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Hunting + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .5em; + text-indent: 1em; + } + H1 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + H5,H6 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + H2 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* centered and coloured */ + } + H3 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* centered and coloured */ + } + H4 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + a {text-decoration: none} /* no lines under links */ + + div.center {text-align: center;} + div.content {width: 69%; margin-left: auto; text-align: left;} + div.centered {text-align: center;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 1 */ + div.centered table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 2 */ + ul {list-style-type: none} /* no bullets on lists */ + + .cen {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} /* centering paragraphs */ + .sc {font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 95%;} /* small caps, normal size */ + .noin {text-indent: 0em;} /* no indenting */ + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .block {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; padding-top: .5em; padding-bottom: .5em;} /* block indent */ + .right {text-align: right; padding-right: 2em;} /* right aligning paragraphs */ + .totoc {position: absolute; right: 2%; font-size: 75%; text-align: right;} /* Table of contents anchor */ + .totoi {position: absolute; right: 2%; font-size: 75%; text-align: right;} /* to Table of Illustrations link */ + .img {text-align: center; padding: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} /* centering images */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 1em; font-size: smaller; float: right; clear: right;} + .tdr {text-align: right; padding-right: 1em;} /* aligning cell content to the right */ + .tdc {text-align: center;} /* aligning cell content to the center */ + .tdl {text-align: left;} /* aligning cell content to the left */ + .tdlsc {text-align: left; font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 95%;} /* aligning cell content and small caps */ + .tdrsc {text-align: right; font-variant: small-caps;} /* aligning cell content and small caps */ + .tdcsc {text-align: center; font-variant: small-caps;} /* aligning cell content and small caps */ + .tlp1 {text-align: left; border-left: 1px solid black; padding-left: 1em; padding-top: 1em; vertical-align: bottom;} /* Nehemiah's Time Table */ + .tlp2 {text-align: left; border-right: 1px solid black; padding-left: 1em; padding-top: 1em; vertical-align: bottom;} /* Nehemiah's Time Table */ + + .tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 1em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} /* transcriber's notes */ + .tr1 {background-color: #ffffff; color: black; border: dotted #c0c0c0 1px; margin-left: 1%; margin-right: 3%;} /* Illustration group */ + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; right: 2%; font-size: 75%; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 90%;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: text-top; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; text-align: left; font-weight: bold;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem span.i7 {display: block; margin-left: 7em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<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 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%"> </td> + <td class="tdr" width="20%"><span style="font-size: 70%;">PAGE</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"> </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"> </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%"> </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—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.</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 Phœnicians, 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>—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—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>.—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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—sheep-raising.</p> + +<p><b>Egyptian civilization.</b>—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>—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>—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>—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—terror, death, and return to slavery!</p> + +<p><b>A path through the sea.</b>—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">* * * * * * * * *<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>—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>—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—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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—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.</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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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—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>—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>—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>—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>—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 Phœnicians, and the +Phœnicians 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>—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—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—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>—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>—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.</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—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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>—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 Phœnicians, 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 Phœnician artists and artisans came down to +Jerusalem and helped to beautify the city. Phœnician 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>—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>—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—almost worse off than in the old days of disunion and +confusion and fear.</p> + +<p><b>The disruption of the kingdom.</b>—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>—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>—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>—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 +Phœnicians 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>—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>—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>—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>—Jehu was really no better than Ahab. He +was willing to drive out the priests of the Phœnician 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>—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>—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>—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—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>—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>—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—"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>—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>—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—as a Being who +cared only for gifts.</p> + +<p><b>A worship based on greed.</b>—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>—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.</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>—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>—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>—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>—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—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>—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.</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>—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>—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 Phœnicians +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."</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—Micah in the village of Moresheth and Isaiah in +the city of Jerusalem.</p> + +<p><b>Isaiah's message.</b>—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>—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>—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—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.</p> + +<p><b>Isaiah's disciples.</b>—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>—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—Deuteronomy.</b>—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>—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>—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>—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—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.</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—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>—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—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>—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—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>—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 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.</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>—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 <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>—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—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>—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>—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>—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 +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.</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>—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>—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 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."</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>—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—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>—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>—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—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>—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>—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>—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 <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>—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 +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><b>Making hymnals and prayer books.</b>—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—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>—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>—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—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>—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:</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?—</p> + +<p class="noin"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>a.</i> 15.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>b.</i> 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 Judæa.</b>—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 Judæa.</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>—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.</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>—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 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 +<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>—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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span><b>The beginnings of the Pharisees.</b>—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>—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—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.</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>—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—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>—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—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>—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>—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—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>—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>—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>—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">* * * * * * * * *<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>—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—<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>—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.</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>—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. Judæa, in +the south, and Samaria between Galilee and Judæa, were directly under +Roman rule with a Roman governor or procurator.</p> + +<p><b>The Sanhedrin.</b>—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.</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—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>—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 <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>—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>—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—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>—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.</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—and then to find themselves under such unspeakable tyrants as +Herod and Pilate!—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—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>—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?</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—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.</p> + +<p><b>Preparations for Christianity.</b>—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 <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>—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>—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>—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>—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 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?</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4 class="sc">The Great Achievement—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>—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>Archæology 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 14: wondering replaced with wandering<br /> +Page 38: record replaced with records<br /> +Page 155: '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. 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