance
the reapers and the girls that bound up the sheaves, and all
for a few scattered ears that had been left unbound and would
therefore have been lost. And then a poor solitary woman is
so little thought of, and cannot reckon upon gentle treatment.
Many of the owners would not have the poor gleaners on their
fields, and the laborers were sometimes very rough to them.
No doubt they often brought it upon themselves by annoying
the reapers and binders, and the temptation was great to come
a few steps nearer the sheaves than was allowed ; it was such
slow work to pick the corn up ear by ear, the sheaves were
close by, and a few handfuls plucked from them brought more
than a whole day's toil. It was with timid steps that Euth
approached the field ; but her love for her mother-in-law gave
her strength.
She could not have wished for better fortune. The field to
which she went happened to belong to a rich relation of Elim-
elech, whose name was Boaz. Ruth was not aware of this.
It was quite by accident that she went to this particular field
early in the morning. She asked the reapers' leave to glean,
and they recognized the Moabitess and gave her permission.
Then she gave herself no rest, but gained the admiration of the
reapers by her patient diligence. Before the day was half gone,
when every one was in full work, the owner came to see how
things were going on. " Yahweh be with you ! " said he, as
he greeted his people ; and they answered, " Yahweh bless
you ! " As Boaz was looking round to see what his laborers
had done and what was still left to do, his eye fell upon Ruth.
He felt interested in the young woman, for she was so busily
employed, kept such a modest distance, and looked so respect-
able. He asked his bailiff who she was, and he was able to
inform him. " Wiry," said he, "it is Ruth, the Moabitess,
who came here with Naomi, out of Moab. She asked leave to
glean in the field, and has been working all day long. She
will not be at home much to-day, I fancy ! " 1
Boaz had heard of her self-sacrifice, and greatly admired
1 After an amended version.
430 RUTH THE MOABI1ESS.
her faithful affection ; so he went up to speak to her. "Listen,
my child," he said, in a friendly and encouraging voice, " be
sure you go to no other fields to glean, but keep to my land,
and stay near my work-women. I have told my people not
to annoy you in 'any way. When you are thirsty go to the
pitchers, and drink the water that my servants have drawn."
Addressed so kindly by a citizen, whose wealth and years
gave him such dignity, the Moabitess made a deep obeisance.
" Sir," she answered, "lam but a stranger. How comes it
that 3'ou show me such kindness?" "Because," said Boaz,
warmly, "I have heard of all that you have done for your
mother-in-law since the death of your husband ; how you have
left your parents and the land of your birth, and have come to
a people you do not know. May Yahweh reward you ! May
he, the god of Israel, under whose wings you have come to
dwell, reward you as you have deserved ! " Abashed at his
praise, and delighted to have a friend in the foreign land so
soon, Ruth bowed again, and stammered : "lam glad I have
found grace in your eyes, for you comfort me, and your words
have done me good ; your kindness is too great, for I am less
than one of your servants ! "
Encouraged bj T this interview, Ruth went on industriously
gleaning. When it was time for the reapers to rest a little,
and take their mid-day meal, Boaz sent for her, and, to her
great surprise, invited her to join them. She gladly made use
5f his permission, and lay down to eat with the others. Boaz
did not dole out a pittance to her, as in charity, but treated
her as one of his own servants ; nay, even more bountifully
than that, for she was not only able to satisfy herself with
toasted barley-bread soaked in vinegar, but had some to spare
for Naomi. What laborer there would grudge it her ! And
when she had left the work-people, to begin her work again,
they were all glad to hear Boaz say, " Let her come right in
amongst the sheaves, without disturbing her. She can bo
trusted. And you, girls ! when she is behind you, quietly
drop a handful of ears now and then. She must find good
gleaning here. Do you understand?"
No wonder then that in the evening, when she had thrashed
out her gleanings on the field, she found she had an ephah of
barley. Though Boaz had given his orders to the reaping
party in private, yet Ruth understood well enough that she
had intentional kindness to thank for the large amount she
had gleaned. So she went home in high spirits and showed
her mother-in-law how much she had collected and what she
RUTH THE MOABITESS. 431
had over from her mid-day meal. ' ' Why, child ! " cried
Naomi in astonishment, " where have you been gleaning? A
blessing on the man who has showed you this kindness ! "
Then Ruth told her everything that had happened, and said
that the man upon whose field she had been at work was called
Boaz. On hearing this Naomi exclaimed in delight: " Maj
Yahweh, the god who shows favor to the dead and to the
living, bless him! Listen, my child, for it could not havi
fallen out better. This Boaz is our relative, and, therefore
one of our redeemers." " And he told me," continued Ruth
who was never tired of repeating her generous patron's praises
" that I was to keep with his people all through the harvest.'
" That is good news ! " answered her delighted mother-in-law.
" Be sure you do so, for you might meet with a very differen
reception in some other field ! "
Ruth obeyed, and kept with the harvest- women of Boaz
throughout the barley harvest and the wheat harvest that fol-
lowed it,' living all the time with her mother-in-law. Now when
the harvest-time was over, Naomi said to Ruth : ' ' My child !
How can I long for anything more than for your welfare ? I
am ever thinking of it. And now I have made a plan and will
tell you what it is. This Boaz, with whose servants you are
working, is, as I have told you, one of our relatives. And I
think j'ou ought to take courage to remind him of this. Per-
haps he will redeem my dead husband's inheritance and marry
you. I will tell you what to do. This evening the barley will
be thrashed. Bathe and anoint yourself, and put on your best
attire, and when it is evening go to the thrashing-floor, but do
not let Boaz see you until he has finished his meal and is sure
to be in a good humor. Then go up to him and make your
request, and he will tell you what to do." Ruth did as she
was told, and the well-laid scheme produced the desired effect.
Boaz was not in the least offended at being reminded of his
duty to look after his poor relations, but commended Ruth for
desiring him, advanced as he was in years, as her husband.
He was quite prepared to restore the family to their former
position, but did not feel at liberty to do so until he had spoken
to one of his fellow-citizens who was still more nearly related
to Elimelech than he was himself. But he promised Ruth to
go through with the matter as quickly as possible. Mean-
while she must not be anxious ; every one in the city knew her
virtue. If this other relative did not wish to marry her, then
— as sure as Yahweh lived! — he would marry her himself.
Early in the morning Ruth came back to Naomi with six meas-
432 RUTH THE MOABITESS.
ures of barley which Boaz had given her. Her mother-in-
law was anxiously waiting for her, and cried as soon as she
drew near, "How have you prospered?" The kind reception
that Euth had met and the present she brought with her con-
vinced Naomi that all was going on well, and with good hopes
for the future, she advised her daughter-in-law to wait in pa-
tience, and not to go to work in the fields again for the pres-
ent. This Boaz was evidently a man who would not rest until
he had carried the affair to a successful issue.
She was right in her estimate of him ; for that very day
he went to the open space in front of the gate, which was
the regular place for the citizens to meet each other, and
transact their business in. One was almost sure to find
any one he wished to speak to there. So Boaz went and sat
there till he saw the man, of whom he had spoken to Ruth,
approaching. Then he called him, and giving him to under-
stand that he had some business of importance with him,
summoned ten other citizens as witnesses. When this was
done, he laid the matter in hand before him thus: "The
land that formerly belonged to our relative, Elimelech, must
be redeemed ; and I thought it would be best for you and
me to talk the matter over, since the duty rests upon us
alone ; upon you first, and then upon me. What do you
say to it ? " The other was not unwilling to do his duty in
redeeming the land ; but when Boaz reminded him that if
he did so, he must also marry Ruth, the Moabitess, so as to
continue the family of Elimelech, he drew back, and gladly
surrendered his rights to Boaz, drawing off his shoe and
handing it to him in confirmation of the transaction. This
was formerly the custom in Israel, when a sale or redemption
was effected. It had the same meaning as a shake of the
hand among us. Then Boaz said to the elders, in the
hearing of all present, " Bear witness that I redeem Elime-
lech's land this day, and take Mahlon's widow, Ruth, as my
wife, that her eldest son may be counted Mahlon's,- and that
his name may not perish from our city. You are my
witnesses." Upon which the elders, and all others who
were present answered, "We have heard.- May Yahweh
make this your wife, as Rachel and as Leah, who built up the
whole house of Israel ! Soon may your family in Bethlehem
be great ! "
The marriage was not long delayed ; and when Ruth gave
birth to a son the women said to Naomi, " Blessed be Yah-
weh, who has caused a true redeemer to be born for you
BERTH AND YOUTH OP SAMUEL. 433
this day ! May his name be famous in Israel ; may he grow
up to be the comfort and support of your old age ; for your
daughter-in-law has given him birth — she that is better than
seven sons to you ! " Then Naomi took the child and laid
it on her bosom and became its nurse. So the neighbors
said, " Naomi has got a son ! "
That child was Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of
David.
Surely such a pious and affectionate daughter-in-law was
worthy of being King David's ancestress, even though she
was a Moabitess by birth.
Chapter XXII.
THE BIRTH AND YOUTH OF SAMUEL.
1 Samuel I.-IV.
WE are gradually drawing near the end of the period of
the judges, and passing on to that of the kings. On
the border line, between the two, stands the imposing form
of Samuel, upon whose history we are now to enter. This
history, together with that of Saul and David, is contained
in the two books called after Samuel himself. The Greek
and the old Latin translations called them the first and second
books of Kings, while the two books that go by these names
with us were called the third and fourth of Kings. These
are the names still used in the translation adopted by the
Roman Catholic Church, the Vulgate, and are preserved as
second titles in our own " authorized version."
The degree of reliance to be placed on the different
sections of books of Samuel varies greatly. There is no
book in the Bible which shows so clearly that its contents
are not all derived from the same source. Some of the
elements of these books are ancient traditions, which not
only give us a fairly accurate account of real events, but
faithfully reproduce the religious ideas of ancient Israel.
Others, on the contrary, are simply inventions, which teach
us more about the narrators' views and opinions than about
the past history of their people. As long as we have to
follow the books of Samuel as our chief authorities, we shall
meet with the same evidence of composite authorship with
VOL. i. 19
434 BIRTH AND YOUTH OP SAMTJFX.
which the examination of the book of Genesis has made, us
familiar. Two conflicting traditions relating to the same
subject are constantly placed side by side in perfect sim-
plicity, and apparently with no idea that the one contradicts
the other. But though all this is rather vexatious, yet it
has its advantages, for it shows us the ideas entertained by
the Israelites at several different periods.
And again, as long as we are busy with the books of
Samuel, the. notes to indicate that my translation differs from
that of the authorized version will be especially frequent.
This is not caused by the carelessness of the scholars who
translated these books, but by the condition in which the
original -Hebrew itself has come down to us. In hundreds
of places in the Bible the transcribers of the Hebrew manu-
scripts have been guilty of the grossest blunders, and it is
often utterly impossible to make any sense of what they
have written. Sometimes, too, the old Jewish scholars have
purposely altered the text. 1 So that even with the help of
the old translations which have now and then followed an
uncorrupted text, it is often exceedingly difficult, and not
unfrequently impossible, to make out how the text really
stood originally. In some books, however, the text has
come down to us in a much better condition than in others ;
but in no historical book of the Old Testament is the text
so " corrupt," as it is called, as in the books of Samuel. In
some cases not only letters and words, but whole verses have
fallen out.
We may now examine the contents of the opening chapters.
North of Bethel, and east of the road that leads from
thence to Shechem, lies the city of Shiloh. 2 Here the ark
of Yahweh was placed after the conquest of Canaan, and the
sanctuary in which it stood was, as a natural consequence,
honored and sought above all others. Towards the end of
the period of the judges, a chief priest of the name of Eli,
with his sons Hophni and Phine'has, presided over this temple
of Yahweh of Armies.
At the great spring festival the concourse of pilgrims was
especially large ; and amongst those who regularly attended
it was a certain man of Ramathaim or Ramah. His name
was Elkanah, and he belonged to the clan of the Zuphites, of
the tribe of Ephraim. He had two 'wives, one of whom,
Hannah, was childless, while the other, Peninnah, had borne
him several sons and daughters. Now, when Elkanah came
J See p. 392. 2 Judges xxi. 19.
BIRTH AND YOUTH OP SAMUEL. 435
with all his household to join in celebrating the feast and
presented his thank-offering to Yahweh, he used to give each
member of his family a piece of meat, with the wine and all
else that belonged to it, at the sacrificial meal. So Peninnah
received the greater part for herself and her children, while
Hannah, who was quite alone, received but one piece ; 1 and
though her husband evidently loved her better than he did
her rival, yet she could not be consoled for her childlessness.
How she envied Peninnah, who could come year after year
to the sacrificial meal proudly surrounded by her children,
while she must still remain alone ! It embittered all her
enjoyment of the festal journey. More than once she was
unable even to join in the sacrificial meal, and sat there
eating nothing. 1 In vain did Elkanah endeavor to comfort
her by whispering affectionately, " Why, Hannah, what good
can come of weeping and fasting in this way? It will only
make you still more wretched. And is not my love worth
more than ten sons to you?" It was all in vain. Her
sorrow was too great for her to bear.
On one occasion Hannah could hardly restrain herself
till the meal was done, and as soon as it was over she retired
into solitude. With a sad heart she stood in the open space
before the sanctuary, wrung her hands, and gave free vent to
her sorrow as she sobbed her prayer to Yahweh. " O Yahweh
of Armies !" she said to herseif, "do. but look down upon
the misery of thy handmaid ; remember me in mercy, and
pass me not by without a blessing ! If thou givest me a
son, then I will consecrate him to thee ; he shall be a servant
in this temple, and a Nazarite all his life."
Now Eli, the chief priest, was sitting in his chair at the
door-post of the temple, and the passionate gestures by which
Hannah gave expression to her grief as she was uttering her
vow attracted his attention. Seeing her lips moving rapidly,
though he could hear no sound, he thought she must be
drunk. Such a thing was by no means unusual on occasion
of a sacrificial feast ; for when the worshippers were " making
themselves glad before Yahweh's face," as it was called, 2 the
merriment was sometimes carried far. But to such a man
as Eli it was a scandal for a woman to be drunk at the sanc-
tuary. "How long must this last?" he cried to Hannah.
' ' Go away and sleep till you are sober ! " Thus rudely in-
terrupted in her prayer, she answered : " Alas ! sir, I am sad
1 After an amended version.
2 Deuteronomj'.xii 7, 12, 18, xiv. 26, &c.
436 BIRTH AND YODTH OF SAMUKL.
at heart. I have drunk no wine or strong drink, but was
pouring out my heart before Yahweh. Think not that I am
a daughter of Belial (that is, a good-for-nothing creature) ;
for I did but speak from the depth of my sorrows." Then
Eli said : " Go in peace then, and Israel's god shall give you
what you have desired;" to which Hannah courteously re-
plied, as she took her leave, " May I hold a place in your
gracious memory ! " That prayer, followed at once by the
promise which seemed to come like an oracle of God from
the lips of the priest, comforted her so much that she was
able to join once more in the family meals, and to put on a
more cheerful appearance. Early the next morning Elkanah
and his family visited the sanctuar}' again, and after praying
to Yahweh there they returned to Ramah.
Twelve months afterwards Elkanah came again to offer
his yearly sacrifice, to fulfil his vows, and to pay his tithes ;
but this time Hannah was not with him. She remained at
home unutterably blessed in the possession of a son who had
been born to her a short time before, and whom she had
called Samuel, that is, "the pra}-ed for." She would not
go up till she could take him with her and leave him at the
sanctuary, and he was still too young to dispense with a
mother's care. "As soon as I have weaned my child," she
said, when urged by her husband to accompany him, " I will
take him to Shiloh and present him to Yahweh, that he may
remain in the sanctuary all his life." Elkanah acquiesced
in her desire, however strange it appeared to him, and said :
"Do what you think best. Staj T at home till j - ou have
weaned him. Only fulfil your vow to Yahweh." x
So when the child was old enough to be parted from his
mother, though still quite .young, Hannah brought him up
to Shiloh, with an ox three }'ears old, 1 an ephah of meal, and
a skin of wine, all of which she offered as a sacrifice. Then
she took the boy to Eli, and said, " As surely as thou livest,
I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying to Yahweh,
a few years ago. I was begging for this child, and Yahweh
answered my prayer. Now I am come to give back to mv
g >d what he has given me."
Then Hannah broke out into a song of gratitude and joy :
My heart leaps for joy at the goodness of Yahweh,
I lift up my head in his strength,
I am bold to "rebuke my enemies,
I rejoice in the victory that thou hast given me.
Non« : s holy as Yahweii, nor righteous as he; 1
1 After an amended version.
BIBTH AND YOUTH OF SAMTJEL. 437
There is no rock so mighty as our god.
Speak not, speak not proudly,
Let no haughty words proceed out of your mouth I
For Yahweh is a god of marvellous knowledge ;
Evil deeds cannot stand before him, 1
The bow of the mighty is broken,
But they that stumbled are girded with strength ;
Those that were satisfied with bread must now hire
themselves to labor,
And the hungry need no longer till their own land; x
A childless woman has seven sons,
While she that had many children pines ;
Yahweh kills, and he makes alive,
He casts down, and brings back from the world below.
It is Yahweh that makes men poor or rich,
He humbles and he exalts ;
He lifts up the lowly out of the d";t,
And raises the poor from the mire.
He gives him a place among princes,
And sets him upon a seat of honor;
For Yahweh established the pillars of the earth,
And set the firm land upon them.
He guards the footsteps of those he loves,
But £he godless are struck dumb, and are lost in darkness ;
For violence wins not the victory.
Those that fight against Yahweh are smitten with terror,
He thunders from heaven upon them ;
Yahweh rules over all the earth,
He gives might to his king,
And exalts the horn of his anointed.
When she had sung these words and prayed to Yahweh,
Hannah returned with her husband to Raman, leaving her
child behind her under Eli's care.
So Samuel became a servant of the temple, and was
constantly employed in work connected with the worship
there. But yet his surroundings were but ill-calculated to
make him a true and earnest man, for there was little of the
spirit of religion in those about him; The sons of Eh had
no fear of Yahweh, and they even laid their sacrilegious
hands upon that which was dedicated to Yahweh. They
had abundant opportunities of doing so ; for when any one
brought a beast to sacrifice to Yahweh, only a small part of
it, generally the fat, was actually burned upon the altar,
while the rest served as a meal for those who made the
sacrifice. Now while the meat was being boiled, the servant
of the priests was allowed to come with a fork and take out
a piece of flesh from the pot. This was the priest's due,
which he could fairly claim in payment for his services.
But Eli's sons sent their servant to claim the priest's portion
before the fat had been burned, and demanded that it should
1 After an a™»c39d version.
438 BIRTH AND YOUTH OF SAMUEL.
be given them raw instead of boiled. And if the sacriflcei
objected on the ground that until the offering had been made
the whole beast belonged to Yahweh, the servant of the
priests went on to threaten violence. Thus did Hophni and
Phinehas commit the grievous sin of treating the sacrifice of
Yahweh with contempt.
Such were the surroundings amongst which Samuel re-
ceived his priestly training. But the piety of his mother
must have counteracted these bad influences to some extent.
Her heart still clung to Samuel; and every 3 r ear, at the
spring feast, when Elkanah came with his family to Shiloh
to offer his sacrifice, she brought a new coat for her son witli
her. The first time they came in this waj' Eli pronounced
a blessing on Elkanah and his wife, and said, " May Yahweh
give you children by this woman, in the place of him whom
you have given to the sanctuary." 1 This blessing of the
priest turned out to be an oracle of God, for Hannah became
the joyful mother of three more sons and two daughters,
while Samuel still remained in Yahweh's temple.
Eli's kind words to Elkanah are what we should expect
from a good-hearted old man. And good-hearted Eli cer-
tainly was, but, unfortunately, he was what is sometimes very
wrongly called " a good sort of fellow : " that is to say he was
weak and yielding. This appears from his conduct towards
his sons. It was unquestionably his duty as chief priest to
maintain the sanctity of the offerings, with a strong hand if
necessary, and he ought to have made his sons feel his pater-
nal authority. He should have treated them with severity,
not only for their own sakes, but still more for the sake of the
people, for the conduct of the priests was undermining all
their reverence for Yahweh and his worship. He ought to
have punished, suspended, or deposed all who were guilty of
such sacrilege, and he would certainly have done so had he
honored God more than his own sons. But he never thought
of deposing them. When he was told of their doings he did
indeed reprove them, but in terms that were far too gentle.
" Why," he said, " do you behave so evilly as I am told you
do? Nay, my sons, these are ill reports that I hear of you.
It is Yahweh against whom you sin. 1 If any one sins against
a man, then the deity may come between the two, and show
how they may be reconciled ; but if a man sins against Yahweh,
who shall deliver the offender?" This exhortation, however
just, had no effect, for Hophni and Phinehas gave no heed to
1 After an amended version.
BIRTH AND YOUTH OP SAMUEL. 439
their father's words. It was clear that Yahweh had deter-
mined to destroy them, and was now blinding their eyes, that
they might themselves rush upon their miserable fate. What
a contrast to the young Samuel, who was growing up in the
enjoyment of high esteem among his fellow-men, and with his
God !
Eli was not left unwarned, for a man of God came to him
and uttered this terrible rebuke: "I revealed myself," saj^s
Yahweh, "to 3-our ancestors in the land of Egypt, and I
chose them and their sons to be my priests, to offer sacrifices
before me, to burn incense, and to bear the ephod. 1 Thus
have I given you the dues of all the offerings of the sons of
Israel. Why then do you cast a jealous eye upon the portion
of the sacrifices which falls to me, 2 honoring your sons more
than you honor me, and enriching yourself with the first
fruits of all the gifts of the Israelites ? Verily," saj's Yahweh,
" though I have indeed promised the priesthood to your family
for ever, yet now will I break the vow, for I honor those that
honor me, but those that reject me are cursed. And lo ! the
time draws near when I will root out you and yours, and none
shall attain to old age, and j r ou shall look with envious eyes
upon Israel's prosperity. 2 And when j r ou see that my altar
never lacks a priest while all 3 r our descendants die before their
time, you will be filled with grief. In token of the truth of
this prophecy, I tell you that both your sons shall die on the
same day. But I will raise up a faithful priest, after my own
heart ; I will bless his house, and he shall serve me in my
sanctuary all his days, before the face of my anointed. Then
the remnant of your house shall come -and bow down to the
dust before him and cry, ' Oh ! give us in mercy some priestly
office to support our lives.' "
Nor was Yahweh satisfied with warning Eli once, for he
chose the youthful Samuel to bear a second message. In
those days the spirit of religion languished, and no one ever
saw a vision. But one night when Eli, now blind and feeble
from extreme old age, laj- on his bed in the sanctuary where
the ark of Yahweh stood, early in the morning, before the
lights in the temple were lit, 2 Yahweh called to Samuel, who
was sleeping near, by his name. "I am here !" answered
the boy, getting up and going to Eli to ask him why he had
called him. Eli declared that he had not called him, and told
him to go to sleep again. But Samuel soon heard Yahwelfs
voice again, and the whole scene was repeated without his
1 g e e p. 3T5. s After an amended version.
440 BIRTH AND YOUTH OP SAMUEL.
suspecting who it was that called him. But when he heard
the voice, and came to Eh a third time, the old man saw that
Yahweh was about to make some revelation to the boy. So
he said, "Samuel, if you hear the voice again, then say,
' Speak, Yahweh ! thy servant heareth.' " A few moments
afterwards Yahweh came into the chamber, approached ^he
sleeping boy, and cried as before, "Samuel, Samuel!" He
answered reverently that he was ready to listen ; and Yahweh
said, "Behold, I shall soon do that in Israel at which the ears
of every one who hears it will tingle. All that I have foretold
to Eh concerning himself and his house I shall bring to pass
full soon ; for I have warned him that he and his remotest
posterity shall be punished for the sin of his sons. He him-
self shares their guilt, for he did not depose them 1 when they
treated the deity with contempt. Wherefore I have sworn an
oath, that no sacrifice shall ever atone for the sin of Eli's
house." After receiving this terrible message, Samuel lay
quiet until it was time for him to get up and open the temple
doors. He naturally shrank from telling Eli what he had
heard ; but when the old man not only questioned him about
it, but conjured him to hide nothing that Yahweh had said to
him, at last he delivered the fearful message. " Let Yahweh
do what seems him good," answered the poor old man, more
in apathy than resignation.
This was not the only revelation that was made to Samuel.
It was well known that he enjoyed the favor of Yahweh. He
often appeared to him in Shiloh, enabled him to foresee the
future, and allowed none of his prophecies to remain unful-
filled. And thus the report was gradually spread through all
the land of Israel, that Samuel was a prophet of Yahweh, or,
as people called it then, a " seer."
Meanwhile, Yahweh's threat against Hophni and Phinehas
hastened to its fulfilment. In those days, the Israelites and
the Philistines were constantly at war, and it so happened
that the former suffered a defeat, in which four thousand war-
riors fell, at Ephek, in the north-west of Judah. By no means
disheartened, but burning with shame at their humiliation, and
longing for revenge, the Israelites returned to their camp.
The leaders held a council of war at once, and discussed the
question, "Why did not Yahweh help us in the battle with
the Philistines to-day ? Why did he suffer us to be defeated ? "
No one could give a satisfactory answer ; but one thing was
certain, — namely, that the battle must be renewed, and that
1 After an amended version.
BIRTH AND YOUTH OF SAMUEL. 44l
Yahweh must be induced to lend more powerful aid. But how
were they to compel him to do so ? The ark must be brought
from Shiloh ; for then Yahweh would be with them, and would
secure them the victory. The suggestion was carried out at
once. The ark was brought ; and, when the two priests,
Hophni and Phinehas, came to the camp with it, the Israel-
ites raised such a mighty shout of triumph, that the earth
shook with their cry. Now they were sure of victory !
When the Philistines learned what had happened, and heard
why the Israelites were so triumphant, they could not escape
a certain sense of fear, for they, too, thought that these gods
of the Hebrews were very mighty. But they did not lose
their courage. " Be brave," they cried to one another, " and
quit yourselves like men, O Philistines ! or else you will be-
come the slaves of the Hebrews just as they have been your
slaves hitherto. Be men ! " They did indeed fight bravely,
and now the Israelites learned that the presence of the ark
alone did not make them invincible, for they were not only
defeated, but completely scattered. They lost three thousand
men. The ark of God itself fell into the hands of the enemy,
and Hophni and Phinehas, the priests who bore it, were slain
in the battle.
The sad news was brought to Shiloh by a Benjamite. With
his clothes rent and with ashes on his head, the fugitive en-
tered the city, and cries of woe soon rose on every side. The
blind Eli, now ninety-eight years of age, sat at the city gate
in anxious expectation, thinking of the fate of the ark. He
soon perceived that something unusual was going on, and sent
for the messenger. " I have come from the camp. . I have
escaped," he answered hesitatingly to the old man's pressing
questions. "Speak out," repeated Eli, "and tell me how
things stand." Alas ! he was prepared for evil tidings, but
when he heard the whole truth it completely overwhelmed him :
"Israel is defeated — the loss of life is heavy — both your
sons are slain — and . . . the ark of God is in the hands of
the Philistines!" That last word — "the ark is lost!" —
was too much for the faithful servant of the sanctuary of
Yahweh. He fell backwards from his seat and — was gone.
He had ruled Israel as a judge for forty years.
On this same day of sorrow Eli's daughter-in-law, the wife
of Phinehas, brought a child into the world whose birth was
hastened by the shock of the ill-news, and cost his mother her
life. When she heard that she had given birth to a son, she
thought of the great blow which had fallen that day upon Israel.
19*
442 BIKTH AND YOUTH OF SAMUEL.
and her pale lips murmured : " Call him Ichabod (or, where is
the glory'!), for Israel's glory is in the power of the foe."
We must now make a few remarks upon certain points in
the narrative just given, and in the first place upon Samuel's
extraction.
The story begins by a perfectly distinct statement that
Samuel's father was a Zuphite of the tribe of Ephraim. On
the other hand the writer of the book of Chronicles gives us
two pedigrees, according to which he was a Kohathite of the
tribe of Levi. 1 These two accounts of his origin cannot both
be true. It was no more possible for Samuel to be both a
Levite and an Ephraimite by descent than for the Levite
Jonathan, of whom we have already heard, 2 to belong to the
tribe of Judah. These passages in the book of Chronicles,
written about three centuries before Christ, show us how little
harm people saw, at that time, in inventing genealogies.
Indeed the same practice was still common at a much later
date. 8 It is easy to understand what it was that unpelled the
chronicler to make out by hook or by crook that Samuel was
a Levite. The son of Elkanah had been a servant of the
temple, and had more than once offered sacrifices and per-
formed other priestly functions. 4 In the eyes of the writer of
the Chronicles this was scandalous to the last degree, for in
his time none but sons of Aaron were permitted to officiate as
priests, and only Levites might assist them in the service of
the temple. He was not aware that these regulations were of
comparatively recent origin, but imagined that they dated from
the time of Moses, in whose name they were enforced. How
was it possible, then, that so pious a man as Samuel should
transgress these divine decrees ? It could not be. Nor would
God have allowed so great a sin to go unpunished. Samuel,
therefore, must have been a Levite. This was the first step
towards the invention of these pedigrees. But the truth is, as
we have observed more than once already, that it was not till
live centuries after Samuel's time that the Levites established
their exclusive right to the exercise of priestly functions, and
it was quite a century later yet before the rights and duties of
the Aaronites and the other Levites were accurately defined
and the forms of worship regulated in accordance with the new
ideas. In Samuel's time no one had the remotest conception
of any such laws, and there was no religious objection to any
individual's sacrificing where and when he chose.
•
1 1 Chronicles vi. 16-28, 33 38. 2 See pp. 379, 380.
8 See vol. iii. chapter i. * 1 Samuel vii. 9, ix. 13, x. 8, xvi. 2 ft.
BIRTH AND tOTJTH OF SAMUEL. 443
From the consideration of Samuel's extraction, we naturally
go on to the account of what took place before his birth.
There is nothing impossible in what we are told about it —
that Hannah had long waited for the joy of motherhood before
she had a child, and that she looked upon the birth of her son
as a sign that Yah well had heard her prayers. But there is
one feature in the story which is certainly fictitious — I mean
the statement that Hannah called her child Samuel,' " because
she had gained him from Yahweh by her prayer ; " for " Sam-
uel" cannot possibly mean " the prayed for," or anything of
the kind. It is not unlikely, therefore, that the materials of
the story itself were, to some extent, supplied by this false
derivation of the name. It seems natural enough that people
should have been ready to believe that any extraordinary man
had been long hoped and waited for ; ! and the stories of the
birth of Isaac, of Esau and Jacob, of Samson, and of John the
Baptist, together with many parallel stories found amongst
ov.her peoples, all show how readily this idea occurred to
people's minds.
As to the further account of Samuel's early life, this much
is certain, that he enjoyed great fame as a seer. It is quite
conceivable, therefore, that what he witnessed at the sanctu-
ary first roused the prophetic impulse within him, and that his
first prophecy — uttered, it may be, after many a bitter strug-
gle with himself — was an announcement of the fall of the
priests of Shiloh, as a punishment of their impiety. But
however willing we may be to admit the truth of this, it does
not at all follow that we are to accept the whole narrative as
it stands, without further examination. Indeed, we cannot
possibly do so ; for the actual appearance of Yahweh to Sam-
uel, the connection of Hannah's prayer and Eli's promise with
the child's birth, and, subsequently, with that of his brothers
and sisters, and the circumstantial prediction of the unknown
prophet who first warned Eli, are all of them accepted by our
author with the same unquestioning belief.
In conclusion, let us turn our attention to the contents of
this anonymous prophecy. It gives us the key to the writer's
meaning, and so puts us in a position to take a general view
of the whole narrative. That this prophecy was written some
time afu>. the date at which it is supposed to have been uttered,
is obvious from what it saj's of the faithful priest who was to
supersede the house of Eli. This priest is to walk "before
the face of Yahweh's anointed ; " 2 and in Hannah's song of
1 See vol. iii. chapter ii. 2 1 Samuel ii. 35.
444 BIRTH AND YOUTH OF SAMUEL.
praise this " anointed of Yahweh" appears again. 1 The ex-
pression can only menu the king of Tsrael ; and in Samuel's
youth, when Israel had no king, it would have had no meaning.
It is impossible to avoid the conclusion, therefore, that both
Hannah's song of praise and this prophecy date from a time
when Israel was governed by a king.
To understand the story rightly it will be necessary to antici-
pate the course of the histo^-, and to describe the condition
of the priests of Shiloh under the first kings of Israel. Sev-
eral descendants of Eli still appear as friends of Saul and
David, but the sanctuary at Shiloh had seen its best days
when the ark fell into the hands of the Philistines. In David's
time it was gradually overshadowed bj' Jerusalem, to which
city the ark had been removed, and its glory faded quite awaj'
when Solomon built the temple on Mount Zion, which at once
became the great national sanctuarj-, to which the tribes went
up on pilgrimage. No grandchildren of Hophni and Phinehas,
but Zadok and his family were the priests of this new temple,
and any descendant of Eli who desired to earn his bread in
some priestly capacity was dependent upon these Zadokites.
It must have been when Zadok ' ' walked before the face of
Yahweh's anointed," that is David or Solomon, and was
blessed as a '' faithful priest," that this oracle was really com-
posed, though put into the mouth of a prophet of the time of
Samuel's youth. The writer, who was a supporter of Zadok,
looked back upon the former fame and influence of Eli's
priestly house, and strove to give a reason for its fall. As far
as he knew, this family had served the altar of Yahweh ever
since the Israelites came out of Egypt. Whether this was
really so or whether Eli's ancestors had at least been con-
nected with the ark at Shiloh ever since the conquest, we can
no longer tell, for we know nothing of the previous history of
the family. We cannot even say to which tribe it belonged.
The book of Chronicles does indeed make Ahimelech, one of
Eli's progeny, a descendant of Ithamar, the son of Aaron : '
but this proves nothing, since the writer could not have con-
ceived such a thing as a high priest who did not belong to the
house of Aaron. 8
It is not of much consequence to what tribe Eli's house be-
longed ; but the history of the fall of this priestly family gives
us abundant food for reflection. Once it was prosperous and
influential. The priests of the most celebrated sanctuary in
Israel could not but be powerful ; for popular assemblies would
1 1 Samuel ii. 10. i 1 Chronicles xxiv. 3. s See p. 442.
BIRTH AND YOUTH OP SAMUEL. 445
often be held in their neighborhood, especially at the time of
the great feasts, questions of varied interest would be raised,
and divine responses often asked. In that time of confusion,
when as yet there was no king in Israel, the priests at Shiloh
were doubtless looked upon by many Israelites as their nat-
ural guides and rulers. But in the course of time all this was
changed. Shiloh was thrown into the shade by Jerusalem,
and Eli's house by Zadok and his sons. How did this come
to pass ? The writer of the prophecy and of the whole legend
to which it belongs answers : Through the sins of Eli's sons
and the weakness of theu father. History gives other reasons.
The loss of the ark, the rise of David the Judsean to the throne,
the erection of the temple at Zion, — these are so many causes
of the fall of the priests of Shiloh, which have nothing to do
with their virtue or vice. If they had done their part, let
another take up the task ! This is how the work of the world
is done, and we can reconcile ourselves to it easily enough if
only all is done to the glory of God. But alas ! the family of
Eh fell ingloriously, and to some extent at least by its own
fault. Wealth and honor had made it overweening. Its long
hold of power had made it careless and reckless. It ceased
to honor the god whose altar it served. It had long been the
salt of Israel, but now the salt had lost its savor and must be
thrown aside.
"What a striking type of many a community and many an
institution for philanthropical objects or the spread of the
kingdom of God ! They, too, grow old in the course of time,
Their machinery grows stiff. The spirit has gone out of them.
At last they are superseded by others. Let them go !
But from the midst of these mournful relics of what was
once a spiritual power, new life springs up. Eli's race be-
comes degenerate ; but Samuel grows up in the midst of it
and brings new life with him, while Eli's place is taken by
another. The corruption of this or that family, people, com-
munity, or Church may delay the coming of God's kingdom,
but cannot prevent it.
446 Samuel's work.
Chapter XXIH.
SAMUEL'S WOKK.
1 Samuel VII. 2-17.
WE shall presently see what became of the ark, and how,
after all kinds of adventures, it rested for a time at
Kirjath-jearim. Meanwhile we must try to discover the spe-
cial characteristics of Samuel's work. The task is far from
easy, and if our object were simply to reproduce the substance
of the Bible stories, we might almost entirely save ourselves
the trouble of dealing with the character of Samuel's work at
all. But since we are attempting to sketch the history of
Israel and its religion in connection with these stories, we
must not omit to describe the special movements due to
Samuel.
When the ark had been twenty years at Kirjath-jearim the
complaints of the Israelites under the heavy yoke of the Phil-
istines began to grow louder and louder. They could bear it
no longer. The time was therefore come when Samuel's words
might find a hearing, lie directed his people to the only true
means of deliverance ; he urged them to repent. " Turn with
all your soul to Yahweh, and put away the strange gods awl
Astartes ! Give your whole heart to Yahweh, and serve him
alone ! " The Israelites, in their dire necessity, gave ear
to his reproof, and forsook the worship of their Baals and
Astartes. Thus deliverance became possible, and accord-
ingly Samuel summoned the whole people to Mizpeh to join
with him in prayer for Israel.
The sons of Israel drew together in great numbers. The
solemn day arrived. A universal fast was observed. The
priests poured out water by Yahweh's altar, and crying "Lord !
we are lost, even as water that is poured out ! " besought him
for deliverance. The people lay down in sack-cloth and ashes,
and smote their breasts, sighing, " "We have sinned ! " and
Samuel sat in judgment over them. Woe to him who was
charged with any offence to which the people's misery might
in some measure be assigned ! Woe to him who had " com-
mitted folly in Israel ! " He had small mercy to expect from
either judge or people, and the stern sentence was ruthlessly
carried out. Thus was Israel purified at Mizpeh.
Samuel's work. 447
But the Philistines had heard that there was to be an assem-
bly of the people, and fearing that the Israelites would rebel,
they had determined to be beforehand with them. Their
princes, accordingly, had called their troops together, and at
that very moment they were all marching upon Mizpeh. Con-
sternation seizes the Israelites. They are undone ! Samuel
is besieged with supplications : " Oh, pray to Yahweh for us,
and cease not ! Our god must rescue us ! Withdraw not
your help from us ! " With unshaken faith in Yahweh's
mighty help Samuel girds himself to battle with the foe ;
but it is not with spear and bow that he enters on the fight.
All his hopes are fixed on Yahweh. He draws up the Israel-
ites in battle array, and raises an altar on the hill. The Phil-
istines draw near. The sons of Israel can see the glitter of
their spear-heads, they can hear the arrows rattling in the
quivers, and the deafening war-cries that foretell the fall of
Israel. . . . But meanwhile Samuel has sacrificed a sucking
lamb ; the smoke curls upwards, and the prophet lifts up
his hands to heaven. " O Yahweh, rescue Israel ! Give not
thy people into the hands of the uncircumcised ! " So he
prays, and behold ! Yahweh answers. A fearful peal of
thunder rolls overhead. It is the voice of Yahweh. The
Philistines stand riveted to the ground. Another and an-
other peal ! See ! a panic of God has come upon them, and
they dash against each other in confused and hurried flight,
while the men of Israel pursue them.
Well might Samuel raise a great stone near Mizpeh when
the victory was won, and call it Eben-ezer (or stone of help) :
for had not Yahweh thus far helped the people? Yes, and
with no grudging hand ; for the Philistines were so humbled
that they surrendered all the cities they had previously taken
from the Israelites, and even gave them Gath and Ekron.
It need hardly be said, therefore, that as long as Samuel lived
they did not show themselves upon Israel's territory again,
for Yahweh's hand was heavy on them all this time. And
since there was peace between Israel and the Canaanites also,
it was a time of general prosperity.
Samuel was the recognized judge of all the tribes. He
lived in llamah, where he had built an altar ; and many pil-
grims came there to submit their difficulties to his decision.
But, with the view of maintaining order and justice as effect-
ually as possible, he now and then made a journey through the
surrounding districts and visited Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpeh
every year.
448 samttel's work.
We have already seen, from more than one example, that
the people reverenced certain sacred stones, and treated them
with superstitious regard long after their original significance
had been forgotten. In such cases the advocates of the ex-
clusive worship of Yahweh often declared that the stones
were monuments of some event which would bring them
into harmless connection with the service of Yahweh. 1 It
is natural to suppose therefore that this was the case with
the "Eben-ezer" nearMizpeh; but it is also quite possible
that the inhabitants of the neighborhood did really associate
with this piece of rock the memory of a victory won by Sam-
uel at the spot. In any case, however, the story of this
judge's warlike fame is not only highly colored but mon-
strously exaggerated by the legend; for we shall presently
see that in his days the Israelites were so completely in the
power of the Philistines that they were compelled to give
up their weapons, while all the smiths were carried away
out of the land, and there were only two Israelite warriors
who possessed weapons forged of steel. Nay ! if a man's
ploughshare, or any other metal implement, wanted sharp-
ening, he was actually obliged to take it to the country of
the Philistines, and have it seen to there. 2 It was David
who first completely conquered the Philistines and made
them powerless against Israel. Our writer took for granted
that Samuel had secured his people prosperity and success,
and had triumphed over their enemies ; for he could not im-
agine that Yahweh would have refused to hear and accept the
prayer of such a pious man. His supposition is, however,
contradicted by the sequel of the history. For if Samuel had
really overcome the Philistines, Israel would never have
chosen a king. His attempts to deliver his people, so far
from being successful, completely failed. Nor is it true —
as we shall presently see — that there was peace in his days
between the Israelites and the Canaanites.
Samuel's great services did not consist in military successes,
but in what he accomplished for the religious life of his people ;
and to form a true estimate of his work we must have a clear
idea of what was going on in the heads and hearts of the best
Israelites of his age.
It was a time of general spiritual awakening. The precise
occasion of the movement is no longer known to us, but it is
evident that just at this period the most zealous worshippers
i Compare pp. 105, 175 ff., 196; pp. 341, 354.
2 1 Samuel xiii. 19-22, after an amended version.
Samuel's work. 449
of Yahweh and champions of his people gathered strength,
and made themselves felt as the}- had not been before. The
sanctuary at Shiloh was diligently sought, and Eli, the chief
priest; there, acquired so much influence that he is even called
a judge. 1 This enthusiasm was constantly stimulated by the
special circumstances of the people at the time, for we must
not forget that zeal for Yahweh and zeal for Israel always
went hand in hand, and indeed, as a rule, were almost iden-
tical. It was becoming clearer and clearer to the thoughtful
Israelites that the great question they had to decide was this :
" Are we to melt away and disappear amongst the Canaanites,
or are we to maintain our special Israelitish character based
on the worship of Yahweh, cost what it may?" There was
no other choice. If the sons of Israel went on in the path
they had trodden hitherto, and were not prepared to make
any extraordinary effort, then the customs, the religious
practices, and the modes of thought of Canaan would gain
the mastery, and Israel would never attain a distinct national
existence. Yahweh would gradually give place to some Baal,
or perhaps be superseded by a Philistine deity, until at last
his worship would only survive in a few private families. If
the people of Yahweh was ever to master the land of Canaan,
it must be now — now or never !
This conviction was gaining ground more and more rapidly
when Samuel succeeded to Eli's position and made his in-
fluence deeply felt. To enable us to understand his work it
will be well to consider three subjects in succession : The ex-
ercise of his office as judge, the foundation of the schools of
the prophets, and the order of the Nazarites.
We are obliged to have recourse to conjecture in attempt-
ing to form an idea of the "judging " of the men who gave the
period between Joshua and Saul its name. Indeed the name
itself is very misleading, for the heroes who rescued Israel
from its foes had, as a rule, very little of the character of
judges, and should rather receive some such title as rulers,
princes, or chieftains. 2 Samuel is the first whose activity as
a judge is in any degree known to us, and it is but very little
we know even in this case. We are told of three places
which he visited every year in his capacity as judge. These
places — Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpeh — were none of them
very far from his dwelling-place at Eamah ; and though he
is said in general terms to have judged " Israel," we may be
sure that a comparatively small area was the principal scene
i 1 Samuel iv. 18. 2 See pp. 364, 365.
450 samuei.'s work.
of his activity. When Samuel was still at Shiloh, all Israel,
from Dan to Beershetaa, knew that Yahweh had chosen him as
his messenger, 1 but the difficulties of travelling were such that
but few would come to Ramah from the outlying districts of
the country to seek advice from Samuel ; nor would he, on
his part, be aware of what took place at a distance from Ben-
jamin's territory. But though his influence was most power-
fully felt in his own city and its neighborhood, it doubtless
spread from this centre over the whole country, especially as
the Israelites were more closely united to each other in his
days than they had ever been before.
We have no direct information as to Samuel's principles of
government or the objects he strove to realize as a ruler ; but
indirectly we learn several important facts, and from these
again we may fairly draw yet further conclusions. We know
that in the early part of his reign king Saul ruled in the spirit
of Samuel, and we can therefore argue from the actions of the
monarch to the principles of the judge. Now, we find it re-
corded of Saul 2 that he banished the soothsayers and necro-
mancers out of Israel, and forbade the practice of their arts
upon pain of death. In the same spirit one of the most
ancient Israelite codes of law 8 ordains with abrupt simplicity :
" Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." We are safe in as-
suming, therefore, that Samuel persecuted all those who were
reputed to be inspired by a soothsaying spirit or to have the
power of calling up the dead from the land of shadows. It
is not easy to tell exactly what difference there was supposed
to be between these soothsayers and a man like Samuel him-
self, who was known as a" seer." For he too was believed
to have the power of gaining information inaccessible by anj
natural means, and even of revealing the future. 4 But the
distinction, whatever it may have been, was still preserved in
the later legislation. 5 It certainly was not supposed that while
the seer or prophet of Yahweh did really understand the
future, the soothsayer or necromancer was an impostor. The
caoe is precisely similar to that of the magicians in Egypt,
against whom Moses and Aaron contended. According to
the Old narrator these magicians were able to perform real
miracles, 6 and in the same way the Israelites believed that the
soothsayers foretold the future with perfect accuracy, and that
the necromancers actually summoned the shades from the
1 1 Samuel iii. 20. 2 1 Samuel xxviii. 3, 9.
8 Exodus xxii. 18. * 1 Samuel iii., ix. 6, 15 ff., x. 2ff., xv. 10 ff., xvi,
8 Deuteronomy xviii. 10-16. • Compare pp. 271-273.
Samuel's work. 451
world below. 1 The difference between these heathens and
the pious worshippers of Yahweh depended entirely upon the
source from which they derived their respective powers. In
the one case the power to foretell the future was derived from
Yahweh, in the other it was conferred by the soothsaying
spirits. The orthodox Israelites by no means denied the
existence of these spirits. On the contrary one of the law-
givers defines a magician as " one in whom there is a sooth-
saying spirit." 2 But a faithful worshipper of Yahweh must
not listen to them, must not "lust after them," as it was
called. 8
We may treat these persecutions of the wizards and
witches therefore as a proof of hostility to heathenism and a
desire to maintain the true Israelitish characteristics of the
people. In this case they form part of the same policy
which dictated the oppression of the Canaanites that is also
ascribed to Saul. " In his zeal for the sons of Israel," we
are told, 4 he endeavored to root out the Gibeonites. These
Gibeonites were a remnant of the old population ; but they
do not appear in the character of slaves of the temple, as
the writer of the book of Joshua makes them, 6 but as inde-
pendent freemen. Saul would certainly have hesitated to
rob an Israelitish sanctuary of its servants. The Gibeon-
ites evidently formed a little Canaanite kingdom which the
Israelites were bound, by an ancient and solemn treaty,
not to molest. But their territory lay in the midst of the
tribe of Benjamin, which was the centre of the revival of the
religious life of Israel, and it was therefore a greater source
of irrita&on to the Israelites than any similar kingdom which
had survived from the olden time. In neglecting the an-
cient treaties with the Canaanites, whom he oppressed and
in many cases actually put to death, Saul was doubtless act-
ing in the spirit of Samuel. Simeon and Levi, as 'sketched
in the legend, avenging their sister's shame with the edge
of the sword, careless of the hatred they roused in the
hearts of the still powerful Canaanites, and the danger to
which they exposed the lives of their relatives, 6 — these
were the men after Samuel's heart. "Let everything go
to ruin sooner than that Israel should intermarry with the
stranger," was his cry. We can imagine how, when he held
judgment, or had any other opportunity of influencing his
eountaymen, he fostered the Israelite's feeling of his national
i See chapter xxxt p. 525. 2 Leviticus xx. 27. a Leviticus xx. 6.
* 2 Samuel xxi. 2. ■ 6 See p. 349. « See pp. 396-403.
452 SAMUEL'S WORK.
dignity, stimulated his hatred of the Canaanites, prevented
or dissolved mixed marriages, urged his hearers to deeds of
violence against the Canaanites, destroj-ed the4r temples, and
made the worshippers feel the weight of his wrath in word
and deed.
We have assumed that Samuel vindicated the slighted
honor of Israel's god, so closely connected with that of the
people, by deeds of violence and even of bloodshed ; and we
are justified in so doing, for antiquity knew no weapon but
the sword for securing the triumph of truth ; and Yahweh
was a terrible fire-god, who would not suffer himself to be
insulted unavenged, and who delighted in offerings of blood.
Moreover we shall see that on the few occasions when Samuel
was in a position to act with severity, he was invariably the
advocate of sanguinary measures. It was he who com-
manded Saul to lay a whole people under the ban, and who
' ' hewed " a captive prince ' ' in pieces before Yahweh " 1 with
his own hand. All his relations to Saul mark him as stern
and inexorable. The ordinances of Yahweh which he en-
forced were doubtless the severe and sanguinary customs
which were already beginning here and there to give place
to gentler practices. If Samuel could prevent it no blood-
redeemer should suffer himself to be appeased by money, and
no vow should be broken by the redemption of the conse-
crated object. Whoever committed an act of gross unchas-
titj, or laid his hand on that which was holy, was stoned to
death, together with all his family, that his name might be
rooted out from among the holy people of Yahweh.
Such was the spirit in which Samuel pronounced judgment
and ruled in Israel.
" What is now called a prophet used formerly (in Samuel's
time) to be known as a seer." This noteworthy assertion
is made by a writer who lived in the golden age of proph-
ecy ; 2 and it is confirmed by several other passages, which
show that the name of ' ' seer " was still in use even after
Samuel's time. 8 There is no difficulty in understanding
what was meant by the word. It meant a soothsayer ; one
whom his god favored from time to time with glimpses of
the future, by dreams or otherwise. We saw just now that
if the Israelite rejected soothsaying, he did so only in as far
as it was connected with heathenism, and that the functions
1 1 Samuel xv. Iff ,33 a 1 Samuel ix. 9.
8 2 Samuel xxiv. 11 ; 1 Chronicle xxi. 9.
Samuel's work. 453
of a seer of Yahweh were essentially tlie same as those
of a heathen wizard. The statement that a prophet was
formerly called a seer seems to show that at that time the
distinguishing mark of a prophet was his power of read-
ing the future. Unquestionably the prophets themselves
laid claim to this power, and the Israelites of every age
believed that the difference between a true and a false pro-
phet was simply this : that the true prophet drew his in-
spiration from Yahweh, and the false prophet derived it
from some other source. And yet we should be doing the
Israelite prophets great injustice if we looked upon their
calling as no better than the practice of magic. It is true
that the prophets usually appeared in the character of sooth-
sa3*ers, and that many of them were really nothing better.
But it is something far nobler which gives them their irre-
sistible claim to our attention. It is the religious enthusiasm
which in its several degrees was common to them all.
The word prophet is from the Greek, and means "one
who foretells;" but the Hebrew word nabi, which we trans-
late prophet, has a different meaning. The exact interpre-
tation of the word is uncertain, but it is used of one in a
state of ecstasy or transport. The verb derived from i-o,
which we translate "to prophesy," was sometimes even used
in a bad sense of being raving mad. 1 The prophet, then,
was known by the ecstatic utterances of an enthusiasm and
excitement attributed to the inspiration of some deity. He
was not always under this influence, but only by fits and
starts, when the spirit of God came upon him, or rested on
him as it was called. "When these seasons or moments of
spiritual excitement were over the prophet was once more
an ordinary man ; perhaps quite as calm as his neighbors. 2
Sometimes, therefore, when he wished to be inspired, but
" the hand of his god was not upon him," he would try to
bring himself into the desired frame of mind by means o f
stimulating music. 8
Such phenomena were by no means rare in the religious life
of the ancients. We find them, for instance, amongst the
Canaanites, 4 and thej r still reappear from time to time when
men of low intellectual development are seized by some
religious idea and give the rein to their emotion till it passes
into a frenzy. These ' ' revivals " are generally of a decidedly
morbid character, and bear little or no good fruit. Nay,
1 1 Samuel xviii. 10. 2 Numbers xi. 25.
8 2 Kings iii. 15. Compare 1 Samuel x. 5. 4 1 Kings xviii. 19 ff.
454 Samuel's -work.
under the guidance of ignorant enthusiasts, they have often
become the means of trampling clown the truth. In itself,
therefore, the appearance of these "inspired" Israelites
proves nothing to the nation's credit. Baal, too, had his
prophets. Everything depends upon the religious truth which
the prophet had grasped, and the exaltation of the ideas for
which his enthusiasm glowed. We shall often observe in
the sequel of the history that the moral tone of many of the
Israelite prophets left much to be desired. They spoke in
Yahweh's name, indeed, but their conception of Yahweh and
his will was extremely narrow. Others, however, must take
rank amongst the greatest and noblest of mankind, and it
was they who preserved Israel from destruction. Now this
Israelitish prophecy, like every other special manifestation
of the religious life, has had its history, its rise, its glory, its
decay, its fall ; and at present we have to consider its rise.
Moses is called a prophet more than once ; 1 Deborah also
bears this name, 2 and on several occasions the historians
bring a prophet upon the scene even before Samuel's time. 8
But this does not prove that prophecy had realty taken root
amongst the Israelites as early as the exodus from Egypt ;
it simply shows that the prophets recognized spirits kindred
to their own in Moses and in some of the judges ; — while the
prophet who warns Israel 4 and the man of God who comes
to Eli 6 are historical fictions to be classed with the angel of
Yahweh who is said in another passage to have exhorted the
people at Bochim. 6 As for Moses, we are expressly told that
his power was not derived from the fitful inspiration which
specially characterized the prophets.' But still we may take
it for granted that religious phenomena similar to those of
prophecy did now and then appear even before Samuel. In
speaking, then, of the rise of prophecy in connection with
his work, we do not mean that it suddenly sprang into
existence just at this time, still less that Samuel called it
into existence ; but in the first place that it was in his time
and partly through his influence that it became a power in
Israel, and in the second place that he endeavored to direct
the spiritual life that was being awakened all around him,
and to make it subservient to the welfare of the people.
In the times of spiritual and political tension during
1 Deuteronomy xviii. 15, 18, xxxiv. 10-12, and elsewhere.
2 Judges iv. 4. 8 Numbers xi. 16 ff.; Judges vi. 8-10.
4 Judges vi. 7-10. « 1 Samuel ii. 27.
9 Judges ii. 1-5. ' Numbers xii. 6-8
samukl's work. 455
which the sons of Israel looked up to Samuel as the seer of
Yahweh, it sometimes happened that certain zealots of Yah-
weh were seized by a religious enthusiasm for which the
raptures of the prophets of Baal and other Canaanite gods
and goddesses served to some extent as a model ; for en-
thusiasm is infectious. When several of these zealots met
together, they were particularly liable to fall into such
ecstasies. Bands of fanatics would sometimes storm through
the country with wild music and half-frenzied songs. Woe
to the Canaanite who met them on their way ! Whatever
had been consecrated to the religion of the former masters
of the land was destroyed as soon as the eyes of the ' ' in-
spired " band fell upon it ; and it went hard with the Is-
raelite whose indifference in his people's cause had roused
their indignation. After a time, regular companies of these
young- zealots came to be formed here and there. Thus they
quickened one another's enthusiasm, until their meetings
gradually became the centres of the political and religious
life of the people. These communities are usually called the
" schools of the prophets." There is no particular objection
to this name as long as we do not allow it to suggest an
institution in which young men were taught the art of proph-
esying ; for this art could not be taught. The young proph-
ets all lived together, 1 and the name of " cloister" would,
therefore, be better than " school," were it not that the word
makes us think involuntarily of a place in which the inmates
are compelled to remain. This was not the case" with the
prophets, for they were entirely free, and some of them were
married. The Hebrew name for the " school" or " cloister"
(naioth) we are not able to interpret ; and our authorized
version has simply left it untranslated in the only passage in
which it occurs. 2 The cloister there alluded to is that in
Raman, Samuel's dwelling-place. Samuel himself stood at
the head of this institution, or at least prophesied amongst its
members. Such a leader was called the " father," while the
disciples were known as " sons of the prophets." Such at
least was the custom two centuries later.
The Nazarite vow is very properly classed with the rise
of prophecy 8 as an expression of the awakened life of the
people. In other respects the two movements have little in
common. A Nazarite of Yahweh (the word either means one
tonseerafed or an abstainer) was one who abstained from wine
1 2 Kings vi. 1 ft. 2 1 Samuel xix. 18-xx. 1. 8 Compare Amos ii. 11.
456 sajtuel's work.
and intoxicating drinks, and everything produced by the
vine. As an outward sign he wore his hair uncut. We
have already had instances of this vow in the stories of the
birth of Samson and of Samuel. A law written after the
captivity 1 contains certain regulations as to the temporary
form of the Nazarite vow. In addition to abstaining from
wine, and letting his hair grow, the Nazarite must be careful
not to become unclean by contact with a dead body. If he
has been so unfortunate as to break his vow accidentally, he
is told how he must expiate his offence, and at the close of
the period. of his abstinence he must perform certain cere-
monies and sacrifices which are accurately defined. This
temporary abstinence, however, is but a feeble echo of the
original vow which was taken for life.
We can easily understand what it was that gave rise to
this movement. The most essential feature of the vow of
the Nazarites is abstinence from wine. 2 They were not alone
in this custom, but found allies in the Eechabites, a section
of the Kenites. 8 These Rechabites not only abstained from
wine, but refused to live in settled homes. This they did in
obedience to the, command of their forefather Jonadab, 4 a
zealous worshipper of Yahweh, who lived in the time of king
Jehu, 6 about 880 B.C. His motive in giving this command
was probably the same as that of the Nazarites in the time
of the Judges. When the Israelites had thrown off the yoke
of Egyptian slavery they grew accustomed to a rough and
simple style of life in the wilderness ; but when they settled
in Canaan they came into contact with more highly culti-
vated and luxurious manners, tasted their enjoyment, and
perceived their danger. In their vow of abstinence the
Nazarites declared war upon this luxury, and thus became
the representatives not only of a moral principle, but of every-
thing in which the genuine old-fashioned Israelite character
was opposed to that of the Canaanites.
We cannot say with certainty why the Nazarites let their
hair grow long. Indeed it is only a conjecture that this
order was instituted, as we have supposed, at the close of the
period of the Judges. But since Samson and Samuel are the
only Nazarites of whom we read, it is natural to suppose that
the order flourished at the time in which their history places,
us. Again, the prophet Amos seems to connect the rise of
this order with the early period of prophecy, for he repns-
1 Numbers vi. 1-21. 2 Amos ii. 12.
8 Compare pp. 357, 367 ff. 4 Jeremiah xxxv. 6 2 Kings x. 15 16.
Samuel's work. 457
sents Yah well as saying, 1 " I have raised up prophets from
your sons and Nazarites from your young men." Moreover
we should naturally expect that such an institution might
arise during the period of religious ferment and exaltation
which preceded the foundation of the monarchy in Israel.
We have now collected all the available materials for
forming an estimate of Samuel's work amongst his people.
We cannot tell how long his labors lasted ; for though we
are told that he began his active work twenty years after the
ark had come to Kirjath-jearim, the statement does not help
us much, since it belongs to the artificial system of chro-
nologj T that makes the framework of the book of Judges,
allowing exactly four hundred and eighty years to elapse
between the exodus from Eg3'pt and the building of Solo-
mon's temple. 2 Tradition represents Samuel as administering
justice, year by year, in different places in the neighborhood
of Ramah, and as ruling Israel till he had reached extreme
old age. 8 We may suppose, therefore, that he labored for
his people many years.
The nature of his work may be shortly summed up thus :
He gave a powerful ^stimulus to the religious life of the
Israelites, and guided it with a firm hand. Since he was
himself both a Nazarite and a prophet, he doubtless contrib-
uted greatly to the institution of the prophetic schools, and
urged others to take the vow of the Nazarites. We find him
constantly engaged in offering sacrifices to Yahweh, and
assembling at the sacrificial meal the elders of the places
where the rites were performed. 4 On these occasions we can
fancy how his inspiring exhortations would rouse his fellow
believers to glorify Yahweh and be zealous for his people.
Again, he took every opportunity of maintaining the prin-
ciples of Yahweh-worship in the spirit of Moses, upholding
all that was genuinely Israelitish, and combating the Canaan-
itish principles and customs.
By these means he doubtless hoped to rescue Israel and
make it independent. ' ' O Israel ! If you turn with all
your heart to Yahweh, he will deliver you from the hand of
the Philistines ! " Such are the words put into Samuel's
mouth by one of tbe historians, 5 and they doubtless express his
opinions perfectly. Religious reformation, zeal in the worship
of Yahweh, he thought, was the only way to prosperity.
1 Amos ii. 11. 2 See p. 365. 8 1 Samuel viii. 1, xxviii. 14.
* 1 Samuel ix, 12 ff., x 8, xi. 15, xiii. 10, xvi. 2 ff. 6 1 Samuel vii. 3.
VOL. I. 20
458 Samuel's work.
Was the desired end obtained in this way ? History answers
in the negative. Unless the people — far less pious than Sam-
uel, but far more sensible — had demanded a king, Israel
would have been undone. This is quite obvious. Though
sin is a stain upon the life of a people, and superstition
coupled with immorality sooner or later brings a nation to
destruction, yet something more than piety on the part of its
inhabitants is needed to make a country rich and powerful.
The deliberation of a wise statesmanship is indispensable, the
exercise of arts and sciences most valuable, commerce and
industry absolutely necessary ; and the awakening of fresh
religious life, so far from necessarily producing all these things,
may, under certain circumstances, be eminently hostile to them.
For a people that follows one-sided principles, proclaimed in
the name of God, will often eudanger and even throw away its
own prosperity. The' history of Israel furnishes many striking
examples of this very fact.
Samuel was on the high-road towards compassing his peo-
ple's ruin. " There was peace in his days between Israel and
the Amorites," says our narrator. 1 The statement is as far
from the truth as the same author's account of the humiliation
of the Philistines by his hero. Samuel was not the man to
be at peace with the Amorites or any other Canaanites. He
strove tooth and nail to root out everything Canaanitish, cost
what it might. It was just because the inhabitants of Ca-
naan were thus at daggers drawn with each other, that they
were so powerless against the Philistines and Amorites.
If the people had allowed Samuel to pursue his course, he
would have brought Israel to destruction. But it would have
fallen gloriously, for it would have sacrificed itself to its higher
interests — to its religion. Samuel may have been a bad states-
man, but he was a noble champion of religion. He was one
of those immovable men of principle who would involve the
world in ruin, if they reigned supreme, because the rules of
their religious and moral s_ystems are incapable, at present,
of being put into practice. But yet these men are the salt of
the earth. For surely the world would grow corrupt and
degenerate, and its statecraft would sink into a slough of
commonplace, selfish meanness did not such men urge it
forward towards their ideals, and constantly remind it of the
motives bj' which it ought to be actuated.
1 1 Samuel vii. 14 b.
HOW "SAUL BECAME KING OF ISRAEL. 459
Chapter XXIV.
HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISEAEL.
1 Samuel Vm.-XII.
THE institution of the monarchy in Israel was a step of
the utmost importance to the people ; nor was it finallj
accomplished without violent opposition. The verdict of
posterity, too, was far from unanimous on it ; and since the
Israelite historians were in the habit of clothing their opinions
in the form of historical narratives, we cannot be surprised to
find different accounts of the manner in which Saul became
king. These accounts contradict each other throughout, and
in many respects the one breathes quite a different spirit from
the other ; but yet they are placed side by side in the section of
the first book of Samuel referred to at the head of the chapter.
We will consult the oldest tradition first. 1 It runs as follows :
In the da3's of Samuel there lived a certain valiant Benja-
mite whose name was Kish. His son Saul was a goodly man.
In stature he was a head taller than ordinary men, and in all
other respects he was without a peer in Israel. Now it hap-
pened one day that his father sent him with one of the slaves
to look for some she-asses that had strayed. So Saul and his
servant searched the whole country round, but all in vain, for
they could not find the asses. When they came near Raman
Saul began to think they had better go home again, for he
was afraid his father might be growing uneasy at his long
absence. But the servant had another plan. The} - were now
close to Ramah, where there dwelt a man of God — a seer
whose fame had spread far and wide, for all his predictions
turned out true. Why should they not apply to him? Per-
haps he would be able to tell them where the lost asses were.
Saul would have been ready enough to consult the seer if he
had had anything to offer him as a present ; but they could
not approach the soothsayer with empty hands : their provisions
were exhausted, and Saul had nothing else about him that
would answer his purpose. Fortunately, however, the servant
happened to have a quarter of a shekel of silver (about eight-
pence of our money) with him. They had no doubt that the
seer wi mid consult his god for this fee ; so they went together to
Ramall
1 1 Samuel is. 1-x. 16.
460 HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISRAEL.
At the foot of the hill on which the city stood (" Kamali "
means hill) they found some girls drawing water, and asked
them where they could find the seer. They were told that he
was at homo just then, but that they had better make haste,
for he would soon be on his way to the bamah, the sacred height
near the city. A great sacrificial feast was to be held there,
and the guests would not begin the meal until the seer had
pronounced his blessing over it. On hearing this, they made
the best of their way up the hill into Ramah. They were
almost too late as it was, for in the middle of the city they
met Samuel, who had just set off for the bamah.
Little did Saul suspect what was going on in the heart of
the seer, whom neither he nor his companion knew by sight.
The day before, Yahweh had told Samuel that he had heard
the lamentations of his people, and that on the following day
he should send a Benjamite to him whom he must anoint as
prince, and who should rescue Israel out of the power of the
Philistines. Now as soon as Samuel's eye had fallen on Saul,
Yahweh said to him, " This is the man of whom I spoke to
you. He shall rule over Israel." No wonder, then, that when
Saul addressed him, and inquired for the seer's house, Samuel
was too full of what Yahweh had revealed to him to be content
with giving a simple answer to the question. " I am the
seer," he cried ; " come with me to the altar on the hill, and
share the sacrificial meal. To-morrow morning I will let you
go, and will answer all that is in your heart to ask me ; but as
for the she-asses that were lost, for which you have been
searching hard upon three days, they are found already. And
why should you trouble yourself about them? Shall not
all the treasures of Israel be yours and your family's ? " 1
"Mine!" cried Saul, in amazement. "Why, I belong to
the little tribe of Benjamin, and to one of the smallest clans
of the tribe ! "
But no further explanation of these extraordinary words
appeared to be forthcoming. Samuel led the way in silence,
and Saul and his servant followed him to the place of sacri-
fice. About thirty persons were assembled in the hall where
the feast was to be held, and places of honor were assigned to
both the strangers. The seer had evidently expected them,
for he beckoned to the cook and said, "Bring the piece of
meat that I told you to set aside!" Upon this the cook
brought him a whole ox-thigh, well fleshed and fat — a royal
dish ! Samuel had it set before Saul, and said, " Take this,
1 After an amended version.
HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISRAEL. 46]
for it was set aside for none but you, as a sign to the people J
that the royal share is yours."
When they had finished their meal, they returned from the
hamnh to Samuel's house, where a bed was prepared for Saul
upon the roof. 1 Early the next morning Samuel roused him,
and offered to accompany him on his way home. As soon as
they were outside the city, Samuel requested Saul to send his
servant on in front, and to stay behind himself to hear the
word of God.
Then the man of God took a horn full of oil, poured the con-
tents over the head of Saul, and then, as he kissed his cheek
in homage, he exclaimed, " Yahweh anoints you prince of his
heritage. You shall rescue it out of the hand of the Philis-
tines. And these three signs shall prove the truth of what I
say : When you go hence you will meet two men by Rachel's
grave, arid they will tell you that the she-asses have come
home, and that your father is now only anxious about you
3'ourself. After that you will meet three men at Deborah's
oak, 2 on their way to the sanctuary at Bethel, the first carry-
ing three kids, the second three loaves of bread, the third
a bottle of wine. They will salute you and offer j-ou two
loaves of bread, which you must accept. Then, when j-ou
come to Gibeah (that is the hill) of God, where the trophy s of
the Philistines stands, a band of prophets will meet you at the
entrance of the city. They will come down from the bnmah,
with drums and tambourines, flutes and harps, playing before
them, while they themselves are prophesj'ing. Then the spirit
of Yahweh will come upon you too ; you will break into a holy
ecstasy and become another man. When these signs have
made you confident that Yahweh has indeed called you, then
you yourself will know what next to do, for your god will help
you. But when you come to Gilgal wait there seven days, for'
I shall come there too to offer sacrifices. Then I will tell you
what to do."
Hardly had Saul bid adieu to Samuel and turned to pursue
his journey when he felt a change come over his whole nature.
One after another the signs came true. At last, as they drew
near to Gibeah, the band of prophets, in their wild ecstasy,
confronted them ; and lo ! the spirit of Yahweh came upon
Saul, and he too prophesied. His friends looked on in amaze-
ment, and said, " What has come over the son of Kish? Is
i After an amended version.
2 After an amended version. See Genesis xxxv. 8.
s After an amended version.
462 HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISRAEL.
Saul among the prophets?" " How comes he to be amongst
them," cried another? " Who is his father ? Is it not Kish ? " 1
This event gave rise to the proverbial expression, " Saul
among the prophets." Unconscious of the surprise of his ac-
quaintances, Saul went on prophesying till he came to Gibeah. 1
He had an uncle living at Gibeah, and, when questioned by
him, he told him all that Samuel had said about the asses.
But he did not say a single word about his having been
anoinled.
This narrative was evidently composed lcng after Saul's
appearance as a public man. For it attempts to explain the
proverbial expression, "Saul among the prophets!" — an
exclamation of surprise used when a man was found in com-
pany where no one would have thought of looking for him.
Elsewhere we have another and far more probable interpreta-
tion of the expression, 2 and, at any rate, the one we are now
considering cannot be the true one ; for Saul must have been
very generally known before his joining with the prophets
could give rise to' a popular proverb expressive of surprise.
Indeed the proverb seems to imply that when it came into use
Saul had already manifested a hostile disposition towards the
prophets ; and this, as we shall see, carries us down to a later
period of his reign.
But in other respects this narrative reflects the real position
of things in Israel very faithfully. It assumes that the Israel-
ites were oppressed by the Philistines, and that the chief
task of the new ruler would be to deliver them from this foe.
Again, Samuel is truly represented as exercising far less power
than is assigned to him in a preceding 3 and also in a subse-
quent story. Here he is simply a seer, who has indeed a great
reputation, but of whose existence Saul has to be reminded by
his servant. He by no means appears as the acknowledged
ruler of the land. It also deserves notice that in this story
Saul is never called " king," but always " prince." All this
shows that the writer could readily adopt, or perhaps naturally
shared in, the style of thought and language usual in the times
of which he wrote ; and this gives his narrative a certain air
of historical fidelity.
And yet we cannot accept it as history, and we soon per-
ceive that its purpose is to glorify Samuel, the seer. He re-
ceives revelations from his god even about trifling details, such
as the safe return of the asses that Kish had lost, and the pro-
1 After an amended version. 2 1 Samuel xix. 24. s See pp. 448, 449
HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISRAEL. 463
visions carried by certain pilgrims who met Saul. If we ask
how Saul became king, the only answer given us is that Sam-
uel, by command of his god, anointed him, and that Yahweh
confirmed the act by a number of signs, and by sending his
spirit upon Saul to make him prophesy. But we cannot rest
satisfied for a moment with such an answer. In itself it is in-
credible, and the sequel of the history makes it repugnant to
our moral sense. For hardly had Saul', by dint of all this mirac-
ulous guidance and divine revelation, ascended the throne,
when he was rejected by this same Samuel as not being a
king after Yahweh's heart. What a host of miracles all for
nothing !
This narrative, then, does not help us much in our attempt
to answer the questions : How was the monarchy established
in Israel ? and, Why wa^s Saul chosen king ? Let us see whether
a second account throws any more light on the subject.
This second story runs as follows x : —
When Samuel had grown too old to perform in person all
his duties as judge, he appointed his sons Joel and Abiah to
be his assistants. But these unworthy sons of a noble father
accepted bribes and pronounced unjust sentences. In grief
and anger the elders of the Israelites came to Samuel at Ra-
man and begged him to appoint a king, in accordance with the
custom of all the surrounding nations, since he himself was
now so old and his sons behaved so wickedly.
Samuel took the request very ill. What ! Was this the
reward of all his faithful services to his people? He prayed,
in his deep depression, to Yahweh, and his god acknowledged
the justice of ms complaint, but reminded him that the Israel-
ites did but treat him with the same ingratitude they man-
ifested towards their god. Ever since they had come out of
Egypt they had shown their rebellious spirit by neglecting the
worship of Yahweh, and serving other gods ; and even now it
was not Samuel so much as Yahweh, their lawful king, whom
thty rejected. Samuel was to yield to their request, however,
"biit not until he had warned them what treatment they had
to expect from a king, that they might know what they were
doing.
Samuel brought Yahweh's answer to the representatives of
his people, and told them distinctly what a heavy yoke they
were laying on their necks in asking for a king. The monarch
would take their sons to form a mounted bodyguard and to
1 1 Samuel viii.,x. 17-27, xi.,xii.
464 HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISRAEL.
man his w&r-chariots. He would press into his service all
that were capable of bearing arms, would choose his officers
of all ranks from amongst them, and would set others to
plough his lands, to reap his harvests, and to manufacture
implements and chariots of war. Even their daughters would
be required for his court, to serve as ointment makers, con-
fectioners, and bakers. When they had a king, thej' would
never know what to call their own ; for when the fancy took
him he would seize their choicest fields, vine-hills, or olive
gardens, and give them to his favorites. He would demand
tithes of all the produce of their lands and trees to pay his
chamberlains and other servants. He would seize his people's
slaves, cattle and asses, and make them work for him, and
would exact tithes of their sheep and goats. In a word, they
would be the monarch's slaves. " And when," said Samuel
in conclusion, "you are oppressed by the king you have
chosen for yourselves, you will cry to Yahweh for help ;
but he will not give ear to your cry."
Thus did Samuel attempt to dissuade the people ; but they
had set their hearts upon having a king, and answered, " Come
what may, we will not be left behind by the other nations !
They are all governed by kings, and we will have one too.
He shall judge us, and go out before us to war." Disap-
pointed to finfl that his countrymen could not be shaken in
their determination, Samuel laid their answer before Yah-
weh, and was ordered by him to fulfil their wish. Upon
this he dismissed the elders with a promise to make the
needful preparations.
Samuel soon redeemed his promise, and summoned a popu-
lar assembly at the sanctuary of Yahweh, at Jtizpeh. Here
he distinctly warned the people again that their desire to b<>
ruled by a king was a violation of their duty towards Yah-
weh, who had always delivered them in times of need. Aftfj
this he went on to choose a king by lot. The lot first pointed
to the tribe of Benjamin, and then to the family of Matri ; till
finally it appeared that Saul, the son of Kish, was the man
chosen by Yahweh. He was quite unknown to those present,
and they were obliged to apply to a priest or seer to learn of
Yahweh himself whether Saul would appear in the assem-
bly. " He will," was the divine response. " He is even now
amongst the baggage." Search was made immediately, and
there, sure enough, Saul was found. He was led into the
midst of the people, and behold he was a head taller than
any one of them. Truly Yahweh, who sees in secret, had
TOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISKAEL. 465
found a goodly man ! " This," cried Samuel, " is the chosen
of Yahweh ! There is none like him among all the people ; "
and a great cry rose, " Long live the king ! "
Then Samuel told the people what the rights of the crown
were to be. He wrote them all down himself, and placed the
document in the sanctuary; after which he dismissed the
assembly.
Upon this every one returned to his house, and Saul to his
abode in Gibeah. The king did not return alone, however,
for he was accompanied by certain righteous men whose hearts
God had touched, so that they joined themselves to him at
once. But it was not every one that was so well disposed.
There were certain good-for-nothing fellows, sons of Belial,
who asked contemptuously, "What! Is this to be our de-
liverer? " and refused to offer him any presents.
Now about a month afterwards, 1 Nahash, king of the Am-
monites, came and laid siege to Jabesh, in Gilead. The
inhabitants of the city, feeling that they were no match for
him, were compelled to enter into negotiations, and promised
to submit to him. Nahash was willing to spare their lives,
but only on condition that he might put out their right eyes as
an insult to all Israel. The elders of Israel begged for seven
clays' respite, and at once sent messengers to every quarter of
the land of Israel to pray for help. The sad news of the men
of Jabesh spread horror and amazement everywhere ; weep-
ing and lamentations answered them on every side, but no
help seemed to be forthcoming. At last the Gileadites came
to Gibeah, where Saul was dwelling. Here, as elsewhere,
they delivered their dread message, and appealed to their
brothers for help. It was not in vain this time ; for while all
who had heard the news were filling the air with their lamen-
tations, a certain man approached, driving his oxen home
from the plough. It was Saul. He perceived the signs of
general distress, asked the cause, and soon learned the news
which the Gileadites had brought. The moment he heard it
he was seized by the spirit of God. Burning with indigna-
tion, he hewed his two oxen into pieces on the spot, and sent
messengers to bear the reeking fragments throughout the land.
The threat resounded on every side : " Thus shall it be done
to the oxen of every man who comes not out to follow Saul
and Samuel." Then the fear of Yahweh fell upon the people,
and they gathered like one man around their bold leader, who
soon found himself at the head of three hundred thousand
1 After an amended version.
20*
466 HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISRAEL.
men of Israel and thirty thousand men of Judah, assembled
at Bezek. He could confidently promise the messengers from
Jabesh that he would come the next day and relieve the city.
We can imagine with what joy the news was received at Jabesh.
To ensure the success of the expedition the inhabitants threw
Nahash off his guard by promising to surrender the city on
the following day ; but that very night Saul divided his troops
into three companies, broke into the middle of the Ammonite
camp towards morning, put to flight the enemy, and scattered
and pursued them till no two of them were left together.
Then the sons of Belial, who had refused to acknowledge
Saul, were ready enough to withdraw their opposition ; for
the people declared themselves unanimously in his favor, and
even desired to put all those to death who had at first opposed
him. But Saul himself defended them, and declared, "Not
a creature shall be put to death this day, for Yahweh has de-
livered Israel."
The time had now arrived for doing solemn homage to the
chosen prince. So Samuel called the people together at Gilgal,
and there, amidst sacrifices and shouts of triumph, Saul was
proclaimed king before the face of Yahweh. Then Samuel
addressed the people: " Behold," he said, " I have done as
you desired in everything, and have given you a king. There
he stands before you ! I am old and gray-headed, and I have
spent all my life amongst you ; and now I call upon you all, in
Yahweh's presence, to bear witness against me. Say, have
L taken any man's ox or ass ? Have I oppressed or wronged
any one of you ? Have I ever been bribed by any man ? If
so, then I will return what I have gained unjustly." Voices
rose on every side to acquit him of any such charges, and
to sound his praise in all things. Then he began again :
" Yahweh and his anointed king are witnesses that you have
found no kind of fault in me." " So be it ! " answered they.
"Then," continued he, " let me pronounce your sentence in
the presence of Yahweh. He has done great things for you.
He has helped you from the time when Jacob went down to
Egypt ; he sent you Moses and Aaron ; he led your fathers
out of Egypt, and caused them to settle here. But when
they forgot Yahweh, he sold them to Sisera, and afterwards
to the Philistines and the Moabites. Then, when they called
upon him again, confessed their sin, returned to him, and
promised that they would serve him if he would but rescue
them, he sent them deliverers one after another — Jerubbaal,
Abdon, Jephthah, or Samson. Thus was peace testored. But
HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISKABL. 467
when you saw that Nahash, king of the Ammonites, was
coming up against you, in spite of all these proofs of the
faithfulness and power of your god, you were afraid and
desired a king, though your true king was Yahweh. And
there stands the man whom j-ou have chosen ! Yahweh has
given you a king. If you obey your god henceforth, you
shall live, and he will bless you ; but if not, Yahweh's hand
shall lie heavily upon you and upon your ruler. But that
you may all know full well that you have committed a great
sin in asking for a king, Yahweh will send rain and thunder
this day, although it is the time of wheat harvest." Having
spoken thus, Samuel raised his hands to heaven, and at once
the thunder rolled and the rain came down in torrents. Then
great fear of Yahweh and of Samuel fell upon the Israelites,
and they humbly implored the man of God to pray for them,
and preserve them from destruction, confessing, at the same
time, that they had sinned in asking for a king. Samuel
put their fears to rest, and again exhorted them never to neg-
lect the service of Yahweh, or to worship the impotent idols
who could not deliver them. At the same time, he assured
them that since Yahweh had, once for all, chosen Israel as
his heritage, he would never reject his people, lest his glory
should be tarnished. Then he gave them the comforting
assurance, "Be it far from me to sin against Yahweh by
ceasing to pray for you ! No, I will still serve Yahweh, and
will still show 3-0U the right and true way ; " after which he
concluded by repeating yet again the exhortation : ' ' Only
fear Yahweh, and serve him in integrity with all your heart.
For j-ou see what a marvellous sign he has wrought this day.
If you do evil, both you and your king shall perish."
This story is wonderfully self-contradictory. In one place
fear of Nahash is mentioned 1 as the cause of the people's
desire for a king. But how does this accord with the subse-
quent events? The people, terrified by the approach of Na-
hash, demand a king. Samuel calls a general assembly in
which Saul is proclaimed king. But yet he goes home quite
quietly and does nothing for a whole month. Then we dis-
cover again that Nahash is coming to besiege Jabesh. The
inhabitants of the city are not at all aware that there is a
king in Israel, for they send messengers throughout all the
land. Saul casually hears of the affair, and at once God's
spirit comes over him. We are left in complete ignorance as
1 1 Samuel xii. 12.
468 HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISRAEL.
to what had become of the men who were moved by God to
accompany him. And 3-et the story of Saul's victory over
the Ammonites, and that of his election by lot, form parts of
a single whole. The connection between them, in the mind
of the writer, appears to have been something as follows :
When Saul had been chosen by lot, he had still to show by his
deeds that he really was the man to deliver Israel. It was
not till after his victory that the voice of opposition died
away and he could receive public homage. Such was the
writer's own idea. But a careful examination of his story
convinces us that he found the account of Saul's triumph over ,
Nahash already in existence, and merely worked it into his
own narrative. This account, indeed, rests upon a tradition,
the main features of which are thoroughly historical. We
shall return to this old tradition presently, but must first
dwell on the other portions of the narrative, which are pure
inventions.
A little careful consideration reveals their unhistorical nature.
We have already observed, in the last chapter, that it is a
mistake to represent Samuel as a warrior, who humbled the
Philistines ; on the contrary, he attempted to improve the
miserable condition to which the country had been reduced,
by such moral means as raising the religious life of his people,
and quickening their zeal for Yahweh and his people ; and it
was the utter failure of these efforts that induced the people
to adopt the monarchical form of government. But in this,
as in several other stories, the true position of affairs is com-
pletely ignored. The demand of the Israelites for a king is not
made to rest upon any reasonable grounds. The condition of
the country appears to be all that could be desired. The fear
of Nahash, the prince of the Ammonites, is indeed just men-
tioned, but is not considered even a reasonable excuse, still
less a sufficient reason for the desire for a change. The mis-
government of Samuel's sons might of course be the occasion,
but it could not be the cause of the people's wish for a king.
For these unjust judges might have been deposed, and how
could any one tell that a king would be any more impartial
than a judge ? The only other reason given for the wish is
the fact that other nations had kings. But surely this is not
enough. Is it possible that the whole people — for they seem
to have been unanimous in the matter — should have desired,
for such frivolous reasons, a change which would affect their
lives so profoundly, and would even reduce them to slavery?
They accepted undoubtingly the appalling picture drawn bj
HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISRAEL. 469
Samuel of what they would suffer at the hands of a king,
and yet persisted in their wish to have one. The writer's
idea seems to be that the Israelites asked for a king under
the influence of some perverse and sinful whim, or at most
of a sudden dread of Nahash. But such a supposition is
absurd.
And then how extraordinarily submissive to Samuel the
Israelites are ! They come to him and ask him for a king,
and then take no further action whatever. Samuel manages
everything himself, and gives his people a ruler. Where
can a second example of such submission to a prophet be
found ? Surely Samuel had no reason to complain that the
people had rejected him. The attitude of the people towards
Samuel is quite incredible ; and so is their method of choosing
a king, bj T casting lots. The result is the selection of a man
who is entirely unknown, and who had not the least idea
himself of the possibility of his being appointed ; for we are
not to suppose that his being absent amongst the baggage
was the result of modesty. It was purely accidental. Imagine
a nation choosing a 'king by lot ! What reason could there
be for such an extravagant proceeding? They .can hardly
have thought that one man was as fit to be king as another.
At any rate, they would not have liked to have one of Samuel's
sons, for instance, as their prince. Did they act from a re-
ligious feeling, then, thinking that Yahweh would thus point
out the most suitable man? This is certainly the meaning
of the narrative. The unknown Saul, we are to believe,
with his bold demeanor and imposing stature, was definitely
selected by Yahweh, who caused the lot to fall to him, and
then indicated where he was to be found. All this was far
from incredible to an Israelite who believed that "the lot
is cast into the bosom, but the result is ruled by Yahweh." 1
Indeed it was quite in the spirit of antiquity and of people who
believed in presages, soothsaying, and supernatural revela-
tions of the deity, to leave the decision of important questions
to the lot, or some other chance indication. 2 Thus the legend
tells us that Darius Hystaspes was chosen king of Persia be-
cause, when the pretenders to the throne met by agreement,
his horse was the first to neigh. But however religious
these actions may have appeared in ancient times, I very
much doubt whether any sensible man ever adopted such a
method of deciding an important question, unless he had
first exhausted all other means of coming to a decision. It
i Proverbs xvi. 33. 2 See pp. 158-161.
470 HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISRAEL.
is only fanatics who do such things. If the Israelites in
Samuel's time allowed the man of God to choose them a king
by lol, then surely Yahweh had as little cause as Samuel to
compkin of the people's apostasy and disobedience.
And then what a gloomy commencement for the monarchy
in Israel ! Samuel, while solemnly conferring authority upon
Saul, makes a speech in which he reproaches the people with
their sins, and which a miraculous thunder-storm renders
doubly impressive. On this the people confess their guilt.
They have sinned in asking for a king. But, if they really
mean it, what is to prevent them from retracing their evil
steps? The way is still open for a return. The confession
of a sin coupled with its continuance is little better than
hypocrisy. And yet not only Samuel, but Yahweh himself
who commands the thunder-storm, accepts the confession as a
sufficient sign of repentance. The whole story is obviously
legendary.
But in one respect this fiction represents the fact ; for it
is true that the monarchical form of government was not
introduced into Israel without opposition. In our story
Samuel stands alone in his opposition ; but in reality many
Israelites had the strongest objection to the monarchy. This
aversion is clearly reflected in the so-called fable of Jotham.
It appears in the book of Judges out of its proper connec-
tion, 1 though in all probability it does really date from the
period of the judges or possibly from that of Saul. At any
rate it admirably describes the feelings of the party that op-
posed the monarchy in the interests of freedom. It runs as
follows 2 : —
Once on a time, the trees came out to anoint a king.
First they went to the olive, and cried to him : '• Come, and
be our king ! " But the olive answered : " Shall I leave the
oil for which gods and men honor ine, and go to wave my
branches over the trees ? " After this ignominious repulse,
the trees went with the same request to the fig-tree. But
he, too, preferred his sweet and precious fruit to the empty
honors of royalty. Then they tried the vine. But he, too,
refused to entertain their offer for a moment, and answered :
" Shall I leave the wine that makes gods and men rejoice to
exercise lordship over the trees? Not I ! " Quite at a loss
what to do next, the trees at last, by common consent,
turned to the bramble-bush, and offered him the crown He
was greatly pleased by the honor, and said with an hnpor-
i See p. 395. 2 Judges ix. 8-15.
HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISRAEL. 471
tant air : " If you really anoint me king in good faith, then
you may come and rest under my shadow. But if not, then
let fire come out of the bramble-bush and consume the very
cedars of Lebanon themselves ! "
"What contempt for the monarchy this fable breathes ! A
noble tree has no desire to be king, but thinks itself too
good for such an office. It is only the bramble-bush, that
has nothing to lose and can do nothing better, that consents
to be crowned.
We can easily understand this opposition to the monarchy ;
for the account of a i'03'al court put into the mouth of Samuel
was drawn from the life. Kings exacted constant service,
heaped capricious favors on their courtiers, dealt with the
property and the persons of their subjects just as they chose,
kept luxurious courts and surrounded themselves with guards.
In a word they were despots, and their people were slaves.
Such was monarchy in these ancient times. Our " constitu-
tions," with their more or less elaborate regulation of the
mutual rights and duties of prince and people, were as yet
unknown. The power of the king was unlimited. 1 We do
indeed read that Samuel publicly announced the rights of
the monarchy and even reduced them to writing ; 2 but all
this was certainly nothing more than, at most, an exhorta-
tion addressed to the king. He was bound by nothing but
his own conscience and public opinion, fear of tumult or the
desire to win the love of his people. A nation, therefore,
that chose a king surrendered its own liberty, and it is not
surprising that Israel long refused to throw itself upon the
mercy of a single ruler. It was not till the weakness caused
by division absolutely compelled them to find some centre
of union that the Israelites chose a king. A nation without
a king was but a certain number of disconnected families,
clans or tribes ; a nation under a king was a united and
powerful whole.
One of the writers of the book of Judges shows a warm
appreciation of the regal form of government ; for he tries to
explain the confusion of the period before Saul, by saying, 8
" There was no king in Israel then ; " and sometimes he
adds, 4 " Every one did what he pleased." In Samuel's days
there were many Israelites who noticed the comparative quiet
that reigned in other lands under the government of a king,
and contrasted it with the divisions and dissensions that were
1 Compare pp. 231-234. 2 1 Samuel x. 25.
a Judges xviii. 1, xix. 1. 4 Judges xvii. 6, xxi. 25.
472 HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISRAEL.
always disturbing the peace of their own. They envied the
decision and efficiency with which these other nations were
able to take the field against their foes, and the unity and
strength they enjoyed under their kings, and they too desired
to enjoy the same privileges.
But the Israelites were not united on this point. We
may be sure that many a proud and independent spirit would
hesitate to submit to the restrictions of a monarchy, and
would only yield to the force of public opinion. Samuel, too,
and his friends the prophets were probably opposed to the
appointment of a king, for reasons which we can easily guess.
We have seen 1 that the means by which the prophets them-
selves sought to deliver Israel were very different from a
change in the form of government, and consisted in various
measures of what they regarded as moral reformation. When
a man is engaged in such a work as this, he is, of course, never
satisfied, for there is alwaj'S room enough for improvement
left. It is difficult therefore to convince him that success
cannot be obtained by his methods, for he still hopes that if
only every one would really be virtuous the daj' of deliverance
would come. We see the same kind of thing still. When
a great calamity, such as a cattle-plague, or an epidemic of
small-pox or typhus, threatens or afflicts a nation, a certain
set of people alwaj-s cry out that the disaster may be turned
aside by repentance and pra3 7 er. These men are seldom
warm promoters of sanitary precautions, such as vaccination
or cleansing dwelling-places, and so checking the spread of
disease ; for they place all their reliance upon the miracu-
lous and immediate help of God. In the same way Samuel
and most of the prophets, doubtless, opposed the appoint-
ment of a king of Israel, because they looked upon it as a
sign of want of faith in the power of their god. Surely he
could rescue his people, and was ready to do so if they would
but serve him with a perfect heart.
And now let us ask ourselves what was the real course
of events. For a satisfactory answer we must turn to the
account of Saul's triumph over the Ammonites.
The details of this exploit are not all correctly recorded.
It certainly is not true, for instance, that when Saul called
upon the Israelites to gather round him, he associated
Samuel's name with his own. This touch was added by the
later writer, who inserts the old tradition into his narrative,
„ ! See pp. 457, 458.
HOW SAUL BECAME KING- OF ISRAEL. 473
but makes Samuel prominent throughout. There are other
things in the story which we cannot possibly accept as true.
The good nature of the Ammonites in granting the besieged
a respite of seven days for the express purpose of enabling
them to send to their brethren for help is surely without a
parallel. And what an incredible amount is accomplished
within a single week ! The envoys cross the Jordan, traverse
the country, and come to Gibeah. Saul sends messengers
throughout the land to call all the men of military age to
battle. An army of a hundred thousand strong is got into
marching order, and seven days after the messengers left
Jabesh the army of the Ammonites is defeated ! Even in
these days of telegraphs and railways' no monarch could
bring an army into the field and engage in battle at so short
a notice. It is inconceivable that so numerous an army
should have been able to cross the Jordan and reach Jabesh
in a single day ; but it is still more impossible that it should
have penetrated the enemy's camp unobserved bj r night. It
is as if the Ammonites had made all their arrangements
with a special view to being routed. But though the truth
has been greatly embellished and distorted, no doubt the
main facts of the story are historical, and they are confirmed
by the gratitude shown to Saul, even after his death, by the
Gileadites, and more especially by the men of Jabesh. We
may take it as a fact, then, that Saul delivered Jabesh
from the power of the Ammonites, and was made king in
consequence.
We may now sum up our conclusions in a few words.
When the sons of Israel and their allies penetrated into
Canaan thej* knew no form of government except the so-
called patriarchal rule. That is to say, the head of the
household ruled his children and his slaves. Since the sons
of one household generally preferred to keep near each other
even after they were married, and the members of the family
had many interests in common, it generally happened that
each clan, almost without intending it, had a special leader.
The eldest brother was the natural occupant of this position,
but sometimes a younger member became the head of the
family, in virtue of his superior ability or for some other
reason. Sometimes, when special circumstances demanded
it, larger sections — a whole tribe or even several tribes —
gathered under the banner of a single man, but only to fall
apart again as soon as the object of their temporary alliance
Was accomplished. These loose and undefined relations to
474 HOW SAUL BECAME KING OF ISKAEL.
each other did well enough for a number of wandering tribes,
but were by no means sufficient for the different sections of
a single nation that had acquired a settled territory. There
were no judges, there was no one to see to the public safety.
Every one had to look after himself. No one undertook what
the general interest demanded. Feuds between private in-
dividuals, villages, or clans dragged on and on because there
was no recognized authority to decide the quarrels and com-
pel the disputants to make up their differences and live at
peace. This state of things could not go on for ever, and
attempts were naturally made to put an end to it, especially
when foreign foes threatened the independence of the nation.
Such was Israel's condition during the period of the judges.
Now and then we see some such power established as that
of Jephthah in Gilead, or of Abimelech in Shechem and the
neighborhood, but never with any permanent result. The
tribes were still too fond of freedom, and the danger was not
yet pressing enough. But gradually it became clear that
the tribes would be swallowed up unless they joined hands
and elected a single chief to be their supreme judge in times
of peace and their commander in times of war.
In Samuel's time the danger was most threatening. The
Philistines were masters of the greater part of the land.
The Ammonites were developing a formidable power to the
east. The religious revival that had expressed itself in
the rise of the prophets and the Nazarites, no doubt directed
the thoughts of the Israelites to the delivering might of
Yahweh, and so diverted their attention in many cases from
all earthly means of salvation ; but at the same time it
strengthened the separate tribes in the feeling that they were
all members of one and the same nation, and in this way it
indirectly prepared them for united action. Israel was
therefore ripe for union under the banner of a single ruler.
A great victory over the Ammonites brought Saul into prom-
inence. A leader was wanted to take the field against the
Philistines, and as the victorious troops returned from Jabesh,
they raised Saul upon a shield, and shouted " Long live the
king ! " The prophets, carried away by the general enthu-
siasm, anointed the successful warrior, and proclaimed him
the chosen of Yahweh, or at any rate kept silence, despairing
of their power to resist the mighty stream, and hoping the
best of the powerful ruler who now held sway over Yahweh's
heritage.
SAUL DELIVERS ISRAEL. 475
Chapter XXV.
SAUL DELIVERS ISRAEL.
1 Samuel XIII. and XIV.
WE do not know how old Saul was when he gained his
victory over the Ammonites, and was proclaimed king
by the people. The narrative we are to examine next begins
with the words : " Saul was . . . years l old when he became
king, and he reigned two years over Israel." The number
before '-years" is wanting. One of the stories, as we have
seen, represents Saul as a mere lad, sent out by his father to
look for some stray asses, and causing him great anxiety by
his protracted absence ; but in reality he was a man of at
least middle age, for at the very beginning of his reign his
son Jonathan was a full-grown man — one of the most valiant
of the Israelite heroes, and entrusted by his father with an
important command.
Now that he was anointed king, Saul availed himself of
his authority at once. Instead of disbanding all the troops
with which he had relieved Jabesh, he kept three thousand of
them under arms about him. For Nahash was not the only
foe that the Israelites had to fear, nor indeed the principal
one. The Philistines were their great oppressors. The
whole of Canaan this side the Jordan was in their power.
Some parts of the Israelite territory were treated so com-
pletely as Philistine provinces that many of the inhabitants
were forced to serve in the Philistine armies. Indeed, the
Israelites were brought so low that all the smiths (who were
probably not very numerous) were carried away out of the
land, at any rate if they attempted to settle anywhere near
the Philistine cities. The object of this measure was to pre-
vent the Israelites obtaining swords or steel spears. Even
when their ploughs, spades, bill-hooks, or scythes required
sharpening, they had to take them to be done by the Philis-
tines, who made them pay a good round price — three shekels
for each implement. 1 It need hardly be said that Saul's
thoughts turned at once to these Philistines, and that he
watched for an opportunity of attacking them. For the pres-
ent, therefore, he kept two thousand warriors about himself,
1 After an amended version.
476 SAUL DELIVERS ISRAEL.
encamped in two divisions at Michmash and Bethel, while he
gave Jonathan command of a thousand more whose quarters
were at Gibeah.
There, at Gibeah, the Philistines had set up a trophy of
war, 1 that vexed the soul of every good Israelite who saw it.
But woe to the man who should darp to throw it down ! It
would be regarded as a declaration i,f war. Not long after
the defeat of Nahash, the report spread like fire through the
land of Israel that Saul had thrown down this triumphal
monument of the Philistines, and so given the sign for in-
surrection. The report was true. Jonathan, at his father's
command, had overthrown the trophy ; and now heralds,
despatched bj r Saul, traversed the land in every direction,
trumpet in hand. In every city or village through which they
passed they blew the horn and cried, " Let the Hebrews rise
and fight ! " : proclaiming to all who heard them that Saul had
summoned every man who could bear arms to battle.
Meanwhile, of course, the Philistines were not idle. They
had hardly heard that the Hebrews had laid presumptuous
hands upon their triumphal column before thej- seized their
arms to punish such audacity and quell the insurrection. At
Michmash, south-east of Beth-horon, 1 a prodigious army soon
assembled. There were a thousand ] chariots, six thousand
horsemen, and a countless host of foot soldiers. Then terror
fell upon the hearts of the Israelites. Many of them fled
back from the camp ; 1 some concealed themselves among the
thickets of densely-wooded districts, others hid their wives
and children in caves, and some even fled with their families
across the Jordan to the land of the Gadites and Gileadites.
Thus the district which was first exposed to the vengeance of
the Philistines was almost depopulated. Saul's army melted
away till there were but six hundred warriors left, and even
they were so badly armed that not one of them, except Saul
and Jonathan, possessed a sword or a lance. The others were
at best armed only with clubs, stones, bill-hooks, slings, bows
and arrows without metal heads. What could Saul do with
such troops against all the well-armed warriors of the Philis-
tines? And yet it was no fool-hardiness that kept him so
near the enemy, for between Michmash and Gibeah there was
a mountain pass, the sides of which were so abrupt that even
a small band could hold the position against a vastly superior
power. The Philistines, however, availed themselves of theii
numbers to devastate the country. Their picked battalion,
1 After an amended version.
SAUL DELIVERS' ISRAEL. 477
known as ' ' the destroyer, " was separated into three divisions,
each of which took a different road, and destroyed everj'thing
it could lay hold of. The Philistines hoped by this means to
draw the Israelites from their impregnable position. Mean-
while the main army remained at Michmash, with its outposts
stationed at the mountain pass.
Saul's headquarters were at some little distance from the
pass, in the direction of Gibeah, at the pomegranate tree.
Tradition long pointed out the very spot. Here he was sur-
rounded by his six hundred men, and Ahiah, the son of Ahitub,
the brother of Eli's grandson Ichabod, 1 "bore the ephod:"
that is to say, consulted Yahweh for him. One clay Jonathan
had wandered away from the headquarters without his father's
knowledge, and accompanied by no one but his armor-bearer.
Presently he came to a rock called Bozez, from which he could
see certain Philistine warriors standing on a higher rock right
opposite, called Seneh. The sight was more than he could
bear. His blood boiled. " Shall we fall upon these uncir-
cumcised?"he cried indignantly, as he turned to his com-
panion. "It is as easy for Yahweh to give the victory to
few as to many ! " His armor-bearer declared that he was
perfectly ready to follow him. But would Yahweh help them ?
Was it his will that they should undertake this desperate ad-
venture? This was the only question they need ask, and
Jonathan knew how to find the answer. " Let us stand
where those fellows can see us," he said to his attendant,
" and if they say ' Wait till we come to you ! ' then we will
stay here ; but if they say ' Come up here if j-ou dare ! we'll
teach you who you are ! ' then we will take them at their word,
for it will be a sign that Yahweh has given them into our
hands." Upon this they came out into the sight of the Phil-
istines, who greeted them with a shout of contemptuous
laughter the moment they saw them. " Only look," they
cried, " here are the Hebrews creeping out of their holes !
Come up here, and we'll teach you who you are!" "Fol-
low me ! " cried Jonathan to his companion, " for Yahweh
has given the Philistines into the hand of Israel ! " And to
the amazement of the Philistines, the bold warrior, followed
by his armor-bearer, began scrambling up the slope on his
hands and knees. Terror seized the Philistines. They
gazed in breathless amazement at their desperate assailants,
and were too completely stupefied to strike them down as
they crept towards them. Before they had recovered their
l See pp. 441, 442.
478 SAUL DELIVEES ISRAEL.
senses the two were upon them. Jonathan had already
struck down several of their number, while his armor-bearer
followed him and made sure his work. Thus, twenty of
them fell under the hero's arrows and stones. 1 The panic
spread. It seized the whole army, not only the ill-armed
and ill-organized mass that generally constituted the bulk of
an ancient army, but the chosen troops themselves. The
earth trembled. It was a "panic of God." The flight was
universal.
Saul's watchmen observed the commotion, and reported it
to their prince. He was not a little surprised, and gave
orders at once that search should be made to see whether any
of his warriors were absent. The truth was soon discovered.
Jonathan and his armor-bearer were nowhere to be found.
Ahiah was sent for without loss of time, and he soon stood
with his ephod 1 before Saul ready to consult Yahweh. Saul
asked him whether he should attack the Philistines or remain
in his own camp. Meanwhile the army of the Philistines
broke into general and open flight. "Hold," cried Saul to
the priest, ' ' no need to consult Yahweh now ! " "To arms ! "
they shout on every side, as they rush upon the foe. The
Philistines are beside themselves with terror. Believing them-
selves to be betrayed they turn their weapons upon each other,
unable in their panic fear to distinguish friend from foe, and
all is utter confusion !
The fate of the Philistine army was soon decided. The
slaves 1 who had been compelled to serve in it now took the
side of Saul and Jonathan. The Israelites who had hidden
in Mount Ephraim, in the rear of the hostile army, came out
at the news of the defeat and fell upon the foe from every side.
Saul's band of six hundred soon swelled to ten thousand, and
the flying enemy was followed with unwearying persistence
into every corner of Mount Ephraim.
But now Saul made a great mistake. 1 He feared that his
people, many of whom no doubt had tasted but little food
during the last few days, might lag behind in the pursuit, and
stay to eat the provisions that fell into their hands, so he cried
aloud, " A curse upon the man who tastes food before the
evening, or who eats anything till the measure of my ven-
geance on my foes is full ! " So every one fasted, and even
when the warriors came to a thicket where honey was dropping
on every side they dare not so much as taste it, for fear of the
curse.
1 After an amended version.
SAUL DELIVERS ISRAEL. 479
But Jonathan had not heard his father's oath, and as he was
faint with hunger, he plunged his stick into the honey as he
hastened past and tasted it. He was told at once by one of
the soldiers what his father had said ; but he did not at all
approve of it. He was naturally vexed to see that the fruits
of his heroism would not be so rich as he had hoped, and as
they might have been. " My father," he said, " is spoiling
everything ! Look how my eyes have been cleared by just
tasting this honey ! What a glorious day this would be if
every one might eat freely what he could find, for they are all
weak and exhausted for want of food. We shall have "but a
paltry victory after all."
At last the evening came. The Israelites had pursued
the Philistines to Ajalon, and now they could go no further.
Their hands were full of booty, including a number of oxen,
sheep, and calves. Nothing could have been more welcome
under the special circumstances. The sharp tooth of hunger
drove them to a course from which they would otherwise have
shrunk. To slaughter the cattle in the usual manner would
have taken too long, especially as they had no metal weapons,
so they dashed the animals upon the ground, tore off pieces
of the flesh and devoured it, blood and all. 1 This was a sin
against Yahweh, and as such it roused the indignation of Saul
to the utmost. As soon as he heard what was going on he
did all that could be done to put an end to it. He ordered
his immediate followers to bring him a huge stone, and then
go round amongst the scattered groups of the people and tell
them to bring their cattle there to be slaughtered. The people
obeyed. Every one brought his prize to the spot. Saul de-
voted himself to slaughtering the animals for his people upon
the stone he had set up for the purpose, taking care that in
every case the blood shoukl flow off properly. He afterwards
dedicated the stone, all deluged with blood, as an altar to
Yahweh. This was the first altar he raised.
When the hungry soldiers were satisfied, and were therefore
in a condition to pursue the enemj' still further, as the smoke
of the sacrifice rose into the air from the newly-erected altar,
Saul's warlike zeal broke forth again with new strength.
"Come," he cried to his warriors, "let us spend the whole
night in pursuing the Philistines ! Let us plunder them till
morning breaks ; not one of them must be left alive ! " Many
of his wearied followers must have longed for a good night's
rest, after such a faying clay and such a hurried meal ; but be
i See p. 86.
480 SAUL DELIVERS ISRAEL.
this as it may, they all declared themselves ready for the pur-
suit. The priest, however, who had offered the sacrifice now
interposed, and recommended Saul to consult the deity before
undertaking a further pursuit. The prinee, full of reverence
for Yahweh, at once assented ; and when the priest had put
on his ephod, Saul asked, "Am I to pursue the Philistines?"
Our knowledge of the way in which an Israelite priest of
those days consulted his god is far from complete. The
apparatus he used was probably concealed in the ephod, and
was called either Urim alone, or more fully Urim and Thum-
mim '; that is, light and truth. It consisted, at any rate in
part, of some kind of apparatus for casting lots. We shall
presently give an account of its employment, which is not to
be found in our authorized version, however, since the text
from which it is taken is restored from the Greek and Latin
translations. We shall see from this account that if the
question put to the deity admitted of but two answers, the
person consulting the oracle might say, Give Urim in the one
case and Thummim in the other. We know that the divining
apparatus of a certain Arab tribe consists of two arrows, upon
one of which is written "Yes," and upon the other "No."
But the Urim and Thummim cannot have been anything ex-
actly like this, for in that case a definite answer of some sort
must always have been obtained. But this was not so with
the Israelites. Sometimes Yahweh gave no answer at all by
the Urim. How this appeared we cannot tell.
On the occasion of which we are speaking this very thing
happened. When Saul asked whether he was to continue the
pursuit, Yahweh kept silence and refused to give an answer.
This was certainly a sign of anger. Saul was much disturbed,
and immediately summoned all the troops. " A sin has been
committed," he cried, "and therefore Yahweh will not answer
me. The guilty man must be discovered ; and though it be
my son Jonathan himself, yet as sure as Yahweh lives he shall
be put to death ! " A shudder ran through every frame to
think that the dreaded Yahweh was wroth, and that no man
knew the cause ! The bravest heart beat fast. What sacri-
fice would the stern god demand? Who was not conscious
of some sin? Just now, for instance, they had eaten blood.
Could 1 that be the cause of Yahweh's wrath ? And then the
fearful oath of Saul, the zealot, the devoted worshipper of
Yahweh ! He was not the man to break his vow. A still-
ness as of death followed the monarch's words.
To show that he was thoroughly in earnest, Saul took his
SAUL DELIVERS ISEAEL. 481
stand with Jonathan, over against the people and said, "We
will ask Yahweh whether the guilty man is one of us two or
one of you ! " The people tremblingly assented, and Saul
went on. "0 Yahweh, God of Israel! Why hast thou not
answered thy servant? If I or my son Jonathan have
sinned, then give Urim ; and if the guilty one is among the
people, then give Thummim!"' 1 Then the lots were cast,
and Yahweh acquitted the people, and declared that the guilt
lay with Saul or with his son. Then the king said, " We two
will east lots, and he upon whom the lot falls shall die."
"Never! never!" cried the people in horror; but Saul per-
sisted. 1 The lots were cast between himself and his son, and
the lot fell upon Jonathan. The guilty man was now dis-
covered, and Saul turned to him and exclaimed, " My son,
confess your guilt. What is it you have done ? " Then Jona-
than remembered what had taken place a few hours before,
and felt convinced that it was he who had caused the wrath
of Yahweh. "As we were pursuing the enemy," he said,
" I put a little honey to my mouth with the end of my stick.
Thus did I break your oath ; and now I am ready to die for
it." It was all clear now. Saul had discovered the cause
of Yahweh's wrath, and however deeply moved at the thought
of losing his son, he was ready to sacrifice his feelings as a
father to the demands of his faith. " May God requite me,"
he cried, ' ' if you do not die this very day ! " ' But here the
people interposed. "What! Jonathan to be put to death!
The hero to whom we owe this mighty victory ! " " Never !
never ! As sure as Yahweh lives, not a hair of his head
shall be touched ! " they cried on every side. Saul's chief
men threw themselves between the fanatical monarch and his
son. Half convinced, half overpowered, at last he relin-
quished his design, and a ransom was paid for Jonathan.
We are not told what this ransom was. It may have been a
certain number of prisoners of war, or a great herd of cattle
and sheep. But the sacrifice offered in the place of the
offender must certainly have been a costly one, or it could
not in any degree have satisfied the conscience of Saul.
Thus Jonathan's life was spared.
Meanwhile the idea of pursuing the Philistines that night
had been given up, and they were allowed to escape to their
own country. But this great victory had confirmed Saul on
the throne of Israel. As king of Israel, Saul waged many
wars to defend his people from the oppression of their neigh-
1 After an amended version.
VOL. i. 21
482 SAUL DELIVERS ISRAEL.
bors on every side ; and in whatever direction he turned ma
arms he was always victorious. The Edomites, the Moabites,
the Ammonites, the kings of Zobah, in fact all the peoples upon
Israel's eastern border, were humbled by him. The Philis-
tines could not stand before him. He even collected a great
arm}', with which he so crippled the Amalekites and other
robber tribes of the south, that they were compelled to desist
from their constant incursions into Canaan.
As to his family affairs we are told that he had four sons
— Jonathan, Abinadab, Melchishuah, and Ishbaal or Ishbos-
heth 1 — and two daughters, Merab and Michal, by his wife
Ahinoam. His commander-in-chief was Abner, who was his
cousin ; for Ner, Abner's father, and Kish, the father of Saul,
were brothers, sons of Abiel. 2
This account, which appears to be very trustworthy, has
been preserved by the same writer who told us how Samuel
anointed Saul at Eamah. 3 He certainly derived it from some
earlier authority, but he did not hand it down unaltered.
On the other hand he inserted a passage towards the beginning
of the account which introduces such confusion into the narra-
tive itself, and makes Saul's character appear so extraordi-
nary, that I have left it out. When telling us how Saul was
anointed king, this writer made Samuel say : " You must wait
for me seven days at Gilgal, till I join you there and offer the
sacrifices and tell you what to do." i It is to this injunction
that the writer now refers us back. He makes Saul summon
the people to Gilgal, 6 and then goes on as follows 6 : —
In obedience to the seer's words Saul waited at Gilgal.
How he longed to advance at once against the Philistines !
But he curbed his impetuous desire. At last the seventh
clay broke, but no Samuel appeared. The army was melting
away hour by hour. Nothing but some bold ' and decisive
step such as an order to march against the enemy could
prevent his being deserted by all his troops. But he could
not issue any such order before the solemn sacrifice had
been offered, and who knew whether the Philistines might
not attack him at Gilgal before the ceremony was performed ?
The day drew to a close, and Samuel was' still absent. At
last Saul could bear it no longer. He had all the prepara-
tions made, and then offered the burnt sacrifice himself.
Hardly had he done so when Samuel was seen approaching.
i See p. 392. 2 After an amended version.
8 1 Samuel ix. 1-x. 16. * 1 Samuel x. 8.
8 1 Samuel xiii. 4. « Yv. 7b -15a.
SAtJL DELIVERS ISRAEL. 483
Saul advanced respectfully to greet the seer, but Samuel
sternly required him to answer for what he had done. Saul
told him how it had happened. " The people were melting
away," he said, " and you came not at the appointed time.
The Philistines are encamped at Michmash, and I was afraid
that they might attack me and compel me to join battle with
them before I had called upon Yahweh. And so I took cour-
age to offer the sacrifice inyself." But Samuel would accept
no excuse. " You have done ill," he replied, " for you have
not obeyed the commandment of Yahweh, your god. Had
you obeyed, then Yahweh would have confirmed your rule over
Israel this day ; but now your power shall not endure, and
Yahweh will seek out a man after his own heart to take your
place and to be the prince of his people." With these words
the seer left Gilgal and departed to Gibeah in Benjamin.
It is well for the fair fame of Samuel that this story is
obviously untrue. It is really difficult to see what Saul's
offence was supposed to be. At any rate we try in vain to
discover anything that he had done to deserve so heavy a
punishment. We must remember that the writer does not
blame Saul for exercising the functions of a priest, and offer-
ing a sacrifice, for this was not considered unlawful in his
days, but merely for not waiting long enough for Samuel.
He seems to intend us to understand that the seventh day
was not quite gone when Saul's patience was exhausted ; but
he does not exactly say that it was so. In fact he says dis-
tinctly, "He waited seven days, until the time that Samuel
had appointed." He makes the difficulty in which Saul
found himself appear so great that one would think it was
his express purpose to throw blame upon Samuel's conduct.
But this cannot really' have been his intention. He doubt-
less wished to teach his readers that a prophet of Yahweh
had a claim to absolute obedience, and that no excuses, how-
ever good they might appear, were to be accepted for trans-
gressing any command, however hard or extraordinary. But
this cannot have been the real course of events. It is impos-
sible to believe that such a man as Samuel would have
wished to make Saul an absolute slave, or would have over-
thrown the kingdom he had just helped to establish, for such
a trivial cause as this. To do so would be to play fast and
loose with Israel's independence, in a manner utterly un-
worthy of a patriot. But this is not the only reason for
refusing to accept the narrative as true. Would Saul desert
Ms strong position opposite the Philistines, and go and waste
484 SAUL DELIVERS ISRAEL.
his time at Gilgal, just at the very moment when he dreaded
an attack ? If so, the Israelites had good reason for distrust-
ing such a clumsy and reckless leader. The Philistines, too,
appear to have quietly waited until the Israelites returned
and rcoccupied the mountain pass they had deserted. Again,
we arc left entirely without information as to the moment at
which these seven days of Saul's stay at Gilgal were supposed
to begin. Lastly, Saul's zeal and courage do not appear
from the narrative to have been damped in the least degree
by Samuel's announcement that Yahweh had rejected him,
and this is contrary to all that we know of his disposition.
We shall therefore put this account of the meeting between
Saul and Samuel entirely on one side for the present.
"When this addition is struck out, the narrative itself
throws some light upon several subjects that we have dis-
cussed already, and in its turn receives some light from them.
In the first place, it illustrates the remark we have already
made, 1 that in ancient times the Israelites considered that a
man's guilt was not in any way affected by the intention
with which he had done anything. They simply asked
whether the deed was in itself a trespass. If one man had
killed another he must be put to death, whether he had
done it by accident or on purpose ; and in the same way
Jonathan was condemned to death because he had tasted
food after his father had pronounced a curse upon any one
who should do so. It is true that the command was very ill-
advised, as the writer himself does his best to show us ; true
that Jonathan merely transgressed the letter and not the
spirit, for he only tasted the honey as he passed without
pausing a moment in the pursuit ; it is even true that he had
not so much as heard of his father's prohibition : but for all
that he was guilt} - , and it was therefore he that had drawn
down Yahweh's wrath upon the people. Such was Saul's
belief, the people did not dispute it for a moment, and the
writer himself obviously holds the same view. The Israelites
were better than their belief, but their belief was that it was
Jonathan's act that had made Yahweh wroth. It was for
this reason that Jonathan had t.o be redeemed or bought off,
for the people could never have been satisfied until their angry
god had been appeased.
In the next place this narrative shows that we did not
exaggerate the ferocity that was characteristic of Samuel's
activity as a judge ; " 2 for this action of Said is quite in the
l See pp. 81, 82. 2 See pp. W%, 453.
SAUL DELIVERS ISRAEL. 485
spirit of Samuel — the spirit of zeal for the service of Yahweh,
in accordance with the character ascribed to that god in the
eleventh century before Christ. In this scene Saul appears
before us as the true type of the faithful and zealous wor-
shipper of the fearful god. Yahweh's demands are terrible,
but for his true servant nothing is too hard. Saul casts lots
between himself and Jonathan. He is willing to lay down
his own life, should it appear by the answer of the god that
he has unwittingly sinned against him ; and when Jonathan
turns out to be the guilty man, Saul smothers even his affec-
tion for his son, and is ready to offer him as a sacrifice. This
is a sample of the kind of honor paid at this time to Yahweh,
Israel's god, by the most zealous of his worshippers.
After studying this narrative we shall find nothing to
surprise us in the later deeds of Saul, to which we have
referred already in describing Samuel's activity, 1 — his perse-
cution of the ventriloquists and the magicians, for instance,
or his attempt to root out the Gibeonites. These were but
fresh manifestations of the spirit he displayed in his treat-
ment of his eldest son when he had transgressed. Saul was
fanatical in his zeal for Yahweh. The struggle for Israel's
freedom and power, to which he summoned the tribes, was
to him a religious war. It was faith in the mighty Yahweh's
help that enabled the Israelites under Saul's guidance to
perform such heroic deeds, and that finally delivered the peo-
ple from their foes. As in the times of Deborah and Jeph-
thah, so now too it was in Yahweh's name that the enemy
was routed. But in one important respect this period differed
from those that had preceded it ; for when Saul had gained
his first victory he kept the reins of government in his hands,
and, instead of disbanding his army, took up an offensive
attitude towards his neighbors. He found pretexts for en-
gaging in war first with one and then with another of the sur-
rounding peoples, and under his rule therefore Israel was for
the first time recognized as a united and formidable nation.
Saul's numerous victories, and the prosperity and glory
which they brought to Israel, appear not only from the short
account that closes the narrative we have just examined, but
also from the dirge composed by David after the death of
Saul and his sons. It is as follows 2 : —
Israel ! thy glory lies slain on thy hills !
How are the heroes fallen !
Tell it not in Gath,
Publish it not in the streets of Askelon ;
1 See pp. 449 ft. 2 2 Samuel i. 19-27.
486 SAUL DELIVERS ISRAEL.
Lest the Philistine girls rejoice,
And the daughters of the uncircumcised dance for joy.
mountains of Gilboa, let no dew or rain fall on you,
Ye fields and hills of death! i
For there was the hero's shield cast away,
The shield of Saul, bespattered, all iinanointecl with oil. 1
Without the blood of the slaughtered, without the fat of heroes
The bow of Jonathan turned not back ;
The sword of Saul returned not empty.
Saul and Jonathan, the beloved and beauteous,
Were never parted in life or death ;
They were swifter than eagles,
They were stronger than lions.
Ye daughters of Israel ! weep for Saul,
Who clothed you in purple and splendor,
And threw jewels of gold round your necks.
How are the heroes fallen in battle,
And Jonathan slain on the heights !
1 am grieved by thy loss, my brother Jonathan !
Thou wast very dear to me ;
More precious to me was thy love than the lore of women.
Alas! the heroes are fallen,
And their weapons of war have perished !
That Saul was no ordinary man, and well knew how to
gain the love of his subjects is also shown by the sequel of
the history, for the greater part of the Israelite nation clung
to his house with a deep affection which long survived the
accession of David to the throne.
We have no means of knowing how long Saul's reign
lasted. At the beginning of this narrative, the period of his
reign is given as two years. But this cannot be correct.
Much more than this is required to allow time for everything
that happened in his reign. For instance, while he was
king, David rose to fame, was persecuted and compelled to
pass sixteen months among the Philistines. We have no
trustworthy information as to the length of Saul's reign
elsewhere. We are told in the book of Acts 2 that he reigned
forty years, and Josephus assigns him either forty or twenty
years, it is not quite clear which. But the statements of
these writers are of no value, for they had no sources of
information except the old Scriptures. It has been con-
jectured that the two years of which the book of Samuel
speaks cover the period of the king's friendship with Samuel,
and that he was then declared to be deposed, though as a
matter of fact he reigned for five years more. We shall
touch upon the arguments in favor of this supposition pres-
ently ; but even a period of seven years is hardly long enough
for all that took place in this reign.
Saul had done great things for Israel. He had proved
1 After an amended version. 2 Acts xiii. 21.
SAUL REJECTED BY TAHWEH, 487
decisively that the Israelites were capable of being formed
into a single nation ; and had richly earned the title of
Israel's deliverer. And yet his family fell with him. How
it was that so brilliant a constellation set so soon we shall
consider in the following chaptex .
Chapter XXVI.
SAUL REJECTED BY YAHWEH.
1 Samuel XV.
THE following story is intended to explain why Saul's
dynasty never took root in Israel : —
One day Samuel said to Saul : "It was I whom Yahweh
sent to anoint you king over his people Israel. Listen
therefore to the commands which he sends you by my
mouth. Thus speaks Yahweh of Armies : ' I remember the
evil that the Amalekites did to the Israelites as they came
up out of Egypt ; and now they must be chastised for it. 1
Rise up, therefore, and lay the Amalekites under the ban.
Spare them not ; but put men and women, nay, the very chil-
dren and the sucking babes to death ; and slaughter the cat-
tle and the sheep, the camels and the asses.' " In obedience
to Yahweh's command Saul summoned the men of military
age to Gilgal, 1 and soon found himself in command oft two
hundred thousand Israelites, and ten thousand Judaaans.
With this formidable arcny he advanced against the Amale-
kites ; but first, he warned the Kenites not to make com-
mon cause with them, for the Kenites had always been
friendly to Israel, and Saul was anxious not to injure them.
He now routed his enemies so utterly, that all their territory
came into his power ; and Agag himself, the king of the
Amalekites, fell into his hands alive. Then Samuel's in-
junctions were earned into effect, Amalek was destroyed by
fire and sword. Agag himself however was not slain, but
was carried off as a prisoner, and Saul allowed some of the
choicest cattle to be kept alive and driven off as booty.
He had to pay dearly for this act of folly. Yahweh was
not to be mocked. Saul returned in triumph ; raising a
i After an amended version.
488 SAUL REJECTED BY YAHWEH.
triumphal column at Carmel, in the desert of Judah. But
as he was on his way to Gilgal, Yahweh revealed himself to
Samuel. " I repent," said he in wrath, " that I ever made
Saul king ;• for he is disobedient, and now he shall be re-
jected ! " Full of grief and terror, Samuel cried all night
to his god, beseeching him to mitigate the sentence. But it
was all in vain. He must himself bear Yahweh's message
to the king.
Samuel went, to meet Saul at Gilgal and found the victo-
rious prince in the very act of offering a sacrifice to Yahweh
from the first fruits of the booty. 1 He advanced to meet the
prophet, and joyfully exclaimed, " May Yahweh bless thee!
I have fulfilled his command ! " But Samuel answered
severely, "Then what is this sound I hear? What means
this lowing of cattle and bleating of sheep ? " Saul answered
in some confusion, but still quite unconscious of having com-
mitted any serious fault, " These are some of the best of the
Amalekites' cattle. The people spared them for a sacrifice
to Yahweh, your god. But all the rest I have laid under the
ban." Supposing that he had now completely justified him-
self, Saul tried to lead Samuel to the altar, but the prophet
resisted his attempt and exclaimed, " Stay! I must deliver
the message which Yahweh uttered to me in the night."
" Speak on !" said Saul, auguring little good from Samuel's
voice and manner. Then the prophet strove to make him
feel his shameful disobedience. " Were j'ou not little in
your own sight when Yahweh anointed you king of Israel ?
How dared you then to rebel? And when he commanded
you utterly to destroy the miserable Amalekites how dared
you to neglect his word, to keep the spoil, and so to do evil
in his sight ? " Then Saul, perceiving that the prophet was
in terrible earnest, endeavored to excuse himself: " I yielded
to the people's wish," x he said. " But I did obey the com-
mandment of Yahweh, and though I have kept Agag alive
yet 1 have rooted out the Amalekites. Only the people chose
the best of the cattle and the other spoil to bring here to
Gilgal, to sacrifice to Yahweh, your god." As if the sparing
of Agag were a mere trifle ! As if king Saul — taken in the
very act of offering the sacrifice with his own hands — did
not share in his people's guilt ! Samuel passed over these
excuses, as though Saul himself must know them to be
idle, and merely answered the single plea that the cattle
had been kept for a sacrifice. " Think you," he demanded
1 After an amended vereion.
SAUL REJECTED BY YAHWEH. 489
sternly, " that Yahweh delights in any sacrifice as much as
in the obedience of his worshippers? Of a truth, obedience
is better than any sacrifice ; l to give ear to his words is
better than the fat . of rams ; for disobedience is as great a
sin as witchcraft, and obstinacy is as bad as the worship of
teraphim. 1 Since you have despised the commands of Yahweh,
he has deemed you unworthy to be king of Israel."
Humbled by these threatening words, Saul confessed his
guilt in yielding to the wishes of his people, and implored
forgiveness, at the same time begging Samuel to join with
him in worshipping Yahweh. But Samuel had uttered no
idle threat. Saul could not wash out his guilt by confessing
it. He was once for all rejected of Yahweh. It was not
till Samuel answered, " I will not go with you ; for since you
have transgressed Yahweh's commandment, he has rejected
you utterly ! " that Saul understood the full extent of his
punishment. Upon this Samuel turned away to go ; but
Saul strove to detain him, and, in his despair, seized him by
his mantle so violently as to tear off the flap. But Samuel
only took occasion to repeat in another form the sentence of
his god : "So Yahweh tears the kingdom of Israel from
your hand this day, and gives it to another who is better
than you. He who gives Israel victory lies not and changes
not his thoughts ; for he never repents, like a man, of what
he has determined to do." Perceiving, at last, that the sen-
tence was irrevocable, Saul exclaimed: "I have sinned.
But yet support my authority before the nobles and all the
people. Follow me and take part in the sacrifices and
prayers in honor of Yahweh, your god." To this request
Samuel assented.
When Saul began the sacrifice, and the sacred trumpets
sounded, and the air rang with shouts of victory in honor
of Yahweh, Samuel cried, "Bring forth Agag, king of the
Amalekites ! " The captive knew what he had to expect.
He drew near the place of slaughter trembling, and cried
aloud, "Oh! how bitter it is to die!" 1 But Samuel was
not touched by his misery. His eye flashed with the fire of
fanatical reverence for Yahweh and hatred of his people's
enemies. Turning to the captive, he exclaimed passionately,
"As your sword has made many women childless, so shall
your mother be bereft of her son ! " Upon this he swung
the sacrificial axe on high and hewed Agag in pieces to the
glory of Yahweh.
1 After an amended version.
21*
490 SAUL REJECTED BY YAHWEH.
When the feast held in honor of the victory was over, Sam-
uel went to his dwelling-place at Ramah, and Saul returned to
Gibeah. From that day forward they never met again.
This story reminds us at once of the account of Saul's im-
patience at Gilgal, and the sentence which it drew upon his
head. 1 The two stories have much in common. In both of
them Saul's offence is disobedience to Samuel's command ; in
both his punishment is the fall of his dynasty, and both imply
that Yahweh had already chosen his successor. The two can-
not be reconciled, for the first does not speak of a provisional
sentence, the execution of which might be averted b3 r strict
obedience. It speaks just as clearly as the second of an
irrevocable decree of Yahweh. And in the second there is not
the smallest reference to any previous announcement of Yah-
weh's displeasure.
The story we are now considering is no nearer the truth
than the other. It was written centuries after the time of
Saul, as we may see from the very fact of its putting into the
mouth of Samuel such lofty thoughts as to the worship accept-
able to Yahweh ; for these ideas were first conceived and ex-
pressed by the great prophets of the eighth century before
Christ, by such men, for instance, as Michah or Isaiah. The
unhistorical character of the story is further evident from the
impossible pretext given for the declaration of war against
Amalek, from the exaggeration of the number of the warriors
Saul is said to have had under his banner, and from the state-
ment that Amalek was utterly desti'03-ed, whereas we know
that so soon as in David's time this people was again in
a position to threaten Israel's safety. 2 But, apart from these
details, the main idea of the story is untrue. For, like the
other account, this also makes a single definite trespass — and
a very trivial one — cause the ruin of Saul. It is impossible
to believe that it was so really. To begin with, of course, we
cbuld not speak of Saul's being rejected by God upon such
grounds ; for Samuel's order to lay all Amalek under the ban
is so repugnant to our feelings as Christians, that we should
certainly never dream of ascribing it to God. But even if we
overlook the fact that the writer believes Saul to have been
rejected by Yahweh, and take the narrative simply to mean
that he was rejected by Samuel, it is still incredible. Surely
Samuel cannot have required such absolute submission on the
part of the king that he declared himself against him, and took
1 See p. 482. 2 1 Samuel xxvii. 8; 2 Samuel viii. 12.
SAUL REJECTED BY YAH W EH. 491
steps to dethrone Mm on the strength of one trifling act of
disobedience. At any rate, if it were so, it would be a speci-
men of the most unscrupulous ambition and the most culpable
levity in all that concerned the interests of the people.
We cannot regard this stoiy as anything but an attempt to
answer a question that suggested itself to the thoughtful Israel-
ites of a later age. It was this: "How was it that Saul's
family did not remain upon the throne of Israel, but that
David succeeded to it?" A faithful worshipper of Yahweh
would never think of looking for natural causes, such as the
recent establishment of the monarclry, the character of Saul,
his Benjamite extraction, Samuel's personal qualities, the de-
feat and death of Saul, or the incapacity of his surviving son.
All this was nothing. The only answer that could satisfy him
was that Yahweh had rejected Saul, whence it followed that
Saul had committed some sin. This idea was worked out by
the writers of both the legends of the rejection of Saul. Their
purpose probably was to exhort their contemporaries to stricter
obedience. It would be good for them, they thought, to be
told that Saul's sin consisted in disobeying the commands of
the prophets.
But in all probability there lies a certain truth at the bottom
of both these stories : the truth that Saul quarrelled with Sam-
uel, and that the opposition of the prophets contributed in no
small degree to the fall of his house. It is easy to see in what
particulars Saul would find himself unable permanently to act
with Samuel, and in this respect our story has preserved a
very correct impression of the real state of things. Let us try
to recall the circumstances under which Saul became king, and
the policy he first adopted.
The tribes of Israel were divided amongst themselves and
were oppressed by hosts of enemies when a great religious
revival, partly stimulated by Samuel, took place among the
worshippers of Yahweh. The prophets formed societies ; the
Nazarites constantly increased in numbers, and many a heart
was fired by the thought that the people of Yahweh must never
mingle their blood with that of the Canaanites, and that the
sons of Israel must regard everything heathenish as impure.
But the ferment caused by these zealots, with Samuel at their
head, would have resulted in Israel's downfall ; for now that
the injured Canaanites made common cause with the foreign
foe, Israel would have been too weak to resist. It was, there-
fore, a grrit gain for the Israelites to find a man like Saul,
who would watch over their general interests, lead them to
492 SAUL REJECTED BT YAHWEH.
battle, retain a number" of their fighting men under arms and
enforce general obedience. Saul's skill and courage saved
Israel from destruction.
But he too availed himself of the religious enthusiasm of the
people, and, supported by the prophets, he summoned the
tribes to battle in Yahweh's name. It was but natural, then,
that in all respects he should adopt the principles of the zeal-
ots ; for he was a thorough-going supporter of Samuel's policy,
which, of course, he now put into action. The first legend
of his rejection by Samuel is quite wrong in making him
quarrel with the seer at the beginning of his reign ; for he
ruled entirely in his spirit for some time. He raised altars to
Yahweh, and when he had made an oath to him he enforced
it with such terrible severity as not to shrink from sacrificing
his own life or that of his son to maintain its sanctity. He
persecuted the ventriloquists and wizards to the very death.
He would have no treaty of peace with the Canaanites ; and in
Gibeon and the neighborhood, as well as elsewhere, numbers
of them fell beneath his hand, in honor of Yahweh.
But this could not last. In the first flush of excitement
caused by the election of a king, while the impression made by
his successful campaigns was still fresh, such a policy might
be carried out. But Saul soon perceived that the path he was
treading must inevitably lead the people to destruction in the
end. He could not go through with these measures. The
Israelites were too weak and his own throne was too insecure
for this to be possible ; and doubtless many of his subjects
murmured against a policy which they had such good reason
to regard as hazardous.
When the first excitement was over and the most pressing
dangers averted, Saul, no longer surrounded by the incessant
whirl and din of battle, began to consider his line of action
more calmly, and to act with greater moderation. We may
suppose that his heart, too, protested against the wholesale
bloodshed involved in the strict maintenance of Yahweh's
command to root out all heathens and sinners with fire and
sword. A hint to this effect is still preserved in the story of
his war with Amalek and his neglecting fully to enforce all the
horrors of the ban.
But by this milder policy he came into collision with the
zealots ; for they knew no pity. They are fitly represented
by the fierce, inexorable Samuel, who would not have the
sucking child of an Amalekite spared, and hewed Agag into
pieces with his own hand, at Yahweh's altar. These zealots
SAUL REJECTED BY YAHWEH. 493
began to oppose the king from the very moment that his
policy became milder, for they thought that he was kindling
the wrath of Yahweh by his weakness, and so bringing ruin
upon Israel. Away with him then !
But the great mass of the people by no means shared the
views of the zealots and remained faithful to Saul. Never-
theless these circumstances were a source of strength to his
enemies, and his own rashness gave them only too many op-
portunities of turning their advantages to account. But we
shall return to this subject presently.
This story of Saul's rejection by Yahweh, then, has little
value as history ; at the most it does but indicate the line we
must follow in order to gain a true idea of what occurred.
But there are certain great religions truths expressed in it
which make the whole scene rich and beautiful in many ways.
It urges us to fulfil the commandments of God to the very ut-
termost, making no reservations. It teaches us that nothing
can make up for disobedience to the will of God.
God does not command us to commit horrors in his name,
to shed human blood, or to show our zeal for the truth by
deeds of violence ; but he commands us to be loving, help-
ful, strict in the performance of our duties, just, diligent, and
self-denying. Though it is often man that makes these
duties clear to us, yet we know by the echo which they wake
in our hearts that they are the commands of God, and that,
as such, they demand our unconditional obedience.
Alas ! how often we find ourselves, like Saul, but half ful-
filling the command, and then deceiving ourselves and others
by saying, "I have done as .the Lord commanded me!"
Such words could only be true on the lips of one who had
fallen short in no respect of fulfilling God's commands. Jesus
gives striking utterance to the same truth in his parable of the
" unprofitable servant," x in which he teaches us that the man
who has done everything that he ought to do has after all
only done just enough. Every instance of neglect of perfect
obedience makes us guilty before God.
And these deficiencies cannot be made good by burnt offer-
ings or by any other means. In all ages men have imagined
that they could, and have tried to make up for their neglected
duties by presents to the deity, or some other outward sign
of honor, such as prayers, fasts, alms, going to church, sound
doctrine, correct forms of worship, or a will in which some
1 Luke xvii. 7-10.
494 tahweh's chosen one at the court or sattl.
small part of their ill-earned wealth is bestowed upon chari-
table objects. It is all in vain. "Obedience is better than
any sacrifice." This is the most precious truth preached to us
by the mouth of Samuel. Let us strive never to forget it !
Chapter XXVII.
YAHWEH"S CHOSEN ONE AT THE COURT OF SAUL.
1 Samuel XVI., XVIII. 5-13.
" O AMUEL never saw Saul again all his life ; but he grieved
O for him deeply. Whereas Yahweh repented that he
had made Saul king over Israel." Such are the final words
of the prophetic narrative we have last considered. That
which follows is closely connected with it, and breathes the
same spirit. Some time after the events at Gilgal, Yahweh
said to Samuel, "How long will you go on mourning over
Saul, whom I have deemed unworthy to rule over Israel ? Fill
your horn with oil, for I will send you to Jesse, the Bethlehem-
ite, one of whose sons I have chosen to be king." But the
prophet hesitated to obey the command, and exclaimed, " How
can I go to Bethlehem for such a purpose ? If Saul should
hear of it he would take my life." But Yahweh answered;
" Take a young ox with you, and tell them at Bethlehem that
you have come to make a sacrifice to me. Ask Jesse to the
feast, and I will tell you what next to do. You have only to
anoint as king him whom I show to you." Thus Samuel's ob-
jection was overruled, and he declared himself ready to obey.
When the news of his approach reached Bethlehem, con-
sternation seized the inhabitants ; for Samuel's visits seldom
boded good. He was the stern instrument of Yahweh's
judgments; and corpses hanging on the gibbet, or buried
under great heaps of stones raised to perpetuate their
shame, fields smitten by the ban and condemned to lie un-
tilled, or dwellings cursed and levelled with the ground —
such were, too often, the monuments that kept the memory
of Samuel's visits fresh. Had any one at Bethlehem been
guilty of a crime or folly that called for fire and sword to
expiate it? Who could tell? Samuel was so stern in judg-
ment ! The elders of the city went trembling to meet him,
YAHWEH S CHOSEN ONE AT THE COURT OF SAUL. 495
but what a weight was lifted from their hearts when, in
answer to the question, "O seer, comest thou in peace?"
Samuel replied, " I come in peace ; to offer a sacrifice to
Yahweh. Consecrate yourselves, and celebrate with me a
feast of joy." J
Samuel took up his abode with Jesse, whom he invited,
together with all his sons, to the sacrifice, promising at the
same time personally to superintend the consecrations and
purifications that they must perform ere they could appear
before Yahweh's face. While still in the house, he requested
Jesse to present all his sons to him, one by one, and when
Eliab, the eldest, entered, he thought, " Surely, this is the
anointed one whom Yahweh has chosen ! " But his god
said to him, " Think not so much of his appearance and
the height of his stature, for I have rejected him. I judge
not as a man judges ; for man is astonished bj- the outward
show, but Yahweh thinks only of the disposition of the
heart." Then Jesse let Abinadab follow ; but neither did
he appear to be the chosen one of Yahweh. The same lot
fell to Shammah and all the seven sons of Jesse. Then
Samuel asked, "Have }-ou no other sons?" "Yes," was
the reply, " there is one more, the youngest, whom you
have not seen ; but he is not here, for he is pasturing the
flocks." "Send for him, then," said the seer, " for we will
not march round the altar * till he is here." s Then Jesse sent
for his youngest son, David, and when he entered, with his
fair complexion, his beautiful eyes, and his noble presence,
Yahweh said to Samuel, " Stand up and anoint him, for this
is he ! " So the man of God took his oil-horn, and anointed
David king in the midst of his brothers ; and straightway the
spirit of Yahweh came upon him, and remained with him
k from that day forward. As soon as he had superintended the
sacrificial feast, Samuel returned to Ramah.
Saul had soon cause to know that he was rejected, and that
Yahweh deemed another the true king of Israel ; for the spirit
of Yahweh, which had so often, hitherto, kindled a holy zeal
within him and led him on to victory, now departed from him.
But Yahweh sent instead an evil spirit, that made him fearful,
despondent, and passionate. His attendants soon noticed his
fits of partial madness, and rightly guessed their cause. " It
is an evil spirit of God," they said to their prince, "that
troubles you. Let us seek out a skilful player on the harp,
1 After an amended version. 2 Compare Psalm xxvi. 6.
* After an amended version.
496 tahweh's chosen one at the court op saux.
that his music may put the demon to flight, and that you may
be at peace." Saul accepted their advice, and before long
one of his servants told him of, David, who united in himself
all possible attractions. He played skilfully on the harp, was
courageous in battle, a warrior from top to toe, eloquent in
speech, beautiful in person, and evidently beloved of Yahweh.
The king longed to see this wonderful young Bethlehemite at
his court, and sent to ask Jesse to let his son come to him.
The father could hardly refuse the request ; so he sent David
to Saul with a present of a kid, a skin of wine, and as much
bread as could be made from a gomer (about five and a half
bushels) of corn. Thus David came to Saul, who soon be-
came much attached to him, made him his armor-bearer, and
begged Jesse to allow him to stay with him for good. His
skill in playing the harp was a great blessing to his master,
for when the evil spirit came upon Saul, David would touch
his harp, and at once the king would be relieved, and the
demon would depart from him. But David distinguished
himself in other waj's, and it soon became evident that his
courage and skill in handling his weapons had not been exag-
gerated. In fact, whatever Saul gave him to do, he accom-
plished with such brilliant success that he was soon set over
the royal life-guards, and stood high in the favor both of the
people and of Saul's courtiers. But this very success was
near costing him his life ; for once, as he was returning in
triumph, laden with booty, from a raid upon the Philistines,
Saul joined him and accompanied him, at the head of the
forces, to Gibeah, where a troop of girls and women from all
the cities of Israel had assembled to greet the king with music
and song. But no sooner had one chorus cried, " Saul has
struck his thousands down," than the other responded in tri-
umph, "and David his ten thousands!" If the people had
done it on purpose, they could not have found a surer means
of bringing their favorite to disgrace ; for these words roused
the king's jealousy against his too successful servant. " They
have given me thousands only," he was heard to mutter, "but
they talk of David's ten thousands ! What does he lack ex-
cept the crown?" From this moment Saul laid snares for
David's life. The very next day his hatred broke out with the
utmost violence. One of his fits had hurled him raving to the
ground in his own house, and David attempted, as usual, to
drive away the evil spirit by playing on the harp. But the
madman seized his lance, and cried, " I will pin David to the
wall." His intended victim darted from his presence, but soon
tahweh's chosen one at the court of sattl. 497
returned once more to try the strength of his music against the
demon that tormented his lord. No sooner had he returned
than the spear quivered in the hand of Saul, and fire flashed
from his ej-es. David's music had lost its power, for the prince
had conceived a dread of an attendant so evidently protected
by Yahweh, while he himself was deserted. Saul, therefore,
removed David from the court, and gave him command of a
troop stationed elsewhere. But, of course, this change did
not prevent the people from keeping their eyes fixed upon
David, and duly observing all his exploits.
The account of Samuel's anointing David king is obviously
legendary. Such conversations between Yahweh and Samuel,
as are here recorded, could not really take place. Is it pos-
sible to believe that Samuel was informed by a direct commu-
nication from Yahweh that David, a man utterly unknown
to him, was to be Saul's successor? It is in vain to answer,
"Why! does not God foresee everything?" for, in the first
place, God never unveils the details of the future in this way
to any man ; and, in the second place, what right have we to
identify the Yahweh here spoken of with God whom we adore
and love ? Remember that this Yahweh instructs Samuel to
invent a false pretext for going to Bethlehem, in order to make
it safe to do so. Is this dishonesty worthy of God ? We have
had so many proofs already 1 of the want of any fine perception
in such matters on the part of the Israelite historians, that this
trait does not at all surprise us ; but we must not translate
' ' Yahweh " by " God," and then appeal to God's knowledge
of the future in support of the story that Samuel foretold
David's future lot. A still further proof of the unhistorical
nature of the whole narrative may be found in the circumstance
that, though Samuel is in great terror of incurring the wrath
of Saul before he sets out for Bethlehem, he nevertheless
anoints David ' ' in the midst of his brethren." Did he imagine
that a secret known to so many could still be kept ? But, after
all, the strongest objection to the truth of the story is derived
from the subsequent conduct of David. Unless we regard him
as a thorough-going scoundrel, we cannot believe that he could
have acted as he did if he had really been anointed king by
Samuel at the beginning of his career. We shall touch upon
this point once more in another connection.
As to the way in which David first gained access to the
court of Saul the traditions vary. One of them, to be given
1 See pp. 189 ff. ; pp. 260, 353.
498 yahweh's chosen one at the court of saul.
in the following chapter, makes him owe his introduction to
Saul to a great feat of arms — his victor over Goliath — and
represents him as being quite unknown both to Saul and to
all his courtiers before this exploit. This account cannot be
reconciled with the one we have just considered. It is true
that the writer who wove the two together tells us chat David
went home again 1 before the fight with the Philistine giant
from which his fame as a warrior sprang. But even this does
not remove the contradiction ; for it is impossible that Saul
could have so completely forgotten the man who had for a
time rescued him by his music from the demon that tormented
him, whom he had made his shield-bearer, and whom, as we
are expressly told, he had learned to love. Besides, the first
story tells us distinctly that David stayed at court, and did
not go home. It is of small consequence, however, whether
David first distinguished himself at court as a musician or as
a warrior. A bard w r ho could wake a rousing or voluptuous
strain as he sang of war or love, and could sound the praises
of departed or still living heroes, was sure to be a welcome
guest ; while a bold warrior who could point to a heap of
Philistine heads as witnesses to his strong arm, his steady
hand, and his quick eye, would be greeted with yet louder
acclaim. All the traditions speak of David especially as a
valiant warrior ; but there appears also to be some truth in
the story of his skill upon the harp, and the influence it
exercised over Saul.
The whole story we are now considering naturally falls into
three sections, which tell us respectively : (1) How David was
anointed; (2) how he came to the court; and (3) how his
life was threatened by Saul. But the three sections are united
into a well-proportioned whole, in which a single leading
thought is consistently worked out. It is by no means acci-
dental that the account of Samuel's anointing David is imme-
diately followed by the words, "Then the spirit ofYahweh
departed from Saul, and an evil spirit troubled him." From
the writer's point of view, these two events are closely con-
nected with each other. The spirit of Yahweh passed over
from Saul to David. Thus, although Saul continued to reign
as a matter of fact, yet in Yahweh's eye he was already suc-
ceeded by David, who therefore enjoyed the blessing and
protection of his God. The writer wishes to impress us with
the fact that Yahweh had no sooner rejected Saul than he
selected another king. David's ascent of the throne, there-
l J jSgmuel xvii. 15.
tahweh's chosen one at the court op saul. 499
fore, is not to be attributed to the natural course of events, to
the many circumstances which heightened the natural effect
produced by his character and achievements, but simply to
the supreme will and pleasure of Yahweh, who " slays and
makes alive, bruises and heals, from whose hand there is no
deliverance," 1 who raises up kings and deposes them after
his own good pleasure.
There is certainly a kind of sublimity in this conception.
It converts history from a mass of disconnected facts, a mere
succession of accidents, into a single whole, a chain every
link of which is essential. And if we think of Him whose
supreme will reveals itself in the fall of this and the exal-
tation of that monarch, as wisdom, holiness, and love, there
is deep comfort in the thought that He rules all things.
Bat on the other hand, if, instead of confining ourselves to
generalities, we take up some special portion of the history of
mankind, and call some single fact, taken by itself, a revela-
tion of the will of God, there is great danger of our blunting
our moral perceptions. Take this very instance : Saul's
dynasty fell. This was the natural consequence of a hundred
different circumstances. Are we then, without any qualifi-
cation or reserve, to say that it was the expression of God's
will? Suppose it should appear that David supplanted Saul
by underhand devices and illicit practices, and, further, that
his throne stood firmer than Saul's had done, not because it
was founded on a better right, but because it was occupied
by a man who knew better than his predecessor how to
accommodate himself to circumstances : suppose for a mo-
ment that all this were to appear, should we be justified in
saying that God gives his sanction to such deeds ? Surely
not.
The Israelite writer, as a friend of David's dj'nasty, and
as a prophet who believed that Yahweh had created good and
evil alike, had no hesitation in ascribing the rise of his hero's
house to the over-ruling power of his god ; and he required
no further explanation. But if we follow him in this, we incur
two dangers. In the first place we lose all inclination to
examine the various circumstances which led to David's be-
coming king and superseding the family of Saul. We simply
say " the Lord ordained it," and look no further. But the
second and by far the greater danger is that of becoming
blind to Saul's virtues and to David's faults. This danger
was partially realized in the case of this Israelitish writer, for
1 D6uteronomy xxxii 39.
500 tahweh's chosen one at the court of saul.
he darkens the character of Saul, and loads David wit
praises. But we are in danger of carrying it yet further, fo.
we think of God as a far purer being than this Israelite's
Yahweh was to him. If we say that God willed that David
should succeed Saul, because he was a prince more nearly
after His heart, we cannot help thinking of David as nobler
than Saul ; whereas the writer of this story half-unconsciously
started from the belief that whichever turned out to be the
stronger must be the one whom Yahweh had chosen. Let
us ever be on our guard against this idea. In this world the
crown of victory is often worn by sin, and the side that is
worsted for the time is often the side of God.
In this story, as well as in that of the rejection ->f Saul,
some fine thoughts are well expressed. We are struck by
the words, " Man judges by the outward show, but Yahweh
looks within ; " that is to say, " The world, as a rule, values a
rich, handsome, powerful man above a poor, deformed, and
weak one ; but Yahweh judges a man by his heart, by the
measure of his righteousness." This is nobly said ; but it is
curious to notice how, when Saul is chosen king, our atten-
tion is fixed upon his physical superiority. Samuel points
out his great stature, and says to the people, "See what a
king Yahweh has chosen ; for there is not his like among
all the people." 1 Even our writer himself, though he has
just declared that Yahweh thinks only of that which is
within, cannot help telling us with delight of David's fair
complexion, beautiful eyes, and noble appearance, when first
he brings him upon the stage. His instincts were too strong
for his convictions !
Our story tells us that the spirit of Yahweh left Saul,
and that an evil spirit sent by Yahweh troubled him. This
points to a change for the worse in Saul's character ; and it
is a fact that his life is divided into two periods, in the latter
of which he appears in a much less favorable light than in
the former. The change did not take place suddenly, nor
was it the result of Samuel's journey to Bethlehem ; but it
came about gradually, and can be explained without much
difficulty from the special circumstances of the case. We
have already seen 2 that Saul was at first a zealous partisan
of Samuel's school, but that he afterwards changed his
policy. He saw that if he continued his jealous defence of
Yahweh's glory in the mode encouraged by the fanaticism of
the prophets he would soon bring Israel to destruction, and
1 1 Samuel x. 23, 24. 2 See p. 492.
JONATHAN AND DAVID. 501
he was therefore compelled gradually to change his tactics,
to live at peace .with the Canaanites, to tolerate heathen
practices, and to relax to some extent his strenuous efforts
to enforce the full demands of Yahweh in all their rigor.
His character suffered greatly by this change ; not so much
because he incurred the displeasure of the prophets as be-
cause he was acting more or less against the conviction of
his own conscience. If the prophetic rapture had been
altogether outside his own experience, if he had been of a
naturally cool and calculating disposition, he would have
been able to bear the fanatical opposition of his old allies
far better. But Saul was of a highly-wrought and passionate
temperament. Hitherto the stormy violence of his nature
had expressed itself in zeal for Yahweh's glory, but now
this vent was closed against it by the dictates of prudence.
The fire, thus confined, could not but break through in some
other direction, and reveal itself in bursts of frenzy. And,
again, what is harder to bear than the opposition of former
friends, especially when their opinions still find an echo in
our hearts in spite of ourselves ?
Neither music nor anything else could avail in the long
run to divert these bursts of madness. The evil was too
deep-rooted. If Saul could be at peace once more with
himself and with the policy he found himself pursuing, if
his bloodthirsty zeal for Yahweh could be transformed into
a holy zeal for God, then, but then only, would the demon
depart from him. As it was, his moral nature could not bear
the strain of these two hostile forces tearing him two ways —
his fanatical zeal for Yahweh, and his ratipnal love of his
people.
Chapter XXVIII.
JONATHAN AND DAVID.
1 Samuel XVII. 1-XVIII. 4, XVIII. 17-XX.
" A LL the time that Saul was king the war between the
XTl Israelites and the Philistines was raging fiercely;
and Saul endeavored, as far as he could, to collect all the
heroes round his person." These are the concluding words
of the account of the first victory which Saul gained over
502 JONATHAN AND DAVID.
the Philistines through the valor of Jonathan, 1 and the}'
serve to connect that story with the one that follows.
War had broken out again. The Philistines had led
their troops into the field, and had penetrated to Shochoh.
a city of Judah, where their progress had been stayed by
the Israelite army. The two camps were separated only by
a single valley. One army was encamped on each of the
opposing slopes, but neither dared to quit its own position
and endeavor to storm that of the enemy. After a time,
however, a certain Goliath of Gath advanced as a champion
from the Philistine ranks. He was a terrible opponent : six
ells and a span (nearly ten feet) in height, his head cased in
a brazen helmet, a scaled coat of mail, weighing five thousand
shekels (about three quarters of a hundredweight), on his
breast, his legs protected by brazen greaves, a war-mace of
the same material hanging between his shoulders, the shaft
of his spear like a weaver's beam, and its head weighing
more than six hundred shekels. His armor-bearer carried
a huge shield before him. Such was the dread champion
who stepped from the ranks of the Philistines and scorn-
fully cried to the Israelites, " Why draw }'ourselves up in
battle array? Am not I a Philistine, and are not all you
servants of Saul? Choose a champion, then, and let him
come out and face me ! If he can slay me, then we will
submit to you ; but if I prevail, you shall serve us." So
fried the Philistine ; and when he saw that none of the
Israelites would venture on single combat with him, he
broke into contemptuous taunts. "Dare you not? I defy
the armies of Israel ! Come, choose j-our man, for I am
ready." But no one dared to accept his challenge. All the
heroes that surrounded Saul felt their hearts sink within
them when they looked upon the giant. Every day he came
out again and uttered bitter taunts, " forty days " long.
Such was the state of things when a certain David arrived
at the camp of Israel. He was the son of a Bethlehemite
named Jesse, who was already far advanced in 3-ears. His
three elder brothers, Eliab, Abinadab, and Shammah, were
serving in Saul's army ; whereas he himself, being the
youngest, had remained at home. In consequence of no
one's accepting the challenge of Goliath, the campaign had
been dragged out until Jesse was sure his sons would want
more provisions, — for each soldier had to provide for him-
self. Accordingly he sent David with an ephah Cabout half
1 1 Samuel xiv. 52.
JONATHAN AND DAVID. 503
a bushel) of parched corn and ten loaves of bread for his
brothers, besides ten pieces of cheese as a present for their
captain. He was also to ask after their welfare, and see
whether they were in want of anything. 1 It was morning
when he reached the army of the Israelites, closely beset
by the foe, and the soldiers were just being drawn out in
battle array. David left the provisions in charge of the
keepers of the baggage, went to the front, found his broth-
ers, and asked after their welfare. As they were standing
together talking, the giant advanced again and hurled his
boastful defiance at the Israelites. Mortified, humiliated,
and amazed, David inquired what all this meant, and was
soon informed how scornfully the Philistine champion dared
the Israelite army to battle, and what magnificent promises
the king had made to any one who should succeed in slaj'-
ing him ; how he would load him with riches, give him his
daughter to wife, and release his whole family from military
duties. "What!" exclaimed David, "Is the man who
slays this Philistine to receive so much? Is so great a
reward to be given for so small a service? What is this
uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the army of
the living God ? " On repeating his question again and
again he always received the same answer, till at last his
language attracted the attention of several of the Israelites,
and amongst them of Eliab, his eldest brother. Eliab re-
sented the contemptuous tone in which his .young brother
spoke, and said, "What have you come here for? To see
the battle, I suppose ! Why did you not stay to look after
the sheep ? I know you well. You are capable of any piece
of madness." "Why, surely," answered David, "there is
no harm in asking ! 1 You need not be so angry." Upon
this he went to another part of the camp, saw the Philistine
again, heard the horror-stricken soldiers speak about him,
found himself less and less able to contain his indignation,
and gave out more and more distinctly and decidedly that
he at least had courage to accept the challenge. At length
the news reached Saul that there was a young man in the
camp who seemed inclined to undertake the combat, and
accordingly David was led into the royal presence.
No sooner was he brought before Saul than he cried out,
in a burst of warlike zeal, " Let not mj' liege's heart fail him
because of this Philistine ! I will go out and fight with
Mm." But Saul hesitated to accept him as Israel's cham-
1 After an amended version
504 JONATHAN AND DAVID.
pion. "Do you know what you are doing?" he asked.
"Surely you are no match for him ! You are but a lad,
and he has been trained to war from his youth." But
David answered, "It is no mere folly in me to dare to
do this thing ; for once when I was pasturing my father's
flocks, we were surprised by a lion, and he stole one of the
sheep. So I gave him chase, and struck at him till he
let go the sheep. Then he turned round upon me ; but
I seized him by the throat and throttled him. And an-
other time I did the same to a bear. I have conquered a
lion and a bear, and surely this Philistine is no stronger
than they were ! Why should not I go out and lay him low,
and take away the shame of Israel? For who is this uneir-
cumcised wretch, that he should dare to insult the army of
the living God? Yahweh defended me against the lion and
the bear, and he will bring me back as scathless from the
battle with this Philistine." Saul's hesitation was now com-
pletely overcome. He saw that however } r oung his champion
might be, he was no mere reckless boy. With the words,
"Go! and may Yahweh help j-ou ! " he accepted David's
championship. In order to give the young hero every
chance, Saul wished to equip him with his own armor and
his own weapons. David allowed himself to be thus pre-
pared for the battle, but when he had placed the helmet on
his head and the armor on his limbs, and had girt the
sword to his side, he found that these unaccustomed arms
so encumbered his movements that, after a second trial, 1
he laid them aside. So he went to meet the Philistine in
his own dress, in which he felt at ease, his shepherd's staff
in his hand, five smooth stones in his wallet, and no weapon
but his sling. A stream of curses poured from the savage
lips of his opponent when he saw him approach. What ! a
fair-fleshed, blooming boy with nothing but a stick in his
hand, to be matched with him, armed as he was from head
to foot, and with his shield-bearer at his side ! ' ' Am I a
dog?" he cried in fury. "Come near, and as sure as Da-
gon lives I will give your flesh to the wolves and vultures ! "
" Nay," answered David, " but that fate is yours and your
countrymen's, for you have insulted the armies of Israel's
God. You trust in sword and lance and shield, but I repose
on Yahweh's might. This day shall it be seen that victory
waits not on the strength of arms, but on Yahweh's will
alone."
1 After an amended version.
JONATHAN AND DAVID. 505
With these words the champions rushed upon each other ;
but the combat was soon decided, for before Goliath could so
much as come near David, a stone from the shepherd's sling
Btruck his forehead with such force that it sank into his head„
and the giant fell to the earth. David sprang upon his foe,
placed his foot upon his body, and, having no sword of his
Dwn, drew that of Goliath from its sheath and struck off
liis head with it. The Philistines instantly turned in hurried
flight, while the Israelites pursued them to Gath, nay to the
very gates of Ekron, and the whole way was strewn with
corpses. Then they returned and plundered the deserted
camp.
But we must go back to David. He brought the Philis-
tine's head to Jerusalem, and afterwards hung up his armor
in his own tent. But first, of course, he had -an interview
with Saul. He was quite unknown to the king. When first
he went to meet the Philistines Saul said to his general, Abner,
" Do you know who he is, Abner?" And Abner could only
answer, "As sure as I live, I know not." Saul told him at
once to make inquiries ; but as David returned with Goliath's
head in his hand Saul himself questioned him, and he replied,
" I am David the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite." Well may
the hearts of Saul and his followers have been filled at that
moment with gratitude to the hero who had taken away the
reproach of Israel, and delight in his youth and beauty,
mingled with a tinge of jealousy at the thought that one so
young should have put to shame so many veteran warriors !
But there was one especially who felt drawn irresistibly to the
victorious shepherd boy. It was Jonathan. And when Saul
insisted that Goliath's conqueror should not return home but
should remain with him, David soon learned to return Jona-
than's friendship with all his heart. In soldier style they
sealed the bond of friendship by exchanging their clothes and
weapons, so that Jonathan gave David his mantle and coat of
mail, together with his sword, his bow, and his girdle.
The story of this victory over Goliath cannot be accepted
as a correct account of the way in which David and Saul be-
came known to each other. We have seen already that it
contradicts the story that precedes it, and a few small inac-
curacies show that its author lived after the time of David.
For instance, he says that Goliath's head was carried to Je-
rusalem, 1 whereas that city was still in the hands of the Can-
i 1 Samuel xvii. 54.
vnr.. t. *«
506 JONATHAN AND DAVID.
aanites at the time. Again, in the words that he puts into his
hero's mouth, we recognize the religious conceptions of the
prophets of a later age ; for lie makes David declare that his
victory would prove that success depends upon Yahweh's will
rather than upon strength of arms. 1 All this, however,
would give us no right to deny the historical character of the
main facts of the story, were it not for the circumstance that
elsewhere in the book of Samuel 2 the honor of having slain
Goliath is attributed to another man. The passage referred
to runs : 8 " "When there was war again with the Philistines,
at Gezer, Elhanan, the son of Jair, the Bethlehemite, slew
Goliath of Gath, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's
beam." There cannot be the smallest doubt that the Goliath
mentioned here is the same as the Goliath of our story. Now
he cannot have been slain both by David and by Elhanan ;
and since popular legends are always prone to heap upon a
single favorite the achievements of a number of less celebrated
heroes, 4 it is far more likely that the credit of Elhanan's ex-
ploit should have been given to David than that anything
which David had really done should have been attributed to
a warrior otherwise unknown. The writer of the book of
Chronicles noticed the contradiction, and tried to remove it;
for we can hardly suppose his version of the affair to be due
to a mere slip of the pen. He says, 6 "And Elhanan, the
son of Jair, slew Lachmi (N.B. ' Beth-hal/ac/<»n " is the He-
brew for 'the Bethlehemite'), the brother of Goliath, the
Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam."
This is an example of the way in which the Israelites of the
third century before Christ were prepared to pervert a text
rather than admit that two passages of the Holy Scripture
contained contradictory accounts. Similar motives urged our
own translators to imitate the Chronicler ; and in the ' ' Au-
thorized Version " the passage in the book of Samuel itself
is given thus: 6 " Elhanan, the son of Jaareoregim, a Beth-
lehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite," though the
Hebrew says nothing of the kind. This is but a specimen of
the dangers into which we are brought by the conviction that
there ccm After an amended version.
SAUL PERSECUTES DAVID. 521
with Abigail had made such a deep impression on him that he
sent messengers at once to ask her in marriage. When she
received his message she bowed down twice to the earth in
grateful recognition of the honor he had shown her, and
declared her readiness to accompany his messengers in the
humble words : " I am ready. I will be the slave to wash the
feet of my master's servants." Accompanied by five female
slaves she followed David's messengers, and became his wife.
He also took to wife a certain Ahinoam of Jezreel — a place
in the same neighborhood, most likely ; but Saul had given
bis first wife Michal to a Benjamite of the name of Phalti.
Thus did David and his men live by their swords, now pro-
tecting the flocks of their neighbors, now escorting merchants
through the desert for a reward, and sometimes, doubtless,
when driven by necessity, levying black mail on the district.
It was a hard and anxious life. It is true that they seemed
tolerably safe from pursuit, the place was so wild and moun-
tainous, and the rocks so full of holes and caverns ; but after
all, their lives were in constant danger, for a price was set
upon their heads. On one occasion, David all but fell into
the hands of Saul, for the inhabitants of the desert of Ziph,
in which he happened to be, had gone of their own accord to
Saul and offered to guide his troops. Their perfect familiarity
with all the lurking places in the neighborhood made escape
almost impossible. One by one they cut off all the passes, till
at last the freebooters were so completely surrounded that
only a single hill separated them from their pursuers. They
would inevitably have fallen into their hands had not sudden
news of an incursion of Philistines compelled Saul to relin-
quish the pursuit for the moment. Hence this rock was
called " the rock of the escape." 1
But no sooner was Saul again at liberty than he collected
three thousand picked warriors, and led them to the desert
of Engedi to track out David. But this time he was to stay
his pursuit for a very different reason from his last. He
happened once to enter a cave for a moment, apart from Ms
men. Little did he think that his life hung upon a thread,
and that David was standing with his drawn sword behind
him ! Yet so it was. Concealed in the ample cave was the
whole band which he was pursuing. As soon as Saul had
entered, David's men said to their chief, in signs more than
m words: "Now is the day on which Yahweh fulfils his
f romise and gives over your enemy to you. Do to him what
i 1 Samuel xxiii. 19-28.
522 SAUT, PERSECUTES DAVID.
you will." David rose and crept up to Saul — but only to
cut off the hem of his outer garment. Thus Saul was
spared ; but as soon as he had gone on his way again no
small discontent was expressed within the cavern. David
was deeply moved. A host of conflicting emotions rushed
through his soul. He had stood behind his enemy with his
sword drawn. A single blow would have put an end to
his own sufferings and those of his men. He had held back
his hand, and it was still unstained by royal blood ; Yahweh
had preserved him from this sin. But murmurs rose against
him on every side. His men were profoundly dissatisfied.
The life they led was so hard, and he might so easily have
rescued them from it ! To all this he had but one answer,
" God forbid that I should lay my' hand upon the king; for
he is Yahweh's anointed ! "
But Saul must know how little he really had to fear from
David. So the latter made all speed to follow him, called to
him, and when he turned round bowed down in reverence to
the earth. " Why do you give ear," he cried, "to the cal-
umnies of those who say that I plot mischief against you?
Now you may see with your own eyes that it is not true. For
in the cave hard by I might have killed you ; but I spared 3 T our
life, for you are Yahweh's anointed. See, here is the hem of
your mantle which I cut off. Acknowledge, then, my father,
that I harbor no evil thoughts against you in my heart. May
Yahweh judge between us ! Is not the proverb true that says
' From evil men come evil deeds ? ' At least there comes no
plot against your life from me. Alas ! who am I that the
king of Israel should chase me? I am but a dead dog! I
am but a flea ! May Yahweh protect me against j'ou ! "
Saul — passionate and impressible as he was — burst into tears
when he heard these words. " Is it really you David, my
son?" he cried. "In truth you are a better man than 1.
You might have killed me and you did it not. The proverb
says, 'If a man meet his enemy in the way will he let him
pass by unhurt?' but yet you spared me when Yahweh put
me into your power. Now I am sure that } - ou will be king
after me, and that }'our family will keep the throne of Israel
after you. Swear to me, then, that you will not root out my
family when that time comes." David promised with an oath,
and then each of them went his way, Saul to Gibeah, and
David to his cave in the desert.
The statement that David returned to his place of conceal-
ment contrasts oddly with his solemn oath to Saul not to root
SAUL PERSECUTES DAVID. 523
out his posterity ; but then this certain knowledge on the pari
of Saul that David would succeed him on the throne is as in-
credible as that Jonathan, in whose mouth the same prophecy
is put, 1 should have foreseen the fact, or that David himself
should have known it. The narrator, who knew the actual
result himself, involuntarily assumed the same knowledge on
the part of the actors whom he brought upon the stage, with-
out thinking of the false and impossible positions in which
they would have been placed had they really had any such
' foreknowledge.
The story that David once spared the life of Saul, when
the latter was pursuing him, rests upon an old and appa-
rently trustworthy tradition. It appears in another form as
follows 2 : —
When David was in the desert of Ziph, the inhabitants
of the district promised Saul that they would hand him over
to him, for they knew where he was hiding. With three
thousand chosen men Saul undertook the expedition, and
was soon encamped close b} T the spot where his enemy was
to be found. But at night no sentinels were set to guard the
camp, and David, who had learned from his spies where Saul
was lying, managed to pass the barricades and approach his
sleeping father-in-law. His cousin, Abishai, Joab's brother,
accompanied him on his perilous adventure. Saul lay
quietly sleeping in the midst of his warriors. His lance was
driven into the ground at his head. "God has given your
enemy into your hand," whispered Abishai. "Shall I run
him through with his own lance and pin him to the ground?
One blow will do it ! " But David held back his companion,
who had already stretched out his hand to seize Saul's spear.
"Do him no injury," he said, " for who would bring upon
his head the guilt of slaying Yahweh's anointed ? As sure as
Yahweh lives," he continued, " Yahweh will bring Saul into
some calamity, and his hour will come, in battle or some
way else. But Yahweh forbid that I should lay my hand
on ' him ! Take his spear and cruse of water with you, and
let us go ! " It was no sooner said than done. They escaped
from the camp unobserved, for "a sleep of Yahweh"
had come over Saul and his men. Then David took his
stand upon a hill, prudently keeping a considerable distance
between himself and the royal troops, and shouted till he
waked the general Abner and all the people. " Who is it,"
exclaimed Abner, " that dares to disturb the king ? " " Why,
i See p. 512. 2 1 Samuel xxvi.
524 SATJL PERSECUTES DAVID.
Abner ! " answered David mockingly, " what a man you are !
Where is your like in Israel? Why have you kept no better
watch over the king? There has been some one into the
camp to murder him ! By Yahweh, you have done ill in not
protecting the anointed of Yahweh better ! But now, send
a soldier for the king's lance and water-flask that lay at his
head." Saul too had heard what passed, and recognized the
voice of David in the darkness. " Is not that you, my son
David?" he cried. " It is, O King, " was the reply. " Why
do you persecute me thus ? What evil have I done ? Nay,
do but hear me ! If it is Yahweh himself who stirs you up
against me, then propitiate him with a sacrifice. But if it is
the work of men, may they be cursed by Yahweh, for they
are driving me out of his heritage and forcing me to go else-
where and to serve other gods. Oh, let not my blood be
poured out before Yahweh's face ! And, after all, what am
I that Israel's king should pursue me ? I am but a partridge
hunted on the hills ! " Saul was completely melted, and
replied, " I have greatly erred. Come with me home. After
what has now befallen me I can never injure you again." But
David did not think it prudent to comply. He begged Saul
to send for the lance and the flask, and then went his way
with the words : " Yahweh will reward every man for his
deserts. I have shown that I, at least, will do nothing against
the anointed of Yahweh. As your life has been precious in
my sight this day, so shall my life be precious to Yahweh, and
he will rescue me in every time of need." Saul, on his side,
took leave with the exclamation, " Blessed be thou, David,
my son ! It cannot be but that prosperity and power await
thee ! " After this he returned to his home.
It is evident that the writer gives his own interpretation of
subsequent events in the last words he puts into the mouths
of Saul and David. He believes that Yahweh protected
David as a reward for his generous conduct towards Saul.
In other respects this story is far more probable than the
other. At any rate, it is much easier to form a definite concep-
tion of what is told us here. The two stories agree, however,
in the main point. Not onry do they both represent David as
having spared the life of Saul, but they both attribute his
doing so to his reverence for Yahweh's anointed.
But although Saul was overcome for the moment by David's
generosity, although the exile's friends pleaded his cause
whenever they dared to do so, although Jonathan's words had
doubtless great weight with his father at certain seasons, yet
LAST HOURS OF SAUL. 525
his suspicions constantly recurred, and fits of furious passion
ever urged him on to form fresh plans of vengeance, and
drew from his lips such dire curses on his disaffected subjects,
above all on David and those who supported him, that a per-
manent reconciliation was impossible. Saul continued to be
David's enemy all his life. We cannot tell how long the
fugitive maintained himself in the desert of Judah ; but the
period must certainly be counted by months rather than years.
It would be hard enough for him to find sustenance for him-
self and his men even for a few months. And then the sword
was ever hanging over his head. How easily some traitor
might make interest with the king by betraying him ! If
Saul was really determined to seize him, he was sure to suc-
ceed, sooner or later. So he was compelled at last, though
sore against his will, to leave his country and throw himself
into the arms of the Philistines — the only neighboring people
capable of defending him. Accordingly he crossed the border
and made his way to Gath, where he placed himself at the
service of king Achish. When Saul heard of this he was
obliged to relinquish all intention of pursuing him further.
We shall soon return to David, in the land of the Philis-
tines ; but first we must speak of the last days of Saul.
Chapter. XXX.
THE LAST HOURS OF SAUL.
1 Samuel XXVIII. 3-25, XXXI.i
THIS is the account given us of Saul's last hours and
death : ■ — •
Some months after the time of public mourning for the
death of Samuel had come to an end, the Philistines brought
their troops into the field again and pitched at Shunem, while
Saul took up his position on the hills of Gilboa. But when
he saw the hostile army his courage failed him for the first
time in his life. He longed for an oracle to restore his con-
fidence as to the result of the battle ; but, alas ! his desire
could not be satisfied, for Yahweh refused to answer him. In
vain the dreamers lay upon the consecrated spots, for the
1 1 Chronicles x.
526 LAST HOURS OB SAUL.
deity would not reveal himself to them. The priest could
gain no glimpse into the future by urim and thummim. None
of the prophets were inspired, and the music of the harp and
the rumbling of the drum alike failed to bring down the spirit
of Yahweh upon them. Clearly the god was unpropitious,
and no sacrifice availed to procure his favor. The thought
weighed upon the heart of Saul like lead. He saw fear in the
looks of the followers, and on the faces of some of those
lifeguards who had refused to slay the priests of Yahweh he
read the thought, " This is what it has brought us to ! " At
last he could bear it no longer, and determined to learn the
future, let it cost what it might ! So he asked some of the
friends whom he trusted most whether they could find out a
witch for him.
Find out a witch for Saul to consult ! Then has it come to
this? Was it not Saul who, in very zeal for Yahweh, per-
secuted the practisers of heathen arts even to death ? And is
he now brought so low that he himself calls magic to his aid ?
His followers can find a witch for him. North of Gilboa,
between it and Tabor, lay Endor. In one of the houses of
this place, or perhaps in a cave hard by, lived such a woman
as they wanted. On hearing this, Saul, accompanied by two
of his faithful servants, went to the spot by night, and in
disguise. He asked the witch to consult her soothsaying
spirit for him, and to call up from the grave the dead man
whom he should name to her. At first the woman hesitated
to comply, for- Saul had forbidden the practice of witchcraft
upon pain of death ; but when the stranger swore an oath by
Yahweh that^she should suffer no harm if she granted his re-
quest, she consented, and asked him who the dead man was
that he wished her to bring up from the world below. " Sam-
uel," answered he.
Then the woman began to prepare her charms and to mut-
ter her incantations, 1 retiring for the purpose, it would seem,
into a separate room, or behind a partition that marked off a
portion of the cave by the mouth of a cleft in the rock, sup-
posed to be a passage to the world below. Suddenly she
shrieked aloud, "You have deceived me! You are Saul
himself!" "Fear not," answered the king, deeply moved,
"but tell me what you see." " A spirit is rising from the
depth," answered she. "What is he like?" asked Saul
again. " An old man wrapped in a mantle," said the witch.
Then Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and overcome with
1 Compare Isaiah viii. 19, xxix. 4.
LAST HOURS OF SAUL. 527
awe he bowed down twice to do him homage. And lo ! a voice
as from the grave fell upon his ear, and Samuel asked, " Why
have you broken my rest in the grave? Why have you
brought me here ? " " Because I am in sore distress," groaned
Saul, " for the Philistines wage war against me, and Yahweh
answers me not — neither by prophets nor by dreams. So I
have called on you for help. Tell me what 1 am to do."
But he fell to the ground, and his soul died within him, when
he heard the words, " Why do you question me, when Yah-
weh has departed from you and has taken the side of your
neighbor David? 1 For Yahweh gives to him the kingdom
that he takes from you, according to my words. This day
does Yahweh requite you for your disobedience in the war
with Amalek, when you refused to execute his wrath. And
for your sin Yahweh gives up Israel into the hand of the Phil-
istines, and — to-morrow you and your sons shall be with me."
The apparition vanished, and Saul lay stretched upon the
ground. Terror had laid hold upon his heart, and Samuel's
words had crushed him utterly. Moreover he had eaten
nothing, through sheer anxiety, all the last day and night.
The witch now tried to bring him to himself again. " My
king," she said, "lhave risked my very life to grant your
wish. And now do you, in your turn, grant my request, and
eat and drink something before you go." He long refused,
but at last he yielded to the persistent entreaties of his fol-
lowers, and accepted the woman's urgent invitation. He rose
from the ground, and sat down upon her bed. She hastened
to slaughter her fatted calf, prepared the meat, baked some
unleavened bread, and set the repast before Saul and his at-
tendants, who ate of what she had prepared and then went
on their way.
Next day the Philistines began the attack, and put the
Israelites to flight. The hills were soon covered with the
bodies of the slain. Saul and his chosen band still man-
fully held their own ; but one by one the king's three sons,
Jonathan, Abinadab, and Melchishuah fell. Saul himself
still struck down all who came within his reach. But at last
a band of the enemy's archers drew near ; their arrows
whistled through the air, and the royal hero fell — pierced
through the bowels. 2 He felt that he was mortally wounded,
and cried to his shield-bearer, " Draw your sword and run
me through, that the uncircumcised may not come and mock
1 After an amended version.
2 After an amended version of 1 Samuel xxxi. 3, and 1 Chronicles x. 3.
528 LAST HODKS OF SAUL'.
me." But his attendant stood appalled, and dare not raise
his hand to strike him. Upon this Saul mustered all the
little strength he had still left, and, with the weapon he held
in his hand, gave himself his own death-blow. His shield-
bearer would not survive his master, and fell upon his own
sword.
Thus did Saul die a hero's death ; but it was a fearful
hour for Israel. The' army was utterly defeated. The
neighboring cities were deserted, for terror of the Philistines,
and soon fell into the power of the enemy. Next day the
victors, searching the battle-field for plunder; vented their
rage on the lifeless bodies of Saul and of his sons. They
cut off their heads, stripped the armor from their bodies,
and bore these trophies of victory through all their cities
with shouts of triumph, as a grateful spectacle to their gods
and to their countrymen. Finally they hung up the arms
as a consecrated gift in the temple of their goddess Astarte,
while the headless trunks were nailed to the wall of the
Tsraelitish city of Beth-shan, hard bj' the battle-field.
Thus even an honorable burial would have been denied
to Saul and to his sons, had not the gratitude of faithful
subjects secured them from this last indignity. On the
other side of the Jordan, opposite Beth-shan, lay Jabesh.
Saul's first great feat of arms had been the rescue of this
city ; and when the men of Jabesh heard what the Philistines
had done to the body of their benefactor, it was more than
they could bear. All their fighting men set off by night,
crossed the Jordan, took down the corpses of Saul and his
sons, and bore them hurriedly back to their own city. There
they burned the bodies, apparently to secure them from any
further outrage, and buried the bones under the terebinth of
Jabesh. Then they observed a fast of seven days.
Such was the end of Saul.
To understand this story we must try to form a clear
conception of the ideas entertained by the ancient Israelites
concerning the lot of man beyond the grave. They had not
yet conceived the hope of a continued life, or a return to life,
after death. This seems very strange to us. For it is
difficult for us to conceive of an earnest living piety united
with the belief that all is over with man the moment he has
breathed his last. We have grown so familiar with the idea
that our better self survives, that we are apt to think it
inseparable from true religion. It is indeed very closely
LAST HOURS OF SAUL. 529
connected with it, and in fact grows out of it. Hence we
often find expressions used by the Israelitish psalmists so
full of joyful self-surrender to God and cheerful hope for the
future that they seem to us almost necessarily to imply the
expectation of a future life. Eead the following outpouring
of soul, for instance 1 : —
God is our refuge and our strength,
A help that fails not in time of trouble.
Therefore we fear not, though the earth should swing,
And the'mountains tremble in the midst of the sea.
Let the foaming waters roar,
Let the mountains rock when the sea rages;
Yet Yahweh of hosts is with us,
Our fortress is Jacob's god.
The same spirit is breathed by the following song, in-
correctly ascribed to David 2 : —
Yahweh, thou art my god !
Thee do I seek.
Mv soul thirsts after thee,
My flesh yearns toward thee,
As a parched land,
As a thirsty, waterless plain !
I long to see thy power and glory
As I have seen thee in thy sanctuary.
Because thy favor is better than life
My lips shall praise thee ;
I will bless thee as long as I live,
I will lift my hands m thy name.
As though with the richest banquet, even so my soul is satisfied ;
Therefore my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips.
I think of thee in my bed ;
Of thee in the watches of night.
For thou art.my help ;
In the shadow of thy wings I rejoice. ,
My soul hangs upon thee,
For thy right, hand upholds me.
What a depth and earnestness of spiritual life breathes
through these songs! Can such poets have believed, we
ask involuntarily, that when they fell under the sword of
their foes, or perished in a storm, or died of some disease,
this life with God was at an end for ever? Was such the
belief of the holy man who sang 8 : —
When my heart was bitter [because of the prosperity of the godless]
And my soul disturbed,
I was ignorant as a brute,
As a senseless thing before thee.
For I am always with thee ;
Thou hast taken me by the right hand.
Thou wilt guide me with thy counsel
And afterwards lead me to glory.
I have none but thee in heaven,
i Psalm xlvi. 1-3, 7. 2 Psalm lxiii. 1-8. » Psalm lxxiii. 21-27.
vol. i 23
530 LAST HOURS OF SAUL.
I desire none other on earth !
Though my body and soul shall fail.
My rock and eternal heritage is God.
For behold ! They perish who are far from thee.
Thou rootest out those who fall off from thee.
But for me it is joy to be near to God !
T set my trust on my lord, on yahweh,
And will speak of all thy works.
What wonder if Christians have seen in such lines as
these the expression of the hope of immortal life, and,
interpreting them in this sense, have made use of them as
hymns ? Assuredly the piety that speaks through them has
already overcome the fear of death, and must unconsciously
lead up to the hope of everlasting life. But all this does not
remove the fact that these same psalmists had no expecta-
tion of anything deserving the name of life after death.
The opinions of the Israelites concerning the state of the
dead underwent no great alteration for ages, and remained
almost unchanged till within the last two centuries before
our era. We need therefore have no hesitation in calling
witnesses to these beliefs from different periods, widely sepa-
rated from each other in time, for in substance all antiquity
was at one upon this point.
In the belief of the Israelite, then, deep down below the
earth, nay, "under the sea and its inhabitants," 1 lay the
realm of shadows, also known as "the abyss," and "de-
struction." It was sometimes confounded, involuntarily
and very naturally, with the grave, from which, however, it
is essentially distinct. The name of this place is the word
so incorrectly translated "hell" in our authorized version.
It was —
"A land of darkness and deathlike shade,
A land as black as night,
Where all is pitch dark and confusion.
Where noon-day is as black as the night." 2
In this kingdom of the dead " there is no action, nor un-
derstanding, nor knowledge, nor wisdom ; " s God's wonders
are unknown in that land of darkness and oblivion ; 4 eternal
silence reigns there ; 6 and to glorify God is impossible.*
Thus a poet writes ' : —
Deliver my life, O Yahweh!
And save me for thy mercies* sake !
For after death none think of thee,
And who shall praise thee in the realm of the dead ?
i Job xxvi. 5, 6. 2 Job x. 21, 22. 8 Ecclesiastes ix. 10.
4 Psalm lxxxviii. 12. 6 p sa \ m xc .j v . 17.
« Psalm lxxxvjtf, 10-12, cxv. 17. ' Psalm vi. 4, 5.
LAST HOURS OF SAUL. 531
A prophet might now and then speak as though the dead
could rise, 1 or as though the shades had some remembrance
of their former lives, and could even recognize those that
joined them ; 2 but this was only the language of poetic
imagery, and, as the passages already quoted show, it by no
means proves that the Israelites seriously ascribed such
powers to the inhabitants of the shadow-land. Again, the
story of Saul and the witch at Endor makes Samuel speak
just as he would have done when alive ; but this only shows
that the Israelites, like the ancient Greeks, believed in the
possibility of restoring a kind of momentary life and con-
sciousness to the shades, by means of magic. It by no
means follows that they believed these shades to be always
possessed of conscious life and memory.
The Israelite's belief in the justice of God and the recom-
pense of virtue and vice stood in no kind of connection with
his conception of the land of shadows. He did not think of
a man's condition after death as in airy degree dependent
upon his conduct during life. The realm of the dead was
" the place where all mortals meet together." 3 If the same
lot sometimes befalls the righteous and the wicked even
here, 4 far more is the state of all the same in the land of
shadows. 6 " Every man goes to join the dead. For who is
there that escapes ? While there is life there is hope ; and a
living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know
that they will die, but the dead know nothing at all. And
they have no reward any more, for the memory of them has
perished. And their love and their hate and their envy have
long since vanished, and to all eternity they have no share
any more in all that is done beneath the sun." 6 In the same
way the writer of this story of the witch makes the pious
Samuel say to the king, whom he looks upon as forsaken of
God, " To-morrow shall you and your sons be with me ! "
In short, the condition of the dead may be indicated in a
single word. Though God's eye, according to the outpourings
of the poets, reaches even to the realm of shades,' yet "he
thinks of its inhabitants no more, and they are cut off from
his hand." 8
The belief was general in ancient times that certain
1 Isaiah xxvi. 19 ; Ezekiel xxxvii. 1-14. 2 Isaiah xiv. 10.
8 Job xxx. 23. 4 Ecclesiastes ix. 2.
6 Job iii. 16-19. 6 Ecclesiastes ix. 3b-6.
1 Job xxvi. 5, 6 ; Proverbs xv. 11; Psalms cxxxix. 8. 8 Psalm lxxxviii. 5
532 LAST HOURS OF SAUL.
persons understood the art of calling up shades from the
realms of the dead. Amongst the Israelites this belief was
not confined to a few ignorant and therefore specially
superstitious individuals, but, as far as we can make out, it
was universal. It is true that Samuel and Saul persecuted
these charmers of the dead, or necromancers, and forbade the
practice of their arts, but this was not due to any disbelief
in the powers of such witches and magicians, but to the idea
that their arts were heathenish. 1 But when once these prac-
tices had been condemned, a great step had been made tow-
ards the discovery that they rested on the self-deception of
a heated imagination or the deceit of deliberate imposture. 2
In the story of the interview with the witch at Endor,
we find ourselves, to a large extent, at any rate, in an
atmosphere of fiction. It is impossible to form any reason-
able and credible conception of what occurred. It has
often been suggested that this woman was an impostor,
that she recognized Saul by his promise that no harm should
befall her, and that she was a good ventriloquist and imitated
Samuel's voice — for it deserves notice that no one but the
woman herself sees the shade. On this supposition it would
be natural enough for her to put a gloomy prophecy into the
mouth of Samuel, for she knew the position in which things
stood, and might well suppose that when the leader was in
such a frame of mind as that of Saul the army was almost
certain to be defeated. In this way some of the main features
of the story are made to appear credible. But, as a whole,
it is still unexplained. For it is quite clear that the writer
himself intended nothing of the kind suggested, but firmly
believed in the reality of Samuel's appearance, or at an.y
rate found nothing absurd in the idea, He intended to
represent Samuel even after his death, as having once more
called the past to the memory of Saul. He believed in
necromancy just as completely as the writer of the legend of
Joseph believed in the significance of dreams. 3 The fictitious
character of the narrative is further evident from its making
Samuel predict the result of the battle in such detail:
" To-morrow shall you and your sons be with me!" This,
at least, no enchantress, however sagacious, could have
known beforehand. Moreover this story contains a reference
to that of Saul's rejection by Yahweh ; and since we saw
reason to reject that as untrustworthy 4 the historical charac-
l See pp 450, 451. 2 See pp. 272, 274.
8 See pp. 207-210. * See p. 487 ff.
LAST HODES OF SAUL. 533
ter of this falls with it. The writer evidently regarded Saul's
tragic end as a manifestation of the avenging justice of Yali-
weh, who now exacted the penalty of former disobedience.
But he did not reflect that even pious kings had often met
with mournful deaths, and that many good and noble heroes
had lost their lives on the battle-field.
Is there no truth at all in the story then? Is it not
true, at least, that Saul in his despair sought aid of a
necromancer? This is a very difficult question. The
writer believed in magic himself, and would not think it any
great enormity in Saul to have recourse to a witch when
Yahweh would help him no longer. Such a course would
appear to him quite natural. He intends the real stress of
his narrative to fall upon the truth of the prediction which
he puts into the mouth of Samuel. For Samuel himself,
the judge whom Saul had superseded, the messenger of God
who had foretold his fall, once more to appear in person and
repeat his threats on the very eve of their fulfilment, would
appear to the writer a most telling and impressive incident.
And to secure this Samuel must rise from his grave, and
therefore Saul must apply to a witch to raise him. On the
other hand, it is far from impossible that Su.il, in his despair,
was really driven to a means of learning the future which he
had himself condemned, though he no more thought of deny-
ing its efficacy than did any of his contemporaries.
Our final estimate of Saul will be but little affected whether
we accept or reject this journey to Endor as a fact. For a
single despairing action is no great evidence against a man.
Saul excites our deepest interest. Hardly anywhere else in
the Bible do we feel that the hero of a tragedy has passed
before us so strongly as in the history of Saul. Of noble form
and fiery spirit, religious by nature and inspired by a heartfelt
love of his people, courageous and enterprising, he rose as
Israel's deliverer and as a zealous servant of Yahweh. But
this friend of Samuel, who vindicates the severity of the re-
ligious laws, builds altars to Yahweh, strives to exterminate
the Canaanites, and chastises all heathen practices, gradually
becomes such a bitter foe of Yahweh's messengers that one
who finds himself in company where he is utterly out of place
comes to be called a " Saul among the prophets." Gradually
all the powers of his impulsive and commanding spirit became
the slaves of suspicion and hatred, till, in the murder of the
priests of Nob, and the stubborn persecution of David, we see
what the man had by slow degrees become !
0.34 DAVID AT ZIKLAG AND AT HEBRON.
Like every one else who degenerates morally, Saul had
himself to blame for his fall, for he had failed to bridle his
unruly passions. But there are many extenuating circum-
stances in his case. We have seen already 1 that he was torn
two ways by the dictates of political sagacity on the one hand
which urged him to compromise and trim the question of
Israel's relations with the heathen, and by his own conscience
on the other which drove him to the uncompromising zeal that
speaks in deeds of blood. Even when a man is mistaken in
his conception of what God demands from him, he never grows
better by silencing his conscience and listening to the dictates
of prudence. But neither are the prophets and their party
altogether free from the guilt of Saul's degeneracy. Fanatics
are difficult to work with. As soon as Samuel's friends per-
ceived that Saul was no longer their tool in everything, they
began to oppose him ; for the least hesitation in maintaining
Yahweh's fiercest ordinances was in their ej'es desertion of his
cause. It was not without reason, therefore, that Saul grew
so suspicious. His belief, for instance, that the priests of
Yahweh were assisting David, was certainly not unfounded.
Priests, Nazarites, and prophets alike desired the downfall of
the ruling prince, and surety many of them had already fixed
their eyes in eager expectation upon Jesse's son, and hoped
that he would make a better kina than Saul.
Chapter XXXI.
DAVID AT ZIKLAG AND AT HEBRON.
1 Samuel XXVII. 5-XXVIII. 2, XXIX. XXX. ; 2 Samuel I. 1-V. 3.
WHEN last we spoke of David ' 2 he and his troop had just
entered the service of Achish, king of Gath, because
they could no longer maintain themselves upon Saul's territory.
We shall now see something of David's life as a vassal of the
Philistines. But first I must just mention another story,'
which tells us that David sought refuge with Achish when first
he fled from Saul. No sooner had he come to Gath, the story
goes on to say, than he was instantly recognized by the court-
' See pp. 492, 4M'i, 500, 501. 2 See pp. 526, 527. a 1 Samuel xxi. 10-15.
DAVID AT ZIKI.AG AND AT HEBRON. 535
iers of Achish, who told their prince that this was " the king
of the land," the man in whose honor the women had sung —
" Saul has laid his thousands low,
But David his ten thousands."
So when David saw that he was recognized, he pretended to
be mad, and was therefore driven away by the king. This
story is a string of improbabilities. In the first place a
Philistine city could only be the very last refuge of a man in
David's circumstances. In the next place, how could he have
imagined for a single moment that he would not be recognized
at Gath ? And lastly, the Philistines cai^ scarcely have been
so stupid as to be taken in by so dull a trick ! The origin of
the story is not known. It may possibly have been intended
to supersede other traditions with reference to David's stay
with Achish, and thus to wash out a stain from his memory.
These other traditions we still possess, though they do not
appear to come much nearer the truth than the one we have
given. They represent David as having been guilty of the
grossest cruelty and deception in his anxiety to make his own
life and that of his followers as safe as possible. To seek
favor at the court of Achish meant to become the subject of
his people's enemy ; and since hostilities between the Philis-
tines and Israelites never ceased, David would certainly be re-
quired to turn his arms against his own countrymen. Indeed
he might be expected to prove his fidelity to his new lord by
displaying special zeal in this war. But by doing so he would
have broken with his people for ever, and he loved them too
well to be prepared for this. So in order that he might remain
in the land of the Philistines, without being compelled to
injure his own people, he begged Achish to assign some pro-
vincial town to him and to his men as a residence, for it was
not fitting, he said, that he should remain in the capital.
Achish, who seems to have been very credulous, approved of
ihe suggestion, and assigned the town of Ziklag to him. From
this place David made frequent marauding expeditions. Many
of his turbulent followers were probably incapable of any oc-
cupation except that of bandits, and could not have been kept
quiet without some such employment. But we are told that
David never turned his arms against his own countrymen, but
alwa}'s attacked and plundered some district south of the land
of the Philistines, where the allies of this people, and the ene-
mies of Israel, were settled. And when he came to pay his
respects to Achish and offer him a portion of the booty, Achish
536 DAVID AT ZIKLAG AND AT HEBRON.
would ask whether he had been making another raid, and David
would answer that he had been attacking the men of Judah,
or their allies the Jerahmeelites, and Kenites. To prevent his
treachery from being exposed by fugitives, he used to slaughter
all the inhabitants of the villages he plundered, without excep-
tion. This murderous precaution, coupled with the thinness
of the population of those regions and the difficulty of commu-
nication, was so successful that for sixteen months the truth
did not leak out. Achish had perfect confidence in his vassal,
for he believed his falsehoods, and therefore imagined that he
had made all friendship with his own people impossible for
ever.
This story is in the highest degree improbable. Even on
the supposition that no Philistines ever joined David on his
expeditions, that Achish never required him to take part in
his own operations, and that none of his men ever betrayed
him, it is still incredible that for more than a year the route
taken by David, the ravages he committed in the district south
of Philistia, and the continued prosperity of the tribes he pro-
fessed to have attacked and conquered, could have escaped
notice. It is clear that if the writer really knew anything of
David's life at Ziklag, he desired to conceal it ; and we are
therefore left almost entirely to our own conjectures in endeav-
oring to fill up the period between David's flight to Achish and
the events we shall now relate.
When the war between the Philistines and the Israelites
broke out with renewed violence, David's position became
very difficult. For Achish summoned him to the field, to-
gether with his other subjects, and placed such implicit reli-
ance in his professions of attachment that he actually made
him captain of his lifeguard. But fortunately for David,
Achish had not sole command of the army. The Philistine
cities, Gath, Ekron, Askelon, Ashdod, and Gaza, which ap-
pear to have formed a sort of confederacy, were all governed
by kings, and eaqh of the five princes enjoyed equal rights
with his fellows. Now when the allies of Achish noticed
David and his men at the muster, they asked, " What are
these Hebrews here for?" Achish answered that this was
David, Saul's former subject, and that he had now been living
in his territory for about a year without ever giving him the
slightest cause of suspicion. But the other princes were dis-
trustful, and insisted on Achish sending David back ; for they
thought he might seize this opportunity of reinstating himself
in Saul's favor by turning his arms against them in the thick
DAVID AT ZJBXAG AND AT HEBRON. 537
of the battle. They felt no confidence in the man' who had
been celebrated in song as having " struck ten thousands
down."
It was by no means a pleasant task for Achish, to have to
inform the haughty warrior that his good faith was suspected,
and that he could not be allowed to take part in the battle.
He delivered his message with a profusion of apologies.
David assumed a lofty tone, and inquired with an air of in-
jured pride what offence he had committed that he should be
deemed unworthy of fighting with the enemies of his lord.
Upon this, Achish, fearing that he might seek some opportu-
nity to take revenge, did his veiy best to pacify him, and as-
sured him that he himself had unlimited confidence in him.
So, while the Philistines advanced to the plain of Jezreel,
David returned to Ziklag, which he reached once more three
days after he had left it.
Here a terrible shock awaited him. A tribe of Amalekites,
taking advantage of the absence of the fighting men, had
fallen upon the city, plundered it, and set it on fire. They
were more humane than David, however, and had not mur-
dered any of the women and children, but had carried them
all off as captives. As David's men stood by the ruins of
their homes and thought of their wives and children, they
burst into passionate cries of woe ; and then, with the want
of fairness characteristic of undisciplined natures in distress,
they threw all the blame upon their leader, and began to
mutter something about stoning him! David saw all, and
was hard put to it ; but the thought of Yahweh, his mighty
helper, supported him. He ordered the priest Abiathar to
attend him instantly with the ephod. As soon as he was
ready, David asked Yahweh whether he should pursue the
robbers. His god encouraged him to do so, and he set off at
once with his six hundred men. But before long one-third of
his force became so wearv that they had to be left behind with
the baggage near the stream of Besor. The remaining four
hundred continued the pursuit. On their way they came upon
an Egyptian slave of one of the Amalekites. His master had
left him behind because he was sick, and he was lying half
dead upon the ground when they found him ; this Egyptian
put them on the track. That same evening they overtook the
Amalekites, who were carelessly enjoying themselves over
their booty. They fell upon them and put them all to the
sword, except four hundred, who mounted their camels and
effected an escape. A great quantity of cattle, sheep, and
23*
538 DAVID AT ZIKXAG AND AT HEBRON.
camels, together with all the prisoners, fell into the hands of
David's men ; so when they found that they had not to bewail
the loss of a single member of their families, their sentiments
towards their leader were completely reversed. They drove
the cattle before them, shouting in triumph, " Here is David's
spoil ! " and his authority was more firmly established than
ever.
He made a good use of his power when the four hundred
who had followed him to the fight met the two hundred that
had been left behind wearied out. For a dispute arose about
the booty, some of the four hundred being unwilling to allow
the two hundred any share in it at all. But David silenced
them at once, and established a rule (which was observed by
the Israelites ever afterwards) that those who went out to
battle and those who defended the baggage should have equal
shares of the bootj'. Thus David returned in triumph to
Ziklag.
On the third day after his return from pursuing the robbers
a certain man came to Ziklag, with his garments rent, and in-
quired for David. As soon as he was brought into his pres-
ence he prostrated himself in reverence before him, and waited
for the famous warrior to give hiin leave to speak. ' ' Whence
do you come ? " asked David. " I have escaped from the army
of Israel," he replied. Escaped ! David sprang to his feet
in consternation when he heard that single word that said so
much. "What do j - ou mean? Speak out!" he hurriedly
exclaimed. His anxious forebodings were but too well con-
firmed, for the stranger answered, " The army has fled. The
slaughter was great. Saul and his son Jonathan are slain."
David could scarcely believe his ears. The news was too
terrible! Might it not after all be false? "How do you
know," he asked, " that Saul and Jonathan are slain ? " Upon
which the other told him how he had happened to be crossing
Mount Gilboa, and had there seen Saul leaning upon his spear,
and the horsemen of the foe hard by. Saul, said he, had
called to him, and had said, " Slay me, for I am seized with
cramp, 1 and cannot defend nryself, though I am still fully
alive." He had granted the request, for he knew that Saul
could not survive his defeat. "And see!" he concluded,
"here are his armlets and the crown that was on his head.
I have brought them to my lord." On hearing these words
David rent his clothes, and all his companions followed his
example. They spent the whole day weeping and fasting,
1 After an amended version.
DAVID AT ZIKLAG AND AT HEBRON. 539
because Saul and Jonathan and the army of Yahweh and the
whole house of Israel were smitten by the sword. In the
evening, when the violence of the shock was in a measure
passed, David sent for the messenger again, and asked,
"Whence are you?" Hardly had he answered, "I am a
stranger, an Amalekite," when David thundered forth the
words, ' ' And 3-011 dared to raise a hand against Yahweh's
anointed ! " A single word to one of his followers was enough,
and the Amalekite fell dead upon the ground. He richly de-
served his fate — at least, if most of his story was invented 1
for the sake of gaining David's favor. Over his body David
pronounced the words, " You have drawn the sentence upon
yourself, for you declared with your own mouth that you had
slain Yahweh's anointed ! "
The dirge in which David afterwards expressed his grief,
we have already given in full as a striking testimony to the
character of Saul. 2
David must have received the news of the death of Saul
with very mingled feelings. A certain joy, or at least a sense
of relief, at the thought that he was delivered from his mortal
foe, must surely have mingled with the grievous thought that
his father-in-law, the deliverer of Israel, the glorious hero, the
anointed of Yahweh, had met with so sad an end. But, what-
ever feelings were uppermost in his heart, no one can blame
him for taking immediate advantage of Saul's death to relieve
himself and his men. from the critical position in which they
were placed as subjects of the Philistine. The booty he had
just seized from the Amalekites now stood him in good stead,
for it enabled him at once to send rich presents to the elders
of most of the cities of Judah ; and when he had thus pre-
pared the way, he lost no time in setting out at the head of his
men, under the sanction of the oracle, for Hebron, the chief
city of Judah. Here he was well received by the inhabitants,
and before long deputies arrived from all parts of the south
country, and anointed him king of Judah. This readiness to
receive him was no doubt due in part to disaffection towards
Saul, and to his own fame as a warrior; but what carried
most weight was the fact that he was a Judsean, whereas Saul
was a Benjamite, for in ancient times tribal relationships
were always held in great consideration.
David naturally lost no time in attempting to extend his
newly-acquired power. He therefore sent an embassy to the
men of Jabesh in Gilead, who had shown their gratitude to
1 See the last chapter. s See pp. 485, 486.
540 DAVID AT ZIBXAG AND AT HEBRON.
Saul by burying his body at the risk of their own lives.
David's message was well calculated to win them for his cause.
He thanked them for the fidelity they had shown to Saul, and
urged them to be of good courage, though their lord was
dead, for he himself had been anointed king by the men of
Judah. Whether the men of Jabesh felt inclined to range
themselves under his banner we do not know ; for at any rate
no immediate action could have been taken by them, since the
greater part of the tribes of Israel remained faithful to the
house of Saul. This was principally due to the influence of
Abner, who acknowledged Saul's son Ishbaal (commonly
called Ishbosheth) as king.
Ishbaal himself appears to have been a man of feeble
character, but his courageous cousin, Abner, gave some
strength to his throne. Abner's first enterprise was an at-
tempt to expel David by force of arms and to reduce Judah
to obedience ; but his hope of surprising him was disappointed
at the outset, for David's general, Joab, met Abner as far
north as Gibeon. Both the captains hesitated to give the sign
of battle and shed the blood of their brothers ; and at last
Abner proposed that the matter should be decided by a com-
bat of picked champions. To this Joab assented, and twelve
warriors from each side joined in the combat, but without
bringing things any nearer to a settlement, for all the twenty-
four were slain. From this event the place, which was near
Gibeon, received the name of " the field of the tournament."
The two armies were so much excited by the spectacle of this
combat that it was impossible to restrain them any longer.
A regular pitched battle was soon raging, and in the end
Abner's troops were defeated, and left the field in disordered
flight. Amongst David's men three of his cousins L especially
distinguished themselves. They are always called after their
mother, "the sons of Zeruiah," and their names were Joab,
Abishai, and Asahel. Now the last named of these, young
and swift of foot " like a wild roe," was bent on slaying the
valiant Abner and taking his armor as spoil. When Abner
noticed the obstinacy with which the reckless lad pursued him,
he stopped short and, gazing through the gathering twilight,
cried, "Is not that Asahel?" "It is," answered his swift-
footed assailant. "Then turn to the right or left," said the
magnanimous warrior, as he pursued his way once more, "be
content with the spoil of one of my followers ! " " Never,"
answered Asahel, and continued to pursue him. Once again
1 1 Chronicles ii. IB.
DAVID AT ZIKLAG AND AT HEBRON. 541
Abner turned to warn him. " Stand back," he cried to the
fool-hardy bey. " Why will you make me slay you ? How
can I ever look Joab in the face again?" But Asahel per-
sisted. Abner, perhaps rather to keep him off than to kill
him, made a thrust at him with the sharpened butt of his
spear. But the shaft pierced Asahel through and through,
and he fell down dead. All the warriors of David's army
who came up to the corpse stood still beside it and went no fur-
ther. But meanwhile Joab and Abishai continued the pursuit.
At sunset Abner rallied his troops and drew them up in close
file upon a hill not far from Gibeon. There they awaited
their pursuers, and when Joab drew near Abner cried out,
" Let there be a truce between us ! You know that desperate
men are dangerous! Order your troops to pursue their
brethren no further." "By God!" answered Joab, "had
you not spoken thus we would not have stayed the pursuit till
morning ! " 1 The two armies then separated and went each
upon its way. Abner and his men marched the whole night,
to Jericho, across the Jordan, and finally to Mahanaim. Their
losses were three hundred. Joab, on the other hand, who had
only lost eighteen men besides Asahel, returned to Hebron,
which he reached at daybreak.
Of course, the relations between David and Ishbaal con-
tinued to be hostile, though we do not read of any other
battles. Meanwhile David steadily extended his power.
This result was no doubt partially due to his marriage with
a daughter of the king of Geshur, a district of Syria ; 2 but
the great point in his favor was the feeble character of his
rival, whose throne must stand or fall with the fidelity of his
general, Abner. Abner alone restrained the subjects of Ish-
baal from deserting him and recognizing David as their king.
But he soon perceived how indispensable he was to his master,
became ever more and more overbearing, and at last went so
far as to enter on an intrigue with Bizpah, one of Saul's con-
cubines. This was high treason, but when Ishbaal reproved
him for his conduct Abner only made him feel his dependence
more distinctly than ever. Such a state of things could not
last. Abner's contempt for his sovereign finally induced him
to pave the way for the revolt of the Israelites, and to enter
into negotiations with David. In order to give Abner a
suitable pretext for visiting Hebron in person, David sent
messengers to Ishbaal to demand the return of his former
wife, Saul's daughter Michal, who had been given to another
i After an amended version. 2 2 Samuel iii. 3.
542 DAVID AT ZIKLAG AND AT HEBKON.
husband when he fled. Ishbaal, no doubt at Abner's instiga-
tion, granted the request, had Michal brought from the house
of her husband, and, to the intense grief of the latter, sent
her to David. How little women were considered in those
days ! Abner escorted Michal to Hebron, and took the op-
portunity of coming to an understanding with David and then
returned, together with his followers, suspecting no evil. But
Joab, who had come in from a raid shortly before Abnei
departed, took David severely to task for his simplicity in
placing so much confidence in Abner, sent messengers after
the latter to call him back, and then, with the help of his
brother Abishai, treacherously murdered him. Had not Ab-
ner slain Asahel? And must not his blood be avenged?
Besides this, Joab doubtless feared in his heart that Abner
would overshadow him, and finally push him aside. This is
the first example of the extraordinary relations which subsisted
between David and Joab. We shall come across many others
in the course of the history. David was afraid of his valiant
captain. He had been guilty of a most outrageous act in
murdering his master's guest, and as David stood by the
corpse of Abner he uttered a bitter curse on Joab. " May his
posterity be leprous and needy, may they fall by the sword
and be crushed by want," he cried ; but the man whom he
cursed so vehemently remained in command of his body-guard !
David, however, sang a dirge over Abner, in which he la-
mented that such a hero, "whose hands were not bound,
nor his feet fettered," should Ml by the hand of villains,
like a fool. On the day of the funeral lie steadily refused to
eat anything, and said to his friends, " Do yon not know that
a great warrior is dead ? What might not his sword have
done for me in my newly-acquired kingdom ! These sons of
Zeruiah are too strong for inc. May Yahweh requite them
for their crimes ! " All this made a veiy favorable impression
upon the people, and every one saw that David was guiltless
of the murder.
When Abner was dead the fate of the house of Saul was
soon decided. The power of Ishbaal was gone, and he was
soon afterwards murdered by a couple of Benjamite captains,
who, so far from getting any thanks for their crime, were put
to death by David as assassins. With the life of Ishbaal the
last chance of the house of Saul was gone. Jonathan's sou
Mcribaal (generally called Mephibosheth) was still a child,
and what was more a cripple, and no one seems to have had
any confidence in the other members of Saul's family. David,
DAVID AT ZIKLAG AND AT HEBRON. 543
the renowned general, the scourge of the Philistines, was
now the only hope of the tribes of Israel. Public opinion de-
clared itself in his favor. The dissentients were silenced by
fear. David soon received deputations from all parts of the
country to greet him as king. In the sanctuary at Hebron
victims were slaughtered to Yahweh as the oath of fealty was
taken, and David was proclaimed king of Israel. He had
reigned two years over Judah alone.
There is only one point in the narrative just given that calls
for special notice, and that is the chronological statement at
the close, which appears to be directly contradicted by the re-
peated assertion of the historian, that David reigned over
Judah at Hebron for seven and a half years. 1 The same
writer tells'us, however, that Ishbaal only reigned two years ; 3
and if he ascended the throne immediately after his father's
death, as we must suppose he did, his reign must have begun
at the same time as David's rule in Hebron. What becomes,
in this case, of the remaining five and a half years of David's
reign " in Hebron over Judah? " Surely the subjects of Ish-
baal did not delay their recognition of David all those years
after the death of their king.
An attempt has been made to remove this difficulty by
bringing it into connection with the curious statement, of which
we have spoken before, 3 that Saul only reigned two years.
It has been conjectured that the five years of the excess of
David's reign over that of Ishbaal must be added to the two
years assigned to Saul. In this case the prophet who recorded
all these dates looked upon Saul's reign as having ended
theoretically as soon as David was anointed, though he was
actually king for five years longer. He therefore regards
David's reign as having begun when he was anointed, and
adds the five years that elapsed between the supposed date
of that event and the death of Saul to the two during which
David actually reigned at Hebron. The appearance of a
similar specimen of chronology by a prophetic writer in the
book of Kings, which we shall presently examine, favors this
conjecture. But it is simpler to suppose that the expression
" David reigned seven years at Hebron over Judah alone " is
rather loosely used, and that the real course of events was as
follows : David reigned over Judah at Hebron for two years,
while Ishbaal swayed the sceptre over the north. On the
death of the latter David was, within a comparatively short
i 2 Samuel ii. 11, v. f (1 Kings ii. 11). 2 2 Samuel ii. 10. 8 See p. 486.
544 DAVID AT ZIKXAG AND AT HEBRON.
period, recognized by most of the Israelites as king. After
this he bad to wage war with the Philistines before he was
free to attack Jebus, and finally some time elapsed after the
conquest .of that city before he took up his residence in it.
Thus it was seven and a half years after his arrival at Hebron
before he was installed at Jerusalem as king of all Israel.
David's accession to the throne (about b.c. 1058) is a
suitable resting-place in the description of Israel's history.
Behind us lies the period of the judges, that time of fermenta-
tion which constitutes as it were the "middle ages" of Israel.
If Saul's dynasty had taken root this period would have closed
with his accession to the throne ; but, as it is, the few years
during which he held the sceptre still belong to the old order
of things. During the two and a half centuries that have
elapsed since the exodus from Egypt a vast change has come
over the sons of Israel. They have abandoned their wander-
ing life, gained settled homes in cities and villages, and begun
to cultivate the soil. And thus fresh institutions have become
necessary to regulate the mutual relations of the citizens, to
secure the co-operation of the tribes, and to establish a firm
central authority. Moreover a life in settled homes affords
more opportunity fpr the cultivation of arts and sciences than
nomads can enjoy ; though it does not appear, from what we
know of the history of this period, that the Israelites availed
themselves as yet of these opportunities, or even laid the
foundations of any such activity. Its earliest traces appear
in a later age. But we have seen that the means of securing
unity, order, and political authority not only rose into notice,
but became a question of life and death during the period of
the judges. After many fruitless attempts, and in the midst
of violent opposition, the regal form of government was at last
established and the people of Israel born. 1
There is nothing remarkable, however, in the simple fact
of a number of related tribes uniting into a single nation.
Such a course is often unavoidable. External pressure, and
the instinct of self-preservation, make it a necessity. So far,
then, there is nothing to distinguish Israel from Moab, Am-
nion, Edom, and a host of other nations, and, in itself, this
scrap of history would have no special interest for us. But
the period of the judges settled another question of the utmost
importance in the history of religion — the question which
religious school should gain the upper hand and point out the
l See p. 241.
DAVED AT ZIKXAG AND AT HEBRON. 545
way for the whole nation to follow when united. The Israel-
ites had taken possession of Canaan, and established them-
selves in the midst of the old inhabitants, and although they
were very closely connected with them, and spoke almost the
same language, yet they had their own special characteristics,
chiefly due to the influence of Moses, which constituted their
real superiority. They brought with them the worship of
Yahweh and the code of the ten commandments, a veritable
treasure, a fountain of spiritual blessings. The question was,
whether they were to preserve this treasure or to barter it for
the advantages to be derived from friendly relations with the
Canaanites. Israelites and Canaanites lived together. Which
was to exercise the preponderating influence, and set the tone
for both? "Were the Baals to gain the upper hand, and reduce
Yahweh to the rank of the special god of a single family, or
at most of a tribe ? Or was Yahweh to retain his place as the
national god of Israel, to whom all other gods were subject?
The answer to this question was very closely connected with
the circumstances under which the regal form of government
was introduced. For if a man with Canaanite sympathies be-
came the ruler of the people, then Yahweh's cause was lost,
since the religion favored by the lord of the land was sure to
prevail ; a rule which has held good not only in antiquity but
in more modern times. Had this been so, then Israel would
have forfeited its religious privileges, and descended to the
level of other peoples. All the blessings which have been
conferred upon mankind by Israel would have been lost.
Doubtless the light would have broken through somewhere,
and man would yet have learned the will of God. Had the
work of Moses come to nought, some other man of God
would have stood up elsewhere, and religious truth would
have displayed her conquering might amongst some other
people, perhaps in some other quarter of the globe. But
since we know by the event that Israel was the chosen people
which preserved the germs of a purer religion than was else-
where developed, the chosen people amongst whom Jesus was
born, the whole course of Israelite history gains a deep and
special interest for us.
Glancing back upon the period of the judges, we can see
clearly enough the dangers which sometimes threatened the
worship of Yahweh, and the Israelitish character of the whole
people. What would have become of them, for instance, if
the dynasty of Jerubbaal-Gideon and his son Abimelech had
struck root, and extended over the whole of Israel? The
546 DAVID AT ZIKLAG AND AT HEBRON.
work of Moses would have perished, and the genius of Canaan
would have triumphed. But, as we saw, it was just because
the true spirit of Israel was too strong for it that the house of
Gideon fell. Though the invaders were inferior to the older
inhabitants in many respects, yet they were morally superior
to them ; and for that reason no dynasty could endure unless
it rose on true Israelite foundations, gained the support of the
Israelite spirit, and raised on high the standard of Yahweh.
It was not from the north, where the Canaanites had far more
influence than in the south, but from the centre of the land,
from Benjamin, the country of Samuel, the focus of the
religious revival amongst the worshippers of Yahweh, that
Saul, the first man under whose sceptre all Israel bowed,
came forth ; and when his headstrong passion had caused his
fall, it was from the south that David came, supported by
the prophets and priests of Yahweh, to attempt the task of
rescuing Israel and raising her to power.
The result of the spiritual efforts of the period of the judges
was to establish the people of Israel in the worship of Yahweh,
the god of Moses, as their national deity.
END OF VOL. 1.
BOOKS III. AND IV.
FROM DAVID TO JOSIAH; FROM JOSIAH TO THE
SUPREMACY OF THE MOSAIC LAW
Prepared by Dr. H. Oort
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Book III.
FROM DAVID TO JOSIAH.
Chapter I.
JERUSALEM THE CITY OF THE KING AND OE YAHWEH
2 Samuel V. 17-25, 6-9, VI., VII.i
AFTER all the dangers and vicissitudes of his lot, David
was summoned at last by the sons of Israel to be their
king. Yet it by no means followed that he could sit down
in undisputed power and rest upon his laurels. It is easy
to guess the quarter from which the storm would burst upon
him. The Philistines saw with vexation how the old divisions
between the Israelitish tribes were healed, and how they all
combined to make David king. They had good reason to
fear that, under such a valiant leader, their neighbors might
soon grow too strong for them ; so they brought their army
into the field at once in hopes of preventing it. When attack-
ing Saul they had marched into the heart of the territory of
Benjamin, but David's headquarters were at Hebron ; so
now they turned southwards by one of the valleys that inter-
sect the mountains of Judah, and reached the plain of the
Rephaites near Jebus. David had no forces worthy of the
name with which to oppose them. The writer of the book
of Chronicles 2 speaks of great hosts of warriors coming from
all the tribes to do homage to David at Hebron — he brings
a hundred and twenty thousand from the district beyond
Jordan alone — but this enormous army only existed in his
own imagination. It is true that warlike representatives of
every tribe now followed David's flag, and had put their
swords at his service ; true that their influence was a sufficient
' 1 1 Chronicles xi. -xvii. a 1 Chronicles xii. 24-10.
VOL. II. 1
2 JERUSALEM THE CITT OF
guaranty that he would be received with open amis in any,
or almost any, of the cities of Israel at which he might pre-
sent himself. But meanwhile he had only a few hundred
soldiers with him, and was no match for the Philistines.
Accordingly he was forced once more to seek refuge in his
old retreat, the mountain hold of Adullam. 1 From this
position he constantly harassed the enemy and gained the
advantage in countless skirmishes. Upon this all whoso
hearts were stirred in the cause of Yahweh and of Israel
streamed to him from all quarters of the land, and his forces
gradually swelled until at last he felt strong enough to meet
the Philistines in open field. In the vallej 7 of the Rephaites,
near a place called Baal-Perazim, he utterly defeated them,
and even took some of the images of their gods as spoil.
According to the writer of the book of Samuel this place was
called " Perez," that is dispersion, " because Yahweh dispersed
the enemy there." 2 But the Philistines recovered from the
blow, and brought such a powerful army back into the plain
that when David consulted the oracle it advised him not to
make an open attack. At the advice of the priests, there-
fore, he attempted a surprise. Creeping round the camp of
the Philistines, he lay concealed behind them in a valley full
of mulberry trees. As he was lying there a rushing sound
came sweeping through the tops of the trees. It was Yahweh
marching before his people to battle ! The war-cry of Israel
rang through the air, and the Philistines were so utterly de-
feated that David pursued them to the very borders of their
own land.
This victory finally established David's authority. He
was now surrounded by a band of chosen warriors. There
had been many mighty men amongst his six hundred original
followers, but their number was now greatly increased. For
when he was at Ziklag many heroes had ranged themselves
under his flag even before Saul's death, 3 and still more after-
wards ; and since he had settled in Hebron, and had been at
war with the Philistines, their numbers had increased yet
further, and their skill in handling their arms had been
severely exercised. The fame of some of them had spread
far and wide." Several of them could boast of bavin* slain
hundreds of the enemy in a single day. It was said of an-
other that he had once put a whole army of Phibstines to
i After an amended version of 2 Samuel v. 17; compare xxiii. 13, 1 Chron-
icles xi. 15. 2 After an amended version.
» 1 Chronicles xii. 19-21. 4 2 Samuel xxiii. 8-39; 1 Chronicles xi. 10-xii.
THE KING AND OF YAHWEH.
flight with his single arm, and had fought until his fingers
clung convulsively to his sword and could hardly be un-
clasped. Amongst thirty champions picked from David's
chosen band there were three who had performed a feat of
arms at which the king himself had stood amazed. Once,
when they were in the fortress of Adullam, David thought-
lessly exclaimed, "Who will bring me a draught of water
from the well in the gate of Bethlehem ? " Now, a Philistine
garrison held possession of Bethlehem at the time, while the
main army was encamped in the valley of the Rephaites ; but
in spite of everything the three heroes set out, broke through
the ranks of the enemy, drew water from the well of Bethle-
hem, and brought it to David in triumph ! But he would not
drink it. "It is the blood of my heroes ! " he cried, as he
poured it out before Yahweh. Even Benaiah could not meas-
ure himself against such as these. Yet Benaiah could
boast of having slain the two sons of Ariel the Moabite, and
once when a lion had fallen into a hole in the snowy season,
he leapt in and slew the beast. Another time, unarmed ex-
cept with his staff, he attacked a gigantic Egyptian warrior,
wrenched his spear from his hand, and slew him with it.
David made him captain of his booty-guard, to reward his
valor. He had thirty of such heroes round him, and hosts
of brave warriors stood under their command. There were
Benjamites, for instance, famed of old as bow-men and
slingers ; and Gadites, with their huge shields and dreaded
lances, stern of countenance as lions, and swift of foot as
hinds. Once they had crossed the flooded Jordan at spring-
time.
With such followers as these something might, be done ; so
as soon as the Philistines were expelled, David determined to
strike a decisive blow. The Canaanite city of Jebus was an
eye-sore to him. The Philistines had found it the key of
Judah, and would certainly never have been able to maintain
themselves so long in the valley of the Rephaites had not the
Jebusites made common cause with them. David was now
determined to have his revenge. But it was no light task to
storm such a place as Jebus. Saul himself appears to have
left it unassailed ; and no wonder, for it seemed almost im-
pregnable. It was situated in a dry un watered district, on a
limestone rock that rose precipitously on three sides from the
surrounding valleys. 1 To the west and the south the moun-
tain was encircled by the valley of the sons of Hinnom, and
l See Map IV., Jei-usalem ; and The Environs of Jerusalem.
4 JERUSALEM THE CITY OP
to the east a deep ravine, through which the Kidron flows, and
which was afterwards called the valley of Jehoshaphat,
separated it from the Mount of Olives. Again the rock on
which the city stood was itself split into two unequal halvea
by the " Cheesemakers' Valley," so that even if the eastern
portion fell into the hands of the enemy, it by no means fol-
lowed that the western half, upon which the citadel stood,
need surrender. The city was weakest on its northern side,
but even there it lay on the slope of the hill, and was fortified
by walls and towers that cut off the approach. The Jebusites
had such perfect confidence in the natural strength of their
city, that when they heard of David's enterprise they cried in
derision, ' ' Blind men and cripples could keep him out of
Jebus ! " * But pride comes before a fall. David appeared
under the walls ; his troops were glowing with enthusiasm,
and when the command to storm the city was given, even the
western quarter itself, Zion, afterwards called " the city of
David," soon fell into the hands of the bold assailants. Ac-
cording to the Chronicles, Joab was the first to scale the
wall. This Jebus, afterwards called Jerusalem, which, per-
haps, means " abode of peace," was now chosen by David as
his own residence, and the capital of the whole country. It
was admirably suited for the purpose, both by the natural
strength of its site, and by its geographical position, for it lay
in the territory of Benjamin, which belonged to the North,
and yet not far from the borders of David's tribesmen, the
Judeeans. The conqueror set to work at once to strengthen
the city, and with that object built, as we are told, " all
round from the Millo and inwards."
Would that the words just quoted were the only obscure
expression to be met with in the descriptions of ancient Jeru-
salem and the changes which it has undergone in the course
of centuries ! But this is only one of many difficulties. The
city has been the scene of so many interesting events that we
naturally wish to form a clear conception of its appearance at
different epochs. We should be especially glad to know what
it was like in the time of Jesus. But if we compare the vari-
ous plans of ancient Jerusalem, we see in a moment that the
learned men who have studied the subject differ from each
other in very important respects. This is but natural, for the
city has been devastated so often that the Jerusalem of ancient
times can no longer be recognized in the modern city. Not
only have the houses been destroyed again and again, but on
1 After an amended version.
THE KING AND OF TAHWEH. 5
more than one occasion valleys have actually been filled up
and hills levelled. Not a trace can now be found of the
Cheesemakers' Valley, for instance, that used to separate the
city of David from the mount of the Temple. Yet this was
a deep ravine, the slopes of which had to be ascended and
descended by steps. 1 The place where the valley ran is now
level with the heights on either side. It has all been filled up
with rubbish, upon the top of which streets have been laid
down. If we cannot even form an accurate idea of what
Jerusalem was like in the year 70 a.d., how much less can
we hope to form a picture of it as it was ten centuries before
the beginning of our era !
Of course we still have sufficient data to enable us to assume
certain facts as at least probable ; but, since we cannot attain
to certainty, all our statements on this subject must be read
with the mental addition of "probably," or "perhaps."
With this reservation, then, we may assume that David took
up his abode on the western hill, and that a castle called "the
Millo " stood at the north-west corner of it. It was only this
western hill that David surrounded by a wall. What was
afterwards the mount of the Temple was not included in it.
Soon after David had captureu Jebus and made it his capi-
tal, he took a step which contributed in no small degree to
establish his power. He was the darling of Yahweh's priests
and prophets, and it was partly by their aid that he had be-
come king of Israel. He therefore determined to give proof
of his attachment to the service, and his zeal for the honor of
Israel's national god. But he chose a less dangerous means
of accomplishing his purpose than that adopted by his prede-
cessor. Saul's fanatical zeal had urged him to comply with
the sanguinary demands of Yahweh, as understood by the
prophets and their most fiery adherents, and his policy had
alienated many of his subjects ; but David determined to show
his devotion by bringing the ark in which Yahweh himself
lived to Jerusalem.
When last we heard of this sacred object it had just fallen
into the hands of the Philistines, 2 and we have since been in
danger of forgetting it altogether ! Let us see what its fate
has been meanwhile. We still possess a very elaborate ac-
count of it, 3 written by one who shared, to the fullest extent,
the superstitious terror with which both Philistines and Israel-
ites regarded this ark.
i See Map IV., Jerusalem, No. 8. 2 See vol. i. p. 441. » 1 Samuel v. 1-vii. 1
6 JERUSALEM THE CITY OF
When the Philistines had gained the great victory over the
Israelites which closed the life of Eli, they took the sacred
chest of Yahweh to Ashdod, one of their five great cities, and
set it down in the temple of Dagon, near to the image of the
god himself. But behold ! the next day the image was found
prostrate, as if in reverence, before the ark of Yahweh. The
priests, however, could not believe that the ark had really
caused the fall of the image ; so they simply set it up again
and left it. But next day they saw a still more appalling
sight. There stood the image in its place — but its head was
broken off and its two hands lay on the threshold. Ever since
that day the priests of Dagon in Ashdod have made it a cus-
tom to spring over the threshold of the sanctuary without
setting their feet on it. They were not yet convinced oi
Yahweh's might ; but when fearful plagues broke out, when
many of the Ashdodites were smitten with ulcerous sores,
and the field-mice multiplied so terribly that they ruined all
the harvest, at last the very priests themselves began to be
afraid of the ark, and admitted that it was the cause of all the
misfortunes which had come upon their god and themselves.
What was to be done with it? After mature deliberation the
Philistine princes determined to take it to the city of Gath.
But no sooner was it there than the Gittites were afflicted
with the very same disease that had visited the men of Ashdod.
Upon this their hearts were seized with terror, and they sent
on the ark to Ekron. But the moment it arrived at this city
the inhabitants raised a cry of horror. They feared the worst
from its presence. And with good reason too, for before
long deaths and diseases without number bore witness to the
wrath of Yahweh, who thus maintained his honor. And now
the Philistines were filled with dismay, and all the cities re-
fused to receive the ark within their walls. So it stood for
seven mouths in the open country, and even there it made the
mice multiply so frightfully that at last the Philistines had to
make up their minds to let Yahweh go back to his own coun-
try. The princes, therefore, ordered the priests and wizards
seriously to consider how they were to send back the deity
and be delivered from the plagues. Of course, they must
give the offended god a sin-offering, and they soon decided on
its nature. Five golden models of the ulcers with which the
Philistines had been smitten, and five golden mice must be
consecrated as an offering to Yahweh by the five princes.
This would appease his wrath. It was very humiliating, no
doubt, but nothing else would save them from the fate of the
THE KING AND OF YAHWEH. 7,
Egyptians, and they were compelled to make a virtue of
necessity.
So they made the golden models for a sin-offering. But
when all was ready, and the princes were preparing to send
away the ark of Yahweh, the priests began to hesitate. It
was so hard to lose such a splendid token of victory, and to
give so rich a present to a hostile god ! Suppose, after all,
it was a mere accident that these plagues had broken out just
while the ark was in the country ! They would make one trial
more. At their direction the ark was placed on a wagon, and
the little bos containing the golden offering beside it. Then
two heifers were yoked to the vehicle, while their sucking
calves were shut up in a stall hard by. If the heifers went
back to their calves, then the ark had nothing to do with the
plagues that had come upon the Philistines ; but if they turned
towards the land of Israel, then it was evident that Yahweh
had sent the plagues. The princes watched in anxious sus-
pense to see what the heifers would do, and, behold ! contrary
to the instincts of their nature, they Went straight off to Beth-
Shemesh, though lowing for the loss of their calves ! The
Philistine kings went after them to see where they would take
the wagon.
The inhabitants of Beth-Shemesh were busy with their
wheat harvest when they found the ark resting on the wagon.
It had stopped in the fields of a certain Joshua, close by a
great stone. The people were filled with joy to find the
sacred chest of Yahweh, took it up, broke the wagon into
pieces, slaughtered the cattle, and offered them as a burnt-
sacrifice to their god.
The Philistine princes returned to Ekron fully persuaded
that all their disasters had been caused by Yahweh's wrath.
What a terrible god he was ! Terrible indeed — as some of
the inhabitants of Beth-Shemesh itself were soon to find.
The family of a certain Jechoniah had not taken part in the
festivities held in honor of Yahweh ; and seventy of them were
punished by him with death. 1 All the men of Beth-Shemesh
lamented the terrible event, and cried in horror, " Who dare
serve Yahweh, this holy god? How can we escape his
wrath ? " Finally they were much relieved to find that the
men of Kirjath-jearim were willing to receive the ark. It
was placed by its new guardians in the house of Abinadab,
on the hill near to the city, and Abinadab's son, Eleazar,
was out in charge of it as priest.
i After an amended version.
, JERUSALEM THE CITY OP
There it remained till David came to take it to Jerusalem.
Then Yahweh showed once more what a terrible god he was.
Accompanied by thirty thousand chosen Israelites — rather a
large number one would think — David advanced to Kirjath-
jearim, or as it was formerly called " the city of the Baal of
Judah," to take away the ark of God, " over which the name
of Yahweh of hosts who sits upon the cherubs is invoked."
They set it on a new wagon, which was led by Uzzah and
Ahio, the sons of Abinadab. Uzzah walked by the side of
the ark and his brother before it. David and all his followers
went dancing and singing and playing upon all kinds of
musical instruments in front of the sacred chest. But alas,
what a terrible end was soon to be put to their rejoicing !
Uzzah suddenly fell down dead. The cause was easily
guessed. In turning a sharp corner or descending a steep
hill the oxen had nearly upset the wagon, and Uzzah had
stretched out his irreverent hand and laid it on the ark to
steady it ! It was no excuse that he had thereby prevented
it from falling. It was no matter whether he had intended
any irreverence or not. 1 However unintentionally, he had
laid his hand upon Yahweh, and he was therefore slain by
him. Mortal terror fell upon all present. How could David
dare, after this, to take Yahweh's ark any further? The place
where all this happened was ever after known as Perez-Uzzah ;
that is, the breaking of Uzzah.
David now relinquished his design of taking the ark to
Jerusalem, and entrusted it to the care of a certain Gittite of
the name of Obed-Edom, in whose house it remained three
months. It now appeared that the ark did not always bring
misfortunes with it. If only it was treated with due rever-
ence it was rich in blessings ; for this Obed-Edom was won-
derfully prosperous as long as it was in his house. When
David was informed of this he again made great preparations
for bringing the ark to Jerusalem. It was placed once more
on a wagon, or perhaps supported on the shoulders of certain
men chosen for the purpose, and was carried forward with
shouts of universal triumph. As soon as it was brought out of
Obed-Edom's house an ox was sacrificed to Yahweh. Then
they set out. Seven choruses of singers, who took up the strain
in succession, accompanied David. 2 Thus, amidst ringing
trumpet-peals, and incessant shouts of joy, David and all Israel
conducted the ark to Jerusalem. The ldng himself, clothed
only in the short linen garment of the priests, went dancing
1 See vol i. p. 81. 2 After an amended version.
THE KING AND OF TaHWEH. 9
and striking the tambourine before Yahweh's face. Thus was
the ark brought to Jerusalem and placed under a tent that
had been erected for it. It need hardly be said that the day's
festivities ended with a solemn sacrifice, after which David
blessed the people in the name of Yahweh of hosts, and gave
every one present, man or woman, a loaf of bread, a certain
quantity of wine, and a cake of raisins.
But David's exultation was by no means shared by his
wife Michal, the daughter of Saul. "When he had dismissed
the assembly and was returning to his palace, she came
indignantly to meet him, and greeted him with the scornful
words, " How nobly the king of Israel has maintained his
dignity to-day, dancing half naked before all his subjects ! "
David, in his present state of excitement and triumph, was
by no means disposed to take such a rebuke meekly, and
answered rather unfeelingly : " Yes ! I will gladly dance before
Yahweh, who has chosen me king of Israel above your father
and all his house, however low I may sink in your eyes by
doing so ! " Upon this the historian remarks that, in conse-
quence of her pride, Michal was never blessed with a child.
Thus the ark came to Jerusalem.
It is very curious, after reading this account in the book
of Samuel, to see how the writer of the Chronicles treats
the same events. In his account of the first unsuccessful
attempt he agrees with the older historian ; but when he
comes to tell us how the ark was finally brought to Jerusalem,
he transports us into quite a different world from that of
David. He surrounds the king with Aaronites as priests,
and Levites as their assistants. All these he duly classifies,
and even mentions some of them by name. David gives ex-
press orders that the ark is to be carried on bearing-poles by
the Levites, and a detailed account is given of how the chief
singers, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, stood at the head of the
choirs, and how the priests with the sacred trumpets marched
in front of the ark. Then we are told that in the tent in
which the ark rested Asaph acted as chief singer; while
Heman and Jeduthun were chief musicians, and Zadok
chief priest, at Gibeon, where the tabernacle, of which we
shall speak presently, was situated. All this, the writer ex-
pressly reminds us, was in perfect conformity with the Law.
We can easily understand the origin of this description. The
old account, in which the ark is carried on a wagon, and no
priests or Levites are so much as mentioned, must have been
1*
10 JERUSALEM THE CITY OP
very distasteful to the devout readers of about 200 B.C., for it
was in direct contradiction with the Law. 1 Such readers
were not at all surprised to find that, on the first journey
from Kirjath-jearim, Yahweh had slain the sacrilegious
Uzzah, who had dared to lay an uncon sec rated hand upon
the ark. But they were much surprised by the successful
issue of the second journey. However, it was not expressly
stated what means of conveyance were adopted, or who was
present on this second occasion ; and the pious imagination
being thus left free to work, soon filled in the scene with
figures which brought it entirely into harmony with the re-
ligious notions of a later time. The writer of the Chronicles
little dreamed that in David's time the Law did not exist at
all, and that no one thought of the priesthood being confined
exclusively to certain families. The Law was known in his
day as "the law of Moses," and he never doubted its right
to the title.
The writer of the Chronicles was a Levite, and apparently
a member of the temple choir, for he is particularly fond of
giving us details about the sacred music. He could not help
thinking that David, the man after Yahweh's heart — the
model of an Israelite king — must have busied himself with
the arrangements of public worship, lie thought it strange
enough that he should have left it for his son to build the
temple. But he knew very well that as a fact he had done
so. He was not capable of quite so gross a blunder as that
of the man who quietly wrote at the head of the thirtieth
Psalm, "A song of David, for the consecration of the tem-
ple ; " 2 but he gave his hero as great a share in building the
temple and organizing the worship as he possibly could. 3 He
not only makes him collect treasure for this purpose, but tells
us that he had the stones hewn, and prepared the iron re-
quired for the doors, as well as the brass and cedarwood. 1
Moreover he makes him prepare the designs for the building,
and all that pertained to it ; 6 or rather he makes him tell his
son Solomon how these designs had been conveyed to him by
Yahweh, for they were too sacred to be regarded as the mere
work of man. 6 Nay, if we are to believe'the Chronicles, all
the divisions of the priests and Levites, especially the musi-
cians, and the arrangements of their work, were planned and
1 Compare, for instance, Exodus xxv. 10-15 : Numbers iv. 4-20, x. 1-10.
2 After an amended version. 8 1 Chronicles xxii.-xxix.
4 1 Chronicles xxii. 2-5. 6 i Chronicles xxviii. 11.
6 1 Chronicles xxviii. 19.
TKE KIMU AND OF TAHWEH. 11
settled by David. In a word, he is made what a pious king
of the ancient time ought to have been, if public worship
had been organized in his days as it was seven centuries
later.
The Chronicler tells us that the reason why David was not
allowed to build the temple was that he had spilled so much
blood 1 — an idea which says more for the peaceful disposition
of the priestly writer than for his insight into ancient history.
In David's time no one would have dreamed of there being
any impropriety in a prince who had waged many bloody
"wars of Yahweh" building a house for the god in whose
name he had fought.
The writer of the Chronicles was not the first who had been
at a loss to understand why David had not built the temple.
Even before the captivity, it had become difficult to think of
the Israelite nation without the temple on Mount Zion — and
then David was such a truly religious monarch ! Accordingly,
the book of Samuel tells us that when David was at rest from
his wars, and dwelt in a palace of cedarwood himself, he
could not bear to think that yahweh' s ark had only a tent to
dwell in. So he sent for the prophet Nathan, and told him
how this thought was troubling him. Nathan ardently sup-
ported his idea of building a house for Yahweh. But that
very night the man of God received a revelation from Yah-
weh himself ; and at his command he went to David and told
him that he must not build a temple, for it was against the will
of Yahweh. He would rather live in a tent than in a house.
But yet the thought of David's heart should be, realized by
his son, who would have a peaceful reign. For Yahweh
promised David that he would establish his dynasty on the
throne for ever. Upon this David bowed down in humble
gratitude before Yahweh.
Such were the reasons given for David's not having built
the temple when the book of Samuel was composed ; that is to
say, about the time of the captivity, when David's family had
already reigned at Jerusalem some five centuries. But we
cannot help noticing what an extraordinary contradiction is
contained in Nathan's answer to David. The king must not
build a temple for two reasons : firstly, because Yahweh pre-
fers to live in a tent, and secondly because David's son will
build him a temple. But if Yahweh really preferred a tent
for his dwelling-place, why should Solomon any more than
David be allowed to place him in a house of cedar? Did
1 1 Chronicles xxii. 8, xxviii. 3.
12 JERUSALEM THE CUT OF THE KING, ETC.
Y ahweh's character or inclination change ? The first part of
Nathan's answer embodies an old and no doubt trustworthy
tradition. There were persons in David's time, especially
amongst the prophets, who were opposed to the erection of a
temple for Yahweh, and thought a simple tent more in keep-
ing with the special character of their god. It is not hard to
guess their reasons. In man}- respects the prophets were men
of the old school, and, as is often the case with earnest but
perhaps somewhat narrow men, they dreaded advancing cult-
ure of every kind, especially in the arts and sciences, as
giving occasion to luxury and display. Simple manners like
those of the nomads pleased them best. To aim at knowl-
edge too high for man, and at being like the deity, could be
productive of nothing but evil. Building houses and cities
led to licentiousness. A severe, simple, patriarchal life was
best for man. Now, people always imagine their gods to be
what they think they 7 ought to be themselves, and so these
lovers of the wandering shepherd-life, these preachers of
simplicity, believed that Yahweh their god would -likewise
choose a tent to dwell in rather than a palace.
But probably this alone would not have been enough to
prevent David from carrying out his project of building a
temple for Yahweh, if he had had time, or rather money and
command of labor, sufficient for so great an undertaking.
The book of Kings, 1 with great propriety, makes Solomon say,
" My father could not build a house for Yahweh, because of
the many wars he had to wage." But no doubt the influence
of the prophets and their followers helped to prevent the
building of a temple. David then was obliged to content
himself with increasing the sacred treasure of Yahweh,
and so making it possible for his son to undertake the
work. This preliminary task he faithfully performed by
always consecrating to Yahweh a part of the booty he seized
in war. 2
Thus in David's reign Jerusalem had already become the
political capital, and the city of Yahweh. It is true that the
sanctuary there was not the only one dedicated to the god of
Israel ; on the contrary, it could hardly rank as yet with such
places as the bamah at Gibeon, for instance. But just as the
presence of the ark, which still accompanied the armies into
the field, 8 conferred a kind of sanctity on the royal palace,
near which it stood in times of peace, so on the other hand
" Yahweh' s anointed" conferred a certain distinction on the
1 1 Kings v. 8. 2 2 Samuel vin. 7-12 ; 1 Kings vii. 51. 8 2 Samuel xi. 11
THE HOUSE OF SAUL UNDER DAVID'S RULE. 13
sanctuary which he honored above all others. And thus
Jerusalem became the centre of the political and religious
life of Israel.
Chapter II.
THE HOUSE OF SAUL UNDER DAVID'S RULE.
2 Samuel IX., XXI. 1-14.
IN ancient times it was far from unusual for a king who had
not inherited his crown from his father, but had won it by
force of arms, to put to doath the children and near relations
of his predecessor, for fear of their heading a rebellion against
him. We shall meet with instances of such conduct later on
in the history of Israel. It is not surprising, then, that Saul's
family should have felt alarm at David's becoming king of all
the tribes, and establishing his authority by the capture of
Jerusalem. They had every reason to fear the worst.
But David had not forgotten his friendship for Jonathan.
Was there any member of his family still living ? Jonathan
had been married, and had had at least one child, but neither
David nor any one about him knew what had become of him.
This was natural enough, for the defeat at Gilboa had thrown
all the country round into such terrible confusion that many
an Israelite had disappeared during those troubled times and
never been heard of since. Besides, as long as Ishbaal was
reigning, David had known but little of what was going on in
the North ; and after the death of that monarch, all who had
any affection for Saul's family thought that the less they said
about them to David the better ! But when he really wished
to get at the truth, he was soon able to do so. He knew
whom to ask for information. In the neighborhood of G-ibeah
dwelt Ziba, Saul's former steward, who had managed the late
king's estates. He was an influential man, and his fifteen
sons and twenty dependants constituted a powerful " house."
This Ziba was sure to have the information David wanted.
When satisfied that the king's purpose was friendly, Ziba
told him that there was still one son of Jonathan's alive. He
had had an accident when a child ; for when the news of the
defeat of the Israelite army and the death of his father reached
14 THE HOUSE OF SAUL UNDER DAVID'S RULE.
his nurse she caught him up to carry him to some place of safety
from the Philistines. But in her haste she fell down with the
child, who was then five years old, and he was crippled in
both his feet by the fall. 1 It is a great misfortune even now
for a man to lose the use of his legs, but in ancient times it
was still worse. For in those days war and the chase were
looked upon as the chief or at least as the most honorable oc-
cupations of life, and greal importance was therefore attached
to bodily strength. A man who walked on crutches would
never be held in high estimation. Ziba told David where to
find this boy, whose name is given as Mephibosheth, tut was
really Meribaal. 2 He was at Lodebar, a place east of the
Jordan, near Mahanaim, the former residence of Ishbaal.
David sent for him at once. As soon as he entered the
royal presence, he threw himself in mingled reverence and
terror upon the ground, and when asked whether he was
Meribaal, answered humbly " Thy servant." David hastened
to reassure him by the friendly words, " Fear not ! I will be
kind to you for your father's sake ; for Jonathan was my
friend. I will give you back all the estates of Saul, and you
shall have a place at my own table." The cripple bowed in
humble gratitude, and answered, "What am I that you should
deign to look upon me ? I am but a dead dog ! " Such servile
language was often addressed to kings, 8 and was particularly
natural in the mouth of a member of the fallen dynasty. Da-
vid lost no time in putting the affairs of his ward in order, and
instructed Ziba to manage Saul's possessions for his grand-
son, as he had formerly done for the king himself. He also
gave orders that Meribaal, who remained permanently at court,
should be treated as a prince of the blood.
The book of Samuel adds that Meribaal had a little son,
Micha. From the expression ' ' a little son " we should im-
agine that the child was already born when Meribaal came to
court. But this can hardly be the case ; for Meribaal himself
cannot have been more than eleven years old at most when
David took Jerusalem, and it is difficult to believe that the
king allowed many years to elapse after that event without
inquiring after Jonathan's posterity. However this may be,
Meribaal appears to have had but one son, who was therefore
the sole legitimate representative of the house of Saul. For
this monarch had only four sons by wives of the first rank,
namely, the three that died on the battle-field with their father,
and Ishbaal ; and all of them except Jonathan appear to have
l 2 Samuel iv. 4. « See vol, i. p. 392. 8 1 Samuel xxiv. 14, xxvi. 20.
THE HOUSE OF SAUL UNDER DAVID'S RULE. 15
died childless. Four or five centuries later the descendants of
this Micha still formed a considerable "house" in Israel. 1
But although Meribaal and his son were the only legitimate
heirs of Saul in David's time, yet there were other members
of the "house" of Saul — for this phrase included his sons
by wives of the second rank, or concubines, the children of his
daughters, the descendants of his younger brothers, and yet
more distant relatives. This "house of Saul" might seem
at first to threaten the stability of David's throne, but a heavy
blow soon fell upon it, of which we shall now give the par-
ticulars.
David had not long been king over all Israel before years
of tribulation came upon his people. Again and again the
harvest failed for want of rain, or swarms of locusts destroyed
the hope of the husbandman. Besides this, no doubt the civil
war which was only just over had seriously interfered with the
welfare of the people, and had thrown many a plot. of land out
of cultivation.
"What can be the cause of this famine?" was asked on
every side ; nor did it lie in the spirit of the age to set about
investigating the natural causes of the disaster. " Some sin
has been committed, and our god now visits it upon us," people
muttered, as they strove to discover what offence it was that
had brought this misery upon them. Had the people forgotten
their god? No, for the altars had smoked with countless vic-
tims. Had the king been guilty of some sin which Yahweh was
visiting on his people? No such offence could be discovered.
Then was it some crime of the former ruler that was now
brought back to their memory ? There were some of David's
subjects who thought they knew of such a crime, and declared,
with some hesitation at first, but more and more distinctly as
the famine went on year after year, what they held to be the
cause of these disasters. They were the Gibeonites. It will
be remembered that Saul, in his zeal for the sanctity of his
people, and under the conviction that they were polluted by
intermingling with other nations, had attempted to root out
the Gibeonites. 2 But that was a violation of an ancient oath,
and surely the god of Israel would maintain the sanctity of an
oath sworn in his name. He was now punishing the people
for the sin of their former king. That was the meaning of
the famine.
The Gibeonites — full of vengeful hatred against Saul, lying
i 1 Chronicles viii. 34-40 (ix 40-44) * See vol. i. pp. 451 f.
16 THE HOUSS OF SAUL UNDER DAVID'S RULE.
in wait for an opportunity of satisfying their passion — had
doubtless rejoiced in the fall of his house, and now thought
they had a chance of inflicting a bloody retribution on it. So
when the famine still went on, and every one was crj-ing, "O
Yahweh ! wherefore is it? " they renewed their complaint and
answered: "For the murder of our fellow-citizens, for the
perjury of Saul, must Israel suffer." Now the mass of the
people had never heartily approved of the furious zeal of Saul.
They were more inclined for peace than war with the Canaanite
tribes ; moreover they looked towards the rising sun, as the
populace always does, and forgot the benefits conferred upon
them by Saul to bask in the light of David ; so they eagerly
accepted this solution of the great problem, and public opinion
gradually declared, " We owe this famine to the blood of the
Gibeonites cleaving to the house of Saul ! That is the sin for
which Yahweh is punishing us ; and as long as the Gibeonites
curse us we shall never be blessed ! "
During all this time David had doubtless often consulted
the deity, sought help from priests, from prophets, and from
dreamers, and asked them the cause of Yahweh's wrath.
And now at last he received a distinct answer. We are not
told how he consulted his god, but the oracle pointed in
response to the wrongs of the Gibeonites.
David summoned the elders of Gibeon, and asked them
how the guilt which Saul had brought upon himself and the
people could be washed out. At first they answered evasively.
It was not a thing, they said, that could be made good by
money ; and they — Canaanite outcasts as the}' were — could
not do what an Israelite might have done, and indeed would
have felt bound to do, in their case. They could not exact
vengeance, and wipe out the debt of blood by slaying those
who had injured them. But when David solemnly repeated
his assurance that he was ready to satisfy their demands, they
said, " Then give us seven of that man's sons who persecuted
us, and we will crucify them on the sacred hill, before the face
of Yahweh, in Gibeah-of-Saul. For there our enemy had his
abode, and thence he gave the order to destroy us. Then
Yahweh's wrath will be turned away, and we will bless Israel
again, and he will be gracious to his people."
What a hideous demand ! And yet by no means foreign to
the spirit of the age. For in those days, as we have often
noticed, people held that natural occurrences were revelations
of God's wrath, and that he might be appeased by such fright-
ful sacrifices as the one of which we are speaking ; and it was
THE HO0SE OF SAUL UNDER DAVIll's RULE. 17
still regarded as one of the principles of justice that the
children should be put to death for the father's crime.
David assented to the demands of the Gibeonites. What
was going on in his own heart we cannot tell. Did he rejoice
in the opportunity of putting the descendants of his prede-
cessor out of the way? Such a reproach was afterwards
thrown in his teeth by the relatives of Saul, 1 but with what
justice, it is of course impossible to say. It may be that he
granted the Gibeonites' request in sorrow ; that he was him-
self entangled in the superstitions of his people, and genuinely
believed that it was necessary thus to appease the injured
Gibeonites. In any case it is well to observe that, by this
action, David condemned the form which Saul's religious
zeal had taken, and thus laid down another line of action for
himself.
It was left to David to decide which of Saul's male descen
dants were to die. He spared Meribaal, the son of Jona-
than, and chose Armoni and Meribaal, the two sons of Rizpah,
one of Saul's concubines, and the five sons of Merab, 2 Saul's
eldest daughter. Such is the caprice of fortune ! Saul had
once thought Merab too good for David, 8 and she was now
bereft of her five sons by the orders of her rejected suitor.
It was spring-time. The season of the so-called latter
rain was over. The scanty harvest — ■ for it had failed again
— was gathered in. The ill-fated seven were conducted in
solemn procession to the sacred hill whence Gibeah-of-Saul
derived its name, which served as a place of worship for the
whole neighborhood. Here, in the sight of the assembled
crowd and with solemn prayers to Yahweh, the victims were
first, in all probability, stoned to death and then fixed to the
cross. Then the bodies were left hanging, for the birds of
prey and the wild beasts to devour, that the bones might keep
the people's fervent prayers and the atonement for the broken
oath in the memory of. Israel's god and turn away his wrath,
that he might send his people rain.
When the sacrifices were completed and the hill once more
deserted, Rizpah, the mother of two of the victims, took, in
the agon}' of her soul, a desperate resolve. She had not been
able to rescue her children ; but she would save them, if pos-
sible, from the shame of being rent by dogs and birds, instead
of being laid in the family grave, for such a fate was unutter-
i 2 Samuel xvi. 5-8.
2 2 Samuel xxi. 8. Michal is written by mistake for Merab.
8 1 Samuel xviii. 17-19.
18 THE HOUSE OF SAUL UNDER DAVID'S RULE.
ably horrible in the eyes of an Israelite. So she stretched out
her mourning garment on the rock to serve as a tent, and began
her fearful watch at the foot of the crosses. And by day when
the vultures swooped down upon the prey, or the croaking
ravens flapped round the stakes, she darted from her tent,
lance in hand, or sounded her horn to scare away the creatures
that would violate her dead. The nights were long — in Pal-
estine the shortest night of summer lasts ten hours — and
often, when weary with her constant cries and exhausted by
the heat of the sun, she lost her cares for a moment in sleep,
she would start up again at the howling of the jackals and
the baying of the hounds, in terror, not for herself, but for
the ghastly treasure that she guarded.
The inhabitants of Gibeah looked on with growing wonder
and admiration. The woman they had known living in all
the luxury of the court of Saul, though only a wife of the
second rank, — the woman whose intrigue with Abner had
brought Ishbaal to his fall, could hardly have been expected
to rise to such heroic devotion. They gladly brought her the
necessary food ; and as they offered prayers and sacrifices by
the sacred stone upon the hill, or beneath the shadow of the
consecrated oak or terebinth, they cursed the tyrant that
Rizpah cursed ! Was it not their townsman and relative to
whose throne he had succeeded, and was it not his hatred that
pursued these seven children of the monarch even to the
death ?
Rizpah's heroic endurance was put to a fearful test. Weeks
and months crept on wearily. The scorching heat of the
summer sun parched the hill-side till it was almost more than
human strength could bear to remain there at the foot of the
crosses. How often Rizpah must have cried, as she flung her-
self upon the ground by her ghastly charge, " Yahweh ! how
long will the heart of the tyrant who persecutes our race be
hardened against our misery ? When will he suffer my children
to be laid in the grave? O Lord, let this sacrifice appease
thee ! Give us rain and a fruitful season ! "
The end came at last. For six long months, from Ap; il
till October, she had persevered. The season of the autumn
rains had come, and lo ! the skies were overcast and the clouds
rolled up together. God was appeased, and had accepted the
sacrifice.
And David's heart melted when he heard of all that Rizpah
had done. Why should he insist any longer on the corpses
hanging up before the face of Yahweh? The rain had begun
THE MIGHT OF DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL. 19
to fall already. Surely he might bury them now, and at the
same time show his enemy and his predecessor on the throne
the honors due to a king. So he brought the bones of Saul
and Jonathan from Jabesh in Gilead and buried them, with
the seven other corpses, in the family tomb of Saul.
Our eyes have rested on a dismal scene. The vengeful
hatred of the Gibeonites, the superstition of both king and
people, and, it maybe, the cruelty of David's • calculating
policy, brought unspeakable suffering upon guiltless heads ;
and it deeply wounds our moral and religious sense when the
writer who has told us the whole story calmly concludes his
narrative with the words, " Thus was God made propitious to
the land." But there is one bright spot in the darkness of the
scene — the faithful love of Rizpah as she guards the bodies
of her sons. Her courage and devotion nobly illustrate the
power of a mother's love, and restore our drooping faith in
human nature.
Chapter III.
THE MIGHT OF DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL.
2 Samuel VIII., X.i
WHEN David had fortified Jerusalem, he felt strong
enough to assume the offensive against the surround-
ing peoples. The Philistines naturally came first ; for in spite
of the two defeats the}' had sustained on the plain of the
Rephaites, their warlike spirit was by no means broken ; and,
nominally at least, David's people were still tributary to them.
So the conflict with the Philistines was renewed, and raged so
fiercely that the king himself, who took the field in person,
almost lost his life. A warrior of terrific strength had singled
him out, and would certainly have made an end of him had
not the valiant Abishai, Joab's brother, come to his rescue
and slain the Philistine. David's warriors were so much
alarmed by the danger their prince had incurred that they
made him take an oath never more to go to battle with them
in person, "lest the lamp of Israel should be put out." It
was in one of these campaigns that Goliath was slain by Elha
i 1 Chronicles xviii.-xx.
20 THE MIGHT OF DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL.
nan the Bethlehemite, an exploit which was afterwards attrib-
uted to David. 1 Another gigantic Gittite was laid low by
Jonathan, the son of David's brother Shimeah. 2 At last
the Philistines were so completely humbled that all idea of
Israel's paying tribute to them was abandoned. 8
Then David turned his weapons eastward and attacked the
Moabites, whom he made tributary. We have no means of
knowing what it was that impelled him to attack these old
friends of his to whose king he was under such great obliga-
tions, 4 and we are shocked to read that in accordance with a
barbarous custom of war he massacred two-thirds of the pris-
oners, and only spared one-third alive. The Chronicler does
not mention this fact, and if it is because he is ashamed to
record such deeds on the part of his hero, the omission does
honor to his heart.
Next came the Syrians, whose country lay between the king-
dom of Israel and the Euphrates. David was anxious, for com-
mercial reasons, to extend his dominion to the banks of the
great river, and therefore attacked the Syrian princes of Zobah,
Damascus, and Hamath, who were at variance amongst them-
selves and therefore in no position to offer a successful resist-
ance. On the defeat of the first two the third also submitted.
Thousands of captives fell into David's hands, together with
a number of war chariots, all of which he destroyed except
one hundred. Moreover, he seized as spoil the golden coats
of mail worn by the bod} r -guard of Hadadezer, king of Zobah,
and a quantity of brass, from which Solomon afterwards made
a number of utensils for the temple, and amongst them the
celebrated vat known as the " brazen sea." David appointed
governors over the districts of S3 T ria ; and immediately on his
return defeated the Edomites in the valle}- of Salt, and placed'
their country also under a governor. We maj- note in passing
that the fortieth psalm is said to have been composed on this
occasion. After this victory, which was followed by a fearful
massacre, 5 David erected a triumphal column.
Thus all the neighbors of Israel were subdued, with the
exception of the Ammonites, whose king, Nahash, was on
friendly terms with David. But when Nahash died, his son
Hanun was so rash as to insult the ambassadors of David,
who came to express their monarch's sympathy with the
young king on the death of his father. Upon this, war broke
1 See vol. i. p. 506. a 2 Samuel xxi. 15-22.
8 After an ameuded version of 2 Samuel viii. 1.
* See vol . i. pp. 514 i. 6 1 Kings xi. 15, 16.
THE MIGHT OF DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL. 21
out at once. The Syrian princes took advantage of this
turn of affairs to throw off the yoke of Israel; but Joab
routed them repeatedly, and compelled them to leave the Am-
monites to their fate. All the strength of Israel was now
turned against Ammon. The ark was fetched to the seat
of war. 1 Rabbah, the capital of the Ammonites, offered a
brave resistance, but at last the lower city fell into the
hands of Joab. Upon this the general urged David to come
to the scene of action in person, that he might have the
honor of taking the city himself. All resistance was soon
overpowered, and the inhabitants were put to death with
barbarous tortures.
There was one of his neighbors with whom David always
kept upon good terms, and that was the king of Tyre. The
Israelite tradition calls him Hiram ; 2 but since Hiram was a
contemporary of Solomon, it is probable that David's friend
was Hiram's father, Abibal. The inhabitants of the power-
ful city of Tyre, like those of other Phoenician cities, lived
by commerce, and had therefore every reason to desire peace
and quiet, especially as they were dependent upon their neigh-
bors for their supply of corn and other necessaries of life.
And, again, the friendship of these industrious and enterpris-
ing commercial cities was of great value to the Israelites,
especially to the inhabitants of the northern districts, who
were themselves to some extent engaged in maritime com-
merce, as well as in the carrying- trade between Mesopotamia
and Syria on the one side, and Egypt and Phoenicia on the
other. Thus it happened that Israel and the Phoenician cities
nearly always stood in friendly relations to each other.
When David had subdued almost all his neighbors, and
thus confirmed his power, he made a treaty with the Tyrian
king, by which the latter was bound to supply him with a
great quantity of the cedar wood produced by Mount Lebanon,
which lay within the territory of Tyre. Besides this he sent
a number of workmen to build David a palace. It seems
strange that foreign carpenters and masons had to be called
in for this purpose. Were there no competent workmen in
Israel? we ask. But we must remember that the Israelites
were still very deficient in knowledge of the arts and sciences.
It would have been impossible for the Philistines to carry
away all the smiths out of the land, as they did just before
Saul ascended the throne, had not the number of these skilled
artificers been very small. Then, again, the Israelites of the
1 2 Samuel xi. 11. 2 2 Samuel v. 11.
22 THE MIGHT OF DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL.
old school, the followers of Samuel, had always looked with
suspicion upon all attempts to improve the arts of life and
extend the limits of human knowledge. 1 Remember, for
instance, how the legend of Cain and his posterity stamps
as unholy the invention of musical instruments and the art
of forging iron ! 2 This special legend was no doubt written
at a later period, but its spirit is the same as that which in-
spired the Nazarites and prophets of the time of Saul. These
men would certainly discourage the training of skilled arti-
sans, and the consequence was that when David determined
to build a truly regal palace he had to call in the aid of foreign
workmen.
David soon dwelt in a princely residence, in which he held
a luxurious court. Elven at Hebron he had had more wives
than one, but now he added considerably to their number, and
indeed established a regular harem on a rather extensive scale,
in which several of Saul's wives and concubines were placed. 8
Here, in his palace, King David sat on state occasions to re-
ceive the homage of all the tribes of Israel and the subjugated
peoples, his temples encircled by a diadem, while, suspended
over his head, hung the great crown, heavj- with gold and
precious stones, which he had seized at Rabbah, the capital
of the Ammonites. 4 Here he sat in judgment over such of
his subjects as submitted their cause to his decision, from
which there was no appeal. 5 And a merry life was led in the
palace, for the ix^al table was prepared from day to day for
the reception of countless officers and guests, whose palates
were flattered by the choicest viands and their ears soothed by
strains of sweetest music. 6 There artists of every description
were sure of a good reception, but above all music was dili-
gently cultivated, the king himself taking the lead in invent-
ing new kinds of music and improving the instruments.'
There high officials gathered round the royal throne, 8 amongst
whom were Joab, the captain of the host, with the chief
ministers of state, Jehoshaphat the chancellor, Adoram the
treasurer, Seraiah the king's private secretary, together with
others of his special advisers, the chief priests Zadok and
Abiathar, the princes of the blood, who were most of them
also priests, 9 and other members of the royal house. These
i Compare p. 12. 2 See vol. i. pp. 60 ff. 8 2 Samuel xii. 8.
4 2 Samuel xii. 30. 6 2 Samuel viii. 16. 6 2 Samuel xix. 35.
' Amos vi. 5. 8 2 Samuel viii. 16-18, xx. 23-26.
8 After an amended version of 2 Samuel viii. 18.
THE MIGHT OF DAVID, KING OP ISRAEL. 23
distingo ished nobles again had in many cases courts of their
own, and often appeared at the palace with a numerous ret-
inue. Joab, for instance, had ten private squires ; x and we
may gain some idea of the military pomp that surrounded the
palace from the fact that whenever the crown prince appeared
in public he was surrounded by a body-guard of fifty warriors
in addition to all his other followers. 2
Watch was kept over the palace by the dreaded body-guard
known as the Krethi and Plethi, under the command of
Benaiah. It is doubtful whether this designation should be
translated " executioners and messengers," or " Cretans and
Philistines." If this latter translation is the true one, it shows
that David surrounded himself with a guard of foreign merce-
naries. This practice has often been adopted in every age,
and at courts that have had nothing else in common with each
other. It rests upon the idea that a band of strangers who
have no stake in the various interests which may raise the
people in rebellion, can be far more implicitly relied on to de-
fend the monarch upon whom they are entirely dependent
than rtij of his own subjects can. At the court of David,
then, these warlike Philistines filled the post which the Swiss
mercenaries occupied in later times at certain European
courts, such as that of France.
The royal style in which David lived, and the magnificence
with which he surrounded his throne, were but the natural
consequences of the wealth he had acquired and the power
he had gained by his successful wars. The mass of the
people were doubtless pleased by all this splendor, and took
a pride in the majesty of the crown ; for it is natural to man,
especially at a low stage of intellectual and moral develop-
ment, to take delight in every glittering show. And, besides,
the glory of the king might be regarded in more respects than
one as the glory of the people ; for it was b}- chastising the
foes of Israel and making Israel a name of terror all around
that David had risen to such a height. Again, the king's pre-
rogative was unlimited by any kind of law or constitutional
restriction. He had full power to dispose of the property and
the persons of his subjects ; and people can bear to be ruled
or even oppressed if it so happen by one who is surrounded
with a glow of splendor better than by one who is as simple
as his fellows in his life and surroundings. No doubt, then,
the feeling of the populace is reflected in the words of an
Israelite proverb-maker, who said in after times : ' ' There are
i 2 Samuel xviii. 15. 2 2 Samuel xv. 1; 1 Kings i. 5.
24 THE MIGHT OF DAVID, KING OF ISKABL.
three things that step out well, four things that go forth
bravely: A lion, the strongest of beasts, a slim grey-hound
or a ram, and a king whom none can withstand." 1 From the
very conception of royalty in ancient times, it follows that
the king's person was regarded as sacred and inviolable, and
that he was held in the utmost reverence. "For his wrath
was a messenger of death, whom none but the wise could ap-
pease ; while the light of his countenance was the giver of life,
and his favor refreshed as a rain-cloud." 2 In an age when
every judicial sentence was readily accepted as an utterance of
God, 8 it might well be said of the monarch, "The sentence
of God is on the lips of the king ; in pronouncing justice he
never errs." 4 " When a king sits down on the seat of judg-
ment he scatters all evil abroad with his eyes." 6 " Though
the glory of God lie in concealing, the honor of the king is in
searching out." 6 When points of importance were at stake,
and life or death, peace or war, hung on the will of the ruler,
many an inquiring glance was fixed on his countenance.
Which way would the scale incline ? And if nothing betrayed
the monarch's thought, his subjects would whisper one to
another, " As the height of the heaven and the depth of the
earth are immeasurable, so none can fathom the heart of the
king." 7 ' ' Might is right " was a principle still less frequently
challenged in antiquity than in our own day, so that not only
prudence, but even virtue required any one who came into
contact with the king, to observe the following injunctions :
" Keep the king's commandments, if only for the oath's sake
made to God. Depart not trembling from his presence, but
neither remain before him if the business is not sound ; for
the king does whatever he chooses, since his word is mighty
and there is none to say to him ' What doest thou ? ' " 8
It was not only prudence that urged the Israelite to bow
down before his king in reverence for an established and for-
midable power. Eeligion, too, enforced the same lesson.
Or rather submission to the prince clothed itself in religious
forms. As the anointed of Yahweh, the king was inviolable ;
and since the interests of a people and of that people's god
were so nearly identical in the eyes of the ancients that zeal
for the one was necessarily zeal for the other, it followed that
Israel's king, who waged the wars of Yahweh and executed
i Proverbs xxx. 29-31. 2 Proverbs xvi. 14, 15.
8 Exodus xviii. 15? 16; Deuteronomy i. 17. 4 Proverbs xvi. 10.
6 Proverbs xx. 8. 6 Proverbs xxv. 2.
7 Proverbs xxv. 3. 8 Ecclesiastes viii. 2-4.
-THE MIGHT OF DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL. 25
his sentence upon evil-doers, must be reverenced as Ms repre-
sentative. " Thou shalt not curse God, nor revile the prince
of thy people," — these two commandments were closely con-
nected in the mind of the Israelite. 1 To rebel against the
ruler was to attack Yahweh himself; and the king's enemies
were the enemies of Yahweh. This feeling comes out very
strongly in the following poem, 2 which was composed by a
king of Israel, or at least in the name of one, at a time when
the monarchy was at the height of its glory. The exact date
is unknown, and is of no consequence for our purpose : - -
Why do the heathen rage
And the peoples devise rain plots ?
Why do the kings of the earth rise up
And the princes plot against Yahweh and his anointed ?
" Let us break their bands asunder
And let us shake off their yoke ! "
He who sits in the heavens shall laugh them to scorn,
The Lord shall have them in derision.
Then shall he speak to them in his wrath
And thunder against them in fury.
" I have anointed my king over /ion,
Over my sacred mount I "
Let me speak of Yahweh's decree 1
He has said to me : " Thou art my Bon !
This day have I given thee birth !
Ask me, and I will give thee the heathen for a heritage
And the ends of the earth for a possession.
Thou shalt pasture them with an iron staff,
And dash them to pieces like an earthen vessel."
Wherefore, ye kings! be wise;
Take warning ye judges of earth !
Serve Yahweh in fear,
And tremble as ye sing his praise !
Cleave to him a that ne grow not wroth ;
Should his anger kindle even a little ye will perish as ye go on your way.
Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
When the poet sings : ' ' This day have I given thee birth ,"
he means by " to-day" the day of the king's accession, upon
which he became the son of Yahweh.
It is true we have no direct proof that ' ' son of God " or
' ' son of Yahweh " was a usual title of honor assumed by the
king of Israel, for it only occurs in this passage. But such a
title would be exceedingly natural, for the Israelites were quite
accustomed to express a confidential relation between a supe-
rior and an inferior under the image of a father and a son. 1
How natural such an expression would be to an Israelite may
i Exodus xxii. 28 ; Proverbs xxiv. 21 ; 1 Kings xxi. 10, 13.
2 Psalm ii. s After an amended version.
* Compare Exodus it. 22 j Hosea xi. 1; Judges xvii. 10, xviii. 19; 2 Kiugi
ii. 12, xiii. 14, v. 13.
VOL. II. 2_
26 GAD AND NATHAN BEFORE
be seen from the following promise concerning Solomon, which
is put into the mouth of Yahweh : " I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me ; and when he sins I will chastise
him with the rod of a man, with such stripes as mortals lay
on one another." 1 Moreover, it was customary amongst all
ancient peoples to call their princes the sons of some deity or
other ; and we can hardly believe that Israel formed an excep-
tion, especially as we know that the king was called an "angel
of God," whose judgment was alwaj's true and whose actions
must always be considered good. 2
The danger was only too great that a man who was raised
to such a height should get an exaggerated idea of his own
importance. Such a test would be too hard for almost any
one's humility. Who could retain a modest estimate of him-
self if he were told on every possible occasion that he was the
representative of God, that his "heart was like a stream
of water that Yahweh guided whither he would ? " 3 We need
not be surprised at the caprice and oppression that were but
too common, and the heavj r yoke which many a king laid upon
the necks of his subjects.
Chapter IV.
GAD AND NATHAN BEFORE YAHWEH'S ANOINTED.
2 Samuel XXIV., XI., XII.*
THOUGH the king was bound by no law, yet there was
a force in the land which he could not long defy with
impunity. Public opinion made itself felt with a strength
proportioned to the people's love of freedom and consciousness
of power ; and when it was supported and enforced by circum-
stances, the king was morally compelled to listen to it. We
have seen already how a three years' famine compelled David
to give ear to the demands of the Gibeonites, and sacrifice
seven sons of Saul to their vengeance. On another occasion
he was crossed in a cherished scheme by the breaking out of
a plague.
The account of this latter circumstance is given us b\
1 2 Samuel vli. 14. 2 2 Samuel xiv. 17, xix. 27.
8 Proverbs xxi. 1. * 1 Chronicles xxi.
yahweh' s anointed. 27
writers who adopted without reserve the superstitious idea
that the plague was sent by Yahweh as a punishment. The
consequence is that they have imbedded this conception in
the narrative, but it has not materially affected their account
of the facts themselves.
Some time after the three years' famine had ended in the
execution of the sons of Saul, David determined to take a
census of his people. This project was certainly no mere idle
whim on his part. It must have had some definite object,
though we cannot exactly say what. It may have been in-
tended to regulate the system of taxation and compulsory
service, or it may have been a measure preparatory to raising
a standing arm}'. But whatever his object might be, David
wished to ascertain the number of men capable of bearing arms
in every tribe of Israel. The project, however, met with a
vigorous opposition from the courtiers as soon as it was com-
municated to them, and the populace also regarded it with
dislike. The prophets were certainly against it. They had
already seen with grief that Israel's king was treading more
and more completely in the footsteps of the heathen monarchs.
He lived a life of luxury, dwelt in a fortified city, kept chariots
of war, and surrounded himself with a foreign body-guard in-
stead of trusting entirely to the favor of Yahweh, and striving
to retain it by zeal for his glory. And this census was such
an innovation ! What did it matter how numerous the people
might be ? In time of war the victor}' depended upon Yahweh's
help, not upon the strength of the army ; and a regular system
of taxation must have been an abomination in the eyes of
men who already looked upon the splendor of the court with
displeasure. The masses of the people were probably little
influenced by these religious motives in their opposition to the
census, but they looked upon it with that vague suspicion that
generally sets the populace against any novelty. If the king's
project was connected with a system of taxation and compul-
sory services, the opposition of the people was not unnatural.
A king who held such a court as David's was expensive enough
already ! But enough of these conjectures. Whatever may
have been the cause, public opinion declared itself strongly
against the census. Joab was ordered by the king to carry
out the measure and to traverse the whole country, accom-
panied by certain high officials, for the purpose. On this
he took courage to lay his objections before David. " May
Yahweh your god," he said, " multiply the people a hundred-
fold, and may my lord the king live to see it ! But I would
28 GAD AND NATHAN BEFORE
not have you hold this census." The other officers expressed
their sympathy with Joab's words ; but the monarch held to
his determination, made light of their fears, and repeated his
commands. There was nothing more to be said after this.
The king ought to know best ! So Joab, however reluctantly,
obeyed his orders.
The census began in the district east of Jordan. Joab and
his retinue took up their position near Aroer, in a plain south
of the city, and thither they summoned all the men of military
age in the district and took down their numbers. Then they
went northward, through Gilead and Bashan right up to Dan,
the ancient Lais. Then they crossed the Jordan and went
southwards by the land of the Phoenicians till they came at last
to Beersheba. Then they turned north again through Judah
up to the district of Jerusalem. Benjamin was left to the last.
They had been nearly ten months taking the census, and had
not yet finished when the work was suddenly interrupted by
an outbreak of the plague. 1 The king's officers returned in
terror to their master, gave him the results they had obtained
so far, and told him why they had not brought their work to a
conclusion. It is quite possible that the census itself may have
had something to do with the breaking out of this plague, for
whenever people are crowded together in one place, infectious
diseases are very apt to spread. The Israelites, however, did
not stop to think of this or any other natural cause, but im-
mediately saw the chastening hand of Yahweh in the plague
that afflicted them.
David, then, had no sooner heard of this fearful scourge
than he began to feel uneasy. Was it a sign of G-od's dis-
pleasure? That could hardly be ! And yet when the plague
went on spreading, and multiplied its victims daily, he no
longer dared to deny all connection between its ravages and
the census he had held. The thought grew stronger and
stronger in his heart: "I have sinned! I have acted very
foolishly ! " He read the same conviction on the faces of his
courtiers ; he heard how the people murmured, and accused
him of having caused the plague by the deed that had made
Yahweh wroth ; and his seer, the prophet Gad, did not shrink
from telling him in so many words that his sin was the cause
of his people's suffering. David was deeply moved. Hitherto
Jerusalem itself had escaped, but rumors of the advance of
the disease grew more and more disturbing. It was rapidly
approaching. Cases had already appeared on the other side
1 1 Chronicles xxvii. 24.
yahweh's anointed. 29
of the Mount of Olives. David was altogether humbled at
last. He threw himself down in deep depression by the ark
of Yahweh, with his face turned towards the east, gazing
over the north-eastern peak of Zion towards the Mount of
Olives. It was as if he could see the angel of death, sent by
Yahweh, with naked sword, ready to smite Jerusalem ! The
thought of his wretched people's suffering was more than he
could bear. " O Yahweh," he broke out, "it is only I, the
shepherd, who have sinned, but what have these sheep done ?
If thou wilt punish this sin, then turn upon me and mine ! "
Meanwhile terror reigned supreme throughout Jerusalem.
And well it might ! The raging plague, for which no cure
had been discovered, which might depopulate whole cities in
a few short hours, was drawing near. Eound David lay the
priests stretched upon the ground, fasting and praying before
Yahweh's face. Could no means be found to appease him
and to turn away the angel of destruction from the royal city?
Amongst those who surrounded the king was Gad, his seer.
What is it that has come upon this man so suddenly ? The
sound of the sacred horns rings through the air, to bring to
Yahweh's memory the supplications of his people, when lo !
the hand of God is laid upon the prophet: " I see him," he
cries aloud ; "I see the destroying angel ! — Yahweh draws
near ! — Oh, pity us ! — See there ! he stands over Araunah's
threshing-floor. — It is not yet too late. — Rise up, O King,
says Yahweh ; rise up and go to meet the angel, and make
a sacrifice to Israel's rock ; let Yahweh smell the smoke of a
meat offering, and he will pity us ! "
Yahweh had spoken. There was no time to lose. The
monarch rose to his feet, and all around him made ready.
The procession was in motion almost instantly. The drums
rumbled and the trumpets rang, while the servants of the
temple advanced, uttering cries of woe and beating their
breasts, with their heads covered with ashes. Then followed
the priests and the king. David had put aside his ro3 r al
garments and was clothed with a simple ephod, while all his
courtiers were dressed in mourning apparel. " O Yahweh,
pity ! " And thus the procession passed through David's city
and the Valley of the Cheesemakers, and up the western slope
of the little hill where Araunah the Jebusite had his abode.
As soon as Araunah saw the procession he hastened to meet
his king, bowed down to earth in reverence before him, and
asked the reason of his coming. David told him that he de-
sired to buy his threshing-floor from him to build an altar to
30 GAD AND NATHAN BEFORE
Yahweh on it, and so to avert the plague. On this Araunah
placed the piece of ground itself, his oxen, his threshing-flails,
and other wooden instruments at the king's service, and refused
to receive payment for them. If Yahweh would graciously
accept the offering and stay the plague, he would gladly give
his property as a free gift ; but David would not accept the
offer. He insisted on paying the full price of all he needed,
for he would not make a sacrifice to Yahweh that had cost
him nothing. So fifty shekels of silver were weighed out for
Araunah ; and David built an altar on the threshing-floor, and
made a solemn sacrifice to Yahweh on it. When all was over,
the royal procession returned again to the palace with a little
gleam of hope. And their hope soon deepened to a certainty,
for Jerusalem escaped altogether, and before long the violence
of the plague was exhausted. The sacrifice had accomplished
its purpose, Yahweh was appeased, and David's sin washed
out.
The place where this sacrifice was made was afterwards
the mount of the Temple. This is evident from certain words
which the writer of the book of Samuel added when he men-
tioned the altar. They have fallen out of the Hebrew text,
but are preserved in the Greek translation, and run as fol-
lows : ' ' Solomon afterwards enlarged this altar, for at first
it was but small." The writer of Chronicles who tries, as we
have seen, 1 to give David as much of the credit of building
the temple as possible, declares that he fixed upon this place
as the site of the future temple, 2 and explains the name of
the hill Moriah, or " appearance of Yahweh," from the " ap-
pearance " vouchsafed to David there. 3 The important part
afterwards played in; the religious life of Israel by the spot
upon which David built this altar gave a special interest to the
story of the census and its consequences. The writer of the
books of Samuel accepted without hesitation the superstitious
belief that this plague was sent to punish David's sin, and of
course his conception of the events is strongly colored by this
idea. He gives his explanations of the facts as though they
were the facts themselves : tells us that Yahweh was wroth
with Israel, and therefore stirred up David to take a census ;
and that he afterwards ordered the destaging angel, who
stood by the threshing-floor of Araunah, to draw back the
hand that grasped the sword of death. Nay, he goes still
further and tells us that Gad, the seer, had given David the
1 See p. 11. 2 1 Chronicles xxii. 1.
« 2 Chronicles hi. 1. Compare vol. i. p. 148.
yahweh's anointed. 31
choice beforehand of the disaster b}' which his sin should be
punished — a three years' famine, a three months' defeat be-
fore the enemy, or a three days' plague. David, he tells us,
exclaimed, "I am deeply troubled, but let us fall into the
hand of Yahweh, who is very pitiful, rather than into
the hand of men ! " So he chose the plague, which men
could neither aggravate nor lighten, rather than famine or
the violence of the foe, for they would both have made him
dependent upon men.
The Chronicler gives a somewhat different coloring to the
narrative. In accordance with the opinions of his day, he
makes Satan instead of Yahweh urge David to take the census ;
and in describing the appearance of the destroying angel he
seems to have thought of a being visible to the human eye,
for he says that Araunah and his sons saw him and went and
hid themselves in terror. He further informs us that fire from
heaven burned David's sacrifice ; and finally he very character-
istically tries to excuse the king for not making his sacrifice at
Gibeon, where he believes the tabernacle to have stood. He
explains this departure from the Law as being due to David's
dread of the angel, which was so great as to allow him no
time to go to Gibeon. He forgets that he himself has already
told us that David went to this threshing-floor of Araunah
with the deliberate intention of sacrificing there.
The impression made by the breaking out of this plague
during David's census was very deep, but it did not prevent
the repetition of a similar measure on several later occasions.
The writer of the "Book of Origins," goes so far as to say
that Moses himself held a census, but he tells us that on that
occasion every Israelite had to pay a tax of half a shekel to
Yahweh " as a propitiation, to prevent the census bringing a
plague after it." 1
This peculiar way of looking at things perverted the repre-
sentations of the old historians throughout, and gives us some
idea how deeply superstition was rooted in the Israelite's
character. The whole series of events moreover teaches us
how the king's power was in many cases checked. His own
religious convictions, backed by public opinion and enforced
by external events, sometimes made it impossible for him to
carry out his will.
It was well for the people that public opinion could make
itself so strongly felt. In this special instance, so far from
- Exodus xxx. 12, 13, 16.
82 GAD AND NATHAN BEFORE
perfectly agreeing with its demands, we cannot but regard
them as highly superstitious ; but that need not prevent our
thinking it a blessing for king and people alike that the will
of the nation had such power. Where slavish submission
has possession of the people's hearts, all their spirit is soon
quenched, and the king himself is reverenced as a god until
at last his tyranny knows no bounds. It was well for Israel,
then, that there were men like Gad, " the king's seer," who
dared to tell their monarch the truth.
The part here played by Gad was on another occasion taken
by Nathan, as the following narrative will show : —
In the course of the war with the Ammonites, while Joab
was besieging their capital, David, who remained at home,
had committed adultery with Bathsheba (properly Bathshua 1 )
the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of his officers. To conceal
the consequences of his sin David sent for Uriah from the
camp in order that he might visit his home, and that the child
to which Bathsheba would give birth might pass for the lawful
fruit of her marriage. But Uriah was a warrior at heart, and
would not enjoy the pleasures of his home while his fellow
soldiers were exposed to all the privations of the field. He
chose rather to spend the night in the porch of the palace,
although the king had sent some dishes from the royal table
for his evening's entertainment at home. On the second day
he did the same, though David had asked him to his own
table and had made him drunk. David saw that his plan had
failed, and began to fear the vengeance of his subject should
his shameful abuse of his absence come to light ; so he treach-
erously ordered Joab to put Uriah in command at some post
of danger, and, when the Ammonites made a sally, to desert
him and leave him to perish at their hands., Joab obeyed his
orders, and Uriah, with certain of his followers, perished. A
messenger was at once despatched to take the news of this re-
verse to David. He told him that in the heat of the battle,
when the Ammonites had made a sally, Joab's men had pur-
sued them too far and had come close under the wall within
range of the enemy's archers, under whose arrows many of
them had fallen. David sprang to his feet in indignation,
" What madness," he cried, " to advance so near ! The dis-
aster was sure to follow such a blunder. Had Joab forgotten
the fate of Abimeleeh ? How he died by the hand of a woman
who cast a stone upon his head us he stood at the foot of the
wall? Why did he go so near? " Upon this the messenger,
1 1 Chronicles iii. 5.
yahweh's anointed. 33
following Joab's orders, simply added, as if filling up tbe
measiire of his evil tidings, " And Uriah fell amongst them."
Da-vid's anger was quenched in a moment. He saw that Joab
had deliberately forced the van of his army, with Uriah at
its head, too far ; and he said in a tone of quiet encourage-
ment, " Tell Joab not to take this accident too much to heart,
for. such is the fortune of war. One side suffers a reverse to-
day and the other to-morrow. Let him do his best to make a
breach ; and then storm the city."
When the time of mourning was over Uriah's widow was
taken into David's harem, where she gave birth in course of
time to a son.
There were but few who knew with certainty what had
taken place, and these few might be trusted not to betray
their master. But before long the truth began to be guessed,
and an evil smile would play upon the lips of those who were
ill-disposed to David as they whispered to one another about
the probable connection of this with that. Amongst the
Canaanites, the partisans, of Saul and the enemies of
Yahweh — a term under which the prophets included all
opponents of Yahweh's anointed — there were some who took
a wicked delight in the shameful deed. David an adulterer
and a murderer ! So this was the chosen servant of the god
who made so much of moral purity ! The zealots of Yahweh
were all the more deeply saddened. Every one who took an
earnest view of life was full of indignation. And David?
Had he no pangs of conscience ?
If his royal life had already so far corrupted him that he
imagined such a sin could be committed with impunity, it
was well for him that a Nathan stood at his side to shake
him from his moral torpor. This bold prophet felt himself
called upon by Yahweh to bring home the monarch's sin to
him ; and, with a fine perception of the nature of his task, he
strove to touch his heart. He came into the royal presence,
as if on quite other business, and said: "A shameful deed
has been done, O King ! and I come to ask your help in
punishing the offender. Listen to the tale : There were two
men dwelling in one city, one of whom was rich and the
other poor. The rich man had very great flocks and herds ;
but the poor man had only one little lamb that he had bought ;
and he loved it tenderly. He nourished it with gentle care,
and it grew up with him and with his children. It ate of his
food ; it drank out of his cup ; it slept in his bosom, and was
like a daughter to him. Now it happened that the rich man
2*
84 GAD AND NATHAN BEFOKE
had a guest to entertain ; and instead of taking one of his
own sheep or oxen, and preparing it to set before the
traveller, he took away the poor man's little lamb, and
ordered that it should be dressed for his table." Hardly
had the prophet ceased when David, boiling with indigna-
tion, cried, "As sure as Yahweh lives the man deserves
to die ! He shall render back four-fold what he has stolen ;
for he was cruel and had no pity ! " There stood the
king before the seer, glowing with anger at the supposed
offence ; but Nathan, turning full upon him, cried with pas-
sionate earnestness: "Thou art the man! It was of you I
spoke as the rich man that robbed his humble neighbor. I
have anointed you king of Israel, says Yahweh, and delivered
you from the hand of Saul. Your wives are many even now,
and if you wanted more you might have had your choice
amongst the maids of Israel. 1 And if all this had not suf-
ficed I would have added more besides. Why have you
scattered Yahweh's commandments to the winds? You
have murdered Uriah the Hittite, and taken his wife to
yourself! It was your doing that Uriah fell by the sword
of Ammon, and of a truth jour house shall ever be a prey
to trouble and dissension for this cause ! Another shall
seize your wives. You did your deed of shame in secret,
but Yahweh shall chastise j-ou openly ! " The prophet's
voice was firm, and indignation flashed from his eye ; but
David's cheek was pale and his heart oppressed. He stepped
back, half doubting whether to launch his wTath against
the audacious prophet or to bow down his head in shame
for the sin he had committed. The prophet awaited in
suspense the answer of his monarch. At last David's better
nature gained the mastery. He felt his own baseness and
humbly confessed his guilt. "I have sinned against Yah-
weh," he said ; and the prophet, softened by his confession
of his crime, replied, " Then Yahweh will so far forgive
your sin as not to destroy you for it. But inasmuch as 3-011
have given his enemies so great occasion to blaspheme, your
new-born child shall doubtless perish." With these words
Nathan left the royal presence.
It was not long before the little child grew dangerously
ill, and David could not but perceive the avenging hand of
Yahweh in his sickness. And 3 r et he could not bear to think
that he must really lose his child, so he strove to move his
god by prayer. All night long he sat upon the ground in
1 After an amended version.
yahweh's anointed. 35
his inner chamber, fasting ; and his attendants strove in vain
to persuade him to rise up and eat. The sickness of the
child lasted for seven days, and then it died. But the
courtiers dare not tell their master that the end had come,
for they said, "When the child was yet alive his grief was
past control. What then will it be when he hears that it is
dead?" But David saw that they were whispering to one
another, and asked, " What is it, then? Is the child dead?"
Then, though they hardly dared to say the word, they were
obliged to answer "Yes!" No sooner had David heard
their news than he rose from the ground at once and, to their
utter amazement, washed and anointed himself, put on fresh
clothes, went to the house of Yahweh to worship, and then
had a meal prepared for him in his own palace. His friends
were so much surprised by this unusual behavior that they
could not conceal their wonder from the king himself. He
read, their thoughts, and, indeed, in answer to his questions,
they told him plainly that they could not understand why
he had mourned and fasted while the child was living, but
had taken comfort and been ready to eat as soon as he
heard that it was dead. But David told them what it
meant. " When the child was yet alive," he said, " I fasted
and prayed, for I thought, It may be that Yahweh will have
pity on me and will spare my child ! But now that he is
dead wherefore should I fast? Can it bring him back to
me ? I shall go to him, in the world below, but he will not
come back to me."
After a time Bathsheba gave birth to another son. This
was the celebrated Solomon, " whom Yahweh loved." When
the child grew up David committed his education to Nathan
the prophet, and at the command of Yahweh named him
Jedidiah, that is, " loved of Yahweh." l
The touching account of David's conduct during the sick-
ness and at the death of his child awakes our deepest sym-
pathy, in spite of the superstitious character of the beliefs
which it implies throughout. David supposed that his child's
sickness was expressly sent by Yahweh as a punishment for
his sin, and that by prayer and fasting he might propitiate
the offended deity and turn him from his purpose ; and his
words on hearing of the death of the child — " Why should I
fast any more? It no longer avails me anything" — show
that he held his beliefs with a naive simplicity and directness
which not only startle us now, but were regarded with wondei
i After an amended version.
86 GAD AND NATHAN BEFORE YAHWEH'S ANOINTED.
even by his own contemporaries. We should observe, how-
ever, that David went immediately to Yahweh's house to
pray, and only gave up the special form of adoration the
specific purpose of which was uo longer attainable. When
we remember that in David's time a father's sin was as dis-
tinctly recognized as the cause of a child's disease as bad
drainage, for instance, is in our own, and that prayer and
fasting were as normal a means of cure as the physician's art,
we may translate the meaning of David's conduct thus : We
must do all that lies in our power to preserve those who are
committed to our care from disease and death, but if our ef-
forts are unavailing we must acquiesce in God's will and must
still worship him. Observe also that a prince who had a host
of wives and a corresponding number of children was not
likely, as a rule, to take it very much to heart if an}" of the
latter died. All the ties of natural affection are loosened by
polygamy. So David's seven days' fast for the sake of the
child upon whom he believed his own guilt to have brought
disease is a proof of a tender conscience and a gentle heart.
The writer of the story himself believed that the avenging
hand of Yahweh might be seen in the death of Bathsheba's
first-born child ; and this leads us to suspect that Nathan's
prophetic announcement of the event is a later addition. It
is not likely that the prophet did more than add a general
threat of punishment to his denunciation of David's sin ;
unless indeed the child was sick already when he came into
the royal presence. In this case he may easily have taught
the king to see the avenging hand of Yahweh in the infant's
sickness.
Happy the prince whom absolute power has not yet cor-
rupted utterly, whose conscience, even if it sleep, can yet be
roused again ! But this implies a people that is not altogether
servile, that does not applaud eveiything the prince may do,
or regard him absolutely as the representative of the deity,
whom no man may resist. Happy the prince who has at least
some subjects such as Gad and Nathan ! His power may be
limited by no written law, but for his own and his people's
good it is more or less completely laid under moral restraints.
All honor to the men in whom their monarch's sins stirred
such indignant grief that they felt compelled to lay his tres-
passes before him ! All honor to the men who dared to stand
up and reprove the anointed of Yahweh ! Such heroes are
the sail of their land.
INTRIGUES AT COURT, ETC. 31
Chapter V.
INTRIGUES AT COURT AND CIVIL DISSENSIONS.
2 Samuel XIII.-XX.
WE may well believe that the life led at an Eastern
court gave occasion to every kind of immorality and
resultant misery. The troops of women who lived there in
luxury and idleness had nothing better to do than to devise
new means of currying favor with their royal spouse for their
own advantage or that of their children. All the concubines
were proud on the one hand of the distinction of living in the
royal harem, and jealous on the other hand of the queens ; so
they devoted themselves entirely to adorning their persons and
begging the favor and assistance of the keepers of the harem.
These keepers, again, who spent their whole lives amid scenes
of pampered indulgence, were generally perfect slaves to their
appetites, were quarrelsome and mean-spirited, and cringed
before their royal master. And the princes of the blood held
their own courts and harems in imitation of the king, and,
having nothing better to do, quarrelled over questions of pre-
cedence and dignity, and vied with each other in display ;
while all the courtiers, members of the royal house, officers
of state, royal guests, and others, spent their whole time in
hunting and in feasting. The royal feasts generally ended in
a drinking bout, at which most of the guests were intoxicated ; x
and as long as the princes did not begin their carouse in the
morning, 2 no one saw much harm in it. Again, what a de-
grading influence must have been exercised upon the life of
the courtiers by the constant dread of a king upon whose
caprice they were all absolutely dependent ! Taking every-
thing together it is hardly too much to say that it was next to
impossible for any man to live a noble life amid such surround-
ings. The frequency of wars had, under these circumstances,
at least one advantage ; for although a soldier's life is not in
itself particularly well calculated to bring out what is good
and lovable in men, yet it could not fail to do more good than
haim, from a moral point of view, to the frequenters of such
1 After an amended version of Genesis xliii. 34 ; see also 2 Samuel xi. 13.
2 Ecclesiastes x. 16.
88 INTRIGUES AT COURT ANB
a court as we have described. The following story will show
us that all these evils were as conspicuous in David's court as
in others : —
Amnon, the eldest prince of the blood, was consumed by
a passion for the beauteous Tamar, the full sister of his half-
brother Absalom ; but she was inaccessible to him since she
lived in the well-guarded palace of the women, in which it
was hardly possible for any man except the king to set his
foot. But, unhappily for all concerned, Amnon had a friend
of the name of Jonadab, the son of one of David's brothers,
and a very cunning man. He advised him to pretend that he
was ill, and ask his father whether Tamar might come to pre-
pare some food for him. In this way lie would get her into
his power. The plot succeeded only too well ; but Amnon's
passions were as fickle as they were violent, and no sooner
had he accomplished his wicked purpose than his love was
turned to hatred, and he doubled the wrong that he had done
to Tamar by refusing to marry when he had dishonored her.
Not knowing what to do, she took refuge with her brother
Absalom, who offered a few careless words of comfort, and
let neither her nor anj- one else see what was going on within
him ; but, nevertheless, his thoughts were set upon a fierce
revenge. David was very angry when he heard of what had
happened, but he was too weak to punish Amnon, his eldest son,
of whom he was very fond. So Absalom felt all the more keenly
that the right and duty of taking vengeance fell to him.
For two whole years he kept his anger secret. Then he
saw that his time was come. The whole affair was now
almost forgotten, for princes are seldom reminded of their
sins at court. Amnon was therefore all the more likely to
fall into the snare that his brother was laying for him. It
was the time of sheep-shearing, and Absalom took the oppor-
tunity of giving a great feast, to which he asked his father.
David declined, for fear of putting his son to too much ex-
pense. Absalom then asked whether Amnon might not come
to his feast, that the occasion might at least be graced by the
presence of the heir-apparent, if the king himself could not
come. David, who may have had his own suspicions, refused
even this at first, but finally gave his consent. So Amnon
fell into the power of the brother he had wronged. Suspecting
no evil he came, with a small retinue, to Absalom's country-
place at Baal-Hazor, in the north-west of Judah. The sacri-
fices were offered and the menymakirg began ; but at the close
of tbe feast, when Amnon was more or less intoxicated, and
CIVIL DISSENSIONS. 39
his attendants had feasted too well to be able to defend him,
the servants of Absalom set upon him and slew him. Absalom
himself immediately took to flight, and the other princes fled
in terror and confusion to Jerusalem, not knowing whether
they too were to be attacked or no.
Rumor had already reported the event, with as much exag-
geration as usual, at the palace. "Absalom has murdered
all the king's sons," it was said. The ready credence which
this story gained, though entirely unconfirmed, proves the
frequency of such deeds of violence and death in those days ;
and people whose intellectual nature is not highly developed,
'ind who act on the impulse of their passions and emotions
rather than the dictates of calm reflection, are always apt to
be completely carried away by good or bad tidings. "All
the king's sons are murdered, not one has escaped ! " was the
cry raised by David's attendants ; and, though nobody really
knew anything about it, the report was generally believed.
David, himself, the very picture of misery, sat upon the
ground with his garments rent, utterly confounded and broken
down. His courtiers surrounded him, rending their garments
and uttering cries of woe. There was but one man present
who kept his head and guessed the truth. It was Amnon's
friend, the wily Jonadab. He knew enough of human nature
to feel certain that Absalom bad never forgiven his brother for
his treatment of Tamar, and he thought it probable that he
had now taken his revenge. " Lament not for all your sons,
O King," he cried, " for surely it is Amnon alone who has
perished. From the day on which he dishonored Tamar we
might have known that Absalom would plot against his life.
You need not be so ready to believe that all the princes are
slain, for you will see that it is only Amnon." It soon ap-
peared that his conjecture was well founded. The sentinel
on the watch-tower announced the approach of a great com-
pany from the west. " See now ! " said "Jonadab, " they are
the king's sous ! " Before long the fact was placed above all
doubt. The princes rushed in, like fugitives, and confirmed
the terrible report as far as Amnon was concerned, but no
further. Upon this the king and all his courtiers burst into
a loud cry of lamentation over the death of the heir to the
throne.
Meanwhile Absalom had fled to the court of the king of
G-eshur, for his mother, Maachah, was the daughter of thf;
late king of this district. 1 He was well received, and remained
i 2 Samue' ill. 3.
40 INTRIGUES AT COURT AND
three years in the country. At first his father demanded his
surrender, and he was in some danger ; but it seems that the
king of the Geshurites, though he had been subdued by David,
was still sufficiently independent to protect the fugitive. And
when the time of mourning for Amnon's death was over Da-
vid's anger gradually abated, until at last he even longed to
see Absalom again. We might well suppose that under these
Circumstances the prince's banishment would come to an end ;
for if his royal father desired his return, what was to prevent
his exchanging the court of Geshur for that of Jerusalem?
But there was one formidable obstacle in the way — the will
of Yahweh, maintained by the prophets and reverenced by
the people. "Whoso sheds the blood of man, his blood must
be shed. The blood-redeemer must slay him, lest Yahweh be
not appeased and a curse come upon the land." This terrible
commandment made Absalom's return impossible ; for even a
king,' impelled by his love for his own son, dare not so utterly
defy public opinion as to fling to the winds a commandment
considered sacred by the people. It is true that the religious
revival of Samuel's time had already lost much of its strength,
but its effects were still too powerfully felt to be ignored with
safety.
But there was one man at court who read the king's real
wishes in his face, and strove to devise some means of induc-
ing him to give them effect. It was David's faithful general
Joab. To compass his object he sent to Tekoa,' a place in
the desert of Judah, for a certain woman who had the reputa-
tion of great sagacity. The two took counsel together ; and
then the woman went as a suppliant, clothed in mourning
garments, before the king, and threw herself down in rever-
ence at his feet. David asked her what her petition was, and
she answered: "lam a widow, aud I once had two sons;
but they quarrelled with each other — out in the fields where
there was no one to part them — and at last one of them
struck down his brother dead. And now, as if this were not
enough, all my family have conspired together to demand
that I should ' give up the murderer who slew his brother,'
tha. they may put him to death. Alas ! my lord, must my
husband's heir indeed be slain, and must his name utterly
perish ? " She ceased. The king and all who were present
were touched by the mother's grief; but David knew how hard
it was to prevent the blood-redemption, and, as his thoughts
wandered to the court of Geshur, he replied, " Go home, and
1 will give the needful orders on your behalf." But the woman
CIVIL DISSENSIONS. 41
had not yet gained her object. She was determined to extort
from the king a more definite promise to protect her son against
those who would put him to death in Yahweh's name. So she
pretended to fear that the king was running too great a risk
for her sake in protecting her son against the zealots. " My
lord the king ! " she exclaimed, ' ' better that my family should
perish than that your throne should be imperilled." David's
pride was now touched, and he answered haughtily, "Bring
any one before me who dares to dispute my sentence, and I
promise he shall never raise so much as a finger against you ! "
Everything was going as it should ; one more successful move
and the woman had won the game ! " my king ! " she cried be-
seechingly, " confirm your promise with an oath that the blood-
redeemer shall not be suffered to increase my woes yet more ! "
The king was touched by the grief expressed in the mother's
prayer ; he read in the faces of his courtiers sympathetic pity
for her sorrow, and, complying with her last request, he swore,
" As sure as Yahweh lives, not a hair of your son's head shall
be touched ! "
The suppliant now commanded the position. On hearing
the king's oath, she was silent a moment, and then quietly
added, " May I say one other word to my lord the king?"
There was something in her manner that especially excited
David's interest, and he gave her permission to speak. A
sudden change came over her as she cried, " You stand con-
demned by your own oath, O King ! until you have recalled
your banished son. For, behold, we must all die one day,
and can never be recalled to life, any more than water that is
poured upon the ground can be gathered up again. Yet God
does not slay the murderer, but mercifully refrains from utterly
rejecting him in spite of his sin. And now, O King, I have
come to you because the people terrified me, and I thought
' the king will protect me against all who seek to root out my
family from Yahweh's heritage ; his promise will set me at
peace, for the king is like an angel of God in distinguishing
between good and evil.' May Yahweh bless you ! "
The woman had indeed deep knowledge of human nature.
She had raised a protest in the king's conscience, and that
of all who surrounded him, against the savage law that con-
demned the murderer to death ; and at the same time had
reminded David of his own power. Who would dare to
dispute what he determined?
David felt that he must yield, but knew that the woman
would not have ventured on so bold an appeal of her own
42 INTRIGCTLS AT COURT AND
accord. So he said to her, " And now do you, in your turn,
toll me : Had not Joab a hand in this ? " Upon which she
cried, " my lord the king, when you speak you always hit
the mark. Yes, it was Joab who put all these words into my
mouth, and told me to laj r the matter thus before you. But
my lord the king sees everything like an angel of God, he
knows all that is done in the whole land."
Then David turned to Joab and said, "I will fulfil your
wish. Go and bring Absalom back." Rejoicing in the suc-
cess of his stratagem, Joab bowed down in reverence before
the king, and, as if he had received a personal favor himself,
exclaimed, "Now I know that I have found grace in your
eyes, because you have listened to the words of your servant."
So Absalom returned to Jerusalem, but the king forbade
him to appear at court. He was too much attached to him
to leave him in exile, and perhaps he thought it just as well
to keep his probable successor under his eye, but he dare not
behave as though nothing had happened for fear of incurring
the displeasure of the prophets ; so he still treated his son
more or less as an offender. But like most half measures,
this conduct was very unwise and satisfied no one. The
zealots of Yahweh were naturally far from content, and so was
Joab on the other side. Absalom himself became impatient
under his humiliation. He endured this half exile for two
years, but then it became so intolerable to him that he sent
for his former champion, Joab, to devise some means of put-
ting an end to it. But Joab knew very well why he was sent
for, and since he was unwilling on the one hand to refuse
Absalom's request, but afraid on the other to speak again on
his behalf to the king, he adopted the simple course of not
going, even when invited a second time. But Absalom was
determined to have an interview with him, and as he could
not compass his end by fair means, he did not shrink from
foul. Joab had a field of barley bordering on Absalom's
estate, and the latter ordered his servants to set the crop on
fire. Joab came to demand an explanation, and the prince
openly declared that he had done it in order to secure an in-
terview. He wanted to ask him to speak to his father on his
behalf, for he could not endure this unnatural state of things
any longer. If it was to last, it was a pity he had ever come
out of Geshur. The king must either completely forgive
him, and recall him to court, or else bring him to justice for
his crime.
Joab allowed himself to be persuaded, and undertook the
CIVIL DISSENSIONS. 43
dangerous task of conveying Absalom's message to the king.
The result was what he wished. David forgave his son, and
when he appeared at court received him with the kiss of
favor.
David's second son, Chileab, 1 seems to have died early;
and after Amnon's death Absalom was the eldest of the
princes, and therefore the probable successor to the throne.
There was also much in his person to recommend him. We
have observed more than once that the Israelites had not
reached so high a stage of moral development as not to be
led away by appearances, and to attach great importance to
personal beauty and a commanding presence. Now, Absalom
was wonderfully beautiful. Tall and upright in stature and
perfect in figure from head to foot. His luxuriant locks
flowed down in long ringlets over his shoulders. Once a
year, when his hair grew oppressively heavy, he had it cut,
and the severed locks weighed, we are told, three hundred
shekels, royal weight. That would be about six and a half
pounds avoirdupois, which is quite impossible. There must
be a mistake in the figure ; but the only essential point is
that Absalom's hair was remarkably abundant. As soon as
he was received into his father's favor, he did all he could
to ingratiate himself with the people. He held a magnificent
court, and constantly drove out in an equipage of princely
splendor, preceded by fifty guards. Sometimes he would
take his stand with all his retinue at one of the city gates ;
and when anj' distinguished stranger approached the city to
appeal to the king, as supreme judge, he would enter into
conversation with him, and inquire, with a great appearance
of interest, whence he came and what brought him to the
king. On this the stranger, full of reverence for any scion
of royalty, would tell him all about his affairs. Then
Absalom would give him a friendly answer. No doubt he
was perfectty right, he would say, his cause was a thoroughly
good one ; but at the same time he would shrug his shoulders
and add a few broken sentences in a sympathetic, half-
apologetic tone : " You ask for nothing but what is just and
right, and yet I hardly know what to say to it. My father
is an excellent man, no doubt, but — have you any one to make
interest with him for you? — have you brought the means
of securing the courtiers? If not, why — I almost fear —
3 r ou see it does not always go for much to have justice on
1 2 Samuel Hi. 3.
44 INTRIGUES AT COURT AND
your side. It is very sad. Well ! I only wish I could sit
in judgment ! Things would go differently then." As the
' stranger, taking leave of the prince, bowed down in reverence
Absalom would run up to him, give him his hand, raise him
from the ground, and embrace him. Thus did he steal the
hearts of the Israelites. Such kindness and condescension
on the part of one so distinguished, wealthy, and beautifu'
had an ii resistible charm.
After thus preparing his way to the throne for four
years, 1 Absalom thought the time had come for him to
displace his father. He may have had reason to fear
that if he remained quiet David would name Solomon or
Adonijah as his successor. So he declared that he had
to go to Hebron to pay a vow to Yahweh, which he had
made when he was in Geshur — at least six years ago there-
fore. David gave his consent, and Absalom started with
a magnificent retinue. He had taken his measures skil-
fully. He had placed his emissaries in every district of the
country, and they were ready, as soon as the signal should be
given at Hebron, to raise the cry, " Long live King Absalom,
crowned at Hebron ! " all through the land. In the retinue
of the prince were two hundred influential citizens of Jeru-
salem, who knew nothing of the plot. They accompanied
him simply as guests, but he could make them serve as
hostages. Ahithophel, on the other hand, one of David's
shrewdest advisers, was in the secret. He had withdrawn
to Giloh, his birthplace, where his family still resided. Giloh
was not far from Hebron, and when Absalom reached the
latter city, Ahithophel joined him there, and the prince
entered into a solemn league with him and other nobles,
while the sacrifices were being offered. 2
All was now ripe for action. At a given sign, in the midst
of the sacrificial feast, one of the conspirators, probably a
prophet, rose up, advanced to Absalom, poured the oil of
consecration over his head, and cried, "Thus says Yahweh,
I anoint thee king of Israel ! " All the conspirators now rose
to their feet, and brandishing their weapons, or striking their
spears against their shields, made the vale of Hebron ring to
the cry, "Long live King Absalom!" The prince's armed
retainers caught up and repeated the shout, till the echo of
every hill in the whole country round returned it ; and even
the men of Jerusalem who had fallen into the trap, were com-
1 After an amended version.
a After an amended version of 2 Samuel xv. 12.
CIVIL DISSENSIONS. 45
pelled, wita the best grace they could assume, to join in the
cry. The whole district declared for Absalom. The cry was
now "Jerusalem!" and the rebel hastened, at the head of
his men, to secure the capital. No sooner had David heard
the rumor, "Absalom is proclaimed king! All Israel has
gone over to him, and the whole country is in rebellion," than
he ordered his courtiers to follow him in flight. Pusillani-
mous as this conduct seems at first, it was in reality very
sagacious. Under the special circumstances David was quite
at a loss to know whom he could trust. For anything he
knew, he might have traitors at his very side, and he could
not tell whether the two hundred citizens who had gone with
Absalom as guests had been privy to the conspiracy or not ;
and even if they were simply prisoners, they would at least
serve as hostages, and their relations in Jerusalem would
never offer a vigorous resistance to the man who held their
lives in his hand.
It was a dismal journejr for the king. He went out of
Jerusalem at the northern side, followed by his courtiers and
his wives and children, with their attendants. He only left
behind ten of his concubines to take charge of the palace.
On the outskirts of the city he paused to see who were fol-
lowing him. Now, he would see what real support he .had.
It was a joyful sight to recognize his faithful followers as
they passed. First of all came his bodj-guard, the Krethi
and Plethi, followed by a troop of common soldiers ; while
the rear was brought up by the six hundred "heroes" 1 —
David's picked band of well-tried veterans, many of whom
had followed his flag ever since the days when he dwelt at
Ziklag. It was with no small surprise that the king noticed
amongst his followers Ittai the Gittite. This man was
probably one of the Philistine nobles who were retained at
Jerusalem as security for the good behavior of their coun-
trymen. "Why, what is this?" asked David. "Are you
coming with me? Why do you not stay behind with the
new king ! You are a stranger and a prisoner. 1 You have
been here but a little while, and why should you wander
about with me homeless? Go back. to your country with
your fellow-citizens, and may Yahweh reward your fidelity
to me!" 1 But Ittai answered, "As Yahweh and the king
live, I will follow you in life and death ! " So David received
him amongst his followers, and said, "Come with us, then,
if you are so resolved."
i After an amended version.
46 INTRIGUES AT COtJKT AND
But he would not allow the priests to accompany him.
They stood at the passage of Kidron, with Zadok and
Abiathar at their head, and the ark of the covenant in their
midst, waiting till all the fugitives had passed over, and in-
lending to bring up the rear themselves. David did not
think it well to take the sacred chest with him. " Take back
the ark into the citj'," he said to the priests. " If Yahweh
should graciously vouchsafe to bring me back, I shall see the
ark and its house once more ; and if he be not gracious to me,
I must bear it. Let him do what seems him good." Broken
down and afflicted as he was — for the lamentations of the
people that witnessed his departure completely overcame him
— he had still sufficient presence of mind to attend to every
dictate of prudence. This determination to send back the
ark was really nothing but a. device for keeping his faithful
friends the priests in Jerusalem. "Go back," 1 he said to
Zadok, "and enter the city in peace; and let 3 r our son
Ahimaaz, and Abiathar's son Jonathan, bring me news of
all that happens in Jerusalem. I shall stay in the wilderness
of Jericho until I hear from you."
To this wilderness David and his followers now turned
their steps. Though consoled by the fidelity of many friends,
the king was deeply troubled. With muffled head and naked
feet he pursued his way over the Mount of Olives weeping.
His faithful followers accompanied him with lamentations
and signs of woe. In time of need we learn to know our true
friends ; and David's heart was now saddened and rejoiced
alternately by the conduct of the men who had been at his
side in the time of his prosperit}'. The defection of the wily
Ahithophel was heavy news-, and David cried on hearing it,
' ' Yahweh ! turn the counsel of Ahithophel to folly ! " But
Hushai, "his friend," that is to saj r his private adviser or
grand vizier, came to meet him in mourning garments, aud
offered to accompany him in his flight. His fidelity was
something to set against Ahithophel's defection, but David
would not let him accompany him, since his presence would
hinder rather than help him in his flight. So he told him to
pretend to embrace the cause of Absalom, and attempt to
counteract the advice of Ahithophel. He could then advise
him, by means of the faithful priests, of Absalom's plans.
Hushai cheerfully undertook the dangerous task, and returned
to Jerusalem.
Hardly had David parted from him when another came to
1 Aftfi r au amended version.
OIVIL DISSENSIONS. 47
meet him. It was Ziba, the steward of Meribaal. He was
driving before him a couple of asses bearing pack-saddles
laden with bread, bunches of raisins, cakes of dried fruit, and
wine. All these he offered to the king. " Where is your
master?" said David. " He is staying behind in Jerusalem,"
was the reply ; "for he says that perhaps the Israelites will
make him king now." Upon this David cried in a sudden
burst of anger, " Then I give all his property to you ! " Ziba
bowed down to the ground in grateful acknowledgment of so
rich a grant.
This circumstance could hardly fail to turn David's thoughts
to his predecessor, and to arouse associations which must
have been particularly painful at such a moment. But the
lot of Saul's descendants and his own conduct towards them
were soon to be brought to his memory in a far more distress-
ing way. As they were passing by Bahurim, there suddenly
appeared a man running toward them, who openly exulted in
the king's misfortunes. It was a certain Shimei, a member
of the house of Saul. " May Yahweh's curse rest on you,
murderer ! " he shrieked at David ; and, as he ran by the
side of the fugitives, keeping at some distance from them, he
went on shouting again and again, "Murderer! murderer!
This is your reward for slaying those seven victims of jour
hate. Think of the sons of Merab ! Have you forgotten
Rizpah? Of course it was all the Gibeonites, and you had
nothing to do with it, you son of Belial ! And who murdered
Abner ? Was it Joab ? Did you know nothing of it ? Have
you punished Zeruiah's son ? Abner's blood has come upon
you now. Yahweh is paying you your deserts by the hand
of Absalom, your own flesh and blood ! ~ Murderer ! mur-
derer ! " As Shimei went on railing against David, flinging
lust into the air in his frenzy and hurling stones at the king,
Abishai, Joab's brother, burst out passionately, " Shall that
lump of carrion curse my lord the king ? Let me go and strike
his head off!" But David was smitten to the heart, and
would not give him leave. So many painful memories had
risen in his breast. His conscience was uneasy, and the
thought that his present misery was an atonement for the past
came home to him. " Let me hear no more of you, you sons
of Zeruiah!" he said to Abishai. "Doubtless it is Yahweh
who has told him to curse me ; and why should I be angry
with him?" Then he turned to those immediately about
him and exclaimed, " See, now! my own son is conspiring
against my life. Is it strange that this Benjamite should
48 INTRIGUES AT COURT AND
act as he does? Let him curse me, then, for Yahweh has
doubtless sent him, and will all the sooner look upon my
misery, and requite me with joy for this my sorrow ! " So
David's heroes let Shimei go on, and — like the ass in the
fable that kicks the dying lion — he accompanied the king,
with curses and every other expression of hatred, to Ajephim, 1
that is, the place of the wearied. Here David and his com-
panions halted to take breath.
Meanwhile, Absalom and his fellow-conspirators had reached
Jerusalem, where Hushai met them with the greeting, " Long
life to King Absalom ! " Full of amazement, the prince in-
quired, "What does this mean? You, the king's friend,
here! Did you not fly with my father, then ? " " I did not,"
answered the wily minister. " I am the servant of the man,
whoever he may be, whom Yahweh and these citizens and all
Israel have chosen. I am true to him. And besides, whom
should I serve rather than my master's son? As I have stood
by your father's side, so will I henceforth stand by yours."
At the suggestion of Ahithophel, whose word was received
as an oracle, Absalom immediately took to himself the king's
concubines who had been left behind, in order to make the
breach between himself and his father irreparable, and to
convince his followers that they must either conquer or die.
After this a council of war was held at once to decide upon
the next step. Ahithophel proposed an excellent plan. He
himself at the head of twelve thousand men would pursue
David that very night. In all probability he would find him,
wearied and dejected, in the wilderness of Jericho, where it
would be easy to disperse his followers and slay no one but him.
" Thus," concluded Ahithophel, " I will bring round the whole
people to you, as a bride is brought to her husband. And the
whole people will be blessed, while one man only loses his
life." 1 All the elders who had sided with Absalom approved
of this advice, and the prince himself had nothing to say
against it. But unluckily for him he thought of asking
Hushai's advice. Hushai saw the excellence of Ahithophel's
plan as soon as he was informed of it, and consequently did his
best to dissuade Absalom from following it. " This time," he
said, when appealed to, " this once, O King, Ahithophel has
given bad advice ! You know your father and the men he
has about him. They are warriors fierce as a bear robbed of
her young on the plain, or a wild boar raging through the glen. 1
Your father knows what war means but too well, and will
1 After an amended version.
CIVIL DISSENSIONS. 49
never let his people spend the night unguarded. Now sup-
pose he has concealed himself in some cave or hole, and sud-
denly makes a sally on a detachment of your troops. Very
likely he might succeed in slaying some few of them, and if
he did, report would immediately exaggerate the exploit pro-
digiously. You know the way of the world. If once it were
reported, ' David has defeated the followers of Absalom,' a
heart as brave as a lion's would sink with fear ; for all Israel
knows j^our father's valor, and knows what heroes his faith-
ful followers are. But I can tell you of a better plan. Call
out all Israel to battle — countless as the sands on the sea
shore — and march at the head yourself. Then, wherever he
has stationed himself, we shall fall upon him, troop upon
troop, as the dew falls upon the earth, and not one of his
followers will escape. Or if he seeks refuge in a city, then all
Israel will be like a net spread round the fortress, and we
shall overturn it till there is not one stone left upon another."
Such a scheme, proposed in terms of bombastic oratory, had
much to attract such a man as Absalom. His followers, too,
were dazzled by the brilliant prospect ; and Hushai's advice,
which seemed so much more prudent than Ahithophel's, was
followed. There could not really have been a greater mis-
take, for David gained time and Absalom was exposed to all
the dangers of the battle-field. The historian, who had no
scruple in attributing a falsehood to Yahweh, adds the note,
" Yahweh had commanded Hushai to speak thus, that Ahith-
ophel's good advice might come to nought and that Absalom
might rush upon his fate." Ahithophel was driven to despair
when his advice was neglected, and perhaps he now began to
fear that things would go against the rebels ; so he retired to
his own house, arranged his affairs, and put an end to his life.
Hushai lost no time in sending word to the king, by the
sons of the priests, of all that had occurred at Jerusalem.
The two bold messengers ran great danger of being caught,
but they finally reached David in safety, and gave him an
account of Absalom's plans, adding that Hushai advised him
to cross the Jordan with all possible speed. The king obeyed,
and soon arrived with his followers at Mahanaim, the former
residence of Ishbaal. Here he was very generously supplied
with all that he required by three distinguished citizens of
Mahanaim, Rabbah of the Ammonites, and Lodebar.
Absalom lost no time in raising an army, and was soon abk
to cross the Jordan and pass through Gilead to Mahanaim.
VOL. II. 3
50 INTRIGUES AT COURT AND
He liad appointed Amasa, whose father was an Ishmaelite '
and whose mother was related to David, as his general.
Meanwhile David himself, had not been idle, but had sum-
moned all who were still true to his cause ; and when Absalom
approached he was quite in a position to meet him. At the
advice of his friends he refrained from taking any part in the
battle himself, because the death of one of the leaders, espe-
cially since it was a civil war, was so likely to decide the
whole contest; or as David's advisers expressed it: "Sup-
pose we were put to flight ; nay, suppose one-half of us were
slain, it would not signify. But your life is worth more
than ten thousand of ours." So David remained in the city
with the reserve, while his troops went out, in three divi-
sions, under Joab, Abishai, and Ittai the Gittite, to meet
Absalom.
As David stood at the gate of Mahanaim, and saw his
troops pass by, the hope and desire of victor}' could not ban-
ish from his heart an anxious care for his sou's safety. What
if some mishap should befall him in the battle ! "Deal gently
with the boy ! Spare Absalom ! " he cried to his generals, in
the hearing of all the people. But the commanders were far
from sharing David's tenderness towards the rebel, and had
their own ideas about the proper way of treating him, as we
shall presently see.
The battle was fought at a considerable distance from the
city, and Absalom was defeated. Twenty thousand of his
men fell on the field, and still more were lost in the neigh-
boring forest, where they died of hunger, or were drowned in
morasses. Absalom himself, seated on the royal mule, took
to flight ; but, as he was passing under the thick branches of
an oak-tree, his hair was caught by them. His beast sprang
from under him, and he was left there swinging between
heaven and earth. In this condition he was seen by one of
David's soldiers, who immediately told Joab. The genera]
would doubtless have been glad had Absalom been despatched
without his knowledge. ' ' Why did you not strike him dead '< "
he asked. " I would have given you ten shekels of silver and
a splendid girdle if 3*011 had." But the man replied, "If you
gave me a hundred times as much 1 would not la}' a hand on
the prince, no not for all the money in the world ; for we all
heard the king telling you and Abishai and Ittai to spare his
life. And if I had slain him never so secretly, yet the king
finds out everything, and you would have turned against me
1 After an amended version of 2 Samuel xvii. 25. See 1 Chronicles ii. 17.
CIVIL DISSENSIONS. 51
yourself." What the soldier said was true enough; but in
case of need Joab did not shrink from taking the responsibility
of the deed upon his own shoulders, though he would have pre-
ferred that it should rest on others. Without another word
he hastened to the spot pointed out by the soldier, and hurled
three javelins into Absalom's body, after which his ten squires
finally despatched him.
There was now no need to pursue the enemy further, so
Joab recalled and assembled his troops by sound of trumpet.
Absalom's body was thrown into a hole and covered with a
great heap of stones. How different was this monument
from the one in the King's Valley, not far from Jerusalem,
apparently, still known as "Absalom's monument" centuries
afterwards ! This was a great column that Absalom had
raised in his own honor because he had no sons — the three
that he once had 1 having died young apparently.
Joab had still one task of difficulty left ; he had to inform
the king of what had occurred. There were messengers
enough ready to take the news of the victory, but what would
the king say to Absalom's death ? ' ' May I bear news to the
king of Yahweh's judgment on his foes ? " asked Ahimaaz, the
son of Zadok. " You shall not be the bearer of this day's
news," answered Joab, " for the tidings are bad, seeing that
the king's son is dead." He knew well enough that the bearer
of bad news had seldom to expect a good reception, and he
was too much attached to Ahimaaz to be willing to expose
him to David's wrath. So he turned to a certain Ethiopian,
whom he had less scruple in exposing to danger, and said to
him, "Go you and tell the king all that you have seen!"
The man bowed down in token of obedience, and at once set
off. But Ahimaaz, who knew very well why Joab had not
chosen him as his messenger, was quite equal to avoiding the
dangers his friend feared on his behalf; so he persisted in
begging to be allowed to go in addition to the other messenger,
and at last Joab consented. Ahimaaz knew the shortest way
to Mahanaim, and reached it before the other. The king was
sitting waiting at the entrance of the city, when the watchman,
stationed on the roof of the gateway, saw Ahimaaz approach-
ing and the Ethiopian following at a little distance behind
him. "They must be messengers !" said David. As soon
as the son of Zadok was recognized the king and those about
him anticipated good news, for what else could such a friend
as Ahimaaz bear ! So they awaited his approach with confi-
i 2 Samuel xiy. 27.
52 INTRIGUES AT COURT AND
dence, and as soon as he came into the royal presence he
threw himself upon the ground and cried, " Long life to the
king! Blessed be Yahweh your gocl, who has quelled the
pride of those who raised up their hands against you."
"And my son?" said the king anxiously. But the wary
messenger, who saw the Ethiopian drawing near, had already
delivered the good news, and determined to leave the bad to
his fellow. So he replied, " There was a great hubbub when
Joab despatched this servant of the king and myself, but I
cannot tell what it was about." So the second messenger
had to supplement his story ; and when the king asked about
Absalom, he answered bluntly: "May every one that rises
up against my lord the king perish as he has perished ! "
On hearing these tidings the king sprang to his feet in a
burst of uncontrollable grief, withdrew to the chamber above
the gate, and paced up and down crying aloud, " O, my son
Absalom ! My darling child ! "Would that I had died for
you ! O, Absalom, my own dear .son ! "
David's grief was altogether natural, though, strictly speak-
ing, his conduct had been weak and half-hearted. When he
found Absalom a rebel, he had really no choice but either to
forget his royal dignity and duty, and yield the crown to his
son, or to set aside all paternal tenderness and wage war
against his rebellious subject. As it was he tried to take a
middle course. Knowing the chances of war perfectly well,
he deliberately sent an army into the field against his son, yet
without making up his mind to lose him ; and gave such orders
to his generals that obedience would have gone far towards
making the whole victory futile, while disobedience plunged
him into an agony of grief. To us this inconsistency seems
very natural, and we can well understand that, although David
had deliberately determined to wage war against Absalom,
yet when the battle was over, the king, rejoicing in the fall of
his foe, was lost in the father weeping the death of his son.
But it is not to be wondered at that David's faithful followers
had little sympathy with his grief. Instead of entering
Mahanaim, with shouts of victor}^ and pealing trumpets,
the army was compelled to creep in silence into the city,
as though it had suffered a defeat ; for the soldiers could
hardly celebrate a triumph while the king was mourning.
But the victors thought it hard, and many a murmur was
heard against the king. It was the faithful Joab once more
who ventured to point out to him what serious consequences
might result from his conduct. He acquitted himself of his
CIVIL DISSENSIONS. 53
task in his usual rough style. " You are making all your fol-
lowers," he said, " ashamed of having rescued you and all
that is dear to you from destruction ! What could be more
outrageous than your love for your enemies and your hatred
of j'our friends ? I suppose you would take it less to heart
if you lost every one of your faithful soldiers and officers ?
If any one had brought you word to-day that we were all dead,
but that Absalom was spared, I know you would have thought
the news good. Now, mark nry words ! Unless you go at
once to speak to the soldiers and thank them, by Yahweh they
will all disperse before evening, and that would leave you in a
worse plight than j - ou have ever been in in your life." David
could not help recognizing the truth of Joab's words, and ac-
cordingly he followed his advice.
Now that Absalom was dead, David could return to Jeru-
salem. Indeed he could evidently recover his throne without
striking another blow. For those who urged on Absalom in
his course, and still more all those who had been carried away
by the rebellion, half against their will, now repented of the
part they had taken. After all, thej r thought, it was David
who had rescued Israel from the hand of the Philistines and
every other foe. So all the tribes began to make preparations
for escorting him solemnly to Jerusalem. Representatives of
the different parts of the country were to meet for this pur-
pose by the Jordan. But the priests Zadok and Abiathar
could not quietly await the issue, and endeavored to hasten
David's return. At his command they entered into negotia-
tions with the men of Judah, urging them to anticipate the
chiefs of the other tribes, and be the first to bring back
the king, who was their own tribesman. They also secured
the help of Amasa, Absalom's general, by convejdng to him
David's promise, made under oath, that since he was the
king's relative, he should be made commander-in-chief in
Joab's place. All these secret negotiations had the desired
effect. The men of Judah assembled at Gilgal, by the fords
of the Jordan, to escort David back to Jerusalem. While
the king was still on the eastern side of the river, Shimei,
the Benjamite, who had cursed him as he fled from Absalom,
came to meet him, with a thousand of his fellow-tribesmen,
amongst whom was Ziba, Saul's former steward, with all his
children and dependants. Shimei implored the king's forgive-
ness, and strove to secure his favor by reminding him that he
was the first of all the house of Joseph to come and escort
him home. No doubt this fact had great weight with David,
M INTRIGUES AT COURT AND
and, far from listening to Abishai, who would have taken
Shimei's life, because he had cursed Yahweh's anointed, he
promised the suppliant, under an oath, that he would not
injure him.
But now a complaint was brought against one of Shimei's
companions — Ziba — by Jonathan's son, Meribaal. He had
come from 1 Jerusalem to meet the king, and when asked why
he had not accompanied him in his flight he threw the blame
upon the treachery of his servant, who had taken advantage
of his helpless condition to leave him in the lurch. Instead
of getting a beast for his crippled master to ride on, as he had
been ordered to do, he left him in fruitless expectation and
went and calumniated him to the king ! Meribaal's outward
appearance vouched for the truth of this assertion, for he had
never washed his feet, put on clean clothes, or trimmed his
beard since David left the city. So David could hardly do
less than recall his former hasty sentence, and_ restore Meri-
baal's affairs to their old footing. Ziba was still to see to his
estates, and the two were to live on the produce.
When David had crossed the Jordan he had to take leave
of Barzillai, an old man of eighty years, who had been his
host at Mahanaim. In vain he tried to persuade him to ac-
company him to the capital. The aged man declared that
he had no wish to do so, since the pleasures of the court had
no attraction for one of his years ; but he recommended his
son Chimham to the royal favor.
David's Judaean and Benjamitc escort had not accompanied
him far upon his way before he began to reap the fruits of his
folly in entering into secret negotiations with the men of Judah
and with Amasa. For the representatives of the northern
tribes were much dissatisfied with the conduct of the Judaeans.
Did not they constitute ten parts of the king's subjects and
the Judaeans only one? Surely they ought to have shared
the honor of escorting him home. It was in vain that the
Judaeans tried to pacify them by saying, "But what does it
all matter? Do you suppose we have sat at the king's table
or received a present from him ? " The jealous Israelites, who
really only recognized David as king because they had no one
to put in his place, gave a ready ear to the counsel of a cer-
tain Benjamite — Sheba, the son of Bichri — and refused to
accompany the king to Jerusalem.
David's promise to make Amasa commander-in-chief was
an act of still greater folly than his secret negotiations with
1 After an amended version.
CIVIL DISSENSIONS. 55
Judah. This follower of Absalom was by no means highly
thought of just now, especially amongst the warriors who had
defeated him under Joab's lead. David soon became painfully
aware of this, fur when he reached Jerusalem he at once
ordered Amasa to take the field against Sheba within three
daj r s ; but the new general found his utmost endeavors
fruitless. The men of military age refused to take up arms ;
and even the picked troops, who were alwaj-s ready for action,
declined to follow Amasa's standard. David was at a loss
what to do. He knew very well that if he gave the insur-
gents a little time, it would be no easj r task to put them
down. .So there was nothing for it but to turn once more
to the hated, but indispensable Joab. Hardly had the
old general received orders to collect an army before" the
thing was done. His own newly-raised regiment, the Krethi
and Plethi, and the select troops already under arms, marched
at once from Jerusalem to quell the revolt of Sheba. At
Gibeon they met Amasa, who was making his way to Jeru-
salem, at the head of the few troops he had managed to draw
together. Joab was not the man to stick at a murder. He
himself was secured by his armor from a surprise, so he ad-
vanced with a friendly greeting to Amasa, and, as he em-
braced him, plunged the sword that he grasped in his left hand
into his body. Then he turned to the followers of the murdered
general and invited them to join his army, which they were
quite willing to, do, as soon as Amasa's body had been hastily
removed. Then Joab, with united forces, turned upon Sheba.
Sheba had withdrawn himself to the extreme north of the
land, to Abel Beth Maachah, 1 and accordingly Joab laid
siege to the city with the flower- of Israel's troops. The
wall was already undermined, and a breach had been effected
at more points than one. The fortress would inevitably have
been carried by storm had not the sagacity of a certain
woman saved it. She begged an interview with Joab, and
reminded him that the city had long been renowned as a seat
of wisdom, — whether for an oracle established there or for the
penetration of its inhabitants does not appear, — that it was
one of the chief places of Israel, and that every friend of the
fatherland would lament its fall. Why should Yahweh's heri-
tage be devastated ? Joab declared himself ready to put an
end to hostilities as soon as Sheba's head was thrown over the
wall to him. The woman promised to comply with this con-
dition, and she kept her word ; for she easily persuaded her
i Marked A. B. M. on Map III. 2 After an amended version.
56 last days ov k;ing david.
fellow-townsmen of the necessity of the step. Upon this the
troops returned to Jerusalem.
So David was restored to the throne of Israel ; and Joab,
however much his master hated him, remained in command
of his armies.
Chapter VI.
THE LAST DATS OF KING DAVID.
1 Kings I. l-II. 11.
AFTEE Absalom's death, Adonijah was David's eldest
surviving son. He therefore expected to succeed
his father as king. He was a handsome man, and David,
who had never spoken a hard word to him, had let Mm have
his own way in everything. Now when the king's life was
evidently drawing to a close, Adonijah assumed the position
of the future ruler of Israel more and more openry. As
his brother Absalom had done before him, so he, too, estab-
lished stables on an extensive scale, and surrounded himself
by an escort of fifty men. But since he was not certain upon
whom his father's choice might light, and perhaps suspected
that Solomon, the son of Bathsheba, stood higher in the royal
favor than he did himself, he determined to have himself
publicly crowned. Of David's chief ministers, Joab and
Abiathar took Adonijah's part ; whereas Zadok the priest,
Benaiah the captain of the body-guard, Nathan the prophet,
and Hushai, "the king's friend," 1 together with the whole
of the chosen troops, were against him. In spite of this
opposition Adonijah went with his followers to the Fuller's
Well, on the south side of Jerusalem, there to celebrate
his coronation feast. But the prophet Nathan went to Bath-
sheba to tell her of what was going on, and advised her to
inform the king of it, promising that he himself would try
to obtain an interview , with him afterwards. The am-
bitious woman, who had already prevailed upon her hus-
band to swear that her son should be his successor, at
once took Nathan's advice. She obtained access to David's
chamber, reminded him of his promise, told him' what Ado-
nijah was doing, added in a strain of flattery that all Israel
1 After an amended version.
LAST DATS OF KING DAVID. 57
was hanging on his decision, and asked sadly what would be
her own fate and that of her son should this revolt be suc-
cessful. While she was yet speaking, Nathan entered and
asked the king whether it was with his consent that Adonijah
had ascended the throne, for he had actually been proclaimed
king ! The aged monarch could not resist their importunity,
and renewed his oath that none but Solomon should be his
successor. In order to give effect, if possible, to his wish, he
ordered Zadok, Nathan, and Benaiah to conduct Solomon in
state, mounted upon his own mule, to the well of Gihon,
west of the city, and there to sound the trumpets and anoint
him king. When this was done the inhabitants of Jerusalem
at once accepted him as their monarch, and raised a deafening
shout of joy — so loud, says the historian, that "the earth
was rent by it."
Adonijah's coronation feast was just drawing to a close
when the sound of this shout fell upon the ears of the guests.
"What is all that shouting for?" asked Joab, suspecting
mischief of some sort ; and while they were all wondering
what it might be, Jonathan, the son of Abiathar, came run-
ning out of the city. "Welcome!" cried Adonijah, as he
came. "Surely you bring good tidings!" But picture the
consternation of all present when they heard that Solomon
had been proclaimed as king, by David's orders ! All the
courtiers, said Jonathan, were congratulating David, saying,
" May Yahweh raise the throne of Solomon yet higher than
your own ! " while the hoary monarch, who was too weak to
leave his bed, was forced to receive and thank them without
rising. David's will was not to be disputed. Adonijah's
guests fled to their houses in terror, and the prince himself,
in fear of his life, sought the nearest place of refuge. This
he found in an altar, to the horns of which he clung, crying
to the priests and all who saw him there that he would never
stir from the spot until king Solomon, whose humble servant
he desired to be, had sworn to spare his life. When Solo-
mon heard of this he sent word that he would grant his
request conditionally on his good behavior ; upon which
Adonijah bowed to the earth before his roj r al brother and
obtained leave to return to his palace.
A few days afterwards David, who felt that his end was
drawing near, took leave of Solomon and gave him a few
parting instructions. First as to Joab. He reminded his
son of all that this man, whom he hated and feared so in
tensely, had done ; how he had murdered two Israelite gen-
8*
68 LAST DATS OP KINS DAVID.
erals in time of peace, and had thus steeped himself in Dlood
from head to foot. u Deal with him," he concluded, " accord-
ing to your wisdom, and let not his hoary head go down in
peace to the world below ! " On the sons of Barzillai, on the
other hand, Solomon was to heap his favors, and was to make
them companions of his table because their father had played
so noble a part when David was flying from Absalom. But
iShimoi, the Benjamite of Bahurim, who had cursed the king
so bitterly, must not be left unpunished. David himself had
sworn by Yahweh that he would spare his life, but this oath
was not binding on his son. His own good sense would tell
him how to deal with Shiraei, but in any case he would send
him to the land of shadows in blood.
After making these dispositions David slept in death, and
was buried in the upper city that was called by his own name.
When his history came to be written no one knew exactly how
long he had been king, but at any rate his reign had lasted
through a whole generation, or " forty 3-ears."
What a glorious death-bed was David's, if we regard it from
a worldly point of view ! " Full of daj-s, full of wealth, full
of honor," as the writer of Chronicles expresses it, 1 he handed
down his kingdom to the most dearly loved of his sons. But
what a deeply painful impression that same death-bed leaves
upon our minds, if we regard it from a higher point of view !
There is one departing whose varied experiences and advent-
ures have left him in crying need of forgiveness himself, and
yet his dying lips pronounce a treacherous sentence on two
men, to one of whom he was bound by every tie of grati-
tude, to the other by every tie of honor. The one had always
been his faithful servant ; he owed the continued possession of
his life and crown in great measure to him ; and he had never
dared himself to curb his overweening spirit. To the other
he had given a solemn promise that he would not take his
life. What a miserable end! And yet it suited, but too
well, much of the life it closed.
Since David's history occupies so great a place in the Bible
history, and since he passed for the model of a king amongst
after generations, we must endeavor to sketch his true char-
acter, and at the same time to explain how it came to pass
that such high honor was afterwards accorded him.
But to accomplish the task satisfactorily, we must begin by
asking whether there are any other sources from which we
1 1 Chronicles xxix. 28.
LAST DAYS OF KING DAVID. t>9
may gain information concerning David, in addition to the
narratives we have now considered. We certainly should have
such sources, if we might rely upon the superscriptions of the
three-and-seventy psalms which are ascribed to David as their
author. Were that the case, we should be able to gather from
the contents of these songs the religious position occupied by
David, and the most secret experiences of his soul on a great
variety of critical occasions. We should then have to con-
struct our image of him not only from what we read in the
books of Samuel, but also from the knowledge of the inner
life of his soul which we should derive from these psalms ; —
a hopeless task, which has been laboriously, but vainly
attempted by many who have accepted the testimony of the
superscriptions !
Let me give one instance to show the impossibility of rec
onciling the David of the psalms that claim him as their
author with the David of the books of Samuel and Kings !
The fifty-first psalm is said in the superscription to have been
composed by David after Nathan had rebuked him for his sin
with Bathsheba. The poem in question is this : — •
Have mercy upon me, God, according to thy loving-kindnes9.
Blot out my transgression in* the tenderness of thy great mercy.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my guilt,
And my sin is ever before me.
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,
And have done what is evil in thy sight;
Therefore thy sentence is just,
And none can reproach thy judgment.
Behold, I was born in guilt,
And in sin did my mother conceive me ;
But thou desirest truth in the inward parts,
And teachest me wisdom in my heart.
Purge away my sin with hyssop, that I may be clean;
Wash me, that I may be whiter than snow.
Then let me hear sounds of joy and gladness again,
And make glad the soul thou hast broken.
Hide thy face from my sius,
And blot out all my iniquities.
Create a clean heart within ine, God!
And give me a right spirit.
Cast me not away from thy presence,
And take not thy holy spirit from me.
Restore me the joy of thy salvation;
Let a willing spirit support me !
Let me teach the transgressors thy ways,
That the sinners may be converted to thee.
Deliver me from the guilt of blood, God, thou God of rny s» ■
vation !
Let my tongue praise thy righteousness.
Lord ! open thou my lips,
And my mouth shall show forth thy praiet.
(30 LAST DAYS OF KING DAVID.
For thou desirest not sacrifice,
Else would I give it!
Thou delightest not in burnt offerings.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.
A broken and a contrite heart, God, thou dost net despise!
Shew favor to Zion, according to thy pleasure,
Build up Jerusalem's walls ;
Then shalt thou rejoice in good sacrifices,
In a burnt offering and a sacrifice consumed by fire.;
Then bullocks shall be brought to thy altar.
The concluding lines, which obviously place us in a period
at which the walls of Jerusalem were in ruins, can hardly
belong to the original poem. The contradiction between the
promise of a sacrifice of bullocks and the avowal that God
desires no sacrifice but a sense of guilt, is sufficiently marked
to justifj' the belief that the concluding lines are a later
addition. The rest is unquestionably a beautiful poem. To-
gether with a deep and genuine sense of guilt, it reveals a
clearer insight into the origin of sin than is usually met with
in the Israelite poets. But this very fact is fatal to David's
authorship. It would be strange, to say the least of it, that
after his treatment of Uriah he should sing, " Against thee,
O Yahweh, against thee only have I sinned." Again, since
David in common with all his contemporaries, supposed that
Yahweh sometimes stirred a man up to sin, expressly that he
might have the opportunity of punishing him, he can hardly
have breathed the sigh, "Behold I was born in iniquity ; "
for it implies that sin takes its rise not in the direct instigation
of Yahweh, but in the corrupt or imperfect nature of man.
" God's sacrifice is an afflicted soul" is a truth which forms a
beautiful counterpart to that which the prophetic writer puts
into Samuel's mouth ; "Obedience is better than sacrifice."
But only think of David cherishing such a conviction ! David,
who appeased his God with sacrifices upon every occasion,
who recommended Saul to burn a meat offering when Yahweh
had incited him against an innocent man, who held back the
angel of the pestilence from Jerusalem by offering 8 sacrifice
upon Araunah's threshing-floor, who sacrificed seven sons of
Saul to appease Yahweh in the time of famine ! The sense
of guilt, however genuine, may pass awaj' ; but if David had
ever learned the truth that contrition and humility are the only
sacrifice that God desires, then his conduct with regard to the
sons of Saul was not only superstitious, as it certainly was in
any case, but monstrous and execrable.
It would of course delay us far too long were we to submit
LAST DAYS OF KING DAVID. 61
all the psalms which are ascribed to David to a similar ex-
amination. We will therefore only take one more example,
and that a short one. It is the twenty-third psalm : —
Yahweh is my shepherd,
I sha' I n:>t want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures ;
He leads me beside the fresh waters ;
He quickens my soul,
And leads me in the paths of righteousness
For his name's sake.
Though I walk through a valley dark as death, I will fear no evil ;
For thou art with me,
Thy rod and thy staff, the}' comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me, in despite of my enemies.
Thou anointest my head with oil ;
My cup is filled to overflowing.
All that is good and prosperous will follow me while I live,
And for length of days shall I dwell in the house of Yahweh.
It is true that the first words, "Yahweh is my shepherd,"
seem appropriate enough on the lips of David, who was once
a shepherd boy himself; but this is hardly a sufficient reason
for ascribing the psalm to him. Indeed, it cannot be his, for
in his day there was no particular place which could be called
" Yahweh' s house" without any further description. The
expression could only be used of the temple, and hardly even
of the temple before it had become the sole recognized
sanctuary of Yahweh. This would place the poem after the
captivity.
It is not so clear in every case, as it is in those we have
given, that the psalms ascribed to David were really written
at a much later period. But these two specimens will suffice
to show that it is not out of mere caprice that we neglect the
songs which bear David's name in endeavoring to sketch his
character. The superscriptions of the psalms are entirely un-
trustworthy ; and the poems themselves date from periods at
which the Israelites had pondered far more deeply upon the
nature of true piety, and cherished far other thoughts as to
the phenomena of the spiritual life than was the case in
David's time. The whole collection forms, as we have
already said, 1 the hymn-book of the second temple. In
speaking of Moses, we neglected the ninetieth psalm, which
is said to be his ; in dealing with David's character, we shall
put aside the so-called Davidic psalms ; and, in the same way,
when we come to Solomon we shall pass over the seventy
second and the hundred and twenty-seventh psalms in silence
Strange as it may seem, there is not one of all the psalms
l See vol. i. p. 29.
62 LAST DATS OF KING DAVID.
ascribed to David which so much as reminds us of his char-
acter as portrayed in the historical books ; and in the great
majority of cases they are quite evidently of a much later
origin.
It is easy to understand how David came to be regarded
as the chief psalmist of Israel. In the third century before
Christ, when the book of Chronicles was written, the time of
David was looked upon as the golden age of Israel, and
David, himself as a model king. Hence the writer of this
book gives him as much as possible of the honor of having
built the temple. 1 Now, since the ancient tradition repre-
sented David as a great singer and player on the harp, and
the Jews of this later period could not conceive of a model
king composing any but religious music, they imagined David
to have been the father of psalmody.
But our actual knowledge of his singing and playing gives
us a very different idea of its character. The two solitary
poems which we have sufficient grounds for supposing to be
his are his elegies upon Saul and Jonathan, and upon Abner.;
and though the former of these is full of deep and generous
feeling, they have neither of them anything of a religious
character. The earliest authentic passage in which David's
services to the art of music are celebrated occurs in the
prophecies of Amos. The prophet 2 is describing the high-
horn sots of Jerusalem and Samaria, —
Who sing loud songs to the harp
And invent musical instruments, like David ;
Who drink and carouse
And anoint themselves with the costliest balsam —
But feel no pain for Joseph's wounds.
Now it is hardly probable that the Israelite revellers were
given to singing hymns at their merry-makings, and it seems
to follow that in the eighth century David was specially known
as the representative of the kind of music suited to festive
occasions, the themes of which we may presume were love
and wine. And with what other kind of music are we to
suppose that David soothed Saul's troubled spirit? Surely a
solemn hymn to the glory of the terrible Yahweh would have
been less likely than a soft strain of love or a ringing war
song to restore the gloomy and despondent king to better
spirits.
Nor must we form a too exalted idea of such religious
songs as were really produced in these days. When the ark
l See p. 11. 2 Amos vi. 5, f
LAST DAYS OF KING DAVID. 63
was brought to Jerusalem and David danced and smote the
tambourine as he advanced before the sacred chest, we may
well believe that the sound of the trumpets pealed through
the air, and that shrill cries to Yahweh and his flame of fire
rose above the thunder of the drums ; but there was small
sign of any refinement of religious feeling or depth of religious
thought. We still possess a short song which was probably
sung when the victorious army had brought back the ark
from the camp, and were escorting it to its place in the
temple. It now forms the conclusion of a psalm, 1 to the
first part of which we shall revert on another occasion. It
was probably sung by two choruses in alternation.
Lift up your eternal heads, gates !
Lift yourselves up, eternal doors 1
Let the glorious king go in ! —
Who is this glorious king ? —
Yahweh, strong and mighty,
Yahweh, terrible in war ! —
Lift up your heads, gates !
Lift yourselves up, eternal doors 1
Let the glorious king go in ! —
Who is this glorious king ? —
Yahweh of war-hosts.
He is the glorious king.
This song is certainly more vigorous than sweet in tone,
more sonorous than exalted ; and it is simple in conception
to the last degree.
Just as after generations drew up all their religious laws in
the name of Moses, so they made David the great psalmist and
Solomon, as we shall presently see, the great proverb writer
of Israel. If we wish to know David as he really was, we
must put the contents of all these songs completely on one
side, and rely exclusively upon the narratives of the books of
Samuel and Kings.
Let us, then, go on to ask what manner of man these au-
thorities represent him to have been.
David unquestionably took the cause of religion much to
heart, and was more especially a zealous worshipper of Yah-
weh. This is evident from the great things which the prophets
and priests had hoped from him ever since his first appearance.
Such men as Samuel, Gad, Nathan, Abimelech, Abiathar, and
Zadok stood at his side during the various periods of his life ;
and throughout all the changes of his fortune he always kept
upon the best of terms with them . The sincerity of his piety is
l Psalm xxiv. 7-10.
64 LAST DATS OF KING DAVIT).
shown by his diligence in consulting his god upon all occasions,
by his care in bringing the ark to Jerusalem, by the liberal
portion of his booty which he presented to the sanctuary, by
the freedom of access to his person which he always allowed
to the prophets, and the submission with which he listened to
their words, and, above all, by that noble deed, the best thing
that we know of him, his generous sparing of the life of Saul.
Inasmuch as Saul was Yahweh's anointed, David spared him
for the sake of his god, however much he would have gained
in every other respect by the death of his inveterate enemy.
David, then, was a religions man.
But his religion, like that of his contemporaries, was far
from exalted. We cannot say for certain whether he wor-
shipped Yahweh only. He may also have honored other gods,
though probably in a far smaller measure. The fact that one
of his sons was called Baaljada 1 — i.e., Baal knows — leads us
to suspect that at any rate now and then he paid his hom-
age to some Baal, perhaps to conciliate an influential family, or
to please one of his foreign wives. This would not be at all
surprising, for if David had a teraphim in his house, 2 and
believed that Yahweh could be worshipped nowhere but in
Canaan, 8 he must have been very far from denying the exist-
ence of all other gods. Moreover, he had a very inadequate
conception of the nature of Yahweh himself. The manner in
which he brought the ark to Jerusalem shows clearly enough
that he thought he was bringing Yahweh himself with it.
Think, again, of all the superstitious beliefs of the Israelites
concerning this ark ; of the great plague which it was supposed
to cause amongst the Philistines ; of the mortality in the family
at Bethshemesh that withheld the reverence due to it ; of the
death of Uzzah, who placed his rash hand upon it ; of the pros-
perity which its presence brought to Obed-Edom ; and of the
custom of taking it out with the army to war ! In perfect
consistency with all these superstitions David not only used
the oracle of Yahweh as a counsellor in all emergencies, in-
cluding military enterprises and manoeuvres, but also observed
omens, and, when he heard the wind rustling in the tops of
the mulbeny-trees, fancied that it was Yahweh drawing near. 4
He also believed that Yahweh, when angry with any particu-
lar man, or with Israel in general, would send such disasters
as defeat in battle, famine, the death of a child, or a pesti-
1 1 Chronicles xiv. 7.
a 1 Samuel xix. 13, 16, where teraphim should be read for image.
* 1 Saiuael xxvi. 19. 4 2 Samuel v. 24.
LAST DAYS OF KING DAVID. 60
lence % and that sometimes he would himself stir up those who
had enraged him to commit a crime, for the very purpose of
being able to punish them for it. The only way in which these
disasters could be averted was by a sacrifice ; in case of need
a fearful and bloody sacrifice, such as the execution of the
seven sons of Saul. "Wlen Yahweh was wroth he must be
appeased.
It is true that we have no right to find fault with David for
not being superior to his age in these particulars, or to con-
demn him for entertaining such false ideas ; but on the other
hand, we must remember that such religion as his is no guar-
anty in itself of a noble character, may co-exist but too easily
with very great defects, and may even stimulate evil passions.
For instance, cruelty to the enemies of Yahweh (a term which
included all the enemies of his people and his anointed) was
anything but inconsistent with religion. David, therefore,
could treat his prisoners of war with the utmost barbarity
and yet feel no pangs of conscience, and meet with no rebuke
from the prophets. Even the vengeance which he took on
Shimei after his death was not inconsistent with his reverence
for Yahweh, whose anointed this Benjamite had cursed !
But when David committed adultery with Bathsheba and
treacherously murdered Uriah, it was a violation of the will of
Yahweh. These actions throw a very dark shadow upon his
life. It would doubtless be unfair to judge a man too hardly
for one evil deed, however heinous, since even noble natures,
are sometimes tempted beyond their strength, and betrayed
into fearful sins. But what pains us most is not the act of
adultery itself, but the king's foul treachery to his brave and
faithful servant, Uriah. If in a fit of despair and dread of
discovery he had slain him with his own hand, we might,
perhaps, have forgiven him ; but that summons from the
camp, that invitation to the royal table that the warrior might
drink deep and then go home, that letter to Joab, and that
cold-blooded message when the news of Uriah's death had
come — all this becomes doubly revolting when we think of
the deliberate forethought with which it was planned. It
is impossible after this to regard David as in any sense an
upright man.
The cunning which was in this case turned to so vile a pur-
pose, may be traced in David's conduct upon other occasions
also. For instance, even as he fled from Absalom, in the
midst of all his grief, he had sufficient presence of mind to
lay his j^ans with great adroitness in sending back the priests
66 LAST DAYS OF KING DAVID.
with the ark, and urging Hushai to simulate friendship for
Absalom.
Cunning, indeed, is natural to the character of such a man
as David ; for, in spite of his valor on the battle-field, he was
sadly wanting in true courage.
He had his own weakness to thank in a great measure for
the fearful disasters that blighted his domestic fife. He never
punished Amnon for his deed of shame, since he loved him,
his eldest son, too well ! It was this that goaded on Absalom
to avenge his sister's wrong ; and when Absalom had taken
vengeance, David was grieved and angered for a time, and
banished Absalom ; but he soon allowed himself to be ap-
peased, though he did not dare to acknowledge the change
that his sentiments had undergone ! So Joab, who read his
thoughts, had to entreat him to show favor to Absalom, and
make it appear as though he were acting under more or less
constraint. Even then he only half forgave him, and Joab
had to intercede again before he would receive him completely
into favor. After all this he left him so absolutely unrestrained
that he was able publicly to assume the airs of the successor
to the throne. When expelled by his son, David was humility
itself, went on his way weeping, uttered words of acquiescence
in the will of Yahweh, recognized in Shimei's curses a pun-
ishment inflicted by his god, and showed every appearance
of piety. But the cunning plans which he was devising at
the ver}' moment fit but strangely into the picture ! So,
again, the disturbances that embittered his last days were
the consequences of his own vacillation and timidity ; for he
had evidently promised Bathsheba that her son should succeed
him, but had not taken a single step to secure the crown to
him.
But nothing is more characteristic of David than bis re-
lations with Joab. He hates him, feels his dependence upon
him, is afraid of him, curses him again and again, tries to get
rid of him, but always keeps him at hand, notwithstanding
the murder of Abner and Amasa, and finally commands his
son to punish the servant whom he feared to touch himself,
and who had grown gray in his service.
David was anything but a consistent man. He had no
great central purpose to which he devoted all his powers. He
was far from possessing such nobility as characterized Saul at
the beginning of his reign. Even the measures he took in
favor of his religion have a somewhat ambiguous aspect.
He was certainly not such an enthusiast in the service of
LAST DAYS OF KING DAVID. 67
Yahweh as his predecessor had been ; and his surrender of
the latter's sons to the Gibeonites is a very significant event,
for it was a formal condemnation of the policy of Samuel — a
concession to public opinion, which regarded this excessive
zeal as dangerous. In religious matters David's policy was
one of concession and compromise. He was just as zealous
for Yahweh's honor as he thought would be conducive to the
stability of his throne ; which doubtless showed great pru-
dence, but not much exaltation of soul.
As far as we can trace the history of David's inner life, it
resembled that of most other men of energetic and impulsive
character whose passions are balanced by no great purpose
and checked by no firm moral principle. Easily moved both
to good and evil, he was certainly very captivating. Thus
he gained and always kept the friendship of the proud and
courageous Jonathan. And he on his side, since men are
often attracted by their opposites, was ready to repose with
perfect confidence upon the loftier moral nature of his friend.
Warm in his affections and sincere in his religion — though
superficial in this as in everything else — he was far from
being a stranger to generous emotions, but could not resist
the impulse of the moment. When he confessed his guilt his
repentance was doubtless genuine, but it did not strike deep.
It was an evil day for the moral life of this able and fas-
cinating but weak young soldier when he became a king. If
Jesus was right in saying, "It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter
the kingdom of heaven," how would he have described
the difficulties with which an eastern king has to struggle
if he would reach the true path of life and keep to it ! All
things conspired to ruin the moral character of a king, and
we cannot wonder that such a man as David was unable to
resist such evil influences. He remained the idol of his
warriors to the last ; but his moral power seems to have been
more and more completely sapped as his years advanced.
We shall constantly observe, however, that after ages
passed a very different judgment upon the son of Jesse, and
exalted him to the highest pinnacle of honor. We have al-
ready had an indication of this in the stories of the rejec
tion of Saul and the anointing of David, for they show clearly
enough what the prophets who wrote them thought of the
two men. They regarded David as the man after Yahweh's
heart, who succeeded Saul because he was a better man, and
whose family should therefore occupy the throne of Israel fot
68 LAST BATS OF KING DAVID.
ever. 1 The following verses furnish a striking illustration of
the honor rendered to David by posterity. They are put into
his mouth as his djing words 2 : —
The words of David, Jesse's son,
The words of him who is placed on high,
The anointed of Jacob's god,
The sweet singer of Israel !
Yahweh's spirit speaks through me,
His word is on my tongue ;
The god of Israel spoke,
The rock of Israel said to me :
"He can govern men who is righteous
And rules in the fear of God.
He is like to the morning light at sunrise ;
He is like to a cloudless dawn.
After light and rain does the grass grow up."
And is not my house such as this, with God's help?
He has made an eternal covenant with me,
Established on all sides and sure.
All my salvation and all my desire,
Does he not make them grow ?
But the worthless are like unto noxious thorns,
Which none will grasp with the hand.
Let him who would touch them have spear-shaft and steel,
And let them be utterly burned up with fire.
The fact that the historians and others took such a favor-
able view of David's character, and commended him as a
just ruler, is not to be explained bj' supposing that they knew
of things redounding to his credit, which have not been
handed down to us ; nor can much stress be laid on the
different light in which what we know of him would be re-
garded in former times. The explanation must be sought
simply in the circumstances amidst which these panegyrists
lived, and the religious philosophy which determined their
views of the history of their people. It was only during th<
seventy or eighty years of the reigns of David and Solomon
that the Israelite tribes formed a single people. The king
dom was afterwards split into two and never united agait
Now the prophets of Judah, who lived some two centuries
later, looked back with a sense of yearning to the golden age
of David and his son, under whose sceptre Israel had been so
powerful. They longed for the union of all the tribes under
a king of David's house, and firrnlj' believed that then- dream
would one day be realized ; and since they believed that suc-
cess and prosperity were incompatible with godlessness, they
naturally supposed that the two princes under whom Israel
had been so great were very pious. Of David, especially,
they unconsciously assumed everything that was good
1 2 Samuel vii. 12-16. 2 2 Samuel xxiii. 1-7.
SOLOMON. 69
Tradition treated David and Solomon something as it did
Gideon and Abimelech ; the father was praised and the son
blamed, though they were really kindred spirits, and pursued
the same line of action, because thq fruit of their policy only
began to be perceived under the rule of the son. Thus David
was exalted far above Solomon, because it was David who
founded the dynasty, whereas immediately after Solomon's
death the nation fell into two.
David owes the good name he has always enjoyed with
posterity very largely to the belief that his subjects were
specially happy under his rule, and that his times deserved
on that account to be considered the golden age of Israel. If
this were so it would certainly be a great point in his favor.
But the prophets who longed for the return of David's age
were like the Israelites in the desert, who hungered after the
fleshpots of Egypt, but forgot all that they had suffered in that
land ; for the truth is that David's own subjects were anything
but satisfied with his rule. His throne was supported by his
warlike fame, his body-guard, his "heroes," and his valiant
cousin Joab, — in a word by force of arms. But the support
which Absalom secured is an eloquent testimony to the dis-
content of the Israelites under David's rule ; and if after Sol-
omon's death most of the tribes renounced their allegiance to
his son, it was not because Solomon had ruled in a different
spirit to that of David, but because he had built upon the
foundations his father had laid, and the Israelites, as we
shall presently see, could endure it no longer. It was a
mistake, therefore, to look back upon the time of David as to
a golden age ; it was a still greater mistake to laud David
himself as a model king.
Chapter VII.
SOLOMON.
1 Kings II. 12-XI. 25.1
SOLOMON'S accession to his father's throne had met, as
we have seen, with considerable opposition ; but he soon
showed that he was not to be offended with impunity. Joab
was slain at the foot of the altar to which he had fled for
1 2 Chronicles i.-ix.
70 SOLOMON.
refuge ; Abiathar was banished to his own estate and deposed
from the priesthood ; Adonijah was spared at first, but was
afterwards put to death, in eonsequence of his presumption
in desiring one of his father's concubines for a wife ; * Shimei
was ordered to come and live in Jerusalem, and never to leave
the city on pain of death ; and three years afterwards, when
he pursued a couple of runaway slaves to Gath, he, too, paid
with his life for his disobedience.
In the countries that David had conquered, his death was
the natural signal for insurrectionary movements amongst the
subjected tribes ; and they seized the opportunity of attempting
to throw off the yoke of Israel. In Edom especially the news
of David's and of Joab's death unfurled the banner of revolt.
It will be remembered that when Joab conquered the Valley
of Salt, he had as far as possible exterminated the royal
family of Edom ; but a scion of the house had found refuge
in Egypt, and was even married to a sister-in-law of the
Egyptian king. This prince returned to his own land when
Solomon ascended the throne, and managed to maintain his
footing there. Damascus also fell into the hands of a Syrian^
prince who had been expelled from it by David, and thence-
forth the city retained its independence. 2 But with these
exceptions Solomon contrived to hold together the extensive
kingdom that his father, had left him. In the death of David,
Israel had lost the prestige conferred on it by a ruler whose
warlike fame inspired terror on every side ; but Solomon
endeavored to compensate the loss by fortifying certain cities
and establishing a powerful standing army, with twelve thou-
sand cavalry and fourteen hundred war chariots. 3 He further
increased his prestige by his marriage with an Egyptian
princess, who brought him the Canaanite city Gezer as a
dowry. In the same way he aimed at securing favorable
relations with other surrounding peoples also,, by contracting
alliances with the daughters of their kings. 4 On the whole
he was successful, and his reign was a peaceful one.
Commerce, too, which he encouraged very zealously, flour-
ished greatly under his rule. There was a bu^y trade between
Palestine and Egypt, the latter country furnishing more
especially the horses of which Solomon required such great
numbers for his cavalry and war chariots. The Egyptian
merchants brought them to Tekoa, 5 where Solomon's agents
bought them up, and the king either made use of them him-
i See vol. i. pp. 541 f. 2 1 Kinga xi. 14-25. " i Kings x. 26.
4 1 King9 iii. 1, ix. 1G, xi. 1. 6 After an amended version of 1 Kings x. 28
SOLOMON. 71
self or aold them at a profit to the independent princes of
the Hittites, and the Syrians. There was a great trade with
Arabia, too, especially in spices. 1 Maritime commerce, too,
was greatly developed, which is a striking proof of enterprise.
Solomon even built ships at Eziongeber, on the southern
spur of Seir, manned them partially with Phoenicians, and
sent them to trade with Ophir, probably Hindustan, whence
they brought valuable wood, precious stones, gold, silver, and
ivory, as well as monkej's and peacocks. Such an expedition
took three years in those times, and the ships employed in
the trade were called ships of Tarshish (Tartessus) ; i.e.,
ships of the largest build, such as were usually employed to
sail to Tartessus in Spain. 2 The treasure that flowed from
this commerce into Jerusalem, especially into the royal coffers,
was enormous. Every year, says the tradition, six hundred
and sixt3'-six talents of gold [a talent is about two hundred
and thirty-three pounds troy weight] came into the king's treas-
ury ; silver was thought no more of in Jerusalem than stones,
and the costly cedar trunks were valued no more than the
commonest timber. 8 Such was the wealth of the capital !
The purpose which David had never been able to accom-
plish, though he had collected all the treasure he could for it,
was now carried out by his son. In the fourth j'ear of his
reign, Solomon began to build a magnificent temple for Yah-
weh on the north-eastern summit of Zion. In seven and a
half years the work was completed, and thereupon the king
laid the foundations of a royal palace, which it took thirteen
years to build. 4 This palace was probably situated on the
eastern edge of the western summit of Zion, right opposite
the temple, with which it was connected by a bridge. 6 Near
the palace was another building that deserves special men-
tion. It was reared entirety upon pillars and rafters of cedar-
wood, and was therefore called " the house of Lebanon." It
served as an audience hall. There was also a separate resi-
dence for the Egyptian princess, who was the most distin-
guished of the monarch's many wives." Besides the temple
for Yahweh, Solomon raised sanctuaries to Ashtoreth, Milcom,
and Chemosh, the gods of the Sidonians, the Ammonites,
and the Moabites respectively. 7 Besides all this he expended
fabulous sums in works of art. First of all there were two
l 1 Kings x. 15. 2 1 Kings ix. 26-28, x. 22.
s 1 Kings x. 14„21, 27. * 1 Kings vi. 1, 37, 38, vii. 1.
6 See Map IV., Jerusalem, No. 7. a 1 Kings vii. 8, ix. 24.
' 1 Kings xi. 7.
72 solomon.
lofty and magnificent brazen pillars standing at the portico
of the temple. They were called Jachin and Boaz. The
capitals were beautifully carved, and all was the work of a
smith, called Hiram, whose father was a Tyrian, but his
mother an Israelite of the tribe of Naphtali. Then there
was the so-called " brazen sea," which was also made for the
temple. It was a great washing vat of eight hundred and
eighty gallons' capacity, supported by twelve oxen and adorned
by ornamental work, all of brass. Then there were ten bra-
zen pedestals, ornamented with bas reliefs, upon which lavers
of about a hundred and seventy gallons' capacity rested, be-
sides many other utensils for sacrifice and purification. How
much brass all this required is not known, for it was never
weighed. There were also many golden utensils, such as the
lamp stand, the censers, the table for the shew-bread, and
more besides. 1 For all these purposes the treasures collected
by David were of the utmost service to his son.
Solomon's palace was still more magnificently furnished
than the temple. Thus in "the house of Lebanon" two
hundred shields were suspended, each gilt with six hundred
shekels (nearly twenty-three pounds troy weight) of gold,
and three hundred smaller ones, upon each of which half that
quantity of gold was laid. All these were for Solomon's
body-guard. 2 There was also a great ivory throne, inlaid
with fine gold. The seat was approached by six steps, on
each of which were two carved lions. Of course, the uten-
sils of the royal table were all of pure gold. What value had
silver at the court of Solomon ! 8
The luxury of the life at court defies all description. The
number of Solomon's wives wag great, though, no doubt, the
book of Kings exaggerates it enormously in saj-ing that he
had seven hundred princesses and three hundred inferior wives
in his harem. 4 Elsewhere the number is incidentally given 6
as sixty of the first rank and eighty of the second, which is
much more likely. But even so, think of the bustle of a court
in which sixty princesses with their chamber-women and
attendants were established, even though thejr had not all
separate residences as the Eg3'ptian princess had ! Our im-
agination is assisted by the statement that every day thirty
oxen, ten of them specially fattened, and a hundred sheep,
were slaughtered for the royal table, in addition to game,
poultry, and confectionery. 6
1 1 Kings vii. 13-51. 2 1 Kings x. 16, 17. s i Kings x. 18-21.
4 1 Kings xi. 3. « Song of Solomon vi. 8. '1 Kings iv. 22, 23.
SOLOMON. 73
The fame of Solomon's wealth, and especially of the splen-
dor of Yahweh's temple, spread far and wide, and people
came from distant lands to see with their own eyes. Even
the Queen of Sheba, in Arabia Felix, undertook the difficult
journey to Palestine to pay Solomon a visit, and to test his
penetration by riddles. She reached Jerusalem with a nu-
merous escort of armed attendants and a drove of camels
laden with spices, gold, and precious stones ; and there she
propounded to the king her cunningly-devised enigmas, but
he solved them all. Then he conducted her through his pal-
ace, and she saw the treasure rooms, the apartments of the
officers of the court and their subordinates, the wardrobes,
and the wine-cellars ; after which she was present at a mag-
nificent festival in the temple. 1 When she had seen all this
she was speechless with amazement, and at last cried out,
' ' Truly, J. heard such wondrous' things about you in my own
land that I could hardly give them credence ; but now that I
have seen with my own eyes, I declare they did not tell me
one-half of the truth. You are so much wiser and richer
than I had heard ! Happy are your courtiers ! Happy are
they who can always stand in your presence and listen to your
words ! May Yahweh, your god, who takes such pleasure in
you that he has put 3 OU/ upon the throne of Israel and has
made you king to maintain the right, be praised for ever ! "
After this she made the king a present of a great weight of
gold (the tradition says a hundred and twent} r talents, or
about twenty-eight thousand founds troy weight ! ! ) , an im-
measurable quantity of balsam, and a number of precious
stones. Then she returned home. 2
So incomparably glorious was the splendor of Solomon !
In the account of the Arabian Queen's visit to Solomon
stress is laid not only on the king's wealth, but also on his
wisdom, the fame of which had extended far and wide ; and,
indeed, the wisdom of Solomon became proverbial in Is-
rael. We must try to form a correct idea of what we are
to understand by this expression. Let us begin by inquir-
ing what the writer of the book of Kings has to say upon
the subject.
Solomon, he says, 8 loved Yahweh and obeyed him as his
father David had done, only he sacrificed upon the bamahs.
At the beginning of his reign, for instance, he went to the
1 After an amended version of 1 Kings x. 5. 2 1 Kings x. 1-13.
8 1 Kings Hi. 2-15.
vol. 11. 4
74 SOLOMON.
celebrated bamah at Gibeon and offered a thousand head of
cattle there as a burnt sacrifice to Yahweh. The god, on hia
side, showed him extraordinary favor, for he appeared to him
the night after the sacrifice and asked, "What gift should
you most desire to receive from me ? " To this the youthful
king replied : " O Lord, thou hast rewarded my father for his
justice and faithfulness to thee, and hast shown him favor
and hast given him a son to sit upon his throne. And so by
thy, grace I have been made king over this people. But now,
O Yahweh, though I stand at the head of this countless peo-
ple which thou hast chosen, I am young and ignorant. Oh !
give me the insight I shall need to pronounce judgment for
my subjects in justice and truth : for it is a task almost too
hard for man." This request earned the emphatic approval
of Yahweh, as Solomon perceived from the divine response :
" Since you have asked for this, rather than for long life, or
wealth, or fame in war, I will give you what you desire ; I
will give you a wise and understanding heart such as no one
ever had before you or' will ever have after you. And I will
also give you what you have not asked, namely wealth and
renown ; and you shall be greater than any king that ever
was or shall be. And if you are but true to me as j T our father
David was, I will also give you a long life." Upon this Sol-
omon awoke and found that it had all happened in a dream.
Soon afterwards he returned to Jerusalem, where he sacrificed
again by the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, and prepared a
great feast for his servants. *
In this story we trace the religious ideas of a much later
age. For instance, Solomon is reproached for sacrificing on
a bamah, which seems very extraordinary under the circum-
stances ; for if he had been guilty in this act of a conscious
and wilful piece of disobedience to Yahweh, is it not more
than strange that the god said nothing about it in the vision,
but treated Solomon as a prince who was beginning his reign
in the most praiseworthy spirit possible ? The writer of the
Chronicles saw the difficulty, and attempted to vindicate the
legality of the sacrifice at Gibeon 1 by saying that the "tent
of conference " used by Moses, and the brazen altar of burnt
offerings employed in the desert were standing there, and that
the ark only was at Jerusalem. But the truth is, as we have
frequently observed already, that in Solomon's time no one
dreamed of a religious law confining sacrifices to a single
place, nor did any one for a moment disapprove of altars
2 Chronicles i. 3 ff.
SOLOMON. 75
being built and sacrifice offered in manj' different places. In
several later chapters of the book of Kings we find the same
reproach urged against pious princes : ' ' Only the people were
allowed to sacrifice on bamahs." This is because the writer,
who lived about the time of the Babylonian captivity, could
not conceive of piety expressing itself under any forms but
those of his own day ; and since he supposed the book of
Deuteronomy, which was the only law-book of any consider-
able extent with which he was acquainted, to be the work of
Moses, he naturally thought that the princes of former times
ought to have observed its precepts.
According to our writer, then, Solomon's wisdom was of
a distinctly religious type, and was closely connected with
the worship of Yahweh and obedience to his commandments.
But as a fact we must entirely banish all religious associations
from our minds if we would understand what was meant in
Solomon's time by the word which is usually translated ' ' wis-
dom." The history of Solomon's wisdom resembles that of
David's music. In either case the imagination of posterity
has given a thoroughly religious character to what was in
reality purely secular ; and just as David was made the author
of a number of psalms, so various works of the so-called
" sages," or proverb-makers, were ascribed to Solomon. This
is the case more especially with the book of Proverbs ; and
since this work is pervaded, especially in its early chapters,
by a deeply religions spirit, it was naturally supposed that
Solomon likewise believed ' ' the fear of Yahweh to be the
beginning of wisdom." 1
We ourselves are not in the habit of including any religious
ideas under the term " wisdom," though we involuntarily
think of it as something noble. We call a man " wise" who
governs his life by fixed principles, which lead him to some
worthy goal, and thus the word, indirectly at least, excludes
immorality. But the Israelites of Solomon's time included
every kind of penetration or even cunning under the word
which we translate "wisdom." For instance, Amnon's un-
principled friend Jonadab is described as a very " wise " man,
because he contrived a successful plot for drawing Tamar
out of the women's palace ; 2 and the same word is applied to
the woman of Tekoa, who so cleverly and eloquently induced
David to comply with Joab's wishes. 3 So too, the woman
of Abel-beth-Maachah, who devised the means of delivering
the place of her abode from Joab, is most emphatically called
i Proverbs i. 7 ff. 2 2 Samuel xiii. 3. s 2 Samuel xiv. 2.
76 SOLOMON.
" wise," though her plan was the very simple one of killing the
rebel who had taken refuge there, and for whose sake Joab
had threatened the cit}' ! 1 So also when the dying David
pointed out to his son the necessity of punishing Joab and
Shimei, he told him to act according to his wisdom. 2 Surely
the wisdom which dictated their destruction was of no very
exalted type ! We are tempted to ask how such absolutely
commonplace indications of foresight could possibly earn the
title of wisdom ; but we must remember that in those days
the standard of intellectual development was veiy low, and the
proverb says truly that " a one-eyed man is a king amongst
the blind." The Israelites of the eleventh and tenth centuries
before Christ were only just emerging from a state of barba-
rism and ignorance, and were in almost all respects on a low
level of cultivation. Thus a man with what we should con-
sider a very commonplace understanding passed, in those
days, for a marvel of knowledge and acuteness.
This goes far to explain the influence which the priests
exerted through their oracles. Doubtless it would be of im-
mense importance to a warrior, for instance, to gain the sanc-
tion of the oracle even for the most obvious measures, since
a response from the deity would inspire his men with far more
courage than they would derive from the simple orders of
their general. This may have been David's motive in con-
sulting the oracle as to many points on which, as a bold and
experienced warrior, he must have been perfectly competent
to form an opinion for himself. ' ' Will Saul come to Keilah, to
take me captive?" he asks, when he hears of Saul's intention. 3
" Will the people betray me to him ? " 4 " Must I pursue the
band of marauders who have burnt down Ziklag?" 5 " Had
I better go to one of the cities of Judah?" " Which city is
best?" Nay, on one occasion the oracle has even to tell
him that he would do well to attack the Philistines in the
rear.' Surely such a warrior as David might have made that
discovery himself ! Nevertheless the oracle would not have
been so powerful had it not met a genuine want by often
guiding those who were really at a loss how to act ; and the
frequency with which even clever men consulted it shows that
people often distrusted their own faculties in dealing with very
simple problems. The rarity of moderately acute intellects
accounts for the immense value attached to the advice of such
l 2 Samuel xx. 16. 2 i Kings ii. 6, 9. « 1 Samuel xxiv. 11.
* 1 Samuel xxiv. 12. 6 i Samuel xxx. 8. 62 Samuel ii. 1.
' 2 Samuel v. 23, 24.
SOLOMON. 77
men as Ahithophel ani Hushai, who had rather more pene-
tration than others, and explains David's alarm when he
heard that the former had embraced the cause of -his son ; for
" his advice was like a word of God." 1 It does not follow,
then, that Solomon's wisdom was such as would have earned
him any very great reputation in the present day.
Let us see what is recorded of it.
The book of Kings gives us the following specimen of his
wisdom in pronouncing judgment 2 : —
Once two women came before the king, one of whom
brought a heavy charge against the other. "We live," she
said, " in one house ; and a short time ago I had a baby boy,
and a day or, two afterwards she had one too ; but she overlay
her child last night and killed it. When she saw what she
had done she got up, and, while I was asleep, she took away
my child that was lying in bed with me and put her own dead
child into my arms. So in the morning, when I was going to
feed my child, I found that it was dead ; but when it was
light and I looked at the child more closely, I saw that it was
not mine at all, and that she had cha'nged the children. But
there was no one else in the house to prove the truth of what
I say." The other woman utterly denied the charge, and
persisted that the lining child was hers. Who was to decide?
The assertion of the one and the denial of the other were
equally emphatic. But Solomon was not at a loss. He or-
dered one of his body-guard to draw his sword, and exclaimed
angrily, as though he were irritated by having such an insolu-
ble question submitted to him : ' ' Cut the living child in two,
and give each mother half ! " Then the truth was discovered,
for the true mother was full of pity for the child, and as soon
as she heard the cruel words she cried in terror, ' ' No ! no !
my lord, do not kill him ! give him to her rather than that ! "
But the other woman, who had persisted that the living child
was hers more out of obstinacy and spite than affection, de-
clared herself quite satisfied with the judgment. Thus she
betrayed herself; and when Solomon said, "The first is the
real mother, give her the child ! " every one saw that hia judg-
ment was true. The fame of this decision spread through all
the land, and inspired every one with the deepest reverence
for such a king. Who could dare to face him with a he ?
Wisdom of God was in him, and that was why he could judge
so marvellously. " An oracle is upon his lips. In his judg-
ments he will not err." 3
J 2 Samuel xv. 31, xvi. 23. 2 1 Kings iii. 16-28. B Proverbs xvi. 10.
78 SOLOMON.
Solomon's wisdom was displayed not only in discovering
the truth and pronouncing just sentences, but also in making
proverbs. He had, as the book of Kings expresses it, 1
' ' knowledge as the sand on the sea shore," so that he excelled
the sons of the East and the Egyptians in understanding, and
no man could be compared to him for wisdom, no not even
Ethan the Ezrahite, nor Heman, nor Chalcol, nor Darda. So
his fame was spread amongst all surrounding peoples ; and he
composed three thousand proverbs and a thousand and five
poems about all the trees from the cedar down to the wild
marjoram that grows on the wall, and about all animals,
whether four-footed, or winged, or creeping things, or fishes.
Thus he became so famous that people came from, every coun-
try to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and all the kings who
heard of it sent embassies to him.
Who the four men were who are mentioned with the
Ishmaelites and Egyptians, as types of wisdom, we do not
know. The book of Chronicles makes Heman and Ethan,
together with Asaph, David's chief choir-masters, 2 and even
gives their genealogies. 3 But these data deserve as little
confidence as the superscriptions of the eighty-eighth and
eighty-ninth psalms, which ascribe them respectively to He-
man and Ethan.
It is of far more consequence that we should form a correct
idea of the nature of Solomon's proverbs and songs. We
must be careful not to be misled by the expression, '' he spoke
of all plants and animals," or to suppose that he conducted
any scientific investigations, or busied himself with botany
and zoology. Such studies were very far above the reach of
himself and his contemporaries. That he made proverbs and
songs on all the trees and animals means that he made com-
parisons borrowed from these objects. Unfortunately there
is not one of all the proverbs that bear his name which we can
say with certainty is his. Our book of Proverbs consists of
several collections which their contents show to belong to very
different periods. But the oldest of these collections 4 was
not made before the eighth century b.c. ; and it is perfectly
clear that most of the proverbs it contains are not Solomon's.
In the first place, many of them speak of the king, of his
glory, and of the conduct which his servants ought to pursue
if they wish to obtain his favor, in a manner which would
come very oddly from the mouth of the king himself. 6 Nor
i 1 Kings iv. 29-34. 2 1 Chronicles xv. 17.
» 1 Chronicles vi. 33 ff., 44 ff. « Proverbs x. 1-xxii. 16.
* Proverbs xvi. 10, 14, }5, xx. g, 8, xxi. 1, xxii. 11, xxv. 3, 5-7, xxix. *, 14.
SOLOMON. 79
can we easily imagine King Solomon, with his hundred wives
or more, uttering; such words as these : " Who finds a wife,
finds a blessing, and obtains a proof of Yahweh's favor ; " *
or, "It is better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome
and angry woman." 2 These and other such saj'ings 8 surely
imply the experience of simple citizens who, as a rule, had
only one wife each, rather than that of a king — especially
such a king as Solomon. Nor does it seem appropriate for
him to utter complaints of the disobedience of children,
praise of sons who comply with their parents' wishes, proverbs
borrowed from the cultivation of land and cattle-breeding,
exhortations to integrity in business, warnings against trust-
ing in wealth, and, above all, against licentiousness. Fancy
Solomon saying : ' ' Better is privation with the fear of Yah-
weh, than abundance with a troubled mind." 4 Think of
Solomon declaring : " Horsemen are prepared for the day of
battle, but the victory comes from Yahweh." 6 This saying
is exactly appropriate to the mouth of a religious man of the
eighth century or later, for then the sharp contrast between
the vanity of warlike preparations and the might of Yahweh's
help was deeply imprinted on many a heart ; 6 but the sentiment
would come strangely from a king who had made enormous
preparations for war, and amongst other things had yoked
and equipped hundreds of war chariots. We have already
said that David would be more than a psychological riddle,
that he would be a simple monster, had he united the actions
ascribed to him by history with religious views to which only
the best of the Israelites centuries afterwards attained. And
the same holds good of his son. The Proverbs recognize
Yahweh as omniscient,' aS the knower of hearts, 8 who loves
goodness more than sacrifice, 9 as the ruler of the world, 10 and
much more in the same vein. Can we believe that such a
confession of faith lay in the heart of Solomon as he built his
temples to all those other gods ! Surely such conceptions
were foreign to the whole age, and Yahweh was as yet no
more than the god of Israel.
It would probably be impossible to form too simple an idea
of the proverbs of Solomom and his contemporaries. They
ran, for instance, as follows : " From the godless man comes
wickedness." u " If a man meets his enemy, will he let him
i Proverbs xviii. 22. 2 Proverbs xxi. 19.
» Proverbs xiv. 1, xix. 13, 14, xxi. 9. 4 Proverbs xv. 16.
6 Proverbs xxi. 31. • See vol. i. pp. 292- 294.
7 Proverbs xv. 3. 8 Proverbs xv. 11, xv*. 2
» Proverbs xxi. 3. 10 Proverbs xvi. 4. ll 1 Samuel xxiv. 13.
80 SOLOMON.
go unhurt?" 1 " Such as the man is, such is his strength." 8
" A warrior at bay is like a bear robbed of her cubs. " 8 "A
fugitive is like a partridge on the mountains." 4 " Woman's
beauty without sense is a golden ring in a sow's snout." 6 "A
merry heart is a perpetual feast." 6 "The sluggard is the
spendthrift's brother." 7 "A poor man entreats, but a rich
man speaks roughly." 8 "He who seeks impossibilities is
like an eagle flying to the heavens." 9 "The sot and the
glutton grow poor, and sluggishness is clothed in rags." 10
" When you meet with honey, eat not too much, or you will
loath it and be sick of it." u "A mouthful of beautiful teeth
is like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing." 12
' ' Rosy cheeks between locks of hair are like the halves of a
pomegranate." 13
Not only did the " wits" utter such sayings as these, but
they often asked each other riddles, and vied with each other
in skill in answering them. Such was the object of the Queen
of Sheba's visit to Solomon ; and according to Josephus,
Hiram of Tyre engaged in a contest of this kind with Solo-
mon, which cost the loser dear, for whoever failed to guess
the other's thought had to pay a heavy fine.
Our book of Proverbs contains many sayings which were
perhaps originally uttered in the form of riddles. For exam-
ple : " What is as sweet as honey? — Pleasant discourse,
for it is sweet to the soul and a medicine to the bones." M
"What is worse than meeting a bear? — Meeting a fool in a
fit of folly." 15 " What is Uke seizing a dog by his ears? —
Meddling with a quarrel not your own." 16 " What is like a
dog turning back to its own vomit ? — A fool who keeps doing
the same piece of folly."" "What is heavier than a stone
and more burdensome than sand? — A fool's anger." 18 "What
is sweet at first and then like sand in the mouth ? — Stolen
food." 19 " What is worth more thangold? — A goodname." 20
Sometimes two answers were given to the same question ;
for instance, "What is like snow in summer? — A faithful
messenger, for he refreshes the soul of him who sends him;" 21
or, " A token of respect paid to a fool." 22 These " riddles,"
1 1 Samuel xxiv. 20. 2 Judges viii. "21. s 2 Samuel xvii. 8.
4 1 Samuel xxvi. 19. 6 Proverbs xi. 22. 6 Proverbs xv. 15.
1 Proverbs xviii. 9. 8 Proverbs xviii. 23.
o After an amended version of Proverbs xxiii. 5. 10 Proverbs xxiii. 21.
il Proverbs xxv. 16. 12 Song of Solomon vi 6.
13 Song of Solomon vi. 7. u Proverbs xvi. 24. 16 Proverbs xvii. 12.
w Proverbs xxvi. 17. i' Proverbs xxvi. 11. 18 Proverbs xxvii. 3.
19 Proverbs xx. 17. 20 r r ovcrbs xxii. 1. 21 Proverbs xxv. 13.
32 Proverbs xxvi. 1.
SOLOMON. 81
as we may call them for want of a better name, have con-
siderable analogy to several familiar games of the present
day, and we shall not be far wrong in thinking of Solomon
with his courtiers and guests as employing themselves in some
such sports amid a cross-fire of question and answer, repar-
tee, and witticism. What a splendid opportunity there was
for flattering the prince when some one asked, " "What is the
roaring of the lion like ? " and how adroitly it was seized by
the man who answered, " The anger of a king! for whoever
opposes it sins against himself." * But we may be sure the
following proverb was not made at court: "A roaring Hon
and a bear greedy for prey is the wicked ruler of a poor
people." 2
To appreciate this play of wit as it deserves, we must bear
in mind what has just been said of the rudeness of the age ;
but would it not be like new life to many a one in our own
day had he wit enough to play such a game ?. To excel in
it would require keener observation,- greater readiness, and
higher powers of concise expression than most of us possess.
In those days it certainly marked a great advance, when the
example of the court made such amusements popular in dif-
ferent ranks of society, and enabled them now and then to
supersede in part the warlike exercises and rude sports which
had hitherto reigned supreme. This fashion stimulated ob-
servation of nature and still more of man ; and though not
exactly study, it was not very remote from it, and might
easily lead up to it ; for while the less cultivated were ex-
changing simple, almost childish questions and answers, the
more advanced would ask such riddles as the one ascribed
to Samson : "When does sweet food come from the strong
devourer ? " 3
It is obvious that Solomon's wisdom had no distinctively
religious character. Though not in itself irreligious or hostile
to the worship of Yahweh, it had no connection with that wor-
ship except in its reverence for the simplest laws of morality.
It was broadly human ; and an Edomite or Philistine could
have practised it just as well as an Israelite ; a worshipper
of Chemosh or Astarte might have engaged with a servant
of Yahweh in such a contest without the difference of their
religion ever disturbing them. Indeed "wisdom" was re-
garded with disfavor on this very ground by the prophets and
the zealots of Yahweh. It was far too worldly for their taste.
But it was equally natural that the masses should esteem it
1 Proverbs xx. 2. a Proverbs xxviii. 15. 8 See vol. i. pp. 417 f.
4*
82 SOLOMON.
highly. It lay within their reach, and was entirely compre-
hensible to them. And the consequence is that from Solo-
mon's time onward we find the " sages" formally recognized
in Israelite history. They were men who made proverbs, gave
advice, uttered warnings and lessons of practical wisdom.
Sitting in the gate, which was the great place of intercourse ■
amongst the inhabitants of the town or village, they gave
their precepts to the bystanders, repeated what they had
heard from previous sages, and invented wise sayings or
pointed apothegms. Their words were respectfully received,
were retold and passed from mouth to mouth, and were not
without influence upon the life of the people. Generally the
sages were advanced in years, but of course it was possible
for younger men to distinguish themselves in this capacity.
All that was wanted was common-sense, a good memory, a
little penetration, and a fair command of language. These
qualitications could raise a man into a leading position amongst
the people, for during the centuries immediately following the
time of Solomon the counsel of the wise men was as highly
valued as the oracle of the prophets or the commandment of
the priests. 1 Now these "wise men" regarded Solomon as
their great prototype, and this is why some of their writings,
such as Ecclesiastes, are put forward under his name, and
why the Proverbs are described as "Proverbs of Solomon."
From the time of this monarch dates the public recognition
of common-sense, reflection, and penetration as a power in
Tsrael.
Some three centuries later a man of an upright and re-
ligious spirit who desired, under the form of a law, to exhort
the princes of Judah to perform their duties, drew a picture
of a king as he ought not to be. 2 He evidently borrowed the
picture from the history of Solomon ; for after saying that if
the people should desire a king, they must in any case select
an Israelite by birth and not a stranger, he goes on to warn
the prince against extensive horse-breeding, a great number
of wives, and large stores of gold and silver, while command-
ing him to study the Law diligently that he may not become
overweening and sin through pride, but may reign long and
pass down the crown to his posterity.
At the very time at which these rules for the king's guid-
ance were drawn up, the picture of Solomon was sketched as
vie have it in the book of Kings ; and if not from the hand
1 Jeremiah xviii. 18 j Ezekiel vii. 26. 2 Deuteronomy xvii. 14-20.
SOLOMON. 83
of the same author as the Law, it is at any rate due to a man
of similar convictions. Yet in it Solomon is spoken of on
the whole with honor. His prayer for wisdom was heard ;
wealth and distinction were given him as well ; his rule was
brilliant : " Judah and Israel dwelt in safety, every man un-
der his own vine and his own fig-tree, from Dan to Beersheba,
as long as he lived." l " Judah and Israel were countless as
the sand by the sea shore, and they ate and drank and were
happy." 2 It could not be denied, indeed, that Solomon had
served strange gods, but this was ascribed to his love for his
foreign wives, who persuaded him in his old age not only to
build temples for Chemosh, Milcom, and Ashtoreth, but even
to make sacrifices himself to these and many other deities. 8
But this representation of things is evidently quite mislead-
ing. The writer himself betrays the fact that he arranges his
materials in the order that seems to him best to account for
the king's conduct ; for after mentioning his idolatry, he goes
on to say that Yahweh was angry with him for it, and pun-
ished him by stirring up Hadad the Edomite and Rezon the
Syrian to make war upon him. 4 But, as a matter of fact,
these two men raised the standard of revolt immediately after
Solomon had ascended the throne, 5 and so cannot possibly
have been sent by Yahweh to punish one of the last deeds of
his reign . It is easy to see what gave rise to the historian's
representations. A religious man of the seventh century B.C.
could not believe that the king, who had shown such zeal in
the worship of Yahweh as to build the temple at Jerusalem,
could have been an idolater at the same time ; for to his mind
the two things were absolutely incompatible.
But in Solomon's time there was nothing so monstrous in
the combination ; and, in fact, a prince who governed upon
his principles could scarcely help worshipping strange gods.
The interests of commerce required it ; for if the Israelites
wished to have regular intercourse with their neighbors, they
must allow them to come and settle in their cities, though per-
haps, after the usage of antiquity, only in special quarters.
Now, in this case the foreign residents in the cities of Israel
must of course be allowed to worship their own gods. Again,
whenever treaties were made with any of the surrounding
peoples they must be confirmed by sacrifices offered not only
to Yahweh, but also to the god of the tribe with whom the
treaty was made. The commandment, " Thou shalt worship
i 1 Kings iv. 25. 2 1 Kings iv. 20. » 1 Kings xi. 1-8.
* 1 Kings xi. 9-25. 6 See p. 70.
84 SOLOMON.
no other gods but Yahweh," practically forbade any (sustained
intercourse with foreigners, for it was an insult to a nation to
refuse to worship its god- And why should Solomon have
any scruples in the matter? Suppose the commandment to
worship no other gods to have been in existence already,
which is exceedingly doubtful, 1 there can have been but very
few who understood and observed it, for to do so implies an
exalted conception of Yahweh's nature, which was certainly
foreign to the Israelites of this period in general. As yet
Yahweh was simply their national deity, who could only be
worshipped in Canaan, or perhaps in a sort of way wherevei
a number of Israelites were settled. Why then should Israel-
ite merchants hesitate to worship the gods of the countries in
which they happened to be ? Why should not the king oblige
his friendly neighbors, such as the Phoenicians, or his own
subjects, such as the Moabites and Ammonites, by building
temples for their deities ? Such things were common enough
in ancient tunes ; and though Solomon only appears to have
gone so far as this in favor of three deities, yet we may safely
assume that he sent rich presents to the foreign temples not
only of these, but of many other gods. He could hardly
have retained a good understanding with their worshippers
otherwise. Now, all this was, perhaps, condemned by the
zealots of Yahweh ; but the mass of the people approved of
it, and Solomon himself, who encouraged commerce, industry,
art, " wisdom," and in short everything that was not dis-
tinctively Israelitish, would certainly see no harm in it.
What raised Solomon so high in the eyes of posterity was
his building the temple. The historian accordingly is very
full in his account of it. 2 He tells us that Solomon made a
treaty with Hiram of Tyre, by which the latter undertook to
help him in building his temple and his palace. For this
purpose he supplied him with cedar and cypress wood, for
which Solomon paid him in wheat and oil for use at his
court. But Solomon required the services of his own sub-
jects also. He summoned thirty thousand men to hew timber
with the Phoenicians on Mount Lebanon, and thej- relieved
each other in three shifts, one of which was always at work.
The timber was then taken by sea to some port, according
to the Chronicles Joppa, 3 whence it was carried by land to
Jerusalem. The transport of this timber employed seventy
thousand men, and eighty thousand were busied in cutting
1 See vol. i. p. 315. 2 1 Kings v., vi., vii. 13-ix. 14. » 2 Chronicles ii. 16.
SOLOMON. 85
the stoues. Hundreds of overseers superintended the work,
and Adonfram directed the whole.
On the summit of Moriah, once the threshing-floor of
Araunah, the temple was built with square stones. They
were cut and trimmed before they were brought to the spot,
so that no chisels were required there. Inside, the walls
were lined with a , wainscoting of cedar wood, and gold
was laid ou witL a prodigal hand. The sanctuary was sur-
rounded by a number of chambers, arranged in" three stories,
which served as magazines, bakehouses, workshops, and
houses for the priests. The temple itself — which was sixty
cubits in length, twenty in breadth, and thu±y in height —
consisted of two chambers, the Holy and the H0I3 7 of Holies,
the former measuring forty cubits in length and the latter
twenty. It appears that the ceiling of the Holy of Holies
stood twenty cubits from the floor, and that this chamber
was therefore an exact cube. In it were stationed two great
gilt cherubs, sj'mbolical forms, whose outspread wings touched
either wall, and met in the middle of the chamber, covering
the place where the ark rested. The ark contained nothing
but the two stone tablets upon which the law of the Ten
Commandments was engraved. Its bearing poles ran
parallel with the end walls of the chamber, and were so
long that when the folding doors, which separated the two
chambers, were thrown wide open, the knobs at the end of
the poles could just be seen by those standing inside the
Holy, but not by any one standing still further back. The
folding doors were adorned with golden pomegranates, lilies,
flower-buds, and cherubs ; and so were the pillars that stood
at the portico of the temple, which was about ten cubits deep
and thirty high, as well as the lavers and other magnificent
apparatus already described. 1
When all was read} 7 the ark was conducted amid great
rejoicings to the new sanctuary, and twenty-two thousand
oxen, with a hundred and twentj' thousand sheep, were sacri-
ficed on the occasion. As soon as the ark was set down in
its place Yahweh signified his approval, for "the cloud" —
doubtless the pillar of cloud which had guided Israel through
the desert is meant — -filled the house, so that the priests
could not remain in it. Then Solomon, after giving expres-
sion to his joy at the completion of the work, uttered a long
praj'er, in which he entreated Yahweh to hear all supplica-
tions offered to him in that temple, and, finally, pronounced
l See p. 72.
86 SOLOMON.
a blessing upon the people. The feast that now succeeded
lasted for seven days.
When Solomon had completed his work, Yahweh appeared
to him again and promised to confirm his throne, but at the
same time threatened the Israelites with destruction should
they worship other- gods than Yahweh.
When the temple and the royal palace were completed,
Solomon was so deeply in Hiram's debt that he could only
meet his claims by ceding a piece of land to him on which
were twenty towns. The Tynan king, however, was not
satisfied even then, and called the district Cabul, or, "as
good as nothing."
This impossible derivation, which closes the narrative,
and the statement that the cloud of Yahweh filled the
temple, are in themselves significant indications that the
account of the building of the temple has been embellished
by a later age ; and the prayer and blessing of Solomon con-
vince us that the writer lived in the time of the captivity. It
is also quite in the spirit of this later period to lay such stress
upon the fact that Levitical priests ' officiated on the occasion.
The writer of Chronicles adorns the tale yet further ; dis-
tinguishes between the priests and the Levites, as the Law
required in his day, makes separate mention of the choirs of
musicians and singers, and even says that fire came down
from heaven to consume the sacrifice of consecration.
The description of Solomon's temple gives us no clear
conception of its details, nor is it at all certain that it is
correct even as far as it goes. For in the course of centuries
the temple was more than once restored, and doubtless fre-
quently repaired and beautified ; and it even appears that
some of its principal features were from time to time modi-
fied, in order to suit the changing ideas of the Israelites. It
is therefore difficult to believe that a writer, who lived
three centuries afterwards, could have had any accurate
knowledge of its original form and arrangements. In some
respects it is almost certain he was mistaken. For instance,
he speaks of a brazen altar 2 that stood before the temple ;
but a law, which was issued after Solomon's time, still forbids
the use of any altars not made of earth or of unhewn stones, 8
and the introduction of brazen altars appears to have taken
place at a later date. Mention is also made of an inner and
in outer forecourt, 4 but it is very questionable whether this
1 In 1 Kings viii. 4, the priests and the Levites should be the Levitical priests
2 1 Kings viii. 64 ; 2 Chronicles iv. 1. * Exodus xx. 25.
i 1 Kings vii. 12, viii. 64.
SOLOMON. 87
distinction was really observed in Solomon's temple, for its
purpose was to separate the priests from the laity ; and at a
time when the king himself could perform the functions of a
priest and pronounce the blessing, this sharp distinction can
hardly have existed, and a layman was doubtless allowed to
approach the sanctuary as close as though he were a priest.
The historian extols Solomon greatly for building the
temple. No wonder, for when he wrote, it was the only
lawful sanctuary of Yahweh. But we have already seen,
when speaking of David's intention to build a temple, 1 that
Solomon's contemporaries were not as much pleased with the
work as their descendants were. We have also spoken of the
considerations that qualified their approval, and it must be
confessed that the temple at Jerusalem was a greater boon to
the monarchy than to religion. It was a great stroke of policy
on the part of David to take the ark to Zion, and Hiram
was quite right in saying that it was ' ' wise " of Solomon 2
to build a magnificent temple to Yahweh in his capital ; for
by this means the reverence felt towards Yahweh was made
to confer stability upon the throne, and the interests of the
human and divine institutions of Jerusalem were brought
into very close alliance.
Moreover, there was not a little in the arrangements and
the ornamentation of the temple which must have offended
the strict disciples of Moses. Most of the ornamental work
was done by Hiram, who was half an Israelite and half a
Tyrian ; and, no doubt, Phoenician artists supplied the minor
adornments also. Now, these pomegranates and lilies, these
flowers and cherubs were not objects chosen at random, but
had a distinct symbolical significance. What the cherub
meant we do not know. It has been variously conjectured
to represent a thunder cloud, or some particular divine at-
tribute or force of Nature. The first guess is the most prob-
able. Are we to regard these cherubs, whatever it is they
represent, as guardians of the heavenly treasures? It is
impossible to say with certainty ; but we know that similar
winged monsters, such as griffins, harpies, and sphinxes,
appear on or near the monuments of all ancient peoples.
The columns or obelisks, Jachin and Boaz, were probably
representations of the sunbeams. The pomegranate, which
was the symbol of the fructifying power of Nature, the lily,
the palm-tree, and the flower-bud, appear in the temples of
many Asiatic deities, and all pertain to the worship of
i See pp. 11, 12. 2 1 Kings v. 7.
88 CUESB OF CANAAN.
Nature. Thus Solomon's temple had much in common with
heathen edifices, and slight modifications might have made
it a suitable temple for Baal. This need not surprise us, for
the ancient religion of the Israelitish tribes was itself a form
of Nature-worship just as much as ths religions of the
Canaanites, Phoenicians, Philistines, and other surrounding
peoples were. Most of the Israelites certainly saw no harm
in these ornaments, since they were not aware of any very
great difference between the character of Yahweh and that of
Baal, Astarte, or Molech. But the true children of Moses,
men of a spirit akin to Samuel's, were very deeply conscious
of such a difference. Men who took their stand on the Ten
Commandments were shocked bjr many of the ancient usages
and beliefs common to the Israelites and these other tribes,
though perhaps they might themselves have been at a loss
sometimes to explain and justify their feeling of aversion.
Whether clearly or obscurely felt bj r Solomon's contempora-
ries, it is at any rate a fact that his temple tended to destroy
the work of Moses and of Samuel, and to bring the people a
step nearer heathendom.
In fact, this tendency is characteristic of Solomon's reign
of forty years 1 in all its aspects. Following'in the footsteps
of his father, he did all that he possibly could to make Israel
like other peoples, and to obliterate the special characteristics
that marked the tribes amongst which Moses had introduced
the worship of Yahweh.
Chapter VIII.
THE CURSE OF CANAAN.
1 Kings IX. 15-22; Genesis IX. 18-27.
WHEN the Egyptian king's daughter married Solomon,
her father made her a present of the city of Gezer,
with the lands belonging to it. 2 Such presents were not un-
usual amongst the royal families of ancient times, and were
by no means a mere form, for the princess would receive for
her own uses the tribute paid by the inhabitants of the city
given her. Gezer lay in all probability north-west of Jerusa-
1 1 Kings xi. 42. - Compare vol. i. p. 348.
CURSE OF CANAAN. 89
lem, not far from Beth-Horon. 1 It was inhabited by Canaan-
ites. and must have been very strongly situated, since it had
managed to retain its independence up to Solomon's acces-
sion. It has been conjectured that it lay near the sea, that
its inhabitants were pirates, and that the Egyptian king was
therefore desirous of overthrowing it in the interests of his
own country ; but whether this was really so, or whether he
conquered it simply for the sake of his son-in-law, we cannot
say. In any case the present must have been extremely
welcome to Solomon. He at once converted Gezer into a
fortress, which, together with Beth-Horon and Baalath, cov-
ered Judah to the north-west, as Tamar in the desert did to
the south-east.
Gezer seems to have been the last Canaanite cit}- which
retained its independence in the southern portion of Israel's
territory ; for though on one occasion we still read of Hittite
kings 2 in the history of the northern kingdom, Judah does
" not appear ever to have come into contact with them again.
Indeed, Solomon's predecessors had dealt them very heavy
blows in the southern district, Saul having broken the power
of the Gibeonites, and David having conquered the Jebusites.
Now when the Israelites had no longer anything to fear
from the Canaanites they began to oppress them more and
more. Solomon reduced them to absolute slavery, and em-
ployed them in fortifying Jerusalem, in building fortresses to
command his frontiers and cities in which provisions might
be stored in time of war, and also in laying out his pleasure
grounds in various districts of the land. The historian adds
that Solomon enslaved none of the sons of Israel, but only
employed them as soldiers and officers, as ministers and at-
tendants at court, as commanders of war chariots, and cav-
alry. 3 This is certainly untrue, however, for the thousands of
men who were forced to labor on the various works of which
we read in the last chapter, 4 must most of them have been
Israelites. But there was doubtless a wide difference between
the treatment they experienced and that to which the Canaan-
ites had to submit. The latter were never spared and never
set free. They were slaves all their lives. Many of them
were attached to the temple of Yahweh at Jerusalem, where
they had to perform the severest and most menial work, such
as drawing water and hewing wood. 6 Before long there was
a special slaves' quarter established on the Ophel at Jerusa-
1 See Map V. 2 2 Kings vii. 6. 8 1 Kings ix. 22.
* See p. 84. 5 Compare vol. i. pp. 349 S.
90 CURSE OF CANAAN.
lem, not far from the temple ; and in all probability Solomon
presented great gangs of Canaanite slaves to other sanctuaries
also. But we must not suppose that all the descendants of
the Amorites and other ancient inhabitants of the land were
reduced after a time to slavery. On the other hand, many
Canaanite families had intermarried with Israelites, and others
had risen to wealth and distinction in their midst, and so had
several foreigners. Thus, Uriah the Hittite was one of Da-
vid's most trusted followers, 1 and Araunah the Jebusite pos-
sessed a threshing-floor in the neighborhood of Jerusalem.
Long after Solomon's time, certain distinguished families
were still well known to be of Canaanite extraction. 2 But
the fact cast a certain slur upon them, and exposed them to
the contempt of the haughty Israelites. This was doubtless
true even before the time of Solomon, but much more so
afterwards.
The light in which the Israelites of pure blood regarded
the relations between themselves and the Canaanites is strik-
ingly exemplified in the following legend, which certainly did
not rise before the time of Solomon s : —
Noah had three sons, who became the ancestors of all the
peoples of the earth. They were called Shem, Ham, and
Japhet ; and Ham was the father of Canaan. Now Noah
had begun to till the soil, and had planted a vineyard, and
once the wine that it produced made him so drunk that he
lay naked on the ground in his tent. Then Ham, the father
of Canaan, saw him ; but instead of turning away his eyes
from so shocking a sight, he went to his two brothers outside,
and, with a shameless laugh upon his face, told them what a
state their father was in. But Shem and Japhet were far
from joining in his evil mirth. As soon as they heard what
their brother said, they stretched a cloak across their shoul-
ders, and going into the tent backwards, so as not to see their
father as he lay there, they covered him up with it.
When Noah returned to himself he heard what his youngest
son had done, and cried out, —
A curse upon Canaan !
May he serve his brothers as their lowest slave
But he blessed Ham's brothers in the following words : —
Blessed be Yahweh, the god of Shem !
May Canaan be his slave !
May God make Japhet extend!
May he dwell in the tents of Shem,
And may Canaan be his slave !
1 2 Samuel xxiii. 39. 2 See vol. i. p. 341. » Genesis ix. 18 27.
CURSE OF CANAAN. 91
To understand this legend rightly we do not need to know
exactly what nations the Israelites regarded as the sons of
Shem, of Ham, and of Japhet respectively ; still less what
were the rules that guided them in making the division. 1 "We
need only bear in mind that all distant nations were regarded
as "sons of Japhet." In the Hebrew word (japht), which
we have translated make to extend, there is a play upon the
name "Japhet." Under the name of Ham the writer does
not refer to the Hamites in general, but only to the Canaan-
ites ; for he repeatedly describes Ham as Canaan's father, and
it is upon the latter exclusively that the curse of Noah and
the doom of slavery fall. So, too, in speaking of Shem, he
does not include all the Semitic peoples, but only Israel ; and
therefore he does not make Noah say, ' ' Blessed be Shem ! "
but, "Blessed be Yahweh, the god of Shem!" since it was
only Israel that worshipped Yahweh. To understand the
significance of the promise that Japhet should dwell in the
tents of Shem, that is to say amongst the Israelites, we must
remember what a point the ancient peoples made of keeping
themselves separate from each other. It was considered a
glorious privilege "to dwell alone," as a certain poet expressed
it, 2 " and not to be reckoned amongst the nations." Ancient
peoples were so jealous of their land that they could hardly
endure the presence of strangers in it ; and if a prince allowed
foreigners to settle in any of his cities, it was a proof of very
special confidence in them. If any considerable number of
people from one and the same country availed themselves
of such a privilege, they had a _special quarter of the city
assigned to them in which they offered their wares for sale.
So the wish, "May Japhet dwell in the tents of Shem,"
means : "May the dwellers in distant lands gain the privilege
of settling in the cities of Israel ; and in that case may the
Canaanites serve them too ! "
The curse pronounced upon these ancient inhabitants of
Israel's territory is the one essential point of the story. The
author shows manifest good-will towards foreigners in general,
with many of whom Israel entered into very friendly relations
under Solomon's reign, but he holds up the Canaanites as the
one race doomed to slavery.
It follows from the nature of the ease that this curse of
Canaan would be more heartily responded to after the time
of Solomon than before. There is usually bitter hatred be-
tween a conquering and a conquered people, especially as long
1 Compare vol. i. pp. 94 f. z Numbers xxiii. 9.
92 CUKSE OP CANAAN.
as the former are still to some extent afraid of the latter.
It is therefore only natural that the Canaanites should have
cherished a violent hatred of the descendants of the invaders
before whom their ancestors had been compelled to 3'ield,
and that the Israelites should have paid them back in the
same coin. But during the two and a half centuries that
elapsed between the conquest of Canaan and the reign of
Solomon, the new rulers had been compelled to treat the old
inhabitants with some consideration. And though there had
always been a minority who detested the Canaanites and de-
nounced all intermarriages with them, the great majority had
found it advantageous to live at peace with them. 1 But when
Israel's fame spread far and wide, and the splendor of the
court of Jerusalem conferred a lustre upon the whole nation —
when the surrounding tribes bowed beneath the sceptre of
Yahweh's anointed, and even distant peoples sought his friend-
ship — when the name of Israelite had become an honor, and
every one who bore it felt the dignity it conferred upon him —
then the Canaanites could be safely disregarded, then public
opinion would no longer have attributed a famine to any
wrong inflicted upon them, then it was borne in upon the
mind of many an Israelite that the descendants of Canaan
were only fit for slaves !
Of course there is nothing intrinsically noble in this
national pride of the Israelites. On the contrary, it some-
times appears almost ridiculous. But it was inevitable that
when the Israelites became independent and even powerful,
under David and Solomon, they should rise greatly in their
own estimation, for it lies in human nature to estimate worth
hj the outward privileges it secures. We must not therefore
condemn Israel for this self-exaltation. A people that is con-
scious of its own strength gives us more hope for the future
than one that is habitually cowed. No good can come of a
child of servile disposition, that is alwa} r s cringing or grov-
elling ; but a lad who feels his strength, even if he is a little
overbearing, may grow up into a noble man, and ma}- make
us forget how unfeeling he sometimes was, when a boy, towards
his weaker companions. In the same way, a people that has
no sense of its own worth has no future before it.
But in this respect, as in all others, there were great differ-
ences amongst the Israelites. The contemptuous conduct of
many a shallow Israelite towards the Canaanites was simply
the result of his sense of power ; but in some cases nobler in-
1 See vol. i. pp. 397 ff, and vol. ii. p. 16.
CURSE OF CANAAN. 93
fluences were at work. This very legend shows that it was so.
Canaan is cursed and doomed to the lowest slavery in expia-
tion for the sin which Ham committed against his father.
But, to appreciate the writer's indignation, we must remem-
ber that it was not a simple act of filial irreverence that drew
down the punishment. Doubtless even this was an abomina-
tion in the writer's mind, and he would have heartily en-
dorsed the proverb-writer's saying, 1 —
The eye of him who mocks his father,
And cares not to reverence his mother,
The ravens of the valley shall pick it out;
The young eagles shall devour it.
But Canaan was guilty of something still worse than irrev
erence. He was immodest and unchaste. To understand
what the writer means, we must remember that the Israelite
laws contain frequent warnings against sins which decency
forbids us from so much as naming. These repeated exhor-
tations, together with the emphasis laid upon them and the
severity of the penalties they enjoin, show us that the Isra-
elites were in constant clanger of sinking below the brutes in
this respect, and giving themselves over to the foulest sins.
In fact, they show that this -danger was not infrequently re-
alized. Now, the most revolting offences of this description
are always called " the abominations of the Canaanites."
The best of the Israelites, therefore, felt an aversion for
the tribes they had conquered and oppressed, which was not
simply the result of national pride and selfishness, but was
based upon a deep moral sense. " Cursed be the infamous
race of Canaan ! " was a sentiment that had sunk into many
hearts.
When we had brought down the history to David's ascent
of the throne, we glanced back upon the period of the judges, 2
and remarked how deeply the history of religion had been af-
fected by the fact that the unification of the people came about
under the guidance of men of the genuine Israelitish stamp,
and that Yahweh became the god of Canaan. The age of
David and Solomon, which completed the subjection of the
old inhabitants of the land, confirmed the boon which had
been gained in previous times, and was also favorable in other
respects to religious progress. For the two princes in ques-
tion raised the people of Yahweh to greatness and thereby
increased in no small measure the glory of the god himself.
All David's wars were wars of Yahweh. When Israel con-
1 Proverbs xxx. 17. 2 , See vol. i. pp. 514 ff .
94 CURSE OF CAHAAN.
quered the foe, then Israel's god triumphed over the gods of
the humbled tribes. When Yahweh's anointed showed his
might or displayed his wisdom, and spread the fame of him-
self and his people far and wide, must not every one exclaim
with Hiram and the Queen of Sheba: "Praised be Yah-
weh ! " 1 Did not the king's commerce by land and sea
make known the name of Israel's god in distant lands ? And
thus the way was prepared for the belief in Yahweh, not only
as Israel's national god, but as the ruler of all the world — a
belief that we shall actually see hereafter springing up amongst
the most advanced of his worshippers.
Moreover the horizon of the Israelites was extended under
David and Solomon. They became acquainted with many
different nations, some of them very distant ones ; and this in
itself dispelled many of their contracted views, many of their
prejudices, and gave them greater mental breadth. And,
again, the cultivation of music and other arts, such as sculp-
ture and architecture, must have exercised a humanizing and
elevating influence upon the Israelites. Increased luxury
produced new wants and drove men to devise means of satis-
tying them ; and this again would stimulate industay and en-
courage the exercise of handicrafts. After Solomon's time it
would have been impossible to carry away all the smiths out
of Israel, as the Philistines had done of old ! The cultiva-
tion of "wisdom" and the taste for inventing and guessing
riddles, which began to spread amongst the citizens as well
as the courtiers, bears witness to the growth of intellectual
power. In a word, the worshippers of Yahweh became more
civilized in this century, and it is hardly necessaiy to sa)- that
this fact exercised a great influence upon the conception
which thej' formed of their god.
But for all that, Israel would have trodden the path of the
heathens, under the guidance of David and Solomon, and
Yahweh would have become essentially such a deity as the
Baals were, had there been none to insist, above everything,
upon the moral demands of Israel's god. Henceforth we
shall call these men the followers of Moses, because they built
upon the foundation laid by him in the Ten Commandments,
and so worked in his spirit.
We have already remarked that there was much in the
principles of David's government, as well as Solomon's, to
which these followers of Moses objected. They themselves
were, in many respects, very one-sided, for not enly were
i 1 Kings v. 7, x 9.
CURSE OF CANAAN. 95
they offended by the luxury of the court, the extent of the
royal harem, and the idolatrous temples erected by Solomon,
but they opposed the culture of the fine arts in almost every
form, 1 and regarded the desire for knowledge as sinful pride.
In short, the} r looked askance upon everything that was
highly valued by mankind in general. " Yahweh stands up,"
said a prophet who lived two centuries after the time of
Solomon, 2 — "Yahweh stands up against everything that is
high, against all the mighty cedars of Lebanon and all the
oaks of Bashan, against all the lofty mountains and high hills,
against every proud turret and all fortified walls, against Tar-
shish ships and costly furniture. 8 Then shall the loftiness of
mankind be bowed down and the pride of men be humbled,
that Yahweh alone maj r be exalted." This attack upon Tar-
shish ships is equivalent to a denunciation, in our own day,
of "haughty East Indiamen," or "presumptuous Cunard
steamers," for instance ! Solomon's war chariots, cavalry,
and fortifications were an offence and a scandal to the fol-
lowers of Moses, and made the splendor of the temple he had
built to Yahweh still more intolerable in their eyes.
Their views of life then were contracted in the extreme,
and their vehemence in decrying everything but religion and
morality, as they conceived them, provokes our opposition,
while there is much that attracts us in the policy of David
and Solomon. But we must never forget that the prophets
had only too much reason to dread the baneful influence of
worldly things, that if they fell into exaggerations they were
of the noblest description, and that it was they who rescued
the moral worship of Yahweh, Israel's most precious jewel,
from the whirlpool of heathendom.
The thought that Yahweh values moral worth above all else
finds emphatic expression in the twenty-fourth psalm. We
have ahead}' quoted 4 the closing verses, which probably con-
tain the words that were chanted as the ark was borne back
into the temple after a campaign: "Lift up your doors, ye
everlasting gates ! that the glorious king may enter. "Who is
this glorious king ? Yahweh of hosts ! " But the words
which were made to precede them, evidently at a later period,
breathe a far more exalted conception of Yahweh's being than
we should ever gather from those cries of triumph. They run
as follows 6 : —
1 Compare vol. i. pp. 59 ft. * Isaiah ii. 12-17.
8 The translation is here conjectural. i See p. 63. s Verses 1-6.
96 JEROBOAM.
The earth and its fulness are Tahweh's,
The world and its inhabitants.
For it was lie who founded it on the seas
And established it on the rivers.
Who may ascend the hill of Yahweh?
Who may stand in his holy place?
He who has pure hands and a clean heart,
Who has not been bold in deceit
And has never sworn to a lie.
He shall be blessed by Yahweh
And saved by the god who delivers him.
Such is the race of them that seek thee,
That seek thy face, O god of Jacob ! »
If we go to the root of the matter we see that this god of
Jacob is not the same being as the Yahweh of hosts whose
might in war was his claim to honor ; 2 but the Israelites did
not perceive it, and united the two conceptions together.
So as long as moral strength is counted a treasure against
which no culture, art, or knowledge can be allowed to weigh,
so long must we exalt the party of the prophets, with all its
one-sidedness, above that of David and Solomon ; for the
prophets supplied the indispensable counterpoise to a move-
ment which, if left to itself, threatened danger to the " one
thing needful."
We shall see from the following chapter that they had
power to make themselves felt.
Chapter IX.
JEROBOAM.
1 Kings XI. 26-XIV. 20.3
EVEN under David's reign many of the Israelites, especially
amongst the northern tribes, had given unmistakable
proofs of disaffection ; but under Solomon their complaints
became far louder. No wonder! It is true that Solomon
was celebrated far and wide for his wealth and power, and
that his rule was truly magnificent. But his lavish court
and splendid works could only be supported by an enormous
expenditure ; and this fell upon his subjects, in the shape
of taxes and enforced service. The kingdom was divided
into twelve districts, each of which had to take its turn
1 After an amended version. 2 Verse 8. 8 2 Chronicles x. 1-xi, 4.
JEROBOAM. 97
in meeting the expenses of the royal court for one month, 1
and the governors must often have found it a hard task to
supply the vast quantity of provisions needed for the royal
table. 2 Moreover, thousands upon thousands of Israelites
were compelled to work upon the palaces, the temples, the
fortresses, and all the other buildings raised by Solomon,
and for these services they received no wages ; or, if some
small allowance was made them, it did but increase the bur-
den of taxation more. The fact that Solomon surrendered a
part of his territory to Hiram in payment of a debt, proves
conclusively that the imposts were already as heavy as his
subjects could bear ; for such a king would never take such a
step unless all his other resources were exhausted.
Nor is it unnatural that these grievances should have been
more keenly felt in the North than in the South. In the first
place we must remember that "Israel" or the "house of
Joseph," on the one hand, and Judah on the other, had
really formed two separate groups of tribes ever since the
conquest of Canaan. They were conscious of their relation-
ship, but they had never been really united in the desert ;
they had penetrated Canaan from opposite directions, and
had had nothing to do with each other in the period of the
judges until at last compelled by imperious necessity to make
common cause. The tie between North and South, therefore,
had never been a close one, and Ephraim and the surrounding
tribes were by no means prepared to put up with the despotism
of a king who sprang from Judah. Moreover it was quite in
the spirit of antiquity for a king to treat his own relatives
and, next to them, his fellow-tribesmen with far more leni-
ency than anj' others, while all the advantages which might
be derived from the neighborhood of a luxurious court natu-
rally fell to the district about Jerusalem.
Once during Solomon's lifetime the discontent had broken
out. The leader of the rebels was an Ephraimite — Jeroboam,
the son of Nebat — who stood high in the esteem of Solomon
himself, and had been appointed by him to superintend the
laborers from the north of the kingdom, who were employed
in fortifying the castle at Jerusalem called the Millo. 8 But
Jeroboam's attempt to drive Solomon from his throne was
unsuccessful, and he had to fly for his life to Egypt, where
he was hospitably received by the king, Shishak, who was
doubtless afraid that his neighbor Solomon might become
dangerously powerful. 4
l 1 Kings iv. 7 S. 2 Compare p. 72. » See pp. 4, 5. * 1 Kings xi. 26-28, 40
VOL. II. 6
98 JEROBOAM.
This is the only insurrection against Solomon mentioned
by history, and it appears to have been speedily suppressed.
The mighty name of the warrior David, and the brilliance of
his son's court, so overawed and dazzled the masses that
Solomon was allowed to die in peace. But what he had sown
his son Kehoboam reaped. 1 As soon as he ascended the throne
it became clear that he would not establish his royal authority
without some difficulty ; for whereas on David's death all Israel
had followed the example of Jerusalem and recognized his son
Solomon as king, the northern tribes began, on this occasion,
to make difficulties. They invited Rehoboam, who had been
acknowledged at Jerusalem immediately on Solomon's death,
to come to Shechem, the ancient capital of the northern
tribes, to be crowned there also. The fact was that they only
meant to recognize him as king upon their, own conditions,
which they preferred stating at Shechem rather than at Jeru-
salem. So when Rehoboam had accepted the invitation,
they sent their chiefs to lay their grievances and their de-
mands before him. Their spokesman was Jeroboam, who had
now returned from Egypt.
The attitude of the northern tribes was certainly not
encouraging ; but the new king might probably have allayed
the impending storm had he acted sensibly. The malcon-
tents had evidently not resolved to refuse allegiance upon any
conditions, for they expressly declared that if the king would
lighten the heavy yoke of taxation and compulsory service
which his father had laid upon them they would serve him
faithfully. Rehoboam replied that in three days he would
give them an answer. Meanwhile he desired to consult his
advisers. Their opinions differed considerably, though they
were all agreed on the main point, and were indignant with
the conduct of the Israelites. What unheard-of audacity to
use such language to a king ! Conditions indeed ! Wiry,
they ought to be only too thankful that a grandson of the
hero who had delivered Israel, and a son of the sage and illus-
trious Solomon, who had spread the fame of the people far and
wide, was left to rule over them ! None of the counsellors
thought for a moment of suggesting that Rehoboam should
submit to the dictates of his subjects. But as to the exact
answer he should give, opinions differed. The old and
cautious ministers who had supported Solomon gave the
crafty advice : " Submit to the people to-day ! Give them
good words and promise all they ask! Then they will
1 1 Kincs xii. 1-20.
JEROBOAM. 99
submit to you ever afterwards." But Eehoboam's own
friends, wLo were rash and headstrong, thought this would
.be unseemly language for a king, and cried, " Give these
shameless upstarts the answer they deserve, and say, ' My
little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins; if he
laid a heavy yoke upon you, I will make it heavier yet ; and
if he chastised your obstinacy with rods, I .will lash you with
scourges ! ' " That was the answer that pleased Eehoboam
best! "Ah," he thought, "those are the words that suit
the lips of a king ! " So he gave this answer to the chiefs ;
but the Israelites, it seemed, felt that they could dispense with
him better than his courtiers had imagined ; for hardby had
the haughty answer been uttered when the signal of revolt
was given in the cry : ' ' What have we to do with David !
We are no kin to Jesse's son ! Henceforth let David rule
his own house ! To your tents, O Israel ! " In vain did
Eehoboam attempt to pacify the assembly. His messenger,
the chancellor Adoram, was stoned to death by the infuriated
people, and he himself, in terror of his life, fled with all speed
to Jerusalem. Thus had pride gone before a fall. Judah
alone remained faithful to Eehoboam, and all the other tribes
proclaimed Jeroboam king of Israel.
After the disruption, the northern kingdom retained the
name of Israel ; and it had the fullest right to do so, for it is
not improbable that the name originally belonged to the
inhabitants of central Canaan, Ephraim, and Manasseh,
and only spread to the other tribes by degrees. 1 And
even if "Israel" had been the common name of all the
tribes from time immemorial, still Judah was but small in
comparison with the rest of the kingdom, and " Judah ought
to return to Israel " would have been a more reasonable cry
than "Israel ought to join Judah." It is but natural that
we should find ourselves unable to draw the boundary line
between the sister kingdoms with precision ; and, moreover,
it was constantly changing. The Benjamites would certainly
have preferred to belong to the northern kingdom, rather
than to Judah. From ancient times they had always formed
a part of the house of Joseph, 2 and the legend has good reason
for making Benjamin Joseph's full brother. Moreover it was
but natural that Saul's fellow-tribesmen should feel no great
love for David's house. But Jerusalem lay in the territory
of Benjamin, and it followed from the very nature of the case
1 1 Samuel xi. 8, xvii. 52, xviii. 16; 2 Samuel xi. 11, xii. 8, xxi. 2; 1
Kings iv. 20, 25. 2 2 Samuel xix. 20.
100 JEROBOAM.
that the region round about David's city should be welded,
so to speak, into Judah. Thus it happened that while the
more northern Benjamites rallied to the flag of Joseph, the
southern portion of the tribe became part of Judah. And to
Judah, of course, belonged the families of Simeonites who
dwelt in the south-west corner of the land. Thej r had, how-
ever, gradually ceased to constitute a separate tribe, and had
been completely amalgamated with the Judaeans. So, too,
had the Kenites and other foreign tribes who had maintained
their position in the South ever since the conquest. Reho-
boam, then, was only acknowledged by one important tribe,
to which, however, the tributary Edomites must be added.
All the other conquered districts, from Moab to the towns
of Syria, belonged to Jeroboam — as long as he could keep
them!
The separation of the kingdoms took place about the year
978 b.c.
The serious objections entertained by the stricter followers
of Moses to Solomon's principles of government will have pre-
pared us to find them seconding the attempt of Jeroboam. A
reminiscence of the part they took is preserved in the follow-
ing story 1 : —
When Jeroboam was superintendent of the Ephraimite
workmen who were fortifying Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah
of Shiloh met him once outside the city. No one else was
present ; and the prophet seized hold of a new cloak which he
was wearing, tore it into twelve pieces, offered ten of them
to Jeroboam, and cried : "Thus saith Yahweh, Israel's god :
T will rend the kingdom out of Solomon's hand and will give
ten tribes to you. One tribe I will let him keep for David's
sake and for Jerusalem's sake, the city which I have chosen
out of all the tribes ; but the rest will I take away from him,
because he has served idols and has not kept my command-
ments as David did. And yet I will not bring Solomon him-
self to destruction, but from his son will I take away the
kingdom — except over one tribe, that my servant David may
always have a light burning in Jerusalem. And as I have
chosen you to be king over Israel, so will I keep your house
upon the throne for ever, if you will but obey my command-
ments as my servant David did. And his posterity, for all
the reasons I have said, I will humble — but not for ever."
This story breathes exactly the spirit of the historian whc
1 1 Kings xi. 29-40.
JEROBOAM. 101
gives it. Jerusalem appears as the one chosen city of Yah-
weh's worship, whicli it certainly was not in Solomon's clays,
when people still sacrificed wherever they liked. Such lan-
guage is especially inappropriate in the mouth of an Ephra-
imite like Ahijah. And again, the extreme exaltation of
David indicates a later age. It was easy for an Israelite who
lived about the time of the captivity to make Ahijah predict
that Rehoboam rather than Solomon would lose the greater
part of his territory, and that David's house would continue
to sit upon the throne of Judah ; but Ahijah himself could
not have foreseen these things ; nor did any one deliberately
contemplate the separation of the people into two sections,
though many would have rejoiced to see David's house super-
seded by some other. The writer looked upon the past in
the light of his own time. He was convinced that Solomon's
idolatry was the sole cause of his rejection by Yahweh ; but
in the tenth century before Christ Israel was not yet the
people it afterwards became. It was not yet prepared to
sacrifice everything for its faith, nor did it regard the ques-
tions of religion as the only true questions of life. Solomon
would have brought his throne into but little danger had he
simply worshipped foreign gods. His proceedings in this
respect were acceptable to the masses of his people, and only
gave offence to a comparatively small band of zealots. What
really raised his subjects against him was, as we have seen,
the weight of the taxation. The disciples of Moses only
played a secondary part in the revolution which wrenched the
greater part of his kingdom from Rehoboam, but no doubt
they threw their whole strength into the movement, hoping
that a change would be an improvement.
Such a party as theirs, however, is destined to constant
disappointment, for their comparatively pure and exalted '
principles could only be put into immediate practice at the
expense of the nation's prosperity and independence. By at-
tempting such a course Samuel brought Israel to the brink
of destruction. Saul found himself compelled to desert the
cause of the zealots. David and Solomon had never identi-
fied themselves with them, and it was hardly likely that
Jeroboam would do so now. No doubt they hoped great
things from him, but they were soon undeceived, for he too
disappointed their expectations.
The writer of Kings brands him with infamy as the prince
who set up the golden bulls at Dan and Bethel, and appointed
priests who were not Levites. But we must not simply adopt
102 JEROBOAM.
his judgment unchallenged ; for he measured the deeds of all
the former kings by the standard of his own times, and tested
everything by the law of Deuteronomy. This is quite unfair,
for in the tenth century before Christ this book did not exist,
and even the most highly cultivated Israelites had not so
much as thought of its special principles. We shall see,
however, that even when judged by the best of his own con-
temporaries, Jeroboam was condemned for his conduct.
Of course he was compelled to turn his attention to reli-
gious matters very soon after his ascent of the throne. His
line of action was in full accord with the spirit of antiquity.
David and Solomon had already shown him how to identify
the interests of religion with those of the king. The temple
at Jerusalem, as the most magnificent of Yahweh's sanctu-
aries, would naturally attract a number of pilgrims even from
the northern kingdom, and would thus keep up relations be-
tween Jeroboam's subjects and those of the house of David,
which must be displeasing and might easily become dangerous
to the northern monarch. It became necessary, therefore,
for Jeroboam to establish magnificent temples in his own ter-
ritory, to prevent the Israelites from going to Jerusalem . To
this the prophets had certainty no objection ; but what did
offend both them and the other zealots was that Yahweh was
openly worshipped in these new temples under the form of a
bull ; for when the king restored the famous and venerable
sanctuaries of Dan 1 in the northern and Bethel 2 in the
southern corner of his land, he set up a gilt image of a bull
in each.
The meaning of these images we know with moderate cer-
tainty. It is a mistake to suppose, as some have done, that
Jeroboam was introducing an Egyptian form of worship into
Israel. For in Egypt the worship was offered to living bulls,
Apis and Mnevis, and the image of a bull is quite another
thing. Nor could a religion so completely foreign to the ideas
of the Israelites, as the Egyptian bull-worship, have been
imposed by the simple fiat of the king. Not even an oriental
monarch has such power as that! We may depend upon
it that these images were of Canaanite or ancient Israelite
origin, or perhaps both. The fact is that the bull or tiuffalo
was regarded by many ancient peoples as the symbol of
strength and majesty. Hence many deities such as Molech,
Baal, and Astarte are represented with horns. So, too, the
Image of the bull appears in connection with the worship of
1 See vol. i. pp. 378 ff. 2 See vol. i. pp. 178 ff.
JEROBOAM. 103
Yahweh, which is not at all surprising when we remembei
that in the popular conception there was no such very great
difference between Yahweh and Molech or Baal. Had not
the altars of YahweL horns ? And was not the brazen sea in
the forecourt of Solomon's temple supported by twelve brazen
oxen? Nor is there the smallest doubt that Jeroboam's
images represented Yahweh. The tradition, accordingly,
makes him say when he sets them up, " Here, O Israel, is
your god, that delivered you out of Egypt." Even the writer
of Kings, utterly as he detested the images, admitted that
they were intended to represent Yahweh. It is certain, there-
fore, that this was so. ,
To understand Jeroboam's conduct we must remember that
when Moses introduced the worship of Yahweh amongst the
Israelite tribes they already possessed a motley assemblage
of religious ideas and usages, and had many images of gods.
The commandment, ' ' Thou shalt make no image of a god ! "
whether due to Moses or not, was at any rate observed by very
few. The majority of the Israelites, especially in the North,
where they were more strongly intermingled with the Canaan-
ites, doubtless had images of every kind, and some of them in
the form of a bull. Those who protested against the useof ima-
ges in the worship of Yahweh had evidently great influence with
the people, for in the temple of Solomon no image of Yahweh
was to be found, and it appears that at Dan and Bethel there
had been none before Jeroboam's time ; but even then all
manner of symbols of the deity were in use. Were there not
two great obelisks standing before the temple at Jerusalem ?
Were not images of the sun, asherahs, and anointed stones to
be found everywhere by the altars of Yahweh ? Was not the
temple itself ornamented with the significant forms of cherubs
and many another creature ? Was not a teraphim to be found
in the houses of zealous worshippers of Yahweh, and in many
a temple also ? What wonder then that the great masses felt
no scruple in making use of images of Yahweh !
But for all that Jeroboam's action marked a step back-
wards ; for the disuse of direct representations of Yahweh
was at least a step towards recognizing the spiritual nature
of the deity — an attempt to rise above the low religious level
at which the mass of the people stood. Jeroboam, then,
favored the worse at the expense of the better, and though
he thereby won the favor of the majority of his subjects and
that of his Phoenician neighbors also, yet he sacrificed the
respect of the more enlightened.
104 JEROBOAM.
Other regulations concerning public worship were made at
the time when these images were set up. In the first place
the great yearly feast of harvest, commonly called the feast
of tabernacles, was fixed by Jeroboam on the fifteenth daj r of
the eighth month, whereas in Jerusalem it was celebrated just
a month earlier. The writer of Kings, who regards the time
observed at Jerusalem as prescribed by Yahweh himself, and
therefore inviolable, is greatly shocked by Jeroboam's pro-
ceeding. But there was really no harm in it at all. Jerusalem
was not then the sole norm of religious usages ; and the prob-
ability is that in the North the feast was usually celebrated
as a matter of fact in the eighth month, after the end of
the grape harvest, and that Jeroboam simply sanctioned the
existing usage.
But the historian's list of grievances is not yet exhausted.
" Jeroboam," he says, "made a temple with bamahs in it, and
entrusted the priesthood there to men who were not of the
tribe of Levi, but were taken from any of the tribes indiffer-
ently." 1 It seems that a bamah was a sort of wooden altar in
the form of a cone, and the sanctuaries in which these bamahs
were erected were themselves often called bamahs after them.
Now in Jeroboam's time such temples and altars existed
everywhere. Did not Solomon offer his first sacrifice as king
upon the celebrated bamah at Gibeon ? A nd priests who were
not Levites already existed in abundance, so that the king had
no need to appoint them for the first time. Nor did he depose
Levites from their office, as the writer of the Chronicles says
he did ; 2 for we know that the altar of the image at Dan was
attended not only before but after Jeroboam's time, down to
the fall of the kingdom, by descendants of Moses. 3 Nor was
this the only sanctuaiy in the northern kingdom at which
Levites sacrificed and consulted the deity. They must have
officiated at Bethel too ; for otherwise the writer of Kings
would not have confined himself to stating that non-Levitical
priests were appointed at the "house of bamahs." It may be
true that some of the priestly offices, which had been in the
hands of Levites before the time of Jeroboam, subsequently
fell to families from other tribes ; but if so, it was not because
the king desired it, since it was his interest to attach the old
and influential families to himself : it was because the Levites
themselves did not choose to preside over a mode of worship
which was inconsistent with their own ideas. Few, however,
1 After an amended version of 1 Kings xii. 31.
2 2 Chronicles xi. 14, 15, xiii. 9. s g ee vo i. j. pp , 378-38O.
JEROBOAM. 105
Would be equal to so great a sacrifice. Indeed we could hardly
expect it of th3m, for though Jeroboam's conduct may have
seemed reprehensible to them, it cannot have appeared by any
means so shocking and wicked as it did to the Israelites of the
seventh century b.c, who had adopted the law of Deuteronomy
as their standard.
The king took one more step with reference to public wor-
ship, which gave offence to many ; and that was making an
altar out of hewn stones or metal which was led up to' by steps.
This could give no offence to the devotees in the seventh cen-
tury before Christ, for in their days there was an elaborately-
wrought altar in the temple of Jerusalem itself, and they never
objected to it ; but it was in direct opposition to the earlier
usage which prescribed low altars made of earth or unhewn
stone. 1
Against this unhallowed altar, then, the following legend is
directed 2 : —
Once when Jeroboam was celebrating the great feast at
Bethel, he stood in person by the altar, and was about to offer
sacrifice, when a Judaean prophet stepped forward from the
crowd and uttered the dread prophecy : " O altar, altar, thus
saith Yahweh ! In time to come a scion of David's house,
Josiah by name, shall come and sacrifice the priests of the
bamahs, and burn human bones upon you ! And, as a proof
of it, this day a miracle shall come to pass. You shall be
cleft in two at the command of Yahweh, and the ashes that lie
upon you shall be spilt." When Jeroboam heard these words
he burst into fury, and, standing on the altar steps, he stretched
out his hand and cried, "Seize him ! " But his hand was stiff-
ened, and he could not draw it back ; and at that very mo-
ment, behold ! the altar was cleft in two, and the ashes were
spilt on either side, just as the man of God had said ! The
king cried in terror, " Pray to Yahweh for me, that my hand
may be restored." The prophet complied, and Jeroboam's
hand was at once restored, like the other. Upon this the king
besought him to go home with him and eat with him before
returning to his own land, and promised him rich presents also.
But the prophet answered, "Though you should give me half
your house, I could not go in with you, for Yahweh has for-
bidden me to eat bread or drink water here ; and my god has
commanded me also to return by a different way from that by
which I came." And accordingly he set out at once upon his
journey.
i See p. 86. « 1 Kings xiii.
6*
106 JEROBOAM.
Now there dwelt in Bethel an aged prophet whose sons
had witnessed all this scene, and when they came home and
told their father what had taken place he asked them imme-
diately which way the man of Judah had gone back ; and
when they told him, he ordered them to saddle his ass with
all speed. Then he mounted his beast and hurried after the
stranger, whom he found sitting under the sacred oak. 1 He
asked him whether he was the man of God from Judah ; and,
finding tnat he was, he asked him to come back and share
his meal. The Judasan gave him the same answer as he had
given the king, whereupon the other replied, " But I too am
a prophet, and the angel of Yahweh commanded me to in-
vite you to eat with me." The Judsean allowed himself to be
imposed upon by the lie, and went back with his companion
to Bethel.
Now as they were sitting at table, the host, in obedience to
a revelation from his god, suddenly cried out to the stranger,
" Thus says Yahweh : Because j-ou have disobej'ed my com-
mandment and have taken food and drink in this place, you
shall not be laid in the tomb of your fathers." When the
meal was over the Judsean prophet mounted an ass and re-
turned on the way to his own land ; but as he was going he
met a lion which hurled him from his beast and killed him,
and then stood quietly by the body together with the ass,
which he had not injured in any way. As soon as the old
prophet heard this he rode to the spot, placed the body of the
Judsean on his ass, and carried it back to Bethel. There he
mourned over him and had the customary dirge, " Alas, my
brother ! " chanted for him, and then buried him in his own
grave and commanded his sons to lay him to rest in the same
place when he should die himself, for all that this Judsean had
foretold concerning the altar and the SamaA-temples in the
cities of Samaria would surely come to pass.
That the legend was brought into its present shape after
the reform of Josiah is obvious ; but its kernel is certainly
much more ancient. This is shown, for instance, by the fact
that the narrator misses the real point of the old legend, which
he remodels. The unlawful altar was the original cause of
offence, but our writer introduced the bamah-temples, which
in his eyes were far worse than the altar, as the main object
of the prophetic rebuke. In making the prophet speak of
the cities of Samaria he falls into a great mistake, for, in
Jeroboam's time, Samaria, so far from being the capital of
> See vol i. pp. 194, 461.
JEROBOAM. 107
the kingdom, did not so much as exist. Our story was evi-
dently attached to a certain grave in Bethel, known as the
grave of the man of God from Judah. Why had not the
prophet whose hones lay there been allowed to rest in his own
family sepulchre? The legend answered that he owed his
fate to his disobedience, and then wove around this centra]
thought the motley garment which now clothes it. Strange
as the story of this man's trespass of Yahweh's command
appears to us, we shall find a companion picture to it in the
following chapter.
"We know little of Jeroboam'-s reign except with regard to
his measures for regulating worship. As a matter of course
he waged war Hgainst Judah. The book of Kings tells us
that immediately after the division of the kingdom Rehoboam
brought an army into the field with the intention of reducing
the northern tribes to submission again, but that the prophet
Shemaiah dissuaded the Judseans and their king from making
war upon their brethren, inasmuch as all that had happened
had been ordained by Yahweh. 1 This account makes it ap-
pear as if Eehoboam had had it in his power to expel Jero-
boam from Israel, and was only restrained from doing so by
religious considerations, inasmuch as he regarded the revolt
of the ten tribes as a well-merited punishment. But this
reverses the real course of events. It was Jeroboam who
attempted to conquer Jerusalem really. It was probably at
his instigation that the Egyptian king Shishak made a descent
upon Judah about five years after Solomon's death. It ap-
pears, however, that Eehoboam succeeded in buying off this
powerful enemy. At any rate he retained his independence,
though he was forced to give up his treasures. 2
Without the help of such an ally as the king of Egypt,
Jeroboam did not feel strong enough to subjugate Judah ; nor
does the position he occupied with regard to the different dis-
tricts of his own country appear always to have been equally
satisfactory. So at least we may gather from his repeated
change of residence. At first he established himself at She-
chem, then at Penuel in the Transjordanic region, 3 and finally
at Tirzah, a place that probably lay not far from Shechem,
and was greatly beautified by Jeroboam and his successors.' 1
Moreover, the Syrian provinces revolted from him. Even in
Solomon's time Damascus had become independent, 5 and
i 1 Kings xii. 21-24. 2 i Kings x iv. 25-30. 3 1 Kings xii. 25.
* Song of Solomon vi. i. 6 1 Kings xi. 23-25.
108 JEROBOAM.
after the division of Israel it became easier for the vigorous
rulers of this city to extend their power. Accordingly we
find them styled kings of Syria not long after Jeroboam's
death ; and even before that time, Abijah, king of Judah,
had entered into an alliance with one of them against Jero
boam. 1
On the whole, then, Jeroboam's reign was not prosperous,
and his son, Nadab, who succeeded him upon the throne, was
soon to find how insecurely his dynasty was seated. For as
he was besieging the Philistine city of Gibbethon, in the
second year of his reign, he was bereft of life and throne by
the hand of Baasha, of the tribe of Issachar. 2 Of course the
historian brought the speedy fall of Jeroboam's house into
connection with the worship of images ; and it seemed very
natural to make the same Ahijah who had foretold Jeroboam's
exaltation to the throne also announce his doom. Such is
the purpose of the following story : —
Jeroboam's son, Abijah, had fallen sick. The king, in
deep anxiety as to the result, suggested to his wife that she
should disguise herself, go with a present to Shiloh, and con-
sult the prophet Ahijah. She complied with his request, and
took her journey to Shiloh. Now, Ahijah was blind with age,
but he did not even need the use of his eyes to recognize his
visitor in spite of her disguise. What did her precautions
avail ? Did she think they would mislead a man whom God
instructed ! Yahweh had already forewarned Ahijah who it
was that was coming to see him, and what she was about to
ask. At the same time, he had put an answer into his mouth.
So as soon as ever the prophet heard the footsteps of the
queen within his door, he cried, "Come in, thou wife of
Jeroboam ! Whereto does this strange clothing serve ? I
have a hard message to deliver. Tell your husband" this from
Yahweh : I have exalted you to be prince over Israel, but you
have not obeyed me as David, who did nothing but what was
right in my eyes, obeyed me. You have made strange gods
and images, which are an abomination to me, and you have
rejected me. Wherefore I will bring destruction upon Jero-
boam's house, and will utterly root it out from Israel. Who-
soever of his descendants dies in the city, the dogs shall
devour him ; and whosoever perishes in the country, the birds
shall eat him ! And do you go straightway home ; and, as
you enter the city, the boy shall die. It is well for him ; for
all Israel shall bewail him, and he alone of Jeroboam's de-
i 1 Kings xv. 18, 19. a 1 Kings xv. 27.
JEROBOAM. 109
scendants shall be buried honorably ; and in him alone does
Yahweh still see any good ! And not only Jeroboam's house
shall be rooted out, but Yahweh shall smite all Israel, because
of the asherahs with which they provoke him, and they shall be
like a broken reed drifting on the water. Yahweh will carry
Israel captive beyond the Euphrates. And all this shall come
to pass because of Jeroboam's sin ! " Ahijah's prophecy con-
cerning the child full soon came true, for, as Jeroboam's wife
entered the capital, Tirzah, Abijah died.
The historian himself evidently composed this speech of
Ahijah's, for not only does it mention the transportation of
Israel beyond the Euphrates, but it misses the real nature
of Jeroboam's offence. Ahijah is made to tax the king with
serving other gods, with rejecting Yahweh, and with making
asherahs. Now, nobody saw any harm in this last practice,
in the tenth century before Christ, and we saw but now that
setting up the bulls was not by any means rejecting the wor-
ship of Yahweh ; but in the seventh century B.C. the worship
of images and the worship of other gods than Yahweh were
completely identified, as they are in the Ten Command-
ments, according to the version current at that time and
afterwards. The two practices are there regarded as one and
the same. 1
Although the best of Jeroboam's contemporaries were
opposed to the images, not only did the great mass of the
people hail them with acclamation, but even the prophets
were soon reconciled to them. It is very remarkable that,
although great numbers of prophets labored in Israel during
the next two centuries, and exercised a most powerful influ-
ence, yet, as far as we can tell, not one of them ever uttered
a word against the images, and neither Elijah nor Elisha
protested against them.
The fact is that before long far more important questions
were at stake than whether Yahweh might or might not be
lawfully worshipped under the form of a bull.
1 Deuteronomy v. 7—10; Exodus xx. 3-6; compare vol L p. 315.
110 AHAB.
Chapter X.
AHAB.
1 Kings XV. 25-XVL, XX. 1-XXII. 40.
BAASHA, who mounted the throne of Israel after rooting
out the house of Jeroboam, appears to have been espe-
cially distinguished for his valor. 1 All that we know of him
is that he vigorously prosecuted the war with Judah, whence
we may infer that one of the chief grievances against Jero-
boam and his son was their failure to subjugate this kingdom.
With a view to compelling the southern district to unite
itself to Israel, Baasha built a fortress at Ramah, to cut off
the commercial intercourse of Judah with the North. At
this time Asa was king of Judah, and the measures taken by
Baasha reduced him to such straits that he sent a handsome
present to Benhadad, the Syrian king, who was Baasha's
ally, and implored him to turn his arms against Israel. The
Syrian complied, fell upon Baasha's rear, and conquered the
northern districts as far down as the sea of Chinnereth. Upon
this Baasha was compelled to relinquish his project against
Judah, and return with his army to Tirzah. Asa immedi-
ately demolished the castle at Ramah, and fortified Gibeah
of Benjamin and Mispah with the materials of which it was
built, and thereby protected his northern frontier against
future invasion. 2
In other respects Baasha appears to have adopted Jero-
boam's policy during the four-and-twenty years of his reign.
The writer of Kings tells us that a certain prophet named
Jehu, the son of Hanani, announced his fall, because he wor-
shipped the golden bulls as his predecessors had done. But
his disasters in war no doubt undermined his power more
than the line he took in religious matters did. He himself,
however, maintained his seat on the throne till his death,
but his son Elah had not reigned two years before he was
murdered, together with all his relatives who were in Tirzah,
by Zimri, the captain of half his war chariots. We know
nothing of him except that when the conspiracy broke out his
army was besieging Gibbethon, and he himself was holding a
festival and was drunk.
1 1 Kings xvi. 6, a i Kj ngs xv , 16-22.
AHAB. Ill
The conspirator apparently went to work hap-hazard, for
he had not even made sure of the troops. They were by no
means inclined to recognize him, and proclaimed their cap-
tain, Omri, king. He immediately marched upon Tirzah,
where Zimri was as careless in taking measures to preserve
his crown as he had been headlong in seizing it. At any rate,
the capital fell into Omri's hands within seven days of Elah's
murder, and Zimri withdrew into the palace and then set
it on fire. The writer of Kings concludes his brief account
of this adventurer by declaring that he fell because he had
sinned against Yahweh in walking in the way of Jeroboam,
and so seducing Israel. But this only shows that the accu-
sation which he brings successively against almost all the
Israelite kings was not based upon an adequate knowledge
of the facts, but was simply an inference from the fate which
overtook the princes and dynasties in question. For further
details concerning Zimri, as well as his predecessors and suc-
cessors, we are referred to the " Book of the Chronicles of the
Kings of Israel " — a work which must have contained a great
amount of very valuable information, but which has unfor-
tunately been lost.
Zimri's death was far from placing Omri in undisputed
possession of the crown, which was contested four years by
a certain Tibni. After the death of this rival Omri remained
on the throne eight years. He was more successful in
establishing his dynasty than his predecessors had been, for
his family swayed the sceptre of Israel for half a century.
All that we are told of his reign is that he purchased from a
certain Semer a hill upon which he built a city, which he
called Samaria. This place became the capital of the king-
dom, and played an important part in the history of the
people. The derivation here given of the name Samaria,
which means " watchmen," is certainly incorrect. Perhaps a
watch-tower originally stood upon the site.
The Judsean historian, to whom we owe the book of Kings,
looks with strong disapprobation upon all the monarchs of
north Israel. According to him, they were all of them godless
men, for they committed "the sin of Jeroboam, the son of
Nebat." But the house of Omri he holds in more especial
detestation. And no wonder ! For if Jeroboam had violated
the principles of the Mosaic school by raising the golden bulls,
Omri's race went infinitely further in the evil path by openly
encouraging the worship of the Phoenician god Baal. It is
highly probable that Omri himself took the lead in this
112 AHAB.
religious policy ; but we have no particulars on the point.
Tradition makes up for its silence concerning Omri by the
fulness with which it treats his son and successor, Ahab.
The name of this prince occurs in several narratives, which
differ widely in character. Some of them give us historical
accounts, only slightly colored by legendary embellishments
or the religious views of the writer ; whereas others simply
give us a poetical version of the internal history of Israel
under Omri's house. Only the former class of narratives
will be treated at present. The others compose a prophetic
epos, which we shall reserve for another chapter. 1
The path in which Ahab trod, following the steps of his
father, was that of Solomon. He encouraged commerce and
industry, fortified a number of cities, laid out pleasure
grounds, and built himself a palace, richly adorned with
ivory. 2 All this encouraged the cultivation of art and the
pursuit of knowledge ; and it is not without significance that
just about this time people began to get over their supersti-
tious terror of everything that had been laid under the ban.
A striking instance is furnished by the rebuilding of Jericho.
Ever since the conquest, this city had laid in ruins, with its
fruitful land untilled, because it had been consecrated to Yah-
weh ; but now a certain rich and enlightened inhabitant of
Bethel ventured to rebuild the place. It is true that the igno-
rant multitude saw a sign of Yahweh's wrath in the death
of two of this man's children, 8 but the fact only serves to
emphasize the victory won by enlightenment over a primeval
superstition.
Ahab naturally contracted a close alliance with the Phoe-
nicians. In the first place he sought their support against the
Syrians, who had again conquered some of the Israelitish cities
during his father's reign, 4 and were constantly threatening
the land still further. Moreover, the industiy, enterprise,
and skill of the Phoenicians formed the model after which
Ahab regulated his own government. He had married Jeze-
bel, a daughter of the Tyrian prince (whom the book of
Kings, 6 probably by mistake, calls the ruler of the Sido-
nians) , and, since he was a man of weak character himself,
he was completely ruled by his ambitious wife. Under her
influence he chose an obvious means of drawing still closer the
tie between his own people and the Phoenicians by favoring
1 1 Kings xvii-xix. 2 i Kings xxii. 39.
8 1 Kings xvi. 34 ; compare vol. i. p. 341. * 1 Kings xx. 34.
6 1 Kings xvi. 31.
AHAE. 113
the Tynan religion. So, while Bethel and Dan still remained
the centres of the worship of Yahweh, he founded a temple
for Baal at Samaria, raised an altar to him there, and reared
a great asherah in front of the sanctuary.
Here we may say a few words on the subject of asherahs,
as to which students of ancient religions are not quite agreed.
What an asherah was seems to be clear enough. It was the
trunk of a tree stripped of its branches, or a pillar that re-
sembled such a trunk in form ; and it was placed by the side
of an altar or in front of a temple. In this sense the word
(which the Authorized Version always mistranslates ' ' a
grove ") is constantly used. So far all are agreed ; but the
question is whether ' ' Asherah " was properly speaking the
name of a goddess of whom this pole was the symbol, or
whether it was the designation of the pole itself. It certainly
does occasionally appear as the name of a deity, and we also
hear of priests of Asherah ; but this is only seldom, and it may
be simply a mistake on the part of the historians, for they
often confuse different religious usages and the names of dis-
tinct deities. We must leave the question undecided ; but in
no case must we identify this Asherah with Astarte or Ash-
toreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, who was worshipped at
Askelon as well as Sidon ; for Astarte was a virgin goddess
who required from her devotees unnatural abstinence, fasts,
and self-inflicted torture ; whereas the asherahs were closely
connected with licentious practices. 1 We must also bear in
mind that the fact of an asherah standing by an altar or
sanctuary of Yahweh is no proof in itself that any other deity
was worshipped there, for this symbol may have been used
in the worship of Yahweh himself, as we know to have been
the case with the images of the buil, the massebahs (anointed
stones) , the chammanim (images of the sun) , and the bamahs
(heights) . Kightly to comprehend the religious practices of
the Israelites, we must constantly bear in mind that their
worship of Yahweh was a strange compound of the teaching
of Moses with the ancient usages of the Semitic tribes com-
mon to the worship of Baal, Chemosh, Dagon, or Astarte, as
well as Yahweh. Just as Solomon had erected Jachin and
Boaz in front of Yahweh's temple at Jerusalem, so Ahab
reared an asherah before Baal's sanctuary at Samaria.
We must not suppose, however, that Ahab intended to
abolish the worship of Yahweh. So far is this from being
the case that we shall presently see him surrounded ty the
1 Compare vol. i. p. 318.
114 AHAB.
prophets of Israel's god ; while the names of three of his
children, the only ones we know, are compounded with the
name of Yah wen, which appears at the beginning of Jehoram,
and at the end of both Ahaziah and Athaliah. Ahab then
had no intention of substituting Baal for Yahweh ; though this
might have been the ultimate result of the indulgence he ex-
tended to his worshippers.
While Ahab was thus undermining the national religion of
Israel by the freedom of his worship, he gave proof of his
courage and generosity in the war against Syria.
Benhadad II. had brought Israel to the brink of ruin. He
had already laid siege to Samaria, and, if it fell, he would re-
duce Ahab to the position of the two-and-thirty princes who
followed him as vassals to the field. There seemed small
chance of escaping this fate, and Ahab was willing to make
peace upon very humiliating terms. He offered not only to
pay a large sum of money, but even to suffer the most beau-
tiful of his wives to be removed to Benhadad's harem, and his
own sons to be taken as hostages. But even this would not
satisfy the Syrian prince, who insisted on sending some of
his courtiers to strip the palaces of Ahab and his chief nobles
of everything they thought worth taking. This was too
much ! Benhadad was evidently bent on compassing the
utter ruin of his opponent ; and, after due consultation, Ahab
rejected the cruel terms. Then Benhadad sent him another
vaunting message : " May the gods undo me, if I grind not
Samaria till my followers can hardly fill their hands with the
dust ! " but despair and anger gave Ahab courage, and he
answered with equal point and dignitj- : "Let not him,
who is girding on his armor, boast as though he were taking
it off!"
When Benhadad received the answer he happened to be
feasting in his tent with his two-and-thirty vassals. Hot as
he was with wine, he cried at once, " Bring up the storming
rams ! " and was immediately obeyed. With a deafening
war-cry, and a storm of arrows, the Syrians hurled the
battering rams against wall and gate of Samaria. Huge
masses of stone fell crashing upon the walls and rolled into
the fortress, while all Samaria trembled. But behold ! a
prophet has accosted Ahab with the words of cheer, "Do
you see this mighty army ? Thus says Yahweh : I will give
it over this very day into your hand, that you may know my
might ! " " By whose hand will he do it? " asked Ahab. " By
AHAB. 115
the pages of the provincial governors ! " was the strange
reply. "And who must lead them?" said Ahab again.
" You yourself! " answered the prophet. The valiant prince
was ready, for he had absolute faith in Yahweh's promise.
He hurriedly ran over the attendants, grooms, and pages of
the nobles — a strange army, truly ! — and found that there
were two hundred and thirty-two in all. They were soon in
readiness to lead the van ; and all the other men of military
age, to the number of seven thousand, followed after them.
Now, throw wide the gates and charge ! Benhadad is still
carousing when news is brought him that a band of Isra-
elites is issuing from the city. " Whatever they are coming
for," cries the drunken chief, " to fight, or to surrender, seize
them alive." But he was soon to repent his over-weening
pride. The new-made soldiers, so suddenly transformed from
grooms, struck, home, and the Syrians turned in panic flight.
Benhadad himself barely escaped in a chariot ; but all his
horses and war chariots fell into Ahab's hands.
Benhadad was not driven to despair by this defeat. On
the contrary, he sought the means of revenge. He attributed
his reverse to two causes. In the first place the gods of Israel
were evidently mountain gods, and in the second place his
army was not sufficiently united. To secure better luck in
future he must offer battle on a plain ; but he must first super-
sede those vassal kings who still retained a certain amount of
liberty, by governors removable at will, and wholly dependent
upon himself. The belief that the gods of Israel had more
power on the mountains than in the valleys was the natural
result of the difficulty which the Israelites had experienced
ever since the conquest in subduing the inhabitants of the
valleys.
Having thus weighed his chances and made all necessary
airangements, Benhadad took the field again the following
spring, with an army as strong as ever. Ahab, too, had pre-
pared for the conflict ; for immediately after his victory the
prophet who had instigated him to make the salty urged him
to renew the contest on a more extensive scale.
At Aphek, then, probably in the plain of Jezreel, the two
armies encamped over against each other. But alas ! how
poor were the chances of Israel. Ahab's troops looked like
two little flocks of goats in the face of the countless hosts of
the Syrians ! But once again a man of God spoke words of
cheer. " O King ! " he cried, " thus says Yahweh : Because
the Syrians dared to call me a god of mountains only and not
116 AHAB.
a god of valleys also, I will give this mighty host into youi
hand, that you may know that I am Yahweh."
Seven whole days the armies lay encamped against each
other, without ever joining battle ; and when at last they met,
the Syrians were so utterly routed that they lost a hundred
thousand infantry on a single day ! The survivors fled to
Aphek ; but when the city walls were broken in, twenty-seven
thousand more were slain. Benhadad himself fled from one
chamber to another, and when all hope of escape was lost,
his attendants advised him to throw himself upon Ahab's
mercy. The princes of Israel, they said, were famed for their
clemency, and perhaps if they went as suppliants to Ahab,
with sackcloth on their bodies and ropes round their necks,
he might spare Benhadad's life. This plan, accordingly, was
adopted, and was crowned with the wished-for success ; for
when Ahab heard the humble pra3*er, ' ' Your servant Benhadad
entreats his life ! " he exclaimed : " Is he still living, then ? He
is my brother ! " Benhadad's servants eagerly caught his gra-
cious words, and repeated, " Remember what you have said :
Benhadad is j 7 our brother ! " Then Ahab ordered the king to
be brought into his presence, received him graciously, and
gave him a seat by his own side in his chariot. Now it was
Benhadad's turn to pay the price of peace. He offered to
return the cities which his father had conquered from Omri,
and to assign a certain quarter of Damascus to the Israelite
merchants, while Ahab, on his side, was to restore him to
liberty and recognize him as his ally. 1 Ahab agreed to the
terms, entered into the alliance, and released his captive.
But this act of leniency drew upon the king's head so sharp
a prophetic rebuke that for the moment it embittered all the
joy of victory. A member of one of the prophetic schools
had a revelation from Yahweh that very day, and consequently
went to one of his friends with the abrupt request, ' ' Beat me ! "
The other refused to comply with the strange demand, upon
which the prophet exclaimed in auger, " Since you will not
obey Yahweh's word, a lion shall come and slajr you." It
need hardly be added that the threat was at once fulfilled,
and that the man became the victim of his own contumacy.
Meanwhile the prophet went to another man who, luckily for
himself, was more accommodating, and beat him severely.
Disfigured and bleeding, with his head bound up in a band-
age, 1 as one who had been wounded in battle, the prophet
waited for the king, and as soon as he drove by, implored his
1 After an amer ded version.
AHAB. 117
help. "When permitted to state his case he said, "I had
withdrawn from the turmoil of the battle when a man oame to
me with a Syrian captive. He gave him into my keeping and
threatened that if I let him escape he would sell me mj-self as
a slave, unless I paid him a talent of silver. But alas ! when I
was just looking about me * the man slipped off. Protect me,
then ! " But the king at once told him he was wrong. " You
have pronounced your own condemnation," he said, " and
must bear the loss." On hearing the sentence the prophet
tore the bandage from his brow, and Ahab recognized him
instantly. "Thus says Yahweh," cried the messenger of
God, "inasmuch as you have let the man go unhurt upon
whom nry curse rested, you shall perish in his place and your
people in the place of his ! " Then Ahab returned to Samaria,
deeply disturbed by what had taken place.
This story, like many others, helps us to understand the
light in which the prophets were regarded by the people, and
the kind of submission they endeavored to exact. The mem-
bers of the prophetic schools were inspired by Yahweh, and
received communications direct from him. They were bound
to implicit, obedience. Woe to him who evaded Yahweh's
command ! The prophet who suffered another to persuade
him to break bread at Bethel, contrary to the divine command,
had to pay for the trespass with his life. But again, the
prophet's own commands -must be obeyed by every one without
hesitation, for Yahweh would support the honor of his inter-
preters with a mighty hand. Woe to him who resisted them !
The hand that was raised against one of their number grew
stark and stiff, and the man who refused to wound the prophet
according v to the word of Yahweh perished miserably. It was
not for him to ask the meaning of the strange request. He
had only to obe3'.
We must observe the cause of the prophet's wrath with
Ahab. Benhadad had escaped. That was unbearable. Was
not Yahweh a stern god who demanded bloody sacrifices?
Had not Samuel done well to hew Agag in pieces? David's
barbarous treatment of the conquered tribes was certainty far
more in accordance with .Yahweh's will as conceived by the
prophets, than the clemency of Ahab which savored more of
his freer conceptions and Jli's worship of asherahs. 2
"J ,-
On another occasion, howevr/r, the king of Israel appears
in a very unfavorable light.
1 After an amended version. 2 Compare vol. i. pp. 318, 319.
118 AHAB.
In Jezreel, where he had laid out a house and grounds,
there lived a certain Naboth, who refused to let him have his
vineyard, however much he offered him for it. He would
part with the piece of land that had so long descended from
father to son in his family on no consideration. " Yahweh
preserve me from it ! " he cried, when the king proposed that
he should barter or sell it. How monstrous it seems that his
refusal should have thrown the king, in spite of all his wealth,
into such dejection, that when he got home he flung himself
upon his couch, with his face to the wall, and obstinately re-
fused to come to table ! How like a sulky child ! Indeed,
men of undisciplined character are often like great children,
the mere sport of their own whims and passions. But there
is danger toward, when one who gives the rein to his inclina-
tions in this way happens to be king, especially if he has such
a wife as Jezebel !
While Ahab was indulging his vexation, his wife came and
asked him why he was so cast down, and why he refused to
eat? He told her all about it, in great wrath; but she cov-
ered him with raillery, and cried, "A fine king of Israel,
indeed ! Rise up and eat your fill, for I will get this vine-
yard for you ! " Then she set about accomplishing her
promise, and wrote a letter in the king's name, signed it
with his seal, and sent it to the elders and chief inhabitants
of Jezreel. In this letter she gave' an account of what had
happened, and how Naboth had dared to refuse the king his
vineyard. She pointed out that this was nothing short of
treason and rebellion against God's anointed, 1 and ordered
the elders to treat it as such. They were to proclaim a fast-
day to appease the offended deity, and were then to bring the
charge against Naboth. They must take care to provide
certain men who would set the affair in the proper light ;
and, in fact, must arrange the details as best they could,
only taking care that the result should be Naboth's death.
Jezebel found the elders of Jezreel only too submissive ;
and ere long Naboth, with all his family 2 — for such was still
the barbarous custom of the age — was stoned to death.
As soon as the evil deed was done news was sent to Jeze-
bel, and directly she heard it she said to her husband, " Now
go and take possession of the vineyard which Naboth would
not give you, for the man is no more in the land of the liv-
ing ! " Now, though Ahab was not cruel and unjust enough
to commit the murder himself, he was sufficiently unprincipled
1 See p. 24. a 2 Kings ix. 26.
AHAB. 119
and covetous to eat the fruit which his daring and ambitious
wife had plucked ; so he set off at once for Jezreel, accompa-
nied by his officers, Jehu, Bidcar, 1 and others, to take pos-
session of the murdered man's estate, which had, of course,
been confiscated.
But he was not to be left in undisturbed enjoyment of his
acquisition. Hard by Naboth's plot of land he met a man in
the rough garment of a prophet, whom he and all his com-
pany knew well. It was Elijah, of Tishbeh in Gilead, the
stormy and intrepid preacher of repentance. He stayed the
roj'al chariot, and cried out to the king, who was doubtless
dismayed by the very sight of the man, "Here is a word of
Yahweh for j T ou ! Do you think to murder and steal un-
punished? On this very field shall the dogs lick up your
blood — your very blood — and the city women shall bathe in
it ! " The king's heart sank within him, but he put on a show
of defiance: "Do you dare to strike me thus in the face, 2
you enemy of me and mine ! " he cried to the messenger of
vengeance. "I do!" replied Elijah, "and I have struck
home too ! Since you have sold 3'ourself to do evil, says
Yahweh, I will bring evil upon you. I will pursue you till
I have rooted out all that belongs to your house, down to
the very slaves, till I have made it like the house of Jero-
boam and the house of Baasha ! " Ahab was always quickly
moved, and this denunciation completely broke him. His
joy in the possession of Naboth's vineyard was gone ; he
moved about sadly with naked feet, 2 and clothed in sack-
cloth, till Yahweh said to Elijah, "Do you see how Ahab
humbles himself ? I will not bring these curses upon his
house during his lifetime, but in the reign of his son."
The writer who inserted this story in the book of Kings
adds that Yahweh also foretold the mournful fate of Jezebel,
and that she was the chief cause of Ahab's going so much
further than his predecessors had done in his idolatrous
practices. 2 This threat against Jezebel may easily have been
added to the story by some one who knew the result, and
doubtless the older legend was itself to some extent colored
in the same way. This accounts, amongst other things, for
its making Elijah say that destruction should not come upon
Ahab's house till the time of his son. We can hardly sup-
pose that Elijah really predicted this ; but, since it so fell out,
the later writer, seeing that Ahab had been spared, attributed
the fact to his great penitence. He forgot that a repentance
1 2 Kings ix. 25. 2 After an amended version.
120 AHAB.
which allowed him still to keep possession of the land he had
stained by innocent blood, must have been barren and worth-
less in the eyes of God.
The following story tells us how Elijah's announcement of
the punishment inflicted by Yahweh began to be fulfilled : —
After three years' peace between Syria and Israel the war
broke out again. Ahab longed to conquer Ramoth, in Gilead,
which lay in Israel's territory, but was in the hands of the
Syrians. He was the more disposed to undertake the expe-
dition because he had entered into a close alliance with
Jehoshaphat, king of Judah ; but when the two princes had
assembled their united troops at Samaria and were ready to
set out, Jehoshaphat proposed that they should first consult
Yahweh. Ahab acquiesced, and summoned the prophets
before hjm. They came before the thrones of the two mon-
archs to the number of four hundred, and Ahab asked :
" Shall we go up against Ramoth? Or shall we not? " And
they all shouted in reply : " Go up, for Yahweh will give the
Syrians into your hands ! " Encouraging as this answer
was, Jehoshaphat was not yet satisfied. " Is there no other
prophet of Yahweh whom we can consult?" he asked; and
Ahab answered, "Yes! there is one more prophet here
whom we could consult if we liked. It is Micaiah the son of
Imlah. But I detest the man, for he never foretells success,
but always failure to me ! " Jehoshaphat, however, persuaded
him to send for Micaiah. The officer of the court who went
to fetch him said to him on the way : " All the prophets are
speaking after the king's heart. You, too, must give the
same advice, and prophesy success ! " But Micaiah was deeply
conscious of his prophetic calling, and met the well-meant
but seductive words of his companion with the earnest pro-
test : "As sure as Yahweh lives, I will say nothing but what
he commands me."
He was soon standing in the market place. If his god
should lay a hard word upon his lips, it would demand no
little courage for him to utter it! There sat Ahab and
Jehoshaphat in their robes of state ; and there were the
four hundred prophets before them ! What burning zeal in-
spired them ! How certain they were of the result ! One
of them, a certain Zedekiah, had fixed a pair of iron horns
upon his head, to give additional force to his words, and fur-
nish a visible illustration of his cry, "Thus says Yahweh:
Herewith shall you strike the Syrians until you shatter them ! "
AHAB. 121
At a sign from the king of Israel they checked their wild
gesticulations, and were silent. Then Micaiah stood before
the princes, and Ahab asked him, as he had asked the others,
" Shall we go up against Eamoth or not?" At first he an-
swered as the four hundred had done, " Go up, by all means !
for Yahweh will give it into your hand." But there was a
tone of mockery in his words, which forced the quick reply
from Ahab, " I conjure you to utter nothing but the truth in
Yahweh's name ! " And thereupon Micaiah resumed, but
with a sudden change of tone, " I see all Israel scattered
upon the mountains, like sheep without a shepherd, and
Yahweh says : They have lost their ruler, let them return in
peace to their homes ! " " There," said Ahab angrily, as he
turned to Jehoshaphat, ' ' you see how this man always
prophesies disaster to me ! " But hark, this one prediction
is not all. The hand of Yahweh is upon Micaiah. " Listen
to Yahweh's word," he cries. "I saw Yahweh upon his
throne, with the host of heaven standing upon either side,
and Yahweh said : ' Who can draw Ahab into a snare, and
lead him up against Ramoth ? ' Then one angel said one
thing and another said another, but none of their words
seemed good to Yahweh. At last the spirit of prophecy came
forward and said that he could do it. He would go and be a
lying spirit in the mouth of all the king's prophets. This
plan pleased Yahweh well, and he said, ' Go then ! for you
are sure to prosper.' And so," continued Micaiah, pointing
to the four hundred prophets, who had doubtless given ex-
pression by cries and gestures of indignation to the feelings
aroused by the fatal prophecy, " so Yahweh has sent a lying
spirit into all these your prophets ; and, though they promise
j"ou success with all their might, yet Yahweh foretells dis-
aster to you ! " Upon this Zedekiah, boiling with rage,
sprang up to the prophet of evil, and, striking him in the
face, cried scornfully, " Which way did Yahweh's spirit leave
me to speak to you?" "You will know well enough," was
the bitter answer, " when you fly from chamber to chamber
to hide yourself! " Here Ahab put an end to the passionate
altercation, which he must have thought in the highest degree
inopportune, by commanding Micaiah to be thrown into prison,
and kept upon the poorest prison fare, till he should come
back safe and sound. Micaiah on his part retired with the
cry, " If you ever come back safe, then Yahweh has not spoken
by me. Mark it well, all you assembled tribes ! "
What a strange affair this consultation of the deity must
vol. n. 6
122 AHAB.
have been ! If a man got the answer he wanted, so much
the better. If not, he might yield to the oracle if of a timid
disposition ; but otherwise he went his way just as if he had
never consulted it at all ! If any disaster overtook him he ac-
cused himself of disobedience ; but if he succeeded, then woe
to the representative of Yahweh who had prophesied failure :
We find it difficult to conceive how these prophets could really
believe that their god revealed the future to them, but there is
no room to doubt that they did ; and here we see one of the
ways in which they explained their failures when the event
falsified their predictions. Yahweh sometimes sent a lying
spirit to a prophet, with the express purpose of destroying the
man who consulted him.
On this occasion the two kings paid small attention to
Micaiah's gloomy prophecy, though Ahab took one special
precaution with the view of putting it to shame. He did not
go to battle in his royal arms, but accoutred as a common
soldier. Did he think to escape the lot that Yahweh had de-
creed ? Fool ! Though all things seemed to conspire with
him to make his plan successful, 'yet was all in vain ! The
king of the S3*rians had ordered the thirty-two commanders
of his war chariots to fight with no one but the king of Israel.
Him they must seek out and slay. Now when they saw Je-
hoshaphat they thought he was the king of Israel, and turned
all their strength against him. Jehoshaphat was hard put to
it, but when he raised his war-cry, "For Yahweh and Jehosh-
aphat," his assailants saw their mistake and left him. But
while these doughty warriors were seeking Ahab in vain,
a certain Syrian drew his bow against the bands of Israel.
He simply aimed his shaft where he thought that it would
strike, without knowing against whom he bent his bow — and
behold ! he struck the king of Israel between the breastplate
and the lower armor. Ahab felt that he was deeply wounded
and said to his charioteer, " Drive me behind the lines of bat-
tle, for I am sore wounded ! " But though he could no longer
fight he would not needlessly discourage his men, so he still
remained, standing in his chariot with his face turned towards
the Syrians — hero that he was ! — while his blood flowed
down into the car beneath. At last when evening drew on he
sank into the chariot, and was no more. The battle was
indecisive, but the king's death dispersed the Israelites in all
haste to their homes.
Ahab's body was carried to Samaria in the chariot and
buried there ; and, when his blood was washed from the car
AHAB. 123
in the public pool, the dogs licked it up, and the city women
bathed in it, just as Yahweh had foretold. Ahab had been
king two-and-twenty years.
He was, doubtless, deeply lamented by many of his subjects.
He had made peace with Judah and recognized its indepen-
dence, perhaps following his father, or perhaps inaugurating a
new policy thereby. He had repulsed and humbled the Syri-
ans. Commerce, industry, arts and sciences had flourished
under him ; and, if he had given Baal a temple in Samaria,
the majorhy of the worshippers of Yahweh did not complain
of it.
This is manifest from the scene with those four hundred
prophets, whom it would be a great mistake tp regard as
deceivers. It is true that they no more received direct com-
munications from Yahweh than you or I ; but neither did
Micaiah, the son of Imlah, or any other human being. This
does not give us the smallest right to doubt their good faith.
The sight of the united armies of the monarchs dazzled them.
Surely, the union of Israel and Judah gave good grounds for
the hope that their common god would help them. Surely,
Yahweh would be with them in his might. The unanimity of
the four hundred prophets shows how much they were attached
to their valiant and generous king, the patron of art, of knowl-
edge, and of commerce. Such were, doubtless, the sentiments
of the great majority. It is true that Naboth's death leaves a
stain upon Ahab's life ; but there was hardly a king in ancient
times who had not some such deeds upon his conscience. The
unlimited power which they exercised led them but too easily
astray. By one such crime, or even more than one, a king
did not necessarily forfeit the respect and affection of his
people, if he conferred upon them benefits that might weigh
against them.
In any other country, then, Ahab would have been an hon-
ored prince ; but in Israel he had to reckon with the vehement
opposition of the followers of Moses. They were more indig-
nant than the general public at Naboth's murder, and they
could not endure the temple of Baal at Samaria. At their
head stood Elijah, of Tishbeh ; and they contributed not a
little to the fall of the house of Omri.
124 FALL OF THE HOUSE OF OMRI.
Chapter XI.
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF OMRI.
1 Kings XXII. 51-53; 2 Kings I., III., VIII. 7-15, 28 b, 29, IX. 1-X. 28
IMMEDIATELY after Ahab's death Mesha, the king of
Moab, who had been tributary to Israel and had paid a
hundred thousand unshorn sheep and a hundred thousand
rams each year, 1 threw off the yoke.
As long as we had no authorities for the history of these
times but the Israelite writers, we knew absolutely nothing
of the doings of the Moabites between their subjection by
David and their revolt after Ahab's death ; but not long ago
a most interesting monument of antiquity was discovered,
which we must not pass over in silence.
In August, 1868, Professor Petermann, of Berlin, happened
to be in Jerusalem, and was there informed by a certain Mr.
Klein, a missionary in the employment of an English society,
that a stone of basalt had been discovered on the site of the
ancient city of Dibon, east of the Dead Sea, in the former
territory of Moab. It was about three feet ten inches long,
two feet broad, and fourteen and a half inches thick, and bore
a distinctly legible inscription in three and thirty lines. When
the Bedouins showed Mr. Klein this stone they told him that
he was the first European who had ever known of its existence.
Since he had not the necessary means of taking an impression
of the inscription with him, he had only copied a few letters,
which the Professor, however, immediately recognized as old
Phoenician. Petermann was convinced that the inscription
must be of the deepest interest, and accordingly did his best
to get possession of the stone, but without success. Mean-
while, the interpreter of the French consulate at Jerusalem,
M. Ganneau, had heard of the discover}-, and had sent an
Arab to the spot to take an impression of the inscription.
But since the Bedouins had now become aware of the great
value attached to the stone by European scholars, they began
to quarrel violently as to who should have the price that it
might fetch ; and M. Ganneau's Arab and his companions were
exposed to danger of their lives in attempting to accomplish
their task. They barely escaped with a few tattered fragments
1 2 Kings iii. 4.
FALL OF THE HOUSE OF OMltl. 125
of wet paper, upon which a part of the inscription was stamped.
Soon afterwards the Bedouins broke the stone, and the anti-
quarians had difficulty in rescuing even a portion of the frag-
ments. "With the various means at their disposal, however,
they have attempted to recover the contents of the inscription,
and have succeeded in completing it, all but a few lines. The
stone turns out to be a monument raised by this very king
Mesha, who revolted after Ahab's death, and to belong to the
period that intervened before King Jehoram endeavored to
make him tributary once more. The fact that the language
and the form of the letters of this inscription closely resemble
those of the Israelites and Phoenicians is in itself a matter of
interest to us, for it shows how closely all these peoples were
related to each other. But as students of Israel's religion we
are far more interested in the contents than in the form of the
inscription, for they teach us the ideas that Mesha entertained
concerning his god Chemosh. To throw light upon this subject
we give the following passages of the inscription : —
" I am Mesha, son of Chemoshnadab, king of Moab. My
father ruled Moab thirty years, and I succeeded him. I have
raised this hamuli for Chemosh, — a bamah of deliverance, for
he has delivered me from all my foes and has given me
vengeance upon all that hate me. Omri, king of Israel,
came up and oppressed Moab many years ; for then was
Chemosh angry with his land. Omri was succeeded by his
son, and he too said : I will oppress Moab ! But in my
days Chemosh said : I will look upon him and upon his
house, and Israel shall fall for ever. Now Omri had con-
quered the city of Madebah and taken possession of it. He
and his son oppressed Moab forty years. But in my day
Chemosh took pity on his people. I fortified Baal-meon
with walls and moats, and then I laid siege to Kirjathahn
wherein the Gadites had long dwelt, and which Israel's king
had fortified. I fought against the city and took it, and put
all the inhabitants to death in honor of Chemosh, the god
of Moab . . . And Chemosh said to me : Go forth and take
the city Nebo from Israel! Then I went out by night,
fought against the place from dawn of day till noon, took it
and slew all the inhabitants, for they were laid under the
ban in honor of Astar-Chemosh. And I also took thence all
the sacrificial instruments of Yahweh and consecrated them
to Chemosh."
Then follow further statements as to the capture of cities,
the erection of palaces and temples, measures to supply the
126 PALL OF THE HOUSE OP OMKI.
capital with water, the fortification of certain places suitably
situated for the purpose, and, in conclusion, a command from
Chemosh to go up against Horonaim, a city of the Edomites,
all which is matter of less interest to us. The whole tone of
the passages we have given is precisely similar to that of
many a narrative from the ancient history of Israel. Change
the names and read David, for instance, instead of Mesha,
Jerusalem instead of Dibon, Yahweh instead of Chemosh,
and Chemosh instead of Yahweh, and you will have a record
that might very well have stood upon some Israelitish £ ' stone
of help." l Moab's humiliation is ascribed to the wrath of
Chemosh, just as Israel looked for the cause of her defeats in
the anger of Yahweh. Mesha wrote : Chemosh said to me,
Go forth ! Just as Ahab might march upon Kamoth in
obedience to Yahweh's command. Mesha laid the inhabi-
tants of a conquered city under the ban in honor of Astar-
Chemosh, just as David did in honor of Yahweh. In short,
the spirit and the very style of expression are the same.
When this king Mesha erected his memorial on the bamdh of
Chemosh at Dibon, Ahab's son Ahaziah was king at Samaria.
He trod in the footsteps of his father, both in fostering com-
merce by land and sea 2 and in worshipping the Tyrian Baal.
We have only one narrative of any considerable extent that
refers to him. It represents him as the worshipper of a
foreign god and the enemy of Elijah, that sturdy champion
of Yahweh's claims, and is so far in accordance with the
facts ; but in other respects it is purely legendary. Its con-
tents are as follows : —
Ahaziah had fallen from a window in his palace at Sama-
ria, and perceiving that his life was in danger, he sent mes-
sengers to the temple of Baalzebub, at Ekron, to ask the
deity whether he was destined to recovor from the effects of
the accident or not. We may remark in passing that this
name of Baalzebub, which means "Lord of flies," was prob-
ably given to the deity because his help was specially invoked
against the plague of flies which is often so serious in the
East. The name Beelzebul, which the Jews afterwards gave
to the prince of the devils, 8 is certainly connected with the
name of the Philistine deity ; and the change of the last letter
is either accidental or made with express reference to the
1 Compare vol. i. p. 447. a 1 Kings xxii. 48, 49.
8 In Matthew xii. 24, and elsewhere, the trne reading is Beelzebul, nol
Beelzebub
FALL OF THE HOUSE OF OMRI. 127
possible meaning of " dung-god,' 7 which may be attached to
the word in this form.
But to return to our story. Ahaziah believed that this
Baalzebub could give him the most trustworthy prediction as
to the issue of his sickness, and he therefore sent certain of
his courtiers with rich presents to Ekron to consult his oracle
there. But Yahweh commanded Elijah the Tishbite, by an
angel, to go to meet them and tell them what folly it was
to consult a foreign god, as if there were no god in Israel
who could give them light and help. Elijah obej r ed, and
added, at Yahweh's command, that Ahaziah'sbed of sickness
should become his death-bed, to punish him for his contempt
of Israel's god.
Ahaziah's messengers perceived that their encounter with
Elijah had made it useless for them to continue their journej'
to Ekron. So they returned to Samaria and told the king
all that had happened. They described the prophet who
had uttered the fateful prediction as a man clad in a rough
hide strapped round his body with a leathern girdle ; and the
king knew that it must have been Elijah. But so far from
experiencing any sense of awe, so far from bowing down
before the prophet's rebuke in shame for the sin he had com-
mitted, he sent an officer with fifty men to bring him into his
presence.
Now Elijah was seated at the summit of a hill when the
soldiers came to apprehend him, and the captain cried in a
tone of rough command, " You man of God ! In the 'king's
name come down ! " But the prophet answered in wrath,
" If I am a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven
to consume 3 r ou and all your men ! " And lo ! the lightning
flashed from heaven, and in a moment all the reckless ones
who would have laid hands of violence upon the messenger
if Yahweh, lay dead.
But Ahaziah did not yet repent, and sent another band
as numerous as the first to seize Elijah. Their captain bore
himself in the same overweening fashion, and thereby brought
upon himself and his men the same dreadful fate as before.
Ahaziah sent a third company, and the same fate would
doubtless have overtaken them also, had not their captain
dealt far otherwise than his predecessors had done with the
prophet. Approaching him with every token of respect, he
threw himself upon his knees before him and cried beseech-
ingly : "O man of God, spare my life and the life of my
followers ! Let us not perish like th< other messengers of
128 FALL OF THE HOUSE OP OMRI.
the king ! " Then Yahweh's angel said to Elijah, " Go down
with him, fear nothing ! " So the man of God allowed the
officer to conduct him into the presence of the king, to whom
he repeated the prophecy which he. had uttered to his mes-
sengers on their way to Ekron. He told him he should die,
because he had acted as though there were no god in Israel.
And accordingly Ahaziah died.
Nine centuries afterwards, when the disciples of one who
was greater than Elijah endeavored to persuade him by an
appeal to the ancient man of God to punish those who had
treated him with disrespect after the same fierce manner, he
replied, ' ' The son of man is not come to destroy men's lives but
to save them ; " x and whoever has anything of his spirit joins
with him in rejecting Elijah's conduct as a model of his own.
Our story illustrates the truth of the saying that as a man is
so is his god ; for Yahweh, who puts the lightning at his
servant's command, becomes his accomplice, and sends the
punishment not upon the chief offender, Ahaziah, but upon
the instruments of his will. If we may judge by all the other
stories about Elijah and the prophets who worked with him,
this legend is a true embodiment of the spirit in which the
zealots for the exclusive worship of Yahweh acted. Elijah's
spirit is the spirit of zeal and courage, but also of cruelty and
vengeance ; and the Israelites might well deem it the spirit
of that Yahweh who revealed himself as the consuming fire.
Ahaziah died childless, after a reign of only two 3-ears, and
was followed by his brother Jehoram. The fine of conduct
pursued by this prince with reference to the State religion
shows that the zeal against Baal displayed by the prophets of
Yahweh had not been without its effect. Not that the wor-
ship of Baal was by any means banished from Israel, or that
Jehoram entirely reversed the polic}' of his house ; but he
favored the worship of Baal far less than his predecessors
had done, and even removed the anointed stone which Ahab
had erected in honor of Baal in front of his temple at Samaria.
Doubtless this stone gave special offence to the supporters of
Yahweh's exclusive worship.
It is not impossible that the king's attempt to propitiate
the national god was the consequence of the unfavorable issue
of his campaign against king Mesha. On this subject the
following narrative is given us 2 : —
To reduce the revolted Moabites to subjection, Jehoram
i Luke ix. 51-56. 2 2 Kings iii.
FALL OF THE HOUSE OF OMKI. 129
uall&l in the help of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah. The
allies determined to penetrate into Moab from the south,
which would involve their passing through the territory of
the Edomites ; and since the king of Edom was Jehoshaphat's
vassal, he too added Ms forces to the allied army. The}- met
with every kind of obstruction on their way, and were delayed
seven daj-s, till at last a dearth of water came to complete
their distress. Hereupon Jehoram cried in despair : " Alas !
Yah well has brought us all three into the field to give us up,
without a blow, into the hands of the Moabites." Jehosha-
phat answered his lamentation by asking whether there was
not a prophet in the camp by whom they might consult Yah-
weh. One of Jehoram's courtiers replied that Elisha the son
of Shaphat, Elijah's constant follower, had accompanied the
army. " He is a true prophet," exclaimed Jehoshaphat ; and
at once the three princes approached him with the prayer that
he would pronounce an oracle. Elisha did not receive the
visit very graciously. He was no friend to this son of Ahab,
this servant of Baal! "What have I to do with you?" he
said to him. " Go rather to your father's and your mother's
prophets ! " The king of Israel redoubled his entreaties :
' ' Nay, but it would be too fearful, should Yahweh give over
these three princes into the hands of the Moabites. Help
us ! " Elisha was persuaded by this reference to Jehoram's
allies to consult his god, and cried: " By Yahweh of hosts,
whose servant I am, were it not for the sake of Jehoshaphat
I would not heed you ! But since he is here, bring me a
harper ! " His order was obeyed, and when the musician stood
before Elisha and touched the strings, the hand of Yahweh
was laid on the prophet and he burst forth : ' ' Thus sa3'S
Yahweh : Fill the valley with trenches ; for though you will
perceive neither wind nor rain, yet the valley shall be filled
with water, and man and beast shall drink. And this is the
least part of what Yahweh will do for you. He will give the
Moabites into your power, and you shall take all their strong-
holds and all their open cities, and shall cut down all their
fruit trees, and shall stop up all their .wells, and shall spoil all
their fruitful fields with stones."
On the very next morning the water streamed into the val-
ley from the direction of Edom. Thus the Israelites and
their allies were saved from destruction ; and, moreover, me
Moabites were led into a snare ; for they had advanced to the
boundary of their land to meet the foe, and now they saw the
water, upon which the rising sun behind them threw a ruddv
6*
130 FALL OF THE HOUSE OF OMKI.
glow that made it red as blood ; so they thought the allies
must have quarrelled and fallen one upon the other, and they
advanced in careless haste to the camp to seize the booty.
In this condition they were easily routed ; and when once the
army was dispersed the whole country lay exposed to the in-
vaders, and they were enabled to take possession of all the
cities. But the capital, into which King M'esha and a part
of his troops had thrown themselves, still offered a valiant
resistance. Fearful devastations were committed by the con-
querors everywhere. Men, women, and children were slain,
the cities burned, the fruit trees felled, the wells stopped up,
and the fields covered with stones. 'But the capital stood the
siege bravely. Many of the garrison fell beneath the stones
which were showered from the slings of the assailants, but
the city still held out. Gradually Mesha was too hard put to
it. He saw that unless some vigorous measure were taken,
the place must inevitably fall into the hands of his exasper-
ated foes. In vain did he lead seven hundred heavy-armed
troops in a sally against the position held by the Edomites.
Perhaps he imagined that Judah's vassals would take his side,
or at least allow him to escape ; but he was disappointed,
and the sally failed. At his wit's end, he had recourse to a
desperate and fearful step. He was determined, cost what it
might, to compel his god, Chemosh, to come in might and aid
him. So he took his eldest son, the heir to the throne, and
sacrificed him on the city walls ! This deed produced the
desired effect. Disaster after disaster fell upon the camp of
Israel, and the allies were compelled to retire without accom-
plishing their purpose.
At first sight it seems difficult to understand how an Israel-
ite historian could suppose the sacrifice of the Moabite king
to have been the cause of disaster to the besiegers ; and ac-
cordingly the commentators have invented all kinds of other
explanations of his words, which are, " So there was a very
great wrath against Israel." This expression cannot really
mean anything but that the wrath of some deity burned
against Israel. We cannot tell exactly what the writer sup-
posed the connection of events to be. Did he really think
that on this occasion Yahweh was worsted by Chemosh, whose
zeal to succor his people had been roused by so precious an
offering? At any rate, we need not be surprised at the power
he ascribes to the sacrifice offered by the Moabite king, when
we reflect that he no more doubted the existence of Chemosh
than he did that of Yahweh. When Israel was victorious in
FALL OF THE HOUSE OF OMKI. 131
battle it was ascribed to the mighty help of Yahweh, who
fought against the foes of those he loved, seizing his shield
and buckler and rising up to help his people, brandishing his
spear and blocking the way against his foes. 1 But from this
it followed that when Israel was defeated Yahweh must have
been far away, 2 or deaf, 3 or asleep, 4 or angry with his people ;
and so they implored him to make haste, to rouse himself,
not to keep silence, but to rush to their aid. .We are natur-
ally disposed to accept all these expressions in a figurative
sense, and they do indeed frequently occur in the mouths of
authors, especially poets, whose conception of the nature of
their god is far too exalted to be really consistent with such
modes of expression ; but of course there must once have
been a time when they were used literally, for otherwise they
could never have become current as metaphors.
Quite consistent with this childlike conception of Yahweh's
nature is the idea which clearly shines through our story,
that the prophet Elisha could not only foretell the future but
could also bring about the deliverance of the army. The
three princes bring their petition to him as to one who has
power to help ; and he himself speaks as though he held the
fate of the allies in his hands. He will help them for Jehosh-
aphat's sake, but were he not with them he would not heed
Jehoram. That is to say, his kindly feeling towards the king
of Judah induced him to utter a favorable prediction and so
to save the armies. We shall find other examples as we go on
of this belief in the power of a prophet's word. When every
allowance has been made for the involuntary confusion both
of belief and feeling, which finds it so difficult to distinguish
between the author and the herald of a misfortune, there is
still abundant evidence that the Israelites, like other ancient
peoples, believed that an unfavorable prediction actually
caused an unfavorable event. The belief of antiquity in the
foreknowledge of certain men was closely connected with a be-
lief that they had power over the forces of Nature and the
fates of men, in virtue of the supernatural means they had at
their disposal. Soothsaying is near akin to magic. 6
Jehoram, then, was unable to recover the revolted prov-
inces ; and moreover, at the close of his reign of twelve
1 Psalm xxxv. 1-3. 2 Psalm xxii. 19, and elsewhere.
8 Psalm lxxxiii. 1, and elsewhere
i Psalm xxxv. 28, xliv. 23, lix. 8, and elsewhere.
« Compare vol. l. pp. 171, 172, 382.
132 FALL OF THE HOUSE OS" 0MK1.
years' duration, war broke out again with the Syrians. In
this war Jehoram was fairly successful. At any rate we find
Ramoth in Gilead, which had been in the hands of the foe at
the death of Ahab, once more in the hands of Israel at the
end of Jehoram's reign. But just at this period Syria devel-
oped quite new powers under the rule of the terrible Hazael.
The way in which this man became king is related as follows : '
Once on a time Elisha went to Damascus. Benhadad the
king happened to be ill, and no sooner ha'i he heard that the
famous man of God from Israel was in his capital than he
sent Hazael to him with a rich present of gold and forty camel
loads of precious things, to consult Yahweh as to the issue of
his sickness. Elisha answered Hazael thun : " Go and say
to him ' Your life shall be preserved ! ' but Yahweh has revealed
to me that he will surely die." Amazed by such an answer,
Hazael stood staring the prophet in the face, till the latter
burst into tears ; and when asked by his visitor why he wept,
replied : ' ' Because I know all the misery you will bring upon
Israel — how you will burn down the fortresses* with fire, slay
the young men with the sword, dash the suck! ing children to
pieces, and slaughter the women with child ! " " Who am I,"
cried Hazael, ''that I should do such might] deeds? I! a
mere dog!" "Yahweh has revealed to me,'' answered the
prophet, "that you shall be king of Syria." Then Hazael
returned to his prince and told him that Elishi pro.- 1
give them the kingdom for ever ; and therefore when Jero-
boam rose up against Rehoboam he was rebelling against God.
Moreover, the actual gulf that divided the two kingdoms was
wide. Israel worshipped golden bulls, and had priests that
were not Levites ! But Judah had Aaronites for her priests,
and observed the whole Law of Yahweh. What could Israel
do against Judah then ? According to the Chronicles King
Abijah reminded Jeroboam and his troops of all these facts
before they joined in battle. The Ephraimite king neglected
his warnings, and attempted to surround his army ; but it soon
appeared how Yahweh fought for the Judseans, for no sooner
did they raise their war-cry, no sooner did the priests sound
the trumpets, than Yahweh scattered Jeroboam's army in flight,
and Ave hundred thousand of his soldiers perished. All this,
we are told, together with Abijah's other deeds and words,
was recorded in the book of the prophet Iddo. After all that
has been said of the religious condition of the people under
David and Solomon on the one hand, and of the Chronicler's
views of history on the other, we need not stay to prove that
this account of the religion of the Judseans in Abijah's time is
as far from the truth as the statement that five hundred thou-
sand Ephraimites fell ! If we are to form a just conception
of the religion of Israel, we must beware above all things of
transplanting to the ninth and tenth centuries B.C. the religious
laws and the opinions concerning the house of David which
really belong to the third, in which the books of Chronicles
were written.
The truth is that there was no important difference between
the religion of the North and that of the South. We must
not attach too great importance to the fact that the temple
at Jerusalem contained no image of Yahweh, whereas golden
bulls were set up at Dan and Bethel. The inhabitants of
Judah stood upon no higher level than those of Israel. The
conception of Yahweh' s being, and the methods adopted to
appease him, were identical in the two kingdoms. Altais,
hamahs, asheraks, chammanim, teraphim, and images were com-
mon to them both. In both of them, every city, every village,
nay, every family and every member of a family, enjoyed the
most perfect freedom to worship his own god or gods in the
way that pleased him ; in both of them abominable licentious-
ness was here and there perpetrated in honor of the deity ; in
both a motley polytheism prevailed, but in both the worship
of Yahweh, as Israel's god, was maintained through every-
thing. The unsatisfactory religious condition of Judah is
168 KINGDOM OF JUDAH IN THE
admitted with perfect frankness by the book of Kings 1 in the
very passages that deal with Rehoboam and Abijah, the latter
of whom is so highly extolled by the Chronicler.
The book of Kings, however, speaks much more highly of
Asa and Jehoshaphat than of their predecessors. Asa, we
are told, opposed every kind of idolatry, and even degraded
his mother, Maachah, from her position and influence as the
queen-mother, because she had carved " something abomina-
ble," probably some licentious symbol, upon an asherah. Asa
burned the asherah itself, 2 but did not remove the hamahs?
Jehoshaphat trod in his father's footsteps. 4 But, although
these monarchs purged the worship of Yahweh in the temple
of Jerusalem of more than one strongly Canaanitish element,
they certainly did not institute a complete reform, and on the
whole the religion of Judah continued to resemble that of the
northern kingdom in its main features. Had it been other-
wise, we should hardly be able to understand the friendship
which united the sister kingdoms so closely throughout the
rule of Omri's house in the North.
Indeed, this alliance seriously perplexes the author of
Chronicles, who has also sundry other accusations to bring
against Asa and Jehoshaphat, in spite of the praise he found
awarded to them in the book of Kings. Asa, in particular,
incurs his displeasure. Why did he call in the help of the
Syrians against Baasha ? He ought to have put his trust in
Yahweh alone, especially as he had been favored above any
other monarch with the proofs of Yahweh's readiness to help.
To understand this last allusion we must examine the account
of Asa's reign given by the Chronicler. It differs considerably
from that in the book of Kings, and runs as follows : No sooner
had Asa reformed the religion of Judah than Zerah, king of the
Ethiopians, marched against him, with an army no less than
a million strong ! But Asa prayed to Yahweh, and the mighty
host was so utterly dispersed and routed that it could never
be rallied an}' more. After this victory, the king, at the in-
stigation of Azariah the prophet, prosecuted his l-eligious re-
forms with great vigor, and went on growing more and more
prosperous. But alas ! twenty j'ears afterwards, when Baashs.
came up against him, his faith forsook him, and instead of
simply trusting that Yahweh would help him against Israel's
king he called in the assistance of the S3'rians. For this of-
fence he was sharply rebuked by the seer Hanani, who fore-
l 1 Kings xiv. 22-24, xv. 3. 2 1 Kings xv. 13. 8 ». 14. * 1 Kings xxii. 46.
FIRST CENTURZ AFTER THE DISRUPTION. 169
told that he would be involved in war all the rest of his life ;
whereas the first six-and-thirty years of his reign had been
spent in profound peace — the war with the Ethiopians ap-
parently not being reckoned. But Asa, so far from repenting
when thus admonished, threw the bold prophet into prison,
and in some other instances likewise behaved oppressively
towards his subjects. During the last two years of his life he
suffered from a disease in his feet ; but neither did this bring
him to repentance, for he relied more upon the skill of his
physicians than upon Yahweh's help. '
Of Jehoshaphat the Chronicler has much to say in the way
of praise. This king, he tells us, not only reformed public
worship in the same sense as his father, but even commis-
sioned some of his nobles, supported by certain priests and
Levites, to teach Yahweh's law to the people. He was, con-
sequently, very prosperous and rich. No doubt it was wrong
of him to many his son into the family of Ahab, and so the
seer Jehu, son of Hanani, distinctly told him as he returned
from the battle at Ramoth, in which Ahab lost his life ; hut
the man of God felt bound to add that there was much good
in' him, since he had put away the asherahs and served Yahweh
with all his heart. Thus encouraged, Jehoshaphat pushed
his religious reformation vigorously forward throughout his
country, and paid special attention to the administration of
justice. To reward his zeal and piety Yahweh blessed him
marvellously. News was once brought to him of an enor-
mous army of Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites who
were marching against him and had already reached Hazazon-
Tamar, or Engedi. Upon this he turned to Yahweh and pro-
claimed a universal fast. The Judseans streamed from every
side into Jerusalem. The king stood in one of the forecourts
of the temple, in the micfst of the panic-stricken multitude,
and prayed fervently to Israel's god. Then suddenly a Le-
vite, Jehazael by name, one of the descendants of Asaph,
was filled with the spirit of Yahweh, and cried in the midst
of the assembly, " Hearken, ye men of Judah and Jerusalem,
and thou King Jehoshaphat ! Thus says Yahweh : Fear not,
for God can give the victory to whom he will ! Advance to-
morrow to the desert of Jeruel. You will not need to fight,
for you will see how Yahweh rescues his beloved." When
Jehoshaphat heard this both he and all his subjects bowed
down in prayer to Yahweh, after which the choirs of Levites,
Kohathites, and Korahites raised a psalm of praise. The
next morning the Judaeans marched out to the desert of Tekoa,
VOL. II. 8
170 KINGDOM OF JUDAH.
and as they passed by the king he exhorted them to be of
good courage and to trust implicitly in Yahweh. Finally he
ordered the temple-choir to head the army, which marched to
the sound of the hymn, "Sing praises to Yahweh whose
mercy endureth for ever ! " Their faith in Yahweh was abun-
dantly justified, for when the song of praise rose up to Leaven
their god hurled all their enemies to destruction. The Moab-
ites and Ammonites joined together and fell upon the Edom-
ites, and when they had destroyed them turned upci. each
other. When the Ju'dseans came to the camp they found
nothing but corpses there. Not one was left alive. For
three whole days they gathered the spoil, and on the fourth
they assembled in a valley, ever afterwards known as "the
valley of thanksgiving," and praised Yahweh for his succor.
After this they returned to the temple with music and sing-
ing. It need hardly be said that all the neighboring peoples
were struck with terror when they heard how Yahweh fought
against Israel's foes. After this glowing description of
Jeitoshaphat's success and piety, the Chronicler rather incon-
gruously adds a piece of information he had derived from
some earlier authority ; namely, that Jehoshaphat trod in the
footsteps of his father Asa and served Yahweh, but did not
remove the bamahs, inasmuch as the people did not j'et serve
the god of their fathers steadfastly. Moreover, he joined
Ahaziah, king of Israel, in building some ships to trade with
Tarshish ; but they were wrecked, and the prophet Eliezer
plainly declared to the king that his alliance with the godless
Ahaziah was the cause of the disaster. We may note in
passing that the Chronicler makes a mistake about the ships,
which were of the kind known as " ships of Tarshish," but
were in this instance intended to trade with Ophir.
Now, when we set aside all these incredible stories in the
Chronicles about the first four kings of Judah, and clear our
minds of the underlying conception of the religious condition
of the kingdom during their reigns, we have very few indica-
tions left of the moral and religious fruits which this first
century bore.
All that we can infer from the information given in the
books of Kings is that as yet comparatively few had fully
realized the great distinction between the religion of the Ca-
naanites and the worship of Yahweh after the spirit of Moses.
Under Rehoboam and Abijah, who trod close in the footsteps
of Solomon, this kernel of the nation had but little influence ;
whereas Asa and Jehoshaphat placed themselves^ to some
BAAL DEFEATED IN JUDAH. 171
extent under its guidance, and opposed some at least of the
pre\ alent heathen practices. But Jehoshaphat's close alliance
with the house of Omri shows how far from complete both his
reformation and his father's must have been.
Chapter XV.
BAAL DEFEATED IN JTJDAH.
2 Kings VIII. 16-29, XI., XII. »
THE battle between Yahweh and Baal, which raged so
fiercely in the northern kingdom, during the first cen-
tury after the disruption, was fought in Judah also. This
is only what we should have expected from the similarity of
the religious condition of the two kingdoms at this time.
Indeed, it was rendered inevitable b}*- the close alliance which
united them, for the house of Omri was always on good terms
with that of David, and Jehoshaphat had married his son to
Ahab's daughter Athaliah. This Athaliah appears to have
inherited the ambitious and enterprising character of her
mother Jezebel, and to have gained a complete ascendancy
first over her husband Jehoram and afterwards over their son.
Jehoram's reign of eight j'ears was far from prosperous, for
the Edomites revolted, and though the king inflicted a severe
defeat upon them, he could not make them tributary again.
The Chronicler does not fail to trace the avenging hand of
Yahweh in these events. He has more to tell us concerning
this Jehoram, and appears to have gained some of his infor-
mation, at any rate, from ancient sources. Jehoshaphat, he
tells us, had left rich legacies, including fortified cities in the
territory of Judah, to all his sons, while the crown descended
to the eldest, Jehoram. But the latter had all his brothers,
together with other Judsean princes, massacred. It is not
improbable that Jehoram did this deed with the same object
which afterwards moved his wife to imitate it ; namely, to
disarm the opponents of his policy. The Chronicler, how-
ever, goes on to say that the prophet Elijah rebuked him, in
a letter, and declared that Yahweh would punish him by in-
flicting heavy losses on him in his family, and bringing him
1 2 Chronicles xxi.-xxiv.
172 BAAL DEFEATED IN JUDAH.
to a fearful end himself. This is certainly untrue, for the
prophet was already dead. Then we are told that the Philis-
tines inflicted severe defeats upon Jehoram, and even carried
away his wives and all his sons except the youngest, Ahaziah.
But since this Ahaziah was two-and-twenty years old : when
his father died at the age of forty, 2 he can hardly have had
many elder brothers and sisters. Finally Yahweh smote
Jehoram with an incurable disease of the bowels, of which
he died after suffering for two years. He was held in such
contempt that the usual burial of a king was denied him, and
his bodj- was laid in the City of David, but not in the royal
tomb.
A few months afterwards his son Ahaziah, who had gone
to pay a visit to his kinsman Jehoram of Israel, fell by the
hand of Jehu, upon which Athaliah seized the reins of gov-
ernment. She began by slaughtering Ahaziah's children
(her own grandchildren) and the other princes of the blood.
The spirit of her subsequent rule may well be guessed. The
worshippers of Baal, when persecuted in the northern king-
dom by Jehu, found a refuge in Judah, and the temple of
Baal at Jerusalem was much frequented and was soon filled
with costly offerings ; though here, as in the North, Yahweh
was still recognized as Israel's god, and his temple still re-
garded as the principal shrine of the capital. Thus things
went on for six years.
One of Ahaziah's children, however, had escaped the mas-
sacre. His aunt Josheba, a daughter of Jehoram, had at first
hidden him, with the assistance of his nurse, in the " bed
chamber " of the palace, and afterwards the chief priest
Jehoiada had secured a place of refuge for him in one of the
buildings that surrounded Yahweh's temple.- Here he re-
mained until, in the seventh year of Athaliah's reign, Jehoiada
saw Ms chance of hurling the usurping queen from the throne
and placing the scion of David's house upon it. For this
purpose he entered into a conspiracy with the captains of the
royal body-guard, introduced them to an interview with the
king, swore them to secrecy, and accurately instructed them in
the part they were to play. When the necessary plans had all
been laid, the day was fixed for putting them into execution.
It was a Sabbath, the day on which one half of the guards were
relieved of their duties at the palace, while the other half took
their place. The relieving guards were to beset the three
1 2 Kings viii. 26 ; compare 2 Chronicles xxii. 2.
2 2 Kings viii 17 ; 2 Chronicles xxi. 5.
BAAL DEFEATED IN JUDAH. 173
gates of the palace and prevent any one from going in, and
the others were to go to the temple to protect the king. As
soon as they had secured the passages from the great altar to
the sanctuary, Jehoiada brought out Joash, placed him on
the steps of the portico, presented him to the people, set the
crown on his head, and anointed him. On this the guards
clapped their hands and shouted, " Long live the king ! " All
who were present either joined the cry or held their peace in
terror. The deafening shout and the ceaseless braying of the
trumpets reached the palace, and Athaliah hurried to the
temple. The moment she saw the youthful king surrounded
by her own guards she understood the position of affairs, and
hastened towards the palace rending her garments and shriek-
ing ' ' Treason ! treason ! " Jehoiada would not have the
temple polluted by her blood, so he ordered the guards to let
her pass, but some of the soldiers followed her and slew her
by the stables of the palace. Then beasts were slaughtered,
and the heads of the people walked between the severed
halves, swearing fidelity to the 3'outhful king, while solemn
sacrifices were being offered ; after which the priest sprinkled
them with the blood, and took an oath from the representa-
tives of the people and the commanders of the army that they
.would uphold the worship of Yahweh.
This oath is a proof of the religious character of the revo-
lution, which is further evinced by the attack which the people
immediately made upon the shrine of Baal. It probably stood
close by the temple of Yahweh, in the forecourt ; but where-
ever it was the people utterly destroyed it, broke the images
and altars to pieces, and slew the chief priest Mattan. Hav-
ing thus purified the house of Yahweh, Jehoiada took steps
to secure it from further pollution, and then escorted the
young king, with the body-guards and commanders of the
army, to the palace.
There are several points in this account of the accession of
king Joash that are not quite clear ; but in spite of some few
difficulties the whole account, which is taken from the book
of Kings, is very intelligible. This is more than we can say
for the story in Chronicles, which it is almost impossible to
understand. The cause is easily detected on comparing the two
accounts. The story in the book of Kings must have deeply
shocked the Chronicler. The revolution itself he thought
highly praiseworthy, for it restored the house of David to
honor, and devastated Baal's temple ; but the way in which
tradition reported it to have been carried out appeared simply
174 BAAL DEFEATED IN JUDAH.
horrible to him. It was quite natural and proper for the chief
priest to take the lead ; but that the body-guard, who were
not Levites, perhaps not even Israelites, should have had the
chief honor of the revolution, that they should have taken
their stand by the altar, and at the command of a priest too !
was something so inconceivable, or rather so utterly impos-
sible, that the Chronicler was compelled to substitute Levites
for these guardsmen, and to make Jehoiada summon all the
people to Jerusalem (a strange waj' of securing secrecy !) and
forbid an} r layman to approach the temple. No doubt, a
priest living in the Chronicler's own time would have done as
he makes Jehoiada do ; but the narrative in the book of
Kings shows us that in the time of Joash there was no such
sharp distinction between the priests and the laity as to ex-
clude the latter from the sanctuary.
Of the reign of Joash, which lasted forty years, we know
but little. When we remember how very young he was when
he came to the throne, we shall see that he must, as a matter
of course, have allowed himself to be entirely guided at first
by Jehoiada, to whom he owed his crown. The worship of
Yahweh, therefore, flourished again, and indeed Joash did
some very special services to the temple at Jerusalem, which,
had fallen here and there into a ruinous condition. The
Chronicler attributes this state of things to wanton injuries
inflicted on the temple by Athaliah ; but this is out of the
question, for she, too, worshipped the god of Israel. Neither
she nor Jehoram, however, would be likely to take much
trouble to keep the temple in repair ; and the history of the
measures taken by Joash will show us how it came to pass
that the injuries inflicted by the hnud of time were not made
good. During the early years of his reign, Joash followed
what was evidently the ancient custom of leaving the repairs
needed by the temple to be done by the priests. They were
expected to meet the cost out of the fixed revenues of the
temple, such as the proceeds of vows and sacrifices of atone-
ment, and the incidental sources of income ; such as the free-
will offerings of people who came to offer sacrifices, or who
required the good offices of the priests for any other purpose.
It was not unnatural that the priests should have been expected
to keep the temple in repair, but it appeared that they were
more anxious to look after themselves than the sanctuary.
They kept the money in their own hands, and the temple was
left to gradual decay. At last, in the twenty-third year of
BAAL DEFEATED IN JUDAH. 175
his reign, Joash took decisive measures. At his command,
Jehoiada put a box, with a hole in the lid, by the altar, and
into this box the door-keepers put all the money that was
brought into the temple, leaving the priests, when deprived
of this source of income, nothing but the proceeds of the
guilt and sin-offerings. When there was enough monej- in the
box, the chief priest, together with an officer sent by the king,
counted it out, and paid it over to the carpenters and masons
who were engaged in restoring the temple : it deserves remark
that these contractors were not required to give any account
of the monejr handed over to them, for they dealt honestly.
But even now no gold or silver utensils could be bought, since
all the available money was required for the building itself.
Moreover, Joash greatly diminished the temple treasure by
using it to buy off Hazael, who laid siege to Gath and threat-
ened Jerusalem, after humbling the northern kingdom.
According to the Chronicles we must distinguish two
periods in the life of Joash. That during which Jehoiada,
who was married to his aunt Josheba, stood at his side, and
that which elapsed after his death. As long as Jehoiada lived,
Joash served Yahweh ; but when the priest was dead, and was
laid in the royal tomb at Jerusalem in reward for his services
to Yahweh and the house of David, Joash was led away by the
flattery of his followers, and together with all the people he
deserted the temple of Yahweh, and served asherahs and idols.
Vain were all the warnings of the prophets, for Joash would
not hearken ; and at last when Zachariah, the son of Je-
hoiada, prophesied against him in the forecourt of the temple,
and threatened Judah with the wrath of Yahweh, he ordered
him to be stoned to death. ' ' May Yahweh see it and repay
it ! " cried the dying Zachariah ; and his curse was ful-
filled by the woe that Hazael brought upon Joash, and
by his wretched end ; for when he came back wounded
from battle with the Syrians, he was murdered by two of his
courtiers.
This story is as inaccurate as most of those in the book
of Chronicles. The accusation brought against Joash of
having deserted the temple and the service of Yahweh, with
all his people, is too vague and too sweeping to be admitted.
But the older historian mentions in a few words Jehoiada's
great influence upon the king for good, and also tells us how
the latter foil by the hand of conspirators, though he knows
nothing of his having received any wounds from the Syrians,
which would indeed be strange, since he never fought with
176 BAAL DEFEATED IN JUDAH.
Hazael at all, but bought him off, as we have seen. It ia
therefore quite possible that the succession of events may
have been as follows : After Jehoiada's death, Joash lost the
affection of many of his subjects ; and when Zachariah, Je-
hoiada's son, made himself the mouthpiece of the malcontents
he was put to death, not without complicity on the part of
the king, upon whom, accordingly, his murder was revenged.
In what respect the conduct of Joash underwent so great a
change we do not know, but it is not difficult to guess ; for
we know that twenty-three years after he came to the throne
he began to put some check upon the arrogance of the priests,
who were letting the temple fall into ruins and appropriating
all its revenues. The priests were doubtless far from pleased,
but as long as Jehoiada was alive and sided with the king,
all violent collisions were avoided. After the death of
his benefactor, however, Joash may have carried out his
measures with greater violence and harshness. The mediator
between him and the priests was no more ; and if Zachariah
presumed too much upon his father's services, it is not diffi-
cult to see what the result would be. Joash, who had prob-
ably been more or less hampered for some time past by his
desire to treat the hoary Jehoiada with respect, would now
be in no mood to yield to the pretensions of his son, and may
very well have uttered a hasty word to the effect that he
wished he were well rid of the insolent priest. When his
followers took him at his word and found means to incite the
populace to stone the king's enemy, the powerful clan that
ministered at Yahweh's altar avenged themselves by mur-
dering the king. But this view of the connection of events
is only conjectural.
Joash was succeeded by his son Amaziah, whose first care
was to bring his father's murderers to justice ; but we are
expressly informed 1 that he did not put the sons of the mur-
derers to death, because it was written in the law-book of
Moses : " The fathers shall not be put to death for the sins
of their children, nor the children for those of their parents ;
but whoever has done what is worthy of death must bear
the punishment himself." Here the historians have fallen
into a mistake, for the book of law in which these words are
found 2 was not written in Amaziah's time. In this as in so
many other instances the practice was reformed before the
precept. About this period, therefore, the general sense of
justice and humanity triumphed over the barbarous custom
i 2 Kings xiv. 5, 6; 2 Chronicles xxv. 3, 4. 2 Deuteronomy xxiv. 16.
BAAL DEFEATED IN J CD AH. 177
of not only slaying the offender, but rooting out his whole
family with him.
In a subsequent chapter we shall see how Amaziah reigned
in considerable prosperity at first, but finally lost his crown.
Here we need only add a few words on the power of the
priests at Jerusalem.
We have already traced out the conceptions upon which
the influence of a priesthood is based, and have observed the
germs of a future hierarchy in Israel. 1 Now it followed, from
the nature of the case, that the servants of the sanctuary at
Jerusalem must have great advantages over all others. Living
as they did in the immediate neighborhood of the palace,
and in constant requisition to place their art at the service of
the king, they had certainly less freedom and independence
than was enjoyed by other priests ; but at the same time the
honor paid to the royal sanctuary was reflected upon its
servants, and they might easily turn their connection with
the court to account in extending their own influence. The
chief priests were often in the palace, and took their place
amongst the king's most intimate advisers ; 2 and even priests
of a subordinate rank were sometimes entrusted with im-
portant political functions. Thus David, when flying from
Absalom, chose the sons of the priests to bring him word of
what was going on in Jerusalem, and Ahimaaz, the son of
Zadok, served him as a messenger. Amongst Solomon's
ministers of state Azariah, the son of Zadok the priest, is
mentioned first, 3 and Zabud, the son of Nathan, appears as a
priest and as " the king's friend." 4 Conversely, too, David's
sons are said to have been priests, 6 and it is quite probable
that they really exercised the priestly functions, as David
himself did when the ark was brought to Jerusalem, and as
Solomon did at the consecration of the temple. 6
The disruption of the kingdom struck a heavy blow at
the general prestige of the priests of Jerusalem, no less than
at that of their king ; but, on the other hand, it greatly
strengthened their influence in Judah itself. As long as the
twelve tribes were united, the temple at Jerusalem, though
the principal sanctuary in the kingdom, had many rivals ;
l See vol. i. pp. 382-383. 2 2 Samuel viii. 17, xx. 25 ; 1 Kings iv. 4.
8 1 Kings iv. 2.
4 1 Kings iv. 5, where priest should stand instead of principal officer.
6 2 Samuel viii. 18, where priests should stand for chief rulen.
« 2 Samael vi. 14, 17, 18 ; 1 Kings viii. 54, 55, 64.
8*
t78 BAAL DEFEATED IN JUDATT.
some of them, such as the bamah at Gibeon, very near, but
the most formidable, such as those at Beersheba, Gilgal,
Bethel, Mount Carmel, and Dan, at a more or less con-
siderable distance. Now the disruption of the kingdom,
while depriving the priests of Jerusalem of all influence in
the North, enabled them to overshadow their colleagues in
Tudah all the more completely, and to reduce them to entire
dependence upon themselves.
The course of events during the first century after Solo-
mon's death was exactly calculated to increase the power of
the priestl'ood at Jerusalem. There were no great civil or
religious conflicts here, as there were in northern Israel.
There all the agitations caused at first by the changes of
dynasty, and afterwards by the struggle against Baal, had
conspired to raise the prophets into the position of popular
leaders ; and their influence naturally impaired that of the
priests. But in Judah this was not the case. We have not
a single trustworthy report of the appearance of a prophet
in Judah during the first two centuries after the disruption,
for the stories in Chronicles deserve no credence. The priests
accordingly became more and more firmly established as the
spiritual leaders of the people.
The worship of Baal was not so long established in Judah
as in the northern kingdom ; and consequently the reaction
against it gave a less powerful stimulus to the religious life
of the exclusive worshippers of Yahweh. Accordingly, no
prophet led the people in their attack upon the Syrian god ;
but it was the chief priest, Jehoiada, who brought about the
fall of Athaliah, with the help of the body-guard. It was
only natural that this Jehoiada, who had placed the king upon
the throne and was his chief adviser all his life, should have
done much towards increasing the power of the priesthood.
It is far from accidental that in his day the temple was re-
stored, and the duties and privileges of the priests regulated.
Jehoiada appears to have been anything but friendly to the
prophets, for one of the measures he took in the interests of
public worship was to entrust the preservation of order within
the precincts of the temple to a strong body of officers, who
were instructed, amongst other things, to "put any mad
fellow who prophesies into the stocks, with a chain round
his neck." 1 Even in the northern kingdom we have seen 2 a
band of military messmates, as they were laughing together
over their wine, call one of the " inspired" servants of Yah-
1 Jeveiniah xxix. 26 . 2 See p. 134.
BAAL DEFEATED IN JUDAH. 179
weh a madman ; but this by no means shows that the prophets
were in any way slighted, or put under restraint. A title,
however, which means little or nothing in the mouths of a
jovial company of soldiers, becomes profoundly significant
now that it has found its way into the official instructions
issued to the guardians of the temple. In itself, however,
such a tegulation is by no means surprising ; for a priest,
whose duties are of an essentially formal character, and who
has constantly to conduct religious ceremonies in accordance
with fixed regulations, is by his very nature opposed to the
prophet, who will not hear of a written law, but speaks out
in accordance with the impulse from within the thing that
his god reveals. Prophets and priests accordingly must
almost inevitably come into collision with each other. In
the temple especially, where everything had to be done in
the prescribed form, the prophets might easily introduce con-
fusion ; and it was riot unnatural that Jehoiada should take
measures to restrain them within due limits, when he regu-
lated the temple service.
The priests, in their turn, were reduced by Jehoiada's
ordinances to dependence upon the king, and an end was put
to their irresponsible appropriation of the rich temple reve-
nues ; but, on the other hand, the officiating families were
now secured in the receipt of a regular income, and had a
more definite position in the State assigned them. Individu-
ally, the members of the priestly order might find the old
state of affairs preferable, but some restriction of personal
liberty was highly conducive to the general influence of the
priesthood as a body.
In Solomon's time Zadok, of the tribe of Levi, stood, as
we know, at the head of the priests of Jerusalem. Now in
ancient times the tie that united the various members of one
family was very close, and it was considered one of the first
duties of the head of a clan to push his relatives forward. It
was inevitable, therefore, that all the offices at the great
sanctuary should gradually be filled by members of the
" house of Zadok ; " that is to say, by the sons and other
relatives of the chief priest, together with their dependants.
And since Levites had begun to be selected as priests in pref-
erence to others long before the temple was built, we may
assume that in Solomon's time most of the bamahs were
under the care of Levites. These Levites would, in man}'
instances, espouse the cause of their brothers at Jerusalem,
who, in their turn, would use their influence at court to
180 EARLIEST ISRAELITISH LAW BOOK.
secure to some member of the tribe any good place which
might from time to time fall vacant at any of the sanctuaries.
Thus all but Levites were gradually excluded from the priestly
office, and "the sons of Levi" became the only priests in
Judah.
The more completely the Levites developed into a priestly
caste, the greater was the danger that threatened the spiritual
life of Judah ; for priests are alwaj-s apt to concentrate their
attention upon their temples, altars, religious practices and
ceremonies — in a word, upon the externals of religion. If
they gain a complete ascendancy over their fellow-believers,
then the faithful become their absolute slaves, religion de-
generates into formalism, and the life of the soul is choked
by observance of the Law.
We shall presently see that Judah did not escape these
dangers.
Chapter XVI.
THE EARLIEST ISRAELITISH LAW BOOK.
Exodus XXI.-XXIII. 19.
WHEN speaking of King Jehbshaphat, of Judah, we
mentioned in passing that the book of Chronicles
represents him as having done a great deal towards regulat-
ing the administration of justice. We will now examine the
statement 1 more in detail. Jehoshaphat, we are told, ap-
pointed judges in all the cities, and exhorted them to fear
Yahweh, and to remember that partiality, injustice, and
venality were contrary to his will. Moreover, he established
a supreme court at Jerusalem to watch over the religious and
social interests of his kingdom. In this court both priests
and Levites on the one hand, and laymen on the other, had
seats ; the former under the presidency of the high priest,
the latter under that of "the prince of the house of Judah."
To this court the other judges were to come for instructions
when any question was too hard for them to decide themselves.
This college of judges at Jerusalem, then, was not a tribunal
to which those who felt aggrieved by the decision of a lowei
court might appeal. Any such procedure was excluded by
1 2 Chronicles xix. 5-11.
EARLIEST ISRAELITISH LAW BOOK. 181
the belief that the sentence of every judge was a word of
God, from which any appeal to a higher authority was incon-
ceivable. It was only if the judge himself felt unable to
pronounce a decision that the case was taken before tho
court in Jerusalem.
We are hardly entitled to accept it as a fact that Jehosha-
phat made any such regulations as these, on the mere author-
ity of the book of Chronicles, which so consistently exalts
this prince. At any rate the distinction here drawn between
priests, that is sons of Aaron and other Levites, certainly
dates from a later period. But of course the administration
of justice must have been gradually regulated as time went
on. The legend of Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, advising
him to appoint judges, 1 brings vividly before us the causes,
which induced the monarchs to take this matter in hand.
The more thoroughly the Israelites became accustomed to
the settled government of the kings, and understood that
each of them must no longer do what seemed good in his
own eyes, the more numerous did the cases become in which
they needed the decision of their king as the supreme judge,
llemember, for instance, the account of Absalom standing at
the city gate of Jerusalem to win over all those who, from
every part of the kingdom, came to appeal to David. 2 The
administration of justice, therefore, gradually became»a task
too heavy for the shoulders of the king alone, and it seemed
advisable that there should be judges in each of the principal
cities. Where none were already established, the king would
of course be the natural person to appoint them ; and the
establishment of a supreme court at Jerusalem would follow
as a matter of course. No doubt some similar provision was
made in Samaria.
It is uncertain when the administration of justice was first
regulated on this general plan. We only know that the
scheme was in full operation two and a half centuries after
Jehoshaphat; for the book of Deuteronomy 8 assumes the ex-
istence of numerous local courts of justice and of the supreme
court at Jerusalem, and warns all the judges very emphatically
that they must render implicit obedience to the precepts of the
Levitical priests and " the judge in the place which Yahweh
shall choose." Indeed, any one who defies these supreme
authorities is declared guilty of death.
The special date at which these regulations were introduced
is a matter of less importance than the character of the relig-
1 Compare vol. i. p. 310. 2 See pp. 43, 44. 3 Deuteronomy xvi. 18-xvii. 12.
182 EARLIEST ISKAELITISH LAW BOOK.
ions, moral, and social principles in accordance with which
justice was administered, 01 at any rate ought to have been
administered in the opinion of the most enlightened Israelites.
What these principles were we may to some extent gather
from the book of Law contained in Exodus xxi.-xxiii. 19.
There is something to be said in support of the belief that
this book was written in the first century after the disruption,
but this is by no means certain. Nor can we be sure that it
was composed in the kingdom of Judah. In the book of
Exodus it appears in the middle of a story that we shall deal
with later on, dating from the time of the fall of northern
Israel, but it is certainty older than this story itself, and is at
any rate the oldest Israelitish boQk of Law that we possess.
Let us see what it contains.
The subject-matter of the code is extremely varied, and we
cannot lay too much stress upon the fact that it gives neither
the first nor the chief place to the regulation of forms of wor-
ship. It is very clear that its compilers believed that a virtu-
ous life was the most acceptable service that could be offered
to Yahweh. It is true the code enjoins the observance of the
three feasts, which, according to the historians, were celebrated
in Jerusalem as early as in the time of Solomon 1 — namely, the
feast ofunleavened bread, the feast of first-fruits, and the feast
of harvest ; but all it says concerning them is that every male
Israelite must appear before Yahweh on these occasions, of
course not empty handed ; that all the bread used at sacrifices
must be unleavened ; and that the fat of a sacrificed beast must
not be kept till the following day. 2 When we compare these
simple precepts with the elaborate trivialities of a later day, we
are pleased to see how little importance was as yet attached to
minute regulations of ceremonial worship by the guiding spirits
of the ninth century B.C. But, of course, the code extols
liberality in making presents to the sanctuary. The Israelite
is to relinquish the first-fruits of his corn, olive, and grape
harvest; to buy off his first-born son by a substitutionary
sacrifice ; to dedicate the firstlings of all his clean beasts to
Yahweh on the eighth day ; and to present all these first-fruits
to him in his sanctuary. 8
We must not suppose, however, from this moderation in
prescribing so-called religious duties, that the worshippers of
Yahweh observed no other usages than those which we have
mentioned. On the contrary, their religious customs were
1 1 Kings ix. 25. 2 Exodus xxiii. 14^18. 8 Exodus xxii. 29, .10, xxiii. 19 o
EARLIEST ISRAELITISH LAW BOOK.. 183
numerous and varied. This very code forbids the Israelites
to eat the flesh of any animal that has been killed by a beast
of prey. 1 It also forbids them to boil a kid in its mother's
milk, 2 and commands them to observe the Sabbath and to let
the land lie fallow every seventh year. 3 Doubtless these are
only a few of the usages established by custom amongst the
worshippers of Yahweh, and enforced by many of his priests.
Only to mention a single point, there can be no doubt that
the distinction between clean and unclean foods existed when
this code was drawn up ; but remarkably enough both this and
manj' other religious usages are passed over in absolute silence
here, being considered of less importance apparently than the
points upon which stress is laid.
The matters most insisted on have reference to social topics,
and aie treated in a spirit which commands our special admi-
ration when we consider the period at which the precepts were
issued. First of all come the laws of slavery. 4 Of course, the
law-giver has no idea of abolishing this institution, which was
as natural in ancient times as it is monstrous and detestable
in our own. So far from thinking of putting an end to it, our
law-giver even declares that, although a man who kills his male
or female slave upon the spot must pa}' for the offence with his
own life, }'et if he inflicts such injuries upon them that they
live for a day or two and then die, be need not be punished at
all, inasmuch as "this slave is his own property." 6 Never-
theless he endeavors to soften the lot of the slaves as much as
possible, though he makes a distinction in this respect, thor-
oughly characteristic of the age, between a Hebrew and a
foreign slave. An Israelite must not be retained as a slave
permanently, but must be restored to liberty without any
ransom after six years' service. If he was married when he
became a slave, as was often the case with debtors, then his
wife must be released with him ; but if he had married while
a slave, his wife and children remained the property of his
master. Should he prefer slavery to freedom, which might
well be the case if he had married while a slave and had a
family, his master must take him to a sanctuary of Yahweh,
and there bore his ear with an awl to the door-post, which
signified that he was his slave for life. The law-giver insisted,
with especial earnestness, that if a man should take a female
slave for an inferior wife, as Abraham and Jacob did in the
legend, he should treat her well.
1 Exodus xxii. 31. 2 Exodus xxiii. 19 b. 8 Exodus xxiii. 10 12.
* Exodus xxi. 2-11. 6 Exodus xxi. 20, 21.
184 EARLIEST ISRAELITISH LAW BOOK.
That the law-giver's penal code is severe, and that he does
not shrink from exacting the penalty of death is only what we
should expect. A man who kills another, 1 even by accident,
must be put to death, unless he can escape to a place of refuge
such as an altar ; but even this is no protection to a deliberate
murderer. Again, whoever raises his hand against father or
mother, or even curses them, 2 must be put to death ; and so
must kidnappers. 8 Finally, the same penalty is enacted against
everything regarded as pre-eminently Canaanitish ; namely,
witchcraft, unnatural lust, and idolatry. 4
Compared with many another code, even of modern times,
these Israelitish laws of the ninth century B.C. are decidedly
merciful. The extreme penalty of death is only enacted in
comparatively few cases ; and with regard to personal injuries
the fierceness of revenge is tempered bj- the law of retribution,
" eye for eye, tooth for tooth ; " whereas in the numerous cases
in which a man is more or less directly responsible for injuries
which have befallen another, very equitable rules of compen-
sation are laid down, and the opportunity is often given to the
offender of atoning for his deed by the payment of a fine. 5
Theft is to be punished by the infliction of a fine of four
or five times the value of the stolen property, and in default
the culprit may be taken or sold as a slave. Under certain
circumstances a person suspected of a theft which he denies
may clear himself by an oath. A man who has deceived a
woman must marry her instantly, unless her father should
refuse to allow it, in which case the culprit must pay him the
ordinary amount of a woman's dowry. 6
The passages in the code which most excite our admira-
tion are its exhortations to humanity : ' " Never oppress a
stranger, for you yourselves were strangers once in Egypt,
and know how weary is the stranger's lot. Injure no widow
or orphan, for Yahweh listens to their cries, and will inflict a
fearful punishment. Exact no usury from your poor brothers.
If you have taken a poor man's coat in pledge return it to
him before sun-set, for he will need it to cover him at night.
Neither bear false witness nor pronounce false judgment to
please the populace. Neither give the great 8 any preference
in pronouncing judgment, nor oppress the poor." And mark
the noble spirit of the precept that follows! "If you sec
l Compare vol. i. p. 82. 2 Exodus xxi. 12-15, 17.
* Exodus xxi. 16; compare vol. i. p. 515. * Exodus xxii. 18-20.
6 Exodus xxi. 22-36. 6 E xo dus xxii. 1-17.
' Exodus xxn. 21-27 xxiii. 1-12. 8 After an amended version
rARLIEST ISRAELITISH LAW BOOK. 185
your enenry's ox or ass going astray, or falling under ita
burden, you must take it back to him, and must leave your
own work to help it up." The claims of humanity reigned
so supreme in the mind of this law-giver that he insists upon
the observance of the Sabbath expressly for sake of the male
and female slaves, who must have rest, he urges, just as much
as other people ; and the reason he gives for wishing the fields,
the vinej'ards, and the olive gardens to be left untilled, and
hold a Sabbath every seventh year, is that the poor may then
be allowed to come and take whatever grows of itself, and that ■
the beasts may have what they leave. Now, however mis-
taken such a law may be in the interests of the poor them-
selves, whom it would throw out of work every seventh year,
yet the fact that the law-giver rests the religious observance
upon this ground rather than upon any other, is a striking
proof of his kindly disposition.
It is obvious at once that this book of Law differs in many
essential respects from a modern code. It may be said to
exhort rather than to ordain. This is natural enough ; for
the code was not promulgated by any person or corporation
who had power to enforce it, and it depended largely for its
observance on the conscience and the personal convictions of
the several judges, who were only partially controlled by
public opinion. A code of laws in Israel was not so much a
set of enactments to the letter of which the judge was bound,
as a general guide to the spirit in which he was to act.
A book of law such as we have just examined does not
teach us the pressing necessities of the age and the manner
in which they were met, but reveals the spirit by which the
best Israelites of the period were actuated ; and the admira-
tion which we feel for so much that is contained in the code
greatly stimulates our interest in the history of Israel's
religion.
The fact is that when we think of the opinions which the
ancient worshippers of Yahweh entertained concerning their
god, and the way in which they thought they could serve and
propitiate him, we sometimes ask ourselves: What does it
really signify that the worship of this Yahweh was preserved ?
What would it have mattered if the altars, massebahs, asherahs,
and what not, that were used in the service of Yahweh had
gradually been diverted to the worship of Baal or Astarte, ot
Chemosh or Milcom? In itself it wonld matter nothing.
Whether the ancients sought to appease Yahweh with an
offering or preferred to sacrifice to Baal comes to exactly the
186 ISRAEL UNDER JEROBOAM H.
same thing. Whether they held the pig and the hare in
abomination as unclean beasts, or brought them in pref-
erence to all other creatures to the altar, is not of the
smallest consequence. Whether they sanctified the seventh
day of the week as a day of rest, or rather celebrated the
feast of the new moon, made them neither better nor worse
The salvation of the world does not depend on outward things
like these. But it is very closely connected with the triumph
of morality. If, as was really the case with the masses, the
service of Yahweh had only differed in names, in ceremonies,
and in outward usages of religion from the service of the
other gods, then it might have fallen, as the worship of
hundreds of gods and goddesses has fallen, without any loss
to the world. But when we see that the kernel of these
worshippers of Yahweh maintained the claims of morality,
and felt that Israel's god was best served by uprightness, by
honor, chastity, humanity, and the spirit of good-will ; then
we begin to take a deep and genuine interest in the history
of the worship of their god.
And this is why we rejoiced in Yahweh's triumph over Baal
alike in Judah and in northern Israel.
Chapter XVH.
ISRAEL UNDER JEROBOAM II.
2 Kings XIV. ; Psalm XLV. ; Deuteronomy XXXHL
ABOUT the year 825 b.c. the two Israelitish kingdoms
were alike prosperous. In the North, Joash had
already been on the throne for fifteen j'ears. He had de-
feated the Syrians repeatedly, and had reconquered from
them a great part of the territory they had wrested from his
predecessors. In Judah, Amaziah had waged war against
the Edomites with such complete success that even their
capital, Selah or Petra, had fallen into his hands. But at
the end of his campaign in Edom, Amaziah sought a quarrel
with Joash, who sent the following answer to his challenge :
" Once on a time the thistle of Lebanon sent a message to the
cedar of Lebanon, and said, ' Give my son your daughter for
ISRAEL UNDER JEROBOAM II. 187
his wife.' But, meanwhile, the wild beasts walked over the
thistle and trampled it down. And now the thistle's fate will
be yours. You have beaten the Edomites, and had better
stop at home and boast your prowess there. Why should
you rush upon your own ruin ? " But Amaziah was not to
be put off ; and, indeed, the contemptuous tone of the warn-
ing given him by Joash was hardly calculated to divert him
from his purpose. So he brought his army into the field,
but was utterly routed at Beth-shemesh. Amaziah himself
fell into the conqueror's hands, and Jerusalem surrendered.
The victorious army marched in triumph through a breach
in the wall, and Joash returned to Samaria, carrying with
him the treasures of Yahweh's temple and the royal palace,
and the noblest Judaeans as hostages. Thus Judah became
a province of Israel.
The Chronicler has a good deal to add. He tells us 1 that
when Amaziah reckoned up the forces which he could bring
into the field against the Edomites, he found his army too
small, though it numbered three hundred thousand heavy-
armed soldiers. So he hired a hundred thousand Israelite mer-
cenaries for a hundred talents (thirty or forty thousand pounds)
as auxiliaries. As he was on the point of setting out with
this army, a certain prophet came to him and commanded
him, in Yahweh's name, to dismiss these mercenaries, for
Israel's god would have no dealings with the Ephraimites.
Amaziah was only to muster his own troops, for his god
could give the victory to whom he would. " But what of all
the money I have paid them already ? " cried Amaziah, for he
could not bear to think of spending so much treasure for
nothing. "• Yahweh can give j'ou more than that," said the
man of God ; and, thus encouraged, the king dismissed his
auxiliaries. But the Israelites themselves were deeply offended
by the insult, and in revenge they attacked the cities of Judah,
slew three thousand men, and made enormous booty, while
Amaziah's army was still in Edom. This monarch's subse-
quent defeat at the hands of Joash was only what he de-
served ; for, when he had conquered the Edomites, he
worshipped their gods. A certain prophet warned him of his
sin, but he answered haughtily, "Who made you the king's
counsellor? Hold j'our peace, or you shall be whipped!"
Then the man of God forbore to warn him further, and said
with a sigh, " I see that God has determined to destroy you !
For if not, you would have listened to my counsel." The
1 2 Chronicles xxv.
I8S ISRAEL UNDER JEROBOAM II.
justice of his surmise appeared from Amaziah's arrogance
towards Joash, and the ruin in which it involved him.
The enormous figures which appear in this account are, as
we know, nothing unusual with the Chronicler ; and the wor-
ship of Edom's gods by Amaziah is doubtless a pure supposi-
tion, made to account for the terrible humiliation suffered by
a prince who was said to have " done what was right in the
eyes of Yahweh."
Soon after conquering Jerusalem, King Joash died, and left
a powerful kingdom to his son Jeroboam, whom we call Jero-
boam II., to distinguish him from the first king of Israel.
This monarch extended his rule far wider yet, for by his sword,
as the Israelite historian boasts, Yahweh delivered Israel
from the hand of the Syrians. All the territory that had
been lost under his predecessors, Jeroboam recovered ; and
he so completely reunited the district beyond Jordan to his
kingdom , that during his reign the clans that were settled there
were accurately enrolled by name and number in the royal
archives. 1 Thus the prophecy of Jonah, the son of Amittai,
that Jeroboam should rule from Hamath to the Dead Sea, was
literally fulfilled. This Jonah, whose prophecy unfortunately
is lost, is the hero of the little book called after him, to which
we shall return in the next volume.
These boundaries, from Hamath to the Dead Sea, do not
include Judah ; and it appears that the kingdom, though com-
pletely humbled, made tributary, and forced to submission by
the pledges of its good behavior held by Joash, nevertheless
retained a certain amount of independence. At any rate
Amaziah remained at Jerusalem even after his defeat, and
when he lost his life through a conspiracy, his son Uzziah,
also called Azariah, succeeded him. All this appears exceed-
ingly strange, for we cannot see why Joash should not have
completely incorporated Judah with Israel when he had cap-
tured Jerusalem and carried away the hostages to Samaria.
"Were the Judaeans so profoundly attached to the dynasty of
David that Joash dreaded constant insurrections should it be
displaced ? It may be so. But there is a date given in the
book of Kings 2 which makes us suspect that Joash really
went much further than we are told. The statement referred
to is this — that Uzziah did not become king of Judah till
the twenty-seventh year of King Jeroboam of Israel. Now,
since we are also told that Amaziah survived Joash only
fifteen years, 8 it follows that if Uzziah had succeeded him
1 1 Chronicles v. 17. « 2 Kings xv. 1. '2 Kings xiv. 17.
ISRAEL UNDER JEROBOAM II. 189
immediately his accession would have fallen in the fifteenth,
not the twentj'-seventh year of Jeroboam. How are we to
account for this gap of twelve j-ears which appears to have
elapsed between the death of Amaziah and the accession of
his son? Does it not point to the conclusion that for some
time the kings of northern Israel swayed the sceptre over
Judah also? If so, the writer of the book of Kings, who
held that the descendants of David were the only legal occu-
pants of the throne of Judah, 1 fictitiously protracted the
reign of Amaziah to the term of nine-and-twenty years 2 (that
is to the end of his life), and then made his son succeed
him without an interval. If this does not satisfy us we
must suppose that there is a mistake in the year of Uzziah's
accession.
But however we ma}' explain the dates, and whether we
suppose Uzziah to have been Jeroboam's acknowledged vas-
sal till the seven-and-twentieth year of the latter's reign, or
whether we believe Judah to have retained its position as a
separate kingdom even after Amaziah's defeat, it is at any
rate certain that to the day of his death Jeroboam held Judah
more or less completely in his power ; for he had a garrison
in the important harbor of Elath, the key to the peninsula of
Sinai, and it was not till after his death that Uzziah succeeded
in recovering the place. 8
Jeroboam's reign was one of the most prosperous and brill-
iant periods of Israel's history, and though unhappily we
know but few particulars about it, the king himself is referred
to in several poems which we still possess.
It is highly probable that the forty-fifth psalm was com-
posed on the occasion of one of Jeroboam's marriages ; and
this poem is so remarkable on many grounds that it deserves
to be given at length. It runs as follows : —
My heart overflows with goodly words,
For it thinks: "I work for a king! "
May my tongue be like the pen of a skilful writer I
Thou art f airer than all the children of men ;
Grace is poured out on thy lips ;
Therefore Yahweh blesses thee for ever.
Gird on thy sword, hero !
Thy glory and thine adornment.
Ride forth in thy majesty,
To give proof of justice and righteous mercy!
Dread deeds shall thy right hand teach thee.
Sharp are thine arrows ;
Peoples sink under thee ;
To the heart of the king's enemies [they pierce].
» Compare vol. i. pp. 543, 544. 2 2 Kings xiv. 2. '2 Kings xiv. 20.
190 ISRAEL UNDER JEROBOAM II.
Yahweh has established thy throne to eternity ;
A righteous sceptre is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
Thou lovest virtue and hatest iniquity ;
Therefore Yahweh, thy god, has anointed thee
With the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
In myrrh and aloes and cassia are thy garments steeped,
From ivory palaces 1 the souud of the harp rejoiceB thee.
The daughters of kings are amongst thy treasures ;
There stands the queen at thy right hand,
Adorned with the treasures of Ophir !
Listen, daughter, see and incline thine ear!
Forget thy people and forget thy father's house !
The king longs for thy beauty ;
He is thy lord, do thou reverence him.
Tyre seeks to gain thy favor,
The richest Tyrians bring thee presents.
All glorious is the princess in her chamber;
Her garments are wrought with gold.
In embroidered robes is she brought to the king;
Maidens after her, her companions,
They likewise are brought to thee.
They are brought with joy and gladness;
They enter the royal palace !
May thy sons succeed thy fathers ;
May'st thou make them princes in all the land!
I will praise thy name from generation to generation;
That the tribes may glorify thee for ever.
Since two verses of this poem z are quoted in a very incor-
rect translation in the New Testament, 8 we had better dwell
upon them for a moment longer. The passage I have ren-
dered, " So Yahweh, thy god, has anointed thee," is usually
translated " Therefore, O God ! thy God has anointed thee ; "
and it is a fact that the Hebrew text does not contain the
name of Yahweh. Now, to understand what right we have
to read " Yahweh, thy god," in place of " God, thy god," you
must know that in the book of Psalms, as we now have it,
there is one section (Psalms xlii.-lxxxiii.) in which the
name of Yahweh is seldom used (only forty-four times) and
that of God very often (two hundred and six times) ; whereas
in the rest of the psalms it is just the other way ( God appear-
ing twenty-three times and Yahweh six hundred and forty).
The only explanation of this curious fact is the supposition
that these psalms once formed a separate book by themselves,
and that their collector preferred for some reasou to speak of
God rather than Yahweh, and therefore almost always changed
the latter into the former when he found it in the poems he
took up into his collection. We are, therefore, simply restor-
ing the original words in rendering the passage, "Yahweh,
thy god." It is certain, at any rate, that the poet never
addressed his hero as " god ; " for however high the rank may
i Compare 1 Kings xxii. 39. 2 Verses 6 aud 7. 8 Hebrews i. 8.
ISRAEL UNDER JEROBOAM II. 191
be which this poem in common with other Hebrew utterances
assigns to Yahweh's anointed, the Israelites never went the
length of deifying their princes. In the seventh verse the
Hebrew, as it stands, says, "Thy throne, God;" but most
likely a word has fallen out, and the poet really wrote " Yah-
weh has established thy throne."
The writer to whom we owe the introduction and the con
elusion of our present book of Deuteronomy has taken up
into his work a poem which was probably written in the time
of Jeroboam II. The author puts it into the mouth of Moses,
as a blessing pronounced over the sons of Israel by him
shortly before his death ; but taken in its true historical set-
ting, it may be regarded as one of the proofs of the power to
which Israel rose under Jeroboam II., and the pride with
which many of his subjects raised their heads as members of
the " house of Jacob." This remarkable poem bears all the
more striking witness to the enthusiasm felt by the people for
Jeroboam, from the fact that it was written by a Judaean. It
is a counterpart of the so-called "blessing of Jacob," 1 and
includes a longer or shorter prayer for each of the tribes
except Simeon, which had completely melted into Judah.
There are many obscure passages in the song, and here and
there the translation is uncertain.
A short epitome of Israel's histoiy opens the poem : —
Yahweh came from Sinai
And went before them from Seir ;
His light streamed forth from the mount of Paran
And he came from the desert of Kadesh.
From his right hand came help for them ;
He truly loved the tribes.
All thy holy ones went with thee
And followed after thy feet.
And Moses preached thy words
And gave instruction to us.
The community of Jacob gained an inheritance
And there came a king to rule .Teshurun,
When the heads of the people gathered together
And Israel's tribes assembled.
"Jeshurun" appears again in this song as a name for
Israel, and also in one other passage. 2 It is a play upon the
sound of the name Israel, and signifies ' ' the righteous " or
"the virtuous," which accords perfectly with the designation
of Israel's forefathers as " the holy ones."
After this introduction come sayings appropriate to the
1 Compare vol. i. pp. 102, 226, 401.
2 Deuteronomy xxxii. 15.
192 ISRAEL UNDER JEROBOAM II.
several tribes. Eeuben, who appears in the legends of the
patriarchs as the eldest of the brothers, occupies the foremost
place here also, though the poet has little to say of him, while
he dwells with obvious sympathy upon the tribes comprised in
the kingdom of Judah.
May Reuben lire and not die !
May his numbers ne'er be few !
Hearken Yaliweh ! to Judah's voice.
And bring him back to his people !
May his territorv spread afar,
May he be hefped against his foes !
Break thou the loins of his enemies,
And let them that hate him rise no more !
Thy thummim and urim [0 Yahweh!] are held by thy Faithful One,
Whom thou didst try at Massah,
With whom thou didst strive at Meribah ;
Who says of his father and mother :
I care not for them !
Who denies his brothers
And regards not his very sons.
But they mark thy word,
They observe thy covenant,
They teach Jacob thy ordinances,
And Israel thy law ;
They make incense rise before thee
And bring sacrifices to thine altar.
Yahweh ! bless their might
And accept the work of their hands in grace !
May Yahweh's Loved One dwell safely by Him
Who protects him ever,
And dwells between his shoulders.
It is obvious that " Yahweh's Loved One" is Benjamin, in
whose district the great temple stood. The poet could there-
fore sing of Yahweh as sitting between the shoulders and on
the neck of Benjamin. It is clear, also, that "Yahweh's
Faithful One," is the priestty tribe of Levi ; but we cannot
explain the allusion to the trial at Massah and Meribah.
These places are mentioned more than once in the accounts
of Israel's wanderings in the desert, 1 but never in a connec-
tion that explains these words. They probably refer to a
legend that has not come down to us.
The poet now goes on to the'tribe of Joseph, or Ephraim
and Manasseh, the glory of whose territory he first celebrates
and then goes on : —
May the favor of Him who dwells 2 in the bush come upon Joseph's head,
On the crown of the prince of his brothers !
1 Exodus xvii. 7 j Numbers xx. 13 ; Deuteronomy ix. 22.
2 Compare Exodus iii. 2 ft'.
ISRAEL UNDER JEROBOAM II. 193
The first-born of his bullocks is noble ;
His horns are like horns of a buffalo.
He hurls down the peoples with them,
The extremest peoples of earth !
The first-born of Joseph's bullocks means the king of
Israel, in this case Jeroboam II.
The blessings on the remaining tribes contain nothing
remarkable, except the honorable mention of a celebrated
place of offering which was situated in the territory of Zebu-
Ion and Issachar, perhaps on Mount Carmel or Mount Tabor.
This is a fresh proof that at this period no one dreamed of
confining legal sacrifices to Jerusalem. The verses run a»
follows : —
Rejoice in thy going out, Zebulon,
And Issachar in thy tents !
They call the tribes to the mountain,
And make true offerings there ;
For they draw to themselves what the seas produce
And the treasures hid in the sand.
The song concludes with the following words : —
There is no god like Jeshurun's god,
Who comes riding on the heaven to help thee,
In his glory upon the clouds.
That ancient god is a refuge,
Israel rests on his arms eternal.
He drove out thine enemies before thee,
And cried, "Destroy! "
So Israel dwelt in safety,
The race of Jacob apart,
In a land of corn and wine,
Whose heavens drop down dew.
Hail to thee, Israel ! Who is like thee?
Thou people victorious through Yahweh,
Who is the shield of thy succor;
Who is the sword of thy glory !
Thine enemies come cringing before thee,
While thou treadest upon their heights !
This remarkable song deserves all the more attention from
the circumstance that its author was a Judaean. This is
evident from his putting Judah next after Reuben, and from
the glowing terms in which he mentions the Levitical priest'
hood and the temple at Jerusalem. This Judaean, then, ex*
presses his wish that his country may be reunited with Israel,
and dwells with great delight upon the king of Joseph's house.
In all this he certainly did not stand alone, but expressed the
conviction of many of his countrymen. It is therefore no
very rash conjecture that the conspiracy which cost Amaziah
his life aimed at the overthrow of the Davidic house and the
complete incorporation of Judah with Israel. If this was so
VOL. II. 9
1 94 ISRAEL UNDER JEROBOAM n.
the conspirators were thwarted by the attachment of the
"people of the land," that is to say, of the masses, to the
house of David ; and Uzziah succeeded to his father's throne.
Such were the feelings of the common people, for whom
the grand conception of Israel's unity had no charm. But
loftier natures kept the ideal clearly before their minds, not
only in the North, where of course Judah's holding aloof from
Epliraim was looked upon with disapproval, but even in the
South, where many a one would have sacrificed the dynasty
of David, whether joyfully or with regret, for the sake of
making Yahweh's people one again.
This longing to see the two kingdoms united, springing
from the belief that they ought to be so, finds striking expres-
sion in certain other writings of this period, which we must
now examine from this special point of view. The eighth
century B.C. was the period of Israel's greatest literary glory,
which was chiefly due to the activity of the prophets. We
have already examined much of what was committed to writ-
'ag at this period, for it was the era of the Yahwist and the
elder Elohist 1 (to be carefully distinguished from the younger
Elohist, or author of the "Book of Origins") whose narra-
tives we still possess in the books of Genesis and Exodus,
■voven together, supplemented, and sometimes, alas ! curtailed
by the latest general editor of the Pentateuch. About this
time the same or other writers composed a good many of the
narratives about the judges, Samuel, Saul, David, and his
successors, which we still possess. It is impossible for us to
fix with certainty how much of all this literature arose in
northern Israel, and how much in Judah ; but, if we possessed
their separate works in a complete form, we should, perhaps,
have cause to believe that the elder Elohist was an Ephraimite,
and the Yahwist a Judsean, though this is little better than a
guess in the present state of our knowledge. The question,
however, is of no great consequence, for the religious posi-
tions occupied respectively by the best representatives of the
two kingdoms resembled each other very closely, and so do
those of the two authors in question.
Our first observation, then, upon the literary work of these
prophets of the age of Jeroboam, is that they regarded Israel
as one people. This is evident from their treatment of the
generations before Moses. "We have already observed 2 that
the names of the patriarchs and many of tiie legends attached
i See vol. i. pp. 236 it. 2 See vol. i. pp. 103-105, 164, 165.
ISRAEL tTNDER JEROBOAM H. 195
to them, properly belonged to special districts of the country.
Thus Isaac was the mythical ancestor of the Israelite and
Edomite tribes who dwelt in the South round Beersheba.
Abram originally belonged to Judah, and Jacob (or Israel)
to central and northern Palestine. Now these three patriarchs
were about this time, we may suppose, brought into connec-
tion with each other as grandfather, father, and son, so that
every section of the Israelitish people came into equally close
relations with them all. Moreover, the mutual relations of
the tribes were regulated in the legends with great tact. All the
twelve became sons of Jacob, that is of Israel itself; for
though Ephraim and Manasseh, which really made up a single
tribe, are represented in the story as sons of Joseph, yet
Jacob expressly adopts them as his own.
The most difficult task was to assign to each tribe its due
meed of honor. Reuben, who had conquered his territory
before any of the rest, was consequently firmly established
as the eldest son ; nor was he now degraded from this honor,
for he was too weak to excite the jealousy of the others. But
Joseph and Judah were very sensitive as to precedence. The
legend then began by making them Jacob's sons bj T different
wives. Judah was born next after Reuben, Simeon, and
Levi, and was far older than Joseph ; but Joseph was the
first-born and for a long time the only son of Jacob's best-
loved wife. His birth had been the sign for his father to
return to Canaan ; he was the most beloved of Jacob's sons,
adorned with magnificent robes, blessed by Yahweh, the
prince and deliverer of his brothers.
We must not suppose that all these legends were delib-
erately invented with the purpose we have implied, and then
strung together with conscious art ; for nothing of the kind
took place. Much of the substance of the stories was already
in existence, and was simply adopted or modified by the
writers of this epoch. For instance, it was certainly an old
tradition, and not an invention of the eighth century, that
Esau and Jacob were twin brothers ; whereas the story of
Jacob's stealing his brother's blessing, and Isaac's prophecy
that Esau should serve Jacob but would constantly throw off
his yoke, describes the relations of the inhabitants of Judah
with those of Seir during all the period from David to
Amaziah. And in the same way myths and legends about
Joseph were doubtless current in the North, and were now-
worked up and transformed by the prophetic writers, and
brought into connection with the other patriarchal stories
ISKAJ^L. UIHUiilt JJLKAJJ5V.fl.l*l "•
Accounts of Moses and the wanderings in the desert, of
the conquest of Canaan, and of the judges, of Saul, David,
and his successors, were easily linked on to the stories of the
patriarchs ; and the historians took especial pains to bring
out their own predecessors, the prophets, into strong relief.
They celebrated their great deeds and their wide influence,
but did not spare their faults, which they desired to hold up
as warnings to their own contemporaries. We have often seen
already that the historical good faith of these writers leaves
much to be desired. They took up their pens not so much
to give an accurate account of what had taken place in days
of old, as to admonish and encourage their readers ; and this
purpose exercised no small influence upon the conceptions
the}' formed of the heroes of times past. We may call to
mind the striking example of Jerubbaal-Gideon, 1 who became
under the hands of these historians a wholly different per-
sonage from what he had really been. They diligently studied
the history of former generations, but their object in doing
so was to magnify the glory of Yahweh, who had rescued and
helped his people, and to exalt the people in whose midst he
deigned to dwell. The whole purpose and spirit of their
work is contained in the lines, —
Hail to thee Israel ! Who is like thee?
A victorious people through Yahweh's might!
The ancient god is a refuge,
Who has brought us help from primeval times !
We must take this opportunity of fixing especial attention
on the exalted conception of Yahweh's being which reigned
in the hearts and minds of these writers. In discussing the
ancient stories we have more than once remarked that the
writers themselves evidently stood upon a higher level than
that of the old legends they were working up. 2 To them
Yahweh was no longer a god who could be seen by human
eyes, with whom the denizens of earth could even wrestle,
who ate and drank like a mortal, who only dwelt in Canaan,
and only in certain spots even there, and could be carried
about in an ark. On the contrary thej' looked upon him as
a most exalted being, who revealed himself in thundej and
lightning, whom no mortal could see and live. He was the
judge of all the earth, and was alwaj-s righteous ; he punished
the whole world for its sins by a flood of water ; not only did
he rule Israel, but even a distant monarch such as Nimrod
might be called a mightj hunter before his face ; and it was
l See vol. i. pp. 390-392. « See vol. i. pp. 137, 259, 260, 302, 303.
ISRAEL UNDER JEROBOAM II. 197
he who put an end to the building of Babel's tower. In Ur
of the Chaldees, too, Yahweh had revealed himself, and
whithersoever the patriarchs wandered, in the land of the
Philistines or in Egypt, for instance, he could still protect
them. He determined, ages beforehand, what the fate of his
chosen ones should be ; and even the territories of the Ish-
maelites, Edomites, and Moabites were given them by Yah-
weh and not by their own deities. Was not he the mighty
god before whose wrath all Egypt had trembled? Had he
not there proved himself the strongest of all gods ? Had he
not shown his people their way through the wilderness, and
protected them from hunger, thirst, and the might of their
foes ? Nay, had he not done yet more, in making a path for
his beloved people through the Red Sea and the Jordan, and
delivering up all Canaan into their hands ? Had he not res-
cued them from their mightiest foes — from Moabites and
Ammonites, Jabin and Sisera, Midianites and Philistines,
and even the Mesopotamians themselves ? Had he not fired
with his spirit the deliverers of the people — Othniel, Ehud,
Shamgar, Barak, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, and
Samuel? And if, in spite of all, those days were full of
trouble because there was no king in Israel, Yahweh had
selected Saul, and when he had forfeited the crown by his
rebellious disobedience to the prophet, had summoned David,
protected him from the hatred of Saul, and raised him to the
throne. What was too wonderful for Yahweh ? He was the
Lord of hosts ; that is to saj r , the ruler of the armies of
heaven, the ruler of the stars who surrounded him as angels,
to do his bidding. He was the god of heaven and of earth,
whose name betokened " he who is ; " he was the Mighty One,
the Most High !
The difference between this conception of Yahweh and that
entertained by even the most spiritual of David's contem-
poraries, for instance, is so enormous that we are compelled to
inquire what the cause of so great a progress can have been.
We cannot give a complete answer to this question. It is*
equally impossible adequately to explain the birth of a relig
ious conviction in a people's heart, and fully to comprehend
the divine call in that of a single man. We cannot trace the
workings of God's spirit. The circumstances of nations or
of individuals do not wholly determine their lot ; for the most
important factor of all is the capacity or life that dwells
within ; and circumstances do but serve as the occasion for
its manifestation. A mighty power dwelt in the heart of Is-
198 ISRAEL UNDER JEROBOAM II.
' rael, and that is why the seed that Moses sowed struck root,
and at last brought forth its increase. Yahweh must be wor-
shipped, and worshipped by a moral life above all else ! —
such was the great principle implanted in Israel in the four-
teenth century ; and it gradually led to the conviction : Yah-
weh, the Most High, who has specially chosen Israel to enjoy
his favor, rules over all peoples and commands the powers of
Nature. Him alone must we serve.
But, though we cannot presume to offer any complete ex-
planation of the manner in which this exalted conception of
Yahweh's being was reached, we must try to throw what light
we can upon the principal circumstances which contributed to
the result. What these circumstances were it is not difficult
to say.
In the first place, there was Yahweh's victory over Baal.
It was inevitable that the faithful servants of Israel's god,
who were straining all their powers in defending his worship
and attacking that of Baal, should gradually rise to ever
loftier conceptions of their god. The more they had to suf-
fer for his sake the dearer he became to them, and the more
clearly conscious they grew of the difference between him
and Baal, with whom they involuntarily classed all other gods.
The legend of the contest between Elijah and the priests of
Baal on Mount Carmel admirably represents the inspiring
conviction of the prophets of Yahweh, which their triumpL
deepened into absolute certainty : Baal is no god at all ! He
can send no fire down from heaven ! And, though his ser-
vants cry to him with all their strength, he cannot hear, for
he does not exist ! But Yahweh does exist, and he is God —
the True, the only One !
This feeling was strengthened b3' the victories of Joash and
Jeroboam II. over the Syrians. Under Jehu and Jehoahaz,
Elisha could but appeal to Yahweh's might, and say that he
would surely help his people ; but, meanwhile, Israel was in
sore distress. Doubtless, the servants of Baal ascribed this
misery to the wrath of their god, and many a worshipper of
Yahweh began to doubt ; but those who persevered surren-
dered themselves up all the more unreservedly to their god,
and now at last their fidelity was crowned with victory. Is-
rael had become a mighty people ; Israel had triumphed in
the strength of Yahweh ! Now it was certain that " Yahweh
was the shield of Israel's help, the sword of his glory," and
his triumphant people might well exclaim, " What god is like
the god of Jeshurun?"
LEGEND OF BALAAM. 199
All the prophets vied with one another in glorifying Yah-
weh, with whose honor that of his people was so closely con-
nected ; but, of course, there were differences amongst them.
One would follow out the truth more consistently than another,
and declare more distinctly that the other gods did not exist ;
and, what is more important, some of them recognized the
moral character of Israel's god more clearly than their fellows
did. While most of them simply looked upon Yahweh as
mightier than other gods ; the noblest revered him as the god
of moral holiness, whose appointed service was a pure heart
and clean hands.
We shall meet with repeated examples of this great dis-
tinction in the following chapters.
Chapter XVIH.
THE LEGEND OE BALAAM.
Ncmeeks XXII. 2-XXIV.
THE legend of Balaam furnishes us with a very striking
illustration of the lofty and glowing estimate of their
people and its god which the Israelitish prophets and their
spiritual allies had formed in the century of Jeroboam II.
It is an entirely fictitious story, and nothing but a few of the
names, at most, are borrowed from ancient Israelitish or for-
eign traditions. It professes to place us in the period just
before the conquest of Canaan, but gives us a completely
false conception of the circumstances of the Israelites at that
time. Its contents are as follows : —
When the Israelites had conquered Sihon, king of the
Amorites, Balak, the son of Zippor, king of the Moabites,
conceived a mortal dread of the mighty people that was now
pressing so close upon his territory. "Israel," he cried in
terror to his allies, the chiefs of Midian, " Israel will lick us
all up as an ox licks up the grass ! " To avert this danger,
therefore, he sent an embassy to Pethor, on the river Eu-
phrates, with rich presents for the famous seer Balaam, son
of Beor, bearing this message: "Behold, there is a people
come out of Egypt that covers all the land, and is encamped
right over against my kingdom. Come, then, and curse them
200 LEGEND OF BALAAM.
for me, for they are too strong for me. Perchance I may
then defeat them and drive them out ; for whom you bless is
blessed indeed, and whom you curse is cursed." When Ba-
lak's emissaries had given Balaam their message, he invited
them to spend the night in his own house, and promised to
tell them in the morning what Yahweh had said to him. They
consented ; and in the night the deity appeared to Balaam, as
he had expected, and asked him who his guests might be.
The seer then informed him of the purpose of their visit,
upon which Yahweh forbade him to return with them to curse
Israel, inasmuch as this people was blessed. Obedient to
God's command Balaam dismissed the Moabites, and would
not consent to accompany them.
But Balak determined to try once more. He would see
whether Balaam's resolution might not be overcome ; and ac-
cordingly he sent a more numerous and distinguished embassy
than ever, with magnificent promises of promotion and re-
ward, if only the seer would come and curse this people ! But
the mighty soothsayer replied, "Though Balak should give
me his house full of silver and gold, yet could I not turn in
anything, great or small, from the commands of Yahweh."
Nevertheless, he invited the messengers once more to remain
with him that night, for it was possible that Yahweh might
again reveal his will. It fell out as he had hoped, and this
time the divine permission was secured : "If those men have
come again with the same request, then go with them ; but
only say what I command j r ou." So Balaam saddled his ass
the next morning, and set out with Balak's nobles.
But Yahweh was angry with him for what he did, and sent
an angel to chastise him. Now, Balaam was riding on his
beast, followed by two slaves, when the angel met him, and
stood across his path with a naked sword in his hand. The
wizard saw nothing, and had he ridden on he would inevitably
have fallen by the angel's hand ; but he was rescued by his
ass, who saw the angel and turned off the path into the open
field, upon which Balaam beat her severe ry, and turned her
into the path again. Then the angel went further on and
stood before the traveller in a narrow path that ran between
two vineyard walls, and the ass, who still saw better than her
rider, started aside in terror and crushed his leg against one
of the walls. Enraged by these freaks, as he thought them,
on the part of his beast, the seer beat her again, and the
angel once more vanished and let him go on his way. But
the third time he stood before him in a path so narrow that
LEGEND OF BALAAM. 201
it was impossible to pass on either side. Still Balaam saw
nothing of his foe, but the ass saw him and lay down in the
pathway. The seer now lost all patience, and beat his ass
unmercifully with his stick, upon which Yahweh gave her the
power of speech, and she asked, "What have I done to de-
serve these three beatings?" "You are so obstinate," cried
Balaam, in a fury, " that if I had a sword in my hand, I
would kill you ! " Then the beast, as if to make him think
that there must be some good reason for her conduct, said
again: "Am I not your ass, upon which you always ride?
and have I ever done this before ? " Balaam confessed she
had not, and upon this Yahweh opened the magician's eyes,
and he saw the angel with drawn sword standing across his
path ! He bowed down in reverent humility, as the angel
cried reproachfully, "Why have you beaten your ass three
tinies? I came out to meet you as your foe; for who acts
against my will acts at his peril ! 1 And unless j r our ass had
seen me and had gone aside, I should have slain you and let
her go unhurt." The seer was now thoroughly abashed, and
could only stammer, "I knew not that you stood before me
in the way. But if it seems good to you that I should now
go back, I will go." The angel said there was no need of
that. He might go on with Balak's messengers, but must
beware of saying anything but what Yahweh commanded.
Tt would be no easy task to obey this injunction strictly,
for Balak came to meet the seer at the very borders of the
land, and asked him why he had not come at first. Did he
suppose that Moab's king could not reward him worthily?
But Balaam hastened to put his mission on its true footing.
"Now that I am here," he said, "I cannot tell that it is for
your good ! I cannot utter a single word that my god lays
not on my lips."
When they reached the " Street-town" a magnificent feast
was held in honor of the seer, and the next morning Balak
took him to " the heights of Pisgah," whence he could see the
long boundary-line of Israel's war-tents. Here Balaam told
the king to have seven altars built, and an ox and a ram pre-
pared for sacrifice on each. When the seer had offered up
the victims he left the king standing by the altar, and he him-
self went a little way apart, in the hope that Yahweh might
meet him and give him an oracle.
No sooner had the wizard reached an open place from
which he could observe the signs of heaven than his god
1 The translation is here conjectural.
202 LEGEND OF BALAAM.
came to him. Balaam told him how he had built him seven
altars and made sacrifices on them, upon which Yahweh laid
an oracle upon his lips. Then he returned to Balak, whom
he found by the altar surrounded by the nobles of Moab, but
instead of cursing Israel he burst into this song of praise :
From Syria has Balak brought me,
Moab's king from the eastern heights:
" Come, curse me Jacob,
Come, defy me Israel ! *'
How shall I curse whom God curses not,
And defy whom Yahweh defies not?
From the top of the rocks I see him,
From the hills I look down upon him :
See ! It is a people that dwells apart
And is not reckoned among the nations. 1 ,
Who can measure the dust of Jacob
Or count the fourth part of Israel?
May I die the death of the Upright, 2
May my seed be like him !
Dismayed and disappointed, Balak cried: "What is this
that you have done ? I sent for you to curse mj" enemies,
and now you have blessed them beyond measure ! " But the
seer retorted at once: "Must I not say what Yahweh bids
me ? neither more nor less ? "
Upon this the king begged Baalam to follow him to another
spot, from which he could only see a portion of Israel's camp,
and try whether he could not utter a curse when standing
there. What a strange confusion of ideas ! Though the
prophet's word was the word of God, yet it was evidently
supposed that any external circumstance which influenced his
own frame of mind would very likely affect the oracle he was
about to utter. 3 This is really an admission that the prophecy
came from the seer's own heart, and was not revealed to him
from without. Balak, then, conducted the great magician to
the " Watchman's Acre," on the top of Mount Pisgah. There
the same steps were taken as before to compel the deity to
vouchsafe a revelation — in accordance with the king's wishes
if possible — and again Yahweh came to Balaam and told him
what he must say. When the seer returned Balak stood wait-
ing for him by the altar with his nobles, as before ; and while he
was still at some little distance the king cried eagerly, "And
what says Yahweh now ? " Whereupon Balaam answered :
Stand up, Balak ! and hear.
Hearken to me, son of Zippor !
God is not a man that he should lie,
Or a son of man that he should repent.
1 See p. 91. 2 See p. 191. » Compare pp. 131, 132.
LEGEND OF BALAAM. 203
Would he say a thing and then not do it?
Would he promise and not perform?
Behold ! I was bidden to bless,
And this blessing I may not recall.
No misery is seen in Jacob,
Nor sorrow perceived in Israel ;
Tahweh, his god, is with him,
A right roval shout in his midst.
God has led him out of Egypt ;
His might is like to a buffalo's.
No charm has force against Jacob,
Nor magic, power on Israel ;
When it is said of Jacob
And of Israel : " God does wonders ! "
See ! it is a people that stands like a lioness
And rises up like a lion,
Who lies not down till he has eaten the prey
And drunk the blood of the slaughtered.
TLen Balak cried in bitterness of soul, " If you cannot
curse them, at least you need not bless them ! " But Balaam
answered: "Did I not tell you from the first that I should
say what Yahweh bade me? " " Well, then ! " returned the
king, ' ' let us try again in another place ! Perhaps it may
please the deity to let you curse them there ! " Balaam com-
plied, but Balalds desperate persistency was only to cover
him afresh with utter dismay ; for when they had taken their
stand on the top of Mount Peor, overlooking the plain, and
had built seven altars there and sacrificed upon them, Balaam
did not so much as step aside, for he had no need of his magic
arts to learn the will of Yahweh ! No sooner had he turned
his face to the desert where Israel lay encamped, tribe by
tribe, than he was seized by the spirit of his god, and cried :
The oracle of Balaam, son of Beor :
The word of the man of unclosed eyes,
Who hears the word of God,
And knows the knowledge of the Most High,
Who sees the sight of the Almighty :
Who bows down, and his eyes are unveiled :
How goodly are thy tents, Jacob 1
Thy dwellings, Israel !
Like spreading streams ;
Like gardens by the river;
Like aloes planted by Tahweh j
Like cedars by the streams.
Water flows out from his buckets,
And his new-sown fields are richly watered.
His king is taller than Agag ; *
His kingdom is exalted.
His god brought him forth from Egypt:
And he has a buffalo's strength.
1 Compare 1 Samuel xv. 8.
204 LEGEND OF BALAAM.
He devours the peoples that oppose him;
He grinds their bones ;
He Breaks their loins.
He crouches like a lion for the spring ;
Like a lioness ; — who shall provoke him?
A blessing shall rest upon him who blesses you ;
A curse upon him who curses !
Boiling with indignation, Balak struck his hands together
in token of contempt and anger, and exclaimed with bitter
emphasis : " I bid you come to curse my enemies to their de-
struction, but you have blessed them these three times ! And
now make all the speed you may on your homeward journe}',
for Yahweh has bereft 3 r ou of all the wealth and honor I had
promised you ! " But Baalam retorted once again : ' ' Did I
not tell your messengers at first, that though you gave me
your house full of silver and gold, I could say neither good
nor evil of myself, but could only say what Yahweh told me ?
But now that I am here, let me tell j - ou, before I go back to
my own land, what this people shall do to your people, in the
far-off days to come ! " Without waiting for Balak's permis-
sion the seer began once more : — ■
The oracle of Balaam, son of Beor:
The word of the man of unclosed eyes,
Who hears the word of God,
And knows the knowledge of the Most High ;
Wh ) sees the sight of the Almighty;
Who bows down, and his eyes are unveiled:
I see him, but not as he now is ;
I behold him, but not from near:
There is a star rising out of Jacob,
A sceptre comes up out of Israel,
Smiting the temples of Moab,
The skull of all sons of the war-cry 1
Edom shall be a conquered province;
Seir, his enemy, a possession;
And Israel shall wax mighty.
A ruler shall come out of Jacob
And destroy those that flee from the city.
After a moment's pause the seer turned to the land of the
Amalekites and cried : —
Though Amalek be the first of peoples,
Yet shall his children fall in ruin !
There was another pause ; and then Balaam turned towards
the southern district of Canaan, where the Kenites dwelt, and
prophesied : —
Though thy dwelling be so firm
And thy nest {ken) built on the rock;
Tet shall ken be slowly destroyed
Till Ashur take him captive away.
LEGEND OF BALAAM. 205
It is as if, in uttering this last name of dread, the seer
had for a moment sunk in terror ! But hope soon gleamed
in his eye once more, and he cried aloud : —
Alas ! but who shall live
Longer than God allows !
Ships that come from Cyprus . . .
They shall oppress Ashur,
Shall oppress that people beyond Euphrates,
And it too shall be destroyed !
Then Balaam went back to his own country, and Balak
to his home.
This is a fine story in many respects, but its author has
succeeded veiy ill in his attempt to transport his readers to
the time of Moses. The fact is that he himself had a thor-
oughly false conception of the circumstances of his people
in those days. His mentioning Midian at the beginning and
Amalek at the close of his narrative is the only circumstance
that gives it the least air of antiquity. Eveiything else is
quite out of keeping with the state of things in the thir-
teenth century B.C. Even suppose the tribes of Israel had
ever been united in a single camp, the Moabites, who are
here represented as their foes, were in reality their allies ;
the Edomites were at any rate not hostile to them, and the
Kenites, the fellow-tribesmen of Caleb and Othniel, were
their most faithful friends. On the other hand they cordially
hated the Egyptians, and the Canaanites were the nation
from whom they had most to fear ; but neither of these peo-
ples is so much as mentioned in the legend. Again, the
contemporaries of Moses had probably never heard of the
Assyrians (Ashur), or at any rate had nothing to do with
them ; and the prediction that ships from the West would
come and subdue this people would have entirely failed to
move them, instead of forming, as it now does, a striking
conclusion to Balaam's utterances, and setting the crown upon
all his predictions.
Moreover, the writer treats with obvious neglect two con-
siderations to which a poet need not be too strictly held, but
which are quite inexorable in actual life — the considerations
of time and space. When we are told of the embassy that
spent the night with Balaam and then returned without
accomplishing anything, and of the second which imme-
diately followed the first, and with which Balaam set out
the very day after its arrival, we should certainly never
'206 LEGEND OF BALAAM.
imagine that the journey in question was surrounded with
difficulties, led through the desert and occupied at least four-
teen clays each way ! Are we to suppose that the Israelites
waited in the plains of Moab, with their hands folded, to see
what would come of Balak's, machinations ?
Nor is this all. Nothing could be more striking than the
glowing intensity of Balaam's inspiration. Both style and
contents of his oracles grow more and more glowing and ex-
alted to the end. But Balak took him to three positions suc-
cessively, each of which commanded a different view of the
great Israelitish camp. They must, therefore, have been
situated a good way apart ; and since Balaam had seven
altars built for sacrifice upon each of them, and twice con-
sulted the signs of heaven as well, the whole thing must
have occupied several days rather than a few hours. But if
the seer's inspiration had so long to cool after each successive
utterance, his steady increase of enthusiasm becomes abso-
lutely inexplicable.
Rightly to understand the legend of Balaam, and to do
justice to the writer's meaning, we must think how Israel
was situated under Jeroboam II. This monarch ruled from
Syria to the borders of Egypt ; for if Judah was not abso-
lutely incorporated into his kingdom, it was nevertheless
completely dependent upon him. Israel was more numerous,
powerful, and prosperous than it had been for ages. For
this it had to thank its god, Yahweh, who dwelt in its midst,
and to whose power and grace it was a living witness. The
brightest hopes for the future were therefore justified. Even
the Assyrians, of whose dread might the Israelites had .only
heard the terrible report as yet, — even the AssjTians would
have no power to injure Yahweh's people, but on the contrary
would bring it blessings, as we shall shortly see. We must note
that our writer was certainly a Judaean, for he never troubles
himself about the affairs of the North, while he enters in de-
tail upon those of Judah. This Judsean, then, perceived a
few weak points in his own neighborhood : There were the
Moabites, who had retained their independence ever since
the death of Ahab, and now hung threateningly upon the
Transjordanic territory of Israel ; there were the Edomites,
who had not been subdued even by the defeat which Amaziah
had inflicted on them, and who were ceaselessly watching their
chance of a fierce revenge ; and there were the Kenites, who
dwelt in southern Judah, and were always ready to take sides
with the people's foes, especially with Edom. In short, the
LEGEND OF BALAAM. SJ07
outlying districts to the South, though overawed by Jeroboam's
might, and by his possession of the strong position of Elath,
were b}- no means well disposed to Israel. Our writer
even despaired of an Israelitish monarch ever having power
to conquer all these enemies. Moab he might subdue, but
Edom never ; and, as for driving the Kenites from their in-
accessible mountain holds, that task must be reserved for
Ashur! For Ashur? But would there be no danger in
that case of Israel's also falling under his dread yoke?
Ves ! but what danger was too great for Yah well to avert?
There were mighty peoples in the West as well as in the
East. (The table of nations in Genesis proves that the
Israelites were acquainted with certain Grecian races, for
instance. 1 ) From "the islands," then, or from Cyprus,
" Japhet's sons" would come to help the people of Yahweh ;
and Ashur, too, after having served the god of Israel, as an
instrument in chastising his foes, would in his turn be ren-
dered harmless.
To glorify Israel, and its god Yahweh, this legend dwells
upon the utter impossibility of even the bitterest foes of the
people calling down a curse upon it and destroying it. No
real prophet, to whom God in truth reveals himself, can
pronounce anything but a blessing upon Israel.
And such a prophet Balaam was. Since he appears in
our story as a wizard, and since all kinds of witchcraft were
forbidden with ever increasing severity by the laws of Israel,
it is not surprising that the Jews after the captivity had no
great liking for him. Again, when the monuments of Israel's
history were collected, our legend was immediately followed
by an account of the people's apostasy in joining in the wor-
ship of Baal-Peor, and it seemed very obvious to bring the
two stories into connection with each other. The germ of this
idea may be traced in a couple of passages in the Old Testa-
ment itself, where it is said that the sin of the Israelites was
the consequence of Balaam's oracle, and that he himself was
killed amongst the Midianites, with whom he was staying. 2
Josephus makes the tale complete and says that, before
Balaam returned from Moab, he advised Balak to undo the
Israelites by tempting them to take part in the licentious
worship of Baal-Peor ; as if the prince of the Moabites him-
self would have recognized the baneful character of his own
1 Genesis x. 2-5.
* Jo'btin xiii. 22, and Numbers sxsi. 16, where we mast r*&3 i» accor-
dance with Ike oracle of Balaam instead of through the annuel af Balaam.
208 LEGEND OF BALAAM.
religion ! The conception of Balaam as a deceiver, a false
prophet bribed by Balak, a typical enemy of the kingdom of
God, became more and more firmly established amongst the
Jews, and was current likewise amongst the Christians of the
first centuries. 1
Nothing could be further from the intention of the legend
itself, however, which is admirably reflected by the prophet
.Micah. 2 "Consider, my people, the plots of Balak against
you, and Balaam's answer to him." Balaam, who repeats
the words of Yahweh, is a true prophet of that deity. The
story does not indeed give him the name of prophet, but he
describes himself in terms which minutely correspond to the
character. 8 It is true that he practises magic, which is for-
bidden on pain of death by ancient and more recent laws of
Israel as heathenish ; i but it is undeniable, again, that proph-
ets of Yahweh often acted as soothsayers and wizards before
the captivity, and are even described by these names ; 6 so
that it was really impossible to draw the hue between a prophet
and a soothsayer.
Balaam, the great magician, whose word was a word of
God, was entreated by Israel's foe to curse the people of
Yahweh. Balak sought to buy his help with sordid gold.
The seer was not indisposed to serve him, for the great reward
was tempting. But though he wished to utter a curse on
Israel, he dare do nothing against his god's command ; and
his god gave heed to neither Balak's nor the prophet's wish. 8
First he forbade the seer to go to Moab at all, and then, when
he let him go, sternly admonished him to speak no word but
what he laid upon his lips. Once more this lesson was im-
pressed upon the man of God when the angel, with drawn
sword, cried threateningly, "Who acts against my will, acts
at his peril ! " Balaam, accordingly, never wavered in his
choice, and faithfully repeated Yahweh's revelations. He was
willing to comply with Balak's wish, and try again and yet
again if Yahweh's will were changed ; but on each occasion
lie felt more deeply that no such change could be, poured out
his words of blessing with greater warmth, and was at last
so completely penetrated with the spirit of his god, and saw
so clearly that Yahweh had blessings only in store for Israel,
that he rejected as superfluous all his magic arts, and even
1 Revelation ii. 14; 2 Peter ii. 15, 16. 2 Micah vi. 5.
» Numbers xxiv. 3, i, 15, 16.
* Exodus xxii. 18 ; Deuteronomy xviii. 10, 11 ; Leviticus xix. 26, 31 xx. 6, 27
* Micah iii. 5, 7, 11; Isaiah iii. 2 ; Jeremiah xxix. 8.
» Deuteronomy xxiii. 4, 5 ; Joshua xxiv. 9, 10.
AMOS AND THE PROPHETS BY PROFESSION. 209
volunteered, unasked, to reveal the people's future, and fill
the measure of Balak's consternation !
So unconditionally was Israel the beloved of Yahweh, so
unconditionally defended and blessed by this Most High, this
Mighty One ! And such, again, is the power of God in hearts
that feel his^presence !
This is the real religious thought that lies at the kernel of
the story. It is a consecrating and consoling truth that raises
up our lives ! Our wishes are often opposed to the will of
God. It is often against our interest to listen to the voice
of truth. But it is too strong for us, and compels us to forget
our own advantage and honor, and to say and do what God
bids us.
Happy are we if our lives exemplify this power of God '
Chapter XIX.
AMOS AND THE PROPHETS BY PROFESSION.
Amos VII. ; Numbebs XI.
IN the mountain land of Judah, a few leagues south of
Bethlehem, lay the city of Tekoa. To the east stretched
the barren plains known as " the desert," which furnished
scanty pastures, but were unfit for cultivation. Tekoa itself,
however, was a busy place, for it was the scene of an active
trade between the Egyptian merchants and the Israelites, and
was especially famed for its great horse fairs. 1 For these
reasons Rehoboam had fortified the place. 2
Now in the neighborhood of Tekoa, towards the end of the
reign of Jeroboam II. , there lived a herdsman of the name of
Amos. He was so poor that he was often glad to make a
meal on the fruit of the wild fig-trees, but he was a man of no
little culture and information. The book that bears his name
contains a short epitome of his prophecies and an account of
his experiences at Bethel ; and since he is himself its author,
it shows that he could not only speak when the inspiration
was on him, but also write ; or at any rate, even if he dictated
the book to some one else, could calmly recall his utterances
and reproduce them in a regular form. It appears, moreover,
1 Compare p. 70. 2 2 Chronicles xi. 6.
210 AMOS AND THE PROPHETS BY PROFESSION.
ftoru the contents of the book itself, that he was well ac-
quainted not only with what was going on in his own time in
Palestine and in the surrounding countries, but also with the
previous history of his people. 1 But he is chiefly distinguished
bj' the depth of his religious feeling and his extreme reverence
for Yahvveh, upon whose will he held that eveiything depended.
" Behold ! " he cried, 2 " he who forms the mountains and cre-
ates the wind, who declares his thoughts to man ; he who turns
twilight into darkness and steps on the heights of the earth
— Yahweh, god of hosts, is his name ! " and elsewhere : s
"He who makes the seven stars and Orion, who changes
thick darkness to morning dawn and darkens the day into
night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out
over the earth — Yahweh is his name ! " Both blessings
and disasters come from him, 4 and vain is the attempt to flee
from him ! The prophet cherished the conviction afterwards
expressed by a poet in the words 6 : —
Yahweh, thou dost search me and know me,
Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising;
Thou perc.eivest my thoughts afar off.
Thou judgest my walking and my lying down,
And art acquainted with all my ways.
For before there is even a word on my tongue
Lo ! thou knowest all, Yahweh !
Thou eneompassest me behind and before,
And dost stretch out thine hand over me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
So high that I comprehend it not!
Whither shall I go where thy breath is not felt?
Whither shall I flee from thy presence ?
If I ascend into heaven, thou art there ;
If I make my bed in the land of shadows, behold! thou art there.
Though I sat on the wings of the dawn,
Though T dwelt where the sea meets the sky,
ICven there thy hand would lend me
And thy right hand would hold me.
Should I say: Surely the darkness will cover ma,
Even the night would be light about me,
Not even the darkness hides from thee,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness as Ihe light.
Thou hast made my inmost parts,
Hast formed me in my mother's womb.
1 will praise thee, for I am so wondrously made!
Marvellous are thy works !
My soul knows it right well.
To the deepest reverence for this omniscient and mighty
god, Amos joined a profound sense of his holiness and retrib-
1 See Amos i., ii., v. 25, 26, vi. 2, ix. 7. 2 Amos iv. 13.
8 Amns v. 8, ix. 6. * Amos ix. 13 i4, iv. 13-11, vi. 14, viii. 8, 9.
6 Psalm cxxxix. 1-14; Amos ix. 2—1
AMOS AND THE PROPHETS BT PROFESSION. 211
v
utive justice. " He who has chosen Israel out of all the
nations of the earth, will requite Israel's sins with double
rigor. As surely as two men cannot walk together unless
they meet ; as surely as a lion never roars unless he has
found his prey, and a bird never falls into a snare unless a
snare has been set for him ; as surely as the people tremble
when the trumpet's blast is heard, — so surely will disastei
never fall upon a city except by Yahweh's will." 1
But, for this verj r reason, Amos foresaw all manner ot
misery for his people ; for much had come to his ears that
stirred his intensest indignation. In his own neighborhood
the worship of Beersheba flourished ; 2 and in the northern
kingdom there were the shrines at Gilgal, Bethel, and Dan ; s
all of them sheer godlessness ! " From Zion Yahweh roars,
and lifts up his voice from Jerusalem." 4 But no sacrifice or
festival, no song of praise or sound of temple music could
appease him. He hated the holy days of a sinful people.
Eather "let Israel's justice rush down like a torrent; his
righteousness like a dashing river." 5 Cruelty and impiety
were the special sins that Amos abhonvd, and it was there-
fore more especially northern Israel that stirred his wrath.
Doubtless, all the surrounding countries had merited the
chastisement of Yahweh by their savage cruelty, but his wrath
would burn most hotly against Israel. Judah is only once or
twice reproved by Amos, and then in the most general terms."
But as for Israel, what horrors were not perpetrated there !
There the devout were sold as slaves because they could not
pay their debts, though may be it was but the poor price of
a pair of shoes they owed ! There the usurer cast hungry
eyes upon the very dust which the poor wretch he had
stripped of everything had cast in his agony upon his head ! —
might not even that be worth something? There father and
son practised lasciviousness together ! There rich tyrants
stretched themselves by the altars upon the clothes they had
received in pledge, 7 and held drinking bouts in their temples
with the money they had extorted as fines by unjust sen
tences ! 8 By the great blessing of Yahweh some of their
sons might grow to be prophets and others Nazarites. Yet
they strove to force the -Nazarites to break their vow of ab-
stinence from wine, and would not suffer the prophets tc
1 Amos Hi. 1-6. 2 Amos v. 5, viii. 14; compare vol. i. pp. 164-186.
8 Amos iii. 14, iv. 4, v. 5, viii. 14. 4 Amos i. 2.
6 Amos v. 21-24. 6 Amos ii. 4, 5, vi. 1.
» Compare Exodus xxii. 25-27. 8 Amos ii. 6-8, v. 11, 12.
212 AMOS AND THE PROPHETS BY PROFESSION.
preach the word of Yahweh! 1 Samaria's palaces were ful]
of treasure, so were her winter and summer residences and
her ivory villas ; but knavery and usury had drawn the
wealth together. 2 These men conceived themselves to be
religious, yet when the feast of New Moon or Sabbath came
they longed for the time of rest to pass that they might once
more push their trade with their false weights and measures,
and suck the marrow of the poor to their hearts' content. 8
When Amos pondered on the sins of Israel his soul was in
a turmoil of indignant grief, and at last he could bear it no
longer, and determined to preach the word of Yahweh to the
wanton drunkards "who walked securely upon Zion, and
carelessly on the hills of Samaria." i He felt that his god
called him, and as he himself exclaims, "When the lion
roars who does not tremble ? When the Lord Yahweh speaks
who can but prophesy?" Yahweh revealed to his servants
the prophets the things that were to come. 5
So Amos set out for Bethel, in the kingdom of Jeroboam,
where the royal chapel stood. There he lifted his prophetic
voice, and cried woe upon the proud and careless people who
ascribed its power to the might of its own hands ! 6 " Seek
Yahweh," he cried, " that you may rescue your lives ; for not
till 3 r ou do good and cease from evil will Yahweh, the god of
war-hosts, upon whose help you trust, be with you indeed.
Then he will be gracious at least to a remnant of Joseph.
For woe shall come upon you, and wailing for the dead shall
be heard in every street ; the dirge, ' Alas my brother ! ' shall
rise on every side. The husbandman shall be called home
suddenly to wail the dead ; and the mourners shall be sent
for everywhere. Do you call for the day of Yahweh? Ah !
fools. What will it bring yon ? Darkness and not light. It
will be as if a man fled from a lion and fell into the jaws of
a bear, or fled into a house and leaned against the wall and
was bitten by a serpent. So shall the day of Yahweh be
pitch dark as night, unbroken by a ray of light ! "' " Behold,
a strange people falls upon you [the prophet means the As-
syrians] and oppresses you from Hamath to the borders of
Egypt." 8
Such was the constant burden of the prophet's utterances
at Bethel. On one occasion 9 he thus described the fearful
J Amos ii. 11, 12. 2 Amos iii. 10, 15. « Amos viii. 4-6.
4 Amos vi. 1, 4-6 j compare p. 62. 6 Amos iii. 7, 8. 6 Amos vi. 13.
' Amos v. 14-20. 8 Amos vi. 14. 9 Amos vii. 1 ff.
AMOS AND THE PROPHETS BY PROFESSION. 213
gloom of Israel's future : " The Lord Yah well sent me a vision ;
and behold, there came up swarms of locusts about the time
of after-grass. They had devoured almost everything when
I cried imploringly, ' Lord Yahweh. spare ! What is there
left of Jacob ? Alas ! he is so small.' So Yahweh spared
the rest. But then he called the fire to fight against Israel,
and behold ! the heat had consumed the great deep and a part
of the land also when I cried imploringly, ' Lord Yahweh,
cease ! What is there left of Jacob ? Alas ! he is so small ! '
Once more Yahweh was appeased and spared the rest.
But soon I saw him again. This time he stood upon a wall,
built true, with a plumb-line in his hand. ' What see you,
Amos ? ' he cried to me. — ' A plumb-line,' I replied. — ' See ! '
he went on, ' I will measure a piece for destruction out of the
midst of Israel with this line ; and this time I will-not spare
it. Isaac's bamahs shall be levelled with the ground, Israel's
sanctuaries destroyed, and I will rise up with the sword
against Jeroboam's house ! ' "
These dread oracles came to the ear of Amaziah, Yahweh's
chief priest at Bethel, and he saw that some check must be
imposed upon the prophet's hardy sayings. So he told the
king how Amos had foretold his death by violence, and the
captivity and transportation of the people. Such seditious
language, he added, could not but work mischief. Not daring
to lay hands on Yahweh's messenger, he goaded him with
scornful language, and strove to rob him of the people's re-
spect and so compel him to take his departure. " Seer ! " he
sneered, " take yourself off to your own country, and eat your
bread in peace, and prophesy there to your heart's content !
But, here in Bethel we will have no more of you, for it is the
royal shrine and a temple of the kingdom." But Amos an-
swered haughtily, " I am no prophet by profession, nor am I of
the sons of the prophets. I was but a herdsman, living upon
wild figs. But Yahweh has taken me from following my
flocks, and bidden me go prophesy against his people Israel.
And now hear Yahweh's word : Inasmuch as you forbid me to
declare God's word to the house of Isaac, your wife shall be a
prey to the enemy, your children shall fall by the sword, your
land shall be divided, and you yourself shall die in an unclean
land, for Israel shall surely be carried away out of his own
land into captivity."
Amos foresaw disaster, foresaw the captivity of Israel ;
but he was none the less deeply convinced of the glorious
destiny of Yahweh's imperishable people. So when he com-
214 AMOS AND THE PROPHETS Bt PROFESSION
mitted the substance of his prophecies to writing, he con-
cluded all his denunciations with these words: 1 "I will
destroy this godless kingdom, yet I will not utterly root out
the house of Jacob. Rather will I sift it, as with a winnow-
ing fan, when it is scattered amongst all peoples, and not
the least grain shall be lost. But all the sinners amongst
my people shall perish by the sword — all they that arro-
gantly cry, ' The evil will not come near us ! ' In that day I
will raise up the fallen tent of David, hedge round its gaps,
heal its breaches, and restore it to its ancient gloiy. Then
shall they take possession of the remnant of Edom, and of
all the peoples who once were Yahweh's subjects. Thus saj-s
Yahweh, and thus will he bring to pass : Behold the clays
come when the reaper shall put in his sickle while the plough-
man is still at work, and ere seed-time be over the grapes
shall be ripe for treading; when the mountains shall drop
new wine and all the hills flow down. Then will I bring
back the children of my people who have been taken away
captive, to rebuild the wasted cities, to replant the vine-
yards and drink the wine they 3'ield, to lay out gardens and
eat the fruit that grows there. I will plant them in then-
land, and never more pluck them up ! Thus sajs Yahweh,
your god."
Not the least interesting point in the history of Amos is
the contempt with which the chief priest at Bethel addresses
him as "seer!" and the emphasis with which he himself
rejects the title of prophet, or son of a prophet, that is,
member of a prophetic school. These things would seem to
indicate that Yahweh's messengers were held in no great
honor. The circumstance demands our attention all the
more urgently because it stands by no means alone. There
are other men of God, whose writings we possess, who de-
nounce in the strongest language not this- or that seer only,
but the prophets in general. We must not lay too much
stress upon Amaziah's language, however, for it is common
enough for a man who looks with the utmost reverence and
awe upon his special ' ' clergy " — whether he call them priests,
magicians, parsons, or ministers — nay, who is ready to be-
come their absolute slave, if need be, yet to burst into the
most violent invectives against the whole order when one of
their number happens to offend him ! Amaziah was angry
with Amos, and his calling him a " seer" in a tone of con-
tempt by no means proves that the prophets were not gen-
1 Amos ix. 8-15.
AMOS AND THE PROPHETS BT PROFESSION. 215
erally respected in Israel. But it may be urged that Amos
himself objected to being called a prophet. Was it looked
upon as a term of disgrace ? That does not follow. It is
natural for a man to reject a name that is given him in con-
tempt, even if there is nothing dishonorable in the name itself.
But since, as we have said, this passage does not stand alone,
since we frequently meet with the most violent denunciations
of the prophets, we are compelled to look more closely into
the condition of the prophetic communities, and are prepared
to find that there was much room for improvement in them.
In discussing Samuel's work we said a few words on the
prophetic schools. 1 What was then brought forward, together
with the incidental information we have gleaned from time to
time, 2 constitutes the whole of our knowledge of these insti-
tutions. We have only to recall the names of Ahijah, Elijah,
and Elisha to realize the power which the prophets and their
disciples often wielded over the sentiments of the people, and
the way in which they deposed one king and set another upon
the throne ! It was they who kept the people in comparative
independence under their monarchs, and prevented Israel from
becoming a nation of slaves. It was the}' who rooted out the
worship of Baal, and maintained and developed the principles
of Moses. In the eighth century they were also prominent
as authors and national historians ; and it was to them that
Israel owed its deep sense of dignity and its lofty conception
of Yahweh's nature. As far as we can tell the spiritual life
of the people was drawn to a focus in the schools of the proph-
ets, under the guidance of their " fathers."
Now, we have not the smallest reason to suppose that
the members of these prophetic schools grew degenerate in
later times, and yet the very nature of the institutions ex-
posed them to many evils. A prophet was supposed by him-
self and others to interpret the will of the deity, and no one
really does so unless his own reflection and the intensity of
his own moral life have raised him to a higher religious level
than that of others, and have thus enabled him to become the
teacher of those around him and the herald of a better day.
Now such men must always be few, must generally stand
alone, and a whole community of such messengers of God is
simply inconceivable. But the Israelites imagined that there
might be hundreds and thousands of these interpreters of
Yahweh, and this delusion caused an isolated burst of re
1 See vol. i. p. 455.
» See vol. i. pp. 508, 509; vol. ii. pp. 100 ff, 114, 115, &c.
216 AMOS AND THE PROPHETS BY PROFESSION.
ligious enthusiasm to form a sufficient passport for any man
into the ranks of the "inspired," and must from the very
first have exercised a baneful influence upon the moral tone
of the prophets.
Consider what their vocation involved ! In the first place,
they were regarded by the superstitious multitude as sooth-
saj-ers, men who could foresee the future, and might therefore
be consulted as to the issue of a sickness, or at the outset of
any important enterprise, such as a great mercantile voyage, a
campaign, or the conclusion of a peace. They themselves, too,
accepted the character of soothsayers, for they were firmly
convinced that they really had power to foretell the future.
Closely connected with this office was the more especial task
of the prophets in exhorting, consoling, and encouraging their
people, for in prosperity and adversity they traced the hand
of God rewarding virtue and chastising wickedness. Thus
they became the preachers of righteousness and the leaders
of public opinion, for Yahweh never did anything without first
revealing it to his servants the prophets. 1
To what temptations must a man have been exposed who
regarded himself, and was regarded by others, as God's inter-
preter? Nothing short of the constant inspiration of sacred
zeal and the intensest moral earnestness could preserve a man
once placed on such a pedestal from pride and insincerity. To
chastise or comfort others in the name of God is a glorious
task which bears the richest fruit for him who undertakes it,
and for others too, but only on condition that he is really
called to it ; for he who preaches the word of God simply be-
cause it is his official duty to do so cannot be true either to
himself or others, and is sure to degenerate into a spiritual
quacksalver. This is the standing danger of every one whose
social calling requires him to do work which can only be done
well when he himself is in the right mood for doing it. Nor
did the prophets escape the danger. They were Yahweh's
interpreters, "men of the spirit" — by profession! When
we reflect how rare great men must be in any body, we shall
understand that while some of the sons of the prophets were
the true light of their age, the true " chariots and horsemen
of Israel," while others were unprincipled hypocrites who had
oracles ready for the taste of any one who would pay for them,
the majority were simply commonplace and shallow, and as
far as possible from possessing that jewel — rare at all times
— an independent conviction of their own ! A fit of en-
1 Amos iii. 7.
AMOS AND THE PROPHETS BY PROFESSION. 217
tlmsiasm might have first led them to jofn the ranks of the
prophets, but it soon yielded to the dull routine of custom.
If even an Elisha was sometimes forced to call in the aid of
music before the spirit of Yahweh would seize him, how often
must inferior men have stirred themselves to the prophetic
rapture by this stimulus, or the less innocent one of wine, for
instance ! The prophetic style was gradually acquired until
"Thus says Yahweh" might preface the thoughtless repeti-
tion of another's words, or the chance dictates of the impulse
of the moment.
Public opinion has tremendous force, and is often identi-
fied with truth itself: witness the proverb vox populi vox dei,
" the voice of the people is the voice of God ; " nor were the
interpreters of Yahweh exempt from its influence any more
than others. In fact, they often followed it passively when
they should have independently controlled it. When the
people were in a downcast mood, most of the prophets were
gloomy also, and had no revelations ; but if a victory was
gained, or if any other circumstance gave the people courage,
then the prophets raised a song of triumph. Like the mass
of men, they were dazzled by the glittering shows of royalty,
for instance, or the pomp of war, and depressed by famine
or defeat. Under Jehu and Jehoahaz, when Israel was op-
pressed by the Syrians, few men of God would utter words
of cheer, and Elisha would be almost alone in his task of
comforter ; but under Jeroboam II. the whole chorus of
prophets would swell the cry : " Hail to the people of Israel,
whom Yahweh makes victorious ! "
Most men, of course, failed to perceive these short-
comings of the prophets, or bowed before the interpreters of
Yahweh in spite of them. But there were a few who really
knew by their own experience what it meant to be called by
God, and whether they were sons of the prophets themselves
or had never been received into their communities, in any-
case they stood far enough above their surroundings to per-
ceive with shame and sorrow the superficial thoughtlessness
of the mass of prophets. And since these men of loftier
spirit could not understand the sincerity of the other prophets
in proclaiming that as truth the precise opposite of which
they themselves recognized as the word of Yahweh, they
took the rough and ready method of denouncing them as liars,
as false prophets who uttered their own fancies in the name
of God or upon whom a lying spirit had descended. "We
have already met with one example in Micaiah the son of
VOL. II. 10
218 AMOS AND THE PROPHETS BY PROFESSION.
Imlah and Ahab's- four hundred prophets, 1 and shall come
upon many other instances in the sequel of the history.
The mass of prophets, ^\ hose oracles followed rather than
led public opinion, naturally looked down with contempt and
aversion upon the few who stood alone, and professed to see
farther than any of them, especially if they were not recog-
nized members of the order ; just in the same way as regulaj
clergy are often apt to speak slightingly of "preachers.'
But those whose sight was keener perceived that a man might
be called by Yahweh though he had never been received into
the official circle of prophets.
This thought is forcibly expressed in a remarkable story in
the Pentateuch, 2 which professes to place us in the period of
Israel's wanderings in the desert, but really gives us the
conceptions of a later age.
Once, when the Israelites were full of discontent, and
uttered the bitterest complaints in Yahweh's hearing, he
made a fire burst out at the edge of the camp, and the people
were so terrified that they implored Moses to intercede for
them ; and at his prayer the fire was quenched. So they
called this place Taberah, that is conflagration. Some time
afterwards the rabble of foreign camp-followers began to long
for flesh to eat, and the sons of Israel themselves were led
away by them. They thought repiningly of the fruit and
fish of Egypt, and complained that the manna was insipid.
When Moses heard the people murmuring in this fashion all
through the camp he was very angry, and dreaded the most
fatal consequences. Seeking refuge with Yahweh he prayed,
" Yahweh, why hast thou afflicted me thus?. Thou hast
laid the burden of all this people upon me. Am I their
father or their mother that I should have to bring them to
the land which thou didst promise to their fathers, as a
nurse would carry a sucking child? How can I find flesh
to appease their longing? 1 cannot bear the charge of all
this multitude. It is too hard for me. If thou requirest it
of me then should I hold it a mercj' to be slain by thee, and
so to see my misery no more ! "
Upon this Yahweh commanded him to call together
seventy elders, whom he knew, at the tent of meeting, and
to keep them near him. He was also to command the people
to sanctify themselves as a preparation for meeting Yahweh ;
for, from the morrow onwards, they would have flesh to eat,
i See p. 120 ff. 2 Numbers xi.
AMOS AND THE PROPHETS BY PROFESSION. 219
not for a single day or a few days only, but for a whole
month, till at last they would grow sick of it. Moses was
not a little amazed at this, for there were six hundred
thousand men in the camp, and he could not imagine where
meat was to come from to satisfy them all ; but Yahweh asked
him whether he supposed his power was not equal to the task,
and Moses did as he was commanded.
Now, when he had chosen seventy of Israel's elders and
ranged them round the tent, Yahweh came down in the cloid,
spoke to them, and gave them some of his spirit, which he
took from Moses. Then they prophesied, as long as the
spirit rested on them, but no longer. Meanwhile two of the
men whom Moses had chosen, namely Eldad and Medad,
had not come to the tent with the rest, but had stayed be-
hind in the camp. But the spirit rested upon them too, and
they prophesied in the camp. When this was told to Moses,
his servant Joshua exclaimed : " Lord Moses, forbid them ! "
But Moses answered: "Are yon jealous for my honor?
Oh ! that Yahweh would make all his people prophets, and
give his spirit to them all ! "
Accompanied by the elders, Moses now returned to the
camp, and lo ! a west wind bore flocks of quails over the camp
until they lay heaped up two cubits high upon the ground all
round the camp, a da3''s journey in every direction ! The
people picked them up in unheard of numbers ; but, while
the.y were still eating, Yahweh' s wrath burst out, and he made
a great slaughter amongst them. So they called the place
liibroth-Hattaavah, that is, graves of desire.
Several elements of this story reappear in other legends,
and are already familiar to us ; but our special attention is
now claimed by the description of the elders who are to sup-
port Moses, and of Eldad and Medad. These seventy elders
obviously represent the prophets, who were very justly re-
garded as the fellow-laborers of Moses and the continuers
of his work. The legend therefore insists upon the special
characteristics of the prophets — namely, that as long as the
spirit of Yahweh rested on them they were inspired, but no
longer. Moses might see Yahweh, face to face, with unveiled
clearness, at all times, 1 but in this privilege he stood alone ;
others saw Yahweh only for a time, in visions and in dreams.
If the seventy elders are taken as representing the prophets,
then Eldad and Medad can hardly stand for anything else
than such messengers of God as Amos, who had never passed
1 Numbers xii. 6-8. Compare vol i. pp. 296 ff.
220 AMOS AND THE PROPHETS BY PROFESSION.
through the prophetic schools. It is instructive to observe
the light in which our author regards them. He holds them
to be genuine prophets, for they are amongst the seventy
whom Moses chose, and have a share of Yahweh's spirit. It
was narrow-minded to endeavor to close their mouths. Such
efforts sprang from a misdirected zeal for Moses, as if no one
bad a right to speak except under his e3'e and according to
his rules. But the true course was to leave them undisturbed.
Their reasons for not joining the rest were unexplained and
their conduct was contrary to rule, but still they rmist be
allowed to speak out freely. It would be well if there were
more such men, inspired bj 1- Yahweh's spirit ; for to rule such
a fretful and capricious people, so easily led astray, was a task
that would strain the powers of many, many prophets.
The author of this legend had a truly liberal and generous
heart, uncramped by party spirit and free from paltry self-
exaltation. He would encourage not only recognized proph-
ets, but all who had the spirit of Yahweh, to speak out.
And the same freedom appears to have been demanded by
the public opinion of the Israelites. Is it not remarkable that
the chief priest Amaziah, however much exasperated against
Amos, offers him no violence? He does not appear to have
done so even when he discovered that the bold intruder was
not so much as a disciple of one of the prophetic schools.
Though almost all the messengers of Yahweh had passed
through one of these institutions and were members of the
prophetic societies, yet a word spoken in Yahweh's name was
enough in itself to secure respect entirely apart from any
such connection. Every prophet of Yahweh, whatever his
antecedents, was free to utter what his god revealed to him.
We may well go still further than the writer of our legend,
and recognize in the free preachers of the word, like Amos,
who were no prophets by profession but had been seized by
Yahweh's spirit, a power, a freshness, a courage, a love of
truth and an earnestness of purpose which the sons of the
prophets but too often lacked.
In the following chapter we shall discuss the chief point in
which the preaching of such meu as these differed from that
of the ordinary prophets.
THE PROPHET HOSEA. 221
Chapter XX.
THE PROPHET HOSEA.
Hosea XI., I.-III.
WHAT distinguished Amos from most of the prophets of
his day was not his conception of Yahweh's nature,
or his relation to Israel. All the prophets alike were con-
vinced that Yahweh was the god of gods, if not the only
God, and that Israel was his people and could therefore never
perish. "Hail to thee, Israel, thou people whom Yahweh
crowns with victory ! " was a cry which found an echo in all
their hearts. What distinguished Amos from the others was
the zeal with which he maintained the moral requirements of
Yahweh. The comparative absence of any sense of guilt in
the great mass of the prophets is verj' remarkable. For Israel,
the mighty people of Yahweh, they had hardly anything but
congratulations, blessings, and auspicious prophecies. Other
nations worshipped idols, but Israel served the true god ; and
surety he, the Almighty, would protect his servants. To doubt
it was impossible ! Eead all the stories of the ancient times
which were written in this eighth century, and you will hardly
ever find the recognition of any sin in Israel. Even such a
picture as that of the people murmuring in the desert is not
intended, in the first instance, to warn the writer's contempo-
raries against ingratitude and discontent, but to throw a more
brilliant light on the power of Yahweh in helping his beloved
ones. 1 Elijah did indeed announce the judgment of Yahweh,
but Micaiah stood alone in opposing his four hundred col-
leagues ; and when the worship of Baal was rooted out the
prophets seem to have found nothing more to condemn, and
Elisha could content himself with comforting his people and
teaching them to trust in Yahweh's might. Amos, on the
other hand, saw deeper. To his mind Israel was far too
sinful to be unconditionally blessed. It was impossible that
Yahweh should have in store for such a people blessings only,
for he would sternly maintain his moral ordinances. A land
on which there were so many stains, in which so much injus-
tice went unchecked, in which the godless and licentious no-
bles oppressed the poor and perverted justice merely to find
1 Compare vol. i. p. 292.
222 THE PROPHET HOSEA.
means of carousing, in which there was so much inchastity
and so much knavery — such a land had nothing to expect in
the immediate future but misery. Woe to Israel and Israel's
king !
Men of deep moral nature, grieving to see how far their
people fall short of the ideal standard, till at last their zeal
breaks forth and compels them to take up arms against the
sins of their age, are at all times rare ; but Amos had a spir-
itual brother in Hosea, concerning whom we will now give
some particulars.
Of Ms outward life we only know that his father's name
was Beeri, while his writings seem to indicate that he was a
native of northern Israel. The superscription of his book
says that he prophesied under Uzziah, Jotharc. Ahaz, and
Hezekiah, kings of Judah, as well as under Jeroboam II. ;
but this is incorrect. At any rate, none of the oracles which
we still possess bring us further down than a few years after
Jeroboam's ,death.
The greater portion of Hosea's book (chapters iv.-xiv.)
resembles that of Amos, in being an abstract of the prophet's
discourses, composed by himself. Many passages are exceed-
ingly difficult to understand, owing to the allusions they contain
to circumstances of which we have no knowledge, the broken
sentences of which they are often composed, and the absence
of a,nj regular line of development. All this is what we
should expect from a man who gives us a short review of
what he has said on different occasions in times past, under
circumstances many of which have widely altered.
But though the exact meaning of many a passage is lost,
we can still see clearly enough the spirit of the whole. Hosea
is so full of tender love for his people that its fate overwhelms
him with sadness. Immorality stirs his intensest indignation, 1
and his faith in Yahweh's love for Israel never wavers. lie
is therefore deeply convinced that though the land will be
chastised for its sins, it will at last be restored to honor. He
was a passionate opponent of the bull-worship to which he
constantly refers, 2 whereas Amos never mentions it in express
terms ; and he attributes the disasters of his people in great
measure to the priests, whom he never spares. He was all
the less tolerant of their shortcomings because he held in
such slight esteem the sacrifices upon the performance of
which they insisted and by which they lived. " Yahweh de-
sires piety more than sacrifices, and the knowledge of God
1 See Hosea iv. 1-3, for instance. a Hosea viii. 4, 5, 6, x. 5, 15, xiii. 2.
THE PROPHET HOSEA. 223
rather than burnt-offerings," he cried. 1 He calls Moses a
prophet, 2 and describes the men of God as the executors of
Yahweh's judgments, for he had " chastised Israel by the
prophets, slain them by his words ; " 8 but elsewhere he ap-
pears to have but a poor opinion of them.' 1 The inconsistency,
however, is only apparent. Hosea's thorough familiarity with
the legends that were committed to writing in the prophetic
schools 5 seems to indicate that he had himself been an inmate
of one of them, and in that case he may well have had the
greatest reverence for the calling of a true interpreter of God's
will, while by no means conscious of any respectful sympathy
with the majority of his colleagues.
Here is a specimen of his preaching : —
"When Israel was 3 r et a child I loved him, and called my
son out of Egypt. 6 But when they were called they turned
away ; they sacrificed to Baals and burned incense to images.
Yet it was I who taught them to walk, and held them under
their arms ; but they knew not that it was I who healed them.
I drew them on with cords, with gentle bands, not as a beast
is treated, but as a man. As a kind-hearted husbandman
takes the j^oke from his ox's neck and then gives it food, so
did I deal with Israel. Truly 7 he shall go back to Eg3Tpt and
Ashur shall be his king, because they refuse to repent. The
sword shall abide in his cities, shall consume and devour his
gates, because of their evil designs. For my people are bent
on rebelling against me. They are called on high, but not
one of them directs his e3 r es thither."
" Yet how can I give up thee, O Ephraim, into the enemy's
hands? How can I surrender thee, Israel? How can I
suffer thee to meet the fate of Admah, and make thee like
Zeboim ? 8 My heart trembles at the thought ; my pity grows
hot within me. I cannot pour out all my wrath upon thee ;
I will not turn to destroy Ephraim ; for I am a god and not
a man ; as the holy one am I in your midst, and shall enter
into none of your cities. 9 But they will follow Yahweh when
he comes to judgment roaring like a lion ; for he will roar,
and then his sons will come in terror from the West, come
like a timid bird from Egypt, like a dove from Assyria, and I
will make them dwell in their homes. So says Yahweh ! "
What tenderness breathes through all this passage ! Israe'
1 Hosea vi. 6. 2 Hosea xiii. 1 i. s Hoseavi. 5.
4 Hosea ix. 7, 8. 5 Hosea vi. 7, ix. 10, xi. 8, xii. 4, 5, 13, xiii. 10.
6 Compare Exodus iv. 22.
7 After an amended version. Compare Hosea viii. 13, ix. 3, xi. 11.
• Compare Genesis xiv. 2, xix. 24. 9 Compare Exodus xxxiii. 3, 6.
224 THE PROPHET HOSEA.
is an apostate people and Yahweh has good cause for wrath,
but yet he loves them so !
The first three chapters of Hosea's book present the same
thought in a very extraordinary form. It almost appears as
if the prophet were here giving the general conclusion of his
oracles. Slightly abbreviated and with a few verses trans-
posed to suit the context, the passage runs as follows : —
When Yahweh first revealed himself to Hosea, he said :
"Marry an adulterous woman, of whose children you will
not be the father. For in truth Israel is faithless to her hus-
band, Yahweh." So I obeyed the command of mj~ god and
took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, to wife ; and the first
son she bore I called Jezreel, at Yahweh's command ; for he
would soon exact from Jehu's house requital for the blood
poured out in Jezreel. Nay, he would put an end to Israel's
monarchy, and break his bow in the valley of Jezreel. Then
Gomer bore a daughter, and Yahweh said to me : " Call the
child Unfavored, for I will show favor to Israel no more in
forgiving his sins. Yet Judah will I pit}- and deliver, though
not by force of arms, but by Yahweh his god." And when
Unfavored was weaned, Gomer bore another son, and Yah-
weh commanded me and said : " Call him Not-nry-people, for
you are not my people, and I am not j-our god."
And 3 r et, one day the number of the sons of Israel shall be
countless and untold as the sand on the sea shore, and in
place of Not-my-people you shall be called sons of the living
God. For in that clay the Judseans, with the Israelites their
brothers, shall leave their land, under one ruler, because it
has grown too small for them ; for blessed in its results shall
the day of Jezreel be in which Israel's might is quenched and
an end is put to the severance. So call 3-our brothers My-
people and call your sisters Favored.
Contend with j r our mother for she is not my wife, and I
am not her husband. Oh, that she would quit her adulteries !
But, if she will not, I will strip her of everything, till she
is naked as on the daj r of her birth, till I make her die of
thirst in the desert. Nor will I take pity on her sons, for
they are but bastards ! Has not their mother been shameless
in adulteries, and run after her paramours, from whom she
vainly thought she had received all that she had, which I had
given her — bread, water, wool, flax, oil, and drink? She
acknowledged not that it was I who had given her all, even
the very silver and gold that she used to make the Baal.
THE PROPHET HOSEA. 225
Therefore will i plunge her into deepest woe, and make her
atone for the days in which she burnt incense to the Baals.
I will lead her on a path where thorns shall encompass her on
every side, and a wall shall be in front of her, — a path where
she shall lose her way. Then, when she pursues her lovers,
but overtakes them not, seeks them, but does not find, then
she will say, " Let me seek my first husband again, for it was
better with me then than now." And when such thoughts
arise within her, then will I gently allure her to the wilder-
ness, and speak tenderly to her there. And from thence I
will give her her vineyards and the valley of Achor as a door
of hope ; then shall she sing as in the days of her youth,
when she came up out of Egypt. On that day, says Yahweh,
she shall call me " my husband," and no more call me " my
lord (Baal) ; " for I will take the names of the Baals far
from her lips, and they shall be remembered no more. Then
will I make a covenant with the beasts of the field and the
fowls of the air, and all that creeps upon the ground, that
they shall not hurt my people ; bow and sword and weapon
of war will I break and cast away, that Israel may dwell in
safety. Then will I betroth myself to thee in faith and love,
that thou mayest know Yahweh. In that day, says Yahweh,
I will listen in mercy to the heavens, and they shall listen to
the earth, and the earth to the corn and oil, and all of them
to Jezreel (Israel) . So will I shew favor to Unfavored ; and
will call Not-my-people " My-people," and they shall say
"My God!"
Yet, again, Yahweh said to me : "Go forth and bargain
for the hand of a woman loved by her husband, but yet un-
faithful to him, — just as Yahweh loves the Israelites, whereas
they turn to other gods." I did so ; and, when I had bought
her at a heavy price, I said : " Long time shalt thou sit deso-
late without either lover or husband, nor will, I care for thee ! "
— for long time shall the sons of Israel remain bereft of king
and prince, of sacrifice and massebah, of ephod and teraphim.
Then after that they shall seek again for Yahweh, their god,
and David, their king ; and shall come at last in fear to Yah-
weh and his goodness.
Just a word on the form and contents of this prophecy !
The form is certainly strange enough, yet not half so strange
as the opinion of some commentators, who take it all as a
description of veritable facts, and actually suppose that Ho-
sea literally married a woman, at Yahweh's command, of
whom he knew beforehand that she would constantly break
10*
226 THE PROPHET HOSEA.
her marriage vow. All this is obviously nothing but the
form in which the prophet expresses the thought, ' ' Israel is
Yahweh's wife, tenderly loved by him, but faithless to him
from the very beginning of their union." We cannot be sure
whether the name of the woman, Gomer the daughter of
Diblaim, has a symbolical meaning, as the names of the chil-
dren have. It is possible that it is the name of some vory
notorious courtesan of Hosea's time, whom he mercilessly
exposes to infamy while rebuking the whole people.
This discourse furnishes us with a striking example of the
great freedom with which the prophets used the forms of
speech, " Yahweh said to me," and "Yahweh commanded
me." Israel's infidelity, Yahweh's love, the certainty of a
future restoration — such were the thoughts which the prophet
might indeed regard as revelations from Yahweh ; but when
he threw them into this story of a command from his god, a
marriage with a certain Gomer and the birth of three children
whose names indicated the sins of the people and the conse-
quences they involved, then he was quietly thinking out and
deliberately preparing his discourse, just as a preacher does
when he writes his sermon.
This example stands by no means alone. And again, we
find " visions " recorded by the prophets which are invented
from beginning to end. When hope and fear or any other
conflicting emotions contend for victory in the heart of a
man, until the strain of his over-wrought system bursts into
a kind of ecstasy or frenzj', and he imagines himself to hear
the words of God or to see messengers from heaven who
instruct him how to act or what the future will bring forth,
then such a man is said to have had a "vision." As an
example of what we mean we may refer to the description
already given of what we suppose to have taken place iu
Deborah's heart before she summoned her countrymen to the
battle. 1 A vision, in short, is a kind of waking dream. Now,
of course, such visions must be of comparatively rare occur-
rence, and for the most part extremely simple. But all the
prophets are called " seers," and to have visions was a recog-
nized part of their profession. In other words, the men of
God clothed what they had to say in the form of visions, and
" Yahweh showed me " was a simple figure of rhetoric. Just
as poets sometimes clothe their thoughts in the form of a
dream, or profess to tell us what they thought or saw as they
stood upon such and such a spot, though their readers never
1 vol. i. p. 370.
THE PROPHET HOSEA. 227
seriously suppose that they really had these dreams or saw
these wondrous sights. And in the same way, when Amos,
for instance, says: " Yahweh showed me swarms of locusts
eating everything bare, and then a fire consuming water and
land ; and when these two disasters had been averted by my
prayer, I saw Yahweh himself standing with a plumb-line in
his hand " * — we are not to suppose that the prophet really
had any such vision, for it is simply a form of speech. This
is shown by the highly artificial character of many of these
visions, which in some cases owe their origin entirety to a
play upon words. Take the following, for instance: 2 "The
Lord Yahweh showed me a basket of fruit (kaits) , and asked :
Amos, what see you ? I answered : A basket of kaits.
Whereupon he said : The end (keets) of Israel is come, and I
will no more spare him." This is clearly a fictitious vision.
The prophet avails himself of the similarity of sound between
the words signifying ' ' end " and ' ' fruit " thus to announce
the fall of Israel.
These rhetorical expressions, "Yahweh said," "Yahweh
showed me," "Yahweh made me hear," "Yahweh com-
manded me," are in themselves as innocent as those of the
poets ; but they were rendered dangerous and pernicious by
the fact that the prophets demanded reverence and obedi-
ence for the oracles which the}* prefaced with ' ' Thus says
Yahweh," as though they were the genuine utterances of
their god. If even the greatest prophets, whose integrity is
above all suspicion — such as Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jere-
miah — employed these expressions without any hesitation,
how recklessly they must have been used and abused by
seers of inferior mould ! There is a departure from strict
veracity in these forms which could not fail to cause incal-
culable detriment to prophecy.
As regards the substance of Hosea's preaching, we may
note a curious point of opposition to the legend of Balaam
and the "blessing of Moses;" for whereas these poems,
though written by Judaeans, anticipate the happiest results
from Jeroboam's rule, Hosea, on the other hand, though
probably a native of the northern kingdom, desires the re-
union of all the tribes under a prince of David's house. In
this he agrees with Amos.
In another and more important point he is one with the
Judsean shepherd. They are both of them dissatisfied with
Israel. Neithei of them is dazzled by the splendor of Jero-
i Amos ™. 1 S. See p. 213. 2 Amos viii. 1, 2.
228 BRIGHT SIDE OF THE PICTURE.
boam's rule ; and both look forward to days of misery, not
because the power of Assj-ria is extending and Israel is far
too weak to hold his own against her, but because Yahweh
will chastise Israel for his sins. Israel did not fulfil his call-
ing. He was wicked and apostate, and Yahweh would one
day punish his former worship of Baal. Both Amos and
Hosea were preachers of repentance.
Hosea made a very deep impression by the image he
selected to represent the relation between Israel and Yahweh.
Israel was Yahweh's wife. Yahweh had married her at the
time of the exodus from Egypt. He had always been good
to his wife, and had given her many blessings in the land of
Canaan ; but Israel was faithless to him, and had served
other gods. This Hosea called committing adultery with the
idols ; and, when the people is plunged into disaster because
of its idolatry, it is like a wanton wife neglected by her hus-
"band because of her infidelitj-, but pursuing her paramours
in vain. If the people gives up its idolatry, it is as though
the deserted wife returned in sorrow to the husband of her
youth, and was received by him again, — for Yahweh's mercy
is infinite ! This image, by which the tie between Yahweh
and Israel was likened to marriage, was not only taken up
and elaborated in several ways by later prophets, 1 but even
established itself in the very language of the Israelites, in
which idolatry is constantly called ' ' lusting after the idols ; "
and it is sometimes difficult to make out whether it is inchas-
tity or idolatry that is spoken of.
Chapter XXI.
THE BRIGHT SIDE OF THE PICTURE.
Provehbs X.-XXII. 16, XXV.-XXIX.; Song of Solomon.
WERE Hosea and Amos justified in their unfavorable
judgment on Israel? Were the people really as bad
as they paint them ? We have seen already that these two
prophets stood almost alone, and that most of their colleagues
sang the praises of Israel. This does not prove that Hosea
and Amos were wrong, for truth does not always lie on the
side of the majority. Far from it ! But it does at least
1 See Isaiah liv., for instance.
BRIGHT SIDE OF THE PICTURE. 229
prevent our accepting their unfavorable judgment off hand.
Nay more, it makes us suspect that the preachers of repent-
ance judged their people unfairly, and looked almost exclu-
sively at the dark side of their life. For, however shallow
the prophets and poets may have been who were ever singing
the song, " Hail to thee, Israel, people of Yahweh ! " yet they
were far from having no moral perceptions ! Men who were
employed in serious literary labors, and who taught their
contemporaries to look at the past from a religious point of
view, could not possibly have been so proud of their people
had it not possessed many excellences.
And so indeed it did. All that Hosea and Amos said was
doubtless true ; but there was another side to the picture, and
on this they did not look. They fell into exaggerations, as
all preachers of repentance are in danger of doing.
The manners of the Israelites of the eighth century b.c.
were certainty rude in comparison with onrs. Their notions
of honor, temperance, chastity, love, and — above all — in-
tegrity, were still defective. Moreover, the moral code which
they did recognize as divine and binding, was very often, and
in some cases very grossly, transgressed. But all this is true
of every nation and in every age ; and he who observes it in
a special people at a special time, amidst his own surround-
ings, for example, has no right, on the strength of it, utterly
to condemn the society in which he lives, still less to accuse
it of falling away and going backwards. Such an accusation
is most dangerous when not absolutely demanded by the
facts, for it is so discouraging. 1 Moreover, in the case of
Israel it was quite unjust. When we know the history of this
people we may still speak of passing deviations, such as that
of worshipping Baal to the detriment of the nobler service of
Yahweh ; but we shall remember that just as each man " errs
as long as he strives," so peoples too are sure sometimes to
go astray ; but if they afterwards return to the true path, it
shows that they have learned their lesson and have gathered
moral strength from their attempts to make good their errors.
Now, throughout the course of Israel's history we trace a
steady progress. In the seven centuries that had elapsed be-
tween the Exodus and the reign of Jeroboam II. , the seed
which Moses sowed had borne rich fruit. The rude hordes
amongst which he planted the moral worship of Yahweh had
grown into a people in whose midst a true national life had
developed in more than one direction.
l See vol. i. pp. 353-355
230 BRIGHT SIDE OF THE PICTURE.
What a difference of social condition between those wan-
dering tribes contending with each other for the booty and
this nation 1 governed by a king, and with the. elements of an
organized administration of justice ! What a difference be-
tween the hordes who had no literature, and but few of whom
could even read or write, and the Israel of the eighth century
B.C., with its psalmists, proverb-makers, and historians!
What a difference between the motley polytheism of the days
of Moses, with its stone and tree worship, and the conception
of Yahweh as the Most High, the creator of heaven and
earth, by whose side no other may be worshipped !
But had Israel sunk as low as Amos and Hosea seem to
think, from a moral point of view? We have no right to be-
lieve it. On the other hand, we can trace decided progress
in many respects here also. For whereas the Israelites, in
Joshua's days, had laid Jericho, Ai, and Sephath, as well as
other cities, under the ban, their descendants gradually gave
up even the far less savage practice of exeeutiug the male-
factor's children together with himself. It is true that the
writers of this later age still commend Joshua for having put
the Canaanites to the sword, and regard it as a weakness in
their ancestors to have omitted in some cases to root out the
old inhabitants. But, in treating of an age so far gone by,
people do not realize the horror of a massacre ; and even
tender-hearted men inay sometimes speak of it with indiffer-
ence. But that human life had become more precious in the
eyes of the Israelites is shown, amongst other things, by
Hosea's threatening the house of Jehu with punishment for
" the massacre of Jezreel," which can only mean the slaughter
effected by Jehu in his " zeal for Yahweh." It seems to have
produced a painful impression upon many people even at the
time. Samuel hews the captive prince of the Anialekites
in pieces ; and, even as late as in Ahab's time, a pro-
phet rebukes the king for sparing Benhadad's life, when
Yahweh's curse was upon him ; but when the king of Israel
asks Elisha whether he is to slay the Syrians, whom Yahweh
has struck blind, and who have been brought to Samaria, the
prophet answers, ' ' Not at all ! You would not slay your
captives ! " Consider, again, the gentle and equitable spirit
that breathes through the Israelitish laws. 1
The people amongst whom the sketch of Abram was made,
as the father of the faithful, full of generosity, interceding for
Sodom and ready to obey his god in everything ; the people
1 See pp. 184-186.
BRIGHT SIDE OF THE PICTURE. 231
in whose midst an influential party zealously opposed all luxury
and pride, nay, even art and study, for fear of the moral dan-
gers that accompanied them, — such a people cannot have
stood at a very low level of morality. And was there not a
strong moral element in the contempt with which the people
of Yahweh looked down upon the old inhabitants of the land ?
Did they not maintain the struggle against the " abominations
of the Canaanites " with successful pertinacity? Surely Israel
made progress in morality as well as in other things, but its
progress was too slow to satisfy earnest men, too slow for
them to see !
This moral progress is evinced by other writings than those
of the prophets ; by the sayings of the ' ' wise men " of this
period, for instance. Our book of Proverbs consists of several
collections which are not all of the same age. Only one of
these is provided with a superscription that fixes its date. 1 It
states that it was made at the command of king Hezekiah ;
and since Samaria fell in the sixth year of this king's reign,
the proverbs collected in his day belong to the last period of
Israel's existence. We have also another collection 2 which
appears to be a little older. We have no means of deciding
whether these proverbs were uttered in Judah or in Israel ;
but it is of little consequence, for the moral condition of the
northern kingdom did not differ materially from that of the
southern. Now when we read these sayings of the "wise
men," we are struck at once by the deep moral feeling which
they often evince.
Not that they all impress us favorably ! Some of them are
very commonplace. For instance, " The poor man is mostly
despised, but the rich man respected." 8 "The buyer says
' clear ! very dear ! ' and then goes and boasts of his bargain." 4
" The people curse the factor who holds back his corn to make
prices rise, but bless the one who sells it ; " 6 and the remark
that these speculations on the rise or fall of the market some-
times fail ! 6 Occasionally the advice given by the sages is
even of doubtful morality, and they are too fond of declaring
that every man has his' price. " For a piece of bread any
one will sing ; " "a bribe always gains its end." 7
Many other sayings, however, show fine powers of observa-
1 Proverbs xxv.-xxix. 2 Proverbs x.-xxii. 16.
8 Proverbs xiv. 20, xviii. 23, xix. 6, 7. 4 Proverbs xx. 14.
6 Proverbs xi. 26. 6 Proverbs xi. 24.
' Proverbs xvii. 8, xviii. 16, xxi. 14, and xxviii. 21, after an amended
version.
232 * BRIGHT SIDE OF THE PICTURE.
tion, deep religious feeling, and, in some cases, penetrating
moral insight. Warnings against dishonesty abound, and in-
tegrity in life and business is commended ; ' the humble and
pious are exalted, and are promised wealth, honor, and long
life, as rewards ; 2 backbiting is severely rebuked, 3 for " love
conceals every trespass." 4 The sages utter warnings against
hasty speech,' 6 and urgently commend silence as better than
speech on many occasions. 6 There is much sound sense in the
advice, " Give net your friend too much of your company, lest
he grow tired of you and come to hate you ; " ' and in the
counsel not to praise oneself, but to wait for some one else to
do it. 8
The sharp exhortations against sloth 9 are thus worked out
in a later collection 10 : —
Once I passed by the field of a sluggard,
And the vineyard of a senseless man ;
And lo! it was full of nettles, covered with thistles,
And the stone wall was broken down.
When I saw this I pondered it over;
When I perceived it I learned the lesson : —
" A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to rest,
And 3'our poverty comes like a robber;
Your want like an armed man!"
A companion to this picture of the sluggard is furnished Dy
the same collection, in the following sketch of a drunkard : u
With whom is " Out and alas ! " and strife?
Who have trouble, wounds without cause, heavy eyes?
They who sit late at night over wine,
Who go into drink-shops to taste.
Look not at the wine, at its ruddy glow,
Sparkling in the cup, and gliding dowu!
The end of it is that it bites like a serpent,
And stings like an adder.
Then your eyes wander after lewd women,
And rzr. *"hink evil thoughts.
You are like une that sleeps out at sea,
Sleeps on the top of a mast.
" They have Ptruck me, but not made me sick ft
They have beaten me, but I never marked it.
As soon as I wake, I will have some more wine ! "
Not even these warnings against sloth, intemperance, and
gluttony, 12 however, give us so high an opinion of the moral
1 Proverbs x. 4, after an amended version, and xx 10.
2 Proverbs xxii. 4. 8 Proverbs xi. 13, xviii. 8, xxvi. 22
* Proverbs x. 12, xvii. 9. 6 Proverbs xviii. 13.
e Proverbs xvii. 27, 28. i Proverbs xxv. 17.
8 Proverb9 xxvii. 2. 8 Proverbs xix. 24, xx. 4, 13, xxii. 13.
i° Proverbs xxiv. 30 if. u Proverbs xxiii. 29-35; compare xx. 1.'
12 Proverbs xxiii. 1-3.
BKIGHT SIDE OP THE PICTURE. 233
perception of the proverb-writers as their fine observations of
human nature and their exhortations to mercy. Some of the
proverbs show deep feeling ; for instance, " The heart knows
its own bitterness ; let not a stranger meddle with its joy ! "
and, " Sometimes a man's heart is heavy even when he laughs,
and the end of his mirth is trouble." 1 Pitifulness, especially
to the poor, to widows, and to orphans, is much insisted on.
" Remove not the boundary mark nor encroach on the
orphan's inheritance ; for their redeemer is mighty, he will
take up their cause." 2 " He who has pity on the poor lends
to Yahweh ; he will reward him for his bounty." 3 The sages
even noticed the different ways in which men treated their
animals: "A good man knows the wants of his beast, but
the mercy of the godless is cruelty." 4
Man}' of the proverbs are marked by a veiy religious spirit.
Their authors share the convictions of the contemporary
prophets, 5 and had evidently a good understanding with them.
"If there is no prophec}-, the people are unrestrained; but
happy is he who receives instruction." 6 " Integrity and
virtue are more acceptable than sacrifice to Yahweh."' "The
sacrifice of the godless is an abomination to Yahweh, but the
good man's prayer is his delight." 8
Now of course these collections of proverbs do not prove
that the convictions and principles which they express found
an echo in every heart ; but surety they do show that the peo-
ple in whose midst such sayings passed from mouth to mouth
was far from a degenerate, godless race, insensible to the
demands of morality. For these proverbs, be it remembered,
were made bj" no prophets or priests, professional moralists
as we might call them, but by simple citizens, who produced
them for each other's benefit as they sat together in the gate ;
and if they who uttered such sayings • — characterized on the
whole by so much moral earnestness — were reverenced as
sages by their fellow-citizens, surely the people must have
been very far from immoral.
The morality of any period may be pretty fairly gauged by
the regard in which it holds the state of marriage, and by
the social place which it allows to woman. Now the state of
things in Israel, as in all ancient nations, left much to be
I Proverbs xiv. 10, 13. 2 Proverbs xxiii. 10, 11.
II Proverbs xix. 17. * Proverbs xii. 10.
6 See p. 79. 6 Proverbs xxix. 18.
7 Proverbs xxi. 3. 8 Proverbs xv. 8, xxi. 27, xxviii. 9
234 BRIGHT SIDE OF THE PICTURE.
desired in these respects. Not only was the bride bought
by the bridegroom, but polygamy prevailed both amongst
the nobles and amongst the citizens. The stories of the
patriarchs show that no one saw any harm in this practice,
fraught as it really is with peril to love, to home-life, and to
chastity, and fatal as it is to the moral life of woman. Yet
respect for women was by no means wanting. Even the Ten
Commandments mention respectful conduct towards father
and mother in a single breath. The legend places a woman,
Miriam, by the side of Moses and Aaron as one of Israel's
deliverers from Egypt. Women as well as men might be
inspired by Yahweh ; and a Deborah might be glorified as a
prophetess. The touching story told to David by Nathan
proves beyond all doubt that the Israelites well knew how
deep the love of a man for his one wife may be. That single
ewe lamb that the poor man had bought and loved so ten-
derly, that grew up with him and his children, ate of his
bread, drank from his cup, and slept on his breast at night,
represents Uriah's one and only wife, so truly loved by her
husband. So too, in the Proverbs, the praises of a good
wife are sung again and again : " A capable wife is the crown
of her lord ; " ' "A prudent wife is a gift of Yahweh." 2 Evi-
dently, then, domestic virtues and domestic bliss were held
in high esteem.
Since we only possess those portions of the literature
of the Israelites which the Jews of a later age regarded as
Sacred Writings, we have but scant remains of their heroic
poems and love-songs, which would have taught us so much
as to their civilization and culture ; but, luckily, we do pos-
sess one love poem, which the collectors of the Sacred Writ-
ings probably took up because they fancied there was some
hidden spiritual meaning in it. It is the so-called Song of
Solomon, or Song of Songs ; that is, " most excellent song."
The superscription of the song assigns the authorship to
Solomon ; but this is certainly incorrect, for Solomon's vanity
would never have permitted him to immortalize himself under
the character of an unsuccessful suitor ! Perhaps the poem
was originally entitled "Solomon." We cannot tell forcer-
tain when it was written, but there is a good deal to be said
for the opinion that it dates from the time of Jeroboam II.,
and that is why we mention it here.
If only it were easier to understand ! But, alas ! it is very
obscure in many places. It evidently comprises dialogues.
1 Proverbs xi. 16, xii. 4, xiv. 1. 2 Proverbs xix. 14.
BRIGHT SIDE OF THE PICTURE. 235
or at any rate words spoken under several characters, and
shows indications of change of scene ; but we are never told
who is speaking, or where we. are supposed to be. Various
expounders are gradually reaching agreement as to certain
points, but still every fresh translation and interpretation de-
parts in many respects from its predecessors.
The subject is love, regarded from its physical side and
with all the passion that marks the Oriental character. The
heroine of the poem, the Shulammite, that is, the maid of
Shulem or Shunem, sings: "I conjure you, ye women of
Jerusalem, should you find my beloved, to tell him that I am
sick with love ! " Should the poem need a motto, it might
well be found in the following lines : —
Love is strong as death ;
Passion is mighty as the realms of the dead.
Its flames are flames of fire,
A lightning flash of Yahweh.
No floods of water can put out love ;
Nor rivers wash ifraway.
Though one should offer all the wealth of his house for it,
He would be rejected with scorn.
The poem, then, moves in a sphere in which many a man's
moral life has been wrecked ; but we may judge of the purity
of the poet's conceptions from the contents of his song.
The Shulammite girl was the young and beautiful daughter
of a widow who belonged to the class of well-to-do yeomanry.
She was betrothed to a shepherd. Her brothers set her to
watch the vineyard, under their own superintendence, and
she was therefore rather sunburnt ; but in spite of that she
was so beautiful that the purveyors for Solomon's harem car-
ried her off to the palace. The king, however, sought in vain
to win her love. Her whole heart was still full of her shep-
herd lover. The wanton life of the harem and the dazzling
splendor of the court are drawn with seductive warmth. Eead,
for instance, the following description of a wedding proces-
sion of the lavish monarch : —
Look at the couch, at Solomon's couch!
With sixty heroes ranged around it,
Chosen from Israel's mighty ones.
All of them handle the sword,
And are exercised in war ;
Their swords are girt to their hips.
To prevent the nightly surprise I
Solomon made him a palanquin
From timber of Lebanon;
He made its columns of silver,
He made the floor of gold,
236 BRIGHT SIDE OF THE PICTURE.
The seat lie made of purple,
Graced in the midst by a loved one,
One of Jerusalem's daughters!
Come, then, daughters of Zion, and see !
Look on King Solomon with the crown
Wherewith his mother has crowned him,
On the day of his bridal,
The day of the joy of his heart !
From the rapturous tone of this description we learn how
high an honor it was reckoned for a girl to be taken into the
harem of a king, and above all such a king as Solomon.
What parents would not desire such a distinction for their
child !
Moreover, Solomon strains all his powers to make the
Shulammite forget her home. But it is all in vain !
I am my beloved's
And he is mine !
Such is the constant burden of her reply, and her resolve to
go back to her lover is never shaken. All Solomon's flatter-
ing speeches and all his promises fail to win her, and at last
he is compelled to let her go. She maj' well boast, —
I was inaccessible as a wall,
My bosom impregnable as a castle ;
I was as one in his eyes who must be left to go in peace !
A people who loved such songs celebrating an invincible
love, passionate, indeed, to the last degree, but perfectly
innocent, — such a people cannot have been a prey to moral
corruption. The preachers of repentance, then, whose stan-
dard of morality was higher than that of their neighbors,
may often have been justified in rebuking, admonishing, and
threatening their contemporaries, and exhorting them to lead
purer lives ; but when they describe Israel in the age of Jero-
boam II. as an adulteress and an apostate, a people ripe for
destruction, they are taking a one-sided view of the facts,
involuntarily exalting the past and painting the present in
colors far too dark. However much there was to blame in
the people, it was sound at heart, nor could any trace be
found of fatal inward corruption.
i
FALL OF THE NOKTHERN KINGDOM. 237
Chapter XXII.
THE FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM.
2 Kings XV.-XVI. 9, XVII. 1-6.1
" "\7"AHWEH lifts up an ensign to the heathens dwelling
X afar, and calls them together from the ends of the
earth ! See ! they are coming, swift of foot and light ; not
one of them stumbles, not one is weary ! He sleeps not, nor
slumbers. The girdle is not loosed from his loins, nor the
sandals from his feet. His arrows are all of them sharpened,
and his bows are bent. His horses' hoofs are as hard as
flint, and his chariot-wheels like a whirlwind. He roars like
a lioness, roars like a raging lion holding grimly to his prey !
None can snatch from him what he carries away ! On that
day is a sound as of rushing waves, and if they look land-
ward, there is fearful darkness ; the light is obscured by
clouds." Such are the words in which Isaiah 2 describes the
Assj'rians, whose approach had already inspired the Israelites
and Judseans with terror, even in the time of Jeroboam II.
Of the earliest history of this warlike people we know very
little ; 8 but in the eighth century B.C. we find their king, Pul,
advancing eastwards, and subduing one after another the ter-
ritories of Babj'lonia, Elam, Media, and Armenia, till he
reigns over all the lands from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian
Sea. Then he turns westward, and conquers Mesopotamia
and Syria. 4 Even before Jeroboam's death Pul had occupied
Hamath, and the dreaded conquerors stood close on the north-
ern frontier of Israel, which would come into closer contact
with them but too soon.
Jeroboam's reign was a long one. It lasted certainly one-
and-forty years, as is directly stated, 6 probably three-and-
flfty, as may be inferred from other data, for he ascended the
throne fifteen years before Uzziah became king of Judah, 6
and it was not till the thirty-eighth year of that monarch that
his son succeeded him.' An interregnum is quite out of the
question, and we must therefore suppose that some mistake
has crept into one of the conflicting numbers. However this
1 2 Chronicles xxvi., xxvii. 2 Isaiah v. 26-30.
3 Compare vol. i. pp. 84 ff. 4 See Map I.
6 2 Kings xiv. 23. 6 2 Kings xiv. 17. 1 2 Kings xv. 8.
238 FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM.
may be , Jeroboam's son, Zacnariah, was publicly murdered
by a certain Shallum in the year 770 B.C. after a reign of six
months. The historian does not fail to remind us of the oracle
vouchsafed to Jehu that his house should hold the throne of
Israel to the fourth generation. Shallum only kept the crown
a single month, after which a certain Menahem marched upon
him from Tirzah, defeated and slew him, and reigned in his
stead. There was probably a third pretender, who lost his
life in his attempt to secure the crown.
This last particular may be inferred from a discourse pre-
served in Zechariah ix.-xi. These three chapters are not
from the same hand as those that precede them, but date from
the last century of the northern kingdom. We cannot be
sure of the writer's name, but he was probably called Zech-
ariah, son of Berechiah, whereas the writer of the first eight
chapters, who lived more than two hundred years later, was
called Zechariah the son of Iddo. It is far from certain that
even these three chapters are all from the same hand. They
contain many obscurities ; nor is the concluding passage, 1 to
which we must now turn our attention, bj r any means free
from difficulties, but the general purport of the discourse and
the main thought it is intended to bring out are clear enough.
The prophet's words are instinct with pity for the miserable
condition of his people, which offered such a sad contrast to
the prosperity they had enjo3 T ed under Jeroboam. The pas-
sage may be rendered something as follows : —
Yahweh, my god, said to me: "Pasture these cattle for
slaughter ! When they are sold the purchaser holds himself
free from guilt though they are destroyed, and the seller cries
' Blessed be Yahweh, it has made me rich ! ' and their shep-
herds do not pity them. The dwellers in this land are like
them, for I will take pity on them no more ; but I will give
them over into the hands of their neighbors and of their Mug,
and they shall break the land in pieces, and no one shall de-
liver it out of their hand." Thereupon I began to pasture
those cattle for slaughter ; but in truth they were sorry beasts.
I took two staves and called the one Prosperity and the other
Union, and with them I pastured the cattle. But when I had
dismissed three shepherds in one month I waxed bitter against
my cattle and they loathed me. Then I said, " I will pasture
you no more. Let die who will, and let who may be thrust
aside, and let the rest devour one another." So I took my
staff Prosperity and broke it to pieces as a sign that I had
1 Zechariah xi. 4-17.
FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 239
broken my covenant with all the tribes. So the staff was
broken to pieces, and the wretched cattle that looked on soon
perceived that it was a word of Yahweh. Then like a shep-
herd leaving his service, I asked them : " Will it please you
to give me any wages ? If not, then let it rest ! " But they
gave me my wages — a poor thirty shekels. Then Yahweh
said to me, "Throw it into the box of offerings! 1 It is a
noble price at which they have valued me ! " And accord-
ingly I went and threw the money into the chest of offerings
in Yahweh's house. Thereupon I broke my other staff, the
staff of Union, because the brotherhood of Judah and Israel
must be broken. Then Yahweh said to me again: "Now
take the implements of a foolish shepherd, for behold ! I will
raise up a shepherd in this land who shall not seek for those
that have been cast out, nor tend those that have gone astray,
nor heal the sick, nor support those that still can stand, but
shall eat the flesh of the fat ones and break their hoofs in
pieces." Woe to my worthless shepherd who cares not for
the sheep ! The sword shall fall upon his arm and strike out
his right eye. Yea, his arm shall be maimed and his right-
eye darkened !
The mention of three shepherds, all dismissed within one
month, leads us to suppose that besides Zachariah and Shal-
lum some third adventurer occupied the throne for a little
time. The foolish shepherd mentioned by the prophet is a
striking likeness of Menahem. He was a tyrannical ruler,
and evidently owed his crown to no respect or love on the
part of the Israelites, but simply to the adroitness with which
he availed himself of the state of indecision and confusion
into which the country was plunged by the murder of Jero-
boam's son. Tiphsah, a city between Tirzah and Samaria
which had refused to side with him, now paid a fearful pen-
alty, for he massacred its inhabitants with circumstances of
extreme barbarity. Moreover, it tells heavily against him
that he could only keep the crown he had seized so violently
by the aid of foreign soldiers, which he did not hesitate to
secure. In vain did the prophet Hosea lift a warning voice
against thus " mixing with the heathen," 2 and call his people
an innocent and foolish dove because it appealed to Assyria
and called on Egypt for help, like a bird running into a snare.'
Menahem could not do without the Assyrians. Of course
their king, Pul, did not wait to be pressed when the ruler of
Israel begged him to support his throne, but he exacted a
1 After an amended version. 2 Hosea vu. 8. s Hosea vii. 11, 12.
240 FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM.
heavy price for his services. Menahem had to pay no less
than a thousand talents of silver (at least a hundred and
twenty-five thousand pounds of our money) , to raise which
he laid a tax upon his subjects of fifty shekels (over three
pounds sterling) for every man capable of bearing arms. The
staff Prosperity was indeed broken !
The staff Union, the brotherhood of Judah and Israel, was
also broken. For soon after Jeroboam's death Uzziah, king
of Judah, had made himself master of the important haven
of Elath, and had greatly extended his power. He waged
successful wars against the Philistines and several Arab tribes,
made the Ammonites tributary, and so greatly strengthened
Jerusalem with towers, walls, and catapults, as to make it
almost impregnable. Moreover, agriculture and cattle-breed-
ing flourished ; and, in a word, Judah enjoyed a period of
rare prosperity. When Uzziah died at last, after a reign of
two-and-twenty years, he was succeeded by his son Jotham,
who had already held the reins of government during the last
years of his father's life, because the latter had become a
leper. Jotham, who remained for sixteen years upon the
throne, was as vigorous a ruler as his father, and Judah,
therefore, grew in power and prosperity. It is not unnatural
that the Israelites should have looked on these events with
jealous eyes, for the last chance of Judah's ever bowing be-
neath the sceptre of their king was rapidly disappearing. As
far as we know, however, actual war did not break out be-
tween the two kingdoms, either under Menahem or his son
Pekahiah. But when Pekahiah had reigned two j-ears, he was
bereft of life and throne by Pekah, the son of Remaliah, an
officer of the royal body-guard ; and this Pekah braced all his
powers to the task of overthrowing the house of David, and
reducing Judah to dependence.
The plan, however, did not originate with himself, but with
Eezin, the ruler of Damascus. A certain son of Tabeal,
probably a Syrian, was to be appointed king of Judah. 1
Just as half a century before many Judaeans had desired to
be reunited with Israel, and had cried, " O Yahweh, listen to
Judah's prayer, and bring him back to his people ! " s so now,
too, many of them favored the project of Rezin and Pekah.
Isaiah, comparing the beneficent rule of the Davidic dynasty
to the waters of the spring Siloah, hard by Jerusalem, ex-
claimed, 8 "Because this people despises the softty-flowing
1 Isaiah vii. 6. 2 g ee pp jg^ igg ] ig^ s Isaiah viii. 6. 7.
FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 241
waters of Siloah, and takes delight in Rezin and the son of
Remaliah, therefore, says Yahweh, I will make a mighty river
rise and flood the whole of Judah."
Jotham, however, offered a successful resistance as long as
he lived, but his son Ahaz was driven into fearful straits by
the allies. Luckily for him Jerusalem was so well fortified
that Pekah's attempts against it failed ; but the Syrian troops
took Elath and placed this key to the peninsula of Sinai in
the hands of the Edomites, who kept permanent possession
of it thenceforth. 1 The Philistines, too, recovered their for-
mer possessions. It appears that Ahaz was driven in his
terror to the same desperate measure which the Moabite king
Mesha had formerly adopted. He sacrificed his first-born
son to his god in the hopes of compelling him to help him.
According to the Chronicles he also worshipped the gods of
the SjTians, in order to win them over to his side. But all
was in vain. Destruction stared him in the face. There was
only one means of escape within his reach — to call in the
help of the Ass3 - rians. And that was a cure which might
well seem worse than the disease. To this last resource,
however, he was actually driven. He sent an embassy to the
Assyrian king, Tiglath-Pilezer, with the promise of rich pres-
ents and submission as a vassal if he would rescue him from
Rezin and Pekah. Tiglath-Pilezer was soon persuaded, and
made an inroad upon Syria. The two monarchs were no
match for him. Damascus fell into his hands, and Rezin him-
self was slain. Pekah's turn came next, but he was not so
completely subdued as his late ally. He escaped with his
life and even kept his crown ; but the northern portion of his
kingdom, together with the whole of Gilead, was conquered
and bereft of the cream of its inhabitants.
This latter circumstance was due not so much to the
slaughter which accompanied the capture of the cities, as to
the Assyrians' practice of carrying away great numbers of the
peoples they conquered into captivity, and transplanting them
to some distant part of their enormous empire. The reasons
for this policy are evident. It was intended to compel the
conquered districts to keep quiet and bear the yoke submis-
sively. So they stripped the country of all its most distin-
guished and cultivated inhabitants. The men of wealth and
learning, the priests, the artists, and the skilled workmen
were carried off in great numbers. Those who remained
were bereft of their leaders, and were too fully occupied in
1 2 Kings xvi. 6, where Edomites should stand instead of Syrians
VOL. II. 11
242 FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM.
endeavoring to provide for their own immediate wants to be
able to think of rebellion ; and the exiles themselves, trans-
ported as they were to a foreign land, and set down in the
middle of a population whose language they could not under-
stand, were compelled to smother their love of freedom and
then - hatred of their oppressors, and devote all their energies
to agriculture, cattle breeding, commerce, and industry. Thus
flourishing colonies of Gileadites, for instance, arose in the
heart of Assyria.
Pckak's star did not set just yet, in spite of his reverses.
Indeed he still seems to have cherished hopes of restoring
his fortunes ; for soon after his defeat the Judaean prophet
Isaiah uttered this threat: 1 "The Lord sends his word
against Jacob, and it falls upon Israel. Let all the people
know and all the inhabitants hear it ; for they say in their pride
and vain-glory of heart : ' There were only tiles that fell, but
we will build up again with granite ; wild fig-trees were hewn
down, but we will replace them with cedars.' Of a truth the
Syrians shall attack them in front, and the Philistines behind,
and shall devour Israel with open mouth ; and. even yet Yah-
weh's wrath shall not cease ! "
But though this prophec3 T was not fulfilled, and Israel
had a few years' rest, 3'et Pekah met the fate of so many of
his predecessors, and fell by the hand of conspirators: His
murderer, Hosea, became king in his place. Under his
reign Israel fell. The Assj-rian king Shalmaneser continued
Tiglath-Pilezer's work of conquest, and made Israel tributary.
A few years afterwards, Hosea, fired apparently b}' the en-
couraging example of Tyre, which had now defied the power
of Assyria for five }'ears, refused his tribute. He relied upon
the support of So (or Sabakos) , the king of Egypt, who was
alarmed by the great extension of Shalmaneser's power.
But the Assyrian penetrated right into the land of Israel,
up to the walls of Samaria, which offered a brave resistance
three whole years. No army came from Egypt to the rescue,
and at last the men of Samaria, weakened and thinned as is
usual in such circumstances, by plague and famine, were
compelled to yield. King Hosea was treated with special
favor, for his life was spared, and he was simply confined
in some Assyrian fortress. A great number of the Israelites
— an Assyrian inscription says twenty-seven thousand two
hundred and eighty — were carried away to a district in the
Assyrian province of Media. This took place in the year
719 or 720 B.C.
1 Isaiah ix. 8-14.
FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 243
So northern Israel had fallen, fallen for ever! It never
became an independent people again. The captive Israelites
gradually melted away into the peoples amongst whom they
had been placed ; while those who remained in Canaan min-
gled, as we shall see hereafter,- with heathens, and, though
they had a history of their own, never did anything more
for the progress of the world. The work of Moses and his
great successors, the prophets, was but half accomplished in
Israel, and was then broken off. It was only in Judah that
it was carried on.
Here is food enough for reflection !
When such a great event takes place, how can any one
who thinks help asking, ' ' Why ? " The answer to tLe
question depends upon the point of view from which it is
asked. No doubt the Baal worshippers of the eighth century
B.C. said that Israel had fallen as a punishment for no longer
serving Baal ; but at this time they were in a small minority.
The great majority of the prophets, who had sung without
reserve of the glory and greatness of Israel, now held their
peace in confusion of face, could see no more visions, and
knew not what to sa}' when reminded of the words once
littered by the prophet of repentance : ' ' The teraphim utter
vain oracles ; the soothsa3'ers see false visions ; the dreams
are deceitful ; and they all console you with idle consolation.
They shall, therefore, wander about like sheep, like wretched
cattle without a herdsman." 3
The preachers of repentance, on the other hand, were now
crowned with honor, for their words had turned out true ; and
their explanation of Israel's disasters won its way to more
general acceptance : Yahweh was punishing the sins of his
worshippers, for Israel was a godless people ! Such was the
view which the Judaean editor of the book of Kings took of
the fate of Israel ; and, accordingly, after recounting the fall
of Samaria, he explains, in rather a long digression, that the
Israelites had drawn their disasters upon their own heads by
their idolatries, their worship of images, their obstinate re-
fusal to hear the prophets, and, last not least, their re\e_.lon
against the house of David. 2
The essential element in this view of the history, namely,
the theory that Israel was sent into exile as a punishment for
its sins, reappears in the writings of the greatest prophets of
the time, and became the current explanation amongst the
later Jews of the mournful history of their people. Yet it is
l Zechariah x. 2. 2 2 Kings xvii. 7-23 ; compare xviii. 11, 12.
244 FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM.
utterly untrue. Immorality does indeed undermine national
prosperity, and a healthy piety adds to a nation's strength ;
yet it is no more true of a people than it is of an individual
that its fate depends entirely, or even chiefly, upon its de-
voutness. Its fate depends upon all manner of circum-
stances ; and whatever their connection with the will of God
may be, at any rate they are not so ordained as to secure un-
failing prosperity to the pious and bring constant disasters
upon the godless. The natural causes of Israel's fall are
obvious enough. It could not hold out against the superior
forces of Assyria, and was therefore conquered in common
with so many other peoples. But when we come to the
question : Why must this be ? we must be content without
an answer, just as in the case of a man whose fate fills us
with sorrow. 1
Instead of complacently saying, " It was their own fault ! "
when we see the Israelites fall, we regard the spectacle with
the same uncontrollable sadness which fills us when a young
life, full of'promise, is cut off before its prime. There was
so much life, so much promise in Israel ! Judged by the
ideal standard of Christianity, it may seem to have stood but
low ; yet at least there was progress, and its defects were
gradually yielding to the better spirit. We can therefore
sympathize with the expectation of the prophets, shared even
by those who had the keenest eye for their people's sins, and
who anticipated a fearful judgment on them, — the expecta-
tion, namely, that Israel would be restored at last, purified
by the fire of affliction, and would become Yahweh's people
indeed. That this expectation was never realized and that
northern Israel vanished without a trace, is a thought to fill
us with sorrow.
In the preceding chapters we have laid intentional em-
phasis upon the progress which Israel had made in many
directions. There was still much to condemn, especially in
the moral condition of the people ; and the gilt images at
Dan and Bethel evinced a very gross conception of God's
nature and the service which is pleasing in his sight. But
in this respect also there was every reason to hope for im-
provement. The prophets of former times had left the bull-
worship unchallenged, but Hosea attacks it with all his might.
Indeed, the more highly cultured Israelites, especially the
prophets, had altogether outgrown it. The images still stood,
but they were already tottering. It deserves remark that
1 Compare vol. i, pp. 335, 336.
PALL OF THE NOETHEKN KINGDOM. 245
while we are told of all the other kings of Israel in succession,
that they committed " the sins of Jeroboam," the historian
does not bring this accusation against the last of them,
Hosea, but tells us that he did less evil than his predecessors.
Is it possible that he took some steps towards abolishing the
golden bulls? However this maj 7 be, they would certainly
have fallen sooner or later.
But the newer conception of Yah weh's nature, which was
wholly inconsistent with any representation of him by ima-
ges, was as j-et but half established, and even in the minds of
many representative poets and prophets it was still alloyed
by maivj- of the thoughts and customs of an earlier da}-.
This is well exemplified in a song, which dates from the
closing years of Israel's existence, and has been taken up
into the book of Deuteronomy, 1 as the parting song of Moses.
We give the greater part of it, 2 which runs as follows : —
Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of past generations ;
Ask your father, and he will tell it ;
Your elders, and they will declare it:
When the Most High gave the nations their heritage
And divided the children of men,
He fixed the boundaries of the peoples
After the number of the sons of God.
For Yahweh's portion is his people,
Jacob his special possession.
He found him in the desert
On the howling steppes of the wilderness.
He guided and taught him,
Kept him as the apple of his eye.
Like as an eagle stirs up her nest
And hovers over her brood,
Spreads out her wings and takes them up,
Bears them upon her pinions.
So Yahweh alone guided Israel:
No strange god stood by his side.
He made him ride over the heights of the earth
And eat of the produce of the fields,
Suck honey out of the rock
And oil out of the flint-stones.
He gave him butter from kine and milk from the smaller cattle,
Gave him the fat of Iambs,
Of rams of Bashan and goats.
He gave you wheaten flour,
And you drank pure wine, the blood of grapes.
But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked out.
You grew fat and gross, and were Smothered with fatness.
Then he deserted the god that made him,
And lightly esteemed the rock that delivered him.
They moved him to jealousy with strange gods,
Provoked him to wrath with abominations.
Made sacrifice to goblins that are no god,
To gods whom they did not know,
1 Deuteronomy xxxii. 2 Verses 7-21, 29, 30, 36-43.
246 FAIX OP THE NORTHERN KINGDOM.
To upstart gods, that were but now heard of,
And whom jour fathers never had feared.
But you rejected the rock that bore you,
Forgot the god that begat you.
This Yahweh saw and he contemned [you],
In wrath with his sons and daughters.
He resolved to avert his countenance from them,
And see what would then become of them !
For they are a perverse generation.
Children in whom is no faith.
" Since they have made me jealous with a no-god
And provoked me with vanities,
I will make them jealous with a people not » people,
And goad them with a senseless nation."
Oh that they were wise, that they had unrie.-standingi
Then they would see what it leads to.
How could one of them chase a thousand
And two put ten thousand to flight,
Except their rock himself had sold them,
And Yahweh delivered them up?
Yahweh shall judge his people
And take pity on his servants,
When he sees that Israel's power is gone
And there are no men left.
Then will he say : " Where now are their gods?
Where is the rock upon which they trusted,
The gods, whose sacrifices they ate,
The wine of whose offerings they drank?
Let them rise up and help yon,
That they may be your refuge !
See then that I, that I, am he,
And there is no god beside me !
I kill and I make alive,
I wound and I heal ;
None can deliver from my hand.
If then I lift up my hand to heaven
And say : ' As sure as I live for ever ! '
If I whet the lightning of my sword,
And stretch out my hand to judgment, —
Then will I take vengeance upon my foes
And fully repay my enemies.
I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
My sword shall devour flesh,
Devour the blood of the slain and the captives,
The shaggy skull of the foe."
Sing his people's glory, ye nations !
For he avenges his servant's blood,
He repays it all on his enemies ;
He is reconciled to his land and people !
This poem deserves our closest attention on many accounts,
foremost amongst which is the poet's strange conception of
his god. Who is this Yahweh? On the one hand, he is a
most exalted being, who kills and makes alive ; nay, who
rules over all things, and beside whom no other god exists.
But, at the same time, the poet not only loves to celebrate
him as the "Rock" which reflects the beliefs of a more
PALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM. 247
ancient day, 1 but actually describes him as whetting his
sword for battle, making his arrows drink the blood of the
enemy slain in the field, and even of the captives slaughtered
after the victory, and giving his sword the foeman's head to
eat! Of course, all these expressions are only figures of
speech, but they are figures borrowed from a very rude con-
ception of Yahweh's nature. Here we see the old and the
new ideals side by side. The old conception of Yahweh as
the fierce, blood-thirsty, warlike tribal god of Israel is pass-
ing away ; the new conception of Yahweh, as the creator of
all the world, is springing up, and is, indeed, already recog-
nized as true, but has not yet sunk deep enough into the
heart and mind to have entirely expelled the representations
borrowed from the old beliefs. But did the poet really be-
lieve Yahweh to be the only god? If so, what can those
words mean which occur near the beginning of the first pas-
sage we have translated, "Yahweh fixed the boundaries of
the nations, according to the number of the sons of God?"
The Authorized Version, following the Hebrew text, reads
" according to the number of the children of Israel," which
makes no sense. Our translation rests upon the reading of
the old Greek version, and is perfectly intelligible. Yahweh
determined everything, not only where all the peoples should
live, 2 but even what gods each of them should serve ; he
ordained that various other nations should worship the sun,
the moon, and the stars, 3 while he chose Israel for his own
special possession. The poet, then, represents Yahweh as
the only god with whom Israel had anything to do, and as
the god of gods, but not, strictly speaking, the only god.
We find the same wavering conception even in such a man
as Isaiah, who never flatly denies the existence of the other
gods.
Now in Judah, the heir of Israel's literature and its pro-
phetic schools, we find these vacillations gradually giving way,
and the germ of the higher conception unfolding. But, as
far as we can tell, the religion of Israel suffered irreparably
from the fact of its being finally developed in Judah only, and
not in northern Israel as well ; for in the latter district the
religion of Yahweh had had the opportunity of growing up
without being overshadowed by the influence of the priestly
caste which wrought such mischief to it in Judah.
Two stems shot up from the common root, and the one that
i Compare vol. i. pp. 177, 178. 2 Compare Amoa ix. 7.
8 Deuteronomy ir. 19, 20.
248 CALL OF ISAIAH.
gave the richest promise was cut down ere its fruit had grown
half ripe ! But it is useless to bewail the fall of Israel.
Henceforth all our hopes for the worship of Yahweh must rest
on the weaker stem that yet remains — must rest, that is, on
Judah.
Chapter XXIII.
THE CALL OF ISAIAH.
Isaiah VI.
THE last century of Israel's existence was rendered illus-
trious, as we have seen, by the activity of the prophets,
who were no longer turbulent popular leaders, as in former
times, but orators and writers. The same holds good of
Judah. The prophets in this kingdom never exercised a direct
influence upon the affairs of state, but here, too, as in Israel,
they became conspicuous for their labors as historians and
public speakers.
Amongst the prophets of Judah a prominent place belongs
to Isaiah, who prophesied from the last year of Uzziah's life
right on into the second half of Hczckiah's reign. A book
containing sixty-six chapters has come clown to us under his
name, but we cannot b} 7 airy means accept all the oracles it
contains as his. The men who collected the prophetic writ-
ings often performed their task in a grossly arbitrary fashion.
Thus they appended to the oracles of Zechariah, who lived
after the captivity, the prophecies of at least two men who
lived at sundry periods before that epoch ; and in the same
way they inserted amongst Isaiah's oracles, or appended at
the close, a number of discourses which were really written
many years after the fall of Jerusalem. In some instances it
is extremely difficult to say whether a given prophecy is really
the work of the prophet to whom it is assigned or not ; but
in the case of Isaiah it is quite certain that several chapters
in the first half of the book called after him, and all the last
seven-and-twenty, are from other hands than his, and date
from no earlier a period than that of the captivity.
All that we know of his personal circumstances is that his
father's name was Amoz, and that he himself had a wife and
CALL OF ISAIAH. 249
children. 1 He seems to have been a man of letters, for ac-
cording to the Chronicles he wrote a life of KingUzziah, 2 and
all his works display great literary talent. His style is more
ornate and nervous, more exalted and poetical, than that of
any other prophet whose discourses have come down to us.
His toue of high cultivation, his familiarity with all that goes
on in the upper circles, and the mode of his intercourse with
the king, show that he was far from a stranger at the court.
Perhaps he held some high position there.
He himself has painted in living colors the following
picture of what he felt when first called to be a messenger of
Yahweh ! 8
In the year of Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting upon
a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his servants filled
the temple. Above him stood seraphs with six wings ; cover-
ing their faces with one pair and their feet with another, and
flying with the third. And one cried to another, ' ' Holy, holy,
holy is Yahweh of war-hosts ; all the earth is full of his
glory ! " And lo ! the portals trembled at the sound, and all
the place was filled with smoke. Then I cried, " Woe is me !
I am struck dumb, for I am a man of unclean lips, and dwell
amidst a people of unclean lips ; and now I have seen the
king, Yahweh, of war-hosts ! " Hereupon one of the seraphs
flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had
taken with the tongs from the altar. Then he touched my
mouth with it and said, " Lo ! this has touched thy lips, and
thine iniquity is gone and thy sin is taken away." And
straightway I heard the voice of the Lord, "Whom shall I
send? Who will go for me?" And I said, "Here am I!
Send me." " Go," he replied, " and tell this people to hear
on, but not to mark ; to see on, but perceive nothing. Make
this people rebellious of heart and dull of understanding, lest
they should even yet repent and I should have to heal them ! "
When I heard this dread command, I said again, " How long
must this endure, O Lord?" and he replied, "Till the cities
are all desolate, and the houses empty, and the land untilled.
Then shall Yahweh carry the people away, and great desola
tion shall be throughout the land. Nay, though a tenth part
still remain, even that is marked for destruction. Yet, as a
terebinth or oak tree that is felled still leaves a stump in the
ground, so has the sacred seed of Israel still hope for days to
come."
If Isaiah had really seen and heard all this in a state of
1 Isaiah vii. 3, viii. 3, 18. 2 ' 2 Chronicles xxvi. 22. 8 Isaiah vi.
V*
250 CALL OF ISAIAH.
exaltation, it is impossible to understand his ever coming
forward as a prophet. What man could undertake a task
like his, if he foresaw not only frequent disappointment, but
complete and absolute failure ? We must bear in mind that
Isaiah probabry wrote this account of his call at a time when
he had already found his people incorrigible, when all his work
appeared to have been in vain, as though Yahweh had resolved
not to deliver Judah, and had only sent the prophet in order
to increase the people's guilt. One only hope remained.
There was a germ of better things amongst the people still ;
and, when all was ruined, this germ would open out and
spread and bear rich fruit.
We shall see presently that Isaiah, though he alwaj^s an-
ticipated suffering, did not always take so gloomy a view of
the future as when he wrote the words we have just read.
But through all his changes of mood Isaiah was consistent
in at least one thing, and that was his extreme reverence for
Yahweh, the consuming fire, 1 the terror-waking god, whose
unapproachable holiness had struck him dumb. It was this
which made him shrink from the prophetic task until purified
by the touch of heavenly fire. Yahweh was always a name
of terror to Isaiah. " The Lord, Yahweh of war-hosts," he
exclaims, 2 " shall kindle a flame beneath the enemy's glory.
Israel's Light shall become a fire, his Holy One a flame, burn-
ing up all the thorns and thistles in a single daj'." And
again, 8 " Lo ! Yahweh's name comes from afar, with burning
wrath and towering smoke ; his lips are full of fury, his tongue
consumes like fire ; his breath is like an overflowing torrent
that reaches up to the neck, to wiuuow the heathens with the
fan of destruction and set the bit that leads astray between
the jaws of the nations. . . . Yahweh makes the glory of
his voice to be heard, the descent of his arm to be seen, in
fervid wrath and consuming flame, in clouds that burst with
rain and hail-stones." And elsewhere, 4 " In Zion the sinners
quake for fear ; and trembling has seized the hypocrites.
Which of us can live with a burning fire, or dwell with an
eternal furnace ? "
Now this dread of Yahweh was, in its origin, nothing else
than the terror felt before the Nature-god who revealed him-
self in thunder and lightning, and whose dread power was
displayed in blight and sickness ; nor had Isaiah, or any of
1 Compare vol. i. pp. 120 ff. 2 Isaiah x. 16, 17.
8 Isaiah xxx. 27, 28, 30. * Isaiah xxxiii. 14.
CAIX OF ISAIAH. 251
the highly cultured Israelites of his day, entirely outgrown
this primitive conception, in spite of the exalted traits which
already entered into their conception of Yahweh. But ir
Isaiah's case, at least, there was also a strong moral element
in this dread of Yahweh. Not because he was weak, but be-
cause he was sinful did he tremble before Yahweh ; and if he
would have Israel "fear and shudder " before his god, it is
in the hope of his becoming more docile and obedient to him. 1
Like a true follower of Moses, he preached that Yahweh's
wrath is chiefly stirred by human sin.
Generally speaking, Isaiah was profoundly dissatisfied with
his people, who repaid Yahweh's care so ill. "Let me sing
of my friend," he once exclaimed, 2 " a song about my friend
and his vineyard. My friend had once a vineyard, lying on a
fertile hill. He had dug it up and picked out all the stones,
and planted it with choicest vines ; he built a lodge in the
middle of it, and hewed a wine-press out of the rock ; but,
when he looked for grapes, wild berries only grew there !
And now, you inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
be judges between me and my vinej'ard. What could I have
done for it more than I have done ? Why must I hope in vain
for grapes, and only find wild berries? But I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard ! I will break down its hedge
and it shall be wasted ; I will break down its fence and it
shall be trampled ! I will utterly destroy it and will prune
it and dig it no more, and thorns and thistles shall grow there
rankly ; and I will forbid the very clouds to rain upon it. —
Yea ! the vine3 7 ard of Yahweh of war-hosts is Israel, and
Jndah his cherished plantation. He looked for reason, but
found only treason ; he looked for right, but found affright !
Woe . . . ! " and here the prophet bursts into denuncia-
tions of the rich, who add house to house and field to field ;
the dissolute, who drink and carouse from morning to night ;
the proud, the self-satisfied, the perverters of justice, all of
whom Yahweh will bring low. ' ' The under- world opens its
jaws beyond measure, and down sinks all Israel's glory ! "
Finally, the dread Assyrians are indicated as the instru-
ments of Yahweh's judgment.
The high price which Isaiah attached to morality, and thi
depth of his conviction that Yahweh asked nothing but an
upright life from his worshippers, are evinced by the following
rebuke, 8 amongst others : " Hear this word of Yahweh, you
princes of Sodom ! Give ear to the law of our god, you
l Isaiah xxix. 23, 24. 2 Isaiah v. 8 Isaiah i. 10-20.
252 CALL OF ISAIAH.
people of Gomorrah ! What do all your sacrifices avail me
says Yahweh of war-hosts ! I am full of burnt-offerings ot
rams and fat of fed beasts. I have no pleasure in the blood
of bullocks, of sheep, or of goats. And for coming to see
my face, — who has required it of you? It is but trampling
my courts ! Bring me no more tying offerings ! Your in-
cense is an abomination to me. Feast of New Moon and
Sabbath and religious assembly? — I cannot support un-
righteousness that joins in festivals. Your new moons and
holy days I hate. They are a burden to me, and I am weary
of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands in prayer
I avert my eyes ; though 3 - ou multiply entreaties I listen not,
for your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean,
put away your evil doings from before my sight, cease to do
evil ; but learn to do well, seek what is right, help the op-
pressed, succor the orphan, plead for the widow. Let us
dispute together ! says Yahweh : Though your sins be as
scarlet they shall be white as snow ; though crimson red they
shall be like wool. If you leave your self-will and hearken,
then you shall enjoy the good things of the land ; but, if you
refuse and rebel, then the sword shall consume 30U ; for
Yahweh has said it."
We have already noticed more than once that the proph-
ets, especially Isaiah, were often one-sided in their con-
ception of morality, and included in a sweeping denunciation
of " all that is exalted," not only luxury, but the arts and
sciences, together with every sign of commercial and in-
dustrial progress. 1 Just now we heard Isaiah condemning
the grandees of Jerusalem, not only for their dissolute lives,
but also for increasing their estates. So stern a censor of
morals, living as he did in the capital, and even frequenting
the court, must have seen much to excite his indignation.
The voluptuousness of the distinguished women of Jerusalem
gave him especial offence, and he was not the man to spare
it! "Because the daughters of Zion," he cried, 2 "walk
proudly with their necks stretched out, and with wanton eyes,
mincing their gait to make their anklets tinkle, Yahweh
will make bald their heads and expose them in nakedness.
Then will he wrench off all these anklets, little suns and
moons, ear-rings, armlets, veils and gauze, foot-bracelets,
girdles and scent-boxes, amulets and finger-rings, nose-rings,
festal robes, kerchiefs and mantles, pouches and shifts,
turbans and tunics ! Then shall be rottenness instead of
1 See pp. 94, 96. 2 Isaiah .ii, 16-iv. 1.
CALL OF ISAIAH. 255
balsam, a rope for a girdle, baldness for plaits, sackcloth for
a mantle, and bruises for beauty. Moreover, your men shall
fall by the sword, and your young men in battle ; the gates
of Jerusalem shall weep and wail, Jerusalem sit down in
bereavement. Then seven women shall seize on one man,
and say: We will eat our own bread and wear our own
clothes ; only let us be called your wives, and take the re-
proach of being unmarried from us ! "
But though it is chiefly the immorality of those around him
that moves Isaiah, he leaves neither witchcraft nor image-
worship unassailed. Take this discourse for example: 1 "O
house of Jacob, come let us walk in Yahweh's light ! For
thou, O Yahweh, hast rejected thy people, rejected the house
of Jacob, because they are full of sorceiy and witchcraft like
the Philistines, and follow the ways of strangers. 2 So their
land has grown full of silver and gold, and there is no end to
their treasures, full of horses and countless chariots, full of
idols ; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what
their own fingers have made ! " Then follows the announce-
ment that everything lofty shall be brought low, 8 and that
Yahweh alone shall be proudly exalted ; and in close connec-
tion with this the prophecy : "As for the idols, they utterly
vanish ! And the people hide in clefts of the rock and in
holes of the earth, in terror of Yahweh and the splendor of
his glory, when he arises to affright the earth. Then will a
man throw away to the moles and bats the gods of silver
and of gold which he made to worship, and will rejoice in
Yahweh."
Isaiah believed in common with the other prophets of his
day that Yahweh was the almighty ruler of the world, who
had chosen Israel as his special possession, who could defend
it against all earthly powers , and who would surely do so if
the people did but observe his commands and so secure his
favor. In times of distress, accordingly, Isaiah urged his
people to trust in Yahweh's all-sufficient support, and to repent
of their sins that he might be gracious to them. We have
already noticed more than once that Isaiah, in common with
most of his devout contemporaries, held very one-sided views
in this respect, and distinctly condemned the taking of suit-
able measures to secure the people's prosperity and inde-
pendence. 4 We shall presently observe the spirit of his
exhortations to Ahaz during the war with Eezin and Pekah ;
1 Isaiah ii. 5-21. 2 Compare 1 Kings xxii. 48, 49 ; 2 Chronicles xx. 35-37.
6 See p. 95 * See vol. i. pp. 25, 20, 292, 293.
254 CALL OP ISAIAH.
but we must first say a few words as to his outlook into the
future.
In speaking of Isaiah's expectations for the future, we
must distinguish between two things. In the first place he
expects the restoration of Israel, or at any rate of Judah.
In this he resembles all the prophets ; for they all of them
cherished the belief that Yahweh's people was imperishable,
and the more exalted their conception of Yahweh's being, the
deeper their conviction that- he, the god of gods, the only
God, would rescue his people and crown it with honor.
Those whose moral perceptions were purest expected chas-
tisements in which the shallower men of god did not believe ;
but no preacher of repentance, however stern , ever foretold
the final ruin of Israel. The announcement, then, of Israel's
future might was exceedingly common in the mouths of the
prophets ; but when Isaiah foretold that a king of the house
of David should bring these blessings to the people, he could
still rely upon the assent of many, but no longer of all, his
colleagues.
We have already remarked that in the time of Jeroboam II.
there were men even amongst the Judaeans who anticipated
the most salutary results from his rule, but when his dynasty
bad fallen of course this was no longer possible ; and since
the Judsean historians of the eighth century B.C. had exalted
David's era into a golden age, and David himself into the
king after Yahweh's heart, it became impossible to many of
the Judoeans to imagine the glorious future of Israel without
a king of David's house. It was then that a certain historian
put into David's mouth the prajer : 1 " Thou art great, O god
Yahweh ! there is none like thee ! nay, there is no other
god beside thee. And what people is there like thy people
Israel, whom thou hast redeemed from Egypt? Do, then,
according to thy word, that men may glorify thy name for
ever, and may say ' Yahweh of war-hosts is god over Israel,
and the house of thy servant David shall ever walk before
thy face ! ' " Even before Jeroboam's death, Amos, the Judsean,
declared that the fallen tent of David should be raised again
and its breaches healed ; and Hosea himself, though a citizen
of northern Israel, fixed all his hopes on Judah and her
prince, and pointed forward to a time when the sons of Israel
should repent and should seek Yahweh, their god, and David,
their king.
1 2 Samuel vii. 22-28.
CALL OF ISAIAH. 255
In this connection we may also quote the sweet prediction
of Zechariah : * " Rejoice, O daughter of Zion ! Be glad,
daughter of Jerusalem ! Behold thy king comes to thee,
righteous and victorious, a kindly man, riding on an ass, a
she-ass's colt. Then shall the war-chariots be cast out of
Ephraim, and the cavalry from Jerusalem; the weapons of
war shall be broken, and he shall proclaim peace to the hea-
then. He shall rule from sea to sea, from the Euphrates to
the end of the earth. And because I have made a covenant
with 3 r ou, your exiles shall return." It is true that the seer
does not expressly state the family from which he expects this
prince of peace and blessedness to spring ; but, since he is ad-
dressing " the daughter of Zion," or, as we might say, " the
virgin city of Jerusalem," he evidently does not look forward
to the return of Judah to Ephraim, but rather to the accession
of the northern tribes to Judah ; and he must therefore have
expected the prince of peace to be a scion of the house of
David — which is only natural in Zechariah the son of Be-
rechiah, the friend and disciple of Isaiah.
Since Israel's king was called the anointed (mashiach, cor-
rupted by the Greeks into messias 2 ) of Yahweh, 8 these antici-
pations are called the Messianic expectations of the prophets ;
and the term is used to include all their prophecies of a golden
age, even if, as is sometimes the case, no king appears in
them at all.
We shall have frequent occasion to dwell upon the extreme
importance of these expectations, for they supported Israel
under the heaviest oppression and inspired it with the bravest
heroism, till it furnished the world with a unique example of
what a people can do in the might of its faith. When we
come to the New Testament we shall see how great a part the
Messianic expectations played in the rise of Christianity. And
since none of the prophets equals Isaiah in describing the fu-
ture prince, 4 his words upon this subject give him j-et anothei
claim to a place of honor amongst Israel's prophets.
1 Zechariah ix. 9-11 ; compare pp. 238, 239. 2 John i. 41, to. 25.
< Sea vol. i. p. 443. 4 See chapter uvii.
25(> ISAIAH IN THE REIGN OP AHAZ.
Chapter XXIV.
ISAIAH IN THE REIGN OF AHAZ.
2 Kings XVI. 10-20 ;i Isaiah VII.-IX. 16.
WERE we to accept the judgment of the Chronicler we
should have to regard Ahaz as one of the most god-
less kings that Judah ever had. According to this writer he
had only himself to blame for the fearful blows which Rezin
and Pckah inflicted upon him ; for he had made images of
Baal, had sacrificed bis sons, and had burned incense on the
bamahs. Accordingly, when the Ephraimites had taken two
hundred thousand women and children captive to Samaria,
the prophet Obed reminded them of the sins of Ahab, in-
formed them that they were only Yahweh's instruments, and
that the cruelty with which they had executed his punishments
upon their brothers cried to heaven for vengeance. How
could thej', who had sinned so deeply against Yahweh them-
selves, dare to oppress the Judseans ! The Ephraimites gave
heed to his words, clothed those of their captives who were
naked, fed those who were hungry, set the weak ones upon
beasts and sent them all back to Jericho. This disastrous
war with Rezin and Pekah, as well as the defeats inflicted by
the Edomites and Philistines, were all brought upon the Ju-
dseans by the sins into which Ahaz had allured them. When
reduced to extremities, he made matters even worse by sac-
rificing to the gods of the S3'rians, plundering the temple,
setting up altars in every corner of Jerusalem, and making
bamahs for other gods in ever}' city of Judah. On account
of all this his body was not laid amongst the roj-al graves.
This flood of vituperation represents Ahaz as having delib-
erately set to work to commit every possible kind of idolatry
and other wickedness ! He is even made responsible for the
altars that stood in every corner of his capital and the bamahs
in all the cities of Judah, as though they had not been in ex-
istence long before he was born !
Even the writer of Kings, though more moderate and dis-
criminating in his condemnation, regards Ahaz with anything
but favor. He accuses him in very general terms of doing as
the kings of Israel did ; but the only fact which he alleges is
1 2 Chronicles xxviii.
ISAIAH IN THE KEIGN OF AHAZ. 257
that he sacrificed his son. As to the place and method of
this deed, we shall speak presently. 1 The deed itself appears
to us frightful beyond measure ; but we already know enough
of the ancient Israelitish forms of worship to understand that
it does not really argue such depravity as at first sight ap-
pears, especially if we suppose that it was done when Ahaz
was hard pressed by Syria and Israel. In that case it evinces
his conviction that the deity was strong enough to rescue him,
but must be compelled to exert himself on his behalf by some
very precious offering.
The writer of Kings informs us further, at some length,
that when Damascus was taken, and Ahaz went there to pay
his homage to his deliverer, the king of Assyria, he saw a
certain altar in the city which pleased him so much that he
sent a model of it to Uriah, the chief priest of Yahweh, with
orders to build one like it for the temple of Jerusalem. When
this new brazen altar was built, the king himself sacrificed
upon it, and assigned another place to the former altar
of burnt-offerings. Surely this was no such dreadful sin !
Doubtless, old-fashioned people were offended by the novelty ;
but the artistic prince certainly never intended it as an insult
to Yahweh ! Had he done so, the chief priest himself would
hardly have fallen in so readily with the scheme, for, of course,
he was always anxious to increase the glory of his temple.
For Ahaz to desire a separate altar, on which to offer sacri-
fices himself, was no doubt an abomination in the eyes of the
later Jews, but was a proof of religious zeal rather than the
contrary at the time.
As for the king's plundering the temple treasure, and even
robbing the sanctuary of many of its ornaments, it doubtless
cost him a bitter pang to do so ; but he had no other means
of satisfying the king of Assyria. Hezekiah himself had
recourse to the same expedient afterwards. 2
We have no sufficient reason, then, to pass any very severe
sentence upon Ahaz ; but neither have we any ground for
esteeming him highly. He seems to have been a man of little
force of character ; good enough for an Isaiah always to keep
upon good terms with him, but not in the least capable of
following out the precepts of this prophet, and trusting with-
out reserve in Yahweh.
Once when Judah was completely overrun by the Syrians
and Israelites, and the king with all his people trembled " as
the trees of the forest tremble before the wind," Isaiah went,
1 See chapter xxviii. 2 2 Kings xviii. 15, 16
258 ISAIAH IN THE REIGN OF AHAZ.
at Yahweh's command, to meet Ahaz by the Fullers' Field at
Jerusalem. The prophet was accompanied by one of his song
whom he had called Shear^Jashub, that is, the-remnant-repenls,
to signify the future repentance for which he looked as the
glorious fruit of the national suffering and the pledge of
Judah's blessedness. Accompanied, then, by his son, the
prophet met Ahaz and addressed him thus : " Take heed and
be quiet! Fear not before these two stumps of smoking
torches ! For what is the burning wrath of Rezin and the
son of Remaliah more? They have planned dread deeds,
but Yahweh declares that they shall come to nought, and all
things shall remain as they are now : Rezin, the king of Syria
in Damascus, and Remaliah's son in Samaria, the capital of
Ephraim. But if. you confide not, then you abide not!
Would j-ou have some sign on which your faith may lean?
Ask, then, for what you will, in proof that Yahweh will help
you. Be it from the' shadow-land or be it from the heavens,
choose what you will." But Ahaz was too much depressed
to be inspirited bjr the prophet's words ; so he refused to ask
a sign, and said, " I will not put Yahweh to the test." Upon
this Isaiah cried, " Then, listen, house of David! Is it too
little for you to weary the prophets ? Must you also weary
my god ? Then the Lord himself will give 3-011 a sign. See,
there is a woman ! She is with child and will bear a son.
Call him Immanuel (that is God-with-us) ; for though he must
live upon herdsman's fare, upon milk and honey, till he know
the difference between good and evil, 3 T et before that time
has come the land before whose two kings you tremble shall
already be a desert. But then shall clays begin to break upon
you and upon jour people and upon your father's house,
such as have not been known for misery since the time when
Ephraim parted from Judah. Yahweh will call for flies from
tne streams of Egypt and for wasps from Assyria, and they
will creep in everywhere. The land will be shorn bare with
a razor from bej'ond Euphrates. Then a shepherd will be
left here and there, with nothing but a cow and a couple of
sheep, and will have cream enough to eat, but will have noth-
ing else save honey ; for the richest vinej r ards will be covered
with thorns and thistles, and none but the hunter will pass
through the land, and all will be desolate ! "
This discourse of Isaiah's 1 has always attracted the special
attention of commentators, because of the use which was
made by the early Christians of an expression that occurs in
1 Isaiah vii.
ISAIAH IN THE REIGN OF AHAZ. 259
it. 1 They regarded the books of the Old Testament as
sources of information concerning the circumstances of the
life of Jesus ; 2 and in this passage which was mistranslated,
"Behold! a virgin conceives and brings forth a son," they
discovered the announcement that the Messiah would have
no earthly father. 8 Any one who reads the discourse right
through will see that it refers to nothing of the kind. In the
first place, there is not a word about a virgin or a miraculous
conception ; and, in the next place, what Isaiah does say has
no reference to a distant future. It is perfectly clear what
he predicts, namely, that in a few years — before a child, as
yet unborn, could tell the difference between good and evil —
the land of Rezin and Pekah should be deserted, and Judah
should be rid of them for good ; but this would not be the
end of Judah's woe. On the contrary, Yahweh would then
begin to break the people almost utterly by other powers of
destruction, " flies from Egypt and wasps from Assyria," and
" a great razor from beyond Euphrates." Here the prophet
breaks off on this occasion ; but his conviction that Judah
would rise again from the jaws of death, and his belief as to
the means by which this result would be brought about, were
sufficiently well known to all his hearers, and were announced
to them by the symbolic names God-with-us and The-rem-
nant-repents.
The ancient men of God could no more predict the future
than we can. Sometimes they made a fortunate surmise,
because they had formed a truer estimate of the circumstances
of their people than others had ; but they could not foresee
particular events. This very prediction of Isaiah's illustrates
the fact. He did not utter it as the result of mature delibera-
tion and political forecasting, but was simply convinced that
Yahweh would smite Eezin and Pekah because they intended
to supersede his beloved house of David by another ; and that
he would' shave Judah bare, because it was godless. He
clothed this expectation under the form that we have just
seen : Eezin and Pekah, whom he contemptuously describes
as smoking stumps of torches that have ceased to burn, would
soon retire from Judah, and their countries would be utterly
devastated by Assyria. Then Judah itself would become the
scene of a deadly conflict between Egypt and Assyria, from
both of which it would suffer fearfully. Agriculture would be
brought to a standstill, and only flocks and herds would be
pastured on the untilled land. Only a portion of these ex
1 v. 14. 2 Compare vol. iii. pp. 46-49. s Compare vol. iii. pp. 50-52.
260 ISAIAH IN THE REIGN OF AHAZ.
pectations were realized. Within the time assigned by Isaiah,
Rezin and Pekah had indeed retired and Damascus had
fallen into the hands of Assyria, but Samaria remained inde-
pendent for about twenty years, and neither the Assyrian nor
the Egyptian army entered Judah. Nor had Isaiah at all
foreseen that Ahaz would voluntarily place himself under
Assyria's protection ; or if any such step had occurred to him
as possible, it was one of the very things he desired to avert
by inspiring the king with courage. But Isaiah was not in
the least abashed by the non-fulfilment of his predictions, for
they retained their full force, and he foretold the chastisement
of Judah still, though now under slightly different forms.
But the later Jews misconceived the value of these oracles.
In reality they bear witness to the faith of the prophets, and
express their intense belief in Yahweh's avenging justice and
his love for Israel, together with their indignation at the
people's sins and their confidence in its finally repenting and
being blessed by Yahweh ; but ins tead of accepting and es-
teeming them for what they really were, the later Jews em-
ployed them as proofs of Yahweh's foreknowledge ; and it
was in this character that they collected and preserved them.
We need not wonder, then, that from time to time these
notions exercised a certain influence upon the text itself, and
induced the collectors to make alterations, sometimes of more
and sometimes of less importance, and, above all, to intro-
' duce explanations of the words of the prophet here and there,
which were sometimes correct and sometimes mistaken. 1 A
few illustrations of this process may be found in the discourse
we are now considering ; for when Isaiah declares that the
plans of Rezin and Pekah will come to nothing, the collector
of his prophecies inserts the prediction 2 that Ephraini will be
entirely broken within five-and-sixty years — a prediction which
is altogether out of place, and comes in veiy oddly just before
the announcement that the countries of the two monarchs
will be depopulated within a few years. Moreover, twice in
this passage and once in a prophecy which we shall consider
presently, 8 the king of Assyria is expressly indicated as the
future devastator of Judah. This and other such announce-
ments might easily be put into Isaiah's mouth by the latei
editor, but the prophet himself had no knowledge of the
details of the future.
" Trust in Yahweh ! " This was Isaiah's one and only an-
swer to the question, " What is to be done?" which Ahaz,
1 Compare pp. 107, 119, 120. 'n.8. 3 Isaiah viii. 7, 8.
ISAIAH IN THE KEIGN OF AHAZ. 261
his advisers, and every thoughtful Judaean were asking with
ever-growing apprehension. It was clear that Judah could not
hold her own against Syria and Israel. All the conquests of
Uzziah and Jotham were already wrenched from the hand of
Ahaz. Elath was in Rezin's power. The Philistines had
recovered their independence. All idea of keeping posses-
sion of the eastern provinces of Amnion and Moab was aban-
doned. The Edomites had doubtless not only put a garrison
in Elath, but established their power in southern Judah, where
the Kenites, who had always been their friends, 1 were settled.
The rest of Judah was being conquered piece by piece, and
siege was laid to Jerusalem itself. ' ' Hope in the help of
Yahweh ! Repent ! If ye confide not, then ye abide not ! "
was still Isaiah's cry ; but it was both natural and right for
Ahaz and his advisers to look round for some human means
of deliverance.
They were not all agreed. While many a Judaean wit-
nessed the success of Rezin's and Pekah's arms with secret
satisfaction, the partisans of Ahaz looked abroad for help.
Many turned their ej r es to Egypt ; but public opinion and the
king's own inclinations began to incline more and more deci-
dedly to the plan of calling in the Assyrians. Against this
project Isaiah raised his voice, for he expected nothing but
misery to come of it. 2
One day the people noticed a great board before his house
with the words "Keen for booty, swift to spoil" upon it.
Their curiosity was stirred, and they asked what the strange
inscription meant ; upon which Isaiah called two citizens
whom every one respected, and whose witness every one
would accept, namely, the priest Uriah and Zachariah the son
of Berechiah, and explained to them the meaning of the enig-
matical inscription, that they might afterwards bear witness
to the truth of his anticipations. Some time afterwards his
wife bore him a son, and at Yahweh's command he called
him Keen-for-booty-swift-to-spoil ; "for," as he now de-
clared, in explanation of his meaning, " before this child can
say ' father,' or ' mother,' the treasures of Damascus and the
booty of Samaria shall be brought to Assyria's king."
And these are the words he addressed to the citizens of
Jerusalem : —
' ' Because this people despises the soft-flowing waters of
Siloah, and delights in Rezin and Pekah, therefore the Lord
shall bring over them the great and mighty waves of Euphra
1 See p. 207. 2 Isaiah viii. 1-ix. 6.
262 ISAIAH IN THE REIGN OP AHAZ.
tes. The river shall mount over all its channels, overflow its
banks upon every side ; strike into Judah, overflowing and
rolling, reaching to the neck ; spread over all the breadth of
land ; — but God is with us ! "
"Rejoice, ye nations, and tremble! Listen, all ye ends
of the earth ! Equip yourselves and tremble ! Yea, equip
yourselves and tremble ! Form a plan, and it will come to
nothing. Make a project, and it will fail. For God is with
us. When Yahweh laid his hand upon me and instructed
me, he warned me not to accord with this people. Take not
to heart, he said to me, what this people takes to heart ; be
not afraid of what they fear. Yahweh of war-hosts, him
shall you hallow ; let him be your fear and your terror ! For
he is a sanctuary that none may violate ; a stone of offence
and a rock of stumbling for either house of Israel ; a snare
and a net for Jerusalem's people. Full many of them shall
stumble and fall and be crushed to pieces ; shall run into the
snare and be taken."
" Close the testimony as to the meaning of the inscription,
seal it with the help of the faithful Uriah and Zachariah. I
wait for Yahweh, though now he hides his face from the house
of Jacob. I hope in him ; and I and my children, The-
remnant-repents and Keen-for-booty-swift-to-spoil, are signs
in Israel, given by Yahweh, who dwells in Zion. And when
they say to you, ' Consult the shades and the soothsayers,
who mutter and whisper their magic charms' — what! must
not a people consult its god ? Must it not seek refuge with
the living rather than with the dead 'i ' Go to the teaching
and the witness which the prophets give ! ' Unless they who
now sit in utter darkness come to speak words like these,
then they shall wander about in the land sorely oppressed and
hungering, and when they are hungry they shall wax wrath
and curse their king and their god ; and whithersoever they
turn, above or below, there shall be distress and darkness ;
they shall be cast down into troublous gloom and blackness."
"But they who are now afflicted shall not remain in dark-
ness. The people that now walks in gloom shall see a glori-
ous light; the dwellers in the land of night shall see the
gleaming dawn. Thou, Yahweh, spreadest them out again;
thou givest them joy to taste, as in the time of harvest, or the
day when the spoil is divided. For thou wilt break his yoke
and the staff with which he is driven, as when Midian was
smitten. 1 And the clanking armor, and warrior's mantle
1 See vol. i. p. 389.
ISAIAH IN THE REIGN OF AHAZ. 263
stained with blood, all shall be burned and shall be a prey to
the flames. For a child is born to us, a son is given us ; do-
minion shall be laid upon his shoulders, and men shall call
him Wonder-of- wisdom,' Might-of-god, Booty-seizer, 1 Prince
of Peace. Without bounds shall his dominion extend, and
endless weal shall it confer on David's throne and all the
kingdom. This throne shall he raise up and strengthen, by
justice and by right, henceforth for ever. The zeal of Yah-
weh of war-hosts will perform all this."
In one point the editor who adopted this oracle as part of
his collection failed to understand it. The afflicted people to
whom Isaiah promised deliverance were the Judeeans whom
Rezin and Pekah were now harassing, and whom Ashur was
soon to overflow like a mighty river. But the editor sup-
posed the prophet only had in view the districts conquered by
Tiglath-Pilezer ; so he added to the promise, " the people now
afflicted shall not always remain in darkness," the following
words by way of explanation: 2 "As Yahweh rejected the
land of Zebulon and Naphtali at first, so shall he bring it back
at last to honor, the sea coast and the district east of Jordan
and the heathen march." This makes the whole passage
obscure ; for since the seer here foretells, as something future,
the conquest of Damascus, as well as that of Samaria, 8 the
discourse cannot have been uttered when Damascus was al-
ready in the hands of the Assyrians and Rezin had fallen.
It may indeed have been Isaiah himself, and not his editor,
who afterwards, in writing down the record of his preaching,
inserted this reference to the districts that the AssjTians had
harassed and subdued ; but this is practically the same thing,
for the essential point is that these words were not part of
the original oracle.
It deserves remark that, just when things appeared to be at
the worst, when the king, reduced to desperation, was on the
point of throwing himself into the arms of Assyria, Isaiah
prophesied that after many miseries a glorious day should
break for Judah, a day when the driver's staff should be
broken, and a scion of David's house, who was now new-
born, should rule over Israel. It is easy to see how such
anticipations, caught up and adopted by weak and shallow
minds, might nourish gross fanaticism. The sequel of the
history will show it but too clearly. But in so deep a moral
nature as Isaiah's, the only fruits they could produce were
increased intensity of effort, cheerfulness in suffering, and
scrupulous obedience to the commands of Yahweh.
i After an amended version. 2 Isaiah ix. 1. 8 Isaiah viii. 4.
264 IMAGE-WORSHIP CONDEMNED.
Chapter XXV.
IMAGE-WORSHIP CONDEMNED.
Exodus XXIV. 3-8, 12-18, XXXI. 18-XXXIII. 6, XXXIII. 12-
XXXIV. 35.
WHEN any special form of religion, in which there ia
real life and capacity for progress, lias been estab-
lished for some considerable time, many of those who profess
it must inevitably begin to outgrow the forms, the usages,
and the doctrines which have been handed down to them by
their fathers ; and since the great mass of the worshippers
do not keep pace with them, but obstinately cling to the
primeval usages of their religion, complications are sure to
arise which will demand a more or less violent solution. So
it was in Israel. The worship of Yahweh included the use
of a number of objects, such as anointed stones, pillars,
images of the sun, terapkim, altars, the ark, together with in-
stitutions common to all manner of religions, such as sacri-
fices, purifications, and the observance of holy days. This
had been so from the first. Moses and his contemporaries
would certainly have been unable to imagine any worship of
the deity without these forms ; and the Mosaic school, in the
succeeding centuries, insisted on the observance of Yahweh's
moral commandments without declaring war upon these
elements of his worship or proclaiming their worthlessness.
But gradually a change took place. The noblest sons of
Israel and Judah became more and more clearly conscious
of the chasm which separated their religion from that of
their neighbors, or, to use their own expression, which
separated Yahweh from the other gods ; and the more they
dwelt upon the moral requirements of their god, the more
clearly did they see how useless and even pernicious the
usual religious practices were ; for the outward resemblance
between the worship of Yahweh and that of all kinds of
Baals often prevented the worshippers of Israel's god from
keeping his moral precepts in view.
These reformers were naturally most offended by the
images of Yahweh, for they fostered a narrow conception of
his nature, which was utterly inconsistent with the lofty
thoughts which they themselves cherished concerning the
IMAGE-WORSHIP CONDEMNED. 265
god of gods. Even in the northern kingdom, where the
images were a part of the State religion, powerful voices had
been raised against them ; and had the kingdom remained a
little longer in existence, it is probable that the gilt bulls of
Dan and Bethel would soon have fallen under the sturdy
strokes which the prophets dealt them, just as Baal had
already done. 1 How much more intense must the horror of
all image-worship have been in the southern kingdom, the
principal sanctuary of which, at any rate, had always re-
mained free from the stain ! It is only natural, again, that
the miserable condition of Israel after. Jeroboam's death, its
humiliation in the time of Menahem, and its final collapse
under Hosea, should have made a deep impression upon the
Mosaic school in Judah. Why has the people of Yahweh
fallen? they asked. And the only answer they could give
was that Yahweh had renounced it because of its sins, and
especially its image-worship, its bowing down before the
abominations of Dan and Bethel ! •
This conviction found expression in the story of Israel's
sin in the desert, which we will now consider. The exact
date of its composition we cannot determine ; but it is prob-
able that, while building upon a comparatively ancient
legend, the writer of this particular story did not live earlier
than in the troubled times of Menahem, or later than the
first years after the fall of Samaria. The story is affixed to
that portion of the legend of Yahweh's appearance to the Is-
raelites at Mount Sinai which represents the people as fleeing
in terror from the consuming fire and trembling for fear. 2
When the people whom Yahweh had borne out of Egypt,
as on the wings of an eagle, and chosen for his special pos-
session, had entreated Moses to protect them henceforth from
immediate revelations from the deity, and to convey his com-
mands to them himself, Moses went up into the darkness
where Yahweh dwelt.
He soon returned to the Israelites and told them all the
words of Yahweh. 8 In the first place they must never make
themselves any gold or silver images of gods, and must offer
all their sacrifices upon simple altars of earth ; it did not
matter where, for Yahweh would come to them and bless
them wherever they worshipped him. If they were deter-
mined to make a stone altar, they must build it of rough and
unhewn stones, for as soon as it was touched by a chisel it
was desecrated ; and in no case must it be so high that it had
1 See p. 244. > See vol. i. p. 299. 8 Exodus xx. 22-26j xxai. 20-33.
VOL. II. 12
2()6 IMAGE-WORSHIP CONDEMNED.
to be ascended by steps. Yahweh, on Ms side, would send
his angel before them to the promised land. To this angel
they must give good heed, for since the name of Yahweh was
in him, and he was the representative of this stern god, he
would not overlook their sins. But if they were obedient to
him he would bring them into the land of the Canaanites ;
and when they got there they must beware of falling into
the idolatry of the inhabitants, but must rather break their
massebahs to pieces and serve Yahweh only. Then he would
bless them with health and prosperity ; and if he did not
drive out all the Canaanites at once it was for fear the beasts
of prey should multiply too fast, but he would gradually
drive them out till Israel's territory extended from the Red
Sea to the Mediterranean, from the desert to the Euphrates.
But above all things they must beware of idolatay.
Upon this the Israelites unanimously promised to keep
the commandments of Yahweh, and Moses made the neces
sary preparations for concluding a solemn covenant between
the people and their god. With this purpose he wrote down
in a book all that Yahweh had said to him and all that the
people had agreed to, and then built an altar at the foot of
the mountain, surrounded by twelve massebahs in accordance
with the number of the tribes. Then he ordered some of the
younger Israelites to sacrifice oxen to Yahweh, caught the
blood in basins and poured half of it out at the foot of the altar,
to signify that Yahweh, on his part, pledged himself to protect
and bless the Israelites as his chosen people. Then Moses
read the book, in which Yahweh's commands were written,
aloud to the people, and they promised with one voice to
obey it faithfully ; whereupon he sprinkled them with the rest
of the blood, exclaiming as he did so, " This is the blood of
the covenant which Yahweh makes with you on the conditions
to which you have sworn ! "
When Israel had thus become the people of Yahweh.
Moses once more ascended Mount Sinai at the divine com-
mand to' receive the stone tablets of the Law, together with
other precepts which Yahweh himself had written down for
his people. Moses was accompanied by Joshua, while Aaron
and Hur took his place as heads of the people. Yahweh's
cloud enveloped the mountain when Moses had ascended it,
and it was seven days before the deity summoned him into
his presence. Then the sons of Israel beheld the glory of
Yahweh on the summit, like to a burning fire, and Moses re<
mained forty days and forty nights upon the mountain.
IMAGE-WOKSHIF CONDEMNED. 267
At last the Israelites lost patience and were so tired of
waiting that they went one day to Aaron and said, " Come !
make us a god that we can see going out before us, for we
cannot tell what has become of this Moses who brought us
out of Egypt." Aaron had not the courage flatly to refuse
their request, but as he was very unwilling to comply with
it, he tried to turn them aside from their purpose by declaring
that he should require all the golden ornaments of their
wives and daughters. But it appeared that they were more
in earnest than he had supposed, for they cheerfully brought
him the necessary amount of gold, and he had now hardly
any choice but to comply with their wish by making them a
gilt image of a bull. Then the people shouted, "There is
your god, O Israel ! which brought you out of Egypt ! " And
Aaron built an altar before the image, and appointed the
next day for a festival to Yahweh. So when morning broke
the feast was celebrated. All manner of sacrifices were per-
formed, jovial banquets were held, and finally the festive
dance began.
But at this very moment Moses came down again from the
mountain with the two tablets of stone, written in two
columns and upon both sides by Yahweh's own finger.
Joshua, who still accompanied him, was the first to hear
the noise that rose from the camp below. ' ' I hear the
sound of battle ! " he exclaimed ; but Moses answered : "It
is not the shout of the victor ; it, is not the groan of the van-
quished, but the sound of a festive song that I hear ! " When
they drew nearer the}' perceived only too clearly that Moses
was right. There stood the image of the bull, with the Isra-
elites dancing and singing round it ! At this sight Moses
could no longer command his emotion, and, in a burst of in-
dignant grief and anger, he dashed the stone tablets to the
ground and broke them to pieces. Then he burst into the
camp amid the cowed and terror-stricken Israelites, seized
their image, burned it to cinders, ground it to dust, and scat-
tered it upon the water they drank. Now, let them swallow
their mighty god ! Then Aaron had to answer for his con-
duct. " Why ! " he stammered, " you know how headstrong
these people are. Well, they came to me and said : ' Give us
a god that we can see ; for, as for this Moses, we cannot tell
where he has gone to ! ' So then I told them they must give
me all their golden ornaments, and when they brought them I
threw them into the fire ; and then . . . well, this bull came
out!"
268 IMAGE-WORSHIP CONDEMNED.
The answer which Moses gave to this lame and shuffling
excuse has not been preserved, for some later writer has in-
serted a passage, which we shall consider presently, in its
place ; but no doubt it contained a severe and merited re-
buke. 1 Before long, however, his faithful love for his people
triumphed in the heart of Moses over every other feeling, and
the very next day he said to them : " You have sinned most
grievously ; but I will go up to the mountain again a ad pray
to Yahweh — perhaps I can still find means of atoning for your
trespass."
So Moses went back to Yahweh and praj'ed : " Alas ! this
people has sinned grievously in making gods of gold. But
now forgive this trespass ; and, if thou canst not forgive it
except some sacrifice be made, then blot me out of thy book."
But Yahweh said in answer to this praj-er of love : " Him
only who has sinned will I blot out of my book. Now go,
and lead this people to the promised land ; and my angel will
go out before them. But when I come and visit them, I will
exact requital of them for their sins." So Yahweh smote that
people for the golden bull which they had caused Aaron to
make.
There are several points in this story which will repay our
closer attention.
In the first place, let us consider the scene in which the
sacrifice of the covenant is offered. The thought embodied
in it is the same that Hosea expresses under the image of the
marriage of Yahweh and his people. Yahweh is the god of
gods, and has chosen Israel out of all the nations to enter
into a close alliance with him. He will defend and bless his
people if they, on their side, will observe the precepts of their
god. This covenant is the central thought of Israel's religion
from the eighth century B.C. onwards ; and accordingly, when
the Christian religion had risen up by the side of that of the
Jews, the former was called the new covenant and the latter
the old covenant. These names were afterwards transferred
to the written documents of the two religions. The names,
Old and New Testament, have risen out of a curious mis-
understanding. It happens that in Greek the same word sig-
nifies " covenant" and "last will and testament;" and the
writer of the epistle to the Hebrews enters into an argument
which turns entirely upon a play on the two meanings of this
word, and is hardly intelligible in a translation. 2 It is from
1 Compare De teronomy ix. 20. 2 Hebrews ix. 15 S.
IMAGE-W0BSHI1' CONDEMNED. 269
this passage that the names of Old and New Testament are
derived.
TVe shall repeatedly see from the sequel of the history
that this conception of Israel, as God's covenanted people,
bore the most salutary fruits on the one hand in quickening
the people's sense of dignity, and stimulating them to reject
the Canaanitish usages and everything coarse and low ; but,
on the other hand, produced disastrous results in exaggerated
national pride, and a spirit of cold and mercenary service.
The other leading thought of our story is : The chosen
people has fallen away from its god ; or, as Hosea expressed
it, Yah wen's wife is an adulteress. The guilt of this apostasy
falls chiefly on the people themselves, but Aai-on is also deeply
involved in the sin, and incurs the wrath of Yahweh in no
small degree. The part which the legend has assigned to
this brother of Moses is very perplexing, and cannot be
explained with any certainty ; but it seems probable that it
originated thus : When the Mosaic school began to feel that
the bull-worship was inconsistent with the conception they
had formed of Yahweh, but had not yet conceived the utter
abhorrence of it which characterized them afterwards, thej'
attempted to palliate the ancient custom, which they despaired
of rooting out, and to find a place for it within the circle of
Mosaic traditions 1 b} r assigning its institution to Aaron, and
probably explaining that it had some special purpose at the
time and was expressly sanctioned by Yahweh. "We shall
see in the next chapter that a precisely similar use was made
of the name of Moses in connection with the quite equally
idolatrous worship of the brazen serpent. After a time, how-
ever, the Mosaic school came to hate the image-worship so
intensely that they could no longer accept this compromise ;
and since Aaron's name was now firmly established in con-
nection with this worship, he, too, came in for a share of the
guilt and shame attaching to it. So the legend assumed an
entirely new form, and it is in this later version that we still
possess it. Aaron had indeed set up the first golden bull,
but not at the command of Yahweh. It was a weak and
culpable indulgence of the evil desires of the people, during
the absence of Moses ; Aaron himself was ashamed of what
he did, and had hardly a word to say to Moses when he re-
turned ; and Yahweh was very angry with him. But In the
course of time Aaron, as we shall see, came to be regarded
as the representative of the priestly order, and the part lie
i Compare vol. i. pp. 104-107, 176-178.
270 IMAGE-WORSHIP CONDEMNED.
played in the legend must have shocked and scandalized the
priests of a later date beyond all measure. Accordingly a
certain writer of strong Levitical sympathies did what he
could to mend matters by leaving out the rebuke of Aaron,
and so letting it be understood that Moses accepted his excuse,
and then substituting the following passage, 1 which now ap-
pears, awkwardly enough, between Aaron's answer and the
return of Moses to intercede with Yahweh : —
When Moses saw that the people had broken through every
restraint, and had become the laughing-stock of their enemies,
he stood at the gate of the camp and cried : " Whoever is on
Yahweh's side, let him come to me ! " Then all the Levites
came and ranged themselves round him, and he cried to them :
" Thus says Yahweh, the god of Israel : Gird on your swords
and go up and down the camp, slaying every one j'ou meet,
though it were your own brother, your friend, or your next of
kin." The Levites obeyed, and about three thousaud of the
Israelites were slain.- Then Moses said: "Now bring your
sacrifice of consecration ; for you, who have spared neither
son nor brother, 2 are worthy priests of Yahweh ! "
The interpolation is clumsy enough from an artistic and
literary point of view ; but one can hardly help admiring the
bold stroke by which the writer turned the story completely
round, and made the event, which appeared to reflect such
disgrace upon the priests, the very occasion of Yahweh's con-
secrating them to himself; and that, too, not by .arbitrary
selection, but as a reward for their virtue in upholding his
honor and attacking the worship of the bulls !
The part assigned to Aaron in the legend, then, is anything
but creditable to him ; but that of Moses, the mediator be-
tween Yahweh and the people, commands unmingled admira-
tion. Even in the story as we have given it, he is represented
as interceding for his people with his god ; but in Exodus
this point is insisted upon at still greater length, for there 8
we are informed that when the forty days were over and Mo-
ses was on the point of descending the mountain, Yahweh
told him how Israel had sinned in making the golden image
of a bull. Yahweh declared further that the people were
incorrigible, and that if Moses would but let him have his
way, he would utterly destroy them, and would make the
posterity of Moses himself a mighty nation. But Moses
1 Exodus xxxii. 25-29. 2 Compare Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8-10. See p. 192.
8 Exodus xxxii. 7-14.
IMAGE-WORSHIP - CONDEMNED. 271
tried to soothe his wrath: " O Yahweh ! why shouldst thou
do so? See! thou hast shown thy might by rescuing this
people out of Egypt ; and now wilt thou let the Egyptians
say : He only led them out from here to slay them in the
mountains and utterly destroy them? 1 Ah, Lord ! be gracious
to this people once again. Consider thy promises to Abra-
ham and Isaac and Jacob." Upon this Yahweh repented of
the fearful threats which he had launched against the people.
This passage is certainly a later addition, for it is strangely
out of keeping with the very next scene, in which Moses, as
he talks with Joshua, has to gather from the sound that rises
from the camp what it is that is there going on ; while the
closing scene, in which Moses returns to Yahweh to implore
him to forgive the people, is still more incongruous with this
interpolated passage, which would make it a simple repetition
of what had been done already.
The object of the insertion is evidently to bring out still
more clearly than was done in the old legend the power of
the intercessory prayer of Moses, and thus to glorify the great
messenger of Yahweh, by whom all the laws of Israel were
supposed to have been given. The same purpose runs through
the sequel of our story, which consists of various elements
which it is exceedingly difficult to separate, and which are all
identical in spirit. Their contents are as follojr s : —
Yahweh said to Moses again : ' ' Take this people to Ca-
naan. And I, for my part, will send my angel to drive out
the inhabitants ; but I will not go with them myself, for they
are a stiff-necked people, and perhaps I should destroy them
on the way." In mourning over these hard words, the sons
of Israel set aside all their ornaments, whereupon Yahweh
said again: "Yes, you are a stiff-necked people, and if I
were to dwell amongst you, I should destroy you in a mo-
ment ; but now remain in mourning garments, unadorned, till
I make known my will to you."
After a time Moses said to Yahweh : " Lord, thou hast told
me to lead this people on, but hast not declared who will go
with me ; and yet thou hast said that thou dost know me
through and through and delightest in me ! If this be so
indeed, then let me know thy will, and remember that Israel
is thy people ! " And Yahweh answered, " Must I myself go
with you, then, and bring you to the place of rest?" '■ Yes,
Lord!" replied the shepherd of Israel, "for if you go not
with us, it were better that we did not go at all ! How are
i Compare Numbers xiv. 15, IS.
272 IMAGE-WORSHIP CONDEMNED.
we to know that we, this people and I, are really loved by
you, unless you go with us, and so distinguish us above all
peoples?" "Since I take pleasure in you," answered Yah-
weh, "I will grant you this request likewise." Then the
favored mortal uttered one more prayer, though half in fear,
" Show me thy full glory ! " But Yahweh answered his rash
words : " It may not be ! I will indeed pass by you in all
my majesty, and will utter the name of Yahweh as I go, for I
will show favor to those I love ; but you may not look upon
my face. No mortal could behold it and yet live ! Here,"
continued Yahweh, "is a place on a rock hard by, where
you must take your stand. When I am going to pass by you,
T will place you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover your
eyes with my own hand, that your life may be preserved ; and,
as soon as I have passed, I will take away my hand, so that
you can see me from behind, but my countenance you must
not see ! "
With this Moses must be content. At the divine command
he took two new tablets of stone and ascended the mountain,
upon which no human foot must tread while he was there ; nor
must the very cattle be so much as allowed to graze over
against it. Then, when Yahweh came down in his pillar of
cloud, Moses adored him, and heard the deity pass by, as he had
said, with the words : " I am Yahweh, a merciful and gracious
god, very long-suffering, and faithful. I reward those that I
love to a thousand generations, forgive their sins, their in-
iquities, and their offences ; but I hold not him that trespasses
guiltless, and I visit the father's misdeeds on the children
and children's children to the third and fourth generation ! "
When he heard these words Moses bowed down and repeated
his request once more: "If thou delightest in me, Lord!
then do thou go with us ; and though this people be so stub-
born, yet do thou forgive their sin ! " Yahweh graciously
accepted his prayer, and promised to protect Israel ; but he
repeated some of his principal commandments, amongst which
the avoidance of idolatry and all intermixture with the Ca-
naanites were foremost, while the observance of the Sabbath,
the celebration of three yearly feasts in honor of Yahweh,
and the making of rich offerings, were also strongly insisted
on.
Moses remained forty days and nights upon the mountain,
without either eating or drinking, received many more in-
structions there, and wrote the Ten Commandments again
upon the tablets of stone. Since he had been so long in the
IMAGE-WORSHIP CONDEMNED. 273
neighborhood of Yahweh, his face shone so brightly when he
returned that Aaron and the people entreated him to cover it
with a veil, for they were afraid of approaching him. Ever
afterwards he wore a veil when he spoke to them, and only
put it away when he held converse with Yahweh.
To see God is death ! Such was the faith of the Israelites
from the eighth century onwards, when they had learned to
think of Yahweh as a being too exalted for men to hold fa-
miliar intercourse with him, as the old legends about Moses
and others represented them as doing. 1 To see God is death !
so said all ancient peoples in whose conceptions of the deity
was any touch of sublimity. To see God is death ! was a
thought most natural to those who felt their own littleness,
and imagined themselves in the presence of the fearful God,
who reveals his power in the dread phenomena of Nature,
who can kill and make alive. To see God is death ! is a
thought which even wakes an echo in the heart of him who
sees in God the power of moral Holiness above all else, for
to him too, as long as he does not obey His will with all his
heart, God may reveal himself as the consuming fire, as a
being who condemns and punishes. 2 To see God is death ! is
a thought that fades only from the heart of the Christian
who worships in the Holy One the Everlasting Love, and
knows that his commands can bring him blessing only. Jesus
could say : " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God ;" but ancient Israel was still far removed from such a
thought.
A covenant in which the duties and privileges of the two
parties are defined, leaves room for a mediator who prevents
any small transgression on the one side from involving the
utter discarding of the covenant on the other. Such a me-
diator is Moses, whose noble generosity and love, as he throws
himself into the breach for his people, are finery sketched in
the legend.
But the office of mediator between the Israelites and Yah-
weh fell for the most part to the priests. Though a prophet
might on special occasions pray for his people, yet his peculiar
office was to convey to them the commands, the warnings,
threats and promises of Yahweh. A priest might sometimes
give instruction, but his proper task was to appease the wrath
of Yahweh and make good the people's sins by sacrifices and
purifications. The very teaching that he gave was directed
i See vol. i. pp. 300 ff. 2 See vol. i. p. 125.
12*
274 IMAGE-WORSHIP CONDEMNED.
to the same object ; for it referred to the difference between
cleanness and uncleanness, to sacrifices and tithes, to the
celebration of feasts and the observance of the Sabbath ; in a
word, to the external commandments of Yahweh, to his
ritual, and not to the moral life of man. If the prophet was
Yahweh's messenger to Israel, the Levitical priest was Israel's
mediator with Yahweh.
In the narrative we have been considering, if it is really
a single whole, the priestly and prophetic elements are inti-
mately blended. On the one hand all the precepts it con-
tains refer to the so-called religious duties, such as renouncing
images and elaborate altars, destroying the sacred objects of
the Canaanites, observing the Sabbath and other festivals,
making sacrifices and presenting and redeeming first-fruits
and firstlings. In marked contrast to the ancient book of
Law, 1 which a later editor inserted here on occasion of the
conclusion of tue covenant, the legend itself does not contain
a single moral precept. But on the other hand there is the
very soul of all morality in the noble self-abandonment of
Moses for his people's sake. This is worth more than any
code of moral laws, and reminds us that after all the best of
the Israelites valued the special rites of Yahweh and con-
demned those of other deities chiefly because the former were
associated with a higher and the latter with a lower grade of
moral culture. 2
Nevertheless we may already trace the danger of which we
spoke when recounting the fall of northern Israel — the dan-
ger of the Mosaic school in Jiulah falling into the priestly
groove, attaching undue weight to forms and ceremonies,
and, under the guidance of the powerful Levitical priest-
hood of Jerusalem, attacking idolatry more vigorously than
immorality.
But be the faults or merits of this party what they may,
we are now to witness its first great victory.
i Exodus xxi.-xxiii. 19. See pp. 182 ff. a Compare pp. 264, 268.
hezekiah's reformation. 275
Chaptek XXVI.
HEZEKIAH'S REFORMATION.
2 Kings XVIII. 1-8. i
AHAZ reigned for sixteen years, and was then succeeded
by his son Hezekiah, who was five-and-twenty years
old, and who reigned twentj^-nine years.
Three years after Hezekiah's accession, Hosea, king of
Israel, threw off his allegiance to Shalmaneser, who soon
afterwards la'il siege to Samaria. Hezekiah was not wanting
in courage, an 1 had already done something towards strength-
ening the country ; but he dared not defy the Assyrians, so
he remained Shalmaneser's vassal, and left Hosea to his fate,
as the king of Eg3 r pt also did.
The sternest of Yahweh's prophets did not fail to foretell Sa-
maria's fall. It was situated on a hill that overlooked a fruitful
valley, and Isaiah compared it to a splendid wreath of flowers,
such as those with which the guests at a great banquet crowned
themselves, especially when they were drunk ; but the flowers
of the wreath, he said, had now begun to fade. 2 The capital
of Ephi'aim w&uld be like a fig that has ripened before harvest
time. Some passer-by observes it, holds it for a moment in
his hand, and then eats it up. He found a peculiar appro-
priateness in the comparison of Samaria to the wreath of
flowers on the brow of drunken revellers, for the sin of drunk-
enness was universal within her walls. Judges, warriors,
priests, prophets, all of them staggered with strong drink.
They tottered even as the}' gave their oracles or pronounced
their sentences ; and they even dared to make merry over the
number of Yahweh's commandments. Woe to them ! But
neither did the preacher of repentance spare Jerusalem. How
full of pride were Judah's nobles ! How they boasted of their
warlike strength, as though they had made a covenant with
the shadow-land, that the overflowing scourge should not
reach them ! "It comes and hurls you to the ground. Yah-
weh deals with his people as a husbandman deals with his
land and its sundry produce. He does not plough his corn-
land at every season of the year, nor 'does he always break
the soil with coulter and with harrow ; for, when he has made
1 2 Chronicles xxix.-xxxi. 2 Isaiah xxviii.
276 hezekiah's reformation.
the land ready, does he not scatter it with dill and cummin,
and sow the wheat in rows, the barley within the hedge and
the spelt upon the border? His god has taught him to do so.
Then he does not thrash his dill with an iron flail, nor roll a
cart-wheel over his cummin, but he quietly strikes out the
seed with a staff. But the corn is thrashed, yet not too much ;
cart-wheels and horses are driven over it, but not till it is
crushed. This, too, is Yahweh's teaching. Wonderful is his
insight, great his wisdom ! "
Micah of Moresheth saw yet more clearly than Isaiah him-
self that Ephraim would be roughly thrashed, yet not utterly
crushed, inasmuch as it was Yahweh's people; and that
Judah also would incur a fearful lot. In Micah's eyes the
future of both Judah and Israel was full of gloom. Samaria,
the seducer of Israel, should be made a heap of rains, she
should be utterly overturned, and all her images should be
broken to pieces. But woe to Judah also ! Jerusalem de-
serves nothing but misery, for countless are her sins. She is
full of theft and usury. Are there no prophets in her then?
Ah! yes; but they prophesj' lies. Men who will utter oracles
for a draught of wine pass with this people for Yahweh's
messengers ! Woe to you, princes of Jacob, who suck the
marrow of the poor ! Woe to the prophets who are ever ready
with a favorable response for any one who pays the price !
They shall all be covered with shame ; but I am a true prophet,
full of Yahweh's spirit, intent on showing Israel his sins.
Listen ! ye- heads of Jacob, who build up Zion with the price
of blood and Jerusalem with wrong ! Alas ! her priests give
instruction for gold, and her prophets divine for gain, and
yet they rely upon Yahweh and ask, " Is not Yahweh in our
midst? Shall any evil overtake us ? " Of a truth shall Zion
be ploughed like a field ; because of 3'ou, Jerusalem shall fall
in ruins, and the mountain of the temple shall become a forest
height. 1
In this last prediction Micah went further than any other
prophet. It is true that while most of the men of God pro-
claimed nothing but blessings upon Yahweh's people, the
most serious amongst them anticipated a heavy judgment ;
but that Jerusalem herself, the city of Yahweh and of his
anointed, should be laid waste, it was impossible for them to
believe. There is not one of Isaiah's oracles containing a
prediction such as this. On the contrary, Isaiah firmly
believed that Jerusalem would be spared. " Zion," saya
1 Micah i.-iii.
hezekiah's reformation. 277
Yahweh, ' I have made a stone, a tried and precious corner-
stone, a firm foundation. Let not him who has faith flee
away." 1 We shall constantly meet with this conviction
elsewhere also. A century later it exercised a powerful in-
fluence upon Judah's history.
We must not suppose, however, that Micah anticipated
the final ruin of Judah. Far from it ! His own conviction
was doubtless accurately expressed in the prediction which he
probably borrowed from some other prophet : 2 "At the end
of the da} T s it shall come to pass that the mount of the temple
shall stand at the head of the mountains and be exalted above
the hills, and all the peoples shall stream to it. Then many
peoples shall set out and ciy : ' Come, let us go to Yahweh's
mountain, to the house of Jacob's god ; let us learn his com-
mandments and walk in the ways which he shows us ! ' All
this shall come to pass, because instruction goes forth from
Zion and Yahweh's word from Jerusalem. Then shall he
utter judgment over many nations, and pronounce sentences
for mighty and far distant peoples. And they shall beat their
swords into scj'thesand their spears into sickles ; nation shall
no longer lift up the sword against nation, neither shall they
learn war any more. Then shall each one sit under his vine
and fig-tree, and no one shall make him afraid, for the mouth
of Yahweh of hosts has spoken it ; since all the peoples serve
their gods, and we serve Yahweh our god for ever."
This reign of bliss and glory would be inaugurated by a
king of David's house. 8 "From thee, O race of Ephrath 4
(that is to say, the stock of David) , small as thou art amongst
Judah's families, out of thee shall come forth one who shall
rule over Israel, one whose descent is from ancient times.
He shall pasture his people in Yahweh's name, his greatness
shall spread to the ends of the earth, and in his time shall
be peace. When the Assyrians come into the land we shall
send seven shepherds to meet them ; j'ea, we shall send eight
princes, and they will pasture Assyria with the sword. Tien
shall the remnant of Jacob amongst the peoples be like dew
upon the herbs ; amongst great nations it shall be like a lion
amongst the beasts of the forest, as a lion's whelp among
flocks of sheep, who tramples down and tears as he passes by,
and none can deliver from him."
In lofty expectations for Israel's future glory, then, Micah
1 Isaiah xxviii. 16, after an amended version.
* Micah iv. 1-5. Cbn-pare Isaiah ii. 2-5.
» Micah v. 2 ff. 4 After an amended version.
278 hezekiah's reformation.
yielded to none of his brethren. ■ But he differed from them
in expecting to see the fall not only of the other cities, but
of the capital, the holy cit}' itself, before deliverance should
come. For, as the chief guilt of Israel fell upon Samaria,
so Jerusalem had led the way for Judah in all that was
wicked. 1
In his ideas of good and evil, Micah agrees perfectly with
Isaiah. He inveighs with equal vehemence against cavalry
and war-chariots, cities and fortresses on the one hand, and
soothsaying and magic, images* anointed stones and asherahs a
upon the other. But he is no less indignant with dishonesty
in trade, with usury and lying : for no sacrifices can please
Yahweh ; though a man should give his first-born son for a
guilt-offering it would avail him nothing. " To do justice
and to love devoutne^s, and to walk humbly with Yahweh " —
that is what he requires. 8
Such were the promises and threats of these messengers
of Yahweh before the Assyrians had as yet turned their
weapons against Judah ; before, indeed, they had had any
occasion to do so, and while Hezekiah was still their vassal.
Yet the prophets could not choose but know how uneasily
many of the Judseans, including the king himself, bore the
yoke ; and they were aware that a war with Assyria was far
from improbable. In fact, the party that planned and stim-
ulated rebellion was itself led by a number of the prophets.
This was the necessary outcome of their religious beliefs.
"Was not Yahweh the lord of war-hosts ? Could he not bring
them aid? And should his people, then, bow down before
the heathens, before the worshippers of idols? If Judah
would but trust in her god, she would be invincible.
But before she could trust in his support slie must act in
accordance with his will ; and that she was far from doing
while she endured so many heathen practices in her midst,
and above all the worship of images. This conviction had
been striking deeper and deeper root in the hearts of a sec-
tion of the people ; and the fall of Samaria in the sixth year
of Hezekiah's reign could not fail to add great weight to their
opinions. Why had Yahweh rejected Israel, if not because it
worshipped golden bulls ? And if Judah was to be delivered
and restored to power it must cleanse itself from this same
stain. Under the influence of such considerations Hezekiah
took in hand the work of reformation.
1 Micah i. 5. 2 Micah v. 10-14. » Micah vi. 10-12, 6-8 ; see vol. i. p. 148.
hezekiah's reformation. 279
We must try to form a true idea of what this reformation
really was, but trustworthy accounts of it are so scanty that
the task is very difficult. The Chronicler, indeed, tells us all
about it in great detail ; but here, as in so many other cases,
he has let his imagination run completely away with him.
He describes Ahaz as a desperate opponent of the worship of
Yahweh, who broke the sacrificial implements in the temple to
pieces, raised altars and bamahs everywhere, closed the doors
of the temple, put out the lamps, allowed no incense to be
offered, and, indeed, completely stopped the worship there ;
but Hezekiah was as truly religious as his father Ahaz had
been heathenish. No sooner had he mounted the throne than
he opened the temple doors and invited the priests and Levites
to purify the sanctuary, and restore everything to order, with
a view to public worship there. When this was done he had
a great sin-offering made for the people, paying special atten-
tion to the music. 1 The number of sacrifices offered upon
this occasion was so great that the priests were not able to get
through the work, and had to call in the help of the Levites, who
were indeed far more zealous than the Aaronites themselves.
Then Hezekiah, the Chronicler goes on to inform us,
ordered the Passover to be held throughout Israel, in the
North as well as the South. In the northern districts many
of the Israelites treated his messengers with contempt, but
others were moved and repented ; Judah, on the other hand,
was unanimous. Jerusalem was purged of all unlawful altars,
and the feast of the Passover was celebrated. Many of the
celebrants, indeed, especially those from northern Israel, were
not ceremonially clean according to the priestly ordinances ;
but the king prayed Yahweh to regard the dispositions of
their hearts rather than their outward cleanness, and Yahweh
heard him. Such a feast had not been celebrated since the
days of Solomon.
After this the reformation of the worship was carried on
vigorously throughout the land, including northern Israel.
All the images, asherahs, bamahs, and altars were broken
down and destroyed ; the people volunteered their first-fruits
and tithes in such quantities that heaps of provisions were
left over ; for Yahweh blessed his people so richly that every-
thing was plentiful in the extreme. Finally, to secure the
orderly continuance of public worship, the king appointed
Levites and priests over every branch of it. Thus he dil
what was right and good in the eyes of Yahweh.
1 Compare p. 10.
280 hbzekiah's reformation.
What the Chronicler is realty describing is the conduct
which a pious prince would have adopted in the third cen-
tury B.C. ; but, in putting it all down to Hezekiah, he exag-
gerates the effects of his pietj r as much as he had already
overdrawn the picture of the heathenish proclivities of Ahaz.
We have already seen that the latter never dreamed of clos-
ing Yahweh' s temple ; and in like manner we must forget
the whole account of Hezekiah's reformation given us by the
Chronicler, if we would form an even approximately correct
idea of what it really was.
The writer of Kings is far more accurate. He extols
Hezekiah greatly, says that he did what was right; like his
father David ; that he removed the bamahs, destroyed the
massebaks, cut down the asherahs, and broke in pieces the
brazen serpent of Moses, to which the Israelites offered in-
cense, and which they called Serpent-god. This gives us a
very fair conception of what Hezekiah's reformation was ; but
the account is too sweeping ; and when the writer makes Heze-
kiah forbid the Israelites to offer sacrifices upon any altar
except the one in the temple at Jerusalem, 1 it is possible
enough that he is confusing his work with that of Josiah ; for
it is not probable that he actually went so far as this, even if
he intended ultimately to do so. Nor is it at all likely that his
reformation extended to the whole of Judah. We may safely
suppose that it was confined for the most part to Jerusalem
and its immediate neighborhood, and that it depended upon
the local influence of the followers of Moses in each district
of the country, whether the revolution effected in the capital
was imitated there or not. In Jerusalem, at way rate, many
objects of a heathenish complexion, such as massebahs, ashe-
rahs, bamahs, and, above all, representations of Yahweh, were
destroyed. Amongst these objects the brazen serpent made
by Moses is particularly mentioned.
This detail excites our special interest. We cannot be
certain what was the origin of the belief that this serpent
had been made by Moses ; but it seems probable that his
name was connected with it in the same way and for the
same purpose as Aaron's with the golden bulls. Before
the detestation of the reverence paid to this serpent had risen
so high as in Hezekiah's time, the reformers endeavored to
disarm the practice by attributing its institution to Moses,
and making it a part of the Yahweh worship. We still
possess the legend composed with this object, which runs aa
1 2 Kings xviii. 22.
hezekiah's reformation. 281
follows : J When the Israelites had taken a circuit round the
land of Moab, they complained of want of water, and said
they were tired of the taste of the manna, upon which Yahweh
punished them by sending seraph-snakes amongst them, and
many of them died of their bites. Terrified and humbled, the
people entreated Moses to intercede for them, and when he
did so his god commanded him to make a brazen seraph, and
raise it up on a pole. Any one who had been bitten would only
have to look at it to be healed. Moses obeyed, and manj'
Israelites preserved their lives by gazing at this serpent.
• Originally, no doubt, the brazen serpent was the symbolical
representation of some deity or some divine attribute. The
Egyptians likewise regarded the serpent as a sacred animal
and the symbol of the divine power of healing.
This "Serpent-god" then fell, amongst other venerable
antiquities, under the strokes of Hezekiah's servants. But
it is clear that destruction did not overtake everything which
was afterwards regarded as heathenish. Massebahs, for in-
stance, were less ruthlessly attacked than images ; for the
orthodox legends attached to many of them proved more
effective in protecting them than had been the case with the
serpent, and even the writer who describes how the covenant
was concluded at Mount Horeb has no scruple in making
Moses set up twelve of these stones round his altar. 2 But
many an altar, above all many a bamah, of Yahweh was
thrown down and destroyed, perhaps because they were built
in heathen style or made of chiselled stones ; perhaps because
they were the centres of a more or less idolatrous worship.
But the images of gods, including Yahweh, were the special
objects of attack, and henceforth the words ' ' cursed be the
man who prepares a carved or a cast image, an abomination
in Yahweh's eyes, the work of an artificer, and sets it up
secretly," stood at the head of the religious laws of Judah, 3
followed by such utterances as these : ' ' Cursed be he who
curses his father or mother, who removes the boundary mark
between the fields, who leads a blind man out of his way,
who wrongs the widow or the orphan, who gives himself over
to gross inchastity, who slays his neighbor, who takes a bribe
to condemn the innocent to death ! "
Hezekiah's religious convictions exercised a marked influ-
ence upon his political action. The same enthusiasm which
revealed itself in the prosecution of these reforms, and in
l Numbers xxi. 4-9. a See p. 266. s Deuteronomy xxvii. 16-28
282 hezekiah's reformation.
zeal against every Canaanitish practice, naturally led to
revolt against Assyria also. The people of Yahweh must not
serve strangers, and now that they did what was pleasing
in his eyes so faithfully, and observed their ancient covenant
with him so strictly, they might surely reckon upon his sup-
port. The prophets raised the words of cheer louder than
ever: "Fear not, Israel, thou people made victorious by
Yahweh ! "
In many of Israel's hymns this trust in Yahweh's help
finds powerful expression. We have already given some of
them, as opportunity occurred. 1 One of the most beautiful
is the following, 2 which may very well have been composed
in Hezekiah's time : —
Yahweh 8 is our refuge and our strength,
A help that fails not in time of (rouble.
Therefore we fear not, though the earth should swing,
And the mountains tremble in the midst of the sea.
Let the foaming waters roar ;
Let the mountains rook when the sea rages ;
Yet Yahweh of hosts is with us,
Our fortress is Jacob's god.
A rolling stream makes glad the city of God,
That holy city where dwells the Most High.
Yahweh is m her midst, she cannot be shaken ;
Yahweh shall help her at early dawn.
Heathens raged and kingdoms trembled ;
When he lifted his voice, the earth was melted.
Yahweh of hosts is with us,
Our fortress is Jacob's god.
Come and behold the deeds of Yahweh,
Who fills the earth with amazement;
Who makes war to cease throughout the world;
Who breaks the bow, who shivers the lance, who burns the chariots I
" Be still, and acknowledge that I am Yahweh,
Exalted among the heathen, exalted in the earth."
Yahweh of hosts is with us,
Our fortress is Jacob's god.
We may take for granted that all the Judaeans weie not
disposed to revolt from the king of Assj'iia, and that those
who were did not in every case rely implicitly upon Yahweh.
King Hezekiah himself, though his love of freedom was
closely connected with his zeal for Yahweh, by no means
discarded natural means of strengthening , himself against
the Assyrians.
In the first place he carefully chose the time for declaring
himself independent. After conquering Samaria, Shalma-
1 Psalm xvi., vol. i. p. 210; Psalm xii., vol. i. p. 222; Psalm cxiii., vol i. p.
280 : Psalm c, vol. i. p. 287 ; Psalm xxxiii. vol i. p. 293 f. ; 1 Samuel ii. 1-10,
vol l. p. 436 f. ; Deuteronomy xxxii., pp. 191 ff.
a Psalm xlvi Compare vol. i. p. 529 f. * Comoare o. 190.
hbzekiah's reformation. 283
neser's army had indeed taken several cities, even including
Ashdod it would seem, 1 whether under Shalmaneser himself
or his successor, Sargon, is not certain ; but Tyre had stood
a five years' siege with the utmost heroism, and by retaining
its independence had falsified Isaiah's prediction that it would
be captured and devastated together with Sidon and the other
Phoenician cities. 2 Shalmaneser's or Sargon's successor, Sen-
nacherib; had now turned his arms against the States of Asia
Minor, so that when Hezekiah refused his tribute there was
qo Assyrian army in the neighborhood.
Moreover, he took the natural course of endeavoring to
strengthen himself by alliance with other peoples who, like his
own, were tributary to Assyria, but had determined to throw
off her yoke. Amongst these were probably the Babylonians,
whose prince, Merodach Baladan, sent an embassy to Hezekiah.
According to the accounts we now possess, 8 this embassy
came to Jerusalem after the retreat of the Assyrians, and its
purpose was to congratulate Hezekiah on his recovery from
an illness that had afflicted him that same year. This story
is full of impossibilities, for in the first place Merodach Bala-
dan was probably already dead when the Assyrians left Judah ;
in the next place he would never have sent an embassy to Je-
rusalem for such a purpose ; and, finally, in that special year
Hezekiah was poor and destitute, and had none of the treas-
ures to show which, as we shall see, play so important a part
in the story.
But it is high time to turn to the story itself. When Heze-
kiah received the visit of the Babylonians, we are told, he was
so flattered by the honor conferred upon him that he exhibited
all his treasures and magazines to the ambassadors. But his
ostentation was rebuked by Isaiah, who foretold that all his
treasures would be carried away to Babylon, and that his very
sons would serve there at the court. Upon this Hezekiah
expressed his acquiescence in the will of Yahweh, " if only
there were peace and prosperity in his own days." This
legend, with the miserably poor-spirited and selfish part it
assigns to Hezekiah, is simply due to the desire of putting
into the mouth of the great prophet Isaiah a prediction that
Judah would be carried away captive to Babylon. Such a
prospect was , in reality far beyond his horizon ; for in his
days the only threatening power was Assyria. The sole his-
torical reminiscence that may perhaps underlie this story ia
that the Babylonian, prince sought Hezekiah ? s alliance.
1. Isaiah xx. 1. 2 Isaiah xxiii. 8 2 Kings xx. 12-19 j Isaiah xxxix.
284 hezbkiah's reformation.
The king sought help in his straggle for freedom not only
from his fellow- vassals, whose plots were similar to his own,
but also from Tirhakah, king of Egypt, who seemed his nat-
ural allj'. But this step gave great offence to Isaiah, who
would not have him trust to Egypt, but only to Yahweh, who
would certainly deliver him. The prophet believed with equal
certainty in this deliverance, and in the chastisement that
must precede it. "Woe to thee!" he cried, 1 addressing
Jerusalem, the city of the temple, "woe to thee, hearth of
God, hearth of God, dwelling-place of David ! Year by
year let your feasts revolve, till I lay siege to the hearth of
God. Wail and bewail ! for you shall be a veritable hearth
of fire to me. But when you are utterly humbled, and whis-
per in your dejection like a conjurer of the spirits of the dead,
then shall the tumult of your foes be like chaff before the
wind. This shall come to pass in a moment, by Yahweh's
visitation, with rush and crush, in storm and thunder, with
flames of consuming fire. The besiegers of God shall be
like dreamers ; drea ming that they eat and waking to find
themselves famished, dreaming that they drink and panting
for thirst when they wake. -Nay!" adds the prophet, as he
turns directly to his hearers, " look not with such bewildered
gaze upon me, as though you were drunk without drinking
wine ! Yahweh has poured a spirit of drowsiness on you ;
and my vision has become like a book that is sealed. One
who can read takes it up, but he cannot read it, for it is
sealed. So they give it to another and sa}*, ' Read this ! ' and
he has to answer, ' I cannot read.' And this, says Yahweh,
is because my people draws near to me with the lips, but
wanders far from me with the heart, and serves me with the
ordinances of men which it has got by rote. Therefore will I
deal so strangely with this people that their sages and their
men of sense shall go utterly astray."
On another occasion he gives unmistakable expression to
his condemnation of the action adopted by Hezekiah and his
counsellors : 2 " Woe to the rebels who heap sin upon sin, and
go to Egypt for help without consulting Yahweh ! Pharaoh
shall become your shame, and trust in the shadow of Egypt
your confusion. Write it in a book that it may serve for the
far-off future. It is a stubborn people that will not listen to
Yahweh's teaching, and seduces his prophets to see deceitful
visions. Thus says Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel : ' By
quiet repentance you may be rescued ; in the stillness of trust
i Isaiah xxix. 2 Isaiah XX x,
hezekiah's reformation. 285
is your might.' But you would not hear him, and said, ' We
will fly upon horses,' so you shall flee ; ' We will ride on swift
chargers,' so your foes shall charge swiftly. A thousand of
you shall flee at the threatening gesture of a single foe ; be-
fore five of them you shall flee, till you are deserted like an
ensign planted upon a hill. And yet, O people of Zion, you
shall not always weep ! He will take pity as soon as you la-
ment, and will give you bread in your affliction and water in
your distress. When you repent and fling away your idols,
then days of prosperity shall dawn, such as have never been.
The moon shall give light as the sun, and the sun shall shine
forth with a sevenfold glory. Lo ! there comes Yahweh from
afar, burning and furious ; his lips full of rage ; his tongue
like a consuming Are ; his breath like an overflowing torrent.
He winnows the heathen ; he wrenches the bit between the
jaws of the peoples. Then you rejoice as on the eve of the
Passover ; for Yahweh's voice strikes Ashur with terror, and
turns all your foes to a sacrifice of Are."
This discourse of Isaiah is another example of the strange
influence which must have been exerted on the Israelite by his
faith in the absolute power of the god of his covenant. It
not only supported him in times of trouble, if he believed
himself to have earned the favor of his god ; it not only urged
him to repentance for fear of Yahweh's judgments, but it
compelled him to reject all human means of defending him-
self and his country. A devout man must not trust to his
physician when sick ; a devout prince must build no fortresses,
maintain no cavalry or war-chariots, and enter upon no al-
liances with neighboring peoples. " In stillness and trust in
Yahweh is your might ! " was the unvarying principle of
Isaiah. Such a precept was never acted upon by a prince,
and it is indeed utterly unreasonable ; but it follows imme-
diately from the belief that the deity directly guards his fa-
vorites, and blesses them with temporal prosperity. That
Isaiah dared to embrace these consequences so boldly and
undisguisedly is a proof of the intensity of his conviction.
This conviction was very one-sided, and consequently led to
absurd results ; but, nevertheless, Isaiah's frank acceptance
of them shows his religion to have been more genuine and
his consistency more complete than those of Hezekiah and
the rest, who also proclaimed their trust in Yahweh, but mean-
while looked out for allies.
Hezekiah, then, together with most of his advisers, was
driven to revolt from Assyria by his love of freedom and his
286 ASSYRIANS IN JTJDAH.
trust in Yahweh's help. For he thought he had secured the
favor of his god by attacking the image- worship, and accord- -
ingly he awaited the approach of the powerful and exasperated
foe, trusting on the one hand to Yahweh's help, which the
prophets had promised him : and, on the other, to the assist-
ance of the king of Egj^pt. Many of his subjects shook their
heads. The sternest preachers of righteousness and the most
earnest prophets, such as Isaiah and Micah, looked for a
judgment on the sins of the people, and on the want of faith
that revealed itself in the alliance with Egypt. The sup-
porters of the ancient half-idolatrous modes of worship were
shocked by the destruction of so many sanctuaries of Yah-
weh, and expected nothing but mischief to come of it. But
meanwhile the mass of the prophets cried exultingly, "Hail
to thee, Israel! Yah web. will root out all thy foes before
thee ! "
Chapter XXVII.
THE ASSYRIANS IN JUDAH.
2 Kings XVIII. 13-XX. 11 .1
FOR the history of the period upon which we are now en-
gaged, we have Assyrian as well as Judsean authorities ;
for it was the custom of ancient kings to perpetuate their
exploits, such as the fortification of cities, the extermination
of wild beasts, or the building of temples, and above all their
warlike feats, in inscriptions on the walls of their palaces,
sometimes adorned with pictures. 2 This custom was followed
by the kings of Ass3 r ria ; and amongst the ancient monuments
of Nineveh which have already been dug out 3 there are cer-
tain inscriptions of Sargon and Sennacherib. We certainly
cannot place implicit reliance on their statements, for the van-
ity of these princes often made them pass over their reverses
in silence and magnify their victories ; but in spite of all this
their inscriptions are of priceless value in supplementing the
meagre accounts of the Judsean historians. For instance,
Sennacherib's inscriptions teach us the extent of the war
against Assyria in which Hezekiah took a part. Phoenicians,
1 2 Chronicles xxxii. ; Isaiah xxxvi.-xxxviii.
1 Compare pp. 124^126, » Compare vol. i. p. 88.
ASSYRIANS IN JUDAH. 287
Judseans, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, and Philistines
had all conspired to throw off the yoke of Assyria, and Egypt
sent numerous auxiliaries to their support. But the maritime
cities, from Sidon to Accho, which had to bear the first brunt,
soon submitted again ; " they stood appalled at the fame of
Ashur, my lord," says Sennacherib. Upon this most of the
princes who had joined the revolt hastened to submit, and
"kissed Sennacherib's yoke." Then Askelon and. several
other Philistine cities were forced to yield, and when Sennach-
erib, "trusting in Ashur, his god," had defeated the Egyp-
tians, Ekron also fell. Hezekiah now withstood the mighty
Sennacherib alone, and he had to pay a heavy price for his
obstinate resistance. The Assyrians took almost all his for-
tified places except the capital itself, so that, to use the graphic
expression of the Assyrian inscription, he " was shut up in
his mighty city of Jerusalem like a bird that is brooding,"
and was so terrified that he attempted to buy off the foe by
sending him an enormous amount of gold, silver, and other
valuables, to raise which he was compelled to lay hands on
the temple treasure, and even to strip off the gold from the
doors and doorposts of the sanctuary. So at least we are
told by the writer of Kings, but by him alone, and the meas-
ure is certainly a strange one. In any case it was of no avail.
Sennacherib felt so profoundly the importance of possessing
the fortress of Jerusalem as a bulwark against Egypt that
nothing would induce him to give up the project of capturing
it. So while he was still besieging Lachish, which probably
lay south of Jerusalem, or just after the fall of that city, he
sent the Tartan, that is the captain of the body-guard, the
Rabsaris or overseer of the keepers of the harem, and the
Rabshakeh or chief «up-bearer, with a strong division of
the army, to demand the surrender of Jerusalem.
The Assyrians encamped on the northern side of the city,
and sent a herald to invite the king to a conference. Heze-
kiah sent some of his chief officers of state to represent him ;
and when they asked what the Assyrian king had to say to
them, the Rabshakeh delivered his message with great anima-
tion and adroitness. "Tell Hezekiah," he said, "that the
great king addresses him thus : What do you trust to, in
resisting me ? It was but an idle word when you said you
had taken j r our course deliberately and were prepared for war !
Come, now, do you trust to Egypt — that broken reed that
will pierce the hand of any one that leans upon it? A firm
support, indeed! Or do you trust in Yahweh, your god;
288 ASSYRIANS m judah.
But is it not he whose bamahs and altars Hezekiah has been
throwing down ? However that may be, my king will lay a
wager with you : he will make you a present of two thousand
horses, if you can find the riders ! How could 3-ou resist the
paltriest of all my master's vassals — for all your confidence
in chariots and horsemen from Egypt? And do you suppose
that I came up to devastate this place without Yahweh? Why,
it was he himself that said to me, Go and destroy the land ! "
Hezekiah's representatives showed how unequal they were tc
cope with the Eabshakeh's shrewdness by their innocent re-
quest that he would speak Assyrian in order that the people
on the wall might not understand ! Upon this he answered,
' ' Do you think my words are only meant for you and for
your king, and not just as much for these people on the wall
who must perish of hunger and thirst?" Then he turned to
the sentinels and all the others who were assembled on the
walls, and cried aloud, "Thus says Sennacherib: Let not
Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot pluck you out of my
hand ! Let him not teach you to trust in Yahweh, as though
he would deliver this city ! "Where are the gods of Hamath
and all those other cities now ? Have they been able to res-
cue their peoples out of my hand ? What can Yahweh do
more than they? Did he rescue Samaria? Listen to Sen-
nacherib's offer : If you will but come over to me, then each
of you can quietly enjoy the fruit of his vine and his fig-tree,
and drink water out of his well, until I take you with me to a
land as rich and fruitful as your own. Hearken not to Heze-
kiah, or you will perish ! "
To all these offers and all this boasting no one answered
a single word, for such were Hezekiah's orders. But many
must have felt their hearts sink wijhin them ; and many
must have asked themselves in sore perplexity whether
Yahweh would, indeed, desert them ! It was true enough
that Hezekiah had overturned a number of his altars ; and,
besides, this king of Assyria was so terribly powerful ! So
many kings had had to yield ! The deep impression made by
the Eabshakeh's speech is evinced by the fact that Hezekiah's
representath es themselves returned to the king with their
garments rent. The Assyrian had told them nothing that
they did not know already, but his words had brought the
dread reality more clearly than ever before them !
Hezekiah himself was so much moved when they con-
veyed Sennacherib's demands to him, that he went straight
to the temple, with his garments rent ; and, in the anguish
ASSYRIANS IN JUDAH. 289
of his heart, despatched some of his officers, together with
certain leading priests, all with their garments rent, to take
this message to Isaiah: "Thus says Hezekiah : this day
we are in dire extremity. Will not Yahweh, your god,
take any heed of the words of scorn which the Babshakeh
has uttered against the living god? "Will he not punish
the Assyrian for it? Oh! pray for the miserable remnant
of the people ! "
In Isaiah they Jiad found the right man. Undaunted as
ever, he answered the king's messengers with words of cheer :
" Tell your master not to fear the blasphemous words of these
servants of the Assyrian king ; for, behold, I will fill him
with terror, says Yahweh, and he shall return to his own land,
and there I will slay him with the sword."
So the Rabshakeh's demand was refused, and he returned
to his king, whom he found no longer encamped before
Lachish, but at Libnah. There Sennacherib soon heard
that Tirhakah of Egypt was approaching with a great army ;
so he made one more attempt to gain immediate possession
of Jerusalem. He wrote a letter to Hezekiah, in which he
pointed out the folly of defying his irresistible forces, and
once more demanded the city.
But as soon as Hezekiah had read the letter he went with
it to the temple, unrolled it before Yahweh's face, and prayed :
" Yahweh, god of Israel, who sittest upon the cherubs, 1
thou alone art god over all the kingdoms of the earth, and
hast made everything. Incline thine ear, O Yahweh, and
listen ! Open thine eyes and see ! Sennacherib has insulted
thee, the living god. The Assyrian kings have indeed laid
waste the lands of the heathens, and have burned their gods,
for they were not gods at all, but mere wood and stone, the
work of the hands of men. These therefore they could
destroy. But now, O Yahweh, our god, deliver us from
Sennacherib's hand, that all the kingdoms may know that
thou, Yahweh, art the only god ! "
This time Hezekiah was far from despondent himself,
but Isaiah nevertheless quickened his courage once more ;
for he sent a messenger to him with the cheering oracle :
" The maid of Zion derides Sennacherib, the daughter of
Jerusalem shakes her head at him. Whom but the Holy
One of Israel has he reproached with his vauntings of all he
has done and how he will conquer Egypt? All that has
happened was ordained by Yahweh ; and because Sennacherib
1 See p. 87.
TOL. II. 13
290 ASSYRIANS IN JDDAH.
waxes arrogant, Israel's god will curb his pride and put him
to shame." Hezekiah must not be downcast, for the fol-
lowing year no hostile army should hinder his subjects from
tilling their land and consuming the produce. The remnant
of Judah should strike root and be fruitful. Salvation should
come from Jerusalem. The jealousy of Yahweh should bring
all this to pass. Nay, the king need not even fear so much
as a siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib. It would not come
to that. He would go back by the way he had come, and
Yahweh would protect Jerusalem for his own glory and for
David's sake.
Isaiah's hopes were not put to shame, for, according to
the historian, that very night the angel of Yahweh smote a
hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the
Assyrians, so that Sennacherib had no choice but to return
with the remnant to Nineveh, where he was murdered by two
of his sons some time afterwards, as he was worshipping the
god Nisroch in his temple. The murderers fled, and Sennach-
erib's brother, Esarhaddon, succeeded him.
What was it that compelled Sennacherib to return in such
haste? The Judsean historian ascribes it to the sword of
Yahweh's angel ; but we have also an Eg}'ptian tradition of
the same event. The Greek historian Herodotus, who visited
Egypt in the middle of the fifth century B.C., tells us that he
heard the following story from the priests : King Sethos was
priest of the god Hephaistos, and greatly despised the warrior
caste, thinking he should never need them. Amongst other
measures he took away the lands which they had obtained
from his predecessors. So when the Assyrian king, Sennach-
erib, marched upon Egypt with a great army, the warriors
refused to go out to battle. This plunged the king into deep
distress, and he went to the temple and lamented his hard
fate with tears before the deity. As he was thus bewailing
himself he fell asleep, and received the cheering announce-
ment in a dream that he need not lose heart ; for, when he
marched against the Assyrians, he should suffer no harm,
since the deity himself would send him auxiliaries. Trusting
to his dream, the prince advanced with all who would follow
him' to Pelusium, where the enemy was already encamped;
but the troops of Sethos were not practised warriors. They
were only hucksters, artisans, and peasants ; but, when he
arrived with them at Pelusium, his god sent a host of field-
mice into the camp of the enemy, and they gnawed at the
quivers and bows and the thongs of the shields with such
ASSYRIANS IN JUDAH. 291
effect that the Assjiians were compelled to flee unarmed the
following day, and many of them were slain. And to this
day, adds the historian, there is a statue of the king, worked
in stone, standing in the temple of Hephaistos, with a mouse
in his hand, and the inscription, "Whosoever looks at me,
let him reverence the god£ ! "
This story furnishes an amusing example of how little these
Egyptian priests comprehended the ancient symbols of theii
religion. The mouse was really the emblem of desolation in
general, or specifically of the plague;, and the story of the
troop of field-mice is nothing but an erroneous explanation
of the mouse in the hand of the king's statue. The Egyptian
king in whose reign Sennacherib was compelled to retreat is
called Sethos here, whereas the Biblical account makes him
Tirhakah. It is not certain, therefore, that the two stories
refer to the same event ; though in other respects they agree
very well, for the mouse was the Egyptian symbol of the
plague, which the Israelites ascribed to the angel of Yahweh. 1
Sennacherib, then, returned to his own country, with an
army thinned by the devastating pestilence ; and there he
closed his boastful inscription by the statement that he had
brought great booty from Judah, as well as other countries,
and that Hezekiah had offered him not only tribute but
renewed submission. This, however, we know to be false.
Hezekiah retained his independence.
The tone in which Isaiah spoke of the Assyrians on this
occasion was very different from that which he had formerly
adopted. No wonder! Though the prophets themselves
cherished the conviction that they received exact information
as to future events by direct revelations from Yahweh, yet
the oracles uttered at different times by the same prophet
show us clearly enough that they spoke, like other men,
under the influence of complex and varied emotions, and that
to them, too, the same event presented itself in a very differ-
ent light, when still in the future and when actually present.
As long as the Assyrians were not in the land, as long as
Judah's enemies and neighbors only were chastised, so long
could Isaiah point to the conquerors as he threatened his own
people with punishment, and paint in living colors the chas-
tisement they would inflict on godless Judah also. But when
it really came to pass, when every day brought fearful news
of the massacres and horrors which accompanied the sack of
cities, when the capital itself was in extremest danger and
1 Compare 2 Samuel xxiv. 16.
292 ASSYRIANS IN JUDAH.
the vaunting words of the Assyrians were passed from mouth
to mouth, then the whole thing assumed a different aspect,
and the prophet began to ask, If Yahweli's hand is heavy
on his people, is that a reason why another nation should do
whatever it will with impunity ? Will not his judgment fall on
Ashur too ? Why should the heathens triumph thus ? Are
they anything but tools in Yahweh's hand? They too shall
fall under his rod ! Then consoling visions of Judah's future
came of themselves to complete the picture.
Such were the thoughts expressed in a prophecy of Isaiah, 1
uttered, in all probability, while Sennacherib's army was still
in Judah. Its substance is as follows : —
" Woe unto Ashur, the rod with which I chastised in
anger ! I sent him against a godless people, and commanded
him to plunder and trample under foot the nation of my
wrath ; but he planned its utter destruction, and the rooting
out of many nations. All my nobles, he saj r s, are kings !
How many mighty cities have I forced to yield ! And is not
Samaria one of them ? Why should I not do to Jerusalem
and her images what I have done to Samaria and her gods ?
But when Yahweh has fulfilled his judgment on Zion, then will
he punish the Assyrian's pride, for he says : ' I gather me the
wealth of all peoples, as one gathers deserted eggs from a
nest, and no one flutters or chirps ! ' He is. but an axe re-
belling against the woodman ; a saw that vaunts its might
against the workman ! Therefore shall Yahweh bring low his
pride ; Israel's light shall be a fire to Ashur, his Holy One
a flame, burning up all these thorns and thistles in a single
day."
" When this comes to pass, then the house of Jacob will no
longer put its trust in Ashur that smote it, but will faithfully
trust in Yahweh. The remnant repents, 2 the remnant of
Jacob turns to God. For though thy people, O Israel ! were
countless as the sand on the sea-shore, the remnant only would
repent, for Yahweh of hosts is .executing a heav}' judgment.
Then fear not Ashur, O nry people that dwellest in Zion ! He
smote thee" with a heavj 7 hand, as Egypt did of old ; but full
soon my wrath will burst over him to destroy him. Yahweh
of war-hosts shakes the scourge over him, as he erst smote
Midian at Raven's Rock." s
' ' But a shoot shall spring from the stock of Jesse ; a fruit-
ful stem shall burst from his root. On him shall Yahweh's
spirit rest, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, of coun-
l Isaiah x. 5-xii = See p. 258. » Compare vol. i. pp. 387, 388.
ASSYBIANS IN JUDAH, 293
sel and might, of knowledge, and the fear of Yahweh. He
shall love the fear of Yahweh, and utter righteous judgment.
The poor and the humble he judges truly ; his sentences shall
hit the mark ; and he slays the wealthy with the words of his
lips. His loins are girt with justice and faith. Then shall
the wolf dwell with the lamb, and the panther lie down with
the Md ; then the ox shall graze by the lion's side, and a little
lad shall pasture them. A cow and a she-bear feed together,
their young ones lie down side by side ; the lion eats straw
like an ox. Then a sucking child shall play by an adder's
hole ; a child thrust its hand into a serpent's nest. In all
my holy mountain shall be nothing that hurts or destroj r s, for
the land shall be full of the knowledge of God, as the waters
cover the bed of the sea."
"In that day shall Jesse's shoot be an ensign for the
heathens ; they shall come to him for instruction and judg-
ment, and his dwelling-place shall be glorious. Then shall
Yahweh redeem the remains of his people a second time, from
Assyria and Egypt and all the lands to which they have been
carried away. He lifts on high a banner, that all the peo-
ples may see ; and from every quarter of heaven he collects
the scattered ones of Israel and unites the exiles of Judah.
Ephraim's jealousy is gone and Judah's restless ones are cut
off. Ephraim envies Judah no more, nor Judah vexes Eph-
raim. But they fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines to-
gether, they plunder the sons of the East ; they lay their hand
upon Edom and Moab, and the sons of Ammon obej' them.
Then Yahweh dries up the Egyptian sea, strikes the Euphrates
and smites it into seven streams, so that men can go over
dry-shod, and there is a path for the remnant of my people
that remains from Assyria, even as in the day when Israel
came out of Egypt."
"Then shalt thou say: I will praise thee, Yahweh, for
though thou wast angry with me, thy wrath is appeased and
thou comfortest me. Behold the god who delivers me, in
whom I trust and tremble not ! For my might and my song
is Yahweh, who hastened to my succor ! Then you shall
drink water out of the wells of salvation, and shall sing :
Praise Yahweh ! Glorify his name ! Proclaim through the
nations his mighty deeds ! Chant psalms to him, for his
name is exalted ! Sing to the glory of Yahweh, for he has
done mighty deeds ! Let it be known throughout all the
earth ! Eejoice and exult, O daughter of Zion ! for great is
the Holy One of Israel in thy midst."
294 ASSYRIANS IN JUDAH.
There is a good deal of Israelitish exclusiveness in these
anticipations ; foi the blessings of the golden age of the future
are specially intended for Israel, and will only be shared by
the heathen in so far as they submit to Israel's ruler. It is
well for mankind that this prediction has never been literally
fulfilled. But nevertheless we are deeply moved, not only by
the prophet's unshaken trust in Yahweh's help and his touch-
ing hope that the hostility between Ephraim and Judah will
disappear, not only by his beautiful description of the great
scion of David's house and the blessings of his rule, but
above all by the central thought of the whole prophecy —
namely, the belief in a golden age in the future. The Greek
and Roman poets sang of a golden age in the past, but ex-
pected the world to grow ever more wicked and miserable in
the future ; and most men are still heathens in this respect,
mourning over a lost paradise and the growing corruption of
the world, and expecting nothing but increasing wretched-
ness. Not so the Israelite believer. He, too, dreamed of a
golden age in the past — the time of David — but he hoped
and trusted in its return. It was this hope that gave him
strength and courage. However defective the form in which
he clothed it may have been, it was itself a gift of God, and
a sign of true nobility of soul.
When Jerusalem was being threatened by Sennacherib,
whether before or after its surrender had been demanded, the
king's life was for a time in great peril. He was dangerously
ill, and the prophet Isaiah came to him in Yahweh's name
with the words of warning : " Set everything in order, for you
are about to die." But Hezekiah had recourse to prayer.
With his face turned to the wall, weeping aloud, he besought
Yahweh to spare his life, and appealed to all that he had done
for the honor of his god. So Yahweh was moved, and before
Isaiah had passed out of the court of the palace, he received
another revelation from his god of very different purport from
the other. Yahweh would restore the king, and that so soon
that on the next day but one he would be able to visit the tem-
ple. He would still live fifteen years, and the city would be
rescued from the hand of the Assyrians. Isaiah went im-
mediately to tell the king of the answer to his prayer, but
Hezekiah could hardly believe it ; and even when the prophet
made the fever instantly abate by laying a bunch of figs upon
the place affected, still he begged for some miraculous sign to
set his doubts to rest, and assure him that he would really
ASSYRIANS IN JTJDAH. 295
visit the temple in three days. Isaiah gave him his choice
whether the shadow on the sun-dial of King Ahaz should
move ten degrees forwards or backwards. Hezekiah chose
the latter, and at Isaiah's prayer the sun went back so far
that the. shadow on the index retreated ten degrees.
It need hardly be said that both Isaiah's accurate announce-
ment of the fifteen 3-ears that still remained of Hezekiah's
life and the miraculous movement of the shadow on the dial,
which would imply a complete revolution in the whole solar
system, are purely legendary. "We can easily guess how such
a story might arise. ' After this sickness in the fourteenth
year of his reign, Hezekiah did actually live for fifteen years,
and when the fact was known nothing could be easier or more
natural than to make Isaiah predict it. Again, the king's
recovery might be poetically described in some such words as
these : As though the sun at close of day were to go back and
pass once more through the hours on the dial, so the king's
life, when hastening to its close, entered upon its course
afresh ; and such a simile might well be transformed by the
legend into the account of a miraculous sign. That Heze-
kiah's recovery was due to his fervent prayer is doubtless a
superstitious conception, but it was perfectly natural at a
time when religious natures, while tracing the hand of God in
disaster and deliverance, failed to inquire into the natural
sequence of cause and effect.
A glimpse into the inner thoughts of a pious man who had
recovered from a sickness in those days, is furnished us by
Hezekiah's song of thanksgiving, which we find in the book
of Isaiah. Its closing lines are as follows 2 : —
O Yahwch ! bitterness, ay bitterness, has turned to raj* salvation !
For thou hast drawn me in thy love from out the pit of destruction,
Since thou hast cast my sins behind thy back.
For the shadow-land praises thee not,
Death glorifies thee not,
Those who are laid in the grave no longer hope in thy truth ;
The living, only the Ih'ing. praise thee,
As I praise thee this day.
The father makes known to his children thy faithfulness.
From these words we see that, if a man grew ill, he at-
tributed it to his sins ; and that Yahweh was supposed to
restore him partly out of love for the sufferer himself, whose
trespasses he threw behind him, that is to say, ceased to re-
gard them and forgave them, and partly for his own glory's
sake, inasmuch as by letting a devout man die, he robbed
1 Isaiah xxxviii. 17-19.
296 ASSYKIANS IN JUDAH.
himself of a faithful worshipper. But in criticising such an
outpouring as this, we must never for a moment forget that
we are not dealing with an intellectual argument, but with an
effusion of the heart.
The close connection which the Israelites, in common with
other peoples of antiquity, imagined to exist between spiritual
and temporal privileges, made them regard every misfortune
as a punishment, and relief from it as a sign of God's for-
giving love. The intensity of this feeling is evinced by many
of the ; r songs. We will give one as a specimen. 1
Bless Yahweh, my soul !
All that is within me, bless his holy name !
Bless Yahweh, my soul !
And forget thou not his benefits ; —
Who forgives all thine iniquities,
Who heals all thy diseases,
Who redeems thy life from death,
And compasses thee with grace and mercy;
Who satisfies thee with all that is good,
And renews thy youth like an eagle's !
Yahweh maintains the right,
And judges truly for the oppressed.
He made known his commands to Moses,
And his deeds to the sons of Israel.
Yaliweh is merciful and gracious;
Slow to anger and plenteous in mercy.
He will not always chide,
Nor keep his anger for ever.
He has not dealt with us after our sins,
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities
For high as the heaven is over the earth,
So great is his favor toward them that fear him;
As far as the East is from the West,
So far has he removed our transgressions from as.
Like as a father pities his children,
So Yahweh pities them that fear him ;
For he knows our frame,
And remembers that we are dust.
The days of man are like the grass,
Like to a field-flower so he blooms ;
When the wind blows over it, it is gone 1
And its place knows it no more.
But Yahweh's favor is from eternity to eternity towards them that
fear him.
His faithfulness to children's children,
If they observe his covenant
And remember to do his commandments.
Yahweh has established his throne in the heavens ;
His dominion spreads over all.
Bless Yahweh, ye his angels, mighty ones!
That do his behest and give heed to his word.
' Bless Yahweh, ye his war-hosts !
That serve him and do his pleasure.
Uless Yahweh, all his works, in all parts of his dominion 1
Bless Yahweh, my soul !
1 Psalm ciii.
ASSYRIANS IN JUDAH. 297
Of course, when Sennacherib left the country it was in a
state of profound misery. Listen to Isaiah's description of
it in one of his exhortations to repentance: 1 "Hear, ye
heavens, and give ear O earth, for Yahweh speaks : ' I have
reared and brought up sons, and they are faithless to me.
The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib ; but
Israel knows nothing, my people is void of understanding.'
Woe to the sinful people, heavy with iniquity, the race of
evil-doers who work mischief ! They have forsaken Yahweh ;
have despised the Holy One of Israel ; have refused to fol-
low him. Where will ye still be smitten, that ye still re-
volt again ? The whole head is sick ; the whole heart faint.
From the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is
not a sound spot ; but all is wounds and bruises and festering
sores, uncleansed, unbound, unraollifled with oil. Your land
is a desert ; your cities are burned down. The produce of your
fields is devoured before your eyes by strangers ; all is laid
desolate as if by a waterspout. The daughter of Zion is still
left, like a hut in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber garden,
like a fortress that commands the district. Unless Yahweh of
war-hosts leaves us a remnant, we shall soon be as Sodom, and
like to Gomorrah." In complete accord with this description
is Isaiah's own judgment on the fruitlessness of his work,
which we considered in speaking of his prophetic call. 2
What Hezekiah did to alleviate the sufferings of his people
we do not know. He fortified and adorned Jerusalem, and
supplied it with fresh water by means of subterranean canals,
as befitted the city which was spoken of in a song which prob-
ably dates from this period, as: "The city of Israel's god,
his holy mountain, fair in its site, the joy of all the land, the
city of the great king, in whose palaces dwells Yahweh, god
of war-hosts." 8 He also waged war with the Philistines and
defeated them along the whole border of their land. But
how much of all this took place before and how much after
Sennacherib's invasion we cannot tell. After Sennacherib's
time the Assyrian kings had enough to do to hold their own
in Assyria, and could pay but little attention to their distant
provinces ; and these provinces themselves were too com-
pletely drained and exhausted to be able to wage any serious
wars against each other.
So Hezekiah's days went on in peace and Judah was
beginning to recover slowly from her disasters, when the
king died and was followed by his son Manasseh.
1 Isaiah i. 2-9. 2 See pp. 349, 250. 8 Psalm xlviii. 1-3, 8.
13*
298 JUDAH UNDER MANASSEH AND AMON.
Chapter XXVHI.
JUDAH UNDER MANASSEH AND AMON
2 Kings XXI. 1
WHEN a religious reformation is accomplished any where
and a step is taken forward, the period of progress is
generally followed by a temporary standstill, or even reaction.
This is very natural ; for' the victory has not been the result
of a universal or even preponderating conviction of the value
of the better principles, but has been the work of some few
men in advance of their surroundings, who have so infected
others with their enthusiasm as to induce many who only
half comprehended their purposes actually to help in accom-
plishing them. And again, the advocates of the old order of
things, who owed their defeat in great measure to their want
of energy and vigilance, are now thoroughly roused by the
fall of the usages and opinions which are dear to them, and
collect their forces to recover the lost ground. And they
have all the better chance of succeeding because the victors,
satisfied with their triumph, are often divided amongst them-
selves, and have not enough concentration of purpose to be
able to offer a successful resistance.
This is exactly what took place in Judah upon Hezekiah's
death. The Mosaic school, which had won its first great
victory in his reign, was forced to succumb under his son
Manasseh. We cannot follow the Israelite historians in
attributing the change entirely to the king himself. He prob-
ably followed the stream of public opinion rather than led
it ; for though the power of an ancient monarch was limited
by no written law, yet his policy was very often determined
for him by circumstances. We have not simply to deal with
Manasseh personally, then, but with the majority of the
people, which maintained its opposition to the Mosaic school
throughout the fifty-five years of Manasseh's reign and the
two years of his son Amon.
No wonder! For Hezekiah's measures must in them-
selves have appeared not only extraordinary but positively
impious in the eyes of many of his subjects. Had he not
destroyed the altars and other sacred objects of Yahweh, and
i 2 Chronicles xxxiii.
JUDAH UNDER MANASSEH AND AMON. 299
abolished the most venerable rites ? And again, the subse-
quent fate of Judah may well have raised a doubt as to
whether Hezekiah's principles were sound. He had hardly
completed his measures before Sennacherib invaded the land ;
and Judah was evidently abandoned by its god. Jerusalem
was indeed delivered. But how? " Like a lodge in a cucum-
ber garden," as Isaiah had too truly said. That saying of the
Rabshakeh's : "How can you trust in Yahweh? Is not he
the god whose altars Hezekiah has thrown down ? " had cer-
tainly given utterance to the thought of manj' a Judsean.
As long as Hezekiah lived the Mosaic party remained at
the helm of state ; but the new ruler followed a different
policy. The oppressed heathenizers, who had reached no
loftier convictions, but had simply yielded to force, now com-
pensated themselves for their sufferings ; and all the rites
which the ancient Israelites shared with the heathens were
soon restored to honor.
Foremost amongst these was the sacrifice of children to
Molech, which was performed in one special place, the
Tophet, in the valley of the son of Hinnom. 1 This valley
stretches along the southern boundary of Jerusalem, and
probably derived its name from some ancient owner or inhab-
itant. The name "Valley of the son of Hinnom" was
afterwards abbreviated into "Valley of Hinnom," 2 or in
Hebrew Ge-Hinnom, ..and this again was corrupted into
Gehenna, and became the designation amongst the later Jews
of the abode of the damned and of the devils. 8 Now in this
valley there was a certain enclosure walled off, and called
"the Tophet," in which stood a number of bamahs, altars,
and images. The meaning of the name is unknown. It was
to this place that the children were brought for sacrifice.
Jewish scholars, long after the beginning of our era, have
represented the children as being burned alive, while the
priests attempted to drown their shrieks with music. But
this is incorrect. The children were slaughtered just like
other victims, and their blood was poured over the sacred
stones. Then the bodies were brought to the image of Mo-
lech, which was probably in human form, with an ox's head,
and its arms stretched ' out before it sloping downwards
towards a hole filled with fire, into which the children rolled
when laid upon the outstretched arms, while music was
played in honor of the deity. These particulars are gatuered
1 See Map IV. 2 Joshua xv. 8, xviii. 16; N/ehemiah xi. 30.
« Compare vol. Hi. pp. 167, 174, 214.
300 JUDAH UNDEB MANASSEH AND AMON.
from the terms in which certain prophets allude from time
to time to this worship, and from the description of an image
of Molech that belonged to the Carthaginians, who were
themselves of Phoenician or Canaanite origin. It is difficult
to make out how far the Judeeans who sacrificed their children
in the valley of the son of Hinnom distinguished between
Molech and Yahwch, and in what relation the worship of the
one stood to that of the other ; but it is certain that these
Molech worshippers frequented the temple of Yahweh, invoked
his name, and thought they were pleasing him when the}
sacrificed their children. Sacrifice to Molech was a part oi
the ancient Israelitish religions, as well as those of Canaan,
and indeed the worship of Yahweh as upheld by the hea
thenizing party was in every respect modelled after that of
Baal, Milcom, Chemosh, and the other gods of the Canaanite?
and surrounding peoples. The straits to which Judah was
reduced in the reign of Ahaz induced that monarch to oflei
one of these frightful sacrifices, 1 and perhaps it was he whc
built the Tophet. Under Hezekiah, the worship there was>
suspended, or at any rate it languished ; but it flourished more
than ever under Manasseh, who led the way himself by sacri-
ficing his first-born son.
The worship of the Sidonian goddess Astarte resulted, like
that of Molech, from the conception of the deity as a stern,
destroying power. Like the worship of Molech, too, it was
closely inter.woven with the heathenish service of Yahweh,
while the Mosaic school included all its usages amongst the
" abominations of the Canaanites." In the Old Testament
itself we find but few allusions to it, but we are pretty well
acquainted with it from other sources. The " consecrated
ones," as the Israelites called them, were men who had mu-
tilated themselves in a fit of religious frenzy, on occasion of
some festival, and then dressed themselves up in women's
clothes, and either ministered at some sanctuary of Astarte,
or wandered about in troops through the land, preceded by
the sound of horns, with an ass in their midst, bearing a
veiled image of the deity and a beggar's wallet. Decked out
themselves in many-colored female garments, with naked
shoulders, and with swords, bill-hooks, and scourges in their
hands, they entered the cities and villages dancing to the
sound of their music. Then a revolting scene took place,
consisting of howling and hideous dances, fierce self-chas-
tisement, wild confessions of guilt, followed by renewed self-
1 Compare p. 241.
JUDAH UNDEK MANASSEH AND AMON. 301
torture, and the whole closed by a collection! "With the
money thus obtained they endeavored to compensate them-
selves, as best they might, for their self-inflicted sufferings.
Side by side with these religious usages, which aimed at
crushing man's physical nature, flourished the Asherah- wor-
ship which consecrated inchastity and encouraged the reckless
indulgence of every lustful passion. 1 In the temple of Yah-
weh at Jei usalcm there were not only ' ' consecrated ones "
such as we have just described, but also priestesses who wove
tents for the Asherah 2 ^hich Manasseh had set up there to-
gether with an image of Baal.
Soothsaying and witchcraft, which always accompanied the
heathen forms of worship, were now diligently practised, es-
pecially under the influence of the Ass3 r rian religion, which
found many adherents in Judah, and especially in Jerusalem,
under the reign of Manasseh. Ever since the time of Ahaz
the Judaeans had been in communication with the Assyrians,
and had therefore become acquainted with their religion ;
more especially since Shalmaneser or Sargon, 8 and subse-
quently Esar-haddon, 4 had recruited the half-depopulated dis-
trict of Israel by colonies of Babylonians, Mesopotamians,
and Syrians, and placed it under Assj'rian governors. Indeed,
all the surrounding districts had felt the influence of the Assy-
rians more or less powerfully, for their armies had shown
themselves everywhere, up to the very borders of Egypt.
Now in their religion the adoration of the heavenly bodies
occupied a foremost place ; and these luminaries were wor-
shipped by sacrifice and all manner of other ceremonies.
Manasseh was a zealcus adherent of these practices, and set
up altars in the two courts of the temple for ' ' all the host of
heaven," especially the Sun-god, the Moon-goddess, or Queen
of heaven, and the five planets. Similar altars were also
raised on the roof of the palace of Ahaz. Nay, there were
even chariots and horses of the Sun kept in the temple. 6 This
adoration of the Sun was all the more offensive to the Mosaic
school because the worshippers, holding a bundle of vine-
twigs to their mouths and facing the East, when paying rev-
erence to the great luminary, turned their backs upon the
sanctuary of Yahweh. 6
Manasseh's desire to show honor to as many gods as possi-
ble extended further yet. Not only were the sanctuaries of
Astarte, Chemosh, and Milcom, which Solomon had built
i Compare p. 113. 2 2 Kings xxiii. 7. 8 2 Kings xvii. 24 ff
* Ezra iv. 2. 6 2 Kings xxiii. 5, 11, 12. • Ezekiel viii. 16.
802 JUDAH UNDER MANASSEH AND AMON.
close by Jerusalem, left undisturbed and probably restored by
Manasseh, but the friendly relations now subsisting between.
Judah and Egypt paved the way for the introduction of the
religious usages of the latter country, until at last they estab-
lished themselves in the very temple itself. Thus the prophet
Ezekiel, when an exile, painted once more the scene he had
so often witnessed of the Israelitish women in the temple-
court bewailing the death of Tammuz, that is Osiris ; 1 and
the same prophet spoke of chambers in the buildings round
the sanctuary, now bricked up but orfce accessible enough,
on the walls of which were depicted all kinds of animals,
quadrupeds, insects, and reptiles, to which incense was
burned. 3
That the example of Jerusalem should be followed by the
other cities was but natural ; Jeremiah indeed repeatedly de-
clares that the Judaeans sacrificed beneath every green tree,
and held licentious festivals upon every lofty hill, 3 that their
gods were as many as their cities, and that they burned in-
cense to Baal in every street of Jerusalem ; 4 and though these
statements are manifest exaggerations, yet the Asherah-wor-
ship was certainly very prevalent, and man}' children were
sacrificed elsewhere than in the valley of Hinnom, the beds
of streams being generally selected for this purpose. 5
Even at this distance of time and with every desire to te
impartial, it is often difficult for us to realize that the mem-
bers of this heathenizing party were not the monsters of
iniquity and licentiousness which their practices would argue
them if judged in the light of our present civilization, but
were men of average feeling and culture, obe3'ing in all sin-
cerity the dictates of the prevalent conceptions of deity. We
can therefore readily understand the horror with which the
leaders of the Mosaic school regarded the customs of their
opponents.
We should be wrong, however, in inferring from all this
that Judah had renounced its allegiance to Yf.hweh. The
preachers of repentance often indignantly repro&ch the people
with having deserted their god, but we can see from their
own words that the accusation was not justified, and that the
very people who took part in all these rites nevertheless swore
by Yahweh, frequented his temple, had a very lofty conception
of its sanctity, boasted of being Yahweh's people, and trusted
in his help for the future. The supporters of the heathen
1 Ezekiel viii. 14. Compare vol. i. pp. 412 ff. 2 Ezekiel viii. 7-12.
8 Jeremiah W- 6 ff., and elsewhere. 4 Jeremiah xi. 13. 5 Isaiah lvii. 5.
JUDAH UNDER MANASSEH AND AMON. 303
practices really believed that their way of worshipping Tah-
weh was the true one.
Now though Manasseh was to some extent following his
own inclination, which was in accord with that of the majority
of his subjects, in favoring the worship of foreign gods and
of images, j r et there can be no doubt that he was also influ
enced by political considerations. In the first place his for-
eign policy pointed in that direction ; for the Mosaic school,
who would have the Judseans worship Yahweh only, were
always disinclined to foster a close alliance with other peoples,
for that made not only hostility but even indifference towards
their gods impossible. A prince who encouraged commerce,
industry, art, and science must of necessity treat the foreign
gods with more or less toleration.
But home as well as foreign policy encouraged Manasseh
in his course ; for a king who favored the Mosaic school was
in great danger of becoming the mere creature of priests and
prophets.
Nothing .feeds a man's ambition like the belief that he is
the representative of the deity or the mediator between man
and God ; hence the spiritual chiefs have in every age grasped
at temporal power, and the superstition of princes and peo-
ples has often crowned their efforts with success.
Now in Judah the foundation of a hierarchy had long
been laid, and indeed it had been considerably developed by
the high position which the Levitical priesthood of Jerusalem
took, and the services which the chief priest Jehoiada had
rendered to the reigning dynasty. 1 It was but natural that
the priests should sedulously build upon this foundation
under the reigns of the successors of Joash. Even the higher
conceptions of God now entertained contributed to the result.
For the more Yahweh was regarded as the infinitely exalted
one, the consuming fire before whom the sinner must tremble,
the higher was the reverence which the believers paid the
priest who could draw near to this dread being with incense
and sacrifice, who could take away the sinner's guilt and
secure forgiveness for his sins, and the wider grew the chasm
that separated the priest from the layman. In ancient times
any one who liked had been allowed to approach or enter the
sanctuary, but gradually this came to be thought unadvisable,
and only the priests were allowed to enter the temple.
According to the Chronicles laymen were forbidden to
i See pp. 178 B.
304 JUDAH UNDER MANASSEtt AND AMON.
enter the sanctuary or to perform any priestly function even
in the reign of Uzziah ; for we are told 1 that that monarch,
made presumptuous by his growing power, transgressed
against Yahweh, and insisted on penetrating into the temple
and burning incense on the altar that stood in the holy place
for this purpose. Vain were the warnings of the chief priest
A zariah, who followed the king into the sanctuary with eighty
other priests and endeavored to restrain him ! In vain did
he cry : "-It is not for thee, Uzziah, to burn incense to Yahweh !
Only the priests, the sons of Aaron, who have been consecrated
to the task, maj 7 perform it. Leave the sanctuary, for thou art
6inning, and it cannot be for thy good in Yahweh's eyes."
Uzziah only grew angry with them, and persisted in his pur-
pose. But when he was in the very act of swinging the
censer and vituperating the priests, all at once the marks of
leprosy appeared upon his brow. The priests gazed at him
in horror ! There could be no doubt that he was a leper.
They hurriedly removed the unclean creature from the sanc-
tuary, and he himself submitted quietly to his fate, for he felt
that Yahweh's hand had smitten him. He remained a leper
to the day of his 'death, and was kept apart, while his son
Jotham governed in his place.
This story is evidently a fiction. It is just like the
Chronicler, who is a priest to the backbone, to make Yahweh
punish a transgression of the priestly laws with leprosy. The
name of " the sons of Aaron," which is here given to the
priests, is of later origin, and indeed the sharp distinction
between priests and laymen is altogether an anachronism
when transferred to Uzziah's time ; for his grandson Ahaz
still sacrificed in the temple with the approbation of the
priests themselves ; 2 nor was the exalted conception of Yah-
weh's being, from which the sharp distinction between priests
and others flowed, at all widely spread, even suppose it
existed, in the daj's of Uzziah.
But if the Chronicler is vastly premature in this as in all
his representations of the usages of worship, he nevertheless
indicates the direction in which things were now moving in
Judah. In early times the princes were often members of
the priesthood, and the king himself performed the functions
and enjoyed the privileges of a priest ; s but now the Levites
of the temple of Jerusalem were gradually forming them-
selves more and more completely into a close caste, from
which even the king was excluded, and which claimed exten-
sive rights and privileges.
i 2 Chronicles xxvi. 16-21. - 2 Kings xvi. 11, 12. » Compare p. 177
JUDAH UNDER MANASSEH AND AMON. 305
Besides the Levitical priests of the temple at Jerusalem,
there were many prophets who maintained the exclusive
worship of Yahweh. We have seen that between the reigns of
Solomon and Amaziah prophecy played but a very secondary
part in the development of Judah's history, and at any rate the
prophets never took the position of popular leaders, as they
did in northern Israel. This was not due to any difference
of aim or disposition between the messengers of Yahweh in
the two kingdoms, but simply to the fact that David's pos-
terity had retained the throne of Judah almost without oppo-
sition, and no great religious conflict had been there fought
out ; but, in the seventh century, a change took place in this
latter respect. The loftier conceptions of the deity, the fresh
life that revealed itself in the literary activity of the pro-
phetic schools, and the growing conviction that Israel was
the chosen people of Yahweh, the only god, could not fail to
stimulate religious enthusiasm in ever}" direction. The battle
against idolatry and image worship, and all that conflicted
with the Mosaic worship of Yahweh, was ever calling fresh
forces into the field.
In many respects priests and prophets stood at the oppo-
site poles ; but when it was a question of defending the purity
of the worship of Yahweh, they joined hands with each other,
and under Hezekiah their united forces had constituted a very
powerful party, which could rely upon the heartiest support
from the king, but laid him under no little restraint. If
Manasseh wished successfully to maintain his independence
in the face of this combination of priests and prophets, he
had no choice but to throw himself into the arms of their
opponents.
Thus the religious convictions of the majority of the
people, combined with the natural desire of the king himself
to shake off the restraints to which the Mosaic school would
subject him, secured to the conservative or so-called heathen
tendencies a speedy triumph.
The heathen school remained at the helm of state through-,
out the reigns of Manasseh and Amon and the early years
of Josiah. So, at least, says the book of Kings. The
Chronicler, on the other hand, informs us that Manasseh
only reigned after this godless fashion at first ; but that when
he and his people refused to listen to the voice of their god,
Yahweh sent the generals of the Assyrian king, and they
took Manasseh captive and led him to Babylon in chains of
806 JDDAH 0NDER MANASSEH AND AMON.
brass. Then, we are told, he prayed in his distress to Yah-
weh, and humbled himself before the god of his fathers, who
suffered himself to be appeased, brought him back to Jeru-
salem, and restored him to his throne. Then Manasseh per-
ceived that Yahweh was god, and not only fortified Jerusalem
but rooted out idolatry. He commanded his people to wor-
ship Yahweh, and they did so. The bamahs were still allowed
to stand, but henceforth Yahweh alone was worshipped at
them.
The Chronicler has certainty derived this story from some
more ancient authority. His mentioning certain writings as
containing the words of the prophets who warned Manasseh,
and even the prayer which the king himself uttered in captiv-
ity, does not go for much. But it appears from the Assj-rian
inscriptions that Manasseh really was a vassal of Asarhad-
don. It is highly improbable, however, that he was ever
taken to Babylon as a prisoner, and certain that he did not
reform the religion of Judah ; for in the first place the book
of Kings has not a word of all this, and the Chronicler him-
self is very vague in his account, neither giving us the name
of the Assyrian king, nor telling us how Manasseh regained
his liberty and was restored to his throne ; and in the next
place, history teaches us that Josiah inaugurated many
reforms which would have been rendered quite superfluous if
his grandfather had already accomplished them.
Moreover, if Manasseh realty repented of his heathenish
proclivities and became an advocate of the exclusive worship
of Yahweh, how comes it that the writer of Kings regards the
fall of Judah as the punishment for Manasseh's' idolatry?
Nor does this writer stand alone. Jeremiah, too, believes
that the fall of Jerusalem was irrevocably decreed in conse-
quence of Manasseh's sin. "Yahweh says to me," he ex-
claims, 1 "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me to
avert my wrath, my heart could no more be moved for this
people. Drive them away, and cast them out of my sight !
And if they say to you, ' Where must we go?' then answer:
Thus says Yahweh : To Death ! those that are fated to death.
To the sword ! those who must fall by the sword ! To famine !
those who must die of hunger. To exile ! those whose fate
is banishment. Four kinds of scourges will I bring upon
them : the sword, to slay ; the dogs, to devour ; the fowls of
the air and the beast of prey, to rend and destroy. I will
make them the sport of the kingdoms of the earth, because
1 Jeremiah xv. 1-6.
JUDAH UNDER MANASSEH AND AMON. 307
of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and be-
cause of his deeds in Jerusalem. "Who would spare thee,
Jerusalem ! Who would pity thee ! Who would turn aside
to ask after thy weal ! Thou hast forsaken me, says Yahweh ;
thou art utterly apostate, wherefore I turn my hand against
thee to root thee out. I have repented, till I am weary, of
my purpose to destroy thee, and now I will repent no moie."
Jeremiah was born during the reign of Manasseh, and if the
king had really pursued a different course at the close of his
life from what the prophet means by " deserting Yahweh," he
could not have helped knowing it. "We are therefore safe in
assuming that the account in Chronicles is a fiction. The
writer doubtless gathered from the fact of Manasseh's reign-
ing prosperously for more than half a century and then
departing in peace, that he must have seen the error of his
ways. Otherwise, how could Yahweh's dealings with him be
justified ?
The Chronicler declares that Manasseh's prayer was to be
found in ancient writings ; and in this connection we may
mention that the so-called Apocrj-phal books of the Old Tes-
tament, which have passed from the Greek translation into
the bibles of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches,
contain what purports to be the prayer of Manasseh. It is
a comparatively recent production.
Manasseh, then, pursued the same policy throughout the
five-and-fifty years of his reign, and his son, Amon, trod in
his footsteps ; but, after a reign of two years only, this prince
was murdered in the palace by some of his courtiers. The
motive to this deed is quite unknown. We have no reason
to suppose that zeal for the service of Yahweh armed the
hands of the assassins. Their purpose, whatever it may
have been was defeated, for " the people of the land" slew
them and crowned Josiah, Amon's son, a boy of eight years
old.
Though there is nothing to justify a suspicion that Amon's
murder was the work of the Mosaic zealots, yet, of course,
they had resisted the triumph of the heathenizing party with
all their might. How could they stand by passively while the
fruits of their victory under Hezekiah were all being snatched
away? And we may well believe that the king on his side
made all who resisted him feel the weight of his hand. In
ancient times the sword was the chief argument by which
conflicting opinions sought a settlement ; and the examples
308 PSALMS AND PROVERBS.
of slaughter set by Elijah and Jehn in Israel, and even to
some extent by Jehoiada in Judah, prevent our judging Man-
asseh too severely, if he persecuted some of the leaders of the
Mosaic school.
" He filled Jerusalem with innocent blood from end to end,"
says the writer of Kings. According to a Jewish tradition,
preserved in the Talmud, Isaiah was one of his victims. If
this is true, the prophet must have been extremely old, for he
began to prophesy in the year of Uzziah's death ; x that is to
say, sixty years before Manasseh's accession. The tradition,
however, is too late to deserve our confidence ; and, if the
writer of Kings had known anything of the matter, he would
surely have recorded it. This special story, therefore, cannot
be accepted ; and if the historian's statement, that all Jeru-
salem was filled with innocent blood, refers to the persecuted
disciples of the Mosaic school rather than to the children sac-
rificed to Molech, it is an obvious exaggeration. But the
faithful followers of Moses must necessarily have had a hard
time of it, and many of them doubtless lost their lives. The
truth of the supposition is confirmed by the terrible vengeance
which they afterwards exacted.
In Israel the Mosaic school had very seldom experienced
the hostility of the monarchs ; and even then it was not veiy
bitter. In Judah they had never been exposed to any serious
attack. It stands to reason, therefore, that Manasseh's per-
secution must have made a deep impression. While the faint-
hearted renounced their convictions, those who remained
faithful clung to their principles more firmly, grasped them
more clearly, and worked them out more consistently than
ever. Here, too, the blood of the martyrs watered the
Church, and the heathenizing school that sowed the wind
would reap the whirlwind.
Chapter XXIX.
PSALMS AND PROVERBS.
Psalms XXII., CIX., XXIX. ; Proverbs I. 7-IX.
NOTHING could be more natural than the conjecture that
some of the psalms reflect the emotions which so many
of the advocates of the exclusive worship of Yahweh must
i See p. 249.
PSALMS AND PKOVEKBS. <$09
have experienced under Manasseh's rule. It is exceedingly
difficult, however, to determine the date of any given poem in
the book of Psalms, for they hardly ever contain any names
or distinct allusions to facts with which we are acquainted,
and their contents are so general as to afford hardly any clew
to their date. We cannot be sure, therefore, which of the
psalms belong to Manasseh's time, and can go no further than
to say of some of them that they may possibly or probably
have been composed at that period, though they may also have
been written one or more centuries later.
For instance, there is nothing to prevent our supposing that
the twent3'-second psalm dates from this epoch. This poem
had a special significance for the first Christians, since they
regarded it as a prediction of the sufferings and death of the
Christ ; and accordingly we find frequent allusions to it in the
Gospel narratives of the crucifixion. For this reason we will
take it as an example, in preference to other psalms, such as
the third, fourth, fifth, eleventh, .twentieth, or twenty-first,
which are in themselves equally appropriate : —
" My god! niy god! why hast thou forsaken me,
Far from my rescue f " — so I complain.
Mv god ! I cry by day, but thou answerest not;
By night, but I find no rest.
Yet thou art the Holy One,
Enthroned on the praises of Israel.
Our fathers trusted in thee ;
They trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
When they cried unto thee, they were rescued;
They built upon thee and were not put to shame.
But I am a worm and no man,
The scorn of men and couteinpt of the people.
All they that see me laugh me to scorn,
Curling the lip and' shaking the beard :
" He trusted in Yahweh ! then let Him rescue him;
Let Him deliver him, since He delights in him ! "
Nay, it was thou that didst bring me to birth,
And didst lay me in peace on my mother's breast;
Thou hast been my protection since first I drew breath,
And as long as 1 live thou art still my god !
Be not far from me, for trouble is nigh,
And there is none to help.
Many bulls have circled me round,
Bulls of Bashan have compassed me ;
Men open wide their jaws upon me,
Like a ravening, roaring lion.
I am poured out like water;
My bones are shaken asunder;
My heart is like wax,
It is melting within me.
Mv throat is dried up like a potsherd ;
My tongue cleaves to the roof of my month;
Thou hast brought me to the dust of death.
310 PSALMS AND PROVERBS.
Nav, I am Burrounded by dogs ;
A band of villains encircles me;
They have pierced my hands and feet ! '
I :an count all my bones.
' My enemies look on and exult in my misery,
They have parted my garments among them,
And cast lots for my vesture.
But thou, Yahweh, be not far!
my strength ! haste thee to help me.
Rescue my soul from the sword.
My life from the power of the dogs ;
Deliver me from the lion's mouth ;
Save me from the horns of the buffaloes !
I will proclaim thy name to my brothers,
And praise thee in the midst of the assembly.
Ye worshippers of Yahweh, praise him!
* Unite in his praise, ye seed of Jacob !
Tremble before him, all Israel's offspring!
The affliction of the afflicted he despises not nor contemns ;
He hides not his countenance from them,
But hearkens to their entreaty.
From thee comes the bliss that I celebrate in the midst of a greal
assembly.
1 will pay my vows in the presence of them that fear thee.
The oppressed shall eat till they are satisfied ;
Yahweh shall be praised by his worshippers,
May their heart live for ever !
All the world shall remember and come back to Yahweh ;
Before thy face shall all nations bow.
For Yahweh is king,
And rules over the heathens.
The great ones of the earth shall be sated, and bow before him,
The humble shall all bend low,
The offspring of the destroyed shall serve him. 2
They shall tell of the Lord to remote generations.
They shall come and declare his righteousness,
His deeds to a new generation.
The expounders of this and of many other psalms have
often been much perplexed to determine whether the poet is
speaking of himself only, or whether he lays his lamentations
upon the lips of the suffering community. On the one hand,
the poet seems to give utterance to the intense individual suf-
fering which he himself has endured ; and on the other hand,
he rises so completely out of the sphere of personal consid-
erations when he indulges his expectation of the general tri-
umph of the worship of Yahweh, that we completely forget
both him and his sorrows. The most natural explanation of
all this is to suppose that the poet when persecuted for his
faith, knowing that his lamentations were not his alone, and
sympathizing with all who suffered in the same cause, de-
scribed their bitter experiences under the type of his own.
His sufferings and those of his brothers were the sufferings
1 The translation is very uncertain. 2 The translation is doubtful.
PSALMS AND PROVERBS 311
of all the devout, the whole community of Yahweh's faithful
worshippers ; and his deliverance would be the triumph of his
god. This peculiarity gives to manj- of the psalms all the
warmth which belongs to personal outpouring's of the heart,
while preserving a generality of application which makes
them suitable for every age and for individuals and com-
munities alike.
But this identification of the poet's personal desires with
the honor of God carries with it one great danger which the
psalmists did not escape. If their cause was the cause of
their god, then their enemies were the enemies of Yahweh,
and thej' had not the smallest scruple in cherishing the bit-
terest hatred of them. To love one's enemies was a virtue
the glory of which was sometimes l perceived in antiquity, but
very rarely. Not only was the rule, " Love jour friends and
hate your enemies," subject to few exceptions, but to span 1
an enemy would, generally speaking, have been decried as
pusillanimous. Must not the relative of a murdered man
pursue the murderer and avenge his kinsman's blood ? It was
his sacred duty. The right of reprisal was a legal, nay, a
divine privilege. Yes, divine ! for Yahweh himself exercised
it, in requiting every man according to his deeds. Nowhere
is this proposition laid down more sharply, I had almost said
more offensively, than in the following verses of a psalm 2 :
Yahweh has recompensed me for my virtue,
Rewarded me openly for the cleanness of my hands.
For to the merciful thou art merciful,
And upright to the upright man ;
To the faithful thou art faithful,
Perfidious to the false.
For thou dost save the afflicted people
And humble the eyes of pride.
Extraordinary as the assertion sounds thaj Yahweh himself
deceives the deceitful man, it is no more than is contained in
the proverb, 8 —
Yahweh's curse is on the house of the godless,
But the dwelling of the just he blesses.
For he will mock the mockers,
But show grace to the oppressed.
The conception of the Divine nature which underlies these
and other such utterances sanctions and almost hallows the
hatred of Yahweh's foes. The feelings expressed in the fol-
i See Exodus xxiii. 4, 5 ; Proverbs xxv. 21, 22.
z Psalm xviii. 24-27 ; 2 Samuel xxii. 25-28. 8 Proverbs in. 33, 34.
312 PSALMS AND PKOVERBS.
lowing lii.es 1 were permissible and even imperative upon the
Israelite : *-
Should not I hate them that hate thee,
And abhor them that oppose thee?
I hate them with intensest hatred;
I hold them for my foes.
Hence many poems, such as Psalms v., lviii., lix., lxix.,
cxxix., cxxxvii., are disfigured by expressions of bitter
hatred. Indeed they are sometimes so full of them that they
may well be called the " psalms of cursing." We give as an
example a portion of a psalm, which, if not itself written in
Manasseh's time, is probably an imitation of a poem of that
period 2 : —
God, whom I praise, be not silent !
The mouth of the godless, the mouth of deceit, is opened against me;
They speak to me with deceitful tongue,
Words of hatred surround me,
They attack me without a cause.
In reply to my love they assault me,
While I am ever praying. 8
Thev repay evil for good,
Hatred instead of love.
Set a godless man in power over him,
And let an accuser be ever near him !
When sentence is given may he be condemned;
May his prayer be counted as sin '
May his days be few !
May another man take his post !
Let his sons be orphans,
His wife a widow !
May his children wander about as beggars,
And seek bread, far from their ruined home !
And in this strain the poet goes on till his curses at last
melt into lamentations and prayers for deliverance.
So lamented and cursed, so prayed and sighed, full many
an oppressed disciple of the Mosaic school, while Manasseh
and Anion reigned.
However great the interest which most of the Judaeans felt
in these contested questions, there was at least one circle of
religious thought which was almost unaffected by them. What
had the sacrifices to Molech or the worship of asherahs, the
feasts of new moon and the adoration of images, to do with
the revelation of God in Nature? To the more cultivated
members of either party, but especially to the reformers, Yah-
weh was the god of gods', the creator of heaven and earth,
1 Psalm cxxxix. 21, 22. 2 Psalm cix. 1 ff.
8 The translation is very doubtful.
PSALMS AND PROVERBS. 313
the god who revealed his glory in the thunder-storm and the
sunshine, the rain and the whirlwind. In the book of Psalms
we still find some few songs which celebrate Yahweh's great-
ness as revealed in Nature. It is, of course, impossible to
assign their exact date, but they may have been written at
any time after the Israelites. had learned to believe that Yah-
weh was the god of the heavenly hosts, and that the visible
creation was the scene upon which he revealed his power.
They may date from any period after the eighth .century,
therefore.
Let us take as an example a poem whose author does not
seem as yet to have risen to the conception of God's unity ;
for in the first verse he addresses the sons of the gods, whicb
must mean either angels or subordinate deities, — but the ex-
pression is too obscure to warrant any confident deductions.
The poem in question is Psalm xxix. : —
Praise Tahweh, O ye sons of gods,
Give Yahweh praise and glory !
Give Yahweh the honor due to his name,
Bow before Tahweh in sacred apparel !
Yahweh's voice is upon the waters : the glorious god is thundering.
Yahweh's voice rolls o'er the waters of heaven.
Yahweh's voice is mighty ;
Yahweh's voice is full of majesty.
The voice of Yahweh breaks the cedars ;
Ay ! Yahweh shatters the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes them leap, — Mount Lebanon like a bull,
And Hennon like a buffalo.
Yahweh's voice flashes flames around it. ,
Yahweh's voice makes the desert tremble,
Yahweh makes the desert of Kadesh shudder,
Yahweh's voice makes the hinds cast their young.
Yahweh's voice strips the bark from the forest.
In his heavenly palace all cries : Glory !
Yahweh enthroned him on mighty waters,
Still Yahweh is throned there, as king eternal !
Yahweh will give his people might;
Yahweh blesses his people with riches.
"We have not many of these psalms of Nature. Psalm civ.,
which is too long for insertion here, and was probably com-
posed at a later date, contains a very poetical description of
Yahweh's glory. He is enthroned in heaven ; he makes the
winds his messengers and the lightning flashes his servants ; a
he has created the earth and all that is on it, 2 and has sus-
tained man and beast ever since. — Why could not the poet
who adapted this song for the temple service rest content with
such a celebration of Yahweh's glory? "Why must he add
these words at the close : —
i After an amended version of v. 4. * Compare vol. i. pp. 84-36.
VOL. n. 14
814 PS AIMS AND PKOVERBS.
The sinners shall be destroyed from the earth;
The godless shall be there no more.
Praise Yahweh, my soul !
Hallelujah!
No doubt a considerable number of songs and many Israel-
itisli myths have been lost to us in consequence of the feeling,
very laudable in itself, that Yahweh's revelation in Nature was
as nothing compared with his glory displayed in the Law. 1
In the first part of Psalm xix. 2 we still possess the fragment
of an ancient psalm of Nature ; and the grandeur of its open-
ing lines shows that its author was no ordinary poet : —
The heavens declare the glory of God,
The firmament heralds the work of his hands ;
Day upon day pours forth instruction,
Night upon night bears witness.
Unfortunately, some of the lines that follow are obscure
and unintelligible, while the last half of the psalm is a glo-
rification of Yahweh's law, which evidently had no connection
whatever with this psalm of Nature.
We have often observed already that the Israelites, like
every one else, conceived their god after their own likeness,
and ascribed to him whatever the}' regarded as most noble
and glorious in man. The level of culture which they had
reached at any period was reflected in their conception ol
their god. At a low stage, when the pleasures of sense were
supreme, they described Yahweh as eating and drinking, put
into good humor by the pleasant smell of a sacrifice, and
made merry by wine. 8 When prowess in battle was held to
be the greatest virtue, Yahweh became a mighty warrior,
brandishing his sword and spear, and rushing upon the foe
with a war-cry like the lion's roar. The stern moralist, on
the other hand, saw in Yahweh a being of moral holiness and
of strictest justice, rewarding every man according to his
work ; and tender hearts would sometimes rise to the thought
of Yahweh's pitying love. The proverb-makers or " sages,"
for their part, saw in him the perfection of wisdom, the god
who had deliberately adapted everything to its purpose.
This is especially exemplified in a section of the book of
Proverbs, 4 which was, perhaps, written in the age of Manasseh.
It does not consist, like the other portions of the book of
Proverbs, in unconnected sayings, but is one continuous dis-
course. It is a very earnest exhortation to a moral life, a
1 Compare vol i. pp. 423, ■124. i Vv. 1-6.
• Judges ut. 13. * Proverbs i. 7-ix.
PSALMS AND PROVERBS. 815
warning against murder, theft, contentiousness, dishonesty,
sloth, and, above all, inehastity and adultery. To this last
point the writer constantly reverts.
His view of the connection between piety and wisdom is
characteristic. He regards the fear of Yahweh as the first
step on the path of wisdom, and Wisdom herself as the most
glorious possession that can fall to man. He introduces her
as speaking thus 1 : —
Come now, children ! hearken to me.
Blessed are they who abide on my paths !
Hear my instruction,
That you may be wise and not unrestrained.
Blessed is the man that hearkens to me,
Daily attending m)' gates
And keeping watch at my door-posts 1
For whoso finds me, he finds life
And gains the favor of Yahweh.
But he who sins against me wrongs his very soul;
And whoso hate me, they love death.
Wisdom is Yahweh's possession also. It was with her help
that he formed the world. 2
Yahweh established the earth by wisdom
And reared the heavens by understanding.
By his knowledge the oceans break through
And the clouds drop down with dew.
Just as the writer personifies Wisdom, and makes her
exhort mankind by means of her friends who sit in the gate
of the city, so he also makes her boast that she stood bv
Yahweh's side when he created the world. 3
Yahweh possessed me when he began his work,
Before he made anything, even of old.
* From eternity was I anointed,
From the beginning, before the world was.
When the oceans were not, was I born,
When there were no gushing springs,
Before the mountains had gained their foundations.
Before the hills, was I born.
No corn land or pastures were made as yet,
Nor the masses of earth that form dry land ;
When he made the heaven I was with him,
When he stretched its vault athwart the chasm;
When he hung the clouds above
And the springs burst forth from the depth ;
When he set its bounds to the sea, that its waters should not
mount over its shores,
And established the pillars of earth :
Then was I with him as an artificer,
His delight day after day,
Rejoicing with him always.
And now I sport on the face of earth
And rejoice- with the children of men.
Proverbs viii. 32-36. 2 Proverbs iii, 19, 20. » Proverbs viii. 22-31.
316 PSALMS AND PROVERBS.
The meaning of the last lines appears to be that YaLweli
always took pleasure in that "Wisdom which now spreads delight
through the world, and whose joy it is to make men happy.
But whatever the precise meaning of this representation of
Wisdom may be, wt should certainly be wrong in looking for
any philosophical conception underlying it. It has, indeed,
given rise to many speculations, but it is nothing itself more
than a poetical personification. The Wisdom which stood by
Yahweh's side at the creation is the same that exhorts man-
kind and leads them on to life.
This work, like the psalms of Nature, is entirely free from
allusions to any religions contest. The fact may very fairly be
urged as an argument that it is of later origin than we have
supposed, and was written when the conflict was already
over ; but the inference is far from being as certain in the
case of these sages as it would have been in the case of proph-
ets or priests. From Solomon's time onwards the tenden-
cies of the " wise men " had been broadly human rather than
especially Israelitish ; and though not opposed to religion,
they had always insisted upon morality and a sensible mode
of life rather than upon sacrifices and all the accompaniments
of religious worship.
But now a certain change may be observed. The con-
ception of Yahweh's being had become very exalted, and he
was reverenced as the creator of the world and the ruler of
the fates of men ; the sages, therefore, might easily bring the
recognition of his power into connection with their principles
of the conduct of life. Now that religion had become more
reasonable the sages grew more religious. The writer of
Proverbs i. 7-ix. even utters the following exhortation * '. —
Honor Yahweh with your substance,
With the first-fruits of all your increase ;
Then shall your barns be filled with plenty,
And your presses shall overflow with wine.
But it was still the exception for the " wise men" to turn
their attention to such things. No doubt these preachers
of morality often looked down with a kind of contempt upon
the zealots and fanatics who contended so eagerly about the
best forms of worship.
i l'roverbs iii. 9, 10.
BEGINNING QF JOSIAH'S REIGN. 317
Chapter XXX.
THE BEGINNING OF JOSIAH'S REIGN.
2 Kings XXH. 1, 2 ; ' Jeremiah I.-II. 18.
HEZEKIAH'S religious reformation had been the work of
the king rather than of the people ; but during the rule
of Manasseh and Amon the principles of the Mosaic school
took deeper and deeper root, while its members looked with
ever-growing indignation upon the prevalence of heathen
practices. Though their mouths were still closed by fear,
they were nevertheless plotting the best means of rooting out
all these idolatries and abominations. A storm was evidently
gathering.
In ancient times the very religion of a people depended
to an almost incredible extent on the line of action taken by
its king ; and it was only natural that, as soon as Josiah
ascended the throne, the followers of Moses should fix their
eyes upon him with extreme anxiety, and ask what the new
rule would yield. Josiah, however, was but eight years old ;
and it would seem that the regent, who held the reins of the
State during his minority, either sympathized with the con-
servatives or, at least, shrank from taking the vigorous
measures which a thorough religions reformation would de-
mand. The reformers, therefore, were compelled to bide
their time ; but their zeal burned all the hotter, and, when
the smothered flames of their faith and hate should at last
break out, they would rage all the more fiercely.
Meanwhile they became more and more clearly conscious
exactly what they wanted and how they meant to get it.
First of all, they were determined absolutely to put down
both the service of all gods but Yahweh and the worship of
images. These two points were embraced in the current
version of the Ten Commandments under one great precept :
"Thou shalt not worship any gods beside me, Yahweh, nor
shalt thou make thyself any image of a god of any form
whatsoever, nor bow down before it ; for I, Yahweh, am a
jealous god. and visit the sins of those that hate me, from
father to son, to the third and fourth generation, but show
mercy to them that love and obey me to a thousand genera-
i 2 Chronicles xxxiv. 1-3.
318 BEGINNING OP JOSIAH'S REIGN.
tions." ' Moreover, the reformers were determined to suppress
and abolish whatever they regarded as of Canaanitish origin ;
such as anointed stones, asherahs, images of the sun, sacri-
fices of children, and unchaste religious customs. This was
equivalent to carrying out the important measures towards
the accomplishment of which Hezekiah had already taken
certain steps. The reformers now required that they should
be carried out inexorably. The freedom of religious usages
must be laid under close restrictions. Henceforth there must
be but one place of worship, the temple on Mount Zion, and
every sacrifice offered elsewhere must be branded as a hea-
thenish abomination. The priesthood, too, must be confined
henceforth to Levi, the tribe to which the influential servants
of the temple of Jerusalem belonged.
We need hardly ask who took the foremost part in the
reformation of the seventh century. The Levitical priest-
hood furnished the leading spirits round whom the others
gathered, and were the boldest champions of the reformation.
Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, who was the greatest prophet
of the succeeding period, and a stout supporter of the refor-
mation, was himself a priest of the temple at Jerusalem ;
but he was far from surrendering himself to the guidance
of his colleagues, and complained that the preaching of the
prophets altogether tended to establish the supremacy of the
priests. 2
Throughout the first eighteen years of Josiah's reign the
reformers were compelled to bide their time. No doubt it
became ever clearer that the king was in sympathy with
them ; but as j'et he took no decisive steps to give effect to
their wishes. According to the book of Chronicles, indeed,
he not only began to seek the god of his father, David, when
he was sixteen years old, but vigorously prosecuted the reform
of Judah's religion from the twelfth year of his reign. But
this assertion is obviously false ; for the discovery of the book
of Yahweh's Law, which the book of Kings represents as the
proximate cause of the reformation, is strangely out of place
in the story of the Chronicler, where it is not mentioned
until the whole affair has long been settled. ,
Let us now glance at the political condition of Judah in the
fiiat years of Josiah's reign.
Under Manasseh and Anion the country had already begun
to recover from the disastrous wars against Assj'ria; and
1 After an amended version. a Jeremiah v. 31.
BEGINNING OF JOSIAH'S REIGN. 319
■ Josiah seemed to have a fair chance of considerably extend-
ing its power. From Assyria he had nothing to fear, for
the former mistress of the world was now tottering to her
fall. The powers of Media and Babylonia had laid siege to
Nineveh, and the king was compelled to leave his distant
provinces to their fate.
When we remember Isaiah's denunciations of the Assy-
rians and their pride, we may well conceive the feelings
with which the Judaeans heard that their mortal foes were
now surrounded by deadly peril. The prophecy of Nahum
gives powerful expression to their joy in Nineveh's humilia-
tion. We cannot tell exactly when this man of God uttered
his oracles, but it was certainly after Sennacherib's defeat,
and not improbably during the siege of Nineveh by the
Medes and Babylonians. " See ! there upon the mountains
comes the messenger of joy," he cries to his countrymen,
" the bearer of glad tidings drawing near ! Now celebrate
your feasts, O Judah ! and perform your vows, for henceforth
the man of Belial shall no more pass through you. He is
utterly destroyed ! " ' The prophet compares Nineveh to a
lion's den full of plunder ; but Yahweh will snatch all her
plunder from her, and burn her chariots. 2 She was a city of
blood, full of lying and violence, but Yahweh would put her
to utter shame and none should pity her. 8 "The shepherds
thou hast appointed, O king of Ashur, shall slumber, and
thy princes shall lie down in sleep ; thy people shall be scat-
tered on the mountains, and no one shall gather them again.
Thy bruises shall not be healed, and thy wound is grievous.
All they that hear of it clap their hands for very joy, for
whom hast not thou afflicted?" 4 Whenever these words
were uttered, they undoubtedly reproduced the feelings with
which the Judaeans heard of every disaster that fell upon
Assyria.
From the South Judah had more to fear ; for Psammeti-
chus had become king of the whole of Egypt, after the land
had been divided for a considerable time amongst twelve
monarchs, and this powerful and warlike king aimed at
extending his territory at the expense of his north-eastern
neighbors. But he had already been besieging the Philis-
tine city of Ashdod in vain for years, and though his power
may have occasionally caused the king of Judah some un-
easiness, yet the people gradually became accustomed to
having the Egyptian army in their neighborhood, and the
l Nahum i. 15. » lb. ii. 12, 13, a lb. iii. 1, 6, 7. 4 lb. iii. 18, 19.
320 BEGINNING OF JOSIAH'S REIGN.
obstinate resistance offered by Ashdod went far towards al-
laying their fears.
Josiah, therefore, reigned in peace, and no threatening
danger gave the Mosaic enthusiasts occasion for insisting on
the reform they longed for. As long as the people basked in
prosperity, Yahweh must surely be content. "What more
could heart desire than peace and prosperity ? To borrow a
metaphor employed by a prophet of those days, the people
were like wine standing untapped upon its lees. They mut-
tered carelessly, "Oh! Yahweh never does anything, good
or bad ! " 1
But strange and fearful rumors suddenly arose in Judah.
Nineveh was delivered and the king of the Medes defeated —
not by the Assyrians, however, but by a people utterly un-
known before. They were the Scythians, and their countless
hordes of horsemen, armed with lance and bow, streamed
over Asia, plundering and devastating on every side. About
the eighteenth year of King Josiah, they were pressing on
further and further, and spreading terror and consternation
everywhere.
These events caused the rise of several prophets in Judah.
One of them was the man from whom we borrowed a few words
but now. His name was Zephaniah ; his great-great-grand-
father was called Hezekiah, 2 and was probably the king of
that name. We still possess one of his oracles, or rather a
collection of short discourses, the connection of which it is
often difficult to make out, on account of the sudden tran-
sitions from the most violent denunciations of punishment to
the most glorious promises. Probably Zephaniah had his
eye upon the Sc3'thians when he thus described the great day
of. Yahweh's judgment: 8 "A day of wrath, of trouble and
distress, of fierceness and of desolation ; a day of gloom and
darkness, of clouds and obscurity ; a day when the trumpet
shall sound against all fortresses and turrets. Then will I
bring trouble upon men, and they shall grope upon their way
like the blind, because thej T have sinned against Yahweh.
Their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as
dung. Neither shall their silver or their gold deliver them
in the day of Yahweh's wrath ; but the whole land shall be
devoured by the fire of his vengeance, for he shall make an
end speedily of all the dwellers in the land."
The prophet draws an appa'ling picture of Jerusalem's
wickedness. 4 " Woe to the abominable and polluted fine, the
1 Zephaniah i. 12. 2 Zephaniah i. 1.
8 Zephaniah i. 15-18. * Zephaniah iii. 1-5.
BEGINNING OF JOSIAH'S REIGN. 321
city of oppression ! She has not hearkened nor taken warn-
ing ; she trusted not in Yahweh nor took refuge with her god.
Her princes within her are as roaring lions ; her judges as
wolves ravening at even, and leaving nothing for the morning ;
her prophets are vile and deceitful ; her priests desecrate that
which is holy and despise the Law. Yahweh is righteous in
her midst ; he does only what is just. Every morning he
brings his justice to light and never fails. But the evil-doer
is past all shame." It could not be but that Yahweh would
chastise them fearfully. "Wait, then!" cries the prophet. 1
'" Thus saith Yahweh : My sentence is to collect the heathen
and draw the kingdoms together, to pour out my anger
upon you and show you my burning wrath." But all
these fearful judgments were destined to compel the heathen
to serve Yahweh " with united shoulder," that is, unani-
mously. Then the proud ones shall be taken away, and a
people shall be left, poor and wretched, but resting upon Yah-
weh's name. The remnant of Israel shall do no wickedness
and speak no falsehood. Then they shall lie down as peacefully
as cattle chewing the cud, and none shall make them afraid.
" Kejoice, O daughter of Zion ! shout for joy, Israel ! Be
glad with all your heart and leap for joy, O daughter of Jeru-
salem ! Yahweh has removed your sentence and chased away
your foe. Yahweh, the king of Israel, is in the midst of
thee, and thou shalt have no more misery. Then shall they
say to Jerusalem : Fear not, O Zion ; let not thy hands be
slack ; Yahweh is in thy midst, a mighty one to deliver thee.
I will preserve thy tottering ones, and bring back thy exiles,
and make thee the marvel of all nations."
The triumphant glow of the conclusion follows strangely
upon all these gloomy predictions ; and we can hardly help
asking whether the prophet accurately reproduced what he
had said when he committed his oracles to writing. In any
case, however, Zephaniah, in spite of all his indignation
against the sins of Judah, and his firm conviction that Yah-
weh would not leave them unpunished, yet cherished an un-
shaken faith that Judah would never be destroyed, and that
Israel's god would be honored at last by all the heathen.
"We have just expressed a doubt as to whether the written
versions of the prophets' discourses always agreed with what
they had actually said. We can justify this doubt by an
appeal to the history of the oracles of one of the' greatest
i Zephaniah iii. 8 ff.
322 BEGINNING OF JOSIAH'S REIGN.
men that Judah ever produced, — the prophet Jeremiah. His
fortunes are so close!} - interwoven with those of his people,
and his prophecies are so rich a source of information con-
cerning the times in which he liVed, that we cannot record
the history of the last half century of Judah's existence with-
out constantly referring to him. We shall therefore presently
know more of him, but just now we have chiefly to do -with
the history of a portion of his oracles.
Our knowledge of this history by no means increases our
confidence in the accuracy with which he has passed down
his utterances to us ; for it was not till three-and-twenty
years after the beginning of his prophetic activity that he
committed the substance of his preaching to writing, in order
that it might be read aloud. The roll of his prophecies was
afterwards completely burned, upon which he wrote them
down again ; a but of course the best memory in the world
would not enable a man to reproduce the very words that he
had uttered upon all manner of occasions during nearby a
quarter of a century. Altered circumstances, views, and
feelings could not but make the prophet color the distant
past afresh, and involuntarily bring it into closer harmony
with the requirements of the public he had in view, not when
he uttered, but when he recorded his oracles. Thus it hap-
pens that we cannot say for certain whether he referred to
the Scj-thians or the Chaldoeans when he threatened his
people with an enemy from the North. When he wrote, he
was doubtless thinking of the Chaldseans ; but in the reign of
Josiah, when he spoke, this people was almost if not quite
unknown in Palestine ; and Jeremiah can hardly have referred
to any other power than that of the Sc3'thians.
The greater part of the first twelve chapters of his book
probably dates, in substance, from the times of Josiah. We
could almost guess its contents from what we have already
seen of the works of other prophets, for there is great uni-
formity in the conceptions of the men of God of the eighth
and seventh centuries. The judgment which must come upon
the people's dreadful sins occupies the foreground ; and in
the background there is always a joyous future in which the
people shall return to Yahweh and enjoy prosperity. Upon
this picture of bliss a stronger or fainter right is thrown, ac-
cording to whether the prophet thinks a greater or smaller
portion of the punishment has been inflicted already.
Jeremiah, however, is distinguished from almost all his
1 Jeremiah xxxvi. ; compare v. 1 with xxv. 3. See also xxxvi. 32.
BEGINNING OF JOSIAH'S KEIGN. 323
colleagues hy his lofty conception of Yahweh's moral demands
and his intense indignation with the people's sins, which
compelled him to appear for the most part as a preacher of
repentance.
This impression is strikingly reproduced in the account he
gives of his own call to the prophetic office : 1 " The word of
Yahweh came to me : ' Before I had formed you in youi'
mother's womb I knew you ; before you were born I had
sanctified you, and appointed you as a prophet over the
heathen.' Then I said, ' Alas, Lord Yahweh ! I cannot speak,
for I am still so young.' But he said to me, ' Say not, I am
too young, for j'ou must go whithersoever I send you, and do
whatsoever I command you. Be not afraid of them, for I
am with you to deliver you.' Then Yahweh put forth his
hand and touched my mouth and said, ' Behold ! I put my
words upon your lips ; I set you this day over the heathens,
and over the kingdoms to pluck up and destroy, to lay waste
and to desolate, and also to build up and plant.' And after-
wards Yahweh spoke to me again, and asked me what I saw ;
upon which I answered, ' I see a kettle boiling, and its spout
is turned from the North.' Then Yahweh said, ' From the
North shall come affliction upon all the dwellers in this land ;
from the North, at my command, shall many princes come
and set their thrones before the gates of Jerusalem, and be-
siege her walls and all the cities of Judah. Then will I
bring judgment on the men of Judah for all their sins, for
they have forsaken me and burned incense unto other gods
and bowed down before the work of their own hands. Do
thou, then, stand up and gird thyself and say to them all that
I command. Be not afraid nor tremble before them, for I
strengthen you this day like a fortress, like an iron pillar,
like a brazen wall, against all the land, against kings and
princes, against priests and people. They will contend
against you, but will not prevail ; for I, Yahweh, am with
you to deliver you.'"
In the case of Jeremiah's call, as in that of Isaiah's, 2 we
must bear in mind that the prophet is not giving an exact
description of something that took place at a given moment,
but the substance of what he could remember of his mental
experiences before he had found courage to begin his work as
a prophet. This vision of the caldron boiling over is just
one of those artificially-constructed productions of which we
have already spoken, 3 and may serve as a proof that Jeremiah
1 Jeremiah i. 4r-19. 2 See pp. 249, 250. » See po. 226 S.
324: BEGINNING OF JOSIAH S KEIGN.
Is not simply relating his actual experiences. How could he
have done so ? A man of such deep emotional nature, who
made such lofty claims upon himself and others, must doubt-
less have hesitated long before he became a prophet. Not
once, but often, he must have heard the word of Yahweh, " I
have chostn you to be a prophet; " not once, but often, he
must have answered, ' ' Lord ! I am too young ! " until at
last he could no longer resist the overmastering impulse, and
was fully persuaded of Yahweh's mighty support. Nor were
there any questions under discussion when he began to
preach, in which numbers of heathen nations were involved,
so that he was not at first what he here describes himself,
a prophet for the heathens, though he became one in the
aecond part of his career ; and, finally, he must surely have
begun his work with brighter expectations, or at least bettei
hopes than we can trace in this account of his call.
But if the story does not faithfully reproduce the prophet's
experiences on taking up his office, it exactly reflects the
spirit of his work in the interval between the thirteenth ] and
seventeenth years of Josiah, as well as afterwards. In spite
of his naturally tender and almost over-sensitive disposition,
he was severe and stern in the extreme, for he looked upon
Judah as the nation of apostates. Ah ! when Israel was
young and served Yahweh in the wilderness, it was a holy-
people that loved its god, and all they who would injure it
were punished ; but now Yahweh must ask the Israelites what
wrong he had done to their fathers that they should worship
idols. They had polluted Canaan, the land of Yahweh.
The priests asked not, "Where is Yahweh? and the men
learned in the law knew him not. The shepherds of the
people rebelled against him, and the prophets prophesied
through Baal, and indulged in idle dreams. Had such a
thing ever been before? No people in the world had ever
changed its gods, even though they were but idols! "Be
amazed, heaven! My people has done two evil deeds.
They have deserted me, the fountain of living water, and
they have hewn out for themselves broken cisterns that can
hold no water ! " 2 Ashamed, like a thief that is caught,
stood the house of Israel, with its kings and princes, priests
and prophets, for they said to an image of wood, Thou art
my father ! and to a god of stone, Thou hast created me !
while they turned their backs to Yahweh. 3 Had not Judah
seen how the faithless Israel had practised idolatry upon
l Jsremiah i. 2. 2 Jeremiah ii. 1-13. » Jeremiah ii. 26, 27
BEGINNING OF JOSIAH'S KEIGN. 325
ever j high hill and under every green tree, and had not
repented though Yahweh exhorted her so often? Yes, she
had seen ! And had seen, moreover, how Yahweh had re-
jected his people for its sins, and yet for all that she had not
repented, but had likewise become enamoured of the images. 1
Dire was the extent of Judah's idolatry ; she had as many
gods as cities, as many altars as there were streets in Jeru-
salem j 2 and the Queen of Heaven was publicly adored to
provoke Yahweh's wrath. 3
The position which Jeremiah occupies, and from which
he judges the religious condition of his people, is certainty
one-sided. His own words show us that Judah had not really
deserted the worship of Yahweh ; for when he attacks the
immorality of the people, he introduces Yahweh speaking
thus: 4 "To what purpose do you bring me incense from
Sheba and choicest cinnamon from a distant land? Your
burnt-offerings please me not ; your sacrifices I will not ac-
cept." The people, then, did honor Yahweh with incense
and sacrifices. Nor did the heathen party ever think of de-
nying that they worshipped the Baals. They could see no
manner of harm in it. 5 Many of them sacrificed their child-
ren in the Tophet, but they declared that they did so at the
command of their god ; and the prophets who opposed the
practice were obliged emphatically to proclaim that Yahweh
had never enjoined it ; nay, that such a thought had not so
much as entered his heart. 6
What we call the perception of a relative truth, the appre-
ciation of the position of an opponent, was unknown to an-
tiquity. Zephaniah, Jeremiah, and their supporters believed
their own conceptions to be the pure and simple truth, and
regarded those of their opponents as downright lies, the
fruit of contumacy and godlessness. They could see no dif-
ference between the sacrifices to Molech and wanton murder ;
between the Asherah-worship and common inchastity. Sooth-
saying and image- worship were the rejection of Yahweh's ser
vice. All was deliberate insubordination. Woe to the sinful
people, then ! Yahweh would chastise them fearfully. Of
course their opponents paid them back in their own coin,
called them sacrilegious blasphemers, and hurled the bitterest
reproaches against them in answer to their demand for the
abolition of so many religious usages.
1 Jeremiah iii. 6-10. a Jeremiah xi. 13.
8 Jeremiah vii. 18. 4 Jeremiah vi. 20.
6 Jeremiah ii. 23, 35 « Jeremiah vii. 31, xix. 5, xxxii. 35.
326 josiah's reformation.
No quarter would be asked or given. How long the sup-
pressed conflict lasted we cannot tell with any certainty. But
this we know, that when it finally burst out, probably on
occasion of the approach of the Scythians, the indignation
against the heathen practices, which spoke in deeds of vio-
lence, must have been long gathering in secret. Before it
came to this, however, it had become quite clear that the
king would gladly second the efforts of the reformers could
he see his way to doing so. He was still hesitating, however,
when at last, in the eighteenth year of his reign, the followers
of Moses saw that their chance had come to secure his de-
cisive adhesion.
Chapter XXXI.
JOSIAH'S REFORMATION.
2 Kings XXII. 3-XXIII. 25.1
IT was the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign (626 B.C.).
Yahweh's temple at Jerusalem had again fallen into such
a condition as to need considerable repair in inany portions.
The chief priest, Hilkiah, had charge of the necessarj' work,
under the superintendence of Shaphan, one of the king's
private secretaries. Now, it happened one day that Hilkiah
told this Shaphan that he had made a wonderful discover}- in
the temple. What he had found was neither more nor less
than the book of the Law itself ; and he now begged his per
mission to read it aloud to him. Shaphan listened with in-
tensest interest ; and afterwards, when telling the king how
the portion of the temple revenues set aside for the repairs
had been administered, he also informed him of Hilkiah's
discovery. Upon this Josiah asked to have the book read to
him. He was deeply moved by its contents, and rent his
clothes in grief and terror, to think of the chasm which
yawned between the actual religious condition of his people
and the demands of Yahweh. Alas ! it was only too clear
that even the former generations had strayed far from the
right.path, and that Yahweh's wrath burned with too just a
cause. These Scythians must have been sent by him to chas-
1 2 Chronicles xxxiv. 36-xxxv. 19.
josiah's reformation. 327
tise his rebellious people. But what was to be done ? Josiah
hastily summoned his principal ministers, and soon commis-
sioned five of them, — Hilkiah, Shaphan, and three others, —
to consult Yahweh on behalf of the king and the people. His
emissaries went to a certain Huldah, whose husband, Shallum,
was " keeper of the wardrobe ;" but whether this office was
connected with the temple or with the palace we do not know.
Huldah was famed as a prophetess, and it was in that capacity
that she was now consulted. Her exact answer has not been
preserved. The books of Kings and Chronicles make her
utter a fearful threat, in which she predicts that Yahweh's
wrath will inevital ly burst upon the holy city ; but, at the
same time, promises that Josiah himself shall die in peace,
because he has humbled himself. "Were this all that she had
said, her response would have been most disheartening. Un-
doubtedly she really urged the king, in Yahweh's name, to
carry out the religious reformation demanded by the newly-
discovered book of the Law.
At any rate Josiah immediately set about this task. The
nobles, priests, and prophets of Judah, all her most influential
citizens, who might be regarded as representing the whole
people, were summoned to an assembly in the court of the
temple. The book was read to them in the hearing of a crowd
of bystanders, and they were told of the king's determination
to reform the religion of the country in the spirit of this code
of laws. The nobles received the intimation with shouts of
approval. Many of them were genuinely devoted to the
principles of the Mosaic school, and those who felt otherwise
either held their peace or were at once overwhelmed by the
rest. Countless sacrifices sealed the covenant which the king
now made with Yahweh, in his people's name, to root out
idolatry, image- worship, witchcraft, and every heathenish
practice, and to serve Yahweh alone, according to the law
of Moses.
It was no light matter thus to reform the religion of Judah.
It involved nothing short of a complete revolution. Of
course, it could not be expected that every one would fall in
with the new movement heartily, nor did any one dream of
endeavoring to convince those who were opposed to it. The
only idea was to carry out the reformation with the high hand
of royal might.
The purification naturally began with the temple ; and here
the king found a strenuous ally in the priest Hilkiah. All
the sacrificial instruments and consecrated gifts of Baal and
328 josiah's reformation.
Asherah, together with everything connected with the worship
of the heavenly bodies, were carried out of Jerusalem to the
heaps of refuse in the valley of the Kidron, where they were
broken to pieces, burned with fire, and the ashes scattered to
the winds. 1 The great asherah was also burned, and its ashes
thrown over dead men's graves, to pollute it for ever. All
the apparatus in the temple connected with the Asherah-wor-
ship, or the honors paid to the Sun-god, was destroj r ed. The
reformation did not stop at Jerusalem. Armed bands, with
raging priests and prophets at their head, swept, at the king's
command, through every quarter of Judah, from Gibeah to
Beersheba. All the bamahs they could find they overthrew
and polluted. The same lot fell upon the Tophet, and the
sanctuaries of Astarte, Chemosh, and Milcom, which had
stood ever since the days of Solomon upon a hill opposite
Jerusalem. 2 Massebahs and asherahs were smitten to pieces,
and dead men's bones were scattered over the sacred en-
closures, to pollute them and make them unfit for religious
purposes for ever.
The priests of these forbidden places of worship were
treated in no gentle spirit; but a distinction was drawn
between Levites and others. The former were allowed to
present themselves at Jerusalem, where they were not ad-
mitted to any of the duties of the temple, but were never-
theless provided for.
At the head of the chief force that passed through the land
to destroy every vestige of heathen practices was the king
himself. When Judah had been sufficiently purified, he en-
tered the former territory of Judah. Who was to prevent
him? The Assyrian governor, if there still was one, had
certainly no spare troops under his command, and could not
look to Nineveh for help. The scattered population, half
composed of Israelites and half of foreigners who had been
transplanted there, 3 was in no position to resist an army of
any considerable power. Moreover, many an Israelite was
doubtless in hearty sympathy with the Mosaic party in Judah,
and was ready to give Josiah a joyful welcome. The king
first turned his zeal upon Bethel, where stood the sanctuary
of Jeroboam, detested by all good Judseans. He burned and
broke the altar, the bamah, and the tuhtruh, and over the spot
on which they had stood he scattered dead men's bones from
the graves hard by. One tomb alone he left un violated. It
was that known in the neighborhood as "the grave of the
l After an amended version. 2 Compare pp. 71, 72. * See p. 301.
jostah's reformation. 329
prophet of JuJah." 1 When Bethel was thus cleansed, the
bamahs of many more Ephraimite cities, which the kings of
Israel had set up, were destroyed. And when any of the
priests that had officiated at them fell into Josiah's hands,
provided they were not Levites, 2 he put them to death and
burned their bodies on the altars.
Having thus executed the command of Yahweh the king
returned to Jerusalem, where he made arrangements for a
solemn and universal celebration of the Passover. The writer
of Kings expressly states that such a Passover had never
been celebrated throughout the days of the Judges and the
Kings, in contradiction to the Chronicler, who makes Heze-
kiah hold a Passover in accordance with the regulations of
the Law. The writer of Kings himself evidently supposed
that the feast had been regularly celebrated before the time
of the Judges, — that is to say, in the wilderness and in the
days of Joshua ; but we have already seen that this was not
really the case, and have discussed the probable origin and
meaning of the Passover. 8
After all these steps had been taken, the king had still to
keep a tight hand upon the religious customs of the people.
There were many Canaanite practices common in Judah which
could not be destroyed at a single blow, like idolatrous altars,
anointed stones, or bamahs. It was exceedingly difficult, for
instance, to take any effective measures against the practice
of witchcraft and magic, or against the numerous popular
customs of heathen origin, such as gashing the face in sign
of mourning. In such points as these Josiah was never quite
successful ; but his zeal for the principles of the Mosaic school
never flagged ; he did all that in him lay to compel his people
to worship Yahweh in accordance with the precepts of the
book of law discovered by Hilkiah ; and though he was un-
able thoroughly to carry out his wishes in some respects,
though the Mosaic school itself was afterwards compelled to
modify its demands in many particulars, yet the heathen
party never regained the ascendant. Hilkiah's book of law
became the rule of faith and conduct for after generations,
and the victory which the Mosaic principles gained under
King Josiah was never followed by a defeat.
We need not stay to prove that the discovery of the book
of law, which produced so profound an impression, was the
occasion rather than the cause of the reformation. It
simply put an end to the king's hesitation, and compelled
l Compare pp. 105-107. * Compare p. 104. « See vol. i. pp. 277-279.
330 josiah's reformation.
him to take the great, decisive step which would certainly
have cost him his throne and his life had the heathen party
proved too strong for him. But although the book, taken
alone, did not exercise so great an influence as appears at
a first superficial glance, yet we cannot help asking, with
extreme interest, what it really was and how it came into the
temple. These questions we can for the most part answer
with sufficient certainty.
In the first place, Hilkiah's book of the law may still be
found in our Deuteronomy. The similarity between the pre-
cepts of this book and the measures taken by Josiah is so
striking as to exclude every other supposition. But it does
not follow that the whole of the present book of Deuteronomy
existed then ; for it is evidently made up of several distinct
portions, and both the beginning and the end are later addi-
tions. We may, therefore, take Deuteronomy iv. 45-xxvi.
and xxviii.-xxix. 1 as the book found by Hilkiah. Even in
these chapters there are many laws which have little or no
connection with the great principles of Josiah's reformation ;
and since we have no means of fixing the precise date of their
origin, it is quite possible that some of them also, as well as
the opening and closing chapters of the book, are later addi-
tions. Indeed, this is not only possible, but almost certain,
if we are to believe the statement that the whole of Hilkiah's
book was read straight through to the people assembled iu
the court of the temple. It can hardly have been a work of
two-and-twenty chapters ! But all this is of comparatively
little consequence, for in any case these additions do not
affect the general purpose of the book.
But how did it get into the temple ? That is more than
any one can say. Most likely it was written by Hilkiah him-
self, or by some friend of his, and with his assistance. Deu-
teronomy shows a marked similarity in style and diction to
the oracles of Jeremiah, who was, perhaps, the son of this
very Hilkiah. If the chief priest or his son really wrote the
book, then the assertion of the former that he had " found"
it was what is called a " pious fraud," that is to say, a lie
told for the glory of God, and alas ! it is not the last lie that
has been told for that purpose. If we cannot bring ourselves
to attribute so dishonorable an action to Hilkiah, we may
suppose that the book was composed by some one else of
kindred spirit, and placed in the temple by its author with-
out the knowledge of the priest. In that case, the discovery
may have been as great a surprise to Hilkiah as to any one
josiah's reformation. 331
else, and the only "pious fraud" would be that of the un-
known author.
Be this as it may, the book was certainly written about the
time of its discovery. ' It is true that it introduces Moses as
uttering the precepts and exhortations of which it consists,
just before the people enter Canaan. But this is no more
than a literary Action. The position of affairs assumed
throughout the book is. that of Judah in the time of Josiah,
and the forms of idolatry it denounces are those practised by
Manasseh. Before his time the book of Deuteronomy would
have been unintelligible. In Josiah's reign it exactly ex-
pressed the demands of the Mosaic school.
It is easy to understand why the author of Deuteronomy,
instead of writing in his own name, put the views he wished
to enforce into the mouth of Moses. In ancient times no
man of deep religious feeling would think of taking any im-
portant step without the command of the deity, who revealed
his will, it was supposed, in the directest possible manner, by
means of his emissaries. 1 All the knowledge of God which
Yahweh's worshippers possessed rested, according to their own
conception, upon the external authority of communications
they had received from him, and not at all upon what their
own hearts 'and minds approved. Now these revelations
might be made to the prophets, and in northern Israel it was
they who aetualty fought the battle for the purity of Yahweh's
worship. Hosea, for instance, condemned the worship of the
images of bulls. But in Judah the prophets were not so
powerful or independent as they were in Israel. For the most
part they followed the lead of the priests, who in their turn
professed to derive all their wisdom from Moses. The story
of Moses punishing the Israelites for worshipping an image
had played an important part in the first attempt at a refor-
mation, under Hezekiah ; 2 and now the great founder of
Israel's religion must be brought upon the scene again to ad-
monish a later generation. The priests felt themselves to be
the true followers of Moses ; they were convinced that all their
teaching was exactly what he had wished and intended, and
this seemed to give them a perfect right to speak in his name.
We must now give a short summary of the contents of the
book in order to gain a just ccnception of the views enter-
tained by the Mosaic school that rose to power in Judah under
King Josiah.
When Israel, says the book jf Deuteronomy, was on the
l Compare vol. i. pp. 300 ft. * See pp. 264 ff.
332 josiah's reformation
point of crossing the Jordan, Moses determined to impress
upon his people once more the commandments of their god.
So he began by reminding them of all that had taken place
at Horeb ; how Yahweh had made known the Ten Command-
ments to them there, and how deadly terror had seized them
at the aspect of the mountain. As soon as they came into
the land of the Canaanites, then, they must be sure, above
all things, to destroy the sacred objects of the peoples dwell-
ing there — their altars, their massebahs, their asherahs, and
their images — and not to serve their gods. "With no less
earnestness does Moses warn them against the worship of
images, which was so closely connected with the service
of other gods. To impress this upon them he reminds them
of Yahweh's wrath when they worshipped the golden bull.
Another point of distinction between the Israelites and the
Canaanites was that the former were not to offer sacrifices to
their god in any place that happened to be convenient, but
only at the sanctuary in the city "which Yahweh should
choose." Idolatry must be punished with death. Even if a
man who enticed them to idolatry performed miracles to prove
his divine mission, still he must be put to death. His nearest
relatives must not spare him. If a whole city became guilty
of idolatry it must be laid under the ban. Levi was separated
from the rest, henceforth to be the priestly tribe. The Levites
were to have no inheritance with the others, but were to live
upon the proceeds of the altar, that is to say, upon the por-
tion of the sacrifices that was due to them, and the firstlings.
The Israelites were also urged to invite destitute Levites to a
share in then - tithes and freewill offerings. All kinds of
witchcraft were sternly forbidden. To find out Yahweh's
will Israel must go to the prophets whom he would send ; and
if a prophet foretold anything that did not come to pass, it
would show that he was a false prophet, and he must be
stoned to death.
Such are the great leading principles of Deuteronomy:
Idolatry, image- worship, and witchcraft must be utterly
abolished ; there is but one priestly tribe — the tribe of Levi ;
there is but one lawful place of worship. To these points
the lawgiver returns again and again. But we also find a
number of other precepts in his book, some of them very
short, and some of them worked out at length. For instance,
he forbids the Israelites to mutilate themselves in time of
mourning, or to eat unclean animals or carrion ; and he com-
mands them to cancel all debts once in seven years, on the
josiah's kefobmation. 333
Sabbath year, and also to release any Hebrew slave who has
served six years, in case he wishes it. The book also contains
regulations concerning the three great feasts, the administra-
tion of justice, 1 the duty of kings, 2 the cities of refuge (to
which we shall return presently) , the customs of war, the
measures to be taken if a dead body should be discovered
anywhere, the inalienable right of primogeniture, the way in
which a son who obstinately disobeys either of his parents is
to be dealt with, the punishment of inchastity, the inviola-
bility of a vow to Yahweh, and much more besides.
It deserves remark that the limitation of lawful worship
to a single place sometimes compels the lawgiver to cancel
older laws. For instance, there was an ordinance that,
every Israelite who slaughtered a beast must do it at the
neighboring sanctuary, with the assistance of the priest,
otherwise he would be held guilty of bloodshed. This law
was intended to put some check upon various idolatrous prac-
tices, and was perhaps issued in Hezekiah's time, though it
is now embedded in a much later law. 8 Now if there was
only to be one sanctuary in the whole country, it would be
utterly impossible to carry out this regulation, and accord-
ingly the Deuteronomist declares that the Israelites may
slaughter and eat their beasts wherever they like, as long as
they do not eat the blood ; but that they must take their
first-fruits, their firstlings, their tithes, their votive and other
offerings to the one sanctuary of the land. 4 If they lived too
far away from it, they might sell their gifts and buy offerings
with the proceeds in the chosen city. 5
The older law ordained that places of refuge should be
instituted everywhere, to which any one who had accidentally
killed a man might flee for safety. It was taken for granted
that the place of refuge would usually be an altar. 6 But
when it was ordained that only one altar should exist in the
whole country, it became necessary to make some new
arrangement. Accordingly, the Deuteronomist fixes upon
three cities of refuge, in various districts of the land, in which
any one who has accidentally taken his neighbor's life may
dwell in safety. In case Israel's territory should extend,
three more are to be added to the number.'
In reading through the book of Deuteronomy we are
struck by the tone of glowing earnestness and fervor in
l See p. 181. 2 See p. 82. 8 Leviticus xvii. 3 ff.
* Deuteronomy xii. 13-27. 6 Deuteronomy xiv. 22-26.
« Exodus xxi. 13, 14. » Deuteronomy xix. 1-13
334 josiah's reformation.
which the writer announces Yahweh's laws to the people.
The legislation of antiquity had generally something of a
hortatory character, 1 and this is eminently true of Deuter-
onomy. It is as if a father were instructing his children,
sometimes with great severity, but always with deep affection.
However fearful the threats he utters from time to time, he
always means them as an exhortation to obedience to Yahweh,
that the blessings of obedience may follow. He by no means
thinks that a mechanical observance of God's commandments
will suffice. Israel must be a holy people, must fear his god,
and, what is more, must love him with all the heart. 2 In
many respects the writer takes an exalted moral attitude.
It is true that he repeatedly urges the Israelites to lay the
Canaanites and all other idolaters under the ban ; but in this
connection it is only fair to remember that when he wrote
there were no Canaanite cities in existence, so that in this re-
spect at any rate, his injunctions cannot have been intended to
be actually put into execution. Nevertheless, we must admit
that he distinctly enjoins a massacre to the glory of God, and
would call in the sword to back the truth. This is a mis-
chievous and dangerous mistake, but we must not forget that
it was universal in antiquity, that the Christians themselves
fell into it for whole centuries, and that many of them cherish
it even now. We could not expect the Deuteronomist, then,
to join love for the idolaters with hatred of idolatry, or to
apply the law of kindness to the treatment of such trans-
gressors.
To understand the writer's deep and earnest moral feeling,
we must dwell upon such precepts as these: "If you give
your slave his liberty after six years' service, you must not
let him go away empty handed ; " 8 "If you wish to marry
a captive woman, you must first allow her time to mourn for
the relatives she has lost, and must never afterwards sell her
as a slave ; " 4 "If you find a nest with a bird and eggs or
young ones in it, you may take the eggs or young ones, but
not the mother;" 6 "You must not make your countrymen
pay interest on the money you lend them, but you may take
interest from foreigners ; " ° " If you find your brother's ox or
sheep straying, see that he gets it back again ; " » " Never take a
man's upper or nether millstone in pledge ; and if you take a
See p. 185. 2 Deuteronomy vi. 5, and elsewhere.
» Deuteronomy xv. 18, 14. 4 Deuteronomy xxi. 10-14.
» Deuteronomy xxii. 6. 6 Deuteronomy xxiii. 19, 20.
' Deuteronomy xxii. 1-4,
JOSIAll's REFORMATION. 335
pledge from any one, do not go into his house for it ; and if
the pledge is some necessary garment, take it back to him be-
fore nightfall;" 1 "Never oppress the poor, the laborer, or
the stranger, nor keep his wages till the day after he has
earned them;" 2 "Leave good gleanings in your field and
orchard for the poor, remembering that you were once op-
pressed yourselves in Egypt ; " a " Remember the day of rest,
for your servants must rest on it ; " 4 " Fathers must not be
put to death for then - children's crimes, nor children for
their fathers' ; " 6 " You must not muzzle an ox as it treads
out the corn ; " 6 " You must not give up a slave who has es-
caped;"' "When a man is sentenced to be scourged, you
must not lay more than forty lashes upon him." 8 — Truly,
when we consider the times in which the code was drawn up,
it seems difficult to go too far in admiration of its fine spirit
of humanity.
So at last the Mosaic school triumphed for good in Judah.
It had had a long struggle for victory, and had often seemed
in danger of destruction.
Its triumph under Josiah brings us to a pause in the his-
tory of Israel's religion, for henceforth, although heathendom
may raise its head from time to time in Judah, it is always
easy to put it down. Henceforth Hilkiah's book of law fur-
nishes the people of Yahweh with a firm foundation upon
which to rear the edifice of its religion.
In the interests of humanity, can we hail tliis triumph
of the Mosaic school with joy? Undoubtedly we can. When
we contemplate the strife in which it was engaged, we can
definitely declare in its favor and against its adversary.
When the conflict first began there was still room for hesita-
tion, for we saw that in Solomon's reign the heathen party
was that of industrial and artistic progress, and that their
narrow-minded adversaries were not so very much above them
even in their conception of the attributes of God. But now
that the two tendencies have gradually developed the prin-
ciples that guide them, now that we see clearly where heathen-
dom would have landed Israel, and how Mosaism raised it to
ever loftier conceptions of Yahweh and purer principles of
morality, now we can rejoice with all our hearts to see the
l Deuteronomy xxiv. 6, 10-13, 17. 3 Deuteronomy xxiy. 14, 15.
8 Deuteronomy xxiv. 19-32. * Deuteronomy v. 13-15.
b Deuteronomy xxiv. 16 ; compare p. 178.
« Deuteronomy xxir. 4.
' Deuteronomy xxiii. 15, 16. 8 Deuteronomy xxv. 1-3.
336 josiah's reformation.
scale inclining as it does. The moral worship of Yahweh
has triumphed, and, though it has still many defects, we have
good grounds for hope that it will gradually purify itself from
all its stains.
But, after all, our satisfaction is far from complete. We
cannot sj-mpathize with the way in which the Mosaic party
gained its victory. It was force which brought the worship
of the Judseans into agreement with the Mosaic programme,
and Hilkiah's book of law was introduced and maintained by
royal decree. It is true that we can hardly find fault with
this. The principle was recognized by all parties alike that
the sword was the natural arbiter in such affairs. But a vio-
lent solution is fraught with danger to the victors. They had
suppressed opposition by force ; would not they themselves
in their turn become slaves of their own law? The Deuter-
onomist makes Moses explicitly declare, with reference to the
prohibition of all sacrifices elsewhere than at Jerusalem,
"Henceforth you shall not do, as we have done hitherto,
each one as he thinks best." * The Judseans, then, were laid
under such restrictions as made religious freedom henceforth
impossible. No sacrifices might be offered except at Jerusa-
lem, nor even there except under the supervision of the Levit-
ical priests and in accordance with the precepts of the Law.
Even in civil affairs complicated questions must be referred
by the tribunal before which they came to the supreme court
at Jerusalem, in which the chief priests, amongst others, had
a seat. 2 What dangers have we here for the religious and
social life of Israel ! When priests reign supreme it is all
over with freedom, with genuine religious life, and at last
with morality -itself. Was it likely that the Levites of the
temple of Jerusalem, henceforth the only lawful priests, would
allow the worshippers of Yahweh any freedom ? Would they
tolerate the prophets — those men of the spirit? Would they
not rather suppress with growing rigor every free expression
of thought or feeling, carry their Law into ever more and more
frivolous detail, and foster the spirit of formalism ?
Alas ! these questions admit of but one answer. Those
who had put down idolatry with the sword would not shrink
from appealing to force against anything they deemed incon-
sistent with the purity of the worship of Yahweh as by law
established. And if this be so, alas for Israel ! for its religion
must degenerate into formalism. The special strength and
glory of the Mosaic school had alwaj-s been the intimate con-
1 Deuteronomy xii. 8. a See p. 181.
JOSIAH'S REFORMATION". 337
nection which it established and maintained between religion
and morality ; but this very strength exposed it to the fatal
risk of subjecting the spiritual life to the same external sys-
tem of commandments and prohibitions which regulate public
moi ality, and treating forms of worship and speculative opin-
ions as equal in importance to moral purity and earnestness.
The mischief is contained in germ even in the Ten Command-
ments, which lay equal stress upon the precepts of morality,
the observance of the Sabbath, and the prohibition to serve
other gods or worship images. This germ was but slightly
developed in the most ancient Israelitish code, 1 but in that
which underlay Hezekiah's reformation it was much more
prominent, 2 and its consequences came out far more clearly
yet in the book of Deuteronomy. Here the noblest moral
precepts stand side by side with the most trivial regulations
as to forms of worship, and the same binding power is con-
ferred upon them both. We shall see hereafter with what fatal
vigor this spirit of formalism spread and grew.
Not long after the promulgation of Hilkiah's book of law,
a certain Judaean furnished it with an introduction and an
appendix, in which these words occur : 8 " The commandment
which I command you this day is not hidden from you, neither
is it far off. It is not in heaven that you need say, Who
shall climb up to heaven for us, and bring it down for us, that
we ma}' hear it and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea that
you need say, Who shall go over for us, and bring it to us,
that we may hear it and do it ? For it is very near to you ;
you take it upon your lips, and can repeat it by heart." Here
we find the fatal theory of the Law, the worship of the letter,
introduced ! In course of time this principle will petrify the
soul of Israel, and choke its moral life.
All this we shall see. But, as a good principle only reveals
its sanctifying power little by little, and at first gives small
sign of it, if any, so an evil principle may long conceal its
fatal consequences. In the centuries which followed the intro-
duction of the Law, Israel still enjoyed the fruits of the pro-
phetic spirit, and gave many a proof of sacred inspiration,
of a faith that sweeps everything before it, and of the true
piety of the heart ; but while after generations were thus sus-
tained by what their fathers had prepared for them, the deadly
poison of formalism was ever sinking deeper and yet deeper,
and preparing a woeful end for Israel's religion.
i See pp. 181 ff. 2 See p. 274. 8 Deuteronomy xxx. 11-14.
VOL. II. 15
Book IV.
FROM JOSIAH TO THE MACCABEES
Chaptek I.
JOSIAH'S DEFEAT AT MEGIDDO.
2 Kings XXIII. 2»-85;i Jeremiah XI. 18-28.
WE have now reached the last period of the history of
Israel's religion and national existence recorded in
the Old Testament ; and since it gives us the key to the com-
prehension of the age of Jesus and to some extent of modern
Judaism also, its treatment is by no means the least import-
ant part of our task.
The first requisite for a clear insight into Judah's subse-
quent history is a distinct conception of the religious position
held by the guiding spirits of the nation from the time of
Josiah's reformation onwards. They believed that the fates
of nations and of men did not depend upon the natural
sequence and connection of events, following the laws of
cause and effect, but were the immediate dispensations of
Yahweh, who accorded his favor or displeasure to the virtue
or the vice of men. For any one to ask a blessing of Yahweh,
therefore, involved his appealing to his own fidelity in the
service of his god and to the uprightness of his life.
Hitherto, therefore, the prophets of the Mosiac school had
been sparing in their promises to Judah, stained as she was
by the worship of strange gods and images ; but now that the
stain had been removed and Yahweh alone was worshipped in
the land, the}' were certain of his help, and uttered words of
lofty cheer without stint.
At first the event seemed to justify their confidence. The
1 2 Chronicles xxxv. 20-.xxxvi. 4
Map A* 4.
The ENVIRONS OF JERUSALEM.
A A. — The Temple Area.
B.—Tke Cattle of Antonio, or Baris.
I.— The Tower of Hippicus, probably the anointl Milk,
and the Castle of David,
t. — Tie Tower of Phasaei.
3. — The Tower of Marianne.
\. — The Palace of Herod the Great.
3 . — rhe X yitus, a Court surrounded with Cotumne.
6.— The Almond Pool ( Hexeiiah's Pool!)
Key to tmi Littms and Figures in the Plan of Jerusalem.
7. — The Palace of the Hasmonaans and of Agnppa II;
■*t formerly, perhaps, the Palace 0/ the Kings of
Judah.
8ew- The Slept from the Valley up the Mountain.
9.— The Tomh of David and the Kings of Judah.
n. — The Fountain Gait.
•.—The Dung Gate.
e.— The Valley Gate,
c- The Gate of the Women's Towers,
f— Herod's Gate,
g. — The Sheep Gate.
h.—Thc Centre Gate.
i. — The Judgment Gate or Gate of Ephraim.
k.—The Gennath Gate.
/.—The Gate between the two Walls.
josiah's defeat at megiddo. 339
Scythians, who had inspired the Judseans with such terror, 1
inflicted no serious injuries upon the country. We can easily
guess the reason, for the great road from the Euphrates to
Egypt ran through the plain of Jezreel and on through Gaza,
skirting the territory of Judah, but not crossing it, and leav-
ing it, therefore, in comparative safety. The Scythians,
accordingly, overran the former kingdom of the ten tribes,
where they possibly left a record of their stay in the name of
Scythopolis or Scythian-town, which was given to the ancient
Bethshan, 2 after which they advanced along the sea-coast
towards Egypt. King Psammetichus, who broke up the siege
of Ashdod on their approach, succeeded in buying them off,
upon which the}' returned by the way they had come, plunder-
ing a temple in the Philistine city of Askelon as they passed,
and finally retired altogether. Judah was therefore spared.
All this most likely took place soon after Josiah's reformation,
and would naturally strengthen the confidence of the Judsean
prophets very greatly. Was it not plain to see that Yahweh
was protecting his people?
The same view was taken D3' many inhabitants of the
northern district also. Even before the fall of Samaria the
worship of the bulls had been vigorously attacked, and now
the sanctuary at Bethel was desecrated and the chapels of the
bamahs laid waste. Moreover, all zealous Israelites dreaded
the influence of the religions which the heathen colonists had
brought with them, 8 and felt a corresponding sympathy for
the worship of Yahweh now established in Judah.
The social condition of the country was also favorable to
a closer union. The men of the North were too feeble to
hope for national independence, especially since they had
suffered so much from the Scythians, and they were therefore
anxious to unite once more with their brethren in the South ;
while the Judseans, on their part, were ready to receive them
with open arms. The points upon which they differed were
no insuperable obstacle to their union, and Jeremiah might
now exclaim to the dwellers in the North : 4 " Repent, O
children that have gone astray ! For Yahweh' s favor toward
you has revived, and he remembers that he is your god. Ere
long shall men cease to grieve because the ark of the covenant
is gone ; for all Jerusalem shall be called the throne of Yah-
weh, and all the heathen shall put away their evil deeds and
shall come up to Zion to worship Yahweh."
1 Compare pp. 320 f. 2 See Map V.
» Compare p. 301. * Jeremiah iii. 12-18.
340 josiah's defeat at megiddo.
According to Jeremiah, Judah liad sinned as deeply as
Israel, and had only repented in appearance ; l but the ma-
jority of the prophets were far from sharing his belief. Surely
Judah was a pious nation, they thought, visibly protected
by Yahweh ! During the next few years the prophets who
cherished these self-satisfied and confident thoughts had a
great advantage over the man who still wailed for the people's
sins and ever cried for repentance ; for the years rolled pros-
perously by, Josiah sat upon the throne of his fathers in peace,
the northern districts came more and more completely under
hid sway, peace and prosperity reigned unconfined. No won-
der that the voice of the prophets of smooth things rose ever
higher, and secured a more and more universal response.
We may judge of the sentiments entertained towards Josiah
from the following song, which was, perhaps, composed in his
honor. It is the seventy-second psalm, with the omission
of the last two verses, which were added to it when it was
taken up into the collection of Psalms as the concluding hymn
of the second book : —
Yahweh ! teach the king to utter judgment,
Give insight to the monarch's son !
Let him judge thy people in equity,
Thine oppressed in wisdom and honor.
The mountains shall bring forth peace to the people,
So shall the hills by righteousness.
He shall maintain the right of the poor,
Shall rescue the children of the needy,
And shall bring the oppressor low.
They shall fear him as long as the sun shall shine,
As long as the moon exists, for ever !
He shall be like the rain on the pasture,
Like the shower that waters the earth.
In his days shall the righteous nourish,
And prosperity shall not fail as long as the moon endures.
May he rule from sea to sea,
From Euphrates to the ends of the earth 1
May his adversaries 2 bow before him ;
May his enemies lick the dust!
Let tlie kings of Tarshish and the isles bring presents,
Let the rulers of Sheba B offer him gifts !
May all the kings pay homage to him,
And all the heathen serve him,
For he rescues the poor who cry for help,
The afflicted whom there is none to succor;
He pities the wretched and needy;
lie delivers the souls of the poor.
From injustice and violence he rescues them;
In his sight their blood is precious.
l l9remiah iii. 6-11. 2 After an amended version.
* Compare p. 73.
josiah's defeat at megiddo. 841
ixrag may he live ! may they bring him gold from Sheha,
May they pray for him always and bless him ever !
Maj- corn abound in the land;
May the harvest wave on the hills like the forests of Lebanon ;
May the people of the cities increase like the grass 1
Let his name abide for ever
And extend as far as the sun shines !
, Let men wish each other prosperity like his ; 1
Let all the nations call him blessed !
It is, indeed, quite possible that this song was composed in
honor of some other king, or is a so-called Messianic psalm ;
that is to say, a psalm expressing a longing for Israel's ideal
king, and celebrating his glory : but in anj 7 case it expresses
the feelings entertained towards Josiah by most of the leaders
of the Mosaic school ; for " before him," in the judgment of
the author of Kings, 2 "no king had equalled him in perfect
obedience to Yahweh, according to all the law of Moses, nor
did his like rise up after him."
But amidst all the rejoicings of priests and prophets,
who vied with each other in praises of the king and
people, and saw nothing but blessings in the future, one
man at least was wholly dissatisfied with Judah's present
condition, and that man was Jeremiah. Doubtless he, too,
had rejoiced with all his heart when Josiah set about puri-
fying Judah's religion from heathen stains, but this was
by no means enough. To break down bamahs, to burn
asherahs, to shatter massebahs, and to pollute the tophet, was
well ; but it fell far short of Yahweh's demands. What did
he really care for all the sacrifices which his worshippers
made to him? "To what purpose," cried the prophet, in
Yahweh's name, 8 "do you burn up some of your sacrifices
whole? Make a meal of them with an easy heart ! For when
I brought you out of Egypt I gave you no commands about
burnt-offerings and sacrifices. One only thing did I com-
mand you : To listen to my voice, that I might be your god,
and you my people. But you have been rebellious, since you
came out of Egypt until now. In vain have I sent my ser-
vants, the prophets, to warn you, for you would not hearken
to their voice, but have done even yet more wickedly than
your fathers. Therefore I will bring misery upon you and
reject you."
The declaration that Yahweh attached, no value to_ the
distinction between the burnt-offerings which were entirely
1 Compare Genesis xii. 3; and vol. i. p. 109.
2 2 Kings xxiii. 25. 8 Jeremiah vh. 21-28.
342 josiah's defeat at megiddo.
consumed and the ordinary sacrifices, only a part of which
was laid upon the altar, is extremely significant, and so is
the slighting manner in which, as we have just seen, Jeremiah
speaks of the ark of the covenant. Such words become all
the more remarkable when uttered by the son of a priest.
The}' show what supreme importance he attached to the
claims of morality, and how completely he postponed every-
thing else to that ' ' love of Yahweh with all the heart " upon
which Hilkiah's book of law had also insisted so powerfully.
His hearers, however, were anything but docile. Who
so intolerant as those who are pious in their own eyes ! The
Judaeans, after Josiah's reformation and still more after what
they regarded as the visible proof of Yahweh's favor in the
departure of the Scythians, were so taken up with themselves
and so profoundly convinced that they were the chosen people,
that a sharp reproof sounded quite sacrilegious in their
ears, and it was by no means safe to rebuke them openly.
When Jeremiah did so he became the object of such bitter
hatred that his very life was in danger.
This was the case before he left his native place of
Anathoth. An attempt was made to close his mouth, and
when that failed snares were laid for his life. As he himself
expresses it, he was like a lamb or an ox that is led to the
slaughter, for he knew not that his life was threatened ; but
he discovered the plot in time. " Yahweh revealed it to him,"
upon which he fled in all haste to Jerusalem, and there
worked on in the same spirit as before. He was bitterly
incensed against his fellow-townsmen for refusing to listen
to Yahweh's word. Years afterwards, when he recorded
the whole affair in writing, he could not refrain from
adding these words, as he remembered what had taken
place : " O Yahweh of war-hosts ! thou righteous judge, who
searchest the inmost parts and the very heart, let me behold
the vengeance which thou wilt exact, for to thee have I
made my complaint. Verily, says Yahweh, I will repay
these men of Anathoth for their deeds ; their young men
shall fall by the sword ; their sons and daughters shall perish
with hunger; not a remnant shall be left when I chastise
them in the year of vengeance." *
We shall soon see that Jeremiah fared no better in Jeru-
salem than he had done in Anathoth. We cannot tell when
he reached the capital ; but thirteen years elapsed between
Josiah's reformation and his defeat, so that, if we place the
1 Jeremiah xi. 18-23.
josiah's defeat at megiudo. 343
retreat of the Scythians about a year after the reformation,
there are twelve years left during which the prophet must
have reproached the people with their sins, threatened them
with Yahweh's wrath, and called them to repentance and
conversion, though the general prosperity seemed to prove
that Yahweh was well pleased, and the mass of the prophets
glorified Israel with one mouth. "Peace! peace! All
danger is afar ! " No wonder that Jeremiah himself some-
times went astray and doubted whether Yahweh gave a
thought to Israel's doings ; no wonder that, when all this
light was suddenly changed to darkness, he cried in the
depth of his pity for the humbled people i 1 " Alas ! Lord
Yahweh, thou hast deceived this people and Jerusalem !
Thou hast deceived them ! For thou didst tell them they
should prosper, and now the sword smites them to the death."
Judah was indeed to be smitten to the death ! Let us see
what came to pass in the thirty-first year of Josiah's reign.
The Egyptian king Necho, who had succeeded Psammetl-
chus, was bent upon war. His motive was that which usually
actuates powerful princes, namely ambition. The opportunity
seemed to have come for him to extend his dominions towards
the Euphrates ; for Nineveh, rescued a few years before by the
appearance of the Scythians, was now besieged anew by the
Medes and Babylonians, and not a single monarch in western
Asia was in a position to resist the mighty ruler of Egypt.
Should Necho's weapons prove victorious, Judah and the
other countries round about the Dead Sea would infallibly
fall a prey to him ; but for the present the danger swept by
them, and we find Necho encamped at Megiddo, in the plain
of Jezreel, north of Judah, intent upon marching straight for
the Euphrates, though whether he had taken the high road
through Gaza or had transported his troops by sea we do not
know.
Had Josiah listened to the dictates of prudence he would
have awaited the issue of Necho's campaign, or at any rate
would have made allies amongst his neighbors ; but we are
well enough acquainted with the disposition of the Judseans
of the time to feel no surprise at their discarding such pru-
dent counsels. Megiddo was situated in the ancient territory
of Israel, now subject to Josiah, and was therefore upon holy
ground. Should Yahweh's people, purified as now it was
and honoring its god according to the dictates of his law, suf-
1 Jeremiah iv. 10..
844 josiait's defeat at megiddo.
fer the un circumcised to tread upon his heritage? Was it
not certain that he, the Almighty, would sustain his people
Tsrael ? What faithful servant of his would care to count the
foe ! Yahweh would smite them before the face of his ser-
vants, and if they advanced to battle by a single way they
would flee by seven. 1 Josiah, the anointed of Yahweh, was
invincible. To arms, then, for Yahweh and Josiah !
The Chronicler tells us that Necho dissuaded the king of
Judah from the war, saying that he meant him no harm, but
that God had sent him against another kingdom whither he
must hasten, and that it was against the will of God to delay
him. Josiah, however; took no heed of the word of God
declared by the mouth of Necho, and opposed the further
advance of the Egyptian army.
The battle was fought at Megiddo, in the plain of Jezreel.
Israel was defeated and Josiah himself was slain. This was
the end of Judah's independence. Necho did not enter the
land itself, for he had no time to waste in taking possession of
so insignificant a territory, but he was safe in regarding him-
self as Judah's lord. Josiah's son Jehoahaz, whom Jeremiah
calls Shallum, 2 was summoned by the people to mount his
father's throne ; but three months afterwards he presented
himself' at Kiblah, in Syria, apparently at Necho's command.
Thence he was sent in chains to Egypt, and his brother Elia-
kim or Jehoiakim was placed on the throne of Judah as the
vassal of Necho, to whom he had to pay a heavy tribute.
Josiah's defeat and death were an overwhelming blow to
Judah. From the height of prosperity, at which, in its pre-
sumption, it had feared no one and foreseen nothing but
blessings, it was plunged into the depth of humiliation and
slavery. It had also to bewail the beloved and still youthful
monarch to whom it owed its regeneration ; and Jeremiah,
as the Chronicles inform us, made songs of lamentation for
Josiah, and all the singers have sung of him "until this
d»y."
No wonder ! The terrible shock experienced by the Ju-
dseans was caused not only by the loss of prosperity and free-
dom, but by the impossibility of reconciling the event with
the tenets of their faith. Josiah, the most devout of princes,
slain ! Judah, but now reformed in accordance with the law
of Yahweh, lying in the grasp of the enemy ! What could
it mean? Why had Yahweh done these things? The ad-
herents of the heathen school cried out, Was it not Josiah
1 Deuteronomy xxviii. 7. 2 Jeremiah xxii. 11.
PREACHER OF REPENTANCE. 345
that overturned the altars of Baal and abolished the service
of the Queen of Heaven? The Mosaic school of course
refused to accept this explanation, but were at a loss to find
a better. Even Jeremiah, who had been so far from sharing
the high-wrought expectations of the popular leaders, could
not hold back the words, " O Yahweh, thou hast deceived
this people in prophesying peace." What, then, must others
have said ! Even the stanchest believers felt their faith in
Yahweh shaken.
Chapter II.
THE PREACHER OP REPENTANCE.
Jeremiah XXIII. 9-40, XXVI., XVI. 1-9, XX. 7-18.
WE can trace the course of Judah's history, after Josiah's
defeat, in the book of Kings ; but while this work
hardly gives us anything but the succession of events, the
writings of the prophets who lived at the time initiate us
more or less completely into the position and the motives of
the several parties, and the moral condition of the Judseans.
The most abundant source of these indications is the book of
Jeremiah's oracles ; for in it this remarkable man, whose fate
was so closely intertwined with that of his people, records his
own utterances and experiences.
We have already spoken of him more than once, but must
now dwell more expressly on his mission and his character.
Every page of his writings shows him as the preacher of
repentance. The cry of " Woe ! " was almost always on his
lips. On certain occasions he showed his power as a com-
forter, but the burden of his cry is usually found in dire
threats of famine, sword, and pestilence. And this went on
for nearly half a century, in the midst alike of a prosperous
and of a sorely-tried and deeply-suffering people. The prophet
became so much accustomed to this gloomy view that he once
distinctly said : ' " True prophets of the elder time have al-
ways foretold misery ; and should one proclaim a blessing,
men must not hold him for a messenger of Yahweh before his
word has been made good." To understand his own concep-
tion of his task we must pay especial attention to his on-
1 Jeremiah xxviii. 8, 9.
15*
346 PREACHER OF REPENTANCE.
slaughts upon the prophets who foretold prosperity. The
following is one of his discourses : x —
My heart is broken, my bones tremble ; I am like a drunken
man overcome with wine. It is because of Yahweh and his
holy words ; for the land is full of adulterers and is pining
under its curse. Thus says Yahweh : Prophets and priests
commit sacrilege together ; in my very house I detect their
wickedness. I will therefore bring misery on them in the
year of their visitation. If the prophets of Samaria led my
people astray, the prophets of Jerusalem do yet greater hor-
rors ; for they commit adultery, they lie, and confirm evil-
doers in their impenitence. Wherefore, says Yahweh, I will
feed them with wormwood and give them the water of galls
to drink, for the prophets themselves are the source of the
sacrilege which covers the land with guilt. Oh ! give no heed
to their words ; for they lie, and utter the inventions of their
own hearts, and not what I have revealed to them. To those
who forsake Yahweh's word they ciy : "You shall have
peace;" and to him who follows his own devices, "No evil
shall overtake you." But their words are false, for the storm
of Yahweh's wrath is rising up to burst over you. These
prophets I have not sent ; and they know not what I purpose.
Am I a god of yesterday or the day before, says Yahweh,
and not a god of primeval time ? Could any one hide from
me, that I should not see him? Do I not fill both heaven and
earth? Truly I hear these prophets who utter lies in my
name and say, "I have dreamed. I have had a dream!"
How long will they still find lies to tell? By their false
dreams they make my name forgotten, as their fathers re-
jected it for that of Baal. Let the prophet who has had a
dream tell it, and let him who receives my word report it
faithfully! But what has chaff to do with wheat? Is not
my word like a fire, asks Yahweh, and a hammer that shat-
ters the rock? Wherefore I will rise up against all these
empty prophets, against those who steal the words of others,
against those who repeat " 'tis God's word" without thought,
against those who lie with set purpose, and lead my people
astray. When this people again asks in mockery, " What is
the charge of Yahweh ! " then shall you answer, " Why prate
ye of Yahweh's charge? Ye are my charge, but I fling you
aside ! says Yahweh. I will punish the prophet or priest or
whoever shall speak of the charge of Yahweh." Rather say
one to another, " What is the answer?" or " What is the word
1 Jeremiah xxiii. 9-40.
PREACHER OF REPENTANCE. 347
of Yahweh?" But speak no more of Yahweh' s charge, lest
his word should charge upon you and root you out and put
you to eternal shame.
In this oracle Jeremiah speaks of the prophets, without
qualification, as though not one of them was possessed by a
better spirit or was an honorable man. We have already
shown why we cannot accept this verdict. 1 No doubt many
of Jeremiah's opponents acted in as complete good faith as
he himself did. If he accused them of deceiving the people,
they denounced him no less earnestly as a lying prophet, and
since they were so numerous and were backed by the people,
Jeremiah had to pay a heavy reckoning for his boldness.
He had already fled from Anathoth, as we have seen, to
save his life. But he was in no less danger at Jerusalem,
where he appears thenceforth to have resided, and where he
may have had to discharge the duties of a priest. Here, of
course, he must have seen still more to grieve and shock him
than he had witnessed in his native place, and the attack
upon the prophets, which we have just given, shows us the
footing upon which he soon came to stand with the leaders of
opinion in the capital. His mode of speech could not fail to
give rise to violent collisions, which more than once brought
his life into the utmost danger.
Let us glance at an event which occurred towards the be-
ginning of Jehoiakim's reign. 2
Jeremiah was deeply offended by the immoral lives of many
Judseans who professed the utmost strictness in the outward
observances of religion ; and on more than one occasion he
stood at the gate of the temple and cried to those who entered,
"Thus says Yahweh of war-hosts, Bepent and make clean
your lives ! Then will I suffer you to dwell in this land in
peace. Trust not the vain words : The temple of Yahweh,
the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh is here ! If
you do right and pronounce judgment truly ; if you oppress
not the stranger, the orphan, or the widow ; if you shed no
innocent blood nor serve strange gods,*— I will have you to
dwell in this land and prosper. But to steal, to slay, to com-
mit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, worship other
gods whom you knew not of old, and then come and stand
before my face in this temple with the words of idle confi-
dence, ' We are delivered ! ' in spite of all your abominations
, . . Do you think this temple is a den of thieves? Nay,
i See pp. 214-218. 2 Jeremiah vii. 1-16.
348 PREACHER OF REPENTANCE.
but I have marked your deeds ! Go but to Shiloh, where I
■was worshipped in olden time, 1 and see what 1 have done to
it. If you shut your ears to all my warnings I will do to you
as I have done to your brothers in Ephraim. And as for me,
Yahweh has forbidden me to pray for you any more, for he
will not listen."
Such was the strain in which Jeremiah repeatedly addressed
the Judseans who came with offerings to the temple. Though
he could never see that he produced any good result, he still
cherished the hope that Judah might yet repent and turn to
Yahweh, and that he might stay his avenging hand and de-
liver his people. But his hearers regarded him with ever-
increasing aversion. His bitter reproaches were in themselves
extremely offensive to the Judseans, for they were full of
triumph in the favor of their god, and were accustomed to a
very different style of address from the other prophets. More-
over, these fearful threats inspired them with positive dread ;
for we must remember that they looked upon a prophet's pre-
diction not as the simple unveiling of an inevitable future, but
rather as a kind of spell that produced a blessing or a curse.
The prophet did not only announce the judgment, but actually
brought it to pass by his preaching. 2 Jeremiah himself once
said, 8 " Thus says Yahweh to me, Behold! I will make my
words a fire in your mouth, and will make the people fuel for
it to burn." It was the fear which the men of Judah felt for
the prophet of repentance that made their hatred so dire.
Yet they would probably have bridled their indignation and
endured the prophet's denunciations out of reverence for Yah-
weh's word had he not gone the length of absolutely predict-
ing the fall of the temple. But when he repeatedly pointed
to Shiloh, that ancient dwelling-place of Yahweh, and declared
that the sanctuary on Mount Zion should likewise be laid
waste and Jerusalem made a heap of ruins, then they could
endure it no longer, and their fury broke all bounds. 4
So one day when Jeremiah was at his old task in the court
of the temple, threatening the sanctuary with destruction and
pointing to the fate of Shiloh, the closing words had hardly
passed his lips when a tumult broke out amongst his hearers.
The priests, whose duty it was " to put any fool who made
himself a prophet into the stocks with a chain round his
neck," 6 and the prophets, whom Jeremiah denounced as liars
because they always foretold deliverance and prosperity to
1 Compare vol. i. chapter xxii. p. 433. a Compare pp. 131 f.
' Jeremiah v. 14. 1 Jeremiah xxvi. 1-19, 24. ' Compare p. 178.
PREACHER OF REPENTANCE. 349
Israel, so incensed the people against the messenger of re-
pentance that his life was in the utmost danger. The tumult
ran so high that the fierce cries of the populace reached the
ears of the " princes of Judah," who appear on this occasion
as judges, and who ordered the prophet and his accusers to
be brought before them at one of the temple gates. The
proceedings had now assumed a more regular character ; the
priests and prophets came forward as the accusers, while the
assembled people represented public opinion by shouts of ap-
proval or disapproval which the judges would hardly venture
to neglect in pronouncing sentence.
Jeremiah, when thus accused of blasphemy before the
princes and people because he had foretold the fall of the
city and temple, retained all the courage of faith. There was
but one line of defence open to him, and that was an appeal
to Yahweh's revelation. His god had commanded him to
say what he did. Would they not do well to hearken to him
and amend their ways? Perhaps Yahweh might even yet
avert his wrath. As for himself, he was in their hands ;
they could do what they would with him, but they might rest
assured that if the} T injured him they would be shedding in-
nocent blood, and would thereby draw down the vengeance
of Yahweh upon the city and upon their own heads ; for in
truth, he was Yahweh's emissary.
This was the only plea he could urge ; for when a prophet
uttered a prediction, he was never challenged to justify it by
arguments, since it was not supposed to rest either on argu-
ments or any other kind of proof, but simply upon the direct
revelation of Yahweh. Who should decide whether a seer
had really had such a revelation, or whether he " prophesied
after the dictates of his own heart," as it was called ? Mean-
while the steadfast dignity with which Jeremiah repeats his
prophecy bears witness alike to his courage and his intense
conviction.
His answer produced a deep and instantaneous effect, and
gave rise to several colloquies. Surety a man should be heard
when he appealed to Yahweh ! This was a weighty consid-
eration in itself, and the judges and people were still less
disposed to lay violent hands on the man of God when one
of the princes took his side. It was Ahikam, the son of
Shaphan, perhaps the very Shaphan who had been an officer
of Josiah's and to whom Hilkiah had first shown the newly-
discovered book of the law. 1 Moreover, some of " the elders
i Compare p. 326.
350 PREACHER OP REPENTANCE.
of the land " reminded them of what had taken place in the
reign of Hezekiah. Had not Micah of Moresheth foretold
the fall of Jerusalem and the devastation of the temple in
those days ? But the king, so far from putting him to death,
trembled before Yahweh, and prayed to him till he repented
of his dread decree. They must take good heed not to bring
the guilt of blood upon their souls.
Though only half-convinced, and by no means inclined to
accept Jeremiah's word as a word of God, the priests and
prophets could not venture to insist any further on his being
put to death. " "We must not slay the man who speaks to us
in Yahweh's name ; " on this principle the people declared
that Jeremiah must be released ; and for the present he was
saved and was at liberty to preach as his god commanded
him : ' ' Woe to Judah, the sinful people ! Woe to Jerusalem !
Woe to the temple ! "
When we hear Jeremiah comparing the word of Yahweh
to a hammer that shatters the rocks, and observe that his dis-
courses were almost always stern denunciations, full of terrific
threats, we might well be disposed to think of him as a hard,
rough man, as a pitiless judge with but little feeling for
another's woe. But to do so would be to misjudge him ut-
terly. Jeremiah was naturally soft-hearted even to a fault,
and amidst the thunders of his stern rebukes rise ever and
anon the words of tenderest pity. Hear how he poured out
his heart in the time of Judah's humiliation, when a portion
of the people was already in captivity 2 : —
What comfort is there for my sorrow? My very heart is
sick. For the wailing of my people is borne from "a distant
land. " Is Yahweh not in Zion ? Is Israel's King no longer
with them?" Yes, he is with them, but why have they pro-
voked him with their images, with vanities from foreign lands?
"The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not
saved ! " For the hurt of my people am I hurt ; I am clothed
in black, and amazement has laid hold of me. Is there no
balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Then why is
the wound of my people unbound? Oh that my head were
water, that my eyes were streams of tears ! Then would I
weep day and night for my people that are slain !
No less touching is his lamentation when the country was
tortured by drought : 2 "Judah mourns and her gates languish.
They bow down to the earth in mourning, and Jerusalem's
1 Jeremiah yiii. 18-ix. 1. 2 Jeremiah xiv. 1-9.
PREACHER OP REPENTANCE. 351
cry ascends to heaven. Tie great ones have sent their ser-
vants for Water ; they go to the cisterns but find none ; they
come back with empty buckets in shame and confusion. The
ground is all cracked for want of rain, and the ploughmen are
red with shame and cover their heads in confusion. The very
hind leaves hei fresh-dropped fawn to its fate, for there is no
grass to eat. The wild asses stand on the hills, sniffing the
air like sea-monsters, with their eyes sinking for lack of fod-
der. Although our sins bear witness against us, yet hear us,
O Yahweh, for thy glory's sake ; for our transgressions are
many, and we have sinned against thee. O thou hope of Is-
rael ! thou who dost rescue him in his need ! why shouldst
thou be like a stranger in the land, like a traveller who comes
but to spend a night? Why shouldst thou be like a man
without counsel, like a strong man who can bring no help ?
Thou art in our midst, O Yahweh ! We are called by thy
name. Forsake us not thou ! "
Jeremiah, then, was capable of intensest pity, but the
strength of his moral feeling filled him with burning indigna-
tion against the sins of his people. In common with all the
Israelites he was convinced that Yahweh would chastise his
people's offences sternly. The godless Judah, he thought,
warned again and again, but still as wicked and impenitent
as ever, was advancing to a fearful fate. What choice had he
but to warn, rebuke, and threaten? Even 'the circumstances
of his private life were affected by his profound conviction
that days of darkness were at hand. He never married, be-
cause, as he expresses it, 1 "Yahweh told him that the boys and
girls who should be born in Judah would die a frightful death
with their fathers and mothers, and would lie unmourned and
nnburied, like dung upon the fields. They would perish by
sword and famine, and their bodies would become a spoil to
beasts and birds of prey."
The priest and prophet, whose gloomy presentiments kept
him unmarried, stood almost alone. His habitual feeling of
mournful indignation must have deeply affected his ordinary
intercourse with men. How could he share the joys and sor-
rows of his fellow-citizens like one of themselves? He who,
whenever he witnessed a disaster, thought to himself, " They
deserve nothing better ; " whose comment upon every joy was,
" It will pass away," — could never feel at ease amongst his
fellows. After the manner of the prophets, he threw this
painful sense of isolation in the midst of a populous city into
1 Jeremiah xvi. 1-4.
352 PREACHER OV REPENTANCE.
the form of a revelation from Yahweh. " Yahweh," he de-
clares, 1 " said to me : Enter no house of mourning to go with
the dead to his grave, and take not the wail of the dirge on
your lips ; for I have withdrawn my peace from this people ;
the full-grown and the young shall lie dead and unburied, and
none shall bewail them nor share in the funeral meal. Neither
go thou into the house of feasting, for thus says Yahweh of
war-hosts, Israel's god : Behold I will take away all rejoicing,
all the mirth of bridal joy."
We must not suppose, however, that Jeremiah was engaged
in desperate conflicts every day. Weeks and months must
have passed by without giving him any special occasion to
speak. At these times we picture him withdrawing into him-
self, and fixing his sombre gaze upon all around him, as he
pursued his lonely path, while the people looked on him as
half a saint and half a madman, and treated him with min-
gled respect, fear, pity, and ridicule.
But few understood him. We know of only one faithful
friend who alwa3 T s stood by him, and that was a certain Baruch.
A prophet here and there, such as Urijah of Kirjath-Jearim,
may have taken up the burden of his discourses ; a few distin-
guished citizens of Judah, such as Ahikam and Ebedmelech,
may have listened to him respectfully and endeavored to pro-
tect him : but in general he could exercise no perceptible in-
fluence, and seemed to be speaking to the wind. He saw
nothing but disaster in the future, and with love and pity
stirring the depth of his heart he warned, he prayed, he
threatened, all in vain ! Ever more clearly could he see the
judgment drawing nigh ; still more and more inevitable did
the dire future become in his eyes, and no one would hearken
to him !
What must not such a man have suffered !
The heart-rending cries that escape his lips from time to
time reveal to us what was sometimes passing through his
soul. "Ah me, my mother! why didst thou bear me?" he
once exclaimed. 2 " I am at variance and strife with all the
world. I lend to no man and no man lends to me. I am
cursed of every one." How terrible to stand upon a footing
of such mutual distrust with one's fellow-men as not even to
be able to indulge in ordinary intercourse with them !
But it pained the prophet still more to be made the constant
object of mockery. Such experiences wrung words of lamenta-
tion from him, which reveal the inner secrets of his life 8 :
l Jeremiah xvi. 6-9. » Jeremiah xv. 10. « Jeremiah xx. 7-18.
PREACHER OK REPENTANCE. 353
O Yahweh ! thou hast enticed me, and I have let myself be
enticed. Thou hast been too strong for me ; thou hast pre-
vailed, I am derided all day long ; every one mocks me ; for,
as long as I speak or cry, I must announce humiliation and
desolation ; and the word of Yahweh covers me with shame
and mockery unceasingly. Then I said to myself, "I will
think of him no more, and never speak in his name again ; "
but it was as if a fire were burning in my heart, were shut up
in my bones. I strove to restrain it, but could not. Many
a one have I heard muttering, " Accuse him ! Let us accuse
him ! " My very friends are watching to see if I stumble :
"If he slips, he will be in our power, and we can take ven-
geance on him." But Yahweh stands by me as a doughty
champion ; my persecutors shall fall, shall be put to shame
when their plots have failed, with eternal confusion that shall
never be forgot. Yahweh of hosts judges righteously and
sees into the heart. I shall surely behold how thou wilt
avenge me, for I have committed my cause to thee.
Sometimes, on the other hand, he would bring to mind
how often his god had rescued him from the hands of his
foes, and would cry exnltingly, "Praise Yahweh! Sing to
his glory, for he rescues the poor man's life from the hand
of the evil-doers." But he soon relapsed into the old strain,
"Cursed be the day upon which I was born! May no
blessing rest on the day when my mother bore me ! Cursed
be the man who brought the glad tidings to my father,
' a boy is born to you,' making his heart rejoice ! May
that man perish like the cities which Yahweh pitilessly
destroyed, while shrieks arose at the hour of dawn and the
sound of war at mid-day ! Oh, would that they had slain me
the moment I was born, or that my mother had been my
grave ! Why was I born to see labor and sorrow, to consume
my days in shame ? "
While condemning the bitter tone of such lamentations,
we are compelled to add that still sharper invectives,
launched against his enemies, are recorded in Jeremiah's
prophecies. Once, as lie tells us, 1 they laid plots against
him with the words : " We shall always have priests enough
to teach us the Law, and sages gifted with insight, and
prophets to preach the word. Come then, let us plot against
this Jeremiah, put him to silence with our words and refuse
to listen to him." Whereupon the prophet prayed: "0
Yahweh hear my prayer! Must evil be rendered me for
1 Jeremiah xviii. 18-23.
354 PKEACHEB OF REPENTANCE.
good ? Remember how I have pleaded for them with thee !
And now they seek my life. Make their sons a prey to
hunger, and let them perish by the sword! Forgive not
their iniquity and blot not out their sins, but utterly destroy
them in the season of thy wrath ! "
So far from excusing these passionate imprecations, we
are deeply shocked by them ; but the sharper the pain which
finds expression in them, the higher must our admiration
rise for the man who bore all this obloquy and enmity for
God's sake, and persevered in speaking out what lay upon his
heart.
These complaints do not appear to date from the begin-
ning of Jeremiah's prophetic activity, but from a later period,
when it was growing harder and harder for him to persevere
in the threatening tone of rebuke which exposed his life
to such constant danger. We have given them here, how-
ever, in order that we may be able to form at the outset
a clear conception of the prophet's general disposition and
character.
The lamentations contained in some of the psalms, and
their sudden transitions of feeling, correspond so perfectly
with the outpourings we have just given, that the conjecture
forces itself upon us to regard Jeremiah as their author.
Psalm xxxi., for instance, contains the following words of
trust and supplication, 1 after many bitter lamentations : —
But as for me I trust in thee, Yahweh !
And say : " Thou art my god."
My fate is in thy hand j
Deliver me from the might of enemies and persecutors !
Make thy face to shine on thy servant;
Save me by thy mercy.
O Yahweh ! put me not to shame, for I call upon thee.
Let the godless blush for shame, and be put to silence in the grave
* Vv. 14-17.
JEHOIAKIM AND JEREMIAH. 355
Chapter m.
JEHOIAKIM AND JEREMIAH.
2 Kings XXIII. 36, 37 ; 1 Jeremiah XXV., XXXVI.
WE will now consider Jeremiah's relations to king
Jehoiakim.
All that we know of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, whom
Necho had made king of Judah, is discreditable to him, and
it is therefore only natural that we should suspect more harm
of him than we actually know. Evidently the people had
no confidence in him, and had therefore placed his younger
brother upon the throne. And why did the Egyptian prince
take Jehoahaz captive and make Jehoiakim king ? Had the
latter undermined his brother's power by promising submis-
sion and a heavy tribute to Necho ? Likely enough, for he
was quite capable of similar baseness. It is much to his
discredit that although the tribute he had agreed to pay
necessitated his exacting large sums of money from his sub-
jects, he increased their heavy burdens further yet for the
sake of indulging his fancy for building. He perverted justice
to extort money from his subjects, and their very lives were
not always sacred to him. Jeremiah, who had honored
Josiah and who thought very highly of Jehoahaz also, had
nothing but stern rebuke for Jehoiakim. " Weep not for
him that is dead (Josiah)," he exclaimed, 2 " "Weep rather for
the exile who shall return no more (Jehoahaz) . But woe to
him who builds magnificent palaces and holds back his work-
men's wages ! Art thou fit to rule, unlike as thou art to thy
father? He did what was right, and therefore he prospered ;
he maintained the cause of the wretched, and it was well
with him. It is thus that men show they know me, says
Yahweh. But thy desire is all for gold ; thou destroyest the
guiltless and playest the tyrant. Wherefore thus has Tahweh
decreed against Jehoiakim: They shall raise no dirge over
him, for he shall be buried like an ass ; dragged out and cast
away, far from Jerusalem's gates ! "
We can well imagine the state of mind of the Judaeans,
and especially the men of Jerusalem, during the first years
of his reign. They murmured against the imposition of such
1 2 Chronicles xxxyi. 5. 2 Jeremiah xxii. 10-19.
356 JEHOIAKIM ANb JEREMIAH.
an unjust king by a foreign power, but yielde 3 to what tney
could not shun, paid the taxes as best they might, and lent
an eager ear to the prophets who still spoke, as they had
done under Josiah, of Israel's election by Yahweh, of the
imperishable glory of the temple, and the certainty that the
Lord's people should inherit the earth. Necho, too, was far
away, for he had crossed the Euphrates to measure his
strength against the Assyrians and Babylonians ; and man-
kind in general fear no danger that is not close at hand.
For the rest, we must note the instructive fact that the
Mosaic school remained in the ascendant, although Josiah's
defeat seemed a weighty argument against it, and the
heathen school might well exclaim : That is what comes of
Judah's deserting Baal and the Queen of Heaven ! No doubt
such language was actually used at this time as well as later
on, 1 and here and there a reaction towards heathenism must
have set in ; but on the whole the Mosaic school proved its
command of the sympathies of the people, for in spite of
the unfavorable turn which affairs had taken it retained its
supremacy.
Thus did the first four years of Jehoiakim's reign go by.
The king built palaces ; and the people murmured but dared
not rebel against the tyrant whom Necho supported, and the
prophets for the most part held their peace in perplexity.
But then an event occurred which gave an entirely new
aspect to affairs.
The king of Egypt, to whom Judah amongst other countries
was now tributary, had been established four years in Syria
in undisputed supremacy when his power was suddenly
extinguished by a severe defeat sustained at Carchemish, or
Circesium, on the Euphrates. His victor was Nebuchadrezzar
(always called Nebuchadnezzar in the books of Kings and
Chronicles) , the son of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, the
conqueror of Nineveh.
His kingdom, the capital of which was Babylon, is generally
called that of the Chaldees. Who these Chaldees really were
and in what relation they stood to the Babylonians is far from
clear. They were probably a warlike northern tribe, whose
leader had conquered Babylon and established himself as
king. It is enough for us to know that the armies of the
king of Babylon are always called Chaldsean.
Necho was so utterly routed that he was forced to hasten
back to his own land ; but, as he passed through the Philis-
1 Compare Jeremiah xliv. 17-19.
JEHOIAKIM AND JEREMIAH. 357
tine territory, he succeeded in gaining possession of Uaza, 1
and was therefore in a position to resist any power which
might pursue him, and dispute the approach to the Egyptian
frontier, at least for a time. For the moment, however, he
was free from apprehension. Nebuchadrezzar conquered
several districts of Syria, but a victorious army, laden with
booty and delayed every now and then by the resistance of a
fortress, cannot keep pace with a flying foe ; and, moreover,
soon after the victory Nebuchadrezzar was compelled to re-
linquish the pursuit of the Egyptians by his father's death,
which necessitated his immediate return to Babylon for his
coronation. It was easj to see, however, that the delay was
only momentary, and 1 that the districts conquered by Necho
would simply change their master.
Amongst these countries was the kingdom of Jehoiaklm ;
and no Judsean who took a sober view of the situation could
feel any great exultation at Necho's fall. The only real
question was how the Chaldsean monarch would treat the
subject peoples : but, though this question was seriouslj
asked by some, the first impression produced by the tidings
of Necho's fall fostered far other thoughts. It is in human
nature, especially at a low stage of intellectual development,
to obey the dictates of passion and emotion rather than
of reason. The Judaeans had been defeated by the king of
Egypt, and that was quite enough to make them rejoice in
the humiliation of their oppressor. Even Jeremiah, though
he had probably pointed to Necho as the instrument of Yah-
weh's judgments upon his people, rejoiced in the defeat of the
Egyptians, and cried, 2 " This is a day for Yahweh of war-
hosts ; a day of vengeance ! This day does Yahweh revenge
him on his foes, and the sword devours its fill and is sated
with blood ; for this slaughter is a sacrifice to the Lord Yah-
weh of war-hosts, in the northern land, by the Euphrates ! "
We may fancy, then, what a lofty tone other prophets would
take concerning Necho's defeat, and in what wild dreams they
would indulge !
But common sense, quickened by fear, gradually resumed
its sway in many minds, especially when Nebuchadrezzar,
after receiving homage in Babylon, set out again with a
numerous army, and the former vassals of Egypt saw that
they must soon be brought into contact with him. Many
families from the northern districts of Canaan took to flight,
and numbers of refugees sought safety in Jerusalem. Extreme
1 Jeremiah xlvii. a Jeremiah xlvi. 10.
358 JEHOIAKIM AND JEREMIAH.
fanatics persevered even yet in their tone of defiance, and
predicted Nebuchadrezzar's speedy defeat and hopeless fall ;
but his appearance on the scene made a far different im-
pression upon Jeremiah. If a certain degree of wavering
had hitherto characterized his propheeies, if he had now
pointed to one enemy and now to another as the vehicle
of Yahweh's wrath, henceforth it was his settled conviction
that Nebuchadrezzar was the rod of Yahweh's chastisement,
and that no one would be able to stand against the Chaldsean
monarch. Moreover, he had hitherto believed that the door
of grace was still in a measure open, but now he thought it
was finally closed, and the irrevocable sentence had gone
forth, ' ' Judah must fall ! " He himself enables us to trace
the process by which he arrived at this intense conviction. 1
He had prophesied for three-and-twenty years ; and other
men of God, who insisted upon repentance, had supported
him; but, he says, "The Judseans hearkened not to me.
Therefore shall Yahweh deliver them into the hand of the
king of Babylon, arid they shall serve him seventy years.
Nor shall Judah be the only people to bear the yoke of Neb-
uchadrezzar ; for thus says Yahweh, Take from my hand
this cup, filled with the wine of wrath, and make all the
peoples to whom I send you drink of it, that they may reel
and become delirious because of the sword which I shall send
to work havoc amongst them. And I," continues Jeremiah,
' ' obeyed. I gave this cup to Judah and Jerusalem first of
all, and theii to the king of Egypt, and then to his allies and
former vassals, — Arabians, Philistines, Edomites, Moabites,
Ammonites, Phoenicians, nay, the Greeks themselves and the
men of Arabia Felix, and the Medes. Whether they will or
not they must drink perforce, for Yahweh will utter a fearful
roaring ; misery to all the world ! unburied corpses on all
sides ! Howl ye shepherds, and shriek ye who tend the
flocks ! Ye shall not escape, for the wrath of Yahweh is
upon you and upon your land ! "
Before going any further we must fix our special attention
upon one particular expression in this prophecy, and make a
remark as to the scope of Jeremiah's work.
We refer to the prediction that Judah should serve Neb-
uchadrezzar seventy years. When the scribes had succeeded
the prophets among the Jews, and pored over the ancient
oracles in order to make out how Israel's god had foretold the
1 Jeremiah xxv.
JEHOIAKIM AND JEREMIAH. 359
details of the future, immense value was attached by the be-
lievers to this announcement of the seventy years. They
took for granted that it had been literally fulfilled, that the
land had lain waste for seventy years, that precisely that
period had elapsed between the beginning and the end of the
captivity. 1 For a long time the Christian interpreters of the
Bible were no wiser than the Jews in this matter, and hence
it is still common to speak of the seventy years' captivity.
But, unfortunately, the calculation comes out wrong, for not
quite fifty years elapsed between Jerusalem's devastation (586
B.C.) and the return (538 B.C.). This has been a sad per-
plexity to the commentators ! Various attempts have been
made to reconcile the prediction and the event. It has been
supposed, for instance, that Jeremiah reckoned the seventy
years from the first carrying away of the people, which took
place under Jehoiakim, eleven years before the final deporta-
tion ; but even this gives less than sixty years duration to the
captivity. Others reckon from the year in which Jeremiah
made the prediction, which was the fourth of Jehoiakim, who
reigned eleven years ; but even this only gives something less
than sixty-seven years before the return. Reckon the seventy
years as we will, we cannot make them come out right.
We must utterly relinquish the idea that the details of the
future were revealed to a prophet. He no more knew them
than any one of us does, however firmly he may have believed
he did. In this case, however, Jeremiah had evidently no
intention of defining the exact period of Judah's subjection
to the Chaldees when he spoke of seventy years. He simply
meant to indicate a long period. Several years later, when a
portion of the people was already carried away, he used the
same expression once more 2 on an occasion which will pres-
ently demand our attention.
There is another remarkable feature in this prophecy;
namely, the fact that it deals with foreign peoples.
It will be remembered that Jeremiah, when giving an ac-
count of his call, 8 describes himself as having been sent espe-
cially to the heathens. Now the beginning of his prophetic
relations with the surrounding peoples dates from this fourth
year of Jehoiakim, in which Nebuchadrezzar began to draw
near. Henceforth he constantly spoke of the heathen nations,
and sometimes, when their ambassadors were at Jerusalem,
even addressed them directly. "We still possess some of his
discourses addressedto or dealing with the Philistines, Moab-
1 2 Chronicles xxxvi. 21. 2 Jeremiah xxix. 10. lS See pp. 323 B.
360 JEHOIAKIM AND JEREMIAH.
ites, Ammonites, Edomites, Syrians, Arabians, and Elamites. 1
These utterances are all of the same character, are all full of
threats and predictions of humiliation by Nebuchadrezzar.
Accordingly, they all stand in close connection with the one
we have given (Jeremiah xxv.) ; and it is remarkable that, in
the Greek translation, they are inserted immediately after it,
instead of standing, as they do, in the received Hebrew text,
at the end of the book. It is not likely that the translator
transposed these chapters himself; and we ma}' therefore
suppose that he found the arrangement he has adopted in the
Hebrew, and that the chapters in question originally stood
where he has them. This shows us that the book of Jere-
miah's oracles, like so many other books of the Old Testa-
ment, did not at once assume the form in which we now have
it, but was recast, it may be, several times. In this process
modifications of more or less importance would inevitably be
made. Some passages would be omitted and others intro-
duced. For instance, the last three chapters of the book of
Jeremiah have been added as an appendix, and contain an
oracle against Babylon 2 that was certainly written in the land
of captivity by a later hand than Jeremiah's, and an account
of the taking of Jerusalem a identical with the conclusion of
the book of Kings.
.We may now return to Jeremiah.
Soon after the news of Necho's defeat had reached Judah,
when Jeremiah was convinced that Nebuchadrezzar would
come and chastise the people of Yahweh, he prepared to give
them one more emphatic warning. Accordingly he com-
manded his faithful follower, Baruch, to write down certain
oracles at his dictation that he might read them aloud to the
people at the proper time, should he himself be prevented
from going to the temple. What he proceeded to dictate was
the substance of all his discourses, so far as he could remem-
ber them, from the beginning of his ministry. He was grate-
ful to his faithful Baruch, who had gladly complied with his
request and promised to read his oracles to the people, but he
had little hope of any good result. There is a tone of abso-
lute hopelessness in a short prophecy which he uttered on this
occasion: 4 "Thus says Yahweh, Israel's god, concerning
you, O Baruch 1 Why do you complain that Yahweh still
increases your woe and that you find no rest ? Say to Baruch ■
1 Jeremiah xlvi.-xlix. 2 Chapters 1., li.
8 Chapter lii. 4 Jeremiah xlv.
JEHOIAKIM AND JEREMIAH. 361
I, Yahweh, lay waste all that I once have planted, even the
whole land. Why should you expect any good to come?
Expect it not. For I will plunge all men into misery,
says Yahweh. But wheresoever you go your life shall be
spared."
Since Nebuchadrezzar, as we know already, did not march
upon Egypt immediately after Necho's defeat, it was some
little time before the occasion arose for which Jeremiah had
committed his prophecies to writing. Meanwhile he must
often have heard the taunting cry: "Where is the word of
Yahweh now ? When will it be fulfilled ? " 1 But in the ninth
month (our December) of the following year Nebuchadrezzar
at last drew near, subduing all the countries as he went.
Terror sank into the heart of the Judaeans. A solemn fast
was proclaimed, and pilgrims streamed to Jerusalem from
every quarter of Jndah, to implore Yahweh's pity. in the
temple.
Then Baruch went, as he had promised, with the roll of
Jeremiah's oracles to the sanctuary. One of the priests,
Gemariah, the son of the secretary Shaphan, had granted
him the use of his chamber in one of the courts of the tem-
ple : and there he read all that Jeremiah had dictated to him,
to every one who cared to listen.
It appears that Gemariah had not understood that in grant-
ing Baruch the use of his room he was taking part in what
might cause a great disturbance, for he himself had not
thought it necessary to be present as Baruch read his roll,
but was in a room in the king's palace in the company of
other nobles and courtiers. His son Michaiah, however, was
present, and was greatly terrified to hear that Jeremiah had
announced the humiliation of Judah, and had even predicted
that the sanctuary at Jerusalem would be devastated as the
ancient temple at Shiloh had been. Not daring to take the
responsibility of what was going on in his father's room, he
hastened to inform him of the purport of the oracles which
Baruch was reading.
Gemariah and the other princes immediately sent a certain
Jehudi to bring Baruch, with his roll, before them. As soon
as he came they made him sit down and read it to them also.
On hearing the sombre predictions they were greatly alarmed,
and all of them felt that the matter was far too serious to
be kept a secret from the king ; but they looked upon it as so
extraordinary that they questioned Baruch very closely as to
1 Jeremiah xvii. 15.
VOL. II. 1C
362 JEHOIAKIM AND JEREMIAH.
whether the words he had taken down from Jeremiah's mouth
were really what he declared them to have been.
The surprise expressed by these princes seems very extraor-
dinaiy, for in the first place if the roll contained nothing
but what Jeremiah had already proclaimed during his years
of public activity, we should have supposed that the princes
could hardly have been ignorant of it ; and in the next place
it was only four years at most since Jeremiah had been brought
before the princes of Judah for judgment because he had fore-
told the fall of Jerusalem. Had this event escaped their
knowledge? We can only suppose that the " princes of Ju-
dah " were not the same in the two cases, and that hitherto
Jeremiah's ministry had seldom or never attracted general
attention, so that he was only known in a small circle as a
preacher of repentance.
Be this as it may, his words were not neglected now. Ge-
mariah and the other nobles were thrown into consternation.
They dared not keep the matter a secret from .the king, yet
knew him too well not to fear the consequences of revealing
it to him. They trembled for the bold prophet and his faith-
ful servant. Accordingly, they told Baruch to seek some
place of concealment together with Jeremiah, after which
they approached the king, leaving the roll in the room in
which they had been sitting.
As soon as Jehoiakim had heard their statement he told
Jehudi to go and fetch the roll and read it aloud to him, while
all his courtiers stood round. It soon appeared that the
princes had had good reason to dread the effect which these
oracles would have upon him, for he could not even restrain
himself till Jehudi had read the roll through, but as soon as
he had listened to three or four pages gave such unmis-
takable signs of fury that Jehudi in terror slashed the parch-
ment into strips with his knife, and threw it into the fire, while
the other courtiers, instead of rending their clothes at this act
of sacrilege, concealed their dismay and looked calmly on,
except Gemariah and a few more, who did their best to re-
strain the king, but in vain.
It was well that the princes had advised Baruch to conceal
himself, for Jehoiakim, not content with the roll being burned,
immediately despatched several of the nobles, including a
prince of the blood, to seize Jeremiah and Baruch and throw
them into prison. But " Yahweh had hidden them," as
Jeremiah afterwards said when he once more dictated the
contents of the roll that Jehoiakim had burned. It need
FIRST DEPORTATION TO BABYLON. 863
hardly be said that this second collection of oracles contained
a fresh denunciation of Jehoiakim for having destroyed the
roll in which Yahweh's words were recorded. Woe to him !
No descendant of his should ever sit upon the throne of
David. His body should be cast out in shame, and should
lie exposed to the heat of day and the cold of night. Yah-
weh would requite his wickedness and the wickedness of his
race and of his courtiers ; and the evil which he had foretold
should come upon all Jerusalem and Judah.
Jeremiah, then, evaded Jehoiakim's wrath ; but one of his
fellow-workers was less fortunate. A certain Urijah of Kir-
jath-Jearim had adopted Jeremiah's language, and had proph-
esied against the city and the country ; but no sooner had
it come to the king's ears than he planned the prophet's death.
Not even his flight to Egypt saved him, for he was seized in
that country by Jehoiakim's emissaries and brought back to
Jerusalem, where he was put to death, and even the honors of
decent burial refused to his corpse. 1
Doubtless Jehoiakim could have laid his hands upon Jere-
miah also had he really wished it ; but Jeremiah was a member
of the powerful priesthood, and could rely upon the protection
of his kindred and the princes of Judah not only as a prophet,
but also as a Levite. The king, therefore, when his passion
had cooled a little, would shrink from openly seeking his life.
Jeremiah, then, was still allowed to live, and even to preach ;
but he could find no credence for his message.
Chapter IV.
THE FIRST DEPORTATION TO BABYLON.
2 Kings XXIV. 1-17 ; 2 Zechariah XH.-XIV.; Jeremiah XXXV.;
Habakkuk; Psalms XLII., XLIII.
JEHOIAKIM, whp was not the man to risk his crown in
the unequal conflict with Nebuchadrezzar, unless com-
pelled to do so, submitted on his approach. His neighbors
did the same, and all the countries up to the borders of Egypt
were soon tributary to the Chaldaean monarch. Nebuchad-
rezzar, therefore, turned his arms elsewhere, and Judah could
take breath again, having simply changed her master.
i Jeremiah xxri. 20-23. 2 2 Chronicles xxxvi. 6-10.
364 FIRST DEPORTATION TO BABTXON.
All this gave the king but little uneasiness, though most
of the prophets were full of indignation. The fanatical
enthusiasm which only five years ago had urged Josiah rashly
to measure his strength against Necho's, had been by no
means quenched by all the disastrous consequences of so ill-
advised a measure, but in many quarters was hotter than ever.
A specimen of the language sometimes held during this period
is furnished by the oracle preserved in Zechariah xii.-xiv.
Unfortunately there are so many obscure passages in these
chapters that at present it seems impossible to determine
exactly when they were uttered, and in explaining some of
the details we are driven to pure conjectures ; but we may
regard it as certain that the author was a contemporary of
Jeremiah. It appears that he did not live in Jerusalem, and,
like Micah of Moresheth before him, 1 had many accusations
to urge against the capital. "What raised his special indigna-
tion was a murder that had been committed in Jerusalem, and
which, as he declared, would be bitterly rued one day, espe-
cially by the king and his household, together with the priests. 2
He was probably thinking of Urijah of Kirjath-Jearim,
whom the king had destroyed at the instigation of the priests. 8
He anticipated a judgment upon Jerusalem, and especially
upon the prophets, who would be covered with shame and
would be put to death by their own parents, because thej r had
prophesied lies in Yahweh's name. 4 But in spite of all this,
Jerusalem would not only be rescued from the hand of her
enemies, but would become " a cup of intoxication to all the
peoples who come up against her, a heavy stone which all
nations shall strain themselves vainly to lift. All the horses
of her foes, says Yahweh, will I strike with blindness, and all
their riders with bewilderment. Judah's princes shall be
amongst the nations as fire cast into the midst of fuel, and
shall burn up all things, while Jerusalem abides. Yahweh
will defend the dwellers in Jerusalem and make David's house
like a god, like Yahweh's angel that goes out before him, and
all heathens who come against Jerusalem shall perish." 6 In
another passage the prophet appears to anticipate a partial
devastation of the city ; e but in the end Jerusalem will be
saved, all the foes of Yahweh will be wofully chastised and
spoiled, so that the remnant will honor Yahweh, and year
by year will come to celebrate the feast of Tabernacles at
1 See pp. 276-278. 2 Zechariah xii. 10-14.
» See p. 363. 4 Zechariah xiii. 1-0.
« Zechariah xii. 1-9. e Zechariah xiii. 7-xiv. 5.
FIRST DEPORTATION TO BABYLON. 865
Jerusalem. Should any of them neglect to do so, they will
be punished by lack of rain. 1
The seer appears to have wavered in his conception of
Jerusalem's probable fate, and to have expected a judgment
upon her more confidently at one time than another. But
in one thing he never wavered, namely, in the certainty with
which he cried woe upon all the heathens who dared to attack
the city in which every thing was to be consecrated to Yah-
weh. 2 These thoughts found only too congenial a soil in the
minds of the men of Jerusalem. The city of Yahweh could
"not be devastated by the heathens ; he who " stretched out
the heavens, established the earth, and formed the spirit
of man within him," 8 would never suffer it. Judah was
therefore unconquerable, and must not yield an inch to the
heathens.
Now Jehoiakim himself was by no means inclined to act
upon such principles as these, but in the long run he was un
able to resist the stream of public opinion guided by thp
fanatics, and after paying tribute to Nebuchadrezzar for three
years, he finally renounced his allegiance, probably hoping
for support from Egypt.
The Chaldeean monarch was just then detained elsewhere,
and was not in a position to come with an army and chastise
the audacity of Judah in person. For the present he was
obliged to hand over the task to the garrisons which he had left
in some of the cities of the surrounding countries and to the
vassal princes of Syria, Moab, and Ammon, who had not
followed Jehoiakim's example, but had remained faithful to
Nebuchadrezzar. These forces inflicted considerable suffer-
ings upon Judah, in which the writer of Kings traced the
hand of Yahweh chastising Judah for Manasseh's sins. At
last, after three years, Nebuchadrezzar himself appeared upon
the scene. Then terror sank into the hearts of the northern
Israelites, who seem to have made common cause with Judah.
Many families preferred flight to the risk of outrage at the
hands of the Chaldseans, and many sought a refuge in Jeru-
salem, the only city that could stand a siege.
We can easily guess the tone Jeremiah took. He pointed
ominously towards the north, whence the foe was advancing,
and cried woe upon Judah! "Yahweh told me," he once
declared, 4 " to buy a linen girdle, to put it on, and to pre-
l Zechariah xiv. 6-19. 2 Zechariah xiv. 20, 21.
8 Zechariah xii. 1. 4 Jeremiah xiii. 1-11.
866 FIRST DEPORTATION TO BABTLON.
serve it from the damp. Afterwards he told me to hide
this girdle amongst the stones in the bed of the Euphrates.
Many days afterwards he told me to go and fetch it again,
but when I came there it was all spoilt and marred. Then
said Yahweh to me : Thus will I mar the bravery of Judah
and the pride of Jerusalem ; for as a girdle surrounds a
man's loins, so would I have had my people surround me ;
but they would not hearken to me ! " After all that we
have said about the fictitious visions of the prophets, 1 there
is nothing in this curious allegory that need surprise us.
Of course Jeremiah did not really make these repeated-
journeys to the Euphrates, but simply selected this form
under which to convey his denunciations.
But whenever the form he had chosen to embody the
certainty of Yahweh's judgment was such as would readily
lend itself to a visible presentation, he gladly availed him-
self of the fact. Once, for instance, he roused the curiosity
of the men of Jerusalem by passing through the streets of
the city attended by certain outlapdish-looking strangers. 2
They were the Rechabites, so called after the founder of their
clan, Rechab, the father of king Jehu's friend Jonadab. 3
Jeremiah accompanied by the Rechabite chief, Jaazaniah,
and some of his followers, entered one of the buildings that
surrounded the temple, and went into a room, the use of
which he had obtained. A number of people had followed
him, and the room was soon full. Upon this he placed some
cups of wine before the Rechabites and invited them to drink.
But they declined, alleging that their ancestor Jonadab had
forbidden them to drink wine, to build houses, to cultivate
the land, or to plant vineyards, and had commanded them
to dwell in tents in the country districts through which they
wandered. They declared' that they had always observed
these precepts, and had only sought refuge in Jerusalem now
out of terror for Nebuchadrezzar.
Jeremiah had reckoned upon their refusal, and imme-
diately turned to the spectators with the words : " men of
Judah and Jerusalem, will you always be deaf to my words?
says Yahweh. See how these men obey the precepts of
their ancestor, while you . . . ! I never cease to send
you prophets, but you hearken not to me. Therefore will I
bring upon Judah and Jerusalem all the disasters of which I
have spoken ; but Rechab's posterity shall abide for ever ! "
Jeremiah was still in constant danger of being called to a
l See pp. 226-228. a Jeremiah xxxv. 8See p. 136.
FIRST DEPORTATION TO BABYLON. 367
heavy account for his boldness. Once he went with certain
distinguished men of Jerusalem, whom he had summoned for
the purpose, by one of the southern gates of the city tow-
ards the valley of the son of Hinnom. He had an earthen
vessel in his hands. When they were near the Tophet, the
thunder of prophetic denunciation rolled from Jeremiah's
lips; he rehearsed the sinful past of Judah, reminded his
hearers of the infant sacrifices that had been offered there
and all the other forms of their idolatry, linking the most
dire threats to these shameful reminiscences. Last of all he
dashed the vessel to fragments upon the ground with the
words : " Thus says Yahweh of war-hosts : I will shatter the
people that dwell in this city as one shatters an earthen
vessel that cannot be pieced together again." Then he
returned to Jerusalem with the nobles and repeated his
denunciations in the court of the temple ; but the priest
Pashur, the chief of the temple police, 1 brought him to an
abrupt conclusion by ordering him to be scourged and put
into the stocks. The next day, however, he was set at
liberty, and burst at once into the fiercest invectives against
Pashur: "Yahweh no longer calls you Pashur, but Terror-
upon-every-side ; for you shall be in terror for yourself and all
your friends in terror for you. Yet they, too, shall perish
before your eyes, and I will deliver all Judah into the hand
of the king of Babylon. And j-ou, Pashur, shall be taken
captive to Babylon and shall die there, with all the friends
to whom you have uttered false predictions ! " 2
While Jeremiah was uttering his terrible threats, and the
majority of the prophets were giving currency to the wildest
hopes and announcing the discomfiture of the foe and the
; glory of Yahweh's people in the immediate future, there
were some who took up a position between the two extremes.
We know of at least one prophet who was profoundly con-
scious of the depth of Judah's sin and the terrible punishment
she merited, but nevertheless predicted victory to Yahweh's
people and defeat to the Chaldees. It is Habakkuk.
His whole prophecy sounds like an echo of Jeremiah's
predictions. He takes up just the same attitude towards
his people, and begins by bitter lamentations and by sternly
accusing his countrymen of forsaking Yahweh's law and
perverting justice. The misery inflicted by the Chaldaeans
was only what the Judseans had deserved by their abandoned
lives. And yet the seer pleaded for his people. However
» See pp. 178,179. 3 Jeremiah xix.- xx. 6.
368 FIRST DEPORTATION TO BABYLON.
deeply they were corrupted their enemies were more god-
less yet ; for they deified their very weapons, vainly imagin-
ing that they were invincible. Would Yahweh suffer them
to root out men who were more righteous than they? Surely
he would not. The prophet had received a command from
Yahweh to write down quickly what he saw, for soon his
wrath would burst upon all the people's oppressors and he
would root out all the workers of iniquhty, while the righteous
would be saved alive by trust in Yahweh. At the end of
this short book of prophecies Habakkuk gives the rein to his
imagination. He beholds Yahweh coming from the south
with the pestilence before him and the lightnings under his
feet, advancing to trample down the people's foes and deliver
his anointed. Let every man rejoice in Yahweh, for he it is
who gives the victory !
In their main conceptions, then, Jeremiah and Habakkuk
are at one. They are both of them fully alive to the sins of
their people ; both of them trace the avenging hand of God
in the misery brought upon Judah b3 r the Chaldseans, and
both of them believe that Yahweh's people is imperishable.
But while Jeremiah lays such stress upon his people's sins
that the glorious future almost sinks out of sight, Habakkuk
believes that the punishment has now been sufficiently accom-
plished, and that it is high time for Yahweh to reveal his
saving power. It need hardly be said that this latter view
found more favor with the people than the other.
King Jehoiakim was no longer in the land of the living
when Nebuchadrezzar took Jerusalem. He had sown the
seed, but the harvest was reaped by his son.
The Chronicler, however, tells us that as early as the third
year of his reign Jehoiakim himself was taken captive by Neb-
uchadrezzar 1 and thrown into chains of brass, to be carried
away to Babylon; and also that the enemy plundered the
temple at the same time. Did he find it impossible to believe
that so wicked a man as Jehoiakim should have come to so
good an end? Be this as it may, his narrative has nothing
to commend it, and Jehoiakim certainly " slept with his
fathers " and was succeeded by his son.
Jeremiah, who had repeatedly predicted that Jehoiakim
would he unburied like an ass, and would not be succeeded
by his son, 2 was not at all disconcerted by the non-fulfilment
of his prophecy and the accession of Jehoiakim's son Jehoia-
l Compare Daniel i. 1, % a Jevevniah xxii. 18, 19, xxxvi. 30.
FIRST DEPORTATION TO BABYLON. 369
kin in the teeth of all his curses. The fact is that though
the prophets really believed that they could foretell the
details of the future, they never forgot that their pictures of
events to come were nothing more than deductions from the
great religious truths to which their hearts bore witness ;
namely, Yahweh's pleasure in the pious man and his con-
demnation of the godless. No sooner had Jehoiakin, also
called Coniah, ascended the throne than Jeremiah transferred
to him the threats he had previously uttered against Jehoia-
kim. " As sure as I live, says Yahweh, though thou, Coniah,
son of Jehoiakim, wert to cling to me as a ring clings to the
hand that wears it, I would pluck thee off and deliver thee
into Nebuchadrezzar's hand. Thou shalt go with thy mother
into captivity, and shalt die in the strange land. Is Coniah
a contemptible idol, or a vessel in which none takes pleas-
ure, that he and his race must be cast out and hurled into
an unknown land? O land, land, land! listen to the word
of Yahweh. Thus he says : Write down this man as child
less and unfortunate ; for none of his posterity shall sit upon
David's throne or rule over Judah." 1
The writers of Kings and Chronicles employ the stock
phrase with regard to Jehoiakin, and say that he did what
was evil in Yahweh's eyes ; but Jeremiah evidently supposed
him to be punished for his father's sake, and not for any sins
of his own. And, indeed, he was still quite 3'oung (accord-
ing to Kings, eighteen ; according to Chronicles, only eight),
was completely under his mother's influence, and only re-
mained three months upon the throne.
Nebuchadrezzar was now at the gates of Jerusalem. Was
the people's enthusiasm suddenly cooled by his appearance ?
Probably not ; but, though a host of prophets urged the men
of Jerusalem to offer a vigorous resistance and confidently
promised Yahweh's help in overthrowing the Chaldseans,
they had little influence in the palace, and the court was
altogether disinclined to run any fatal risks. Jehoiakin,
with his mother and chief officers, threw themselves upon the
mercj' of the conqueror, and surrendered the city at discretion.
The Chaldseans treated conquered lands upon the prin-
ciples followed by the Assyrians. They carried off the most
prominent citizens as captives. Such was the fate of Judah.
Thousands of its inhabitants were transported to Babylon.
The book of Kings says ten thousand ; and since this must
be understood of heads of families, the total would be forty
1 Jeremiah xxii. 24-30.
16*
370 riKST DEPORTATION TO BABYION.
i»
or fifty thousand. Jehoiakin and his courtiers were carried
off amongst the rest.
It is difficult to exaggerate the terrors which exile must
have had for the pious Israelite. Canaan, especially Jeru-
salem, was endeared to him by his faith, as well as by all
other ties that bind men to their own countries. Even
though he had risen to the thought that Yahweh was present
everywhere and could make his power felt in every place, still
Canaan was " Yahweh' s holy mountain," "the glory of all
the earth." Zion was his dwelling-place ; and there the
praise of his worshippers was more acceptable than in any
other spot. Many of Israel's songs are instinct with a deep
attachment to the city of the temple, which the lapse of ages
only served to strengthen. Let me give, as an example, a
poem which was certainly not written before the time of
Jehoiakin, and may be subsequent to the second or third
deportation. I give it here because it reflects so perfectly
the sorrow which consumed the pious exiles in a foreign land.
It is contained in Psalms xlii. and xliii. , which have come
down to us as two poems, though they evidently made up a
single whole originally : —
As the hart pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul after thee, Yahweh ! *
Mv soul is athirst for Yahweh, the living god.
When shall I come and appear before him ?
My tears are my food day and night,
For they cry to me daily : " Where is 3'our god ? "
I think of old times, and give memory rein,
How I went with the throng to the house of Yahweh,
A festive host with song and praise.
Why art thou cast down, my soul ! why art thou disquieted in me?
Hope thou in Yahweh, for I shall yet praise him ;
He is my saviour and my god.
My soul is cast down. I remember thee, far from the land of Jordan,
Far from Mount Hermon and the little hills.
Flood breaks upon flood, mid the roar of thy billows ;
All thy waves and thy breakers pass over me.
Yahweh ordains his favor by day;
By night I sing in his praise,
A prayer to the living god.
enemies' op
I will ask of the god, my rock : " Why dost thou forget me?
Why must I always be clad in mourning because of my
pression? "
They stab me to the heart with their taunts,
With their daily questionings: " Where is vour god ? "
Why art, thou cast down, my soul ! why art thou disquieted in me ?
Hope thou in Yahweh, for I shall yet praise him;
He is my saviour and my god.
Uphold my cause, Yahweh 1 against a pitiless people,
Help me against deceivers and liars,
1 Compare p. 190.
FANATICS IN JERUSALEM. 371
For thou art the god that helps me ; why dost thou forget me ?
Why am I clad in black because of the oppression of my enemy I
Send thy light and thy faithfulness to lead me,
And to bring me to thy holy hill and thy dwelling-place ;
That I may come to the altar"of Yahweh, the god of my joy,
And praise thee, O Yahweh, my god, with the harp.;
Why art thou cast down, my soul ! why art thou disquieted in mt '.
Hope thou in Yahweh, for I shall yet praise him;
He is my saviour and my god.
Chapter V.
THE FANATICS IN JERUSALEM.
Jeremiah XXVII.-XX.IX., XXXIV.; 2 Kikgs, XXIV. 18-XXV. 1. >
HAD the Judseans been guided by calm reflection, the
fearful castigation they had just received would have
shown them that they could not measure their strength against
Nebuchadrezzar's, and would have kept them quiet for the
future. But fanaticism is fatal to common sense, and the
fanatics were ever gaining the ear of the Judaeans more and
more completely, not only amongst those' still left at home,
but amongst the exiles also. Many of the latter dwelt on the
banks of the Chebar or Chaboras, a river of Mesopotamia,
and there, too, as well as at Jerusalem, prophets arose, whom
Ezekiel, one of their opponents, graphically describes as
seducing the people by crying Peace ! peace ! when there
was no peaoe ; while some of them threw up a wall of clay,
and others plastered it with untempered mortar ! Ezekiel,
like Jeremiah, predicted that hail and whirlwind would over-
throw this wall and destroy the plastering. 2
Jeremiah, who was left behind in Jerusalem, thought far
more highly of the exiles than of those who remained. He
once saw in his mind's eye — such at least was the form jn
which he clothed his thoughts 3 — two baskets of figs standing
before the temple ; the fruit in one was ripe and good, but
that in the other was so bad as to be uneatable. These good
figs represented the exiles. Yahweh would look upon them
with favor, would bring them back to their own land and save
them, and would give them a heart to know him, so that they
» 2 Chronicles, xxxvi. 11-13. 2 Ezekiel xiii. 1-16. 8 Jeremiah xxiv.
372 FANATICS IN JERUSALEM.
should be his people and he should be their god. But the
uneatable figs represented those left behind, with their king
and their princes. Yahweh would destroy them.
The prophet's favorable estimate of the exiles did not rest
upon anything he had ascertained as to their conduct or dis-
position. The fact was that he had no sufficient grounds
as yel for saying anything about them, and was completely
mistaken, as we shall soon see, in his account of them. His
language was based on a mere supposition. He had long be-
lieved with equal certainty that a judgment would come upon
Judah, and that Yahweh's people was, nevertheless, imperish-
able ; and since the exiles had already received their punish-
ment, he thought that Yahweh would deliver them, and make
them his people, whereas the punishment of those still left
behind was yet to come.
The Chebar was far away from Jerusalem ; but the inter-
course between Judah and the Euphrates was sufficiently close
to ensure the occasional arrival of news from the exiles at
Jerusalem. It was soon known that the banished Judaeans,
far from losing all courage, cherished the certain hope of a
return to their fatherland, and confided in the assurances of
such prophets as Zedekiah and Ahab that this consummation
was close at hand. As soon as this came to the ears of Jere-
miah, he wrote a letter to the exiles, in which he exhorted
them to patience. They were to build houses and plant gar-
dens, were to marry, and to pray for the peace of the city to
which the3 r had been transported. They who foretold a speedy
return were false prophets, and all of them liars. The exiles
would indeed return, but not till seventy years had gone. 1
Woe to the false prophets, Zedekiah and Ahab, adulterers
and liars ! Their fate would be so wretched that a saying
would arise, " May Yahweh make you as miserable as Zede-
kiah and Ahab ! "
This letter, while it failed to sober the exiles, raised the in-
tensest anger of the zealots, whom it denounced as liars. A
certain Shemaiah, therefore, wrote a letter to the priest Zeph-
aniah, who may have been a brother of the prophet Zedekiah,
since both are described as sons of Maaseiah, informing him
of the message that Jeremiah had written to the exiles, and
begging him to put him into the stocks for it. But Zephaniah
was very favorably disposed to Jeremiah and read the lettei
to him, upon which the prophet, as we may well believe, lost
no time in writing another letter to Babylon containing dire
1 Compare pp. 358, 359.
FANATICS IN JERUSALEM. 373
threats against Shemaiah : When Yahweh blessed his people
neither he nor any of his family should see it !
When Nebuchadrezzar carried Jehoiakin to Babylon as a
captive, he placed his uncle Mattaniah, a son of Josiah, upon
the throne, changing his name to Zedekiah. The author of
Kings again employs the stock phrase, " he did what was evil
in Yahweh's eyes," with respect to Zedekiah. He seems to
have been what is commonly called " not a bad sort of man,"
that is to say, well-intentioned and kindly, but weak. Such
a man would probably have become the tool of others, and
shown his incapacity to rule under anj- circumstances ; but
at any rate in Judah, in the 597 B.C., the year of his accession
to the throne, he was utterly out of place. Even if his sub-
jects had been peaceably disposed, it would have needed rare
wisdom successfully to govern the helpless, feeble, devastated
country. But, as a fact, the Judapans, so far from patiently
enduring their fate, at one moment burst into passionate lam-
entations and cries of despair ; and, at another, lent an ear to
the prophets who declared that Yahweh's people was invin-
cible, and urged them to fly to arms. It is impossible, there-
fore, to exaggerate the energy and firmness which it would
have needed to govern them well. " Can an Ethiopian change
his skin, or a leopard his spots ? Then can you also do good,
having once learned to do evil ! " Such was Jeremiah's
opinion of his contemporaries ; 1 and, as far as their love of
freedom was concerned, the comparison was certainly just.
They were utterly untractable.
Hardly four years after Jehoiakin had been taken captive
and the temple plundered, great schemes of revolt against the
Chaldaean king were once more on the stocks ! The princes
of Edom, Moab, Amnion, and the Phoenician cities sent
ambassadors to Jerusalem to conclude an alliance with
Zedekiah. 2 The Judaean prophets gave the most confident
assurances of success. Within two years all the utensils
of the temple which Nebuchadrezzar had taken to Babylon
would be brought back, and Jehoiakin would return, for the
yoke of the king of Babylon would be broken.
Foremost amongst the prophets who uttered these oracles
in the court of the temple was a certain Hananiah. Priests
and people listened greedily to his words and surrendered
1 Jeremiah xiii. 23.
2 Jeremiah xxvii., xxviii. In xxvii. 1, read Zedekiah for Jehoiakim. See wo
3 12, and xxviii. 1.
374 FANATICS IN JERUSALEM.
themselves to his influence. But Jeremiah did not shrink
from challenging his words, and foretold that the remnant of
the people would be carried awaj r captive, the temple and the
palace spoiled anew, and all manner of misery brought upon
the land. He who truly loved his country must bow submis-
sively beneath the yoke of the Chaldseans, and shut his ears
against these lying prophets. Alas ! if they had been true
men of God, they would have prayed Yahweh not to suffer
the remaining treasures of Jerusalem to be carried away,
instead of vainly promising that those already gone should
come back again. But since they were so wedded to
their folly, even the remnant of the treasures should be taken
to Babylon.
On one occasion, Jeremiah and Hananiah came into public
collision with each other. Jeremiah had sent wooden yokes
to all the ambassadors of the surrounding peoples, with the
command from Yahweh to give them to their respective
princes, as a symbol of the course they would adopt if they
were wise — the course of submission to Nebuchadrezzar.
The prophet himself went through the streets of Jerusalem
with a j*oke upon his neck, as a visible sign to his people
that they must bear the enemy's yoke in patience. Now once
on a time, when Hananiah was again delivering his propitious
oracles in the temple court, and the people were eagerly
drinking in the welcome sound of his stirring words, Jeremiah
suddenly appeared before him, with the joke still upon his
neck, and cried, in mockery, " Amen ! No doubt Yahweh
will confirm your words, and bring back all the temple treas-
ures that have been carried away, together with all the exiles.
But nevertheless," and here the prophet's manner suddenly
changed, " I have a word to say to you in the hearing of all
these people. We have had rnany predecessors, from ancient
times till now, who have prophesied concerning great coun-
tries and mighty kingdoms, and have foretold misery and
pestilence. But if a man of God foretold prosperity, he was
never held a true messenger of Yahweh until his prediction
was fulfilled." Maddened by this renewed imputation of
prophesying lies, Hananiah leapt upon his opponent, tore the
yoke from his shoulders and broke it to pieces, crying, " Thus
says Yahweh, Even so will I break the yoke of the king of
Babylon from off the necks of all the peoples within two
years ! " We may well suppose that such animating words,
uttered in a tone of triumphant confidence and illustrated by
so striking a symbolic action, were greeted by the people with
FANATICS IN JERUSALEM. 375
vociferous applause. Even Jeremiah was silenced. He had
no reply, and was driven off the field.
It was not till afterwards that it occurred to him, or as he
put it that Yahweh told him, what he ought to have said. If
he had thought of it at the time, it might have made a very
great impression upon the people. " The yokes you hare
broken were made of wood, but j r okes of iron shall take their
place ; for thus says Yahweh : I lay upon the necks of all
these peoples a yoke of iron, and they shall serve Nebuchad-
rezzar. Nay, the wild beasts themselves shall be subject to
him. And as for you, Hananiah, Yahweh has not sent you,
and you have inspired this people with idle confidence. There-
fore Yahweh will drive you out of this land, and within this
year you shall die." When Jeremiah subsequently recorded
these words, he added that in the seventh month of that same
year Hananiah died.
In reading the passage we are naturally tempted to ask how
Jeremiah could foresee the event, or if its agreement with his
prediction was a mere coincidence, how he could hazard so
definite a statement as to Hananiah's fate ; but, in the light
of our repeated observations of the great freedom with which
the prophets used the words " Yahweh said to me," the enig-
ma is by no means insoluble. When Jeremiah had been
worsted by Hananiah, and was yet convinced that this prophet
was a liar, who breathed an idle confidence into the people,
he doubtless launched his denunciations against him without
stint. Whether he really foretold that he would die within
the year we may regard as exceedingly doubtful. The con-
jecture forces itself upon us that two months afterwards, when
Hananiah died, Jeremiah traced the avenging hand of Yahweh
in his fate, and since his own presentiment that the prophet
of lies would come to an evil end was now fulfilled, involun-
tarily gave it a more definite shape.
Hananiah's and Jeremiah's hearers would have to suspend
their judgment as to the truth of both utterances alike for
some time to come, for neither of the predictions was as yet
accomplished. The temple treasures were not restored, but
neither were those still left in Jerusalem carried off to Baby-
lon. The fact was that the whole scheme of the revolt fell
to pieces, perhaps because the king of Egypt, Psammetichus
n., refused to join the confederacy, and the other princes,
with all their desire for independence, shrank from defying
Nebuchadrezzar without his support. The fanatical prophets
376 FANATICS IN JERUSALEM.
might lament their people's want of faith, but they were forced
to bide their time. Sooner or later thej- would be sure to
have their way, for fanaticism is wonderfully infectious.
Five years afterwards, when Hophra (or Apries) succeedec"
Psammetichus II., and at once showed signs of a hostile dispo-
sition towards Nebuchadrezzar, the Judaeans could no longer
be restrained. The prophets sounded the note of triumph
loud and clear. The king of Babylon, they declared, would
not so much as dare to advance against Judah. 1 Jeremiah
could not get a hearing. The war party steadily rose in in-
fluence at court. At last the feeble Zedekiah, though himself
unwilling to try the fortune of war, was driven on by his
nobles and by public opinion till he sent an embass}- to Egypt
to ask for help, broke his oath of allegiance, and rebelled
against Nebuchadrezzar. 2
Full soon would he repent of his rashness ! The Chaldaean
monarch was not the man to look on passively while his sub-
jects unfurled the banner of revolt. That very year he set
out to reduce Judah to submission. It appears that the sur-
rounding peoples left Israel to its fate, for we do not find that
Nebuchadrezzar made war upon them, and the Israelites com-
plain that their neighbors, especially the Phoenicians and
Edomites, made common cause with the Chaldseans. Judah
could not hold out against the foe. A city here and there,
such as Lachish or Azekah, might still offer some resistance,
but could not hinder Nebuchadrezzar from laj'ing siege to
Jerusalem. In the tenth day of the tenth month the city was
invested.
"We may well believe that when it had come to this the
courage of many a Judsean failed him ! Desertions to the
enemy were far from rare ; and Jeremiah's word of doom rang
with terrific emphasis, " Woe ! woe ! " says Yahweh ; " I give
up Zion to be trodden by the heathen under foot." It is true
that many Judaeans still retained their lofty courage, and the
fanatical hope of deliverance by Yahweh's might was still
nourished by many of the prophets ; but the reality was
cruelly against them, and asserted its force in many a heart,
including that 'of the poor vacillating king himself. Zedekiah
excites our deep commiseration. He stands at the head of a
people determined to defend itself to the last gasp, but is
himself without either hope or courage. He sent two men to
Jeremiah in his distress. One of them we know already as
(he prophet's friend, Zephaniah the priest. 3 The other was a
1 Jeremiah xxxvii. 13. 2 Ezekicl xvii. 11-20. 8 See p. 372.
FANATICS IN JERUSALEM. 377
certain Pashur, son of Malkiah. They were commissioned
to entreat Jeremiah to consult Yahweh ; perhaps at the inter-
cession of the prophet he might work a miracle to rescue
Jerusalem. Jeremiah had cold comfort for them ! Nothing
short of utter ruin was at their doors, he said. The king and
his subjects had but one means of escape, unconditional sur-
render to the Chaldaeans. All who remained in the city would
perish. 1
That a man of Zedekiah's character should await the event
in passive helplessness rather than obey Jeremiah's advice i9
only what we should expect. Indeed, nothing short of a very
firm and definite conviction on his part could have led him to
surrender, since the great majority of the prophets were still
loud in their promises of triumph even when Nebuchadrezzar
was actually approaching.
But the most reckless of the zealots were troubled by one
uneasy doubt. "Was it possible that Israel had incurred the
wrath of Yahweh by its sins? There was certainly much
wickedness amongst the people. Under such circumstances
a century earlier the king might probably have been moved to
sacrifice his first-born son in order to appease the offended
deity. But such an act could not be even contemplated in
Zedekiah's time, and some other sacrifice must be discovered.
Now it was written in the law of Yahweh that all Israelitish
slaves, whether male or female, must be restored to liberty
after six years' service ; 2 but the commandment had been a
dead letter with most of the Judseans. The king and his no-
bles, however, now determined to carry out this precept, and
a solemn fast-day was proclaimed, at which they confirmed
their resolution with an oath. The priests cut an ox into two,
and laid the bleeding halves in the temple court. Then Zede-
kiah and his courtiers passed between the pieces to ratify
their pledge ; s and, having thus secured the help of Yahweh,
awaited the attack of the Chaldaeans. 4
It seemed as though this measure had been crowned with
the desired result, for hardly had Nebuchadrezzar laid siege
to Jerusalem, when an Egyptian army advanced to its relief
and the Chaldaeans set out to meet it. The men of Jerusalem
could breathe more freely now that their enemies were out of
sight, and all went on as before. Jeremiah had to submit
once more to the taunting cry of those whom he had threat-
ened with destruction : " What has become of your word of
1 Jeremiah xxi. 2 Exodus xxi. 2-6 ; Deuteronomy xv. 12-18.
8 Compare vol. i. p. 123. * Jeremiah xxxiv. 6-22.
378 FALL OF JERUSALEM.
Yahweh now ? " The prophets uttered their confident predic-
tions of success more boldly than ever. Yahweh, they said,
was helping them already. The people firmly expected that
Nebuchadrezzar would be defeated by the Egyptians.
Meanwhile Jeremiah held to his threatening predictions,
and the conduct he was now forced to witness on the part of
the Judaean nobles raised his indignation to a pitch which
could only speak in the sternest denunciations. For the fact
was that no sooner had the besieging army retired than the
nobles began to grudge the cost of their obedience to Yah-
weh's law, broke their vow, refused to give their slaves the
promised liberty, and even revoked the freedom they had
already conferred upon some of them. Jeremiah could not
stand by tamely. " I commanded you to let your slaves go
free, says Yahweh ; and since you refuse, and break your
word, I will let loose sword and pestilence and famine upon
you. All the perjured ones shall perish, and Zedekiah him-
self shall fall into the hands of the Chaldaeans when they
return."
"When they return!" cried the delinquents in mockery.
" Yes ! but they never will return. Yahweh is roaring from
Zion and consuming his people's foes ! "
The fanatics were supreme in Jerusalem.
Chapter VT.
THE FALL OF JERUSALEM.
2 Kings XXV. 2-21 ; * Jbremiaii XXXII., XXXVII.-XXXIX. 10.
SUCH a man as Jeremiah was naturally regarded with no
friendly eye by the popular leaders. "Well-founded re-
ports were current that, when Zedekiah had sent certain mes-
sengers to him to implore him to intercede for the people with
Yahweh, he had answered that the Egyptian army would
inevitably return to its own land, and the Chaldaeans would
again lay siege to Jerusalem. " Let no man soothe himself
with idle hopes," he had said ; " for though the Judaeans were
to smite the Chaldaeans till only wounded men were left, yet
even they would take the field again and burn down Jerusa-
1 2 Chronicles xxxv>. 14r-21.
FALL OF JERUSALEM. 379
lem. So irrevocably is the fall of the sinful city decreed."
Was it not monstrous to allow this Jeremiah to utter such
fearful predictions? What good could possibly come of
it? And what confidence could be placed in a man who
openly declared that the only escape from death was instant
surrender?
Even before Nebuchadrezzar returned, Jeremiah discov-
ered the profound suspicion with which he was regarded ;
for once when he was going out of the city by the gate that
led towards the land of Benjamin, perhaps on his way to
Anathoth, the captain of the guard, a grandson of Hananiah,
retained him in custody, and accused him of intending to
desert to the enemy. The prophet's denial was not accepted,
and he was brought before the princes. They were bitterly
incensed against the suspected traitor to Yahweh's people ;
appearances were strongly against him, and they sentenced
him to be scourged and then thrown into prison, into a terri-
ble dungeon, the horrors of which would endanger his very
life should he remain there long.
In a few days, however, Nebuchadrezzar's army once
more, appeared before the gates of Jerusalem, for the Egyp-
tians had retreated in terror ; and now the prophet was
brought out of his cell, at the king's command, to tender
his counsel. If Zedekiah hoped for a more favorable oracle
than before he was disappointed, for the prophet answered
again that the king would fall into the power of the enemy ;
and his words borrowed a deeper significance from the ques-
tion he could now add. "What has become of all those
prophets who declared that Nebuchadrezzar would return no
more ? " Jeremiah took this occasion to entreat the king not
to send him back to that fearful dungeon, for he was guilty
of no wrong to king or people. Zedekiah granted his request
and transferred him to another prison, where his sustenance
was amply provided for, and he was even allowed to see his
friends.
In the course of the siege Jeremiah uttered a remarkable
prediction as to the fate of Zedekiah. 1 He told the king
that he, too, would fall into the enemy's hand when Jerusa-
lem was sacked and burned down ; that he would see the king
of Babylon with his own eyes, would speak to him, and
would be carried away to his capital. But in spite of this
he would not fall by the sword, but would die in peace and
would have the funeral of a king. This prophecy is very
i Jeremiah xxxiv. 1-5.
380 FALL OF JERUSALEM.
remarkable for the light it throws upon the secret impulses
of a seer's heart, and the influences that affected his oracles.
In the first place it is by no means easy to form a distinct
idea of what Jeremiah supposed would really be the monarch's
fate. He would be carried to Babylon as a prisoner, and yet
would be buried with the honors of a king like his pre-
decessors. Would he be restored to the throne? We can
hardly believe that this was really Jeremiah's meaning ; and
yet it seems to have been so, for in another prophecy, or
another version of the same, 1 he foretells that the king will go
to Babylon and live there " until Yahweh visits him." The
only explanation of Jeremiah's favorable anticipations with
regard to Zedekiah appears to be found in his own opinion
of the king. He thought he was not as bad as others — his
nobles, for instance — and would therefore not be so heavily
chastised.
Was Jeremiah right in placing Zedekiah above the reek-
less leaders of the people? I think not. They were
honest fanatics ; while he, though well-intentioned and
comparatively sober-minded, was utterly weak. Surely this
is no reason for preferring him to them. On the con-
trary ; they knew no better, while he pursued with hesitat-
ing steps the course he knew to be wrong. They were true to
their faith, such as it was, whilst he simply obeyed the dic-
tates of his own trembling heart. If they had seen their
error they might have had the courage to confess it and
to change their conduct : but what could be expected of a
man without either courage or principle? But we need
not wonder that Jeremiah judged otherwise : for while the
fanatics persecuted him and sought his very life, Zedekiah
defended him. The king's personal regard for the prophet
secured his favor in return, and prevented his foretelling
too cruel a fate for him. Even prophets were sometimes
guided by their own personal preferences.
The Chaldaeans, then, had laid siege to Jerusalem! The
city was too great to be completely surrounded, but the enemy
could easily cut off its supplies. On three sides, indeed, this
was all they could do, for the approach was so precipitous as
to be almost impracticable, or, at any rate, to admit of ade-
quate defence by a very small force. It was only from the
north that a besieging army could attack the city with any
hope of success, and even there it was fortified by a strong
1 Jeremiah xxxii. 1-5,
FALL OF JERUSALEM. 881
wall with lofty turrets, within which a second wall defended
the upper city, where the temple and the palace stood. This
position might still be held even if the lower city were taken.
Against this outer wall the first attack was directed ; but the
art of siege was still in its infancy, and it needed a vast ex-
penditure of time and labor to effect a breach in a wall of
any thickness. The besiegers attempted to undermine the
walls and crush them with battering-rams, or to construct
movable towers to rise above the parapet, and enable the
soldiers in them to drive off the defenders of the walls with
stones and arrows, and then take possession of them them-
selves. Sometimes they would attempt to storm the place
by scaling the wall with ladders. If a city were strongly
fortified and manned by a determined garrison, a siege was
a very long affair, and the place was generally reduced at
last by hunger rather than by the sword. Samaria, for in-
stance, stood a siege of three years before Shalmaneser suc-
ceeded in taking it.
Jerusalem was very strongly fortified and the garrison
was brave ; but the city was so full of fugitives and appar-
ently so ill-provisioned that the direst want soon raged.
Scenes of horror became familiar. Children cried in vain for
bread, and fell down exhausted in the streets. Rich men
died of hunger. Young and old lay gasping for life. There
were even mothers who devoured the very children at their
breasts. 1
Under these circumstances Jeremiah might account him-
self fortunate in sitting quietly in prison and receiving his
daily rations of bread by favor of the king. But the bold-
ness with which he still foretold the fall of Jerusalem was
once again to bring his life into the utmost danger. 2 We
can really hardly blame the princes of Judah for being
driven almost to madness, when they heard Jeremiah declare
in so many words to all who would listen that there were two
ways open to them, one of which led to death and the other
to life ; the former being to remain in the city and die by
sword, by famine, or by pestilence, and the latter to go over
to the Chaldseans and live ! What this came to was neither
more nor less than publicly recommending desertion. The
leaders of the people were straining all their powers to keep
up the courage of their soldiers, and how could they suffer an
influential man deliberately to discourage them? They were
depressed and hungry enough already. Unless Jeremiah's
i Lamentations ii. 11, 19-21, iv. 4-10, 2 Jeremiah xxxviii.
382 FALL OP JERUSALEM.
mouth could be stopped, the fall of the city was inevitable.
Accordingly, they accused him before the king, and clam-
ored for his execution. Zedekiah was not the man to resist
their demands, and though personally well disposed towards
Jeremiah, he gave them leave to put him to ieath, upon
which they immediately threw him into a well. There was
no water in it ; but if he were not choked by the mud he
would inevitably die of hunger.
Jeremiah's firmness in not shrinking even from death
shows his integrity, courage, and faith, and gives him a title
to our respect. But in other regards his conduct during the
siege is an3'thing but pleasing. If, in spite of his firm con-
viction that Jerusalem must fall, he had prayed in the ardor
of his love for his poor, misguided people, we should have
felt far greater sympathy with him than we do now, as he
terrifies his cowed and starving countrymen with ceaseless
prophecies of ruin and misery.
Jeremiah, however, was still to have the opportunity not
only of repeating his threats, but of testifying to his firm
belief in the restoration of Judah, for he was again rescued
from the pit. His deadliest foes had indeed lost all reverence
for the preacher of Yahweh's word in hatred of the man
whose utterances produced such disastrous results, but there
were others whose respect for God's word outweighed all
other considerations.' Jeremiah found- an advocate with the
king in a certain Ethiopian, named Ebedmelech. Hardly
had this man heard of the prophet's fate when he hastened
to the king, whom he found at the scene of hostilities by the
Benjamite gate, and reminded him what a terrible sin it was
to murder a prophet. Zedekiah, who was always easy to
talk over — especially in this case, since he really esteemed
Jeremiah — countermanded his former orders, and .sent Ebed-
melech with three 1 men to draw Jeremiah out of the pit
and restore him to his former place of confinement. Upon
this the prophet rewarded his deliverer by predicting that
when Jerusalem fell he would be spared,' because he had
trusted in Yahweh. 2
Shortly after this, Zedekiah privately summoned the prophet
to another consultation. Were it not so melancholy to see
a man devoid of principle and courage tossed backwards
and forwards like a reed in the wind, there would be some-
thing almost ludicrous in this interview between the prophet
and the king. "I have a question to ask you," said the
1 In v. 10 thirty is a mistake for three. 2 Jeremiah xxxix. 15-18.
PALL OF JERUSALEM. 88S
prince; " hold nothing back from me." The seer knew his
drift, and answered : ' : Will you not destroy me, if I tell
you the truth? And, after all, what will my advice avail?
You will not obej r it." Then Zedekiah swore that he would
not put him into the power of his enemies, and Jeremiah,
trusting to this feeble pledge, repeated his former oracle. If
the king surrendered voluntarily to Nebuchadrezzar the city
would not be burned, and he and his would be spared ;
otherwise there was no escape for him. The craven
monarch urged his dread that he might be given up to the
Judaean deserters in the camp of the Chaldseans if he sur-
rendered, and be maltreated and mocked by them. Jere-
miah reassured hirn on this point, and repeated his advice.
Would Zedekiah obey it ? If the prophet had for a moment
cherished such a hope, he was soon disabused by a request
which stamps the king once for all as a craven. "Let
nobody know what we have been speaking of! Should the
princes hear that we have seen each other, and should they
promise you j*our life if j'ou tell them all that we have said,
then answer that you only begged me not to have you thrown
into the well again." Jeremiah promised, and when the
princes actually questioned him on the matter, he lent him-
self to the king's unmanly deception.
Truly, the last king of David's house was a pitiable
creature !
The siege ran the ordinary course. The Chaldseans
attempted to effect a breach, the Judseans to disable their
battering-rams. In front of the walls there were constant
skirmishes, and behind them famine raged, with pestilence in
her train.
Jeremiah in his prison, where he had many visitors, saw
suspense and terror written upon every countenance, and had
neither the power nor the will to cheer the hearts of his
countrymen. On the contrary, he was still impelled to pro-
claim the certainty of Jerusalem's fall, though at the same
time he cherished and repeatedly proclaimed the deep con-
viction that the people of Yahweh could not perish for ever.
For instance, 1 his cousin Hanameel came to him one
day and offered to sell him his estate at Anathoth. The
prophet, who afterwards declared that Yahweh had given him
notice of Hanameel's visit, accepted the offer, and took ad-
vantage of the purchase to testify in a striking manner to
his faith in Judah's restoration. He commanded his faithful
1 Jeremiah xxxii
384 FALL OF JERUSALEM.
Baruch to inclose the deed in an earthen vessel, in the pres-
ence of his cousin and two witnesses, and so keep it safe ;
for Yahweh testified by that action of his servant that the
time should come again when houses, fields, and vineyards
should be bought and sold in Canaan.
He made this declaration in a tone of unwavering con-
viction ; but when he had concluded the whole transaction,
he himself was seized by that sense of doubt and oppression
which not unfrequently tortures the heralds of truth, espe-
cially when in a state of spiritual exaltation, and led on by
their own most sacred convictions, they have for a moment
transcended even themselves. " O Lord ! " cried the seer in
prayer, ' ' what dread things shall come to pass ! The Chal-
daeans, as thou hast said, shall take the city! And yet
thou hast bidden me buy this land." But his courage was
restored when Yahweh's answer echoed through his soul:
" The Chaldseans shall indeed destroy the city, because my
people was guilty. But in days to come I will collect them
once more, that they may be my people and I their god.
Then shall they all be of one mind towards me, and shall so
fear me as never again to renounce my service. As surely
as Jerusalem shall be taken by the Chaldseans, so surely shall
fields and houses be legally bought and sold by those who
return from exile to this land in days to come."
"We possess several other oracles in which Jeremiah fore-
tells the return from the captivity and Judah's restoration
not only to her former splendor, but to far greater glory
yet. Probably the main contents of these oracles date from
the last year of Zedekiah's reign ; 1 but we cannot be at all
sure that they were actually uttered in the form in which we
now have them. For in the first place the prophet did not
commit them to writing until after the fall of Jerusalem,
when all that he had subsequently seen and felt must have
colored his account of his former utterances, even without
his intending it. And in the second place these special
prophecies were diligently studied and freely applied by the
Judseans of a later age, especially after the return from the
captivity, and occasional additions were made without any
scruple, so long as they were supposed to accord with Jere-
miah's spirit.
Now one of these discourses, which contains a description
of Israel's religious condition in the Messianic age, which
was to follow close upon the accomplishment of the divine
1 Jeremiah xxx. , xxxi., xxxiii.
FALL OF JERUSALEM. 385
judgment, takes a loftier flight than almost anything else
that ever passed the lips of a prophet. It runs as follows : l
"Behold, the time comes, says Yahweh, when I will make
a new covenant with the house of Judah and with the house
of Israel ; not such as the covenant which I made with them
when I redeemed them out of Egypt, and which they have
broken ; but this is the covenant I will make with them
after the days of misery : I will write my law in their
hearts and will be their god, and they shall be my people,
and they shall no longer exhort one another and say ' know
Yahweh ! ' for they shall all of them know me, from the
least to the greatest, for I will forgive their iniquity and
remember their sins no more. Thus says Yahweh, who
makes the sun for a light by day, the moon and the stars to
shine by night, who troubles the sea till its waves roar,
whose name is Yahweh of war-hosts : ' When all these cease
to obey me, then shall Israel's seed cease to be my people.'
Even thus speaks Yahweh. ' If the heaven can be measured
above and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath,
then will I reject the whole race of Israel because of its sins.'"
For an after generation it was consoling to study the oracles
of the one prophet of Zedekiah's time who had foretold Jeru-
salem's fall and subsequent restoration, but the impression
made by the man of God upon his hearers, with the dread
reality before their very eyes, was as far from consoling as it
well could be. We can almost see Jeremiah in his prison, or
rather in the open prison-court, generally accompanied by
Baruch and some few other of his faithful friends or relatives !
From time to time, as the day wears on, certain men of Jeru-
salem and other Judseans come to consult him. How scared
and squalid they look, pinched by famine and pursued by
fear ! Their relatives have fallen a prey to want, or pesti-
lence, or the sword of the enemy, and the future is full of
terror. They are talking together of the ghastly details of
the day's occurrences. Then from time to time the prophet
raises his head, especially when he hears how the fanatics still
promise deliverance, or when the battle-cry of the assaulting
Chaldaeans and the crash of the blocks of stone hurled from
their catapults penetrates to his prison. The sombre fire
gleams in his eyes as bitter reproaches and terrific threats
stream from his lips once more. His hearers are crushed
with terror! One bursts into wild lamentations, another
breathes a prayer to Yahweh for deliverance, others seek
1 Jeremiah xxxi. 31-37.
voj.. ii. 17
386 FAIX OF JERUSALEM.
relief from their depression by rushing to the post of battle
and murmur, ' ' May Yahweh frustrate all these fearful words ! "
Sometimes a fierce glance falls upon the prophet from some
enthusiast who has come to hear with his own ears whether
the man of God whom the king's favor protects can really
dare to utter words which are like a consuming fire for Israel.
But the greater number are simply plunged into terror and
despair by his predictions. Then why do they return the
following day? Perhaps because, when stricken with fear,
we find a sort of fascination in multiplying images of terror,
or because Jeremiah's hearers found his words in harmony
with their own convictions. And this was the very reason
why his influence sapped the courage of his hearers so fatally,
and sent them away more spiritless and depressed than ever.
Even when he looked on, past the fall of Jerusalem, into the
future, and spoke of the days of joy which the restored and
converted Israel should taste when it had once more become
Yahweh's own people and he its god, even then for one here
or there who felt the consolation there were many who did
not in the least understand him, and were unmoved by all he
said. The immediate future was all thej- cared about.
At last, after standing a siege of a year and a half, Jeru-
salem fell. In vain had the besieged broken down their very
houses and palaces to stop the breaches in the walls with the
stones. 1 In the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign, on the
ninth day of the fourth month, the lower city was taken bj -
storm. The inner wall still opposed the progress of the foe,
and the upper city might have held out for some time. The
fanatical prophets were doubtless ready to declare as loudly
as ever that Yahweh would at least defend his sanctuary from
pollution by the heathen. But Zedekiah and his nobles gave
up the conflict, and, accompanied by most of the men under
arms, fled from the city under cover of night ; but they found
no safety in flight, for they were pursued and captured. The
city was now defenceless, and Nebuchadrezzar's generals took
possession of it while he himself was at Kiblah in Syria.
For a whole month Jerusalem was given up to the soldiery,
who endeavored to compensate themselves for the privations
they had suffered during the siege. The treasures of the
temple and the palace, including the great laver and the pil-
lars Boaz and Jachin, were carried away. The two chief
priests, the principal generals, five distinguished officers of the
court, the minister of war, and sixty nobles who were taken
1 Jeremiah xxxiii. 4.
THE REMNANT IN JUDjEA. 387
as the representatives of the people, were carried off to Eiblah
and there put to death. Three thousand and twenty-three
families of Judah had already undergone the sentence of exile
before the city was taken, and eight hundred and thirtj'-two
were now added from Jerusalem. 1 A fearful lot was reserved
for Zedekiah. His sons were put to death in his sight ; then
his eyes were put out, and he was covered with chains and
carried off to Babylon, where he died in a dungeon. Jere-
miah's prediction that Yahweh would visit him again, and
that he would have an honorable burial, was never fulfilled.
Such was the fall of Jerusalem in the year 586 b.c.
Chapter VII.
THE REMNANT IN JUD.ffiA.
2 Kings XXV. 22-26 ; Jeremiah XL.-XLIII. 7o.
THE population of Judah had been wofully thinned by
famine, pestilence, and war. Cities and villages were
in ruins. Fields lay untilled for want of labor. Commerce
was at a stand-still. The country was rendered unsafe by
bands of marauding Judseans, who had been driven from
house and home. Most men of any distinction or ability
were in exile. There was imminent danger of total anarclvy.
The Chaldsean king, however, did his best to save the country
from this fate ; for otherwise he would never have been able
to secure the tribute he expected from it. Accordingly, he
appointed Gedaliah, a Judaean of noble family, as governor.
This was the man whose father, Ahikam, the son of Shaphan,
had played a prominent part in Josiah's reformation, and had
protected Jeremiah against the rage of the prophets. 2 The
choice was a very happy one. Gedaliah was a man of peace,
and seems to have inspired such remarkable confidence by his
personal character, that several bands of outlaws voluntarily
submitted to him and dispersed. He found means of per-
suading many who had taken up a wandering life to settle
ilown again in the cities and get in the remnants of the grape
i Jeremiah lii. 28, 29. In v. 28, seventh should be seventeenth.
2 2 Kings xxii. 12-14; Jeremiah xxvi. 24.
388 THE REMNANT IN JUDjEA.
and olive harvest. Many of the Judaeans, who had already
left the country, perceiving that Nebuchadrezzar had still left
something that might be called a people of Judah, and that
Gedaliah was established as the governor, now returned to
their country.
At Mizpah, the residence of the governor, Jeremiah also
settled. There are two traditions as to his fate after the
taking of Jerusalem, both of which are preserved in the book
that bears his name. According to one account, 1 he was kept
a prisoner for a month after the capture of the city, until
Nebuchadrezzar himself arrived, and was then set at liberty.
According to the other, 2 which is far more probable, he was
carried off with other prisoners to Ramah, where his chains
were struck off at the command of Nebuzar-adan, the king's
plenipotentiarj-. In any case, he was treated by the Chal-
daeans with great distinction. This was very natural. His
exhortations to peace and submission had very nearly cost
him his life in Jerusalem at the hands of the zealots ; but
now they secured him no little consideration with the enenry,
who had doubtless heard of him from the deserters.
The captain of the life-guard accordingly signified to the
man of God, with marks of profound respect, that he entirely
agreed with his teaching. It was just as he had said ; Yah-
weh had punished Judah for its sins. In the king's name he
now gave the prophet his choice ; if he liked to go with them to
Babylon, he should be well cared for there, and should live in
wealth and honor. If he preferred to staj- in his own land,
he might go to Gedaliah or settle wherever he liked. Jere-
miah chose to stay, as we should have expected from his deep
love for his people. The sacrifice he made was great, for the
favor of Nebuchadrezzar entitled him to expect an easier life
in Babylon than he could ever hope for in his own defenceless
land, and his people had certainly put him under no obliga-
tions to them. But the man who had braved his people's
hatred rather than be faithless to his god was proof against
the seductions of rest and honor, and determined to stay and
comfort those whom he had hitherto been compelled to re-
prove and threaten almost without ceasing.
And the miserable remnant was in sore need of comfort !
The first four elegies in the book of Lamentations reveal
the emotions of many a heart after the fall of Jerusalem. An
ancient though mistaken tradition ascribes these alphabetical
poems to Jeremiah. But they constantly speak of the fall of
i Jeremiah xxxix. 11-14. 8 Jeremiah xi. 1.
THE REMNANT IN JTTDJEA. 389
Jerusalem in a tone of bitter surprise, which would be more
than strange in one who had long predicted the event. Jere-
miah would hardly have prayed, as the author of the first
elegy does, 1 that all the foes of Judah might be punished for
their conduct towards Yahweh's people ; or reproached Egypt,
as the author of the fourth song does, 2 for not having sup-
ported the Judseans. Least of all would he have joined in
the lamentation, raised by the writer of the second elegy, 5
that the prophets had no more visions. For he himself was
not -without a vision, and he can only have rejoiced to see the
others hold their peace in confusion. Doubtless Jeremiah,
with his sensitive and tender disposition, grieved deeply over
his people's misery ; but his opinions as to its causes on the
one hand, and its fruits on the other, caused him to use very
different language on the subject from that of others who did
not share his views. The five poems in'the book of Lamen-
tations all differ, the first four as well as the fifth, in author-
ship and even in date.
It was natural enough that the devastation of Jerusalem
should be the subject of numerous elegies. " How deserted
is the city that once was full of people ! She that was great
amongst peoples is now like a widow. She who was a princess
amongst the provinces is now a vassal. The city that was
called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth, is
covered now with scorn. The travellers that see her ruins
shake their heads upon her. Yahweh, in his wrath, has
covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud, cast down the
glory of Israel from heaven to earth, and thought not of the
footstool of his feet in the day of his anger." * Before their
eyes the poets saw the appalling fact that the king, ' ' the breath
of their nostrils, Yahweh's anointed, the man in whose shadow
they had hoped to find rest," was taken captive ; that Judah's
princes, who had once been "purer than snow and whiter
than milk, ruddier in body than rubies and more shining than
sapphires," were now "blackened and shrivelled in skin,"
while priests and prophets had been murdered in the sanctuary
and public worship had come to an end. 6 And besides all
this the misery of the thought that it was all their own fault,
coupled with the contempt of their enemies, 6 rendered the
memory of their glorious past a torture to them. And yet
they must thank Yahweh for not having utterly destroyed
i Lamentations i. 21, 22. 2 Lamentations iv. IT.
s Lamentations ii. 9. 4 Lamentations 1. 1, u. . 1, IS.
» Lamentations i. 4, ii. 20, iv. 7, 8, 20. 6 Lamentations i. 5, 14, iv. 12, 13
890 THE REMTSRAUT IN JUDAEA.
them, 1 and for having left them the hope that he might some
day think of his people in mercy once more.
Of course the Judseans entertained anything but friendly
feelings towards the Chaldseans ; but they were more bitter
yet against their own neighbors and relatives the Edomites,
who had not only yielded to the overpowering forces of the
Chaldseans and made common cause with them, but had even
exulted in the sight of Jerusalem's fall. It was probably
soon after this event that a certain prophet, otherwise unknown
to us, of the name of Obadiah, uttered the oracle against the
Edomites which is preserved in the little book that bears his
name. He inveighs against them vehemently, and reproaches
them with having taken a part in the devastation of Jerusalem,
with having shared the feelings of the Chaldseans on the day
of its fall, and even with having destroyed the fugitives. In
revenge he threatens them with destruction on the day when
Yahweh reveals the greatness of his might.
Jeremiah mourned in common with all the rest ; for he
loved his people passionately, and his heart was torn with
anguish by the misery into which they were plunged. At
Ramah he had seen the troops of captives led a.wa,y to a dis-
tant land amidst heart-rending lamentations, and when he
thought of that sad scene he cried, 2 with a reference to
Rachel's tomb which stood at Ramah, " Thus says Yahweh,
A voice goes up from Ramah, of bitter weeping and lamen-
tation. Rachel is mourning over her sons and refuses to be
comforted, because they are no more. But thus says Yah-
weh, Weep not nor wail so bitterly, for the blessed fruits of
your suffering shall surely come, and your children shall re-
turn from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your
posterity, and your sons shall come back to their land."
Even before the fall of Jerusalem he had been permitted to
reveal the prospect of Judah's restoration and the establish-
ment of Yahweh's kingdom, and now his god commanded
him to write down all that he had then uttered in the hearing
of some few only. He had been compelled formerly to pro-
vide against any risk of misunderstanding by accompanying
every joyful prophecy with the emphatic declaration that the
immediate future was dark beyond measure, but now that the
night had come he need qualify his words of comfort no
longer. " The time will come, says Yahweh, when I shall
raise up a righteous sciou of the house of David, who shall
reign in prosperity aud shall maintain justice in the land,
1 Lamentations iii. 22. a Jeremiah xxxi. 15-17.
THE KEMNANT IN JVUMA. 391
Then shall Israel and Judah be redeemed and dwell in safety ;
and he shall be called by this name, ' Yahweh-our-righteous-
ness ! * In those days they shall no more swear by Yahweh
who brought Israel out of Egypt, but by Yahweh who brought
Israel back from all the countries of the earth to his own
land." l
What a joy it must have been to Jeremiah, after denounc-
ing his people for some forty years, to be permitted at last
to console them ! Hitherto he had always destroyed, but now
:e was building up. Hitherto he had seen nothing but faces
of terror or indignation as he spoke, now he could wake his
people's dying hopes and trace - reviving courage in the looks
of those he cheered. How we long to see him spending the
rest of his days in peace as his people's comforter, and de-
parting in the joyous expectation that Jerusalem would be
rebuilt !
But alas ! the days of peace which Judah now enjoyed were
few.
Four or five years had passed since the devastation of
Jerusalem, when some officers, amongst whom was a certain
Johanan, came to Gedaliah and told him that the king of
Ammon had incited Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, a descend-
ant of the ex-royal family of Judah, to murder him. Jo-
hanan recommended him to make away with Ishmael secretly,
and so avoid more serious mischief. But Gedaliah put no
faith in the accusation.
He soon learned to his cost that he had been too unsus-
picious. Johanan was right. Ishmael was indeed plotting
against the governor's life. What his motive may have been
we cannot tell. Did his own roj'al blood make him resent
Gedaliah's appointment as governor ? Was he urged on by
the dream of Yahweh's redeeming Israel by his hand, and re-
storing the kingdom of his forefather David ? To us such an
expectation seems monstrous, and so indeed it was. But fa-
naticism is blind ; and the prophet Ezekiel teaches us 2 that
there really were inhabitants of the desolated Judah who had
strung themselves up to the belief reflected in their cry : " If
Abraham, who was but one, inherited this land, why should
not we, who are so many, receive it likewise?" And the
prophet's only answer was : "Do you think to receive the
land as an inheritance while you eat food with the blood in it
and serve idols, while you pour out blood and practise vie-
1 Jeremiah xxiii. 5, 6-8. 2 Ezekiel xxxiii. 24-29.
392 THE REMNANT IN JJJDJEA..
lence, and commit adultery ? Of a truth Yahweh will smite
the inhabitants with the sword, or give them up to the beasts
of prey, and slay those who hide themselves in caves by the
pestilence, till the land is bereft of its people and all men
know that Yahweh, and none other, has laid it waste, because
of all the sins of the people." These words of the prophet
are but another proof of the very small influence exercised
upon a seer's anticipations for the future by considerations of
ordinaiy prudence and common-sense, and show how com-
pletely all else was dominated by his conception of the relig-
ious conditions of the problem. Ezekiel does not say that it
would be the height of folly to rise against a foe that would
be as a hundred to one, but simply that the inhabitants of
Judsea are too wicked to deserve the land as a possession.
It was not at all out of the question, therefore, for these
people themselves, who were not conscious of being so utterly
godless, to anticipate success in a rebellion.
But whatever may have moved this Ishmael to his con-
spiracy, its effect was simply to plunge the country into
misery ; nor did he himself reap any fruits from it. In the
seventh month — we are not told the year — perhaps on occa-
sion of the Feast of Tabernacles, Ishmael came with ten
officers to visit Gedaliah at Mizpah. He met with a hospi-
table reception, and in return he murdered the unsuspecting
governor, together with his adherents and the Chaldsean
garrison. Then he closed the city gates to keep the affair
secret, enticed a caravan of eighty pilgrims on their way to
Jerusalem from northern Israel within the walls, and slew
them all except ten, who bought their lives by disclosing cer-
tain- pits filled with provisions. At last he fled to the land of
the Ammonites, taking with him the princesses and other dis-
tinguished Jews from Mizpah. But meanwhile the news had
3pread in spite of Ishmael's precautions ; Johanan pursued
him, he was almost completely deserted, and finally escaped
with, only eight companions.
So the fruits of his crime eluded him, while the mischief
ne had done his country was irreparable. Johanan and his
followers, together with all the people of Mizpah whom they
had rescued from the power of Ishmael, were afraid of remain-
ing in the country after what had happened, for they feared
the Chaldseans would inflict a fierce revenge upon the innocent,
since the guilty were no longer to be found. So they set out
it once for Egypt.
But when they came to Bethlehem they paused. It was so
THE REMNANT IN JTJDjEA. 393
nard to leave their fatherland ! The chiefs came to Jeremiah,
who had doubtless been one of those carried off by Ishmael,
and besought him to pray for them and consult Yahweh.
Jeremiah consented, and promised to tell them faithfully all
that Yahweh should reveal ; while they, on their side, sol-
emnly promised to obey the word of Yahweh, whether with or
against their own desires.
Ten whole days Jeremiah waited for a revelation from his
god. This is far from unnatural. It was a matter of extreme
difficulty to decide upon the wisest course ; and though Jere-
miah was firmly persuaded that he was waiting for a direct
revelation from Yahweh, what he really had to do was to form
a decided opinion of his own. This time of suspense and
indecision must have been extremely painful to him. He
was doubtless in deep depression. His hopes for the imme-
diate future had been dashed to the ground at a single stroke.
Gedaliah's mournful end, which he had foreseen as little as
any one, was a heavy blow to him. What was to be done
now? There was but too good cause to fear the Chaldseans ;
but, on the other hand, the prophet cherished the profound
conviction that Yahweh would protect the innocent.
This latter consideration finally prevailed. Jeremiah had
recovered from the shock and was himself again. He called
Johanan and the rest before him, and commanded them, in
Yahweh's name, to remain in the land and not to flee to
Egypt. Yahweh, he said, would take pity on them and
defend them against the wrath of the king of Babylon. He
further declared, with vehement emphasis, that if they diso-
beyed Yahweh and fled to Egypt, famine and pestilence
would pursue them there, and they would be plunged into a
sea of misery.
The stress which he laid upon this portion of his oracle
makes us suspect that he had reason to know how strongly
his advice was opposed to the wishes of his comrades, who
had of course been considering the matter themselves during
all these days. The answer they gave to Jeremiah revealed
at once how widely their conclusion differed from his. They
denounced him as a liar, and said he had invented the oracle
himself, at the instigation of his friend Baruch, who was
a traitor, and intended to put them all into the power of the
Chaldaeans.
Baruch had in all probability given them good, grounds for
suspecting his influence in the production of Jeremiah's oracle .
He had always been true to Jeremiah in every trial and
17*
394 THE REMNANT IN JUDiEA.
danger, and there can be no question that he was a man of
lofty character and deep and earnest faith. We may also infer
that he was not of a passionate and impulsive nature, for he
does not appear to have been susceptible of the prophetic
furor. Such a man would probably be less completely crushed
by what had happened, and would retain more even self-
possession than the fiery Jeremiah. His faith in Yahweh's
protecting care did not desert him. We may take for granted
that during these ten da}-s he frequently conversed with Jere-
miah, and strove to dispel his master's gloom and depression.
The oracle which finally resulted from Jeremiah's deliberations
was therefore really, to some extent, the work of Baruch ; and
since the latter had no doubt already expressed himself in the
same sense to others, his influence was naturally recognized
in Jeremiah's response. Now in those days people could
hardly understand that different men might hold exactly
opposite convictions in equally good faith ; so the}' denounced
Jeremiah as a forger of lies and Baruch as a traitor.
Jeremiah was pronounced a lying prophet, but nevertheless
his companions thought it a matter of great importance to
have him with them still, and accordingly the}' carried him off
to Egypt, where we shall soon meet him again.
Jeremiah had spoken in faith when he said, " Yahweh will
protect you if you remain in the land ; " but the result proved
the conduct of his terrified countrymen in rejecting his coun-
sel and seeking refuge abroad to be quite as sensible as his
own advice, for we learn that five years after the devastation
of Jerusalem Nebuchadrezzar again carried off man}' hundred
Judseans into captivity. 1 That he did so because of Geda-
liah's murder is not certain, since the month only aud not the
year of that event is given, 2 and we cannot therefore compare
the dates ; but it is highly probable that the deportation was
the consequence of the murder. It might have been foreseen ;
for the king of Babylon could never allow his governor and
the garrison he commanded to be murdered unavenged. Such
a deed amounted to rebellion, and it was quite in the spirit
of the times to hold the people in general, many of whom had
doubtless conspired with Ishmael, responsible for what had
occurred, and to inflict a corresponding punishment.
Judaea was accordingly chastised once more. The most
distinguished and able inhabitants were carried away, and thus
the exaggerated statement of the book of Kings, 8 made with
l Jeremiah lii. 30. a Jeremiah xli. 1 ; 2 Kings xxv. 25. 8 2 Kings xxv. 18.
THE REMNANT IN JUDMA. 395
reference to an earlier occasion, that none but the poorest of
the people had been left to till the fields and vineyards, was
gradually fulfilled almost to the letter. The land was nearly
depopulated. Beasts of prey began to multiply. The bor-
der districts were seized by the neighboring peoples. The
Edomites in particular appropriated a great part of the terri-
tory of Judah. To rebuild Jerusalem was out of the ques-
tion. There were so few inhabitants in the district now that
the very altar of the temple was left in fragments, and jackals
dwelt amongst the ruins of the former capital. 1
We must not think of Judaea, however, as an absolutely
desolated wilderness. There were men still left in it who not
only worked for their bread, but cherished their own thoughts,
hopes, and fears, and still honored Yahweh. Indeed, we
possess a poem which may be attributed with high probability
to one of those still left behind after the third deportation.
It is the fifth elegy in the book of Lamentations. The poet
mourns over the long continuance of Judah's misery : " Why
shouldst thou utterly forget us, O Yahweh, and forsake us for
so long time ? " 2 and complains of being oppressed by ' ' ser-
vants," 3 which can hardly be a reference to Gedaliah. All
this appears to indicate a date after the third and final chas-
tisement. The whole poem is a bitter lamentation over the
mournful condition of the land and all its inhabitants, and
closes with the prayer, 4 —
Bring us back to thyself and restore us, Yahweh I
Renew our days as of old.
For why shouldst thou utterly forsake us ;
And be wroth with us beyond measure?
The hope of a restoration to former splendor, which speaks
so faintly in this song, found more powerful utterance in the
words of other Judseans. Perhaps we still possess an exam-
ple of this firmer faith in a prophecy contained in the book
of Isaiah (chapters xxiv.-xxvii.), the writer of which most
likely lived in Judaea after the final deportation. Unfortu-
nately this discourse is very obscure, and we must admit that
we cannot determine with certainty the time or place of its
delivery, or rather of its composition.
The prophecy contains one verse, however, which we must
not pass over in silence, since it has excited a great deal of
interest and attention. It seems to indicate that the man of
God who wrote it looked forward to a resurrection of the
l Lamenta«'ons v. 18. 2 Lamentations v. 20.
» v . 8. l Vv. 21, 22.
396 THE REMNANT IN JVDM.X.
dead, though we search in vain elsewhere for any indications
of such a hope amongst the Israelites till long after the cap-
tivity. 1 The author of this oracle cries in triumph- 2 "Oh
that Yahweh's dead might live, that my corpses might arise !
Awake and rejoice ye that dwell in the underworld! For
your dew is dew of light, and the shades shall walk on the
earth ! " The prophet here addresses the shades, and espe-
cially those of his countrymen whom he calls ' ' his corpses "
and " Yahweh's dead." Thej' will live again ; for when Yah-
weh pours out his blessings nothing can be left lifeless. In
reading this outpouring, we must bear in mind that the
prophet is giving utterance to no general conviction of the
age ; and, indeed, was himself so far from having attained
to any definite conception of a future resurrection, that only
a few lines before " he had comforted the Judseans under op-
pression by the thought that the dead live not again, and the
shades arise no more. In his cry, " Oh that the dead might
live," we have an outburst of the heart, a momentary longing
of the soul. If in the day of his glory Yahweh of war-hosts
' ' would swallow up death for ever, wipe the tears out of every
eye, and take away his people's sorrow from all the earth," *
oh ! that he would but raise the dead of his people to life
again ! Thus understood, the verse is very remarkable a,s
the first instance of a pious Israelite being swept in the fervor
of his prophetic utterance into the expression of a longing
that the pious dead might rise again.
This oracle predicts the fall of a mighty city that had op-
pressed Judah, and announces the future glory of Israel ; and
if, as we have supposed, it was uttered in Judah and during
the captivity, it certainly cannot date from the early years
of that period, for then the prophets must have held their
peace in shame, and the pressure of immediate necessities
was too great to admit of such high-wrought expectations.
The remnant of the people, broken and impoverished, were
compelled to earn their scant and painful subsistence under
foreign governors, and to pay tribute also. But half a cen-
tury later, when a little prosperity was here and there restored,
the stir amongst the Babylonian exiles must have produced
an effect in Judah too, and waked a corresponding ^pe in
many a bosom there.
1 Compare vol. i. pp. 538-631. " Isaiah xxvi. 19,
8 »• 14- * Isaiah xxv. 8.
THE EXILES. 897
Chapter VIII.
THE EXILES.
Jeremiah XLHI. 76-XLIV. ; Pbalms CXXXVIL, XI V.,i XC.
THE Judseans were now scattered in every quarter under
heaven. No doubt a considerable number of families
had left the country upon Nebuchadrezzar's first approach.
Subsequently to the first two deportations some of these fugi-
tives had returned, partly out of love of their fatherland and
partly because they were exposed in other countries to the
very same dangers they had left Canaan to escape. But now
that Gedaliah had been murdered and Judaea depopulated for
the third time, we may be sure that there were few who ven-
tured to return. All alike saw the necessity of yielding to
fate, though submission must have been fraught with far more
suffering to some than to others. And while many settled
down in the foreign land and were gradually assimilated by
the people of the place, others preserved their nationality.
Concerning some few groups of the voluntary or involuntary
exiles we can still recover certain details.
First, let us turn our attention to Egypt, whither, we may
be sure, numbers of Judseans had already fled before Jeremi-
ah's terrified companions sought a refuge there on Gedaliah's
murder. This latter band of fugitives arrived at Taphanes or
Daphne, a city on the borders of Egypt, taking Jeremiah with
them, although they had thrown his counsel to the winds and
declared him a deceiver. At Daphne the prophet could not
refrain from uttering the word of his god once more. He
illustrated his oracle by a symbolical action, taking some large
stones and bmying them in the ground in the open space be-
fore the royal palace, and then denouncing Egypt as follows :
"Thus says Yahweh, I will bring Nebuchadrezzar to this
place, and he shall pitch his tent above these stones, and shall
smite Egypt, and shall burn the temples of the idols with fire,
and then go back again unscathed."
This was not a very friendly return for the hospitality which
he and his companions received ; but we need not wonder that
the preacher of repentance, carried to Egypt against his will,
and more afflicted than any of the others by the idolatry he
1 Psalms liii.
398 THE EXILES.
was forced to witness, indulged in anything but gentle feelings
cowards the land in which he found himself.
Rather than condemn his harshness, let us admire his invin-
cible determination ! He was still resolved to speak. After
preaching for nearly half a century he had been denounced
bj r his countrymen as a liar, and carried off to a country
in which he was deeply convinced that nothing but misery
awaited him. Surely, to go on preaching to these men in the
same strain as before must have appeared a hopeless task, if
ever there was one ; and yet he persevered unhesitatingly in
his course, though the chasm between himself and the Judaean
refugees was growing wider and wider.
How wide it was appeared especially on occasion of a gen-
eral conference of Judeeans from every part of Egypt. They
came not only from the frontier towns of Daphne and Migdol,
but from Noph or Memphis, and Pathros, which appears to
mean Upper Egypt. They met to consider their common
interests, and it appears that the question of going back to
Canaan was raised and discussed by them ; at any rate,
Jeremiah himself mentions their hearty desire to return. 1
This assembly was greeted bj - Jeremiah with the usual de-
nunciation. He reminded the Judseans of the mournful past,
and gave his well-known explanation of it ; namely, that
Manasseh's idolatries, which had driven Yahwch to the irrev-
ocable decree to chastise his people, were the thief cause of
Judah's miserj'. 2 If only they had learnt repentance at last !
But alas ! they were the same as ever, and still served the
idols. The prophet attacked the women with more especial
energy, for the worship of the Queen of Heaven had been
very common amongst them formerly, aixl was now re-
viving. He ended his discourse by declaring that so far from
returning to Canaan all these godless ones should perish
wretchedly.
Hardly had he ceased when he was overwhelmed with a
volley of retorts, especially from the women, who pleaded
that they had not worshipped the Queen of Heaven without
the knowledge of their husbands ; so that if there was any
harm in it the latter were as guilty as themselves. But they
were far from admitting that there was any harm in it. Nay,
experience urged them to continue the practice ; for as long
as Judah had worshipped Astarte there had been peace and
plenty in the land, and all their misery dated from the neglect
of her service.
1 Jeremiah xliy. 14. 3 Compare p. 306.
THE EXILES. 399
So even amongst the Judaeans, whose heart still cleaved
to the fatherland, the heatlien school could raise its head
unabashed ! No wonder. If the result was really to decide
which conception of religion was the best, then the heathen-
izing party was right ; for the triumph of the Mosaic principles
had marked the beginning of Judah's woe. But we of course
cannot accept this verdict, for we do not regard Judah's dis-
asters as the punishment of either Manasseh's or Josiah's
religious practices. On the other hand we respect Jeremiah
and those who agreed with him for holding fast by their re-
ligion even when the event seemed to disprove its efficacy ;
for it shows that their faith did not really rest upon an infer-
ence from the course of events, but was supported by their
hearts and consciences even in the face of the most grievous!
disappointments. But we need not wonder that the Judseans
who had fled to Egypt threw the result of Josiah's reformation
in the prophet's teeth, and that he could find no answer that
convinced them. He simply repeated Ms assertions and his
threats move vehemently than ever, but without result. We
cannot say whether his prophecy, that King Hophra would
meet the same fate at the hands of Nebuchadrezzar as had
already overtaken Zedekiah, was ever fulfilled or not.
Nor can we tell how long Jeremiah went on working in
Egypt. If the last chapter in the book called after him were
really from his hand, -it would show that he was still living in
the thirty-seventh year of Jehoiakin's captivity, and therefore
lived at least twenty-two years in Egypt. But since this
chapter is not his, we are entirely without means of knowing
how long he remained there. He was very old, however,
when he came, and we may well suppose that his exile was
of short duration, and that he soon laid down his weary head
in rest.
One or two of the Ecclesiastical Fathers tell us that he was
stoned to death bj' the Judseans ; but a tradition of so late a
date affords us no safe basis of belief. In an age when the
crown of martyrdom was actually coveted by many Christians,
and was regarded by all as a sure pledge of the inheritance of
heavenly bliss, it seemed a natural supposition that so great a
prophet as Jeremiah must have fallen at the hands of his foes.
It is highly improbable, however, that this was really his
end. The Jews had so thoroughly learned the art of respect-
ing the preacher and disregarding his preaching, that Jeremiah
ran little personal risk. We are safe in picturing him amongst
his countrymen and yet almost alone, filled with intensest in-
400 THE EXILES.
terest in the fate of the Judseans and yet ever more and more
estranged from them, honored as a man of God and yet never
obeyed or even really understood. Though he looked at the
dark side of everything, and was shocked and grieved by all
his surroundings, he did not die at last uncheered by hope.
Yahweh would raise up Israel again. He could not reject his
people for ever. Even from amongst these wicked Judseans
whom he saw around him in Egypt, some, though only few,
would return to Canaan, and all would learn that he, Jeremiah,
had preached the word of Yahweh in truth. 1
How great a name he had amongst the Jews of a later gen
eration we shall see hereafter, and it is probable that the very
men in whose midst he had spent the closing years of his life
honored him highly after his death. This respect was doubtless
shared by the disciples of the heathen school, for though they
refused to relinquish the service of other gods at the command
of a prophet of Yahweh, they nevertheless regarded him as a
holy man. The adherents of the Mosaic school, however,
were numerous in Egypt, for since the reformation of Josiah
they had constituted the great majority of the nation ; and it
was more especially by them that Jeremiah was held in honor.
For them his mission had assuredly not been fruitless. Though
they only half adopted his gloomj' views, and yet had not the
strength to believe as he did in Judah's future, still they were
faithful to their god, and half a century or more afterwards
they doubtless did their part in effecting the restoration of the
Jewish State.
Let us now transport ourselves from Egypt to Babylonia,
whither on three occasions Nebuchadrezzar had transported
bands of Judseans. Of Jehoiakin's companions, but of them
alone, we know the destination rather more particularly. We
find them settled on the banks of the Chebar or Chaboras, 2 a
river that empties itself into the Euphrates, not far from Cir-
cesium ; but when the Chaldsean prince, upon two subsequent
occasions, determined to transport thousands of Judseans from
their country, he would naturally assign them some other
dwelling-place, for if these turbulent vassals had all been set-
tled together, they might soon have endangered the tranquil-
lity of the kingdom. We are not surprised, therefore, to find
that though Ezekiel tells us how he received the news of Jeru-
salem's fall, 8 he never mentions the arrival of any fresh bands
of exiles. We are therefore left in ignorance of the destina-
* Jeremiah xliv. 14, 28. 2 Ezekiel i. 1-3. » Ezekiel -"xxiii. 21.
THE EXILES. 401
Hon of Zedekiah's fellow-captives, and of those who were
carried away after Gedaliah's murder. "We are by no means
bound to suppose that they were all taken with the booty to
Babylon itself, as Zedekiah was. Indeed, this is highly im-
probable. What should Nebuchadrezzar want with all these
malcontents in and about his capital? He had transported
others of his subjects besides the Judseans ; and since a great
proportion of his immeasurable kingdom consisted of provinces
which had been conquered after bloody wars, there was no
lack of depopulated districts to which he could transfer them.
We must therefore suppose that in three or more portions
of the kingdom, perhaps far removed from each other, thinly-
populated districts were assigned to the Judseans, just as the
territory of Israel itself had formerly been made over by the
Assyrian princes to colonies of their subjects transported from
elsewhere. The Judseans therefore were not slaves, but were
put into a position in which they could earn their bread and
even rise to prosperity, if only they could make up their minds
to keep quiet ; and when we read of a certain prophet named
Ahab, " whom the king of Babylon roasted at the Are," 1 we
are safe in supposing that he incurred his fate by his own
seditious conduct. But of course the Judseans were subject
to Chaldsean governors, who were doubtless often guilty of
extortion, and treated the exiles with a severity which gave
them only too good cause to complain of oppression, 2 though
the weight of these sufferings would vary in different places.
In general, the exiles enjoyed as much freedom as they could
have expected in their own land after its conquest by Nebu-
chadrezzar. They were permitted to build houses, cultivate
lands, plant vineyards, and engage in commerce, and were
left in undisturbed intercourse with each other and the free
exercise of their religion. They even had their own elders
and nobles, who watched over their common interests and
decided their disputes ; and it was probably not long before
they recognized a common head, who represented them at
court. At any rate, we find an arrangement of this kind in
full operation at a later date.
The fortunate turn in Jehoiakin's fate'' proves that in some
cases captives were treated with marked favor by the Chal-
dsean princes. When Jehoiakin had sighed in captivity for
thirty-seven years he was released by king Evil-merodach, and
was honored above all the other deposed monarchs who were
i Jeremiah xxix. 21, 22. 2 Isaiah xlu. 22, xlvii. 6, li. 23
8 2 Kings xxv. 27-30 ; Jeremiah lii. 31-34
402 THE EXILES.
in the palace at Babylon, for he ate at the king's table till the
day of his death. In him, therefore, his former subjects would
find an influential advocate in time of need.
The Judseans who found a dwelling-place in Asia were the
brethren of those who settled in Egypt, and we cannot won-
der to see the heathen school raising its head amongst the
former as well as the latter. The same views which led the
exiles in Egypt to honor the Queen of Heaven induced those
on the banks of the Chebar and elsewhere to sacrifice their
children to Molech, to make stone and wooden images of
gods, and, in a word, to assimilate their own worship as nearly
as possible to that of other peoples. The discourses of Ezekiel
place it beyond doubt that none of these practices were rare
amongst the exiles. 1
Yet the Mosaic school retained its supremacy here also, and
gave triumphant proof of' its vital strengthi The views of
the heathen school concerning the past : " All our misery is
due to the neglect of the worship of Astarte, Molech, and
Baal," were forced to 3-ield to those of the Mosaic party:
' ' All the people's iniserj r is the result of its desertion of
Yahweh, and especially of its worship of strange gods and
images." This became the only accepted and orthodox in-
terpretation of Israel's history, and \w may still see how its
details were worked out in the recast of the old traditions
which was made during the captivity, and which we now
possess in various historical books of the Old Testament. A
word more on this subject.
In speaking of the book of Doutcrononry,' 2 we remarked
that the first four chapters and some of the concluding ones
formed no part of the book of law discovered by Hilkiah, but
were subsequently added to it. Now this introduction and
conclusion, which imply the people's misery as a present fact,
were written in the early years of the captivity, or perhaps
even before the devastation of the city and the temple ; and
the hand of their author may be constantly traced throughout
the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. The ques-
tion of how these books were put together is a very compli-
cated one, and in many respects is still unsolved ; but it is
certain, at any rate, as we have frequently observed already, 8
that the view they take of the past conforms throughout to
that of Deuteronomy. They represent the whole history of
1 Ezekiel xvi. 20, 21, xx. 30, 31, xxiii. 37-39. a See p. 330.
8 See vol. i. pp. 341, 342, 350 ft'., 421; vol. ii., pp. 76, 82 f., 86, 100 f.
THE EXILES. 403
Israel as a succession of departures from Yahweh's law, fol-
lowed by repentance and conversion. First comes Moses with
the law of Deuteronomy, the observance of which is maintained
by Joshua ; but hardly has the latter closed his eyes when the
people desert Yahweh and serve other gods. The consequence
is that they are plunged into misery and then repent, but only
for a time. Samuel, David, Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah
are the great names upon which the writer loves to dwell, while
he notes with pain that even pious kings like Asa and Jehosh-
aphat did not remove the bamahs. 1 The captivity of northern
Israel was due to the sin of Jeroboam, and the fall of Judah
to Manasseh's idolatry. The historian pictures all pious men
of whatever period as clad in the costume of his own age, and
seeks the cause of every disaster in the worship of strange
gods and images.
This is a very inadequate view to take, and shows that the
writer's knowledge of the past was extremely defective ; but
it makes us thoroughly acquainted with his own religious
ideas. He differs widely from the greatest prophets, who
would have given far more prominence to the moral demands
of Yahweh. He belongs to the Mosaic school, it is true, but
displays the strong priestly tendencies already discernible in
Josiah's reformation.
The favorable reception amongst the exiles which has se-
cured the preservation of these books shows that the writer
was not alone in his conception of the people's history, but
wrote in a spirit shared by many, and found a ready echo for
his words.
The Mosaic school, then, survived the shock which the
people's sufferings after Josiah's reformation and the fall of
the city and temple brought upon it. Its victory over the
heathenizing party was decisive.
Had the remnant of Israel gone over to the heathen school
it must inevitably have melted into the tribes amongst which it
was placed ; but since the followers of Moses had succeeded
in impressing the stamp of their religious convictions upon
the hearts of the exiles, the continued existence of an Israel-
ite nationality was secured, and a restoration of the people
rendered possible. But this very circumstance aggravated
the sufferings of the exiles. Not only did their religious zeal
and their love for everything Israelitish tend to bring them
into collision with the authorities, and so expose them to op-
pression, but they were never able to feel at home in the
l 1 Kings xv. 14, xxii. 43.
404 THE EXILES.
strange land, and perpetually yearned for their own country ;
for however well off they may have been in many respects in
the land of their exile, their hearts still clung to Canaan and
to Zion, where Yahweh dwelt. This is touchingly expressed
in the opening verses of the following poem, 1 which was com-
posed after the return from captivity, and breathes the re-
membrance of past sufferings, together with a fierce spirit of
vengeance upon Israel's foes : —
By the rivers of Babylon we sat down
And wept when we thought of Zion;
We hanged our harps on the willows.
For our foes required a song from us,
Our tormentors a strain of joy :
" Sing us one of your Zion-songs ! "
How can we sing one of Yahweh's songs in a land of strangers 1
If I forget thee, Jerusalem, may my hand forget every strain of
the harp, 2
May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I remember
thee not,
And exalt not Jerusalem above my supremest joy !
O Yahweh ! remember Edom's sons,
How they cried in the day of Jerusalem's fall :
" Cast it down, cast it down to the very foundations ! "
daughter of Babylon, thou destroyer !
Blessed be he who requites thee for what thou hast done to us !
Blessed be he who seizes thy little ones and dashes them against
the rocks !
Poets often find inspiration in the extremity of grief, and
many poems were doubtless composed amongst the exiles,
while some at least were afterwards taken into the collection
of Psalms. But since these poems were in many cases
worked over afterwards, in order to adapt them to the altered
circumstances of the people, or make them suitable for use
in the temple service, they are now very difficult to recognize.
There are some of our psalms, however, the origin of which
may be assigned with considerable probability to the period of
the captivity. Such, for example, is a poem which appears
twice in our collection, with slight modifications, 8 and runs as
follows : —
Fools say to themselves that there is no God ;
Their lives are evil and hateful,
Not one of them does well.
Yahweh looks down from heaven upon the children of men,
To see whether no one is wise
And fears God ;
But all are perverse and corrupt together ;
Not one does well,
Not one !
1 Psalm cxxxvii. 2 After an amended version. 8 Psalms xiv. and liii.
THE EXILES. 405
Then hare these ill-doers no sense,
That they devour my people
And live at ease without calling on Yahweh ? 2
They are afterwards filled with terror
Because God dwells with the righteous.
The plans of the oppressed you will never frustrate, 3
For Yahweh is his refuge.
Oh that Israel's salvation would come forth from Zion,
That Yahweh would hring back his banished people !
Then would Jacob rejoice
And Israel be glad.
When the poet of this song poured out his heart, it was the
impiety of others, whether apostate Israelites or heathens,
that weighed upon his mind ; but a deep tone of sadness,
coupled with a personal sense of guilt, breathes through the
following poem, which is described in the superscription as
" a prayer of Moses, the man of God 8 : " —
Lord ! thou hast been our refuge for all generations.
Ere the mountains were born or the earth brought forth,
From eternity to eternity thou art God.
Thou bringest back man into nothingness,
And sayest, " Return, ye children of men ! "
For a thousand years in thy sight are as yesterday when it passes,
As a single watch of the night.
Men are like to a dream, 4
Like the grass of the morning :
In the morning fresh and blooming,
In the evening parched and withered ;
For we are consumed by thine anger,
And vanish before thy wrath.
Thou rememberest our trespasses,
And dost set our secret sins in the sight of thy countenance.
Our days pass by in thy wrath ;
We spend our years like a thought.
The number of our years is three score and ten,
Or, should it run high, four score.
And its pride 5 is labor and sorrow,
For it passes swiftly and we flee away !
Yet we learn not the might of thy wrath,
Thine anger that should make thee feared.
Teach us so to number our days
That we may devote a wise heart to thee.
Return, Yahweh ! How long shall it be ?
Repent that thou hast deserted thy servants 1
Satisfy us in the morning with thy grace,
Let us rejoice and be glad every day!
Let thy work appear unto thy servants,
And thy glory unto their children.
Let the grace of Yahweh, our god, be upon us I
Establish the work of our hands for us,
Yea, establish the work of our hands !
l Doubtful translation. 2 The translation is very doubtful. 8 Psalm kc
* The translation is very doubtful. 6 Doubtful translation.
406 EZEKIEL.
Chapter EX.
EZEKIEL.
Ezekiel I.-III. 21, XX. 1-41, XXXVII. 1-14, XL.-XLVIII.
WHEN examining the spirit in which Israel's history was
studied during the captivity, we perceived that a
strong priestly tinge had come over the Mosaic school, and
that the worship of strange gods and images excited more
indignation than immorality did. We see this priestly ten-
dency taking a still distincter shape in the activity of the
prophet Ezekiel. ,
This man had himself been a Levitical priest in the temple
of Jerusalem, and was therefore well acquainted with all the
arrangements of the sanctuary and everything that took place
in it. When Jehoiakin was taken captive to Babylon by
Nebuchadrezzar, Ezekiel was amongst the Judaea ns com-
pelled to leave their country for the banks of the Chebar.
Five years afterwards he felt the prophetic call, but restrained
himself for some time. How he supported himself and his
family, for he was a married man, we do not know ; but he
had a house of his own, and was often consulted there by
the "elders" of the Judseans about him, when they wanted
an oracle.
In many respects he worked upon the lines laid down by
Jeremiah, and experienced treatment very similar to his.
He was honored and consulted as the messenger of Yahweh,
but was never believed ; for the exiles lent a more ready ear
to the prophets who announced the rescue of Jerusalem and
the return of the exiles to their fatherland than to the
preacher of repentance who foretold nothing but disaster.
Like every prophet of earlier and later times he had to
complain that people often came to hear him out of mere
curiosity. His neighbors regarded him " as a minstrel with
a beautiful voice and a skilful hand." He was convinced that
his preaching was in vain, and could only comfort himself
with the thought that one day, when his words were accom-
plished, these people would confess that a true prophet had
been amongst them. 1
Ezekiel did not confine his attention to Israel any more
1 Ezekiel xxxiii. 31-33.
EZIiKIEL. 407
than Jeremiah did, but fixed his eyes upon every nation with
which his people had come into contact, threatening them also
with Yahweh's judgments. But Israel's future was always
his chief centre of interest.
We learn the general drift of his prophetic efforts, which
extended over at least two-and-twenty years, 1 from the book
of his oracles ; but in his case, far more than in Jeremiah's
even, we must be on our guard against accepting the written
account of his prophecies as a simple record of what he had
actually said. It was not until twenty-five years after his
banishment, or twenty years after his prophetic call, that
he began to write his book. At that distance of time it would
have been impossible for him to reproduce exactly what he
had said on every separate occasion, even had he desired to
do so ; but it is evident from the book itself that he had no
such intention ; for, though he sometimes mentions the time
and occasion of his preaching, it is obvious that the majority
of his discourses were never spoken at all, but only written,
for his symbolical actions are of such a nature that they can
never have been really performed, and his visions are so com-
plex that they cannot have been actually seen !
As a specimen, let us examine the vision of his call.
He tells us that he once perceived a huge mass of clouds
borne down from the north amidst the howling of the storm-
wind, while flashes of lightning darted from it athwart each
other, and the whole was surrounded by light, while the centre
glittered like gold. Then, from this mass of clouds came
forth a group of four creatures, which looked like men in
front, but had four faces each — a man's face in front, a lion's
to the right, a bull's to the left, and an eagle's behind. More-
over, they had each four wings, with two of which they
covered their bodies, while the points of the other two met
above their heads. Their legs were straight, and from under
their wings came hands, as of men. When they moved or
changed their direction they did not turn round, but went
straight forward wherever they would. The creatures them-
selves shone like fire, and between them was a light like that
of a heap of glowing coals. The whole apparition darted
hither and thither like a flash of lightning.
And behold ! there was a wheel attached to each of these
animals. It was so on all four sides. Each wheel was of
wondrous form, like a wheel within a wheel, all glittering with
light, and the felloes were full of eyes. These wheels went
1 Compare Ezekiel i. 2 with xxix. 17.
408 EZEKIEL.
up and down, and backwards and forwards, with the creatures
themselves. They were inseparable from each other, for the
spirit of the animals was in the wheels also. Now, above
the heads of the animals was a canopy that glittered like
crystal, the lower surface of which was touched by the wings
of the animals. When all was in motion the rush of the
wings made a sound like a bursting flood, like the voice of
the Almighty, like the shout of war ; but when all was still
the animals dropped their wings. Above this canopy was
something like a throne, sending out beams as from sapphire
stones, and upon it sat one in form like a man, shining like
gold from the hips upwards, but not so bright below. Bound
the whole was a shining splendor like a rainbow. Such was
the form of Yahweh's glory !
When I saw this sight, says Ezekiel, I fell down upon my
face in reverence ; and, as I lay there, I heard the words :
" Son of man, stand up, and I will speak to you ! " Then I
took courage to stand up, and I heard these words addressed
to me : " Son of man, I send thee to Israel, to that people
that rebels against me as did its forefathers, to that intractable
generation ! Not that they will listen to j-ou and amend their
ways, but they must be taught that a prophet is in their midst.
Be not afraid of them, O son of man ! nor be thou terrified
by all their words, for I give thee power to sit upon thorns
and to tread upon scorpions. Speak my words to these re-
bellious ones. Hearken, son of man ! " continued Yah-
weh, " and be not disobedient as Israel is. Open thy mouth
and eat up this ! " And behold there was a book-roll in the
hand that he stretched out to me, and he unrolled it before
me. It was written full on both sides with wailings and
lamentations.
In obedience to the divine command I ate this book-roll,
with which I was to fill myself, and it was sweet as honey in
my mouth. Before he departed from me he said again : " Son
of man ! I send j'ou not to a people of barbarian tongue, but
to Israel. Yet they will not listen to 3-011, for all Israel has a
face of brass and a heart of stone. But I will give thee a
face of brass like theirs. Be not afraid of them."
Hardly had he spoken when a whirlwind seized me, and I
heard behind me the awful thunder that goes with Yahweh on
his way, and I heard the sound of those wings which touched
each other and of those wheels — a mighty rushing sound !
My heart was bitter when the hand of Yahweh was upon
me, and I was borne to the exiles at Tel-abib on the Chebar,
EZEKIEL. 409
but for seven whole days I could not speak. Then Yahweh's
word came to me again: "Son of man! I have appointed
you watch nan over the house of Israel ; receive from my
mouth the words with which to exhort them in my name. If I
say of the wicked man that he shall die, and you tell him not,
then if he dies because of his sin I shall require his blood at youi
hands. But if you have warned him and he has not repented,
you are free from guilt. So too if a, good man fall into sin,
and I lay a stumbling-block in his way, then if you do not
warn him he shall die for his sin ; his former virtue shall not
save him, and you too shall be reckoned guilty. But if you
warn him and he repents, then shall his life be spared and you
too shall deliver yourself."
It is clear enough that this representation of " Yahweh
riding on the cherubs " is not a vision in the proper sense of
the word, for the prophet cannot really have seen such a
thing even in a state of spiritual exaltation. It is an artifi-
cial piece of symbolism. The meaning of every detail is far
from clear. The cherubs were perhaps originally thunder-
clouds, and their primitive significance is not forgotten in
this vision, though greatly modified and overlaid with other
thoughts which push it into the background. The e3 r es on the
felloes of the wheels and the faces of the four animals may
safely be taken as representing certain attributes of God — -
the eyes standing for omniscience, the human face for under-
standing, the eagle for immortality, the lion for strength, the
bull perhaps for productive power. The peculiarity in the
whole apparition in never turning, but moving direct towards
all the four quarters of heaven, must signify that everything
lies open before Yahweh's face at every moment. But after
all we are groping about in the twilight with these conject-
ures, since we cannot tell the sources from which the prophet
derived his imagery. The emblematic figures introduced into
the temple at Jerusalem by the Phoenicians were no more dis-
tinctively Israelitish than the griffins which Ezekiel might
probably see in the Babylonian temples.
We learn from this description of Yahweh, enthroned on
the cherubs, how powerfully such symbolical representations
appealed to the hearts of ancient peoples. In many respects
their function was analogous to that now taken in the Chris-
tian and other churches by philosophical definitions of the
nature of God. People were guided less by thought and
argument than by feeling and imagination. Images of
bulls, flower-buds, pomegranates, palm trees, heads of eagles
VOL. II. 18
410 EZEKIEL.
and griffins, worked upon the feelings by means of the
imagination.
But whatever may be the meaning of the several features
of the apparition described by Ezekiel, its main significance
is obvious. Yahweh is an exalted, unapproachable, terrific
god. From the thunder-cloud, the lightning-flash, the lurid
glow of fire, the only fit comparisons with his countenance
are drawn. Accordingly when the prophet saw him he fell
down in consternation. We know already how thoroughly
consonant all this is with the Israelitish ideal, 1 and Ezekiel
evidently felt most profoundly how far the " son of man," as
Yahweh generally calls him, was separated from the Holy
One. Yet he did not shrink from representing Yahweh in
the human form sitting upon a throne, with the upper part of
his body shining like gold, and the lower part, doubtless be-
cause enveloped in a garment, glowing less brightly.
Elsewhere, too, Ezekiel gives us similar descriptions of
Yahweh's glory. Once, he tells us, 2 as he sat at home in the
company of the most distinguished Judseans, a fiery human
form appeared to him, took hold of his hair with its hand,
and so transported him to the temple of Jerusalem to show
him all the heathen abominations which were perpetrated
there. At the temple he saw the cherubs again, as on the
banks of the Chebar, and Yahweh upon the throne. Yahweh
then summoned six angels with weapons of destruction, and
one with writing materials. Then he rose from his throne
above the cherubs and commanded the angel with the pen to
mark the foreheads of all the inhabitants of Jerusalem who
sighed over the heathen practices, while the other six were to
slaughter all who were not marked. Then Yahweh ascended
his throne again and commanded the angel who bore the ink-
horn to go in amongst the cherubs and take some burning
coals from between them' and scatter them over the citj\
When he drew near, one of the cherubs put out his hand and
gave him some of the coals. Finally Yahweh was carried
away again on the wings of the animals.
Not only in his descriptions of Yahweh's nature, but in his
accounts of the sinful past of the Israelites and his predictions
of their future, Ezekiel made such free use of sjinbolical ex-
pressions, representations, and actions that his enemies called
him a riddle-maker, greatly to his indignation. 8 The fact is
that all the prophets made use of these emblems, as was only
1 ( '■. in pave, for instance, vol. i. pp. 123 S . ; pp. 318 ff. ; vol. ii. pp. 249 ft.
' Kiekiel viii.-x. 8 Ezekiel ss. 49.
EZEKIEL. 411
natural ; for the truths they had to preach were very limited
in number, and they were always hammering on the same
anvil: "Repent! or you will perish." Their only chance of
arousing and sustaining the interest of their hearers was to
clothe their denunciations in fresh forms. We have already
noticed some of Jeremiah's strange actions. But unfortunately
Ezekiel's taste was anything but pure, and his images are
sometimes highly offensive. For instance when he reminds
Samaria and Jerusalem of their past and foretells their future,
addressing them respectively as Aholah, i.e., her {own) tent, and
Aholibah, i.e., in her is my tent, his coarseness is quite revolt-
ing ; and the forms under which he describes Jerusalem's fall
and the sufferings of the exiles are often exceedingly gross.
But however rude his mode of preaching, at any rate he was
deeply impressed with the principle he so often announced, 1
that a prophet was responsible for the lives of the deluded and
sinful ones to whom he was sent. For he warned every one
he could reach with reiterated emphasis. The flood of re-
proaches he pours upon his people is sometimes overwhelming.
The earlier prophets imagined that at least in the wilderness
and in Joshua's clays Israel had feared Yahweh ; but Ezekiel
dated the people's idolatry from their stay in Egypt itself.
Even there they had served the gods of the country and re-
fused to listen to Yahweh's voice. Yet he had redeemed his
people that his name might not be profaned amongst the
heathen. But things had been no better in the desert, nor in
Canaan, generation after generation. Even in captivity this
sinful people still trod the same evil path ! 2
The prophet poured out his special wrath upon Jerusalem
before it fell. That city of blood had seen so many children
sacrificed and was so utterly polluted by all its abominations
and idolatries, by Sabbath-breaking and sacrilege, by theft,
murder, adultery, and usury ! Its prophets were venal and
its priests were sacrilegious. Yahweh would deal with it as
with the dross of a smelting furnace, for the whole house of
Israel was no better than dross. Yahweh would burn it up
in his wrath. 8
The judgment was fully deserved and was inevitable, but
Yahweh's love of Israel was eternal ! This conviction was
rooted in Ezekiel's heart, and it urged him to vehement
attacks upon the surrounding peoples, such as the Ammon-
ites, Moabites, Edomites, Philistines, Syrians, Sidonians, and
I Ezekiel iii. 16-21, xxxiii. 1-9. 2 Ezekiel xx. 1-32. » Ezekiel xxii.
412 EZEKIEL.
Egyptians. 1 We must not suppose that he took an interest
in the fate of these peoples chiefly on their own account, for
he regarded them principally in their relations to Israel. Why
were the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and Philistines to
be destroyed? Why was the proud Tyre, especially, to fall?
Because they had all rejoiced in Jerusalem's fall, and had
helped to compass it ! 2 And why must Egypt fall into the
hands of the Chaldseans ? In the first place, Israel had vainly
relied upon Egypt, and Egypt must therefore be humbled,
and, even when restored, must be so weak that Israel would
never trust to it again. 3 Besides — to take the reason given
seventeen years afterwards — Nebuchadrezzar had labored so
hard and suffered so much in the fruitless war against Tyre,
which he had undertaken for Yahweh's sake, that he deserved
some compensation. Egypt must therefore be his reward. 4
It need hardly be said that Ezekiel anticipated the return
and restoration of the exiles after all these judgments had
been executed upon them and upon the heathens. Even
before Jerusalem had fallen he cheered his dejected country-
men with these hopes. Israel had always been impious, and
yet had always been succored by his god ; for he would not
suffer the heathen to argue from the desolate condition of his
people that he himself was powerless. Would he suffer them
to melt away amongst the heathens now ? Not so ! But his
wrath would burn against the exiles ; he would tear them with
violence out of the lands in which they dwelt, would pronounce
sentence upon them in "the desert of the peoples" (probably
the Arabian desert), put the contumacious to death, bring
back the rest to Canaan and make them prosperous, so that
at last they would loath their wickedness and bring acceptable
offerings to Yahweh. 6
Rightly to understand the prophet's conception we must
observe that the return of the exiles is not the reward of their
penitence, as the captivity was the punishment of their of-
fences ; but, on the contrary, their penitence will be the result
of their restoration. The prophet, though constantly admon-
ishing his companions, does not in the least reckon upon their
flinging away their idols. He builds his hopes solely upon the
grace of Yahweh, who cannot desert his people. "Not for
your sake," he makes him say, 6 " not for your sake, O house
1 Ezekiel xxv.-xxxii., xxxv.
a Ezekiel xxv. 3, 8, 12, 15, xxvi. 2, xxxv. 6, 10, 16, xxxvi. 5.
* Ezekiel xxix. 1-16. * Ezekiel xxix. 17-20. 6 Ezekiel xx. 83-44.
• Ezekiel xxxvi. 22-28.
EZF.KIEL. 413
of Israel, do I deliver you ; but for my holy name's sake,
which you never cease to pi-ofane. It is only to teach the
heathen my might that I gather you together and lead you
back. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse
you from your wickedness and idolatry. Then will I give
you a new heart and a new spirit ; I will take away your heart
of stone and give you a heart of flesh. My spirit will I put
within you, and you shall observe my precepts. So shall you
dwell in the land that I gave to j'our fathers ; and you shall
be my people, and I will be your God."
Israel's restoration, as well as his contumacy and the pun-
ishment it involved, was represented by Ezekiel under various
forms.
Take the following example : Yahweh brought me to a
valley that was full of dead men's bones, and led me right
round it. Then I saw that it was covered over with men's
bones, and that they were very dr3 T . And he said to me :
"Son of man! can these bones live?" Then I answered:
" Lord Yahweh ! thou knowest." Thereupon he commanded
me to prophesy concerning them. I did so, and said : " Dry
bones ! hearken to the word of Yahweh ! Thus says the Lord
Yahweh concerning you : Behold I will bring spirit into you
and you shall live. I will lay sinews upon you, and make
flesh come over you, and will cover you with skin, and pour
spirit into you, and you shall live and shall know that I am
Yahweh." Hardly had I uttered the words when, hark ! there
was a sound, and lo ! the bones were moving and fitting them-
selves together. Then sinews came over them, and flesh and
skin, but as yet there was no spirit in them. Then he told
me to prophesy again, and according to his word I cried :
"Spirit! come from the four quarters of heaven and blow
upon these slaughtered ones that they may live ! " And
behold the spirit came into them, and they lived and stood
up on their feet, a mighty host. Thereupon Yahweh said to
me: " Son of man! the whole house of Israel is like these
bones. They say : ' Our bones are dry ; our hope is frus-
trated ; we are cut off.' Prophesy, therefore, and say : Thus
says Yahweh, I will open your graves and make you come up
from them, O my people ! and bring you to the land of Israel
and make you live, that you may know that I, Yahweh, have
foretold all this and brought it to pass."
Ezekiel, as already observed, was more of a writer than a
speaker. At any rate when he wrote his book, towards the
414 EZEKIEL.
end of his life, the time, if there ever was one, in which he
yielded to the prophetic inspiration seems to have been passed,
for there is much more of the deliberate ingenuity of reflection
than the fiery glow of inspiration in his work. Hence the
artificial character of his images and visions, to which the
simple impressiveness of the one just given forms a favorable
exception. Hence, too, the elaborate descriptions of Tyre's
grandeur and industry, for example. But nothing shows more
conclusively than his description of the Messianic age how
completely deliberate composition had taken the place of the
prophetic fire when he wrote. His main idea is identical with
that of the elder prophets, to whose words he now and then
refers. 1 Israel and Judah, united under the rule of a king of
David's house, are to inhabit Canaan 2 and to become a single
people devoted to Yahweh's service. But in many respects
Ezekiel takes a course of his own. Thus he describes in great
detail 8 how almost all the peoples of central Asia (the Chal-
dees alone are omitted) will take the field together against the
Israelites that have returned from the captivity. He calls
these nations Gog and Magog, and likens them to a water-
spout ; but declares that Yahweh's might will destroy them in
such enormous numbers that it will take the Israelites seven
years to bury them, during all which time the}' will need no
firewood except the spear-shafts, arrows, bows, and shields
they will pick up.
Our attention, however, is more especially attracted by the
concluding chapters of Ezekiel's book, 4 in which he draws a
most elaborate picture of the restored Israel. The foremost
place in his new Canaan is taken b}' the temple, which is de-
scribed in detail, together with its courts, outbuildings, and
kitchens, its gables, doors, ornaments, and furniture. The
seer devotes especial care to his description of the great altar
of burnt-offerings and the duties of the servants of the tem-
ple. With regard to this latter point he departs slightly from
the precepts of Deuteronomy, which assigned the priesthood
to all the Levites, whereas Ezekiel distinguishes between " the
sons of Zadok," who are the only ones he deems worthy of
serving the altar and approaching the holy things, aud the
other Levites whom he only allows to fill subordinate places
about the sanctuary because they had formerly been guilty
of idolatry. 6 He insists, above all, that no strangers, no un-
circuincised, should do service in the temple, and that the
1 Ezekiel xxxviii. 17, xxxix. 8. 2 Ezekiel xxxvii. 15-28.
8 Ezekiel xxxviii., xxxix. * Ezekiel xl -xlviii. 6 Compare p. 328
EZEKIEL. 415
priests should reflect and sustain the sanctity of Yahweh in
their dress and their mode of life.
In Ezekiel's ideal Stave, the city and its suburbs were to
surround the temple as before ; but henceforth Jerusalem was
to be called " Yahweh-is-there." It was to be enclosed on
every side by the possessions of the sons of Zadok and the
Levites, which were to be inalienable. Round this conse-
crated rectangle, in the middle of which the temple would
stand, the other tribes were to be ranged in a given order.
They were not to have larger or smaller territories according
to local and other circumstances, as they had before, for the
holy land was to be divided by equi-distant lines into rec-
tangular districts of equal size, one of which was to be as-
signed to each tribe.
At the head of these tribes the monarch was to stand, the
king of the house of David, whose special demesnes would
lie between the heritage of Judah and that of Benjamin. The
prophet also enumerates the monarch's duties. He must rule
in righteousness and practise no extortion, as Israel's nobles
had so often done, but must enforce the stated taxes, and
insure a uniform system of weights and measures. The
prophet instructs him, with especial emphasis, as to the sac-
rifices he must bring to Yahweh on week-days, on the Sab-
bath, and on sundry feast days. He also gives a detailed
account of what the prince is to do on the Sabbath, which
gate he is to stand before with the people while the priests
offer his sacrifice, by which gate he is to enter, and by which
to leave the sanctuary.
All this is very paltry. A thoroughly priestly spirit per-
vades the nine chapters in which Ezekiel sketches his Israel
of the future. Very few verses are devoted to the social in-
terests of the people. It is their religious affairs, or rather
all the paltry details of worship, that absorb the seer's atten-
tion. His devotion to the temple is curiously illustrated by
a passage in which he represents his divine guide as pointing
out to him a little stream flowing from under the threshold of
the temple at the east side. A thousand cubits further down
this stream reached to the ankles of one who crossed it ; a
thousand cubits further yet it reached to the knees ; a thou-
sand more and it rose to the loins ; and a thousand further
yet it was no longer to be forded. It was a stream the banks
of which were well wooded, and the leaves of the trees had
healing power and never fell, while the fruits ripened every
month and could heal wounds, because the waters by which
416 EZEKIEL.
the trees grew flowed from the sanctuary. Hence, too, the
stream was not only full of fish, but when it flowed into the
sea it made its waters wholesome, and it brought life wherever
it went. Such is the poetical form under which this priest
expresses his conviction that all life springs from the sanc-
tuary. Ezekiel has alreadj - taken us a great step nearer to
the foundation of a priestly State than the law of Deuteron-
omy did. Not only is the line between priests and laymen
sharply drawn, but different ranks are already established
amongst the servants of the temple, and the chief business
of the Messianic age is the provision for them and the sanc-
tuary. The seer finds room in his picture for the temple
kitchens and their hearths, but does not once tell us whether
courts of justice, for instance, will exist in the future Israel ;
or whether agriculture, cattle-breeding, industry, and com-
merce will flourish ! His references to the political and social
life of his people are confined to his prescriptions as to the
conduct of the prince, — and he is to devote his chief atten-
tion to the temple services.
Ezekiel was indeed a priest to the backbone ! But he was
a man of firm convictions. In spite of all this priestly trifling,
there is something noble about the man that extorts our re-
spect. Living as an exile in a foreign land, in the midst of
dejected countrymen who cried, "Our hope is cut off! We
are like diy bones ! " Ezekiel dared to lay down his plan for
the new Canaan, and described how the land of Yahweh's
consecrated people must be portioned out, and the temple that
now lay in ruins rebuilt. There was nothing to wake the
faintest suspicion in an impartial observer that Israel could
ever be restored. There was not the smallest assignable
ground for such an expectation. But Ezekiel believed in it
nevertheless, in the strength of his profound conviction of
Yahweh's power and his love for Israel.
However imperfect his ideal may have been, it does him
honor that he had a religious ideal at all.
SUFFERING SERVANT OF TAHWEH. 417
Chapter X.
THE SUFFERING SERVANT OF YAHWEH.
Jeremiah XXXI. 29, 30; Eeekiel XVIII.; Isaiah LII. 13-LIII.
" \\ THY must we suffer all this?" was the question con-
V V stantly asked by the humbled Judseans — the ques-
tion that had been constantly asked and variously answered
over since the defeat of Josiah. " The fathers ate sour grapes,
knd the children's teeth are set on edge," people answered
sadly and bitterly. The general opinion was that Israel was
paying the penalty of Manasseh's sins. Yahweh, the holy
one, visited the sins of the fathers upon the children to the
third and fourth generation. 1 But this answer did not satisfy
every one, for it seemed to make Yahweh's justice to each
individual taken by himself extremely doubtful. Besides, it
did not explain why one. had so much more to suffer than
another. Yahweh seemed capricious and inconsistent. Was
Israel's god unjust?
"No! he is absolutely just," replied Ezekiel, "juster than
Israel thinks for. Why prate of children's teeth set on edge
because their fathers have eaten sour grapes? Never use
that proverb more ! All lives are mine, says Yahweh. the
life of the son and the life of the father ; and he who sins
shall die himself. If any man is righteous and offers not
sacrifice upon the hills nor lifts his eyes to idols, commits not
adultery, oppresses none, returns the pledge he has received,
and is guilty of no robbery, but feeds the hungry and clothes
the naked, exacts no usury or interest, practises no iniquity
but deals uprightly, walks after my ordinances and observes
my statutes, — such a righteous man shall be surely spared
alive.
" And if a good man such as this should have a godless son,
who leaves all these good things undone but does the wicked
ones, shall he be spared alive ? Of a truth he shall not ! He
shall surely perish, and may his blood be upon his own head I
So again if a righteous son have a godless father, he shall not
die for his father's sins. His father himself shall die, for it is
he that has done the evil. Why talk, then, of a son atoning
1 Deuteronomy v. 9 ; Exodus xx. 5, xxxiv. 7 ; Jeremiah xxxii. 18.
18*
418 SUFFERIXC, SERVANT OF YAHWEH.
for his father's sins? The man who sins shall die himself,
and no one suffers for another's wickedness.
"But if a wicked man repents and lives righteously and
observes my statutes, then he shall not perish, but all his
former trespasses shall be forgotten, and he shall live in his
righteousness. Have I any pleasure in the sinner's death?
Nay, but I would have him repent and live ! But again, if a
s ighteous man should fall away and walk in the path of the
godless man who has rescued his life by repentance, then all
the good deeds that he has done shall be remembered no more,
and he shall perish for his wickedness.
"Then let not the house of Israel say that my ways are
capricious and unequal. My ways are stead} - and consistent,
but yours are not ; for many a godless man repents, and many
righteous fall away. Of a truth every man is judged by his
deeds. Eeturn, then, from your trespasses, that they may
not be your ruin, and make yourselves a new heart and a new
spirit ; for why should you die, house of Israel ! Ah me,
I desire not the death of the sinner, says the Lord Yahweh ;
wherefore repent and live ! " 1
Regarded as a solution of the great problem of the connec-
tion between the sins of men on the one hand and their pros-
perity or adversity upon the other, this oracle of Ezekiel has
not the smallest value, for it is in glaring contradiction with
the facts, and ignores the undeniable effects of the virtue or
vice of the parents upon the happiness or misery of the chil-
dren ; but nevertheless it rests upon a clear perception of the
great moral truth that no man is rendered guiltj' by any one's
sins except his own. Obvious as this principle seems to us,
it was by no means recognized by the ancient Israelites. In
common with other peoples of antiquity thej - held that the
guilt of a crime attached not only to the perpetrator, but to all
his family as well. Hence the iniquitous custom of punishing
a whole household for the offence of one member was firmly
established amongst men, and was attributed without scruple
to God. But the growth of gentler manners expelled this
barbarous custom from human legislation, first in practice
and afterwards in theory, 2 though it still retained its place as
a supposed principle of divine retribution. Ezekiel, however,
felt that God could not hold a man guilty of a crime he had
not committed ; and since neither he nor any of his contem-
poraries had the smallest doubt that every disaster was due
to the retributive justice of Yahweh, he was driven to the
l Compare Ezekiel xxxiii. 10-20. 2 See pp. 176, 177.
SUFFERING SERVANT OF YAHWEH. 419
conclusion that every one who suffered must himself have
been guilty of sin.
To reconcile this doctrine with the facts of life, Ezekiel
could only urge that when Yahweh seemed to punish a right-
eous man it was because he had fallen into sin at last ; and
when he suffered a sinner to escape, it was because he had
repented. Here, again, he falls into grave error in supposing
that the present can wash out the past, and in ignoring the
testimony of that sense of guilt which is quickened rather
than extinguished by true repentance ; but at the same time
he grasps the vital truth that past virtue is no excuse for
present vice, and that the way to repentance is always open
to the sinner.
This intimate blending of truth and error in Ezekiel's teach-
ing rises from his combining a new perception of moral truth
with the old error that prosperity and adversity are the direct
awards of the deity to virtue and vice. In the light of his
higher ideas of justice he boldly and consistently works out
the old retributive theory, and this leads him to deny that the
fate of any man is in the least degree affected by that of his
parents, his children, or his country ! The theory that led to
such glaring contradictions could not stand, and Ezekiel in-
directly contributed to its fall by the very consistency with which
he preached it. Unintentionally he showed that it must fall to
pieces in the face of facts when separated from the false ideas
of the nature of guilt with which it was so closely connected.
At the opposite pole from Ezekiel stands a prophet whose
work must rank, both in form and substance, amongst the
noblest portions of the Old Testament. His name is un-
known ; and since his work appears in the last twenty-seven
chapters of the book called after Isaiah, 1 he is commonly
spoken of as the Second, or sometimes the Babj-lonian Isaiah.
It is not certain, however, that all these twenty-seven chap-
ters are from one hand. There appear to be a few, though
not many, older passages inserted amongst this prophet's dis-
courses, and it is probable also that a prophecy of later date
has here and there been added. The greater part of the
oracles, however, seem to be from a single hand, though they
vary greatly in tone. The writer probably began his work by
comforting and stimulating his people during the last years
of the captivity, and subsequently tried to confirm their faith
after the return.
1 Compare p. 248
420 SUFFERING SERVANT OF TAHWEH.
Now, the discourses of this Second Isaiah frequently men-
tion the " servant of Yahweh ; " and the prophet himself inti-
mates very distinctly that he uses this expression to signify
Israel. 1 Yet, when he describes the " servant of Yahweh," it
is obvious that he has not the whole nation in his eye, but only
the best and most devout portion, the kernel, as it were, of
the people. At any rate, his words are for the most part
inapplicable to the real Israel, with all its faults and sins, and
applicable only to the people of God, as it ought to be and
must become. But he sometimes uses the name of Israel or
Jacob for this kernel and sometimes for the whole people, and
it is impossible from the nature of the case to draw a clear
line between the genuine Israel, the Israel after the spirit,
and the actual people ; and the consequence is that his exact
meaning is not always equally clear, and he is sometimes be-
trayed by hope and love into using expressions of the whole
nation which are really only applicable to this kernel. Of
course there were prophets amongst these devout Israelites,
and the writer himself was one of them, whence ' ' the servant
of Yahweh" is sometimes sketched in colors which clearly
indicate the prophetic representatives of Yahweh. 2
Now the fact that this servant of Yahweh was an exile,
and suffered every kind of oppression, was the grievous and
terrible enigma which perplexed every thoughtful and devout
Israelite. How could it be solved ? Let us listen to the an-
swer conveyed in the well-known description of this suffering
servant of God : —
" The servant of Yahweh shall be prosperous, exalted, and
extolled very high. As many have been appalled at him be-
cause his visage was marred till it lost all human shape, and
his form was unlike a mortal's, so shall he cause many hea-
thens to spring up in rapture, so shall he put kings to silence
when they see him, for thej" shall behold what they had never
been told of, and see things of which they had never heard.
"Who has believed our preaching? By whom has Yah-
weh' s might been acknowledged? He sprang up before
Yahweh's face like a sapling, like a shoot coming out of dry
ground : without beauty or majesty to secure him reverence,
with no splendor to entrance men's hearts. He was despised
and forsaken of men, a man of pain and acquainted with
sickness ; as one from whom we turn our faces away, rejected
and contemned.
1 Isaiah xli. 8, xliv. 21, xlv. 4, xlviii. 20, xlix. 1-7.
2 Isuiah xliv. 26, 1. 4-10.
SUFFERING SERVANT OF TAHWEH. 421
" Surely he has borne our sicknesses and carried our pain,
while we thought him stricken, afflicted, and smitten by God.
But he was wounded for our sins, bruised for our iniquities ;
the chastisement that brought us peace was laid on him, and
by his stripes we were healed. We had all gone astray like
sheep, each one following his own way; but Yahweh has
brought upon him the iniquity of us all.
"He was tortured, while he humbled himself and opened
not his mouth. He was led to the slaughter like a lamb, like
a sheep that is dumb before her shearers. By oppressive
judgments he is snatched away, and who that sees it considers
that he is stricken to death for the sins of my people ? They
bmy him amongst the godless, and make his tomb with the
violent, though he did no evil, and deceit was not found in his
mouth.
"Yet it pleased Yahweh to heal his sickness.' Though
he should give up his life as a trespass-offering, he shall still
live on in his posterity, and through him shall Yahweh's good
pleasure be accomplished. 1 By the sufferings of his soul
shall he pasture and satisfy many, by his knowledge of God
shall my servant make many righteous, and bear their sins. 1
Therefore I give him booty amongst the great ones, and he
shall take his share with the mighty, because he gave up
his life and suffered himself to be numbered with the trans
gressors, bearing the trespasses of many and mediating for
the sinners."
After the lapse of many centuries this discourse became
the subject of deep reflection, and has caused no little contro-
versj r . It is easy to see wiry. The Christians, who constantly
found descriptions of their Master in the books of the Old
Testament, which they even regarded as a regular source of
information concerning his experiences, 2 saw him and no one
else in this " suffering servant of the Lord." 3 This need not
surprise us. If we read the prophecy superficially and neglect
passages which are wholly inapplicable to Jesus, such as the
one which promises a share with the mighty in the spoil, then
it really may produce the impression of a description of him
and of his patient sufferings for God's sake. And again}
when the Christian Church began in the course of time to
delight more and more "in speculating upon the meaning of
the Master's death, and the doctrine of the vicarious suffer-
1 Very doubtful reading. 2 Compare vol. ill- , pp. 46-49.
8 See Matthew viii. 17; Mark ix. 12, xv. 28; Luke xxii. 37; Acts viii. 32 ff.;
1 Corinthians xv. 3 ; 1 Peter ii. 22, 24.
422 SUFFERING SERVANT OP YAHWEH.
ing of Christ became current, this prophecy could not fail to
become one of the most cherished supports of the whole
doctrinal scheme. What could be clearer than that it was
enunciated here?
Now, when tradition has once impressed an interpretation
such as this upon our minds, it is very difficult to take an un-
prejudiced view of the prophecy ; and the consequence is that
people have found all kinds of meanings in it which are not
really there.
In the first place the prophet gives such a graphic sketch
of the servant of Yahweh that he sometimes appears to be
describing an actual man, and certain scholars have inferred,
perhaps correctly, that he borrowed a part of his discourse
from an older work, which described some pious sufferer for
God's sake, such as Jeremiah. But in any case the prophet
himself certainly intended to describe an aggregate and not a
single person.
To understand the prophet's words we must remember that
he is speaking poetically, and therefore not without exaggera-
tion. He paints the woful state of the "servant of Yah-
weh " in such dark colors that we should suppose all the pious
Israelites to have been hopelessly poor, sick, oppressed, and
wretched, which of course was far from being the case. In-
deed, it was not so much that they groaned under the personal
sufferings of slavery or were in any actual need, as that they
grieved over the condition of their fatherland and the exile of
so maivy of their people. In the same way it is an exaggera-
tion to call " Yahweh' s servant" righteous without airy quali-
fication, and to say that lie has done nothing wrong and that
no deceit is found in his mouth. At any rate we must not
take these passages literally, but must remember that the
prophet himself elsewhere calls the servant of Yahweh deaf
and blind. 1 It is true that what he means by this blindness
and deafness is not any gross sinfulness, but simply that
despondency which from time to time came over the devort
Israelites and made them complain that Yahweh had forgotten
them, and that they had been zealous for him in vain ; 3 never-
theless the expression shows that he was far from ascribing
perfect righteousness to the servant of Yahweh. Accordingly
he makes Yahweh say distinctly 3 to " Israel which shall not
be forgotten," " I wash out your trespasses like a mist, and
your sins like a cloud. Turn again to me, for I have redeemed
1 Isaiah xlii. 19. a Isaiah xl. 27, xlix. 4, 14.
8 Isaiah xliv. 21, 22 ; compare Jeremiah xlvi. 27, 28.
SUFFERING SERVANT OF YAHWEH. 423
you ! " The purity of Yahweh's servant, then, is only rela-
tive. In comparison with the many Israelites who practised
idolatry or were indifferent to the people's future, the spiritual
nucleus of the nation might be called righteous ; but the fact
that many defects still clung to them could not possibly escape
<"> earnest a man as the Second Isaiah.
If we bear the poetical character of the prophet's discourse
steadily in mind, we shall not be tempted to look for more
than there really is in his expressions as to the connection be-
tween the sufferings of the pious and the sins of the people.
The servant of Yahweh does indeed make many righteous by
his piety, and makes atonement as a mediator for the tres-
passes of others, just as a priest teaches the laity, and
cleanses them from their sins by his sacrifices and consecra-
tions ; but he does not suffer in their stead. His suffering is
destined in the first place to establish his own glory. When
we are also told that the people are healed by his stripes, we
must remember that, according to the Israelites, all sufferings
had an atoning power of blotting out offences. When evil
had been done, then Yahweh's wrath was heavy on the sinner,
on his house and on his country, till the trespass had been
expiated by the evil-doer himself, or by his children or his
people, unless means had been found of appeasing Yahweh
with sacrifices. There was no forgiveness without shedding
of blood. There was no deliverance from suffering, which
never came upon a man or a people except as the punishment
of some sin, until the penalty appointed by Yahweh had been
paid. Thus, when the prophet foresaw Israel's return from
the captivity, he declared that it had already received in
double measure the punishment of all its sins ; 1 and Jeremiah
in like manner took for granted that the prospects of the
captives were brighter than those of the remnant in Jeru-
salem, because the exiles had suffered the penalty, and would
now return and be converted, whereas Zedekiah and his
companions had' still to undergo their fate. 2 So when the
prophet says that the punishment which brings peace to the
people falls upon Yahweh's servant, and that Yahweh has laid
upon him the sins of them all, he means that the pious
Israelites suffered with their people, and this suffering was the
penalty for Israel's transgressions. Indeed, the devouter
exiles suffered more than the rest, for they gave greater
offence to the heathens, and were at the same time dissatisfied
with their countrymen, from whom accordingly they had
i Isaiah xl. 2. 2 See p. 3T1.
424 SUFFERING SERVANT OF YAHWEH.
sometimes much to bear. Moreover they felt the melancholy
state of things more keenly than others did. Thus, by suffer
ing for the trespasses of others, they helped to appease Yah-
weh and restore the Israelitish State. For their sakes Yahweh
would rescue Israel, just as he would have spared Sodom and
Gomorrah if there had been but five righteous men in them ; '
just as he had forgiven Israel in the wilderness at the inter-
cession of Moses, 2 and would have been ready to forgive it
again after Josiah's time at the prayer of a Moses or a Samuel,
had not its sins been of too black a dye. 3
In sharp distinction from Ezekiel and others, our prophet
was profoundly conscious of the bond that united all the sons
of Israel to each other. The whole people suffered, and each
member must therefore suffer — the devoutest most. And
when these last were restored to honor, the blessings they had
earned would be shared by all. The piety of Yahweh's ser-
vant not only secured a glorious future for Israel, but also
made it righteous, and fitted it to become a light for the
heathen. This was a thought rich in salutary consequences.
The sufferings of Yahweh's servant for God's sake had a
moral goal. This idea is often expressed by the Second
Isaiah, but nowhere, perhaps, more beautifully than in the
following passage : 4 " Behold my servant whom I uphold, my
chosen in whom I delight. I put my spirit upon him that he
ma} 7 teach the heathens the way they should go ; not by cry-
ing or shouting or lifting up his voice in the street, for a
bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoking wick he shall
not quench, but shall faithfully teach their duty to men. He
shall not be discouraged or wearied till he has established
right upon the earth, and distant peoples long for his judg-
ment. Thus says god Yahweh, who created the heavens and
stretched them forth, who spread out the earth and all that it
bears, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to
them that dwell on it : ' I, Yahweh, have called you to sal-
vation and taken you by the hand, have made you a link
between the people and Yahweh, a light for the heathen, to
open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the captives from
prison, anil those that sit in darkness from bondage.' "
Strictly speaking, these descriptions of the ' ' suffering ser-
vant of Yahweh " cannot be said to embody the true and
beautiful conception that "the blood of the martyrs is the
seed of the Church." This is only true because the patient
1 Genesis xviii. 23 ff. " Exodus xxxii. 9-14, 30-34) Psalm cvi. 23.
8 Jeremiah, xv. 1. 4 Isaiah xlii. 1-7, compare xlix. 1-7.
REVIVING HOPES. 425
faith of the martyrs shows how deeply rooted their conviction
is in their own and generally in many kindred hearts, and
produces a deep impression upon both friends and foes ; but
this conception cannot be traced in the mind of our prophet,
who shares with antiquity generally the belief that temporal
disaster is the punishment for sin, and therefore reveals the
wrath of God. Nevertheless, he has struck upon the deep
and touching truth that the sufferings of the faithful may be
the means of securing to mankind the truest spiritual blessings
Chapteb XI.
REVIVING HOPES.
Isaiah XIV. 4-21, XXXV., XL.
AFTER a brilliant reign of forty-three years king Nebu
chadrezzar died (561 B.C.), and left his son a mighty
kingdom that stretched from the Tigris to the Mediterranean
Sea, and divided the whole of Asia Minor with two others
still greater than itself, — that of the Medes in the north,
and that of the Lydians west of the Halys. The pride of the
kingdom was its magnificent capital. There stood the temple
of Bel, 1 restored and beautified though not actually built by
Nebuchadrezzar himself. Stupendous walls, upon which two
four-horse chariots could meet and pass with ease, encircled
the city. The river walls, not yet completed, girt the two
banks of the Euphrates as it flowed through the city, and were
terminated by the brazen river-gates. There, too, the great
artificial lake might be seen, which served the same purpose
as that of king Moeris in Egypt ; 2 and there stood the royal
palace, the so-called hanging gardens of which were reckoned
by the Greeks amongst the seven wonders of the world. All
this magnificence bore witness to the fact that in Nebuchad-
rezzar the world had lost one of those princes whose enterprise
and energy hold peoples in subjection, and call colossal works
into existence — a demigod upon the earth, who might have
stood upon the ramparts of his palace, as a later Jewish writer
represents him doing, 8 and exclaimed with ample reason:
" This is the mighty Babylon that I have built for my royal
l Compare vol. i. p. 89. 2 Compare vol. i. p. 233. 8 Daniel iv. 30.
426 REVIVING HOPES.
residence, by the power of my strong arm and as a monument
to my glory ! "
But the history of the kingdom after his death shows how
soon all this power might be broken and all this splendor
dimmed ; for Nebuchadrezzar had been dead but three-and-
twenty years when the whole of Babylonia was swallowed up
in the kingdom of the Persians. His three immediate suc-
cessors, the first of whom, Evil-merodach, we know already
as the patron of the captive monarch Jehoiakin, 1 were men
of little mark. The next and last, Nabonedus, did his very
utmost to defend his throne, — but who could stand against
Cyrus?
This Cyrus, or Koresh as the Jews called him, was a Per-
sian chief, and, as such, a subject of the Medes. In the year
558 B.C. he saw his chance of unfurling the banner of revolt
against King Astyages, and was so successful as not only to
gain the freedom of his own country, but eventually, after a
desperate struggle, to subdue the kingdom of the Medes itself.
Now that he was king of the Persians and Medes, he turned
his weapons against Croesus, the wealthy king of the Lydians,
and conquered his land also. Then came the turn of Babylon.
Nabonedus had foreseen this, and had made enormous prepa-
rations for war, though his chief reliance was probably on the
strength of his capital ; which Cyrus soon besieged, having
previously inflicted a severe defeat upon the Babylonians in
its neighborhood. The king threw himself into Borsippa, and
entrusted the defence of Babylon to his son. The city seemed
to be impregnable, and all the usual arts of war were tried
upon it in vain. The walls were too thick to be battered
down by the rams, too lofty and too well commanded by
turrets to be scaled ; and the place was so well provisioned
that the besiegers were more likely to suffer want than the
besieged. But Cyrus had recourse to a stratagem. He deep-
ened and extended the artificial lake which Nebuchadrezzar
had made to regulate the height of the water in the Euphrates,
till it was capable of receiving the whole volume of the stream ;
at the same time he widened the canal that carried the water
into it, and then dammed up the river just below. The num-
bers of his army enabled him to complete this gigantic opera-
tion with great rapidity, and it proved entirely successful. As
soon as the troops who had remained in front of the city
perceived that the water had sunk low enough for their pur-
pose, they rushed in by the river bed and scaled the not verv
l See p. 401.
REVIVING HOPES. 427
lofty walls that rati through the city by the river side. The
inhabitants were celebrating a great feast at the time, and the
city was so enormous and was taken so completely by surprise
that the majority of its inhabitants knew nothing of the mat-
ter till the following day. Upon this Nabonedus gave himself
up as a prisoner. The kingdom of the Chaldees had fallen,
and Cyrus reigned over them also. (538 b.c.)
"We may well believe that the Jewish. exiles looked upon
these events with intensest interest, and that their hopes of a
return to the fatherland were successively quickened by the
appearance of Cyrus, by his growing power, by the defeat of
Nabonedus, and at last by the fall of Babylon. Though only
eight-and-twenty years had elapsed between the taking of
Jerusalem and the revolt of the Persians against the Medes,
yet a quarter of a century is ample time to quell the spirit of a
people in hopeless slavery and to quench the fire of prophecy.
Both the captives and the remnant in Palestine were doubt-
less more wont to complain that Yahweh had forgotten them
than to express their trust that he would deliver them. But
the rise of Cyrus gave them a ray of hope at once ; and as he
gradually showed his invincible power, as Media bowed to
him first and Lydia next, as Babylon's army was defeated and
the capital itself besieged, these hopes grew ever stronger,
till at last the prophetic fire burst out anew under their influ-
ence. Though we have no direct accounts of what was going
on amongst the Israelites, yet the prophetic discourses uttered
or written at the time bear witness to their thoughts, their
beliefs, their hopes, and their fears.
Thus one of the exiles composed an elaborate oracle on the
humiliation which the Chaldsean gods and Babylon itself would
endure, because Nebuchadrezzar had shattered Israel. At
the same time he exhorted the Jews to flee from the land of
exile, that they might not share its terror and distress. The
writer put this prediction into the mouth of Jeremiah, and
declared that this man of God wrote it down in the fourth
year of Zedekiah's reign, and gave it to Seraiah, the head of
a Jewish embassy to Nebuchadrezzar, telling him to read it
in Babylon to the Jews, and then tie the roll to a stone and
throw it into the Euphrates, as an emblematic declaration that
Babylon itself should in like manner sink for ever. 1
Others spoke or wrote in their own names, or anonymously.
Amongst them was a prophet who pointed to the Medes as
1 Jeremiah 1., li.
428 REVIVING HOPES.
the instruments of Yahweh's judgment upon Babylon, in his
terrible day of vengeance. 1 His work has excited attention
principally on account of the following song of triumph over
the king of Babylon, which he puts upon the lips of the
Israelites in preparation for the time of their deliverance :
" How still has the tyrant grown, and his raging sunk into
quiet! Yahweh has broken the staff of the wicked one,
broken the rod of the oppressor, which smote the peoples in
fury, smote them with a continual stroke, trod down the na-
tions with pitiless tread. All the world is at rest and peace,
and breaks into cries of joy. The cypresses rejoice in thy
fall, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, ' Since thou art laid
low no one comes here to fell us ! ' The shadow-land is stirred
below, and comes forth to meet thee. It rouses its shades
for thee ; all the rulers of the earth rise up from their thrones,
all the princes of the heathens. With one mouth they cry to
thee, ' Thou, too, art an empty shadow as we ; thou art now
become like unto us ! ' Thy pomp has gone down to the
shadow-land with the melody of thy lutes ; thy bed beneath is
corruption, thy covering above is worms. How art thou fallen
from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawning ! How art
thou stretched on the ground, thou trampler upon nations !
Thou didst say in thy heart, ' I will rise up to heaven, exalt
my throne above the stars of God, seat me on the mountain
of gods in the north, ascend above the masses of cloud, and
be like unto the Most High ! ' Nay, thou art brought down
to the underworld. They that see shall gaze and look nar-
rowly at thee. ' Is this the man that made the earth tremble
and shook the kingdoms ; that made the earth a wilderness,
that destroyed its cities, and suffered not his captives to re-
turn ? ' All the kings of the heathens rest in honor, each in
his dwelling ; but thou art cast out of thy grave as a worth-
less log of wood. Girt with the slain whom the sword has
pierced, thou art thrust down into the earth, 2 a carcass trod-
den under foot ! Thou art not buried amongst the kings, foi
thou hast destroyed thy land and slain thy people. The seed
of the wicked is no more mentioned for ever. Make ready a
place of slaughter for his sons, because of the wickedness of
their fathers, that they may never rise and take possession
of the land and fill its face once more with cities."
A third writer in the exile bids his ' ' thrashed and down-
trodden people " take comfort from the approach of Elam or
Persia and Media, who will bring Babylon to its fall and will
1 Isaiah xiil.-xiv. 23. a Translation uncertain.
REVIVING HOPES. 429
grind her idols to pieces ; l while a fourth describes the return
of the exiles in the strains that follow 2 : —
The wilderness and barren land shall be glad,
The desert shall rejoice and be green like the after-grass,
All shall be blossoms and shouting and dancing for joy ;
The glory of Lebanon shall be given her,
The beauty of Carmel and Sharon ;
They see the majesty of Yahweh, the glory of our God.
Strengthen the weak hands,
Confirm the feeble knees.
Say to the fearful, " Be strong, fear not !
Behold your god ! Vengeance is coming, the vengeance of God !
He comes to deliver you."
Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened,
The ears of the deaf unstopped ;
Then shall the lame man leap as a hart,
And the tongue of the dumb shall shout for joy.
In the desert shall water-courses be scooped,
And streams in the thirsty land.
The mirage shall turn io a pool,
And the thirsty land to a stream of water.
In the place where jackals couched and dwelt
The grass shall grow up into reeds and rushes
And a path shall be there and a way;
Men shall call it a " holy way."
The unclean shall not tread it ; it belongs to the holy ;
The simplest wayfarer need not stray. 3
No lion shall be there,
No beast of prey shall walk it.
No hurtful thing shall be found there, 8
But the redeemed shall tread this path.
Yahweh's ransomed shall return
And enter Zion with shouts of joy.
Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads ;
Joy and gladness they shall obtain,
And sorrow and sadness shall flee away.
The same tone of high-wrought expectation meets us
throughout the Second Isaiah's oracles. We may take the
first chapter as a specimen 4 : —
" Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, says your God. Speak
gently to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her service is finished,
her iniquity pardoned, for she has received at Yahweh's hand
a twofold punishment for all her sins. Hark ! there is a cry :
' Make ready a way for Yahweh in the desert, level a path for
our God in the wilderness ! All the valleys shall be filled up
and the mountains and hills cut down ; the uneven land shall
be levelled and the rough places shall be made plane ; Yah-
i Isaiah xxi. 1-10. 2 Isaiah xxxv.
8 Doubtful translation. i Isaiah xl.
43.0 REVIVING HOPES.
weh's glory shall be revealed, and all mankind shall see his
blessings, 1 for it is he who has ordered this ! '
" A voice cries, ' Announce ! ' and I answered, ' What shall
I announce ? ' All flesh is as grass, and all its glory like a
flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, but
the word of our god shall stand for ever.
"Go up into a lofty mountain, thou messenger of Zion's
joy ! Lift up a mighty voice, thou bearer of glad news to
Jerusalem ! Cry without fear to Judah's cities, ' Behold your
god ! ' See the Lord Yahweh comes in his might, with domin-
ion upon his arm. See, he brings with him salvation and his
reward goes out before him. He pastures his flock like a
shepherd, who gathers the lambs in his arms, carries them in
his bosom, arid gently leads the mothers.
" Who can measure the waters in the hollow of his hand,
and mete out the heavens with a span? Who can compre-
hend the dust of the earth in a measure, weigh the mountains
in scales and the hills in a balance ? Who has understood the
spirit of Yahweh and made himself his counsellor? With
whom has he taken counsel and by whom has he been in-
structed ? Who taught him the way of judgment and knowl-
edge ? Who showed him how to be perfect in insight ? See !
he counts the heathens as a drop of water upon the bucket or
a grain of dust on the balance. The islands, to him, are like
flying dust. All Lebanon has not wood enough nor beasts
for a sacrifice worthy of him.
" Then if all the heathens are as nothing before him, are
vanity and things of nought, to whom will ye liken God, and
how will ye make an image of him ? The workman makes
an image, the goldsmith covers it with gold and fixes silver
chains to it ; or, if he is too poor for this, he chooses a good
sound piece of wood and makes him an image that will not
rot ! But have ye not heard and perceived ? Has it not been
told 3 r ou from of old ? Or did you not comprehend it ? He
sits over the circuit of the earth, and its inhabitants are like
grasshoppers to him. He stretches out the heaven like a tent
to dwell in. He destroys princes and brings judges of the
earth to nought. They are scarce planted or sown, their root
has scarce struck in the ground, ere he blows upon them and
they wither, and are driven in the storm like chaff! Then
how will ye make an image of me that shall be like me, in-
deed? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and
see who has made these stars, who brings out their hosts by
> After aii amended version.
REVIVING HOPES. 431
number, calling them by their names till, by his dread might,
not one is missing !
" Why sayest thou then, O Jacob, and declarest, O Israel,
' My way is forgotten by Yahweh and my right is passed over
by my God ' ? Dost thou not know, hast thou not heard, that
the everlasting God, Yahweh, the creator of all the earth,
fainteth not, neither is weary, and that his understanding is
unsearchable ? He gives power to the weary and strength to
the weak. Young men may faint and be weary, and the
strong may ever stumble ; but they who trust in Yahweh renew
their strength, spread out their wings like the eagles, run but
are never weary, walk but are never faint."
Many other examples of the Second Isaiah's preaching
might be added, but we must put some limits to our citations
from him. In describing the return of the exiles, however,
we shall give a few passages which he probably wrote to cele-
brate that event rather than at an earlier period. But of
course it is difficult to fix the exact date of the various oracles,
especially as we do not know how far they were simply writ
ten, and how far they were actually spoken.
We must now make a few remarks as to the attitude taken
up by the prophet. First of all we must observe that he is
emphatically monotheistic. He does not dream of recognizing
the existence of any other god than Yahweh: " Ye are my
witnesses, says Yahweh, and my servant whom I have chosen, 1
that ye may perceive it and believe in me, understanding that
I am he. Before me was no god created, nor shall be after
me. I, I am Yahweh, and beside me there is none that saves.
I have announced and delivered and foretold, when there was
no strange [god] amongst you. Ye are my witnesses, says
Yahweh, and I am God. Yea ! from of old I am he, and
none can deliver from my hand. I accomplish it and who
shall hinder?" a Thus says Yahweh, Israel's king and re-
deemer, Yahweh of hosts: "I am the first and I the last.
There is no god beside me." 8
Even in earlier times many Israelites had treated the wor-
ship of other gods than Yahweh as identical with the worship
of images, 4 and since our prophet, like all the ancients, was
incapable of appreciating the religious rites and conceptions
of those from whom he differed, it was inevitable that his
emphatic preaching of monotheism should be coupled with
the moat violent attacks upon the images which he saw in
i ComDare p. 120. * iMiab xliii- 10-13.
« Iiaia'h xhv. 6, sal elsewhere, * See f 317.
432 REVIVING HOPES.
" the land of idols." 1 He assails them with biting sarcasm.
We have already heard him scoffing at the heathens who, if
rich, made idols of metal and, if poor, of wood ; and else-
where 2 he describes in greater detail how all kinds of work-
men are employed in preparing these images ; how a man
fells a tree and makes a god out of one half of the trunk, and
burns the other half for firewood to warm himself or to roast
his meat. Of what avail was such a god, that could neither
hear nor see? Those who put their trust in these images
would all be covered with shame ! Bel collapsed, and Nebo
was laid low. Men might cany them where they chose, for
they could not move themselves or give any answer to those
that worshipped them. But Israel would be glorified, for his
god was Yahweh, who had predicted from of old what was
now fulfilled, who had called an eagle [Cyrus] from the east,
and whose pleasure was accomplished in all things. He would
give salvation to Zion. 8
That Yahweh had known beforehand and had foretold by
his servants all that would happen to his people was a point
of extreme importance in the mind of the Second Isaiah, and
he returns to it with corresponding frequency. If we ask
how far he was justified in doing so, there can be but one
reply. The earlier men of God had enjoyed no supernatural
insight into the future, and were no more enlightened before-
hand about Cyrus and his Persians than about the duration
of the exile or the wretched subsequent condition of the peo-
ple. But many of them had so emphatically announced the
judgments which Yahweh would bring upon Israel, declaring
at the same time that the people could never perish and would
inherit a glorious future, that when the exiles who believed in
Yahweh's might regained their courage, they would naturally
find in their present experiences the fulfilment of the words
of the ancient prophets. The effect was heightened by a few
spurious prophecies, such as that which Isaiah was said to
have uttered to Hezekiah when the latter had displayed his
treasures to the king of Babylon, 4 and Jeremiah's supposed
prediction of the fall of Babylon said to have been thrown
into the Euphrates tied to a stone. 6
The Second Isaiah put the following challenge to the idols
into Yahweh's mouth : 6 " Come, let us vie with each other !
Bring out your proofs, and tell us what shall come to pass !
Tell us the contents of former predictions, and prophesy what
1 Jeremiah 1. 38. 2 Isaiah xliv. 10-20. « Isaiah xliv.
i Isaiah xxxix. « Jeremiah 1., li. « Isaiah xli. 21-27.
REVIVING HOPES. 433
is still to come, that we may know that you are gods. Do
something, whether good or bad ! See f you are less than
nothing, and your deeds are nothing. He that chooses you
is an abomination. It was I who called him [Cyrus] from
the North, and he came ; called him who invokes my name
from the East, that he might tread upon governors like mud,
like a potter pounding his clay. Who has foretold all this
from the first, that we may know it? from ancient times, that
we may say, ' It was true ! ' None has done it but I ! I was
the first to say unto Zion, ' See ! they are there ! ' and to give
the glad tidings to Jerusalem."
It is very strange that in the foregoing passage the prophet
should make Yahweh describe Cyrus as " him who invokes
my name," since the Persian monarch was no servant of Yah-
weh, but worshipped another god ; and elsewhere the prophet
himself makes Yahweh say to Cyrus, " I called thee by thy
name and spoke to thee, though thou didst not know me." ]
Indeed, it is so strange as to make us half suspect that we
have not the words really uttered by the prophet. Or is it
possible that he had already heard of the Persians having no
idols, and that this fact secured them his sympathy? Or did
he on this one occasion call Cyrus a servant of Yahweh by a
slip, because he respected him as the instrument of Yahweh's
will? At any rate he habitually regards him as Yahweh's
instrument and minister. Cyrus is to him "Yahweh's shep-
herd, who accomplishes his counsel and says to Jerusalem,
' Be thou built ! ' and to the temple, ' Be thou established ! ' " 2
or Yahweh's anointed, whom he takes by the hand and crowns
with victoiy in order that he may acknowledge the name of
Yahweh. 8
Koresh, the instrument of Yahweh, the minister of Israel's
god ! What enormous consequences this involves ! Nothing
less than the belief that the fates of all Asia were guided with
a view to Israel's requirements. Why did Yahweh summon
the Persian monarch? Why did he make the peoples one
after another fall before his arms ? Simply and solely for the
sake of Israel. 4 In order that the chosen people of the Lord
might recover their freedom the Chaldsean kingdom must be
brought low and must perish for ever, for its monarchs had
sinned in devastating the land and the temple of Yahweh, and
oppressing his people.
And why would Yahweh rescue Israel and restore it to its
ancient splendor? Because of the people's goodness? Far
i Isaiah xlv. 4. 2 Isaiah xliv. 28. 3 Isaiah jdr. 1-3. 4 Isaiah xlv. 4.
VOL. II. 19
434 REVIVING HOPES.
indeed from that ! Israel relied upon the glory of his god, it
is true, but forgot the precepts of truth and righteousness ;
and that was the very reason why Yahweh had revealed all
that was now taking place by his messengers beforehand ; for
he knew that the people was obstinate and of a brazen coun-
tenance, and that if he had not expressly foretold it all, they
might perhaps have ascribed their deliverance to the power of
their idols! They were a faithless race, "trespassers from
their very birth," and their god only delivered them for his
name's sake, that he might win the glory of the deed.
" Alas ! " cried Yahweh to them, " would that ye had heark-
ened to my messenge"s ! Then should your peace have been
like a river, 3'our salvation like the waves of the sea, your
posteritj' countless and imperishable." * Yahweh loved Israel.
" Zion said, 'Yahweh has forsaken me and the Lord has
forgotten me ! ' Does a woman forget her sucking child,
and take no pity on the babe at her breast? Though she
should forget, I forget not you ! I have graven you on the
palms of my hands ; and your walls are ever before my
mind." - 2
The very boldness of the conception — " Yahweh, the uni-
versal ruler, guides all things for the good of Israel, his
beloved though rebellious people" — precludes the supposition
that it found a place in the hearts of all the Israelites. It
would be too much to expect. The Second Isaiah may have
commanded a certain amount of sympathy, but the mass of
the Jews, who could never take so lofty a flight as his, re-
vealed their love of Yahweh chiefly by their hatred of the
Chaldeans. But j'et such inspired words, such sublime con-
ceptions, cannot have failed to exercise an enlivening power
that quickened still further the rising hopes of the people.
So when Cyrus defeated the Bab3'lonians, the Judseans were
in a state of strained expectation ; and when Babylou fell,
many of them cherished the deep conviction : " The time of
deliverance is at hand. Cyrus is our destined deliverer !"
1 Isaiah y.lviii. 1-19; compare xliii. 22-24. " Isaiah xlix. 14-16.
RETURN UNDER ZERUBBABEL. 435
Chapter XII.
THE RETURN UNDER ZERUBBABEL.
Ezra I.-III. 6; Isaiah LIV., LV., LXI.
YAHWEH, the god of heaven, has given me all the
kingdoms of the earth, and commanded me to build
him a house at Jerusalem, in Judaea. As for them who
belong to his people, may their god be with them ! Let them
return to Jerusalem, and build up the temple of Israel's god,
who dwells there ! And let the people of the places where
they now sojourn give them all kinds of goods, and assist
them also with free contributions for the rebuilding of Yah-
weh's temple." — Such was the purport, according to the book
of Ezra, of an edict which Cyrus, king of the Persians, issued
in the first year of his reign over Chaldsea. The very first
words of the edict, however, show that it is not authentic, for
Ahuramazda, and not Yahweh, was the name which Cyrus
gave to his Most High. The edict was probably composed
by the writer of the book of Ezra himself. He lived in the
third century B.C., and compiled the two books of Chron-
icles, as well as the work which is now split into two and
called the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. This latter work
contains memoirs written by Ezra and Nehemiah themselves,
together with other matter of a much less trustworthy
character.
The main provision of this spurious edict, however, was
really made. Cyrus gave the Jews permission to return to
their fatherland. His motives in doing so are obvious. In
Babylonia the Jews were discontented subjects, who cherished
an implacable hatred against the ruler who held them cap-
tive ; whereas, if they returned by his permission to their own
land, gratitude would attach them to himself and his house, and
they would be the faithful guardians of his kingdom on the
Egyptian frontier. It is quite possible also that, with a Per-
sian's hatred of image worship, he felt kindly disposed towards
the Jews, who were so entirely at one with him in this respect,
as against the Chaldieans. But doubtless political consider-
ations weighed most heavily with the conqueror. It was
distinctly to his interest to secure the loyalty of this section
of his subjects by gratifying their love of their country.
486 RETURN UNDER ZERUBBABEL.
Nor was he content with simply granting them permission
to return and rebuild the temple. He gave back to their
leader all the consecrated utensils that Nebuchadrezzar had
brought from Jerusalem and deposited in the temples and
royal treasure houses : in all there were five thousand four
hundred gold and silver bowls, cups, and platters. All this
leads us to suspect that Cyrus may have been under some
obligations to the Jews ; nor does an}'thing seem more prob-
able than that some of them, roused by the words of the
prophets who recognized in Cyrus the chosen instrument of
Yahweh's will, should take the earliest opportune of joining
his side and fighting against the Chaldaeans under his banner.
It was not a question of the return of a few hundred souls
to find an abode as best they could ; but of many thousands,
who must be fairly established in possession of their ancient
land ; and accordingly Cyrus, no doubt in compliance with
the wishes of the Jews themselves, placed at their head a
recognized governor of the province they were to repopulate.
The title ' ' Sheshbazzar "or " the Tirshatha " is given him in
the Authorized Version. This man was a descendant of king
Jehoiakin, 1 and bore the significant name of " Zerubbabel,"
that is, born in Babylon.
The great question now was whether the exiles as a body
would avail themselves of the opportunity given them, and
quit the land of the stranger. We may well imagine how
confidently the prophets who had foretold the fall of Babylon
now urged their hesitating fellow-believers, and sought to
breathe their own courage into the hearts of the timorous.
It is possible that we still possess some passages from the
oracles delivered at this time, but it is impossible confidently
to assign the date and occasion of each of the prophecies of
this period.
Even before permission to return had been granted, a
prophet might exclaim : 2 " Up ! ye that are athirst, come to
the waters ! Come, buy and eat, ye that have no money !
Buy without money, buy wine and milk without price ! Why
weigh out your silver for what is not bread, and toil for what
satisfies not? If ye hearken to me ye shall eat precious
food, and your soul shall be refreshed with richness. Incline
your ear and come unto me ; hearken, that ye may live. I
strike an eternal covenant with you, and give the unerring
signs of favor which I have promised to David. Behold, I
have made my servant Israel a witness amongst the peoples,
1 1 Chronicles iii. 16 ff. 2 Isaiah Iv.
RETURN UNDER ZERUBBABEL. 437
a prince and ruler over the nations. Ye shal. summon a
people ye know not ; a nation that knows not you shall run to
you because of 'Yahweh your god, because of Israel's Holy
One, for he shall glorify you.
' ' Seek ye Yahweh while he may be found ; call upon him
while he is neai ! Let the wicked forsake his way and the
unrighteous man his thoughts ; let them return unto Yahweh
that he may have pity, — to our god, for he will abundantly
pardon.
"For my counsel is not your counsel, nor are your ways
mine, says Yahweh. But as the heaven is higher than the
earth, so is my counsel mightier than yours. As surety as
the rain and the snow come down from heaven and return not
thither, but water the earth and make it fruitful and full of
increase, that the husbandman may have seed to sow and
bread to eat, so surely my commands and promises shall
not be vain, but shall accomplish my pleasure and fulfil my
purpose.
"In joy shall you go forth, in peace shall you be led.
Mountains and hills shall burst forth before you into cries of
joy ; all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead
of the thorn-bush the cypress shall grow, instead of the
heather the myrtle. It shall be for a token of Yahweh's
glory, imperishable for ever."
If Israel had already been reminded in such words as these
of the unshaken fidelity of his god, the glorious promises
might be repeated with double emphasis now that some of
them were already beginning to be fulfilled.
The Second Isaiah could now cry more boldly than ever. 1
"The spirit of Yahweh is upon me, for he has anointed me
a prophet to bring glad tidings to the afflicted, to bind up the
broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and open-
ing of the prison to them that are in fetters ; to proclaim the
year of Yahweh's pleasure, the day of the vengeance of our
god ; to comfort all who mourn. To Zion's mourners I bring
a coronet instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourn-
ing, a festal robe instead of depression. They shall be called
the oak-trees of justice, planted by Yahweh, and they shall
be glorified.
" See ! they shall build up the old ruins, and shall rear the
places that have long lain waste, and shall rebuild the cities
that were destroyed and have lain for generations desolate.
Then shall strangers support you and pasture your flocks,
1 Isaiah lxi.
438 RETURN UNDER ZERUBBABEL.
aliens shall be your ploughmen and vine-dressers, and you
shall be named the priests of Yahweh and called the servants
of our god. The wealth of the nations you shall consume,
and their glory you shall possess. Ay ! instead of shame
they shall have a double share ; in place of being scorned they
shall shout for joy. In their land they shall have a double
portion, shall inherit eternal joy.
"For I, Yahweh, love justice and hate falsehood and wrong ;
I faithfully give them their reward, and make an everlasting
covenant with them. Thus shall their seed be known among
the peoples, their posterity among the nations. All they
who see them shall know them for a race whom Yahweh has
blessed.
"I will greatly rejoice in Yahweh, my soul shall be glad
in my god ; for he clothes me in festal garments, he wraps me
in the mantle of prosperity, as a bridegroom crowned with
a garland, as a bride adorned with her jewels. For as the
earth brings forth her produce and a garden makes its plants
spring up, so the Lord Yahweh makes salvation break forth
and glory in the sight of the heathens."
Many of the Israelites were carried along by this prophetic
enthusiasm, and made ready to return with their households
to Jerusalem ; but the majority were not prepared to make
the venture yet. No wonder ! It needed no little courage ;
for many of the exiles had gained possessions, and had taken
Jeremiah's advice 1 in building houses and cultivating lands,
in contracting marriages and bringing up children, in further-
ing the welfare of the land of their sojourn, finding their joy
in its prosperity, and, in a word, ordering their lives in the
foreign land as if it were their home. And now their new
fatherland was clear to them, and they shrank from the terrible
difficulties of the journey and the settlement in a defenceless
land. Considerations of a religious nature might also come
into play. It was certain, indeed, that Israel would one day
be restored to honor ; but had Yahweh's appointed time al-
ready come ? Was the Messianic kingdom really to be estab-
lished now ? Who could tell ? Prophets said so, it was true ;
but Judah had learned by the bitter experience of the last
half-century of her existence how liable the prophets were to
error, and it is not surprising that the exiles were slow to
place implicit confidence in them now. Jeremiah had, in-
deed, foretold the fall of the city and the temple ; but all his
numerous opponents had done exactly the reverse. Then
1 Jeremiah xxix. 4-7 ; compare p. 372.
RETURN UNDER ZERUBBABEL. 439
there were many zealous worshippers of Yahweh who be-
lieved that Israel must be completely reformed according to
the priestly law before they could rely with certainty upon
Yahweh's support. Man}- of the Jews accordingly, while
wishing all possible success to their more adventurous brothers,
while trying to hope foi the best and readily assisting with
contributions, were nevertheless unwilling to join the expe-
dition themselves.
The movement was therefore headed for the most part by
fiery spirits of the prophetic school. It was religious enthu-
siasm rather than calm deliberation that presided over their
counsels. It was but natural that the priestly order should
be strongly represented, for the ministers of the temple at
Jerusalem had for some time guided the religious development
of Judah. Josiah's reformation was very largely their work,
and many of the prophets were little more than their mouth-
pieces. 1 Accordingly we find that they made up at least an
eighth of the returning exiles. The priests proper were now
distinguished for the first time from the Levites, — that is to
say, the descendants of the old Levitical priests of the bamahs, 2
— and also from the singers, the porters, the slaves of the
sanctuary {nethinim or " given," as they were called), and
the descendants of the Canaanites, whom Solomon had as-
signed to the temple as serfs. 3 Against four thousand priests,
however, but seventy-four Levites were found amongst the
returning bands, or, including singers and porters, three hun-
dred and fourteen. This was very natural, for the prospects
of the Levites were far less brilliant than those of the priests,
and consequently Judsea had not such powerful attractions for
them.
Even amongst the devouter exiles worldly considerations
were by no means without influence in determining whether
they should stay or go, and of course the kernel of real be-
lievers was joined by a great number of others whose motives
were not in any degree of a religious nature : some of them
had never prospered in Babylon, and hoped that a change
would be an improvement; others went because their rela-
tives were going, and others, again, were urged by mere love
of adventure.
The total number that returned cannot be accurately fixed.
It is true that we still have a list headed by the words, " Cata-
logue of the men who returned to their fatherland, of those
whom Nebuchadrezzar carried away ; " and this list is given
1 Compare Jeremiah v. 31. * See p. 328. 8 See p. 89.
440 RETURN UNDER ZERUBBABEL.
three times over, though with many deviations. 1 But as to its
trustworthiness we can only sa}- that it was already in exist-
ence a little less than a century after the return. In all prob-
ability it includes the names not only of the families which
returned under Zerubbabel, but also of those which had been
left behind in Judaea, and were found there by the exiles on
their return, and even of those which subsequently returned
from Babylonia, Egypt, and elsewhere, when ZerubbabePs
companions had made the land rather more habitable. The
list in question gives a total of forty-two thousand three
hundred and sixty heads of families, or about two hundred
thousand souls ; but for the reasons given above we must re-
duce this number by at least one-half, and probably by much
more.
The returning exiles were for the most part Judreans. In-
deed we have no proof that any of them were descendants of
the former inhabitants of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. It
is probable, of course, that there were certain families of
North Israeritish extraction both amongst them and the rem-
nant left in Judsea, for there must have been occasional mi-
grations from Northern into Southern Israel after the fall of
Samaria. But be this as it may, the Judaeans, amongst whom
the Benjamites and Simeonites had been completely sunk,
formed such a large majority of the returning exiles that al-
though they were regarded as the representatives of Israel's
tribes, to the sacred number of twelve, yet they were hence-
forth spoken of as Jews, or men of Judah.
Let us now accompany these Jews on their return. Our
Bible contains no accounts of the journey itself, but in the
Apocryphal book called the Third of Esdras, to which we
have already referred in a note, sundry details are given,
which were very probably borrowed from our book of Ezra iu
its original form, though they have now fallen out of it.
The first day of the month of Nisan (which would be about
the middle of March) was the time for beginning the journey
fixed by Zerubbabel and his colleagues, amongst whom Joshua,
the chief priest, held a high position. As the day approached
the faithful streamed in from every quarter, many of them
escorted from their respective villages by music. Rich pres-
ents of provisions and beasts of burden were given them, and
prayers for their welfare weie sent after them. Many of them
1 In Ezra ii., in Nehemiah vii. 6 ff., and in the Apocn-phal book commonW
called the Third of Esdras.
RETURN UNDER ZERUBBABEL. 441
also brought contributions towards the rebuilding of the tem-
ple received from the fellow-believers they left behind, or even
from the heathens themselves.
As the day drew near the concourse at the trysting-place
perpetually grew, and stray caravans still continued to arrive
and pitch their tents. Crowds of Jews and heathens were
attracted by curiosity or interest to the spot. At last there
was no one else to wait for, and all reason for deferring the
departure was at an end. Then Zerubbabel was solemnly
proclaimed governor of Judaea by the representatives of the
Persian king, and he on his side took the oath of allegiance,
and testified his gratitude for the favors of Cyrus. Then a
great shout of joy proclaimed that the apparatus of the tem-
ple had been handed over to Zerubbabel and intrusted by him
to the priests.
The following day the huge caravan broke up. The air was
all astir with waving branches, brothers and sisters sobbed a
long farewell, troop after troop followed the lead ; and above
all the tumult rang out the sacred music of the priests, the
rumbling drums, the clanging trumpets, and the triumphant
songs of the faithful. In the midst of the procession were
the leaders, Zerubbabel and the priests, with the sacred utensils,
escorted by a troop of a thousand Persian cavalry commis-
sioned to establish the exiles in the lawful possession of Je-
rusalem and its territory, and to give their neighbors clearly
to understand that it was the king's pleasure to assign the
Jews an abode in their ancient country.
Thus was the journe} r begun, a journey of several, nay, of
many months' duration. Eighty years afterwards Ezra, with
a much smaller caravan, required four months to reach Jeru-
salem, 1 and an expedition so much larger must have taken a
considerably longer time. What a weary journey ! How
often the enthusiasm of this or that band of travellers must
have sunk away when the burning sand of the desert scorched
them, when thirst already tortured, and hunger threatened
to destroy them ! How bitterly many of them were disap-
pointed ! Had not the prophets declared that Yahweh would
make a way through the desert for the weary ones ? Had he
not said, 2 " Fear not, Jacob ! When you go through the
water I will be with you ; through rivers, they shall not over-
flow you. When you go through the fire it shall not burn
you, and the flame shall not consume you. For your sake
will I do a new thing in the earth. I will make a way through
i Ezra vii. 9. 2 Isaiah xliii. 1, 2, 19, 20.
19*
442 RETURN UNDER ZERUBBABEL.
the wilderness and make rivers in the desert ; and the very .
jackals and ostriches shall praise me, for I shall make waters
flow through the desert to give drink to my chosen, my peo-
ple"? "What had come of all these promises now? Alas!
full many a believer, trusting in the power of his god, had
entered upon the journey with no proper provision, and now
perished miserably. Many a mother must have laid her child
under the burning desert sand. And still they went on and
on ! Poets would try to breathe fresh courage into their com-
rades' hearts, and would remind them of Israel's past expe-
rience of Yahweh's faithfulness : —
When Israel came out of Egypt,
The house of Jacob from a land of foreign tongue,
Then Judah was his sanctuary
And Israel his kingdom.
When the sea saw this it fled ;
The Jordan drew aback.
The mountains leaped like rams,
The hills like lambs.
What was it, sea, that thou shouldst flee,
And Jordan, that thou shouldst draw back 1
Why did ye leap like rams, ye mountains,
And like young sheep, ye hills *
Let the earth tremble before Yahweh's face,
Before the face of the god of Jacob ;
Who turned the rock to a flood of water,
The flint-stone to a well ! 1
The prophets still roused the weary and stirred the enthu
siasm of the dejected. In Jerusalem, the}- said, the salvation
of their god, the Messianic kingdom, awaited them. "How
beautiful are his feet upon the mountains who brings glad
tidings, and theirs who say to Zion, Your god is king ! Hark
to the voice of thy watchmen crying and shouting aloud, for
they see with their very eyes that Yahweh comes back to
Zion. Shout for joy, ye ruins of Jerusalem ! Yahweh is
comforting his people and redeeming Jerusalem. He has
made bare his holy arm before all the nations ; the whole earth
is witness of the triumph of our god." ' 2 On, still on, went
the travellers. Consoled or despondent, believing or despair-
ing ; those who had not turned back within the first few days
had now no choice but to go on till they came to Judaea.
When once they were there all their misery would be forgot-
ten, and they would rejoice in Yahweh's gracious support.
Of course the exiles found their country in a miserable
condition. Cities and villages lay in ruins, the fields were
1 Psalms cxiv. a Isaiah lii. 7-10.
RETURN UNDER ZERUBBABEL. 443
for the most part uncultivated, the thickets swarmed with
beasts of prey, the scattered population had relapsed almost
into savagery, the surrounding tribes were hostile or suspicious.
The Edomites were especially bitter. It appears that Nebu-
chadrezzar had granted their prince a portion of the land of
Judah in return for his services at the siege and sack of Je-
rusalem. At any rate the greater part of Southern Judah.
up to Hebron, was occupied by Edomites, and of course they
were slow to recognize the rights of any former possessors of
the soil. Such was the country to which the wearied exiles
returned. As soon as their feet were upon the land of their
fathers, they set about discovering the places to which they
respectively traced their origin, and since most of» them be-
longed to families of more or less distinction they aimed at
recovering their ancestral possessions, and so providing them-
selves with the means of support.
But when they had devoted a few weeks to these tasks, the
seventh month approached, and as many of them as could
possibly do so assembled at Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast
of Tabernacles. The redeemed of Yahweh must join with
enthusiasm in the feast, though the sight of the mount of the
temple, covered with ruins, might fill them with sadness, and
though the perils that surrounded them made them feel now
almost more than in Babylon " a worm of Jacob." Undei
the orders of Joshua the priests had already cleared away the
ruins and reared an altar on the spot on which the great altar
of burnt-offerings had stood. Though the rebuilding of the
temple was not yet begun, though the straitened circum-
stances of the people forbade their even thinking of the work
as yet, still the altar at least was built, and it should not want
for victims. Not only was the festive offering laid upon the
flames, but as far as possible all the other ancient usages
were also revived. The daily sacrifice at morn and evening,
the offerings at the new moon, and the free-will offerings to
Yahweh were all made. Their god had redeemed them, and
they would not forsake him ; poor as they were they would
yet honor him. And what had they to fear if he were gracious
lothem?
The golden age, the day of Yahweh's pleasure, would put
all fear to flight ! " Sing joyously," cried a prophet, likening
the devastated and depopulated land to a childless woman,
" Sing joyously, thou barren one ! Eejoice, O thou who didst
never give birth to child ! For the children of the desolate
1 Isaiah liv.
444 RETURN UNDER ZERTBBABEL.
are more than those of the wife, says Yahweh. Make wide
your tent, extend the curtains of 3-our dwellings, and stint
not. Lengthen the cords and make strong the tent-pegs, for
right and left shall ye spread ; your posterity shall expel the
heathen and reinhabit the devastated cities. Fear not, for
thou shalt not be put to shame ; thou shalt not blush for con-
fusion, but shalt rather forget the reproach of thy youth, and
remember no more the shame of thy widowhood. For thy
husband is thy creator : Yahweh of hosts is his name. Thy
redeemer is Israel's Holy One, and he shall be invoked as the
god of all the earth.
" For Yahweh has called you, as a grieved and deserted
woman, as the wife of one's youth that has been forsaken ;
says your god. A little while did I leave thee, but with great
pity do I draw thee to me. In vehement wrath have I hidden
my face for a moment ; but with eternal love do I pity thee ;
says Yahweh, tlry redeemer. Now shall it be as it was with
the waters of Noah ; as I swore then that the flood should
no more cover the etrth, so I swear now to be no more wroth
with thee nor threaten thee. For mountains may move and
hills be shaken, but my love to thee shall not move, my cove-
nant of peace shall not be shaken ; says Yahweh who pities
thee.
" O thou afflicted, tossed with the tempest and unconsoled,
I will set thy stones in precious cement and found thee upon
sapphires. I will make thy battlements rubies, thy gates
carbuncles, and all thy district precious stones. All thy sons
shall be taught by Yahweh, and great shall be the peace
of thy children. Through righteousness shalt thou be estab-
lished. Be not thou troubled, for thou hast naught to fear ;
be not in terror, for the evil shall not come nigh thee. Even
as the smith blows upon the fire and prepares his tools for
work, 1 so do I create the destroyer who works destruction.
Every weapon prepared against thee is powerless; every
tongue that accuses thee shall be put to shame. Such is the
portion of Yahweh's servants, the reward I give them ; says
Yahweh."
With these expectations the exiles had returned from
Babylon, and with these they faced the unknown future.
1 After an amended version.
EEBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE. 445
Chapter XIII.
THE REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.
Ezra III. 7-IV. 5, V., VI. ; Haggai ; Zechabiah IL-IV. ; Joel.
THE writer of the book of Ezra represents the exiles aa
beginning to rebuild the temple immediately after the
celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, and tells us that the
foundations of the sanctuary were laid with solemn rejoicings
as early as the second month in the year after their return.
But this account is highly improbable. "We must remember
what was involved in seriously undertaking the task and not
merely playing with it. It meant, to begin with, clearing
away the heaps of rubbish, hewing a vast number of great
blocks of stone, and bringing down thousands of cedar trunks
from Lebanon, with the help of the Phoenicians. The Jews
could not possibly meet all these expenses in a few months.
Besides, the writer of Ezra, who lived two centuries and a
half after the events he records, evidently mixed up the
accounts he drew from his authorities, and confused different
periods together. Thus, he tells us that it was the opposition
of the neighboring tribes that prevented the work from going
on at once ; and, in confirmation of this statement, he cites a
letter written not in the reign of Cyrus, but in that of Ar-
taxerxes, one of the successors of Darius ! 1 We are there-
fore quite unable to rely upon his chronology, and shall do
better to assume, in accordance with the indications in
Haggai and Zechariah, that the foundations of the temple
were not laid till the fifteenth year of the return.
Indeed, there was no necessity for haste. Much as the
Jews desired a temple, impossible as it was for them to con-
ceive of the Messianic age without a magnificent house of
Yahweh, all that was absolutely necessary for the moment
was a centre of worship where the daily sacrifices at morn
and even might be offered, and all who had made sacred vows
might be able to pay them. Now they possessed all this
provisionally in the altar of burnt sacrifices that they had
raised in the midst of the ruins and had solemnly consecrated.
Although there was no temple there was public service of
Yahweh ; and the truth in the account in Ezra may be taken
l Ezra iv. 6 ff.
446 REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.
to be that a few months after the Feast of the Tabernacles
this service was regularly instituted at Jerusalem ; the priests,
the Levites, the singers, and all the other officials of the tem-
ple had their tasks assigned them, and, under the direction
of Joshua, the high priest, were busily engaged in preparing
for the restoration of the temple by clearing away the rubbish
and collecting money and building materials.
The priests may have thrown their whole hearts into these
preparations ; but we cannot wonder that the laity, in spite of
all their devotion to Yahweh, found other work more pressing
than the rebuilding of the temple. It was doubtless as much
as they could do to gain a living ; and those who had returned
from Babylonia must have been involved in many difficulties
and anxieties by their relations with those they had found in
possession on their arrival, and especially the Edomites, who
had naturally penetrated everywhere after settling in southern
Judah. Again, the Jews were sorely tried after the death of
Cyrus, when his son and successor, Cambyses, marched upon
Egypt and conquered the_ whole country ; for, of course, a
province so near the seat of war as Palestine felt the pres-
sure of varied imposts, and had to supply both men and
provisions.
For the present, therefore, the building of the temple was
postponed. Though the priests lost no opportunity of re-
buking the listlessness of their fellow-believers, though zeal-
ous voices rose from time to time and insisted on the sacred
work being done, yet Zerubbabel was for many years unable
to move the people to it. Every one admitted that it must be
done — but not yet.
At last, in the year 520 B.C., when Cambyses had died
childless and, after a short period of confusion, had been
succeeded by Darius the son of Hystaspes, the youthful
colony was visited by a cruel famine. The rain had not
fallen, the harvest had failed, and everything went ill with
the Jews. Then Haggai rose as a prophet, and his words
waked an echo when he cried : "It is because the building of
the temple is delayed. How can you bear to dwell in well-
timbered houses yourselves, while the house of Yahweh lies
in ruins ? Consider what you have done, and see what it
has brought upon you ! " So now the work was taken in
hand, and was soon sufficiently advanced for the foundations
of the sanctuary to be laid.
On the twenty-fourth day of the second month of the
second year of the reign of Darius there were great festivities
REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE. 447
in Jerusalem. Yahweh's help was solemnly invoked on the
sacred work. The spot upon which the new sanctuary was to
rise was marked off on the area, from which the rubbish had
now been cleared away. A number of beams and blocks of
stone were already prepared. The architects and overseers,
some of them doubtless priests, were ranged round the altar.
It rose in front of the spot where the portico would stand,
and was already provided with the necessary washing vats
and other apparatus. Then Zerubbabel addressed the people,
indicated the site of the future temple, and urged them to
strain all their powers in the work. The ramshorn trumpets
sounded, the smoke of the sacrifices rose on high, the choir
lifted up the song, "Praise Yahweh, for he is gracious and
his mercy endures for ever ! " cries of enthusiastic joy burst
from the people's lips, every sorrow was for the moment
forgotten, even the gnawing tooth of hunger was blunted, and
men thought not of their scanty clothing. " Praise Yahweh"
was echoed from every lip. "He will send his blessing upon
us. The temple is rebuilt, the temple rebuilt ! The times of
David are returning. Israel is Yahweh's people. Hallelu-
jah ! " But there were certain men of ancient days, both
priests and others, who had seen the former temple that was
devastated six-and-sixty years ago. Ah, what a glorious
building it was ! Those stately rows of pillars that ran round
the court ; those miniature chapels and temples that filled the
court itself and vied with each other in wealth and splendor ;
those noble obelisks, Jachin and Boaz, that rose before the
sanctuary ; those magazines and wardrobes, priestly abodes,
bakehouses and spice booths, row upon row ; that splendid
dais for the king and his court ; that gallery for the singers ;
and, above all, the sanctuary itself, with its rich adornments
of cherubs and flower-buds, and its countless consecrated
gifts ! Alas, all this — and their imagination painted it in far
more glorious colors yet — all this would not return ! It was
well to rebuild the temple, and Yahweh would bless his people
for it. The golden age would surely come, but meanwhile
how wretched was the state of Israel ! And at these mel-
ancholy thoughts, in the midst of the people's deafening-
shouts of joy, the old men wept bitterly. But the sounds
of woe were drowned. 1 " Praise Yahweh ! " rang from every
side. "It is the temple of Yahweh, and Israel is his
heritage ! "
1 After an amended version.
448 REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.
What is more common than for the pressure of actual
life to quench excited feeling? Can we wonder that the
people were soon considerably sobered? When they came
to think it all over quietly, even those who had never beheld
the former temple began to take a less rose-colored view of
the future. They were poor and wretched ; the work they
had undertaken was above their strength ; when all was
done their sanctuary would fall far short of the old one ; —
and the Messianic age? In that same year the prophet
Haggai repeatedly attempted to rouse the people's courage.
What did they mean bj' lamenting that this second temple
would be inferior to the first? " Only be bold, Zerubbabel and
Joshua, for Yahweh is with you. Full soon the golden age
shall dawn, and Yahweh will then incite all peoples to bring
their choicest gifts to his sanctuary. His will has sway over
all the gold and silver on the earth, and he will make this
temple far surpass the ancient one in splendor." They
must not delaj- the building ; for, as a piece of unclean flesh
desecrated everything it touched, so this one piece of negli-
gence made all their sacrifices and all their other good works
of no avail. Had not Yahweh shown them clearly enough
that he was wroth with them for their sloth by sending
drought and every kind of misfortune ? But now, cried the
prophet, as the time of the spring rains drew near, now they
might safely sow their corn, for the rain would come and
days of glor3' were at hand. Surely the Messianic age was
dawning. "Behold! O Zerubbabel, how all the kingdoms
are overturned, how all their might is broken ! But thou,
my servant, art dear to me, and I will keep thee like a
signet ring upon my hand, because I can trust thee, says
Yahweh."
In his attempts to keep the zeal of the Jews alive, Haggai
found a stout ally in the prophet Zechariah, 1 whose fantastic
symbolism pictures the dawn of the Messianic age while he
insists upon repentance. In a vision, as he expresses it, he
saw a man with a measuring line. " Where are you going?"
he cried to him. "To measure out the future Jerusalem,"
was the reply; "for it shall overflow with inhabitants and
shall extend on every side. Rejoice, O daughter of Zion ! for
Yahweh comes to dwell in thy midst. Return, ye who are
still in exile with the daughter of Babylon ! Whoso troubles
you brings trouble on himself, as one who should touch the
upple of my eye. Be silent, for Yahweh is roused ! " I saw,
1 On the composition of the book that bears his name, sec p. 238.
KEBUILDING OP THE TEMPLE. 449
continues the prophet, Joshua the high priest, standing in
foul clothes before the face of Yahweh's angel, while Satan
stood by hini to accuse him and to compass his fall. But
Yahweh cursed Satan, clothed Joshua in clean garments,
and gave him a holy head-dress. Thus his unrighteousness
was removed. Then Yahweh's angel said to him: "Serve
Yahweh and he will grant you to abide here for ever, and
will make you a living sign, for ' Sprout ' (that is the sprout 1
of David, the Messiah) draws near. All unrighteousness
shall be done away, and there shall be plenty everywhere."
"'What see you?' said an angel, waking me from sleep.
'A golden lamp-stand with seven lamps, and a cruse of oil,
and two olive trees right and left of the cruse. What is the
meaning, O my lord?' ' Do you not understand it?' asked
the angel. Then he explained it to me. It was Yahweh's
word to Zerubbabel, that the holy work of building the temple
should not be accomplished with violence, but by the spirit
of Yahweh. At Zerubbabel's command the summit of the
temple mount should be levelled and the keystone set. He
had begun the work and he should complete it. Who so
foolish as to despise the day of small beginnings ? ' And
who are these two olive trees,' I asked again ; ' who are these
olive branches in the golden cruses from which there flows
out gold?' ' Do you not understand?' he answered. ' They
are the two olive branches which stand before the lord of all
the earth.' "
This last explanation can hardly have enlightened the
prophet's hearers much ; but they needed no further hint to
understand that, as the oil in the cruse was the symbol of
Yahweh's all-inspiring spirit, so these two olive trees repre-
sented Zerubbabel and Joshua, whose task it was to prepare
for the Messianic kingdom. And assuredly that kingdom
was at hand. Fasts were still held, as appointed, year by
year ; but before long mourning would be replaced by joy.
Soon the inhabitants of all the cities of the earth would
exhort each other to the zealous service of Yahweh, and all
peoples should make pilgrimages to Jerusalem. "Then
shall ten men of divers tongues take hold of a Jew by the
flap of his garment and say : ' We will go with thee, for God
is with thee.' " 2
The words of the prophets were so far successful that the
work was carried on and was completed within four years
1 Compare Jeremiah xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15, and p. 390.
2 Zechariah viii. 19-23.
450 REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.
Within four j-ears ! When we remember that Solomon,
whose resources were so much ampler than those of Haggai's
and Zechariah's contemporaries, required seven years to
complete his temple, 1 and that his successors repeatedly
enlarged its plan, we can very well believe that the new
buildiug presented but a sorry contrast to the former one,
and that the old men, who had seen the first temple, often
gazed full sadly on the second.
In extent and magnificence the second temple was doubt-
less insignificant when compared with the first, but it was a
far greater work of faith than the edifice of Solomon had
been. That ostentatious monarch had given Yahweh a
dwelling-place at the expense of his subjects, and had
derived nothing but enjojment and credit from it himself;
whereas the second temple was the free and generous gift of
a poverty-stricken people, who had borne with privations in
their own hovels that thej- might give their god a palace;
nay, they had imperilled their very existence by steadfastly
refusing even to be helped in a manner which they thought
would displease their god.
Upon this deed of faith we must now fix our attention.
North of the district in which the exiles settled on their
return lay the former territory of the kingdom of the Ten
Tribes. It will be remembered that this district had been to
a great extent depopulated two centuries before, and es-
pecially, we ma} - suppose, in the neighborhood of Samaria,
which would naturally suffer most in the war. Accordingly,
one of the kings of Assyria, perhaps Shalmaneser, 2 but
more probably Esar-haddon, 8 had repopulated the district by
colonies from Cuthah and other Bal>3ionian cities ; and the
Babylonian colonists had united with the Israelites, and
even adopted their religion. These facts are preserved in a
highly characteristic narrative in the book of Kings, 4 which
runs as follows : ' ' The colonists did not serve Yahweh ; so he
sent lions amongst them, and many of them were devoured."
This reminded them of their neglect to give his due to the
god of the country, and they begged the king of Assyria to
give them an Israelitish priest to teach them how to serve
this god and deliver themselves from the beasts of prey.
Their request was complied with ; and ever after they served
Yahweh, though they also retained their own religious usages
1 1 Kings vi. 38. 2 2 Kings xvii. 24, compared with m. 3 ff.
8 Ezra iv. 2. * 2 Kings xvii. 24-41.
REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE. 451
and their own deities, five of whom are enumerated. Their
Yahweh-worship, therefore, was of the heathenish type, for
which the historian condemns them severely.
Such is the naive account in which we are informed that
the Babylonian colonists adopted the worship of Yahweh
from the Israelites. Since Josiah's reformation was not
without its influence in the north, 1 we may be sure that the
heathen practices of these immigrants were gradually super-
seded, and that the sacrifice of children for instance was
abolished from amongst them. After the fall of Jerusalem
we hear of a band of pilgrims from Shiloh, Shechem, and
Samaria, 2 going in mourning garments to visit the ruins of
the sanctuary. Some of them it will be observed came from
the territory of the Cuthaeans. From a religious point of
view, then, there was not much difference between these Baby-
lonians and the northern Israelites on the one hand and
the new population of Judsea on the other.
These Cuthaeans, or Samaritans as they were afterwards
called, seem to have been on unfriendly terms with the
northern Israelites. At any rate they did not act in concert
with them after the return of the exiles. Probably the Israel-
ites rejected them as strangers, and refused to act in har-
mony with them. This may have prepared them to some
extent for the reception they met when they offered their
friendship to the exiles who had returned from Babylonia.
Their action in the matter shows their sincerity, for they had
no material advantage to reap from permission to join in
building Yahweh's temple, which was what they wanted.
Their only desire was to" be recognized as true worshippers
of Yahweh and received into Israel. " Since Esar-haddon's
days," they said to the Jewish leaders, " we have served
Yahweh, and we desire to do so still. May we not help you
in building a house for him ? "
To understand the sacrifice which Zerubbabel and Joshua
made in refusing this request, we must reflect what great
advantages the proffered aid would have brought them. In the
first place the task was almost beyond their strength, so that
anything that lightened it would be .extremely welcome ; and
in the next place their southern boundary was already exposed
to the ceaseless hostility of the Edomites, which made it all
the more important to secure the friendship of their northern
neighbors, for if they incurred their enmity also they would
be lodged between two fires. The Cuthaeans, moreover, sepa-
l Compare p. 328. * Jeremiah xli. 5.
452 REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.
rated them from their northern brethren, whose alliance they
could not fail to desire, on condition of compliance with then'
religious laws. There must have been very conclusive rea-
sons, then, to induce the leaders to reject the hand of fellow
ship extended to them, and doubtless many of the Jews
would eagerly have grasped it.
Then why did the majority reject the Samaritans after
all ? According to the book of Ezra they alleged the pretext
that it was only the Jews to whom Cyrus had given permis-
sion to build the temple ; as if the king had intended to pro-
hibit them from availing themselves of any help they could
get in their work ! Their true reason, however, may readily
be guessed. These Cuthaeans were not of Israelite extrac-
tion, and Israel must not intermarry with strangers. Had
not this very offence, according to their books of law and
history, been the most fruitful source of misery and apostasy
from primeval times ? Yahweh would indeed bless his peo-
ple, but only on condition that they were faithful to him, and
entered into no alliance with other peoples.
This refusal on the part of the Jews was a deed of faith,
and there is certainly something noble in it. But on the
other hand it need hardly be said that their conduct breathes
an unhallowed 'spirit of exclusiveness and national pride.
Moreover, it is in palpable contradiction with Zechariah's
expectations that the heathens would come and enrich the
temple of Yahweh. But it does not follow that Zechariah
thought otherwise of the offer of the Samaritans than Zerub-
babel and Joshua did. Far from it. It was one thing, in the
fervor of his discourse, to picture all the heathens coming
submissively and reverentially to beseech the help of Yahweh's
people when visibly protected and blessed by him ; but it was
a very different thing to have to admit that Yahweh's people
was so poor and downcast as to be glad to purchase the help
of heathens by allowing them equal rights with Israel. The
one conception was flattering to the national vanity; the
other was a deep humiliation.
This refusal produced its natural consequences. The
Samaritans were offended by the haughtiness of the Jews, and
hated them with an intensity proportioned to the zeal with
which they had sought their friendship. Thus a feeling of
hostility arose which subsequently caused incalculable injury
and pain to Samaritans and Jews alike. It increased with
the growth of that spirit of exclusiveness which kept gather-
ing strength amongst the Jews henceforth ; it was kept up
REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE. 453
with equal bitterness on both sides, and. did not end until the
two peoples had sunk below each other's horizons.
It appears that the disappointed Samaritans instantly
attempted to hinder the Jews from building the temple at
all, since they would not let them help. But at first they
had no success. The governor of Syria, whose suspicions
they aroused, inquired in a hostile spirit into the nature of
the work that the Jews were executing in Jerusalem, but
they were able to refer to the permission given them bj r Cyrus.
Indeed, according to the book of Ezra, the original edict of
the king was found at Ecbatana, in Media ; but in any case
the work Zerubbabel was doing was of too innocent a char-
acter to have called for the interposition of the Persian
governor. So the temple, as we have seen, was completed
without the help and even in the face of the opposition of the
Samaritans, and was then consecrated by Israel with festal
sacrifices and cries of joy, while the Passover was celebrated
for seven days in gladness of spirit. All this was done by
the true "Israel," the people of the twelve tribes ; for the
Jews considered themselves its representatives. On occasion
of the feast of consecration they expressed this thought by
dedicating to Yahweh twelve goats as a sin offering, after the
number of the tribes. 1
So Israel was again established, with the house of God
as its consecrated centre. "Would not the Messianic age now
dawn at last?
Such was the dream of many a Jew ; for there were still
enthusiasts who, hoping against hope, still promised Israel
the richest blessings and threatened the enemies of the
Lord's people with humiliation and destruction. A remark-
able example is furnished by the book of Joel. The prophet
of this name takes occasion by a plague of locusts, in which
he sees ah announcement of Yahweh's coming day of judg-
ment, to exhort his countaymen. "In the last days," he
exclaims, " In the last days, says Yahweh, I will pour out
my spirit upon all mankind, and your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream
dreams, aud your young men shall see visions ; while your
very slaves and slave-girls shall receive my spirit. Then will
I give signs in heaven and upon earth, blood and fire and
pillars of smoke ; the sun shall be turned into darkness and
the moon into blood, before the great day of Yahweh's judg-
ment comes. But in that day whosoever invokes the name
l Ezra vi. 17, viii. 35.
454 REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.
of the Lord shall escape the judgment, for on Zion and in
Jerusalem there shall be a refuge for all who cry unto
Yahweh. And behold, when Judah and Jerusalem are
blessed once more, then will I assemble all the heathens in
the valley of Jehoshaphat (that is Yahweh judges), where
sentence shall be pronounced and executed on them because
they have scattered my people and taken them away captive,
and parted my land and sold the inhabitants as slaves for
a paltry price." Not only Judah's oppressors who had taken
the people captive, but her neighbors also, and particularly
the Phoenicians, who had sold the Judseans as slaves to the
Greeks, should bear a heavy punishment, and should be sold
to the Arabians in their turn by the people of Yahweh.
The prophet waxes ever hotter in his wrath and cries, " Call
the heathen to battle ; let their heroes come forth. Beat
your spades into swords and your scythes into spears ! Let
the feeble cry, ' I am mighty,' and assemble all together ! —
O Yahweh, send thine angel down ! — There come the
heathens advancing to the valley of Jehoshaphat ! But
there I sit, says Yahweh, to pronounce my sentence upon
them. How they crowd through the valley of judgment!
The day of Yahweh is at hand. Sun and moon are darkened,
and the stars have lost then- sight. Yahweh roars from
Zion and thunders from Jerusalem, and heaven and earth
tremble. But he is a refuge for his people. Thus shall ye
know that I, Yahweh, am your god, who dwell upon Zion
and whose sanctuary is Jerusalem, Jerusalem that shall
never more be trodden by the stranger's foot. Then shall
the mountains all flow with wine and the hills with milk;
then shall all Judah's streams be full of water ; 'then shall a
fountain spring from the house of Yahweh, and water the
region round. Then shall Egypt be devastated and Edom laid
waste, because they afflicted Judah ; but Judah shall abide
for ever, Jerusalem from generation to generation, for Yah-
weh dwells in Zion ! "
These were bold words to utter, and they bear witness to
a fervid faith ! *>
But alas ! the Messianic age, which was proclaimed with
such passionate confidence, did not come. We know very
little of the first fifly years after the rebuilding of the temple,
but that little is dreary in the extreme. It is true that
besides rebuilding the temple the Jews restored the city
walls ; but we afterwards find them in ruins again, and
Jerusalem utterly dismantled. Even Zerubbabel's position
REBUILDING OP THE TEMPLE. 455
was anything but a brilliant one, for he was only the servant
of the Persian king under supervision of the governor of
Syria ; yet he enjoyed far more consideration than any of his
successors did. As the scion of David's house, he repre-
sented the glorious past, and was, as it were, the visible
pledge of an equally joyous future, and upon him accord-
ingly the eyes of his countrymen were fixed in hope. But
this was not the case with his successors. We do not so
much as know the names of any of them, and may therefore
presume that none of them were men of any note or members
of the house of David. The succession of high priests was
kept up and their power steadily increased ; but much as the
Jews were attached to their forms of worship, the magnifi-
cence of the high priest was no substitute for the regal splen-
dor of the Messianic age.
We can well suppose what the fate of the Jews would be.
When once the Samaritans had called the Syrian governor's
attention to the love of freedom which had always marked
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, he would look with suspicion
upon the rebuilding of the city walls, and would rejoice to see
them destroyed in any petty hostilities between the Jews and
the Edomites or Samaritans. It is even possible that some
kind of Messianic agitation furnished the occasion for. build-
ing the castle on the mount of the temple, north of the sane
tuary, which was at first called Baris, and afterwards Antonia. 1
From time to time a small Persian garrison was stationed in
this castle. The taxes were levied with inexorable rigor, and
if any one resisted the king's authority, short measures were
taken with him ; a rafter from his own house served as his
gallows, and his home was laid in ruins. 2 Deputy governors
would be expressly selected from amongst the least patriotic
Jews, and would sometimes even be strangers.
Thus Judah sank and sank. As to their personal lot the
Jews had perhaps not much to complain of, but all whose
ideal extended beyond individual prosperity were often smit-
ten with deep grief. The prophet Zechariah had once ex-
claimed, 8 "O Yahweh of war-hosts! wilt thou not take pity
on Jerusalem and Judah's cities with which thou hast been
wroth these seventy years?" but not one of the " fair words
of comfort " in which Yahweh's angel replied * had yet been
accomplished. The tension of feeling which had enabled the
Jews to rebuild the temple and the city walls, and to refuse
1 gee Map IV. 2 Compare Ezra vi. 11.
8 Zechariah i. 12. 4 V. 13.
456 REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.
the help of the Samaritans, was now relaxed. Listlessness
had taken its place ; and those whose religious feelings were
deepest often asked in sore perplexity, " Is Yahweh faithless
after all?"
The sense of mingled joy in Israel's redemption from cap-
tivity, and bitter disappointment at the delay of the Messianic
age, is reflected in several psalms which may be assigned with
probability to this period. One of them is psalm lxxxv :
O Tahweh, thou hast been gracious to thy land
In bringing back the captives of Jacob ;
Thou hast forgiven thy people's iniquity,
And covered all their sins.
Thou hast put all thy wrath aside,
And withdrawn from thy fierce displeasure.
Restore us, then, god of our salvation!
And remove thine anger from us.
Wilt thou be wroth against us for ever,
And extend thy fury from generation to generation ?
Wilt thou not revive us again,
That thy people may rejoice in thee ?
O Yahweh, show us thy grace,
And grant us thy salvation !
Let me hear the words of god Yahweh,
For he promises peace to his people, his loved ones,
That they may not return to folly.
Surely his redemption is nigh them that fear him,
That glory may come to our land.
Then shall mercy and faithfulness meet together ;
Righteousness and peace shall kiss one another.
Faithfulness shall spring up from the earth,
And righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Yahweh shall prosper us,
And our land shall bring forth increase.
May righteousness go out before him,
And follow in his footsteps !
So sang the poet, hoping against hope. His sweet words
might soothe and strengthen his hearers for a time ; but the
stern reality soon reasserted itself, plunging them into deeper
despondency than ever, and adding strength to their distract-
ing doubts.
18 NOT TAHWEH RIGHTEOUS? 457
Chapter XIV.
IS NOT YAHWEH RIGHTEOUS?
The Book of Job.
THE believer has no more precious treasure than his faith.
As long as he retains it he can bear all things ; but if
he loses it the world soon grows too hard for him. And this
is why the devout Israelites, as we have already seen, 1 had
felt such agony of soul ever since the mournful reality had
come so sharply into contrast with their faith. Yahweh, the
god of gods, nay, the one living and almighty God, had
chosen Israel for his heritage, and was able and willing to
protect and bless his people. Such was their faith ; but ever
since Josiah, the zealous worshipper of Yahweh, had purified
his people's religion from the stain of heathenism, and had
then fallen, a few years afterwards, in battle ; ever since Ju-
dah, though turning to Yahweh and renouncing the service of
all other gods, had been reduced to slavey 7 , — one mystery had
followed another. There was Judah's continued dependence
upon the stranger, though the Chaldsean power had followed
the Egyptian, and the Persian the Chaldsean ; there was the
fall of Jerusalem in spite of the most confident assurances of
the prophets that Yahweh would come to the rescue ; there
was the release of the exiles by the favor of a heathen prince
who was simply consulting his own interest in the measure, —
for such was the sober view of the event which must have
gradually spread amongst the people ; there was the return,
without the visible tokens of Yahweh's support which the
prophets had foretold, but in the midst of privations and at
the cost of many a precious life ; and, finally, there was the
present miserable poverty, dissension, and slavery, with Jeru-
salem, the holy city, thinly populated and half in ruins, and
with enemies on every side. How could the traditional faith
in Yahweh stand against all this ?
The careless spirit of mockery which had made men cry, in
the days of their prosperity, " He never existed, and no harm
can come to us," 2 now taught them to deny his government,
and declare that he never troubled himself about the affairs
of men ; but more serious minds were racked by doubts aa
i See p. 344. 2 Jeremiah v. 12.
vol. ii. 20
458 IS NOT YAHWEH RIGHTEOUS?
to Yahweh's justice. Then as now and always people in gen
eral were shallow enough to be satisfied with superficial an-
swers, but those who followed out their thoughts were tortured
by the grievous problems which the facts of life had forced
upon their faith.
Many found a kind of satisfaction in the thought that Yah-
weh was punishing them for the sins of their fathers. In the
early years after Josiah's death it was often said that Manas-
seh's idolatry had stirred the wrath of Yahweh so deeply that
not even the people's repentance could appease him. Such
was the view of the author of Kings, 1 and indeed of Jeremiah
himself, for he did not deny the justice of the proverb current
amongst his murmuring contemporaries, "The fathers have
eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." 2
In much the same spirit the later prophets also explain the
national misery and humiliation as the result of national
wickedness. The Second Isaiah, for instance, cries, 8 "Who
gave Jacob over to spoil, and Israel to the robbers? It
was Yahweh, against whom we have sinned, whose com-
mandments we refused to accomplish, whose law we would not
hear." So, too, Zechariah 4 declares that Yahweh commanded
his people to be righteous and merciful, to succor widows and
orphans, and plot no evil one against another ; but when they
refused to obey him, and would not listen to the exhortations
of the prophets, then his wrath burst over them. They had
been deaf to his voice until he, in his turn, was deaf to their
entreaties, and swept them away amongst the heathens to
unknown lands, while their own lay waste. In harmony with
this explanation of the national adversity, we, heard Ilaggai
but now ascribing the famine to the delay in rebuilding the
temple.
The old answer, then, was still repeated on every hand,
" National suffering is the punishment of national sin ; " but
we need not be surprised at its not satisfying every one ; and
in itself it is obviously false. No rational connection can be.
established between the idolatry of Manasseh and the defeat
of Josiah, or in general between the sins and the sufferings of
Israel. Nor were these national sufferings the only enigma.
The private lot of men presented many features that no one
could reconcile with the righteous government of God. The
ordinary doctrine that the good enjoyed prosperity, while the
wicked were overtaken by adversity, was often in glaring
1 2 Kings xxi. 10-15, xxiii. 26, xxiv. 3. a Jeremiah xv. i, xxxi. 29.
8 Isaiah xlii. 24. 4 Zechariah vii. 8 II .
IS NOT TAHWEH RIGHTEOUS? 459
contradiction with the facts. The great mass of people might
hold it as a matter of routine belief; but any one who
thought it out was driven into doubt and the recognition of
his own ignorance. It was but natural that many of the
"sages" should find themselves in this position. Jeremiah
tells * us that even in his time the sages were ashamed, con-
founded, and dismayed ; but he is content with the ready
though shallow explanation that inasmuch as they had rejected
Yahweh's word their wisdom must necessarily come to nought.
And indeed a prophet and preacher of repentance like Jere-
miah was not at all the man to understand and appreciate the
sages. The cause of their confusion was not that they had
disobeyed the word of Yahweh, but that facts were in contra-
diction with the current doctrine as to Yahweh's righteous-
ness, and those whose office led them deliberately to examine
what they saw and felt, perceived this contradiction sooner
than the prophets ; for doubt is fatal to the glow of inspira-
tion, and the prophets were therefore instinctively conserva-
tive and unwilling to question or reject the traditional faith
of their ancestors.
To a sage, who reviewed the great question of God's jus-
tice with singular intrepidity, we owe a work which is one of
the greatest glories of Israelitish literature ; namely, the book
of Job. Opinions differ widely as to the date of its compo-
sition. Some scholars believe it was written in Manasseh's
time ; some place it soon after Josiah, whether during the
captivity or just before it ; others again would bring it down
to the first century after the return, and others later still. In
placing it here, and treating it before we come to Ezra, I do
not mean to say that I am by any means sure that it was writ-
ten at exactly this period, though there is much to support
the opinion that it was ; but at any rate the circumstances of
the Jews at this time were eminently suited to make thought-
ful men consider and discuss the perplexing question that
furnishes the subject-matter of the book.
Let us examine its contents.
The first two chapters contain the following story : —
There dwelt in the land of Uz, the wilderness north of
Edom, a man of blameless piety whose name was Job. He
had great possessions in cattle and slaves, and had seven sons
and three daughters. His children led a luxurious life, and
feasted from time to time in .the houses of each of the brothers
in turn ; but when the festivities were over, their father would
i Jeremiah viii. 9,
460 IS NOT TAHWEH RIGHTEOUS V-
send for them to sanctify them and make sacrifices on behalf
of each, for who could tell that they had not committed some
offence in the midst of their merry-making ? So scrupulous
was Job in his piety !
But on a certain day the angels came to present themselves
before Yahweh in heaven, and amongst them came Satan,
the accuser of men. Then Yahweh asked him whence he
came, and he replied that he had wandered over all the earth.
He brought many accusations against men ; to which Yahweh
answered : " But have you considered my servant Job ? for no
mortal equals him in blameless piety and virtue." Then Satan
answered mockingly, ' ' What wonder ? Does Job serve God
for nothing? You have hedged him round with protection,
and you prosper him in all he undertakes ! But put out
your hand and take away his treasures, and he will deny you
to your very face ! " But Yahweh would not so soon relin-
quish the pride be took in his faithful servant, and in the
conviction that Job would nobly bear the test, he gave the
accuser permission to do whatever he chose with the pious
man's possessions ; only he must not touch his person. Then
Satan went out, intent on compassing the fall of Job.
Blow after blow now fell upon him. Once, as he sat before
his house, while his children were feasting with their eldest
brother, a messenger rushed into his presence with the news,
' ' Arabs have seized your oxen and asses and put all your
slaves to death, and I have escaped alone to tell you ! "
While he was yet speaking, there came another with the
tidings, " Lightning has struck your flocks, and all the sheep
and shepherds are dead, and I have escaped alone to tell
3"ou ! " The words were still on his lips when a third came up
and cried, "Marauding Chaldaeans have surprised your
camels and carried them away and have killed all the slaves,
and I have eseaped alone to tell you." Finally, a fourth
messenger hurried into his presence with the overwhelming
tidings, " The house in which j-our children were feasting has
been thrown down by a whirlwind, and every one in it killed,
and I have escaped alone to tell you ! " Utterly broken down
by all these blows Job flung himself upon the ground. With
his garments rent and his head shorn, a prey to intensest grief,
he burst into the wail : " Naked was I born and naked shall
I return," but immediately added the words of acquiescence,
" Yahweh gave, Yahweh has taken away ; blessed be Yah-
weh's name ! "
Again the angels gathered together before Yahweh, and
IS NOT YAHWEH RIGHTEOUS? 461
Satan was amongst them. Yahweh asked him, as before,
whence he came, and regain he answered, " From wandering
about on the earth." Then Yahweh asked triumphantly,
" And what say you now to my servant Job? Has any man
such piety as his ? He still clings to it, though you moved me
to ruin him ! " But Satan was not so easily driven ofl' the
field. " There is nothing wonderful in his conduct yet," he
replied ; " for he is afraid of his life, and a man will give any-
thing for that. Only touch him with disease, and he will
renounce you to your face." " Go your way," said Yahweh,
with unshaken confidence in Job; " do what you will with
him, but spare his life."
So the accuser went his way, and smote Job with a loath-
some leprosy. Covered with sores from the crown of his
head to the sole of his foot, tortured by an intolerable itch-
ing, and shunned as unclean by all men, he sat alone upon
the ash-heap by his house. Then his wife came and added -
yet another to his woes by her bitter words, " Do you still
hold fast to your piety? What can it do for you now?
Renounce God and die ! " But Job, in all his torture, still
replied, "You speak like a senseless woman! Are we to
receive good from the hands of God and not to receive evil ? "
So in spite of all his sufferings not one foolish word escaped
the lips of Job.
Now when his friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar heard of
his adversity, they all came to testify their sympathy and offer
their consolations. But when they saw him and could hardly
recognize him in his frightful state, they could only rend their
clothes, put ashes on their heads, and weep aloud. Then
they sat down by him seven whole days, dumb with conster-
nation, because his misery was so crushing.
Such were the sufferings of the pious Job.
The writer probably borrowed some of the features of this
narrative from a popular tradition concerning a pious sufferer
of the name of Job ; for Ezekiel mentions a man of this
name, together with Noah and Daniel, as a model of piety, 1
though he does not appear to have been acquainted with our
book of Job. It is of no great consequence, however, whether
the writer borrowed much or little from tradition, for the char-
acter of the story itself shows us that he gave free play to
his own imagination. His representation of Job's disasters
as resulting from the instigations of Satan, whi> does not
believe in disinterested virtue, was based upon a popular
Ezekiel xiv. 14, 20.
462 IS NOT YAHWEH RIGHTEOUS?
belief which the poet himself had outgrown. His only pur-
pose in adopting it was to set clearly before the thoughts of
his countrymen the great enigma of a pious man's sufferings.
Before going on to trace the main development of the
sequel of this work, we must observe that it has not come
down to us in its original form. In the first place the Hebrew,
as we now have it, is iu many passages quite unintelligible ;
and in the next place various longer or shorter passages,
some of which seriously interfere with the right comprehen-
sion of the work, have been inserted. The original book of
Job probably consisted of chapters i.-xxvii. 10, xxviii.-
xxxi., xxxviii.-xll. 12, xlii. 1-6. We must therefore
exclude the so-called discourse of Elihu, xxxii.-xxxvii., and
the conclusion xlii. 7-17, besides a few passages of less im-
portance (xxvii. 11-23, xli. 13-34). The motives which
led to the composition and insertion of these passages we
shall discuss presently. Meanwhile, let us confine ourselves
to the original work.
In the picturesque and graphic scenes at the beginning of
ihe book the poet sets a great problem before his readers.
No thoughtful believer who beheld a good man in adversity
could suppress the painful question : " How can we reconcile
this with Yah wch's justice? Are Yahweh's doings good?"
These are the questions which the poet makes Job and his
friends discuss. Job complains of the ways of God ; his friends
defend the old doctrine as to Yahweh's justice ; and, finally,
Yahweh himself gives judgment. Job represents the doubter,
the censor of God's ways. In his inmost heart indeed he
clings to the Almighty, and has far more genuine piety than
his friends, but his attitude is anything but that of passive
endurance. There is a contradiction, therefore, between the
introduction, in which he is represented as eminently patient,
and the dialogues that follow, in which he indulges iu passion-
ate complaints and accusations of God. This contradiction
is so marked as to induce many scholars to reject the introduc-
tion as a later addition ; and in any case it is a blemish in the
book regarded as a work of art, though one which it would
have been difficult to avoid, since the writer could hardly lay
his doubts upon any other lips than those of the sufferer him-,
self. Let us try to forget this contradiction, then, and gather
up the substance of the dialogues.
But before doing so, we must caution our readers against
the impression made by simply studying the Authorized Ver-
IS NOT YAHWEH RIGHTEOUS? 463
sion. The translation is so hopelessly incorrect and obscure
as almost completely to disguise the real meaning of the poem ;
and in some passages the sense it gives is exactly the oppo-
site of what stands in the original. As a single example we
ma}' give the passage in which Job declares that since God
has already determined to kill him, it does not matter what
he says. Job'3 words are, "He will slay me! I have no
hope." But the Authorized Version gives them, "Though
he slay me, jet will I trust him." 1 With this warning we
may now proceed to the dialogues themselves.
After sitting down in silence with his friends for seven days,
Job burst at last into a violent imprecation upon the day of
his birth. His only' longing was for death. What was the
value of life when coupled with such misery as his ? He had
no rest or cessation from agony ; torture was ever added to
torture. His friends opened their eyes in amazement to hear
such words. Who would have thought that a pious man like
Job would give way to such bitter complaints ? Eliphaz be-
gan to answer with the hesitation we always feel in addressing
one who is heavily afflicted. It might be painful to Job, he
said, to be contradicted ; but he could not refrain from op-
posing a few words to what he had said. He would only
repeat what Job himself "lad always urged upon others in like
circumstances, and implore him to seek his own consolation
in it now. An innocent man never perished, but evil befell
the wicked. Then he demonstrated with ludicrous minute-
ness, as though it were a startling discovery of his own, that
all men were sinful. A spirit had told him so in a fearsome
vision by night ! Job's only course was to leave the matter
with God, who could make the mourners glad, and deliver
those that despised not his chastisement. Such was the fruit,
he concluded, of their reflections, and he hoped that Job
would find consolation in it !
But it seemed that the sufferer was not so easily consoled.
On the other hand, the only result of what Eliphaz had said
was to stir his anger against his friends. How heartless they
were to worry him with these commonplaces, without once
sounding the depths of his misery! He was utterly shat-
tered; and what had he done to deserve it all?
Ay ! the service man serves upon earth is hard,
Like a laborer's day is his life.
As a slave sighs for the shades of even,
As a hireling waits for his hire,
So are months of misery measured to me,
And nights of woe appointed.
l Job xiii. 15 ; compare p. 485.
464 IS NOT YAHWEH RIGHTEOUS?
And then life was so short ! That made his sufferings all
the harder to bear, for when once he was dead it would all be
over with him. Why must God rise up against him? Well
might the poet l say : " What is man that thou art mindful of
him ? " God was mindful indeed of man, but only to torture
him. Even suppose he had sinned, what harm could that do
Him? He might well overlook the trespasses of a poor mor-
tal whose life would pass away so swiftly.
Then the friends perceived that Job's complaint was no
mere cry of agony, but was largely due to deliberate doubt as
to God's righteousness ; and without the least perception of
the truth contained in his hard sa3'ings, they girt on their
weapons to put this doubt to silence. So Bildad took up the
discourse, and began by expressing his lively indignation. It
was a shame to utter such words! God pervert the right?
Impossible ! The fathers had alwa3's taught that he was
righteous. It was certain, absolutely certain.
When thus referred to the teaching of the fathers, Job re-
torted that he knew it well enough himself without their tell-
ing him, and that he also knew how God was always justified.
Of course He was, cried the sufferer with growing bitterness.
How could it be otherwise? He could do whatever He chose,
and who could resist him ? It was of no avail to plead with
Him. Even if a man had right on his side against Him, all
he could do was to implore His grace, which was much the
safest course. But as for him, what did he care for his life ?
It was worth nothing to him now, so he would say right out
what he really felt. And, put into a few words, it came to
this : God destroyed the righteous and the wicked alike !
And that would matter little if He did but destroy them
quickly, instead of taking delight in torturing the innocent !
The wicked ruled the earth ; and if that was not God's doing,
whose doing was it? Nay, why should he not sa}'- what he
really meant, for he was condemned already? God had made
him, and then resolved to lie in wait for him to punish him as
soon as He caught him in the smallest trespass. It was un-
generous in God so to torture a poor, weak creature, whose
life was short !
Of course, the friends could not allow such language to pass
unchallenged. Zophar now took np the discourse : What a
flood of words, he cried ; what mighty language ! Did Job
suppose he had a monopoly of wisdom ? If God himself were
but to speak to him, he would soon see that he had been fav
1 Psalm viii. 4 ; compare vol. i. p. 41.
IS NOT TAHWEH RIGHTEOUS? 465
too lightly punished as yet. Instead of all this arrogance he
had better repent, and all might yet be well ; but otherwise
the only refuge of the wicked was death.
Since his friends were evidently completely out of sympathy
with him, and were quite unable to perceive how enigmatical
his sufferings must be pronounced when regarded from the
traditional point of view, Job became more and more impa-
tient of their words.- Yes, truly, they were the first real sages
that had ever lived, and when they died wisdom would die
with them ! As if he did not know all they had told him !
lie knew the old story as well as they did. God was wise,
was He not, and mighty? Wise and "mighty ! Yes, indeed,
and He turned everything upside down, and so abused his
might. But as for him, he would plead against God himself.
They were bent on keeping the Almighty their friend, and so
they simply applauded whatever He did. But God was not
served by such lies, and would punish them some day for
uttering all this nonsense about Him. But as for himself,
he was condemned already, so he would say how things realty
stood, and say it to God himself. Man was a miserable crea-
ture of few days. For a tree, when cut down, might sprout
again ; but when a man fell, he fell for ever, and dead men
rose no more. If a man could return from the realms of
death it would be another thing ; but that was impossible.
And suppose his children after him were prosperous, what
good was that to him ? All he asked to know was how God
could answer for all this.
Job's words sounded more and more blasphemous in the
ears of his friends, and they did not cease to tell him so.
Five times they tried to bring him to repentance, and each
time they laid less stress upon the reward of virtue, and more
upon the punishment of sin. But they had nothing fresh to
urge ; nothing but an appeal to the old doctrine. Of course
this failed to satisfy the doubter, and the tone in which he
answered these flatterers of God grew constantly more bitter.
It was a lie that sin was punished. What countless abom-
inations were committed without God's ever giving them a
thought ! Indeed, the impious were often highly prosperous,
respected all their lives, and honored down to their very death.
Did their children gather the bitter fruits of their misdeeds ?
What harm was that to them ? The sinner ought to feel the
blow himself, and then God would be just. Amidst all his
indignant protests, Job had still one hojje — -that he might
be allowed to speak with God himself. At the bottom of
20*
466 IS NOT TAHWEH KIGHTE0TJ8?
his heart he still cherished the belief that God could some
way justify himself, and at least would take his side as against
his' friends. Why had not God appointed certain days of
judgment upon which to defend himself ? As it was, man
stood bewildered in the face of all the riddles of the world :
and when he said that life was full of riddles, who could give
him the lie?
Against his passionate accusations of God, and the indis-
putable truth of the facts to which he pointed, his friends
were powerless. What could be expected of men the sum of
whose wisdom was a constant reiteration of the ancient doc-
trine ? They were completely silenced. The last who spoke
uttered a few incoherent words about God's fearful power
and the sinful state of man, but soon broke off. Job had the
last word, and when he had silenced contradiction he poured
out his heart once more. He mocked the feebleness of his
orthodox friends. What wonderful assistance had they given
him! Of whom had they been speaking? Of God? Ay,
God was great indeed ! Before him the very shades trem-
bled, and it was he that created and sustained all things.
"Behold," he cried, after a glowing description of God's
omnipotence, " this is but a little fragment of his works.
We understand but a whisper of him ; and who shall com-
prehend the thunder of his might?"
So now that his friends were driven off the field, Job once
more laid bare his own condition, and with it the riddle that
tortured him. As for himself he could not solve it, and did
not believe that human insight could compass it. God had
real wisdom, and knew the how and the why of things; but
as for man, alas ! he could find no answer to the hard ques-
tions of life, and it seemed he must simply content himself
with passive submission and fear of Yahweh. But what a
riddle it all was ! Once he had been prosperous to the ut-
most, rich and honored. Now he was poor, deserted by
every one, the laughing-stock of vagabonds. To what must
he attribute the change ? Not to his own evil conduct, for
his life had been clean. He would swear that he had hated in-
justice, had been guiltless of inchastity or adultery, had been
innocent of idolatry, had never been inhospitable, and had
not so much as turned a lustful eye upon a woman. He did
not shrink from calling upon God to answer. If the Almighty
would but listen to him he would meet him as proudly as a
monarch !
What he had asked was granted to him. Yahweh under
IS NOT YAHWEH RIGHTEOUS? 467
took to answer him, but in no gentle wise ! " Who is this,''
cried the deity from the midst of a thunder-storm, "Who is
this that obscures the rule of God with words of no under-
standing? Come, now, gird thyself up like a man. I will
question and thou shalt instruct me ? Where wast thou when
I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me that, if thou
knowest it ! " Then Yahweh made his accuser feel his great-
ness, and pointed out to him the mystery and glory of Nature
displayed in the wild ass, the unicorn, the ostrich, steed, and
hawk, all of which revealed the majesty of their creator.
"Then how shall the caviller contend with the Almighty?
Let him that accuses God make answer to this ! "
Then Yahweh ceased, and Job was humbled by the thought
of the greatness of the Lord, and answered : " Behold, I am
too feeble.. What shall I reply? I lay my hand upon my
mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will do it no more ; yea,
twice, but henceforth I am silent ! " Then Yahweh, not yet
satisfied with his submission, went on to speak of his crea-
tures, the crocodile and the hippopotamus, as well suited to
bring man into a humble attitude towards God. Upon this
Job repeated his confession : — ■
I know that thou canst do all things,
That nought is impossible to thee.
" Who is this that darkens God's rule by words without under-
standing V...
I spoke without having fathomed,
Of things too wonderful, things that I knew not.
" Listen, and I will speak ;
I will question and thou shalt teach 1 " . . .
I had heard of thee with the ear,
But now has mine eye beheld thee ;
Therefore I recant my words,
And do penance in dust and ashes.
Such is the last word of this writer's wisdom, with all
his gifts and all his depth of feeling : God is great and we
understand Him not.
Man, incapable of comprehending the world' This was
likewise the conclusion of Agur, the only "sage" except
Solomon whose name we know. 1 " Thus says the man : I
have wearied myself about God, I have wearied myself until
I can think no more ; 2 for I suppose I am not so wise as others
and have no common sense, have learned no wisdom and
have no knowledge of the Holy One. Who can go- up to
» Proverbs xxx. - xxxi. 9. a After an amended version.
468 IS NOT YAHWEH RIGHTEOUS?
heaven and come down again? Who can gather the wind in
his fists and collect the waters in a garment i Who firmly
establishes the earth? What is his name? and what his
son's name ? can'st thou tell ? " *
From Agur's other sayings we may see the dispiriting
effect which this recognition of powerlessness exercised upon
the sage's reflections, for they consist of very commonplace
observations and simple admonitions. Why should any one
trouble himself with profound speculations and the eager
pursuit of truth, when he had already come to the conclusion
that it was completely out of his reach?
"God is so great that we cannot understand him," is a
conviction that does not solve a single problem, and fails to
remove the doubt which it succeeds in silencing ; indeed, it
virtually admits that the doubter is right, and that his diffi-
culties cannot be removed. The assertion, " God is so great
that his ways are unfathomable," majr produce a dumb sub-
mission to the will of the Irresistible, but can give rise to no
free harmony of will, and therefore to no love.
It is not surprising, then, that the Israelite, after fruitless
search for a solution of his problems, finally rested in the
only answer that he could find ; for doubt, however legitimate,
is fraught with danger, and often leads to disbelief. The writer
of the book of Job, however, not only recognized the justice of
hesitating to ascribe righteousness to Yahweh, but even felt
that the heart of the honest doubter covers a far warmer love
of God than that of the man who refuses to see the contra-
diction between his own convictions and the facts of life, but
simply argues in support of foregone conclusions, and main-
tains the old belief against all comers. He therefore places
Job, the doubter, far above his orthodox friends, for though
lie has to recant before God, yet he is right as against them.
Such was the judgment of this writer ; and it was sound.
But the masses did not accept it. They had not the courage
of the author himself; they had not the love of truth
which enabled him to pass the most delicate subjects under
fearless review without shrinking from any result. Then, as
always, the masses of mankind required leading strings, were
strongly conservative, and had a horror of " doubt." It is by
no means surprising, therefore, that the book of Job has come
down to us in an enlarged and by no means improved ver-
sion. In a certain sense it is very fortunate that it was here
and there revised and interpolated, for in its original form it
1 Proverbs xxx. 1-4.
IS NOT TAHWEH RIGHTEOUS? 469
probably would not have come down to us at all. The scribes
of a later generation, who decided what books were to be
regarded as holy and what were not, would most likely have
rejected it. The contents of the original work would have
shocked them deeply, for it exposes the feebleness of the
defenders of the old belief. It was this that offended the man
who inserted chapters xxxii. -xxxvii. Just at the point when
Job has finally silenced his friends and has once more set forth
his difficulties, this interpolator defers the answer of Yahweh
by bringing a fourth friend upon the stage. His name is Elihu,
and he is highly incensed both with Job for uttering such
arrogant words, and with the three friends for allowing them-
selves to be put to silence. Since he was the youngest lie
had waited till they had done, but now he could not refrain
from speaking. What did they mean by saying that God
only could answer Job, and that no man could do it? Ho
would show them what he could do !
After such a flourish of trumpets we might expect some
thing very wonderful, but Elihu's discourse contains hardly
anything fresh. He repeats, for the most part, in a very
prolix and wearisome form, what the others had said before.
The writer evidently intended to show that Job had not at
all disarmed the arguments of his friends, and that the force
of the old belief remained unbroken.
This interpolator, then, was perfectly aware of the real
intention of the original book ; but we cannot say as much
for the writer of xxvii. 11-23. He was shocked and per-
plexed to find so good a man as Job denying God's justice so
audaciously. He could not really have meant it ! So he
puts a few glaring assertions 3f the opposite doctrine into his
mouth to serve as a corrective !
Still less was the book understood by the writer of the
last chapter. He tells us that when Yahweh had spoken to
Job, He expressed his displeasure with his three friends
because they had not spoken rightly concerning Him, as Job
had. He told them to go to Job with seven oxen and seven
rams, and entreat him to pray for them while they offered
their sacrifice, for it would only be at Job's request that
he would refrain from punishing their folly. So the three
friends, continues the writer, obeyed the command, and
Yahweh accepted Job's intercession. Then he made an end
of Job's misery, and gave him twice as much as he had had
before ; upon which all his relatives and friends came to visit
him and to comfort him by word and deed for the sufferings
470 19 NOT TAHWEH RIGHTEOUS?
Yahweh had inflicted upon him. So Job's latter years were
still more blessed than the former, his possessions were
great beyond measure, he had seven sons and three daughters
again, and there were no girls in all the land more beautiful
than his. He still lived a hundred and forty years, and saw
his descendants to the fourth generation. At last he died,
satisfied with life.
The main conceptions of this epilogue are in direct contra-
diction with those of the book itself. Here we are told that
Job had said what was right about God ; whereas, in the
book itself he is constantly reviling God's ways, and has to
recant at last. Here he is rewarded for his virtue and restored
to his former honor, and the ancient doctrine of the pros-
perity of the good is still maintained ; whereas, according to
the original writer, the suffering of the .pious is an insoluble
enigma, in presence of which we can only say, " God is
great, and we comprehend him not ! "
Misunderstood and mutilated, the book of Job went down
to posterity. The representations of the prologue and epi-
logue prevailed over those of the poem itself. The book was
held in honor as a description of the patient endurance of
suffering, instead of the expression of a deep-seated doubt as
to the truth of the most fundamental dogma of Israelitish
piety, and Job has become, to Jew and Christian, the very
type of patience ! 1
The conclusion to which the original writer was brought by
his reflections was unsatisfying to the last degree. Though life
is full of riddles, he thought, though the truth seems to be in
conflict with God's justice, yet man must simply bow his head
and submit to God's irresistible might. This was the death-
blow to the pursuit of "wisdom." If it was impossible to
gain any insight into the truth, if the princ'ple upon which
happiness and unhappiness were apportioned to men was in-
accessible to human knowledge, why should any one weary
himself with searching for God ? In after times ' ' wise men "
did indeed arise, but their school had no future before it, for
no further development was conceivable.
Meanwhile the old established doctrine held its own amongst
the people. We shall meet with it at every turn. It was
constantly laid down as if nothing could be urged against it.
An instance may be found in Psalm xxxvii., which is one of
the so-called alphabetical psalms ; that is to say, its first verse
begins with the first letter of the alphabet, its second with ttw
1 James v. 11.
IS NOT YAHWEH EIGHTEOUS? 47]
second, and so on. This artificial style of composition prob-
ably dates from after the captivity. In this psalm, as in so
many others, the ancient doctrine is laid down with the utmost
confidence.
About the ungodly fret thyself not,
A nd be not envious of ill-doers.
A s the grass is cut down, so they fall ;
A s the green herb, so they wither.
B ut trust in Yahweh, and do right ;
B ide in the land, and feed thee with justice ;
B lessed be thy soul in Yahweh !
B y Him shall thy heart's desires be given.
Nor had even the poet of Psalm Ixxiii. 1 consciously out-
grown the same conviction, for he begins by declaring that
Yahweh is good to Israel, to the pure of heart, and confess-
ing that his faith was not a little shocked when he observed
the prosperity of the wicked. Truly their lot was enviable,
and it seemed to be in vain that the pious man had purified
his heart and washed his hands in innocence. But no ! when
we consider the end of the godless, we see that it is destruc
tion. Alas ! how foolish he had been when he envied them.
There was no blessedness like that of being near fy? God.
So this poet and many another pious son of Israel found
the highest blessedness, the real reward of virtue, iu that
communion with God, that inner life of the heart, which is
fostered by true piety ; and if the authors of Job and other
pious and thoughtful men could but have clearly seen that
the true solution of the great enigma that tortured them lay
there, then they would no longer have been driven to that
answer of dull submission, " God is great, and we compre-
hend him not." In ceasing to look for any immediate connec-
tion between virtue and prosperity on the one hand, and
wickedness and adversity upon the other, thej r would have
found God's blessing, not exclusively indeed, but chiefly, in
that wealth of the spirit, that joy in life and strength foi
death, which is the lot of His obedient children. And thei?
they would have been at peace even amongst life's manj
mysteries.
But no Israelite ever consciously attained to this concep-
tion. They could not shake themselves free from the ma-
terial ideas of the reward of virtue and the punishment of vice
which they had learned from their fathers, and as a matter of
avowed belief they continued to the end to trace the avenging
hand of God in adversity, and the evidence of his favor in
prosperity.
1 See vol. i. p. 529.
472 EZRA THE SCRIBE.
Chapter XV.
EZRA THE SCRIBE.
Ezka VII.-X.
EIGHTY years had elapsed since Zerubbabel's return.
The glowing promises of the prophets had come to
nought. Jerusalem's wall lay in ruins once more. Persian
armies on their way to Egypt, or returning after a defeat,
were quartered almost eveiy year in Palestine, and increased
the burdens of the inhabitants more than ever. The spirit of
the Jews was exhausted, and their obedience to the commands
of Yahweh grew ever feebler. They were gradually uniting
with the surrounding peoples. Many of them, even including
members of the high priestly family, had contracted mar-
riages with foreigners. What would become of Israel?
"Would it melt away amongst the nations and lose its own
peculiar character? Such a result appeared more imminent
than ever. But the danger was averted just in time by the
rise of a great man, who returned from Babylonia at the head
of a band of several thousand exiles, and brought fresh blood
into the Jewish State. It was Ezra the priest.
We should therefore be entirely mistaken were we to sup-
pose, as we might well have been tempted to do, that all the
sturdy believers had quitted Babylonia with Zerubbabel, and
only left the faint-hearted and indifferent behind. This was
by no means the case. There were zealous worshippers of
Yahweh who cherished a heartfelt interest in their country
and their people, and yet had hesitated to leave the place of
their exile and join in rebuilding the holy city and the temple.
We have no direct accounts of what went on in their hearts,
and must therefore be satisfied with conjectures ; but we may
easily suppose what it was that kept them back. It was by
no means clear, they thought, that Yahweh desired them to
return. Was Israel sufficiently chastised as yet ? The burn-
ing words of many a prophet proclaimed that it was, and the
Second Isaiah even declared that the punishment exceeded
the offence ; 1 but there was ample room for another opinion
on the subject. Israel was still far from being a holy people,
1 Isaiah xl. 2.
EZRA THE SCRIBE. 473
consecrated to Yahweh, and had- by no means obeyed his law
so faithfully as to be certain of his favor. And as to the
authority of the prophets, we know enough of the opposition
they so often had to contend against to feel no surprise at
their failing to command the assent of all the Jews in the land
of captivity. We can quite understand that many of the exiles
gave small credit to their words. Had not Jerusalem fallen
in spite of the repeated and emphatic promises of almost all
the prophets ? The exiles probably never gave themselves a
clear account of what they really thought about these men
of God, and even continued to regard them as the messen-
gers of Yahweh, but for all that they did not surrender their
judgment to them. Then when they heard of the sad condi-
tion in which their brethren found themselves on their return,
they were of course confirmed in their opiuion that it had not
yet been Yahweh's hour. Many a zealous Jew from Palestine
must have been deeply pained when he came into contact with
his Babylonian brothers, by their question, " Is it not just as
we always told you ? "
Now we shall see from the sequel of the history, and more
especially from the character of Ezra's work, that the priestly
spirit gained a complete ascendency amongst the Babylonian
Israelites. At first sight this may seem a little strange, for,
since thej' had no access to the temple, the legislation of
Deuteronomy precluded them from offering any sacrifices to
Yahweh. But the phenomenon is quite explicable. ]n the
first place, ever since Josiah's reformation Israel had obviously
been moving in the direction of the systematic piety of the
Law, that is to say the excessive estimation of outward
forms and ceremonies ; 1 and such a movement is not easily
diverted by external influences. The temple, it is true, the
exiles could not have ; but the Law did not stand or fall with
the temple, and Yahweh had given other, commands besides
those that related to sacrifice. Could they not still observe
the Sabbath, abstain from everything unclean, and scrupu-
lously conduct themselves as Yahweh's consecrated people,
even in the foreign land?
The form under which the Mosaic principles triumphed
amongst the exiles was of a strongly priestly character, as we
have seen already from the works of their historians, 2 and
above all from Ezekiel ; * and when the prophets and their
supporters had gone with Zerubbabel to rebuild the temple at
Jerusalem, the chief counterpoise to the priestly spirit was
l Compare pp. 336 fl. 2 See pp. 402 S. See pp. 414 ff.
474 EZKA THE SCRIBE.
removed from among the exiles, and the priests had all tho
freer play.
The spirit in which the Jewish priests in Babylonia labored
may be gathered from the precepts which they gave their peo-
ple, and which are still preserved in the Pentateuch. We
owe to them a work to which we have often alluded already, 1
but which we must now examine more expressly. I mean
the Book of Origins. We need not revert to the narratives
which the author borrowed from tradition and presented in a
shortened and generally greatly modified form ; but we must
turn our attention to the method of the work, for it seems to
have formed a single whole, the several parts of which were
well held together by the leading thought. The author's pur-
pose was to present a sketch of Israel's past, especially of
the time of Moses and Joshua, which he looked upon as the
golden age of Israel, with a view to furnishing a model for
his own day. All that preceded Moses had simply served as
a preparation for his work, and a distinct development lead-
ing gradually up to it might be traced in the divine revelations.
From the very creation of the world the Sabbath had been
hallowed ; the prohibition of food with blood in it dated from
the time of Noah ; Abraham received from El-shaddai the
ordinance of circumcision, though as yet no sacrifices were
instituted. To Moses the deitj' revealed himself under his
name of Yahweh, and the Paschal sacrifice was ere long or-
dained ; but it was at Sinai that Israel's worship was first
regulated in accordance with Yahweh's precepts, and it is here
that the priestly historian describes the people, with the tribe
of Levi at its head, subdivided and encamped according to
the will of its god. To his will also Israel conformed uncon-
ditionally at the conquest of Canaan, for every tribe had its
dwelling-place assigned to it by lot. The high priest Eleazar
stood by Joshua's side at the head of the people, and as long
as these pious leaders lived the religion of Moses was strictly
conformed to.
Let us now examine some of the details of this ideal !
The sanctuary and its servants occupy a verj prominent
place in this work,' 2 as they do in that of the prophet Ezekiel ;
but inasmuch -as our author places his ideal in the time of
Moses, when Israel was wandering in the desert, he could not
» Vol. i. pp. 237 ff. ; compare vol. i. pp. 65 f., 78, 107 f., 151 f., 161
181, 196, 226, 258 f., 276, 285, 304, 310, 319, 340, 352.
* ExoduB xxv.-xxxi. 11, xxxv. 4.-xl.
KZRA THE SCRIBE. 475
speak of a temple, and had to content himself with describing
a portable sanctuary. But the model from which he drew his
picture was the edifice of Solomon. The ancient legends
supplied him with the name of " tent of conference," l under
which he described a sanctuary of considerable dimensions
and great splendor divided into three compartments. First
there, was the holy of holies where the ark was set, on the
lid of which our author placed the cherubs, which really stood
on the two sides of it in the temple of Solomon, and covered
it with their wings. This holy of holies, into which no ordi-
nary priest, much less a layman, might either go or look, was
only to be entered once a year by the high priest. It was not
separated from the holy place by doors, as in Solomon's tem-
ple, but by a curtain. In the holy place stood the altar of
incense, overlaid with gold, and near it a gilt table, with the
loaves of so-called shew-bread, -which must ever lie before
Yahweh's countenance. There was also a lamp-stand of pure
gold, with seven arms supporting seven lamps, together with
the snuffers and other apparatus. The whole edifice could be
taken to pieces and carried about, and the author gives elab-
orate directions as to the wa}- in which this must be done, and
who must do it. 2 The uprights were all of a certain length,
and the sockets were made of silver ; the curtains were made
of a great variety of materials, and are carefully described,
down to the very hooks and eyes. Round the edifice itself a
space was marked off by pillars, between which tapestries
were suspended, and in this court the altar of burnt-offerings
stood, five cubits long, five broad, and three high. It had
four horns, and was made of earth, held together by planks
covered with brass, and was surrounded with a grating of the
same metal.
This "tabernacle" is a pure fiction; and in laying down
regulations about its servants, the writer gives free scope to
his imagination, surrounding Moses with a regular priesthood,
divided into classes, arranged and clothed just as he, the
writer, would himself have thought desirable. We have seen
that even Ezekiel 8 departed from the precepts of Deuteronomy
by assigning the priesthood exclusively to the sons of Zadok,
and only allowing inferior places to the other Levites ; but
the author of the Book of Origins goes still further. Accord-
ing to him Aaron stood at the head of the whole priesthood
in the time of Moses, and was followed in his sacred office
by his eldest son Eleazar, in whose family the high-priestly
i Compare vol. i. pp. 296 ft, a Numbers iv. 1-33. 8 See pp 414, 415.
476 EZRA THE SCRIBE.
office remained hereditary. Yahweh himself had fillud skilful
men with the spirit of wisdom that they might be able to
make suitable robes for Aaron. In the first place there was
a many-colored cape or ephod, fastened with thongs, magnifi-
cently wrought, upon which there shone two precious stones
with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel graven upon
them, that Aaron might always bear them before the face of
Yahweh as a remembrance to him. Upon the ephod, the
breastplate of the judgment was hung by golden chains. It
was intended to hold the apparatus for consulting the oracle,
the urim and ihummim, and it glowed with twelve precious
stones, upon which were the names of the twelve tribes. Over
the ephod was a sky-blue mantle, fringed with pomegranates
of every color, and little golden bells that tinkled whenever
the wearer went into Yahweh's presence. A fine linen gar-
ment caught by a many-colored girdle hung down to the feet,
and in front of the turban a golden plate was fixed with the
inscription, " Holy to Yahweh."
Our author describes at length the ceremonies by which the
high priest and the priests were consecrated ; ' but he does
not lose sight of the other Levites. They had no claim to the
priesthood, for it belonged to the sons of Aaron by exclusive
birthright, but still they were consecrated to Yahweh. All
first-born sons had belonged to Yahweh from the earliest
times, but the Levites were substituted for them, and were
therefore specially attached to Yahweh's service, to which
they were consecrated by sprinkling, bj- cutting off the hair,
and by sacrifice. 2 The writer, in giving us the numerical
strength of all the tribes, calculates that there were twent} - -
two thousand Levites, and that this fell short by two hundred
and seventy-three of the number of first-born Israelites. Five
shekels a head had to be paid as redemption-money for this
surplus.
A man who ranked the servants of the sanctuary with such
care, sharphy separating the high priests, priests, and Levites,
would not be likely to leave their revenues to the good-will of
those who required their services, but would feel impelled to
lay down fixed regulations on the subject. The writer of
Deuteronomy had made such moderate claims in this direc-
tion that he constantly had to commend the Levites to charity
in common with widows, orphans, and strangers, 8 though he
maintained that all of them were entitled to. exercise the
1 Leviticus viii., ix. * Numbers in., viii. 5 ff.
• Deuteronomy xii. 12, 18, 19, and elsewhere.
EZRA THE SCRIBE. 477
priestly functions ; but our author fixes his claim upon the
believers far higher. Since Levi had no heritage in Israel,
the whole tribe must be supported by the altar. Accordingly
the Aaronites might claim a great portion of the sacrifices in
the shape of meat, oil, wine, corn, all the firstlings and first-
fruits, and everything that had been smitten by the ban, now
no longer consecrated to Yahwch by destruction. 1 But the
most important regulation of all was that the Levites were to
receive a tithe of all the revenues of the Israelites, and in
their turn were to give a tithe of their tithe to the Aaronites. 2
Moreover special cities were assigned them as residences,
eight-and-forty in all, thirteen of which were to be given to
the sons of Aaron. Some of these cities were also to be
cities of refuge, in which a man who had accidentally killed
another might live in safety from the blood-redeemer till the
death of the high priest gave him the right of returning to
his former dwelling-place. 8
According to our author all these regulations were put into
force bj' Moses as far as they were practicable in the wilder-
ness, 'and in all their fulness by Joshua, or rather by Eleazar
and Joshua and the representatives of the people, when they
reached Canaan.
In addition to these regulations about the sanctuary and its
servants, the Book of Origins also contained a great number
of laws as to sacrifices and other usages of worship, and in-
deed the manj T chapters of Leviticus and Numbers which refer
to these subjects most of them issued from the same circle as
the Book of Origins ; but they are evidently from various
hands, and are here and there in contradiction with each other,
while the circumstances of the case make it exceedingly diffi-
cult to determine accurately what belongs to the Book of
Origins itself and what does not. This question, however, is
of minor consequence, for in any case we know the spirit
which prevailed amongst the Jews in Babylonia. It was that
priestly spirit which we have seen developing in Judah even
before the time of Josiah, rising to supremacy after his reform-
ation, and finding an unmistakable reflection in the ideals of
Ezekiel. It had always been the aspiration of the devout to
make Israel the consecrated people of Yahweh, the holy god ;
and now the leading minds in Babylonia emphatically taught
that the holiness which became the people of Yahweh revealed
itself in outward forms, and must be gained by outward means
1 Compare vol. i. pp. 342 f. 2 Numbers xviii. ; Leviticue xxvii. 30-33.
8 Numbers xxxv. ; compare vol. i. pp. 81 f.
478 EZRA THE SCRIBE.
Into the inmost partition of the tent of revelation the high
piiest alone might enter, and he but once in the year, while
the "Holy" might only be trodden by the priests, and the
very court itself was accessible to none but members of the
chosen people. All this was significant of the immeasurable
distance that parted Yahweh, the unapproachably holy, from
his worshippers, while it reminded the latter of the necessity
of the mediation of the priests, who could draw near to Yah-
weh, could distinguish between clean and unclean, knew how
to make the sacrifices in the way that was acceptable to
Yahweh, and could regulate the festivals by which he was
glorified.
In describing the spirit of the Book of Origins, we have
described the spirit which penetrated Ezra the scribe, who
came to raise Judah out of its humiliation and rescue it from
the whirlpool of heathendom.
Darius I. (Hystaspes) , under whose reign the Jews had re-
built the temple, had been succeeded by Xerxes I., and he, in
the year 465 B.C., by Artaxerxes I. (Long-hand). It was in
his reign that Ezra desired the royal permission to set out with
several thousands of his countrymen for Judaea.
We know but little of Ezra's descent or circumstances. He
is called the son, or descendant, of Seraiah, apparently the
chief priest whom Nebuchadrezzar put to death at Riblah
after the fall of Jerusalem, 1 but the fact that his genealogy is
carried up to Aaron throws a good deal of suspicion upon it
altogether. His extraction, however, is of little consequence ;
and we know, at any Me, that he was " a skilful writer of the
law of Moses, which was given by Yahweh, the god of Israel,"
one " who had set his heart not only upon searching out and
studying Yahweh's law, but also upon teaching Israel the
course of duty and obligation." It is clear, moreover, that he
was held in high regard by his countrymen, amongst whom he
had certainly been working for a considerable time, and that
he enjoyed the confidence of the king, which was conspicuously
manifested when he requested permission to go to Judaea, ac-
companied by as many of his fellow believers as chose to join
him. The prince, who had doubtless political reasons for be-
ing glad to gratify the Jews, gave the desired permission. The
decree which he issued on this occasion has only come down to
us in a mutilated condition, worked over in a Jewish spirit ;
but since the king desired to attach the Jews to himself and
» 2 Kings xxv. 18 ff.
EZKA THE SCRIBE. 4V9
ais house, he doubtless showed his favor, as the edict sets
forth, by allowing them certain privileges, such as immunity
from some of the taxes, apparatus, or adornments for their
temple, and rich presents. On the other hand, we cannot be-
lieve that he threatened all who refused to submit to Ezra's re-
ligious ordinances with heavy punishments extending to death
and the extinction of the offender's family. On the con-
trary, Ezra was clothed with no official power. He "was not
made governor, as Zerubbabel had been. His power was onlv
moral.
Now, as soon as Ezra had obtained the king's permission,
he summoned his fellow believers to leave the land of the
strangers, and accompany him to Jerusalem, to help to restore
the people of Yahweh. The rendezvous was the river Ahava,
but we do not know where it was, or even whether the name is
correctly spelt. Many thousands collected at the spot, includ-
ing two priestly clans and one family of Davidic extraction,
in all one thousand nine hundred and ninety-six heads of fam-
ilies. Ezra had, therefore, good reason to be pleased with his
initial success ; but when he reviewed his company upon the
third day, he observed with pain that not a single Levite had
enrolled himself in its ranks. 1 There were great numbers of
Levites in Babylonia, and Ezra could not bear to leave them
all behind ; so he sent some of the nobles and teachers to a cer-
tain Iddo, who dwelt at Casiphia, the site of which is entirely
unknown, in the hope that this man's influence might enable
them to induce some of the Levites to join the expedition.
The deputation not only succeeded in persuading some of the
Levites to come, but secured the help of two hundred and
twenty temple slaves.
A solemn fast was now prescribed in order to secure the
favor of Yahweh. A long and difficult journey was before the
travellers, fraught with danger* to themselves, their children,
and then- possessions, especially as Ezra had been ashamed to
ask the king for an escort of cavalry such as had accompanied
Zerubbabel's caravan. The fact was, he had said so much
about depending entirely upon the mighty help of his god, that
he felt his deeds would give his words the lie if he appealed to
human protection. Yahweh alone must be Israel's refuge, and
he must therefore be invoked with universal supplication.
Then Ezra entrusted twelve priests and as many Levites with
the rich presents for the temple which he had received from the
king, from his courtiers, and from the Jews who stayed be-
l Compare p. 440
480 EZRA. THE SCRIBE.
hind ; after which the caravan set out. The J™™^^
about five months, but everything went on so P™ s peioa S ly
that Ezra was able to appeal to the result as a proof that the
prayer they had offered had earned the favor ot mwen.
When they reached Jerusalem the travellers rested from the
fatigues of the journey three days, and were then solemn j
welcomed by the heads of the people. The officiating priests
received the consecrated treasure from the holy men in whose
keeping it had been lodged during the journey. Numerous
sacrifices of oxen and rams were made by the travellers :n
gratitude to Yahweh for the favor he had shown them. Twelve
bullocks, after the number of the tribes, and eight times twelve
rams were offered as a burnt sacrifice, and the sacred number
of eleven times seven lambs and twelve goats burned as a sin
offering. No joyous feast concluded the ceremony. They de-
sired to thank Yahweh for his visible protection, yet it was not
so much their gratitude as their sense of guilt that they wished
to express. They humbled themselves before the mighty and
holy God.
If the travellers had reason to be thankful themselves for the
prosperous conclusion of their journe} r , their arrival was also
a signal of jo3 r to others. The priests rejoiced at the arrival
of a band of zealous worshippers of Yahweh. The treasure
they brought was a welcome acquisition, and a period of re-
newed splendor seemed about to dawn upon the temple now
that so man3' thousands of fresh worshippers would come to it
with their gifts. The zealots for the law of Yahweh had every
reason to rejoice in the prospect of the assistance which Ezra
the skilful scribe would be sure to give them in their work.
And the whole people had cause to praise the goodness of
Yahweh ; for the letters which Ezra brought with him produced
such manifest good- will on the part of the governors of Jndfea
and all the surrounding countries, that they supported the Jews
in the exercise of their worship and in all things else.
And j'et it was not every Jew that rejoiced. There were
some who felt small confidence in this troop of zealots — led
by a scribe and priest — and anticipated no good to themselves
or others from their new fellow-citizens. This was specially
the case with such as had married foreign wives ; and under
this category came several nobles and even priests. Was Ezra
aware of this ? We should hardly have thought it possible for
h.l ♦ be Jgnorant of it; but our account of the affair in the
DooK ot hara. m from his own hand, and he speaks of it as
EZRA THE SCRIBE. 481
something of which he heard for the first time, and with a
frightful shock, at Jerusalem.
A few days after his arrival he was in the court of the tem-
ple, when certain nobles approached him to tell him of this
abomination. Israel, they said, had not kept free from com-
mingling with the heathens, and even some of the priests and
Ltvites had married or allowed their sons to marry foreign
wives, — Canaanites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and
Edomites. 1 As soon as Ezra heard this terrible announce-
ment, he rent his clothes, tore the hair from his head and
beard, and sat down dumb with horror, the very picture of de-
spair. Hour after hour passed. A crowd of temple-goers
gradually collected round him. From mouth to mouth ran the
whisper that explained why the priest so newly arrived was
thus overwhelmed with grief.. It was Israel's pollution ! Then
sympathy with Ezra's pain might be read on many a counte-
nance, while here and there a fist was clenched and the sombre
tire of fanaticism began to glow in many an eye. Those im-
pious wretches had indeed polluted Israel, and thence came all
this misery ! Well might the pious priest sit there dismayed.
It was indeed a horror, and ought never to have been endured
so long ! The time of evening sacrifice drew near, and the
priests were bringing the lamb to the altar. In another mo-
ment this daily gift to Yahweh would be offered. Then Ezra
rose, as from a swoon, but only to fall down before Yahweh
anew with outstretched hands. Listen! he is praying : "0
my God ! for shame and confusion I cannot lift up my face to
thee, my God ! For our sins are heaped up above our heads,
and our guilt as high as heaven. From our fathers' days un-
til now we have greatly trespassed. Because of our sins wc
have been delivered, with our kings and priests, into the power
of the princes of the heathen, slain and banished, plundered,
and put to shame even to this day. And now, O Yahweh,
thou hast once more given us a breathing space, hast once
more made us to dwell in the holy land ; and though we are
slavey of the Persian kings, thou hast made them gracious to
us, to suffer us to rebuild our temple and our city. What
shall we say then ? O our God, we have cast to the winds thy
commandments which thj* prophets have brought us. They
told us that the land into which we came was an unclean land,
polluted by the abominations of those that dwelt in it, and that
we must not mingle with them. But we, in spite of all that
has befallen us and all the mercy thou hast shown, have inter-
1 After an amended version.
VOL. II. 21
482 EZRA THE SCKIBE.
married with the peoples that commit abominations. Ah, bu
not so wroth with us as to consume us utterly ! O Yahweh,
god of Israel, we lie down before thee in our guilt, for who
could defend himself before thee ? "
While Ezra was thus praying, the crowd was still collecting
round him. Men, women, and even children pressed together
with loud cries of woe. The fervor Ezra had aroused found
utterance in mingled imprecations and confessions of guilt,
with exhortations to instant action. No sooner had he ceased
than a certain Shedianiah said to him, in the name of the rest,
" It is but too true; we have sinned against our god. But
there is hope for Israel yet. Let us make a solemn vow to
Yahweh to send away our foreign wives together with their
children, according to the Lord's decree and the will of all who
fear the commands of God. Let us do what the Law pre-
scribes ! Come now ! it lies with you to do this thing, and we
will help you. Take heart, and set your hand to the work ! "
Loud cries of approval rose from cveiy side ; but many a heart
sank as the scribe's dark glance of deep resolve proclaimed
that his stern nature would shrink from nothing in the execu-
tion of his god's command. " Do you swear," he cried, " to
obey the precepts of Yahweh ? " " We swear ! " thej' an-
swered, " as Yahweh lives ! May God requite us if we hold
not to our word ! " It was enough. Ezra withdrew into the
chamber of a certain Johanan, and as he went inexorable re-
solve and unutterable pain might be read upon his features.
The people dispersed, triumphant or cast down, full of hope
or sick at heart, according to the light in which they regarded
Ezra's resolve. In truth, it was no small matter to dismiss all
the foreign women and their children. In a moment of ex-
citement the hasty resolve was taken ; but how many tears
must pay the price of its fulfilment ! How tender the ties that
it must break ! How many women and children must it doom
to starvation ! And how many powerful neighbors must it ren-
der hostile, how many influential Jews offend !
But while motives, some of which were more and some less
exalted, shook the resolution of many, Ezra himself remained
firm. He was profoundly grieved and shocked ; he spent the
whole night without meat or drink in Johanan's chamber, 1 and
every Jew might soon perceive that he had taken up the mat-
ter in earnest. Messengers were despatched throughout the
land to summon all the citizens, in the name of the chiefs and
elders, to an assembly on the third day. Woe to him who
1 After au amended version.
EZRA THE SCRIBE. 483
should absent himself! His possessions would be smitten by
the ban, which meant in those days confiscation in favor of
the priests, and he himself would be thrust out of the com-
munity of Yahweh.
The decree must have referred especially to the heads of
families, and though even thus it cannot have been literally
complied with, yet on the appointed day, the twentieth of the
ninth month, which would fall in our December, a numerous
assembly met in the court before the temple. The tone of
the meeting was anything but tranquil. Every one knew what
a serious and far-reaching reformation was to be proposed and
carried through. Would any resistance be offered? If so, by
whom, and with what result? Would the powerful offenders
acquiesce in the sentence? The rain was falling in torrents,
and made the body unfit to bear the strain of mental tension ;
but Ezra, without thinking of that, set before the Jews the
magnitude of the sin they had committed, and exhorted them,
for the honor of Yahweh, to part from their foreign wives.
Hardly had he ceased before his hearers signified their assent.
Only a few, whom Ezra mentions by name in his memorials,
ventured to resist. Their attempt was vain. The speaker's
strong personality prevailed, and it was resolved by an over-
whelming majority to purify Israel from the heathen stain.
The utmost that could be done was to persuade the fanatical
reformer that it was impossible to carry through the new
measures on the very spot ! The number of the cases was
too great to admit of immediate investigation, and the rain
made it simply impossible to remain in the open air. The
proper course was to appoint a suitable commission to preside
over the progress and completion of the measure.
So the assembly dispersed, and a few days afterwards the
spiritual tribunal held its first sitting. Whoever had married
a foreign wife was summoned before it, and there were so
many cases that the hands of the judges were full for two
months. Ezra presided over the court, and we may be sure
that his presence prevented any concessions from being made
upon any pretext. Every one had to submit. The priests
who had married foreign wives must promise to dismiss both
them and their children, and must also sacrifice a ram as a
sin-offering. The names of all the offenders were taken down,
and those of a hundred and thirteen householders are pre-
served in our book of Ezra.
As far as depended on Ezra and his zealous adherents the
law was now enforced. Cost what it might, Israel should be
484 NEHEMIAH.
a holy people, cleansed from outlandish pollution ; and though
many of the culprits broke their word, and when thej' were
no longer under the eye of the spiritual judges shrank from
executing their promises, yet many did actually dismiss thqir
wives and in some cases their children with them.
We stand aghast at such fanaticism ; and well we may ! It
is but the worship of Molech in another form. Ezra's Yah-
weh is not our God.
Chapter XVI.
NEHEMIAH.
Nehemiah I.-VIL, XI., XII.
OUR book of Ezra suddenly breaks off, as we have seen,
after stating that the Jews dismissed their foreign wives,
and it is thirteen years before we hear of Ezra again. Then
we meet him side by side with Nehemiah, in the book which
bears the name of the latter. What took place in the in-
terim ? Did the zealous scribe sit down with his hands before
him? It was not in his nature. Then why did he not carry
his great measure through, and complete his other reforms?
Wiry did he actually look on while some of the Jews retained
their foreign wives ? The Israelitish historians give no direct
answer to these questions, but we are not left altogether in
the dark.
In the first place we must bear in mind that the measure
which Ezra forced upon the Jews could not fail to meet with
violent opposition. This opposition would come in the first
instance from those who were called upon to break the ten-
derest domestic ties, but it would not be confined to them.
Would not the relatives of the women, who had been dis-
missed together with their children, take up the cause? Was
not the whole measure a gross insult to every member of the
surrounding tribes? Who could look with calmness upon
such intolerable national arrogance? If none but people of
humble position' had been affected by the Jewish exclusive
ness, the consequences would not have been so serious ; but
amongst the Jews who had allied themselves with foreigners
there were many men of distinguished position who had doubt-
less been actuated by political motives ; and their connections
NEHEMIAH. 485
amongst the other peoples were men of corresponding rank
and influence. Three of them are known to us by name :
Geshem the Arab, of whom we know nothing more ; Sanballat
of Beth-horon, in the district of Samaria ; and Tobiah, a
royal functionary in the land of the Ammonites. The two
last of these were allied with priestly families of Israel, and
Tobiah was himself of Israelitish extraction, as we may see
from his name, which ends in yah, and his son's name (Jo-
hanan) , x which begins with yo, both of which are abbrevia-
tions of Yahweh. What wonder that these men and others
who smarted under the same insult endeavored to make the
Jews paj T dear for their arrogance ? Prompted by them, the
governors of the surrounding districts persuaded Artaxerxes
to forbid the rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls, which were
again in ruins. 2 We may therefore well suppose that self-
interest, if nothing else, would range many of the Jews
against Ezra. Even if they had promised in a moment of
excitement faithfully to support him, yet when they had cooled
down they shrank from facing the enormous difficulties of the
measure. Moreover, we shall presently see that some of Ez-
ra's opponents were actuated by nobler motives.
Towards the end of the thirteen years during which we lose
sight of Ezra, the condition of the Jews was melancholy in
the extreme. Numerous Persian armies, on their way to or
from Egypt, kept passing through Palestine ; and nine or ten
years after Ezra's arrival, Megabyzus, the governor of Syria,
revolted against the king. We do not know which side the
Jews, whose country was part of his territory, took in the
struggle, but in no case can they have escaped the sufferings
of war. It has been conjectured that the walls of Jerusalem
were again thrown down on this occasion : and, in any case,
circumstances were not favorable to carrying outa great re-
formation to which there was so strong an opposition.
We must further bear in mind that the harmony between
Ezra and the stricter party in Jerusalem, which joined him in
his crusade against heathen alliances, cannot have been com-
plete. The Babylonian Jews and those who had now been
settled in Palestine for eighty years had had their separate
histories, and their sympathy on many points must have been
very imperfect. Throughout these thirteen years Ezra must
often have felt that he was bound hand and foot.
He was now to find a doughty ally in Nehemiah.
Not all the pious worshippers of Yahweh had quitted Baby-
1 Nehemiah vi. 18 z Ezra iv.
486 NEHEMIAH.
Ionia with Zerubbabel, and even Ezra had left behind him
many hearts that beat warmly for the temple and the people
of Yahweh. In various sections of the great Persian king-
dom thousands were still left who did not renounce their
Jewish extraction, and were deeply attached to the service of
Israel's god. Amongst them was Nehemiah. This man,
who is known to us from his own memorials, worked up with
later materials in the book that bears his name, occupied the
distinguished post of cup-bearer to the king. It was in the
twentieth year of Artaxerxes (445 B.C.), when the court was
in the winter residence at Susa, that Nehemiah received a
visit from his brother Hanani and several other Jews, who
gave him a most mournful account of the condition of the
holy land, in answer to his inquiries. The Jews were again
in deep humiliation ; disaster upon disaster had swept over
the land ; the walls of Jerusalem were overturned and her
gates burned. This account affected Nehemiah profoundly.
Alas for his poor fatherland ! He spent the next few days in
fasting and prayer. As a member of Yahweh's people now
suffering for their sins, —the only possible explanation of
this chastisement, — Nehemiah humbled himself before the
Gdfl of heaven, confessed his trespasses, and begged for pity.
He reminded his god that, though he had threatened Israel
with dispersion for violating the law of Moses, he had also
promised that he would collect the exiles once again if they
repented. And, as he fasted and prayed in solitude, the
resolution grew within him to ask the king's permission to
visit and to help his brethren. He would lay down the honor-
able post he held and beg for the office — unenviable enough
in those days — of deputy-governor of Palestine. But would
Artaxerxes give him the post? Would he not take offence at
his request ? It was not without trepidation that even a high
official ventured to make a request of the king ; for wealth,
honor, and life itself depended on his favor. At the royal
court no one ventured even to look sad or mourn. 1 Who
could be sad, asked the courtly flatterers, when basking in the
light of the king, the sun of the world ? And the distrust
which revealed itself in every detail of an Oriental court made
the least appearance of depression hateful. As long as every
one was merry no conspiracy need be feared ; but a sad heart
might well hatch mischief. It was therefore a bold step to
make a request of the king. "O Yahweh!" prayed Nehe-
miah, "hearken to my supplication and to that of all thy
1 Compare Esther iv. 2.
NEHEMIAH. 487
servants, and grant that the king may give me what I
ask." Strengthened by prayer, he resolved to make the
venture.
It was in the month of Nisan (end of March and.beginning
of April) , which was the first in the Jewish year, when Nehe-
miah once more found himself at his post at the royal feast.
There sat the king at the head of the table where hundreds
of guests were daily feasted. Next to him, but on a lower
bench, was the most favored of his wives, whom for the time
at least he had made his queen. To the right and left sat his
other distinguished consorts, his ministers, counsellors, cour-
tiers, generals, and guests, all their faces dressed in smiles,
for they rejoiced in the presence of majesty ! Opposite the
king, at the free end of the table, stood the host of inferior
wives, whose business it was to grace the feast with music
and song. Behind the monarch stood the magnificent charger
in which the wine was mixed with water, and out of which the
cup-bearer ladfid it in a little can fixed to a long handle, and
then poured it in a glancing stream, without spilling a drop,
into the golden cup which he presented on his knee to the
king, — having first tasted it himself, however, as a pledge
that the sparkling draught was not poisoned.
Nehemiah was in his place as cup-bearer, and though his
heart was troubled he assumed an expression of joy 1 suited
to the royal presence. But the king, whose ej-e nothing
escaped, perceived his agitation ; and half in kindness to his
trusted servant, half in anger that any one should be other-
wise than joyous in his presence, he exclaimed, "Why are
you sad ? You are not ill. What have you on your mind ? "
The cup-bearer, whose inmost heart was thus revealed, fell
trembling to the ground before the king, and, covering his
mouth that his breath might not desecrate the person of the
monarch, he reverently replied, " May the king live for ever !
Alas, my lord, how can I help being sad when the city where
my forefathers lie buried is laid waste, and its gates burned
down?" The prince was evidently in a good temper, and
was not indisposed to do something for his servant's father-
land. "What would you have me do?" he asked. This
was encouraging enough ; but Nenemiah's intended request
to be allowed to go to Judaea himself as governor was no
trifle ! Would it be granted? A silent prayer rose from his
heart to the God of heaven. Then he uttered his request
in trepidation, but soon read in the gracious expression of
1 After an amended version, of Nehemiah ii. 1.
488 NEHEMIAH.
the king and queen that his God had given them kindly hearts
towards him ; and this was placed be3 T ond a doubt when the
king asked him how long he wished his leave of absence to
be, and on his mentioning the period gave him the permission
he desired.
The needful preparations were soon made. Nehemiah was
appointed governor of Judaea, and received a passport from
the king to secure him against being delayed in any of the
districts through which he had to go. He also carried a letter
to the ruler of some district, evidently not far from Jerusalem,
commanding him to furnish wood for the beams of the temple
fortress, the city walls, and Nehemiah's residence. Jeru-
salem must indeed have been in a pitiful condition if this was
the only way to secure the timber needed. When he bad
provided himself with all he required, Nehemiah set out for
his fatherland, accompanied by several officers and a division
of cavalry.
What will our new governor bring us? The Jews, espe-
cially Ezra and his friends, must have asked this question
anxiously enough. Alas, they had not generally much good
to expect from the king's representatives ; and they were now
in such a miserable plight ! Was it possible that this Nehe-
miah would alleviate their sufferings? At first he said
nothing. Like a prudent man he determined to begin bj T
ascertaining how things really stood. He knew very well
that certain influential men, such as Sanballat, Tobiah, and
Geshem, would have regarded him with most unfriendly eyes,
and would have thwarted him bj' every means in their power
had they known that he intended to do his best to refortify
Jerusalem. This may seem strange ; for, though the men in
question were not of pure Israelitish blood, yet inasmuch as
they were closely connected with Jewish families, including
that of the high priest, and were themselves worshippers of
Yahweh, we should not expect them to be jealous of Judah's
prosperitj'. But we must remember that the project of
fortifying Jerusalem was closely connected with Messianic
expectations, and might therefore really lead to a revolt
against the Persian king; for it was impossible to think of
the seed of Jacob in the golden age as dependent on the
stranger. Nor must we forget that those who were most
eager to rebuild the walls were at the same time fanatical
advocates of Israel's purity and the maintenance of the
laws that forbade intermarriages with the stranger. Neke-
NEHEMIAH. 489
uiiah was not fair to Sanballat and his party when he said
that they could not bear any one to seek the welfare of the
Israelites. 1 They sought their welfare themselves, though
not in Nehemiah's way, but by bringing them into close alli-
ance with the surrounding tribes ; and this they would never
succeed in doing if Jerusalem were fortified and furnished a
fulcrum to the exclusive party. Nehemiah had, therefore,
reasons enough for caution.
Two days after his arrival he had his beast saddled, and,
accompanied by a few trusty servants on foot, rode out by
the Valley-gate on the west side of the city, round by the
Dragon's Well on to the Dung-gate, surveying with a keen
eye the ruined walls and fire-burnt gates. 2 But when he at-
tempted to ride along the southern wall of the city, to the
Fountain-gate and on to the king's pool, right on the north-
eastern side of the city, his ass could no longer make its way
amongst the heaps of rubbish, and he had to pursue his jour-
ney on foot, still carefully"bbserving the state' of the walls.
Sparing no pains, he returned that night by the same difficult
way.
Little did they think in Jerusalem that the new governor
was surveying with his own e} T es the work which he intended
to urge his countrymen to undertake. But they were soon to
know it. Nehemiah summoned the heads of the people, and
exhorted them to set their hands to the work of restoring
Jerusalem's walls and gates, that their shame might be re-
moved. To encourage them in the task, he told them how
obviously God had helped him with the king and on his jour-
ney, and reported the gracious words of Artaxerxes._ His
words were so cogent that every one felt moved to begin the
task with vigor, and the bold resolve was made.
But it was not to be carried through without great oppo-
sition. The very first steps were resisted by Sanballat,
Tobiah, and Geshem, who tried to throw suspicion on the
undertaking, and openly accused Nehemiah of intending
to rebel against the king. But he was not the man to be
scared by opposition, and his bold reply at once revealed
the spirit in which he worked and the side he would take
in the religious contest: "The God of heaven will prosper
us. We, his servants, will rise up and build the walls ; but
as for you, what part have you in Jerusalem? You shall not
be enrolled as citizens of hers, and your descendants shall not
dwell in her."
* Nehemiah ii. 10. 2 After an amended version of Nehemiah ii. 13.
21*
490 NEHEMIAH.
He was a bold man, this Nehemiah, courageous and thor-
ough, but narrow in his conceptions and intolerant of those
who differed from him. He and Ezra would find each other
out, and there would be perfect harmony between them, for
tbej T were kindred spirits.
Jiut for the present there was no possibility of either po-
litical or ecclesiastical reforms. The book of Nehemiah tells
us, indeed, of certain steps in this direction being taken while
the walls were being built ; but the order of events is not
always strictly observed in this book, and we can hardly
believe that there was any time for other business during the
two-and-fifty days occupied in rebuilding the walls, for this
work must have completely engrossed the energies of the very
men upon whose help Nehemiah could rely. It is true that
the wall was not completely ruined, but was only broken down
in certain places by the people's enemies, who thought it un-
advisable to let the Jews inhabit a fortified city ; and in the
same way, although the woodwork of the turrets had collapsed
and was charred or burned with fire, 3 - et the turrets themselves
were still there. But though the task of Nehemiah and his
friends was only to repair these serious damages, yet that was
quite enough to tax their powers heavily. They were not
disheartened, however, and set to work manfully. We must
not suppose that the task was performed at common cost or
by common labor. The plan adopted was for wealthy in-
dividuals, or companies, to undertake certain specified tasks,
such as restoring a turret, or rebuilding a definite portion of
the wall at their own expense ; those who lived in Jerusalem
taking charge, by preference, of the places nearest to their
own houses. The book of Nehemiah enumerates forty-two
turrets or sections of wall, together with the names of those
who restored them.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the opposite party were laying
their heads together. A meeting was held in Sanballat's city,
at which many distinguished Samaritans were present, as well
as Tobiah from the land of the Ammonites. The question dis-
cussed was how to thwart Nehemiah's obvious intention of
making Jerusalem a fortress once again. Voices were doubt-
less raised in favor of armed interference ; but Sanballat
declared himself against this policy, and raised a laugh by
throwing ridicule upon the whole affair, and prophesying that
it would soon stop of itself. " What can these feeble Jews ac-
complish ? They will leave it all to their god again, 1 and will
1 After an amended version.
NEHEMIAH. 491
fancy they have come together for a sacrificial feast ! Why,
it is all to be finished in a day or two ! Just look, the stones,
all charred as they are, have come to life among the rains, and
are going into their places all of themselves ! " Tobiah was
not behind him. " Let them build away ! " he cried. " The
first fox that happens to jump over their wall will throw it all
down again ! "
When he recorded all this mockery Nehemiah added the
prayer, " Listen, O our God ! it is thus that we are scoffed at.
Let their scorn return upon their own heads, and make them a
prey to their enemies in a land of captivity. Cover not their
unrighteousness and forget not their sin, for they bitterly
taunted the builders ! " The vengeful spirit of this prayer is
far from surprising in a man to whom the work thus ridiculed
was sacred, and in whose ears these taunts were blasphemy.
But unquestionably the Jews themselves had given occasion
for such scoffs. They had often, for instance, invoked the help
of God with prayer and fast and sacrifice, but without laying
a finger to the work themselves. The exhortations to passive
faith which the prophets had but too often addressed to their
people 1 had been taken more to heart than their moral teach-
ings by those who heard and still more by those who read them.
This spirit of passive trust may be traced in the following lines
of a psalm, which with all their touching piety would lend
themselves but too readily to dangerous abuse 2 : —
If Yahweh build not the house, the workmen labor in rain ;
If Yahweh preserve not the city, the sentry keeps watch in vain.
It avails not, ye who rise early, sit late, and eat bread that is
earned in toil !
For He gives the same to his loved ones even while they sleep !
Can we not fancy the joyful emotion with which the Jews,
in the days of Jerusalem's humiliation, would listen to the fol-
lowing poem 8 : —
To thee do I lift up mine eyes,
To thee, enthroned in the heavens !
Behold, as slaves look to their master's hand,
And a maid watches for a gift from her mistress,
So do we look to Yahweh, our god,
Till he shall be gracious to us.
Pity us, then, Yahweh !
Pity us ! we have had our fill of contempt;
We have been filled with the scorn of the boastful,
With the scoffs of the proud !
I Compare p. 285, and elsewhere.
' Psalm cKxvii. 1, 2. a Psalm cxxui.
4'J2 NEHEMIAH.
It was a sweet consolation in their misery to rouse one an-
other's courage with the words, 1 —
I lift up mine eyes to the mountains,
From whence my help shall come.
Help comes from Yahweh,
Creator of heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to stumble;
He that preserves thee will not slumber.
Nay, he will neither slumber nor sleep,
The preserver of Israel.
Yahweh is thy preserver ;
Yahweh, the shadow from the South.
The sun shall not smite thee by day,
Nor the moon, by night.
Yahweh shall keep thee from every trouble ;
Yes, he shall keep thee !
Yahweh shall protect thy coming and going
From, now to eternity.
This is a truly beautiful poem ; but if the faithful allowed
their trust in Yahwch's help to supersede their own efforts, the
only result must be their social and moral ruin.
There had often been good cause to reproach the Jews with
being readier to pray than to work, and the reproach was now
repeated by their enemies ; but, with Nehemiah at the head of
affairs, there was little danger of its being deserved ; as the
scoffers were soon to see. The work made rapid progress, and
before its opponents had time to think, it was half completed.
Evidently the workmen were throwing their whole souls into it.
So when Sanballat and his friends saw that " these feeble
Jews " were really making progress, they came together once
more, in greater numbers, to take counsel.
Their plans were soon made. They would rush upon the
walls and take the city by surprise. But the plot leaked out,
and Nehemiah was not the man to content himself with pray-
ing against it ! He did indeed implore his god for help, but he
also set watch by day and night. The work, however, became
very burdensome under all these circumstances, and Nehemiah
was constantly hearing complaints from the workers. It was
almost too much for them ; they were worn out ; the heaps of
rubbish were so enormous ! Terror sank into many a heart,
for, in spite of the watch, the enemy might come at any mo-
ment. And on ten separate occasions Jews, who were settled
near one or other of the hostile tribes, came to warn their rel-
f* lve t
to fill the holy of holies with the fumes of incense lest the high
priest should die when he entered ? It sprang from the child-
like belief that whoever saw Yahweh would die, which had
superseded the still older idea that he held familiar converse
with men, but was in its turn foreign to the loftier and purer
22*
514 THE MOSAIC LAW.
conception of his being which had found its chief exponent in
the Second Isaiah. The goat " for Azazel" has been a sore
perplexity to the commentators, and we have not yet dis-
covered the meaning of the word, which only occurs in this
passage. But the connection in which we find it here is quite
enough to put us on the right track. It is clear that the law-
giver is introducing no fresh name, nor issuing any new in-
junctions at all, but is simply legalizing a familiar ceremonj-.
Azazel is a proper name, most likely of a god who was sup-
posed to dwell in waste places — a sort of Pan or satyr. Many
Jewish families, we ma}- suppose, had worshipped him in for-
mer times, and still retained certain usages connected with the
name of Azazel, though they themselves no longer knew the
origin or the significance either of the name or the rites con-
nected with it. Just in the same way as many of us still play
with Easter eggs or at Christmas games without in the least
suspecting that we are really perpetuating the usages of ancient
heathen religions, 1 so these Judseans once a year drove a goat
into the desert "to Azazel," with shouts and curses, though
they did not know why. The lawgiver, who had no power and
very likely no desire to abolish so inveterate a custom, incor-
porated it in the Law and made it a part of the great day of
atonement.
Sometimes the lawgivers show an unmistakable shrewdness
in their partial or complete legalization of ancient customs.
When was there ever a priesthood without ambition and with-
out the art of turning things to the best account? Much skill
of this description is shown by the legislator who regulated
the vow of the Nazarites. The ancient custom of taking the
Nazarite vow for life 2 can hardly have been acceptable to the
priests ; for these men, who abstained from wine and bore on
their heads "the crown of Yahweh" in their unshorn locks,
formed a spiritual order independent of the priesthood and
highly honored by the people ; whereas an}' kind of sanctity
which required no assistance from the priests, and was fostered
upon other principles than theirs, would naturally excite their
jealousy. What, then, was the course the}' adopted? They
made regulations for a temporary vow which included not only
abstinence from wine and letting the hair grow, but also the
strictest precautions against ceremonial uncleanness and mi-
nute regulations as to the course to be pursued in the unfor-
tunate case of the sudden death of a near relative necessitating
the vow's being broken by contact with a corpse. Last, not
i See vol. i. p. 106. 2 See vol. i. pp. 445, 446.
THE MOSAIC LAW. 515
least, they expressly prescribed the saciifices which the Naza-
rite must offer at the close of the period for which he had taken
the vow, so that he could not be released from it without the
help of the priests. 1
In many instances the laws give evidence of having been
drawn up in priestly schools in accordance with abstract prin-
ciples, though not without reference to existing usages. This
is most obvious in the regulations concerning sacrifices and
the Sabbath.
Sacrifice occupies a prominent place in all ancient religions.
U was equally impossible to approach a prince or a deity for
the purpose of making a request without bringing a present to
him. The Israelite was as averse as others to ' ' appear before
the face of his gods empty-handed." We should therefore
expect to find great prominence given to sacrifice in the legis-
lation of the priests, for they did not stand much higher than
the people themselves ; and, moreover, the fact that they lived
to some extent on the proceeds of the altar gave them a direct
interest in encouraging sacrifices. The Mosaic law, accord-
ingly, not only prescribes numerous sacrifices, but divides them
into different classes, and defines the kind of animals and other
offerings which the faithful must bring on each of the several
occasions specified, and how the victims are to be dealt with
in each case. It would be of little use to sum up all the
priestly regulations on these subjects, and moreover the pre-
cepts given at different periods are sometimes contradictory.
We may well be content with touching on some of the main
points. 2
The priests distinguished four kinds of sacrifices. First of
all came the burnt-offerings, which were placed almost entire
upon the altar and were consumed with fire. This was the
most solemn kind of sacrifice. It served as a recognition of
Yahweh's supreme power, and was performed every day.
Night and morning, in the name of all the people, a lamb was
offered as a burnt-sacrifice, with a specified quantity of meal,
oil, and wine, all of which were doubled on the Sabbath. 8
Next came the thank-offerings, only a small part of which
was laid upon the altar, while the rest furnished a festive meal
to the offerers, after a due portion had been set aside for the
priest. Finally, there were the sin and guilt offerings. The
priests evidently made some distinction between these two,
though it is anything but clear in what it consisted. The
» Numbers vi. 1-21. a Leviticus i.-v. 8 Numbers xxviii. 1-1C
5]fi THE MOSAIC LAW.
guilt-offering appears to have been prescribed in the case of
grosser transgressions. It was often coupled with restitution,
and it required a male victim, generally a ram ; whereas the
sin-offering, for which a female animal would do, was de-
manded by slighter trespasses. Of course no festive meal
would follow these sacrifices. Only a part of the victim was
burned, but all the rest was given to the priests, who were com-
pelled to eat it in the sanctuary, and might not take it home.
Tho purpose of these atoning sacrifices, as well as of the
burnt-sacrifices, was to obtain forgiveness, which, according
to the doctrine of the priests, was secured by the blood of
the victims For in a certain passage in the Law we read : 1
"The soul of a living creature is in the blood, and I have
given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for j r ou, for
the blood makes atonement by the soul that is in it." Vol-
umes have been written upon this expression ! It has been
asked whether Yahweh accepted the soul of the victim instead
of that of the offerer, and in that case whether the guilt of
the sinner was "transferred to the beast, with other questions
of a like nature. But we must remember that such questions
as these throw no light upon the origin of the guilt-offerings,
which is no such great mystery after all. It is simply due to
the childlike idea that when the deity was offended he must be
propitiated by a present. The priest who indulged in this
speculation as to " the soul in the blood," did so not by way
of explaining the idea that underlay the sacrifices of atone-
ment, but in order to impress upon the Israelites, and even
the foreigners dwelling in the land, the necessity of abstaining
from the use of flesh with blood in it. As to the question
whether the Jews regarded the slaughtered victim as taking
the place of the offender who offered it, we need only remark
lhat the conception of vicarious suffering was quite familiar
both to them and to the peoples of antiquity in general. Re-
demption bj r substitution or fine was frequently prescribed ;
and, just as Abram in the legend offered a rain "in place of"
his son, 2 so the Israelite undoubtedly regarded the animal as
taking his place when he had laid his hand upon it with a
confession of guilt, and thus recognized it as his sacrifice and,
as it were, offered it himself.
It was anything but a good deed which the priests had done
in prescribing these several atoning sacrifices and enjoining
all these purifications. Nothing could be better calculated to
blunt the conscience. It is true that it was not every offence
l Leviticus xvii. 11. » Genesis xxii. 13.
THE MOSAIC LAW. 517
which the Law allowed to be thus washed ant, and that inten-
tional transgressions wore threatened with death, but the line
between intentional and unintentional offences is very hard to
draw. Must a careless oath, for instance, be regarded as an
intentional transgression ? The lawgiver allows such ' ' lip-
deeds" to be expunged by a guilt-offering, 1 but to place them
on a line with involuntary pollution is to impair the moral
sense, and to remove us far from the position in which such
men as Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, and Jeremiah place their hearers.
What a contrast between these minute subdivisions of the
diverse sacrifices and the free spirit of the prophet who ex-
claimed : 2 " Treat your burnt-offerings like ordinary sacrifices
and make a meal of them ! For when you came out of Egypt
I gave yon no precepts about these things, says Yahweh, but
commanded you to obey me."
Nehemiah's inexorable severity in enforcing the observance
of the Sabbath was altogether in the spirit of the priestly
legislators, who insisted with all their might upon the ancient
precept, " Remember to hallow the day of rest." They re-
garded the Sabbath as the everlasting token of the covenant
between Yahweh and Israel, constantly reminding the people
of their call to holiness. The penalty assigned to the desecra-
tion of this sacred day was nothing short of death ; for had
not even Yahweh himself rested after six days' labor ? s There
is a priestly story which enforces the fact that Sabbath-break-
ing was punishable with death by telling of a man who was
discovered gathering sticks on the Sabbath, during the wander-
ings in the desert. At first he was simply kept in confinement,
as no one knew what ought to be done to him ; but after a
time he was stoned to death at Yahweh's express command. 4
Not content with prescribing rest in general terms, the law-
givers endeavored accurately to determine how far this ab-
stinence from work must be carried, and what kinds of
employment were forbidden. They declared it illegal to light
a fire 5 or to prepare food, and appealed to the experience of
their forefathers in the desert, for whom a double portion
of the miraculous food provided by Yahweh always fell upon
the Friday, while there was none at all to be found on the
Sabbath, and those who persisted in going to look for it were
sharply reproved. 6 All manner of work was strictly forbidden
1 Leviticus v. 4. 2 Jeremiah vii. 21-23. 8 Exodus xxxi. 12-17.
* Numbers xv. 32-36. 6 Exodus xxxv. 1-3.
« Exodus xvi. 22-30.
618 THE MOSAIC LAW.
upon the great feast days also ; and aDy one who worked upon
the day of atonement must be rooted out. 1
Just as the seventh day of the week was holy, so every
seventh year was also consecrated to Yahweh as a Sabbatical
3'ear. In it the land must be left unsown and the vines un-
pruned. This precept is itself of ancient date ; but it is
melancholy to notice that whereas its observance was formerly
enjoined as a matter of humanity, all such motives are now
lost sight of. According to the ancient law 2 the spontaneous
produce of field and vineyard in the year of rest must be left
to the poor, but now it is expressly assigned to the owner
himself and his family. 8
Going on still further in the same direction, the lawgiver
now made every fiftieth year a Sabbatical year by pre-emi-
nence. 4 This sacred year was to begin on the great day of
atonement, and was called the •' 3 r ear of jubilee," from the
name of the trumpet (jobel) by which it was consecrated.
It was to be a period of freedom ; the land was to lie fallow ;
the poverty-stricken Israelite who had sold his heritage was
to receive it back again ; the Jewish slave was to be restored
to liberty.
This law about the year of jubilee remained a dead letter,
like so many others, but is none the less indicative of the
compiler's spirit. The soil of Canaan was Yahweh's posses-
sion, and they who had received it from him, and were as
strangers in his inheritance, might not permanently relinquish
it to others, inasmuch as it was not theirs. The lawgiver did
his best to regulate the life of the people in general, and of
each individual in particular, in accordance with such abstract
principles as these, and whenever he had the power he would
back his ordinances by force. "Whoever does otherwise
shall be rooted out," he constantly declares. But by whom?
Had a man like Nehemiah been in command of the requisite
power, there would have been no doubt upon that point ! The
magistracy would have carried out the law. But fortunately
for the people, the Jewish magistracy was rarely strong enough
to enforce these regulations. The only course was to leave
their maintenance to Yahweh.
Such are some of the principal injunctions of the Law!
There were a great many more that we have not given, and
1 Leviticus xxiii. 8, 7, 8, 28, 29, 30.
a Exodas xxiii. 10, 11; compare vol. ii. p. 185.
• Le /iticus xxv. 1-7. * Leviticus xxv 8-55.
THE MOSAIC LAW. &19
their number was always on the increase. The priests issued
regulations upon all conceivable subjects. The laws of in-
heritance, 1 the punishment of crime, and the customs of war 3
were as much within their sphere as vows, 8 priestly revenues,'
or purifications. No line was drawn between secular and
spiritual matters. The whole field of life was covered as far
as possible by religious laws, which had a constant tendency
to run into hair-splitting frivolity. The tendency is painfully
manifest in a certain chapter of Leviticus, 4 which is itself the
herald of ever-increasing degeneration. It attempts to answer
a difficult question by means of a fictitious narrative, which
takes us back to the wanderings in the desert.
Probably the author's purpose was to explain how it came
to pass that, though there were four branches of Aaronites,
none but descendants of Eleazar and Ithamar were to be
found amongst the priestly families. Accordingly he tells us
how Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, came by their
end. They had put unconsecrated fire in their censers, and
were therefore struck by lightning ; upon which Moses de-
clared that Yahweh was enforcing his demand for especial
reverence from those who drew near him ; namely, the priests.
Aaron smothered his grief in reverence for Yahweh's retribu-
tive justice, and Moses ordered certain Levites to remove the
bodies.
Aaron had done quite right in abstaining from loud demon-
strations of grief, and his surviving sons were not allowed to
bewail their brothers. Wailing did not become a priest, and
whatever blows might fall upon him he must not quit the
sanctuary, for he was anointed with Yahweh's oil. Then if
a priest suffered a heavy loss, must he behave just as if noth-
ing had happened? That was too much for even Moses to
require, as appeared from the following circumstance : Aaron
and his sons burned a part of a sin-offering which they ought
by law to have eaten inside the sanctuary ; and at first Moses
was very angry with them for this irregularity, but when they
pleaded in excuse their natural depression at the death of
Nadab and Abihu, he forgave them.
The conclusion reached by the lawgiver accords with our
own feelings. A priest, even a high priest, need not alto-
gether forget that he was a husband and a father. Though it
would violate his consecration were he to give free play to his
grief, yet when sudden deaths occurred in the bosom of his
i Numbers xxvii. l-ll, xxxvi. 2 Numbers xxxi.
» Levitii us xxvii. * Leviticus x
520 UNSUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION.
family he need not behave in all respects as if nothing had
happened, and might be pardoned for violating some of the
sacrificial laws. But how deadening must be the effect of a
law which tells a priest how far his grief may go !
The same triviality — inevitably leading to straining out
gnats and swallowing camels — may be perceived in a con-
siderable number of laws, and becomes gradually more and
more characteristic of the activity of the priests. Alas for
the man who yielded implicity to their guidance, and at
tempted to comply with the Law in all things ! The meshes
were drawn tighter and tighter until at last he could not take
a single step without the Law claiming the right of dictating
how he was to take it, while the constant terror of pollution
embittered all his days, and the very thought of freedom had
died from his heart !
Chapter XIX.
THE UNSUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION.
Numbers XVI., XVII. ; Isaiah LVI. 1-8, LXVI. 1-4, 20, 21; Jonah;
Psalm L.
THE very thought of freedom had died ! Then did all the
Israelites allow themselves to be bound hand and foot
without a struggle ? Was there no one left to stand where
the prophets had stood, to look clown with them upon all this
pomp of worship, upon all these regulations of the Law, and
comprehend that Yahweh could be served by no outward
shows and only required integrity and mercy from his wor-
shippers ? Or if this position was too lofty for the mass of
Jews, were there no hearts and minds still sound enough to
hate this sharp distinction between Jews and Gentiles, or
proud enough to reject the slavery of the Law ? Was every
Jew already steeped in the sacerdotal spirit ? Far from it !
Ezra and Nehcmiah had to carry their reforms in the teeth of
a violent opposition ; and we have already observed 1 that
however strongly calculations of policy and self-seeking may
have entered into the game, many of those who took part in
it were actuated by nobler motives. It is well worth while to
pass in review the various elements of the opposition.
We are struck to begin with by the fact that Tobiah and
l See p. 485.
UNSUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION. 521
the rest of Nehemiah's opponents were supported by a proph-
etess, Noadiah, and by certain prophets also. 1 Sanballat.
indeed, assumes that there are other members of the order
prepared to proclaim the governor king, and therefore of one
mind with him ; 2 but then again it is a prophet, Shemaiah,
who endeavors to entrap him. 8 And what is it that this She-
maiah tries to make him do ? To accompany him into the
temple for refuge. He could not have made such a proposi-
tion to Nehemiah with any hope of success if the law that no
layman might enter the temple had already been universally
recognized. The prophet evidently belonged to the laxer
party, which was known to advocate the opening of the sanc-
tuary to the laity. Had it been otherwise the trick would
have been too gross.
There are other indications of a freedom which scandalized
the priests. In the Second Isaiah, for instance, we read : 4
"The heathens of distant lands shall come and shall bring
your brethren, who dwell amongst them in exile, as an offer-
ing to Yahweh ; luxuriously upon beasts of burden shall they
bring them to Yahweh's holy mountain, as the sons of Israel
bring their gifts in a clean vessel to Yahweh's house. And
from them that are brought back, also, will I choose Levitical
priests, says Yahweh."
This is not the only indication that there were advocates
amongst the Jews of the universal priesthood of the faithful.
We see it also from a story in the Pentateuch, that probably
dates from Ezra's time or later. 6 It has been repeatedly re-
touched, and it is not always certain how much belongs to
the original story and how much to the subsequent additions.
The earliest portion probably contained a story of certain
Keubenites — Dathan and Abiram — who refused to obey the
summons of Moses, and were therefore swallowed up alive
by the earth. But one of the subsequent interpolators gave
them two hundred and fifty distinguished men of all the tribes
of Israel, as associates, who complained of the pretensions of
the Levites to the exclusive exercise of sacred functions.
" Are not all these holy also? Is not the whole community
of Israel consecrated to Yahweh?" Upon this Moses gave
them a challenge. They were all to come, each provided
with a' censer, to the tent of conference ; Aaron was to do
the same, and Yahweh would then show which of them he
accepted as his priest. Hardly had the smoke of their incense
1 Nehemiah vi. 14. 2 Nehemiah vi. 7.
» Nehemiah vi. 10-14. * Isaiah Ixvi. 20, 21. « Numbers xvi.
522 UNSUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION.
begun to rise when lightning darted from the sanctuary, and
the two hundred and fifty usurpers were consumed. There-
upon the priest, Eleazar, collected their golden censers, threw
the unholy fire out of them, and made a covering for Yah-
weh's altar of them. Thus whenever the Israelites looked
upon the altar, they might reflect that Yahweh would not accept
the service of any priests but those he had chosen. And
again, when the congregation murmured at the death of their
companions, and blamed Moses and Aaron for it, they had
to thank the very men they reproached for not being utterly
destroj'ed themselves by the wrath of Yahweh, for a pestilence
broke out amongst them and soon laid thousands of them
low, nor did it cease to rage until Aaron had appeased Yah-
weh by swinging his censer before him. Who could doubt,
after this, that he was the chosen priest of God?
This story marks the triumph of the Levites in their
attempt to assert their exclusive right to all the functions of
the temple. The universal priesthood of the people had for
some time many theoretical advocates, but practically it was
not easy to infringe upon the exclusive privileges of those who
had been in actual possession of most of the posts about the
temple from the return onwards. Certain families whom the
Levites could not expel, especially amongst the singers and
porters, they adopted into their own tribe by means of ficti-
tious genealogies ; 1 other families they forced to surrender
their functions whether they would or not ; and at last the
triumphant priestly tribe, successfully maintaining its pre-
tensions and forgetting to how many shifts it had been
reduced in securing them, saw its privileges generally recog-
nized ; and in this picture of the two hundred and fifty rebels
who dared to dispute them., it could depict the fate that awaited
every layman who should venture to claim the right of medi-
ating with Yahweh.
But when the rights of Levi as against all the other tribes
were firmly established, there still remained certain questions
as to the respective rights of the priests and other Levites,
one of which has left its mark in a second revision of the
story we are now discussing.
According to this second revision the rebels who joined
Dathan and Abiram were not Israelites of every tribe, but
a certain section of the Levites, namely the Korahites, who
were not content with their subordinate position in the sanc-
tuary, and aimed at the priesthood. To punish them the
1 1 Chronicles vi. Sl-i', xxvi.
UNSUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION. 523
earth opened at the command of Moses and swallowed them
up alive.
This story points to what must have been a great question
of the day when it was written. Had the powerful Levitical
family of the Korahites never aimed at the priesthood, then
Korah would not have been immortalized as the man who
went down alive with his followers to the under-world. A
later priest, who accepted the story as historical, was sadly
perplexed by the fact that Korah's family not only still existed,
but was held in high honor. He therefore took the liberty of
making a note to the effect that Korah's children did not
perish with him, 1 thereby contradicting the story itself, which
expressly says that both he and his were destroyed. 2 Possibly
the story is founded on the reminiscence of a conflict for the
right to the priesthood waged in the century after Ezra between
the Korahites and Aaronites, and not settled without blood-
shed at last. In that case we may suppose that the Kora-
hites had many supporters amongst the people, and that the
writer of this legend thought it very necessary to put forward
some telling defence of the privileges of the Aaronites.
The wider and deeper question of the relation of the whole
tribe of Levi to the rest of Israel is further illustrated by
another legend, 8 which tells us how the Israelites murmured
at the exclusive assumption of the priesthood by the Levites,
whereupon Moses commanded the heads of the tribes to write
the names of their respective tribes upon their staves, which
he then deposited in the tent of conference. And behold !
next day Levi's staff, upon which Aaron's name was written,
was found in blossom, and even bearing fruit. So when
Moses showed this wonder to the sons of Israel, and gave
orders that Aaron's staff should be preserved as a perpetual
monument to prevent their ever murmuring again, all the
non-Levites'cried with one voice : " We are undone ! Which
of us would ever dare to draw near to Yahweh as a piiest ? "
Such stories, like that of Uzziah's leprosy, 4 no doubt made a
deep impression upon the devout public when the contest was
already nearly decided in favor of the Aaronites and the
tribe of Levi, and thus contributed largely towards securing
to the priesthood the privileges it had once gained, and 1 >
wards making the chasm between the priesthood and the laity
more and more impassable. But we learn from these
very stories and their denunciations of the opposing party
iNumbersxxvi.il. * Numbers xvi. 32. J Numbers xvii.
< 2 Chronicles xxvi. 16-21 ; compare vol. n. pp. 304 ff.
524 UNSUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION.
how hard a task the priests had had in smothering the voice
of freedom.
We have seen what stern measures Ezra and Nehemiah
found necessary to prevent the mingling of Israel with the
heathens. In this case, also, an exalted principle stood
opposed to their policy. Many of the nobles especially may
have contracted marriages with heathens from political mo-
tives, but there were manj' Jews who genuinely disliked the
national pride of which the reformers were but too full, and
who wished ax any rate to smooth the way for the heathens to
come over to Judaism. Such is the spirit of the following
prophetic utterance : * " Thus says Yahweh, Maintain justice
and do right, for my salvation is near and my righteousness
shall be soon revealed. Blessed is the man who steadfastly
does these things, who preserves himself from desecrating
the Sabbath and from all evil deeds. Let not even the
stranger who joins the people of Yahweh say, ' Yahweh has
shut me out ; I can never belong to his people.' Let not even
the eunuch say, ' I am but a dry tree ! ' for even they, if they
keep my Sabbaths and observe my covenant, shall receive a
heritage in my house and within my walls better than a herit-
age of children — shall receive an eternal name. And as for
the strangers who join my people out of love for me and
observe the Sabbath, I will bring them to my holy mountain
and will make them glad in my house of prayer, and their
offerings upon my altar shall be acceptable to me ; for my
house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. Thus
says Yahweh, who gathered Israel's scattered ones, ' I will
gather far more to them yet.' "
Though this prophecy was probably written during the
captivity or shortly after it, such sentiments do not soon
perish ; and those who held them must have had an open eye
for the virtues of heathens, must have allowed intrinsic ex-
cellence to counterbalance the stain of heathen birth. And
this was really the case with many Jews. Was not Caleb the
Kennizzite, whose trust in Yahweh's support had gained him
an inheritance in Israel, praised for his faith ? 2 Was not the
Canaanitish woman Eahab held up to admiration and her
posterity included amongst the Israelites, because she had
helped the people of Yahweh to conquer Canaan? 8 And
what is the purpose of the whole book of Ruth if not to show
how the gentle Moabitess, who had come over to the people
1 Isaiah lvi. 1-8. '■» See vol. i. pp. 356 ff. 8 See vol. i. pp. 34a, 343.
UNSUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION. 525
of Yahweh, was thought worthy to become the ancestress of
the great king David? 1
We may learn from the book of Jonah how completely
some of the Israelites had risen to the conception that Yah-
weh's love extended to all mankind, heathen as well as Jew.
The story runs thus : —
Jonah the son of Amittai — who is known to history as a
contemporary of Jeroboam II. 2 — was commanded by Yah-
weh to go to the great city of Nineveh and announce its fall
as a punishment for its wickedness. But the prophet was
very loath to obey the commandment, for he saw beforehand
what would happen. Yahweh was far too merciful to carry
out his threat ; and he, the messenger of God, would be put
to shame by the result. So he resolved upon flight, and took
his passage in a ship for Tarshish, hoping thus to elude the
vigilance of Yahweh. But he soon perceived the folly of this
thought, for Yahweh raised a mighty storm, and the ship was
in the greatest peril. In vain did the seamen pray to then-
several gods ; in vain did they ease the ship by throwing out
her freight : the fury of the storm was still increasing. As
the steersman looked anxiously round, his eye lighted upon
Jonah, who was lying near the helm in deep sleep. Upon
this he roused his careless fellow-voyager, not without indig-
nation, and urged him to invoke his god. Now, when the
fury of the storm still rose, the seamen determined at last to
draw lots and find out who it was that had so offended his
god as to make him pursue the vessel thus. The lot fell to
Jonah, and he had to tell them who he was, whence he came,
what he had done, and so forth. When he said that he was
a Hebrew, that he worshipped Yahweh, creator of land and
sea, and had endeavored to evade the commandment of his
mighty god, the sailors were filled with deadly terror. Now
they understood the reason of this storm. Thinking that
Jonah himself would be best able to direct them, they asked
him what sacrifice would appease the offended god, and he
answered gloomily, "Throw me into' the sea! Then the
storm will subside ; for I know that it has risen because of
me." But his companions were not so cruel as to take him at
his word immediately. They did their very utmost to reach the
land. All in vain ! How could they hope to resist Yahweh?
They did not doubt that it was he who had sent the storm ;
and when they perceived at last that there was nothing for it
but to sacrifice Jonah, they besought Yahweh not to hold
1 See vol. i. pp. 424 ff. 2 2 Kings xiv. 25.
526 UNSUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION.
them guilty of shedding innocent blood, and then they flung
the prophet into the sea. The storm subsided instantly, and
the sailors, overcome by such a proof of Yahweh's might, made
sacrifices and offered vows to him.
Meanwhile, however, Jonah did not perish. A great fish
had swallowed him by the ordinance of Yahweh, and in its
belly he sang a song of thanksgiving for his rescue, and
promised to offer up his prayers and sacrifices in the temple.
Three days afterwards the fish came to the shore by Yahweh's
command, and threw Jonah out uninjured.
Then Yahweh once again commanded Jonah to go to
Nineveh and announce its destruction ; and the prophet,
having now learned wisdom, did not resist again. Now Nine-
veh was an enormous city, three days' journey across. As
soon as Jonah entered he began to declare that in forty days
the city would be destroyed, and hardly had he preached a
single day before it was evident that his words were not in
vain. The Ninevites, from the oldest to the youngest, re-
ceived his word as a word of God, proclaimed a fast, and put
on mourning garments ; and no sooner did the king hear of
it than he rose from his throne, set aside his crown, his
sceptre, and all his splendor, went and sat in the ashes, clad
in deep mourning, and issued a proclamation commanding a
general humiliation : " Let man and beast fast and be clad in
sackcloth, and cry mightily to God ; let every one turn from
his evil ways and cease from violence." Perhaps if they all
repented thus, God might pity them and spare them. And
so it was. When God saw all their doings he pitied them,
and determined not to execute his threat.
But when Jonah learned this he was full of indignation,
and did not hesitate to tell Yahweh why he was displeased
at the city's being forgiven. Was it not just what he had
said when first he tried to escape from Yahweh's command ?
He knew that nothing would come of it. Yahweh was far
too merciful to destroy a great heathen city like Nineveh.
And now how utterly he. the prophet, was put to shame !
He only wished he could die ! To bring him to his better
senses, Yahweh only asked him to consider whether he did
well to be angry. But Jonah did not repent. Full of bitter-
ness, and still half hoping that his word would be made good
by the result, he went to the east of the city and sat down in
a meadow to see what would happen. Here, however, his
god found means of bringing home to him more clearly how
far astray hj3 passion had led him. A miraculous tree shot
UNSUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION. 527
up close to him, and grew so marvellously in a single day that
the prophet already rejoiced in its shadow ; but in the night
a worm came and gnawed at the root of the tree so that it
withered, and Jonah was once more exposed to the blazing
sun, while Yahweh raised a hot east wind to make it more
intolerable yet. Tortured in mind and body the unhappy
seer longed again to die, and mourned over the beautiful tree
that had perished in a single night. Then Yahweh spoke to
him once more, and showed him the perverseness of his heart.
His pity had been stirred by a tree, for the growth of which
he had not toiled, which had shot up in a single night, and
perished again in a single night ; and should not Yahweh take
pity upon the great city of Nineveh, in which there were a
hundred and twenty thousand little children who could not
tell their right hand from their left, and great herds of un-
offending cattle ?
This story is rich in meaning if taken as a poem, though
senseless enough if taken as history. It shows us what was
going on in many a Jewish heart and mind in the time of Ezra.
What had come, people asked, of all those threats of judgment
which Yahweh had made by his prophets against so many
heathen places, including Babylon the chief city of his people's
oppressors? The Persian kings had spared it, and it still
shone forth in all its glory. Were all these preachers, who
had foretold its ruin, false prophets? Far from it! What
then? The writer of the book of Jonah answers : " Yahweh
is merciful. When the heathens repent he is no longer wroth
with them ; " and at the same time he shows us, in the charac-
ter of the sailors, how merciful the heathens sometimes are,
and how ready to worship Yahweh.
This is a most touching and beautiful solution of the problem
by which the prophets felt more and more perplexed as time
went on. As long as the belief was held that people really
might receive direct revelations from the deity concerning the
future, as long as eveiy prediction must be classed either as
an inspiration from Yahweh or as a lie, so long this answer
was the best that could be given to the question why heathen
cities, the fall of which had been proclaimed, did not really
perish. But those who gave this answer, or accepted it, were
no allies of Ezra.
Ezra and those who felt with him attached the utmost im-
portance to the service in the temple, and Malachi considered
that the neglect into which it had fallen was one of the chief
528 UNSUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION.
causes of Yahweh's wrath. But in his day also there were
some who proclaimed the insufficiency and even the super-
fluousness of temple services and sacrifices, and they had
probably made their influence more or less distinctly felt on
occasion of the rebuilding of the sanctuary on Mount Zion.
It was probably at this period that a prophet uttered the fol-
lowing words: 1 "Thus says Yahweh, Heaven is my throne
and the earth my footstool. What manner of house, then,
will ye build for me, and what manner of resting-place will ye
prepare me ? It is I myself who made all these and caused
them to exist, says Yahweh. But I look upon him who is
humble and contrite in heart and fears my word. Who slays
an ox slays a man ; who sacrifices a sheep breaks a dog's neck ;
who brings a meat-otfering to the altar makes an oblation of
swine's blood ; who burns incense praises in vain. If they
choose their own wa}* and delight in abominations, I too shall
choose to mock them and terrify them, because they have not
answered to my voice nor hearkened to my words, but have
done what is evil in my eyes, and delighted in that which I
hate."
It certainly appears as if this prophet rejected the whole
system of sacrifice, in the mass, and even pronounced it an
abomination ; but we shall probably be nearer the truth if we
simply understand him as expressing disgust at the sacrifices
offered by those who did not attend to Yahweh's word. In
this feeling, at any rate, he did not stand alone. We find it
expressed, for instance, in the following poem, which may very
well date from the time of Ezra 2 : -■—
Yahweh, the god of gods, is speaking ;
He calls the whole earth together from the rising of the sun to
its setting.
Yahweh 3 arises from Zion, the perfection of beauty.
Let our God come nigh and keep not silence !
A consuming fire goes forth before him,
And round him rages the storm.
He cries to the heaven above,
To the earth below, to judge his people.
" Collect my loved ones before me
Who have taken my covenant, confirmed by victims ! "
And the heaven proclaimed his sentence ;
For Yahweh, he is judge.
" Hearken, my people, that I may speak,
And Israel, that I may tell thee, I Yahweh, who am thy god
Not for the fewness of thy offerings shall I chastise thee ;
Thy burnt sacrifices are ever in my mind.
I will take no ox from thy house, <
Nor goat from thy folds ;
1 Isaiah lxvi. 1-4. 2 Psalm 1. 1-15. s Compare p. 190.
UNSUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION. 529
For all the birds of the mountains are mine,
All that moves in the fields my possession I
Were I hungry I should not need to tell thee,
For the earth with all that is on it is mine.
Should I eat the flesh of oxen,
And drink the blood of goats ?
Offer praise unto Yahweh,
And pay the Most High your vows.
Call upon me in the day of trouble !
I will deliver you and you shall honor me. "
The rest of the psalm contains Yahweh's sentence on the
godless, who are threatened with destruction for their theft,
adultery, lying, and deceit. In this latter portion of the poem
the reformers of Ezra's century could very heartily have joined,
but they would have been quite out of sympathy with the
slighting manner in which the external service is spoken of in
the earlier portion. It is true that in their better moments
they would have admitted with the psalmist that God takes no
delight in sacrifices, and that the only offering truly acceptable
to him is a broken and a contrite heart ; l but they would never
have said so spontaneously, and in practice their path and that
of the authors of these psalms were often widely severed.
To sum up our results, Ezra and Nehemiah were opposed
not only by those who felt no interest in their people and their
religion, but also by men who were guided by such noble prin-
ciples that we cannot but lament the defeat of their pure and
true conceptions. But this defeat was at the time inevitable.
In the first place, the position which these heirs of the great
prophets took was far too lofty for the mass of the people to
be able to rise to it ; and in the second place, they were neither
at one with each other nor consistent with themselves. Look
again, for instance, at the beginning of the psalm just quoted,
where Yahweh comes in thunder out of Zion, and where he
speaks of his covenant as confirmed by the sacrifice of victims.
How strangely out of keeping it is with the sequel in which
he declares that he desires no sacrifices, and looks with pleas-
ure upon the contrite heart. This internal contradiction, the
result of a union of old and new conceptions, which we have
noted elsewhere also, 2 is quite enough to account for the weak-
ness of the advocates of these views as a party. If a party
is to be strong, it must- be clearly conscious of its aim ; it
must, if possible, embody it in visible forms, distinct, doc-
trines, and definite enactments; in a word, it must adopt
i Psalm li. 16, 17 ; compare p. 60. 2 See pp. 245 ft".
vol.. ii- 23
530 UNSUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION.
what we call a " programme." Ezra's party did this, but that
of his opponents could not.
Observe, moreover, that the cry of freedom is always liable
to be taken up by those who have no real earnestness of char-
acter, and it generally has appearances against it. Ezra's
programme, — the separation of Yahweh's people from the
heathen ; the service of the temple flourishing under the well-
ordered superintendence of the priesthood ; Yahweh's people
a holy people, — this had the ring of an earnest purpose, and
the men who supported it were sternly strict and upright.
But it requires a rare amount of genuine piety permanently
to maintain in all their strength such beautiful principles as
that Yahweh's love extends to all men, that every believer
may be a priest, that Yahweh demands nothing but a virtuous
life. Freedom is apt to degenerate into license. Moreover, a
shrewd sense of self-interest often dictated alliances with the
heathen ; some of the priestly offices had good incomes attached
to them ; it was cheap to neglect the temple service, — and it
is fatal to the party of progress when the profession of liberal
principles becomes " advantageous."
Finally, we must remember that the prophets found ever-
increasing difficult}' in gaining recognition as messengers of
Yahweh, and even in the closely connected task of genuinely
believing themselves to be such. The book of Jonah shows
us the difficulties with which they had to wrestle. " Yahweh
was too merciful to destroy a great city, even of heathens."
This solution was a very beautiful — evasion. The fact was
that most of the prophecies launched against the heathens had
simply remained unfulfilled. The discovery that Yahweh's
mercy was the cause of this does credit to the writer who
made it, but its natural result must inevitably be that prophets
would not care to announce a judgment upon any heathen city,
or if they did they would gain no credence. Nor was this the
only kind of unfulfilled prophecy. The truth of the predic-
tions of Israel's greatness was likewise still without proof.
No wonder that the prophets lost their self-reliance, and
therefore received no revelations. The consequence was
that their inspiration and enthusiasm and the respect they
had previously enjoyed were no longer available to strengthen
their party.
Thus everything concurred to give the victory to Ezra. The
opposition long maintained the contest, but had to yield at
last when the bold scribe received the support of the temporal
power. Those of his opponents who were wealthy in many
REJOICING IN THE LAW OP YAHWEH. 531
cases left the country. The rest held their peace, or at any
rate were powerless to prevent the principles upheld by Ezra
from gradually sinking into the hearts of the people.
Chapter XX.
REJOICING IN THE LAW OF YAHWEH.
/ 2 Chronicles XXIX. 25-30, XXX. 18-20; Psalms LXXXIV.,
CXX.-CXXX1V., CXIX., XIX. 7-14.
WHEN we remember what difficulty Ezra and Nehemiah
had in introducing the priestly Law, and how they
smothered freedom and quenched the "spirit of prophecy in the
task, we might well suppose that the Jews had yielded to a
stern necessity in bending under the yoke of their institutions,
and that the triumph of the Law marked the commencement
of a spiritual slavery which choked the religious life. But
this would be a gross mistake. It is true that the supremacy
of the Law was in the long run fatal to that true piety which
cannot live without liberty ; but the way along which mankind
was led by the Law resembled many other wa3 r s that lead to
destruction in being broad and smooth at first. The Law
during the first centuries after its introduction was no burden
to the pious, but a joy. It was a yoke, indeed, but one which
they delighted in bearing.
In the first place they enjoyed the privilege of regular reli-
gious instruction, which had probably been rendered accessible
even during the captivity by the so-called synagogues or gath-
ering places, where the teachers expounded Yahweh's com-
mandments to all who wished to hear. Now when Ezra had
begun his reformation, and had afterwards continued it by
holding public meetings for the reading of the Law, under
Nehemiah's protection, the custom appears to have gradually
established itself, — first in Jerusalem and afterwards in every
place where Jews resided, — of constantly meeting to offer up
prayers and listen to the explanation of the Law. 1 At first the
men who devoted themselves to this exposition were generally
Levites or priests, but gradually laymen also came forward.
These interpreters were called Scribes, and gradually became
1 Compare vol. iii. pp. 178, 179.
532 REJOTCING IN THE LAW OF TAHWEH.
a distinct order. Jerusalem was naturally the centre of their
activity, but by degrees they made their light shine everywhere.
What the Chronicler represents as taking place under Jehosh-
aphat 1 did really happen after the time of Ezra : Levites and
priests travelled through the land with Yahweh's book of Law
to teach the people. The synagogue could never become the
scene of the regular Jewish worship, and could therefore never
rival the temple, to which the religious service in the stricter
sense was still confined ; but it provided to some extent for
the religious wants of the Jews who were prevented by the
length and difficulty of the journey from visiting Jerusalem
more than once or so in the year, and gave to all something
that they could not find in the temple service, namely, instruc-
tion. The Scribes, moreover, provided for the administration
of justice. Here, again, the Chronicler makes Jehoshaphat *
establish regular judges, and exhort them to remember that
their sentence is an utterance of Yahweh, and that they must
therefore act with integrity, while the supreme court at Jeru-
salem is to decide all doubtful points boldly and uprightly;
but in attributing all this to Jehoshaphat he is really describing
the state of things that was gradually realized in Judaea after
the time of Ezra. The people had good cause to bless the
Scribes. The whole tribe of Levi, to which at first these men
of the Law for the most belonged, rose higher and higher in
popular estimation, and was more and more exalted.
As a matter of course, the priests were profoundly attached
to the Law. It is true that it placed them, as well as others,
under many restrictions, by prescribing forms with which they
had to comply on all manner of occasions ; but this compliance
was quite easy, and was well calculated to secure them the
confidence of the masses. In proportion as the people not
only strictly complied with the regulations as to cleanness and
uncleanness and other matters to which every Israelite had to
attend, but enhanced the splendor of the temple service by
the strictness with which they offered the sacrifices prescribed,
in that proportion did all who were connected with the temple
become devoted to every external adjunct of the service.
The extent to which this devotion sometimes went may be
seen from the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, which
not only resemble each other in spirit, but were probably all
written by the same man, as late as the third century B.C.
We have already noticed more than once that this writer is
1 2 Chronicles xvii. 7-9. 2 2 Chronicles xix. 5-11.
REJOICING IN THE LAW OF TAHWEH. 583
far from a trustworjhy guide for the history of the period before
the captivity ; and that even in dealing with Ezra's century,
he sometimes confuses different periods in such an extraordi-
nary manner that we can only make use of his work with
confidence when it is evident that he is incorporating older
documents into his narrative. His work is therefore of little
value, as far as ancient times are concerned ; but it furnishes
a precious contribution to our knowledge of his own times,
inasmuch as his views of history indicate the character of his
own ideals.
He was unquestionably one of the servants of the temple,
and we may gather from the delight he takes in dwelling upon
the arrangements of the temple music that he was probably
one of the singers. Now this winter's ideal was of a truly
sacerdotal type ; and just as the author of the Book' of Origins
had described the times of Moses and Joshua as the period
when Yahweh's will was perfectly obeyed, so he depicted the
days of the kings who were known as pious, — David, Jehosha-
phat, Hezekiah, and Josiah, — as the golden age of his ideal
Yahweh worship, with its splendid service, its numerous priest-
hood, and its carefully-regulated choir supported by a suitable
orchestra. In dealing with the history of David and his suc-
cessors we have frequently glanced by anticipation at what
the Chronicler says about them. 1 We may therefore be brief
in our sketch of his work and the spirit which it breathes.
The opening chapters 2 are taken up by certain genealogies,
especially of Judsean and Benjamite families and of the Le-
vites. Amongst them is a list of the high priests from Aaron
to the time of the captivit}*, 8 subsequently continued to the
time of Alexander the Great, 4 and also a genealogy which sets
forth how David's contemporary, the great singer Heman, was
descended from Levi through Samuel (whom we know to have
been an Ephraimite, and not a Levite at all 6 ) , and also how
Heman's celebrated brother artists, Asaph and Ethan (the
latter probably identical with Jeduthun) , belonged by descent
to the priestly tribe. 6 After devoting a few verses to Saul 7
the writer goes on to David, the king after his own heart, to
whom he devotes no fewer than nineteen chapters. 8 These
chapters contain a few short notices of David's heroes, evi-
dently taken from trustworthy sources, very short accounts of
1 See pp. 10 f., 166 f., 169 ff., 279 f. * 1 Chronicles i.-ix.
8 1 Chronicles vi. 3-15. 4 Nehemiah xii. 10, 11. 6 1 Samuel i. 1.
6 1 Chronicles "i. 22-28, 31-47. xvi. 41, 42, xxv. ; 2 Chronicles v. 12, xxix
13, 14, xxxv. 15 '1 Chronicles x. 8 1 Chronicles xi.-xxix
534 REJOICING IN THE LAW OF TAHWEH.
some of the events of his reign, taken from the same authori-
ties as those used by the books of Kings, but excluding al]
mention of David's conduct towards Uriah and Bathsheba, and
an elaborate description of how he conveyed the ark to Jeru-
salem, in accordance with the prescriptions of the Law, with
the assistance of * the priests and Levites and a full orchestra,
led by Heman, Asaph, and Jeduthun ; how he consecrated a
tent for it, and then regulated the details of the temple service
by anticipation. In describing Solomon's temple the Chroni-
cler is less detailed, but he enlarges upon some of the sacred
utensils, and does not forget the choir of Levites in describing
the dedication of the temple. 1 In other respects his notice of
the wise and wealthy king is brief. 2 After mentioning the re-
volt of the Ten Tribes 8 he almost entirely loses sight of the
northern kingdom, and confines his attention to Judah and
Benjamin, the tribes over whom the house of David ruled, and
amongst whom — a matter of far more consequence in his eyes
— Aaronites of the tribe of Levi officiated as priests.
The writer's special tendencies become most manifest when
he finds a story in his authorities with a decidedly unorthodox
look about it, and feels compelled to give it a more or less
violent twist in order to escape the appearance of throwing a
slur upon the pious men of a former period. From this point
of view it is interesting to find him stating that David only
sacrificed upon Araunah's threshing-floor because he was too
much terrified to go to the Tent of Conference ; 4 that Solomon
worshipped Yahweh at the bamah of Gibeon because the old
Mosaic tabernacle was there, 6 and that the priest, Jehoiadah,
had brought about the revolution which placed Joash upon the
throne 6 with the aid of the Levites, not that of the body-guard.
He cannot be acquitted of narrowness in these cases ; but
when he tells us, for example, how Hezekiah purified the tem-
ple, caused the Passover to be celebrated throughout Israel,
and regulated the temple worship,' he throws his whole heart
into the narrative. In passing judgment upon him we must
never forget that he really loved the temple service, and loved
the sacred music. The necessity of being constantly on our
guard against accepting his statements does not give us a
pleasant impression of this man ; and it is therefore all tho
1 2 Chronicles v. 11-13, vii. 6 ; compare p. 86.
2 2 Chronicles viii.. ix. 8 2 Chronicles x.
1 1 Chronicles xxi. 28-30 : compare p. 31.
6 2 t Chronicles i. 3; compare p. 475.
2 Chronicles xxiii. ; compare p. 174.
' 2 Chronicles xxix.-xxxi. ; compare pp. 279, 280.
REJOICING IN THE LAW 0/ YABWEH. 535
more necessary to the formation of a fair estimate that we
slould remember how important an element of religion the
sacred music really supplied not only to him, but to many of
bis countrymen also. It made a profound impression upon
him and delighted his very heart to see the multitudes bowing
down upon solemn occasions as soon as the orchestra began to
sound the drums, the pipes, and the harps, and then when the
whole choir or a soloist sang the psalms of David or Asaph,
reverently bending to the earth again in sacred, festal joy. 1
His heart was in his work, and for that very reason his reli-
gious life could not be altogether choked by forms. This is
evident from what he tells us of the great numbers of Israel-
ites who joined in celebrating the Passover, to which Hezekiah
had invited all the faithful, though they were not Leviticahy
clean. He makes Hezekiah bless them with the words, " May
Yahweh, who is good, accept every one whose heart urges him
to worship the god of his fathers, even if he cannot do so ac-
cording to the purity of the sanctuary." ''And," the writer
adds, " Yahweh heard him and healed the people." 2 This is
a remarkable story, and, just because it is an invention, it
bears strong witness to the soundness of the writer's heart.
It was not every Jew who would have allowed that Yahweh
looks to the good intention rather than to external purity.
Such a sentiment, indeed, is really against the spirit of the
Law, and our writer's entertaining it shows that the deaden-
ing principles of formalism had not yet smothered his better
feelings.
This trait, however, stands almost alone, and in reading
Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, we are deeply impressed with
the danger incurred by any one whose affections are so com-
pletely wrapped up in the outward splendor of worship ; the
danger, namely, of never getting beyond the outside, and of
losing the religious life in forms.
Of course this danger threatened those who were in the
temple every day more, than those who only visited it occa-
sionally. Custom generally goes far to blunt the feelings.
But, on the other hand, we may see from a number of the
psahns how profoundly the magnificent service of the temple
impressed the ordinary Israelite ; how strongly he sometimes
felt that God was near when he trod the courts of the temple
Take this song, for instance 8 : —
i See 2 Chronicles xxix. 25-30. 2 2 Chronicles im. 18-20.
8 Psalm bacxiv.
536 REJOICING IN THE LAW OF TAHWEH.
How lovely are thy dwelling-places, Yahweh of war-hosts!
My soul pants and faints for desire of Yahweh's courts,
When body and soul cry out to the living God !
Even the hird finds a house,
The swallow a nest for her young to lie in !
And I have found * thine altars, O Yahweh of war-hosts,
My king and my God !
A blessing on the dwellers in thy house,
Who never cease to praise thee !
A blessing on him whose strength is in thee,
In whose heart is trust ! '
Passing through the valley of tears ' they make it a place of springs |
And the autumn rains cover them with blessings.
They go on from strength to strength
Who appear before God in Zion.
O Yahweh of war-hosts, hear my prayer,
Hearken, thou god of Jacob !
Look down upon him who is our shield,
Be gracious to thine anointed !
For one day in thy courts is better than a thousand others.
I would rather lie at the threshold of the house of God than
dwell in the tents of the wicked.
For Yahweh, God, is a sun and shield ;
Yahweh gives glory and honor ;
He withholds not good from them that live uprightly.
Blessed, Yahweh, is he whose trust is in thee !
Unfortunately there are several points of great obscurity
in this psalm. It is not clear, for instance, whom the writer
means by "Yahweh's anointed." The expression is usually
applied to the king of Israel, but there is no reason why it'
should not be used of the high priest also, who is called the
" anointed priest." 2 This is probably the meaning here. The
poem shows us how its author envied the priests. He would
rather be a Levite of the lowest rank, and watch at the thresh-
old of the temple, than enjoy the utmost luxury elsewhere !
Such sentiments may have been uttered in a moment of en-
thusiasm, but they reflect more or less faithfully the genuine
feelings of many a heart. The pious Jew found in the temple
the goal of his aspirations, the sacred spot where pure and
elevated feelings streamed through his soul, where the blessing
of his god came down upon him, and he was thrilled with
sacred joy. A Passover or feast of Tabernacles was in truth
a day of joy to him, in which he rose into a higher and purer
atmosphere, to which he looked forward with longing, and
upon which he looked gratefully back.
This song would have been well suited for singing by the
Jews on their yearly pilgrimage to the temple, both on the
1 Translation uncertain.
2 Leviticus iv. 3, 5, 16 ; vi. 22, and elsewhere.
REJOICING XN THE LAW OF TAHWEH. 537
journey, and still more on their entry into the city ; and we
find other songs in the book of Psalms which are not only
highly appropriate to such occasions, but were probably dis-
tinctly set aside, if not composed, for them. We still possess
a collection of fifteen poems, 1 most of them short, each of
which bears the inscription, " a song of Hammaaloth," that
is, a song of "the goings up," or pilgrimages. A few of
these we have already given, 2 and will now add a few more.
And first let us take the following cry of thankfulness : "
If there had not been Yah wen upon our side, —
So let Israel declare, —
If there had not been Yahweh upon our side
When men rose up against us,
Then they had swallowed us up alive,
When their wrath was hot against us ;
Then had the waters flowed over us,
The torrent had overwhelmed us ;
Yes ! then had we been overwhelmed
By the dire floods of water.
Blessed be Yahweh who gave us not up
As a prey to their teeth !
Our life is like a bird escaped from the fowler's snare ,
The snare is broken and we have escaped.
Our help is in the name of Yahweh,
The creator of heaven and earth.
The following poem 4 likewise celebrates the redeeming love
of Yahweh, and is as simple in its poetical conception, but as
warm in its religious feeling as the other : —
They who trust in Yahweh are like Mount Zion,
Which trembles not, but abides for ever.
As mountains surround Jerusalem,
So Yahweh encamps around his people,
Henceforth to eternity.
For the rule of the godless shall not endure over the heritage of
the righteous,
Lest the righteous put out his hands to iniquity.
Do good, Yahweh, to the pious ones,
And to the upright in heart !
But as for them who pervert their ways,
May Yahweh lead them on the path of ill-doers 1
A blessing upon Israel !
Very varied feelings are reflected in these songs. While
one gives utterance to high-wrought joy, another is inspired
by deep grief; and though a grateful recollection of the return
from Babylonia rings through them all, it is but too evident
i Psalms cxx.-cxxxiv. 2 See pp. 491,, 492, and vol. i. p. 52.
« Psalm cxxiv. 4 P8alm cxxv>
23*
538 REJOICING IN THE LAW OF HHWEH.
that Israel's present is far from bright in all respects. Read
the following psalm, for instance * : —
When Yahweh restored the fortunes of Zion,
We were like them that dream.
For our mouth was filled with laughter
And our lips with joy,
As they said amongst the heathen :
" Yahweh has done great things for them I "
Yes ! Yahweh has done great things for us !
And we rejoiced.
Yahweh, restore our fortunes once more,
Like streams in the south !
They that sow in tears
Shall reap in joy.
He that goes forth weeping with his handful of seed-corn,
Shall come back rejoicing, bearing his sheaves !
The reference to the streams in the south country depends
upon the suddenness with which dry river-beds are filled with
water when the rainy season comes in southern Judah.
In the next psalm which we shall give 2 the poet cries in one
breath for deliverance and forgiveness ; and properly to under-
stand this prayer we must remember that every kind of misery
was regarded as the punishment of sin ; and therefore on the
one hand confession of guilt and repentance appeared the
surest way to deliverance from temporal suffering, and on
the other hand every respite from trouble was hailed as a sign
of Yahweh's forgiveness : —
From the depths do I cry unto thee, O Yahweh I
Lord, hearken to my voice !
Let thine ears attend to my wailing !
Yahweh ! if thou didst remember transgressions,
Lord, who then could exist 1
But with thee is forgiveness,
That thou mayest be honored.
1 have waited upon Yahweh ;
My soul has waited, I have hoped in his promise.
My soul waits on the Lord more than they that wait for the
morning.
Ay ! more than they that wait for the morning.
Let Israel hope in Yahweh, for mercy is with him ;
Many are his ways of deliverance.
He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
The loading thought of psalm cxxxiii. has made it one of
the best known and most loved in the whole book : —
1 Psalm cxxvi. » Psalm cxxx.
REJOICING IN THE UTV OF YAHWEH. 539
Behold how beautiful and good
lis the dwelling together of brothers !
Like the precious ointment on the head,
That drops down upon the beard,
The beard of Aaron, and flows down to the fringe of his gar-
ment.
Like the dew of Hermon
Is the dew that falls on the mountains of Zion ; l
For there does Yahweh send the blessing
Of life for evermore.
Whal Aaron has to do with the matter is not obvious, though
the metaphor of the oil, that joins the hair of the head in
brotherly union with that of the beard, is clear enough. Per-
haps the opening lines are an elaboration — more pious than
poetical — of the proverb, " The dwelling together of brothers
is good, like oil poured out on the head and dropping upon
the beard."
The little collection is closed by the following exhortation
to the servants of the temple 2 : —
Praise Yahweh, all ye who honor Yahweh,
And serve in the temple of Yahweh by night !
Lift up your hands to the sanctuary,
And praise ye Yahweh !
May Yahweh bless you from Zion,
Even he who made heaven and earth I
"VVe need not multiply proofs that the public service in the
temple at Jerusalem was dear to the heart of the pious Jew.
And it follows, from the nature of the case, that the more
faithfully the people joined the pilgrimages to the sanctuary,
the more strictly they paid their tithes and other prescribed
contributions, and the more liberally they brought their free-
will offerings to Yahweh, the more magnificent would the ser-
vice become, and the higher would their delight in it rise in
consequence. But precepts concerning the temple service
only formed a portion of the contents of the Law, and we
might well believe that Israelites who were transported with
delight at the festivals and sacrifices, nevertheless groaned
under the yoke of the prescriptions as to the Sabbath and as
to cleanness. And this was doubtless not unfrequently the
case, for many of these ordinances were vexatious in the
extreme ; but, on the whole, the devout Jews were deeply
attached to the whole Law.
This is obvious from the glowing panegyrics passed upon
it in many of the psalms, amongst which the hundred and
i Translation uncertain. a Psalm cxxxiv.
540 REJOICING IN THE LAW OF YAHWEH.
nineteenth leserves to be mentioned first on account of its
great length. It is divided into twenty-two stanzas of eight
verses or sixteen lines each, and is occupied chiefly with bless-
ings upon those who observe the commands of Yahweh, and
prayers for the better knowledge of his Law. It is an alpha-
betical poem, of monotonous style and quite deficient in poetic
fire, but instinct throughout with devotion to the Law. The
following stanza may serve as a specimen. In the original
every line of it begius with the letter B: 1 —
Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way,
And abide in it, after thy word ?
With my whole heart have I sought after thee ;
Let me not wander from thy commandments !
I have searched thy word with my heart,
That I might not sin against thee.
Blessed be thou, Yahweh !
Teach me to honor thy precepts.
With my lips will I declare
Every utterance of thy mouth.
In the way of thy testimony I rejoice,
More than in greatest wealth.
Let me ponder on thy commandments,
And regard the path which thou hast prescribed.
In thy statutes I will take delight,
And never forget thy paths.
The glory of the Law is celebrated in a far more poetic
strain in some lines 2 which have been added to an older poem,
of which we have already given the opening 8 : —
The law of Yahweh is perfect, restoring the soul ;
The testimony of Yahweh is sure, making the simple wise ;
The statutes of Yahweh are right, rejoicing the heart;
The law of Yahweh is pure, enlightening the eyes ;
The fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring for ever ;
The commands of Yahweh are true, and righteous altogether
More desirable are they than gold, and much precious metal ;
Sweeter than honey or honey-comb.
And by them is thy servant enlightened ;
In keeping them there is great reward.
But as for errors, who can mark them *
Cleanse me from sins that I myself know not,
And preserve thy servant from the presumptuous,
That they may not have power over me !
Then shall I be found innocent,
And free from gross transgressions.
May the words of my mouth be acceptable to thee,
And ever remember the thoughts of my heart,
O Yahweh, my rock and redeemer I
» Vv. 9-16. s Psalm xix. 7-U. « See p. 314.
REJOICING IN THE LAW OF TAHWKH. 541
There is something strange in the sudden transition from
the praises of the Law and the poet's thankfulness that he is
privileged to know it, to this prayer for deliverance from the
power of the presumptuous ; but it is explained by the melan-
choly circumstances of the Jews and the current explanation
of their sufferings. Israel's fall was attributed to the sins of
the fathers, but the delay of the promised glory was due to
the uncleanness which still polluted Yahweh's people. They
were indeed doing their best to walk in holiness now, but they
were constantly made unclean without intending it. Alas for
all these sins which they did not so much as know !
This cry already foreshadows the constant terror of pollu-
tion by which the Jews of later ages were haunted and tort-
ured, which drove the Essenes into the wilderness, 1 and made
the very " plagues of the Pharisees" endurable ! But as yet
this terror only casts its shadow now and then over the joy of
the pious Jew in his possession of the Law. To the question
what privilege the Jew had over the heathen Paul answered, 2
" Especially this, that to him were the words of God en-
trusted ; " and in so saying he expressed a universal sentiment.
In former times the Israelites had traced the special manifest-
ation of God's goodness in his revealing his will by means of
the prophets ; but now the written word had completely taken
the place of the living revelation.
No wonder that the Jews exalted the supremacy of the
Law ; for under it their religion was, for a time, richer and
deeper than ever. The book of Psalms is the unanswerable
proof of it. We have already made many extracts from this
collection, but will now glance at it as a whole. It is well
worthy of our attention, for there is not another book in the
Old Testament that has so rich a history. No other collec-
tion of religious poetry in the world has ever exercised so deep
an influence, consoled so many sufferers, given strength for so
many in conflicts, and given words to the inmost thoughts of
so many pious hearts. The psalms owe their popularity more
especially to the fact that they generally give utterance to
purely personal feelings, which is seldom the case with the
prophets. However devout the latter may have been in their
own personal lives, their recorded thoughts refer for the most
part to their people. They were conscious above everything
of being members of Israel. They were oppressed by Israel's
sins ; they rejoiced in Israel's conversion ; saw a vision of
l See vol. iii. p. 127. 2 Romans iii. 1, 2.
642 REJOICING IN tHE LAW OF YAHWEH.
terror in Israel's fall ; and found their ideal in Israel's glory
in the Messianic age. This was very noble ; for to live for
others is an important element of true religion. But it is not
the whole of it. The sense of a personal relationship to God,
with all that it involves, — sorrow for personal sins, joy
in the victory over personal temptation, the hope of triumph
in the inner contest and of eternal life, — all this must
supplement the love of others if man is to be all he should
be ; and in all this the psalmists on the whole excel the
prophets.
Before touching upon a few details, let us glance at the
general composition of the book of Psalms. It is called in
Hebrew the " book of the songs of praise," and consists of
a hundred and fifty poems, though in some cases what was
originally one is split up into two ; 1 and, in others, two orig
inally distinct ones are joined together ; 2 and, again, there
are instances of the same psalm occurring twice with slight
variations. 8 These songs are divided into five books or col-
lections, the first four of which are closed with cries of praise
to God. 4 We must not suppose that these divisions were
made after the whole collection was completed, for some of
the books, and especially the first, existed separately at first,
and they were only united together gradualhy. The object of
the collector was evidently to furnish the choir of Levites at
the temple with a hymn-book. With this object he provided
many of the poems with musical notes which are, unfortu-
nately, almost wholly unintelligible to us. Probably the word
selah, which constantly recurs, 6 means that the full orchestra
was to join in at the point indicated, and the choir to change ;
while the note rendered in our Authorized Version " for the
chief singer," which frequently appears at the beginning of
psalms, 6 indicates that the song is to be performed by a
soloist. Other expressions, such as "to the neginoth," "to
the gittith," ' perhaps refer to well known tunes to which the
psalms in question might be sung.
Numbers of questions as to the origin of the book of
Psalms are still unanswered ; but one thing is certain, namely,
1 For instance, Psalms xlii. and xliii. ; compare p. 370. So also Psalms ix
and x.
2 For instance, Fsalin xix. ; compare p. 314, with p. 540. So also Psalm sxiv
8 Psalms xiv. and liii. ; compare p. 404. So also Psalms Ix. and cviii.
4 See Psalms xli. 13, lxxii. 18, 19, Ixxxix. 52, cvi. 48.
* For instance, in Psalm iii. 2, 4, 8.
• For instance, in Psalms iv., v., vi., viii.
1 For instaree, in Psalms iv., vi., viii.
REJOICING IN THE LAW OF TAHWEH. 543
that it was the hymn-book of the second temple. Most if
not all of the superscriptions which profess to give the authors
of the psalms are spurious. They attribute no fewer than
seventy-three to David, but we cannot place the smallest
value on the testimony ; and, indeed, most of the poems in
question are of decidedly late origin. No doubt there are
psalms which date at all events from before the captivity, but
the composition of the greater number, and certainly the
collection of the whole and the introduction of them into the
temple service, are subsequent to Ezra. Even those psalms
which the Jews did not compose under the supremacy of the
Law they adopted under its influence, and they are therefore
such as could wake a responsive echo in the hearts of the ser-
vants of the Law. In these songs they recognized their own
emotions, and found that they could sj'mpathize with the
poets in their prayers and lamentations, their joy and grati-
tude, and, alas ! the curses they launched against the enemies
of God, and their self-Jexalting pride in their own good deeds
and purity.
We must not overlook this darker side of the religious life
of the Jews. In their very hymns and prayers they could
utter the bitterest curses, 1 and often couple with them offen-
sive self-laudation, as we saw in the case of Nehemiau. 2
Utter sentence upon me, O Yahweh, for my ways are perfect,
And my trust is unshaken in Yahweh.
Test me, O Yahweh, put me to the proof,
Examine my heart and soul.
For I never forget thy favor,
And walk in thy faithfulness without ceasing. 8
A hymn composed in such a strain — and it is sustained
throughout — can give us no satisfaction. And this is not the
only one of its kind. This self-righteousness, however, and
the closely connected bitterness against sinners and heathens,
are in many instances no more than dark spots on a beautiful
whole. Deep veneration for the majesty of God, intensest
gratitude for all his benefits, a mighty trust in his redeeming
power, a firm faith in his fidelity unshaken by the sharpest
suffering, a deep sense of guilt leading to the confession that
God's chastisements are justified, and a living hope in his for-
giveness, — such are the emotions with which many of the
psalms are filled ; and side by side with the praises of the
Law stand those other songs pervaded by anything but
l See pp. 811, 312, 404. 2 See pp. 496, 496.
« PsaM xxri. 1-3.
544 JEWS UNDER GREEK SUPREMACY.
the spirit of externality, breathing of God's pleasure in a
contrite heart, and loudly proclaiming the insufficiency of the
whole system of sacrificial worship. The pious Jews did not
perceive the intimate contradiction between the two, for the
Law had not yet choked their religious life. On the contrary,
it flourished under it more richly than ever.
The two centuries that succeed the introduction of the Law
transcend all others in warmth and genuineness of piety.
Before them the principles of the religion of Israel had not
yet been sufficiently grasped by the masses of the people, and
afterwards they were gradually petrified until men no longer
rejoiced in the law of Yahweh, but groaned beneath the weight
of its yoke.
Chapter XXI.
THE JEWS UNDER GREEK SUPREMACY.
Daniel VIII. ; Esther ; Ecclesiastes ; Psalm XLIV.
' ' T WAS once in a vision on the banks of the Ulai ; and
A. there I saw a ram with two horns of unequal length,
the longest of which had grown up last. Now, this ram
butted violently to the west and the north and the south, so
that none of the beasts could stand before him, and he fol-
lowed his own will and grasped at power. But, as I was look-
ing, there came a goat with one great, terrific horn, storming
from the west, and he fell upon the ram and vanquished him,
and broke both his horns and trampled him under foot. Then
this goat grew exceeding strong ; but when he was mighty
beyond measure his great horn was broken off and there came
up four strong horns instead, pointing to the four quarters of
heaven. Then there came up a horn out of one of these four,
which was small at first, but afterwards grew mightily and
turned towards the south and the east and towards the holy
land. This horn grew up as high as heaven, and hurled
down some of the stars from heaven and trampled them un-
der foot ; and even exalted himself against the Prince of the
stars, put a stop to his daily sacrifice, and devastated his sane
tuary. He poured contempt upon the true religion, and his
JEWS UNDEB GREEK oCPREMACY. 545
work of sacrilege succeeded but too well." 1 So we read in
the book of Daniel, which we shall examine in the next chap-
ter. The author himself explains the meaning of the vision : a
The ram with the two unequal horns is the kingdom of the
Medes and Persians. The hairy goat is Greece, or rather
Macedonia ; the great horn is Alexander the Great ; the shoot-
ing up of the four horns in the place of the one is the division
of Alexander's kingdom into four : but all this is simply
touched upon, and the horn that was small at first and then
became great and defied the God of heaven, finally occupies
the whole scene. This horn is a king, bold and crafty, power-
ful and impious, who practises unheard-of atrocities with
unparalleled success, conquers princes, oppresses the holy
people, waxes still prouder and prouder, rebels against God
himself, — until at last he is crushed by the Supreme Power.
This king can only be Antiochus IV., surnamed Epiphanes,
the king of Syria.
Such is a bare outline of the history of the Jews, and with
the exception of a few allusions in another part of the book
of Daniel, 3 it is all that the Bible has to tell us of the people's
fortunes from the time of Nehemiah to the middle of the
second century B.C. Judasa fell, with the rest of the Persian
kingdom, into the hands of Alexander the Great (332 B.C.).
After his death it was passed backwards and forwards be-
tween the Egyptian and Syrian princes, and was fiercely torn
by wars and dissensions, until at last it was definitely incor-
porated with the Syrian kingdom, and enjoyed a season of
repose (203 B.C.). The whole period in which Judaea was
a Grecian province furnished an unfavorable contrast to that
in which the Persians had ruled it ; for whereas the religious
usages of the Persians had had a great attraction for the pious
Jews, the customs of the Greeks were strange and hateful to
them. But their actual martyrdom only began (167 B.C.)
when Antiochus IV. laid waste the synagogues, erected the
" abominable sin" of an altar to Jupiter in the court of the
temple, compelled the Jews to work on the Sabbath and to
eat pork ; in a word, attempted to abolish their religion by
force. To this period of martyrdom an end was only put by
the heroic insurrection of the Maccabees, followed by a des-
perate war. . . .
But we must pass over all the events of this period in
silence, since they are not touched on in the Bible, and con-
fine our attention to what we know of the religion of the Jews
1 Daniel viii. 2-12. 2 Vv. 13-25. 3 Daniel xi.
546 JEWS UNDER GREEK SUPREMACY.
during these centuries, and to a few remarkable products of
their literary activity.
The main features of this survey have already been pre-
sented in the last chapter. For what we have said of the
activity of the priests and scribes, and the deep religious life
of the Jews, applies especially to the period we are now dis-
cussing ; for it was after the fall of the Persian monarchy, and
not before it, that the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehe-
miah were written, and manj- of the psalms composed. All
we have now to do is to fill in the sketch.
In the first place we must note that with all their reverence
for the written word, the priests and scribes were by no means
slaves to the precise form in which they had received it. In-
deed, this was hardly possible as long as there was no official
list of the books to be regarded as sacred writings, and each
one had to make his own selection, rejecting one and accept-
ing another. In fact the scribes still took considerable liber-
ties with the written law, and continued to incorporate many
fresh regulations in it as to public worship and other matters.
There is one rather long section of the Pentateuch which was
not written till after Alexander the Great. 1 And again, both
now and at a still later period, alterations were made in the
text here and there to avoid scandal. 2 Nor did the religion
of the people remain stationary ; for the simple reason that
it was not dead. Opinions changed and developed ; one
conception came to the front while another sank into the
background ; new customs came into fashion and old ones
fell into disuse.
A profound influence was exercised upon the religion of
the Jews by that of the Persians. Yahweh had always been
thought of as surrounded b3' angels ; but it was under Persian
influences that an elaborate system of angelology arose, in
which the angels were divided into orders ; their princes, the
archangels, had names given them, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel,
and so on ; and special tasks were assigned them as guardians
of peoples or individuals. Again, according to the ancient
doctrine, Yahweh made everything, both good and evil ; but
now the Persian doctrine of two gods made its influence pow-
erfully felt. The Second Isaiah evidently saw the growing
influence of the conception that Yahweh, like the Persian
Ahuramazda, created only what was good, and he opposed
it in the words, 8 " I form the light and create darkness; I
1 Exodus xxxv.-xl. 2 Compare vol. i. pp. 391 f. » Isaiah xlv. 7.
JEWS UNDER GREEK SUPREMACT. 547
ma»ce peace and create evil ; I, Yahweh, and no other." But
his opposition was in vain. Gradually Satan, as the author
of all evil, was established by the side of the Lord of war-
hosts. Thus when the Chronicler read in his old authorities
that Yahweh urged David to number his people, in order that
he might have a reason for chastising them, 1 he substituted
the statement that it was Satan who rose up against Israel
and urged David to take the census. 2 In the third place,
though the Jews did not borrow the doctrine of the resurrec-
tion of the dead from the Persians, yet it was under the influ-
ence of their beliefs that it made its way amongst them. 8
It cannot surprise us, however, that the Scribes themselves
always imagined that they were clinging exclusively to the
doctrine of the fathers, and that, like the prophets and priests
of a former age, they would sanction no fresh usages unless
they had previously received the stamp of orthodoxy. Just
as Ezra and his contemporaries incorporated many heathen
usages into the Law, as though they were direct precepts of
Yahweh and in perfect harmony with his worship, so now
heathen usages could easily make their way in the Jewish
system, if only they could furnish themselves with orthodox
explanations.
A striking example of this process is furnished by the intro
duction, or rather the legalization of the feast of Purim, by
means of the book of Esther. The contents of this book are
something as follows : —
There was a great feast at the court of Ahasuerus, the
mighty king of the Persians, who ruled over a hundred and
twenty-seven provinces. The splendor of the palace was
dazzling, and the luxury of the feast ravished the senses.
After seven days, the intoxicated monarch thought he should
like to display his queen Vashti amongst his other glories, for ,
she was transcendently beautiful. . Bnt she refused to come at
his command, upon which he degraded her from the throne at
the advice of his nobles, who were afraid of their own wives
imitating the queen and refusing to obey them. Some time
afterwards Vashti's place was taken by Esther, a Jewish
orphan brought up in the house of her uncle, Mordicai, who
came into the court of the palace every day from the time of
his niece's exaltation onwards. Esther fully deserved the
high honor she had received by her extreme docility, for sha
1 2 Samuel xxiv. 1. 2 1 Chronicles xxi. 1; compare p. 31.
8 Compare pp. 395, 396 ; vol. iii. chapter xxx.
548 JEWS UNDER GREEK SUPREMACY.
not only won the heart of the chief ruler of the harem by
allowing herself to be absolutely guided by him in the selec-
tion of her adornments, but even when she wore the queenly
crown was just as submissive to her uncle as she had been
when an inmate of his house. At his command she concealed
her nationality.
After Esther's promotion, Mordicai did the king a great
service, for he discovered that two of the chamberlains were
plotting against his life, and told him their names, through
Esther. Their guilt was evident, and they were put to death ;
but the king forgot to reward Mordicai, though Esther had
not neglected to tell him the name of the man to whom he
owed his life.
Mordicai, therefore, remained without any special distinc-
tion ; but another of the king's subjects rose from one step of
honor to another. This was a certain Haman ; and since he
was such a favorite of the king, everybody cringed before
him, except Mordicai, who was so proud that in spite of re-
peated warnings he refused to fall down upon the earth before
Haman as he entered or quitted the palace. When Hainan's
attention was called to this he was excessively angry, and,
not satisfied with simply planning the death of so insignificant
an offender, he determined to compass the destruction of all
his countrymen, the- Jews. To do this he would need the
king's consent ; but he had no difficulty in obtaining it when
he promised to pay ten thousand talents into the roj r al treasury
out of the confiscated goods of these Jews. The only ques-
tion left to decide was the date for the massacre. Haman
decided the question by lot, and was thus led to fix the thir-
teenth day of the twelfth month. Accordingly, the order to
massacre and plunder the Jews in the king's name was openly
promulgated just eleven months in advance !
No sooner was it published than a cry of terror rose from
the Jews in every portion of the kingdom, as they fasted in
sackcloth and ashes. Mordicai also appeared in mourning at
some distance from the palace ; and when Esther sent a mes-
senger to ask the cause of his sorrow he told her of the king's
decree, and at the same time commanded her to entreat her
husband's grace on behalf of her own and her uncle's people.
Obedient as she had always been before, Esther now pleaded
that it was death to approach the king uninvited ; but Mor-
dicai still insisted, and reminded her that she herself, as a
Jewess, was involved in the common danger. Besides, he
said, it was perhaps a dispensation that she had been made
JEWS UNDER GREEK SUPREMACY. 549
queej just in time to save her people. On receiving this
answer she sent to beg him to fast with her three days, and
promised to make the venture.
She was successful. The king graciously extended her the
golden sceptre as a sign of favor, and asked her what she
desired, whereupon she invited him to come with his favorite
Haman to feast with her. What an honor for Haman ! As
they sat at wine, the king asked Esther to declare her request,
and promised to grant it though it should be half his kingdom.
But apparently she could not bring herself to make it, and
begged the king to come and feast with her again next day, —
and to bring Haman with him. The extraordinary honor
shown to his favorite may have begun to surprise the king,
but Haman himself was intoxicated with vanity as he went
out. Picture his rage at seeing that detestable Jew at the
gate of the palace again, refusing to bow to him ! He went
home and expatiated to his wife, his relatives, and his retainers
upon all the wealth and honor he enjoyed, culminating in the
renewed invitation to feast with the king and queen. "But
yet," he added, " it is all nothing as long as that Jew Mor-
dicai sits at the gate of the palace ! " " Then build a gallows
fifty cubits high, and hang him on it ! " cried his friends.
Haman thought it a capital suggestion, and the gallows soon
reared its threatening form !
But mark what now took place ! That night the king
could not sleep, and he ordered some one to read the royal
archives to him. When they came to the conspiracy that
Mordicai had discovered, the king asked whether any reward
had been given him, and his servants answered, No. Mean-
while the morning had come, and Haman was already in the
palace to ask the king's permission to hang Mordicai. The
monarch sent for him, and asked him what ought to be done
to the man whom the king desired to honor above all others.
Thinking that this could only mean himself, Haman declared
that the man should be clad in the royal garments and seated
on the king's favorite horse, with his crown upon his head,
and that he should then ride through the city, preceded by
one of the grandees of the kingdom c^ing out, ' ' This is the .
man whom the king delights to honor ! " Then the king, to
Haman's utter dismay, replied, " Go instantly and do all this
to Mordicai, the Jew!" There was no resisting the com-
mand, and Haman at once obeyed. When all was over he
returned in grief and shame to his house, and told his wife
and friends what had happened, to their great consternation.
Fall of gloomy forebodings they gave him but cold comfort
550 JEWS UNDER GREEK SUPREMACY.
as to the future, — but at that very moment a messengei
came to conduct him to the queen's feast !
Again king Ahasuerus asked the queen, as they sat at wine,
what it was she desired, and she cried in deep emotion, " It
is my own life, O king, and the lives of my people ! There is
a man who is bent on slaying us all." " Who is he?" asked
the half intoxicated king ; and when she said it was Haman,
he started up in a fury, and went out and paced up and down
in the garden. Then Haman saw that his life was in danger,
and fell upon the queen's divan to implore for grace. But
this only served to hasten his fate, for the king was offended
at his coming so near the person of the queen. The keepers
of the harem, too, who cringed before the mighty favorite a
moment before, were now anxious to curry favor with the
king in his fall, and one of them ventured to suggest that a
gallows erected for Mordicai's benefit was standing in front
of Hainan's house ! The hint was quite enough. In a few
moments Haman was hanging on his own gallows at the
king's command.
Mordicai was soon installed in the fallen noble's place, and
the relations of the Jews to their persecutors were now com-
pletely reversed. Since every law of the Persians and Medes
was irrevocable, the royal decree already issued remained in
force, but a second was now universally promulgated, giving
the Jews permission to defend themselves and even to attack
and plunder their enemies on the day appointed for their
massacre. What rejoicings there were amongst the Jews !
Feast succeeded feast, and when the day they had formerly
dreaded so much at last arrived, they took ample advantage
of the permission granted by the king. In Susa alone they
slew five hundred of their foes, including the ten sons of
Haman, but they took no plunder. Not yet satisfied with
their revenge, Mordicai and Esther begged that the bodies
of Haman's sons might be hung upon the gallows, and
that one more day might be granted to the Jews for the
slaughter of their enemies. The king consented ; and again
three hundred victims fell in Susa alone, and seventy-live
♦ thousand in the whole kingdom. But no plunder was taken
anywhere.
In memory of this deliverance Mordicai instituted a yearly
feast on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of Adar, the twelfth
month, and called these days I'mim after the Persian word pur,
or " lot," because Haman had fixed the day for the massacre
of the Jews by lot. Mordicai continued to be the first
minister of king Ahasuerus.
JEWS UNDER GREEK SUPREMACY. 551
The story is a tissue of glaring impossibilities from first to
last ; nor can the derivation of the name of the Purim feast,
upon which it all turns, be accepted as correct. Imagine a
king consenting, at his minister's instigation, to put thousands
of his peaceable subjects to death, and the minister determining
by lot the day upon which this colossal massacre is to take
place, and then giving eleven months' public notice of his in-
tention to every one, including his intended victims ; who are
nevertheless so powerful that, when permitted to do so by the
king, they are able to slaughter seventy-five thousand Per-
sians in two daj^s. If the king had withheld his permission,
would they have allowed themselves to be slaughtered like so
many sheep? And, not to multiply instances, would the
Jews have named the feast of their deliverance after the
incidental use of the lot? The whole book is probably a
fiction from beginning to end, and we should not even be
justified in inferring from it that king Ahasuerus (that is
Xerxes) was hostile to the Jews. What the name of Purim
really signifies, and what was the true origin of the feast,
we cannot tell with certainty. Possibly it was a Persian
feast at which festivities were held and presents interchanged.
I n that case the Jews who lived amongst the Persians adopted
it from their neighbors, and the writer of the book of Esther
desired to find a place for it in the Jewish religion by the ex-
planation he gave of its origin. He was completely success-
ful. The days of Purim or of Mordicai have been observed
as a festival down to the present day.
The book of Esther is inspired by a thoroughly bad spirit
of intolerance, national pride, and vengefulness. In the whole
work there is but one touch of a more generous feeling, but
one little point of light in the darkness of the great picture ;
and that is the statement that the exasperated and murderous
Jews never laid their hands upon any plunder, and thereby
showed that it was not the base lust of wealth, but the rather
less base lust of vengeance which urged them on. The heart
of the man who could write such a story must have been filled
with ugly passions, and it is far from creditable to the Jews
that they should have accepted the book and finally recognized
it as a sacred writing. But we cannot be surprised at their
doing so, since they considered hatred of the foes of Israel
and his god a merit rather than a fault.
The evil spirits of vengeance and arrogance possessed the
most zealous Jews far more strongly under Greek than under
Persian supremacy. And this is why we have dealt with the
book of Esther in this connection. Though it professes to
552 JEWS UNDER GREEK SUPREMACY.
place us under the Persian king Xerxes, it really dates from
the time when zealous Jews sighed under the Greek princes
•who succeeded Alexander the Great. After the incorporation
of Judsea in that monarch's kingdom, circumstances stimulated
a violent opposition to heathen influences, and consequently to
the heathens themselves, on the part of the more zealous Jews.
As foreign manners began to exercise a growing fascination
on the Jews, and the special Jewish character incurred ever
greater danger of being lost, the champions of Jewish nation-
ality, amongst whom the author of Esther must be reckoned,
redoubled their efforts to preserve it.
There was certainly good cause for alarm, since the Greek
spirit was making itself powerfully felt in Judaea. Manj* of
the Jews were dissatisfied with the path their people were tak-
ing in matters of religion ; and while man}' rejoiced in the
Law and the service of the temple, others were tortured with
doubts as to the truth of the religious philosophy of life which
still prevailed around them.
Profound and serious doubts, as to the truth of the doctrine
handed down from the fathers, are generally to be found in
but few hearts. Most men are too superficial to entertain
them. 1 But the book of Ecclesiastes shows that there were at
any rate some Jews in the Grecian period who not only felt
these doubts, but were almost rent asunder b3 r them. We will
now examine this work.
It begins as follows : ' ' Words of the Preacher, the son of
David, king in Jerusalem." But the writer has not the least
intention of really passing himself off as Solomon. He says
expressly: 2 "I, the preacher, was king of Israel," as if he
■were bringing the shade of Solomon upon the stage. He sim-
ply puts his own thoughts into the mouth of Solomon, whom
he presents under the name of the Preacher, or rather "the
Preacheress ; " that is to say, Wisdom.
The book has often given offence both in ancient and mod
ern times. And no wonder. Like the book of Job, it is tho
fruit of deep-rooted doubts as to the government of God, but
it lacks the solemn though highly unsatisfactory solution of
the problem which we find in Job.
" Vanity of vanities ! everything is vanity ! " Such are the
words in which the preacher begins to unbosom himself. Man,
he goes on to say, gains nothing from all his toil ; Nature re-
peats the old round with wearisome monotony, and there ia
nothing new under the sun ! The preacher took delight in
1 Compare p. 468. 2 Ecclesiastes i. 12.
JEWS UNDER GREEK SUPREMACY. 553
seeking wisdom, but even that is a bootless endeavor. Indul-
gence of the senses — is vanity. The rich man's life — is van-
ity. The pursuit of knowledge — well, wisdom is better than
folly ; but when all is said and done, the wise man and the fool
both die, and there is the end of it ! Life is misery. One
thing succeeds another, and people choose to call this succes-
sion " good," but who knows why? Enjoy what you can get,
and trouble yourself about nothing else ! For injustice is tri-
umphant , and the end of a man is like that of a beast. Death
is better than life, for life is full of misery, — and yet after all
a living dog is better than a dead lion ; for the living do know
that thej T wilL die, but the dead know nothing at all ! We
must submit to God. What else can we do ? It is best to be
prudent and to fear God, and if a man can enjoy his wealth
with an easy heart so much the better. There are strange
things to be seen under the sun — for instance, a righteous
man destroyed by his goodness, and a scoundrel made pros-
perous by his villany. You should not aim at being too good
and wise, or you will only undo yourself. Yet take care also
not to be too stupid and wicked, for that is generally no less
fatal. But, in fact, there are not many people of understand-
ing, not one man in a thousand — and no women at all. Ev-
erything in the world is vanity, for what is the end of it?
Death ! And the dead know nothing and are forgotten, with
all their love and hate. So there is nothing better to do than
to enjoy life. Time and chance rule all things. If we do any
good we get no thanks for it. Live with as little care as you
may. After all, things often turn out better than one would
think. Young man ! enjoy your life, and forget not that God
will judge you by your deeds. Remember this : old age with
all its plagues 'is before you, and then death. Vanity of van-
ities ! In conclusion : Do not be for ever writing books, for it
is weariness of the spirit ; and keep God's commandments !
These specimens will suffice to characterize the spirit and
tendency of the book. Not only is it full of doubt, but it
offers no solution whatever of the riddles of life — not even
the- sublime though comfortless dictum of the book of Job,
"God is great and we comprehend him not!" Here, too,
God is great, but he is so great and so far off that man can
feel no affection towards him ; and the outcome of the whole
work is simply this : " On the whole it is best to enjoy life,
but to do so in moderation."
Such men as the writer of Ecclesiastes and those who agreed
■with him could hardly feel much enthusiasm for the Law and
VIM,. TI. ■ -• 24
554 JEWS UNDER GREEK SUPREMACY.
public worship. No doubt they duly made their sacrifices,
observed the ordinary laws of purity, complied — though not
very scrupulously — with the dietary laws, and kept the Sab-
bath decently ; but at the same time they could see what was
good in the heathens, like the sages of old, and did not exalt
Jewish peculiarities above everything else. Thus their sceptical
spirit and gloomy views of life strengthened the free thinking
party that asked for theatres and Greek works of art, and longed
to study foreign languages and read the books of the heathens.
Who knows what might have become of Judaism had not
Antiochus Epiphanes, by persecuting the zealots for the Law,
compelled them to concentrate all their strength in the attempt
to rescue their religion ?
Some of the psalms which were composed at this period re-
flect the sufferings of the devout Jews when their enemies
raged in the gathering places of God (that is to say the syna-
gogues), broke everything in them to pieces, and then set
them on fire ; when, above all, the great sanctuary, the place
where the Lord's name was established, was desecrated by
idolatrous practices, 1 and when the Syrians blasphemed the
name of Yahweh and oppressed his servants. 2 Alas ! they
thought with longing of the times when their god had rescued
their forefathers and expelled the heathens. 8 Ah ! he had
done mighty deeds in those days, for it was not the sword of
the warriors but the arm of God that had made them the heirs
of Canaan. And he would surely help them now again ! They
would not trust in sword and bow, but in Him alone. In Him
they still would boast. . . . But alas ! they cried, the}' were
put to shame ; their god did not support them ; they were
scattered abroad and sold into the hand of the enem}-. There
they stood in confusion of face, although they had not forgot-
ten their god, but had remained true to Him !
If we had forgotten the name of our God
Or stretched out our hands to a strange god —
Would not God search it out ?
Does he not know the secrets of the heart ? —
Nay, but for thy sake are we slain,
And counted as sheep for the slaughter.
Awake ! why sleepest thou, Lord !
Arise ! and cast us not off for ever 1
Why hidest thou thy face,
And forgettest our misery and oppression ?
For our soul is bowed down to the dust ;
Our body cleaves to the ground.
Stand up and help us !
Redeem us for thy mercy's sake !
l Psalm lxxiv. 4-8. 2 Vv. 10, 18-23. « Psalm xMy.
HOPE OF THE OPPRESSED BELIEVERS. 000
Chapter XXp.
THE HOPE OF THE OPPRESSED BELIEVERS.
Daniel I.- VII. ; Psalm CXVIII.
" A LL that could make us think of thee has vanished out
XX. of our sight, and there is no prophet left amongst us,
nor any one who can foretell how long it 3-et shall last." So
cried a psalmist in the period of humiliation, 1 and we may
well believe that many a devout sufferer, as he compared this
season of oppression with the days of the Assyrians and Chal-
dseans, was painfully impressed by the great change that had
taken place. In those days there were so many prophets to
exhort and comfort the people ; now there was not one. No
prophets had arisen for a long time back, and though no one
could explain the reason, yet an instinctive fear was felt that
none would come in future. And so it was. The days of
prophecy were over in Israel. Where the written word is su-
preme the men of the spirit cannot live. And yet encourage-
ment and consoling predictions were so sorely needed that
some means must be found of meeting the want ; and if it
was impossible for a pious Jew of the second century B.C. to
imagine, as men had done in former times, that God had
chosen him as the vehicle of his direct revelations and an-
nounced to him beforehand all that he was about to do, yet at
least he might partially supply the place of the living revela-
tion, and partially perform its functions by dint of studying, in
faith, the words of the ancient men of God.
We can now understand the origin of the book of Daniel.
A punctilious, rigidly orthodox, and firmly believing Jew had
been pondering prayerfully over the sufferings of his age, and
had opened the prophecies of Jeremiah. 2 There he read that
Israel and many other peoples should serve the king of Baby-
lon for seventy years. Had the prediction been fulfilled ? The
writer of Chronicles had boldly declared that it had, and had
noted Zerubbabel's return as the end of these ten sabbatical
years. 8 But every one did not agree with him, at any rate in
regarding this event as the complete fulfilment of the prophecy.
Three centuries ago the prophet Zeehariah, years after the re-
1 Psalm lxxiv. 9. 2 Jeremiah xxy. 11, 12, xxix. 10.
* 2 Chronicles xxxvi. 21 ; compare Ezra i. 1.
556 HOPE OF THE OPPRESSED BELIEVERS.
turn, bnd imagined when he saw the misery of his people that
Yahweh's wrath was still heavj upon Israel, and that the sev-
enty years were not yet over. 1 Were they over even now?
If so, where was the Messianic age that was to have dawned
directly after the seventy years ? Israel was still in suffering
and almost in exile. The faithful were still waiting for Yah-
weh as one waits for the morning, for it was still night —
darker night than ever, since Antiochus had come. Then it
followed either that the prophet's word was false or that the
seventy j T ears were not yet over ; and inasmuch as it was im-
possible that the word of God should not be fulfilled, the othei
alternative must be adopted. But several centuries had al-
ready elapsed since the prophecy of the seventy^ years was
uttered ; it followed therefore of necessity that it could not
have been intended literally. It was evident from the result.
Jeremiah meant seventy periods of seven years each, and they
were now nearly over. The arrogance of Antiochus was the
last convulsion of heathenism ; full soon would he fall, and
the kingdom of God begin. Such was the comfort which our
author offered to his fellow-believers under their oppression.
As the vehicle of his predictions he brings upon the stage an
Israelite of the captivity named Daniel, who was celebrated
for his gifts as a seer. 2 He depicts him as a rigid Jew, after
the type of a believer of the second century B.C., and makes
him foretell the future in a variety of ways.
The first chapters of the book contain stories which may
have been partially taken from popular traditions concerning
Daniel ; but in that case the author gave them the coloring he
desired, and made them vehicles of the lesson that God de-
livers his pious servants and brings tyrants to their fall.
We are transplanted then to Babylon, where Nebuchadrez-
zar, we are told, after taking Jerusalem and carrying away
Jehoiakim a captive, determined to train certain Jewish boys
of noble blood as his pages. This involved, amongst other
things, feeding them upon rich dainties, in order to improve their
appearance. But Daniel and his three friends — Hananiah,
Mishael, and Azariah — who were amongst those chosen, re-
fused to touch these dainties, because they were not prepared
according to the Jewish law. The ruler of the harem, who had
charge of them, was afraid of their growing thin if they lived
upon pot-herbs and water, as they desired ; but a trial of ten
days convinced him of his mistake, for they looked far better
than their companions. God had blessed their simple food,
1 Zechariah i. 12. 2 Ezekiel xiv. 14, 20 ; xxviii. 3.
HOPE OF THE OPPRESSED BELIEVERS. i)57
and had given all of them great knowledge, and Daniel
wonderful gifts as a seer ; so that these four knew ten times
as much as all the astrologers and sages of the kingdom
together.
Nebuchadrezzar was soon to have a proof of Daniel's gifts.
For one night he started from his sleep disturbed by a dread-
ful dream, but he had quite forgotten what it was. Accord-
ingly he asked his astrologers to tell him what it was he had
seen in his dream ; and when they told him that was impossi-
ble, he ordered them all to be put to death. Daniel and his
companions were taken with the rest to undergo the sentence ;
but Daniel, trusting in the help of his god, begged for a little
delay, and promised the king to tell him all he desired to
know. And that night God did indeed reveal it to him in a
vision ; so he begged that the execution of the sages might
not be proceeded with, since he could satisfy the king. He
>vas ushered into the roj-al presence, and declared that God
aad revealed the secrets of the future to Nebuchadrezzar in his
iream, and bad now once more revealed to him, his servant,
what the king had forgotten. He had seen a great statue of
terrible form. The head was of fine gold,, the breast and
arms of silver, the body and thighs of brass, the legs of
iron, and the feet of iron mixed with clay. Then a stone
came down, which was not thrown by a human hand, and it
crushed all the image till it was swept away by the wind,
while the stone itself became a mountain that filled the whole
earth. Such was the dream, and this was its meaning : The
golden head was Nebuchadrezzar himself. After him another
kingdom would rise, weaker than his, represented by the sil-
ver part. Then would come another, represented by the brass,
that would extend over all the earth. Finally, there would
be a fourth, hard and grinding like iron, and yet partly brittle,
which was typified in the mingled metal and clay. The stone
was the kingdom of God, which would destroy all other king-
doms, and would endure for ever itself. When Nebuchad-
rezzar heard this he bowed down and acknowledged Daniel's
insight, for he had faithfully described his dream. He now
desired to make him governor of the district of Babylon and
chief of the seers, but Daniel begged that these high positions
might be given to his friends ; and he himself continued to
reside in the palace.
Now Nebuchadrezzar was a tyrant. He showed it more
particularly on the occasion of his setting up a golden statue,
sixty cubits high and six cubits broad, in the vale of Dura,
558 HOPE 01 THE OPPRESSED BELIEVERS.
in the district of Babylonia. He had a great feast for the
consecration of this statue, and invited all the governors of
the provinces and all the grandees of the kingdom to the cere-
mony. As soon as his guests were assembled, he proclaimed
that, when the music gave the signal, they were all to fall
down and worship the image, on pain of being hurled into a
burning furnace. Now, when Daniel's three friends — Sha-
drach, Meshach, and Abednego, as they were called in Chaldee
— refused to obey the decree, they were sentenced to the pun-
ishment ; and, when they persisted in their refusal, the furnace
was made seven times as hot as usual, so that the strongest
men in the army were killed by the heat as they threw the
prisoners in, bound hand and foot. But behold ! Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego remained unhurt. The fire simply
burned the ropes that bound them, so that they could walk
about freely in the furnace, where an angel was seen with
them. When they came out they did not even smell of Are !
Upon this the king was inspired with terror for their mighty
god, and forbade any of his subjects, on pain of death, to
speak injuriously of him.
Once again, the king had a proof of Daniel's skill as a seer,
which served at the same time as a warning against his own
boundless arrogance. He saw in a dream a tree, as high as
heaven, standing in the middle of the earth, with beautiful
foliage and rich fruits. The beasts of the field -found shelter
under it, and the birds nestled in its branches. But lo ! a
holy angel came down from heaven and ordered this tree to
be stripped of its branches and foliage and fruit, so that noth-
ing but the naked stem was left, held to the ground by bands
of metal. Then it had to share the fate of the beasts ; "its
human heart must become the heart of a beast" for seven
years. In vain did the magicians rack their brains to ex-
plain this dream. At last it was submitted to Daniel with a
request that he would expound it ; but he was so utterly dis-
mayed that, for a whole hour, he could not utter a word.
When forced to speak at last, he began with a formula for
averting a curse : " My lord ! may this dream be fulfilled on
your enemies, and its explanation on them that oppose you ! "
And in truth there was a fearful meaning in the vision ! This
tree was the king himself, and what he saw happening to it
was a foreshadowing of the fact that he would be cast out and
treated like a beast. What Daniel thus predicted afterwards
took place. A year thence, as Nebuchadrezzar was looking
down from the battlements of his palace upcu his capital, he
HOPE OF THE OPPRESSED BELIEVERS. 559
boastfully exclaimed, " This is the great Babylon, that I have
built by my power and to my glory ! " and then there came
a voice from heaven that pronounced his sentence. His
dominion was to be taken from him, and seven years long
he was to eat grass like an ox ! His fate came upon him
instantly ; but in seven years his understanding returned and
his royal splendor with it. He was at once restored to the
throne ; and now he gave the glory to God, who is able to
humble the proud. He communicated all this to his subjects
by solemn edict.
Nebuchadrezzar's son, Belshazzar, was still worse than his
father, and under him the kingdom fell. This was foretold
him in the following manner, on the very night on which he
lost his crown. He was holding a feast with the thousand
nobles of his kingdom, and in a drunken freak he ordered the
gold and silver cups and bowls, goblets and chargers, which
his father had taken from the temple at Jerusalem, to be
brought for himself and his courtiers, his wives and his mis-
tresses to drink from. As they were drinking, and oh, hor--
ror ! were praising their idols with the sacred vessels in their
hands, human fingers suddenly appeared out of the wall, and
wrote certain letters upon it. The king, in consternation,
summoned all the astrologers, and promised to promote the
man who could read and explain the writing to the third posi-
tion in the whole kingdom. All the seers hurried to the place,
but not one of them could decipher the writing. The whole
assembly was filled with dismay, and Belshazzar and his
nobles had sat down pale with terror, when the queen entered
the festive hall and told the king that there was a certain
Daniel amongst his subjects, whom his father had made the
head of the seers. The king immediately sent for him, and
besought him urgently to decipher the writing, promising to
make him the third in the kingdom. " Keep your gifts, O
king," he answered, "I ask no reward for telling you what
you desire. Remember what befell your father, and how his
pride was humbled ! And yet you have not humbled yourself,
but have desecrated the holy vessels of God's temple. And
this is why that portion of his hand came out against you.
Do you ask what is written there? It. is Mene, mene, tekel,
upharsin; which means, 'Numbered, numbered, weighed,
divided.' God has numbered the days of your kingdom, and
they are over ; has weighed it, and found it too light ; has
divided it, and given it to the Medes and Persians." Then
Daniel was clad in a purple robe and adorned with a golden
560 HOPE OF THE OPPRESSED BELIEVERS.
necklace, and proclaimed the third in the kingdom. But that
very night Belshazzar was slain.
Under his succeosor, Darius the Mede, Daniel was at first
high in honor. He was the chief of the three viceroys to
whom the governors of the hundred and twenty provinces
were responsible, and the king was even thinking of making
him viceroy of the whole kingdom. The nobles and governors,
who were all hostile to him, endeavored in vain to compass
his ruin ; for they could not accuse him of the least impro-
priety. Then they saw that there was but one way to trip
aim up. They must manage to make his fidelity to his own
religion appear an offence. So they all advised the king to
make a proclamation that for thirty days no one should ask
anything of god or man, except of him, the king. Accord
ingly the king issued the decree ; and, like all the laws of the
Persians and Medes, it was irrevocable. But Daniel defied
the edict, and went as usual to pray, three times a daj-, at
the open window, with his face towards Jerusalem. Of course
his enemies observed him, and immediately informed the king
that Daniel had disobeyed his precept. Darius was deeply
grieved, and did all he could to rescue his favorite ; but Dan-
iel's enemies held him to his word, and at last he was obliged
to have him thrown into the lions' den, as he had said in the
proclamation. "May your god, whom you worship, rescue
you ! " he cried to the prisoner, as he was led off to the place
of punishment. Then Daniel was let down into the den, the
mouth of which was closed with a stone, sealed with the
king's signet-ring and those of his nobles. But Darius was
so depressed that he ate nothing at his evening meal, sent
awa}- the music, and could not sleep. Early in the morning,
at dawn of day, he went to the lions' den, and called to Dan-
iel in a mournful voice, " Daniel ! servant of the living God !
has God indeed saved you from the mouths of the lions?"
Picture his joy when he heard the answer, " He has, O king!
Live for ever ! My God sent an angel to deliver me, for I
have committed no offence against you." Then the king
ordered him to be drawn up out of the den, and all those
who had accused him, together with their wives and children,
to be thrown in. Of course, they no sooner touched the
ground than the lions fell upon them and devoured them.
Then the king issued orders to all his subjects to worship the
god of Daniel, for he was the living and only God ; and, as
long as Darius lived, Daniel prospered.
HOPE OF THE OPPRESSED BELIEVERS. 561
Let us pause Kir a moment at this point to consider what
we have read. We have had our fill of wonders, and of
scenes which are impossibility itself. Moreover, we have had
a most erroneous representation of the course of history.
It is true that a prince of the name of Belshazzar did perish
at the taking of Babylon ; but he was a son of Nabonedus,
the last Chaldsean monarch, and not of Nebuchadrezzar.
And again, it was not Darius the Mede, but Cyrus that took
Babylon ; nor did any kingdom of the Medes at all intervene
between that of the Chaldees and that of the Persians. The
writer appears to have confounded the tailing of Babylon by
Cyrus with its subsequent capture by Darius Hystaspis, one
of his successors. But he really did believe a kingdom of
the Medes to have succeeded that of Nebuchadrezzar, for he
represents it by the silver breast and arms, under the golden
head of the statue seen by the king in his dream, while the
brass signifies the kingdom of the Persians, the iron that of
Alexander, the stern ruler who crushed everything beneath
him, and the mixture of iron and clay in the feet of the image
indicates the weak points in the divided kingdom of this
mighty conqueror.
All hesitation in believing that the writer's knowledge of
history was so exceedingly defective as this vanishes when we
find him elsewhere 1 distinctly implying that there were only
four Persian kings, whereas we know of no less than twelve.
And again , he made a grave mistake as to the length of the
period he was reviewing. He calculates that there were
seventy times seven 3 r ears between Jeremiah's prophecy and
the fall of Antiochus, which he expected within a few years.
But the period between the date of Jeremiah's prophecy of
the seventy years (605 B.C.) and the year when our book was
written (165 b.c.) falls short of the required time by fifty
years. But if the writer himself had no means of gaining a
more accurate knowledge of history, none of his readers were
any better off'. Besides, he was doubtless too full of his own
purpose to trouble himself much as to these matters. His
sole object in telling these stories was to fire his dejected
fellow believers with courage to persevere. They must not
let themselves be driven to eat forbidden food, to worship
idols, or to neglect their daily prayers and all that the Law
prescribed. Their God was the God of heaven, mightier
than all gods and kings, fully able to rescue his worshippers
from the most threatening dangers. He humbled the proud.
i Daniel xi. 2-4.
24*
562 HOPE OF THE OPPRESSED BELIEVERS.
Did this overweening Antiochus dare to persecute the faith-
ful? He himeelf should be compelled by the visible help
which God woald bring to his servants to acknowledge his
folly in resisting Him. And if he would not yield, if he
thought it was his own might that had made him so great, he
might see his lot foreshadowed in that of Nebuchadrezzar,
whom God as good as made into a beast for a time on purpose
to humble him ; or he might read in Belshazzar's fate what
was coming upon him too, for that Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin
was equally applicable to his own dominion !
Meanwhile our author was not content with this general
announcement that the end was near, and that the kingdom
of God, the stone thrown without human hand, would super-
sede the kingdoms of the world. He desired to indicate the
course of events from Daniel's time to his own more in detail,
and also to describe the future more exactly. To this object
the remainder of the book, which records certain visions of
Daniel's, is devoted.
One of these visions, that of the ram beaten by the goat,
we have already considered, 1 with the exception of a single
detail ; namely, the prediction that the daily sacrifice, to which
Antiochus had put a stop, would be suspended for exactly two
thousand three hundred mornings and evenings, or three and a
half years ; 2 for the writer establishes certain resting points in
the period of the seventy weeks of years. In the first place,
when seven of them were gone, the anointed, the prince,
should cause Jerusalem to be rebuilt. This must be a refer-
ence either to Cyrus or to the high priest Joshua, under whom
the first band of exiles returned. After sixty-two more weeks
of years another anointed should be slain. This may be an
allusion to the high priest Onias III., who was overtaken by
this fate. 'Half a week of years after that, the daily sacrifice
should be suspended, and in three and a half years more
Antiochus should fall and the kingdom of God should
come. 8 The author further describes the history of Syria
and Egypt, after the partition of Alexander's kingdom, in
some detail. 4
There is little to attract us in all the allusions and obscure
indications of recent events which our author lays on the lips
of the ancient seer. He always selects an enigmatical form
of utterance suitable to oracular deliverances ; but there is
1 See p. 544. i Daniel viii. }3, U.
8 Pariel ix. 24-27; compare xii. 7, 11. * Daniel xi.
HOPE OP THE OPPRESSED BELIEVERS. 563
one section of his book in particular which has always made
a profound impression upon its readers, and has given rise to
much deep speculation and to much idle waste of words. It
is the vision of the four beasts. 1
I saw storms, says our author, in his cnaracter of Daniel,
bursting from every quarter of heaven, as four monsters came
up out of the sea. The first was like a lion, with eagle's
wings ; and behold ! it was robbed of its feathers, and stood
up on its hind legs and received a human heart. Then there
came up a second, like a bear, leaning towards one side, with
three ribs in its mouth ; and a voice said, " Rise up and eat
much flesh ! " Then a third came into view, like a leopard,
with four wings ; and it had four heads, and was very
mighty. But terrible as these three were, the fourth was
monstrous above them all. A terrific creature ! With great
iron teeth it crunched and devoured all it could lay hold of,
and trod the rest under foot. It had ten horns upon its
head ; and behold ! there came up a little horn among the rest,
three of which were plucked out to make room for it, and this
little horn had human eyes, and a mouth with which it spoke
boastfully. And lo ! there were thrones made ready, and the
Ancient of Days, even God, sat down in a shining garment
with snow-white hair on his head. The throne glittered, and
its wheels were all aglow. A river of fire streamed out from
Him, and millions of angels stood before Him. Then the
judgment began and the books were opened. Upon this the
fourth b«ast was sentenced, slain, and burned, because of all
the blasphemous language of the little horn. Meanwhile the
other beasts were also bereft of their power, for it was but
given them for a time. And when all this was accomplished,
there came one upon the clouds like a son of man, and he was
taken before the throne of God, where honor and dominion
were given him to all eternity.
Then, continues Daniel, I was filled with consternation at
this vision, and I asked one of the angels to explain it, espe-
cially the meaning of the little horn. And he answered that
it was a king who would rise up against God, persecute the
holy people, abolish the Law, and rule for a time, two
times, and half a time (three and a half years) , but would
then perish, and give place to the kingdom of the saints,
which should endure for ever.
It is as clear as daylight to every impartial investigator that
this little horn is Antiochus Epiphanes, and that the fourth
1 Daniel vii
564 HOPE OF THE OPPRESSED BELIEVERS.
beast must therefore be the Greek empire. But it is easy to
see why ancient and modern interpreters have been unwilling
to recognize the fact ; for Daniel very definitely predicts that
on the fall of the fourth beast the kingdom of God will come.
Moreover this " son of man " was supposed to be Jesus. And
therefore, as long as the book of Daniel was regarded as a
genuine unveiling of the future for the benefit of posterity',
people had 1 d explain the fourth beast as the Roman empire,
or some still later power. But the truth is that our author
knew very little of the period in which he supposed Daniel to
live ; that his information, very naturally, became more ade-
quate as he approached his own day (165 B.C.), and that he
could no more foresee what would take place afterwards than
any one of us can foretell the future. As for the vision of the
son of man, it doubtless exercised great influence upon the
expectations entertained both by Jesus himself and by his
Apostles ; 1 but it is equally certain that the writer himself did
not intend the " son of man" to represent the Messiah. He
symbolized the kingdom of the saints, the redeemed and puri-
fied Israel, under this type, just as he had represented the
heathen kingdoms under the forms of beasts. 2
If we are content not to ascribe to the writer a knowledge
of the future which he never possessed, but to take his vision
for what it really was, that is to say, for his individual concep-
tion of the course of history, then we find in it the fruits of a
strong faith and of truly ennobling ideas. One kingdom had
succeeded another in Asia, and had counted the holy land
amongst its provinces. There was first the dominion of the
great Nebuchadrezzar ; then the tottering power of the Medes ;
then, again, the mighty and swift-spreading Persian monarchy.
To this lion with a human heart, to this bear that stood askew,
to this winged panther, power had been given for a time, and
they had ruled successively even over the saints. But the
kingdom of the Greeks, with all its monarchs great and small,
was beyond comparison the most abominable ; while Antio-
chus, the persecutor of the Jews, was great and terrible beyond
all others. But let not Israel fear ! There is One who rules
over all things, from whom the former kingdoms drew all the
strength they had, and that is God. Soon will He call the
reckless monarch to his bar and pronounce his sentence, at the
same time humbling all the heathen powers. Then will come
another kingdom — not out of the sea, but from heaven ; not
in the form of a monster, but in the noble form of man — the
1 Compare vol. iii. pp. 402, 403. a Daniel vii. 18, 27.
HOPE OP THE OPPRESSED BELIEVERS. 565
kingdom of God's people, which will abide for ever. Then
shall the dead also — this is the first distinct indication of the
belief among the Jews — then shall the dead awake, these to
everlasting life, and those to shame ; and the teachers, who
have shown the way of righteousness to so many, shall shine
forth like the sun. Blessed is he who endures to the end ! l
With regard to the source from which he drew his concep-
tions of the future, the writer of the book of Daniel stands in
sharp contrast to the ancient prophets. It is no inspiration,
no direct revelation from the deitj-, that urges him to speak.
He simply records what he has learned from studying and un-
ravelling the written word. But the essence of his faith is
identical with theirs. His soul, like theirs, is filled with the
sublime conviction that every event on earth depends upon the
God of heaven, who has chosen Israel as the people of his
grace.
We may well believe that such a book as this helped to en
courage the faithful, and to tire them with zeal to persevere
under their sufferings and in their conflict. When it was writ-
ten, Mattathias and his sons had probably raised the banner
of revolt already, for we read of " a little help which shall
support the teachers." 2 Full soon the war of liberty would
spread, and Antiochus would learn what a small people can do
when it fights for its hearths and its altar. His rule over Ju-
daea would come to an end, not by a stone thrown without
human hand, but bj T the heroism of Jewish faith. It was not
long before Judas the Maccabee took Jerusalem ; and then,
though the citadel was still in the hands of the Syrians, the
sanctuary was once more cleansed, and a new altar reared in
place of the one polluted by idolatry. In December, 164 B.C. ,
just three years after the introduction of the worship of Jupi-
ter, the temple was restored to Israel's god.
Then might have been sung a song which was possibly com-
posed for this very occasion 8 : —
Give thanks unto Yahweh, for he is good ;
His mercy endures for ever !
In my distress I called upon Yahweh,
And he heard my prayer and enlarged my place.
Yahweh is with me, I will not fear ;
For what can man do against me ?
It is better to trust in Yahweh than men,
Better in Yahweh than princes.
All the heathens had surrounded me,
But in Yahweh's name have I shattered them all.
i Daniel xii 2 Daniel xi. 33. 34. 3 PBalm cxviii.
566 CONCLUSION.
Shouts of rejoicing are in the tents of the righteous ;
Yahweh's right hand puts forth its might.
Open me the gates of salvation,
That I may go in and sing praises to Yahweh.
This is the gate of Yahweh
By which the righteous enter.
A stone rejected by the builders
Has become the great corner stone.
Behold ! it is Yahweh's doing ;
It is marvellous in our eyes.
This is the day that Yahweh has made,
Let us rejoice and exult !
Yahweh, help us !
Yahweh, deliver us !
Blessed is he who comes in the name of Yahweh !
^Ve greet thee from Yahweh's house.
God Yahweh gives us light ;
Bind the festive offering with cords to the altar.
Thou art my God, I will praise thee !
My God, I will sing thy glory !
Praise Yahweh, for he is good,
For his grace endures for ever.
Thus did Israel rejoice when his deliverance began, regard-
ing himself as the corner stone of the kingdom of God. And,
in truth, he had been too much despised b_y the builders of the
kingdoms of the world ! Now he had made his power felt,
and could henceforth celebrate his deliverance from year to
year in the " feast of the renewing of the temple," or " feast
of lights." But the kingdom of God was not to come with
outward splendor ; and when he came who laid, b}' moral force,
the foundations of a spiritual religion, Israel shut himself out.
Even the political independence secured for a time would soon
pass away, and Israel would sink into slavery once more ; and
at last, after a hopeless struggle, would be broken up and scat-
tered amongst the nations.
Chapter XXHI.
CONCLUSION.
HEEE the expounder of the Old Testament lays down his
pen, but only to take it up again presently. He owes
his readers a word of explanation on both these points ! We
promised to examine the Bible, and with regard to the Old
Testament we have now redeemed our pledge. We have
concxtJsion. 567
dealt with all the Biblical narratives and the most important
sections of the prophecies, the proverbs, and the other poeti-
cal books. But we have from the first kept another object
equally clearly in view; and that has been to describe the
development of the religion of Israel as accurately as pos-
sible, in connection with the several portions of the Bible.
Down to the time of Nehemiah we have not neglected this
second object, but have drawn together all the materials
which we thought would throw light upon the history of
Israel's religion. For the period between Nehemiah and the
Maccabees we have not done so. We have indeed taken a
rapid survey of the history, and set the various books which
were written in this period in their historical framework, but
we have omitted much that might have filled in and thrown
light upon the picture. For instance, we have not mentioned
the founding of the temple on Mount Gerizim ; the first steps
made by the Scribes towards the formation of the canon or
collection of the sacred books ; the important work of Jesus
ben Sirach, which was composed before the book of Daniel ;
the chasm that gradually opened between the priests and the
Scribes ; the contests for the office of high priest, or the rise
of the schools of Pharisees and Sadducees.
The reason is that the books of the Bible are not the main
sources of our information on these subjects, and we should
exceed the limits we have assigned ourselves far too much
were we to examine with the requisite care all that we cau
collect from other sources to throw light upon this period.
Moreover, if we had done all that lay in our power accu-
rately to describe the period between Nehemiah and the
Maccabees, we should still have left both ourselves and our
readers quite unsatisfied ; for when we reach the Maccabeean
revolt, we are still separated by nearly two centuries from the
date of the ministry of Jesus, so that the connection between
the Old and New Testaments is not yet by any means estab-
lished. It is not only that we are interested in the external
history of the Jews during this interval* and that we should
like to know, for instance, how Palestine fell into the hands
of the Romans, and how the Herods came to the throne, but
these two centuries are exceedingly important with reference
to the internal history of the people. This is no more than
we should expect, for at the beginning of the period in ques-
tion the Jewish religion was anything but petrified. There
was religious life, and strong fife, too, in the country ; and
wherever there is life, there is movement, there is conflict,
568 CONCLUSION.
there is alternate progress and retrogression, and all that
gives interest to history. And accordingly the religious his-
tory of these two centuries is full of interest. Numbers of
books were written, for instance. The writer of Daniel had
many followers who produced apocalypses or " revelations," as
they are commonly called, like his. The "Proverbs of Jesus
ben Sirach " did not close the series of worth j- successors of
the ancient sages, amongst whom the author of the Book of
Wisdom deserves our special attention. Such an historian as
the author of the first book of Maccabees surety does not
deserve to be neglected ; and songs such as the psalms of Sol-
omon 1 were still composed, which, though excluded from the
canon, interpret the sufferings and the faith of the believers
just as truly as the psalms in the Bible. The composition
of fictitious stories for purposes of edification did not stop
with Esther and Daniel, as is shown by the second and still
more by the third book of Maccabees, by Judith and Tobit.
Some of these works are accepted by a great portion of the
Christian Church as sacred writings of the second rank under
the name of apocryphal books ; others have been almost com-
pletely overlooked, and some few, such as the book of Enoch,
have only recently been discovered and explained.
All this well deserves our attention, both on its own ac-
count and as a help to the comprehension' of the time of
Jesus. But we must not stop even here, for Judaism retained
its independent existence after the time of Jesus. It was not
till the year 70 a.d. that Jerusalem was taken and laid waste
by Titus, and even that did not quench the Jewish spirit of
independence or annihilate the Jewish people as such. This
consummation was still deferred for full sixty years. And
again, in and after the time of Jesus the great rabbis rose
who laid the foundations of the Talmud, that colossal monu-
ment of Jewish hair-splitting in the interpretation and appli-
cation of the Law ! All this and much more besides falls
largely within the New Testament period, but it lies so com-
pletely beyond the horizon of the Evangelists and Apostles,
that it can hardly be touched upon in connection with their
work, though it fully deserves our careful consideration.
For these reasons we have determined to deal with the first
six centuries of Judaism from the time of Nehemiah to the
last revolt against the Romans, under Barcochba, in a separate
work. We shall there content ourselves in the period before
the Maccabees with simply supplementing what has been said
in the present volume, and shall then go on with the history
CONCLUSION. 569
of the following centuries in the same style we have adopted
in this first part of "The Bible for Learners." We hope
that the work on the "Old Testament" we have now con-
cluded, together with the sequel, will furnish an adequate
picture of ancient Israel, — that remarkable people to whom
mankind ' owes greater treasures than to any other nation,
ancient or modern.
Note. — Dr. Oort has already partially redeemed this promise by the issue
of the first of two small volumes on " The Last Genturies of Jewish National
Existence." The English translator and publishers are not in a position at
present to give any pledge with regard to this supplementary work. Tb.
INDEXES.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Aaron, i. 29 ; chosen by Yahweh to
assist Moses, i. 257; his work in be-
half of his people, i. 263-272; his
magic staff, i. 268, 269; his age
when he spoke to Pharaoh, i. 277 ;
at the tent of conference, i. 297,
335; indignant with Moses, i. 297;
forbidden to see the promised land,
i. 335; sons of, appointed to hold (lie
priestly office, i. 442 ; ii. 304, 475-477 ;
directs the Israelites to make a
golden image of a bull, ii. 267; his
part in the image worship explained,
ii. 269, 270; stands at the head of
the priesthood, ii. 475, 476; fate of
Nadab and Abihu, ii. 519; story
of Dathan and Abiram, ii. 521, 522.
Anronites, the rules and distinctions of ,
regarding priestly office, ii. 475-477,
519; contest for priesthood, ii. 523.
See Aaron, " sons of."
Abana, river of Damascus, ii. 158.
Abednego, in the furnace, ii. 558. See
Azariah, friend of Daniel.
Abel, i- 53; signification of, u 53;
death of, i. 54; Hebrew form of
name, i. 63.
Abel Beth Maachah, ii. 55 ; the woman
of, called wise, ii 75, 76.
Abel-mizraim, i. 225; signification of,
Abiah, i. 463.
Abiathar, son of Ahimelech, i. 517;
escapes the slaughter of priests, i
517; chief priest of David, ii. 22;
prepares for David's return to Jeru-
salem, ii. 53; friend of David, ii.
63 ; deposed from the priesthood, ii.
70.
Abib, i. 274, 275.
Abibal, friend of David, ii 21.
Abiel, his sons, i. 482.
Abiezer, i. 384.
Abigail, i. 519-521 ; becomes the wife
of David, i. 521
Abihu, son of Aaron, i. 296 ; his fate,
h. 519 ; has no priestly descendants,
ii. 519.
Abijah, king of Judah, ii. 108; son oi
Jeroboam, ii. 108.
Abimelech, his dealings with Abra
ham, i. Ill, 163, 164.
Abimelech, his dealings with Isaac, i,
162, 163.
Abimelech, son of Gideon, i. 394-401
made king by the Shechemites, i.
395; murders Gideon's sons, i. 395;
destroys Shechem, i. 3J6; killed be-
fore Thebez, i. 396; story of, con-
sidered, i. 396-401; first king ii
Israel, i. 399.
Abimelech, friend of David, ii. 63;
how treated by tradition; ii. 69.
Abinadab, son of Saul, i. 482; hie
death, i. 527.
Abinadab, son of Jesse, i. 495, 502.
Abinadab, receives the ark, ii. 7.
Abinoam, i. 369.
Abiram, ii. 521, 522.
Abishai, i. 523, 540-542; desires to
defend David, ii. 47.
Abner, i. 482, 540-542 ; his death, i.
542.
Abraham, i. 131; his name changed
from Abram. i. 131 ; signification of,
i. 131; tried by Yahweh, i 143-140;
commanded to sacrifice Isaac, i. 144;
released from the sacrifice of Isaac,
i. 145,146; his age, i. 161; his death
and burial, i. 161; receives the -or-
dinance of circumcision from El-
shaddai, ii. 474. See Abram.
Abram, son of Terah, i. 96; name
represents certain tribes, i. 100-105 ;
possible meaning of, i. 103 ; dwelling
at Harau, i. 108; the believer, i.
108-113; journey of, i. 109, 110;
erects altars, i. 110; dealings with
Abimelech, i. Ill, 163, 164; gener-
osity of, i. 113-120 ; separation from
Lot, i. 114; conquest over Eastern
kings, i. 116; visited by Melchize-
bit
INDEX OP SUBJECTS.
dek, i. 116, 117; his depression and
vision, i. 120-122; name becomes
Abraham, i. 131. See Abraham.
Absalom, ii. 38 ; angry with Amnon, ii.
38, 39; slays Amnon, ii. 39; takes
refuge in Geshur, ii. 39, 40; recalled
to Jerusalem, ii. 42; his beauty, ii.
43; his court, ii. 43; his hair, ii. 43;
attempt to usurp the throne, ii.
44-61; proclaimed king, ii. 44; his
reception at Jerusalem, ii. 48; his
army meets that of David, ii. 50;
killed by David's troops, ii. 51.
Absalom's monument, i. 51.
Accad, ruled by Niinrod, i 85.
Achseans, the, i. 102.
Achseus, i. 102.
Achan, his crime and punishment, i.
339'; laid under the ban, i. 342.
Achish, king of Gath, i. 525, 534-537;
receives David, i. 535.
Achor, signification of, i. 339; vallev
of, i. 339.
Aclisah, i. 356.
Adah, wife of Lamech, i. 54.
Adah, wife of Esau, i. 167.
Adam, i. 42, 43 ; temptation of, i. 4G,
47 ; punishment of, i. 47, 48 ; his age,
i. 63; family archives of, i. 63; sig-
nification of, i. 63.
Adar, twelfth month of Jewish year,
ii. 550.
Admah, i. 136.
Adonai, name substituted for Y H
W Ii, i. 258..
Adonijith, ii. 56; son of David, ii. 56;
his coronation feast, ii. 56; his parti-
sans and enemies, ii. 56; attempts
to be king, ii. 56, 57; bows before
Solomon, ii. 57 ; put to death, ii.
70.
Adoniram, directs the building of the
temple, ii. 85.
Adonis, legend of, i. 413.
Adoram, treasurer of David, ii. 22;
chancellor of Rehoboam, ii. 99 ; stoned
to death, ii. 99.
Adriel, i. 507.
Adullam, cave of, i. 514.
iElana, gulf of, i. 166.
Africa, northern people, i. 230.
Agag, i. 487-489.
Agur, a sage, ii. 467, 468.
Ahab, i. 23, 24; ii. 110-123; son of
Omri, ii. 112; succeeds to throne of
Israel, ii. 112; encourages commerce
and industry, ii. 112; marries Jeze-
bel, ii. 113; erects a temple for
Baal, ii. 112; war against Syria, ii.
114-116; spares Benhadad, ii. 116;
his act of leniency condemned by a
prophet, ii. 116, 117; his treatmeut
of Naboth, ii. 118; denounced by
Elijah, ii. 119 ; consults the prophets,
ii. 120, 121; his death, ii. 122; length
of his reign, ii. 123; trial of the
power of Yahweh and Baal, ii. 140-
143.
Ahab, a prophet, ii. 372 ; his fate, ii. 401.
Ahasuerus, feast of, ii. 547.
Ahava, river, ii. 479
Ahaz, i. 24, 26; king of Judah asks
aid from the Assyrians, ii. 241; son
of Jotham, ii. 241; king of Judah,
how regarded in Chronicles and
Kings, ii. 256, 257; king of Judah,
interview with Isaiah, ii. 258 ; length
of his reign, ii. 275.
Ahaziah, son of Ahab, ii. 114; king of
Israel, ii. 126; narrative of, ii. 126-
128; his treatment of Elijah, ii. 127,
128 ; his death, ii. 128.
Ahaziah, grandson of Ahab, ii. 134 ;
king of Judah, ii. 134, 135; slain by
Jehu, ii. 134, 135, 172; son of
Jehoram, king of Judah, ii. 172.
Ahiah, i. 477.
Ahijah, interview with Jeroboam, ii.
100; predicts fall of Jeroboam, ii.
108, 109.
Ahikam, son of Shaphan, ii. 349, 38V •
friendly to Jeremiah, ii. 352.
Ahimaaz, son of Zadok, ii. 46; carries
news to David, ii. 51, 52
Ahimelech, i. 444; priest at Nob, i.
513; son of Ahitub, i. 516; suffers
from wrath of Saul, i. 516, 517.
Ahinoam, wife of Saul, i. 432.
Ahinoain, wife of David, i. 521.
Ahio, ii. 8.
46, 48, 49; takes
why his opinions
Ahithophel, ii. 44,
his life, ii. 49; ,..._» .«
were valuable, ii. 76, 77.
Ahitub, i. 477.
Aholah, signification of, ii. 411
Aholibuh, signification of, ii. 411.
Aholibamah, i. 167.
Ah ma, i. 49.
Ahuramazda, i 301 ; ii. 435, 546.
Ahuzzath, i. 163.
Ai, a Canaanite city, I. 110, 117; at-
tacked and destroyed, i. 339, 340;
laid under the ban, i. 342.
Ajalon, the moon stands still, i. 345.
Aiephim, signification of, ii. 48.
Albion, sons of, i. 102.
Alexander the Great, i. 28, 30; con-
quers Persian kingdom, ii. 545.
Allon-bachuth, meaning of, i. 194.
Amalek, i. 292.
Amalekites, the, i. 291, 383 ; conqueted
by Israelites, i. 291 ; laid under tlw
ban, i. 487 ; burn Ziklag, i. 537.
Amasa, general of Absalom, ii. 60;
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
t»75
made commander unier David, ii.
53, 54; killed by Joab, ii. 55.
Amaziah, son of Joash, ii. 176; king
of Judah, ii. ■ 176, 177 ; loses his
kingdom, ii. 186-189.
Amaziah, chief priest at Bethel, ii. 213,
214.
Ameneniha III., i 233.
Amenophis III., date of, i. 232; date
of his temple, i. 249.
Amitlai, father of Jonah, ii. 188.
Amnion, attacked by David, ii. 21.
Ammonites, the, i. 19, 20, 99, 100, 316.
328; represented by Lot, i. 100;
their wars with Israelites, i. 405-407,
465, 466, 472-474; ji. 21; conquered
by Saul, i. 466, 472; conquered
by David, ii. 21.
Amnon, ii. 38, 39.
Anion, length of reign, ii. 298; son of
Manasseh, king of Judah, ii. 298;
king of Judah, ii. 307.
Amontes, the, i. 240, 306; war with
Israelites, i. 326, 328.
Amos, i. 25, 165, 166; ii. 209-215;
gives the time of Israel's wandering,
i. 308; prophecy of Israel's fate, ii.
212-214; rejects the title of prophet,
ii. 213-215; how distinguished from
the other prophets, ii. 221; his judg-
ment of Israel considered, ii. 228-
231.
Amosis, i. 235
Aiaoz, father of Isaiah, ii. 248.
Ainram, i. 250.
Anakites, the dwelling-place of, i. 239,
240 ; a race of giants, i. 305.
Auathoth, native place of Jeremiah, ii.
342.
Aner, i. 116.
Angelology, rise of, ii. 546
Animals, clean and unclean, i. 79; ii.
183, 510; believed to have souls, i.
80, 81; law of the slaughter, i. 80,
81; ii. 333: punishment of, i. 81, 82;
worship of, i. 81, 321 ; ii. 302. See
Food.
Animism, i 175, 176.
Antiochus Epiphanes, date of attempt
to destroy Jewish religion, i. 30 ; ii.
545; his persecution obliges the
zealots to save Judaism, i. 30; ii.
554; visions of Daniel concerning
him, ii. 545, 562, 563.
Antonia, ii. 455.
Aphek, ii 115.
Apis, worship of, i. 321 ; ii. 102.
Apocalypses, the, ii. 568.
Apocryphal books, ii. 307, 568; con-
' -tain the prayer of Manasseh, ii.
307.
Apollo, i- 301.
Apostles, influenced by Messianic ex-
pectations, ii. 564.
Apries, ii. 376.
Arabah, valley of, i. 166.
Arabia, tribes represented by Ishmael,
i. 100; division of, i. 128; position
of, i 128 ; inhabitants of, i. 128, 129.
Arabia Deserta, i. 101, 128, 129; in-
habitants of, i. 101, 129.
Arabia Felix, i. 101, 128, 129; origin
of its tribes, i. 101.
Arabia Petraa, i. 101, 128, 129, 294;
origin of its Jribes, i. 101; significa-
tion of, i. 294.
Arabs, the, i. 99 ; attachment to stone
gods, i. 176, 177.
Ararat, i. 71.
Araunah, ii. 29-31 ; threshing-floor of,
ii. 85.
Archangels, the, ii. 546.
Ariel, ii. 3.
Ark, the, of Noah, i. 70-73; efforts to
explain the difficulties in the account
of it, i. 72.
Ark, the, i. 19, 322, 323; manna set
before it, i. 289; signification of, i.
322; dwelling-place of Yahweh, i.
322, 323 ; taken by the Philistines, i.
441 ; David plans for its removal to
Jerusalem, ii. 5; disastrous to the
Philistines, ii. 6, 7; sin offering to
Yahweh, ii. 6, 7 ; giyen up by the
Philistines, ii. 7, its removal to
Jerusalem, ii. 8, 9, 10; contains the
ten commandments, engraved on
stone, ii. 85; placed in the temple,
ii. 85.
Armenia, cradle of our race, i. 45.
Ar-Moab, i. 327.
Armoni, son of Kizpah, ii. 17.
Anion, brook of, i. 326.
Aroer, i. 326; ii. 28.
Arpbaxad, i. 96, 100, 239.
Artaxerxes I., date of succession, ii.
478; signification of, ii. 478; for-
bids the rebuilding of the walls of
Jerusalem, ii. 485; description of
the royal feast, ii. 487; appoints
Nehemiah governor of Judaea, ii.
487, 488.
Arumah, i. 398-400.
Asa, king of Judah, ii. 110, 166, 168,
169.
Asahel, i. 540, 541.
Asaph, ii. 9, 533, 534; data concerning
him untrustworthy, ii. 78.
Ashdod, city, i. 536 ; ii. 6.
Ashdodites.tbe, ii. 6.
Asher, i. 185, 226.
Asherah, heathen goddess, i. 318; ii.
113; worship of, 1. 318; ii. 301, 302;
sanctuary of, destroyed, ii. 327, 328.
576
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Asherah, the, i. 385; the subject of,
considered, ii. 113; destroyed by
Hezekiah, ii. 279, 280; destroyed by
Josiah, ii. 327, 328; use of, con-
demned in the law, ii. 509.
Ashkenaz, i. 95.
Ashteroth-Karnaim, i. 115.
Ashtoreth, god of the Sidonians, ii. 71,
83, 113.
Askelou, i. 356, 536 ; taken by Judah,
i. 356
Assyria, ruins of, i. 87, 88; popula-
tion of, i. 88; historical inscrip-
tions, ii. 286 ; oppressed by enemies
ii. 319.
Assyrians, treatment of their captives,
ii"241, 242; war with Judah, ii. 286-
290.
Astar-Chemosh, ii. 125.
Aetarte, ii. 102, 113; description of
worship of, ii. 300, 301; sanctuary
destroyed, ii. 328.
Athaliah, i. 24; daughter of Ahab, ii.
114, 166, 171; her rule in Judah, ii.
172 ; her death, ii. 173.
Atonement, Day of, ii. 511-513.
Avaris, i. 235, 283.
Avvites, the, i. 240, 326.
Azariah, friend of Daniel, ii. 556. See
Abednego.
Azariah, the prophet, ii. 168.
Azariah, son of Amaziah, and king of
Judah, ii. 188. See Uzziah.
Azazel, ii. 511-514.
Azekah, city, ii. 376.
Baal, signification of, i. 17; worship
of, i. 21, 23 ; the god made into a king,
i. 105; the title of different gods, i.
391 ; name used with proper names,
i. 392; the god of Sun-worship, i.
414; represented with horns, ii. 102;
his priests destroyed by Jehu, ii.
136, 137; conflict with Yahweh, ii.
138-149; defeated iu Judah, ii. 171-
180; worship overthrown in Judah,
ii. 327.
Baalath, ii. 89.
Baal-berith, signification of, i. 395.
Baal-Gad, i. 104.
Baal-Hazor, ii. 38.
Baaljada, signification of, ii. 64; son
of David, ii. 64.
Baal-meon, ii. 125.
Baal-Perazim, ii. 2.
Baal-shalisha, ii. 156.
Baalzebub, signification of, ii. 126 ; use
of name, ii 126.
Baasha, ii. 108; king of Israel, ii. 110.
Babel, ruled by Nimrod, i. 85; tower
of, i. 89, 90; signification of, i.
90.
Babylon, i. 76 ; armies of, called Chal-
dajan, ii. 356; the capital of Neb-
uchadrezzar, ii. 425. 426; attacked
by Cyrus, ii 426, 427.
Babylonia, i. 87; ruins of, i. 87, 88.
Bahurim, ii. 47.
Balaam, legend of, ii. 199-209: blesses
Israel, ii. 202-205 ; the legend his-
torically considered, ii. 205-207; his
character considered, ii. 208.
Balak, son of Zippor, ii. 199; sends
embassy to Balaam, ii. 199, 200.
Balder, legend of, i. 413.
Banml), the, i. 460; ii. 12; used in
sacrifices of Solomon, ii. 73-75; an
altar, ii. 104; used in worship of
Yahweh, ii. 113; destroyed under
Hezekiah, ii. 279, 280; destroyed in
Judah, ii. 328 ; use of, condemned in
the Law, ii. 509.
Ban, the, i. 319; custom of, i. 342,
343.
Barak, i. 369, 371-374; commanded to
be a leader, i. 371.
Barcochba, ii. 568.
Baris, ii. 455.
Baruch, friend of Jeremiah, ii. 352;
writes the oracles of Jeremiah, ii. 360 ;
the reading of the oracles of Jere-
miah, ii. 361, 362; his fidelity to
Jeremiah, ii. 393; his character, ii.
393, 394.
Barzillai, ii. 54, 58.
Bashan, i. 327, 329; king of, i. 383.
Bashemath, wife of Esau, i. 107.
Bathsheba, ii. 32, 56.
Bathshua, ii. 32.
Bato, i. 102.
Beasts, clean and unclean, laws of, i.
79 ; ii. 183, 510. See Animals.
Bedouins, the, i. 127, 383; character
and religion of, i. 129, 130, 131.
Beeljada, signification of, i. 392.
Beelzebul, use of name, ii. 126
Beeri, father of Hosea, ii. 222.
Beersheba.sanctuarvat, i. 104; well of,
i. 105; home of Isaac, i. 163; signi-
fication of, i. 164; description ot, i.
164, 165; Terror of, i. 165; worship
at, i. 166; ii. 211.
Bel, i. 38, 88; temple of, i. 89, 90, 94;
ii. 425.
Bela, i. 136.
Belial, sous of, i. 465, 466.
Belshazzar, his feast, ii. 559; son of
Nebuchadrezzar, ii. 559 ; the writing
on the wall, ii, 559 ; properly son of
Nabonedus, ii. 561.
Benaiah, ii. 3
Benhadad, king of Syria, ii 110; makes
war upon Ahab, ii. 114-116 ; his
death, ii. 132.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
577
Benjamin, i. 194, 211-217, 226; signi-
fication of, i. 194.
Benjamites, bowmen and slingers, ii.
3, division of the tribe, ii. 1U0.
Ben-oni signification of, i. 194.
Beor, father of Balaam, ii. 199.
Bera, signification of, i. 118.
Berbers, the, i. 230.
Berechiah, ii. 238.
Bered, i. 127, 128.
Besor, stream of, i. 537.
Bethel, sanctuary at, i. 104; stone at,
i. 105, 178, 179, 196; a place of wor-
ship, i. 178, 179; signification of, i.
178, 196; why so called, i. 179, 196 ;
grave of the man of God from J udali ,
ii. 107; sanctuary of Jeroboam de-
stroyed, ii. 328.
Beth-Horon, ii. 89.
Bethlehem, i. 196.
Beth-Peor, i. 333.
Bethshan, name changed to Scytho-
polis, ii. 339.
Bethshemesh, place of sun-worship, i.
104, 414; signification of, i. 104;
ark remains a short time here, ii. 7.
Bethuel, i. 156.
Bezek, attacked by Judah, i. 355.
Bible, the, i. 4-6 ; errors in the Hebrew
manuscripts, i. 434.
Bible-almanacs, i. 159.
Bildad, friend of Job, ii. 461; his
counsel to Job, ii. 464.
Bilhah, i. 185.
Birsha, signification of, i. 118.
Black Stone, the, i. 177 ; date of theft,
i. 177.
Blood believed to contain the soul, i.
80; ii. 516; prohibited as food, i. 80,
81; ii. 333, 516; laws on the shedding
of, i. 81-83.
Blood-avenger, the, i. 82.
Blood-redeemer, the, i. 82.
Boar, a, executed in (''landers, i. 82.
Boaz, i. 429-432; his marriage' with
Ruth, i. 432.
Boaz, name of a brazen pillar, ii. 72;
pillar of the temple, its significance,
ii. 87.
Bopp, i. 91.
Borsippa, i. 89.
Botta, i. 87.
Bozez, i. 477.
Brahmins, their sacred book, i. 3, 4.
Brazen sea, the, ii. 20, 72.
brazen serpent, the, ii. 281.
Bronze, age of, i. 60.
Brugsch, i. 248.
Bull, how regarded by ancient people,
ii. 102; the golden image made by
the Israelites, ii. 266-268.
Bunsen, i. 248.
Byblus, a Phrenician city, i. 412.
Caaba, i. 177.
Cabul, signification of, ii. 86.
(Jain, i. 53-55; signification of, i. 53;
?[uarrel with Abel, i. 53; banishment
rom Eden, i. 54 ; story of, considered,
i. 55-62.
Cainan, i. 63; resemblance to Cain, i.
64.
('amites, the, i. 55.
Caleb, i. 306, 311; the Kenizzite, i.
355-362 ;. a warrior, i. 359 ; genealogy
of, i. 362; how regarded by the
Jews, i. 362.
Calneh, ruled by Nimrod, i. 85.
Cambyses, successor of Cyrus, ii. 446 ;
date of his death, ii. 446.
Canaan, called the Holy Land, i. 25;
signification of, i. 95; promised to
posterity of Abrain, i. 115; land
promised to the Israelites, i. 307;
conquest of, i. 343-355 ; southern
part conquered bv Israel, i. 345;
conquered by Joshua, i. 346 ; ac-
counts of conquest considered, i.
346-355; conquest of, not effected
till time of Solomon, i. 347; curse of,
ii. 90-93.
Canaanites, the, i. 20; placed among
the children of Ham, i. 95; their
reverence for an oak, i. 115; com-
posed of various tribes, i. 240; their
wars with Israelites, i. 344-346, 348,
366-375; worship Nature, ii. 88;
condition under Solomon, ii. 89, 111,
92; abominations of, ii. 93.
Caphtorites, i. 326.
Carchemish, ii. 356.
Casiphia, ii. 479.
Catherine, Saint, mount of, i. 295.
Cats, worship of, i. 321.
Caucasus, Mt., i. 45.
Cephira, ii. 493.
Chaboras, a river of Mesopotamia, ii.
371.
Chalcol, ii. 78.
Chaldees, the, i. 69, 88; account of a
flood, i. 69; kingdom of, ii. 356;
attack Judah, ii. 365 ; treatment of
conquered lands, ii. 369; attack on
Jerusalem, ii. 380-387; garrison slain
by Ishmael, ii. 392; fall of their
kingdom, ii. 427.
Chammanim, used in worship of Yah-
weh, ii. 113 ; use of, condemned in
the Law, ii. 509.
Champollion, i. 248.
Chase, the, how considered in Israel,
ii. 14.
Chavvah, Hebrew term for Eve, i. 63.
Chebar, a river of Mesopotamia, ii. 371.
26
578
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
" Cheesemakers' Valley," the, ii. 4, ft.
Chemi, signification of^ i. 230.
Chemosh, i. 153; god of the Moabites,
ii. 71, 83; inscription on stone con-
cerning him, ii. 125; sanctuary de-
stroyed, ii. 328.
Chemosbnadab, ii. 125-
Chephren, antiquity of his statue, i.
66.
Cherith, brook, ii. 138.
Cherub, its significance doubtful, ii.
87.
Children, sacrifice of, i. 2B, 319, 320,
410; ii. 299, 300, 302, 402, 509; held
responsible for crime of parent, ii.
16, 17, 418, 419.
Chileab, son of David, ii. 43.
Chilion, i. 427.
Chimham, son of tfarzillai, ii. 54.
Chinese, their sacred book, i. 4.
Christians, their sacred book, i. 3.
Chronicler, the, sketch of his work, ii.
533-535.
Chronicles, book of, i. 30; account of
the ark's removal to Jerusalem, ii. 9,
10; the writer of, ii. 10, 11, 532,
533; when written, ii. 62; its con-
tents, ii. 533-535; composed after
fall of Persian monarchy, ii. 546.
'* Chronicles of the kings of Israel,"
book of, ii. 111.
"Chronicles of Kings of Judah," book
of, ii. 165.
Chushan, Bishathaim, i. 356.
Circesium, ii. 356.
Circumcision, custom of, i. 319; ii.
474, 510.
Cities of refuge, i. 82 ; ii. 333, 477.
Commerce, encouraged by Solomon,
ii. 70, 71 ; its interests required the
worship of strange gods, ii. 83, 84.
Coniah, name applied to Jehoiakin, ii.
369. '
Copper, forging of, discovered, i. 54, 55,
60.
Copts, i. 230.
Cosmogony, i. 34.
Covetousness of Lot, i. 114.
Creation, the, 34-36 ; theory of Hugh
Miller, i. 37; theory of J. G. von
Herder, i. 37 ; Chaldean account of,
i. 38; second account of, i. 42,43;
discrepancies in the two accounts, i.
43, 44 ; Persian account of, i. 45, 49.
Crocodiles, worship of, i. 321.
Croesus, king of the Lydians, ii. 426.
Cush, i. 44, 86.
Cuthaeans, ii. 451.
Cuthah, ii. 450.
Cyrus, i. 27; date of revolt against
Astyages, ii. 426; king of Persians
and Medes, ii. 426; conauest of
Babylon, ii. 426, 427 ; how described
by an Israelite prophet, ii. 433, 434;
permission to Jews to return to Jeru-
salem, ii. 435 ; bis edict, ii. 435, 453 ;
his edict not authentic, ii. 435.
Dagon, i. 88; god of the Philistines,
i. 421, 422; peculiar custom of its
priests, ii. 6.
Damascus, its independence secured,
ii. 70.
Dan, i. 185, 226; tribe of, i. 376.
Dan, city, i. 116, 117, 378; origin of the
sanctuary, i. 375-378; account of
sanctuary considered, i. 378, 379.
Daniel, mentioned by Ezekiel, ii. 461;
his vision, ii. 544, 545; story of, ii.
556-560; his gifts as seer, ii. 557,
558, 559; in the lion's den, ii. 560;
the visions recorded in the book of
Daniel, ii. 562, 563; prophecy of the
Son of Man, ii. 563, 564.
Daniel, book of, i. 30; origin of, ii.
555, 556 ; author's knowledge of his-
tory defective, ii. 561; the visions
interpreted, ii. 563, 564; its inspir-
ation considered, ii. 564, 565.
Danites, the, i. 376-378 ; steal the lera-
phiin and ephod, i. 377.
Daphne, city in Egypt, ii. 397.
Darda, ii. 78.
Darius Hystaspes, i. 469; successor of
Cambyses, ii. 446; the temple rebuilt
in his reign, ii. 478; his treatment of
Daniel, ii. 560.
Dathan, ii. 521, 522.
David, i. 21; ancestry of, i. 433;
dirge in honor of Saul, i. 485, 486;
anointed by Samuel, i. 495, 498;
at the court of Saul, i. 496-498 ; ar-
rives at the camp of Israel, i. 502;
meets and slays Goliath, i. 502-505 ;
friendship for Jonathan, i. 505; story
of his victory over Goliath con-
sidered, i. 505, 506 ; marries Micbal,
i. 507; seeks aid from Samuel, i.
508; proofs of Jonathan's friendship,
i. 509-513 ; flies from Saul, i. 513, 5 14 ;
persecuted by Saul, i. 513-525 ; takes
refuge in cave of Adullam, i. 514;
ii 2 ; his life in the desert, i. 518-
521 ; meets Abigail at Carmel, i. 520 ;
his wives, i. 521 ; spares the life of
Saul, i. 521-524, ii. 64; enters the
service of Achish, i 525, 534; joins
the Philistines, i. 525, 534-537; bis
marauding expeditions, i. 535, 536 ;
mourning for Saul and Jonathan, i.
538, 539; sends embassy to Jabesh,
i. 539, 540; marries daughter of
Geshur, i. 541; demands the return
nf MichaL i. 541, 542; relations with
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
579
•loab, i. 542; ii. fiG ; proclaimed king
of Israel, i. 543 ; length of reign in
Judah, i. 543; date of accession to
throne, i. 544; installed at Jerusa'nm,
i- 544; summoned to be king in
Israel, ii. 1; defeat of Philistines ii. 3;
exploits of his heroes, ii. 2, 3 ; lakes
Jebus by storm, ii. 4 ; removal of arlt
to Jerusalem, ii. 5-9; account in
Chronteles of the ark and the temple,
ii. 10, 11; reasonsfor not building the
temple, ii. 11 ; sends for son of Jona-
than, ii. 14 ; tribulation of his people,
ii. 15; summons the elders of Gibeon,
ii. 18 ; gives seven descendants of Saul
to the Gibeonites, ii. 17; buries Saul
and others in the family tomb of
Saul, ii. 19; renews conflict with
Philistines, ii. 19: his might as king,
ii. 19-26 ; demands cedar wood from
Mt. Lebanon, ii. 21; attacks the
Syrians, ii. 20; his palace built by
Tyrians, ii. 21; cultivation of music,
ii. 22; his officers at the palace, ii.
22; life in his palace, ii. 22, 23, 37;
his body-guard, ii. 23 ; controlled by
public opinion, ii. 26, 31 ; the tak-
ing of the census, ii. 27-31; seeks to
avert the plague, ii. 20, 30 ; account
of the census in Chronicles, ii. 31,
547; betrayal of Uriah, ii. 32, 33;
rebuked by Nathan, ii. 33, 34; con-
duct during his child's illness, ii.
34-36 ; interview with the woman of
Tekoa, ii. 40-42; pardons Absalom,
ii. 42, 43; his kingdom usurped by
Absalom, ii. 44, 45; flight from
Jerusalem, ii. 45-49 ; his jonscience
uneasy, ii. 47; battle with Ab-
salom, ii. 50 ; grief for Absalom,
ii. 52; secret promise to Amasa,. ii.
53, 54; his hatred of Joab, ii. 57,
58; last words concerning Joab, ii.
57V58 ; parting instructions to Solo-
mon, ii. 57, 58; his death and burial,
ii. 58; length of his reign, ii. 58;
sketch of his character, ii. 58-69;
Psalms, authorship of, ii. 59-62;
passage in Amos concerning his
musical powers, ii. 62; his singing
and playing, ii. 62, 63; why re-
garded as chief psalmist of Israel,
u. 62, 63; his religion, ii. 63-65; his
treachery to Uriah, ii. 65; treatment
of his prisoners, ii. 65 ; his cunning,
ii. 65, 66 ; his domestic disasters, ii.
66; his inner life, ii. 67; his dying
words, ii. 68; opinions of histor-
ians explained, ii. 68; how treated
by tradition, ii. 69; insurrection
at his death, ii. 70; his prob-
able motive for consulting oracles,
ii. 76 ; his reign favorable to re-
ligious progress, ii. 93, 94; how
considered 03' Judrean historians, ii.
254; prayer ascribed to him by a
Judsean historian, ii. 254.
Davidic psalms omitted in sketch of
David's character, ii. 61.
Day of atonement, ii. 511-513.
Dead Sea, the, i. 114; origin of, 1
136 ; fruit growing near, i. 137.
Debir, conquered by Joshua, i. 345;
taken by Judah, i. 356.
Deborah, nurse of Rebekah, i. 194.
Deborah, i. 360—374; her song tin
most ancient Israelite poem extant,
i. 366; palm of, i. 369; her song, i.
374, 375.
Decalogue, the, i. 313.
Desert, use of term, i. 518.
Deucalion, i. 102.
Deuteronomy, i. 26, 27, 304, 350 ; sig-
nification of, i. 304; contains Ilil-
kiah's book of the Law, ii. 330; how
compiled, ii. 330; why ascribed to
Moses, ii. 331; its contents, ii.
331-335; its tone and religious fer-
vor, ii. 333, 334; remarks upon the
compilation and use of the book, ii.
402, 403.
Dialects, how they differ from lan-
guages, i. 92.
Diblaim, ii. 224.
Dibon, city in Moab, ii. 124 ; stone with
inscription discovered on the site of
the city, ii. 124.
Dicte, Mount of, i. 301.
Dinah, birth of, i. 185; legend of, 1.
397, 398.
Divination, the art of, i. 220.
Doeg, i. 516, 517.
Dorians, the, i. 102.
Dorus, i. 102.
Drachenfels, legend of, i. 6, 7.
Dreams, explanation by Cicero, i.
208, 209; remark by Elihu, i. 209;
how considered in Israel, i. 209,210 ;
passage from Jesus son of Sirach
relating to them, i. 210.
Eastek, i. 106.
Easter eggs, remains of heathen wor-
ship, i. 106; ii. 514.
Ebal, Mount, i. 109; Israel ordered to
assemble there, i. 351; law to be
placed there, i. 351.
Ebed, i. 401; signification of name, i.
401.
Ebedmelech, citizen of Judah, ii. 352;
advocate of Jeremiah, ii. 382.
Ebenezer, raised by Samuel, i. 447;
signification of, i. 447.
Ecclesiastesj why ascribed to Solomon,
580
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
ii. 82; shows Jewish doubts of their
religion, ii. 552: examined, ii. 552-
554.
Eden, i 42-46; rivers of, i. 43, 44, 45.
Edom, tribes represented by Isaac, i.
100; signification of, i. 168.
Edomites, the, i. 19, 99; a mingled
race, i. 167; their relations with Is-
raelites, i. 167; social life of, i. 167;
conquered by David, i. 167; ii. 20;
their fear of the Israelites, i. 325,
326 ; possessors of southern Judah at
time of return, ii. 443.
Egeria, i. 301.
Eglon city, conquered by Joshua, i.
345.
Eglon, a Moabite king, i. 365.
Egypt, i. 76; famine in, i. 207; ac-
count of famine considered, i. 218;
location of, i. 229; the country and
its people, i. 229-236; name given
by the Greeks, i. 230; history of, i.
230-236, 248. 249; its king compared
with Louis XIV. i. 231; monuments
of, i. 231, 232; royalty of. i. 232;
priests of, i. 234; religion of, i. 234;
date of its freedom from Syrians, i.
235; dislike of foreigners, i. 235;
accounts of its plagues, i. 265-269;
death of the first-born foretold, i.
267; its plagues, compared with
natural phenomena, i. 271; death of
the first-born, i. 273-277; trade with
Palestine, ii. 70; conquered by Cy-
rus, ii. 446.
Egyptians, the, have a week of seven
days, i. 317 ; their forms of worship,
i. 321 ; moral teaching of, i. 321 ;
regard the serpent as a sacred
animal, ii. 281.
Ehud, i. 365.
Ekron, a city, i. 356, 536.
El, signification of, i. 17.
Elah, ii. 110.
Elam, i. 118.
Elath, pass of, i. 311.
Elath, seaport, i. 325 ; ii. 189, 241.
Eldad, a prophet, ii. 219, 220.
Eleazar, son of Aaron, ii. 475, 522.
Eleazar, son of Abinadab, ii. 7.
Elhanan, the slayer of Goliath, i. 506 ;
ii. 19. 20.
Eli, chief priest at Shiloh, 434-441;
his death, i. 441; fall of the priestly
family, i. 444, 445.
Eliab, brother of David, i. 495, 502.
Eliakim, on the throne of Judah, a
vassal of Necho, ii. 344. See Jehoi-
akim-
Eliashib, ii. 502.
Eliezer, i. 120; slave of Abraham, i.
155-161; seeks u wife for Isaac, i.
156-158; returtis with Eebekab, 1.
158; his character, i. 159, 160.
Eliezcr, a prophet, ii. 170.
Eliezer, i. 309.
Elihu, discourses of, ii. 462; friend of
Job, ii. 469.
Elijah, i. 23; does not protest against
images, ii. 109; denounces Ahab, ii.
119; his dealings with Ahaziah, ii.
127, 128; fed by the ravens, ii. 138;
prophecy of the drought in Israel, ii.
138 ; at the house of the widow in
Zarephath, ii. 138, 139; brings to
life the son of the widow, ii. 139;
challenges Ahab to test the gods
Yahwen and Baal, ii. 140; trial of
the power of Yahweh and Baal, ii.
140-143; in the wilderness, ii. 143;
his commands from Yahwen, ii. 143,
144 ; in the cave at Horeb, ii. 143,
144; anoints Elisha as prophet, ii.
144; vision on Mt. Horeb, ii. 144,
147; story of, considered, ii. 145-
149 ; ascension to heaven, ii. 151,
152, 162, 163.
Eliin, i. 288.
Elimelech, i. 427.
Eliphaz, friend of Job, ii. 461 ; his
counsel to Job, ii. 463.
Elisha, i. 23; does not protest against
images, ii. 109; son of Shaphat, ii.
129; his prophecy to Jehoram, ii.
129, 131 ; his interview with Hazael,
ii. 132; his hatred of the house of
Ahab, ii. 133 ; anointed prophet by
Elijah, ii. 144 ; stories of, ii. 150-165 ;
father of the prophets, ii. 151;
becomes the successor of Elijah, ii.
151, 152; mocked by the children,
ii. 153; his miracles, ii. 153-159,
164; his stay with the woman of
Shunem, ii. 154 ; restores to life the
son of the woman of Shunem, ii.
155, 156; removes poison from cer-
tain plants, ii. 156; cures Naaman,
ii. 157, 158; assistance given in
ware, ii. 159-162; his characteristics,
ii. 163; the fate of Israel foretold, ii.
163, 164; his death, ii. 164, 165.
Elitsur, signification of, i. 177.
Eljada, signification of, i. 392.
Elkanah, T.434-438.
El-Khaliel, present name of Hebron, i.
152; signification of, i. 152. See
Hebron.
Elohim, signification of, i. 17, 238;
name substituted for Y H VV H, i. 258.
Elohist, the older, i. 238; ii. 194; the
younger, ii. 194.
El Shaddai, signification of, i. 17.
Elul, sixth month of Jewish vear, ii
498.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
581
Emites, the, a race of giants, i. 240,
326.
Endor, i. 526; witch of, i. 526, 52',
story of Saul and Samuel consid-
ered, i. 532, 533.
Engedi, desert of, i. 519.
Enonh, i. 51, 63-67 ii. 162, 163; sig-
nification of, i. 66.
Enoch, book of, i. 67 , ii. 568.
Enoch, town of, i. 54.
Enos, i. 55, 63, 64.
Eolus, i. 102.
Ephod, the, i. 375, 379; ii. 476; name
used to signify image, i. 392.
Ephraim, i. 226, 227.
Ephraimites, the, cut off the Midianites'
escape, i. 387 ; tested by Shibboleth,
i. 408 ; war with Israelites, i. 408.
Ephrath, i. 196, 197.
Kphron, i. 150.
Epiphanes, ii. 545. See Antiochus.
Erech, ruled by Nimrod, i. 85.
Esar-haddon, ii. 290, 450.
Esau, i. 102; his wives, i. 167; obtains
name of Edom, i. 168; renounces
birthright, i. 168; signification of, i.
168; his character, i. 168, 174; ac-
count of, i. 168-171, 192-194, 201;
why represented as twin brother of
Jacob, i. 359.
Esdras, book of, called the Third of Es-
dras, ii. 440.
Esek, signification of, i. 162.
Eshcol, 1. 116 ; signification of name, i.
360 ; valley of, i. 360 ; derivation of
name, i. 361.
Esther, story of, ii. 547-550.
Esther, book of, its spirit, ii. 551 ; date
of authorship, ii. 552.
Etham, i. 419.
Ethan, ii. 9, 78, 533; data concerning
him untrustworthy, ii. 78
Ethiopia, i. 43, 44, 87.
Euhemerism, i. 105, 106, 412.
Euhemerus, i. 106.
Euphrates, the, i. 43, 44, 84, 85 ; road
from, to Egypt, ii. 339.
Eve, creation of, i. 36, 43 ; temptation
of, i. 46, 47; punishment of, i. 47,
48; signification of, i. 53; Hebrew
form of name, i. 63.
Evil-merodach, ii. 401, 426.
Exodus, the, i. 280-287.
Ezekiel, i. 27, 28 ; speaks of the wor-
ship of animals, ii. 302 ; a priest and
Erophet, ii. 406, 416; date of his
ook, ii. 407; length of prophetic
labors, ii. 407; vision of his call to
prophecy, ii. 407-409; significance
of the symbols of his vision ; ii. 409,
410; called a riddle-maker, ii. 410;
description of Yahweh's glory, ii.
410; style of his preaching, ii. 410,
411; his attacks upon surrounding
f copies, ii. 411, 412; his view oi
srael's restoration^ ii. 412-416; style
of his writings, ii. 413, 414; his
division of the priesthood, ii. 414;
his devotion to the temple, ii. 414-
416; his ideal state, ii. 415, 416;
counsels to Judjeans in exile, ii. 417,
418; his view of guilt, ii. 418, 419.
Eziongeber, i. 325; shipbuilding car-
ried on by Solomon, il. 71.
Ezra, i. 28-30, 312; his writings, ii.
435 ; duration of his journey to Jeru-
salem, ii. 441 ; his return from Baby-
lonia, ii. 472; the scribe, ii. 472-484;
his descent, ii. 478 ; requests permis-
sion to go to .1 mlaea, ii. 478 ; his de-
parture from Babylon, ii. 479 ; his
reception at Jerusalem, ii. 480; his
grief at the foreign marriages of the
Jews in Palestine, ii. 481, 482; his
Erayer, ii. 481, 482; his resolve to
reak the foreign marriages of the
Jews, ii. 482-484; opposition to his
measures, ii. 484, 485; reads the law
to the Jews, ii. 499 ; extolled as a
second Moses, ii. 507 ; father of Ju-
daism, ii. 507, 508; opposition to his
work, ii. 520-531 ; his work success-
ful among the Jews, ii. 530, 531.
Ezra, book of, i. 30 ; authorship of, ii.
532, 533; composed after fall of
Persian monarchy, ii. 546.
Fable, use of word, i. 8.
Faith, power of, i. 119.
Fayum, i. 233.
Feast of the Fiftieth Day, ii. 511.
First-fruits, ii. 182.
Harvest, ii. 104, 182, 500.
Lights, ii. 566.
New Moon, i. 317 ; ii. 511.
The Passover, i. 277-280; ii. 329, 511.
Pentecost, ii. 511.
Purim, ii. 547, 550, 551.
Renewing of the Temple, ii. 566.
Tabernacles,'ii. 104, 500, 511.
Unleavened Bread, i. 274, 275, 277,
278; ii. 182.
Weeks, ii. 511.
See Festivals.
Feasts, law of, ii. 182, 511.
Festivals, the Day of Atonement, ii.
511-513.
Sabbath, i. 313, 317; ii. 185, 501-
503, 517.
Sabbatical Year, ii. 185, 518.
Year of Jubilee, ii. 518.
See Feast.
Fetichism, i. 175, 176, 411.
Field of the tournament, i. 540
582
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Fiftieth day. See Feast.
1'irst-fruits. See Feast.
Flood, the, i. 69-77 ; Chaldean account
of, i. 69; Phrygian account of, i.
69 ; various accounts of, i. 69.
Food, rules of, i. 79, 80, 81; ii. 183,
510.
Forging. See Copper and Iron.
Frisians, the, i. 102.
Frizo, sons of, i 102.
Fuller's Well, the, ii. 56.
Gaal, i. 395-397, 399-401.
Gabriel, i. 177; ii. 546; angel, reputed
giver of the black stone, i. 177; re-
puted source of the Koran, i. 301.
Gad, i. 185, 226 ; tribe receives land, i.
327.
Gad, a prophet, i. 515; admonishes
David, ii. 30-32; friend of David,
ii. 63.
Gadites, the, stern warriors, ii. 3.
Ganges, the, i. 45.
Ganneau, his attempt to obtain the in-
scription from stone at Moab, ii.
124.
Gath, i. 536.
Gaza, i. 356, 536.
Gedafiah, appointed governor of Judah,
ii. 387; his rule in Judah, ii. 387,
388; plot to take his life, ii. 39 J, 392;
murdered by Ishmael, ii. 392.
Gehazi, servant of Elisha, ii. 154-156,
158, 159
Gehenna, ii. 299.
Ge-Hinnom, ii. 299.
Gemariah, ii. 361, 362.
Genealogy of Adam, i. 63.
Caleb, i. 362.
Noah's sons, i. 94, 95.
Genesis, signification of, i. 42 ; book of,
i. 42; written by different writers, i.
107; manner of compilation, i. 236-
239.
Gerar, i. Ill, 162.
Gerizim, Mount, i. 109, 110; Israel
ordered to assemble there, i. 351.
Germans, the, attachment to their stone
gods, i. 176.
Gershom, i. 309, 378, 379.
Geshem, the Arab, ii. 485, 488, 489;
his opposition to Nehemiah's work,
ii. 492-494.
Geshur, king of, receives Absalom, ii.
39.
Gezer, i. 345 ; ii. 70, 88, 89.
Giants, i. 326, 327.
Gibbethon, ii. 108.
Gibeah, i. 476.
Gibeah-of-Saul, derivation of name,
ii. 16.
Gibeon, the sun stands still, i. 345.
Gibeon, asks Joshua for an alliance,
i. 344 ; deserts the common cause, i.
344.
Gibeonites the, i. 451: ii. 15-19; con-
demned to the service of the temple,
i. 344, 349; demand seven of the
house of Saul, ii. 16.
Gideon, i. 384 394; builds an altar to
Yahweh, i. 385; destroys Baal's
altar, i. 385; named Jerubbaal, i.
385 ; destroys Succoth and Fennel,
i. 388 ; makes an ephod, i. 389 ;
slays Zebah and Zahnunna, :. 389;
buried at Ophrah, i. 389 ; his real
name, i. 390; signification of, i. 390;
his faith, i. 392-394; his sons mur-
dered, i. 395 ; how treated by tradi-
tion, ii. 69.
" Gideon's band," i. 393, 394.
Gihon, i. 43, 44 ; well of, ii. 57.
Gilead, signification in Hebrew, i. 187 ,
land of, i. 404, 405.
Gileadites, the, i. 405-409: ask help
Iroin Saul, i. 465; colonies of, iu
Assyria, ii. 241, 242.
Gilgaf, derivation of name, i. 319.
Giloh, ii. 44.
" Gittith, to the," significance of term,
ii. 542.
God, his commandments to Noah, i.
78, 81; his covenant with Noah, i.
78-84; his promise that there shall
never be another flood i- 83 ; use of
name in Psalms, ii. 190, 191. See
Yahweh.
" God, son of," title of honor assumed
by a king of Israel, ii. 25.
Gog, ii. 414.
Goliath, i. 502-507; slain by David,
i. 505; his death attributed to El-
hana.i, i. 506; slain by Elhanan, ii.
19.
Gomer, a, i. 289.
Gorner, son of Japhet, i. 95; sons of,
i. 95.
Gorner, daughter of Diblaim, ii. 224.
Gomorrah, i. 114; destruction of, i.
131-139.
Goshen, dwelling place of Jacob, i.
223, 224 ; excepted from the plagues,
i. 266, 267.
Greece, i. 76.
Greek myth, i. 93.
Greeks, their influence upon Jewish
religion, i. 30; ii. 552-554; their
origin, i. 102.
Grimm, i. 91.
Grove, word for, mistranslated, ii. 113.
Habakkuk, his prophecv, ii. 367
368.
Habel, Hebrew term for Abel, i, 63.
INDEX Of SUBJECTS.
583
Hadad, ii. 83.
Hadadezer, king of Zobah, ii. 20.
Hagar, i. 126-128, 140, 141; i« he
desert, i. 140, 141.
Haggai, a prophet, ii 446 ; his exhorta-
tions to the Jews, ii. 446-448.
Hallel, sung at the passover, i. 280.
Ham, i. 70; name refers also to Ca-
naanites, ii. 91.
Hainan, ii. 548-550.
Hamath, attacked by David, ii. 20.
Haimtie peoples, i. 95.
Hamniaaloth, signification of, ii. 537 ;
songs of, ii. 537.
Hamor, i. 397.
Hanameel, interview with Jeremiah, ii.
383, 384.
Hanani, a seer, ii. 168.
Hanani, brother of Nohemiah, ii. 486,
497.
Hananiah, a prophet in Judah, ii.
373-375.
Hananiah, friend of Daniel, ii. 556.
See Sliadrach.
Hanging, a custom in writing, i. 380.
Hanging gardens, ii. 425.
Hannah, mother of Samuel, story of,
i. 434-438; her song of gratitude,
i. 436, 437.
I lanun, son of N abash, ii. 20.
Haram, the, the sanctuary at el-Kha-
liel, i. 152.
Haran, i. 96, 107.
Haran, father of Lot, i. 96.
Harosheth, camp of Sisera, i. 367.
Harvest, feast of, ii. 104, 182, 500.
I lasnion.'earis, the, i. 30.
Havilah, i. 43.
Havoth-Jair, i. 404.
Hawara, i. 288; signification of, i. 288.
I lazael, king of Syria, ii. 132.
Hazezon Tainar, i. 115.
Hazor, i. 346; city of, i. 366.
Heber, i. 96; sijjnificatinn of, i. 96.
Heber, husband of Jael, i. 373.
Hebrew, the, vowels not used, i. 379,
380; manuscripts contain errors, i.
434.
Hebrews, the, appellations of their God,
i. 17; date of emancipation from
Egyptian slavery, i. 17 ; signification
of,"i. 17; early customs, manners,
and religious observances, i. 17, IS;
why so called, i. 97; metric char-
acter of their poems, i. 223; their
poems distinguished from prose, i.
223; immigration of, i. 240; op-
pressed by Ramses, II i. 283; in-
termarried with other tribes, i. 316
See Israelites.
Hebron, i. 104, 115, 117. 152; descrip-
tion of the tombs, i. 152 ; its present
name, i. 152; conquered by Joshua,
i. 345; given to Caleb, i. 356.
Hellen, i. 102.
Heman, ii. 9 , 78, 533, 534 ; data con-
cerning him untrustworthy, ii. 78.
Hephaistos, heathen deity, ii. 290.
Herakles, i. 36 ; legend of, i. 413.
Hercules. See Herakles.
Hermon, Mount, i. 332, 333.
Herod, i. 31 ; date of accession as king,
i. 81.
Herodotus, account of the flight of
the Assyrians, ii. 290, 291.
Heshbr -1, capital of the Aniorites, i. 328.
Hethites, the, i. 150.
Hezekiah, i. 24, 26 ; son of Ahaz, king
of Judah, ii. 275; length of reign,
ii. 275 ; his reformation, ii. 278-280,
281 ; revolt from Assyria, ii. 282-286;
receives the Babylonian einbassj', ii.
283; war with Sennacherib, ii. 286-
290; his illness, ii. 294, 295; his
song of thanksgiving, ii. 295; im-
provements in Jerusalem, ii. 297;
his death, ii. 297.
Hiddekel, i. 43.
Hilkiah, father of Jeremiah, ii. 318;
chief priest at Jerusalem, ii. 326,
327 ; probably the author of book of
the law, ii. 330.
Hindoo myth, a, i. 8, 9.
Hindoos, the, attachment to their stone
gods, i. 176.
Hinnom, valley of, ii. 3; contains the
Tophet, ii. 299.
Hiram, king of Tyre, ii. 21 ; asks rid-
dles of Solomon, ii. 80 ; assists in
the building of the temple, ii. 84;
indebtedness of Solomon, ii. 86.
Hiram, a smith, ii. 72 ; ornaments the
temple, ii. 87.
Holy, the, a chamber of the temple, ii.
85.
Holy land, the, i. 25.
Holy of Holies, the chamber of the
temple, ii. 85 ; described in Book of
Origins, ii. 475.
Holy places, i. 104.
Hoiiiokorah, i. 38.
Hoorn, i. 72.
Hophni, son of Eli, i. 434, 437-441.
Hophra, ii. 376.
Hor, Mount, i. 16C.
Horeb, Mount, i. 261, 295; called the
mountain of fiod, i. 291.
Horeb, rock of, i. 290.
Horite, translation of, i. 166, 167.
Horites, the, i. 166, 167; dwelling-
. place of, i. 240.
Hormah, i. 306.
Hnronaim, a city of the Edomites, ii
126.
584
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Horos, i 412, 413.
Horus, an Egyptian god, i. 231.
Hosea, j. 25; ii. 221-228; specimen of
his preaching, ii. 223, 224-226, 228 ;
character of his preaching, ii. 227,
228; his judgment of Israel consid-
ered, ii. 228-231.
Hosea, book of, ii. 222, 224.
Hosea, last king of Israel, ii. 242; be-
sieged by Shatmaneser, ii. 275.
Huldah, visited by emissaries of Josiah,
ii. 327.
Human race, age of, i. 65, 66.
Humanity, its claims in the law, ii.
184, 185.
Hur, 1. 291 ; ii. 266.
Hushai, adviser of David, ii. 46, 48,
49 ; why his opinions were valuable,
ii. 76, 77.
Hyksos, the, i. 235; date of their ex-
pulsion from Egypt, i. 249.
Hyrcanus. See John Hyrcanus.
Hystaspes, ii. 446. See Darius.
Ibis, worship of the, i. 321.
Ichabod, i. 442 ; signification of, i. 442.
Iddo, book of, ii. 167.
Iddo, father of Zechariah, ii. 238.
Iddo, a man of Casiphia, ii. 479.
Idolatry, to be punished with death, ii.
332. See Image-worship.
Idumaeaus, the, embrace Judaism, i.
31.
Image-worship, i. 23, 321 ; ii. 102, 103,
109, 167; condemned, ii. 264-274;
condemned in the law, ii. 509.
Imlah, father of Micaiah, ii. 120.
lmmanuel, signification of, ii. 258.
Incense, origin of the custom of filling
the Holy of Holies, ii. 513, 514.
India, i. 45.
India, i. 8; myth of, i. 420.
Indus, i. 45.
Ion, i. 102.
Irad, i. 54, 64.
Iron, forging of, discovered, i, 54, 55,
60 ; age of, i. 60.
Isaac, i. 100; name represents certain
tribes, i. 100; birtli of, i. 139; signi-
fication of, i. 139, 161; goes to the
sacrifice with Abraham, i. 145, 146;
marriage of, i. 158; deceit of, i. 162;
"dread" of, i. 165; "terror" of, i.
165; blesses Jacob, i. 170; his age,
i. 200; his death, i. 200; buried in
cave of Machpelah, i. 153.
Isaiah, i. 25; his description of the
Assyrians, ii. 237 ; prophet of Judah,
ii 248-255; his description of his
call to prophesy, ii. 249 ; his literary
work, ii. 249; the miraculous sign
given to Hezekiah in his illness, ii.
294, 295 ; bis reverence for Yahweh,
ii. 250, 251; expression of dissatis-
faction with his people, ii. 251 ; ex-
pression of his thoughts on morality,
ii. 251-253; belief in Yahweh, ii.
253; witchcraft and image-worship
assailed, ii. 253; his outlook into the
future, ii. 254 ; his prediction of Iin-
manuel, ii. 258, 259; mistranslation
in his prophecy of lmmanuel, ii. 259;
his address to the people of Jeru-
salem, ii. 261-263; his prediction of
the fall of Samaria, ii. 275, 276 ; his
prophecies in time of Hezekiah, ii.
283-285; cheers Hezekiah in the
war with Assyria, ii. 289, 290; pro-
phecies regarding the Assyrians, ii.
291-293 ; prophecy of Judah's future,
ii. 292, 293 ; passage relating Heze-
kiah's song of thanksgiving, ii. 295;
description of the misery of Judah,
ii. 297 ; tradition of his death given
in the Talmud, ii. 308; passage ex-
pressing Israel's future glory, ii.
396.
Isaiah, book of, ii. 248, 419.
Isaiah, called the Second Isaiah, ii
419; called the Babylonian Isaiah,
ii. 419; discourses of, ii. 420-425
discourse on the servant of Yahweh
the subject of controversy, ii. 421,
422; oracle showing high-wrought
expectation, ii. 429-431 ; his chal-
lenge to idols, ii. 432, 433; opposes
belief in a good and evil god, ii. 546,
547.
Lslibaal, signification of, i. 392; son of
Saul, i. 482; king of Israel, i. 540;
death of, i. 542.
Ishbosheth, i. 392; son of Saul, i. 482.
Ishmael, his name represents certain
tribes, i. 100; his birth, i. 127; sig-
nification of, i. 127; future greatness
prophesied, i. 127, 141; accounts of,
compared, i. 141, 142.
Ishmael, son of Netlianiuh, ii. 391, 392.
Ishmaelites, the, i. 127-131.
Isis, i. 231, 232, 412.
Islam, i. 131 ; temple of, i. 177.
Israel, i. 17; "sons of," i. 17, 316; his-
torical sketch of, i. 17-32; captivity
of, i. 24; date of conquest by Assy-
rians, i. 24; date of conquest oy
Chaldees, i 27 ; date of return under
Zerubbabel, i. 27 ; date of conquest
of Alexander the Great, i. 28; tribes
represented by Jacob and Isaac, i.
100; twelve tribes represented by
sons of Jacob, i. 100; signification
of, i. 193; name incorrectly inter-
preted, i. 200 ; its history begins
with Moses, i. 241 ; £ rowth of priestly
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
585
caste, i. 382, 383; ii. 303-305 (See
Law. Mosaic, and Levites); purified
at Mizpeh, i. 446: establishment of
the monarchy, i. 459 j golden age of,
ii. 62; separation of the kingdoms,
ii. 68, 69, 99, 100; represented by
the name Jeshurun, ii. 191; longing
to reunite the kingdoms, ii. 194;
period of greatest literary glory, ii.
194; literary works examined, ii.
194-199; fall of the kingdom, ii.
237-248; king of, called mashiach,
ii. 255 ; central thought of its religion,
from eighth century onwards, ii.
268; its religion endangered by the
growth of the law, ii. 336, 337; last
period of its religious history in the
Old Testament, ii. 338; religious
condition in Messianic age, ii. 384,
385 ; territory used by Assyrians for
their colonies of captives, ii. 401;
name of Jews given to the tribes, ii.
440; again established, ii. 453; be-
comes s the people of the book," ii.
507 ; its sad future, ii. 566. See Is-
raelites, Jews, Judah.
Israel, name given to Jacob, i. 193, 196,
200. See Jacob.
"Israel's Rock," i. 177.
Israelites, the, i. 17; their descent, i.
99; their relationship to Arabs, i.
127; name of their wars, i- 154;
relations with the Edomites, i. 167;
migrate to Egypt, i. 224; their early
history, i. 239-241; oppressed by
Egyptians, i. 243, 245-248, 264; date
of their slavery in Egypt, i. 247;
date of departure from Egypt, i. 249;
names of their magicians, i. 272;
leave Egvpt, i. 273, 274; cross the
Red Sea,"i. 280-282, 284; exodus re-
lated by Manetho, i. 282, 283 ; num-
ber of, at the time of the Exodus, i.
284, 285 ; journey from Red Sea to
Mt. Horeb, i. 287-291; pillar of cloud
appears, i. 288 ; food provided in the
desert, i. 288, 289; complaints in
their wanderings, i. 288, 290, 292,
293, 306, 334, 335; war with Aniale-
kites, i. 291; at Sinai, i. 295-300; ii.
265-273 ; a subdivided nation, i. 305,
310; their wanderings, i. 305-312,
326-328 ; the pillar of flame appears,
i. 306 ; punished for their complaints,
i. 306; object of their histories, i.
307; date of exodus, i. 308; lapse
of time from the exodus to conquest
of Canaan, i. 308; obtain freedom
undo: Ramses III., i. 308; account
of their journey considered, i. 308-
312; character of the tribes, i. 316,
355; the ark, i. 322, 323 (See Ark) ;
25*
their debt to Moses, i. 324 ; conquest
of land east of the Jordan, i. 325-
331 , war with Amorites, i. 326, 328 ;
receive land from Moses, i. 327, 329:
conquest of Jericho, i. 336-343 •
cross the Jordan, i. 337; conquest of
Canaan, i. 343-355; war with Ca-
naanites, i. 344-346, 348, 366-375;
conquest of five kings at Gibeon, i.
345 ; commanded to worship at Shi-
loh, i. 353; take possession of their
land, i. 355-359 ; national spirit dor-
mant, i. 359; spies sent to view
Canaan, i. 360; how represented in
book of Judges, i. 363-366; their
judges, i. 364, 365; sufferings from
power of Jabin, i. 367, 368; seek
aid through Deborah, i. 370; hier-
archy, i. 382 (i'ee Law, Mosaic, and
Levites); war with Midianites, i.
383-389 ; account of the victory over
the Midianites considered, i. 389-394 ;
wars with Ammonites, i. 405-407,
465, 466, 472-474; ii. 21; war with
Ephraimites, i. 408 ; wars with Phil-
istines, i. 440, 441, 447, 475-482, 501-
505, 517, 518, 525-528, 536; ii. 1, 2,
19, 20 ; ask Samuel for a king, i.
463; patriarchal rule, i. 473, 474;
wars with Syrians, ii. 20, 114-116,
120-122; wars with Moabites, ii. 20,
129, 130; relations with Phoenician
cities, ii. 21; the census taken by
David, ii. 28; plague in David's
reign, ii. 28; fear of the census, ii.
31; civil wars, ii. 44-51, 54-56, 187,
240, 241; when the tribes formed a
single people, ii. 68: division of the
kingdom, ii. 68, 69, 99, 100; their
treatment of Canaanites, ii. 89-93 ;
legend exemplifying relations with
Canaanites, ii. 90, 91; followers of
Moses, ii. 94-96 (-See Moses, fol-
lowers of) ; disaffection under Solo-
mon, ii. 96, 97 ; story relating to the
prophets, ii. 218-220: their sacred
writings only preserved, ii. 234; fall
of Israel, ii. 237-248 ; date of capture
by Assyrians, ii. 242; story of the
golden bull, when composed, ii. 265;
their sin in the desert, ii. 265-268;
make and worship a golden bull, ii.
267-270 ; legend of the brazen ser-
pent, ii. 280, 281 ; war with Egyp-
tians, ii. 344; Judah carried into
captivity, ii. 369, 370 ; in exile, ii.
397-405 ; existence of nationality se-
cured, ii. 403; psalms expressing
emotions in captivity, ii. 404, 405;
reviving hopes, ii. 425-435 ; their
interest in Cyrus's victories, ii. 427;
oracles of the exiles, ii. 427- 434,
586
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
436-438; return under Zerubbabel,
ii. 435-444; receive from Cyrus the
treasures of Jerusalem, ii 436; cata-
logue and number of returning ex-
iles, ii. 439, 440 ; known by name of
Jews, ii. 440 (See Jews); return
under Ezra, ii. 472, 478-480; for-
eign marriages broken by Ezra, ii.
4S1-484; Nehemiah appointed gov-
ernor of Judaea, ii 488 (See Nehe-
miah) ; introduction of Mosaic law,
ii. 498-508.
Israelites, their customs and beliefs.
Views on immortality, i 25, 528-
531; ii. 162, 163; human sacrifices,
i. 26, 147, 148, 319, 320, 410; ii. 16,
17, 299, 300, 302, 402, 509; their
objects of worship, i. 104, 177, 178,
285, 286, 315, 324 ; ii. 83, 84, 87, 102,
103, 109, 115, 185, 186, 30U (See
worship ; conceptions of Yahweh. i.
123-125,' 221, 222, 259, 260; ii. 84,
88, 196-199, 245-247, 314-316; their
reverence for an oak, i. 115 ; custom
of striking a treaty, i. 123; customs
relating to death, i. 151, 152; mar-
riage with Canaanites, i. 189, 398;
views on truth and honor, i. 189-191,
260 ; never eat the hip sinew, i. 193 ;
ideas of N:iture, i. 200; importance
attached to dreams, i. 208-210; art
of divination, i. 220; consecration of
the first-born, i. 275, 276; their trust
in Yahweh, i. 293; their forms of
worship, i. 316-320, 322, 380-383,
480; ii. 113, 167,299-303; custom of
circumcision, i. 319; the ark, i. 322,
323 (See Ark); their debt to Moses,
i. 324; hierarchy, i. 382; custom
of redeeming, i. 410, 425, 432; their
knowledge of the zodiac, i. 418; cus-
tom of levirate marriage, i. 425, 426,
religious experiences, i. 448, 449, 453-
455 ; the prophets, i. 452-455 : custom
of consulting Yahweh, i. 480; Urim
and Thuinmim, i. 480; their ideas of
crime, i. 484 ; ii 418 ; crime of steal-
ing an Israelite, i. 515: meaning of
word desert, i. 518 ; belief in necro-
mancy, i. 532; rule for the division
of booty, i. 538; family responsible
for the crime of one member, ii. 16,
17, 418, 419; conservatism of the
old school, ii. 22 ; submission to
royalty, ii. 23-26 ; fear of the census,
ii. 31 ; character of religious songs at-
tune of David, ii. 62, 63; idea of
wisdom, ii 75-77; idea of dwelling
alone, ii. 91; their mental growth
under David and Solomon, ii. 94;
Mosaic school (See Moses), followers
of; their gods thought to be moun-
tain gods, ii. 115; their earliest law
book, ii. 180-186; their laws (See
Law); significance of Yahweh-wor-
ship, ii. 185, 18G; their manners ip
the eighth century B.C., ii. 229 ; posi
tion given to woman, ii. 233, 234,
their views on marriage, ii. 233, 234;
their sacred writings only, preserved,
ii. 234; thought it death to see God,
ii. 273; hope of a golden age, ii.
294; view of sickness, ii. 295, 296;
heathen rites re-established, ii. 299 ;
terror of exile, ii. 370, 371; hostile to
the religion of others, ii. 431, 432;
doctrine of rewards and punish-
ments, ii. 470, 471; end of the days
of prophecy, ii. 555. See Israel.
Jews, and Judseans.
Issachar, i. 185, 189, 226, 366.
Ithamar, i. 444.
Ittai, ii. 45.
Jaaeeoreoim, i. 506.
Jaazaniah chief of the Rechabites, ii.
366.
Jabal, son of Lamech, i. 54 ; instituted
shepherd life, i. 54; compared with
Apollo, i. 56.
Jabbok, i. 193.
Jabesh, i. 465: men of, rescue the
remains of Saul, i. 528.
Jabin, i. 366
Jachin, brazen pillar, ii. 72 ; pillar of
the temple, its significance, ii. 87.
Jacob, i. 100 ; his name represents cer-
tain tribes, i. 100; names of his sons
represent certain tribes, i. 100; poem
of, i. 102 ; sons of, i. 104 ; birth of,
i. 168; story of his youth, i. 168-171;
obtains Esau's birthright, i. 168; sig-
nification of, i. 168; personates Esau,
i. 169; departure to Haran, i. 171;
his character, i. 174, 175 ; his dream,
i. 179; ladder of, i. 179; different
account of departure to Haran, i. 182,
183; at Haran, i. 184; marries Leah,
i. 184; meeting with Rachel, i. 184;
marries Kachel, i. 184; bargains with
Laban, i. 185; departure from Laban,
i. 186 ; objects of the stories relat-
ing to him, i. 188, 189 ; return of, to
the fatherland, i. 192-195; sends an
embassy to Esau, i. 192; meeting
with Esau, i. 193; wrestles with God,
i. 193; name changed to Israel, i.
193; raises altars at Shechem and
Bethel, i. 194; wrestling with God,
similar instances among other na-
tions, i. 198, 199, 200; sends his
sons to Egvpt, i. 211; joy at finding
Joseph i. 217; adoption of Joseph's
son, i 223; in Egypt, i. 223-228;
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
587
blesses Pharaoh, i. 224; age of, i.
224; death and burial of, i. 225-228;
buried in cave of Machpelah, i. 153 ;
foretells the future of his sons, i.
226, 227; why represented as twin
brother of fisau, i. 359; blessing
of, ,. 401.
Jacl, i. 368.
Jael, wife of Hiber, i. 373; slays
Sisera, i. 374.
Jahuz, i. 326.
Jair, i. 327, 404, • illages of, i. 327,
404.
Japhet, i. 70; sons of, i. 95; sons of,
comprise all distant nations, ii. 91.
Japhetic peoples, i. 95.
Japht, translation of, ii. 91.
Jared, i. 63, 64.
Javan, i. 95.
Jebus, i. 117 ; king of, makes war upon
Gibeon, i. 344; city of, ii. 3; called
Jerusalem, ii. 4. See Jerusalem.
Jechoniah, ii. 7.
Jedidiah, name given to Solomon, ii.
35; signification of, ii. 35.
Jeduthun, ii. 9, 533, 534.
Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, ii. 149; king of
Israel, ii. 149; meets the woman suf-
fering from famine, ii. 160; threatens
life of Elisha, ii. 160, 161.
Jehoahaz, son of Josiah, ii. 344; called
Shallum, ii. 344.
Jehobaal, i. 401
Jehoiada, a chief priest in Judah, ii.
172-175 ; his influence with the priest-
hood, ii. 178, 179.
Jehoiakim, name given to Eliakim, ii.
344; king of Judah, and vassal of
Necho, ii. 344; his character and
rule, ii. 355, 356; his kingdom falls
to Nebuchadrezzar, ii. 357; his anger
at Jeremiah, ii. 362, 363; allegiance
to Nebuchadrezzar thrown off, ii.
365; his death, ii. 368.
Jehoiakin, son of Jehoiakim, ii. 368;
king of Judah, ii. 368; surrenders
Jerusalem, ii. 369; released from
captivity, ii. 401, 402.
Jehoram, son of Ahab, ii. 114; king of
Israel, ii. 128 ; attempt to subjugate
the Moabites, ii. 128-130; consults
Elisha, ii. 129; extermination of his
house, ii. 133-137.
Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, ii. 171,
172; king of Judah, ii. 171, 172.
Jehoshaphat, valley of, ii. 4.
Jejioshaphat, chancellor of David, ii.
Jehoshaphat, i. 24; king of Jndah,
alliance with Ahab, ii. 120 ; assists
Jehoram of Israel in war, ii. 129,
130; son of Asa, ii. 166, 168-171;
his interest in the affairs of justice,
ii. 180-182.
Jehovah, name should be Yahweh, i.
18; origin of name, i. 258. Set
Yahweh.
Jehu, i. 23; kings of his house, date
of, i. 24; date of kingship, i. 456;
anointed king of Israel, ii. 133; his
extermination of the house of Ahab,
ii. 133-138; massacre of the royal
house, ii. 135-137 ; drives over Jeze-
bel, ii. 135; destruction of the priests
of Baal, ii. 136, 137; his reign over
Israel, ii. 149.
Jehu, son of Hanani, ii. 110.
.Tehudi, ii. 362.
Jephthah, i. 403-411 ; his vow, i. 406 ;
his daughter, i. 407; sacrifices his
daughter, i. 408; account of, con-
sidered; i. 409-411.
Jeremiah, i. 27; his belief concerning
the fall of Jerusalem, ii. 306, 307;
son of Hilkiah, a prophet, ii. 318;
his call to prophesy, ii. 323; history
of his oracles, ii. 322-326; a preacher
of repentance, ii. 323 ; his religious
position, ii. 325 ; differs from other
prophets, in opinion of Judah's sin-
fulness, ii. 340; his dissatisfaction
with Judah, ii. 341-343; hated by
the Judseans, ii. 342; leaves Ana-
thoth, ii. 342; his songs of lamenta-
tions, ii. 344; character of his
writings, ii. 345; his mission and
character, ii. 345-354; his opinion of
the prophets, ii. 346, 347 ; exhorts
the .Indians to purity, ii. 347, 348;
endangers his life bv his utterances,
ii. 347-350, 367, 381, 382; predicts
the fall of the temple, ii. 348; tried
by the princes of Judah for his utter-
ances, n. 349, 350; passage relating
to drought in Judah, ii. 350, 351 ;
his reason for not marrying, ii. 351 ;
his loneliness, ii. 351, 352; his one
faithful friend, ii. 352; thought to be
the author of some of the psalms, ii.
354 ; his relations to Jehoiakim, ii.
355 ; s his words at the approach of
Nebuchadrezzar, ii. 357, 358; the
prophecy of seventy years servitude
for Judah, ii. 358, 359; his prophecy
deals with foreign peoples, ii. 359,
360; his book recast several times,
ii. 360; dictates his discourses to
Baruch, ii. 360 ; his oracles burned,
ii. 362; a second dictation of his
oracles, ii. 362, 363; his prophecies
at time of fall of Judah, ii. 365,
366; bis estimate of the exiles, ii.
371, 372; conflict with Hananiah, ii.
374, 875 ; exhorts the people to beat
588
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
the enemy's yoke, ii. 371, 375; his
continued predictions of evil, ii. 377,
378 ; accused of treason, ii. 379 ; his
prophecy regarding Zedekiah, ii.
379, 380; in prison, ii. 379, 381-386,
388; interview with Zedekiah, ii.
382, 383 ; shows his faith ill Judah's
restoration, ii. 383, 384: discourse on
Israel's religious condition in Messi-
anic age, ii. 384, 385 ; his determina-
tion to comfort Judah, ii. 388; how
treated by the Chaldees, ii. 388 ; his
expression of sadness at the captiv-
ity of Judah, ii. 390; words of com-
fort to Judah, ii. 390, 391; consulted
by Johanan, ii. 393 ; his advice after
death of Gedaliah, ii. 393; carried
into Egypt, ii. 394 ; denounced as a
liar, ii. 394; his stay in Egypt, ii.
397-399 ; his work and preaching in
Egypt, ii. 397-399; probable death
in Egypt, ii. 399; how regarded by
Judseans and Jews, ii. 399, 400 ; or-
acle of a Jewish exile, ascribed to
him, ii. 427.
Jericho, attacked by the Israelites, i.
338 ; laid under the ban, i. 342.
Jeroboam I., i. 23 ; ii. 96-109 ; date of
accession as king, i. 23 ; his golden
oxen, i. 178; proclaimed king of Is-
rael, ii. 99 ; his kingdom, ii. 100 ; how
regarded in book of Kings, ii. 101,
102 ; sets up the image of a bull to
be worshipped, ii. 102 ; gives offence
by his religious observances, ii. 101-
105 ; legend concerning his altar, ii.
105, 106; remarks upon his reign,
ii. 107, 108.
Jeroboam II. , i. 24 ; king of Israel, ii.
188; his reign, ii. 188, 189; poem
ascribed to Moses, probably written
in his reign, ii. 191, 192, 193; length
of reign, ii. 237.
Jerubbaal, i. 385, 391, 392, 399 ; signi-
fication of, i. 385 ; name changed, i.
392. See Gideon.
Jerubbaal-Gideon, how regarded by
historians, ii. 196.
Jerubbesheth, i. 392.
Jerusalem, i. 117; conquest of, by David,
i. 21; ii. 3, 4; date of its ruin by Titus,
i. 31 ; ii. 568 ; destruction of, i. 31 ;
situation of, ii. 3, 4 ; possible signifi-
cation of, ii. 4; city of Yah weh, ii. 12;
political capital, ii. 12; treasure re-
ceived by commerce, ii. 71; wealth
of, ii. 71 ; building and description of
the temple of Solomon, ii. 71, 72,
84-88 ; power of the priests, ii. 177-
180; conquered by Joash, ii. 187,
188; time between its devastation
and the return from captivity, ii.
359 ; surrendered to Nebuchadrezzar,
ii. 369; fall of, ii. 378-387; attacked
by Chaldajans, ii. 380-386; length
of siege, ii. 386; treasures carried
away, ii. 386; date of fall, ii. 387;
the royal treasures returned to the
Israelites, ii. 436; rebuilding of the
temple under Zerubbabel, ii. 445-
456; rebuilding of the walls undei
Nehcmiah, ii. 489, 490, 492-194,
496; assemblv of Jews for counsel
from Nehemiah, ii. 495, 496; its
condition after the rebuilding of
walls, ii. 496, 497 ; date of the com-
Sletion of the walls, ii 498. See
ebus.
Jeshurun, name for Israel, ii. 191 ;
signification of, ii. 191.
Jesse, i. 433, 494-496.
Jesus of Nazareth, i. 32; priestly rank
indicated by Melchizcdek, i. 118;
key to comprehension of the age of,
and of modern Judaism, ii. 338;
prophecy in Daniel, supposed to refer
to him, ii. 563, 564; influenced by
Messianic expectations, ii. 564.
Jesus, son of Sirach, passage relating
to dreams, i. 210; work of, ii. 567,
568.
Jether, name applied to Jethro, i. 255.
See Jethro. See Reuel.
Jether, son of Gideon, i. 388.
Jethro, i. 255, 257; name stands for
Reuel, i. 255 ; visits Moses, i. 309,
310. See Keuel.
Jews; their sacred book, i. 3; their
religion influenced by the Persians,
i. 29 ; ii. 546, 547 ; their religion in-
fluenced by the Greeks, i. 30; ii.
552-554; custom of slaughtering
animals, i. 80; custom of circumci-
sion, i. 319; ii. 474, 510; the Sab-
batical year, ii. 185, 518; account of
return from captivity under Zerub-
babel, ii. 440-442; name given to
Israelites, ii. 440 ; condition of their
country on their return, ii. 442, 443 ;
rebuilding of the temple, ii. 445-450;
their condition after return, ii. 446,
447, 472 ; refusal to allow the Sama-
ritans to assist in building the temple,
ii. 451, 452 ; feeling of hostility to
Samaritans, ii. 452, 453; their condi-
tion after the completion of the
temple, ii. 455, 456; trial of their
faith, ii. 457-459 ; receive permission
to leave Babylonia with Ezra, ii.
478 ; leave Babylon under Ezra, Ii
479; reception at Jerusalem, ii. 480;
their foreign marriages, how consid-
ered by Ezra, ii. 481, 482; reBolve to
annul the foreign marriages, ii. 482-
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
58«'
484 ; opposition to Ezra, ii. 484, 435 ;
their condition after Ezra's arrival, ii.
485, 486 ; Nehemiah appointed gov-
ernor, ii. 488; their complaints to
Nehemiah, ii. 495; adopt the Mosaic
law, ii. 500-502; observance of the
Sabbath, ii. 501-503, 517, 518 (See
Sabbath); negligent in Nehemiah's
absence, ii. 502-504; laxity in reli-
fious observances, ii. 504; addressed
y Malachi, ii 50.4-507 ; the Mosaic
Law examined, ii. 508-520 ; religious
feasts, ii. 511 (See Feasts, and Fes-
tivals); day of atonement, ii. 512,
513; laws of sacrifice, ii. 515-517;
year of jubilee, ii. 518; do not all
unite in the national pride, ii. 524 ;
a part hospitable to the heathen, ii.
524-527; exult in the supremacy of
the law, ii. 531-544; impressed by
the service of the temple, ii. 535, 536-
539 ; songs showing varieties of feel-
ing, ii. 536-540; darker side of re-
ligious life, ii. 543, 544 ; under Greek
supremacy, ii. 544-554; compelled to
work on the Sabbath, ii. 545 ; intro-
duction of worship of Jupiter into
the temple, ii. 545; history from
time of Nehemiah to middle of sec-
ond century, b. c, ii. 545 ; their mar-
tyrdom, ii. 545; origin of belief in
Satan, ii. 546, 547 ; date of the resto-
ration of the temple, ii. 565 ; period
of religious history to be considered
in a future work, ii. 567-569. See
Israelites, and Judseans.
Jezebel, wife of Ahab, ii. 112; orders
the ruin of Naboth, ii. 118; her
death, ii. 135.
Jezreel, plain of, i. 366, 367.
Joab, general of David, i. 540 ; captain
of the host of David, ii. 22 ; his reti-
nue, ii. 23; takes the census, ii. 28;
ordered to put Uriah in danger, ii.
32; intercedes for Absalom, ii. 40,
42 ; strikes Absalom, ii. 51 ; kills
Amasa, ii. 55; last words of David
concerning him, ii. 57, 58; hated by
David, ii. 66 ; put to death, ii. 69.
Joash, father of Gideon, i. 384, 385. _
Joash, son of Jehoahaz, ii. 149; king
of Israel, ii. 149; interview with
Elishafii. 164; subdues Amaziah of
Judah, ii. 187; his death, ii. 188.
Joash, sou of Abaziah, ii. 172; pro-
claimed king of Judah, ii. 173; re-
pair of the temple, ii. 174, 175 ; his
reign in Judah, ii. 174-176.
Job, story of, ii. 459-461 ; his trials, ii.
460, 461; mentioned by Ezekiel, ii.
461; translation in authorized ver-
sion incorrect, ii. 462, 463 ; th». dia-
logues of, ii. 463-466 ; answered by
Yahweh, ii. 467 ; additional accounts
of him, ii. 469 ; the type of patience,
ii. 470.
Job, book of, i. 37; ii. 459-471; poem
relating to the creation, i. 37; pas-
sage descriptive of a wild ass, i. 129
passage referring to dreams, i. 209
passage relating to Deity, i. 221
passage referring to the kingdom of
the dead, i. 530; its original and
present form, ii. 462 ; the book en-
larged, ii. 468-470 ; the book misun-
derstood, ii. 470.
Jochebed, mother of Moses, i. 243, 244,
250, 286.
Joel, son of Samuel, i. 463.
Joel, the prophet, his exhortation to
the Jews, ii. 453, 454.
Jogbehah, i. 388.
Johanan, ii. 391-393.
Johanan, friend of Ezra, ii. 482.
John Hyrcanus, i. 31; date of his
death,"i. 31.
Joktanites, the, i. 95, 97.
Jonadab, forefather of Rechabites, i.
456; zealous worshipper of Yahweh,
i. 456 ; date of lifetime, i. 456 ; son of
Eechab, ii. 136, 366.
Jonadab, friend of Amnon, ii. 38; why
called wise, ii. 75.
Jonah, son of Amittai, ii. 188 ; contem-
porary of Jeroboam II., ii. 525;
story of, ii. 525-527.
Jonathan, son of Gershom, storv of, i.
375-378 ; his descent, i. 379, 380.
Jonathan, son of Saul, i. 475 ; expedi-
tion against Philistines, i. 475-481 ;
condemned to death, i. 481 ; ran-
somed from sacrifice, i. 481; friend-
ship for David, i. 505, 507, 509-513;
his conduct considered, i. 512, 513;
his death, i. 527; his son Meribaal,
ii. 13-15 ; his remains removed from
Jabesh, ii. 19.
Jonathan, son of Shimeah, ii. 20.
Jonathan, son of Abiathar, ii. 46.
Joppa, port of, ii. 84.
Jordan, river of, i. 135 ; monuments by
the river, i. 338, 341; ceases to flow,
i. 338.
Jordan, valley of, residence of Lot, i,
114.
Joseph, his birth, i. 185; his dream, i.
201; hated by his brothers, i. 201,
202; story of his youth, i. 201-203;
thrown into a well, i. 202; sold to
the Ishmaelites, i. 202; his coat, i.
203; in Egypt, i. 203; in prison, i.
204-206; interprets king's dream, i.
206; made ruler in Egypt, i. 206,
207; receives new name, i. 207; liar-
590
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
lies Asnat, i. 207 ; meets his brothers
in Egypt, i. 211 ; sends for Benjamin,
i. 212 ; reveals himself to his brothers,
i. 216, 217 ; story of, considered, i.
217-221; his age, i. 225; his death,
i.22G; receives parting blessing from
Jacob, i. 226, 227 ; his priestly caste,
i. 234.
Josephus, Flavius, a Jewish writer, i.
85, 137; account of tower of Babel,
i. 85; account of fruit by Dead Sea,
i. 137 ; gives fragments of historj' of
Manetho, i. 248; account of Moses, i.
250-253.
Josheba, ii. 172.
Joshua, i. 19 ; takes the place of Moses,
i. 333; leader of Israel, i. 336; spies
sent to Jericho, i. 337; conquest of
Canaan, i. 343-352; his armies meet
the five kings at Gibeon, i. 345 ; ac-
counts of his successes considered, i.
346-353 ; his age, i. 352 ; gives the
tribes their inheritance, i. 352; his
death, i. 352.
Joshua, book of, is of later date than
the events it records, i. 340 ; one of
the historical books and former pro-
phets, i. 350 ; remarks upon its com-
pilation and use, ii. 402, 403.
Joshua, chief priest of the Jews, i. 27;
ii. 440j 443 ; refuses aid from Samari-
tans, ii. 451, 452.
Josiah, i. 26,, 27, 166; prediction con-
cerning him, ii. 105; son of Amon,
king of Judah, ii. 307; king of Ju-
dah, ii. 317 ; beginning of his reign,
ii. 317-326 ; discovery of book of the
Law, ii. 326 ; resolves to reform the
religion of Judah, ii. 326, 327; the
reformation, ii. 326-337; thirteen
years between the reformation and
his defeat, ii. 342;- makes war on
Necho, ii. 343, 344; defeated at Me-
giddo, ii. 343-345 ; slain in battle, ii.
344.
Joi ham, son of Gideon, i. 395 ; fable of,
i. 395, 470, 471.
Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah,
ii. 240.
Jubal, i. 54; son of Lamech, i. 54; dis-
coverer of musical instruments, i. 54.
Jubilee, year of, ii. 518.
Judaea, taken by Alexander the Great,
ii. 545. See Judah.
Judseans, throw off allegiance to Nebu-
chadrezzar, :>. 365; earned into cap-
tivity, ii. 369, 370, 387, 394, 395;
condition of those remaining in Jeru-
salem, ii. 373 ; plan of revolt against
king of Chaldtea, ii. 373 ; clamor for
execution of Jeremiah, ii. 381, 382;
hope of a return to former splendor,
ii. 395, 396; in Egypt, ii. 397-400;
in exile, ii. 397-405; in Babylonia,
ii. 400-402; religious views of those
in Asia, ii. 402; murmurings in
exiJe, ii. 417; reviving hopes, ii.
425-435 ; return under Zerubbabel,
ii. 435-445; receive the name of
Jews, ii. 440. See Israelites, Judah,
and Jews.
ludah, kingdom of, i. 23; date of con-
quest by Chaldees, i. 27; prophets
of, their thoughts about David, ii.
68; faithful to Rehoboam, ii. 99;
separated from Israel, ii. 99; its his-
tory in the first century after the
disruption, ii. 165-171 ; its religious
condition just after the disruption,
ii. 166, 167; becomes a province of
Israel, ii. 187; asks aid from Assy-
ria against Israel, ii. 241; the higher
conception of Yahweh unfolds, ii.
247; its prophets are historians, ii.
248; reformation of Hezekiah, ii.
275-286; war with Assyria, ii. 286-
290; conquers Assyria, ii. 290; its
condition after Hezekiah's death, ii
298; under Manasseh and Amon, ii.
298-308; old heathen rites encour-
aged, ii. 299-303 ; growth of a hier-
archy, ii. 303-305 ; political condition
in first years of Josiah's reign, ii. 318 ;
reformation of Josiah, ii. 326-337;
grave of the prophet of, ii. 328, 329 ;
religious position occupied by the
nation after reformation of Josiah,
ii. 338, 339; social condition after
reformation of Josiah, ii. 339 ; end of
her independence, ii. 344; becomes
the possession of Nebuchadrezzar,
ii. 357; tributary to Nebuchadrezzar,
ii. 363; specimen of language used
by prophets at time of its fall, ii.
364; throws off allegiance to Nebu-
chadrezzar, ii. 365; its inhabitants
carried into captivity, ii. 369, 370;
387, 394, 395; fanatics in, ii. 371-
378; failure of plan of revolt, ii.
375 ; revolt against Nebuchadrezzar,
ii. 376 ; the people clamor for execu-
tion of Jeremiah, ii. 381, 382; its
condition after fall of Jerusalem, ii.
387-391 ; mischief done by Ishmael,
ii. 391, 392; its condition «fter the
depopulation by Nebuchadrezzar, ii.
394-396 ; its men known as Jews, ii.
440 ; Judaea taken by Alexander the
Great, ii. 545. See Judseans.
Judah, his birth, i. 185; receives bless-
ing from Jacob, i. 226; tribe of, i.
316, 357; unites with Simeon, i. 355;
his conquest/ historically considered
i. 356-359,
INDEX OF SUBJECT3.
591
Judah, Mt., i. 3T5.
Judah, desert of, i. 518.
Judaism, key to comprehension of
modern Judaism, ii. 338. See Jews,
and Law.
Judas Maccabseus, i. 390; ii. 565; sig-
nification of, i. 390, 391.
Judges, the, i. 20, 364, 365; series
begins with Oilmiel, i. 365; period
of, i. 365, 544-546; their work, i.
449.
Judges, book of, i. 27 ; one of the his-
torical books, and former prophets,
i. 350; the book considered and ex-
amined, i 363—366; remarks upon
its compilation and use, ii. 402, 403.
Judith, book of, ii. 568.
Jupiter, worship of, i. 317; ii. 545.
Kadksfi, i. 127; signification of, i.
335.
Kedar, i. 128.
Kedarenes, the, i- 128.
Kedesh, city of, i. 369.
Kcdesh-Barnea, i. 305.
Kedor-laomer, i. 115; war of, again&t
Sodom, i. 115.
Keen-for-bootv-swift-to-spoil, son of
Isaiah, ii. 261.
Keilah, i. 517.
Keni, sons of, i. 356.
Kcnites, the, i. 373.
Kenizzites, obtain wells, i. 356.
Keturah, i. 101, 129; signification of,
i. 101.
Kibroth-Hattaavah, signification of, ii.
219.
King's Valley, place of Absalom's
monument, ii. 51.
Kings, their rights and customs, i.
471.
Kings, sacred book of the Chinese,
i. 4.
Kings, books of, i. 27, 433 ; are among
the historical books and former pro-
phets, i- 350 ; passage relating to W is-
dom of Solomon, ii. 77, 78 ; remarks
upon its compilation and use, ii.
402, 403.
Kirjathaim, taken by Mesha, ii. 120.
Kirjath-Arba, i. 115 ; taken by Judah,
i. 356.
Kirjath-sepher, i. 356; signification of,
i. 356.
Kish, i. 459 ; father of Saul, i. 482.
Kishon, stream of, i. 366 ; ii. 142.
Khran, worship of, i. 317, 320.
Klein, a missionary, ii. 124.
Knowledge, tree of, i. 43.
K nliath, i. 250.
Kohatnites, the, ii. 169.
Koran, ii. 523.
Korahites, the, ii. 169; aim at the
priesthood, ii. 522, 523.
Koran, the, i. 3, 301.
Koresh, name applied to Cyrus, ii.
426.
Krethi, body-guard of David, ii. 23,
45.
Kudur-lagamar, i. 118.
Laban, i. 157, 182-188 ; pursues Jacob,
i. 186.
Lachish, conquered by Joshua, i.
345.
Lachmi, i. 506.
Lagamar, i. 118.
Lagidse, king of Egypt, i. 30.
Lahai-Roi, well of, i". 127, 128.
Lais, city of, i. 332, 376 ; taken by the
Danites. i. 378.
Lamech, i'. 54, 63, 64.
Lamentations, book of, wrongly as-
cribed to Jeremiah, ii. 388, 389;
specimens of the emotion expressed,
ii. 389 ; the five poems, differ in
date and authorship, ii. 339 ; author-
ship of fifth elegy, ii 395.
Language, i. 91, 92; Greek ravth, i
93.
Lapidoth, i. 369.
Law, the, i. 28; its supremacy among
the Jews, i. 28, 29; ii. 473; super-
human origin of, i. 301 ; of Moses, i.
312-316; ii. 10; the oldest Israel-
itish law-book, ii. 182-186; of the
Medes and Persians, irrevocable, ii.
550, 560.
Law of Cities of Refuge, i. 82 ; ii. 333,
477.
Feasts, ii. 182, 511. See Feasts.
Food, i. 79-81; ii. 183,510.
Levirate marriage, i. 425, 426.
Murder, i. 81-83; ii. 184.
Offerings, ii. 332, 333, 515-517.
The Priesthood. See Aaronites, Le-
vites, and Priest.
Sacrifice, i. 147, 319, 320; ii. 182,
332, 333, 477, 512, 515-517.
Slaughtering animals, i. 80, 81; ii.
333
Slavery, ii. 183, 184.
Theft, i. 189, 190; ii. 184.
Vengeance, i. 58, 59.
Law, book of the, discovery of, ii. 326,
329 ; becomes the rule of conduct for
after generations, ii. 329, 335 ; to be
found in Deuteronomy, ii. 330; prob-
ably written by Hilkiah, ii. 330; its
contents, and position in the temple,
ii. 330-335; addition made by a
Judawn, ii. 337.
Law, the Mosaic, i. 28, 29, 83 (Set
Law, book of the); introduction, of,
592
INDEX OF fUBJJSCTS.
ii. 498-502; read by Ezra to the
Jews, ii. +99 ; adopted bv the .lews,
ii. 501, 502; examined, 'ii. 508-519;
heathen customs forbidden, ii. 509,
510; its precepts and ordinances, ii.
609-518; heatben customs adopted,
ii. 510, 511; tendency of, ii. 518-520;
its effect unpn the people, ii. 531,
532 ; glorv of, celebrated in Ps. xix.
- 7-14, ii. 5"40.
Lavard, i. 88.
Leah, i. 184-186, 193; where buried, i.
153.
Lebanon, i. 332; Mt., produces cedar
wood, ii. 21.
Lechi, i. 419. '
Legend, use of term, i. 8.
Lepsius, i. 248.
Leshem, i. 376.
Levi, birth of, i. 185, 189; last words
of Jacob to him, i. 226 ; his staff in
blossom, ii. 523.
Levi, tribe of, i. 29, 316; the one
priestly tribe, ii. 332; relation of
tribe to Israel, ii. 523.
Levirate marriage, i. 425, 426.
Levites preferred for priests, i. 21, 381-
383; priests work with the prophets,
i. 26; development of priestly caste,
i. 382, 383; ii. 179, 180, 303-3"05; are
among the zealots, i. 401-403; their
right to be priests, i. 442; division of
the tribe as regards the priesthood, ii.
475-477 ; regulations concerning the
priestly ofhce, ii. 475-477 ; how
maintained, ii. 476, 477; efforts to
hold exclusively the rights of the
temple, ii 521, 522, 523.
Leviticus, book of, i. 304; laws of sac-
rifice, origin of, ii. 477.
Libnah, conquered by Joshua, i. 345.
Life, tree of, i. 43, 51.
Lights, feast of, ii. 566.
Lodebar, ii. 14, 49.
Lord, the, name for Jehovah, i. 18.
Lot, i. 96, 108-110, 113, 114, 116, 133,
134, 137, 138; name represents cer-
tain tribes, i. 100; covetousness of,
i. 114; departure from Abram, i.
114; forfeits claim to Canaan, i.
114; capture of, i. 116; his escape
from Sodom, i. 134; warned to
leave Sodom, i. 134 ; wife of, i. 134.
Luz, city of, i. 179; name changed to
Bethel, i. 196.
Lycurgus, i. 301.
Maachah, mother of Absalom, ii.
39.
Maachah, mother of Asa, ii. 108.
Maaseiah, ii. 372.
Maccabees, i. 30 ; date of their wars,
i. 30; deliver Jews from martyrdom,
ii. 545.
Maccabees, book of. ii. 568; second
and third books, ii. 508.
Machir, i. 327.
Alachpelah, cave of, its location, i. 150;
its purchase by Abraham, i. 150,
151, 153, 154.
Madai. i. 95.
Madebah, ii. 125.
Magic, i. 176; belief in, i. 271, 272,
273, 532, 533; practices condemned,
ii. 509.
Magog, i. 95; ii. 414.
Mahalaleel, i. 63, 64.
Mahanaim, i. 188; arrival of David, ii.
49.
Mahaneh-Dan, i. 416-
Mahlon, i. 427.
Makkedah, i. 345.
Malachi, i. 312; speaks to the priests
and people, ii. 504-507 ; attaches im-
portance to forms of worship, ii. 506,
507.
Malkiah, ii. 377.
Mamre, i. 105, 115 ; oaks of, i. 105.
Man, creation of, i. 36, 42.
Manasseh, i. 227; tribe receives land,
i. 327.
Manasseh, orthography of, in old He-
brew, i. 380; son of Hezekiah, ii.
297; king of Judah, ii. 297; length
of reign, ii. 298 ; contends with the
Mosaic school, ii. 298, 308; encour-
ages the heathen school, ii. 299-308 ;
sacrifices his son, ii. 300; conflicting
accounts of his religious tendencies,
ii. 305-307; a vassal of Asarhaddon,
ii. 306.
Manetho, i. 248, 282, 283; date of
his history of the Egyptians, i.
248.
Manna, i. 289; used as medicine, i.
289; existence of. in Europe and
Asia, i. 289. 290.
Manoali, i. 415, 416.
Maon, desert of, i. 519.
Mara, signification of, i. 428.
Marah, i. 287; signification of, i. 287.
Marriage, how considered in Israel, ii.
233, 234.
Marriage, levirate, i. 425, 426.
Mars, worship of, i. 317.
Martel, Charles, signification of, i.
391.
Mashia, i. 49; signification of, i. 49.
Mashiach, corrupted into messias, ii.
255.
Mashianeh, i. 49.
Massah, signification of, i. 290.
Massebah, the, i. 178, 179; used in
Yaliweh-worship, ii. 113;. destroyed
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
593
uider llezekiah, ii. 280; destroyed
m Judah, ii. 328; use of, condemned
in the Law, ii. 509.
Mathusala, i. 63.
Mattan, priest of Baal, ii. 173.
Mattaniah, king of Judah, ii. 373.
Mattathias, i. 30; ii. 565.
Meats, Law of, i. 79, 80; ii. 510. See
Food.
Mecca, i. 177.
Medad, a prophet, ii. 219, 220.
Medes, their laws irrevocable, ii. 550,
560.
Mediterranean Sea, the, i. 109.
Megabyzus, ii. 485.
Megiddo, i. 372; ii. 343, 344.
Meholah, i. 507.
Mehujael, i. 54, 64.
Melchishtlah, son of Saul, i. 482; his
death, i. 527.
Melchizedek, visit to Abraham, i. 116,
117; signification of, i. 117; his
visit to Abraham, the subject of
discussion, i. 117, 118.
Memphis, i. 233; date of union with
Thebes, i. 233; date of conquest by
Syrians, i. 235.
Menahem, ii. 238-240.
Menepthah, i. 249 ; date of his reign,
i. 249 ; Israelites leave Egypt in his
reign, i. 249, 283.
Meonenim, i. 110; signification of, i.
110.
Mephibosheth, son of Saul, i. 392.
Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, i. 542;
ii. 14.
Merab, daughter of Saul, i. 482, 507 ;
her sons given to the Gibeonites, ii.
Mercury, worship of, i. 317.
Meribaal, son of Saul, i. 392; signifi-
cation of, i. 392.
Meribaal, son of Jonathan, i. 542; ii.
14, 15, 47, 54 ; his property given to
Ziba, ii. 47 ; his property restored to
him, ii. 54.
Meribaal, son of Rizpah, ii. 17.
Meribah, signification of, i. 290, 335;
waters of, i- 335.
Merodach Baladan, prince of Baby-
lonia, ii. 283.
Meroz, i. 372.
Mesha, the king of Moab, throws off
the yoke of Israel, ii. 124-126; in-
scription on stone at Moab, concern-
ing him and his god Chemosh, ii.
125; encounter with Jehoram, ii.
130; sacrifices his son to Chemosh,
ii. 130.
Meshach, in the furnace, ii. 558. See
Mishael.
Mesopotamia, i. 85.
Messiah, misapprehension of prop, ecy
of Isaiah, ii. 259.
Messianic age, the, pictured by Zecha-
riah, ii. 448, 449; expectations re-
farding its coming, ii. 453, 454;
isappointment at delay, ii. 456, 556.
Messianic expectation, the, i. 25; ii.
255; revival of, i. 30; use of term,
ii. 255.
Messianic psalm, ii. 341.
Messias, Greek corruption of Mashiach,
ii. 255.
Methusael, i. 54.
Methusalem, i. 63, 64; different spell-
ings of, i. 63.
Methuselah, i. 63, 64.
Miamun, i. 249.
Micah, the Israelite prophet, i. 25,
147; passage referring to sacrifices,
i. 147, 148; a native of Moresheth,
ii. 350 ; referred to at trial of Jere-
miah, ii. 350; his predictions con-
cerning Judah and Israel, ii. 276,
277.
Micaiah, his prophecy to Ahab, ii. 120,
121.
Micha, son of Meribaal, ii. 14, 15.
Michael, archangel, ii. 546.
Michah, i. 375-379, 381, 382; receives
the Levite into his home, i. 376.
Michah-stead, i. 375; village of, i.
375.
Michaiah, son of Gemariah. ii. 361.
Michal, daughter of Saul, i. 482; wife
of David, i. 507; married to Phalti,
i. 521; returned to David, i. 542;
punished for her pride, ii. 9.
Mickmash, i. 476.
Midian, its priesthood, i. 254 ; situation
of, i. 254.
Midianites, the, i. 129, 316; struggles
with Gideon, i. 383-393; war with
Israelites, i. 383-389.
Migdal-eder. signification of, i. 195.
Migdol, ii. 398.
Milcah, i. 96, 156.
Milcom, god of the Ammonites, ii.
71, 83; sanctuary of, destroyed, ii.
328.
Millo, ii. 4, 5; castle at Jerusalem, ii.
97.
Minos, i. 301.
Miracles, should be considered as le-
gends, i. 273.
Miriam, sister of Moses, i. 243, 281;
indignant with Moses, i. 297; made
a leper, i. 298; her death, i. 334.
Misbael, ii. 556.
Mizpah, residence of governor of Ju-
dah, ii. 388.
Mizpeh, i. 405.
Mnevis, worship of, ii. 102.
594
INDEX OP SUBJECTS.
Moab, land of, i. 326 ; discovery of a
stone bearing inscription, ii. 124,
125.
Moabites, the, i. 19, 99, 316, 328; rep-
resented by Lot, i. 100; wars with
Israelites, ii. 20, 129, 130; seek the
aid of Balaam, ii. 199, 200.
Moeris, i. 233 ; lake of, i. 233.
Mohammed, i. 177, 301 ; descent of, i.
131.
Mohammedans, their sacred book, i. 3.
Molech, i. 17, 318, 320; signification
of, i. 17 ; sacrifice of children, i. 26 ;
ii. 299, 300; thought to be the sun,
i. 414 ; deity represented with horns,
ii. 102; description of, ii. 299, 300.
Moon, how regarded by the Israelites,
•i. 317; feast of the new, i. 317; ii.
511.
Mordicai, ii. 547-551.
Moreh, oak tree of, i. 110, 148; hill of,
i. 148.
Moriah, i. 148; Mt., i. 148; translation
of, i. 149; name explained, ii. 30;
Mt., site of the temple, ii.- 85.
Mosaic Law. See Law, Mosaic.
Mosaic religions, reference from Book
of Origins, i. 237. See Law, Mosaic.
Mosaic School. See Moses, followers
of.
Mosaic usages, conflicting accounts of,
i. 238. See Law, Mosaic.
Moses, i. 18; the ten commandments,
i. 18, 299, 312-316, 320; ii. 272; his
birth, i. 243; signification of, i. 244;
rescued by the king's daughter, i.
244 ; his sympathy for the Israelites,
i. 246; slays the Egyptian, i. 246;
flics to Midian, i. 247 ; marriage of, i.
247, 252; age of, when he liberated
his people, i. 249; account of him by
Josephus, i. 250-253 ; derivation of
name, i. 251 ; stories in Exodus and
Josephus compared, i. 252, 253; his
act of violence considered, i. 253, 254;
beholds the burning bush, i. 255 ;
commanded to deliver Israel, i. 255 ;
his wonderful staff, i. 256, 265-267,
291; asks for eloquence, i. 257; return
to Egypt, i. 257; in Midian, story
considered, i. 260,261; story of his
meeting with Yahweh considered, i.
260, 261; begins his task of freeing
Israel, i. 263; denounces Pharaoh, i.
265 ; changes the water of the Nile
to blood, i. 265; brings the plagues
upon Egypt, i. 265-267, 269 ; second
account of struggle with Pharoah, i.
268-271; the two accounts of his
struggles with Pharoah compared, i.
269, 270; signilication of his mira-
cles, i. 270 ; death of the first-born,
second account of, i. 275, 276 ; his age
when he spoke to Pharaoh, i. 277 ; t&9
Exodus, i. 280-287; account by Ma-
netho, i. 282, 283; in the desert, i.
287-300, 305-312; ii. 265-273, 280,
281 ; commands the observance of the
Sabbath, i. 289 ; brings water from the
rock, i. 290, 335; enables the Israel-
ites to conquer the Amalekites, i. 291 ;
represents Yahweh, i. 294; Mount of,
i. 295 ; on Mt. Horeb, i. 295, 296 ; pre-
pares the people to meet Yahweh, i.
296 ; the tent of conference, i. 296 {See
Tent of Conference) ; events at Sinai,
i. 298-300; ii. 265-273; his meekness,
i. 297; communion with Yahweh, i.
301; forbidden to see the Promised
Land, i. 306, 334, 335; administers
justice, i. 309; his work and doc-
trine, i. 312-325; law of, i. 312-316;
ii. 10 (See Ten Commandments);
indebted to Egyptians for mural
ideas, i. 321; the ark, i. 322 (See
Ark); his forms of worship un-
known, i. 322, 323 ; supported by the
Levites, i. 323 ; founder of Yahweh-
worship, i. 325 ; end of the wander-
ings in the desert, i. 325-327 ; divi-
sion of land among the Israelites, i.
327, 329; climbs Mt. Pisgah, i. 332;
Promised Land surveyed, i. 332, 333 ;
appoints Joshua in his place, i. 333 ;
his death, i. 333; age at death, i.
333; burial of, i. 333; reason given
for refusal of permission to enter
Canaan, i. 335; lessons from ML
Nebo, i. 336; commands Israel to
assemble at Ebal and Gerizim, i.
351; name changed to Manasseh, i.
380 ; orthography of, in old Hebrew,
i. 380; story of Eldad and Medad,
ii. 219, 220 ; story of the golden bull,
ii. 265-270 ; ascends Mt. Sinai to re-
ceive tablets of the law, ii. 266 ; his
wrath at the Israelites' image-wor-
ship, ii. 268 ; intercedes for his peo-
ple, ii. 268, 270, 271; asks Yahweh to
show him his full glory, ii 272; fortv
days and uights on the mountain, ii.
272; writes the ten commandments
on stone, ii. 272 ; the brazen serpent
destroyed, ii. 280; legend of the bra-
zen serpent, ii. 280, 281; his connec-
tion with brazen serpent, ii. 280, 281;
account in Deuteronomy of his in-
junctions to the Israelites, ii. 331-333 ;
Esalm xc, a prayer of Moses, ii. 405 ;
is treatment of the Aaronites, ii. 519 ;
his treatment of the Korathites, ii.
522, 523.
Moses, followers of, ii. 94-96; assist
Jeroboam, ii. 100; forced to sue-
index; op subjects.
595
cumb, ii. 298; meet with much oppo-
sition in reign of Manasseh, ii. 298-
308; determine to suppress all hea-
then observances of worship, ii. 317,
318; aided by Josiah, ii. 328, 329;
their views, ii. 831-335; triumphant
in Judah, ii. 335-337; in the as-
cendant after defeat of Josiah, ii.
356; numerous in Egypt, ii. 400;
strong among Judseans in Asia, ii.
402, 403.
Mouse, the emblem of desolation, ii.
291.
Mtiller, Max, i. 91.
Murder, punishment of, i. 81-83 ; law
of, i. 81, 82; ii. 184.
Music, cultivation of, ii. 22.
Musical instruments invented, i. 54.
Mussulmans, i. 152.
Mylitta, i. 88; worship of, i. 88, 318.
Myth, use of term, i. 8.
Myths, solar, i. 412-414, 422, 423.
Naamah, i. 54.
Naaman, cured by Elisha, ii. 157, 158.
Nabal, i. 519, 520; signification of, i.
520.
Nabateans, the, i. 128.
Nabonedus, king of Babylonia, ii. 426,
427.
Nabopolassar, father of Nebuchad-
rezzar, ii. 356.
Naboth, story of, ii. 118.
Nadab, king of Israel, ii. 108 ; son of
Jeroboam, ii. 108.
Nadab, son of Aaron, i. 296; has no
priestly descendants, ii. 519 ; his fate,
ii. 519.
Nahash, i. 465-469 ; king of the Am-
monites, ii. 20.
Nahor, i. 96, 155, 156.
Nutium, date of his prophecy uncer-
tain, ii. 319; passages translated re-
ferring to Nineveh's humiliation, ii.
319.
Naioth, Hebrew term for the school of
the prophets, i. 455.
Names, having theirsignification given :
AbeL i. 53.
Abel-mizraim, i. 225.
Abraham, i. 131.
Achor, i. 339.
Adam, i. 63.
Aholah, ii. 411.
Aholibah, ii. 411.
Ajephim, ii. 48.
Allon-bachuth, i. 194.
Arabia Petraa, i. 294.
Ark, i. 322.
Artaxerxes, ii. 478.
Baal, i. 17.
Baal-berith, i. 395.
Names, etc., continued.
Baaljada, ii. 64.
Baalzebub, ii. 126.
Babel, i. 90.
Beeljada, i. 392.
Beers heba, i. 164.
Benjamin, i. 194.
Ben-oni, i. 194.
Bera, i. 118.
Bethel, i. 178.
Bethshemesh, i. 104.
Birsha, i. 118.
Cabul, ii. 86.
Cain, i. 53.
Canaan, i. 95.
Chemi, i. 230.
Deuteronomy, i. 304.
Ebed, i. 401.
Ebenezer, i. 447.
Edom, i. 168.
El, i. 17.
Elitsur, i. 177.
Eljada, i. 392.
El Khaliel, i. 152.
Elohim, i. 17.
El Shaddai, i. 17.
Enoch, i. 66.
Esau, i. 168.
Esek, i. 162.
Eshcol, i. 360.
Eve, i. 53.
Genesis, i. 42.
Gideon, i. 390.
Gilead, i. 187.
Hammaaloth, ii. 537.
Hawara, i. 288.
Heber, i. 96.
Hebrew, i. 17.
Horite, i. 167.
Ichabod, i. 442.
Immanuel, ii. 258.
Isaac, i. 139, 161.
Ishbaal, i. 392.
Ishmael, i. 127.
Israel, i. 193.
Jacob, i. 168.
Jedediah, ii. 35.
Jerubbaal, i. 385.
Jerusalem, ii. 4.
Jeshurun, ii. 191.
Kedesh, i. 335.
Keturah, i. 101.
Kibroth-Hattaavah, ii. 219.
Kirjath-sepher, i. 356.
Maccabaeus, Judas, i. 390, 391
Mara, i. 428.
Marah, i. 2S7.
Martel, Charles, i. 391.
Mashia, i 49.
Massah, i. 290.
Melchizedek, i. 117.
Meonenim, i. 110.
596
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Sames, etc., continued.
Meiibaal, i. 392.
Meribah, i. 290, 335.
Migdal-eder, i. 195.
MiSech, i. 17.
Moriah, i. 149 ; ii. 30
Moses, i. 244.
Kabal, i. 520.
Naomi, i. 42S.
Noah, i. 63.
Oreb, i. 387.
Pedatsur, i. 177.
Peleg, i. 96.
Pennel, i. 193.
Perez, ii. 2.
Perez Uzzab, ii. 8.
Pesach, i. 277, 278.
Pharaoh, i. 231.
Ramah, i. 460.
Ramath-lechi, i. 419.
Rehoboth, i. 163.
Salem, i. 117,
Samaria, ii. 111.
Samson, i. 414.
Saphnat-Paneah, i. 207.
Sarah, i. 131.
Seir, i. 166.
Selah, i. 96.
Semiramis, i. 87.
Serbal, i. 294.
Setb, i. 55.
Shear-Jashub, ii. 253.
Sheba, i. 163.
Sin, i. 317.
Sinai, i. 317.
Sinites, i. 317.
Sitnah, i. 162.
Succoth, i. 194.
Taberah, ii. 218.
Tsuriel, i. 177.
Tsurisliaddai, i. 177.
Yahweh, i. 258, 259.
Zeeb, i. 387.
Zerubbabel, ii. 436.
Zoar, i. 134.
Names, signification ofj considered un-
trustworthy, i. 57; signifying tribes,
i. 100,105; ii. 194, 195.
Naomi, account of, i. 427-433 ; signifi-
cation of, i. 428; return to Bethle-
hem, i. 428.
Naphtali, i 185, 226, 366; land of the
sons of, i. 333.
Napoleon, time occupied in crossing
the Niemen, compared with that of
the passage of the Red Sea by the
Israelites, i. 284.
Nathan, ii. 11, 36, 56, 63 ; admonishes
Davil, ii 32-34.
Nature-woiship, i. 26, 178, 317, 318,
322, 323, 411, 414, 448; ii. 301.
Nazarites, the, i. 416 ; the order of, i.
449, 455-457 ; their vow, i. 455-457 ;
ii. 514, 515-
Nebajoth, i. 128.
Nebat, father of Jeroboam, ii. 97.
Nebo, city taken by Mesha, ii. 125.
Nebo, Mt. i. 332.
Nebuchadnezzar. See Nebuchadrezzar.
Nebuchadrezzar, i. 27 ; ii. 356; crowned
at Babylon, ii. 357; the master of
Necho's possessions, ii. 357; ap-
proach to J'ldali, ii. 361; advances
upon Jerusalem, ii. 365, 369 ; lays
siege to Jerusalem, ii. 376, 377 ; at
the gates of Jerusalem, ii. 379; bis
generals take Jerusalem, ii. 386 ;
treats Jeremiah with favor, ii 388;
deportation of Judseans into cap-
tivity, ii. 394; treatment of Judaeans
in Babylonia, ii. 400, 401; his king-
dom, ii. 425 ; the hanging gardens,
ii. 425 ; walls of his capital, ii. 425 :
date of his death, ii. 425 ; bis deal-
ings with Daniel, ii. 556-559; his
dreams, ii. 557, 558.
Nebuzaradan, ii. 388
Necho, i. 27; king of Egypt, ii. 343;
makes war upon countries near the
Euphrates, ii. 343; defeats Josiah,
ii. 344 ; defeated by Nebuchadrezzar,
ii. 356; supports Jehoiakim, ii. 356.
Necromancers, i. 532.
"Neginoth, to the," significance of
term, ii. 542.
Nehemiah, i. 28; ii. 484; cup-bearer to
Artaxerxes, ii. 486; his grief at the
condition of Jerusalem, ii. 486 ; begs
permission of Artaxerxes to go to
Judaea, ii. 487; appointed governor
of Judasa, ii. 488; shows caution, ii.
488, 489 ; directs the people to rebuild
the walls of Jerusalem, ii. 489, 490;
meets with scorn from Sanballat, ii.
490, 491 ; meets with opposition from
Sanballat, 492-494 ; his dealings with
his enemies, ii. 493, 494; summons
an assembly of Jews, ii 495; his
counsel to the Jews, ii. 495, 496; his
account of his own generosity, ii.
496 ; enforces the population of Jeru-
salem, ii. 497, 498 ; difficulties of his
work, ii. 502-504; enforces the ob-
servance of the Sabbath, ii. 517, 518 ;
opposition to his work, ii. 520-531.
Nehemiah, book of, i. 30; authorship
of, ii. 532, 533; composed after fall
of Persian monarchy, ii. 546.
Nephtis, i. 412.
Ner, i. 482.
Nethaniah, ii. 391.
Nethinim, signification of, ii. 439.
New Testament, the, i. 5, 6, ii. 567]
derivation of name, ii. 268, 269.
INDEX VV SUBJECTS.
597
Nights, length of, in Palestine, ii. 18.
Nile, the, i. 43, 44, 229, 230; its
branches, i. 229 ; its waters changed
to blood, i. 265.
Nimrod. i 84-89; kingdom of, i. 88;
date of his kingdom, i. 88 ; " moun-
tain of," i. 89, y4.
Nimshi, ii. 133.
Nineveh, i 76, 85; besieged by Medes
and Babylonians, ii. 343; spared by
the mercy of Yahweh, ii. 525-527.
Ninus, i. 87.
Nisan, i. 275 ; first month of the Jew-
ish year, ii. 487.
Nisroch, heathen deity, ii. 290.
Noachic commandments, the, i. 83.
Noadiah, ii. 494, 520.
Noah, i. 63, 70-74, 78, 81 ; signification
of, i. 63 ; account of the ark, i. 70-
72; efforts to explain the difficulties
in the account of the ark, i. 72; his
sacrifice, i. 72, 73, 78; legend con-
cerning the curse of Canaan, ii. 90 ;
a man of piety mentioned bv Ezekiel,
ii. 461.
Noah's sons, family tree of, i. 94, 95.
Nob, i. 513; laid under the ban, i. 517.
Nobah, an Israelite warrior, i. 329.
Nobah, a town, i. 388.
Nod, i. 54.
Noph, ii. 398
Numa Fompilius, i. 301.
Numbers, book of, i. 304; origin of
laws of sacrifice, ii. 477.
Nun, i. 296.
Oak, grove at Mamre, i. 115; speci-
ally reverenced by Israelites, i. 115.
Oak of Meonenim, i. 110.
Moreh, i. 110.
Soothsayer's, i. 110.
Teacher's, i. 110, 194.
Weeping, i. 178, 194.
Oannes, i. 87.
Oath, Hebrew derivation of, i. 164.
Obadiah, steward of the house of Ahab,
ii. 139, 140.
Obadiah, his oracle against the Edom-
ites, ii. 390.
Obed, i. 433.
Obed-Edom, receives the ark, ii. 8.
Offerings, law of, ii. 332. 333, 515-517.
Og, i. 327; length of his bedstead, i.
327.
Old Testament, the, i. 5, 6; ii. 567;
derivation of name, ii. 268, 269.
Omri, proclaimed king of Israel, ii.
Ill; inscription on stone at Moab
concerning him, ii. 125; fall of the
power of his house, ii. 124-138; date
of the fall of his house, ii. 137.
On, i. 234.
Onias III., ii. 562.
Ono, a valley, it. 493.
Ophel, slaves' quarter established there
ii. 89, 90.
Ophir, probably Hindustan, ii. 71.
Ophrah, village of, i. 384.
Oppert, i. 88.
Oreb, i. 387 ; signification of, i. 387.
Origins, book of, its authorship, spirit
and contents, i. 65, 236-238; ii.
194, 474-478; covenant of God with
Noah, i. 78; refers to Terah, i. 107;
refers to change of names of Abra-
ham and Sarah, i. 131 ; purchase of
cave of Machpelah, i. 151, ,153, 154;
refers to Isaac, i. 161 ; refers to stone
at Bethel, i. 196; refers to the last
days of Jacob, i. 220-228; refers to
Mosaic religions, i. . 237; relates
parentage of Moses, i. 250 ; relates
the story of Moses in Egypt, i. 276,
277; gives number of Israelites at
the Exodus, i. 285 ; account of Is-
raelites' camp, i. 304; account of the
tabernacle, i. 304; ii. 475; refers to
Israel as a subdivided nation, i. 310 ;
refers to circumcision, i. 319: ii. 510;
relates the division of the land by
Joshua, i. 352, 353; refers to census
of Moses, ii. 31; the account of the
sanctuary and its servants, ii. 474-
477; contains laws of sacrifice, ii.
477; describes the golden age ol
Yahweh-worship, ii. 533.
Orion, i. 86.
Orpah, 427.
Osarsiph, i. 283.
Osiris, i. 412.
Osman, date of, i. 231.
Ostern, i. 106.
Othniel, i. 347, 356; a warrior, i. 359;
first of the judges, i. 365.
Padan Akam, i. 182.
Palestine, i. 31, 135; length of its
nights, ii. 18 ; its trade with Egypt,
ii. 70; its trade with Arabia, ii. 71.
Palmyra, i. 109.
Paradise, i. 42-46.
Paradise, lost, i. 46-53; legend ex-
plained, i. 49, 50; Persian version
of, i. 49.
Paran, i. 141.
Pashur, ii. 367; son of Malkiah, ii.
377.
Passover, the, i. 277-280; ii. 511; feast
of, called Pesach, i. 277, 278; little
Passover, i. 279; arrangements for
celebration in time of Josiah, ii.
329.
Pathros, Upper Egypt, ii. 398.
Patriarchs, the, use of term, i. 63 ; theil
598
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
names used to signify tribes, i. 100-
105; ii. 194, 195; object of stories
concerning them, i. 101 ; graves of,
i. 152.
Paul, his thoughts on the story of Ish-
mael, i.142; his idea of the privilege
of the Jew, ii. 541.
Pedatsur, signification of, i. 177.
Pekah, son of Remaliah, ii. 240-242,
261.
Pekahiah, son of Menahem, ii. 240.
Peleg, i. 95, 96; signification of, i.
96.
Pclusium, i. 235.
Peninnah, i. 434, 435.
Pentateuch, the, i. 42, 304; authorship
of priestly legislation, i. 312: con-
tains the precepts of the Jewish
priests, ii. 474; story of certain
Reubenites, ii. 521-524.
Pentecost, ii. 511.
Penuel, signification of, i. 193.
Perez, signification of, ii. 2.
Perez Uzzah, signification of, ii. 8.
Perizzites, i. 113.
Persians, the, sacred book of, i. 3;
their influence upon Jewish religion,
i. 29 ; ii. 546, 547 ; their religious life
attractive to the Jews, ii. 545 ; their
laws irrevocable, ii. 550, 560.
Pesach, signification of, i. 277, 278;
history of the feast, i. 278. See
Passover.
Petermann, his attempt to obtain (he
stone at Moab, ii. 124.
Petra, i. 294; capital of the Edomites,
ii. 186.
Phalti, i. 521.
Pharaoh, i. 206, 231, 232; interview
with Joseph, i. 206 ; signification of
the name, i. 231 ; orders the Israel-
ites to go from Egypt, i. 273.
Pharpar, river of Damascus, ii. 158.
Phichol, i. 163.
Philistines, the, i. 19, 20, 283; then-
wars with Israelites, i. 440, 441, 447,
475t482, 501-505, 517, 518, 525-528,
536; ii. 1, 2, 19, 20; conquer the
Israelites, i. 528 ; conquered by Da-
vid, ii. 2, 20; mercenaries at court
of David, ii. 23 ; worship Nature, ii.
88 ; recover their former possessions,
ii. 241.
Phineas, i. 353.
Phinehas, i. 324.
Phinehas, son of Eli, i. 434, 438-441;
his death, i. 441.
Phoenicians, the, ii. 21,84,87; worship
Nature, ii. 88.
Phrat, the, i. 43.
Pisgah, Mt., i. 332.
Pison, i. 43, 44.
Pithom, city of, i. 283; building of
fortress, i. 243.
Place, i. 87.
Plethi, body-guard of David, ii. 23, 45.
Pomegranate, the, significance of, ii
87.
Porte, the, i. 231.
Potiphar, i. 203.
Potipherah, i. 207.
Priests, i. 29, 381 ; the high priest, 1.
29; ii. 476, 519; duties of, i. 381-
383; growth of a hierarchy, i. 382,
383; if. 303-305, 336, 337;" their in-
fluence through oracles explained,
ii. 76 ; office as mediator, ii. 273,
274; distinguished from Levites, ii.
439 ; increase of power in Babylo-
nian Israel, ii. 473, 474; spirit of
their work in Babylonia, ii. 474;
priestly ordinances, ii. 510-520; dis-
tinction among the Aaronites, ii. 519 ;
attachment to the law, ii. 532. See
Aaronites and Levites.
Prophecy, fall of, i. 29.
Prophets, the, i. 21, 24-26; their con-
ception of Yahweh, i. 25, 222; "the
former," i. 350; "the latter," i.
350; foundation of the schools, i.
449, 452-459; use of the word pro-
phet, i. 453; " the father of," i. 455;
*' the sons of," i. 455; how regarded
bv the people, ii. 117; consultation
of, ii. 121, 122; prominent as authors,
ii. 215; their power over the people,
ii. 215-217; the schools of, exam-
ined, ii. 215-218; false prophets, ii.
217 ; story showing there were natu-
ral prophets, ii. 218-220; the mass
are unconscious of sin in Israel, ii.
221; their visions, ii. 226; their use
of the forms of speech, ii. 226, 227;
their writings improperly collected,
ii. 248 ; use of term Messianic expec-
tations, ii. 255 ; some of their predic-
tions considered, ii. 259, 260; their
oracles misconceived by the Jews, ii.
260.
Proverbs, the book of, examined as to
contents and date of writing, ii. 75,
78-82, 231, 314-316 ; extracts from,
ii. 79, 80, 231-233 ; why described as
Proverbs of Solomon, ii. 82 ; only
one collection has a date, ii. 231;
characteristics of, ii. 231-233; a dis-
course on a moral life, ii. 314, 315;
relating to wisdom, ii. 315.
Proverbs translated. See Table of
Bible Passages translated.
Psalm xviii. 1-17, descriptive of Yah-
weh, j. 124.
xxii., regarded as a prediction of the
Bufferings of Christ, ii. 309.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
599
Psalm xxiii., authorship of, ii. 61.
xxxvii. an alphabetical psalm, ii.
470, 471.
xl., when composed, ii. 20.
Ii-, authorship considered, ii. 59, 60.
Ixxxv., showing feelings of Jews
after captivity, ii. 456.
xc, said to be written by Moses, ii.
61.
ciii., expressive of Israelites' views
of misfortune and relief, ii. 296.
civ., a psalm of nature, ii. 313, 314.
cxix., an alphabetical psalm, ii. 540.
Psalms, translated. See Psalms, in
Table of Bible Passages translated.
Psalms, the, book of, the hymn book
of the second temple, i. 29; ii. 61;
authenticity of their superscriptions,
ii. 59-62; book of, examined as to
contents and composition, ii. 59-62,
308-314,541-544; use of names Yah-
weh and God, ii. 190, 191; date of,
uncertain ii. 308, 309; psalms of
cursing, ii. 312; a messianic psalm,
ii. 341; alphabetical psalms, ii. 470,
471; showing varieties of feeling, ii.
536, 540; showing sufferings of the
Jews, ii. 554.
Psammetichus, ii. 319; king of Egypt,
ii. 319; buys off the Scythians, ii.
339.
Puah, i. 243.
Pul, king of Assyrians, ii. 237.
Purim, feast of, fi. 547, 550, 551.
Pyramids, i. 248.
Pyrrha, i. 102.
Quails, i. 288, 289 ; abundance of, in
Europe and Asia, i. 289.
Eabbah, capital of the Ammonites, ii.
21, 49.
Rabbath Ammon, i. 327.
Rabbis, the, i. 83.
Rabsaris, the, an overseer of the keep-
ers of the harem, ii. 287.
Eabshakeh, the, the chief cup-bearer,
ii. 287-289.
Eachel, i. 184-187; marries Jacob, i.
184; her death, i. 194.
Rachel's grave, stone of, i. 195; situa-
tion of, i. 196.
Rahab, i. 337, 340-342; spared by the
Israelites, i. 339.
Rainbow, the, i. 83, 84.
Rarnab, signification of, i. 460.
Ramathaim, i. 434.
Ramath-lechi, signification of, i. 419.
Ramses the Great, i. 232; date of reign,
i. 249 ; known as Ramses II., proba-
blv the oppressor of the Hebrews, i.
283.
Ramses III., i. 308; date of war against
Canaanites, i. 308.
Ramses, city of, i. 283.
Ramses, fortress of, i. 243.
Rawlinson, i. 88.
Rebekah, i. 153, 156-158, 168-171, 182,
183; marriage of, i. 158; induces
Jacob to personate Esau, i. 169.
Rechab, father of Jouadab, ii. 366.
Rechabites, the, i. 456; ii. 366.
Red Sea, the, i. 282.
Redactor, the, his compilation of Gen-
esis, i. 237-239.
Reformation, the, weakens the belief in
magic, i. 273 ; of Hezekiah, ii. 275-
286; of Josiah, ii. 326-337.
Rehoboam, i. 23; son of Solomon, ii.
98; accession to the throne of Israel,
ii. 98; revolt of northern tribes, ii.
98, 99; his kingdom, ii. 100; makes
war against Israel, ii. 107.
Rehoboth, i. 163 ; signification of, i. 163.
Religion, superhuman origin of its doc-
trines, i. 301.
Religion, comparative:
Belief in magic, i. 271-273, 532.
Communion of man with God, 1.
301-303.
Dreams, i. 208-210.
Euhemerism, i. 105, 106, 412.
Family, the, responsible for the crime
of one member, ii. 16, 17, 418,
419.
Fetichism, i. 175, 176.
Flood, the, traditions of, i. 69.
Myths and legends, nature and ori-
gin of, i. 6-11.
Myths of the creation, i. 38, 45.
Myths, solar, i. 412, 413.
Nations hospitable to each other's
gods, ii. 83, 84.
Paradise, legends of, i. 49.
Power of symbolical representations,
ii. 409, 410.
Prophecy, i. 452-455.
Religious customs, i. 317-322; ii.
299-303.
Sacred books, i. 3, 4-6.
Sacrifice of human beings, i. 147
410, 411.
Struggles between gods and men, i.
197-201.
Worship of Nature, i. 221, 222, 317,
318. See Worship.
Remaliah, ii. 240.
Renan, i. 91.
Rephaites, dwelling-place of, i. 240.
Rephidim, plain of, i. 290.
Reu, i. 96.
Reuben, i. 185, 189, 226; sons of, i.
316 ; tribe receives land, i. 327.
Reuel, i. 247; known by name of Je-
600
INDEX OP SUBJECTS.
thro, i. 255; priest of Midinn, i. 253.
See Jethro.
Rezin, ruler of Damascus, ii. 240, 241,
261.
Rezon, ii. 83.
Riblah, ii. 344.
Kimmon, a heathen god, ii. 158.
Riphath, i. 95.
Rizpah, i. 541; her sons given to the
Gibeonites, ii. 17 j watches her chil-
dren, ii. 17-19.
Rock, use of word, i. 177, 178.
Rock of the escape, i. 521.
Romans, the, attachment to their stone
gods, i. 176.
Rome, i. 76.
Kosellini, i. 248.
Rosetta, date of discovery of the atone,
i. 248.
Ruth, i. 424, 427-433; remains with
Naomi, i. 428; her marriage with
Boaz, i. 432.
Ruth, book of, its object, i. 424, 425.
Sabakos, king of Egypt, ii. 242.
Sabbath, the, i. 313; "observance of, i.
313; origin of celebration, i. 317;
to be observed every seventh year,
ii. 185; to be strictlv observed by
the Jews, ii. 501-503, 517.
Sabbatical year, the, ii 185, 518.
Sacrifice of human beings, i. 26, 146-
149, 319, 320, 410; ii. 16, 17, 299,
300, 402, 509; origin of laws of, ii.
477; laws of, ii. 515-517. See Law.
Sacy, Sylvestre de, i. 248.
Sahara, desert of, i. 229.
Salem, signification of, i. 117.
Salmon, father of Boaz, i. 342.
Salt Sea, the, i. 135-137.
Salt Valley,, ii. 20.
Samaria, ii. 106 ; did not exist m time
of Jeroboam, ii. 106, 1Q7; capital of
Israel, ii. Ill; signification of the
name, ii. Ill ; temple for Baal erected,
ii. 113; besieged by Benhadad, ii.
114; besieged by Shalmaneser, ii.
275; conquered by Shalmaneser, ii.
282; length of siege, ii. 381; the
country repopulated by Babylonians,
ii. 450.
Samaritans, the, ii. 451 ; unfriendly to
Israelites, ii. 451; permission to as-
sist in building the temple refused,
ii. 451, 452; feeling of hostility to
Jews, ii. 452, 453.
Samson, account of, i. 411-424; signi-
fication of the name, i. 414; birth
foretold, i. 415; his exploits, i. 416;
relation of story to solar myth,i. 416,
418, 420, 422-424; his riddles, i.
417; his wedding, i. 417; burns the
wheal of the Philistines, i. 419; slays
the Philistines at Lechi, i. 419; be-
trayed bv Delilah, i. 421; destroys
the temple of the Philistines, i. 422;
his burial, i. 422.
Samuel, i. 21; storv of his youth, i.
433-445; given to Eli, i. 436; sig-
nification of the name, i. 436, 443;
life at the temple, i. 437, 438; is
visited by Yahweh, i. 439, 440; a
prophet of Yahweh, i. 440; his de-
scent, i. 442; his work, i. 446-458;
raises Ebenezer, i. 447; judge over
Israel, i 447, 449 ; spirit of his judg-
ing, i. 449-452; banishment of the
soothsayers, i. 450; prophesies to
Saul his kingship, i. 460; meets
Saul at Gilgal, i. 488; displeased
with Saul, i. 488-492; seeks a king
in the house of Jesse, i. 494; his
visit to Bethlehem, i. 494; anoints
David, i. 495, 497; speaks to Saul at
Endor, i. 527 ; friend of David, ii.
63.
Samuel, books of, i. 27; part of the
historical books, and former pro-
phets, i. 350 ; not wholly reliable, i.
433, 434; remarks upon their com-
pilation and use, ii. 402, 403.
Sanballat, ii. 485, 488, 489, 490, 492,
520; his opposition to Nehemiah's
work, ii. 492-494.
Sanctuary, the, described in Book of
Origins, ii. 474-477.
Sanhedrim, the, i. 30.
Santa Claus, i. 106; customs of, re-
mains of heathen worship, i. 106.
Saphnat-Paneah, signification of, i.
207 ; name given to Joseph, i. 234.
Sarah, signification of, i. 131; her-
death, i. 150. See Sarai.
Sarai, i. 96, 110, 111, 126, 127, 131,
132, 139-141; name becomes Sarah,
i. 131. See Sarah.
Sared, brook of, i. 326.
Sargon, ii. 283; inscriptions of, ii.
286.
Satan, origin of belief in, ii. 546, 547.
Saturn, worship of, i. 317.
Saul, i. 21; becomes a prophet, i. 461;
chosen for king, i. 464; contest with
Ammonites, i. 465, 466; proclaimed
king, i. 466 ; account of his kingship
considered, i. 468-474; account ot
triumph over the Ammonites, i. 472-
474; delivers Israel, i. 475-487;
pursues the Philistines, i. 478; his
children, i. 482; his commander-
in-chiefj i. 482; son of Kish, i.
482 ; victorious over many tribes,
i. 482 ; dirge composed by David, i.
485; spirit of, 485; length of reign
INDEX OP SUBJECTS.
601
uncertain, i. 486 ; his dynasty does
not last in Israel, i. 487 ; rejected by
Yahweh, i. 487-490; raises column
at Carmel, i. 488; story of Yahweh's
rejection considered, i. 490-494; his
Kingship considered, i. 491-493;
soothed by the harp of David, i.
495 j possessed by an evil spirit, i.
495, 500; hostile to David, i. 496,
497 ; change in his character, i. 500,
501; hostile to David, i. 507-518,
521-525; origin of proverb concern-
ing him, i. 509; orders the death of
the priests, i. 517; his life spared by
David, i. 521-524; account of his
death, i. 525-528; consults the witch
of Endor, i. 526, 527; interview with
Samuel at Endor, account considered,
i. 532, 533 ; estimate of his character,
i. 533, 534; fall of the power of his
house, i. 542; seven of his house
sacrificed under David, ii. 17; his re-
mains removed from Jabesh, ii. 19.
Scapegoat, the, ii. 512-514.
Schrader, i. 88.
Scribes, the, i. 29, 31 ; decision as to
holy books, ii. 469 ; order of the, ii.
531, 532.
Scythians, the, ii. 320 ; departure from
Israel, ii. 339; spare Judah, ii. 339.
Scythian-town, ii. 339.
Scythopelis, ii. 339.
Sea, the brazen, ii. 20, 72.
Seer, meaning of, i. 452.
Seir, signification of, i. 166 ; range of,
i. 166; dwelling-place of Esau, i.
200.
Selah, i. 96; signification of name, i.
96.
Selah, significance of term in the
Psalms, ii. 542.
Selah, capital of the Edomites, ii. 186.
Seleucidae, the, i. 30.
Semer, ii. 111.
Semiramis, i. 87; signification of, i.
87.
Semites, the, worship a god and god-
dess, i. 318.
Semitic tribes, the, i. 240.
Seneh, i. 477.
Sennacherib, i. 24; ii. 283; inscriptions
of, ii. 286, 287; demands Jerusalem,
ii. 289; his death, ii. 290; account of
his flight, by Herodotus, ii. 290,
291.
Sephela, plain of, i. 333.
Seraiah, David's private secretary, ii-
22.
Seraiah, father of Ezra, ii. 478.
Seraiah, head of a Jewish embassy, ii.
427.
Serbal, mountain" of, i. 294; significa-
tion of, i. 294; name not found in
Old Testament, i. 295.
Serpent, legend of the brazen, ii. 280,
281; symbol of power of healing,
ii. 281.
Serpent^god, the, ii. 280, 281.
Serug, i. 96.
Sesostris, i. 249.
Set, i. 412.
Seth, i. 55; signification, of, i. 55.
Sethos, i. 249, 283; ii. 290, 291.
Seven, sanctity of the number, i. 317.
Shadrach, in the furnace, ii. 558. See
Hananiah, friend of Daniel.
Shallum, husband of Huldah, ii. 327.
Shallum, murderer of Zachariah, ii.
238.
Shallum, name given to Jehoahaz, ii.
344.
'Shalmaneser, i. 24 ; king of Assyria, i.
24; ii. 450; subdues Israel, h. 242;
besieges Samaria, ii. 275; victorious
in Israel, ii. 282, 283.
Shamgar, i. 365, 368, 414.
Shammah, son of Jesse, i. 495, 502.
Shaphan, secretary of Josiah, ii. 320,
349.
Shaphat, father of Elisha, ii. 129.
Shear-Jashub, signification of, ii. 258.
Sheba, queen of, visit to Solomon, ii.
73; queen of, asks riddles of Solo-
mon, ii. 73, 80.
Sheba, son of Bichri, ii. 54; revolt of,
ii. 54, 55.
Sheba, well of, signification of, i. 163.
Shechaniah, ii. 482.
Shechem, i. 104 ; sanctuary and sacred
oak, i. 104, 105, 110, 148, 194; forms
an alliance with other cities, i. 398,
399.
Shechem, son of Hamor, i. 397, 398,
402.
Shem, i. 70 ; family archives of, i. 96 ;
name refers to Israelites, ii. 91.
Sheinaiah, a prophet, ii. 107-
Shemaiah, plots against Nehemiah, ii.
494, 520.
Shemaiah, writes letter to Zephaniah,
ii. 372, 373.
Shemitic people, i. 95.
Shenir, i. 327.
Shepherd life, i. 54, 98.
Sheshbazzar, governor of the Jews, ii.
436.
Shibboleth, i. 408.
Shiloh, i. 20; city of, i. 434; sanctuary
at, i. 378, 381, 434-, 444; condition of
the priests, i. 444.
Shimeah, brother of David, ii. 20.
Shimei, ii. 47; curses king David, ii.
47, 48 ; seeks the king's forgiveness,
ii. 53 ; last words of Davidj concern-
602
INDEX OP SUBJECTS.
ing Uim, ii. 58; put to death, ii.
70.
Shinear, plain of, i. 85.
Shishak, ii. 97.
Shochoh, i. 502.
Shulammite maiden, heroine of Song
of Solomon, ii. 235, 236.
Shunammite woman, storv of, ii. 154—
156.
Shunem, ii. 154.
Shur, i. 127; position of, i. 128.
Siddim, valley of, i. 115, 136 ; inhabit-
ants of the valley, i. 115, 134; de-
struction of valley, i. 134.
Sidonians, the, i. 240.
Siege, art of, ii. 381.
Sihon, land of, i. 326.
Siloah, waters of, ii. 240.
Simeon, i. 185, 189, 226; tribe of, i.
316.
Simeonites, the, i. 165, 401 ; belong to
Judah, ii. 100.
Sin, desert of, i. 317, 335 ; signification
of name, i. 317.
Sinai, desert of, i. 295.
Sinai, mountains of, i. 294, 295; signi-
fication of name, i. 317; pillar of
cloud appears, i. 288.
Sinai, peninsula of, i. 291, 309.
Sinites, the derivation of name, i. 317.
Sion, dwelling-place of Yahweh, i. 25.
Siphrah, i. 243.
Sirion, i. 327.
Sisera, i. 367-369, 371-374; his war
chariots, i. 367; killed by Jael, i.
374.
Sitnah, signification of, i. 162.
Slavery, law of, ii. 183, 184.
So, king of Egypt, ii. 242.
Sodom, i. 114, 135-137; destruction of,
i. 131-135; stone of, i. 135; hill of,
i. 135, 136 ; pillars of salt, i. 136 ;
apples of, i. 137.
Solomon, i. 22; date of accession to
the kingdom, i. 22 ; the brazen sea,
ii. 20, 75; his birth, ii. 35; anointed
king, i; 57 ; proclaimed king of Is-
rael, ii. 57; his accession to the
throne, ii. 69; how treated by tra-
dition, ii. 69; marries an Egyptian
princess^ ii. 70; encourages com-
merce, ii. 70, 71; building of the
palace, ii. 71; builds ships, ii. 71;
sanctuaries raised, ii. 71; sends
ships to Ophir, ii. 71 ; ships of Tar-
shish, ii. 71; encourages art, ii. 71,
72; "the house of Lebanon," ii. 71,
72; building and description of the
temple, ii. 71, 84-88 ; his splendor, ii.
71-73, 96, 97; furniture of his palace,
ii. 72; golden utensils in the temple,
ii. 72 ; his brazen pillars, ii. 72 ; life
at his court, ii. 72; number of his
wives, ii. 72; Bumptuousness of his
table, ii. 72; visited by queen of
Sheba, ii. 73; his wisdom, ii. 73-82;
his religion, ii. 73-75, 83, 84 ; sacri-
fices upon bamahs, ii. 73-75; asks
Yahweh for truth and wisdom, ii. 74;
instance of his wisdom in judgment,
ii. 77; his proverbs and poems, ii.
78 ; nature of his proverbs, ii. 78-80 ;
his riddles, ii. 80, 81; picture of a
king as he ought not to be, ii. 82 ;
his position due to the building of
the temple, ii. 84; prayer to Yahweh,
ii. 85 ; payment of Hiram, ii. 86 97 ;
ornamentations of the temple have a
symbolical significance, ii. 87; ten-
dency of reign to heathendom, ii.
88; his treatment of Israelites and
Canaanites, ii. 89, 91,92; his reign
favorable to religious progress, ii.
93, 94; insurrection in his lifetime, ii.
97, 98; death of, ii. 98; description
of a wedding procession, ii. 235, 236 ;
a high honor to be in his harem, ii.
236; psalms of, ii. 568.
Solomon, Song of, ii. 234-236.
Soothsaver's oak, the, i. 110.
Star-worship, i. 26, 317; ii. 301; over
thrown in Judah, ii. 327, 328.
Stone, age of, i. 60.
Stones, worship of, i. 175-178, 317,
322, 323, 448. -
Street-town, the, ii. 201.
Succoth, i. 194; signification of, i. 194.
Suez Canal, i. 282.
Sun, worship of, i. 317, 414; ii. 301.
Sun-god, the, worship of, i. 104.
Susa, ii. 486.
Synagogues, ii. 531, 532.
Syrians, the, their wars with Israelites,
"ii. 20, 114-116, 120-122.
Taanach, i. 372.
Tabari, chronicle of, i. 239.
Tabeal, ii. 240.
Taberah, signification of, ii. 218.
Tabernacle, the, i. 304; described in
Book of Origins, ii. 475.
Tabernacles, feast of, ii. 104, 500, 511.
Tabor, Mt, i. 369.
Talent of silver, ii. 159
Talmud; the, i. 31, 197; ii. 568; the
tradition of Isaiah's death, ii. 308.
Tamar, a fortress, ii. 89.
Tamar, sister of Absalom, ii. 38, 39.
Tammuz, name for Osiris, ii. 302.
Taphanes, city in Egypt, ii. 397.
Tarshish, ships of, why so called, ii.
71.
Tartan, the, a captain of the Ajbj-
rian bodyguard, ii. 287.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
603
fartessus, ii. 71.
Teacher'9 oak, the, i. 110, 194.
Tekoa, city of, i. 166; ii. 209.
Tekoa, desert of, i. 519.
Tekoa, woman of, interview with Da-
vid, ii. 40-42; called wise, ii. 75.
Tel-abib, ii. 408.
Temple, the, i. 22; location of, i. 146,
148; situation of the mount of, ii.
30; the building of, and the edifice
described, ii. 71, 72, 84-88 ; its condi-
tion at time of Joash, ii. 174 ; its con-
dition after the depopulation by Neb-
uchadrezzar, ii. 395; the rebuilding
of, ii. 445-456 ; the second compared
with the first, ii. 450; profaned by
Antiochus IV., ii. 545; date of res-
toration to Israel's god, ii. 565.
Temple of Bel, i. 89, 90, 94.
Ten Commandments, the, i. 18, 312-
315; arrangement of, i. 313-315;
Lutheran arrangement, i. 314; Ro-
man Catholic arrangement, i. 314;
teaching of, i. 320; engraved on
stone tablets, contained in the ark,
ii. 85; contain the germ of danger to
Israel's religion, ii. 337.
Tent, tne, i. 304.
Tent of Conf erence, the, i. 296 ; ii. 513 ;
described in Book of Origins, ii. 475.
Terachites, the, i. 97 ; migration of, i.
94-99 ; represented by Abram, i.
100.
Terah, father of Abraham, i. 96, 107.
Teraphim, the, i. 186, 187, 189, 375-
377, 379, 381.
Terminus, god of boundaries, i. 176.
Testament, connection between Old
and New, incomplete, ii. 567. See
New Testament, and Old Testament.
Thaminuz, legend of, i. 413.
Thanath, i. 38.
Tharbis, i. 252.
Thebes, i. 233 ; seat of the Pharaohs, i.
249 ; date of union with Memphis, i.
233
Thebez, citv of, i. 396, 398.
Theft, law of, i. 189, 190; ii. 184.
Thermouthis, i. 251, 252.
Thor, i. 86.
Thorah, the, i. 42.
Thoth, i. 301.
Thummim, the, i. 480, 481 ; ii. 476.
Thutmosis, i. 235; date of expulsion of
Hvksos from Egypt, i. 249.
Tibiii, contests the crown with Omri,
ii. 111.
Tiglath-Pilezer, king of Assyria, ii.
241.
Tigris, the, i. 43, 44, 84.
Timnath, i. 410.
Tiphsah, city, ii. 239.
Tirhakah, king of Egypt, ii. 284, 291.
Tirshatha, the, governor of the Jews,
ii. 436.
Tirzah, ii. 107.
Tishbeh, ii. 119.
Tisri, ii. 500.
Titus, i. 31.
Tob, i. 405.
Tobiah, ii. 485, 488-490, 494, 502, 520.
Tobit, book of, ii. 568.
Togarmah, i. 95.
Tola of Issachar, judge in Israel, i.
403, 404. ,
Tombs, i. 152.
Tophet, i. 26; ii. 299, 300; destroyed
in Jndah, ii. 328.
Tradition, the, i. 29.
Tribes, signified by names of the pa-
triarchs, r 100-105; ii. 194, 195;
represented as men, a similar custom
in many nations, i. 102.
Tsuriel, signification of, i. 177.
Tsurishaddai, signification of, i. 177.
Tubal, compared with Vulcan, i. 56.
Tubal-Cain, i. 54.
Turkish Empire, name of its govern-
ment, i. 231. '
Typhon, i. 412.
Tyre, inhabitants ofj ii. 21.
Tyrians, the, i. 240.
Ulai, ii. 544.
United States, the, i. 94.
Unleavened bread, feast of, i. 274, 275,
277, 278; ii. 182.
" Upright, book of the," i. 345.
Ur, i. 96.
Uriah, ii. 32-34.
Uriel, ii. 546.
Urijah, a prophet, ii. 352; friend of
Jeremiah, put to death, ii. 363.
Urim, the, i. 480, 481; ii. 476.
Uzzab., ii. 8.
Uzziah, son of Ainaziah, ii. 184; king
of Judah, ii. 240; story of his lep-
rosy, ii. 304.
Valley, the written, i. 294.
Vashti, ii. 547.
Veda, the, i. 3.
Vengeance, law of, i. 58, 59.
Venus, worship of, i. 317.
Visions, ii. 226.
Vritra, i. 8.
Vulgate, the, i. 304.
War, how considered in Israel, ii. 14.
See Israelites.
" Watchman's Acre," the, ii. 202.
Water of jealousy, ordeal described,
ii. 510, 511.
Weeks, feast of* ii. 511.
604
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Weeping, oak of, i. 178, 194.
Wisdom, Book of, ii. 668.
Wisdom, refereuces from Proverbs, ii.
315, 316.
Woman, creation of, i. 36, 43; her
position in Israel, ii. 233, 234.
World, ages of the, i. 60.
Worship of animals, i. 80, 81, 321 ; ii.
302.
Worship of Apis, i. 321; ii. 102.
Asherah, i. 318; ii 113, 301, 302,
328. See Asherah.
Ashtoreth, ii. 71, 83.
Astarte, ii. 102, 113, 300, 301.
Baal, i. 21, 23, 105, 391, 414; ii.
102, 136-138, 171-180, 327.
Bel, i. 38, 88, 89, 90, 94; ii. 425.
Chemosh, i.' 153; ii. 71, 83, 125, 301,
328.
Dagon, i. 88, 421; ii. 6.
Images, i. 23, 321; ii. 102, 103, 109,
167, 264-274, 509.
Jupiter, i. 317 ; ii. 545.
Kiwan, i. 317, 320.
Mars, i. 317.
Mercury, i. 317.
Milcom, ii. 71, 83, 301.
Mnevis, ii. 102.
Molech, i. 17, 26,320, 414; ii. 102,
299, 300.
Moon, i. 317.
Mylitta, i. 88, 318.
Nature, i. 317, 318, 411-414.
Saturn, i. 317.
Serpent, the, ii. 280, 281.
Stars, i. 26; ii. 301, 328.
Stones, i. 175-178, 317, 322, 323,
448.
Sun, i. 104, 317, 414; ii. 301.
Venus, i. 317.
Yahweh, i. 23, 24, 123-125, 178-182,
221, 222, 286, 315, 323, 324; ii. 84,
88, 113, 185, 196-199, 314-316,
345.
Written word, the, i. 29.
Written valley, Che, i. 294.
Xerxes I., successor to Darius, ii.
478,
Xisuthros, i. 69.
Yah, abbreviation of Yahweh, ii. 485.
Yahweh, use of name, i. 18 ; date of
restoration of worship under Jehu, i.
23; struggles and ascendancy of
worship, i. 23, 24 (See Worship
of Yahweh); people of, i. 104; con-
ceptions of, i 123-125, 221, 222, 259,
260; ii. 84, 88, 196-199, 245-247,
314-316; his visit to Abraham, i.
131, 132; his interview with Sarah,
i- 132; threatens to destroy Sodom,
i. 133; his visit to Lot, i. 133; hH
promise to Abram, i. 115, 121, 122,
146; presence of, limited to certain
places, i. 180 ; ancient conception of,
l. 221, 222; in the burning bush,
i. 255; pronunciation of name, i.
258; why the name Jehovah has
come into use, i. 258; signification
of the name, i. 259 ; conceptions of,
differ, i. 259, 260 ; compels Pharauh
to let Israel depart from Egypt, i.
263-271; Israel's God, i. 286; com-
mands Moses and others to draw
near to hiin, i. 296 ; reproves Aaron,
i. 297; reproves Miriam, i. 297; gives
commandments to Moses, i. 299; ii.
265-273; representation of, in the
Pentateuch, i. 311; dwells in the
ark, i. 322, 323 ; ark of, i. 381 (See
Ark); promises to Gideon, i. 384,
386; calls to Samuel, i. 439, 440; re-
jects Saul, i. 487-494; worship of,
confined to Canaan, i. 515 ; promises
wealth and wisdom to Solomon, ii.
74; approval of position of the ark
in the temple, ii. 85 ; appears to Sol-
omon, ii. 86 ; commands monotheism,
ii. 86; worshipped under the form
of a bull, ii. 102, 103; conflict with
Baal, ii. 138-149, 198; significance
of his worship, ii. 185, 186 ; use of
name in Psalms, ii. 190, 191; old
and new conception of, ii. 245-247;
worship of, included many ceremo-
nies, ii. 264; his displeasure to\vards
the Israelites, ii. 269-271 ; his great-
ness revealed in Nature, ii. 313, 314 ;
represented differently at different
stages of Israelite culture, ii. 314-
316; worship of, maintained in Ju-
dah, ii. 327-329 ; worship of, shaken
by fall of Judah, ii. 345 ; the servant
of, ii. 420-423; answers Job, ii. 467;
abbreviations of, ii. 485; belief that
he made good and evil, ii. 546; be-
lief that he made only the good, ii.
546, 547. See God.
Yahweh of Armies, temple of, i. 434.
" Yahweh, my banner," i. 292.
"Yahweh, son of," title of honor as-
sumed by a king of Israel, ii. 25.
" Yahweh will appear," i. 146.
Yahwist, the era of, ii. 194.
Year of jubilee, ii. 518.
Year sabbatical, ii. 518.
Yehowah, i. 258.
Yehowih, i. 258.
Yo, abbreviation of Yahweh, ii. 485
Ypres, i. 82.
Yule logs, remains of heathen worship,
i. 106. r
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
605
Zabbok, i. 332.
Zabud, son of Nathan, a priest, ii.
177.
Zachariah, son of Jehoiada, ii. 175,
176.
Zachariah, son of Jeroboam II., date of
his murder, ii. 238.
Zadok, head of the priests of the tem-
ple, i. 23; priest of the temple, i
444; chief priest of David, ii. 9, 22;
prepares for David's return to Jeru-
salem, ii. 53 ; friend of David, ii. 63 ;
priest at Jerusalem, ii. 179 ; sons of,
ii. 475.
Zadokites, the, i. 444.
Zalmunna, i. 388, 390.
Zamzummites, a race of giants, i. 326 ;
dwelling-place of, i. 240.
Zarathustra, i. 301.
Zarephath, ii. 138.
Zebah, i. 388, 390.
Zeboim, i. 136.
Zebul, i. 395, 400.
Zebulun, birth of, i. 185, 139, 226;
tribe of, i. 366.
Zechariah, i. 25 ; son of Berechiah, ii.
238; descendant of Iddo, ii. 238;
passage relating to the condition of
the Israelites, ii. 238, 239; prediction
of, ii. 255; contemporary of Jere-
miah, ii. 364; his picture of the dawn
of the Messianic age, ii. 448, 449.
Zedekiah, date of his accession to
throne of Judah, ii. 373; name given
to Mattaniah, ii. 373; rebels against
Nebuehadrezzar, ii. 376; his vacil-
lating character, ii. 376, 377; pro-
phecy of his fate \y Jeremiah, ii.
379, 380 ; his dealings with Jeremiah,
ii. 382, 383; flight and capture, ii.
386; his terrible fate, ii. 387.
Zedekiah, the prophet, ii. 120, 121,
372.
Zeeb, i. 387 ; signification of the name,
i. 387.
Zend-Avesta, the, i. 3.
Zephaniah, prophet in Judah, ii. 320;
passages translated, ii. 320, 321 ; his
religious position, ii. 325.
Zephath, i. 306; taken by Judah, i.
356.
Zerubbabel, i. 27; governor of the
Jews, ii. 436 ; signification of name,
ii. 436 ; proclaimed governor, ii. 441.
Zeruiah, sons of. i. 540.
Ziba, ii. 13, 47, 54.
Ziklag, i. 535-539.
Zillah, i. 54.
Zilpah, i. 185.
Zirnri,- ii. 110, 111.
Zin, desert of, i. 334.
Zion, city of David, ii. 4.
Zion, Mount, Abraham takes Isaac to
the sacrifice, i. 144; mount of the
temple, i. 148.
Ziph, desert of, i. 519.
Zippor, father of Balak, ii. 199.
Zipporah, wife of Moses, i. 247, 309.
Zoar, i. 134, 136, 333; signilication 01,
i. 134.
Zobah, ii. 20.
Zodiac, its signs, i. 418,
Zohar, i. 150.
Zophar, friend of Job, ii. 461; hia
counsel to Job, ii. 464, 465.
Zuphites, the, L 434.
.1 '.I
TABLE
BIBLE PASSAGES TRANSLATED AND USED FOE REFERENCE
OLD TESTAMENT.
GENESIS.
1. 1-ii. 3 ... i. 34
i. 28 i. 78
i 29 i. 75
ii. 4-24 .... i. 42
ii. 25-iii. . . . i. 46
iv. . . . . . i. 53
iv. 26 . . . . i. 286
v i. 62, 06
v. 3 i. 41
vi.-viii i- 69
vi. 1-8 .... i. 73
vi. 3 i. 67
vi. 11-13 ... i. 74
vi. 20 .... i. 72
vii. 2-4, 8-10 . . i. 72
viji. 20-22 . . . i. 73
ix. M7 . . . i. 78
ix. 18-27 . . ii. 88, 90
x i. 94
x. 2-5 .. . ii. 207
x. 7, 8-12, 19, 2b,
28-30 .... i. 95
xj 8-12 .... i. 84
x. 14 i. 283
x. 21, 25 ... i. 96
xi. 1-9 .... i. 89
xi. 10, ff. . . . i. 96
xi. 10-26 . . . i. 65
xi. 10-32 . . i. 67, 94
xii. . . . i. 108, 163
xii.-l i. 100
xii. 1 .... i. 107
xii. 3. . i. 109; ii. 341
xii. 6 .... i. 148
xii. 8 .... i. 179
xiii i. 113
xiii. 4 .... i. 179
xiv i. 113
xiv. 2 , . i. 136; ii. 223
xiv. 24 .... i. 361
xv. . . . i. 120, 162
xv. 3 . . . . i. 158
xv .7 . . . i. 107
xv. 13 .... i. 247
XV. 13, 16 . . . i. 122
xv. 16 i. 248
xvi i. 126
xvi.. 12 .... i. 128
xvii. i. 131, 319 ; ii. 510
xvii. 14, 15, 18, 20,
24, 25 . . . . i. 141'
xvii. 17-19
. i
161
xvii. 25 .
. i
319
xviii. 12-15
. . i
161
xviii. 23 .
. n
4-24
XV] 11. XIX
. i
131
xix. 24 .
293
xix. 29 .
137
111
xxi. 1-21
. . i
139
141
161
xxi. 9 . .
.142
162
xxi. 22-34
. . l
163
xxi. 27 .
■ m
xxii. 1-19
. i
143
516
. 150
196
155
xxiv. 1-4
101
xxiv. 4, 7, 1
)
. . i
107
xxiv. 31 .
. . i
109
xxiv. 62 .
. 128
164
129
9,98
xxv. 7-10
161
xxv. 9, 10
153
xxv. 11, 13-
IH
128
xxv. 16 .
19,9
xxv. 19-34
166
xxv. 27 .
174
161
162
xxvi. 34 .
167
xxvi 34, 35
182
xx vii. 1-45
166
xxvii. 35, 36
174
xx vii. 36
183
xxvii. 46-xs
VI
i. 9 i
182
i. 167
xxviii. 10-22
. i. 175
xxix.-xxxii. 3
. i. 182
xxix. 32 . .
. i. 329
xxx. 7, 8 .
. i. 366
xxx. 10. 11 .
. i. 329
xxxi. 42, 53
. i. 165
xxxi. 45-52 .'
. i. 405
xxxii. 3-xxxiii
20 i. 192
xxxii. 20
. i. 195
xxxiii. 19
. i. 153
. 201, 394
xxxv. 1 sqq.
. i. 179
xxxv. 1, 7 .
. i. 195
xxxv. 6, 7, 9-
15,
16-21 . .
. i. 196
xxxv. 8 . .
. i. 461
xxxv. 23-29
. i. 200
xxxv. 27
. i. 164
xxxvi. 1, 8, 9,
19,
43 . . .
. 102, 167
xxxvi. 2, 3 .
. i. 167
xxxvi. 6-8 .
i. 200
xxxvi. 20-25
i. 167
xxxvi. 20-30
i.166
xxxvi. 31-43
i. 167
i. 201
XXXIX.
i. 201
xxxix. 2-6
i. 221
xii. . . .
i. 201
xii. 45 .
i. 316
xii. 46 .
i. 231
xiii. . .
i. 211
i. 211
xiv. 8 . .
i. 221
i. 223
xlvi. 5
i. 228
i. 102
i. 235
xlvii. 21 .
i. 229
xlvii. 30 .
i. 228
xlviii. 3-6
i. 226
xlviii. 3-22
i. 228
TABLE OF BIBLE PASSAGES.
607
xlviii. 8-22
xlix. . .
xlix. 1-28
xlix. 3 .
xlix. 5-7 .
xlix. 13 .
xlix. 14, 15
xlix. 32 .
xlix. 29-32
1. 5, 12, 13, 21
1. 13 .
i. 227
i. 102
i. 329
i. 401
i. 153
i. 228
i. 153
EXODUS,
i. 1-12 . . . . i. 258
i. 1-ii, 22 . . . i. 242
i. 8 i. 248
i. 11 i. 249
ii. 11 i. 249
u. 18 i. 255
ii. 21 i. 316
ii. 22 i. 379
ii. 23 i. 248
ii. 23-25 . . . . i. 258
iii. 1-iv. 28 . . . i. 254
iii. 2 i- 259
iii. 2 ff . . . . ii. 192
iii. 14 i. 259
iv. 22 . . ii. 25, 223
iv. 23 .... i. 276
iv. 24-26 . . . i. 319
iv. 29-xi. 10 . . i. 263
vi. 1-24 . . . . i. 258
vi. 2 ff . . . . i- 276
vi. 11 i- 231
vi. 13-26 . . . i. 276
vi. 14 . . . . i. 329
vi. 16, 18 ... i. 250
vi. 16, 18, 20 . . i. 122
vi. 16-18, 20 . . i- 248
vi. 28 ff . . . . i- 268
vii. 7 . . . i. 249, 277
ix. 15 . . . . i. 266
xi. 1-3 . . . . i- 275
xii. Iff . . . . i- 277
xii. i.— xiii. 16 . . i- 273
xii. 29-34, 35-39 . i. 274
.xii. 37 . . . . i- 281
xii. 37, 38 ... i- 284
xii. 38 i- 316
xii. 40 . . i. 122, 247
xiii. 1, 2, 11-16 . i. 275
xiii. 3-10 . . . i. 274
xiii. 17, 20-22 . . i. 281
xiii. 17-xv. 21 . . i. 280
xiv. 1-4, 8 . . . i- 281
xiv. 10-14, 15-18,
19 -21 . . . ■ i- 281
xv. 13 .... i. 282
X v. 20 . . . . i. 298
xv. 20, 21 . i. 281, 282
xv. 22-xvii . . i. 287
xvi. 4, 5, 22-36 . i. 289
xvi. 22-30 . . . ii. 517
xvii i. 309
xvii. 3 .... i. 379
xvii. 7 . i. 335; ii. 192
xvii. 16 . . . . i. 292
xviii. 15, 16 . . . ii. 24
xix i. 294
xix. 1, 2b, 3b-8,
10-13a, 15, 16,
18 i. 298
xix. 2a, 3a, 9a,
13b, 14, 17, 19 . i. 295
xix. 9 i. 299
. i. 299
. i. 312
. ii. 109
. ii. 417
. i. 300
294, 298
. i. 123
. ii. 265
. ii. 86
ii. 180,
274
. ii. 377
. ii. 183
. i. 81
. ii. 184
. ii. 333
. i. 515
. ii. 183
. ii. 184
xix. 20-25 .
xx. 2-17 . .
xx. 3-6 . .
xx. 5 . . .
xx. 18-21 .
xx. 18-26 .
xx. 21 . .
xx. 22-26 .
xx. 25 . .
xxi.-xxiii. 19
xxi. 2-6 .
xxi. 2-11
xxi. 12 .
xxi. 12-17
xxi. 13, 14
xxi. 16 .
xxi. 20, 21
xxi. 22-36
xxi. 28-32
xxii. 1-27
xxii. 4
xxii. 18 .
xxii. 25-27 .
xxii. 28 . .
xxii. 29, 30 .
xxii. 31 . .
xxiii. 1-12 .
xxiii. 4, 5 .
xxiii. 10, 11
xxiii. 10-12
xxiii. 14-17
xxiii. 14-18, 19a . ii. 182
xxiii. 15
xxiii. 19 b .
xxiii. 20-33 .
xxiii. 27-30 .
xxiii. 29, 30
xxiv. 1, 9-11
xxiv. 3-8
xxiv. 3-8, 12-18 . ii. 264
xxiv. 14 .
xxv-xxxi. 11
xxv. 10-15 .
xxv. 10-22 .
xxx. 12, 13, 16
xxxi
. ii. 184
. i. 189
272, 450;
ii. 208
. ii. 211
. ii. 25
. ii. 182
. ii. 183
. ii. 184
. ii. 311
. ii. 518
. ii. 183
ii. 511
278
. ii. 183
. ii. 265
. i. 285
. i. 153
294, 295
. i. 300
i. 291
. ii. 474
. ii. 10
. i. 322
ii. 31
i. 291
xxxi. 18-xxxiii. 6
i. 300; ii. 26 1
xxxii. 7-14 . . . ii. 27U
xxxii. 9-14 . . . ii. 424
xxxii. 25-29 . . ii. 270
xxxii. 30-34 . . ii. 424
xxxiii ii. 223
xxxiii. 6, 12-xxxiv.
35 i. 300
xxxiii. 7-11 i. 294, 295
xxxiii. 12-xxxiv.
35 ii. 2G4
xxxiv. 7
xxxiv. 18
xxxv. -xl.
xxxv. 1-3
xxxv. 4-xl.
xl. 20, 21
. ii. 417
. i. 278
. ii. 546
. ii. 517
. ii. 474
. i. 322
LEVITICUS.
i.-v ii. 515
ii. 13 . .
iii. 17 . .
iv. 3, 5, 16
v. 4 .
v. 11 . .
vi. 22 . .
vii. 26, 27
viii. . .
ix. . . .
x. . . .
xi. . . .
xi. 1-31 .
xi. 22 . .
xii. . .
xii. 3 . .
xvi. . .
xvii. 3ff.
xvii. 10-14
xvii. 11 .
xix. 26 .
xix. 26, 31
xx. 6, 27
xxii. 17-25
319
ii. 166
i. 80
ii. 536
ii. 517
i. 58
ii. 536
i. 80
ii. 476
ii. 476
ii. 512, 519
ii. 510
i. 79
ii. 510
ii. 510
ii. 510
ii. 508
ii. 333
i. 80
ii. 516
i. 80
i.272;
ii. 208
i.272, 451;
ii. 208
. . ii. 504
xxiii. 3, 7, 8,28-30 ii. 518
xxiii. 23-25 ii. 499, 511
xxiii. 26-32 . . ii. 511
xxiii. 33-43 . . ii. 500
xxiv. 17, 18, 21, 22 i. 81
xxv "■ 508
xxxi. 12-17. ii. 508, 517
xxv. 1-7 .
xxv. 8-55
xx vii. . i
xxvii. 5 .
xxvii. 29
xxvii. 30-33
ii. 518
. . ji. 518
411: ii. 519
. . i. 203
. . i. 343
. .ii. 477
NUMBERS.
L ii. . . . i. 285, 810
iii. . . - ii. 478
608
TABLE OF BIBLE PASSAGES.
iii. 14-39 . . . . i. 285
iv. 1-33 .... ii. 475
iv. 4-20 . . . . ii. 10
iv. 5, 6, 15 . . . i. 322
v. 11-31 . . ii. 508, 510
vi. 1-21 . i. 456 ; ii. 508,
515
viii. 5 ff . . . . ii. 476
ix. 1-L4 . . . . i. 279
x. 1-8 i. 310
x. 1-10 . . . . ii. 10
x. 9 i. 338
x. 29 i. 205
x. 29-32 . . i. 312, 357
x. 33-36 . . i. 312, 322
xi ii. 209, 216
xi. 4 i. 316
xi. 16 ff . . . . i. 454
xi. 25 i. 453
xii i. 294
xii. i i. 316
xii. 6 i. 209
xii. 6-8 . i. 454; ii. 219
xiii. . . . i. 307, 355
xiii. 1-3, 17-20,
22-24, 26, 27-31 i. 360
xiv. . . . i. 307, 355
xiv. 1, ll-25a, 39-
45 i. 360
xiv. 15, 16 . . . ii. 271
xiv. 29, 30 . . . i. 311
xiv. 40-45 . . . i. 358
xv. 32-36 . . . Ii. 517
xvi. . . . ii. 520, 521
xvi. 32 .... ii. 523
xvii. . . . ii. 520, 523
xviii ii. 477
xviii. 14 . . , . i. 343
xviii. 19 . . . . ii. 166
xx. 1 i. 298
xx. 1-13 . . . . i. 331
xx. 11 .... i. 290
xx. 13 .... ii. 192
xx. 14-21 . . i. 327
xxi. 1-3 . , i. 358
xxi. 4-9 . . . ii. 281
xxi. 13-35 . . i. 327
xxi. 26 .... i. 328
xxii. 2-xxiv. . . ii. 199
xxiii. 9 .... ii. 91
xxiii. 19 . . . . i. 74
xxiv. 3, 4, 15, 16 ii. 208
xxv. 1-15 . . . i. 323
xxvi. 5 . . . . i. 329
xxvi. 11 . . . . ii. 523
xxvii. 1-11 . . . ii. 519
xxvii. 12-14 . . i. 335
xxviii. . . . '. ii. 512
zxviii. 1-10 . . ii. 516
xxviii. 11-15 . . ii. 511
xxix ii. 512
xxxi ii. 519
xxxi. 16 ... . ii. 207
xxxii. 1, 2, 6, 25,
29 i. 329
xxxii. 12 . . . i. 359
xxxii. 41 . . . i. 404
xxxii. 41, 42 . . i. 329
xxxiii. 1-49 . . i. 310
xxxiii. 4 . . . . i. 286
xxxiii. 8-15 . . i. 287
xxxv ii. 477
xxxv. 9-34 . . . i. 82
xxxvi ii. 519
DEUTERONOMY.
. 1-ii. 1 . . . . i. 304
.10 . i. 285, 307, 328
ii. 24
i. 334
17 .
37, 38
4.1-44
i. 2— iii. 22
ii. 14 .
ii. 16-20
ii. 26
v. 11
v. 19, 20
v. 6-21
v. 7-10
v. 9 .
v. 12-15
vi. 5 .
vii. 7 .
vii. 16 .
viii. 3, 11-18
ix. 1, 2, 3
ix. 4
ix. 20
ix. 22
x. 1-5
x. 8-9
x. 16
18
xii. 7, 12.
xii. 8 .
xii. 12 .
xii. 13-27
xii. 16, 23, 24
xii. 18 . .
xii. 19. .
xiii. 1-5 .
xiv. 1 . .
xiv. 3-20
xiv. 4-20 .
xiv. 22-26
xiv. 26 .
xv. 12-18
xv. 13, 14
xv. 21 . .
xv. 23 . .
xvi. 1,2, 5,16
xvi. 1-16 . .
. i. 358
. i. 325
. i. 404
. i. 329
. i. 331
. i. 334
. i. 123
. ii. 247
. i. 299
. i. 312
. ii. 109
. ii. 417
. ii. 335
. ii. 334
. i. 285
. i. 153
. i. 292
. i. 307
. i. 153
. ii. 268
. ii. 192
. i. 822
. i. 403
. ii. 510
. i. 101
. i. 435
. ii. 335
. ii. 476
. ii. 333
. i. 80
. ii. 476
. ii.47U
209, 272
. i. 151
. ii. 510
. i. 79
. ii. 333
. i. 435
. ii. 377
. ». 334
. ii. 504
. i. 80
. i. 278
. ii. 511
xvi. 2, 5, 6
xvi. 3 . .
xvi. 18-xvii. 12
xvii. 1
xvii. 14-20
xviii. 10, 11
xviii. 10-15
xviii. 15, 18
xix. 1-13
xxi. 10-14
xxii. 1-4.
xxii. 6
xxiii. 4, 5
xxiii. 15, 16
xxiii. 19, 20
xxiv. 6 . .
xxiv. 7 . .
xxiv. 10-17 .
xxiv. 16 . .
xxiv. 19-22 .
xxv. 1-4 . .
xxv. 5-10 .
xxvii. . . .
xxvii. 15-26
xxviii. 1-14, 15
xxviii. 7 . .
xxix. 23 . .
xxx. 6 . .
xxx. 11-14 .
xxxii. . .
xxxii. 4, 18, 30, 31
xxxii. 7-21, 29, 30,
36-43 . . . .
xxxii. 15 . . .
xxxii. 39. . . .
xxxiii
xxxiii. 8-10 . .
xxxiii. 16 . . .
xxxiv
xxxiv. 10-12 . .
68
i. 279
i. 275
ii. 181
ii. 504
ii. 82
i. 272;
ii. 208
i. 450
i. 454
ii. 333
ii. 334
ii. 334
ii. 334
ii. 208
ii. 335
ii. 334
ii. 335
i. 515
ii. 335
ii. 176
ii. 335
ii. 335
i. 425
i. 351
ii. 281
i. 351
ii. 344
i. 136
ii. 510
ii. 337
ii. 282
i. 178
ii. 245
H.19I
i. 499
ii. 186
ii. 270
i. 259
i. 331
i. 454
JOSHUA,
i.-viii. 29 . . . i. 336
v. 2-9 i. 319
v. 6, 10 . . . . i. 308
viii. 30-35 . . . i. 351
ix.-xii i. 343
ix. 24, 25 . . . i. 354
x. 21 i. 346
x. 33, 36-39 . . i. 847
xi i. 347
xi. 20 i. 346
xii. 1,10. . . . i. 347
xii. 10, 12 ... i. 347
xiii. 22 .... ii. 207
xiii. 30 .... i. 404
xiv.-xvii. . . . i. 352
xiv. 6-15 . . . i. 361
xiv. 7, 10 . . i. 346
xv. 8 . . . . ii. 299
xv. 10. . . . i. 41J
TABLE OF BIBLE PASSAGES.
609
xv. 13-16
xv. 13-19
xv. 45-47
xv. 63 .
xvi. 10 .
xvii. 3 ff.
xvii. 12-18
xviii. . .
xix. . .
xix. 2 . .
xix. 38 .
xix. 47 .
xxi. . .
xxi. 1-42
xxi. 43-15
xxii. . .
xxiv. . .
xxiv. 2, 14,
xxiv. 9, 10
xxiv. 14, 23
xxiv. 26, 27
15
i. 1-21 .
i. 33 . .
ii. . . .
ii. 1-5 . .
ii. 6-iii. 6
ii. 10 . .
iii. 1, 2, 4
Hi. 7-31 .
iii. 8-11 .
iii. 31 . .
IV. . . .
iv. 4 . ■
iv. 6 . .
iv. 8, 9 .
iv. 15 . .
v. . . .
v. 4 . .
v. 6 . .
v. 14 . .
v. 15b-17a.
v. 17 . .
v. 19 . .
vi.-viii. 28
vi. 7-10 .
vii. 1 . .
viii. 21 .
viii. 29, 35
i. 347
i. 355
i. 358
i. 353
i. 347
i. 329
i. 353
i. 352
i. 352
i. 165
i. 414
i. 376
i. 352
i. 403
i. 353
i. 353
i. 351
i. 112
ii.208
i. 317
i. 354
JUDGES.
347
355
414
347
454
363
352
153
365
356
414
363
454
369
374
372
363
370
368
329
369
368
372
i. 383
. 454
148, 391
. ii. 80
. i. 391
viii. 29-ix. . . - i- 394
viii. 30ff. . . . i. 404
ix. 1, 2, 16, 28, 57 i. 391
ix. 8-15 . . i. 470, 471
ix. 13 ii- 314
ix. 37 i- HO
x. 1-5 i. 403
x. 3, 4 . . . ■ i- 329
x. 6-16 . . . . i. 404
x. 6-xii. 7 . . . i. 403
xi. 12-28 ... i- 409
xi. 24 . . . i. 153, 331
xii. 8-15 . . . . i. 401
xiii.-xvi. . . . i. 411
xvii i. 375
xvii. 1-4 . . . . i. 379
xvii. 6 .... i. 471
xvii. 7 i. 380
xvii. 10 .... ii. 25
xviii i. 375
xviii. 1 . . . . i. 471
xviii. 14, 17, 18,
20, 30 ... . i. 379
xviii. 19 . . . . ii. 25
xviii. 31 . . . . i. 381
xix i. 471
xx. 16 . . . . i. 372
xxi. 19 . . i. 381, 434
xxi. 25 .... i. 471
RUTH.
Ruth i. 424
1 SAMUEL.
i.-iv i. 433
i. 1 ii. 533
i. ff. i. 381
ii. 1-10 . . . . ii. 282
ii. 10 i. 444
ii. 27 i. 454
ii. 35 i. 443
iii i. 450
iv. 18 i. 449
v. 1-vii. 1 . . . ii. 5
vi. 9 ff i. 414
vii. 2-17 . . . . i. 446
vii. 3 i. 457
vii. 6 i- 369
vii. 9 i- 442
vii. 14b i. 458
viii i. 463
viii. -xii i. 459
viii. 1 i- 457
ix. 1-x. 8, 16 . . i. 482
ix. 1-x. 16 . . i- 459
ix. 6, 15 ff. . . . i. 450
ix. 9 i. 452
ix. 12 ff i. 457
ix 13 i- 442
x. 2 ff i- 450
x. 5 i- 453
x. 8 ... i. 442,457
x. 17-27 . . . . i. 463
x. 23, 24 . . . . i- 500
x. 25 i- 471
xi i. 463
xi. 8 ii- 99
xi. 15 i- 457
xii i- 463
xii. 11 . . . • i- 391
xii. 12 .... i. 467
xiii i. 475
xiii. 4, 7b. 15a. . i. 482
26*
xiii. 10 .... i. 457
xiii. 19-22 . . . i. 448
xiv i. 475
xiv. 32 ff. . . . i. 80
xiv. 52 . . . . i. 502
xv i. 487
xv. 1 ff., 33 . . i. 452
*v. 8 .... ii. 203
xv. 10 ff. . . . i. 450
xvi. . . . i. 450, 494
xvi. 2 ff. . i. 442, 457
xvii. 1-xviii. 4 . i. 501
xvii. 15 . . . . i. 498
xvii. 52 . . . . ii. 99
xvii. 54 . . . .1. 505
xviii. 5-13 . . . i. 494
xviii. 10 ... i. 453
xviii. 16 . . . ii. 99
xviii. 17-19 . . ii. 17
xviii. 17-xx. . . i. 501
xix. 13, 16 i. 375 i ii. 64
xix. 18 . . . . i. 455
xix. 24 . . . . i. 462
xxi i. 455
xxi. 1-lOa. . . . i. 513
xxi. 10-15 . . . i. 534
xxii. 1-xxiii. 15 . i. 513
xxii. 3, 4 . . . i. 425
xxiii. 16-18 . . i. 512
xxiii. 19-28 . . i. 521
xxiii. 19-xxvii. 4 i. 513
xxiv. 11, 12 . . ii. 76
xxiv. 13 . . . . ii. 79
xxiv. 14 . . . . ii. 14
xxiv. 20 . . . . ii. 80
xxv i. 519
xxvi i. 523
xxvi. 19 . . . . i.515;
ii. 64, 80
xxvi. 20 . . . . ii. 14
xxvii. 5-xxviii. 2 i. 534
xxvii. 8 . . . . i. 490
xxviii. 3, 9 . . . i. '450
xxviii. 3-25 . . i. 525
xxviii. 6, 15 . . i. 209
xxviii. 14 . . . i. 457
xxix i. 534
xxx i. 534
xxx. 8 . . » ii. 76
xxxi i. 525
xxxi. 3 . . . . i. 527
2 SAMUEL.
i. 1-v. 3 .
. . . i. 534
i. 19-27 .
. . . i. 485
i. 20 . .
. . . i. 319
ii. 1 . .
. . . ii. 76
ii. 8 . .
. . . i. 392
ii. 10, 11
. . . i. 543
iii. 3 . i
. 541; ii. 39, 43
iv. 4 . .
i. 392; ii. 14
610
TABLE OF BIBLE PASSAGES.
v. 6 i. 347
v. 6-9 .... ii. 1
V. 11 ii. 21
v. 16 i. 392
v. IT ii. 2
v. 17-25 . . . . ii. 1
v. 23, 24 . . . ii. 76
v. 24 ii. 64
vi ii. 1
vi. 14, 17, 18 . . ii. 177
vii ii. 1
vi;, 12-16 . . . ii. 68
vii 14 .... ii. 26
vii 22-26 . . . ii. 254
viii, ii. 19
viii. 1 .... ii. 20
viii. 7-12 . . . ii. 12
viii. 12 .... i. 490
viii. 15-18 . . . ii. 22
viii. 17 .... ii. 177
viii. 18 .... ii. 177
ix ii. 13
x ii. 19
xi ii. 26
xi. 11 . . ii. 12, 21, 99
xi. 13 ii. 37
xi. 21 . . . i. 391, 392
xii ii. 26
xii. 8 ii. 99
xii. 8, 30 . . . . ii. 22
xiii. 3 .... ii. 75
xiii.-xx . . . . ii. 37
xiv. 2 ii. 75
xiv. 17 . . . . ii. 26
xiv. 27 .... ii. 51
xv. 1 ii. 23
xv. 12 .... ii. 44
xv. 31 ii. 77
xvi. 5-8 . . . . ii. 17
xvi. 23 .... ii. 77
xvii. 8 .... ii. 80
xvii. 25 . . . . ii. 50
xviii. 15 . . . . ii. 23
xviii. 18 . . . . i. 116
xix. 20 .... ii. 99
xix. 27 . . . . ii. 26
xix. 35 .... ii. 22
xx. 16 .... ii. 76
xx. 23-26 . . . ii. 22
xx. 25 ... . ii. 177
xxi. 1-14 . . . ii. 13
xxi. 2. . i. 451; ii. 99
xxi. 8 ii. 17
xxi. 15-22 . . . ii. 20
xxi. 19 ... . i. 506
xxii. 2-18 . . . i. 124
xxii. 8 . . . . i. 35
xxii. 25-28 . . . ii. 311
xxiii. 1-7 ... ii. 68
xxiii. 8-39 . . . ii. 2
xxiii. 13 . . . . ii. 2
xiUii. 39 . . . . ii. 90
XXIV. . .
xxiv. 1 .
xxiv. 11 .
xxiv. 16 .
1 KINGS,
i. 1-ii. 11
. ii. 26
. ii. 547
. i. 452
. ii.29l
i. 5 . .
ii. 6, 9 .
ii. 11 . .
ii. 12-xi. 25
iii. 1 . .
iii. 2-15 .
iii. 16-28
iv. 2, 4, 5
iv. 7 ff. .
iv. 9 . .
iv. 20 . .
iv. 20, 25
iv. 22, 23
iv. 25 .
iv. 29-34
V. 3
v. 7
»,
38
14
vi. .
vi. 1
vi. 1,
vi. 38
vii. 1, 8
vii. 12
vii. 13-51
vii. 13-ix.
vii. 51
viii. 4
viii. 5
viii. 54, 55, 64
viii. 64
ix. 15-22
ix. 16 .
ix.22 .
ix. 24 .
ix. 25 .
ix. 26-28
x. 1-13
x. 5 -.
x. 9
' 14, i5, 21, 27
. ii. 72
. ii. 84
. ii. 12
. ii. 86
. i. 147
. ii. 177
. ii. 86
. ii. 88
348; ii. 70
. ii. 89
. ii. 71
. ii. 182
. ii. 71
. ii. 73
. ii. 73
. ii. 94
. ii. 71
x. 16, 17, 18-21 . ii. 72
" 71
x. 26, 28 . . . . ii. 70
ii. 70
ii. 83
ii. 72
ii. 71
ii. 83
ii. 70
20
. n.
5(i
23
76
. i. 543
. ii. 69
. ii. 70
. ii. 73
. ii. 77
. ii. 177
. ii. 97
. i. 414
. ii. 83
. ii. 99
. ii. 72
. ii. 83
. ii. 78
. ii. 84
. ii. 12
ii. 87, 94
. ii. 84
. 247, 365
ii. 71
ii. 450
ii. 71
n.
xi. 1 .
xi. 1-8
xi. 3 .
xi. 7 .
xi. 9-25
xi. 14-25
xi. 15, 16
xi. 23-25
xi. 26-28, 40
xi. 20-xiv. 20
xi. 29-40 .
. ii. 107
. ii. 97
. ii. 96
. ii. 100
xi. 42
xii. 1-20 .
xii. 21-25
xii. 31
xiii. . .
xiv. 21-xv.
xiv. 22-24
xiv. 25-30
xv. 3 . .
xv. 7, 23
xv. 13, 14
xv. 14
xv. 16-22
xv. 18, 19
xv. 25- xvi.
xv. 27 .
xvi. 5 . .
xvi. 31 .
xvi. 34 .
xvii.-xix.
xviii. 19 ff.
xix. 29 .
xx. 1-xxii.
xx. 34 .
xxi. 10, 13
xxii. 39 .
xxii. 41-50
xxii. 43 .
xxii. 45 .
xxii. 46 .
xxii. 48, 49
xxii. 51-53
24
40
n.
. ii. 98
. ii. 107
. ii. 104
. ii. 105
. ii. 165
. ii. 168
. ii. 107
. ii. 168
. ii. 165
. ii. 168
. ii. 403
. ii. 110
. ii. 108
. ii. 110
. ii. 108
. ii. 110
. ii. 112
341; ii. 112
112, 138
. i. 453
. ii. 105
. ii. 110
.ii. 11-2
. ii. 25
112, 190
. ii. 1G5
. ii. 403
. ii. 10.5
. ii. 163
ii. 126, 253
. . ii. 124
2 KINGS.
ii.-viii. 6
ii. 12 .
iii. . .
iii. i .
iii. 11, 14
iii. 15 .
v. 13 .
vi. 1 ff.
vi. 23, 24
vii. 6 .
viii. 1-6
viii. 7-15
viii. 7-15, 28b.,
viii. 16-29
viii. 17
viii. 23 .
viii. 26 .
viii. 28, 29
ix. 1-x. 28
ix. 1 ff.
ix. 25 .
ix. 26 .
x. 15, 16
x. 29-36
xu.
xii. 17, 18
ii. 124
. ii. 149
. ii. 25
124, 128
. ii. 124
. ii. 150
. i. 453
. ii. 25
. i. 455
. ii. 153
. ii. 89
. ii. 156
, ii. 132
9 ii. 124
. ii. 171
. ii. 172
. ii. 165
. ii. 172
. ii. 132
. ii. 124
. ii. 133
. ii. 119
. ii. 118
. i. 456
. ii.149
. ii. 171
. ii. 171
. ii. 148
TABLE OF BIBLE PASSAGES.
611^
xii. 19 ,
x iii.
xiii. 3, 24
xiii. 6 . .
xiii. 14 .
xiv. . ,
xiv. 2
xiv. 5, 6 .
xiv. 17 . .
xiv. 22 . .
xiv. 23 . ,
xiv. 25 . .
xv.-xvi. 9 .
xv. 1 . . .
xv. 8 . . .
xvi. 6 . ,
xvi. 10-20 .
xvi. 11, 12 .
xvii. 1-6 .
xvii. 3 ff.
xvii. 7-23 .
xvii. 24 ff. .
xvii. 24-41 .
xviii. 1-8 .
xviii. 11, 12
xviii. 13-xx. 11
xviii. 15, 16
xviii. 22 .
xx. 12-19 .
xxi. . . .
xxi. 10-15 .
xxii. 1, 2 .
xxii. 3-xxiii. S
xxii. 12-14 .
xxiii. 5, 11, 12
xxiii. 7 . .
xxiii. 14 . .
xxiii. 21, 22
xxiii. 25 . .
xxiii. 26 .
xxiii. 29-35
xxiii. 36, 37
xxiv. 1-17
xxiv. 3 . .
xxiv. 18-xxv.
xxv. 2-21 .
xxv. 12 . .
xxv. 18 ff., .
xxv. 22-26 -
xxv. 25 . .
xxv. 27-30 .
. ii. 165
. ii. 149
. ii. 160
. ii. 137
. ii. 25
. ii. 186
. ii. 189
. ii. 176
188, 237
. ii. 189
. ii. 237
. ii. 525
. ii. 237
. ii. 188
. ii. 237
. ii. 241
. ii. 256
. ii. 304
. ii. 237
. ii. 450
. ii. 243
. ii. 301
. ii. 450
. ii. 275
. ii 243
. ii. 286
. ii. 257
. ii. 280
. ii. 283
. ii. 298
. ii. 458
. ii. 317
. ii. 326
. ii. 387
. ii. 301
. ii. 301
. i. 178
. i. 278
. ii. 341
. ii. 458
. ii 338
.ii. 355
. ii. 363
. -ii. 458
. ii. 371
. ii. 378
. ii. 394
.ii.478
. ii. 387
. ii. 394
. ii. 401
1 CHRONICLES.
. . . ii. 533
l.-iX
ii. 3-5, 18, 25, 42-
55
16 .
ii. 17 . .
ii. 22 .
iii 5 . .
iii. 8 • ■
iii. 16 ff.
362
. i. 540
. ii. 50
. i. 404
. ii. 32
. i. 392
. ii. 436
iv. 13-15 . . . i. 359
iv. 28 i. 165
v. 17 ii. 188
vi. 3-15 . . . . ii. 533
vi. 16-28, 33-38 . i. 442
vi. 22-28 . . . ii. 533
vi. 31-47 . ii. 522, 533
vi. 33 ff ii. 78
vi44fE ii. 78
viii. 33 . . . . i. 392
viii. 34-40 . . . ii. 15
ix. 39 i. 392
ix. 40-44 . . . ii. 15
x. . . i. 525; ii. 533
x. 3 i. 527
xi. 10-xii. 19-21 . ii. 2
xi.-xvii ii. 1
xi.-xxix. . . . ii. 533
xii. 24-40 . . ; ii. 1
xv. 17 . . . . ii. 78
xiv. 7 . i. 392 ; ii. 64
xvi. 41, 42 . . . ii. 533
xviii.-xx. . . . ii. 19
xx. 5 i. 506
xxi ii. 26
xxi. 1 . . . . ii. 547
xxi. 9 i. 452
xxi. 28-30 . . . ii. 534
xxii. xxix. . . . ii. 10
xxii. 1 .... ii. 30
xxii. 2-5 .. . ii. 10
xxii. 8 .... ii. 11
xxiv. 3 .... i. 444
xxv ii. 533
xxvi ii. 522
xxvii. 24 . . . ii. 28
xxviii. 3 . . . ii. 11
xxviii. 11, 19 . . ii. 10
xxix. 28 . . . . ii. 58
2 CHRONICLES,
i. 3 ii. 534
i. 3 ff. .
ii. 16 .
iii. 1 i. 148,
iv. 1 . .
v. 11-13 .
v. 12 . .
vii. 6 . .
viii. . .
ix. . . .
x. 1-xi. 4
xi.-xvii. .
xi. 6 . .
xi. 14, 15
xii. 12 .
xv. 9 . .
xvii. 7-9 .
xix. • -
xix. 5-11
xx. » •
ii. 74
ii. 84
149; ii. 30
. ii. 86
. ii. 534
. ii. 533
. ii. 534
. ii. 534
. ii. 534
. ii. 534
. ii. 96
. a 165
. ii. 209
. ii. 104
. ii. 166
. i. 402
. ii. 532
. ii. 165
ii. ISO, 532
ii. 165
xx. 35-37.
. . ii. 253
XX1.-XX1V
. . ii. 171
xxi. 5 .. .
. . ii. 172
. . ii 534
. . ii. 187
xxv. 3, 4
. . ii. 176
. . ii. 237
xxvi. 16-21
ii. 304, 523
xxvi. 22 .
. . ii. 249
. . ii. 237
. . ii. 256
. . ii. 534
xxix.-xxxi
. . it 275
xxix. 13, 14
. . ii. 533
xxix. 25-30
ii 531, 535
. . . ii. 534
xxx. 18-20
ii. 531, 535
. . . ii. 534
. . .ii.286
. . ii. 298
xxxiv. 1-3
. . ii. 317
xxxiv.. 3b.-xxxv.
19 . .
. . ii. 326
. . i. 402
xxxv. 15 .
. . ii. 533
xxxv. 20-xxxvi.
4 . .
. . ii. 338
xxxvi. 5
. . ii. 355
xxxvi. 6-10
. . ii. 363
xxxvi. 11-13 . . ii. 371
xxxvi. 14-21 . . ii. 378
xxxvi. 21
. ii. 359, 555
EZRA.
i.-iii. 6 .
. . ii. 435
i. 1 . . .
. . ii. 555
ii. . . .
. . ii. 440
iii. 7-iv. 5
. . ii. 445
IV. . . .
. . ii. 485
iv. 2 . .
ii. 301, 450
iv. 6 ff. .
. . ii. 445
v. . . .
. . ii. 445
VI. . . .
. . ii. 445
vi. 11 . .
. . ii. 455
vi. 17 . .
. . ii.453
Vll.-X.
. . ii. 472
vii. 9 . .
. . ii. 441
viii. 35
. . ii.453
NEIIE
MIAH.
i.— vii. . .
. . ii. 484
ii. 1 . .
. . ii. 487
ii. 10 . .
. . ii. 489
ii. 13, , .
. . ii. 489
vi. 7 . ,
. . ii. 521
vi. 10-14.
. . ii. 521
vi. 14. .
. . ii. 521
vi.18 . .
. . ii. 485
vii6ff. .
. . ii. 440
viii -x ' .
. . ii. 498
XI. . . .
. .U- 484
612
TABLE OF BIBLE PASSAGES.
xi. .10 ii. 299
xii ii. 484
xii. 10, 11 . . . ii. 533
ESTHER.
Esther . . . . ii. 544
iv. 2 ii. 486
JOB.
Job ii. 457
i.-xxvii. 10 . . . ii. 4G2
iii. 8 i. 272
iii. 18-19. . . . i. 531
iv. 12 fE. . . . . i. 209
ix. 2-5 . . . . i. 221
x. 21, 22 . . . . i. 530
xiii. 15 . . . . ii. 463
xvi. 18 . ... i. 58
xxvi. 5, 6 . i. 530, 531
xxvi. 11 . . . . i. 35
xxvii. J 1-23 . . ii. 462
xxviii.-xxxi. . . ii. 462
xxx. 23 . . . . i. 531
xxxii.-xxxvii. ii. 462,
469
xxxiii. 14-18 . . i. 209
xxxvii. 18 . . . i. 35
xxxviii.-xli. 12 . ii. 462
xxxviii. 4-7 . . i. 37
xxxix. 5-8 . . . i. 129
xii. 13-34 . . . ii. 462
xlii. 1-6 . . . . ii. 462
xlii. 7-17 . . . ii. 462
PSALMS.
ii
iii. 2, 4, 8 . .
ii. 25
ii. 542
v. . . . . ii. 312, 542
vi ii. 542
vi. 4, 5 . . . . i. 530
riii. . . . i. 41; ii. 542
viii. 4 . . . . ii. 464
ix ii. 542
x ii. 542
xiv. . ii. 397, 404, 542
xvi. . i. 210, 211; ii. 282
xviii. 1-J7 . . . i. 124
xviii. 24-27 . . ii. 311
314, 542
xix. . .
xix. 7-14
xix. 7-14
xx. 7, 8 .
xxii. . .
xxii 14 .
xxii 19 .
xxiv . .
xxiv. 7-10
xxvi. 1-3
xxvi. 6 ■
xxix.
xxix. 3, 10
ii. 531
ii. 540
i. 294
ii. 308
i. 369
ii. 131
ii. 542
ii. 63
ii. 543
i. 495
ii. 308, 313
. i. 35
xxxi. 14-17 . . ii. 354
xxxiii. . . i. 293, 294 ;
ii. 282
xxxiv. 7 i. 119; ii. 1G2
xxxv. 1-3 . . . ii. 131
xxxv. 23 . . . ii. 131
xxxvii. . ii. 470, 471
xii. 13 .... ii. 542
xlii ii. 363
xlii ii. 370
xlii ii. 542
xliii. . . ii. 363, 370, 542
xliv. . . . ii. 544, 554
xliv. 20-26 . . ii. 554
xliv 23 . . . . ii. 181
xlv. . ii. 186, 189, 190
xlvi ii. 282
xlvi. 1-3, 7 . . i. 529
xlviii. 1-3, 8 . ii. 297
1 ii. 520
1. 1-15 . . ii. 528, 529
H ii. 59
li. 16, 17 . . . ii. 529
liii. . ii. 397, 404, 542
Iviii ii. 312
lix ii. 312
lix. 5 ii. 131
lx ii. 542
lxiii. 1-8 . . . . i. 529
lxix ii. 312
lxxii ii. 340
lxxii. 18, 19 . . ii. 542
lxxiii. 21-27 . . i. 529
Ixxiv. 4-8 .. . ii. 554
lxxiv. 9 . . . . ii. 555
Ixxiv. 10, 18-23 ii. 554
lxxviii. 15, 16 . . i. 290
lxxxiii. 1 . . . ii. 131
lxxxiii. 11 . . . i. 389
lxxxiv. . . ii. 531, 535,
536
lxxxiv. 10-12 . . i. 68
lxxxv ii. 456
lxxxviii. 5 . . . i. 531
Ixxxviii. 10-12 . i. 530
lxxxix ii. 512
xc ii. 397
xc ii. 405
xci. . . i. 222 ; ii. 282
xciv. 17 .... i. 530
c . . . i. 287; ii. 282
ciii ii. 296
civ. 3, 6-8, 13, 19 . i. 35
civ. 5, 6 . . . . i. 34
civ. 20-22 . . . i. 38
cvi. 23 . . . . ii. 424
cvi. 48 . . . . ii. 542
cviii ii. 542
cxviii. . ii. 555, 565, 566
cix ii. 308
cix. 1 fE ii. 312
cxiii ii. 282
cxiii. -cxviii. . . i. 28C
cxiv ii. 442
cxv. 17 .... i. 510
cxix ii. 531
cxix. 9-16 . . . ii. 540
cxx ii. 531
cxx.-cxxxiv. . . ii 537
cxxi ii. 492
cxxii ii. 498
cxxiii ii. 491
cxxiv ii. 537
cxxv ii. 537
cxxvi ii. 538
cxxvii. 1, 2 . . . ii. 491
cxxix ii. 312
cxxx ii. 538
cxxxi i. 52.
cxxxiii. . . ii. 538, 539
cxxxiv. . . ii. 511, 539
cxxxvii. . . ii. 312, 397,
404
cxxxix. 1-14 . . ii. 210
cxxxix. 8 . . . i. 531
cxxxix. 21, 22 . ii. 312
PROVERBS.
i. 7ff. . .
. . ii. 75
i 7-ix. ii. 308, 314, 316
iii. 9, 10 .
. . ii. 316
iii. 19, 20
. . ii.315
iii. 33, 34
. . ii. 311
iv. 25 . .
. . i. 190
vi. 17 . .
vi. 30, 31
. . i. 189
viii. 22-31
. . ii. 315
viii. 27 .
. . i. 35
viii. 32-36
. .ii.315
x. 1-xxii. 11
. . . ii. 78,
228, 231
x. 4,12 .
xi. 1, 20 .
. . i. 190
xi. 13 . .
. . ii. 232
xi. 16. .
. . ii. 234
xi. 22 . .
. . ii. 80
xi. 24 . .
. . ii. 231
xi. 26 . .
. . ii. 231
. . ii. 234
xii. 10 .
. . ii. 231
xiv. 1 . .
ii. 79, 231
xiv. 10, 13
. . ii. 233
. . ii. 79
xv. 8 . .
. . ii. 233
XV. 11 . 1
. 531 ; ii. 79
xv. 16. .
. . ii. 79
. . i. 190
. . ii. 77
xvi. 10, 14, '
5 . ii. 24, 78
TABLE OF BIBLE PASSAC.ES.
613
xvi. 24 .
xvi. 33 .
xvii. g .
xvii. 9
xvii. 12 .
xvii. 27, 28
xviii. 8 .
xviii. 9 .
xviii. 13 .
xviii. IB .
xviii. 22 .
xviii. 23
xix. 6, 7 .
xix. 13, 14
xix. 14 .
xix. 17 .
xix. 24 .
xx: 1 . .
xx. 2 . .
xx. 2, 8 .
xx. 4, 13
xx. 8 . .
xx. 10 .
xx. 14 .
xx. 17 .
xx. 17, 21
XXL 1
xxi. 3
xxi. 9
xxi. 14 .
xxi. 19 .
xxi. 27 .
xxi. 31 .
xxii. 1 .
xxii. 4 .
xxii. 8, 28
xxii. 11 .
xxii. 13 .
xxiii. 1-3
xxiii. 5 .
xxiii. 10 .
xxiii. 10, 11
xxiii. 21
xxiii. 29-35
xxiv. 21 .
xxiv. 30 if.
xxv.-xxix.
xxv. 2, 3
xxv. 3, 5-7
xxv. 13 .
xxv. 16 .
xxv. 17 .
xxv. 21, 2S
xxvi. 1 ■
xxvi. 2 .
xxvi. 11
xxvi. 17
xxvi. 22
xxvii. 2 .
xxvii. 3
xxv-iii. 9
xxviii. 15
n.
ii. 80
i. 469
ii. 231
ii. 232
ii. 80
ii. 232
ii. 232
ii. 80
ii. 232
ii. 231
. ii. 79
ii 80, 231
. ii. 231
. ii. 79
. ii. 234
. ii. 233
. ii. 232
. ii. 232
. ii. 81
. ii. 78
. ii. 232
. ii. 24
. ii. 232
. ii. 231
. ii. 80
. i. 190
26,78
79, 233
. ii. 79
. ii. 231
. ii. 79
. ii. 233
. ii. 79
. ii. 80
. ii. 232
. i. 190
. ii. 78
. ii. 232
. ii. 232
. ii. 80
. i. 190
. ii. 233
. ii. 80
. ii. 232
. ii. 35
. ii. 232
228, 231
. ii. 24
. ii. 78
. ii. 80
. ii. 80
. ii. 232
. ii. 311
. ii. 80
. i. 172
. ii. 80
. ii. 80
. ii. 232
. ii. 232
. ii. 80
. ii. 233
. ii. 81
xxviii. 21 . , . ii. 231
xxix. 4, 14 . . ii. 78
xxix. 18 . . . ii. 233
xxx. -xxxi. 9 . ii. 467
xxx. 1-4 .. . ii. 468
xxx. 17 . . . . ii. 93
xxx. 29-31 . . ii. 24
ECCLESIASTES.
Ecclesiastes . . . ii. 544
i. 12 ii. 552
i. 18 i. 50
v. 7 i. 210
viii. 2-4 . . . . ii. 24
ix. 2, 3b.-6 . . . i. 531
ix. 4b i. 343
ix. 10 i. 530
x. 16 ii. 37
SONG OF SOLOMON.
Song of Solomon ii. 228
vi. 4 ii. 107
vi. 6 ii. 80
vi. 7 ii. 80
vi. 8 ii. 72
ISAIAH.
2-9 .
10-20
i. 1-6.
i. 2-5 .
i. 5-21
i. 8 .
;i. 12-17
Hi. 2 .
iii. 16-iv
5 .
v. 26-30
vi. . .
vii. . .
vii. 3 .
vii. 6 .
vii. 14 .
vii.-ix. 16
viii. l.-ix,
viii. 3, 18
viii. 4 .
viii. 6, 7
viii. 7, 8
viii. 19
ix. 1 .
ix. 4 .
ix. 8-12
x. 5-xii.
x. 16, 17
x. 17 .
x.26 .
xi. 6-9
xiii.-xiv.
xiv. 4-21
. ii. 297
. ii. 251
. ii. 95
. ii. 277
. ii. 253
.ii. 96
. ii. 95
. ii. 208
. ii. 252
.i. 123
. ii. 251
. ii. 237
ii. 243, 249
. ii. 258
. ii. 249
. ii. 240
. ii. 259
. ii. 256
.ii. 261
. ii. 249
. ii. 263
. ii. 240
. ii. 260
. i. 526
. ii. 263
. i. 389
. ii. 242
. ii. 292
. ii. 250
. i. 123
. i. 389
.i. 75
. ii. 428
. ii. 425
.i. 531
xxi. 1-10.
. ii. 429
XXIII. . .
. ii. 283
XX1V.-XXVI1
. ii. 395
xxvi. 19 i
531; ii. .!:«;
xxviii. 16
. ii. 277
. ii. 284
xxix. 4 .
: i. 526
xxix. 23, 24
. ii. 251
. ii. 284
xxx. 27 ff.
.i. 123
xxx. 27, 28,
30
. ii. 250
xxxi. 4 .
.i. 371
xxxi. 9 .
. i. 123
xxxiii. 14
i. 123; ii. u'.-.O
XXXV.
n
425, 429
XXXV1.-XXXV111
. ii. 286
xxxviii. 17-
19
. ii. 295
XXXIX. .
. ii
283, 432
xl. . . .
425, 429
xl. 2 . .
. u
423, 472
xl. 27 . .
.
. ii. 422
xli. 8 . .
. ii. 420
xli. 21-27
. ii. 432
xlii. 1-7 .
. ii. 424
xlii. 19 .
. ii. 422
xlii. 22 .
. ii. 401
xliii. 1, 2
. ii. 441
xliii. 10-13
. ii. 431
xliii. 19, 20
. ii. 441
xliii. 22-24
. ii. 434
. ii. 432
xliv. 6 .
. ii. 431
xliv. 10-20
. ii. 432
xliv. 21 .
. ii. 420
xliv. 21, 22
. ii. 422
xlv. 1-3 .
. ii. 433
xlv. 4 . .
n
420, 433
xlv. 7. .
xlviii. 1-19
. ii. 434
xlviii. 20
. ii. 420
xlix. 1-7 .
u.
420, 424
xlix. 4, 14
. ii. 422
xlix. 14-16
. ii. 434
1. 4-10 .
.
. ii. 420
Ii. 23 ./ .
,
. ii. 401
Iii. 7-10 .
.
. ii. 442
Iii. 13-liii.
.
. ii. 417
liv. . . ii.
228,
435, 443
lv. . . .
n.
435, 436
lvi. 1-8 .
u.
520, 524
lxi. . .
435, 437
. i. 67
Ixvi. 1-4.
H.
520. 528
lxvi. 20, 21
. u
520, 521
614
TABLE OF BIBLE PASSAGES.
JEHEMIAH. '
i.-ii. 13 . . . . ii. 317
i. 2 . . .
i. 4-19 .
ii. 1-13 .
ii. 23, 35 .
ii. 26, 27 .
iii. 6 ff. .
iii. 6-10 .
iii. 6-11 .
iii. 12-i8.
iii. 16 . .
iv. 10 .
v. 12 .
v. 14 .
v. 31 . .
vi.20 . .
vii. 1-16 .
vii. 18 .
vii. 21-23
vii. 21-28
vii. 31 .
viii. 9 . .
viii. 18-ix
x. 2 . .
xi. 13 . .
xi. 18-23
xiii. 1-11
xiii. 23 .
xiv. 1-19
xv. 1 . .
xv. 1-6 .
xy. 4 . .
Xv. 10 .
xxi. 1-4 .
xvi. 1-9 .
xvi. 5-9 .
xvii. 15 .
xviii. 18 .
xviii. 18-23
xix.-xx. 6
xix. 5 . :
xx. 7-18 .
xx. 16 .
xxi. . .
xxii. 10-19
xxii. 11 .
xxii. 18, 19
xxii. 24-30
xxiii. 5 .
xxiii. 5, 6, 8
xxiii. 9-40
xxiii. 14 .
xxiv . .
xxv. ii. .
xxv. 11, 12
xxvi . .
xxvi. 1-19,
xxvi. 20-23
xxvi.' 24 .
XXvii.
xxvii.-xxix
355,
24
. ii. 324
, ii. 323
ii. 324
. ii. 325
. ii. 324
. ii. .In2
. ii. 325
. ii. 340
. ii. 339
. i. 322
. ii. 343
. ii. 457
. ii. 348
318, 439
. ii. 325
. ii. 347
. ii. 325
. ii. 517
. ii. 341
. ii. 325
. ii. 459
i ii. 350
. i. 35
302, 325
338, 342
. ii. 365
. ii. 373
. ii. 350
. ii. 424
. ii. 306
. ii. 458
. ii. 352
. ii. 351
.ii. 345
. ii. 352
.ii. 361
.ii. 82
. ii. 353
. ii. 367
»ii. 325
. 345, 352
. i. 136
. ii. 377
. ii. 355
. ii. 344
. ii. 368
.ii. 369
. ii. 449
. ii. 391
345, 346
. i. 136
. ii. 371
358; 360
. ii. 555
. ii. 345
. ii. 348
. ii. 363
. ii. 387
. ii. 373
. ii. 371
xxvii. 3, 12 .
. ii. 373
. ii. 373
xxviii. 1 . . .
.ii. 378
xxviii. 8, 9 . .
. ii. 345
xxix. 4-7 . .
. ii. 438
xxix. 8 . . .
. ii. 208
xxix. 10 . . ii
359, 555
xxix. 21, 22 .
. ii. 401
xxix. 26 . . .
. ii. 178
XXX . . . .
. ii. 384
XXXI
. ii. 384
xxxi. 15-17
. ii. 390
xxxi. 29 . . .
. ii. 458
xxxi. 29, 30 .
. ii. 417
xxxi. 31-37 .
. ii. 385
XXXII. . . II
378, 383
xxxii. 1-5 . .
. ii. 380
xxxii. 18 . .
. ii. 417
xxxii. 35 . .
. ii. 325
. ii. 384
xxxiii. 4
. ii. 386
xxxiii. 15 . .
. ii. 449
xxxiv. . .
. ii. 371
xxXiv. 1-5 . .
. ii. 379
xxxiv. 6-22 .
. ii. 377
xxxiv. 18, 19 .
. i. 123
xxxv. . i. .456
; ii. 363,
366
xxxv. 3 . . .
. ii. 322
XXXVI. . . 11.
322, 355
xxxvi. 30 . .
. ii. 368
xxxvi. 32 . .
. ii. 322
XXXV11.-XXX1X
10
ii. 378
xxxvii. 19 . .
. ii. 376
. ii. 381
xxxviii. 10 . .
. ii. 382
xxxix. 11-14 .
. ii. 388
xxxix. 15-18 .
. ii. 382
xl.-xliii. 7a.
. ii. 387
xl. 1 . . . .
. ii. 388
xli
. ii. 394
xliii. 7b. -xliv. .
. ii. 397
xliv. 14 ; . .
: ii. 398
xliv. 14, 28 . .
. ii. 400
xliv. 17-19 . .
. ii. 356
. ii. 360
xlvi. 10 . . .
. ii. 357
xlvi. 27, 28 . .
. ii. 422
. ii. 357
1 ii.
427, 432
1. 38 ... .
. ii. 432
1. 40 ... .
. i. 136
1, "
Ii. . . . . ii.
427, 432
Iii. ..... .
Iii, 28, 29 . .
. ii. 387
Iii. 30 . . .
. ii. 391
lit 31-31 . . .
. ii; 101
LAMENTATIONS.
. ii. 389
i. 14 . . .
. .ii. 389
i. 21, 22 . .
. . ii. 389
ii. 1 ...
. . ii. 389
ii. 9 ...
. . ii. 389
ii. 11 . . .
. ii. 381
ii. 15 . . .
. . ii. 389
. ii. 381
iii. 22 . .
. ii. 390
iv. 4-10 . .
. ii. 381
iv. 6 . . .
. i. 136
iv. 7, 8 . .
. ii. 389
iv. 12, 13 .
. ii. 389
iv. 17 . . .
. ii. 389
iv. 20 . . .
. ii. 389
v. 8 . . .
. it. 395
v. IS . . .
. ii. 395
v. 20-22 . .
KZEKIEI,.
i.-iii. 21 . .
. ii. 406
i. 1 3 . . .
. ii. 400
i. 2 . . . .
. ii. 407
.ii. 82
. i. 123
viii. 7-12
. ii. 302
. ii. 302
viii. 16 . .
. ii. 301
xiii. 1-16 .
. ii. 371
xiv. 14, 20 . i
. 461, 556
xvi. 20, 21 .
. ii. 402
xvii. 11-20 . .
. ii. 376
xx. Iff.. .
. i. 317
xx. 1-32 . .
.ii. 411
xx. 1-44 .
. ii. 4(16
xx. 30, 31 .
. ii. 4(12
xx. 33-44 .
. ii. 412
xx. 49 . .
. ii. 410
XXII. . .
.ii. 411
xxiii. 37-39 .
. ii. 402
. i. as
xxv. -xxxii. .
. ii. 412
xxv. 3, 8, 12, j
5 . ii. 412
xxvi. 2 . . .
. ii. 412
xxviii. 3 . .
. ii. 556
xxix. 1-20 . .
. ii. 412
xxix. 17 . .
. ii. 407
xxxiii. 1-9 . .
. ii. 411
xxxiii. 10-20 .
. ii. 418
xxxiii. 21 ■ .
. ii. 400
xxxiii; 24-29 .
. ii. 391
xxxiii. 31-33 .
. ii. 406
xxxv. . .
. ii. 412
xxxv. 5, 10, 15
' . ii. 412
xxxvi. 5
: . ii. 412
TABLE OF BIBLE PASSAGES.
615
xxxvi. 22-28
xxxvii. 1-14
xxxvii. 1-14
xxxvii. 15-28
xxxviii.
xxxviii. 17 .
xxxix.
xxxix. 8
xl.-xlviii. .
xlvii. 1 if. .
DANIEI
i.-vii. . .
i. 1, 2 . .
iv. 30 . .
vii. . .
vii. 18, 27
viii. . .
viii. 2-12, 13
viii. 13, 14
ix. 24-27
xi. . . .
xi. 2-4 .
xi. 33, 34
xii. . .
xii. 7-11 .
■25
HOSEA
i. 4.
iii. 4 . •
iv.-xiv. .
iv. 1-3 .
vi. 5, 6, 7
vii. 8 . .
vii. 11, 12
viii. 4, 5, 6
viii. 13 .
ix.3 . .
ix. 7, 8 .
ix. 10 . .
x. 5, 15 .
xi. . . •
xi. 1 . .
xi. 8, 11 .
xii. 4, 5 .
xii. 4, 5, 13
xiii. 2 . .
xii i. 4 . .
xiii. 10 ■ .
Joel
ii. 28 .
ii. 30, 31
iii. 18 .
JOEL.
AMOS
ii.
ii.4,5.
. ii. 412
. ii. 406
. i. 531
. ii. 414
.'ii. 414
. ii. 414
. ii. 414
. ii. 414
406, 414
. i. 291
. ii. 555
. ii. 368
. ii. 425
. ii. 563
. ii. 564
. ii. 544
. ii. 545
. ii. 562
. ii. 562
545, 562
. ii. 561
. ii. 565
.ii 565
. ii. 562
. ii. 221
. ii. 161
. i. 178
. ii. 222
. ii. 223
. ii. 239
. ii. 239
. ii. 222
. ii. 223
. ii. 223
. ii. 223
. ii. 223
. ii. 222
. ii. 221
259 ; ii. 25
. ii. 223
.i. 1'97
. ii. 223
. ii. 222
.i. 286
. ii. 223
. ii. 445
i. 35
. i. 291
. ii. 210
. ii. 211
. ii. 210
.ii.211
ii. 6-8 .
ii. 10 .
ii. 11 .
ii. 11, 12
ii. 12 .
iii. 1-6
iii. 7 .
iii. 7, 8
iii. 10, 15
iii. 14 .
iv. 4 .
iv. 6-11
iv. 13 .
v. 11, 12
v. 14-20
v. 21-24
v. 25 .
v. 25, 26 ,
vi. 1 .
vi. 2 .
vi. 4-6
vi. 5 .
vi. 5, 6
vi. 13, 14
vi. 14 .
vii.
vii. 16, 9
vii. 1 ft
vii. 13 .
viii. 1, 2
viii. 4-6
viii. 5
viii. 8, 9
viii. 14 .
ix. 2-4, 6
ix. 7 i. 331
ix. 8-15
ix. 13, 14
. .u. 211
. . i. 308
i. 455, 457
. .ii. 212
. . i. 456
. . ii. 211
. . ii. 216
. . ii. 212
. . ii. 212
. . ii. 211
. . ii. 211
. ii. 210
. . ii. 210
165; ii.211
. i. 123
. . ii. 210
. . ii. 211
. . ii. 212
. . ii. 211
. . i. 308
. . ii. 210
ii. 211, 212
. . ii. 210
. . ii. 212
. ii. 22
. -ii. 62
. .ii. 212
. . ii. 210
. ii. 209
. . i. 165
ii. 212, 227
. . i. 178
. .ii. 227
. .ii. 212
.. . i. 190
. . ii. 210
165; ii.211
. . ii. 210
ii. 210, 247
. . ii. 214
. . ii. 210
OBADIAH.
Obadiah . . . ii- 390
JONAH.
Jonah . . ii. 520, 525
MICAH.
l-in. .
i. 5 .
iii. 5, 7,
iv. 1-5
v. 2ff.
v. 10-14
vi. 4 .
vi. 5 .
vi. 6, 7
vi. 6-8
vi. 8 .
vi. 10-12
vi. 16 .
11
ii. 276
ii. 278
. ii. 208
. ii. 277
. ii. 277
. ii. 278
. i. 298
. ii. 208
147, 148
. u. 278
51
. ii. 278
. ii. 138
NAHUM.
i. 15 ii. 319
ii. 12, 13 . . . . ii. 319
iii. 1, 6, 7, 18, 19 ii. 319
HABAKKUK.
Habakkuk . . . ii. 363
ZEPHANIAH.
i. 1 . . . . ii. 320
i. 12, 15, 18 . . ii. 320
ii. 9 i. 136
iii. 1-5 .... ii. 320
iii. 8 fie ii. 321
HAGGAI.
Haggai .
. . ii. 445
ZECHAEIAH.
i. 12 . .
ii. 455, 556
i. 13 . .
. . ii. 455
. . ii. 445
vii. 8 ft .
. . . ii. 458
viii. 19-23
. . . ii. 449
1X.-X1.
. . ii. 238
ix. 9-11 .
. . ii. 255
x. 2 . .
. . ii. 243
xi. 4-17 .
. . ii. 238
X11.-X1V .
ii. 363, 364
. . ii. 365
xii. 1-9 .
. . ii. 364
xii. 10-14
. . ii. 364
xiii. 1 . .
. . i. 291
xiii. 1-6 .
. . ii. 364
xiii. 7-xiv.
) . . ii. 364
xiv. 6-19
. . ii. 365
xiv. 8 . .
. . . i. 291
xiv. 20, 21
. . ii. 365
MALACHI.
Malachi . . . . ii.
i. 1-5 . .
i. 6-ii. 9 .
ii. 10-16 .
ii. 17-iv. 6
iv. 4 . .
ii. 507
, ii. 505
. ii. 506
. ii. 505
. i. 312
APOCRYPHA.
ESDRAS.
Third of Esdras . ii. 440
JUDITH,
v. 6 ft . . . . i. 112
JESUS, SON OF
SIRACH.
xxxiv. 1-7 - . . i. 210
616
TABLE OF BIBLE PASSAGES.
NEW TESTAMENT.
MATTHEW.
i. 5 i. 342
v. 42 i. 120
v. 48 i. 53
viii. 17 .... ii.421
xii. 24 . . . . ii. 126
xviii. 1-3 ... i. 53
MARK.
ix. 12 ii.421
xv. 28 .... ii. 421
LUKE.
iii. 37 i. 63
iv. 25 ii. 145
ix. 51-56 . . . ii. 128
xvii. 7-10 . . . i. 493
xvii. 27 .... i. 77
xvii. 28, 29 . . . i. 138
xvii. 32 . . . . i. 138
xxii. 37 . . . . ii. 421
JOHN.
1. 41 ii. 255
iv. 25 .... ii. 255
iv. 37 i. 336
vii. 23.
vii. 30 . .
viii. 32 ii.
xiii. 21 .
xv. 20, 29
ACTS
. i. 251
. i. 24U
ii. 421
, i. 486
. i 80
ROMANS,
iii. 1, 2 . . . . ii. 541
v. 12 i. 48
1 CORINTHIANS.
x. 4 i. 291
xv. 3 ii. 421
xv. 22, 45 ... i. 48
xv. 45-47 . . .i. 46
GALATIANS.
iv. 21-31 . . . i. 142
iv. 29 . . . i. 141
vi. 7 . ... i. 125
COLOSSIANS.
iii. 23, 24 . . . i. 161
HEBREWS,
i. 8 . . . ii. 190
vii. 20 ft. . i. 117, 118
I xi. 4 . . . . i. 57, 62
xi. 5 i. 66
xi. 8 i. 112
xi. 20 . . . i. 173
xi. 23 . . . . i. 251
xi. 24, 25, 27 . . i. 254
xi. 31 . . . . i. 342
xii 2 i. 113
xii. 16, 17 . . . i. 174
xii. 24 .... i. 62
xii. 29 .... i. 125
JAMES.
ii. 25 i. 342
v. 11 ii. 470
v. 17 ii. 145
1 PETER.
ii. 22, 24 . . ii. 421
2 PETER.
ii. 5 i. 77
ii. 7, 8 ... i. 137
ii. 15, 16 . . . ii. 208
JUDE.
14, 15 . . i. 67, 77
REVELATION,
ii. 14 . . . . ii. 208
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