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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hebrew Life and Times, by Harold B. Hunting
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Hebrew Life and Times
+
+Author: Harold B. Hunting
+
+Release Date: April 17, 2006 [EBook #18187]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Notes:                                         |
+    |                                                              |
+    | Italicized text surrounded by _text_                         |
+    | Bolded text surrounded by =text=                             |
+    |                                                              |
+    | A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected |
+    | in this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of  |
+    | this document.                                               |
+    |                                                              |
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+HEBREW LIFE AND
+TIMES
+
+
+HAROLD B. HUNTING
+
+
+ABINGDON-COKESBURY PRESS
+
+NEW YORK       NASHVILLE
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, MCMXXI, by
+HAROLD B. HUNTING
+
+All Rights Reserved
+
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                      PAGE
+
+   FOREWORD                                                     7
+
+     I. SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT                   9
+
+    II. HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS                                 15
+
+   III. DESERT PILGRIMS                                        22
+
+    IV. A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY                             28
+
+     V. A GREAT DELIVERANCE                                    34
+
+    VI. FROM THE DESERT INTO CANAAN                            39
+
+   VII. LEARNING TO BE FARMERS                                 44
+
+  VIII. VILLAGE LIFE IN CANAAN                                 49
+
+    IX. KEEPING HOUSE INSTEAD OF CAMPING OUT                   55
+
+     X. MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN                              60
+
+    XI. LESSONS IN COOPERATION                                 66
+
+   XII. EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT                              70
+
+  XIII. THE NATION UNDER DAVID AND SOLOMON                     76
+
+   XIV. THE WARS OF KINGS AND THE PEOPLE'S SORROWS             82
+
+    XV. A NEW KIND OF RELIGION                                 88
+
+   XVI. A NEW KIND OF WORSHIP                                  94
+
+  XVII. JEHOVAH NOT A GOD OF ANGER                             99
+
+ XVIII. ONE JUST GOD OVER ALL PEOPLES                         103
+
+   XIX. A REVISED LAW OF MOSES                                108
+
+    XX. A PROPHET WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE                    114
+
+   XXI. KEEPING THE FAITH IN A STRANGE LAND                   120
+
+  XXII. UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS                             127
+
+ XXIII. THE GOOD DAYS OF NEHEMIAH                             134
+
+  XXIV. HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS FOR THE NEW WORSHIP             140
+
+   XXV. A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISM                           146
+
+  XXVI. A BROAD-MINDED AND NOBLE PATRIOTISM                   151
+
+ XXVII. OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS                       155
+
+XXVIII. BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWS                          161
+
+  XXIX. NEW OPPRESSORS AND NEW WARS FOR FREEDOM               167
+
+   XXX. THE DISCONTENT OF THE JEWS UNDER ROMAN RULE           172
+
+  XXXI. JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER BY JESUS                    176
+
+ XXXII. A THOUSAND YEARS OF A NATION'S QUEST                  182
+
+       REVIEW AND TEST QUESTIONS                              185
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                      FACING PAGE
+
+A DARIC, OR PIECE OF MONEY COINED BY DARIUS,
+One of the Earliest Specimens of Coined Money                  10
+
+ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHTS FOR BALANCES                            10
+
+HEBREW DRY AND LIQUID MEASURES                                 10
+
+BRONZE NEEDLES AND PINS FROM RUINS OF ANCIENT
+CANAANITE CITY                                                 16
+
+CANAANITE NURSERY BOTTLES (Clay)                               16
+
+CANAANITE SILVER LADLE                                         16
+
+CANAANITE FORKS                                                16
+
+EGYPTIAN PLOWING                                               44
+
+EGYPTIANS THRESHING AND WINNOWING                              44
+
+EGYPTIAN OR HEBREW THRESHING FLOOR                             44
+
+AN EGYPTIAN REAPING                                            48
+
+CANAANITE HOES                                                 48
+
+CANAANITE SICKLE                                               48
+
+CANAANITE OR HEBREW PLOWSHARES                                 48
+
+MODERN ARAB WOMAN SPINNING                                     52
+
+ANCIENT HEBREW DOOR KEY                                        52
+
+HEBREW NEEDLES OF BONE                                         52
+
+SMALLER KEY                                                    52
+
+CANAANITE CHISEL (Bronze)                                      76
+
+CANAANITE FILE                                                 76
+
+VERY ANCIENT CANAANITE FLINT, FOR MAKING STONE KNIVES          76
+
+BRONZE HAMMERHEAD                                              76
+
+BONE AWL HANDLE                                                76
+
+A FISH-HOOK                                                    76
+
+CANAANITE WHETSTONES                                           76
+
+CANAANITE OR HEBREW NAILS                                      76
+
+REMAINS OF WALLS OF THE CANAANITE CITY, MEGIDDO               134
+
+PART OF CITY WALL AND GATE, SAMARIA                           134
+
+CANAANITE PIPE OR FIFE                                        144
+
+AN EGYPTIAN HARP                                              144
+
+AN ASSYRIAN UPRIGHT HARP                                      144
+
+AN ASSYRIAN HORIZONTAL HARP                                   144
+
+A BABYLONIAN HARP                                             144
+
+JEWISH HARPS ON COINS OF BAR COCHBA, 132-135 A.D.             144
+
+ASSYRIAN DULCIMER                                             144
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+Most histories have been histories of kings and emperors. The daily
+life of the common people--their joys and sorrows, their hopes,
+achievements, and ideals--has been buried in oblivion. The historical
+narratives of the Bible are, indeed, to a great extent an exception to
+this rule. They tell us much about the everyday life of peasants and
+slaves. The Bible's chief heroes were not kings nor nobles. Its
+supreme Hero was a peasant workingman. But we have not always studied
+the Bible from this point of view. In this course we shall try to
+reconstruct for ourselves the story of the Hebrew people as an account
+of Hebrew shepherds, farmers, and such like: what oppressions they
+endured; how they were delivered; and above all what ideals of
+righteousness and truth and mercy they cherished, and how they came to
+think and feel about God. It makes little difference to us what
+particular idler at any particular time sat in the palace at Jerusalem
+sending forth tax-collectors to raise funds for his luxuries. It is of
+very great interest and concern to us if there were daughters like
+Ruth in the barley fields of Bethlehem, if shepherds tended their
+flocks in that same country who were so fine in heart and simple in
+faith that to them or their children visions of angels might appear
+telling of a Saviour of the world. On such as these, in this study,
+let us as far as possible fix our attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT
+
+
+Ancient Arabia is the home of that branch of the white race known as
+the Semitic. Here on the fertile fringes of well-watered land
+surrounding the great central desert lived the Phoenicians, the
+Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Canaanites who, before the
+Hebrews, inhabited Palestine. So little intermixing of races has there
+been that the Arabs of to-day, like those of the time of Abraham, are
+Semites.
+
+The Hebrew people are an offshoot of this same Semitic group. They
+began their career as a tribe of shepherds on the border of the north
+Arabian desert. The Arab shepherds of to-day, still living in tents
+and wandering to and fro on the fringes of the settled territory of
+Palestine, or to the south and west of Bagdad, represent almost
+perfectly what the wandering Hebrew shepherds used to be.
+
+The Arabs of to-day are armed with rifles, whereas Abraham's warriors
+cut down their enemies with bronze swords. Otherwise, in customs,
+superstitions, and even to some extent in language, the modern desert
+Arabs may stand for the ancient Hebrews in their earliest period. They
+were nomads with no settled homes. Every rainy season they led out
+their flocks into the valleys where the fresh green of the new grass
+was crowding back the desert brown. All through the spring and early
+summer they went from spring to spring, and from pasture to pasture
+seeking the greenest and tenderest grass. Then as the dry season came
+on and the barren waste came creeping back they also worked their way
+back toward the more settled farm lands, until autumn found them
+selling their wool to the nearby farmers and townspeople in exchange
+for wheat and barley and some of the other necessaries of life.
+
+
+THE SHEPHERD'S DAILY LIFE
+
+Sheep-raising might seem at times a peaceful and even a somewhat
+monotonous business. The flocks found their own food, grazing in the
+pastures. Morning and night they had to be watered, the water being
+drawn from the well and poured into watering troughs. Once or twice a
+day also the ewes and shegoats had to be milked. When these chores
+were done it was only necessary to stand guard over the flock and
+protect them from robbers or wild animals. This, however, had to be
+done by night as well as by day. On these wide pastures there were no
+sheepfolds into which the animals could be securely herded as on the
+settled farms. They slept on the ground, under the open sky, and the
+shepherds, like those in Bethlehem, in the story of Jesus' birth, had
+to keep "watch over their flocks by night." So long as no enemies
+appeared there was in such an occupation plenty of time in which to
+think and dream of God and man and love and duty. Very often, however,
+the dreamer's reveries were interrupted, and at such times there was
+no lack of excitement.
+
+=Wild beasts.=--There were more beasts of prey in Arabia in those days
+than there are to-day. In addition to wolves and bears, there were
+many lions, which are not now found anywhere in the world except in
+Africa. So the sheepmen had to go well armed, with clubs, swords, and
+spears. We would want a high-powered rifle if we were in danger of
+facing a lion. The Hebrews defended their flocks against these
+powerful and vicious beasts with only the simplest weapons. Such
+fights were anything but monotonous.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: A DARIC, OR PIECE OF MONEY COINED BY DARIUS, ONE   |
+ | OF THE EARLIEST SPECIMENS OF COINED MONEY]                        |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHTS FOR BALANCES]               |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: HEBREW DRY AND LIQUID MEASURES]                    |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+TRIPS TO TOWN
+
+Among the most interesting events in the lives of the shepherds were
+their trips to town, when they sold some of their wool and bought
+grain, and linen cloth, and trinkets for the babies, and the things
+they could not find nor make on the grassy plains. The raw wool was
+packed in bags and slung over the backs of donkeys. On other donkeys
+rode two or more of the men of the tribe. Sometimes, perhaps, a small
+boy was taken along on the donkey's back behind his father to see the
+sights. And for him the sights must have been rather wonderful--the
+great thick walls of the town, the massive gates, the houses, row on
+row, and the people, more of them in one street than in the whole
+tribe to which he belonged!
+
+=The market.=--They took their wool, of course, to the open square
+where all the merchants sold their goods. Soon buyers appeared who
+wanted wool. It was a long process then, as now, to strike a bargain
+in an Oriental town. It is very impolite to seem to be in a hurry. You
+must each ask after one another's health, and the health of your
+respective fathers, and all your ancestors. By and by, you cautiously
+come around to the subject of wool. How much do you want for your
+wool? At first you don't name a price. You aren't even sure that you
+want to sell it. Finally you mention a sum about five times as large
+as you expect to get. The buyer in turn offers to pay about a fifth of
+what it is worth. After a time you come down a bit on your price. The
+buyer comes up a bit on his. After an hour or two, or perhaps a half
+a day, you compromise and the wool is sold.
+
+=Weighing out the silver or gold.=--In those early days there was no
+coined money. Silver and gold were used as money, only they had to be
+weighed every time a trade was put through; just as though we were to
+sell so many pounds of flour for so many ounces of silver. The weights
+used were very crude; usually they were merely rough stones from the
+field with the weight mark scratched on them. The scale generally used
+was as follows:
+
+     60 shekels = 1 mana.
+     60 manas = 1 talent.
+
+The shekel was equal to about an ounce, in our modern avoirdupois
+system. There was no accurate standard weight anywhere. Honest dealers
+tried to have weights which corresponded to custom. But it was easy to
+cheat by having two sets of weights, one for buying and one for
+selling. So when our shepherds came to town, they had to watch the
+merchant who bought from them lest he put too heavy a talent weight in
+the balance with their wool, and too light a shekel-weight in the
+smaller balance with the silver.
+
+
+THE HARD SIDE OF SHEPHERD LIFE
+
+The most precious and uncertain thing in the shepherd's life was
+water. If in the rainy season the rains were heavy, and the wells and
+brooks did not dry up too soon in the summer, they had plenty of
+goat's milk for food, and could bring plenty of wool to market in the
+fall. But if the rains were scant their flocks perished, and actual
+famine and death stared them in the face. In the dry years many were
+the tribes that were almost totally wiped out by famine and the
+diseases that sweep away hungry men. The next year, on the site of
+their last camp, strangers would find the bones of men and women and
+little children, whitening by the side of the trail. No wonder they
+looked upon wells and springs as sacred. Surely, they thought, a god
+must be the giver of those life-giving waters that bubble up so
+mysteriously from the crevices in the rock.
+
+=War with other tribes.=--In addition to their constant struggle to
+make a living from a somewhat barren land, these shepherds were almost
+constantly in danger from human enemies. A small, weak tribe, grazing
+its flocks around a good well, was always in danger lest a stronger
+tribe swoop down upon them to kill and plunder. There were many robber
+clans who did little else besides preying on their neighbors and
+passing caravans of traders. Nowhere was there any security. The
+desert and its borders was a world of bitter hatreds and long-standing
+feuds. Certain rival tribes fought each other at every opportunity for
+centuries with a warfare that hesitated at no cruelty or treachery.
+
+
+DESERT RELIGION
+
+Such a life of eager longings, fierce passions, and dark despair is a
+fertile soil for religion. And these early Hebrew shepherds were
+intensely religious. It is true that in the earliest days the
+fierceness and cruelty of their wars were reflected in the character
+of the gods in whom they believed. They thought of them as doing many
+cruel and selfish things. Yet a people who believe very deeply and
+seriously in their religion, even in an imperfect religion, are sure
+to be a force in the world. Hence it is not surprising that three of
+the world's greatest religions, Judaism, Christianity, and
+Mohammedanism, arose at different times among the wandering shepherds
+of Arabia.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+It would be well to keep a notebook in which to write the result of
+your study.
+
+1. Look up in any Bible dictionary, under "Weights and Measures," the
+approximate size of an "ephah," which was the common Hebrew unit of
+dry measure, and "hin," which was their common unit for measuring
+liquids.
+
+2. From the facts given in this chapter, calculate in pounds
+avoirdupois, the approximate weight of a talent.
+
+3. To what extent does the Old Testament reflect the experiences of
+shepherd life? Look up "shepherd" in any concordance.
+
+4. What are some valuable lessons which great spiritual teachers among
+the Hebrews learned from their shepherd life? Read Psalm 23.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS
+
+
+Most persons, no matter what their race or country, spend a large
+proportion of their time at home. The home is the center of many
+interests and activities, and it reflects quite accurately the state
+of civilization of a people. In this chapter let us take a look into
+the homes of the shepherd Hebrews. We shall visit one of their
+encampments; perhaps we shall be reminded of a camp of the gypsies.
+
+
+A CLUSTER OF BLACK TENTS
+
+Here on a gentle hillside sloping up from a tiny brook, is a cluster
+of ten or a dozen black tents. Further down the valley sheep are
+grazing. Two or three mongrel dogs rush out to bark at us as we
+approach, until a harsh voice calls them back. A dark man with bare
+brown arms comes out to meet us, wearing a coarse woolen cloak with
+short sleeves. Half-naked children peer out from the tent flaps.
+
+=The inside of the tents.=--Our friend is eager to show us hospitality
+and invites us to enter his tent. It is a low, squatting affair, and
+we have to stoop low to enter the opening in the front. We note that
+the tent-cloth is a woolen fabric not like our canvas of to-day. It is
+stretched across a center-pole, with supports on the front and back,
+while the edges are pinned to the ground much as our tents are. There
+are curtains within the tent partitioning off one part for the men,
+and another for the women and children. There are mats on the ground
+to sit on and to sleep on at night.
+
+
+PREPARING FOOD
+
+Like the housewives of all ages, the Hebrew women have food to
+prepare, and meals to get. Their one great food is milk, not cows'
+milk, but the milk of goats. A modern traveler tells of meeting an
+Arab who in a time of scarcity had lived on milk alone for more than a
+year.
+
+=A meager diet.=--Besides fresh milk there were then as now a number
+of things which were made from milk. The Hebrews on the desert took
+some milk and cream and poured it into a bag made of skin, and hung it
+by a stout cord from a pole. One of the women, or a boy, pounded this
+bag until the butter came out. This was their way of churning. Cheese
+also was a favorite article of diet. The milk was curdled by means of
+the sour or bitter juices of certain plants, and the curds were then
+salted and dried in the sun. Curdled milk even more than sweet milk
+was also used as a drink. It probably tasted like the _kumyss_, or
+_zoolak_, which we can buy in our drug stores or soda fountains.
+
+We would get very tired of milk and milk products if we had nothing
+else to eat all the year round; and so did these shepherds. They were
+eager to get hold of wheat and barley, whenever they could buy them.
+The women took the wheat and pounded it with a wooden mallet or a
+stone in a hollow in some larger stone. The coarse meal which they
+made in this way they mixed with salt and water and baked on hot
+stones before the campfire. Once in a great while it was possible, in
+this shepherd life, to have a feast with mutton or kid or lamb. But
+milk and wool were so valuable that the shepherds were very
+cautious about killing their flocks. It was, you see, a very simple
+and healthful diet on which these tent-people lived. But one meal was
+pretty much like another. Dinner was like breakfast, and tomorrow's
+meals would be just like to-day's. It is not strange that they often
+longed for a change, and looked with envy at the crops of the farmers
+in the settled lands beyond the desert.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: BRONZE NEEDLES AND PINS FROM RUINS OF ANCIENT      |
+ | CANAANITE CITY]                                                   |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE NURSERY BOTTLES (CLAY)]                  |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE SILVER LADLE]                            |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE FORKS]                                   |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+CLOTHING
+
+Another occupation at which the women worked all day long was the
+making of clothing for their families. Most of their garments were
+made of the wool from their own flocks. First the wool had to be spun
+into yarn. They did not even have spinning wheels in those days, so a
+spinner took a handful of wool on the end of a stick called a distaff,
+which she held in her left hand. With her right hand she hooked into
+the wool a spindle. This was a round, pointed piece of wood about ten
+inches long with a hook at the pointed end, and with a small piece of
+stone fastened to the other to give momentum in the spinning. With
+deft fingers the spinner kept this spindle whirling and at the same
+time kept working the wool down into the thread of yarn which she was
+making. As the thread lengthened she wound it around the spindle,
+until the wool on the distaff was all gone and she had a great ball of
+yarn.
+
+=Weaving=.--The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians were experts in the
+art of weaving. They had large looms similar to ours, and wove on them
+beautiful fabrics of linen and wool. The shepherds on the plains no
+doubt bought these fabrics when they could afford them. But they could
+not carry these heavy looms around with them from one camp to another,
+and much of the time their own women had to weave whatever cloth they
+had. The primitive loom they used was made by driving two sticks into
+the ground, and stretching a row of threads between them, and then
+tediously weaving the cross threads in and out, a thread at a time,
+until a yard or so of cloth was finished. Slow work this was, and many
+a long day passed before enough cloth could be woven to make a coat
+for a man or even a boy.
+
+They managed, however, to get along without nearly so much clothing as
+we think necessary. The little children, through warm days of summer,
+played around the tents almost naked. And the grown people dressed
+very simply. There were only two garments for either men or women.
+They wore a long shirt reaching to the knees. This was made by
+doubling over a strip of cloth, sewing the sides, and cutting out
+holes for arms and neck. The outer garment was a sort of coat, open in
+front, and gathered about the waist with leather belt. This outer
+garment was often thrown aside when the wearer was working. It was
+worn in cold weather, however, and was often the poor man's only
+blanket at night. Women's garments were probably a little longer than
+those of men, but in other respects the same. As for the feet, they
+mostly went barefoot. But on long journeys over rough ground they wore
+sandals of wood or roughly shaped shoes of sheepskin. On the head for
+a protection against sun and wind they, like the modern Arab, probably
+wore a sort of large scarf gathered around the neck.
+
+=Making the garments.=--All these garments were cut and sewed by the
+women. They had no sewing machines to work with, not even fine steel
+needles like ours. They used large, coarse needles made of bronze or,
+very often, of splinters of bone sharpened at one end, with a hole
+drilled through the other. With such rough tools, and all this work to
+be done, we can be sure that the wives and daughters of Hebrew
+shepherds did not lack for something to do.
+
+
+FAMILY LIFE
+
+Among ancient Hebrews family life, from the very beginning, was often
+sweet, kindly, and beautiful. This is shown by the many stories in the
+early books of the Old Testament which reflect disapproval of
+unbrotherly conduct, or, which hold up kindness and loyalty in family
+life as a beautiful and praiseworthy thing. Take the story of Joseph.
+It begins indeed with an unpleasant picture of an unhappy and unloving
+family of shepherd brothers. We read of a father's partiality toward
+the petted favorite, of a spoiled and conceited boy, of the bitter
+jealousy of the other brothers, and finally of a crime in which they
+showed no mercy when they sold their hated rival to a caravan of
+traders to be taken away, it might be, forever. But the story goes on
+to tell how that same lad, years later, grown to manhood and risen to
+a position of extraordinary power and influence in the great kingdom
+of Egypt, not only saved from death by starvation his family,
+including those same brothers who had wronged him, but even effected a
+complete reconciliation with them and nobly forgave them.
+
+Now, the most notable facts in connection with this story are those
+"between the lines." It is not merely that such and such events are
+said to have happened, but that for generations, perhaps centuries,
+Hebrew fathers and mothers kept the story of these events alive,
+telling it over and over again to their children. On numberless days,
+no doubt, in this shepherd life there were bickering and angry words
+among the children by the spring or at meal time, or in their games.
+The older brothers were tyrannical toward the younger, or one or
+another cherished black and unforgiving looks toward a brother or
+sister who he thought had done him a wrong. And many a time after such
+a day the old father would gather all the family together in the
+evening around the camp fire in front of the tent and would begin to
+tell the story of Joseph. And as the tale went on, with its thrilling
+episodes, and its touches of pathos leading up at last to the
+whole-souled generosity and the sweet human tenderness of Joseph, many
+a little heart softened, and in the darkness many a little brown hand
+sought a brother's hand in loving reconciliation.
+
+=The tribe as a larger family.=--To some extent the desert shepherds
+of all ages have carried this family spirit into the relations between
+members of the tribe as a whole. Since they had to stand together for
+protection, quarrels between tribesmen were discouraged. Moreover,
+they were not separated into classes by difference of wealth. There
+were some who had larger flocks than others, but for the most part all
+members of the tribe were equal. Even from among the slaves who were
+captured now and then in war there were some who rose to positions of
+honor. There were no kings nor princes; the chief of the tribe held
+his position by virtue of his long experience and practical wisdom.
+The distinction between close blood relationship and the brotherhood
+of membership in the same tribe was not sharply drawn; all were
+brothers. This is true to-day of all these desert tribes.
+
+Only a tribe, however, with an unusual capacity for brotherly
+affection and for making social life sweet and harmonious could have
+produced a Joseph or the story of Joseph, or would have preserved that
+story in oral form through the centuries until it could be written
+down. It is worth while looking into the later history of such a
+tribe, and seeing what happened to them and how they thought and
+acted, and what they contributed to the life of the world.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Get some cotton at a drug store, and see if you can spin some
+cotton thread, with a homemade spindle, such as is described in this
+chapter.
+
+2. Who had the harder work among the Hebrew shepherds, the women or
+the men?
+
+3. Find other stories in Genesis besides the story of Joseph which
+show how the Hebrews felt in regard to the relations between brothers.
+
+4. Compare the home life in America with the home life of the Hebrews.
+Are American brothers and sisters growing more quarrelsome or more
+kindly and loving toward one another?
+
+5. In what way do the oral traditions of a people throw light on the
+ideals and relationships they most valued?
+
+6. Compare the dietary available to Americans with that of the ancient
+Hebrews.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DESERT PILGRIMS
+
+
+According to one of the Hebrew traditions recorded in the book of
+Genesis, the earliest home of their ancestors was Ur of the Chaldees.
+This was one of the leading cities of ancient Babylonia. It was
+situated southwest of the Euphrates River, near the plains which were
+the nation's chief grazing grounds. And it is possible that of the
+shepherds who brought their sheep to market in Ur some were, indeed,
+among the ancestors of the Hebrews.
+
+
+BABYLONIAN CIVILIZATION
+
+Babylonia is one of the two lands (Egypt being the other) where human
+civilization began. This rich alluvial plain, lying between the lower
+Tigris and the lower Euphrates Rivers, became the home of a gifted
+race which at least in its later history through intermarriage was in
+part Semitic and thus related to the Hebrews. Several thousand years
+before Christ the people of this land began to till the soil, to
+control the floods in the rivers by means of irrigating canals, to
+make bricks out of the abundant clay and with them to build houses and
+cities. They also invented a system of writing upon clay tablets.
+These were baked in the sun after the letters were inscribed.
+Commercial records and written laws and histories were thus made
+possible and in time a varied literature was created. Whole libraries
+of these baked clay tablets have been unearthed and deciphered by
+modern investigators.
+
+=Evidences of ancient culture.=--By B.C. 4000 there flourished on the
+plains of Babylonia a splendid civilization in many ways similar to
+ours to-day. The people raised enormous crops of grain and exported it
+by ship and caravan to distant lands. They had developed to a high
+point the arts of the weaver, the dyer, the potter, the metal worker,
+and the carpenter. They had devised a system of geometry for the
+measuring of their wheat fields and city streets. Through astronomy
+they had worked out the calendar of days, weeks, months, and years
+which with modifications we still use. They had erected magnificent
+temples to their gods. From translations of the inscriptions on their
+clay tablets we can gain a clear knowledge of their life and customs.
+Here, for example, is a translation of part of a letter from a son to
+a father asking for more money: "My father, you said, 'When I shall go
+to Dur-Ammi-Zaduga, I will send you a sheep and five minas of silver.'
+But you have not sent. Let my father send and let not my heart be
+vexed.... To the gods Shamash and Marduk I pray for my father." If we
+forget the outlandish-sounding names, how natural this seems! How like
+our boys was this boy who wrote the queer-looking characters on this
+bit of clay which we may hold in our hand!
+
+
+THE FAULTS OF THE BABYLONIAN CIVILIZATION
+
+With all their gifts and achievements there were certain great evils
+in Babylonian life. For one thing they were inclined to be greedy and
+covetous. They lived on a soil almost incredibly rich, and they were
+constantly increasing their wealth by trade. Babylonian merchants or
+their agents were to be found in almost every city and town of western
+Asia and perhaps even as far east as China. Of the vast mass of their
+written records which have been collected in our museums, the
+majority are business documents and records of contracts. Many of them
+tell the story of hard bargains. Professor Maspero declares that these
+records "reveal to us a people greedy of gain, exacting, and almost
+exclusively absorbed by material concerns."
+
+=Slavery.=--Moreover, the wealth of the nation was not fairly
+distributed but was more and more in the hands of the favored few, the
+great nobles, and their friends. The fields were not tilled by
+independent farmers. There were, instead, a few great estates which
+were rented out to tenants. The actual work, both on the fields and in
+the towns, was more and more performed by slaves. Some of these were
+captives who had been taken in war. Others were native Babylonians who
+had been sold into slavery for debt. So it had come about that
+Babylonian society had set like plaster into a hard mold with the king
+and the wealthy nobles on top and the poor peasants and slaves below.
+This state of things was fastened all the more firmly on the people by
+strong kings such as Hammurabi, who lived about B.C. 2000 and who
+unified the country under a powerful central government with his own
+city, Babylon, as the capital.
+
+
+A SHEPHERD WITH IDEALS
+
+About the time of Hammurabi's reign, if we follow the account related
+in the book of Genesis, there lived among the nomads on the plains
+west of the city of Ur a man named Abraham. If Hammurabi ever heard of
+him, which is improbable, he looked down upon him as of no account.
+Yet Abraham wielded a greater influence for the future welfare of
+humanity than all the princes of Babylon. For, discontented with
+Babylonian life, he was the earliest pioneer in a movement toward a
+civilization of a different and better type. And the sons of Hammurabi
+have yet to reckon with Abraham and his ambitions.
+
+=Discontent among the shepherds.=--Many of Abraham's people, no doubt,
+were discontented in Babylonia. A shepherd's life is monotonous and
+hard. When they went to market they saw comforts and luxuries on every
+hand. Yet the money they received from the wool merchants of Ur gave
+no promise of larger opportunities in life for any shepherd boy. So,
+at length when Abraham said to them, "Come, let us leave this
+country," they were ready to answer, "Lead on, and we will follow!" So
+it came to pass that Abraham's clan set out northwest, toward Haran,
+in what is now called Mesopotamia, and finally after some years of
+migration found themselves camping on the hillsides of Canaan,
+southeast of the Mediterranean Sea.
+
+=Ideals represented in Abraham.=--But it is not as a leader of fortune
+hunters that Abraham is pictured in the Bible. No doubt he and his
+clansmen hoped to better their condition. But Abraham was a dreamer
+and a man of deep religious faith. He believed that he was being
+guided by his God. And he believed that in accordance with God's plan
+his descendants in the land to which they had come would become a
+great nation. Best of all, it seems probable that he dreamed of a
+nation different from Babylonia. Certainly he is described as a
+different kind of a man from the typical Babylonian. In some respects,
+to be sure, judging by our Christian standards, he had serious
+shortcomings. He did not scruple to deceive a foreigner, nor to treat
+harshly a slave. His ideas as to the character of God were far below
+those revealed by Christ. Yet he had the Hebrew gift for home and
+family life. He was a good father to his son. And he put a higher
+value on personal friendship and kindly family relations than on
+property interests. When his herdsmen quarreled with those of his
+nephew, Lot, he said to the latter with dignified generosity and
+common sense, "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and
+thee ... for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before thee?
+Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left
+hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou take the right hand,
+then I will go to the left." Just what Abraham looked forward to, we,
+of course, do not know. Probably his ideas were vague. Yet it seems
+that such men as he must have dreamed of a nation great in faith as
+well as in material wealth; a nation in which money would not be
+considered more important than justice and kindness; in which home
+life might be sweet and loving, free from the fear of want or the
+blighting influence of greed; and in which the door of opportunity
+would always be kept open even for the humblest.
+
+At any rate, some centuries after the time when Abraham is supposed to
+have lived, we find a group of shepherd tribes living in and around
+Canaan, who believed themselves to be descended from the twelve sons
+of Jacob, Abraham's grandson, and among whom there was the tradition
+of a divinely guided pilgrimage from Babylonia to Canaan under
+Abraham's leadership just as we have described. It is a great thing to
+have memories of noble parents and traditions of heroic ancestors.
+These the Hebrews had from the very beginning.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up in any good Bible dictionary, the articles on Babylonia and
+Hammurabi.
+
+2. Read Genesis 12, 15, and 24 and form your own opinion of Abraham as
+a husband and father.
+
+3. What was Abraham's most valuable contribution to history?
+
+4. From any map of western Asia, draw a sketch map showing the Nile,
+Euphrates, and Tigris Rivers, the Mediterranean Sea, and the general
+direction of Abraham's pilgrimage.
+
+5. Where in the Bible is found the sentence spoken by Abraham to Lot,
+and quoted in this chapter?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY
+
+
+Although they had escaped for a time from Babylonian tyranny, the
+descendants of Abraham in Canaan found themselves somewhat within the
+range of the influence of the other great civilized power of that day,
+that is, Egypt. Egyptian officers collected tribute from rich
+Canaanite cities. The roads that led to Egypt were thronged with
+caravans going to and fro. By and by, a series of dry seasons drove
+several of the Hebrew tribes down these highways to Egypt in the
+search of food. The story of Joseph tells how they settled there.[1]
+They were hospitably received by the king (or Pharaoh, which was the
+Egyptian word for "king"), and were allowed to pasture their flocks on
+the plains called the land of Goshen in the extreme northeast of the
+country west of what we now call the Isthmus of Suez. For some decades
+or more they lived here, following their old occupation--sheep-raising.
+
+=Egyptian civilization.=--Egypt was in many ways like Babylonia. In
+Egypt too a great civilization had sprung up many millenniums before
+Christ. In some ways it was an even greater civilization than that of
+Babylonia. Egyptian sculptors and architects erected stone temples
+whose grandeur has never been surpassed. Many of them are still
+standing and are among the world's treasures. It would seem that there
+was somewhat more of love of beauty and somewhat less of greed for
+money among the Egyptians than among the Babylonians.
+
+
+THE ACCESSION OF RAMESES II
+
+There came to the throne of Egypt about B.C. 1200 a man of
+extraordinary vanity and selfish ambition known as Rameses II. He
+wished to build more temples in Egypt than any other king had ever
+built, so that wherever the traveler might turn people would point to
+this or that great building and say Rameses II built that. To put up
+these buildings he enslaved his people, compelling them to labor
+without pay. To raise the funds for building materials he made war on
+his neighbors, especially the Hittites in western Asia north of
+Canaan. Again and again Hebrew children would see the dust of marching
+armies over the roads past their pastures and men would say, "Rameses
+is going to war again." And by and by, weeks or months later, the
+soldiers would return with tales of bloody battles and sometimes laden
+with spoils.
+
+=Enslavement of the Hebrews.=--Now, wars usually breed more wars.
+Rameses having attacked the Hittites was afraid they would attack him.
+Egypt was indeed very well protected from attack. There was only one
+gateway into the country, and that was by way of the narrow Isthmus of
+Suez. And there were a wall and a row of fortresses across the
+isthmus. But who were those shepherd tribes living just west of the
+isthmus inside the gateway? They are Hebrews, Rameses was told. They
+are immigrants from Canaan. "Look out for them," said Rameses. "If
+they came from Canaan, they may favor the Hittites and help them to
+get past my fortresses into Egypt. Let them be put at work so that
+they will have no time for plots."
+
+Rameses was planning just then to build two large granary cities near
+the northeastern border to be a base of supplies for his armies on
+their campaigns into Asia. One was to be called Pithom.[2]
+
+So one day armed men came to the Hebrew tents and the order was given
+to send such and such a number of men to work in the brick-molds of
+Pa-Tum. And they had to go. The women and the children had to care for
+the sheep while most of their men trod the clay and straw in the brick
+molds at Pa-Tum and carried heavy loads of brick on their shoulders to
+the masons on the walls. Of course the sheep suffered for lack of
+care. The children also pined from neglect. Life for the Hebrews
+became a grinding treadmill of hardship and weariness and drudgery.
+
+
+THE BOYHOOD AND YOUTH OF MOSES
+
+During this time of oppression a Hebrew baby boy was by chance adopted
+by one of the princesses in Pharaoh's court and brought up by his own
+mother as his nurse. He was given an Egyptian name with the common
+Egyptian ending Mesu or M-ses, as in Rameses. The boy was given all
+the educational advantages that the Egyptian palace could offer. But
+all the time in secret from his mother he was learning the story of
+his own people and their wrongs, and was being trained to hate their
+oppressors. One day after he had grown to manhood he went down to the
+city of Pa-Tum to see the work on the new granaries which were being
+built. Here he saw one of his own people being flogged by an Egyptian
+overseer. In a fury he leaped to the man's defense and killed the
+Egyptian. Of course Rameses heard of it, and Moses had to flee from
+Egypt into the desert. In the desert he found a shepherd clan related
+to the Hebrews and lived there for some years brooding over the hard
+plight of his people.
+
+=Moses' call and the struggle for freedom.=--One day in the desert,
+Moses heard from a passing caravan that old Rameses II was dead. Like
+a flame that burned but did not consume the thought came to him: "Now
+is your chance! The king and his officers will not know about you. Go
+back to Egypt and lead your kinsmen out to freedom. This is God's call
+and God will help you."
+
+So back to Egypt he went. First, he undertook to rally his own people,
+promising the help of their God, Jehovah. It was a dangerous
+undertaking that he proposed. The kings of Egypt were accustomed to
+make short work of those who resisted their authority. Moreover, these
+Hebrews had been slaves for years, and their spirits might have been
+cowed and broken. Yet they believed in Moses and his assurances and
+accepted him as their leader.
+
+Soon thereafter Moses and his brother Aaron went boldly to the palace
+of the Pharaoh and declared to him that Jehovah, the God of the
+Hebrews, had commanded that the Hebrews be allowed to hold a religious
+festival in the desert to offer sacrifices unto him as their God. The
+plan no doubt was that the people should escape once they were outside
+the boundaries of Egypt; Moses evidently considered any method
+justifiable in the effort to outwit the oppressor. But the Pharaoh
+answered, "Who is Jehovah that I should hearken to his voice to let
+Israel go?" The request was sharply refused. It is surprising that
+Moses himself was not arrested and imprisoned on the spot. Perhaps he
+still had friends in the Egyptian court. Or perhaps the Egyptians had
+a certain reverence for him as a messenger from a god, even though
+they did not grant his demands.
+
+=Bricks without straw.=--At first it seemed that Moses had failed. For
+instead of the longed-for freedom, the toiling Hebrews found that a
+still heavier burden of work was laid upon them. In the manufacture of
+sun-dried brick it is necessary to mix straw with the clay in the
+molds, the fibers giving a tougher quality to the product. Previously
+the straw for this purpose had been furnished by the Egyptians. But
+now the order was, "Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it."
+So they had to go and hunt through the surrounding fields for old
+refuse straw, in rotting ricks and compost heaps. Yet the same number
+of bricks was required as before, with a whipping in case of failure.
+
+The granaries in Pa-Tum and Rameses were excavated many years ago from
+beneath the sands of Egypt, and their ruined walls may still be seen
+by tourists. It is noticeable that the upper tiers in the walls are
+made of bricks of a very poor quality as compared to those in the
+lower tiers. Evidently, the Hebrews got through the work somehow each
+day, putting very little straw in the clay, or sometimes none at all.
+
+But they wished they had never heard of Moses, and they reproached him
+for "making them hateful in the eyes of Pharaoh." In the first round
+of the fight Moses and freedom had lost; Pharaoh and slavery had won.
+But the end was not yet.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up in any good Bible dictionary, the article on Egypt; or read
+the summary of Egyptian history in some recent general history.
+
+2. Draw a map of Egypt, locating approximately the place where the
+Hebrews worked.
+
+3. In what special ways was Moses well trained to be an emancipator
+for his people?
+
+4. Are there workers to-day who are in any form of slavery which may
+be compared to that of the Hebrews in Egypt?
+
+5. Are there any Pharaohs to-day? Any Moseses?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See Chapter I, and Genesis 46 and 47.
+
+[2] Exodus I. 1-11, or Pa-Tum in Egyptian; the other Rameses, after
+the king himself. It was decided to compel the Hebrews to do the work
+of brickmaking for these new cities.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A GREAT DELIVERANCE
+
+
+Egypt has never been a health resort. The intensely hot summers breed
+germs of disease, and also the insects which often carry them.
+Throughout its history the country has been ravaged periodically by
+fearful epidemics. A series of these pestilences predicted by Moses
+and declared to be Jehovah's punishment for the enslavement of the
+Israelites, made it possible for him to lead his people out of
+slavery. So severe were the plagues that the government was for a time
+disorganized. Taking advantage of their opportunity, the Hebrews
+suddenly gathered up their possessions and set out toward the desert,
+driving their sheep and goats before them. In spite of the large
+figures given in some passages of Exodus, other statements indicate
+that they were not very numerous, a few thousand at most, and they
+doubtless hoped to slip out past the border fortresses, at night,
+unnoticed. As they approached the border, however, news came that they
+were being pursued by a troop of horsemen. This meant, of course, that
+a watch would be made for them at the fortresses also. They were
+caught in a trap, and turned in despair upon Moses, who could only
+once more assure them that Jehovah was leading them, and would somehow
+open the way.
+
+
+THE STRONG EAST WIND AND ITS RESULT
+
+That night they encamped on the western shore of one of the shallow
+bays or lakes at the head of the Red Sea. To the east was the water.
+North of the lake the wall and the line of fortresses began. Behind
+them they could already see where their pursuers were camping for the
+night. In the morning--terror, death, and return to slavery!
+
+=A path through the sea.=--During the night, however, someone came in
+from the shore of the lake with the astonishing news that it was going
+dry. A strong east wind was blowing, with an effect often observed by
+modern travelers, namely, that the comparatively shallow waters were
+being driven back into the deeper part of the sea. Instantly the word
+of command was given. With the women and children first and the flocks
+next, they picked their way through the mud and sand and rocks on the
+lake bottom, clear across to the other side. The next morning the wind
+changed, the waters returned, and many of their pursuers were drowned.
+
+The feelings of the Hebrews are expressed in the words of the triumph
+song in which through all later centuries they celebrated this
+deliverance:
+
+    ="I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously:
+    The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.=
+           *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
+    =Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea;
+    And his chosen captains are sunk in the Red Sea."=
+
+
+INFLUENCE OF THE EXODUS ON HEBREW RELIGION
+
+It was indeed a notable deliverance, and the Hebrews never forgot it.
+It affected their ideals and their religion. Immediately after
+escaping from Egypt they set out across the desert for Mount Sinai,
+which was considered the home of their God Jehovah, there to offer up
+sacrifices of gratitude. Moreover, from that time on, every year they
+brought to mind the story of the great deliverance through a
+sacrificial feast called the Passover. Under Moses' leadership at
+Sinai they entered into a covenant with Jehovah. They were to be
+Jehovah's people forever, and they probably agreed to worship him
+only, as their national God.
+
+=Monotheism.=--At this time few had come to perceive the truth of
+monotheism, namely, that there is but one God in the universe, and
+that all the so-called gods and goddesses are mere superstitions. The
+Hebrews, at this time, did not doubt the real existence of other gods
+than Jehovah, such as Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Marduk and
+Shamash, gods of Babylon. But after the deliverance from Egypt they
+felt themselves bound to Jehovah by special ties of gratitude, and
+more and more came to consider the worship of any other god, by a
+Hebrew as base disloyalty. So the Exodus, and the experiences at
+Sinai, pointed the way, at least, toward monotheism.
+
+=Justice.=--Of great importance also was the influence of these
+experiences on their ideas of right and wrong, and their conception of
+the character of Jehovah. Because they as a nation had been enslaved
+they were the better able to sympathize with the oppressed and
+down-trodden. "Remember," their prophets could always say, "that _ye_
+were slaves in the land of Egypt." And when, in after years, they were
+unjust in their dealings with foreigners living among them, they were
+reminded that "Ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
+
+These ideals were reflected in their conception of their God. Many of
+their notions about him were crude and unworthy, even late in their
+history. This was natural and inevitable in the light of the times in
+which they lived. But in these Egyptian and desert experiences we see
+a notable beginning of nobler religious ideals. From this time on they
+were impelled to think of Jehovah, first of all as the God who had
+brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and who had taken their
+part, humble shepherds as they were, against the mighty Pharaoh, the
+king of Egypt. To that extent, at least, their God was a God of
+justice and mercy. Other ideas, which were inconsistent with this,
+continued for a time, but gradually fell away, until at length great
+seers arose who proclaimed that God is nothing else than justice and
+mercy; righteousness is the essence of his character, and that is all
+he asks of men.
+
+    "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of thy throne."
+
+
+THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
+
+According to all the Hebrew records, the covenant at Sinai was
+embodied in a divinely given Decalogue, or a set of ten short
+commands, which could be counted off on the ten fingers. Two
+Decalogues are given in Exodus, as coming from Moses at Sinai. One is
+in Exodus 34. 17-28. The other is the well-known Decalogue in Exodus
+20. The former has to do largely with sacrifices and ritual
+observances. The latter, with its stern demands for right conduct
+toward one's fellow men, and for the worship of Jehovah rather than
+idols, expresses well the new moral and religious impulses which came
+to the Hebrews under the leadership of their first great deliverer.
+
+In its original form the Decalogue probably read something as follows:
+
+  =Thou shalt have no other gods before me.=
+  =Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven (or molten) image.=
+  =Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain.=
+  =Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.=
+  =Honor thy father and thy mother.=
+  =Thou shalt not kill.=
+  =Thou shalt not commit adultery.=
+  =Thou shalt not steal.=
+  =Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.=
+  =Thou shalt not covet.=
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read in Hastings or any other modern Bible dictionary, the article
+on "Exodus." Note the testimony of modern travelers on the effect of
+high winds on the upper part of the Red Sea.
+
+2. Where was Mount Sinai? Look up in Bible dictionary.
+
+3. Draw a map, showing the probable route of the Hebrews after leaving
+Egypt.
+
+4. What part of the Ten Commandments seems most to reflect the
+influence of the great deliverance from Egypt? Read Deuteronomy 5.
+12-15.
+
+5. Test your memory for the Ten Commandments in their brief form as
+given in this chapter.
+
+6. The records of the events of this chapter are found in Exodus,
+chapters 6-12, 14, and 15. Read as much of this as your time will
+permit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FROM THE DESERT INTO CANAAN
+
+
+Once safely out of Egypt, the next problem for Moses and his people
+was to find a way into Canaan. Through all the centuries the wandering
+shepherds on the edge of the desert have looked with longing eyes on
+the fertile valleys and plains of Palestine. To have a settled,
+comfortable home, with cisterns of water as well as springs and wells;
+to have fields of wheat, vineyards of grapes, and gardens of melons
+and all luscious fruits--this is the picture that haunts the wandering
+Arab, amid the hardships and monotony of his desert life.
+
+
+THE LAND OF CANAAN
+
+During the twelfth and eleventh centuries before Christ there was an
+unusually good opportunity for nomads to settle in Palestine. Before
+and after that time there were strong empires in control of the land
+protecting it from invasion. The Greeks and Romans long afterward
+built a line of fortified towns east of the Jordan on the border of
+the desert, whose ruins may be seen to-day. In similar ways the
+Babylonians and the Egyptians had occupied and defended the country.
+But just about the time when the Hebrews escaped from Egypt, and for a
+century and more afterward, both the Egyptian and Babylonian
+governments were weak. And as the various petty kings of Canaan itself
+were usually at war with each other, there was no strong government
+anywhere whose soldiers newcomers would have to face.
+
+=The first invasion from the south.=--Very soon after leaving the
+mountain of Sinai the Hebrew tribes found themselves on the southern
+edge of Canaan, in what was afterward known as the South Country,
+south of Judah. Scouts were sent up as far as the town of Hebron,
+which was afterward for a time the capital of Judah, to investigate
+and report on conditions there. They returned with a glowing account
+of the fertility of the soil. It is even stated in the Hebrew
+traditions that they brought back as a sample of the crops, one bunch
+of grapes so large that it had to be carried on a pole between two
+men.
+
+But with the exception of one of their leaders, a certain Caleb, all
+the men reported that the cities were strongly fortified and the
+inhabitants so warlike that an invasion was out of the question. The
+people adopted this "majority report" in spite of the protests of
+Moses. It is probable that the life in Egypt, with something of ease
+and luxury for a time, and then so many years of slavery, had sapped
+their courage and will power. At any rate, after a brief encounter
+with some of the tribesmen nearby, they fled in panic into the desert
+again.
+
+
+THE WILDERNESS WANDERINGS
+
+There followed, for a generation and more, a period of training
+somewhat like that which Boy Scouts receive, or should receive, on
+their "hikes" and camping trips. They learned to be independent and
+resourceful. It was at times very difficult to find food for
+themselves, or pasture for their sheep, and there was nothing to eat
+but the "manna," which they believed their God provided for them, and
+which was perhaps in the nature of an edible moss or lichen. At times
+there was a terrible scarcity of water. Always there was the danger of
+losing their way on those trackless wastes, and in this matter also
+they learned to look to their God as their pillar of cloud by day and
+their pillar of fire by night, guiding them from oasis to oasis in
+their search for food and pasturage. Then there were wild beasts and
+poisonous serpents and, worst of all, hostile tribes with whom more
+than once they had to fight for their lives.
+
+=Gaining a foothold east of the Jordan.=--All these years of wandering
+were spent mostly in the desert south of Canaan. Later they worked
+their way around the lower end of the Dead Sea to the east toward what
+was later known as the land of Gilead, on the eastern side of the
+Jordan River.
+
+This region is very fertile and was always noted in Bible times for
+its fat cattle. But its rolling plains lie open and defenseless toward
+the desert. Here under Moses' leadership the Hebrews were able to
+conquer one or two of the petty local chieftains, and thus gained a
+foothold from which they might some time make a sally across the River
+Jordan into central Canaan itself.
+
+=The death of Moses.=--In this eastern country Moses died. According
+to the Hebrew story, Jehovah gave him a view of the land of Canaan
+from one of the high mountains overlooking the Jordan River, after
+which death came. And "no man knoweth of his sepulcher to this day."
+He had been loyal to the divine call which had come to him so long ago
+in a flame which "burned and did not consume," loyal to the mother who
+had taught him amid the luxuries of an Egyptian palace not to forget
+his own people and their sorrows. He had led his people out of Egypt
+and its slavery in defiance of the proud and mighty Pharaoh. And he
+had taught them to turn to Jehovah as God of justice and to worship
+only him.
+
+
+THE INVASION OF CANAAN FROM THE EAST
+
+It was not long after the settlement east of the Jordan that the
+Hebrews began to make raids across the river, in part under the
+leadership of one of Moses' lieutenants, Joshua. The first town they
+captured was Jericho, down in the hot valley of the Jordan River, a
+few miles north of the Dead Sea. They had friends within the city, a
+woman named Rahab and her family. Since this was the first city
+captured it was considered to be sacred to Jehovah. The pity of it is
+that, in accordance with the standards of that day, this meant the
+ruthless slaughter of every living thing within its walls, including
+men, women, and little children.
+
+=New conquests.=--In these early raids some tribes, led by the men of
+Judah, went southwest and captured a few towns in the mountains west
+of the Dead Sea. Others, led by the strong tribe of Ephraim, went
+northwest. Throughout their later history, these were always the two
+leading tribes, Judah in the south, and Ephraim in the north. After
+the victories of the fighting men, the women and children and flocks
+would follow.
+
+We can imagine these rough warriors, with their untrained boys and
+girls, swarming into the houses of these little towns and villages.
+Most of them had never been inside a house before; and they would be
+eager to look at the furniture and to know the uses of the many
+strange things: for example, the jar of lye for cleaning, the perfumes
+on the stand, the earthen vessels for water and milk, the lamps, the
+baskets made of twigs, the pots for boiling broth, the oven for
+baking, in the door yard, and the wine press on the hillside where the
+grapes were trodden at the time of grape harvest.
+
+=The right and wrong of conquest.=--One may ask, what right had the
+Hebrews to attack and kill these people and seize their homes? Ideal
+Christian standards develop slowly. In these days of which we speak
+such standards had hardly been thought of. All weak nations were at
+the mercy of their stronger neighbors, and no one ever questioned the
+morality of it. It is good to know, moreover, that conquest, after
+all, was not the chief method by which the Hebrews made themselves
+masters of Canaan. After they had established themselves, here and
+there, in certain towns, and certain sections of the country, they
+gradually made friends with their Canaanite neighbors whom they had
+not been able to conquer at the beginning. In time their children
+intermarried with the children of the Canaanites until at last there
+came to be one nation, which was known as the Hebrews, or the Children
+of Israel.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read any one of the following sections: Numbers 11. 13-14, 20, 21;
+Deuteronomy 34; Joshua 1. 6.
+
+2. Draw a map showing in a general way the movements of the Hebrews
+described in this chapter.
+
+3. Look up in the Bible dictionary, "Manna," "Spies," "Kadesh,"
+"Jericho."
+
+4. Compare the conquest of Canaan with the treatment of the American
+Indians by white settlers.
+
+5. How should the natives of Africa be treated in the opening up of
+Africa to civilization?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+LEARNING TO BE FARMERS
+
+
+The wandering Hebrew shepherds were not savages nor barbarians. In
+many ways Abraham and his friends were cultured, civilized people; but
+their civilization was of a different kind from that of the settled
+farmers and villagers of Canaan. So when the Hebrews crossed the
+Jordan and gradually fought their way to the highland fields and
+villages where they were able to settle down and live as farmers and
+vineyard keepers instead of shepherds, they soon found that they had
+much to learn. The only teachers to whom they could turn were the
+Canaanites. Very soon, therefore, they made friends with their
+Canaanite neighbors.
+
+"Tell us how to plant wheat," the Hebrews said to them, for example;
+or, "Will you please show us how to prune these grape vines?" or,
+"Won't you give us a few lessons in driving oxen? We can't make these
+young steers pull."
+
+
+LEARNING TO RAISE AND USE CATTLE
+
+This lesson about the training and care of cattle was one of the first
+and most necessary parts of their new education. As shepherds they
+knew all about sheep and goats; and this knowledge was still valuable,
+for on many a Canaanite hillside goats could thrive where no other
+animal could live. But as farmers they must also raise cattle, not
+only because of the milk, and the beef, but because they needed the
+oxen to draw their carts and plows and harrows. Oxen and asses, not
+horses, were the work animals of the farmers of those days. Oxen
+were more powerful than asses. Horses were seldom seen at all. They
+were used chiefly in war by the great military emperors of Egypt and
+Assyria.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: EGYPTIAN PLOWING                                   |
+ | (Similar to Hebrew Method.)]                                      |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: EGYPTIANS THRESHING AND WINNOWING                  |
+ | (Hebrews used same methods.)]                                     |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: EGYPTIAN OR HEBREW THRESHING FLOOR]                |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Foundation  |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+=Driving an ox team.=--So we can imagine the young Canaanites of those
+days watching a Hebrew farmer taking his first lesson with a team of
+oxen. There was a wooden yoke to lay on their necks; there was the
+two-wheeled farm cart with its long tongue to be fastened to the yoke.
+There was the goad, a long pole with a sharp point, to stick into the
+animals' flanks if they should balk. And probably there were many
+useful tricks to be learned; for example, words like our "Gee" and
+"Haw" and "Whoa," to shout at the animals when it was necessary to
+turn to the left or the right or to stop altogether.
+
+Plowing was one of the most difficult of the tasks to be done with
+oxen. The furrows had to be run straight and true. And the plows were
+clumsy affairs--not like our shining steel plows to-day--just a long
+pole with a short diagonal crosspiece, sharpened at the lower end, or
+tipped with a small bronze share.
+
+
+CROPS OF ANCIENT CANAAN
+
+The Hebrews raised the same crops as the earlier Canaanites. The
+leading ones were wheat, barley, olives, grapes, and figs. The two
+grain crops were, of course, the most necessary to life. They were
+planted in the early spring, and harvested in the summer. The grain
+was sown broadcast, by hand, just as Jesus describes in his great
+parable of the sower.
+
+=Ancient agriculture.=--Harvesting and threshing were done almost
+entirely by hand. The grain was cut with sickles. Some of the old
+sickles have recently been found by investigators, buried deep in the
+mounds where ruined Canaanite cities lie hidden. Some of these sickles
+are of metal, and others are made of the jawbones of oxen or asses,
+with sharp flints driven into the tooth sockets. After the grain was
+cut it was tied in bundles and carried to the threshing floor, which
+was usually a wide, level space of hard ground or rock. Oxen were
+driven back and forth across the grain on the floor, drawing a heavy
+weight, until all or nearly all the kernels were shaken or crushed out
+of the heads. It usually took several days to thresh all the grain
+from an average-sized field. Then the straw was raked away, and the
+grain was left mixed with chaff and dust. The next windy day the
+winnowers, with large "fans," or wooden shovels, came and tossed the
+mingled chaff and dust and grain in the wind. The kernels of wheat
+fell back and the chaff and dust were blown away. Last of all, the
+good clean grain was gathered in baskets and bags, and hauled to the
+farmer's house, or to the granary, which was a round brick building
+standing beside or behind his house.
+
+
+VINEYARDS AND OLIVES
+
+Another new experience of the Hebrews in Canaan was the culture of
+grapevines. The vineyards were often on hillsides, especially those
+facing the south, and hence warmed by the early spring sunshine. The
+soil on these hillsides had to be terraced so that the rain would not
+wash it away. The vines had to be planted, trained on trellises, and
+pruned. At the time of the grape harvest many of the grapes,
+especially of the sweeter varieties, were set aside for raisins. They
+were spread out on sheets in the hot sunshine until they were dry and
+wrinkled. Then they were packed away in jars, where they settled into
+delicious cakes. Figs were dried and packed in the same way.
+
+=The manufacture of wine.=--Many of the grapes were used for wine. The
+juice of these was trodden out in wine-presses. These were large
+hollows several feet square, cut in the solid rock on the hillside.
+There were always two of them, one lower than the other, with
+connecting passages. The bunches of grapes were piled in great heaps
+in the higher of the two, and then it was great fun for the boys and
+girls and youths and maidens to jump barefooted and barelegged among
+the purple clusters, and trample them until the foaming red juice ran
+down into the lower of the stone chambers, where it was taken up with
+gourd dippers and poured into skins. The youngsters would come home
+with their legs and shirts all stained and spotted red.
+
+=Olive orchards.=--Almost every Canaanite farm had a few olive trees
+or a small olive orchard. The olives were prized for the oil which was
+squeezed from them. This oil was used as we use butter, with bread and
+in cooking. It was also burned in lamps. In fact, it was their chief
+fuel for lighting purposes.
+
+The olive press was a large stone with a hollow in the top. From the
+bottom of the hollow, a hole was drilled through to the outside of the
+stone. Across the hollow swung a wooden beam, one end riveted to a
+tree or another stone, and the other end carrying weights. The ripe
+olives were shaken from the trees, and basket full after basket full
+poured into the hollow stone. Then the weighted beam would be laid
+across the top, with flat stones under it, fitting down into the
+hollow over the olives. The oil, trickling out below, was strained and
+stored in jars.
+
+
+HARD WORK AND BRIGHT HOPES
+
+Most of these different kinds of crops called for an immense amount of
+hard work and drudgery. Think of the weariness of the reapers,
+swinging their sickles in the wheat or barley all day long under the
+hot Syrian sun. Think of the winnowers, tossing the grain into the
+wind. Think of the aching backs of the plower and the sower. Of course
+there were happy hours, also. It was great fun to ride home behind the
+oxen, on a cart packed full and pressed down with golden sheaves. The
+time of treading out the grapes was a festival of laughter,
+love-making, and song. And in the rainy season, after a year of
+plentiful harvests, when the granaries and cellars were well stored,
+there must have been many happy days of quiet rest and play in Hebrew
+homes.
+
+But most of all, what cheered them on was the hope of better days to
+come, when their children at least, or their children's children,
+would not have to toil quite so hard or so long each day, and when the
+danger of famine and starvation would not loom up quite so grimly as
+in the old days in the desert when one summer of drought might mean
+death for all. Here in Canaan, they thought, we will surely be happy
+by and by.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Explain the following Scripture passages, in the light of the
+customs described in this chapter: Isaiah 63. 2; Deuteronomy 25. 4;
+Matthew 3. 12.
+
+2. Psalm 23. 1 draws a great lesson about God from the experiences of
+shepherd life. What lesson about God is drawn from farm life in Isaiah
+5. 1-7?
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN REAPING]                               |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE HOES]                                    |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE SICKLE]                                  |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE OR HEBREW PLOWSHARES]                    |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+VILLAGE LIFE IN CANAAN
+
+
+The farmers of ancient Canaan all lived in villages. No farmer would
+have dreamed of building an isolated house for his family on his own
+field out of sight of his nearest neighbor as our American farmers do.
+The danger from robbers would have been too great. Instead of that,
+the Hebrew farmer lived in the nearest village or town. Early in the
+morning he went out to his field, and in the evening returned to his
+home inside the protecting village walls.
+
+These ancient villages would have seemed to us most unattractive
+places. The houses were crowded close together. The streets were only
+narrow crooked lanes between the houses. In the rear room of each
+house were the stalls of the family ox and ass. The brays of the ass
+were the alarm clock in the early morning. There was no drainage.
+Garbage was thrown into the street. There were smells of all
+varieties. One is not surprised by the frequent stories of pestilences
+in the Old-Testament history.
+
+=Compensations of village life.=--It seems strange that people who
+were accustomed to life in the open desert should have ever brought
+themselves to settle down in these dirty, ill-smelling places. Surely,
+at first they must often have been homesick for the clean, pure air of
+the plains. On the other hand, probably most of them were willing to
+put up with the disagreeable odors and the dirty streets for the sake
+of being near other people. The desert was lonesome. In the village
+there was always something going on, something to hear and see, gossip
+of weddings and courtships and quarrels. Even to-day we find it hard
+to persuade those who are accustomed to the city to live in the
+country. Even though their city home may be a dark tenement in the
+slums, yet they enjoy being in a crowd of their fellow men. The
+country seems lonesome.
+
+
+LESSONS IN HOUSE BUILDING
+
+This village and town life, like the work on the farm, was a new
+school for the Hebrew shepherds, and set many an interesting problem
+for them to solve. They had to learn to build and repair houses. They
+were most often built of rough stones set in mud. The mud, when dry,
+became fairly hard, but not like mortar or cement. It was always easy
+for a thief "to dig through and steal," as Jesus so graphically
+described. Even though no thief came the dried mud was always
+crumbling, leaving holes between the stones through which snakes or
+lizards could crawl. In such a house, if a man should lean against the
+wall, it might easily happen that a serpent would bite him, as the
+prophet Amos suggests.[3]
+
+=Primitive Homes.=--The floor of the average poor man's house was
+simply the hard ground. The flat roof was made of poles thatched with
+straw or brushwood and covered over with mud or clay. There was seldom
+more than one room. Often there were no windows; even in the palaces
+of kings there were in those days no windows of glass. In one corner
+of the room there was a fireplace where the family cooking was done.
+There was no chimney, however, and the smoke had to go out through the
+open door. The door itself was generally fastened to a post, the
+lower end of which turned in a hollow socket in a heavy stone. When
+the family went away from home the door was locked with a huge wooden
+key, which was carried, not in the pocket, like our keys, but over the
+shoulder. Such keys had this advantage, at any rate, over ours. You
+could not very well lose them and you did not need a key ring.
+
+=Houses of the well-to-do.=--Rich men's houses were, of course, more
+substantially and comfortably built. Real mortar made of lime was used
+in the walls. There were several rooms, including perhaps a cool
+"summer house" on the roof, making a kind of second story. One climbed
+up to these upper rooms by a ladder on the outside. The roof was
+solidly built and surrounded by a railing, so that on a hot summer
+evening the family could sit there and enjoy the cool evening breeze.
+There were windows also, covered with wooden lattice work, which let
+in light and air.
+
+No doubt every Hebrew father hoped that some day he or his children
+might live in such a house. Some of them learned the builder's trade
+and were able to lay stones in mortar and to use saws and axes and
+nails and other tools for woodwork. Yet when David built his palace,
+he had to send to Tyre for skilled masons. Evidently in his day the
+Hebrews had not progressed very far in the manual training department
+of their new school.
+
+
+OTHER VILLAGE ARTS AND CRAFTS
+
+Many trades, which with us are carried on in separate shops, were a
+part of the household work among the ancient Hebrews: for example,
+spinning and weaving and the making of baskets, of shoes, girdles,
+and other articles of skin or leather. We will study some of these
+household activities in another chapter. Other trades, however, even
+in the early days, were carried on by special artisans who worked at
+nothing else.
+
+=Trained artisans.=--Metal workers, for example, formed a special
+trade. Among the excavations of ancient Canaanite cities have been
+found the ruins of a blacksmith shop. When the Hebrews entered Canaan
+no one had as yet learned the art of working in iron and steel by
+means of a forge with a forced draft. All tools and metal implements,
+such as plowshares, knives, axes, saws, and so on, were made of
+bronze, which consists of copper mixed and hardened with tin. The
+blacksmith melted the metals in a very simple and rough furnace of
+clay heated by charcoal. The bronze itself, although harder than
+copper, could be worked into the desired shape by hammering and
+filing, without the use of heat. We who are used to our sharp, finely
+tempered tools of steel would certainly have found these clumsy bronze
+affairs most unsatisfactory.
+
+=The pottery shop.=--Another very ancient trade is that of the potter.
+This worker did not need much of a shop; only an oven in which to fire
+his products, a pile of clay, and a wheel. This consisted of a frame,
+in which turned an upright rod on which were two flat wooden wheels,
+one small at about the height of the worker's hands as he sat in front
+of it, and the other larger, to be turned by the feet. A heap of clay
+was placed on the upper wheel, which was then turned by the revolving
+rod, the potter's feet all the time kicking on the larger wheel below.
+The whirling mass was shaped by the fingers, according to the plan in
+the worker's mind.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: MODERN ARAB WOMAN SPINNING]                        |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: ANCIENT HEBREW DOOR KEY]                           |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: HEBREW NEEDLES OF BONE]                            |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: SMALLER KEY]                                       |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+How quickly a modern boy would have contrived a different arrangement,
+with a belt and foot-tread like the one on our mother's sewing
+machine! But for those days the ancient wheel was ingenious. Many
+different kinds of Hebrew pottery are found in the excavations: large
+jars, small cups, lamps of all sizes and shapes and even babies'
+rattles.
+
+=How Hebrew boys learned a trade.=--The youngsters from the desert had
+never seen any of these interesting crafts, except perhaps now and
+then when their fathers had brought them with the wool to market. But
+now, on a rainy day when there was no work to be done in the field or
+at home, the boys would go down the street to the blacksmith shop, or
+to the shed where the old Canaanite potter worked his clay. One of the
+older boys would say, "Let me see if I can make something," and if the
+old man was good-natured he would let him try and perhaps would teach
+him some of the tricks of the trade. By and by the boy would hire out
+as a potter's helper and in a year or two would set up a little
+pottery of his own.
+
+So there came to be Hebrew as well as Canaanite potters and
+blacksmiths. They were proud of their skill in these arts, and as a
+nation they never were foolish enough to look down on them or to
+despise those who practiced them. All work was looked on as honorable.
+The apostle Paul was a tent-maker. Jesus was a carpenter. And in this
+respect for honest and useful work we may see another reason why the
+people of Israel have played so remarkable a part in the life of
+humanity.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Explain the following Scripture passage in the light of the
+customs described in this chapter. Isaiah 22. 22; Deuteronomy 22. 8.
+
+2. In earlier chapters we have seen how the Hebrew leaders drew
+lessons about God from shepherd life (Psalm 23), and from farm life
+(Isaiah 5. 1-7). What lesson did a great prophet learn in regard to
+God from the experiences of an artisan? (Jeremiah 18. 1-6.)
+
+3. Why was it necessary to build a tower in a Canaanite vineyard, as
+suggested in Isaiah 5. 2 and Mark 12. 1?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Amos 5. 19.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+KEEPING HOUSE INSTEAD OF CAMPING OUT
+
+
+Let us suppose that we have been invited to spend a day or two as
+guests in the home of one of these Hebrew families who have just
+settled in Canaan and begun to learn the new arts and customs of the
+land. It is one of the poorer homes. We have slept through the night
+on our mat spread on the dirt floor of the house, with our cloak over
+us to keep us warm. Before daylight we are awakened by the older
+people moving about in the dim light of the burning wick in the saucer
+of oil. Soon everyone is awake. The mats are rolled up and piled in a
+corner. In the early dawn one of the older girls takes a jar on her
+shoulder and goes for water to the spring, which is outside the
+village half way up the hill.
+
+If we are expecting to be called to breakfast, we shall be
+disappointed. There is no regular morning meal, although everyone
+helps himself to a bite or two of bread from the bread basket in the
+corner of the room. By and by father and the older boys take the ox
+and the ass from the shed just back of the one-roomed house (we are
+lucky if the animals were not kept all night in the house itself) and
+start for the field. And the women also have their day's work before
+them in the house. First of all, there is a bag of wheat to be ground
+into flour.
+
+
+HOME TASKS
+
+In the desert the wheat or barley, when they had it, was merely
+pounded between two rough stones such as could be picked up anywhere.
+The flour, or meal, which was made in this way was not very good.
+Here in Canaan, each house had a rude stone hand-mill for grinding
+grain. It consists of a large lower stone with a saddle-shaped hollow
+on the upper side. The upper stone is somewhat like a large, very
+heavy rolling pin. The grain is poured into the hollow and the upper
+stone is rolled back and forth over it while the flour gradually sifts
+out over the sides on to the cloth which is spread on the ground
+underneath the mill. It is a monotonous task, and very often two
+people work it together, one feeding in the grain and the other
+turning the millstone. This is pleasanter, as each worker is "company"
+for the other. Perhaps our hostess will let us roll the millstone for
+her while she feeds in the grain and sweeps up the flour from the
+cloth on the ground.
+
+=Baking bread.=--After the wheat is ground into flour there is bread
+to be baked. On the plains they do not use much yeast-bread, for this
+requires an oven for baking and one cannot carry heavy ovens from camp
+to camp. But in Canaan each family has its oven. It is made of baked
+clay and looks like a section of tiling standing on end, about two
+feet high, the clay being about an inch and a half thick. There is a
+cover of the same material. Sometimes the fire is made on the inside
+and the loaves of dough plastered on the outside. More often the
+loaves are placed on a baking tray, let down on the inside of the
+oven, and the fire built all around and over it outside.
+
+All sorts of fuel are used. Wood is the best, of course, but in that
+land wood has always been scarce. In the times of the Hebrews, as
+to-day, dried manure, straw, and all sorts of refuse were used. Jesus
+speaks of the grass of the field, "which to-day is, and to-morrow is
+cast into the oven."
+
+=Baking day.=--To-day, while we are visiting, our Hebrew hostess is
+kneading some dough. She "set it" last night, pouring in some liquid
+yeast. By and by it is ready for baking. A tray of small loaves about
+the size of biscuits is placed in the oven, and a great pile of dried
+grass placed around the sides and over the cover. By and by the fire
+is lighted from some coals on the hearth; and in a few moments the
+house is filled with smoke. We all go out on the street until the oven
+is heated and the smoke has escaped.
+
+
+WEAVING WOOL AND FLAX
+
+Another household utensil which Hebrew women learned to use in Canaan
+was the heavy loom. This consisted of a low horizontal frame, with a
+device for separating the odd and even threads of the "warp" while a
+shuttle was drawn through them, carrying the yarn for the "web," or
+the cross threads. With this kind of a loom it was possible to weave
+much more rapidly than when one had to insert each thread, plaiting it
+over and under, by hand. There is, no doubt, one of these looms in the
+house where we are visiting.
+
+=Making linen out of flax.=--In the desert almost all garments were
+made of wool, especially in the case of the poorer tribes, who could
+not afford to buy linen. In those days the use of cotton was probably
+unknown. Now everyone knows how it feels to wear a flannel shirt on a
+hot summer day. And one of the things which drew the Hebrew shepherds
+to Canaan was the hope of raising a little flax on each farm, and
+spinning it into cool, soft linen garments for the hot summers. So it
+may be that a part of the work in the house we are visiting to-day is
+to soak some of the stalks of flax in water, or to beat out from them
+the long fibers, or to spin and weave some of these fibers into
+cloth.
+
+
+PREPARING DINNER
+
+Of course the main business of each day in the household then, as now,
+is to get dinner ready. There is a light lunch about noon for the
+women and children. To-day perhaps we have some bread and milk. But as
+the sun begins to sink in the west we know that before long the men
+folks will come home hungry. We must have dinner ready for them when
+they come. If it has been a good year, even poor families in Canaan
+can have a fairly good meal. There is no meat, unless perhaps a lamb
+or a kid has been killed, especially for us as guests. But there is
+the curdled milk, and bread with olive oil and other things which
+shepherd folk never have. Here's a steaming kettle of beans or
+lentils. How good they smell! And here are some bunches of raisins and
+figs, just as sweet and luscious as those which we buy in the fruit
+stores in America. The figs in our stores may have come from that very
+country of which we are studying.
+
+=Serving the meal.=--Soon the father and the boys come home. The ox
+and the ass are fed in the stall behind the house. The mother spreads
+a cloth on the ground and on it places a small stand about eight
+inches high, which is their only dining-room table. The pot of beans
+is placed on this stand, and the bread and other good things on the
+cloth around it. We all sit down on the ground and begin to eat.
+
+Fingers were made before forks. For the beans, however, we need a
+spoon, and here are some shells from the beach that serve admirably
+for that purpose; and we all dip into the same dish on the little
+stand. By and by, when all is gone but the liquid, we sop that up
+with pieces of bread. When every crumb is picked up and eaten, we all
+lift our eyes to heaven, and the father repeats a prayer of
+thanksgiving to God. Dinner is over. The sun has set. It is growing
+dark, and soon it will be time to go to bed.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Explain the following Scripture passages in the light of this
+chapter:
+
+Judges 16. 13; Deuteronomy 24. 6; Matthew 24. 41.
+
+2. Read Proverbs 31. 10-31 for another picture of daily life in an
+ancient Hebrew home. What is said in this chapter about the making of
+beautiful as well as necessary things, and about the doing of kindly
+deeds?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN
+
+
+On the whole, Canaan was a good school for the Hebrew shepherds. New
+arts to learn, new crops to raise, new kinds of cloth to spin and
+weave, new kinds of food to cook--all this helped to make life more
+interesting and worth while. But there were other lessons which
+newcomers might learn which were not so wholesome.
+
+Wine drinking, for example, was a habit which the wisest of the
+Hebrews always feared. The wine which they made in those foaming
+wine-presses was, of course, mild and harmless as compared with the
+distilled liquors of modern times. But even Canaanitish wine could
+deaden men's consciences and make them more like beasts than men.
+"Wine is a mocker," said one of the sages who wrote the book of
+Proverbs, "strong drink is raging, and he that is deceived thereby is
+not wise."
+
+
+IDOLATRY IN CANAAN
+
+Canaanite religion was to a large extent an unwholesome influence. The
+Canaanites worshiped many gods. Each village had its Baal, or lord,
+who had to be bribed with burnt offerings of fat beasts, or (as they
+thought) the soil would lose its fertility and the crops would fail.
+
+=Dangerous examples.=--These sacrificial rites were carried on in the
+shrines or "high places," one of which stood outside almost every
+village and town. They often were accompanied by dances and other
+performances which were licentious and degrading. The Hebrews, of
+course, were pledged to worship only Jehovah. Moreover, during these
+first centuries in Canaan they were very poor, and had little time for
+the carousals which went on at the "high places" in the name of
+religion. Corruption usually comes with wealth and luxury. Poverty and
+hardship are often useful safeguards. But from the beginning these
+heathen rites were a temptation and a snare in the lives of the
+Hebrews.
+
+
+CANAANITE BELIEFS ABOUT THE WORLD
+
+There are certain questions which awaken the curiosity of everyone.
+How did this wonderful world come into existence? How is it that you
+and I happen to be here? How did things in general come to be as they
+are? Some of these difficult questions are to-day being partly
+answered by careful students of science. In ancient times there was
+little or no science, yet in every country there were certain answers
+to these questions handed down from generation to generation and
+generally accepted as true.
+
+=Idolatrous stories of creation.=--When the Hebrews entered Canaan
+they naturally were inclined to accept the ideas of the earlier
+inhabitants of that country, whose knowledge in regard to many matters
+was far beyond theirs. The Canaanites in turn had got most of their
+ideas from the leading civilized nations of that day, the Egyptians,
+and especially the Babylonians. From these sources had come certain
+stories about the beginning of things.
+
+Babylonian traders in the inns of Canaan used to tell a story of the
+creation of the world, and also about a great flood which the gods
+once sent upon the earth.
+
+=How the Hebrews retold these stories.=--The best men among the
+Hebrews knew that these stories were imperfect. Their forty years
+training in the wilderness had made them wise in the ways of God. This
+wisdom enabled them to sift the wheat from the chaff. They retold
+these stories, omitting the error, and retaining the truth. Thus we
+come to have the wonderful stories of the creation and the flood as we
+find them in the Bible.
+
+=How these stories were handed down.=--In the earliest days of the
+settlement in Canaan very few Hebrews, if any, could read or write.
+Possibly Moses understood the Egyptian picture-writing, or the
+wedge-shaped letters of the Babylonian clay tablets. The Hebrew
+letters, however, in which the books of the Old Testament afterward
+were written, were invented by the Phoenicians, and the Phoenicians
+passed on their invention to the old Canaanites.
+
+After the Hebrews came it was not long before ambitious Hebrew boys
+and girls were staring at the queer marks in the inscriptions which
+they found here and there, over the gates of Canaanite cities or on
+the tombs of Canaanite kings. Gradually they learned to spell out
+syllables, words, and sentences, and then they learned to copy these
+same letters, so that in time the Hebrews were making inscriptions and
+books of their own. Among the earliest of these books was one
+containing the stories of the creation and the flood. They had been
+handed down by word of mouth from one generation to another, until
+finally they were gathered into a book. This became a part of the book
+of Genesis in our Bible.
+
+
+NEW TENDENCIES TO SELFISHNESS IN CANAAN
+
+Another and different kind of temptation which the Hebrews met in
+Canaan was the tendency to forget their own tribal brothers as they
+scattered here and there and settled down, each family with its own
+little farm. There were some, naturally, who were more successful as
+farmers than others. And those who were unfortunate were not always
+the lazy or thriftless. Sickness or accident or some pest which
+attacked the grain or the cattle would sometimes wipe out the entire
+property of one of those little peasant farmers and leave him and his
+children face to face with starvation and death. Now, in the old days
+in the desert, as long as the tribe had a crust of bread or a drop of
+water, the weakest and poorest could count on a share. But here in
+Canaan the poor, the widow, the orphan, did not always feel so surely
+the sheltering arms of kindness and brotherhood.
+
+=Humane laws enacted.=--Yet the spirit of Moses still lived and made
+its power felt. Certain laws gradually came to be accepted during this
+period when the Hebrews were learning to be farmers which were a
+special protection to the poor and helpless, just as the great leader
+would have chosen. We can imagine how these laws were first proclaimed
+by the chiefs of the clans and the elders of the villages wherever
+there were men who remembered how, years before, the whole nation had
+been poor and oppressed and enslaved. Here are some examples:
+
+    ="Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If
+    thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I
+    will surely hear their cry."=
+
+    ="If thou lend money to any of my people with thee that is
+    poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall
+    ye lay upon him usury. If thou at all take thy neighbor's
+    garment to pledge, thou shalt restore it unto him before the
+    sun goeth down; for that is his only covering, it is his
+    garment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? And it shall
+    come to pass when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I
+    am gracious."=
+
+    ="Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbor, nor rob him; the wages
+    of a hired servant shall not abide with thee all night until
+    the morning."=
+
+There is one law which illustrates especially well how the best men
+among the Hebrews tried to meet the new temptations of Canaan in the
+spirit of kindness and justice which they had learned from Moses.
+
+    ="When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not
+    wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou
+    gather the gleaning of the harvest. And thou shalt not glean
+    thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of
+    thy vineyard. Thou shalt leave them for the poor and the
+    stranger."=
+
+It was already the custom among the Canaanites to leave the grain in
+the corners of the fields uncut, and not to pick up the scattered
+gleanings, which fell from the arms of the harvesters, and to leave on
+the ground the fruit that fell of itself from the vines and fruit
+trees. With the Canaanites this was on account of a superstition; the
+gleanings and the grain in the corners of the fields were for the
+Baal, or god of the field. If they were taken he would be angry. The
+Hebrews kept the old custom, but with a different aim--not to keep the
+Baal in good humor, but to make life a bit easier for the poor and
+unfortunate among their own neighbors. It was in accordance with this
+law that Ruth, although a foreigner, was allowed to glean after the
+reapers in the barley field of Boaz of Bethlehem, and thus obtained
+food to keep herself and her mother alive. So among these lowly people
+were being laid the foundations of that greater and better
+civilization for which Moses had prepared the way, and of which
+Abraham had dimly dreamed.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. What parts of this chapter illustrate the special talent of the
+Hebrews for discovering good in things partly evil?
+
+2. How could this talent be used in our American life? For example, in
+the matter of moving picture shows?
+
+3. Read Leviticus 19. This chapter contains laws which were made
+during the period of the settlement in Canaan. Which of them seem to
+you to be in the spirit of Moses?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+LESSONS IN COOPERATION
+
+
+After the Hebrews began to be settled in Canaan, not only were they
+tempted to neglect the poor and unfortunate; they also failed to stand
+together against their enemies. Each tribe and clan seemed to care
+only for its own safety.
+
+The men of Judah in the south, the Ephraimites in central Canaan, and
+the Naphtalites in the northern hills, and Gilead and Reuben across
+the Jordan--each group tried to fight its own battles. Often they
+fought with each other. There was a bloody war between the men of
+Gilead, and their cousins, the Ephraimites on the opposite side of the
+Jordan. The Ephraimites crossed the river and attacked the Gileadites,
+and were badly beaten; when they tried to get back home again, they
+found the Gileadites holding the fords of the river. Each fugitive was
+asked, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he said "No," they would order him
+to say "Shibboleth" (a Hebrew word). And if he said "Sibboleth" (the
+Gileadite dialect), and did not pronounce it exactly right, then they
+would kill him.
+
+This was only one example of the many wars between the tribes. There
+was no central government to keep the peace. This age in their history
+is sometimes called the period of the Judges. But these judges did not
+rule over the whole land. Most of them were only petty champions, each
+of whom helped his own tribe to defend itself against its enemies.
+
+
+SISERA AND DEBORAH
+
+In this disorganized state they would have been an easy prey to any
+strong enemy; and before long, an enemy came. In the fertile plain of
+Esdraelon, which cuts across Palestine just north of the central
+highland, there was a group of Canaanite towns which the Hebrews had
+not as yet conquered. These were organized into a kingdom by a warrior
+named Sisera, who at once began to reconquer those parts of the
+country which now belonged to the Hebrews. It was a bitter time for
+the tribes that were settled around the Plain of Esdraelon. Those
+villages which were perched on the mountain sides held out for a time,
+but the inhabitants dared not go down into the valleys. They could not
+take their grain to the market. The valley roads were all deserted
+except for bands of Sisera's troopers. Each year Sisera grew stronger,
+and more of the Hebrews submitted to him. In a little while there
+would have been none left to call themselves Hebrews and to keep up
+the noble traditions and hopes of Moses and Abraham.
+
+=A wise and patriotic woman.=--If only the more distant tribes had
+come to the help of those that bordered on Sisera's kingdom, if only
+all the Hebrews had stood together, they could easily have defended
+themselves. But no one seemed to see this, or had faith enough to try
+to accomplish anything in this way "until Deborah arose." One day
+there came up through the sheepfolds of the Reubenites this remarkable
+woman whose name was Deborah. "Come to the help of your brethren
+across the river," she said, as she told her story. "Come to the help
+of Jehovah, by helping his people."
+
+At first the Reubenites seemed greatly moved by Deborah's words.
+Certainly, they would come, whenever Deborah and her friends were
+ready. So the brave woman was encouraged and went to other tribes, to
+all of them one after another. But not everywhere was she successful.
+Many said: "Why should we go up and help your people? Suppose Sisera
+wins, he will come and punish us. We will stay here where we are
+safe." Even the Reubenites, whose first resolves had been so brave,
+changed their minds, and "stayed in their sheepfolds, listening to the
+pipings of the flocks."
+
+=The battle by the Kishon River.=--After many weeks of tramping,
+however, Deborah was able to get a few of the tribes really organized.
+Ephraim, Benjamin, Naphtali, Zebulun, Issachar, and some smaller clans
+all promised to send troops and did send them. An army was gathered
+under a captain named Barak. The Canaanites under Sisera came out to
+fight them, and the battle took place on the flat fields of the Plain
+of Esdraelon. It looked like a victory for Sisera. He had charioteers
+as well as foot soldiers--troops of men in heavy war carts, from the
+axles of which extended sharp blades like scythes.
+
+But Deborah had called to her people in the name of Jehovah. And
+Jehovah seemed, indeed, to be on their side. We may well believe that
+it was the spirit of God that put it into the hearts of Deborah and
+Barak to delay the battle until there should be a rainy day. When the
+clash finally came there was a heavy downpour. The flat plain became a
+swamp. The war chariots sank into the mud and were helpless. The
+Canaanites became panic-stricken and fled in terror. Many of them were
+drowned in the attempt to cross the Kishon, which is usually a shallow
+creek, but on that day was a deep and swiftly flowing torrent.
+Sisera, himself in flight, was killed by a woman in whose tent he
+tried to take refuge. The battle was won for Jehovah's people. The
+Hebrews could still be free and independent, and they had learned a
+valuable lesson--the necessity for cooperation.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read chapters 4 and 5 of the book of Judges.
+
+2. With the help of a map showing the location of the various tribes
+in Canaan, find the ones which were most in danger from Sisera, whose
+kingdom was in the Plain of Esdraelon.
+
+3. With the help of the map, explain why it was not easy for Deborah
+to persuade the Reubenites and the Gileadites to enter this war.
+
+4. What arguments would you have used to persuade them?
+
+5. Could you use the same arguments in favor of the League of Nations
+and our membership in it, as a nation?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT
+
+
+After Sisera was conquered, the Hebrew tribes which had combined
+against him immediately fell apart, relapsing into the same state of
+disunion and disorganization as before. And very soon other enemies
+took advantage of it to plunder and kill.
+
+=The Midianites.=--Among the most harassing of these enemies for a
+time were the Midianites, who lived as nomads, roaming over the
+deserts just as the Hebrews themselves had done except that they made
+their living chiefly by robbery. Every spring just after the wheat and
+barley had begun to sprout, covering all the fields with a carpet of
+the brightest green, bands of these nomads would drive their flocks
+across the Jordan and turn them loose on the young grain while the men
+stood guard in armed bands. In the summer and fall after what was left
+of the grain had been harvested and beaten out on the threshing floors
+they would come again and steal the threshed grain, taking it away in
+bags on the backs of camels.
+
+Sometimes the Hebrews would keep the wheat and barley unthreshed with
+the sheaves piled up in grain ricks and would thresh it out, a little
+at a time, in the low, half-concealed wine presses, which were dug in
+the rock. No one's life was safe where these marauders were in the
+habit of coming, and no family could be sure of food to carry them
+over the winter months.
+
+
+GIDEON, THE ABIEZRITE
+
+In the tribe of Manasseh there was a little clan called Abiezer. One
+night a band of Midianites came on camels and raided the villages of
+this clan, killing some of the people, and carrying away whatever they
+found of value. They then fled back across the Jordan River to the
+desert before enough Hebrew men could get together to resist them.
+
+=The counter-raid.=--In the heart of one young man, the brother of
+some who were killed, God planted a sudden determination to put a stop
+to these murders and robberies. He called for volunteers to pursue
+this band across the river, and when some three hundred had responded
+they set out in hot haste, down the hillsides into the plain of the
+Jordan, up the slopes on the eastern side, and out onto the plains
+where the Midianites supposed they were safe. It was hard to track
+them over these solitary wastes; and they had their swift camels. But
+Gideon trailed them; stealing up at night, he surprised them. They
+fled in terror leaving much spoil, and for many years the Hebrews were
+not molested by this particular tribe of desert wanderers.
+
+=The kingdom of Gideon.=--Out of this experience the Hebrews in
+central Canaan gained another lesson in cooperation; and they made up
+their minds to profit by it. Here is a man, they said to themselves,
+who can lead us to victory against our foes. If we all agree to do as
+he says we can all stand together, each for all and all for each. So
+they came to Gideon, and asked him to be their ruler. He refused at
+first, but it is clear that he finally accepted and really became king
+over some of the tribes and clans of central Canaan. One of his sons,
+a certain Abimelech, seized the kingdom after Gideon's death and
+proved to be a selfish tyrant. He was killed by his enemies, and that
+was the end of the dynasty of Gideon. "How can we have unity and
+cooperation under a strong leader," the Hebrews asked themselves, "and
+not at the same time be in danger of slavery under a ruthless tyrant?"
+That was a difficult question.
+
+
+THE PHILISTINES
+
+Meanwhile a national enemy far more dangerous than any previously
+mentioned had begun to threaten their existence as a people. About the
+same time that the Hebrews settled in Canaan there had landed from
+ships on the southwestern coast some newcomers of another race,
+perhaps akin to the Greeks; they were called Philistines. They quickly
+became a rich and powerful nation, holding the coast towns of Gath,
+Askelon, Gaza, Ashdod, and Ekron. They were ambitious to become
+masters of the whole land of Canaan. Their soldiers, in well-trained
+bands, built forts and established garrisons here and there, in the
+leading towns, and compelled the Hebrews to pay tribute.
+
+At the same time they did not protect the country from other enemies.
+For example, there were the Amalekites on the southern border, who
+were robber-nomads, just like the Midianites on the east. There were
+the people of Ammon, a town east of the Jordan. From these and other
+petty enemies the Hebrews suffered much, and the Philistines did
+nothing to help them. All they cared about was the tribute. "O for a
+leader like Deborah and Gideon!" the Hebrews once again began to cry.
+
+=The messengers with the raw meat.=--One day messengers came hurrying
+through the towns and villages of central Canaan bearing sacks or
+baskets of raw beef chopped into small squares. To the leading men of
+each village, they handed a piece of the bloody flesh with this
+message: "This piece of ox flesh is from Saul, the son of Kish, of
+Gibeah in Benjamin. As this flesh is cut into small pieces so will the
+flesh of the men of your village be chopped up if you do not come at
+once, armed for battle, to help our brothers in Jabesh in Gilead east
+of the Jordan, which is besieged by the Ammonites." "Who is Saul?"
+many asked, and few could answer. Some perhaps were able to explain
+that he was a brave and able young farmer, a friend of a prophet named
+Samuel, in the tribe of Benjamin. But it was the raw meat that
+persuaded them to obey the summons. Here is a real leader, they said,
+a man who means what he says. And two or three nights later an army of
+Hebrews, with Saul in the lead, came dashing in among the tents of the
+Ammonites who were besieging Jabesh and put them to flight. The
+Gileadites were saved; and for years to come they remembered Saul with
+gratitude.
+
+
+THE KINGDOM OF SAUL
+
+Shortly after this victory there was a great gathering of the Hebrews
+of Benjamin and some of the neighboring tribes and Saul was elected as
+king. Would he also become a tyrant? Would he make their children
+slaves and take the best of their flocks and herds and wheat and oil,
+leaving them in poverty while he lived in luxury? There were many who
+thought so. The prophet Samuel, himself Saul's friend, warned them of
+the danger although he helped to make Saul king. But the danger from
+the Philistines was so great and they had suffered so much from their
+enemies on account of their lack of unity that they were willing to
+take the risk of organizing themselves as a kingdom under Saul.
+
+=The first victories over the Philistines.=--Soon there came a summons
+to battle. The first encounter turned out well for the Hebrews. One of
+Saul's sons named Jonathan was especially brave and skillful as a
+leader, and was much loved by the people. Other victories followed.
+More and more clans and tribes flocked to Saul's standard. A young man
+from Judah, named David, became famous as a captain and was made the
+chief commander of Saul's armies. The Philistines were not driven out
+from their forts, but they were held in check and the sky seemed
+brighter. There was a chance now for victory and peace. Everyone was
+hopeful for better things. When the soldiers came back from fighting
+the Philistines, the women would go to meet them with songs and
+dances. One of their songs ran like this:
+
+    ="Saul has slain his thousands
+    And David his ten thousands."=
+
+=Saul's jealousy.=--When Saul heard of this couplet he was jealous.
+"They gave more glory to David than to me," he thought. "One of these
+days, they will make him king in my place." His son Jonathan did not
+share his fears. He loved and trusted David. But from that time
+forward Saul hated David, and finally drove him out as a fugitive.
+Instead of fighting the Philistines he spent all his strength chasing
+David from town to town and from cave to cave. Of course the
+Philistines took advantage of this quarrel between the two ablest men
+among their foes and came back with a strong counter attack. Saul's
+own life was forfeited and that of Jonathan also in a disastrous
+defeat. The Philistines were masters once more. Saul's kingdom also
+had proved for the most part a failure.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Locate on the map the Midianites and the Philistines.
+
+2. Why would it have been a calamity for the world if the Philistines
+had conquered the Hebrews?
+
+3. Study carefully the parable of Jotham (Judges 9. 8-15). In the
+light of this shrewd illustration, why is it hard to get _good_ men to
+run for political office, even to-day?
+
+4. If we should undertake to have an _entirely different kind_ of
+mayors, aldermen, governors, Presidents and so on, perhaps really good
+men would accept these offices. What kind?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE NATION UNDER DAVID AND SOLOMON
+
+
+After Saul's death his son Ishbaal fled across the Jordan where the
+Philistines were not yet in control, and was accepted as king by the
+East Jordan tribes. More and more, however, the hearts of all the
+Hebrews turned toward the young David, who, under the Philistines, to
+whom he paid tribute, now became king over the tribe of Judah in the
+south.
+
+
+DAVID AS A LEADER
+
+David was a born leader. Physically he was an athlete. With his sling
+he could throw stones straight, as Goliath, the Philistine giant,
+discovered to his sorrow. He had the gift of winning friends, even
+among those who might naturally have been his enemies, for example
+Jonathan and Michal, son and daughter of Saul, and Achish, the
+Philistine king. His followers with few exceptions were deeply devoted
+to him, risking their lives, sometimes, to gratify his slightest wish.
+He was wise in his dealings with men, knowing when to be stern and
+when to be lenient.
+
+=The nation united under David.=--For a few years there was more or
+less of war between the followers of David and the followers of
+Ishbaal. David did not like this war. He had no heart for fighting his
+own kinsmen, the people of the north. His method was to win them over
+without conquest. His chief difficulty in this was to restrain his own
+followers. Fighting always leads to more fighting. A bitter personal
+feud flamed up between Joab, David's chief general, and Abner, who
+was the real power in the other kingdom. David did not dare to punish
+Joab, yet he plainly showed his displeasure. When finally Ishbaal
+himself was murdered in his sleep, David put the assassins to death.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE CHISEL (BRONZE)]                         |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE FILE]                                    |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: BRONZE HAMMERHEAD]                                 |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: VERY ANCIENT CANAANITE FLINT, FOR MAKING STONE     |
+ | KNIVES]                                                           |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: BONE AWL HANDLE]                                   |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: A FISH-HOOK]                                       |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE WHETSTONES]                              |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE OR HEBREW NAILS]                         |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+By this policy he pleased the people, both in the north and in the
+south. And after seven years of division the leading men of all the
+tribes came to David at Hebron, in Judah his headquarters, and made
+him king over the entire Hebrew nation, north, east, and south.
+
+=David's victories.=--Soon after this David declared his independence
+of the Philistines. War broke out and for a time it went against the
+Hebrews. But in the end they were able to rally their resources under
+their new leader, and inflicted two crushing defeats on their old
+enemies, which made them instead of the Philistines once and for all
+the masters of Canaan.
+
+From the Philistines David turned against the other petty enemies who
+had so often taken advantage of the weakness of the Hebrews. Already,
+while a vassal of the Philistines, he had thoroughly punished the
+Amalekites, in the deserts of the south; and now he gave the Ammonites
+and Moabites and other enemies on the east a taste of Hebrew warfare.
+Before many years passed they had all learned their lesson, and there
+was peace in Canaan.
+
+
+PROGRESS IN CIVILIZATION
+
+During all those years when the Hebrews were fighting for existence
+life in their little villages and towns had been anything but
+pleasant. Not only was there constant danger from human enemies and
+from famine, there was also a lack of the comforts and pleasures of
+civilized life. There were no books to read, no musical instruments
+to play on, and few opportunities for any kind of recreation. They had
+only coarse, rough clothing to wear, and coarse, ugly furniture for
+their homes.
+
+=The development of commerce.=--Now that peace and security had been
+achieved, David did much to make the daily lives of all his people
+happier. One way was through commerce. The great merchants of those
+days were the Phoenicians, the people of Tyre and Sidon, whose daring
+sailors steered their ships into every harbor on the Mediterranean Sea
+and even out upon the stormy Atlantic and up to the tin mines of
+Britain.
+
+Very wisely David made a treaty of friendship with Hiram, king of
+Tyre, and as a result Phoenician artists and artisans came down to
+Jerusalem and helped to beautify the city. Phoenician wares also began
+to be peddled in all the towns of Canaan: fine linen fabrics, such as
+the Hebrews did not know how to weave; beautiful jars and cups, such
+as Hebrew potters had not learned to fashion; jewels of silver and
+gold and precious stones, over which Hebrew maidens hovered with
+longing eyes. Soon one could see that the homes in these little towns
+of Judah and Benjamin and Ephraim were cleaner and better furnished,
+and the people were more neatly dressed. Commerce of the right kind is
+always a blessing.
+
+=Education.=--Better than fine clothes and jewels and furniture are
+the things that feed the mind. David himself was a skillful harpist,
+and no doubt this helped to make harp-playing popular. On one occasion
+the ark of Jehovah, the sacred chest which had been carried in the
+desert, was brought up to Jerusalem. It was accompanied by a chorus of
+singers and a band of instrumental players, "with harps and lyres and
+cymbals." In the worship of the temple at Jerusalem music from this
+time on had an important place. And all up and down the land here and
+there, one could hear in humble homes the tinkle of harp strings; and
+boys and girls who liked music could learn to play.
+
+If not in David's time, then very soon after, the first Hebrew history
+books were written. These contained stories which had been handed down
+from generation to generation; stories about the beginnings of things;
+stories about Abraham and Moses and other early heroes.
+
+There were, of course, only a few copies of written rolls of stories,
+as compared with the millions of volumes which are constantly being
+turned out to-day by our great printing presses. But these few were
+much read, and those who read committed many of the stories to memory
+so that they could repeat them again and again in their home circles.
+In this way life grew more rich in pleasure and interest for many a
+Hebrew youth and maiden.
+
+
+DAVID'S SUCCESSOR, SOLOMON
+
+After David's death his son Solomon was made King. He also encouraged
+commerce, both by land and by sea. His ships sailed down the Red Sea
+to India, and back, and over the Mediterranean Sea to Spain. They
+brought back, according to the author of First Kings, "gold and
+silver, ivory, and apes and peacocks."
+
+=Solomon's folly.=--Alas for the happiness of the people, Solomon was
+a different kind of a man from his father. Like so many other sons of
+good kings he was spoiled by too much luxury and too little
+discipline. He had the reputation of being very wise, but in reality
+he was very foolish. His chief ambition was to have splendid palaces,
+and to make a great display of riches, like the kings of Egypt and
+Babylonia.
+
+In order to build these fine buildings and have great numbers of
+servants it was necessary to extort the money from his people by heavy
+taxes. They were also compelled to labor without pay in his quarries
+and elsewhere. So with all the increased wealth in the land and with
+all the seeming progress in civilization, the common people were
+really wretched--almost worse off than in the old days of disunion and
+confusion and fear.
+
+=The disruption of the kingdom.=--As a result of this cruelty and
+oppression, the northern tribes, after Solomon's death, rebelled
+against his son Rehoboam, who seemed likely to become even more of an
+oppressor than his father. The tribe of Judah in the south remained
+faithful to the family of David. So the nation was split in two parts,
+which were never reunited.
+
+If only all kings could be like David! He indeed was far from perfect;
+he was guilty of some very wicked crimes. But on the whole he came
+nearer than most kings to the best ideals of the Hebrews for their
+rulers: a man "from among thy brethren: ... neither shall he greatly
+multiply to himself silver and gold, ... that his heart be not lifted
+up above his brethren, ... and that he turn not aside from the
+commandment, to the right hand nor to the left."
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up Joab in a good Bible dictionary, and see how much David
+owed to this extraordinary man for his success.
+
+2. Read 2 Samuel 23. 13-17, as a good example of the devotion and
+loyalty David was able to awaken in his followers.
+
+3. With which did David do the more for the happiness of his people,
+with the sword, or with his harp?
+
+4. Why did Solomon grow up with selfish and extravagant habits and
+ideals? Read 2 Samuel 11, 12 for an explanation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE WARS OF KINGS AND THE PEOPLE'S SORROWS
+
+
+The Hebrews did not greatly better themselves by the division of the
+kingdom and by the revolt of the northern tribes from Solomon's son.
+There were still kings both in the north and in the south. And all
+they cared about was glory and luxury for themselves.
+
+
+AN ERA OF PERPETUAL WAR
+
+In order to get glory and wealth these kings made war on neighboring
+countries. For a long time there was war between the northern and
+southern Hebrews. There were long and very bloody wars between the
+Hebrews and the Arameans, whose kings ruled in Damascus. There were
+many wars between rival candidates for the throne among the Hebrews
+themselves. Especially was this true in the northern kingdom where,
+during the two hundred years of its separate existence, there was a
+revolution on an average every thirty or forty years. In such cases
+all the members of the existing royal family would be assassinated and
+all persons who defended them or were suspected of sympathizing with
+them were put to death. After the murder of hundreds and sometimes
+thousands the new upstart conqueror would proclaim himself king.
+
+=Famine and pestilence.=--These constant wars not only brought wounds
+and death and sorrow to many homes, they also kept all the people poor
+and increased the deadliness of the other great historic curses of
+humanity, such as famine. The money and labor spent on war might have
+been used in terracing hillsides and fertilizing fields, so that in
+times of drought the crops would not wholly fail and starvation and
+death might thus have been pushed back a little further from the
+cottages of the poor.
+
+Wars also bring disease. In those days, epidemics of disease were
+frightfully common at best. They knew nothing about sanitation. Even
+in the most important cities, sewage and garbage were dumped in the
+streets. Leprosy was an everyday sight. Rats and other vermin swarmed
+everywhere except in the palaces of the rich; and when the soldiers
+came home from war, bringing with them typhus fever or cholera or the
+plague, the people died like flies.
+
+=The dynasty of Omri.=--Among the best of the successors of David and
+Solomon were Omri and his son Ahab, in the north. They made peace with
+the southern Hebrews in Judah and renewed the old alliance with Tyre.
+They built as their capital the beautiful city of Samaria. Ahab
+especially was greatly admired as a brave warrior and as a king who on
+the whole tried to serve his country well. Yet even Ahab was a despot.
+His own glory and wealth were to him of chief importance, and his
+people's needs and sufferings secondary.
+
+
+BACK TO THE DESERT
+
+Under these conditions it was natural that many people should look
+back with longing to the olden times, especially to the time of Moses,
+before the people had left the desert and settled in Canaan. All these
+newfangled ways, they said, are evil. They have brought us only
+trouble. Especially bad is the worship of these Baals instead of
+Jehovah, the God of our fathers. No doubt Jehovah is jealous and angry
+and has brought war and famine and pestilence upon us for just this
+reason. Many, indeed, who did not altogether object to the civilized
+customs of Canaan were uneasy in their minds because of the worship of
+the Baals. When Ahab made his alliance with the king of Tyre he had
+built, in Samaria, shrines to the Baal of Tyre. This was in accordance
+with the religious ideas of those days. When two countries made an
+alliance there was supposed to be an alliance between their gods. But
+the Hebrews had made a special covenant to worship no other gods but
+only Jehovah. So there were many who were opposed to the worship of
+the Baals.
+
+=The Rechabites.=--One Hebrew clan known as the Rechabites, actually
+became nomads again and did all they could to persuade others to do
+the same. They gave up their houses and lived in tents. They pledged
+themselves to drink no wine or strong drink, and they were
+enthusiastically devoted to the worship of Jehovah only. Naturally
+they hated Ahab for bringing in the worship of the foreign gods of
+Tyre. They did much to cause the overthrow of the dynasty of Ahab in
+favor of a general named Jehu, who was pledged to drive out the
+Phoenicians and their gods.
+
+
+THE PROPHETS
+
+There were also certain specially religious people, called prophets,
+some of whom saw the evils which were ruining the happiness of the
+people and fought against them. In the earliest days, these men who
+were called prophets were much like the soothsayers of other nations.
+They were supposed to have a special power of speaking revelations
+from God. Sometimes they went into trances. Sometimes they caused
+exciting music to be played in their hearing. Most of them spoke what
+seemed likely to be popular with their hearers. For example, once when
+Ahab wanted to start a new war against Damascus, he sent for prophets
+and some four hundred were brought to him. "Shall we go to war or
+not?" he asked. All but one, knowing that Ahab's heart was set on the
+matter, answered, "Jehovah says, go to war, and he will give you
+victory."
+
+=Micaiah.=--The true prophets, however, were men of truth who
+worshiped Jehovah and waited for his teaching. Such a man was Micaiah.
+When Ahab asked him, "What do you say?" his answer was like the
+others. But his manner was so sarcastic that the king kept asking him.
+He finally declared that Jehovah had revealed to him that the proposed
+expedition would end in disaster. For this Micaiah was thrown into a
+dungeon. But his prophecy came true. The Hebrews were defeated, and
+Ahab himself was killed.
+
+=Elijah.=--The greatest leader in this movement back to the desert and
+to Moses, was a prophet named Elijah. He was like the Rechabites in
+his aims. He was dressed like a desert nomad and his whole life was
+given to the cause of the old desert religion. He had a very clear
+understanding as to what was best in that religion. It was not merely
+because Jehovah might be jealous of other gods that Elijah fought
+against Baal worship, but also because Jehovah really stood for
+justice and righteousness as against the unrighteousness of the Baals.
+Elijah was not only a champion of Jehovah; he was a champion of the
+poor against their oppressors, a champion of the common people against
+the despotism of kings, as is so vividly and thrillingly illustrated
+in the story of Naboth's vineyard.
+
+=Elisha.=--Elijah's work was carried on after his death by another
+prophet named Elisha. He also seems to have been a friend of the
+common people. Many traditions of his helpfulness to them are recorded
+in the second book of Kings. But his chief aim was to overthrow the
+dynasty of Ahab. It was Elisha who, with the help of the Rechabites,
+launched the revolution of Jehu.
+
+=A disappointing outcome.=--Jehu was really no better than Ahab. He
+was willing to drive out the priests of the Phoenician Baal, and he
+offered many sacrifices to Jehovah. But his chief ambition was for
+himself. Instead of bringing peace and justice to the poor, suffering,
+war-scourged people, his reign was horrible for its bloody killings.
+No one was safe from his murderous jealousy.
+
+There was needed something more than a mere revival of the "old time
+religion" of Moses. There had to be purer and nobler ideas of Jehovah,
+a better knowledge of the real nature of Jehovah and of what Jehovah
+demanded of men, and of the kind of worship which would please him.
+Till then there was little hope of happiness for men and women and
+little children.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read 2 Kings 6. 24-30 for a vivid picture of the sufferings of the
+common people of Israel, as a result of constant wars.
+
+2. Read 1 Kings 20. 1-34 for some light on Ahab as an able king. What
+qualities are displayed by him, in the narrative of this chapter?
+
+3. Look up Rechabites in the Bible dictionary for a more complete
+narrative about them.
+
+4. Is war more of a curse to the common people to-day than in ancient
+times, or less? Why? What classes still suffer most from war, the rich
+and powerful or the common people?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A NEW KIND OF RELIGION
+
+
+Among all ancient peoples, including the Hebrews, a large part of
+religion was the burning of animal sacrifices on altars. Whenever a
+sheep or lamb or kid was slaughtered for food the blood was poured out
+on the sacred rock, or altar, in which the god was supposed to dwell.
+Afterward the fat was burned on the same rock. It was believed that
+the god in the rock drank the blood and smelled the fragrant odor of
+the burning fat.
+
+=Whole burnt offerings.=--On special occasions, such as a wedding, the
+birth of a child, the beginning of a war, or the celebration of a
+victory, the entire animal was burned on the altar. The first-born
+calves, or lambs, or kids of any animal mother were also regarded by
+the Hebrews as sacred and were burned as whole burnt-offerings to
+Jehovah.
+
+
+SACRIFICES IN CANAAN
+
+After the Hebrews settled in Canaan they adopted other kinds of
+sacrifices. Grains and fruits were offered as well as animals. Wine
+and oil were poured on the altars. Baked cakes were burned. One sheaf
+from every harvest field of wheat or barley was supposed to be waved
+back and forth before an altar of Jehovah. This was a sort of
+religious drama by which Jehovah was thought to receive a share of the
+grain.
+
+=Religious feasts.=--In Canaan also the Hebrews observed certain
+religious festivals, which corresponded to the early, middle, and late
+harvest seasons; they were called respectively, the "Feast of
+Unleavened Bread," the "Feast of Weeks" (or Pentecost), and the "Feast
+of Tabernacles." All of these were joyous occasions somewhat like our
+Thanksgiving Day, and at all of them each family offered to Jehovah
+some part of the products of their fields.
+
+
+PRIESTS AND THEIR DUTIES
+
+The altars where these sacrifices were offered were in charge of a
+special class of men, the priests. In the early days, in Canaan, there
+was a little temple, or shrine, outside each town and village with one
+or more priests in charge of it. Sometimes wealthy men had private
+shrines and hired their own special priests. It was the business of
+these men to know just how a sacrifice must be offered in order that
+it might be pleasing to Jehovah. There were certain rules and
+regulations handed down from generation to generation. There were
+certain kinds of animals which could not be offered. It was important
+to know just what parts of each victim were to be burned. The various
+meal offerings had to be prepared in a certain way. Yeast could not be
+used, nor honey.
+
+=The increasing number of priestly rules.=--As the centuries passed
+more and more rules were worked out by the priests. This was their
+whole business in life, and, of course, they made much of it. More and
+more different kinds of offerings were invented; for example, incense,
+which was the burning of herbs which made a sweet-smelling smoke. The
+books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, especially Leviticus, are
+largely composed of these rules for sacrifices. The animals had to be
+washed, killed, and skinned, according to certain directions. The
+blood had to be disposed of according to strict rule--some placed in
+the horns of the altar, some on the priests, some on the worshiper
+bringing the offering, and so on. And the more there were of these
+rules, the more priests there had to be to remember and enforce them.
+Thus it came about that all too frequently sacrifices came to be the
+chief thing in religion. Religion meant sacrifices and not much else.
+
+
+THE REIGN OF JEROBOAM II
+
+Jeroboam II, who reigned over the northern kingdom of Israel for some
+forty years, beginning about B.C. 790, was in some ways like Ahab, who
+lived a century earlier. He was victorious in war and brought peace
+and prosperity to his nation. These years of peace brought little
+happiness, however, to the common people of Israel. They had already
+become so poverty-stricken during the long years of petty but cruel
+wars, under the earlier kings since Solomon, that they were
+practically at the mercy of a small class of nobles and wealthy
+merchants who grew richer all the time while the people grew poorer.
+
+=Evil days.=--These rich men used false weights and measures. In
+buying wheat from the farmer they would use heavy weights, and get
+more than was right; in selling to the poor of the cities they used
+light weights, and so gave out little for much. They corrupted courts
+and judges, so that no poor man could get his rights. They charged
+enormous rates of interest for the money which the poor were obliged
+to borrow. All over the land the mass of the people were living in
+hovels and selling their sons and their daughters into slavery to keep
+from starving, while the rich men and their families lived in luxury
+and in wasteful, extravagant display.
+
+None of this shameful injustice seemed to weigh heavily on any man's
+conscience, for they were careful to keep up all the sacrifices to
+Jehovah. And was not Jehovah showing his pleasure by granting them
+these long years of peace and prosperity? They forgot the old lessons
+of Jehovah's justice which the nation had learned from Moses. Even
+Moses, according to their traditions, had given laws about sacrifices
+and offerings. These seemed to be the essential thing. So they kept on
+offering up costly sacrifices at their great temples and shrines, with
+stately and gorgeous ceremonials, and thought to themselves, "How
+pleased Jehovah must be!"
+
+
+AMOS
+
+There came one day to King Jeroboam's own shrine at Bethel a man in
+the garb of a shepherd and speaking in the name of Jehovah, like the
+prophets. But what strange words are these which he utters?
+
+    ="I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight
+    in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer me your ...
+    meal-offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard
+    the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from me the
+    noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy
+    viols. But let judgment roll down as waters, and
+    righteousness as a mighty stream."=
+
+What this shepherd prophet was proclaiming was a religion in which
+burnt-offerings, or sacrificial ceremonies of any kind had little or
+no place, but which expressed itself in justice and righteousness
+toward one's fellow men. What Jehovah wants is not sacrifices at all,
+he said, but to stop cheating the poor: to throw away your false
+balances, and set free the slave.
+
+=Amos' dire forebodings.=--In many addresses, as reported in the book
+which bears his name, with bitter and thrilling eloquence Amos tried
+to drive home this great message to the hearts of his fellow
+countrymen. He warned them that unless they heeded, disaster would
+come to the nation. For as surely as Jehovah demanded justice, so
+surely would he punish injustice. Terrible are his pictures of the
+calamities with which the guilty Israelites would be visited. Nor did
+he appeal wholly to fear. There is now and then a pleading note in
+Amos. Honest and burning indignation and threats are indeed most
+common in the pages of his book; yet listen to this:
+
+    ="Thus the Lord God showed me: and, behold, he formed locusts
+    in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth ...
+    and ... when they made an end of eating the grass of the
+    land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee: how
+    shall Jacob stand? for he is small."=
+
+There speaks the shepherd pleading for his little sheep--"How can
+Jacob stand, for he is small?"
+
+
+THE RESULTS OF AMOS' WORDS
+
+Amos' mission to the northern kingdom seemed to be a failure. He had
+come up from his sheep tending, in his home in Tekoa, in Judah,
+because he felt burning within him a message for his people. But he
+soon went home. The chief priest at Bethel drove him out. And
+apparently the people did not care. No doubt even the poor people in
+whose cause Amos had so eloquently spoken were shocked by his words.
+"What, are not our sacrifices holy and pleasing to Jehovah? Would he
+have us stop offering up burnt-offerings? That is almost blasphemous."
+
+=Bread upon the waters.=--Yet there were some who listened. And the
+proof is found in the existence of the book of Amos in the Bible. Some
+one cared enough to preserve and copy the first manuscript of Amos'
+sermons and to make still other copies. Another proof is the fact that
+within that same century three other supremely great religious
+teachers caught up his great idea of a new kind of religion and
+repeated it in new and wonderfully convincing ways. Of these other
+prophets we shall learn more in the chapters to follow.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Glance over the book of Leviticus, also the latter part of Exodus,
+and the book of Numbers. How important did the Hebrews evidently
+consider the carrying out of sacrifices?
+
+2. Look up in the Bible dictionary Jeroboam II and Amos. Find out more
+(1) about the times in which Amos lived and (2) about his personal
+history and character.
+
+3. Read as much as you can in the book of Amos: chapters 1 and 2 and 7
+and 8 are most important for our study.
+
+4. Are religious ceremonies ever substituted to-day for the religion
+of justice and right? If so, explain how.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A NEW KIND OF WORSHIP
+
+
+Amos seemed to think of sacrifices and burnt-offerings as mere
+formalities which distracted men's attention from the thing of real
+importance, namely, just and righteous dealing between man and his
+neighbor.
+
+There was another prophet who lived a little later than Amos. Perhaps
+as a youth he heard Amos speak. This was Hosea, who probably came from
+Gilead east of the Jordan. This man saw even deeper into the truth of
+religion than Amos, and his messages wonderfully completed and rounded
+out the great true words which the older prophet had so bravely
+spoken.
+
+
+THE GOOD AND THE EVIL IN THE OLD SACRIFICES
+
+The old religion of sacrifices was by no means wholly evil. When a
+family in those days sat down to a happy feast and gave some of
+everything in gratitude to Jehovah, God really was there, not in the
+sacred rock, but in their love for one another and for him. When they
+poured out libations and burned fat on the altar, God was indeed glad,
+not because of the smell of the smoke or because he enjoyed drinking
+the blood, but because his children were grateful.
+
+=Wrong ideas of God.=--On the other hand, these sacrifices, when
+misunderstood, tended to give people a wrong idea of God as one who
+was greedy for food and gifts. There was the greater danger of this
+wrong idea because of the character of the priests who were supposed
+to represent Jehovah. Many of them were very greedy indeed. The story
+of Eli's sons in 1 Samuel 2. 12-17 is an illustration. The priests
+were supposed to receive for their own personal support a part of all
+the gifts which were brought to the shrine. But the sons of Eli made
+it the rule that whatever came out of the meat kettle on a
+three-pronged fork stuck in by the priest should belong to him. Very
+often, it is plain, the priest got everything. And naturally the
+people came to think of Jehovah as like his priests--as a Being who
+cared only for gifts.
+
+=A worship based on greed.=--The worship of such a god, or of a god
+who was thought of as being of such a character, would, of course, be
+very far from the love and adoration which we Christians are taught to
+offer to our Father, and was really far from the kind of worship
+advocated by devout Hebrews. It would be a sort of bargain-hunting
+worship: the people to bring gifts of the fat of lambs and libations
+of blood and wine, and the god to give them in return good crops of
+wheat and oil, and figs and grapes, and an abundance of silver and
+gold. If Jehovah would give these things, then worship Jehovah. If
+other gods and Baals would give more than Jehovah, worship them.
+
+In short these sacrifices, as Hosea saw, were a kind of worship, and
+no worship is a mere formality, but is a vast influence for good or
+for ill. Because of these wrong ideas the sacrifices had come to be
+more and more an influence for evil. And you cannot have a righteous
+and happy human family in which men are just and kind to each other,
+without a true worship, growing out of a true idea of God.
+
+
+HOSEA'S EXPERIENCE AND MESSAGE
+
+This young man from the lovely, grassy plains and valleys east of the
+Jordan had had an experience which taught him much. He was by nature
+a man with a loving heart. He loved his native land with a burning
+patriotism. By and by there came to him, as to most young men, the
+experience of a passionate love for a beautiful girl. All the deep
+wells of tenderness in Hosea's loving heart were hers, and she became
+his wife. For a time they were happy; then little by little it became
+clear that this woman, Gomer, did not really love him as he loved her.
+She only wanted his money. And when she could get nothing more from
+him, or could get more elsewhere, she left him. She was like the woman
+in Kipling's poem, "The Vampire," "she did not care." It hurt Hosea.
+For a time the light of the whole world seemed darkened for him.
+
+=Reading a meaning in sorrow.=--Then like a flash the thought came to
+him; Jehovah is just like me in this regard. He wants love, not gifts,
+from his people, a love which on their part does not fawn for other
+gifts from him in return, like the cupboard love of kittens purring
+for cream. He loves his people Israel just as I love Gomer. That is
+why he asks us not to worship these other gods, the Baals; not because
+he is jealous but because he is good. He wants us to learn a different
+kind of worship altogether--a worship which is not prompted by greed
+but by love.
+
+With his whole soul aflame, Hosea poured these new ideas into the ears
+of his countrymen.
+
+    ="I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God
+    more than burnt-offerings."=
+
+These great words were quoted by Jesus himself in one of his
+controversies with the Pharisees; they are one of the supreme
+utterances of human literature.
+
+
+STORM CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON
+
+This new insight of Hosea helped him to interpret hopefully the
+troubles which at that time were coming thick and fast upon his
+people. The forebodings of Amos were coming true. The kings of Assyria
+were ambitious. They had set their hearts upon a great Assyrian empire
+extending from Babylonia to Egypt. For more than two centuries each
+new king at Nineveh sent his conquering armies farther west and south.
+Already in Hosea's day they had more than once invaded northern Israel
+and had taken away tribute. And the leaders of the nation did not have
+the brains or the character to avoid a conflict with this merciless
+and resistless foe.
+
+=Jehovah loving even in punishment.=--Amos had declared that Jehovah
+would surely punish his people because of injustices and wrongs which
+they were inflicting on one another. Hosea agreed, but was able to go
+further, and say that in these very punishments which were now coming
+Jehovah was still showing not his anger but his love. He was punishing
+in the hope that his children might learn their lesson and return to
+him in love.
+
+=Fall of the northern kingdom.=--The nation, as a nation, seemed to
+pay no attention to Hosea's pleadings. They went right on living their
+selfish and greedy and lustful lives. And in B.C. 721, as a result of
+provoking the Assyrian king Shalmanezer to a fresh attack, the land
+was again invaded and the city of Samaria was captured and sacked.
+Thousands of the northern Hebrews were carried away as exiles to other
+lands and never returned. The northern kingdom was a failure. The
+religious ideals and dreams of Abraham and Moses had not yet been
+fulfilled. The common people had had little opportunity for happiness
+or growth in knowledge and goodness. But the southern kingdom still
+existed. And many a disciple of Hosea, some of them carrying scraps
+and rolls of papyrus on which his sayings were copied, fled to
+Jerusalem, and there sowed the seed of his great message of a God not
+only of justice but of love.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read Genesis 4. 1-15. In this story of Cain and Abel is there any
+hint as to how even an animal sacrifice might be true worship?
+
+2. Look up Hosea in the Bible dictionary, or in the chapter on Hosea
+in Cornill, The Prophets of Israel. Find out more about the times in
+which he lived and about his personal history.
+
+3. Read what you can in the book of Hosea. This is rather hard
+reading, but chapter 11 is not very difficult, and gives a good idea
+of Hosea's style.
+
+4. Which kind of prayer counts more for the happiness of all, prayers
+for personal advantage, or prayers of love and gratitude to our
+Father?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+JEHOVAH NOT A GOD OF ANGER
+
+
+There are other mischievous delusions in regard to the character of
+God which we find among all races in the early childhood of their
+history. They think of their gods not only as greedy but as having
+arbitrary whims and as often falling into fits of unreasonable and
+cruel anger.
+
+
+EARLY IDEAS OF JEHOVAH'S ANGER
+
+The Hebrews were not entirely free from these wrong notions in their
+conception of Jehovah. Even in the story of Moses, for example, there
+is a strange narrative which declares Jehovah "met Moses and sought to
+kill him" and would have killed him except for the ceremonial rite
+which his wife Zipporah performed.
+
+=The story of the ark and the men of Beth-shemesh.=--Similar to this
+is the story of the wanderings of the ark in 1 Samuel. This ark, or
+sacred chest, was regarded as the special dwelling place of Jehovah in
+Canaan, his permanent home supposedly being on Mount Sinai in the
+desert. When the ark was captured by the Philistines a plague broke
+out in every city where it was taken. Finally it was placed on a new
+cart with specially chosen cows to draw it, and sent back toward the
+Hebrew border, and in the course of time it reached the Hebrew town of
+Beth-shemesh. And we read that "the sons of Jeconiah did not rejoice
+with the men of Beth-shemesh, when they looked upon the ark of
+Jehovah. So he smote among them seventy men."[4]
+
+
+SACRIFICE AS A PROPITIATION OF JEHOVAH'S ANGER
+
+It was just this idea of Jehovah as subject to fits of anger which
+prompted many of the old sacrifices. It was not merely that Jehovah
+was greedy and could be bribed with gifts to grant favors, but also
+that he was dangerous when his anger was stirred and hence sacrifices
+were necessary to placate him.
+
+=Human sacrifices.=--An even darker side of the picture is the
+existence of human sacrifices, even among the Hebrews, in the worship
+of Jehovah. The pathetic story of Jephthah's daughter is the most
+conspicuous example. This warrior had promised to sacrifice to Jehovah
+whatever first came out to meet him, if he returned victorious from
+war. Alas, it was his own daughter! Yet he did not dare to break his
+vow.
+
+The story of Abraham and Isaac also proves that human sacrifices to
+Jehovah were not unknown among the Hebrews. In this story Jehovah
+finally intervenes and allows Abraham to offer up a ram instead of his
+own son. Yet the story implies the belief that Jehovah might demand of
+a father that he kill his own son and burn him on the altar. These
+ideas continued to be believed even down to the time of the prophets,
+Amos and Hosea, and the others about whom we will study.
+
+
+THE PROPHET MICAH AND HIS MESSAGE
+
+About the time that Hosea was finishing his sad career in the north
+another prophet in the south caught up the torch of light and truth.
+His name was Micah. Like the two great men who preceded him, Amos and
+Hosea, his heart was stirred to pity and indignation by the sufferings
+of the poor and by the injustice and luxury of the rich and powerful.
+In plain, direct, and fiery sentences he denounced these evils and
+foretold punishment. Because of these things, he declared that
+"Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the
+high places of a forest."
+
+Micah was especially bitter against those men who made religion their
+business, and used it as a means of oppressing the poor--the prophets
+who proclaim a holy war against those "who put not into their mouths,"
+that is, those who do not give them presents. The priests, Micah says,
+"teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money."
+
+=Micah's great message.=--It was, of course, the existence of
+superstitious fears in the hearts of the people which made it possible
+for the priests and the prophets to join with the rich nobles in
+preying upon them. "You give me this or that," "You pay for this
+sacrifice or that--or I will call down a curse upon you from Jehovah.
+Some dreadful misfortune will come upon you." With one great word
+whose throbbing pity for the ignorance and sorrow of men makes it
+another of the great utterances of human lips, Micah cut the root of
+all such fears. Jehovah is not that kind of a God, he declared. He
+does not break out in fits of rage. He does not need to be wheedled
+back into good nature by costly offerings, perhaps even sometimes with
+the costliest offerings of all, one's own darling children.
+
+    ="Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself
+    before the high God? Shall I come before him with
+    burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be
+    pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of
+    rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my
+    transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
+    He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the
+    Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy,
+    and to walk humbly with thy God."=
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read the stories of the ark, referred to in this chapter. See 1
+Samuel 6. 1-20; 2 Samuel 6. 1-9. What other way of explaining the
+death of Uzzah and of the men of Beth-shemesh occurs to you rather
+than the anger of Jehovah? In the case of the men of Beth-shemesh,
+read 1 Samuel 5, with its clear indications of contagious disease.
+
+2. How has modern science helped to free mankind from the curse of
+superstitious fear?
+
+3. Look up Micah in the Bible dictionary, and find out all you can
+about his personal history and work.
+
+4. Are superstition and wrong religious beliefs ever made the means of
+extortion and oppression to-day? If so, how?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] 1 Samuel 6. 19, Greek version.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ONE JUST GOD OVER ALL PEOPLES
+
+
+THE MESSAGE OF ISAIAH
+
+The destruction of the northern kingdom by the Assyrian armies struck
+fear into the hearts of the Hebrews of the sister kingdom in the
+south. No one had dreamed that such a thing could happen. It is true
+that from the beginning of the terrible onrush the Assyrians had been
+almost irresistible. All the little nations which had stood in their
+way had been swallowed up.
+
+Moreover, the prophets Amos and Hosea had plainly foretold that some
+such calamity would be sent upon Israelites by Jehovah on account of
+their sins. But very few of them believed these brave and lonely
+preachers of the truth. "Jehovah send the Assyrians against us! Why,
+that is absurd! We are Jehovah's people, and he is our God. What has
+he to do with the Assyrians? He may chastise us, but not by sending
+foreign armies to conquer us. What would he do if we should be
+conquered? He would have no nation to worship him." So they reasoned.
+
+=Jehovah too weak to protect his people?=--When, therefore, the
+Assyrians actually did come marching down from the Euphrates River,
+hundreds of thousands of them with their gleaming armor and their
+multitudes of horses and war chariots, and besieged and captured the
+city of Samaria, leaving it a ruin, most of the Hebrews, north and
+south, were sick with fear and bewilderment. For them with their false
+notions it could mean only one thing: their God, Jehovah, was too
+weak to protect his people against the greater gods of Nineveh. The
+Assyrians said to them:
+
+    ="Let not thy God in whom thou trusteth deceive thee, saying,
+    Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of
+    Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria
+    have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt
+    thou be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered
+    them?... Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad,
+    and the king of the city of Sepharvaim?"=
+
+Against such taunts as these, the Hebrews, with their mistaken
+beliefs, could bring no answer.
+
+
+THE CRAZE FOR FOREIGN GODS
+
+With their faith in Jehovah breaking down there was a great running
+here and there after other gods and strange religions. Instead of
+trusting quietly in Jehovah's watchful care many of the people
+resorted in their terror to soothsayers and mediums, to "wizards that
+chirp and mutter." Jerusalem seems to have become almost as full of
+them as the cities of the Philistines, which had always been famous
+for their fortune-tellers and necromancers.
+
+=Alliances with other nations.=--Another favorite way of seeking
+safety was through alliances with other nations and their gods.
+According to the beliefs of that age, when two nations made an
+alliance their gods were included in it. To overcome the Assyrians,
+therefore, it would be necessary to make an alliance with some other
+nation whose gods were very powerful. So the people of Jehovah began
+to "strike hands with the children of foreigners." The rulers of
+Jerusalem set about making coalitions with the other nations of
+western Asia: with the Philistines, the Syrians, the Phoenicians and,
+most of all, the Egyptians. The gods of the Egyptians were supposed to
+be especially strong: Osiris and Isis were the chief of their deities
+and they were believed to be the gods of the underworld--of Sheol, or
+Hades, the abode of the dead. So when these poor ignorant politicians
+at Jerusalem finally did succeed in arranging for an alliance with the
+crafty and deceitful kings of Egypt they said to themselves: "Now we
+are safe. The Assyrians cannot hurt us now. We have made a covenant
+with Death."
+
+
+THE STATESMAN-PROPHET, ISAIAH
+
+It is good to know that among many misguided people there was one man
+whose wisdom of the eternal Truth of God made him stand like a rock
+while the multitudes ran to and fro in uncertainty and despair. Isaiah
+was a comrade and co-worker in spirit with the prophets named in the
+three preceding chapters, Amos, Hosea, and Micah. It is by no means
+impossible that he had listened to the sermons of Hosea, and thus
+caught from him his inspiration. He must certainly have known Micah
+personally, for they lived and preached only some twenty-five or
+thirty miles apart--Micah in the village of Moresheth and Isaiah in
+the city of Jerusalem.
+
+=Isaiah's message.=--Isaiah's special message to his people was that
+all the nations of the world are subject to the righteous rule of the
+God of righteousness, Jehovah; and that the attempt to find safety for
+their nation by alliances with other nations and their gods was
+utterly foolish and wrong. Undoubtedly this message found a response
+in the hearts of those who remained faithful to Jehovah.
+
+This message grew out of the great and splendid ideas as to Jehovah's
+character which Amos and his successors had been working out: that he
+was a God of righteousness and love, not greedy for burnt-offerings,
+not flaring up into fits of anger, and needing to be soothed and
+mollified by peace offerings; but a God who asks only for justice and
+fair-dealing among men, and for true love in response to his own.
+Isaiah repeated these great truths to his own people in Jerusalem in
+glowing words whose eloquence is unsurpassed. For example:
+
+    ="Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings
+    from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well;
+    seek judgment; relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless,
+    plead for the widow....=
+
+    ="I will turn my hand upon thee, and will thoroughly purge
+    away thy dross, and will take away all thy tin: and I will
+    restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at
+    the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called the city of
+    righteousness, the faithful city."=
+
+=Isaiah's originality.=--The prophets and leaders who came before
+Isaiah had not fully grasped the idea of a God of all nations instead
+of one. Amos and Hosea had only caught glimpses of it. Before their
+time, even the greatest of the leaders of Israel had thought of
+Jehovah as for the most part the God of Israel only. But now in the
+midst of the terror of cruel armies and ruined cities and smoking
+fields, when no one knew what to believe or where to look for comfort
+and protection, this great Isaiah was able to realize that Jehovah,
+the God of righteousness and justice and love, was _the God of all
+humanity_. There were no limits to his realm. All tribes and kingdoms
+and races were subject to his holy law. The Assyrians are but "the axe
+that he hews with." His providence rules over all. Whatever wicked men
+may say or do, his will is done in the end. His plans are brought to
+pass.
+
+=Isaiah's faith.=--With such a God as this in whom to trust, Isaiah
+was able to show himself to his countrymen as a wonderful example of
+the power of faith. When they were panic-stricken he was calm. "Thus
+saith the Lord God, ... In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in
+quietness and confidence shall be your strength." Do not rush off to
+other nations and other gods. They will fail you. Most likely they
+will selfishly betray you. Only do the will of the just God, who rules
+the nations, and quietly trust him. Do that and no evil can befall
+you. He is all-wise and all-powerful, and he is good.
+
+So at last, the religion of the one All-Father, which we call
+_monotheism_, was born in the mind and heart of a man, and began to be
+clearly proclaimed by human lips.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up "Isaiah" in the Bible dictionary.
+
+2. Read Isaiah 6. 1-8 for his own story of the experience which led
+him to be a prophet.
+
+3. What parts of this story in Isaiah 6. 1-8 express the idea of one
+great God of all nations? Look up "Monotheism" in the dictionary.
+
+4. Read chapter one or chapter five of the book of Isaiah for a good
+example of his eloquent preaching.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A REVISED LAW OF MOSES
+
+
+Amos and the great prophets who followed him met with the same fate as
+many other pioneers--only a few of their hearers heeded their words,
+or even understood them. But four great leaders in one century--Amos,
+Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah--could hardly fail to make some real
+impression on the minds and lives of their nation. Isaiah was perhaps
+the most influential, partly because the others before them had
+prepared the way and partly because he himself lived and preached to
+the people during a long period of time--more than forty years.
+
+=Isaiah's disciples.=--Another reason why Isaiah exerted so great an
+influence was that he organized little groups of his disciples into
+circles for study. These groups met together from time to time, and
+read aloud the sermons of Isaiah and the other prophets, and talked
+about how to apply them to their lives. We can see them seated in a
+circle in the evening on the floor of one of those little homes
+opening into a narrow Jerusalem street. There would be a candlestick
+in the center, or an upturned bushel measure, with a candle on top of
+it. The circle would be composed of men; but on the outside eagerly
+listening would be women and children. One of the men in the circle
+would be seated by the candle reading from a roll of papyrus on which
+were written the sermons of one of the prophets.
+
+
+THE EVIL DAYS OF MANASSEH'S REIGN
+
+It is well that these reading circles were started, for they kept
+alive the new truth of the reformer-prophets during the reign of a bad
+king, Manasseh. This man's father, Hezekiah, had favored the prophets.
+But Manasseh, who became king when Isaiah was an old man, was opposed
+to all these new ideas. Most of the people of Judah probably agreed
+with him. They still clung to the belief that the one sure way for a
+nation to be prosperous was to offer sacrifices to the most powerful
+gods. Now the kingdom of Judah, in spite of all their worship of
+Jehovah, was still subject to the empire of Assyria. Great sums had to
+be paid every year as tribute. "What fools those prophets are!" men
+said, as they talked together in the streets. "See how much stronger
+the Assyrian gods are than Jehovah!" "Last month I had to pay ten
+shekels for the tribute!" "If we want to prosper, we must worship the
+gods of Assyria."
+
+=Manasseh's persecution.=--Manasseh therefore proceeded to introduce
+the worship of the moon-god, and the sun-god, and other deities of
+Nineveh. He even set up altars to these divinities in the temple of
+Jehovah at Jerusalem. When the disciples of the prophets spoke against
+all this he had them seized and killed, until he had "filled Jerusalem
+with innocent blood." Many a good man who had listened to the reading
+of Isaiah by candlelight in one of those reading circles now had to
+hide himself in some closet or cistern from the soldiers of Manasseh.
+There is a tradition that the aged Isaiah himself was put to death
+during this persecution.
+
+Not all of those who opposed Manasseh were killed, although they were
+finally compelled to keep silence. Those little study circles still
+held meetings in secret to read and talk and pray; and they kept
+looking forward to a time when a different kind of a man would be
+king, and when they would be able once more to lead the people into
+the way of justice and true worship.
+
+In one of these little groups a remarkably wise plan was suggested.
+Let us take the laws which have been handed down to us from Moses, it
+was said, and work them up into a sermon. Every one reverences Moses.
+Let it include the farewell address which Moses is said to have spoken
+to his people just before he died, and put into it all the laws of
+Moses, and let us show what they really mean. And by and by when
+Manasseh is dead we may be able to read it to the people, and perhaps
+they will listen.
+
+
+THE WRITTEN LAW
+
+=The new law book--Deuteronomy.=--So they wrote the new book, and it
+is preserved in our Bible as the book of Deuteronomy. We find in it
+all the old laws which had been handed down from early times, and
+which were called the "laws of Moses." And we find on every page
+sentences which show the influence of the great prophets, from Amos to
+Isaiah. Isaiah's influence is perhaps the most plainly seen,
+especially his teaching that the people should worship Jehovah alone
+as the one ruler of the world. In Deuteronomy also we find a very
+solemn and emphatic commandment bidding us love and worship only
+Jehovah, the one true God. This is the commandment which Jesus called
+the first and greatest of all.
+
+    ="Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou
+    shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with
+    all thy soul, and with all thy might."=
+
+Such a law as this of course forbade all those covenants with other
+gods which Isaiah denounced.
+
+=Laws helping the oppressed.=--All the prophets had been on the side
+of the poor and the weak, against the rich and powerful who oppressed
+them. The authors of the book of Deuteronomy tried to shape this new
+law so as more fully to protect the poor. They made stronger all the
+older laws which were intended to make life a little easier for the
+weak and unfortunate, and they added others: for example, laws
+protecting debtors against greedy and merciless creditors, and laws
+forbidding the extremely harsh penalties which poor men were sometimes
+made to suffer by rich judges.
+
+There was an ancient law requiring that any Hebrew who had fallen into
+a state of slavery on account of debt must be set free after seven
+years. The new law book included this law, and added that the master
+must not send him away emptyhanded at the end of the seven years, but
+must give him food and clothes enough to keep him alive while he
+looked for a chance to work and earn money for himself. The new law
+also protected fugitive slaves from other countries. They were not to
+be returned to their owners.
+
+=A compromise.=--All of the four reformer-prophets whom we have
+studied had condemned the offerings and animal sacrifices of the old
+worship, not only because of the idolatry and other heathen and
+immoral practices connected with them, but also on the ground that
+Jehovah did not want sacrifices anyway, but only justice and love.
+
+But the authors of the new law did not abolish sacrifices altogether.
+They provided that all the small shrines, called "high places," such
+as at Hebron or Gibeon, and all up and down the country should be
+destroyed, but that sacrifices should be offered at Jerusalem and only
+there. The old-time religious feasts, such as the Passover, could no
+longer be celebrated at home. All the people must come up to Jerusalem
+for them. No doubt it was thought that this would help to put down
+idolatry.
+
+
+THE ADOPTION OF THE NEW LAW
+
+Manasseh reigned fifty-five years. It was a long, weary time of
+waiting for the disciples of the prophets. The new law book was put
+away in one of the closets of the temple for safe-keeping. The years
+went by and most of the men who helped to write it died. At last,
+however, the end came for Manasseh. After a short period his grandson,
+Josiah, who was only eight years old, became king. The boy's older
+relatives and friends were all against the ideas of old Manasseh and
+on the side of the prophets. Little by little the principles of the
+prophets were put in practice. Among other things, orders were given
+to tear out from the Jerusalem temple the images and altars to the
+sun-god and the moon-god and other emblems of Assyrian worship. The
+temple was also cleaned and renovated. While the carpenters were at
+work the new law-book was discovered in the chest where it had been
+hidden and was brought to the young king and read before him.
+
+=Josiah's reforms.=--Josiah was deeply impressed and gave orders that
+the reforms called for by the new law should be carried out. Officers
+went all up and down the villages and towns of Judah tearing down the
+little temples, or "high places," where so much heathenism had been
+practiced. And the people were told that several times each year they
+were to bring their sacrifices to the temple at Jerusalem. Those were
+also good days for the common people. There was a king now who "judged
+the cause of the poor and the needy." Many a poor debtor, when his
+crops failed, appealed to the king's court in Jerusalem and he himself
+and his children were saved from slavery and their home from ruin.
+
+The reform only lasted a few years--some twelve or thirteen--and then
+King Josiah was killed in battle, and much of the old heathenism and
+greed and injustice came back again in a flood. But the memory of the
+good days did not quickly fade. It was the first great triumph of the
+teachings of the prophets--the men who kept alive the true ideals of
+Abraham and Moses.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read any part of Deuteronomy 1-5. Select any passages which seem to
+you truly eloquent.
+
+2. Read Deuteronomy 12. 10, 11. What place is referred to by the
+author, when he writes, "The place that Jehovah your God shall choose,
+to cause his name to dwell there"?
+
+3. In the light of the history in this chapter, which is the more
+likely to change human history, a battleship or a Bible class?
+Explain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A PROPHET WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE
+
+
+The new law-book seemed a great victory. Yet sometimes victories are
+more dangerous than defeats. They lead to self-satisfaction. This was
+certainly the case with this victory of the authors of Deuteronomy.
+The people were careful to offer up their sacrifices at the temple in
+Jerusalem, and very few offerings were brought to the old village
+shrines. But the real kernel of the truth which the prophets had
+proclaimed was in danger of being forgotten. This was the truth that
+_no_ forms of sacrifice, _no_ solemn religious feasts are of any
+account in the sight of God unless accompanied by simple justice and
+brotherly kindness between neighbors. This was the state of affairs
+against which one more great reforming prophet was raised up to
+fight--Jeremiah, of the little town of Anathoth, five miles north of
+Jerusalem.
+
+
+A CONVERSATION IN A JERUSALEM STREET
+
+To understand clearly what Jeremiah's message was and why it was
+needed let us listen to a conversation between two citizens of
+Jerusalem. This one is imaginary. But there must have been many, in
+reality, very similar to this.
+
+_First citizen:_ Did you hear of my good fortune? I have just got a
+fine piece of ground for almost nothing.
+
+_Second citizen:_ How?
+
+_First citizen:_ I had loaned some money to an old farmer, and made
+him pledge me his field as security. Last summer the Babylonian
+soldiers came through that valley and burned all the wheat and barley
+stacks. So the old man couldn't pay back the loan. He tried to tell
+his story to King Jehoiakim, but the king drove him from the palace.
+So I went and took his field.
+
+_Second citizen:_ What would the prophets have said to a transaction
+like that? Did not Isaiah call down woes from Jehovah on those who
+took away poor men's fields?
+
+_First citizen:_ I have just offered a sacrifice to Jehovah.
+
+_Second citizen:_ I suppose, then, it is all right. But did not the
+prophets speak against sacrifice, unless one remembered justice and
+mercy?
+
+_First citizen:_ Yes, but they were speaking of the old sacrifices on
+the "high places," at the village shrines. Everyone knows they were
+heathen shrines and hateful to Jehovah. I offered my sacrifice at the
+temple yonder, just as we are told to do in the law of Moses, which
+King Josiah's servants found in the temple.
+
+Look! Why is all that crowd gathered over there in the temple yard?
+Let us go and see what is happening. I heard some one say, that a
+certain Jeremiah who calls himself a prophet, was to speak there
+to-day. All my friends who have heard him say that he is a false
+prophet.
+
+(They reach the edge of the crowd. Jeremiah is standing on the steps
+of the temple, addressing the people, as follows:)
+
+    ="Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the
+    Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are
+    these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings;
+    if ye thoroughly execute justice between a man and his
+    neighbor; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and
+    the widow ... then I will cause you to dwell in this place,
+    in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even
+    forevermore. Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot
+    profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear
+    falsely, ... and come and stand before me in this house, ...
+    and say, We are delivered; that ye may do all these
+    abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name,
+    become a den of robbers in your eyes?"=
+
+
+JEREMIAH'S MESSAGE OF A HEART RELIGION
+
+It is clear that Jeremiah was fighting the same old battle that Amos
+and the other prophets had fought against a religion of mere empty
+ceremonies. But the battle had grown even harder, because the old
+false practices had been accepted as though they were just the kind of
+religion that Amos had preached. The people said, "We are keeping the
+law of Jehovah," and so they were satisfied with themselves.
+
+=The law to be written on the heart.=--Jeremiah saw that this mistake
+had come from relying too much on a written law. Something more than
+an outward law was needed before men could succeed in living together
+as brothers. It is so easy to keep the letter of the law, or to think
+one is keeping it, while we lose the spirit of it. What is needed,
+Jeremiah said, is a changed heart. Again and again he cried to the
+people, "Oh Jerusalem, cleanse thy _heart_." And in one of the great
+chapters of the Bible, the thirty-first of the book of Jeremiah, he
+looks forward to a time when Jehovah and his people should be bound
+together in a new covenant--not a covenant written on tables of stone
+like the one which Moses wrote at Sinai:
+
+    ="But this is the covenant that I will make ... after those
+    days, saith the Lord. I will put my law in their inward
+    parts, and in their hearts I will write it."=
+
+The apostle Paul saw this promise fulfilled by the love which Jesus
+Christ awakens in men's hearts, so that they gladly and eagerly do the
+will of God. On account of this prophecy of Jeremiah our Christian
+Bible is called the New Covenant, or (from the Latin) the New
+Testament.
+
+
+JEREMIAH AND THE BABYLONIANS
+
+In Jeremiah's time (a decade or so before and after B.C. 600) the
+Babylonians had taken the place of the Assyrians as the rulers of the
+world. There was a powerful king, Nebuchadrezzar, on the throne of
+Babylon. And the existence of the kingdom of Judah depended on
+submission to him. But, just as in Isaiah's time a century before,
+there was now a party in Jerusalem who were constantly plotting to
+rebel against the Babylonians, hoping for help from Egypt.
+
+=Jeremiah as a patriot.=--Jeremiah had no sympathy with them. He loved
+his native land deeply and tenderly. But until the people were
+_worthy_ of liberty he was sure Jehovah would not give it to them.
+
+Again and again they proved their unworthiness. Once when the
+Babylonian armies were knocking almost at the gates of Jerusalem they
+remembered that law about Hebrew slaves, which had been made even
+more strict in the new law, Deuteronomy. According to this law, no
+Hebrew could be kept in slavery longer than seven years. So in their
+fear of the Babylonians these rich nobles solemnly set free a great
+number of slaves whom they had been illegally keeping in slavery. A
+few days later the hostile army, for some reason or other, withdrew.
+And within a month all these slaves who had been set free were seized
+and reenslaved. How Jeremiah denounced this hypocrisy!
+
+
+THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
+
+If Jeremiah's advice had been followed, the people of Judah would have
+been spared a world of sorrow. But the leaders of the kingdom seemed
+bent on dragging the whole nation into ruin. In B.C. 597, Jerusalem
+was captured and some ten thousand of the inhabitants were carried
+away as exiles to Babylon.
+
+Even that lesson was not enough. Within a few years the new king,
+Zedekiah, and his nobles again rebelled against Nebuchadrezzar.
+Jeremiah protested and was called a traitor. Many times his life was
+threatened; for a long period he was kept in a filthy dungeon, and
+almost perished from hunger. But friends saved him. Very soon, in B.C.
+586, the city came to the horrible end which Jeremiah had so patiently
+tried to ward off. The city was captured by Babylonian soldiers and
+burned. Thousands were carried away as exiles. Thousands more fled to
+Egypt and to other foreign countries. Only the poorest farmers were
+left to till the soil. David's kingdom and dynasty were ended.
+
+Jeremiah himself was not taken to Babylon, but remained in Palestine.
+According to tradition, his last days were spent in Egypt, with a
+Hebrew colony there. His life had been spent in keeping alive the soul
+of true religion in an age when few would listen. He is one of the
+great heroes of uncompromising truth.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up the story of Jeremiah in the Bible dictionary.
+
+2. Read Jeremiah 1. 1-9, for a taste of his style of writing.
+
+3. One man sacrifices to a heathen god; another tries to bribe Jehovah
+with a sacrifice as though he were _like_ the heathen gods:
+
+    _a._ Which is worse?
+    _b._ Which would the authors of Deuteronomy have considered worse?
+    _c._ Which would Jeremiah have considered worse?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+KEEPING THE FAITH IN A STRANGE LAND
+
+
+Twice within twelve years, first in B.C. 597, and again in B.C. 586,
+the Babylonians took great companies of Hebrews as exiles from
+Jerusalem to Babylon. Each time there must have been in the line of
+march some twenty-five thousand men, women, and children--an army
+which, marching eight abreast, would stretch at least five or six
+miles.
+
+These must have been sorrowful processions, especially the last of the
+two. For months they had suffered the horrors of a besieged city. Then
+had come the break in the walls, the screams of frightened women and
+children, the heaps of corpses in the streets, and the black smoke and
+red glare of burning buildings; then the hasty setting out on the long
+road to Babylon. Some of them perhaps were able to buy asses to carry
+the little children and a few of their belongings. But most of them
+had to trudge along on foot, fathers and mothers carrying the babies,
+and leaving behind them all their possessions except what could be
+gathered into a towel or a blanket. For a month or six weeks they
+tramped. If anyone fell sick, there was no time to take care of him.
+He must drag along with the rest or fall by the wayside until he
+either recovered or died.
+
+
+THE SETTLEMENT IN BABYLONIA
+
+When they reached the land of their captors they were not made slaves,
+but were allowed to make their home together in settlements on land
+set apart for them. In these colonies they probably worked as
+tenant-farmers on the estates of Nebuchadrezzar's nobles. In the
+prophetic book of Ezekiel, who was among these exiles, we read about
+one of these Jewish colonies by the river, or canal, called Chebar (or
+in Babylonian Kabaru), which means the Grand Canal.
+
+=The attractions of Babylonian life.=--What the Babylonians hoped was
+that these people would forget that they were Hebrews and become
+Babylonians, just as immigrants from Europe become Americans. This is
+exactly what happened in many cases. At first, of course, the Hebrews
+were bitterly homesick. The land of Babylonia was as flat as a floor.
+The Hebrews longed for the lovely hills and valleys of their native
+land.
+
+    =By the rivers of Babylon,
+    There we sat down, yea, we wept,
+    When we remembered Zion.
+    Upon the willows in the midst thereof
+    We hanged up our harps,
+    For there they that led us captive required of us songs,
+    And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,
+    Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
+    How shall we sing the Lord's song
+    In a strange land?=
+
+But the years went by, and they had time to look about in the new
+country. They found it full of opportunities for money-making. The
+soil, watered by hundreds of canals from the Euphrates and Tigris
+Rivers, was wonderfully rich. Everywhere there were prosperous towns
+and cities with great brick buildings, beautifully decorated with
+sculpture, and thronged with merchants. Ships laden with wheat and
+dates and with Babylonian rugs and mantles and other beautiful
+articles sailed up the rivers, or out to sea toward India. Many
+Hebrews, or Jews (that is, Hebrews from Judæa), became merchants. In
+their own land they had been chiefly a nation of farmers. The
+reputation of the Jews for cleverness in trade began with these
+experiences in Babylon when hundreds of Jewish boys obtained positions
+in great Babylonian stores or banks, and by and by set up for
+themselves as merchants. Among the Babylonian contracts on clay
+tablets coming down to us from this period are many Jewish names.
+
+
+THE TEMPTATION TO FORSAKE JEHOVAH
+
+These young Hebrew merchants found themselves in a net-work of foreign
+religious customs. When a customer signed a contract it was proposed
+that he offer a sacrifice to the god Marduk, that the enterprise might
+prosper. There were religious processions and feast days in which
+everyone joined, just as we hang out flags on the Fourth of July.
+Foreigners from other lands joined in these rites and thought nothing
+of it. Furthermore, some of these captive Jews thought that their
+Hebrew God, Jehovah, had not protected them from these mighty
+Babylonians. Surely, the Babylonian gods were the stronger, and one
+should pay them due reverence.
+
+=Memories of the prophets.=--On the other hand, even the dullest of
+the Jews must have begun to understand that the religion of their
+prophets was a different kind of religion altogether--not _a_
+religion, but _true_ religion; and that Jehovah was not like the
+bargaining, jealous gods of the other nations, but was God, with a
+capital G, the one righteous Creator and Ruler of the world.
+
+Moreover, the prophets who had taught them to think of Jehovah in this
+way had again and again declared that just this calamity of exile
+would come upon them if they as a nation continued to disobey
+Jehovah's just laws; and what they had foretold had come to pass. The
+prophets must have been right. Their teaching must be true.
+
+=Hebrews in other foreign lands.=--There were probably almost as many
+Hebrews in Egypt at this time as in Babylonia. Indeed, even before the
+destruction of Jerusalem the constant wars on Canaan had compelled
+great numbers of them to seek for peace and comfort for themselves and
+their wives and children in Egypt, in Damascus, and even in far-away
+Carthage and Greece. The Jews to-day are scattered all over the world.
+This began to be true of them from the time of the destruction of
+Jerusalem.
+
+These Jews who permanently made their homes in foreign countries were
+called _Jews of the Dispersion_. And they all faced the same
+temptations as the exiles in Babylonia. Their problem was how to be
+loyal to their nation and their religion. Great numbers of them, like
+Daniel and his friends in the stories related in the book of Daniel,
+did refuse to sacrifice to heathen gods and held fast to the nobler
+faith which they had brought with them from Jerusalem. This was not
+easy. Not only were they tempted to go with the crowd and worship the
+gods of the land; they were also uncertain just how to worship
+Jehovah. They could not offer sacrifices to him. Jerusalem was a
+thousand miles away, and the temple there was burned. Should they
+build a new temple for him, in Babylon? It was not certain whether
+that would be lawful. The Jews in Egypt did build a temple to Jehovah.
+But no others seem to have been able to do this.
+
+
+KEEPING THE SABBATH
+
+There were some religious customs, however, which could more easily be
+transplanted. One was the Sabbath Day. In the earlier centuries the
+Hebrews had observed the day of the new moon with special sacrifices,
+and also, to some extent, the other days when the moon passed from
+full to first quarter, then to the second, then to the third--in other
+words, every seventh day. There was in the days before Moses no
+thought of resting from labor on these days, except as might have been
+necessary in order to offer up the special sacrifices.
+
+=The Sabbath and the new law of Deuteronomy.=--One of the kindly
+changes which the new law of Deuteronomy introduced was to make the
+Sabbath a rest day for slaves and all toilers. On the Sabbath "thou
+shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy
+manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, ... that
+thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou."
+
+In Babylonia and other foreign lands faithful Jews were especially
+careful to keep the Sabbath by resting from all their work. No one
+else did so, and the custom marked them as Jews. When a Babylonian
+would propose to buy a wagon load of wheat on the Sabbath the Jew
+would say, "I cannot sell on that day; it is a Sabbath day to our
+God." Boys and girls were not allowed to play with their Babylonian
+playmates on the Sabbath. Such experiences helped them to remember
+that they were Jews. They thought of it also as an act of respect to
+Jehovah. It took the place of animal sacrifices. As the time went on
+there grew up rules and regulations in regard to Sabbath-keeping which
+became more and more strict and elaborate.
+
+
+PRAYER AND PUBLIC WORSHIP
+
+Another religious custom which can be practiced anywhere is prayer. It
+must have been a great and happy discovery to many a homesick Jew when
+he found that even though the temple at Jerusalem was far away, yet in
+his own room "by the river Chebar" he could kneel, or even in the
+street he could for a moment close his eyes and breathe out a prayer
+to God and find in it fresh strength and hope and courage.
+
+=The synagogue.=--The weekly Sabbath rest also made it possible for
+the Jews to meet together on that day for prayer and worship together.
+The reading circles which Isaiah had organized, and out of which
+probably came the law-book Deuteronomy, were continued in Babylonia,
+and the Sabbath morning, afternoon, or evening was a convenient time
+of meeting. They would gather in some private house and study the law
+and the writings of the prophets. Then they would pray. Those who were
+the most learned would read and they and others would pray aloud.
+
+By and by special buildings were set apart called synagogues. As time
+went on these synagogue services rather than the services in the
+temple, became the most important part of the Jewish religion. Our
+morning and evening worship in the Christian Church grew out of the
+synagogue service. It was the beginning of that worship of which Jesus
+spoke when he said: The hour cometh when neither in this mountain, nor
+in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father.... But ... the true
+worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read 2 Kings 25, or Daniel 1.
+
+2. Mention some other temptations which must have come to the Jews, in
+Babylon, besides the temptation to worship idols. Consider, for
+example, their new experiences as traders.
+
+3. What are some good ways in which we may be helped to be true to God
+to-day when we are away from home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS
+
+
+As the Jewish exiles were led away to Babylon they asked themselves
+over and over again, "Is this the end of our nation?" It seemed like
+the end. Their capital city lay in ruins. Their king was blinded and
+in chains. All the most intelligent people in the country were being
+led to a distant land, from which most of them would probably never
+return. The iron rule of the Babylonians was everywhere supreme.
+
+There are other nations and races whose people might not have cared so
+much even if this had been the end of their national existence. But
+the Hebrews from the beginning were proud of their race and ambitious
+for its glory. They believed that it had been promised to Abraham,
+their ancestor, that they should become a great nation in their land
+of Canaan. This hope had grown stronger and stronger. Stories of the
+greatness of King David were handed down from fathers to their
+children. To the best men and women among them the great teachings of
+such prophets as Amos and Isaiah were even more worthy of pride. "We
+have a knowledge of the true God," they said, "such as no other nation
+has. Surely there is a great future before us." And now all these
+hopes seemed lost forever.
+
+=The discouragement of the poor people in Canaan.=--Those who had been
+left behind in Canaan when the Babylonians conquered the land were
+even more hopeless and wretched. The exiles soon made a place for
+themselves in the busy, prosperous land of Babylonia. They earned
+money and lived in comfort. But the farmers on the stony hills of
+Judæa suffered untold hardships. Not only were they poor; they were
+also harassed by bands of robbers. The city of Jerusalem, which had
+protected them, lay in ashes. The Babylonian governor did not help
+them. He was there only to collect taxes and tribute. So the old
+enemies, the robber tribes from the desert, came in and burned and
+murdered and stole as they pleased. It is not strange that many of
+these poor people felt that all was over for the Hebrew or Jewish
+nation. Many of them ceased to worship Jehovah and became heathen,
+like the other tribes around Canaan.
+
+
+VOICES OF COMFORT AND HOPE
+
+It was not easy, however, to crush the courage of the Jews. Out of the
+darkness of those days we hear a whole chorus of voices, all of them
+saying: "This is _not_ the end of everything for us. Jehovah has not
+forgotten his promises to our ancestors. He will bring back the exiles
+from Babylon, and from other distant lands whither they have escaped,
+and will rebuild Jerusalem in all its beauty, and will restore the
+glory of our nation in the land of Canaan."
+
+=The prophecies in Isaiah.=--Many of these voices are found in short
+passages scattered through the writings of the older prophets. Two of
+them are in Isaiah 9 and 11.
+
+    ="The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light:
+    ... the rod of his oppressor thou hast broken.... For all the
+    armor of the armed man in the tumult, and the garments rolled
+    in blood, shall even be for burning, for fuel of fire. For
+    unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the
+    government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be
+    called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
+    Prince of Peace."=
+
+"In other words," he reasoned, "Jehovah will free us from the
+tyrannical Babylonians, give us an ideal king, who shall be wise and
+just and faithful, and under whose rule we shall see no more of the
+horror and cruelty of war."
+
+=Ezekiel's prophecies of hope.=--Away off in Babylonia itself Ezekiel
+helped to keep alive the hopes of the exiles. Even though the nation
+is dead, he told them, Jehovah can bring it to life. It will be as
+though the dry and bleaching bones in some valley where a battle was
+long ago fought should suddenly come together as human skeletons, and
+warm living flesh should grow upon them once more. Ezekiel worked out
+a kind of constitution for the new nation and the temple when these
+should be restored.
+
+All these brave leaders helped the Jews to believe in themselves as a
+people. They listened to these men as they spoke in their synagogues
+in Judæa and in Babylonia. They handed from one to another the rolls
+on which their words were written. And ever the children heard from
+their mothers these hopes which kept them from being completely
+discouraged: "We are Jews. The Jewish nation is not going to be
+destroyed. Some day the exiles in Babylon will return to the old
+country. We will have a king of our own. And we will build the great
+nation which Jehovah promised Abraham."
+
+
+THE BEGINNINGS OF A RESTORED JUDAH
+
+In the year B.C. 538, the Babylonian empire was conquered by Cyrus,
+the Persian. There was scarcely any resistance on the part of the
+Babylonians. And one of his first acts in the conquered city was to
+issue a proclamation that captives and exiles from other lands might
+return if they wished. It was the chance for which the Jews for forty
+years had been hoping. Now at last they could go back over that
+thousand-mile journey, up the Euphrates, across to the coast land, and
+down to Canaan. But alas! too many years had passed. Most of those who
+had come to Babylon as grown people and who remembered Canaan as home
+were now dead. Most of the living Jews had grown up in Babylon and
+were comfortably settled there. Yet some did return, and from time to
+time others kept returning. These men who thought enough of their
+nation to go back to the home land and help it in its weakness and
+poverty almost always became leaders.
+
+=The new temple.=--It may have been a group of these leaders returned
+from Babylon who started the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem in
+the year B.C. 520, just sixty years after the old temple of Solomon
+was burned by the soldiers of Nebuchadrezzar. There were two prophets,
+Haggai and Zechariah, who did much to stir up the people to this work.
+Some of their words are preserved in the Old Testament books which
+bear their names. These men may have been returned exiles. The new
+building was erected on the same old foundation and was finished in
+four years. It was dedicated amidst the shouts of the people, while
+old men and women, who as children had seen the former temple before
+it was destroyed, wept for joy that at last a house had been rebuilt
+for Jehovah. It seemed like the beginning of better times for their
+nation.
+
+
+THE GREATEST OF THE PROPHETS OF HOPE
+
+Yet the years that followed the building of the new temple were sad
+and disappointing. The better days did not seem to come. The walls of
+Jerusalem still lay in ruins. The robber tribes still made their cruel
+raids. The poor people suffered most, for they were oppressed and
+plundered by the richer men even of their own people. "What has become
+of Jehovah?" men asked. "Where are his promises to Abraham? Why does
+he allow even his most faithful servants to be oppressed--those who do
+not oppress others; who obey his just laws, and who are merciful to
+their brothers?"
+
+=The great unknown.=--About this time there came to the people of
+Israel a new message from one of the greatest prophets of all those
+whom God has raised up in any nation. He is sometimes called the
+"Great Unknown," because we to-day know nothing about his personal
+life, not even his name. His great messages to his fellow Jews are
+found in the latter part of the book of Isaiah, beginning with chapter
+40. The first verse of this chapter strikes the keynote of comfort
+which runs through all the chapters to follow.
+
+    ="Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye
+    comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare
+    is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; that she hath
+    received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins."=
+
+With words that sing like a beautiful instrument of music he tells the
+people that God has not forgotten them; that the scattered exiles
+will be brought back to the home land; that the ruined city,
+Jerusalem, will be rebuilt and made more lovely than before; that a
+rule of justice will be established; and that the blessings of peace
+and happiness will come to all.
+
+=The greatness of service.=--Even better than these promises of
+happiness, our unknown prophet helped the people to understand more
+clearly what it means to _be_ a great nation. He did not believe that
+the God of heaven and earth would make a favorite of any one nation.
+Instead he taught that Jehovah had chosen Israel to be a servant
+nation for him, to serve all other nations by teaching them about the
+true God.
+
+    ="I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that
+    thou mayest be my salvation to the end of the earth."=
+
+He explained in this way even the undeserved suffering which many of
+the best people of Israel were enduring. Israel thus became a type of
+Him who was "despised and rejected of men." To be chastised and
+afflicted and oppressed is not so hard to bear if it is all a part of
+Jehovah's plan for men. The ideal in the Old Testament becomes a
+reality in the New.
+
+So for the first time the idea came into the world that Abraham's
+dreams of a greater and nobler nation and God's promises to Abraham,
+Moses, David and the rest were not for the Hebrew people only, but for
+all men; that beginning with this little nation God was making a
+better world; a world of love, instead of selfishness and hate; of
+happy work and play, instead of misery and hopelessness and war.
+
+Of course very few of the prophet's hearers understood him. But more
+and more the Jews were filled with the thought that somehow God had a
+great future for them. Boys and girls, as they grew up, wondered if
+they might not become leaders, a new Moses, a second David, or Elijah,
+to play some part in bringing the great future which God had promised.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read Isaiah 40 or 49 for a taste of the writing of the "Great
+Unknown."
+
+2. Read Ezekiel 2. 1-7, or 14, for a similar taste of this prophet's
+message and style.
+
+3. Which of these two prophets do you consider the greater?
+
+4. Is there evidence to-day that the Jews still believe in a restored
+nation?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE GOOD DAYS OF NEHEMIAH
+
+
+About seventy years after the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem a
+committee of Jews went to Persia to seek aid for their distressed
+country from their more prosperous kinsfolk. In the Persian capital,
+Susa, they found a man named Nehemiah, who was cup-bearer and personal
+adviser to the king of Persia. He was a man of good sense, of kindly
+sympathy, and of great ability--just the man to help them. They told
+him how the walls of the city of their fathers had never been rebuilt
+in all these years since the Babylonians had captured it, and how the
+poor people suffered from robbers and oppressors, who took advantage
+of their helplessness.
+
+
+NEHEMIAH'S GREAT ADVENTURE
+
+All this was news to the young man. They did not have newspapers and
+magazines in those days, and people in one part of the world knew
+little about what was going on in other parts, even those near by. The
+stories told by his brother Jews made Nehemiah sad, and his sadness
+showed in his face even when he came before the king. This was
+dangerous, for a part of his duty was to keep the king in a cheerful
+humor. But his Majesty was not angry, but asked him "Why are you so
+sad?" Nehemiah answered by telling him the story of his native land
+and its pitiable condition; and then and there with a prayer in his
+heart he asked the king to give him a leave of absence, and to permit
+him to go to Jerusalem and help the people there to rebuild the
+walls.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: REMAINS OF WALLS OF THE CANAANITE CITY, MEGIDDO]   |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: PART OF CITY WALL AND GATE, SAMARIA]               |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+=Why walls were greatly needed.=--All cities in those days were
+surrounded by walls. These were necessary, because no government had
+yet been strong enough to rid the country of the bands of robbers who
+made their dens in almost every cave or lonely valley. Not only the
+road between Jerusalem and Jericho, of which Jesus tells, but on
+almost all roads one was in danger of falling among thieves. In the
+deserts on the edge of Palestine whole tribes lived by robbery, and
+were large enough and well enough organized to defeat good-sized
+armies. Hence no city was safe unless it was well fortified.
+
+Nehemiah's request was granted by the king of Persia. So, with letters
+to the governors of the provinces through which he was to pass, the
+young leader set out, perhaps on camel-back, to Jerusalem. After
+looking about and seeing for himself the condition of the city, and
+the work which needed to be done, he called the people together and
+proposed that they rebuild the walls. His energy carried the day. They
+answered, "Let us rise up and build."
+
+
+THE WALLS REBUILT
+
+The task which Nehemiah had undertaken was a difficult one. Jerusalem
+is situated on a ridge, with deep valleys on all sides except the
+north. The walls did not need to be high where there were cliffs or
+steep slopes falling away into the valley. But along the entire north
+side, and in many other places also, they had to be at least thirty
+feet high, and fifteen or twenty feet thick at the base. The stones
+and bricks for this were buried in the rubbish where the old walls
+had been battered down. They had to be dug up and dragged into their
+places, stone by stone. Most of the work had to be done by hand,
+although they perhaps used asses with basket-paniers for carrying lime
+and sand. They may have constructed small cranes for lifting the
+heaviest stones, but they had very little machinery.
+
+=Difficulties overcome.=--For a time the work went merrily forward.
+But soon their rapid progress became known and those who had prospered
+because of their weakness became jealous. There was a certain
+Sanballat, governor of Samaria, who wanted to keep Jerusalem helpless
+so that Samaria might always be the chief city in the land. They were
+willing that the poor people of Jerusalem should go on suffering from
+the attacks of cruel bandits if only they themselves could keep on
+growing richer. He and others did all in their power to stop the work.
+They organized a force of men and planned to attack and kill the
+builders. But Nehemiah had his workers carry their swords as they
+worked, and arranged for signals at which all should rush to the help
+of any part of the wall which might be attacked. He also kept the
+people working at top speed from early morning every day "until the
+stars appeared," and cheered them on when they were tired and
+discouraged.
+
+Their enemies tried all kinds of tricks; they threatened to report to
+the king of Persia that Nehemiah was organizing a rebellion; they
+plotted to seize Nehemiah himself. But the man was too clever for
+them. The walls kept steadily going up and up. The gates were set in
+place and locked; and at last, fifty-two days, or just a little more
+than seven weeks after the first stone was laid on the old
+foundations, the work was done.
+
+Once more they could lie down in peace behind protecting walls, and
+not tremble at the thought that fierce robbers might swoop down upon
+them before the morning light to plunder, burn, and murder. Once more
+they could begin to live their lives in peace and plan for the future.
+Traders could bring their goods into the city without fear of losing
+everything. Men could buy and sell and prosper.
+
+
+NEHEMIAH'S REFORMS
+
+But security from outward foes is not enough to bring happiness to a
+people. Even before the walls were finished some of the poor people
+among the Jews came to Nehemiah with a bitter complaint against their
+rich neighbors. "We are starving," they said. Others said: "We have
+mortgaged our fields in order to borrow money that we may buy food for
+our children. And now because we cannot pay these men take our fields
+from us, and even sell our sons and daughters into slavery." It was
+the old story of greed and oppression. Those who were stronger and
+more fortunate used their advantage to oppress their brothers and
+extort from them all that they could pay. So a few men were able to
+live in luxury, even in those troubled days, while the great majority
+suffered in poverty and misery and despair.
+
+=The great massmeeting.=--In that little country of Judæa it was
+possible to gather into an assembly, perhaps in the open space in
+front of the temple, men from almost every country village and city
+street. Such an assembly Nehemiah called and laid before it the
+complaints he had received. He told the rich nobles to their faces:
+"You exact usury, every one, of his brother. The thing you do is not
+good.... I pray you leave off this usury." The nobles had nothing to
+say. Every one knew that what Nehemiah said was true. Then he went on:
+"Restore to them their fields, their vineyards, their olive-yards, and
+their houses, also the grain, the new wine, and the oil that you exact
+from them." Then said they, "We will restore them."
+
+And Nehemiah made them take oath to carry out their promise. "Also I
+shook out my lap," Nehemiah writes in his memoirs, "and said, So God
+shake out every man from his house, and from his labor, that
+performeth not this promise; even thus be he shaken out and emptied.
+And all the congregation said 'Amen,' and praised the Lord. And the
+people did according to this promise."
+
+=The beginnings of a just and happy nation.=--Nehemiah could not stay
+long in Jerusalem. But he was able to make another visit a few years
+later. And for a time at least his ideas were carried out. During this
+time there was happiness among the people. They all had something to
+eat and clothes to wear. All fathers and mothers had a little time to
+play with their children after the close of work each day. All who
+could read had a little time to study the rolls of the prophets and
+the law of Jehovah. And all were brothers. More than ever before the
+old dreams, handed down from Abraham, had begun to come true.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up the story of Nehemiah in the Bible dictionary.
+
+2. Read Nehemiah 1-2, or 5. 1-6, 16.
+
+3. On the right side of the line, below, write what in your judgment
+corresponds to the men and conditions of Nehemiah's time.
+
+_Nehemiah's Time_                   | _Our Own Time_
+                                    |
+_a._ Walls around the city.         | _a._ ___________________________
+                                    |
+_b._ Robbers, and enemies such as   | _b._ ___________________________
+       Sanballat.                   |
+                                    |
+_c._ The poor and enslaved people.  | _c._ ___________________________
+                                    |
+_d._ Nehemiah.                      | _d._ ___________________________
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS FOR THE NEW WORSHIP
+
+
+We have seen that a new kind of public worship of God had been growing
+up among the Hebrews, beginning with the time when the prophets began
+to condemn the misuse of the old animal sacrifices. The new worship
+consisted chiefly of prayer. We have seen how the exiles in Babylon
+began to come together on the Sabbath days to study the law and other
+sacred writings, and also for prayer. Those exiles who returned to
+Judæa brought this custom with them. Special buildings, called
+synagogues, were erected in Judæa as well as wherever there were
+faithful Jews in other lands. These synagogues rather than the temple
+gradually came to be the real home of the Jewish religion even in
+Jerusalem itself. The chief part of the synagogue service was always
+the study of the Scriptures. But prayer was also given an important
+place.
+
+In the temple also, after it was rebuilt, public prayer was regarded
+as very important--even if not quite so important as the regular
+burnt-offerings. There were also prayer-hymns, sung by the people and
+by special choirs.
+
+=Making hymnals and prayer books.=--In our churches, to-day, we could
+scarcely conduct our services without the hymn books scattered through
+the pews. In some denominations there is a prayer book, which is
+considered just as necessary as the book of hymns. In those ancient
+synagogues and in the temple service the Jews found such books
+needful. Had we gone into one of their meetings, we would not indeed
+have found a book waiting for us in the seat or handed to us by the
+usher. The art of printing was unknown. Books could not be purchased
+cheaply by the hundred. Each copy had to be written out by hand with
+pen and ink on a roll of papyrus. But we would probably have
+discovered that the leader of the worship had a book of prayers and
+hymns before him. He would read them, line by line, each Sabbath for
+the others to memorize. To make this task of memorization easier many
+of the Jewish hymns were written in acrostic form--that is, each line
+or stanza began with a different letter in the order of the Hebrew
+alphabet.
+
+
+HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS IN THE BIBLE
+
+Our book of Psalms is a collection of smaller collections of just such
+hymns and prayers to be used in worship. Each one of these smaller
+collections came out of some synagogue or group of synagogues, or was
+prepared by the members of one of the choirs who led the worship in
+the temple. By studying these we may learn something about how they
+were used.
+
+=The Prayers of David.=--This was the title of one of these smaller
+books. It contained Psalms 2 to 41, and some others of our book of
+Psalms. All of these are headed in our Bible, "A Psalm of David."
+These words, in the original Hebrew, mean "dedicated to David." The
+last page in this smaller book is perhaps now found where our Psalm 72
+comes to an end with the words, "The Prayers of David the Son of Jesse
+are Ended." This sentence corresponded, in the little book, to the
+words, "The End," in our modern books. It was copied in what is now
+our book of Psalms, even though it is no longer "the end."
+
+These "David" hymns were probably written not only by David, but as
+well by members of a synagogue of worshipers who were poor and
+oppressed. There are a great number of references to "enemies."
+"Deliver me not over unto the will of mine adversaries." "Thou
+preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies." These
+people probably lived in the days before the reforms of Nehemiah, when
+there were indeed many enemies both outside of Jerusalem and within
+the city, heathen robbers, and rich oppressors of their own race, men
+who cheated them and who mocked them when they prayed for help to
+Jehovah.
+
+=The Pilgrim Songs.=--Another very different hymn book embedded in our
+book of Psalms is one which we may call the "Pilgrim Songs." It is
+found in chapters 120 to 134 of our Psalter. All of these psalms have
+the title, "A Song of Ascents." This probably means a song to sing on
+the ascent to Jerusalem. These come from the happy time after Nehemiah
+when the city was safely protected by walls. Because of this blessed
+safety it was now possible for the people once more to go on
+pilgrimages to the great annual religious feasts as prescribed in the
+law-book of Deuteronomy. Before the walls were rebuilt such gatherings
+of pilgrims with their gifts would merely have been an invitation to
+robbers. But now the custom of pilgrimages was renewed, and they came
+to be among the happiest events of the year in the lives of Jewish men
+and women and older boys and girls.
+
+The journey to Jerusalem was usually made in large companies or
+caravans for the sake of protection. For the roads outside of
+Jerusalem were by no means safe. And naturally in such a crowd of
+folks from the home village there would be much singing. These
+"Pilgrim Songs" grew out of the spirit of these journeys. They are
+filled with gratitude to God for his kindness, and with trust in his
+care, and with pride in their beautiful city Jerusalem which God had
+helped them to rebuild.
+
+    ="I was glad when they said unto me,
+    Let us go into the house of the Lord."
+
+    "As mountains are round about Jerusalem,
+    So the Lord is round about them that fear him."=
+
+
+HEBREW MUSIC AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
+
+These hymns were frequently sung to the accompaniment of instrumental
+music. There are many allusions in the book of Psalms and elsewhere in
+the Old Testament to the harp (_kinnor_), the psaltery (_nebel_), the
+cornet (_shophar_) and other instruments.
+
+We know just how they looked, for pictures of them, or at least of
+similar instruments, are found on Egyptian and Babylonian monuments.
+The harp was probably like a large guitar, only it was played like a
+mandolin, with a plectrum. The psaltery or lute was a larger-sized
+harp. The cornet or trumpet was simply a curved ram's horn blown with
+the lips like our cornets; there was also another form made out of
+brass, long and straight. The Hebrews also used a wind instrument like
+our flute, a pipe with holes on the side for making the different
+notes. They seem also to have been very fond of percussion
+instruments--the timbal, a small drum, and the cymbals, metal plates
+clashed together.
+
+It is impossible to know how far the Hebrews had developed the art of
+music. It seems most likely that the best they ever learned to do
+with these various instruments would have sounded to us more like a
+loud banging, twanging noise than like our own melodies and harmonies.
+
+=Influence of this worship of prayer and song.=--Nevertheless the
+prayer-hymns of which we have told could not fail to wield an
+influence on the lives of those who sung them. Boys and girls heard
+them week by week until they could not forget them. When they were
+tempted to wrongdoing these melodies rang in their ears. For in all
+these collections there were great hymns, written by men who had
+caught the spirit of God as had Amos and Hosea and their
+successors--men whose souls were white, whose love was tender, and
+whose courage was unshakable. Only such men could write such lines as
+these:
+
+    ="Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle?
+    Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
+    He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness,
+    And speaketh truth in his heart.
+    He that slandereth not with his tongue,
+    Nor doeth evil to his friend,
+    Nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor."=
+
+Or these:
+
+    ="Thou delightest not in sacrifice; else would I give it:
+    Thou hast no pleasure in burnt-offering.
+    The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:
+    A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."=
+
+These words and scores of other passages just as great set to music
+long since forgotten but in those days sweet to the ear, helped untold
+multitudes to do justice and to love mercy, to confess their sins, and
+to find strength and hope in God.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE PIPE OR FIFE]                            |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN HARP]                                  |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: AN ASSYRIAN UPRIGHT HARP]                          |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: AN ASSYRIAN HORIZONTAL HARP]                       |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: A BABYLONIAN HARP]                                 |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: JEWISH HARPS ON COINS OF BAR COCHBA, 132-135 A.D.] |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: ASSYRIAN DULCIMER]                                 |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Of the "David" psalms, read any of the following chapters: 11, 13,
+15, 23, of the book of Psalms.
+
+2. Of the "Pilgrim" psalms, read chapter 121 or 124 or 126.
+
+3. Which of these do you like best?
+
+4. Look up words scattered through the Psalms which appear to be
+musical directions.
+
+5. In what ways did the following Psalms help the Jews to realize
+their hopes?--
+
+     _a._  15.
+     _b._  51.
+     _c._ 124.
+
+6. For a good example of one of the prayers, in the temple, read 1
+Kings 8. 27, 28.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISM
+
+
+All nations like to think of themselves as superior to the rest of
+mankind. The Greeks used to despise all foreigners as "barbarians." We
+in America ridicule immigrants from other countries and call them
+unpleasant names. The Jews also made the same mistake of despising
+people of other races and nations. We find laws even in so just a
+law-book as Deuteronomy which are unfair to foreigners. Jews were
+forbidden to exact interest from fellow Jews, but they were permitted
+to exact it from foreigners. The flesh of animals which died of
+themselves could not be eaten by Jews, but they might sell it to
+foreigners.
+
+
+THE INCREASING HATRED TOWARDS FOREIGNERS AFTER THE EXILE
+
+We have seen how the exiles in Babylonia kept the Sabbath and went to
+the synagogue in order that they might continue to be Jews and might
+not lose their Jewish religion, the worship of Jehovah. As time went
+on they found it necessary to be more and more strict. As their girls
+and boys grew up they fell in love with Babylonian young men and young
+women. But if these young Jews had married Babylonians, the children
+would have grown up as Babylonians in customs and religion. So all
+intermarriages were forbidden.
+
+=The fight against intermarriages in Judæa.=--When these exiles
+returned from Babylonia to Jerusalem they were shocked to find that
+the Jews there had not been strict in this matter. They had taken
+wives and husbands from the Moabites, and Edomites, and other nations
+around Judæa.
+
+It is hard for us to see that this was wrong, for these people
+probably became worshipers of Jehovah, like Ruth the Moabitess in the
+beautiful story in the Bible, who said to her Jewish mother-in-law,
+"Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." The exiles from
+Babylon, however, including so good and wise a man as Nehemiah, fought
+with all their might against all intermarriages. Without doubt the
+motive, which was to protect the Hebrews from idolatry, was good, but
+the matter is certainly open to criticism, especially in the light of
+our truer knowledge of God. We read that at one time, even under the
+leadership of Ezra, one of the returned exiles, a large number of the
+wives from other nations were cruelly divorced and sent away weeping
+to their own people. All this helped to give the Jews a wrong and
+unreasonable pride in their own race and a silly and unkind contempt
+for other races.
+
+=The hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans.=--About the time of
+Nehemiah there was also started a bitter feud between the Jews and the
+Samaritans. There had always been a good deal of jealousy between the
+people of Judah in the South, and the Hebrews of the central and
+northern parts of Canaan. Samaria was the capital of the northern
+kingdom, which had split off from the kingdom of David and Solomon.
+This old jealousy flamed up again after Nehemiah. The Samaritans had
+intermarried with their heathen neighbors, perhaps more than the Jews
+in Judæa. So the Jews claimed that the Samaritans had no right to call
+themselves true Hebrews.
+
+The Samaritans, on the other hand, claimed that they were true
+children of Abraham, and they built a temple of their own on Mount
+Gerizim as a rival to the temple of Jerusalem. This jealousy and hate
+grew more and more bitter until, in the time of Jesus, the Jews looked
+upon Samaritans with even more contempt than any Gentiles.
+
+=The growing prejudice against the Jews among other peoples.=--Those
+who call names generally hear themselves taunted and ridiculed in
+turn. The very fact that the Jews would not work on the Sabbath marked
+them as peculiar and helped to make them unpopular. Their laws about
+foods, clean and unclean, were also different from those of other
+nations. For example, they would not eat pork. Moreover, as time went
+on many of the Jews in Babylon and in other foreign lands grew
+prosperous. They were industrious and they had brains and a special
+gift for trade. Before long they had money to lend, and they often
+demanded unjust rates of interest. This too made them unpopular. So
+the more proudly and contemptuously they held aloof from Babylonians,
+Persians, Egyptians, and all other foreigners the more frequently they
+heard themselves called "Jewish dogs" and other hard names.
+
+
+THE COMING OF THE GREEKS
+
+This racial pride on the part of the Jews was still more increased by
+the coming of another unusually proud people, the Greeks. In the year
+B.C. 333, Alexander the Great defeated the army of the king of Persia
+and soon extended his rule over all western Asia, including Judæa.
+Very soon Greeks were everywhere to be seen, in all the cities of
+Palestine. In order to protect the country from the desert robbers
+who, as we have seen, had been making their raids through all the
+centuries, a chain of Greek cities was built to the east of the Jordan
+and thousands of Greek settlers were brought there to live. The ruins
+of many beautiful Greek temples and theaters may still be seen in that
+country. Samaria was also rebuilt as a Greek city, the capital of the
+province. So there were Greeks on all sides of Jerusalem and throngs
+of Greek merchants and travelers were to be seen on the streets of
+every Jewish city and village.
+
+The Greeks in some ways had as much to be proud of as a people as the
+Jews. Their sculptors had carved the most beautiful marbles in the
+world. Their poets had composed the most beautiful poems. Their
+philosophers were wiser than those of any other nation. Moreover, many
+of these Greeks who came into Palestine and other countries of Asia
+were filled with a truly missionary spirit. It is said that Alexander
+the Great was inspired by the thought that he was helping to spread
+the art and wisdom and culture of the Greeks throughout the world.
+
+=The struggle between Judaism and Hellenism.=--This meant that the old
+religion of Jehovah was in danger of being forgotten not only in
+Babylonia and other lands but even in Judæa and Jerusalem. Many Jews
+quite fell in love with the new art and learning of the Greeks. They
+learned the Greek language, gave their children Greek names, such as
+"Jason," for example, instead of "Joshua." A gymnasium was built in
+Jerusalem where Jewish lads learned to exercise and play games after
+the Greek style. Many of them tried to hide the fact that they were
+Jews, and too often they ceased to worship Jehovah, the God of their
+fathers, and offered sacrifices to Zeus and other Greek divinities.
+
+=The beginnings of the Pharisees.=--Other Jews fought against all
+these new ideas and fashions. They became more strict than ever in
+their observance of the peculiar customs and regulations of the Jewish
+law. It was at this time that the beginnings of the party of the
+Pharisees came into existence, of which we read in the New Testament.
+The word "Pharisee" means "one who is kept apart, or separate"; that
+is, one who holds aloof from the heathen and from heathen customs.
+They were the men who "when they come from the market place, eat not,
+except they bathe themselves." They might have touched some heathen
+person in the street which they thought made them ceremonially
+unclean. In the earlier days the Pharisees were called "Hasideans," or
+"the pious."
+
+It was right, of course, that these men should struggle to keep their
+religion alive. The great religious truths of the prophets were worth
+more to the world than all the art and wisdom of the Greeks. But the
+result of the struggle was an even greater scorn on the part of the
+Hebrews for all men who were not Jews.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read Esther 9. 5, 11-16. What kind of patriotism does this passage
+express?
+
+2. Compare the following laws in Deuteronomy: 10. 18-19 and 14. 21.
+Can you explain the inconsistency?
+
+3. What national characteristics do hatred and contempt of other
+nations lead to?
+
+4. What is the danger from continually hurling bad names at
+foreigners, such as "Greasers," "Chinks," and so on?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+A BROAD-MINDED AND NOBLE PATRIOTISM
+
+
+In spite of all their prejudice, thinking Jews could not help but see
+that the Greeks, in spite of their heathen religion, had brought with
+them many of the blessings of civilization. Many articles of everyday
+comfort were introduced into Canaan for the first time by the Greeks,
+for example, new varieties of food, such as pumpkins, vinegar,
+asparagus, and various kinds of cheese. From the Greeks also the Jews
+learned to preserve fish by salting them. This made possible the
+splendid fishing business by the Sea of Galilee. In the time of Jesus
+we find this lake surrounded by flourishing towns. Most of the men in
+these towns supported themselves and their families by fishing. The
+fish were salted and the salt fish sold in the inland towns. They were
+even exported to foreign countries. The Greeks probably also
+introduced poultry and hens' eggs to the farmers and housewives of
+Canaan.
+
+=New articles of dress and furniture.=--These same newcomers brought
+with them a greater variety of fabrics and garments, such as Cilician
+goat's-hair cloth, out of which coarse cloaks and curtains, as well as
+tents, were made; also felt for hats and sandals. The Greeks also
+introduced the custom of carrying handkerchiefs. Many new kinds of
+household utensils came into Jewish homes as a result of the example
+of their Greek associates, for example, arm chairs, mirrors, table
+cloths, plates, and cups. Hemp and hempen cords and ropes came from
+the Greeks. From this same source came the custom of placing food at
+meals on dining tables, like ours, while the diners, unlike ourselves,
+lay on couches with their heads toward the table. It may also have
+been the Greeks--although possibly it was the Persians--who first
+brought coined money into Canaan, so that in making each purchase it
+was not necessary to weigh the silver or the gold.
+
+All these useful and beautiful things helped to win over sensible
+people among the Jews to look with favor on their new neighbors. And
+when Jewish travelers found themselves stopping at new and more
+comfortable inns managed by Greek innkeepers, and went to bathe in the
+public baths which were erected in the larger cities by the Greek
+authorities, they were sure to spread the idea that even Jews might
+learn something from the Greeks.
+
+
+BROAD-MINDED PATRIOTS AMONG THE JEWS
+
+Fortunately there were some among the Jews who could appreciate the
+good and beautiful things in Greek civilization without being disloyal
+to their own race and their own religion; and, on the other hand,
+could be proud of the great teachings of the prophets without hating
+and despising men of other races. They had learned well the lesson of
+that great prophet whom we call the Second Isaiah, that Jehovah chose
+Israel, not as his special "pet" or favorite, but as his servant to
+teach all nations about the true God and his righteous rule. Such men
+realized that the Greeks and Egyptians and other foreigners were
+Jehovah's children like themselves, and that instead of despising them
+they ought to make friends with them and try to teach them the
+religion of Jehovah.
+
+=Jewish religious books written for Greeks.=--It was by men of this
+broad spirit that a number of books were written for the sake of
+winning Greeks to the Jewish religion. These books were written in the
+Greek language and explained to Greek readers the law of Moses and the
+teachings of the prophets. Among the most important of these books was
+the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. This translation
+was made, indeed, chiefly for the benefit of Jews living in Greek
+countries who had forgotten the old Hebrew tongue. But the translators
+also had in mind the great non-Jewish Greek world.
+
+And the new translation, sometimes called the Septuagint (that is, the
+book of the seventy translators who are said to have worked on it),
+found its way into the hands of many a Greek reader who learned from
+it for the first time something about the religion of Jehovah.
+
+The author of the story of Jonah, in the Bible, was another Jew of
+this broad spirit. He had traveled in Egypt. He had seen the vices and
+sins of the heathen. And he had tried to tell them of the just and
+merciful laws of the one God of all the world, Jehovah. Many of his
+fellow Jews criticised him for this. "Why do you have anything to do
+with these Gentile dogs?" they asked. It was in answer to this
+question that he wrote about Jonah, the prophet whom Jehovah had sent
+to preach to the wicked heathen city of Nineveh. He had tried to avoid
+obeying the command, but at last had gone; and when the Ninevites
+listened to his preaching and repented and turned to Jehovah he was
+angry. And Jehovah said unto him, "Should not I have regard for
+Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand
+persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left
+hand?" (That is, six score thousand little children.)
+
+Jonah in this story is a type of the Jewish people. As Jehovah sent
+Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, so he would send the Jews to teach
+the nations of his love. What a pity to be so narrow-minded, so
+blinded by pride of race, as to have no sympathy or good will for any
+other race of men! This is the lesson the author of the book meant to
+teach.
+
+Probably very few of the Jews who heard this man, or read his book,
+understood or appreciated him. But there were enough of them who cared
+for him to preserve his book, so that it became a part of their sacred
+writings; and perhaps more than any other book in the Old Testament it
+prepared the way for a broadening of the dreams and plans of Abraham
+and Moses and the prophets to include not only Jews but all
+mankind--that broadening which we call Christianity.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read Isaiah 19. 19-24.
+
+2. What do you think this writer would have thought of our American
+habit of calling names at foreigners?
+
+3. What advice would these writers have given us, in regard to our
+"Japanese" problem?
+
+4. If you have time, look into the book of Jonah.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS[5]
+
+
+All children among all races receive as they grow up some kind of an
+education. Isaac learned from his father Abraham and from the other
+older people about him how to set up a tent, how to milk a goat, how
+to recognize the tracks of bears and other wild beasts, and all the
+other bits of knowledge so necessary to wandering shepherds. Not till
+many centuries after Abraham in Hebrew history were there any special
+schools apart from the everyday experiences of life, or any man whose
+special work was that of teaching. But in the centuries following the
+destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and its gradual
+restoration, the people came more and more to see the importance of
+education. And in the course of these three or four centuries before
+the coming of Christ there grew up two kinds of schools and two kinds
+of teachers, first, an _open air_ school where life itself was
+studied, and then later, in the second place, an _indoor_ school,
+where the chief study was that of books.
+
+
+SCHOOLS IN THE OPEN AIR
+
+These open-air schools were most often to be seen in the "city gate."
+The Jews meant by the "gate" of the city the broad open space in front
+of the actual opening in the city wall. It was like the public square
+in our modern towns.
+
+=Scenes in the "Gate."=--Suppose we visit one of the "gates." It is
+early morning. Everything is noise and confusion. Here are merchants
+peddling their wheat, or dates, or honey, their wool or their flax.
+Customers are haggling over prices. Each one is shouting with a
+shrill voice and with many gestures that the price asked is an
+outrage. Besides the merchants there are judges. Here sits one of the
+city elders with a long white beard. Before him are two farmers
+disputing over a boundary line--also witnesses and spectators.
+
+Out in the middle of the area children are playing. Every now and then
+a mangy yellow dog noses his way through the crowd looking for scraps
+of food. And everywhere are the folks who came out just to see their
+neighbors and to hear the news.
+
+In one corner of the open space by the "gate" we notice a dignified
+figure, an old man with a circle of friends and listeners. He is
+watching the varied scenes around him and occasionally talking with
+those about him.
+
+"Who is that old man?" we ask.
+
+"That is one of the wise men," we are told.
+
+These "wise men" among the Hebrews studied human nature, and gave to
+young men and to any less-experienced people who cared to listen, the
+benefit of their practical good sense. They loved to teach through
+"proverbs," that is, short and witty sentences. A large number of the
+"proverbs" of these teachers are preserved in the Book of Proverbs in
+our Old Testament.
+
+
+THE TEACHING OF THE WISE MEN
+
+One of the most important keys to success in life is a knowledge of
+people. This the wise men helped their students to obtain. Let us sit
+for a while beside one of them and look through his eyes at the people
+who pass by. Here comes young Mr. Know-it-all. He wears a very fine
+garment, and walks with a swagger. His father and mother and all his
+aunts and uncles have always told him that he is the most clever
+person in the world. And, of course, he agrees with them. He will
+listen to advice from nobody. The wise man watches him pass, then says
+to his hearers:
+
+  ="Seest thou a wise man in his own conceit?
+  There is more hope of a fool than of him."=
+            (=Proverbs 26. 12.=)
+
+The wise man has a sense of humor. He loves to smile at the little
+inconsistencies of life. He has been listening to the talk between a
+merchant and his customer. And this is his comment on it.
+
+  ="It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer:
+  But when he is gone his way, then he boasteth."=
+            (=Proverbs 20. 14.=)
+
+But though he is so quick to laugh at human follies the wise man has a
+tender heart. He helps his hearers to sympathize with those who are
+anxious and discouraged. And he knows the value of friendly
+encouragement.
+
+  ="Heaviness in the heart of a man maketh it stoop;
+  But a good word maketh it glad."=
+            (=Proverbs 12. 25.=)
+
+=A practical advice of the wise men.=--With this knowledge of human
+nature these teachers were able to give much good counsel in matters
+of business. For example, there were tricksters in those days just as
+now. One of their favorite tricks was to persuade some "greenhorn" to
+act as surety for a loan. "Just shake hands with me before
+witnesses," the smooth tongued one would say, "and the banker will
+lend me money; there is a caravan of silks coming from Damascus which
+I can buy for a song. We will both be rich." So the poor fool would
+shake hands before witnesses, which was like our modern custom of
+signing one's name on a note. The man would then take the money and
+disappear, leaving his victim to repay the loan or be sold into
+slavery. "Be on your guard against these sharpers," the wise men were
+constantly saying.
+
+
+HELPING PEOPLE TO LIVE LOVINGLY TOGETHER
+
+The best part of the teaching of the wise men had to do with even more
+important matters than how to keep from being cheated. They helped
+people live together. They had many sensible things to say about good
+manners. For example, Joshua the son of Sirach, a wise man whose
+sayings are found in the book of Ecclesiasticus in the Apocrypha,
+gives much wise counsel about table manners:
+
+    ="Consider thy neighbor's liking by thine own,
+    And be discreet in every point.
+    Eat as becometh a man, those things which are set before thee;
+    And eat not greedily, lest thou be hated.
+    Be first to leave off, for manner's sake,
+    And be not insatiable, lest thou offend."=
+
+Surely courtesy at the table is one of the things which make life
+happy and noble. Truly civilized people do not eat like pigs in a
+trough.
+
+As they looked out upon the lives of men what made the wise men most
+sorry was the hatred and bitterness which they so often saw between
+those who should have been friends. One of their most frequent
+teachings was the need for the control of one's anger and for charity
+and forgiveness.
+
+  ="A fool uttereth all his anger,
+  But a wise man keepeth it back."=
+            (=Proverbs 29. 11.=)
+
+  ="He that covereth a transgression seeketh love:
+  But he that harpeth on a matter separateth chief friends."=
+            (=Proverbs 17. 9.=)
+
+=Their condemnation of tale-bearing.=--Since the wise men felt so
+strongly on this point, it is not surprising that they kept their most
+scathing denunciations for tale-bearers and troublemakers. Too often
+they saw men who were formerly dear friends passing by each other with
+dark looks. Some liar had been sowing his evil seed. If you have
+anything to say against a man, the wise men urged, say it to his face.
+Don't talk against him behind his back.
+
+  ="A froward man scattereth abroad strife:
+  And a whisperer separateth chief friends."=
+            (=Proverbs 16. 28.=)
+
+
+THE RELIGIOUS TEACHING OF THE WISE MEN
+
+There came a time, perhaps a century or two after Nehemiah, when the
+wise men were the chief moral and religious leaders of the Jewish
+nation. The people had lost faith in the prophets, for there were no
+more prophets like Amos or Isaiah. And these practical teachers with
+their warm sympathy and kind hearts had many true words to speak about
+the God of wisdom and of love. The book of Job in the Bible, one of
+the greatest books of history, was written by one of these wise men.
+It is a story of a man who found God although both his own misfortunes
+and also the false ideas of his friends had made him think that God
+was his enemy. He found God at last because he was brave enough to
+think for himself.
+
+So these teachers gave their pupils the best kind of education. They
+too, like the prophets and all the leaders about whom we have studied,
+helped to prepare their pupils for the life of loving brotherhood with
+God as their common Father, which was the goal toward which all this
+history we have studied was slowly but surely moving.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Browse through the book of Proverbs, especially chapters 10 and
+following, looking for teachings on the following subjects; enter the
+references opposite (_a_), (_b_), etc., below.
+
+   (_a_) Diligence in work.
+   (_b_) Temperance in use of wine.
+   (_c_) Honesty in business.
+   (_d_) Compassion toward the poor.
+   (_e_) Self-control in anger.
+
+2. Read Ecclesiastes 11, for a taste of another "wisdom" book.
+
+3. Find if you can a Bible with the Apocrypha between the Old and New
+Testaments, and read a chapter or two in Ecclesiasticus, or the wisdom
+of the Son of Sira.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] Part of these pages taken from the author's earlier book, The
+Story of Our Bible. Copyright, 1914, 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons.
+Used by permission.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWS
+
+
+If we could have visited the home of some sincerely religious Jew
+about the time when the law of Deuteronomy was adopted by King Josiah
+and the people we might have seen the beginning of a new kind of
+education--the regular study of books, and especially of the Bible.
+They had for their Bible at that time the law of Deuteronomy, which
+they had accepted as God's will for all Jews. And if this was God's
+will for them, it was plain that it must be taught to everybody,
+beginning with the children.
+
+
+TEACHING THE LAW AT HOME
+
+Let us imagine ourselves, then, visiting the house of some good Jewish
+friend in Jerusalem under Josiah. As we enter the door we notice
+letters roughly carved or painted on the wooden door. "You ask what
+are those words," replies our host to our question. "They are from our
+law. They are for the children to see, as they go in and out the door.
+This is the way the inscription reads:
+
+    ="'Hear, O Israel: Jehovah thy God is one and thou shalt love
+    Jehovah thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
+    and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.'=
+
+"The priest wrote them for us and both I myself and the children have
+been learning to read them," says our friend. "And every Sabbath we
+study them, and I teach the children to repeat after me as much of the
+rest of Jehovah's law as I can remember. Sometimes the children ask me
+questions. They say, 'What mean these laws and these statutes which
+you say Jehovah our God commanded?' Then I answer, 'We were Pharaoh's
+slaves in the land of Egypt. And Jehovah brought us up out of Egypt
+... to give us this land. And Jehovah commanded us to do all these
+statutes, to fear Jehovah our God for our good.'"
+
+=Religion through education.=--It is easy to understand that with this
+training in childhood it became more and more easy from this time on
+to persuade the Jewish people not to worship idols and to see why they
+gradually changed more and more rapidly into the most devout and
+earnest people in the world. The children were taught in their homes.
+
+
+THE NEW KIND OF TEACHERS, THE SCRIBES
+
+After Josiah's time many additions were made to this law of Jehovah.
+At first it consisted of only a part of our book of Deuteronomy. But
+the learned priests and prophets, especially after the destruction of
+Jerusalem, made a careful study of all the writings of preceding
+generations, and they found many collections of laws and histories of
+Jehovah's dealings with his people which seemed to them inspired of
+Jehovah and worthy to be reverenced and obeyed. They tried the
+experiment of combining some of these with the law of Deuteronomy. So
+it came to pass that two or three centuries later the Jews had as
+their sacred book the whole of what is now the Pentateuch, or the
+first five books of the Bible.
+
+=The need of other teachers besides the father in the home.=--If this
+larger Bible was to be carefully studied by every Jew from his
+childhood up, there must be certain men who should give their lives to
+teaching it. So in time there came to be a class of teachers known as
+"scribes." These men spent all their working hours reading this law of
+God, making copies of it and teaching it to others. Some of these men
+were truly great and good. For example, there was the gentle Hillel,
+who lived about a century before Christ and who taught the spirit of
+the Golden Rule, although in a form not so perfect as that of Jesus.
+
+  ="Do not to your neighbor what is unpleasant to yourself.
+  This is the whole law. All else is exposition."=
+
+It was a scribe like this who talked with Jesus about the "greatest
+commandment," and to whom Jesus said, "Thou art not far from the
+Kingdom of God."
+
+
+THE SCHOOLS OF THE SCRIBES
+
+These teachers conducted regular daily schools in the synagogues. More
+and more children were sent to them until in the time of Jesus all
+boys were supposed to go for at least a year or two. Girls were taught
+only at home. People had not yet come to realize that the minds of
+girls are as well worth educating as those of boys.
+
+=The methods of teaching.=--The boys sat on the floor in a circle
+before the teacher. They repeated after him the Jewish alphabet and
+learned to recognize each letter. Their only textbooks were papyrus
+rolls on which were written parts of the law. They began with
+Leviticus and learned by heart as much of it as possible. We can
+imagine that the boys were glad when they finished with Leviticus and
+went back to Genesis to the stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph.
+
+They also learned to write. Their copybooks were at first rough scraps
+of broken pottery on which with sharp nails they learned to scratch
+letters. Probably mischievous boys sometimes drew pictures instead of
+practicing the words assigned to them. After they could write fairly
+well they were given wax tablets, or even a bit of papyrus, a quill
+pen, and an ink horn. Papyrus was expensive and had to be used with
+care.
+
+
+GOOD AND BAD RESULTS OF THE TEACHING OF THE SCRIBES
+
+So much study of these books of law and history was bound to wield a
+mighty influence. Those thousands of boys studying laws which for
+their time were the most just and humane in the world, could not but
+learn something about the meaning of justice and mercy. Better still,
+the wonderful stories in Genesis and Exodus left their sure impress on
+the hearts of those who studied. The boys for the most part reverenced
+their teachers, and many of them came to love their Book, the law. It
+was a boy, so taught, who when he was older, wrote that Psalm:
+
+    ="Thy word is a lamp unto my feet
+    And light unto my path.=
+           *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
+    =Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?
+    By taking heed thereto, according to thy word."=
+
+=The danger of formality.=--The danger in this kind of education is
+that of blindness to the voice of God to be heard in everyday
+experience or in our own hearts as well as in the written Scripture.
+The result of this blindness is that goodness and religion are thought
+of as merely the keeping of the written law. It was such blind scribes
+whom Jesus denounced for giving tithes, or a tenth part of the mint
+and anise and cummin, that is, of even the most insignificant of their
+garden herbs and forgetting mercy and justice and faith; in other
+words, keeping the letter of the written law but not living out the
+spirit of it. It is not enough, Jesus taught, just to obey what is
+written. To do only that is to be an unprofitable servant. This bad
+kind of religion grew up in those schools where only books were
+studied, not the real everyday experience of living people.
+
+
+JESUS WAS A WISE MAN RATHER THAN A SCRIBE
+
+When Jesus came he was a teacher more like those more ancient wise men
+of the city gates. Like them he taught his listeners out of doors by
+the shores of the lake or on the hillside as well as in the
+synagogues. He reverenced the Bible, the Law and the Prophets, as
+God's word, but he listened for that word also in the sights and
+sounds of the streets and country lanes. He heard his Father's voice
+as he listened to house wives chatting with their neighbors, or to
+vineyard keepers hiring harvest hands.
+
+    "When He walked the fields he drew
+    From the flowers and birds and dew
+        Parables of God.
+    For within his heart of love
+    All the soul of man did move--
+        God had his abode."
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up in the Bible dictionary under "Scribes" and "Rabbi."
+
+2. What impressions of the scribes do you get from Matthew 7. 28-29,
+Matthew 15. 1-9, and Mark 12. 28-34?
+
+3. Read Luke 1. 5-6; 2. 25-36. Where and how do you think these good
+men and women, among whom Jesus was born, got their training?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+NEW OPPRESSORS AND NEW WARS FOR FREEDOM
+
+
+After the death of Alexander the Great his empire was broken into
+fragments ruled by those of his generals who were able to snatch these
+smaller kingdoms for themselves. One of them named Ptolemy seized
+Egypt. His descendants, known as the Ptolemies, reigned there for
+centuries. Another, named Seleucus, gained control of the greater part
+of the old Persian empire. He built the city of Antioch, in northern
+Syria, naming it after his father Antiochus. His descendants, on the
+throne of the new kingdom, are known in history as the Seleucids.
+
+
+THE JEWS UNDER GREEK RULERS
+
+Canaan at first became part of the kingdom of the Ptolemies, and this
+continued for about a century. During this period the Jews seemed to
+have been treated with a fair degree of kindness and justice. At least
+they were left most of the time in peace. But about B.C. 200, Canaan
+was taken from the Ptolemies by the Seleucids, and this turned out to
+be for the Jewish people an unhappy change. In the year 175 B.C.,
+there came to the throne in Antioch a young prince named Antiochus
+Epiphanes who, like Alexander the Great, thought of himself as a kind
+of missionary for Greek art and civilization. He became more and more
+angry because so many of the Jews refused to worship Greek gods. About
+B.C. 170, he issued a decree that all persons in his dominion must
+offer sacrifices to Zeus. When the Jews refused they were put to
+death.
+
+=New persecutions.=--A terrible persecution was thus begun. A Greek
+officer would come into a Jewish town or village, set up an altar to
+Zeus, and summon all the people to join in the sacrifice of worship.
+As many as possible of those who refused were hunted down and killed.
+All copies of the Jewish law that could be found were burned. Every
+month a search was made throughout Judæa to see whether any Jew still
+had copies of the Scriptures. A heathen altar was set up in the temple
+at Jerusalem and swine were sacrificed upon it. To the Jews, who were
+taught to regard swine's flesh as unclean and unholy, nothing could
+have seemed more horrible.
+
+Of course there were some traitors and renegades. But the great
+majority of the Jewish people were nobly true to the faith of their
+fathers. Hundreds and thousands, young and old, allowed themselves to
+be tortured and slain rather than take part in a heathen sacrifice.
+Many even of those who had fallen in with some of the evil customs of
+the Greeks now refused to be known as anything else than faithful
+Jews, even though it might cost them their lives.
+
+
+THE MACCABEAN REVOLTS AND VICTORIES
+
+In the midst of this cruel persecution a rebellion flamed up under the
+leadership of a certain brave old priest named Mattathias. After his
+death his sons took up the cause. The greatest of them was Judas, who
+was surnamed Maccabeus, which some have thought meant the Hammerer.
+The whole family is known as the Maccabees. Under the skillful
+command of Judas victory after victory was won by his little band of
+Jewish warriors fighting against great armies of Greek hired soldiers.
+The city of Jerusalem was cleared of the detested oppressors, all
+except a garrison that maintained itself in the citadel. The temple
+was purified and rededicated to Jehovah.
+
+After some twenty years the soldiers from Antioch were driven out
+altogether and the little Jewish kingdom under Simon, a brother of
+Judas, was recognized as independent. For nearly a century the
+descendants of the Maccabees reigned in Jerusalem. Most of them turned
+out to be greedy and selfish men unworthy of Judas and Simon. Yet
+during this period the Jews tasted once again something of the joys of
+freedom.
+
+
+THE VICTORIES OF ROME
+
+During the last two centuries before Christ a new empire had been
+growing up in the west, that of Rome. In the year B.C. 63, two princes
+of the Maccabean line fell into a quarrel as to which one should be
+king. There was a civil war, which was ended by the Roman general
+Pompey, who annexed the country as a province of the Roman Empire.
+This was the end of the independence of the Jewish nation.
+
+=The Herods.=--Sometimes Roman provinces were ruled by Roman
+governors, and at other times they were left to native kings who were
+allowed to do pretty much as they pleased so long as they paid tribute
+to Rome. There was a certain Edomite, or Idumean, as the name was
+pronounced by the Greeks and Romans, who partly by flattery and partly
+by real ability persuaded Romans to make him king over the whole land
+of Palestine.
+
+This man is known in the history books as Herod the Great, although
+he was sadly lacking in true greatness, being fearfully cruel and
+absolutely selfish. He built many beautiful palaces in various Jewish
+cities and also rebuilt very beautifully the temple at Jerusalem. He
+himself had no interest in religion, but he hoped in this way to win
+back with the Jews some of the popularity which he had lost through
+his many crimes. It was during his reign that Jesus was born. When
+Herod died the land was divided among his sons. When Jesus began his
+public career as a teacher one of these sons, Herod Antipas, was the
+ruler of the northern part of the country, that is Galilee. Judæa, in
+the south, and Samaria between Galilee and Judæa, were directly under
+Roman rule with a Roman governor or procurator.
+
+=The Sanhedrin.=--To a certain extent even after the Roman conquest
+the Jews were permitted to govern themselves. There was in Jerusalem a
+council, or court, of leading priests and rabbis, called the
+Sanhedrin. There were in it seventy-one members. When any member died
+the others elected some one to fill the vacancy. All Jews everywhere
+were supposed to be under the authority of the Sanhedrin. But except
+in purely religious matters it had little power outside of Judæa. In
+Judæa, however, this court, or council, decided all questions except
+those which the Roman procurator reserved for himself. They were not
+allowed to condemn a criminal to death. So when the Sanhedrin voted to
+put Jesus out of the way it was necessary to take him before Pilate
+the Roman procurator and persuade Pilate to ratify the sentence of
+death. How galling it was to a proud nation like the Jews to be
+obliged to go to a hated enemy for permission to carry out their
+decrees we can well imagine; and we shall learn more of it in the next
+chapter.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up in the Bible dictionary, Maccabees and Herod.
+
+2. Read Hebrews 11. 32-40. Verses 33-38 are probably in large part a
+description of the heroic martyrs before the Maccabees.
+
+3. Was the Maccabean rule a failure because it did not last?
+
+4. How did these rulers contribute to the great ends which Jews had
+always dreamed of.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE DISCONTENT OF THE JEWS UNDER ROMAN RULE
+
+
+In spite of the fact that the Jews still had some power of
+self-government through the Sanhedrin, the great mass of the people
+hated the Romans with an almost inconceivable fury. The world had
+never before seen such cruel rulers. The Assyrians had been bad, but
+the Romans were worse. Think of that form of punishment which they
+inflicted carelessly every day even for minor crimes--crucifixion! The
+poor victim was nailed by the hands and feet to a pole and left to
+hang in agony till death mercifully ended it all. Think of the
+gladiatorial combats in the city of Rome and in other Roman cities,
+where every day for centuries slaves or condemned criminals fought
+each other with swords to the death, or fought with wild beasts while
+the gloating multitudes looked on in rapture.
+
+Moreover, not only were the Romans very cruel, they had no manners.
+They were haughty in their bearing and took pains to let conquered
+people know how thoroughly they were despised.
+
+=Roman cruelty in Palestine.=--All these qualities were manifested
+almost at their worst by the Roman rulers in Judæa and Galilee. Jesus
+speaks of certain Galilæans, "whose blood Pilate mingled with their
+sacrifices." We know nothing of this incident except what Jesus tells.
+Evidently, these Galilæans had come as pilgrims to Jerusalem at the
+time of one of the annual feasts. Possibly they did not salute with
+sufficient respect the Roman eagles as they passed some squad of Roman
+soldiers in the street. At any rate, they were taken before Pilate and
+ruthlessly condemned to the slaughter.
+
+=Roman taxes and the Publicans.=--Naturally, the thought of paying
+taxes to such masters was almost unbearable. Yet each adult Jewish man
+and woman was required to pay a personal or poll tax besides taxes on
+his property or income. To make matters worse, the Romans were
+accustomed to hire _Jews_ to collect these taxes, giving these men the
+right to extort whatever they could, provided the required tribute was
+paid to Rome. Of course all true Jews hated and despised these Jewish
+tax-gatherers or publicans even more than they hated and despised the
+Romans themselves.
+
+
+VARIOUS PARTIES AMONG THE JEWS
+
+There were some respectable Jews, indeed, as well as these
+tax-collectors, who favored the Romans. There were for example the
+Sadducees, a group of wealthy and aristocratic men, mostly priests,
+who formed a sort of political party called by this name. Many of them
+were members of the Sanhedrin. They were prosperous, and so long as
+their power was not taken away they sided with the Romans. It was
+nothing to them that the great mass of their poor fellow countrymen
+were being brutally and wickedly robbed and ill-treated.
+
+=The Pharisees.=--We have already spoken of the Pharisees as being
+"Separatists," that is, the people who were most opposed to any
+contact with heathen foreigners. Strange to say, most of the Pharisees
+were opposed to any violent rebellion against the Romans. They
+believed that God himself would come to the aid of his people. Many
+books of the class called apocalypses were written during this period
+of the history in which the writers tried to comfort their readers by
+prophesying that the Lord would soon descend from heaven with armies
+of angels or would send his Messiah to drive out the Romans and set up
+his own kingdom. The word "Messiah" (in Greek, "Christ") means
+_anointed one_.
+
+The book of Daniel in the Old Testament is one of the books of this
+period. Many similar books were written which were not included in the
+canon of the Scriptures. All of them were written in rather mysterious
+language--with references to trumpets, vials, seals, beasts with many
+heads and many horns, and so on. This was to keep their heathen rulers
+from understanding the real meaning. It would not have been safe
+openly to predict that in a few years God was going to send all Romans
+to eternal punishment.
+
+=The Zealots.=--There were still others among the Jews at this time
+who were not willing to wait for Jehovah to come down from heaven.
+They wanted to start a revolution right away. One such man, Judas of
+Gamala, led a revolt when Jesus was about ten years old in which many
+Galilæans joined. It was put down by the Romans with their usual
+cruelty. Very likely the fathers of some of Jesus' boyhood friends in
+Nazareth of Galilee were crucified as the punishment for taking part
+in this revolt. Those who sympathized with Judas continued to plot in
+secret against the hated Roman oppressors. They were called Zealots.
+One of them became a member of Jesus' band of twelve apostles.
+
+
+SMOLDERING HATE AMONG THE PEOPLE
+
+Whether they were actual plotters against Rome, like the Zealots, or
+whether they gave their strength to eager prayer to Jehovah for
+deliverance, the great mass of the common people among the Jews in the
+time of Christ were burning with a fierce patriotism and with a hatred
+against their oppressors such as we can scarcely imagine. The century
+of freedom under the Maccabees had made them all the more impatient of
+tyranny--and then to find themselves under such unspeakable tyrants as
+Herod and Pilate!--this was almost unendurable.
+
+The children drank in this spirit with their mothers' milk. Fathers
+and mothers had constantly to warn their boys and girls not to show
+their feelings toward Roman officers and soldiers lest some dreadful
+punishment should befall them. So it went on from year to year,
+growing constantly worse instead of better. The whole land was like a
+heap of smoldering leaves. Sooner or later there would be a sudden
+flare of open flame.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up in the Bible dictionary "Publicans," "Zealots," and
+"Sadducees."
+
+2. How do you explain the success of the Romans in tyrannizing the
+proud Jews for so many years? Consider the part played by the
+Sadducees.
+
+3. Read Matthew 3. 1-2. Why did John's message arouse such interest
+and enthusiasm?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER BY JESUS
+
+
+This history of the common people of Israel began with certain vague
+hopes of a happier and nobler way of living for the descendants of
+Abraham. As the centuries passed these hopes were only very partially
+realized. But what was more important the Jews came more and more
+clearly to understand the meaning of their own hopes. Their great
+teachers helped them to know what they really wanted or ought to want
+if they would be happy. Moses taught them the first lessons of justice
+as the foundation of happiness. The great prophets helped them to see
+that neither happiness nor justice was possible except as they knew
+and worshiped the true God--not a God of greed and anger to be bribed
+with sacrifices, but the God of justice and love. A few of the
+prophets also began to see that such hopes as theirs could not be for
+Jews alone but must include all mankind.
+
+
+THE FULLNESS OF THE TIMES
+
+The Jews under their Roman masters had come to a time, as we saw in
+the preceding chapter, when they were wildly expecting an immediate
+fulfillment of these hopes. The short taste of freedom and happiness
+which they had enjoyed under Judas and Simon Maccabeus, followed by a
+tyranny more cruel and distasteful than any which their ancestors had
+known, made them almost mad with the desire for some kind of a
+Saviour. And it seemed to them that he must come soon.
+
+=The chance for a world-Saviour.=--All over the world just at this
+time there were strange hopes and longings in men's hearts. The Romans
+had robbed many other nations besides the Jews of their independence.
+These people had no real nation of their own any longer to live
+for--and they hated Rome. What was there to make life worth living
+unless some Redeemer should come from God?
+
+Moreover, it was possible now to think of such a Saviour as a
+world-Saviour. In the earlier centuries men hardly knew that there was
+a world outside their own tribe and a few of their neighbors. There
+were no maps. Only a few could travel, and see for themselves how
+great a world there really was--and how many nations there were--made
+up of men like themselves. The common people of Asia scarcely knew
+that there was a Europe, and the enormous continent of Africa, except
+for Egypt, did not exist for them. As for what is now called the New
+World, North and South America, no one knew of its existence.
+
+=Preparations for Christianity.=--But the Romans built good roads all
+over the great countries which bordered on the Mediterranean Sea, and
+many were the travelers who went to and fro upon them. They
+established one government for all this Mediterranean world. One
+language came to be understood everywhere--not Latin, the language of
+the Romans themselves, but Greek. Beyond the boundaries of the empire
+there were, of course, vast territories. But it was possible now for
+even the common people to realize that their own village or city or
+tribe was only a small part of one great world. And for the first time
+in history there was a chance for some one to take the old Jewish hope
+of a better and happier Jewish people and change it into a world-hope
+of a better and happier human race, and to gather a few men and women
+together and start them working for it.
+
+
+THE COMING OF JESUS
+
+In the wonderful providence of God there was born in a manger-cradle
+just at this moment in history the Baby who was destined to accomplish
+this miracle; to broaden out to their widest and noblest meanings
+these hopes which had been handed down from one generation of Jews to
+another. The story of the life of Jesus will be given in detail in
+other courses in this series. Here, in a nutshell, is what Jesus did:
+he helped men to believe in a God who loved all men as his children,
+whether rich or poor, learned or ignorant, Jews or Gentiles or
+Samaritans, even the bad as well as the good; for if they were bad,
+they needed his love to help them to be good. Jesus not only taught
+this idea of God through his spoken words; he helped men, through his
+deeds, to understand it. He _lived_ that way, as the Son of such a
+God. He healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He ate and drank with
+outcasts. He was everybody's friend.
+
+=The inevitable conflict and cross.=--Of course Jesus was not able to
+live that kind of life very long in our kind of world. Very soon he
+came into conflict with the various kinds of men who enjoyed special
+privileges of wealth or learning or honor and were not at all willing
+to share these things in a brotherly way; with the Pharisees, who were
+considered especially holy and did not want to be brothers to common
+men, the "people of the land"; with the rich who did not want to be
+brothers to the poor; with priests who did not want to be brothers to
+wounded men lying by the side of the Jericho road; with Romans who
+were afraid the Jews might think brotherhood meant liberty. So after
+three short years of preaching and healing Jesus was nailed to the
+cross, praying even as the nails were driven into his hands, "Father,
+forgive them, for they know not what they do."
+
+=Suppose the Jews had believed in Jesus.=--How different the outcome
+of their history would then have been! Instead of a bloody and
+hopeless revolt against the Romans, they might have found a way to
+live at peace with them, receiving from them a more just and humane
+government; Isaiah, centuries before, showed his people how to get
+along under the rule of Assyrians. Or, if the Romans had goaded the
+people to rebel, they might have fought and died gloriously, not
+merely for their own freedom but in the cause of all the suffering
+masses in all lands. Thus the whole course of history might have been
+changed. The four years' war which did break out in A.D. 66, about
+thirty-six years after Jesus' death, was not that kind of a war. In
+the course of these four years different factions among the Jews
+fought each other almost as fiercely as they fought the Romans. The
+Jews themselves were selfish in their hopes. They were not inspired
+and strengthened by Jesus' vision of brotherhood. In A.D. 70 the
+Romans captured the city of Jerusalem and burned the temple. It was
+never rebuilt. From that day to this the Jews have been a people
+without a native land.
+
+
+CARRYING OUT THE IDEAS OF JESUS
+
+There was, however, after Jesus' death and resurrection, a splendid
+company of disciples whose lives had been transformed by their
+acceptance of Jesus as Saviour and Lord, and who were eager to go on
+carrying out Jesus' plans. None of them thoroughly understood these
+plans. Indeed, we are only beginning to understand them to-day. But
+very soon, within a few years after Jesus' death, the wisest of the
+early apostles, such men as Peter, Barnabas, and Paul, came to see
+that to carry out Jesus' wishes there needed to be a universal church
+in which Jews and Gentiles, men of all races, would be included.
+Within a half century branches of this new world-church had been
+started in every important city in the Roman empire. At first their
+meetings were held in synagogues of the Jews of the Dispersion; and it
+is a pity that all the Jews could not have perceived that these
+disciples of Jesus were carrying out the hopes of their own prophets,
+that this Christianity was simply Judaism fulfilled. But many, of
+course, wanted to keep their religion and their God to themselves as
+Jews. So there sprang up other buildings everywhere which came to be
+known as Christian churches rather than Jewish synagogues.
+
+=Our task to-day.=--In these modern times we are still trying to
+understand what Jesus wanted and to bring it to pass in reality. We
+are beginning to see that if all men are indeed sacred to our heavenly
+Father, then under the leadership of our everliving Christ, a fight is
+in store for us on behalf of all the millions of our brothers who are
+blinded by selfishness, haggard from want, embittered by injustice,
+stunted in soul and mind by ignorance, or tortured by all the agonies
+of war. If there is to be a better world for any of us, it must be a
+better world for all of us. It must be "everybody's world."
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up in the Bible dictionary, for further light on the
+background of Jesus' life, Galilee, Nazareth, Capernaum.
+
+2. Read Matthew 4. 17. Explain why the message of Jesus, like that of
+John, awakened such a quick response among the people.
+
+3. What did Jesus think of the rule of Rome? Read Matthew 20. 25-27,
+and Luke 13. 31, 32.
+
+4. In contrast with the Zealots, what was Jesus' plan for winning
+freedom and happiness, instead of the oppression and misery of Roman
+rule? Read John 18. 33-38.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+A THOUSAND YEARS OF A NATION'S QUEST
+
+
+In this course of study we have been tracing the progress of a great
+enterprise. A race of people set out in the days of Abraham to seek
+the best in life. Did they win or lose, succeed or fail? What did they
+achieve, during a thousand years of striving?
+
+
+SUMMARY OF RESULTS
+
+Looking back over the whole period which we have studied, there are
+four short epochs which stand out in bright contrast to long stretches
+of darkness as times when the common people had a chance to enjoy some
+of the good things of life, or at least had reason to hope that they
+might some time gain them for themselves or their children. These were
+the times of David, of Josiah, of Nehemiah, and of Simon the Maccabee.
+These four men were all able and just leaders. They were all inspired,
+to a greater or less extent, by the ideals of Abraham, Moses, and the
+great reformer-prophets.
+
+=The long centuries of failure.=--The lives of all four of these men
+together, however, do not cover much more than a century. During the
+rest of the time, the common people were ground down under oppressors,
+either of their own race or foreign conquerors. Generation after
+generation of fathers and mothers patiently toiled and struggled and
+suffered, in the hope that they might climb just a little higher
+toward the sunlight of health and comfort and the higher blessings of
+life. Most of them struggled in vain. It is true that a few of the
+more fortunate, in each generation, saw some little advance over
+earlier generations in the good things of civilization. Such men as
+Nicodemus and Zacchæus, in the time of Jesus, lived in better houses,
+wore more comfortable clothes, and ate better food than did King David
+himself in an earlier, ruder age. But the common people of Jesus' day
+were not so well off as even in the days of Abraham. For as wandering
+shepherds they were free. Life might be a bitter struggle against wild
+beasts and drought and famine. But no haughty masters looked down on
+them with contempt, or robbed them of their last farthing in unjust
+taxation. Shall we say, then, that as a whole, the great enterprise
+was a failure?
+
+
+THE GREAT ACHIEVEMENT--A TRUE RELIGION
+
+No, the great quest was not a failure, even though it was so far from
+a complete success. Out of the long years of struggle and prayer had
+come a new religion, not, indeed, understood by many but partly
+grasped at least by some, and written down in books so that it could
+never be wholly lost. This was a religion of the brotherhood of man
+and of a universal Father-God. The four eras of their history when the
+common people had been happy were eras when the principles of this
+religion had partly prevailed. And these eras still shine out for us
+as examples of what that kind of religion means in the life of a
+people. And the lives and words of the great prophets, and, greatest
+of all, the life of Jesus Christ, are a priceless legacy to us, who
+are still continuing the quest which Abraham began.
+
+=The truth which has been revealed to us.=--All men, everywhere, who
+are longing and toiling for a better chance for life and happiness
+and for knowledge and beauty and love for themselves and for their
+children, may now know that they are not without a mighty helper.
+There is One who revealed himself, in the history of the people of
+Israel and uniquely in Jesus Christ his Son, who still speaks in the
+name of all the hungry and thirsty and ragged and sick:
+
+    ="I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty,
+    and ye gave me no drink: ... Inasmuch as ye did it not unto
+    one of these least, ye did it not unto me."=
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Of the four short eras of righteousness, in the history of the
+Hebrews, in which does it seem to you that the common people made the
+greatest gains?
+
+2. What were some of the improvements in civilization which rich or
+well-to-do people, in the later centuries of this history, enjoyed, as
+compared with the earlier centuries? Study Chapters I and II, VI, VII,
+and VIII, and XXII.
+
+3. Compare the earliest religion of the Hebrews with the religion of
+the prophets and Jesus. Mention four great discoveries in regard to
+the character of God.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW AND TEST QUESTIONS
+
+
+1. Describe the daily life of the earliest ancestors of the Hebrews.
+
+2. What valuable characteristic of these people is reflected in the
+story of Joseph?
+
+3. What were some of the evils of Babylonian life?
+
+4. What kind of life did Abraham admire judging from the story of Lot?
+
+5. What was the name of the Pharaoh who oppressed the Hebrews?
+
+6. Describe the slavery which the Hebrews were compelled to endure.
+What did they have to do?
+
+7. How did Moses succeed in delivering his countrymen?
+
+8. What was the effect of this deliverance on the life and religion of
+the Hebrews in after years?
+
+9. Why was it comparatively easy for the Hebrews to get a foothold in
+Canaan about B.C. 1200?
+
+10. To what extent was the settlement in Canaan peaceful and to what
+extent was it by conquest?
+
+11. What lessons in civilization did the Hebrews learn in Canaan?
+
+12. What moral dangers did they have to fight against there?
+
+13. Why were the Hebrews in the first years after the settlement so
+often beaten by their enemies?
+
+14. What was Deborah's most important contribution to the history of
+her people?
+
+15. Why did it seem necessary for the Hebrews to have a king?
+
+16. Why were some of the wisest of the Hebrews opposed to the idea of
+a king?
+
+17. How did David make the lives of the common people under his rule
+more prosperous and happy?
+
+18. Why was Solomon unpopular?
+
+19. Was the disruption of the kingdom of Solomon a mistake, or was it
+a blessing?
+
+20. In what way did most of the kings who followed David make
+themselves a curse to their subjects?
+
+21. Explain why the Rechabites, Elijah, and others hated Canaanite
+civilization and wanted the people to go back to the old nomadic
+desert ways.
+
+22. Describe the burnt-offerings of ancient Hebrew religion. What was
+the difference between ordinary sacrifices and special "whole
+burnt-offerings"?
+
+23. Describe the life of the poor people of Israel in the time of
+Jeroboam II and the prophet Amos.
+
+24. How did Amos criticize the religion of burnt-offerings?
+
+25. What false ideas of God did Hosea combat?
+
+26. How did Hosea come to think of God as loving and merciful?
+
+27. How were superstitious ideas about God used by greedy priests and
+fortune-tellers in Micah's day to extort money from the people?
+
+28. What did Micah say were the essential things in religion?
+
+29. Why did the Jews in Isaiah's time seek for alliances with foreign
+countries?
+
+30. How were these alliances connected with the worship of foreign
+gods?
+
+31. What were some of the sayings of Isaiah in which he taught the
+lesson of faith in the one true God?
+
+32. What plan did Isaiah devise to educate disciples in his religious
+teachings?
+
+33. What was the historical connection between the study circles of
+Isaiah and the law-book of Deuteronomy?
+
+34. To what extent did the law-book of Deuteronomy lead to the
+practice of the teachings of the prophets?
+
+35. How did this law compromise in the matter of burnt-offerings and
+other sacrifices?
+
+36. What did the prophet Jeremiah think of the law-book of
+Deuteronomy? Did he favor it or condemn it? Explain.
+
+37. Describe the life of the exiles in Babylon.
+
+38. How did they keep alive their faith in Jehovah?
+
+39. Where else besides Babylonia were large numbers of Hebrew exiles
+to be found?
+
+40. With what hopes did the Jews comfort themselves after the
+destruction of Jerusalem?
+
+41. In what two ways did Nehemiah help the Jews in Jerusalem to a
+happier life?
+
+42. Tell the story of the growing use of prayer and hymn books in the
+religious worship of the Jews.
+
+43. Why did many of the Jews become more narrowly prejudiced against
+foreigners after the destruction of Jerusalem?
+
+44. What influences tended to make some of the Jews in this period
+more broad-minded and friendly toward foreigners?
+
+45. Mention some writings from this period which helped the cause of
+the broader patriotism.
+
+46. What two kinds of special schools and teachers grew up among the
+Jews?
+
+47. Describe the daily scenes in the group of listeners around one of
+the old wise men.
+
+48. What were some weaknesses and faults in the education of the
+scribes?
+
+49. What contributions did the Greeks bring to the civilization of the
+Jews in Canaan?
+
+50. Why were the Jews specially discontented under the rule of the
+Romans?
+
+51. In what four periods of their history were the Jews happiest?
+
+52. How did Jesus fulfill and broaden out the national hopes of the
+Jews?
+
+
+A SHORT LIST OF BOOKS THROWING LIGHT ON HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES
+
+Kent and Bailey: _History of the Hebrew Commonwealth_.
+
+George A. Barton: _Archæology and the Bible_.
+
+Charles Reynolds Brown: _The Story Books of the Early Hebrews_.
+
+Harold B. Hunting: _The Story of Our Bible_.
+
+Crosby: _Geography of Bible Lands_.
+
+_Hastings' One Volume Bible Dictionary_.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+| Typographical errors corrected in text:                      |
+|                                                              |
+| Page  14: wondering replaced with wandering                  |
+| Page  38: record replaced with records                       |
+| Page 155: 'life itself itself was' replaced with             |
+|           'life itself was'                                  |
+|                                                              |
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Hebrew Life and Times, by Harold B. Hunting
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hebrew Life and Times, by Harold B. Hunting
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Hebrew Life and Times
+
+Author: Harold B. Hunting
+
+Release Date: April 17, 2006 [EBook #18187]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<br />
+<p class="noin">A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text.<br />
+For a complete list, please see the <a href="#TN">bottom of this document</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></span>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h1>HEBREW LIFE AND<br />
+TIMES</h1>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<h2>HAROLD B. HUNTING</h2>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<h5>ABINGDON-COKESBURY PRESS<br />
+NEW YORK &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; NASHVILLE</h5>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a></span>
+
+<h5>Copyright, MCMXXI, by<br />
+HAROLD B. HUNTING</h5>
+
+<br />
+<h6>All Rights Reserved</h6>
+<br />
+<br />
+<h6>Printed in the United States of America</h6>
+
+<br />
+<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="80%" summary="Table of Contents">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr" width="15%"><span style="font-size: 70%;">CHAPTER</span></td>
+  <td width="65%">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="20%"><span style="font-size: 70%;">PAGE</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#FOREWORD">Foreword</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">7</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Shepherds on the Border of the Desert</td>
+  <td class="tdr">9</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Home Life in the Tents</td>
+  <td class="tdr">15</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Desert Pilgrims</td>
+  <td class="tdr">22</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">A Struggle Against Tyranny</td>
+  <td class="tdr">28</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">A Great Deliverance</td>
+  <td class="tdr">34</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">From the Desert into Canaan</td>
+  <td class="tdr">39</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Learning to be Farmers</td>
+  <td class="tdr">44</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Village Life in Canaan</td>
+  <td class="tdr">49</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Keeping House Instead of Camping Out</td>
+  <td class="tdr">55</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Moral Victories in Canaan</td>
+  <td class="tdr">60</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Lessons in Cooperation</td>
+  <td class="tdr">66</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Experiments in Government</td>
+  <td class="tdr">70</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">The Nation Under David and Solomon</td>
+  <td class="tdr">76</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">The Wars of Kings and the People's Sorrows</td>
+  <td class="tdr">82</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">A New Kind of Religion</td>
+  <td class="tdr">88</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">A New Kind of Worship</td>
+  <td class="tdr">94</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Jehovah Not a God of Anger</td>
+  <td class="tdr">99</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">One Just God Over All Peoples</td>
+  <td class="tdr">103</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">A Revised Law of Moses</td>
+  <td class="tdr">108</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">A Prophet Who Would Not Compromise</td>
+  <td class="tdr">114</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Keeping the Faith in a Strange Land</td>
+  <td class="tdr">120<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Undying Hopes of the Jews</td>
+  <td class="tdr">127</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">The Good Days of Nehemiah</td>
+  <td class="tdr">134</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Hymn and Prayer Books for the New Worship</td>
+  <td class="tdr">140</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">A Narrow Kind of Patriotism</td>
+  <td class="tdr">146</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">A Broad-Minded and Noble Patriotism</td>
+  <td class="tdr">151</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Outdoor Teachers Among the Jews</td>
+  <td class="tdr">155</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Book Learning Among the Jews</td>
+  <td class="tdr">161</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">New Oppressors and New Wars For Freedom</td>
+  <td class="tdr">167</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">XXX.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">The Discontent of the Jews Under Roman Rule</td>
+  <td class="tdr">172</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Jewish Hopes Made Greater by Jesus</td>
+  <td class="tdr">176</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXXII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdlsc">A Thousand Years of a Nation's Quest</td>
+  <td class="tdr">182</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#REVIEW">Review and Test Questions</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">185</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toi" id="toi"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span><br />
+<h3>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="80%" summary="List of Illustrations">
+  <tr>
+  <td width="80%">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="20%"><span style="font-size: 70%;">FACING PAGE</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="sc">A Daric, or Piece of Money Coined by Darius</span>,<br />
+    One of the Earliest Specimens of Coined Money</td>
+  <td class="tdr" style="vertical-align: bottom;"><a href="#imagep10a">10</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Ancient Hebrew Weights for Balances</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep10b">10</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Hebrew Dry and Liquid Measures</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep10c">10</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Bronze Needles and Pins From Ruins of Ancient
+Canaanite City</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep16a">16</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="sc">Canaanite Nursery Bottles</span> (Clay)</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep16b">16</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Canaanite Silver Ladle</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep16c">16</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Canaanite Forks</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep16d">16</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Egyptian Plowing</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep44a">44</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Egyptians Threshing and Winnowing</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep44b">44</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Egyptian or Hebrew Threshing Floor</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep44c">44</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">An Egyptian Reaping</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep48a">48</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Canaanite Hoes</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep48b">48</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Canaanite Sickle</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep48c">48</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Canaanite or Hebrew Plowshares</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep48d">48</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Modern Arab Woman Spinning</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep52a">52</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Ancient Hebrew Door Key</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep52b">52</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Hebrew Needles of Bone</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep52c">52</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Smaller Key</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep52d">52</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="sc">Canaanite Chisel</span> (Bronze)</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep76a">76</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Canaanite File</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep76b">76</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Very Ancient Canaanite Flint, for Making Stone Knives</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep76c">76</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Bronze Hammerhead</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep76d">76</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Bone Awl Handle</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep76e">76</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">A Fish-Hook</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep76f">76</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Canaanite Whetstones</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep76g">76</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Canaanite or Hebrew Nails</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep76h">76</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Remains of Walls of the Canaanite City, Megiddo</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep134a">134</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Part of City Wall and Gate, Samaria</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep134b">134</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Canaanite Pipe or Fife</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep144a">144</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">An Egyptian Harp</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep144b">144</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">An Assyrian Upright Harp</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep144c">144</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">An Assyrian Horizontal Harp</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep144d">144</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">A Babylonian Harp</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep144e">144</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Jewish Harps on Coins of Bar Cochba, 132-135 A.D.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep144f">144</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdlsc">Assyrian Dulcimer</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep144g">144</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="FOREWORD" id="FOREWORD"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span><br />
+<h3>FOREWORD<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>Most histories have been histories of kings and emperors. The daily
+life of the common people&mdash;their joys and sorrows, their hopes,
+achievements, and ideals&mdash;has been buried in oblivion. The historical
+narratives of the Bible are, indeed, to a great extent an exception to
+this rule. They tell us much about the everyday life of peasants and
+slaves. The Bible's chief heroes were not kings nor nobles. Its
+supreme Hero was a peasant workingman. But we have not always studied
+the Bible from this point of view. In this course we shall try to
+reconstruct for ourselves the story of the Hebrew people as an account
+of Hebrew shepherds, farmers, and such like: what oppressions they
+endured; how they were delivered; and above all what ideals of
+righteousness and truth and mercy they cherished, and how they came to
+think and feel about God. It makes little difference to us what
+particular idler at any particular time sat in the palace at Jerusalem
+sending forth tax-collectors to raise funds for his luxuries. It is of
+very great interest and concern to us if there were daughters like
+Ruth in the barley fields of Bethlehem, if shepherds tended their
+flocks in that same country who were so fine in heart and simple in
+faith that to them or their children visions of angels might appear
+telling of a Saviour of the world. On such as these, in this study,
+let us as far as possible fix our attention.</p>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER I<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Ancient Arabia is the home of that branch of the white race known as
+the Semitic. Here on the fertile fringes of well-watered land
+surrounding the great central desert lived the Ph&oelig;nicians, the
+Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Canaanites who, before the
+Hebrews, inhabited Palestine. So little intermixing of races has there
+been that the Arabs of to-day, like those of the time of Abraham, are
+Semites.</p>
+
+<p>The Hebrew people are an offshoot of this same Semitic group. They
+began their career as a tribe of shepherds on the border of the north
+Arabian desert. The Arab shepherds of to-day, still living in tents
+and wandering to and fro on the fringes of the settled territory of
+Palestine, or to the south and west of Bagdad, represent almost
+perfectly what the wandering Hebrew shepherds used to be.</p>
+
+<p>The Arabs of to-day are armed with rifles, whereas Abraham's warriors
+cut down their enemies with bronze swords. Otherwise, in customs,
+superstitions, and even to some extent in language, the modern desert
+Arabs may stand for the ancient Hebrews in their earliest period. They
+were nomads with no settled homes. Every rainy season they led out
+their flocks into the valleys where the fresh green of the new grass
+was crowding back the desert brown. All through the spring and early
+summer they went from spring to spring, and from pasture to pasture
+seeking the greenest and tenderest <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>grass. Then as the dry season came
+on and the barren waste came creeping back they also worked their way
+back toward the more settled farm lands, until autumn found them
+selling their wool to the nearby farmers and townspeople in exchange
+for wheat and barley and some of the other necessaries of life.</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Shepherd's Daily Life</h4>
+
+<p>Sheep-raising might seem at times a peaceful and even a somewhat
+monotonous business. The flocks found their own food, grazing in the
+pastures. Morning and night they had to be watered, the water being
+drawn from the well and poured into watering troughs. Once or twice a
+day also the ewes and shegoats had to be milked. When these chores
+were done it was only necessary to stand guard over the flock and
+protect them from robbers or wild animals. This, however, had to be
+done by night as well as by day. On these wide pastures there were no
+sheepfolds into which the animals could be securely herded as on the
+settled farms. They slept on the ground, under the open sky, and the
+shepherds, like those in Bethlehem, in the story of Jesus' birth, had
+to keep "watch over their flocks by night." So long as no enemies
+appeared there was in such an occupation plenty of time in which to
+think and dream of God and man and love and duty. Very often, however,
+the dreamer's reveries were interrupted, and at such times there was
+no lack of excitement.</p>
+
+<p><b>Wild beasts.</b>&mdash;There were more beasts of prey in Arabia in those days
+than there are to-day. In addition to wolves and bears, there were
+many lions, which are not now found anywhere in the world except in
+Africa. So the sheepmen had to go well armed, with clubs, swords, and
+spears. We would want a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>high-powered rifle if we were in danger of
+facing a lion. The Hebrews defended their flocks against these
+powerful and vicious beasts with only the simplest weapons. Such
+fights were anything but monotonous.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<!-- images page 10 -->
+<div class="tr1">
+<a name="imagep10a" id="imagep10a"></a>    <a name="imagep10b" id="imagep10b"></a>
+
+  <div style="width: 38%; float: left; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep010a.jpg" style="width: 50%;"
+    alt="A Daric, or Piece of Money Coined by Darius" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">A DARIC, OR PIECE OF MONEY COINED BY DARIUS,
+    ONE OF THE EARLIEST SPECIMENS OF COINED MONEY</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 53%; float: right; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen"><br />
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep010b.jpg" style="width: 70%;"
+    alt="Ancient Hebrew Weights for Balances" /><br />
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHTS FOR BALANCES</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+    <div class="cen" style="clear: both;"><a name="imagep10c" id="imagep10c"></a>
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep010c.jpg" width="56%" alt="Hebrew Dry and Liquid Measures" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">HEBREW DRY AND LIQUID MEASURES</p>
+    </div>
+
+ <p class="cen">Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- end of images page 10 -->
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Trips to Town</h4>
+
+<p>Among the most interesting events in the lives of the shepherds were
+their trips to town, when they sold some of their wool and bought
+grain, and linen cloth, and trinkets for the babies, and the things
+they could not find nor make on the grassy plains. The raw wool was
+packed in bags and slung over the backs of donkeys. On other donkeys
+rode two or more of the men of the tribe. Sometimes, perhaps, a small
+boy was taken along on the donkey's back behind his father to see the
+sights. And for him the sights must have been rather wonderful&mdash;the
+great thick walls of the town, the massive gates, the houses, row on
+row, and the people, more of them in one street than in the whole
+tribe to which he belonged!</p>
+
+<p><b>The market.</b>&mdash;They took their wool, of course, to the open square
+where all the merchants sold their goods. Soon buyers appeared who
+wanted wool. It was a long process then, as now, to strike a bargain
+in an Oriental town. It is very impolite to seem to be in a hurry. You
+must each ask after one another's health, and the health of your
+respective fathers, and all your ancestors. By and by, you cautiously
+come around to the subject of wool. How much do you want for your
+wool? At first you don't name a price. You aren't even sure that you
+want to sell it. Finally you mention a sum about five times as large
+as you expect to get. The buyer in turn offers to pay about a fifth of
+what it is worth. After a time you come down a bit on your price. The
+buyer <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>comes up a bit on his. After an hour or two, or perhaps a half
+a day, you compromise and the wool is sold.</p>
+
+<p><b>Weighing out the silver or gold.</b>&mdash;In those early days there was no
+coined money. Silver and gold were used as money, only they had to be
+weighed every time a trade was put through; just as though we were to
+sell so many pounds of flour for so many ounces of silver. The weights
+used were very crude; usually they were merely rough stones from the
+field with the weight mark scratched on them. The scale generally used
+was as follows:</p>
+
+<p class="noin">
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">60 shekels = 1 mana.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">60 manas = 1 talent.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The shekel was equal to about an ounce, in our modern avoirdupois
+system. There was no accurate standard weight anywhere. Honest dealers
+tried to have weights which corresponded to custom. But it was easy to
+cheat by having two sets of weights, one for buying and one for
+selling. So when our shepherds came to town, they had to watch the
+merchant who bought from them lest he put too heavy a talent weight in
+the balance with their wool, and too light a shekel-weight in the
+smaller balance with the silver.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Hard Side of Shepherd Life</h4>
+
+<p>The most precious and uncertain thing in the shepherd's life was
+water. If in the rainy season the rains were heavy, and the wells and
+brooks did not dry up too soon in the summer, they had plenty of
+goat's milk for food, and could bring plenty of wool to market in the
+fall. But if the rains were scant their flocks perished, and actual
+famine and death stared them in the face. In the dry years many were
+the tribes that were almost <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>totally wiped out by famine and the
+diseases that sweep away hungry men. The next year, on the site of
+their last camp, strangers would find the bones of men and women and
+little children, whitening by the side of the trail. No wonder they
+looked upon wells and springs as sacred. Surely, they thought, a god
+must be the giver of those life-giving waters that bubble up so
+mysteriously from the crevices in the rock.</p>
+
+<p><b>War with other tribes.</b>&mdash;In addition to their constant struggle to
+make a living from a somewhat barren land, these shepherds were almost
+constantly in danger from human enemies. A small, weak tribe, grazing
+its flocks around a good well, was always in danger lest a stronger
+tribe swoop down upon them to kill and plunder. There were many robber
+clans who did little else besides preying on their neighbors and
+passing caravans of traders. Nowhere was there any security. The
+desert and its borders was a world of bitter hatreds and long-standing
+feuds. Certain rival tribes fought each other at every opportunity for
+centuries with a warfare that hesitated at no cruelty or treachery.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Desert Religion</h4>
+
+<p>Such a life of eager longings, fierce passions, and dark despair is a
+fertile soil for religion. And these early Hebrew shepherds were
+intensely religious. It is true that in the earliest days the
+fierceness and cruelty of their wars were reflected in the character
+of the gods in whom they believed. They thought of them as doing many
+cruel and selfish things. Yet a people who believe very deeply and
+seriously in their religion, even in an imperfect religion, are sure
+to be a force in the world. Hence it is not surprising that three of
+the world's greatest religions, Judaism, Christianity, and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>Mohammedanism, arose at different times among the wandering shepherds
+of Arabia.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>It would be well to keep a notebook in which to write the result of
+your study.</p>
+
+<p>1. Look up in any Bible dictionary, under "Weights and Measures," the
+approximate size of an "ephah," which was the common Hebrew unit of
+dry measure, and "hin," which was their common unit for measuring
+liquids.</p>
+
+<p>2. From the facts given in this chapter, calculate in pounds
+avoirdupois, the approximate weight of a talent.</p>
+
+<p>3. To what extent does the Old Testament reflect the experiences of
+shepherd life? Look up "shepherd" in any concordance.</p>
+
+<p>4. What are some valuable lessons which great spiritual teachers among
+the Hebrews learned from their shepherd life? Read Psalm 23.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER II<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Most persons, no matter what their race or country, spend a large
+proportion of their time at home. The home is the center of many
+interests and activities, and it reflects quite accurately the state
+of civilization of a people. In this chapter let us take a look into
+the homes of the shepherd Hebrews. We shall visit one of their
+encampments; perhaps we shall be reminded of a camp of the gypsies.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">A Cluster of Black Tents</h4>
+
+<p>Here on a gentle hillside sloping up from a tiny brook, is a cluster
+of ten or a dozen black tents. Further down the valley sheep are
+grazing. Two or three mongrel dogs rush out to bark at us as we
+approach, until a harsh voice calls them back. A dark man with bare
+brown arms comes out to meet us, wearing a coarse woolen cloak with
+short sleeves. Half-naked children peer out from the tent flaps.</p>
+
+<p><b>The inside of the tents.</b>&mdash;Our friend is eager to show us hospitality
+and invites us to enter his tent. It is a low, squatting affair, and
+we have to stoop low to enter the opening in the front. We note that
+the tent-cloth is a woolen fabric not like our canvas of to-day. It is
+stretched across a center-pole, with supports on the front and back,
+while the edges are pinned to the ground much as our tents are. There
+are curtains within the tent partitioning off one part for the men,
+and another <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>for the women and children. There are mats on the ground
+to sit on and to sleep on at night.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Preparing Food</h4>
+
+<p>Like the housewives of all ages, the Hebrew women have food to
+prepare, and meals to get. Their one great food is milk, not cows'
+milk, but the milk of goats. A modern traveler tells of meeting an
+Arab who in a time of scarcity had lived on milk alone for more than a
+year.</p>
+
+<p><b>A meager diet.</b>&mdash;Besides fresh milk there were then as now a number
+of things which were made from milk. The Hebrews on the desert took
+some milk and cream and poured it into a bag made of skin, and hung it
+by a stout cord from a pole. One of the women, or a boy, pounded this
+bag until the butter came out. This was their way of churning. Cheese
+also was a favorite article of diet. The milk was curdled by means of
+the sour or bitter juices of certain plants, and the curds were then
+salted and dried in the sun. Curdled milk even more than sweet milk
+was also used as a drink. It probably tasted like the <i>kumyss</i>, or
+<i>zoolak</i>, which we can buy in our drug stores or soda fountains.</p>
+
+<p>We would get very tired of milk and milk products if we had nothing
+else to eat all the year round; and so did these shepherds. They were
+eager to get hold of wheat and barley, whenever they could buy them.
+The women took the wheat and pounded it with a wooden mallet or a
+stone in a hollow in some larger stone. The coarse meal which they
+made in this way they mixed with salt and water and baked on hot
+stones before the campfire. Once in a great while it was possible, in
+this shepherd life, to have a feast with mutton or kid or lamb. But
+milk and wool were so valuable that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>shepherds were very
+cautious about killing their flocks. It was, you see, a very simple
+and healthful diet on which these tent-people lived. But one meal was
+pretty much like another. Dinner was like breakfast, and tomorrow's
+meals would be just like to-day's. It is not strange that they often
+longed for a change, and looked with envy at the crops of the farmers
+in the settled lands beyond the desert.</p>
+
+
+<br />
+
+<!-- images page 16 -->
+
+<div class="tr1">
+
+   <div style="width: 100%; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen"><a name="imagep16a" id="imagep16a"></a>
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep016a.jpg" width="80%" alt="Bronze Needles and Pins from Ruins of Ancient Canaanite City" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">BRONZE NEEDLES AND PINS FROM RUINS OF ANCIENT CANAANITE CITY</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+ <a name="imagep16c" id="imagep16c"></a>    <a name="imagep16d" id="imagep16d"></a>
+
+  <div style="width: 45%; float: left; padding: .5em;">
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep016c.jpg" style="width: 45%;" alt="Canaanite Silver Ladle" /><br />
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">CANAANITE SILVER LADLE</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 49%; float: right; padding: .5em;">
+    <div class="cen"><br />
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep016d.jpg" style="width: 60%;" alt="Canaanite Forks" />
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">CANAANITE FORKS</p>
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 100%; padding: 1em; clear: both;">
+    <div class="cen"><a name="imagep16b" id="imagep16b"></a>
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep016b.jpg" width="80%" alt="Canaanite Nursery Bottles (Clay)" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">CANAANITE NURSERY BOTTLES (CLAY)</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+
+<p class="cen">Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<!-- end of images page 16 -->
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Clothing</h4>
+
+<p>Another occupation at which the women worked all day long was the
+making of clothing for their families. Most of their garments were
+made of the wool from their own flocks. First the wool had to be spun
+into yarn. They did not even have spinning wheels in those days, so a
+spinner took a handful of wool on the end of a stick called a distaff,
+which she held in her left hand. With her right hand she hooked into
+the wool a spindle. This was a round, pointed piece of wood about ten
+inches long with a hook at the pointed end, and with a small piece of
+stone fastened to the other to give momentum in the spinning. With
+deft fingers the spinner kept this spindle whirling and at the same
+time kept working the wool down into the thread of yarn which she was
+making. As the thread lengthened she wound it around the spindle,
+until the wool on the distaff was all gone and she had a great ball of
+yarn.</p>
+
+<p><b>Weaving</b>.&mdash;The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians were experts in the
+art of weaving. They had large looms similar to ours, and wove on them
+beautiful fabrics of linen and wool. The shepherds on the plains no
+doubt bought these fabrics when they could afford them. But they could
+not carry these heavy looms around with them from one camp to another,
+and much <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>of the time their own women had to weave whatever cloth they
+had. The primitive loom they used was made by driving two sticks into
+the ground, and stretching a row of threads between them, and then
+tediously weaving the cross threads in and out, a thread at a time,
+until a yard or so of cloth was finished. Slow work this was, and many
+a long day passed before enough cloth could be woven to make a coat
+for a man or even a boy.</p>
+
+<p>They managed, however, to get along without nearly so much clothing as
+we think necessary. The little children, through warm days of summer,
+played around the tents almost naked. And the grown people dressed
+very simply. There were only two garments for either men or women.
+They wore a long shirt reaching to the knees. This was made by
+doubling over a strip of cloth, sewing the sides, and cutting out
+holes for arms and neck. The outer garment was a sort of coat, open in
+front, and gathered about the waist with leather belt. This outer
+garment was often thrown aside when the wearer was working. It was
+worn in cold weather, however, and was often the poor man's only
+blanket at night. Women's garments were probably a little longer than
+those of men, but in other respects the same. As for the feet, they
+mostly went barefoot. But on long journeys over rough ground they wore
+sandals of wood or roughly shaped shoes of sheepskin. On the head for
+a protection against sun and wind they, like the modern Arab, probably
+wore a sort of large scarf gathered around the neck.</p>
+
+<p><b>Making the garments.</b>&mdash;All these garments were cut and sewed by the
+women. They had no sewing machines to work with, not even fine steel
+needles like ours. They used large, coarse needles made of bronze <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>or,
+very often, of splinters of bone sharpened at one end, with a hole
+drilled through the other. With such rough tools, and all this work to
+be done, we can be sure that the wives and daughters of Hebrew
+shepherds did not lack for something to do.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Family Life</h4>
+
+<p>Among ancient Hebrews family life, from the very beginning, was often
+sweet, kindly, and beautiful. This is shown by the many stories in the
+early books of the Old Testament which reflect disapproval of
+unbrotherly conduct, or, which hold up kindness and loyalty in family
+life as a beautiful and praiseworthy thing. Take the story of Joseph.
+It begins indeed with an unpleasant picture of an unhappy and unloving
+family of shepherd brothers. We read of a father's partiality toward
+the petted favorite, of a spoiled and conceited boy, of the bitter
+jealousy of the other brothers, and finally of a crime in which they
+showed no mercy when they sold their hated rival to a caravan of
+traders to be taken away, it might be, forever. But the story goes on
+to tell how that same lad, years later, grown to manhood and risen to
+a position of extraordinary power and influence in the great kingdom
+of Egypt, not only saved from death by starvation his family,
+including those same brothers who had wronged him, but even effected a
+complete reconciliation with them and nobly forgave them.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the most notable facts in connection with this story are those
+"between the lines." It is not merely that such and such events are
+said to have happened, but that for generations, perhaps centuries,
+Hebrew fathers and mothers kept the story of these events alive,
+telling it over and over again to their children. On <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>numberless days,
+no doubt, in this shepherd life there were bickering and angry words
+among the children by the spring or at meal time, or in their games.
+The older brothers were tyrannical toward the younger, or one or
+another cherished black and unforgiving looks toward a brother or
+sister who he thought had done him a wrong. And many a time after such
+a day the old father would gather all the family together in the
+evening around the camp fire in front of the tent and would begin to
+tell the story of Joseph. And as the tale went on, with its thrilling
+episodes, and its touches of pathos leading up at last to the
+whole-souled generosity and the sweet human tenderness of Joseph, many
+a little heart softened, and in the darkness many a little brown hand
+sought a brother's hand in loving reconciliation.</p>
+
+<p><b>The tribe as a larger family.</b>&mdash;To some extent the desert shepherds
+of all ages have carried this family spirit into the relations between
+members of the tribe as a whole. Since they had to stand together for
+protection, quarrels between tribesmen were discouraged. Moreover,
+they were not separated into classes by difference of wealth. There
+were some who had larger flocks than others, but for the most part all
+members of the tribe were equal. Even from among the slaves who were
+captured now and then in war there were some who rose to positions of
+honor. There were no kings nor princes; the chief of the tribe held
+his position by virtue of his long experience and practical wisdom.
+The distinction between close blood relationship and the brotherhood
+of membership in the same tribe was not sharply drawn; all were
+brothers. This is true to-day of all these desert tribes.</p>
+
+<p>Only a tribe, however, with an unusual capacity for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>brotherly
+affection and for making social life sweet and harmonious could have
+produced a Joseph or the story of Joseph, or would have preserved that
+story in oral form through the centuries until it could be written
+down. It is worth while looking into the later history of such a
+tribe, and seeing what happened to them and how they thought and
+acted, and what they contributed to the life of the world.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Get some cotton at a drug store, and see if you can spin some
+cotton thread, with a homemade spindle, such as is described in this
+chapter.</p>
+
+<p>2. Who had the harder work among the Hebrew shepherds, the women or
+the men?</p>
+
+<p>3. Find other stories in Genesis besides the story of Joseph which
+show how the Hebrews felt in regard to the relations between brothers.</p>
+
+<p>4. Compare the home life in America with the home life of the Hebrews.
+Are American brothers and sisters growing more quarrelsome or more
+kindly and loving toward one another?</p>
+
+<p>5. In what way do the oral traditions of a people throw light on the
+ideals and relationships they most valued?</p>
+
+<p>6. Compare the dietary available to Americans with that of the ancient
+Hebrews.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER III<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>DESERT PILGRIMS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>According to one of the Hebrew traditions recorded in the book of
+Genesis, the earliest home of their ancestors was Ur of the Chaldees.
+This was one of the leading cities of ancient Babylonia. It was
+situated southwest of the Euphrates River, near the plains which were
+the nation's chief grazing grounds. And it is possible that of the
+shepherds who brought their sheep to market in Ur some were, indeed,
+among the ancestors of the Hebrews.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Babylonian Civilization</h4>
+
+<p>Babylonia is one of the two lands (Egypt being the other) where human
+civilization began. This rich alluvial plain, lying between the lower
+Tigris and the lower Euphrates Rivers, became the home of a gifted
+race which at least in its later history through intermarriage was in
+part Semitic and thus related to the Hebrews. Several thousand years
+before Christ the people of this land began to till the soil, to
+control the floods in the rivers by means of irrigating canals, to
+make bricks out of the abundant clay and with them to build houses and
+cities. They also invented a system of writing upon clay tablets.
+These were baked in the sun after the letters were inscribed.
+Commercial records and written laws and histories were thus made
+possible and in time a varied literature was created. Whole libraries
+of these baked clay tablets have been unearthed and deciphered by
+modern investigators.</p>
+
+<p><b>Evidences of ancient culture.</b>&mdash;By B.C. 4000 there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>flourished on the
+plains of Babylonia a splendid civilization in many ways similar to
+ours to-day. The people raised enormous crops of grain and exported it
+by ship and caravan to distant lands. They had developed to a high
+point the arts of the weaver, the dyer, the potter, the metal worker,
+and the carpenter. They had devised a system of geometry for the
+measuring of their wheat fields and city streets. Through astronomy
+they had worked out the calendar of days, weeks, months, and years
+which with modifications we still use. They had erected magnificent
+temples to their gods. From translations of the inscriptions on their
+clay tablets we can gain a clear knowledge of their life and customs.
+Here, for example, is a translation of part of a letter from a son to
+a father asking for more money: "My father, you said, 'When I shall go
+to Dur-Ammi-Zaduga, I will send you a sheep and five minas of silver.'
+But you have not sent. Let my father send and let not my heart be
+vexed.... To the gods Shamash and Marduk I pray for my father." If we
+forget the outlandish-sounding names, how natural this seems! How like
+our boys was this boy who wrote the queer-looking characters on this
+bit of clay which we may hold in our hand!</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Faults of the Babylonian Civilization</h4>
+
+<p>With all their gifts and achievements there were certain great evils
+in Babylonian life. For one thing they were inclined to be greedy and
+covetous. They lived on a soil almost incredibly rich, and they were
+constantly increasing their wealth by trade. Babylonian merchants or
+their agents were to be found in almost every city and town of western
+Asia and perhaps even as far east as China. Of the vast mass of their
+written <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>records which have been collected in our museums, the
+majority are business documents and records of contracts. Many of them
+tell the story of hard bargains. Professor Maspero declares that these
+records "reveal to us a people greedy of gain, exacting, and almost
+exclusively absorbed by material concerns."</p>
+
+<p><b>Slavery.</b>&mdash;Moreover, the wealth of the nation was not fairly
+distributed but was more and more in the hands of the favored few, the
+great nobles, and their friends. The fields were not tilled by
+independent farmers. There were, instead, a few great estates which
+were rented out to tenants. The actual work, both on the fields and in
+the towns, was more and more performed by slaves. Some of these were
+captives who had been taken in war. Others were native Babylonians who
+had been sold into slavery for debt. So it had come about that
+Babylonian society had set like plaster into a hard mold with the king
+and the wealthy nobles on top and the poor peasants and slaves below.
+This state of things was fastened all the more firmly on the people by
+strong kings such as Hammurabi, who lived about B.C. 2000 and who
+unified the country under a powerful central government with his own
+city, Babylon, as the capital.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">A Shepherd with Ideals</h4>
+
+<p>About the time of Hammurabi's reign, if we follow the account related
+in the book of Genesis, there lived among the nomads on the plains
+west of the city of Ur a man named Abraham. If Hammurabi ever heard of
+him, which is improbable, he looked down upon him as of no account.
+Yet Abraham wielded a greater influence for the future welfare of
+humanity than all the princes of Babylon. For, discontented with
+Babylonian <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>life, he was the earliest pioneer in a movement toward a
+civilization of a different and better type. And the sons of Hammurabi
+have yet to reckon with Abraham and his ambitions.</p>
+
+<p><b>Discontent among the shepherds.</b>&mdash;Many of Abraham's people, no doubt,
+were discontented in Babylonia. A shepherd's life is monotonous and
+hard. When they went to market they saw comforts and luxuries on every
+hand. Yet the money they received from the wool merchants of Ur gave
+no promise of larger opportunities in life for any shepherd boy. So,
+at length when Abraham said to them, "Come, let us leave this
+country," they were ready to answer, "Lead on, and we will follow!" So
+it came to pass that Abraham's clan set out northwest, toward Haran,
+in what is now called Mesopotamia, and finally after some years of
+migration found themselves camping on the hillsides of Canaan,
+southeast of the Mediterranean Sea.</p>
+
+<p><b>Ideals represented in Abraham.</b>&mdash;But it is not as a leader of fortune
+hunters that Abraham is pictured in the Bible. No doubt he and his
+clansmen hoped to better their condition. But Abraham was a dreamer
+and a man of deep religious faith. He believed that he was being
+guided by his God. And he believed that in accordance with God's plan
+his descendants in the land to which they had come would become a
+great nation. Best of all, it seems probable that he dreamed of a
+nation different from Babylonia. Certainly he is described as a
+different kind of a man from the typical Babylonian. In some respects,
+to be sure, judging by our Christian standards, he had serious
+shortcomings. He did not scruple to deceive a foreigner, nor to treat
+harshly a slave. His ideas as to the character of God were far below
+those revealed by Christ. Yet he had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>the Hebrew gift for home and
+family life. He was a good father to his son. And he put a higher
+value on personal friendship and kindly family relations than on
+property interests. When his herdsmen quarreled with those of his
+nephew, Lot, he said to the latter with dignified generosity and
+common sense, "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and
+thee ... for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before thee?
+Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left
+hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou take the right hand,
+then I will go to the left." Just what Abraham looked forward to, we,
+of course, do not know. Probably his ideas were vague. Yet it seems
+that such men as he must have dreamed of a nation great in faith as
+well as in material wealth; a nation in which money would not be
+considered more important than justice and kindness; in which home
+life might be sweet and loving, free from the fear of want or the
+blighting influence of greed; and in which the door of opportunity
+would always be kept open even for the humblest.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate, some centuries after the time when Abraham is supposed to
+have lived, we find a group of shepherd tribes living in and around
+Canaan, who believed themselves to be descended from the twelve sons
+of Jacob, Abraham's grandson, and among whom there was the tradition
+of a divinely guided pilgrimage from Babylonia to Canaan under
+Abraham's leadership just as we have described. It is a great thing to
+have memories of noble parents and traditions of heroic ancestors.
+These the Hebrews had from the very beginning.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Look up in any good Bible dictionary, the articles on Babylonia and
+Hammurabi.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>2. Read Genesis 12, 15, and 24 and form your own opinion of Abraham as
+a husband and father.</p>
+
+<p>3. What was Abraham's most valuable contribution to history?</p>
+
+<p>4. From any map of western Asia, draw a sketch map showing the Nile,
+Euphrates, and Tigris Rivers, the Mediterranean Sea, and the general
+direction of Abraham's pilgrimage.</p>
+
+<p>5. Where in the Bible is found the sentence spoken by Abraham to Lot,
+and quoted in this chapter?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER IV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Although they had escaped for a time from Babylonian tyranny, the
+descendants of Abraham in Canaan found themselves somewhat within the
+range of the influence of the other great civilized power of that day,
+that is, Egypt. Egyptian officers collected tribute from rich
+Canaanite cities. The roads that led to Egypt were thronged with
+caravans going to and fro. By and by, a series of dry seasons drove
+several of the Hebrew tribes down these highways to Egypt in the
+search of food. The story of Joseph tells how they settled there.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+They were hospitably received by the king (or Pharaoh, which was the
+Egyptian word for "king"), and were allowed to pasture their flocks on
+the plains called the land of Goshen in the extreme northeast of the
+country west of what we now call the Isthmus of Suez. For some decades
+or more they lived here, following their old occupation&mdash;sheep-raising.</p>
+
+<p><b>Egyptian civilization.</b>&mdash;Egypt was in many ways like Babylonia. In
+Egypt too a great civilization had sprung up many millenniums before
+Christ. In some ways it was an even greater civilization than that of
+Babylonia. Egyptian sculptors and architects erected stone temples
+whose grandeur has never been surpassed. Many of them are still
+standing and are among the world's treasures. It would seem that there
+was somewhat more of love of beauty and somewhat less of greed for
+money among the Egyptians than among the Babylonians.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">The Accession of Rameses II</h4>
+
+<p>There came to the throne of Egypt about B.C. 1200 a man of
+extraordinary vanity and selfish ambition known as Rameses II. He
+wished to build more temples in Egypt than any other king had ever
+built, so that wherever the traveler might turn people would point to
+this or that great building and say Rameses II built that. To put up
+these buildings he enslaved his people, compelling them to labor
+without pay. To raise the funds for building materials he made war on
+his neighbors, especially the Hittites in western Asia north of
+Canaan. Again and again Hebrew children would see the dust of marching
+armies over the roads past their pastures and men would say, "Rameses
+is going to war again." And by and by, weeks or months later, the
+soldiers would return with tales of bloody battles and sometimes laden
+with spoils.</p>
+
+<p><b>Enslavement of the Hebrews.</b>&mdash;Now, wars usually breed more wars.
+Rameses having attacked the Hittites was afraid they would attack him.
+Egypt was indeed very well protected from attack. There was only one
+gateway into the country, and that was by way of the narrow Isthmus of
+Suez. And there were a wall and a row of fortresses across the
+isthmus. But who were those shepherd tribes living just west of the
+isthmus inside the gateway? They are Hebrews, Rameses was told. They
+are immigrants from Canaan. "Look out for them," said Rameses. "If
+they came from Canaan, they may favor the Hittites and help them to
+get past my fortresses into Egypt. Let them be put at work so that
+they will have no time for plots."</p>
+
+<p>Rameses was planning just then to build two large granary cities near
+the northeastern border to be a base <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>of supplies for his armies on
+their campaigns into Asia. One was to be called Pithom.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>So one day armed men came to the Hebrew tents and the order was given
+to send such and such a number of men to work in the brick-molds of
+Pa-Tum. And they had to go. The women and the children had to care for
+the sheep while most of their men trod the clay and straw in the brick
+molds at Pa-Tum and carried heavy loads of brick on their shoulders to
+the masons on the walls. Of course the sheep suffered for lack of
+care. The children also pined from neglect. Life for the Hebrews
+became a grinding treadmill of hardship and weariness and drudgery.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Boyhood and Youth of Moses</h4>
+
+<p>During this time of oppression a Hebrew baby boy was by chance adopted
+by one of the princesses in Pharaoh's court and brought up by his own
+mother as his nurse. He was given an Egyptian name with the common
+Egyptian ending Mesu or M-ses, as in Rameses. The boy was given all
+the educational advantages that the Egyptian palace could offer. But
+all the time in secret from his mother he was learning the story of
+his own people and their wrongs, and was being trained to hate their
+oppressors. One day after he had grown to manhood he went down to the
+city of Pa-Tum to see the work on the new granaries which were being
+built. Here he saw one of his own people being flogged by an Egyptian
+overseer. In a fury he leaped to the man's defense and killed the
+Egyptian. Of course Rameses heard of it, and Moses had to flee from
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>Egypt into the desert. In the desert he found a shepherd clan related
+to the Hebrews and lived there for some years brooding over the hard
+plight of his people.</p>
+
+<p><b>Moses' call and the struggle for freedom.</b>&mdash;One day in the desert,
+Moses heard from a passing caravan that old Rameses II was dead. Like
+a flame that burned but did not consume the thought came to him: "Now
+is your chance! The king and his officers will not know about you. Go
+back to Egypt and lead your kinsmen out to freedom. This is God's call
+and God will help you."</p>
+
+<p>So back to Egypt he went. First, he undertook to rally his own people,
+promising the help of their God, Jehovah. It was a dangerous
+undertaking that he proposed. The kings of Egypt were accustomed to
+make short work of those who resisted their authority. Moreover, these
+Hebrews had been slaves for years, and their spirits might have been
+cowed and broken. Yet they believed in Moses and his assurances and
+accepted him as their leader.</p>
+
+<p>Soon thereafter Moses and his brother Aaron went boldly to the palace
+of the Pharaoh and declared to him that Jehovah, the God of the
+Hebrews, had commanded that the Hebrews be allowed to hold a religious
+festival in the desert to offer sacrifices unto him as their God. The
+plan no doubt was that the people should escape once they were outside
+the boundaries of Egypt; Moses evidently considered any method
+justifiable in the effort to outwit the oppressor. But the Pharaoh
+answered, "Who is Jehovah that I should hearken to his voice to let
+Israel go?" The request was sharply refused. It is surprising that
+Moses himself was not arrested and imprisoned on the spot. Perhaps he
+still had friends in the Egyptian court. Or perhaps the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>Egyptians had
+a certain reverence for him as a messenger from a god, even though
+they did not grant his demands.</p>
+
+<p><b>Bricks without straw.</b>&mdash;At first it seemed that Moses had failed. For
+instead of the longed-for freedom, the toiling Hebrews found that a
+still heavier burden of work was laid upon them. In the manufacture of
+sun-dried brick it is necessary to mix straw with the clay in the
+molds, the fibers giving a tougher quality to the product. Previously
+the straw for this purpose had been furnished by the Egyptians. But
+now the order was, "Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it."
+So they had to go and hunt through the surrounding fields for old
+refuse straw, in rotting ricks and compost heaps. Yet the same number
+of bricks was required as before, with a whipping in case of failure.</p>
+
+<p>The granaries in Pa-Tum and Rameses were excavated many years ago from
+beneath the sands of Egypt, and their ruined walls may still be seen
+by tourists. It is noticeable that the upper tiers in the walls are
+made of bricks of a very poor quality as compared to those in the
+lower tiers. Evidently, the Hebrews got through the work somehow each
+day, putting very little straw in the clay, or sometimes none at all.</p>
+
+<p>But they wished they had never heard of Moses, and they reproached him
+for "making them hateful in the eyes of Pharaoh." In the first round
+of the fight Moses and freedom had lost; Pharaoh and slavery had won.
+But the end was not yet.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Look up in any good Bible dictionary, the article on Egypt; or read
+the summary of Egyptian history in some recent general history.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>2. Draw a map of Egypt, locating approximately the place where the
+Hebrews worked.</p>
+
+<p>3. In what special ways was Moses well trained to be an emancipator
+for his people?</p>
+
+<p>4. Are there workers to-day who are in any form of slavery which may
+be compared to that of the Hebrews in Egypt?</p>
+
+<p>5. Are there any Pharaohs to-day? Any Moseses?</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style="width: 10%;"/>
+<br />
+
+<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See Chapter I, and Genesis 46 and 47.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Exodus I. 1-11, or Pa-Tum in Egyptian; the other Rameses,
+after the king himself. It was decided to compel the Hebrews to do the
+work of brickmaking for these new cities.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER V<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A GREAT DELIVERANCE</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Egypt has never been a health resort. The intensely hot summers breed
+germs of disease, and also the insects which often carry them.
+Throughout its history the country has been ravaged periodically by
+fearful epidemics. A series of these pestilences predicted by Moses
+and declared to be Jehovah's punishment for the enslavement of the
+Israelites, made it possible for him to lead his people out of
+slavery. So severe were the plagues that the government was for a time
+disorganized. Taking advantage of their opportunity, the Hebrews
+suddenly gathered up their possessions and set out toward the desert,
+driving their sheep and goats before them. In spite of the large
+figures given in some passages of Exodus, other statements indicate
+that they were not very numerous, a few thousand at most, and they
+doubtless hoped to slip out past the border fortresses, at night,
+unnoticed. As they approached the border, however, news came that they
+were being pursued by a troop of horsemen. This meant, of course, that
+a watch would be made for them at the fortresses also. They were
+caught in a trap, and turned in despair upon Moses, who could only
+once more assure them that Jehovah was leading them, and would somehow
+open the way.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Strong East Wind and its Result</h4>
+
+<p>That night they encamped on the western shore of one of the shallow
+bays or lakes at the head of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>Red Sea. To the east was the water.
+North of the lake the wall and the line of fortresses began. Behind
+them they could already see where their pursuers were camping for the
+night. In the morning&mdash;terror, death, and return to slavery!</p>
+
+<p><b>A path through the sea.</b>&mdash;During the night, however, someone came in
+from the shore of the lake with the astonishing news that it was going
+dry. A strong east wind was blowing, with an effect often observed by
+modern travelers, namely, that the comparatively shallow waters were
+being driven back into the deeper part of the sea. Instantly the word
+of command was given. With the women and children first and the flocks
+next, they picked their way through the mud and sand and rocks on the
+lake bottom, clear across to the other side. The next morning the wind
+changed, the waters returned, and many of their pursuers were drowned.</p>
+
+<p>The feelings of the Hebrews are expressed in the words of the triumph
+song in which through all later centuries they celebrated this
+deliverance:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">* &nbsp; * &nbsp; * &nbsp; * &nbsp; * &nbsp; * &nbsp; * &nbsp; * &nbsp; *<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his chosen captains are sunk in the Red Sea."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Influence of the Exodus on Hebrew Religion</h4>
+
+<p>It was indeed a notable deliverance, and the Hebrews never forgot it.
+It affected their ideals and their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>religion. Immediately after
+escaping from Egypt they set out across the desert for Mount Sinai,
+which was considered the home of their God Jehovah, there to offer up
+sacrifices of gratitude. Moreover, from that time on, every year they
+brought to mind the story of the great deliverance through a
+sacrificial feast called the Passover. Under Moses' leadership at
+Sinai they entered into a covenant with Jehovah. They were to be
+Jehovah's people forever, and they probably agreed to worship him
+only, as their national God.</p>
+
+<p><b>Monotheism.</b>&mdash;At this time few had come to perceive the truth of
+monotheism, namely, that there is but one God in the universe, and
+that all the so-called gods and goddesses are mere superstitions. The
+Hebrews, at this time, did not doubt the real existence of other gods
+than Jehovah, such as Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Marduk and
+Shamash, gods of Babylon. But after the deliverance from Egypt they
+felt themselves bound to Jehovah by special ties of gratitude, and
+more and more came to consider the worship of any other god, by a
+Hebrew as base disloyalty. So the Exodus, and the experiences at
+Sinai, pointed the way, at least, toward monotheism.</p>
+
+<p><b>Justice.</b>&mdash;Of great importance also was the influence of these
+experiences on their ideas of right and wrong, and their conception of
+the character of Jehovah. Because they as a nation had been enslaved
+they were the better able to sympathize with the oppressed and
+down-trodden. "Remember," their prophets could always say, "that <i>ye</i>
+were slaves in the land of Egypt." And when, in after years, they were
+unjust in their dealings with foreigners living among them, they were
+reminded that "Ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."</p>
+
+<p>These ideals were reflected in their conception of their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>God. Many of
+their notions about him were crude and unworthy, even late in their
+history. This was natural and inevitable in the light of the times in
+which they lived. But in these Egyptian and desert experiences we see
+a notable beginning of nobler religious ideals. From this time on they
+were impelled to think of Jehovah, first of all as the God who had
+brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and who had taken their
+part, humble shepherds as they were, against the mighty Pharaoh, the
+king of Egypt. To that extent, at least, their God was a God of
+justice and mercy. Other ideas, which were inconsistent with this,
+continued for a time, but gradually fell away, until at length great
+seers arose who proclaimed that God is nothing else than justice and
+mercy; righteousness is the essence of his character, and that is all
+he asks of men.</p>
+
+<p class="cen">"Righteousness and justice are the foundation of thy throne."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Ten Commandments</h4>
+
+<p>According to all the Hebrew records, the covenant at Sinai was
+embodied in a divinely given Decalogue, or a set of ten short
+commands, which could be counted off on the ten fingers. Two
+Decalogues are given in Exodus, as coming from Moses at Sinai. One is
+in Exodus 34. 17-28. The other is the well-known Decalogue in Exodus
+20. The former has to do largely with sacrifices and ritual
+observances. The latter, with its stern demands for right conduct
+toward one's fellow men, and for the worship of Jehovah rather than
+idols, expresses well the new moral and religious impulses which came
+to the Hebrews under the leadership of their first great deliverer.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>In its original form the Decalogue probably read something as follows:</p>
+
+<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 15%;">
+<b>Thou shalt have no other gods before me.<br />
+Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven (or molten) image.<br />
+Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain.<br />
+Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.<br />
+Honor thy father and thy mother.<br />
+Thou shalt not kill.<br />
+Thou shalt not commit adultery.<br />
+Thou shalt not steal.<br />
+Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.<br />
+Thou shalt not covet.</b><br />
+</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Read in Hastings or any other modern Bible dictionary, the article
+on "Exodus." Note the testimony of modern travelers on the effect of
+high winds on the upper part of the Red Sea.</p>
+
+<p>2. Where was Mount Sinai? Look up in Bible dictionary.</p>
+
+<p>3. Draw a map, showing the probable route of the Hebrews after leaving
+Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>4. What part of the Ten Commandments seems most to reflect the
+influence of the great deliverance from Egypt? Read Deuteronomy 5.
+12-15.</p>
+
+<p>5. Test your memory for the Ten Commandments in their brief form as
+given in this chapter.</p>
+
+<p>6. The records of the events of this chapter are found in Exodus,
+chapters 6-12, 14, and 15. Read as much of this as your time will
+permit.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER VI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>FROM THE DESERT INTO CANAAN</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Once safely out of Egypt, the next problem for Moses and his people
+was to find a way into Canaan. Through all the centuries the wandering
+shepherds on the edge of the desert have looked with longing eyes on
+the fertile valleys and plains of Palestine. To have a settled,
+comfortable home, with cisterns of water as well as springs and wells;
+to have fields of wheat, vineyards of grapes, and gardens of melons
+and all luscious fruits&mdash;this is the picture that haunts the wandering
+Arab, amid the hardships and monotony of his desert life.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Land of Canaan</h4>
+
+<p>During the twelfth and eleventh centuries before Christ there was an
+unusually good opportunity for nomads to settle in Palestine. Before
+and after that time there were strong empires in control of the land
+protecting it from invasion. The Greeks and Romans long afterward
+built a line of fortified towns east of the Jordan on the border of
+the desert, whose ruins may be seen to-day. In similar ways the
+Babylonians and the Egyptians had occupied and defended the country.
+But just about the time when the Hebrews escaped from Egypt, and for a
+century and more afterward, both the Egyptian and Babylonian
+governments were weak. And as the various petty kings of Canaan itself
+were usually at war with each other, there was no strong government
+anywhere whose soldiers newcomers would have to face.</p>
+
+<p><b>The first invasion from the south.</b>&mdash;Very soon after <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>leaving the
+mountain of Sinai the Hebrew tribes found themselves on the southern
+edge of Canaan, in what was afterward known as the South Country,
+south of Judah. Scouts were sent up as far as the town of Hebron,
+which was afterward for a time the capital of Judah, to investigate
+and report on conditions there. They returned with a glowing account
+of the fertility of the soil. It is even stated in the Hebrew
+traditions that they brought back as a sample of the crops, one bunch
+of grapes so large that it had to be carried on a pole between two
+men.</p>
+
+<p>But with the exception of one of their leaders, a certain Caleb, all
+the men reported that the cities were strongly fortified and the
+inhabitants so warlike that an invasion was out of the question. The
+people adopted this "majority report" in spite of the protests of
+Moses. It is probable that the life in Egypt, with something of ease
+and luxury for a time, and then so many years of slavery, had sapped
+their courage and will power. At any rate, after a brief encounter
+with some of the tribesmen nearby, they fled in panic into the desert
+again.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Wilderness Wanderings</h4>
+
+<p>There followed, for a generation and more, a period of training
+somewhat like that which Boy Scouts receive, or should receive, on
+their "hikes" and camping trips. They learned to be independent and
+resourceful. It was at times very difficult to find food for
+themselves, or pasture for their sheep, and there was nothing to eat
+but the "manna," which they believed their God provided for them, and
+which was perhaps in the nature of an edible moss or lichen. At times
+there was a terrible scarcity of water. Always there was the danger of
+losing their way on those trackless wastes, and in this matter <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>also
+they learned to look to their God as their pillar of cloud by day and
+their pillar of fire by night, guiding them from oasis to oasis in
+their search for food and pasturage. Then there were wild beasts and
+poisonous serpents and, worst of all, hostile tribes with whom more
+than once they had to fight for their lives.</p>
+
+<p><b>Gaining a foothold east of the Jordan.</b>&mdash;All these years of wandering
+were spent mostly in the desert south of Canaan. Later they worked
+their way around the lower end of the Dead Sea to the east toward what
+was later known as the land of Gilead, on the eastern side of the
+Jordan River.</p>
+
+<p>This region is very fertile and was always noted in Bible times for
+its fat cattle. But its rolling plains lie open and defenseless toward
+the desert. Here under Moses' leadership the Hebrews were able to
+conquer one or two of the petty local chieftains, and thus gained a
+foothold from which they might some time make a sally across the River
+Jordan into central Canaan itself.</p>
+
+<p><b>The death of Moses.</b>&mdash;In this eastern country Moses died. According
+to the Hebrew story, Jehovah gave him a view of the land of Canaan
+from one of the high mountains overlooking the Jordan River, after
+which death came. And "no man knoweth of his sepulcher to this day."
+He had been loyal to the divine call which had come to him so long ago
+in a flame which "burned and did not consume," loyal to the mother who
+had taught him amid the luxuries of an Egyptian palace not to forget
+his own people and their sorrows. He had led his people out of Egypt
+and its slavery in defiance of the proud and mighty Pharaoh. And he
+had taught them to turn to Jehovah as God of justice and to worship
+only him.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">The Invasion of Canaan from the East</h4>
+
+<p>It was not long after the settlement east of the Jordan that the
+Hebrews began to make raids across the river, in part under the
+leadership of one of Moses' lieutenants, Joshua. The first town they
+captured was Jericho, down in the hot valley of the Jordan River, a
+few miles north of the Dead Sea. They had friends within the city, a
+woman named Rahab and her family. Since this was the first city
+captured it was considered to be sacred to Jehovah. The pity of it is
+that, in accordance with the standards of that day, this meant the
+ruthless slaughter of every living thing within its walls, including
+men, women, and little children.</p>
+
+<p><b>New conquests.</b>&mdash;In these early raids some tribes, led by the men of
+Judah, went southwest and captured a few towns in the mountains west
+of the Dead Sea. Others, led by the strong tribe of Ephraim, went
+northwest. Throughout their later history, these were always the two
+leading tribes, Judah in the south, and Ephraim in the north. After
+the victories of the fighting men, the women and children and flocks
+would follow.</p>
+
+<p>We can imagine these rough warriors, with their untrained boys and
+girls, swarming into the houses of these little towns and villages.
+Most of them had never been inside a house before; and they would be
+eager to look at the furniture and to know the uses of the many
+strange things: for example, the jar of lye for cleaning, the perfumes
+on the stand, the earthen vessels for water and milk, the lamps, the
+baskets made of twigs, the pots for boiling broth, the oven for
+baking, in the door yard, and the wine press on the hillside where the
+grapes were trodden at the time of grape harvest.</p>
+
+<p><b>The right and wrong of conquest.</b>&mdash;One may ask, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>what right had the
+Hebrews to attack and kill these people and seize their homes? Ideal
+Christian standards develop slowly. In these days of which we speak
+such standards had hardly been thought of. All weak nations were at
+the mercy of their stronger neighbors, and no one ever questioned the
+morality of it. It is good to know, moreover, that conquest, after
+all, was not the chief method by which the Hebrews made themselves
+masters of Canaan. After they had established themselves, here and
+there, in certain towns, and certain sections of the country, they
+gradually made friends with their Canaanite neighbors whom they had
+not been able to conquer at the beginning. In time their children
+intermarried with the children of the Canaanites until at last there
+came to be one nation, which was known as the Hebrews, or the Children
+of Israel.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Read any one of the following sections: Numbers 11. 13-14, 20, 21;
+Deuteronomy 34; Joshua 1. 6.</p>
+
+<p>2. Draw a map showing in a general way the movements of the Hebrews
+described in this chapter.</p>
+
+<p>3. Look up in the Bible dictionary, "Manna," "Spies," "Kadesh,"
+"Jericho."</p>
+
+<p>4. Compare the conquest of Canaan with the treatment of the American
+Indians by white settlers.</p>
+
+<p>5. How should the natives of Africa be treated in the opening up of
+Africa to civilization?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER VII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>LEARNING TO BE FARMERS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The wandering Hebrew shepherds were not savages nor barbarians. In
+many ways Abraham and his friends were cultured, civilized people; but
+their civilization was of a different kind from that of the settled
+farmers and villagers of Canaan. So when the Hebrews crossed the
+Jordan and gradually fought their way to the highland fields and
+villages where they were able to settle down and live as farmers and
+vineyard keepers instead of shepherds, they soon found that they had
+much to learn. The only teachers to whom they could turn were the
+Canaanites. Very soon, therefore, they made friends with their
+Canaanite neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell us how to plant wheat," the Hebrews said to them, for example;
+or, "Will you please show us how to prune these grape vines?" or,
+"Won't you give us a few lessons in driving oxen? We can't make these
+young steers pull."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Learning To Raise and Use Cattle</h4>
+
+<p>This lesson about the training and care of cattle was one of the first
+and most necessary parts of their new education. As shepherds they
+knew all about sheep and goats; and this knowledge was still valuable,
+for on many a Canaanite hillside goats could thrive where no other
+animal could live. But as farmers they must also raise cattle, not
+only because of the milk, and the beef, but because they needed the
+oxen to draw their carts and plows and harrows. Oxen and asses, not
+horses, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>were the work animals of the farmers of those days. Oxen
+were more powerful than asses. Horses were seldom seen at all. They
+were used chiefly in war by the great military emperors of Egypt and
+Assyria.</p>
+
+
+<br />
+
+<!-- images page 44 -->
+
+<div class="tr1">
+
+  <div style="width: 100%; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen"><a name="imagep44a" id="imagep44a"></a>
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep044a.jpg" width="85%" alt="Egyptian Plowing" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">EGYPTIAN PLOWING<br />
+    (Similar to Hebrew Method.)</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 100%; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen"><a name="imagep44b" id="imagep44b"></a>
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep044b.jpg" width="85%" alt="Egyptians Threshing and Winnowing" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">EGYPTIANS THRESHING AND WINNOWING<br />
+    (Hebrews used same methods.)</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 100%; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen"><a name="imagep44c" id="imagep44c"></a>
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep044c.jpg" width="85%" alt="Egyptian or Hebrew Threshing Floor" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">EGYPTIAN OR HEBREW THRESHING FLOOR</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p class="cen">Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Foundation Fund.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- images page 44 -->
+
+<br />
+
+<p><b>Driving an ox team.</b>&mdash;So we can imagine the young Canaanites of those
+days watching a Hebrew farmer taking his first lesson with a team of
+oxen. There was a wooden yoke to lay on their necks; there was the
+two-wheeled farm cart with its long tongue to be fastened to the yoke.
+There was the goad, a long pole with a sharp point, to stick into the
+animals' flanks if they should balk. And probably there were many
+useful tricks to be learned; for example, words like our "Gee" and
+"Haw" and "Whoa," to shout at the animals when it was necessary to
+turn to the left or the right or to stop altogether.</p>
+
+<p>Plowing was one of the most difficult of the tasks to be done with
+oxen. The furrows had to be run straight and true. And the plows were
+clumsy affairs&mdash;not like our shining steel plows to-day&mdash;just a long
+pole with a short diagonal crosspiece, sharpened at the lower end, or
+tipped with a small bronze share.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Crops of Ancient Canaan</h4>
+
+<p>The Hebrews raised the same crops as the earlier Canaanites. The
+leading ones were wheat, barley, olives, grapes, and figs. The two
+grain crops were, of course, the most necessary to life. They were
+planted in the early spring, and harvested in the summer. The grain
+was sown broadcast, by hand, just as Jesus describes in his great
+parable of the sower.</p>
+
+<p><b>Ancient agriculture.</b>&mdash;Harvesting and threshing were done almost
+entirely by hand. The grain was cut with sickles. Some of the old
+sickles have recently been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>found by investigators, buried deep in the
+mounds where ruined Canaanite cities lie hidden. Some of these sickles
+are of metal, and others are made of the jawbones of oxen or asses,
+with sharp flints driven into the tooth sockets. After the grain was
+cut it was tied in bundles and carried to the threshing floor, which
+was usually a wide, level space of hard ground or rock. Oxen were
+driven back and forth across the grain on the floor, drawing a heavy
+weight, until all or nearly all the kernels were shaken or crushed out
+of the heads. It usually took several days to thresh all the grain
+from an average-sized field. Then the straw was raked away, and the
+grain was left mixed with chaff and dust. The next windy day the
+winnowers, with large "fans," or wooden shovels, came and tossed the
+mingled chaff and dust and grain in the wind. The kernels of wheat
+fell back and the chaff and dust were blown away. Last of all, the
+good clean grain was gathered in baskets and bags, and hauled to the
+farmer's house, or to the granary, which was a round brick building
+standing beside or behind his house.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Vineyards and Olives</h4>
+
+<p>Another new experience of the Hebrews in Canaan was the culture of
+grapevines. The vineyards were often on hillsides, especially those
+facing the south, and hence warmed by the early spring sunshine. The
+soil on these hillsides had to be terraced so that the rain would not
+wash it away. The vines had to be planted, trained on trellises, and
+pruned. At the time of the grape harvest many of the grapes,
+especially of the sweeter varieties, were set aside for raisins. They
+were spread out on sheets in the hot sunshine until they were dry and
+wrinkled. Then they were packed away in jars, where <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>they settled into
+delicious cakes. Figs were dried and packed in the same way.</p>
+
+<p><b>The manufacture of wine.</b>&mdash;Many of the grapes were used for wine. The
+juice of these was trodden out in wine-presses. These were large
+hollows several feet square, cut in the solid rock on the hillside.
+There were always two of them, one lower than the other, with
+connecting passages. The bunches of grapes were piled in great heaps
+in the higher of the two, and then it was great fun for the boys and
+girls and youths and maidens to jump barefooted and barelegged among
+the purple clusters, and trample them until the foaming red juice ran
+down into the lower of the stone chambers, where it was taken up with
+gourd dippers and poured into skins. The youngsters would come home
+with their legs and shirts all stained and spotted red.</p>
+
+<p><b>Olive orchards.</b>&mdash;Almost every Canaanite farm had a few olive trees
+or a small olive orchard. The olives were prized for the oil which was
+squeezed from them. This oil was used as we use butter, with bread and
+in cooking. It was also burned in lamps. In fact, it was their chief
+fuel for lighting purposes.</p>
+
+<p>The olive press was a large stone with a hollow in the top. From the
+bottom of the hollow, a hole was drilled through to the outside of the
+stone. Across the hollow swung a wooden beam, one end riveted to a
+tree or another stone, and the other end carrying weights. The ripe
+olives were shaken from the trees, and basket full after basket full
+poured into the hollow stone. Then the weighted beam would be laid
+across the top, with flat stones under it, fitting down into the
+hollow over the olives. The oil, trickling out below, was strained and
+stored in jars.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">Hard Work and Bright Hopes</h4>
+
+<p>Most of these different kinds of crops called for an immense amount of
+hard work and drudgery. Think of the weariness of the reapers,
+swinging their sickles in the wheat or barley all day long under the
+hot Syrian sun. Think of the winnowers, tossing the grain into the
+wind. Think of the aching backs of the plower and the sower. Of course
+there were happy hours, also. It was great fun to ride home behind the
+oxen, on a cart packed full and pressed down with golden sheaves. The
+time of treading out the grapes was a festival of laughter,
+love-making, and song. And in the rainy season, after a year of
+plentiful harvests, when the granaries and cellars were well stored,
+there must have been many happy days of quiet rest and play in Hebrew
+homes.</p>
+
+<p>But most of all, what cheered them on was the hope of better days to
+come, when their children at least, or their children's children,
+would not have to toil quite so hard or so long each day, and when the
+danger of famine and starvation would not loom up quite so grimly as
+in the old days in the desert when one summer of drought might mean
+death for all. Here in Canaan, they thought, we will surely be happy
+by and by.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Explain the following Scripture passages, in the light of the
+customs described in this chapter: Isaiah 63. 2; Deuteronomy 25. 4;
+Matthew 3. 12.</p>
+
+<p>2. Psalm 23. 1 draws a great lesson about God from the experiences of
+shepherd life. What lesson about God is drawn from farm life in Isaiah
+5. 1-7?</p>
+
+
+<br />
+
+<!-- images page 48 -->
+
+<div class="tr1">
+
+<a name="imagep48a" id="imagep48a"></a>    <a name="imagep48b" id="imagep48b"></a>
+
+  <div style="width: 45%; float: left; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep048a.jpg" style="width: 65%;"
+    alt="An Egyptian Reaping" /><br />
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">AN EGYPTIAN REAPING</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 45%; float: right; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen"><br />
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep048b.jpg" style="width: 98%;" alt="Canaanite Hoes" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">CANAANITE HOES</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 100%; padding: 1em; clear: both;"><a name="imagep48c" id="imagep48c"></a>
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep048c.jpg" width="60%" alt="Canaanite Sickle" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">CANAANITE SICKLE</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<br />
+
+  <div style="width: 100%; padding: 1em;"><a name="imagep48d" id="imagep48d"></a>
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep048d.jpg" width="90%" alt="Canaanite or Hebrew Plowshares" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">CANAANITE OR HEBREW PLOWSHARES</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p class="cen">Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- images page 48 -->
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>VILLAGE LIFE IN CANAAN</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The farmers of ancient Canaan all lived in villages. No farmer would
+have dreamed of building an isolated house for his family on his own
+field out of sight of his nearest neighbor as our American farmers do.
+The danger from robbers would have been too great. Instead of that,
+the Hebrew farmer lived in the nearest village or town. Early in the
+morning he went out to his field, and in the evening returned to his
+home inside the protecting village walls.</p>
+
+<p>These ancient villages would have seemed to us most unattractive
+places. The houses were crowded close together. The streets were only
+narrow crooked lanes between the houses. In the rear room of each
+house were the stalls of the family ox and ass. The brays of the ass
+were the alarm clock in the early morning. There was no drainage.
+Garbage was thrown into the street. There were smells of all
+varieties. One is not surprised by the frequent stories of pestilences
+in the Old-Testament history.</p>
+
+<p><b>Compensations of village life.</b>&mdash;It seems strange that people who
+were accustomed to life in the open desert should have ever brought
+themselves to settle down in these dirty, ill-smelling places. Surely,
+at first they must often have been homesick for the clean, pure air of
+the plains. On the other hand, probably most of them were willing to
+put up with the disagreeable odors and the dirty streets for the sake
+of being near other people. The desert was lonesome. In the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>village
+there was always something going on, something to hear and see, gossip
+of weddings and courtships and quarrels. Even to-day we find it hard
+to persuade those who are accustomed to the city to live in the
+country. Even though their city home may be a dark tenement in the
+slums, yet they enjoy being in a crowd of their fellow men. The
+country seems lonesome.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Lessons in House Building</h4>
+
+<p>This village and town life, like the work on the farm, was a new
+school for the Hebrew shepherds, and set many an interesting problem
+for them to solve. They had to learn to build and repair houses. They
+were most often built of rough stones set in mud. The mud, when dry,
+became fairly hard, but not like mortar or cement. It was always easy
+for a thief "to dig through and steal," as Jesus so graphically
+described. Even though no thief came the dried mud was always
+crumbling, leaving holes between the stones through which snakes or
+lizards could crawl. In such a house, if a man should lean against the
+wall, it might easily happen that a serpent would bite him, as the
+prophet Amos suggests.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p><b>Primitive Homes.</b>&mdash;The floor of the average poor man's house was
+simply the hard ground. The flat roof was made of poles thatched with
+straw or brushwood and covered over with mud or clay. There was seldom
+more than one room. Often there were no windows; even in the palaces
+of kings there were in those days no windows of glass. In one corner
+of the room there was a fireplace where the family cooking was done.
+There was no chimney, however, and the smoke had to go out through the
+open door. The door itself was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>generally fastened to a post, the
+lower end of which turned in a hollow socket in a heavy stone. When
+the family went away from home the door was locked with a huge wooden
+key, which was carried, not in the pocket, like our keys, but over the
+shoulder. Such keys had this advantage, at any rate, over ours. You
+could not very well lose them and you did not need a key ring.</p>
+
+<p><b>Houses of the well-to-do.</b>&mdash;Rich men's houses were, of course, more
+substantially and comfortably built. Real mortar made of lime was used
+in the walls. There were several rooms, including perhaps a cool
+"summer house" on the roof, making a kind of second story. One climbed
+up to these upper rooms by a ladder on the outside. The roof was
+solidly built and surrounded by a railing, so that on a hot summer
+evening the family could sit there and enjoy the cool evening breeze.
+There were windows also, covered with wooden lattice work, which let
+in light and air.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt every Hebrew father hoped that some day he or his children
+might live in such a house. Some of them learned the builder's trade
+and were able to lay stones in mortar and to use saws and axes and
+nails and other tools for woodwork. Yet when David built his palace,
+he had to send to Tyre for skilled masons. Evidently in his day the
+Hebrews had not progressed very far in the manual training department
+of their new school.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Other Village Arts and Crafts</h4>
+
+<p>Many trades, which with us are carried on in separate shops, were a
+part of the household work among the ancient Hebrews: for example,
+spinning and weaving <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>and the making of baskets, of shoes, girdles,
+and other articles of skin or leather. We will study some of these
+household activities in another chapter. Other trades, however, even
+in the early days, were carried on by special artisans who worked at
+nothing else.</p>
+
+<p><b>Trained artisans.</b>&mdash;Metal workers, for example, formed a special
+trade. Among the excavations of ancient Canaanite cities have been
+found the ruins of a blacksmith shop. When the Hebrews entered Canaan
+no one had as yet learned the art of working in iron and steel by
+means of a forge with a forced draft. All tools and metal implements,
+such as plowshares, knives, axes, saws, and so on, were made of
+bronze, which consists of copper mixed and hardened with tin. The
+blacksmith melted the metals in a very simple and rough furnace of
+clay heated by charcoal. The bronze itself, although harder than
+copper, could be worked into the desired shape by hammering and
+filing, without the use of heat. We who are used to our sharp, finely
+tempered tools of steel would certainly have found these clumsy bronze
+affairs most unsatisfactory.</p>
+
+<p><b>The pottery shop.</b>&mdash;Another very ancient trade is that of the potter.
+This worker did not need much of a shop; only an oven in which to fire
+his products, a pile of clay, and a wheel. This consisted of a frame,
+in which turned an upright rod on which were two flat wooden wheels,
+one small at about the height of the worker's hands as he sat in front
+of it, and the other larger, to be turned by the feet. A heap of clay
+was placed on the upper wheel, which was then turned by the revolving
+rod, the potter's feet all the time kicking on the larger wheel below.
+The whirling mass was shaped by the fingers, according to the plan in
+the worker's mind.</p>
+
+
+<br />
+
+<!-- images page 52 -->
+
+<div class="tr1">
+
+<a name="imagep52a" id="imagep52a"></a>    <a name="imagep52b" id="imagep52b"></a>  <a name="imagep52d" id="imagep52d"></a>
+
+  <div style="width: 52%; float: left; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep052a.jpg" style="width: 85%;"
+    alt="Modern Arab Woman Spinning" /><br />
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">MODERN ARAB WOMAN SPINNING</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 40%; float: right; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep052bd.jpg" style="width: 45%;"
+    alt="Ancient Hebrew Door Key (top) Smaller Key (bottom)" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">ANCIENT HEBREW DOOR KEY (top)<br />
+    SMALLER KEY (bottom)</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+
+
+  <div style="width: 100%; padding: 1em; clear: both;"><a name="imagep52c" id="imagep52c"></a><br />
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep052c.jpg" width="70%" alt="Hebrew Needles of Bone" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">HEBREW NEEDLES OF BONE</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+<p class="cen">Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- images page 52 -->
+
+<br />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>How quickly a modern boy would have contrived a different arrangement,
+with a belt and foot-tread like the one on our mother's sewing
+machine! But for those days the ancient wheel was ingenious. Many
+different kinds of Hebrew pottery are found in the excavations: large
+jars, small cups, lamps of all sizes and shapes and even babies'
+rattles.</p>
+
+<p><b>How Hebrew boys learned a trade.</b>&mdash;The youngsters from the desert had
+never seen any of these interesting crafts, except perhaps now and
+then when their fathers had brought them with the wool to market. But
+now, on a rainy day when there was no work to be done in the field or
+at home, the boys would go down the street to the blacksmith shop, or
+to the shed where the old Canaanite potter worked his clay. One of the
+older boys would say, "Let me see if I can make something," and if the
+old man was good-natured he would let him try and perhaps would teach
+him some of the tricks of the trade. By and by the boy would hire out
+as a potter's helper and in a year or two would set up a little
+pottery of his own.</p>
+
+<p>So there came to be Hebrew as well as Canaanite potters and
+blacksmiths. They were proud of their skill in these arts, and as a
+nation they never were foolish enough to look down on them or to
+despise those who practiced them. All work was looked on as honorable.
+The apostle Paul was a tent-maker. Jesus was a carpenter. And in this
+respect for honest and useful work we may see another reason why the
+people of Israel have played so remarkable a part in the life of
+humanity.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Explain the following Scripture passage in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>light of the
+customs described in this chapter. Isaiah 22. 22; Deuteronomy 22. 8.</p>
+
+<p>2. In earlier chapters we have seen how the Hebrew leaders drew
+lessons about God from shepherd life (Psalm 23), and from farm life
+(Isaiah 5. 1-7). What lesson did a great prophet learn in regard to
+God from the experiences of an artisan? (Jeremiah 18. 1-6.)</p>
+
+<p>3. Why was it necessary to build a tower in a Canaanite vineyard, as
+suggested in Isaiah 5. 2 and Mark 12. 1?</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style="width: 10%;"/>
+<br />
+
+<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Amos 5. 19.</p></div>
+
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER IX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>KEEPING HOUSE INSTEAD OF CAMPING OUT</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Let us suppose that we have been invited to spend a day or two as
+guests in the home of one of these Hebrew families who have just
+settled in Canaan and begun to learn the new arts and customs of the
+land. It is one of the poorer homes. We have slept through the night
+on our mat spread on the dirt floor of the house, with our cloak over
+us to keep us warm. Before daylight we are awakened by the older
+people moving about in the dim light of the burning wick in the saucer
+of oil. Soon everyone is awake. The mats are rolled up and piled in a
+corner. In the early dawn one of the older girls takes a jar on her
+shoulder and goes for water to the spring, which is outside the
+village half way up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>If we are expecting to be called to breakfast, we shall be
+disappointed. There is no regular morning meal, although everyone
+helps himself to a bite or two of bread from the bread basket in the
+corner of the room. By and by father and the older boys take the ox
+and the ass from the shed just back of the one-roomed house (we are
+lucky if the animals were not kept all night in the house itself) and
+start for the field. And the women also have their day's work before
+them in the house. First of all, there is a bag of wheat to be ground
+into flour.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Home Tasks</h4>
+
+<p>In the desert the wheat or barley, when they had it, was merely
+pounded between two rough stones such as could be picked up anywhere.
+The flour, or meal, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>which was made in this way was not very good.
+Here in Canaan, each house had a rude stone hand-mill for grinding
+grain. It consists of a large lower stone with a saddle-shaped hollow
+on the upper side. The upper stone is somewhat like a large, very
+heavy rolling pin. The grain is poured into the hollow and the upper
+stone is rolled back and forth over it while the flour gradually sifts
+out over the sides on to the cloth which is spread on the ground
+underneath the mill. It is a monotonous task, and very often two
+people work it together, one feeding in the grain and the other
+turning the millstone. This is pleasanter, as each worker is "company"
+for the other. Perhaps our hostess will let us roll the millstone for
+her while she feeds in the grain and sweeps up the flour from the
+cloth on the ground.</p>
+
+<p><b>Baking bread.</b>&mdash;After the wheat is ground into flour there is bread
+to be baked. On the plains they do not use much yeast-bread, for this
+requires an oven for baking and one cannot carry heavy ovens from camp
+to camp. But in Canaan each family has its oven. It is made of baked
+clay and looks like a section of tiling standing on end, about two
+feet high, the clay being about an inch and a half thick. There is a
+cover of the same material. Sometimes the fire is made on the inside
+and the loaves of dough plastered on the outside. More often the
+loaves are placed on a baking tray, let down on the inside of the
+oven, and the fire built all around and over it outside.</p>
+
+<p>All sorts of fuel are used. Wood is the best, of course, but in that
+land wood has always been scarce. In the times of the Hebrews, as
+to-day, dried manure, straw, and all sorts of refuse were used. Jesus
+speaks of the grass of the field, "which to-day is, and to-morrow is
+cast into the oven."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span><b>Baking day.</b>&mdash;To-day, while we are visiting, our Hebrew hostess is
+kneading some dough. She "set it" last night, pouring in some liquid
+yeast. By and by it is ready for baking. A tray of small loaves about
+the size of biscuits is placed in the oven, and a great pile of dried
+grass placed around the sides and over the cover. By and by the fire
+is lighted from some coals on the hearth; and in a few moments the
+house is filled with smoke. We all go out on the street until the oven
+is heated and the smoke has escaped.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Weaving Wool and Flax</h4>
+
+<p>Another household utensil which Hebrew women learned to use in Canaan
+was the heavy loom. This consisted of a low horizontal frame, with a
+device for separating the odd and even threads of the "warp" while a
+shuttle was drawn through them, carrying the yarn for the "web," or
+the cross threads. With this kind of a loom it was possible to weave
+much more rapidly than when one had to insert each thread, plaiting it
+over and under, by hand. There is, no doubt, one of these looms in the
+house where we are visiting.</p>
+
+<p><b>Making linen out of flax.</b>&mdash;In the desert almost all garments were
+made of wool, especially in the case of the poorer tribes, who could
+not afford to buy linen. In those days the use of cotton was probably
+unknown. Now everyone knows how it feels to wear a flannel shirt on a
+hot summer day. And one of the things which drew the Hebrew shepherds
+to Canaan was the hope of raising a little flax on each farm, and
+spinning it into cool, soft linen garments for the hot summers. So it
+may be that a part of the work in the house we are visiting to-day is
+to soak some of the stalks of flax in water, or to beat out from them
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>long fibers, or to spin and weave some of these fibers into
+cloth.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Preparing Dinner</h4>
+
+<p>Of course the main business of each day in the household then, as now,
+is to get dinner ready. There is a light lunch about noon for the
+women and children. To-day perhaps we have some bread and milk. But as
+the sun begins to sink in the west we know that before long the men
+folks will come home hungry. We must have dinner ready for them when
+they come. If it has been a good year, even poor families in Canaan
+can have a fairly good meal. There is no meat, unless perhaps a lamb
+or a kid has been killed, especially for us as guests. But there is
+the curdled milk, and bread with olive oil and other things which
+shepherd folk never have. Here's a steaming kettle of beans or
+lentils. How good they smell! And here are some bunches of raisins and
+figs, just as sweet and luscious as those which we buy in the fruit
+stores in America. The figs in our stores may have come from that very
+country of which we are studying.</p>
+
+<p><b>Serving the meal.</b>&mdash;Soon the father and the boys come home. The ox
+and the ass are fed in the stall behind the house. The mother spreads
+a cloth on the ground and on it places a small stand about eight
+inches high, which is their only dining-room table. The pot of beans
+is placed on this stand, and the bread and other good things on the
+cloth around it. We all sit down on the ground and begin to eat.</p>
+
+<p>Fingers were made before forks. For the beans, however, we need a
+spoon, and here are some shells from the beach that serve admirably
+for that purpose; and we all dip into the same dish on the little
+stand. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>By and by, when all is gone but the liquid, we sop that up
+with pieces of bread. When every crumb is picked up and eaten, we all
+lift our eyes to heaven, and the father repeats a prayer of
+thanksgiving to God. Dinner is over. The sun has set. It is growing
+dark, and soon it will be time to go to bed.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Explain the following Scripture passages in the light of this
+chapter:</p>
+
+<p>Judges 16. 13; Deuteronomy 24. 6; Matthew 24. 41.</p>
+
+<p>2. Read Proverbs 31. 10-31 for another picture of daily life in an
+ancient Hebrew home. What is said in this chapter about the making of
+beautiful as well as necessary things, and about the doing of kindly
+deeds?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER X<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>On the whole, Canaan was a good school for the Hebrew shepherds. New
+arts to learn, new crops to raise, new kinds of cloth to spin and
+weave, new kinds of food to cook&mdash;all this helped to make life more
+interesting and worth while. But there were other lessons which
+newcomers might learn which were not so wholesome.</p>
+
+<p>Wine drinking, for example, was a habit which the wisest of the
+Hebrews always feared. The wine which they made in those foaming
+wine-presses was, of course, mild and harmless as compared with the
+distilled liquors of modern times. But even Canaanitish wine could
+deaden men's consciences and make them more like beasts than men.
+"Wine is a mocker," said one of the sages who wrote the book of
+Proverbs, "strong drink is raging, and he that is deceived thereby is
+not wise."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Idolatry in Canaan</h4>
+
+<p>Canaanite religion was to a large extent an unwholesome influence. The
+Canaanites worshiped many gods. Each village had its Baal, or lord,
+who had to be bribed with burnt offerings of fat beasts, or (as they
+thought) the soil would lose its fertility and the crops would fail.</p>
+
+<p><b>Dangerous examples.</b>&mdash;These sacrificial rites were carried on in the
+shrines or "high places," one of which stood outside almost every
+village and town. They often were accompanied by dances and other
+performances which were licentious and degrading. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>Hebrews, of
+course, were pledged to worship only Jehovah. Moreover, during these
+first centuries in Canaan they were very poor, and had little time for
+the carousals which went on at the "high places" in the name of
+religion. Corruption usually comes with wealth and luxury. Poverty and
+hardship are often useful safeguards. But from the beginning these
+heathen rites were a temptation and a snare in the lives of the
+Hebrews.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Canaanite Beliefs about the World</h4>
+
+<p>There are certain questions which awaken the curiosity of everyone.
+How did this wonderful world come into existence? How is it that you
+and I happen to be here? How did things in general come to be as they
+are? Some of these difficult questions are to-day being partly
+answered by careful students of science. In ancient times there was
+little or no science, yet in every country there were certain answers
+to these questions handed down from generation to generation and
+generally accepted as true.</p>
+
+<p><b>Idolatrous stories of creation.</b>&mdash;When the Hebrews entered Canaan
+they naturally were inclined to accept the ideas of the earlier
+inhabitants of that country, whose knowledge in regard to many matters
+was far beyond theirs. The Canaanites in turn had got most of their
+ideas from the leading civilized nations of that day, the Egyptians,
+and especially the Babylonians. From these sources had come certain
+stories about the beginning of things.</p>
+
+<p>Babylonian traders in the inns of Canaan used to tell a story of the
+creation of the world, and also about a great flood which the gods
+once sent upon the earth.</p>
+
+<p><b>How the Hebrews retold these stories.</b>&mdash;The best <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>men among the
+Hebrews knew that these stories were imperfect. Their forty years
+training in the wilderness had made them wise in the ways of God. This
+wisdom enabled them to sift the wheat from the chaff. They retold
+these stories, omitting the error, and retaining the truth. Thus we
+come to have the wonderful stories of the creation and the flood as we
+find them in the Bible.</p>
+
+<p><b>How these stories were handed down.</b>&mdash;In the earliest days of the
+settlement in Canaan very few Hebrews, if any, could read or write.
+Possibly Moses understood the Egyptian picture-writing, or the
+wedge-shaped letters of the Babylonian clay tablets. The Hebrew
+letters, however, in which the books of the Old Testament afterward
+were written, were invented by the Ph&oelig;nicians, and the
+Ph&oelig;nicians passed on their invention to the old Canaanites.</p>
+
+<p>After the Hebrews came it was not long before ambitious Hebrew boys
+and girls were staring at the queer marks in the inscriptions which
+they found here and there, over the gates of Canaanite cities or on
+the tombs of Canaanite kings. Gradually they learned to spell out
+syllables, words, and sentences, and then they learned to copy these
+same letters, so that in time the Hebrews were making inscriptions and
+books of their own. Among the earliest of these books was one
+containing the stories of the creation and the flood. They had been
+handed down by word of mouth from one generation to another, until
+finally they were gathered into a book. This became a part of the book
+of Genesis in our Bible.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">New Tendencies to Selfishness in Canaan</h4>
+
+<p>Another and different kind of temptation which the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>Hebrews met in
+Canaan was the tendency to forget their own tribal brothers as they
+scattered here and there and settled down, each family with its own
+little farm. There were some, naturally, who were more successful as
+farmers than others. And those who were unfortunate were not always
+the lazy or thriftless. Sickness or accident or some pest which
+attacked the grain or the cattle would sometimes wipe out the entire
+property of one of those little peasant farmers and leave him and his
+children face to face with starvation and death. Now, in the old days
+in the desert, as long as the tribe had a crust of bread or a drop of
+water, the weakest and poorest could count on a share. But here in
+Canaan the poor, the widow, the orphan, did not always feel so surely
+the sheltering arms of kindness and brotherhood.</p>
+
+<p><b>Humane laws enacted.</b>&mdash;Yet the spirit of Moses still lived and made
+its power felt. Certain laws gradually came to be accepted during this
+period when the Hebrews were learning to be farmers which were a
+special protection to the poor and helpless, just as the great leader
+would have chosen. We can imagine how these laws were first proclaimed
+by the chiefs of the clans and the elders of the villages wherever
+there were men who remembered how, years before, the whole nation had
+been poor and oppressed and enslaved. Here are some examples:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If
+thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I
+will surely hear their cry."</b></p>
+
+<p><b>"If thou lend money to any of my people with thee that is
+poor, thou shalt not be to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>him as a creditor; neither shall
+ye lay upon him usury. If thou at all take thy neighbor's
+garment to pledge, thou shalt restore it unto him before the
+sun goeth down; for that is his only covering, it is his
+garment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? And it shall
+come to pass when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I
+am gracious."</b></p>
+
+<p><b>"Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbor, nor rob him; the wages
+of a hired servant shall not abide with thee all night until
+the morning."</b></p></div>
+
+<p>There is one law which illustrates especially well how the best men
+among the Hebrews tried to meet the new temptations of Canaan in the
+spirit of kindness and justice which they had learned from Moses.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not
+wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou
+gather the gleaning of the harvest. And thou shalt not glean
+thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of
+thy vineyard. Thou shalt leave them for the poor and the
+stranger."</b></p></div>
+
+<p>It was already the custom among the Canaanites to leave the grain in
+the corners of the fields uncut, and not to pick up the scattered
+gleanings, which fell from the arms of the harvesters, and to leave on
+the ground the fruit that fell of itself from the vines and fruit
+trees. With the Canaanites this was on account of a superstition; the
+gleanings and the grain in the corners of the fields were for the
+Baal, or god of the field. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>If they were taken he would be angry. The
+Hebrews kept the old custom, but with a different aim&mdash;not to keep the
+Baal in good humor, but to make life a bit easier for the poor and
+unfortunate among their own neighbors. It was in accordance with this
+law that Ruth, although a foreigner, was allowed to glean after the
+reapers in the barley field of Boaz of Bethlehem, and thus obtained
+food to keep herself and her mother alive. So among these lowly people
+were being laid the foundations of that greater and better
+civilization for which Moses had prepared the way, and of which
+Abraham had dimly dreamed.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. What parts of this chapter illustrate the special talent of the
+Hebrews for discovering good in things partly evil?</p>
+
+<p>2. How could this talent be used in our American life? For example, in
+the matter of moving picture shows?</p>
+
+<p>3. Read Leviticus 19. This chapter contains laws which were made
+during the period of the settlement in Canaan. Which of them seem to
+you to be in the spirit of Moses?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>LESSONS IN COOPERATION</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>After the Hebrews began to be settled in Canaan, not only were they
+tempted to neglect the poor and unfortunate; they also failed to stand
+together against their enemies. Each tribe and clan seemed to care
+only for its own safety.</p>
+
+<p>The men of Judah in the south, the Ephraimites in central Canaan, and
+the Naphtalites in the northern hills, and Gilead and Reuben across
+the Jordan&mdash;each group tried to fight its own battles. Often they
+fought with each other. There was a bloody war between the men of
+Gilead, and their cousins, the Ephraimites on the opposite side of the
+Jordan. The Ephraimites crossed the river and attacked the Gileadites,
+and were badly beaten; when they tried to get back home again, they
+found the Gileadites holding the fords of the river. Each fugitive was
+asked, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he said "No," they would order him
+to say "Shibboleth" (a Hebrew word). And if he said "Sibboleth" (the
+Gileadite dialect), and did not pronounce it exactly right, then they
+would kill him.</p>
+
+<p>This was only one example of the many wars between the tribes. There
+was no central government to keep the peace. This age in their history
+is sometimes called the period of the Judges. But these judges did not
+rule over the whole land. Most of them were only petty champions, each
+of whom helped his own tribe to defend itself against its enemies.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">Sisera and Deborah</h4>
+
+<p>In this disorganized state they would have been an easy prey to any
+strong enemy; and before long, an enemy came. In the fertile plain of
+Esdraelon, which cuts across Palestine just north of the central
+highland, there was a group of Canaanite towns which the Hebrews had
+not as yet conquered. These were organized into a kingdom by a warrior
+named Sisera, who at once began to reconquer those parts of the
+country which now belonged to the Hebrews. It was a bitter time for
+the tribes that were settled around the Plain of Esdraelon. Those
+villages which were perched on the mountain sides held out for a time,
+but the inhabitants dared not go down into the valleys. They could not
+take their grain to the market. The valley roads were all deserted
+except for bands of Sisera's troopers. Each year Sisera grew stronger,
+and more of the Hebrews submitted to him. In a little while there
+would have been none left to call themselves Hebrews and to keep up
+the noble traditions and hopes of Moses and Abraham.</p>
+
+<p><b>A wise and patriotic woman.</b>&mdash;If only the more distant tribes had
+come to the help of those that bordered on Sisera's kingdom, if only
+all the Hebrews had stood together, they could easily have defended
+themselves. But no one seemed to see this, or had faith enough to try
+to accomplish anything in this way "until Deborah arose." One day
+there came up through the sheepfolds of the Reubenites this remarkable
+woman whose name was Deborah. "Come to the help of your brethren
+across the river," she said, as she told her story. "Come to the help
+of Jehovah, by helping his people."</p>
+
+<p>At first the Reubenites seemed greatly moved by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>Deborah's words.
+Certainly, they would come, whenever Deborah and her friends were
+ready. So the brave woman was encouraged and went to other tribes, to
+all of them one after another. But not everywhere was she successful.
+Many said: "Why should we go up and help your people? Suppose Sisera
+wins, he will come and punish us. We will stay here where we are
+safe." Even the Reubenites, whose first resolves had been so brave,
+changed their minds, and "stayed in their sheepfolds, listening to the
+pipings of the flocks."</p>
+
+<p><b>The battle by the Kishon River.</b>&mdash;After many weeks of tramping,
+however, Deborah was able to get a few of the tribes really organized.
+Ephraim, Benjamin, Naphtali, Zebulun, Issachar, and some smaller clans
+all promised to send troops and did send them. An army was gathered
+under a captain named Barak. The Canaanites under Sisera came out to
+fight them, and the battle took place on the flat fields of the Plain
+of Esdraelon. It looked like a victory for Sisera. He had charioteers
+as well as foot soldiers&mdash;troops of men in heavy war carts, from the
+axles of which extended sharp blades like scythes.</p>
+
+<p>But Deborah had called to her people in the name of Jehovah. And
+Jehovah seemed, indeed, to be on their side. We may well believe that
+it was the spirit of God that put it into the hearts of Deborah and
+Barak to delay the battle until there should be a rainy day. When the
+clash finally came there was a heavy downpour. The flat plain became a
+swamp. The war chariots sank into the mud and were helpless. The
+Canaanites became panic-stricken and fled in terror. Many of them were
+drowned in the attempt to cross the Kishon, which is usually a shallow
+creek, but on that day was a deep and swiftly flowing torrent.
+Sisera, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>himself in flight, was killed by a woman in whose tent he
+tried to take refuge. The battle was won for Jehovah's people. The
+Hebrews could still be free and independent, and they had learned a
+valuable lesson&mdash;the necessity for cooperation.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Read chapters 4 and 5 of the book of Judges.</p>
+
+<p>2. With the help of a map showing the location of the various tribes
+in Canaan, find the ones which were most in danger from Sisera, whose
+kingdom was in the Plain of Esdraelon.</p>
+
+<p>3. With the help of the map, explain why it was not easy for Deborah
+to persuade the Reubenites and the Gileadites to enter this war.</p>
+
+<p>4. What arguments would you have used to persuade them?</p>
+
+<p>5. Could you use the same arguments in favor of the League of Nations
+and our membership in it, as a nation?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>After Sisera was conquered, the Hebrew tribes which had combined
+against him immediately fell apart, relapsing into the same state of
+disunion and disorganization as before. And very soon other enemies
+took advantage of it to plunder and kill.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Midianites.</b>&mdash;Among the most harassing of these enemies for a
+time were the Midianites, who lived as nomads, roaming over the
+deserts just as the Hebrews themselves had done except that they made
+their living chiefly by robbery. Every spring just after the wheat and
+barley had begun to sprout, covering all the fields with a carpet of
+the brightest green, bands of these nomads would drive their flocks
+across the Jordan and turn them loose on the young grain while the men
+stood guard in armed bands. In the summer and fall after what was left
+of the grain had been harvested and beaten out on the threshing floors
+they would come again and steal the threshed grain, taking it away in
+bags on the backs of camels.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the Hebrews would keep the wheat and barley unthreshed with
+the sheaves piled up in grain ricks and would thresh it out, a little
+at a time, in the low, half-concealed wine presses, which were dug in
+the rock. No one's life was safe where these marauders were in the
+habit of coming, and no family could be sure of food to carry them
+over the winter months.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">Gideon, the Abiezrite</h4>
+
+<p>In the tribe of Manasseh there was a little clan called Abiezer. One
+night a band of Midianites came on camels and raided the villages of
+this clan, killing some of the people, and carrying away whatever they
+found of value. They then fled back across the Jordan River to the
+desert before enough Hebrew men could get together to resist them.</p>
+
+<p><b>The counter-raid.</b>&mdash;In the heart of one young man, the brother of
+some who were killed, God planted a sudden determination to put a stop
+to these murders and robberies. He called for volunteers to pursue
+this band across the river, and when some three hundred had responded
+they set out in hot haste, down the hillsides into the plain of the
+Jordan, up the slopes on the eastern side, and out onto the plains
+where the Midianites supposed they were safe. It was hard to track
+them over these solitary wastes; and they had their swift camels. But
+Gideon trailed them; stealing up at night, he surprised them. They
+fled in terror leaving much spoil, and for many years the Hebrews were
+not molested by this particular tribe of desert wanderers.</p>
+
+<p><b>The kingdom of Gideon.</b>&mdash;Out of this experience the Hebrews in
+central Canaan gained another lesson in cooperation; and they made up
+their minds to profit by it. Here is a man, they said to themselves,
+who can lead us to victory against our foes. If we all agree to do as
+he says we can all stand together, each for all and all for each. So
+they came to Gideon, and asked him to be their ruler. He refused at
+first, but it is clear that he finally accepted and really became king
+over some of the tribes and clans of central Canaan. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>One of his sons,
+a certain Abimelech, seized the kingdom after Gideon's death and
+proved to be a selfish tyrant. He was killed by his enemies, and that
+was the end of the dynasty of Gideon. "How can we have unity and
+cooperation under a strong leader," the Hebrews asked themselves, "and
+not at the same time be in danger of slavery under a ruthless tyrant?"
+That was a difficult question.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Philistines</h4>
+
+<p>Meanwhile a national enemy far more dangerous than any previously
+mentioned had begun to threaten their existence as a people. About the
+same time that the Hebrews settled in Canaan there had landed from
+ships on the southwestern coast some newcomers of another race,
+perhaps akin to the Greeks; they were called Philistines. They quickly
+became a rich and powerful nation, holding the coast towns of Gath,
+Askelon, Gaza, Ashdod, and Ekron. They were ambitious to become
+masters of the whole land of Canaan. Their soldiers, in well-trained
+bands, built forts and established garrisons here and there, in the
+leading towns, and compelled the Hebrews to pay tribute.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time they did not protect the country from other enemies.
+For example, there were the Amalekites on the southern border, who
+were robber-nomads, just like the Midianites on the east. There were
+the people of Ammon, a town east of the Jordan. From these and other
+petty enemies the Hebrews suffered much, and the Philistines did
+nothing to help them. All they cared about was the tribute. "O for a
+leader like Deborah and Gideon!" the Hebrews once again began to cry.</p>
+
+<p><b>The messengers with the raw meat.</b>&mdash;One day <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>messengers came hurrying
+through the towns and villages of central Canaan bearing sacks or
+baskets of raw beef chopped into small squares. To the leading men of
+each village, they handed a piece of the bloody flesh with this
+message: "This piece of ox flesh is from Saul, the son of Kish, of
+Gibeah in Benjamin. As this flesh is cut into small pieces so will the
+flesh of the men of your village be chopped up if you do not come at
+once, armed for battle, to help our brothers in Jabesh in Gilead east
+of the Jordan, which is besieged by the Ammonites." "Who is Saul?"
+many asked, and few could answer. Some perhaps were able to explain
+that he was a brave and able young farmer, a friend of a prophet named
+Samuel, in the tribe of Benjamin. But it was the raw meat that
+persuaded them to obey the summons. Here is a real leader, they said,
+a man who means what he says. And two or three nights later an army of
+Hebrews, with Saul in the lead, came dashing in among the tents of the
+Ammonites who were besieging Jabesh and put them to flight. The
+Gileadites were saved; and for years to come they remembered Saul with
+gratitude.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Kingdom of Saul</h4>
+
+<p>Shortly after this victory there was a great gathering of the Hebrews
+of Benjamin and some of the neighboring tribes and Saul was elected as
+king. Would he also become a tyrant? Would he make their children
+slaves and take the best of their flocks and herds and wheat and oil,
+leaving them in poverty while he lived in luxury? There were many who
+thought so. The prophet Samuel, himself Saul's friend, warned them of
+the danger although he helped to make Saul king. But the danger from
+the Philistines was so great and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>they had suffered so much from their
+enemies on account of their lack of unity that they were willing to
+take the risk of organizing themselves as a kingdom under Saul.</p>
+
+<p><b>The first victories over the Philistines.</b>&mdash;Soon there came a summons
+to battle. The first encounter turned out well for the Hebrews. One of
+Saul's sons named Jonathan was especially brave and skillful as a
+leader, and was much loved by the people. Other victories followed.
+More and more clans and tribes flocked to Saul's standard. A young man
+from Judah, named David, became famous as a captain and was made the
+chief commander of Saul's armies. The Philistines were not driven out
+from their forts, but they were held in check and the sky seemed
+brighter. There was a chance now for victory and peace. Everyone was
+hopeful for better things. When the soldiers came back from fighting
+the Philistines, the women would go to meet them with songs and
+dances. One of their songs ran like this:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Saul has slain his thousands<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And David his ten thousands."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><b>Saul's jealousy.</b>&mdash;When Saul heard of this couplet he was jealous.
+"They gave more glory to David than to me," he thought. "One of these
+days, they will make him king in my place." His son Jonathan did not
+share his fears. He loved and trusted David. But from that time
+forward Saul hated David, and finally drove him out as a fugitive.
+Instead of fighting the Philistines he spent all his strength chasing
+David from town to town and from cave to cave. Of course the
+Philistines took advantage of this quarrel between the two ablest men
+among their foes and came back with a strong counter attack. Saul's
+own life was forfeited and that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>of Jonathan also in a disastrous
+defeat. The Philistines were masters once more. Saul's kingdom also
+had proved for the most part a failure.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Locate on the map the Midianites and the Philistines.</p>
+
+<p>2. Why would it have been a calamity for the world if the Philistines
+had conquered the Hebrews?</p>
+
+<p>3. Study carefully the parable of Jotham (Judges 9. 8-15). In the
+light of this shrewd illustration, why is it hard to get <i>good</i> men to
+run for political office, even to-day?</p>
+
+<p>4. If we should undertake to have an <i>entirely different kind</i> of
+mayors, aldermen, governors, Presidents and so on, perhaps really good
+men would accept these offices. What kind?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE NATION UNDER DAVID AND SOLOMON</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>After Saul's death his son Ishbaal fled across the Jordan where the
+Philistines were not yet in control, and was accepted as king by the
+East Jordan tribes. More and more, however, the hearts of all the
+Hebrews turned toward the young David, who, under the Philistines, to
+whom he paid tribute, now became king over the tribe of Judah in the
+south.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">David as a Leader</h4>
+
+<p>David was a born leader. Physically he was an athlete. With his sling
+he could throw stones straight, as Goliath, the Philistine giant,
+discovered to his sorrow. He had the gift of winning friends, even
+among those who might naturally have been his enemies, for example
+Jonathan and Michal, son and daughter of Saul, and Achish, the
+Philistine king. His followers with few exceptions were deeply devoted
+to him, risking their lives, sometimes, to gratify his slightest wish.
+He was wise in his dealings with men, knowing when to be stern and
+when to be lenient.</p>
+
+<p><b>The nation united under David.</b>&mdash;For a few years there was more or
+less of war between the followers of David and the followers of
+Ishbaal. David did not like this war. He had no heart for fighting his
+own kinsmen, the people of the north. His method was to win them over
+without conquest. His chief difficulty in this was to restrain his own
+followers. Fighting always leads to more fighting. A bitter personal
+feud flamed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>up between Joab, David's chief general, and Abner, who
+was the real power in the other kingdom. David did not dare to punish
+Joab, yet he plainly showed his displeasure. When finally Ishbaal
+himself was murdered in his sleep, David put the assassins to death.</p>
+
+
+<br />
+
+<!-- images page 76 -->
+
+<div class="tr1">
+
+<a name="imagep76a" id="imagep76a"></a>    <a name="imagep76b" id="imagep76b"></a>
+
+  <div style="width: 65%; float: left; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep076a.jpg" style="width: 95%;"
+    alt="Canaanite Chisel (Bronze)" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">CANAANITE CHISEL (BRONZE)</p>
+
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 25%; float: right; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep076b.jpg" style="width: 40%;"
+    alt="Canaanite File" /><br />
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">CANAANITE FILE</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<br />
+
+  <div style="width: 100%; padding: 1em; clear: both;"><a name="imagep76c" id="imagep76c"></a>
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep076c.jpg" style="width: 62%;"
+    alt="Very Ancient Canaanite Flint" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">VERY ANCIENT CANAANITE FLINT, FOR MAKING STONE KNIVES</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<a name="imagep76d" id="imagep76d"></a>    <a name="imagep76f" id="imagep76f"></a>
+ <a name="imagep76h" id="imagep76h"></a>
+
+  <div style="width: 43%; float: left; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep076df.jpg" style="width: 85%;"
+    alt="Bronze Hammerhead (top) A Fish-Hook (bottom)" /><br />
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">BRONZE HAMMERHEAD (top)<br />A FISH-HOOK (bottom)</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 50%; float: right; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep076h.jpg" style="width: 95%;"
+    alt="Canaanite or Hebrew Nails" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">CANAANITE OR HEBREW NAILS</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 100%; padding: 1em; clear: both;"><a name="imagep76e" id="imagep76e"></a>
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep076e.jpg" style="width: 80%;"
+    alt="Bone Awl Handle" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">BONE AWL HANDLE</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 100%; padding: 1em; clear: both;"><a name="imagep76g" id="imagep76g"></a>
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep076g.jpg" style="width: 80%;"
+    alt="Canaanite Whetstones" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">CANAANITE WHETSTONES</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p class="cen">Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- images page 76 -->
+
+<br />
+
+<p>By this policy he pleased the people, both in the north and in the
+south. And after seven years of division the leading men of all the
+tribes came to David at Hebron, in Judah his headquarters, and made
+him king over the entire Hebrew nation, north, east, and south.</p>
+
+<p><b>David's victories.</b>&mdash;Soon after this David declared his independence
+of the Philistines. War broke out and for a time it went against the
+Hebrews. But in the end they were able to rally their resources under
+their new leader, and inflicted two crushing defeats on their old
+enemies, which made them instead of the Philistines once and for all
+the masters of Canaan.</p>
+
+<p>From the Philistines David turned against the other petty enemies who
+had so often taken advantage of the weakness of the Hebrews. Already,
+while a vassal of the Philistines, he had thoroughly punished the
+Amalekites, in the deserts of the south; and now he gave the Ammonites
+and Moabites and other enemies on the east a taste of Hebrew warfare.
+Before many years passed they had all learned their lesson, and there
+was peace in Canaan.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Progress in Civilization</h4>
+
+<p>During all those years when the Hebrews were fighting for existence
+life in their little villages and towns had been anything but
+pleasant. Not only was there constant danger from human enemies and
+from famine, there was also a lack of the comforts and pleasures of
+civilized life. There were no books <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>to read, no musical instruments
+to play on, and few opportunities for any kind of recreation. They had
+only coarse, rough clothing to wear, and coarse, ugly furniture for
+their homes.</p>
+
+<p><b>The development of commerce.</b>&mdash;Now that peace and security had been
+achieved, David did much to make the daily lives of all his people
+happier. One way was through commerce. The great merchants of those
+days were the Ph&oelig;nicians, the people of Tyre and Sidon, whose
+daring sailors steered their ships into every harbor on the
+Mediterranean Sea and even out upon the stormy Atlantic and up to the
+tin mines of Britain.</p>
+
+<p>Very wisely David made a treaty of friendship with Hiram, king of
+Tyre, and as a result Ph&oelig;nician artists and artisans came down to
+Jerusalem and helped to beautify the city. Ph&oelig;nician wares also
+began to be peddled in all the towns of Canaan: fine linen fabrics,
+such as the Hebrews did not know how to weave; beautiful jars and
+cups, such as Hebrew potters had not learned to fashion; jewels of
+silver and gold and precious stones, over which Hebrew maidens hovered
+with longing eyes. Soon one could see that the homes in these little
+towns of Judah and Benjamin and Ephraim were cleaner and better
+furnished, and the people were more neatly dressed. Commerce of the
+right kind is always a blessing.</p>
+
+<p><b>Education.</b>&mdash;Better than fine clothes and jewels and furniture are
+the things that feed the mind. David himself was a skillful harpist,
+and no doubt this helped to make harp-playing popular. On one occasion
+the ark of Jehovah, the sacred chest which had been carried in the
+desert, was brought up to Jerusalem. It was accompanied by a chorus of
+singers and a band of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>instrumental players, "with harps and lyres and
+cymbals." In the worship of the temple at Jerusalem music from this
+time on had an important place. And all up and down the land here and
+there, one could hear in humble homes the tinkle of harp strings; and
+boys and girls who liked music could learn to play.</p>
+
+<p>If not in David's time, then very soon after, the first Hebrew history
+books were written. These contained stories which had been handed down
+from generation to generation; stories about the beginnings of things;
+stories about Abraham and Moses and other early heroes.</p>
+
+<p>There were, of course, only a few copies of written rolls of stories,
+as compared with the millions of volumes which are constantly being
+turned out to-day by our great printing presses. But these few were
+much read, and those who read committed many of the stories to memory
+so that they could repeat them again and again in their home circles.
+In this way life grew more rich in pleasure and interest for many a
+Hebrew youth and maiden.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">David's Successor, Solomon</h4>
+
+<p>After David's death his son Solomon was made King. He also encouraged
+commerce, both by land and by sea. His ships sailed down the Red Sea
+to India, and back, and over the Mediterranean Sea to Spain. They
+brought back, according to the author of First Kings, "gold and
+silver, ivory, and apes and peacocks."</p>
+
+<p><b>Solomon's folly.</b>&mdash;Alas for the happiness of the people, Solomon was
+a different kind of a man from his father. Like so many other sons of
+good kings he was spoiled by too much luxury and too little
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>discipline. He had the reputation of being very wise, but in reality
+he was very foolish. His chief ambition was to have splendid palaces,
+and to make a great display of riches, like the kings of Egypt and
+Babylonia.</p>
+
+<p>In order to build these fine buildings and have great numbers of
+servants it was necessary to extort the money from his people by heavy
+taxes. They were also compelled to labor without pay in his quarries
+and elsewhere. So with all the increased wealth in the land and with
+all the seeming progress in civilization, the common people were
+really wretched&mdash;almost worse off than in the old days of disunion and
+confusion and fear.</p>
+
+<p><b>The disruption of the kingdom.</b>&mdash;As a result of this cruelty and
+oppression, the northern tribes, after Solomon's death, rebelled
+against his son Rehoboam, who seemed likely to become even more of an
+oppressor than his father. The tribe of Judah in the south remained
+faithful to the family of David. So the nation was split in two parts,
+which were never reunited.</p>
+
+<p>If only all kings could be like David! He indeed was far from perfect;
+he was guilty of some very wicked crimes. But on the whole he came
+nearer than most kings to the best ideals of the Hebrews for their
+rulers: a man "from among thy brethren: ... neither shall he greatly
+multiply to himself silver and gold, ... that his heart be not lifted
+up above his brethren, ... and that he turn not aside from the
+commandment, to the right hand nor to the left."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Look up Joab in a good Bible dictionary, and see how much David
+owed to this extraordinary man for his success.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>2. Read 2 Samuel 23. 13-17, as a good example of the devotion and
+loyalty David was able to awaken in his followers.</p>
+
+<p>3. With which did David do the more for the happiness of his people,
+with the sword, or with his harp?</p>
+
+<p>4. Why did Solomon grow up with selfish and extravagant habits and
+ideals? Read 2 Samuel 11, 12 for an explanation.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE WARS OF KINGS AND THE PEOPLE'S SORROWS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The Hebrews did not greatly better themselves by the division of the
+kingdom and by the revolt of the northern tribes from Solomon's son.
+There were still kings both in the north and in the south. And all
+they cared about was glory and luxury for themselves.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">An Era of Perpetual War</h4>
+
+<p>In order to get glory and wealth these kings made war on neighboring
+countries. For a long time there was war between the northern and
+southern Hebrews. There were long and very bloody wars between the
+Hebrews and the Arameans, whose kings ruled in Damascus. There were
+many wars between rival candidates for the throne among the Hebrews
+themselves. Especially was this true in the northern kingdom where,
+during the two hundred years of its separate existence, there was a
+revolution on an average every thirty or forty years. In such cases
+all the members of the existing royal family would be assassinated and
+all persons who defended them or were suspected of sympathizing with
+them were put to death. After the murder of hundreds and sometimes
+thousands the new upstart conqueror would proclaim himself king.</p>
+
+<p><b>Famine and pestilence.</b>&mdash;These constant wars not only brought wounds
+and death and sorrow to many homes, they also kept all the people poor
+and increased the deadliness of the other great historic curses of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>humanity, such as famine. The money and labor spent on war might have
+been used in terracing hillsides and fertilizing fields, so that in
+times of drought the crops would not wholly fail and starvation and
+death might thus have been pushed back a little further from the
+cottages of the poor.</p>
+
+<p>Wars also bring disease. In those days, epidemics of disease were
+frightfully common at best. They knew nothing about sanitation. Even
+in the most important cities, sewage and garbage were dumped in the
+streets. Leprosy was an everyday sight. Rats and other vermin swarmed
+everywhere except in the palaces of the rich; and when the soldiers
+came home from war, bringing with them typhus fever or cholera or the
+plague, the people died like flies.</p>
+
+<p><b>The dynasty of Omri.</b>&mdash;Among the best of the successors of David and
+Solomon were Omri and his son Ahab, in the north. They made peace with
+the southern Hebrews in Judah and renewed the old alliance with Tyre.
+They built as their capital the beautiful city of Samaria. Ahab
+especially was greatly admired as a brave warrior and as a king who on
+the whole tried to serve his country well. Yet even Ahab was a despot.
+His own glory and wealth were to him of chief importance, and his
+people's needs and sufferings secondary.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Back to the Desert</h4>
+
+<p>Under these conditions it was natural that many people should look
+back with longing to the olden times, especially to the time of Moses,
+before the people had left the desert and settled in Canaan. All these
+newfangled ways, they said, are evil. They have brought us only
+trouble. Especially bad is the worship <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>of these Baals instead of
+Jehovah, the God of our fathers. No doubt Jehovah is jealous and angry
+and has brought war and famine and pestilence upon us for just this
+reason. Many, indeed, who did not altogether object to the civilized
+customs of Canaan were uneasy in their minds because of the worship of
+the Baals. When Ahab made his alliance with the king of Tyre he had
+built, in Samaria, shrines to the Baal of Tyre. This was in accordance
+with the religious ideas of those days. When two countries made an
+alliance there was supposed to be an alliance between their gods. But
+the Hebrews had made a special covenant to worship no other gods but
+only Jehovah. So there were many who were opposed to the worship of
+the Baals.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Rechabites.</b>&mdash;One Hebrew clan known as the Rechabites, actually
+became nomads again and did all they could to persuade others to do
+the same. They gave up their houses and lived in tents. They pledged
+themselves to drink no wine or strong drink, and they were
+enthusiastically devoted to the worship of Jehovah only. Naturally
+they hated Ahab for bringing in the worship of the foreign gods of
+Tyre. They did much to cause the overthrow of the dynasty of Ahab in
+favor of a general named Jehu, who was pledged to drive out the
+Ph&oelig;nicians and their gods.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Prophets</h4>
+
+<p>There were also certain specially religious people, called prophets,
+some of whom saw the evils which were ruining the happiness of the
+people and fought against them. In the earliest days, these men who
+were called prophets were much like the soothsayers of other nations.
+They were supposed to have a special power of speaking revelations
+from God. Sometimes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>they went into trances. Sometimes they caused
+exciting music to be played in their hearing. Most of them spoke what
+seemed likely to be popular with their hearers. For example, once when
+Ahab wanted to start a new war against Damascus, he sent for prophets
+and some four hundred were brought to him. "Shall we go to war or
+not?" he asked. All but one, knowing that Ahab's heart was set on the
+matter, answered, "Jehovah says, go to war, and he will give you
+victory."</p>
+
+<p><b>Micaiah.</b>&mdash;The true prophets, however, were men of truth who
+worshiped Jehovah and waited for his teaching. Such a man was Micaiah.
+When Ahab asked him, "What do you say?" his answer was like the
+others. But his manner was so sarcastic that the king kept asking him.
+He finally declared that Jehovah had revealed to him that the proposed
+expedition would end in disaster. For this Micaiah was thrown into a
+dungeon. But his prophecy came true. The Hebrews were defeated, and
+Ahab himself was killed.</p>
+
+<p><b>Elijah.</b>&mdash;The greatest leader in this movement back to the desert and
+to Moses, was a prophet named Elijah. He was like the Rechabites in
+his aims. He was dressed like a desert nomad and his whole life was
+given to the cause of the old desert religion. He had a very clear
+understanding as to what was best in that religion. It was not merely
+because Jehovah might be jealous of other gods that Elijah fought
+against Baal worship, but also because Jehovah really stood for
+justice and righteousness as against the unrighteousness of the Baals.
+Elijah was not only a champion of Jehovah; he was a champion of the
+poor against their oppressors, a champion of the common people against
+the despotism of kings, as is so vividly and thrillingly illustrated
+in the story of Naboth's vineyard.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span><b>Elisha.</b>&mdash;Elijah's work was carried on after his death by another
+prophet named Elisha. He also seems to have been a friend of the
+common people. Many traditions of his helpfulness to them are recorded
+in the second book of Kings. But his chief aim was to overthrow the
+dynasty of Ahab. It was Elisha who, with the help of the Rechabites,
+launched the revolution of Jehu.</p>
+
+<p><b>A disappointing outcome.</b>&mdash;Jehu was really no better than Ahab. He
+was willing to drive out the priests of the Ph&oelig;nician Baal, and he
+offered many sacrifices to Jehovah. But his chief ambition was for
+himself. Instead of bringing peace and justice to the poor, suffering,
+war-scourged people, his reign was horrible for its bloody killings.
+No one was safe from his murderous jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>There was needed something more than a mere revival of the "old time
+religion" of Moses. There had to be purer and nobler ideas of Jehovah,
+a better knowledge of the real nature of Jehovah and of what Jehovah
+demanded of men, and of the kind of worship which would please him.
+Till then there was little hope of happiness for men and women and
+little children.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Read 2 Kings 6. 24-30 for a vivid picture of the sufferings of the
+common people of Israel, as a result of constant wars.</p>
+
+<p>2. Read 1 Kings 20. 1-34 for some light on Ahab as an able king. What
+qualities are displayed by him, in the narrative of this chapter?</p>
+
+<p>3. Look up Rechabites in the Bible dictionary for a more complete
+narrative about them.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>4. Is war more of a curse to the common people to-day than in ancient
+times, or less? Why? What classes still suffer most from war, the rich
+and powerful or the common people?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A NEW KIND OF RELIGION</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Among all ancient peoples, including the Hebrews, a large part of
+religion was the burning of animal sacrifices on altars. Whenever a
+sheep or lamb or kid was slaughtered for food the blood was poured out
+on the sacred rock, or altar, in which the god was supposed to dwell.
+Afterward the fat was burned on the same rock. It was believed that
+the god in the rock drank the blood and smelled the fragrant odor of
+the burning fat.</p>
+
+<p><b>Whole burnt offerings.</b>&mdash;On special occasions, such as a wedding, the
+birth of a child, the beginning of a war, or the celebration of a
+victory, the entire animal was burned on the altar. The first-born
+calves, or lambs, or kids of any animal mother were also regarded by
+the Hebrews as sacred and were burned as whole burnt-offerings to
+Jehovah.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Sacrifices in Canaan</h4>
+
+<p>After the Hebrews settled in Canaan they adopted other kinds of
+sacrifices. Grains and fruits were offered as well as animals. Wine
+and oil were poured on the altars. Baked cakes were burned. One sheaf
+from every harvest field of wheat or barley was supposed to be waved
+back and forth before an altar of Jehovah. This was a sort of
+religious drama by which Jehovah was thought to receive a share of the
+grain.</p>
+
+<p><b>Religious feasts.</b>&mdash;In Canaan also the Hebrews observed certain
+religious festivals, which corresponded to the early, middle, and late
+harvest seasons; they were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>called respectively, the "Feast of
+Unleavened Bread," the "Feast of Weeks" (or Pentecost), and the "Feast
+of Tabernacles." All of these were joyous occasions somewhat like our
+Thanksgiving Day, and at all of them each family offered to Jehovah
+some part of the products of their fields.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Priests and Their Duties</h4>
+
+<p>The altars where these sacrifices were offered were in charge of a
+special class of men, the priests. In the early days, in Canaan, there
+was a little temple, or shrine, outside each town and village with one
+or more priests in charge of it. Sometimes wealthy men had private
+shrines and hired their own special priests. It was the business of
+these men to know just how a sacrifice must be offered in order that
+it might be pleasing to Jehovah. There were certain rules and
+regulations handed down from generation to generation. There were
+certain kinds of animals which could not be offered. It was important
+to know just what parts of each victim were to be burned. The various
+meal offerings had to be prepared in a certain way. Yeast could not be
+used, nor honey.</p>
+
+<p><b>The increasing number of priestly rules.</b>&mdash;As the centuries passed
+more and more rules were worked out by the priests. This was their
+whole business in life, and, of course, they made much of it. More and
+more different kinds of offerings were invented; for example, incense,
+which was the burning of herbs which made a sweet-smelling smoke. The
+books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, especially Leviticus, are
+largely composed of these rules for sacrifices. The animals had to be
+washed, killed, and skinned, according to certain directions. The
+blood had to be disposed of according to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>strict rule&mdash;some placed in
+the horns of the altar, some on the priests, some on the worshiper
+bringing the offering, and so on. And the more there were of these
+rules, the more priests there had to be to remember and enforce them.
+Thus it came about that all too frequently sacrifices came to be the
+chief thing in religion. Religion meant sacrifices and not much else.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Reign of Jeroboam II</h4>
+
+<p>Jeroboam II, who reigned over the northern kingdom of Israel for some
+forty years, beginning about B.C. 790, was in some ways like Ahab, who
+lived a century earlier. He was victorious in war and brought peace
+and prosperity to his nation. These years of peace brought little
+happiness, however, to the common people of Israel. They had already
+become so poverty-stricken during the long years of petty but cruel
+wars, under the earlier kings since Solomon, that they were
+practically at the mercy of a small class of nobles and wealthy
+merchants who grew richer all the time while the people grew poorer.</p>
+
+<p><b>Evil days.</b>&mdash;These rich men used false weights and measures. In
+buying wheat from the farmer they would use heavy weights, and get
+more than was right; in selling to the poor of the cities they used
+light weights, and so gave out little for much. They corrupted courts
+and judges, so that no poor man could get his rights. They charged
+enormous rates of interest for the money which the poor were obliged
+to borrow. All over the land the mass of the people were living in
+hovels and selling their sons and their daughters into slavery to keep
+from starving, while the rich men and their families lived in luxury
+and in wasteful, extravagant display.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>None of this shameful injustice seemed to weigh heavily on any man's
+conscience, for they were careful to keep up all the sacrifices to
+Jehovah. And was not Jehovah showing his pleasure by granting them
+these long years of peace and prosperity? They forgot the old lessons
+of Jehovah's justice which the nation had learned from Moses. Even
+Moses, according to their traditions, had given laws about sacrifices
+and offerings. These seemed to be the essential thing. So they kept on
+offering up costly sacrifices at their great temples and shrines, with
+stately and gorgeous ceremonials, and thought to themselves, "How
+pleased Jehovah must be!"</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Amos</h4>
+
+<p>There came one day to King Jeroboam's own shrine at Bethel a man in
+the garb of a shepherd and speaking in the name of Jehovah, like the
+prophets. But what strange words are these which he utters?</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight
+in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer me your ...
+meal-offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard
+the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from me the
+noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy
+viols. But let judgment roll down as waters, and
+righteousness as a mighty stream."</b></p></div>
+
+<p>What this shepherd prophet was proclaiming was a religion in which
+burnt-offerings, or sacrificial ceremonies of any kind had little or
+no place, but which expressed itself in justice and righteousness
+toward one's fellow men. What Jehovah wants is not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>sacrifices at all,
+he said, but to stop cheating the poor: to throw away your false
+balances, and set free the slave.</p>
+
+<p><b>Amos' dire forebodings.</b>&mdash;In many addresses, as reported in the book
+which bears his name, with bitter and thrilling eloquence Amos tried
+to drive home this great message to the hearts of his fellow
+countrymen. He warned them that unless they heeded, disaster would
+come to the nation. For as surely as Jehovah demanded justice, so
+surely would he punish injustice. Terrible are his pictures of the
+calamities with which the guilty Israelites would be visited. Nor did
+he appeal wholly to fear. There is now and then a pleading note in
+Amos. Honest and burning indignation and threats are indeed most
+common in the pages of his book; yet listen to this:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"Thus the Lord God showed me: and, behold, he formed locusts
+in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth ...
+and ... when they made an end of eating the grass of the
+land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee: how
+shall Jacob stand? for he is small."</b></p></div>
+
+<p>There speaks the shepherd pleading for his little sheep&mdash;"How can
+Jacob stand, for he is small?"</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Results of Amos' Words</h4>
+
+<p>Amos' mission to the northern kingdom seemed to be a failure. He had
+come up from his sheep tending, in his home in Tekoa, in Judah,
+because he felt burning within him a message for his people. But he
+soon went home. The chief priest at Bethel drove him out. And
+apparently the people did not care. No doubt <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>even the poor people in
+whose cause Amos had so eloquently spoken were shocked by his words.
+"What, are not our sacrifices holy and pleasing to Jehovah? Would he
+have us stop offering up burnt-offerings? That is almost blasphemous."</p>
+
+<p><b>Bread upon the waters.</b>&mdash;Yet there were some who listened. And the
+proof is found in the existence of the book of Amos in the Bible. Some
+one cared enough to preserve and copy the first manuscript of Amos'
+sermons and to make still other copies. Another proof is the fact that
+within that same century three other supremely great religious
+teachers caught up his great idea of a new kind of religion and
+repeated it in new and wonderfully convincing ways. Of these other
+prophets we shall learn more in the chapters to follow.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Glance over the book of Leviticus, also the latter part of Exodus,
+and the book of Numbers. How important did the Hebrews evidently
+consider the carrying out of sacrifices?</p>
+
+<p>2. Look up in the Bible dictionary Jeroboam II and Amos. Find out more
+(1) about the times in which Amos lived and (2) about his personal
+history and character.</p>
+
+<p>3. Read as much as you can in the book of Amos: chapters 1 and 2 and 7
+and 8 are most important for our study.</p>
+
+<p>4. Are religious ceremonies ever substituted to-day for the religion
+of justice and right? If so, explain how.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A NEW KIND OF WORSHIP</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Amos seemed to think of sacrifices and burnt-offerings as mere
+formalities which distracted men's attention from the thing of real
+importance, namely, just and righteous dealing between man and his
+neighbor.</p>
+
+<p>There was another prophet who lived a little later than Amos. Perhaps
+as a youth he heard Amos speak. This was Hosea, who probably came from
+Gilead east of the Jordan. This man saw even deeper into the truth of
+religion than Amos, and his messages wonderfully completed and rounded
+out the great true words which the older prophet had so bravely
+spoken.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Good and the Evil in the Old Sacrifices</h4>
+
+<p>The old religion of sacrifices was by no means wholly evil. When a
+family in those days sat down to a happy feast and gave some of
+everything in gratitude to Jehovah, God really was there, not in the
+sacred rock, but in their love for one another and for him. When they
+poured out libations and burned fat on the altar, God was indeed glad,
+not because of the smell of the smoke or because he enjoyed drinking
+the blood, but because his children were grateful.</p>
+
+<p><b>Wrong ideas of God.</b>&mdash;On the other hand, these sacrifices, when
+misunderstood, tended to give people a wrong idea of God as one who
+was greedy for food and gifts. There was the greater danger of this
+wrong idea because of the character of the priests who were supposed
+to represent Jehovah. Many of them were very greedy indeed. The story
+of Eli's sons in 1 Samuel 2. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>12-17 is an illustration. The priests
+were supposed to receive for their own personal support a part of all
+the gifts which were brought to the shrine. But the sons of Eli made
+it the rule that whatever came out of the meat kettle on a
+three-pronged fork stuck in by the priest should belong to him. Very
+often, it is plain, the priest got everything. And naturally the
+people came to think of Jehovah as like his priests&mdash;as a Being who
+cared only for gifts.</p>
+
+<p><b>A worship based on greed.</b>&mdash;The worship of such a god, or of a god
+who was thought of as being of such a character, would, of course, be
+very far from the love and adoration which we Christians are taught to
+offer to our Father, and was really far from the kind of worship
+advocated by devout Hebrews. It would be a sort of bargain-hunting
+worship: the people to bring gifts of the fat of lambs and libations
+of blood and wine, and the god to give them in return good crops of
+wheat and oil, and figs and grapes, and an abundance of silver and
+gold. If Jehovah would give these things, then worship Jehovah. If
+other gods and Baals would give more than Jehovah, worship them.</p>
+
+<p>In short these sacrifices, as Hosea saw, were a kind of worship, and
+no worship is a mere formality, but is a vast influence for good or
+for ill. Because of these wrong ideas the sacrifices had come to be
+more and more an influence for evil. And you cannot have a righteous
+and happy human family in which men are just and kind to each other,
+without a true worship, growing out of a true idea of God.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Hosea's Experience and Message</h4>
+
+<p>This young man from the lovely, grassy plains and valleys east of the
+Jordan had had an experience which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>taught him much. He was by nature
+a man with a loving heart. He loved his native land with a burning
+patriotism. By and by there came to him, as to most young men, the
+experience of a passionate love for a beautiful girl. All the deep
+wells of tenderness in Hosea's loving heart were hers, and she became
+his wife. For a time they were happy; then little by little it became
+clear that this woman, Gomer, did not really love him as he loved her.
+She only wanted his money. And when she could get nothing more from
+him, or could get more elsewhere, she left him. She was like the woman
+in Kipling's poem, "The Vampire," "she did not care." It hurt Hosea.
+For a time the light of the whole world seemed darkened for him.</p>
+
+<p><b>Reading a meaning in sorrow.</b>&mdash;Then like a flash the thought came to
+him; Jehovah is just like me in this regard. He wants love, not gifts,
+from his people, a love which on their part does not fawn for other
+gifts from him in return, like the cupboard love of kittens purring
+for cream. He loves his people Israel just as I love Gomer. That is
+why he asks us not to worship these other gods, the Baals; not because
+he is jealous but because he is good. He wants us to learn a different
+kind of worship altogether&mdash;a worship which is not prompted by greed
+but by love.</p>
+
+<p>With his whole soul aflame, Hosea poured these new ideas into the ears
+of his countrymen.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God
+more than burnt-offerings."</b></p></div>
+
+<p>These great words were quoted by Jesus himself in one of his
+controversies with the Pharisees; they are one of the supreme
+utterances of human literature.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">Storm Clouds on the Horizon</h4>
+
+<p>This new insight of Hosea helped him to interpret hopefully the
+troubles which at that time were coming thick and fast upon his
+people. The forebodings of Amos were coming true. The kings of Assyria
+were ambitious. They had set their hearts upon a great Assyrian empire
+extending from Babylonia to Egypt. For more than two centuries each
+new king at Nineveh sent his conquering armies farther west and south.
+Already in Hosea's day they had more than once invaded northern Israel
+and had taken away tribute. And the leaders of the nation did not have
+the brains or the character to avoid a conflict with this merciless
+and resistless foe.</p>
+
+<p><b>Jehovah loving even in punishment.</b>&mdash;Amos had declared that Jehovah
+would surely punish his people because of injustices and wrongs which
+they were inflicting on one another. Hosea agreed, but was able to go
+further, and say that in these very punishments which were now coming
+Jehovah was still showing not his anger but his love. He was punishing
+in the hope that his children might learn their lesson and return to
+him in love.</p>
+
+<p><b>Fall of the northern kingdom.</b>&mdash;The nation, as a nation, seemed to
+pay no attention to Hosea's pleadings. They went right on living their
+selfish and greedy and lustful lives. And in B.C. 721, as a result of
+provoking the Assyrian king Shalmanezer to a fresh attack, the land
+was again invaded and the city of Samaria was captured and sacked.
+Thousands of the northern Hebrews were carried away as exiles to other
+lands and never returned. The northern kingdom was a failure. The
+religious ideals and dreams of Abraham and Moses <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>had not yet been
+fulfilled. The common people had had little opportunity for happiness
+or growth in knowledge and goodness. But the southern kingdom still
+existed. And many a disciple of Hosea, some of them carrying scraps
+and rolls of papyrus on which his sayings were copied, fled to
+Jerusalem, and there sowed the seed of his great message of a God not
+only of justice but of love.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Read Genesis 4. 1-15. In this story of Cain and Abel is there any
+hint as to how even an animal sacrifice might be true worship?</p>
+
+<p>2. Look up Hosea in the Bible dictionary, or in the chapter on Hosea
+in Cornill, The Prophets of Israel. Find out more about the times in
+which he lived and about his personal history.</p>
+
+<p>3. Read what you can in the book of Hosea. This is rather hard
+reading, but chapter 11 is not very difficult, and gives a good idea
+of Hosea's style.</p>
+
+<p>4. Which kind of prayer counts more for the happiness of all, prayers
+for personal advantage, or prayers of love and gratitude to our
+Father?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>JEHOVAH NOT A GOD OF ANGER</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>There are other mischievous delusions in regard to the character of
+God which we find among all races in the early childhood of their
+history. They think of their gods not only as greedy but as having
+arbitrary whims and as often falling into fits of unreasonable and
+cruel anger.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Early Ideas of Jehovah's Anger</h4>
+
+<p>The Hebrews were not entirely free from these wrong notions in their
+conception of Jehovah. Even in the story of Moses, for example, there
+is a strange narrative which declares Jehovah "met Moses and sought to
+kill him" and would have killed him except for the ceremonial rite
+which his wife Zipporah performed.</p>
+
+<p><b>The story of the ark and the men of Beth-shemesh.</b>&mdash;Similar to this
+is the story of the wanderings of the ark in 1 Samuel. This ark, or
+sacred chest, was regarded as the special dwelling place of Jehovah in
+Canaan, his permanent home supposedly being on Mount Sinai in the
+desert. When the ark was captured by the Philistines a plague broke
+out in every city where it was taken. Finally it was placed on a new
+cart with specially chosen cows to draw it, and sent back toward the
+Hebrew border, and in the course of time it reached the Hebrew town of
+Beth-shemesh. And we read that "the sons of Jeconiah did not rejoice
+with the men of Beth-shemesh, when they looked upon the ark of
+Jehovah. So he smote among them seventy men."<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">Sacrifice as a Propitiation of Jehovah's Anger</h4>
+
+<p>It was just this idea of Jehovah as subject to fits of anger which
+prompted many of the old sacrifices. It was not merely that Jehovah
+was greedy and could be bribed with gifts to grant favors, but also
+that he was dangerous when his anger was stirred and hence sacrifices
+were necessary to placate him.</p>
+
+<p><b>Human sacrifices.</b>&mdash;An even darker side of the picture is the
+existence of human sacrifices, even among the Hebrews, in the worship
+of Jehovah. The pathetic story of Jephthah's daughter is the most
+conspicuous example. This warrior had promised to sacrifice to Jehovah
+whatever first came out to meet him, if he returned victorious from
+war. Alas, it was his own daughter! Yet he did not dare to break his
+vow.</p>
+
+<p>The story of Abraham and Isaac also proves that human sacrifices to
+Jehovah were not unknown among the Hebrews. In this story Jehovah
+finally intervenes and allows Abraham to offer up a ram instead of his
+own son. Yet the story implies the belief that Jehovah might demand of
+a father that he kill his own son and burn him on the altar. These
+ideas continued to be believed even down to the time of the prophets,
+Amos and Hosea, and the others about whom we will study.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Prophet Micah and His Message</h4>
+
+<p>About the time that Hosea was finishing his sad career in the north
+another prophet in the south caught up the torch of light and truth.
+His name was Micah. Like the two great men who preceded him, Amos and
+Hosea, his heart was stirred to pity and indignation by the sufferings
+of the poor and by the injustice and luxury of the rich and powerful.
+In plain, direct, and fiery <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>sentences he denounced these evils and
+foretold punishment. Because of these things, he declared that
+"Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the
+high places of a forest."</p>
+
+<p>Micah was especially bitter against those men who made religion their
+business, and used it as a means of oppressing the poor&mdash;the prophets
+who proclaim a holy war against those "who put not into their mouths,"
+that is, those who do not give them presents. The priests, Micah says,
+"teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money."</p>
+
+<p><b>Micah's great message.</b>&mdash;It was, of course, the existence of
+superstitious fears in the hearts of the people which made it possible
+for the priests and the prophets to join with the rich nobles in
+preying upon them. "You give me this or that," "You pay for this
+sacrifice or that&mdash;or I will call down a curse upon you from Jehovah.
+Some dreadful misfortune will come upon you." With one great word
+whose throbbing pity for the ignorance and sorrow of men makes it
+another of the great utterances of human lips, Micah cut the root of
+all such fears. Jehovah is not that kind of a God, he declared. He
+does not break out in fits of rage. He does not need to be wheedled
+back into good nature by costly offerings, perhaps even sometimes with
+the costliest offerings of all, one's own darling children.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself
+before the high God? Shall I come before him with
+burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be
+pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of
+rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
+He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the
+Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy,
+and to walk humbly with thy God."</b></p></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Read the stories of the ark, referred to in this chapter. See 1
+Samuel 6. 1-20; 2 Samuel 6. 1-9. What other way of explaining the
+death of Uzzah and of the men of Beth-shemesh occurs to you rather
+than the anger of Jehovah? In the case of the men of Beth-shemesh,
+read 1 Samuel 5, with its clear indications of contagious disease.</p>
+
+<p>2. How has modern science helped to free mankind from the curse of
+superstitious fear?</p>
+
+<p>3. Look up Micah in the Bible dictionary, and find out all you can
+about his personal history and work.</p>
+
+<p>4. Are superstition and wrong religious beliefs ever made the means of
+extortion and oppression to-day? If so, how?</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style="width: 10%;"/>
+<br />
+
+<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> 1 Samuel 6. 19, Greek version.</p></div>
+
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>ONE JUST GOD OVER ALL PEOPLES</h4>
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Message of Isaiah</h4>
+
+<p>The destruction of the northern kingdom by the Assyrian armies struck
+fear into the hearts of the Hebrews of the sister kingdom in the
+south. No one had dreamed that such a thing could happen. It is true
+that from the beginning of the terrible onrush the Assyrians had been
+almost irresistible. All the little nations which had stood in their
+way had been swallowed up.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the prophets Amos and Hosea had plainly foretold that some
+such calamity would be sent upon Israelites by Jehovah on account of
+their sins. But very few of them believed these brave and lonely
+preachers of the truth. "Jehovah send the Assyrians against us! Why,
+that is absurd! We are Jehovah's people, and he is our God. What has
+he to do with the Assyrians? He may chastise us, but not by sending
+foreign armies to conquer us. What would he do if we should be
+conquered? He would have no nation to worship him." So they reasoned.</p>
+
+<p><b>Jehovah too weak to protect his people?</b>&mdash;When, therefore, the
+Assyrians actually did come marching down from the Euphrates River,
+hundreds of thousands of them with their gleaming armor and their
+multitudes of horses and war chariots, and besieged and captured the
+city of Samaria, leaving it a ruin, most of the Hebrews, north and
+south, were sick with fear and bewilderment. For them with their false
+notions it could mean only one thing: their God, Jehovah, was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>too
+weak to protect his people against the greater gods of Nineveh. The
+Assyrians said to them:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"Let not thy God in whom thou trusteth deceive thee, saying,
+Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of
+Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria
+have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt
+thou be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered
+them?... Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad,
+and the king of the city of Sepharvaim?"</b></p></div>
+
+<p>Against such taunts as these, the Hebrews, with their mistaken
+beliefs, could bring no answer.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Craze for Foreign Gods</h4>
+
+<p>With their faith in Jehovah breaking down there was a great running
+here and there after other gods and strange religions. Instead of
+trusting quietly in Jehovah's watchful care many of the people
+resorted in their terror to soothsayers and mediums, to "wizards that
+chirp and mutter." Jerusalem seems to have become almost as full of
+them as the cities of the Philistines, which had always been famous
+for their fortune-tellers and necromancers.</p>
+
+<p><b>Alliances with other nations.</b>&mdash;Another favorite way of seeking
+safety was through alliances with other nations and their gods.
+According to the beliefs of that age, when two nations made an
+alliance their gods were included in it. To overcome the Assyrians,
+therefore, it would be necessary to make an alliance with some other
+nation whose gods were very powerful. So the people of Jehovah began
+to "strike hands with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>the children of foreigners." The rulers of
+Jerusalem set about making coalitions with the other nations of
+western Asia: with the Philistines, the Syrians, the Ph&oelig;nicians
+and, most of all, the Egyptians. The gods of the Egyptians were
+supposed to be especially strong: Osiris and Isis were the chief of
+their deities and they were believed to be the gods of the
+underworld&mdash;of Sheol, or Hades, the abode of the dead. So when these
+poor ignorant politicians at Jerusalem finally did succeed in
+arranging for an alliance with the crafty and deceitful kings of Egypt
+they said to themselves: "Now we are safe. The Assyrians cannot hurt
+us now. We have made a covenant with Death."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Statesman-Prophet, Isaiah</h4>
+
+<p>It is good to know that among many misguided people there was one man
+whose wisdom of the eternal Truth of God made him stand like a rock
+while the multitudes ran to and fro in uncertainty and despair. Isaiah
+was a comrade and co-worker in spirit with the prophets named in the
+three preceding chapters, Amos, Hosea, and Micah. It is by no means
+impossible that he had listened to the sermons of Hosea, and thus
+caught from him his inspiration. He must certainly have known Micah
+personally, for they lived and preached only some twenty-five or
+thirty miles apart&mdash;Micah in the village of Moresheth and Isaiah in
+the city of Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p><b>Isaiah's message.</b>&mdash;Isaiah's special message to his people was that
+all the nations of the world are subject to the righteous rule of the
+God of righteousness, Jehovah; and that the attempt to find safety for
+their nation by alliances with other nations and their gods was
+utterly foolish and wrong. Undoubtedly this message <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>found a response
+in the hearts of those who remained faithful to Jehovah.</p>
+
+<p>This message grew out of the great and splendid ideas as to Jehovah's
+character which Amos and his successors had been working out: that he
+was a God of righteousness and love, not greedy for burnt-offerings,
+not flaring up into fits of anger, and needing to be soothed and
+mollified by peace offerings; but a God who asks only for justice and
+fair-dealing among men, and for true love in response to his own.
+Isaiah repeated these great truths to his own people in Jerusalem in
+glowing words whose eloquence is unsurpassed. For example:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings
+from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well;
+seek judgment; relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless,
+plead for the widow....</b></p>
+
+<p><b>"I will turn my hand upon thee, and will thoroughly purge
+away thy dross, and will take away all thy tin: and I will
+restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at
+the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called the city of
+righteousness, the faithful city."</b></p></div>
+
+<p><b>Isaiah's originality.</b>&mdash;The prophets and leaders who came before
+Isaiah had not fully grasped the idea of a God of all nations instead
+of one. Amos and Hosea had only caught glimpses of it. Before their
+time, even the greatest of the leaders of Israel had thought of
+Jehovah as for the most part the God of Israel only. But now in the
+midst of the terror of cruel armies and ruined cities and smoking
+fields, when no one knew <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>what to believe or where to look for comfort
+and protection, this great Isaiah was able to realize that Jehovah,
+the God of righteousness and justice and love, was <i>the God of all
+humanity</i>. There were no limits to his realm. All tribes and kingdoms
+and races were subject to his holy law. The Assyrians are but "the axe
+that he hews with." His providence rules over all. Whatever wicked men
+may say or do, his will is done in the end. His plans are brought to
+pass.</p>
+
+<p><b>Isaiah's faith.</b>&mdash;With such a God as this in whom to trust, Isaiah
+was able to show himself to his countrymen as a wonderful example of
+the power of faith. When they were panic-stricken he was calm. "Thus
+saith the Lord God, ... In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in
+quietness and confidence shall be your strength." Do not rush off to
+other nations and other gods. They will fail you. Most likely they
+will selfishly betray you. Only do the will of the just God, who rules
+the nations, and quietly trust him. Do that and no evil can befall
+you. He is all-wise and all-powerful, and he is good.</p>
+
+<p>So at last, the religion of the one All-Father, which we call
+<i>monotheism</i>, was born in the mind and heart of a man, and began to be
+clearly proclaimed by human lips.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">STUDY TOPICS</h4>
+
+<p>1. Look up "Isaiah" in the Bible dictionary.</p>
+
+<p>2. Read Isaiah 6. 1-8 for his own story of the experience which led
+him to be a prophet.</p>
+
+<p>3. What parts of this story in Isaiah 6. 1-8 express the idea of one
+great God of all nations? Look up "Monotheism" in the dictionary.</p>
+
+<p>4. Read chapter one or chapter five of the book of Isaiah for a good
+example of his eloquent preaching.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A REVISED LAW OF MOSES</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Amos and the great prophets who followed him met with the same fate as
+many other pioneers&mdash;only a few of their hearers heeded their words,
+or even understood them. But four great leaders in one century&mdash;Amos,
+Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah&mdash;could hardly fail to make some real
+impression on the minds and lives of their nation. Isaiah was perhaps
+the most influential, partly because the others before them had
+prepared the way and partly because he himself lived and preached to
+the people during a long period of time&mdash;more than forty years.</p>
+
+<p><b>Isaiah's disciples.</b>&mdash;Another reason why Isaiah exerted so great an
+influence was that he organized little groups of his disciples into
+circles for study. These groups met together from time to time, and
+read aloud the sermons of Isaiah and the other prophets, and talked
+about how to apply them to their lives. We can see them seated in a
+circle in the evening on the floor of one of those little homes
+opening into a narrow Jerusalem street. There would be a candlestick
+in the center, or an upturned bushel measure, with a candle on top of
+it. The circle would be composed of men; but on the outside eagerly
+listening would be women and children. One of the men in the circle
+would be seated by the candle reading from a roll of papyrus on which
+were written the sermons of one of the prophets.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">The Evil Days of Manasseh's Reign</h4>
+
+<p>It is well that these reading circles were started, for they kept
+alive the new truth of the reformer-prophets during the reign of a bad
+king, Manasseh. This man's father, Hezekiah, had favored the prophets.
+But Manasseh, who became king when Isaiah was an old man, was opposed
+to all these new ideas. Most of the people of Judah probably agreed
+with him. They still clung to the belief that the one sure way for a
+nation to be prosperous was to offer sacrifices to the most powerful
+gods. Now the kingdom of Judah, in spite of all their worship of
+Jehovah, was still subject to the empire of Assyria. Great sums had to
+be paid every year as tribute. "What fools those prophets are!" men
+said, as they talked together in the streets. "See how much stronger
+the Assyrian gods are than Jehovah!" "Last month I had to pay ten
+shekels for the tribute!" "If we want to prosper, we must worship the
+gods of Assyria."</p>
+
+<p><b>Manasseh's persecution.</b>&mdash;Manasseh therefore proceeded to introduce
+the worship of the moon-god, and the sun-god, and other deities of
+Nineveh. He even set up altars to these divinities in the temple of
+Jehovah at Jerusalem. When the disciples of the prophets spoke against
+all this he had them seized and killed, until he had "filled Jerusalem
+with innocent blood." Many a good man who had listened to the reading
+of Isaiah by candlelight in one of those reading circles now had to
+hide himself in some closet or cistern from the soldiers of Manasseh.
+There is a tradition that the aged Isaiah himself was put to death
+during this persecution.</p>
+
+<p>Not all of those who opposed Manasseh were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>killed, although they were
+finally compelled to keep silence. Those little study circles still
+held meetings in secret to read and talk and pray; and they kept
+looking forward to a time when a different kind of a man would be
+king, and when they would be able once more to lead the people into
+the way of justice and true worship.</p>
+
+<p>In one of these little groups a remarkably wise plan was suggested.
+Let us take the laws which have been handed down to us from Moses, it
+was said, and work them up into a sermon. Every one reverences Moses.
+Let it include the farewell address which Moses is said to have spoken
+to his people just before he died, and put into it all the laws of
+Moses, and let us show what they really mean. And by and by when
+Manasseh is dead we may be able to read it to the people, and perhaps
+they will listen.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Written Law</h4>
+
+<p><b>The new law book&mdash;Deuteronomy.</b>&mdash;So they wrote the new book, and it
+is preserved in our Bible as the book of Deuteronomy. We find in it
+all the old laws which had been handed down from early times, and
+which were called the "laws of Moses." And we find on every page
+sentences which show the influence of the great prophets, from Amos to
+Isaiah. Isaiah's influence is perhaps the most plainly seen,
+especially his teaching that the people should worship Jehovah alone
+as the one ruler of the world. In Deuteronomy also we find a very
+solemn and emphatic commandment bidding us love and worship only
+Jehovah, the one true God. This is the commandment which Jesus called
+the first and greatest of all.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with
+all thy soul, and with all thy might."</b></p></div>
+
+<p>Such a law as this of course forbade all those covenants with other
+gods which Isaiah denounced.</p>
+
+<p><b>Laws helping the oppressed.</b>&mdash;All the prophets had been on the side
+of the poor and the weak, against the rich and powerful who oppressed
+them. The authors of the book of Deuteronomy tried to shape this new
+law so as more fully to protect the poor. They made stronger all the
+older laws which were intended to make life a little easier for the
+weak and unfortunate, and they added others: for example, laws
+protecting debtors against greedy and merciless creditors, and laws
+forbidding the extremely harsh penalties which poor men were sometimes
+made to suffer by rich judges.</p>
+
+<p>There was an ancient law requiring that any Hebrew who had fallen into
+a state of slavery on account of debt must be set free after seven
+years. The new law book included this law, and added that the master
+must not send him away emptyhanded at the end of the seven years, but
+must give him food and clothes enough to keep him alive while he
+looked for a chance to work and earn money for himself. The new law
+also protected fugitive slaves from other countries. They were not to
+be returned to their owners.</p>
+
+<p><b>A compromise.</b>&mdash;All of the four reformer-prophets whom we have
+studied had condemned the offerings and animal sacrifices of the old
+worship, not only because of the idolatry and other heathen and
+immoral practices connected with them, but also on the ground <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>that
+Jehovah did not want sacrifices anyway, but only justice and love.</p>
+
+<p>But the authors of the new law did not abolish sacrifices altogether.
+They provided that all the small shrines, called "high places," such
+as at Hebron or Gibeon, and all up and down the country should be
+destroyed, but that sacrifices should be offered at Jerusalem and only
+there. The old-time religious feasts, such as the Passover, could no
+longer be celebrated at home. All the people must come up to Jerusalem
+for them. No doubt it was thought that this would help to put down
+idolatry.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Adoption of the New Law</h4>
+
+<p>Manasseh reigned fifty-five years. It was a long, weary time of
+waiting for the disciples of the prophets. The new law book was put
+away in one of the closets of the temple for safe-keeping. The years
+went by and most of the men who helped to write it died. At last,
+however, the end came for Manasseh. After a short period his grandson,
+Josiah, who was only eight years old, became king. The boy's older
+relatives and friends were all against the ideas of old Manasseh and
+on the side of the prophets. Little by little the principles of the
+prophets were put in practice. Among other things, orders were given
+to tear out from the Jerusalem temple the images and altars to the
+sun-god and the moon-god and other emblems of Assyrian worship. The
+temple was also cleaned and renovated. While the carpenters were at
+work the new law-book was discovered in the chest where it had been
+hidden and was brought to the young king and read before him.</p>
+
+<p><b>Josiah's reforms.</b>&mdash;Josiah was deeply impressed and gave orders that
+the reforms called for by the new <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>law should be carried out. Officers
+went all up and down the villages and towns of Judah tearing down the
+little temples, or "high places," where so much heathenism had been
+practiced. And the people were told that several times each year they
+were to bring their sacrifices to the temple at Jerusalem. Those were
+also good days for the common people. There was a king now who "judged
+the cause of the poor and the needy." Many a poor debtor, when his
+crops failed, appealed to the king's court in Jerusalem and he himself
+and his children were saved from slavery and their home from ruin.</p>
+
+<p>The reform only lasted a few years&mdash;some twelve or thirteen&mdash;and then
+King Josiah was killed in battle, and much of the old heathenism and
+greed and injustice came back again in a flood. But the memory of the
+good days did not quickly fade. It was the first great triumph of the
+teachings of the prophets&mdash;the men who kept alive the true ideals of
+Abraham and Moses.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Read any part of Deuteronomy 1-5. Select any passages which seem to
+you truly eloquent.</p>
+
+<p>2. Read Deuteronomy 12. 10, 11. What place is referred to by the
+author, when he writes, "The place that Jehovah your God shall choose,
+to cause his name to dwell there"?</p>
+
+<p>3. In the light of the history in this chapter, which is the more
+likely to change human history, a battleship or a Bible class?
+Explain.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A PROPHET WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The new law-book seemed a great victory. Yet sometimes victories are
+more dangerous than defeats. They lead to self-satisfaction. This was
+certainly the case with this victory of the authors of Deuteronomy.
+The people were careful to offer up their sacrifices at the temple in
+Jerusalem, and very few offerings were brought to the old village
+shrines. But the real kernel of the truth which the prophets had
+proclaimed was in danger of being forgotten. This was the truth that
+<i>no</i> forms of sacrifice, <i>no</i> solemn religious feasts are of any
+account in the sight of God unless accompanied by simple justice and
+brotherly kindness between neighbors. This was the state of affairs
+against which one more great reforming prophet was raised up to
+fight&mdash;Jeremiah, of the little town of Anathoth, five miles north of
+Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">A Conversation in a Jerusalem Street</h4>
+
+<p>To understand clearly what Jeremiah's message was and why it was
+needed let us listen to a conversation between two citizens of
+Jerusalem. This one is imaginary. But there must have been many, in
+reality, very similar to this.</p>
+
+<p><i>First citizen:</i> Did you hear of my good fortune? I have just got a
+fine piece of ground for almost nothing.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second citizen:</i> How?</p>
+
+<p><i>First citizen:</i> I had loaned some money to an old <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>farmer, and made
+him pledge me his field as security. Last summer the Babylonian
+soldiers came through that valley and burned all the wheat and barley
+stacks. So the old man couldn't pay back the loan. He tried to tell
+his story to King Jehoiakim, but the king drove him from the palace.
+So I went and took his field.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second citizen:</i> What would the prophets have said to a transaction
+like that? Did not Isaiah call down woes from Jehovah on those who
+took away poor men's fields?</p>
+
+<p><i>First citizen:</i> I have just offered a sacrifice to Jehovah.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second citizen:</i> I suppose, then, it is all right. But did not the
+prophets speak against sacrifice, unless one remembered justice and
+mercy?</p>
+
+<p><i>First citizen:</i> Yes, but they were speaking of the old sacrifices on
+the "high places," at the village shrines. Everyone knows they were
+heathen shrines and hateful to Jehovah. I offered my sacrifice at the
+temple yonder, just as we are told to do in the law of Moses, which
+King Josiah's servants found in the temple.</p>
+
+<p>Look! Why is all that crowd gathered over there in the temple yard?
+Let us go and see what is happening. I heard some one say, that a
+certain Jeremiah who calls himself a prophet, was to speak there
+to-day. All my friends who have heard him say that he is a false
+prophet.</p>
+
+<p>(They reach the edge of the crowd. Jeremiah is standing on the steps
+of the temple, addressing the people, as follows:)</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the
+Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are
+these. For if <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings;
+if ye thoroughly execute justice between a man and his
+neighbor; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and
+the widow ... then I will cause you to dwell in this place,
+in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even
+forevermore. Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot
+profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear
+falsely, ... and come and stand before me in this house, ...
+and say, We are delivered; that ye may do all these
+abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name,
+become a den of robbers in your eyes?"</b></p></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Jeremiah's Message of a Heart Religion</h4>
+
+<p>It is clear that Jeremiah was fighting the same old battle that Amos
+and the other prophets had fought against a religion of mere empty
+ceremonies. But the battle had grown even harder, because the old
+false practices had been accepted as though they were just the kind of
+religion that Amos had preached. The people said, "We are keeping the
+law of Jehovah," and so they were satisfied with themselves.</p>
+
+<p><b>The law to be written on the heart.</b>&mdash;Jeremiah saw that this mistake
+had come from relying too much on a written law. Something more than
+an outward law was needed before men could succeed in living together
+as brothers. It is so easy to keep the letter of the law, or to think
+one is keeping it, while we lose the spirit of it. What is needed,
+Jeremiah said, is a changed heart. Again and again he cried to the
+people, "Oh Jerusalem, cleanse thy <i>heart</i>." And in one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>of the great
+chapters of the Bible, the thirty-first of the book of Jeremiah, he
+looks forward to a time when Jehovah and his people should be bound
+together in a new covenant&mdash;not a covenant written on tables of stone
+like the one which Moses wrote at Sinai:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"But this is the covenant that I will make ... after those
+days, saith the Lord. I will put my law in their inward
+parts, and in their hearts I will write it."</b></p></div>
+
+<p>The apostle Paul saw this promise fulfilled by the love which Jesus
+Christ awakens in men's hearts, so that they gladly and eagerly do the
+will of God. On account of this prophecy of Jeremiah our Christian
+Bible is called the New Covenant, or (from the Latin) the New
+Testament.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Jeremiah and the Babylonians</h4>
+
+<p>In Jeremiah's time (a decade or so before and after B.C. 600) the
+Babylonians had taken the place of the Assyrians as the rulers of the
+world. There was a powerful king, Nebuchadrezzar, on the throne of
+Babylon. And the existence of the kingdom of Judah depended on
+submission to him. But, just as in Isaiah's time a century before,
+there was now a party in Jerusalem who were constantly plotting to
+rebel against the Babylonians, hoping for help from Egypt.</p>
+
+<p><b>Jeremiah as a patriot.</b>&mdash;Jeremiah had no sympathy with them. He loved
+his native land deeply and tenderly. But until the people were
+<i>worthy</i> of liberty he was sure Jehovah would not give it to them.</p>
+
+<p>Again and again they proved their unworthiness. Once when the
+Babylonian armies were knocking almost at the gates of Jerusalem they
+remembered that law <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>about Hebrew slaves, which had been made even
+more strict in the new law, Deuteronomy. According to this law, no
+Hebrew could be kept in slavery longer than seven years. So in their
+fear of the Babylonians these rich nobles solemnly set free a great
+number of slaves whom they had been illegally keeping in slavery. A
+few days later the hostile army, for some reason or other, withdrew.
+And within a month all these slaves who had been set free were seized
+and reenslaved. How Jeremiah denounced this hypocrisy!</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Destruction of Jerusalem</h4>
+
+<p>If Jeremiah's advice had been followed, the people of Judah would have
+been spared a world of sorrow. But the leaders of the kingdom seemed
+bent on dragging the whole nation into ruin. In B.C. 597, Jerusalem
+was captured and some ten thousand of the inhabitants were carried
+away as exiles to Babylon.</p>
+
+<p>Even that lesson was not enough. Within a few years the new king,
+Zedekiah, and his nobles again rebelled against Nebuchadrezzar.
+Jeremiah protested and was called a traitor. Many times his life was
+threatened; for a long period he was kept in a filthy dungeon, and
+almost perished from hunger. But friends saved him. Very soon, in B.C.
+586, the city came to the horrible end which Jeremiah had so patiently
+tried to ward off. The city was captured by Babylonian soldiers and
+burned. Thousands were carried away as exiles. Thousands more fled to
+Egypt and to other foreign countries. Only the poorest farmers were
+left to till the soil. David's kingdom and dynasty were ended.</p>
+
+<p>Jeremiah himself was not taken to Babylon, but remained in Palestine.
+According to tradition, his last <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>days were spent in Egypt, with a
+Hebrew colony there. His life had been spent in keeping alive the soul
+of true religion in an age when few would listen. He is one of the
+great heroes of uncompromising truth.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Look up the story of Jeremiah in the Bible dictionary.</p>
+
+<p>2. Read Jeremiah 1. 1-9, for a taste of his style of writing.</p>
+
+<p>3. One man sacrifices to a heathen god; another tries to bribe Jehovah
+with a sacrifice as though he were <i>like</i> the heathen gods:</p>
+
+<p class="noin">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>a.</i> Which is worse?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>b.</i> Which would the authors of Deuteronomy have considered worse?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>c.</i> Which would Jeremiah have considered worse?</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XXI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>KEEPING THE FAITH IN A STRANGE LAND</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Twice within twelve years, first in B.C. 597, and again in B.C. 586,
+the Babylonians took great companies of Hebrews as exiles from
+Jerusalem to Babylon. Each time there must have been in the line of
+march some twenty-five thousand men, women, and children&mdash;an army
+which, marching eight abreast, would stretch at least five or six
+miles.</p>
+
+<p>These must have been sorrowful processions, especially the last of the
+two. For months they had suffered the horrors of a besieged city. Then
+had come the break in the walls, the screams of frightened women and
+children, the heaps of corpses in the streets, and the black smoke and
+red glare of burning buildings; then the hasty setting out on the long
+road to Babylon. Some of them perhaps were able to buy asses to carry
+the little children and a few of their belongings. But most of them
+had to trudge along on foot, fathers and mothers carrying the babies,
+and leaving behind them all their possessions except what could be
+gathered into a towel or a blanket. For a month or six weeks they
+tramped. If anyone fell sick, there was no time to take care of him.
+He must drag along with the rest or fall by the wayside until he
+either recovered or died.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Settlement in Babylonia</h4>
+
+<p>When they reached the land of their captors they were not made slaves,
+but were allowed to make their home together in settlements on land
+set apart for them. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>In these colonies they probably worked as
+tenant-farmers on the estates of Nebuchadrezzar's nobles. In the
+prophetic book of Ezekiel, who was among these exiles, we read about
+one of these Jewish colonies by the river, or canal, called Chebar (or
+in Babylonian Kabaru), which means the Grand Canal.</p>
+
+<p><b>The attractions of Babylonian life.</b>&mdash;What the Babylonians hoped was
+that these people would forget that they were Hebrews and become
+Babylonians, just as immigrants from Europe become Americans. This is
+exactly what happened in many cases. At first, of course, the Hebrews
+were bitterly homesick. The land of Babylonia was as flat as a floor.
+The Hebrews longed for the lovely hills and valleys of their native
+land.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">By the rivers of Babylon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There we sat down, yea, we wept,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When we remembered Zion.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the willows in the midst thereof<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We hanged up our harps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For there they that led us captive required of us songs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sing us one of the songs of Zion.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How shall we sing the Lord's song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a strange land?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But the years went by, and they had time to look about in the new
+country. They found it full of opportunities for money-making. The
+soil, watered by hundreds of canals from the Euphrates and Tigris
+Rivers, was wonderfully rich. Everywhere there were prosperous towns
+and cities with great brick buildings, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>beautifully decorated with
+sculpture, and thronged with merchants. Ships laden with wheat and
+dates and with Babylonian rugs and mantles and other beautiful
+articles sailed up the rivers, or out to sea toward India. Many
+Hebrews, or Jews (that is, Hebrews from Jud&aelig;a), became merchants. In
+their own land they had been chiefly a nation of farmers. The
+reputation of the Jews for cleverness in trade began with these
+experiences in Babylon when hundreds of Jewish boys obtained positions
+in great Babylonian stores or banks, and by and by set up for
+themselves as merchants. Among the Babylonian contracts on clay
+tablets coming down to us from this period are many Jewish names.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Temptation to Forsake Jehovah</h4>
+
+<p>These young Hebrew merchants found themselves in a net-work of foreign
+religious customs. When a customer signed a contract it was proposed
+that he offer a sacrifice to the god Marduk, that the enterprise might
+prosper. There were religious processions and feast days in which
+everyone joined, just as we hang out flags on the Fourth of July.
+Foreigners from other lands joined in these rites and thought nothing
+of it. Furthermore, some of these captive Jews thought that their
+Hebrew God, Jehovah, had not protected them from these mighty
+Babylonians. Surely, the Babylonian gods were the stronger, and one
+should pay them due reverence.</p>
+
+<p><b>Memories of the prophets.</b>&mdash;On the other hand, even the dullest of
+the Jews must have begun to understand that the religion of their
+prophets was a different kind of religion altogether&mdash;not <i>a</i>
+religion, but <i>true</i> religion; and that Jehovah was not like the
+bargaining, jealous gods of the other nations, but was God, with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>a
+capital G, the one righteous Creator and Ruler of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the prophets who had taught them to think of Jehovah in this
+way had again and again declared that just this calamity of exile
+would come upon them if they as a nation continued to disobey
+Jehovah's just laws; and what they had foretold had come to pass. The
+prophets must have been right. Their teaching must be true.</p>
+
+<p><b>Hebrews in other foreign lands.</b>&mdash;There were probably almost as many
+Hebrews in Egypt at this time as in Babylonia. Indeed, even before the
+destruction of Jerusalem the constant wars on Canaan had compelled
+great numbers of them to seek for peace and comfort for themselves and
+their wives and children in Egypt, in Damascus, and even in far-away
+Carthage and Greece. The Jews to-day are scattered all over the world.
+This began to be true of them from the time of the destruction of
+Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>These Jews who permanently made their homes in foreign countries were
+called <i>Jews of the Dispersion</i>. And they all faced the same
+temptations as the exiles in Babylonia. Their problem was how to be
+loyal to their nation and their religion. Great numbers of them, like
+Daniel and his friends in the stories related in the book of Daniel,
+did refuse to sacrifice to heathen gods and held fast to the nobler
+faith which they had brought with them from Jerusalem. This was not
+easy. Not only were they tempted to go with the crowd and worship the
+gods of the land; they were also uncertain just how to worship
+Jehovah. They could not offer sacrifices to him. Jerusalem was a
+thousand miles away, and the temple there was burned. Should they
+build a new temple for him, in Babylon? It was not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>certain whether
+that would be lawful. The Jews in Egypt did build a temple to Jehovah.
+But no others seem to have been able to do this.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Keeping the Sabbath</h4>
+
+<p>There were some religious customs, however, which could more easily be
+transplanted. One was the Sabbath Day. In the earlier centuries the
+Hebrews had observed the day of the new moon with special sacrifices,
+and also, to some extent, the other days when the moon passed from
+full to first quarter, then to the second, then to the third&mdash;in other
+words, every seventh day. There was in the days before Moses no
+thought of resting from labor on these days, except as might have been
+necessary in order to offer up the special sacrifices.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Sabbath and the new law of Deuteronomy.</b>&mdash;One of the kindly
+changes which the new law of Deuteronomy introduced was to make the
+Sabbath a rest day for slaves and all toilers. On the Sabbath "thou
+shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy
+manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, ... that
+thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou."</p>
+
+<p>In Babylonia and other foreign lands faithful Jews were especially
+careful to keep the Sabbath by resting from all their work. No one
+else did so, and the custom marked them as Jews. When a Babylonian
+would propose to buy a wagon load of wheat on the Sabbath the Jew
+would say, "I cannot sell on that day; it is a Sabbath day to our
+God." Boys and girls were not allowed to play with their Babylonian
+playmates on the Sabbath. Such experiences helped them to remember
+that they were Jews. They thought of it also as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>an act of respect to
+Jehovah. It took the place of animal sacrifices. As the time went on
+there grew up rules and regulations in regard to Sabbath-keeping which
+became more and more strict and elaborate.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Prayer and Public Worship</h4>
+
+<p>Another religious custom which can be practiced anywhere is prayer. It
+must have been a great and happy discovery to many a homesick Jew when
+he found that even though the temple at Jerusalem was far away, yet in
+his own room "by the river Chebar" he could kneel, or even in the
+street he could for a moment close his eyes and breathe out a prayer
+to God and find in it fresh strength and hope and courage.</p>
+
+<p><b>The synagogue.</b>&mdash;The weekly Sabbath rest also made it possible for
+the Jews to meet together on that day for prayer and worship together.
+The reading circles which Isaiah had organized, and out of which
+probably came the law-book Deuteronomy, were continued in Babylonia,
+and the Sabbath morning, afternoon, or evening was a convenient time
+of meeting. They would gather in some private house and study the law
+and the writings of the prophets. Then they would pray. Those who were
+the most learned would read and they and others would pray aloud.</p>
+
+<p>By and by special buildings were set apart called synagogues. As time
+went on these synagogue services rather than the services in the
+temple, became the most important part of the Jewish religion. Our
+morning and evening worship in the Christian Church grew out of the
+synagogue service. It was the beginning of that worship of which Jesus
+spoke when he said: The hour cometh when neither in this mountain, nor
+in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father.... But ... the true
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Read 2 Kings 25, or Daniel 1.</p>
+
+<p>2. Mention some other temptations which must have come to the Jews, in
+Babylon, besides the temptation to worship idols. Consider, for
+example, their new experiences as traders.</p>
+
+<p>3. What are some good ways in which we may be helped to be true to God
+to-day when we are away from home.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XXII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>As the Jewish exiles were led away to Babylon they asked themselves
+over and over again, "Is this the end of our nation?" It seemed like
+the end. Their capital city lay in ruins. Their king was blinded and
+in chains. All the most intelligent people in the country were being
+led to a distant land, from which most of them would probably never
+return. The iron rule of the Babylonians was everywhere supreme.</p>
+
+<p>There are other nations and races whose people might not have cared so
+much even if this had been the end of their national existence. But
+the Hebrews from the beginning were proud of their race and ambitious
+for its glory. They believed that it had been promised to Abraham,
+their ancestor, that they should become a great nation in their land
+of Canaan. This hope had grown stronger and stronger. Stories of the
+greatness of King David were handed down from fathers to their
+children. To the best men and women among them the great teachings of
+such prophets as Amos and Isaiah were even more worthy of pride. "We
+have a knowledge of the true God," they said, "such as no other nation
+has. Surely there is a great future before us." And now all these
+hopes seemed lost forever.</p>
+
+<p><b>The discouragement of the poor people in Canaan.</b>&mdash;Those who had been
+left behind in Canaan when the Babylonians conquered the land were
+even more hopeless and wretched. The exiles soon made a place for
+themselves in the busy, prosperous land of Babylonia. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>They earned
+money and lived in comfort. But the farmers on the stony hills of
+Jud&aelig;a suffered untold hardships. Not only were they poor; they were
+also harassed by bands of robbers. The city of Jerusalem, which had
+protected them, lay in ashes. The Babylonian governor did not help
+them. He was there only to collect taxes and tribute. So the old
+enemies, the robber tribes from the desert, came in and burned and
+murdered and stole as they pleased. It is not strange that many of
+these poor people felt that all was over for the Hebrew or Jewish
+nation. Many of them ceased to worship Jehovah and became heathen,
+like the other tribes around Canaan.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Voices of Comfort and Hope</h4>
+
+<p>It was not easy, however, to crush the courage of the Jews. Out of the
+darkness of those days we hear a whole chorus of voices, all of them
+saying: "This is <i>not</i> the end of everything for us. Jehovah has not
+forgotten his promises to our ancestors. He will bring back the exiles
+from Babylon, and from other distant lands whither they have escaped,
+and will rebuild Jerusalem in all its beauty, and will restore the
+glory of our nation in the land of Canaan."</p>
+
+<p><b>The prophecies in Isaiah.</b>&mdash;Many of these voices are found in short
+passages scattered through the writings of the older prophets. Two of
+them are in Isaiah 9 and 11.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light:
+... the rod of his oppressor thou hast broken.... For all the
+armor of the armed man in the tumult, and the garments rolled
+in blood, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>shall even be for burning, for fuel of fire. For
+unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the
+government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be
+called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
+Prince of Peace."</b></p></div>
+
+<p>"In other words," he reasoned, "Jehovah will free us from the
+tyrannical Babylonians, give us an ideal king, who shall be wise and
+just and faithful, and under whose rule we shall see no more of the
+horror and cruelty of war."</p>
+
+<p><b>Ezekiel's prophecies of hope.</b>&mdash;Away off in Babylonia itself Ezekiel
+helped to keep alive the hopes of the exiles. Even though the nation
+is dead, he told them, Jehovah can bring it to life. It will be as
+though the dry and bleaching bones in some valley where a battle was
+long ago fought should suddenly come together as human skeletons, and
+warm living flesh should grow upon them once more. Ezekiel worked out
+a kind of constitution for the new nation and the temple when these
+should be restored.</p>
+
+<p>All these brave leaders helped the Jews to believe in themselves as a
+people. They listened to these men as they spoke in their synagogues
+in Jud&aelig;a and in Babylonia. They handed from one to another the rolls
+on which their words were written. And ever the children heard from
+their mothers these hopes which kept them from being completely
+discouraged: "We are Jews. The Jewish nation is not going to be
+destroyed. Some day the exiles in Babylon will return to the old
+country. We will have a king of our own. And we will build the great
+nation which Jehovah promised Abraham."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">The Beginnings of a Restored Judah</h4>
+
+<p>In the year B.C. 538, the Babylonian empire was conquered by Cyrus,
+the Persian. There was scarcely any resistance on the part of the
+Babylonians. And one of his first acts in the conquered city was to
+issue a proclamation that captives and exiles from other lands might
+return if they wished. It was the chance for which the Jews for forty
+years had been hoping. Now at last they could go back over that
+thousand-mile journey, up the Euphrates, across to the coast land, and
+down to Canaan. But alas! too many years had passed. Most of those who
+had come to Babylon as grown people and who remembered Canaan as home
+were now dead. Most of the living Jews had grown up in Babylon and
+were comfortably settled there. Yet some did return, and from time to
+time others kept returning. These men who thought enough of their
+nation to go back to the home land and help it in its weakness and
+poverty almost always became leaders.</p>
+
+<p><b>The new temple.</b>&mdash;It may have been a group of these leaders returned
+from Babylon who started the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem in
+the year B.C. 520, just sixty years after the old temple of Solomon
+was burned by the soldiers of Nebuchadrezzar. There were two prophets,
+Haggai and Zechariah, who did much to stir up the people to this work.
+Some of their words are preserved in the Old Testament books which
+bear their names. These men may have been returned exiles. The new
+building was erected on the same old foundation and was finished in
+four years. It was dedicated amidst the shouts of the people, while
+old men and women, who as children had seen the former temple before
+it was destroyed, wept for joy that at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>last a house had been rebuilt
+for Jehovah. It seemed like the beginning of better times for their
+nation.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Greatest of the Prophets of Hope</h4>
+
+<p>Yet the years that followed the building of the new temple were sad
+and disappointing. The better days did not seem to come. The walls of
+Jerusalem still lay in ruins. The robber tribes still made their cruel
+raids. The poor people suffered most, for they were oppressed and
+plundered by the richer men even of their own people. "What has become
+of Jehovah?" men asked. "Where are his promises to Abraham? Why does
+he allow even his most faithful servants to be oppressed&mdash;those who do
+not oppress others; who obey his just laws, and who are merciful to
+their brothers?"</p>
+
+<p><b>The great unknown.</b>&mdash;About this time there came to the people of
+Israel a new message from one of the greatest prophets of all those
+whom God has raised up in any nation. He is sometimes called the
+"Great Unknown," because we to-day know nothing about his personal
+life, not even his name. His great messages to his fellow Jews are
+found in the latter part of the book of Isaiah, beginning with chapter
+40. The first verse of this chapter strikes the keynote of comfort
+which runs through all the chapters to follow.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye
+comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare
+is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; that she hath
+received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins."</b></p></div>
+
+<p>With words that sing like a beautiful instrument of music he tells the
+people that God has not forgotten <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>them; that the scattered exiles
+will be brought back to the home land; that the ruined city,
+Jerusalem, will be rebuilt and made more lovely than before; that a
+rule of justice will be established; and that the blessings of peace
+and happiness will come to all.</p>
+
+<p><b>The greatness of service.</b>&mdash;Even better than these promises of
+happiness, our unknown prophet helped the people to understand more
+clearly what it means to <i>be</i> a great nation. He did not believe that
+the God of heaven and earth would make a favorite of any one nation.
+Instead he taught that Jehovah had chosen Israel to be a servant
+nation for him, to serve all other nations by teaching them about the
+true God.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that
+thou mayest be my salvation to the end of the earth."</b></p></div>
+
+<p>He explained in this way even the undeserved suffering which many of
+the best people of Israel were enduring. Israel thus became a type of
+Him who was "despised and rejected of men." To be chastised and
+afflicted and oppressed is not so hard to bear if it is all a part of
+Jehovah's plan for men. The ideal in the Old Testament becomes a
+reality in the New.</p>
+
+<p>So for the first time the idea came into the world that Abraham's
+dreams of a greater and nobler nation and God's promises to Abraham,
+Moses, David and the rest were not for the Hebrew people only, but for
+all men; that beginning with this little nation God was making a
+better world; a world of love, instead of selfishness and hate; of
+happy work and play, instead of misery and hopelessness and war.</p>
+
+<p>Of course very few of the prophet's hearers understood him. But more
+and more the Jews were filled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>with the thought that somehow God had a
+great future for them. Boys and girls, as they grew up, wondered if
+they might not become leaders, a new Moses, a second David, or Elijah,
+to play some part in bringing the great future which God had promised.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Read Isaiah 40 or 49 for a taste of the writing of the "Great
+Unknown."</p>
+
+<p>2. Read Ezekiel 2. 1-7, or 14, for a similar taste of this prophet's
+message and style.</p>
+
+<p>3. Which of these two prophets do you consider the greater?</p>
+
+<p>4. Is there evidence to-day that the Jews still believe in a restored
+nation?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE GOOD DAYS OF NEHEMIAH</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>About seventy years after the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem a
+committee of Jews went to Persia to seek aid for their distressed
+country from their more prosperous kinsfolk. In the Persian capital,
+Susa, they found a man named Nehemiah, who was cup-bearer and personal
+adviser to the king of Persia. He was a man of good sense, of kindly
+sympathy, and of great ability&mdash;just the man to help them. They told
+him how the walls of the city of their fathers had never been rebuilt
+in all these years since the Babylonians had captured it, and how the
+poor people suffered from robbers and oppressors, who took advantage
+of their helplessness.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Nehemiah's Great Adventure</h4>
+
+<p>All this was news to the young man. They did not have newspapers and
+magazines in those days, and people in one part of the world knew
+little about what was going on in other parts, even those near by. The
+stories told by his brother Jews made Nehemiah sad, and his sadness
+showed in his face even when he came before the king. This was
+dangerous, for a part of his duty was to keep the king in a cheerful
+humor. But his Majesty was not angry, but asked him "Why are you so
+sad?" Nehemiah answered by telling him the story of his native land
+and its pitiable condition; and then and there with a prayer in his
+heart he asked the king to give him a leave of absence, and to permit
+him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>to go to Jerusalem and help the people there to rebuild the
+walls.</p>
+
+<!-- images page 134 -->
+
+<br />
+<div class="tr1">
+
+    <a name="imagep134a" id="imagep134a"></a>
+<br />
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep134a.jpg" width="95%" alt="Remains of Walls of the Canaanite City, Megiddo" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">REMAINS OF WALLS OF THE CANAANITE CITY, MEGIDDO</p>
+  </div>
+
+<br />
+    <a name="imagep134b" id="imagep134b"></a>
+<br />
+
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep134b.jpg" width="95%" alt="Part of City Wall and Gate, Samaria" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">PART OF CITY WALL AND GATE, SAMARIA</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p class="cen">Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- images page 134 -->
+
+<br />
+
+<p><b>Why walls were greatly needed.</b>&mdash;All cities in those days were
+surrounded by walls. These were necessary, because no government had
+yet been strong enough to rid the country of the bands of robbers who
+made their dens in almost every cave or lonely valley. Not only the
+road between Jerusalem and Jericho, of which Jesus tells, but on
+almost all roads one was in danger of falling among thieves. In the
+deserts on the edge of Palestine whole tribes lived by robbery, and
+were large enough and well enough organized to defeat good-sized
+armies. Hence no city was safe unless it was well fortified.</p>
+
+<p>Nehemiah's request was granted by the king of Persia. So, with letters
+to the governors of the provinces through which he was to pass, the
+young leader set out, perhaps on camel-back, to Jerusalem. After
+looking about and seeing for himself the condition of the city, and
+the work which needed to be done, he called the people together and
+proposed that they rebuild the walls. His energy carried the day. They
+answered, "Let us rise up and build."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Walls Rebuilt</h4>
+
+<p>The task which Nehemiah had undertaken was a difficult one. Jerusalem
+is situated on a ridge, with deep valleys on all sides except the
+north. The walls did not need to be high where there were cliffs or
+steep slopes falling away into the valley. But along the entire north
+side, and in many other places also, they had to be at least thirty
+feet high, and fifteen or twenty feet thick at the base. The stones
+and bricks for this were buried in the rubbish where the old walls
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>had been battered down. They had to be dug up and dragged into their
+places, stone by stone. Most of the work had to be done by hand,
+although they perhaps used asses with basket-paniers for carrying lime
+and sand. They may have constructed small cranes for lifting the
+heaviest stones, but they had very little machinery.</p>
+
+<p><b>Difficulties overcome.</b>&mdash;For a time the work went merrily forward.
+But soon their rapid progress became known and those who had prospered
+because of their weakness became jealous. There was a certain
+Sanballat, governor of Samaria, who wanted to keep Jerusalem helpless
+so that Samaria might always be the chief city in the land. They were
+willing that the poor people of Jerusalem should go on suffering from
+the attacks of cruel bandits if only they themselves could keep on
+growing richer. He and others did all in their power to stop the work.
+They organized a force of men and planned to attack and kill the
+builders. But Nehemiah had his workers carry their swords as they
+worked, and arranged for signals at which all should rush to the help
+of any part of the wall which might be attacked. He also kept the
+people working at top speed from early morning every day "until the
+stars appeared," and cheered them on when they were tired and
+discouraged.</p>
+
+<p>Their enemies tried all kinds of tricks; they threatened to report to
+the king of Persia that Nehemiah was organizing a rebellion; they
+plotted to seize Nehemiah himself. But the man was too clever for
+them. The walls kept steadily going up and up. The gates were set in
+place and locked; and at last, fifty-two days, or just a little more
+than seven weeks after the first stone was laid on the old
+foundations, the work was done.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>Once more they could lie down in peace behind protecting walls, and
+not tremble at the thought that fierce robbers might swoop down upon
+them before the morning light to plunder, burn, and murder. Once more
+they could begin to live their lives in peace and plan for the future.
+Traders could bring their goods into the city without fear of losing
+everything. Men could buy and sell and prosper.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Nehemiah's Reforms</h4>
+
+<p>But security from outward foes is not enough to bring happiness to a
+people. Even before the walls were finished some of the poor people
+among the Jews came to Nehemiah with a bitter complaint against their
+rich neighbors. "We are starving," they said. Others said: "We have
+mortgaged our fields in order to borrow money that we may buy food for
+our children. And now because we cannot pay these men take our fields
+from us, and even sell our sons and daughters into slavery." It was
+the old story of greed and oppression. Those who were stronger and
+more fortunate used their advantage to oppress their brothers and
+extort from them all that they could pay. So a few men were able to
+live in luxury, even in those troubled days, while the great majority
+suffered in poverty and misery and despair.</p>
+
+<p><b>The great massmeeting.</b>&mdash;In that little country of Jud&aelig;a it was
+possible to gather into an assembly, perhaps in the open space in
+front of the temple, men from almost every country village and city
+street. Such an assembly Nehemiah called and laid before it the
+complaints he had received. He told the rich nobles to their faces:
+"You exact usury, every one, of his brother. The thing you do is not
+good.... I pray <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>you leave off this usury." The nobles had nothing to
+say. Every one knew that what Nehemiah said was true. Then he went on:
+"Restore to them their fields, their vineyards, their olive-yards, and
+their houses, also the grain, the new wine, and the oil that you exact
+from them." Then said they, "We will restore them."</p>
+
+<p>And Nehemiah made them take oath to carry out their promise. "Also I
+shook out my lap," Nehemiah writes in his memoirs, "and said, So God
+shake out every man from his house, and from his labor, that
+performeth not this promise; even thus be he shaken out and emptied.
+And all the congregation said 'Amen,' and praised the Lord. And the
+people did according to this promise."</p>
+
+<p><b>The beginnings of a just and happy nation.</b>&mdash;Nehemiah could not stay
+long in Jerusalem. But he was able to make another visit a few years
+later. And for a time at least his ideas were carried out. During this
+time there was happiness among the people. They all had something to
+eat and clothes to wear. All fathers and mothers had a little time to
+play with their children after the close of work each day. All who
+could read had a little time to study the rolls of the prophets and
+the law of Jehovah. And all were brothers. More than ever before the
+old dreams, handed down from Abraham, had begun to come true.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Look up the story of Nehemiah in the Bible dictionary.</p>
+
+<p>2. Read Nehemiah 1-2, or 5. 1-6, 16.</p>
+
+<p>3. On the right side of the line, below, write what in your judgment
+corresponds to the men and conditions of Nehemiah's time.</p>
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+
+<div style="margin-left: 5%;">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" width="90%" summary="Nehemiah's Time vs. Our Own Time">
+  <tr>
+  <td width="40%" class="tdc" style="border-right: 1px solid black;"><i>Nehemiah's Time</i></td>
+  <td width="60%" class="tdc" style="border-left: 1px solid black;"><i>Our Own Time</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tlp2"><i>a.</i> Walls around the city.</td>
+  <td class="tlp1" style="border-bottom: 1px dotted black;"><i>a.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tlp2"><i>b.</i> Robbers, and enemies such as Sanballat.</td>
+  <td class="tlp1" style="border-bottom: 1px dotted black;"><i>b.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tlp2"><i>c.</i> The poor and enslaved people.</td>
+  <td class="tlp1" style="border-bottom: 1px dotted black;"><i>c.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tlp2"><i>d.</i> Nehemiah.</td>
+  <td class="tlp1" style="border-bottom: 1px dotted black;"><i>b.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS FOR THE NEW WORSHIP</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>We have seen that a new kind of public worship of God had been growing
+up among the Hebrews, beginning with the time when the prophets began
+to condemn the misuse of the old animal sacrifices. The new worship
+consisted chiefly of prayer. We have seen how the exiles in Babylon
+began to come together on the Sabbath days to study the law and other
+sacred writings, and also for prayer. Those exiles who returned to
+Jud&aelig;a brought this custom with them. Special buildings, called
+synagogues, were erected in Jud&aelig;a as well as wherever there were
+faithful Jews in other lands. These synagogues rather than the temple
+gradually came to be the real home of the Jewish religion even in
+Jerusalem itself. The chief part of the synagogue service was always
+the study of the Scriptures. But prayer was also given an important
+place.</p>
+
+<p>In the temple also, after it was rebuilt, public prayer was regarded
+as very important&mdash;even if not quite so important as the regular
+burnt-offerings. There were also prayer-hymns, sung by the people and
+by special choirs.</p>
+
+<p><b>Making hymnals and prayer books.</b>&mdash;In our churches, to-day, we could
+scarcely conduct our services without the hymn books scattered through
+the pews. In some denominations there is a prayer book, which is
+considered just as necessary as the book of hymns. In those ancient
+synagogues and in the temple service the Jews found such books
+needful. Had we gone into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>one of their meetings, we would not indeed
+have found a book waiting for us in the seat or handed to us by the
+usher. The art of printing was unknown. Books could not be purchased
+cheaply by the hundred. Each copy had to be written out by hand with
+pen and ink on a roll of papyrus. But we would probably have
+discovered that the leader of the worship had a book of prayers and
+hymns before him. He would read them, line by line, each Sabbath for
+the others to memorize. To make this task of memorization easier many
+of the Jewish hymns were written in acrostic form&mdash;that is, each line
+or stanza began with a different letter in the order of the Hebrew
+alphabet.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Hymn and Prayer Books in the Bible</h4>
+
+<p>Our book of Psalms is a collection of smaller collections of just such
+hymns and prayers to be used in worship. Each one of these smaller
+collections came out of some synagogue or group of synagogues, or was
+prepared by the members of one of the choirs who led the worship in
+the temple. By studying these we may learn something about how they
+were used.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Prayers of David.</b>&mdash;This was the title of one of these smaller
+books. It contained Psalms 2 to 41, and some others of our book of
+Psalms. All of these are headed in our Bible, "A Psalm of David."
+These words, in the original Hebrew, mean "dedicated to David." The
+last page in this smaller book is perhaps now found where our Psalm 72
+comes to an end with the words, "The Prayers of David the Son of Jesse
+are Ended." This sentence corresponded, in the little book, to the
+words, "The End," in our modern books. It was copied in what is now
+our book of Psalms, even though it is no longer "the end."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>These "David" hymns were probably written not only by David, but as
+well by members of a synagogue of worshipers who were poor and
+oppressed. There are a great number of references to "enemies."
+"Deliver me not over unto the will of mine adversaries." "Thou
+preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies." These
+people probably lived in the days before the reforms of Nehemiah, when
+there were indeed many enemies both outside of Jerusalem and within
+the city, heathen robbers, and rich oppressors of their own race, men
+who cheated them and who mocked them when they prayed for help to
+Jehovah.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Pilgrim Songs.</b>&mdash;Another very different hymn book embedded in our
+book of Psalms is one which we may call the "Pilgrim Songs." It is
+found in chapters 120 to 134 of our Psalter. All of these psalms have
+the title, "A Song of Ascents." This probably means a song to sing on
+the ascent to Jerusalem. These come from the happy time after Nehemiah
+when the city was safely protected by walls. Because of this blessed
+safety it was now possible for the people once more to go on
+pilgrimages to the great annual religious feasts as prescribed in the
+law-book of Deuteronomy. Before the walls were rebuilt such gatherings
+of pilgrims with their gifts would merely have been an invitation to
+robbers. But now the custom of pilgrimages was renewed, and they came
+to be among the happiest events of the year in the lives of Jewish men
+and women and older boys and girls.</p>
+
+<p>The journey to Jerusalem was usually made in large companies or
+caravans for the sake of protection. For the roads outside of
+Jerusalem were by no means safe. And naturally in such a crowd of
+folks from the home village there would be much singing. These
+"Pilgrim <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>Songs" grew out of the spirit of these journeys. They are
+filled with gratitude to God for his kindness, and with trust in his
+care, and with pride in their beautiful city Jerusalem which God had
+helped them to rebuild.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I was glad when they said unto me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let us go into the house of the Lord."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"As mountains are round about Jerusalem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So the Lord is round about them that fear him."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Hebrew Music and Musical Instruments</h4>
+
+<p>These hymns were frequently sung to the accompaniment of instrumental
+music. There are many allusions in the book of Psalms and elsewhere in
+the Old Testament to the harp (<i>kinnor</i>), the psaltery (<i>nebel</i>), the
+cornet (<i>shophar</i>) and other instruments.</p>
+
+<p>We know just how they looked, for pictures of them, or at least of
+similar instruments, are found on Egyptian and Babylonian monuments.
+The harp was probably like a large guitar, only it was played like a
+mandolin, with a plectrum. The psaltery or lute was a larger-sized
+harp. The cornet or trumpet was simply a curved ram's horn blown with
+the lips like our cornets; there was also another form made out of
+brass, long and straight. The Hebrews also used a wind instrument like
+our flute, a pipe with holes on the side for making the different
+notes. They seem also to have been very fond of percussion
+instruments&mdash;the timbal, a small drum, and the cymbals, metal plates
+clashed together.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to know how far the Hebrews had developed the art of
+music. It seems most likely that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>the best they ever learned to do
+with these various instruments would have sounded to us more like a
+loud banging, twanging noise than like our own melodies and harmonies.</p>
+
+<p><b>Influence of this worship of prayer and song.</b>&mdash;Nevertheless the
+prayer-hymns of which we have told could not fail to wield an
+influence on the lives of those who sung them. Boys and girls heard
+them week by week until they could not forget them. When they were
+tempted to wrongdoing these melodies rang in their ears. For in all
+these collections there were great hymns, written by men who had
+caught the spirit of God as had Amos and Hosea and their
+successors&mdash;men whose souls were white, whose love was tender, and
+whose courage was unshakable. Only such men could write such lines as
+these:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And speaketh truth in his heart.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He that slandereth not with his tongue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor doeth evil to his friend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Or these:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thou delightest not in sacrifice; else would I give it:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou hast no pleasure in burnt-offering.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>These words and scores of other passages just as great set to music
+long since forgotten but in those days sweet to the ear, helped untold
+multitudes to do justice and to love mercy, to confess their sins, and
+to find strength and hope in God.</p>
+
+
+<!-- images page 144 -->
+
+<br />
+<div class="tr1">
+
+<a name="imagep144a" id="imagep144a"></a>    <a name="imagep144b" id="imagep144b"></a>
+
+  <div style="width: 46%; float: left; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep144a.png" style="width: 95%;"
+    alt="Canaanite Pipe or Fife" /><br />
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">CANAANITE PIPE OR FIFE</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 46%; float: right; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep144b.png" style="width: 95%;"
+    alt="An Egyptian Harp" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">AN EGYPTIAN HARP</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 100%; padding: 1em; clear: both;">
+    <div class="cen"><a name="imagep144c" id="imagep144c"></a> <a name="imagep144d" id="imagep144d"></a>
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep144cd.png" style="width: 74%;"
+    alt="An Assyrian Upright Harp (left), An Assyrian Horizontal Harp (right)" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">AN ASSYRIAN UPRIGHT HARP (left)<br />
+    AN ASSYRIAN HORIZONTAL HARP (right)</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<a name="imagep144e" id="imagep144e"></a>    <a name="imagep144g" id="imagep144g"></a>
+
+  <div style="width: 46%; float: left; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep144e.png" style="width: 65%;" alt="A Babylonian Harp" /><br />
+    <span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span>
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">A BABYLONIAN HARP</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 46%; float: left; padding: 1em;">
+    <div class="cen">
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep144g.png" style="width: 65%;"
+    alt="Assyrian Dulcimer" /><br />
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">ASSYRIAN DULCIMER</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div style="width: 100%; padding: 1em; clear: both;">
+    <div class="cen"><a name="imagep144f" id="imagep144f"></a><br />
+    <img border="0" src="images/imagep144f.png" style="width: 75%;"
+    alt="Jewish Harps on Coins of Bar Cochba, 132-135 A.D." /><br />
+    <p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 85%;">JEWISH HARPS ON COINS OF BAR COCHBA, 132-135 A.D.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p class="cen">Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- images page 144 -->
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Of the "David" psalms, read any of the following chapters: 11, 13,
+15, 23, of the book of Psalms.</p>
+
+<p>2. Of the "Pilgrim" psalms, read chapter 121 or 124 or 126.</p>
+
+<p>3. Which of these do you like best?</p>
+
+<p>4. Look up words scattered through the Psalms which appear to be
+musical directions.</p>
+
+<p>5. In what ways did the following Psalms help the Jews to realize
+their hopes?&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="noin">
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>a.</i>&nbsp; 15.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>b.</i>&nbsp; 51.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>c.</i> 124.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>6. For a good example of one of the prayers, in the temple, read 1
+Kings 8. 27, 28.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XXV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISM</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>All nations like to think of themselves as superior to the rest of
+mankind. The Greeks used to despise all foreigners as "barbarians." We
+in America ridicule immigrants from other countries and call them
+unpleasant names. The Jews also made the same mistake of despising
+people of other races and nations. We find laws even in so just a
+law-book as Deuteronomy which are unfair to foreigners. Jews were
+forbidden to exact interest from fellow Jews, but they were permitted
+to exact it from foreigners. The flesh of animals which died of
+themselves could not be eaten by Jews, but they might sell it to
+foreigners.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Increasing Hatred Towards Foreigners After the Exile</h4>
+
+<p>We have seen how the exiles in Babylonia kept the Sabbath and went to
+the synagogue in order that they might continue to be Jews and might
+not lose their Jewish religion, the worship of Jehovah. As time went
+on they found it necessary to be more and more strict. As their girls
+and boys grew up they fell in love with Babylonian young men and young
+women. But if these young Jews had married Babylonians, the children
+would have grown up as Babylonians in customs and religion. So all
+intermarriages were forbidden.</p>
+
+<p><b>The fight against intermarriages in Jud&aelig;a.</b>&mdash;When these exiles
+returned from Babylonia to Jerusalem they were shocked to find that
+the Jews there had not been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>strict in this matter. They had taken
+wives and husbands from the Moabites, and Edomites, and other nations
+around Jud&aelig;a.</p>
+
+<p>It is hard for us to see that this was wrong, for these people
+probably became worshipers of Jehovah, like Ruth the Moabitess in the
+beautiful story in the Bible, who said to her Jewish mother-in-law,
+"Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." The exiles from
+Babylon, however, including so good and wise a man as Nehemiah, fought
+with all their might against all intermarriages. Without doubt the
+motive, which was to protect the Hebrews from idolatry, was good, but
+the matter is certainly open to criticism, especially in the light of
+our truer knowledge of God. We read that at one time, even under the
+leadership of Ezra, one of the returned exiles, a large number of the
+wives from other nations were cruelly divorced and sent away weeping
+to their own people. All this helped to give the Jews a wrong and
+unreasonable pride in their own race and a silly and unkind contempt
+for other races.</p>
+
+<p><b>The hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans.</b>&mdash;About the time of
+Nehemiah there was also started a bitter feud between the Jews and the
+Samaritans. There had always been a good deal of jealousy between the
+people of Judah in the South, and the Hebrews of the central and
+northern parts of Canaan. Samaria was the capital of the northern
+kingdom, which had split off from the kingdom of David and Solomon.
+This old jealousy flamed up again after Nehemiah. The Samaritans had
+intermarried with their heathen neighbors, perhaps more than the Jews
+in Jud&aelig;a. So the Jews claimed that the Samaritans had no right to call
+themselves true Hebrews.</p>
+
+<p>The Samaritans, on the other hand, claimed that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>they were true
+children of Abraham, and they built a temple of their own on Mount
+Gerizim as a rival to the temple of Jerusalem. This jealousy and hate
+grew more and more bitter until, in the time of Jesus, the Jews looked
+upon Samaritans with even more contempt than any Gentiles.</p>
+
+<p><b>The growing prejudice against the Jews among other peoples.</b>&mdash;Those
+who call names generally hear themselves taunted and ridiculed in
+turn. The very fact that the Jews would not work on the Sabbath marked
+them as peculiar and helped to make them unpopular. Their laws about
+foods, clean and unclean, were also different from those of other
+nations. For example, they would not eat pork. Moreover, as time went
+on many of the Jews in Babylon and in other foreign lands grew
+prosperous. They were industrious and they had brains and a special
+gift for trade. Before long they had money to lend, and they often
+demanded unjust rates of interest. This too made them unpopular. So
+the more proudly and contemptuously they held aloof from Babylonians,
+Persians, Egyptians, and all other foreigners the more frequently they
+heard themselves called "Jewish dogs" and other hard names.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Coming of the Greeks</h4>
+
+<p>This racial pride on the part of the Jews was still more increased by
+the coming of another unusually proud people, the Greeks. In the year
+B.C. 333, Alexander the Great defeated the army of the king of Persia
+and soon extended his rule over all western Asia, including Jud&aelig;a.
+Very soon Greeks were everywhere to be seen, in all the cities of
+Palestine. In order to protect the country from the desert robbers
+who, as we have seen, had been making their raids through all the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>centuries, a chain of Greek cities was built to the east of the Jordan
+and thousands of Greek settlers were brought there to live. The ruins
+of many beautiful Greek temples and theaters may still be seen in that
+country. Samaria was also rebuilt as a Greek city, the capital of the
+province. So there were Greeks on all sides of Jerusalem and throngs
+of Greek merchants and travelers were to be seen on the streets of
+every Jewish city and village.</p>
+
+<p>The Greeks in some ways had as much to be proud of as a people as the
+Jews. Their sculptors had carved the most beautiful marbles in the
+world. Their poets had composed the most beautiful poems. Their
+philosophers were wiser than those of any other nation. Moreover, many
+of these Greeks who came into Palestine and other countries of Asia
+were filled with a truly missionary spirit. It is said that Alexander
+the Great was inspired by the thought that he was helping to spread
+the art and wisdom and culture of the Greeks throughout the world.</p>
+
+<p><b>The struggle between Judaism and Hellenism.</b>&mdash;This meant that the old
+religion of Jehovah was in danger of being forgotten not only in
+Babylonia and other lands but even in Jud&aelig;a and Jerusalem. Many Jews
+quite fell in love with the new art and learning of the Greeks. They
+learned the Greek language, gave their children Greek names, such as
+"Jason," for example, instead of "Joshua." A gymnasium was built in
+Jerusalem where Jewish lads learned to exercise and play games after
+the Greek style. Many of them tried to hide the fact that they were
+Jews, and too often they ceased to worship Jehovah, the God of their
+fathers, and offered sacrifices to Zeus and other Greek divinities.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span><b>The beginnings of the Pharisees.</b>&mdash;Other Jews fought against all
+these new ideas and fashions. They became more strict than ever in
+their observance of the peculiar customs and regulations of the Jewish
+law. It was at this time that the beginnings of the party of the
+Pharisees came into existence, of which we read in the New Testament.
+The word "Pharisee" means "one who is kept apart, or separate"; that
+is, one who holds aloof from the heathen and from heathen customs.
+They were the men who "when they come from the market place, eat not,
+except they bathe themselves." They might have touched some heathen
+person in the street which they thought made them ceremonially
+unclean. In the earlier days the Pharisees were called "Hasideans," or
+"the pious."</p>
+
+<p>It was right, of course, that these men should struggle to keep their
+religion alive. The great religious truths of the prophets were worth
+more to the world than all the art and wisdom of the Greeks. But the
+result of the struggle was an even greater scorn on the part of the
+Hebrews for all men who were not Jews.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Read Esther 9. 5, 11-16. What kind of patriotism does this passage
+express?</p>
+
+<p>2. Compare the following laws in Deuteronomy: 10. 18-19 and 14. 21.
+Can you explain the inconsistency?</p>
+
+<p>3. What national characteristics do hatred and contempt of other
+nations lead to?</p>
+
+<p>4. What is the danger from continually hurling bad names at
+foreigners, such as "Greasers," "Chinks," and so on?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A BROAD-MINDED AND NOBLE PATRIOTISM</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>In spite of all their prejudice, thinking Jews could not help but see
+that the Greeks, in spite of their heathen religion, had brought with
+them many of the blessings of civilization. Many articles of everyday
+comfort were introduced into Canaan for the first time by the Greeks,
+for example, new varieties of food, such as pumpkins, vinegar,
+asparagus, and various kinds of cheese. From the Greeks also the Jews
+learned to preserve fish by salting them. This made possible the
+splendid fishing business by the Sea of Galilee. In the time of Jesus
+we find this lake surrounded by flourishing towns. Most of the men in
+these towns supported themselves and their families by fishing. The
+fish were salted and the salt fish sold in the inland towns. They were
+even exported to foreign countries. The Greeks probably also
+introduced poultry and hens' eggs to the farmers and housewives of
+Canaan.</p>
+
+<p><b>New articles of dress and furniture.</b>&mdash;These same newcomers brought
+with them a greater variety of fabrics and garments, such as Cilician
+goat's-hair cloth, out of which coarse cloaks and curtains, as well as
+tents, were made; also felt for hats and sandals. The Greeks also
+introduced the custom of carrying handkerchiefs. Many new kinds of
+household utensils came into Jewish homes as a result of the example
+of their Greek associates, for example, arm chairs, mirrors, table
+cloths, plates, and cups. Hemp and hempen cords and ropes came from
+the Greeks. From this same source came <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>the custom of placing food at
+meals on dining tables, like ours, while the diners, unlike ourselves,
+lay on couches with their heads toward the table. It may also have
+been the Greeks&mdash;although possibly it was the Persians&mdash;who first
+brought coined money into Canaan, so that in making each purchase it
+was not necessary to weigh the silver or the gold.</p>
+
+<p>All these useful and beautiful things helped to win over sensible
+people among the Jews to look with favor on their new neighbors. And
+when Jewish travelers found themselves stopping at new and more
+comfortable inns managed by Greek innkeepers, and went to bathe in the
+public baths which were erected in the larger cities by the Greek
+authorities, they were sure to spread the idea that even Jews might
+learn something from the Greeks.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Broad-Minded Patriots Among the Jews</h4>
+
+<p>Fortunately there were some among the Jews who could appreciate the
+good and beautiful things in Greek civilization without being disloyal
+to their own race and their own religion; and, on the other hand,
+could be proud of the great teachings of the prophets without hating
+and despising men of other races. They had learned well the lesson of
+that great prophet whom we call the Second Isaiah, that Jehovah chose
+Israel, not as his special "pet" or favorite, but as his servant to
+teach all nations about the true God and his righteous rule. Such men
+realized that the Greeks and Egyptians and other foreigners were
+Jehovah's children like themselves, and that instead of despising them
+they ought to make friends with them and try to teach them the
+religion of Jehovah.</p>
+
+<p><b>Jewish religious books written for Greeks.</b>&mdash;It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>was by men of this
+broad spirit that a number of books were written for the sake of
+winning Greeks to the Jewish religion. These books were written in the
+Greek language and explained to Greek readers the law of Moses and the
+teachings of the prophets. Among the most important of these books was
+the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. This translation
+was made, indeed, chiefly for the benefit of Jews living in Greek
+countries who had forgotten the old Hebrew tongue. But the translators
+also had in mind the great non-Jewish Greek world.</p>
+
+<p>And the new translation, sometimes called the Septuagint (that is, the
+book of the seventy translators who are said to have worked on it),
+found its way into the hands of many a Greek reader who learned from
+it for the first time something about the religion of Jehovah.</p>
+
+<p>The author of the story of Jonah, in the Bible, was another Jew of
+this broad spirit. He had traveled in Egypt. He had seen the vices and
+sins of the heathen. And he had tried to tell them of the just and
+merciful laws of the one God of all the world, Jehovah. Many of his
+fellow Jews criticised him for this. "Why do you have anything to do
+with these Gentile dogs?" they asked. It was in answer to this
+question that he wrote about Jonah, the prophet whom Jehovah had sent
+to preach to the wicked heathen city of Nineveh. He had tried to avoid
+obeying the command, but at last had gone; and when the Ninevites
+listened to his preaching and repented and turned to Jehovah he was
+angry. And Jehovah said unto him, "Should not I have regard for
+Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand
+persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left
+hand?" (That is, six score thousand little children.)</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>Jonah in this story is a type of the Jewish people. As Jehovah sent
+Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, so he would send the Jews to teach
+the nations of his love. What a pity to be so narrow-minded, so
+blinded by pride of race, as to have no sympathy or good will for any
+other race of men! This is the lesson the author of the book meant to
+teach.</p>
+
+<p>Probably very few of the Jews who heard this man, or read his book,
+understood or appreciated him. But there were enough of them who cared
+for him to preserve his book, so that it became a part of their sacred
+writings; and perhaps more than any other book in the Old Testament it
+prepared the way for a broadening of the dreams and plans of Abraham
+and Moses and the prophets to include not only Jews but all
+mankind&mdash;that broadening which we call Christianity.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Read Isaiah 19. 19-24.</p>
+
+<p>2. What do you think this writer would have thought of our American
+habit of calling names at foreigners?</p>
+
+<p>3. What advice would these writers have given us, in regard to our
+"Japanese" problem?</p>
+
+<p>4. If you have time, look into the book of Jonah.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>All children among all races receive as they grow up some kind of an
+education. Isaac learned from his father Abraham and from the other
+older people about him how to set up a tent, how to milk a goat, how
+to recognize the tracks of bears and other wild beasts, and all the
+other bits of knowledge so necessary to wandering shepherds. Not till
+many centuries after Abraham in Hebrew history were there any special
+schools apart from the everyday experiences of life, or any man whose
+special work was that of teaching. But in the centuries following the
+destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and its gradual
+restoration, the people came more and more to see the importance of
+education. And in the course of these three or four centuries before
+the coming of Christ there grew up two kinds of schools and two kinds
+of teachers, first, an <i>open air</i> school where life itself was
+studied, and then later, in the second place, an <i>indoor</i> school,
+where the chief study was that of books.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Schools in the Open Air</h4>
+
+<p>These open-air schools were most often to be seen in the "city gate."
+The Jews meant by the "gate" of the city the broad open space in front
+of the actual opening in the city wall. It was like the public square
+in our modern towns.</p>
+
+<p><b>Scenes in the "Gate."</b>&mdash;Suppose we visit one of the "gates." It is
+early morning. Everything is noise and confusion. Here are merchants
+peddling their wheat, or dates, or honey, their wool or their flax.
+Customers are haggling over prices. Each one is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>shouting with a
+shrill voice and with many gestures that the price asked is an
+outrage. Besides the merchants there are judges. Here sits one of the
+city elders with a long white beard. Before him are two farmers
+disputing over a boundary line&mdash;also witnesses and spectators.</p>
+
+<p>Out in the middle of the area children are playing. Every now and then
+a mangy yellow dog noses his way through the crowd looking for scraps
+of food. And everywhere are the folks who came out just to see their
+neighbors and to hear the news.</p>
+
+<p>In one corner of the open space by the "gate" we notice a dignified
+figure, an old man with a circle of friends and listeners. He is
+watching the varied scenes around him and occasionally talking with
+those about him.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that old man?" we ask.</p>
+
+<p>"That is one of the wise men," we are told.</p>
+
+<p>These "wise men" among the Hebrews studied human nature, and gave to
+young men and to any less-experienced people who cared to listen, the
+benefit of their practical good sense. They loved to teach through
+"proverbs," that is, short and witty sentences. A large number of the
+"proverbs" of these teachers are preserved in the Book of Proverbs in
+our Old Testament.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Teaching of the Wise Men</h4>
+
+<p>One of the most important keys to success in life is a knowledge of
+people. This the wise men helped their students to obtain. Let us sit
+for a while beside one of them and look through his eyes at the people
+who pass by. Here comes young Mr. Know-it-all. He wears a very fine
+garment, and walks with a swagger. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>His father and mother and all his
+aunts and uncles have always told him that he is the most clever
+person in the world. And, of course, he agrees with them. He will
+listen to advice from nobody. The wise man watches him pass, then says
+to his hearers:</p>
+
+<div style="margin-left: 15%; padding: .5em;">
+<p class="noin">
+<b>"Seest thou a wise man in his own conceit?<br />
+There is more hope of a fool than of him."</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">(<b>Proverbs 26. 12.</b>)</span><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The wise man has a sense of humor. He loves to smile at the little
+inconsistencies of life. He has been listening to the talk between a
+merchant and his customer. And this is his comment on it.</p>
+
+<div style="margin-left: 15%; padding: .5em;">
+<p class="noin">
+<b>"It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer:<br />
+But when he is gone his way, then he boasteth."</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">(<b>Proverbs 20. 14.</b>)</span><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>But though he is so quick to laugh at human follies the wise man has a
+tender heart. He helps his hearers to sympathize with those who are
+anxious and discouraged. And he knows the value of friendly
+encouragement.</p>
+
+<div style="margin-left: 15%; padding: .5em;">
+<p class="noin">
+<b>"Heaviness in the heart of a man maketh it stoop;<br />
+But a good word maketh it glad."</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">(<b>Proverbs 12. 25.</b>)</span><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p><b>A practical advice of the wise men.</b>&mdash;With this knowledge of human
+nature these teachers were able to give much good counsel in matters
+of business. For example, there were tricksters in those days just as
+now. One of their favorite tricks was to persuade some "greenhorn" to
+act as surety for a loan. "Just <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>shake hands with me before
+witnesses," the smooth tongued one would say, "and the banker will
+lend me money; there is a caravan of silks coming from Damascus which
+I can buy for a song. We will both be rich." So the poor fool would
+shake hands before witnesses, which was like our modern custom of
+signing one's name on a note. The man would then take the money and
+disappear, leaving his victim to repay the loan or be sold into
+slavery. "Be on your guard against these sharpers," the wise men were
+constantly saying.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Helping People to Live Lovingly Together</h4>
+
+<p>The best part of the teaching of the wise men had to do with even more
+important matters than how to keep from being cheated. They helped
+people live together. They had many sensible things to say about good
+manners. For example, Joshua the son of Sirach, a wise man whose
+sayings are found in the book of Ecclesiasticus in the Apocrypha,
+gives much wise counsel about table manners:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Consider thy neighbor's liking by thine own,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And be discreet in every point.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eat as becometh a man, those things which are set before thee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And eat not greedily, lest thou be hated.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be first to leave off, for manner's sake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And be not insatiable, lest thou offend."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Surely courtesy at the table is one of the things which make life
+happy and noble. Truly civilized people do not eat like pigs in a
+trough.</p>
+
+<p>As they looked out upon the lives of men what <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>made the wise men most
+sorry was the hatred and bitterness which they so often saw between
+those who should have been friends. One of their most frequent
+teachings was the need for the control of one's anger and for charity
+and forgiveness.</p>
+
+<div style="margin-left: 15%; padding: .5em;">
+<p class="noin">
+<b>"A fool uttereth all his anger,<br />
+But a wise man keepeth it back."</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">(<b>Proverbs 29. 11.</b>)</span><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div style="margin-left: 15%; padding: .5em;">
+<p class="noin">
+<b>"He that covereth a transgression seeketh love:<br />
+But he that harpeth on a matter separateth chief friends."</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">(<b>Proverbs 17. 9.</b>)</span><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><b>Their condemnation of tale-bearing.</b>&mdash;Since the wise men felt so
+strongly on this point, it is not surprising that they kept their most
+scathing denunciations for tale-bearers and troublemakers. Too often
+they saw men who were formerly dear friends passing by each other with
+dark looks. Some liar had been sowing his evil seed. If you have
+anything to say against a man, the wise men urged, say it to his face.
+Don't talk against him behind his back.</p>
+
+<div style="margin-left: 15%; padding: .5em;">
+<p class="noin">
+<b>"A froward man scattereth abroad strife:<br />
+And a whisperer separateth chief friends."</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">(<b>Proverbs 16. 28.</b>)</span><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Religious Teaching of the Wise Men</h4>
+
+<p>There came a time, perhaps a century or two after Nehemiah, when the
+wise men were the chief moral and religious leaders of the Jewish
+nation. The people had lost faith in the prophets, for there were no
+more prophets like Amos or Isaiah. And these practical <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>teachers with
+their warm sympathy and kind hearts had many true words to speak about
+the God of wisdom and of love. The book of Job in the Bible, one of
+the greatest books of history, was written by one of these wise men.
+It is a story of a man who found God although both his own misfortunes
+and also the false ideas of his friends had made him think that God
+was his enemy. He found God at last because he was brave enough to
+think for himself.</p>
+
+<p>So these teachers gave their pupils the best kind of education. They
+too, like the prophets and all the leaders about whom we have studied,
+helped to prepare their pupils for the life of loving brotherhood with
+God as their common Father, which was the goal toward which all this
+history we have studied was slowly but surely moving.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Browse through the book of Proverbs, especially chapters 10 and
+following, looking for teachings on the following subjects; enter the
+references opposite (<i>a</i>), (<i>b</i>), etc., below.</p>
+
+<p class="noin">
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">(<i>a</i>) Diligence in work.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">(<i>b</i>) Temperance in use of wine.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">(<i>c</i>) Honesty in business.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">(<i>d</i>) Compassion toward the poor.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">(<i>e</i>) Self-control in anger.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>2. Read Ecclesiastes 11, for a taste of another "wisdom" book.</p>
+
+<p>3. Find if you can a Bible with the Apocrypha between the Old and New
+Testaments, and read a chapter or two in Ecclesiasticus, or the wisdom
+of the Son of Sira.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style="width: 10%;"/>
+<br />
+
+<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Part of these pages taken from the author's earlier book,
+The Story of Our Bible. Copyright, 1914, 1915, by Charles Scribner's
+Sons. Used by permission.</p></div>
+
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>If we could have visited the home of some sincerely religious Jew
+about the time when the law of Deuteronomy was adopted by King Josiah
+and the people we might have seen the beginning of a new kind of
+education&mdash;the regular study of books, and especially of the Bible.
+They had for their Bible at that time the law of Deuteronomy, which
+they had accepted as God's will for all Jews. And if this was God's
+will for them, it was plain that it must be taught to everybody,
+beginning with the children.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Teaching the Law at Home</h4>
+
+<p>Let us imagine ourselves, then, visiting the house of some good Jewish
+friend in Jerusalem under Josiah. As we enter the door we notice
+letters roughly carved or painted on the wooden door. "You ask what
+are those words," replies our host to our question. "They are from our
+law. They are for the children to see, as they go in and out the door.
+This is the way the inscription reads:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"'Hear, O Israel: Jehovah thy God is one and thou shalt love
+Jehovah thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
+and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.'</b></p></div>
+
+<p>"The priest wrote them for us and both I myself and the children have
+been learning to read them," says our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>friend. "And every Sabbath we
+study them, and I teach the children to repeat after me as much of the
+rest of Jehovah's law as I can remember. Sometimes the children ask me
+questions. They say, 'What mean these laws and these statutes which
+you say Jehovah our God commanded?' Then I answer, 'We were Pharaoh's
+slaves in the land of Egypt. And Jehovah brought us up out of Egypt
+... to give us this land. And Jehovah commanded us to do all these
+statutes, to fear Jehovah our God for our good.'"</p>
+
+<p><b>Religion through education.</b>&mdash;It is easy to understand that with this
+training in childhood it became more and more easy from this time on
+to persuade the Jewish people not to worship idols and to see why they
+gradually changed more and more rapidly into the most devout and
+earnest people in the world. The children were taught in their homes.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The New Kind of Teachers, the Scribes</h4>
+
+<p>After Josiah's time many additions were made to this law of Jehovah.
+At first it consisted of only a part of our book of Deuteronomy. But
+the learned priests and prophets, especially after the destruction of
+Jerusalem, made a careful study of all the writings of preceding
+generations, and they found many collections of laws and histories of
+Jehovah's dealings with his people which seemed to them inspired of
+Jehovah and worthy to be reverenced and obeyed. They tried the
+experiment of combining some of these with the law of Deuteronomy. So
+it came to pass that two or three centuries later the Jews had as
+their sacred book the whole of what is now the Pentateuch, or the
+first five books of the Bible.</p>
+
+<p><b>The need of other teachers besides the father in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>the home.</b>&mdash;If this
+larger Bible was to be carefully studied by every Jew from his
+childhood up, there must be certain men who should give their lives to
+teaching it. So in time there came to be a class of teachers known as
+"scribes." These men spent all their working hours reading this law of
+God, making copies of it and teaching it to others. Some of these men
+were truly great and good. For example, there was the gentle Hillel,
+who lived about a century before Christ and who taught the spirit of
+the Golden Rule, although in a form not so perfect as that of Jesus.</p>
+
+<div style="margin-left: 15%; padding: .5em;">
+<p class="noin">
+<b>"Do not to your neighbor what is unpleasant to yourself.<br />
+This is the whole law. All else is exposition."</b><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was a scribe like this who talked with Jesus about the "greatest
+commandment," and to whom Jesus said, "Thou art not far from the
+Kingdom of God."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Schools of the Scribes</h4>
+
+<p>These teachers conducted regular daily schools in the synagogues. More
+and more children were sent to them until in the time of Jesus all
+boys were supposed to go for at least a year or two. Girls were taught
+only at home. People had not yet come to realize that the minds of
+girls are as well worth educating as those of boys.</p>
+
+<p><b>The methods of teaching.</b>&mdash;The boys sat on the floor in a circle
+before the teacher. They repeated after him the Jewish alphabet and
+learned to recognize each letter. Their only textbooks were papyrus
+rolls on which were written parts of the law. They began <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>with
+Leviticus and learned by heart as much of it as possible. We can
+imagine that the boys were glad when they finished with Leviticus and
+went back to Genesis to the stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph.</p>
+
+<p>They also learned to write. Their copybooks were at first rough scraps
+of broken pottery on which with sharp nails they learned to scratch
+letters. Probably mischievous boys sometimes drew pictures instead of
+practicing the words assigned to them. After they could write fairly
+well they were given wax tablets, or even a bit of papyrus, a quill
+pen, and an ink horn. Papyrus was expensive and had to be used with
+care.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Good and Bad Results of the Teaching of the Scribes</h4>
+
+<p>So much study of these books of law and history was bound to wield a
+mighty influence. Those thousands of boys studying laws which for
+their time were the most just and humane in the world, could not but
+learn something about the meaning of justice and mercy. Better still,
+the wonderful stories in Genesis and Exodus left their sure impress on
+the hearts of those who studied. The boys for the most part reverenced
+their teachers, and many of them came to love their Book, the law. It
+was a boy, so taught, who when he was older, wrote that Psalm:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And light unto my path.<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">* &nbsp; * &nbsp; * &nbsp; * &nbsp; * &nbsp; * &nbsp; * &nbsp; * &nbsp; *<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By taking heed thereto, according to thy word."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span><b>The danger of formality.</b>&mdash;The danger in this kind of education is
+that of blindness to the voice of God to be heard in everyday
+experience or in our own hearts as well as in the written Scripture.
+The result of this blindness is that goodness and religion are thought
+of as merely the keeping of the written law. It was such blind scribes
+whom Jesus denounced for giving tithes, or a tenth part of the mint
+and anise and cummin, that is, of even the most insignificant of their
+garden herbs and forgetting mercy and justice and faith; in other
+words, keeping the letter of the written law but not living out the
+spirit of it. It is not enough, Jesus taught, just to obey what is
+written. To do only that is to be an unprofitable servant. This bad
+kind of religion grew up in those schools where only books were
+studied, not the real everyday experience of living people.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Jesus Was a Wise Man Rather than a Scribe</h4>
+
+<p>When Jesus came he was a teacher more like those more ancient wise men
+of the city gates. Like them he taught his listeners out of doors by
+the shores of the lake or on the hillside as well as in the
+synagogues. He reverenced the Bible, the Law and the Prophets, as
+God's word, but he listened for that word also in the sights and
+sounds of the streets and country lanes. He heard his Father's voice
+as he listened to house wives chatting with their neighbors, or to
+vineyard keepers hiring harvest hands.</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When He walked the fields he drew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the flowers and birds and dew<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Parables of God.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For within his heart of love<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">All the soul of man did move&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">God had his abode."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Look up in the Bible dictionary under "Scribes" and "Rabbi."</p>
+
+<p>2. What impressions of the scribes do you get from Matthew 7. 28-29,
+Matthew 15. 1-9, and Mark 12. 28-34?</p>
+
+<p>3. Read Luke 1. 5-6; 2. 25-36. Where and how do you think these good
+men and women, among whom Jesus was born, got their training?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>NEW OPPRESSORS AND NEW WARS FOR FREEDOM</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>After the death of Alexander the Great his empire was broken into
+fragments ruled by those of his generals who were able to snatch these
+smaller kingdoms for themselves. One of them named Ptolemy seized
+Egypt. His descendants, known as the Ptolemies, reigned there for
+centuries. Another, named Seleucus, gained control of the greater part
+of the old Persian empire. He built the city of Antioch, in northern
+Syria, naming it after his father Antiochus. His descendants, on the
+throne of the new kingdom, are known in history as the Seleucids.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Jews Under Greek Rulers</h4>
+
+<p>Canaan at first became part of the kingdom of the Ptolemies, and this
+continued for about a century. During this period the Jews seemed to
+have been treated with a fair degree of kindness and justice. At least
+they were left most of the time in peace. But about B.C. 200, Canaan
+was taken from the Ptolemies by the Seleucids, and this turned out to
+be for the Jewish people an unhappy change. In the year 175 B.C.,
+there came to the throne in Antioch a young prince named Antiochus
+Epiphanes who, like Alexander the Great, thought of himself as a kind
+of missionary for Greek art and civilization. He became more and more
+angry because so many of the Jews refused to worship Greek gods. About
+B.C. 170, he issued a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>decree that all persons in his dominion must
+offer sacrifices to Zeus. When the Jews refused they were put to
+death.</p>
+
+<p><b>New persecutions.</b>&mdash;A terrible persecution was thus begun. A Greek
+officer would come into a Jewish town or village, set up an altar to
+Zeus, and summon all the people to join in the sacrifice of worship.
+As many as possible of those who refused were hunted down and killed.
+All copies of the Jewish law that could be found were burned. Every
+month a search was made throughout Jud&aelig;a to see whether any Jew still
+had copies of the Scriptures. A heathen altar was set up in the temple
+at Jerusalem and swine were sacrificed upon it. To the Jews, who were
+taught to regard swine's flesh as unclean and unholy, nothing could
+have seemed more horrible.</p>
+
+<p>Of course there were some traitors and renegades. But the great
+majority of the Jewish people were nobly true to the faith of their
+fathers. Hundreds and thousands, young and old, allowed themselves to
+be tortured and slain rather than take part in a heathen sacrifice.
+Many even of those who had fallen in with some of the evil customs of
+the Greeks now refused to be known as anything else than faithful
+Jews, even though it might cost them their lives.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Maccabean Revolts and Victories</h4>
+
+<p>In the midst of this cruel persecution a rebellion flamed up under the
+leadership of a certain brave old priest named Mattathias. After his
+death his sons took up the cause. The greatest of them was Judas, who
+was surnamed Maccabeus, which some have thought meant the Hammerer.
+The whole family is known as the Maccabees. Under the skillful
+command <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>of Judas victory after victory was won by his little band of
+Jewish warriors fighting against great armies of Greek hired soldiers.
+The city of Jerusalem was cleared of the detested oppressors, all
+except a garrison that maintained itself in the citadel. The temple
+was purified and rededicated to Jehovah.</p>
+
+<p>After some twenty years the soldiers from Antioch were driven out
+altogether and the little Jewish kingdom under Simon, a brother of
+Judas, was recognized as independent. For nearly a century the
+descendants of the Maccabees reigned in Jerusalem. Most of them turned
+out to be greedy and selfish men unworthy of Judas and Simon. Yet
+during this period the Jews tasted once again something of the joys of
+freedom.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Victories of Rome</h4>
+
+<p>During the last two centuries before Christ a new empire had been
+growing up in the west, that of Rome. In the year B.C. 63, two princes
+of the Maccabean line fell into a quarrel as to which one should be
+king. There was a civil war, which was ended by the Roman general
+Pompey, who annexed the country as a province of the Roman Empire.
+This was the end of the independence of the Jewish nation.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Herods.</b>&mdash;Sometimes Roman provinces were ruled by Roman
+governors, and at other times they were left to native kings who were
+allowed to do pretty much as they pleased so long as they paid tribute
+to Rome. There was a certain Edomite, or Idumean, as the name was
+pronounced by the Greeks and Romans, who partly by flattery and partly
+by real ability persuaded Romans to make him king over the whole land
+of Palestine.</p>
+
+<p>This man is known in the history books as Herod the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>Great, although
+he was sadly lacking in true greatness, being fearfully cruel and
+absolutely selfish. He built many beautiful palaces in various Jewish
+cities and also rebuilt very beautifully the temple at Jerusalem. He
+himself had no interest in religion, but he hoped in this way to win
+back with the Jews some of the popularity which he had lost through
+his many crimes. It was during his reign that Jesus was born. When
+Herod died the land was divided among his sons. When Jesus began his
+public career as a teacher one of these sons, Herod Antipas, was the
+ruler of the northern part of the country, that is Galilee. Jud&aelig;a, in
+the south, and Samaria between Galilee and Jud&aelig;a, were directly under
+Roman rule with a Roman governor or procurator.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Sanhedrin.</b>&mdash;To a certain extent even after the Roman conquest
+the Jews were permitted to govern themselves. There was in Jerusalem a
+council, or court, of leading priests and rabbis, called the
+Sanhedrin. There were in it seventy-one members. When any member died
+the others elected some one to fill the vacancy. All Jews everywhere
+were supposed to be under the authority of the Sanhedrin. But except
+in purely religious matters it had little power outside of Jud&aelig;a. In
+Jud&aelig;a, however, this court, or council, decided all questions except
+those which the Roman procurator reserved for himself. They were not
+allowed to condemn a criminal to death. So when the Sanhedrin voted to
+put Jesus out of the way it was necessary to take him before Pilate
+the Roman procurator and persuade Pilate to ratify the sentence of
+death. How galling it was to a proud nation like the Jews to be
+obliged to go to a hated enemy for permission to carry out their
+decrees we can well imagine; and we shall learn more of it in the next
+chapter.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Look up in the Bible dictionary, Maccabees and Herod.</p>
+
+<p>2. Read Hebrews 11. 32-40. Verses 33-38 are probably in large part a
+description of the heroic martyrs before the Maccabees.</p>
+
+<p>3. Was the Maccabean rule a failure because it did not last?</p>
+
+<p>4. How did these rulers contribute to the great ends which Jews had
+always dreamed of.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XXX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE DISCONTENT OF THE JEWS UNDER ROMAN RULE</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>In spite of the fact that the Jews still had some power of
+self-government through the Sanhedrin, the great mass of the people
+hated the Romans with an almost inconceivable fury. The world had
+never before seen such cruel rulers. The Assyrians had been bad, but
+the Romans were worse. Think of that form of punishment which they
+inflicted carelessly every day even for minor crimes&mdash;crucifixion! The
+poor victim was nailed by the hands and feet to a pole and left to
+hang in agony till death mercifully ended it all. Think of the
+gladiatorial combats in the city of Rome and in other Roman cities,
+where every day for centuries slaves or condemned criminals fought
+each other with swords to the death, or fought with wild beasts while
+the gloating multitudes looked on in rapture.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, not only were the Romans very cruel, they had no manners.
+They were haughty in their bearing and took pains to let conquered
+people know how thoroughly they were despised.</p>
+
+<p><b>Roman cruelty in Palestine.</b>&mdash;All these qualities were manifested
+almost at their worst by the Roman rulers in Jud&aelig;a and Galilee. Jesus
+speaks of certain Galil&aelig;ans, "whose blood Pilate mingled with their
+sacrifices." We know nothing of this incident except what Jesus tells.
+Evidently, these Galil&aelig;ans had come as pilgrims to Jerusalem at the
+time of one of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>annual feasts. Possibly they did not salute with
+sufficient respect the Roman eagles as they passed some squad of Roman
+soldiers in the street. At any rate, they were taken before Pilate and
+ruthlessly condemned to the slaughter.</p>
+
+<p><b>Roman taxes and the Publicans.</b>&mdash;Naturally, the thought of paying
+taxes to such masters was almost unbearable. Yet each adult Jewish man
+and woman was required to pay a personal or poll tax besides taxes on
+his property or income. To make matters worse, the Romans were
+accustomed to hire <i>Jews</i> to collect these taxes, giving these men the
+right to extort whatever they could, provided the required tribute was
+paid to Rome. Of course all true Jews hated and despised these Jewish
+tax-gatherers or publicans even more than they hated and despised the
+Romans themselves.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Various Parties Among the Jews</h4>
+
+<p>There were some respectable Jews, indeed, as well as these
+tax-collectors, who favored the Romans. There were for example the
+Sadducees, a group of wealthy and aristocratic men, mostly priests,
+who formed a sort of political party called by this name. Many of them
+were members of the Sanhedrin. They were prosperous, and so long as
+their power was not taken away they sided with the Romans. It was
+nothing to them that the great mass of their poor fellow countrymen
+were being brutally and wickedly robbed and ill-treated.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Pharisees.</b>&mdash;We have already spoken of the Pharisees as being
+"Separatists," that is, the people who were most opposed to any
+contact with heathen foreigners. Strange to say, most of the Pharisees
+were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>opposed to any violent rebellion against the Romans. They
+believed that God himself would come to the aid of his people. Many
+books of the class called apocalypses were written during this period
+of the history in which the writers tried to comfort their readers by
+prophesying that the Lord would soon descend from heaven with armies
+of angels or would send his Messiah to drive out the Romans and set up
+his own kingdom. The word "Messiah" (in Greek, "Christ") means
+<i>anointed one</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The book of Daniel in the Old Testament is one of the books of this
+period. Many similar books were written which were not included in the
+canon of the Scriptures. All of them were written in rather mysterious
+language&mdash;with references to trumpets, vials, seals, beasts with many
+heads and many horns, and so on. This was to keep their heathen rulers
+from understanding the real meaning. It would not have been safe
+openly to predict that in a few years God was going to send all Romans
+to eternal punishment.</p>
+
+<p><b>The Zealots.</b>&mdash;There were still others among the Jews at this time
+who were not willing to wait for Jehovah to come down from heaven.
+They wanted to start a revolution right away. One such man, Judas of
+Gamala, led a revolt when Jesus was about ten years old in which many
+Galil&aelig;ans joined. It was put down by the Romans with their usual
+cruelty. Very likely the fathers of some of Jesus' boyhood friends in
+Nazareth of Galilee were crucified as the punishment for taking part
+in this revolt. Those who sympathized with Judas continued to plot in
+secret against the hated Roman oppressors. They were called Zealots.
+One of them became a member of Jesus' band of twelve apostles.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+<h4 class="sc">Smoldering Hate Among the People</h4>
+
+<p>Whether they were actual plotters against Rome, like the Zealots, or
+whether they gave their strength to eager prayer to Jehovah for
+deliverance, the great mass of the common people among the Jews in the
+time of Christ were burning with a fierce patriotism and with a hatred
+against their oppressors such as we can scarcely imagine. The century
+of freedom under the Maccabees had made them all the more impatient of
+tyranny&mdash;and then to find themselves under such unspeakable tyrants as
+Herod and Pilate!&mdash;this was almost unendurable.</p>
+
+<p>The children drank in this spirit with their mothers' milk. Fathers
+and mothers had constantly to warn their boys and girls not to show
+their feelings toward Roman officers and soldiers lest some dreadful
+punishment should befall them. So it went on from year to year,
+growing constantly worse instead of better. The whole land was like a
+heap of smoldering leaves. Sooner or later there would be a sudden
+flare of open flame.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Look up in the Bible dictionary "Publicans," "Zealots," and
+"Sadducees."</p>
+
+<p>2. How do you explain the success of the Romans in tyrannizing the
+proud Jews for so many years? Consider the part played by the
+Sadducees.</p>
+
+<p>3. Read Matthew 3. 1-2. Why did John's message arouse such interest
+and enthusiasm?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER BY JESUS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>This history of the common people of Israel began with certain vague
+hopes of a happier and nobler way of living for the descendants of
+Abraham. As the centuries passed these hopes were only very partially
+realized. But what was more important the Jews came more and more
+clearly to understand the meaning of their own hopes. Their great
+teachers helped them to know what they really wanted or ought to want
+if they would be happy. Moses taught them the first lessons of justice
+as the foundation of happiness. The great prophets helped them to see
+that neither happiness nor justice was possible except as they knew
+and worshiped the true God&mdash;not a God of greed and anger to be bribed
+with sacrifices, but the God of justice and love. A few of the
+prophets also began to see that such hopes as theirs could not be for
+Jews alone but must include all mankind.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Fullness of the Times</h4>
+
+<p>The Jews under their Roman masters had come to a time, as we saw in
+the preceding chapter, when they were wildly expecting an immediate
+fulfillment of these hopes. The short taste of freedom and happiness
+which they had enjoyed under Judas and Simon Maccabeus, followed by a
+tyranny more cruel and distasteful than any which their ancestors had
+known, made them almost mad with the desire for some kind of a
+Saviour. And it seemed to them that he must come soon.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span><b>The chance for a world-Saviour.</b>&mdash;All over the world just at this
+time there were strange hopes and longings in men's hearts. The Romans
+had robbed many other nations besides the Jews of their independence.
+These people had no real nation of their own any longer to live
+for&mdash;and they hated Rome. What was there to make life worth living
+unless some Redeemer should come from God?</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, it was possible now to think of such a Saviour as a
+world-Saviour. In the earlier centuries men hardly knew that there was
+a world outside their own tribe and a few of their neighbors. There
+were no maps. Only a few could travel, and see for themselves how
+great a world there really was&mdash;and how many nations there were&mdash;made
+up of men like themselves. The common people of Asia scarcely knew
+that there was a Europe, and the enormous continent of Africa, except
+for Egypt, did not exist for them. As for what is now called the New
+World, North and South America, no one knew of its existence.</p>
+
+<p><b>Preparations for Christianity.</b>&mdash;But the Romans built good roads all
+over the great countries which bordered on the Mediterranean Sea, and
+many were the travelers who went to and fro upon them. They
+established one government for all this Mediterranean world. One
+language came to be understood everywhere&mdash;not Latin, the language of
+the Romans themselves, but Greek. Beyond the boundaries of the empire
+there were, of course, vast territories. But it was possible now for
+even the common people to realize that their own village or city or
+tribe was only a small part of one great world. And for the first time
+in history there was a chance for some one to take the old Jewish hope
+of a better and happier Jewish people <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>and change it into a world-hope
+of a better and happier human race, and to gather a few men and women
+together and start them working for it.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">The Coming of Jesus</h4>
+
+<p>In the wonderful providence of God there was born in a manger-cradle
+just at this moment in history the Baby who was destined to accomplish
+this miracle; to broaden out to their widest and noblest meanings
+these hopes which had been handed down from one generation of Jews to
+another. The story of the life of Jesus will be given in detail in
+other courses in this series. Here, in a nutshell, is what Jesus did:
+he helped men to believe in a God who loved all men as his children,
+whether rich or poor, learned or ignorant, Jews or Gentiles or
+Samaritans, even the bad as well as the good; for if they were bad,
+they needed his love to help them to be good. Jesus not only taught
+this idea of God through his spoken words; he helped men, through his
+deeds, to understand it. He <i>lived</i> that way, as the Son of such a
+God. He healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He ate and drank with
+outcasts. He was everybody's friend.</p>
+
+<p><b>The inevitable conflict and cross.</b>&mdash;Of course Jesus was not able to
+live that kind of life very long in our kind of world. Very soon he
+came into conflict with the various kinds of men who enjoyed special
+privileges of wealth or learning or honor and were not at all willing
+to share these things in a brotherly way; with the Pharisees, who were
+considered especially holy and did not want to be brothers to common
+men, the "people of the land"; with the rich who did not want to be
+brothers to the poor; with priests who did not want to be brothers to
+wounded men lying by the side of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>Jericho road; with Romans who
+were afraid the Jews might think brotherhood meant liberty. So after
+three short years of preaching and healing Jesus was nailed to the
+cross, praying even as the nails were driven into his hands, "Father,
+forgive them, for they know not what they do."</p>
+
+<p><b>Suppose the Jews had believed in Jesus.</b>&mdash;How different the outcome
+of their history would then have been! Instead of a bloody and
+hopeless revolt against the Romans, they might have found a way to
+live at peace with them, receiving from them a more just and humane
+government; Isaiah, centuries before, showed his people how to get
+along under the rule of Assyrians. Or, if the Romans had goaded the
+people to rebel, they might have fought and died gloriously, not
+merely for their own freedom but in the cause of all the suffering
+masses in all lands. Thus the whole course of history might have been
+changed. The four years' war which did break out in A.D. 66, about
+thirty-six years after Jesus' death, was not that kind of a war. In
+the course of these four years different factions among the Jews
+fought each other almost as fiercely as they fought the Romans. The
+Jews themselves were selfish in their hopes. They were not inspired
+and strengthened by Jesus' vision of brotherhood. In A.D. 70 the
+Romans captured the city of Jerusalem and burned the temple. It was
+never rebuilt. From that day to this the Jews have been a people
+without a native land.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Carrying Out the Ideas of Jesus</h4>
+
+<p>There was, however, after Jesus' death and resurrection, a splendid
+company of disciples whose lives had been transformed by their
+acceptance of Jesus as Saviour and Lord, and who were eager to go on
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>carrying out Jesus' plans. None of them thoroughly understood these
+plans. Indeed, we are only beginning to understand them to-day. But
+very soon, within a few years after Jesus' death, the wisest of the
+early apostles, such men as Peter, Barnabas, and Paul, came to see
+that to carry out Jesus' wishes there needed to be a universal church
+in which Jews and Gentiles, men of all races, would be included.
+Within a half century branches of this new world-church had been
+started in every important city in the Roman empire. At first their
+meetings were held in synagogues of the Jews of the Dispersion; and it
+is a pity that all the Jews could not have perceived that these
+disciples of Jesus were carrying out the hopes of their own prophets,
+that this Christianity was simply Judaism fulfilled. But many, of
+course, wanted to keep their religion and their God to themselves as
+Jews. So there sprang up other buildings everywhere which came to be
+known as Christian churches rather than Jewish synagogues.</p>
+
+<p><b>Our task to-day.</b>&mdash;In these modern times we are still trying to
+understand what Jesus wanted and to bring it to pass in reality. We
+are beginning to see that if all men are indeed sacred to our heavenly
+Father, then under the leadership of our everliving Christ, a fight is
+in store for us on behalf of all the millions of our brothers who are
+blinded by selfishness, haggard from want, embittered by injustice,
+stunted in soul and mind by ignorance, or tortured by all the agonies
+of war. If there is to be a better world for any of us, it must be a
+better world for all of us. It must be "everybody's world."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Look up in the Bible dictionary, for further light <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>on the
+background of Jesus' life, Galilee, Nazareth, Capernaum.</p>
+
+<p>2. Read Matthew 4. 17. Explain why the message of Jesus, like that of
+John, awakened such a quick response among the people.</p>
+
+<p>3. What did Jesus think of the rule of Rome? Read Matthew 20. 25-27,
+and Luke 13. 31, 32.</p>
+
+<p>4. In contrast with the Zealots, what was Jesus' plan for winning
+freedom and happiness, instead of the oppression and misery of Roman
+rule? Read John 18. 33-38.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span><br />
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A THOUSAND YEARS OF A NATION'S QUEST</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>In this course of study we have been tracing the progress of a great
+enterprise. A race of people set out in the days of Abraham to seek
+the best in life. Did they win or lose, succeed or fail? What did they
+achieve, during a thousand years of striving?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Summary of Results</h4>
+
+<p>Looking back over the whole period which we have studied, there are
+four short epochs which stand out in bright contrast to long stretches
+of darkness as times when the common people had a chance to enjoy some
+of the good things of life, or at least had reason to hope that they
+might some time gain them for themselves or their children. These were
+the times of David, of Josiah, of Nehemiah, and of Simon the Maccabee.
+These four men were all able and just leaders. They were all inspired,
+to a greater or less extent, by the ideals of Abraham, Moses, and the
+great reformer-prophets.</p>
+
+<p><b>The long centuries of failure.</b>&mdash;The lives of all four of these men
+together, however, do not cover much more than a century. During the
+rest of the time, the common people were ground down under oppressors,
+either of their own race or foreign conquerors. Generation after
+generation of fathers and mothers patiently toiled and struggled and
+suffered, in the hope that they might climb just a little higher
+toward the sunlight of health and comfort and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>higher blessings of
+life. Most of them struggled in vain. It is true that a few of the
+more fortunate, in each generation, saw some little advance over
+earlier generations in the good things of civilization. Such men as
+Nicodemus and Zacch&aelig;us, in the time of Jesus, lived in better houses,
+wore more comfortable clothes, and ate better food than did King David
+himself in an earlier, ruder age. But the common people of Jesus' day
+were not so well off as even in the days of Abraham. For as wandering
+shepherds they were free. Life might be a bitter struggle against wild
+beasts and drought and famine. But no haughty masters looked down on
+them with contempt, or robbed them of their last farthing in unjust
+taxation. Shall we say, then, that as a whole, the great enterprise
+was a failure?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Great Achievement&mdash;A True Religion</h4>
+
+<p>No, the great quest was not a failure, even though it was so far from
+a complete success. Out of the long years of struggle and prayer had
+come a new religion, not, indeed, understood by many but partly
+grasped at least by some, and written down in books so that it could
+never be wholly lost. This was a religion of the brotherhood of man
+and of a universal Father-God. The four eras of their history when the
+common people had been happy were eras when the principles of this
+religion had partly prevailed. And these eras still shine out for us
+as examples of what that kind of religion means in the life of a
+people. And the lives and words of the great prophets, and, greatest
+of all, the life of Jesus Christ, are a priceless legacy to us, who
+are still continuing the quest which Abraham began.</p>
+
+<p><b>The truth which has been revealed to us.</b>&mdash;All men, everywhere, who
+are longing and toiling for a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>better chance for life and happiness
+and for knowledge and beauty and love for themselves and for their
+children, may now know that they are not without a mighty helper.
+There is One who revealed himself, in the history of the people of
+Israel and uniquely in Jesus Christ his Son, who still speaks in the
+name of all the hungry and thirsty and ragged and sick:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><b>"I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty,
+and ye gave me no drink: ... Inasmuch as ye did it not unto
+one of these least, ye did it not unto me."</b></p></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Study Topics</h4>
+
+<p>1. Of the four short eras of righteousness, in the history of the
+Hebrews, in which does it seem to you that the common people made the
+greatest gains?</p>
+
+<p>2. What were some of the improvements in civilization which rich or
+well-to-do people, in the later centuries of this history, enjoyed, as
+compared with the earlier centuries? Study Chapters I and II, VI, VII,
+and VIII, and XXII.</p>
+
+<p>3. Compare the earliest religion of the Hebrews with the religion of
+the prophets and Jesus. Mention four great discoveries in regard to
+the character of God.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="REVIEW" id="REVIEW"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span><br />
+<h3>REVIEW AND TEST QUESTIONS<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>1. Describe the daily life of the earliest ancestors of the Hebrews.</p>
+
+<p>2. What valuable characteristic of these people is reflected in the
+story of Joseph?</p>
+
+<p>3. What were some of the evils of Babylonian life?</p>
+
+<p>4. What kind of life did Abraham admire judging from the story of Lot?</p>
+
+<p>5. What was the name of the Pharaoh who oppressed the Hebrews?</p>
+
+<p>6. Describe the slavery which the Hebrews were compelled to endure.
+What did they have to do?</p>
+
+<p>7. How did Moses succeed in delivering his countrymen?</p>
+
+<p>8. What was the effect of this deliverance on the life and religion of
+the Hebrews in after years?</p>
+
+<p>9. Why was it comparatively easy for the Hebrews to get a foothold in
+Canaan about B.C. 1200?</p>
+
+<p>10. To what extent was the settlement in Canaan peaceful and to what
+extent was it by conquest?</p>
+
+<p>11. What lessons in civilization did the Hebrews learn in Canaan?</p>
+
+<p>12. What moral dangers did they have to fight against there?</p>
+
+<p>13. Why were the Hebrews in the first years after the settlement so
+often beaten by their enemies?</p>
+
+<p>14. What was Deborah's most important contribution to the history of
+her people?</p>
+
+<p>15. Why did it seem necessary for the Hebrews to have a king?</p>
+
+<p>16. Why were some of the wisest of the Hebrews opposed to the idea of
+a king?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>17. How did David make the lives of the common people under his rule
+more prosperous and happy?</p>
+
+<p>18. Why was Solomon unpopular?</p>
+
+<p>19. Was the disruption of the kingdom of Solomon a mistake, or was it
+a blessing?</p>
+
+<p>20. In what way did most of the kings who followed David make
+themselves a curse to their subjects?</p>
+
+<p>21. Explain why the Rechabites, Elijah, and others hated Canaanite
+civilization and wanted the people to go back to the old nomadic
+desert ways.</p>
+
+<p>22. Describe the burnt-offerings of ancient Hebrew religion. What was
+the difference between ordinary sacrifices and special "whole
+burnt-offerings"?</p>
+
+<p>23. Describe the life of the poor people of Israel in the time of
+Jeroboam II and the prophet Amos.</p>
+
+<p>24. How did Amos criticize the religion of burnt-offerings?</p>
+
+<p>25. What false ideas of God did Hosea combat?</p>
+
+<p>26. How did Hosea come to think of God as loving and merciful?</p>
+
+<p>27. How were superstitious ideas about God used by greedy priests and
+fortune-tellers in Micah's day to extort money from the people?</p>
+
+<p>28. What did Micah say were the essential things in religion?</p>
+
+<p>29. Why did the Jews in Isaiah's time seek for alliances with foreign
+countries?</p>
+
+<p>30. How were these alliances connected with the worship of foreign
+gods?</p>
+
+<p>31. What were some of the sayings of Isaiah in which he taught the
+lesson of faith in the one true God?</p>
+
+<p>32. What plan did Isaiah devise to educate disciples in his religious
+teachings?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>33. What was the historical connection between the study circles of
+Isaiah and the law-book of Deuteronomy?</p>
+
+<p>34. To what extent did the law-book of Deuteronomy lead to the
+practice of the teachings of the prophets?</p>
+
+<p>35. How did this law compromise in the matter of burnt-offerings and
+other sacrifices?</p>
+
+<p>36. What did the prophet Jeremiah think of the law-book of
+Deuteronomy? Did he favor it or condemn it? Explain.</p>
+
+<p>37. Describe the life of the exiles in Babylon.</p>
+
+<p>38. How did they keep alive their faith in Jehovah?</p>
+
+<p>39. Where else besides Babylonia were large numbers of Hebrew exiles
+to be found?</p>
+
+<p>40. With what hopes did the Jews comfort themselves after the
+destruction of Jerusalem?</p>
+
+<p>41. In what two ways did Nehemiah help the Jews in Jerusalem to a
+happier life?</p>
+
+<p>42. Tell the story of the growing use of prayer and hymn books in the
+religious worship of the Jews.</p>
+
+<p>43. Why did many of the Jews become more narrowly prejudiced against
+foreigners after the destruction of Jerusalem?</p>
+
+<p>44. What influences tended to make some of the Jews in this period
+more broad-minded and friendly toward foreigners?</p>
+
+<p>45. Mention some writings from this period which helped the cause of
+the broader patriotism.</p>
+
+<p>46. What two kinds of special schools and teachers grew up among the
+Jews?</p>
+
+<p>47. Describe the daily scenes in the group of listeners around one of
+the old wise men.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>48. What were some weaknesses and faults in the education of the
+scribes?</p>
+
+<p>49. What contributions did the Greeks bring to the civilization of the
+Jews in Canaan?</p>
+
+<p>50. Why were the Jews specially discontented under the rule of the
+Romans?</p>
+
+<p>51. In what four periods of their history were the Jews happiest?</p>
+
+<p>52. How did Jesus fulfill and broaden out the national hopes of the
+Jews?</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<h3>A SHORT LIST OF BOOKS THROWING LIGHT ON HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>Kent and Bailey: <i>History of the Hebrew Commonwealth</i>.</p>
+
+<p>George A. Barton: <i>Arch&aelig;ology and the Bible</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Reynolds Brown: <i>The Story Books of the Early Hebrews</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Harold B. Hunting: <i>The Story of Our Bible</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Crosby: <i>Geography of Bible Lands</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hastings' One Volume Bible Dictionary</i>.</p>
+
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p>
+Page &nbsp; 14: &nbsp; wondering replaced with wandering<br />
+Page &nbsp; 38: &nbsp; record replaced with records<br />
+Page 155: &nbsp; 'life itself itself was' replaced with 'life itself was'<br />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Hebrew Life and Times, by Harold B. Hunting
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,6119 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hebrew Life and Times, by Harold B. Hunting
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Hebrew Life and Times
+
+Author: Harold B. Hunting
+
+Release Date: April 17, 2006 [EBook #18187]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Notes:                                         |
+    |                                                              |
+    | Italicized text surrounded by _text_                         |
+    | Bolded text surrounded by =text=                             |
+    |                                                              |
+    | A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected |
+    | in this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of  |
+    | this document.                                               |
+    |                                                              |
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+HEBREW LIFE AND
+TIMES
+
+
+HAROLD B. HUNTING
+
+
+ABINGDON-COKESBURY PRESS
+
+NEW YORK       NASHVILLE
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, MCMXXI, by
+HAROLD B. HUNTING
+
+All Rights Reserved
+
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                      PAGE
+
+   FOREWORD                                                     7
+
+     I. SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT                   9
+
+    II. HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS                                 15
+
+   III. DESERT PILGRIMS                                        22
+
+    IV. A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY                             28
+
+     V. A GREAT DELIVERANCE                                    34
+
+    VI. FROM THE DESERT INTO CANAAN                            39
+
+   VII. LEARNING TO BE FARMERS                                 44
+
+  VIII. VILLAGE LIFE IN CANAAN                                 49
+
+    IX. KEEPING HOUSE INSTEAD OF CAMPING OUT                   55
+
+     X. MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN                              60
+
+    XI. LESSONS IN COOPERATION                                 66
+
+   XII. EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT                              70
+
+  XIII. THE NATION UNDER DAVID AND SOLOMON                     76
+
+   XIV. THE WARS OF KINGS AND THE PEOPLE'S SORROWS             82
+
+    XV. A NEW KIND OF RELIGION                                 88
+
+   XVI. A NEW KIND OF WORSHIP                                  94
+
+  XVII. JEHOVAH NOT A GOD OF ANGER                             99
+
+ XVIII. ONE JUST GOD OVER ALL PEOPLES                         103
+
+   XIX. A REVISED LAW OF MOSES                                108
+
+    XX. A PROPHET WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE                    114
+
+   XXI. KEEPING THE FAITH IN A STRANGE LAND                   120
+
+  XXII. UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS                             127
+
+ XXIII. THE GOOD DAYS OF NEHEMIAH                             134
+
+  XXIV. HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS FOR THE NEW WORSHIP             140
+
+   XXV. A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISM                           146
+
+  XXVI. A BROAD-MINDED AND NOBLE PATRIOTISM                   151
+
+ XXVII. OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS                       155
+
+XXVIII. BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWS                          161
+
+  XXIX. NEW OPPRESSORS AND NEW WARS FOR FREEDOM               167
+
+   XXX. THE DISCONTENT OF THE JEWS UNDER ROMAN RULE           172
+
+  XXXI. JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER BY JESUS                    176
+
+ XXXII. A THOUSAND YEARS OF A NATION'S QUEST                  182
+
+       REVIEW AND TEST QUESTIONS                              185
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                      FACING PAGE
+
+A DARIC, OR PIECE OF MONEY COINED BY DARIUS,
+One of the Earliest Specimens of Coined Money                  10
+
+ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHTS FOR BALANCES                            10
+
+HEBREW DRY AND LIQUID MEASURES                                 10
+
+BRONZE NEEDLES AND PINS FROM RUINS OF ANCIENT
+CANAANITE CITY                                                 16
+
+CANAANITE NURSERY BOTTLES (Clay)                               16
+
+CANAANITE SILVER LADLE                                         16
+
+CANAANITE FORKS                                                16
+
+EGYPTIAN PLOWING                                               44
+
+EGYPTIANS THRESHING AND WINNOWING                              44
+
+EGYPTIAN OR HEBREW THRESHING FLOOR                             44
+
+AN EGYPTIAN REAPING                                            48
+
+CANAANITE HOES                                                 48
+
+CANAANITE SICKLE                                               48
+
+CANAANITE OR HEBREW PLOWSHARES                                 48
+
+MODERN ARAB WOMAN SPINNING                                     52
+
+ANCIENT HEBREW DOOR KEY                                        52
+
+HEBREW NEEDLES OF BONE                                         52
+
+SMALLER KEY                                                    52
+
+CANAANITE CHISEL (Bronze)                                      76
+
+CANAANITE FILE                                                 76
+
+VERY ANCIENT CANAANITE FLINT, FOR MAKING STONE KNIVES          76
+
+BRONZE HAMMERHEAD                                              76
+
+BONE AWL HANDLE                                                76
+
+A FISH-HOOK                                                    76
+
+CANAANITE WHETSTONES                                           76
+
+CANAANITE OR HEBREW NAILS                                      76
+
+REMAINS OF WALLS OF THE CANAANITE CITY, MEGIDDO               134
+
+PART OF CITY WALL AND GATE, SAMARIA                           134
+
+CANAANITE PIPE OR FIFE                                        144
+
+AN EGYPTIAN HARP                                              144
+
+AN ASSYRIAN UPRIGHT HARP                                      144
+
+AN ASSYRIAN HORIZONTAL HARP                                   144
+
+A BABYLONIAN HARP                                             144
+
+JEWISH HARPS ON COINS OF BAR COCHBA, 132-135 A.D.             144
+
+ASSYRIAN DULCIMER                                             144
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+Most histories have been histories of kings and emperors. The daily
+life of the common people--their joys and sorrows, their hopes,
+achievements, and ideals--has been buried in oblivion. The historical
+narratives of the Bible are, indeed, to a great extent an exception to
+this rule. They tell us much about the everyday life of peasants and
+slaves. The Bible's chief heroes were not kings nor nobles. Its
+supreme Hero was a peasant workingman. But we have not always studied
+the Bible from this point of view. In this course we shall try to
+reconstruct for ourselves the story of the Hebrew people as an account
+of Hebrew shepherds, farmers, and such like: what oppressions they
+endured; how they were delivered; and above all what ideals of
+righteousness and truth and mercy they cherished, and how they came to
+think and feel about God. It makes little difference to us what
+particular idler at any particular time sat in the palace at Jerusalem
+sending forth tax-collectors to raise funds for his luxuries. It is of
+very great interest and concern to us if there were daughters like
+Ruth in the barley fields of Bethlehem, if shepherds tended their
+flocks in that same country who were so fine in heart and simple in
+faith that to them or their children visions of angels might appear
+telling of a Saviour of the world. On such as these, in this study,
+let us as far as possible fix our attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT
+
+
+Ancient Arabia is the home of that branch of the white race known as
+the Semitic. Here on the fertile fringes of well-watered land
+surrounding the great central desert lived the Phoenicians, the
+Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Canaanites who, before the
+Hebrews, inhabited Palestine. So little intermixing of races has there
+been that the Arabs of to-day, like those of the time of Abraham, are
+Semites.
+
+The Hebrew people are an offshoot of this same Semitic group. They
+began their career as a tribe of shepherds on the border of the north
+Arabian desert. The Arab shepherds of to-day, still living in tents
+and wandering to and fro on the fringes of the settled territory of
+Palestine, or to the south and west of Bagdad, represent almost
+perfectly what the wandering Hebrew shepherds used to be.
+
+The Arabs of to-day are armed with rifles, whereas Abraham's warriors
+cut down their enemies with bronze swords. Otherwise, in customs,
+superstitions, and even to some extent in language, the modern desert
+Arabs may stand for the ancient Hebrews in their earliest period. They
+were nomads with no settled homes. Every rainy season they led out
+their flocks into the valleys where the fresh green of the new grass
+was crowding back the desert brown. All through the spring and early
+summer they went from spring to spring, and from pasture to pasture
+seeking the greenest and tenderest grass. Then as the dry season came
+on and the barren waste came creeping back they also worked their way
+back toward the more settled farm lands, until autumn found them
+selling their wool to the nearby farmers and townspeople in exchange
+for wheat and barley and some of the other necessaries of life.
+
+
+THE SHEPHERD'S DAILY LIFE
+
+Sheep-raising might seem at times a peaceful and even a somewhat
+monotonous business. The flocks found their own food, grazing in the
+pastures. Morning and night they had to be watered, the water being
+drawn from the well and poured into watering troughs. Once or twice a
+day also the ewes and shegoats had to be milked. When these chores
+were done it was only necessary to stand guard over the flock and
+protect them from robbers or wild animals. This, however, had to be
+done by night as well as by day. On these wide pastures there were no
+sheepfolds into which the animals could be securely herded as on the
+settled farms. They slept on the ground, under the open sky, and the
+shepherds, like those in Bethlehem, in the story of Jesus' birth, had
+to keep "watch over their flocks by night." So long as no enemies
+appeared there was in such an occupation plenty of time in which to
+think and dream of God and man and love and duty. Very often, however,
+the dreamer's reveries were interrupted, and at such times there was
+no lack of excitement.
+
+=Wild beasts.=--There were more beasts of prey in Arabia in those days
+than there are to-day. In addition to wolves and bears, there were
+many lions, which are not now found anywhere in the world except in
+Africa. So the sheepmen had to go well armed, with clubs, swords, and
+spears. We would want a high-powered rifle if we were in danger of
+facing a lion. The Hebrews defended their flocks against these
+powerful and vicious beasts with only the simplest weapons. Such
+fights were anything but monotonous.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: A DARIC, OR PIECE OF MONEY COINED BY DARIUS, ONE   |
+ | OF THE EARLIEST SPECIMENS OF COINED MONEY]                        |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHTS FOR BALANCES]               |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: HEBREW DRY AND LIQUID MEASURES]                    |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+TRIPS TO TOWN
+
+Among the most interesting events in the lives of the shepherds were
+their trips to town, when they sold some of their wool and bought
+grain, and linen cloth, and trinkets for the babies, and the things
+they could not find nor make on the grassy plains. The raw wool was
+packed in bags and slung over the backs of donkeys. On other donkeys
+rode two or more of the men of the tribe. Sometimes, perhaps, a small
+boy was taken along on the donkey's back behind his father to see the
+sights. And for him the sights must have been rather wonderful--the
+great thick walls of the town, the massive gates, the houses, row on
+row, and the people, more of them in one street than in the whole
+tribe to which he belonged!
+
+=The market.=--They took their wool, of course, to the open square
+where all the merchants sold their goods. Soon buyers appeared who
+wanted wool. It was a long process then, as now, to strike a bargain
+in an Oriental town. It is very impolite to seem to be in a hurry. You
+must each ask after one another's health, and the health of your
+respective fathers, and all your ancestors. By and by, you cautiously
+come around to the subject of wool. How much do you want for your
+wool? At first you don't name a price. You aren't even sure that you
+want to sell it. Finally you mention a sum about five times as large
+as you expect to get. The buyer in turn offers to pay about a fifth of
+what it is worth. After a time you come down a bit on your price. The
+buyer comes up a bit on his. After an hour or two, or perhaps a half
+a day, you compromise and the wool is sold.
+
+=Weighing out the silver or gold.=--In those early days there was no
+coined money. Silver and gold were used as money, only they had to be
+weighed every time a trade was put through; just as though we were to
+sell so many pounds of flour for so many ounces of silver. The weights
+used were very crude; usually they were merely rough stones from the
+field with the weight mark scratched on them. The scale generally used
+was as follows:
+
+     60 shekels = 1 mana.
+     60 manas = 1 talent.
+
+The shekel was equal to about an ounce, in our modern avoirdupois
+system. There was no accurate standard weight anywhere. Honest dealers
+tried to have weights which corresponded to custom. But it was easy to
+cheat by having two sets of weights, one for buying and one for
+selling. So when our shepherds came to town, they had to watch the
+merchant who bought from them lest he put too heavy a talent weight in
+the balance with their wool, and too light a shekel-weight in the
+smaller balance with the silver.
+
+
+THE HARD SIDE OF SHEPHERD LIFE
+
+The most precious and uncertain thing in the shepherd's life was
+water. If in the rainy season the rains were heavy, and the wells and
+brooks did not dry up too soon in the summer, they had plenty of
+goat's milk for food, and could bring plenty of wool to market in the
+fall. But if the rains were scant their flocks perished, and actual
+famine and death stared them in the face. In the dry years many were
+the tribes that were almost totally wiped out by famine and the
+diseases that sweep away hungry men. The next year, on the site of
+their last camp, strangers would find the bones of men and women and
+little children, whitening by the side of the trail. No wonder they
+looked upon wells and springs as sacred. Surely, they thought, a god
+must be the giver of those life-giving waters that bubble up so
+mysteriously from the crevices in the rock.
+
+=War with other tribes.=--In addition to their constant struggle to
+make a living from a somewhat barren land, these shepherds were almost
+constantly in danger from human enemies. A small, weak tribe, grazing
+its flocks around a good well, was always in danger lest a stronger
+tribe swoop down upon them to kill and plunder. There were many robber
+clans who did little else besides preying on their neighbors and
+passing caravans of traders. Nowhere was there any security. The
+desert and its borders was a world of bitter hatreds and long-standing
+feuds. Certain rival tribes fought each other at every opportunity for
+centuries with a warfare that hesitated at no cruelty or treachery.
+
+
+DESERT RELIGION
+
+Such a life of eager longings, fierce passions, and dark despair is a
+fertile soil for religion. And these early Hebrew shepherds were
+intensely religious. It is true that in the earliest days the
+fierceness and cruelty of their wars were reflected in the character
+of the gods in whom they believed. They thought of them as doing many
+cruel and selfish things. Yet a people who believe very deeply and
+seriously in their religion, even in an imperfect religion, are sure
+to be a force in the world. Hence it is not surprising that three of
+the world's greatest religions, Judaism, Christianity, and
+Mohammedanism, arose at different times among the wandering shepherds
+of Arabia.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+It would be well to keep a notebook in which to write the result of
+your study.
+
+1. Look up in any Bible dictionary, under "Weights and Measures," the
+approximate size of an "ephah," which was the common Hebrew unit of
+dry measure, and "hin," which was their common unit for measuring
+liquids.
+
+2. From the facts given in this chapter, calculate in pounds
+avoirdupois, the approximate weight of a talent.
+
+3. To what extent does the Old Testament reflect the experiences of
+shepherd life? Look up "shepherd" in any concordance.
+
+4. What are some valuable lessons which great spiritual teachers among
+the Hebrews learned from their shepherd life? Read Psalm 23.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS
+
+
+Most persons, no matter what their race or country, spend a large
+proportion of their time at home. The home is the center of many
+interests and activities, and it reflects quite accurately the state
+of civilization of a people. In this chapter let us take a look into
+the homes of the shepherd Hebrews. We shall visit one of their
+encampments; perhaps we shall be reminded of a camp of the gypsies.
+
+
+A CLUSTER OF BLACK TENTS
+
+Here on a gentle hillside sloping up from a tiny brook, is a cluster
+of ten or a dozen black tents. Further down the valley sheep are
+grazing. Two or three mongrel dogs rush out to bark at us as we
+approach, until a harsh voice calls them back. A dark man with bare
+brown arms comes out to meet us, wearing a coarse woolen cloak with
+short sleeves. Half-naked children peer out from the tent flaps.
+
+=The inside of the tents.=--Our friend is eager to show us hospitality
+and invites us to enter his tent. It is a low, squatting affair, and
+we have to stoop low to enter the opening in the front. We note that
+the tent-cloth is a woolen fabric not like our canvas of to-day. It is
+stretched across a center-pole, with supports on the front and back,
+while the edges are pinned to the ground much as our tents are. There
+are curtains within the tent partitioning off one part for the men,
+and another for the women and children. There are mats on the ground
+to sit on and to sleep on at night.
+
+
+PREPARING FOOD
+
+Like the housewives of all ages, the Hebrew women have food to
+prepare, and meals to get. Their one great food is milk, not cows'
+milk, but the milk of goats. A modern traveler tells of meeting an
+Arab who in a time of scarcity had lived on milk alone for more than a
+year.
+
+=A meager diet.=--Besides fresh milk there were then as now a number
+of things which were made from milk. The Hebrews on the desert took
+some milk and cream and poured it into a bag made of skin, and hung it
+by a stout cord from a pole. One of the women, or a boy, pounded this
+bag until the butter came out. This was their way of churning. Cheese
+also was a favorite article of diet. The milk was curdled by means of
+the sour or bitter juices of certain plants, and the curds were then
+salted and dried in the sun. Curdled milk even more than sweet milk
+was also used as a drink. It probably tasted like the _kumyss_, or
+_zoolak_, which we can buy in our drug stores or soda fountains.
+
+We would get very tired of milk and milk products if we had nothing
+else to eat all the year round; and so did these shepherds. They were
+eager to get hold of wheat and barley, whenever they could buy them.
+The women took the wheat and pounded it with a wooden mallet or a
+stone in a hollow in some larger stone. The coarse meal which they
+made in this way they mixed with salt and water and baked on hot
+stones before the campfire. Once in a great while it was possible, in
+this shepherd life, to have a feast with mutton or kid or lamb. But
+milk and wool were so valuable that the shepherds were very
+cautious about killing their flocks. It was, you see, a very simple
+and healthful diet on which these tent-people lived. But one meal was
+pretty much like another. Dinner was like breakfast, and tomorrow's
+meals would be just like to-day's. It is not strange that they often
+longed for a change, and looked with envy at the crops of the farmers
+in the settled lands beyond the desert.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: BRONZE NEEDLES AND PINS FROM RUINS OF ANCIENT      |
+ | CANAANITE CITY]                                                   |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE NURSERY BOTTLES (CLAY)]                  |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE SILVER LADLE]                            |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE FORKS]                                   |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+CLOTHING
+
+Another occupation at which the women worked all day long was the
+making of clothing for their families. Most of their garments were
+made of the wool from their own flocks. First the wool had to be spun
+into yarn. They did not even have spinning wheels in those days, so a
+spinner took a handful of wool on the end of a stick called a distaff,
+which she held in her left hand. With her right hand she hooked into
+the wool a spindle. This was a round, pointed piece of wood about ten
+inches long with a hook at the pointed end, and with a small piece of
+stone fastened to the other to give momentum in the spinning. With
+deft fingers the spinner kept this spindle whirling and at the same
+time kept working the wool down into the thread of yarn which she was
+making. As the thread lengthened she wound it around the spindle,
+until the wool on the distaff was all gone and she had a great ball of
+yarn.
+
+=Weaving=.--The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians were experts in the
+art of weaving. They had large looms similar to ours, and wove on them
+beautiful fabrics of linen and wool. The shepherds on the plains no
+doubt bought these fabrics when they could afford them. But they could
+not carry these heavy looms around with them from one camp to another,
+and much of the time their own women had to weave whatever cloth they
+had. The primitive loom they used was made by driving two sticks into
+the ground, and stretching a row of threads between them, and then
+tediously weaving the cross threads in and out, a thread at a time,
+until a yard or so of cloth was finished. Slow work this was, and many
+a long day passed before enough cloth could be woven to make a coat
+for a man or even a boy.
+
+They managed, however, to get along without nearly so much clothing as
+we think necessary. The little children, through warm days of summer,
+played around the tents almost naked. And the grown people dressed
+very simply. There were only two garments for either men or women.
+They wore a long shirt reaching to the knees. This was made by
+doubling over a strip of cloth, sewing the sides, and cutting out
+holes for arms and neck. The outer garment was a sort of coat, open in
+front, and gathered about the waist with leather belt. This outer
+garment was often thrown aside when the wearer was working. It was
+worn in cold weather, however, and was often the poor man's only
+blanket at night. Women's garments were probably a little longer than
+those of men, but in other respects the same. As for the feet, they
+mostly went barefoot. But on long journeys over rough ground they wore
+sandals of wood or roughly shaped shoes of sheepskin. On the head for
+a protection against sun and wind they, like the modern Arab, probably
+wore a sort of large scarf gathered around the neck.
+
+=Making the garments.=--All these garments were cut and sewed by the
+women. They had no sewing machines to work with, not even fine steel
+needles like ours. They used large, coarse needles made of bronze or,
+very often, of splinters of bone sharpened at one end, with a hole
+drilled through the other. With such rough tools, and all this work to
+be done, we can be sure that the wives and daughters of Hebrew
+shepherds did not lack for something to do.
+
+
+FAMILY LIFE
+
+Among ancient Hebrews family life, from the very beginning, was often
+sweet, kindly, and beautiful. This is shown by the many stories in the
+early books of the Old Testament which reflect disapproval of
+unbrotherly conduct, or, which hold up kindness and loyalty in family
+life as a beautiful and praiseworthy thing. Take the story of Joseph.
+It begins indeed with an unpleasant picture of an unhappy and unloving
+family of shepherd brothers. We read of a father's partiality toward
+the petted favorite, of a spoiled and conceited boy, of the bitter
+jealousy of the other brothers, and finally of a crime in which they
+showed no mercy when they sold their hated rival to a caravan of
+traders to be taken away, it might be, forever. But the story goes on
+to tell how that same lad, years later, grown to manhood and risen to
+a position of extraordinary power and influence in the great kingdom
+of Egypt, not only saved from death by starvation his family,
+including those same brothers who had wronged him, but even effected a
+complete reconciliation with them and nobly forgave them.
+
+Now, the most notable facts in connection with this story are those
+"between the lines." It is not merely that such and such events are
+said to have happened, but that for generations, perhaps centuries,
+Hebrew fathers and mothers kept the story of these events alive,
+telling it over and over again to their children. On numberless days,
+no doubt, in this shepherd life there were bickering and angry words
+among the children by the spring or at meal time, or in their games.
+The older brothers were tyrannical toward the younger, or one or
+another cherished black and unforgiving looks toward a brother or
+sister who he thought had done him a wrong. And many a time after such
+a day the old father would gather all the family together in the
+evening around the camp fire in front of the tent and would begin to
+tell the story of Joseph. And as the tale went on, with its thrilling
+episodes, and its touches of pathos leading up at last to the
+whole-souled generosity and the sweet human tenderness of Joseph, many
+a little heart softened, and in the darkness many a little brown hand
+sought a brother's hand in loving reconciliation.
+
+=The tribe as a larger family.=--To some extent the desert shepherds
+of all ages have carried this family spirit into the relations between
+members of the tribe as a whole. Since they had to stand together for
+protection, quarrels between tribesmen were discouraged. Moreover,
+they were not separated into classes by difference of wealth. There
+were some who had larger flocks than others, but for the most part all
+members of the tribe were equal. Even from among the slaves who were
+captured now and then in war there were some who rose to positions of
+honor. There were no kings nor princes; the chief of the tribe held
+his position by virtue of his long experience and practical wisdom.
+The distinction between close blood relationship and the brotherhood
+of membership in the same tribe was not sharply drawn; all were
+brothers. This is true to-day of all these desert tribes.
+
+Only a tribe, however, with an unusual capacity for brotherly
+affection and for making social life sweet and harmonious could have
+produced a Joseph or the story of Joseph, or would have preserved that
+story in oral form through the centuries until it could be written
+down. It is worth while looking into the later history of such a
+tribe, and seeing what happened to them and how they thought and
+acted, and what they contributed to the life of the world.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Get some cotton at a drug store, and see if you can spin some
+cotton thread, with a homemade spindle, such as is described in this
+chapter.
+
+2. Who had the harder work among the Hebrew shepherds, the women or
+the men?
+
+3. Find other stories in Genesis besides the story of Joseph which
+show how the Hebrews felt in regard to the relations between brothers.
+
+4. Compare the home life in America with the home life of the Hebrews.
+Are American brothers and sisters growing more quarrelsome or more
+kindly and loving toward one another?
+
+5. In what way do the oral traditions of a people throw light on the
+ideals and relationships they most valued?
+
+6. Compare the dietary available to Americans with that of the ancient
+Hebrews.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DESERT PILGRIMS
+
+
+According to one of the Hebrew traditions recorded in the book of
+Genesis, the earliest home of their ancestors was Ur of the Chaldees.
+This was one of the leading cities of ancient Babylonia. It was
+situated southwest of the Euphrates River, near the plains which were
+the nation's chief grazing grounds. And it is possible that of the
+shepherds who brought their sheep to market in Ur some were, indeed,
+among the ancestors of the Hebrews.
+
+
+BABYLONIAN CIVILIZATION
+
+Babylonia is one of the two lands (Egypt being the other) where human
+civilization began. This rich alluvial plain, lying between the lower
+Tigris and the lower Euphrates Rivers, became the home of a gifted
+race which at least in its later history through intermarriage was in
+part Semitic and thus related to the Hebrews. Several thousand years
+before Christ the people of this land began to till the soil, to
+control the floods in the rivers by means of irrigating canals, to
+make bricks out of the abundant clay and with them to build houses and
+cities. They also invented a system of writing upon clay tablets.
+These were baked in the sun after the letters were inscribed.
+Commercial records and written laws and histories were thus made
+possible and in time a varied literature was created. Whole libraries
+of these baked clay tablets have been unearthed and deciphered by
+modern investigators.
+
+=Evidences of ancient culture.=--By B.C. 4000 there flourished on the
+plains of Babylonia a splendid civilization in many ways similar to
+ours to-day. The people raised enormous crops of grain and exported it
+by ship and caravan to distant lands. They had developed to a high
+point the arts of the weaver, the dyer, the potter, the metal worker,
+and the carpenter. They had devised a system of geometry for the
+measuring of their wheat fields and city streets. Through astronomy
+they had worked out the calendar of days, weeks, months, and years
+which with modifications we still use. They had erected magnificent
+temples to their gods. From translations of the inscriptions on their
+clay tablets we can gain a clear knowledge of their life and customs.
+Here, for example, is a translation of part of a letter from a son to
+a father asking for more money: "My father, you said, 'When I shall go
+to Dur-Ammi-Zaduga, I will send you a sheep and five minas of silver.'
+But you have not sent. Let my father send and let not my heart be
+vexed.... To the gods Shamash and Marduk I pray for my father." If we
+forget the outlandish-sounding names, how natural this seems! How like
+our boys was this boy who wrote the queer-looking characters on this
+bit of clay which we may hold in our hand!
+
+
+THE FAULTS OF THE BABYLONIAN CIVILIZATION
+
+With all their gifts and achievements there were certain great evils
+in Babylonian life. For one thing they were inclined to be greedy and
+covetous. They lived on a soil almost incredibly rich, and they were
+constantly increasing their wealth by trade. Babylonian merchants or
+their agents were to be found in almost every city and town of western
+Asia and perhaps even as far east as China. Of the vast mass of their
+written records which have been collected in our museums, the
+majority are business documents and records of contracts. Many of them
+tell the story of hard bargains. Professor Maspero declares that these
+records "reveal to us a people greedy of gain, exacting, and almost
+exclusively absorbed by material concerns."
+
+=Slavery.=--Moreover, the wealth of the nation was not fairly
+distributed but was more and more in the hands of the favored few, the
+great nobles, and their friends. The fields were not tilled by
+independent farmers. There were, instead, a few great estates which
+were rented out to tenants. The actual work, both on the fields and in
+the towns, was more and more performed by slaves. Some of these were
+captives who had been taken in war. Others were native Babylonians who
+had been sold into slavery for debt. So it had come about that
+Babylonian society had set like plaster into a hard mold with the king
+and the wealthy nobles on top and the poor peasants and slaves below.
+This state of things was fastened all the more firmly on the people by
+strong kings such as Hammurabi, who lived about B.C. 2000 and who
+unified the country under a powerful central government with his own
+city, Babylon, as the capital.
+
+
+A SHEPHERD WITH IDEALS
+
+About the time of Hammurabi's reign, if we follow the account related
+in the book of Genesis, there lived among the nomads on the plains
+west of the city of Ur a man named Abraham. If Hammurabi ever heard of
+him, which is improbable, he looked down upon him as of no account.
+Yet Abraham wielded a greater influence for the future welfare of
+humanity than all the princes of Babylon. For, discontented with
+Babylonian life, he was the earliest pioneer in a movement toward a
+civilization of a different and better type. And the sons of Hammurabi
+have yet to reckon with Abraham and his ambitions.
+
+=Discontent among the shepherds.=--Many of Abraham's people, no doubt,
+were discontented in Babylonia. A shepherd's life is monotonous and
+hard. When they went to market they saw comforts and luxuries on every
+hand. Yet the money they received from the wool merchants of Ur gave
+no promise of larger opportunities in life for any shepherd boy. So,
+at length when Abraham said to them, "Come, let us leave this
+country," they were ready to answer, "Lead on, and we will follow!" So
+it came to pass that Abraham's clan set out northwest, toward Haran,
+in what is now called Mesopotamia, and finally after some years of
+migration found themselves camping on the hillsides of Canaan,
+southeast of the Mediterranean Sea.
+
+=Ideals represented in Abraham.=--But it is not as a leader of fortune
+hunters that Abraham is pictured in the Bible. No doubt he and his
+clansmen hoped to better their condition. But Abraham was a dreamer
+and a man of deep religious faith. He believed that he was being
+guided by his God. And he believed that in accordance with God's plan
+his descendants in the land to which they had come would become a
+great nation. Best of all, it seems probable that he dreamed of a
+nation different from Babylonia. Certainly he is described as a
+different kind of a man from the typical Babylonian. In some respects,
+to be sure, judging by our Christian standards, he had serious
+shortcomings. He did not scruple to deceive a foreigner, nor to treat
+harshly a slave. His ideas as to the character of God were far below
+those revealed by Christ. Yet he had the Hebrew gift for home and
+family life. He was a good father to his son. And he put a higher
+value on personal friendship and kindly family relations than on
+property interests. When his herdsmen quarreled with those of his
+nephew, Lot, he said to the latter with dignified generosity and
+common sense, "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and
+thee ... for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before thee?
+Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left
+hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou take the right hand,
+then I will go to the left." Just what Abraham looked forward to, we,
+of course, do not know. Probably his ideas were vague. Yet it seems
+that such men as he must have dreamed of a nation great in faith as
+well as in material wealth; a nation in which money would not be
+considered more important than justice and kindness; in which home
+life might be sweet and loving, free from the fear of want or the
+blighting influence of greed; and in which the door of opportunity
+would always be kept open even for the humblest.
+
+At any rate, some centuries after the time when Abraham is supposed to
+have lived, we find a group of shepherd tribes living in and around
+Canaan, who believed themselves to be descended from the twelve sons
+of Jacob, Abraham's grandson, and among whom there was the tradition
+of a divinely guided pilgrimage from Babylonia to Canaan under
+Abraham's leadership just as we have described. It is a great thing to
+have memories of noble parents and traditions of heroic ancestors.
+These the Hebrews had from the very beginning.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up in any good Bible dictionary, the articles on Babylonia and
+Hammurabi.
+
+2. Read Genesis 12, 15, and 24 and form your own opinion of Abraham as
+a husband and father.
+
+3. What was Abraham's most valuable contribution to history?
+
+4. From any map of western Asia, draw a sketch map showing the Nile,
+Euphrates, and Tigris Rivers, the Mediterranean Sea, and the general
+direction of Abraham's pilgrimage.
+
+5. Where in the Bible is found the sentence spoken by Abraham to Lot,
+and quoted in this chapter?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNY
+
+
+Although they had escaped for a time from Babylonian tyranny, the
+descendants of Abraham in Canaan found themselves somewhat within the
+range of the influence of the other great civilized power of that day,
+that is, Egypt. Egyptian officers collected tribute from rich
+Canaanite cities. The roads that led to Egypt were thronged with
+caravans going to and fro. By and by, a series of dry seasons drove
+several of the Hebrew tribes down these highways to Egypt in the
+search of food. The story of Joseph tells how they settled there.[1]
+They were hospitably received by the king (or Pharaoh, which was the
+Egyptian word for "king"), and were allowed to pasture their flocks on
+the plains called the land of Goshen in the extreme northeast of the
+country west of what we now call the Isthmus of Suez. For some decades
+or more they lived here, following their old occupation--sheep-raising.
+
+=Egyptian civilization.=--Egypt was in many ways like Babylonia. In
+Egypt too a great civilization had sprung up many millenniums before
+Christ. In some ways it was an even greater civilization than that of
+Babylonia. Egyptian sculptors and architects erected stone temples
+whose grandeur has never been surpassed. Many of them are still
+standing and are among the world's treasures. It would seem that there
+was somewhat more of love of beauty and somewhat less of greed for
+money among the Egyptians than among the Babylonians.
+
+
+THE ACCESSION OF RAMESES II
+
+There came to the throne of Egypt about B.C. 1200 a man of
+extraordinary vanity and selfish ambition known as Rameses II. He
+wished to build more temples in Egypt than any other king had ever
+built, so that wherever the traveler might turn people would point to
+this or that great building and say Rameses II built that. To put up
+these buildings he enslaved his people, compelling them to labor
+without pay. To raise the funds for building materials he made war on
+his neighbors, especially the Hittites in western Asia north of
+Canaan. Again and again Hebrew children would see the dust of marching
+armies over the roads past their pastures and men would say, "Rameses
+is going to war again." And by and by, weeks or months later, the
+soldiers would return with tales of bloody battles and sometimes laden
+with spoils.
+
+=Enslavement of the Hebrews.=--Now, wars usually breed more wars.
+Rameses having attacked the Hittites was afraid they would attack him.
+Egypt was indeed very well protected from attack. There was only one
+gateway into the country, and that was by way of the narrow Isthmus of
+Suez. And there were a wall and a row of fortresses across the
+isthmus. But who were those shepherd tribes living just west of the
+isthmus inside the gateway? They are Hebrews, Rameses was told. They
+are immigrants from Canaan. "Look out for them," said Rameses. "If
+they came from Canaan, they may favor the Hittites and help them to
+get past my fortresses into Egypt. Let them be put at work so that
+they will have no time for plots."
+
+Rameses was planning just then to build two large granary cities near
+the northeastern border to be a base of supplies for his armies on
+their campaigns into Asia. One was to be called Pithom.[2]
+
+So one day armed men came to the Hebrew tents and the order was given
+to send such and such a number of men to work in the brick-molds of
+Pa-Tum. And they had to go. The women and the children had to care for
+the sheep while most of their men trod the clay and straw in the brick
+molds at Pa-Tum and carried heavy loads of brick on their shoulders to
+the masons on the walls. Of course the sheep suffered for lack of
+care. The children also pined from neglect. Life for the Hebrews
+became a grinding treadmill of hardship and weariness and drudgery.
+
+
+THE BOYHOOD AND YOUTH OF MOSES
+
+During this time of oppression a Hebrew baby boy was by chance adopted
+by one of the princesses in Pharaoh's court and brought up by his own
+mother as his nurse. He was given an Egyptian name with the common
+Egyptian ending Mesu or M-ses, as in Rameses. The boy was given all
+the educational advantages that the Egyptian palace could offer. But
+all the time in secret from his mother he was learning the story of
+his own people and their wrongs, and was being trained to hate their
+oppressors. One day after he had grown to manhood he went down to the
+city of Pa-Tum to see the work on the new granaries which were being
+built. Here he saw one of his own people being flogged by an Egyptian
+overseer. In a fury he leaped to the man's defense and killed the
+Egyptian. Of course Rameses heard of it, and Moses had to flee from
+Egypt into the desert. In the desert he found a shepherd clan related
+to the Hebrews and lived there for some years brooding over the hard
+plight of his people.
+
+=Moses' call and the struggle for freedom.=--One day in the desert,
+Moses heard from a passing caravan that old Rameses II was dead. Like
+a flame that burned but did not consume the thought came to him: "Now
+is your chance! The king and his officers will not know about you. Go
+back to Egypt and lead your kinsmen out to freedom. This is God's call
+and God will help you."
+
+So back to Egypt he went. First, he undertook to rally his own people,
+promising the help of their God, Jehovah. It was a dangerous
+undertaking that he proposed. The kings of Egypt were accustomed to
+make short work of those who resisted their authority. Moreover, these
+Hebrews had been slaves for years, and their spirits might have been
+cowed and broken. Yet they believed in Moses and his assurances and
+accepted him as their leader.
+
+Soon thereafter Moses and his brother Aaron went boldly to the palace
+of the Pharaoh and declared to him that Jehovah, the God of the
+Hebrews, had commanded that the Hebrews be allowed to hold a religious
+festival in the desert to offer sacrifices unto him as their God. The
+plan no doubt was that the people should escape once they were outside
+the boundaries of Egypt; Moses evidently considered any method
+justifiable in the effort to outwit the oppressor. But the Pharaoh
+answered, "Who is Jehovah that I should hearken to his voice to let
+Israel go?" The request was sharply refused. It is surprising that
+Moses himself was not arrested and imprisoned on the spot. Perhaps he
+still had friends in the Egyptian court. Or perhaps the Egyptians had
+a certain reverence for him as a messenger from a god, even though
+they did not grant his demands.
+
+=Bricks without straw.=--At first it seemed that Moses had failed. For
+instead of the longed-for freedom, the toiling Hebrews found that a
+still heavier burden of work was laid upon them. In the manufacture of
+sun-dried brick it is necessary to mix straw with the clay in the
+molds, the fibers giving a tougher quality to the product. Previously
+the straw for this purpose had been furnished by the Egyptians. But
+now the order was, "Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it."
+So they had to go and hunt through the surrounding fields for old
+refuse straw, in rotting ricks and compost heaps. Yet the same number
+of bricks was required as before, with a whipping in case of failure.
+
+The granaries in Pa-Tum and Rameses were excavated many years ago from
+beneath the sands of Egypt, and their ruined walls may still be seen
+by tourists. It is noticeable that the upper tiers in the walls are
+made of bricks of a very poor quality as compared to those in the
+lower tiers. Evidently, the Hebrews got through the work somehow each
+day, putting very little straw in the clay, or sometimes none at all.
+
+But they wished they had never heard of Moses, and they reproached him
+for "making them hateful in the eyes of Pharaoh." In the first round
+of the fight Moses and freedom had lost; Pharaoh and slavery had won.
+But the end was not yet.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up in any good Bible dictionary, the article on Egypt; or read
+the summary of Egyptian history in some recent general history.
+
+2. Draw a map of Egypt, locating approximately the place where the
+Hebrews worked.
+
+3. In what special ways was Moses well trained to be an emancipator
+for his people?
+
+4. Are there workers to-day who are in any form of slavery which may
+be compared to that of the Hebrews in Egypt?
+
+5. Are there any Pharaohs to-day? Any Moseses?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See Chapter I, and Genesis 46 and 47.
+
+[2] Exodus I. 1-11, or Pa-Tum in Egyptian; the other Rameses, after
+the king himself. It was decided to compel the Hebrews to do the work
+of brickmaking for these new cities.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A GREAT DELIVERANCE
+
+
+Egypt has never been a health resort. The intensely hot summers breed
+germs of disease, and also the insects which often carry them.
+Throughout its history the country has been ravaged periodically by
+fearful epidemics. A series of these pestilences predicted by Moses
+and declared to be Jehovah's punishment for the enslavement of the
+Israelites, made it possible for him to lead his people out of
+slavery. So severe were the plagues that the government was for a time
+disorganized. Taking advantage of their opportunity, the Hebrews
+suddenly gathered up their possessions and set out toward the desert,
+driving their sheep and goats before them. In spite of the large
+figures given in some passages of Exodus, other statements indicate
+that they were not very numerous, a few thousand at most, and they
+doubtless hoped to slip out past the border fortresses, at night,
+unnoticed. As they approached the border, however, news came that they
+were being pursued by a troop of horsemen. This meant, of course, that
+a watch would be made for them at the fortresses also. They were
+caught in a trap, and turned in despair upon Moses, who could only
+once more assure them that Jehovah was leading them, and would somehow
+open the way.
+
+
+THE STRONG EAST WIND AND ITS RESULT
+
+That night they encamped on the western shore of one of the shallow
+bays or lakes at the head of the Red Sea. To the east was the water.
+North of the lake the wall and the line of fortresses began. Behind
+them they could already see where their pursuers were camping for the
+night. In the morning--terror, death, and return to slavery!
+
+=A path through the sea.=--During the night, however, someone came in
+from the shore of the lake with the astonishing news that it was going
+dry. A strong east wind was blowing, with an effect often observed by
+modern travelers, namely, that the comparatively shallow waters were
+being driven back into the deeper part of the sea. Instantly the word
+of command was given. With the women and children first and the flocks
+next, they picked their way through the mud and sand and rocks on the
+lake bottom, clear across to the other side. The next morning the wind
+changed, the waters returned, and many of their pursuers were drowned.
+
+The feelings of the Hebrews are expressed in the words of the triumph
+song in which through all later centuries they celebrated this
+deliverance:
+
+    ="I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously:
+    The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.=
+           *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
+    =Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea;
+    And his chosen captains are sunk in the Red Sea."=
+
+
+INFLUENCE OF THE EXODUS ON HEBREW RELIGION
+
+It was indeed a notable deliverance, and the Hebrews never forgot it.
+It affected their ideals and their religion. Immediately after
+escaping from Egypt they set out across the desert for Mount Sinai,
+which was considered the home of their God Jehovah, there to offer up
+sacrifices of gratitude. Moreover, from that time on, every year they
+brought to mind the story of the great deliverance through a
+sacrificial feast called the Passover. Under Moses' leadership at
+Sinai they entered into a covenant with Jehovah. They were to be
+Jehovah's people forever, and they probably agreed to worship him
+only, as their national God.
+
+=Monotheism.=--At this time few had come to perceive the truth of
+monotheism, namely, that there is but one God in the universe, and
+that all the so-called gods and goddesses are mere superstitions. The
+Hebrews, at this time, did not doubt the real existence of other gods
+than Jehovah, such as Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Marduk and
+Shamash, gods of Babylon. But after the deliverance from Egypt they
+felt themselves bound to Jehovah by special ties of gratitude, and
+more and more came to consider the worship of any other god, by a
+Hebrew as base disloyalty. So the Exodus, and the experiences at
+Sinai, pointed the way, at least, toward monotheism.
+
+=Justice.=--Of great importance also was the influence of these
+experiences on their ideas of right and wrong, and their conception of
+the character of Jehovah. Because they as a nation had been enslaved
+they were the better able to sympathize with the oppressed and
+down-trodden. "Remember," their prophets could always say, "that _ye_
+were slaves in the land of Egypt." And when, in after years, they were
+unjust in their dealings with foreigners living among them, they were
+reminded that "Ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
+
+These ideals were reflected in their conception of their God. Many of
+their notions about him were crude and unworthy, even late in their
+history. This was natural and inevitable in the light of the times in
+which they lived. But in these Egyptian and desert experiences we see
+a notable beginning of nobler religious ideals. From this time on they
+were impelled to think of Jehovah, first of all as the God who had
+brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and who had taken their
+part, humble shepherds as they were, against the mighty Pharaoh, the
+king of Egypt. To that extent, at least, their God was a God of
+justice and mercy. Other ideas, which were inconsistent with this,
+continued for a time, but gradually fell away, until at length great
+seers arose who proclaimed that God is nothing else than justice and
+mercy; righteousness is the essence of his character, and that is all
+he asks of men.
+
+    "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of thy throne."
+
+
+THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
+
+According to all the Hebrew records, the covenant at Sinai was
+embodied in a divinely given Decalogue, or a set of ten short
+commands, which could be counted off on the ten fingers. Two
+Decalogues are given in Exodus, as coming from Moses at Sinai. One is
+in Exodus 34. 17-28. The other is the well-known Decalogue in Exodus
+20. The former has to do largely with sacrifices and ritual
+observances. The latter, with its stern demands for right conduct
+toward one's fellow men, and for the worship of Jehovah rather than
+idols, expresses well the new moral and religious impulses which came
+to the Hebrews under the leadership of their first great deliverer.
+
+In its original form the Decalogue probably read something as follows:
+
+  =Thou shalt have no other gods before me.=
+  =Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven (or molten) image.=
+  =Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain.=
+  =Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.=
+  =Honor thy father and thy mother.=
+  =Thou shalt not kill.=
+  =Thou shalt not commit adultery.=
+  =Thou shalt not steal.=
+  =Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.=
+  =Thou shalt not covet.=
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read in Hastings or any other modern Bible dictionary, the article
+on "Exodus." Note the testimony of modern travelers on the effect of
+high winds on the upper part of the Red Sea.
+
+2. Where was Mount Sinai? Look up in Bible dictionary.
+
+3. Draw a map, showing the probable route of the Hebrews after leaving
+Egypt.
+
+4. What part of the Ten Commandments seems most to reflect the
+influence of the great deliverance from Egypt? Read Deuteronomy 5.
+12-15.
+
+5. Test your memory for the Ten Commandments in their brief form as
+given in this chapter.
+
+6. The records of the events of this chapter are found in Exodus,
+chapters 6-12, 14, and 15. Read as much of this as your time will
+permit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FROM THE DESERT INTO CANAAN
+
+
+Once safely out of Egypt, the next problem for Moses and his people
+was to find a way into Canaan. Through all the centuries the wandering
+shepherds on the edge of the desert have looked with longing eyes on
+the fertile valleys and plains of Palestine. To have a settled,
+comfortable home, with cisterns of water as well as springs and wells;
+to have fields of wheat, vineyards of grapes, and gardens of melons
+and all luscious fruits--this is the picture that haunts the wandering
+Arab, amid the hardships and monotony of his desert life.
+
+
+THE LAND OF CANAAN
+
+During the twelfth and eleventh centuries before Christ there was an
+unusually good opportunity for nomads to settle in Palestine. Before
+and after that time there were strong empires in control of the land
+protecting it from invasion. The Greeks and Romans long afterward
+built a line of fortified towns east of the Jordan on the border of
+the desert, whose ruins may be seen to-day. In similar ways the
+Babylonians and the Egyptians had occupied and defended the country.
+But just about the time when the Hebrews escaped from Egypt, and for a
+century and more afterward, both the Egyptian and Babylonian
+governments were weak. And as the various petty kings of Canaan itself
+were usually at war with each other, there was no strong government
+anywhere whose soldiers newcomers would have to face.
+
+=The first invasion from the south.=--Very soon after leaving the
+mountain of Sinai the Hebrew tribes found themselves on the southern
+edge of Canaan, in what was afterward known as the South Country,
+south of Judah. Scouts were sent up as far as the town of Hebron,
+which was afterward for a time the capital of Judah, to investigate
+and report on conditions there. They returned with a glowing account
+of the fertility of the soil. It is even stated in the Hebrew
+traditions that they brought back as a sample of the crops, one bunch
+of grapes so large that it had to be carried on a pole between two
+men.
+
+But with the exception of one of their leaders, a certain Caleb, all
+the men reported that the cities were strongly fortified and the
+inhabitants so warlike that an invasion was out of the question. The
+people adopted this "majority report" in spite of the protests of
+Moses. It is probable that the life in Egypt, with something of ease
+and luxury for a time, and then so many years of slavery, had sapped
+their courage and will power. At any rate, after a brief encounter
+with some of the tribesmen nearby, they fled in panic into the desert
+again.
+
+
+THE WILDERNESS WANDERINGS
+
+There followed, for a generation and more, a period of training
+somewhat like that which Boy Scouts receive, or should receive, on
+their "hikes" and camping trips. They learned to be independent and
+resourceful. It was at times very difficult to find food for
+themselves, or pasture for their sheep, and there was nothing to eat
+but the "manna," which they believed their God provided for them, and
+which was perhaps in the nature of an edible moss or lichen. At times
+there was a terrible scarcity of water. Always there was the danger of
+losing their way on those trackless wastes, and in this matter also
+they learned to look to their God as their pillar of cloud by day and
+their pillar of fire by night, guiding them from oasis to oasis in
+their search for food and pasturage. Then there were wild beasts and
+poisonous serpents and, worst of all, hostile tribes with whom more
+than once they had to fight for their lives.
+
+=Gaining a foothold east of the Jordan.=--All these years of wandering
+were spent mostly in the desert south of Canaan. Later they worked
+their way around the lower end of the Dead Sea to the east toward what
+was later known as the land of Gilead, on the eastern side of the
+Jordan River.
+
+This region is very fertile and was always noted in Bible times for
+its fat cattle. But its rolling plains lie open and defenseless toward
+the desert. Here under Moses' leadership the Hebrews were able to
+conquer one or two of the petty local chieftains, and thus gained a
+foothold from which they might some time make a sally across the River
+Jordan into central Canaan itself.
+
+=The death of Moses.=--In this eastern country Moses died. According
+to the Hebrew story, Jehovah gave him a view of the land of Canaan
+from one of the high mountains overlooking the Jordan River, after
+which death came. And "no man knoweth of his sepulcher to this day."
+He had been loyal to the divine call which had come to him so long ago
+in a flame which "burned and did not consume," loyal to the mother who
+had taught him amid the luxuries of an Egyptian palace not to forget
+his own people and their sorrows. He had led his people out of Egypt
+and its slavery in defiance of the proud and mighty Pharaoh. And he
+had taught them to turn to Jehovah as God of justice and to worship
+only him.
+
+
+THE INVASION OF CANAAN FROM THE EAST
+
+It was not long after the settlement east of the Jordan that the
+Hebrews began to make raids across the river, in part under the
+leadership of one of Moses' lieutenants, Joshua. The first town they
+captured was Jericho, down in the hot valley of the Jordan River, a
+few miles north of the Dead Sea. They had friends within the city, a
+woman named Rahab and her family. Since this was the first city
+captured it was considered to be sacred to Jehovah. The pity of it is
+that, in accordance with the standards of that day, this meant the
+ruthless slaughter of every living thing within its walls, including
+men, women, and little children.
+
+=New conquests.=--In these early raids some tribes, led by the men of
+Judah, went southwest and captured a few towns in the mountains west
+of the Dead Sea. Others, led by the strong tribe of Ephraim, went
+northwest. Throughout their later history, these were always the two
+leading tribes, Judah in the south, and Ephraim in the north. After
+the victories of the fighting men, the women and children and flocks
+would follow.
+
+We can imagine these rough warriors, with their untrained boys and
+girls, swarming into the houses of these little towns and villages.
+Most of them had never been inside a house before; and they would be
+eager to look at the furniture and to know the uses of the many
+strange things: for example, the jar of lye for cleaning, the perfumes
+on the stand, the earthen vessels for water and milk, the lamps, the
+baskets made of twigs, the pots for boiling broth, the oven for
+baking, in the door yard, and the wine press on the hillside where the
+grapes were trodden at the time of grape harvest.
+
+=The right and wrong of conquest.=--One may ask, what right had the
+Hebrews to attack and kill these people and seize their homes? Ideal
+Christian standards develop slowly. In these days of which we speak
+such standards had hardly been thought of. All weak nations were at
+the mercy of their stronger neighbors, and no one ever questioned the
+morality of it. It is good to know, moreover, that conquest, after
+all, was not the chief method by which the Hebrews made themselves
+masters of Canaan. After they had established themselves, here and
+there, in certain towns, and certain sections of the country, they
+gradually made friends with their Canaanite neighbors whom they had
+not been able to conquer at the beginning. In time their children
+intermarried with the children of the Canaanites until at last there
+came to be one nation, which was known as the Hebrews, or the Children
+of Israel.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read any one of the following sections: Numbers 11. 13-14, 20, 21;
+Deuteronomy 34; Joshua 1. 6.
+
+2. Draw a map showing in a general way the movements of the Hebrews
+described in this chapter.
+
+3. Look up in the Bible dictionary, "Manna," "Spies," "Kadesh,"
+"Jericho."
+
+4. Compare the conquest of Canaan with the treatment of the American
+Indians by white settlers.
+
+5. How should the natives of Africa be treated in the opening up of
+Africa to civilization?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+LEARNING TO BE FARMERS
+
+
+The wandering Hebrew shepherds were not savages nor barbarians. In
+many ways Abraham and his friends were cultured, civilized people; but
+their civilization was of a different kind from that of the settled
+farmers and villagers of Canaan. So when the Hebrews crossed the
+Jordan and gradually fought their way to the highland fields and
+villages where they were able to settle down and live as farmers and
+vineyard keepers instead of shepherds, they soon found that they had
+much to learn. The only teachers to whom they could turn were the
+Canaanites. Very soon, therefore, they made friends with their
+Canaanite neighbors.
+
+"Tell us how to plant wheat," the Hebrews said to them, for example;
+or, "Will you please show us how to prune these grape vines?" or,
+"Won't you give us a few lessons in driving oxen? We can't make these
+young steers pull."
+
+
+LEARNING TO RAISE AND USE CATTLE
+
+This lesson about the training and care of cattle was one of the first
+and most necessary parts of their new education. As shepherds they
+knew all about sheep and goats; and this knowledge was still valuable,
+for on many a Canaanite hillside goats could thrive where no other
+animal could live. But as farmers they must also raise cattle, not
+only because of the milk, and the beef, but because they needed the
+oxen to draw their carts and plows and harrows. Oxen and asses, not
+horses, were the work animals of the farmers of those days. Oxen
+were more powerful than asses. Horses were seldom seen at all. They
+were used chiefly in war by the great military emperors of Egypt and
+Assyria.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: EGYPTIAN PLOWING                                   |
+ | (Similar to Hebrew Method.)]                                      |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: EGYPTIANS THRESHING AND WINNOWING                  |
+ | (Hebrews used same methods.)]                                     |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: EGYPTIAN OR HEBREW THRESHING FLOOR]                |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Foundation  |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+=Driving an ox team.=--So we can imagine the young Canaanites of those
+days watching a Hebrew farmer taking his first lesson with a team of
+oxen. There was a wooden yoke to lay on their necks; there was the
+two-wheeled farm cart with its long tongue to be fastened to the yoke.
+There was the goad, a long pole with a sharp point, to stick into the
+animals' flanks if they should balk. And probably there were many
+useful tricks to be learned; for example, words like our "Gee" and
+"Haw" and "Whoa," to shout at the animals when it was necessary to
+turn to the left or the right or to stop altogether.
+
+Plowing was one of the most difficult of the tasks to be done with
+oxen. The furrows had to be run straight and true. And the plows were
+clumsy affairs--not like our shining steel plows to-day--just a long
+pole with a short diagonal crosspiece, sharpened at the lower end, or
+tipped with a small bronze share.
+
+
+CROPS OF ANCIENT CANAAN
+
+The Hebrews raised the same crops as the earlier Canaanites. The
+leading ones were wheat, barley, olives, grapes, and figs. The two
+grain crops were, of course, the most necessary to life. They were
+planted in the early spring, and harvested in the summer. The grain
+was sown broadcast, by hand, just as Jesus describes in his great
+parable of the sower.
+
+=Ancient agriculture.=--Harvesting and threshing were done almost
+entirely by hand. The grain was cut with sickles. Some of the old
+sickles have recently been found by investigators, buried deep in the
+mounds where ruined Canaanite cities lie hidden. Some of these sickles
+are of metal, and others are made of the jawbones of oxen or asses,
+with sharp flints driven into the tooth sockets. After the grain was
+cut it was tied in bundles and carried to the threshing floor, which
+was usually a wide, level space of hard ground or rock. Oxen were
+driven back and forth across the grain on the floor, drawing a heavy
+weight, until all or nearly all the kernels were shaken or crushed out
+of the heads. It usually took several days to thresh all the grain
+from an average-sized field. Then the straw was raked away, and the
+grain was left mixed with chaff and dust. The next windy day the
+winnowers, with large "fans," or wooden shovels, came and tossed the
+mingled chaff and dust and grain in the wind. The kernels of wheat
+fell back and the chaff and dust were blown away. Last of all, the
+good clean grain was gathered in baskets and bags, and hauled to the
+farmer's house, or to the granary, which was a round brick building
+standing beside or behind his house.
+
+
+VINEYARDS AND OLIVES
+
+Another new experience of the Hebrews in Canaan was the culture of
+grapevines. The vineyards were often on hillsides, especially those
+facing the south, and hence warmed by the early spring sunshine. The
+soil on these hillsides had to be terraced so that the rain would not
+wash it away. The vines had to be planted, trained on trellises, and
+pruned. At the time of the grape harvest many of the grapes,
+especially of the sweeter varieties, were set aside for raisins. They
+were spread out on sheets in the hot sunshine until they were dry and
+wrinkled. Then they were packed away in jars, where they settled into
+delicious cakes. Figs were dried and packed in the same way.
+
+=The manufacture of wine.=--Many of the grapes were used for wine. The
+juice of these was trodden out in wine-presses. These were large
+hollows several feet square, cut in the solid rock on the hillside.
+There were always two of them, one lower than the other, with
+connecting passages. The bunches of grapes were piled in great heaps
+in the higher of the two, and then it was great fun for the boys and
+girls and youths and maidens to jump barefooted and barelegged among
+the purple clusters, and trample them until the foaming red juice ran
+down into the lower of the stone chambers, where it was taken up with
+gourd dippers and poured into skins. The youngsters would come home
+with their legs and shirts all stained and spotted red.
+
+=Olive orchards.=--Almost every Canaanite farm had a few olive trees
+or a small olive orchard. The olives were prized for the oil which was
+squeezed from them. This oil was used as we use butter, with bread and
+in cooking. It was also burned in lamps. In fact, it was their chief
+fuel for lighting purposes.
+
+The olive press was a large stone with a hollow in the top. From the
+bottom of the hollow, a hole was drilled through to the outside of the
+stone. Across the hollow swung a wooden beam, one end riveted to a
+tree or another stone, and the other end carrying weights. The ripe
+olives were shaken from the trees, and basket full after basket full
+poured into the hollow stone. Then the weighted beam would be laid
+across the top, with flat stones under it, fitting down into the
+hollow over the olives. The oil, trickling out below, was strained and
+stored in jars.
+
+
+HARD WORK AND BRIGHT HOPES
+
+Most of these different kinds of crops called for an immense amount of
+hard work and drudgery. Think of the weariness of the reapers,
+swinging their sickles in the wheat or barley all day long under the
+hot Syrian sun. Think of the winnowers, tossing the grain into the
+wind. Think of the aching backs of the plower and the sower. Of course
+there were happy hours, also. It was great fun to ride home behind the
+oxen, on a cart packed full and pressed down with golden sheaves. The
+time of treading out the grapes was a festival of laughter,
+love-making, and song. And in the rainy season, after a year of
+plentiful harvests, when the granaries and cellars were well stored,
+there must have been many happy days of quiet rest and play in Hebrew
+homes.
+
+But most of all, what cheered them on was the hope of better days to
+come, when their children at least, or their children's children,
+would not have to toil quite so hard or so long each day, and when the
+danger of famine and starvation would not loom up quite so grimly as
+in the old days in the desert when one summer of drought might mean
+death for all. Here in Canaan, they thought, we will surely be happy
+by and by.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Explain the following Scripture passages, in the light of the
+customs described in this chapter: Isaiah 63. 2; Deuteronomy 25. 4;
+Matthew 3. 12.
+
+2. Psalm 23. 1 draws a great lesson about God from the experiences of
+shepherd life. What lesson about God is drawn from farm life in Isaiah
+5. 1-7?
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN REAPING]                               |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE HOES]                                    |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE SICKLE]                                  |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE OR HEBREW PLOWSHARES]                    |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+VILLAGE LIFE IN CANAAN
+
+
+The farmers of ancient Canaan all lived in villages. No farmer would
+have dreamed of building an isolated house for his family on his own
+field out of sight of his nearest neighbor as our American farmers do.
+The danger from robbers would have been too great. Instead of that,
+the Hebrew farmer lived in the nearest village or town. Early in the
+morning he went out to his field, and in the evening returned to his
+home inside the protecting village walls.
+
+These ancient villages would have seemed to us most unattractive
+places. The houses were crowded close together. The streets were only
+narrow crooked lanes between the houses. In the rear room of each
+house were the stalls of the family ox and ass. The brays of the ass
+were the alarm clock in the early morning. There was no drainage.
+Garbage was thrown into the street. There were smells of all
+varieties. One is not surprised by the frequent stories of pestilences
+in the Old-Testament history.
+
+=Compensations of village life.=--It seems strange that people who
+were accustomed to life in the open desert should have ever brought
+themselves to settle down in these dirty, ill-smelling places. Surely,
+at first they must often have been homesick for the clean, pure air of
+the plains. On the other hand, probably most of them were willing to
+put up with the disagreeable odors and the dirty streets for the sake
+of being near other people. The desert was lonesome. In the village
+there was always something going on, something to hear and see, gossip
+of weddings and courtships and quarrels. Even to-day we find it hard
+to persuade those who are accustomed to the city to live in the
+country. Even though their city home may be a dark tenement in the
+slums, yet they enjoy being in a crowd of their fellow men. The
+country seems lonesome.
+
+
+LESSONS IN HOUSE BUILDING
+
+This village and town life, like the work on the farm, was a new
+school for the Hebrew shepherds, and set many an interesting problem
+for them to solve. They had to learn to build and repair houses. They
+were most often built of rough stones set in mud. The mud, when dry,
+became fairly hard, but not like mortar or cement. It was always easy
+for a thief "to dig through and steal," as Jesus so graphically
+described. Even though no thief came the dried mud was always
+crumbling, leaving holes between the stones through which snakes or
+lizards could crawl. In such a house, if a man should lean against the
+wall, it might easily happen that a serpent would bite him, as the
+prophet Amos suggests.[3]
+
+=Primitive Homes.=--The floor of the average poor man's house was
+simply the hard ground. The flat roof was made of poles thatched with
+straw or brushwood and covered over with mud or clay. There was seldom
+more than one room. Often there were no windows; even in the palaces
+of kings there were in those days no windows of glass. In one corner
+of the room there was a fireplace where the family cooking was done.
+There was no chimney, however, and the smoke had to go out through the
+open door. The door itself was generally fastened to a post, the
+lower end of which turned in a hollow socket in a heavy stone. When
+the family went away from home the door was locked with a huge wooden
+key, which was carried, not in the pocket, like our keys, but over the
+shoulder. Such keys had this advantage, at any rate, over ours. You
+could not very well lose them and you did not need a key ring.
+
+=Houses of the well-to-do.=--Rich men's houses were, of course, more
+substantially and comfortably built. Real mortar made of lime was used
+in the walls. There were several rooms, including perhaps a cool
+"summer house" on the roof, making a kind of second story. One climbed
+up to these upper rooms by a ladder on the outside. The roof was
+solidly built and surrounded by a railing, so that on a hot summer
+evening the family could sit there and enjoy the cool evening breeze.
+There were windows also, covered with wooden lattice work, which let
+in light and air.
+
+No doubt every Hebrew father hoped that some day he or his children
+might live in such a house. Some of them learned the builder's trade
+and were able to lay stones in mortar and to use saws and axes and
+nails and other tools for woodwork. Yet when David built his palace,
+he had to send to Tyre for skilled masons. Evidently in his day the
+Hebrews had not progressed very far in the manual training department
+of their new school.
+
+
+OTHER VILLAGE ARTS AND CRAFTS
+
+Many trades, which with us are carried on in separate shops, were a
+part of the household work among the ancient Hebrews: for example,
+spinning and weaving and the making of baskets, of shoes, girdles,
+and other articles of skin or leather. We will study some of these
+household activities in another chapter. Other trades, however, even
+in the early days, were carried on by special artisans who worked at
+nothing else.
+
+=Trained artisans.=--Metal workers, for example, formed a special
+trade. Among the excavations of ancient Canaanite cities have been
+found the ruins of a blacksmith shop. When the Hebrews entered Canaan
+no one had as yet learned the art of working in iron and steel by
+means of a forge with a forced draft. All tools and metal implements,
+such as plowshares, knives, axes, saws, and so on, were made of
+bronze, which consists of copper mixed and hardened with tin. The
+blacksmith melted the metals in a very simple and rough furnace of
+clay heated by charcoal. The bronze itself, although harder than
+copper, could be worked into the desired shape by hammering and
+filing, without the use of heat. We who are used to our sharp, finely
+tempered tools of steel would certainly have found these clumsy bronze
+affairs most unsatisfactory.
+
+=The pottery shop.=--Another very ancient trade is that of the potter.
+This worker did not need much of a shop; only an oven in which to fire
+his products, a pile of clay, and a wheel. This consisted of a frame,
+in which turned an upright rod on which were two flat wooden wheels,
+one small at about the height of the worker's hands as he sat in front
+of it, and the other larger, to be turned by the feet. A heap of clay
+was placed on the upper wheel, which was then turned by the revolving
+rod, the potter's feet all the time kicking on the larger wheel below.
+The whirling mass was shaped by the fingers, according to the plan in
+the worker's mind.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: MODERN ARAB WOMAN SPINNING]                        |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: ANCIENT HEBREW DOOR KEY]                           |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: HEBREW NEEDLES OF BONE]                            |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: SMALLER KEY]                                       |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+How quickly a modern boy would have contrived a different arrangement,
+with a belt and foot-tread like the one on our mother's sewing
+machine! But for those days the ancient wheel was ingenious. Many
+different kinds of Hebrew pottery are found in the excavations: large
+jars, small cups, lamps of all sizes and shapes and even babies'
+rattles.
+
+=How Hebrew boys learned a trade.=--The youngsters from the desert had
+never seen any of these interesting crafts, except perhaps now and
+then when their fathers had brought them with the wool to market. But
+now, on a rainy day when there was no work to be done in the field or
+at home, the boys would go down the street to the blacksmith shop, or
+to the shed where the old Canaanite potter worked his clay. One of the
+older boys would say, "Let me see if I can make something," and if the
+old man was good-natured he would let him try and perhaps would teach
+him some of the tricks of the trade. By and by the boy would hire out
+as a potter's helper and in a year or two would set up a little
+pottery of his own.
+
+So there came to be Hebrew as well as Canaanite potters and
+blacksmiths. They were proud of their skill in these arts, and as a
+nation they never were foolish enough to look down on them or to
+despise those who practiced them. All work was looked on as honorable.
+The apostle Paul was a tent-maker. Jesus was a carpenter. And in this
+respect for honest and useful work we may see another reason why the
+people of Israel have played so remarkable a part in the life of
+humanity.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Explain the following Scripture passage in the light of the
+customs described in this chapter. Isaiah 22. 22; Deuteronomy 22. 8.
+
+2. In earlier chapters we have seen how the Hebrew leaders drew
+lessons about God from shepherd life (Psalm 23), and from farm life
+(Isaiah 5. 1-7). What lesson did a great prophet learn in regard to
+God from the experiences of an artisan? (Jeremiah 18. 1-6.)
+
+3. Why was it necessary to build a tower in a Canaanite vineyard, as
+suggested in Isaiah 5. 2 and Mark 12. 1?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Amos 5. 19.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+KEEPING HOUSE INSTEAD OF CAMPING OUT
+
+
+Let us suppose that we have been invited to spend a day or two as
+guests in the home of one of these Hebrew families who have just
+settled in Canaan and begun to learn the new arts and customs of the
+land. It is one of the poorer homes. We have slept through the night
+on our mat spread on the dirt floor of the house, with our cloak over
+us to keep us warm. Before daylight we are awakened by the older
+people moving about in the dim light of the burning wick in the saucer
+of oil. Soon everyone is awake. The mats are rolled up and piled in a
+corner. In the early dawn one of the older girls takes a jar on her
+shoulder and goes for water to the spring, which is outside the
+village half way up the hill.
+
+If we are expecting to be called to breakfast, we shall be
+disappointed. There is no regular morning meal, although everyone
+helps himself to a bite or two of bread from the bread basket in the
+corner of the room. By and by father and the older boys take the ox
+and the ass from the shed just back of the one-roomed house (we are
+lucky if the animals were not kept all night in the house itself) and
+start for the field. And the women also have their day's work before
+them in the house. First of all, there is a bag of wheat to be ground
+into flour.
+
+
+HOME TASKS
+
+In the desert the wheat or barley, when they had it, was merely
+pounded between two rough stones such as could be picked up anywhere.
+The flour, or meal, which was made in this way was not very good.
+Here in Canaan, each house had a rude stone hand-mill for grinding
+grain. It consists of a large lower stone with a saddle-shaped hollow
+on the upper side. The upper stone is somewhat like a large, very
+heavy rolling pin. The grain is poured into the hollow and the upper
+stone is rolled back and forth over it while the flour gradually sifts
+out over the sides on to the cloth which is spread on the ground
+underneath the mill. It is a monotonous task, and very often two
+people work it together, one feeding in the grain and the other
+turning the millstone. This is pleasanter, as each worker is "company"
+for the other. Perhaps our hostess will let us roll the millstone for
+her while she feeds in the grain and sweeps up the flour from the
+cloth on the ground.
+
+=Baking bread.=--After the wheat is ground into flour there is bread
+to be baked. On the plains they do not use much yeast-bread, for this
+requires an oven for baking and one cannot carry heavy ovens from camp
+to camp. But in Canaan each family has its oven. It is made of baked
+clay and looks like a section of tiling standing on end, about two
+feet high, the clay being about an inch and a half thick. There is a
+cover of the same material. Sometimes the fire is made on the inside
+and the loaves of dough plastered on the outside. More often the
+loaves are placed on a baking tray, let down on the inside of the
+oven, and the fire built all around and over it outside.
+
+All sorts of fuel are used. Wood is the best, of course, but in that
+land wood has always been scarce. In the times of the Hebrews, as
+to-day, dried manure, straw, and all sorts of refuse were used. Jesus
+speaks of the grass of the field, "which to-day is, and to-morrow is
+cast into the oven."
+
+=Baking day.=--To-day, while we are visiting, our Hebrew hostess is
+kneading some dough. She "set it" last night, pouring in some liquid
+yeast. By and by it is ready for baking. A tray of small loaves about
+the size of biscuits is placed in the oven, and a great pile of dried
+grass placed around the sides and over the cover. By and by the fire
+is lighted from some coals on the hearth; and in a few moments the
+house is filled with smoke. We all go out on the street until the oven
+is heated and the smoke has escaped.
+
+
+WEAVING WOOL AND FLAX
+
+Another household utensil which Hebrew women learned to use in Canaan
+was the heavy loom. This consisted of a low horizontal frame, with a
+device for separating the odd and even threads of the "warp" while a
+shuttle was drawn through them, carrying the yarn for the "web," or
+the cross threads. With this kind of a loom it was possible to weave
+much more rapidly than when one had to insert each thread, plaiting it
+over and under, by hand. There is, no doubt, one of these looms in the
+house where we are visiting.
+
+=Making linen out of flax.=--In the desert almost all garments were
+made of wool, especially in the case of the poorer tribes, who could
+not afford to buy linen. In those days the use of cotton was probably
+unknown. Now everyone knows how it feels to wear a flannel shirt on a
+hot summer day. And one of the things which drew the Hebrew shepherds
+to Canaan was the hope of raising a little flax on each farm, and
+spinning it into cool, soft linen garments for the hot summers. So it
+may be that a part of the work in the house we are visiting to-day is
+to soak some of the stalks of flax in water, or to beat out from them
+the long fibers, or to spin and weave some of these fibers into
+cloth.
+
+
+PREPARING DINNER
+
+Of course the main business of each day in the household then, as now,
+is to get dinner ready. There is a light lunch about noon for the
+women and children. To-day perhaps we have some bread and milk. But as
+the sun begins to sink in the west we know that before long the men
+folks will come home hungry. We must have dinner ready for them when
+they come. If it has been a good year, even poor families in Canaan
+can have a fairly good meal. There is no meat, unless perhaps a lamb
+or a kid has been killed, especially for us as guests. But there is
+the curdled milk, and bread with olive oil and other things which
+shepherd folk never have. Here's a steaming kettle of beans or
+lentils. How good they smell! And here are some bunches of raisins and
+figs, just as sweet and luscious as those which we buy in the fruit
+stores in America. The figs in our stores may have come from that very
+country of which we are studying.
+
+=Serving the meal.=--Soon the father and the boys come home. The ox
+and the ass are fed in the stall behind the house. The mother spreads
+a cloth on the ground and on it places a small stand about eight
+inches high, which is their only dining-room table. The pot of beans
+is placed on this stand, and the bread and other good things on the
+cloth around it. We all sit down on the ground and begin to eat.
+
+Fingers were made before forks. For the beans, however, we need a
+spoon, and here are some shells from the beach that serve admirably
+for that purpose; and we all dip into the same dish on the little
+stand. By and by, when all is gone but the liquid, we sop that up
+with pieces of bread. When every crumb is picked up and eaten, we all
+lift our eyes to heaven, and the father repeats a prayer of
+thanksgiving to God. Dinner is over. The sun has set. It is growing
+dark, and soon it will be time to go to bed.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Explain the following Scripture passages in the light of this
+chapter:
+
+Judges 16. 13; Deuteronomy 24. 6; Matthew 24. 41.
+
+2. Read Proverbs 31. 10-31 for another picture of daily life in an
+ancient Hebrew home. What is said in this chapter about the making of
+beautiful as well as necessary things, and about the doing of kindly
+deeds?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN
+
+
+On the whole, Canaan was a good school for the Hebrew shepherds. New
+arts to learn, new crops to raise, new kinds of cloth to spin and
+weave, new kinds of food to cook--all this helped to make life more
+interesting and worth while. But there were other lessons which
+newcomers might learn which were not so wholesome.
+
+Wine drinking, for example, was a habit which the wisest of the
+Hebrews always feared. The wine which they made in those foaming
+wine-presses was, of course, mild and harmless as compared with the
+distilled liquors of modern times. But even Canaanitish wine could
+deaden men's consciences and make them more like beasts than men.
+"Wine is a mocker," said one of the sages who wrote the book of
+Proverbs, "strong drink is raging, and he that is deceived thereby is
+not wise."
+
+
+IDOLATRY IN CANAAN
+
+Canaanite religion was to a large extent an unwholesome influence. The
+Canaanites worshiped many gods. Each village had its Baal, or lord,
+who had to be bribed with burnt offerings of fat beasts, or (as they
+thought) the soil would lose its fertility and the crops would fail.
+
+=Dangerous examples.=--These sacrificial rites were carried on in the
+shrines or "high places," one of which stood outside almost every
+village and town. They often were accompanied by dances and other
+performances which were licentious and degrading. The Hebrews, of
+course, were pledged to worship only Jehovah. Moreover, during these
+first centuries in Canaan they were very poor, and had little time for
+the carousals which went on at the "high places" in the name of
+religion. Corruption usually comes with wealth and luxury. Poverty and
+hardship are often useful safeguards. But from the beginning these
+heathen rites were a temptation and a snare in the lives of the
+Hebrews.
+
+
+CANAANITE BELIEFS ABOUT THE WORLD
+
+There are certain questions which awaken the curiosity of everyone.
+How did this wonderful world come into existence? How is it that you
+and I happen to be here? How did things in general come to be as they
+are? Some of these difficult questions are to-day being partly
+answered by careful students of science. In ancient times there was
+little or no science, yet in every country there were certain answers
+to these questions handed down from generation to generation and
+generally accepted as true.
+
+=Idolatrous stories of creation.=--When the Hebrews entered Canaan
+they naturally were inclined to accept the ideas of the earlier
+inhabitants of that country, whose knowledge in regard to many matters
+was far beyond theirs. The Canaanites in turn had got most of their
+ideas from the leading civilized nations of that day, the Egyptians,
+and especially the Babylonians. From these sources had come certain
+stories about the beginning of things.
+
+Babylonian traders in the inns of Canaan used to tell a story of the
+creation of the world, and also about a great flood which the gods
+once sent upon the earth.
+
+=How the Hebrews retold these stories.=--The best men among the
+Hebrews knew that these stories were imperfect. Their forty years
+training in the wilderness had made them wise in the ways of God. This
+wisdom enabled them to sift the wheat from the chaff. They retold
+these stories, omitting the error, and retaining the truth. Thus we
+come to have the wonderful stories of the creation and the flood as we
+find them in the Bible.
+
+=How these stories were handed down.=--In the earliest days of the
+settlement in Canaan very few Hebrews, if any, could read or write.
+Possibly Moses understood the Egyptian picture-writing, or the
+wedge-shaped letters of the Babylonian clay tablets. The Hebrew
+letters, however, in which the books of the Old Testament afterward
+were written, were invented by the Phoenicians, and the Phoenicians
+passed on their invention to the old Canaanites.
+
+After the Hebrews came it was not long before ambitious Hebrew boys
+and girls were staring at the queer marks in the inscriptions which
+they found here and there, over the gates of Canaanite cities or on
+the tombs of Canaanite kings. Gradually they learned to spell out
+syllables, words, and sentences, and then they learned to copy these
+same letters, so that in time the Hebrews were making inscriptions and
+books of their own. Among the earliest of these books was one
+containing the stories of the creation and the flood. They had been
+handed down by word of mouth from one generation to another, until
+finally they were gathered into a book. This became a part of the book
+of Genesis in our Bible.
+
+
+NEW TENDENCIES TO SELFISHNESS IN CANAAN
+
+Another and different kind of temptation which the Hebrews met in
+Canaan was the tendency to forget their own tribal brothers as they
+scattered here and there and settled down, each family with its own
+little farm. There were some, naturally, who were more successful as
+farmers than others. And those who were unfortunate were not always
+the lazy or thriftless. Sickness or accident or some pest which
+attacked the grain or the cattle would sometimes wipe out the entire
+property of one of those little peasant farmers and leave him and his
+children face to face with starvation and death. Now, in the old days
+in the desert, as long as the tribe had a crust of bread or a drop of
+water, the weakest and poorest could count on a share. But here in
+Canaan the poor, the widow, the orphan, did not always feel so surely
+the sheltering arms of kindness and brotherhood.
+
+=Humane laws enacted.=--Yet the spirit of Moses still lived and made
+its power felt. Certain laws gradually came to be accepted during this
+period when the Hebrews were learning to be farmers which were a
+special protection to the poor and helpless, just as the great leader
+would have chosen. We can imagine how these laws were first proclaimed
+by the chiefs of the clans and the elders of the villages wherever
+there were men who remembered how, years before, the whole nation had
+been poor and oppressed and enslaved. Here are some examples:
+
+    ="Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If
+    thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I
+    will surely hear their cry."=
+
+    ="If thou lend money to any of my people with thee that is
+    poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall
+    ye lay upon him usury. If thou at all take thy neighbor's
+    garment to pledge, thou shalt restore it unto him before the
+    sun goeth down; for that is his only covering, it is his
+    garment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? And it shall
+    come to pass when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I
+    am gracious."=
+
+    ="Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbor, nor rob him; the wages
+    of a hired servant shall not abide with thee all night until
+    the morning."=
+
+There is one law which illustrates especially well how the best men
+among the Hebrews tried to meet the new temptations of Canaan in the
+spirit of kindness and justice which they had learned from Moses.
+
+    ="When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not
+    wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou
+    gather the gleaning of the harvest. And thou shalt not glean
+    thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of
+    thy vineyard. Thou shalt leave them for the poor and the
+    stranger."=
+
+It was already the custom among the Canaanites to leave the grain in
+the corners of the fields uncut, and not to pick up the scattered
+gleanings, which fell from the arms of the harvesters, and to leave on
+the ground the fruit that fell of itself from the vines and fruit
+trees. With the Canaanites this was on account of a superstition; the
+gleanings and the grain in the corners of the fields were for the
+Baal, or god of the field. If they were taken he would be angry. The
+Hebrews kept the old custom, but with a different aim--not to keep the
+Baal in good humor, but to make life a bit easier for the poor and
+unfortunate among their own neighbors. It was in accordance with this
+law that Ruth, although a foreigner, was allowed to glean after the
+reapers in the barley field of Boaz of Bethlehem, and thus obtained
+food to keep herself and her mother alive. So among these lowly people
+were being laid the foundations of that greater and better
+civilization for which Moses had prepared the way, and of which
+Abraham had dimly dreamed.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. What parts of this chapter illustrate the special talent of the
+Hebrews for discovering good in things partly evil?
+
+2. How could this talent be used in our American life? For example, in
+the matter of moving picture shows?
+
+3. Read Leviticus 19. This chapter contains laws which were made
+during the period of the settlement in Canaan. Which of them seem to
+you to be in the spirit of Moses?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+LESSONS IN COOPERATION
+
+
+After the Hebrews began to be settled in Canaan, not only were they
+tempted to neglect the poor and unfortunate; they also failed to stand
+together against their enemies. Each tribe and clan seemed to care
+only for its own safety.
+
+The men of Judah in the south, the Ephraimites in central Canaan, and
+the Naphtalites in the northern hills, and Gilead and Reuben across
+the Jordan--each group tried to fight its own battles. Often they
+fought with each other. There was a bloody war between the men of
+Gilead, and their cousins, the Ephraimites on the opposite side of the
+Jordan. The Ephraimites crossed the river and attacked the Gileadites,
+and were badly beaten; when they tried to get back home again, they
+found the Gileadites holding the fords of the river. Each fugitive was
+asked, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he said "No," they would order him
+to say "Shibboleth" (a Hebrew word). And if he said "Sibboleth" (the
+Gileadite dialect), and did not pronounce it exactly right, then they
+would kill him.
+
+This was only one example of the many wars between the tribes. There
+was no central government to keep the peace. This age in their history
+is sometimes called the period of the Judges. But these judges did not
+rule over the whole land. Most of them were only petty champions, each
+of whom helped his own tribe to defend itself against its enemies.
+
+
+SISERA AND DEBORAH
+
+In this disorganized state they would have been an easy prey to any
+strong enemy; and before long, an enemy came. In the fertile plain of
+Esdraelon, which cuts across Palestine just north of the central
+highland, there was a group of Canaanite towns which the Hebrews had
+not as yet conquered. These were organized into a kingdom by a warrior
+named Sisera, who at once began to reconquer those parts of the
+country which now belonged to the Hebrews. It was a bitter time for
+the tribes that were settled around the Plain of Esdraelon. Those
+villages which were perched on the mountain sides held out for a time,
+but the inhabitants dared not go down into the valleys. They could not
+take their grain to the market. The valley roads were all deserted
+except for bands of Sisera's troopers. Each year Sisera grew stronger,
+and more of the Hebrews submitted to him. In a little while there
+would have been none left to call themselves Hebrews and to keep up
+the noble traditions and hopes of Moses and Abraham.
+
+=A wise and patriotic woman.=--If only the more distant tribes had
+come to the help of those that bordered on Sisera's kingdom, if only
+all the Hebrews had stood together, they could easily have defended
+themselves. But no one seemed to see this, or had faith enough to try
+to accomplish anything in this way "until Deborah arose." One day
+there came up through the sheepfolds of the Reubenites this remarkable
+woman whose name was Deborah. "Come to the help of your brethren
+across the river," she said, as she told her story. "Come to the help
+of Jehovah, by helping his people."
+
+At first the Reubenites seemed greatly moved by Deborah's words.
+Certainly, they would come, whenever Deborah and her friends were
+ready. So the brave woman was encouraged and went to other tribes, to
+all of them one after another. But not everywhere was she successful.
+Many said: "Why should we go up and help your people? Suppose Sisera
+wins, he will come and punish us. We will stay here where we are
+safe." Even the Reubenites, whose first resolves had been so brave,
+changed their minds, and "stayed in their sheepfolds, listening to the
+pipings of the flocks."
+
+=The battle by the Kishon River.=--After many weeks of tramping,
+however, Deborah was able to get a few of the tribes really organized.
+Ephraim, Benjamin, Naphtali, Zebulun, Issachar, and some smaller clans
+all promised to send troops and did send them. An army was gathered
+under a captain named Barak. The Canaanites under Sisera came out to
+fight them, and the battle took place on the flat fields of the Plain
+of Esdraelon. It looked like a victory for Sisera. He had charioteers
+as well as foot soldiers--troops of men in heavy war carts, from the
+axles of which extended sharp blades like scythes.
+
+But Deborah had called to her people in the name of Jehovah. And
+Jehovah seemed, indeed, to be on their side. We may well believe that
+it was the spirit of God that put it into the hearts of Deborah and
+Barak to delay the battle until there should be a rainy day. When the
+clash finally came there was a heavy downpour. The flat plain became a
+swamp. The war chariots sank into the mud and were helpless. The
+Canaanites became panic-stricken and fled in terror. Many of them were
+drowned in the attempt to cross the Kishon, which is usually a shallow
+creek, but on that day was a deep and swiftly flowing torrent.
+Sisera, himself in flight, was killed by a woman in whose tent he
+tried to take refuge. The battle was won for Jehovah's people. The
+Hebrews could still be free and independent, and they had learned a
+valuable lesson--the necessity for cooperation.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read chapters 4 and 5 of the book of Judges.
+
+2. With the help of a map showing the location of the various tribes
+in Canaan, find the ones which were most in danger from Sisera, whose
+kingdom was in the Plain of Esdraelon.
+
+3. With the help of the map, explain why it was not easy for Deborah
+to persuade the Reubenites and the Gileadites to enter this war.
+
+4. What arguments would you have used to persuade them?
+
+5. Could you use the same arguments in favor of the League of Nations
+and our membership in it, as a nation?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT
+
+
+After Sisera was conquered, the Hebrew tribes which had combined
+against him immediately fell apart, relapsing into the same state of
+disunion and disorganization as before. And very soon other enemies
+took advantage of it to plunder and kill.
+
+=The Midianites.=--Among the most harassing of these enemies for a
+time were the Midianites, who lived as nomads, roaming over the
+deserts just as the Hebrews themselves had done except that they made
+their living chiefly by robbery. Every spring just after the wheat and
+barley had begun to sprout, covering all the fields with a carpet of
+the brightest green, bands of these nomads would drive their flocks
+across the Jordan and turn them loose on the young grain while the men
+stood guard in armed bands. In the summer and fall after what was left
+of the grain had been harvested and beaten out on the threshing floors
+they would come again and steal the threshed grain, taking it away in
+bags on the backs of camels.
+
+Sometimes the Hebrews would keep the wheat and barley unthreshed with
+the sheaves piled up in grain ricks and would thresh it out, a little
+at a time, in the low, half-concealed wine presses, which were dug in
+the rock. No one's life was safe where these marauders were in the
+habit of coming, and no family could be sure of food to carry them
+over the winter months.
+
+
+GIDEON, THE ABIEZRITE
+
+In the tribe of Manasseh there was a little clan called Abiezer. One
+night a band of Midianites came on camels and raided the villages of
+this clan, killing some of the people, and carrying away whatever they
+found of value. They then fled back across the Jordan River to the
+desert before enough Hebrew men could get together to resist them.
+
+=The counter-raid.=--In the heart of one young man, the brother of
+some who were killed, God planted a sudden determination to put a stop
+to these murders and robberies. He called for volunteers to pursue
+this band across the river, and when some three hundred had responded
+they set out in hot haste, down the hillsides into the plain of the
+Jordan, up the slopes on the eastern side, and out onto the plains
+where the Midianites supposed they were safe. It was hard to track
+them over these solitary wastes; and they had their swift camels. But
+Gideon trailed them; stealing up at night, he surprised them. They
+fled in terror leaving much spoil, and for many years the Hebrews were
+not molested by this particular tribe of desert wanderers.
+
+=The kingdom of Gideon.=--Out of this experience the Hebrews in
+central Canaan gained another lesson in cooperation; and they made up
+their minds to profit by it. Here is a man, they said to themselves,
+who can lead us to victory against our foes. If we all agree to do as
+he says we can all stand together, each for all and all for each. So
+they came to Gideon, and asked him to be their ruler. He refused at
+first, but it is clear that he finally accepted and really became king
+over some of the tribes and clans of central Canaan. One of his sons,
+a certain Abimelech, seized the kingdom after Gideon's death and
+proved to be a selfish tyrant. He was killed by his enemies, and that
+was the end of the dynasty of Gideon. "How can we have unity and
+cooperation under a strong leader," the Hebrews asked themselves, "and
+not at the same time be in danger of slavery under a ruthless tyrant?"
+That was a difficult question.
+
+
+THE PHILISTINES
+
+Meanwhile a national enemy far more dangerous than any previously
+mentioned had begun to threaten their existence as a people. About the
+same time that the Hebrews settled in Canaan there had landed from
+ships on the southwestern coast some newcomers of another race,
+perhaps akin to the Greeks; they were called Philistines. They quickly
+became a rich and powerful nation, holding the coast towns of Gath,
+Askelon, Gaza, Ashdod, and Ekron. They were ambitious to become
+masters of the whole land of Canaan. Their soldiers, in well-trained
+bands, built forts and established garrisons here and there, in the
+leading towns, and compelled the Hebrews to pay tribute.
+
+At the same time they did not protect the country from other enemies.
+For example, there were the Amalekites on the southern border, who
+were robber-nomads, just like the Midianites on the east. There were
+the people of Ammon, a town east of the Jordan. From these and other
+petty enemies the Hebrews suffered much, and the Philistines did
+nothing to help them. All they cared about was the tribute. "O for a
+leader like Deborah and Gideon!" the Hebrews once again began to cry.
+
+=The messengers with the raw meat.=--One day messengers came hurrying
+through the towns and villages of central Canaan bearing sacks or
+baskets of raw beef chopped into small squares. To the leading men of
+each village, they handed a piece of the bloody flesh with this
+message: "This piece of ox flesh is from Saul, the son of Kish, of
+Gibeah in Benjamin. As this flesh is cut into small pieces so will the
+flesh of the men of your village be chopped up if you do not come at
+once, armed for battle, to help our brothers in Jabesh in Gilead east
+of the Jordan, which is besieged by the Ammonites." "Who is Saul?"
+many asked, and few could answer. Some perhaps were able to explain
+that he was a brave and able young farmer, a friend of a prophet named
+Samuel, in the tribe of Benjamin. But it was the raw meat that
+persuaded them to obey the summons. Here is a real leader, they said,
+a man who means what he says. And two or three nights later an army of
+Hebrews, with Saul in the lead, came dashing in among the tents of the
+Ammonites who were besieging Jabesh and put them to flight. The
+Gileadites were saved; and for years to come they remembered Saul with
+gratitude.
+
+
+THE KINGDOM OF SAUL
+
+Shortly after this victory there was a great gathering of the Hebrews
+of Benjamin and some of the neighboring tribes and Saul was elected as
+king. Would he also become a tyrant? Would he make their children
+slaves and take the best of their flocks and herds and wheat and oil,
+leaving them in poverty while he lived in luxury? There were many who
+thought so. The prophet Samuel, himself Saul's friend, warned them of
+the danger although he helped to make Saul king. But the danger from
+the Philistines was so great and they had suffered so much from their
+enemies on account of their lack of unity that they were willing to
+take the risk of organizing themselves as a kingdom under Saul.
+
+=The first victories over the Philistines.=--Soon there came a summons
+to battle. The first encounter turned out well for the Hebrews. One of
+Saul's sons named Jonathan was especially brave and skillful as a
+leader, and was much loved by the people. Other victories followed.
+More and more clans and tribes flocked to Saul's standard. A young man
+from Judah, named David, became famous as a captain and was made the
+chief commander of Saul's armies. The Philistines were not driven out
+from their forts, but they were held in check and the sky seemed
+brighter. There was a chance now for victory and peace. Everyone was
+hopeful for better things. When the soldiers came back from fighting
+the Philistines, the women would go to meet them with songs and
+dances. One of their songs ran like this:
+
+    ="Saul has slain his thousands
+    And David his ten thousands."=
+
+=Saul's jealousy.=--When Saul heard of this couplet he was jealous.
+"They gave more glory to David than to me," he thought. "One of these
+days, they will make him king in my place." His son Jonathan did not
+share his fears. He loved and trusted David. But from that time
+forward Saul hated David, and finally drove him out as a fugitive.
+Instead of fighting the Philistines he spent all his strength chasing
+David from town to town and from cave to cave. Of course the
+Philistines took advantage of this quarrel between the two ablest men
+among their foes and came back with a strong counter attack. Saul's
+own life was forfeited and that of Jonathan also in a disastrous
+defeat. The Philistines were masters once more. Saul's kingdom also
+had proved for the most part a failure.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Locate on the map the Midianites and the Philistines.
+
+2. Why would it have been a calamity for the world if the Philistines
+had conquered the Hebrews?
+
+3. Study carefully the parable of Jotham (Judges 9. 8-15). In the
+light of this shrewd illustration, why is it hard to get _good_ men to
+run for political office, even to-day?
+
+4. If we should undertake to have an _entirely different kind_ of
+mayors, aldermen, governors, Presidents and so on, perhaps really good
+men would accept these offices. What kind?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE NATION UNDER DAVID AND SOLOMON
+
+
+After Saul's death his son Ishbaal fled across the Jordan where the
+Philistines were not yet in control, and was accepted as king by the
+East Jordan tribes. More and more, however, the hearts of all the
+Hebrews turned toward the young David, who, under the Philistines, to
+whom he paid tribute, now became king over the tribe of Judah in the
+south.
+
+
+DAVID AS A LEADER
+
+David was a born leader. Physically he was an athlete. With his sling
+he could throw stones straight, as Goliath, the Philistine giant,
+discovered to his sorrow. He had the gift of winning friends, even
+among those who might naturally have been his enemies, for example
+Jonathan and Michal, son and daughter of Saul, and Achish, the
+Philistine king. His followers with few exceptions were deeply devoted
+to him, risking their lives, sometimes, to gratify his slightest wish.
+He was wise in his dealings with men, knowing when to be stern and
+when to be lenient.
+
+=The nation united under David.=--For a few years there was more or
+less of war between the followers of David and the followers of
+Ishbaal. David did not like this war. He had no heart for fighting his
+own kinsmen, the people of the north. His method was to win them over
+without conquest. His chief difficulty in this was to restrain his own
+followers. Fighting always leads to more fighting. A bitter personal
+feud flamed up between Joab, David's chief general, and Abner, who
+was the real power in the other kingdom. David did not dare to punish
+Joab, yet he plainly showed his displeasure. When finally Ishbaal
+himself was murdered in his sleep, David put the assassins to death.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE CHISEL (BRONZE)]                         |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE FILE]                                    |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: BRONZE HAMMERHEAD]                                 |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: VERY ANCIENT CANAANITE FLINT, FOR MAKING STONE     |
+ | KNIVES]                                                           |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: BONE AWL HANDLE]                                   |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: A FISH-HOOK]                                       |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE WHETSTONES]                              |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE OR HEBREW NAILS]                         |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+By this policy he pleased the people, both in the north and in the
+south. And after seven years of division the leading men of all the
+tribes came to David at Hebron, in Judah his headquarters, and made
+him king over the entire Hebrew nation, north, east, and south.
+
+=David's victories.=--Soon after this David declared his independence
+of the Philistines. War broke out and for a time it went against the
+Hebrews. But in the end they were able to rally their resources under
+their new leader, and inflicted two crushing defeats on their old
+enemies, which made them instead of the Philistines once and for all
+the masters of Canaan.
+
+From the Philistines David turned against the other petty enemies who
+had so often taken advantage of the weakness of the Hebrews. Already,
+while a vassal of the Philistines, he had thoroughly punished the
+Amalekites, in the deserts of the south; and now he gave the Ammonites
+and Moabites and other enemies on the east a taste of Hebrew warfare.
+Before many years passed they had all learned their lesson, and there
+was peace in Canaan.
+
+
+PROGRESS IN CIVILIZATION
+
+During all those years when the Hebrews were fighting for existence
+life in their little villages and towns had been anything but
+pleasant. Not only was there constant danger from human enemies and
+from famine, there was also a lack of the comforts and pleasures of
+civilized life. There were no books to read, no musical instruments
+to play on, and few opportunities for any kind of recreation. They had
+only coarse, rough clothing to wear, and coarse, ugly furniture for
+their homes.
+
+=The development of commerce.=--Now that peace and security had been
+achieved, David did much to make the daily lives of all his people
+happier. One way was through commerce. The great merchants of those
+days were the Phoenicians, the people of Tyre and Sidon, whose daring
+sailors steered their ships into every harbor on the Mediterranean Sea
+and even out upon the stormy Atlantic and up to the tin mines of
+Britain.
+
+Very wisely David made a treaty of friendship with Hiram, king of
+Tyre, and as a result Phoenician artists and artisans came down to
+Jerusalem and helped to beautify the city. Phoenician wares also began
+to be peddled in all the towns of Canaan: fine linen fabrics, such as
+the Hebrews did not know how to weave; beautiful jars and cups, such
+as Hebrew potters had not learned to fashion; jewels of silver and
+gold and precious stones, over which Hebrew maidens hovered with
+longing eyes. Soon one could see that the homes in these little towns
+of Judah and Benjamin and Ephraim were cleaner and better furnished,
+and the people were more neatly dressed. Commerce of the right kind is
+always a blessing.
+
+=Education.=--Better than fine clothes and jewels and furniture are
+the things that feed the mind. David himself was a skillful harpist,
+and no doubt this helped to make harp-playing popular. On one occasion
+the ark of Jehovah, the sacred chest which had been carried in the
+desert, was brought up to Jerusalem. It was accompanied by a chorus of
+singers and a band of instrumental players, "with harps and lyres and
+cymbals." In the worship of the temple at Jerusalem music from this
+time on had an important place. And all up and down the land here and
+there, one could hear in humble homes the tinkle of harp strings; and
+boys and girls who liked music could learn to play.
+
+If not in David's time, then very soon after, the first Hebrew history
+books were written. These contained stories which had been handed down
+from generation to generation; stories about the beginnings of things;
+stories about Abraham and Moses and other early heroes.
+
+There were, of course, only a few copies of written rolls of stories,
+as compared with the millions of volumes which are constantly being
+turned out to-day by our great printing presses. But these few were
+much read, and those who read committed many of the stories to memory
+so that they could repeat them again and again in their home circles.
+In this way life grew more rich in pleasure and interest for many a
+Hebrew youth and maiden.
+
+
+DAVID'S SUCCESSOR, SOLOMON
+
+After David's death his son Solomon was made King. He also encouraged
+commerce, both by land and by sea. His ships sailed down the Red Sea
+to India, and back, and over the Mediterranean Sea to Spain. They
+brought back, according to the author of First Kings, "gold and
+silver, ivory, and apes and peacocks."
+
+=Solomon's folly.=--Alas for the happiness of the people, Solomon was
+a different kind of a man from his father. Like so many other sons of
+good kings he was spoiled by too much luxury and too little
+discipline. He had the reputation of being very wise, but in reality
+he was very foolish. His chief ambition was to have splendid palaces,
+and to make a great display of riches, like the kings of Egypt and
+Babylonia.
+
+In order to build these fine buildings and have great numbers of
+servants it was necessary to extort the money from his people by heavy
+taxes. They were also compelled to labor without pay in his quarries
+and elsewhere. So with all the increased wealth in the land and with
+all the seeming progress in civilization, the common people were
+really wretched--almost worse off than in the old days of disunion and
+confusion and fear.
+
+=The disruption of the kingdom.=--As a result of this cruelty and
+oppression, the northern tribes, after Solomon's death, rebelled
+against his son Rehoboam, who seemed likely to become even more of an
+oppressor than his father. The tribe of Judah in the south remained
+faithful to the family of David. So the nation was split in two parts,
+which were never reunited.
+
+If only all kings could be like David! He indeed was far from perfect;
+he was guilty of some very wicked crimes. But on the whole he came
+nearer than most kings to the best ideals of the Hebrews for their
+rulers: a man "from among thy brethren: ... neither shall he greatly
+multiply to himself silver and gold, ... that his heart be not lifted
+up above his brethren, ... and that he turn not aside from the
+commandment, to the right hand nor to the left."
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up Joab in a good Bible dictionary, and see how much David
+owed to this extraordinary man for his success.
+
+2. Read 2 Samuel 23. 13-17, as a good example of the devotion and
+loyalty David was able to awaken in his followers.
+
+3. With which did David do the more for the happiness of his people,
+with the sword, or with his harp?
+
+4. Why did Solomon grow up with selfish and extravagant habits and
+ideals? Read 2 Samuel 11, 12 for an explanation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE WARS OF KINGS AND THE PEOPLE'S SORROWS
+
+
+The Hebrews did not greatly better themselves by the division of the
+kingdom and by the revolt of the northern tribes from Solomon's son.
+There were still kings both in the north and in the south. And all
+they cared about was glory and luxury for themselves.
+
+
+AN ERA OF PERPETUAL WAR
+
+In order to get glory and wealth these kings made war on neighboring
+countries. For a long time there was war between the northern and
+southern Hebrews. There were long and very bloody wars between the
+Hebrews and the Arameans, whose kings ruled in Damascus. There were
+many wars between rival candidates for the throne among the Hebrews
+themselves. Especially was this true in the northern kingdom where,
+during the two hundred years of its separate existence, there was a
+revolution on an average every thirty or forty years. In such cases
+all the members of the existing royal family would be assassinated and
+all persons who defended them or were suspected of sympathizing with
+them were put to death. After the murder of hundreds and sometimes
+thousands the new upstart conqueror would proclaim himself king.
+
+=Famine and pestilence.=--These constant wars not only brought wounds
+and death and sorrow to many homes, they also kept all the people poor
+and increased the deadliness of the other great historic curses of
+humanity, such as famine. The money and labor spent on war might have
+been used in terracing hillsides and fertilizing fields, so that in
+times of drought the crops would not wholly fail and starvation and
+death might thus have been pushed back a little further from the
+cottages of the poor.
+
+Wars also bring disease. In those days, epidemics of disease were
+frightfully common at best. They knew nothing about sanitation. Even
+in the most important cities, sewage and garbage were dumped in the
+streets. Leprosy was an everyday sight. Rats and other vermin swarmed
+everywhere except in the palaces of the rich; and when the soldiers
+came home from war, bringing with them typhus fever or cholera or the
+plague, the people died like flies.
+
+=The dynasty of Omri.=--Among the best of the successors of David and
+Solomon were Omri and his son Ahab, in the north. They made peace with
+the southern Hebrews in Judah and renewed the old alliance with Tyre.
+They built as their capital the beautiful city of Samaria. Ahab
+especially was greatly admired as a brave warrior and as a king who on
+the whole tried to serve his country well. Yet even Ahab was a despot.
+His own glory and wealth were to him of chief importance, and his
+people's needs and sufferings secondary.
+
+
+BACK TO THE DESERT
+
+Under these conditions it was natural that many people should look
+back with longing to the olden times, especially to the time of Moses,
+before the people had left the desert and settled in Canaan. All these
+newfangled ways, they said, are evil. They have brought us only
+trouble. Especially bad is the worship of these Baals instead of
+Jehovah, the God of our fathers. No doubt Jehovah is jealous and angry
+and has brought war and famine and pestilence upon us for just this
+reason. Many, indeed, who did not altogether object to the civilized
+customs of Canaan were uneasy in their minds because of the worship of
+the Baals. When Ahab made his alliance with the king of Tyre he had
+built, in Samaria, shrines to the Baal of Tyre. This was in accordance
+with the religious ideas of those days. When two countries made an
+alliance there was supposed to be an alliance between their gods. But
+the Hebrews had made a special covenant to worship no other gods but
+only Jehovah. So there were many who were opposed to the worship of
+the Baals.
+
+=The Rechabites.=--One Hebrew clan known as the Rechabites, actually
+became nomads again and did all they could to persuade others to do
+the same. They gave up their houses and lived in tents. They pledged
+themselves to drink no wine or strong drink, and they were
+enthusiastically devoted to the worship of Jehovah only. Naturally
+they hated Ahab for bringing in the worship of the foreign gods of
+Tyre. They did much to cause the overthrow of the dynasty of Ahab in
+favor of a general named Jehu, who was pledged to drive out the
+Phoenicians and their gods.
+
+
+THE PROPHETS
+
+There were also certain specially religious people, called prophets,
+some of whom saw the evils which were ruining the happiness of the
+people and fought against them. In the earliest days, these men who
+were called prophets were much like the soothsayers of other nations.
+They were supposed to have a special power of speaking revelations
+from God. Sometimes they went into trances. Sometimes they caused
+exciting music to be played in their hearing. Most of them spoke what
+seemed likely to be popular with their hearers. For example, once when
+Ahab wanted to start a new war against Damascus, he sent for prophets
+and some four hundred were brought to him. "Shall we go to war or
+not?" he asked. All but one, knowing that Ahab's heart was set on the
+matter, answered, "Jehovah says, go to war, and he will give you
+victory."
+
+=Micaiah.=--The true prophets, however, were men of truth who
+worshiped Jehovah and waited for his teaching. Such a man was Micaiah.
+When Ahab asked him, "What do you say?" his answer was like the
+others. But his manner was so sarcastic that the king kept asking him.
+He finally declared that Jehovah had revealed to him that the proposed
+expedition would end in disaster. For this Micaiah was thrown into a
+dungeon. But his prophecy came true. The Hebrews were defeated, and
+Ahab himself was killed.
+
+=Elijah.=--The greatest leader in this movement back to the desert and
+to Moses, was a prophet named Elijah. He was like the Rechabites in
+his aims. He was dressed like a desert nomad and his whole life was
+given to the cause of the old desert religion. He had a very clear
+understanding as to what was best in that religion. It was not merely
+because Jehovah might be jealous of other gods that Elijah fought
+against Baal worship, but also because Jehovah really stood for
+justice and righteousness as against the unrighteousness of the Baals.
+Elijah was not only a champion of Jehovah; he was a champion of the
+poor against their oppressors, a champion of the common people against
+the despotism of kings, as is so vividly and thrillingly illustrated
+in the story of Naboth's vineyard.
+
+=Elisha.=--Elijah's work was carried on after his death by another
+prophet named Elisha. He also seems to have been a friend of the
+common people. Many traditions of his helpfulness to them are recorded
+in the second book of Kings. But his chief aim was to overthrow the
+dynasty of Ahab. It was Elisha who, with the help of the Rechabites,
+launched the revolution of Jehu.
+
+=A disappointing outcome.=--Jehu was really no better than Ahab. He
+was willing to drive out the priests of the Phoenician Baal, and he
+offered many sacrifices to Jehovah. But his chief ambition was for
+himself. Instead of bringing peace and justice to the poor, suffering,
+war-scourged people, his reign was horrible for its bloody killings.
+No one was safe from his murderous jealousy.
+
+There was needed something more than a mere revival of the "old time
+religion" of Moses. There had to be purer and nobler ideas of Jehovah,
+a better knowledge of the real nature of Jehovah and of what Jehovah
+demanded of men, and of the kind of worship which would please him.
+Till then there was little hope of happiness for men and women and
+little children.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read 2 Kings 6. 24-30 for a vivid picture of the sufferings of the
+common people of Israel, as a result of constant wars.
+
+2. Read 1 Kings 20. 1-34 for some light on Ahab as an able king. What
+qualities are displayed by him, in the narrative of this chapter?
+
+3. Look up Rechabites in the Bible dictionary for a more complete
+narrative about them.
+
+4. Is war more of a curse to the common people to-day than in ancient
+times, or less? Why? What classes still suffer most from war, the rich
+and powerful or the common people?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A NEW KIND OF RELIGION
+
+
+Among all ancient peoples, including the Hebrews, a large part of
+religion was the burning of animal sacrifices on altars. Whenever a
+sheep or lamb or kid was slaughtered for food the blood was poured out
+on the sacred rock, or altar, in which the god was supposed to dwell.
+Afterward the fat was burned on the same rock. It was believed that
+the god in the rock drank the blood and smelled the fragrant odor of
+the burning fat.
+
+=Whole burnt offerings.=--On special occasions, such as a wedding, the
+birth of a child, the beginning of a war, or the celebration of a
+victory, the entire animal was burned on the altar. The first-born
+calves, or lambs, or kids of any animal mother were also regarded by
+the Hebrews as sacred and were burned as whole burnt-offerings to
+Jehovah.
+
+
+SACRIFICES IN CANAAN
+
+After the Hebrews settled in Canaan they adopted other kinds of
+sacrifices. Grains and fruits were offered as well as animals. Wine
+and oil were poured on the altars. Baked cakes were burned. One sheaf
+from every harvest field of wheat or barley was supposed to be waved
+back and forth before an altar of Jehovah. This was a sort of
+religious drama by which Jehovah was thought to receive a share of the
+grain.
+
+=Religious feasts.=--In Canaan also the Hebrews observed certain
+religious festivals, which corresponded to the early, middle, and late
+harvest seasons; they were called respectively, the "Feast of
+Unleavened Bread," the "Feast of Weeks" (or Pentecost), and the "Feast
+of Tabernacles." All of these were joyous occasions somewhat like our
+Thanksgiving Day, and at all of them each family offered to Jehovah
+some part of the products of their fields.
+
+
+PRIESTS AND THEIR DUTIES
+
+The altars where these sacrifices were offered were in charge of a
+special class of men, the priests. In the early days, in Canaan, there
+was a little temple, or shrine, outside each town and village with one
+or more priests in charge of it. Sometimes wealthy men had private
+shrines and hired their own special priests. It was the business of
+these men to know just how a sacrifice must be offered in order that
+it might be pleasing to Jehovah. There were certain rules and
+regulations handed down from generation to generation. There were
+certain kinds of animals which could not be offered. It was important
+to know just what parts of each victim were to be burned. The various
+meal offerings had to be prepared in a certain way. Yeast could not be
+used, nor honey.
+
+=The increasing number of priestly rules.=--As the centuries passed
+more and more rules were worked out by the priests. This was their
+whole business in life, and, of course, they made much of it. More and
+more different kinds of offerings were invented; for example, incense,
+which was the burning of herbs which made a sweet-smelling smoke. The
+books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, especially Leviticus, are
+largely composed of these rules for sacrifices. The animals had to be
+washed, killed, and skinned, according to certain directions. The
+blood had to be disposed of according to strict rule--some placed in
+the horns of the altar, some on the priests, some on the worshiper
+bringing the offering, and so on. And the more there were of these
+rules, the more priests there had to be to remember and enforce them.
+Thus it came about that all too frequently sacrifices came to be the
+chief thing in religion. Religion meant sacrifices and not much else.
+
+
+THE REIGN OF JEROBOAM II
+
+Jeroboam II, who reigned over the northern kingdom of Israel for some
+forty years, beginning about B.C. 790, was in some ways like Ahab, who
+lived a century earlier. He was victorious in war and brought peace
+and prosperity to his nation. These years of peace brought little
+happiness, however, to the common people of Israel. They had already
+become so poverty-stricken during the long years of petty but cruel
+wars, under the earlier kings since Solomon, that they were
+practically at the mercy of a small class of nobles and wealthy
+merchants who grew richer all the time while the people grew poorer.
+
+=Evil days.=--These rich men used false weights and measures. In
+buying wheat from the farmer they would use heavy weights, and get
+more than was right; in selling to the poor of the cities they used
+light weights, and so gave out little for much. They corrupted courts
+and judges, so that no poor man could get his rights. They charged
+enormous rates of interest for the money which the poor were obliged
+to borrow. All over the land the mass of the people were living in
+hovels and selling their sons and their daughters into slavery to keep
+from starving, while the rich men and their families lived in luxury
+and in wasteful, extravagant display.
+
+None of this shameful injustice seemed to weigh heavily on any man's
+conscience, for they were careful to keep up all the sacrifices to
+Jehovah. And was not Jehovah showing his pleasure by granting them
+these long years of peace and prosperity? They forgot the old lessons
+of Jehovah's justice which the nation had learned from Moses. Even
+Moses, according to their traditions, had given laws about sacrifices
+and offerings. These seemed to be the essential thing. So they kept on
+offering up costly sacrifices at their great temples and shrines, with
+stately and gorgeous ceremonials, and thought to themselves, "How
+pleased Jehovah must be!"
+
+
+AMOS
+
+There came one day to King Jeroboam's own shrine at Bethel a man in
+the garb of a shepherd and speaking in the name of Jehovah, like the
+prophets. But what strange words are these which he utters?
+
+    ="I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight
+    in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer me your ...
+    meal-offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard
+    the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from me the
+    noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy
+    viols. But let judgment roll down as waters, and
+    righteousness as a mighty stream."=
+
+What this shepherd prophet was proclaiming was a religion in which
+burnt-offerings, or sacrificial ceremonies of any kind had little or
+no place, but which expressed itself in justice and righteousness
+toward one's fellow men. What Jehovah wants is not sacrifices at all,
+he said, but to stop cheating the poor: to throw away your false
+balances, and set free the slave.
+
+=Amos' dire forebodings.=--In many addresses, as reported in the book
+which bears his name, with bitter and thrilling eloquence Amos tried
+to drive home this great message to the hearts of his fellow
+countrymen. He warned them that unless they heeded, disaster would
+come to the nation. For as surely as Jehovah demanded justice, so
+surely would he punish injustice. Terrible are his pictures of the
+calamities with which the guilty Israelites would be visited. Nor did
+he appeal wholly to fear. There is now and then a pleading note in
+Amos. Honest and burning indignation and threats are indeed most
+common in the pages of his book; yet listen to this:
+
+    ="Thus the Lord God showed me: and, behold, he formed locusts
+    in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth ...
+    and ... when they made an end of eating the grass of the
+    land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee: how
+    shall Jacob stand? for he is small."=
+
+There speaks the shepherd pleading for his little sheep--"How can
+Jacob stand, for he is small?"
+
+
+THE RESULTS OF AMOS' WORDS
+
+Amos' mission to the northern kingdom seemed to be a failure. He had
+come up from his sheep tending, in his home in Tekoa, in Judah,
+because he felt burning within him a message for his people. But he
+soon went home. The chief priest at Bethel drove him out. And
+apparently the people did not care. No doubt even the poor people in
+whose cause Amos had so eloquently spoken were shocked by his words.
+"What, are not our sacrifices holy and pleasing to Jehovah? Would he
+have us stop offering up burnt-offerings? That is almost blasphemous."
+
+=Bread upon the waters.=--Yet there were some who listened. And the
+proof is found in the existence of the book of Amos in the Bible. Some
+one cared enough to preserve and copy the first manuscript of Amos'
+sermons and to make still other copies. Another proof is the fact that
+within that same century three other supremely great religious
+teachers caught up his great idea of a new kind of religion and
+repeated it in new and wonderfully convincing ways. Of these other
+prophets we shall learn more in the chapters to follow.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Glance over the book of Leviticus, also the latter part of Exodus,
+and the book of Numbers. How important did the Hebrews evidently
+consider the carrying out of sacrifices?
+
+2. Look up in the Bible dictionary Jeroboam II and Amos. Find out more
+(1) about the times in which Amos lived and (2) about his personal
+history and character.
+
+3. Read as much as you can in the book of Amos: chapters 1 and 2 and 7
+and 8 are most important for our study.
+
+4. Are religious ceremonies ever substituted to-day for the religion
+of justice and right? If so, explain how.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A NEW KIND OF WORSHIP
+
+
+Amos seemed to think of sacrifices and burnt-offerings as mere
+formalities which distracted men's attention from the thing of real
+importance, namely, just and righteous dealing between man and his
+neighbor.
+
+There was another prophet who lived a little later than Amos. Perhaps
+as a youth he heard Amos speak. This was Hosea, who probably came from
+Gilead east of the Jordan. This man saw even deeper into the truth of
+religion than Amos, and his messages wonderfully completed and rounded
+out the great true words which the older prophet had so bravely
+spoken.
+
+
+THE GOOD AND THE EVIL IN THE OLD SACRIFICES
+
+The old religion of sacrifices was by no means wholly evil. When a
+family in those days sat down to a happy feast and gave some of
+everything in gratitude to Jehovah, God really was there, not in the
+sacred rock, but in their love for one another and for him. When they
+poured out libations and burned fat on the altar, God was indeed glad,
+not because of the smell of the smoke or because he enjoyed drinking
+the blood, but because his children were grateful.
+
+=Wrong ideas of God.=--On the other hand, these sacrifices, when
+misunderstood, tended to give people a wrong idea of God as one who
+was greedy for food and gifts. There was the greater danger of this
+wrong idea because of the character of the priests who were supposed
+to represent Jehovah. Many of them were very greedy indeed. The story
+of Eli's sons in 1 Samuel 2. 12-17 is an illustration. The priests
+were supposed to receive for their own personal support a part of all
+the gifts which were brought to the shrine. But the sons of Eli made
+it the rule that whatever came out of the meat kettle on a
+three-pronged fork stuck in by the priest should belong to him. Very
+often, it is plain, the priest got everything. And naturally the
+people came to think of Jehovah as like his priests--as a Being who
+cared only for gifts.
+
+=A worship based on greed.=--The worship of such a god, or of a god
+who was thought of as being of such a character, would, of course, be
+very far from the love and adoration which we Christians are taught to
+offer to our Father, and was really far from the kind of worship
+advocated by devout Hebrews. It would be a sort of bargain-hunting
+worship: the people to bring gifts of the fat of lambs and libations
+of blood and wine, and the god to give them in return good crops of
+wheat and oil, and figs and grapes, and an abundance of silver and
+gold. If Jehovah would give these things, then worship Jehovah. If
+other gods and Baals would give more than Jehovah, worship them.
+
+In short these sacrifices, as Hosea saw, were a kind of worship, and
+no worship is a mere formality, but is a vast influence for good or
+for ill. Because of these wrong ideas the sacrifices had come to be
+more and more an influence for evil. And you cannot have a righteous
+and happy human family in which men are just and kind to each other,
+without a true worship, growing out of a true idea of God.
+
+
+HOSEA'S EXPERIENCE AND MESSAGE
+
+This young man from the lovely, grassy plains and valleys east of the
+Jordan had had an experience which taught him much. He was by nature
+a man with a loving heart. He loved his native land with a burning
+patriotism. By and by there came to him, as to most young men, the
+experience of a passionate love for a beautiful girl. All the deep
+wells of tenderness in Hosea's loving heart were hers, and she became
+his wife. For a time they were happy; then little by little it became
+clear that this woman, Gomer, did not really love him as he loved her.
+She only wanted his money. And when she could get nothing more from
+him, or could get more elsewhere, she left him. She was like the woman
+in Kipling's poem, "The Vampire," "she did not care." It hurt Hosea.
+For a time the light of the whole world seemed darkened for him.
+
+=Reading a meaning in sorrow.=--Then like a flash the thought came to
+him; Jehovah is just like me in this regard. He wants love, not gifts,
+from his people, a love which on their part does not fawn for other
+gifts from him in return, like the cupboard love of kittens purring
+for cream. He loves his people Israel just as I love Gomer. That is
+why he asks us not to worship these other gods, the Baals; not because
+he is jealous but because he is good. He wants us to learn a different
+kind of worship altogether--a worship which is not prompted by greed
+but by love.
+
+With his whole soul aflame, Hosea poured these new ideas into the ears
+of his countrymen.
+
+    ="I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God
+    more than burnt-offerings."=
+
+These great words were quoted by Jesus himself in one of his
+controversies with the Pharisees; they are one of the supreme
+utterances of human literature.
+
+
+STORM CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON
+
+This new insight of Hosea helped him to interpret hopefully the
+troubles which at that time were coming thick and fast upon his
+people. The forebodings of Amos were coming true. The kings of Assyria
+were ambitious. They had set their hearts upon a great Assyrian empire
+extending from Babylonia to Egypt. For more than two centuries each
+new king at Nineveh sent his conquering armies farther west and south.
+Already in Hosea's day they had more than once invaded northern Israel
+and had taken away tribute. And the leaders of the nation did not have
+the brains or the character to avoid a conflict with this merciless
+and resistless foe.
+
+=Jehovah loving even in punishment.=--Amos had declared that Jehovah
+would surely punish his people because of injustices and wrongs which
+they were inflicting on one another. Hosea agreed, but was able to go
+further, and say that in these very punishments which were now coming
+Jehovah was still showing not his anger but his love. He was punishing
+in the hope that his children might learn their lesson and return to
+him in love.
+
+=Fall of the northern kingdom.=--The nation, as a nation, seemed to
+pay no attention to Hosea's pleadings. They went right on living their
+selfish and greedy and lustful lives. And in B.C. 721, as a result of
+provoking the Assyrian king Shalmanezer to a fresh attack, the land
+was again invaded and the city of Samaria was captured and sacked.
+Thousands of the northern Hebrews were carried away as exiles to other
+lands and never returned. The northern kingdom was a failure. The
+religious ideals and dreams of Abraham and Moses had not yet been
+fulfilled. The common people had had little opportunity for happiness
+or growth in knowledge and goodness. But the southern kingdom still
+existed. And many a disciple of Hosea, some of them carrying scraps
+and rolls of papyrus on which his sayings were copied, fled to
+Jerusalem, and there sowed the seed of his great message of a God not
+only of justice but of love.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read Genesis 4. 1-15. In this story of Cain and Abel is there any
+hint as to how even an animal sacrifice might be true worship?
+
+2. Look up Hosea in the Bible dictionary, or in the chapter on Hosea
+in Cornill, The Prophets of Israel. Find out more about the times in
+which he lived and about his personal history.
+
+3. Read what you can in the book of Hosea. This is rather hard
+reading, but chapter 11 is not very difficult, and gives a good idea
+of Hosea's style.
+
+4. Which kind of prayer counts more for the happiness of all, prayers
+for personal advantage, or prayers of love and gratitude to our
+Father?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+JEHOVAH NOT A GOD OF ANGER
+
+
+There are other mischievous delusions in regard to the character of
+God which we find among all races in the early childhood of their
+history. They think of their gods not only as greedy but as having
+arbitrary whims and as often falling into fits of unreasonable and
+cruel anger.
+
+
+EARLY IDEAS OF JEHOVAH'S ANGER
+
+The Hebrews were not entirely free from these wrong notions in their
+conception of Jehovah. Even in the story of Moses, for example, there
+is a strange narrative which declares Jehovah "met Moses and sought to
+kill him" and would have killed him except for the ceremonial rite
+which his wife Zipporah performed.
+
+=The story of the ark and the men of Beth-shemesh.=--Similar to this
+is the story of the wanderings of the ark in 1 Samuel. This ark, or
+sacred chest, was regarded as the special dwelling place of Jehovah in
+Canaan, his permanent home supposedly being on Mount Sinai in the
+desert. When the ark was captured by the Philistines a plague broke
+out in every city where it was taken. Finally it was placed on a new
+cart with specially chosen cows to draw it, and sent back toward the
+Hebrew border, and in the course of time it reached the Hebrew town of
+Beth-shemesh. And we read that "the sons of Jeconiah did not rejoice
+with the men of Beth-shemesh, when they looked upon the ark of
+Jehovah. So he smote among them seventy men."[4]
+
+
+SACRIFICE AS A PROPITIATION OF JEHOVAH'S ANGER
+
+It was just this idea of Jehovah as subject to fits of anger which
+prompted many of the old sacrifices. It was not merely that Jehovah
+was greedy and could be bribed with gifts to grant favors, but also
+that he was dangerous when his anger was stirred and hence sacrifices
+were necessary to placate him.
+
+=Human sacrifices.=--An even darker side of the picture is the
+existence of human sacrifices, even among the Hebrews, in the worship
+of Jehovah. The pathetic story of Jephthah's daughter is the most
+conspicuous example. This warrior had promised to sacrifice to Jehovah
+whatever first came out to meet him, if he returned victorious from
+war. Alas, it was his own daughter! Yet he did not dare to break his
+vow.
+
+The story of Abraham and Isaac also proves that human sacrifices to
+Jehovah were not unknown among the Hebrews. In this story Jehovah
+finally intervenes and allows Abraham to offer up a ram instead of his
+own son. Yet the story implies the belief that Jehovah might demand of
+a father that he kill his own son and burn him on the altar. These
+ideas continued to be believed even down to the time of the prophets,
+Amos and Hosea, and the others about whom we will study.
+
+
+THE PROPHET MICAH AND HIS MESSAGE
+
+About the time that Hosea was finishing his sad career in the north
+another prophet in the south caught up the torch of light and truth.
+His name was Micah. Like the two great men who preceded him, Amos and
+Hosea, his heart was stirred to pity and indignation by the sufferings
+of the poor and by the injustice and luxury of the rich and powerful.
+In plain, direct, and fiery sentences he denounced these evils and
+foretold punishment. Because of these things, he declared that
+"Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the
+high places of a forest."
+
+Micah was especially bitter against those men who made religion their
+business, and used it as a means of oppressing the poor--the prophets
+who proclaim a holy war against those "who put not into their mouths,"
+that is, those who do not give them presents. The priests, Micah says,
+"teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money."
+
+=Micah's great message.=--It was, of course, the existence of
+superstitious fears in the hearts of the people which made it possible
+for the priests and the prophets to join with the rich nobles in
+preying upon them. "You give me this or that," "You pay for this
+sacrifice or that--or I will call down a curse upon you from Jehovah.
+Some dreadful misfortune will come upon you." With one great word
+whose throbbing pity for the ignorance and sorrow of men makes it
+another of the great utterances of human lips, Micah cut the root of
+all such fears. Jehovah is not that kind of a God, he declared. He
+does not break out in fits of rage. He does not need to be wheedled
+back into good nature by costly offerings, perhaps even sometimes with
+the costliest offerings of all, one's own darling children.
+
+    ="Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself
+    before the high God? Shall I come before him with
+    burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be
+    pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of
+    rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my
+    transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
+    He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the
+    Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy,
+    and to walk humbly with thy God."=
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read the stories of the ark, referred to in this chapter. See 1
+Samuel 6. 1-20; 2 Samuel 6. 1-9. What other way of explaining the
+death of Uzzah and of the men of Beth-shemesh occurs to you rather
+than the anger of Jehovah? In the case of the men of Beth-shemesh,
+read 1 Samuel 5, with its clear indications of contagious disease.
+
+2. How has modern science helped to free mankind from the curse of
+superstitious fear?
+
+3. Look up Micah in the Bible dictionary, and find out all you can
+about his personal history and work.
+
+4. Are superstition and wrong religious beliefs ever made the means of
+extortion and oppression to-day? If so, how?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] 1 Samuel 6. 19, Greek version.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ONE JUST GOD OVER ALL PEOPLES
+
+
+THE MESSAGE OF ISAIAH
+
+The destruction of the northern kingdom by the Assyrian armies struck
+fear into the hearts of the Hebrews of the sister kingdom in the
+south. No one had dreamed that such a thing could happen. It is true
+that from the beginning of the terrible onrush the Assyrians had been
+almost irresistible. All the little nations which had stood in their
+way had been swallowed up.
+
+Moreover, the prophets Amos and Hosea had plainly foretold that some
+such calamity would be sent upon Israelites by Jehovah on account of
+their sins. But very few of them believed these brave and lonely
+preachers of the truth. "Jehovah send the Assyrians against us! Why,
+that is absurd! We are Jehovah's people, and he is our God. What has
+he to do with the Assyrians? He may chastise us, but not by sending
+foreign armies to conquer us. What would he do if we should be
+conquered? He would have no nation to worship him." So they reasoned.
+
+=Jehovah too weak to protect his people?=--When, therefore, the
+Assyrians actually did come marching down from the Euphrates River,
+hundreds of thousands of them with their gleaming armor and their
+multitudes of horses and war chariots, and besieged and captured the
+city of Samaria, leaving it a ruin, most of the Hebrews, north and
+south, were sick with fear and bewilderment. For them with their false
+notions it could mean only one thing: their God, Jehovah, was too
+weak to protect his people against the greater gods of Nineveh. The
+Assyrians said to them:
+
+    ="Let not thy God in whom thou trusteth deceive thee, saying,
+    Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of
+    Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria
+    have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt
+    thou be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered
+    them?... Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad,
+    and the king of the city of Sepharvaim?"=
+
+Against such taunts as these, the Hebrews, with their mistaken
+beliefs, could bring no answer.
+
+
+THE CRAZE FOR FOREIGN GODS
+
+With their faith in Jehovah breaking down there was a great running
+here and there after other gods and strange religions. Instead of
+trusting quietly in Jehovah's watchful care many of the people
+resorted in their terror to soothsayers and mediums, to "wizards that
+chirp and mutter." Jerusalem seems to have become almost as full of
+them as the cities of the Philistines, which had always been famous
+for their fortune-tellers and necromancers.
+
+=Alliances with other nations.=--Another favorite way of seeking
+safety was through alliances with other nations and their gods.
+According to the beliefs of that age, when two nations made an
+alliance their gods were included in it. To overcome the Assyrians,
+therefore, it would be necessary to make an alliance with some other
+nation whose gods were very powerful. So the people of Jehovah began
+to "strike hands with the children of foreigners." The rulers of
+Jerusalem set about making coalitions with the other nations of
+western Asia: with the Philistines, the Syrians, the Phoenicians and,
+most of all, the Egyptians. The gods of the Egyptians were supposed to
+be especially strong: Osiris and Isis were the chief of their deities
+and they were believed to be the gods of the underworld--of Sheol, or
+Hades, the abode of the dead. So when these poor ignorant politicians
+at Jerusalem finally did succeed in arranging for an alliance with the
+crafty and deceitful kings of Egypt they said to themselves: "Now we
+are safe. The Assyrians cannot hurt us now. We have made a covenant
+with Death."
+
+
+THE STATESMAN-PROPHET, ISAIAH
+
+It is good to know that among many misguided people there was one man
+whose wisdom of the eternal Truth of God made him stand like a rock
+while the multitudes ran to and fro in uncertainty and despair. Isaiah
+was a comrade and co-worker in spirit with the prophets named in the
+three preceding chapters, Amos, Hosea, and Micah. It is by no means
+impossible that he had listened to the sermons of Hosea, and thus
+caught from him his inspiration. He must certainly have known Micah
+personally, for they lived and preached only some twenty-five or
+thirty miles apart--Micah in the village of Moresheth and Isaiah in
+the city of Jerusalem.
+
+=Isaiah's message.=--Isaiah's special message to his people was that
+all the nations of the world are subject to the righteous rule of the
+God of righteousness, Jehovah; and that the attempt to find safety for
+their nation by alliances with other nations and their gods was
+utterly foolish and wrong. Undoubtedly this message found a response
+in the hearts of those who remained faithful to Jehovah.
+
+This message grew out of the great and splendid ideas as to Jehovah's
+character which Amos and his successors had been working out: that he
+was a God of righteousness and love, not greedy for burnt-offerings,
+not flaring up into fits of anger, and needing to be soothed and
+mollified by peace offerings; but a God who asks only for justice and
+fair-dealing among men, and for true love in response to his own.
+Isaiah repeated these great truths to his own people in Jerusalem in
+glowing words whose eloquence is unsurpassed. For example:
+
+    ="Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings
+    from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well;
+    seek judgment; relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless,
+    plead for the widow....=
+
+    ="I will turn my hand upon thee, and will thoroughly purge
+    away thy dross, and will take away all thy tin: and I will
+    restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at
+    the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called the city of
+    righteousness, the faithful city."=
+
+=Isaiah's originality.=--The prophets and leaders who came before
+Isaiah had not fully grasped the idea of a God of all nations instead
+of one. Amos and Hosea had only caught glimpses of it. Before their
+time, even the greatest of the leaders of Israel had thought of
+Jehovah as for the most part the God of Israel only. But now in the
+midst of the terror of cruel armies and ruined cities and smoking
+fields, when no one knew what to believe or where to look for comfort
+and protection, this great Isaiah was able to realize that Jehovah,
+the God of righteousness and justice and love, was _the God of all
+humanity_. There were no limits to his realm. All tribes and kingdoms
+and races were subject to his holy law. The Assyrians are but "the axe
+that he hews with." His providence rules over all. Whatever wicked men
+may say or do, his will is done in the end. His plans are brought to
+pass.
+
+=Isaiah's faith.=--With such a God as this in whom to trust, Isaiah
+was able to show himself to his countrymen as a wonderful example of
+the power of faith. When they were panic-stricken he was calm. "Thus
+saith the Lord God, ... In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in
+quietness and confidence shall be your strength." Do not rush off to
+other nations and other gods. They will fail you. Most likely they
+will selfishly betray you. Only do the will of the just God, who rules
+the nations, and quietly trust him. Do that and no evil can befall
+you. He is all-wise and all-powerful, and he is good.
+
+So at last, the religion of the one All-Father, which we call
+_monotheism_, was born in the mind and heart of a man, and began to be
+clearly proclaimed by human lips.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up "Isaiah" in the Bible dictionary.
+
+2. Read Isaiah 6. 1-8 for his own story of the experience which led
+him to be a prophet.
+
+3. What parts of this story in Isaiah 6. 1-8 express the idea of one
+great God of all nations? Look up "Monotheism" in the dictionary.
+
+4. Read chapter one or chapter five of the book of Isaiah for a good
+example of his eloquent preaching.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A REVISED LAW OF MOSES
+
+
+Amos and the great prophets who followed him met with the same fate as
+many other pioneers--only a few of their hearers heeded their words,
+or even understood them. But four great leaders in one century--Amos,
+Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah--could hardly fail to make some real
+impression on the minds and lives of their nation. Isaiah was perhaps
+the most influential, partly because the others before them had
+prepared the way and partly because he himself lived and preached to
+the people during a long period of time--more than forty years.
+
+=Isaiah's disciples.=--Another reason why Isaiah exerted so great an
+influence was that he organized little groups of his disciples into
+circles for study. These groups met together from time to time, and
+read aloud the sermons of Isaiah and the other prophets, and talked
+about how to apply them to their lives. We can see them seated in a
+circle in the evening on the floor of one of those little homes
+opening into a narrow Jerusalem street. There would be a candlestick
+in the center, or an upturned bushel measure, with a candle on top of
+it. The circle would be composed of men; but on the outside eagerly
+listening would be women and children. One of the men in the circle
+would be seated by the candle reading from a roll of papyrus on which
+were written the sermons of one of the prophets.
+
+
+THE EVIL DAYS OF MANASSEH'S REIGN
+
+It is well that these reading circles were started, for they kept
+alive the new truth of the reformer-prophets during the reign of a bad
+king, Manasseh. This man's father, Hezekiah, had favored the prophets.
+But Manasseh, who became king when Isaiah was an old man, was opposed
+to all these new ideas. Most of the people of Judah probably agreed
+with him. They still clung to the belief that the one sure way for a
+nation to be prosperous was to offer sacrifices to the most powerful
+gods. Now the kingdom of Judah, in spite of all their worship of
+Jehovah, was still subject to the empire of Assyria. Great sums had to
+be paid every year as tribute. "What fools those prophets are!" men
+said, as they talked together in the streets. "See how much stronger
+the Assyrian gods are than Jehovah!" "Last month I had to pay ten
+shekels for the tribute!" "If we want to prosper, we must worship the
+gods of Assyria."
+
+=Manasseh's persecution.=--Manasseh therefore proceeded to introduce
+the worship of the moon-god, and the sun-god, and other deities of
+Nineveh. He even set up altars to these divinities in the temple of
+Jehovah at Jerusalem. When the disciples of the prophets spoke against
+all this he had them seized and killed, until he had "filled Jerusalem
+with innocent blood." Many a good man who had listened to the reading
+of Isaiah by candlelight in one of those reading circles now had to
+hide himself in some closet or cistern from the soldiers of Manasseh.
+There is a tradition that the aged Isaiah himself was put to death
+during this persecution.
+
+Not all of those who opposed Manasseh were killed, although they were
+finally compelled to keep silence. Those little study circles still
+held meetings in secret to read and talk and pray; and they kept
+looking forward to a time when a different kind of a man would be
+king, and when they would be able once more to lead the people into
+the way of justice and true worship.
+
+In one of these little groups a remarkably wise plan was suggested.
+Let us take the laws which have been handed down to us from Moses, it
+was said, and work them up into a sermon. Every one reverences Moses.
+Let it include the farewell address which Moses is said to have spoken
+to his people just before he died, and put into it all the laws of
+Moses, and let us show what they really mean. And by and by when
+Manasseh is dead we may be able to read it to the people, and perhaps
+they will listen.
+
+
+THE WRITTEN LAW
+
+=The new law book--Deuteronomy.=--So they wrote the new book, and it
+is preserved in our Bible as the book of Deuteronomy. We find in it
+all the old laws which had been handed down from early times, and
+which were called the "laws of Moses." And we find on every page
+sentences which show the influence of the great prophets, from Amos to
+Isaiah. Isaiah's influence is perhaps the most plainly seen,
+especially his teaching that the people should worship Jehovah alone
+as the one ruler of the world. In Deuteronomy also we find a very
+solemn and emphatic commandment bidding us love and worship only
+Jehovah, the one true God. This is the commandment which Jesus called
+the first and greatest of all.
+
+    ="Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou
+    shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with
+    all thy soul, and with all thy might."=
+
+Such a law as this of course forbade all those covenants with other
+gods which Isaiah denounced.
+
+=Laws helping the oppressed.=--All the prophets had been on the side
+of the poor and the weak, against the rich and powerful who oppressed
+them. The authors of the book of Deuteronomy tried to shape this new
+law so as more fully to protect the poor. They made stronger all the
+older laws which were intended to make life a little easier for the
+weak and unfortunate, and they added others: for example, laws
+protecting debtors against greedy and merciless creditors, and laws
+forbidding the extremely harsh penalties which poor men were sometimes
+made to suffer by rich judges.
+
+There was an ancient law requiring that any Hebrew who had fallen into
+a state of slavery on account of debt must be set free after seven
+years. The new law book included this law, and added that the master
+must not send him away emptyhanded at the end of the seven years, but
+must give him food and clothes enough to keep him alive while he
+looked for a chance to work and earn money for himself. The new law
+also protected fugitive slaves from other countries. They were not to
+be returned to their owners.
+
+=A compromise.=--All of the four reformer-prophets whom we have
+studied had condemned the offerings and animal sacrifices of the old
+worship, not only because of the idolatry and other heathen and
+immoral practices connected with them, but also on the ground that
+Jehovah did not want sacrifices anyway, but only justice and love.
+
+But the authors of the new law did not abolish sacrifices altogether.
+They provided that all the small shrines, called "high places," such
+as at Hebron or Gibeon, and all up and down the country should be
+destroyed, but that sacrifices should be offered at Jerusalem and only
+there. The old-time religious feasts, such as the Passover, could no
+longer be celebrated at home. All the people must come up to Jerusalem
+for them. No doubt it was thought that this would help to put down
+idolatry.
+
+
+THE ADOPTION OF THE NEW LAW
+
+Manasseh reigned fifty-five years. It was a long, weary time of
+waiting for the disciples of the prophets. The new law book was put
+away in one of the closets of the temple for safe-keeping. The years
+went by and most of the men who helped to write it died. At last,
+however, the end came for Manasseh. After a short period his grandson,
+Josiah, who was only eight years old, became king. The boy's older
+relatives and friends were all against the ideas of old Manasseh and
+on the side of the prophets. Little by little the principles of the
+prophets were put in practice. Among other things, orders were given
+to tear out from the Jerusalem temple the images and altars to the
+sun-god and the moon-god and other emblems of Assyrian worship. The
+temple was also cleaned and renovated. While the carpenters were at
+work the new law-book was discovered in the chest where it had been
+hidden and was brought to the young king and read before him.
+
+=Josiah's reforms.=--Josiah was deeply impressed and gave orders that
+the reforms called for by the new law should be carried out. Officers
+went all up and down the villages and towns of Judah tearing down the
+little temples, or "high places," where so much heathenism had been
+practiced. And the people were told that several times each year they
+were to bring their sacrifices to the temple at Jerusalem. Those were
+also good days for the common people. There was a king now who "judged
+the cause of the poor and the needy." Many a poor debtor, when his
+crops failed, appealed to the king's court in Jerusalem and he himself
+and his children were saved from slavery and their home from ruin.
+
+The reform only lasted a few years--some twelve or thirteen--and then
+King Josiah was killed in battle, and much of the old heathenism and
+greed and injustice came back again in a flood. But the memory of the
+good days did not quickly fade. It was the first great triumph of the
+teachings of the prophets--the men who kept alive the true ideals of
+Abraham and Moses.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read any part of Deuteronomy 1-5. Select any passages which seem to
+you truly eloquent.
+
+2. Read Deuteronomy 12. 10, 11. What place is referred to by the
+author, when he writes, "The place that Jehovah your God shall choose,
+to cause his name to dwell there"?
+
+3. In the light of the history in this chapter, which is the more
+likely to change human history, a battleship or a Bible class?
+Explain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A PROPHET WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISE
+
+
+The new law-book seemed a great victory. Yet sometimes victories are
+more dangerous than defeats. They lead to self-satisfaction. This was
+certainly the case with this victory of the authors of Deuteronomy.
+The people were careful to offer up their sacrifices at the temple in
+Jerusalem, and very few offerings were brought to the old village
+shrines. But the real kernel of the truth which the prophets had
+proclaimed was in danger of being forgotten. This was the truth that
+_no_ forms of sacrifice, _no_ solemn religious feasts are of any
+account in the sight of God unless accompanied by simple justice and
+brotherly kindness between neighbors. This was the state of affairs
+against which one more great reforming prophet was raised up to
+fight--Jeremiah, of the little town of Anathoth, five miles north of
+Jerusalem.
+
+
+A CONVERSATION IN A JERUSALEM STREET
+
+To understand clearly what Jeremiah's message was and why it was
+needed let us listen to a conversation between two citizens of
+Jerusalem. This one is imaginary. But there must have been many, in
+reality, very similar to this.
+
+_First citizen:_ Did you hear of my good fortune? I have just got a
+fine piece of ground for almost nothing.
+
+_Second citizen:_ How?
+
+_First citizen:_ I had loaned some money to an old farmer, and made
+him pledge me his field as security. Last summer the Babylonian
+soldiers came through that valley and burned all the wheat and barley
+stacks. So the old man couldn't pay back the loan. He tried to tell
+his story to King Jehoiakim, but the king drove him from the palace.
+So I went and took his field.
+
+_Second citizen:_ What would the prophets have said to a transaction
+like that? Did not Isaiah call down woes from Jehovah on those who
+took away poor men's fields?
+
+_First citizen:_ I have just offered a sacrifice to Jehovah.
+
+_Second citizen:_ I suppose, then, it is all right. But did not the
+prophets speak against sacrifice, unless one remembered justice and
+mercy?
+
+_First citizen:_ Yes, but they were speaking of the old sacrifices on
+the "high places," at the village shrines. Everyone knows they were
+heathen shrines and hateful to Jehovah. I offered my sacrifice at the
+temple yonder, just as we are told to do in the law of Moses, which
+King Josiah's servants found in the temple.
+
+Look! Why is all that crowd gathered over there in the temple yard?
+Let us go and see what is happening. I heard some one say, that a
+certain Jeremiah who calls himself a prophet, was to speak there
+to-day. All my friends who have heard him say that he is a false
+prophet.
+
+(They reach the edge of the crowd. Jeremiah is standing on the steps
+of the temple, addressing the people, as follows:)
+
+    ="Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the
+    Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are
+    these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings;
+    if ye thoroughly execute justice between a man and his
+    neighbor; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and
+    the widow ... then I will cause you to dwell in this place,
+    in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even
+    forevermore. Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot
+    profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear
+    falsely, ... and come and stand before me in this house, ...
+    and say, We are delivered; that ye may do all these
+    abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name,
+    become a den of robbers in your eyes?"=
+
+
+JEREMIAH'S MESSAGE OF A HEART RELIGION
+
+It is clear that Jeremiah was fighting the same old battle that Amos
+and the other prophets had fought against a religion of mere empty
+ceremonies. But the battle had grown even harder, because the old
+false practices had been accepted as though they were just the kind of
+religion that Amos had preached. The people said, "We are keeping the
+law of Jehovah," and so they were satisfied with themselves.
+
+=The law to be written on the heart.=--Jeremiah saw that this mistake
+had come from relying too much on a written law. Something more than
+an outward law was needed before men could succeed in living together
+as brothers. It is so easy to keep the letter of the law, or to think
+one is keeping it, while we lose the spirit of it. What is needed,
+Jeremiah said, is a changed heart. Again and again he cried to the
+people, "Oh Jerusalem, cleanse thy _heart_." And in one of the great
+chapters of the Bible, the thirty-first of the book of Jeremiah, he
+looks forward to a time when Jehovah and his people should be bound
+together in a new covenant--not a covenant written on tables of stone
+like the one which Moses wrote at Sinai:
+
+    ="But this is the covenant that I will make ... after those
+    days, saith the Lord. I will put my law in their inward
+    parts, and in their hearts I will write it."=
+
+The apostle Paul saw this promise fulfilled by the love which Jesus
+Christ awakens in men's hearts, so that they gladly and eagerly do the
+will of God. On account of this prophecy of Jeremiah our Christian
+Bible is called the New Covenant, or (from the Latin) the New
+Testament.
+
+
+JEREMIAH AND THE BABYLONIANS
+
+In Jeremiah's time (a decade or so before and after B.C. 600) the
+Babylonians had taken the place of the Assyrians as the rulers of the
+world. There was a powerful king, Nebuchadrezzar, on the throne of
+Babylon. And the existence of the kingdom of Judah depended on
+submission to him. But, just as in Isaiah's time a century before,
+there was now a party in Jerusalem who were constantly plotting to
+rebel against the Babylonians, hoping for help from Egypt.
+
+=Jeremiah as a patriot.=--Jeremiah had no sympathy with them. He loved
+his native land deeply and tenderly. But until the people were
+_worthy_ of liberty he was sure Jehovah would not give it to them.
+
+Again and again they proved their unworthiness. Once when the
+Babylonian armies were knocking almost at the gates of Jerusalem they
+remembered that law about Hebrew slaves, which had been made even
+more strict in the new law, Deuteronomy. According to this law, no
+Hebrew could be kept in slavery longer than seven years. So in their
+fear of the Babylonians these rich nobles solemnly set free a great
+number of slaves whom they had been illegally keeping in slavery. A
+few days later the hostile army, for some reason or other, withdrew.
+And within a month all these slaves who had been set free were seized
+and reenslaved. How Jeremiah denounced this hypocrisy!
+
+
+THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
+
+If Jeremiah's advice had been followed, the people of Judah would have
+been spared a world of sorrow. But the leaders of the kingdom seemed
+bent on dragging the whole nation into ruin. In B.C. 597, Jerusalem
+was captured and some ten thousand of the inhabitants were carried
+away as exiles to Babylon.
+
+Even that lesson was not enough. Within a few years the new king,
+Zedekiah, and his nobles again rebelled against Nebuchadrezzar.
+Jeremiah protested and was called a traitor. Many times his life was
+threatened; for a long period he was kept in a filthy dungeon, and
+almost perished from hunger. But friends saved him. Very soon, in B.C.
+586, the city came to the horrible end which Jeremiah had so patiently
+tried to ward off. The city was captured by Babylonian soldiers and
+burned. Thousands were carried away as exiles. Thousands more fled to
+Egypt and to other foreign countries. Only the poorest farmers were
+left to till the soil. David's kingdom and dynasty were ended.
+
+Jeremiah himself was not taken to Babylon, but remained in Palestine.
+According to tradition, his last days were spent in Egypt, with a
+Hebrew colony there. His life had been spent in keeping alive the soul
+of true religion in an age when few would listen. He is one of the
+great heroes of uncompromising truth.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up the story of Jeremiah in the Bible dictionary.
+
+2. Read Jeremiah 1. 1-9, for a taste of his style of writing.
+
+3. One man sacrifices to a heathen god; another tries to bribe Jehovah
+with a sacrifice as though he were _like_ the heathen gods:
+
+    _a._ Which is worse?
+    _b._ Which would the authors of Deuteronomy have considered worse?
+    _c._ Which would Jeremiah have considered worse?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+KEEPING THE FAITH IN A STRANGE LAND
+
+
+Twice within twelve years, first in B.C. 597, and again in B.C. 586,
+the Babylonians took great companies of Hebrews as exiles from
+Jerusalem to Babylon. Each time there must have been in the line of
+march some twenty-five thousand men, women, and children--an army
+which, marching eight abreast, would stretch at least five or six
+miles.
+
+These must have been sorrowful processions, especially the last of the
+two. For months they had suffered the horrors of a besieged city. Then
+had come the break in the walls, the screams of frightened women and
+children, the heaps of corpses in the streets, and the black smoke and
+red glare of burning buildings; then the hasty setting out on the long
+road to Babylon. Some of them perhaps were able to buy asses to carry
+the little children and a few of their belongings. But most of them
+had to trudge along on foot, fathers and mothers carrying the babies,
+and leaving behind them all their possessions except what could be
+gathered into a towel or a blanket. For a month or six weeks they
+tramped. If anyone fell sick, there was no time to take care of him.
+He must drag along with the rest or fall by the wayside until he
+either recovered or died.
+
+
+THE SETTLEMENT IN BABYLONIA
+
+When they reached the land of their captors they were not made slaves,
+but were allowed to make their home together in settlements on land
+set apart for them. In these colonies they probably worked as
+tenant-farmers on the estates of Nebuchadrezzar's nobles. In the
+prophetic book of Ezekiel, who was among these exiles, we read about
+one of these Jewish colonies by the river, or canal, called Chebar (or
+in Babylonian Kabaru), which means the Grand Canal.
+
+=The attractions of Babylonian life.=--What the Babylonians hoped was
+that these people would forget that they were Hebrews and become
+Babylonians, just as immigrants from Europe become Americans. This is
+exactly what happened in many cases. At first, of course, the Hebrews
+were bitterly homesick. The land of Babylonia was as flat as a floor.
+The Hebrews longed for the lovely hills and valleys of their native
+land.
+
+    =By the rivers of Babylon,
+    There we sat down, yea, we wept,
+    When we remembered Zion.
+    Upon the willows in the midst thereof
+    We hanged up our harps,
+    For there they that led us captive required of us songs,
+    And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,
+    Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
+    How shall we sing the Lord's song
+    In a strange land?=
+
+But the years went by, and they had time to look about in the new
+country. They found it full of opportunities for money-making. The
+soil, watered by hundreds of canals from the Euphrates and Tigris
+Rivers, was wonderfully rich. Everywhere there were prosperous towns
+and cities with great brick buildings, beautifully decorated with
+sculpture, and thronged with merchants. Ships laden with wheat and
+dates and with Babylonian rugs and mantles and other beautiful
+articles sailed up the rivers, or out to sea toward India. Many
+Hebrews, or Jews (that is, Hebrews from Judaea), became merchants. In
+their own land they had been chiefly a nation of farmers. The
+reputation of the Jews for cleverness in trade began with these
+experiences in Babylon when hundreds of Jewish boys obtained positions
+in great Babylonian stores or banks, and by and by set up for
+themselves as merchants. Among the Babylonian contracts on clay
+tablets coming down to us from this period are many Jewish names.
+
+
+THE TEMPTATION TO FORSAKE JEHOVAH
+
+These young Hebrew merchants found themselves in a net-work of foreign
+religious customs. When a customer signed a contract it was proposed
+that he offer a sacrifice to the god Marduk, that the enterprise might
+prosper. There were religious processions and feast days in which
+everyone joined, just as we hang out flags on the Fourth of July.
+Foreigners from other lands joined in these rites and thought nothing
+of it. Furthermore, some of these captive Jews thought that their
+Hebrew God, Jehovah, had not protected them from these mighty
+Babylonians. Surely, the Babylonian gods were the stronger, and one
+should pay them due reverence.
+
+=Memories of the prophets.=--On the other hand, even the dullest of
+the Jews must have begun to understand that the religion of their
+prophets was a different kind of religion altogether--not _a_
+religion, but _true_ religion; and that Jehovah was not like the
+bargaining, jealous gods of the other nations, but was God, with a
+capital G, the one righteous Creator and Ruler of the world.
+
+Moreover, the prophets who had taught them to think of Jehovah in this
+way had again and again declared that just this calamity of exile
+would come upon them if they as a nation continued to disobey
+Jehovah's just laws; and what they had foretold had come to pass. The
+prophets must have been right. Their teaching must be true.
+
+=Hebrews in other foreign lands.=--There were probably almost as many
+Hebrews in Egypt at this time as in Babylonia. Indeed, even before the
+destruction of Jerusalem the constant wars on Canaan had compelled
+great numbers of them to seek for peace and comfort for themselves and
+their wives and children in Egypt, in Damascus, and even in far-away
+Carthage and Greece. The Jews to-day are scattered all over the world.
+This began to be true of them from the time of the destruction of
+Jerusalem.
+
+These Jews who permanently made their homes in foreign countries were
+called _Jews of the Dispersion_. And they all faced the same
+temptations as the exiles in Babylonia. Their problem was how to be
+loyal to their nation and their religion. Great numbers of them, like
+Daniel and his friends in the stories related in the book of Daniel,
+did refuse to sacrifice to heathen gods and held fast to the nobler
+faith which they had brought with them from Jerusalem. This was not
+easy. Not only were they tempted to go with the crowd and worship the
+gods of the land; they were also uncertain just how to worship
+Jehovah. They could not offer sacrifices to him. Jerusalem was a
+thousand miles away, and the temple there was burned. Should they
+build a new temple for him, in Babylon? It was not certain whether
+that would be lawful. The Jews in Egypt did build a temple to Jehovah.
+But no others seem to have been able to do this.
+
+
+KEEPING THE SABBATH
+
+There were some religious customs, however, which could more easily be
+transplanted. One was the Sabbath Day. In the earlier centuries the
+Hebrews had observed the day of the new moon with special sacrifices,
+and also, to some extent, the other days when the moon passed from
+full to first quarter, then to the second, then to the third--in other
+words, every seventh day. There was in the days before Moses no
+thought of resting from labor on these days, except as might have been
+necessary in order to offer up the special sacrifices.
+
+=The Sabbath and the new law of Deuteronomy.=--One of the kindly
+changes which the new law of Deuteronomy introduced was to make the
+Sabbath a rest day for slaves and all toilers. On the Sabbath "thou
+shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy
+manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, ... that
+thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou."
+
+In Babylonia and other foreign lands faithful Jews were especially
+careful to keep the Sabbath by resting from all their work. No one
+else did so, and the custom marked them as Jews. When a Babylonian
+would propose to buy a wagon load of wheat on the Sabbath the Jew
+would say, "I cannot sell on that day; it is a Sabbath day to our
+God." Boys and girls were not allowed to play with their Babylonian
+playmates on the Sabbath. Such experiences helped them to remember
+that they were Jews. They thought of it also as an act of respect to
+Jehovah. It took the place of animal sacrifices. As the time went on
+there grew up rules and regulations in regard to Sabbath-keeping which
+became more and more strict and elaborate.
+
+
+PRAYER AND PUBLIC WORSHIP
+
+Another religious custom which can be practiced anywhere is prayer. It
+must have been a great and happy discovery to many a homesick Jew when
+he found that even though the temple at Jerusalem was far away, yet in
+his own room "by the river Chebar" he could kneel, or even in the
+street he could for a moment close his eyes and breathe out a prayer
+to God and find in it fresh strength and hope and courage.
+
+=The synagogue.=--The weekly Sabbath rest also made it possible for
+the Jews to meet together on that day for prayer and worship together.
+The reading circles which Isaiah had organized, and out of which
+probably came the law-book Deuteronomy, were continued in Babylonia,
+and the Sabbath morning, afternoon, or evening was a convenient time
+of meeting. They would gather in some private house and study the law
+and the writings of the prophets. Then they would pray. Those who were
+the most learned would read and they and others would pray aloud.
+
+By and by special buildings were set apart called synagogues. As time
+went on these synagogue services rather than the services in the
+temple, became the most important part of the Jewish religion. Our
+morning and evening worship in the Christian Church grew out of the
+synagogue service. It was the beginning of that worship of which Jesus
+spoke when he said: The hour cometh when neither in this mountain, nor
+in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father.... But ... the true
+worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read 2 Kings 25, or Daniel 1.
+
+2. Mention some other temptations which must have come to the Jews, in
+Babylon, besides the temptation to worship idols. Consider, for
+example, their new experiences as traders.
+
+3. What are some good ways in which we may be helped to be true to God
+to-day when we are away from home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS
+
+
+As the Jewish exiles were led away to Babylon they asked themselves
+over and over again, "Is this the end of our nation?" It seemed like
+the end. Their capital city lay in ruins. Their king was blinded and
+in chains. All the most intelligent people in the country were being
+led to a distant land, from which most of them would probably never
+return. The iron rule of the Babylonians was everywhere supreme.
+
+There are other nations and races whose people might not have cared so
+much even if this had been the end of their national existence. But
+the Hebrews from the beginning were proud of their race and ambitious
+for its glory. They believed that it had been promised to Abraham,
+their ancestor, that they should become a great nation in their land
+of Canaan. This hope had grown stronger and stronger. Stories of the
+greatness of King David were handed down from fathers to their
+children. To the best men and women among them the great teachings of
+such prophets as Amos and Isaiah were even more worthy of pride. "We
+have a knowledge of the true God," they said, "such as no other nation
+has. Surely there is a great future before us." And now all these
+hopes seemed lost forever.
+
+=The discouragement of the poor people in Canaan.=--Those who had been
+left behind in Canaan when the Babylonians conquered the land were
+even more hopeless and wretched. The exiles soon made a place for
+themselves in the busy, prosperous land of Babylonia. They earned
+money and lived in comfort. But the farmers on the stony hills of
+Judaea suffered untold hardships. Not only were they poor; they were
+also harassed by bands of robbers. The city of Jerusalem, which had
+protected them, lay in ashes. The Babylonian governor did not help
+them. He was there only to collect taxes and tribute. So the old
+enemies, the robber tribes from the desert, came in and burned and
+murdered and stole as they pleased. It is not strange that many of
+these poor people felt that all was over for the Hebrew or Jewish
+nation. Many of them ceased to worship Jehovah and became heathen,
+like the other tribes around Canaan.
+
+
+VOICES OF COMFORT AND HOPE
+
+It was not easy, however, to crush the courage of the Jews. Out of the
+darkness of those days we hear a whole chorus of voices, all of them
+saying: "This is _not_ the end of everything for us. Jehovah has not
+forgotten his promises to our ancestors. He will bring back the exiles
+from Babylon, and from other distant lands whither they have escaped,
+and will rebuild Jerusalem in all its beauty, and will restore the
+glory of our nation in the land of Canaan."
+
+=The prophecies in Isaiah.=--Many of these voices are found in short
+passages scattered through the writings of the older prophets. Two of
+them are in Isaiah 9 and 11.
+
+    ="The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light:
+    ... the rod of his oppressor thou hast broken.... For all the
+    armor of the armed man in the tumult, and the garments rolled
+    in blood, shall even be for burning, for fuel of fire. For
+    unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the
+    government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be
+    called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
+    Prince of Peace."=
+
+"In other words," he reasoned, "Jehovah will free us from the
+tyrannical Babylonians, give us an ideal king, who shall be wise and
+just and faithful, and under whose rule we shall see no more of the
+horror and cruelty of war."
+
+=Ezekiel's prophecies of hope.=--Away off in Babylonia itself Ezekiel
+helped to keep alive the hopes of the exiles. Even though the nation
+is dead, he told them, Jehovah can bring it to life. It will be as
+though the dry and bleaching bones in some valley where a battle was
+long ago fought should suddenly come together as human skeletons, and
+warm living flesh should grow upon them once more. Ezekiel worked out
+a kind of constitution for the new nation and the temple when these
+should be restored.
+
+All these brave leaders helped the Jews to believe in themselves as a
+people. They listened to these men as they spoke in their synagogues
+in Judaea and in Babylonia. They handed from one to another the rolls
+on which their words were written. And ever the children heard from
+their mothers these hopes which kept them from being completely
+discouraged: "We are Jews. The Jewish nation is not going to be
+destroyed. Some day the exiles in Babylon will return to the old
+country. We will have a king of our own. And we will build the great
+nation which Jehovah promised Abraham."
+
+
+THE BEGINNINGS OF A RESTORED JUDAH
+
+In the year B.C. 538, the Babylonian empire was conquered by Cyrus,
+the Persian. There was scarcely any resistance on the part of the
+Babylonians. And one of his first acts in the conquered city was to
+issue a proclamation that captives and exiles from other lands might
+return if they wished. It was the chance for which the Jews for forty
+years had been hoping. Now at last they could go back over that
+thousand-mile journey, up the Euphrates, across to the coast land, and
+down to Canaan. But alas! too many years had passed. Most of those who
+had come to Babylon as grown people and who remembered Canaan as home
+were now dead. Most of the living Jews had grown up in Babylon and
+were comfortably settled there. Yet some did return, and from time to
+time others kept returning. These men who thought enough of their
+nation to go back to the home land and help it in its weakness and
+poverty almost always became leaders.
+
+=The new temple.=--It may have been a group of these leaders returned
+from Babylon who started the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem in
+the year B.C. 520, just sixty years after the old temple of Solomon
+was burned by the soldiers of Nebuchadrezzar. There were two prophets,
+Haggai and Zechariah, who did much to stir up the people to this work.
+Some of their words are preserved in the Old Testament books which
+bear their names. These men may have been returned exiles. The new
+building was erected on the same old foundation and was finished in
+four years. It was dedicated amidst the shouts of the people, while
+old men and women, who as children had seen the former temple before
+it was destroyed, wept for joy that at last a house had been rebuilt
+for Jehovah. It seemed like the beginning of better times for their
+nation.
+
+
+THE GREATEST OF THE PROPHETS OF HOPE
+
+Yet the years that followed the building of the new temple were sad
+and disappointing. The better days did not seem to come. The walls of
+Jerusalem still lay in ruins. The robber tribes still made their cruel
+raids. The poor people suffered most, for they were oppressed and
+plundered by the richer men even of their own people. "What has become
+of Jehovah?" men asked. "Where are his promises to Abraham? Why does
+he allow even his most faithful servants to be oppressed--those who do
+not oppress others; who obey his just laws, and who are merciful to
+their brothers?"
+
+=The great unknown.=--About this time there came to the people of
+Israel a new message from one of the greatest prophets of all those
+whom God has raised up in any nation. He is sometimes called the
+"Great Unknown," because we to-day know nothing about his personal
+life, not even his name. His great messages to his fellow Jews are
+found in the latter part of the book of Isaiah, beginning with chapter
+40. The first verse of this chapter strikes the keynote of comfort
+which runs through all the chapters to follow.
+
+    ="Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye
+    comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare
+    is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; that she hath
+    received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins."=
+
+With words that sing like a beautiful instrument of music he tells the
+people that God has not forgotten them; that the scattered exiles
+will be brought back to the home land; that the ruined city,
+Jerusalem, will be rebuilt and made more lovely than before; that a
+rule of justice will be established; and that the blessings of peace
+and happiness will come to all.
+
+=The greatness of service.=--Even better than these promises of
+happiness, our unknown prophet helped the people to understand more
+clearly what it means to _be_ a great nation. He did not believe that
+the God of heaven and earth would make a favorite of any one nation.
+Instead he taught that Jehovah had chosen Israel to be a servant
+nation for him, to serve all other nations by teaching them about the
+true God.
+
+    ="I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that
+    thou mayest be my salvation to the end of the earth."=
+
+He explained in this way even the undeserved suffering which many of
+the best people of Israel were enduring. Israel thus became a type of
+Him who was "despised and rejected of men." To be chastised and
+afflicted and oppressed is not so hard to bear if it is all a part of
+Jehovah's plan for men. The ideal in the Old Testament becomes a
+reality in the New.
+
+So for the first time the idea came into the world that Abraham's
+dreams of a greater and nobler nation and God's promises to Abraham,
+Moses, David and the rest were not for the Hebrew people only, but for
+all men; that beginning with this little nation God was making a
+better world; a world of love, instead of selfishness and hate; of
+happy work and play, instead of misery and hopelessness and war.
+
+Of course very few of the prophet's hearers understood him. But more
+and more the Jews were filled with the thought that somehow God had a
+great future for them. Boys and girls, as they grew up, wondered if
+they might not become leaders, a new Moses, a second David, or Elijah,
+to play some part in bringing the great future which God had promised.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read Isaiah 40 or 49 for a taste of the writing of the "Great
+Unknown."
+
+2. Read Ezekiel 2. 1-7, or 14, for a similar taste of this prophet's
+message and style.
+
+3. Which of these two prophets do you consider the greater?
+
+4. Is there evidence to-day that the Jews still believe in a restored
+nation?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE GOOD DAYS OF NEHEMIAH
+
+
+About seventy years after the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem a
+committee of Jews went to Persia to seek aid for their distressed
+country from their more prosperous kinsfolk. In the Persian capital,
+Susa, they found a man named Nehemiah, who was cup-bearer and personal
+adviser to the king of Persia. He was a man of good sense, of kindly
+sympathy, and of great ability--just the man to help them. They told
+him how the walls of the city of their fathers had never been rebuilt
+in all these years since the Babylonians had captured it, and how the
+poor people suffered from robbers and oppressors, who took advantage
+of their helplessness.
+
+
+NEHEMIAH'S GREAT ADVENTURE
+
+All this was news to the young man. They did not have newspapers and
+magazines in those days, and people in one part of the world knew
+little about what was going on in other parts, even those near by. The
+stories told by his brother Jews made Nehemiah sad, and his sadness
+showed in his face even when he came before the king. This was
+dangerous, for a part of his duty was to keep the king in a cheerful
+humor. But his Majesty was not angry, but asked him "Why are you so
+sad?" Nehemiah answered by telling him the story of his native land
+and its pitiable condition; and then and there with a prayer in his
+heart he asked the king to give him a leave of absence, and to permit
+him to go to Jerusalem and help the people there to rebuild the
+walls.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: REMAINS OF WALLS OF THE CANAANITE CITY, MEGIDDO]   |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: PART OF CITY WALL AND GATE, SAMARIA]               |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+=Why walls were greatly needed.=--All cities in those days were
+surrounded by walls. These were necessary, because no government had
+yet been strong enough to rid the country of the bands of robbers who
+made their dens in almost every cave or lonely valley. Not only the
+road between Jerusalem and Jericho, of which Jesus tells, but on
+almost all roads one was in danger of falling among thieves. In the
+deserts on the edge of Palestine whole tribes lived by robbery, and
+were large enough and well enough organized to defeat good-sized
+armies. Hence no city was safe unless it was well fortified.
+
+Nehemiah's request was granted by the king of Persia. So, with letters
+to the governors of the provinces through which he was to pass, the
+young leader set out, perhaps on camel-back, to Jerusalem. After
+looking about and seeing for himself the condition of the city, and
+the work which needed to be done, he called the people together and
+proposed that they rebuild the walls. His energy carried the day. They
+answered, "Let us rise up and build."
+
+
+THE WALLS REBUILT
+
+The task which Nehemiah had undertaken was a difficult one. Jerusalem
+is situated on a ridge, with deep valleys on all sides except the
+north. The walls did not need to be high where there were cliffs or
+steep slopes falling away into the valley. But along the entire north
+side, and in many other places also, they had to be at least thirty
+feet high, and fifteen or twenty feet thick at the base. The stones
+and bricks for this were buried in the rubbish where the old walls
+had been battered down. They had to be dug up and dragged into their
+places, stone by stone. Most of the work had to be done by hand,
+although they perhaps used asses with basket-paniers for carrying lime
+and sand. They may have constructed small cranes for lifting the
+heaviest stones, but they had very little machinery.
+
+=Difficulties overcome.=--For a time the work went merrily forward.
+But soon their rapid progress became known and those who had prospered
+because of their weakness became jealous. There was a certain
+Sanballat, governor of Samaria, who wanted to keep Jerusalem helpless
+so that Samaria might always be the chief city in the land. They were
+willing that the poor people of Jerusalem should go on suffering from
+the attacks of cruel bandits if only they themselves could keep on
+growing richer. He and others did all in their power to stop the work.
+They organized a force of men and planned to attack and kill the
+builders. But Nehemiah had his workers carry their swords as they
+worked, and arranged for signals at which all should rush to the help
+of any part of the wall which might be attacked. He also kept the
+people working at top speed from early morning every day "until the
+stars appeared," and cheered them on when they were tired and
+discouraged.
+
+Their enemies tried all kinds of tricks; they threatened to report to
+the king of Persia that Nehemiah was organizing a rebellion; they
+plotted to seize Nehemiah himself. But the man was too clever for
+them. The walls kept steadily going up and up. The gates were set in
+place and locked; and at last, fifty-two days, or just a little more
+than seven weeks after the first stone was laid on the old
+foundations, the work was done.
+
+Once more they could lie down in peace behind protecting walls, and
+not tremble at the thought that fierce robbers might swoop down upon
+them before the morning light to plunder, burn, and murder. Once more
+they could begin to live their lives in peace and plan for the future.
+Traders could bring their goods into the city without fear of losing
+everything. Men could buy and sell and prosper.
+
+
+NEHEMIAH'S REFORMS
+
+But security from outward foes is not enough to bring happiness to a
+people. Even before the walls were finished some of the poor people
+among the Jews came to Nehemiah with a bitter complaint against their
+rich neighbors. "We are starving," they said. Others said: "We have
+mortgaged our fields in order to borrow money that we may buy food for
+our children. And now because we cannot pay these men take our fields
+from us, and even sell our sons and daughters into slavery." It was
+the old story of greed and oppression. Those who were stronger and
+more fortunate used their advantage to oppress their brothers and
+extort from them all that they could pay. So a few men were able to
+live in luxury, even in those troubled days, while the great majority
+suffered in poverty and misery and despair.
+
+=The great massmeeting.=--In that little country of Judaea it was
+possible to gather into an assembly, perhaps in the open space in
+front of the temple, men from almost every country village and city
+street. Such an assembly Nehemiah called and laid before it the
+complaints he had received. He told the rich nobles to their faces:
+"You exact usury, every one, of his brother. The thing you do is not
+good.... I pray you leave off this usury." The nobles had nothing to
+say. Every one knew that what Nehemiah said was true. Then he went on:
+"Restore to them their fields, their vineyards, their olive-yards, and
+their houses, also the grain, the new wine, and the oil that you exact
+from them." Then said they, "We will restore them."
+
+And Nehemiah made them take oath to carry out their promise. "Also I
+shook out my lap," Nehemiah writes in his memoirs, "and said, So God
+shake out every man from his house, and from his labor, that
+performeth not this promise; even thus be he shaken out and emptied.
+And all the congregation said 'Amen,' and praised the Lord. And the
+people did according to this promise."
+
+=The beginnings of a just and happy nation.=--Nehemiah could not stay
+long in Jerusalem. But he was able to make another visit a few years
+later. And for a time at least his ideas were carried out. During this
+time there was happiness among the people. They all had something to
+eat and clothes to wear. All fathers and mothers had a little time to
+play with their children after the close of work each day. All who
+could read had a little time to study the rolls of the prophets and
+the law of Jehovah. And all were brothers. More than ever before the
+old dreams, handed down from Abraham, had begun to come true.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up the story of Nehemiah in the Bible dictionary.
+
+2. Read Nehemiah 1-2, or 5. 1-6, 16.
+
+3. On the right side of the line, below, write what in your judgment
+corresponds to the men and conditions of Nehemiah's time.
+
+_Nehemiah's Time_                   | _Our Own Time_
+                                    |
+_a._ Walls around the city.         | _a._ ___________________________
+                                    |
+_b._ Robbers, and enemies such as   | _b._ ___________________________
+       Sanballat.                   |
+                                    |
+_c._ The poor and enslaved people.  | _c._ ___________________________
+                                    |
+_d._ Nehemiah.                      | _d._ ___________________________
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS FOR THE NEW WORSHIP
+
+
+We have seen that a new kind of public worship of God had been growing
+up among the Hebrews, beginning with the time when the prophets began
+to condemn the misuse of the old animal sacrifices. The new worship
+consisted chiefly of prayer. We have seen how the exiles in Babylon
+began to come together on the Sabbath days to study the law and other
+sacred writings, and also for prayer. Those exiles who returned to
+Judaea brought this custom with them. Special buildings, called
+synagogues, were erected in Judaea as well as wherever there were
+faithful Jews in other lands. These synagogues rather than the temple
+gradually came to be the real home of the Jewish religion even in
+Jerusalem itself. The chief part of the synagogue service was always
+the study of the Scriptures. But prayer was also given an important
+place.
+
+In the temple also, after it was rebuilt, public prayer was regarded
+as very important--even if not quite so important as the regular
+burnt-offerings. There were also prayer-hymns, sung by the people and
+by special choirs.
+
+=Making hymnals and prayer books.=--In our churches, to-day, we could
+scarcely conduct our services without the hymn books scattered through
+the pews. In some denominations there is a prayer book, which is
+considered just as necessary as the book of hymns. In those ancient
+synagogues and in the temple service the Jews found such books
+needful. Had we gone into one of their meetings, we would not indeed
+have found a book waiting for us in the seat or handed to us by the
+usher. The art of printing was unknown. Books could not be purchased
+cheaply by the hundred. Each copy had to be written out by hand with
+pen and ink on a roll of papyrus. But we would probably have
+discovered that the leader of the worship had a book of prayers and
+hymns before him. He would read them, line by line, each Sabbath for
+the others to memorize. To make this task of memorization easier many
+of the Jewish hymns were written in acrostic form--that is, each line
+or stanza began with a different letter in the order of the Hebrew
+alphabet.
+
+
+HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS IN THE BIBLE
+
+Our book of Psalms is a collection of smaller collections of just such
+hymns and prayers to be used in worship. Each one of these smaller
+collections came out of some synagogue or group of synagogues, or was
+prepared by the members of one of the choirs who led the worship in
+the temple. By studying these we may learn something about how they
+were used.
+
+=The Prayers of David.=--This was the title of one of these smaller
+books. It contained Psalms 2 to 41, and some others of our book of
+Psalms. All of these are headed in our Bible, "A Psalm of David."
+These words, in the original Hebrew, mean "dedicated to David." The
+last page in this smaller book is perhaps now found where our Psalm 72
+comes to an end with the words, "The Prayers of David the Son of Jesse
+are Ended." This sentence corresponded, in the little book, to the
+words, "The End," in our modern books. It was copied in what is now
+our book of Psalms, even though it is no longer "the end."
+
+These "David" hymns were probably written not only by David, but as
+well by members of a synagogue of worshipers who were poor and
+oppressed. There are a great number of references to "enemies."
+"Deliver me not over unto the will of mine adversaries." "Thou
+preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies." These
+people probably lived in the days before the reforms of Nehemiah, when
+there were indeed many enemies both outside of Jerusalem and within
+the city, heathen robbers, and rich oppressors of their own race, men
+who cheated them and who mocked them when they prayed for help to
+Jehovah.
+
+=The Pilgrim Songs.=--Another very different hymn book embedded in our
+book of Psalms is one which we may call the "Pilgrim Songs." It is
+found in chapters 120 to 134 of our Psalter. All of these psalms have
+the title, "A Song of Ascents." This probably means a song to sing on
+the ascent to Jerusalem. These come from the happy time after Nehemiah
+when the city was safely protected by walls. Because of this blessed
+safety it was now possible for the people once more to go on
+pilgrimages to the great annual religious feasts as prescribed in the
+law-book of Deuteronomy. Before the walls were rebuilt such gatherings
+of pilgrims with their gifts would merely have been an invitation to
+robbers. But now the custom of pilgrimages was renewed, and they came
+to be among the happiest events of the year in the lives of Jewish men
+and women and older boys and girls.
+
+The journey to Jerusalem was usually made in large companies or
+caravans for the sake of protection. For the roads outside of
+Jerusalem were by no means safe. And naturally in such a crowd of
+folks from the home village there would be much singing. These
+"Pilgrim Songs" grew out of the spirit of these journeys. They are
+filled with gratitude to God for his kindness, and with trust in his
+care, and with pride in their beautiful city Jerusalem which God had
+helped them to rebuild.
+
+    ="I was glad when they said unto me,
+    Let us go into the house of the Lord."
+
+    "As mountains are round about Jerusalem,
+    So the Lord is round about them that fear him."=
+
+
+HEBREW MUSIC AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
+
+These hymns were frequently sung to the accompaniment of instrumental
+music. There are many allusions in the book of Psalms and elsewhere in
+the Old Testament to the harp (_kinnor_), the psaltery (_nebel_), the
+cornet (_shophar_) and other instruments.
+
+We know just how they looked, for pictures of them, or at least of
+similar instruments, are found on Egyptian and Babylonian monuments.
+The harp was probably like a large guitar, only it was played like a
+mandolin, with a plectrum. The psaltery or lute was a larger-sized
+harp. The cornet or trumpet was simply a curved ram's horn blown with
+the lips like our cornets; there was also another form made out of
+brass, long and straight. The Hebrews also used a wind instrument like
+our flute, a pipe with holes on the side for making the different
+notes. They seem also to have been very fond of percussion
+instruments--the timbal, a small drum, and the cymbals, metal plates
+clashed together.
+
+It is impossible to know how far the Hebrews had developed the art of
+music. It seems most likely that the best they ever learned to do
+with these various instruments would have sounded to us more like a
+loud banging, twanging noise than like our own melodies and harmonies.
+
+=Influence of this worship of prayer and song.=--Nevertheless the
+prayer-hymns of which we have told could not fail to wield an
+influence on the lives of those who sung them. Boys and girls heard
+them week by week until they could not forget them. When they were
+tempted to wrongdoing these melodies rang in their ears. For in all
+these collections there were great hymns, written by men who had
+caught the spirit of God as had Amos and Hosea and their
+successors--men whose souls were white, whose love was tender, and
+whose courage was unshakable. Only such men could write such lines as
+these:
+
+    ="Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle?
+    Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
+    He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness,
+    And speaketh truth in his heart.
+    He that slandereth not with his tongue,
+    Nor doeth evil to his friend,
+    Nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor."=
+
+Or these:
+
+    ="Thou delightest not in sacrifice; else would I give it:
+    Thou hast no pleasure in burnt-offering.
+    The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:
+    A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."=
+
+These words and scores of other passages just as great set to music
+long since forgotten but in those days sweet to the ear, helped untold
+multitudes to do justice and to love mercy, to confess their sins, and
+to find strength and hope in God.
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | [Illustration: CANAANITE PIPE OR FIFE]                            |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN HARP]                                  |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: AN ASSYRIAN UPRIGHT HARP]                          |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: AN ASSYRIAN HORIZONTAL HARP]                       |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: A BABYLONIAN HARP]                                 |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: JEWISH HARPS ON COINS OF BAR COCHBA, 132-135 A.D.] |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | [Illustration: ASSYRIAN DULCIMER]                                 |
+ |                                                                   |
+ | Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
+ | Fund.                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Of the "David" psalms, read any of the following chapters: 11, 13,
+15, 23, of the book of Psalms.
+
+2. Of the "Pilgrim" psalms, read chapter 121 or 124 or 126.
+
+3. Which of these do you like best?
+
+4. Look up words scattered through the Psalms which appear to be
+musical directions.
+
+5. In what ways did the following Psalms help the Jews to realize
+their hopes?--
+
+     _a._  15.
+     _b._  51.
+     _c._ 124.
+
+6. For a good example of one of the prayers, in the temple, read 1
+Kings 8. 27, 28.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISM
+
+
+All nations like to think of themselves as superior to the rest of
+mankind. The Greeks used to despise all foreigners as "barbarians." We
+in America ridicule immigrants from other countries and call them
+unpleasant names. The Jews also made the same mistake of despising
+people of other races and nations. We find laws even in so just a
+law-book as Deuteronomy which are unfair to foreigners. Jews were
+forbidden to exact interest from fellow Jews, but they were permitted
+to exact it from foreigners. The flesh of animals which died of
+themselves could not be eaten by Jews, but they might sell it to
+foreigners.
+
+
+THE INCREASING HATRED TOWARDS FOREIGNERS AFTER THE EXILE
+
+We have seen how the exiles in Babylonia kept the Sabbath and went to
+the synagogue in order that they might continue to be Jews and might
+not lose their Jewish religion, the worship of Jehovah. As time went
+on they found it necessary to be more and more strict. As their girls
+and boys grew up they fell in love with Babylonian young men and young
+women. But if these young Jews had married Babylonians, the children
+would have grown up as Babylonians in customs and religion. So all
+intermarriages were forbidden.
+
+=The fight against intermarriages in Judaea.=--When these exiles
+returned from Babylonia to Jerusalem they were shocked to find that
+the Jews there had not been strict in this matter. They had taken
+wives and husbands from the Moabites, and Edomites, and other nations
+around Judaea.
+
+It is hard for us to see that this was wrong, for these people
+probably became worshipers of Jehovah, like Ruth the Moabitess in the
+beautiful story in the Bible, who said to her Jewish mother-in-law,
+"Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." The exiles from
+Babylon, however, including so good and wise a man as Nehemiah, fought
+with all their might against all intermarriages. Without doubt the
+motive, which was to protect the Hebrews from idolatry, was good, but
+the matter is certainly open to criticism, especially in the light of
+our truer knowledge of God. We read that at one time, even under the
+leadership of Ezra, one of the returned exiles, a large number of the
+wives from other nations were cruelly divorced and sent away weeping
+to their own people. All this helped to give the Jews a wrong and
+unreasonable pride in their own race and a silly and unkind contempt
+for other races.
+
+=The hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans.=--About the time of
+Nehemiah there was also started a bitter feud between the Jews and the
+Samaritans. There had always been a good deal of jealousy between the
+people of Judah in the South, and the Hebrews of the central and
+northern parts of Canaan. Samaria was the capital of the northern
+kingdom, which had split off from the kingdom of David and Solomon.
+This old jealousy flamed up again after Nehemiah. The Samaritans had
+intermarried with their heathen neighbors, perhaps more than the Jews
+in Judaea. So the Jews claimed that the Samaritans had no right to call
+themselves true Hebrews.
+
+The Samaritans, on the other hand, claimed that they were true
+children of Abraham, and they built a temple of their own on Mount
+Gerizim as a rival to the temple of Jerusalem. This jealousy and hate
+grew more and more bitter until, in the time of Jesus, the Jews looked
+upon Samaritans with even more contempt than any Gentiles.
+
+=The growing prejudice against the Jews among other peoples.=--Those
+who call names generally hear themselves taunted and ridiculed in
+turn. The very fact that the Jews would not work on the Sabbath marked
+them as peculiar and helped to make them unpopular. Their laws about
+foods, clean and unclean, were also different from those of other
+nations. For example, they would not eat pork. Moreover, as time went
+on many of the Jews in Babylon and in other foreign lands grew
+prosperous. They were industrious and they had brains and a special
+gift for trade. Before long they had money to lend, and they often
+demanded unjust rates of interest. This too made them unpopular. So
+the more proudly and contemptuously they held aloof from Babylonians,
+Persians, Egyptians, and all other foreigners the more frequently they
+heard themselves called "Jewish dogs" and other hard names.
+
+
+THE COMING OF THE GREEKS
+
+This racial pride on the part of the Jews was still more increased by
+the coming of another unusually proud people, the Greeks. In the year
+B.C. 333, Alexander the Great defeated the army of the king of Persia
+and soon extended his rule over all western Asia, including Judaea.
+Very soon Greeks were everywhere to be seen, in all the cities of
+Palestine. In order to protect the country from the desert robbers
+who, as we have seen, had been making their raids through all the
+centuries, a chain of Greek cities was built to the east of the Jordan
+and thousands of Greek settlers were brought there to live. The ruins
+of many beautiful Greek temples and theaters may still be seen in that
+country. Samaria was also rebuilt as a Greek city, the capital of the
+province. So there were Greeks on all sides of Jerusalem and throngs
+of Greek merchants and travelers were to be seen on the streets of
+every Jewish city and village.
+
+The Greeks in some ways had as much to be proud of as a people as the
+Jews. Their sculptors had carved the most beautiful marbles in the
+world. Their poets had composed the most beautiful poems. Their
+philosophers were wiser than those of any other nation. Moreover, many
+of these Greeks who came into Palestine and other countries of Asia
+were filled with a truly missionary spirit. It is said that Alexander
+the Great was inspired by the thought that he was helping to spread
+the art and wisdom and culture of the Greeks throughout the world.
+
+=The struggle between Judaism and Hellenism.=--This meant that the old
+religion of Jehovah was in danger of being forgotten not only in
+Babylonia and other lands but even in Judaea and Jerusalem. Many Jews
+quite fell in love with the new art and learning of the Greeks. They
+learned the Greek language, gave their children Greek names, such as
+"Jason," for example, instead of "Joshua." A gymnasium was built in
+Jerusalem where Jewish lads learned to exercise and play games after
+the Greek style. Many of them tried to hide the fact that they were
+Jews, and too often they ceased to worship Jehovah, the God of their
+fathers, and offered sacrifices to Zeus and other Greek divinities.
+
+=The beginnings of the Pharisees.=--Other Jews fought against all
+these new ideas and fashions. They became more strict than ever in
+their observance of the peculiar customs and regulations of the Jewish
+law. It was at this time that the beginnings of the party of the
+Pharisees came into existence, of which we read in the New Testament.
+The word "Pharisee" means "one who is kept apart, or separate"; that
+is, one who holds aloof from the heathen and from heathen customs.
+They were the men who "when they come from the market place, eat not,
+except they bathe themselves." They might have touched some heathen
+person in the street which they thought made them ceremonially
+unclean. In the earlier days the Pharisees were called "Hasideans," or
+"the pious."
+
+It was right, of course, that these men should struggle to keep their
+religion alive. The great religious truths of the prophets were worth
+more to the world than all the art and wisdom of the Greeks. But the
+result of the struggle was an even greater scorn on the part of the
+Hebrews for all men who were not Jews.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read Esther 9. 5, 11-16. What kind of patriotism does this passage
+express?
+
+2. Compare the following laws in Deuteronomy: 10. 18-19 and 14. 21.
+Can you explain the inconsistency?
+
+3. What national characteristics do hatred and contempt of other
+nations lead to?
+
+4. What is the danger from continually hurling bad names at
+foreigners, such as "Greasers," "Chinks," and so on?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+A BROAD-MINDED AND NOBLE PATRIOTISM
+
+
+In spite of all their prejudice, thinking Jews could not help but see
+that the Greeks, in spite of their heathen religion, had brought with
+them many of the blessings of civilization. Many articles of everyday
+comfort were introduced into Canaan for the first time by the Greeks,
+for example, new varieties of food, such as pumpkins, vinegar,
+asparagus, and various kinds of cheese. From the Greeks also the Jews
+learned to preserve fish by salting them. This made possible the
+splendid fishing business by the Sea of Galilee. In the time of Jesus
+we find this lake surrounded by flourishing towns. Most of the men in
+these towns supported themselves and their families by fishing. The
+fish were salted and the salt fish sold in the inland towns. They were
+even exported to foreign countries. The Greeks probably also
+introduced poultry and hens' eggs to the farmers and housewives of
+Canaan.
+
+=New articles of dress and furniture.=--These same newcomers brought
+with them a greater variety of fabrics and garments, such as Cilician
+goat's-hair cloth, out of which coarse cloaks and curtains, as well as
+tents, were made; also felt for hats and sandals. The Greeks also
+introduced the custom of carrying handkerchiefs. Many new kinds of
+household utensils came into Jewish homes as a result of the example
+of their Greek associates, for example, arm chairs, mirrors, table
+cloths, plates, and cups. Hemp and hempen cords and ropes came from
+the Greeks. From this same source came the custom of placing food at
+meals on dining tables, like ours, while the diners, unlike ourselves,
+lay on couches with their heads toward the table. It may also have
+been the Greeks--although possibly it was the Persians--who first
+brought coined money into Canaan, so that in making each purchase it
+was not necessary to weigh the silver or the gold.
+
+All these useful and beautiful things helped to win over sensible
+people among the Jews to look with favor on their new neighbors. And
+when Jewish travelers found themselves stopping at new and more
+comfortable inns managed by Greek innkeepers, and went to bathe in the
+public baths which were erected in the larger cities by the Greek
+authorities, they were sure to spread the idea that even Jews might
+learn something from the Greeks.
+
+
+BROAD-MINDED PATRIOTS AMONG THE JEWS
+
+Fortunately there were some among the Jews who could appreciate the
+good and beautiful things in Greek civilization without being disloyal
+to their own race and their own religion; and, on the other hand,
+could be proud of the great teachings of the prophets without hating
+and despising men of other races. They had learned well the lesson of
+that great prophet whom we call the Second Isaiah, that Jehovah chose
+Israel, not as his special "pet" or favorite, but as his servant to
+teach all nations about the true God and his righteous rule. Such men
+realized that the Greeks and Egyptians and other foreigners were
+Jehovah's children like themselves, and that instead of despising them
+they ought to make friends with them and try to teach them the
+religion of Jehovah.
+
+=Jewish religious books written for Greeks.=--It was by men of this
+broad spirit that a number of books were written for the sake of
+winning Greeks to the Jewish religion. These books were written in the
+Greek language and explained to Greek readers the law of Moses and the
+teachings of the prophets. Among the most important of these books was
+the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. This translation
+was made, indeed, chiefly for the benefit of Jews living in Greek
+countries who had forgotten the old Hebrew tongue. But the translators
+also had in mind the great non-Jewish Greek world.
+
+And the new translation, sometimes called the Septuagint (that is, the
+book of the seventy translators who are said to have worked on it),
+found its way into the hands of many a Greek reader who learned from
+it for the first time something about the religion of Jehovah.
+
+The author of the story of Jonah, in the Bible, was another Jew of
+this broad spirit. He had traveled in Egypt. He had seen the vices and
+sins of the heathen. And he had tried to tell them of the just and
+merciful laws of the one God of all the world, Jehovah. Many of his
+fellow Jews criticised him for this. "Why do you have anything to do
+with these Gentile dogs?" they asked. It was in answer to this
+question that he wrote about Jonah, the prophet whom Jehovah had sent
+to preach to the wicked heathen city of Nineveh. He had tried to avoid
+obeying the command, but at last had gone; and when the Ninevites
+listened to his preaching and repented and turned to Jehovah he was
+angry. And Jehovah said unto him, "Should not I have regard for
+Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand
+persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left
+hand?" (That is, six score thousand little children.)
+
+Jonah in this story is a type of the Jewish people. As Jehovah sent
+Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, so he would send the Jews to teach
+the nations of his love. What a pity to be so narrow-minded, so
+blinded by pride of race, as to have no sympathy or good will for any
+other race of men! This is the lesson the author of the book meant to
+teach.
+
+Probably very few of the Jews who heard this man, or read his book,
+understood or appreciated him. But there were enough of them who cared
+for him to preserve his book, so that it became a part of their sacred
+writings; and perhaps more than any other book in the Old Testament it
+prepared the way for a broadening of the dreams and plans of Abraham
+and Moses and the prophets to include not only Jews but all
+mankind--that broadening which we call Christianity.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Read Isaiah 19. 19-24.
+
+2. What do you think this writer would have thought of our American
+habit of calling names at foreigners?
+
+3. What advice would these writers have given us, in regard to our
+"Japanese" problem?
+
+4. If you have time, look into the book of Jonah.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS[5]
+
+
+All children among all races receive as they grow up some kind of an
+education. Isaac learned from his father Abraham and from the other
+older people about him how to set up a tent, how to milk a goat, how
+to recognize the tracks of bears and other wild beasts, and all the
+other bits of knowledge so necessary to wandering shepherds. Not till
+many centuries after Abraham in Hebrew history were there any special
+schools apart from the everyday experiences of life, or any man whose
+special work was that of teaching. But in the centuries following the
+destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and its gradual
+restoration, the people came more and more to see the importance of
+education. And in the course of these three or four centuries before
+the coming of Christ there grew up two kinds of schools and two kinds
+of teachers, first, an _open air_ school where life itself was
+studied, and then later, in the second place, an _indoor_ school,
+where the chief study was that of books.
+
+
+SCHOOLS IN THE OPEN AIR
+
+These open-air schools were most often to be seen in the "city gate."
+The Jews meant by the "gate" of the city the broad open space in front
+of the actual opening in the city wall. It was like the public square
+in our modern towns.
+
+=Scenes in the "Gate."=--Suppose we visit one of the "gates." It is
+early morning. Everything is noise and confusion. Here are merchants
+peddling their wheat, or dates, or honey, their wool or their flax.
+Customers are haggling over prices. Each one is shouting with a
+shrill voice and with many gestures that the price asked is an
+outrage. Besides the merchants there are judges. Here sits one of the
+city elders with a long white beard. Before him are two farmers
+disputing over a boundary line--also witnesses and spectators.
+
+Out in the middle of the area children are playing. Every now and then
+a mangy yellow dog noses his way through the crowd looking for scraps
+of food. And everywhere are the folks who came out just to see their
+neighbors and to hear the news.
+
+In one corner of the open space by the "gate" we notice a dignified
+figure, an old man with a circle of friends and listeners. He is
+watching the varied scenes around him and occasionally talking with
+those about him.
+
+"Who is that old man?" we ask.
+
+"That is one of the wise men," we are told.
+
+These "wise men" among the Hebrews studied human nature, and gave to
+young men and to any less-experienced people who cared to listen, the
+benefit of their practical good sense. They loved to teach through
+"proverbs," that is, short and witty sentences. A large number of the
+"proverbs" of these teachers are preserved in the Book of Proverbs in
+our Old Testament.
+
+
+THE TEACHING OF THE WISE MEN
+
+One of the most important keys to success in life is a knowledge of
+people. This the wise men helped their students to obtain. Let us sit
+for a while beside one of them and look through his eyes at the people
+who pass by. Here comes young Mr. Know-it-all. He wears a very fine
+garment, and walks with a swagger. His father and mother and all his
+aunts and uncles have always told him that he is the most clever
+person in the world. And, of course, he agrees with them. He will
+listen to advice from nobody. The wise man watches him pass, then says
+to his hearers:
+
+  ="Seest thou a wise man in his own conceit?
+  There is more hope of a fool than of him."=
+            (=Proverbs 26. 12.=)
+
+The wise man has a sense of humor. He loves to smile at the little
+inconsistencies of life. He has been listening to the talk between a
+merchant and his customer. And this is his comment on it.
+
+  ="It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer:
+  But when he is gone his way, then he boasteth."=
+            (=Proverbs 20. 14.=)
+
+But though he is so quick to laugh at human follies the wise man has a
+tender heart. He helps his hearers to sympathize with those who are
+anxious and discouraged. And he knows the value of friendly
+encouragement.
+
+  ="Heaviness in the heart of a man maketh it stoop;
+  But a good word maketh it glad."=
+            (=Proverbs 12. 25.=)
+
+=A practical advice of the wise men.=--With this knowledge of human
+nature these teachers were able to give much good counsel in matters
+of business. For example, there were tricksters in those days just as
+now. One of their favorite tricks was to persuade some "greenhorn" to
+act as surety for a loan. "Just shake hands with me before
+witnesses," the smooth tongued one would say, "and the banker will
+lend me money; there is a caravan of silks coming from Damascus which
+I can buy for a song. We will both be rich." So the poor fool would
+shake hands before witnesses, which was like our modern custom of
+signing one's name on a note. The man would then take the money and
+disappear, leaving his victim to repay the loan or be sold into
+slavery. "Be on your guard against these sharpers," the wise men were
+constantly saying.
+
+
+HELPING PEOPLE TO LIVE LOVINGLY TOGETHER
+
+The best part of the teaching of the wise men had to do with even more
+important matters than how to keep from being cheated. They helped
+people live together. They had many sensible things to say about good
+manners. For example, Joshua the son of Sirach, a wise man whose
+sayings are found in the book of Ecclesiasticus in the Apocrypha,
+gives much wise counsel about table manners:
+
+    ="Consider thy neighbor's liking by thine own,
+    And be discreet in every point.
+    Eat as becometh a man, those things which are set before thee;
+    And eat not greedily, lest thou be hated.
+    Be first to leave off, for manner's sake,
+    And be not insatiable, lest thou offend."=
+
+Surely courtesy at the table is one of the things which make life
+happy and noble. Truly civilized people do not eat like pigs in a
+trough.
+
+As they looked out upon the lives of men what made the wise men most
+sorry was the hatred and bitterness which they so often saw between
+those who should have been friends. One of their most frequent
+teachings was the need for the control of one's anger and for charity
+and forgiveness.
+
+  ="A fool uttereth all his anger,
+  But a wise man keepeth it back."=
+            (=Proverbs 29. 11.=)
+
+  ="He that covereth a transgression seeketh love:
+  But he that harpeth on a matter separateth chief friends."=
+            (=Proverbs 17. 9.=)
+
+=Their condemnation of tale-bearing.=--Since the wise men felt so
+strongly on this point, it is not surprising that they kept their most
+scathing denunciations for tale-bearers and troublemakers. Too often
+they saw men who were formerly dear friends passing by each other with
+dark looks. Some liar had been sowing his evil seed. If you have
+anything to say against a man, the wise men urged, say it to his face.
+Don't talk against him behind his back.
+
+  ="A froward man scattereth abroad strife:
+  And a whisperer separateth chief friends."=
+            (=Proverbs 16. 28.=)
+
+
+THE RELIGIOUS TEACHING OF THE WISE MEN
+
+There came a time, perhaps a century or two after Nehemiah, when the
+wise men were the chief moral and religious leaders of the Jewish
+nation. The people had lost faith in the prophets, for there were no
+more prophets like Amos or Isaiah. And these practical teachers with
+their warm sympathy and kind hearts had many true words to speak about
+the God of wisdom and of love. The book of Job in the Bible, one of
+the greatest books of history, was written by one of these wise men.
+It is a story of a man who found God although both his own misfortunes
+and also the false ideas of his friends had made him think that God
+was his enemy. He found God at last because he was brave enough to
+think for himself.
+
+So these teachers gave their pupils the best kind of education. They
+too, like the prophets and all the leaders about whom we have studied,
+helped to prepare their pupils for the life of loving brotherhood with
+God as their common Father, which was the goal toward which all this
+history we have studied was slowly but surely moving.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Browse through the book of Proverbs, especially chapters 10 and
+following, looking for teachings on the following subjects; enter the
+references opposite (_a_), (_b_), etc., below.
+
+   (_a_) Diligence in work.
+   (_b_) Temperance in use of wine.
+   (_c_) Honesty in business.
+   (_d_) Compassion toward the poor.
+   (_e_) Self-control in anger.
+
+2. Read Ecclesiastes 11, for a taste of another "wisdom" book.
+
+3. Find if you can a Bible with the Apocrypha between the Old and New
+Testaments, and read a chapter or two in Ecclesiasticus, or the wisdom
+of the Son of Sira.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] Part of these pages taken from the author's earlier book, The
+Story of Our Bible. Copyright, 1914, 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons.
+Used by permission.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWS
+
+
+If we could have visited the home of some sincerely religious Jew
+about the time when the law of Deuteronomy was adopted by King Josiah
+and the people we might have seen the beginning of a new kind of
+education--the regular study of books, and especially of the Bible.
+They had for their Bible at that time the law of Deuteronomy, which
+they had accepted as God's will for all Jews. And if this was God's
+will for them, it was plain that it must be taught to everybody,
+beginning with the children.
+
+
+TEACHING THE LAW AT HOME
+
+Let us imagine ourselves, then, visiting the house of some good Jewish
+friend in Jerusalem under Josiah. As we enter the door we notice
+letters roughly carved or painted on the wooden door. "You ask what
+are those words," replies our host to our question. "They are from our
+law. They are for the children to see, as they go in and out the door.
+This is the way the inscription reads:
+
+    ="'Hear, O Israel: Jehovah thy God is one and thou shalt love
+    Jehovah thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
+    and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.'=
+
+"The priest wrote them for us and both I myself and the children have
+been learning to read them," says our friend. "And every Sabbath we
+study them, and I teach the children to repeat after me as much of the
+rest of Jehovah's law as I can remember. Sometimes the children ask me
+questions. They say, 'What mean these laws and these statutes which
+you say Jehovah our God commanded?' Then I answer, 'We were Pharaoh's
+slaves in the land of Egypt. And Jehovah brought us up out of Egypt
+... to give us this land. And Jehovah commanded us to do all these
+statutes, to fear Jehovah our God for our good.'"
+
+=Religion through education.=--It is easy to understand that with this
+training in childhood it became more and more easy from this time on
+to persuade the Jewish people not to worship idols and to see why they
+gradually changed more and more rapidly into the most devout and
+earnest people in the world. The children were taught in their homes.
+
+
+THE NEW KIND OF TEACHERS, THE SCRIBES
+
+After Josiah's time many additions were made to this law of Jehovah.
+At first it consisted of only a part of our book of Deuteronomy. But
+the learned priests and prophets, especially after the destruction of
+Jerusalem, made a careful study of all the writings of preceding
+generations, and they found many collections of laws and histories of
+Jehovah's dealings with his people which seemed to them inspired of
+Jehovah and worthy to be reverenced and obeyed. They tried the
+experiment of combining some of these with the law of Deuteronomy. So
+it came to pass that two or three centuries later the Jews had as
+their sacred book the whole of what is now the Pentateuch, or the
+first five books of the Bible.
+
+=The need of other teachers besides the father in the home.=--If this
+larger Bible was to be carefully studied by every Jew from his
+childhood up, there must be certain men who should give their lives to
+teaching it. So in time there came to be a class of teachers known as
+"scribes." These men spent all their working hours reading this law of
+God, making copies of it and teaching it to others. Some of these men
+were truly great and good. For example, there was the gentle Hillel,
+who lived about a century before Christ and who taught the spirit of
+the Golden Rule, although in a form not so perfect as that of Jesus.
+
+  ="Do not to your neighbor what is unpleasant to yourself.
+  This is the whole law. All else is exposition."=
+
+It was a scribe like this who talked with Jesus about the "greatest
+commandment," and to whom Jesus said, "Thou art not far from the
+Kingdom of God."
+
+
+THE SCHOOLS OF THE SCRIBES
+
+These teachers conducted regular daily schools in the synagogues. More
+and more children were sent to them until in the time of Jesus all
+boys were supposed to go for at least a year or two. Girls were taught
+only at home. People had not yet come to realize that the minds of
+girls are as well worth educating as those of boys.
+
+=The methods of teaching.=--The boys sat on the floor in a circle
+before the teacher. They repeated after him the Jewish alphabet and
+learned to recognize each letter. Their only textbooks were papyrus
+rolls on which were written parts of the law. They began with
+Leviticus and learned by heart as much of it as possible. We can
+imagine that the boys were glad when they finished with Leviticus and
+went back to Genesis to the stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph.
+
+They also learned to write. Their copybooks were at first rough scraps
+of broken pottery on which with sharp nails they learned to scratch
+letters. Probably mischievous boys sometimes drew pictures instead of
+practicing the words assigned to them. After they could write fairly
+well they were given wax tablets, or even a bit of papyrus, a quill
+pen, and an ink horn. Papyrus was expensive and had to be used with
+care.
+
+
+GOOD AND BAD RESULTS OF THE TEACHING OF THE SCRIBES
+
+So much study of these books of law and history was bound to wield a
+mighty influence. Those thousands of boys studying laws which for
+their time were the most just and humane in the world, could not but
+learn something about the meaning of justice and mercy. Better still,
+the wonderful stories in Genesis and Exodus left their sure impress on
+the hearts of those who studied. The boys for the most part reverenced
+their teachers, and many of them came to love their Book, the law. It
+was a boy, so taught, who when he was older, wrote that Psalm:
+
+    ="Thy word is a lamp unto my feet
+    And light unto my path.=
+           *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
+    =Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?
+    By taking heed thereto, according to thy word."=
+
+=The danger of formality.=--The danger in this kind of education is
+that of blindness to the voice of God to be heard in everyday
+experience or in our own hearts as well as in the written Scripture.
+The result of this blindness is that goodness and religion are thought
+of as merely the keeping of the written law. It was such blind scribes
+whom Jesus denounced for giving tithes, or a tenth part of the mint
+and anise and cummin, that is, of even the most insignificant of their
+garden herbs and forgetting mercy and justice and faith; in other
+words, keeping the letter of the written law but not living out the
+spirit of it. It is not enough, Jesus taught, just to obey what is
+written. To do only that is to be an unprofitable servant. This bad
+kind of religion grew up in those schools where only books were
+studied, not the real everyday experience of living people.
+
+
+JESUS WAS A WISE MAN RATHER THAN A SCRIBE
+
+When Jesus came he was a teacher more like those more ancient wise men
+of the city gates. Like them he taught his listeners out of doors by
+the shores of the lake or on the hillside as well as in the
+synagogues. He reverenced the Bible, the Law and the Prophets, as
+God's word, but he listened for that word also in the sights and
+sounds of the streets and country lanes. He heard his Father's voice
+as he listened to house wives chatting with their neighbors, or to
+vineyard keepers hiring harvest hands.
+
+    "When He walked the fields he drew
+    From the flowers and birds and dew
+        Parables of God.
+    For within his heart of love
+    All the soul of man did move--
+        God had his abode."
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up in the Bible dictionary under "Scribes" and "Rabbi."
+
+2. What impressions of the scribes do you get from Matthew 7. 28-29,
+Matthew 15. 1-9, and Mark 12. 28-34?
+
+3. Read Luke 1. 5-6; 2. 25-36. Where and how do you think these good
+men and women, among whom Jesus was born, got their training?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+NEW OPPRESSORS AND NEW WARS FOR FREEDOM
+
+
+After the death of Alexander the Great his empire was broken into
+fragments ruled by those of his generals who were able to snatch these
+smaller kingdoms for themselves. One of them named Ptolemy seized
+Egypt. His descendants, known as the Ptolemies, reigned there for
+centuries. Another, named Seleucus, gained control of the greater part
+of the old Persian empire. He built the city of Antioch, in northern
+Syria, naming it after his father Antiochus. His descendants, on the
+throne of the new kingdom, are known in history as the Seleucids.
+
+
+THE JEWS UNDER GREEK RULERS
+
+Canaan at first became part of the kingdom of the Ptolemies, and this
+continued for about a century. During this period the Jews seemed to
+have been treated with a fair degree of kindness and justice. At least
+they were left most of the time in peace. But about B.C. 200, Canaan
+was taken from the Ptolemies by the Seleucids, and this turned out to
+be for the Jewish people an unhappy change. In the year 175 B.C.,
+there came to the throne in Antioch a young prince named Antiochus
+Epiphanes who, like Alexander the Great, thought of himself as a kind
+of missionary for Greek art and civilization. He became more and more
+angry because so many of the Jews refused to worship Greek gods. About
+B.C. 170, he issued a decree that all persons in his dominion must
+offer sacrifices to Zeus. When the Jews refused they were put to
+death.
+
+=New persecutions.=--A terrible persecution was thus begun. A Greek
+officer would come into a Jewish town or village, set up an altar to
+Zeus, and summon all the people to join in the sacrifice of worship.
+As many as possible of those who refused were hunted down and killed.
+All copies of the Jewish law that could be found were burned. Every
+month a search was made throughout Judaea to see whether any Jew still
+had copies of the Scriptures. A heathen altar was set up in the temple
+at Jerusalem and swine were sacrificed upon it. To the Jews, who were
+taught to regard swine's flesh as unclean and unholy, nothing could
+have seemed more horrible.
+
+Of course there were some traitors and renegades. But the great
+majority of the Jewish people were nobly true to the faith of their
+fathers. Hundreds and thousands, young and old, allowed themselves to
+be tortured and slain rather than take part in a heathen sacrifice.
+Many even of those who had fallen in with some of the evil customs of
+the Greeks now refused to be known as anything else than faithful
+Jews, even though it might cost them their lives.
+
+
+THE MACCABEAN REVOLTS AND VICTORIES
+
+In the midst of this cruel persecution a rebellion flamed up under the
+leadership of a certain brave old priest named Mattathias. After his
+death his sons took up the cause. The greatest of them was Judas, who
+was surnamed Maccabeus, which some have thought meant the Hammerer.
+The whole family is known as the Maccabees. Under the skillful
+command of Judas victory after victory was won by his little band of
+Jewish warriors fighting against great armies of Greek hired soldiers.
+The city of Jerusalem was cleared of the detested oppressors, all
+except a garrison that maintained itself in the citadel. The temple
+was purified and rededicated to Jehovah.
+
+After some twenty years the soldiers from Antioch were driven out
+altogether and the little Jewish kingdom under Simon, a brother of
+Judas, was recognized as independent. For nearly a century the
+descendants of the Maccabees reigned in Jerusalem. Most of them turned
+out to be greedy and selfish men unworthy of Judas and Simon. Yet
+during this period the Jews tasted once again something of the joys of
+freedom.
+
+
+THE VICTORIES OF ROME
+
+During the last two centuries before Christ a new empire had been
+growing up in the west, that of Rome. In the year B.C. 63, two princes
+of the Maccabean line fell into a quarrel as to which one should be
+king. There was a civil war, which was ended by the Roman general
+Pompey, who annexed the country as a province of the Roman Empire.
+This was the end of the independence of the Jewish nation.
+
+=The Herods.=--Sometimes Roman provinces were ruled by Roman
+governors, and at other times they were left to native kings who were
+allowed to do pretty much as they pleased so long as they paid tribute
+to Rome. There was a certain Edomite, or Idumean, as the name was
+pronounced by the Greeks and Romans, who partly by flattery and partly
+by real ability persuaded Romans to make him king over the whole land
+of Palestine.
+
+This man is known in the history books as Herod the Great, although
+he was sadly lacking in true greatness, being fearfully cruel and
+absolutely selfish. He built many beautiful palaces in various Jewish
+cities and also rebuilt very beautifully the temple at Jerusalem. He
+himself had no interest in religion, but he hoped in this way to win
+back with the Jews some of the popularity which he had lost through
+his many crimes. It was during his reign that Jesus was born. When
+Herod died the land was divided among his sons. When Jesus began his
+public career as a teacher one of these sons, Herod Antipas, was the
+ruler of the northern part of the country, that is Galilee. Judaea, in
+the south, and Samaria between Galilee and Judaea, were directly under
+Roman rule with a Roman governor or procurator.
+
+=The Sanhedrin.=--To a certain extent even after the Roman conquest
+the Jews were permitted to govern themselves. There was in Jerusalem a
+council, or court, of leading priests and rabbis, called the
+Sanhedrin. There were in it seventy-one members. When any member died
+the others elected some one to fill the vacancy. All Jews everywhere
+were supposed to be under the authority of the Sanhedrin. But except
+in purely religious matters it had little power outside of Judaea. In
+Judaea, however, this court, or council, decided all questions except
+those which the Roman procurator reserved for himself. They were not
+allowed to condemn a criminal to death. So when the Sanhedrin voted to
+put Jesus out of the way it was necessary to take him before Pilate
+the Roman procurator and persuade Pilate to ratify the sentence of
+death. How galling it was to a proud nation like the Jews to be
+obliged to go to a hated enemy for permission to carry out their
+decrees we can well imagine; and we shall learn more of it in the next
+chapter.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up in the Bible dictionary, Maccabees and Herod.
+
+2. Read Hebrews 11. 32-40. Verses 33-38 are probably in large part a
+description of the heroic martyrs before the Maccabees.
+
+3. Was the Maccabean rule a failure because it did not last?
+
+4. How did these rulers contribute to the great ends which Jews had
+always dreamed of.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE DISCONTENT OF THE JEWS UNDER ROMAN RULE
+
+
+In spite of the fact that the Jews still had some power of
+self-government through the Sanhedrin, the great mass of the people
+hated the Romans with an almost inconceivable fury. The world had
+never before seen such cruel rulers. The Assyrians had been bad, but
+the Romans were worse. Think of that form of punishment which they
+inflicted carelessly every day even for minor crimes--crucifixion! The
+poor victim was nailed by the hands and feet to a pole and left to
+hang in agony till death mercifully ended it all. Think of the
+gladiatorial combats in the city of Rome and in other Roman cities,
+where every day for centuries slaves or condemned criminals fought
+each other with swords to the death, or fought with wild beasts while
+the gloating multitudes looked on in rapture.
+
+Moreover, not only were the Romans very cruel, they had no manners.
+They were haughty in their bearing and took pains to let conquered
+people know how thoroughly they were despised.
+
+=Roman cruelty in Palestine.=--All these qualities were manifested
+almost at their worst by the Roman rulers in Judaea and Galilee. Jesus
+speaks of certain Galilaeans, "whose blood Pilate mingled with their
+sacrifices." We know nothing of this incident except what Jesus tells.
+Evidently, these Galilaeans had come as pilgrims to Jerusalem at the
+time of one of the annual feasts. Possibly they did not salute with
+sufficient respect the Roman eagles as they passed some squad of Roman
+soldiers in the street. At any rate, they were taken before Pilate and
+ruthlessly condemned to the slaughter.
+
+=Roman taxes and the Publicans.=--Naturally, the thought of paying
+taxes to such masters was almost unbearable. Yet each adult Jewish man
+and woman was required to pay a personal or poll tax besides taxes on
+his property or income. To make matters worse, the Romans were
+accustomed to hire _Jews_ to collect these taxes, giving these men the
+right to extort whatever they could, provided the required tribute was
+paid to Rome. Of course all true Jews hated and despised these Jewish
+tax-gatherers or publicans even more than they hated and despised the
+Romans themselves.
+
+
+VARIOUS PARTIES AMONG THE JEWS
+
+There were some respectable Jews, indeed, as well as these
+tax-collectors, who favored the Romans. There were for example the
+Sadducees, a group of wealthy and aristocratic men, mostly priests,
+who formed a sort of political party called by this name. Many of them
+were members of the Sanhedrin. They were prosperous, and so long as
+their power was not taken away they sided with the Romans. It was
+nothing to them that the great mass of their poor fellow countrymen
+were being brutally and wickedly robbed and ill-treated.
+
+=The Pharisees.=--We have already spoken of the Pharisees as being
+"Separatists," that is, the people who were most opposed to any
+contact with heathen foreigners. Strange to say, most of the Pharisees
+were opposed to any violent rebellion against the Romans. They
+believed that God himself would come to the aid of his people. Many
+books of the class called apocalypses were written during this period
+of the history in which the writers tried to comfort their readers by
+prophesying that the Lord would soon descend from heaven with armies
+of angels or would send his Messiah to drive out the Romans and set up
+his own kingdom. The word "Messiah" (in Greek, "Christ") means
+_anointed one_.
+
+The book of Daniel in the Old Testament is one of the books of this
+period. Many similar books were written which were not included in the
+canon of the Scriptures. All of them were written in rather mysterious
+language--with references to trumpets, vials, seals, beasts with many
+heads and many horns, and so on. This was to keep their heathen rulers
+from understanding the real meaning. It would not have been safe
+openly to predict that in a few years God was going to send all Romans
+to eternal punishment.
+
+=The Zealots.=--There were still others among the Jews at this time
+who were not willing to wait for Jehovah to come down from heaven.
+They wanted to start a revolution right away. One such man, Judas of
+Gamala, led a revolt when Jesus was about ten years old in which many
+Galilaeans joined. It was put down by the Romans with their usual
+cruelty. Very likely the fathers of some of Jesus' boyhood friends in
+Nazareth of Galilee were crucified as the punishment for taking part
+in this revolt. Those who sympathized with Judas continued to plot in
+secret against the hated Roman oppressors. They were called Zealots.
+One of them became a member of Jesus' band of twelve apostles.
+
+
+SMOLDERING HATE AMONG THE PEOPLE
+
+Whether they were actual plotters against Rome, like the Zealots, or
+whether they gave their strength to eager prayer to Jehovah for
+deliverance, the great mass of the common people among the Jews in the
+time of Christ were burning with a fierce patriotism and with a hatred
+against their oppressors such as we can scarcely imagine. The century
+of freedom under the Maccabees had made them all the more impatient of
+tyranny--and then to find themselves under such unspeakable tyrants as
+Herod and Pilate!--this was almost unendurable.
+
+The children drank in this spirit with their mothers' milk. Fathers
+and mothers had constantly to warn their boys and girls not to show
+their feelings toward Roman officers and soldiers lest some dreadful
+punishment should befall them. So it went on from year to year,
+growing constantly worse instead of better. The whole land was like a
+heap of smoldering leaves. Sooner or later there would be a sudden
+flare of open flame.
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up in the Bible dictionary "Publicans," "Zealots," and
+"Sadducees."
+
+2. How do you explain the success of the Romans in tyrannizing the
+proud Jews for so many years? Consider the part played by the
+Sadducees.
+
+3. Read Matthew 3. 1-2. Why did John's message arouse such interest
+and enthusiasm?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER BY JESUS
+
+
+This history of the common people of Israel began with certain vague
+hopes of a happier and nobler way of living for the descendants of
+Abraham. As the centuries passed these hopes were only very partially
+realized. But what was more important the Jews came more and more
+clearly to understand the meaning of their own hopes. Their great
+teachers helped them to know what they really wanted or ought to want
+if they would be happy. Moses taught them the first lessons of justice
+as the foundation of happiness. The great prophets helped them to see
+that neither happiness nor justice was possible except as they knew
+and worshiped the true God--not a God of greed and anger to be bribed
+with sacrifices, but the God of justice and love. A few of the
+prophets also began to see that such hopes as theirs could not be for
+Jews alone but must include all mankind.
+
+
+THE FULLNESS OF THE TIMES
+
+The Jews under their Roman masters had come to a time, as we saw in
+the preceding chapter, when they were wildly expecting an immediate
+fulfillment of these hopes. The short taste of freedom and happiness
+which they had enjoyed under Judas and Simon Maccabeus, followed by a
+tyranny more cruel and distasteful than any which their ancestors had
+known, made them almost mad with the desire for some kind of a
+Saviour. And it seemed to them that he must come soon.
+
+=The chance for a world-Saviour.=--All over the world just at this
+time there were strange hopes and longings in men's hearts. The Romans
+had robbed many other nations besides the Jews of their independence.
+These people had no real nation of their own any longer to live
+for--and they hated Rome. What was there to make life worth living
+unless some Redeemer should come from God?
+
+Moreover, it was possible now to think of such a Saviour as a
+world-Saviour. In the earlier centuries men hardly knew that there was
+a world outside their own tribe and a few of their neighbors. There
+were no maps. Only a few could travel, and see for themselves how
+great a world there really was--and how many nations there were--made
+up of men like themselves. The common people of Asia scarcely knew
+that there was a Europe, and the enormous continent of Africa, except
+for Egypt, did not exist for them. As for what is now called the New
+World, North and South America, no one knew of its existence.
+
+=Preparations for Christianity.=--But the Romans built good roads all
+over the great countries which bordered on the Mediterranean Sea, and
+many were the travelers who went to and fro upon them. They
+established one government for all this Mediterranean world. One
+language came to be understood everywhere--not Latin, the language of
+the Romans themselves, but Greek. Beyond the boundaries of the empire
+there were, of course, vast territories. But it was possible now for
+even the common people to realize that their own village or city or
+tribe was only a small part of one great world. And for the first time
+in history there was a chance for some one to take the old Jewish hope
+of a better and happier Jewish people and change it into a world-hope
+of a better and happier human race, and to gather a few men and women
+together and start them working for it.
+
+
+THE COMING OF JESUS
+
+In the wonderful providence of God there was born in a manger-cradle
+just at this moment in history the Baby who was destined to accomplish
+this miracle; to broaden out to their widest and noblest meanings
+these hopes which had been handed down from one generation of Jews to
+another. The story of the life of Jesus will be given in detail in
+other courses in this series. Here, in a nutshell, is what Jesus did:
+he helped men to believe in a God who loved all men as his children,
+whether rich or poor, learned or ignorant, Jews or Gentiles or
+Samaritans, even the bad as well as the good; for if they were bad,
+they needed his love to help them to be good. Jesus not only taught
+this idea of God through his spoken words; he helped men, through his
+deeds, to understand it. He _lived_ that way, as the Son of such a
+God. He healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He ate and drank with
+outcasts. He was everybody's friend.
+
+=The inevitable conflict and cross.=--Of course Jesus was not able to
+live that kind of life very long in our kind of world. Very soon he
+came into conflict with the various kinds of men who enjoyed special
+privileges of wealth or learning or honor and were not at all willing
+to share these things in a brotherly way; with the Pharisees, who were
+considered especially holy and did not want to be brothers to common
+men, the "people of the land"; with the rich who did not want to be
+brothers to the poor; with priests who did not want to be brothers to
+wounded men lying by the side of the Jericho road; with Romans who
+were afraid the Jews might think brotherhood meant liberty. So after
+three short years of preaching and healing Jesus was nailed to the
+cross, praying even as the nails were driven into his hands, "Father,
+forgive them, for they know not what they do."
+
+=Suppose the Jews had believed in Jesus.=--How different the outcome
+of their history would then have been! Instead of a bloody and
+hopeless revolt against the Romans, they might have found a way to
+live at peace with them, receiving from them a more just and humane
+government; Isaiah, centuries before, showed his people how to get
+along under the rule of Assyrians. Or, if the Romans had goaded the
+people to rebel, they might have fought and died gloriously, not
+merely for their own freedom but in the cause of all the suffering
+masses in all lands. Thus the whole course of history might have been
+changed. The four years' war which did break out in A.D. 66, about
+thirty-six years after Jesus' death, was not that kind of a war. In
+the course of these four years different factions among the Jews
+fought each other almost as fiercely as they fought the Romans. The
+Jews themselves were selfish in their hopes. They were not inspired
+and strengthened by Jesus' vision of brotherhood. In A.D. 70 the
+Romans captured the city of Jerusalem and burned the temple. It was
+never rebuilt. From that day to this the Jews have been a people
+without a native land.
+
+
+CARRYING OUT THE IDEAS OF JESUS
+
+There was, however, after Jesus' death and resurrection, a splendid
+company of disciples whose lives had been transformed by their
+acceptance of Jesus as Saviour and Lord, and who were eager to go on
+carrying out Jesus' plans. None of them thoroughly understood these
+plans. Indeed, we are only beginning to understand them to-day. But
+very soon, within a few years after Jesus' death, the wisest of the
+early apostles, such men as Peter, Barnabas, and Paul, came to see
+that to carry out Jesus' wishes there needed to be a universal church
+in which Jews and Gentiles, men of all races, would be included.
+Within a half century branches of this new world-church had been
+started in every important city in the Roman empire. At first their
+meetings were held in synagogues of the Jews of the Dispersion; and it
+is a pity that all the Jews could not have perceived that these
+disciples of Jesus were carrying out the hopes of their own prophets,
+that this Christianity was simply Judaism fulfilled. But many, of
+course, wanted to keep their religion and their God to themselves as
+Jews. So there sprang up other buildings everywhere which came to be
+known as Christian churches rather than Jewish synagogues.
+
+=Our task to-day.=--In these modern times we are still trying to
+understand what Jesus wanted and to bring it to pass in reality. We
+are beginning to see that if all men are indeed sacred to our heavenly
+Father, then under the leadership of our everliving Christ, a fight is
+in store for us on behalf of all the millions of our brothers who are
+blinded by selfishness, haggard from want, embittered by injustice,
+stunted in soul and mind by ignorance, or tortured by all the agonies
+of war. If there is to be a better world for any of us, it must be a
+better world for all of us. It must be "everybody's world."
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Look up in the Bible dictionary, for further light on the
+background of Jesus' life, Galilee, Nazareth, Capernaum.
+
+2. Read Matthew 4. 17. Explain why the message of Jesus, like that of
+John, awakened such a quick response among the people.
+
+3. What did Jesus think of the rule of Rome? Read Matthew 20. 25-27,
+and Luke 13. 31, 32.
+
+4. In contrast with the Zealots, what was Jesus' plan for winning
+freedom and happiness, instead of the oppression and misery of Roman
+rule? Read John 18. 33-38.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+A THOUSAND YEARS OF A NATION'S QUEST
+
+
+In this course of study we have been tracing the progress of a great
+enterprise. A race of people set out in the days of Abraham to seek
+the best in life. Did they win or lose, succeed or fail? What did they
+achieve, during a thousand years of striving?
+
+
+SUMMARY OF RESULTS
+
+Looking back over the whole period which we have studied, there are
+four short epochs which stand out in bright contrast to long stretches
+of darkness as times when the common people had a chance to enjoy some
+of the good things of life, or at least had reason to hope that they
+might some time gain them for themselves or their children. These were
+the times of David, of Josiah, of Nehemiah, and of Simon the Maccabee.
+These four men were all able and just leaders. They were all inspired,
+to a greater or less extent, by the ideals of Abraham, Moses, and the
+great reformer-prophets.
+
+=The long centuries of failure.=--The lives of all four of these men
+together, however, do not cover much more than a century. During the
+rest of the time, the common people were ground down under oppressors,
+either of their own race or foreign conquerors. Generation after
+generation of fathers and mothers patiently toiled and struggled and
+suffered, in the hope that they might climb just a little higher
+toward the sunlight of health and comfort and the higher blessings of
+life. Most of them struggled in vain. It is true that a few of the
+more fortunate, in each generation, saw some little advance over
+earlier generations in the good things of civilization. Such men as
+Nicodemus and Zacchaeus, in the time of Jesus, lived in better houses,
+wore more comfortable clothes, and ate better food than did King David
+himself in an earlier, ruder age. But the common people of Jesus' day
+were not so well off as even in the days of Abraham. For as wandering
+shepherds they were free. Life might be a bitter struggle against wild
+beasts and drought and famine. But no haughty masters looked down on
+them with contempt, or robbed them of their last farthing in unjust
+taxation. Shall we say, then, that as a whole, the great enterprise
+was a failure?
+
+
+THE GREAT ACHIEVEMENT--A TRUE RELIGION
+
+No, the great quest was not a failure, even though it was so far from
+a complete success. Out of the long years of struggle and prayer had
+come a new religion, not, indeed, understood by many but partly
+grasped at least by some, and written down in books so that it could
+never be wholly lost. This was a religion of the brotherhood of man
+and of a universal Father-God. The four eras of their history when the
+common people had been happy were eras when the principles of this
+religion had partly prevailed. And these eras still shine out for us
+as examples of what that kind of religion means in the life of a
+people. And the lives and words of the great prophets, and, greatest
+of all, the life of Jesus Christ, are a priceless legacy to us, who
+are still continuing the quest which Abraham began.
+
+=The truth which has been revealed to us.=--All men, everywhere, who
+are longing and toiling for a better chance for life and happiness
+and for knowledge and beauty and love for themselves and for their
+children, may now know that they are not without a mighty helper.
+There is One who revealed himself, in the history of the people of
+Israel and uniquely in Jesus Christ his Son, who still speaks in the
+name of all the hungry and thirsty and ragged and sick:
+
+    ="I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty,
+    and ye gave me no drink: ... Inasmuch as ye did it not unto
+    one of these least, ye did it not unto me."=
+
+
+STUDY TOPICS
+
+1. Of the four short eras of righteousness, in the history of the
+Hebrews, in which does it seem to you that the common people made the
+greatest gains?
+
+2. What were some of the improvements in civilization which rich or
+well-to-do people, in the later centuries of this history, enjoyed, as
+compared with the earlier centuries? Study Chapters I and II, VI, VII,
+and VIII, and XXII.
+
+3. Compare the earliest religion of the Hebrews with the religion of
+the prophets and Jesus. Mention four great discoveries in regard to
+the character of God.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEW AND TEST QUESTIONS
+
+
+1. Describe the daily life of the earliest ancestors of the Hebrews.
+
+2. What valuable characteristic of these people is reflected in the
+story of Joseph?
+
+3. What were some of the evils of Babylonian life?
+
+4. What kind of life did Abraham admire judging from the story of Lot?
+
+5. What was the name of the Pharaoh who oppressed the Hebrews?
+
+6. Describe the slavery which the Hebrews were compelled to endure.
+What did they have to do?
+
+7. How did Moses succeed in delivering his countrymen?
+
+8. What was the effect of this deliverance on the life and religion of
+the Hebrews in after years?
+
+9. Why was it comparatively easy for the Hebrews to get a foothold in
+Canaan about B.C. 1200?
+
+10. To what extent was the settlement in Canaan peaceful and to what
+extent was it by conquest?
+
+11. What lessons in civilization did the Hebrews learn in Canaan?
+
+12. What moral dangers did they have to fight against there?
+
+13. Why were the Hebrews in the first years after the settlement so
+often beaten by their enemies?
+
+14. What was Deborah's most important contribution to the history of
+her people?
+
+15. Why did it seem necessary for the Hebrews to have a king?
+
+16. Why were some of the wisest of the Hebrews opposed to the idea of
+a king?
+
+17. How did David make the lives of the common people under his rule
+more prosperous and happy?
+
+18. Why was Solomon unpopular?
+
+19. Was the disruption of the kingdom of Solomon a mistake, or was it
+a blessing?
+
+20. In what way did most of the kings who followed David make
+themselves a curse to their subjects?
+
+21. Explain why the Rechabites, Elijah, and others hated Canaanite
+civilization and wanted the people to go back to the old nomadic
+desert ways.
+
+22. Describe the burnt-offerings of ancient Hebrew religion. What was
+the difference between ordinary sacrifices and special "whole
+burnt-offerings"?
+
+23. Describe the life of the poor people of Israel in the time of
+Jeroboam II and the prophet Amos.
+
+24. How did Amos criticize the religion of burnt-offerings?
+
+25. What false ideas of God did Hosea combat?
+
+26. How did Hosea come to think of God as loving and merciful?
+
+27. How were superstitious ideas about God used by greedy priests and
+fortune-tellers in Micah's day to extort money from the people?
+
+28. What did Micah say were the essential things in religion?
+
+29. Why did the Jews in Isaiah's time seek for alliances with foreign
+countries?
+
+30. How were these alliances connected with the worship of foreign
+gods?
+
+31. What were some of the sayings of Isaiah in which he taught the
+lesson of faith in the one true God?
+
+32. What plan did Isaiah devise to educate disciples in his religious
+teachings?
+
+33. What was the historical connection between the study circles of
+Isaiah and the law-book of Deuteronomy?
+
+34. To what extent did the law-book of Deuteronomy lead to the
+practice of the teachings of the prophets?
+
+35. How did this law compromise in the matter of burnt-offerings and
+other sacrifices?
+
+36. What did the prophet Jeremiah think of the law-book of
+Deuteronomy? Did he favor it or condemn it? Explain.
+
+37. Describe the life of the exiles in Babylon.
+
+38. How did they keep alive their faith in Jehovah?
+
+39. Where else besides Babylonia were large numbers of Hebrew exiles
+to be found?
+
+40. With what hopes did the Jews comfort themselves after the
+destruction of Jerusalem?
+
+41. In what two ways did Nehemiah help the Jews in Jerusalem to a
+happier life?
+
+42. Tell the story of the growing use of prayer and hymn books in the
+religious worship of the Jews.
+
+43. Why did many of the Jews become more narrowly prejudiced against
+foreigners after the destruction of Jerusalem?
+
+44. What influences tended to make some of the Jews in this period
+more broad-minded and friendly toward foreigners?
+
+45. Mention some writings from this period which helped the cause of
+the broader patriotism.
+
+46. What two kinds of special schools and teachers grew up among the
+Jews?
+
+47. Describe the daily scenes in the group of listeners around one of
+the old wise men.
+
+48. What were some weaknesses and faults in the education of the
+scribes?
+
+49. What contributions did the Greeks bring to the civilization of the
+Jews in Canaan?
+
+50. Why were the Jews specially discontented under the rule of the
+Romans?
+
+51. In what four periods of their history were the Jews happiest?
+
+52. How did Jesus fulfill and broaden out the national hopes of the
+Jews?
+
+
+A SHORT LIST OF BOOKS THROWING LIGHT ON HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES
+
+Kent and Bailey: _History of the Hebrew Commonwealth_.
+
+George A. Barton: _Archaeology and the Bible_.
+
+Charles Reynolds Brown: _The Story Books of the Early Hebrews_.
+
+Harold B. Hunting: _The Story of Our Bible_.
+
+Crosby: _Geography of Bible Lands_.
+
+_Hastings' One Volume Bible Dictionary_.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+| Typographical errors corrected in text:                      |
+|                                                              |
+| Page  14: wondering replaced with wandering                  |
+| Page  38: record replaced with records                       |
+| Page 155: 'life itself itself was' replaced with             |
+|           'life itself was'                                  |
+|                                                              |
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Hebrew Life and Times, by Harold B. Hunting
+
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