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The  Students  Scripture  Bistort. 


THE 


OLD  TESTAMENT  HISTORY. 

FROM   THE    (  REATION   TO   THE    KETURISr    OF   THE 
JEWS    FROM   CAPTIVITY. 


EDITE 


By    WILLIAM    SMITH,   LL.D., 

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PREFACE 


The  great  progress  that  has  been  made  in  Biblical  stud- 
ies of  late  years  demands  some  better  Text-book  for  the  il- 
lustration of  Old  Testament  History  than  has  hitherto  ex- 
isted. It  is  surprising  that  a  subject  of  raich  universal  in- 
terest and  importance  should  have  no  manuiil  which  can 
for  a  moment  be  compared,  in  fullness,  accuracy,  and  schol- 
ar-like treatment,  with  the  Histories  of  Greece  and  Borne 
in  general  use  in  our  best  schools.  This  attempt  to  sup- 
ply such  a  want  is  partly  due  to  the  suggestions  of  many 
school-masters  and  other  persons  who  have  expressed  a  de- 
sire for  a  good  Class-book  for  use  on.  Sundays  and  at  other 
times. 

Besides  giving  the  history  recorded  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment with  the  necessary  explanrtions,  notes,  references,  and 
citations,  this  Work  contains  information  on  a  large  num- 
ber of  other  subjects.  Among  these  may  be  mentioned  an 
account  of  each  of  the  Books  of  the  Bible,  containing  much 
of  the  matter  found  in  "Introductions  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment," the  geography  of  the  Holy  Land  and  of  other  coun- 
tries, together  with  the  political  and  ecclesiastical  Antiqui- 
ties of  the  Jews,  Historical  and  Genealogical  Tables,  etc. 

The  Appendices,  Notes  and  Illustrations  are  taken  for 
the  most  part  from  the  Dictionary  of  the  Bible. 

Wm.  Smith. 

London,  November,  1865. 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  I. 

FROM  ADAM   TO  ABRAHAM.     THE   PROBATION   OF  THE  HUMAI1 
RACE.     A.M.  1-2008.     B.C.  4004-199G. 

CuAP.  Pace 

B.C.  4004.  I.  The  Creation IG 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 
The  Hebrew  Names  of  God. 23 

n.  Man's  Probation  and  Fali^ 26 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 
The  Sei-pent 29 

B.C.  4004-2948.        III.  The  Descendants  of  Ada>i,  or  Antediluvian 

Patriarchs,  down  to  Noah SI 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 

(A.)  Scripture  Chronology CS 

(B.)  The  Song  of  Lamech 40 

(C.)  The  Cainite  Race 40 

(D.)  The  Book  of  Enoch 41 

B.C.  2948-1998.         IV.  The  Times  of  Noah  and  the  Deluge 42 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 

(A.)  Noah's  Ark 51 

(B.)  Traditions  of  the  Deluge 52 

(C.)  Ararat 54 

B,c.  2348-199G.         Y.  The  Partition  of   the   Nations.      From  the 

Deluge  to  the  Birth  of  Abraham 55 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 
The  Tower  of  Babel 64 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

BOOK  IT. 

FROM  THE  BIRTH  OF  ABRAHAM  TO  THE  DEATH  OF  JOSEPH,  OR, 
THE  PROBATION  OF  THE  CHOSEN  FAMILY.  A.M.  2008-2369. 
B.C.  199G-1G35. 

Chap.  Page 

B.C.  199G-1898.         VI.  History  and  Call  of  Abram  to  his  99Tn  Year, 

AND  THE  Change  of  his  Name 6G 

A''otes  and  Illustrations : 

(A.)  Haran 79 

(B.)  The  Canaanites 79 

(C.)  Salem  and  Shaveh 80 

B.C.  189"-1822.       YII.  Abraham  and  Isaac.      From  the  Change  of 

Abraham's  Najme  to  his  Death 82 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 

(A.)  The  Destruction  of  the  Cities  of  the  Plain  90 

(B.)  Moabites  and  Ammonites 91 

(C.)  Place  of  Isaac's  Sacrifice 92 

B.C.  1822-1716.      YIII.  Isaac  and  Jacob.     From  the  Death  of  Abra- 

•  iLiM  TO  the  Death  of  Isaac 94 

Kofes  and  Illustrations: 
Edom  or  Iduma^a 103 

B.C.  1729-170G.         IX.  Jacob  and  his  Sons.     From  the  Sale  of  Joseph 

to  the  Descent  into  Egypt 106 

Azotes  and  Illustrations  : 

(A.)  Famines  in  Egypt 116 

(B.)  The  Land  of  Goshen 117 

B.C.  170G-1689.  X.  The  Last  Years  of  Jacob 118 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 

(A.)  Review  of  the  Patriarchal  Period 127 

(B.)  The  Book  of  Job 129 

(C.)  Names  and  Early  History  of  Egypt 133 


BOOK  III. 

FROM  MOSES  TO  JOSHUA.  THE  EXODUS  OF  THE  CHOSEN  NA, 
TION,  AND  THE  GIVING  OF  THE  LAW  FROM  SINAL  A.M.  2404- 
2553.     B.C.  1600  {c\r.y-U')l. 

B.C.  1600  (cir.)-)      XI.  The  Egyptian  Bondage  and  the   Mission  of 

1491.  J  Moses 136 

Notes  and  Illastrations : 
Sinai 154 


CONTENTS.  iX 

Paob 
.c.  1491-1490.       XII.  The  March  from  Egypt  to  Sinai 158 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 

(A.)  Stations  in  the  Wilderness 176 

(B.)  Pi-hahirotb,  Migdol,  and  Baalzephon 176 

(C.)  Manna 177 

.c.  1490-1452.     XIII.  The  Advance  from  Sinai,  and  the  Wandering 

IN  THE  Wilderness 178 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 

(A.)  The  Arabah 193 

(B.)  Kadesh 194 

.c.  1452-1451.      XIV.  Final.  March  from  Kadesh  to  the  Jordan. 

Death  of  Moses 196 


APPENDIX   TO    BOOK   III. 

THE  LEGISLATION  Ot  MOSES. 
Sect. 

I.  The  Principles  and  Classification  of  the  Mosaic  Law 218 

A.  Laws  Religious  and  Ceremonial 223 

II.  The  Tabernacle 225 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 

History  of  the  Tabernacle 233 

HI.  The  Prie.sts  and  Levites 235 

Notes  and  Illustrations  : 

History  of  the  High-priests 242 

IV.  Sacrifices  and  Oblations 245 

V.  The  Holiness  of  the  People , 250 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 

Leprosy 253 

VI.  The  Sacred  Seasons 254 

I.  Festivals  connected  with  the  Sabbath 254 

II.  The  Three  Great  Historical  Festivals 259 

in.  The  Day  of  Atonement 267 

IV.  Festivals  after  the  Captivity 269 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 

(A.)  Meaning  of  the  Passover 270 

(B.)  The  Jewish  Calendar 271 

VII.  Laws  Constitutional,  Civil,  and  Criminal 272 

B.  Laws  Constitutional  and  Political 272 

C.  Laws  Civil 276 

D.  L^ws  Criminal 278 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  IV. 

JOSHUA  TO  SAUL  ;  OR,  TRANSITION  FROM  THE   THEOCRACY  TO 
THE  MONARCHY.     A.M.  255a-2948.     B.C.  1451-1095. 

Chap.  I*agb 

XV.  The  GEOcnAPiiY  ov  the  Holy  Land 280 

B.C.  1451-142G.      XVL  The  Conquest  and  Division  of  the  Holy  Land  296 
Xotes  and  Illustrations  : 
Later  History  of  Jericho 317 

B.C.  142G-1256.    XVII.  The  Earlier  Judges,  to  Deborah  and  Barak.  318 
Notes  and  Illustrations : 
(A.)  Chronolog}'  of  the  Period  of  the  Judges. .   336 

(B.)  Baal  and  Ashtoreth 341 

(C.)  Plain  of  Esdraelon 342 

B.C.  125G-1112.  XVIII.  The  Judges,  from  Gideon  to  Jephthah 344 

B.C.  1161-1095.      XIX.  The  Judges— Eli,  Samson,  and  Samuel.      The 

Philistine  Oppression , 360 

Notes  and  Illustrations  : 
(A.)  Chronology  of  Eli,  Samson,  and  Samuel..  376 
(B.)  The  Philistines 376 


BOOK  V. 

THE    SINGLE   MONARCHY.     B.C.  1095-975. 
B.C.  1095-1050.       XX.  The  Reign  OF  Saul  and  Early  History  OF  David  879 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 

(A.)  Pedigree  of  Saul 423 

(B.)  Pedigree  of  David 424 

(C.)  The  Schools  of  the  Prophets 425 

B.C.  1056-1015.     XXI.  The  Reign  of  David 427 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 

Topography  of  Jerusalem 471 

B.C.  1015-975.     XXII.  The  Reign  of  Solomon 475 

Notes  and  Illustrations  : 

(A)  Ophir 499 

(B.)  The  Writings  of  Solomon 500 


CONTENTS.  XI 


BOOK  VI. 

THE  DIVIDED  MONARCHY.     THE  CAPTIVITY  AND  THE  RETURN. 
B.C.  975-100. 
(;ii.M>.  Page 
B.C.  975-88-i.      XXIII.  The  Kingdoms  of  Judaii  and  Israel.     From 
THE  Division  of  the  Monarchy  to  the  De- 
struction OF  THE  House  of  Ahab 503 

B  c.  884-721.  XXIV.  The  Kingdoms  of  Judaii  and  Israel — continued. 
From  the  Destruction  of  the  House  of  Aiiau 
to  the  Captivity  of  the  Ten  Tribes 54-i 

B.C.  721-58G.       XXV.  From  the  End  of  the  Kingdom  of  Israel  to 

THE  End  of  the  Kingdom  of  Judaii 571 

B.C.  586-536.  XXVI.  From  the  Destruction  of  the  Kingdom  of  Ju- 
daii TO  THE  Close  of  the  Captivity-  at  Baby- 
lon   609 

B.C.  536-400?  XXVII.  The  Restored  Jfavish  Nation  and  Church. 
From  the  Decree  of  Cyrus  to  the  Close  of 
THE  Old  Testament  Canon 626 

Notes  and  Illustrations : 


(A.)  Temple  of  Zerubbabel 648 

(B.)  The  Great  Synagogue 649 


APPENDIX  I. 

THE  BOOKS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

T.  The  Pentateuch 653 

II.  The  Historical  Books 658 

III.  The  Prophets 667 

A.  The  Four  Great  Prophets 669 

B.  The  Twelve  Minor  Prophets 675 

IV.  Th3  Poetical  Books 681 


APPENDIX  II. 

CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLES  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  HISTORY. 
Ta  ijle 

I.  Ths  UiKllvided  Monarchy 683 

II.  The  Divided  Kingdoms .'. 684 

III.  Later  Kingdom  of  Judah 686 

IV.  The  Restored  Commonwealth 688 


X-li  CONTENTS. 

APPENDIX   III. 

TABLES  OF  WEIGHTS  AND  MEASURES. 

Page 

A.  Hebrew  Weights 690 

Table  I.— Silver  Weights 691 

"     II.— Gold  Weights 691- 

B.  Hebrew  Monej' 691 

Table  III.— Old  Hebrew  Money , 695 

"       IV. — Money  of  the  Asmontean  Period 696 

' '        v.— Currency  in  the  Time  of  Christ 996 

C.  Hebrew  Measures  of  Length 697 

Table  VI. — Hebrew  Measures  of  Length 698 

"     VII. — Foreign  Measures  of  Length  and  Distance 701 

D.  Measures  of  Capacity 701 

Table  VIII. — Hebrew  Dry  and  Liquid  INIeasures 704 


GENEALOGICAL  TABLES. 

Of  Adam 34 

Of  the  Antediluvian  Patriarchs 35 

Of  the  Nations  descended  from  the  Sons  of  Noah 57 

Of  the  Post-diluvian  Patriarchs 65 

Of  the  Family  of  Terah,  Father  of  Abraham 68 

Of  Levi 137 

Of  Saul 423 

Of  David 424 

Of  Josiah 589 

Index 705 


LIST  OF  MAPS  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Hebron Frontispiece. 

Map. — The  Migrations  of  Abraham to  face  j).     71 

"        Wanderings  of  the  Israelites , "         181 

"        The  Holy  Land  divided  among  the  Ten  Tribes "         3-14 

"        Solomon's  Dominions,  the  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel,  and  the 

Lands  of  the  Captivities to  face  j).  rjl2 

Pagk 

Moses,  after  Michael  Angelo 15 

Mount  Ararat 42 

Coin  of  Apamea  in  Phrygia,  representing  the  Deluge 53 

Temple  of  Birs-Nimrud  at  Borsippa 55 

Map  of  the  Distribution  of  the  Human  Race,  according  to  the  10th  chapter 

of  Genesis 59 

The  Dead  Sea C6 

Mosque  at  Hebron 82 

The  Town  and  Valley  of  Ndblus,  the  ancient  Shechem 94 

Egyptian  Officers  of  the  King's  Household 106 

Egyptian  Chief  carried  in  a  sort  of  palanquin,  an  attendant  bearing  a  parasol 

behind  him 118 

The  Eg}^ptian  Bastinado 136 

Egyptian  Chariot.     The  son  of  King  Rameses  with  his  charioteer 158 

Map  to  illustrate  the  Exodus  of  the  Israelites IGl 

Bronze  figure  of  Apis ,^ 178 

Mount  Hor 196 

The  Golden  Candlestick 218 

Plan  of  the  Court  of  the  Tabernacle 226 

South-east  View  of  the  Tabernacle,  as  restored 228 

Supposed  form  of  the  Altar  of  Incense 230 

Lebanon , 280 

Map  of  Palestine,  exhibiting  the  ph^-sical  features 285 

Section  of  the  country  from  Jaffa  to  the  Mountains  of  jNIoab 287 

Tericho  ,  ". 296 


XiV  ILLUSTHATIO^^S. 

Paob 

Sacred  Symbolic  Tree  of  the  Assyrians 319 

Dagon,  the  fish-god SfiO 

Assyrian  King  in  his  robes 379 

Rabbah,  the  chief  cih^  of  the  Ammonites 427 

Plan  of  Jerusalem 473 

Tomb  of  Darius  near  Persepolis 475 

Cornice  of  Lily-work  at  Persepolis 484 

Plan  of  Solomon's  Temple,  showing  the  disposition  of  the  chambers  in  two 

stories 485 

Hypothetical  restoration  of  the  Brazen  Altar 48G 

Hypothetical  restoration  of  the  Molten  Sea 48G 

Plan  of  Solomon's  Palace 489 

Sebustiyeh,  the  ancient  Samaria,  from  the  E.X.E 503 

Israelites  bringing  tribute  to  Shalmaneser 544 

The  City  of  Lachish  repelling  the  attack  of  Sennacherib 571 

The  Kasr,  or  remains  of  the  ancient  Palace  at  Babylon G09 

Tomb  of  Cyrus  at  Murg-Auh,  the  ancient  Passargadfe G26 

Egyptian  weighing  rings  for  Money 690 

Denarius  of  Tiberius  =  the  Tribute  Pcnnv 704- 


OLD  TESTAMENT  HISTORY. 


Moses,  after  Jlicliael  Ai^clo. 


BOOK  I. 

FROM    ADAM    TO    ABRAHAM.      THE    PROBATION    OF    THE 
HUMAN  RACE.      A.M.  1-2008.      B.C.  4004-199G. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    CKEATION. 


§  1.  Purpose  and  scope  of  Scripture  History.  §  2.  The  Universe  created  by 
God  only.  §  3.  At  a  definite  time.  §  4.  The  objects  created — They 
are  described  i\s  pJienomena.  §  5.  The  order  of  Creation.  §  6.  Chaos: 
its  indefinite  duration.  §  7.  Works  of  tlie  several  days:  i.  Light — ii. 
The  firmament  and  division  of  the  waters  —  iii.  Seas,  dry  land,  and 
plants — iv.  Sun,  moon,  and  stars  —  v.  Reptiles,  fishes,  and  birds — vi. 
The  higher  animals  and  man.  §  8.  The  rest  of  the  Seventh  Day:  the 
Sabbath.  §  9.  Primeval  state  of  man — Marriage — Paradise — Naming 
of  the  animals — Language — Spiritual  perfection. 

§  1.  The  purpose  of  this  work  is  to  set  forth  the  History- 
contained  in  the  Old  Testament,  with  the  necessary  explana- 
tions and  illustrations.  We  begin  where  the  Bible  itself  be- 
gins. Its  first  Book,  the  first  of  the  five-fold  volume  {Penta- 
teuch) ascribed  to  Moses,  opens  with  the  words  which  form 
its  title  in  Hebrew: — "In  the  beginning."  That  beginning^ 
as  explained  by  the  Greek  title  of  Genesis,  is  the  commence- 
ment of  creation ;  but  this  is  but  the  first  of  the  steps  by 
which  God  built  up  for  Himself  a  people,  a  Churchy  in  the 
world  which  he  created  to  be  its  dwelling-place.  The  Bible 
relates  the  history  of  that  Church.  It  shows  us  the  succes- 
sive offers  of  grace  which  God  made,  first,  to  all  mankind, 
then  to  the  family  of  Abraham,  then  to  the  nation  of  the  Jews, 
and  lastly  again  to  all  mankind  in  Jesus  Christ ;  and  it  so  ex- 
hibits the  result  of  these  several  offers,  as  to  make  us  know 
our  own  impotence  and  the  omnipotence  of  His  mercy. 

§  2.  The  Books  of  Moses  were  written  for  a  people  who 
believed  in  God,  who  had  been  revealed  to  them  as  one  only, 
a  personal,  omniscient,  omnipotent  Being.  Without  preface, 
therefore,  or  argument  on  the  being  of  God,  the  sacred  writer 
speaks  of  Him  as  the  Creator  of  the  universe  : — "  In  the  be- 


Chap.  I. 


The   Order  of  Creation. 


17 


ginning  God  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth."'  The  pur- 
jjose  of  this  declaration  was  practical.  It  is  addressed  to  the 
reader's  religions  faith,  not  to  his  scientitic  cnriosity.  It  is 
designed  to  guard  believers  against  the  first  steps  in  unbelief. 
There  is  in  it  a  tacit  reference  to  all  the  forms  of  error  re- 
specting the  origin  of  the  universe.  The  world  was  created 
by  God ;  not  by  chance.,  not  by  self-generation.,  not  by  imper- 
sonal 2)0ice?'s  of  nature,  not  by  many  rt^e?z/s,  whether  acting 
in  harmony,  or  in  antagonism,  like  the  good  and  evil  prin- 
ciples of  the  Persian  religion.  Above  all,  the  sacred  story 
reveals  the  love  which  was  the  ruling  principle  of  the  whole 
work,  for  at  each  stage  God  pronounces  it  good.  And  if  we 
take  this  first  statement  in  connection  with  other  passages 
of  the  Bible,  we  learn  that  the  agent  in  creation  was  the  /S'o^, 
the  Word.\ 

§  3.  This  work  of  creation,  which  is  altogether  distinct  from 
the  maintenance  of  the  things  once  created,  was  performed  at 
a  definite  time.  '''In  the  heginniyig  God  created  the  heaA'en 
and  the  earth."  Tliey  did  not  exist,  therefore,  from  eternity ; 
nor  are  we  permitted  to  trace  them  backward  from  a^e  to 
age,  till  we  lose  all  idea  of  their  having  had  a  beginning. 
Scripture  does  not  tell  us  how  remote  the  beginning  is  from 
any  age  of  the  world,  known  to  science  or  to  history,  but  it 
insists  on  the  reality  of  a  beginning  for  the  Universe. 

§  4.  The  objects  created  were  all  that  we  are  cognizant  of, 
both  by  sense  and  reason  : — "  the  heave?i  and  the  earth .'" — the 
earth  on  which  Ave  live,  and  all  that  is  above  it :  the  Cosmos 
of  the  Greeks.  And  here,  on  the  very  threshold,  Ave  meet 
with  the  manifest  principle,  that  the  scriptural  history  of  ere 
ation  is  a  history  oi 2^henoniena.  The  heaven  AAhich  God  cre- 
ated is  that  Avhich  Ave  see,  whether  at  once,  by  unaided  vision, 
or  gradually  by  the  discoveries  of  the  astronomer.  The  earth 
is  the  whole  structure  Avhich  forms  our  portion  of  the  great 
Cosmos,  manifested  to  us  in  like  manner.  These  phenomena 
are  so  spoken  of,  in  the  plain  language  of  common  sense,  as  to 
leaA'e  the  reader's  judgment  open  for  the  reception  of  scien- 
tific facts  and  laws ;  but,  aa  hatever  Avonders  science  may  re- 


*  Gen.  i.  1 .  On  the  Names  of  God, 
see  Notes  and  Illustrations. 

'^  **  In  tlie  beginning  was  the  Word, 
and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the 
Word  was  God.  The  same  was  in 
the  beginning  with  God.  All  things 
were  made  by  Him  ;  and  without  Him 
was    not   anv   thing  made   that  was 


made"  (John  i.  1-3).      "God 

hath  in  these  last  days  spoken  unto 
us  by  His  Son,  whom  He  hath  ap- 
pointed heir  of  all  things,  bi/  ivhom 
also  He  made  the  icorlds'"'  (Heb.  i.  2). 
"  All  things  were  created  by  Him 
and  for  Him  "  (Col.  i.  1 G).  Comp.  1 
Cor.  viii.  G;  Rom.  xi.  36. 


18  The  Creation.  Chat  I. 

veal  in  licavcii  and  earth,  the  simple  truth  remains,  that  God 
created  them  all. 

§  5.  This  might  have  seemed  enough  for  the  basis  of  our 
belief  in  God,  as  the  Being  in  whose  hands  we  are.  But  as 
a  whole  can  only  be  comprehended  through  its  parts,  we  are 
further  taught  the  07'der  in  which  the  various  portions  of  the 
created  universe  were  produced  ;  and  that  this  order  was^^ro- 
y/ressiiie,  from  the  lowest  to  the  most  perfect  forms  of  being. 
From  the  first  simple  fact  of  creation  by  God  at  a  definite  time 
we  are  led  on  to  a  second  point  of  time,  when  the  earth  (for 
the  heaven  is  not  now  mentioned)^  existed  indeed,  but  in  a 
state  of  confusion  and  emi^tiness.  Its  materials  were  not  yet 
arranged  in  order,  and  it  was  void  of  the  forms  of  being  that 
were  to  cover  its  surface.  Science  clearly  shows  that  our 
globe  has  passed  through  such  a  stage.  Its  materials  were 
fused  by  heat.^  the  great  sustaining  jiower  of  all  life ;  and  from 
that  state  the  outer  portions  hardened  into  what  is  called  the 
earth's  crust,  on  the  surface  of  which  the  vapors  began  to 
condense  into  Avater,  while  they  still  shut  out  the  light  of 
lieaven.  This  vmtery  chaos  is  the  stage  from  which  the  more 
detailed  narrative  begins  :^ — "  The  earth  was  icithout  form 
and  void^  and  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep.  And 
the  spirit  (or  wind)  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  wa- 
ters." 

§  6.  The  duration  of  this  Chaos  is  not  so  much  as  hinted 
at ;  and  this  absence  of  chronological  definition,  Avhich  sep- 
arates the  1st  verse  from  the  3d,  was  noticed  by  Hebrew 
scholars  long  before  the  discoveries  of  geology  had  revealed 
the  earth's  antiquity.  It  is  quite  clear  that  the  Book  of  Gen- 
esis assigns  no  date  for  the  epoch  of  creation.  The  succes- 
sive steps  by  which  "  the  heaven  and  earth  rose  out  of  chaos  " 
are  arranged  in  periods  called  days;  and  some  who  admit 
the  indefinite  duration  of  chaos,  yet  hold  that  these  are  natu- 
ral days  of  24  hours.  But  there  are  insuperable  objections 
to  this  view ;  and  the  use  of  the  word  day  for  an  indefinite 
period  is  extremely  frequent  in  the  Bible. ^  How  these  peri- 
ods of  creation  were  defined,  and  what  analogy  they  bore  to 
natural  days,  is  a  question  too  wide  to  be  discussed  here." 


2  Gen.  i.  2.  "  Ibid. 

'Dent.  ix.  1;  Psalm  xxxvii.  13; 
cxxxvii.  7;  Rom.  xiii.  12;  Heb.  iii. 
15. 

The  works  written,  especially  in 


with  the  discoveries  of  astronomy 
and  geology,  are  too  many  to  be  even 
enumerated.  The  ablest  exposition 
of  that  "phenomenal"  view,  which 
seems  the  only  key  to  such  difficul- 


ourown  age,  with  a  view  to  reconcile    ties,  is  given  in  Hugh  Miller's  Testi- 
the  INfosaic  account  of  the  Creation  i  mony  of  the  Ilocks.     Furtlicr  investi- 


Chap.  I.  Work  of  the  Seven  Days.  19 

The  following  are  the  works  assigned  to  each  "  day :" 

§  7.  i.  On  the  First  Day  Avent  forth  the  Word  of  God — ■ 
the  creative  fiat,  as  it  has  been  Avell  called,  for  "  He  spake 
and  it  w^as  done'''' — "Let  there  be  Light,  and  Light  ?/;as."' 
Light  broke  over  the  foce  of  the  choas,  we  are  not  told  from 
what  source,  but  j^robably  through  the  floating  vapors  being 
now  rare  enough  to  be  penetrated  by  the  sun's  light.  It 
shone  upon  each  part  of  the  earth's  surface  that  was  exposed 
to  it  in  turn,  and  so  "God  divided  the  light  from  the  dark- 
ness ;  and  God  called  the  light  Day^  and  the  darkness  he 
called  NifjM.  And  the  evening  and  the  morning  w^ere  the 
First  Bay:'"" 

ii.  As  yet  the  w^atery  vapors  raised  by  intense  heat 
formed  an  envelop  of  mist  around  the  earth.  They  were 
now  parted  into  two  divisions,  those  wiiich  lie  upon  and  hang 
about  the  surface  of  the  earth,  and  those  wiiich  float  high 
above  it.  The  blue  heavens  became  visible,  like  a  crystal 
vault,  called  the  Jirmament  (literally  expanse),  because  its  ap- 
pearance is  that  of  an  outspread  covering,  elsewhere  likened 
to  a  tent.^  But  the  word  chosen  no  more  implies  that  the 
sky  is  really  a  solid  vault  than  that  it  is  a  canvas  tent.  It 
forms,  to  the  eye,  the  partition  between  the  upper  and  low- 
er heavens,  between  "  the  w^aters  under  the  firmament  and 
the  w^aters  above  the  firmament."  Such  Avas  the  w^ork  of 
the  Second  Day.'° 

iii.  Next  began  the  tremendous  upheavings  and  sinkings 
of  the  earth's  crust,  by  the  forces  at  work  within  it,  which 
formed  it  into  mountains  and  valleys,  and  provided  channels 
and  basins  for  the  w^aters  on  its  surface.     These  w^ere  now^ 


gation  may  perhaps  throw  more  light 
on  these  interesting  questions.  Mean- 
while it  may  be  safely  said  that  mod- 
ern discoveries  are  in  no  way  opposed 
to  the  great  outlines  of  the  Mosaic 
cosmogony.  That  the  world  was  cre- 
ated in  six  periods,  that  creation  was 
by  a  law  of  gradual  advance,  begin- 
ning with  inorganic  matter,  and  then 
advancing  from  the  lowest  organisms 
to  the  highest,  that  since  the  appear- 
ance of  man  upon  the  earth  no  new 
species  have  come  into  being ;  these 
are  statements  not  only  not  disproved, 
but  the  two  last  of  them  at  least  amply 
confirmed  by  geological  research. 

'  Gen.  i.  3.    Comp.  2  Cor.  iv.  6. 

"  Gen.  i.  4,  5.     On  the  supposition 


that  the  work  of  Creation  was  unfold- 
ed to  Moses,  in  vision,  as  a  series  of 
pictorial  scenes,  divided  by  intervals 
of  darkness,  since  the  whole  vision 
began  from  a  state  of  darkness,  those 
successive  intervals  would  naturally 
be  reckoned  with  the  following  day. 
The  division  of  the  day  from  sunset 
to  sunset  is  still  observed  by  the  Jews. 

"  Isaiah  xl.  22. 

^^  Gen.  i.  G-8.  To  substitute  the 
word  atmosphere  for  Jirmament  and 
heaven  is  a  dangerous  departure  from 
the  phenomenal  simplicity  of  the  nar- 
rative. The  work  was  not  so  much 
the  creation  of  an  atmosphere,  as  the 
beginning  of  its  clearance  from  dense 
aqueous  vapor. 


20  Tlte  Creation.  Chap.  I. 

gathered  into  collections  which  were  called  Seas^  wliile  the 
name  o^ Earth  was  applied,  in  an  narrower  sense  than  before, 
to  the  portions  exposed  above  the  waters.  On  these  portions 
the  germs  of  vegetation  began  at  once  to  burst  into  life,  form- 
ing grass  and  fruit  trees.  These  had  their  seed  in  themselves^ 
after  their  kind.  Here  is  the  great  law  oi reproduction  accord- 
ing to  species^  on  which  depends  the  order  of  the  vegetable 
and  animal  kingdoms.     This  was   the  work   of  the  Third 

iv.  On  the  Fourth  Day,  the  Sun  and  Moon  were  seen  in  the 
firmament  of  heaven.  The  iiict  of  their  previous  creation  is 
involved  in  the  stability  of  the  earth  as  a  member  of  the  so- 
lar system,  as  well  as  in  the  api3earance  of  light  on  the  first 
day.  It  is  not  said  that  they  were  first  created  on  the  fourth 
day ;  and  of  the  stars,  many  of  which  must  have  existed 
myriads  of  years  before  their  light  reached  the  earth,  it  is 
simply  said,  "  He  made  the  stars  also,"  not  lohen  He  made 
them.  In  fact,  the  "  fourth  day  "  seems  to  mark  the  period 
during  which  the  air  was  cleared  of  its  thick  vapors,  by  the 
action  of  the  plants  and  other  causes,  so  that  the  heavenly 
bodies  became  visible.  Stress  is  laid  on  their  ruling  as 
well  as  lighting  the  day  and  night.  God  said  : — "  Let  them 
be  for  signs^  and  for  seasons.^  and  for  days  and  years.'''^  They 
were  designed,  as  they  have  ever  since  been  used,  to  mark 
out  the  periods  of  human  life;  to  inculcate  the  great  lesson 
that  "  to  every  thing  there  is  a  season^  and  a  time  to  every 
purjiose  under  the  heaven.'""^ 

V.  Vegetables  could  live  and  flourish  in  a  thick  moist  at- 
mosphere ;  and  the  lower  animal  organisms  could  already 
be  associated  with  them,  though  they  had  not  been  men- 
tioned as  yet,  because  not  outwardly  visible.  But  now  the 
larger  animals  appeared.  First  the  waters  teemed  with  the 
"  creeping  things  "  and  the  "  great  sea-monsters,"  with  fishes 
and  reptiles.  Birds  were  produced  at  the  same  time,  and 
might  have  been  seen  flying  over  the  waters  and  in  the  open 
firmament  of  heaven.  This  Avas  the  work  of  the  Fifth 
Day.'^ 

vi.  The  Sixth  Day  witnessed  the  creation  of  the  higher 
animals  and  Max.  These  were  formed  out  of  the  earth, 
the  chemical  constituents  of  which  are,  in  the  main,  the  same 
as  those  of  animal  bodies.  Tlie  latter,  in  fact,  derive  their 
materials  from  the  vegetables,  which  have  first  derived 
theirs  from  the   earth  and  air  and  water ;  and  all  render 

"  Gen.  i.  9-13.         '-  Gen.  i.  U-19  :  Ecclcs.  iii.  1.         "  Gen.  i.  20-23. 


Chap.  I.  Primeval  State  of  Man.  21 

back  their  gaseous  and  fluid  components  to  air  and  water, 
and  their  solids  to  the  earth. 

Man,  the  last  created,  for  whom  all  the  previous  work  was 
but  a  preparation,  diiFered  from  all  other  creatures  in  being 
made  like  God.  The  depth  of  meaning  contained  in  this 
statement,  though  partly  revealed  in  the  Son  of  God,  the 
true  head  of  our  race,  remains  to  be  developed  hereafter. 
But  at  least  it  includes  intellectual  and  spiritual  likeness,  in- 
telligence, moral  power,  and  holiness.  To  man  Avas  given 
dominion  over  all  other  animals  ;  and  both  to  him  and  them 
the  plants  were  given  for  food.  All  were  appointed  to  con- 
tinue their  species  according  to  their  own  likeness,  and  all 
were  blessed  w^ith  fertility ;  but  on  the  human  race  w^as  pro- 
nounced the  special  blessing : — "  Be  fruitful,  and  multiply, 
and  replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue  it :" — so  that  Man's  lord- 
ship of  the  creation  is  a  part  of  his  original  constitution.'* 

On  each  of  the  works  of  the  last  four  days  God  pronounced 
the  blessing  that  it  loas  very  good ;  perfect  in  its  kind,  use- 
ful in  its  purpose,  and  entirely  subject  to  His  holy  laws. 

§  8.  On  the  Seventh  Day  God  ceased  from  his  finished 
work,  rested,  and  blessed  the  day  by  the  perpetual  institu- 
tion of  the  Sabbath.'^  His  rest,  however,  was  not  an  entire 
cessation  from  activity.  He  had  done  creating.,  but  he  con- 
tinued to  sustain  and  bless  his  creatures.  "  My  Father  work 
eth  hitherto,  and  I  work,'"^  said  Christ ;  and  thus  this  sev- 
enth period  finds  its  perfect  analogy  in  the  day  for  which 
he  also  gave  the  law, "  to  do  good  on  the  Sabbath-day.'"^ 

§  9.  The  account  of  the  Creation  in  Genesis  i.-ii.  3,  is  fol- 
io w^ed  by  a  more  particular  account  of  the  creation  and  prime- 
val state  of  man  (Gen.  ii.  4-25).'^  His  frame  -was  made  from 
the  dust  (or  clay)  of  the  ground  ;  his  life  w^as  breathed  into 
his  nostrils  by  God.     The  female,  created  to  be  "  a  help  meet 

'*  Gen.  i.  24-31  :  Compare  Psalm]  ^^  Gen.  ii.  1-3.  These  verses  are 
riii.  The  name  Adam,  which  is  improperly  divided  from  chap,  i.,  of 
used  in  a  threefold  sense  —  (/eneric,  \  which  they  form  the  conclusion, 
for   the   human   creature,  both  male  verse  4  of  chap.  ii.  beginning  a  new 


and  female  (see  Gen.  v.  2),  specific,  for 
the  male,  and  hence  as  a  proper  naive 
for  the  first  man  —  is  derived  from 
the  ground  (Adamah)  out  of  which  he 
was  formed.  The  root  sense  is  the 
same  as  that  of  Edom,  red.  The 
name  applied  to  man  in  the  nobler 
aspect  of  his  nature  is  Tsh  (a  man  of 
wortli,  Gen.  ii.  23).  The  distinction 
has  a  resemblance  to  that  between 
homo  and  vir  in  Latin. 


account  of  man's  primeval  state. 
The  institution  of  the  Sabbath  will 
be  more  particularly  considered  in 
connection  witli  the  Mosaic  Law. 

^«  John  V.  17. 

"  Matt,  xii,  12. 

^^  In  Gen.  i.-ii.  3,  Eloldm  occurs 
alone  as  the  name  of  God  ;  in  Gen.  ii. 
4-25,  .Tfhovdh-EloJiiin  is  used  as  the 
name  of  t  he  Divine  Being.  Sec  Notes 
and  Illustrations. 


22  The  Creation.  Chap.  i. 

for  him,"  was  made  out  of  the  substance  of  his  own  body, 
whence  she  was  called  tcoman  (IshaJ^  the  feminine  of  Ish^ 
man)/'"*  This  is  given  now,  and  long  afterward  used  by- 
Christ,  as  a  reason  for  the  laio  of  marriage^  which  is  a  divine 
institution,  plainly  involved  in  the  fact  that  one  icomcm  was 
created  for  one  man.  "  Therefore  sliall  a  man  lea\e  his  father 
and  his  mother,  and  shall  cleave  unto  his  wife,  and  they  shall 
be  one  flesh."^°  From  these  words,  coupled  with  the  circum- 
stances attendant  on  the  formation  of  the  first  woman,  we 
may  evolve  the  following  principles  : — (l).  The  unity  of  man 
ancl  wife,  as  implied  in  her  being  formed  out  of  man,  and  as 
expressed  in  the  words  "  one  flesh  ;"  (2),  the  indissolubleness 
of  the  marriage  bond,  except  on  the  strongest  grounds;^'  (3), 
jnonogamy,  as  the  original  law  of  marriage,  resulting  from 
there  having  been  but  one  original  couple,  as  is  forcibly  ex- 
pressed in  the  subsequent  references  to  this  passage  by  our 
Lord,"  and  St.  Paul ;"  (4),  the  social  equality  of  man  and  wife, 
as  implied  in  the  terms  ish  and  ishah^  the  one  being  the  exact 
correlative  of  tlie  other,  as  well  as  in  the  words  "  help  meet 
for  him ;"  (5),  the  subordination  of  the  wife  to  the  husband, 
consequent  upon  her  subsequent  formation  ;^^  and  (6)  the  re- 
spective duties  of  man  and  wife,  as  implied  in  the  words 
"help  meet  for  him." 

To  tliis  pair  God  gave  an  abode  and  an  occupation.  He 
placed  them  in  a  Garden  in  Eden,  an  Eastern  i-egion,  the  name 
of  which  survived  in  historic  times,  and  at  least  two  of  its 
four  rivers  are  identified  Avith  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates." 
Their  easy  and  pleasant  occupation  was  to  keep  and  dress 
the  garden,  or,  as  the  Septuagint  calls  it.  Paradise.  This 
word,  of  Persian  origin,  describes  an  extensive  tract  of  pleas- 
ure land,  somewhat  like  an  English  ^^arA:  y  and  the  use  of  it 
suggests  a  wdder  view  of  man's  first  abode  than  a  garden. 
Perfect  as  he  was  in  physical  constitution,  man  might  roam 

"  Gen.  ii.  21-25.  |  guided  by  the   ))Ositiou   of  the    two 

^°Gen.  ii.  24;   Matt.  xix.  5.  known   rivers,  identify   the   two  iin- 

-'  Comp.  Matt.  xix.  known  ones  with  the  Fhasis  and  Arax- 

^"^  "They  iivain,''  JNfatt.  xix.  .5.  cs,  which  also  have  tlieir  sources  in 

^^  "  Two  shall  be  one  flesh,"  1  Cor.  tlie  highlands  of  Armenia.     Others, 

vi.  16.  •'^gf^in,  have  transferred  the  site  to  the 

^*  1  Cor.  xi.  8,  9  ;    1  Tim.  ii.  13.  sources  of  thcOxus  and  Jaxartes,  and 

^^  The  Iliddckel  is  the  Tigris  ;  but  place  it  in  Bactria  ;  otiiers,  again,  in 

with  regard  to  the  Tison  and  Gihon,  the  valley  of  Cashmere.     Such  spcc- 

n,    great    variety    of   opinion    exists,  ulations  may  be  multiplied  ad  injim- 

Manv    ancient  writers,  as  Josephus,  tinn,  and  have  .sometin)es  assumed  the 

identified  the  Tison  wiih  the  Gauges,  wildest  character.     SceUict.  of  Bible, 

and  the  Gihon  with  the  Nile.     Others,  art.  Eden. 


Cii.vr.  I.  Notes  and  Illustrations.  23 

over  a  very  extensive  region,  such  as  that  which  lies  between 
the  highlands  of  Armenia  and  the  Persian  Gulf.  Here  he 
might  find  occupation  for  his  mind  in  the  study  of  the  crea- 
tures made  subject  to  him,  and  so  be  qualified  to  name  them, 
as  he  did  wdien  God  brought  them  before  him.  This  sugges- 
tion also  removes  a  difficulty  arising  out  of  the  narrow  range 
of  climate  in  wdiich  so  many  varieties  of  animals  are  supposed 
to  have  lived.  At  all  events,  the  researches  of  science  point 
to  the  highlands  south  of  the  Caucasus  as  the  primeval  seat 
of  the  human  race. 

The  fact  of  Adam's  naming  the  animals  proves  that  he  was 
endow^ed  from  his  first  creation  Avith  the  power  of  language. 
The  narrative  of  his  fall  bears  indirect  but  certain  testimony 
to  his  close  intercourse  w^ith  God.  All  else  is  speculation; 
but  w^e  may  dwell  Avith  delight  on  Milton's  pictures  of  unfall- 
en  man,  and  believe  Avith  South  that  "Aristotle  Avas  but  the 
rubbish  of  an  Adam,  and  Athens  the  rudiments  of  Paradise." 
More  perfectly,  howe\  er,  does  Christ,  "  the  second  Adam," 
reveal  to  us  the  perfection  of  the  first. 

The  last  stroke  in  the  description  indicates  the  perfection 
of  man's  innocence  by  the  absence  of  the  sense  of  shame  Avhich 
sin  alone  has  introduced  into  the  original  moral  harmony  of 
man's  constitution  : — "  They  Avere  both  naked,  the  man  and 
his  Avife,  and  Avere  not  ashamed. "^^ 

2«  Gen.  ii.  25.    • 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


THE  HEBREW  NAMES  OF     \  ^vith  the  dependent  genitive,  and  with 

QQ]),  '  an  epithet,  in  which  case  it  is  often 

I  used  in  the  short  form,  El  (a  word 

Throughout  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 1  signifying  strength),  as  in  El-Shad- 
turcs  two  chief  names  are  used  for  dm,  God  Ahnic/hty,  the  name  by  which 
the  one  true  divine  Being — Elohim,  God  was  specially  known  to  the  pa- 
commonly  translated  God  in  our  ver- j  triarchs  (Gen.  xvii.  1,  xxviii.  3;  Ex. 
sion,  and  Jehovah,  transhited  Lord,  j  vi.  3).  The  etymology  is  uncertain, 
Elohim  is  the  plural  of  Eloah  (in  [but  it  is  generally  agreed  that  the  pri- 
Avahic  xiUah),  a  form  which  ocf^ms'mnry  idea  is  that  of  strength,  poiver  to 
only  in  poetry  and  a  few  passages  of  effect ;  and  that  it  properly  describes 
later  Hebrew  (Neh.  ix.  17  ;  2  Chr.  God  in  that  character  in  which  He  is 
xxxii.  15).  It  is  also  formed  with  the  \  exhibited  to  all  men  in  His  works,  as 
pronominal  suffixes,  as  Eloi,  nuj  Goi,   the  creator,  sustainer,   and   suprema 


24 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  I. 


governor  of  the  world.  Hence  it  is 
used  to  denote  any  being  believed  in 
and  worshiped  as  God.  13ut  in  the 
sense  of  n  heathen  deity,  or  a  divine 
being  spoken  of  indefinitely,  the  sin- 
gular is  most  often  used,  and  the  plu- 
ral is  employed,  with  the  strict  idea 
of  number,  for  the  collective  objects 
of  polytheistic  worship,  the  gods,  the 
f/ods  of  the  heathen.  It  is  also  used 
for  any  being  that  strikes  an  observer 
as  godlike  (Sam.  xxviii.  13),  and  for 
kings,  judges,  and  others  endowed 
with  authority  from  God  (Psalm 
Ixxxii.  1,  6,  viii.  6,  xcvii.  7,  etc.  ;  Ex. 
xxi.  6,  xxii.  7,  8).  The  short  form 
Ut  is  used  for  a  hero,  or  mirihti/  man, 
as  Nebuchadnezzar  (Ezek.  xxxi.  11), 
a  sense  derived  at  once  from  the  mean- 
ing of  strength.  The  plural  form  of 
Elohim  has  given  rise  to  much  dis- 
cission. The  fanciful  idea,  that  it! 
referred  to  the  Trinity  of  Persons  in 
the  Godhead,  hardly  finds  now  a  sup- 
porter among  scholars.  It  is  either 
what  grammarians  call  the  plural  of 
majesty,  or  it  denotes  the  fullness  of 
divine  strength,  the  siwi  of  the  powers 
displayed  by  God. 

Jehovah  denotes  specifically  the 
one  true  God,  whose  people  the  Jews 
were,  and  who  made  them  the  guard- 
ians of  His  truth.  The  name  is  never 
applied  to  a  false  god,  nor  to  any  other , 
being,  except  One,  the  Angel- Jeho-| 
vAH,  who  is  thereby  marked  as  one 
with  God,  and  who  appears  again  in 
the  Kew  Covenant  as  "  God  manifest- 1 
cd  in  the  flesh."  Thus  much  is  clear ; ; 
but  all  else. is  beset  with  difficulties,  i 
At  a  time  too  early  to  be  traced,  the 
Jews  abstained  from  pronouncing  the 
name,  for  fear  of  its  irreverent  use. 
The  custom  is  said  to  have  been 
founded  on  a  strained  interpretation 
of  Lev.  xxiv.  IG;  and  the  phrase 
there  used  "  The  Name  "  (Shema),  is 
substituted  by  the  Rabbis  for  the  un- 
utterable word.  Tiiey  also  call  it 
"the  name  of  four  letters"  (n'^n"')? 


"the  great  and  terrible  name,"  "  the 
peculiar  name,"  "theseparate  name." 
In  reading  the  Scriptures,  they  sub- 
stituted for  it  the  word  Adonai  (Lord), 
from  the  translation  of  which  by 
Kvpiog  in  the  LXX.,  followed  by  the 
Vulgate,  which  uses  JJomimis,  we 
have  got  the  Lord  of  our  Version. 
Our  translators,  have,  however,  used 
Jehovah  in  four  passages  (Ex.  vi.  3 ; 
Psalm  Ixxxiii.  18;  Is.  xii.  2,  xxvi. 
4),  and  in  the  compounds  ./e^o?'a^-.//- 
reh,  .Tehovah-Nissi,  and  Jchovah-Sha- 
loni  (Jehovah  shall  see,  Jehovah  is  7ny 
Banner,  Jehovah  is  Peace,  Gen.  xxii. 
14;  Ex.  xvii,  15;  Judges  vi.  24); 
while  the  similar  phrases  Jehovah- 
Tsidkenu  and  Jehovah-Sliammah  are 
translated,  "  the  Lord  our  righteous- 
ness," and  "the  Lord  is  there  "  (Jer. 
xxiii.  6,  xxxiii.  IG;  Ezek.  xlviii.  35). 
In  one  passage  the  abbreviated  form 
Jah  is  retained  (Psalm  Ixviii.  4). 
The  substitution  of  the  word  Lord  is 
most  unhappy ;  for,  while  it  in  no 
way  represents  the  meaning  of  the 
sacred  name,  the  mind  has  constant- 
ly to  guard  against  a  confusion  with 
its  lower  uses,  and,  above  all,  the  di- 
rect personal  bearing  of  the  name  on 
the  revelation  of  God  through  the 
whole  course  of  Jewish  history  is  kept 
injuriously  out  of  sight.  For  these 
reasons,  we  have  restored  the  name 
in  the  following  pages,  in  the  common 
form,  its  true  pronunciation  having 
been  completely  lost. 

The  key  to  the  meaninp  of  the  name 
is  unquestionably  given  in  God's  rev- 
elation of  Himself  to  Moses  by  the 
phrase  "I  am  that  I  am,"  in  cou- 
I  nection  with  the  statement,  that  He 
I  was  now  first  revealed  by  his  name 
Ltehovah  (Ex.  iii.  14,  vi.'s).     With- 
!  out  entering  here  upon  questions  of 
Hebrew  philology,  we  must  be  con- 
tent to  take  as  established  the  ety- 
mological   connection    of  the    name 
\ .Jehovah  w'llh  the  Hebrew  substantive 
I  verb,  with  the  inference  that  it  ex- 


Chap.  I. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


25 


jircsses  the  essential,  eternal,  un- 
cliangeable  Being  of  Jehovah.  But 
more,  it  is  not  the  expression  only, 
or  chiefly,  of  an  absolute  truth  :  it  is  a 
practical  revelation  of  God,  in  His  es- 
sential, unchangeable  relation  to  His 
chosen  people,  the  basis  of  His  Cove- 
nant. This  is  both  implied  in  the 
occasion  on  which  it  is  revealed  to 
Moses,  and  in  the  fifteenth  Averse  of 
Kx.  iii.  And  here  we  find  the  solu- 
tion of  a  difficnlty  raised  by  Ex.  vi. 
3,  as  if  it  meant  that  the  name  Jeho- 
vah had  not  been  known  to  the  patri- 
archs. There  is  abundant  evidence 
to  the  contrary.  As  early  as  the 
time  of  Seth,  "men  began  to  call  on 
the  name  of  Jehovah  "  (Gen.  iv.  25). 
The  name  is  used  by  the  patriarchs 
themselves  (Gen.  xviii.  14  ;  xxiv.  40; 
xxvi.  28 ;  xxviii.  21).  It  is  the  basis  of 
titles,  like  Jehovah- Jir eh ^  and  of  prop- 
er names,  like  Moriah,  and  Jochebe(I. 
Indeed,  the  same  reasoning  would 
prove  that  the  patriarchs  did  not 
know  God  as  Elohiin,  but  exclusive- 
ly as  El-Shaddai.  But,  in  fact,  the 
word  name  is  used  here,  as  elsewhere, 
for  the  attributes  of  God.  He  was 
about,  for  the  first  time,  fully  to  re- 
veal that  aspect  of  His  character 
which  the  name  implied. 

The  removal  of  this  error  does 
away  with  many  of  the  inferences 
drawn   from   the   way  in  which  the 

B 


two  names  are  used  in  the  Penta- 
teuch, and  especially  in  the  Book  of 
Genesis.  This  is  not  the  place  for  a 
discussion  of  the  hypothesis,  that  the 
use  of  Elohiiii,  or  .Jehovah,  or  Jehovah- 
Elohim,  is  a  sufficient  test  by  which 
different  original  documents  may  bo 
distinguished  in  the  Book  of  Genesis. 
According  to  this  theory,  the  sacred 
narrative  is  made  up  of  two  compo- 
nent and  originally  independent  parts, 
the  respective  contributions  of  an 
"Elohist"  and  a  "Jehovist."  But 
the  prevalence  of  one  or  the  other 
name  is  certainly  not  incapable  of  an 
explanation  consistent  with  the  single 
authorship  of  the  book.  At  the  same 
time,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that, 
even  if  we  admit  that  Moses  made 
use  of  earlier  documents  in  drawing 
up  the  Book  of  Genesis,  such  a  theory 
does  not  in  the  least  militate  against 
either  the  unity  or  the  divine  author- 
ity of  the  book.  The  history  con- 
tained in  Genesis  could  not  hare  been 
narrated  by  Moses  from  personal 
knowledge ;  but  whether  he  was 
taught  it  by  immediate  divine  sug- 
gestion, or  was  directed  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  the  use  of  earlier  documents, 
is  immaterial  in  reference  to  the  in- 
spiration of  the  work.  For  a  further 
discussion,  see  the  articles  Jehovah^ 
Genesis,  and  Pentateuch  in  the  Die- 
tionary  of  the  Bible. 


26  Mails  Probation  and  Fall,  Chap.  II. 


CHAPTER  II. 


§  1.  The  Trees  of  Life  and  Knowledge.  §  2.  The  Law  and  its  penalty. 
§  3.  The  Temptation  and  Fiill.  §  4.  Etiects  of  the  Fall.  §  5.  God's 
judgment — i.  On  the  Serpent — ii.  On  the  Woman — iii.  On  the  Man. 
§  6.  Promise  of  a  Redeemer — The  name  of  Eve.  §  7.  Institution  of 
sacrifice — Dispensation  of  mercy.     §  8.  Traditions  of  heathen  nations. 

§  1.  The  happiness  of  Paradise  was  granted  to  the  first  hu- 
man pair  on  one  simple  condition.  A  restraint  Avas  to  be 
placed  upon  their  appetite  and  self-will.  Abundant  scope 
was  given  for  gratifying  every  laAvful  taste  :  "  The  Lord  God 
caused  to  grow  every  tree  that  is  pleasant  to  the  sight  and 
good  for  food."^  But  two  trees  are  distinguished  from  the 
rest,  as  having  special  properties.  The  tree  of  life  had,  in 
some  mysterious  Avay,  the  power  of  making  man  immortal.^ 
The  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  revealed  to  those 
who  ate  its  fruit  secrets  of  which  they  had  better  have  re- 
mained ignorant ;  for  the  purity  of  man's  happiness  consist- 
ed in  doing  and  loving  good  without  even  knowing  evil. 

§  2.  The  use  of  these  trees  was  not  left  to  man's  unaided 
judgment.  God  gave  him  the  plain  command:  "Of  every 
tree  of  the  garden  thou  mayest  freely  eat :  but  of  the  fruit 
of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  thou  shalt  not 
eat  of  it :  for  in  the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof  thou  shalt 
surely  die."^  The  vast  freedom  granted  to  him  proved  the 
goodness  of  the  Creator ;  the  one  exception  taught  him  that 
he  was  to  live  under  a  lav^;  and  that  laAV  was  enforced  by  a 
practical  penalty,  of  which  he  was  mercifully  warned.  We 
must  not  regard  the  prohibition  merely  as  a  test  of  obedience, 
nor  the  penalty  as  arbitrary.  The  knowledge  forbidden  to 
him  was  of  a  kind  which  would  corrupt  his  nature — so  cor- 
rupt it,  as  to  make  him  unfit,  as  well  as  unworthy,  to  live  for- 
ever. 

§  3.  The  trial  of  man's  obedience  Avas  completed  by  a 
temptation  from  without.'^     The  tempter  is  simply  called  in 

'  Gen.  ii.  9.  '  Gen,  iii.  22.      1  temptation  is  confused  by  the  modern 

^  Gen.  ii.  16,  17.  senses  of  the  Avords  Umpt^  try,  prove. 

*  The  whole  Scripture  doctrine  of    God  tries  his  people's  faith  (as  in  the 


CiiAp.  II.  The  Fall  and  its  Judgment  27 

Genesis  the  Serpent ;"  but  that  creature  was  a  well-known 
type  of  the  chief  of  the  fallen  angels,  the  Evil  Spirit,  whose 
constant  effort  is  to  drag  down  man  to  share  his  own  ruin. 
From  this  enmity  to  God  and  man,  he  is  called  Satan  (the 
adversary)^  and  the  Devu/  (the  accuser  or  slanderer).  He 
slandered  God  to  our  lirst  parents,  teaching  them  to  doubt 
his  truth,  and  to  ascribe  his  law  to  jealousy.  "  Ye  shall  not 
surely  die  :  for  God  doth  know  that,  in  the  day  ye  eat  there- 
of, then  your  eyes  shall  be  opened,  and  ye  shcdl  be  as  gods, 
knowing  good  and  evil.'"  He  addressed  the  temptation  first 
to  the  woman,  who  fell  into  the  threefold  sin  of  sensuality, 
pleasure,  and  ambition,  "  the  lust  of  the  flesh,  the  lust  of  the 
eyes,  and  the  pride  of  life."^  She  "  saw  that  the  tree  was 
good  for  food,  and  that  it  was  pleasa?it  to  the  eyes,  and  a  tree 
to  be  desired  to  make  one  wise  ;"^  and  she  ate  the  fruit,  and 
gave  it  to  her  husband.  The  threefold  appeal  of  the  tempter 
to  the  infirmities  of  our  nature  may  be  traced  also  in  the 
temptation  of  Christ,  the  second  Adam,  who  "  was  in  all  points 
likewise  tempted,  but  laithout  sin." 

§  4.  In  one  point  the  devil  had  truly  described  the  effect 
of  eating  the  forbidden  fruit.  "Their  eyes  were  opened.'"" 
They  had  "  become  as  gods  "  in  respect  of  that  knowledge 
of  evil,  as  well  as  good,  which  God  had  reserved  to  himself 
and  mercifully  denied  to  them.  They  became  conscious  of 
the  working  of  lawless  pleasure  in  place  of  purity,  in  the 
very  constitution  given  them  by  God  to  perpetuate  their  race ; 
and  they  Avere  ashamed  because  they  were  naked.  Toward 
God  they  felt  fear  in  place  of  love,  and  they  fled  to  hide 
themselves  from  His  presence  among  the  trees  of  the  garden.^* 

§  5.  Thus  they  were  already  self-condemned  before  God 
called  them  forth  to  judgment.  Then  the  man  cast  the 
blame  upon  the  woman,  and  the  woman  upon  the  serpent ; 
and  God  jjroceeded  to  award  a  righteous  sentence  to  each." 

i.  The  judgment  passed  upon  the  serpent  is  symbolical  of 
the  condemnation  of  the  devil.  The  creature,  as  Satan's  in- 
strument and  type,  is  doomed  to  an  accursed  and  degraded 
life  ;  and  the  enmity  that  has  ever  since  existed  between  him 
and  man  is  the  symbol  of  the  conflict  between  the  powers  of 
hell  and  all  that  is  gooctin  the  human  race. 

ii.  The  woman  is  condemned  to  subjection  to  her  husband, 


case  of  Abraham),  desiring  that  it  may 
stand  the  trial :  Satan  tempts  them, 
hopinp;  for  their  fall. 

^  Gen.  iii.  1  ;   comp.  2  Cor.  xi.  3. 
See  Notes  and  Illustrations.  \      '^  Gen.  iii.  9-19. 


®  ou'cl3o\o'?. 

'  Gen.  iii.  4,  5.         »  1  John  ii.  16 
9  Gen.  iii.  6.  '"  Gen.  iii.  7. 

"  Gen.  iii.  8. 


28  MarJs  Probation  and  Fall  Chap.  II. 

and  sorrow  and  suffering  in  giving  birth  to  her  children  ;  but 
she  had  the  consolation  of  hearing  that  her  seed  was  to  con- 
quer in  the  battle  with  the  serpent,  crushing  its  head,  after 
the  reptile  had  inflicted  a  deadly  wound  upon  his  heel/^ 

iii.  The  man  is  shut  up  to  a  life  of  toil,  and  the  earth  is 
cursed  for  his  sake,  to  bring  forth,  like  himself,  evil  weeds, 
that  require  all  his  exertions  to  keep  them  down.  But, 
as  before,  a  promise  is  added ;  his  labors  shall  not  be  with- 
out its  rew^ard — "  in  the  sweat  of  thy  brow,  thou  shalt  eat 
breads 

Reminded  of  the  doom  they  had  incurred,  though  its  exe- 
cution was  postponed — "  dust  thou  art,  and  unto  dust  shalt 
thou  return  " — and  clothed  by  God's  goodness  with  the  skins 
of  beasts,  they  were  driven  out  of  Paradise.  An  angelic 
guard,  with  a  flaming  sword,  debarred  them  from  returning 
to  taste  the  tree  of  life  ;  for  it  would  have  perpetuated  their 
suftering.^" 

§  6.  But  yet  they  had  received  the  revelation  of  eternal  life. 
The  curse  upon  the  serpent  and  the  promise  to  the  W'Oman 
pointed  clearly  to  a  Redeemer,  who  should  be  born  of  a 
woman,  and,  by  his  own  suffering,  should  destroy  the  power 
of  t*he  devil ;  and  here  we  have  \X\q  first  prophecy  of  the  3fes- 
siah.  Henceforth  the  Avoman  lived  in  the  expectation  of  the 
promised  seed,  which  should  make  her  the  mother  of  a  truly 
living  race ;  and,  to  signify  this  hope,  Adam  gave  her  the 
name  of  Eve  (Chavah,  that  is,  living).  Thus  already  life 
began  to  spring  from  death.  ^^ 

§  7.  There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  the  sacrifice 
of  living  cmimals  was  now  instituted  as  a  prophetic  figure  of 
the  great  sacrifice  which  should  fulfill  this  promise.  Animals 
must  have  been  slain  to  provide  the  skins  that  clothed  Adam 
and  Eve  ;  and  wherefore  slain,  except  in  sacrifice  ?  This 
might  not  seem  conclusive  in  itself;  but  the  whole  reason  for 
sacrifice  began  to  exist  now  :  its  use  is  taken  for  granted  in 
the  next  chapter  (Gen.  iv.) ;  and  it  continues  throughout  the 
patriarchal  age  without  the  record  of  any  other  beginning. 
Thus  early,  then,  man  learned  that,  "  Avithout  shedding  of 
blood,  there  is  no  remission  of  sin ;"  that  his  own  forfeited 
life  was  redeemed,  and  to  be  restored  by  the  sacrifice  of  the 
coming  "seed  of  the  woman;"  and  that  he  was  placed  by 
God  under  a  new  dispensation  of  mercy.  Nay,  even  his 
punishment  was  a  mercy ;  for  his  suffering  Avas  a  discipline 
to  train  him  in  submission  to  God's  will.     The  repentance  of 

^  Comp.  Horn.  xvi.  20.  ^^  Gen.  iii.  21-24.  ^'  Gen.  iii  20. 


Chap.  II. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


29 


our  first  parents  is  nowhere  expressly  stated :  but  it  is  implied 
here  and  in  the  subsequent  narrative. 

§  8.  We  must  not  omit  to  notice  the  traces  of  these  truths, 
which  are  found  among  many  nations.  The  Greek  legend 
of  Pandora  traces  the  entrance  of  evil  to  a  woman ;  the 
Buddhist  and  Chinese  traditions  refer  the  beginning  of  sin 
to  eating  forbidden  fruit  and  desiring  forbidden  knowledge ; 
and  most  systems  of  mythology  make  the  serpent  a  type  of 
the  power  of  evil,  and  a  divine  personage  his  destroyer. 
Delitzsch  well  says,  "  The  story  of  the  Fall,  like  that  of  the 
Creation,  has  wandered  over  the  world.  Heathen  nations 
have  transplanted  and  mixed  it  up  with  their  geography, 
their  history,  their  mythology,  although  it  has  never  so  com- 
pletely changed  form,  and  color,  and  spirit,  that  you  can  not 
recognize  it.  Here,  however,  in  the  Law,  it  preserves  the 
character  of  a  universal,  human,  world-wide  fact :  and  the 
groans  of  Creation,  the  Redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus, 
and  the  heart  of  every  man,  conspire  in  their  testimony  to 
the  most  literal  truth  of  the  narrative."  The  recollection  of 
the  tree  of  life  is  preserved  in  the  sacred  tree  of  the  Assyrians 
and  Hindoos,  and  in  other  Eastern  systems  of  mythology.'^ 

"  See  Laj-ard,  "Nineveh  and  its  Remains,"  vol.  ii.  p.  472. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


THE  SERPENT. 

It  has  been  supposed  by  many  com- 
mentators that  the  serpent,  prior  to 
the  Fall,  moved  along  in  an  erect  at- 
titude, as  Milton  {Par.  L.  ix.  496) — 
'■'•  Not  with  indented  wave 
Prone  on  the  ground,  as  since,  but  on  his  rear, 
Circular  base  of  rising  folds  tliat  tower'd 
Fold  above  fold,  a  surging  maze." 

But  it  is  quite  clear  that  an  erect 
mode  of  progression  is  utterly  incom- 
patible with  the  structure  of  a  ser- 
pent, whose  motion  on  the  ground  is 
beautifully  effected  by  the  mechanism 
of  the  vertebral  column  and  the  mul- 
titudinous ribs,  which,  forming  as  it 
•were  so  many  pairs  of  levers,  enable 


the  animal  to  move  its  body  from 
place  to  place ;  consequently,  had 
the  snakes  before  the  Fall  moved  in 
an  erect  attitude,  they  must  have 
been  formed  on  a  different  plan  al- 
together. It  is  true  that  there  are 
Saurian  reptiles,  such  as  the  Sauro- 
phis  tetradactylus  and  the  CkauKKsau- 
ra  anfiuina  of  S.  Africa,  which  in  ex- 
ternal form  are  very  like  serpents, 
but  with  quasi-feet ;  indeed,  even  in 
the  boa-constrictor,  underneath  the 
skin  near  the  extremity,  there  exist 
rudimentary  legs;  some  have  been 
disposed  to  believe  that  the  snakes  be- 
fore the  Fall  were  similar  to  the  Sau- 
rophis.     Such  an  hypothesis,  howev- 


30. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  II. 


er,  is  untenable,  for  all  llie  fossil' 
Ophidia  that  have  hitherto  been  found  j 
differ  in  no  essential  respects  from  [ 
modern  representatives  of  that  order ; , 
it  is,  moreover,  beside  the  mark,  for 
the  words  of  the  cui-se,  "upon  thy 
belly  shalt  thou  go,"  are  as  charac- 
teristic of  the  progression  of  a  Sauro- 
Tjhoid  serpent  before  the  Fall  as  of  a 
true  Ophidian  after  it.  There  is  no 
reason  whatever  to  conclude  from 
the  language  of  Scripture  that  the 
serpent  underwent  any  change  of 
form  on  account  of  the  part  it  played 
in  the  history  of  the  Fall.  The  sun 
and  the  moon  were  in  the  heavens 
long  before  they  were  appointed  for 
"signs  and  for  seasons,  and  for  days 
and  for  years."  The  typical  form  of 
the  serpent  and  its  mode  of  progres- 
sion were  in  all  probability  the  same 
before  the  Fall  as  after  it ;  but  subse- 


quent to  the  Fall  its  form  and  pro- 
gression were  to  be  regarded  with  ha- 
tred and  disgust  by  all  mankind,  and 
thus  the  animal  was  cursed  "above 
all  cattle,"  and  a  mark  of  condemna- 
tion was  forever  stamped  upon  it. 
There  can  be  no  necessity  to  show 
how  that  part  of  the  curse  is  literally 
fulfilled  which  speaks  of  the  "enmi- 
ty "  that  was  henceforth  to  exist  be- 
tween the  serpent  and  mankind  ;  and 
though,  of  course,  this  has  more  es- 
pecial allusion  to  the  devil,  whose  in- 
strument the  serpent  was  in  his  de- 
ceit, yet  it  is  perfectly  true  of  the  ser~ 
pent.  Serpents  are  said  in  Scripture 
to  "eat  dust"  (see  Gen.  iii.  14;  Is. 
Ixv.  25;  Mic.  vii.  17);  these  ani- 
mals, which  for  the  most  part  take 
their  food  on  the  ground,  do  conse- 
quently swallow  with  it  large  por- 
tions of  sand  and  dust. 


Chap.  III. 


The  Antediluvian  Races, 


31 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  DESCENDANTS   OF  ADAM,  OR  ANTEDILUVIAN   PATRIARCHS, 
DOWN  TO  NOAH.       A.M.  1-1056.       B.C.  4004-2948.' 

§  I.  Birth  of  Cain  and  Abel.  §  2.  Their  different  occupations  and  charac- 
ters— Two  types  of  men.  §  3.  Tiieir  respective  offerings,  f  4.  The 
murder  of  Abel.  §  5.  Tlie  punishment  of  Cain.  §  6.  His  descend- 
ants. §  7.  The  race  of  Seth.  §  8.  Character  of  Enoch — His  transla- 
tion.    §  9.  Methuselah — Epoch  of  his  death. 

§  1.  After  the  expulsion  of  man  from  Paradise,  Eve  bore 
her  first-born  son,  and  named  him  Cain  (i.  e.,^905session,  or 
acquisition)^  saying  "  I  have  gotten  a  man  from  the  Lord." 
The  name  itself,  and  the  reason  given  for  its  choice,  clearly 
indicate  her  belief  that  this  man-child  was  the  promised 
"  seed  of  the  woman.  "^  Her  mistake  seems  to  have  been 
soon  revealed  to  her,  for,  on  the  birth  of  her  second  son,  she 
gave  him  a  name  expressive  of  disappointment,  Abel  (Heb. 
Hehel,  i.  e.,  breath,  vapor,  traiisitoriness :  some,  however,  take 
it  to  refer  to  the  shortness  of  his  life). 

§  2.  In  the  occupation  of  these  two  sons  of  Adam,  we  trace 
the  two  great  branches  of  productive  industry  pursued  by 
men  in  an  early  stage  of  society.  "  Abel  was  a  keeper  (or 
feeder)  of  sheep,  but  Cain  was  a  tiller  of  the  groimcV^^  Here 
are  the  beginnings  of  the  pastoral  and  agricultural  modes  of 
life ;  and  in  this  respect,  as  in  others,  the  two  first  sons  of 
Adam  are  representatives  of  his  posterity.  For  we  must 
avoid  the  error  of  thinking  of  Cain  and  Abel  as  the  only 
progeny  of  Adam  and  Eve.  The  mention  of  Cain's  wife,*  as 
w^ell  as  his  fear  that  men  would  slay  him  (v.  14),  are  indica- 
tions that  the  "  replenishing  of  the  earth  "  had  made  consid- 
erable progress  before  the  murder  of  Abel.  They  are  rather 
to  be  viewed  as  ty2Jes  of  the  two  classes  of  character,  which 
appeared  from  the  first  among  men : — the  good  and  the 
wicked,  the  "  children  of  God^'  and  the  "  children  of  the 

^  These  arc  the  commonly  received  Scripture  Chronology  at  the  ecd 
dates ;    but  there  is  really  no  sound   of  the  present  chapter, 
basis  for  scriptural  chronolojxy  before       "^  Gen.  iv.  1. 
the    time    of   David    and    Solomon.        ^  Gen.  iv.  4. 
See   Notes   and  Illustrations  (A),  on       *  Gen.  iv.  17. 


82 


The  Offtrinrjs  of  Cain  and  Abel 


Chap.  III. 


devii."  This  is  clearly  recognized  by  St.  Jude,  who  uses 
*'  the  way  of  Cain "  for  a  type  of  wickedness/  and  by  St. 
Jolin,  who  says  that "  Cain  was  of  that  icicked  one  (the  devil), 
and  slew  liis  brother.  And  wherefore  slew  he  him?  Be- 
cause his  own  icorks  v)ere  evil,  and  his  brother'' s  righteous^^ 
We  see  here,  not  only  the  distinction  itself,  but  the  jealousy 
and  hatred  with  which  wicked  men  regard  the  virtue  that 
condemns  them,  and  which  veilts  itself  in  persecution.  Ac- 
cordingly Abel  is  named  by  our  Saviour  as  the  first  of  the 
noble  army  of  martyrs.^ 

§  3.  This  difference  of  character  was  made  evident  when 
they  were  called  to  observe  the  services  of  religion.  Cain 
and  Abel  brought  their  several  offerings  according  to  their 
several  possessions.  "  Cain  brought  of  the  fruit  of  the 
ground  :  Abel  the  firstlings  of  his  flock,  and  of  the  fat  there- 
of:" that  is,  the  choicest  of  the  first-born  lambs  or  kids.*^ 
Abel  presented  his  offering  in  a  spirit  of  faith,^  and  was  there- 
fore accepted,  but  Cain's  was  rejected  on  account  of  the 
state  of  mind  in  which  it  was  brought.  This  is  implied  in 
God's  rebuke  to  Cain,  who  "  was  very  wroth,  and  whose 
countenance  fell,"  though  it  is  obscured  by  the  language  of 
the  English  version.  The  passage  may  be  rendered  thus : — ■ 
"  Why  art  thou  wroth,  and  why  is  thy  countenance  fallen  ?" 
If  thou  doest  well  (or,  "  if  thou  ofterest  ought  "  LXX.),'"  is 
there  not  an  elevation  of  the  countenance  (i.  e.,  ''^cheerfulness, 
ha2)2miess^'') ;  but  if  thou  doest  not  well,  there  is  a  sinking 
of  the  countenance  ;  sin  lurketh  (as  a  wild  beast)  at  the  door, 
"  and  to  thee  is  its  desire  " — it  seeks  the  mastery  over  you ; 
"  but  thou  art  to  rule  over  it  " — to  resist  and  subdue  it. 

§  4.  Cain  scorned  tlie  remonstrance,  and  his  anger  ad- 
vanced to  its  natural  result  in  the  murder  of  his  brother. '' 
It  is  uncertain  whether  the  words  "  Cain  talked  with  Abel " 
imply  a  treacherous  snare,  or  a  quarrel  which  led  on  to  the 
fatal  deed.  In  any  case,  Cain's  rage  at  his  brother's  being 
preferred  to  him  was  its  true  cause.  For,  fearful  as  is  the 
truth  that  the  first  overt  act  of  sin  after  tlie  fall  was  a  broth- 
er's murder,  he  who  knew  Avhat  was  in  man  has  testified  that 
"  whosoever  is  angry  with  his  brother  without  a  cause  "  has 
already  broken  the  spirit  of  the  Sixth  Commandment,''^  and 
that  whosoever  hateth  his  brother  is  a  murderer.""  This 
truth  is  confirmed  by  all  history ;  and  Christ  does  not  hesi- 

*  Jude  11.  M  John  iii.  12.    tua^^int  or  Greek  translation  of  the  OI'J 

'  Matt,  xxi-il.  35.  Testament  made  at  Alexandria. 

•^  Gen.  iv.  ?,-r>.         ^  Heb.  xi.  4.  "  Gen.  iv.  8.  "  Matt.  v.  22. 

***  LXX.     This  indicates  the  Sep-       "  1  John  iii.  15. 


Chap.  III. 


The  Antediluvian  Races. 


33 


tate  to  tell  the  Jews,  who  were  enraged  at  him  for  the  puri- 
ty of  His  doctrine  : — "  Ye  are  of  your  father  the  devil,  and 
the  lusts  of  your  father  ye  will  do  ;  he  was  a  murderer  from 
the  beginning.'"* 

§  5.  This  first  crime  was  promj^tly  punished.  The  sullen 
indifference  of  Cain's  reply  to  God's  demand,  "  Where  is  Abel 
thy  brother  ?"  was  probably  affected,  to  conceal  the  remorse 
which  has  ever  haunted  the  murderer.'*  The  blood  of  the 
victim  seems  always  to  have  that  power,  which  is  ascribed  to 
the  blood  of  Abel,  of  "  crying  to  God  from  the  ground.'"^ 
The  cry  implied  is  clearly  that  for  vengeance;  and  the  same 
cry  proceeds  from  the  blood  of  all  the  martyrs.'"  Cain  was 
doomed  to  a  new  infliction  of  the  primal  curse.  To  Adam 
the  earth  yielded  its  fruit,  though  with  toil  and  sweat ;  but 
to  Cain,  as  if  indignant  at  tlie  outrage  done  her  by  his  broth- 
ers blood,  the  earth  was  cursed  for  him  again,  refusing  to 
yield  her  strength  under  his  tillage,  or  even  to  grant  him  an 
abode  at  the  scene  of  his  crime. '°  But  even  in  this  aggrava- 
tion of  the  curse,  we  still  see  the  mercy  which  turns  the 
curse  into  a  blessing  ;  for  it  was  no  doubt  an  incentive  to 
those  mechanical  arts  which  were  first  practiced  by  the  fami- 
ly of  Cain. 

Cain  received  his  doom  in  the  same  hardened  spirit  of  im- 
iDenitence,  filling  up  the  measure  of  his  unbelief  by  the  cry, 
"My  iniquity  is  too  great  to  be  forgiven.'"^  While  lament- 
ing his  expulsion  from  the  abodes  of  men  and  from  the  face 
of  God,  his  great  fear  is  for  his  life,  lest  men  should  slay  him. 
To  quiet  this  fear,  God  gave  him  a  special  sign  that  he 
should  not  be  slain  (for  such  seems  to  be  the  true  meaning 
of  the  "mark  set  on  Cain"),^"  and  pronounced  a  sevenfold 
punishment  on  any  one  who  should  kill  him.  With  his  per- 
son thus  protected,  he  was  driven  from  his  home,  as  "  a  fugi- 
tive and  a  vagabond  in  the  earth."^' 

§  6.  Cain  directed  his  steps  to  the  east  of  Eden,  and  settled 
in  the  land  of  JS'od^  that  is,  hanisliment.^^  He  became  the  an- 
cestor of  a  race,  Avhose  history  is  recorded  in  a  very  striking 

2'  Gen.  iv.  14. 

^^  Tliere  liavc  been  various  conjec- 
tures as  to  the  position  of  the  land  of 
Nod;  but  all  that  we  know  is,  that  it 
was  cast  of  Eden,  which  throws  us 
back  to  the  previous  settlement  of  the 
position  of  Eden  itself.  The  main- 
tenance of  intercpurse  between  the 
Cainites  and  gethites  proves  that  tha 
former  di4  npl  \yf\nder  very  far. 


"  John  viii.  44.         '^  Gen.  iv.  9. 

^'  Gen.  iv.  10. 

"  liev.  vi.  10. 

^«Gen.  iv.  12. 

^'  Gen.  iv.  13. 

'^°  Probably  in  the  same  way  as 
signs  were  afterward  given  to  Noah 
(Gen.  ix.  13),  Moses  (Ex.  iii.  2,  12), 
Elijah  (1  Kings  xix.  11),  and  Heze- 
kiah  (Is.  xxxviii.  7,  8.) 
B  2 


34  TJie  Races  of  Cain  and  jSelh.  Chap.  hi. 

contrast  with  that  of  the  chosen  race  of  Scth.     The  two 
genealogies,  Avhen  phaced  side  by  side,  are  as  follows  : — 

Adam. 

\ 

Cjiin.  Seth. 

Enoch  (Chanocli).  Enos. 

I  I 

Irad.  Cainan. 

Mehujael.  Mahalaleel. 

Methusael.  Jared.  ' 

Adali^Laniecli^Zillah.  Enoch  (Chanoch). 

L        I I 

Jabal.      Jubal.      Tubal  Cain.      Naamah.     MetlmseLah. 

i 
Lamech. 

Noah. 

The  resemblances  in  the  names  of  the  two  families  seem  a 
/latural  consequence  of  the  use  of  significant  names  at  a  time 
when  language  had  acquired  no  great  variety ;  and  in  both 
cases  several  of  the  names  have  a  sense  natural  at  that  age, 
increase  and  j^ossession.  The  different  number  of  generations 
suggests  that  the  period  between  the  children  of  Lamech  and 
the  flood  was  occupied  with  the  development  of  the  inventions 
ascribed  to  them,  by  their  unnamed  descendants.  The  only 
personal  facts  of  their  history  are,  the  foundation  by  Cain  of 
the  first  city,  which  he  named  after  his  son  Enoch;  the  polyg- 
amy of  Lamech  ;  and  the  occupations  of  his  sons,  of  whom  Ja- 
bal was  the  first  nomad  herdsman,  Jubal  the  inventor  of  mu- 
sical instruments,  both  stringed  and  wind,  and  Tubal-Cain  the 
first  smith.  It  deserves  notice  also,  that  Lamech's  address 
to  his  wives"  is  the  earliest  example  of  poetry ;  it  forms  three 
couplets  of  parallel  clauses.^*  The  great  contrast,  however, 
between  the  two  races,  is  in  their  social  and  moral  condi- 
tion." 

§  7.  Dismissing  the  family  of  Cain,  the  narrative  traces  the 
line  of  the  chosen  race. 

The  following  is  their  genealogy,  arranged  so  as  to  sho^ 
how  far  they  were  contemporary  (see  p.  35). 

"  Gen.  iv.  23-2i.  "  Sec  Notes  and  Illustrations  (B). 

"  See  Notes  and  Illustrations  (C). 


Chap.  III. 


The  Antediluvian  Races. 


85 


o 


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S6 


Character  of  Enoch. 


Chap.  IIL 


The  new  son,  who  was  given  to  Eve  "  instead  of  Abel, 
whom  Cain  slew,"  was  hence  named  Seth  (properly  Sheth,"^* 
i.e.,  ap2)ointecl)y  The  list  of  his  race  is  headed  with  a  re- 
markable phrase.  Adam  was  made  in  the  likeness  of  God ; 
and  he  begat  a  son  in  his  oio7i  likeness,  after  his  image. '^^ 
Adam  handed  down  to  Seth  and  Ids  descendants  the  promise 
of  mercy,  faith  in  which  became  the  distinction  of  God's  chil- 
dren. This  seems  to  be  the  meaning  of  the  statement  that,  in 
the  days  and  in  the  family  of  Seth,  "  men  began  to  call  upon 
the  name  of  Jehovah.""  For  the  "  name''''  of  any  great  per- 
sonage is  the  symbol  of  allegiance  to  him — "  jurare  in  nomen  " 
— and  so  it  is  used  repeatedly  in  the  Old  Testament  of  the 
name  of  God,  and  in  the  New  continually  of  the  name  of 
Christ,  "  the  name  which  is  above  every  name,"  at  which 
"  every  knee  shall  boAV  and  every  tongue  confess."  From 
the  very  beginning,  then,  of  the  race  whose  history  is  traced 
in  Scripture,  God  was  never  without  the  public  recognition 
of  His  name  and  cause  by  true  worshipers,  and  such  we  find 
first  in  the  family  of  Seth,  in  contrast  to  that  of  Cain. 

§  8.  Of  Ends  {man  or  multitude),  Caixan  (possession), 
Mahalaleel  [p^raise  of  God),^°  and  Jared  (or  Jered,  descent), 
no  particulars  are  recorded.^^  But  "  Exoch,  the  seventh 
from  Adam,"  stands  conspicuous  among  the  race  of  Seth. 
After  the  statement,  emphatically  repeated,  that  he  "  walked 
with  God,"  we  are  told,  "  he  was  not,  for  God  took  him."^* 
The  former  phrase  is  also  applied  to  Noah,  among  the  ante- 
diluvian patriarchs,^^  and  is  often  used  to  describe  a  life  of 
close  communion  with  God,  or,  in  one  word,  godliness.  The 
apostle  explains  it,  that  "  he  pleased  God,"  and  traces  Enoch's 
piety  to  his  faith  in  God,  as  the  only  true  God  and  the  hear- 
er of  prayer,  for  "  without  faith  it  is  impossible  to  please 
Him :  for  he  that  cometh  to  God  must  believe  that  He  is, 
and  that  he  is  a  re  warder  of  them  that  diligently  seek  him."^* 

But  Enoch's  life  was  not  all  spent  in  quiet  meditation  ;  he 
"walked  with  God"  in  the  path  of  active  duty  and  the 
courageous  maintenance  of  the  cause  of  God  amid  an  ungod- 
ly race.     This  we  learn  from  the  Apostle  Jude,  who  describes 


^^  Gen.  iv.  25. 

^^  Ewald  explains  the  name  as 
seed/imj  or  (/enii,  with  veference  to  tlic 
woi'ds,  "God  hatli  appointed  me  an- 
other seed,  instead  of  Abel,  whom 
Cain  slew." 

=^"Gen.v.  1-.3.         2^Gen.  iv.  26. 

'^  In  the  LXX.  this  name  is  tiie 


same  as  that  of  Mehujaelin  the  Cain- 
ite  race  (MaAeAe^/.). 

^^  Gen.  V.  9-20. 

^-  Gon,  V.  22,  4-tr.  The  name,  prop- 
erly ChanorJi,  is  interpreted  by  Philo 
"  thy  grace,"  by  modern  scholars,  iru 
I  tinted. 

"  Gen.  vi.  9.         '*  Heb.  xi.  5,  6. 


Chap.  Ill,  The  Anted iluvia 71  Races.  87 

the  antediluvian  world  as  already  infected  Avith  those  vices 
which  came  to  a  head  in  the  days  of  Noah,  which  are  ever 
the  curse  of  advanced  civilization,  and  which  will  again  mark 
the  last  age  of  the  world.  Against  these  sins  Enoch  prophe- 
sied, and  warned  their  perpetrators  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord 
to  execute  judgment  upon  them.  He  stands  conspicuous, 
therefore,  as  the  Fikst  of  the  Pkophets.^^ 

Enoch's  faith  was  rewarded  by  a  special  favor  in  the  mode 
of  his  departure  from  the  world.  "He  walked  with  God" 
till  "  he  Avas  not,  for  God  had  taken  him."  The  men  to  whom 
he  projihesied  missed  him,  perhaps  at  the  very  moment  they 
were  planning  his  death  : — "  he  was  not  found,  because  God 
had  translated  him."^^  The  apostle  who  uses  this  phrase 
leaves  no  doubt  as  to  its  meaning :  "  by  faith  Enoch  was  trans- 
lated that  he  should  not  see  deathy^''  This  distinction  was 
shared  by  Elijah  alone  of  all  the  human  race ;  and  Ave  may 
probably  infer  that,  as  in  his  case,  so  in  Enoch's,  the  miracle 
Avas  a  testimony  to  the  divine  mission  of  the  prophet,  as  well 
as  a  reward  of  the  piety  of  the  man.^^ 

§  9.  Methuselah  {a  man  of  arms),  the  son  of  Enoch,  is 
noted  as  having  reached  the  greatest  age  of  any  man.  He 
Avas  contemporary  Avith  Adam  for  243  years,  and  Avith  Noah 
for  600.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  he  died  in  the  very 
year  of  the  Deluge.  ^^  Was  he  "  a  righteous  man  taken  aAvay 
from  the  coming  evil,"  or,  having  lapsed  into  AA^ickedness,  did 
he  perish  Avith  them  that  believed  not  ?  We  are  allowed  to 
suppose  the  former,  from  the  probability  that  he  Avould  have 
been  saved  in  the  ark,  Avith  the  rest  of  Noah's  family,  had  he 


^^  Jude  14,  15.  Respecting  the  so- 
called  "Book  of  Enoch,"  see  Notes 
and  Illustrations  (D). 

2«  Heb.  xi.  5. 

"  Enoch  is  not  mentioned  else- 
where in  the  Old  Testament :  but  in 


body  and  of  a  true  human  existence 
in  glory ;  and  the  voice  of  early  ec- 
clesiastical tradition  is  almost  unani- 
mous in  regarding  them  as  "the  two 
witnesses"  (Rev.  xi.  3ff.)  who  should 
fall  before   "the  beast,"   and  after- 


Ecclesiasticus  he  is  brought  forward  j  ward  be  raised  to  heaven  before  tlie 
as  one  of  the  peculiar  glories  of  the !  great  judgment.  In  this  way  was 
Jews.  "  Upon  the  earth  there  was  i  removed  the  difficulty  which  was  sup- 
no  man  created  like  Enoch :  for  he  posed    to    attach    to    tlieir    transla- 


was  taken  from  the  earth  "  (Ecclus 
xlix.  14).  "  Enoch  pleased  the  Lord, 
jind  was  translated  [into  Paradise, 
Vulg.],  being  a  pattern  of  repent- 
ance" (Ecclus.  xliv.  IG). 

^^  Both  the  Latin  and  Greek  fa- 
thers commonly  coupled  Enoch  and 
Elijah   as   historic   witnesses   of  the 


tion  :  for  thus  it  was  made  clear  that 
they  would  at  least  discharge  the 
common  debt  of  a  sinful  humanity 
from  which  they  are  not  exempted 
by  their  glorious  removal  from  the 
earth. 

^^  This  is  according  to  the  common 
chronology.      The  LXX.  places  his 


possibility  of  a   resurrection   of  the  [death  six  years  earlier. 


38 


Xotes  and  Illustraiions. 


Chap.  HI 


been  still  alive.     His  son  Lamech  (properly  Lemech)^^'^  the 
father  of  Xoah,  died  five  years  before  the  deluge. 

*°  Derived  fioni  a  word  sip;nifying  a  strong  younj  inait.  Both  his  name 
and  his  father's  seem  to  bear  witness  to  the  state  of  violence  which  preced- 
ed the  flood,  and  they  form  a  contrast  with  the  rest  breathed  after  in  the 
name  of  Noah. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


(A.) 


SCRIPTURE 
OGY. 


CHRONOL- ! 

I 


IxDEPENDEKTLT  of  Scientific  evi- 
dence, the  following  are  our  data  for 
determining  the  chronological  rela- 
tions of  primeval  history  to  the  Chris- 
tian era. 

1 .  From  the  Creation  to  the  Delude, 
the  generations  of  the  patriarchs  form 
oar  only  guide.  These,  however,  are 
given  differently  in  different  copies 
of  the  Scriptures ;  the  sum  being,  in 
the  LXX.  006  years  longer,  and  in 
the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  349  years 
shorter,  than  in  the  received  Hebrew 
text.  The  ancient  chronologers  give 
farther  variations. 

2.  From  the  Deluge  to  the  death  of 
Joseph,  and  thence  to  the  Exodus,  the 
patriarchal  years  are  again  our  chief 
guide ;  but  other  data  are  obtained 
from  various  statements  respecting 
the  inten-al  from  the  call  of  Abraham  j 
to  the  giving  of  the  law  and  the  so-  j 
journing  of  the  Israelites  in  Egypt 
(Gen.  XV.  13;  Exod.  xii.  41;  Acts 
vii.  C;  Gal,  iii.  17).  The  main  point 
in  dispute  here  is  whether  430  years 
was  the  whole  period  from  the  call  of 
Abraham  to  the  Exodus,  or  only  the 
time  of  the  sojourning  of  the  Israel- 
ites in  Egypt. 

3.  From  the  Exodus  to  the  building 


of  Solomon  s  Temple,  the  interval  is 
positively  stated  in  the  received  He- 
brew text,  as  480  years  (IK.  vi.  1). 
But  the  reading  is  disputed ;  it  is  al- 
leged to  be  inconsistent  with  the  45Q 
years  assigned  by  St.  Paul  to  the 
Judges  (Acts  xiii.  20);  and  the 
longer  period  is  made  out  by  adding 
together  the  numbers  given  in  the 
Book  of  Judges.  Some  chronologers, 
on  the  other  hand,  compute  from  the 
many  genealogies  v.hich  we  have  for 
this  period. 

4.  From  the  huilding  of  the  Temph 
to  its  iJestruction  and  the  Captivity  of 
Zedekiah,  we  have  the  annals  of  the 
kings  of  Israel  and  Judah.  Here  the 
difficulties  are  so  slight,  that  the  prin- 
cipal chronologers  only  differ  by  15 
years  in  nearly  500. 

5.  The  Epoch  of  the  Destruc- 
tion OF  the  Temple  is  fixed  by  a 
concurrence  of  proofs,  from  sacred 
and  profane  history,  with  only  a  varia- 
tion of  one,  or  at  the  most  two  years, 
between  B.C.  588  and  586.  Clinton's 
date  is  June,  b.c.  587.  From  this 
epoch  we  obtain  for  the  building  of 
Solomon's  Temple  the  date  of  about 
B.C.  1012.* 

From  this  point  the  reckoning 
backward  is  of  course  affected  by  the 

•  The  highest  computation,  tliat  of  Hake, 
makea  the  data  u-c.  1027. 


Chap.  III. 


Xotes  and  Illustrations. 


39 


differences  already  noticed.  Out  of 
these  have  arisen  three  leading  sys- 
tems of  chronology. 

1.  The  Rabfjinical,  a  system  handed 
down  traditionally  by  the  Jewish  doc- 
tors, places  the  Creation  214  years 
later  than  oar  received  chronology, 
in  B.C.  3750,  and  the  Exodus  in  B.C. 
1314.  This  leaves  from  the  Exodus 
to  the  buildinfr  of  the  Temple  an  in- 
terval of  only  oOO  years,  a  term  cal- 
culated chiefly  from  the  genealogies, 
and  only  reconciled  with  the  numbers 
given  in  the  Book  of  Judges  by  the 
most  arbitrary  alterations.  Geneal- 
ogies, however,  are  no  safe  basis  for 
chronology,  especially  when,  as  can 
be  proved  in  many  cases,  links  are 
omitted  in  their  statement.  When 
we  come  to  examine  them  closely. 
we  find  that  many  are  broken  with- 
out being  in  consequence  tecJimcaUtf 
defective  as  Hebrew  genealogies.  A 
modem  pedigree  thus  broken  would 
be  defective,  but  the  principle  of 
these  genealogies  must  have  been  dif- 
ferent. A  notable  instance  is  that  of 
the  genealogy  of  our  Saviour  given 
by  St.  Matthew.  In  this  genealogy 
Joram  is  immediately  followed  by 
Ozias.  as  if  his  son — Ahaziah,  Joash, 
and  Amaziah  being  omitted.*  In 
Ezra's  genealogy  ;^Ezra  vii.  1-5  ;  there 
is  a  similar  omission,  which  in  so 
famous  a  line  can  scarcely  be  attrib- 
uted to  the  carelessness  of  a  copyist. 
There  are  also  examples  of  a  man 
being  called  the  son  of  a  remote  an- 
cestor in  a  statement  of  a  genealogi- 
cal form.*  We  can  not  therefore 
venture  to  use  the  Hebrew  genealogi- 


*  Matt.  i.  ?.  That  this  is  not  an  accidental 
nmissiou  of  a  coprisi  is  evident  frvni  the  speci- 
fication of  the  number  cf  generations  fr>,-in 
Abnham  to  David,  fr^m  David  to  the  Baby, 
lonish  Captiviiy.  and  ihence  to  Christ,  in  each 
ease  fourteen  generation?.  Probably  these 
missing  names  were  pcrpctsely  lei'^  oai  to 
make  the  number  for  the  interval  equal  to 
that  of  the  other  intervals,  such  an  omission 
bein?  obvioos.  and  not  liaUe  to  cause  emM-. 

t  C^en.  xxxix-  5,  compared  with  xxviiL  2, 


cal  lists  to  compute  intervals  of  time, 
except  where  we  can  prove  each  de- 
scent to  be  immediate.  But  even  if 
we  can  do  this,  we  have  stiil  to  be 
sure  that  we  can  determine  the  aver- 
age length  of  each  generation. 

2.  The  Short  or  Received  Ckrcmol- 
ogy  is  that  which  has  been  generally 
followed  in  the  West  since  the  time  erf 
Jerome,  and  has  been  adopted  in  the 
margin  of  the  authorized  English  ver- 
sion, according  to  the  system  of  its 
ablest  advocate.  Archbishop  Ussher. 
Its  leading  data  are,  first,  the  adop- 
tion of  the  numbers  of  the  Hebrew 
text  for  the  patriarchal  genealc^es  : 
secondly,  the  reckoning  of  the  430 
years  from  the  call  of  Abraham  to  the 
Exodus ;  and,  lastly,  the  adhering  to 
the  4S0  years  for  the  period  from  the 
Exodus  to  the  building  of  the  Temple. 
As  we  are  only  giving  a  general  ac- 
count of  these  different  systems,  acd 
not  attempting  their  full  discassioQ, 
we  can  not  now  explain  how  the  last 
datum  is  reconciled  with  the  450  years 
assigned  by  St.  Paid  to  the  Judges,  or 
with  the  numbers  obtained  from  their 
annals.  The  great  chronologer  Pe- 
tavi  us  is  in  sulistanrial  agreement  with 
Ussher :  but.  for  reasons  which  can 
not  now  be  stated,  he  places  the  Ex- 
odus and  the  call  of  Abraham  each 
forty  years  earlier,  the  Deluge  and 
the  Creation  each  twenty  years  later, 
than  Ussher. 

We  have  given  Ussher's  dates  in  tlic 
text  of  this  work,  as  those  most  com- 
monly received :  but  for  the  reasons 
already  mentioned,  we  believe  that 
the  Jewish  genealogies  are  no  safe  ba- 
sis for  chronology,  and  that  it  is  Lhere- 
fore  impossible  to  assign  any  real 
dates  to  the  Creation  and  the  patri- 
archal history. 

3.  The  LoJtj  Chrosolix:^  has  been, 
in  recent  times,  the  niost  formidable 


S:  1  CSir.  xivi.  24:    1  Kings  xii.  Ifi. 
pared  aith  3  Kia^  ii.  ?,  l-L 


40 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  IIL 


competitor  of  the  short  system.  Its 
leading  adrocates  are  Hales,  Jackson, 
and  Des  Vignolles.  With  some  mi- 
nor diflferences,  they  agree  in  adopt- 
ing the  Septuagint  numbers  for  the 
ages  of  tlie  patriarchs,  and  the  long 
interval  from  the  Exodus  to  tlie  build- 
ing of  the  Temple,  Their  arguments 
for  the  former  view  are  very  ably  an- 1 


swered  by  Clinton,  who  adopts  the 
short  period  from  the  Creation  to  the 
call  of  Abraham,  and  the  430  years 
on  to  the  Exodus,  but  reckons  612 
years  from  thence  to  the  foundation 
of  the  Temple. 

The  following  table  exhibits  the 
principal  dates  as  given  by  the  leading 
modern  chronologers  : — 


Short  System. 

Lonj,'  System. 

Ussher. 
u.c. 
4004 
2349 
1921 
1491 
1013 
5SS 

Petavius. 

B.C. 

3983 
2327 
1901 
1531 
1012 
5S9 

Clinton, 

B.O. 

4138 
24S! 
2055 
1625 
1013 
537 

Hales. 

B  O 

5411 
3155 
2078 
164S 
1027 
5SG 

Jackson, 
i:  c. 
54  G 
3170 

202;{ 
1513 
l'il4 
5SG 

Flood  

Call  of  Abraham 

Destruction  of  Temple 

(B.)  THE  SONG  OF  LAMECH. 

The  remarkable  poem  which  La- 
mech  uttered  has  not  yet  been  ex- 
plained quite  satisfactorily.  It  is  the 
only  extant  specimen  of  antediluvian 
poetry ;  it  came  down,  perhaps  as  a 
popular  song,  to  the  generation  for 
whom  Moses  wrote,  and  he  inserts  it 
in  its  proper  place  in  his  history.  It 
may  be  rendered  :  — 

Adah  and  Zillah  !  hear  my  voice, 
Ye  wives  of  Lamecli !  give  ear  unto  my 
speech  ; 

For  a  man  had  I  slain  for  smiting  me. 
And  a  youth  for  wounding  me. 

Surely  sevenfold  shall  Cain  be  avenged, 
But  Lamech  seventy  and  seven. 

Jerome  relates  as  a  tradition  of  his 
predecessors  and  of  the  Jews,  that 
Cain  was  accidentally  slain  by  La- 
mech in  the  seventh  generation  from 
Adam.  Luther  considers  the  occa- 
sion of  the  poem  to  be  the  deliberate 
murder  of  Cain  by  Lamech.  Herder 
regards  it  as  Lamech's  song  of  exulta- 
tion on  the  invention  of  the  sword  by 
his  son  Tubal-Cain,  in  the  possession 
of  which  he  foresaw  a  great  advantage 
to  himself  and  his  family  over  any 
enemies.    Tiiis  interpretation  a])[  cars, 


on  the  whole,  to  be  the  best  that  has 
been  suggested. 


(C.)  THE  CAINITE  EACE.       . 

The  social  condition  of  the  Cainites 
is  prominently  brought  forward  in  the 
history.  Cain  himself  was  an  agricul- 
turalist, Abel  a  shepherd :  the  success- 
ors of  the  latter  are  represented  by 
the  Sethites  and  the  progenitors  of  the 
Hebrew  race  in  later  times,  among 
whom  a  pastoral  life  was  always  held 
in  high  honor,  from  the  simplicity  and 
devotional  habits  which  it  engendered; 
the  successes  of  the  former  are  de- 
picted as  the  reverse  in  all  these  re- 
spects. Cain  founded  the  first  city ; 
Lamech  instituted  polygamy  ;  Jabal 
introduced  the  nomadic  life :  Jubal 
invented  musical  instruments ;  Tubal- 
Cain  was  the  first  smith  ;  Lamech's 
language  takes  the  stately  tone  of 
poetry ;  and  even  the  names  of  the 
women,  Naamah  (^jleasant),  Zillah 
(shadow),  Adah  (ornamental),  seem  to 
bespeak  an  advanced  state  of  civiliza- 
tion. But  along  with  this,  there  was 
violence  and  godlessness;   Cain  and 


Chap.  IIL 


Kotes  and  Illustrations. 


41 


Lamech  furnish  pi'oof  of  the  former, 
while  the  concluding  words  of  Gen. 
iv.  26  imply  the  latter. 

The  contrast  established  between 
the  Cainites  and  the  Sethites  appears 
to  have  reference  solely  to  the  social 
and  religious  condition  of  the  two 
races.  On  the  one  side  there  is  pict- 
ured a  high  state  of  civilization,  un- 
sanctified  by  religion,  and  productive 
^f  luxury  and  violence  ;  on  the  other 
side,  a  state  of  simplicity  which  af- 
forded no  material  for  history  beyond 
the  declaration  "  then  began  men  to 
call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord."  The 
historian  thus  accounts  for  the  pro- 
gressive degeneration  of  the  religious 
condition  of  man,  the  evil  gaining  a 
predominance  over  the  good  by  its  al- 
liance with  worldly  power  and  knowl- 
edge, and  producing  the  state  of 
things  which  necessitated  the  flood. 


(D.)  BOOK  OF  ENOCH. 

This  book  is  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant remains  of  early  apocalyptic 
literature.  The  history  of  the  book 
is  remarkable.  The  first  trace  of  its 
existence  is  generally  found  in  the 
Epistle  of  St.  Jude(  14,  15;  cf.  Enoch 
i.  9) ;  but  the  words  of  the  Apostle 
leave  it  uncertain  whether  he  derived 
his  quotation  from  tradition  or  from 
writing,  though  the  wide  spread  of 
the  book  in  tlie  second  century  seems 
almost  decisive  in  favor  of  the  latter 
•upposition.    Considerable  fragments 


are  preserved  in  the  Chronofjraplda  of 
Georgius  Syncellus  (c.  792  a.d.),  and 
these,  with  the  scanty  notices  of  ear- 
lier writers,  constituted  the  sole  re- 
mains of  the  book  known  in  Europe 
till  the  close  of  the  last  century. 
Meanwhile,  however,  a  report  was 
current  that  the  entire  book  was  pre- 
served in  Abyssinia  ;  and  at  length,  in 
1773,  Bruce  brought  with  him  on  his 
return  from  Egypt  three  MSS.  con- 
taining the  complete  Ethiopic  transla- 
tion. 

The  Ethiopic  translation  was  made 
from  the  Greek,  and  probably  toward 
the  middle  or  close  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury. The  general  coincidence  of  the 
translation  with  the  patristic  quota- 
tions of  corresponding  passages  shows 
satisfactorily  that  the  text  from  which 
it  was  derived  was  the  same  as  that 
current  in  the  early  Church.  But  it  is 
still  uncertain  whether  the  Greek  text 
was  the  original,  or  itself  a  translation 
from  the  Hebrew. 

In  its  present  shape  the  book  con~ 
sists  of  a  series  of  revelations  supposed 
to  have  been  given  to  Enoch  and 
Noah,  which  extend  to  the  most  varied 
aspects  of  nature  and  life,  and  are  de- 
signed to  offer  a  comprehensive  vindi- 
cation of  the  action  of  Providence. 

Notwithstanding  the  quotation  in 
St.  Jude,  and  the  wide  circulation  of 
the  book  itself,  the  apocalypse  of 
Enoch  was  uniformly  and  distinctly 
separated  from  tke  canonical  scrip 
tures. 


Mount  Ararat. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE     TIMES     OF    XOAII    AND     THE     DELUGE. 

B.C.  2948-1998. 


A.D.  1056-2006. 


§  1.  Significance  of  Noah's  name.  §2.  State  of  the  Antediluvian  World — 
The  Sethite  and  Cainite  races  intermixed — Their  progeny  and  the 
Nepliilim,  §  3.  Interval  of  divine  forbearance :  God's  resolve  to  de- 
stroy the  world.  §  4.  But  to  preserve  the  race  of  man  for  a  new  dis* 
pensation — Noah  and  his  family — The  Ark  prepared.  §  5.  Noah  en- 
ters the  Ark.  §  6.  The  Flood  :  its  duration  and  subsidence.  §  7. 
Question  of  a  universal  or  partial  Flood — In  any  case  universal  so 
far  as  man  was  concerned.  §  8.  Noah  leaves  the  Ark — His  sacrifice 
and  God's  blessing — The  Noachic  precepts.  §  9.  The  Covenant  with 
Noah  :  Gods  covenant  of  forbearance.  §  10.  Noah's  blessing  on  Shem 
and  Japheth  and  curse  on  Ham.     §  11.  His  death. 

§  1.  The  name  of  Noah  is  very  significant.  It  means  rest, 
or  comfort.,  and  his  father  gave  it  by  prophetic  inspiration, 
saying — "  This  shall  comfort  us  concerning  our  work  and 
toil  of  our  hands,  because  of  the  ground  which  the  Lord  hath 
cursed."^  These  words  seem  to  express  a  deeper  Aveariness 
than  that  arising  from  the  primal  curse,  from  which  indeed 
the  age  of  Xoah  brought  no  deliverance.     But  it  did  bring 


Gen.  V.  29. 


Chap.  IV.  Noah  and  the  Deluge.  43 

the  comfort  of  rest  from  the  wickedness  which  had  now 
reached  its  greatest  height. 

§  2.  The  brief  history  of  the  world  before  the  flood  may 
fairly  be  filled  up,  to  some  extent,  from  our  knowledge  of  hu- 
man nature.  We  have  seen  the  race  of  Cain  inventing  the 
implements  of  industry  and  art ;  and  we  can  have  no  doubt 
that  their  inventions  Avere  adopted  by  the  progeny  of  Seth. 
During  the  1656  years  before  the  Flood  (or,  by  the  chronology 
of  the  LXX.,  2262),  and  when  the  experience  of  individuals 
embraced  nearly  1000  years,  vast  strides  must  have  been 
made  in  knowledge  and  civilization.  Arts  and  sciences  may 
have  reached  a  ripeness,  of  which  the  record,  from  its  scant- 
iness, conveys  no  adequate  conception.  The  destruction 
caused  by  the  flood  must  have  obliterated  a  thousand  dis- 
coveries, and  left  men  to  recover  again  by  slow  and  patient 
steps  the  ground  they  had  lost.  But  the  race  of  Seth  also 
became  infected  with  the  vices  of  the  Cainites.  This  seems 
to  be  the  only  reasonable  sense  of  the  intercourse  between 
"the  sons  of  God"  {sons  of  the  Elohim)  and  "the  daughters 
of  men  '"  {daughters  of  the  Adam).  We  may  put  aside  all 
fancies  borroAved  from  heathen  mythology 'respecting  the 
union  of  superhuman  beings  with  mortal  woman,  and  assume 
that  both  parties  were  of  the  human  race.  The  family  of 
Seth,  Avho  preserved  their  fliith  in  God,  and  the  family  of 
Cain,  who  lived  only  for  this  world,  had  hitherto  kept  dis- 
fuct ;  but  now  a  mingling  of  the  two  races  took  place  which 
resulted  in  the  thorough  corruption  of  the  former,  Avho  fall- 
ing away,  plunged  into  the  deepest  abyss  of  wickedness. 
We  are  also  told  that  this  union  produced  a  stock  conspicu- 
ous for  physical  strengtli  and  courage  ;  and  this  is  a  Avell- 
knoAvn  result  of  the  intermixture  of  diflerent  races.  Here  it 
is  a  frequent  mistake  to  confound  these  "  miijhty  men  of  old, 
men  of  renoAvn,"  Avith  the  "giants"  (Heb. ^'iVe^^A/Z^'m),  from 
Avhom  they  are  expressly  distinguished.^ 

On  the  Avhole,  it  seems  that'the  antediluvian  world  had 
reached  a  desperate  pitch  of  AA'ickedness,  the  climax  of  Avhich 
was  attained  by  the  fusion  of  the  tAvo  races.  The  marked 
features  of  this  Avickedness  Avere  lust  and  brutal  outrage. 

'^  Gen.  vi.  1,  2.  But    tlie    word    itself   has    no    such 


Gen.  vi.  4.     The  word  NephUim 
is  used  in  one  other  passage  (Numb. 


meaning.     It   signifies   either  fallen 
ones,  or  those  icho  fall  on  others^  apos- 


xiii.  33)  as  the  name  of  a  tribe  of  Ca-    tates  or  men  of  violence  ;  and  we  can 
naanites;  and  as  these  were  men  of  Lnot   be  far   wrong   in   believing   the 
vast   stature,    the    LXX.  made    the    Nephiliin  to  have  been  both, 
Nephiliin  of  Noah's  davs  giants  also. ; 


44  OocVs  Resolve  to  Destroy  the   World.      Chap.  IV. 

The  fearful  picture  of  depravity  drawn  by  Peter  and  Jude 
evidently  refers  to  the  antediluvian  age  as  a  pattern  of  the 
wickedness  of  the  last  days  which  shall  again  make  the  world 
ripe  for  destruction." 

§  3.  An  interval  of  divine  forbearance  only  brought  this 
Avickedness  to  its  height.  "  Jehovah  said,  My  spirit  shall  not 
always  strive  with  (or  remain  or  rule  hi)  man  (the  Adam)  ; 
for  that  they  are  but  flesh,  and  their  days  shall  be  an  hun- 
dred and  twenty  years. "^  In  the  somewhat  obscure  brevity 
of  this  speech,  it  is  diflicult  to  determine  the  force  of  each 
word;  but  the  general  sense  seems  to  be  :  "I  will  take  away 
from  man  the  life  I  at  first  gave  him,  since  he  has  corrupted 
himself  to  mere  flesh,  and  I  Avill  limit  his  time  on  earth  to 
one  hundred  and  twenty  years."  That  the  period  thus  de- 
fined was  a  space  for  repentance,  seems  clear  from  the  con- 
text. The  opinion,  that  it  marks  out  the  future  length  of 
human  life,  does  not  at  all  agree  Avith  the  duration  of  the 
iives  of  the  post-diluvian  patriarchs. 

Meanwhile  "  God  saw  that  the  Avickedness  of  man  was 
great  in  the  earth,  and  that  every  imagination  (or  purpose) 
■of  the  thoughts  of  his  heart  Avas  only  evil  continually.  And 
it  repented  Jehovah  that  he  had  made  7nan  on  the  earthy  and 
it  grieved  Him  at  His  heaTty^  This  A^ery  striking  language 
is  an  example  of  the  figure  called  ayithropomorjyhism^  by 
Avliich  the  thoughts  and  acts  of  God  are  described  in  lan- 
guage Avhich  Avould  be  appropriate  to  a  man  in  like  circum- 
stances. Such  a  mode  of  expression  is  the  only  condition 
on  Avhicli  human  language  can  be  applied  to  God.  He  re- 
solved to  destroy  the  existing  race  of  living  creatures,  as  if 
putting  an  end  to  an  experiment  AA^hich  had  failed.  "The 
earth  Avas  corrupt  before  God,  and  the  earth  Avas  filled  Avith 
violence.  And  God  looked  upon  the  earth,  and  behold  it 
AA'-as  corrupt,  for  all  flesh  had  corrupted  his  AA'ay  upon  the 
earth. "^  Measures  of  amelioration  Avould  not  meet  the  case. 
It  Avas  necessary  (to  use  an  expressiA^e  phrase)  "  to  make  a 
clean  sweep  "  of  the  existing  race,  if  there  Avere  to  be  any 
hope  of  better  things  among  another.  For  the  destruction 
contemplated  was  neither  total  nor  final;  and  in  these  re- 
spects the  Deluge  is  distinguished  from  the  last  conflagra- 
tion. 

§  4.  Tlie  family  chosen  for  this  experiment  Avas  that  of 
Noah.  "Noah  found  grace  in  the  eyes  of  the  Lord."^  He 
is  described  as  "  a  just  man,  and  perfect  (upright  or  sincere) 

^  2  Peter  ii.  iii  ;  Jiule  U,  IT,.  I  '  Gen.  vi.  11,  12. 

^Gen.vi.  3.  "^  Gen.  vi.  7.      |  »  Gen.  vi.  8. 


B.C.  2918-1998.  Nooli  and  the  Deluge. 


45 


in  his  generations  "  (^.  e.,  among  his  contemporaries) ;  and, 
like  Enoch,  he  "  walked  with  God.'"  Like  Enoch,  too,  he  tes- 
tified against  the  prevailing  wickedness,  for  he  is  called  "  a 
preacher  of  righteousness.'""  He  had  three  sons — Shem, 
Ham,  and  Japheth,  as  they  are  named  in  order  of  prece- 
dence ;"  but  Japheth  seems  to  have  been  the  eldest,  and  Shem 
the  youngest. ^^  Their  birth  is  placed  at  the  500th  year  of 
Noah's  life  (Gen.  v.  32).  This  seems  to  refer  to  the  eldest 
son;  for  Shem  was  born  two  years  later. '^  About  this  time, 
perhaps  at  the  beginning  of  the  120  years  of  delay,  God  re- 
vealed His  design  to  Noah,  bidding  him  to  prepare  an  "  ark" 
to  save  his  family  from  the  coming  flood,  with  the  races  of 
animals  needful  for  them,  and  promising  to  establish  a  new 
covenant  with  his  race.'* 

Like  Abel  and  Enoch,  Noah  believed  God.  and  so  acted. 
"  Bj  faith  Noah,  being  warned  of  God  of  things  not  seen  as 
yet,  moved  with  fear  (or  being  wary),  prepared  an  ark  to  the 
saving  of  his  house  ;  whereby  he  condemned  the  world,  and 
became  heir  of  the  righteousness  which  is  by  faith.'"*  Doubt- 
less Noah  continued  his  "  preaching  of  righteousness,"  es- 
pecially as  occasions  arose  from  the  scoffing  curiosity  of 
those  who  watched  his  work ;  but  that  work  preached  loud- 
er still.  And  so  "  the  long  suffering  of  God  Avaited  in  the 
days  of  Noah,  while  the  ark  was  preparing."^^  But  it  wait- 
ed in  vain.  The  unheeded  warning,  as  is  usual,  only  plunged 
men  into  greater  carelessness.  They  went  on,  "  eating  and 
drinking,  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage,  until  the  day 
that  Noah  entered  into  the  ark  ;  and  knew  not  till  the  flood 
came  and  took  them  all  away.'"^ 

§  5.  At  the  beginning  of  the  six  hundredth  year  of  Noah's 
life  the  ark  was  completed  ;  and  on  the  tenth  day  of  the  sec- 
ond month  of  that  year  he  entered  into  it,  by  God's  com- 
mand, with  his  wife,  his  three  sons,  and  their  wives — eight 
persons  in  all — who  were  saved  from  the  flood,  and,  in  a  fig- 
ure, baptized  by  its  waters  to  a  separation  from  the  polluted 
life  of  the  old  world  and  the  beginning  of  a  new  course.'^ 
They  took  with  them  the  food  they  would  require,  which 
was  as  yet  of  a  vegetable  nature.  They  also  took  two  (a 
pair)  of  every  animal ;  but  of  clean  animals  (for  the  use 
of  sacrifice  had  already  established  this  distinction)  they 
took  seven ;  by  which  is  generally  understood  three  pairs 

'^  Heb.  xi.  7.         '"  I  V^t^y  i!i.  ,20. 
"  Matt.  xxiv.  38,  3P:   Lvho  yvii 


Peter  ii.  5. 


^  Gen.  vi.  9. 
"Gen.  V.  32;  vi.  10. 
''  Gen.  ix.  24;  x.  21. 
"Gen.  xi.  10.       "  Gen.  vi.  13-21. 


27. 


''  1  Pet.  iii.  21. 


46  The  Flood.  Chap.  iv. 

to  continue  the  race,  and  one  male  for  sacrifice.  They  took 
seven  days  to  enter  the  ark,'^  and  then  "  Jehovah  shut  Noah 
:n."^» 

§  G.  On  the  same  day,  namely,  the  seventeenth  day  of  the 
second  month  of  the  GOOth  year  of  Noah's  life,  the  Flood  be- 
gan. Its  physical  causes  are  described  simply  ^'^ phenomena^ 
in  figurative  language  :  "  The  fountains  of  the  great  deep 
were  broken  up,  and  the  windows  of  heaven  were  opened."^^ 
The  narrative  is  vivid  and  forcible,  though  entirely  Avanting 
in  that  sort  of  description  which  in  a  modern  historian  or 
poet  would  have  occupied  the  largest  space.  We  see  noth- 
ing of  the  death-struggle  ;  we  hear  not  the  cry  of  despair ; 
we  are  not  called  upon  to  witness  the  frantic  agony  of  hus- 
band and  wife,  and  parent  and  child,  as  they  fled  in  terror 
before  the  rising  Avaters.  Nor  is  a  word  said  of  tlie  sadness 
of  the  one  righteous  man  who,  safe  himself,  looked  upon  the 
destruction  Avhich  he  could  not  avert.  But  one  impression 
is  left  upon  the  mind  with  peculiar  vividness,  from  the  very 
simplicity  of  the  narrative,  and  it  is  that  of  utter  desolation. 
"  All  flesh  died  that  moveth  upon  the  earth,  both  of  fowl, 
and  of  cattle,  and  of  beast,  and  of  every  creeping  thing  that 

creepeth  upon  the  earth,  and  every  man They  Avere 

destroyed  from  the  earth,  and  Noah  only  remained  aliA^e,  and 
they  that  were  Avith  him  in  the  ark.""  The  vast  expanse  of 
Avater  appeared  unbroken,  save  by  that  floating  home  of  all 
that  were  left  aliA'c,  for  150  days,  or  five  months. 

MeauAvhile  God  had  not  forgotten  Noah  and  those  that 
Avere  Avith  him  in  the  ark.^^  On  the  seventeenth  day  of  the 
seventh  month  of  the  600th  year  of  Noah's  life,  the  subsiding 
Avaters  left  the  ark  aground  upon  the  mountains  of  Ararat.'^* 
More  than  tAA^o  months  Avere  still  required  to  uncover  the 
tops  of  the  mountains,  Avhich  appeared  on  the  1st  day  of  the 
tenth  month.  Noah  Avaited  still  forty  days  (to  the  eleventh 
day  of  the  eleventh  month)  before  he  opened  the  AvindoAV  of 
the  ark.  He  sent  out  a  raven,  Avhich  flcAV  to  and  fro,  prob- 
ably on  the  mountain-tops,  but  did  not  return  into  the  ark. 
After  seven  days  more  (the  eighteenth  day)  he  sent  forth  a 
doA'e,  Avhich  found  no  resting-place,  and  returned  to  the  ark. 
In  another  seven  days  (the  tAventy-fifth)  she  Avas  sent  out 
again,  and  returned  Avith  an  olive-leaf  in  her  bill,  the  sign  that 
even  the  Ioav  trees  Avere  uncoAcred,  and  the  type  for  after 
ages  of  peace  and  rest.     After  seven  days  more  (the  second 

^^  Gen.  vii.  21-23.      ^^  Gen.  viii.  1. 

^"^  See  ]>sotes  and  Illiistralions  (C\ 
Ararat. 


"  Respecting    the    ark,   see    Notes 
and  I /lustrations  (A). 

=^°  Gen.  vii.  16.      2^Gen.  vii.  11,  12. 


B.C.  2048-1998.  Nocih  and  the  Deluge.  47 

of  the  twelfth  month),  the  dove  was  sent  out  again,  and 
proved  by  not  returning  that  the  waters  had  finally  subsided. 
These  j^eriods  of  seven  days  clearly  point  to  the  division  of 
time  into  weeks. 

§  7.  Whether  the  Flood  was  universal  or  partial  has  given 
rise  to  much  controversy  ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it 
was  universal,  so  far  as  man  was  concerned  :  we  mean  that  it 
extended  to  all  the  then  known  icorld.  The  literal  truth  of 
the  narration  obliges  us  to  believe  that  the  ichole  human  race, 
except  eight  persons,  perished  by  the  waters  of  the  Flood. 
In  the  New  Testament  our  Lord  gives  the  sanction  of  His 
own  authority  to  the  historical  truth  of  the  narrative,"  declar- 
ing that  the  state  of  the  world  at  His  second  coming  shall  be 
such  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Noah.  St.  Peter  speaks  of  the 
"  long  suffering  of  God,"  which  "  waited  in  the  days  of 
Noah  while  the  ark  was  a  preparing,  wherem  few,  that  is, 
eight  souls,  were  saved  by  water,"  and  sees  in  the  waters  of 
the  Flood  by  which  the  ark  was  borne  up  a  type  of  baptism, 
by  which  the  Church  is  separated  from  the  w^orld.  And 
again,  in  his  Second  Epistle,^^  he  cites  it  as  an  instance 
of  the  righteous  judgment  of  God  who  spared  not  the  old 
world.  But  the  language  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  does  not 
compel  us  to  suppose  that  the  whole  surface  of  the  globe  was 
actually  covered  Avith  water,  if  the  evidence  of  geology  re- 
quires us  to  adopt  the  hypothesis  of  a  partial  deluge.  It  is 
natural  to  suppose  that  the  writer,  when  he  speaks  of  "  all 
flesh,"  "  all  in  whose  nostrils  was  the  breath  of  life,"  refers 
only  to  his  own  locality.  This  sort  of  language  is  common 
enough  in  the  Bible  when  only  a  small  part  of  the  globe  is 
intended.  Thus,  for  instance,  it  is  said  that  "  all  countries 
came  into  Egypt  to  Joseph  to  buy  corn  ;"  and  that  "  a  de- 
cree went  out  from  Csesar  Augustus  that  all  the  icorld  should 
be  taxed."  In  these  and  many  similar  passages  the  expres- 
sions of  the  writer  are  obviously  not  to  be  taken  in  an  exact- 
ly literal  sense.  Even  the  apparently  very  distinct  phrase 
"«/^  the  high  hills  that  were  under  the  ichole  heaven  were 
covered,"  may  be  matched  by  another  precisely  similar,  where 
it  is  said  that  God  would  put  the  fear  and  the  dread  of  Israel 
upon  every  nation  tinder  heaven. 

The  truth  of  the  biblical  narrative  is  confirmed  by  the 
numerous  traditions  of  other  nations,  which  have  preserved 
the  memory  of  a  great  and  destructive  flood,  from  which  but  a 
small  part  of  mankind  escaped.     They  seem  to  point  back  to 

=^  Matt.  xxiv.  37  :  Luke  xvii.  26.  ''  2  Pet.  ii.  5. 


48 


Koah  and  the  Deluge. 


Chap.  IV. 


a  common  centre,  whence  they  were  carried  by  the  different 
families  of  man,  as  they  wandered  east  and  west.^ 

§  8.  But  to  return  to  the  biblical  narrative.  Noah  at 
length  removed  the  covering  of  the  ark,  and  beheld  the  new^- 
ly-uncovered  earth,  on  the  first  day  of  the  601st  year  of  his 
age.^"  On  the  twenty-seventh  day  of  the  second  month  the 
earth  was  dry,  and  Noah  went  out  of  the  ark  by  the  command 
of  God,  with  all  the  creatures.^'  His  first  act  was  to  build 
an  altar  and  offer  a  sacrifice  of  every  clean  beast  and  bird. 
This  act  of  piety  called  forth  the  promise  from  God  that  He 
Avould  not  again  curse  the  earth  on  account  of  man,  nor  de* 
stroy  it  as  He  had  done ;  but  that  He  would  forbear  with 
man's  innate  tendency  to  evil,  and  continue  the  existing 
course  of  nature  until  the  apj^ointed  end  of  the  Avorld.^"  He 
repeated  to  Noah  and  his  sons  the  blessing  pronounced  on 
Adam  and  Eve,  that  they  should  "  be  fruitful  and  multiply 
and  replenish  the  earth,"  and  that  the  inferior  creatures  should 
be  subject  to  them.''  To  this  He  added  the  use  of  animals 
for  food.'^  But  the  eating  their  blood  was  forbidden,  because 
the  blood  is  the  life ;  and,  lest  the  needful  shedding  of  their 
blood  should  lead  to  deeds  of  blood,  a  new  law  Avas  enacted 
against  murder.  The  horror  of  the  crime  was  clearly  stated 
on  the  two  grounds  of  the  common  brotherhood  of  man,  which 
makes  every  murder  a  fratricide,  and  of  the  creation  of  man 
in  God's  image.  The  first  murderer  had  been  driven  out  as 
a  vagabond  and  fugitive ;  but  his  life  was  sacred.  Now, 
however,  the  penalty  was  changed,  and  the  laAv  laid  down— 
"  He  that  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be 
shed."^^  This  law  amounts  to  giving  the  civil  magistrate 
the  "  power  of  the  sword  ;"'*  and  hence  we  may  consider 
three  new  ijrecepts  to  have  been  given  to  Noah,  in  addition  to 
the  laws  of  the  Sabbath  and  of  marriage,  which  were  reveal- 
ed to  Adam — namely,  the  abstinence  from  bl^ood,  the  prohi- 
bition of  murder,  and  the  recognition  of  the  civil  authority. 
The  Jews  reckoned  seven  "  Noachic  precepts  "  as  antecedent 
to  the  Jew^ish  Law,  and  therefore  binding  upon  proselytes. 
The  remaining  four  are  the  laws  against  idolatry  and  blas- 
phemy, incest  and  theft.  These  have  all  survived  the  Jewish 
dispensation,  except  the  law  of  abstinence  from  blood,  and 
even  this  was  imposedby  the  Apostles  upon  Gentile  converts 
to  Christianity.'"  The  Greek  Church  kept  to  the  precept 
against  eating  blood  after  the  Latin  Church  had  abandoned 

"^"^  On  the  traditions  of  the  Deluge, 
see  Notes  and  J/hist rat  ions  (B). 
^'  Gcn.viii.  13.    ''  Gen.  viii.  14-10. 


="  Gen.  viii.  20-22.  ="  Gen.  ix.  1,  2. 
32  Gen.  ix.  3,  4.  ^^^  Gen.  ix.  5,  6. 
^*  Kom.  xiii.  4.  ^"  Acts  xr.  28. 


B.C.  2948-1998.        The  Covenant  tvith  Nocih.  49 

it ;  and  the  question  of  its  temporary  nature  can  hardly  be 
considered  as  settled. 

§  9.  In  addition  to  these  promises  and  precepts,  God  made 
witli  Noah  a  Covenant^^  —  that  is,  one  of  these  agreements 
by  which  He  had  condescended  again  and  again  to  bind  Him- 
self toward  man ;  not  more  sacred  with  Him  than  a  simple 
promise,  but  more  satisfying  to  the  weakness  of  our  faith." 
Of  these  covenants,  that  made  with  Noah  on  behalf  of  his 
descendants  is  the  first ;  and  it  may  be  called  the  Covenant 
of  GocVs  forbearcmce^  under  Avhich  man  lives  to  the  end  of 
time.  It  repeated  the  promise  that  the  world  should  not  be 
again  destroyed  by  a  flood  ;  and  it  was  ratified  by  the  beau- 
tiful sign  of  the  rainbow  in  the  cloud,  a  natural  phenomenon 
suited  to  the  natural  laics  of  whose  permanence  it  was  the 
token. ^^  It  is  important  for  us  not  to  suffer  our  relations  to 
Adam  as  our  first  father,  or  to  Abraham  as  the  father  of  the 
faithful,  to  overshadow  our  part  in  God's  covenant  with 
Noah  as  the  ancestor  of  the  existing  human  race. 

§  10.  Noah  soon  gave  proof  that  his  new  race  Avas  still  a 
fallen  one,  by  yielding  to  a  degrading  vice.  Intoxication 
was  doubtless  practiced  by  the  profligate  race  who  "  ate 
and  drank "  before  the  Flood  ;  but  it  would  seem  to  have 
been  a  new  thing  with  Noah.  He  began  his  new  life  as  a 
husbandman;  and  living  in  a  land  (Armenia)  which  is  still 
most  favorable  for  the  vine,  he  planted  a  vineyard,  made  him- 
self drunk  in  his  tent,  and  suffered  the  degrading  conse- 
quences which  always,  in  some  shape  or  other,  attend  the 
quenching  of  reason  in  wine,  by  a  shameful  exposure  of  him- 
self in  the  presence  of  his  sons.^^  And  now  they  began  to 
show  those  differences  of  chai'acter,  Avhich  have  severed 
even  the  families  chosen  by  God  in  every  age.  Ham  told 
his  father's  shame  to  Shem  and  Japheth,  who  hastened  to 
conceal  it  even  from  their  own  eyes.""  On  coming  to  him- 
self, Noah  vented  his  feelings  in  Avords  which  are  unquestion- 
ably prophetic  of  the  destinies  of  the  three  races  that  de- 
scended from  his  sons.  For  in  the  primitive  state  of  society, 
the  government  was  strictly  patriarchal.  The  patriarch— 
that  is,  the  head  of  the  race  for  the  time  being — had  over  his 
children  and  theirs  the  full  power  of  the  later  M7ig ;  he  was 
l\\Q\v  priest ;  and  thus  we  have  seen  Noah  offering  sacrifices  ; 
and,  among  those  who  preserved  the  true  religion,  he  was  a 
propihet  also."'      With  such  authority,  then,  did  Noah  pro- 


'"Gen.  ix.  8.11. 

^'  See  Heb.  vi.  13,  10-18. 

'^Gen.ix.  12-17.  ^' Gen.  ix.  20,21. 

c 


o<? 


^^  Gen.  ix.  22,  2 

^^  On  the patriarrhal  tjorern^mnt,  nili 
the  conclusion  of  Book.  JI. 


50  Koalis  Sons.     ■  Chap.  IV. 

iiounce  on  his  unclutiful  son  the  curse  that,  in  the  person  of 
one  of  his  own  children,  he  should  be  a  slave  to  his  brother  • 

"  Cursed  be  Canaan  [the  youngest  son  of  Ham]  : 
A  slave  of  slaves  shall  he  be  to  his  brethren  ;" 

while  to  Shem  and  Japheth  he  gave  the  resi^ective  blessings 
already  symbolized  by  their  names,  Sheni  (the  name^  chosen 
above  all  others)  and  Japheth  {enlargement) — to  the  former 
that  Jehovah  should  be  his  God  in  some  special  sense  ;  to 
the  latter,  that  he  should  be  "  enlarged  "  with  worldly  pow- 
er, and  should  ultimately  share  the  blessings  of  the  family  of 
Shem : 

"Blessed  be  Jehovah,  God  of  Shem, 
And  let  Canaan  be  their  slave  I 
May  God  enlarge  Japheth, 
And  let  him  dwell  in  the  tents  of  Shem, 
And  let  Canaan  be  their  slave  I" 

Thus  early  in  the  world's  history  was  the  lesson  taught 
practically,  which  the  law  afterward  expressly  enunciated, 
that  God  visits  the  sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the  cJiildren. 
The  subsequent  history  of  Canaan  shows,  in  the  clearest  man- 
ner possible,  the  fulfillment  of  the  curse.  When  Israel  took 
possession  of  his  land,  he  became  the  slave  of  Shem :  when 
Tyre  fell  before  the  arms  of  Alexander,  and  Carthage  suc- 
cumbed to  her  Roman  conquerors,  he  became  the  slave  of 
Japheth  :  and  we  also  hear  the  echo  of  Noah's  curse  in  Han- 
nibal's Agnosco  fortunam  Carthaginis^  when  the  head  of 
Hasdrubal  his  brother  was  thrown  contemptuously  into  the 
Punic  lines. 

The  blessing  on  Shem  was  fulfilled  in  that  history  of  the 
chosen  race  which  forms  the  especial  subject  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. The  blessing  on  Japheth,  the  ancestor  of  the  great 
European  nations,  is  illustrated  by  every  age  of  their  an- 
nals, and  especially  by  religious  history.  All  this  will  be 
more  clearly  seen  Avhen  the  divisions  of  the  three  races  are 
understood. 

§  11.  >[oah  lived  for  350  years  after  the  Flood,  and  died 
at  the  age  of  950,  just  halfway,  according  to  the  common 
chronology,  between  the  Creation  and  the  Christian  era." 
He  survived  the  fifth  and  eighth  of  his  descendants,  7^e/e<7  and 
Meu;  he  was  for  128  years  contemporary  w^ith  Terah.,  the 
father  of  Abraham  ;  and  died  only  two  years  before  the  birth 
of  Abraham  himself  (a.m.  2006,  b.c.  1998).     Looking  back< 

*2  Gen.  ix.  28,  29- 


Chap.  IV. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


51 


ward,  we  find  that  he  was  born  only  126  years  after  the 
death  of  Adam,  and  fourteen  years  after  that  of  Seth.  He 
Avas  contemporary  with  Mios  for  84  years,  and  with  the  re- 
maining six  antediluvian  patriarchs  (except  Enoch)  for  cen- 
turies. We  give  these  computations  not  as  a  matter  of  curi- 
osity, but  to  show  by  how  few  steps,  and  yet  by  how  many 
contemporary  teachers,  the  traditions  of  primeval  Iiistory 
may  have  been  handed  down — from  Adam  to  ISToah,  and  from 
Noah  to  Abraham,  and,  we  might  add,  from  Abraham  to 
Moses.     (See  the  Tables  of  the  Patriarchs,  pp.  57,  G5.) 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTEATIONS. 


(A.)  NOAH'S  ARK. 

The  precise  meaning  of  the  He- 
brew word  ((ebd/i),  translated  ark,  is 
uncertain.  The  word  occurs  only  in 
Gen.  vi.-viii.  and  in  Ex.  ii.  3.  In 
all  probability  it  is  to  the  old  Egyp- 
tian that  we  are  to  look  for  its  origi- 
nal form.  Bunsen,  in  his  vocabulary, 
gives  tba,  "a  chest,"  tj)t,  "a  boat," 
and  in  the  Copt.  Vers,  of  Exod.  ii,  3, 
5,  thebi  is  the  rendering  of  tebdh. 
This  "chest,"  or  "  boat,"  was  to  be 
made  of  gopiier  (i.e.,  cypress)  wood, 
a  kind  of  timber  which,  both  for  its 
liphtness  and  its  durability,  was  em- 
ployed by  the  Phoenicians  for  build- 
ing their  vessels.  The  planks  of  the 
ark,  after  being  put  together,  were  to 
be  protected  by  a  coating  of  pitch, 
or  rather  bitumen,  which  was  to  be 
laid  on  both  inside  and  outside,  as 
the  most  effectual  means  of  making 
it  water-tight,  and  perhaps  also  as  a 
protection  against  the  attacks  of  ma- 
rine animals.  The  ark  was  to  con- 
sist of  a  number  of  '*  nests  "  or  small 
compartments,  with  a  view  no  doubt 
to  the  convenient  distribution  of  the 
different    animals    and    their    food. 


These  were  to  be  arranged  in  three 
tiers,  one  above  another ;  "  with 
lower,  second,  and  third  (stories) 
shalt  thou  make  it."  Means  were 
also  to  be  provided  for  letting  light 
into  the  ark.  In  the  A.V.  we  read, 
"A  window  shalt  thou  make  to  the 
ark,  and  in  a  cubit  shalt  thou  finish 
it  above" — words,  which  it  must  be 
confessed  convey  no  very  intelligible 
idea.  The  original,  however,  is  ob- 
scure, and  lias  been  differently  inter- 
pi-eted.  What  tlie  "window"  or 
"light-hole"  was,  is  very  puzzling. 
It  was  to  be  at  the  top  of  the  ark  ap- 
parently. If  the  words  "  unto  a  cu- 
bit shalt  thou  finish  it  above,''  refer 
to  the  window  and  not  to  the  ark  it- 
self, they  seem  to  imply  that  this 
aperture  or  skylight  extended  to  the 
breadth  of  a  cubit  the  whole  length 
of  the  roof.  But  if  so,  it  could  not 
have  been  merely  an  open  slit,  for  that 
would  have  admitted  the  rain.  Are 
we,  then,  to  suppose  that  some  trans- 
parent, or  at  least  translucent,  sub- 
stance was  employed?  It  would  al- 
most seem  so.  A  different  word  is 
used  in  chap.  viii.  6,  where  it  is  said 
that  Noah  opened  the  window  of  thi 


52 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  IV. 


ark.  There  the  word  is  challon,  which 
frequently  occurs  elsewhere  in  the 
same  sense.  Supposing,  then,  the 
tsoKar  to  be,  as  we  have  said,  a  sky-  j 
light,  or  series  of  skylights  running 
the  whole  length  of  the  ark,  the  chal- 
lun  might  very  well  be  a  single  com- 
partment of  the  larger  window  which 
could  be  opened  at  will.  But  besides 
the  window  there  was  to  be  a  door. 
This  was  to  be  placed  in  the  side  of 
the  ark.  Of  the  shape  of  the  ark 
nothing  is  said  ;  but  its  dimensions 
are  given.  It  was  to  be  300  cubits 
in  length,  50  in  breadth,  and  30  in 
height.  Taking  21  inches  for  the 
cubit,  the  ark  would  be  525  feet  in 
length,  87  feet  6  inches  in  breadth, 
and  52  feet  6  inches  in  height.  This 
is  very  considerably  larger  than  the 
largest  British  njan-of-war.  It  should 
be  remembered  that  this  huge  struct- 
ure was  only  intended  to  float  on  the 
water,  and  was  not  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  word  a  ship.  It  had 
neither  mast,  sail,  nor  rudder ;  it  was 
in  fact  nothing  but  an  enormous  float- 
ing house,  or  oblong  box  rather. 
Two  objects  only  were  aimed  at  in 
its  construction :  the  one  that  it 
should  have  ample  stowage,  and  the 
other  that  it  should  be  able  to  keep 
steady  upon  the  water. 

(B.)  TRADITIONS  OF  THE 
DELUGE. 

The  traditions  which  come  near- 
est to  the  biblical  account  are  those 
of  the  nations  of  Western  Asia. 
Foremost  among  these  is  the  Chal- 
daean.  It  is  preserved  in  a  fragment 
of  Berosus,  and  is  as  follows:  "In 
the  time  of  Xisuthrus  happened  a 
great  Deluge,  the  Iiistory  of  which  is 
thus  described.  The  Deity  Kronog 
appeared  to  him  in  a  vision,  and 
warned  him  there  would  be  a  flood 
by  which  mankind  would  be  destroy- 
ed.    He   therefore   enjoined  him  to 


build  a  vessel,  and  to  take  with  him 
into  it  his  friends  and  relations  :  and 
to  put  on  board  food  and  drink,  to- 
gether w^ith  different  animals,  birds, 
and  quadrupeds ;  and  as  soon  as  he 
had  made  all  arrangements,  to  com- 
mit himself  to  the  deep.  .  .  .  Where- 
upon, not  being  disobedient  (to  the 
heavenly  vision),  he  built  a  vessel 
five  stadia  in  length,  and  two  in 
breadth.  Into  this  he  put  every 
thing  which  he  had  prepared,  and 
embarked  in  it  with  his  wife,  his 
children,  and  his  personal  friends. 
After  the  flood  had  been  upon  the 
earth  and  was  in  time  abated,  Xisu- 
thrus sent  out  some  birds  from  the 
vessel,  which  not  finding  any  food, 
nor  any  place  where  they  could  rest, 
returned  thither.  After  an  interval 
of  some  days,  Xisuthrus  sent  out  the 
birds  a  second  time,  and  now  they 
returned  to  the  ship  with  mud  on  their 
feet.  A  third  time  he  repeated  the 
experiment,  and  then  they  returned 
no  more:  whence  Xisuthrus  judged 
that  the  earth  was  visible  above  the 
waters  ;  and  accordingly  he  made  an 
opening  in  the  vessel  (?),  and  seeing 
that  it  was  stranded  upon  the  site  of 
a  certain  mountain,  he  quitted  it, 
with  his  wife  and  daughter  and  the 
pilot.  Having  then  paid  his  adora- 
tion to  the^earth,  and  having  built 
an  altar  and  offered  sacrifices  to  the 
gods,  he,  together  with  those  who 
had  left  the  vessel  with  him,  disap- 
peared." Other  notices  of  a  flood 
may  be  found  (a)  in  the  Phoenician 
mythology,  where  the  victory  of  Pon- 
tus  (the  sea)  over  Demarous  (tlic 
earth)  is  mentioned:  {b)  in  the  Sib- 
ylline Oracles,  partly  borrowed,  no 
doubt,  from  the  biblical  narrative, 
and  partly  perhaps  from  some  Baby- 
1  Ionian  story.  To  these  must  be  add- 
ed (e)  the  Phrygian  story  of  King  An- 
nakos  or  Nannakos  (Enoch),  in  Icc~ 
[  nium,  who  reached  an  age  of  more 
!  tlLan  .300  years,  foretold  the  Flood. 


Chap.  IV 


Notes  and  Illudrations. 


63 


and  wept  and  prayed  for  his  people, 
seeing  the  destruction  that  was  coming 
upon  them.  Very  curious,  as  show- 
ing what  deep  root  this  tradition  must 
have  taken  in  the  country,  is  the  fact 
that  so  late  as  the  time  of  Septimius 
Scverus,  a  medal  was  struck  at  Apa- 
mea,  on    which   the   Flood    is"  com- 


Coia  of  Apamea,  in  riuygia,  representing 
the  Deluga. 

raemorated.  This  medal  represents 
a  kind  of  square  vessel  floating  in  the 
water.  Through  an  opening  in  it 
are  seen  two  persons,  a  man  and  a 
woman.  Upon  the  top  of  this  chest 
or  ark  is  perclied  a  bird,  while  anoth- 
er flies  toward  it  carrying  a  branch 
between  its  feet.  Before  the  vessel 
are  represented  the  same  pair  as  hav- 
ing just  quitted  it,  and  got  upon  the 
dry  land.  Singularly  enough,  too 
on  some  specimens  of  this  medal  the 
letters  NS2,  or  N£2E,  have  been  found 
on  the  vessel,  as  in  the  annexed  cut. 
As  belonging  to  this  cycle  of  tradition 
must  be  reckoned  also  (1)  the  Syrian, 
related  by  Lucian,  and  connected 
with  a  huge  chasm  in  the  earth  near 
Hierapolis,  into  which  the  waters  of 
the  Flood  are  supposed  to  have  drain- 
ed :  and  (2),  the  Armenian,  quoted 
by  Josephus,  from  Nicolaus  Dainas- 
cenus,  who  flourished  about  the  age 
of  Augustus.  He  says:  "There  is 
above  Minyas  in  the  land  of  Arme- 
nia, a  great  mountain,  which  is  call- 
ed Bar  is  [i.  e.,  a  ship],  to  which  it  is 


said  that  many  persons  fled  at  the 
time  of  the  Deluge,  and  so  were 
saved ;  and  that  one  in  particular  was 
carried  thither  upon  an  ark,  and  was 
landed  upon  its  summit;  and  that 
the  remains  of  the  vessel's  planks  and 
timbers  were  long  preserved  upon  the 
mountain." 

A  second  cycle  of  traditions  is  that 
of  Eastern  Asia.  To  this  belong  the 
Persian,  Chinese,  and  Indian.  The 
Persian  is  mixed  up  with  its  cosmog- 
ony, and  hence  loses  any  thing  like 
an  historical  aspect.  The  Chinese 
story  is,  in  many  respects,  singularly 
like  the  biblical.  Fah-he,  the  repu- 
ted author  of  Chinese  civilization, 
is  said  to  have  escaped  from  the  wa- 
ters of  the  Deluge.  He  reappears  as 
the  first  man  at  the  production  of  a 
renovated  world,  attended  by  seven 
companions — his  wife,  his  three  sons, 
and  three  daughters,  by  whose  inter- 
marriage the  whole  circle  of  the  uni- 
verse is  finally  completed.  The  In- 
dian tradition  appears  in  various 
forms.  Of  these,  the  one  which  most 
remarkably  agrees  with  the  biblical 
account  is  that  contained  in  the  Ma- 
habharata.  We  are  there  told  that 
Brahma  announces  to  Manu  the  ap- 
proach of  the  Deluge,  and  bids  him 
build  a  ship  and  put  in  it  all  kinds  of 
seeds,  together  with  the  seven  Rishis, 
or  holy  beings.  The  Flood  begins 
and  covers  the  whole  earth.  Brahma 
himself  appears  in  the  form  of  a  horn- 
ed fish,  and  the  vessel  being  made 
fast  to  him,  he  draws  it  for  many 
years,  and  finally  lands  on  the  loftiest 
summit  of  Mount  Himarat  {i.e.,  the 
Himalaya).  Then,  by  the  command 
of  God,  the  ship  is  made  fast,  and  in 
memory  of  the  event  the  mountain  is 
called  Naubandhana  (i.  e.,  ship-bind- 
ing). By  the  favor  of  Brahma, 
Manu,  after  the  Flood,  creates  the 
new  race  of  mankind,  which  are 
hence  termed  Manudsha,  i.e.,  born 
of  Manu. 


64 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  IV 


The  account  of  the  Flood  in  the 
Koran  is  drawn,  apparently,  partly 
from  biblical  and  partly  from  Persian 
sources.  In  the  main,  no  doubt,  it 
follows  the  narrative  in  Genesis,  but 
dwells  at  length  on  the  testimony  of 
Noah  to  the  unbelieving.  A  nother  pe- 
culiarity of  this  version  is,  that  Noah 
calls  in  vain  to  one  of  his  sons  to  en- 
ter into  the  ark  ;  he  refuses  in  the 
hope  of  escaping  to  a  mountain,  and 
is  drowned  before  his  father's  eyes. 

A  third  Cycle  of  traditions  is  to  be 
fuund  among  the  American  nations. 
These,  as  might  be  expected,  show 
occasionally  some  marks  of  resem- 
blance to  the  Asiatic  legends.  "The 
Noah,  Xisuthrus  or  Manu,  of  the 
Mexican  nations,"  says  A.  von  Hum- 
boldt, *'is  termed  Coxcox,  Teo-Ci- 
pactli,  or  Tezpi.  He  saved  himself 
with  his  wife  Xochiquetzatl  in  a  bark, 
or,  according  to  other  traditions,  on 
a  raft.  The  painting  represents 
Coxcox  in  tlie  midst  of  the  water 
waiting  for  a  bark.  The  mountain, 
the  summit  of  which  rises  above  the 
waters,  is  the  peak  of  Colhuacan,  the 
Ararat  of  the  Mexicans.  At  the  foot 
of  the  mountain  are  the  heads  of 
Coxcox  and  his  wife.*'  A  peculiar- 
ity of  many  of  these  American  In- 
dian traditions  must  be  noted,  and 
that  is,  that  the  Flood,  according  to 
them,  usually  took  place  in  the  time 
of  the  First  Man,  who,  together  with 
his  family,  escape. 

One  more  cycle  of  traditions  must 
be  mentioned — that,  namely,  of  the 
Hellenic  race.  Hellas  had  two  ver- 
sions of  a  flood,  one  associated  with 
Ogyges,  and  the  other,  in  a  far  more 
elaborate  form,  with  Deucalion, 
which  is  fiimiliar  to  us  from  the  well- 
knovrn  story  of  Ovid. 


(C.)  ARARAT. 

We  are  told  that  the  ark  "rested 
upon  the  mountains  of  Ararat" 
(Gen.  viii.  4),  meaning  the  moun- 
tains of  Armenia,  for  Ararat  in  bib- 
lical geography  (2  K.  xix.  37 ;  Jer. 
li.  27)  is  not  the  name  of  a  moun- 
tain, but  of  a  district — the  central 
region,  to  which  the  name  of  Araratia 
is  assigned  by  the  native  geographer 
Moses  of  Chorene.  This  being  the 
case,  -we  are  not  called  upon  to  decide 
a  point  which  the  sacred  writer  him- 
self leaves  undecided,  namely,  the 
particular  mountain  on  which  the 
ark  rested.  But  nothing  is  more 
natural  than  that  the  scene  of  the 
event  should  in  due  course  of  time 
be  transferred  to  the  loftiest  of  the 
mountains  of  Armenia,  and  that  the 
name  of  Ararat  should  be  specially 
affixed  to  that  one :  accordingly  all 
the  associations  connected  with  the 
ark  now  centre  in  the  magnificent 
mountain  which  the  native  Armeni- 
ans name  Macis,  and  the  Turks 
Aghn-Tdgh.  This  is  the  culminat- 
ing point  of  the  central  range  of  Ar- 
menia, the  Abus  of  the  ancients.  It 
rises  majestically  out  of  the  valley  of 
the  Araxes  to  an  elevation  of  17,260 
feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and 
about  14,350  above  the  valley,  and 
terminates  in  a  double  conical  peak, 
the  lower  or  Lesser  Ararat  being 
about  400  feet  below  the  other.  The 
mountain  is  very  steep,  as  implied 
in  the  Turkish  name,  and  the  sum- 
mit is  covered  with  eternal  snow. 
Until  recently  it  was  believed  to 
be  inaccessible,  but  the  summit  was 
gained  by  Parrot  in  1829,  and  the 
ascenc  has  been  effected  since  big 
time. 


Temple  of  Bii-s-Nimrad  at  Borsippa.     (See  p.  64.) 


CHAPTER  Y. 


THE  PAETITIOX   OF  THE  NATIONS.       PKOM  THE  DELUGE  TO  THE 
BIRTH  OF  ABRAHAM.       A.M.  1656-2008.       B.C.  2348-1996. 

§  1.  The  pcoplinf;  of  the  earth.  §  2.  Tripartite  division  of  the  nations  from 
a,  centre  in  Armenia.  §  3.  Interpretation  of  the  record  in  Genesis  x, 
§  4.  The  three  great  families — i.  Of  Japheth — ii.  Of  Shcm — iii.  Of 
Ham.  §  5.  The  city  and  tower  of  Babel.  §  G.  The  confusion  of 
tongues  and  dispersion  from  Babel.  §  7.  Nimrod's  empire.  §  8.  The 
Post-diluvian  patriarchs. 

§  1.  The  history  of  Xoah's  children  divides  itself  into  two 
branches  ;  the  general  peopling  of  the  earth  by  the  descend- 
ants of  his  three  sons,  and  the  particular  line  of  the  chosen 
family.  The  former  subject  is  briefly  dismissed,  but  with 
notices  full  of  interest  ;^  and  the  latter  is  pursued  down  to 
Abraham,  on  whose  migration  to  Canaan  we  again  come  in 

'  Gen.  X. 


56  The  PariUion  of  the  Xations.  Ciiap.  V. 


contact  with  the  other  races  of  men.  The  mterval  is  a  pe« 
riod,  in  round  numbers,  of  400  years. ^ 

§  2.  Two  facts  are  prominent  in  the  outline  of  the  popula- 
tion of  the  world,  which  is  given  in  Ge7iesis  x.: — the  tripartite 
division  of  the  nations  into  the  descendants  of  Japheth,  Shem, 
and  Ham ;  and  the  original  centre  of  all  these  races  in  the 
mountains  of  Armenia,  where  Noah  came  forth  from  the  ark. 
That  the  record  is  meant  to  include  all  the  peoples  of  the 
known  world,  is  clear  from  the  concluding  words  :  "  These 
are  the  families  of  the  sons  of  Noah,  after  their  generations, 
in  their  nations^  and  by  these  icere  the  nations  divided  in  the 
earth  after  the  ilood."^  Now  if  we  turn  to  the  results  of  eth- 
nological science,  remembering  that  the  science  itself  is  quite 
recent,  we  must  be  struck  with  the  points  of  agreement. 

First,  as  to  tlie  locality.  The  highlands  of  Armenia  are 
admirably  adapted  to  be  the  central  spot  whence  the  streams 
of  population  should  pour  forth  on  all  sides  of  the  world. 
They  are  equidistant  from  the  Caspian  and  Euxine  seas  in 
the  N.,  and  from  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Persian  Gulf  in 
the  S.  Around  those  seas  the  earliest  settlements  of  civilized 
man  were  made,  and  they  became  the  high  roads  of  commerce 
and  colonization.  Armenia  had  communication  with  them 
by  means  of  the  rivers  which  rise  in  its  central  district,  the 
Euphrates  opening  the  path  to  Syria  and  the  Mediterranean 
in  one  direction,  as  well  as  to  the  Persian  Gulf  in  the  other ; 
the  Tigris  leading  down  to  Assyria  and  Susiana  ;  the  Araxes 
and  Cyrus  descending  to  the  Caspian,  the  latter  also  furnish- 
ing ready  access  to  the  Euxine  by  the  commercial  route 
which  connected  its  valley  with  that  of  the  Phasis.  The  re- 
searches of  science  point  to  that  region  as  the  primitive  seat 
of  these  races.  Physiologists  are  now  generally  agreed  on 
the  common  origin  of  the  human  race,  and  they  find  its  no- 
blest type  in  the  regions  south  of  the  Caucasus.  Again,  the 
Fafest  guide  to  the  affinities  of  nations  is  found  in  the  com- 
parative study  of  their  languages :  and  two  great  families 
of  these  have  been  clearly  established,  with  a  general  corre- 
spondence to  the  races  of  Japheth  andof  Shem,  while  the  lit- 
tle that  is  known  of  the  original  languages  of  Palestine, 
Egypt,  Ethiopia,  and  Libya,  is  consistent  with  their  forming 
a  third,  family,  corresponding  to  the  race  of  Ham.* 

§  3.  The  identification  of  the  names  mentioned  in  Genesis  x. 

^  To  Abraham's  birth  rather  less,  I  *  This  whole  subject,  however,  is 
to  his  call  rather  more,  than  400  still  under  discussion ;  and  perhaps 
years.  the  original  Noachic  Language  should 

^  Gen.  X.  32.  I  be  sought  for  more  carefully. 


Chap.  V. 


The  Partition  of  the  Nations. 


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58  Names  Mentioned  in  Genesis.  Chap.  Vc 

is  attended  witli  considerable  difficulties.  First,  there  is  a 
question  respecting  the  extent  of  the  world  over  which  these 
nations  must  be  looked  for :  but  as  the  account  is  one  of  the 
first  peopling  of  the  earth  after  the  Flood,"  the  space  to  which 
it  refers  must  be  comparatively  small ;  and  it  belongs  to 
later  history  to  trace  the  further  diifusion  of  the  nations. 
Again,  some  names,  Avhich  would  be  well  known  in  their  na- 
tive or  classical  forms,  seem  unfamiliar  to  us  in  the  Hebrew. 
The  same  names,  too,  appear  among  diiferent  races,  as  W7.11  be 
Been  by  comparing  the  Hamite  and  Shemite  peoples  of  Ara- 
bia (see  the  Table,  columns  3  and  7)  Avith  each  other  and  with 
the  descendants  of  Abraham  by  Keturah  {the  Ketura'lte 
Arabs). ^  Such  cases  are  satisfactorily  explained  by  assuming 
that,  when  a  people  of  one  race  settled  in  a  country  previous- 
ly occupied  by  another,  either  expelling  or  subduing  or  coa- 
lescing with  the  former  inhabitants,  the  new  race  are  called 
by  the  already  established  geographical  name  of  the  older, 
just  as  the  English  received  the  name  of  Britons,  and  the 
mixed  races  of  the  three  European  peninsulas  are  called 
Spaniards,  Italians,  and  Greeks. 

The  chief  stumbling-block,  however,  is  found  in  the  mix- 
ture of  individual  with  national  names.  Kow  this  is  really 
of  little  consequence,  since,  with  a  few  exceptions,  as  that  of 
Nimrod,^  the  purpose  is  clearly  to  exhibit  the  affinities  of  na- 
tions. The  record  is  ethnographical  rather  than  genealogical. 
This  is  clear  from  the  p>lural  forms  of  some  of  the  names  (for 
example,  all  the  descendants  oiMizraim)^  and  from  the  ethnic 
form  of  others,  as  those  of  the  children  of  Canaan.,  nearly  all 
of  which  are  simply  geographical.  The  genealogical  form  is 
preserved  in  the  first  generation  after  the  sons  of  JSToah,  and  is 
then  virtually  abandoned  for  a  mere  list  of  the  nations  descend- 
ed from  each  of  these  progenitors.  But  in  the  line  of  the  j^atri- 
archs  from  Shem  to  Abraham  the  genealogical  form  is  strictly 
preserved,  since  the  object  is  to  trace  ^personal  descent. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  identification  is  greatly  aided,  first, 
by  the  geographical  explanations  given  in  the  record  itself;" 
next,  by  the  well-knoAvn  names  occurring  among  the  less 
known  ;  while  on  these  latter  much  light  is  thrown  by  sub- 
sequent allusions  in  the  prophetical  as  well  as  the  historical 
books  of  the  Old  Testament. 

§  4.  The  annexed  map  exhibits  a  probable  view  of  the 
leading  peoples.     The  three  great  races  extend  over  three 

to  'learly  parallel  zones  inclining  from  north-west  to  south-east; 

years. 

«Gcn.  ^^x.  32.      *  Gen.  XXV.       '  Gen.  x.  8,  9.       '  Gen.  x.  5,  10-12,  19,  3Q 


B.C.  2318-1996.        Ti'ie  Three  Great  Families. 


59 


but  they  Avere  also  intermingled  in  a  way  which  the  map 
could  not  conveniently  represent. 


Map  of  the  Distribution  of  the  Iliimau  Race,  according  to  tlie  10th  chap,  of  Genesis. 

i.  The  territories  of  Japheth  lie  chiefly  on  the  coasts  of' 
the  Mediterranean,  in  Europe  and  Asia  Minor, "  the  isles  of 
the  Gentiles  ;""  but  they  also  reach  across  Armenia  and  along 
the  north-eastern  edge  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  valley, 
over  Media  and  Persia.  The  race  spread  westward  and 
northward  over  Europe,  and  at  the  other  end  as  far  as  Indi%. 


Gen.  X.  5. 


60 


Tlie  Partition  of  the  Nations. 


Chap.  V. 


embracing  the  great  Indo-European  family  of  languages. 
This  Avide  diffusion  was  prophetically  indicated  by  the  very 
name,  Japheth'"  {enlarged).,  and  by  the  blessing  of  his  father 
Noah.'^  In  Greek  mythology  the  Titan  Japetus  is  the  pro- 
genitor of  the  human  race,  and  Milton  has  not  scrupled  to 
call  his  son  Prometheus  "  Japhet's  wiser  son."  Among  his 
children  Javaii  is,  in  its  old  Hebrew  form,  the  same  word  as 
the  Greek  Ion;  and  of  his  progeny,  Tarshish  is  probably 
identified  with  the  people  of  Southern  Spain,  Madai  proba- 
bly represents  the  Medes^  and  Gomer  the  Cimmerians/^ 

ii.  The  race  of  Shem  occupied  the  south-western  corner  of 
Asia,  including  the  peninsula  of  Arabia.  Of  his  five  sons, 
Arphaxad  is  the  progenitor  both  of  the  Hebrews  and  of  the 
Arabs  and  other  kindred  tribes,  Avhose  origin  is  recorded  in 
the  Book  of  Genesis.  North  of  them  were  the  children  of 
Aram  (which  signifies  high),  in  the  highlands  of  Syria  and 
Mesopotamia.  Asshur  evidently  represents  Assyria ;  and  the 
eastern  and  western  extremities  were  occupied  by  the  Avell- 
known  nations  of  the  Elyma^ans  (children  of  Mam)  on  the 
south-eastern  margin  of  the  valley  of  the  Tigris,  and  the 
Lydians  (children  oi  Liid)  in  Asia  Minor. 

iii.  The  race  of  Ham  (the  swarthy,  according  to  the  most 
probable  etymology)  presents  very  difiicult  but  interesting 
problems.  Their  chief  seat  was  in  Africa,  but  they  are  also 
found  mingled  with  the  Semitic  races  on  the  shores  of  Ara- 
bia, and  on  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  while  on  the  north 
they  extended  into  Palestine  (the  land  of  the  Philistines)^ 
Asia  Minor,  and  the  larger  islands,  as  Crete  and  Cyprus.  In 
Africa,  Mizraim  is  most  certainly  identified  with  Egypt ; 
Cash  with  Ethiopia,  above  Egypt ;  and  Phut  probably  with 
the  inland  peoples  to  the  west.  Among  the  sons  of  Mizraim, 
the  Luhim  correspond  to  Libj^a ;  and  those  of  Cush  repre- 
sent tribes  which  crossed  the  Red  Sea  and  spread  along  the 
southern  and  eastern  shores  of  Arabia,  up  the  Persian  Gulf 
and  the  valley  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates. 

§  5.  The  dispersion  of  these  nations  to  their  several  abodes 
only  began  a  considerable  time  after  the  Deluge.  It  was  in 
the  days  of  Peleg,  the  fifth  from  ^NToah,  that  the  earth  was  di- 
vided: ^^     Men  never  leave  their  abodes  in  masses  excejjt  un- 


"  Gesenius  and  others  derive  the 
name  from  the  i-oot  to  he  fair,  in  al- 
lusion to  tlie  light  complexion  of  the 
Japhetic  races. 

"  Gen.  ix.  27. 

"  For  the  further  discussion  of  each 


name,  see  the  several  articles  in  the 
Jjictionaiv/  of  the  Bible. 

"  Gen.  X.  25.  This  may  refer  only 
to  the  division  of  the  race  of  Eber  into 
Hebrews,  sons  of  Peleg,  and  Arabs, 
sons  of  Joktan. 


B.C.  2348-1996.         City  and  Tower  of  Bahet  6\ 

der  the  pressure  of  necessity  or  compulsion ;  and  that  pressure 
was  supplied  by  the  interposition  of  God  to  defeat  a  daring 
scheme,  by  which  men  aimed  to  make  themselves  independ- 
ent of  Him.  ^'  The  whole  earth  Avas  as  yet  of  one  language 
and  of  one  speech,"  when  "  as  they  journeyed  eastward  they 
found  a  plain  in  the  land  of  Shinar,  and  they  dwelt  there.'"* 
That  Shinar  means  Babylonia,  admits  of  no  doubt ;  but  who 
were  the  people  that  journeyed  eastward  to  it  ?  Were  they 
one  of  the  three  races  of  Noah's  sons,  and  if  so,  which  ?  Or 
was  it  a  migration  of  the  great  body  of  Noah's  offspring  from 
the  rugged  highlands  of  Armenia,  in  search  of  a  better  soil 
and  climate?  The  latter  seems  the  more  probable,  though 
there  is  a  difficulty  about  bringing  the  Japhetic  race  into  this 
region.  They  discovered  the  art  of  making  brick  from  the 
argillaceous  soil,  and  cementing  it  with  the  mineral  bitumen 
or  asphalt.  Soon  that  idea  sprung  up  in  their  minds,  which 
has  been  the  dream  of  man  in  every  age — an  universal  em- 
pire, with  a  mighty  city  for  its  capital.  In  the  blindness  of 
their  pride,  they  fancied  that,  when  thus  banded  together, 
they  might  defy  God  himself  and  defeat  His  wise  design  of 
dispersing  them  over  the  earth.  "Come,"  said  they,  "let  us 
build  us  a  city^  and  a  citadel  with  its  top  (reaching)  to  heav- 
en ;^^  and  let  us  make  us  a  name,  lest  we  be  scattered  abroad 
upon  the  face  of  the  whole  earth."^^  God  saw  the  danger  of 
their  scheme,  and  willed  that  no  such  power  should  be  ever 
established.  The  attempt  has  since  been  made  thrice  on  that 
very  spot  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  Cyrus,  and  Alexander.  It  has 
been  repeated  in  the  empire  of  the  Romans,  and  in  its  at- 
tempted revival  by  Charlemagne  and  Napoleon ;  but  in  each 
case  God  has  come  down  to  confound  the  scheme  : — 


'  Heroes  and  kings,  obey  the  charm, 
Witlidraw  the  proud,  higli-reaching  arm  ; 

There  is  an  oath  on  high, 
That  ne'er  on  brow  of  mortal  birth 
Shall  blend  again  the  crowns  of  earth, 
Nor  in  according  ciy. 


'  Her  many  voices  mingled  own 
One  tyrant  lord,  one  idol  throne : 

But  to  His  triumph  soon 
He  shall  descend,  who  rules  abovet 
And  the  pure  language  i^  of  his  love 

All  tongues  of  men  shall  tune."^!* 


§  6.  The  means  by  which  the  design  was  defeated  was  a 
"  Confusion  of  speech "  among  the  builders,,  caused  by  the 


"  Gen.  xi.  1,  2. 

'-^  It  is  almost  incredible  that  this 
hyperbolic  description  of  the  height 
of  the  citadel  should  have  suggested 
the  ludicrous  idea  of  a  tower  of  refuge 
(ignoring  the  cz7_y),  which  would  out- 
top  a  flood  deep  enough  to  drown 
Ararat,  and  stand  firm  amid  such  an 


inundation  on  the  alluvial  soil  of 
Babylonia !  The  Babel  builders,  fools 
as  they  were  in  their  estimate  of  God's 
power,  were  not  so  childish  as  this 
would  imply. 

^«Gen.xi.4.  "Zeph.iii.9. 

^**  Keble,  Christian  Year,  Monday  in 
Whitsun  week. 


62 


Nim  rocVs  Evqdre. 


ClIAP.  V 


direct  power  of  God,  "  that  they  might  not  iinJerstand  one 
another's  speech.'"'  This  confusion  of  speech  has  generally 
been  itself  confounded  Avith  the  origin  of  the  different  lan- 
guages of  men.  The  Scripture  narrative  simply  says  that 
the  confusion  was  such  as  to  make  them  leave  off  working 
together,  and  that  then  "Jehovah  scattered  them  abroad 
from  thence  upon  the  face  of  all  the  earth  :  and  they  left  off 
to  build  the  city."^°  We  are  not  told  in  wiiat  the  confusion 
consisted,  nor  what  elements  the  different  peoples  carried 
away  w^ith  them  in  their  dispersion.  Certainly  it  seems  to 
be  implied  that  some  of  the  most  striking  differences  which 
mark  the  various  families  of  languages  Avere  then  suddenly 
caused  by  God's  immediate  act,  and  that  the  builders  sepa- 
rated because  they  could  no  longer  understand  each  other ; 
but  it  does  not  follow  that  languages  were  then  formed  as 
they  exist  now,  and  the  comparative  grammarian  may  trace 
up  the  beautiful  laAvs  wdiich  sIioav  the  very  opposite  of  con- 
fusion^ without  fearing  to  contradict  the  true  sense  of  the 
Scripture  narrative. 

From  the  confusion  {Bahel)  of  tongues,  the  city  received 
the  name  of  Isabel,  and  is  renowned  under  the  Greek  form  of 
JBabylon.  It  is  supposed  that  the  tower  was  afterward  com- 
pleted. Similar  edifices  Avere  used  in  other  cities  of  the  re- 
gion as  citadels,  temples,  and  observatories,  and  the  ruins  at 
Borsippa,  called  Birs-Nhnr'iXd,  (Nimrod's  mound),  may  be 
taken  as  a  type  of  such  structures.^' 

§  7.  The  early  importance  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria  is  tes- 
tified by  the  notice  of  their  capitals,  and  in  the  account  of 
the  division  of  the  nations,  Mmrod,  the  son  of  Cush,  founded 
the  first  great  military  despotism  on  record.  The  "  mighty 
hunter  "^^  made  men  his  game  ;  for  the  phrase,  in  its  connec- 
tion, seems  a  great  symbol  of  violence  and  rapine.  His 
capital  Avas  Babylon,  but  he  founded  also  three  other  cities 
in  the  plain  of  Shinar,  namely,  Erech,  Accad,  and  Calneh." 
Thence  he  extended  his  empire  nortliAvard  along  the  course 
of  the  Tigris  over  Assyria,^*  where  he  founded  a  second  group 
of  capitals,  Nineveh,'  Rehoboth,  Calah,  and  Resen."      The 


"  Gen.  xi.  7.         '"  Gen.  xi.  7-9. 

^^  See  'Notes  and  Illustrations. 

^^  Gen.  X.  9. 

"^  Gen.  X.  10;  Erecli  may  be  iden- 
tified with  Wnrka,  situated  near  the 
left  bank  of  the  Euphrates,  about 
eighty  miles  S.E.  of  Babylon  ;  Accad, 
with  the  remains  at  Akker-kuJ]  near 


Barjhdad ;  Calneh  with  the  classical 
Ctesiphon. 

^^  Gen.  X.  1 1.  This  passage  should 
probably  be  read  as  in  the  margin  of 
our  version — "  He  (Nimrod)  went 
out  into  Assyria." 

-^  The  identification  of  these  places 
is  not  yet  satisfactorily  settled.     The 


B.C.  2318-1906. 


Nimrod^s  Empire. 


63 


Assyrians  were  Shemites;  and  accordingly  we  see  here  the 
race  of  Ham  subduing  that  of  Shera,  but  only  for  a  time,  for 
the  history  of  these  monarchies  fulfilled  the  prophecy  of 
Noah,  that  Ham  should  be  subject  to  both  his  brothers.  Still 
more  strikingly  was  this  true  of  the  posterity  of  Canaan 
(the  youngest  son  of  Ham),  Avho  settled  in  Palestine  and  be- 
came the  great  enemies  of  the  chosen  race. 

Our  present  information  does  not  permit  us  to  identify 
Nimrod  with  any  personage  known  to  us  either  from  inscrip- 
tions or  from  classical  writers.  Ninus  and  Belus  are  rep- 
resentative titles  rather  than  personal  names,  and  are  but 
equivalent  terms  for  "  the  lord,"  who  was  regarded  as  the 
founder  of  the  empires  of  Kineveh  and  Babylon.  We  haVe 
no  reason  on  this  account  to  doubt  the  personal  existence  of 
Nimrod,  for  the  events  with  which  he  is  connected  fall  within 
the  shadows  of  a  remote  antiquity.  His  name  still  survives 
in  tradition,  and  to  him  the  modern  Arabs  ascribe  all  the 
^reat  works  of  ancient  times,  such  as  the  Birs-NimrHd  near 
Babylon,  Tel  Nimntd  near  Baghdad,  the  dam  of  ^uhr  el 
Nimrad  across  the  Tigris  below  3Iosul,  and  the  well-known 
mound  of  Nimrvid  in  the  same  neighborhood. 

§  8.  From  this  general  account  of  the  origin  of  the  nations, 
the  sacred  narrative  turns  to  the  genealogy  of  the  Post-dilu- 
vian Patfiarchs,  in  ten  generations  from  Shem  to  Abraham. 
The  synchronical  table  on  page  65  shows  the  relative  du- 
ration of  their  lives ;  and  it  is  continued  to  the  birth  of  Moses, 
to  show  the  synchronisms  more  clearly.  The  only  remaining 
point  requiring  notice  is  the  decrease  in  the  duration  of  life 
after  Eber,  the  common  head  of  the  Hebrew  and  Arab  races. 


mounds  opposite  Mosul,  named  Ko- 
yunjik,  and  Nebhi  Yunus,  no  doubt 
represent  Nineveh,  or  a  portion  of  it. 
If  Calah  be  identified  with  Kalah- 
Shergat,  as  the  name  suggests,  then 
Niinrud  would  naturally  represent  the 


"  great "  city  of  Resen,  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  Bible,  was  between  Calah 
and  Nineveh.  Kehoboth  or  Rehoboth 
Ir  can  not  be  fixed  at  any  place :  tlic 
name  describes  the  "broad,  open 
streets  "  of  an  Oriental  town. 


64 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  V. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTEATIONS. 


THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL. 

When  the  Jews  were  carried  cap- 
tive into  Babylonia,  they  were  struck 
with  the  vast  magnitude  and  peculiar 
character  of  certain  of  the  Babylonian 
temples,  in  one  or  other  of  which  they 
thought  to  recognize  the  very  tower 
itself.  The  predominant  opinion  was 
in  favor  of  the  great  temple  of  Nebo 
at  Borsippa,  the  modern  Birs-Nimrud, 
rdthough  the  distance  of  that  place 
from  Babylon  is  an  insuperable  diffi- 
culty in  tte  way  of  the  identification. 
There  are  in  reality  no  real  grounds 
either  for  identifying  the  tower  with 
the  Temple  of'Belus,  or  for  supposing 
that  any  remains  of  it  long  survived 
the  check  Avhich  the  builders  received 
(Gen.  xi.  8).  But  the  Birs-Nimrud, 
tliough  it  can  not  be  the  tower  of  Ba- 
bel itself,  may  well  be  taken  to  show 
the  probable  shape  and  character  of 
the  edifice.  This  building  appears  to 
have  been  a  sort  of  oblique  pyramid, 
built  in  seven  receding  stages.  "  Upon 
a  platform  of  crude  brick,  raised  a 
few  feet  above  the  level  of  the  allu- 
vial plain,  was  built  of  burnt  brick  the 
first  or  basement  stage — an  exact 
square,  272  feet  each  way,  and  26 
feet  in  perpendicular  height.  Upon 
this  stage  was  erected  a  second,  230 
feet  each  way,  and  likewise  26  feet 
high  ;  which,  however,  was  not  placed 
exactly  in  the  middle  of  the  first,  but 


considerately  nearer  to  the  south-west- 
ern end,  which  constituted  the  back 
of  the  building.  The  other  stages 
were  arranged  similarly — the  third 
being  188  feet,  and  again  26  feet 
high  ;  the  fourth  146  feet  square,  and 
15  feet  high  ;  the  fifth  104  feet  square, 
and  the  same  height  as  the  fourth ; 
the  sixth  62  feet  square,  and  again 
the  same  height ;  and  the  seventh  20 
feet  square,  and  once  more  the  same 
height.  On  the  seventh  stage  there 
was  probably  placed  the  ark  or  taber- 
nacle, w^hich  seems  to  have  been  again 
15  feet  high,  and  must  have  nearly, 
if  not  entirely,  covered  the  top  of  the 
seventh  story.  The  en'tire  original 
height,  allowing  three  feet  for  the 
platform,  would  thus  have  been  156 
feet,  or,  without  the  platform,  153 
feet.  The  whole  formed  a  sort  of 
oblique  pyramid,  the  gentler  slope 
facing  the  N.E.  and  the  steeper  in- 
clining to  the  S.W.  On  the  N.E. 
side  was  the  grand  entrance,  and  here 
stood  the  vestibule,  a  separate  build- 
ing, the  debris  from  which,  having 
joined  those  from  the  temple  itself,  fill 
up  the  intermediate  space,  and  very 
remarkably  prolong  the  mound  in 
this  direction"  (Rawlinson's  Herodo- 
tus, vol.  i.  pp.  582-3).  The  Birs  tem- 
ple, which  was  called  the  "Temple 
of  the  Seven  Spheres,"  was  ornament- 
ed with  the  planetary  colors,  but  this 
was  most  likely  a  peculiarity. 


Chap.  V. 


Post-Diluvian  Patriarchs. 


Go 


o      ■* 

s-s- 


i^ 


i-l- 

l-H  (M 


2      ,-1      t- 


»b  — 0-1 


S      ^ 
O     « 


<;    cc    <;    «2 


2    ^ 


H      <      ^ 


Ihe  Dead  S^a.     "\i3w  fioiii    I  in  Juhj,  luokirij;  fcoiiti 


BOOK  IL 

FROM  THE  BIRTH  OF  ABRAHAIM  TO  THE  DEATH  OF  JO- 
SEPH, OR  THE  PROBATION  OF  THE  CHOSEN  FAMILY. 
A.M.  2008-2369,     B.C.  1990-1635. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

HISTORY    AXD    CALL   OF    ABEAM    TO    HIS    99Tn    YEAR,  AND    THE 
CHANGE  OF  HIS   NAME.       A.M.  2008-2369.       B.C.  1996-1635. 

§  1.  God's  choice  of  n  fiitiiily.  §  2.  Genealogy  of  Terali — Birth  of  Abram. 
§  8.  First  call  of  Abram  at  Ur — Removal  to  Haran — Death  of  Te- 
rah.  §  4.  Abram's  second  call — His  journey  to  Canaan  and  abode  at 
Sichem.  §  5.  His  removal  to  Bethel — Retreat  to  Ejrypt,  and  return  to 
Bethel.  §  6.  His  separation  from  Lot,  and  abode  at  Mamrc,  near  He- 
bron— Tiie  third  giving  of  the  promise.  §  7.  The  War  of  Sodom — 
Abram's  rescue  of  Lot — Melchizedek.  §  8.  The  promise  of  a  son — 
The  faith  of  Abraham — The  Covenant  made  with  him — Promise  re- 


B.C.  1996-1898.       GocPs  Choice  of  a  Family. 


67 


specting  his  descendants  and  their  land.  §  9.  Hagar  the  Egyptian— 
Birtli  of  Ishmael.  §  10.  Completion  of  the  promise — The  names  of 
Abram  and  Sarai  changed — Covenant  of  Circumcision — The  birth  of 
Isaac  foretold. 

§  1.  Ix  that  course  of  God's  dealing  with  man  which  is 
traced  in  the  sacred  narrative,  a  new  step  was  taken  by  the 
choice  of  a  family  from  which  the  promised  seed  of  the  wom- 
an was  to  spring,  and  which  should  meanwhile  preserve  the 
knowledge  and  worship  of  the  true  God.  Jehovah,  in  the 
revelation  of  himself  to  man,  retires,  so  to  speak,  from  the 
Avhole  compass  of  the  race  of  Noah  into  the  inner  circle  of 
the  family  of  Abraham.  It  was  a  step  required  by  the  state 
of  the  world,  which  had  relapsed  into  idolatry  and  profane- 
ness  before  the  death  of  N^oah.  This  is  clear  from  the  story 
of  the  building  of  Babel,  and  it  is  implied  in  the  subsequent 
history.  Joshua  expressly  says  that  the  family  of  Terah 
were  idolaters.^  We  can  not,  however,  regard  the  rabbinical 
stories  of  Abraham's  early  contests  with  idolatry  as  more 
than  curious  and  amusing. 

§  2.  The  patriarch  whom  God  made  the  head  of  his  cto- 
sen  family  Avas  born  only  two  years  after  the  death  of  Noah 
(B.C.  1996)  :— 

*'Uno  avulso  non  deficit  alter." 


His  father  was  Terah,  the  ninth  of  the  patriarchs  from 
Siiem  and  the  nineteenth  from  Adam  (inclusive).  His  gene- 
alogy, which  the  subsequent  history  requires  to  be  most  clear' 
ly  understood,  is  exhibited  in  the  annexed  table  (page  68). 
It  is  the  more  important  to  include  the  whole  family  of  Te- 
rah in  our  view,  as  the  call  of  God  came  to  Abram  Avhile  he 
Avas  still  living  in  the  house  of  his  father,  to  w^hose  whole 
family,  therefore,  the  call  may  be  considered  as  in  some  sense 
addressed,  and  by  all  of  Avhom  it  Avas  in  some  degree  obeyed. 

In  the  list  of  the  post-diluvian  patriarchs  it  is  stated  that 
Terah,  at  the  age  of  70  (b.c.  2056),  begat  three  sons,  Abram, 
Nahor,  and  Haran.^  This  is  the  order  of  dignity,  as  subse- 
quently determined  ;  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  Ha- 
ran  Avas  the  eldest  of  the  three,  since  both  Nahor  and  Abram 
married  his  daughters  ;  and  Abram  seems  to  have  been  the 
youngest,  since  he  Avas  born  sixty  years  after  the  date  just 
given  ;  for  he  was  seventy-five  years  old  when  his  father  died 
in  Haran  at  the  age  of  205.''     His  name  AB-RAM  (father  of 


^  Josh.  xxiv.  2. 

'  Gen.  xi.  26. 

^  That  is,  if  we  assume  the  numbers 


of  the  Hebrew  text  to  bo  correct 
(Gen.  xi.  32,  compared  with  Gen. 
xii.  4). 


68 


=  -r^rs    -a  . 


History  and  Call  of  Ahram. 


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B.C.  1^.23.  A!>ram  in  the  Land  of  Promise. 


■m 


Jevationy  i  yther),  was  prophetic  of  his  calling  to 

?  the  ance  «t*'i  ^^  =^  ^"'-6  chosen  for  an  exalted  destiny  ;  but 
was  aftei  warci"  changed  into  the  more  significant  name  of 
i.i3-RAHA\M  (father  of  a  multitude,  see  §  10). 
§  3.  '^emh  had  already  lost  his  eldest  son,  Haran,  whose 
son  ^OT  became  his  heir,  when  God  called  Abram  to  depart 
in'tto  a  land  that  he  would  show  him.*  This  first  call  came 
to  him  while  the  family  still  dwelt  in  the  very  ancient  city 
of  "  Ur  of  the  Chaldees."  This  is  expressly  stated  by  St. 
Stephen,^  whose  speech  before  the  Sanhedrim  is  of  the  high- 
est authority,  were  it  only  for  his  profound  scriptural  learn- 
ing. °  Their  original  abode  at  Ur  has  been  identified  by  the 
most  ancient  traditions  with  the  city  of  Orfah,  in  the  high- 
lands of  Mesopotamia  (Aram),  which  unite  the  table-land  of 
Armenia  to  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates  (Padan-Aram).  In 
later  ages  it  was  called  Edessa,  and  was  celebrated  as  the 
capital  of  Abgarus  or  Acbarus,  avIio  was  said  to  have  received 
the  letter  and  portrait  of  our  Saviour. '^  Quitting  Ur,  the 
chosen  family  migrated  southward,  and  took  up  their  resi- 
dence at  Haran,  more  properly  called  in  the  New  Testament 
Charran,  east  of  the  Euphrates,  "  the  flood  "  which  divided 
the  old  home  of  the  family  from  the  new  land  of  promise.* 
The  name  is  still  preserved  in  the  village  of  Haran,  Avhich 
stands  on  the  river  Belilk,  a  small  affluent  of  the  Euphrates.' 


*  Gen.  xii.  1.  ^  Acts  vii.  2. 

"  See  Acts  vi.  10.  In  Gen.  xi.  the 
genealogy  of  the  post-diluvian  patri- 
archs is  brought  down  to  the  migra- 
tion and  death  of  Terah  before  enter- 
ing on  the  history  of  God's  call  to 
Abraham ;  but  this  is  explained  by 
the  pluperfect  in  vcr.  1  of  chap.  xii. 

^  "Two  physical  features  must 
have  secured  Or/ah,  from  the  earliest 
times,  as  a  nucleus  for  the  civiliza- 
tion of  those  regions.  One  is  a  high- 
crested  crag,  the  natural  fortifications 
of  the  crested  citadel.  .  .  .  The  other 
is  an  abundant  spring,  issuing  in  a 
pool  of  transparent  clearness,  and 
embosomed  in  a  mass  of  luxuriant 
Tcrdure,  which,  amid  the  dull  brown 
desert  all  around,  makes,  and  must 
always  have  made,  this  spot  an  oasis, 
A  paradise,  in  the  Chaldtean  wilder- 
ness. Round  this  sacred  pool,  'The 
Beautiful  Spring  Callirrhoe,'  as  it 
was  called  by  the  Greek  writers, 
gather  the  modern  traditions  of  the 


Patriarch."  Stanley,  ./ezt-i.sA  CliurcJi, 
part  i.  p.  7.  But  in  ojiposition  to 
the  most  ancient  traditions,  many 
modern  writers  have  fixed  the  site  of 
Ur  at  a  very  different  position,  in  the 
extreme  south  of  Chaldrea,  at  Mmj- 
heir,  not  A'-ery  far  above — and  proba- 
bly in  the  time  of  Abraham  actually 
upon — the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf. 
Among  the  ruins  which  are  now  seen 
at  the  spot,  are  the  remains  of  one  of 
the  great  temples,  of  a  model  similar 
to  that  of  Babel,  dedicated  to  the 
Moon,  to  whom  the  city  was  sacred. 
Rawlinson's  Fii^e  Great  Monarcluex 
of  the  Ancient  Eastern  World,  vol.  i. 
chap.  i.  and  viii. 

'  Gen.  xi.  31  ;  Acts  vii.  4.  The 
non-expression  of  the  Hebrew  gut- 
tural in  our  Aversion  causes  a  false  re- 
semblance between  the  Patriarch 
Haran  (A  soft)  and  the  place  Haran 
{h  guttural). 

^  The  place  is  celebrated  among 
the    Romans,  under    the    name     of 


'70  History  and  Call  of  Abram,  G^riAP.  VI 

Here  Terah  died  after  a  residence  of  some  years, '(as  is  clear 
from  Gen.  xii.  5) ;  and  liere,  charmed  probably  by  the  fertil- 
ity of  the  country,  and  claiming  the  rio;ht  of  a'iirst  choice, 
Nahor  settled.  We  shall  find  his  family  here  I'm  the  next 
two  generations,  bearing  a  character  suited  to  tht^  motive 
thus  suggested.^" 

§  4.  Meanwhile,  and,  as  it  seems,  immediately  on  his  ..fa- 
ther's death  (b.c.  1921),  and  probably  in  consequence  of  a 
repetition  of  the  Divine  call,  Abram  proceeded  on  his  journey 
with  his  wife  Sarai  and  his  nephew  Lot.  The  "  separation 
from  his  kindred'"^  may  refer  to  Nahor,  or  even  to  other 
branches  of  his  father's  house  left  behind  in  Ur ;  for  Terah 
may  have  had  other  children  besides  the  three  who  are 
specially  mentioned  on  account  of  the  subsequent  relations 
of  their  descendants. 

Abram's  future  abode  was  described  by  Jehovah  simply 
as  "  a  land  that  I  will  show  thee ;"  and  so  "  he  went  out,  not 
knowing  whither  he  went."  This  was  the  first  great  proof 
of  that  unwavering  faith  which  added  to  his  two  other 
names  of  Father  the  title  of  Father  o/*  the  Faith fuV^  He 
was  now  seventy-five  years  old;  and  this  is  the  period  usu- 
ally assigned  to  the  Call  of  Abraham  ;  though  it  was,  in 
fact,  the  second  step  of  his  career.  In  tracing  these  stages, 
it  is  important  to  observe  the  special  form  of  j^romise  and 
blessing  of  which  each  was  the  occasion.  T\\q  first  of  these 
involves  the  germ  of  all  the  rest,  though  as  yet  but  vaguely 
stated:  —  "I  will  make  of  thee  a  great  nation^  and  I  vnll 
bless  thee^  and  make  tliy  name  great,  and  thou  shalt  be  a 
blessing  [to  others]  :  m\(\.  I  will  bless  them  that  bless  thee,  and 
curse  him  that  curseth  thee,  and  in  thee  shall  cdl  families 
of  the  earth  be  blessed^'^^  The  last  words  already  involve 
the  crowning  blessing  of  the  Old  Covenant,  the  Promise 
of  the  Messiah,  and  that  to  the  Geiitiles,  "  all  families  of  the 
earth.'"^ 

Abram  had  now  to  leave  Mesopotamia,  and  to  cross  the 
"  Great  River,"  the  Euphrates.  This  separated  him  entirely 
from  his  old  home,  and  hence  the  Canaanites  gave  to  him  the 
name  of  the  "  Hebrew  " — the  man  who  had  crossed  the  river 

Chanse,  as  beings  near  the  scene  ofl  "  Gen.  xxiv.  10,  xxvii.  43:  theZTa- 
the  defent  of  Crassus.  It  retained  to  [  ran  of  the  latter  passage  is  the  city  of 
a  late  time  the  worship  of  the  Chal- 
dfean  deities,  while  the  neighboring 
Edessa  was  the  chief  seat  of  Chris- 
tianity in  these  parts.  A  recent  writ- 
or  places  Haran  near  Damns^cus.  See 
Notes  and  Illustrations  (A). 


Nahor  of  the  former, 

"Gen.  xii.  1. 

^2  Heb.  xi.  8;  Rom.  iv.  11,  12,  16; 
Gal.  iii.  7,  9.  '^  Gen.  xii.  2,  3. 

"Psalm  Ixxii.  17;  Acts  iii.  25; 
Gal.  iii.  8. 


U>'^'' 


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4 


4C.&  JACOB  -'">    \  *>  ll 


B.C.  1021.  Abram  in  me  Land  of  Promise.  71 

— the  emigrant  from  Mesopotamia/'  He  now  passed  through 
tlie  great  Syrian  desert ;  and,  though  his  route  is  not  men- 
tioned in  the  sacred  narrative,  we  may  credit  the  tradition 
(see  p.  74)  that  he  tarried  at  Damascus,  since  Eliezer,  "  the 
steward  of  his  house,"  was  a  native  of  that  place.  Quittino" 
Damascus,  Abram  crossed  the  Jordan,  and  entering  the  Holy 
Land,  passed  into  the  valley  of  Shecheni  or  Slchem.  His 
resting-place  was  marked,  like  other  memorable  localities, 
by  an  oak  or  a  grove  of  oaks  ("  the  oak  or  oaks  of  Moreh," 
rather  than  "the  plain  of  Moreh,"  as  in  our  version),  near 
"  the  place  of  Sichem,"  betAveen  Mounts  Ebal  and  Gerizim.'" 
Here  God  appeared  to  him  again,  and  gave  him  the  seco?id 
j^romise^  of  the  possession  of  the  land  by  his  seed;  and 
here  Abram  built  the  first  of  those  altars  to  Jehovah,  which 
the  patriarchs  erected  wherever  they  pitched  their  tents. 
Thus  Sichem  became  his  first  halting  place  in  the  Holy 
Land. 

§  5.  It  is  uncertain  whether  "  the  place  of  Sichem "  was 
yet  marked  by  the  city  which  afterward  took  its  name  from 
the  Amorite  Shechem,  the  contemporary  of  Jacob. '"^  But  it 
is  distinctly  stated  that  "the  Canaanite  was  then  {i.e.,  al- 
ready) in  the  land,"  having  probably  driven  out  an  earlier 
population.'^  They  would  view  with  no  friendly  eye  the 
tents  of  the  patriarch,  surrounded  by  his  flocks  and  herds ; 
and  Abram  seems  neither  to  have  had  the  power  nor  the  in- 
clination to  resort,  like  Jacob,  to  "his  sword  and  his  bow." 
He  removed  southward  to  a  place  which  lay  afterward  on 
the  northern  border  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  on  the  heights 
which  skirt  the  Jordan,  betwe^en  Bethel  (then  called  Luz) 
on  the  west,  and  Ai ''  on  the  east,  where  he  built  another  al- 

j^    ^"^  Gen.  xiy.  13,  "Abram  the  Hc-iranean  on  the  west  and  the  Jordan 
.orew,"  in  LXX.  6  -Kzparrjq.  on  the  east.     Its  present  name  Nd~ 

'"Gen.  xii.  G.  The  Hebrew  Elonblus  is  a  corruption  of  "Neapolis," 
seems  to  signify  the  oak,  and  not,  as  which  succeeded  the  more  ancient 
some  maintain,  the  terebinth  (Pistacla  Shechem. 

terehinthus).  See  Dkt.  of  the  Bible,  '«  Gen.  xii.  G.  For  an  account  of 
ixxt.Oak.     It  is  also  a  question  wheth-  the  Canaanites  then  in  the  land,  see 

Notes  and  I/lustrations  (B). 

'^  This  is  the  well-known  city  whose 
fall  is  related  in  .Toshua.  The  form 
Hai,  in  Gen.  xii.  8  and  xiii.  3,  arises 
tVom  the  retention  of  the  definite  ar- 
ticle by  our  translators.  Bethel  is 
the  place  so  conspicuous  in  the  histo- 


er  Moreh  is  strictly  a  proper  name. 
The  LXX.  has  ?)  dpvg  y  v'ij)r]h'/.  It 
])robably  derived  its  name  from  some 
ancient  chieftain,  like  the  oak  of 
Mamrc. 

"  The  city  of  Shechem,  signifying 
"shoulder,"  "ridge,"  like  (for.sjwi  in 

Latin,  was  situated  on  the  saddle  or'ry  of  Jacob,  who  gave  it  the  name 
shoulder  of  the  heights,  which  divide  (the  House  of  Cod.  Sea  chap.  viii. 
the  waters  that  flow  to  the  Mediter-  I  §  a). 


72  History  and  Call  of  Ahram.  Chap,  vl 

tar,  and  called  on  the  name  of  Jehovah.  This  was  his  secotid 
halting-jylace  in  the  Holy  Land. 

Abram's  abode  in  this  mountain  region  secured  him  from 
the  Canaanites,  who  occupied  the  more  fertile  plains  below, 
but  it  afforded  only  scanty  pasture  for  his  cattle.  He  there- 
fore went  on  continually  southward,  till  the  pressure  of  fam- 
ine drove  him  out  of  the  promised  land  into  Egypt."  The 
great  subject  of  the  history  of  Egypt,  in  relation  to  the  fam- 
ily of  Abraham,  Avill  be  noticed  afterward."^'  It  is  enough 
here  to  observe  that  the  mighty  kingdom  of  the  Pharaohs 
had  already  been  long  established  in  Lower  Egypt.  Li  this 
crisis  the  faith  of  Abram  failed.  To  protect  his  wife  from 
the  license  of  a  despot,  he  stooped  to  that  mean  form  of  de- 
ceit, wiiich  is  true  in  word  but  false  in  fact.  He  caused 
Sarai  to  pass  as  his  sister,  a  term  used  in  Hebrew,  as  in  many 
other  languages,  for  a  niece,  which  she  really  was.  The  trick 
defeated  itself  Sarai,  as  an  unmarried  woman,  was  taken  to 
the  harem  of  the  king,  who  heaped  wealth  and  honors  upon 
Abram.  Warned  of  his  mistake  by  plagues  sent  upon  him 
and  his  household,  the  king  restored  Sarai  to  her  husband, 
with  a  rebuke  for  his  deceit,  and  sent  him  out  of  Egypt  with 
all  the  wealth  he  had  acquired,  for  he  Avas  now  "  very  rich 
in  cattle,  in  silver,  and  in  gold.""  Abram  travelled  back 
through  the  south  of  Palestine  to  his  old  encampment  near 
Bethel,  where  he  again  established  the  worship  of  Jehovah. 

§  6.  He  now  began  to  feel  the  evils  of  prosperity.  The 
land  could  not  support  his  own  cattle  and  Lot's.  Their 
herdmen  quarelled,  and  Lot  probably  put  forward  his  rights 
as  head  of  the  family.  Abram's  faith  did  not  fail  this  time. 
Remembering  that  he  was  "  the  heir  of  better  promises,"  he 
gave  the  choice  of  present  good  to  Lot.  Their  encampment 
looked  westward  on  the  rugged  hills  of  Judsea  and  eastward 
on  the  fertile  plain  of  the  Jordan  about  Sodom,  "  well  water- 
ed everyAvhere,  as  the  garden  of  the  Lord,  like  the  land  of 
Egypt "  he  had  only  lately  quitted.  Even  from  that  dis- 
tance, through  the  clear  air  of  Palestine,  can  be  distinctly 
discovered  the  long  and  thick  masses  of  A'egetation  Avhich 
fringe  the  numerous  streams  that  descend  from  the  hills 
on  either  side  to  meet  the  central  stream  in  its  tropical 
depths.  It  Avas  exactly  the  prospect  to  tempt  a  man  Avho 
had  no  fixed  purpose  of  his  OAvn,  avIio  had  not  like  Abram 
obeyed  a  stern  iuAvard  call  of  duty.  So  Lot  left  his  uncle 
on  the  barren  hills  of  Bethel,  and  chose  all  the  precinct  of  the 

»•  Gen.  xii.  0, 10.    "  See  note  at  the  end  of  Book  11.    "  Gen.  xii.  1 1-xiii.  4  " 


B.C.  1921. 


The  Parting  from  Lot. 


73 


Jordan,  and  journeyed  east.  Abram  received  his  reward  in 
a  third  hlessmg  and  promise  from  Jehovah,  who  bade  him 
lift  up  his  eyes  and  scan  the  whole  land  on  every  side,  for  it 
should  be  the  possession  of  his  seed,  and  they  should  be  ua 
numbered  as  the  dust  of  the  earth.  Abram  now  removed 
to  the  oahs  of  Mamre^^  near  Hebkox,  in  the  centre  of  the 
hills  of  the  south,  and  there  built  an  altar.  This  was  his 
third  resting-place  in  the  Holy  Land,  and  Mamre  became  his 
usual  abode.  ^* 

§  Y.  Lot  had^  meanwhile  pitched  his  tent  in  a  memorable 
spot.  The  plain  of  the  lower  Jordan  was  then  occupied  by 
the  five  "  cities  of  the  plain."  Sodom,  Gomorrah,  Admah, 
Zeboiim,  and  Bela  (afterward  called  Zoar),  formed  a  Pentap- 
olis^  each  with  its  own  king,  Sodom  being  the  chief.  Their 
wickedness  was  such  that  Sodom  has  given  its  name  to  a 
sin  of  which  "  it  is  a  shame  even  to  speak,"  but  w^hich  was 
committed  not "  in  secret.""  Lot's  worldliness  had  not  quite 
stifled  his  piety,  and  "  his  righteous  soul  was  vexed  with 
their  filthy  conversation." 

While  thus  tempted,  he  became  involved  in  another  dan- 
ger. The  confederacy  of  the  five  cities  w^as  tributary  to 
a  great  empire,  which  had  already  been  established  in  West- 
ern Asia  under  Chedorlaomer,  king  of  Elam.''     Li  the  thir- 


^^  Named  after  an  Amoiite  prince, 
with  whom,  and  his  brothers  Eschol 
And  Aner,  Abram  formed  a  league 
(Gen.  xiv.  13). 

^*  Gen.  xiii.  5-18.  Hebron  was 
originally  called  Kirjath-Arba  (Gen. 
xxiii.  2),  that  is,  "the  city  of  Arba," 
from  Arba,  the  father  of  Anak,  and 
progenitor  of  the  giant  Anakim  (Josh, 
xxi.  11,  XV.  13,  14.)  It  is  situated 
about  twenty  miles  south  of  Jerusa- 
lem, and  the  same  distance  north  of 
Beersheba.  It  became  the  burial- 
place  of  Abraham  and  his  family  in 
the  cave  of  Machpelah  (see  below,  p. 
88) ;  and  from  this  circumstance  it 
is  revered  by  the  Mohammedans, 
who  call  the  city  El-KhaUl,  "the 
Friend,"  i.  e.,  of  God,  the  name  which 
they  give  to  Abraham, 

^^  Gen.  xiii.  13,  xviii.  20,  xix.  5  ; 
Dent,  xxiii.  17:  Rom.  i.  27 ;  2  Pet. 
ii.  7,  8. 

^^  Elam^  the  EJymais  of  the  Greeks, 
was  properly  the  mountainous  region 
on  the  eastern  margin  of  the  plain  of 


Chaldoea  ;  but  in  a  wider  sense  it  in- 
cluded Susiana.  This  region,  with 
the  plains  below,  was  early  occupied 
by  a  Cushite  race,  from  which  Chal- 
dsea  seems  to  have  received  a  dynasty 
of  conquerors.  Chedorlaomer,  if  not 
the  first,  was  one  of  the  earliest  kings 
of  this  Elamitic  dynasty.  His  name 
has  not  yet  been  discovered  with  any 
certainty  on  the  Chaldtean  monu- 
ments. Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  inter- 
prets it  as  Kudurlagamer  (the  Serv- 
ant of  Lagamer,  a  Susianian  deity), 
wiiich  closely  resembles  the  form  in 
the  LXX.  Chodollogomor.  Chedor- 
laomer and  his  three  allies  are  sup- 
posed to  represent  the  four  races  which 
lived  together  under  the  Chaldsean 
Empire — "the  nations," of  which  Ti- 
dal was  king,  being  the  old  Scythie 
or  Turanian  population  ;  "Amraphel, 
king  of  Shinar,"  the  head  of  the  So 
mitic  nation, settled  of  old  at  Babylon, 
and  now  subject  to  Chaldisa;  "Ari- 
och,  king  of  Ellasar,"  or  Laisa,  the 
leader  of  an  Arvan  tribe  ;  while  Che- 


74:  Hisiori/  and  Call  of  Ahram.  Chap.  VL 

teenth  year  of  their  subjection  they  revolted,  and  Chedorlao- 
mer  marched  against  them  with  three  allied  kings.^^  After 
conquering  the  nations  to  the  east  and  south,  the  four  kings 
invaded  the  territories  of  the  five,  and  joined  battle  Avith 
them  in  the  vale  of  Siddim,  which  Avas  full  of  pits  of  bitu- 
men. Among  these  the  forces  of  the  cities  were  entangled 
and  defeated ;  the  kings  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  fell ;  and 
the  rest  fled  to  the  mountains,  while  Sodom  and  Gomorrah 
were  spoiled,  and  Lot  and  his  goods  were  carried  ofl?**  The 
news  was  brought  to  Abram,  who,  with  his  Amorite  allies, 
and  318  men  of  his  own  household,  sallied  forth  fromMamre, 
and  overtook  the  victors  at  the  sources  of  the  Jordan,  where 
Laish  (Dan)  afterward  stood.  Dividing  his  band,  he  fell 
upon  them  by  night,  disordered  no  doubt  after  their  success, 
pursued  their  routed  forces  to  Hobah,  north  (the  "  left  hand  ") 
of  Damascus,^^  and  rescued  Lot,  witli  all  the  spoil,  but  re- 
fused to  accept  any  part  of  it  from  the  ncAv  king  of  Sodom, 
who  came  out  to  meet  him  at  Shaveh,  or  the  King's  Dale. 

The  return  of  this  expedition  was  marked  by  one  of  the 
most  memorable  prophetic  incidents  in  Abram's  career. 
Melchizedek,  king  of  Salem,  the  priest  of  the  "  Most  High 
God,"  also  came  to  meet  him,  bringing  bread  and  wine,  and 
blessed  him  in  the  name  of  the  Most  High  God,  and  Abram 
gave  him  tithes  of  all  the  spoil. ^^  There  is  something  sur- 
prising and  mysterious  in  the  first  appearance  of  3Ielchizedek, 
and  in  the  subsequent  references  to  him.  Bearing  a  title 
which  Jews  in  after  ages  would  recognize  as  designating 
their  own  sovereign,  bearing  gifts  which  recall  to  Christians 
the  Lord's  Supper,  this  Canaanite  crosses  for  a  moment  the 
path  of  Abram,  and  is  unhesitatingly  recognized  as  a  person 
of  higher  spiritual  rank  than  the  friend  of  God.     Disappear- 


dorlaomer    liimself   belonged   to  the 

dominant  Cushite   race  (liawlinson, 

Five  Great  Monarchies,  vol.  i.  p.  203). 

^^  Gen.xiv.  1-5.    ^'^  Gen.  xiv.  5-12. 


the  Mohammedan?,  and  called  after 
the  name  of  tlie  patriarch,  Masjad 
Ibraliim,  "the  prayer-place  of  Abra- 
ham."    The  tradition  attached  to  it 


"^^  Gen.  xiv.  13-16.  Josephusmen-Js  that  here  Abraham  offered  thanks 
tions  a  tradition  concerning  Abraham  j  to  God  after  the  total  discomfiture  of 
which  he  takes  from  Nicolaus  of  Da-  [  the  Eastern  kings.  Behind  the  icelij 
mascus  : — "Abraliam  reigned  at  Da-  '  is  a  cleft  in  the  rock,  in  which  another 

mascus,  being  a  foreigner And  tradition  rejjresents  the  patriarch  as 

his  name  is  still  famous  in  the  coun-  taking  refuge  on  one  occasion  from  the 
try;    and    there  is   shown    a  village  giant  Nimrod.     It  is  remarkable  tliat 


called  from  him  The  Habitation  of 
Abraham"  {Ant.  i.  7,  §2).  It  is  re- 
markable that  in  the  village  of /:^h?x€/<, 


the  word  Hobah  signifies  "  a  hiding- 
place."  The  Jews  of  Damascus  af- 
firm that  the^'illage  of  .lobar,  not  far 


three  miles  north  of  Damascus,  there  ^  from  Bnrzeh,  is  the  Hobah  of  Scrip- 
is  a  iveJy  held  in  high  veneration  bviture  ^"Gen.xiv.  18-20. 


B.C.  1921.  Abram  yet  Childless.  75 

ing  as  suddenly  as  he  came  in,  he  is  lost  to  the  sacred  writ- 
ings for  a  thousand  years  ;  and  then  a  few  emj^hatic  words 
for  another  moment  bring  him  into  sioht  as  a  type  of  the 
coming  Lord  of  David.  Once  more,  alter  another  thousand 
years,  the  Hebrew  Christians  are  taught  to  see  in  him  a  proof 
that  it  was  the  consistent  purpose  of  God  to  abolish  the  Levit- 
ical  priesthood.  His  person,  his  office,  his  relation  to  Christ, 
and  the  seat  of  his  sovereignty,  have  given  rise  to  innumera- 
ble discussions,  which  even  now  can  scarcely  be  considered 
as  settled. 

That  Melchizedek  was  both  a  king  and  priest,  is  quite  in 
accordance  Avith  the  patriarchal  state  of  society;  but  his 
priesthood  seems  to  have  a  dignity  above  that  of  the  ordinary 
liead  of  a  lamily.  That  he  was  "  the  priest  of  the  Most  High 
God,"  implies  a  relic  of  the  true  w^orship  outside  of  the  chosen 
famil}^,  such  as  we  find  long  after  in  the  story  of  the  prophet 
Balaam. 

The  extraordinary  reverence  paid  to  him  by  Abram,  and 
apparently  by  the  king  of  Sodom,  completes  all  our  positive 
knowledge  respecting  his  person  and  office.  Tradition  and 
fancy  have  found  in  him  Shem  or  some  other  patriarch ;  an 
angel;  and  even  a  personification  of  the  Son  of  God,  a  view 
which  is  a  gross  confusion  of  type  and  antitype.'' 

This  event  completes  the  first  period  of  Abraham's  life,  in 
which  the  temj)oral  blessing  of  his  race  was  clearly  revealed. 

§  8.  The  second  2)eriodo])Q\\^  with  2i  fourth  visit  of  Jehovah's 
word  to  Abram,  to  assure  him  of  His  blessingr  and  protection. 
His  laith  had  begun  again  to  waver.  With  unbounded 
promises  of  the  number  and  blessedness  of  his  offspring,  he 
Avas  yet  childless  ;  with  vast  Avealth,  he  had  no  heir  but  his 
steward  and  slave,  Eliezer  of  Damascus.  And  now  God 
vouchsafed  to  him  a  plainer  and  more   solemn  revelation, 


^'  The  '-  order  of  Melchizedek,"  in 
Ps.  ex.  4,  is  explained  by  some  to 
mean  •■'  manner  " — likeness  in  official 
dignity— a  king  and  priest.  The  re- 
lation between  Melchizedek  and  Christ 
as  type  and  antitype  is  made  in  the 
Epistle  to  tlie  Hebrews  to  consist  in 
the  following  particulars.  Each  Avas 
a  priest  (1),  not  of  the  Levitical  tribe  ; 
(2),  superior  to  Abraham  ;  (3),  whose 
beginning  and  end  are  unknown  ;  (4), 
who  is  not  only  a  priest,  but  also  a 


human  ingenuity  has  added  others, 
which,  however,  stand  in  need  of  the 
evidence  of  either  an  ins])ired  writer 
or  an  eye-witness,  before  they  can  be 
received  as  facts  and  applied  to  es- 
tablish any  doctrine.  Some  Jewish 
writers  have  held  the  opinion  that 
Melchizedek  was  the  Avriter,  and 
Abram  the  subject  of  Ts.  ex.  On  the 
very  difficult  question  of  the  locality 
of  Snlem,  the  city  of  Melchizedek, 
and  Shareh,  where  the  king  of  Sodom, 


king  of  righteousness  {melchi-zedek)  and  apparently  Melchizedek  also,  met 
and  peace  (sakm).  To  these  points  Abram,  see  Notes  and  lUustralions 
of  agreement,  noted  by  the  Apostle,  '  (C). 


76  History  and  Call  of  Ahrard,  Chap.  VT. 

which  was  made  the  more  emphatic  by  the  threefold  form  of 
^promise,  a  sif/?i,and  a  covenant  The 2^ro7nise  w us  that  his 
own  son  should  be  his  heir.  The  sign  was  given  by  a  view 
of  the  clear  sky  of  an  Eastern  night,  studded  with  stars,  which 
Jehovah  bade  Abram  to  count,  if  he  would  tell  the  number 
of  his  posterity.     And  then  "  Abram  believed  Jehovah  ; 

AND    IT  WAS    counted    TO    HIM    FOR    RIGHTEOUSNESS."^^       This 

was  the  crisis  of  his  religious  life,  and  of  that  of  his  spiritual 
children.  With  the  moral  submission  of  the  will,  which  is 
the  essence  of  faith,  he  trusted  God  for  v:hat  icc(s  beyond  the 
scope  of  his  reason.^^  The  test  of  his  faith  was  as  simple  as 
that  of  Adam's  obedience ;  the  belief  of  God's  word  that  he 
would  have  a  son  after  the  natural  limit  of  age ;  but  the  princi- 
ple was  the  same  as  in  faith's  highest  flights.  *'  He  stagger- 
ed not  at  the  promise  of  God  through  unbelief,  but  Avas  strong 
in  faith,  giving  glory  to  God,  and  being  fully  persuaded  that 
what  He  had  promised  He  Avas  able  also  to  perform.  And 
therefore  it  was  imputed  to  him  for  righteousness."^* 

This  promise  was  ratified  by  a  new  Covenant,  in  Avhich 
Abram  stood  to  God  in  the  relation  of  the  Father  of  the  Faith- 
ful, just  as  Noah,  in  the  covenant  made  with  him,  stood 
for  all  his  race.'"  The  forms  with  which  this  new  covenant 
was  made  are  minutely  related  ;  and  they  seem  to  agree  with 
the  customs  then  observed  in  covenants  between  man  and 
man. 

Those  forms  are  alluded  to  in  the  phrase, "  Jehovah  cut  a 
covenant  with  Abram."^^  A  victim  (or  more)  was  slain  in 
sacrifice,  and  equally  divided,  and  the  parts  being  placed 
over  against  each  other,  the  contracting  parties  passed  down 
between  them.  The  ceremony  clearly  signified  the  equality 
of  the  contract,  its  religious  character,  and  the  penalty  due 
to  its  violation.  Each  part  of  the  ceremony  was  observed  in 
this  case ;  where  God's  presence  was  indicated  by  the  fire 
that  passed  between  the  pieces  of  the  victims  sacrificed,  and 
Abram  had  already  passed  between  them.^^ 

The  promise  was  as  specific  as  it  was  solemn.     It  included — 

i.  The  bondage  of  the  Hebrews  in  a  strange  land  for  400 
years.'" 


32  Gen.  XV.  l-G. 

33  These  remarks  apply  both  to  this 
promise  and  its  repetition  (see  §  10). 

^  Rom.  iv.  20,  21 ;  Heb.  xi.  1 1,  12. 

^  It  may  be  observed  that  in  both 
cases  a  sUjn  also  was  given,  the  rain- 
bow to  Noah,  the  stars  to  Abram. 

="  Gen.  XV.  18. 


"  Gen.  XV.  17;  comp.  Heb.  ix.  16, 
17:  "Where  there  is  a  covenant,  the 
death  of  the  covenant  victim  must 
needs  be  carried  out ;  for  a  covenant 
is  confirmed  over  dead  [victims  "J. 

3®  Gen.  XV.  13.  The  chronological 
question  liere  involved  is  discussed  in 
the  History  of  the  Exodus,  ch.  xi. 


B.C.  1921.  fExpress  Promise  of  a  Son.  77 

ii.  Their  delivery,  with  great  wealth,  and  amid  judgments 
on  their  oppressors.''^ 

iii.  Their  return  to  the  promised  land  in  the  fourth  gener- 
ation, when  the  iniquity  of  its  inhabitants  should  be  full." 

The  boundaries  of  their  possessions  in  that  land  were  strict- 
ly defined, "  from  the  river  of  Egypt"  unto  the  great  river, 
the  river  Euphrates,"  to  which  the  kingdom  of  "David  and 
Solomon  actually  reached."  The  definition  is  still  more 
clearly  made  by  the  enumeration  of  the  Canaanitish  tribes 
that  occupied  the  land." 

At  a  later  period,  when  the  covenant  was  renewed,  the  sign 
o^  circumcision  was  added  to  it.** 

§  9.  To  wait  patiently  for  the  fulfillment  of  the  promise,  in 
spite  of  natural  obstacles,  was  too  much,  if  not  for  the  faith 
of  Abram,  at  least  for  that  of  Sarai.  Being  herself  barren, 
she  gave  Abram  her  handmaid  Hagar,  an  Egyptian,  for  his 
concubine ;  and  Hagar  bore  him  a  son."  But,  before  the 
child  was  born,  the  insolence  of  Hagar  provoked  the  jealousy 
of  Sarai,  whose  ill-treatment  of  her  handmaiden  drove  her  to 
flee  into  the  wilderness  of  Kadesh,  south-east  of  Abram's 
abode. "^  Here  the  "  angel  of  the  Lord  "  appeared  to  hei*,  and, 
while  bidding  her  to  return  and  submit  to  her  mistress,  he 
encouraged  her  by  the  promise  of  a  numerous  offspring.  In 
memory  of  God's  hearing  her  cry  of  distress.  He  bade  her 
name  the  coming  child  Ishmael  {that  is,  God  shall  hear),  and 
he  foretold  his  character  and  destiny  in  words  which  to  this 
day  describe  the  Bedouin  Arabs  who  are  descended  from 
him: — "He  will  be  a  wild  man;  his  hand  will  be  against 
every  man,  and  every  man's  hand  against  him  :  and  he  shall 
dwell  m  the  face  of  all  his  brethren,^^  that  is,  to  the  east  of  the 
kindred  tribes  sprung  from  Abraham."^ 

On  this  occasion  we  have  the  first  of  those  distinctive 
names  which  were  given  to  Jehovah  in  remembrance  of  spe- 
cial divine  interpositions.     Hagar  said,  ''Thou  God  seestme,^^ 

''Gen.xv.  U.        "^  Gen.  x v.  17. 

""^  This  is  either  the  brook  J'Jl-Arish, 
which  divides  Egypt  from  Palestine, 
or  it  may  mean  the  eastern  margin 
of  the  Nile  Valley.  The  Nile  itself 
can  not  be  a  boundary,  fin*  its  valley 
forms  the  unique  land  of  Egypt. 

'=Gen.  XV.  18.     "^  Gen.  xV.  19-21. 

**  Gen.  xvii,  1.     See  §  10. 

^'  Gen.  xvi.  1-3. 

*'  Gen.  xvi.  4-6.  The  question  of 
the  locality  of  Kadesh  will  arise 
again,  in  connection  with  the  Wan- 


derings in  the  Wilderness.    See  chap, 
xiii. 

*''  The  Hebrews  and  Arabs  named 
the  cardinal  points  from  the  position 
of  the  body  when  the  face  was  turned 
to  the  east ;  the  back,  therefore,  de- 
noted the  2cest,  the  i'i(j/d  hand  the 
south,  and  the  Ipft  hand  the  north. 
Thus  the  Mediterranean  was  called 
the  hinder  sea,  and  to  the  present  day 
Syria  is  Esh-sham,  the  left  hand ;  and 
North-western  Arabia  El-  Yemen,  th« 
right  hand. 


78 


Hlstorij  and  Call  of  AhraJiam. 


Chap.  VI. 


and  she  named  the  well  by  which  she  liad  ^vit  Beer-lahai-roi^ 
that  is,  The  Well  of  him  that  Uveth  and  seeth  me.^^ 

§  10.  The  birth  of  Ishmael  took  place  when  Abrani  was 
eighty-six  years  old  (b.c.  1910) ;"  but  he  had  to  wait  fourteen 
years  still  for  the  true  fulfillment  of  the  promise  of  an  heir. 
The  event  was  preceded  by  new  revelations.  In  Abram's 
ninety-ninth  year  (b.c.  1898),  Jehovah,  appearing  to  him  by 
the  name  of  El-Shaddai  {God  Alniir/hti/),  reneM'ed  the  cove- 
nant with  him  in  the  new  character  oi'  Father  of  many  JVa- 
tions,''''  in  sign  thereof  he  changed  his  name  from  AB-RAM 
{exalted father)  to  AB-UARA^l  {father  of  a  midtitude).''  The 
promise  Avas  now  repeated  to  Abraham,  more  clearly  than 
ever,  on  hehalf  of  his  posterity : — "  I  will  be  a  God  unto  thee, 
and  to  thy  seed  after  thee.""^  As  a  sign  of  this  inclusion  of 
children  in  the  covenant,  God  enjoined  tlie  rite  oi circumcision^ 
which  became  lienceforth  the  condition  of  the  covenant  on 
the  part  of  those  with  whom  God  made  it."^  The  uncircum- 
cised  was  cut  oif  from  all  its  benefits,  "  he  hath  broken  my 
covenant,"  wliile  the  stranger  who  received  circumcision  was 
admitted  to  them  ;^^  and  the  head  of  the  family  was  com- 
manded to  extend  the  rite  to  every  male  in  his  household, 
servants  as  well  as  children. ^^  It  was  to  be  jjerformed  on 
children  the  eighth  day  after  birth,  and  on  slaves  when  they 
were  purchased  ;  and  all  the  family  of  Abraham  were  at  once 
thus  brought  within  the  covenant. 

The  dignity  of  Sarai,  as  the  mother  of  the  promised  seed, 
was  marked  by  the  change  of  her  name  to  Saeaii  {iwincess) ^"^ 
and  it  was  declared  that  she  should  "  become  nations ;  and 
kings  of  the  people  should  be  of  her."'^  Her  son  was  to  be 
named  Isaac  {laughter)^  from  the  utterance  of  liis  father's 
feelings  on  the  announcement."  With  him  and  his  seed  the 
covenant  was  to  be  continued  in  the  new  character  of  an 
"  everlasting  covenant,"  tlius  marking  the  distinction  between 
its  eternal  and  temporal  blessings.  The  latter  blessings  were 
assured  to  Ishmael,  in  answer  to  Abraham's  earnest  prayer; 


"^Gcn.  xvi.  7-14. 

"'Gcii.  xvi.  If),  IG. 

*"  Gen.  xvii.  1-5.     '•"  Gen.xvii.7,  8. 

"  Gen.  xvii.  9-U. 

^^  The  precise  position  of  circum- 
cised proselytes  will  be  explained  aft- 
erward. 

'^  Gen.  xvii.  12,  13. 

**  The  meaninj:;  of  the  name  Sami 
is  uncertain.  St.  Jerome's  explana- 
tion   is,  that    the   change   was  from 


Snra-i,  vnj  princess,  as  a  plirase  of 
courtesy,  to  Sarah,  princess,  absolute- 
ly.        '  ^"^  Gen„-:vii.  IG. 

'•'''  Gen.  xvii.  17.  Ilosenmiiller  has 
observed  from  the  meaning  of  the 
root,  that  this  was  not  merely  the 
laugh  of  joy,  but  of  hysterical  emo- 
tion. It  is  not  to  be  confounded 
with  Sarah's  laugh  of  incredulity 
(xviii.  12),  to  which,  however,  the 
name  may  also  allude  ;  for  the  mean- 


CUAP.  VI. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


n 


but  the  covenant  was  "  established  with  Isaac."  He  is  em- 
phatically called  the  child  of  the  j)romise  and  Ishmaei  the 
child  of  the  flesh  by  the  Apostle  Paul,  who  carries  out  the  con- 
trast in  a  very  remarkable  passage.^" 

Ishmael's  share  in  the  temproal  promise  was  confirmed  by 
liis  circumcision  f^  and  the  rite  is  still  observed  by  the  Arabs 
and  other  Semitic  races.  It  was  also  practiced  by  the  an- 
cient EgyjDtians,  who  affirmed  that  "  the  Syrians  in  Palestine  " 
had  learned  it  from  them.  They  used  it  for  physical  reasons 
only,  and  it  is  consistent  with  God's  manner  of  symbolic 
teaching  that  a  rite  already  existing  should  have  been  adopt- 
ed in  a  new  religious  sense ;  but  we  must  not  hastily  accept 
the  statement  that  it  was  thus  borrowed."" 


ing  of  divinely  chosen  words  is  very 
pregnant. 

^^Gen.xvii.  18,21;  Gal.  iv.  21,  31. 


^^  Gen.  xix.  25. 

^"  Herod,  ii.  104.     See  the  Diction^ 
ai'y  of  the  Bible,  s.v. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


(A.)  HARAN. 

The  ingenious  theory,  maintained 
by  Dr.  Beke  in  various  communica- 
tions to  the  Athencettn,*  that  Haran  is 
to  be  identified  with  a  small  village, 
which  still  bears  tlie  name,  about  four 
hours' journey  E.  of  Damascus,  seems 
irreconcilable  with  its  position  in 
Mesopotamia  ;  for  tlie  attempt  to 
make  the  Abana  and  Pharpar  the 
*'  two  rivers  "  of  Aram-  Naharaim,  and 
so  to  explain  that  country,  for  the  oc- 
casion, as  the  territory  of  Damascus, 
can  hardly  be  considered  successful. 
It  is,  however,  a  very  interesting  fact, 
that  Damascus  was  already  a  city  in 
the  time  of  Abraham,  who  probably 
visited  it  in  his  journey,  as  Eliezer, 
the   "steward  of  his  house,"  was  a 

*  Nov.  23,  1861;  Feb.  1,  ir>,  March  1,  20, 
May  24, 1802.  For  tlie  letters  of  Sir  1 1.  Raw- 
linson  and  others,  in  favor  of  the  Mesopota- 
mian  Haran,  see  the  ••' Atlienaeum,"  Nov.  .'0, 
Dee.  7, 1861 ;  March  22,  April  C,  19,  May  2 !, 
18o2.  '      '       - 


native  of  that  place  (Gen.  xv.  2).  It 
has  been  adduced  as  an  argument  for 
Dr.  Beke's  view  th  at  Josephus  does  not 
mention  Haran,  though  he  says  much 
of  the  residence  of  Abraliam  at  Da- 
mascus. The  strongest  point,  how- 
ever, is  the  seven  days'  journey  of 
Laban  from  Haran  to  Gilead,  a  time 
suitable  to  Damascus,  but  too  short 
for  the  350  miles  from  the  Euphrates. 
This  would  naturally  seem  decisive  to 
a  traveller,  going  over  the  ground  him- 
self;  but  biblical  critics  have  learned 
by  this  time  with  what  caution  argu- 
ments from  numbers  should  be  re- 
ceived, especially  against  a  preponder- 
ance of  other  evidence.  The  identity 
of  the  name,  and  the  features  of  the 
localities,  tell  equally  in  favor  of  both 
sites. 

(B.)  THE  CANAANITES. 

The  Canaanites,  who  inhabited  the 
Holy  Land  when  Abraham  entered 
it,  were  the  descendants  of  Canaan, 


80 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  VI. 


the  fourth  son  of  Ham  (Gen.  x.  6, ' 
15-19).  The  word  Canaanite,  which 
properly  signifies  low,  was  used  in  a , 
broader  and  a  narrow  sense,  signi- ^ 
fying  (1),  the  people  who  inhabited 
the  whole  country  ;  (2),  a  tribe  which ! 
inhabited  a  particular  locality  of  it.  : 
In  its  broader  meaning  seven  nations 
are  usually  indicated.  | 

1.  The  Canaanites,  tiie  loidanders,  \ 
inliabited  the  plain  on  the  lower  Jor- 
dan and  that  on  the  sea-shore  (Gen. 
X.  18,  20  ;  Num.  xiii.  29  ;  Josh.  xi.  3). 
These   plains    were   the   richest  and 
most  imjiortant  parts  of  the  country,  i 
and  ib  is  not  unlikely  that  this  was 
one  of  the  reasons  for  the  name  of  ; 
"  Canaanite  "  being  applied  as  a  gen- 1 
eral  name  to  the  inhabitants  of  the 
land.  i 

2.  Tiie  Pkrizzites  seem,  next  to' 
the  Canaanites,  to  have  been  the  most ' 
important  tribe,  as  "the  Canaanite i 
and    the    Perizzite "    are   frequently  i 
mentioned  together,  to  the  exclusion  ^ 
of  the  other  tribes,  as  the  inhabitants 
of  the  land  (Gen.  xiii.  7,  xxxiv.  30  ; 
Judg.  i.  4,  5).     In  Judg.  i.  4,  5,  they 
are  placed  in  the  southern  part  of  the 
Holy  Land,  and  in  Josh.  xvi.  15-18, 
they  occupy,  with   the  Kcphaim,  or 
giants,  the  "forest  country"  in  the 
western  flanks  of  Mount  Carmel. 

3.  The  HiTTiTES,  or  children  of 
Heth,  a  small  tribe  at  Hebron,  of  j 
whom  Abraham  purchased  the  Cave 
of  Machpelah  (Genesis  xxiii.  7-18). 
They  arc  represented  as  a  peaceful 
])eople,  and  thus  Abraham,  though  hci 
chose  his  allies  in  war  from  thei 
Amorites,  goes  to  the  Hittites  for  his; 
grave. 

4.  The  Amorites,  mountaineers,  a 
warlike  tribe,  occupied  first  the  barrier 
heights  west  of  the  Dead  Sea,  at  the 
place  which  afterward  bore  the  name 
of  En-gcdi,  stretching  westward  toward 
Hebron  (Gen.  xiv.  13;  comp.  xiii.  18). 
They  afterward  crossed  the  Jordan, 
and  inhabited  the  rich  tract,  bounded 


by  the  Jabbok  on  the  noith,  the  Ar^ 
non  on  the  south,  Jordan  on  the  west, 
and  "the  wilderness"  on  the  east 
(Judg.  xi.  21,  22).  This  was,  per- 
haps in  the  most  special  sense,  the 
"land  of  the  Amorites"  (Num.  xxi. 
31  ;  Josh.  xii.  2,  3,  xiii.  9  ;  Judg.  xi. 
21,  22);  but  their  possessions  are  dis- 
tinctly stated  to  have  extended  to  the 
very  feet  of  Hermon  (Dent.  iii.  8,  iv. 
48),  embracing  "all  Gilead  and  all 
Bashan  "  (iii.  10),  with  the  Jordan  val- 
ley on  the  east  of  the  river  (iv.  49), 
and  forming  together  the  land  of  the 
"two  kings  of  the  Amorites,"  Sihon 
and  Og  (Deut.  xxxi.  4;  Josh.  ii.  10, 
ix.  10,  xxiv.  12). 

5.  The  HiviTES  are  first  mention- 
ed at  the  time  of  Jacob's  return  to 
the  Holy  Land,  where  they  occupied 
Shechem  (Gen.  xxxiv.  2).  At  the 
time  of  the  conquest  by  Joshua  ihey 
were  living  on  the  northern  confines 
of  Western  Palestine — "under  Her- 
mon, in  the  land  of  Mizpeh"  (Josh, 
xi.  3) — "in  Mount  Lebanon,  from 
Mount  Baal-Hermon  to  the  entering 
in  of  Hamath"  (Judg.  iii.  3). 

6.  The  Jebusites,  a  mountain 
tribe,  inhabiting  Jebus  (Jerusalem), 
where  they  continued  to  dwell  with 
the  children  of  Judah  and  Benjamin 
to  a  late  date  (Num.  xiii.  29;  Josh, 
xi.  3,  XV.  8,  G3;  Judg.  i.  21,  xix.  11). 

7.  The  GiRGA SUITES,  whose  position 
is  quite  uncertain  (Gen.  x.  16,  xv.  21  ; 
Josh.  iii.  10,  xxiv.  1 1). 

(C.)  SALEM  AND  SHAVEH. 

A  fruitful  source  of  discussion  has 
been  found  in  the  site  of  Salem  and 
Shaveh,  which  certainly  lay  in  Abram's 
road  from  Hobali  to  the  plain  of 
Mamre,  and  which  are  assumed  to 
be  near  to  each  other.  The  various 
theories  may  be  briefly  enumerated 
as  follows: — (1),  Salem  is  supposed 
to  have  occupied  in  Abraham's  time 
the  ground  on  which  afterward  Je- 


Chap.  VI. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


81 


bus  and  then  Jerusalem  stood  ;  and 
Shaveh  to  ba  the  valley  east  of  Jeru- 
salem, through  which  the  Kidron 
flows.  This  opinion  is  supported  by 
the  facts  that  Jerusalem  is  called  Sa- 
lem in  Psalm  Ixxvi.  2,  and  that 
Josephus  {Ant.  i.  10,  §  2)  and  the 
Targums  distinctly  assert  their  identi- 
ty :  that  the  king's  dale  (2  Sam.  xviii. 
18),  identified  in  Gen.  xiv.  17  with 
Shaveh,  is  placed  by  Josephus  {Ant. 
vii.  10,  §  3),  and  by  medieval  and 
modern  tradition  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  Jerusalem  ;  that  the 
name  of  a  later  king  of  Jerusalem, 
Adonizedek  (Josh.  x.  1),  sounds  like 
that  of  a  legitimate  successor  of  Mel- 
chizedek :  and  that  Jewish  writers 
claim  Zedck  =  righteousness,  as  a 
name  of  Jerusalem.  (2)  Jerome  denies 
that  Salem  is  Jerusalem,  and  asserts 
D2 


that  it  is  identical  with  a  town  near 
Scythopolis  or  Bethshan,  which  in  his 
time  retained  the  name  of  Salem, 
and  in  which  some  extensive  ruins 
were  shown  as  the  remains  of  Mel- 
chizedek's  palace.  He  supports  this 
view  by  quoting  Gen.  xiv.  18,  where, 
however,  the  translation  is  question- 
able ;  compare  the  mention  of  Salem 
in  Judith  iv.  4,  and  in  John  iii.  23. 
(3),  Stanley  {S.  ^-  P.  237,  8)  is  of 
opmion  that  there  is  every  probability 
that  Mount  Gerizim  is  the  place  where 
Melchizedek,  the  priest  of  the  Most 
High,  met  Abram.  (4),  Ewald  denies 
positively  that  it  is  Jerusalem,  and  s.ays 
that  it  must  be  north  of  Jerusalem 
on  the  other  side  of  Jordan.  There, 
too.  Dean  Stanley  thinks  that  the 
king's  dale  was  situate,  near  the  spot 
where  Absalom  fell. 


ilosqne  at  Hebron. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


ABRAHAM   AND    ISAAC. 
JfAME  TO  HIS  DEATH. 


FKOM    THE     CHAXGE     OF     ABRAHAM  S 

A.M.  2107-2182.  B.C.  1897-1822. 


§  I.  New  relation  of  Abraham  to  God  — Divine  vi^it  to  liim  at  JMamre. 
§  2.  Destruction  of  tlie  cities  of  the  plain— Kesciic  of  Lot — Moab  and 
Ammon.  §  3.  Abraliam  at  Beersheba — His  relations  with  Abinielcch. 
§  4.  Birtli  of  Isaac— Expulsion  of  Hafxar  and  Ishmaol.  §  5.  Offerinj^ 
of  Isaac  on  the  mountain  of  Moriah.  §  6.  Death  of  Sarah — Tiie  burv- 
ing-place  of  Machpclah.  §  7.  Marriage  of  Isaac  and  Rehekah.  §  8. 
Birth  of  Esau  and  Jacob.  §  0.  Deatli  and  burial  of  Abraham— Death 
of  Ishmael.     §  10.  Traditions  respecting  Abraham. 

§  1.  Abraham,  from  the  time  wlien  by  this  new  name  he 
received  the  full  divine  revehation  and  covenant,  is  presented 
to  us  in  a  higher  character  than  before.  The  more  open  and 
familiar  intercourse  which  he  enjoys  with  Jcliovah  marks 
him  as  peculiarly  "  the  friend  of  God."     Of  this  we  liave  an 


B.C.  1897. 


Abrahcans  Pleading  for  Sodom. 


8B 


example  in  Genesis  xviii.  As  Abraham  sat  at  his  tent  door, 
under  the  oak  of  Mamre,  he  became  aware  of  the  presence  of 
"three  mt?/?,"^  for  such  they  seemed  to  him;  and  the  same 
language  is  continually  employed  for  the  appearances  of  ce- 
lestial beings  in  human  form.^ 

Afterward  the  chief  speaker  is  denoted,  first  by  the  mere 
pronoun,  which  is  often  used  when  God  is  meant,^  and  then 
by  the  name  of  Jehoa^ah.  Doubtless  he  was  the  "Angel 
Jehovah,"  the  "  Word  of  God,"  through  whom  God  spake  to 
the  fathers,  and  who,  when  dwelling  upon  earth  in  the  act- 
ual incarnation  which  such  apj^earances  prefigured,  declared, 
"  Your  father  Abraham  rejoiced  to  see  my  day :  and  he  saw 
it,  and  was  glad."*  It  is  simplest  to  regard  the  other  two 
as  attendant  angels ;  and  it  appears,  from  the  sequel,  that 
while  the  chief  of  the  three  (Jehovah  himself)  remained  be- 
hind in  converse  with  Abraham,  and  then  "went  his  way" 
to  execute  judgment  upon  Sodom,^  the  other  two  were  sent 
forward  to  rescue  Lot. 

Abraham  oifered  to  the  "  three  men  "  that  hospitality  which 
is  commemorated  in  the  apostolic  precept : — "  Be  not  forget- 
ful to  entertain  strangers,  for  thereby  some  have  entertained 
angels  unawares."^  He  soon  learnt  the  dignity  of  his  visit- 
ors, w^hen  they  inquired  after  Sarah,  and  rebuked  her  in- 
creduMty  by  repeating  the  promise  that  she  should  bear  Abra- 
ham a  son,  and  fixing  the  time  for  its  fulfillment.  They  then 
departed,  with  their  faces  toward  Sodom ;  and  as  Abraham 
brought  them  on  the  way,  he  was  favored — in  consideration 
of  his  character  as  the  head  of  the  chosen  family,  to  whom 
he  was  to  teach  God's  righteous  ways — with  a  revelation  of 
the  judgment  coming  upon  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  for  their 
sins.  Thus  was  the  truth  revealed  to  the  believing  children 
of  Abraham  in  every  age,  that  God  does  execute  "judgment 
upon  sinners,  even  in  this  life.  But  the  patriarch's  faith 
grasped  at  another  truth,  the  privilege  of  intercession  for 
SLich  sinners. 

Then  follows  that  wondrous  pleading,  in  which  he  who 
was  "  but  dust  and  ashes,"  taking  on  himself  to  speak  Avith 
God,  obtained  the  pardon  of  the  guilty  cities,  if  but  fifty, 
then  if  forty-five,  and  so  on  down  to  only  ten,  i-ighteous  men 
were  found  in  them,  and  might  have  prevailed  if  he  had  con- 
tinued to  plead,  for  the  sake  of  the  one  really  there  ;  for  such 

-  Gen.  xviii.  2.  '  See  Gen.  xviii.  17-23,  compared 

^  See,  for  example,  Judges  xiii.  10,  with  xix.  1,  24. 

11  ;  Acts  i.  10  ;  Rev.  xxi.  17.  *  Heb.  xiii.  2;  compare  Gen.  xix. 

^  Gen.  xviii.  10.         "  John  viji.  r>G.  1-3. 


84  Abraham  and  Isaac,  Chap.  VIL 

seems  the  necessary  complement  of  this  great  lesson  that 
"men  ought  always  to  j^ray,  and  not  to  faint.'" 

§  2.  Meanwhile  the  two  angels  went  on  their  mission  to 
Sodom,  whose  people  gaA^e  them  a  reception  which  filled  up 
the  measure  of  their  sins/  Even  the  sons-in-law  of  Lot  de- 
spised their  warning;  and  Lot  himself  was  reluctantly  drag- 
ged, with  his  wife  and  two  daughters,  from  the  devoted  city. 
Even  then,  he  could  not  quite  tear  himself  from  the  scene 
where  his  Avorldly  prosperity  had  been  purchased  by  con- 
stant vexation  of  spirit,  and  he  pleaded  that  one  of  the  five 
cities  might  be  preserved  as  his  abode,  because  it  was  but  a 
little  one,  whence  the  city,  before  named  Bela^  was  called 
Zoar^  that  is,  little.^  The  sun  was  risen  when  Lot  entered 
Zoar,  and  the  people  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  with  the  two 
smaller  cities  of  Admah  and  Zeboiim,  Avhich  shared  their 
fate,'"  had  begun  another  day  of  wanton  revelry,^'  when  the 
Iieavens  were  overcast,  and  "  Jehovah  rained  down  upon 
them  brimstone  and  fire  from  Jehovah  out  of  heaven;  and 
he  overthrew  those  cities,  and  all  the  plain,  and  all  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  cities,  and  that  which  grew  upon  the  ground.'"^ 

The  plain  in  which  the  cities  stood,  liitherto  fruitful  "  as 
the  garden  of  Jehovah,"  became  henceforth  a  scene  of  per- 
fect desolation/^  Our  Lord  himself,  and  the  apostles  Peter 
and  Jude,  have  clearly  taught  the  lasting  lesson  wdiich  is 
involved  in  the  judgment ;  that  it  is  a  type  of  the  final  de- 
struction by  fire  of  a  world  which  will  ha^e  reached  a  wicked- 
ness like  that  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah."  A  more  special 
warning  to  those  who,  Avhen  once  separated  from  an  ungodly 
world,  desire  to  turn  back,  is  enforced  by  the  fate  of  Lot's 
wife,  who  when  she  looked  back  from  behind  him,  became  a 
pillar  of  salt. '^  Lot  himself,  though  saved  from  Sodom,  fell, 
like  Xoah  after  the  Deluge,  into  vile  intoxication,  of  which 
his  own  daughter  took  advantage  to  indulge  the  incestuous 
passion,  from  which  sprang  the  races  ofJIoab  and  Ammon.^'^ 

§  3.  After  a  long  residence  at  Mamre,  Abraham  once  more 
set  forth  u])on  his  wanderings,  turning  toward  "  the  south 
country,  and  dwelled  between  Kadesh  and  Shur,  and  sojoui-n- 

'  Luke  xviii.  1  ;  James  v.  ]G.  1 IG,  1.  40  ;    Ezek.  xvi.  49,  50  ;   Hos. 


Gen.  xix.  4-11 

°  Gen.  xix.  17-22  ;  comp.  xiii.  10, 
xiv.  2. 

*"  Gen.  xix.  25 ;  comp.  Gen.  xiii. 
10,  xiv.  2;  Dent.  xxix.  23. 

"  Luke  xvii.  20. 

"Gen.  xix.  24,  25;  comp.  Deut. 
xxix.  23;    Isaiah  xiii.  19;   Jer.  xx. 


xi.  8  ;  Amos  iv.  11  ;   Zeph.  ji.  9. 

^^  On  the  destruction  of  the  cities 
of  the  Plain,  see  Notes  and  Illustra- 
tions (A). 

"Luke  xvii.  29;  2  Peter  ii.  G; 
Jude  7. 

1^  Gen.  xix.  2G  :  Luke  xvii.  32. 

'^  Gen.  xix.  30-38.     On  Moab  and 


B.C.  1897. 


Birth  of  Isaac. 


85 


eel  in  Gerar."  Here  he  and  his  descendants  dwelt  for  a  long- 
time at  Beeesheba,  at  the  south-western  extremity  of  the 
maritime  plain,  upon  the  borders  of  the  desert.  This  was 
Abraham's  fourth  resting-place  in  the  Holy  Land.  It  con- 
tinued till  the  latest  times  to  be  the  southern  boundary  of 
the  Holy  Land,  so  that  from  Dan  to  Beersheba  became  the 
established  formula  to  indicate  the  whole  country.  In  this 
district  the  Philistines  had  already  begun  to  form  settle- 
ments, and  a  warlike  king  of  this  race,  whose  hereditary 
name  was  Abimelech  {Father-King).,  reigned  in  the  valley 
of  Gerar.  Here  the  deceit  which  Abraham  had  put  upon 
Pharaoh,  by  calling  Sarah  his  sister,  was  acted  again,  and 
with  the  like  result.  The  repeated  occurrence  of  such  an 
event,  which  will  meet  us  again  in  the  history  of  Isaac,  can 
surprise  no  one  acquainted  with  Oriental  manners;  but  it 
would  have  been  indeed  surprising  if  the  author  of  any  but 
a  genuine  narrative  had  exposed  himself  to  a  charge  so  ob- 
vious as  that  which  has  been  founded  on  its  repetition.  The 
independent  truth  of  each  story  is  confirmed  by  the  natural 
touches  of  variety ;  such  as,  in  the  case  before  us,  Abimelech's 
keen  but  gentle  satire  in  recommending  Sarah  to  buy  a  veil 
with  the  thousand  pieces  of  silver  which  he  gave  to  her  hus- 
band. We  may  also  observe  the  traces  of  the  knowledge  of 
t-he  true  God  among  Abimelech  and  his  servants. ^^ 

A  dispute  subsequently  arose  between  Abraham  and 
Abimelech  respecting  a  well  in  the  neighborhood,  marking 
"  the  importance  which,  in  the  migratory  land  of  the  East, 
was  and  is  ahvays  attached  to  the  possession  of  Avater." 
This  dispute  led  to  a  treaty  between  Abraham  and  Abimelech, 
which  gave  to  the  well  the  name  of  "  Beer-sheba,"  or  the 
well  of  the  oath^  "  because  there  they  sware  both  of  them." 
Here  also  "  Abraham  planted  a  grove,  and  called  on  the  name 
of  Jehovah,  the  everlasting  God  f^  in  opposition  doubtless  to 
the  deified  heroes  of  the  surrounding  heathen.'* 

§  4.  It  was  during  Abraham's  abode  at  Beersheba  that  his 
hopes  were  croAvned  by  the  birth  of  his  son  Isaac,  when  he 


Ammon,  see  Notes  and  Illustrations 
(B). 

"  Gen.  XX.  :  throughout  this  and 
the  following  chapter,  the  name  of 
God  is  constantly  Elohini,  not  Jeho- 
vah. 

^«  Gen.  xxi.  22-23.  There  are  at 
present  on  the  spot  two  principal  wells 
and  five  smaller  ones.  They  are 
among  the  first  objects  encountered 


on  the  entrance  into  Palestine  from  the 
south,  and  being  highly  characteristic 
of  the  life  of  the  Bible,  never  fail  to 
call  forth  the  enthusiasm  of  the  trav- 
eller. The  two  principal  wells  lie  just 
a  hundred  yards  apart.  The  larger 
of  the  two,  which  lies  to  the  east,  is 
12^  feet  diam.,  and  at  the  time  of  Dr. 
Robinson's  visit  was  44|  feet  to  the 
surface  of  the  water.     The  other  well 


86  Abraham  and  Isaac.  Chap.  VII. 

himself  was  m  hundred  years  old.'''  At  the  "great  feast" 
made  in  celebration  of  the  weaning,  "  Sarah  saw  the  son  of 
Hagar  the  Egyptian,  which  she  had  born  unto  Abraham, 
mocking,"  and  urged  Abraham  to  cast  out  him  and  his  moth- 
er. The  patriarch,  comforted  by  God's  renewed  promise 
that  of  Ishmael  He  would  make  a  nation,  sent  them  both 
away,  and  they  departed  and  wandered  in  the  wilderness  of 
Beersheba.  Here  the  water  being  spent  in  the  bottle,  Hagar 
cast  her  son  under  one  of  the  desert  shrubs,  and  Avent  away 
a  little  distance,  "  for  she  said,  Let  me  not  see  the  death  of 
the  child,"  and  wept.  "  And  God  heard  the  voice  of  the  lad, 
and  the  angel  of  the  Lord  called  to  Hagar  out  of  heaven," 
renewed  the  promise  already  thrice  given,  "  I  Av^ill  make  him 
a  great  nation,"  and  "  opened  her  eyes,  and  she  saw  a  well 
of  water."  Thus  miraculously  saved  from  perishing  by 
thirst,  "  God  was  with  the  lad ;  and  he  grew,  and  dwelt  in 
the  wilderness ;  and  became  an  archer."  It  is  doubtful 
Avhether  the  wanderers  halted  by  the  well,  or  at  once  con- 
tinued their  way  to  "  the  wilderness  of  Paran,"  wdiere  he 
dwelt,  and  where  "  his  mother  took  him  a  Avife  out  of  the 
land  of  Egypt."" 

§  5.  Henceforward  the  story  of  Abraham  is  intertwined 
Avith  that  of  Isaac,  of  Avhom  it  Avas  said,  "  In  Isaac  shall  thy 
seed  be  called."^'  The  plan  of  the  sacred  narrative  passes 
over  every  detail  that  does  not  bear  upon  the  history  of  the 
covenant  itself,  and  carries  us  on  to  a  period  Avhen  Isaac  had 
reached  the  age  of  intelligence.  A  tradition  preserved  by 
Josephus  makes  Isaac  tAventy-five  years  old  at  the  time  of 
the  croAvning  trial  of  Abraham's  faith  ;^^  and  Ave  certainly 
gather  from  the  Scripture  narratiA^e  that  he  Avas  an  intelli- 
gent and  Avilling  party  to  the  sacrifice  of  his  life  at  the  com- 
mand of  God.  It  is  impossible  to  repeat  this  story,  the  most 
perfect  specimen  of  simple  and  pathetic  narrative,  in  any  oth- 
er words  than  those  of  the  sacred  Avriter.  "And  it  came  to 
pass  after  these  things,  that  God  did  tempt  Abraham,  and 
said  unto  him,  Abraham.  And  he  said.  Behold,  here  I  am. 
And  he  said.  Take  noAv  thy  son,  thine  only  son  Isaac,  Avhom 
thou  lovest,  and  get  thee  into  the  land  of  Moriah ;  and  offer 


is  5  feet  diam,,  cand  was  42  feet  to  the 
water.  The  curb-stones  round  the 
mouth  of  both  wells  are  worn  into 
deep  grooves  by  the  action  of  the 
ropes  of  so  many  centuries.  Round 
tlie  larger  well  there  are  nine,  and 
round  the   smaller  five   large   stone 


broken,  others  nearly  entire,  lying  at 
a  distance  of  10  or  12  feet  from  the 
edge  of  the  well. 

''  Gen.  xxi.  1-7. 

'^o  Gen.  xxi.  9-21. 

^''  Gen.  xxi.  12  ;  comp.  Kom.  ix.  7, 
8;  Heb.  xi.  18. 


troughs  —  some    much     worn     and  |      ^'  Joseph.  Ant.  i.  13,  §  2 


B.C.  1897.  The  Command  to  Abraham.  87 

him  there  for  a  burnt-oiFering  upon  one  of  the  mountains 
which  I  will  tell  thee  of  And  Abraham  rose  up  early  in 
the  morning,  and  saddled  his  ass,  and  took  two  of  his  young- 
men  with  him,  and  Isaac  his  son,  and  clave  the  wood  for  the 
burnt-offering,  and  rose  up,  and  went  unto  the  j^lace  of  which 
God  had  told  him.  Then  on  the  third  day  Abraham  lifted 
up  his  eyes,  and  saw  the  place  afar  off.  And  Abraham  said 
unto  his  young  men.  Abide  ye  here  with  the  ass  ;  and  I  and 
the  lad  will  go  yonder  and  worship,  and  come  again  to  you. 
And  Abraham  took  the  wood  of  the  burnt-offering,  and  laid 
it  upon  Isaac  his  son  ;  and  he  took  the  fire  in  his  hand,  and  a 
knife ;  and  they  went  both  of  them  together.  And  Isaac 
spake  unto  Abraham  his  father,  and  said.  My  father  :  and  he 
said.  Here  am  I,  my  son.  And  he  said.  Behold  the  fire  and 
the  Avood  ;  but  where  is  the  lamb  for  a  burnt-ofiering  ?  And 
Abraham  said.  My  son,  God  will  provide  himself  a  lamb  for  a 
burnt-oftering  :  so  they  went  both  of  them  together.  And 
they  came  to  the  place  which  God  had  told  him  of;  and  Abra- 
ham built  an  altar  there,  and  laid  the  wood  in  order ;  and 
bound  Isaac  his  son,  and  laid  him  on  the  altar  upon  the 
wood.  And  Abraham  stretched  forth  his  hand,  and  took  the 
knife  to  slay  his  son.  And  the  angel  of  the  Lord  called  unto 
him  out  of  heaven,  and  said,  Abraham,  Abraham.  And  he 
said,  Here  am  I.  And  he  said.  Lay  not  thine  hand  upon  the  lad, 
neither  do  thou  any  thing  unto  him :  for  now  I  know  that 
thou  fearest  God,  seeing  thou  hast  not  withheld  thy  son, 
thine  only  son,  from  me.  And  Abraham  lifted  up  his  eyes, 
and  looked,  and,  behold,  behind  him  a  ram  caught  in  a  thick- 
et by  his  horns :  and  Abraham  went  and  took  the  ram,  and 
offered  him  up  for  a  burnt-offering  in  the  stead  of  his  son. 
And  Abraham  called  the  name  of  that  place  Jehovah-jireh : 
as  it  is  said  to  this  day.  In  the  mount  of  the  Lord  it  shall  be 
seen."^' 

The  2^rima)y  doctrines  taught  are  those  of  sacrifice  and  S2ib- 
stitution,  as  the  means  appointed  by  God  for  taking  away 
sin  ;  and,  as  co-ordinate  with  these,  the  need  of  the  obedience 
of  faith,  on  the  part  of  man,  to  receive  the  benefit.'^*  A  con- 
fusion is  often  made  between  Isaac  and  the  victim  actually 
offered.  Isaac  himself  is  generally  viewed  as  a  type  of  the 
Son  of  God,  oftered  for  the  sins  of  men  ;  but  Isaac,  himself 
one  of  the  sinful  race  for  whom  atonement  was  to  be  made 
— Isaac,  who  did  not  actually  suffer  death — was  no  fit  type 
of  Him  who  '■' vxts  slain,  the  just  for  the  unjust."     But  the 

"  Gen.  xxii.  1-14.  "  ITeb.  xi.  17. 


88  Death  and  Burial  of  Sarah.  Chap.  VIL 

animal,  not  of  the  human  race,  which  God  provided  and 
Abraham  offered,  was,  in  the  whole  history  of  sacrifice,  the 
recognized  type  of  "  the  Lamb  of  God,  that  taketh  away  the 
sins  of  the  a\  orld."  Isaac  is  the  type  of  humanity/  itself]  devo- 
ted to  death  for  sin,  and  submitting  to  the  sentence.  Once 
more  the  covenant  is  renewed  in  its  special  blessing  to  the 
descendants  of  Abraham,  and  in  its  full  spiritual  extension 
to  all  families  of  the  earth,  as  the  reward  of  his  obedience; 
and  now,  for  the  first  time,  God  confirmed  it  with  an  oath.^" 

§  6.  The  next  event  recorded  in  Abraham's  life  is  the  death 
of  Sarah,  at  the  age  of  127,  at  Hebron  ;  so  that  Abraham 
must  have  returned  from  Beersheba  to  his  old  home."  This 
led  to  an  interesting  transaction  between  the  patriarch  and 
the  people  of  the  land  in  which  he  was  a  sojourner.  God 
had  "  given  him  none  inheritance  in  the  land,  no  not  so 
much  as  to  set  his  foot  on.""  He  had  used  it  to  pitch  his 
tent  and  feed  his  flocks  on,  but  not  a  foot  of  it  was  actually 
his  iwoperty.  But  now  the  sanctity  of  the  sepulchre  demand- 
ed that  his  burying-place  should  be  his  own ;  and  he  makes 
a  bargain  with  Ephron  the  Hittite,  in  the  presence  of  all  the 
people  of  the  city,  in  the  course  of  which  he  behaves,  and  is 
treated  by  them,  like  a  generous  and  mighty  prince.  Cour- 
teously refusing  both  the  use  of  their  sepulchres,  and  the  of- 
fer of  a  place  for  his  own  as  a  gift,  he  buys  for  its  full  value  of 
four  hundred  skekels'  weight  of  silver,  "  current  money  with 
themerchant,"^^  the  Cave  of  3Iaehpelah  {ox  \\\q  Double  Cave), 
close  to  the  oak  of  Mamre,  with  the  field  in  which  it  stood. 
Here  he  buried  Sarah ;  here  he  was  buried  by  his  sons 
Isaac  and  Ishmael ;  there  they  buried  Isaac  and  Rebekah  his 
wife,  Jacob  and  his  wife  Leah,  and  perhaps  Joseph.^^  The 
sepulchre  still  exists  under  the  Mosque  of  Hebron,  and  was 
first  permitted  to  be  seen  by  Europeans  since  the  Crusades, 
when  it  was  visited  by  the  Prince  of  Wales  in  1862.^° 

§  7.  After  the  burial  of  Sarah  Abraham  appears  to  have 
returned  to  Beersheba.     His  last  care  was  for  the  marriage 

^^  Gen.  xxii.  15-18 ;  Psalm  cv.  9  ; '  in  the  history  of  tlie  world,  but  it  was 
Luke  i.  73;  and  especially  Heb.  vi. 
i:i,  14.  TliG  sacrifice  is  said  to  have 
taken  j)lace  upon  a  mountain  in  "the 
land  of  Moriah ;"  but  whether  this 
was  the  hill  in  Jerusalem  on  which  see  Stanley's  Lectures  on  the  Jewish 
tlie  Temple  afterward  stood,  or  Mount  Churcli,  part  i.,  App.  II.  Hebron  is 
Gerizim,  is  discussed  in  iVoies  a??ti?//-!  Iield   by   tlie  Mussulmans    to  be  the 


uncomed. 

'^  Gen.  XXV.  9,  10,  xxxv.  29,  xlix. 
31,  1.  13. 

^"  For    an    account    of   this  visit. 


lustrations  (C). 

2^  Gen.  xxiii.  1,2.       "  Acts  vii.  5. 
**  This  is  the  first  mention  of  money 


fourth  of  the  Holy  Places,  Mecca, 
Medina,  and  Jerusalem  being  the 
other  three. 


B.C.  1822.  Death  of  Abraham.  89 

of  his  son  Isaac  to  a  wife  of  his  own  kindred,  and  not  to  one 
of  the  daughters  of  the  Canaanites.  His  oldest  servant  un- 
dertook the  journey  to  Haran,  in  Mesopotamia,  where  Nahor, 
the  brother  of  Abraham,  had  settled,  and  a  sign  from  God 
indicated  the  person  he  sought  in  Rebekah,  the  daughter  of 
Bethuel,  son  of  Nahor.^'  The  whole  narrative  is  a  vivid 
j)icture  of  pastoral  life,  and  of  the  simple  customs  then  used 
in  making  a  marriage  contract,  not  without  characteristic 
touches  of  the  tendency  to  avarice  in  the  family  of  Bethuel, 
and  particularly  in  his  son  Laban.^^  The  scene  of  Isaac's 
meeting  with  Rebekah  seems  to  exhibit  his  character  as 
that  of  quiet  pious  contemplation.^^  He  was  40  years  old 
when  he  married,  and  his  residence  was  by  the  well  of  La- 
hai-7'oi,  in  the  extreme  south  of  Palestine.^* 

§  8.  It  was  not  till  twenty  years  later  that  Rebekah,  whose 
barrenness  was  removed  through  the  prayers  of  Isaac,  bore 
twin  sons,  Esau  {hairy)  or  Edom  (the  Bed)  and  Jacob  (the 
Siqjplanter),  whose  future  destiny  M'as  prophetically  signi- 
fied by  the  strange  incidents  which  accompanied  their  birth. 
Their  struggle  in  the  womb  portended  the  deadly  animosity 
of  the  two  nations  that  were  to  spring  from  them ;  and  the 
grasp  of  the  younger  on  the  elder's  heel  betokened  that  craft 
in  taking  advantage  of  his  brother  which  answered  to  his 
name.  Their  physical  appearance  was  as  different  as  their 
characters  afterward  proved :  the  ruddy  and  hairy  Esau  be- 
( ame  a  rough,  wild  hunter,  the  smooth  Jacob  a  quiet  denizen 
of  the  tent.  These  differences  of  character  were  fostered  by 
the  foolish  partiality  of  their  parents,  the  great  curse  of  all 
family  life: — "Isaac  loved  Esau,  because  he  did  eat  of  his 
venison  :  but  Rebekah  loved  Jacob."^'' 

§  9.  It  was  after  the  marriage  of  Isaac  that  Abraham 
formed  a  new  union  with  Keturah,  by  whom  he  became  the 
father  of  the  Ketura'lte  Arabs.  Keturah  seems  to  have  been 
only  a  concubine,  and  her  sons  were  sent  away  eastward,  en- 
riched with  presents,  as  Ishmael  had  been  during  Abraham's 
life,  lest  the  inheritance  of  Isaac  should  be  disputed.  To 
him  Abraham  gave  all  his  great  wealth,  and  died  apparently 
at  Beersheba  "  in  a  good  old  age,  an  old  man,  and  full  of 
years,"  his  age  being  1 75.  His  ^ons  Isaac  and  Ishmael  met 
at  his  funeral,  and  buried  him  in  the  Cave  of  Machpelah.'* 
Ishmael  survived  him  just  50  years ;  and  died  at  the  asre 
of  137."  J  J         . 


^*  Gen.  xxiv.      See  the   Genealoqy 
on  p.  68. 

^^  Gen.  xxiv.  30.     ^^  Gen.  xxiv.  63. 


=•*  Gen.  XXV.  62,  xxvi.  11,20. 

^*  Gen.  XXV.  21-28. 

^°  Gen.  XXV.  I -10.   '"  Gen.  xxv.  11 


90  Notes  and  Illustrations.  Chap.  VII. 

§  1 0.  The  traditions  respecting  Abraham,  which  Josephus 
adds  to  tlie  scriptural  narrative,  are  merely  such  as  exalt  his 
knowledge  and  wisdom,  making  him  the  teacher  of  monothe- 
ism to  the  Chaldaeans,  and  of  astronomy  and  mathematics  to 
the  Egyptians.  He  quotes  however  Kicolaus  of  Damascus,^* 
as  ascribing  to  him  the  conquest  and  government  of  Damas- 
cus on  his  way  to  Canaan,  and  stating  that  the  tradition  of 
his  habitation  was  still  preserved  there."'* 

The  Arab  traditions  are  partly  ante-Mohammedan,  relating 
mainly  to  the  Kaabah  (or  sacred  house)  of  Mecca,  which 
Abraham  and  his  son  "Ismail"  are  said  to  have  rebuilt  for 
the  fourth  time  over  the  sacred  black  stone.  But  in  great 
measure  they  are  taken  from  the  Koran,  which  has  itself  bor- 
rowed from  the  Old  Testament,  and  from  the  Eabbinical  tra- 
ditions. Of  the  latter  the  most  remarkable  is  the  story  of 
his  having  destroyed  the  idols  which  Terah  not  only  wor- 
shiped, but  also  manufactured,  and  having  been  cast  by 
Nimrod  into  a  fiery  furnace,  which  turned  into  a  pleasant 
meadow.  But  the  name  of  Abraham  appears  to  be  common- 
ly remembered  in  tradition  through  a  very  large  portion  of 
Asia,  and  the  title  "  El-Khalil,"  "the  Friend"  (of  God),"  is 
that  by  which  he  is  usually  spoken  of  by  the  Arabs. 

^^  Nicolans  was  a  contemporary  and  I  ^'•'  Jos.  Ant.  i.  c.  7,  §  2  ;  Gen.  xv.  2. 
favorite  of  Herod  the  Great  and  Au-  j  ■*"  Sec  2Clir.  xx.  7;  Is.  xli.  8;  Jam, 
gustus.  'ii.  23. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


'A.)    THE    DESTRUCTION     OF  that  the  region  in  question  bore  both 
THE  CITIES  OF  THE  PLAIN,     names ;  as  in  the  similar  expressions 

(vs.  7  and  17) — 'En  Mishpat,  which 
It  was  formerly  supposed  that  the  is  Kadesh  ;'  '  Shaveh,  which  is  the 
overthrow  of  Sodom  and  the  other  king's  dale.'  It  should,  however,  be 
cities  of  the  Plain  was  caused  by  the  observed  that  the  word  '  emek,' trans- 
convulsion  which  formed  the  Dead  lated  '  vale,'  is  usually  employed  for 
Sea.  But,  as  Dean  Stanley  ob-  a  long  broad  valley,  such  as  in  this 
serves  : —  j  connection  would  naturally  mean  the 

"  The  only  expression  which  seems  whole  length  of  the  Dead  Sea"  (Stan- 
to  imply  that  the  rise  of  the  Dead  ley,  S.  and  P.  289,  note). 
Sea  was  in  historical  times,  is  that  But  in  no  other  passage  of  the 
contained  in  Gen.  xiv.  3 — 'The  vale  narrative,  nor  in  any  of  the  later  pas- 
of  Siddim,  wliicli  is  the  Salt  Sen.'  sages  in  which  ihe  destruction  of  tlie 
But   this   pliraso   may   merely   mean  cities  is  referred  to    in    Scripture,  is 


Chap.  VII. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


91 


there  the  slijijhtest  hint  tliat  the  cities  itants  (Deut.  ii.  11).  But  they  them, 
were  submerged  by  the  h\ke.  More-  selves  were  afterward  driven'  south- 
over,  the  changes  which  occurred  ward  by  the  warlike  Amorites,  who 
when  the  limestone  strata  of  Syria  had  crossed  the  Jordan,  and  were 
were  spilt  by  that  vast  fissure  which '  confined  to  the  country  south  of  the 
forms  the  Jordan  valley  and  the  ba-|  river  Arnon,  which  formed  their 
sin  of  the  Salt  Lake,  must  have  taken  northern  boundary  (Num.  xxi.  iij; 
place  at  a  time  long  anterior  to  the  Judg.  xi.  18). 

period  of  Abraham.  j      The  territory  occupied  by  Moab  at 

Sodom  and  the  cities  of  the  Plain  the  period  of  its  greatest  extent,  be- 
are  usually  placed  at  the  south  end  fore  the  invasion  of  tlie  Amorites, 
of  the  Dead  Sea;  but  Mr.  Grove  has  ^divided  itself  naturally  into  three 
brought  forward  good  reasons  for  be-  distinct  and  independent  portions, 
lieving  that  they  stood  at  its  northern  Each  of  these  portions  appears  to  have 
end.     See   Dictionary   of  the   Bible,   hcid  its  name  by  which  it  is  almost 


article  Sodom. 

(B.)  MOABITES  AND  AMMON- 
ITES. 

The  Moabites  were  descended  from 
Moab,  the  son  of  Lot's  eldest  daugh- 
ter, and  the   Ammonites  from  Ben- 


invariably  designated.  (]),  The  en- 
closed corner  or  canton  south  of  the 
Arnon  was  the  "field  of  Moab" 
(Ruth  i.  1 ,  2,  G,  etc.).  (2),  The  more 
open  rolling  country  north  of  the 
Arnon,  opposite  Jericho,  and  up  to 
the  hills  of  Gilead,  was  the  "land  of 
Moab  "  (Deut.  i.  5,  xxxiii.  49,  etc.). 
Ammi,  the  son  of  his  youngest  daugh-i  (3),  The  sunk  district  in  the  tropical 


ter  (Gen.  xix.  37,  38).  The  near  re- 
lation between  the  two  peoples  indica- 
ted in  the  story  of  their  origin  contin- 
ued througliout  their  existence  (comp. 
Judg.  X.  6 ;  2  Chr.  xx.   1  ;  Zeph.  ii. 


depths  of  the  Jordan  valley,  taking  its 
name  from  that  of  the  groat  valley  it- 
self— the  Arabah — was  the  Arboth- 
Moab,  the  dry  regions — in  the  A.  V. 
very  incorrectly  rendered  the  "  plains 


8,  etc.).  Indeed,  so  close  was  tlieir  of  Moab"  (Num.  xxii.  1,  etc.).  The 
union,  and  so  near  their  identity,  that  I  Israelites,  in  entering  the  promised 
each  would  appear  to  be  occasionally  land,  did  not  pass  through  the  Mo- 
spoken  of  under  the  name  of  the' abites  (IJudg.  xi.  18),  but  conquered 
other.  I  the  Amorites,  who  occupied  the  coun- 

Zoar  was  the  cradle  of  the  race  of  j  try   from    which    the  Moabites   had 
Lot.     From  this  centre  the  brother-  been  so  lately  expelled. 


tribes  spread  themselves.  The  Am- 
monites, whose  disposition  seems 
throughout  to  have  been  moi-e  roving 
and  unsettled,  went  to  the  north-east. 
The  Moabites,  whose  habits  were 
more  settled  and  peaceful,  remained 
nearer  their  original  seat. 

1.  The  MoAmxES. 
This  people  originally  dwelt  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  Dead  Sea,  extend- 
ing as  far  north  as  the  mountain  of 
Gilead,  from  which  countrv  thcv  ex- 


After  the  conquest  of  Canaan  the 
relations  of  Moab  with  Israel  were  of 
a  mixed  character.  With  the  tribe 
of  Benjamin,  whose  possessions  at 
their  eastern  end  were  separated  from 
those  of  Moab  only  by  the  Jordan, 
they  had  at  least  one  severe  struggle, 
in  union  with  their  kindred  the  Am- 
monites (Judg.  iii.  1 2-30).  The  feud 
continued  with  true  Oriental  perti- 
nacity to  the  time  of  Saul.  Of  his 
slaughter  of  the  Ammonites  we  have 
full  details  in  1  Sam.  xi.,  and  among 
pelled  the  Endms.  tlie  original  inliab-  his  other  conquests  Moab  is  especial- 


92 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  VIL 


ly  mentioned  (I  Sam.  xi.  47).  But 
while  such  were  their  relations  to  the 
tribe  of  Benjamin,  the  story  of  Ruth, 
on  the  other  hand,  testifies  to  the  ex- 
istence of  a  friendly  intercourse  be- 
tween Moab  and  Bethlehem,  one  of 
the  towns  of  Judah.  By  his  descent 
from  Ruth,  David  may  be  said  to  have 
had  Moabitc  blood  in  his  veins.  The 
relationship  was  sufficient  to  warrant 
his  visiting  the  land,  and  committing 
his  parents  to  the  protection  of  the 
king  of  Moab,  when  hard  pressed  by 
Saul  (I  Sam.  xxii.  3,  4).  But  here 
all  friendly  relations  stop  forever.  The 
next  time  the  name  is  mentioned  is 
in  the  account  of  David's  war,  who 
made  them  tributary  (2  Sam.  viii.  2  ; 
1  Chr.  xviii.  2).  At  the  disruption 
of  the  kingdom,  Moab  seems  to  have 
fallen  to  the  northern  realm.  At  the 
death  of  Ahab,  eighty  years  later,  the 
Moabites  threw  oif  the  yoke  (1  K.  i. 
1,  iii.  4).  They  afterward  fought 
against  the  united  forces  of  Israel, 
Judah,  and  Edom,  but  were  defeated 
with  great  loss  (2  K.  iii. ;  2  Chr.  xx. 
i.).  Isaiah  (xv.  xvi.  xxv.  10-12)  pre- 
dicts the  utter  annihilation  of  Moab  ; 
but  it  is  unnecessary  to  follow  their 
history  farther. 

II.  The  Ammonites. 

Unlike  Moab,  the  precise  position 
of  the  territory  of  the  Ammonites  is 
not  ascertainable.  In  the  earliest 
mention  of  them  (Dent.  ii.  20)  they 
are  said  to  have  destroyed  the  Reph- 
aiin,  whom  they  called  the  Zamzum- 
mim,  and  to  have  dwelt  in  their  place, 
Jabbok  being  their  border  (Num.  xxi. 
24  ;  Deut.  ii.  37,  iii.  IG).  ''  Land  " 
or  "country  "  is,  however,  but  rarely 
ascribed  to  them,  nor  is  there  any  ref- 
erence to  those  habits  and  circum- 
stances of  civilization,  which  so  con- 
stantly recur  in  the  allusions  to  Moab 
(Is.  XV.  xvi  ;  Jer.  xlviii.).  On  the 
contrary,  we  find  everywhere   traces 


of  the  fierce  habits  of  marauders  in 
their  incursions  (I  Sam.  xi.  2 ;  Am. 
i.  13),  and  a  very  high  degree  of  crafty 
cruelty  to  their  foes  (Jer.  xli.  G,  7  ; 
Jud.  vii.  11,  12).  The  hatred  in  which 
the  Ammonites  were  held  by  Israel 
is  stated  to  have  arisen  partly  from 
their  opposition,  or,  rather,  their  de- 
nial of  assistance  (Deut.  xxiii.  4)  to 
the  Israelites  on  their  approach  to 
Canaan.  But  it  evidently  sprang 
i  mainly  from  their  share  in  the  afi'air 
of  Balaam  (Deut.  xxiii.  4  ;  Neh.  xiii. 
:  1).  But  whatever  its  origin,  it  is  cer- 
I  tain  that  the  animosity  continued  in 
force  to  the  latest  date.  Subdued  bv 
I  Jephthah  (Judg.  xi.  33),  and  scat- 
I  tered  with  great  slaughter  by  Saul  (I 
Sam.  xi.  11),  they  enjoyed  under  his 
successor  a  short  respite,  probably  the 
result  of  the  connection  of  Moab  with 
David  (1  Sam.  xxii.  3)  and  David's 
town,  Bethlehem.  But  this  was  soon 
brought  to  a  close  by  the  shameful 
treatment  to  which  their  king  sub- 
jected the  friendly  messengers  of  Da., 
vid  (2  Sam.  x.  1  ;"  1  Chr.  xix.  1),  and 
for  which  he  destroyed  their  city  and 
inflicted  on  them  the  severest  blows 
(2  Sam.  xii;  1  Chr.xx.). 

(C.)  PLACE   OF  ISAAC'S    SAC 
RIFICE. 

This  sacrifice  took  place  in  "  one 
of  the  mountains  "  in  the  land  of 
Moriah  (Gen.  xxii.  2).  What  the 
name  of  the  mountain  was  we  are  not 
told  ;  but  it  was  a  conspicuous  one, 
visible  from  "  afar  off"  (ver.  4).  Nor 
does  tlie  narrative  afford  any  data  for 
ascertaining  its  position.  A  tradition 
which  first  appears  in  a  definite  shape 
in  Josephus,  and  is  now  almost  nni- 
versally  accepted,  asserts  that  the 
"Mount  Moriah"  in  2  Chron.  iii.  1, 
the  eminence  in  Jerusalem  on  which 
Solomon  built  his  temple,  was  the 
very  spot  of  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac. 
But  the  single  occurrence  of  the  name 


Chap.  VII. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


93 


in  this  one  passage  of  Chronicles  is 
surely  not  enough  to  establish  a  coin- 
cidence, which,  if  we  consider  it,  is 
little  short  of  miraculous.  Except  in 
the  case  of  Salem,  and  that  is  by  no 
means  ascertained  —  the  name  of 
Abraham  does  not  appear  once  in 
connection  with  Jerusalem  or  the  later 
royal  or  ecclesiastical  glories  of  Isra- 
el. Moreover,  Jerusalem  is  incom- 
patible with  the  circumstances  of  the 
narrative  of  Genesis  xxii.  To  name 
only  two  instances— (]),  The  Temple 
mount  can  not  be  spoken  of  as  a  con- 
spicuous eminence.  It  is  not  visible 
till  the  traveller  is  close  upon  it  at 
the  southern  edge  of  the  valley  of  Hin- 
nom,  from  whence  he  looks  down  upon 
it  as  on  a  lower  eminence.  (2),  If 
Salem  was  Jerusalem,  then  the  trial 


of  Abraham's  faith,  instead  of  taking 
place  in  the  lonely  and  desolate  spot 
implied  by  the  narrative,  where  not 
even  fire  was  to  be  obtained,  and 
where  no  help  but  that  of  the  Al- 
mighty was  nigh,  actually  took  place 
under  the  very  walls  of  the  city  of 
Melchizedek.  But,  while  there  is  no 
trace,  except  in  the  single  passage 
quoted,  of  Moriah  being  attached  to 
any  part  of  Jerusalem — on  the  other 
hand,  in  the  slightly  different  form  of 
MoREH  (Gen.  xii.  6),  it  did  exist  at- 
tached to  the  town  and  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Shechem,  the  spot  of  Abram's 
first  residence  in  Palestine.  The  sac- 
rifice probably  took  place  upon  the 
lofty  hill  of  Gerizim  overlooking  the 
town  of  Shechem,  as  the  Samaritans 
have  always  asserted. 


The  town  and  valley  of  Xdbhis^  the  ancient  Shechem,  from  the  south-western  flank  of 
Mount  Ebal.     The  mountain  on  the  left  is  Gerizira. 


CHAPTER  YIII. 


ISAAC    AND    JAC033.       FROM    THE    DEATH    OF    ABRAHAM   TO  THE 
DEATH  OF  ISAAC.       A.M.  2182-2288.       B.C.   1822-1716. 

§  1.  Isaac  at  Laliai-roi.  Esau  sells  liis  Linliright.  §  2.  Isaac  and  Abim- 
clcch  at  Gerar.  §  3.  The  blessings  of  Jacob  and  Esan.  §  4.  Moral 
aspect  of  the  transaction,  §  5.  Jacob's  danger  from  Esau,  and  fligiit 
to  Padan-aram.  §  G.  His  marriage  to  Leah  and  Eachel — His  family. 
§  7.  His  service  with  Laban — His  prosperity  and  departure — Malia- 
iiaim.  §  8.  His  prayer  and  wrestling  atPeniel.  §  9.  His  meeting  with 
Esau — Abode  at  Shechem,  and  rcmoA-al  southward,  §  10.  Death  of 
Kachcl — Jacob  at  Mamre — Death  and  burial  of  Isaac, 

§  1.  After  the  death  of  Abraham,  Isaac  continued  to  dwell 
by  the  well  of  Lahai-roi,  blessed  by  God.  Here  an  event  oc- 
curred, which  fixed  tlie  destinies  of  his  sons.  Esau,  returning 
from  hunting  in  a  famished  state,  saw  Jacob  preparing  some 
red  pottage  of  lentils,  and  quickly  asked  for  "  some  of  that 
red,  red,"'     His  impatience  was  natural,  for  food  is  not  readily 

»  Gen.  XXV.  30. 


B.C.  1805."  Esau  sells  his  BlrtkrigJit  95 

procured  in  an  Eastern  tent,  and  takes  time  to  prepare.  Ja- 
cob seized  the  occasion  to  obtain  Esau's  birthright  as  the 
price  of  the  meal ;  and  Esau  consented  with  a  levity  which 
is  marked  by  the  closing  words  of  the  narrative — "  thus  Esau 
despised  his  birthright."^  For  this  the  Apostle  calls  him  "  a 
2yrofane  person,  who  for  one  morsel  of  food  sold  his  birth- 
right," and  marks  him  as  the  pattern  of  those  who  sacrifice 
eternity  for  a  moment's  sensual  enjoyment/  The  justice 
of  this  judgment  appears  from  considering  what  the  birth- 
right was,  which  he  sold  at  such  a  price.  Esau  was,  by  right 
of  birth,  the  head  of  the  family,  its  prophet,  priest,  and  king  ; 
and  no  man  can  renounce  such  privileges,  except  as  a  sacri- 
fice  required  by  God,  Avithout  "  despising "  God  wdio  gave 
them.  But  more  than  this :  he  was  the  head  of  the  chosen 
family;  on  him  devolved  the  blessing  of  Abraham,  that  "in 
his  seed  all  families  of  the  earth  should  be  blessed ;"  and,  in 
despising  his  birthright,  he  put  himself  out  of  the  sacred  fam- 
ily, and  so  became  a  ^^ profane  person."  His  sin  must  not  be 
overlooked  in  our  indignation  at  the  fraud  of  Jacob,  wdiich, 
as  we  shall  see  presently,  brought  its  ow^n  retribution  as  well 
as  its  ow^n  gain. 

§  2,  Driven  from  Lahai-roi  by  a  famine,  Isaac  was  forbid- 
den by  God  to  go  down  to  Egypt,  and  was  commanded  to 
remain  in  the  land.  At  the  same  time  the  promise  was  re- 
newed to  him.  He  betook  himself  to  his  father's  old  resi- 
dence at  Beersheba;  and  here  he  practiced  the  same  deceit 
of  w^hich  his  father  had  been  guilty,  by  giving  out  that  his 
wife  w^as  his  sister.  The  falsehood  w^as  discovered  ;  but  the 
remonstrance  of  Abimelech  (apparently  the  son  of  Abraham's 
contemporary)  was  followed  by  special  protection  and  re- 
spect both  from  king  and  people.  Isaac  now  made  an  ad- 
vance beyond  the  pastoral  life — "  He  sowed  in  that  land,  and 
received  in  the  same  year  an  hundred-fold  :  and  Jehovah 
blessed  him."  His  prosperity  roused  the  envy  of  the  Philis- 
tines, who  had  filled  up  the  wells  dug  by  Abraham,  as  a  pre- 


^  "Therefore  was  his  name  called 
Eoo^r, "  /.  e.,  Red  (Gen.  xxv.  30).  The 
red  lentil  is  still  a  favorite  article  of 
food  in  the  East  ;  it  is  a  small  kind, 


quite  a  dainty  {B\h.  Res.  i.  24G).  Dr. 
Kitto  also  says  that  he  has  often  par- 
taken of  red  pottage,  prepared  by 
seething  the  lentils  in  water,  and  then 


the  seeds  of  which,  after  being  decor-  adding  a  little  suet  to  give  them  a 
ticatecl,  are  commonly  sold  in  the  ba-  flavor;  and  that  he  found  it  better 
zars  of  India.  Dr.  Robinson,  who  j  food  than  a  stranger  would  imagine; 
partook  of  lentils,  says  he  "  found  j  "  the  mess,"  he  adds,  "hadthered- 
them  very  palatable,  and  could  well  ness  which  gained  for  it  the  name  of 
conceive  that  to  a  weary  hnnter,  \  adom''  (Pkt.  Bib.,  Gen.  -kxy.  30,  ?'4:), 
faint    with    hunger,   they    would    be!      ^  llcb.  xii.  16. 


96  Isaac  and  Jacob.  Chap.  VIII. 

caution  (it  shoukl  seem)  against  his  return.  At  length  Abim- 
clech  desired  Isaac  to  leave  his  country ;  and  he  retired 
along  the  A^alley  of  Gerar,  digging  his  father's  wells  anew, 
and  restoring  their  former  names.  Two  Avells  so  dug  were 
disputed  with  him  by  the  herdmen  of  Abimelech,  and  at  once 
yielded  by  Isaac,  who  gave  the  wells  the  names  oiEzek  (con- 
tention)  and  Slt7iah  {hatred).  His  peaceful  conduct  not  only 
secured  him  the  quiet  possession  of  a  third  well,  which  he 
named  Rehoboth  (room),  but  brought  him  a  visit  from  Abim- 
elech, who  made  a  treaty  with  Isaac  at  a  ncAvly-discovered 
well,  which  was  hence  called  Sheba/i  {the  oath)^  and  which 
gave  its  name  a  second  time  to  Beersheba  {the  vaell  of  the 
oath).  There  is  no  reason  to  consider  this  as  different  from 
Abraham's  Beersheba. 

§  3.  This  tranquil  course  of  Isaac's  life,  which  ]> resents  a 
marked  contrast  to  the  varied  incidents  of  Abraham's  career, 
was  vexed  by  the  disobedience  of  Esau,  who,  at  the  age  of 
forty  married  two  Hittite  wives,  thus  introducing  heathen 
alliances  into  the  chosen  flimily.*  But  a  greater  family  trial 
was  in  store  for  Isaac.  The  approach  of  his  hundredth  year 
and  the  infirmity  of  his  sight^  warned  him  to  perform  the 
solemn  act  by  which,  as  j^rophet  as  well  as  father,  he  was  to 
hand  down  the  blessing  of  Abraham  to  another  generation. 
Of  course  he  designed  for  Esau  the  blessing  which,  once 
given,  was  the  authoritative  and  irrevocable  act  of  the  patri- 
archal power;  and  he  desired  Esau  to  prepare  a  feast  of  ven- 
ison for  the  occasion.  Esau  was  not  likely  to  confess  the 
sale  of  his  birthright,  nor  could  Jacob  venture  openly  to 
claim  the  benefit  of  his  trick.  Whether  Rebekah  knew  of 
that  transaction,  or  whether  moved  by  partiality  only,  she 
came  to  the  aid  of  her  favorite  son,  and  devised  the  stratagem 
by  which  Jacob  obtained  his  father's  blessing.  This  chapter 
gives  another  example  of  the  matchless  power  and  beauty 
of  the  sacred  narrative,  in  the  quiet  statement  of  the  facts  ; 
the  preparation  of  the  scheme  step  by  step  ;  the  suspicious 
scrutiny  of  Isaac;  the  persistent  fraud  with  which  Jacob 
baffles  the  passionate  appeal  made  even  after  the  blessing 
has  been  given — "Art  thou  my  very  son  Esau  ?" — the  horror 
of  Isaac  and  the  despair  of  Esau  when  his  return  discovers 
the  fraud  ;  the  weeping  of  the  strong  man,  and  his  passionate' 
demand — "  Hast  thou  not  reserved  a  blessing  for  me  ?"  Like 
Ishmael,  he  received  a  temporal  blessing,  the  fatness  of  the 

*  Gen.  xxvi.  34,  35;  sec  the  pene- 1  ^  We  mark  here  the  sliortening  of 
alogical  table  and  note  thereon  (page  life :  this  is  the  first  exami)]e  of  the 
68).  '  infirmities  of  old  age. 


B.C.  1796.  Jacob'' s  Danger  from  Esau.  97 

earth  and  the  dew  of  heaven,  the  warrior's  sword,  qualified 
by  subjection  to  his  brother,  whose  yoke,  however,  he  was 
at  some  time  to  break.  The  prophecy  was  fulfilled  in  the 
prosperity  of  the  Idumgeans,  their  martial  prowess,  and  their 
constant  conflicts  with  the  Israelites,  by  whom  they  were 
subdued  under  David,  over  whom  they  triumphed  at  the 
Babylonian  Captivity,  and  to  Avhom  they  al  last  gave  a  kino- 
in  the  person  of  Herod  the  Great.®  But  all  this  was  no  com- 
pensation for  the  loss  of  the  higher  and  spiritual  blessinir 
which  fell  to  the  lot  of  Jacob,  and  which  involved,  in  addi- 
tion to  all  tempoiiJ  prosperity,  a  dominion  so  universal  that 
it  could  only  be  fuililled  by  the  kingdom  of  Messiah.'' 

§  4.  The  moral  aspect  of  the  transaction  is  plain  to  those 
who  are  willing  to  see  that  the  Bible  represents  the  patri- 
archs as  "  men  compassed  with  infirmity,"  favored  by  the 
grace  of  God,  but  not  at  all  endowed  with  sinless  perfection. 
It  is  just  this,  in  fact,  that  makes  their  lives  a  moral  lesson 
for  us.  Examples  have  occurred  in  the  lives  of  Abraham  and 
Isaac  ;  but  the  whole  career  of  Jacob  is  the  history  of  a 
growing  moral  discipline.  God  is  not  honored  by  glossing 
over  the  patriarch's  great  faults  of  character,  which  were 
corrected  by  the  discipline  of  severe  suftering.  We  need 
not  withhold  indignant  censure  from  Rebekah's  cupidity  on 
behalf  of  her  favorite  son — so  like  her  family — and  the  mean 
deceit  to  w^hich  she  tempts  him.  Nor  is  Isaac  free  from  the 
blame  of  that  foolish  fondness,  which,  as  is  usual  w4th  moral 
weakness,  gives  occasion  to  crime  in  others.  What,  then,  is 
the  difference  between  them  and  Esau  ?  Simply  this — that 
they,  in  their  hearts,  honored  the  God  whom  he  despised, 
though  their  piety  was  corrupted  by  their  selfish  passions. 
Jacob  valued  the  blessing  which  he  purchased  wrongfully, 
and  sought  more  wrongfully  to  secure.  But  Esau,  whose 
conduct  was  equally  unprincipled  in  desiring  to  receive  the 
blessing  ^vhich  Avas  no  longer  his,  w^as  rightly  "rejected, 
when  he  would  have  inherited  the  blessing."^  His  selfish 
sorrow  and  resentment  could  not  recall  the  choice  he  had 
made,  or  stand  in  the  place  of  genuine  repentance.  "  He 
found  no  place  for  repentance,  though  he  sought  for  it 
with  tears,"'  and  he  is  held  forth  as  a  great  example  of 
unavailing  regret  for  spiritual  blessings  wantonly  thrown 
away. 

§  5.  The  true  state  of  Esau's  spirit  is  shown  by  his  resolve 

"  For    the    history    of   Edom,  see  I      "^  Gen.  xxvii.  28,  29,  37. 
Notes  and  Illustrations.  \      ^Heb.  xii.  17,         '  Hebrews, /.  c. 

E 


98  Isaac  and  Jacob.  Chap.  VIII. 

to  kill  his  brother  as  soon  as  his  father  should  die.  To  avert 
the  danger,  Rebekah  sent  away  Jacob  to  her  family  at  Haran. 
Isaac  approved  the  j^lan,  as  securing  a  proper  marriage  for 
his  son,  to  whom  he  rej^eated  the  blessing  of  Abraham,  and  sent 
him  away  to  Padan-aram.^°  And  so  the  heir  of  the  promises 
retraced,  as  a  solitary  Avanderer,  with  nothing  but  the  staiF 
he  carried,"  the  path  by  which  Abraham  had  traversed  Ca- 
naan.  Proceeding  northward,  he  lighted  on  a  place,  the  site 
doubtless  of  Abraham's  encampment  near  Bethel,  where  he 
found  some  stones,  which  probably  belonged  to  the  altar 
set  up  by  Abraham,  one  of  which  he  made  his  pillow.  Thus 
forlorn,  amid  the  memorials  of  the  covenant,  he  was  visit- 
ed by  God  in  a  dream,  Avhich  showed  him  a  flight  of  stairs 
leading  up  from  earth  to  the  gates  of  heaven,  and  trodden 
by  angels,  some  descending  on  their  errands  as  "  ministering 
spirits  "  upon  earth,  and  others  ascending  to  carry  their  re- 
ports to  Him,  whose  "  face  they  ever  w^atch  "  in  dutiful  serv- 
ice. This  symbol  of  God's  providence  was  crowned  by  a 
vision  of  Jehovah,  and  his  voice  added  to  the  renewal  of  the 
covenant  a  special  promise  of  protection.  Jacob  awoke,  to 
acknowledge  the  awful  presence  of  Jehovah,  of  which  he  had 
lain  down  unconscious,  and  to  dedicate  to  Him  himself  and 
all  that  God  should  give  him.  As  a  memorial  of  his  a^ow,  he 
set  up  his  pillow  for  a  monument,  consecrating  it  with  oil, 
and  called  the  place  Beth-el,  the  House  of  God.  The  date 
of  this,  the  turning-point  in  Jacob's  religious  life,  is  fixed  by 
subsequent  computations  to  his  T^th  year.^^ 

§  6.  Jacob's  arrival  at  Padan-aram  presents  us  with  a  rep- 
etition of  the  pastoral  scene,  which  Abraham's  servant  had 

^''  Gen.  xxvii.  4:l-xxviii.  9.       It  is   from  Jerusalem  on  tlie  right  liand  ot 
here  incidentally  mentioned  that  Esau  '  tlie    road   to  Sichem  ;    and  here   its 


tried  to  please  his  father  hy  marrying 
the  daughter  of  Ishmacl. 

'^  Gen.  xxxii.  10. 

"  Bethel  was  near  the  Canaanite 
city  of  Luz,  but  distinct  from  \U  In 
Josh.  xvi.  1,  2,  tlie  "  city  "  of  Luz  and 
tlie  consecrated  "  place  "  in  its  neigh- 
borhood are  mentioned  as  still  dis- 
tinct ;    and   the   appropriation  of  the 


ruins  still  lie  under  the  scarcely  al- 
tei'ed  name  ofBeitin.  Many  travellers 
have  remarked  on  the  "stony"  na- 
ture of  the  soil  at  Bethel,  as  perfectly 
in  keeping  with  the  narrative  of  Ja- 
cob's slumber  there.  When  on  the 
spot  little  doubt  can  be  felt  as  to  the 
localities  of  this  interesting  place. 
The  round  mount  S.E.  of  Bethel  must 


name  of  Bethel  to  the  eity  appears  not  be  the  "  mountain  "  on  which  Abram 
to  have  been  made  till  still  later^  when  built  the  altar,  and  on  which  he  and 
it  was  taken  by  the  tribe  of  Ephraira ;  !  Lot  stood  when  they  made  their  divis- 
after  which  the  name  of  Luz  occurs  lion  of  the  land  (Gen.  xii.  7,  xiii.  10). 
no  more  (Judg.  i.  22-2G).  Bethel  is  j  It  is  still  thickly  strewn  to  its  top  with 
mentioned  by  Eusebius  and  Jerome  |  stones  formed  by  nature  for  the  build- 
in  the  Onomust'con,  as  twelve  mile?  ,  ing  of  "A^ltar  "  or  sanctuary. 


B.C.  1753.  Jacob's  Service  ivith  Lahan.  99 

witnessed  at  the  same  place.^'  Rachel,  the  daughter  of  his 
uncle  Laban,  comes  Avith  her  sheep  to  the  well,  like  her  aunt 
Kebekah  just  a  century  before,  and  brings  him  to  the  house. 
He  engages  to  serve  Laban  as  a  shepherd  for  wages ;  for  it 
IS  not  the  custom  with  Orientals  for  even  a  relative  'to  eat 
the  bread  of  idleness.  Laban  had  two  daughters,  Leah  and 
Rachel,  the  former  with  some  dullness  or  weakness  of  the 
eyes,  but  the  latter  of  perfect  beauty.  Jacob  loved  Rachel, 
and  engaged  to  serve  for  her  seven  years,  which  "  seemed 
unto  him  but  a  few  days,  for  the  love  he  had  to  her."  When 
he  claimed  his  reward,  Laban,  by  a  trick  rendered  easy  by 
the  forms  of  an  Eastern  wedding,  where  the  bride  is  closely 
veiled,  gave  him  Leah  in  place  of  Rachel,  and  excused  the 
deceit  by  the  impropriety  of  marrying  the  younger  sister  be- 
fore the  elder;  but  he  gave  Jacob  Rachel  also,  on  the  con- 
dition of  another  seven  years'  service.  During  these  seven 
years,  Jacob  had  eleven  sons  and  a  daughter,  whose  births 
are  recorded  at  length,  Avith  the  reasons  for  their  significant 
names,  in  Gen.  xxix.  and  xxx.  Their  names  are  given  at  the 
end  of  this  chapter. 

§  7.  After  the  birth  of  Joseph,  Jacob  wished  to  become 
his  own  master ;  but  Laban  prevailed  on  him  to  serve  him 
still,  for  a  part  of  the  produce  of  his  flocks,  to  be  distinguish- 
ed by  certain  marks.  Jacob's  artifice  to  make  the  most  of 
his  bargain  may  be  regarded  as  another  example  of  the  de- 
fective morality  of  those  times ;  but,  as  fiir  as  Laban  was 
concerned,  it  was  a  fair  retribution  for  his  attempt  to  secure 
a  contrary  result.'*  Jacob  was  now  commanded  in  a  vision 
by  "the  God  of  Bethel"  to  return  to  the  land  of  his  birth; 
and  he  fled  secretly  from  Laban,  who  had  not  concealed  his 
envy,  to  go  back  to  his  father  Isaac,  after  twenty  years  spent 
in  Laban's  service — fourteen  for  his  wives,  and  six  for  his 
cattle.  Jacob,  having  passed  the  Euphrates,  struck  across 
the  desert  by  the  great  fountain  at  Palmyra ;  then  traversed 
tlie  eastern  part  of  the  plain  of  Damascus  and  the  plateau  of 
Bashan,  and  entered  Gilead,  which  is  the  range  of  mountains 
east  of  the  Jordan,  forming  the  frontier  betAveen  Palestine 
and  the  Assyrian  desert. 

Laban  called  his  kindred  to  the  pursuit,  and  overtook  Ja- 
cob on  the  third  day  in  Mount  Gilead,  his  an^er  being  in- 
ci-eased  by  the  loss  of  his  household  gods  {teraphim),  Avhich 
Rachel  had  secretly  stolen.  The  theft,  Avhich  might  have 
caused  Jacob  to  be  carried  captive,  was  ingeniously^conceal- 

"  Gen.  xxix.  "  Gen.  xxx.  35-43. 


100 


Isaac  and  Jacob. 


Chap.  VIH. 


ed  by  Rachel,  and  the  interview  ended  peaceably.  Laban, 
forewarned  by  God  not  to  injure  Jacob,  made  a  covenant 
with  his  son-in-law ;  and  a  heap  of  stones  Avas  erected  as  a 
boundary  between  them,  and  called  Galeed  {the  heap  of  vnt- 
ness).  "  As  in  later  times,  the  fortress  on  these  heights  of 
Gilead  became  the  frontier  post  of  Israel  against  the  Ara- 
maic tribe  that  occupied  Damascus,  so  now  the  same  line  of 
heights  became  the  frontier  between  the  nation  in  its  youth 
and  the  older  Aramaic  tribe  of  Mesopotamia.  As  now,  the 
confines  of  two  Arab  tribes  are  marked  by  the  rude  cairn  or 
pile  of  stones  erected  at  the  boundary  of  their  respective 
territories,  so  the  pile  of  stones  and  the  tower  or  pillar,  erect- 
ed by  the  two  tribes  of  Jacob  and  Laban,  marked  that  the 
natural  limit  of  the  range  of  Gilead  should  be  their  actual 
limit  also.'"*  Jacob  now  received  a  Divine  encouragement 
to  meet  the  new  dangers  of  the  land  he  was  entering.  His 
eyes  were  opened  to  see  a  troop  of  angels,  "  the  host  of  God," 
sent  for  his  protection,  and  forming  a  second  camp  beside 
his  own  ;  and  he  called  the  name  of  the  place  Mahanaim  {the 
two  camps  or  hosts) .^^ 

§  8.  His  first  danger  was  from  the  revenge  of  Esau,  who 
had  now  become  poAverful  in  Mount  Seir,  the  land  of  Edom. 
In  reply  to  his  conciliatory  message,  Esau  came  to  meet  him 
with  four  hundred  armed  men.  Well  might  Jacob  dread 
his  purpose ;  for  though  such  a  retinue  might  be  meant  to 
do  him  honor,  it  might  also  be  designed  to  insure  revenge. 
"Jacob  Avas  greatly  afraid  and  distressed.""  He  had  now 
reached  the  valley  of  the  Jabbok.  He  divided  his  people 
and  herds  into  two  bands,  that  if  the  first  were  smitten,  the 
second  might  escape.  Then  he  turned  to  God  in  prayer.^* 
"  This  prayer  is  first  on  record  ;  for  the  intercession  of  Abra- 
ham for  Sodom  was  more  of  a  remonstrance  or  argument 
than  a  prayer.  Many  prayers  had  been  offered  before  the 
time  of  Jacob ;  but  this  is  the  first  of  which  we  have  any 

knowledge It  does  not  seem  that  there  could  be  a 

finer  model  for  a  special  prayer  than  this,  the  most  ancient 
of  all."'"  To  prayer  he  adds  prudence,  and  sends  forward 
present  after  2:)resent  that  their  reiteration  might  win  his 


'^  Stanley's  Jewish  Church,  p.  G3, 
1st  series. 

"Gen.  xxiii.  1,  2;  comp.  Psalm 
xxxi.  7.  A  town  of  this  name  was 
afterward  built  on  the  spot,  and  be- 
came a  place  of  importance  in  the 
time  of  the  monarchy  (3  Sam.  ii.  9, 


xvii,  24).  Its  position  is  uncertain. 
There  is  a  village  called  Mahneh  east 
of  the  Jordan,  but  its  exact  site  is 
also  not  certain. 

^^  Gen.  xxxii.  7. 

^«  Gen.  xxxii.  9-12. 

^'•'  Kitto,  Daily  Bible  Illustrations. 


B.C.  1732.  Jacob  meets  Esau.  101 

brother's  heart.  This  done,  he  rested  for  the  night ;  but, 
rising  up  before  the  day,  he  sent  forward  his  wives  and 
children  across  the  ford  of  the  Jabbok,  remaining  for  a  while 
in  solitude  to  prepare  his  mind  for  the  trial  of  the  day. 
It  Avas  then  that  "  a  man  "  appeared  and  wrestled  with  him 
till  the  morning  rose.  This  "  man "  was  the  "  Angel  Jeho- 
vah," and  the  conflict  was  a  repetition  in  act  of  the  prayer 
which  we  have  already  seen  Jacob  ofiering  in  iDords.  This 
is  clearly  stated  by  the  prophet  Hosea  i^"  "  By  his  strength 
he  had  power  with  God  :  yea,  he  had  power  over  the  angel, 
and  prevailed :  he  wept,  and  made  supplication  unto  him." 
Though  taught  his  own  weakness  by  the  dislocation  of  his 
thigh  at  the  angel's  touch,  he  gained  the  victory  by  his  im- 
portunity— "  I  will  not  let  thee  go  except  thou  bless  me  " — • 
and  he  received  the  new  name  of  Israel  (a^^rince  of  God), 
as  a  sign  that  "  he  had  prevailed  with  God,  and  should  there- 
fore prevail  with  man."^^  Well  knowing  with  whom  he  had 
to  do,  he  called  the  place  Peniel  {the  face  of  God), '^  for  I 
have  seen  God  face  to  face,  and  my  life  is  preserved."  The 
memory  of  his  lameness,  which  he  seems  to  have  carried 
with  him  to  his  grave,^^  was  preserved  by  the  custom  of  the 
Israelites  not  to  eat  of  the  sinew  in  the  hollow  of  the  thigh. 
Its  moral  significance  is  beautifully  expressed  by  Wesley : 

"Contented  now,  npon  my  thigh 

I  halt  till  life's  short  journey  end  ; 

All  helplessness,  all  weakness,  I 

On  Thee  alone  for  strength  depend  ; 

Nor  have  I  power  from  Thee  to  move, 

Thy  nature  and  thy  name  is  Love." 

§  9.  Jacob  had  descended  into  the  valley  of  the  Jabbok  at 
sunrise,  when  he  saw  Esau  and  his  troop.  He  divided  his 
last  and  most  precious  band,  placing  first  the  handmaids  and 
their  children,  then  Leah  and  her  children,  and  Rachel  and 
Joseph  last.  Advancing  before  them  all,  he  made  his  obei- 
sance to  Esau,  who  "  ran  to  meet  him,  and  fell  on  his  neck 
and  kissed  him  :  and  they  Avept."  After  a  cordial  interview, 
Jacob  prudently  declined  his  brother's  offer  to  march  with 
him  as  a  guard  ;  and  Esau  returned  to  Mount  Seir,  and  we 
hear  no  more  of  him  except  the  genealogy  of  his  descendants, 
the  Edomites.^^ 

Jacob  pursued  his  journey  westward  and  halted  at  Suc- 
coth,  so  called  from  his  having  there  put  up  "booths"  {Siic- 
coth)  for  his  cattle,  as  well  as  a  house  for  himself     He  then 

^  Hosea  xii.  3,  4.      "  Gen.  xxxii.  28.      ^  Gen.  xxxii.  31.     "  Gen.  xxxvi. 


102  Isaac  and  Jacob.  Chap.  VIII. 

crossed  the  Jordan,  and  arrived  at  Shechem,^*  which  had 
grown  since  the  time  of  Abraham  into  a  powerful  city,  and 
was  named  after  Shechem,  the  son  of  Hamor,  prince  of  the 
Amorites.  From  them  he  bought  a  piece  of  land,  the  first 
2?ossessi07i  of  the  family  in  Canaan^  on  which  he  pitched  his 
tent,  and  built  an  altar  to  God,  as  the  giver  of  his  new  name, 
and  the  God  of  the  race  who  were  ever  to  bear  it — "God, 
the  God  of  Israel"  {El-elohe-Israet).  The  memory  of  his 
abode  there  is  still  preserved  by  "  Jacob's  Well,"  on  the  mar- 
gin of  which  his  divine  Son  taught  the  woman  of  Sychar 
(Shechem)  a  better  worship  than  that  of  sacred  places. 

He  was  soon  involved  in  a  conflict  Avith  the  Shechemites, 
through  their  violence  to  Dinah,  and  the  treacherous  revenge 
of  Simeon  and  Levi,  which  afterward  brought  on  them  their 
father's  curse."  The  city  of  Shechem  was  taken;  but  Jacob 
deemed  it  prudent  to  avoid  the  revenge  of  the  Canaanites 
by  retiring  from  the  neighborhood.  It  seems  probable  that 
he  returned  afterward  and  rescued  "  from  the  Amorites  with 
his  sword  and  his  bow"  the  piece  of  land  he  had  before  pur- 
chased, and  which  he  left,  as  a  special  inheritance,  to  Joseph." 

§  10.  Meanwhile  Jacob  returned,  by  the  command  of  God, 
to  Bethel,  and  performed  the  vows  which  he  had  there  made 
when  he  fled  from  home,  and  received  from  God  a  renewal 
of  the  covenant.^^  There  Rachel's  nurse,  Deborah,  died,  and 
was  buried  beneath  "the  oak  of  weeping"  {Allon-hachutli). 
As  he  journeyed  southward,  and  was  near  Ephrath  or  Ej^h- 
ratah,  the  ancient  name  of  Bethlehem,  Rachel  died  in  giving 
birth  to  Jacob's  youngest  son.  The  dying  mother  called  him 
JBen-oni  {son  of  my  sorrow) ;  but  the  fond  father  changed  his 
name  to  Ben-Jamix  {son  of  the  right  hand).  The  grave  of 
Rachel  was  long  marked  by  the  pillar  which  Jacob  erected 
over  it ;  and  her  memory  was  associated  with  the  town  of 
Bethlehem.^^  Jacob's  next  resting-place,  near  the  tower  of 
Edar,  was  marked  by  the  incest  of  Reuben,  which  forfeited 
his  birthright."  At  length  he  reached  the  encampment  of 
his  father  Isaac,  at  the  old  station  of  Mamre,  beside  Hebron. 
Here  Isaac  died  at  the  age  of  180,  "  old  and  full  of  days,  and 
his  sons  Esau  and  Jacob  buried  him.'""  This  Avas  thirteen 
years  after  Joseph  Avas  carried  to  Egypt ;  but  the   Avhole 

"*  In  the  English  version  it  is  said  I  -^  Gen.  xxxiv.  and  xlix.  6. 
"  Jacob  came  to  Shalem,  a  city  of 
Shechem"  (Gen.  xxxiii.  18^;  but 
the  sentence  ought  probably  to  be 
rendered  "Jacob  came  safe  to  the 
eitv  of  Shechem." 


-"  Gen.  xlviii.  22  ;  Josh.  xvii.  14. 

-''  Gen.  XXXV. 

^^  Jer.  xxxi.  ]5;  Matt.  ii.  18. 

^^^  Gen.  XXXV.  22;  xlix.  4. 

=^»  Gen.  XXXV.  27,  28. 


Chap.  VIII. 


Notes  and  Illitstrations. 


103 


course  of  that  narrative  is  reserved  for  the  next  chapter. 
The  following  is  the  list  of  Jacob's  twelve  sons,  in  their  or- 
der of  precedence,  those  of  his  wives  ranking  before  those  of 
their  handmaids,  with  the  significonce  of  their  names  :^' 

(i.)  ThQ  sons  of  Leah :  Reuben  {see!  a  so^z),  Simeon  {hear- 
ing), Levi  {joined),  Judah  {praise),  Issachar  {hire),  Zebulun 
{dwellhig). 

(ii.)  The  sons  of  Rachel :  Joseph  {adding),  Benjamin  {son 
of  the  right  hand). 

(iii.)  The  sons  of  Bilhah,  RacheFs  handmaid:  Dan  {judg- 
ing), Naphtali  {^my  torestUng). 

(iv.)  The  sons  of  Zilpah,luQ^\i'^  handmaid:  Gad  («  troop), 
Asher  {happy). 

Besides  Dinah  {judgment), \\\q  daughter  of  Leah. 
^^  Gen.  XXXV.  23-26. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


EDOM  OR  IDUM^A. 

Edom  was  previously  called  Mount 
Seir  (rugged ;  Gen.  xxxii.  3,  xxxvi. 
8),  from  Seir  the  progenitor  of  the  IIo- 
rites(Gen.  xiv.  6,  xxxvi.  20-22).  The 
name  Seir  was  perhaps  adopted  on 
account  of  its  being  descriptive  of  the 
"  rugged  "  character  of  the  territory. 
The  original  inhabitants  of  the  coun- 
try were  called  Horites,  from  Hori, 
the  grandson  of  Sier  (Gen.  xxxvi.  20, 
22),  because  that  name  was  descrip- 
tive of  their  habits  as  "  Troglodytes," 
or  "  dwellers  in  caves."  Immediate- 
ly after  the  death  of  Isaac,  Esau  left 
Canaan  and  took  possession  of  Mount 
Seir  (Gen.  xxxv.  28,  xxxvi.  6,  7,  8). 
When  his  descendants  increased  they 
extirpated  the  Horites,  and  adopted 
their  habits  as  well  as  their  country 
(Deut.  ii.  12;  Jer.  xlix.  16;  Obad. 
3,4). 

On  the  south,  Edom  reached  as  far 
as  Elath,  which  stood  at  the  northern 
end  of  the  gulf  of  Elath,  and  was  the 
Bea-port  of  the  Edoraites.  On  the  north 


of  Edom  lay  the  territory  of  Moab, 
from  which  it  was  divided  by  the 
"  brook  Zered  "  (Deut.  ii.  13,  U,  18), 
probably  the  modern  Wady-el-Ahsy, 
which  still  divides  the  provinces  of 
Kerak  (Moab)  and  Jebdl  (Gebalene). 
But  Edom  was  wholly  a  mountainous 
country.  "  ]\Iount  Seir  "  (Gen.  xiv. 
6,  xxxvi.  8,  9  ;  Deut.  i.  2,  ii.  1,  5,  etc.) 
and  "  the  Mount  of  Esau  "  (Obad.  8, 
9,  19,  21),  are  names  often  given  to 
it  in  the  Bible,  while  Josephus  and 
later  writers  call  it  Gebalene  ("the 
mountainous  "). 

The  ancient  capital  of  Edom  was 
Bozrah,  the  site  of  which  is  most  prob- 
ably marked  by  the  village  of  Busei- 
reh,  near  the  northern  border,  about 
twenty-five  miles  south  of  Kerak  (Gen. 
xxxvi.  33  ;  Is.  xxxiv.  6,  Ixiii,  1 ;  Jer. 
xlix.  13,  22).  But  Sela,  better  known 
by  its  Greek  name  Pctra,  appears  to 
have  been  the  principal  stronghold  in 
the  days  of  Amaziah  (b.c.  838  ;  2 
K.  xiv.  7).  Elath,  and  its  neighbor 
Ezion-geber,  were  the  sea-ports  ;  and 
they  were  captured  by  king  David, 


104 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  VIII. 


jind  liere  Solomon  equipped  his  mer- 
rhaiU-flect  (2  Sam.  viii.  14  ;  IK.  ix. 
2G). 

When  the  kingdom  of  Israel  began 
to  decline,  the  Edomites  not  only  re- 
conquered their  lost  cities,  but  made 
frequent  inroads  upon  Southern  Pal- 
estine (2  K.  xvi.  G:  where,  Edomites^ 
and  not  Syrians  {Arameans)  is  evident-  j 
ly  the  true  reading ;   2  Chr.  xxviii. 
]  7).     It  was  probably  on  account  of  ; 
these   attacks,   and  of  their  uniting 
with  the  Chaldfeans  against  the  Jews,  j 
that  the  Edomites  were  so  fearfully 
denounced  by  the  later  prophets  (Ob. 
1  sq.;  Jer.  xlix.  7  sq. ;  Ezek.  xxv.  12 
sq.,  XXXV.  3  sq.).     During  the  Captiv- 
ity they  advanced  westward,  occupied 
the  whole  territory  of  their  brethren 
the  Amalekites   (Gen.  xxxvi.  12;    1 
Sam.  XV.  1  sq. ;  Joseph.  Ant.  ii.  1,  § 
2),  and  even  took  possession  of  many  j 
towns  in  Southern  Palestine,  includ-' 
ing Hebron.  The  name  Edom,  or  rath- 
er its  Greek  form,  Idumiea,  was  now 
given  to  the  country   Iving  between ' 
the  valley  of  Arabah  and  the  shores 
of  the  Mediterranean.     Roman  au- 
thors sometimes  give  the  name  Idu- 1 
niiea  to  all  Palestine,  and  even  call  i 
the  Jews  Idumreans  (Virg.  Georg.  iii,  I 
12  ;  Juven.  viii.  160  ;  Martial  ii.  2.      I 

While  Iduma^a  thus  extended  west- 
ward, Edom  Proper  was  taken  pos- ! 
session  of  by  the  Nabatheans,  an 
Arabian  tribe,  descended  from  Nebai-  \ 
oth,  Ishmael's  oldest  son  and  Esau's 
brother-in-law  (Gen",  xxv.  13;  1 
Chr.  i.  29;  Gen.  xxxvi.  3).  They! 
took  Petra  and  established  themselves 
there  at  least  three  centnries  before 
Christ.  This  people,  leaving  off  their 
nomad  habits,  settled  down  amid  the 
mountains  of  Edom,  engaged  in  com-' 
merce,  and  founded  the  little  kingdom 
called  by  Roman  writers  Arabia  Pe- 
trcta,  which  embraced  nearly  the  same 
territory  as  the  ancient  Edom.  Some 
of  its  monarclis  took  the  name  Aretas. 
One  of  them  was  father-in-law  of 


Herod  Antipas  (Matt.  xl\'.  3,  4),  and 
it  was  the  same  who  captured  the  city 
of  Damascus  and  held  it  at  the  time 
of  Paul's  conversion  (2  Cor.  xi.  32  ; 
Acts  ix.  25). 

AVhen  the  Jewish  power  revived 
under  the  warlike  Asmonean  princes, 
that  section  of  Idumcea  which  lay 
south  of  Palestine  fell  into  theiv  hands. 
Judas  Maccabieus  captured  Hebron, 
Marissa,  and  Ashdod  ;  and  John  Hyr- 
canus  compelled  the  inhabitants  of 
the  whole  region  to  conform  to  Jewish 
law  (1  Mace.  v.  Gii,  08).  The  country 
was  henceforth  governed  by  Jewish 
prefects  ;  one  of  these,  Antipater,  an 
Idumffian  by  birth,  became,  through 
the  friendship  of  the  Roman  emperor, 
procurator  of  all  Juda2a,  and  his  son 
was  Herod  the  Great,  "King  of  the 
Jews." 

Early  in  the  Christian  era  Edom 
Proper  was  included  by  geogiapliiTS 
in  Palestine,  but  in  the  fifth  century  a 
new  division  was  made  of  the  wholo 
country  into  Pakestina  Pnma,  Se- 
cunda,  and  Tertia.  The  last  embraced 
Edom  and  some  neighboring  prov- 
inces, and  when  it  became  an  eccle- 
siastical division  its  metropolis  was 
Petra.  In  the  seventh  century  the 
Mohammedan  conquest  gave  a  death- 
blow to  the  commerce  and  prosperity 
of  Edom.  Under  the  withering  influ- 
ence of  Mohammedan  rule  the  great 
cities  fell  to  ruin,  and  the  country  be- 
came a  desert.  The  followers  of  the 
false  prophet  were  here,  as  elsewhere, 
the  instruments  in  God's  hands  for  the 
execution  of  His  judgments.  "  Thus 
saith  the  Lord  God,  Behold,  0  Mount 
Seir,  I  am  against  thee,  and  I  will 
make  thee  desolate.  I  will  lay  thy 
cities  waste,  and  when  the  whole  earth 
rcjoiceth  I  will  make  thee  desolate  . . . 
I  will  make  IMount  Seir  most  desolate, 
and  cut  off  from  it  him  that  passeth 
out  and  him  that  returneth  ....  I 
will  make  thee  perpetual  desolations, 
and  thy  cities  shall  not  return,  and  yo 


Chap.  VIII. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


105 


shall   know   that   I   am    the   Lord " 
(Ezek.  XXXV.  3,  4,  7,  9,  14). 

The  Crusaders  made  several  expe- 
ditions into  Edom,  penetrating  as  far 
as  Petra,  to  which  they  gave  the  name 
it  still  bears,  Wady  Musa,  "Valley 
E2 


of  Moses  "  (Gesta  Dei  per  Franc,  pp. 
405,  518,  555,  581).  On  a  command- 
ing height  about  twelve  miles  north 
of  Petra  they  built  a  strong  fortress, 
called  Mons  Regalis,  now  Shobek 
{Gesta  Dei,  ^.  an). 


Egyptian  Officers  of  the  King's  llouseholJ.     (Wilkinson.) 


CHAPTER  IX. 


JACOB    AND    HIS    SONS.       FEOM    THE    SALE     OF    JOSEPH   TO   THE 
DESCENT  INTO  EGYPT.       A.M.  2275-2298.       B.C.  1729-1706. 

§  1.  Joseph's  early  life — His  two  dreams — Hatred  of  his  brethren.  §  2. 
They  sell  him  into  Egypt.  §  3.  Joseph  in  Potiphar's  house.  §  4.  Im- 
prisonment of  Joseph — Pharaoh's  cup-bearer  and  chief  cook — Their 
dreams  interpreted  by  Joseph.  §  5.  Pharaoh's  two  dreams — Joseph 
made  ruler  of  Egypt — His  name  ZaplmatJi-paaneah — His  marriage, 
and  his  two  sons.  §  6.  His  government  of  Egypt — The  seven  years  of 
plenty  and  the  seven  years  of  famine.  §  7.  Joseph's  brethren  in  Egypt. 
§  8.  God's  purpose  in  Israel's  removal  to  Canaan.  §  9.  Jacob  and  his 
family  go  down  to  Egypt — Their  numbers.  §  10.  Their  interviews 
with  Pharaoh  and  settlement  in  Goshen. 

§  1.  We  go  back  over  a  period  of  thirteen  years  from  tlie 
death  of  Isaac  to  the  beginiiincr  of  that  narrative  of  Joseph's 
life,  which  may  safely  be  called  the  most  charming  in  all  his- 
tory. It  will  guard  ns  against  much  confusion  to  bear  in  mind 
that  the  birth  of  Benjamin  and  the  death  of  Rachel  probably 
occurred  very  shortly  before  Joseph  was  sold  into  Egypt. 
Almost  up  to  this  time,  therefore,  he  had  been  his  father's 
youngest  son,  and  he  was  now  doubly  dear  to  him  as  the  son 
of  his  old  nge  and  the  child  of  his  newly-lost  Rachel.^  Pap 
*  Gen.  xxxvii.  3. 


B.C.  1729. 


Early  Life  of  Joseph. 


107 


ental  partiality,  however,  was  as  injurious  in  Jacob's  family 
as  in  any  other ;  and  though  the  character  of  Joseph  is  one 
of  the  purest  that  we  meet  in  Scripture,  his  father's  prefer- 
ence tempted  him  to  assume  toward  his  brethren  the  part  of 
a  censor  and  informer — a  course  of  which  the  modesiy  Avas 
questionable,  and  the  prudence  not  at  all  so,  in  a  youth  of 
seventeen. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  the  sons  of  the  handmaids,  Bilhah 
and  Zilpah,  were  those  whose  misconduct  Joseph  reported  to 
his  father.  Their  lower  birth  seems  to  have  diminished  their 
self-respect  and  to  have  stimulated  their  envy.  When  Ja- 
cob made  for  Joseph  a  special  dress,^  "  his  brethren  hated 
him,  and  could  not  speak  peaceably  unto  him."  To  increase 
their  hatred,  Joseph  dreamed  two  dreams,  which  even  his  fa- 
ther, who  seems  to  have  discerned  their  prophetic  character,^ 
censured  his  imprudence  in  repeating.  In  the  first  dream  his 
brothers'  sheaves  of  corn  bowed  down  to  his,  which  stood  up- 
right in  their  midst ;  a  most  fit  type,  not  only  of  their  sub- 
mission to  him,  but  of  their  suing  to  him  for  corn  in  Egypt. 
The  second  dream  was  of  wider  and  higher  import.  It  in- 
cluded his  father  and  his  mother,  as  well  as  his  brethren  (now 
defined  as  eleven)^  in  the  reverence  done  to  him  ;*  and  the  em- 
blems chosen  leave  little  doubt  that  the  dream  prefigured  the 
homage  of  all  nature  to  Him,  whose  sign  was  the  star  of  Beth- 
lehem, and  of  whom  Joseph  was  one  of  the  clearest  types. ^ 
Joseph's  brethren  resolved  to  avert  the  humiliation  by  his 
death,  re-enacting  the  part  of  Cain  toward  Abel." 

§  2.  It  seems  that  Jacob  was  now  at  Hebron,  Avith  his  fa- 
ther Isaac,  while  his  sons  fed  his  flocks  Avliere  they  could  find 


I 


-  This  appears  to  have  been  a  long 
tunic  with  sleeves,  worn  by  youths 
and  maidens  of  the  richer  class.  Its 
name  seems  to  signify  a  tunic  reaching 
to  the  extremities.  It  was  worn  by  Da- 
vid's daughter  Tamar,  being  the  dress 
of  the  king's  daughters  that  were  vir- 
gins (2  Sam.xiii.18, 19).  There  seems 
no  reason  for  the  LXX.  rendering 
Xi-T(^v  ■n-oLKi'kog^  "  a  coat  of  colors,"  ex- 
cept that  it  is  very  likely  that  such  a 
tunic  would  be  ornamented  with  col- 
ored stripes  or  embroidered. 

^  Gen.  xxxvi.  11  ;  comp.  Luke  ii. 
19-51. 

*  *  From  Joseph's  second  dream,  and 
his  father's  rebuke,  it  might  be  in- 
ferred that  Rachel  was  living  at  the 


time  that  he  dreamt  it.  It  is  indeed 
possible  that  it  may  have  occurred 
some  time  before  the  selling  of  Jo- 
seph, and  been  interpreted  by  Jacob 
of  Rachel,  who  certainly  was  not  alive 
at  its  fulfillment,  so  that  it  could  not 
apply  to  her.  Yet,  if  Leah  only  sur- 
vived, Jacob  might  have  spoken  of 
her  as  Joseph's  mother.  The  dream, 
moreover,  indicates  eleven  brethren 
besides  the  father  and  mother  of  Jo- 
seph :  if  therefore  Benjamin  were  al- 
ready born,  Rachel  must  have  been 
dead :  the  reference  is  therefore  more 
probably  to  Leah,  who  may  have  been 
living  when  Jacob  went  into  Egypt. 

^  See  chap.  x.  §  3,  xi. 

^  Gen.  xxxvii.  18. 


108  Jacob  and  his  Sons.  Cuap.  IX 

pasture,  Joseph  being  sometimes  with  his  brethren,  and 
sometimes  acting  as  a  messenger  between  them  and  his  father/ 
Thus  he  was  sent  from  Hebron  to  Shechem,  where  the  piece 
of  land  purchased  by  Jacob  of  the  Amorites  had  probably- 
been  recovered ;  but  his  brethren  had  gone  farther  north  to 
Dothan,^  a  place  apparently  in  the  neighborhood  of  Shechem. 
Thither  he  followed  them  on  his  father's  errand  of  kindness ; 
but  the  very  sight  of  him  at  a  distance  prompted  them  to 
conspire  to  kill  him.  His  life  was  saved  by  Reuben,  who 
persuaded  them  to  avoid  the  actual  shedding  of  Joseph's 
blood  by  casting  him  into  an  empty  pit,  whence  Reuben  in- 
tended to  take  him  and  restore  him  to  his  father.  When  he 
came  to  them,  they  stripped  him  of  his  tunic,  cast  him  into 
the  pit,  and  coolly  sat  down  to  eat  bread.  Just  then  an  Arab 
caravan^  were  seen  on  the  high  roadAvhich  leads  from  Mount 
Gilead  through  Dothan  to  Egypt,  carrying  to  the  latter  coun- 
try the  spices  and  gums  of  the  Syrian  desert.  Judah  sug- 
gested (Reuben  having  left  them,  v.  29)  that  they  might  now 
get  rid  of  their  prisoner  without  the  guilt  of  murder  ;  and  so, 
when  the  Midianites  came  near  (v.  28),  they  took  Joseph  out 
of  the  pit  and  sold  him  for  twenty  shekels  of  silver,  the  very 
sum  which  was,  under  the  Law,  the  value  of  a  male  from  five 
to  twenty  years  old — a  type  of  the  sale  of  Him  "  whom  the 
children  of  Israel  did  value."'"  They  carried  back  his  tunic 
to  Jacob  dipped  in  a  kid's  blood  ;  and  though  he  seems  to 
have  had  his  suspicions,  which  afterward  broke  out  into  re- 
proaches,'^ they  imposed  on  their  father  the  tale  that  a  wild 
beast  had  devoured  Joseph  ;  and  their  guilty  consciences  had 
to  bear  the  trial  of  pretending  to  comfort  him,  while  he  re- 
fused all  comfort. 

§  3.  Meanwhile  the  Midianite  merchants  carried  Joseph  to 
Egypt,  and  sold  him  to  Potiphae,  "  an  officer  of  Pharaoh,  and 
captain  of  the  guard,"  more  literally  captain  of  the  execution- 
ers:' 

'  Gen.  xxxvii.  2,  1 3.  i  road  from  Eeisdn  to  Egypt  passes  near 

^Dothan  (probably  signifying  twosDolhan. 
wells)  was  known  to  Eusebius  (^Ono-\       ^  In  vs.  25  and  28  they  are  called 
viasticoii),  who  ])laces  it  twelve  miles  i  Ishmaelites ;  in  vs.  28  and  3G  Midian- 
to  the  N.  of  Sebaste  (Samaria)  ;  and  I  ites.     The  former  seems  to  be  a  gener- 
herc  it  has  been  discovered,  still  bear-  ic  name,  equivalent  to  Arabs,  the  lut- 


ing its  ancient  name  unimpaired,  and 
situated  at  the  south  end  of  a  plain 
of  the  richest  pasturage,  four  or  five 
miles  S.W.  of  Jenin,  and  separated 
only  by  a  swell  or  two  of  hills  from 
the  plain  of  Esdraelon.      The  great 


ter  denoting  the  tribe  to  which  the 
merchants  actually  belonged. 

^°  Levit.  xxvii.  5  ;  Matt,  xxvii.  9. 

''  See  chap.  xlii.  3G  : — "  Me  have 
ye  bereaved  of  my  children." 

^■-  The  name  oi"  Potiphar  is  'written 


B.C.  1729. 


Joseph  in  Potiphar'^s  House. 


109 


We  have  now  reached  the  point  at  which  the  history  of  the 
chosen  family  interweaves  itself  with  the  annals  of  that 
mighty  kingdom  whose  monuments,  covered  with  mysterious 
writings,  have  in  every  age  excited  a  curiosity  the  more  in- 
tense in  proportion  to  the  desire  to  read  in  them  the  records 
of  the  sojourn  of  the  Hebrews  in  the  land  from  the  time  of 
Joseph  to  that  of  Moses. 

Unfortunately  for  the  satisfaction  of  this  curiosity,  the 
Scripture  history  conceals  the  names  of  the  kings  of  Egypt 
under  the  general  title  of  Pharaoh,  while  the  monuments  give 
us  no  direct  information  concerning  Joseph  and  the  Israel- 
ites.^^ But  though  we  do  not  read  his  name  in  the  hieroglyph- 
ics, yet  the  sculptures  and  paintings  of  the  ancient  Egyptian 
tombs  bring  vividly  before  us  the  daily  life  and  duties  of  Jo- 
seph. The  property  of  great  men  is  shown  to  have  been 
managed  by  scribes,  who  exercised  a  most  methodical  and 
minute  supervision  over  all  the  operations  of  agriculture,  gar- 
dening, the  keeping  of  live  stock,  and  fishing.  Every  product 
was  carefully  registered  to  check  the  dishonesty  of  the  labor 
ers,  who  in  Egypt  have  always  been  famous  in  this  respect. 
Probably  in  no  country  was  farming  ever  more  systematic. 
Joseph's  previous  knowledge  of  tending  flocks,  and  perhaps 
of  husbandry,  and  his  truthful  character,  exactly  fitted  him 
for  the  post  of  overseer. 

§  4.  Joseph  was  seventeen  when  he  was  sold  into  Egypt, 
and  thirty  "  when  he  stood  before  Pharaoh.'"*  We  are  not 
told  what  portion  of  these  thirteen  years  he  spent  in  Poti- 
phar's  house.  Probably  not  long,  as  it  was  his  youthful 
beauty  that  tempted  his  master's  wife,'^  whose  conduct  agrees 
with  the  well-known  profligacy  of  the  Egyptian  women ;  as 
her  desire  for  revenge,  when  Joseph  withstood  the  tempta- 
tion, is  in  accordance  with  the  worst  parts  of  our  nature — 

"  Hell  has  no  fury  like  a  woman  scorned." 

It  may  have  been  from  a  suspicion  of  her  guilt  that  Poti- 
phar,  instead  of  bringing  Joseph  before  a  tribunal,  put  him 
in  the  state  prison,  which  was  in  his  own  house.  There 
Potiphar  finally  left  him ;  for  it  stands  to  reason  that  the 


in  hieroglyphics  Pet-pa-ra  or  Pet- 
p-RA,  and  signifies  "  belonging  to 
Ha"  (the  sun).  It  occurs  again,  with 
a  slightly  difterent  orthography,  Poti- 
pherah,  as  the  name  of  Joseph's  fath- 
er-in-law, priest  or  prince  of  On.  It 
may  be  remarked  that  as  Ra  was  the 


chief  divinity  of  On,  or  Heliopolis,  it 
is  an  interesting  undesigned  coinci- 
dence that  the  latter  should  bear  a 
name  indicating  devotion  to  Ra. 

"  See  Notes  and  Illustrations  to 
chap.  X.  On  the  History  of  Egvpt. 

"Gen.  xli.  4a.    ^^  Gen.  xxxix.  6,7 


110  Jacob  and  his  Sons.  Chap.  IX. 

"  chief  of  the  executioners,"  who  put  such  confidence  in 
Joseph  as  to  commit  other  state  prisoners  to  his  custody, 
was  not  Potiphar  himself,  but  his  successor — an  indication 
of  the  length  of  Joseph's  imprisonment/"  Probably  his 
treatment  was  at  first  severe  ;'^  but  the  same  blessing  that 
had  raised  him  in  the  house  of  Potiphar  followed  him  in  the 
prison,  of  which  the  keeper  gave  him  the  entire  charge,  "  be- 
cause Jehovah  was  with  him,  and  that  which  he  did  Jehovah 
made  it  to  prosper.'"^ 

Some  conspiracy  at  the  court  of  Pharaoh  led  to  the  im- 
prisonment of  two  of  the  king's  great  ofticers,  the  chief  of  the 
cup-bearers  and  the  chief  of  the  cooks.  (The  terms  chief  butler 
and  chief  baker  in  our  version  are  misleading  as  to  their  dig- 
nity.) They  were  committed  to  the  charge  of  Joseph,  whom 
they  too  discovered  to  be  specially  favored  by  God,  for  they 
asked  him  to  interpret  the  dreams  which  forewarned  them  of 
their  fate,  and,  in  three  days,  as  Joseph  predicted,  the  one 
was  hanged,  and  the  other  restored  to  his  office  on  Pharaoh's 
birthday^^' 

§  5.  The  restored  cup-bearer's  office  about  the  king's  per- 
son gave  him  ample  opportunities  of  fulfilling  Joseph's  pa- 
thetic request  to  make  mention  of  him  to  Pharaoh,  and  his 
colleague's  fixte  might  have  warned  him  against  ingratitude. 
"  Yet  did  not  the  chief  cup-bearer  remember  Joseph,  but  for- 
gat  him,"  till  after  two  years,  when  Pharaoh  was  disturbed 
by  dreams  which  none  of  the  scribes  or  wise  men  of  Egypt 
could  interpret."  Then  the  chief  cup-bearer  remembered  his 
fiiult  and  told  Pharaoh  of  Joseph,  who  was  brought  out  of 
prison  and  set  before  the  king.  After  bearing  witness  to  the 
true  God,  as  in  the  former  case,  by  ascribing  all  the  power 
of  interpretation  to  Him  who  had  sent  the  dreams,^^  he  ex- 
plained to  Pharaoh  their  significance,  which,  to  an  Egyptain, 
was  most  striking.  The  dream  had  been  twofold,  to  mark 
its  certain  and  speedy  fulfillment  (v.  32).  Seven  years  of 
an  abundance  extraordinary  even  for  fruitful  Egypt  were  to 
be  followed  by  seven  years  of  still  more  extraordinary 
dearth.  In  the  first  dream,  the  seven  years  of  plenty  were 
denoted  by  seven  heifers,  the  sacred  symbols  of  Isis,  the  god- 
dess of  production,  which  came  up  out  of  the  river,  the  great 
fertilizer  of  Egypt,  whose  very  soil  is  well  called  by  Herodo- 
tus "  the  gift  of  the  Nile."     These  were  beautiful  and  fat,  as 


'^  Gen.  xl.  3,  4. 

^^  Psalm  cv.  17,  18:  "whose  feet 
they  hurt  with  fetters :  he  was  laid  in 
iron." 


^^  Gen.xxxix.  23. 
"  Gen.  xl. 
-'  Gen.  xli.  8. 
•'  Gen.  xl.  8,  xli.  16. 


8.C.  1706. 


Joseph's  Brethren  in  Egypt. 


Ill 


they  fed  on  the  hixuriant  marsh  grass  by  the  river's  bank ; 
but  after  them  came  up  seven  others,  so  ill-looking  and  lean 
that  Pharaoh  had  never  seen  the  like  for  badness,  which  de- 
Toured  the  seven  fat  kine,  and  remained  as  lean  as  they  were 
before. 

The  second  dream  was  still  plainer.  There  sprang  up  a 
stalk  of  that  branching  Egyptian  wheat,  which  now  grows 
in  our  own  fields  from  seed  found  in  mummy-cases.  That 
seen  by  Pharaoh  had  the  unusual  number  of  seven  ears,  full 
and  good,  denoting  the  seven  years  of  j^lenty.  Then  there 
sprang  up  another  stalk,  also  bearing  seven  ears,  thin  and 
blasted  with  the  east  wind,  and  so  mildewed  that  they  in- 
fected and  consumed  the  seven  good  ears.  The  wise  men  of 
Egypt  must  indeed  have  been  fools  not  to  understand  these 
symbols,  which  embraced  both  the  animal  and  vegetable 
wealth  of  the  land! 

Joseph  went  farther,  and  counselled  Pharaoh  to  give  some 
discreet  person  authority  over  all  the  land,  that  "he  might 
store  up  the  surplus  corn  of  the  seven  years  of  plenty  against 
the  seven  years  of  famine.  Pharaoh  saw  that  none  could  be 
so  fit  for  this  ofiice  as  Joseph  himself,  "  in  whom  was  the 
Spirit  of  God."  He  made  him  his  vicegerent  over  Egypt,  and 
gave  him  his  own  signet,  the  indisputable  mark  of  royal 
power.^^  Clothed  with  fine  linen  robes,  wearing  a  collar  of 
gold,  and  riding  in  the  second  royal  chariot,  before  which 
the  people  were  bidden  to  fall  prostrate,  Joseph  was  pro- 
claimed with  all  the  ceremonies  which  we  still  see  represented 
on  the  monuments.  He  received  the  Coptic  name  of  Zaph- 
nath-Paaneah  {a  revealer  of  secrets)  ;  and  married  Asenath, 
the  daughter  of  Potipherah,  priest  or  prince  of  On  (Heliopolis), 
who  bore  him  two  sons  during  the  seven  years  of  plenty.  As 
a  token  of  the  oblivion  of  his  former  life,  he  named  his  elder 
son  Manasseh  {forgetting) ;  and  he  called  the  younger  Ephra- 
iM  {double  fruit  fulness),  in  grateful  commemoration  of  his 
blessings.  When  Joseph  afterward  became  his  father's  heir, 
the  double  share  of  the  inheritance  which  fell  to  him  was  in- 
dicated by  each  of  his  sons  ranking  with  the  sons  of  Jacob  as 
the  head  of  a  distinct  tribe. 

§  6.  Joseph's  administration  of  Egypt  has  been  greatly 
misunderstood.  First,  as  to  his  conduct  during  the  years  of 
plenty.  The  vague  statement,  made  in  the  language  of 
Oriental  hyperbole,  that  "  he  gathered  up  all  the  food  of  the 

^2  The  signet  was  of  so  much  im-  haps  in  the  earliest  period)  were  al- 
portance  with  the  ancient  Egyptian  ways  enclosed  in  an  oval  which  repre- 
kings  that  their  names  (except  per-  sented  an  elongated  signet. 


112 


Jacob  and  Ins  Sons. 


Chap.  IX. 


seven  years  "  (v.  48), "  as  the  sand  of  the  sea,  very  much, 
until  he  left  numbering  "  (v.  49),  comes  after  the  exacter  es- 
timate given  in  his  advice  to  Pharoah,  which  makes  it  clear 
that  "he  took  up  \\\q  fifth  j^cwt  of  the  land  of  Egypt  in  the 
seven  plenteous  years  "  (v.  34).  The  ordinary  royal  impost 
appears  to  have  been  a  land-tax  of  one-tenth^  and  this  was 
just  a  double  tithe. 

The  corn  Avas  stored  up  in  each  of  the  cities  from  the  lands 
of  which  it  was  collected  ;  and  it  was  thus  secured  for  or- 
derly distribution  in  the  years  of  famine.  When  that  season 
arrived,  its  consumption  was  guarded  by  the  same  wise  policy 
that  had  preserved  it  from  being  wasted  in  the  years  of 
plenty.  The  demand  was  not  only  from  Egypt,  but  from 
the  neighboring  countries,  Canaan,  and  probably  parts  of 
Syria,  Arabia,  and  Africa,  to  which  the  famine  extended,  and 
whose  corn  was  soon  exhausted.  We  may  assume  that  the 
Egyptians  also  soon  used  up  their  private  stores.  Joseph 
then  opened  all  the  store-houses  and  sold  unto  the  Egyptians ; 
"  and  the  famine  Avaxed  sore  in  the  land  of  Egypt.  And  alP^ 
countries  came  into  Egypt  to  buy  corn,  because  the  famine 
was  so  sore  in  all  lands." 

At  the  end  of  two  years  (see  Gen.  xlv.  6)  all  the  money  of 
the  Egyptians  and  Canaanites  had  passed  into  Pharaoh's 
treasury.'**  At  this  crisis  we  do  not  see  how  Joseph  can  be 
acquitted  of  raising  the  despotic  authority  of  his  master  on 
the  broken  fortunes  of  the  people  ;  but  yet  he  made  a  mod- 
erate settlement  of  the  power  thus  acquired.  First  the  cat- 
tle and  then  the  land  of  the  Egyptians  became  the  property 
of  Pharoah,  and  the  people  were  removed  from  the  country 
to  the  cities.  They  were  still  permitted,  however,  to  culti- 
vate their  lands  as  tenants  under  the  crown,  paying  a  rent 
of  one-iifth  of  the  produce,  and  this  became  the  permanent 
law  of  the  tenure  of  land  in  Egypt :  but  the  land  of  the  priests 
was  left  in  their  own  possession." 

§  1.  The  seven  years'  famine^^  had  the  most  important 
bearing  on  the  chosen  family  of  Israel.  When  all  the  corn 
in  Canaan  Avas  exhausted,  Jacob  sent  his  sons  to  buy  in 
Egypt ;  but  he  kept  back  Benjamin  "  lest  mischief  should 
befall  him.""  Probably  he  Avoiild  not  trust  Rachel's  remain- 
ing child  with  his  brethren.     We  need  not  recount  that  well- 


"  That  is,  all  with  which  the  Isra- 
elites had  anv  connection.  Gen.  xli. 
56,  57. 

2*Gen.  xlvii.  U. 

'^^Gen.  xlvii.  15-2G. 


"^  The  whole  subject  of  the  famines 
which  are  known  to  have  occurred 
in  Egypt  is  treated  further  in  the 
Notes  and  ] Ihistrations  (A). 

"  Gen.  xlii.  4. 


B.C. 170G 


JoseplCs  Brethren  in  Egypt. 


113 


known  narrative,  the  most  beautiful  and  touching  page  of 
all  history,  of  their  two  visits  to  Joseph  and  his  final  discov- 
ery of  himself.^^  It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  vindicate  Jo- 
seph from  the  charge  of  harshness  toward  his  brethren.  We 
do  not  think  that  he  went  a  step  farther  than  was  required, 
in  order  to  gain  over  them  the  power  which  he  was  ready 
to  use  for  their  good.  We  rather  see  in  his  conduct  a  faith- 
ful imitation  of  the  divine  discipline,  by  which  man  is  re- 
stored to  favor  through  suffering  just  enough  to  bring  him 
to  true  repentance. 

The  short  imprisonment  of  Simeon  was  but  a  taste  of  the 
sorrow  to  Avhich  he  and  his  brothers  had  subjected  their 
brother  for  fourteen  years.  The  getting  Benjamin  into  his 
power  was  needful,  lest  Jacob's  fondness  should  frustrate 
all  his  plans.  The  roughness  of  his  manner  was  surely  not  a 
thing  to  be  complained  of,  where  every  step  taken  was  one 
of  kindness,'  while, in  the  final  scene  of  recognition,  hurried 
on  by  Joseph's  tenderness  of  heart,  there  is  not  a  Avord  of 
upbraiding  or  reproach  : — "  Now  therefore  be  not  grieved 
or  angry  with  yourselves,  that  ye  sold  me  hither.  It  Avas 
not  you  that  sent  me  hither,  but  God.""  And  at  the  very 
moment  Avhen  Josej^h  kindly  saw  in  his  brethren  only  the 
unconscious  instruments  of  God's  providence,  he  'Avas  serv^ 
ing  it  almost  as  unconsciously  by  his  plan  for  securing  his 
father  and  brethren  a  safe  and  happy  settlement  in  Egypt. 

§  8.  For  the  remoA^al  of  the  chosen  family  to  Egypt  Avas  an 
essential  part  of  the  great  plan  AA^hich  God  had  traced  out  to 
their  father  Abraham.  The  joromise  had  noAV  been  given 
tAvo  hundred  years,^"  and  they  had  neither  possessions  nor 
family  alliances  in  the  promised  land.  But  they  Avould  soon 
have  sought  for  both ;  and  the  character  already  manifested 
by  Jacob's  sons  augured  ill  for  their  preserving  either  pu- 
rity or  piety  amid  the  Canaanites.^^  The  chosen  race  was  no 
longer  to  be  severed  from  the  rejected  branches,  as  in  the 
case  of  Ishmael  and  Esau ;  but  the  tAvelve  sons  of  Jacob 
Avere  to  found  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  even  the  sons  of 
Zilpah  and  Bilhah  being  legitimated  and  reckoned  as  belong- 
ing to  Leah  and  Rachel  respectively.^^  Their  present  rela- 
tion to  Canaan  must  be  broken  off,  that  it  might  be  formed 
ancAV  in  due  time.  They  must  be  placed  among  a  people 
Avith  Avhom  they  could  not  mix,  but  from  Avhom  they  might 

^*  Gen.  xlii.-xlv.  which  we  have  not  thought  it  neces- 

''^  Gen.  xlv.  5,  8.         *°  Gen.  xv.  sary    to    place    in    the    text.      Gen. 

^^  See,  in  addition  to  the  examples  xxxviii, 
already  related,  the  story  of  Judah,        ^^  See  §  9. 


114 


Jacob  and  his  Family. 


Chap.  IX, 


learn  the  arts  of  civilization  and  industry ;  and  there,  under 
the  discipline  of  affliction,  the  family  must  be  consolidated 
into  the  nation. 

§  9.  So  Joseph  sent  for  his  father  and  the  whole  family 
from  Beersheba  into  Egypt,  and  God  encouraged  Jacob  by  a 
vision,  commanding  him  to  go  down,  and  promising  to  bring 
him  up  again  in  the  person  of  his  descendants,  w^ho  are 
henceforth  called  by  the  collective  name  of  Israel,^^  and  as- 
suring him  that  Joseph  should  close  his  eyes.^'  So  he  went 
down,  with  his  sons  and  their  wives  and  children,  and  all 
their  cattle.  The  house  of  Israel  now  numbered  70  souls, 
without  reckoning  Avives.     The  number  is  thus  made  up : — 

i.  The  children  of  Leah,  32,  viz. :— '' 

(1.)  Reuben  and  four  sons 5 

(2.)  Simeon  and  six  sons^*^ 7 

(3.)  Levi  and  three  sons 4 

(4.)  Judah  and  five  sons  (of  whom  two  were  dead)  and  two 

grandsons G 

(5.)  Issachar  and  four  sons 5 

(6.)  Zebulun  and  three  sons 4 

Dinah 1 

ii.  The  children  of  Zilpah,  considered  as  Leah's,  16, viz.: — 

(7.)  Gad  and  seven  sons 8 

(8.)  Asher:  four  sons,  one  daughter,  and  two  grandsons 8 

iii.  The  children  of  Rachel,  14,  viz. : — 

(9.)  Joseph  (see  below), 
(10.)  Benjamin  and  ten  sons^^ 11 

iv.  The  children  of  Bilhah,  considered  as  Rachel's,  7,  viz. : — • 

(11.)  Dan  and  one  son 2 

(12.)  Naphtali  and  four  sons ,5 

Total  of  those  "that  came  with  Jacob  into  Egypt  " G6 

To  these  must  be  added  Jacob,  Joseph,  and  two  sons 4 

Total  of  Israel's  house 70 


These  are  the  numbers  of  the  Hebrew  text,^^  but  the  LXX. 
complete  the  genealogy  by  adding  the  children  of  Manasseh 


^^Gen.  xlvii.  11. 

2*  Gen.  xlvi. 

^^  Jacob  himself  is  included  in  tlie 
33  of  v.  15,  but  he  is  excluded  from 
the  total  of  G6  in  v.  26. 

^°  One  of  these  is  called  the  son  of 
a  Canaanitish  woman  ;  whence  we 
may  infer  that  all  the  rest  were  born 
from  wives  of  the  Hebrew  i-ace,  and 


probably  in  nearly  all  cases  of  the 
stock  of  Abraham. 

^■^  These  are  evidently  added  to 
complete  the  second  generation,  for 
Benjamin  was  only  23  years  old,  and 
the  tone  of  the  whole  narrative  is 
scarcely  consistent  with  his  yet  hav- 
ing a  familv. 

2**  Comp.'Deut.  x.  22. 


B.C.  1700.  Jacob  and  his  Sons.  115 

and  Ephraim,  who  of  course  ranked  with  those  of  the  sons  of 
Jacob,  namely,  Machir,  the  son  of  Manasseh,  and  Galeed 
(Gilead),  the  son  of  Machir  (2)  ;  Sutalaam  (Shutelah)  and 
Taam  (Tathath),  the  sons  of  Ephraim,  and  Edom,  the  son  of 
Sutalaam  (3),  making  5  in  a\V^  St.  Stephen  naturally  quotes 
the  LXX.,  the  version  commonly  used,  especially  by  the  Hel- 
lenistic Jews,  with  whom  his  discussion  began.''" 

Thus,  instead  of  any  real  difficulty,  we  have  in  this  appar- 
ent difference  an  exami^le  of  those  undesigned  coincidences 
amid  variety,  which  are  among  the  strongest  internal  evi- 
dences of  the  truth  of  Scripture.  It  is  most  interesting  to 
compare  these  numbers  with  those  to  which  the  family  of 
Israel  had  grown  at  the  Exodus."^ 

§  10.  On  their  arrival  in  Egypt,  Joseph,  after  a  most  affect- 
ing meeting  with  his  father,  presented  five  of  his  brethren  to 
Pharaoh  ;  and  the  king  being  informed  that  they  were  shep- 
herds, a  class  held  in  abomination  by  the  Egyptians,  gave 
them  for  their  separate  abode  the  land  of  Goshen  or  Rameses, 
which  was  the  best  pasture-ground  in  all  Egypt,"^  and  in- 
trusted to  them  his  own  flocks,  while  Joseph  supplied  them 
with  bread  during  the  remaining  five  years  of  famine.  That 
they  were  tillers  of  the  land,  as  well  as  shepherds,  is  clear 
from  their  being  employed  "  in  all  manner  of  service  in  the 
field"  (Exod.  i.  14,)  and  from  the  allusion  of  Moses  to  "  Egypt, 
where  thou  sowedst  thy  seed  and  wateredst  it"  (Deut.  x.  11). 

Joseph  next  brought  his  father  before  Pharaoh,  and  the 
aged  patriarch  bestowed  his  blessing  on  the  mighty  king. 
In  reply  to  Pharaoh's  inquiry  about  his  age,  he  said : — "  The 
days  of  my  pilgrimage  are  130  years:  few  and  evil  have  the 
days  of  the  years  of  my  life  been,  and  have  not  attained  unto 
the  days  of  the  years  of  the  life  of  my  fathers  in  the  days 
of  their  pilgrimage."*^  Besides  their  testimony  to  the  grad- 
ual decline  of  human  life,  and  their  affecting  allusion  to  his 
trials,  these  words  are  a  memorable  example  of  how  the  pa- 
triarchs "  confessed  that  they  were  strangers  and  pilgrims 
on  the  earth,"  and  how  "  they  desired  a  better  country,  that 
is,  a  heavenly,"  even  the  "  city"  which  their  God  had  "  pre- 
pared for  them."" 

3^  Gen.  xlvi.  20,  LXX.  ;  compare  1  I     "  Numb.  i.      See  chap.  xi.  p.  118. 
Chron.  vii.  U,  20.  ^"^  ^qq  Notes  and  Illustrations  (W). 

*^  Acts  vii.  14.  I     "  Gen.  xlvii.  9.     "  Heb.  xi.  13-16. 


116 


Kotes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  IX. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTEATIONS. 


(A.)  FAMINES  IN  EGYPT. 

Egypt  owes  all  its  fertility  to  its 
mighty  river,  whose  annual  rise  in- 
undates nearly  the  whole  land  and 
renders  its  cultivation  an  easy  certain- 
ty. But  this  very  bounty  of  nature 
has  not  unfrequently  exposed  the 
country  to  the  opposite  extreme  of 
drought.  With  scarcely  any  rain,  and 
that  only  on  the  Mediterranean  coast, 
and  with  wells  only  supplied  by  fil- 
tration from  the  river  through  a  ni- 
trous soil,  a  failure  in  the  rise  of  the 
Kile  almost  certainly  entails  a  degree 
of  scarcity.  The  causes  of  dearth  and 
famine  in  Egypt  are  occasioned  by 
defective  inundation, preceded  and  ac- 
companied and  followed  by  prevalent 
easterly  and  southerly  winds.  Both 
these  winds  dry  up  the  earth,  and  the 
latter,  keeping  back  the  rain-clouds 
from  the  north,  are  perhaps  the  chief 
cause  of  the  defective  inundation,  as 
they  are  also  by  their  accelerating 
the  current  of  the  river — the  norther- 
ly winds  producing  the  contrary  ef- 
fects. Famines  in  Egypt  and  Pales- 
tine seem  to  be  effected  by  drought  ex- 
tending from  Northern  Syria,  through 
the  meridian  of  Egypt,  as  far  as  the 
highlands  of  Abyssinia, 

The  modern  history  of  Egypt  throws 
some  curious  light  on  these  ancient 
records  of  famines  ;  and  instances  of 
their  recurrence  may  be  cited  to  assist 
us  in  understanding  their  course  and 
extent.  They  have  not  been  of  very 
rare  occurrence  since  the  Mohamme- 
dan conquest,  according  to  the  testi- 
niot  ,'    cf  Ai  ab   historians :    one   of 


great  severity,  following  a  deficient 
rise  of  the  Nile,  in  the  year  of  the 
Flight  597  (a,d,  1200),  *is  recorded 
by  'Abd-El-Lateef,  who  was  an  eye- 
witness, and  is  regarded  justly  as  a 
trustworthy  authority.  He  gives  a 
most  interesting  account  of  its  hor- 
rors, states  that  the  people  throughout 
the  country  were  driven  to  the  last 
extremities,  eating  offal,  and  even 
their  own  dead,  and  mentions,  as  an 
instance  of  the  dire  straits  to  which 
they  were  driven,  that  persons  who 
were  burnt  alive  for  eating  human 
flesh  were  themselves,  thus  ready 
roasted,  eaten  by  others.  jNIultitudcs 
fled  the  country,  only  to  perish  in  the 
desert-road  to  Palestine. 

But  the  most  remarkable  famina 
j  was  that  of  the  reign  of  the  Fatimec 
I  Khaleefeh,  El-Mustansir-billah,  which 
I  is  the  only  instance  on  record  of  one 
!  of  seven  years'  duration  in  Egypt 
I  since  the  time  of  Joseph  (a.ii.  457- 
464,  A,D,  10G4-1071).  This  famine 
exceeded  in  severity  all  others  of  mod- 
I  ern  times.  Vehement  drought  and 
!  pestilence,  says  a  contemporary  writ- 
1  er,  continued  for   seven    consecutive 

■  years,  so  that  the  people  ate  corpses. 
i  and  animals  that  died  of  themselves ; 

I  the  cattle  perished;  a  dog  was  sold 
I  for  5  deenars,  a  cat  for  3  deenars,  and 
an  ardebb  (about  5  bushels)  of  wheat 
I  for  100  deenars.  He  adds  that  aU 
'  the  horses  of  the  Khaleefeh,  save 
i  three,  perished,  and  mentions  organ- 

■  ized  bands  of  kidnappers  who  infested 
\  Cairo  and  caught  passengers  in  the 
'streets  by  ropes  furnished  with  hooks 

and  let  down  from  houses. 


Chap.  IX. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


117 


(B.)  THE  LAND  OF  GOSHEN. 

The  *Mand  of  Goshen,"  also  called 
Goslien  simply,  appears  to  have  borne 
another  name,  "  the  land  of  Rameses" 
(Gen.  xlvii.  11),  unless  this  be  the 
name  of  a  district  of  Goshen.  It  was 
between  Joseph's  residence  at  the 
time  and  the  frontier  of  Palestine, 
and  apparently  the  extreme  province 
toward  that  frontier  (Gen.  xlvi.  29). 
Gen.  xlvi.  33,  34,  shows  that  Goshen 
was  scarcely  regarded  as  a  part  of 
Egypt  Proper,  and  was  not  peopled 
by  Egyptians  —  characteristics  that 
would  positively  indicate  a  frontier 
province.  The  next  mention  of  Go- 
shen confirms  the  previous  inference 
that  its  position  was  between  Canaan 
and  the  Delta  (Gen.  xlvii.  1,  5,  6,  11). 
Goshea  was  a  pastoral  country,  where 


some  of  Pharaoh's  caltle  were  kept. 
The  clearest  indications  of  the  exact 
position  of  Goshen  are  those  afforded 
by  the  narrative  of  the  Exodus.  The 
Israelites  set  out  from  the  town  of 
Kameses  in  the  land  of  Goshen,  made 
two  days'  journey  to  "  the  edge  of 
the  wilderness,"  and  in  one  day  more 
reached  the  Red  Sea.  At  the  start- 
ing-point two  routes  lay  before  them, 
"  the  way  of  the  land  of  the  Philistines 
. .  .  that  [was]  near,"  and  "  the  way  of 
the  wilderness  of  the  Red  Sea  "  (Ex. 
xiii.  17,  18).  From  these  indications 
we  infer  that  the  land  of  Goshen  must 
have  in  part  been  near  the  eastern 
side  of  the  ancient  Delta,  Rameses 
lying  within  the  valley  now  called  the 
Wddi-t-Tumeyldt^  about  thirty  miles 
in  a  direct  course  from  the  ancient 
western  shore  of  the  Arabian  Gulf. 


Egyptiau  Chief  caiTieJ  ia  a  sort  of  pilariqinn,  aa  attendant  baaiing  a  parasol  behind  him. 


CHAPTER  X. 


THE    LAST    YEAKS    OF   JACOB    AND    JOSEPH. 
B.C.    1706-1635. 


A.M.  2298-2860, 


§  1.  Jacob's  last  years — His  desire  to  be  buried  wi'th  liis  fathers.  §  2.  His 
blessing  on  Joseph  and  his  sons.  §  3.  His  ]«rophetic  address  to  his 
twelve  sons,  and  their  Blessinj^s — i.  Reuben — ii.  iii.  Simeon  and  Levi— 
iv.  Judah — Messianic  sense — v.  Zebulun — vi.  Issachar — vii.  Dan — viii. 
Gad — ix.  Asher — x.  Naphtali — xi.  Joseph — Messianic  sense — xii.  Ben- 
jamin— The  twelve  tribes  now  constituted.  §  4.  Death,  embalmment, 
and  burial  of  Jacob.  §  5.  Joseph's  kindness  to  his  brethren.  §  G.  Jo- 
seph's last  prophecy  and  injunction — His  death  and  burial.  §  7. 
Death  and  burial  of  the  other  patriarchs.  §  8.  Interval  between  Jo- 
seph and  Moses.  §  9.  Chronology  of  the  pilgrimage  in  Canaan  and 
Egypt. 

§  1.  The  few  remaining  years  of  Jacob's  life  were  spent 
in  tranquillity  and  abundance.  He  lived  seventeen  years  in 
Egypt,  and  beheld  his  descendants  "  multiply  exceedingly.'" 
The  chief  record  of  this  period  is  his  prophetic  blessing  on 

'  Gen.  xlvii.  27. 


I 


B.C.  1706.  The  Blessing  of  Joseph.  119 

his  sons — one  of  the  most  important  passasres  in  the  whole 
Bible.  1  1         o 

First,  as  his  end  approached,  he  sent  for  Joseph,  and  made 
him  swear  that  he  wonld  not  bury  him  in  Egypt,  but  carry 
him  to  the  sepulchre  of  his  fathers.^  There  is  one  point  in 
this  passage  which  must  not  be  j)assed  over.  "  Israel  bowed 
himself  upon  the  bed's  head."  An  act  of  worship  is  certain- 
ly intended,  doubtless  a  thanksgiving  to  God  for  the  peace- 
ful close  of  his  troubled  life,  and  for  the  assurance  of  being 
soon  "gathered  to  his  fathers." 

Whether  in  this  act  Jacob  bent  his  head  reverently  as  he 
raised  himself  on  his  bed,  or  Avhether  he  supported  himself  on 
the  head  of  his  bedstead,  as  in  the  next  chapter  (v.  2),  or  on 
the  top  of  that  shepherd's  staif,  "  which  he  had  carried  all  his 
life,"^  is  in  itself  of  little  consequence.  But  the  last,  and 
probably  the  most  natural  interpretation,  which  is  that  given 
by  the  LXX.,  and  followed  by  St.  Paul,''  has  been  strange- 
ly perverted.  The  Vulgate,  which  in  Genesis  has  adoravit 
Deuin  cojiversus  ad  lectidi  caputs  translates  the  passage  in  the 
Hebrews  adoravit  fastigium  virgm  ejus  (for  cTri  to  aKpov  tFjq 
pa(3dov  avTov),  ivorshiped  the  top  of  his  staff-  and  the  text  is 
cited  as  an  authority  for  image  worship ! 

§  2.  Soon  after  this,  Joseph  heard  that  his  father  was  sick  ; 
and  he  went  to  visit  him  with  his  sons,  Manasseh  and  Ephra- 
im.^  The  dying  patriarch  blessed  Joseph  and  his  sons,  in  the 
name  of  the  "  God,  before  Avhom  his  fathers  Abraham  and 
Isaac  had  walked,  the  God  Avho  had  fed  him  all  his  life  long, 
the  Angel  who  had  redeemed  him  from  all  evil."  He 
claimed  Ephraim  and  Manasseh  for  his  own,  placing  them 
even  before  Reuben  and  Simeon,  whose  lust  and  violence  had 
forfeited  their  birthright  ;  and  henceforth  they  were  number- 
ed among  the  heads  of  the  tribes  of  Israel.  Throughout  the 
whole  scene,  he  gave  Ephraim  the  precedence  over  Manasseh ; 
and,  though  unable  to  see,  he  crossed  his  hands,  disregarding 
Joseph's  opposition ;  so  that  in  blessing  them  his  right  hand 
was  on  Ephraim's  head,  and  his  left  on  Manasseh's.  Thus 
was  added  one  more  lesson  of  God's  sovereign  choice  to  the 
examples  of  Abel,  Shem,  Abram,  Isaac,  and  himself,  who  were 
all  younger  sons.  He  foretold  for  them  a  prosperity  which 
would  make  them  the  envy  of  the  other  tribes  of  Israel ;  iind 
he  ended  by  giving  Joseph  an  extra  portion  above  his  breth- 
ren, thus  marking  him  as  his  heir,  in  respect  oi property ;  for 
the  royal  power  was  given  to  Judah,  and  ^q  p>riesthood  was 

^  Gen.  xlvii.  29-31.     ""  Gen.  xxxii.  10.      *  Heb.  xi.  21.     '  Gen.  xlviii. 


120 


The  Last  Years  of  Jacob  and  Joseph,       Chap.  X. 


afterward  assigned  to  Levi.  The  division  of  these  three  great 
functions  of  the  patriarchal  government  is  already  a  mark  of 
the  transition  from  the  familj/ to  the  nation. 

§  3.  Having  thus  given  Joseph  his  separate  and  special 
blessing  for  himself  and  his  two  sons,  Jacob  called  all  his 
sons  to  hear  the  last  words  of  Israel  their  father."  He  plain- 
ly declared  that  his  words  w^ere  of  prophetic  import,  and  that 
their  fulfillment  would  reach  even  to  the  last  dat/s  (v.  1). 
Could  we  expound  them  fully,  ^ve  should  probably  find  that, 
in  most,  if  not  all  the  several  blessings,  there  is  a  reference — 
first,  to  the  personal  character  and  fortunes  of  the  twelve 
patriarchs;  secondly,  to  the  history  and  circumstances  of  the 
tribes  descended  from  them ;  and,  lastly,  a  typical  allusion  to 
the  twelve  tribes  of  the  spiritual  Israel.^  We  can  trace  the 
first  two  elements  in  all  cases,  and  the  last  is  conspicuous  in 
the  blessings  on  Judah  and  Joseph,  the  two  heads  of  the 
wdiole  family.  But  the  details  of  the  interpretation  are  con- 
fessedly most  difiicult.  The  Avhole  prophecy  should  be  com- 
pared with  "  the  blessing,  wherewith  Moses,  the  man  of  God, 
blessed  the  children  of  Israel  before  his  death.""  Like  the  lat- 
ter, Jacob's  prophecy  contains  a  blessing  on  each  tribe,  though 
in  some  cases  it  is  almost  disguised  under  the  censure  which 
his  sons  had  incurred. 

i.  Reuben,  the  eldest  son,  is  acknowledged  as  his  father's 
"  strengtli  and  the  beginning  of  his  might,"  and  as  "  excel- 
ling in  dignity  and  power ;"  for  sucli  was  his  privilege  by 
rig-ht  of  birth.  He  is  always  named  first  in  the  genealogies, 
and  his  numerous  and  powerful  tribe  took  the  lead  in  war. 
But  he  had  forfeited  his  special  birthright  by  a  shameful 
act  of  Avantonness,  which  is  compared  to  water  bursting  its 
bounds.®  And  not  only  did  Reuben  yield  the  royal  dignity 
to  Judah,  but,  the  possessions  of  the  tribe  lying  in  the  most 
exposed  position  east  of  the  Jordan,  they  were  the  first  to 
become  subject  to  a  foreign  power. 

ii.  and  iii.  Simeon  and  Levi  are  named  together,^"  as  akin 
in  character,  and  together  they  are  cut  off  from  succeeding 
to  the  place  forfeited  by  Reuben,  for  their  cruelty  to  the 
Shechemites.  The  penalty  of  being  "  scattered  in  Israel,"  in- 
stead of  having  a  share  in  the  inheritance,  reads  like  a  curse; 
but  it  was  turned  into  a  blessing.     The  tribe  of  Levi,  having 


"  Gen.  xlix.  The  passage  presents 
us  with  the  earliest  example  of  He- 
brew poetry,  except  the  brief  speech 
of  the  Caioitc  Laincch  in  Gen.  iv.  23, 
24.  '  Kev.  vii. 


**  Dent,  xxxiii. 

^  Gen.  xlix.  4:  so  rather  than  un- 
Hahle  :  the  figure  is  that  of  the  Greek 
I'Tcp-pia/.oc. 

'"  So  in  Gen.  xxix.  38,  34. 


C.C.  1669,  Jacob's  Address  to  his  Sous.  121 

redeemed  its  parent's  fault  by  takintr  the  Lord's  side  in  tb-^ 
matter  of  the  golden  calf,  was  consecrated  to  the  priesthood  '* 
and,  though  tliey  had  no  inheritance  in  Israel,  they  enjoyed 
a  part  of  tlie  mheritance  of  all  the  rest.  Simeon  earlV  lost 
consequence  among  the  tribes.  Plis  territory,  Avhich  lay  on 
the  extreme  south-west  border,  was  never  wrested  from  the 
Philistines.  Many  members  of  the  tribe  gained  subsistence 
and  honor  as  teachers,  "  scattered "  among  all  the  other 
tribes.  ° 

iv.  JuDAH  is  announced,  in  a  grand  burst  of  prophetic 
fervor,  as  adding  In  his  other  dignities  tliat  of  being  the  an- 
cestor of  the  Mess:;i!i.  In  fact,  the  promise,  which  Tias  been 
limited  step  by  step,  is  now  centred  in  this  tribe.  The  key- 
note of  the  whole  blessing  is  in  the  meaning  of  Judah's  name, 
Pkaise  ;'^  and  it  includes'the  following  points  : — 

(1.)  Precedence  among  his  brethren  and  victory  over  his 
enemies. 

(2.)  He  is  denoted  by  a  fit  symbol,  which  is  varied  to  give 
It  a  complete  force— the  lion's  whelp,  exulting  over  the  prey 
in  youtliful  vigor,  the  lion  crouching  in  his  den,  the  lioness 
Avhoni  none  may  provoke  but  at  their  peril.  It  was  doubt- 
less from  this  prophecy  that  the  tribe  of  Judah  took  a  lion's 
Avhclp  for  its  standard,  with  the  motto,  "  liise  up,  Jehovah 
and  let  thine  enemies  be  scattered."  ' 

(3.)  Then  follows  a  plain  declaration  of  the  royalty  of  Ju- 
dah. From  him  was  descended  David,  the  son  of  Jesse,  and 
in  his  house  the  sceptre  of  Judah  remained,  while  the  rebel- 
lious kingdom  of  tlie  other  tribes  had  many  different  dynas- 
ties, till  the  Babylonish  Captivity.  The  civil  rulers  of  the 
restored  state  (now  called  Jews,  Judmi,  because  belongino- 
chiefly  to  this  tribe)  were  at  first  of  the  house  of  David,  as  in 
the  case  of  Zerubbabel.''  Even  though  the  peculiar  relig- 
ious character  of  the  new  commonwealth  threw  the  chief 
power  into  the  hands  of  the  priests,  and  though  Judas  Mac- 
cabaeus  and  his  line  of  princes  Avere  of  the  race  of  Levi,  the 
nation  which  they  governed  was  composed  essentially  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah.  And  thus  "  the  sceptre  did  not  depart  from 
Judah,  nor  a  lawgiver  from  between  his  feet,"  till  the  usur- 
pation of  the  Idumaean  Herod  gave  a  sign  of  "the  coming  of 
the  Shiloh,"  which  Avas  verified  by  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ, 
the  Son  of  David  and  of  Judah. 

"  J5^"  ^^^■"'  2G-29.  Ithecircmiistnncesof  tlie  person's  birth 

-We   have  Iiere    an   example  of   (Gen.  xxix.  85),  and  propheiically  tc 

the  double  .significance  of  Scripture  the  destiny  of  hi3  race. 

names,  with    reference,  primarily,  toj      "  Ezra  iii.  2. 


122  The  Last  Years  of  Jacob  and  Joseph.       Chap.  X. 

V.  Zebulun's  lot  is  predicted  in  terms  which  exactly  de- 
scribe the  position  of  the  tribe  between  the  Lake  of  Tiberias 
and  the  Mediterranean,  bordering  on  the  coasts  of  the  Phoeni- 
cians, and  sharing  in  their  commerce. 

vi.  IssACHAR  is  described  by  "  the  image  of  the  '  strong- 
boned  he-ass' — the  large  animal  used  for  burdens  and  field- 
work,  not  the  lighter  and  swifter  she-ass  for  riding — '  couch- 
ing down  between  the  two  hedgerows,'  chewing  the  cud  of 
stolid  ease  and  quiet — which  is  very  applicable,  not  only  to 
the  tendencies  and  habits,  but  to  the  very  size  and  air  of  a 
rural  agrarian  people,  Avhile  the  sequel  of  the  verse  is  no  less 
suggestive  of  the  certain  result  of  such  tendencies  when  un- 
relieved by  any  higher  asj)irations — '  He  saw  that  rest  was 
good,  and  the  land  pleasant,  and  he  bowed  his  back  to  bear 
and  became  a  slave  to  tribute' — the  tribute  imposed  on  him 
by  the  various  marauding  tribes  Avho  were  attracted  to  his 
territory  by  the  richness  of  the  crops."  The  vale  of"Esdrae- 
lon,  which  just  corresponds  to  the  territory  of  Issachar,  was 
the  most  fertile  land  in  Palestine. 

vii.  Dax,  like  Judah,  is  described  by  the  significance  of 
his  own  name.  His  territories  were  at  the  two  opjjosite  ex- 
tremities of  the  land,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  delinea- 
tion of  Dan  in  Jacob's  blessing  relates  to  the  original  settle- 
ment on  the  western  outskirts  of  Judah,  or  to  the  northern 
outpost.  "Dan,"  the  judge,  "shall  judge  his  people;"  he, 
the  son  of  the  concubine  no  less  than  the  sons  of  Leah;  he, 
the  frontier  tribe  no  less  than  those  in  the  places  of  honor, 
shall  be  "  as  one  of  the  tribes  of  Israel."  "  Dan  shall  be  a 
sez'pent  by  the  way,  an  adder  in  the  path  " — that  is,  of  the 
invading  enemy  by  the  north  or  by  the  west,  "  that  biteth 
the  heels  of  the  horse,"  the  indigenous  serpent  biting  the 
foreign  horse  unknown  to  Israelite  warfare,  "  so  that  his  rider 
shall  fall  backAvard."  And  his  war-cry  as  from  the  front- 
ier fortresses  shall  be,  "  For  Thy  salvation,  O  Lord  I  have 
Availed  !"^^ 

A'iii.  Gad's  fortune,  too,  is  contained  in  his  name,  Avhich  is 
repeated  Avith  a  play  on  the  Avord  :  "  Kplunderlng  troop  shall 
plunder  him,  but  he  will  plunder  at  their  heels."  As  one  of 
the  tribes  east  of  Jordan,  Gad  Avas  among  the  first  carried 
captive  ;'^  and  perhaps  Jacob  refers  to  this,  promising  that 


"  Stanley's  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p. 
396.  Accordiu;;  to  Jewish  tradition, 
Jacob's  blessing  on  Dan  is  a  pro- 
phetic allusioii  to  SamsoiJ,  the  great 


^  Judge  ^  of  the  tribe  ;  and  the  ejac- 
nlation  with  which  it  closes  was  that 
actually  uttered  by  Samson  when 
brought  into  the  temple  at  Gaza. 


1  Cbron.  v.  .26. 


B.C.  1689. 


Jacob's  Address  to  his  &fns. 


123 


his  enemies  shall  not  triumph  to  the  end — a  promise  which 
belongs  also  to  the  spiritual  Israel. 

ix.  AsHER  (the  happy  or  blessed)  is  promised  the  richest 
fruits  of  the  earth.  His  land,  some  of  the  most  fertile  in 
the  north  of  Palestine,  yielded  him  "  fat  bread  "  and  "  royal 
dainties,"  and  enabled  him  to  "dip  his  foot  in  oil."^®  But 
this  wealth  was  purchased  by  inglorious  ease  and  forbidden 
alliances  with  the  heathen,  whom  he  failed  to  drive  out.^^ 
No  great  action  is  recorded  of  this  tribe,  and  it  furnished  no 
judge  or  hero  to  the  nation.  "  One  name  alone  shines  out  of 
the  general  obscurity — the  aged  widow,  'Anna,  the  daughter 
of  Phanuel  of  the  tribe  of  Aser,'  who,  in  the  very  close  of  the 
history,  departed  not  from  the  Temple,  but  'served  God  with 
fastings  and  prayers  night  and  day.'  '''"* 

X.  Naphtali's  blessing,  also  highly  figurative,  is  obscured 
in  our  version  by  a  mistranslation.     It  should  be 

"Naphtfili  is  a  towcririf^  terebinth  ; 
lie  huth  a  goodly  crest." 

The  description,  like  Deborah's,'"  of 

"Nnplitali  on  the  high  pLiccs  of  the  field," 

agrees  with  the  position  of  the  tribe  among  the  highlands 
between  Lebanon  and  the  Upper  Jordan,  from  its  sources  to 
theSeaofGalilee.'" 

xi.  The  blessing  on  Joseph  forms  the  climax  of  the  father's 
fondness  and  the  prophet's  fervor.  Taking  his  name  {cidding 
or  increase)  as  a  sign  both  of  his  past  abundance  and  his  fu- 
ture enlargement,  he  compares  him  to  a  fruitful  vine,  or  rath- 
er a  branch  of  the  vine  of  Israel,  throwing  its  shoots  over 
the  wall  of  the  cistern  by  which  it  is  planted  ;  and  he  prom- 
ises his  favorite  son  every  form  of  blessing  that  man  could 
desire  or  enjoy.  As  in  all  his  history,  so  in  this  prophecy  es- 
pecially, Joseph  is  one  of  the  most  eminent  types  of  Christ. 
The  symbols  of  the  vine,  of  which  He  is  the  root,  and  the 
members  of  His  church  the  branches,  and  of  the  living  Avater 
by  which  the  living  tree  is  nourished,  are  expounded  by  him- 

xii.  Benjamin  is  described  as  a  Avolf,  ravening  for  his  prey, 
and  successful  in  obtaining  it — an  image  taken  perhaps  from 
the  wild  beasts,  such  as  wolves,  foxes,  jackals,  and  hyenas, 
which  infest  the  defiles  of  the  territory  of  Benjamin.     Mark- 


^^  Deut.  xxxiii.  24. 
"  Judges  i.  31,32. 
'•*  Stanley's  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p. 
265.  ^^  Judges  v.  18. 


="  Comp.  Dent,  xxxiii.  23;  Josh. 
XX.  7. 

2'  John  XV.  i.  foil,  iv.  1  i,  vii.  38,  vi. 
41-58,  etc. 


124  JacoUs  Death  and  Burial.  Chap.X. 

ed  as  is  the  contrast  to  the  majestic  strength  of  Judah  the 
lion,  the  warlike  character  is  common  to  both  tribes,  and 
they  were  as  closely  connected  in  their  history  as  the  lion 
and  the  jackal  are  believed  to  be  in  fact. 

The  concluding  words  (v.  29)  show  that  this  was  a  formal 
appointment  of  Jacob's  twelve  sons  to  be  the  twelve  heads 
of  the  chosen  race,  now  becoming  a  nation,  instead  of  its  hav- 
ing one  head  as  hitherto ;  and  also  that  the  blessings  and 
prophecies  of  the  dying  patriarch  had  respect  rather  to  the 
tribes  than  to  their  individual  ancestors  ;  and  henceforth  the 
tribes  are  continually  spoken  of  as  if  they  were  persons. 

§  4.  Having  added  one  more  injunction  to  all  his  sons,  to 
bury  him  in  the  Cave  of  Machpelah,  Jacob  "  gathered  up  his 
feet  into  the  bed,  and  yielded  up  his  spirit,  and  was  gathered 
unto  his  people"  at  the  age  147."  After  a  burst  of  natural 
grief,  Joseph  gave  orders  for  his  embalmment,  and  kept  a 
mourning  of  forty  days,  according  to  the  Egyptian  custom. ^^ 
He  then  went,  by  Pharaoh's  permission,  Avith  all  his  breth- 
ren, and  the  elders  both  of  Israel  and  Egypt,  and  a  great 
military  retinue,  to  carry  the  body  of  Jacob  into  Canaan. 
Avoiding  the  warlike  Philistines,  they  made  a  circuit  to  Atad, 
near  the  Jordan,  where  they  kept  so  great  a  mourning  for 
seven  days,  that  the  astonished  Canaanites  called  the  place 
Abel  Mizraim  {the  mourninf/  of  Egypt).  Proceeding  thence 
to  Hebron,  Jacob's  sons  buried  him  in  the  Cave  of  Machpe- 
lah." 

§  5.  On  their  return  to  Egypt,  Joseph's  brethren,  fearing  the 
effect  of  their  father's  removal,  sought  his  forgiveness,  and 
made  submission  to  him.  With  tears  of  love,  and  disclaim- 
ing the  right  to  judge  them,  M'hich  was  God's  alone,  he  re- 
turned the  memoiable  answer — "  Ye  thought  evil  against 
me,  but  God  meant  it  unto  good."  He  promised  still  to  nour- 
ish them  and  theirs :  "  And  he  comforted  them,  and  spake 
kindly  unto  them."" 

§  G.  Joseph  survived  his  father  for  iifty-four  years,  still  en- 
joying, as  we  may  assume,  his  honors  at  the  court  under  the 
same  dynasty,  though  possibly  under  a  succession  of  kings. 
He  saw  Ephraim's  children  of  the  third  generation,  and  had 
Manasseh's  grandchildren  on  his  knees.  At  length  he  died 
at  the  age  of  110.  He  was  embalmed  and  placed  in  a  sar- 
cophagus, but  not  buried.  For  before  his  death  he  had  pre- 
dicted to  his  brethren^"  their  return  from  Egypt  to  the  prom- 

"  Gen.  xlix.  33,  xlvii.  28.  1      "•'  Gcii.  1.  15-21 . 

.  ^^  Gen.  1.  1-3.  -"  This  word  has  no  doubt  the  ex- 

'^^  Gen.  1.  1-13;  comjiare  §  8.  [tended  sense    of   the    heads    of  the 


B.C.  1G35.       Interval  heitueen  JosejM  and  Moses. 


12; 


isecl  land ;  and  he  had  bound  them  by  an  oath  to  carry  hU 
remains  with  them.  "  ^j  faith  Joseph,  when  he  died,  made 
mention  of  the  departing  of  the  children  of  Israel;  and  gave 
commandment  concerning  his  bones""  (b.c.  1635). 

Through  all  their  afflictions,  the  children  of  Israel  kept  the 
sacred  deposit  of  Joseph's  bones,  and  doubtless  they  often 
consoled  themselves  with  his  dying  promise  and  the  mem- 
ory of  his  greatness.  Amid  the  terrors  of  that  "  memorable 
night,"  when  God  led  the  people  out  of  Egypt,  Moses  did 
not  forget  the  trust.^®  When  the  people  were  settled  in 
Canaan,  they  buried  Joseph  at  Shechem,  in  the  parcel  of 
ground  which  Jacob  bought  from  the  Amorites,  and  which 
he  gave  as  a  special  inheritance  to  Joseph.^^ 

§  7.  Of  the  other  patriarchs  we  are  only  told  that  "  Joseph 
died,  and  all  his  brethren,  and  all  that  generation."^"  But 
Stephen  adds  this  remarkable  statement :  "  Jacob  went 
down  into  Egypt  and  died,  he  and  our  fathers^  and  were  car- 
ried over  into  Sychem^  and  laid  in  the  sepulchre  that  Abra- 
ham bought  for  a  sum  of  money  of  the  sons  of  Emmor,  the 
father  of  Sychem."" 

Though  all  the  Hellenistic  Jews  "  Avere  unable  to  resist  the 
wisdom  and  spirit  by  which  he  spake,"^^  modern  Christian 
critics  have  discovered  that  Stephen  confounded  Abraham's 
purchase  of  Machpelah  from  the  Hittites  with  Jacob's  pur- 
chase near  Shechem  from  the  Amorites  !  But  after  we  have 
corrected  the  obvious  blunder  of  a  copyist,  by  reading  Jacob 
for  Abraham^  the  question  remains — Were  Jacob  and  all  his 
sons  buried  at  Shechem,  in  the  same  sepulchre  as  Joseph  ? 
Not  necessarily.  The  passage  may  simply  mean  that  Joseph's 
tomb  at  Shechem  was  regarded  as  the  family  sepulchre. 
Whether  the  bones  of  his  brethren  were  placed  in  or  beside 
the  sarcophagus  of  Joseph,  and  whether  the  remains  of  Ja- 
cob were  removed  from  Hebron  to  Shechem,  are  questions 
suggested,  but  we  scarcely  think  determined,  by  the  words 
of  Stephen. 

§  8.  The  interval  between  the  death  of  Joseph  and  the  be- 
ginning of  the  bondage  in  Egypt  is  dismissed  with  the  brief 
but  emphatic  statement,  that  "  the  children  of  Israel  were 
fruitful,  and  increased  abundantly,  and  multiplied,  and  wax- 
ed  exceeding  mighty ;  and  the  land  was  filled  with  them."^* 


tribes,  including  any  of  Jacob's  sons 
who  were  still  alive;  but  Joseph 
would  naturally  be  one  of  the  last 
survivors  of  the  twelve. 

"  Gen.  1.22-26:  Ileb.  xi.  22. 


^«Ex.  xiii.  19. 

2^  Josh.  xxiv.  32 ;    compare  Gea 
xxxiii.  ]9,  xlviii.  22. 

SI  Acts  vii.  IG. 
10.        "Ex.  i.  7, 


s^Ex.  i.  G. 
3-  Acts  vi. 


126  Sojourn  of  the  Israelites  in  Egypt.  Chap.  X. 

The  last  words  may  imply  that,  while  their  main  settlement 
was  still  at  Goshen,  members  of  the  race  were  scattered  over 
the  country ;  and,  in  sjiite  of  the  system  of  caste,  they  may 
have  found  employment  as  artificers  and  soldiers,  as  well  as 
snepherds.  If  this  were  so,  they  were  again  restricted  to  the 
land  of  Goshen  by  the  king  who  began  to  oppress  them,^*  and 
were  thus  collected  for  their  departure.  Besides  the  informa- 
tion contained  in  the  genealogies,  only  one  event  is  recorded 
during  this  period — the  unsuccessful  predatory  expedition  of 
Zabad,  the  sixth  in  descent  from  Ephraim,  against  the  Philis- 
tines." This  repulse  happening  only  a  short  time  before  the 
Exodus,  will  help  to  account  for  the  people's  fear  of  the 
Philistines.^®  As  Stephen  brings  down  the  prosperity  of  the 
people  till  near  the  time  of  the  Exodus,  the  bondage  must 
have  begun  only  a  short  time  before  the  birth  of  Moses." 

§  9.  The  whole  period  of  the  sojourn  of  the  Israelites  in 
Egypt  is  reckoned  at  430  years  in  the  account  of  their  de- 
parture.^* It  is  impossible  to  take  this  number  literally,  con- 
sistently with  other  chronological  data  ;  but  there  can  be  no 
difficulty  in  understanding  it  of  the  v^hole  pilgrimage  of  the 
chosen  family,  from  the  time  when  Abram  was  called  to  leave 
his  home  for  "  a  Ij^nd  that  he  should  aftervmrd  receive  as  an 
inheritance,"  to  the  time  when  his  heirs  did  actually  receive 
it.  And  accordingly  St.  Paul  reckons  430  years  from  the 
promise  made  to  Abraham  to  the  giving  of  the  LaAv  (b.c. 
1921-B.c.  1491,  according  to  the  received  chronology)."  In 
the  covenant  with  Abraham,  the  period  is  stated  at  400 
years. ^"^  We  can  not  be  surprised  at  a  difference  of  thirty 
years  above  the  round  number  being  neglected  in  a  prophecy ; 
besides,  some  years  had  already  ela})sed,  and  if  we  reckon 
from  the  last  complete  promise,"*^  we  have  only  seven  years 
above  the  400.  The  430  years  may  be  divided  into  two  equal 
periods — 215  years  for  the  pilgrimage  in  Canaan  (b.c.  1921- 
1706),  and  215  for  the  residence  in  Egypt  (1706-1491).  The 
bondage  itself  was  probal)ly  less  than  100  years,  as  the  whole 
period  from  the  death  of  Joseph  to  the  Exodus  was  144  years 
(b.c.  1635-1491). 


«*  Ex.  viii.  22,  X.  23. 
^  1  Chron.  vii.  20-22. 
^*  Ex.  xiii.  17. 

Acts  vii.  17,  18;  comp.  Ps.  cv.  21, 


tions  of  V.  16  agree  with  this,  for  be- 
sides that  the  word  may  mean  a 
round  period,  as  a  century,  the  aver- 
age duration  of  a  generation  was  at 


25.  Ex.  xii.  41.       ^'-"GaL  iii.  17.    that  time  about  100  years;  compare 

*°  Gen.  XV.  13:    the   four   genera-  \  Acts  vii.  G.  *'  Gen.  xvii.  19. 


Chap.  X. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


127 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


(A.)  REVIEW  OF  THE   PATKI- 
AKCHAL  PERIOD. 

I.  Mean'mg  of  the  Patriarchal  Dis- 
pensation.— TliC  Greek  word  Patri- 
arch* (Uarpidpxv^,  tlie  father-ruler) 
^ives  a  fuller  etymological  exjiression 
to  the  idea  which  was  at  first  essential 
to  the  simpler  Hebrew  word,  at  the 
time  when  the  father  was,  by  the 
right  of  nature,  the  rukr  of  the  whole 
community  formed  by  his  living  de- 
scendants. In  sacred  history  the  term 
is  commonly  applied  to  the  descend- 
ants of  Adam,  through  the  line  of 
Abraham,  down  to  the  time  of  Moses. 
The  whole  plan  of  God's  moral  gov- 
ernment and  revelation  of  himself  be- 
fore the  giving  of  the  Mosaic  Law 
constitutes  the  Patriarchal  Jjispensa- 
tion,  which  St.  Paul  expressly  distin- 
guishes by  the  phrase  "  until  the  law," 
and  defines  as  "from  Adam  to  Mo- 
ses "  (Rom.  v.  13,  14).  Its  peculiar 
characteristics  were  the  direct  and  in- 
timate communion  of  God  with  His 
people,  and  their  government  by  a 
moral  system,  the  great  principles  of 
which  were  well  understood,  though 
not  yet  reduced  to  a  code  of  laws.f 
Ic  was  an  experiment  of  moral  gov- 
ernment in  the  simple  and  beautiful 
farm  of  family  harmony.  Its  ideal 
is  expressed  in  the  words — "I  know 


•  It  is  specifically  applied  in  the  N.  T.  to 
Abraham  (Heb.  vii.  4),  to  the  twelve  sons  of 
Jacob  (Acts  vii.  8,  9),  and  1o  David  (Acts  ii. 
2!).  The  LXX.  use  it  as  the  equivalent  for 
thf.  head  or  prince  of  a  triba  (1  Chron. 
xxiv.  31,  xxvii.  22  ;  2  (jhron.  xxiii.  20,  xxvi. 
12). 

t  The  few  cases  of  definite  laws,  which 
are  embodied  in  the  so-called  •■'  Noachic  Pre- 
cepts," have  been  already  noticed. 


!  Abraham,  that  he  will  command  his 
children  and  his  household  after  him, 
and  they  shall  keep  the  way  of  Jeho- 
vah, to  do  justice  and  judgment." 

II.  Its  Three  Stages.  —  The  patri- 
archal dispensation  may  be  divided 
into  three  stages.  (1.)  When  our 
first  parents  had  fallen  from  their 
primitive  state  of  innocence,  they 
were  placed,  by  the  promise  of  a  deliv- 
erer, in  a  condition  still  to  trust  in 
the  mercy  of  God,  and  to  choose  be- 
tween a  life  of  humble  dependence 
and  obedience  to  Him,  and  self-will- 
ed opposition  against  Him  ;  and  the 
observance  of  sacrifices  of  blood  seems 
to  have  been  an  outward  sign  dis- 
tinguishing the  followers  of  these  two 
courses.  The  distinction  was  seen 
in  the  personal  characters  of  Cain 
and  Abel,  and  in  the  family  charac- 
ters of  the  Cainites  and  the  Sethites; 
but  before  long  the  latter  also  were 
corrupted  by  their  union  with  the 
former — tlie  sons  of  God  intermarry- 
I  ing  with  the  daughters  of  men — and 
the  general  result  was  an  almost  uni- 
versal experiment  on  God's  forbear- 
ance. (2.)  This  state  of  things  was 
ended  by  the  Deluge,  after  which  tlie 
experiment  of  godly  obedience  and 
patriarchal  order  was  renewed  under 
the  fresh  conditions  laid  down  by  the 
covenant  with  Noah,  insuring  the 
divine  forbearance  till  the  end  of 
time.  But  when  the  prospect  of  judg- 
ment was  thus  removed  far  off,  sin 
:  assumed  new  courage  ;  the  Babel- 
j  builders  made  the  daring  attempt  to 
I  render  themselves  independent  of  Je- 
I  hovah  :  nations  were  founded  on  those 
godless   principles   which   have    ever 


128 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  X. 


since  prevailed  in  the  "kingdoms  of 
this  world."  This  was  the  very  con- 
summation of  rebellion  against  the 
patriarchal  dispensation ;  while  the 
authority  with  which  it  invested  the 
father  of  the  family  was  claimed,  as  it 
has  been  to  our  own  day,for  the  despot 
and  usurper.  Idolatry  was  established 
in  all  these  kingdoms  ;  and  the  pure 
worsliip  of  Jehovah  was  alone  j)re- 
served,  or  perhaps  we  should  rather 
say,  retaught  to  man,  in  connection 
with  the  true  model  of  patriarchal 
government,  in  the  one  family,  which 
was  chosen  to  wander  about  as  no- 
mads, living  imder  tents,  amid  the 
nations  with  whom  as  yet  they  shared 
no  earthly  inheritance.  (3.)  It  is  in 
this  third  stage  that  we  see  the  gen- 
eral form  and  spirit  of  the  patriarchal 
life ;  for  the  notices  of  the  earlier 
periods  are  too  scanty  to  afford  us 
more  than  a  few  detached  lessons  of 
a  moral  and  religious  nnture.  Of  the 
social  life  of  the  Antedihivian  Patri- 
archs, and  even  of  the  Post-diluvian 
Patriarchs  before  Abraham,  we  know 
next  to  nothing  ;  but  when  we  turn 
to  the  pictures  of  Abraham  dwelling 
in  tents*  with  Isaac  and  Jacob,  the 
heirs  with  him  of  the  same  promises  ; 
of  the  other  branch  of  the  family 
at  Ilaran ;  of  the  conflicts  between 
Sarah  and  Hagar  on  behalf  of  Ishmael 
and  Isaac,  and  between  Esau  and 
Jacob  themselves  for  the  right  of  in- 
lieritance  ;  of  Isaac  and  Jacob  bless- 
ing their  children  before  they  died; 
and  of  the  varied  relations  between 
the  sons  of  Israel  and  tlieir  families — 
in  these  and  many  other  scenes  we 
see  tlie  Morking  of  the  patriarchal 
system  witli  sufficient  distinctness  to 
trace  its  leading  principles. 

III.  Its  leading  j>rincij}les. — It  is 
based  on  the  sacredness  of  family  ties 
and  paternal  authority.     This  author- 

'  '•'•The  Bedouin  tents  are  still  tlie  faith- 
ful reproduction  of  the  outward  life  of  the  pa- 
triarchs." Stanley's  Hinai  and  Palestine, 
Preface,  p.  xxiv. 


ity,  as  the  only  one  which  is  natural 
and  original,  is  inevitably  the  founda- 
tion of  the  enrliest  form  of  society, 
and  is  probably  seen  most  perfectly 
in  wandering  tribes,  where  it  is  not 
affected  by  local  attachments  and  by 
the  acquisition  of  wealth.  It  is  one, 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  limited 
in  its  scope,  depending  more  on  its 
sacredness  than  its  power,  and  giving 
room  for  much  exercise  of  freedom  ; 
and  as  it  extends  from  the  family  to 
the  tribe,  it  must  become  less  strin- 
gent and  less  concentrated,  in  propor- 
tion to  its  wider  diffusion.  In  Scrip- 
ture this  authority  is  consecrated  by 
an  ultimate  reference  to  God,  as  the 
God  of  the  patriarch,  the  father  (that 
is)  both  of  him  and  his  children. 
Not,  of  course,  that  the  idea  of  God's 
Fatherhood  carried  with  it  the  knowl- 
edge of  man's  jersonal  communion 
with  His  nature  (which  is  revealeti  l>y 
the  Incarnation)  ;  it  rather  implied 
faith  in  His  protection,  and  a  free 
and  loving  obedience  to  His  author- 
ity, with  the  hope  (more  or  less  as- 
sured) of  some  greater  blessing  from 
Him  in  tlie  coming  of  the  promised 
seed.  At  the  same  time,  this  faith 
was  not  allowed  to  degenerate,  as  it 
was  prone  to  do,  into  an  appropri- 
ation of  God,  as  the  mere  tutelary 
I  God  of  the  race.  The  Lord,  it  is  true, 
i suffers  Himself  to  be  called  "the 
^God  of  Sheni,  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac, 
and  of  Jacob;"  but  He  also  reveals 
Himself  (and  that  em])hatically,  as 
'  though  it  were  His  peculiar  title)  as 
the  "God  Almighty"  (Gen.  xvii.  ], 
ixxviii.  3,  XXXV.  11);  Pie  is  addressed 
j  as  the  "Judge  of  all  the  earth  "  (Gen. 
;  xviii.  25),  and  as  such  is  known  to 
1  have  intercourse  with  Pharaoh  and 
!  Abimelech  (Gen.  xii.  17,  xx.  3-8),  to 
hallow  the  priesthood  of  Melchizedek 
(Gen.  xiv.  18-20),  and  to  execute 
{wrath  on  Sodom  and  Gomorrah.  All 
this  would  confirm  what  the  general- 
ity of  the  covenant  with  Noah  and 


Chaf.  X. 


Xoies  and  lllasiraiions. 


129 


of  the  promise  of  blessing  to  "  all  na- 
tions" in  Abraham's  seed  must  have 
distinctly  taught  that  the  chosen  fam- 
ily were  not  substitutes  but  represent- 
atives of  all  mankind,  and  that  God's 
relation  to  them  was  a  clearer  and 
more  perfect  type  of  that  in  which  He 
stood  to  all. 

Still  the  distinction  and  preserva- 
tion of  the  chosen  family,  and  the 
maintenance  of  the  jjaternal  author- 
ity, are  the  special  purposes  which 
give  a  key  to  the  meaning  of  the  his- 
tory and  of  the  institutions  recorded. 
For  this  the  birthright  (probably  car- 
rying with  it  the  priesthood)  was  re- 
served to  the  first-born,  belonging  to 
liim  by  inheritance,  yet  not  assured  j  history  itself. 
to  him  till  he  received  his  father's 
blessing  ;  for  this  the  sanctity  of  mar- 
riage was  jealously  and  even  cruelly 
guarded,  as  in  Gen.  xxxiv,  7,  13,  31 
(Dinah),  and  in  xxxviii.  24  (Tamar), 
from  the  license  of  the  world  with- 
out ;  and  all  intermarriage  with  idola- 
ters was  considered  as  treason  to  the 
family  and  the  God  of  Abraham  (Gen. 
xxvi.  34,  35,  xxvii.  46,  xxviii.  1,  6- 
1)).  Natural  obedience  and  affection 
are  the  earthly  virtues  especially 
brought  out  in  the  history,  and  the 
sins  dwelt  upon  (from  the  irreverence 
of  Ham  to  the  selling  of  Joseph)  are 
all  such  as  oifend  against  these. 

The  type  of  character  formed  under 
it  is  one  imperfect  in  intellectual  and 
spiritual  growth,  because  not  yet  tried 
by  the  subtler  temptations,  or  forced 
to  contemplate  the  deeper  questions 
of  life;  but  it  is  one  remarkably 
simple,  affectionate,  and  free,  such  as 
would  grow  uj)  under  a  natural  au- 
thority, derived  from  God  and  cen- 
tring in  Him,  yet  allowing,  under  its 
unquestioned  sacredness,  a  familiarity 
and  freedom  of  intercourse  with  Him, 
which  is  strongly  contrasted  with  the 
stern  and  awful  character  of  the  Mo- 
saic dispensation.  To  contemplate  it 
from  a  Christian  point  of  view  is  like 
F  2 


looking  back  on  the  unconscious 
freedom  and  innocence  of  childhood, 
with  that  deeper  insight  and  strength 
of  character  which  arc  gained  by  the 
experience  of  manhood.  We  see  in 
it  the  germs  of  the  future,  of  the  fu- 
ture revelation  of  God,  and  the  future 
trials  and  development  of  man.  It 
is  on  this  fact  that  the  typical  inter- 
pretation  of  its   history  depends,  an 


nterpretation  sanctioned  directly  by 
the  example  of  St.  Paul  (Gal.  iv.  21- 
31 ;  Heb.  vii.  1-17),  indirectly  sup- 
ported by  other  passages  of  Scripture 
(Matt.  xxiv.  37-39 ;  Luke  xvii.  28- 
32  ;  Kom.  X.  10-13),  and  instinctively 
adopted  by  all  who  have  studied  the 


(B.)  THE  BOOK  OF  JOB. 

In  addition  to  the  notices  of  patri- 
archal life  contained  in  the  Book  of 
Genesis,  we  possess  a  contemporary 
document  which  throws  a  flood  of  light 
on  the  manners,  the  social  condition, 
and  the  moral  and  religious  character 
of  the  period.  It  would  be  out  of 
place  here  to  attempt  a  full  discussion 
of  the  theories  that  have  been  main- 
tained respecting  the  Book  of  Job ;  but 
whatever  opinions  may  be  held  of  the 
reality  of  Job's  personal  existence, 
and  of  the  events  on  which  the  great 
discussion  that  fills  the  book  is  based, 
there  is  enough  internal  evidence  for 
our  present  purpose.  The  residence 
of  the  patriarch  in  the  land  of  Uz, 
which  took  its  name  from  a  son  of 
Aram  (Gen.  x.  23),  or  Nahor  (Gen. 
xxii.  21),  marks  him  as  belonging  to 
a  branch  of  the  Aramaean  race,  which 
had  settled  in  the  lower  part  of  Meso- 
potamia (probably  to  the  south  or 
south-east  of  Palestine,  in  Iduma^an 
Arabia),  adjacent  to  the  Sab£eans  and 
Chaldisans.*  The  opinions  of  Job 
*  As  far  as  we  can  gather,  tlie  land  of  L'z 
lay  either  east  or  south-east  of  Palestine,  ad- 
jacent to  the  Sabfeans  and  the  Chaldsaas 
(Job  i.  15, 17),  consequently  northward  of  the 


130 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  X. 


and  his  friends  are  thus  peculiarly  in-| 
teresting  as  exhibiting  an  aspect  of 
the  patriarchal  religion  outside  of  the  ^ 
family  of  Abraham,  and  as  yet  unin- 
fluenced by  the  legislation  of  Moses.*  \ 
The  form  of  worship  belongs  essen-  j 
tially  to  the  early  patriarchal  type  ; 
with  little  of  ceremonial  ritual,  with- 
out a  separate  priesthood,  it  is  thor- 
oughly domestic  in  form  and  spirit. 
The  state  of  society,  while  still  essen- 
tially patriarchal,   and  based  on  the 
same  foundations  of  parental  author- 
ity and  family  order  that  we  see  in ! 
the  Book  of  Genesis^  forms  a  striking  : 
contrast  with  the  latter  in  its  devel-  | 
opment  beyond  the   stage  of  simple 
pastoral  life. 

All  critics  concur  in  extolling  the 
fresh  antique  simplicity  of  manners 
described  in  this  book,  the  genuine 
air  of  the  wild,  free,  vigorous  life  of 
the  desert,  the  stamp  of  hoar  antiq- 
uity, and  the  thorough  consistency  in 
the  development  of  characters,  equally 
remarkable  for  originality  and  force. 
There  is  an  absolute  contrast  between 
the  manners,  thoughts,  and  feelings, 

Bouthera  Arabians,  and  westward  of  the  Eu- 
phrates ;  and,  lastly,  adjacent  to  the  Edom- 
ites  of  Mount  Seir,  who  at  one  period  occu- 
pied Uz,  probably  as  conquerors  (Lam.  iv.  21), 
and  whose  troglodyte  habits  are  probably  de- 
scribed in  Job  XXX.  6, 7.  Tiie  position  of  the 
country  may  further  be  deduced  from  the  na- 
tive lands  of  Job's  friends,  Eliphaz  the  Te- 
manite  being  an  Idumsean,  Elihu  the  Buzite 
being  probably  a  neighbor  of  tlie  Chaldasans, 
for  Buz  and  Chesed  were  brothers  (Gen.  xxii. 
'21,  22),  and  Bildad  the  Sliuhite  being  one  of 
the  Bene-Kedem.  From  the  above  data  we 
infer  that  the  land  of  Uz  corresponds  to  the 
Arabia  Deserta  of  classical  geography — at  all 
events,  to  so  much  of  it  as  lies  north  of  the 
oOth  parallel  of  latitude.  This  district  has 
in  all  ages  been  occupied  by  nomad  tribes, 
who  roam  from  the  borders  of  Palestine  to 
the  Euphrates,  and  northward  to  the  confines 
of  Syria.  Tliis  view  is  confirmed  by  the 
marked  traces  of  the  ancient  Aramaic  dialect 
i!i  the  language  of  the  book,  and  by  its  close 
affinity  to  Arabia. 

*  The  total  absence  of  any  allusion,  not 
only  to  the  Mosaic  Law,  but  to  the  events  of 
the  Exodus,  the  fame  of  which  must  have 
reached  the  country  of  Job,  on  any  hypotlie- 
His  re-pecting  its  locality,  is  a  strong  argu- 
ment for  the  early  age  both  of  the  patriarch 
and  of  the  book. 


and  tliose  whicli  characterized  the 
Israelites  during  the  monarchical  pe- 
riod ;  while  whatever  difference  ex- 
ists between  the  customs  of  the  older 
patriarchs  as  described  in  Genesis 
and  those  of  Job's  family  and  asso- 
ciates, is  accounted  for  by  the  progress 
of  events  in  the  intervening  period. 
The  chieftain  lives  in  considerable 
splendor  and  dignity  ;  menial  offices, 
such  as  commonly  devolved  upon 
the  elder  patriarchs  and  their  chil- 
dren, are  now  performed  by  serv- 
ants, between  whom  and  the  family 
the  distinction  appears  to  be  more 
strongly  marked.  Job  visits  the  city 
frequently,  and  is  there  received  with 
high  respect  as  a  prince,  judge,  and 
distinguished  Avarrior  (Job  xxix.  7- 
9).  There  are  allusions  to  courts  of 
judicature,  wiitten  indictments,  and 
regular  forms  of  procedure  (Job  xiii. 
26,  and  xxxi,  28).  JSten  had  begun 
to  observe  and  reason  upon  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature,  and  astronomical 
observations  were  connected  with  cu- 
rious speculations  upon  primeval  tra- 
ditions. Wc  read  (Job  xx.  15,  xxiii. 
10,  xxvii.  IG,  17,  xxviii.  1-21)  of  min- 
ing operations,  great  buildings,  ruin- 
ed sepulchres,  and  there  are  through- 
out copious  allusions  to  the  natural 
productions  and  the  arts  of  Egypt. 

The  book  consists  of  five  parts  :  the 
introduction,  the  discussion  between 
Job  and  his  three  friends,  the  speech 
of  Elihu,  the  manifestation  and  ad- 
dress of  Almighty  God,  and  the  con- 
cluding chapter. 

1.  The  introduction  supplies  all  the 
facts  on  which  the  argument  is  based. 
Job,  a  chieftain  in  the  land  of  Uz,  of 
immense  wealth  and  high  rank,  "  the 
greatest  of  all  the  men  of  the  East," 
is  represented  to  us  as  a  man  of  per- 
fect integrity,  blameless  in  all  the  re- 
lations of  life,  declared  indeed  by  the 
Lord  Himself  to  be  "  without  his  like 
in  all  the  earth,"  "a  perfect  and  an 
upright  man,  one  that  feareth  God, 


Chap.  X. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


131 


and  eschcweth  evil."  One  question 
conld  be  raised  by  envy  :  may  not  the 
Koodness  which  secures  such  direct 
and  tangible  rewards  be  a  refined 
form  of  selfishness  ?  In  the  world  of 
spirits,  where  all  the  mysteries  of  ex- 
istence are  brought  to  light,  Satan, 
the  accusing  angel,  suggests  thedoubt, 
"doth  Job  fear  God  for  naught?" 
and  asserts  boldly  that  if  those  ex- 
ternal blessings  were  withdrawn  Job 
would  cast  off  his  allegiance  —  "he: 
will  curse  thee  to  tliy  face."  Thej 
problem  is  thus  distinctlypropounded 
which  this  book  is  intended  to  discuss 
and  solve.  Can  goodness  exist  irre- 
spective of  reward  ?  can.  the  fear  of 
God  be  retained  by  man  when  every 
inducement  to  selfishness  is  taken 
away  ?  The  accuser  receives  permis- 
sion to  make  the  trial.  He  destroys 
Job's  property,  then  his  children ; 
and  afterward,  to  leave  no  possible 
opening  for  a  cavil,  is  allowed  to  in- 
flict upon  him  the  most  terrible  dis- 
ease known  in  the  East.  Job's  wife 
breaks  down  entirely  under  the  trial. 
Job  remains  steadfast.  He  repels  his  ] 
wife's  suggestion  with  the  simple! 
words,  "What !  sliall  we  receive  good  i 
at  the  hand  of  the  Lord,  and  shall  we 
not  I'eceive  evil  ?"  "  In  all  this  did 
not  Job  sin  with  his  lips."  The  ques- 
tion raised  by  Satan  was  thus  answer- 
ed. 

2.  Still  it  is  clear  that  many  points 
of  deep  interest  would  have  been  left 
in  obscurity.  Entire  as  was  the  sub- 
mission of  Job,  he  must  have  been  in- 
wardly perplexed  by  events  to  which 
he  had  no  clew,  which  were  quite  un- 
accountable on  any  hypothesis  hither- 
to entertained,  and  seemed  repugnant 
to  the  ideas  of  justice  engraven  on 
man's  heart.  An  opportunity  for  the 
discussion  of  the  providential  govern^ 
ment  of  the  world  is  afforded  in  the 
most  natural  manner  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  three  men,  representing  the 
wisdom  and  experience  of  th?;  ?\ge, 


who  came  to  condole  with  Job  on 
hearing  of  his  misfortunes.  The 
meeting  is  described  with  singular 
beauty.  At  a  distance  they  greet 
him  with  the  wild  demonstrations  of 
sympathizing  grief  usual  in  the  East ; 
coming  near,  they  are  over  powered  by 
the  sight  of  his  wretchedness,  and  sit 
seven  days  and  seven  nights  without 
uttering  a  word.  This  awful  silence 
drew  out  all  his  anguish.  In  all 
agony  of  desperation  he  curses  the 
day  of  his  birth.  With  the  answer  to 
this  outburst  begins  a  series  of  discus- 
sions, continued  probably  with  some 
intervals  during  several  successive 
days.  The  results  of  the  first  discus- 
sion (from  ch.  iii.-xiv.)  may  be  thus 
summed  up.  We  have  on  the  part  of 
Job's  friends  a  theory  of  the  divine 
government  resting  upon  an  exact  and 
uniform  correlation  betw^een  sin  and 
punishment  (iv.  G,  11,  and  through- 
out). Afflictions  are  always  penal, 
issuing  in  the  destruction  of  those 
who  are  radically  opposed  to  God,  or 
who  do  not  submit  to  His  chastise- 
ments. They  lead  of  course  to  cor- 
rection and  amendment  of  life  when 
the  sufferer  repents,  confesses  his  sins, 
puts  them  away,  and  turns  to  God. 
In  that  case  restoration  to  peace,  and 
even  increased  prosperity  may  be  ex- 
pected (v.  17-27).  Still  the  fact  of 
the  suffering  always  proves  the  com- 
mission of  some  special  sin,  while  the 
demeanor  of  the  sufferer  indicates  the 
true  internal  relation  between  him  and 
God,  These  principles  are  applied 
by  them  to  the  case  of  Job.  In  this 
part  of  the  dialogue  the  character  of 
the  three  friends  is  clearly  developed. 
In  order  to  do  justice  to  the  position 
and  arguments  of  Job,  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind,  that  the  direct  object 
of  the  trial  was  to  ascertain  whether 
he  would  deny  or  forsake  God,  and 
that  his  real  integrity  is  asserted  by 
God  Himself.  He  denies  the  assertion 
that  punishment   follows   surely   on 


132 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  X. 


guiU;,  or  proves  its  commission.  In 
the  government  of  Providence  he  can 
see  but  one  point  clearly,  viz.,  that  all 
events  and  results  are  absolutely  in 
God's  hand  (xii.  9-2.")),  but  as  for  the 
principles  which  underlie  those  events 
lie  knows  nothing.  In  fact  he  is  sure 
that  his  friends  are'equally  uninform- 
cd.  Still  he  doubts  not  that  God  is 
just.  There  remains  then  but  one 
course  open  to  him,  and  that  he  takes. 
lie  turns  to  supplication,  implores 
God  to  give  him  a  fair  and  open  trial 
(xiii.  18-28).  Believing  that  with 
death  all  hope  connected  with  this 
woi-ld  ceases,  he  prays  that  he  may  be 
hidden  in  the  grave  (xiv.  13),  and 
there  reserved  for  the  day  when  God 
will  try  his  cause  and  manifest  Him- 
self in  love  (ver.  15).  In  the  second 
discussion  (xv.-xxi.)  there  is  a  more 
resolute  elaborate  attempt  on  the  part 
of  Job's  friends  to  vindicate  their  the- 
ory of  retributive  justice.  This  re- 
quires an  entire  overthrow  of  the  po- 
sition taken  by  Job.  Eliphaz  (xv.), 
who,  as  usual,  lays  down  the  basis  of 
the  argument,  does  not  now  hesitate 
to  impute  to  Job  the  worst  crimes  of 
which  man  could  be  guilty.  Bildad 
(xviii.)  takes  up  this  suggestion  of  un- 
godliness, and  concludes  that  the  spe- 
cial evils  which  had  come  upon  Job 
are  peculiarly  the  penalties  due  to  one 
who  is  without  God.  Zoj)har  not  only 
accounts  for  Job's  present  calamities, 
but  menaces  him  with  still  greater 
evils  (xx.).  In  answer,  Job  recog- 
nizes the  hand  of  God  in  his  afflic- 
tions (xvi.  7-1 G,  and  xix.  6-20),  but 
rejects  the  charge  of  ungodliness  ;  he 
has  never  forsaken  his  Maker,  and 
never  ceased  to  pray.  He  argues  that 
since  in  this  life  the  righteous  certain- 
ly are  not  saved  from  evil,  it  follows 
that  their  ways  are  watched  and  their 
sufferings  recnrdrd,  with  a  view  to  a 
future  and  ])eifect  manifestation  of 
the  divine  justice.  On  the  other 
hand,  stung  bvthe  harsh  and  narrow- 


minded  bigotry  of  his  opponents,  Job 
draws  out  (xxi.)  with  terrible  force 
the  undeniable  fact,  that  from  the  be- 
ginning to  the  end  of  their  lives  un- 
godly men,  avowed  atheists  (vs.  14, 
15),  persons  in  fact  guilty  of  the  very 
crimes  imputed,  out  of  mere  conjec- 
ture, to  himself,  frequently  enjoy  great 
and  unbroken  prosperity.  In  the  third 
dialogue  (xxii.-xxxi.)  no  real  prog- 
ress is  made  by  Job's  opponents.  Eli- 
phaz (xxii.)  makes  a  last  effort.  The 
station  in  which  Job  was  formerly 
placed  presented  temptations  to  cer- 
tain crimes  :  the  punishments  which 
he  undergoes  are  precisely  such  as 
might  be  expected  had  those  crimes 
been  committed ;  hence,  he  infers, 
they  actually  were  committed.  Bil- 
dad has  nothing  to  add  but  a  few  sol- 
emn words  on  the  incomprehensible 
majesty  of  God  and  the  nothingness 
of  man.  Zophar  is  put  to  silence. 
In  his  two  last  discourses  Job  does 
not  alter  his  position,  nor,  properly 
speaking,  adduce  any  new  argu- 
ment, but  he  states,  with  incompara- 
ble force  and  eloquence,  the  chief 
points  which  he  regards  as  establish- 
ed (xxvi.).  He  then  (xxvii.)  de- 
scribes even  more  completely  than 
his  opponents  had  done  the  destruction 
which,  as  a  rule,  ultimately  falls  upon 
the  hypocrite.  Then  follows  (xxviii.) 
the  grand  description  of  Wisdom, 
The  remainder  of  this  discourse 
(xxix.-xxxi.)  contains  a  singularly 
beautiful  description  of  his  former 
life,  contrasted  with  his  actual  misery, 
together  with  a  full  vindication  of  his 
character  from  all  the  charges  mady 
or  insinuated  by  his  opponents. 

3.  Thus  ends  the  discussion  in 
which  it  is  evident  both  parties  had 
partially  failed.  The  points  which 
had  been  omitted,  or  imperfectly  de- 
veloped, are  now  taken  up  by  a  new 
interlocutor  (xxxii.-xxxvii.).  Elihu, 
a  young  man,  descended  from  a  col- 
lateral branch  of  the  familv  of  Abra- 


Chap.  X. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


\Zi 


ham,  has  listened  in  indignant  silence 
to  the  arguments  of  his  elders 
(xxxii.  7),  and,  impelled  by  an  in- 
Avard  inspiration,  he  now  addresses 
himself  to  both  parties  in  the  discus- 
sion, and  especially  to  Job.  He  shows 
that  they  had  accused  Job  upon  false 
or  insufficient  grounds,  and  failed  to 
convict  him,  or  to  vindicate  God's 
justice.  Job  again  had  assumed  his 
entire  innocence,  and  had  arraigned 
that  justice  (xxxiii.  9-11.  These  er- 
rors he  traces  to  their  both  overlook- 
ing one  main  object  of  all  suffering. 
God  speaks  to  men  by  chastisement. 
This  statement  does  not  involve  any 
charge  of  special  guilt,  such  as  the 
friends  had  alleged  and  Job  had  repu- 
diated. Again,  Elihu  argues  (xxxiv. 
]0-17)  that  any  charge  of  injustice, 
direct  or  implicit,  against  God  in- 
volves a  contradiction  in  terms.  God 
is  the  only  source  of  justice  ;  the  very 
idea  of  justice  is  derived  from  His 
governance  of  the  universe.  Job  is 
silent,  and  Elihu  proceeds  (xxxvi.)  to 
show  that  the  Almightiness  of  God  is 
not,  as  Job  seems  to  assert,  associated 
with  any  contempt  or  neglect  of  His 
creatures.  The  rest  of  the  discourse 
brings  out  forcibly  the  lessons  taught 
by  the  manifestations  of  goodness,  as 
well  as  greatness,  in  creation.  The 
last  words  are  evidently  spoken  while 
a  violent  storm  is  coming  on. 

4.  It  is  obvious  that  many  weighty 
truths  have  been  developed  in  the 
course  of  the  discussion — nearly  every 
theory  of  the  objects  and  uses  of  suf- 
fering has  been  reviewed — while  a 
great  advance  has  been  made  toward 
the  apprehension  of  doctrines  here- 
after to  be  revealed,  such  as  were 
known  only  to  God.  But  the  mystery 
is  not  as  yet  really  cleared  up.  Hence 
the  necessity  for  the  Theophany  — 
from  the  midst  of  the  storm  Jehovah 
speaks.  In  language  of  incompara- 
ble grandeur  He  reproves  and  silences 
the  murmurs  of  Job.     God  does  not 


condescend,  strictly  speaking,  to  ai*- 
gue  with  His  creatures.  The  specula, 
tive  questions  discussed  in  the  collo- 
quy are  unnoticed,  but  the  declara- 
tion of  God's  absolute  power  is  il- 
lustrated by  a  marvellously  beauti- 
ful and  comprehensive  survey  of  the 
glory  of  creation,  and  his  all-embra- 
cing Providence  by  reference  to  the 
phenomena  of  the  animal  kingdom. 
A  second  address  completes  the  work. 
It  proves  that  a  charge  of  injustice 
against  God  involves  the  consequence 
that  the  accuser  is  more  competent 
than  He  to  rule  the  universe. 

5.  Job's  unreserved  submission  ter- 
minates the  trial.  In  the  rebuke  then 
addressed  to  Job's  opponents  the  in- 
tegrity of  his  character  is  distinctly 
recognized,  while  they  are  condemn- 
ed for  untruth,  which  is  pardoned  on 
the  intercession  of  Job.  The  restora- 
tion of  his  external  prosperity,  which 
is  an  inevitable  result  of  God's  person- 
al manifestation,  symbolizes  the  ulti- 
mate compensation  of  the  righteous 
for  all  sufferings  undergone  upon 
earth.  The  great  object  of  the  book 
must  surely  be  that  which  is  distinct- 
ly intimated  in  the  introduction,  and 
confirmed  in  the  conclusion,  to  show 
the  effects  of  calamity  in  its  worst 
and  most  awful  form  upon  a  truly  re- 
ligious spirit. 

(C.)  NAMES  AND  EAllLY  HIS- 
TORY OF  EGYPT. 
I.  Navies. —  The  scriptural  name 
"  Ham  "  seems  to  be  identical  with  the 
indigenous  name  of  Egypt,  as  it  ap- 
pears in  hieroglyphics,  "Khemmi," 
and  refers  to  the  black  color  of  the 
soil.  The  special  name  in  scriptural 
geography  was  "  Mizraim,"  a  noun  in 
the  dual  number,  signifying  the  tico 
{i.  e.,  the  Upper  and  Lower)  Misi-,  the 
name  by  which  Egypt  is  still  desig- 
nated by  the  Arabs:  it  means  "red 
mud."  The  Nile  is  occasionally 
named  "  Shihor  "  (Is.  xxiii.  3 ;  Jer.  ii. 


134: 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  X 


18);  but  more  commonly  "Yeor" 
(Gen.  xli.  1 ;  Ex.  i.  22),  after  the  Cop- 
tic iaro,  "  river ;"  the  Hebrews  also 
applied  to  it  sometimes  the  term  yom, 
"sea"  (Is.  xix.  5  ;  Ez.  xxxii.  2  ;  Nah. 
iii.  8). 

n.  History.  —  Tlie  ancient  history 
of  Egypt  may  be  divided  into  three 
portions  : — the  old  monarchy,  extend- 
ing from  the  foundation  of  the  king- 
dom to  the  invasion  of  the  Hyksos  ; 
the  middle,  from  the  entrance  to  the 
expulsion  of  the  Hyksos ;  and  the 
new,  from  the  re-establishmeut  of  the 
native  monarchy  by  Amosis  to  the 
Persian  conquest. 

(1.)  The  Old  Monarchy. — Memphis 
was  the  most  ancient  capital,  the 
foundation  of  which  is  ascribed  to 
Menes,  the  first  mortal  king  of  Egypt. 
The  names  of  the  kings,  divided  into 
thirty  dynasties,  are  handed  down  in 
the  lists  of  Manetho,*  and  are  also 
known  from  the  works  which  they 
executed.  The  most  memorable  epoch 
in  the  history  of  the  Old  Monarchy 
is  tliat  of  the  pyramid  kings,  placed 
in  Manetho's  fourth  dynasty.  Their 
names  are  found  upon  these  monu- 
ments:  the  builder  of  the  great  pyra- 
mid is  called  Suphis  by  Manetho, 
Cheops  by  Herodotu>,  and  Khufu,  or 
Shii/u,  in  an  inscription  upon  the 
jiyramid.  The  erection  of  the  second 
])yramid  is  attributed  by  Herodotus 
and  Diodorus  to  Chephren  ;  and  upon 
the  neighboring  tombs  has  been  read 
the  names  o? Khafra,  or  Shafre.  The 
builder  of  the  third  pyramid  is  named 
Mycerinus  by  Herodotus  and  Diod- 
orus ;  and  in  this  very  pyramid  a 
coffin  has  been  found  bearing  the 
name  Menkura.  The  most  powerful 
kings  of  the  Old  Monarchy  were  those 


*  Manetho  was  an  i:gyptian  piiest  who 
lived  under  the  Ptolemies  in  the  third  century 
i{,c.,  and  wrote  in  Greek  a  history  of  Egypt, 
la  which  he  divided  the  kings  into  tliirty 
dynasties.  The  work  itself  is  lost,  hut  the 
lists  of  dynasties  have  been  preserved  by  tlie 
Christian  writers. 


of  Manetho's  twelfth  dynasty  :  to  this 
period  are  assigned  the  construction 
of  the  Lake  of  Moeris  and  the  Laby- 
rinth. 

(2.)  The  Middle  Monarchy.  — Oi 
this  period  we  only  know  that  a 
nomadic  horde  called  Hyksos*  for 
several  centuries  occupied  and  made 
Egypt  tributary ;  that  their  capital 
was  Memphis;  that  in  the  Sethroite 
name  they  constructed  an  immense 
earth-camp,  which  they  called  Aba- 
ris;  that  at  a  certain  period  of  their 
occupation  two  independent  kingdoms 
were  formed  in  Egypt,  one  in  the 
Thebaid,  which  held  intimate  rela- 
tions with  Ethiopia ;  another  at  Xois, 
among  the  marshes  of  the  Nile  ;  and 
that,  finally,  the  Egyptians  regained 
their  independence,  and  expelled  the 
Hyksos,  who  thereupon  retired  into 
Palestine.  The  Hyksos  form  i\\Qff~ 
teentli,  sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  dy- 
nasties. Manetho  says  they  were 
Arabs,  but  he  calls  the  six  kings  of 
the  fifteenth  dynasty  Phoenicians. 

(3.)  The  New  Monarchy  extends 
from  the  commencement  of  the  eight- 
eenth to  the  end  of  the  thirtieth  dy- 
nasty. The  kingdom  was  consolida- 
ted by  Amosis,  who  succeeded  in  ex- 
pelling the  Hyksos,  and  thus  prepared 
the  way  for  the  foreign  expeditions 
which  his  successors  carried  on  in 
Asia  and  Africa,  extending  from  Mes- 
opotamia in  the  former  to  Ethiopia 
in  the  latter  continent.  The  glorious 
era  of  Egyptian  history  was  under 
the  nineteenth  dynasty,  when  Sethi  I., 
B.C.  1322,  and  liis  grandson,  Rameses 
the  Great,  u.c.  1311,  both  of  whom 
represent  the  Sesostris  of  the  Greek 
historians,  carried  their  arms  over  the 
whole  of  Western  Asia  and  southward 
into  Soudan,  and  amassed  vast  treas- 
ures, Avhich  were  expended  on  public 
works.     Under  the  later  kings  of  the 

•  This,  their  Egyptian  name,  is  derived 
by  Manetho  from  Hyk,  a  king,  and  Sos.,  a 
rhepUerd. 


Chap.  X. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


135 


nineteenth  dynasty  the  power  of  Egypt 
faded  :  the  twentieth  and  tiventy-Jirst 
dynasties  achieved  nothing  worthy 
of  record  ;  but  with  the  twenty -second 
we  enter  upon  a  period  that  is  inter- 
esting from  its  associations  with  bib- 
lical history,  the  first  of  this  dynasty, 
Sheshonk  I.  (Seconchis)  b.c.  990,  be- 
ing the  Shishak  who  invaded  Judiea 
in  Rehoboam's  reign  and  pillaged  the 
Temple  (I  Kings  xiv.  25).  Of  this 
event  and  of  the  subsequent  history 
of  Egypt,  we  shall  have  further  occa- 
sion to  speak. 

It  was  necessary  to  give  this  sum- 
mary of  ancient  Egyptian  history  be- 
fore discussing  the  difficult  question 
of  the  period  of  the  sojourn  of  the 
Israelites  in  Egypt.  The  chronology 
of  Egypt  is  now  so  far  settled  that 
the  accession  of  the  eighteenth  dynasty 
may  be  regarded  as  fixed  to  within  a 
few  years  of  B.C.  1525.  The  era  of 
the  Exodus,  in  the  system  of  Ussher, 
is  B.C.  1491.  The  obvious  conclu- 
sion agrees  with  the  statement  of  Ma- 
netho,  that  Moses  left  Egypt  under 
Amosis,  the  first  king  of  the  eighteenth 
dynasty.  The  same  king,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  expelled  tlie  Shepherd 
Kings  ;  and  there  is,  in  fact,  no  doubt 
that  the  great  power  of  the  eighteenth 
dynasty  was  connected  with  this  ex- 
pulsion. In  this  change  of  dynasty 
many  writers  tee  a  ui.tural  exj)lana- 


I  tion  of  the  "  new  king  who  knew  not 
Joseph."  If  this  view  is  correct,  Jo- 
seph would  have  come  into  Egypt 
under  one  of  the  later  kings  of  the 
Shepherd  dynasty.  But,  plausible  as 
this  theory  is,  the  uncertainty  in  which 
scriptural  chronology  is  involved  pre- 
vents us  from  coming  to  any  definite 
conclusion.  Lepsius  and  other  em- 
inent Egyptologers  place  the  arrival 
of  the  Israelites  under  the  eighteenth 
dynasty,  and  the  Exodus  under  the 
nineteeiith,  in  the  year  131-i  B.C.  Ho 
identifies  the  chief  oppressor,  from 
whom  Moses  Hod,  with  the  great  king 
of  the  nineteenth  dynasty,  Rameses  II., 
and  the  Pharoah  of  the  Exodus  with 
his  son  and  successor  MenptaHj  or 
Phthaiimen. 

Mr.  Poole,  however,  takes  an  en- 
tirely opposite  view,  and  places  not 
only  the  arrival  of  the  Israelites  in 
Egypt,  but  also  the  Exodus,  within 
the  dynasties  of  tlie  Shepherd  kings 
{Diet,  of  the  Bible,  art.  Egypt).  It 
seems  impossible  to  come  to  any  def- 
inite conclusion  upon  the  subject.  The 
difficulty  of  a  solution  is  still  further 
increased  by  the  uncertainty  as  to  the 
length  of  the  sojourn  of  the  Israelites 
in  Egypt,  whether  it  was  215  years, 
according  to  the  Septuagint,  or  430 
years,  according  to  the  Hebrew.  This 
point  is  discussed  in  §  9  of  the  pre- 
ceding chftptcr. 


The  Egyptian  Bastinado.     See  p.  139.    (Wilkiuson.) 


BOOK  III. 

FROM  MOSES  TO  JOSHUA.  THE  EXODUS  OF  THE  CHOSEN 
NATION,  AND  THE  GIVING  OF  THE  LAW  FROM  SINAI. 
A.M.  2404-2553.     B.C.  IGOO  (cir.)-1451. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


THE  EGYPTIAN   BONDAGE   AND   THE   MISSION   OF  MOSES,  TO  THE 

EXODUS.     A.M.  2404-2513.     B.C.  1600  (cir.)-1491. 

§  1.  The  people  of  Israel  oppressed.  §  2.  The  birth  and  education  of  JMoses. 
§  3.  His  choice  to  suffer  with  his  people.  §  4.  His  flight  from  E<xypt 
and  residence  in  Midian.  §  5.  God  ai)pears  to  him  in  tlie  burning 
bush — The  mission  of  Moses  and  Aaron  to  Israel  and  Pharaoh.  §  G. 
Moses  returns  to  Egypt  and  meets  Aaron — Their  reception  by  the  peo- 
ple. §  7.  Their  first  appeal  to  Pharaoh — Increase  of  the  oppression — 
Tlie  renewal  of  Jehovah's  covenant.  §  8.  The  conflict  with"  Piiaraoh 
— The  Ten  Plagues  of  Egypt.  §  9.  Institution  of  the  Passover.  §  10. 
The  death  of  the  first-born  of  Egypt,  and  the  Exodus  of  the  Israelites. 

§1.  "NoAV  there  arose  up  a  new  ling  over  Egypt^ioldch 
kneu:)  not  Joseph.^^^  So  begins  the  story  of  the  affliction  of 
the  Israelites  in  Egypt,  and  of  that  marvellous  deliverance, 
wliich  has  given  to  the  second  book  of  the  Bible  its  Greek 
title  of  Exodus.  The  date  of  this  event  may  be  placed  about 
or  after  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  b.c,  according 
to  the  common  chronology ;  and  it  probably  signifies  a  change 
of  dynasty.  But  whether  that  change  consisted  in  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Shepherds  and  the  rise  of  the  great  Eight' 
eenth  Dynasty  of  native  kings,  is  unfortunately  most  uncer* 

-  Ex.  i.  8. 


B.C.  1600. 


The  Bondage  and  the  Exodus. 


137 


tain,'^  At  all  events,  we  see  the  new  monarch  dreading  some 
war,  in  which  the  enemy  might  be  aided  by  the  people  of 
Israel,  who  were  "  more  nmnerous  and  mightier  than  his  own 
subjects,"  and  dreading  also  their  escape  out  of  the  land.^ 
He  therefore  adopted  the  policy*  of  reducing  them  to  slav- 
ery ;  which  was  made  more  rigorous  the  more  the  people  in- 
creased. Their  hxbor  consisted  in  field-work,  and  especially 
in  makini^  bricks  and  building  the  "  treasure-cities  "  (proba- 
bly for  storing  up  corn)  Pithom  and  Raamses.'  Still  they 
multiplied  and  grew;  and  Pharaoh  adopted  a  more  cruel  and 
atrocious  course.  He  commanded  the  Hebrew  midwives  to 
kill  the  male  children  at  their  birth,  but  to  preserve  the  fe- 
males. The  midwives,  however,  "  feared  God  "  and  disobey- 
ed the  king  ;  and  they  were  rewarded  by  the  distinction  given 
to  their  lamilies  in  Israel.  Their  names  were  Shiphrah  and 
Puah.°  The  king  then  commanded  the  Egyptians  to  drown 
the  new-born  sons  of  the  Israelites  in  the  river,  but  to  save 
the  daughters."' 

§  2.  Pharaoh's  edict  of  infanticide  led,  by  the  providence  of 
God,  to  tlie  rearing  up  at  his  own  court  of  the  future  deliver- 
er of  Israel.  Amram,  the  son  of  Kohath,  son  of  Levi,  had  es- 
poused Jochebed,  Avho  was  also  of  the  tribe  of  Levi ;  and 
they  had  already  two  children,  a  daughter  called  Miriam 
(the  same  name  as  the  Mary  of  the  New  Testament),  and  a 
son  named  Aaron. ^  Another  son  was  born  soon  after  the 
king's  edict.  With  maternal  fondness,  increased  by  the 
boy's  beauty,  and  in  faith  (as  it  seems)  on  a  prophetic  inti- 

the  land  of  Kameses  "  (Gen.  xlvii. 
1 1),  wliich  was  a  part  of  the  land  of 
Goshen.  (See  p.  117.)  Pithom  is 
apparently  the  town  called  Patumus 
by  Herodotus. 

"Comp.Actsvii.  19.    ^  Ex.  i.15-21. 

^  Their  descent  from  Levi  appears 
by  the  penealogical  table  at  the  bot- 
tom of  this  page. 


2  See  p.  135. 

^  Ex.  i.  8,  9  ;  compare  Ps.  cv.  24. 

^  "  Come  on,  let  us  deal  icisely  with 
them"  (comp.  Ps.  cv.  25;  Acts  vii. 
19  ;  also  Ps.  Ixxxiii.  3,  4  ;  Prov.  xvi. 
25,  xxi.  30). 

^  These  two  cities  Averc  in  the  land 
of  Goshen.  We  read  that  Joseph 
settled  his  father  and  brethren   "in 


Levi. 


Gershon. 


itQr  =  MiRi 


Nadab- 


Abihu. 


I 
Kohath. 

Amram  =  Jochebed. 

I 


Meraii 


Aaeon  =  Elishebn. 
I 

I 


Eleazar. 

I 
Phinehas 


Ithamar. 


Moses  =  Zipporah 


Gershom.  Eliazer, 

Jonatlian. 


138  The  Choice  of  Moses.  Chap.  XI 

mation  of  his  destiny,  liis  mother  hid  him  for  three  months.' 
When  concealment  was  no  longer  possible,  Jochebed  pre* 
pared  a  covered  basket  of  papyrus  daubed  Avith  bitumen  to 
make  it  water-tight,  and  placed  it  among  the  rushes  on  the 
banks  of  the  Nile,  or  one  of  the  canals,  leaving  Miriam  to 
watch  the  result  at  a  distance.  To  that  very  spot  the  daugh- 
ter of  Pharaoh  came  down  to  bathe.  She  saw  the  ark,  and 
sent  one  of  her  maidens  to  fetch  it.  As  she  opened  it,  the 
babe  Avei)t,  and,  touched  with  pity,  she  said,  "  This  is  one  of 
the  Hebrews'  children."  At  this  moment  Miriam  came  for- 
Avard,  and  having  received  the  princess's  permission  to  find 
a  nurse,  she  went  and  fetched  the  child's  mother.  While 
she  reared  him  as  the  son  of  Pharaoh's  daughter,  she  doubt- 
less taught  him  the  knowledge  of  the  true  God  and  the  his- 
tory of  the  chosen  race.  In  all  other  respects  Moses^"  was 
brought  up  as  an  Egyptian  prince,  and  "he  was  educated^* 
in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians."^^  St.  Stephen  adds 
that  "  he  was  mighty  in  words  and  in  deeds ;"  and  what- 
ever we  may  think  of  tlie  traditions  about  this  period  of  his 
life,^^  it  was  certainly  a  part  of  his  training  for  his  great 
mission. 

§  3.  The  narrative  in  Exodus  passes  over  this  period,  to 
the  crisis  at  which  he  decided  to  cast  in  his  lot  with  his  own 
peoj^le,  when  "  by  faith  he  refused  to  be  called  (renounced 
the  rank  of)  the  son  of  Pharaoh's  daughter  ;  choosing  rather 
oppression  with  the  people  of  God  tlian  the  fleeting  enjoy- 
ment cf  sin,  deeming  the  reproach  of  Christ  greater  wealth 
than  the  treasures  of  Egypt,  for  he  regarded  the  recom- 
pense ;'"* — a  most  striking  passage,  which  not  only  implies  a 
deliberate  choice^  but  the  hope  of  Messiah's  coming  and  the 
exjDectation  of  rewards  and  punishments.  So  St.  Stephen 
says  that  it  came  into  his  heart  to  visit  his  brethren  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel,  and  that  he  supposed  his  brethren  would  have 
understood  how  that  God  by  his  hand  would  deliver  them.'^ 


«Ex.ii.  1,2;  comp.  Heb.  xi.  23. 

'"  The  name  applies  to  the  foiind- 
linpf  of  the  water's  side — whether  ac- 
cording to  its  Hebrew  or  Egyptian 
form.  Its  Hebrew  form  is  Mosheh, 
from  Mdshdh,  "to  draw  out" — "be- 
cause I  bave  drawn  liim   out  of  the 


"  In  our  version  the  word  "learn, 
ed "  means  this.  It  is  tlie  particle 
of  the  old  transitive  verb,  thoufih 
modern  readers  take  it  in  the  mod- 


ern sense. 

'^  Acts  vii.  22. 


These  traditions  represent  him  as 


water."  But  this  (as  in  many  other  educated  at  Heliopolis  as  a  priest, 
instances,  Bahel,  etc.)  is  probably  the  and  taught  the  whole  range  of  Egyp- 
Hebrew  form  given  to  a  foreign  word.  I  tian,  Chaldee,  Assyrian,  and  Greek 
In   Coptic,    vio  =  water,  and  nshe  —   literature.  "  Heb.  xi.  26. 

saved.  '     ''  Acts  vii.  23-25. 


B.C.  1531.  Tlie  Bondage  and  the  Exodus.  139 

These  passages  bring  out  the  full  meaning  of  his  own  simpler 
statement  that  "  he  went  out  unto  his  brethren,  and  looked 
on  their  burdens.'"" 

The  time  of  this  event  was  "  when  Moses  was  grown,"  or 
"  wiien  he  was  come  to  years,'"^  or,  as  St.  Stephen  states, 
"  when  he  W' as  full  forty  years  old.'"^  This  date  is  confirmed 
by  the  whole  narrative  in  the  Pentateuch,  Avhicli  divides  the 
life  of  Moses  into  three  equal  periods  of  40  years  each.  We 
may  say  that  for  his  first  forty  years  he  w\hs  an  Egyptian ; 
for  the  second  forty  an  Arabian  ;  and  for  the  third  forty  the 
leader  of  Israel. 

Moses  then  went  forth  to  view  the  state  of  his  brethren. 
The  first  sight  he  saw  was  one  so  common  that  our  eyes  can 
see  it  on  the  monuments  of  Egypt  at  this  very  day  ;  —  an 
Egyptian  overseer  beating  one  of  the  slaves  who  worked  un- 
der him.  But  the  sight  w\as  new  to  Moses,  and,  stung  with 
indignation,  after  looking  round  to  see  that  no  one  was  near, 
he  killed  the  Egyptian  on  the  spot,  and  buried  his  body  in 
the  sand.  His  hope  that  this  deed  might  prove  a  token  of 
the  coming  deliverance  w^as  soon  checked.  On  his  next  visit 
lie  found  that  the  oppressed  could  oppress  each  other,  and 
his  interference  was  scornfully  rejected  by  the  wrong-doer, 
with  a  dangerous  allusion  to  his  having  killed  the  Egyptian.'^ 
The  expression — "  Who  made  thee  a  prince  and  a  judge  over 
us  ?" — seems  to  imply  a  w^illful  rejection  of  his  mission ;  at  all 
events,  it  was  a  token  of  that  spirit  of  which  he  had  long  aft- 
er such  terrible  experience  in  the  wilderness."" 

§  4.  The  story  reached  the  ears  of  Pharaoh,  and  the  life  of 
Moses  was  threatened  ;  not  for  the  first  time,  if  we  may  be- 
lieve tradition.  He  fled  into  the  desert  which  surrounds  the 
head  of  the  Red  Sea,  and  wdiich  was  inhabited  by  the  people 
of  Midian,  who  were  descended  from  Abraham  and  Keturah.^' 
As  he  sat  down  beside  a  well  (or  rather,  the  well,  for  it  was 
one  famous  enough  to  be  so  distinguished),  the  seven  daugh- 
ters of  Jethro  (elsewhere  called "Reuel  and  Hobab),  the 
chief  sheykh"  of  the  Midianites,  came  to  Avater  their  flocks, 
probably  at  the  regular  noontide  gathering  of  the  sheep. 


^^  Ex.  ii.  1 1 .  i  principally  in  the  dcsei^t^north  of  the 

^^  Heb.  xi.  24  ;  iieya^  may  possibly 
me.an  a  (jreat  man. 
'"  Acts  vii.  23. 
"  Ex.ii.  11-14;  Acts  vii.  24-28. 


Peninsula  of  Arabia.     The  portion  of 
the  land  of  Midian,  where  Moses  took 
up  his  abode,  was  probably  the  Pcnin- 
__  _-        sula  of  Sinai. 
Comp.  Acts  vii.  35,  foil.  ''  The  offices  of  prince  and  p7-^eft 

^^  See  Gen.  xxv.  2;   1  Chr.  i.  32.    are  both  included  in  the  title  used  in 
Tiie  Midianites  were  Arabs  dwelling  I  the  original. 


140  Moses  at  Mount  Sinai.  Chap.  XI. 

They  ^vere  rudely  repulsed  by  the  shepherds,  but  Moses 
helped  them  and  watered  theh*  flock.  Their  father  welcomed 
the  "  Egyptian  ;"  and  Moses  dwelt  with  him  for  forty  years, 
like  Jacob  with  Laban,  feeding  his  flocks,  and  married  his 
daughter  Zipporah."  She  bore  him  a  son  whom  he  named 
Gershom  {a  stranger  here)^  in  memory  of  his  sojourn  in  a 
strange  land;  but  whose  circumcision  was  neglected  till  en- 
forced by  a  divine  threat  on  his  way  back  to  Egypt.^*  We 
read  afterward  of  a  second  son,  named  Eliezer  {my  God  is  a 
Ae//?),  in  memory  of  his  father's  deliverance  from  Pharaoh. ^^ 

§  5.  Moses  had  been  forty  years  in  Midian,^"  musing  amid 
the  seclusion  of  his  shepherd  life  over  the  past  history  of  his 
joeople  and  his  own  destiny,  when  God's  time  arrived  for  the 
crowning  revelation  of  all,  and  for  the  deliverance  of  his 
people.  The  return  of  Moses  to  Egypt  during  the  lifetime  of 
tlie  king  from  Avhom  he  had  fled  would  have  been  certain 
death.  But  that  king  died.  The  oppression  of  the  Israelites 
under  his  successor  seems  to  have  been  even  more  severe, 
"  and  they  cried,  and  their  cry  came  up  to  God  by  reason  of 
their  bondage.  And  God  heard  their  groaning,  and  God  re- 
nienibered  his  covenant  with  Abraham,  with  Isaac,  and  with 
Jacob.  And  God  looked  upon  the  children  of  Israel,  and  God 
knew  them."" 

The  scene  chosen  for  the  revelation  to  Moses  of  his  divine 
mission  was  the  same  amid  which  the  Israelites,  led  out  by 
him  from  Egypt,  were  to  see  God's  presence  again  revealed, 
and  to  receive  the  law  from  His  own  voice.  Unchanged  in 
its  awful  solitary  grandeur  from  that  day  to  this,  it  is  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  spots  on  the  surface  of  the  earth.  The 
Peninsula  of  Sinai  is  the  promontory  enclosed  between  the 
two  arms  of  the  Red  Sea,  and  culminating  at  its  southern 
part  in  the  terrific  mass  of  granite  rocks  known  by  the  gen- 
eral name  of  Sinai. ^^  This  desert  region  bordered  on  the 
country  of  Jethro.  It  still  furnishes  a  scanty  pasturage,  and 
its  valleys  were  probably  at  that  time  better  Avatered  than 
now.  As  Moses  led  his  flock  to  its  inmost  recesses  (on  its 
west  side)  he  came  to  a  mountain,  which  was  even  then  call- 
ed the  "  mount  of  God,"  from  its  sanctity  among  the  Arabs, 

^^  Ex.  ii.  15-21,  iii.  1.  [The  different  dates  assigned  by  the 

"  Ex.  ii,  22,  iv.  25.  |  other  chief  autliorities  are  tlic  fullow- 

"  Ex.  xviii.  3,  4;    cotnp.  Acts  vii.   ing  : — Hale?,    B.C.    1G48;    Jackson, 

29.  jB.c.  1593;  Petavius,  B.C.  1531  ;  Bun- 

^*  Acts  vii.  30.      The  year  of  the  i  sen,  B.C.  1320;  the  Rabbinica/,  follow- 

call  of  Moses  and  of  the  Exodus,  ac-  ed  by  Lcpsius,  etc..  B.C.  1314.     Seo 

cording  to  the   received  chronology  p.  40.  ^'  Ex.  ii.  23-25. 

of  Archbishop  Usshcr,  is   B.C.  1491.  |      ^^  See  Notes  and  lUustmtlons. 


B.C.  U91.  The  Bondage  and  the  Exodus.  141 

"  even  HorebP  He  saw  one  of  the  dwarf  acacias  {seneh), 
the  characteristic  vegetation  of  the  desert,'"  wrapt  in  a  flame 
beneath  which  the  dry  branches  would  soon  have  crackled 
and  consumed,  had  it  been  a  natural  fire ;  but  "  behold  the 
bush  burned  with  fire,  and  the  bush  was  not  consumed."  It 
was  the  fit  symbol  of  God's  afilicted  people  in  Egypt,  and  of 
His  suffering  church  in  every  age,  one  branch  of  which  in- 
deed has  assumed  the  emblem,  with  the  motto  "  Nee  tamen 
consumebatur." 

As  Moses  turned  aside  to  behold  the  marvel,  the  "  angel 
Jehovah  "  called  to  him  out  of  the  bush,  and,  after  command- 
ing him  to  remove  his  shoes,  for  the  ground  Avas  holy,  he  an- 
nounced himself  as  the  God  of  his  fathers,  Abraham,  Isaac, 
and  Jacob  ;  declared  that  He  had  seen  the  afliiction  of  his 
people  in  Egypt,  and  was  come  down  to  deliver  them,  and 
to  lead  them  into  the  promised  land  ;  and  called  Moses  to  be 
his  messenger  to  Pharaoh,  and  the  leader  of  his  people.  Mo- 
ses pleaded  his  unAvorthiness,  but  was  assured  of  God's  pres- 
ence till  his  mission  should  be  fulfilled  by  bringing  the  peo- 
ple to  worship  in  that  mountain.  Then  another  difficulty 
arose.  So  corru23ted  were  the  people  by  the  idolatry  of 
Egypt,  that  they  would  not  know  what  deity  was  meant  by 
"  the  God  of  their  fathers."  They  would  ask,  "  What  is  his 
name  ?"  Besides  the  common  name  expressive  of  their  divin- 
ity, the  gods  of  the  heathen  had  proper  names,  Amun,  Baal, 
and  the  like :  and,  that  He  might  be  distinguished  from  all 
these,  God  revealed  to  Moses  the  name  by  which  the  God  of 
the  Hebrews  has  ever  since  been  known,  Jehovah,  the  self- 
existent  and  eternally  the  same  : — He  that  is,  and  was,  and 
ever  icill  he  what  he  is.  "I  am  that  I  am  !  —  What  that  is, 
I  have  written  on  the  consciousness  of  man  f  I  have  reveal- 
ed it  by  word  and  act  to  your  fathers  ;  and  I  ever  will  be  to 

^^  This  is  a  striking  proof  of  the  sa-  \a7id  Palestine,  p.  79.)  Keble  has 
crcd  writer's  personal  knowledge  of  drawn  the  poetical  asj)ect  of  the  vision 
the  scene.  A  Jew,  ignorant  of  the  I  of  Moses 
desert,  would  have  chosen  the  palm. 
Dean  Stanley  says  of  .Tehel-ed-Deir, 
one  of  the  summits  of  the  Sinaitic 
group: — "On  the  highest  level  was 
a  small  natural  basin,  thickly  covered 
with  shrubs  of  myrrh — of  all  the  spots 
of  the  kind  that  I  saw  the  best  suited 
for  the  feeding  of  Jethro's  flocks  in 

the  seclusion  of  the  mountain 

This  is  the  only  spot  that  commands 
the  view  both  of  the  Wadij  Sehahjeh 
and  of  the  Wady-er-Rahah.''    (Sinai 


'Far  seen  across  the  sandy  wild, 
Wliile,  like  a  solitary  child, 

He  thoughtless  ronmed  and  free, 
One  towering  thorn  was  wrapt  in  flame: 
Bright  without  blaze  it  went  and  came: 

Wlio  would  not  turn  and  see? 

■'Along  the  mountain-ledges  green 
Tile  scattered  sheep  at  will  may  glean 

Tlie  desert's  spicy  stores: 
The  while,  with  undivided  lieart, 
The  shepherd  talks  wiih  God  apart, 
And,  as  he  talks,  adores." 
Chnstian  Year:  Fifth  Sunday  in  Lent 

^^  Rom.  i.  19. 


142  Moses  at  Mount  Sinai.  Chap.  XI 

my  people  what  I  was  to  them  ;"  for  He  repeats  this  charac- 
ter once  more,  and  adds,  "  This  is  my  name  forever,  and  this 
is  my  memorial  nnto  all  generations."^^ 

God  then  unfolded  his  i>lan  of  deliverance.  He  bade  Mo- 
ses repeat  to  the  elders  of  Israel  the  revelation  he  had  now 
received.  He  assured  him  that  they  would  believe,  and  bade 
him  go  with  them  and  demand  of  Pharaoh,  in  the  name  of 
God,  leave  to  go  three  days'  journey  into  the  wilderness  to 
sacrifice  to  Jehovah.^^  He  warned  him  of  Pharaoh's  refusal, 
and  announced  the  signs  and  wonders  He  Avould  work  to 
make  him  yield,  and  ended  by  commanding  the  people  to 
spoil  the  Egyptians  of  their  jewels. 

To  these  assurances  God  added  tico  signs,  to  remoA^e  the 
doubts  of  Moses  about  his  reception  by  the  i:»eople.  Each  of 
them  had  its  significance.  The  hand,  made  leprous  and 
again  cured,  indicated  the  power  by  which  he  should  deliver 
the  people  whom  the  Egyptians  regarded  as  lepers.  The 
shepherd's  staif,  first  transformed  into  a  serpent,  the  Egyp- 
tian symbol  for  the  evil  spirit  (Typhon),  and  then  restored 
to  its  former  shape,  became  the  "  rod  of  Moses  "  and  "  of  God," 
the  sceptre  of  his  rule  as  the  shepherd  of  his  people,  and  the 
instrument  of  the  miracles  which  Jielped  and  guided  them, 
and  which  confounded  and  destroyed  their  enemies.  "  The 
humble  yet  wonder-working  crook  is,  in  the  history  of  Mo- 
ses, what  the  despised  cross  is  in  the  first  history  of  Christian- 
ity."" To  these  signs,  which  were  exhibited  on  the  spot, 
was  added  a  third,  the  j^ower  to  turn  the  water  of  the  Nile 
to  blood. 

But  the  more  his  mission  is  made  clear  to  him,  the  more  is 
Moses  staggered  by  its  greatness.  He  pleads  his  want  of 
eloquence,  which  seems  to  have  amounted  to  an  impediment 
in  his  speech,^*  a  sorry  qualification  for  an  embassador  to  a 
hostile  king.  Notwithstanding  the  promise  that  He  who 
made  man's  moiUh  and  has  the  command  of  all  the  senses 
would  be  with  him  and  teach  him  what  he  should  say,  he  de- 
sires to  devolve  the  whole  mission  on  some  other.  Then  did 
God  in  anger  punish  his  reluctance,  though  in  mercy  he  met 
his  objections,  by  giving  a  share  of  the  honor,  Avhich  might 
have  been  his  alone,  to  liis  brother  Aaron,  a  man  who  could 
speak  well.     But  yet  the  word  was  not  to  be  Aaron's  own^ 


3^  Ex.  iii.  11-15.  See  Notes  and  Il- 
lustrations to  Chap.  I.  Ox  THE  Names 
OF  God,  p.  23. 

^-  This  is  also  another  proof  of  the 


3^  Ex.  ir.  10. 


known  sanctity  of    "the    Mount   of 
God." 

^^  Ewald,  quoted  by  Dcnn  Stanlej', 
Diet,  of  the  JBible,  art.  ]\foses. 


B.C.  1491, 


Moses  returns  to  Egypt. 


143 


He  was  to  be  the  mouth  of  Moses  ;  and  Moses  was  to  be  to 
him  as  God,  the  direct  channel  of  the  divine  revelation.  The 
rod  of  power  became  "  Aaron's  rod,"  though  the  power  itself 
was  put  forth  by  the  w^ord  of  Moses.  The  two  great  func- 
tions conferred  by  the  divine  mission  were  divided  :  Moses 
became  the  prophet.,  and  Aaron  the  priest;  and  the  whole  ar- 
rangement exhibits  the  great  principle  of  mediation.^^ 

§  6.  Moses  obtained  his  father-in-law's  permission  to  return 
to  his  brethren  in  Egypt ;  and  he  received  the  signal  of  God 
for  his  departure,  in  the  assurance  that  "  the  men  Avere  dead 
that  sought  his  life."^^  His  mission  to  Pharaoh  was  sum- 
med up  in  the  statement : — that  God  claimed  the  liberty  of 
Israel  as  his  first-born  son  ;  and  if  Pharaoh  refused  to  let  him 
go.  He  would  slay  his  first-born.  To  this  last  infliction  all 
the  plagues  of  Egypt  were  but  preludes.  After  the  scene  at 
the  inn,  already  referred  to,  in  which  his  family,  hitherto  re- 
garded as  Arabian,  received  the  seal  of  the  covenant,  Moses 
was  met  by  Aaron,  as  God  had  foretold  to  him,  on  the  very 
spot  where  he  had  received  the  revelation,"  which  he  re- 
hearsed to  his  brother,  with  its  attendant  miracles,  in  the 
mount  of  God.  On  reaching  Egypt  they  assembled  the 
elders  of  Israel,  "  And  Aaron  sj^ake  all  the  words  which  Je- 
hovah had  spoken  to  Moses,  and  did  the  signs  in  the  sight 
of  all  the  people.  And  the  people  believed  :  and  when  they 
heard  that  Jehovah  had  visited  the  children  of  Israel,  and 
that  He  had  looked  upon  their  affliction,  then  they  bowed 
their  heads  and  worshiped."^*  We  shall  soon  see  that  they 
were  far  from  being  finally  weaned  from  the  false  religion  of 
Egypt. 

§  V.  Moses  and  Aaron  next  sought  the  presence  of  Pharaoh 
to  demand  leave,  in  the  name  of  Jehovah,  the  God  of  Israel, 
for  His  people  to  hold  a  feast  to  Him  in  the  wilderness.  This 
w^as  the  extent  of  the  first  demand ;  as  it  had  been  the  extent 
of  what  God  had  enjoined  on  Moses  : — "  ye  shall  serve  God 
in  this  mountain."  It  was  to  be  a  solemn  festival,  shared  in 
by  all  the  people,  who,  as  a  nomad  race,  w^ould  of  course 
travel  with  their  flocks  andherds.^^  When  they  reached  the 
sacred  mount,  they  would  be  at  the  disposal  of  their  God 
and  father,  to  lead  them  back  or  forward  as  He  pleased ;  and 
he  claimed  of  Pharaoh  tliat  they  should  be  placed  at  his  dis- 


='"Ex.  iii.  16-iv.  17. 

^'^  Comp.  Matt.  ii.  20. 

^^  The  route  of  Moses  seems  to  liave 
been  from  Midian,  near  the  licacl  of 
the  Gulf  of  Akfiha,  through  the  Sinai 


mountains,  instead  of  directly  across 
the  peninsula,  with  an  express  view 
to  this  meeting. 

^«Ex.  iv.  18-31. 

2«  Comp.  ch.  X.  9. 


144  The  Bondarje  and  ike  Exodus.  Chap.  XT. 

posal,"  without  telling  him  of  their  farther  destination,  which 
had  been  long  since  revealed  to  Abraham,  and  lately  made 
known  to  Moses/' 

Refusing  alike  to  acknowledge  Jehovah  as  a  god,  and  to 
let  the  people  go,  Pharaoh  hounded  back  Moses  and  Aaron 
to  their  burdens.  We  may  suppose  that,  though  Moses's 
personal  enemies  at  the  court  were  dead,  he  Avas  still  suf- 
ficiently well  known  there  for  pleasure  to  be  taken  in  his  hu- 
miliation. Their  i-epulse  was  followed  by  an  increase  of  the 
people's  oppression.  The  Egyptian  taskmasters,  whose  office 
it  w^as  to  regulate  the  amount  of  work,  were  bidden  no  lon- 
ger to  give  them  the  chopped  straw  wdiich  w^^s  necessary  to 
bind  the  friable  earth  into  bricks.  The  people  lost  their 
time  in  searching  the  fields  for  stubble  to  supply  its  place. 
But  still  the  full  tale  of  bricks  was  exacted  from  them ;  and 
when  they  could  no  longer  supply  it,  the  Hebrew  overseers, 
who  were  under  the  Egyptian  taskmasters,  were  bastinadoed. 
Their  appeal  to  Pharaoh  being  rejected  in  the  true  spirit  of 
unreasoning  tyranny,  they  turned  ujion  Moses  and  Aaron, 
whom  they  accused  of  making  them  odious  to  Pharaoh." 

In  this  strait  Moses  complained  to  God,  that  his  mission 
had  increased  the  people's  misery,  and  yet  they  w^ere  not  de- 
livered: and  God  assured  him  that  His  time  was  at  hand. 
With  a  plainer  revelation  of  his  great  name,  Jehovah  re- 
newed his  ancient  covenant,  to  bring  them  into  the  promised 
land."  Though  the  people  were  too  heart-broken  to  accept 
the  consolation,  Jehovah  gave  Moses  and  Aaron  (whose  de- 
scent from  Levi  is  now  formally  set  forth)  their  final  charge 
to  Pharaoh  ;  once  more  warning  them  of  the  king's  resistance, 
which  should  only  give  occasion  for  more  signal  proofs  of 
God's  power,  that  the  Egyptians  might  know  Jehovah.''^ 

g  8.  Then  began  that  memorable  contest,  the  type  of  all 
others  between  the  power  of  God  and  the  hardened  heart  of 
man,  which  was  only  stilled  in  the  waters  of  the  Red  Sea.*^ 

''°  See  Ex.  iv.  22,  2.'>.  |  those  details  wliich  nntiqnnrian  curi- 

*' Ex.  V.  1-3.  ■*- Ex.  V.  4-21.      i  osity  has    never   since    succeeded    in 

^^  Ex.  vi.  1-8.  !  solving.     The  sovereign's  own  name 

^^  Ex.  vi.  9,  vii.  5.     Moses  was  now  ,  is  not    given:    it  is   simply  Pharaoh 

eighty  years  old,  and  Aaron  eighty- !  (the  self-styled  cliildofP/»r/,  the  *S'«?«), 

three  (vii.  7).  who  resists  the  self-existent  Jehovah. 

"  It  would  almost  seem  as  if  it  were  I  We  are  not  told  wliether  he  was  a 

the  design  of  the  sacred  narrative  to  '<  Theban  or  a  Memphiteking  ;  but  thus 

confine  our  attention  to  the  moral  and   mucii  is  clear  from  the  whole  narra- 

religious  aspect  of  this  great  conflict  tive — that  the  scene  of  the  contest  was 

of  tlie  King  of  Egypt  with  the  King  in  Lower  Egypt.      The  hasty  infer- 

of  kings,  by    its    silence    respecting  encc,  that  it  was  near  ^Memphis,  the 


B.C.  1491.  The  Conflict  with  Pharoah.  145 

Moses  and  Aaron  resorted  to  the  miracles  provided  for  them 
by  God.  That  of  the  leprous  hand  v»  as  omitted,  having  been 
only  for  the  Israelites ;  but  Aaron's  rod  was  changed  into  a 
serpent.  The  miracle  was  imitated  by  the  magicians  of 
Egypt,  headed  by  Jannes  and  Jambres^  whose  names  are  pre- 
served by  the  learned  disciple  of  Gamaliel."  We  say  imita- 
ted^ to  express  at  once  the  conviction,  that  their  apparent 
success  was  an  imposture.  There  is  no  certain  evidence, 
either  in  the  principles  of  philosophy  or  in  the  experience  of 
facts,  for  the  exercise  of  supernatural  power  by  the  aid  of  evil 
spirits.  Scripture  not  only  does  not  sanction  such  an  opinion, 
but  forbids  its  beliex*.  It  regards  magicians  with  abhorrence ; 
brands  their  miracles  as  "/y^V^^  wonders;"  and  makes  the 
teaching  of  false  doctrine  a  test  of  the  false  pretense  of  su- 
pernatural power.  And,  when  we  pass  from  principles  to 
facts,  there  is  not  a  well-authenticated  case  of  an  apparent 
miracle,  wrought  by  others  than  the  Scripture  witnesses  for 
God,  we  do  not  say  which  can  not  be  exposed  (for  many 
a  known  deception  escapes  detection  as  to  its  mode),  but 
there  is  not  one  which  excludes  the  possibility  of  imposture 
and  leaves  no  room  for  doubt.  The  common  error  is  to  at- 
tempt to  explain  every  thing,  instead  of  first  testing  the  evi- 
dence as  a  whole,  and  rejecting  it  as  a  whole  when  it  breaks 
down  on  critical  points.  In  the  case  of  the  Egyptian  magi- 
cians, we  may  not  be  able  to  explain  all  their  imitations  (though 
very  probable  explanations  have  been  suggested),  but  we 
have  a  perfectly  satisfactory  test  of  their  imposture  in  the 
limit  at  which  their  power  ceased.  Their  own  exclamation, 
"  this  is  the  finger  of  God,"''^  involves  the  confession  that  they 
had  been  aided  by  no  divine  power,  not  even  by  their  own 
supposed  deities. 

We  do  not  read  of  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  Moses  to 
expose  their  imposture.  In  the  first  miracle,  he  was  content 
with  the  superior  power  shown  by  Aaron's  serpent  devouring 
theirs ;  and  the  rest  he  answered  by  still  greater  miracles, 
till  he  came  to  one  which  they  could  not  imitate,  and  then 


ordinary  residence  of  the  kings  of 
Lower  Egypt,  is  inconsistent  with  the 
evident  presence  of  the  great  mass  of 
the  Israelites,  who  were  certainly  still 
resident  in  Goshen  (Ex.  viii.  22,  x. 
23).  If  we  may  take  the  passage  in 
Psalm    Ixxviii.   43,    literally  —  "His 


Delta  (the  7a?2i.s  of  the  Greek  writers), 
which  was  on  the  borders  of  Goshen. 
Zoan  or  Tanis  was  not  only  a  capital 
of  the  Shepherd  kings,  who  are  iden- 
tified by  one  school  of  Egyptologers 
with  the  Pharaohs  of  Genesis  and  Ex- 
odtis :   but   there   are  also  works  <f 


wonders  in  the  field  of  Zoan" — the  Kamescs  tiic  Great  among  its  build- 
locality  is  expressly  defined  to    the  ings — at  least,  his  name  appears  npon 
neic^hborhood  of  that  great  city  of  the  them.    ^^  2  Tim.  iii.  8.    *''  Ex.  viii.  li>. 
G 


146  The  Bondage  and  tJie  Exodus.  Chap.  XL 

their  confession  left  no  need  for  refutation.  The  same  argu- 
ment may  suffice  for  us  ;  but  some  minds  will  still  ask  for 
explanation.  The  power  shown  by  serpent-charmers  makes  it 
easy  to  suppose  that  the  magicians  were  provided  with  ser- 
pents stiffened  into  the  appearance  of  wands  at  the  safe  dis- 
tance kept  round  the  king's  throne.  To  give  water,  or  a 
fluid  looking  like  it,  the  appearance  of  blood,  is  one  of  the 
easiest  experiments  of  chemistry  ;  and,  after  the  real  miracle 
had  been  performed  on  the  river  and  all  its  branches,  the 
imitation  must  necessarily  have  been  on  a  small  scale.  To 
seem  to  produce  frogs  is  a  common  conjurors  trick,  present- 
ing little  difficulty  when  the  land  already  swarmed  with  them ; 
and  we  do  not  read  that  the  magicians  showed  the  power  of 
removing  them  or  any  of  the  other  plagues,  which  would 
liave  been  a  decisive  triumph  over  the  prophet  who  called 
for  and  the  God  who  sent  them.  In  short,  our  wonder  is 
more  excited  by  their  imitations  ceasing  when  they  did,  than 
by  their  appearance  of  success  in  these  three  cases. 

The  first  miracle,  that  of  the  rod,  was  a  display  of  God's 
power  given  to  his  prophet,  for  the  conviction  of  Pharaoh 
and  the  Egyptians  ;  but  when  their  hearts  were  hardened 
against  conviction,  it  became  needful  to  teach  them  by  suf- 
fering. The  miracles  that  followed  were  judgments^  on  the 
king,  the  people,  and  their  gods,  forming  the  Tex  Plagues 
OF  Egypt."® 

i.  The  Plague  of  Blood.  —  After  a  warning  to  Pharaoh, 
Aaron,  at  the  word  of  Moses,  waved  his  rod  over  the  Xile, 
and  the  river  was  turned  into  blood,  with  all  its  canals  and 
reservoirs,  and  every  vessel  of  water  drawn  from  them;  the 
fish  died,  and  the  river  stank.  The  pride  of  the  Egyptians 
in  their  river  for  its  wholesome  water  is  well  known,  and  it 
was  the  source  of  all  fertility.  But  besides  this,  it  was  honor- 
ed as  a  god,  and  so  were  some  species  of  its  fish  (as  the 
oxyrhynckus)  ;  and  to  smite  "  the  sacred  salubrious  Nile," 
was  to  smite  Egyj^t  at  its  heart.  There  was,  however,  mer- 
cy mingled  with  the  judgment,  for  the  ICgyptians  obtained 
water  by  digging  wells.  Tlie  miracle  lasted  for  seven  days  ; 
but,  as  it  was  imitated  by  the  magicians,  it  produced  no  im- 
pression on  Pharaoh.*^ 

ii.  TJie  Plague  of  Frogs. — These  creatures  are  always  so 
numerous  in  Egypt  as  to  be  annoying  ;  but,  at  the  appointed 
signal,  they  came  up  from  their  natural  haunts,  and  swarmed 
in  countless  li  umbers,  "  even  in  the  chambers  of  their  kings,""" 

***  Ex.  vii.  foil.;  comp.  Ps.  Ixxviii.  cv.        "^  Ex.  vii.  16^25.         »°  Ps.  cv.  30. 


B.C.  1491.  The  Plagues  of  Egypt  147 

and  defiled  the  very  ovens  and  kneading-troughs.  Here  too 
it  was  an  object  of  their  reverence  that  was  made  their 
scourge,  for  the  frog  was  one  of  the  sacred  animals."  From 
this  plague  there  was  no  escape ;  and  though  the  magicians 
imitated  it,  Pharaoh  was  fain  to  seek  relief  through  the  prayer 
of  Moses,  and  by  promising  to  let  the  people  go.  "  Glory 
over  me,"  said  Moses :  he  waived  all  personal  honor  that 
the  contest  might  bring  him,  and  allowed  Pharaoh  to  fix  the 
time  for  the  removal  of  the  plague.  The  king  named  the 
morrow ;  and  then,  by  the  prayer  of  Moses,  the  frogs  died 
where  they  were,  a  far  more  striking  confirmation  of  the 
miracle  than  if  they  had  retired  to  their  haunts.  Pharaoh 
abused  the  respite,  and  even  while  his  land  stank  with  the 
carcasses  of  the  frogs,  he  refused  to  keep  his  promise.  ^^ 

iii.  The  Plague  of  Lice. —  From  the  waters  and  marshes, 
the  power  of  God  passed  on  to  the  dry  land,  Avhich  was  smit- 
ten by  the  rod,  and  its  very  dust  seemed  turned  into  minute 
noxious  insects,  so  thickly  did  they  swarm  on  man  and 
beast,  or  rather  "^?^"  them.^^  The  scruj^ulous  cleanliness  of 
the  Egyptians^*  would  add  intolerably  to  the  bodily  distress 
of  this  plague,  by  which  also  they  again  incurred  religious 
defilement.  As  to  the  species  of  the  vermin  there  seems  no 
reason  to  disturb  the  authorized  translation  of  the  word. 

In  this  case  Ave  read  that  "  the  magicians  did  so  with  their 
enchantments,  to  bring  forth  lice,  but  they  coidd  not.''''  They 
struck  the  ground,  as  Aaron  did,  and  repeated  their  own  in- 
cantations, but  it  was  without  eftect.  They  confessed  the 
hand  of  God  ;  but  Pharaoh  was  still  hardened.^" 

iv.  The  Plague  of  Flies  or  Beetles.  —  After  the  river  and 
the  land,  the  air  was  smitten,  behig  filled  with  winged  insects, 
which  swarmed  in  the  houses  and  dcA'oured  the  land,  but 
Goshen  was  exempted  from  the  plague.  The  word  transla- 
ted "  swarms  of  flies  "  most  probably  denotes  the  great  Egyp- 
tian beetle  (Scarabwus  sacer),  which  is  constantly  represented 
in  their  sculptures."^  Besides  the  annoying  and  destructive^ 
habits  of  its  tribe,  it  was  an  object  of  worship,  and  thus  the 
Egyptians  were  again  scourged  by  their  own  superstitions. 

Pharaoh  now  gave  permission  for  the  Israelites  to  sacri- 
fice to  their  God  in  the  land ;  but  Moses  replied  that  the 


^^  The  only  mention  of  this  reptile 
in  the  N.  T.  seems  to  be  c«.  nnected  with 
a  symbolic  meaning  (Rev.  xvi,  13). 

^■^Ex.viii.  1-15.       ^^Ex.  viii.  17. 
The  pi-iests  used  to  shave  thei 


fear  of  harboring  lice  when  they  en- 
tered the  temples  (Herod,  ii.  37; 
comp.  Gen.  xli.  14). 

"  Ex.  viii.  16-19. 

*^  There  is  a  colossal  granite  scara- 


hends  and  bodies  every  third  day,  for  bteus  in  the  British  Museum. 


148  The  Bondage  and  the  Exodus.  Chap.  XI. 

Egyptians  would  stone  them  if  they  sacrificed  the  creatures 
they  worshiped,"  a  striking  example,  thus  early,  of  the  ten- 
dency to  religious  riots  which  has  inarked  all  the  successive 
populations  of  Egypt.  He  repeated  the  demand  to  go  three 
days'  journey  into  the  w^ilderness,  there  to  place  themselves 
at  God's  disposal.  Pharaoh  now  yielded ;  but  as  soon  as 
the  plague  Avas  removed  at  the  prayer  of  Moses,  he  "  harden- 
ed his  heart  at  this  time  also,  neither  would  he  let  the  peo- 
ple go."^^ 

V.  Plague  of  the  Murrain  of  Beasts.  —  Still  coming  closer 
and  closer  to  tlie  Egyptians,  God  sent  a  disease  upon  the 
cattle,  Avhich  were  not  only  their  property,  but  their  deities. 
At  the  precise  time  of  Avhich  Moses  forewarned  Pharaoh,  all 
the  cattle  of  the  Egyptians  Avere  smitten  Avith  a  murrain 
and  died,  but  not  one  of  the  cattle  of  the  Israelites  suffered. 
Still  the  heart  of  Pharaoh  Avas  hardened,  and  he  did  not  let 
the  people  go.^^ 

vi.  The  Plague  of  Boils  and  Blains.  —  From  the  cattle,  the 
hand  of  God  Avas  extended  to  their  oAvn  persons.  Moses 
and  Aaron  Avere  commanded  to  take  ashes  of  the  fumace, 
and  to  "  sprinkle  it  tOAvard  the  heaven  in  the  sight  of  Pha- 
raoh." It  Avas  to  become  "small  dust"  throughout  Egypt, 
and  "  be  a  boil  breaking  forth  [Avith]  blains  upon  man,  and 
upon  beast."  This  accordingly  came  to  pass.  The  plague 
seems  to  have  been  the  black  leprosy,  a  fearful  kind  of  ele- 
phantiasis,. Avhich  Avas  long  remembered  as  "  the  blotch  of 
Egypt. "^^  This  also  Avas  a  terrible  infliction  on  their  relig- 
ious purity,  and  its  severity  prevented  the  magicians  from 
appearing  in  the  presence  of  Moses.  Still  Pharaoh's  heart 
Avas  hardened,  as  Jehovah  had  said  to  Moses. '^^ 

vii.  The  Plague  of  HaiV^ — The  first  six  plagues  had  been 
attended  Avith  much  suffering  and  humiliation,  and  some  loss ; 
but  they  had  not  yet  touched  the  lives  of  the  Egyptians,  or 
their  means  of  subsistence.  But  now  a  solemn  message  Avas 
sent  to  Pharaoh  and  his  people,  that  they  should  be  smitten 
Avith  pestilence  and  cut  off  from  the  earth.  First  of  all,  they 
Avere  threatened  Avith  a  storm  of  hail.  "  Behold  to-morrow 
about  this  time,  I  Avill  cause  it  to  rain  a  A'cry  gricA'ous  hail, 
such  as  hath  not  been  in  Egypt  since  the  foundation  thereof 
even  until  now."     Pharaoh  Avas  then  told  to  collect  his  cat- 


^'  This  is  a,  common  meaning  of 
the  word  which  our  translators,  fol- 
lowing the  LXX.,  render  by  ahomi- 

vntinn  :  all  idols  were  abominations  to   ii.  7.  '^^  Ex.  ix.  8-12 

the  Gud  of  Israel  and  to  His  lr.w.         |      ^^  Ex.  ix.  1 


"^  Ex.  viii.  20-S2. 

^"  Ex.  ix.  1-7. 

^  Deut.  xxviii.  27,  35  ;  comp.  Job 


B.C.  1491.  The  Plagues  of  Egypt.  149 

tie  and  men  into  shelter,  for  that  every  thing  should  die 
upon  which  the  hail  descended.  Some  of  the  king's  ser\ants 
heeded  the  warning  now  given,  and  brought  in  their  cattle 
from  the  field.  On  the  rest  there  bui^t  a  terrific  storm  of 
hail,  thunder,  and  "  fire  running  along  upon  the  ground,"  such 
as  had  never  been  seen  in  Egypt.  Men  and  beast  were  kill- 
ed, plants  were  destroyed,  and  vines,  figs,  and  other  trees 
broken  to  pieces. ^^  Of  the  crops,  the  barley  and  flax  which 
were  fully  formed  were  destroyed,  but  the  wheat  and  rye 
(or  spelt)  were  spared,  for  they  were  not  yet  grown  up ; 
mercy  was  still  mingled  with  the  judgment.  This  distinc- 
tion, which  could  only  have  been  made  by  one  familiar  with 
Egypt,  marks  the  season  of  the  events.  Barley,  one  of  the 
most  important  crops,  alike  in  ancient  and  modern  Egypt, 
comes  to  maturity  in  March,  and  flax  at  the  same  time  ; 
while  wheat  and  spelt  are  ripe  in  April.  Both  harvests  are 
a  month  or  six  weeks  earlier  than  in  Palestine. 

Pharaoh,  more  moved  than  he  had  yet  been,  renewed  his 
prayers  and  promises ;  and  Moses,  Avithout  concealing  his 
knowledge  of  the  result,  consented  to  prove  to  him  once 
more  that  "  the  earth  is  Jehovah's."  The  storm  ceased  at  his 
prayer,  and  Pharaoh  only  hardened  his  heart  the  more." 

viii.  The  Plague  of  Locusts.'"  — The  herbage  which  the 
storm  had  spared  was  now  given  up  to  a  terrible  destroyer. 
After  a  fresh  warning, 

"The  potent  rod 
Of  Amram's  son,  in  Egypt's  evil  day, 
Waved  round  her  coasts,  called  up  a  pitchy  cloud 
Of  locusts,  warping  on  the  eastern  wind, 
That  o'er  the  realm  of  impious  Pharaoh  hung 
Like  night,  and  darkened  all  the  land  of  Nile," 
Approaching  thus,  the  swarm   alights   upon  fields  green 
with  the  young  blades  of  corn  ;  its  surface  is  blackened  with 
their  bodies,  aiid  in  a  few  minutes  it  is  left  black,  for  the  soil 
is  as  bare  as  if  burnt  with  fire.     Whatever  leaves  and  fruit 
the  hail  had  left  on  the  trees  were  likewise  devoured ;  and 
the    houses    swarmed   with    the    hideous    destroyers.       No 
plague  could  have  been  more  impressive  in  the  East,  where 
the'^ravages  of  locusts  are  so  dreadful,  that  they  are  chosen 
as  the  fit  symbol  of  a  destroying  conqueror.''     The   very 
^^  Comp.  Ps.  cv.  33.  I  ening    the    air    with    their    compact 

"Ex.  ix.  13-31.  *'^Ex.  X.  1-20.  ranks,  which  are  undisturbed  by  the 
'^°  Kev.  ix.  3.  In  the  present  day  ,  constant  attack  of  kites,  crows,  and 
locusts  suddenly  appear  in  the  culti-  vultures,  and  making  a  strange  whiz- 
vated  land,  coming  from  the  desert  zing  sound  like  that  of  fire,  or  many 
in  a  column  of  great  length.  Thev  distant  wlicels.  Where  they  aliirht 
fly  rapidly  across  the  countrv,  dark- '  they  devour  every  green  thing,  even 


150  The  Bondage  and  the  Exodus.  Chap.  XI. 

threat  had  urged  Pharaoh's  courtiers  to  remonstrance/^  and 
he  had  offered  to  let  the  men  only  depart,  but  he  had  refused 
to  yield  more,  and  had  driven  Moses  and  Aaron  from  his 
presence."*  Now  he  recalled  them  in  haste,  and  asked  them  to 
forgive  his  sin  "  only  this  once,"  and  to  entreat  God  to  take 
away  "  this  death  only."  A  strong  Avest  wind  removed  the 
locusts  as  an  east  wind  had  brought  them  ;  but  their  removal 
left  his  heart  harder  than  ever. 

ix.-x.  The  Plague  of  Darkness  and  the  Prediction  of  the 
Death  of  the  First-born.^^ — The  last  plague  but  one  was  a  fear- 
ful prelude  to  the  last.  For  three  days  there  was  thick  dark- 
ness over  the  sunny  land  of  Egypt,  "  even  darkness  which 
might  be  felt ;"  while  "  all  the  children  of  Israel  had  light  in 
their  dwellings.""^"  Unable  to  see  each  other,  or  to  move 
about,  the  Egyptians  had  still  this  one  last  opportunity  of  re- 
pentance ;  but  Pharaoh  would  only  let  the  people  go  if  they 
left  their  flocks  and  herds  behind.  With  threats  he  forbade 
Moses  to  see  his  face  again  ;  and  Moses  sealed  this  rejection 
of  the  day  of  grace  with  the  words : — "  Thou  hast  spoken 
well,  I  will  see  thy  face  again  no  more." 

The  fulfillment  of  this  threat  is  obscured,  in  our  version,  by 
the  division  of  chapters  x.  and  xi.,  and  by  the  want  of  the 
pluperfect  in  xi.  1 : — "  The  Lord  had  said  unto  Moses."  The 
interview,  which  thus  appears  to  end  with  the  tenth  chapter, 
is  continued  at  xi.  4.  Moses  ends  by  denouncing  the  final 
judgment,  which  had  been  the  one  great  penalty  threatened 


Ftripping  the  trees  of  their  leaves. 
The  prophet  Joel  describes — "A  fire 
devouretli  before  them  ;  and  behind 
them  a  flame  burneth  :  the  land  [is] 
as  the  garden  of  Eden  before  them, 
and  behind,  a  desolate  wilderness ; 
yea,  and  nothing  shall  escape  them. 
The  appearance  of  them  [is]  as  the 
appearance  of  horses ;  and  as  horse- 
men, so  shall  they  run.  Like  the 
noise  of  chariots  on  the  tops  of  the 


is  a  very  violent,  hot,  and  almost  suf- 
focating wind,  is  commonly  preceded 
by  a  fearful  calm.  As  it  approaches, 
the  atmosphere  assumes  a  yellowish 
hue,  tinged  with  red ;  the  sun  ap- 
pears of  a  deep  blood  color,  and  grad- 
ually becomes  quite  concealed  before 
the  hot  blast  is  felt  in  its  full  vio- 
lence. The  sand  and  dust  raised  by 
the  wind  add  to  the  gloom,  and  in- 
crease the  painful  effects  of  the  heat 


mountains  shall  they  leap,  like  the  and  rarity  of  the   air.     Kespiration 

noise  of  a  flame  of  fire  that  devoureth  i  becomes   uneasy,  perspiration   seems 

the  stubble,  as  a  strong  people  set  in   to  be  entirely  stopped  ;  the  tongue  is 

battle  array"  (Joel  ii.  1-10\  dry,  the  skin  parched,  and  a  prickling 

"'  Ex.  X.  7.  sensation  is  experienced,  as  if  caused 

""  Ex.  X.  7.      ^^Ex.  X.  21-29,  xi.      '  by  electric  sparks.     It  is  sometimes 

'°  This  plague  has  been  illustrated  j  impossible   for    a  person   to   remain 

by  reference  to  the  Simoom,  which  for  erect,  on  account  of  the  force  of  the 


the  lime  often  causes  the  darkness  of 
twilight.  It  is  til  us  described  by  an 
eye-witness: — "The  'Simoon,'  which 


ind ;  and  the  sand  and  dust  oblige 
all  who  are  exposed  to  it  to  keep 
their  eyes  closed.'' 


B.C.  14:31.  Institution  of  the  Passover.  151 

from  the  beginning,  for  the  midnight  of  this  same  day ;  and 
then  "he  went  out  from  Pharaoh  in  a  great  anger.'"^  The 
rest  of  chapter  xi.  is  a  recapitidation  of  the  result  of  the 
whole  contest,  nearly  in  the  same  words  in  wliich  it  had  been 
described  by  God  to  Moses,  when  He  gave  him  his  mission.'* 

§  9.  The  contest  was  now  over.  The  doom  of  Pharaoh, 
and  of  his  people,  who  had  oppressed  the  children  of  God,  had 
gone  forth,  that  their  own  lii-st-born  sons  should  be  slain  by 
God.  For  the  remainder  of  the  third  day  of  darkness,  they 
sat  awaiting  the  terrible  stroke  which  was  to  fall  on  them  at 
midnight.  Meanwhile  the  Israelites,  in  the  light  of  favored 
Goshen,  were  preparing  for  the  night  in  the  way  prescribed 
by  God.  Now  was  instituted  the  great  observance  of  the 
Mosaical  dispensation,  the  Feast  of  the  Passovep.. 

The  primary  purpose  of  this  festival  was  to  commemorate 
Jehovah's  "passing  over"  the  houses  of  the  Israelites  when 
he  "  passed  through"  the  land  of  Egypt  to  slay  the  first-born 
in  every  house."  But  just  as  the  history  of  Israel  was  typi- 
cal of  the  whole  pilgrimage  of  man,  and  as  their  rescue  from 
Egypt  answers  to  that  crisis  in  the  life  of  God's  redeemed 
people,  at  Avhich  they  are  ransomed  by  the  blood  of  the  atone- 
ment from  the  penalty  of  sin,  to  which  they  also  are  subject, 
so  we  trace  this  wider  and  higher  meaning  in  eveiy  feature 
of  the  institution. 

The  day,  reckoned  from  sunset  to  sunset,  in  the  night  of 
which  the  tirst-born  of  Egypt  were  slain  and  the  Israelites 
departed,  was  the  fourteenth  of  the  Jewish  month  JSfisan  or 
Ahib  (March  to  April),  which  began  about  the  time  of  the 
vernal  equinox,  and  which  was  now  made  the  first  month  of 
the  ecclesiastical  year.'"^  This  was  the  great  day  of  the  feast, 
when  the  paschal  supper  was  eaten.  But  the  preparations 
had  already  been  made  by  the  command  of  God."  On  the 
tenth  day  of  the  month,  each  household  had  chosen  a  year- 


'^  Exod.  xi.  4-8  ;  compare  iv.  21- 
23. 

^2  Comp.  Ex.  xi.  1-3,  9,  10,  with 
iii,  19-22.  Pharaoh's  final  permis- 
sion for  the  people  to  depart  (Ex.  xii. 
31)  may  have  been  given  by  a  mes- 
sage ;    and   it   is    quite   inconsistent 


The  Hebrew /josac/i  signifies  ^passing 
throiujh  or  passing  over ;  and  is  repre- 
sented by  the  Greek  izdaxfi,  from 
which  we  derive  tlie  adjective  Pas- 
chal, while  we  get  the  word  Passover 
itself  from  a  literal  translation  of  the 
Hebrew  word.     Some  interpret/>asacA 


with  Egyptian  customs  to  suppose  i  as  a  sparing^  as  in  Is.  xxxi.  5. 
that  he  called  Moses  and  Aaron  into  '*  The  civil  year  began,  like  that 
his  presence  at  such  a  season  of  of  the  Egyptians,  about  the  autumnal 
mourning.  j  equinox,  with  the  month  Tisi-i. 

"  Ex.  xii.  11,12.  There  is  a  cu- 1  '''"  Ex.  xii.  1,  foil. :  here,  as  in  xi.  I, 
rious  resemblance  between  the  form  ,  we  must  read  the  pluperfect,  "  Jeho- 
of  the  English  and  Hebrew   words.  I  vah  had  spoken." 


152  TJie  Exodus  oj  Israel.  Chai>.  xi. 

ling  lamb  (or  kid,  for  either  might  be  used),"  without  blem- 
ish. This  "  Paschal  Lamb  "  was  set  apart  till  the  evening 
which  began  the  fourteenth  day,  and  was  killed  as  a  sacri- 
fice"^ at  that  moment  in  every  family  of  Israel.  But  before 
it  was  eaten,  its  blood  was  sprinkled  with  a  bunch  of  hyssop"* 
on  the  lintel  and  door-posts  of  the  house  :  the  divinely-ap- 
pointed  sign,  that  Jehovah  might  ^:>as5  over  that  house,  when 
He  passed  through  the  land  to  destroy  the  Egyptians. '° 
Thus  guarded,  and  forbidden  to  go  out  of  doors  till  the  morn- 
ing, the  families  of  Israel  ate  the  lamb,  roasted  and  not  boil- 
ed, Avitli  unleavened  bread  and  bitter  herbs.  The  bones 
were  not  suffered  to  be  broken,  but  they  must  be  consumed 
by  fire  in  the  morning,  with  any  of  the  flesh  that  Avas  left 
uneaten.  The  people  were  to  eat  in  haste,  and  equipped  for 
their  coming  journey.  For  seven  days  after  the  feast,  from 
the  fourteenth  to  the  twenty-first,  they  were  to  eat  only  un- 
leavened bread,  and  to  have  no  leaven  in  their  houses,  under 
penalty  of  death.  The  fourteenth  and  twenty-first  were  to 
be  kept  with  a  holy  convocation  and  sabbatic  rest.  The 
Passover  was  to  be  kept  to  Jehovah  throughout  their  gen- 
erations, "  a  feast  by  an  ordinance  forever."^"  No  stranger 
might  share  the  feast,  unless  he  were  first  circumcised ;  but 
strangers  were  bound  to  observe  the  days  of  unleavened 
bread. ^^  To  mark  more  solemnly  the  perpetual  nature  and 
vast  importance  of  the  feast,  fathers  were  specially  enjoined 
to  instruct  their  children  in  its  meaning  through  all  future 
time.'' 

§  10.  As  the  Passover  was  killed  at  sunset,  we  may  supjwse 
that  the  Israelites  had  finished  the  paschal  supper,  and  were 
awaiting,  in  awful  suspense,  the  next  great  event,  Avhen  the 
midnight  cry  of  anguish  arose  through  all  the  land  of  Egypt."''- 
At  that  moment  Jehovah  slew  the  first-born  in  every  house, 
from  the  king  to  the  captive ;  and,  by  smiting  also  all  the 
first-born  of  cattle.  He  "  executed  jud^'ment  on  all  the  gods 
of  Egypt."'*     Thus  he 

"Equalled  with  one  "stroke 
Both  her  first-born  and  all  her  bleating  gods." 

The  hardened  heart  of  Pharaoh  Avas  broken  by  the  stroke  ; 
and  all  his  people  joined  with  him  to  hurry  the  Israelites 

"  Ex.  xii.  5.  "  Ex.  xii.  27.  ^'  Ex.  xii.  14. 

'^  There  is  groat  doubt  as  to  the       ^'  Ex.  xii.  18-20,  43-49. 
))lant  indicated  by  this   word.     Dr.        "  Ex.  xii.  25-27.     For  further  in- 
Kovlc   identifies   it  with    the    caper-  formation    respecting   the   Passover, 
plant,  or  Ca/)jn?(s  spinosn  of  Linnteus.   see  ch.  xv.  **'  Ex.  xii.  29. 

'»  Ex.  xii.  7,  12,  13,  22,  23.  1     **'  Ex.  xii.  12. 


B.C.  1491. 


Tlw  Exodus  of  Israel. 


153 


away.  The  Egyptians  willingly  gave  them  the  jewels  of 
silver  and  gold  and  the  raiment,  w^iich  they  asked  for  by  the 
command  of  Moses;  and  so  "they  spoiled  \lie  Egyptians.'"' 
They  had  not  even  time  to  prepare  food,  and  only  took  the 
dough  before  it  was  leavened,  in  their  kneading-t roughs 
bound  up  in  their  clothes  upon  their  shoulders,  and  baked 
unleavened  cakes  at  their  first  halt.'"  But,  amid  all  this 
haste,  some  military  order  of  march  was  preserved,"  and  Mo- 
ses forgot  not  to  carry  away  the  bones  of  Joseph.  The  host 
numbered  600,000  men  on  foot,  besides  children,''  from  which 
the  total  of  souls  is  estimated  at  not  less  then  2,500,000/' 
But  they  wxre  accompanied  by  "  a  mixed  multitude,"  or 
^reat  rabble,  composed  probably  of  Egyptians  of  the  lowest 
caste,  who  proved  a  source  of  disorder.'"  Their  march  was 
guided  by  Jehovah  himself,  who,  from  its  commencement  to 
their  entrance  into  Canaan,  displayed  His  banner,  the  She- 
Mnah,  in  their  van  : — "  Jehovah  went  before  them  by  day  in 
a  pillar  of  a  cloud,  to  lead  them  the  way  ;  and  by  night  in  a 
pillar  of  fire,  to  give  them  light ;  to  go  by  day  and  night."" 
This  Exodus,  or  departure  of  the  Israelites  from  Egypt, 

^^  The  vulgar  objection  to  the  mo- 
rality of  this  proceeding  is  only  found- 
ed on  the  word  "  borrow "  (v.  22), 
which  should  be  "ask,"  There  was 
no  promise  or  intention  of  repayment. 
The  jewels  were  given  for  favor  (v, 
21),  as  well  as  fear ;  and  they  were  a 
slight  recompense  for  all  of  which  j  religious  exodus,  authorized  by  an 
the  Egyptians  had  robbed  the  Israel- 1  oracle  venerated  throughout  many 
ites  dming  a  century  of  bondage.  i  nations  of  Asia  —  an  exodus,  there- 
^^  Ex.  xii.  34,  35.  fore,  in  so  far  resembling  the  great 

"  Exod.  xiii.  18,  where  the  word  scriptural  Exodus  of  the  Israelites, 
translated  "harnessed"  signifies  lit- 'under  Moses  and  Joshua,  as  well  as 

in  the  very  peculiar  distinction  of 
carrying  along  with  them  their  en- 
tire families,  women,  children,  slaves, 
their  herds  of  cattle  and  of  sheep, 
their  horses  and  their  camels." 

''^  Num.  xi,  4,  It  would  seem, 
from  Deut,  xxix.  10,  that  these  peo- 
ple settled  down  into  the  condition 

_^.,^^ ^_„  of  slaves   to   the   Hebrews: — "Thy 

ciplin'e,  in  opposition  to  a  hasty  and  i  stranger  that  is  in  thy  camp,  from  the 

hewer  of  thy  wood  to  the  drawer  of 
thy  water."  Dr.  Kitto  has  some  ad- 
mirable remarks  on  this  degraded 
class,  and  their  probable  reasons  for 
casting  in  their  lot  with  the  Israelites 
louid  compare  DeQuincey's  graphic  I  (i>«%  Bible  Illustrations,  vol.  ii.  p. 
ceount  (in  the  fourth  volume  of  his  1 168).  Ex.  xui.  21,  -^. 


works)  of  the  "  Revolt  of  the  Tartars  ; 
or,  Flight  of  the  Kalmuck  Khan  and 
his  People  from  the  Kussian  Terri- 
tories to  the  Frontiers  of  China." 
On  one  dav,  the  5th  of  January, 
1771,  more'  than  400,000  Tartars 
commenced  this  exodus.      "It  was  a 


erally  "by  five  in  a  rank."  But  it  is 
as  needless  to  put  upon  it  this  exact 
numerical  sense  as  it  would  be  absurd 
to  suppose  that  all  the  people,  includ- 
ing women,  children,  slaves,  and  the 
"  mixed  multitude,"  formed  a  serried 
phalanx  of  five  abreast.  It  simply 
conveys  the  idea  of  a  voluntary  move- 
ment,'conducted  with  order  and  dis- 


confuscd  flight 

^«  Ex.  xii.  37. 

«^  Comp.  Num.  i.  46,  with  xi.  21. 
These  numbers  have  given  rise  to 
great  controversy ;  but  the  student 
s 
account 


G 


154 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  XI. 


closed  the  430  years  of  their  pilgrimage,  which  began  from 
the  call  of  Abram  out  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees.  Having  learn- 
ed the  discipline  of  God's  chosen  family,  and  having  been 
welded  by  the  hammer  of  affliction  into  a  nation,  they  were 
now  called  forth,  under  the  prophet  of  Jehovah,  alike  from 
the  bondage  and  the  sensual  pleasures  of  Egypt,  to  receive 
the  laws  of  their  new  state  amid  the  awful  solitudes  of  Sinai. 
Egypt  had  been  their  home  for  215  years,  during  which  "  the 
Israelites  to  all  outward  appearance  became  Egyptians.  .  .  . 
The  shepherds  who  wandered  over  the  pastures  of  Goshen 
Avere  as  truly  Egyptian  Bedouins  as  those  who  of  old  fed 
their  flocks  around  the  Pyramids,  or  who  now,  since  the 
period  of  the  Mussulman  conquest,  have  spread  through  the 
Avhole  country.  .  .  .  Egypt  is  the  background  of  the  whole 
history  of  the  Israelites,  the  prelude  to  Sinai  and  Palestine. 
.  .  .  Even  in  the  New  Testament  the  connection  is  not  wholly 
severed ;  and  the  Evangelist  emphatically  plants  in  the  first 
page  of  the  Gospel  history  the  prophetical  text,  which  might 
well  stand  as  the  inscription  over  the  entrance  to  the  Old 
Dispensation,  Out  of  Egypt  have  I  called  My  Sox.'"^ 

^^  Stanley,  Sinai  and  Palestine,  Introd.  pp.  xxx.-xxxii. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


SINAI. 

The  Peninsula  of  Sinai  lies  between 
the  Gulf  of  Suez  (Sinns  Ileroopolita- 
niis)  on  the  west,  and  the  GulfofAka- 
bah  (Sinus  -^laniticus)  on  the  east. 
Its  southern  mountains  form  the  cul- 
minating point  of  the  desert  tableland, 
in  which  the  valley  of  tlie  Nile  and 
tlie  two  gulfs  just  named  are  depres- 
sions. It  may  be  divided  into  three 
belts  ;  on  the  north,  the  sandy  desert, 
which  stretches  along  the  Mediterra- 
nean from  the  Isthmus  of  Suei  to  the 
confines  of  Palestine  ;  south  of  this 
is  a  mass  of  limestone  called  the  Des- 
erC  of  et-Tih  (?'.  e.,  the  Wandering,  as 


it  was  the  cliicf  scene  of  the  forty 
years'  wandering  of  the  Israelites), 
which,  swec])ing  round  to  the  north, 
forms  the  central  plateau  of  Pales- 
tine, and  finally  rises  into  the  ranges 
of  Lebanon.  On  the  west,  it  is  con- 
tinued across  the  Gulf  of  Suez  in  the 
two  chains  which  run  parallel  toward 
the  west,  and  connect  it  with  the  hills 
along  the  eastern  margin  of  the  Nile 
valley.  These  chains  enclose  the 
Wadi/  et-Tili,  which  will  claim  atten- 
tion in  the  next  chapter.  This  is 
separated  by  a  belt  of  sandstone  from 
the  terrific  group  of  granite  rocks 
!  which  fill  np  the  southern  triangle 
of  the  peninsula,  and  which  also  skirt 


ClIAP.   XI. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


155 


the  opposite  side  of  the  Gulf  of  Akaba, 
whence  they  run  northward,  in  two 
ranges,  forming  tlie  mountains  of 
Edom,  and  enclosing  tiie  Wady  el- 
Arahah.  To  the  west  the  granite 
formation  is  found  again  in  the  south- 
ern part  of  Egypt. 

The  width  of  the  peninsula,  in  its 
exacter  limits,  from  Suez  along  the 
30th  parallel  of  north  latitude  to  the 
hills  of  Edom,  is  about  130  miles :  its 
length  from  its  southern  point  {Ras 
Mohammed)  to  the  same  parallel  is 
about  140  miles,  and  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean upward  of  20  more.  The 
width  of  the  southern  triangle  of 
primitive  rocks  along  the  29th  paral- 
lel of  north  latitude  is  about  80  miles, 
sind  its  length  a  little  less :  in  fact,  it 
is  nearly  an  equilateral  triangle.  The 
Desert  of  et-Tih  has  all  the  characters 
of  limestone  scenery.  It  is  a  table- 
land rising  to  more  than  2500  feet 
high,  broken  by  ravines,  and  bounded 
by  long  horizontal  ranges  of  mount- 
ains, which  culminate  in  the  southern 
range  of  {Jehel  et-Tih,  whose  chief 
summit  (Jebel  Edime)  rises  to  4G54 
feet.  The  belt  of  sandstone  {Dehhet  er- 
Bamleh),  which  divides  this  range 
from  the  granite  group,  and  which  is 
continued  along  the  shore  of  the  Gulf 
of  Suez,  is  almost  the  only  sand  in 
the  peninsula,  which  is  therefore  a 
rocky,  but  not  a  sandi/  desert.  Finally, 
the  great  granite  mass,  called  by  the 
general  name  of  the  Tur  (i.  e.,  the 
Jiock),  is  broken  into  innumerable 
peaks  (like  those  called  hoims  and 
needles  in  the  Alps),  and  shivered  into 
ravines,  which  in  a  few  cases  open  out 
into  wider  plains.  In  a  northern  cli- 
mate, these  plains  would  be  filled  with 
lakes,  and  mountain  torrents  would 
rush  down  the  ravines;  but  here  the 
want  of  water  causes  a  silence  which 
adds  immeasurably  to  the  awful  grand- 
eur of  the  rocks  themselves,  and  which 
becomes  still  more  impressive  from 
the   clearness   and  reverberation    of 


every  sound  that  reaches  the  travel- 
ler's ears.  Tiiis  death-like  stillness  is 
broken  by  mysterious  noises  among 
the  mountain  tops,  and  by  the  winds 
which  roar  down  the  ravines,  realizing, 
in  one  sense  nt  least,  its  description  as 
a  "  waste  howling  wilderness  "  (Deut. 
xxxii.  10).  These  mountains  may  be 
divided  into  two  great  masses— that 
j  of  Jebel  Serial  {Q75d  feet  high)  in  the 
north-Avest,  and  the  central  group, 
j  roughly  denoted  by  the  general  name 
I  of  Sinai  This  group  rises  abruptly 
from  the  Wady  es-Sheykh  at  its  north 
foot,  first  to  the  cliffs  of  the  Ras  Suf- 
safth,  behind  which  towers  the  pinna- 
cle of  Jebel  Musa  (the  Mount  of  Moses) 
and  farther  back  to  the  right  of  it  the 
summit  of  Jebel  Katerin  {Mount  St. 
Catlierine,  8705  feet),  all  being  backed 
up  and  overto])pcd  by  Um  Shaumei- 
(the  mother  of  fennel,  0300  feet),  which 
is  the  highest  point  of  the  whole  pen- 
insula. 

Of  the  icadys^  as  the  Arabs  call  the 
valleys  and  ravines,  which  look  as  if 
they  had  once  been  water-courses,  the 
most  important,  after  the  Wady  Mu- 
katteb  (valley  of  writing,  from  the  cel- 
ebrated Sinaitic  inscriptions  on  its 
sandstone  rocks),  by  which  the  region 
is  entered,  are  the  Wady  Feiran,  on 
the  north-east  of  Mount  Serial,  and 
the  great  Wady  es-Sheykh,  on  the 
north  of  the  central  group,  into  which 
it  throws  up  the  narrow  ravines  ofel- 
Loja,  watered  by  a  rivulet,  and  Shuelb 
or  ed  Deir,  which  gives  access  to  the 
convent  of  St.  Catherine,  and  also  to 
the  Wady  Sebaiyeh,  at  the  back  of 
Jebel  Musa.  This  last  valley  has  lately 
been  claimed  as  the  encampment  of 
the  Israelites,  from  the  desire  to  per- 
mit Jebel  Musa  to  retain  its  tradi- 
tional celebrity  as  the  Mountain  of 
the  Law. 

But  we  think  the  question  may  ba 
regarded  as  almost  settled  in  favor  of 
the  Wady  er-Rdhah,  tlie  great  branch 
of  the  Wady  es-Sheykh,  which  extends 


156 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  XI 


north-west  in  the  form  of  a  sleeve 
from  the  front  of  the  precipices  oi  lias 
Su/sdfeh.  Here  alone  all  the  require- 
ments of  the  history  seem  satisfied: 
the  space  for  the  encampment,  and  its 
accessibility  for  the  host  by  way  of  the 
Wady  es-Sheykh ;  the  mountain  ris- 
ing abruptly  in  front,  with  the  cliffs  of 
Ras  Sufsdfeh  visible  from  and  com- 
manding tlie  whole  plain,  but  yet  sepa- 
rated from  it  by  low  hills  (the  "  bounds 
set  unto  the  people  round  about :"  Ex. 
xix.  12);  tlie  brook,  on  which  Moses 
scattered  the  powder  of  the  golden 
calf,  running  down  the  Wady  el-Loja, 
with  other  minor  points  of  coinci- 
dence.* In  fact,  the  only  objection  to 
this  view  is  the  mere  feeling  against 
transferring  the  traditional  dignity  of 
Jehel  Musa  to  the  much  lower  summit 
of  lias  Sufsdfeh.  f" 

But  we  may  still  regard  the  whole 
mass  of  Jehel  Musa  as  Mount  Sinai 
in  the  wider  sense,  though  Ras  Suf- 
sdfeh was  that  particular  part  of  it 
which,  as  visible  from  the  whole  en- 
campment, was  chosen  as  the  spot 
from  which  the  law  was  given.  SVe 
have  not  seen  the  observation  made, 
how  much  more  convenient  this  lower 
rock  would  be  than  the  distant  sum- 
mit oi  Jehel  Musa  for  the  ascents  and 
descents  of  Moses  and  the  elders  (Ex. 
xix.  3,  20,  xxiv.  1,  9);  while  Moses 
Jiimself  may  have  been  conducted  into 
the  deeper  recesses  of  the  mountain 
during  his  abode  of  forty  days.  Nearly 
every  traveller  who  has  stood  on  Ras 
Sufsdfeh  has  felt  convinced  that  this 
inust  be  the  spot  descrihed  in  Ex.  xix., 
and  the  more  the  whole  region  is  ex- 
plored, the  stronger  is  this  impression. 
With  equal  certainty  those  best  quali- 
fied to  judge  have  rejected  the  claim 
of  the  Wady  Sehaiyeh,  "  I  came  to  the 

*  Stanley. 

t  Somethinpr  similar  has  happened  in  the 
parallel  case  of  the  Motintain  of  the  Gofipcl. 
It  was  forgotten  that  a  low  rock  or  liill  at  tlie 
foot  of  a  mountain  would  be  fitter  for  a  pulpit 
than  its  summit. 


conclusion,"  says  Dr.  Stanley,*  "that 
it  could  only  be  taken  for  the  place,  if 
none  other  existed.  The  only  advan- 
tage which  it  has  is,  that  the  peak  [of 
Jehel  Musa'],  from  a  few  points  of  view, 
rises  in    a   more   commanding  form 

than  the  Ras  Sufsdfeh I  am 

sure  that,  if  the  monks  of  Justinian 
had  fixed  the  traditional  scene  on  the 
Ras  Sufsdfeh,  no  one  would  for  an  in- 
stant have  doubted  that  this  only  could 
be  the  spot."  Still,  as  the  same  writer 
adds,  the  degree  of  uncertainty  which 
must  yet  hang  over  the  question,  "is 
a  great  safeguard  for  the  real  rever- 
ence due  to  the  place,  as  the  scene  of 
the  first  great  revelation  of  God  to 
man.  As  it  is,  you  may  rest  on  your 
general  conviction,  and  be  thankful." 
The  summit  of  Urn  Shaumer,  to 
which  the  argument  urged  for  Jehel 
Musa,  from  its  superior  elevation, 
applies  still  more  forcibly,  satisfies 
none  of  the  required  conditions,  and 
may  be  rejected  with  certainty.  But 
there  has  lately  been  a  strong  current 
of  opinion  in  favor  of  Jehel  Serhal. 
It  is  the  first  great  mountain  of  the 
range,  before  which  the  Israelites 
would  arrive  in  their  march  from 
Egypt.  Its  scenery  is  as  grand  and 
awful  as  that  of  Jehel  Musa  ;  and  the 
earliest  traditions  were  even  more 
connected  with  it  than  with  Jehel 
Musa.  "It  was  impossible,"  says 
Stanley  (p.  73),  "  on  ascending  it,  not 
to  feel  that,  for  the  giving  of  the  Law 
to  Israel  and  tlie  world,  the  scene 
was  most  truly  fitted.  I  say,  '  for  the 
giving  of  the  Law,'  because  the  ob- 
jections urged  from  the  absence  of 
any  plain  immediately  under  the 
mountain  for  receiving  the  Law  are 
unanswerable,  or  could  only  be  an- 
swered if  no  such  plain  existed  else- 
where in  the  peninsula."  The  Wadg 
Feiran  is  not  sufficiently  commanded 
by  the  mountain  to  satisfy  the  condi* 

•  Sihvai  and  Paloi^tvir,  p.  76. 


Chap.  XL 


Notes  and  Illustrations, 


lb\ 


tion.  Besides,  the  Wady  Felran  is 
almost  certainly  the  locality  of  RepJd- 
dim,  the  first  great  encampment  of  the 
Israelites  in  this  region  (Ex.  xvii.), 
where  they  fought  with  Amalck, 
where  Jethro  visited  Moses  (Ex. 
xviii.),  and  whence  they  advanced  a 
whole  day's  march  to  their  encamp- 
njcnt  before  Sinai  (Ex.  xix.  2  ;  Num. 
xxxiii.  15).  This  appears  from  a 
consideration  of  the  route  by  which 
they  entered  the  mountains,  and  it  is 
strongly  confirmed  by  the  details  of 
the  topography.  The  valley  is  alike 
fit  for  a  great  encampment  and  for  a 
battle-field.  As  the  first  inhabitable 
wady  in  the  Tm;  its  possession  would 
naturally  be  disputed  by  theAmalek- 
ites,  especially  if  it  was  a  sacred  spot ; 
and  it  is  marked  (though  we  do  not 
lay  great  stress  on  this  point)  by  a 
hill,  such  as  that  called  from  its  con- 
spicuousness  "  the  hi/l,'^  where  Moses 
stood  in  full  view  of  the  battle-field. 
Wady  Feiran  can  not  be  both  Repld- 
dim  and  the  scene  of  the  encampment 
before  Sinai. 

But  Serbal  seems  to  have  an  im- 
portance of  its  own,  only  second  to 
that  of  Sinai.  From  the  inscriptions 
in  the  Wady  Feiran,  and  from  other 
evidence,  it  seems  highly  probable 
that  it  was  a  sanctuary  of  the  Arab 
tribes  before  the  Exodus ;  and  for 
this  reason  it  may  have  been  already 
called  the  Mount  of  God  "  (Ex.  iii, 
2);*  and  Moses,  when  a  shepherd 
among  the  Arabs,  may  have  visited  it 

*  It  has  been  strangely  overlooked  here 
that  the  word  translated  back  signifies,  as  a 
geographiail  term,  the  vest.    Without  i^os- 


in  this  character.  This  view  seems  to 
be  confirmed  by  the  use  of  the  distinc- 
tive names — IJoreb  for  the  mount  of 
the  burning  bush,  and  Sinai  for  the 
mountain  of  the  Law,  when  each  is 
first  mentioned,  though  the  distinction 
was  almost  immediately  lost  sight  of. 
The  difficulty  of  discriminating  Horeb 
and  Sinai  is  increased  by  the  un- 
certainty as  to  the  meaning  of  both 
names.  It  is  most  important  also  to 
observe  that  the  earliest  traditions  re- 
fer not  so  much  to  the  giving  of  the 
Law,  as  to  "  the  place  where  Moses 
saw  God  "  (Stanley,  p.  77). 

The  identity  of  the  Horeb  of  Ex. 
iii.,  and  the  Sinai  of  Ex.  xix.  may 
seem  to  be  settled  by  the  words — 
"When  Thou  hast  brought  forth  the 
people  out  of  Egypt,  ye  shall  serve 
God  in  this  mountain "  (Ex.  iii.  12). 
But  considering  the  proximity  of  the 
two  places,  it  is  surely  enough  to  sup- 
pose that  this  mountain  means  the 
whole  group,  within  which  God  after- 
ward led  the  people  to  the  precise 
spot  that  He  had  chosen — a  spot  pur- 
posely diflxrent  from  the  old  sanc- 
tuary, because  a  new  worship  was  to 
be  revealed. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  Wady  Feiran 
was  long  regarded  as  a  sacred  spot. 
It  seems  to  be  the  Paran  of  Deut.  i. 
1,  and  1  K.  xi.  18;  and  it  was  an 
episcopal  see  in  the  early  Christian 
times.  The  Arabic  Feiran  is  an 
equivalent  of  Paran  (Stanlev,  pp.  41, 
43). 

itively  insisting  on  this  meaning  here,  we  may 
point  out  its  suitability  to  the  position  of 
Mount  Serbal. 


Egypti.m  Chariot.     The  son  of  King  Rameses  with  his  cliariotoer.     (Wilkinson.) 


CHAPTER  XII. 

TEIE     MARCH     FROM     EGYPT     TO     SINAI.         A.M.     2513-4.         B.C 

1491-0. 

§  1.  General  view  of  the  journey  from  Egypt  to  Canaan — Its  three  divisions  : 
i.  From  Egypt  to  Sinai — ii.  From  Sinai  to  the  borders  of  Canaan — iii. 
The  wandering  in  the  wilderness  and  the  final  march  to  Canaan.  §  2. 
From  Egypt  to  the  Red  Sea — Point  of  departure — Ramescs — Succoth — 
Etham — Pi-hahiroth.  §  3.  Passage  of  the  Red  Sea.  §  4.  Wilderness 
of  Shur — Thirst — Marah — Elim — Encampment  by  the  Red  Sea.  §  5. 
Wilderness  of  Sin — Hunger — The  Manna — Revival  of  the  Sabbath. 
§  6.  Uophixali,  Ahish,  and  Rephidim — The  Water  from  the  rock.  §  7. 
The  battle  with  Amalek  in  Rephidim — Jehovah- Nissi — Doom  of  Ama- 
lek.  §  8.  Visit  of  Jothro — Appointment  of  assistant  judges.  §  0. 
Wilderness  of  Sinai — Encampment  before  the  Mount — Preparation — 
The  people's  place  among  the  nations — Their  covenant  with  Jehovah. 
§  10.  God's  descent  on  Sinai — The  Ten  Commandments — Other  pre- 
cepts given  to  Moses  as  Mediator — Promises — The  angel  Jehovah  their 
Guide  and  Captain — Sinai  and  the  Mount  of  the  Beatitudes — The  Law 
given  by  angels.  §  11.  The  covenant  recorded  and  ratified  by  blood — 
The  elders  behold  God's  glory — Moses  in  the  Mount.  §  12*  Idolatry 
of  the  golden  calf — Intercession  of  Moses — The  tables  of  the  Law 
broken — Punishment — Fidelity  of  Levi — Self-sacrifice  of  jNIoses — Type 
of  the  offering  of  Christ — God  speaks  with  him  before  the  people,  and 
shows  him  His  glory — Moses's  second  abode  in  the  Mount — The  Tables 
renewed — The  veil  over  his  face.  §  13,  The  Tabernacle  pi-epared,  and 
set  up — Consecration  of  Aaron  and  his  sons — The  glory  of  God  upon 
and  in  the  Tabernacle. 

§  1.  The  whole  journey  of  the  Israelites,  from  Egypt  into 
the  land  of  promise,  may  be  divided  into  three  distinct  por- 
tions : — 


B.C.  U91. 


Journey  from  Egypi  to  Canaan. 


159 


i.  The  March  out  of  Egypt  to  Mount  Smai,  there  to  wor- 
ship Jehovali,  as  he  had  said  to  Moses.'  This  occupied  six 
weeks,  making,  with  the  fourteen  days  before  the  Passover, 
tAYO  months  ;"  and  they  were  encamped  before  Sinai,  receiving 
the  divine  laws,  for  the  remaining  ten  months  of  the  first  ec- 
clesiastical year,^  The  tabernacle  was  set  up  on  the  first 
day  of  the  first  month  (Abib)  of  the  second  year  (about 
April  1, 1490  B.C.) ;  and  its  dedication  occupied  that  month.* 
On  the  first  day  of  the  second  month,  Moses  began  to  num- 
ber  the  people,^  and  their  encampment  was  broken  up  on 
the  twentieth  day  of  the  second  month  of  the  second  year, 
about  May  20, 1490  b.c' 

ii.  The  March  from  Sinai  to  the  borders  of  Canaan,  whence 
they  were  turned  back  for  their  refusal  to  enter  the  land. 
This  distance,  commonly  eleven  days'  journey,'  was  divided 
by  three  chief  halts.**  The  first  stage  occupied  three  days,* 
followed  by  a  halt  of  at  least  a  month.'"  The  next  halt  was 
for  a  week  at  least."  After  the  third  journey,  there  Avas  a 
period  of  forty  days,  during  Avhich  the  spies  were  searching 
the  land  ;''^  and  they  returned  with  ripe  grapes  and  other 
fruits.'^  All  these  indications  bring  us  to  the  season  of  the 
Feast  of  Tabernacles,  just  six  months  after  the  Passover 
(Oct.  1490  B.C.). 

iii.  The  Wanclering  in  the  Wilderness,  and  enUxmce  into 
Canaan.  This  is  often  vaguely  spoken  of  as  a  period  of 
forty  years,  but,  in  the  proper  sense,  the  u^anderings  occupied 
thirty-seven  and  a  half  years.  The  people  came  again  to 
Kadesh,  whence  they  had  been  turned  back,  in  the  first  month 
of  the  fortieth  year.'*  Advancing  thence,  they  overthrew 
the  kings  Sihon  and  Og,  and  spoiled  the  Midianites  ;  and 
reached  the  plains  of  Moab,  on  the  east  of  Jordan,  opposite 
to  Jericho,  by  the  end  of  the  tenth  month,  early  in  January, 
1451  B.c.'^  The  rest  of  that  year  was  occupied  by  the  final 
exhortation  and  death  of  Moses.'®  We  are  not  told  the  ex- 
act date  of  the  passage  of  the  Jordan  ;  but  the  harvest-time 
identifies  it  with  the  season  of  the  Passover ;''  and  thus  the 
cycle  of  forty  years  is  completed,  from  the  beginning  of  Abib, 
1491,  to  the  same  date  of  1451  (see  table  on  the  following 
page) : 


'Ex.  iii.  12.  2j^x.  xix.  1. 

^  Comp.  Ex.  xii.  2. 

*Ex.  xl.  17.  ^Num.  i.  1. 

"Num.x.  11.  '  Deut.  i.  2. 

"Num.  xxxiii.  16-18. 

•  Num.  X.  33. 


"Num.  X.  20.      "  Num.  xii.  15. 

'^  Num.  xiii.  2.5. 

^^  Num.  xiii.  24. 

"Num.xx.  1.  '^Deut.  i.  3. 

'^  Deut.  fthe  whole  book). 

'^  Josh.  iii.  15. 


160  The  March  frovi  E'jypt  to  Sinai.        Chap.  XU 

Yiv.  Mtli-s.  r).M7i. 

In  E^fypt  before  the  Passover 0  ()  It 

From  Egypt  to  Siiiui 0  1  1(5 

Encampment  at  Sinai 0  11  i^O 

Marcli  to  Kadesh  (about) 0  4  10 

Wanderings  in  Wilderness 37  G       0 

March  from  Kadesh  to  the  j>lains  of  Moab 0  10       0 

Encampment  there  to  tlie  passage  of  the  Jordan 0  2       0 

TotaP^ ; 40       0       0 

§  2.  Had  the  object  been  to  lead  them  by  the  shortest 
route  out  of  Egypt  into  Canaan,  it  might  have  been  accom- 
plislied  in  a  few  days'  journey  along  the  shore  of  the  Medi- 
terranean. But  they  were  not  thus  to  evade  the  moral  dis- 
cipline of  the  wilderness.  Besides  that  their  first  destination 
was  hxed  for  "  the  mount  of  God,"  they  were  quite  unpre- 
pared to  meet  the  armies  of  the  Philistines,  and  so  "  God  led 
the  people  about  through  the  way  of  the  wilderness  of  the 
Red  Sea."'^ 

At  the  very  outset,  we  are  met  by  a  great  difficulty  about 
their  point  of  departure.  It  is  a  simple  and  attractive  theory 
which  carries  them  straight  along  the  valley,  now^  called  the 
IVadj/  et-T'ih^  running  eastward  from  the  fork  of  the  Delta 
to  the  Red  Sea,  between  two  parallel  offshoots  of  tlie  hills 
which  skirt  the  Xile,  and  of  which  the  northern  range  bears 
the  name  of  Jebel-Atakah  (the  mountain  of  deliverance).'^'^ 
But  this  route  is  too  simj^le  :  it  could  hardly  fill  up  three 
days,  even  for  such  a  host,  and  it  was  inconsistent  with  the 
final  movements  by  which  they  became  "  entangled  in  the 
land,"  for  they  Avould  have  been  so  already,  and  they  would 
have  had  no  "turning"  to  make  to  encamp  by  the  sea.'** 
Nor  can  this  view  be  reconciled  with  their  probable  starting- 
point.  It  is  evident  that  they  were  gathered  together  in 
Goshen  before  their  departure  ;  and  they  are  expressly  said 
to  have  started  from  Rameses."  Now  whether  Rameses 
be  the  city  named  in  Exodus  i.  11,  or  the  district  so  called  in 
Genesis  xlvii.  11,  it  must  be  sought  along  the  east  branch  of 
the  Nile  lower  down  than  Heliopolis.^^ 

From  this  starting-point  they  made  two  days'  journey  be* 
fore  reaching  the  edge  of  the  wilderness  at  Etham."  Thence, 
making  a  turn,  Avhich  can  only  have  been  southward,  they 
reached  the  Red  Sea  in  one  day's  journey.*^     There  seems  to 

^®  For  the  list  of  the  forty-two  jour- 1      "^  Ex.  xiv.  2.  3. 
nevs  in  Num.  xxxiii.  see  Noiea  and\     •'^  Ex.  xii.  37;  Num.  xxxiii,  3,  5. 
Illustrations  (A).       '«  Ex.  xiii.  17,  18.       "  See  p.  117. 

""See  the  Map  on  p.  162.  t     '^^  Ex.  xii.  37,  xiii,  20. 

-^  Ex.  xiv.  2. 


B.C.  1491.  The  Route  hegins  from  Barneses. 


Ul 


.j:::^  M-i  ^^  n 


Map  to  illustrate  the  Exodus  of  the  Israelite?. 

be  only  one  route  that  satisfies  these  conditions,  that  name- 
ly by  the  Wacli/  et-Tumeijlat,  throuoh  which  ran  the  ancient 
canal  ascribed  to  the  Pharaohs.  The  mound  called  M-Ab- 
haseyeh  in  that  valley  oflTers  a  probable  site  for  Rameses  ; 
and  the  distance  from  it  to  the  head  of  the  Red  Sea,  about 
thirty  miles  in  a  direct  line,  answers  very  well  to  the  three- 
days'  journey  of  the  vast,  mixed,  and  encumbered  troop,  es- 
pecially when  an  allowance  is  made  for  the  deviation  already 
mentioned.  As  to  the  further  details,  the  name  of  the  first 
resting-place,  Succoth,  afibrds  no  help,  as  it  only  means 
booths.  Etham,  the  second  stage,  being  on  the  edge  of  the 
wilderness,  may  very  well  correspond  to  Seba  Biar  (the  Sev- 
en Wells).,  which  occupies  such  a  position,  about  three  miles 


162  The  March  from  Egijpt  to  Sinai.       Chap.  XII. 

from  the  western  side  of  the  ancient  head  of  the  GulfofSuez^ 
which  extended  much  farther  to  the  north  than  it  does  now. 
Thence  their  natural  route  into  the  Peninsuhi  of  Sinai  would 
have  been  round  the  head  of  the  gulf,  but,  by  the  express 
command  of  God,  "  they  turned  and  encamped  before  Pi- 
iiAHiROTH,  between  Migdol  and  the  sea,  over  against  Baal- 
zephon  " — localities  evidently  on  the  west  side  of  the  Gulf 
of  Suez.'' 

This  incomprehensible  movement  led  Pharaoh  to  exclaim, 
"  They  are  entangled  in  the  wilderness,  the  sea  hath  shut 
them  in."  And  well  might  he  say  so,  if  their  position  was 
enclosed  between  the  sea  on  their  east,  the  Jehel  Atakah^ 
which  borders  the  north  side  of  the  ^Vady-t-Tih,  on  their 
south  and  west,  and  the  wilderness  in  their  rear,  with  the 
pursuing  army  pressing  on  to  cut  off  their  retreat.  Add  to 
this  that  the  sea,  where  they  encamped  by  it,  must  have  been 
shallow  enough  for  its  bed  to  be  laid  bare  by  the  "  strong- 
east  wind,"^'  narrow  enough  for  the  host  to  pass  over  in  a 
single  night,  and  yet  broad  enough  to  receive  the  whole  army 
of  Pharaoh  ;  and  lastly,  that  the  opposite  bank  must  not  be 
rocky  or  precipitous.  These  conditions  seem  to  exclude  any 
place  in  the  mouth  oi  i\\QWady-t-Tlh^  south  oi  Jehel  Atakah^ 
as  well  as  the  traditional  line  of  passage  opposite  Ayun 
Mousa  (the  Spring  of  Moses) ^  and  to  restrict  the  place  of 
passage  to  the  neighborhood  of  Suez. 

§  3.  The  great  miracle  itself,  by  which  a  way  was  cloven 
for  the  people  through  the  sea,  Avas  a  proof  to  them,  to  the 
Egyptians,  and  to  all  the  neighboring  nations,  that  the  hand 
of  Jehovah  was  with  them,  leading  them  by  His  own  way, 
and  ready  to  deliver  them  in  every  strait  through  all  their 
iuture  course.  In  this  light  it  is  celebrated  in  that  sublime 
hymn  of  triumph,  which  furnishes  the  earliest  example  of  re- 
sponsive choral  music.**  In  this  light  it  is  looked  back  upon 
by  the  sacred  writers  in  every  age,  as  the  great  miracle  Avhich 
inaugurated  their  history  as  a  nation. 

The  King  of  Egypt  and  his  servants,  with  hearts  hardened 
even  against  the  lesson  taught  by  the  death  of  the  first-born, 
repented  of  letting  their  slaves  depart.""  With  six  hundred 
chosen  chariots,  and  all  his  military  array,  he  pursued  and 
overtook  them  at  Pi-hahiroth.  The  frightened  people  began 
to  raise  the  cry,  with  which  they  so  often  assailed  Moses, 
"  Better  for  us  to  serve  the  Egyptians  than  that  we  should 

"  Respecting:  ilic  n.'imes  tlicmselvep,  I      -'  Ex.  xiv,  21. 
Bce  IS^otes  and  Illustrations  (B).  |      '-"  Ex.  xv.  -'■'  Ex.  xiv.  4.  5. 


B.C.  1491.  Passage  of  the  Red  Sea.  163 

die  in  the  wilderness.'""  But  the  way  was  made  clear  by 
faith  and  obedience.     "  Fear  ye  not,  stand  still,  and  see  the 

salvation  of  Jehovah He  shall  fight  for  you,  and  ye  shall 

hold  your  peace,"  was  the  answer  of  Moses  to  the  people, 
while  God's  word  to  him  Avas  that  which  generally  opens  a 
way  out  of  danger  and  distress: — "Speak  unto  the  children 
of  Israel,  that  they  go  forvmrcV  At  the  signal  of  the  uplifted 
rod  of  Moses,  a  strong  east  wind  blew  all  that  night,  and  di- 
vided the  waters  as  a  wall  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left, 
while  the  children  of  Israel  went  into  the  midst  of  the  sea  on 
dry  land.^^  The  guiding  pillar  of  fire  (with  the  angel  of  Je- 
liovah  himself)  moved  from  their  van  into  their  rear,  casting 
its  beams  along  their  column,  but  creating  behind  them  a  dark- 
ness amid  which  tlie  host  of  Pharaoh  went  after  them  into  the 
bed  of  the  sea.  But,  at  the  morning  watch,  Jehovah  looked 
out  of  the  pillar  of  fire  and  cloud,  and  troubled  the  Egyptians. 
Panic-stricken,  they  sought  to  fly ;  but  their  chariot-wheels 
were  broken  :  the  host  of  Israel  had  now  reached  the  bank : 
the  rod  of  Moses  waved  again  over  the  gulf:  "  and  the  sea 
i-eturned  to  his  strength  when  the  morning  appeared ;  and  the 
Egyptians  fled  against  it ;"  but  not  one  of  them  was  left 
alive. ^^  "  And  the  people  feared  Jehovah,  and  believed  his 
servant  Moses."  The  waters  of  the  Red  Sea  were  thenceforth 
a  moral,  as  well  as  a  physical  gulf  between  them  and  Egypt. 
Its  passage  initiated  a  new  dispensation  :  "  they  were  all  bap- 
tized to  Moses  in  the  cloud  and  in  the  sea."^^ 

§  4.  Their  route  now  lay  southward  down  the  east  side  of 
the  Gidf  of  Suez,  and  at  first  along  the  shore.  The  station 
of  Agun  Mousa  {the  Wells  of  3Ioses) ,  v,iih  its  tamarisks  and 
seventeen  wells,  may  have  served  for  their  gathering  after 
the  passage.  They  marched  for  three  days  through  the 
wilderness  of  Shur  or  Etham,  on  the  south-west  margin  of 
the  great  desert  of  Paran  (et-Tih),  where  they  found  no  Ava- 
ter.^*  The  tract  is  still  proverbial  for  its  storms  of  wind  and 
sand.  It  is  a  part  of  the  belt  of  gravel  which  surrounds  the 
mountains  of  the  peninsula,  and  is  crossed  by  several  wadgs, 
whose  sides  are  fringed  with  tamarisks,  acacias,  and  a  few 
palm-trees.     Near  one  of  these,  the  Weidg  ePAmarah,  is  a 

=°  Ex.  xiv.  10-12.  I  the  sea,  which,  besides,  an  east  wind 

^*  While    the    Scripture    nnrrntive  would  not  have  effected, 
recognizes  a  physical  apency,  called!      ^^  This  seems  to  dispose  of  every 
forth  by  the  special  power  of  God,  as ;  theory  v/hich  makes  the  Pharaoh  of 
the  instrument  of  the  miracle,  it  quite  j  the  Exodus  survive  this  catastrophe 
excludes  the  idea  of  a  mere  retire-  (comp.  Ps.  cxxxvi.  15). 
ment  of  the  water  from  the  head  of  i      ^^  1  Cor.  x.  2. 
^  Ex.  XV.  22  ;  Hun.  xxxili.  8. 


16^  TJie  March  from  Egypt  to  Sinai.       Chap.  XII. 

sprinor  called  Ahi  Atodrah,  not  only  in  the  position  of  Marah, 
but  with  the  bitter  taste  which  gave  it  the  name.  The  people, 
tormented  w4th  thirst,  murmured  against  Moses,  who,  at  the 
command  of  God,  cast  a  certain  tree  into  the  waters  Avhich 
made  them  sweet.  This  was  the  first  great  trial  of  their  pa- 
tience ;  and  God,  who  had  healed  the  waters,  promised  to  de- 
liver them  from  all  the  diseases  of  Egypt  if  they  Avould  obey 
Him,  and  confirmed  the  promise  by  the  name  of  "  Jehovali 
the  Healer.'"^ 

They  must  have  been  cheered  at  reaching  the  oasis  of 
Elim,  whose  twelve  wells  and  threescore  palm-trees  mark  it 
as  one  of  the  icadys  that  break  the  desert ;  either  the  Wady 
Ghurundel  or  the  Wady  Useit.  After  passing  the  Wady 
Taiyibeh^  the  route  descends  through  a  defile  on  to  a  beauti- 
ful pebbly  beach,  where  Dean  Stanley  places  the  Enx'amp- 
MEXT  BY  THE  Red  Sea,  which  is  mentioned  in  Nurnbers^^  next 
to  Elim,  but  is  omitted  in  Exodus.  Here  the  Israelites  had 
their  last  view  of  the  Red  Sea  and  the  shores  of  Egypt. 

§  5.  Striking  inland  from  this  point,  they  entered  the  Wil- 
derness OF  Six"  (probably  the  plain  of  Murkhah),  which 
leads  up  from  the  shore  to  the  entrance  to  the  mountains  of 
Sinai.^^  Here  occurred  their  second  great  trial  since  leaving 
Egypt.  Their  unleavened  bread  was  exhausted ;  and  they 
began  to  murmur  that  they  had  better  have  died  by  the  flesh- 
pots  of  Egypt  than  have  been  led  out  to  be  killed  with 
hunger  in  the  Avilderness.  But  God  was  teaching  them  to 
look  to  him  for  their  "  daily  bread,"  which  He  now  rained 
doAvn  from  heaven  in  the  form  of  ma)i?ia,  and  continued  the 
supply  till  they  reached  Canaan.^^  The  truth  was  most  em- 
phatically enforced  by  the  impossibility  of  gathering  more  or 
less  than  the  prescribed  portion  of  the  manna,  or  of  keeping 
it  over  the  day."  But  the  manna  was  designed  to  teach 
them  a  deeper  lesson.  They  had  not  only  distrusted  God's 
providence  as  to  their  food,  but  were  regarding  that  food  it- 
self as  the  chief  thing  they  were  to  live  for ;  and  so  "  God 
humbled  them  and  suffered  them  to  hunger,  and  fed  them 
with  a  food  unknown  to  them,  that  He  might  make  them 
know  that  tna/i  doth  not  live  by  bread alo)ie,  but  by  every  word 

^^  Ex.  XV.  20.  3«  Num.  xxxiii.  10.  1  ^^  Ex.  xvi.  4,  3.5.  The  detnils  are 
"This  must  be  carefully  distin- j  discussed  in  the  Notes  and  J/liistra- 
guislied  not  only  from  the  wilderness  lions  (Q').  Tiie  quails,  which  were  sent 
of  Sinai,  but  also  from  the  ivilderness  j  at  the  same  time  (Ex.  xvi.  8,  13),  seem 
of  Zin,  which  lies  north  of  the  dd/  j  only  to  have  been  a  temporary  supply 
of  Akaba.  !  comp.  Num.  xi.  31). 

3**  Ex.  xvi.  I.  i      ""  Ex.  xvi.  lG-21. 


B.C.  1491.  The  March  from  Egypt  to  Sinai  165 

that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  Jehovah  doth  man  live."*' 
And  so  the  manna  was  a  type  of  Christ,  the  Word  of  God, 
who  came  down  from  heaven  as  the  bread  of  life,  to  give  life 
to  all  who  believe  in  Him."^ 

The  rules  laid  down  for  the  gathering  of  the  manna  gave 
occasion  for  the  revival  of  the  ^Sabbath,  which  had  no  doubt 
been  neglected  in  Egypt,"  though  the  appeal  of  Moses  to  the 
people^*  seems  to  imply  that  the  law  of  the  Sabbath  was  not 
entirely  forgotten.  At  all  events,  the  whole  tone  of  the  nar- 
rative is  inconsistent  with  the  idea  that  the  Sabbath  was  now 
first  instituted  in  this  merely  incidental  way,  an  idea  besides 
utterly  at  variance  with  Genesis  ii.  3. 

§  6.  From  this  valley  others  lead  up,  by  a  series  of  steep 
ascents,  into  the  recesses  of  Sinai ;  resembling  the  beds  of 
rivers,  but  Avithout  water,  and  separated  by  defiles  which 
sometimes  become  staircases  of  rock.  Such  were  no  doubt 
the  stations  of  Dophkah  and  Alush,*^  and  such  are  the  Wadys 
Shellal  and  Mukatteb.  From  the  latter  the  route  passes  into 
the  long  and  winding  Wady  Feiran,  with  its  groves  of  tama- 
risks and  palms,  overhung  by  the  granite  rocks  of  Mount 
Serhal,  perhaps  the  Horeb  of  Scripture."^  This  valley  answers 
in  every  respect  to  REPniDiM.(tlie  resting-p>laces),  the  very 
name  of  which  implies  a  long  halt." 

Here  the  cry  for  water  burst  forth  into  an  angry  rebellion 
against  Moses  ;  and  God  vouchsafed  a  miracle  for  a  perma- 
nent supply  during  their  abode  in  the  wilderness  of  Sinai. 
Moses  was  commanded  to  go  before  the  people,  with  the 
elders  of  Israel,  and  to  smite  the  rock  in  Horeb,  and  water 
flowed  forth  out  of  it.  The  place  was  called  Massah  {temp- 
tation)^ and  Meribaii  {chiding  or  strife)^  in  memory  of  the  re- 
bellion by  which  the  people  tempted  Jehovah  and  doubted 
His  presence  among  them."®  The  spring  thus  opened  seems 
to  have  formed  a  brook,  which  the  Israelites  used  during 
their  whole  sojourn  near  Sinai."  Hence  the  rock  is  said  to 
liave  ^\folloiced  them"  by  St.  Paul,  who  makes  it  a  type  of 
Christ,  the  source  of  the  spiritual  water  of  life.  ^"  There  is  no 
sufficient  reason  to  believe  that  the  remarkable  rock  pointed 

*^  Dent.  viii.  3;  comp.  Job  xxiii.  j  or  Ilortb,  see  Notes  and  Illustrations 
12;    John  iv.  32,  34;     Matt.  iv.  4;    to  clnv]).  xi.  "^  Ex.  xvii.  1. 


Luke  iv.  4. 

"^  Johp  vi.  25-59  ;  Matt.  xxvi.  26 ; 
1  Cor.  X.  3,  and  parallel  passages. 

*3  Ex.  xvi.  22-30.     "'  Ex.  xvi.  23. 

"^  Nnm.  xxxiii.  12,  13. 


*«  Ex.  xvii.  2-7. 

*^  Dent.  ix.  21 ;  comp.  Ps.  Ixxviii. 
15,  IG,  cv.  41. 

^°  1  Cor,  X.  4;  romp.  John  iv.  14, 
vii.  35  ;  Isa.  Iv.  1  :  Ez.  xlvii.  1  ;  Zecli. 


^"Respecting    the    claim    of   this   xiv.  8;  Rev.  xxii.  1,17:   the  waters 
mountain  to  bear  the  names  of  Sinai   flowing  out  of  the  temple,  which  also 


166  The  Battle  icith  Amalek.  Chap.  XII. 

out  to  travellers  supplies  the  silence  of  Scripture  as  to  the 
exact  locality  of  the  spring,  for  the  region  is  full  of  rocks 
bearing  the  marks  of  water/'  Lastly,  it  should  be  remember- 
ed that  the  miracle  was  repeated  at  a  much  later  period  in 
another  part  of  the  peninsuLa.""^ 

§  7.  It  was  in  Rephidim  that  the  new-formed  nation  fought 
their  first  great  battle.  As  yet  they  have  seemed  alone 
in  the  desert ;  but  now  an  enemy  comes  against  them,  their 
kinsman  Amalek,  a  nomad  tribe  descended  fi'om  Eliphaz, 
the  son  of  Esau.  Ti^e  range  of  the  Amalekites  seems  to 
have  been  at  this  time  over  the  south  of  Palestine  and  all 
Arabia  Petra\a  ;  so  that  they  commanded  the  routes  leading 
out  of  Egypt  into  Asia.  Whether  they  regarded  the  Israel- 
ites as  mtruders,  or  whether  for  the  sakeof  plunder,  they 
seem  first  to  have  assaulted  the  i-ear  of  the  column  and  cut 
off  the  infirm  and  stragglers^^  before  the  great  encounter  in 
Rephidim.  The  battle  lasted  till  sunset.  The  chosen  Avar- 
riors  of  Israel  fought  under  Joshua,  whose  name  is  now  first 
mentioned,^*  while  Moses  stood  on  a  hilP"  with  the  rod  of  God 
Oiitstretched  in  his  hand.  He  was  attended  by  his  brother 
Aaron  and  by  Hur,  the  husband  of  Miriam,  who  held  up  his 
hands  when  he  became  weary,  for  only  while  the  rod  was 
stretched  out  did  Israel  prevail.  The  early  fiithers  have 
discovered  a  symbolical  power  in  the  attitude  of  Moses,  his 
arms  forming  the  figure  of  the  cross :  more  cautious  com- 
mentators regard  it  as  a  lesson  of  the  power  of  prayer  :  but 
its  exact  meaning  seems  to  have  been  a  sign  of  God's  pres- 
ence with  His  hosts,  held  forth  as  a  standard  over  the  bat- 
tle-field ;  and  this  was  taught  by  the  name  given  to  the  altar 
of  thanksgiving  then  set  up,  Jehoyah-Nissi,  Jehovah  is  my 
Banner. 

For  this  treacherous  attack  the  tribe  of  Amalek  Avere  hence- 
forth doomed  to  execration  and  ultimate  extinction."  A  very 
interesting  point  in  the  narrative  is  the  command  of  God 
to  Moses,  to  write  the  whole  transaction  in  a  book ;  one  of 

stood  on  a  bare  rock,  complete  the  j  ^^  It  is  called  in  the  narrative  '■'■iJie 
type,  linking  together  Sinai,  Sion,  hill,"  as  being  conspicuous  or  well 
and  the  spiritual  sonso  of  both.  known.     There  is  a  remarkable  bill 

^'  Stanley,  Sinai  and  Palestine,  pp.  in  the  Wadt/  Fciran,  on  which  the 
4fi-48.  church  of  Paran   is  still  seen,  well 

^-  Num.  XX.  1-13.  suited  to   have  been  the    station  of 

^^  Deut.  XXV.  18.  I  Moses. 

**  His  own  name  was  Oshea ;  that'  ^®  Exod.  xvii.  14-16;  Num.  xxiv. 
of  Joshua  (Saviour  =  J esu?,  in  Greek)  20;  Deut.  xxv.  19  ;  1  Sam.  xv.  3,  7, 
^vas  perhaps  given  him  on  this  occa-  j  xxx.  1,  17  ;  2  Sam.  viii.  12  ;  Ezra  ix. 
sion  (see  Num.  xiii.  8.  IGJ.  i  14. 


B.C.  IWl. 


The  March  from  Egypt  to  Sinai. 


161 


the  passages  in  Avhich  we  learn  from  the  sacred  writers  them- 
selves their  authorship  of  the  books  that  bear  their  names." 

§  8.  The  visit  of  Jethro,  the  father-hi-law  of  Moses,  took 
place  probably  during  the  encampment  at  Rephidim,  for  there 
seems  no  sufficient  reason  for  transposing  the  narrative  in 
chapter  xviii.  to  a  period  after  the  giving  of  the  law.  The 
Israelites  being  now  near  Midian,  Jethro,  brought  to  Moses 
his  wife  and  children,  whom  he  had  sent  back  into  Midian, 
probably  after  the  scene  related  in  Exod.  iv.  24-26.  Moses 
received  Jethro  with  high  honor,  and  recounted  to  him  all 
that  Jehovah  had  done  for  the  people.  The  priest  of  Midian 
joyfully  acknowledged  the  God  of  Israel,  and  oftered  sacrifices 
to  Jehovah  ;  and  henceforth  there  was  the  closest  friendship 
between  Israel  and  the  Kenites,  his  descendants.'*^  Seeing 
Moses  overburdened  with  judging  the  people,  he  advised  him 
to  organize  an  administration  of  justice  by  a  gradation  of  ru- 
lers over  tens,  fifties,  hundreds,  and  thousands,  and  to  reserve 
himself  for  the  harder  causes,  to  lay  them  before  God,  as  me- 
diator for  the  people. ^^  It  would  seem  that,  on  Jethro's  re- 
turn to  his  own  land,^°  he  left  behind  him  his  son  Hobab, 
who  became  the  guide  of  the  people  from  Sinai  to  the  border 
of  Canaan.'^ 

§  9.  The  next  stage  brought  the  Israelites  to  the  Wilder- 
ness OP  SixAi  on  the  first  day  of  the  third  month  (Sivan, 
June).,  and  here  they  encamped  before  the  mount. "^  The  site 
of  their  camp  has  been  identified,  to  a  high  degree  of  proba- 
bility, with  the  Wady  er-JRdhah  (the  enclosed  plain)  in  front 
of  the  magnificent  cliffs  oi Ras  Siifsdfeh.^^  The  people  Avould 
reach  this  point  by  winding  around  the  Wady  esh-Sheykh^  the 
great  thoroughfare  of  the  desert,  while  Moses  and  the  elders 
might  mount  to  it  by  the  steep  pass  of  the  Niikb  Hawy. 
Never  in  the  history  of  the  world  was  such  a  scene  beheld 
as  that  plain  now  presented  !  A  whole  nation  was  assembled 
alone  with  God.  His  hand  had  been  seen  and  his  voice  heard 
at  every  step  of  their  history  for  430  years  up  to  this  great 
crisis.  He  had  called  their  progenitor  Abraham  from  his  fa- 
ther's house,  and  made  with  him  the  covenant,  which  had 
now  reached  its  first  great  fulfillment.  He  had  guided  the 
family  by  wondrous  ways  till  He  brought  them  down  to 
Egypt,  where  they  grew  into  a  nation  under  the  discipline  of 
affliction.     Thence  He  had  brought  them  forth  with  a  mighty 


"  Ex,  xvii.  14;  comp.  Ex.  xxxiv. 
27. 

^1  Sam.  XV.  6. 
'^  Ex.  xviii.  13-26. 


«°  Ex.  xviii.  27.     "'  Num.  x.  29,  30. 
^^Ex.  xix.  1,2. 

^^  ]<!otcs  and  Illustrations  to  chap, 
xi.  p.  15G. 


168  The  Season  of  Preparation.  uhap.  XII. 

hand. and  an  outstretched  arm,  proving  that  He  was  the  only 
God,  and  they  the  people  of  His  choice.  He  had  severed 
them  from  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  and  had  divided  the 
very  sea,  to  let  them  pass  into  this  secret  shrine  of  nature, 
whose  awful  grandeur  prepared  their  minds  for  the  coming 
revelation.  Thus  far  they  only  knew  the  token  which  God 
had  given  to  Moses,  "  When  thou  hast  brought  forth  the  peo- 
ple out  of  Egypt,  ye  shall  serve  God  upon  this  mountain."®* 
They  had  reached  the  place,  and  they  waited  in  awful  adora- 
tion  for  what  was  to  follow. 

We  propose  to  follow  the  events  that  took  place  during 
their  stay  at  Sinai  till  the  setting  up  of  the  tabernacle,  on 
the  first  day  of  the  second  year,  reserving  for  the  close  of 
this  book  an  account  of  the  laws  and  institutions  which  now 
were  given. 

There  was  a  season  of  preparation  before  the  great  ap- 
pearance of  God  on  Sinai  to  give  the  law.  First,  Moses  went 
up  to  God,  whose  voice  called  to  him  out  of  the  mountain, 
telling  him  to  remind  the  people  of  the  wonders  already 
wrought  for  them,  and  promising  that,  if  they  Avould  obey 
God  and  keep  His  covenant,  "  then  shall  ye  be  a  peculiar 
treasure  unto  me  above  all  people  (for  all  the  earth  is  mine), 
and  ye  shall  be  unto  me  a  kingdom  of  priests,  and  an  holy 
nation.'"'^  These  words  mark  the  special  character  assigned 
to  the  Israelites,  and  still  more  to  the  spiritual  Israel.®^  Not 
that  they  were  to  be  separated  from  all  nations  in  proud  ex- 
clusiveness,  for  their  own  sake :  this  was  the  great  mistake 
of  their  history."  But  as  "  all  the  earth  is  Jehovah's,"  they 
were  His  in  a  special  sense,  to  bring  all  nations  back  to  Him  ; 
kings  and  priests  for  others'  good,  and  a  holy  nation  for  a 
pattern  to  all  the  rest.  True,  they  flailed  in  this  great  mis- 
sion ;  but  only  for  a  time  :  their  history  is  not  finished,  for  it 
is  only  the  first  step  in  that  of  the  spiritual  Israel,  who  are 
yet  to  reign  as  kings  and  priests  to  God,  and  to  bring  all 
nations  to  the  obedience  of  Christ.  Meanwhile  the  elders 
and  people  accepted  the  covenant,  and  said,  "  All  that  Jeho- 
vah hath  spoken,  we  will  do,"  and  Moses  returned  with  their 
words  to  Jehovah. 

Moses  was  next  warned  of  the  coming  appearance  of  God 
in  a  thick  cloud,  to  speak  to  him  before  all  the  people,  that 
they  might  believe  him  forever.  He  was  commanded  to 
purify  the  people  against  the  third  day,  and  to  set  bounds 

"*  Ex.  iii.  12.  I      *"'•■•  1  Pet.  ii.  5,  9;   T?cv.  i.  6,  v.  10, 

»^  Ex.  xix  5,  6.  i  XX.  G.  ^'  Dcut.  vii.  7. 


B.C.  1491. 


Israel  at  Sinai. 


169 


round  the  mount,  forbidding  man  or  beast  to  touch  it,  under 
penalty  of  death  f^  and  these  preparations  occupied  the  next 
day. 

§10.  The  same  reverence  that  was  then  enjoined  forbids 
the  vain  attempt  to  describe  the  scene,  which  is  related  in 
the  simple  but  sublime  words  of  Moses,*"  and  recounted  in 
the  noblest  strains  of  poetry,^"  and  whose  terrors,  which 
made  even  Moses  himself  to  fear  and  quake,^^  are  most  beau- 
tifully contrasted  with  the  milder  glories  of  the  spiritual 
Sion."  From  amid  the  darkness,  and  above  the  trumpet's 
sound,  God's  voice  was  heard  calling  Moses  up  into  the 
mount,  to  bid  him  charge  the  people  lest  they  should  break 
the  bounds  to  gaze  on  God,  and  to  prepare  the  elders  to  come 
up  with  him  and  Aaron  when  God  should  call  them.  Mo- 
ses returned  to  the  people,  and  repeated  these  injunctions. 

Then  followed  the  greatest  event  of  the  Old  Covenant. 
The  voice  of  God  himself  gave  forth  the  law  by  which  his 
people  were  to  live ;  the  Tej^  Commandments,  on  which  all 
other  laws  were  to  be  founded,  and  which  were  themselves 
summed  up  under  the  Old  Covenant  as  well  as  the  Xew,  in 
two  great  principles  : — "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God 
with  all  thy  heart  and  soul  and  mind  and  strength,  and  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself."^^ 

The  Ten  Commandments  were  the  only  part  of  the  law 
given  by  the  voice  of  God  to  the  assembled  people  :  "  He 
added  no  more  ;"  and  they  alone  were  afterward  written  on 
the  two  tables  of  stone.''*  The  form  of  the  revelation  was 
more  than  they  could  bear ;  and  they  prayed  Moses  that  he 
would  speak  to  them  in  the  place  of  God,  lest  they  should 
die.  God  approved  their  words,  and  Moses  was  invested 
with  the  office  of  Mediator^  the  type  of  "  the  Prophet  raised 
up  like  him,"  the  "  one  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  the 
man  Christ  Jesus.""  He  drew  near  to  the  thick  darkness 
where  God  was,  while  the  people  stood  aloof;  and  he  received 


<^^  This  seems  to  be  a  decisive  proof 
that  "the  mount"  was  some  steep 
eminence  close  at  hand,  like  Rns 
Sufsdfeh,  and  not  a  distant  summit 
of  the  range,  like  Jehel  Mousa. 

*^  Ex.  xix.  16-20 ;  comp.  Deut.  v. 
1-5. 

'"  See,  among  other  passages,  Ps. 
Ixviii.  7-8;  from  which,  compared 
with  Acts  vii,  38  ;  Ephes.  iv.  8,  and 
other  passages  of  the  New  Testament, 
it  is  clearlv  to  be  inferred  that  God 

H 


was  manifested  on  Sinai  in  tlie  per- 
son of  the  Son,  the  angel  Jehovah. 

"  Ex.  xix.  ]G.     "  Heb.  xii.  18-29. 

"Ex.  XX.  1-17;  Deut.  v.  6-22, 
vi.  4,  5,  X.  12,  XXX.  6  ;  Lev.  xix.  18  ; 
Matt.  xxii.  37 ;  Mark  xii.  30 ;  Luke 
X.  27.  All  points  of  interpretation 
are  reserved  for  the  appendix  to  this 
book.  ■'■'  Deut.  v.  22. 

'^  Ex.  XX.  18-21  ;  Deut.  v.  23-31, 
xviii.  15-18  ;  Gal  iii.  19,  20;  1  Tim. 
ii.  5  ;  Heb.  xii.  19. 


ilU  Giving  of  the  Laio.  Chap,  xil, 

a  series  of  precepts,  which  stand  apart  from  the  laws  after- 
ward delivered,  as  a  practical  interpretation  of  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments.''^ 

These  precepts  were  concluded  by  promises  relating  to  the 
people's  future  course.  Their  destination  was  clearly  stated," 
their  bounds  assigned,'®  the  conquest  assured  to  them  by  a 
gradual  exertion  of  the  power  of  God,"  the  blessings  of  life 
promised  if  they  served  God,  and  a  special  warning  given 
against  idolatry.^"  Above  all,  the  axgel  Jehovah,  who  had 
already  guided  them  out  of  Egypt,®'  was  still  to  be  their 
guide  to  keep  them  in  the  way,  and  to  bring  them  to  the  place 
appointed  for  them,  and  their  captain  to  iiglit  against  their 
enemies.®'  But,  if  provoked  and  disobeyed.  He  would  be  a 
terror  to  themselves,  "  for  my  name  is  in  Him?''^'^  Thus 
the  whole  promise  is  crowned  with  Christ.  For  this  angel 
is  identified  with  God's  own  presence.®^  He  appeared  to 
Joshua®"  as  Jehovah,  the  captain  of  the  Lord's  host,  that  is, 
the  chief  of  the  angels,  the  archangel,  a  title  which  belongs 
only  to  the  Son  of  God,  the  prince  Michael.®"  In  this  angel 
God  himself  was  present,  as  the  Shejyherd  of  his  floclx\  the 
Holy  One  of  Israel ;  whom  they  tempted  and  provoked  in 
the  wilderness,  and  in  vexing  Him,  they  vexed  God's  Holy 
Spirit.®^  Lastly,  St.  Stephen  expressly  declares  Christ  to 
have  been  the  prophet  Avhom  God  raised  up,  as  he  did  Moses, 
and  the  angel  who,  as  well  as  Moses,  was  with  the  church  in 
the  wilderness,  and  who  spake  to  Moses  in  Mount  Sinai.®® 
So  ended  the  great  day  on  which  God  came  down  to  the 
earth  to  announce  his  law  ;  the  type  of  the  milder  revelation 
which  was  made  Avhen  the  evangelical  exposition  of  that 
law  was  given  by  the  same  voice,  though  now  clad  in  the 
form  of  the  man  Jesus,  on  the  Mount  of  the  Beatitudes.®^ 

One  circumstance  remains  to  be  noticed.  St.  Stejihen  up- 
braids the  Jews  for  not  keeping  the  law,  though  they  had 
received  it  by  the  disposition  of  angels.^^  This  appears  evi- 
dently to  be  an  allusion  to  those  hosts  of  angels  or  "  holy 

"  Ex.  XX.  22,  xxi.  xxii.  xxiii.  { these  are  all  the  texts  which  contain 

''''  Ex.  xxiii.  23.       ''*  Ex.  xxiii.  31.  j  the  words  arc/zmj^re/ and  Michael.    See 
'^  Ex.  xxiii.  28-30.  the  conclusive   argument  of  Bishop 


Ex.  xxiii.  24-2G 

«^Ex.  xiii.  21,xiv.  19,24. 

**  Ex.  xxiii.  20,  22. 

^'  Comp.  Num.  xx.  16. 

*^  Ex.  //.  rr..  and  xxxii.  34,  xxxiiL 
3,14.  '-'^  Josh.  V.  13,  vi.  2. 

^«  1  Thess.  iv.  IG;  Jude  9  ;  comp. 
Dan.  X.  13,  21,  xii.  1  ;  Rev.  xii.  7; 


Horsley,  Sermon  xxix. 
*^  Ps.  Ixviii.  40,  41 ;  Is.  Ixiii.  9-11. 
*«  Actsvii.  38.      ^   ''^Matt.  V.  1.  ^ 
^^  Acts  vii.  53 :    eig  Siaraydc  ayyt- 
liov,  and  St.  Paul  bases  a  similar  ap- 
peal on  its  having  been  spoken  hy  an^ 
(jels  (Heb.  ii.  2 ;    compare  Gal.   iii. 
"19).. 


B.C.  1491. 


Israel  at  Smai. 


171 


ones  "  whose  presence  at  Sinai  is  more  than  once  mentioned,"'* 
and  whom  the  Apostle  contrasts  with  the  innumerable  com- 
pany of  angels  on  the  spiritual  Sion.°^  These  angels  seem  to 
have  been  present,  not  only  to  swell  Jehovah's  state,  but  to 
intimate  the  consent  of  the  whole  intelligent  universe  to  that 
law,  which  is  forever  "  holy,  just,  and  good." 

§  11.  The  element  of  terror,  which  prevailed  in  the  revela- 
tion given  on  Sinai,  was  the  true  type  of  the  aspect  of  the 
law  to  the  mind  of  sinful  man.  Pure  and  holy  in  itself,  it 
became  "  death,"  when  projoosed  as  the  condition  of  life ;  and 
its  great  purpose  was  to  reveal  to  self-righteous  man  "the 
exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin,"  that  he  might  be  led  to  receive 
the  grace  of  God  in  Christ. ^^  Thus  the  clouds  of  Sinai  did 
not  exhibit,  but  concealed,  the  true  glory  of  Jehovah  :  and 
He  now  vouchsafed  a  vision  of  that  glory  to  Moses,  with 
Aaron  and  his  sons  Nadab  and  Abihu,  and  seventy  of  the 
elders  of  Israel.^*  But  first  Moses  wrote  the  precepts  already 
given,  and  set  up  an  altar  and  memorial  pillars,  one  for  each 
tribe,  and  sacrificed  burnt-offerings  and  peace-offerings  of  oxen, 
and  sprinkled  with  the  blood  the  book  of  the  covenant  which  he 
then  read  to  the  people,  who  renewed  their  promise  of  obe- 
dience, and  were  themselves  also  sprinkled  with  the  blood,  and 
so  the  "  covenant  of  works  "  was  ratified.^^  The  chosen  party 
now  went  up,  and  saw  God  enthroned  in  his  glory,  as  he  was  aft- 
erward seen  by  Ezekiel  and  John,  and  yet  they  lived."^  Mo- 
ses was  then  called  up  alone  into  the  mount,  to  receive  the  ta- 
bles of  stone  and  the  law  which  God  had  written,  while  Aaron 
and  Hur  were  left  to  govern  the  people.  Followed  only  by 
his  servant  Joshua,  Moses  went  up  into  the  mount,  Avhich  a 
cloud  covered  for  six  days,  crowned  with  the  glory  of  God 
as  a  burning  fire.  On  the  seventh  day  Moses  was  called  into 
the  cloud,  and  there  he  abode  without  food  forty  days  and 
forty  nights. ^^ 

§  12.  While  God  was  instructing  Moses  in  the  ordinances 
of  divine  worship,^®  the  people  had  already  relapsed  into  idol- 
atry. We  must  remember  that,  as  Egypt  had  been  the  scene 
of  the  people's  childhood,  their  sojourn  in  the  wilderness  was 
their  spiritual  youth,  the  age  of  sensuous  impressions  and  of 
unstable  resolutions.     The  great  works  done  for  them  were 


^^  Deut.  xxxiii.  2  ;  Ps.  Ixviii.  17. 

^2  Heb.  xii.  22  ;  comp.  Jude  U, 
Rev.  xiv.  1. 

''  Gal.  iii.  21-25  ;  Rom.  vii.  7-25, 
and  the  general  argument  of  the  epis- 
tle. 


«"  Ex.  xxiv.  1,2. 

«^  Ex.  xxiv.  2-8  ;  Heb.  ix.  18-20. 
»« Ex.  xxiv.  9-1 1  ;  Ez.  i.  26,  x.  1  ; 
Rev.  iv.  3. 

'■>'  Ex.  xxiv.  12-18;  Deut.  ix.  9. 
^^  Ex.  xxiv.^xxxi.     See  chap.  xv. 


172  Tiie  Tables  of  the  Law  Broken.        Chap.  XII. 

soon  forgotten,  while  each  present  difficulty  seemed  insupport- 
able. As  the  weeks  passed  by  without  the  return  of  Moses, 
they  began  to  think  they  had  lost  both  their  leader  and  their 
ncAV-found  god.  They  recalled  the  visible  objects  of  wor- 
ship, to  which  they  had  been  used  in  Egyj)t,  and  they  asked 
Aaron  to  make  them  gods  to  go  before  them.^^  Weakly 
yielding  to  their  demand, ^°°  and  perhaps  hoping  that  they 
would  not  make  the  costly  sacrifice,  Aaron  asked  for  their 
golden  ear-rings,  from  which  he  made  a  "  molten  calf,"  the 
symbol  of  the  Egyptian  Apis.  This  he  exhibited  to  the  peo- 
ple as  the  image  of  the  God  who  had  brought  them  out  of 
Egypt,  and  he  built  an  altar  before  the  idol.  But  yet  it  was 
in  the  name  of  Jehovah  that  he  proclaimed  a  festival  for  the 
morrow,  which  the  people  celebrated  with  a  banquet,  follow- 
ed by  songs  and  lascivious  dances.^"  This  was  on  the  last  of 
the  forty  days,  and  God  sent  Moses  down  from  the  mount, 
telling  him  of  Israel's  sin,  and  declaring  his  purpose  to  destroy 
them,  and  to  make  of  him  a  new  nation.  With  self-denying 
importunity,  Moses  pleaded  for  the  people,  by  the  honor  of 
God  in  the  eyes  of  the  Egyptians,  and  by  His  covenant  Avith 
Abraham^  Isaac,  and  Israel,  "  and  Jehovah  repented  of  the 
evil  which  he  thought  to  do  unto  his  people."^"'' 

Moses  now  descended  from  the  mount,  carrying  in  his  hands 
the  two  tables  of  stone,  on  which  God's  own  finger  had  writ- 
ten the  Ten  Commandments.^"^  His  path  lay  through  a  ra- 
vine, which  cut  off  his  view  of  the  camp,  but  he  soon  heard 
their  cry  of  revelry,  which  his  warlike  attendant  Joshua 
mistook  for  the  noise  of  battle.  As  he  reached  the  plahi, 
the  disgraceful  scene  burst  upon  him,  and  in  righteous  an- 
ger he  dashed  the  tables  out  of  his  hands,  and  broke  them 
in  pieces  at  the  foot  of  the  mount ;  giving  at  once  a  terrible 
significance  for  all  future  time  to  the  phrase,  a  broken  law, 
and  a  sign  of  man's  inability  to  keep  the  law  given  on  Sinai. 
For  both  Moses  and  the  people,  though  in  different  ways, 
were  showing,  by  their  acts,  that  the  first  use  to  which  man 
puts  God's  law  is  to  break  it.  Both  tables  were  broken,  for 
idolatry  had  been  folloAved  by  licentiousness.  He  next  de- 
stroyed the  ^'alf  by  fire  and  pounding,  strewed  its  dust  upon 
the  stream  from  which  the  people  drank,  and  reproached 
Aaron,  who  could  only  offer  feeble  excuses.  Then  he  exe- 
cuted a  terrible  example  on  the  people.  Standing  in  the 
gate  of  the  camp,  he  cried,"  Who  is  Jehovah's?  to  me  !"  and 

•"  Ex.  xxxii.  1.  I      '"^Ex.xxxii.  0,  18,  25;lCoi-.  X.  7. 

'""  Comp.  Ex.  xxxii.  22,  23.  |      '"'  Ex.  xxxii.  7-H. 


103 


Ex.  xxxi.  1 


B.C.  1491.  Israel  at  Sinai.  17S 

all  his  brethren  of  the  tribe  of  Levi  rallied  round  him,  and 
went  through  the  camp  at  his  command,  slaying  about  three 
thousand  men,  and  not  sparing  their  own  kindred.  This 
was  the  consecration  of  Levi  to  the  service  and  priesthood 
of  Jehovah.  The  blood  shed  by  His  righteous  sentence  ex- 
piated the  violence  done  to  the  Shechemites,  and  turned 
into  a  blessing  the  curse  that  deed  had  brought  on  the  fa- 
ther of  their  tribe,^°*  and  their  sacrifice  of  their  own  feelings 
and  aifections  for  the  cause  of  God  marked  them  as  fit  to 
offer  continual  sacrifices  for  His  people.""' 

The  self-sacrifice  of  Moses  went  far  greater  lengths.  On 
the  morroAV,  he  reproved  the  people  for  their  sin,  but  prom- 
ised to  intercede  for  them  ;  and  then  he  addressed  to  Jeho- 
vah these  awful  words :  "  Yet  now,  if  thou  Avilt  forgive 
their  sin — ;  and  if  not,  hlot  me,  I  pray  thee,  out  of  thy  book 
which  thou  hast  written.'"'''^  The  only  parallel,  hut  one,  is  the 
cry  of  Paul,  "  I  could  wish  that  myself  were  accursed  from 
Christ  for  my  brethren.'""  It  seems  impious  to  suppose 
them  willing  to  renounce  their  hope  of  eternal  life  ;  but  all 
present  share  in  God's  covenant  w^ith  His  people  they  Avere 
Avilling  to  renounce.  The  exact  sense  of  the  prayer  must  re- 
main an  unfathomable  mystery :  its  spirit  was  the  spirit  of 
Him  of  whom  Moses  as  mediator  Avas  the  type,  Avho  went 
through  Avith  the  like  self-sacrifice,  and  drank  its  cup  to  the 
dregsl  "  Christ  hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  laAV, 
heiny  made  a  curse  for  ws.'""^ 

But  no  mere  man  could  drink  of  that  cup,  and  God  re- 
plied to  Moses  that  the  sinner  himself  should  be  blotted  out 
of  His  book,'"^  and  He  sent  plagues  upon  the  people."" 
Once  more  he  promised  to  send  His  Angel  before  them,  to 
be  a  mediator  as  aa^cII  as  leader."'  At  this  the  people  mur- 
mured, thinking  that  they  Avere  to  lose  God's  OAvn  presence, 
and  they  put  themselves  into  mourning.  Moses  removed 
the  sacrecl  tent,  called  the  "  tabernacle  of  the  congrega- 
tion,""^ out  of  the  camp  Avhich  had  been  profaned,  and  all 


"•^  Gen.  xxxiv.  30,  xlix.  5-7. 
^'^  Deut.  xxxiii.  9,  10. 
"■'^  Ex.  xxxii.  32.        ^"  Rom.  ix.  3. 
^»«  Gal.  iii.  13.        "'  Ex.  xxxii.  33. 
"°  Ex.  xxxii.  35. 


and  returned  again.  It  would  seem, 
therefore,  that,  before  the  tabernacle, 
there  was  a  sacred  tent  in  the  midst 
of  the  camp,  at  which  perhaps  the 
elders  met  and  Moses  judged  the  pco- 


^"  Ex.  xxxii.  34,  and  chap,  xxxiii.  jple,  and  where  they  assembled  in  the 
1-4.  congregation.     Afterward  the  taber- 

"^  This  was  of  course  not  the  ^a&er-  nacle  of  Jehovah  became  the  "tent 
nacle  itself,  which  was  not  yet  made,  of  the  congregation,"  for  the  sanctu- 
nor  was  it  tlie  tent  of  Moses,  for  Mo-  ary  belonged  to  the  people,  and  not 
8es  himself  went  to  it  out  of  the  camp,  ;  only  to  the  priests- 


174  Israel  at  Sinai.  Chap.  XIi. 

who  sought  Jehovah  went  out  to  it.  When  Moses  liimself 
went  out,  and  entered  the  tabernacle,  the  pillar  of  cloud  de- 
scended to  its  door,  "  and  Jehovah  spake  unto  Moses,  face  to 
face,  as  a  man  speaketh  unto  his  friend,"  while  all  the  peo- 
ple looked  on  from  their  tent  doors  and  worshiped.  When 
Moses  returned  into  the  camp,  Joshua  remained  in  the  taber- 
nacle. 

Having  obtained  pardon  for  the  people,  Moses  prayed  for 
a  special  encouragement  to  himself: — "  Shew  me  now  thy 
way,  that  I  may  know  thee."  Receiving  the  assurance  that 
God's  presence  should  be  with  him,  to  give  him  rest,  he  re- 
newed the  prayer,  "  Shew  me  thy  glory."  The  answer  seems 
to  intimate  that  God's  glory  is  in  His  goodness  and  in  His 
grace  and  mercy ;  but  that,  in  our  present  state,  we  can 
only  follow  the  track  which  His  glory  leaves  in  the  w^orks 
of  grace  He  does :  we  can  not  bear  to  look  face  to  face  at 
His  perfections  in  their  essence.  He  vouchsafed  to  Moses  tlie 
outward  sign  for  which  he  asked,  promising  to  place  him  in 
a  clift  of  the  rock,  and  to  hide  him  while  the  glory  of  Jelio- 
vah  passed  by,  so  that  he  could  only  see  the  train  behind 
Him. 

The  narrative  may  be  partly  conceived  by  the  help  of  the 
like  vision  which  was  granted  to  Elijah  in  this  wilderness 
of  Sinai.  "^ 

Moses  went  up  alone  into  the  mount,  which  was  secured 
against  intrusion,  carrying  with  him  two  tables  of  stone  to 
replace  those  which  he  had  broken,  for  God  made  repeated 
trials  of  the  people's  faith.  Then  Jehovah  descended  in  a 
cloud,  and  proclaimed  His  name  as  the  God  of  mercy,  grace, 
long-suiFering,  goodness  and  truth,  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion. At  this  proclamation  of  God's  true  glory,  Moses  came 
forth  to  intercede  once  more  for  liis  people  ;  and  God  re- 
newed His  covenant,  to  work  wonders  for  them,  and  to  bring 
them  into  the  promised  land,  adding  a  new  warning  against 
their  falling  into  the  idolatry  of  Canaan."*  This  time  also, 
Moses  remained  in  the  mount  for  forty  days  and  forty 
nights,"^  and  received  anew  the  precepts  of  the  law,  as  Avell 
as  the  two  tables  he  had  carried  up,  inscribed  with  the  Ten 
Commandments  by  God  himself"^ 

When  Moses  came  down  from  the  mount,  the  light  of  God's 

"^  Ex.  xxxiii.  12-23;   1  K.  xix.  9- |  Elijah   in    the   same    desert,  and  by 


13. 

'"Ex.  xxxiii.  1-17. 
"^  The  same  ])eriod  of  separation 
from  the  world  was  accomplished  by 


Christ,  probably  in  the  wilderness  of 
Juda;a  (I  K.  xix.  8  ;   Matt.  iv.  2). 

"•^  Exod.  xxxiii.  18-28  ;  Deut.  ix. 
18-25,  X.  1-5. 


B.C.  1490.  Tlie  Tabernacle  set  up.  175 

glory  shone  so  brightly  from  his  face,  that  the  people  were 
unable  to  look  at  him,  till  he  had  covered  it  with  a  veil,  while 
he  recited  to  them  the  commandments  that  God  had  g-iven 
him.  '' 

§  13.  Moses  now  gathered  a  congregation  of  the  people, 
and,  after  repeating  the  law  of  the  Sabbath,'''  he  asked  their 
free  gifts  for  the  tabernacle  and  its  furniture.  The  spoil  of  the 
Egyptians  was  brought  as  a  free-will  oflering  to  Jehovah, 
jewels  and  precious  metals,  skins  and  woven  fabrics,  spices, 
oils,  and  incense.  Two  men  were  filled  by  God  with  skill  for 
the  Avork  ;  Bezaleel,  the  son  of  Uri,  of  the'^tribe  of  Judah,  and 
Aholiab,  the  son  of  Ahisamach,  of  the  tribe  of  Dan  ;  and  they 
wrought  with  "  every  wise-hearted  man,  in  whom  Jehovah 
put  wisdom  and  understanding  to  AVork  for  the  service  of  the 
sanctuary."  They  soon  found  the  offerings  of  the  people  far 
above  Avhat  Avas  required ;  and  they  made  the  tabernacle 
with  its  furniture  and  vessels,  the  cloths  of  service,  and  the 
garments  of  the  priests,  after  the  pattern  shoAvn  to  Moses  in 
the  mount,  and  Moses  blessed  them.''^ 

All  things  being  thus  prepared,  Moses  Avas  commanded  to 
set  up  the  tabernacle  and  place  in  it  the  ark  of  the  covenant, 
and  to  anoint  Aaron  and  his  sons  to  the  priesthood.  The  sol- 
emn ceremony  took  place  on  the  first  day  of  the  fii-st  month 
of  the  second  year  from  the  epoch  of  the  Exodus,  March  to 
April,  B.C.  1490.  JehoA'ah  A^ouchsafed  a  visible  token  of  His 
presence  and  approval  by  covering  the  tabernacle  with  the 
cloud  and  filling  it  Avith  His  glory,  so  that  Moses  could  not 
enter  into  the  tabernacle,  and  by  sending  doAvn  on  the  altar 
the  sacred  fire,  Avith  Avhich  alone  the  sacrifices  Avere  henceforth 
to  be  oflfered.'^"  The  scene  thus  simply  and  briefly  related 
by  Moses  should  be  compared  Avith  the  more  elaborate  de- 
scription of  the  dedication  of  Solomon's  temple,  of  AAdiich  the 
tabernacle  Avas  the  model. '^'  A  whole  monch  was  spent  in 
arranging  the  service  of  the  sanctuary,  as  it  is  set  forth  in  the 
Book  of  Leviticus,  before  the  people  prepared  for  their  on- 
ward journey. 


Ex.  xxxiv.  29-35  ;  com  p.  1  Cor. 


iii.  12-18. 

"« Ex.  XXXV.  1-3. 


119 


Exod.  xxxv.-xxxix.   xxv.    40.- 


Heb.  viii.  25. 

''°  Ex.  xl.  ;  Num.  ix.  15,  16. 


1  K.  viii.  ;  2  Chron.  vi.  vii. 


176 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  XIL 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTEATIONS. 


(A.)   STATIONS  IN  THE  WIL- 
DERNESS. 

l^uvibers  XXXIII. 

I.  In  Egypt.  Verses 

1.  Kameses 3-5 

2.  Siiccoth 5,6 

3.  Etham 6,7 

4.  Pi-hahirotli,  near    Baal-ze- 

phon  and  Miydol 7,  S 

II.  BeFOUE  KEACilING   SiNAI. 

Tliroiigh  the  sea  to 

5.  Marah 8,9 

6.  Elim 9,10 

7.  Hy  the  Red  Sea 10, 11 

8.  Wilderness  of  Sin 11, 12 

9.  Doplikah 12,13 

10.  Alush 13, 14 

1 1.  Itepliidim 14, 15 

12.  Wilderness  of  Sinai 15, 16 

nr.  Fkom  Sinat  to  the  Frontiek. 

13.  Kibroth-hattaavah 16,  17 

14.  Hazeroth 17,  IS 

IV.  Stations  during  the  Wandering, 

till  the  return  to  K  .  Jesh.* 

15.  Rithmah 18, 19 

1 6.  Rimmon-parez 19,20 

17.  Libnah 20,21 

IS.  Rissah 21,  22 

19.  Kehelathah 22,  23 

20.  Mount  Shapliei-. 23,  24 

21.  Haradah 24,  25 

22.  Makheloth 25,  26 

23.  Tahath 20,  27 

24.  Tarah 27,  2S 

25.  Mithcah 28,29 

26.  Hashmonah 2.»,  SO 

27.  Moseroth CO,  31 

23.  Bene-jaakan 31,32 

29.  Hor-hagidgad 82,  33 

SO.  Jotbathah 83,  34 

31.  Ebronah 34,  35 

32.  Ez.\on-gaber 35,  36 

S3.  Wilderness   of  Zin,  which 

is  Kadesii S6,  37 

\^  FiNAT.  Journey  after  the  Forty 
Years'  Wandering. 
31.  ''Mount  IIoB,  in  the  edge 

of  Edom  " '. .  37-41 

S5.  Zalmouah 41,  42 

36.  Punou 42,  43 

37.  Oboth 4;],  44 

3S.  Ije-.\barim    (i.  e.,  heaps  of 

Abarim),  in  the  border  of 

Moiib 44,45 

89.  Dibon-gad 45,46 

*  A3  the  first  stay  at  Kndesh  is  not  mentioned  in 
the  list,  the  place  of  this  division  is  only  conjectural. 


Verses 

40.  Almon-Diblatliaim 40,-17 

41.  Mountains   of  Abarim,  be- 

fore Nebo 47, 4S 

43.  Plaim  of  Moab,  on  hordejs 

of  Jordan 4S,  40 

Remarks. 

13.  The  Taberah  of  Num.  xi.  3  and  Dent, 
ix.  22  is  omitted  from  the  list.  The  "burn- 
ing" from  which  it  took  its  name  may  have 
occurred  at  the  same  station  as  "the  gravea 
of  lust." 

15.  Rithmah  signifies  the  plant  genista  or 
hroom. 

26.  Probably  near  Moseroth,  perhaps  Ain 
Ha-<b,  N.W.  in  the  Arabah. 

27.  Deut.  X.  6.  "  From  Beeroth  of  the 
children  of  Jaakan  to  Moserah :  there  Aaron 
died  and  was  buried."  Perhaps  Kusheiheh, 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Wady  Ahu^  near  the  foot 
of  Mount  IIoi'. 

28.  {i.  c,  wells  called  after  their  name). 
Jaakan  was  the  grandson  of  Seir  the  Hor.te 
(1  Cliron.  i.  42).     Ain  Ghurundel. 

29.  Gudgodah  (Deut.  x.  7),  perhaps  Wady 
el-Ghudhagidh. 

30.  Jotbath,  ''a  land  of  rivers  of  waters" 
(Deut.  X.  7).  Perhaps  at  the  confluence  of 
H'ady  el-Adbah  with  el-Jerajeh.     ''At  that 

time  Jehovah  separated  Levi,"  etc.  (Deut.  x. 
8). 

31.  Perhaps  a  ford  across  the  head  of  the 
Gulf  of  Akabah. 

34.  Here  Aaron  died  ;  and  here  king  Arad 
the  Canaauite  heard  of  their  coming. 

(B.)     PI-HAHIROTH,    MIGDOL, 
AND  BAAL-ZEPHON. 

After  leaving  Etham  the  direction 
of  the  route  cliangcd.  The  Israelites 
were  commanded  "to  turn  and  en- 
camp before  Pi-hahiroth,  between 
Migdol  and  the  sea,  over  against  Baal- 
zephon"  (Ex.  xiv.  2).  Therefore  it  is 
most  probable  that  they  at  once  turn- 
ed, although  they  may  have  done  so 
later  in  the  march.  The  direction  can 
not  bs  doubted,  if  our  description  cf 
the  route  thus  far  be  correct,  for  they 
would  have  been  entangled  (ver.  3) 
only  by  turning  southward,  not  north- 
ward.    They  encamped  for  the  night 


Chap.  XII. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


177 


bj  the  sea,  probably  after  a  full  day's  [ 
journey.  The  place  of  their  encamp- 
ment and  of  the  passage  of  the  sea 
■would  therefore  be  not  far  from  the  j 
Persepolitan  monument,  which  is' 
made  in  Linant's  map  the  site  of  the 
Serapeum.  We  do  not  venture  to  at- 
tempt the  identification  of  the  places 
mentioned  in  the  narrative  with  mod- 
ern sites.  Something,  however,  may  be 
gathered  from  the  names  of  the  places. 
Tiie  position  of  the  Israelite  encamp- 
ment was  before  Pi-hahiroth,  behind 
which  was  Migdol,  and  on  the  other 
hand  Baal-zephon  and  the  sea.  Pi- 
hahiroth  or  Hahiroth  is  probably  the 
name  of  a  natural  locality.  The  sepa- 
rable prefix  is  evidently  the  Egyptian 
masculine  article,  and  we  therefore 
hold  the  name  to  be  Egyptian.  Ja- 
blonsky  proposed  the  Coptic  etymol- 
ogy, "the  place  where  sedge  grows," 
which  may  be  identified  with  the  mod- 
ern G huweyhet-el-boos,  "  the  bed  of 
reeds."  Migdol  appears  to  have  been 
a  common  name  for  a  frontier  watch- 
tower.  Baal-zephon  we  take  to  have 
had  a  similar  meaning  to  that  of  Mig- 
dol. We  should  expect,  therefore, 
that  the  encampment  would  have  been 
in  a  depression,  partly  marshy,  having 
on  either  hand  an  elevation  marked 
by  a  watch-tower. 

(C.)  MANNA. 

The  natural  products  of  the  Arabian 
deserts  and  other  Oriental  regions 
which  bear  the  name  of  manna,  have 
not  the  qualities  or  use  ascribed  to 
the  manna  of  Scripture.  The  manna 
of  Scripture  must  be  regarded  as 
wliolly  miraculous,  and  not  in  any 
respect  a  product  of  nature.  The 
Arabian  physician  Avicenna  gives  the 
following  description  of  the  manna, 
which  in  his  time  was  used  as  a  med- 
icine :  "Manna  is  a  dew  which  fiills 
on  stones  or  bushes,  becomes  thick 
like  honey,  and  can  be  hardened  so  as 
to  be  like  grains  of  corn."  The  sub- 
H  2 


stance  now  called  manna  in  the  Ara- 
bian desert,  through  which  the  Israel- 
ites passed,  is  collected  in  the  month 
of  June  from  the  tar/a  or  tamarisk 
shrub  {Tamarix  fjalUca).  According 
to  Burckhardt,  it  di'ops  from  the 
thorns  on  the  sticks  and  leaves  with 
which  the  ground  is  covered,  and  must 
be  gathered  early  in  the  day,  or  it  will 
be  melted  by  the  sun.  The  Arabs 
cleanse  and  boil  it,  strain  it  through  a 
cloth,  and  put  it  in  leathern  bottles ; 
and  in  this  way  it  can  be  kept  unin- 
jured for  several  years.  They  use  it 
like  honey  or  butter  with  their  un- 
leavened bread,  but  never  make  it  into 
cakes  or  eat  it  by  itself.  Rauwolf  and 
some  more  recent  travellers  have  ob- 
served that  the  dried  grains  of  the 
Oriental  manna  were  like  the  corian- 
der-seed. Niebuhr  observed  that  at 
Mardin,  in  Mesopotamia,  the  manna 
lies  like  meal  on  the  leaves  of  a  tree 
called  in  the  East  ballot,  and  a/s  or  as, 
which  he  regards  as  a  species  of  oak. 
The  harvest  is  in  July  and  August, 
and  much  more  plentiful  in  wet  than 
dry  seasons.  In  the  valley  of  the 
Jordan  Burckhardt  found  manna  like 
gum  on  the  leaves  and  branches  of 
the  tree  gharroh,  which  is  as  large  as 
the  olive-tree,  having  a  leaf  like  the 
poplar,  though  somewhat  broader. 
Two  other  shrubs,  which  have  been 
supposed  to  yield  the  manna  of  Scrip- 
ture, are  the  Alhayi  maiirorum,  or 
Persian  manna,  and  the  Alhagi  deser- 
torum — thorny  plants  common  in  Syr- 
ia. The  manna  of  European  com- 
merce comes  mostly  from  Calabria 
and  Sicily.  It  is  gathered  during  the 
months  of  June  and  July  from  some 
species  of  ash  ( Ornus  Europ(va  and  Or- 
nus  rotundijblia^  from  which  it  drops 
in  consequence  of  a  puncture  by  an 
insect  resembling  the  locust,  but  dis- 
tinguished from  it  by  having  a  sting 
under  its  body.  The  substance  is 
fluid  at  night,  and  resembles  the  dew, 
but  in  the  morning  it  begins  to  harden. 


Uroiize  figure  of  Aps.     (See  p.  172.) 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


TIIE  ADVANCE   FROM  SINAI,  AND  THE  WANDERING   IN  THE  Wlli* 

DERNESS.     A.M.  2514-2552.     B.C.  1490-1452. 

§  I.  Numberint?  of  the  people — Order  of  the  camp  and  march.  §  2.  Num- 
bering of  the  first-born  and  of  the  Levites.  §  3.  Other  events  at  Sinai 
— Purification  of  the  camp — Order  of  Nazarites — Second  Passover — 
Nadab  and  Abihu — The  blasphemer  stoned,  §  4.  Dejiarture  from  Si- 
nai— Hobab  their  guide — Manner  of  the  march.  §  5.  The  route  from 
Sinai — Entrance  designed  by  way  of  Hebron — The  Wilderness  of  Pa- 
ran  —  Taherah.  §  G.  Kibroth-hattaavah  —  Quails  —  Pestilence  —  Ap- 
pointment of  the  seventy  elders — Their  gift  of  prophesying.  §  7.  Haz- 
eroth — Sedition  of  Miriam  and  Aaron — Testimony  to  the  meekness  and 
fidelity  of  Moses.  §  8.  Kadesh-barnea — difficulties  about  its  site.  §  9. 
The  spies  sent  out — Tlieir  return  and  report — Rebellion  of  the  people — 
Fidelity  of  Caleb  and  Joshua.  §  10.  Attempt  to  scale  the  pass  defeat- 
ed by  die  Amorites,  Canaanites,  and  Amalekites.  §  11.  Beginning  of 
the  thirty-eight  years'  wanderings — Their  direction  and  object.  §  12. 
Some  transactions  of  these  years — i.  The  Sabbath-breaker  stoned — ii. 
Rebellion  and  fate  of  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram,  witli  250  princes — 
iii.  The  plague  stayed  by  Aaron — iv.  The  blossoming  of  Aaron's  rod — 
The  charge  of  the  sanctuary  given  to  the  Levites. 

§  1.  On  the  first  day  of  the  second  month  of  the  second 
year  from  the  epoch  of  the  Exodus  (Jyar=May,  1490),  Je- 
hovah commanded  Moses  to  number  the  people  able  to  bear 
arms,  from  twenty  years  old  and  upward.  The  census  was 
to  be  taken  by  Aaron,  with  a  chosen  assistant  from  each  tribe, 
except  that  of  Levi.  The  Levites  were  exempted  from  mili- 
tary service,  and  numbered  separatel)^ 

The  other  tribes  were  made  up  to  twelve  by  the  division 
of  Joseph  into  Ephraim  and  Manasseh,     The  following  is  the 


B.C.  1490.  Numbering  of  the  People.  179 

result,  in  the  order  given  in  the  book  of  Numhers^  which  takes 
its  title  from  this  census  : — 

Reuben 46,500  (Joseph)  :  Ephraim 40,500 


Simeon 59,300 

Gad 45,650 

Judah 74,600 

Issachar 54,400 

Zebulun 57,400 


(Joseph) :  Manasseh 32, 200 

Benjamin 35,400 

Dan 62,700 

Asher 41,500 

Naphtali 53,400 


Total  of  the  military  array 603,550 

These  may  be  taken  as  the  exact  figures  corresponding  to 
the  round  number  of  600,000,  as  given  at  the  Exodus.  From 
the  identity  of  the  total,  and  the  improbability  of  there  be- 
ing two  numberings  in  one  year,  this  seems  to  be  the  same 
as  the  census  mentioned  before,  in  connection  with  the  half- 
shekel  tax  for  the  service  of  the  sanctuary.' 

The  object  of  the  census  was  military,  in  preparation  for 
the  march  to  Canaan.  A  captain  was  appointed  for  every 
tribe  ;  and  the  whole  host  was  divided  into  four  camps,  which 
surrounded  the  tabernacle  during  a  halt,  and  went  before 
and  after  it  on  the  march,  in  the  following  order : — 

i.  On  the  Ecist^  and  in  the  van :  the  camp  of  Judah,  with 
Issachar  and  Zebulun,  186,400  men. 

ii.  On  the  South,  and  second:  the  camp  of  Reuben,  Avith 
Simeon  and  Gad,  151,450  men. 

The  Taberxacle  and  Levi. 

iii.  On  the  West,  and  last  but  one :  the  camp  of  Ephraim, 
with  Manasseh  and  Benjamin,  108,100  men. 

iv.  On  the  JVorth,  and  in  the  rear;  the  camp  of  Dan,  with 
Asher  and  Naphtali,  157,600  men. 

Each  tribe  had  its  standard. 

§  2.  Another  object  of  the  census  was  religious.  The  above 
numbers,  besides  excluding  the  tribe  of  Levi,  included  some 
Avho  had  no  right  there,  as  not  being  sui  juris,  namely,  the 
first-horn,  who  were  consecrated  to  Jehovah.'^  Of  both  these 
classes,  the  Levites  and  the  first-born,  the  census  included 
the  males  from  one  month  old  and  upward,  and  there  were 
found  to  be^ — 

Of  the  first-born 22,273 

Of  the  tribe  of  Levi 22,000 


Difference. 


^  Ex.  xxxviii.  26. 

'^Ex.  xiii.  1,  2,  11-16. 

•  The  separate  numbers  in  NuTP, 


iii.  (Gershon,  7500;  Kohath,  8600; 
IMerari,  6200)  pive  a  total  of  23,300. 
The  received  solution  of  the  discrep- 


180 


The  Advance  from  Sinai. 


Chap.  XIIL 


The  Levites  were  taken  for  the  service  of  Jehovah,  in  place 
of  the  first-born,  man  for  man:  the  remaining  273  were  re- 
deemed for  five  shekels  each  ;  and  this  sum  of  1365  shekels 
was  given  to  Aaron  and  his  sons.  The  cattle  of  the  Levites 
were  taken  instead  of  the  first-born  cattle.* 

This  substitution  of  the  Levites  for  the  first-born  gave  the 
former  a  sacrificial  as  well  as  a  sacerdotal  holiness  to  Jeho- 
vah, an  idea  extended  to  all  the  redeemed,  as  "  the  church  of 
the  first-lo:-n."' 

The  Levites  were  again  numbered,  from  thirty®  to  fifty 
years,  for  the  service  of  the  sanctuary ;  and  to  each  of  their 
three  families  their  resj^ective  duties  were  assigned/  The 
numbers  Avere — 

Of  the  Kohatliites 2750 

Of  the  sons  of  Gerslion 2630 

Of  the  sons  of  Merari 3200 


Total  of  priests  and  Levites. 


8580 


§  3.  The  description  of  this  census,  in  the  book  of  N^umbers, 
immediately  after  the  setting  up  of  the  tabernacle,  antici- 
pates some  events  which  occurred  in  the  interval  before  the 
march  Avas  resumed — such  as  the  purification  of  the  camp  by 
excluding  the  unclean,^  the  institution  of  the  order  oiJ^aza- 
rites^^  and  the  offerings  of  the  princes  of  Israel  (the  heads  of 
the  twelve  tribes),  at  the  dedication  of  the  temple  and  of  the 
altar.'"  Here  also  we  read  the  beautiful  form  prescribed  for 
the  blessing  of  Aaron  and  his  sons  upon  the  people  in  God's 
name :" — 

"Jehovah  bless  thee:  and  keep  thee. 
Jehovah  make  His  face  to  shine  upon  thee : 

and  be  gracious  unto  thee. 
Jehovah  lift  up  His  countenance  upon  thee  : 
and  give  thee  peace." 

A  special  mention  is  made  of  the  second  celebration  of  the 
Passover  in  the  wilderness  of  Sinai,  with  the  addition  of  a 
new  law  permitting  those  who  were  defiled,  or  travelling,  to 


ancy  is  that  300  were  the  first-born 
of  the  Levites,  who  as  such  were  al- 
ready consecrated,  and  therefore  could 
not  take  the  place  of  others.  Tal- 
mudic  traditions  add  that  the  ques- 
tion, which  of  the  Israelites  should  be 
redeemed  by  a  Levite,  or  which  should 
pay  the  five  shekels,  was  settled  by  lot, 

*  Num.  i.-iii.  viii. 

»  Heb.  xii.  23. 


^  The  mention  of  twenty-five  in 
Num.  viii.  24,  as  the  age  of  entrance, 
must  be  understood  either  of  a  pro- 
bationary period  during  which  tliey 
were  trained  for  their  duties,  or  of  the 
lighter  work  of  keeping  the  gates  of 
the  tabernacle.  "'  See  chop.  xv. 

"  Num.  V.  1-4.     ^  Num.  vi.  1-2L 

"  Num.  vii. 

"  Num.  vi.  22-27. 


1^^^-^- 


B.C.  1490.  The  Advance  from  HSinai.  181 

keep  it  a  month  later/*  The  Book  of  Leviticus  also  mentions 
incidentally  the  death  of  Nadab  and  Abihii,  the  sons  of 
Aaron,  by  fire  from  Jehovah,  for  offering  "  strange  lire  "  on 
the  altar  of  incense,  instead  of  the  sacred  fire  sent  down  from 
God.  It  appears  from  the  sequel  that  the  sacrilege  was  com- 
mitted in  drunken  recklessness.  Aaron  and  his  surviving 
sons  were  forbidden  to  defile  the  priesthood  by  the  utterance 
of  their  natural  grief,  and  commanded  to  remain  within  the 
tabernacle,  leaving  the  congregation  to  "  bewail  the  burning 
which  Jehovah  had  kindled."  The  law  was  laid  down  that 
the  priests  should  drink  no  wine  or  strong  drink  when  they 
went  into  the  tabernacle,  lest  they  should  be  incapacitated 
from  distinguishing  between  the  holy  and  the  unholy,  between 
the  unclean  and  the  clean.  Even  the  survivors  incurred  the 
severe  displeasure  of  Moses  for  not  eating  the  sin-offering  in 
the  Holy  Place. '^  Such  were  the  terrors  that  beset  the  dig- 
nity of  the  priesthood,  conferred  by  the  law  on  "  men  com- 
passed with  infirmity."^* 

To  this  interval  belongs  also  the  death  by  stoning  of  a 
man  who  had  blasphemed  "  the  Name."  This  blasphemer  was 
the  son  of  a  Hebrew  woman  named  Shelomith,  and  of  an  Egyp- 
tian father ;  and  here  we  have  an  example  of  the  evils  intro- 
duced by  the  "  mixed  multitude  "  who  came  with  the  peo- 
ple out  of  Egypt,  as  Avell  as  of  the  fact  that  such  marriages 
were  made  before  the  Exodus.^^ 

§  4,  At  length  the  word  of  Jehovah  came  to  them  that 
they  had  dwelt  long  enough  in  this  mountain,  and  command- 
ing them  to  turn  and  journey  onward.'®  The  land  of  their 
destination  was  described  with  reference  to  the  promises  to 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,'^  but  in  more  minute  detail. 
They  were  directed  to  go,  as  the  first  aim  of  their  journey, 
"  to  the  mount  of  the  Amorites,''^  that  is,  the  highlands  of 
Judah  and  Ephraim,  which  rise  on  the  north  of  the  desert  of 
et-Tihj  and  fill  the  central  part  of  Southern  Palestine.  To 
this  is  added  the  mention  of  "  all  the  places  nigh  thereunto,  in 
the2^lcdn  {Arabah,^'')  w^hich  seems  here  to  mean  the  whole  val- 
ley of  the  Jordan,  and  its  lakes ;  "  in  the  hills,''''  probably  of 
Judah,  and  perhaj^s  including  Mount  Gilead,  east  of  the  Jor- 
dan ;  "  in  the  vale  {shephelah")  that  is,  the  lowlands  situated 
in  the  land  of  the  Philistines ;  "  in  the  south,''^  the  special 
portion  of  Judah  ;  "  by  the  sea-side,''^  the  great  littoral  re- 
gion north  of  Carmel,  as  far  as  Phoenicia ;  to  the  land  of  the 

"Num.  ix.  1-14.  '^Lev.  X.      I      »  Lev.  xxiv.  '«  Dent.  i.  6,  7. 

"  Heb.  V.  2,  vii,  28.  »'  Deut.  i.  8. 


182  Departure  from,  Sinai.  Chap.  XIII. 

Canaanites^''  or  Northern  Palestine ;  "  and  unto  Lebanon  f"" 
"  to  the  great  rwer^  the  river  Mq^/iratesy^^ 

On  tlie  twentieth  day  of  the  second  montli  of  the  second 
year  (about  May  20,1490  B.C.),  the  cloud  of  Jehovah's  pres- 
ence Avas  lifted  up  from  the  tabernacle,  as  the  sign  of  de- 
parture ;  and  the  tabernacle  itself  Avas  taken  down.^^  At 
the  alarm  blown  by  the  two  silver  trumpets,  which  God  had 
commanded  to  be  made,^°  each  of  the  four  camps  set  forward 
in  its  appointed  order,  and  the  host  followed  the  cloud  into 
the  wilderness  of  Paran.^^  This  divine  guidance  relieved 
Moses  from  all  responsibility  as  to  the  direction  of  the  jour- 
ney.^^  Moses  invited  Hobab,  either  his  father-in-law,  or 
brother-in-law,^^  to  go  with  them,  in  those  memorable  Avords 
so  often  quoted  in  a  wider  sense — "  We  are  journeying  unto 
the  place  of  which  Jehovah  said,  I  Avill  give  it  you :  come 
Avith  us,  and  w^e  Avill  do  thee  good  :  for  Jehovah  hath  spoken 
good  concerning  Israel ;"  and  Hobab  consented  to  guide 
them  through  the  desert.^*  He  appears  as  the  experienced 
Bedouin  sheikh,  to  AA'hom  Moses  looked  for  the  material  safe- 
ty of  his  cumbrous  caravan  in  the  ncAV  and  difficult  ground 
before  them.  The  tracks  and  passes  of  that  "  Avaste  hoAvling 
Avilderness  "  were  all  lamiliar  to  him,  and  his  practiced  sight 
Avould  be  to  them  "  instead  of  eyes  "  in  discerning  the  dis- 
tant clumps  of  verdure  AA'hich  betokened  the  wells  or  springs 
for  the  daily  encampment,  and  in  giving  timely  Avarning  of 
the  approach  of  Amalekites,  or  other  spoilers  of  the  desert. 
"  The  ark  of  the  covenant  of  Jehovah  Avent  before  them,  to 
search  out  a  resting-place  for  them.  And  the  cloud  of  Je- 
hovah Avas  upon  them  by  day,  Avhen  they  Avent  out  of  the 
camp."^^  When  the  ark  set  forward,  Moses  cried,  "  Rise  up, 
O  JehoA'ah,  and  let  thine  enemies  be  scattered ;  and  let  them 
that  hate  thee  flee  before  thee."  And  Avhen  it  rested,  he 
said,  "  Return,  O  JehoA'ah,  unto  the  ten  thousand  thousands 


"  Comp.  Gen.  xv.  18. 

"Num.x.  11-17. 

^°  Num.  X.  1-10.     ^'  Num.  x.  12. 

'^^Num.  ix.  17-23. 

^^  In  f.ivoi'  of  his  beinj];  the  brotlier- 
in-law  of  Moses  there  is  the  express 
statement  that  Hobab  was  "  the  son 
of  Raguel  "  (Num.  x.  29) ;  Raguel  or 
Reuel  —  the  Hebrew  word  in  both 
cases  is  the  same  —  being  identified 
with  Jethro,  not  only  in  Exod.  ii.  18 

(comp.  iii.  1,  etc.),  but  also  by  Jose- /doubtless  a  corruption  of  Hobab. 
phus,  who  constantly  gives  him  that  I     ^*  Num.  x.  29-32. 
uame  ;  but  the  addition,  the  father-in-  /     "^  Num.  x.  33,  34:. 


law  of  Moses,"  though  in  most  of  the 
ancient  versions  connected  with  Ho- 
bab will  in  the  original  read  either 
way,  so  that  no  argument  can  be 
founded  on  them.  In  favor  of  Ho- 
bab's  identity  with  Jethro  are  the 
words  of  Judg.  iv.  1 1,  and  the  Moham- 
medan traditions  are  in  favor  of  this 
identity,  He  is  known  in  the  Koran 
and  elsewhere,  and  in  the  East  at  tha 
present  day,  by  the  name  of  Sho'eib^ 


B.C.  U90. 


The  Advance  from  Sinai. 


183 


of  Israel.""  Thus  they  went  three  days'  journey  into  the 
wilderness  of  Paran." 

§  5.  In  following-  the  route  of  the  Israelites,  we  must  try 
to  determine  two  or  three  chief  positions.  The  general  di- 
rection is  northward  from  Sinai  "  to  the  mount  of  the  Amo- 
rites,"  the  highlands  of  Southern  Palestine."*  The  two  ex- 
tremes are  the  camp  before  Sinai  on  the  south,  and  the  "  city  " 
of  Kadesh,  or  Kadesh-barnea,  on  the  north.""  The  distance 
between  these  points  was  eleven  days'  journey  (about  165 
miles),  "by  the  way  of  Mount  aS'^m^'""  This  is  evidently 
mentioned  as  the  ordinary  route,  and  it  seems  to  be  implied 
(though  this  must  not  be  assumed  as  certain)  that  it  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  Israelites.  If  it  were  so,  their  course  Avould  lie 
nearly  along,  or  parallel  to  the  Gulf  of  Akabah,  and  up  the 
wide  plain  "of  the  Arahah^  vfhich.  runs  northward  from  the 
head  of  the  gulf,  between  Mount  Seir  on  the  east  and  the 
desert  of  et-  fih  on  the  west.  Their  present  journey  must  be 
carefully  distinguished  from  their  final  march  into  Palestine, 
at  the  end  of  the  thirty-eight  years'  wandering  in  the  wil- 
derness. On  that  occasion  they  descended  the  Arahah^^  after 
being  refused  permission  to  pass  through  Edom,  rested  at 
Elath  {Akcihah)^  at  the  head  of  the  Gulf  of  Akabah  f  and 
whence,  turning  the  southern  point  of  Mount  Seir,  they  skirt- 
ed its  eastern  ^ide  to  the  country  of  Moab,  east  of  the  Jor- 
dan. But,  on  their  first  march,  there  is  no  clear  evidence  that 
they  rested  at  the  head  of  the  Gulf  of  Akabah,  or  passed  up 
the  Arahah;  and  the  probabilities  are  very  nicely  balanced. 
Much  of  the  difticulty  arises  from  confounding  the  directions 
in  Avhich  they  proposed  to  enter  Palestine  on  the  two  occa- 
sions. Their  final  entrance  was  made  from  the  east,  by  way 
of  the  plains  of  Moab  ;  but  their  first  entrance  was  to  have 
been  from  the  south,  by  way  of  Hebron.  This  is  clear  from 
the  command  to  march  to  the  mountain  of  the  Amorites : 
from  the  description  of  the  circuit  made  by  the  spies,  and 
especially  from  their  visiting  Hebron  and  Eshcol.^^  What- 
ever, therefore,  the  route  to  Kadesh  may  have  been,  that  sta- 
tion was  a  final  starting-point  for  Hebron  ;  and  thus  we  have 
some  guide  for  the  latter  part  of  the  journey. 

Between  "the  mount  of  the  Amorites  "  and  the  group  of 
Sinai,  lies  the  great  table-land  now  called  the  desert  of  et- 


""^  Num.  X.  35,  3G  ;  comp.  Ps.  Ixviil. 

9     r.wi-1*?     fi 


1,  2,  cxxxii.  _. 

07>T.-_-     ^    3  2,33 


"'Num.x."l2, 33.  ^'§4. 

ii.  26,  XX,  G,  xxxii.  8. 
> 


"  Num.  xii, 
*  Deut.  i.  2 


"*  On  the  position  of  the  Arabah, 
see  Notes  and  Illustrations  (A),  Tiia 
Arabah. 

32  Dent.  ii.  8. 

33  Nnm.xiii.  17-25;   see  §  9. 


181  Wilderness  of  Paran.  Chap.  XIII, 

Tih  (the  icandering).  Tliere  can  be  no  doubt  of  its  general 
correspondence  to  the  loilderness  ofParan^  in  which  the  cloud 
rested,  when  it  was  first  lifted  up  from  the  tabernacle. '"^^  This 
arid  tract  of  limestone  answers  well  to  the  description  of  Mo- 
ses :  "  When  we  departed  from  Horeb,  we  went  through  all 
that  great  and  terrible  wilderness^  which  ye  saw  by  the  Avay  of 
the  mountain  of  the  Amorites ;  and  we  came  to  Kadesh- 
barnea."^^  Its  limits  are  clearly  marked  out  by  tlie  mount- 
ain ranges,  which  divide  it  on  the  south-west  from  the  desert 
of  Shur,  on  the  south  from  that  of  Sinai,  and  on  tlie  east  from 
the  Arabak.  The  range  which  divides  it  on  the  south  from 
the  desert  of  Sinai  is  also  called  et-Tih ;  and  this  the  Israel- 
ites seem  to  have  crossed,  in  passing  out  of  the  wilderness  of 
Sinai  to  that  of  Paran.  But  it  is  not  clear  that  they  made 
this  passage  in  their  first  journey  of  three  days.^®  It  took 
them  some  time  to  get  clear  of  the  wadys  about  Sinai ;  and 
although  Paran  is  mentioned  from  the  first  as  the  region  into 
wdiich  they  passed,  the  three  important  stations  ofTABERAH, 
KiBROTH-HATTAAVAH,  and  Hazeroth^'  cau  hardly  be  reckon- 
ed to  Paran,  as  they  are  said  to  have  encamped  in  the  Avilder- 
ness  of  Paran  after  leaving  Hazeroth.^^  Unfortunately  these 
three  names  furnish  little,  if  any,  clew  to  the  route  they  took 
from  Sinai.  Taberah  (a  burning)  records  the  awful  judg- 
ment that  befell  the  people,  who  now  began  again  to  murmur 
against  Jehovah.  "  Fire  burnt  among  them,  and  consumed 
those  that  were  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  camp;"^^  doubt- 
less, from  the  order  of  the  encampment,  the  mixed  multitude 
who  came  with  the  people  out  of  Egypt. 

§  6.  The  name  of  the  next  station,  Kibroth-hattaavaii 
(the  graves  oflust)^  is  of  similar  origin.  On  this  occasion  too 
the  rebellion  began  Avith  "the  mixed  multitude.""  Their 
lust  for  better  food  spread  to  the  Israelites,  who,  remember- 
ing the  fish  and  the  vegetables  of  Egypt,  loathed  the  manna, 
and  asked  for  flesh.  God  sent  them  quails,  on  which  they  sur- 
feited themselves  for  a  Avhole  month;"'  and  while  the  flesh 
was  yet  between  their  teeth,  they  Avere  smitten  Avith  a  great 
plague,  which  gaA  e  the  place  its  name.  The  mention  of  the 
sea  in  two  passages  of  this  narrative  lias  been  used  as  an  ar- 
gument that  the  route  thus  fir  Avas  along  the  Aalleys  Avhich 
run  eastAvard  from  Sinai  to  the  Gulf  of  Akabah;  but  the  sea 
is  near  to  any  part  of  the  peninsula,  and  the  flights  of  birds 


^*  Num.  X.  12. 

"Deut.i.  19. 

3«  Num.  X.  33. 

•^  Num.  xi.  3,  34,  35,  xxxiii.  1' 


^^  Num.  xii.  IG. 
^^  Num.xi.  2,  3. 
^°Num.xi.4. 
"'Num.  xi.2(?. 


B.C.  U90.  Enccnnjrnient  at  Hazeroth.  185 

which  have  attracted  the  attention  of  travellers  are  charac- 
teristic of  the  whole  region." 

A  very  important  institution  arose  out  of  this  rebellion. 
Moses  comi^lained  to  Jehovah  that  the  burden  of  the  people 
Avas  too  great  for  him  to  bear  alone.  He  was  directed  to 
choose  seventy^^  of  the  elders  of  Israel,  and  to  present  them 
before  the  tabernacle ;  where  Jehovah  came  down  in  the 
cloud,  and  gave  them  a  share  of  the  Spirit  that  was  on  Moses, 
and  they  prophesied.  Two  of  them  who  had  not  come  out  to 
the  tabernacle,  Eldad  and  Medad,  prophesied  in  the  camp :  an 
intimation  of  the  truth,  so  often  tauglit  by  the  prophets,  that 
even  in  the  old  dispensation  the  power  of  God's  Spirit  tran- 
scended the  forms  and  places  of  his  OAvn  aj^j^ointment.  But 
the  devout  zealot  is  slow  to  receive  this  truth ;  and  so  Joshua 
prayed  Moses  to  forbid  them,  just  as  the  disciples  asked  Christ 
to  forbid  those  who  Avrought  miracles,  but  did  not  follow  in 
his  train ;  and  both  received  answers  in  the  same  spirit." 

The  appointment  of  the  seventy  elders  has  often  been  re* 
garded  as  the  germ  of  the  Sanhedrijn.  They  seem  rather  to 
have  been  a  Senate,  whose  office  was  confined  to  assisting 
Moses  in  the  governmen-t,  and  ceased  with  the  cessation  of 
his  leadership.  No  trace  of  the  Sanhedrim  is  found  till  the 
return  from  the  Babylonish  captivity.  It  is  more  certain 
that  the  manner  of  their  consecration  prefigured  the  order  of 
the  Prophets.  The  irresistible  force  with  which  the  divine 
Spirit  impelled  them  to  prophesy  has  several  parallels  in  the 
Jewish  history,  and  is  yet  to  be  fulfilled  in  the  pouring  out  of 
God's  Spirit  on  all  flesh."' 

§  1.  For  the  next  halting-place,  Hazeroth  (the  enclosures)^ 
a  site  has  been  found  at  the  Wady  Huderah,  on  the  main 
route  from  Sinai  to  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Akabah."  It 
lies  on  the  margin  between  the  granite  of  the  Tur  and  the 
sandstone  of  the  Dehhet-er-Bamleh^  afld  therefore  properly 


"Both  Schubsit,  between  Sinai 
and  the  Wady  Murrah  (Reisen,  360), 
and  Stanley  {S.  and  P.  82),  just  be- 
fore reaching  Hud/ierd,  encountered 
flights  of  birds  — the  latter  says  of 
"red-legged  cranes."  Kitter  speaks 
of  such  flights  as  a  constant  phenom- 
enon, both  in  this  peninsula  and  in 
the  Euphrates  region.      Burckhardt 


calls  it  a  species  of  partridge,  or  not 
improbably  the  Seloua,  or  quail.  Boys 
not  uncommonly  kill  three  or  four  of 
them  at  one  throw  with  a  stick. 

*^  Doubtless  six  from  each  tribe, 
Moses  and  Aaron  making  up  the  six 
for  the  tribe  of  Levi. 

"  Num.  xi.  24-29 ;  comp.  Mark 
ix.  38:  Luke  ix.  49;   John  iii.  2(j; 


Travels  in  Syria,  406,  Aug.  8,  quotes    1  Cor.  xiv.  5. 
llussell's  Aleppo,  ii.  194,  and  says  the  !      "'  1   Sam.  x.  5,  6,  10,  xix.  20-23; 
bird  Katta  is  found  in  great  numbers  |  Joel  ii.  29;  Acts  ii.  17,  18  ;    1   Cor. 
ib  the  neighborhood  of  Tufikli.     He   xiv.  "^  Num.  xi.  35. 


186 


The  Advance  from  Sinai. 


Chap.  XIII, 


neither  in  the  desert  of  Sinai,  nor  in  that  of  Paran/'  Close 
to  Under  ah  is  a  brook  called  El-Ain  (the  water),  of  itself  a 
strong  argument  for  this  route,  and  inviting  an  encampment 
for  a  considerable  time,  such  as  the  name  seems  to  imply. '*^ 

At  Hazeroth  Moses  was  troubled  by  a  seditious  opposition 
from  Miriam  and  Aaron.  They  spake  against  him  because 
of  the  Cushite  woman  whom  he  had  married,  probably  his 
Midianite  a\  ife,  Zipporah  ;  and  placed  their  authority  on  a 
level  with  his."  On  this  occasion  we  have  that  celebrated 
description  of  the  character  of  Moses:  "Now  the  man  Moses 
was  very  meek,  above  all  the  men  that  were  on  the  face  of 
the  earth. "^°  We  have  also  that  testimony  to  his  feithfulness 
as  a  servant  set  over  the  house  of  God,  which  the  Apostle 
uses  as  a  type  of  Christ's  government  over  His  own  house, 
the  Church.^'  Jehovah  called  forth  Aaron  and  Miriam,  with 
Moses,  to  the  tabernacle,  and  declared  His  pleasure  to  con- 
verse Avith  Moses  openly,  mouth  to  mouth,  and  not,  as  to  other 
prophets,  in  visions,  dreams,  and  dark  speeches  (parables) ; 
and  reproved  them  for  speaking  against  him.  Miriam  was 
smitten  with  leprosy ;  and,  tliough  she  was  healed  at  the 
prayer  of  Moses,  Aaron,  as  the  high-priest,  was  obliged  to 
shut  her  out  from  the-  camp  for  seven  days  ;  after  which  "  the 
people  removed  from  Hazeroth,  and  pitched  in  the  wilderness 
of  Paran." 

§  8.  Here  is  the  Gordian  knot  of  the  topography.  We  are 
not  told  at  what  point  they  passed  into  the  wilderness  of 
Paran,  nor  how  many  stages  they  made  in  it.  We  find  them 
next  at  Kadesh,  whence  the  spies  were  sent  out  f^  but  to  deter- 
mine the  position  of  Kadesh  itself  is  the  great  problem  of  the 
whole  route.  We  obtain  no  help  from  the  list  of  stations,^^ 
in  which  Kadesh  is  not  mentioned,  and  the  name  of  Hazeroth 
is  followed  by  several  unknoAvn  places,  of  which  it  is  even 
uncertain  whether  they  belong  to  this  journey,  or  to  the  years 
of  wandering  in  the  wilderness.  The  latter  seems  the  more 
probable  alternative,  since  the  mention  of  Mount  Hor^"  clear- 
ly refers  to  the  fortieth  year,  and  at  least  the  eight  preceding 


18. 


Comp.  Num.  xii.  IG,  withxxxiii. 


^^  It  signifies  the  villages  of  a  peo- 
ple in  Jin  unsettled  state  of  life,  in- 
termediate between  tents  and  perma- 
nent cities.  It  is  quite  possible,  how- 
ever, that  the  name  may  refer  to  those 
complicated  masses  of  rock  which 
often  seem  to  shut  in  the  traveller  in 
these  regions. 


^^  Num.  xii.  1,  2.  Some  suppose 
the  reference  to  be  to  some  Egyptian 
wife  whom  Moses  had  married  before 
he  tied  from  Egypt,  and  who  had  aft- 
erward rejoined  him.     ^°  Num.  xii.  3. 

^'  Num.  xii.  7;  Heb.  iii.  2,  5; 
comp.  1  Tim.  iii.  15. 

"  Num.  xiii.  26;  Dent.  i.  19. 

"  Num.  xxxiii. 

^''  Num.  xxxiii.  37-41. 


B.C.  U90.  Return  of  the  Spies.  187 

stations"  are  closely  connected  with  it  ;^^  while  tlie  halt  at 
Kadesh^^  must  he-  understood  of  a  return  to  that  place  after 
the  long  wanderings.^*  The  only  escape  from  these  difficulties 
is  by  the  hypothesis  that  Kadesh  served  as  a  sort  of  head- 
quarters during  the  thirty-eight  years  of  Avandering.'^  The 
Israelites  arrived  at  Kadesh  forty  days  before  the  vintage/" 
or  about  the  latter  part  of  August ;  and  they  made  there  a 
longer  halt  tlian  at  any  other  place,  except  before  Sinai. 

§  9.  At  Kadesh,  Jehovah  declared  to  the  people  that  they 
had  reached  the  mountain  of  the  Amorites,  into  which  they 
were  to  ascend,  to  possess  the  land  He  had  given  them." 
But  first  the  country  was  explored  by  twelve  spies,  who  were 
heads  of  their  respective  tribes. ^^  Their  names  are  given  at 
length,  but  only  two  of  them  are  memorable,  Caleb,  the  son 
of  Jephunneh,  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  and  Oshea,  the  son  of  Nun, 
of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim,  whom  Moses  had  called  Joshua,  i.  e., 
Saviour.  They  searched  the  land  for  forty  days,  ascending 
the  Ghor  and  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  as  far  as  Rehob,  on 
the  way  to  Hamath  (i.e.,  Anti-libanus),  in  the  extreme  north. 
Thence  they  returned  to  Hebron,  and  explored  the  region 
round  that  city,  in  which  tlieir  father  Abraham  had  dwelt  as 
a  stranger,  near  the  Amorite  jmnces  Aner,  and  Mamre,  and 
Eshcol — the  last  of  whom  seems  still  to  have  derived  his  name 
(l^shcol=a  cluster  of  grapes)  from  the  rich  vine-clad  valley 
of  which  he  was  the  prince."^  From  that  valley  the  spies 
brought  a  cluster  of  gra2)es  so  large  that  it  was  borne  between 
two  men  upon  a  staft^,  together  with  pomegranates  and  figs  : 
for  it  was  the  season  of  the  first  ripe  grapes.'"'  These  proofs 
confirmed  their  report  that  the  land  was  all  that  Jehovah  had 
promised,  "  It  is  a  good  land  that  Jehovah  our  God  doth 
give  us  r"^  surely  it  floweth  with  milk  and  honey.""^  Indeed 
we  can  but  faintly  judge  of  the  impression  made  upon  them 


^^  Num.  xxxiii.  31-37. 

'^  Comp.  Dent.  x.  6,  7. 

^^  Num.  xxxiii.  36-37. 

^®  Comp.  Num.  xx.  1. 

^°  See  Notes  and  Illustrat.  (B),  Ka- 
desh.       ^°  §  9.        "  l5eut.  i.  20,  21. 

«2  Num.  xiii.  1-lG ;  Deut.  i.  22,  23. 

^3  The  Jewish  traveller  Ha-Parchi 
speaks  of  Eshcol  as  north  of  the 
mountain  on  which  Hebron  stood 
(Benjamin  of  Tudela,  Asher,  ii,  437)  ; 
and  here  the  name  has  been  lately 
observed  still  attached  to  a  spring  of 
remarkably    fine   water    called    ^Ain 


vale  of  Hebron  N.E.  and  S.W.,  and 
about  two  miles  north  of  the  town 
(Van  de  Velde,  ii.  64). 

^^  Num.  xiii.  20-25  ;  Deut.  i.  24, 
25.  ''  Deut.  i.  25. 

®®  Num.  xiii.  27  ;  comp.  Ex.  iii.  8, 
17,  xiii.  5,  xxxiii.  3.  This  too  often 
suggests  only  a  vague  idea  of  luxuri- 
ant plenty  to  readers  who  forget  that, 
in  the  absence  of  the  sugar-cane,  hon- 
ey is  a  necessary  of  life.  "  Milk  and 
honey  "  contain  all  the  essential  ele- 
ments of  food,  besides  corn  and  wine, 
which   are   elsewhere    mentioned    fts 


Eshkali,  in  a  valley  which  crosses  the  I  abounding  in  Palestine. 


188  Wandering  in  the  Wilderness.  Chap.  XIIL 

— after  a  year  and  a  half  of  confinement  to  the  desert — by 
the  glowing  description  of  travellers  who  have  entered  Pales- 
tine from  the  same  side."  But,  when  they  went  on  to  tell 
of  the  people  they  had  seen  there,  inhabiting  great  walled 
cities — the  Amalekites  in  the  south,  the  Hittites,  Jebusites, 
and  Amorites  in  the  mountains,  and  the  Canaanites  along  the 
sea-shore  and  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  and  especially  the 
giant  sons  of  Anak,  before  wdiom  they  felt  themselves  as  grass- 
hoppers, their  good  report  became  an  evil  one.  Caleb  alone, 
supported  afterward  by  Joshua,  tried  to  calm  the  people,  as- 
suring them  that  they  w^ere  able  to  conquer  the  land.  The 
other  spies  not  only  exaggerated  the  strength  of  the  enemy, 
but  began  to  find  fault  with  the  land  itself,  as  "  a  land  that 
eateth  up  the  inhabitants  thereof'"^**  The  people  spent  the 
night  in  bewailing  their  lost  hopes. '^^ 

In  the  morning  they  broke  out  into  open  rebellion,  and 
proposed  to  elect  a  captain  and  to  return  to  Egypt.  In  vain 
did  Moses  and  Aaron  fall  down  before  the  people  ;  in  vain 
did  Caleb  and  Joshua  reiterate  their  assurance  of  victory,  in 
the  strength  of  Jehovah's  promise  and  presence,  and  exhort 
the  people,  above  all  things,  not  to  rebel  against  Him.  All 
the  congregation  had  already  taken  up  stones  to  stone  them, 
wlien  the  glory  of  Jehovah  shone  forth  from  the  tabernacle, 
and  He  spake  to  Moses,  declaring  that  He  would  disinherit 
the  people,  and  make  of  him  a  nation.  Once  more,  as  before 
Sinai,  the  intercession  of  Moses  prevailed  ;  but  in  pardoning 
the  nation,  Jehovah  swore  by  himself  that  "  the  whole  earth 
should  be  filled  with  His  glory,"  in  the  example  he  Avould 
make  of  the  men  who  had  rebelled  against  him,  not  one  of 
whom,  save  Caleb,''"  should  see  the  promised  land.  The  exe- 
cution of  the  sentence  was  to  begin  on  the  morrow,  by  their 
turning  into  the  Avildemess  by  the  way  of  the  Red  Sea. 
There  they  w^ere  to  wander  for  forty  years — a  year  for  each 
day  that  the  spies  had  searched  the  land — till  all  the  men  of 
twenty  years  old  and  upward  had  left  their  carcasses  in  the 


Stanley,  S.  and  P.,  pp.  98-192.     |  d 
Num.    xiii.   32.       This    obscure  k 


estined  leadership  ■was  already 
nown  to  Moses,  as  his  new  name 
phrase  seems  to  mean  that  the  enjoy-  implies ;  but  he  is  expressly  named 
ment  of  the  abundant  produce  of  the  '  with  Caleb  in  the  repetition  of  the 
land  was  marred  by  the  constant  sentence  to  the  people  (Num.  xiv. 
danger  from  surrounding  enemies,  as  30).      Still,  as  Caleb  was  the  first  to 


attacks  were  invited   by  its  fertility 
(comp.  xiv.  9). 
"^  Num.  xiv. 


withstand  the  rebellion,  he  receivefl 
the  higher  praise  and  reward  (Num. 
xiv.  24  ;  Dent.  i.  36).     Hebron  itself 


""^  Joshua   is   not   mentioned  here  :  was  made  his  inheritance  (Josh.  xiv. 
fNum.  xiv.  24).  probably  because  his  0-15). 


B.C.  U90-52.        Watidering  in  the  Wilderness.  189 

desert ;  and  then  at  length  their  children,  having  shared  their 
wanderings,  should  enter  on  their  inheritance.""  As  an  earn- 
est of  the  judgment,  the  ten  faithless  spies  were  slain  by  a 
plague.'^ 

§  10,  Kow  that  it  was  too  late,  the  people  changed  their 
mind  ;  and,  having  lost  the  opportunity  given  theni"by  God. 
they  tried  to  seize  it  against  His  will.  In  the  morning  they 
marched  up  the  mountain-pass  {es-Siifa),  in  spite  of  the  warn- 
ing of  Moses — that  it  should  not  prosper  ;  and  the  Amalekites 
and  Canaanites,  coming  down  upon  them  with  the  Amorites 
of  the  mountain,  defeated  them  with  great  slaughter,  and 
chased  them  as  far  as  Hormah,  and  even  to  Mount  Seir." 
The  entrance  to  the  promised  land  on  this  side  Avas  now  hope- 
lessly barred ;  and  their  forlorn  state  is  thus  described  by 
Moses — "  And  ye  returned  and  wept  before  Jehovah  ;  but 
Jehovah  would  not  hearken  to  your  voice  nor  ffive  ear  unto 
you.'"^ 

§  11.  The  thirty-eight  years  (or  rather  exactly  thirty-seven 
years  and  a  half)  occupied  in  the  execution  of  God's  judg- 
ment on  "  the  generation  that  grieved  hini  in  the  wilderness, 
and  to  whom  he  sware  in  his  wrath.  They  shall  not  enter 
into  my  rest,"  form  almost  a  blank  in  the  sacred  history. 
Their  close  may  be  fixed  at  the  period  of  the  final  march  from 
Kadesh  to  Mount  Hor,  and  thence  down  through  the  Arctbah, 
and  up  the  eastern  side  of  Mount  Seir,  to  the  plains  of 
Moab.'*  But  the  intervening  portions  of  the  narrative  are 
most  difficult  to  assign  to  their  proper  place — whether  to  the 
first  or  final  stay  at  Kadesh,  or  to  the  years  between.  The 
mystery  which  hangs  over  this  period  seems  like  an  awful 
silence  into  which  the  rebels  sink  away. 

After  the  rout  in  Hormah,  the  people  "  abode  in  Kadesh 
many  days.'"^  This  phrase  may  possibly  cover  the  whole 
period  of  the  wandering  ;  and  Kadesh  may  very  well  be  taken 
for  a  general  name  of  the  wilderness.'^  The  direction  in 
which  the  people  started  on  their  wanderings  is  defined,  "  by 

■'^Num.xiv.     "  Num.  xiv.  36,  37.   Palestine,  and   rises   above   the   less 
"  Num.  xiv.  40-45  ;  Deut.  i.  41-44.  '  elevated  step— the  level  of  the  desert 


The  ancient  name  of  Hormah  was 
Zephath  (Judg.  i.  17).  Eobinson(ii. 
181)  identifies  the  pass  es-Sufa  with 
Zephath,  in  respect  both  of  the  name, 
which  is  sufficiently  similar,  and  of 
the  situation,  which  is  a  probable  one, 
viz.,  the  gap  in  the  mountain  barrier, 
\Yhich,  running  about  S.W.  and  N.E., 
completes   the   plateau   of  Southern 


et-Tih  —  interposed  between  it  and 
the  Ghor. 

'*  Deut.  i.  45,  46. 

"Num.  XX.  1,  xxxiii.  37;  Deut. 
ii.  23.  In  a  wider  sense  they  in- 
clude the  final  march  as  fiir  as  the 
brook  Zered  on  the  confines  of  Moab 
(Deut.  ii.  14).  '«  Deut.  i.  46. 

"^  See  Ps.  xxix.  8.  .^ 


190 


Object  of  the  Wandering. 


Chap.  XIU 


the  v:ay  of  the  Red  Sea^^''^  which  seems  clearly  to  mean  down 
the  Arabah  to  the  head  of  the  Elanitic  Gulf.  ]N'ow  it  seems 
that  the  passage  in  Deut.  ii.  1,  must  be  referred  to  this  same 
"  turning  into  the  wilderness  by  the  way  of  the  Red  Sea,"  and 
not  to  the  final  march,  the  signal  for  which  is  recorded  at  v. 
3  -^'"^  and  this  is  confirmed  by  the  computation  of  the  thirty- 
eight  years  of  wandering  from  the  time  they  left  Kadesh- 
barnea.^"  If  this  be  so,  we  have  a  clew  to  the  direction  of 
the  wandering  in  the  words,  "  and  we  compassed  Mount  Seir 
many  days  ;"  words  which  point  to  the  Arabah.  With  this 
agrees  the  notice  of  their  last  march  back  to  Kadesh,  being 
from  Ezion-gaber  at  the  head  of  the  Gulf  of  Akabah.^^ 

There  is  another  light,  in  which  the  question  has  hardly 
been  yet  regarded.  We  have  often  felt  staggered  at  the  idea 
of  this  vast  multitude  being  led  up  and  down  the  awful  des- 
olations of  the  7V/?,  amid  terrific  sufterings  to  men,  women, 
children,  and  cattle,  with  no  assignable  purpose,  except  to 
spend  out  the  allotted  years ;  and  we  would  rather  believe 
that  God  mitigated  their  punishment,  than  that  He  added 
any  unnecessary  sufl:ering  to  the  sentence  of  the  gradual  death 
of  the  grown-up  generation.  Xor  do  Ave  read  of  any  such 
sufterings  as  they  must  have  endured  had  they  plunged  into 
the  Tih:  it  is  not  till  their  return  to  Kadesh  that  Ave  find 
them  Avanting  Avater.®^  Is  it  not  more  consistent  Avith  the 
spirit  of  the  narrative,  and  Avith  the  Avays  of  God,  to  suppose 
that  their  Avanderings  had  at  least  an  apparent  object,  Avhich 
determined  their  direction  and  extent?  When  they  found 
that  they  could  not  scale  the  mountain  passes  of  the  Amo- 
rites,  their  soutliAvard  journey  might  Avell  haA^e  for  its  object 
to  find  some  passage  through  Edom  to  the  east  by  the  route 
they  at  last  IblloAved ;  and  it  may  haA^e  been  AA'ith  this  hope 
that  "they  compassed  Mount  Seir  for  many  days."  Then, 
as  in  the  end,  they  may  have  met  Avith  a  refusal  from  the 
Edomites  ;  and  so  have  waited  about  their  head-quarters  at 
Kadesh,  trying  sometimes  one  passage  and  sometimes  anoth- 
er, but  shut  out  on  both  sides  ;^^  and  meauAvhile  leading  a 
nomad  life,  chiefly  among  the  pastures   of  the  Arabah,  till 


'"  Num.  xiv.  25  ;  Deut.  i.  40. 

"^^  The  direction  nortlnvard  is  that 
which  they  would  have  taken  if  the 
Edomites  had  not  refused  them  a 
passage  (comp.  Num.  xiv.  4-7,  with 
Num.  XX.  14-19)  ;  and  the  change  of 
route  is  indicated  at  Num.  xiv.  8. 

*~°  Num.  xiv.  14. 

^'  Num.  xxxiii.  3G ;    the  few  pre- 


ceding stations  to  wliich  we  have  any 
guide  seem  also  to  be  near  tlie  Edom- 
ites. ^^  Num.  XX. 

^^  Their  encounter  with  Arad  the 
Canaanite  at  Hormah  seems  to  indi- 
cate another  attempt  to  force  a  pas. 
sage  to  tlie  north-west  (Num.  xxi.  1, 
2  ;  ver.  3  seems  to  be  an  anticipation 
of  Judg.  xi.  30). 


B.C.  1490-52. 


Rebellion  of  Korah. 


191 


God's  appointed  time  had  come.  This  view  is  strongly  con- 
firmed by  Judges  xi.  16-18,  where  it  is  said  that,  on  coming 
up  out  of  Ef/yjyt.,  Israel  sent  messengers  both  to  the  kings  of 
Edom  and  of  Moab,  asking  for  a  passage  ;  and,  after  their  re- 
fusal, Israel  abode  in  Kadesh.  Then  they  went  along  through 
the  wilderness,  and  encompassed  the  land  of  Edom,  etc.  In 
the  poetry  of  the  Hebrews,  Mount  Seir  and  Edom  are  con- 
stantly connected  w4th  the  wanderings.®* 

Such  a  lot  was  hard  enough,  with  all  its  necessary  trials, 
and  with  its  hope  constantly  deferred ;  but  it  is  consistent 
and  intelligible.  It  may  be  left  to  imagination  to  fill  up  the 
picture  of  the  doomed  generation  dropping  ofi'year  by  year, 
and  of  the  lesson  impressed  on  their  children  by  seeing  their 
carcasses  left  in  the  wilderness.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten 
that  this  passage  also  of  their  history  is  emblematic  of  the 
whole  pilgrimage  of  man,  who  must  toil  on  to  his  rest  through 
a  path  marked  by  the  graves  of  his  illusions  and  his  sins. 

§  12.  There  are  five  chapters  in  the  Book  of  JVumbers,^^  re- 
ferring  to  this  interval,  but  to  what  part  of  it  we  can  not  say. 
Besides  sundry  religious  laws,^"  they  record  the  following 
events : — 

i.  The  death  by  stoning  of  a  man  who  w^as  found  gather- 
ing sticks  on  the  Sabbath  day.®^  His  offense  was  the  doing 
servile  work;  its  spirit  was  presumptuous  disobedience  to 
Jehovah,  and  the  penalty  had  already  been  declared.®^  The 
case  was  expressly  referred  by  Moses  to  Jehovah,  and  it  is 
recorded  as  an  example  that  the  law  of  the  Sabbath  was  not 
to  be  a  dead  letter. 

ii.  The  rebellion  of  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram  w^as  an 
attempt  to  deprive  the  priesthood  of  its  special  sanctity,  by 
a  perversion  of  the  truth  declared  by  God  himself,  that  all 
the  people  were  "  an  holy  nation  and  a  royal  j^riesthood."^' 
It  was  led  by  Korah,  a  Levite,  with  250  princes  famous  in 
the  congregation,  who  claimed  equality  with  the  j^riests  ;  and 
lie  was  joined  by  Dathan  and  Abiram,  and  others  of  the  tribe 
of  Reuben,  whose  claim  probably  rested  on  the  primogeni- 
ture of  their  ancestor.  At  God's  command,  Korah  and  his 
company  presented  themselves  with  Moses  and  Aaron  at  the 
door  of  the  tabernacle,  each  with  his  censer,  favored  as  it 
would  seem  by  the  congregation.^"  Then  the  voice  of  God 
called  to  Moses  and  Aaron  to  separate  themselves  from  the 


^*  Judges  V.  4  ;  Dent,  xxxiii.  2  ; 
Hab.  iii.  5  ;  Judith  v.  14  ;  Stanley,  p. 
96.     ^^  Num.  xv.-xix.     "Appendix. 

"  Num.  XV.  32-36. 


^^  Dent.  V.  15  ;  Ex.  xxxi.  15,  xxxt. 
2,  3.  . 

•="  Num.  xvi.  1-3  ;  comp.  Ex.  xix 
6.  «"  Num.  xvi.  19. 


192  The  Advance  from  Sinai.     %        Chap.  XIIL 

congregation,  that  He  might  destroy  them.  For  the  third 
time  the  intercessor  obtained  the  people's  pardon :  they  were 
bidden  to  remove  from  the  tents  of  Korali,  Dathan,  and 
Abiram ;  and,  at  the  word  of  Moses,  the  earth  opened  and 
swallowed  up  the  rebels,  with  their  families  and  all  that  be- 
longed to  them,  while  fire  bnrst  out  from  the  tabernacle  and 
consumed  the  250  princes.  Their  brazen  censers,  as  being  sa- 
cred, were  gathered  by  Aaron  out  of  the  fire,  to  make  plates 
for  a  covering  of  the  altar  of  burnt-oflering."^  The  Apostle 
Jude  uses  those  who  "perished  in  the  gainsaying  of  Korah" 
as  a  type  of  the  "  filthy  dreamers,"  who,  in  the  last  days,  shall 
"  despise  dominion  and  speak  evil  of  dignities."""^ 

iii.  The  people  now  mui-mured  at  the  fiite  of  the  men 
whose  rebellion  they  had  favored,  and,  at  the  very  moment 
when  they  gathered  against  Moses  and  Aaron  before  the  tab- 
ernacle, Jehovah  appeared  in  the  cloud,  and  sent  a  pestilence 
among  them.  Then  followed  one  of  the  most  striking  exam- 
ples of  the  intercession  of  Moses  and  the  mediation  of  the 
high-priest.  Seeing  that  "  wrath  was  gone  out  from  Jehovah," 
Moses  bade  Aaron  to  fill  his  censer  with  coals  from  the  altar 
and  with  incense,  as  an  atonement  for  the  people,  and  to  stand 
between  the  living  and  the  dead ;  and  so  the  plague  was 
stayed."'  A  most  striking  symbol  of  Christ's  mediation  to 
save  those  who  are  doomed  to  the  death  of  sin. 

iv.  After  these  things,  a  new  sign  was  given  of  Jehovah's 
special  favor  to  the  house  of  Aaron.  Twelve  rods,  or  sceptres, 
were  chosen  for  the  several  tribes,  and  laid  up  in  the  taber- 
nacle before  the  ark,  the  name  of  Aarox  being  inscribed  on 
the  rod  of  Levi.  In  the  morning  Moses  went  into  the  taber- 
nacle and  brought  forth  the  rods,  and  returned  them  to  the 
princes  of  the  tribes,  when  Aaron's  rod  was  seen  covered 
with  buds  and  blossoms  and  full-grown  almonds.  The  rest 
were  still  dry  sticks ;  but  his  was  a  living  and  fruitful  sceptre. 
It  was  a  vivid  emblem  of"  the  rod  of  Jesse,"  the  "Branch," 
springing  up  without  the  sustenance  of  nature,  which  in  the 
prophets  represents  the  spiritual  and  life-giving  power  of 
Messiah.  By  the  command  of  God  it  was  laid  up  in  the  ark, 
for  a  perpetual  memorial  against  the  like  rebellions."  The 
people,  now  terrified  into  submission,  cried  that  they  only 
drew  near  the  tabernacle  to  perish,  and  Jehovah  repeated 
the  law,  committino'  the  charo-e  of  the  sanctuary  to  the  Le- 

•,85  ^  *  '' 

vites. 

5'Num.  xvi.  1-40.  1      "^  Num.  xvii. ;    Isn.   xi.  k  Hii.  2; 

''^Jiulcll.  iZech.  vi.  12;  liev.  V.  -).  • 

•"^  Num.  xvi.  41-50.  i     ^^  Num.  xvii.  12,  13,  xviii. 


Chap.  XIII. 


Notes  and  Illustrations, 


193 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTEATIONS. 


(A.)  THE  ARAB  AH. 

Although  this  word  appears  in 
the  Authorized  Versiuu  in  its  origi- 
nal shape  only  in  Josh,  xviii.  18,  yet 
in  the  Hebrew  text  it  is  of  frequent 
occurrence.  It  is  used  generally  to 
indicate  a  barren,  uninhabitable  dis- 
trict, but  "the  Arabah"  indicates 
more  particularly  the  deep-sunken 
valley  or  trench  which  forms  the  most 
striking  among  the  many  striking  nat- 
ural features  of  Palestine,  and  which 
extends  with  great  uniformity  of  for- 
mation from  the  slopes  of  Hermon  to 
the  Elanitic  G\xU{Gulfof  Akahah)oi 
the  Red  Sea — the  most  remarkable 
depression  known  to  exist  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  globe.  Through  the  north- 
ern portion  of  this  extraordinary  fis- 
sure the  Jordan  rushes  through  the 
lakes  of  Huleh  and  Gennesareth  down 
its  tortuous  course  to  the  deep  chasm 
of  the  Dead  Sea.  This  portion,  about 
150  miles  in  length,  is  known  among 
the  Arabs  by  the  name  o(  El-GIior. 
The  southern  boundary  of  the  Ghor  is 
the  wall  of  cliffs  which  crosses  the  val- 
ley about  ten  miles  south  of  the  Dead 
Sea.  From  their  summits,  southward 
to  the  Gulf  of  Akabah,  the  valley 
changes  its  name,  or,  it  would  be  more 
accurate  to  say,  retains  its  old  name 
of  Wadi/  el- Arabah. 

At  present  our  attention  may  be 
confined  to  the  southern  division,  to 
that  portion  of  this  singular  valley 
which  has  from  the  most  remote  date 
borne,  as  it  still  continues  to  bear,  the 
name  of  Arabah.  A  deep  interest 
7,'ill  always  attach  to  this  remarkable 


j  district,  from  the  fact  that  it  must 
have  been  the  scene  of  a  large  portion 
!  of  the  wanderings  of  the  children  of 
[Israel  after   their   repulse   from   the 
!  south  of  the  promised  land.     Wher- 
1  ever  Kadesh  and  Hormah  may  here 
after  be  found  to  lie,  we  know  with 
I  certainty,  even  in  our  present  state  of 
i  ignorance,  that  they  must  have  been  at 
{the  north  of  the  Arabah;   and  there- 
fore "the  way  of  the  Red   Sea,"  by 
which  they  journeyed  "  from  Mount 
Hor  to  compass  the  land  of  Edom," 
after  the  refusal  of  the  King  of  Edom 
to  allow  them  a  passage  through  his 
country,  must  have  been  southward, 
down  the  Arabali  toward  the  head  of 
the  gulf,  till,  as  is  nearly  certain,  they 
turned  up  one  of  the  wadys  on  the 
left,  and  so  made  their  way  by  the 
back  of  the  mountain  of  Seir  to  the 
land  of  Moab  on  the  cast  of  the  Dead 
Sea. 

The  whole  length  of  the  Arabah 
proper,  from  the  cliff's  south  of  the 
Dead  Sea  to  the  head  of  the  Gulf  of 
Akabah,  appears  to  be  rather  more 
than  100  miles.  In  breadth  it  varies. 
North  of  Petra,  that  is,  about  70  miles 
from  the  Gulf  of  Akabah,  it  is  at  its 
widest,  being  perhaps  from  1-i  to  IG 
miles  across  ;  but  it  contracts  gradu- 
ally to  the  south  till  at  the  gulf  the 
opening  to  the  sea  is  but  4,  or,  accord- 
ing to  some  travellers,  2  miles  wide. 
The  mountains  which  form  the  walls 
of  this  vast  valley  or  trench  are  the 
legitimate  successors  of  those  which 
shut  in  the  Ghor,  only  in  every  w.iy 
grander  and  more  desert-like.  On  the 
west  are  the  long  horizontal  lines  of 


194 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  XIIL 


the  limestone  ranges  of  the  Tih,  "  al- 
ways faithful  to  their  tabular  outline 
and  blanched  desolation,"  mounting 
up  from  the  valley  by  huge  steps  with 
level  barren  tracks  on  the  top  of  each, 
and  crowned  by  the  vast  plateau  of 
the  "  Wilderness  of  the  Wanderings." 
This  western  wall  ranges  in  height 
from  1500  to  1800  feet  above  the  floor 
of  the  Arabah,  and  through  it  break 
in  the  wadys  and  passes  from  the  des- 
ert above  —  unimportant  toward  the 
south,  but  farther  north  larger  and  of 
more  permanent  character.  The  chief 
of  these  wadys  is  the  Wady  el-Jemfih, 
which  emerges  about  sixty  miles  from 
Akabah,  and  lead  its  waters,  when 
any  are  flowing,  into  the  Wadi)  el-JeU), 
and  tln-ough  it  to  the  marshy  ground 
under  the  cliffs  south  of  the  Dead  Sea. 
Two  principal  passes  occur  in  this 
range.  First,  the  very  steep  and  diffi- 
cult ascent  close  to  the  Akabah,  by 
which  the  road  of  the  Mecca  pilgrims 
between  the  Akabah  and  Suez  mounts 
from  the  valley  to  the  level  of  the  pla- 
teau of  the  Till.  It  bears  apparently 
no  other  name  than  en-Nukb,  "the 
Pass."  The  second — es-Svfah — has  a 
more  direct  connection  with  the  Bible 
history,  being  probably  that  at  which 
the  Israelites  were  repulsed  by  the 
Canaanites  (Deut.  i.  44;  Num.  xiv. 
43-45).  It  is  on  the  road  from  Petra 
to  Hebron,  above  Ain  el-  Weibeh,  and 
is  not  like  the  former,  from  the  Ara- 
bah to  the  plateau,  but  from  the  ])la- 
teau  itself  to  a  higher  level  1000  feet 
above  it. 

(B.)  KADESII. 

The  position  ofKadeshhas  to  satis- 
fy tlie  following  conditions:  It  was  a 
citi/,  and  one  to  which,  from  its  name, 
some  ancient  sanctity  belonged,  as  to 
Iloreb.*  It  was  in  the  wilderness  of 
Paran,  and  nho  in  that  of  Zin  (Num. 
xiii.  21,  XX.  1,  xxxiii.  36;   compare 

*  KadcS'i  =h(l  ■  it  is  the  Fame  ■n-oril  as 
the  Arabic  name  f-i-  Jerusalem,  El-Klmds. 


Ixxxiv.  3,  4;  Josh.  xv.  1):  the  latter 
is  most  probably  the  Arabah,  and  ei- 
j  ther  the  two  deserts  overlapped  here, 
jOrKadesh  lay  on  the  borders  of  both. 
It  was  close  to  "the  mountain  of  the 
Amorites,"  which  is  marked  as  the 
end  of  the  first  journey  to  Palestine 
(Deut.  i.  19,  20) ;   but  it  was  also  on 
the  extreme  border  of  Edom  (Num. 
XX.  1 6).  It  formed  an  important  land- 
mark on  the  southern  frontier  of  Pal- 
estine, toward  its  eastern    extremity 
(Num.  xxxiv.  4;  Josh.  x.  41,  xv.  3  ; 
comp.  Ezek.  xlvii,  19,  xlviii.  28.)    The 
boundary  ran  from   the  *'  ascent  of 
Akrabbim"  (/.  e.,  of  sco/y;?o?2s, probably 
the  water-shed  which  crosses  the  Chor 
about  eleven  miles  south  of  the  Dead 
Sea,  nearly  in  lat.  31°  N.,  and  divides 
jit  from  the  Arabah),  thence  along  to 
;  Zin  (that  is,  along  the  margin  of  the 
Arabali),  whence   it  ascended  on  the 
south  side  to  Kadesh-barnea,  which 
I  seems  therefore  to  have  stood  on  the 
i  edge  of  the  plateau  which  bounds  the 
I  Arabah  on  the  west.  Lastly,  we  should 
j  expect  the  site  to  be  marked  by  some 
'Conspicuous  rock,  answering  to  that 
!  which  Moses  struck  when  the  peo])le 
murmured  for  water,  whence  the  place 
was  called  Meribah-kadesh  (from 
Meribah  =  strife,  Num.  xx.  13  ;  Deut. 
xxxii.  51  ;  Ez.  //.  cc.y.  At  an  earlier 
period    Kadesh    is    mentioned,   with 
Mount  Seir  and  El-paran,  as  overrun 
,  by  Chedorlaomer  (Gen.  xiv.  7)  ;*  and 
twice  in  connection  with  Abraham's 
residence  in  the  extreme  south  of  Pal- 
jestine,  near  Gerar  (Gen.  xvi.  14,  xx. 
1).   A  position  so  far  to  the  west  sug- 
gests that  this  last  may  be  a  different 
place,  and    may  correspond  to  Ain- 
kades  in  lat.  30°  43',  and  long.  34° 
30',  nearly  due  south  of  Gaza.f  The 

i  *  Its  ancient  name  en-lMishpat  (Spring  of 
Judgvient)  agrees  with  tlie  sanctity  implied 
in  the  name  Kadesli. 

t  Kev.  J.  Rowlands,  ap.  Rev.  G.  Williams, 
Holy  Citii,  App.  No.  1.  Tlie  distinction  ia 
made  by  Jerome,  who  identifies  this  Kadesh 
with  a  spot  in  the  valley  of  Gerar,  still  called 
m  his  day  Becr-da7r^  the  Well  of  (he  Judge 


Chap.  XIII. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


195 


doubt  raised  respecting  the  identity 
of  the  Kadesh  or  Kadesh-barnea, 
whence  the  spies  set  out,  with  the  Ka- 
desh or  Kadesh-meribah,  which  was 
the  starting-point  of  the  final  journey 
in  the  fortieth  year  of  the  wanderings, 
must  give  way  befwe  a  careful  com- 
parison of  the  passage  cited  (comp. 
especially  Deut.  i.  46,  and  ii.  14). 

The  identification  of  Kadesh  with 
Petra,  originally  made  in  the  Talmud, 
and  lately  revived  by  Dr.  Stanley, 
is  ingenious  and  captivating  ;  but  the 
position  seems  too  far  both  from  the 
mountain  of  the  Amorites  and  from 
the  frontier  of  Palestine — too  decided- 
ly within  the  territory  of  Edom,  and 
too  near  Mount  Hor — to  be  consistent  j 
Avith  their  former  separate  stations  | 
(Num.  XX.  22,  xxxiii.  36,  37).  We' 
seem  bound  to  look  for  a  jiosition 
further  to  the  north-west,  on  the  mar- 
gin both  of  the  Arabah  and  the  et- 
Tih,  and  at  the  foot  of  one  of  the 
passes  by  which  the  final  ascent  is 
made  from  the  plateau  of  the  Tih  to 
the  higher  level  of  the  hills  of  South 
Palestine,  which  are  here,  so  to  speak, 
superimposed  on  the  Tih.  Robinson 
places  it  at  Ain  el-Weibeh,  on  the 
road  from  the  Arabah  to  Hebron,  by 
the  pass  of  es-Safeh ;  and  Stanley, 
while  objecting  that  we  must  look  for 
some  more  definite  locality  than  any 
one  of  the  springs  and  pools  scatter- 
ed in  the  midst  of  the  desert,  admits 


that  this  would  be  in  other  respects 
not  an  inappropriate  scene  (p.  93) ; 
but  he  afterward  argues  for  its  ex- 
clusion because  there  is  no  cliff  (sela) 
such  as  that  struck  by  Moses  ;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  Sela  is  used  as  a 
name  for  Petra  (p.  95).  Others  seek 
it  on  the  more  northerly  road  which 
runs  up  the  Ghor  and  turns  off  near 
the  south-western  margin  of  the  Dead 
Sea  to  Hebron.  But  there  is  anoth- 
er spot  which  seems  best  to  satis- 
fy all  the  conditions.  In  the  nortii- 
east  of  the  desert  of  et-Tih,  and  ad- 
joining to  the  Arabah,  is  a  remarka- 
ble plateau  superimposed  upon  the 
table-land  of  the  former,  from  which 
it  is  clearly  distinguished  by  the  lofty 
precipices  that  form  its  sides.  T/tis 
plateau  seems  to  be  meant  iclien  Kadesh 
is  spoken  of  as  a  district.  From  this 
plateau  the  Wady  Jerofeh  descends 
to  the  Arabah,  and  just  at  the  junction 
there  is  a  fountain  of  living  water 
now  called  Ain  esh-Shehdbeh,*  at  the 
foot  of  the  lofty  cliff  El-Mtikrah,  which 
exactly  answers  to  the  description  of 
the  rock  before  which  Moses  gathered 
the  congregation,  when  he  smote  il 
twice,  and  water  came  out  abundant- 
ly. Here,  too,  the  Israelites  would 
be  in  the  uttermost  borders  of  Edom, 
and  within  a  short  journev  to  Mount 
Hor. 

•  In  30°  15'  N.  lat.,  and  34°  55'  E.  long. 


Mount  Ilor. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

PIXAL     MARCH     FROM    KADESH    TO    THE     JORDAN.       DEATH    OP 

MOSES.  A.M.  2552-2553.  B.C.  1452-1451. 

§  I.  Last  oncanipment  at  Kadesh — Death  of  Miriam.  §  2.  Water  apain 
given  from  the  rock — Tlie  sin  and  sentence  of  Moses  and  Aaron.  §  3. 
A  passage  refused  through  Edom.  §  4,  Marcli  from  Kadesh  to  Mount 
Hor — Deatli  of  Aaron,  §  5.  March  down  the  Arabah  and  round  Mount 
Seir — The  fiery  serpents  and  tlie  brazen  serpent.  §  6.  Arrival  at 
the  brook  Zered — March  through  the  Desert  of  Moab — Territories  of 
Moab  and  Ammon — Conquests  of  vSihon  and  Og.  §  7.  Defeat  and  de- 
struction of  Sihon  and  Og.  §  8.  Last  encampment  on  the  plains  of 
Moab — Balak  and  Balaam — Xew  Census — Consecration  of  Joshua — 
Slaughter  of  the  Midianites.  §  9.  Settlement  of  Eeuben,  Gad,  and  half 
Manasseh  east  of  Jordan,  §  10.  Final  address  of  Moses — The  Book  of 
Deuteronomj' — i.  His  first  discourse  :  Review  and  introduction — ii.  His 
second  discourse  :  Repetition  of  the  Law — iii.  His  third  discourse  :  The 
blessing  and  the  curse — iv.  The  Law  rewritten — The  So})(/  of  Moses^- 
V.  The  BJessim;  of  3foses. — vi.  His  view  of  the  Promised  Land — His 
death  and  burial.     §  IL  Character  of  Moses, 

§  1 .  Ix  the  first  month  of  the  fortieth  year'  from  the  epoch 
of  the  Exodus  (April,  1452),  we  find  the  Israelites  again  in 


'  Only  the  month    is  expressly  named  :  we  learn  the  year  from  Num. 
i-sxxiii.  38. 


B.C.  U52.  Death  of  Miriam.  19? 

the  wilderness  of  Zin,  at  Kadesh,  whither  they  seem  to  have 
marched  up  the  Arahah  from  Ezion-gaber,  at  the  head  of  the 
Gulf  of  Akaba/i.^  The  doom  mider  which  most  of  the  old 
generation  had  by  this  time  perished,  now  reached  the  house 
of  Amram.  Miriam,  the  elder  sister  of  Moses  and  Aaron, 
died  and  was  buried  here.^  We  have  seen  her  as  a  young 
girl,  watching  the  cradle  of  Moses,  and  aiding  in  his  deliver- 
ance/ She  is  spoken  of  as  sharing  in  the  sacred  mission  of 
lier  brothers/  When  she  leads  off  the  song  of  triumph,  on 
the  shore  of  the  Red  Sea,  she  is  expressly  called  "Miriam, 
the  ijvophetess  f^^  and  the  ground  on  which  she  and  Aaron 
rebelled  against  Moses  implies  their  possession  of  the  pro- 
phetic gift :  "  Hath  Jehovah  spoken  by  Moses  ?  Hath  He 
not  also  spoken  by  us  ?'"  The  delay  of  the  march  till  she 
was  free  from  the  defilement  of  her  leprosy  proves  her  high 
consideration/  Lastly,  she  bore  the  name  of  the  mother  of 
our  Lord/  Tradition  makes  her  the  wife  of  Hur  and  grand- 
mother of  the  artist  Bezaleel ;  and  it  is  said  that  the  mourn- 
ing for  her,  as  for  her  brothers,  lasted  thirty  days/"  Li  the 
time  of  Jerome,  her  tomb  was  shown  near  Petra/* 

§  2.  Here,  too,  Moses  and  Aaron  committed  the  sin  which 
brought  them  also  under  the  sentence  of  death,  without  enter- 
ing the  promised  land.  The  people  murmured  for  Avater,  as 
at  Rephidim  ;  and  the  repetition  of  the  same  scene  by  the  new 
generation,  even  after  the  discipline  of  the  thirty-eight  years' 
Avandering,  is  true  to  human  nature — not  theirs  only,  but 
ours,  of  which  theirs  was  the  type/^  Jehovah  interposed  in 
the  same  manner  as  before  :  "  He  clave  the  rocks  in  the  wil- 
derness ....  and  caused  Avaters  to  run  doAAm  like  rivers,'"^ 
But,  as  the  miracle  had  been  Avrought  once  already.  He  de- 
signed to  shoAV  His  poAA^er  by  a  greater  Avonder :  Moses  and 
Aaron  Avere  to  stand  before  the  rock  (or  cliff)  in  the  sight  of 
the  people  ;  and  Moses,  holding  the  rod  in  his  hand,  Avas  only 
to  speah  to  the  rock.  But  this  time  the  trial  was  too  strong, 
both  for  his  patience  and  his  humanity.  Upbraiding  the 
people  as  rebels,  he  asked,  "  Must  we  fetch  you  Avater  out  of 


^  Num.  XX.  1,  xxxiii.  36. 

^  Num.  XX.  1.         *  Ex.  ii.  4-7. 

^  Micah  vi.  4.         ^  Ex.  xv.  20. 

''  Num.  xii.  1,2;  comp.  6-8. 

"  Num.  xii.  15. 

^  Heb.  3/tWa?«=Gr.  'MapuLfji  orMa- 
pia=Lat,  Maria=Mary.  The  name 
signifies  their  rebellion,  by  a  prophetic 
allusion  either  to  Num.  xii.  or  to  tlie 


rebellious  spirit  of  the  poof  le,  which 
afflicted  her  as  well  as  her  brothers. 

10  Joseph.  Ant.  iii.  2,  §  4,  6,  §  1,  iv. 
4,  §6. 

11  Hieron.  de  Loc.  Ilch.  s.  v.  Cadea 
Baj^ea.  This  is  one  of  the  traditional 
arguments  for  identifying  that  ciry 
with  Kadesh. 

12  Num.  XX.  2-6  ;  comp.  Ex.  xvii.l. 


Ps.  Ixxviii.  1."),  16,  20,  cv.  41 ;  Neh.  ix.  15. 


198  The  March  to  the.  Jordan.  Chap.  XIV. 

this  rock  ?" — and  he  smote  the  rock  twice  with  the  rod.'*  The 
^vater  gushed  out  in  an  abundant  stream,  which  probably  fol- 
lowed the  march  of  the  people  down  the  Arabah.'^  But  at 
the  same  time  the  word  of  Jehovah  came  to  Moses  and  Aaron 
that,  because  they  had  not  believed  and  honored  Him  before 
the  people,  they  should  not  bring  them  into  the  promised 
land.  The  place  was  called  Meeibah  {strife)^  or,  more  fully, 
Meribah-kadaii.  ^® 

§  3.  At  length  the  word  of  Jehovah  came  to  put  a  term  to 
their  wandermgs,  by  the  welcome  command  to  "  turn  north- 
w^ard,'"'  that  is,  we  think,  up  the  Ghor^'^  in  order  to  enter  the 
promised  land  by  the  way  followed  by  the  spies  round  the 
edge  of  the  Dead  Sea.  It  would  seem  that  this  route  was 
barred  by  the  opposition  of  King  Arad,  the  Canaanite.'' 
There  was  another  way  eastward,  through  the  passes  of 
Mount  Seir,  the  land  of  the  children  of  Esau,  whom  the  people 
were  enjoined  not  to  molest,  but  to  buy  of  them  both  food 
and  water.'"  While  still  at  Kadesh,  therefore,  Moses  sent 
messengers  to  the  King  of  Edom,  recounting  what  God  had 
done  for  Israel,  asking  for  a  passage,  and  promising  to  keep 
peaceably  by  the  highway,  and  to  pay  for  the  water  that  the 
people  and  the  cattle  might  drink.  The  Edomites  not  only 
refused  the  request,  but  barred  the  passage  with  an  armed 
force.  ^' 

§  4.  The  only  way  now  open  w^as  dowm  the  Ai^abah,  and 
accordingly  "  they  passed  by  from  the  children  of  Esau,  Avhich 
dwelt  in  Seir,  tlirough  the  icay  of  the  Arabahy^  Their  first 
march  was  to  Mount  Hor  (i.  e.,  tlie  mountain),  "  in  the  edge 
of  the  land  of  Edom.""  Here  we  once  more  reach  certain 
ground ;  for  the  whole  course  of  the  narrative  confirms  the 
tradition  which  identifies  Hor  with  the  majestic  "  mountain 
of  the  prophet  Aaron"  {Jehel  Xehi-IIarii)i),^\\\\Qh.  stands  on 
the  eastern  edge  of  the  Arabah^  above  vrhich  it  rises  4000 
feet,  having  Petraat  its  eastern  foot.  "  In  this  great  valley," 
says  Dean  Stanley,  "  there  is  no  more  question  of  the  course 


^^Num.  xxi.1,2. 

=°  Dent.  ii.  4-G. 

"'Num.  XX.  U-21;  Judg.  xi.  17; 
l)nt,  as  has  already  been  intimated, 
this  may  refer  to  their  first  attempt 


"  Num.  XX.  7-11. 

^^  The  allusion  of  St.  Paul  no  douht 
embraces  both  miracles,  and  the 
phrase,  "the  Rock  that  followed 
them,"  seems  appropriate  to  both  (I 
Cor.  X.  4).  i  to  pass  thronfili  Edom,  on  their  fi 

'®  Num.  xii.  13;  Dcut.  xxxii.  51  ;    repulse  from  Kadesh. 
Ez.  xlvii.  10,  xlviii.  28.  i      "Dent.  ii.   8.     Tiie    word,  which 

''  Deut.  ii.  3.  [means  desert,  is  rendered 7)/a2«  in  our 

-**  See  Notes  and  Illustrations  (A.)  :  version. 
to  chap.  xiii.  1      '^  Num.  xx.  22,  23,  xxxiii.  37. 


B.C.  1152.  Death  of  Aaron.  199 

of  the  Israelites.  It  is,  indeed,  doubtful  whether  they  passed 
up  it  on  their  way  to  Canaan ;  but  no  one  can  doubt  that 
they  passed  down  it,  when  the  valleys  of  Edom  were  closed 
against  them."" 

It  is  very  probable  that  Hor,  like  Sinai,  was  already  a  sanc- 
tuary of  the  desert  tribes.  To  this  dignity,  and  its  natural 
crrandeur,  w^as  now  added  the  solemnity  of  Aaron's  death, 
which  was  appointed  by  Jehovah  to  take  place  here.  Tliis 
event  was  not  only  the  decease  of  so  great  a  personage  as  the 
colleague  and  elder  brother  of  Moses,  but  it  involved  the  de- 
mise of  the  first  high-priest,  and  the  investiture  of  his  sue 
cessor.  In  the  sight  of  all  the  congregation,  Moses  led  up 
Aaron  and  his  son  Eleazar  to  Mount  Hor,  and  stripped  Aaron 
of  his  garments,  and  put  them  upon  Eleazar;  and  Aaron  died 
in  the  top  of  the  mount.  Travellers  have  found  a  position  on 
the  summit  well  suited  for  the  public  ceremony ;  but  we  need 
not  suppose  that  Aaron  actually  died  in  the  sight  of  the  peo- 
ple. He  was  buried  either  on  the  mountain,  or  at  its  foot, 
and  the  people  mourned  for  him  thirty  days." 

Aaron  died  on  the  first  day  of  the  fifth  month  from  the  epoch 
of  the  Exodus  (^^=July  and  August,  1452  b.c),  at  the  age 
of  123.  He  was  therefore  born  in  1575  b.c,  four  years  before 
the  birth  of  Moses.  As  the  first-born  of  the  house  of  Amram, 
the  priesthood  of  that  house  would  be  a  part  of  his  birthright. 
His  natural  eloquence  fitted  him  to  be  the  organ  of  Moses  in 
his  mission  to  Egypt ;  and  he  not  only  spoke  for  him,  but 
wrought  the  miracles  at  his  bidding.  Throughout  the  scenes 
in  the  desert,  he  is  associated  with  Moses  in  leading  the  peo- 
ple ;  but  Moses  stands  above  him  as  mediator  with  God,  and 
as  favored  with  His  direct  and  open  revelations.  ^  Even  when 
Aaron  is  made  high-priest,  he  receives  his  authority  from  Mo- 
ses. When  left  alone  to  govern  the  people,  he  at  once  yield- 
ed to  their  willfulness,  believing  probably  that  it  was  a  wise 
concession  to  give  them  a  visible  symbol  of  God's  presence ; 
and  so  he  became  the  minister  of  idolatry  and  debauchery. 
His  feeble  excuse  on  this  occasion  betrays  that  unstable  char- 
acter, which  could  not  go  alone  without  his  brother ;  but,  as 
is  usual  with  such  characters,  he  made  a  rash  attempt  to  as- 
sert his  independence,  under  the  influence  of  Miriam.  On  all 
other  occasions  we  find  him  sharing  the  cares  of  Moses,  and 
joining  even  in  his  errors,  as  in  the  sin  which  shut  them  both 
out  from  the  promised  land.     It  has  been  well  observed  that 

24  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  84.  j  Deut.  x.  G,  xxxii.  50;  comp.  xxxiv. 

'^Num.   XX.    23-29,    xxxiii.    38;l8. 


200  Hie  March  to  the  Jordan.  Chap.  XIV. 

the  very  defects  of  Aaron's  character,  and  especially  his  sin 
and  rej^entance  in  the  matter  of  the  golden  calf,  fitted  him 
the  more  for  the  office  of  a  high-priest — "  Who  can  have 
compassion  on  the  ignorant  and  the  erring,  for  that  he  him- 
self also  is  compassed  with  infirmity. "^^  And  he  could  also 
sympathize  with  deep  suifering,  such  as  he  felt  when  his  sons 
Xadab  and  Abihu  were  slain  for  their  sacrilege — "  and  Aaron 
held  his  peace.""  All  these  points  are  placed  by  the  Apos- 
tle in  striking  contrast  to  His  priesthood,  whose  perfect  and 
sinless  human  nature  makes  Him  have  sympathy  without  in- 
firmity.^^ 

Aaron's  wife  was  named  Elisheba.'^^  Of  his  four  sons,  two 
survived  him  —  Eleazar  and  Ithamar.  The  family  of  the 
former  held  tlie  high-priesthood  till  the  time  of  Eli,  who  be- 
longed to  the  house  of  Ithamar.  The  descendants  of  Eli  re- 
tained it  down  to  the  reign  of  Solomon,  Avho  deposed  Abiathar, 
and  gave  the  office  to  Zadok,  of  the  family  of  Eleazar.'"  The 
traditional  tomb  of  Aaron,  on  one  of  the  two  summits  of 
Mount  Hor,  is  marked  by  a  Mohammedan  chapel,  the  dome  of 
which  forms  a  white  spot  on  the  dark  red  sandstone.'^ 

§  5.  The  march  of  the  Israelites  was  now  down  the  Arahal\ 
out  of  which  they  turned  by  way  of  Ezion-gaber  and  Elath 
into  the  wilderness  of  Moab.'^  The  site  oi  Ezion-gaber  (the 
Gianfs  hack-hone)  is  uncertain  :  we  only  know  that  it  was 
at  the  head  of  the  Gulf  of  Akahah,  and  a  great  port  for  the 
commerce  with  the  Indian  Ocean,  which  took  that  route  in 
the  days  of  Solomon  and  Jehoshaphat.  It  was  afterward 
eclipsed  by  Elath  {the  2yalm-trees),  which  still  identify  it  with 
the  JSlana  of  later  times,  and  the  modern  Akahah.  The 
gulf  which  bore  its  name  of  old,  as  now  (Sinus  JElaniticus, 
Gulf  of  Akahah) ^yiQl^ed.  its  importance  as  a  highway  of 
commerce  to  the  Gulf  of  Suez,  in  consequence  of  the  building 
of  Alexandria ;  but  the  beauties  of  its  red  shores  and  clear 
blue  waters,  filled  with  red  coralline  sea-weed,  are  still  the 


"  Heb.  V.  2  ;  comp.  vii.  28. 
"Lev.  X.  3.  2«IIcb.v.-viii. 

'^^  Ex.  vi.  23. 

'"  1  Sam.  ii.  30-3G ;   1  K.  ii.  27; 
Joseph.  Ant.  v.  11,  §  5,  viii.  1,  §  3. 
3^  Stanley,  p.  86. 
""  Num.  xxi.  4 ;  Dent.  ii.  8.     Tlie 


the  hills,  with  three  low  peaks  visible 
beyond.  Tiiis  is  the  Wady  JtJnn, 
wliich  turns  the  eastern  range  of  the 
Arabah,  and  through  which  the  Is- 
raelites must  have  passed  on  their 
way  to  Moab.  It  is  still  one  of  the 
regular  roads  to  Petra,  and  in  ancient 


pass  by  which  they  must  have  left  the ,  times  seems  to  have  been  the  main 
Arabah  is  thus  described  by  Dean  i  approach  from  Elath  or  Akabah,  as  it 
Stanley  :  "  On  the  west  are  the  lime-  is  the  only  road  from  the  south  which 
stone  ranges  of  the  Tih,  horizontal  as  |  enters  Petra  through  the  SUc  or  cleft  " 
before.      On  the  cast  is  a  low  gap  ini(*SJ«ai  and  Pakstiiie,  pp.  84,  85). 


B.C.  U52.  Tlie  Brazen  SerjJent.  201 

same."  To  this  place  "  the  Israelities  came  on  their  return 
from  Kadesh,  and  through  a  gap  in  the  eastern  hills  they 
finally  turned  oif  to  Moab.  It  was  a  new  Red  Sea  for  them ; 
and  they  little  knew  the  glory  which  it  would  acquire,  when 
it  became  the  channel  of  all  the  wealth  of  Solomon.'"* 

They  now  finally  passed  out  of  the  neighborhood  of  the  Red 
Sea  into  the  elevated  region  which  lies  to  the  east  of  the  se- 
ries of  valleys  that  extend  from  the  head  of  the  Gulf  of  Aka- 
bah  to  the  sources  of  the  Jordan.  Here  they  found,  not  the 
Canaanities  whom  they  were  to  t^ubdue,  but  tribes  kindred 
to  themselves,  whom  they  Avere  forbidden  to  molest ;  the  de- 
scendants of  Esau  and  of  Lot.  First  they  skirted  the  eastern 
side  of  Mount  Seir,  the  home  of  the  Edomites,  who  Avould 
seem  to  have  yielded  them,  in  this  direction,  the  friendly  pas- 
sage which  they  could  hardly  have  resisted  on  the  open  des- 
ert.'^ The  route  lay  along  the  margin  of  the  great  desert  of 
JVejd, "  and  the  soul  of  the  people  was  much  discouraged  be- 
cause of  the  way."'°  God  punished  their  murmurs  by  send- 
ing among  them  serpents,  whose  fiery  bite  was  fatal.  On 
their  prayer  of  repentance  a  remedy  was  found.  Moses  was 
commanded  to  make  a  serpent  of  brass,  wliose  polished  sur- 
face shone  like  fire,  and  to  set  it  up  on  the  banner-pole  in  the 
midst  of  the  people ;  and  whoever  was  bitten  by  a  serpent 
had  but  to  look  up  at  it  and  live."  In  recounting  the  perils  of 
the  wildeniess,  Moses  speaks  of  the  "  fiery  serpents  and  scor- 
pions ;'"'  and  these  reptiles  still  abound  in  the  region  about 
the  Gulf  of  Akabah.'''  But  a  far  deeper  interest  belongs  to 
this  incident  of  the  pilgrimage  of  Israel.  "  As  Moses  lifted 
up  tlie  serpent  in  the  wriderness,  even  so  must  the  Son  of  man 
be  lifted  up ;  that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not  per- 
ish, but  have  eternal  life."" 

Preserved  as  a  relic,  whether  on  the  spot  of  its  first  erec- 
tion or  elsewhere,''  the  Brazen  Serpent,  called  by  the  name 
of  Nehushtan,  became  an  object  of  idolatrous  veneration, 
probably  in  connection  Avith  the  Ophite  worship  that  was 
adopted  in  the  reign  of  Ahaz,  with  all  the  other  idolatries  of 
the  neio-hborino'  nations :  and  the  zeal  of  Hezekiah  destroy- 


33  Stanley,  p.  83.      These  are  the  i      =*«  Deut.  viii.  L" 


features  of  the  whole  sea,  which 
caused  it  to  be  called  the  lied  Sea, 
and  by  the  Hebrews  the  Sea  of 
Weeds. 

3*  Stanley,  p.  84. 

3*  Dent.  ii.  29.         ""  Num.  xxi.  4. 

*'  Num.  xxi.  4-9. 
I  2 


Buckliardt,  Laborde,  etc.,  quoted 
by  Kitto,  jDai/i/  Bible  Illustrations,  jip. 
219,  220. 

4"  John  iii.  14,  15. 

■»!  Ewald  conjectures  that  it  ma}' 
have  remained  at  Zalmonah,  as  thfl 
object  of  occasional  pilgrimage. 


202  The  March  to  tlte  Jordan.  Chap.  XIV. 

ed  it  with  the  other  idols  of  his  flxther."  But  the  passion 
for  relics  is  not  extinguished  by  the  destruction  of  its  ob- 
jects. In  A.D.  971,  a  Milanese  envoy  to  Constantinople,  be- 
ing asked  to  select  a  present  from  the  imperial  treasures, 
chose  a  brazen  serpent,  which  the  Greeks  assured  him  was 
made  of  the  same  metal  that  Hezekiah  had  broken  up  ;  and 
this  serpent,  probably  the  idol  of  some  Ophite  sect,  is  stiil 
shown  in  the  Church  of  St.  Ambrose  at  Milan  as  that  which 
was  lifted  up  by  Moses  in  the  wilderness. 

§  6.  We  may  assume  thUt  this  happened  either  at  Zal:mo- 
NAH  or  Puxox,"  which  are  equally  unknown  Avith  the  next 
station,  Oboth."  Then  follows  Ije-Abarim  (the  heaps  of 
Abarim)^  in  the  wilderness  on  the  east  border  of  Moab,*"^  a 
name  suggesting  the  foot-hills  {j^wdmont)  of  the  "mountains 
of  Abarim  "  (the  heights  or  highlands)^  Avhich  are  mentioned 
four  stages  farther  on,"  and  which  are  a  limestone  range, 
running  north  and  south  through  Moab,  along  the  east  side 
of  the  Dead  Sea  and  the  lower  Jordan,  opposite  the  region 
about  Jericho.  Their  highest  point  was  Nebo,  the  "  head  " 
of  the  PiSGAii,  or  "  height,"  from  which  Moses  viewed  the 
promised  land."  They  entered  these  highlands  after  crossing 
the  valley  and  brook  of  Zared  ov  Zered  (perhaps  the  Wady  el- 
Ahsi/,at  the  south-east  corner  of  the  Dead  Sea),  which  Moses 
marks  as  the  terminus  of  the  thirty-eight  years'  wander- 
ing.^^ 

From  the  Wady  of  Zered  on  the  south  to  the  broad  ra- 
vine of  the  RiA'cr  Arnon^^  on  the  north,  lay  the  territory  of 
Moab,^"  also  called  Ar,  along  the  southern  half  of  the  east- 
ern shore  of  the  Dead  Sea ;  and  a  southern  branch  of  the 
Anion  bounded  their  country  on  the  east.  Shortly  before 
the  Exodus,  the  warlike  Amorites  {highlanders)  had  passed 
the  Jordan  under  their  Kimr  Sihox,  and  had  driven  the  Mo- 


■'^  2  K.  xviii.  4.  The  common  sup- 
position that  I-Iezekiali  called  it  Ne- 
hushlnn  (a  thing  of  brass),  in  contempt, 
though  supported  by  the  LXX,,  seems 
not  so  exact  a  version  as  "one  (i.e., 
men)  had  called  it  Nchushtan." 

^^  Num.  xxxiii.  41,  42. 

**  Num.  xxi.  10,  1 1,  xxxiii.  43,  44. 

*'"  Num.  xxi.  1 1,  xxxiii.  44. 

*"  Num.  xxxiii.  47. 


Amorites,  on  the  nortli  of  Moab 
CNum.  xxi.  13,  14,  24,  2G;  Judg.  xi. 
22),  and  afterward  between  Moab  and 
Israel  (Reuben),  Deut.  ii.  24,  3G,  iii. 

8,  12,  16.  iv.  48;  Josh.  xii.  1,  2,  xiii. 

9,  16;  Judg.  xi.  13,  2C>).  It  is  now 
called  Wady  el-Mojeb,  and  flows 
through  a  deep  ravine  into  the  Dead 
Sea.  The  chasm  through  which  it 
flows  still  answers  to  the  "locum  val- 


Compare  Num.  xxvii.  12  ;  Deut.   lis  in  prrerupta  demersal  satis  horribi 


xxxii.  49 

^«Deut.  ii.  14. 

■*^  The   River    Arnon    formed    tlie 
boundary    between    Moab    and    the 


lem  et  periculosum"  whicli  it  was  in 
the  days  of  Jerome. 

^"  See  Notes  and  lilustrations  to  ch. 
vii,  (MoAiuTES  AND  Ammonites). 


B.C. 1452. 


Conquest  of  Sihon  and  Og. 


203 


abites  out  of  the  region  between  the  Anion  and  the  Jab* 
bok  ;"  so  that  these  rivers  were  now  the  soutliern  and  north- 
ern boundaries  of  the  kingdom  of  Silion,  whose  capital  was 
Heshbon."  JS^orth  of  the  Jabbok,  the  great  upland  territory 
of  Bashan,  extending  to  Mount  Hermon,  formed  the  king- 
dom of  the  giant  Og,  who  is  also  called  an  Amorite.  Such 
was  the  state  of  the  country  east  of  Jordan,  which  formed 
no  part  of  the  land  marked  out  for  the  first  settlement  of  the 
Israelites,  but  events  drew  them  on  to  its  conquest. 

Having  been  forbidden  to  molest  Moab  or  Ammon,  they 
asked  for  a  peaceable  passage  through  the  former,  which 
would  seem  from  some  statements  to  have  been  granted,  and 
from  others  to  have  been  refused.'^  But  the  last  of  these 
passages  may  refer,  as  we  have  seen,^^  to  an  earlier  period ; 
and  the  second  only  speaks  of  the  withholding  of  actual  as- 
sistance in  supplies.  Probably,  as  in  the  case  of  Edom,  a  di- 
rect passage  was  refused,  but  the  people  were  left  unmolested 
in  passing  over  the  upper  courses  of  the  Zered  and  the  Ar- 
non,  and  round  the  eastern  slope  of  the  intervening  hills  by 
the  margin  of  the  desert.  Such  a  course  would  bring  them 
"  to  the  mountains  of  Abarim,  before  Nebo,"  on  "  the  top  of 
Pisgah,"  lacing  the  Jesiiimox,  or  wilderness ;"  and  their 
march  from  the  Anion  to  this  position  is  expressly  said  to 
have  been  from  the  wildemess,^^  and  on  the  Jorc^er  of  Moab.^' 

Another  indication  that  the  people  passed  through  the  des- 
ert, and  not  through  the  fertile  lands  of  Moab,  is  furnished 
by  the  very  interesting  notice  of  the  station  of  Beer,  so  call- 
ed from  the  well  which  was  opened  before  ail  the  people  at 
the  command  of  Jehovah.^* 

§  7.  From  their  encampment  in  the  wilderness  of  Kedemoth 
(the  position  of  which  is  doubtful),  the  Israelites  sent  a  mes- 
sage to  Sihon,  asking  for  a  passage  through  his  territory  to 
the  fords  of  Jordan  opposite  to  Jericho,  where  they  designed 
to  enter  the  promised  land,  and  promising  to  abstain  from 
every  disorder.^'*  The  Amorite  king  not  only  refused  the 
request,  but  marched  out  Avith  all  his  forces  against  Israel 
into  the  wilderness.  A  decisive  battle  at  Jahaz*^"  gave  to 
Israel  his  whole  territory.     Silion  was   slain,  with  his  sons 


"Seep.  91. 

^2  Num.  xxi.  2G-30. 

"  Deut.  ii.  28,  29,  xxiii.  4  •  Judg. 
xi.  17.  ^*  Chap.  xiii.  §  10. 

"  Num.  xxxiii.  47,  xxi.  20. 

^  Num.  xxi.  18.  Perhaps,  how- 
ever, thig  is  an  error  of  the  text :  the 


LXX.  give  "from  the  well,"  namely 
the  Beer  of  v.  IG. 

^^  Num.  xxi.  15. 

^«  Num.  xxi.  16.     See  §  7. 

^^  Num.  xxi.  21,  22;  Deut.  ii.  20^ 
30. 

^°  This  site  is  also  doubtful.        ^    : 


204 


The  March  to  the  Jordan. 


Chap.  XIV. 


and  all  his  people,  even  to  the  women  and  children,  and  Israel 
dwelt  in  their  cities  from  Aroer  on  the  Arnon  to  the  Jahbok 
{3Ioiet  Amman)^^  To  the  east  of  the  southern  branch  of  this 
river  lay  the  territory  of  Amnion,  too  strong  to  be  attacked 
even  had  it  been  permitted/^  They  followed  up  their  victory 
by  taking  Jaazek,  a  stronghold  of  the  Amorites  in  Mount 
Gilead ;  and  then  they  crossed  the  Jabbok  into  the  district 
of  Bashan.  Here  they  encountered  the  giant  King  Og,  wno 
ruled  over  sixty  fenced  cities  in  the  district  of  Arr/ob.^^  He 
was  defeated  at  Edrei,  and  slain  with  his  sons  and  his  people, 
as  had  been  done  to  Sihon.  Among  the  spoil  was  the  iron 
bedstead  of  Og,  9  cubits  long  and  4  cubits  broad  (13|-  feet 
by  6),^^  which  was  preserved  in  Rabbath-ammon  as  a  me- 
morial of  his  vast  stature ;  for  he  was  the  last  of  the  giant 
j-ace  of  the  Rephaim,  Avho  had  dwelt  of  old  in  Ashteroth- 
Ivarnaim,  the  capital  of  Og." 

These  first  great  victories  of  the  new  generation  of  Israel 
gave  them  the  whole  region  east  of  Jordan  as  far  as  the  des- 
ert, from  the  Arnon  on  the  south  to  Mount  Hermon  or  Sirion 
on  the  north ;  the  region  soon  after  allotted  to  the  tribes  of 


"Num.  xxi.  23-30;  Dent.  ii.  30- 
36;  Judg.  xi.  19-22. 

^2  Num.  xxi.  24  ;  Dent.  ii.  37. 

®^  The  limits  of  Bashan  are  very 
strictly  defined.  It  extended  from 
the  "border  of  Gilead  "  on  the  south 
to  Mount  Hermon  on  the  north  (Dent, 
iii.  3,  10,  14;  Josh.  xii.  5;  1  Chron. 
V.  23),  and  from  the  Arabah  or  Jor- 
dan valley  on  the  west  to  Salchah 
(Sulkhad)  and  the  border  of  the  Gesh- 
urites,  and  the  INIaacathites  on  the 
east  (Josh.  xii.  3-5  ;  Deut.  iii.  10). 
Argob,  which  means  the  stony,  with  its 
sixty  strongly-fortified  cities,  formed 
a  principal  portion  of  Bashan  (Deut. 
iii.  4,  5).  In  later  times  Argob  was 
called  Trachonitis,  ap])arently  a  mere 
translation  of  the  older  name.  It  is 
now  named  the  Lejah  —  a  very  re- 
markable district  south  of  Damascus, 
and  east  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  This 
extraordinary  region — about  twenty- 
two  miles  from  north  to  south  by  four- 
teen from  west  to  east,  and  of  a  reg- 
ular, almost  oval,  shape  —  has  been 
described  as  an  ocean  of  basaltic 
rocks  and  boulders,  tossed  about  in 
the  wildest  confusion,  and  intcrmin- 


;  gled  with  fissures  and  crevices  in  every 
j  direction.  "  Strange  as  it  may  seem, 
;  this  ungainly  and  forbidding  region 
is  thickly  studded  with  deserted  cities 
^  and  villages,  in  all  of  which  the  dwell- 
j  ings  are  solidly  built  and  of  remote 
antiquity  "  (Porter,  238).  The  ruins 
of  Edrei,  still  bearing  the  name  Edra, 
stand  on  a  rocky  promontory  which 
projects  from  the  south-west  corner  of 
the  Lejah.  Tiie  site  is  a  strange  one 
— without  water,  without  access,  ex- 
cept over  rocks  and  through  defiles 
all  but  impracticable, 

^^  Some   have   supposed   that   this 
was  one  of  the  common  flat  beds  used 
sometimes  on  the  housetops  of  east- 
ern cities,  but  made  of  iron  instead  of 
palm-branches,  Avhich  would  not  have 
j  supported  the  giant's  weight.      It  is 
{  more  probable  that  the  Hebrew  words 
j  mean  a   "sarcophagus  of  black  ba- 
salt, "  a  rendering  of  which  they  un- 
doubtedly admit.     The  Arabs  still  re- 
gard black  basalt  as  iron. 

"'Num.  xxi.  33-35;  Deut.  iii.  1- 
11  ;  comp.  Gen.  xiv.  5  ;  Deut.  ii.  20, 
21  ;  and  Josh.  xiii.  12. 


B.C.  Uo2. 


The  Prophet  Balaam. 


205 


Reuben,  Gad,  and  half  the  tribe  of  Manasseh.  But  still  more, 
they  were  an  earnest  of  the  conquest  of  the  promised  land ; 
and  they  are  ever  after  commemorated  among  the  most  sig- 
nal mercies  of  Jehovah  by  the  responsive  anthems  of  the  tem- 
ple-service, giving  thanks  to  Jehovah : — 

"  To  Him  which  smote  great  kings  :  for  His  mercy  endureth  forever : 
And  slew  famous  kings  :  for  His  mercy  endureth  forever : 
Sihon,  king  of  the  Amoiites  :  for  His  mercy  enduretli  forever : 
And  Og,  the  king  of  Bashan  :  for  His  mercy  endureth  forever : 
And  gave  them  tlieir  h^nd  for  an  lieritage  :  for  His  mercy  endureth  forever : 
Even  an  heritage  unto  Israel  His  servant :  for  His  mercy  endui-eth  forever ''^^ 

§  8.  At  length  the  Israelites  made  their  last  encampment 
on  the  east  side  of  the  Jordan  in  "  the  desert  plains  of  Moab." 
Their  tents  were  pitched  among  the  long  groves  of  acacias 
{shittim)  which  cover  the  topmost  of  the  three  terraces  that 
form  the  basin  of  the  Jordan,  from  Abel-shittim*''  (the  mead- 
010  of  acacias)  on  the  north,  to  Beth-jeshimotN'^  (the  house  of 
the  icastes)  on  the  south.  As  in  the  tropical  climate  of  the 
valley  they  enjoyed  the  shelter  of  the  cool  groves  and  the 
abundant  springs,  they  could  see  on  the  opposite  terrace  the 
green  meadows  of  Jericho,  their  first  intended  conquest.  But 
there  still  remained  work  for  them  on  the  left  bank.  The 
hills  of  Abarim,  which  rose  close  behind  them,  were  present- 
ly occupied  by  a  watchful  and  wily  enemy. 

The  conquest  of  the  Amorites  had  roused  the  Moabites 
from  their  doubtful  neutrality.  Their  king,  Balak,  the  son  of 
Zippor  (the  king  who  had  been  defeated  by  Sihon),  seeing 
that  Israel  was  too  strong  for  him  in  the  field,  made  a  con- 
federacy with  the  sheikhs  of  Midian,  several  of  whom  appear 
to  have*  led  their  Bedouin  life  within  the  territories  of  Moab, 
owning  a  certain  allegiance  to  the  king.""  The  united  forces 
encamped  on  the  heights  of  Abarim ;  while  Balak  sought 
mightier  help  from  another  quarter. 

There  was  living  at  Pethor,  in  Mesopotamia,  a  prophet 
named  Balaam,  the  son  of  Beor  ;  one  of  those  who  still  retain- 
ed the  knowledge  of  the  true  God,  by  whom  he  was  favored 
with  prophetic  visions.  He  seems,  however,  to  have  prac- 
ticed the  more  questionable  arts  of  divination,  and  to  have 
made  gain  of  his  supernatural  knowledge.     His  fame  was 


•"^  Ps.  cxxxv.  10-12,  cxxxvi.  17-22. 

"  The  Ahilah  of  later  times,  placed 
by  Josephus  at  G  g.  miles  from  the 
Jordan  {Ant.  iv.  8,  §  1,  v.  1,  §  1  ; 
compare  Bell.  Jud.  i.  13,  §  2,  iv.  7,  § 
6). 


^'^  Mentioned  among  the  southmost 
cities  of  Reuben  (Josh.  xiii.  20;  Jo- 
seph. Bell.  Jud.  iv.  7,  §  G). 

^^  Num.  xxi.  4,  xxxi.  8  ;  Josh.  xiii. 
21,  where  they  are  called  "dukes  of 
Sihon  living  in  the  country." 


206  The  March  to  the  Jordan.  Chap.  XIV. 

spread  far  and  wide  among  the  tribes  of  the  desert.  "  I  wot 
that  he  whom  thou  blessest  is  blessed,  and  he  whom  thou 
cursest  is  cursed,"'"  is  the  belief  on  Avhich  Balak  grounded  his 
invitation  to  Balaam  to  come  and  curse  Israel,  after  which  he 
hoped  he  might  prevail  against  them  and  drive  them  out  of 
the  land.  The  message  was  carried  by  the  elders,  both  of 
Moab  and  of  Midian,  with  the  rewards  for  his  divinations  in 
their  hand.  The  temptation  Was  too  great  for  the  prophet's 
integrity;  and  he  "forsook  the  right  way  and  went  astray," 
into  that  which  the  Apostle  Peter  calls  "  the  way  of  Balaam, 
the  son  of  Bosor,  who  loved  the  wages  of  unrighteousness."^^ 
Both  as  a  prophet,  and  from  the  fame  which  had  spread  over 
all  the  surrounding  countries,  he  must  have  known  that  Israel 
were  the  people  of  his  God  ;  and  that  he  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  messengers  of  Balak.  He  hesitated,  and  was  lost, 
but  not  without  repeated  warnings.  Instead  of  dismissing 
the  messengers,  he  invited  them  to  remain  for  the  night,  Avhile 
he  consulted  God.  He  received  the  plain  answer:  "Thou 
shall  not  go  with  them ;  thou  shall  not  curse  the  people,  for 
they  are  blessed;"  and  in  the  morning  he  sent  them  away.^^ 

Balak  again  sent  more  numerous  and  more  honorable  en- 
voys, with  a  more  pressing  message,  and  promises  of  great 
honors  and  rewards.  Balaam  declared  his  inability,  for  all  the 
wealth  of  Balak — not  to  entertain  the  proposal  for  a  moment, 
but — to  go  beyond  the  word  of  the  Lord  his  God,  to  whom 
he  again  referred  the  case.  And  this  time  God  A'isited  him 
with  the  severest  punishment,  Avhich  He  reserves  for  the  Avill- 
ful  sinner:  He  "gave  him  his  own  desire;"'^  but  while  de- 
livering him  to  the  destruction  he  courted.  He  made  him  the 
instrument  of  blessing  Israel  in  strains  among  the  sublimest 
of  sacred  poetry.  Balaam  was  commanded  to  go  with  the 
men,  but — as  he  himself  had  already  said — to  utter  only  the 
words  that  God  should  put  in  his  moiith ;  and,  in  all  that  fol- 
lows, we  see  how  vainly  he  strove  to  break  through  the  pre- 
scribed limit  and  to  earn  the  wages  of  his  apostasy.''* 

He  received  one  last  warning  in  a  prodigy  that  befell  him 
on  the  road.  The  beast  that  bore  him  swerved  twice  from 
the  way,  and  saved  him  from  the  uplifted  sword  of  the  An- 
gel-Jehovah, who  had  come  out  to  withstand  him ;  and  the 
third  time,  where  the  pass  was  too  narrow  to  escape,  she  fell 
down  beneath  him,  and,  on  his  smiting  her  again, "  the  dumb 


"°  Num.  xxii.n. 

^'2  Pet.  ii.  15;  Jude  11,  where  he 
is  ranked  with  Cain   and  Kovah,  as 


types   of  the  wickedness  of  the  last 
days. 

''-  Num.  xxii.  1-14. 


"  Ps.  Ixxviii.  29.  '*  Num.  xxii.  15-2L 


P.C. 1452. 


Tlte  Projjhet  Balaam. 


207 


ass,  speaking  m  itli  man's  voice,  forbad  the  madness  of  the 
prophet.'"*  His  eyes  were  now  opened,  and  he  beheld  the 
an^el,  who  refused  the  offer  Avhich  he  now  made  to  turn  back, 
and  repeated  the  injunction  to  go  with  the  men,  but  to  speak 
only  what  He''  should  say  to  him. 

Balak  Avent  to  meet  Balaam  at  a  city  on  tlie  Arnon  (per- 
haps Aroer),and  brought  him  to  the  city  o^ Kirjath-huzoth,''' 
where  the  king  held  a  great  feast  in  the  prophet's  honor. 
On  the  morrow^,  Balak  and  Balaam  began  their  unhallowed 
ceremonies.'^  Thrice  they  ascended  those  eminences,  Avhich 
w^ere  consecrated  to  the  worship  of  the  heathen  deities,''  as 
places  whence  the  prophet  might  see  and  curse  the  people, 
and  thrice  did  "  Jehovah  their  God  turn  the  curse  into  a  bless- 
ing, because  Jehovah  loved  them."  Lest  Balaam's  courage 
should  fail  him  at  the  sight  of  the  vast  encampment  surround- 
ing the  tabernacle,  with  its  sign  of  Jehovah's  presence  in 
the  cloud,  Balak  took  him  first  to  a  hill  sacred  to  Baal,  whence 
he  could  see  the  utmost  part  of  the  people.  Here  Balaam 
bade  Balak  prepare  seven  altars,  on  each  of  which  he  offered 
a  bullock  and  a  ram,'°  and  then  retired  to  another  hill  to  con- 
sult Jehovah.  From  His  mouth  the  prophet  received  the 
word  ;  and  he  returned  to  confound  Balak  and  his  princes 
by  asking,  "  How  shall  I  curse  whom  God  hath  not  cursed  ? 
or  how  shall  I  defy  whom  Jehovah  hath  not  defied  ?"— at 
the  same  time  prophesying  Israel's  separation  from  all  nations 
and  their  countless  numbers  ;  and  concluding  by  the  oft-quo- 
ted ejaculation,  "  Let  me  die  the  death  of  the  righteous,  and 
let  my  last  end  be  like  his  !" 

The  experiment  was  repeated  from  another  eminence,  "  the 
field  of  Zophim,  on  the  top  of  Pisgah,"  a  more  elevated  point 
of  observation,  but  still  not  commanding  the  great  body  of 
the  camp.  Here  the  same  ceremonies  were  repeated,  with 
the  same  result :  and  God's  message  by  the  prophet  declared 
His  own  eternal  truth  ;  His  forgiving  love  to  His  people ; 
His   perpetual  presence  among  Ihem,  making  them  proof 


■^^  2  Pet.  ii.  IG. 

■'^  Num.  xxii.  22-35.  ITcrc  is  one 
of  the  many  identifications  of  the  An- 
gel-Jehovah Avith  God  himself. 

''''  Commonly  interpreted  a  cit}j  of 
streets;  but  by  others  of  visions:  it 
may  pi'obably  have  been  a  sacred 
city,  and  therefore  fit  for  the  proph- 
et's residence. 

■"*  Num.  xxii.  41-xxiii.  2G. 

"  Comp.  Deut.xii.  2. 


*"  From  the  allusion  in  Micah  vi. 
5,  it  was  inferred  by  Jerome  that 
Balak  was  ready  to  offer  his  son  ia 
sacrifice  according  to  the  abomina- 
tions of  the  heathen  whom  Jehovah 
cast  out  from  before  the  children  of 
Israel  (2  Kings  xvi.  3),  and  as  was 
actnnllv  done  by  a  later  king  of  ^loab 
(2  Kings  ill.  27).  It  is  not  certain, 
however,  that  the  allusion  to  Balak 
and  Balaam  extends  beyond  ver.  5. 


208  The  March  to  the  Jordan.  Chap.  XIV. 

against  enchantment;  and  their  future  career  of  lion-like 
prowess  against  their  enemies,  Balak  vented  his  disappoint- 
ment  in  the  cry,  "  Xeither  curse  them  at  all,  nor  bless  them 
at  all ;"  but  he  would  not  give  up  without  a  last  trial." 

This  third  time  he  brought  Balaam  up  to  the  very  sanctu- 
ary of  the  national  deity  Peor,  the  same  topmost  summit — ■ 
Kebo,  the  head  of  Pisgah — from  which  Moses  soon  after 
viewed  the  promised  land.  The  sevenfold  sacrifice  Avas  re- 
peated, but  Balaam  laid  aside  his  arts  of  divination,  for  he 
saw  that  it  pleased  Jehovah  to  bless  Israel.  His  A'iew  em- 
braced the  whole  camp  of  Israel,  spread  out  among  the  acacia 
groves  by  the  river  at  his  feet ;  it  ranged  over  their  promised 
possessions  in  the  hills  of  Judah,  Ephraim,  and  Gilead  ;^^  and, 
as  "  he  saw  Israel  abiding  in  their  tents  according  to  their 
tribes,  the  Spirit  of  God  came  upon  him,  and  he  took  up  his 
parable,"  the  prophecy  of  the  man  whose  eyes  were  at  length 
opened.  In  the  goodly  array  of  their  tents  he  saw  the  omen 
of  the  destruction  of  the  nations  around :  and  ended,  "Blessed 
is  lie  that  blesseth  thee  ;  and  cursed  is  he  that  curseth  thee."^' 
Heedless  of  the  rage  of  Balak,  or  of  his  cruel  sarcasm,  "Z 
thought  to  promote  thee  to  great  honor;  but  \o,  Jehovah  hath 
kept  thee  back  from  honor,"  Balaam  declared  that,  before 
returning  to  his  home,  he  must  complete  his  prophecy  of 
what  the  people  should  do  to  the  heathen  in  the  last  days." 
For  the  fourth  time  he  opened  his  mouth,  and  proclaimed  his 
distant  vision  of  the  "  Star  of  Jacob,"  the  "Sceptre  of  Israel," 
who  should  smite  Moab — a  prophecy  in  part  fulfilled  by  the 
victories  of  David;  but,  as  the  titles  plainly  show,  pointing 
forward  to  the  kingdom  of  Messiah  over  the  outcast  branches 
of  the  chosen  family.  Then,  as  his  eye  ranged  over  the  dis- 
tant mountains  of  Seir,  the  home  of  Edom,  and  the  table-land 
of  the  desert,  over  which  the  children  of  Amalek  Avandered, 
and  the  home  of  the  Kenites  full  in  his  sight,  among  the  rocks 
of  Engedi  on  the  farther  shores  of  the  Dead  Sea,  he  predicted 
their  destruction  ;  till  the  vision  carried  him  back  to  the  banks 
of  his  native  Eu])hrates,  and  he  saw  the  conquests  of  Asshur 
overturned  by  ships  coming  from  the  coasts  of  Chittim,  the 
unknown  lands  beyond  the  Western  Sea,  and  he  exclaimed, 
"  Alas  !  who  shall  live  when  God  doeth  this  !"  And  he  rose 
up,  and  returned  to  the  place  assigned  for  his  abode."' 

Can  we  read  the  sublime  prophecies  of  Balaam  without 

w^ishing  that  his  desire  for  his  latter  end  might  have  been 

...      ♦  .    .       , 

^"^  Num.  xxiii.  14-2G.  I  scriptions  of  the  prospect,  Sinai  and 

•*-  See  Dean  Stanley's  eloquent  de-l Palestine,  pp.  299-301,  321. 

"^  Num.  xxiii.  27-xxiv.  9.      "  Num.  xxiv.  lO-lt.      "  Num.  xxiv.  15-25. 


B.C.  1452-1 451.  Prophecy  of  Balaam. 


209 


fultilled?  Doubtless  it  might  have  ^ee/i,  had  he  renounced 
the  vain  hope  of  gain  and  honor,  and  returned  to  repent  of 
his  sin,  and  thank  the  God  who  had  turned  it  into  a  blessing. 
But  he  remained  among  the  Moabites  and  Midianites,  cling- 
ing doubtless  to  the  chance  of  rcAvard  ;  and  provoked  his  fate 
by  a  new  and  more  eifectual  plot  against  Israel.  By  his  ad- 
vice the  people  were  tempted  to  share  in  the  lascivious  rites 
of  Peor,  and  to  commit  Avhoredom  wdth  the  daughters  of 
Moab.®^  The  wrath  of  Jehovah  was  shown  in  a  plague  which 
broke  out  in  the  camp,  and  destroyed  24,000  men.  Moses 
doomed  all  the  offenders  to  death,  and  Phinehas,  the  son  of 
Eleazar,  the  high-priest,  set  an  example  of  zeal  by  transfix- 
ing with  a  javelin  a  man  of  Israel  in  the  arms  of  a  woman  of 
Moab,  whom  he  had  brought  into  his  tent  in  the  face  of  the 
congregation  as  they  wept  before  Jehovah.  The  plague  was 
stayed,  and  the  covenant  of  Jehovah  w\as  renewed  with  the 
house  of  Eleazar,  assuring  him  a  perj^etual  priesthood." 

For  these  plots  against  Israel,  as  well  as  for  their  former 
inhospitality,  the  Moabites  w^ere  excluded  from  the  congrega- 
tion to  the  tenth  generation  ;^*  and  the  Midianites  were  doom- 
ed to  destruction."^^  The  execution  of  this  sentence  was  the 
last  act  of  the  government  of  Moses.  All  the  men  of  Midian 
were  slain,  with  the  princes  wdio  had  been  allied  w^ith  Balak, 
and  Balaam  died  in  the  general  slaughter.  Their  cities  Avere 
burnt  and  their  spoil  taken,  and  the  women,  who  had  been 
Fav' ed  alive,  w^ere  slain  by  the  command  of  Moses,  the  female 
children  only  being  spared.  At  the  same  fime  a  law  w-as 
made  for  the  equitable  division  of  the  spoil  between  those  who 
w^ent  forth  to  battle  and  those  wiio  remained  in  the  camp.®° 

Before  this  w^ar  another  census  had  been  taken,  by  whicli 
the  number  w^as  found  to  be  about  the  same  as  before  Sinai^^ 
38^  years  before  (the  exact  decrease  was  820)  ;"  and  Joshua 
was  consecrated  by  the  high-priest  Eleazar  to  be  the  succes- 
sor of  Moses.  ^' 

§  9.  After  the  slaughter  of  the  Midianites,  the  tribes  of 
Reuben  and  Gad  came  to  Moses  and  Eleazar  and  the  elders, 
wdth  the  request  that  they  might  have  for  their  possession  the 
conquered  land  on  the  east  of  Jordan,  the  upland  pastures 
of  which  made  it  desirable  for  their  numerous  cattle.     Moses 


^^  Num.  XXV.  1-  3,  xxxi.  IG. 

"  Num.  XXV.  4-15. 

*"  Dent.  xxxi.  3-6 :  this  is  inter- 
preted by  Nehemiah  (xiii.  1)  to  mean 
forever.  The  inclusion  of  the  Am- 
orites    in    the    sentence    is    another 


proof  of  the  close  connection  between 
the  two  peoples.  The  Edomites  might 
enter  the  congregation  in  the  third 
generation.       *'•'  Num.  xxv.  16-18. 

^°  Num.  xxxi.  ^'  Num.  XMvi. 

«2  Num.  xxvii.  15-23. 


210  The  March  to  the  Jordan.  Chap.  XIV. 

at  first  rebuked  tlicm  sharply,  as  if  they  were  repeating  the 
sin  of  their  fathers  at  Kadesh-barnea ;  but  on  their  promise 
that  they  would  only  leave  their  families  and  their  cattle  in 
their  new  abodes,  Avhile  they  themselves  would  march  armed 
in  the  van  of  their  brethren,  till  the  whole  land  should  be 
subdued,  he  yielded  to  their  request,  and  bound  them  solemn- 
ly to  their  engagement." 

The  tribe  of  Reuben  was  settled  in  the  south  of  the  region 
beyond  Jordan,  from  the  Anion  to  the  southern  slopes  of 
Mount  Gilead.  That  mountain  was  given  to  Gad,  whose 
northern  border  just  touched  the  sea  of  Chinnereth  (lake  of 
Gennesareth).  The  north-east  part  of  Gilead  and  the  land  of 
Bashan,  as  far  as  Mount  Hermon,  were  at  the  same  time  allot- 
ted to  half  the  tribe  of  Manasseh,  who  came  under  the  same 
engagement  as  their  brethren.  In  the  final  account  of  the  set- 
tlement of  the  country  we  read  hovf  faithfully  the  two  tribes 
and  a  half  fulfilled  their  promise."  Still  they  can  hardly  be 
acquitted  of  a  certain  selfish  grasping  at  present  advantage ; 
and  their  fault  brought  its  own  punishment,  for  their  position 
exposed  them  to  attack,  and  they  were  the  first  of  the  Israel- 
ites who  were  carried  into  captivity. "" 

§  10.  Tlie  work  of  Moses  was  now  finished  :  he  had  already 
received  the  command  of  God  to  ascend  Mount  Abarim,  and 
view  the  land  into  which  he  must  not  enter ;  and  his  succes- 
sor had  been  solemnly  ordained.  But  before  his  departure  he 
assembled  all  the  people,  rehearsed  to  them  the  dealings  of 
Jehovah  and  their  OAvn  conduct  since  they  had  departed 
from  Egypt ;  repeated  the  law,  with  certain  modifications 
and  additions,  and  enforced  it  with  the  most  solemn  exhorta- 
tions, warnings,  and  prophecies  of  their  future  history.  This 
address  (or  rather  series  of  addresses)  is  contained  in  the 
Book  of  Deuteroxomy  {the  repetition  of  the  law).  It  was  de- 
livered in  the  plains  of  Moab,  in  the  eleventh  month  of  the 
fortieth  year  from  the  epoch  of  the  Exodus  (Adar=February, 
1451,  B.C.).  It  consists  of  three  discourses,  followed  by  the 
iSo?7f/  of  Jloses,  the  Blessing  of  Moses,  and  the  storT/  of  his 
death. 

i.  In  the  J^irst  Discourse,^^  Moses  strives  briefly,  but  very 
earnestly,  to  warn  the  people  against  the  sins  for  which  their 
fathers  failed  to  enter  the  promised  land,  and  to  impress  upon 
them  the  one  simple  lesson  of  obedience  ;  that  they  might 
in  their  turn,  be  ready  to  enter  into  the  land.     With  this  spe 

""^  Num.  xxxii.  ;  Dent.  iii.  12-20.     I      °'  2  Kinps  xv.  29. 
">'  Josh.  iv.  12,  13,  xxii.  4.  °'  Dcut.  i.-iv.  40. 


B.C.  U51.  Final  Address  of  Moses.  211 

cial  object,  lie  recapitulates  the  chief  events  of  the  last  forty 
years  in  the  wilderness,  and  especially  those  events  which 
had  the  most  immediate  bearing  on  the  entry  of  the  people 
into  the  promised  land. 

ii.  The  Second  Discourse^''  enters  more  fully  into  the  act- 
ual precepts  of  the  law  :  in  fact,  it  may  be  viewed  as  the  body 
of  the  whole  address,  the  former  being  an  introduction.  It 
contains  a  recapitulation,  with  some  modifications  and  addi- 
tions, of  the  law  already  given  on  Mount  Sinai.  Yet  it  is  not 
bare  recapitulation,  or  naked  enactment,  but  every  word 
shows  the  heart  of  the  lawgiver  full  at  once  of  zeal  for  God 
and  of  the  most  fervent  desire  for  the  welfare  of  his  nation. 
It  is  the  Father  no  less  than  the  Legislator  who  speaks.  And 
while  obedience  and  life  are  throughout  bound  up  together, 
it  is  the  obedience  of  a  loving  heart,  not  a  service  of  formal 
constraint,  which  is  the  burden  of  his  exhortations.'"^ 

iii.  The  Third  Discourse'^  relates  almost  entirely  to  the  sol- 
emn sanctions  of  the  law:  the  blessing  and  the  curse.  Moses 
now  speaks  in  conjunction  with  the  elders  of  the  people,'"" 
and  with  the  priests  and  Levites,'"'  whose  office  it  would  be 
to  carry  out  the  ceremony,  which  was  pi-escribed  in  anticipa- 
tion of  the  people's  settlement  in  Palestine. 

The  place  selected  Avas  that  sacred  spot  in  the  centre  of 
the  land,  where  Abraham  and  Jacob  had  first  pitched  their 
tents,  under  the  oaks  of  Moreh,  and  where  the  first  altar  to 
God  liad  been  erected.  Here  the  green  valley  of  Shechem  is 
bounded  by  two  long  rocky  hills  on  the  north  and  south,  the 
former  being  the  Mount  Ebal,  the  latter  the  Mount  Gerizim, 
of  the  passage  befoi*e  us. 

As  soon  as  they  should  have  crossed  over  Jordan,  the  peo- 
ple were  commanded  to  set  up,  on  the  summit  of  Ebed^  great 
stones  covered  with  plaster,  and  inscribed  with  the  law  of 
God.  They  Avere  also  to  build  an  altar ;  and  this  seems  to 
have  been  distinct  from  the  stones,  though  the  point  is  some- 
what doubtful.  Then  (to  use  the  historical  form  of  expres- 
sion, as  the  scene  is  described  more  fully  here  than  on  its  act- 
ual performance  under  Joshua),  the  twelve  tribes  were  di- 
vided between  the  two  hills.  On  Gerizim  stood  Simeon, 
Levi,  Judah,Issachar,  Joseph,  and  Benjamin,  to  hless  the  peo- 
ple :  on  Ebal,  Reuben,  Gad,  Asher,  Zebulun,  Dan,  and  Naph- 
tali,  to  utter  the  curses  which  are  then  fully  recited."^ 

Moses  then  proceeds  to  amplify  the  blessing  and  the  curse, 

"  Deut.  v.-xxvi.  19;  vs.  44-49  of  i      °^An  account  of  t!ie  Law  is  given 
chap.  iv.  introduce  the  discourse.         |  at  the  close  of  the  present  hook. 
•*  Deut.  xxvii.-xxx.    ^^^  Deut.  xxvii.  1.     ^°'  Deut.  xxvii.  9.    "^  Deut.  xxvii. 


212  The  March  to  the  Jordan.  Chap.  XIV. 

but  chiefly  the  latter,  as  the  warning  was  more  needed. 
That  sad  prophetic  anticipation  of  the  course  actually  follow- 
ed by  the  Israelites,  which  runs  through  the  whole  book,  be- 
comes now  especially  prominent ;  and  he  denounces,  with  ter- 
rible explicitness,  the  curses  of  disease  and  pestilence,  death 
and  fomine,  failure  in  every  work,  subjection  to  their  own 
servants,  invasion  by  a  mighty  nation,  with  all  the  liorrors 
of  defeat  and  siege,  ending  in  the  forlorn  lot  of  the  captive  in 
a  foreign  land,  oppressed  by  his  tyrants  and  uncertain  of  his 
very  life.  "  In  the  morning  thou  shalt  say,  Would  God  it 
were  even  !  and  at  even  thou  shalt  say.  Would  God  it  were 
morning  !"  and,  to  crown  all,  they  would  be  led  back  at  last 
to  their  bondage  in  Egypt.  ^"^ 

iv.  Having  flnished  these  discourses,  Moses  encouraged 
the  people  and  Joshua,  their  new  leader,  to  go  over  Jordan 
and  take  possession  of  the  land.^°*  He  then  wrote  "  this 
law,"  and  delivered  it  to  the  Levites,  to  be  kept  in  the  ark 
of  the  covenant,  as  a  perpetual  witness  against  the  people  ; 
and  he  commanded  them  to  read  it  to  all  Israel,  when  as- 
sembled at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  eveiy  seventh  year,  in 
the  solemnity  of  the  Sabbatic  year.^"^ 

By  the  command  of  Jehovah,  who  appeared  in  the  cloud  to 
Moses  and  Joshua  when  they  presented  themselves  at  the 
door  of  the  Tabernacle,  Moses  added  to  the  book  of  the  law  a 
sonr/^  which  the  children  of  Israel  were  enjoined  to  learn,  as 
a  witness  for  Jehovah  against  them.^"''  This  "  Song  of  Moses  " 
recounts  the  blessings  of  God,  the  Rock  : — His  perfect  Avork, 
His  righteous  ways,  and  the  corrupt  requital  of  His  foolish 
j^eople,  though  He  was  their  father,  who  bought  and  created 
and  established  them.  It  contrasts  His  mercies  with  their 
sins ;  declares  their  punishment  and  the  judgment  of  their 
oppressors,  as  alike  displajnng  the  glory  and  vengeance  of 
Him  beside  whom  there  is  no  god  ;  and  it  concludes  by 
prophesying  the  time  when  tlie  Gentiles  should  rejoice  with 
His  people,  and  all  should  join  to  celebrate  His  marvellous 
works  and  judgments  in  "  the  song  of  Moses,  the  servant  of 
God,  and  the  song  of  the  Lamb.'"" 

V.  Moses  now  received  the  final  summons  for  his  depar- 
ture.^"** But  first  he  uttered,  not  now  as  the  legislator  and 
teacher  of  his  jDcople,  but  as  the  prophet,  wrapt  in  the  vis- 

in  tliemselves  tlie  record  of  their  com. 


^^^^  Deut.  xxviii. 

"^  Deut.  xxxi.  1-8. 

'°^  Dent.  xxxi.  9-13,  24-30.     This 
is  the  most  strikinjx  of  tlic  passages  in        '"  Deut.  xxxii.  1-47;  Rev.  xv.  3, 
which  the  books  of  Scripture  contain    4.  "'^  Deut.  xxxii.  48-52. 


position. 

'"■^  Deut.  xxxi.  14-23. 


B.C.  1451.  Ascent  of  Moses  to  NeOo.  213 

ions  of  the  future,  his  blessing  on  llie  twelve  tribes. ""  This 
blessi7ig  of  Moses  closely  resembles,  in  its  structure  and  con- 
tents, the  (lying  blessing  of  Jacob  on  his  sons,  but  with  very 
interesting  differences.  Besides  the  new  and  fervent  de- 
scription of  Levi's  priesthood,'"'  it  is  remarkable  for  the  al> 
sence  of  those  darker  shades,  which  Mere  cast  over  Jacob's 
language  by  the  faults  of  his  sons.  It  speaks  only  of  the 
favors  that  God  would  shower  on  the  tribes  ;i^ian'd  it  de- 
scribes most  richly  the  happiness  of  the  whole  people,  who 
are  mentioned,  here  and  in  the  preceding  song,  by  the  sym- 
bolical name  of  Jesiiukun,  the  beloved,  which  is  only  used 
again  by  Isaiah."^ 

vi.  "  And  Moses  went  up  from  the  plains  of  Moab  unto 
the  mountain  of  Nebo  (the  head),  the  summit  of  Pisgah  (the 
heights),  that  is  over  against  Jericho.  And  Jehovah  showed 
liim  all  the  land  of  Gilead  unto  Dan,  and  all  Naphtali,  and 
the  land  of  Ephraim,  and  Manasseh,  and  all  the  land  of  Ju- 
dah,  even  unto  the  utmost  sea,  and  the  south,  and  the  plain 
of  the  valley  of  Jericho  the  city  of  palm-trees,  unto  Zoar."*'^ 
Thus  minutely  does  the  supplement  to  the  Book  of  Deuter- 
onomy describe  the  scene  wdiich  lay  open  before  Moses, 
when  he  was  alone  with  God  upon  the  sacred  mountain  of 
the  Moabites  ;  embracing  the  four  great  masses  of  the  in- 
lieritance  on  the  east,  the  north,  the  centre,  and  the  south, 
with  the  plain  that  lay  at  his  feet.  Not  that  his  eye,  though 
still  undimmed  by  his  thrice  forty  years,'"'  could  literally 
behold  all  that  is  here  named :  "  the  foreground  of  the  pic- 
ture alone  was  clearly  discernible  ;  its  dim  distances  w^ere  to 
be  supplied  by  w^hat  was  beyond,  though  suggested  by  what 
was  within,  the  range  of  the  actual  prospect  of  the  seer.""* 
After  receiving  the  last  assurance  that  this  was  the  land 
promised  to  Abraham  and  his  seed,  "  Moses  the  servant  of 
Jehovah  died  there  in  the  land  of  Moab,  according  to  the 
word  of  Jehovah.""^  God  himself  buried  him  "in  a  ravine 
before  Bethpeor,"  in  front  of  the  very  sanctuary  of  ''  the 
abomination  of  the  Moabites."  The  allusion  of  St.  Jude 
seems  to  imply  that  the  fallen  angel,  Avho  was  really  wor- 
shiped there,  disputed  this  invasion  of  his  sanctuary  with  the 
"  divine  prince,  the  chief  of  the  angels  "  (Michael,  the  arcli- 


'°'  Deut.  xxxiii. 
"°  Deut.  xxxiii.  8-11. 
'"  It  is  curious  that  Simeon  is  not 
named. 

"'Deut.  xxxii.  15,  xxxiii.  5,  26; 


"^  Deut.  xxxiv.  5. 


Is.  xliv.  2  :  the  form  Jesurun  is  a  mis- 
take of  our  translators. 

"'  Deut.  xxxiv.  1-3. 

'"  Deut.  xxxiv.  7. 

Stanley,  Sinai  and  Pal,  p.  301. 


214  Tlie  March  to  the  Jordan.  Chap.  XIV. 

angel),  who  rebuked  him  with  the  same  cahn  authority  which 
He  used  on  the  mount  of  the  temptation/'^  Another  and  a 
different  profanation,  by  the  idolatrous  zeal  oi  later  ages  for 
the  so-called  "  Holy  Places,"  was  guarded  against  by  the  con- 
cealment of  tlie  spot ;  and  Ave  almost  shrink  from  mention- 
ing the  absurd  attempt  to  contradict  the  mystery  by  the 
rude  mosque,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Dead  Sea,  which 
pretends  to  mark  "  the  tomb  of  the  prophet  Moses."  That 
of  him  Avliich  it  was  really  left  for  posterity  to  seek,  besides 
the  record  of  his  deeds,''^  was  his  living  likeness,  in  the 
prophet  Avhom  God  promised  to  raise  up  of  his  brethren,  as 
He  had  raised  up  him,  even  Christ. 

The  children  of  Israel  mourned  for  Moses  in  the  plains  of 
Moab  thirty  days ;  and  they  rendered  obedience  to  Joshua, 
the  son  of  Nun,  on  whom  Moses  had  laid  his  hands,  and  who 
was  full  of  the  spirit  of  wisdom.^^^ 

§  11.  In  portraying  the  character  of  Moses,  we  avail  our- 
selves of  the  graphic  description  of  Dean  Stanley:'^" 

It  has  sometimes  been  attempted  to  reduce  this  great 
character  into  a  mere  passive  instrument  of  the  Divine  Will, 
as  though  he  lip.d  himself  borne  no  conscious  part  in  the  ac- 
tions in  which  he  figures,  or  the  messages  which  lie  delivei's. 
This,  however,  is  as  incompatible  with  the  general  tenor  of 
the  scriptural  account,  as  it  is  with  the  common  language 
in  Avhicli  he  has  been  described  by  the  Church  in  all  ages. 
The  frequent  addresses  of  the  Divinity  to  him  no  more  con- 
travene his  personal  activity  and  intelligence,  than  in  the  case 
of  Elijah,  Isaiah,  or  St.  Paul.  In  the  New  Testament  tlie 
Mosaic  legislation  is  especially  ascribed  to  him:  —  "J/oses 
gave  you  circumcision."'*'  '^  Moses ^  because  of  the  hardness 
of  your  hearts,  suffered  you."'"  "  Did  not  Jfoses  oive  you 
the*  law?'"''  ''Moses  accuseth  you."'''  St.  Paul  speaks 
of  him  as  the  founder  of  the  Jewish  religion:  "They  were 
all  baptized  loito  Jloses.^^'^"  He  is  constantly  called  "  a 
Prophet."  In  the  poetical  language  of  the  Old  Testament,"" 
and  in  the  i)opular  language  both  of  Jews  and  Christians, 
he  IS  known  as  "  the  Lawgiver."  He  must  be  considered^ 
like  all  the  saints  and  heroes  of  the  Bible,  as  a  man  of  mar- 
vellous gifts,  raised  up  by  Divine  Providence  for  a  special 
purpose  ;  but  as  led  into  a  closer  communion  with  the  invisi- 


""'  Jude  9;    compare  Zech.  iii.  2 
Matt.  iv.  10  ;  Luke  iv.  8. 
»'M)eiit.  xxxiii.  10-12. 
'''••  Dent,  xxxiii.  8,  9. 
12"  Diet,  of  Bible,  art.  ^kloses. 


12'  John  vii.  22.       '"^  ^ir^^^^  ^ix.  8. 
i^Mohn  vii.  19.       '24  jo},„  y   45 
'-'  1  Cor.  X.  2. 

'2"  Numbers  xxi.  18;  Deut.  xxxiii. 
21. 


B.C.  Uol,  Character  of  Moses.  215 

ble  world  than  was  vouchsafed  to  any  other  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. 

There  are  two  main  characters  in  Avhich  he  appears,  as  a 
leader  and  as  a  prophet. 

i.  Of  his  natural  gifts  as  a  Leader^  we  have  but  few  means 
of  judging.  The  two  main  difficulties  which  he  encountered 
were  the  reluctance  of  the  people  to  submit  to  his  guidance, 
and  the  impracticable  nature  of  the  country  which  they  had 
to  traverse.  The  patience  Avith  which  he  bore  their  mur- 
murs had  been  described — at  the  Red  Sea,  at  the  apostasy  of 
the  golden  calf,  at  the  rebellion  of  Korah,  at  the  complaints 
of  Aaron  and  Miriam.  On  approaching  Palestine,  the  office 
of  the  leader  becomes  blended  with  that  of  the  general  or  the 
conqueror.  By  Moses  the  spies  Avere  sent  to  explore  the 
country.  Against  his  advice  took  j^lace  the  first  disastrous 
battle  at  Hormah.  To  his  guidance  is  ascribed  the  circuitous 
route  by  which  the  nation  approached  Palestine  from  the 
east,  and  to  his  generalship  the  two  successful  campaigns  in 
which  SiHOX  and  Oo  were  defeated.  The  narrative  is  told 
so  shortly,  that  we  are  in  danger  of  forgetting  that  at  this 
last  stage  of  his  life  Moses  must  have  been  as  much  a  con- 
queror and  victorious  soldier  as  Joshua. 

ii.  His  character  as  a  Prophet  is,  from  the  nature  of  the. 
case,  more  distinctly  brought  out.  He  is  the  first  as  he  is  the 
greatest  example  of  a  prophet  in  the  Old  Testament.  The 
name  is  indeed  applied  to  Abraham  before,^"  but  so  casually 
as  not  to  enforce  our  attention.  But,  in  the  case  of  Moses,  it 
is  given  with  peculiar  emphasis.  In  a  certain  sense,  he  ap- 
pears as  the  centre  of  a  prophetic  circle,  now  for  the  first  time 
named.  His  brother  and  sister  were  both  endowed  with 
prophetic  gifts.  Aaron's  fluent  speech  enabled  him  to  act 
the  part  of  prophet  for  Moses  in  the  first  instance,  and  Mir- 
iam is  expressly  called  "  the  Prophetess."  The  seventy  eld- 
ers, and  Eldad  and  Medad  also,  all  "  prophesied.'"^^  But  Mo- 
ses (at  least  after  the  Exodus)  rose  high  above  all  these. 
The  others  are  spoken  of  as  more  or  less  inferior.  Their  com- 
munications Avere  made  to  them  in  dreams  and  figures.*^* 
But  "  Moses  Avas  not  so."  With  him  the  divine  revelations 
Avere  made,  "  mouth  to  mouth,  even  apparently,  and  not  in  dark 
speeches,  and  the  similitude  of  Jehovah  shall  he  behold."'^" 

The  prophetic  office  of  Moses,  hoAvever,  can  only  be  fully 
considered  in  connection  Avith  his  Avhole  character  and  appear- 
ance.    "  By  a  prophet  Jehovah  brought  Israel  out  of  Egypt, 

'"  Gen.  XX.  7.  !      ^"^  Dent.  xiii.  1-4  ;  Num.  xii.  6. 

'"  Num.  xi.  25-27.  i      ''^  Num.  xii.  8. 


216 


The  March  to  the  Jordan. 


Chap.  XIV. 


and  by  a  prophet  was  he  preserved.'""  He  was  m  a  sense 
peculiar  to  himself  the  founder  and  representative  of  his  peo- 
ple. And,  in  accordance  with  this  complete  identification  of 
himself  with  his  nation,  is  the  only  strong  j^ersonal  trait  which 
we  are  able  to  gather  from  his  history.  "  The  man  Mose& 
was  very  meek,  above  all  the  men  that  were  npon  the  face 
of  the  earth.'"^^  The  word  "meek"  is  hardly  an  adequate 
reading  of  the  Hebrew  term,  which  should  be  rather  "  much 
enduring ;"  and,  in  flxct,  his  onslaught  on  the  Egyptian,  and 
his  sudden  dashing  the  tables  on  the  ground,  indicate  rather 
the  reverse  of  what  we  should  call "  meekness."  It  represents 
what  we  should  now  designate  by  the  word  "  disinterested." 
All  that  is  told  of  him  indicates  a  withdrawal  of  himself,  a 
preference  of  the  cause  of  his  nation  to  his  own  interests,  which 
makes  him  the  most  complete  example  of  Jewish  patriotism. 
He  joins  his  countrymen  in  their  degrading  servitude.  ^^' 
He  forgets  himself  to  avenge  their  wrongs.  ^^*  He  desires  that 
his  brother  may  take  the  lead  instead  of  himself^^^  He  Avish- 
es  that  not  he  only,  but  all  the  nation,  Avere  gifted  alike : — 
"  Enviest  thou  for  my  sake  ?"^^''  When  the  offer  is  made 
that  the  people  should  be  destroyed,  and  that  he  should  be 
made  "  a  great  nation,"'"  he  prays  that  they  may  be  forgiven 
— "  if  not,  blot  me,  I  pray  Thee,  out  of  Thy  book  Avhich  Thou 
hast  Avritten."'^®  His  sons  were  not  raised  to  honor.  The 
leadership  of  the  people  passed,  after  his  death,  to  another 
tribe.  In  the  books  Avhich  bear  his  name,  Abraham,  and  not 
himself,  appears  as  the  real  father  of  the  nation.  In  spite  of 
his  great  pre-eminence,  they  are  never  "  the  children  of  Mo- 
ses." 

In  the  New  Testament  Moses  is  sjDoken  of  as  a  likeness  of 
Christ ;  and,  as  this  is  a  point  of  view  Avhich  has  been  almost 
lost  in  the  Church,  compared  with  the  more  familiar  compari- 
sons of  Christ  to  Adam,  David,  Joshua,  and  yet  has  as  firm  a 
basis  in  fact  as  any  of  them,  it  may  be  Avell  to  draw  it  out  in 
detail. 

1.  Moses  is,  as  it  would  seem,  the  only  character  of  the  Old 
Testament  to  Avhom  Christ  expressly  likens  Himself — "  Mo- 
ses wrote  of  me."'^^  It  is  uncertain  to  what  passage  our  Lord 
alludes,  but  the  general  opinion  seems  to  be  the  true  one— 
that  it  is  the  remarkable  prediction'"" — "  The  Lord  thy  God 
will  raise  up  unto  thee  a  prophet  from  the  midst  of  thee,  from 
thy  brethren,  like  unto  me  ;  unto  him  ye  shall  hearken. .  .  I 


"'  Hos.  xii.  13. 

"-  Nam.  xii.  3.    '''  Ex.  ii. 

'=^  Ex.  ii.  14.  '=°Ex. 


1*1.  V.  4. 
V.  13. 


Nnm.  xi.  29.  "'  Ex.  xxxii.  10. 
Ex.  xxxii.  32.  ^^^  John  v.  46- 
Deut.  xviii.  15,  18,  19. 


B.C.  1451.  Moses  as  a  Type  of  Christ.  217 

will  raise  them  up  a  prophet  from  among  their  brethren,  like 
unto  thee,  and  will  put  my  words  in  his  mouth ;  and  he  shall 
speak  unto  them  all  that  I  shall  command  him.  And  it  shall 
come  to  pass,  that  whosoever  will  not  hearken  unto  my  words 
which  he  shall  speak  in  my  name,  I  will  require  it  of  him." 
This  passage  is  also  expressly  quoted  by  Stephen,^"  and  it  is 
probably  in  allusion  to  it,  that  at  the  transfiguration,  in  the 
presence  of  Moses  and  Elijah,  the  words  were  uttered, '^  Hear 
ye  Him."  It  suggests  three  main  points  of  likeness : — («.) 
Christ  Avas,  like  Moses,  the  great  prophet  of  the  people — the 
last,  as  Moses  was  the  first.  In  greatness  of  position,  none 
came  between  them.  (^.)  Christ,  like  Moses,  is  a  lawgiver : 
"  Him  shall  ye  hear."  (c.)  Christ,  like  Moses,  was  a  prophet 
out  of  the  midst  of  the  nation — "  from  their  brethren."  As 
Moses  was  the  entire  representative  of  his  people,  feeling  for 
them  more  than  for  himself,  absorbed  in  their  interests,  hopes, 
and  fears,  so,  with  reverence  be  it  said,  was  Christ. 

2.  In  Hebrews"^  and  Acts^"  Christ  is  described,  though 
more  obscurely,  as  the  Moses  of  the  new  dispensation — as  the 
apostle,  or  messenger,  or  mediator,  of  God  to  the  people — as 
the  controller  and  leader  of  the  flock  or  household  of  God. 

3.  The  details  of  their  lives  are  sometimes,  though  not  oft  • 
en,  compared.  Stephen'"  dwells,  evidently  with  this  view, 
on  the  likeness  of  Moses  in  striving  to  act  as  a  peacemaker, 
and  misunderstood  and  rejected  on  that  very  account.  The 
deatli  of  Moses  suggests  the  ascension  of  Christ ;  and  the  re- 
tardation of  the  rise  of  the  Christian  Church,  till  after  its 
founder  was  withdrawn,  gives  a  moral  as  well  as  a  material 
resemblance.  But  this,  tliough  dwelt  upon  in  the  services  of 
the  Church,  has  not  been  expressly  laid  down  in  the  Bible. 

'"  Acts  vii.  37.  1      '^^  Acts  vii.  37. 

^^'  Ilcb.  iii.  1-10,  xii.  2-l:-21).  !      ^'^  Actsvii.  24-28,  37. 

K 


The  Golden  Candlestick. 


APPENDIX    TO    BOOK    III. 


THE  LEGISLATION  OF  MOSES. 


SECTION    I. 

THE  PRINCIPLES  AND  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THE  MOSAIC  LAW. 

§  1.  Divine  origin  of  tlie  Law  of  Moses — Its  distinction  from  all  other  codes.  §  2.  Exam- 
ination of  the  Law — Its  leading  piinciples— Its  foundation  in  the  Tueooract,  accept- 
ed by  the  people,  and  ratified  by  God's  Covenant  ■with  them — Whence  follows  the  Re- 
ligious, Moral,  Civil,  and  Constitutional  Law.  §  3.  Classification  of  the  Law,  based 
on  tlie  Two  Tables  of  the  Ten  Commandments.  §  4.  Arrancement  of  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments. §  5.  Classification  of  the  Law  into — A.  Laws  religious  and  ceremonial — 
B.  Laws  constitutional  and  political — C.  Laws  civil :  human  duties  and  rights — D. 
Laws  criminal.  §  G. — I.  Laws  Religious  and  Ceremoniai The  First  Command- 
ment. §  7.  The  Second  Commandment.  §  8.  The  Third  Commandment.  §  9.  The 
Fourth  Commandment. 


§  1.  A  LARGE  portion  of  the  second  and  fotirth  books  of  the  Pentateuch 
(Exodus  and  Numbers),  and  nearly  the  whole  of  its  th{7-d  and  ^fifth  books 
(Leviticus  and  Deuteronomy),  ai'e  occupied  with  the  Laws,  which  Moses 
was  the  instrument  of  giving  to  the  Jewish  people.  lie  keeps  ever  before 
our  eyes  the  fc\ct  that  the  Law  was  the  Law  of  Jehovah.  Its  outline  was 
given  from  Sinai  by  the  voice  of  God  himself.'  One  whole  section  of  it,  con- 
taining the  ordinances  of  divine  worship,  was  communicated  to  Moses  by  a 
special  revelation,  in  the  secrecy  of  the  mount."  And  even  in  the  case  of 
1  Ex.  xx.-xxi'.i.  a  Ex.  xxv,  xxii. 


Sect.  I.  Divine   Origin  of  Hie  Law.  219 

those  precepts,  which  were  enacted  as  the  occasion  for  each  arose,  we  find 
Moses  invariably  referring  tlie  question  to  the  express  decision  of  Jehovah. 

It  is  this  character  that  distinguishes  the  legislation  of  Moses  from  that 
of  all  other  great  lawgivers,  actual  or  mythical :  Zoroaster,  Menu,  or  Con- 
fucius ;  Zaleucus,  Solon,  or  Lycurgns  ;  besides  that  this  is  the  only  authentic 
case,  in  the  history  of  thcAvorld,  of  a  newly-formed  nation  receiving  at  once 
and  from  one  legislator  a  complete  code  of  laws  for  the  direction  of  their 
whole  future  course  of  life. 

§  2.  Before  attempting  to  classify  the  enactments  of  this  code,  it  is  nec- 
essary to  discover  first  its  leading  principles. 

The  basis  of  the  whole  commonwealth  of  Israel,  as  well  as  of  its  law,  is 
the  Theocratic  CoNsriTUXiON.  Jehovah  w-as  present  with  the  people, 
abiding  in  his  tabernaclo  in  their  midst,  visible  by  the  symbol  of  His  pres- 
ence, and  speaking  to  them  through  Moses  and  the  High-priest.  The 
whole  law  was  the  direct  utterance  of  His  will ;  and  the  government  was 
carried  on  with  constant  reference  to  His  oracular  decisions.  Thus  He  was 
to  Israel  what  the  king  was  to  other  nations  ;  and  hence  their  desire  to  have 
another  king  is  denounced  as  treason  to  Jehovah.  But  more  than  this : 
He  was,  so  to  speak,  the  proprietor  of  the  people.  They  were  His  possession^ 
for  He  had  redeemed  them  from  their  slavery  in  Egypt,  and  had  brought 
them  out  thence  to  settle  them  in  a  new  land  of  His  own  choice  ;  and  they, 
on  their  part,  had  accepted  this  relation  to  Jehovah  by  a  solemn  covenant. 
His  right  over  their /?erso?25  was  asserted  in  the  redemption  of  the  first-born, 
and  in  the  emancipation  of  the  Jewish  slave  in  tlie  year  of  release.  His 
right  over  their  land  was  the  fundamental  law  of  property  among  the  Jew^s. 
The  tithes  were  a  constant  acknowledgment  of  this  right ;  and  the  return 
of  alienated  land,  in  the  year  of  jubilee,  to  the  families  who  had  at  first  re- 
ceived it  by  allotment  from  Jehovah,  was  the  rcassertion  of  His  sole  propri- 
ety. 

On  their  part,  the  people  were  required  to  believe  in  this  supreme  and 
intimate  relation  of  Jehovah  to  them.  They  accepted  it  at  first  by  the 
"  covenant  in  Horeb,"  and  into  it  every  Israelite  was  initiated  by  circum- 
cision, the  common  seal  of  tins  covenant  and  of  that  with  Abraham,  of 
Avhich  this  was  the  sequel.  They  were  to  observe  it  in  practice  by  the  wor- 
ship of  Jehovah  as  the  only  God,  by  abstaining  from  idolatr}',  and  by  obedi- 
ence to  the  law  as  the  expression  of  His  will. 

Of  this  relation  of  Jehovah  to  the  people  the  whole  law  was  the  practical 
development ;  and  from  it  each  separate  portion  may  be  deduced. 

(i.)  The  Religious  Law,  which  prescribed  first  the  eternal  principle  of 
God's  worship,  and  next  the  special  ceremonies  of  His  service  under  this 
particular  dispensation. 

(li.)  The  Moral  Law,  which  declared  those  duties  of  personal  holiness 
and  uprightness  which  arise  out  of  man's  relation  to  God  and  to  his  fellow- 
man,  apart  from  any  peculiai'ity  of  race,  or  place,  or  time.  To  these  pre- 
cepts the  Mosaic  law  appends  certain  special  ordinances  for  regulating  the 
details  of  life,  which  may  be  called  the  Laio  of  Manners.  Many  of  these 
minute  observances  are,  no  doubt,  temporary.  Some  were  typical  of  prin- 
ciples which,  under  a  freer  dispensation,  belong  to  the  province  of  the  indi- 
vidual conscience,  rather  than  of  positive  law,  a  distinction  for  which  the 
Israelites  were  not  yet  prepared.     Others  were  designed  to  impress  upon 


220  Classification  of  the  Law.  Appendix. 

them,  by  the  teaching  of  common  acts,  the  great  lesson  of  ^^  Holiness  to  Je- 
hovah ;"  and  they  were  to  be  practiced  as  a  means  to  the  knowledge  and 
love  of  God,  and  as  a  preparation  for  "  the  law  of  liberty,"  "  the  law  of  the 
spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus."  We  forget  this  truth  when  we  speak  of  such 
ordinances  as  narrow  and  slavish  just  as  the  Jews  did  when  they  tried  to  ob- 
serve them  only  in  the  letter,and  so  felt  them  as  "a  yoke  which  they  were 
unable  to  bear."^ 

(iii.)  The  Civil,  Political,  and  Judicial  Law. — It  is  here  that  the  Theo- 
cratic principle  is  most  conspicuous,  as  distinguishing  the  legislation  of  Mo- 
ses from  all  human  constitutions.  We  have  seen  how  it  affected  the  tenure 
of  property  and  the  rights  of  persons :  its  influence  on  civil  society  is  no 
less  remarkable.  All  that  is  valuable  in  the  theories  on  this  subject  is 
summed  up,  and  many  of  their  errors  are  corrected,  in  the  axiom  of  Aris- 
totle :  "  Civil  society  (the  Polls }  exists  not  for  men  to  live,  but  for  them  to 
live  well ;"  but,  as  applied  to  the  Jews,  it  needs  a  supplement  "  for  them  to 
live  well,  as  the  people  of  God." 

In  His  presence,  as  the  actual  head  of  the  State,  "the  right  divine  of 
kings  to  govern  wrong"  becomes  blasphemy  and  treason,  as  we  see  practi- 
cally in  the  case  of  Saul.  His  supreme  authority  over  judges,  priests,  and 
kings,  was  actually  asserted  by  the  prophets,  in  their  unsparing  denunciation 
of  wickedness  in  high  places.  Witness  the  behavior  of  Samuel  toward  Saul, 
and  of  Nathan  to  David,  and  the  conflicts  of  Elijah,  Elisha,  and  Jeremiah, 
with  the  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah.  On  the  otlier  hand,  there  is  no  room 
for  the  self-willed  assertion  of  the  "  rights  of  man  ;"  but  those  of  them 
which  deserve  the  name  are  secured  by  just  and  merciful  laws,  founded  on 
right  itself,  as  expressed  by  the  will  of  God.  There  is  no  distinction  be- 
tween the  provinces  of  action  and  thought,  of  free  conscience  and  coercive 
law,  nor  between  temporal  and  spiritual  authority.  It  was  not  till,  by  the 
people's  own  sin,  a  worldly  empire  had  usurped  the  theocratic  throne,  that 
they  were  bidden  to  "Render  to  Ccesar  the  things  that  were  Ctesar's,  and 
to  God  the  things  that  were  God's."  All  was  God's  at  first,  and  the  scope 
of  the  whole  law  was  in  the  precept :  "  Thou  shalt  love  Jehovah  thy  God 
with  all  thy  heart,  and  Avith  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  might ;''  with  its 
corollary,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 

(iv.)  The  Laics  respectimj  Reirards  and  Punishments. — These  also  differ- 
ed from  those  of  other  states,  both  in  their  nature  and  in  the  object  that  they 
aimed  at.  Every  breach  of  the  law  was  an  act  of  disobedience  to  God,  and 
not  merely  an  offense  against  society.  The  rewards  of  obedience  and  the 
punishment  of  sin  had  reference  to  the  covenant  under  which  the  people 
lived.  They  are  fully  expressed  in  the  "blessing  and  the  curse,"  as  set 
forth  by  Moses.  The  reward  is  summed  up  in  the  frequently-repeated 
l)hrase,  "that  it  may  go  well  with  thee,  and  with  thy  children  after  thee, 
and  that  thou  mayest  prolong  thy  days  in  the  land  which  Jehovah  thy  God 
giveth  thee."*  The  highest  punishment  of  the  offender  was  that  "his  soul 
should  be  cut  off*  from  Israel,"  his  life  severed  from  the  congregation,  and 
from  all  the  present  benefits  of  the  covenant,  as  he  had  broken  it  on  his  side. 
This  explains  the  infliction  of  death  for  so  many  offenses,  some  of  them  be- 
yond the  cognizance  of  ordinary  codes,  but  crimes  against  Jehovah.     The 

«  Act3  XV.  10.  •»  Deut.  iv,  40,  v.  10,  vi.  S,  18,  xii.  25,  2S,  xxii.  T,  etc. 


Skct.  I.  The  Ten  Commandments.  221 

offender  was  put  to  death,  not  only  as  a  warning  to  the  living,  but  as  the 
means  of  removing  him  from  the  congregation  of  the  faithful. 

The  divine  authority  of  the  law  was  publicly  exhibited  by  the  interven- 
tion of  God  in  carrying  out  its  sanctions.  The  promised  blessing  and  it.* 
opposite  curse  must,  in  their  very  nature,  come  from  the  general  provi- 
dence of  God  ;  and  both  are  seen  conspicuously  in  the  history  of  the  Jews, 
from  the  time  of  Moses  to  this  day.  But  there  are  not  wanting  instances 
of  a  more  special  providence,  as  in  the  treble  produce  of  each  sixth  year, 
to  compensate  for  the  rest  of  the  land  during  the  sabbatic  year,  and  in  the 
exemption  of  the  country  from  attack  during  the  three  great  festivals.  So, 
too,  in  the  infliction  of  punishments  :  besides  the  ordinary  cases,  which 
were  left  to  the  magistrate,  sometimes  however  with  a  direct  reference  to 
God's  judgment,  there  were  other  instances  in  which  He  "  came  out  of  his 
place"  to  cut  off  the  rebels  by  fire  or  pestilence,  venomous  creatures,  and 
wild  beasts. 

The  object  of  this  system  of  rewards  and  punishments  was  disclpUnary ; 
and  to  this  its  retributive  element  was  subordinate.  Legislation  has  re- 
gard generally  to  the  safety  of  society  and  the  protection  of  individual 
rights ;  but  that  of  Moses  aims  at  purity  and  righteousness,  as  fruits  of 
piety,  and  seeks  the  perfection  of  society  in  brotherly  love.  Hence  it  deals 
as  severely  with  sins  against  God  and  a  man's  own  purity,  as  with  those 
against  society. 

§  3.  Wc  now  proceed  to  give  an  abstract  of  the  law  under  its  several 
heads,  following  as  nearly  as  possible  the  order  of  the  Pentateuch  itself, 
wliich  has  more  system  than  is  commonly  supposed.  The  basis  of  the 
whole  law  is  laid  in  the  Ten  Commandments,  as  we  call  them,  though  they 
are  nowhere  so  entitled  in  the  Mosaic  books  ;  but  the  "  Ten  Words,""'  the 
"  Covenant,"''  or,  very  often,  as  the  solemn  attestation  of  the  divine  will, 
the  Testimony.''  The  term  "  Commandments  "  had  come  into  use  in  the 
time  of  Christ.^  Their  division  into  two  tables  is  not  only  expressly  men- 
tioned, but  the  stress  laid  upon  the  tivo,  leaves  no  doubt  that  the  distinc- 
tion was  important,  and  that  it  answered  to  that  summary  of  the  law,  which 
was  made  both  by  Moses  and  by  Christ  into  two  precepts  ;  so  that,  the 
First  Table  contained  Duties  to  God,  and  the  Second,  Duties  to  our  Neighbor. 

§  4.  But  here  arises  a  difficulty,  not  only  as  to  the  arrangement  of  the 
commandments  between  the  "Two  Tables,"  but  as  to  the  division  of  the 
"  Ten  Words  "  themselves.  The  division  is  not  clearly  made  in  the  Scrip- 
ture itself;  and  that  arrangement,  with  which  we  are  familiar  from  child- 
hood, is  only  one  of  three  modes,  handed  down  from  the  ancient  Jewish 
and  Christian  Churches,  to  say  nothing  of  modern  theories ;  and  others  are 
used  at  this  day  by  Jews  and  Roman  Catholics. 

(I.)  The  modern  Jews  following  theTalmuds,  take  the  words  which  are 
often  called  the  Preface  as  the  First  Commandment  ;^  and  the  prohibi- 
tions both  against  having  other  gods,  and  against  idolatry,  as  the  second;'* 
the  rest  being  arranged  as  with  us. 

(2.)  The  Roman  Catholic  and  Lutheran  Churches,  following  St.  Augus- 


6  Ex.  xxxiv.  2S  ;  Deut.  iv.  13,  x.  4. 
6  Ex.  Deut.  II  cc. ;  1  K.  viii.  21;  2  Chron. 
\ri.ll,etc. 
'  Ex.  XXV.  16,  21,  xxxi.  IS,  etc. 


10  Ex.  XX.  S-C  ;  Deut.  v.  7-10. 


8  At  evToXa/,  Luke  xviii.  20. 

9  Ex.  XX.  2  ;  Deut.  v.  G :  "•  I  am  Jehovab 
thy  God,  which  brought  thee  out  of  the  land 
of  Egj'pt,  from  the  house  of  bondage." 


222  Division  of  the  Two  Tables.  Appendix. 

tine,  regard  the  First  Commandment  as  embracing  all  the  above  words,  in 
one  comprehensive  law  against  false  worship  and  idolatry.  Thus  our 
Third  Commandment  is  their  Second,  and  so  on  to  our  Ninth,  which  is 
their  Eighth.  They  then  make  our  Tenth  against  coveting  their  Ninth  and 
Tenth.  In  the  arrangement  of  the  Two  Tables,  the  First  contains  three 
commandments,  closing  with  the  Sabbath  law,  and  the  Second  the  remain- 
ing seven. 

(3.)  The  arrangement  adopted  by  the  Greek  and  English  Churches  fol- 
lowing Philo,  Josephus,  and  Origen,  and  all  the  Latin  fathers,  mukes  the 
law  against  having  other  gods  besides  Jehovah  the  First  Commandment,  and 
that  against  idolatry  the  Second,  though  a  slight  difference  of  opinion  re- 
mains, whether  the  first  words"  belong  to  the  First  Commandment,  or 
form  a  Preface  to  the  whole. 

There  are  then  three  principal  divisions  of  the  Two  Tables :  (i.)  That 
of  the  Eoman  Catholic  Church  mentioned  above,  making  the  First  Table 
contain  three  commandments,  and  the  second  the  other  seven,  (ii.)  The 
familiar  division,  referring  the  first  four  to  our  duty  toward  God,  and  the 
six  remaining  to  our  duty  toward  man.  (iii.)  The  division  recognized  by 
the  old  Jewish  writers,  Josephus  and  Piiilo,  and  supported  by  Ewald, 
which  places  five  commandments  in  each  Table;  and  thus  preserves  the 
pentade  and  decade  grouping  which  pervades  the  whole  code.  It  has  been 
maintained  that  the  law  of  filial  duty,  being  a  close  consequence  of  God's 
fatherly  relation  to  us,  may  be  referred  to  the  First  Table.  But  this  is  to 
place  human  parents  on  a  level  with  God,  and,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  the 
Sixth  Commandment  might  be  added  to  the  First  Table,  as  murder  is  the 
destruction  of  God's  image  in  man.  Far  more  reasonable  is  the  view 
which  regards  the  authority  of  parents  as  heading  the  Second  Table,  as 
the  earthly  reflex  of  that  authority  of  the  Father  of  His  people  and  of  all 
men  which  heads  the  first,  and  as  the  first  principle  of  the  whole  law  of 
love  to  our  neighbors,  because  we  are  all  brethren  ;  and  the  family  is,  for 
good  and  ill,  the  model  of  the  State. '^ 

§  5.  From  the  Two  Tables,  then,  we  deduce  the  great  division  into — 
i.  Duties  toward  God,  or  Laws  concerning  Religion  and  Worship,  ii.  Du- 
ties toward  man,  or  Laivs  of  Civil  Eight. 

'1  Ex.  XX.  2.  Jordan,  by  the  way  where  the  sun  goeth 

12  To  these  Ten  Commandments  we  find  1  down,  in  tlie  land  of  the  Canaanlte  that 
in  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  an  eleventh  i  dwelleth  in  the  plain  country  over  against 
added  :  "•  But  when  the  Lord  thy  God  shall ',  Gilgal,  by  the  oak  of  :Moreh,  toward  Sichem." 
have  brought  thee  into  the  land  of  Canaan,  '  In  the  absence  of  any  direct  evidence  we  can 
whither  thou  goest  to  possess  it,  thou  shalt ;  only  guess  as  to  the  history  of  this  remarka- 
set  thee  up  two  great  stones,  and  shalt  plais- 1  ble  addition.  (1.)  It  will  b3  seen  that  the 
ter  them  with  plaister,  and  shalt  write  upon ;  whole  passage  is  made  up  of  two  which  are 
these  stones  all  the  words  of  this  Law.  More- 1  found  in  the  Hebrew  text  of  Deut.  xxvii.  2-7, 
over,  after  thou  shalt  have  passed  over  Jor- !  and  xi.  30,  with  the  substitution,  in  the  for- 
dan,  thou  shalt  set  up  those  stones  which  I  mer,  of  Gerizim  for  Ebal.  (2.)  In  the  ab- 
command  thee  this  day,  on  Mount  Gerizim,  l  sence  erf  confirmation  from  any  other  ver- 
and  thou  shalt  build  there  an  altar  to  the  sion,  Ebal  must,  as  far  as  textual  criticism  is 
Lord  thy  God,  an  altar  of  stones  :  thou  shalt  concerned,  be  looked  upon  as  the  true  read- 
not  lift  up  any  iron  thereon.  Of  unhewn  ing,  Gerizim  as  a  falsification,  casual  or  de- 
stones  shalt  thou  build  that  altar  to  the  liberate,  of  the  text.  (3.)  Probably  the 
Lord  thy  God,  and  thou  shalt  offer  on  it  choice  of  Gerizim  as  the  site  of  the  Samaritan 
burnt-offerings  to  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  '  temple  was  determined  by  the  fact  that  it 
thou  shalt  sacrifice  peace-offerings,  and  shalt  had  been  the  Mount  of  Blessings,  Ebal  thai 
eat  them  there,  and  thou  shalt  rejoice  before  I  of  Curses, 
the  Loi'd  thy  God  in  that  mountain  beyond  ! 


Sect.  I.  The  First  Commandment.  223 

They  do  not  explicitly  lay  down  the  principles  of  the  judicial  and poUticai 
law,  which  are  to  be  deduced  from  the  fundamental  idea  of  Jehovah's 
sovereignty  as  laid  down  in  the  First  Commandment.  Nor  do  they  speak 
of  the  sanctions  of  the  law  by  rewards  and  punishments,  except  in  the  pen- 
oral  statement  of  the  principle  of  retribution  appended  to  the  Second  Com- 
mandment, and  the  special  promise  annexed  to  the  Fifth.  The  first  of 
these  two  p-eat  branches  of  the  law  may  be  regarded  as  a  deduction  from 
the  First  Table  ;  the  latter  as  the  enforcement  of  both  by  necessary  co- 
ercion. 

Hence  we  may  classify  the  whole  law  as  follows: — 

A.  Laws  Religious  and  Ceremonial. 

B.  Laivs  Constitutional  and  Political. 

C.  Laws  Civil:  human  duties  and  rights. 

D.  Laws  Criminal:  the  statement  of  which  must  be,  to  some  extent,  in- 

cluded under  the  former  heads. 

A.  LAWS  RELIGIOUS  AND  CEREMONIAL. 

§  G.  Laws  Religious  and  Ceremoxial,  or  those  concerning  God  and 
His  worship,  and  the  relation  of  the  people  to  Him  as  their  God.  The  First 
Commandment  begins  with  the  declaration,  "  I  am  Jehovah  thy  God,  whicli 
brought  thee  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  from  the  house  of  bondage.'"' 
This  clause,  often  called  the  Preface,  determines  all  God's  relations  to  the 
people,  and  theirs  to  Him,  involving  as  its  consequences :  — 

(1.)  The  belief  in  Jehovah  as  God,  the  acceptance  of  His  covenant,  and 
the  obserA'ance  of  His  ordinances. 

(2.)  The  Holiness  of  the  People,  as  Jehovah's  peculiar  possession,  with 
their  families,  servants,  lands,  and  flocks,  and  all  that  belonged  to  them. 

The  remainder  of  the  commandment  forbids  them  to  "  have  any  other 
Gods  before'^  Jehovah,^*  that  is,  not  in  preference  to — such  a  height  of  im- 
piety is  not  alluded  to — but  in  presence  of  Jehovah,  or  as  it  is  afterward 
expressed,  with  Him.^^  For  false  worship  began,  not  with  the  positive  re- 
jection of  the  true  God,  but  by  associating  with  his  worship  tliat  of  other 
gods  and  their  images  ;  nay,  even  images  which  professed  to  represent 
Jehovah  himself.  This  was  the  sin  of  Aaron  in  the  matter  of  the  golden 
calf;  we  meet  it  again  and  again  in  the  history  of  Israel,  and  it  reached 
its  climax  in  the  idolatries  of  Solomon,  when  the  heathen  gods 

"Durst  fix 
Their  seats  long  after  next  the  seat  of  God, 
Their  altars  b]i  His  altar;  gods  adored 
Among  the  nations  round  ;  yea,  often  placed 
Within  His  sanctuanj  ituclf  their  shrines; 
And  witli  their  darkness  durst  aflfront  liis  light." 

In  this  passage  Milton  gives  the  exact  idea  of  the  ^'■with  me,"  and  **/«  my 
presence,^'  of  the  commandment.  Under  this  ])rohibition  was  included,  not 
only  the  worship  of  false  gods,  but  every  pretense  to  supernatural  power  or 
commerce  with  supernatural  beings,  except  with  God  himself  in  his  own 
ordinances.  Hence  the  severe  laws  against  witchcraft  and  divination,  of 
which  we  shall  speak  under  the  head  of  the  Criminal  Law. 

13  Ex.  XX.  2 ;  Deut.  v.  fi ;  comp.  Lev.  xxvi.  1,  13  ;  P.-.  Ixxxi.  10  ;  llos.  xiii.  4,  eta 
i<  Ex.  XX.  3 :  Deut.  v.  7.  i^  £x.  xx.  23. 


224 


The  Three  fAlowlng  Commandments.      Appendix. 


§  7.  The  Second  Commandment,  wliich  is  the  necessary  consequence  of 
the  first,  prohibits  both  the  makinf]^  and  the  worshiping  of  any  lilceness  of 
any  object  in  the  heaven,  the  earth,  and  the  water;  and  adds  the  reason, 
often  afterward  repeated,  that  Jehovah  is  a  Qo^X  jealous  of  His  own  honor; 
and  the  sanction  of  accumulated  punisliments  on  generation  after  generation 
of  those  that  hate  him,  and  mercies  innumerable  to  "  those  tliat  love  him 
and  keep  his  commandments."^®  The  peculiar  form  of  the  commandment 
is  designed,  not  to  forbid  sculpture,  which  God  enjoined  in  the  case  of  the 
cherubim,  but  to  guard  against  the  sophistical  distinction  by  which  image- 
worship  has  ever  since  been  defended,  between  bowing  down  hefore  an 
image  and  bowing  down  to  it,  between  worshiping  God  while  adoring  the 
image  and  worshiping  the  image  itself. 

§  8.  The  Third  Commandment^''  proceeds  not  only  from  outward  acts  to 
the  reverence  of  the  lips  toward  JehoA-ah  and  his  holy  Name,  in  the  act  of 
v>'orship ;  but  ii  implies  the  sanctitij  of  oaths  and  vous,^^  and  it  also  embraces 
common  speech.  Tlius  it  is  interpreted  by  Christ  and  the  Apostles,  in  the 
passages  of  the  New  Testament  which  refer  to  perjury  and  profane  swear- 
ing. ^'^  It  implies  also  the  guilt  of  falsehood,  in  its  aspect  toward  God,  whose 
own  truth  is  blasphemed,  when  man  nses  the  speech  with  which  He  has  en- 
dowed him  to  deceive  ;  as  the  Ninth  Commandment  condemns  falsehood  be- 
tween man  and  man.  In  all  these  points  of  view  the  emphatic  warning 
of  responsibility,  annexed  to  the  commandment,  is  a  most  needful  guard 
against  the  commonest  form  of  self-deception."^ 

§  9.  The  Fourth  Commandment,  proceeding  to  the  regulation  of  the  life 
in  reference  to  God,  is  based  on  the  principle  for  which  God  had  made  pro- 
vision from  the  creation,  that  our  nature  needs  seasons  for  "remembering" 
our  God  and  Maker.  Of  this  more  when  we  speak  of  the  law  of  the  Sab- 
bath. Under  it  may  be  grouped  all  the  ordinances  for  the  observance  of 
times  and  festivals. 

The  special  laws  based  upon  these  commandments  of  the  first  table,  be- 
eidus  their  penalties  in  the  criminal  law,  may  be  arranged  as  follows:  — 

I.  God's  presence  among  the  people :   the   Tabernacle  and  its  Furniture, 

and  its  Ministers. 
IF.  The  bond  of  the  Covenant  between  Him  and  (he  Peoj>le  Inj  Sao-ijices  and 
Offerings. 
III.   77(6  Holiness  of  the  People,  in  person,  act,  and  properti/. 
IV.  The  Sacred  Seasons,  a])pointed  for  special  acts  of  service. 

These  four  divisions  will  form  the  subjects  6f  the  following  sections. 


i«  Ex.  ::x,  4-6;  Deut.  v.  S-10;  with  many 
parallel  pasaages. 

»'  Kx.  XX.  T;  Dent.  v.  11. 

18  Comp.  Lev.  xix.  12  ;  Num.  xxx.  2  ;  Vs. 

XV.  ^ 


19  Matt.v.  33-37;  xxiii.  16-22;  Col.  iv.  16  ; 
James  v.  10. 

20  See  especially  the  Epistle  of  James  iii.,  a 
wonderful  development  of  the  Christian  Iftws 
of  speech. 


Sect.il  The  Place  0/  GocVs  Abode, 


SECTION  IT. 

THE   TABERNACLE. 

§  .1.  God's  presence  with  the  people— The  Shechinah.  §  2.  Establishment  of  the  Tabeewa. 
'  OLE.  §  3.  Description  of  the  Tabernacle— The  court  of  the  Tabernacle.  §  4.  The  Tab., 
ernacle  itself— Divided  into  the  Holv  Place  and  the  Holy  of  Holies.  §  5.  The  sacred 
furniture  and  instruments  of  the  Tabernacle— (i.)  In  the  outer  court :  (a.)  The  altar  of 
burnt-offeriug :  Qi.)  The  brazen  serpent.  §  6.— (ii.)  In  the  Holy  Place  :  (a.)  The  altar 
of  incense:  (7.)  The  table  of  shew-bread :  (7.)  The  golden  candlestick.  §  7.— (m.)  In 
the  Holy  of  Holies. 

§  1.  Appealing  to  the  senses  of  a  people  whose  spiritual  discernment  was 
undeveloped,  "  Jehovah,  who  brought  them  out  of  Egypt,"  represented  him- 
self  as  ever  with  them,  to  guide  and  guard  them  on  their  journeys,  and  to 
dwell  with  them  wlien  they  rested,  and  when  they  should  find  a  fixed  abode. 
On  the  very  night  m  which  they  began  their  march,  the  visible  symbol  of 
His  presence  went  before  them  in  the  Shechinah,  or  pillar  of  fire  by  night 
and  of  a  cloud  by  day,  the  advance  or  halt  of  which  was  the  signal  for 
their  march  or  rest.  There  is  reason  to  suppose  that  there  was  also  from 
the  first  some  kind  of  sacred  tent,  over  which  would  be  the  place  of  the 
Shechinah  when  at  rest.  Saa-ifice  was  contemplated  as  the  very  object  of 
their  journey,'  and  we  read  of  its  being  offered  by  Jethro  and  Aaron  before 
Sinai :  but  "of  its  place  we  have  no  other  notice  than  the  command  given 
in  the  first  series  of  precepts,  to  make  an  elevated  altar  of  earth  or  unhewn 
stone,  which  was  to  be  approached  with  careful  decency,  in  all  places  where 
Jehovah  would  record  His  name,  and  come  and  bless  them.^ 

§  2.  It  was  soon  intimated  that  He  would  fix  one  such  place  for  His 
abode,  where  alone  sacrifices  might  be  offered.  Meanwhile,  the  first  ordi- 
nances given  to  Moses,  after  the  proclamation  of  the  outline  of  the  law 
from  Sinai,  related  to  the  ordering  of  the  Tabernacle,  its  furniture  and  its 
service,  as  the  type  which  was  to  be  followed  when  the  people  came  to  their 
own  home  and  "^"  found  a  place  "  for  the  abode  of  God.  During  the  forty 
days  of  Moses's  first  retirement  with  God  in  Sinai,  an  exact  pattern  of  the 
whole  was  shown  him,  and  all  was  made  according  to  it.^ 

The  description  of  this  plan  is  preceded  by  an  account  of  the  free-will  of- 
ferings which  the  children  of  Israel  were  to  be  asked  to  make  for  its  execu- 
tion.    The  materials  were  : — 

(a)  Metals :  r/o/J,  sllcer,  and  brass. 

(b)  Textile  fabrics  :  hlue,  purple,  scarht,  and  fine  (white)  linen,  for  the 
production  of  which  Egypt  was  celebrated  ;  also  a  fabric  of  goats'  hair,  the 
produce  of  their  own  flocks. 

(c)  Skins  :  of  the  ram,  dyed  red,  and  of  the  badger. 


1  Ex.  viii.  C5,  26.     ^  e.x.  xviii.  12,  xxxii.  6. 

3  Ex.  XX.  24-26. 

*  Ex.  XXV.  9,  4  >,  xxvi.  80,  xxxix.  3?,  42, 
43;  Num.  viii.  4;  Acts  vii.  44;  Heb.  viii.  5. 
From  1  Chron.  xxviii.  11,  we  learn  that  Sol- 

K2 


omon's  temple  was  built  according  to  a  plan 
drawn  for  him  by  David.  Its  general  re- 
semblance to  the  Tabernacle  is  evident;  but 
its  permanent  character  involved  large  addi- 
tiona. 


226 


Offerings  for  the  Tahernacle. 


Appendix. 


{d)  Wocd  :  the  shittm-v.ood,  the  timber  of  the  AvilJ  acacia  of  the  desert 
Itself,  the  tree  of  the  "  burning  bush." 

(e)  Oil,  spices,  and  inceitse,  for  anointing  the  priests,  and  burning  in  th« 
tabernacle. 


CO 


m 


m 


W 


iiii 


LAVEh 

0 


ly 


(/)Gems:  onyx  stones, 
and  the  precious  stones  for 
tlie  breastplate  of  the 
high-priest. 

The  people  gave  jew- 
els, and  plates  of  gold  and 
silvei",  and  brass ;  wood, 
gkins,  hair,  and  linen ; 
the  women  wove ;  the 
rulers  offered  precious 
stones,  oil,  spices,  and  in- 
cense ;  and  the  artists 
soon  had  more  than  they 
needed.^  The  superin- 
tendence of  the  work  Avas 
intrusted  to  Bazaleel,  of 
the  tribe  of  Judah,  and 
to  Aholiab,  of  the  tribe 
of  Dan,  who  Avere  skilled 
in  "  all  manner  of  work- 
manship."® 

§  3.  The  Tabernacle 
was  the  tent  of  Jehovah, 
called  by  the  same  name 
as  the  tents  of  the  people, 
in  the  midst  of  which  it 
stood.  It  was  also  call- 
ed the  sanctuary,  and  the 
tahernacle  of  the  congrega- 
tion.''  It  was  a  portable 
building,  designed  to  con- 
tain the  sacred  ark,  the 
special  symbol  of  God's 
presence,  and  was  sur- 
rounded by  an  outer 
court. 

(i.)  The  Co7irt  cf  the 
Tahernacle,  in  which  the 
Tabernacle  itself  stood, 
was  an  oblong  space,  100 
cubits  by  50  (i.  e.,  150  feet 
by  75),"  having  its  longer  axis  east  and  west,  with  its  front  to  the  east. 


6o  Cubits* 


20        30       4.0       6o        60       fo  75  Fett, 

Plan  of  the  Court  of  the  Tabernacle. 


was  surrounded  bv  canvas  screens— in  the  East  called  Kannauts- 


It 

cubits 


s  Ex.  XXV.  1-S.  XXXV.  4-29,  xxxvi.  5-T. 

«  Ex.  xxxi.  2,  6,  XXXV.  30,  34. 

'  See  chap.  xii.  §  12,  p.  173,  note. 

8  The  cubit  here  spoken  of  was  the  full 


cubit  (?ee  p.  697),  equal  to  ISJ  English  inches. 
A  smaller  cubit  of  15  inches  was  used  for  ve8 
sels  and  metal-work.  The  plan  shows  th« 
full  extent  of  the  roo/ of  the  'iaberuiiie,  pro 


Sect.  II. 


CoceriiKjs  of  the  Tabernacle. 


227 


in  height,  and  supported  by  pillars  of  brass  5  cubits  apart,  to  which  the 
curtains  were  attached  by  hooks  and  fillets  of  silver.^  This  enclosure  was 
only  broken  on  tlie  eastern  side  by  the  entrance,  which  was  20  cubits  wide, 
and  closed  by  curtains  of  fine  twined  linen,  wrought  with  needle-work,  and 
of  the  most  gorgeous  colors. 

In  the  outer  or  eastern  half  of  the  court  was  placed  the  altar  of  burnt-of- 
fering, and  between  it  and  the  Tabernacle  itself,  the  laver  at  which  the 
priests  washed  their  liands  and  feet  on  entering  the  Temple. 

§  4.  (ii.)  The  Tabernacle  itsel/'was  placed  toward  the  western  end  of  this 
enclosure.  It  was  an  oblong  rectangular  structure,  30  cubits  in  length  by 
10  in  width  (45  feet  by  15),  and  10  in  height ;  the  interior  being  divided 
into  two  chambers,  the  first  or  outer  of  20  cubits  in  length,  the  inner  of  10 
cubits,  and  consequently  an  exact  cube.  The  former  was  the  Holi/  Place, 
or  Fi7-st  Taie?-nac/e," containing  the  golden  candlestick  on  one  side,  the  ta- 
ble of  shew-bread  opposite,  and  between  them  in  the  centre  the  altar  of  in- 
cense. The  latter  was  the  Most  Holy  Place,  or  the  Holi/  of  Holies,  contain- 
ing the  ark,  surmounted  by  the  cherubim,  with  the  two  tables  inside. 

The  two  sides,  and  the  further  or  western  end,  were  enclosed  by  boards 
of  shittim-wood  overlaid  with  gold,  t\venty  on  the  north  and  south  side,  six 
on  the  western  side,  and  the  corner-boards  doubled.  They  stood  upright, 
edge  to  edge,  their  lower  ends  being  made  with  tenons,  which  dropped  into 
sockets  of  silver,  and  the  corner-boards  being  coupled  at  the  top  with  rings. 
They  were  furnished  with  golden  rings,  through  which  passed  bars  of  shit- 
tim-wood, overlaid  with  gold,  five  to  each  side,  and  the  middle  bar  passing 
from  end  to  end,  so  as  to  brace  the  whole  together.  Four  successive  cov- 
erings of  curtains  looped  together  were  placed  over  the  open  top,  and  fell 
down  over  the  sides.  The  first,  or  inmost,  was  a  splendid  fabric  of  linen, 
embroidered  with  figures  of  cherubim,  in  blue,  purple,  and  scarlet,  and  loop- 
ed together  by  golden  fastenings.  It  seems  probable  that  the  ends  of  this 
set  of  curtains  hung  down  within  the  Tabernacle,  forming  a  sumptuous  tap- 
estry. The  next  was  a  woolen  covering  of  goats'  hair  ;  the  third,  of  rams' 
skins  dyed  red;  and  the  outermost,  of  badgers'  skins."  It  has  been  usu- 
ally supposed  that  these  coverings  were  thrown  over  the  Avails,  like  a  pall  is 
thrown  over  a  coffin  ;  but  this  would  have  allowed  every  drop  of  rain  that 
fell  on  the  Tabernacle  to  fall  through  ;  for,  however  tightly  the  curtains 
might  be  stretched,  the  water  could  never  run  over  the  edge,  and  the  sheep- 
skins would  only  make  the  matter  worse,  as,  when  wetted,  their  weight  would 
depress  the  centre,  and  pi'obably  tear  any  curtain  that  could  be  made. 
There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  the  tent  had  a  ridge,  as  all  tents  have 
had  from  the  days  of  Moses  down  to  the  present  day. 

The  front  of  the  Sanctuary  was  closed  by  a  hanging  of  fine  linen,  em- 
broidered in  blue,  purple,  and  scarlet,  and  supported  by  golden  hooks,  on 
Jive  pillars  of  shittim-wood  oveidaid  with  gold,  and  standing  in  brass  sock- 
ets ;  and  the  covering  of  goats'  hair  was  so  made  as  to  fall  down  over  this 
when  required,  A  more  sumptuous  curtain  of  the  same  kind,  embroidered 
with  cherubim,  hung  onfour^"^  such  pillars,  with  silver  sockets,  divided  tha 


jecting  beyond  the  walls  5  cubits  on  eveiy 
side,  as  explained  in  the  Diet,  of  Bible,  vol. 
iii.  p.  1452.  »  I^x.  xxvii.  i>,  etc. 

10  Heb.  ix.  2. 


'1  So  called  in  our  version;  but  the  Ho 
brew  word  probably  signifi-r's  seal-skins. 

12  It  should  be  noticed  that,  while  the  Holy 
of  Holies  was  divided  from  the  Holy  Place  by 


228 


The    Veil  of  the  Tahernade. 


Appendix; 


Holy  from  the  Most  Holy  Place.      It  was  called  the  Veil,"  as  it  hid  from 
the  eyes  of  all  but  the  high-priest  the  inmost  sanctuary,  where  Jehovah 
dwelt  on  his  mercy-seat,  between  the  cherubim  above  the  ark.     Hence,  "  to 
enter  within  the  A'eil"  is  to 
have  the  closest  access  to 
God.     It  was  only  passed 
by  the   high-priest    once 
a   year,  on    the    Day  of 
Atonement,  in  token  of 
the  mediation  of  Christ, 
who,  with  his  own  blood, 
hath  entered  for  us  with- 
in the  veil  which  sepa- 
rates  God's    own    abode 
from    earth."       In    the 
temple,  the  solemn   bar- 
rier was  at   length    pro- 
faned by  a  Komnn   con- 
queror, to  warn  the  Jews 
that   the   privileges  they 
had  forfeited  were  "ready 
to  vanish  away  ;"  and  the 
veil  was  at  last   rent  by 
the  hand  of  God  himself, 
at  the  same  moment  that 
the    body  of   Christ  was 
rent   upon   the    cross,  to 
indicate  that  the  entrance 
Into  the  holiest  of  all  is 
now  laid  open  to  all  be- 
lievers "  by  the  blood  of 
Jesus,  by  a  new  and  living 
way  which  He  hath  con- 
secrated for   us,  through 
the  veil,  tiiat  is  to   sav, 
His  flesh.  "^^     The  Holy 
Place  was   only  entered 
by  the  priests  daily,  to  of- 
fer incens(*   at   the   time 
of  morning  and  evening 
prayer,  and  to  renew  the 
lights  on  the  golden  can- 
dlestick ;  and  on  the  Sab- 
bath, to  remove  the  old  shew-bread,  and  to  place  the  new  upon  the  table. 
§  5.  (iii.)   The  Sacred  Furnittire  and  Instruments  of  the  Tabernacle. 

a  pcreeu  of  four  pillars  supporting  curtains,  |      i3  Sometimes  the  second  veil,  either  in  i-ef. 
there  were  in  the  entrance  five  pillars  in  a   erence  to   the  first  at   the   entrance  of  the 
similar  space.     Now,  no  one  would  put  a  pil-    Holy  Place,  or  as  being  the  veil  of  the  second 
lar  in  the  centre  of  an  entrance  without  a    sanctuary  (Heb.  ix.  3). 
motive;  but  the  moment  a  ridge  is  assumed        i*  Heb.  vi.  19. 
4t  becomes  indispensable.  j      is  Heb.  x   10   20 


Sect.  IT.  The  Altar  of  Imense,  229 

3.  In  the  Outer  Court — 

(a)  The  Altar  of  Burnt-offering  stood  in  the  midst  of  the  court,  and 
formed  the  central  point  of  the  outer  services,  in  which  the  people  had  a 
part.  On  it  all  sacrifices  and  oblations  were  presented,  except  the  sin-of- 
ferings, which  were  burnt  without  the  camp.  It  was  a  large  hollow  case  or 
coffer,  5  cubits  square  by  3  in  height,  made  of  shittim-wood,  overlaid  with 
plates  of  brass,  and  with  a  grating  of  brass  in  the  middle  to  place  the  wood 
upon,  and  rings  to  lift  the  grating.  At  the  four  corners  were  projections 
called  "  horns,"  the  "  laying  hold  "  of  wliich  was  the  sign  of  throwing  one's 
self  upon  the  mercy  of  God,  and  a  means  of  fleeing  to  take  sanctuary  from 
man's  vengeance.  Like  the  ark,  the  altar  of  incense,  and  the  table  of  shew- 
bread,  it  was  furnished  with  rings,  through  which  were  passed  bars  to  carry 
it  when  the  people  were  on  the  march.  Its  utensils  of  brass  are  enumer- 
ated in  Exod.  xxxviii.  3.  The  priests  went  up  to  it,  not  by  steps,  but  by  a 
sloping  mound  of  earth. 

(^)  The  Brazen  Laver,  a  vessel,  on  a  foot,  to  hold  water  for  the  ablutions 
of  the  priests,  stood  between  the  altar  of  burnt-oft'ering  ajid  the  entrance  to 
the  holy  place.  It  was  made  of  the  brass  mirrors  which  were  offered  by 
the  women.  Its  size  and  form  are  not  mentioned  :  it  is  commonly  repre- 
sented as  round  ;  it  need  not  have  been  very  large,  as  tlie  priests  washed 
themselves  at,  not  in  it. 

-  §  6.  (ii.)  In  the  Holy  Place. — The  furniture  of  tlie  court  was  connected 
with  sacrijice,  that  of  the  sanctuary  itself  with  the  deeper  mysteries  of  me- 
diation and  access  to  God.  The  First  Sancluari/  contained  three  objects : 
the  altar  of  incense  in  the  centre,  so  as  to  be  directly  in  front  of  the  ark  of 
the  covenant,^"  the  table  of  shew-hread  on  its  right  or  north  side,  and  the 
(jolden  candlestick  on  the  left  or  south  side.  These  objects  were  all  consid- 
ered as  being  placed  before  the  presence  of  Jehovah,  who  dwelt  in  the  ho- 
liest of  all,  though  with  the  veil  between. 

(a)  The  Altar  of  Incense,  a  double  cube  of  I  cubit  square  by  2  high,  with 
horns,  was  of  sliittim-wood,  overlaid  with  gold,  whence  it  is  often  called  the 
Golden  Altar,^''  to  distinguish  it  from  the  altar  of  burnt-offering,  which  was 
called  the  Brazen  Altar.  ^"  It  had  a  cornice  of  gold,  and  four  golden  rings 
to  receive  the  staves  of  shittim-wood  overlaid  with  gold,  for  carrying  it.^** 
Neither  burnt-offering,  nor  meat-offering,  nor  drink-oflering,  was  to  be  laid 
upon  it ;  but  the  blood  of  the  sin-offering  of  atonement  was  sprinkled  ujion 
its  horns  once  a  year.'^"  The  incense  burnt  upon  it  was  a  sacred  composi- 
tion of  spices  of  divine  prescription.^*  It  was  offered  every  morning  and 
evening,  at  first  by  Aaron  and  his  sons,  and  afterward  by  the  priests  officia- 
ting in  weekly  course,  and  by  the  high-priest  on  great  occasions.  The 
priest  took  some  of  the  sacred  fire  off  the  altar  of  burnt-offering  in  his  cen- 
ser, and  threw  the  incense  upon  it :  then,  entering  tlie  holy  place,  he  emp- 
tied the  censer  upon  the  altar,  prayed,  and  performed  the  other  duties  of  his 
office.  Meanwhile  the  people  prayed  outside  ;"^  and  thus  was  typified  the 
intercession  of  Christ  in  heaven,  making  his  people's  prayers  on  earth  ac- 


i«  1  K.  vi.  22. 

1^  Ex.  xxxix.  rS  ;  Num.  iv.  11. 
18  Ex.  xxxviii.  30. 

^^  Its  appear:ince  m.iy  be  illustrated  by 
the  figure  on  p.  23l>. 


20  Fx.  XXX.  1-10,  xxxvii.  25-2S. 

21  Exod.  XXV.  G,  XXX.  34:  the  ingredients 
were  stactc,  oiiyrha,  palbanum,  and  2»'ra 
frnnkhicense,  with  sdU^  as  tlie  symbol  ofin« 
corrnp:ne.s.^.  ^^  Luke  i.  10. 


230 


Tlie  Table  of  Sheiv-bread. 


Appendix 


ccptable."  It  was  highly  criminal  to  offer  "  strange  "  incense  or  "  strange  " 
fire  upon  the  altar,  or  for  any  one  to  usurp  the  function  of  the  priests,  or  to 
make,  or  apply  to  any  other  use,  the  sacred  incense.  Nadab  and  Abihu 
were  slain  for  the  second  of  these  offenses  ;^*  King  Uzziah  was  smitten 
with  leprosy  for  the  third  ;*^  and  the  punishment  of  death  was  appointed 
for  the  fourth.^ 


Supposed  form  of  the  Altar  of  Incense. 


(/3)  The  Table  of  Shew-hread  was  an  oblong  table,  with  legs,  2  cubits 
long,  1  broad,  and  H  high.  It  was  of  shittim-wood,  covered  with  gold,  and 
finished,  like  the  altar,  with  a  golden  rim,  and  four  rings  and  staves.  It  was 
furnished  with  dishes,  spoons,  covers,  and  bowls,  of  pure  gold.  It  stood  on 
the  north,  or  right  side  of  the  altar  of  incense.'^  Upon  this  table  were 
placed  twelve  cakes  of  fine  flour,  in  two  rows  of  six  each,  with  frankincense 
upon  each  row.  This  "  *S/^e?f.'.bread,"  as  it  was  called  from  being  exposed 
before  Jehovah,  was  placed  fresh  upon  the  table  every  Sabbath  by  the 
priests,  who  ate  the  old  loaves  in  the  holy  place.'''*  The  letter  of  this  law 
was  transgressed  on  one  occasion,  which  is  rendered  most  memorable  by 
Christ's  appeal  to  it  in  one  of  his  arguments  with  the  Pharisees.  When 
David  fled  from  Saul,  Abimelech  the  priest  gave  to  liim  and  his  companions, 
in  their  necessity,  the  shew-bread  which  had  just  been  removed  from  the 
table.  David  pleaded  for  it  as  being  in  a  manner  common,  since  fresh 
bread  had  been  sanctified  in  the  sacred  vessels,  and  the  priest  laid  more 
stress  on  the  purity  of  the  young  men  than  on  the  sacredness  of  the  bread.*' 
It  would  be  difficult  to  say  whether  the  whole  proceeding,  including  David's 
pretense  of  a  mission  from  Saul,  was  morally  justifiable.  The  point  to 
which  our  Saviour's  argument  is  directed  is  somewhat  different.  He  appeals 
to  the  case  in  which  the  sanctity  both  of  the  holy  place  and  of  holy  things 


23  Ps.  cxli.  2;  Rev.  v.  S,  viii.  1-5:  every 
clause  of  the  last  passage  contains  some  allu- 
sion to  the  mode  of  offering  the  incense  in 
tbe  later  temple  sei-vice. 

•8  Lev.  xxiv.  5-9. 


24  Lev.  X.  1-7.     See  chap.  xiii.  §  3. 

25  2  (Jhron.  xxvi.  16-21. 
2«  Ex.  XXX.  .^T,  38. 

27  Ex,  XXV.  31-40,  xxxvii.  17-24. 
2»  1  Sam.  xxi,  1-6. 


Sect.  II. 


The  Golden  Candlestick. 


231 


had  been  profiined  by  David's  entrance  into  the  sanctuary  and  use  of  tlia 
shew-bread,  as  an  example  of  those  necessities  which  override  the  letter  of 
the  law,  and  he  seems  to  leave  the  justification  of  the  act  to  the  reverence 
of  the  Jews  for  David.  In  the  same  spirit  he  appeals  to  the  case  of  the 
priests,  who  profaned  the  strict  letter  of  the  Sabbatic  law  by  performing  the 
necessary  work  of  the  sacrifices.  Both  are  used  as  illustrations  of  the  great 
principle :   "  I  will  have  mercy,  and  not  sacrifice."^" 

Besides  the  shew-bread,  there  was  a  drink-offering  of  wine  placed  in  the 
covered  bowls  upon  the  table.  Some  of  it  was  used  for  libations,  and  what 
remained  at  the  end  of  the  week  was  poured  out  before  Jehovah. 

These  types  are  too  expressive  for  their  general  meaning  to  be  misun- 
derstood. They  represented  under  the  old  covenant  the  same  truths  which 
are  set  forth  by  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  under  the  new.  In 
both  cases  we  have  a  table,  not  an  altar ;  for  in  the  Tabernacle  the  altar 
w*s  distinct,  and  in  the  Christian  Church  it  is  superseded,  as  the  one  sacri- 
fice of  Christ  has  been  offered  once  for  all.  In  the  Tabernacle,  moreover, 
as  in  the  Church,  it  was  the  Lord's  Table ;  for  the  whole  sanctuary  was 
the  house  of  Jehovah,  and  in  its  ante-chamber  was  the  table  of  Jehovah, 
ever  furnished  with  food  for  the  use  of  those  to  whom  He  granted  entrance 
into  it ;  and  so  is  the  table  of  the  Lord  Jesus  spread  in  his  Church  on  earth. 
Both  tables  are  supplied  with  the  same  simple  elements  of  necessary  food, 
bread  and  wine,  with  the  same  reference  to  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ, 
though  this  was  still  a  mystery  under  the  old  covenant.  Nor  does  the  par- 
allel fail  in  the  point  that  the  shew-bread  might  only  be  eaten  by  the  priests  ; 
for  now  the  people  of  Christ  are  all  priests  to  Him. 

(7)  The  Golden  Candlestick,  or  rather  Candelabrum  (lamp-stand), ^^  was 
placed  on  the  left  or  south  side  of  the  altar  of  incense.  It  was  made  of 
pure  beaten  gold,  and  weighed,  with  its  instruments,  a  talent:  its  value  has 
been  estimated  at  £5076,  besides  workmanship.  Its  form,  as  described  in 
the  Book  of  Exodus,  agrees  with  the  figure  of  the  candlestick  of  the  second 
temple,  as  represented,  together  with  the  table  of  shew-bread  and  other 
Jewish  trophies,  on  the  arch  of  Titus. ^^  It  had  an  upright  stem,  from 
which  branched  out  three  pairs  of  arms,  each  pair  forming  a  semicircle, 
and  their  tops  coming  to  the  same  level  as  the  top  of  the  stem,  so  as  to 
form  with  it  supports  for  seven  lamps.  It  was  relieved  by  ornamental 
knobs  and  flowers  along  the  branches  and  at  their  junction  with  the  stem.^' 
There  were  oil-vessels  and  lamp-tongs,  or  snuffers,  for  trimming  tlie  seven 
lamps,  and  dishes  for  carrying  away  the  snuff;  an  office  performed  by  the 
priest  when  he  went  into  the  sanctuary  every  morning  to  offer  incense. 
All  these  utensils  were  of  pure  gold.  The  lamps  were  lighted  at  the  time 
of  the  evening  oblation.  They  are  directed  to  be  kept  burning  perpetu- 
ally ;  but  from  their  being  lighted  in  the  evening,  this  seems  to  mean  only 
during  the  night.  The  Rabbis  say  that  the  central  lamp  only  was  alight 
in  the  day-time.^ 


3«  Matt.  xii.  1-S;  Mark  ii.  23-28  ;  Luke  vi. 
1-5;  comp.  Hos.  vi.  6;  Mic.  vi.  C,  7. 

'1  Throughout  our  version  the  words  can- 
dle and  candlestick  are  used  for  the  lamp  and 
lamp-stand  of  the  original. 

'2  See  the  drawing  on  p.  218. 

■»  The  statement  of  the  Rabbis,  that  there 


were  seventy  of  these  ornaments,  seems  to 
have  originated  in  the  reverence  for  that 
number,  and  can  hardly  be  reconciled  with 
the  description. 

3<  Ex.  XXV.  31-40,  xxvii.  20,  21,  xxxvii.  17- 
24,  XXX.  8 ;  Lev.  xxiv.  1-4 ;  Num.  iv.  9-10,' 
comp.  1  Sam.  iii  2 ;  2  Chron.  liiL  11. 


232  The  Ark  of  the  Covenant.  Appendix. 

As  in  a  liouse  light  is  as  necessary  as  food,  and  the  lamp-stand,  with  its 
lighted  lainj),  was  a  piece  of  furniture  as  needful  as  the  bread-vessel,^^  so  in 
the  house  of  Jehovah,  the  candlestick  symbolized  the  spiritual  light  of  life, 
which  he  gives  to  His  servants  with  the  icords  by  which  they  live.  In  the 
vision  of  the  heavenly  temple  in  the  Apocalypse,  the  seven  lights  of  the 
sanctuary  before  the  Holiest  of  all  are  identified  with  "  the  seven  spirits  that 
are  before  the  throne  of  God,"  the  one  perfect  Spirit,  whence  come  light, 
life,  truth,  and  holiness ;  and  the  seven  branches  of  the  candlestick  are 
made  to  symbolize  the  seven  churches,  the  representatives  of  the  whole 
Church  on  earth. ^*'  The  figure  is  the  full  development  of  the  words  of 
Christ,  "Ye  are  the  light  of  the  world;''  "So  let  your  light  shine  before 
men;"^^  and  of  St.  Paul's  exhortation,  "Shine  ye,  as  lights  in  the  world, 
holding  forth  the  word  of  life."^" 

§  7.  (iii.)  In  the  Holy  of  Holies,  within  the  veil  and  shrouded  in  dark- 
ness, there  was  but  one  object,  the  most  sacred  of  the  whole.  The  Aric  of 
the  Covenant,  or  the  Testimony,  was  a  sacred  chest,  containing  the  two  tables 
of  stone,  inscribed  with  the  Ten  Commandments.  It  was  two  cubits  and 
a  half  in  length,  by  a  cubit  and  a  half  both  inwidth  and  height.  ^^  It  was 
of  shittim-wood,  overlaid  with  pnre  gold,  and  had  a  golden  mitre  round  the 
top.  Through  two  pairs  of  golden  rings  on  its  sides  jjassed  two  staves  of 
shittim-wo3d,  overlaid  with  gold,  which  were  drawn  forward  so  as  to  press 
against  the  veil,  and  thus  to  remind  the  priests  in  the  holy  place  of  the  jires- 
ence  of  the  unseen  ark.  The  cover  of  the  ark  was  a  plate  of  pure  gold, 
overshadowed  by  two  cherubim,  with  their  faces  bent  down  and  their  wings 
meeting.  This  was  the  very  throne  of  Jehovah,  who  was  therefore  said  to 
"dwell  between  the  cherubim."  It  was  also  called  the  mercy-seat  or  jn-o^- 
pitiatory,  because  Jehovah  there  revealed  himself,  especially  on  the  great 
Day  of  Atonement,  as  "God  pardoning  iniquity,  transgression,  and  sin." 
Nor  was  it  without  the  profoundest  allusion  to  the  coming  dispensation  of 
the  Gospel,  that  God's  throne  of  mei-cy  covered  and  hid  the  tables  of  the 
laic.  The  attitude  of  the  cherubim  was  significant  of  the  desire  of  angels 
to  learn  the  Gospel  mysteries  that  were  hidden  in  the  law.'**' 

35  Matt.  V.  15,  and  the  parallel  passages,]  *°  1  Pet.  i.  12,  ek  u  eirtOvnoZcrtv  u'^jeKoi 
where  the  meaning  is  obsmred  bv  the  oniis-  TrapaKi'-vl^at,  where  the  last  word  evidently  re- 
gion of  the  article  '•'■the  bushel,"  '■'the  lamp-|fers  to  the  bending  down  of  the  cherubim 
stand."    The  sense  is  "when  a  man  lights  over  the  ark. 


his  lamp  in  his  house,  he  doesn't  put  it  un 
dfr  tlie  flour-vessel,  but  on  the  lamp-stand." 

3«  Rev.  i.  4,  12,  20;  comp.  xi.  4,  and  Zech. 
iv.       37  jviatt.  v.  14-16.      3«  Philip,  ii.  15, 16. 

39  It  was  also  probably  a  reliquary  for  tlie 
pot  of  manna  and  the  rod  of  Aaron.  We 
read  in  1  K.  viii.  9,  that  '^' there  was  nothing 
in  the  ark  save  tlie  two  tables  of  stone  which 
Moses  put  there  at  lloreb."  Yet  St.  Paul  as- 
Ferts  that,  beside  the  two  tables  of  stone,  the 

pot    of   manna"    and    "Aaron's    rod    that 


Tliough  the  exact  form  of  the  cherubim  is 
uncertain,  they  probably  bore  a  general  re- 
semblance to  the  composite  religious  figures 
found  upon  the  monuments  of  t^gypt,  Assyria. 
Babylonia,  and  J'ersia.  Compai^e  the  de- 
scription in  I'z.  i.  5,  seq.,  who  speaks  of 
them  as  living  creatures  with  animal  forms : 
that  thev  are  cherubim  is  clear  from  I'z^k. 
X.  20.  The  symbolism  of  the  visions  of  Kze- 
kiel  is  more  complex  than  that  of  the  earlier 
Scriptures,  and  he  certainly  means  that  pacli 


budded"  (Ileb.  ix.  4',  were  inside  the  ark;  [composite  creature-form  had  four  faces  so  as 
and  probably  since  there  is  no  mention  of  any  j  to  look  four  ways  at  once,  was  four-sided  and 
other  receptacle  for  thom,  and  some  would  |  four-winged,  so  as  to  move  witii  instant  ra- 
have  been  necessary,  the  statement  of  1  K.  j  pidity  in  every  direction  without  turning, 
viii.  9,  implies  that  by  Solomou's  time  these  whereas  the  Mosaic  idea  was  probably  sin- 
relics  had  disappeared.  I  gle-faced,  and  with  but  one  pair  of  wings. 


Sect.  II. 


Notes  and  Illustrations, 


233 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


HISTORY  OF  THE 
CLE. 


TABERNA- 


As  long  as  Canaan  remained  un- 
conquered,  and  the  people  were  still 
therefore  an  army,  the  Tabernacle 
Avas  probably  moved  from  place  to 
place,  wherever  the  host  of  Israel  was 
for  the  time  encamped.  It  rested 
finally  in  "the  place  which  the  Lord 
had  chosen,"  at  Shiloh  (Josh.  ix. 
27,  xviii.  1).  The  reasons  of  the 
choice  are  not  given.  Partly,  per- 
haps, its  central  position,  partly  its 
belonging  to  the  powerful  tribe  of 
Ephraim,  the  tribe  of  the  great  cap- 
tain of  the  host,  may  have  determined 
the  preference.  There  it  continued 
during  the  whole  period  of  the  Judges 
(Josh.  xix.  51,  xxii.  12  ;  Judg.  xxi. 
12).  It  was  far,  however,  from  be- 
ing what  it  was  intended  to  be,  the 
one  national  sanctuary,  the  witness 
against  a  localized  and  divided  wor- 
ship. The  old  religion  of  the  high 
places  kept  its  ground.  Altars  were 
erected,  at  first  with  reserve,  as  being 
not  for  sacrifice  (Josh.  xxii.  26),  aft- 
erward freely,  and  without  scruple 
(Judg.  vi.  24,  xiii.  19).  Of  the  names 
by  which  the  one  special  sanctuary 
was  known  at  this  period,  those  of  the 
*' House,"  or  the  "Temple,"  of  Je- 
hovah (I  Sam.  i.  9,  24,  iii.  3,  15)  are 
most  prominent. 

A  state  of  things  Avhich  was  rapid- 
ly assimilating  the  worship  of  Jeho- 
vah to  that  of  Aslitaroth,  or  Mylitta, 
needed  to  be  broken  up.      The  Ark 


'  of  God  was  taken,  and  the  sanctuary 
i  lost  its  glory  ;   and  the  Tabernacle, 
I  though  it  did  not  perish,  never  again 
■  recovered  it  (1  Sam.  iv.  22).     Samuel 
[  treats  it  as  an  abandoned  shrine,  and 
sacrifices    elsewhere,   at    Mizpeh    (1 
'  Sam.  vii.  9),  at  Ramah  (ix.  12,  x.  3), 
I  at  Gilgal  (x.  8,  xi.  15).     It  probably 
became  once  again  a  movable  sanc- 
i  tuary.      For  a  time  it  seems,  under 
I  Saul,  to  have  been  settled  at  Nob 
I  (1  Sam.  xxi.  1-G).     The  massacre  of 
the  priests  and  tlie  flight  of  Abiathar 
must,  however,  have   robbed   it   yet 
further  of  its  glory.     It  had  before 
lost  the  Ark  ;  it  now  lost  the  presence 
of  the  high-priest  (1  Sam.  xxii.  20, 
xxiii.  6).     What  change  of  fortune 
then  followed  we  do  not  know.     In 
some  way  or  other,  it  found  its  Avay 
to  Gibeon  (1  Chron.  xvi.  39).     The 
anomalous    separation    of   the    two 
things  which,  in  the  original  order, 
had  been  joined,  brought  about  yet 
greater  anomalies ;  and  while  the  Ark 
I  remained  at  Kirjath-jearim,  the  Tab- 
I  ernacle  at  Gibeon    connected  itself 
j  with  the  worship  of  the  high  places 
!(l  K.  iii.  4).     The  capture  of  Jeru- 
!  salcm  and  the  erection  there  of  a  new 
I  Tabernacle,  with  the  Ark,  of  which 
the  old  had  been  deprived  (2  Sam. 
vi.  17;   1  Chron.  xv,  1),  left  it  little 
more   than   a   traditional,  historical 
sanctity.     It  retained  only  the  old 
altar  of  burnt-offerings  (1  Chron.  xxi. 
9).      Such  as  it  was,  however,  neither 
king  nor  people  could'  bring  them- 
selves to  sweep  it  away.     The  double 


234: 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Appendix. 


service  went  on  ;  Zadok,  as  high- 
priest,  officiated  at  Gibeon  (1  Chron. 
xvi.  39)  ;  the  more  recent,  more  pro- 
phetic service  of  psalms  and  hymns 
and  music,  under  Asaph,  gathered 
round  the  Tabernacle  at  Jerusalem 
(1  Chron.  xvi.  4,  37).  The  divided 
worship  continued  all  the  days  of 
David.  The  sanctity  of  both  places 
was  recognized  by  Solomon  on  his 
accession  (1  K.  iii.  15;  2  Chron.  i. 
3).     But  it  was  time  that  the  anomaly 


'  should  cease.  The  purpose  of  David, 
■  fulfilled  by  Solomon,  was  that  the 
'claims  of  both  should  merge  in  the 
I  higher  glory  of  the  Temple.  The 
'  Tabernacle  at  Gibeon  might  have 
been  reverenced  by  adherents  to  old 
forms,  even  above  the  new  Temple, 
and  have  caused  a  fatal  schism.  So 
Solomon  removed  it,  with  all  its  holy 
vessels,  to  Jerusalem  (1  K.  viii.  4), 
where  it  was  doubtless  laid  up  in  the 
Temple,  and  finally  perished  with  it. 


SfiCT.  III.  The  Ministers  of  the  Sanctuary.  235 


SECTION  III. 

THE   PRIESTS    AND   LEVITES. 

§  1.  Institution  of  the  priesthood.     §  2.— T.  T«e  IIigu-peiest— His  consecration.     §  3.  His 
peculiar  dress.     §  4.  His  peculiar  functions.     §  5,  Appointment,  age,  and  qualifications. 

§  6.  The  sagan,  or  deputy  high-priest.     §  7,  Mystic  meaning  of  the  priesthood.     §  8 H. 

The  Pkiests — Their  consecration  and  dress.     §  9.  Regulations  respecting  them.     §  10. 

Their  functions.     §  11.  Maintenance.     §  12.  Classification.     §13 III."'I^j:  Levitf.8 — 

Their  duties  in  general.  §  14.  Division  into  the  three  families  of  the  Gershoiiites,  tiie 
Kohathites,  and  the  Merarites.  §  15.  Their  support  and  settlement  in  the  promised 
laud.     §  16.  Their  subsequent  duties  and  history. 

§  1.  "  Now  when  these  things  were  thus  ordered,  the  priests  went  always 
into  the  first  Tabernacle,  accomplishing  the  service  of  God.  But  into  the 
second  went  the  high-priest  alone  once  every  year,  not  witliout  blood, 
which  he  offered  for  himself  and  the  errors  of  the  people  :  the  Holy  Ghost 
this  signifying,  that  the  way  into  the  holiest  of  all  was  not  yet  laid  open, 
while  the  first  Tabernacle  was  yet  standing."^  Such  is  the  apostolic  sum- 
mary of  the  offices  of  the  priesthood.  The  whole  of  the  people  were  holy, 
and,  in  a  spiritual  sense,  they  were  a  nation  of  priests ;  but  from  among 
them  the  tribe  of  Levi  were  chosen,  as  the  reward  of  their  devotion  in  the 
matter  of  the  golden  calf,  to  be  the  immediate  attendants  on  Jehovah,  that 
thny  might  ^^  minister  in  His  courts.''  Out  of  that  tribe  again,  the  house 
(  f  Amram  was  chosen  (we  know  not  whether  according  to  primogeniture), 
to  perform  the  functions  of  the  priesthood,  which  devolved  on  Aaron,  as  the 
head  of  tliat  house.  He  was  appointed  to  the  office  of  High-priest,  at 
first  simply  The  Priest,^  as  representing  the  whole  order,  the  intercessor 
between  Jehovah  and  the  people  ;  his  sons  became  the  Priests,  who  alone 
could  offer  sacrifices ;  and  the  rest  of  the  tribe  formed  the  class  of  Levites, 
who  assisted  in  the  services  of  the  Tabernacle.  For  this  purpose  the  Le- 
vites  are  said  to  be  "given"  to  Aaron  and  his  sons,  and  hence  they  were 
c&\\e.(i  Nethinivi  (/.  e.,  given)  ;^  but  afterward  they  were  relieved  of  some  of 
their  enormous  labor  by  a  separate  class  of  servants,  such  as  the  Gibconites, 
who  were  made  "hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water;"  and  in  the  later 
history  of  the  Jews  such  servants  formed  a  distinct  body,  under  the  same 
name  of  Nethinim^ 

§  2.— I.  The  Higii-priest.— We  find  from  the  very  first  the  following 
characteristic  attributes  of  Aaron  and  the  high-priests  his  successors,  as 
distinguished  from  the  other  priests  :  — 

(i.)  In  the  consecration  to  the  office  Aaron  alone  was  anointed,^  whence 
one   of  the   distinctive    epithets   of  the   high-priest   was    "the    anointed 


1  Heb.  ix.  6-S. 

-  See  Ex.  xxix.  30,  44 ;  Lev.  xvi.  32.  Still 
more  frequently  "Aaron,"  or  "Aaron  the 
priest "  (Num.  iii.  6,  iv.  33 ;  Lev.  i.  7,  etc.) 


?o  too  "Elenzar  the  priest"  (Xnm.  xxvn. 
22,  xxxi.  26,  29,  31,  etc.). 

3  Num.  iii.  9,  viii.  i;>. 

4  1  Chn^n.  ix.  2 ;  Ezra  ii.  43  ;  Neh.  xi.  21. 
s  Lev.  viii.  12. 


236 


Dress  of  the  High-priest. 


Appendix. 


jniest."®  Tliis  appears  also  from  Exod.  xxix.  29,  30.  The  an  inting  of 
the  sons  of  Aaron,  i.  c,  the  common  priests,  seems  to  have  been  confined  to 
sprinkling  their  garments  with  the  anointing  oil.^ 

§  3.  (ii.)  The  high-priest  had  a  i)eculiar  dress,  wliich  passed  to  his  sue 
cessor  at  his  death.  This  dress  consisted  of  eight  parts,  the  breastplate, 
the  ephod  with  its  curious  girdle,  tlie  robe  of  the  e])hod,  the  mitre,  the  broid- 
ered  coat  or  diapered  tunic,  and  the  rjirdle,  the  materials  being  gold,  blue, 
red,  crimson,  and  fine  (white)  linen.**  To  the  above  are  added'*  the  breeches 
or  drawers^^  of  linen  ;  and  to  make  up  the  number  eight,  some  reckon  the 
high-priest's  mitre,  or  the  plate  separately  from  the  bonnet ;  while  others 
reckon  the  curious  girdle  of  the  ephod  separately  from  the  ephod.  Of 
these  eight  articles  of  attire,  four — viz.,  the  coat  or  tunic,  the  girdle,  the 
breeches,  and  the  bonnet  or  turban  instead  of  the  mitre,  belonged  to  the 
common  pri§sts.  Taking  the  articles  of  the  high-priest's  dress  in  the  or- 
der in  whicii  they  are  enumerated  above,  w^e  have — (a.)  The  Breastjdate, 
or,  as  it  is  further  named,"  the  breastplate  of  judgment.  It  was,  like  the 
inner  curtains  of  the  Tabernacle,  the  veil,  and  the  ephod,  of  "cunning 
work."  The  breastplate  was  originally  two  spans  long,  and  one  span  broad, 
but  when  doubled  it  was  square,  the  shape  in  which  it  was  worn.  It  was 
fastened  at  the  top  by  rings  and  chains  of  wreathen  gold  to  the  two  onyx 
stones  on  the  shoulders,  and  beneath  with  two  other  rings  and  a  lace  of 
blue  to  two  corresponding  rings  in  the  ephod,  to  keep  it  fixed  in  its  place 
above  the  curious  girdle.  But  the  most  remarkable  and  most  important  parts 
of  this  breastplate  were  the  twelve  precious  stones,  set  in  four  rows,  three 
in  a  row,  thus  corresponding  to  the  twelve  tribes,  and  divided  in  the  same 
manner  as  their  camps  were  ;  each  stone  having  the  name  of  one  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  engraved  upon  it.  It  was  these  stones  which  probably  consti- 
tuted the  Urim  and  Thummim.^^     The  addition  of  precious  stones  and  cost- 


«  Lev.  iv.  3,  5,  IJ,  xxL  10 ;  see  Niira  xxxv. 

^  Ex.  xxix.  21,  xxviii.  41,  etc.  The  an- 
ointing of  the  liigh-piiesti-s  alluded  to  in  Ps. 
cxxxiii.  2.  The  composition  of  the  anointing 
oil  i3  prescribed  Ex.  xxx.  22-25.  Tlie  mauu- 
factine  of  it  was  intrusted  to  certain  piiests, 
culled  apotliecaiies  (Neh.  iii.  S). 

**  Ex.  xxviii.  ^  Ex.  xxviii.  42. 

10  Lev.  xvi.  4.        "  Ex.  xxviii.  15,  29,  30. 

12  Urim  means  ''light,"  and  Thummim 
"  perfection."  We  are  told  that  "  the  Urim 
and  the  Thummim"  were  to  be  on  Aaron's 
heart,  when  he  goes  in  before  the  Lord  (Ex. 
xxviii.  15-30).  When  Joshua  is  solemnly 
appointed  to  succeed  the  great  hero-law- 
fiiver,  he  is  bidden  to  stand  before  lUeazar, 
the  priest,  "who  sliall  ask  counsel  for  him 
after  the  judgment  of  Uinm,"  and  this  coun- 
sel is  to  determine  the  movements  of  the 
host  of  Israel  (Num.  xxvii.  21).  In  tlie  bless- 
ings of  Moses  they  .ippear  as  the  crowning 
t^lory  of  the  tribe  of  Levi :  '^  Thy  Thummim 
and  thy  Urim  are  with  thy  Holy  One" 
(Deut.  xxxiii.  8,  9).  In  what  way  the  Urim 
and  Thummim  were  consulted  is  quite  un- 
certain. Josephus  and  the  Rabbins  supposed 
that  the  atones  gave  out  the  oracular  answer, 
by  preternatural  illumination.  But  it  seems 
to  be  far  simplest  and  most  in  agreement 


with  the  different  accounts  of  inquiries  made 
by  Urim  and  Thummim  (1  Sam.  xiv.  3,  IS, 
lil,  xxiii.  2,  4,  9, 11, 12,  xxviii.  G  ;  Judge,  xx. 
28 ;  2  Sam.  v.  23,  etc.)  to  suppose  that  tlie  an- 
swer  was  given  simply  by  the  word  of  the 
Lord  to  the  high-priest  (comp.  John  xi.  51), 
when  he  had  inquired  of  the  Lord,  clothed 
with  the  ephod  and  breastplate.  Such  a 
view  agrees  with  the  true  notion  of  the 
breastplate,  of  wiiich  it  was  not  the  leading 
characteristic  to  be  oracular,  but  only  an  in- 
cidental privilege  connected  with  its  funda- 
mental meaning.  What  that  meaning  was 
we  learn  from  Ex.  xxviii.  30,  where  we  read, 
"Aaron  shall  bear  the  judgment  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  upon  his  heart  before  the  Lord 
continually."  Now  the  judicial  sentence  is 
one  by  which  any  one  is  either  justified  or 
condemneJ.  In  prophetic  vision,  as  iu  act- 
ual Oriental  life,  the  sentence  of  justification 
was  often  expressed  by  the  nature  of  the  robe 
worn.  '•'•He  h:ith  clothed  me  with  the  gar- 
ments of  salvation,  He  hath  covered  me  with 
the  robe  of  righteousness,  as  a  bridegroom 
deeketh  himself  with  ornaments,  and  as  a 
bride  adorneth  herself  with  her  jewels  "  (Is. 
Ixi.  10),  is  a  good  illustration  of  this  ;  cf.  Ixii. 
3.  In  like  manner,  in  Rev.  iii.  5,  vii.  9,  xix. 
14,  etc.,  the  white  linen  robe  expresses  the 
righteousness  or  justification  of  saints. 


Sect.  III. 


Functions  of  the  Hirjh-'pTiesi. 


23? 


ly  ornaments  expresses  glory  beyond  simple  justification.^^ — {h.^  The  Ephod. 
This  consisted  of  two  parts,  of  which  one  covered  the  back,  and  the  other 
the  front,  i.  e.,  the  breast  and  upper  part  of  the  body.  These  Avere  clasped 
together  on  the  shoulder  Avith  two  large  onyx  stones,  each  having  engraved 
on  it  six  of  the  names  of  the  tribes  of  Israel.  It  was  further  united  by  a 
*'  curious  girdle  "  of  gold,  blue,  purple,  scarlet,  and  fine  twined  linen  round 
the  waist. — (c.)  The  Robe  of  tlie  Ephod.  This  was  of  inferior  material  to 
the  ephod  itself,  being  all  of  blue,"  which  implied  its  being  only  of  "woven 
work."^^  It  was  worn  immediately  under  the  ephod,  and  was  longer  tlian 
it.  The  blue  robe  had  no  sleeves,  but  only  slits  in  the  sides  for  the  arms 
to  come  through.  It  had  a  hole  for  the  head  to  pass  through,  with  a  bor- 
der round  it  of  woven  work,  to  prevent  its  being  rent.  The  skirt  of  this 
robe  had  a  remarkable  trimming  of  pomegranates  in  blue,  red,  and  crimson, 
with  a  bell  of  gold  between  each  pomegranate  alternately.  The  bells 
were  to  give  a  sound  when  the  high-priest  went  in  and  came  out  of  the 
holy  place. — (d.)  The  mitre  or  upper  turban,^"  with  its  gold  plate,  engraved 
with  Holiness  to  the  Lord,  fastened  to  it  by  a  ribbon  of  blue. — (e.)  The 
broidered  coat  was  a  tunic  or  long  skirt  of  linen  with  a  tessellated  or  di- 
aper pattern,  like  the  setting  of  a  stone.  The  yirdle.,  also  of  linen,  Avas 
Avound  round  the  body  several  times  from  the  breast  doAVUAvard,  and  the 
ends  hung  down  to  the  ankles.  Thei?eec/<es  or  draAvers,  of  linen,  covered 
the  loins  and  thighs  ;  and  the  bonnet  Avas  a  turban  of  linen,  partially  cov- 
ering the  head,  but  not  in  the  form  of  a  cone  like  that  of  the  high-priest, 
when  the  mitre  was  added  to  it.  These  four  last  Avere  common  to  all 
priests. 

§  4.  (iii.)  Aaron  had  peculiar  functions.  To  him  alone  it  appertained, 
and  he  alone  was 'permitted  to  enter  the  Holy  of  Holies,  Avhich  he  did  once 
a  year,  on  the  great  Day  of  Atonement,  Avhen  he  sprinkled  the  blood  of  the 
sin-offering  on  the  mercy-seat,  and  burnt  incense  Avithin  the  veil.^^  He  is 
said  by  the  Talmudists  not  to  haA-e  Avorn  his  full  pontifical  robes  on  this  oc- 
casion, but  to  have  been  clad  entirely  in  Avhite  linen.'** 

The  high-priest  had  a  peculiar  place  in  the  law  of  the  manslayer,  and 
his  taking  sanctuary  in  the  cities  of  refuge.  The  manslayer  might  no«: 
leave  the  city  of  refuge  during  the  lifetime  of  the  existing  high-priest, 
Avho  was  anointed  with  the  holy  oil.''-*  It  Avas  also  forbidden  to  the  high- 
priest  to  folloAv  a  funeral,  or  rend  his  clothes  for  the  dead,  according  to  the 
precedent  in  Lev.  x,  6.  The  other  respects  in  Avhich  the  high-priest  ex- 
ercised superior  functions  to  the  other  priests  arose  rather  from  his  position 
and  opportunities,  than  Avere  distinctly  attached  to  his  office,  and  they  con- 
sequently varied  Avith  the  personal  character  and  abilities  of  the  high- 
priest, 

§  5.  It  does  not  appear  by  Avhose  authority  the  high -priests  AA'cre  ap- 
pointed to  their  office  before  there  Avere  kings  of  Israel.     But  as  Ave  find  it 


i»  Comp.  Is.  Ixii,  3  ;  Rev.  xxi,  11, 12-21. 

'*  Ex,  xxviii.  31,  is  Ex,  xxxix,  22. 

1®  Josephus  applies  this  term  to  the  tur- 
bans of  the  common  priests  as  well,  but  saA's 
that,  in  addition  to  this,  and  sewn  on  the  top 
of  it,  the  high-priest  had  another  turban  of 
blue ;  that  be^^ides  this  he  had  outside  the 
turban  a  triple  crown  of  yold,  consisting, 
that  is,  of  three  riius  one  above  the  other, 


and  terminating  at  top  in  a  kind  of  conical 
calyx,  like  the  inverted  calyx  of  the  herb 
hyoscyamus.  Josephus  doubtloss  gives  a 
true  account  of  the  high-priest's  turban  as 
Avorn  in  his  day.  He  also  describes  the 
lamina  or  gold  plate,  which  he  says  covered 
the  forehead  of  thf  high-priest.    ' ''  Lev.  Kvi. 

i«  r>ev.  xvi.  4,  32. 

i«  Num.  xxxv.  25,  28. 


238 


Dress  of  the  Priests. 


Appendix. 


invariably  done  by  the  civil  power  in  later  times,  it  is  probable  that,  in  tlie 
times  preceding  the  monarchy,  it  was  by  the  elders,  or  Sanhedrim. 

The  usual  age  for  entering  upon  the  functions  of  the  priesthood'^"  is  con- 
sidered to  have  been  twenty  years,  though  a  priest  or  high-priest  was  not 
actually  incapacitated  if  he  had  attained  to  puberty.  Again, "^  no  one  that 
had  a  blemish  could  officiate  at  the  altar,  and  illegitimate  birth  was  also 
a  bar  to  the  high-priesthood.  The  liigh-priest  held  his  office  for  life ;  and 
it  was  the  universal  opinion  of  the  Jews  that  the  deposition  of  a  high- 
priest,  which  in  later  times  became  so  common,  was  unlawful. 

§  6.  The  Rabbins  speak  very  frequently  of  one  second  in  dignity  to  the 
high-priest,  whom  they  call  the  sagan,  and  who  often  acted  in  the  high- 
priest's  room.  He  is  the  same  who  in  the  Old  Testament  is  called  "the 
second  priest. "^^  Thus  it  is  explained  of  Annas  and  Caiaphas,"  that  An- 
nas was  sagan.  Ananias  is  also  thought  by  some  to  have  been  sagan — act- 
ing for  the  high-priest.'* 

§  7.  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  sets  forth  the  mystic  meaning  of  his 
office,  as  a  type  of  Christ,  our  great  High-priest,  who  has  passed  into  the 
heaven  of  heavens  with  his  own  blood,  to  appear  in  the  presence  of  God 
for  us ;  and  this  is  typified  in  the  minutest  particulars  of  his  dress,  his 
functions,  and  his  privileges.""  In  the  Book  of  Revelation,  the  clothing 
of  tlie  son  of  man  "  with  a  garment  down  to  the  foot,"  and  "  with  a  golden 
girdle  about  the  paps,"  are  distinctly  the  robe  and  the  curious  girdle  of  the 
ephod,  characteristic  of  the  high-priest. 

§  8. — II.  The  Priests. — All  the  sons  of  Aaron  formed  the  order  of  the 
Priests.  They  stood  between  the  high-priest  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
Levites  on  the  other.  The  ceremony  of  their  consecration  is  described  in 
Ex.  xxix.,Lev.  viii.  The  dress  which  they  wore  during  their  ministra- 
tions consisted  of  linen  drawers,  with  a  close-fitting  cassock,  also  of  linen, 
white,  but  with  a  diamond  or  chessboard  pattern  on  it.  This  came  nearly 
to  the  feet,  and  was  to  be  worn  in  its  garment  shape  (comp.  John  xix.  23). 
The  white  cassock  was  gathered  round  the  body  with  a  girdle  of  needle- 
work, into  which,  as  in  the  more  gorgeous  belt  of  the  high-jiriest,  blue, 
purple,  and   scarlet,  were    intermingled   with  white,  and    worked   in   the 


form  of  flower 


Upon  their  heads  they  were  to  wear  caps  or  bonnets  in 


the  form  of  a  cup-shaped  flower,  also  of  fine  linen.  In  all  their  acts  of 
ministration  they  were  to  be  barefooted. 

§  9.  Before  they  entered  the  Tabernacle  they  were  to  wash  their  hands 
and  their  feet."^  During  the  time  of  their  ministration  they  were  to  drink 
no  wine  or  strong  drink. ^**  Except  in  the  case  of  the  nearest  relation- 
ships,^''* they  were  to  make  no  mourning  for  the  dead.  They  were  not  to 
shave  their  heads.  They  were  to  go  through  their  ministrations  with  the 
serenity  of  a  reverential  awe,  not  with  the  orgiastic  wildness  which  led  the 
priests  of  Baal  in  their  despair  to  make  cuttings  in  their  flesh. ^°  They 
were  forbidden  to  marry  an  unchaste  Avomcn,  or  one  who  had  been  divorced, 
or  the  widow  of  any  but  a  priest.'^' 

§  10.  Their  chief  duties  were  to  watch  over  the  fire  on  the  altar  of 


20  2  Chron.  xxxi.  17.  ^i  Lev.  xxi. 

22  2  K.  xxiii.  4,  xxv.  IS.        23  Luke  iii.  2. 
2*  Acts  xxiii.  2.  25  ]jeij.  j,  13. 

'8  Kx.  xxviii.  39,  40,  xxxix.  2  ;  Kz?k.  x'.iv. 
17-10.  27  Ex.  XXI.  17-21,  xl.  CO-32. 


28  Lev.  X.  9  ;  Ez.  xliv.  21. 

29  Six  degrees  are  specified,  Lev.  xxi.  l-5i 
Lz.  xliv.  25. 

30  lev,  xix.  28  :  1  K.  xriii.  2S. 

3'  L?v  xxi.  7,  14;  Ezek.  xliv.  22. 


Sect.  III. 


Functions  of  the  Priests. 


239 


burnt-ofFerings,  and  to  keep  it  burning  evermore  both  by  day  and  night,'* 
to  feed  the  golden  lamp  outside  the  veil  with  oil/^  to  offer  the  morning  and 
evening  sacrifices,  each  accompanied  with  a  meat-offering  and  a  drink- 
offering,  at  the  door  of  the  Tabernacle.^'*  They  were  also  to  teach  the 
children  of  Israel  the  statutes  of  the  Lord.'^  During  the  journeys  in  the 
wilderness  it  belonged  to  them  to  cover  the  ark  and  all  the  vessels  of  the 
sanctuary  with  a  purple  or  scarlet  cloth  before  the  Levites  might  approach 
them.'®  As  the  people  started  on  each  day's  march  they  were  to  blow 
"an  alarm"  with  long  silver  trumpets."  Other  instruments  of  music 
might  be  used  by  the  more  highly-trained  Levites  and  the  schools  of  the 
prophets,  but  the  trumpets  belonged  only  to  the  priests. 

§  11.  Functions  such  as  these  were  clearly  incompatible  with  the  com- 
mon activities  of  men.  On  these  grounds  therefore  a  distinct  provision 
was  made  for  them.  This  consisted — (1.)  of  one-tenth  of  the  tithes  which 
the  people  paid  to  the  Levites,  i.  e.,  one  per  cent.,  on  the  whole  produce  of 
the  country.'*  (2.)  Of  a  special  tithe  every  third  year.'^  (3.)  Of  the  re- 
demption-money, paid  at  the  fixed  rate  of  five  shekels  a  head,  for  the  first- 
born of  man  or  beast."  (4.)  Of  the  redemption-money  paid  in  like  man- 
ner for  men  or  things  specially  dedicated  to  the  Lord.'*^  (5.)  Of  spoil, 
captives,  cattle,  and  the  like  taken  in  war."  (6.)  Of  the  shew-bread,  the 
flesh  of  the  burnt-offerings,  peace-offerings,  trespass-offerings,^' and,  in  par- 
ticular, the  heave-shoulder  and  the  wave-breast.'^  (7.)  Of  an  undefined 
amount  of  the  first-fruits  of  corn,  wine,  and  oil.^^  Of  some  of  these,  as 
"most  holy,"  none  but  the  priests  were  to  partake.^®  It  was  lawful  for 
their  sons  and  daughters,*'  and  even  in  some  cases  for  their  home-born 
slaves,  to  eat  of  others.'***  The  stranger  and  the  hired  serv^ant  were  in  all 
cases  excluded.''^  (8.)  On  their  settlement  in  Canaan  the  priestly  families 
had  thirteen  cities  assigned  them,  with  "suburbs"  or  pasture-grounds  for 
their  flocks.^"  These  provisions  were  obviously  intended  to  secure  the  re- 
ligion of  Israel  against  the  dangers  of  a  caste  of  pauper-priests,  needy  and 
dependent,  and  unable  to  bear  their  witness  to  the  true  faith.  They  were, 
on  the  other  hand,  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  the  condition  of  a 
wealthy  order.  The  standard  of  a  priest's  income,  even  in  the  earliest 
days  after  the  settlement  in  Canaan,  was  miserably  low." 

§  12.  The  earliest  historical  trace  of  any  division  of  the  priesthood,  and 
corresponding  cycle  of  services,  belongs  to  the  time  of  David.  The  priest- 
hood was  then  divided  into  the  four-and-twenty  "  courses''  or  orders,"  each 
of  w^hich  was  to  serve  in  rotation  for  one  week,  while  the  further  assign- 
ment of  special  services  during  the  week  was  determined  by  lot.^'  Each 
course  appears  to  have  commenced  its  work  on  the  Sabbath,  the  outgoing 
priests  taking  the  morning  sacrifice,  and  leaving  that  of  the  evening  to 
their  successors.^*  In  this  division,  however,  the  two  great  priestly  houses 
did  not  stand  on  an  equality.     The  descendants  of  Ithamar  were  found  to 


32  LeT  Ti-  12;  2  Chr.  xiii.  11. 

33  Ex.'xxvii.  %  21 ;  Lev.  xxiv.  2. 
3*  Ex.  xxix.  .S8-4t 

35  Lev.  X.   11 ;   Deut.  xxxui.  10 ;    2  Chr. 
XV.  3 ;  Ezek.  xliv.  23,  24.     36  jj^ni.  iv.  6-15. 
37  Num.  X.  1-8.       38  Num.  xviiL  2C-28. 

39  Deut.  xiv.  23,  xxvi.  12. 

40  Num.  xviii.  14-19.  *^  Lev.  xxvii. 

"  Num.  xxxi.  25-47.  I 


43  Num.  xviiL  8-14 ;  Lev.  vi.  26,  29,  vii. 
6-10.  44  Lev.  X.  12-15. 

45  Ex.  xxiiL  19 ;  Lev.  ii.  14  ;  Deut.  xxvi. 
1-10.  46  Lev.  vi.  29.      47  Lev.  x.  14 

48  Lev.  xxii.  11.  49  Lev.  xxii.  10. 

50  Josh.  xxi.  13-19.  si  ji,dg.  xvii.  10. 

52  1  Clir.  xxiv,  1-19;  2  Clir.  xxiii.  S; 
Luke  i.  5.  *»  Luke  i.  9, 

54  2  Chr.  xxiii.  8. 


24:0  Cities  of  the  Levites.  Appendix 

have  fewer  representatives  than  those  of  Eleazar,  and  sixteen  courses  ac- 
cordingly -were  assigned  to  the  latter,  eight  only  to  the  former.'^  The  di- 
vision thus  instituted  was  confirmed  by  Solomon,  and  continued  to  be  rec- 
ognized as  the  typical  number  of  the  priesthood.  On  the  return  from  the 
Captivity  there  Avere  found  but  fonr  courses  out  of  the  twenty-four,  each 
containing,  in  round  numbers,  about  a  thousand/*'  Out  of  these,  hoAvever, 
to  revive  at  least  the  idea  of  the  old  organization,  the  four-and-twenty 
courses  were  reconstituted,  bearing  the  same  names  as  before,  and  so  con- 
tinued till  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem. 

§  13. — III.  The  Levites  were  the  assistants  of  the  priests,  and  included 
all  the  males  of  the  tribe  of  Levi  who  were  not  of  the  family  of  Aaron, 
and  who  were  of  the  prescribed  age,  namely,  from  thirty  to  fifty. ^^  Their 
duties  required  a  man's  full  strength  ;  after  the  age  of  fifty  they  were  re- 
lieved from  all  service,  except  that  of  superintendence.^**  They  had  to  as- 
sist the  priests,  to  carry  the  Tabernacle  and  its  vessels,  to  keep  Avatch  about 
the  sanctuary,  to  prepare  the  supplies  of  corn,  wine,  oil,  and  so  forth,  and 
to  take  charge  of  the  sacred  treasures  and  revenues. 

§  1-i.  The  Levites  were  divided  into  three  families,  which  bore  the  names 
of  the  three  sons  of  Levi,  the  Gershonites,  the  Kohathites,  and  the 
Merarites  ;  and  each  had  their  appointed  functions  in  the  service  of  the 
'J'abernacle. 

(i.)  The  Kohathites  had  the  precedence,  as  the  house  of  Amran  be- 
longed to  this  family.  They  were  to  bear  all  the  vessels  of  the  sanctuary, 
the  Ark  itself  included, ^^  after  the  priests  had  covered  them  with  the  dark- 
blue  cloth  which  was  to  hide  them  from  all  profime  gaze. 

(ii.)  The  Gershonites  had  to  carry  the  tent-hangings  and  curtains.*"' 

(iii.)  The  Merarites  had  the  heavier  burden  of  the  boards,  bars,  and 
pillars  of  the  Tabernacle.  But  the  Gershonites  and  Merarites  were  allow- 
ed to  use  tlie  oxen  and  the  wagons  which  were  offered  by  the  congrega- 
tion,*'^ The  more  sacred  vessels  of  the  Kohathites  were  to  be  borne  by  them 
on  their  own  shoulders.''" 

The  whole  tribe  of  Levi  encamped  close  round  the  Tabernacle,  the 
priests  in  front,  on  the  east ;  the  Kohatliites  on  the  south  ;  the  Gershon- 
ites on  the  west;  and  the  INIerarites  on  the  north. 

§  15.  The  Levites  had  no  territorial  possessions.  In  place  of  them,  they 
received  from  the  other  tribes  the  tithes  of  the  produce  of  the  land,  from 
which  they,  in  their  turn,  offered  a  tithe  to  the  priests.®^  On  their  settle- 
ment in  the  promised  land,  the  most  laborious  parts  of  their  duty  were 
over,  and  they  were  relieved  from  others  by  the  submission  of  the  Gibeon- 
ites  and  the  conquest  of  the  Hivites,  who  became  "hewers  of  wood  and 
drawers  of  water."*'*  Hence  their  concentration  about  the  Tabernacle  was 
no  longer  necessary,  and  it  Avas  the  more  important  for  them  to  live  among' 
their  brethren  as  teachers  and  religious  guides.  Forty-eight  cities  AA-ere  as- 
signed to  the  Avhole  tribe,  that  is,  on  an  average,  four  in  the  terri.tGy.y  (jt 
each  tribe  ;  thirteen  being  giA'en  to  the  priests,  and  the  rest  ^^  the  Levites.  ' 
The  following  Avas  their  distribution  throughout  thetii'bes": 

5»  1  Chr.  xxiv.  4.  sg  Fzj.aij,  3C_ca.  '^^  Num.  iii.  r.l,  iv.  15;  Dent.  xxii.  25. 

•7  Num.  iv.  23,  .30,  ?,r>.  j      «o  Num.  iv.  22-26.  6i  Num.  vii.  1-9. 

68  Num.  viii.  25,  2G.  I      ««  Num.  vii.  P. 

«3  Num.  xviii.  21,  24,  20 ;  Ncli.  x.  37.  64  josh,  ix,  27. 


Sect.  III. 


Cities  of  the  Levites. 


241 


I.  KOUATIIITES. 

A    PriP=;t=!  /  Judah  and  Simeon 9 

^-  ^  "^^^^ t  Benjamin 4 

(  Kpliraira 4 

B.  Not  Priests....^  Dan 4 

(Half-Manasseh  (West) 2 

II.  Gkbsiionites. 

Half-Manasseh  (East)  2 

Issacliar 4 

Asher 4 

Naphtali 3 

ill.   MERAKITE8. 

Zebulun 4 

Reuben 4 

Gad 4 

48 
Six  of  these  cities,  three  on  each  side  of  Joi-dan,  were  cities  of  refuge  for  the 
inanslayer  ;  an  institution  which  invested  the  Levites  with  the  sacred  char- 
acter of  protectors  from  danger.     The  suburbs  of  these  cities  gave  pasture 
to  their  flocks. 

§  IG.  After  their  settlement  in  their  cities  they  took  the  place  of  the  house- 
hold priests  (subject,  of  course,  to  the  special  rights  of  the  Aaronic  priest- 
hood), sharing  in  all  festivals  and  rejoicings. *^^  They  preserved,  transcribed, 
and  interpreted  the  law,''^  which  they  solemnly  read  every  seventh  year  at 
the  Feast  of  Tabernacles. °^  They  pronounced  the  curses  from  Mount 
Ebal.«'* 

At  a  still  later  time  they  became  the  learned  class  in  the  community,  the 
chroniclers  of  the  time  in  which  they  lived.  One  of  the  first  to  bear  the  ti- 
tle of  "  Scribe  "  is  a  Levitc,''''  and  this  is  mentioned  as  one  of  their  special 
offices  under  Josiah.'^"  They  are  described  as  "officers  and  judges"  under 
David,'''  and  as  such  are  employed  "in  all  the  business  of  Jehovah,  and  in 
the  service  of  the  king."  They  are  the  agents  of  Jehoshaphat  and  Hezeki- 
ah  in  their  work  of  reformation,  and  are  sent  forth  to  proclaim  and  enforce 
the  law.'''  Under  Josiah  the  function  has  passed  into  a  title,  and  they  are 
"the  Levites  that  taught  all  Israel.""  The  two  books  of  Chronicles  bear 
unmistakable  marks  of  having  been  written  by  men  whose  interests  were  all 
gathered  round  the  services  of  the  Temple,  and  who  were  familiar  with  its 
records. 

The  former  subdivisions  of  the  tribe  were  recognized  in  the  assignment  of 
the  new  duties  connected  with  the  Temple,  and  the  Kohathites  retained  their 
old  pre-eminence.  They  have  four  "  princes,"'*  while  Merari  and  Gershon 
have  but  one  each.  They  supplied,  from  the  families  of  the  Izharites  and 
Hebronites,  the  "officers  and  judges.'"^  To  them  belonged  the  sons  of 
Korah,  with  Heman  at  their  headj^  playing  upon  psalteries  and  harps. 
They  were  "  over  the  work  of  the  service,  keepers  of  the  gates  of  the  Taber- 
nacle."'"' It  was  their  work  to  prepare  the  shew-bread  every  Sabbath.''^ 
The  Gershonites  were  represented  in  like  manner  in  the  temple-choir  by 
the  sons  of  Asaph  C^  Merari  by  the  sons  of  Ethan  or  Jeduthun.*'^     Now 


«»  Dent.  xii.  19,  xiv.  26,  27,  xxvi.  11. 

«9  Deut.  xvii.  9-12,  ixxi.  2G. 

*''  Deut.  xxxi.  9-13.     ^»  Dent,  xxvii.  14. 

«"  1  €hr.  xxiv.  6.         "  2  Chr.  xxxlv.  13. 

^1  1  Chr,  xxvi.  29. 

• '  ?  Chr.  xvii.  8,  xxx.  22. 

L 


73  2  Chr.  XXXV.  .S. 

"!*  1  Chr.  XV.  ,5-10.      ''^  1  Chr.  xxvi.  SO. 

T6  1  Chr.  ix.  10.  77  1  (Jill.,  ix.  19. 

78  1  Chr.  ix.  32. 

79  1  Chr.  vi.  39,  XV.  IT. 

80  1  Chr.  vi.  44,  xvi.  42,  xxr.  1-7. 


242 


Notes  and  I llust rations. 


Appendix. 


that  the  heavier  work  of  conveying  the  Tabernacle  and  its  equipments  from 
place  to  place  was  no  longer  required  of  them,  and  that  psalmody  had  be- 
come the  most  prominent  of  their  duties,  they  were  to  enter  on  their  work 
at  the  earlier  age  of  twenty." 

81  1  Chr.  xxiii.  24-27. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   HIGH- 
PRIESTS. 

The  history  of  the  high-priests  em- 
braces a  period  of  about  1370  years, 
and  a  succession  of  about  eighty  high- 
priests,  beginning  with  Aaron,  and 
ending  with  Phannias.  They  natu- 
rally arrange  themselves  into  three 
groups — (a.)  those  before  David  ;  (6.) 
those  from  David  to  the  Captivity ; 
(c.)  those  from  the  return  of  the  Bab- 
ylonish Captivity  till  the  cessation  of 
the  office  at  the  destruction  of  Jeru- 
salem. 

(a.)  The  high -priests  of  the  first 
group  who  are  distinctly  made  known 
to  us  as  such  are — 1.  Aaron;  2. 
Eleazar ;  3.  Phinehas;  4.  Eli;  5. 
Ahitub  (I  Chron.  ix.  11;  Neh.  xi. 
11;  1  Sam.  xiv.  3);  G.  Ahiah;  7. 
Ahimeiech,  Phinehas,  the  son  of  Eli 
and  father  of  Ahitub,  died  before  his 
father,  and  so  was  not  high-priest. 
Of  the  above,  the  three  first  succeed- 
ed in  regular  order,  Nadab  and  Abi- 
hu,  Aaron's  eldest  sons,  having  died 
in  the  wilderness  (Lev.  x).  But  Eli, 
the  fourth,  was  of  the  line  of  Ithamar. 
What  was  the  exact  interval  between 
the  death  of  Phinehas  and  the  ac- 
cession of  Eli,  what  led  to  the  trans- 
ference of  the  chief  priesthood  from 
the  line  of  Eleazar  to  that  of  Ithamar, 
we  have  no  means  of  determining 
from  Scripture.  Josephus  asserts  that 
the  father  of  lUikki — whom  he  calls 
Joseph,  and  Abiczer,  i.  «.,  Abishua — 
was  the  last  high-priest  of  Phinehas's 


line  before  Zadok.  If  Abishua  died, 
leaving  a  son  or  grandson  under  age, 
Eli,  as  head  of  the  line  of  Ithamar, 
might  have  become  high-priest  as  a 
matter  of  course,  or  he  might  have 
been  appointed  by  the  elders.  If 
Ahiah  and  Ahimeiech  are  not  varia- 
!  tions  of  the  name  of  the  same  person, 
I  they  must  have  been  brothers,  since 
I  both  were  sons  of  Ahitub.  Thehigh- 
I  priests,  then,  before  David's  reign, 
may  be  set  down  as  eight  in  number, 
i  of  whom  ?even  are  said  in  Scripture  to 
have  been  high-priests,  and  one  by 
Josephus  alone. 

(b.)  Passing  to  the  second  group, 
we  begin  with  the  unexplained  cir- 
cumstance of  there  being  two  priests 
in  the  reign  of  David,  apparently  of 
nearly  equal  authority,  viz.,  Zadok 
and  Abiathar  (1  Chr.  xv.  11  ;  2  Sam. 
vii.  17).  It  is  not  unlikely  that  after 
the  death  of  Ahimeiech  and  the  seces- 
sion of  Abiathar  to  David,  Saul  may 
have  made  Zadok  priest,  and  that 
David  may  have  avoided  the  difficul- 
ty of  deciding  between  the  claims  of 
his  faithful  friend  Abiathar  and  his 
new  and  important  ally  Zadok  by 
appointing  them  to  a  joint  priesthood: 
the  first  place,  with  the  Ephod,  and 
Urim  and  Thumraim,  remaining  with 
Abiathar,  who  was  in  actual  posses- 
sion of  them.  The  first  considerable 
difficulty  that  meets  us  in  the  histor- 
ical survey  of  the  high-priests  of  the 
second  group  is  to  ascertain  who  was 
high-priest  at  the  dedication  of  Solo- 
mon's Temple.      Josephus  says  that 


Sect.  III. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


243 


Zadok  was,  and  the  Seder  01am 
makes  him  the  high -priest  in  the 
reign  of  Solomon  ;  but  1  K.  iv.  2  dis- 
tinctly asserts  that  Azariah,  the  sonof 
Zadok,  was  priest  under  Solomon, 
and  1  Chron.  vi.  10  tells  us  of  Azari- 
ah, "He  it  is  that  executed  the  priest's 
office  in  the  temple  that  Solomon 
built  in  Jerusalem,"  obviously  mean- 
ing at  its  first  completion.  We  can 
hardly  therefore  be  wrong  in  saying 
that  Azariah  the  son  of  Ahimaaz  was 
the  first  high  -  priest  of  Solomon's 
Temple.  In  the  list  of  the  succession 
of  priests  of  this  group  there  are  sev- 
eral gaps  ;  the  insertions  are  men- 
tioned below.  The  series  ended  with 
Seraiah,  who  was  taken  prisoner  by 
Nebuzar- adan,  and  slain  at  Iliblah 
by  Nebuchadnezzar,  together  with 
Zcphaniali,  the  second  priest  or  sa- 
gan,  after  the  burning  of  the  Temple 
and  the  plunder  of  all  the  sacred  ves- 
sels (2  K.  XX.  18).  Ilis  son  Jeho- 
zadak  or  Josedecli  was  at  the  same 
time  carried  away  captive  (1  Chron. 
vi.  15).  The  time  occupied  by  these 
high  -  priests  was  about  454  years, 
which  gives  an  average  of  something 
more  than  twenty-five  years  to  each 
high-priest.  It  is  remarkable  that  not 
a  single  instance  is  recoi'ded  after  the 
time  of  David  of  an  inquiry  by  Urim 
and  Thummim,  The  ministry  of  the 
prophets  seems  to  have  superseded 
that  of  the  high-priests  (see  e.  g.  2 
Chron.  xv.,  xviii.,  xx.  14,  15;  2  K. 
xix.  1,  2,  xxii.  12-14;  Jer.  xxi.  1, 
2). 

(c.)  An  interval  of  about  fifty-two 
years  elapsed  between  the  high- 
priests  of  the  second  and  third  group, 
during  which  there  was  neither  tem- 
ple, nor  altar,  nor  ark,  nor  priest. 
Jehozadak,  or  Josedech,  as  it  is  writ- 
ten in  Haggai  (i.  1,  14,  etc.,)  who 
should,  have  succeeded  Seraiah,  lived 
and  died  a  captive  at  Babylon.  The 
pontifical  office  revived  in  his  son 
Jeshua,  of  whom  such  frequent  men- 


tion is  made  in  Ezra  and  Nehemiah, 
Haggai  and  Zechariah,  1  Esd.  and 
Ecclus.;  and  he  therefore  stands  at 
the  head  of  this  third  and  last  series, 
houorably  distinguished  for  his  zeal- 
ous co-operation  with  Zerubbabel  in 
i-ebuilding  the  Temple,  and  restoring 
the  dilapidated  commonwealth  of  Is- 
rael. His  successors,  as  far  as  the 
Old  Testament  guides  us,  were  Joia- 
kim,  Eliashib,  Joiada,  Johanan  (or 
Jonathan),  and  Jaddua.  Jaddua 
was  high-priest  in  the  time  of  Alexan- 
der the  Great.  Jaddua  was  succeeded 
by  Onias  I.,  his  son,  and  he  again  by 
Simon  the  Just,  the  last  of  the  men  of 
the  great  synagogue.  Upon  Simon's 
death,  his  son  Onias  being  under  age, 
Eleazar,  Simon's  brother,  succeeded 
him.  The  priesthood  was  brought  to 
the  lowest  degradation  by  the  apos- 
tasy and  crimes  of  the  last  Onias  or 
Menelaus,  the  son  of  Eleazar;  but 
after  a  vacancy  of  seven  years  had 
followed  the  brief  pontificate  of  Al- 
cimus,  his  no  less  infamous  successor, 
a  new  and  glorious  succession  of 
high-priests  arose  in  the  Asmonean 
family,  who  united  the  dignity  of  civ- 
il rulers,  and  for  a  time  of  independ- 
ent sovereigns,  to  that  of  the  high- 
priesthood.  The  Asmonqan  family 
were  priests  of  the  course  of  Joiarib, 
tlie  first  of  the  twenty-four  courses  (1 
Chron.  xxiv.  7),  whose  return  from 
captivity  is  recorded  1  Chron.  ix,  10; 
Nehem.  xi.  10.  They  were  probably 
of  the  house  of  Eleazar,  though  this 
can  not  be  affirmed  with  certainty. 
This  Asmonean  dynasty  lasted  from 
B.C.  153  till  the  family  was  damaged 
by  intestine  divisions,  and  then  de- 
stroyed by  Herod  the  Great.  Aristo- 
bulus,  the  last  high-priest  tof  his  line, 
brother  of  Mariamne,  was  murdered 
by  order  of  Herod,  his  brother-in-law, 
B.C.  35.  There  were  no  fewer  than 
twenty-eight  high  -  priests  from  the 
reign  of  Herod  to  the  destruction  of 
the  Temple  by  Titus,  a  period  of  107 


244 


Kotes  and  Illiisirations. 


Appendix. 


years.  The  New  Testament  intro- 
duces us  to  some  of  these  later,  and 
oft-changing  high-priests,  viz.,  Annas, 
Caiaphas,  and  Ananias.  Theophiius, 
the  son  of  Ananus,  was  the  high-priest 
from  whom  Saul  received  letters  to 
the  synagogue  at  Damascus  (Acts  ix, 
1,  14).  rhannias,  the  last  high-priest, 
was  appointed  by  lot  by  the  Zealots 
from  the  course  of  ])riests  called  by  Jo- 
sephus  Eniachim  (probably  a  corrupt 
reading  for  Jachim).  The  subjoin- 
ed table  shows  the  succession  of  high- 
priests,as  far  as  it  can  be  ascertained, 
and  of  the  contemporary  civil  rulers. 

First  Group. 

CIVIL  RULER.  HIGII-PRIEST. 

Moses   Anron. 

Jo.shiia Eleazar. 

Otliiiiel Phinehas. 

Abitihua Abishiia. 

Eli Eli. 

Samuel Aliitub. 

Saul Ahijah. 

Second  Group. 

David Zadok  and  Abiathar. 

Solomon Az;iri:ili. 

Abijah Jolianan. 

Asa Azariah. 

Jelioshaphat Amariah. 

Jehorara Jehoiada. 

Ahaziah " 

Jehoash Do.  and  Zecliaiiali. 

Amaziali ? 

Uzziah Azariah. 

Jotham ? 

Ahaz Urijah. 

Hezekiah Azariah. 

Manasseh Shallum. 

Amon "• 

Josiah Ililkiah. 

.Teholakim Azariah? 

Zedekialu Seraiah. 

Evil-Merodach Jehozadak. 

Third  Group. 
Zerubbabel  (Cyrus        Jeshua. 

and  Darius). 
Mordecai?  (Xei-xes)...  Joiakim, 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah     Eliashib. 

(Artaxerxes). 

Darius  Nothus Joiada. 

Artaxerxes  Mnemon. .  Johanan. 
Alexander  the  Great..  Jaddua. 
Oniaa  I.  (Ptolemy  So-  Onias  I. 

ter,  Antigonus). 

Ptolemy  Soter Simon  the  Just. 

Ptolemy  Philadelphus.  Eleazar. 
'•'■  Manasseh. 

Ptolemy  Euergetes Onias  II. 

Ptolemy  Philopator. . .  Simon  II. 
Ptolemy    Epiphanes  &  Onias  III. 

Ar.tlochus : . .. 


CIVIL  EULER.  niOn-PRIEST. 

Antiochus  Epiphanes..  (Joshua,  or)  Jason. 

"■       Onias,  or  Menelaus. 

Demetrius Jacimus,  or  Aicimus. 

Alexander  Balas Jonathan,  brother  of 

Judas  Maccabeus 
(Asmonean). 

Simon  (Asmonean) Simon  (Asmonean). 

JohnHyrcanus  (Asm.).  John  Ilyrcanus  (Do.) 
King  Aristobulus  Aristobulus  (Do.) 

(Asm.) 
King  Alexander  Jan-  Alexander  Jannseus 

naeus  (Asmonean). . .      (Do.) 
Queen  Alexandra  Hyfcanus  II.  (Do.) 

(Asm.) 
King   Aristobulus    II.  Aristobulus  II.  (Do.) 

(Asmonean). 
Pompey  the  Great  and  Ilyrcanus  II.  (Do.) 
Ilyrcanus,    or    rath- 
er, toward  the  end  of 
his  pontificate.  Anti- 
pater. 
Pacorus  the  Parthian..  Antigonus  (Do.) 
Herod,  king  of  Judaea.  Ananclii.=. 

''  Aristobulus  (last  of  As- 

moneans),  mui'dered 
by  Herod. 

Ananelus  restored. 

Ilerod  the  Great Jesus,  son  of  Faneus. 

"  Simon,  son  of  Ijoethus, 

father-in-law  to  Her- 
od. 

"  Matthias,  son  of  The 

ophihis. 

"  Jozarus,  son  of  Simon. 

Archelaus,  king  of  J  u-  Eleazai'. 
daja. 

"  Jesus,  son  of  Sie. 

"  Jozarus  (second  time). 

Cyrenius,  governor  of  Ananus. 

Syria,  second  time. 
Valerius  Gratus,  pro-  Ishmael,  son  of  Phabi. " 
curator  of  Judaea. 

'*•  Eleazar,  son   of  Ana- 

nus. 

'•'•  Simon,  son  of  Kamith. 

Vitellius,  governor  of  Caiaphas,  called    also 
Syri.n.  Joseph. 

''  Jonathan,  son  of  Ana- 

nus. 

"  Tlieophilus,  brother  of 

Jonathan. 

Ilerod  Agrippa Simon  Cuntlieras. 

"  Matthias,    brother    of 

Jonathan,  son  of  An- 
anus. 

'^  Elioneiis,  son   of  Can- 

theras. 
Ilerod,  king  of  Chalcis.  Joseph,  son  of  Camei. 

'''-  Ananias,  son  of  Kebe 

deus. 

"  Jonathan. 

"  Ismael,  son  of  Fabl. 

"  Joseph,  son  of  Simon. 

Ananus,   son    of  Ana 
nu.?,  or  Ananias. 
Appointed  by  the  peo- Jesus,  son  of  Gamaliel. 
pie.                 Matthias,  son  of  The- 
ophiius. 
Chosen  by  lot Phannias,  son  of  Sam- 


Sect.  IV.  Sacrifices  and  Oblations .  2^5 


SECTION  IV. 

SACRinCKS  AND  OBLATIONS. 

5  1.  Distinction  between  sacrifices  and  oblation".  §  2.  Between  bloody  and  unbloody  sac 
rifices.  §  3.  A  portion  of  the  saci-ifices  used  for  food.  5  4. — I.  The  burnt-offering.  §  5 — • 
II.  The  raeat-olfering  and  drink-offering,  wliich  always  accompanied  the  bnrnt-offenng. 

§  6 III.  The  peace-offeriDg.    §  7 IV.  The  sin-ofifeVing.    §  S.— V.  Trespass-offeiiugs. 

5  9 ^VI.  Oblations, 

§  1.  The  Law  of  Sacrifices  and  Oblations  included  a  perpetual  memorial 
of  Jehovah's  covenant  with  the  people,  an  acknowledgment  of  His  mercies 
and  an  expiation  for  sin. 

Sacrifices  had  been  offered  ever  since  the  fall.  We  read  of  the  whole 
bnrnt-ofFerings,  such  as  those  of  Abel  and  Noah,  the  thank-offering,  as  that 
of  Jethro,  and  the  sacrifices  by  which  covenants  were  ratified.  To  these  the 
law  of  Moses  added  the  special  sacrijices  for  sins  and  trespasses,  and  for  par- 
ticular classes  of  persons  (as  the  priests)  the  meat-offerings  and  the  drink- 
offerings.  It  established  the  distinction  between  sacrijices  and  oblations  : 
in  the  former,  the  thing  offered  was  wholly  or  partially  destroyed,  as  being 
Jehovah's  only  ;  in  the  latter  it  was  acknowledged  to  be  His  gift,  and  then 
enjoyed  by  t^ie  offerer. 

§  2.  There  is  also  the  distinction  between  bloody  and  unbloody  sacrifices  ; 
between  slain  victims,  and  offerings  of  meal,  corn,  cakes,  or  wafers,  and  li- 
bations of  wine.  Tlie  latter  were  sometimes  mere  oblations,  but  sometimes 
proper  sacrifices,  being  offered  either  with  the  burnt-offerings,  or,  in  the  case 
of  the  poor,  in  substitution  for  them.  The  sacrifices  of  blood  again  are  di- 
vided into  those  which  were  offered  in  expiation  of  sin,  and  those  in  which 
the  offerer  acknowledged  God's  mercies  to  him  by  the  voluntary  surrender  of 
a  costly  thing,  an  act  of  piety,  which  is  especially  contemplated  in  the  ordi- 
nary use  of  the  word  sacrifice.  This  idea  involves  the  duty  of  bringing  our 
best  to  God  in  proportion  to  our  means,  and  stamps  the  offering  of  the 
maimed  or  what  costs  us  nothing,  as  an  impious  insult  to  Jehovah. 

§  3.  In  those  of  the  sacrifices,  in  which  the  victim  was  not  entirely  burnt, 
a  portion  of  it  was  used  as  food,  both  by  the  priests,  who  were  "  to  live  of  the 
altar,"  and  also  by  the  offerers  themselves.  This  is  a  nsage  of  the  greatest 
antiquity  among  all  nations  ;  as  we  see,  for  example,  in  Homer.  It  seems 
natural  that  worshipers  should  rejoice  and  feast  in  the  presence  of  the  God 
with  whom  they  were  reconciled,  or  whose  goodness  they  came  to  confess  by 
sacrifice.  But  in  the  Mosaic  dispensation,  there  seems  to  be  a  deeper  signifi- 
cance in  the  partaking  of  the  sacred  things  offered  to  God,  a  type  of  the 
spiritual  sustenance  which  is  received  from  Christ,  who  connects  his  death 
with  our  life,  by  saying,  "Take,  caY;  this  is  my  body,  which  is  broken  for 
1J0U."  "  Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  man,  and  drink  his  blood,  ye 
have  no  lite  in  you." 

This  custom  liad  also,  like  many  of  the  laws  of  Moses,  an  indirect  but 


246  Bloody  and   Unhloody  Sacrifices.         Appendix. 

n!os:  important  influence  on  the  common  life  of  the  people.  Natives  of  warm 
climates  use  but  little  animal  food  ;  nor  are  a  pastoral  people,  like  the  Israel- 
ites, an  exception  to  the  rule.  They  live  on  the  milk  of  their  flocks  and 
herds,  but  use  their  flesh  verv  sparingly;  they  do  not  eat  up  their  capital. 
Sacrifices,  tlierefore,  were  their  feasts  when  tliey  partook  of  meat;  but  under 
restrictions,  which,  being  established  first  on  the  ground  of  ceremonial  clean- 
ness, in  relation  to  God,  ministered  to  their  personal  purity  and  health.  This 
will  be  pi-esently  seen,  both  with  reference  to  the  animals  that  might  and 
might  not  be  sacrificed,  and  to  those  parts  of  them  which  were  burnt  and 
those  which  were  used  for  food. 

§  4.  The  sacrifices  are  divided  into  hnrnt-offerings,  with  the  accompanying 
jiieat^-ojferings,  peace-offerings,  sin-offerings^  for  sins  of  ignorance,  and  tres- 
j>ass-off'e?ings  for  sins  committed  knowingly.  The  three  former  were  of  the 
nature  of  gifts,  the  two  latter  oi propitiatory  sacrifices  ;  but  even  in  the  gift, 
as  coming  from  a  sinful  man,  there  was  present  the  idea  of  propitiation  by 
the  blood  of  the  victim  ;  and  it  was  always  preceded  by  a  sin-offering. 

1.  The  Burnt-offering,  or  whole  burnt-oftering,  or  perfect  sacrifice,  was 
so  called  because  the  victim  was  wholly  consumed  by  fire  upon  the  altar  of 
■burnt-ofl:ering,  and  so,  as  it  were,  sent  up  to  God  on  the  wings  of  fire.  This 
idea,  which  is  expressed  in  the  account  of  Noah's  sacrifice,- and  ■'\hich  con- 
stantly recurs,  Voth  in  the  Scriptures  and  in  profane  authors,  is  implied  in 
the  Hebrew  word  which  signifies  to  ascend.  The  sacrifice  was  a  memorial 
of  God's  covenant,  and  signified  that  the  offerer  belonged  wholly  to  God,  and 
that  he  dedicated  himself  soul  and  body  to  Ilim,  and  placed  his  life  at  His 
disposal.  And  every  such  sacrifice  was  a  type  of  the  perfect  offering  made 
by  Christ,  on  behalf  of  the  race  of  man,  of  his  human  nature  and  will  to  the 
will  of  the  Father.^* 

Burnt-ofterings  were  either  made  on  behalf  of  the  whole  people,  or  by  one 
or  more  individuals,  who  must  bring  them  of  their  own  free-will.*  Only 
three  kinds  of  animals  might  be  offered,  and  they  must  be  free  from  disease 
or  blemish.  To  oflfer  the  unclean,  maimed,  or  diseased  in  sacrifice  was  an 
abomination  to  Jehovah.  (1.)  Of  the  herd,  a  young  bullock,  of  not  less  than 
one  nor  more  than  three  years,  generally  of  the  third  year.  (2.)  Of  i\\Q  flock, 
a  lamb  or  kid,  a  male  of  the  like  age,  but  generally  of  the  first  year.  (3.)  Of 
birds,  turtle-doves  or  young  pigeons,  without  distinction  of  sex.  The  victim 
was  brought  to  the  north  side  of  the  altar  in  the  court  of  the  Tabernacle, 
where  the  offerer  laid  his  hand  upon  its  head,  in  token  of  its  being  a  substi- 
tute for  his  own  life,  and  slew  it  himself  by  cutting  its  throat,  or,  if  a  bird, 
wringing  off  its  head  and  pressing  out  the  blood.  In  public  sacrifices,  these 
acts  were  done  by  the  priest.  The  Levites  assisted,  and  in  later  times  they 
slew  all  the  victims.^  The  blood,  "which  is  the  ^//i?,"  was  received  in  a 
basin,  and  sprinkled  by  the  priest  round  the  altar.  The  victim  was  then 
flayed,  the  skin  being  the  perquisite  of  the  priest.  It  was  cut  in  pieces,  sig- 
nifying the  laying  open  to  the  eye  of  God  of  the  inmost  being  of  the  offerer  ;" 
and  the  pieces  were  laid  upon  the  wood  on  the  altar  and  consumed,  but  the 
birds  were  not  divided.     Each  day's  sacrifices  burnt  on  through  the  night, 

1  Meat  is  the  word  used  in  our  version  for  ;  3  Psalm  xl.  10,  li.  17, 19  ;  Ileb.  v.  1,  3,  7. 

food  in  general,  more  especially  for  corn  and  j  ^  i_,pv.  i.,  vi.  8-13. 

flour.  5  2  Chr.  xxix.  24,  34  ;  Ezek.  xlvi.  24. 

a  Gen.  viii.  21.  I  6  ueb.  iv.  12, 13. 


Sect.  IV.  Meat  and  Drink-offerings.  247 

the  sacred  fire  never  being  suffered  to  go  out ;  and  in  the  morning  the  ashes 
were  carried  by  the  priest  into  a  clean  place  without  the  camp.'' 

Burnt-offerings  were  made  on  the  following  occasions: — (1.)  The  Dailif 
Sacrifice.,  of  a  yearling  lamb  or  kid,  was  offered  at  the  times  of  morning  and 
evening  prayer,  the  third  and  ninth  hours  from  sunrise,  before  the  priest 
went  into  the  Tabernacle  to  burn  incense.  This  sacrifice  especially  typified 
the  offering  of  Christ,  who  was  pointed  out  by  John  the  Baptist  (about  the 
third  hour,  it  is  supposed)  as  "the  Lamb  of  God,  that  taketh  away  the  sin 
of  the  world,"  and  who  died  upon  the  cross  at  the  very  time  of  the  evening 
sacrifice. 

(2.)  The  Sabbath  burnt-offering  was  the  daily  sacrifice  doubled.'* 

(3.)  The  burnt-offerings  at  the  Festivals  of  the  New  Moon,  the  three  great 
feasts,  the  Day  of  Atonement,  and  the  Feast  of  Ti-uvipets,  generally  two  bul- 
locks, a  ram,  and  seven  lambs.^ 

(\.)  Private  burnt-offerings  prescribed  by  the  laiv,  at  the  consecration  of 
priests,"  the  purification  of  women,  "the  removal  of  leprosy  or  other  ceremo- 
nial uncleanness,^^  the  iDcrformance  or  the  accidental  breach  of  the  vow  of  a 
Nazarite.  ^^ 

(5.)  Free-will  burnt-offerings  were  made  either  in  general  acknowledgment 
of  God's  mercies  (a  thank-offering^  or  in  performance  of  a  vow."  They  were 
chiefly  brought  on  occasions  of  great  solemnity,  as  at  the  dedication  of  the 
Tabernacle  and  of  the  Temple.'^ 

§  5. — II.  The  Meat-offering  and  the  Drink-offering  always  accompa- 
nied the  burnt-offering,  for  which  indeed  the  meat-offering  miglit  be  substi- 
tuted by  the  poor.  As  the  burnt-offering  signified  the  consecration  of  life  to 
God,  both  that  of  the  offerer  himself  and  of  his  living  property,  so  in  the 
meat-offering  the  produce  of  the  land  was  presented  before  Jehovah,  as  be- 
ing His  gift ;  in  both  cases  with  the  devout  acknowledgment :  "Of  thine  own 
have  we  given  thee."^^  The  name  of  the  meat-offering,  Minchah,  signified 
in  old  Hebrew  a  gift  in  general,  and  especially  one  from  an  inferior  to  a  su- 
perior." It  is  applied  alike  to  the  offerings  of  Cain  and  Abel,  as  a  general 
name  for  a  sacrifice.^** 

In  the  law  of  Moses,  it  signifies  an  offering  of  corn,  usually  in  the  form  of 
flour,  with  oil  and  frankincense,  the  quantities  varying  for  a  lamb,  a  ram,  or 
a  bullock.  It  was  sometimes  made  with  the  oil  into  cakes  or  wafers,  which 
must  be  free  from  leaven  and  honey.  A  special  form  of  meat-offering  was 
that  of  the  first-fruits  of  corn  in  the  ear,  parched  and  bruised.  All  meat-offer- 
ings were  to  be  seasoned  with  "  the  salt  of 'the  covenant,"  as  a  sign  of  incor- 
ruptness,  and  of  the  savor  of  earnest  piety.  ^^  A  portion  of  the  meat-offering 
and  of  the  oil  was  burnt  by  the  priest  upon  the  altar  cf  burnt-offering,  with 
all  the  frankincense ;  and  the  rest  belonged  to  the  priests,  who  must  eat  it 
without  leaven  beside  the  altar,  as  "  a  thing  most  holy  of  the  offerings  of 
Jehovah  made  by  fire."^"  The  meat-offerings  of  the  priests  themselves 
were  to  be  wholly  burnt.     The  drink-offerings  of  the  daily  and  special  sac- 


•7  Ex.  xxix.  3S-42;    Lev.  i.,  vi.  8-13,  ix. 
12-14  ;  Numb.  xv.     s  Numb,  xxviii.  &-10. 
»  xxviii.  11-xxix.  39.     See  §  vi. 
'0  Ex.  xxix.  15;  Lev.  viii.  IS,  ix.  12. 

11  Lev.  xii.  6,  8. 

12  Lev.  xiv.  19,  xv.  15,  30. 
*  Numb.  vi. ;  Acts  xxi.  20. 


i"*  Numb.  XV.  1-3;  comp.  Ps.  IL  19. 

15  Numb.  vii. ;  1  K.  viii.  G4. 

16  1  Chr.  xxix.  10-14. 

17  Gen.  xxxii.  13,  xliii.  11 ;  2  Sam.  viii.  2, 
G.  18  Gen.  iv.  3-5. 

19  Lev.  ii.  13;    Ez-k.  xliii.  24;    Mark  ix. 
43 ;  Col.  iv.  G.  20  Lev.  ii.  3,  x.  12,  13. 


248  The  Peace-offering.  Appendix. 

rifices  were  poured  out  before  Jehovah  in  the  holy  place  ;'^^  and  it  does  not 
appear  that  the  priests  were  ever  permitted  to  partake  of  them.  Indeed,  to 
liave  done  so  would  have  been  a  breach  of  the  prohibition  of  wine  during 
their  service."'^ 

§  6. — III.  The  Peace-offering  was  not  an  atoning  sacrifice  to  make  peace 
Avith  God,  but  a  joyful  celebration  o^ peace  made  through  the  covenant.  In 
this  part  of  the  ritual,  more  than  in  any  other,  we  sec  Jehovah  present  in 
Ills  house,  inviting  the  worshiper  to  feast  iclth  Him.  Peace-offerings  were 
l)resented  either  as  a  thajihsqiviiuj,  or  in  fulfillment  of  a  vow,  or  as  a  free-will 
offering  of  love  and  joy.  They  were  of  the  flock  or  the  herd,  like  the  burnt- 
otferings,  but  they  might  be  male  or  female.  They  were  slain  with  the 
same  ceremonies  as  the  burnt-offering ;  but  only  a  part  was  burnt  upon  the 
altar,  namely,  all  the  fat,  the  kidneys,  the  caul  or  midriff,  and,  in  the  case 
of  a  lamb,  the  rump.  These  parts  formed,  according  to  Oriental  tastes,  the 
delicacies  of  the  feast,  and  therefore  they  were  offered  to  Jehovali ;  and  they 
are  emphatically  called  His  bread.'^^  The  breast  and  the  shoulder  were  the 
portion  of  the  priests,  who  might  eat  them  in  any  clean  place  with  their 
sons  and  daughters.  They  were  called  the  wave-breast  and  the  lieave-shmil- 
der,  from  the  motions  made  in  offering  them  before  Jehovah,  The  priest 
also  took  one  of  the  unleavened  cakes  or  leavened  loaves,  which  were  of- 
fered as  a  meat-offering  with  the  peace-offering,  having  first  heaved  it  be- 
fore God.  These  motions  seem  to  indicate  the  joy  of  a  feast ;  and  Avith  joy 
the  worshiper  was  to  eat  the  rest  of  the  flesh  of  the  sacrifice  and  the  bread 
of  the  meat-offering,  under  certain  restrictions,  to  insure  ceremonial  pu- 
rity.^^ 

Peace-offerings  might  be  brought  at  any  time  ;  but  they  were  prescribed 
on  the  following  occasions  :  at  the  consecration  of  priests ;  the  dedication  of 
the  Tabernacle  ;  the  purification  of  a  leper;  and  the  expiration  of  a  Naza- 
rite's  vow.-^ 

§  7. — IV.  The  Sin-offering  was  an  expiatory  sacrifice  for  sins  of  igno- 
rance, committed  either  by  a  priest,  unconsciously  contracting  sins  from  the 
people  in  his  office;  or  by  the  congregation,  incurring  the  displeasure  of  Je- 
hovah for  a  reason  not  discoA'ered  ;  or  by  a  ruler,  ignorantly  transgressing 
any  of  God's  laws  ;  or  by  one  of  {he  people,  finding  that  he  had  unintention- 
ally been  guilty  of  any  sin  ;  and  also  as  a  purification  from  possible  sin  and 
uucleanness  in  general.  For  each  of  these  cases  special  victims  were  to  be 
offered  with  special  ceremonies.^''  The  most  important  of  these  were,  in  the 
two  former  cases,  the  sprinkling  of  the  blood  seven  times  before  the  veil,  and 
placing  it  on  the  horns  of  the  altar  and  burning  the  flesh  of  the  victim  with- 
out the  camp— a  type  of  Christ's' suffering  without  the  gate  for  the  people's 
sin.  The  flesh  of  the  other  sin-offerings  belonged  to  the  priests  :  in  all  cases 
the  fat  was  burnt  on  the  altar.  Sin-offerings  formed  a  part  of  all  great  so- 
lemnities, especially  on  the  day  of  atonement.  They  were  also  offered  at 
the  purification  of  a  leper,  or  of  a  woman  after  child-birth.     In  the  latJer 

21  Num.  ixviii.  7,  etc.  passages  may  refer  to  tlie  shew-bread,  but 

22  Deut.  xxxii.  38  ;  where  to  drink  drink-    tliey  seem  rather  to  allude  to  tlie  peace-offer- 


offerings  is  a  mark  of  idohitrons  worsliip 
coupled  -nitl:  eating  tlie  fat  of  sacrifices^ 
which  was  forbidden  to  the  Jews. 

23  Ezek.  xliv.  7;  corap.  Lev.  xxi.  6,  8,  17, 
22,  xxii.  25 ;  Mai.  i.  7,  12.     Somo  of  these 


ing-. 

2'i  The  eating  of  blood  or  fut  was  most 
strictly  forbidden. 

25  Lev.  iii.,  vii.  11-34,  ix.  18-21,  x.  12-15. 

29  Lev.  iv.,  vL  24-30. 


Sect.  IV.  Oblations.  249 

case,  the  oifering  was  a  lamb,  or  for  the  poor,  a  pair  of  turtle-doves  or  pig- 
eons, one  for  the  burnt-offering  and  one  for  the  sin-offering."^ 

§  8. — V.  Trespass-offerings,  for  sins  committed  knowingly,  as  well  as 
for  acts  of  ceremonial  uncleanness,  are  not  very  clearly  distinguished  from 
sin-offerings.  The  chief  difference  of  form,^**  besides  some  points  in  the  cer- 
emonial, was  that  they  were  offered  only  for  individuals.  As  to  spirit  and 
motive,  the  distinction  seems  to  be  that  sins  committed  in  rashness,  as  by  an 
oath,  or  in  ignorance  of  a  law  that  ought  to  have  been  known,  came  under 
the  head  o( trespass:  "  Though  he  wish  it  not,  yet  he  is  guilty,  and  shall  bear 
his  iniquity. "^'*  The  chief  offenses  which  required  trespass-offerings  were, 
keeping  back  evidence,  touching  unclean  things,  swearing  rash  oaths,  sins  in 
holy  things,  violation  of  trust,  and  some  others.  In  every  case  of  injury  to 
property,  the  offering  must  be  accompanied  with  restitution  to  the  whole 
value,  and  one-fifth  in  addition.^ 

§  9. — VI.  Oblations  are  not  clearly  distinguished  from  those  sacrifices 
which  were  in  the  nature  of  (/Ifts ,-  but  some  of  them  require  to  be  mention- 
ed separately  : — 

(1.)  The  Shew-hread  and  Incense,  which  were  perpetually  offered  in  the 
Holy  Place.     (See  above.) 

(2.)  Free  Oblations^  the  fruits  of  vows  and  promises. 

(3.)  Prescribed  Oblations,  namely — (a.)  The  First-fruits  of  corn,  which 
were  offered  on  the  Day  of  Pentecost,  and  of  wine,  oil,  and  wool.  These  were 
the  perquisites  of  the  priests.  (/3.)  The  First-born  of  man  and  beast,  which 
were  redeemed,  at  first  by  exchange  against  the  Levites,  and  afterward  by  a 
payment  of  five  shekels  per  head ;  but  the  firstlings  of  clean  animals,  the 
cow,  sheep,  or  goat,  were  unredeemable,  and  were  offered  in  sacrifice  in  the 
same  manner  as  a  peace-offering,  (y.)  Tithes  of  the  produce  of  the  land: 
ihQ  first  annually,  the  secont/ every  three  years  for  the  Levites,  and  the  third 
for  the  poor. 


27  This  was  the  sacrifice  brought  by  Jo- 
seph and  Mary  after  the  bu-th  of  Jesus. 
Luke  il.  24. 

"*  The  poor  might  substitute  flour,  without 
a»  Lev.  V.  17. 

L2 


oil  or  frankincense,  for  tlie  two  turtle-doves 
or  pigeons  of  the  sin-offenng,  so  as  to  leave 
no  excuse  for  neglecting  the  sacrifice.  Lev. 
V.  11-13. 

30  Lev.  v.,  Tu  1-7,  vii,  1-10. 


250 


Laws  of  Personal  Consecration. 


Appendix. 


SECTION  V. 


THE  HOLINESS  OF  THE  PEOPLE. 


5  1.  The  principle  of  the  holiness  of  the  people.  5  2.  Circumcision.  §  3.  Dedication  of 
the  first-born.  §4.  rersonal  purity.  §5.  Provisions  for  purification.  §6.  Clean  and 
unclean  animals.  §  7.  Law  against  personal  disfigurement.  §  S.  Provisions  for  the 
poor.     §  9.  To  enforce  humanity. 

§  1.  The  holiness  of  the  people,  as  the  children  of  God,  His  "  saints  who 
had  made  a  covenant  with  Him  by  sacrifice,"  was  a  principle  as  sacred  as 
the  consecration  of  the  priests.^  They,  like  the  children  of  the  New  Cove- 
nant, were  "a  chosen  generation,  a  royal  priesthood,  an  holy  nation,  a  pecnl- 
iar  people,"  the  purchased  possession  of  Jehovah;-  and  for  both  there  was 
the  same  simple  law:  "Be  ye  Holy,  for  I  am  Holy."^  This  principle, 
^Vora  which  Paul  so  often  deduces  the  spiritual  law  of  the  complete  devotion 
of  the  whole  nature  to  God's  service,  was  enforced  upon  the  Jews  by  cere- 
monies and  restrictions  reaching  to  every  detail  of  their  daily  lives.  It  is 
the  central  subject  of  the  Book  of  Leviticus,*  which  gradually  rises  from  the 
huvs  of  sacrifice  to  the  assertion  and  development  of  the  holiness  and  purity 
of  the  people,  in  person,  act,  speech,  and  property. 

The  following  institutions  were  founded  on  this  principle : — 

§  2.  Circumcision  is  only  enjoined  in  one  passage  of  the  law  of  Moses.' 
It  had  already  been  fully  established,  and  Moses  alludes  to  its  spiritual  sense, 
the  circumcision  of  the  heart,  in  language  similar  to  that  of  Paul.^  The 
words  of  Christ,  "Moses  gave  you  circumcision,  not  because  it  is  of  Moses, 
but  of  the  fathers,""  refer  to  the  full  account  of  the  institution  in  the  Book 
of  Genesis,  which  rendered  its  repetition  in  the  later  books  unnecessary. 

§  3.  The  Dedication  of  the  First-horn^  of  men  and  beasts,  and  the  offering 
of  the  First-fimits  of  all  produce.^ 

§  4.  The  Preservation  of  Personal  Purity,  especially  by  the  strict  laws 
against  all  unnatural  marriages  and  lusts,  and  against  fornication  and  pros- 
titution.^" The  law  of  Moses,  like  that  of  Christ,  takes  cognizance  of  sins 
against  a  man's  oion  self  and  that  not  so  much  in  the  light  of  self-interest, 
or  even  of  self-respect,  but  from  that  principle  of  holiness  to  God  which  is  so 
emphatically  laid  down  by  the  Apostle  Paul." 

§  5.  Provisions  for  Purification: — (1.)  As  a  religious  ceremonial,  observed 
both  by  priests  and  people  in  divine  worship. ^^  (2.)  From  personal  unclean- 
ness."  (3.)  From  leprosy,  in  persons,  clothes,  or  liouses. "  The  means  of 
purification  were  washing,  the  sprinkling  of  blood,  anointing  with  oil,  and 


1  P?.  1.  5 ;  comp.  Ex.  xxiv.  2-S. 

2  I  Pet.  ii.  9 ;   comp.  Ex.  xix.  5,  G ;   Deut. 
iv.  2ft,  vii.  6,  X.  15,  xiv.  2,  xxvi.  18,  19. 

3  Lev.  xi.  44,  xix.  2,  xx.  7  ;  1  Pet.  i.  14- 
16. 

4  Lev.  xi.-xviii.  ^  Lev.  xii.  3. 

e  Deut.  X.  IG,  xxx.  C ;   Kom.  ii.  25-29 ;   1 
Cor.  Tii.  19.  '  John  vii.  22. 


f  Ex.  xiii.  2, 12, 13,  xxii.  29,  30. 
9  Deut.  xxvi.  1-11. 

10  IjCV.  xviii.  xix.  29,  xx. ;  Deut.  xxiii.  7. 

11  Rom.  vi.  14-20. 

12  Num.  xix. ;  Lev.  viii. 

13  Lev.  xi.  xiL  xv. ;  Num.  xix. 

14  Lev.  xiii.     On  Leprosy,  see  Notes  and 
Illustratioms. 


Sect.  IV.  Provisions  for  the  Poor.  251 

the  lustration  by  the  ashes  of  the  red  heifer. ^^  In  some  cases,  as  in  leprosy, 
unclean  persons  were  shut  out  from  the  camp.^^ 

§  6,  The  distinction  between  Cletm  and  Unclean  Animals  for  food  as  well 
as  sacrifice.  Unclean  animals  were  those  strangled,  or  which  had  died  a  nat- 
ural death,  or  had  been  killed  by  beasts  or  birds  of  prey  ;  whatever  beast 
did  not  both  part  the  hoof  and  chew  the  cud  ;  and  certain  other  smaller  an- 
imals rated  as  "  creeping  things ;"  certain  classes  of  birds  mentioned  in 
Lev.  xi.  and  Deut.  xiv.,  twenty  or  twenty-one  in  all ;  whatever  in  the  waters 
had  not  both  fins  and  scales ;  whatever  winged  insect  had  not,  besides  four 
legs,  the  two  hind-legs  for  leaping ;  besides  things  offered  in  sacrifice  to  idols  ; 
and  all  blood,  or  whatever  contained  it ;  as  also  all  fat,  at  any  rate  that  dis- 
posed in  masses  among  the  intestines,  and  probably  wherever  discernible  and 
separable  among  the  flesh."  The  eating  of  blood  was  prohibited  even  to 
*'  the  stranger  that  sojourneth  among  you."^"  The  fat  was  claimed  as  a, 
burnt-offering,  and  the  blood  enjoyed  the  highest  sacrificial  esteem.  In  the 
two  combined  the  entire  victim  was  by  representation  offered,  and  to  transfer 
either  to  human  use  was  to  deal  presumptuously  with  the  most  holy  things. 
But  besides  this,  the  blood  was  esteemed  as  "  the  life"  of  the  creature,  and 
a  mysterious  sanctity  beyond  the  sacrificial  relation  thereby  attached  to  it. 
Hence  we  read,  "Whatsoever  soul  it  be  that  eateth  any  manner  of  blood, 
even  that  soul  shall  be  cut  off  from  his  people."^''  Whereas  the  offender  in 
other  dietary  respects  was  merely  "uncleain  until  even.''^*"  Sanitary  rea- 
sons have  been  sought  for  these  laws  f^  and  there  may  be  something  in  this 
view,  though  their  first  signification  was  religious.  Under  the  New  Cove- 
nant, the  first  lesson  that  was  taught  Peter,  as  a  preparation  of  preaching 
the  Gospel  to  Gentile  proselytes,  was  "  not  to  call  any  thing  common  or  un- 
clean."^^  On  the  other  hand,  the  apostles  and  the  primitive  Church  extend- 
ed to  Gentile  converts  the  restriction  from  eating  blood  and  things  strangled,^* 
apparently  as  a  precaution  against  their  taking  part  in  heathen  festivals,  just 
as  they  were  recommended  by  Paul  to  abstain  from  things  offered  to  idols. ^ 
To  make  these  restrictions  a  part  of  the  permanent  law  of  Christianity  is  op- 
posed to  the  whole  spirit  of  the  Gospel. 

§  7.  The  Laius  against  Personal  Disfigurement^  by  shaving  the  head  and 
cutting  the  flesh,  especially  as  an  act  of  mourning,  have  also  reference  to 
the  customs  of  the  heathen."*  The  humane  restriction  on  the  number  of 
stripes  that  might  be  inflicted  was  designed  to  prevent  a  man's  degradation 
in  the  eyes  of  his  brethren.^" 

§  8.  The  Provisions  for  the  Poor^  regarded  as  brethren  in  the  common 
bond  of  the  covenant  of  God.  Gleanings  in  the  field  and  vineyard  were  their 
legal  right  :^^  slight  trespass  was  allowed,  such  as  plucking  corn^**  while  pass- 
ing thi-ough  a  field,  pi'ovided  that  it  was  eaten  on  the  spot;  the  second  tithe 
was  to  be  bestowed  partly  in  charity  ;^  ivages  were  to  be  paid  day  by  day  ;^ 


15  Numb.  xix.  le  Num.  xii.  15. 

17  Lev.  iii.  14-17,  vii.  23. 

18  Lev.  xvii.  10, 12, 13,  14, 

I'*  Lev.  vii.  27,  comp.  xvii.  10, 14. 

20  Lev.  xi.  40,  xvii.  15. 

*i  We  have  not  tlious^ht  it  necessary  to 
discuss  the  now  exploded  view,  which  based 
a  large  part  of  tiie  Mosaic  law  on  similar 
grounds  of  expediency. 

22  Acta  X.  I'-IG,  28 ;  comp.  1.  Tim.  iv.  4. 


23  Acts  XV.  20,  29.  The  phrase  "pollu- 
tions of  idols,"  may  be  best  takeu  as  includ- 
ing the  specific  prohibitions  that  follow. 

24  1  Cor.  viii. 

25  Lev.  xix.  27,  28,  xxi.  5;  Deut.  xiv.  1,  2. 
28  Deut.  XXV.  3. 

27  Lev.  xix.  9, 10;  Deut.  xxiv.  19-22. 

28  Deut.  xxiii.  24,  25. 

29  ])eut.  xiv.  22-28. 
so  Deut.  xxiv.  15. 


252 


General  Laics  of  Humanity. 


Appendix. 


loans  might  not  be  refused,  nor  usury  taken  from  an  IsraeWtef^  pledges  must 
not  be  insolently  or  ruinously  exacted  f^  no  favor  must  be  shown  between 
rich  and  poor  in  dispensing  j'ws^ice;^^  and  besides  all  this,  there  are  the  most 
urgent  injunctions  to  kindness  to  the  poor,  the  widow  and  the  orphan,  and  the 
strongest  denunciations  of  all  oppression. ^^ 

§  9.  The  care  taken  to  enforce  hvmanity  in  general  may  be  regarded  as 
an  extension  of  the  same  principle  ;  for  the  truest  motive  to  humanity  is  the 
constant  sense  of  man's  relation  to  his  Heavenly  Maker,  Father,  and  Master. 
For  example,  the  state  of  slavery  was  mitigated  by  the  law  that  death  under 
chastisement  was  punishable,  and  that  maiming  at  once  gave  liberty. ^^  Fu- 
gitive slaves  from  foreign  nations  were  not  to  be  given  up  ;^^  and  stealing  and 
selling  a  man  was  punished  with  death. ^^  The  law  even  "cared  for  oxen," 
declaring,  "Thou  shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox  when  he  treadeth  out  the  corn."^^ 
It  went  further,  and  provided  against  that  abominable  law  of  our  corrupt 
nature,  which  finds  pleasure  in  wanton  cruelty,  adding  such  precepts  as  those 
which  forbade  the  parent  bird  to  be  captured  with  its  young, ^^  or  the  kid  to  be 
boiled  in  its  mother's  milk.^° 

The  institutions  of  the  Sabbatic  Year  and  the  Year  of  Jubilee  were  a  great 
public  homage  to  the  principle,  that  both  the  people  and  their  property  were 
sacred  to  Jehovah  ;  but  they  may  be  most  fitly  described  under  the  next 
head  of  Sacred  Seasons.  Indeed,  if  we  were  to  carry  out  the  principle  to 
all  its  consequences,  it  might  include  the  whole  civil  and  criminal  law. 

But  what  strictly  belongs  to  this  head  must  not  be  dismissed  without  no- 
ticing the  constant  perversion  of  the  idea  of  personal  and  national  sanctity 
by  the  Jews  in  all  their  after  history.  They  forgot  the  duty  of  purity  to- 
ward God  in  the  pride  of  superiority  over  other  men,  and  became  exclusive 
instead  of  truly  holy.  And  just  as  their  holiness  was  the  type  of  Christian 
dedication  to  God,  so  is  there  the  danger  of  our  following  their  great  mistake, 
especially  by  looking  at  the  Old  Testament  otherwise  than  in  the  light  of  the 
New. 


31  Ex.  xxii.  25-27;  Dent,  xxiii.  19,  20. 

32  Deut.  xxiv,  6,  10-13,  IT,  18. 

33  Ex.  XX.  2,  3 ;  Lev.  xix.  15. 
*4  Deut.  XV.  I-ll,  etc. 


35  Ex.  XXI.  20,  26, 27.     36  Deut.  xxui.  15. 
37  Ex.  xxi.  16. 

3s  Dent.  XXV.  4 ;  comp.  1  Cor.  ix.  9  ;  1  Tim. 
T.  18.     39  Deut.  xxii,  6,  7.    «<>  Ex.  xxiii.  41. 


Sect.  IV. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


253 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTKATIONS. 


LEPROSY. 

The  predominant  and  characteristic 
form  of  leprosy  in  Scripture  is  a  white 
variety,  covering  either  the  entire 
body  or  a  large  tract  of  its  surface  ; 
which  has  obtained  the  name  of  lepra 
Mosaica.  Such  were  the  cases  of 
Moses,  Miriam,  Naaman,  and  Gehazi 
(Ex.  iv.  6  ;  Num.  xii.  10  ;  2  Kings  v. 
1,  27;  comp.  Levit.  xiii.  13).  The 
Egyptian  bondage,  with  its  studied 
degradations  and  privations,  and  es- 
pecially the  work  of  the  kiln  under  an 
Egyptian  sun,  must  have  had  a  fright- 
ful tendency  to  generate  this  class  of 
disorders ;  hence  Manetho  asserts  that 


the  Egyptians  drove  out  the  Israelites 
as  infected  with  leprosy — a  strange 
reflex,  perhaps,  of  the  Mosaic  narra- 
tive of  the  "plagues"  of  Egypt,  yet 
probably  also  containing  a  germ  of 
truth.  The  principal  morbid  features 
mentioned  in  Leviticus  are  a  rising 
or  swelling,  a  scab  or  baldness,  and  a 
bright  or  white  spot  (xiii.  2).  But 
especially  a  white  swelling  in  the  skin, 
with  a  change  of  the  hair  of  the  part 
from  the  natural  black  to  white  or  yel- 
low (3,  10,  4,  20,  25,  30),  or  an  ap- 
pearance of  a  taint  going  "deeper 
than  the  skin,"  or  again,  "raw  flesh" 
appearing  in  the  swelling  (10, 14,  15);. 
were  critical  signs  of  pollution. 


25i  Sahhatlc   Festivals.  Appendix 


SECTION  VI. 

THE   SACRED  SEASONS. 

»  1.  Classification  of  the  festivals.  §  2._L  Festivals  conmected  -with  the  Sabbath— The 
Sabbath.  §  3.  J'east  of  the  New  Moon.  §  4.  The  Sabbatical  Month  and  Feast  ol 
Trumpets.  §  5.  The  Sabbatical  Year.  §  ff.  The  Year  of  Jubilee.  §7. — II.  The  Tubeb 
Gkeat  Historical  Festivals— Their  general  characteristics.  §  8.  U'lie  Passover — 
Difference  between  the  Egvptian  and  tlie  Perpetual  Passover.  §  9.  Order  of  tlie  observ- 
ance of  the  Passover.  §  10.  Further  details.  §  11.  The  Feast  of  Pentecost.  5  12.  Tiie 
Feast  of  Tabernacles.  §  13.— III.  The  Day  of  Atonement.  §  14.  Festivals  afteb 
THE  Captivity- The  Feast  of  Purim.     §  15.  The  Feast  of  Dedication. 

§  I.  The  religious  times  ordained  in  the  law  fall  under  three  heads  :  — 

I.  Those  connected  with  the  institution  of  the  Sabbath — namely, 

1.  The  weekly  Sabbath  itself. 

2.  The  Feast  of  the  New  Moon. 

3.  The  Sabbatical  JNIonth  and  the  Feast  of  Trumpets. 

4.  The  Sabbatical  Year. 

5.  The  Year  of  Jubilee. 

II.  The  Three  Great  Historical  Festivals — namely, 

1.  The  Passover. 

2.  The  Feast  of  Pentecost. 

3.  The  Feast  of  Tabernacles. 

III.  The  Day  of  Atonement. 

To  these  must  be  added  IV.,  the  festivals  established  after  the  Captivity 
— namely, 

1 .  The  Feast  of  Purim  of  Lots. 

2.  The  Feast  of  Dedication. 

I. — Festivals  connected  with  the  Sabbath. 
§  2.  (1.)  The  Sabbath  is  so  named  from  a  word  signifying  rest.  The  con- 
secration of  the  Sabbath  was  coeA-al  with  the  Creation  ;  for  on  no  principle 
of  sound  criticism  can  the  narrative  of  the  Creation  be  severed  from  its  con- 
cluding words:  "And  God  blessed  the  seventh  day,  and  sanctified  it;  be- 
cause that  in  it  he  had  rested  from  all  His  work,  which  God  created  and 
made,"^  The  opinion,  that  these  words  arc  an  anticipatory  reference  to  the 
Fourth  Commandment,  can  only  have  arisen  from  the  error  of  regarding  the 
law  of  Sinai  as  altogether  new.  The  only  argument  in  support  of  that 
opinion  is  the  absence  of  any  record  of  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath  be- 
tween the  Creation  and  the  Exodus.  It  might  just  as  well  be  said  that  the 
Fourth  Commandment  was  not  of  immediate  application,  since  the  Sabbath 
is  not  mentioned  from  Moses  to  David.  But  this  is  just  in  accordance  with 
the  plan  of  the  Scripture  narrative,  in  which  regular  and  ordinary  events 
are  unnoticed.  The  same  is  true  of  circumcision,  which  is  not  mentioned 
after  its  first  institution,  not  even  in  the  case  of  Isaac,  till  the  time  of  Moses ; 
but  its  observance  by  the  patriarchs  is  implied  by  their  imposing  it  on  the 
Shechemites.^     So  likewise  the  celebration  of  sacrifice  is  only  mentioned  on 

»  Gap.  ii.  3.  2  Gen.  xxxiv.  13. 


Sect.  VI.  The  Sahhath.  255 

a  few  special  occasions.  And  so  with  the  Sabbath  :  there  are  not  wanting 
indirect  evidences  of  its  observance,  as  the  intervals  between  Noah's  sending 
forth  the  birds  out  of  the  ark,  an  act  naturally  associated  with  the  weekly 
service,^  and  in  the  iceek  of  a  wedding  celebration  ;*  but,  when  a  special  oc- 
casion arises,  in  connection  with  the  prohibition  against  gathering  manna 
on  the  Sabbath,  the  institution  is  mentioned  as  one  already  known.^  And 
that  this  was  especially  one  of  the  institutions  adopted  by  Moses  from  the 
ancient  patriarchal  usage,  is  implied  in  the  very  words  of  the  law,  "  Remember 
the  Sabbath  day,  to  keep  it  holy."  But  even  if  such  evidence  were  wanting, 
the  reason  of  the  institution  would  be  a  sufficient  proof.  It  was  to  be  a  joyful 
celebration  of  God's  completion  of  His  creation:  and,  "when  the  morning 
stars  sang  together,  and  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy"  at  only  witnessing 
the  work,  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  new-made  man  himself  postponed  his 
joy  and  worship  for  twenty-five  centuries?  It  has  indeed  been  said  that 
Moses  gives  quite  a  different  reason  for  the  institution  of  the  Sabbath,  as  a 
memorial  of  the  deliverance  from  Egyptian  bondage.*'  As  if  Moses,  in  his 
repetition  of  the  law,  had  forgotten  the  reason  given  by  God  himself  from 
Sinai.''  The  words  added  in  Deuteronomy  are  a  special  motive  for  the  joy 
with  which  the  Sabbath  should  be  celebrated,  and  for  the  kindness  which 
extended  its  blessings  to  the  slave  and  beast  of  burden  as  well  as  the  master : 
"  that  thy  man-servant  and  thy  maid-servant  may  rest  as  well  as  tJiou."^  These 
attempts  to  limit  the  ordinance  proceed  from  an  entire  misconception  of  its 
spirit,  as  if  it  were  a  season  of  stern  privation  rather  than  of  special  privi- 
lege. But,  in  truth,  the  prohibition  of  work  is  only  subsidiary  to  the  positive 
idea  of  joyful  rest  and  recreation,  in  communion  with  Jehovah,  who  himself 
"rested  and  was  refreshed.'"^  It  was  to  be  a  sacred  ])ause  in  the  ordinary 
labor  by  which  man  earns  his  bread  ;  the  curse  of  the  fall  was  to  be  suspended 
for  one  day ;  and,  having  spent  that  day  in  joyful  remembrance  of  God's 
mercies,  man  had  afresh  start  in  his  course  of  labor.  AVhen  God  sanctified 
the  day  He  blessed  it ;  made  it  happy  when  He  made  it  holy ,-  and  the  practi- 
cal difficulty  in  realizing  this  union  arises,  on  the  one  hand,  from  seeking 
happiness  in  gain,  and  on  the  other  from  confounding  recreation  with  sinful 
pleasure.  A  great  snare,  too,  has  always  been  hidden  in  the  word  icork,  as 
if  the  commandment  forbade  occupation  and  imposed  idleness.  A  considera- 
tion of  the  spirit  of  the  law  and  of  Christ's  comments  on  it  will  show  that  it 
is  work  for  ivorldly  gain  that  was  to  be  suspended  ;  and  hence  the  restrictive 
clause  is  prefaced  with  the  positive  command:  "Six  davs  shalt  thou  labor, 
and  do  all  thy  work  ;"  for  so  only  could  the  Sabbatic  rest  be  fairly  earned. 
Hence,  too,  the  stress  constantly  laid  on  permitting  the  servant  and  beast 
of  burden  to  share  the  rest,  which  selfishness  would  grudge  to  them.  Thus 
the  spirit  of  the  Sabbath  was^oy,  refreshment,  and  mercy,  arising  from  re- 
membrance of  God's  goodness  as  the  Creator,  and  as  the  deliverer  from 
bondage. 

These  views  are  practically  illustrated  by  the  manner  in  which  the  Israel- 
ites were  to  spend,  and  in  which  the  prophets  afterward  reprove  them  for 

3  Gen.  viii.  7-12.       *  Gen.  xxix.  21,  2S.      1  'Tiro  ''On  the  Names   of  the  Days  of  the 
6  Ex.  xvi.  22-30.     All  tliis  is  confirmed  by    Wpek,"  in  the  "Philological  Museum,"  vol.  i. 

the  great   antiquity  of  the  division  of  timf^        ^  Deut.  v.  15.  ''  Ex.  xx.  11. 

into  weeks,  and  tlie  naming  the  days  after       ^  Deut.  v.  14. 

the  sun,  moon,  and  planets.     See  Archdeacon       "  Ex.  xxxi.  17  ;  comp.  xxiii.  12. 


256 


The  Sahbath. 


Appendix. 


not  spending,  the  Sabbaih  and  the  other  festivals.  The  Sabbath  was  a  per- 
petual si^7i  and  covenant,  and  the  holiness  of  the  day  is  connected  with  the 
lioliness  of  the  people :  *'  That  ye  may  know  that  I  am  Jehovah  that  doth 
sanctify  you."^"  Joij  was  the  key-note  of  their  service.  Moses  declared  that 
a  place  of  sacrifice  should  be  given  them;  "And  there  shall  ye  eat  before 
Jehovah  your  God,  and  ye  shall  rejoice,  ye  and  your  households.""  The 
Psalmists  echo  back  the  same  spirit :  "This  is  the  day  which  Jehovah  hath 
made  ;  we  will  rejoice,  and  be  glad  in  it."^^  Isaiah  reproves  the  fasts  which 
were  kept  with  mere  outward  observance,  in  place  of  acts  of  charity,  by 
j)romising  that  those  who  called  the  Sabbath  a  delight,  and  honored  God  bv 
doing  His  works  in  it,  should  delight  themselves  in  Jehovah. ^^  Nehemiah 
commanded  the  people,  on  a  day  lioly  to  Jehovah,  "  INIourn  not,  nor  weep: 
eat  the  fat,  and  drink  the  sweet,  and  send  portions  to  them  for  wiiom  noth- 
ing is  prepared.'"'* 

The  Sabbatli  is  named  as  a  day  of  special  worship  in  the  sanctuary. ^^  It 
was  proclaimed  as  a  holtj  convocation.^^  The  public  religious  services  con- 
sisted in  the  doubling  of  the  morning  and  evening  sacrifice,  and  the  renew- 
al of  the  shew-bread  in  the  holy  place.  In  later  times  the  worship  of  the 
sanctuary  was  enlivened  by  sacred  music. ^^  On  this  day  the  people  were 
accustomed  to  consult  their  prophets,"  and  to  give  to  their  children  that  in- 
struction in  the  truths  recalled  to  memory  by  the  day,  which  is  so  repeat- 
edly enjoined  as  the  duty  of  parents  ;  it  was  "  the  Sabbath  of  Jehovah,"  not 
only  in  the  sanctuary,  but  "in  all  their  dwellings."^^  It  is  quite  true  that 
we  have  but  little  information  on  this  part  of  the  subject  in  the  Scriptures 
themselves,  but  the  inferences  drawn  from  what  is  told  us,  and  from  the 
character  of  the  day,  are  confiirmed  by  the  testimony  of  later  writers,  and  by 
the  system  of  public  worship  in  the  synagogues,  which  we  find  in  full  opera- 
tion at  the  time  of  Christ. 

The  prohibitory  part  of  the  law  is  general ;  and  the  only  special  cases 
mentioned  relate  to  the  preparation  of  food.  The  manna  was  not  given  on 
the  Sabbath,  but  a  double  supply  was  to  be  gathered  on  the  day  before,^" 
just  as  the  rest  of  the  Sabbatic  year  was  compensated  by  the  extraordinary 
fertility  of  the  year  before.  No  fire  was  to  be  kindled  on  the  Sabbath,  un- 
der the  penalty  of  death, ^*  which  was  inflicted  on  a  man  who  went  out  to 
gather  sticks  on  the  Sabbath."^  Its  observance  is  enjoined  in  the  time  of 
earing  and  harvest,  when  there  vsras  a  special  temptation  to  find  an  excuse 
for  work."  The  habitual  transgression  of  these  laws,  by  priests  as  well  as 
people,  was  denounced  by  the  prophets,  =*  and  excited  the  reforming  zeal  of 
Nehemiah  after  the  Babylonish  Captivity.^^  The  later  Ilabbis  treated  the 
law  as  a  matter  of  subtle  casuistry  ;  proceeding  from  the  general  rule  of  ab- 
staining from  manual  acts  to  the  minute  enumeration  of  the  prohibited  ac- 


10  Ex.  xxxi.  12-17;  F.z.  xx.  12. 

11  Deut.  xii.  7,  xiv.  20,  xvi.  14,  15,  xxvi. 
I. 

12  Pp.  cxviii.  24.  13  jg,  ivii:.  3-14. 
1*  Neh.  viii.  0-13. 

i»  Lev.  xix.  30,  xxvi.  2. 

1*  Lev.  xxiii.  3. 

"  Ps.  Ixv-iii.  25-27,  cl.,  etc. 

i»  2  K.  iv.  23.  1''  Lev.  xxiii.  3. 

20  Ex.  xvi.  22-30:  "See  for  that  Jehovah 


hath  given  you  the  Sabbath,  therefore  He 
giveth  you  on  the  sixth  day  the  bread  of  tuo 
days" —a.  striking  example  of  divine  encour- 
ariement  to  keep  the  day  sacred. 

21  Ex.  XXXV.  2.  3 ;  comp.  xxxi.  14. 

22  Num.  XV.  35;  see  chap.  xiii.  §  12. 

23  Ex,  xxxiv.  21. 

2^  Is.  Ivi.  2,  Iviii.  13  ;  Ez.  xxii.  CC;  comp. 
xliv.  22. 
25  Neh.  xiii.  15-19. 


Sect.  VI.  Feast  of  the  Keiv  Jloon.  257 

tions ;  and  it  was  in  reply  to  objections  based  on  such  rules,  that  Christ 
maintained  the  true  spirit  of  the  law.^^ 

§  3.  (2.)  The  completion  of  the  month  was  observed  by  the  Feast  of  the 
New  Moon.  In  every  nation  which  uses  a  strictly  lunar  calendar,  it  is  nec- 
essary to  have  a  distinct  public  announcement  of  the  beginning  of  each 
month,  whether  it  be  determined  by  an  exact  astronomical  computation  of  the 
time  of  the  moon's  change,  or  by  the  first  sight  of  her  new  crescent.  This 
announcement  was  made  to  Israel  by  the  sounding  of  the  two  sacred  silver 
trumpets.-^  The  day  was  not  kept  as  a  Sabbath,  but,  besides  the  daily  sac- 
rifice, a  burnt-offering  was  made  of  two  bullocks,  a  ram,  and  seven  lambs, 
with  a  meat  and  drink  offering,  and  a  goat  for  a  sin-ofiering.^"  In  later 
times,  the  kings  offered  sacrifices  and  feasted  on  the  new  moon,^^  and  pious 
disciples  chose  this  as  a  stated  period  for  visiting  the  prophets.  ="  The  feast 
seems  to  have  been  gradually  corrupted  by  the  heathen  worship  of  the  moon 
^rself.^'     It  is  one  of  the  feasts  left  by  the  Apostle  to  Christian  liberty. ^^ 

§  4.  (3.)  The  Sabbatical  Month  and  the  Feast  of  Trumpets. — The 
month  of  Tisri,  being  the  seventh  of  the  ecclesiastical,  and  the  first  of  the  civil 
year,  had  a  kind  of  Sabbatic  character  ^^  The  calendar  was  so  arranged  that 
its  first  day  fell  on  a  Sabbath  (that,  no  doubt,  next  after  the  new  moon),  and 
this,  the  civil  Neiv  Yem-'s  Day,  was  ushered  in  by  the  blowing  of  trumpets, 
and  was  called  the  Feast  of  Trumpets.  It  was  a  holy  convocation ;  and  it 
had  its  special  sacrifices,  in  addition  to  those  of  other  new  moons,  namely, 
for  tlie  burnt-offering,  a  young  bullock,  a  ram,  and  seven  lambs,  with  a  meat 
and  drink  offering,  and  a  young  goat  for  a  sin-offering.^  This  month  was 
also  marked  by  the  great  Day  of  Atonement  on  the  tenth,  and  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles,  the  greatest  of  the  whole  year,  which  lasted  from  the  fifteenth 
to  the  twenty-second  of  the  month.  Thus  it  completed  the  Sabbatic  cycle  of 
seven  months,  in  which  all  the  great  festivals  were  kept. 

§  5.  (4.)  The  Sabbatic Ai,  Year. — As  each  seventh  day  and  each  seventh 
month  were  holy,  so  was  each  seventh  year.  It  was  based  on  the  principle 
of  Jehovah's  property  in  the  land,  which  was  therefore  to  keep  its  Sabbath 
to  Him  ;  and  it  was  to  be  a  season  of  rest  for  all,  and  of  especial  kindness  to 
the  poor.  The  land  was  not  to  be  sown,  nor  the  vineyards  and  olive-yards 
dressed ;  and  neither  the  spontaneous  fruits  of  the  soil,  nor  the  produce  of 
the  vine  and  olive,  were  to  be  gathered  ;  but  all  was  to  be  left  for  the  poor, 
the  slave,  the  stranger,  and  the  cattle.^^  The  law  was  accompanied  by  a 
promise  of  treble  fertility  in  the  sixth  year,  the  fruit  of  which  was  to  be  eat- 
en till  the  harvest  sown  in  the  eighth  year  was  reaped  in  the  ninth. ^^  But 
the  people  were  not  debarred  from  other  sources  of  subsistence,  nor  was  the 
rear  to  be  spent  in  idleness.  They  could  fish  and  hunt,  take  care  of  their 
bees  and  flocks,  repair  their  buildings  and  furniture,  and  manufacture  their 


28  Matt.  xii.  1-15;  Mark  iii.  2;  Luke  vi. 
1-5,  xiii.  10-17;  John  v.  2-18,  viL  23,  ix.  1- 

2T  Num.  X.  10;  P?.  Ixxxi.  .S. 

28  Num.  xxviii.  11-14;  1  Chron.  xxiii.  31; 
2  Chr.  ii.  4,  xxxi.  3  ;  Ezra  iii.  5;  Neh.  x.  33  ; 
Ez.  xlvi.  1,  3,  6.        29  1  Sam.  ix.  5,  24-27. 

30  2  K.  iv.  23. 

"  Is.  i.  13, 14;  Ezek.  xlv.  17;  IIos.  ii.  11. 


33  Lev.  xxiii.  24.        **  Num.  xxix.  1-6. 
36  Ex.  xxiii.  10,  11 ;  Lev.  xxv.  1-7 ;  Deut. 

XV. 

38  JjPv.  XXV.  20-22.  From  this  it  would 
PBPm  tlmt  the  year  was  an  ecclesiastical 
yfar,  which  began  at  the  harvest;  for  the 
civil  year,  beginning  on  the  1st  of  Tisri  (Oc- 
tober), would  include  both  seed-time  and  har- 
vest, the  cycle  of  which  would  be  complett 


«2  Col.  ii.  16.  i  withia  the  eighth  year. 


258  The   JTear  of  Jubilee.  Appendix. 

clothing.  Still,  as  an  agricultural  people,  they  would  hare  mutli  leisure ; 
thev  would  observe  the  Sabbatic  spirit  of  the  year  by  using  its  1-jisure  for  ths 
instruction  of  their  families  in  the  law,  and  for  acts  of  devotion.;  and  in  ac- 
cordance with  this  there  was  a  solemn  reading  of  the  law  to  the  people  as- 
sembled at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles."  The  Sabbatic  year  is  also  called  the 
"year  of  release,"  because  in  it  creditors  were  bound  to  release  poor  debt- 
ors from  their  obligations;  with  a  special  injunction  not  to  withhold  a  loan 
because  the  year  of  release  was  near.^*  The  release  of  a  Hebrew  slave  took 
place  likewise,  not  only  in  the  Sabbatic  yeai-,  but  in  the  seventh  year  of  hi^ 
captivity.  ^^ 

The  constant  neglect  of  this  law  from  the  very  first  was  one  of  the  na- 
tional sins  that  were  punished  by  the  Babylonian  Captivity.  Moses  warned 
Israel  of  the  retribution,  that  their  land  should  be  desolate  till  it  had  en- 
joyed its  Sabbaths ;''"  and  the  warning  was  fulfilled  in  the  seventy  years' 
duration  of  the  Captivity .^^ 

§  6.  (5.)  The  Year  of  Jubilee^-  was  every  fiftieth  year,  coming  there- 
fore after  a  Sabbatic  series  of  Sabbatic  years.  The  notion  that  it  was  in  the 
forty-ninth  and  not  the  fiftieth  year,  is  an  assumption  from  the  improbabil- 
ity of  the  land  being  left  untilled  for  two  successive  years  ;  but  it  is  op- 
posed to  the  plain  statement  of  the  law,  which  directs  seven  Sabbaths  of 
years  to  be  counted,  even  forty-nine  years,  and  then  that  the  jubilee  should 
be  proclaimed  by  the  sounding  of  the  trumpet."  Thus  the  Year  of  Jubilee 
completed  each  half-century  ;  and  formed  a  Pentecost  of  years.** 

Its  beginning  is  fixed  for  the  tenth  of  the  seventh  month  (Tisri),  the 
great  Day  of  Atonement.  It  was  doubtless  after  the  sacrifices  of  that  sol- 
emn day  were  ended,  that  the  trumpet  of  jubilee  pealed  forth  its  joyful 
notes,  proclaiming  "liberty  to  the  captive,  and  the  opening  of  the  prison 
door  to  them  that  were  bound."  The  land  was  left  uncultivated,  as  in  the 
Sabbatic  year.  The  possessions  which  poverty  had  compelled  their  owners 
to  alienate  returned  to  the  fiimilies  to  whom  they  had  been  allotted  in  the 
first  division  of  the  Holy  Land.  This  applied  to  fields  and  houses  in  the 
country,  and  to  the  houses  of  Levites  in  the  walled  cities  ;  but  other  houses 
in  such  cities,  if  not  redeemed  within  a  year  from  their  sale,  remained  the 
perpetual  property  of  the  buyer.  In  all  transfers  of  property,  the  value 
was  to  be  computed  by  the  number  of  "  years  of  fruits  "  (that  is,  apparently, 
exclusive  of  Sabbatic  years)  till  the  next  Jubilee  :  so  that  what  was  sold  was 
the  possession  of  the  land  for  that  term.  A  property  might  be  redeemed  at 
any  intervening  period,  either  by  its  owner,  or  by  his  nearest  kinsman  (the 
Goel),  at  a  price  fixed  on  the  same  principle.  Land  sanctified  to  Jehovah 
by  the  owner  might  be  redeemed,  at  any  time  before  the  next  Jubilee,  by 
payment  of  one-fifth  in  addition  to  the  estimated  value  of  the  crops ;  but, 
if  not  redeemed  before  the  Jubilee,  it  then  became  devoted  forever.  Land 
sanctified  by  its  owner  after  he  had  sold  it  could  not  be  redeemed  ;  and 
land  devoted  by  the  purchaser  returned  at  the  Jubilee  to  the  owner. ''^     The 


S7  Deut.  xxxi.  10-13.       88  Dent.  xv.  1-11. 

39  Dent.  XV.  12-1S.        40  j^gv.  xxvi.  32-35. 

41  2  (Jhron.  xxxvi.  21.  Of  the  observance 
of  the  Sahljatic  jear  after  tlie  Captivity  we 
have  a  proof  in  1  Mace.  vL  53 


*2  The  vord  is  of  uncertain  origin.  Tlie 
most  probable  explanation  refers  it  to  the 
rin«:inf^  sound  of  the  trumpet  of  jubilee. 

43  Lev.  XXV.  8. 

44  (:omi).  Lev.  xxiii.  15,  16,  and  xxv.  S-10. 


45  Lev.  xxvii.  19-24. 


Sect.  VL 


TJie  Three  Historical  Festivals. 


259 


whole  institution  was  based  on  the  principle  that  the  land  was  God's,  who 
granted  to  each  family  its  own  portion.*^  It  was  a  practical  solution  of  the 
most  perplexing  questions  concerning  the  right  of  property  in  the  land,  and 
a  safeguard  against  its  accumulation  in  the  hands  of  great  proprietors. 

All  Hebrew  slaves,  whether  to  their  brethren  or  to  resident  foreigners, 
were  set  free  in  the  Year  of  Jubilee.  This  applied  alike  to  those  who  had 
fallen  into  servitude  since  the  last  Sabbatic  year,  and  to  those  who  had 
chosen  to  remain  in  servitude  by  the  ceremony  of  boring  the  ear.'*^  Pro- 
vision was  made  for  the  redemption  of  the  slave  meanwhile  in  a  manner 
similar  to  that  of  the  redemption  of  the  land.  Thus,  as  in  the  restitution 
of  the  land,  the  principle  was  asserted,  that  the  people  were  Jehovah's  only, 
his  servants  redeemed  from  Egypt,  and  incapable  therefore  of  becoming 
bondmen  to  any  one  but  him.^'* 

It  has  been  asserted  that  debts  were  remitted  in  the  Year  of  Jubilee, ^^  and 
some  go  so  far  as  to  maintain  that  the  remission  in  the  Sabbatic  year  was 
merely  a  suspension  of  their  exaction.^"  But  the  Mosaic  law  plainly  states 
that  debts  were  remitted  in  the  Sabbatic  year,  and  says  nothing  of  their  re- 
mission at  the  Jubilee. 

The  Jubilee  completed  the  great  Sabbatic  cycle,  at  the  close  of  which,  in 
a  certain  sense,  "all  things  were  made  new."  The  trumpet  which  an- 
nounced it,  immediately  after  the  reconciliation  of  the  people  to  Jehovah 
by  the  atonement,  was  His  voice  proclaiming  the  restoration  of  the  social 
order  which  He  had  at  first  established  in  the  state,  on  the  basis  of  liberty 
and  the  means  of  livelihood  held  from  Himself  But  it  had  a  higher  spiritual 
meaning,  often  alluded  to  by  the  prophets,  and  at  length  fulfilled  by  Christ, 
when  he  recited  the  words  ot  Isaiah,  proclaiming  "the  accejdahle  year  of  the 
Lord,  good  tidings  to  the  poor,  healing  to  the  broken-hearted,  deliverance 
to  the  captive,  sight  to  the  blind,  and  liberty  to  the  oppressed  ;  and  added, 
"This  day  is  this  scripture  fulfilled  in  your  ears.""^  But  its  full  comple- 
tion is  reserved  for  the  end  of  time,  when,  at  the  appearance  of  the  new 
heavens  and  earth,  and  of  the  Tabernacle  of  God  with  men,  He  shall  for- 
ever do  away  with  pain  and  sorrow,  and  shall  declare,  "  Behold,  I  make  all 
things  new."^^ 

II.— The  Three  Great  Historical  Festivals.'^ 
§  7.  In  these  the  whole  people  were  united  to  seek  the  face  of  God,  and 
♦o  celebrate  His  mercies.  Thrice  in  the  year,  at  these  feasts,  all  males  were 
required  to  appear  before  Jehovah,  that  is,  at  the  Tabernacle  or  the  Tem- 
ple, not  empty-handed,  but  to  make  an  offering  with  a  joyful  heart. ^^  No 
age  is  prescribed  :  we  find  Jesus  going  up  with  his  parents  to  the  Passover 
at  the  age  of  twelve,  and  Samuel  still  younger.^^  From  the  examples  of 
Hannah  and  Mary,  it  appears  that  devout  women  went  up  to  one  of  the 
annual  festivals.  There  is  no  such  requirement  with  reference  to  the  Day 
of  Atonement ;  but,  viewing  it  as  a  public  reconciliation  of  the  people  with 


<«  Lev.  XXV.  23,  3S  ;  Josli.  xiv,  2. 
*^  Lev.  XXV.  39 ;  Kx.  xxi.  2-C ;   Lev.  xxv. 
40,41.  48  r,ev.  xxv.  42,  55. 

■IS  Joseph.  Ant.  iii.  12,  §  3. 
50  Jahn,  Arch.  Bib.  §  ."49. 
fii  Luke  iv.  18-21.        ^a  Rqv.  xxi.  1-5. 


53  The  Hebrew  name  for  ''festival"  is  de- 
rived from  a  word  signifying  to  dance. 

54  Ex.  xxiii.  14-17,  xxxiv.  23;  Deut.  xvi. 
IG  ;  Deut.  xxvii.  7 ;  Nehera-  viii.  9-12.  They 
are  called  in  the  Talmud  Pilgrimage  Feasts, 

55  Luke  ii.  41 ;  1  Sam.  i.  24. 


260  The  Passover.  Appekd.3:. 

Jehovah,  preparatory  to  their  most  joyful  feast,  it  seems  natural  to  suppose 
that  most  of  those  who  went  up  to  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  would  go  early 
enough  to  be  present  on  the  Day  of  Atonement.  These  periodical  assem- 
blages of  the  people,  including  in  later  times  even  those  who  lived  in  foreign 
countries,^"  were  a  powerful  means  of  preserving  the  unity  of  tiie  nation. 

These  festivals  not  only  commemorated  great  events  in  the  history  of 
Israel,  but  they  had  each  its  significance  in  reference  to  God's  gifts  at  the 
seasons  of  the  year.  The  Passover  marked  the  beginning  of  the  harvest, 
ihc  Pentecost  its  completion,  and  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  the  vintage  and 
tlie  ingathering  of  all  the  fruits  of  the  year.  We  have  here  a  striking  ex- 
ample of  the  foresight  of  the  Mosaic  law  in  providing  for  a  pastoral  people 
festivals  suited  to  their  settled  condition  as  agriculturists  ;  and  they  were 
wisely  arranged,  so  as  not  to  interfere  with  the  labors  of  the  field.  They 
are  connected  with  one  anotiier,  so  as  to  form  one  great  cycle.  The  Pass- 
over is  in  the  first  month  of  the  sacred  year,  followed  by  Pentecost  at  an  in- 
terval of  seven  complete  weeks  ;  and  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  in  the  seventh 
month.  The  days  of  holy  convocation,  including  the  Feast  of  Trumpets 
and  the  Day  of  Atonement,  were  seven  :  two  at  the  Passover,  one  at  the 
Pentecost,  and  two  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles.  There  is  also  a  cycle  in 
their  significance.  At  the  Passover  the  Israelites  commemorated  the  begin- 
ning of  their  history  as  a  nation,  and  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  they 
marked  the  joyful  contrast  between  their  settlement  in  a  fruitful  land  and 
their  wanderings  in  the  wilderness.  So,  in  their  spiritual  sense,  the  Pass- 
over was  signalized  by  the  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb  of  God,  the  beginning  of 
the  Christian's  life,  and  by  Christ's  resurrection,  as  the  first-fruits  of  the 
spiritual  harvest  of  eternal  life ;  Pentecost  by  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit 
and  the  conversion  of  multitudes,  the  earnest  of  tlie  full  spiritual  harvest 
of  the  world  ;  while  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  is  left  as  an  unfulfilled  symbol 
of  the  fnll  fruition  of  eternal  life  in  "  the  rest  that  remaineth  for  the  peo- 
ple of  God." 

§  8.  (1.)  The  Passover,  which  was  the  most  solemn  of  the  three  festivals, 
as  the  memorial  of  the  nation's  birth  and  the  type  of  Christ's  death,  was  kept 
for  seven  days,  from  the  evening  which  closed  the  fourteenth  to  the  end  of  the 
twenty-first  of  the  first  month  of  the  sacred  year,  Abib  or  Nisan  {April).  The 
Paschal  Lamb  was  eaten  on  the  first  evening,  and  unleavened  bread  tlirough- 
out  the  week,  and  the  first  and  last  days  (the  fifteenth  and  twenty-first)  were 
holy  convocations.  We  have  already  noticed  its  first  institution  in  Egypt,^^ 
and  its  second  celebration  before  Sinai. ^^  It  was  slain  in  each  house,  and  its 
blood  was  sprinkled  on  the  door-posts  ;  the  supper  was  eaten  by  all  members 
of  the  family,  clean  and  unclean,  standing  and  in  haste,  and  without  sing- 
ing;  and  there  were  no  days  of  holy  convocation,  from  the  nature  of  the 
case,  though  their  future  observance  was  named  in  the  original  law.^^  But 
in  the  "Perpetual  Passover,"  as  arranged  by  the  law  and  by  later  usage, 
the  Paschal  Lamb  was  selected  any  time  up  to  the  day  of  the  supper  ;""  it 
was  sacrificed  at  the  altar  of  burnt-offering  ;  its  fat  was  burnt,  and  its  blood 
was  sprinkled  on  the  altar ;"  the  supper  was  eaten  only  by  men, ^^  and  they 


«8  Acts  ii.  5-11.  57  See  p.  151. 

***  See  p.  13  I.  Tlie  sitrnificance  of  the 
rassovtr  in  connection  with  the  dedication 
of  the  first-Lorn  has  boen  ah-eady  noticed. 


59  Ex.  xii. 

60  Mark  xiv.  12-16  ;  Luke  xxii.  7-9. 

0^  Deut.  xvi.  1-6;  comp.  2  Chron.  xxx.  17. 
62  Ex.  xxiii.  17  ;  Deut.  xvi.  IG. 


Sect.  VI.  Tlte  Passover.  261 

must  be  ceremonially  clean;"  they  sat  or  reclined  at  the  feast,  which  they 
ate  without  haste, ^*  with  various  interesting  ceremonies,  and  with  the  ac- 
companiment of  the  Hallel,  or  singing  of  Fsalms  cxiii.-cxviii.*'^ 

In  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  chapters  of  Exodus  there  are  not  only  dis- 
tinct references  to  the  observance  of  tlie  festival  in  future  ages/^but  there 
are  several  injunctions  which  were  evidently  not  intended  for  the  first  Pass- 
over, and  which  indeed  could  not  possibly  have  been  observed.  In  tlie  later 
notices  of  the  festival  in  the  books  of  the  law,  there  are  particulars  added 
which  appear  as  modifications  of  the  original  institution.^^  Hence  it  is  not 
without  reason  that  the  Jewish  writers  have  laid  great  stress  on  the  distinc- 
tion between  "the  Egyptian  Passover"  and  "the  Perpetual  Passover." 
The  peculiarities  of  the  Egyptian  Passover,  which  are  pointed  out  by  the 
Jewish  writers,  are,  the  selection  of  the  lamb  on  the  tenth  day  of  the  month, 
the  sprinkling  of  the  blood  on  the  lintels  and  door-posts,  the  use  of  hyssop 
in  sprinkling,  the  haste  in  which  the  meal  was  to  be  eaten,  and  the  restric- 
tion of  the  abstinence  from  unleavened  bread  to  a  single  day.  There  was 
no  command  to  burn  the  fat  on  the  altar,  the  pure  and  impure  all  partook 
of  the  paschal  meal  contrary  to  the  law  afterward  given  ;''^  both  men  and 
women  were  then  required  to  partake,  but  subsequently  the  command  was 
given  only  to  men.*^^  Neither  the  Hallel  nor  any  other  hymn  was  sung,  as 
was  required  in  later  times  in  accordance  with  Is.  xxx.  29 ;  there  were  no 
days  of  holy  convocation,  and  the  lambs  were  not  slain  in  the  consecrated 

§  9.  The  following  was  the  general  order  of  the  observances  of  the  Pass- 
over  in  later  times:— On  the  fourteenth  of  Nisan  every  trace  of  leaven  was 
put  away  from  the  houses,  and  on  the  same  day  every  male  Israelite,  not 
laboring  under  any  bodily  infirmity  or  ceremonial  impurity,  was  command- 
ed to  appear  before  the  Lord  at  the  nntional  sanctuary  with  an  offering  of 
money  in  proportion  to  his  means. ^«  Devout  women  sometimes  attended, 
as  is  proved  bv  the  instances  of  Hannah  and  Mary.^'  As  the  sun  was  set- 
ting, the  lambs  were  slain,  and  the  fat  and  blood  given  to  the  priests.^ 
The'lamb  was  then  roasted  whole,  and  eaten  with  unleavened  bread  and  bit- 
ter herbs  ;  no  portion  of  it  was  to  bo  left  until  the  morning.  The  same 
nifrht  after  the  fifteenth  of  Nisan  had  commenced,  the  fat  was  burned  by 
the  priest,  and  the  blood  sprinkled  on  the  altar."  On  the  fifteenth,  the 
night  being  passed,  there  was  a  holy  convocation,  and  during  that  day  no 
work  might  be  done,  except  the  pa-eparation  of  necessary  food.^"  On  this 
and  the  six  following  davs,  an  offering  in  addition  to  the  daily  sacrifice  was 
made  of  two  voung  bullocks,  a  ram,  and  seven  lambs  of  the  first  year,  with 
meat-offerings,  for  a  burnt-offering,  and  a  goat  for  a  sin-offering.'^  On  the 
sixteenth  of  the  month,  "the  morrow  after  the  Sabbath"  (i.e.,  after  the 
day  of  holy  convocation),  the  first  sheaf  of  harvest  was  offered  and  waved 

5T  Lev.  xxiii.  10-14 ;   Num.  xxviiu  lft-25t 


«3  Num.  ix.  6-14.  Those  who  were  unclean 
or  on  a  journey  were  permitted  to  keep  the 
'•Little  Passover"  a  month  later.  Such  was 
the  Passover  of  Hezekiah  (2  Chr.  xxx.). 

64  Matt.  xxvi.  20 ;  Mark  xiv.  IT ;  Luke 
xxii.  14. 

65  Is.  xxx.  23  ;  Matt.  xxvi.  30;  Mark  xiv. 
26 ;  and  the  Jewish  authorities. 

06  See  Ex.  xii.  2,  14,  17.  24-27,  42,  xiii.  2, 
6,  S-10. 


Dcut.  xvi.  1-6. 
6s  Num.  xviii.  11. 
69  Ex.  xxiii.  17  ;  Dent.  xvi.  16. 
TO  Ex.  xxiii.  15  ;  Deut.  xvi.  16, 17. 
'  1  1  Sam.  i.  7 ;  Luke  ii.  41,  42. 
'-2  Cliron.  xxxv.  5,6. 
•3  2  (Jlivon.  xxx.  16,  xxxv.  11. 
■4  I'lx.  xii.  16. 
'5  Num.  xxviii.  19-23. 


262 


The  Passover. 


Appendix. 


by  the  priest  before  the  Lord,  and  a  mule  lamb  was  offered  as  a  burnt  sacri- 
fice with  a  meat  and  drink  offering.  Nothing  necessarily  distinguished  the 
four  following  days  of  the  festival,  except  the  additional  burnt  and  sin  offer- 
ings, and  the  restraint  from  some  kinds  of  labor.  On  the  seventh  day,  the 
twenty-first  of  Nisan,  there  was  a  holy  convocation,  and  the  day  appears  to 
have  been  one  of  peculiar  solemnity.  As  at  all  the  festivals,  cheerfulness 
was  to  prevail  during  the  whole  week,  and  all  care  was  to  be  laid  aside. ''^ 

§  10.  Such  was  the  general  order  of  this  observance;  but  further  details 
require  notice,  (a.)  2Vie  Paschal  Lamb. — After  the  first  Passover  in  Egypt 
there  is  no  trace  of  the  lamb  having  been  selected  before  it  was  wanted.  In 
later  times,  we  are  certain  that  it  was  sometimes  not  provided  before  the 
fourteenth  of  the  month. ''^  The  law  formally  allowed  the  alternative  of  a 
kid,"** but  a  lamb  was  preferred,  and  was  probably  nearly  always  chosen.  It 
was  to  be  faultless  and  a  male,  in  accordance  with  the  established  estimate 
of  animal  perfection.''^  Either  the  head  of  the  family,  or  any  other  person 
who  was  not  ceremonally  unclean,^  took  it  into  the  court  of  the  Temple  on 
his  shoulders.  As  the  paschal  lamb  could  be  legally  slain,  and  the  blood 
and  fat  offered  only  in  the  national  sanctuary, ^'Mt  of  course  ceased  to  be 
offered  by  the  Jews  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  The  spring  festival 
of  the  modern  Jews  strictly  consists  only  of  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread. 

{b.)  The  Unleavened  Bread. — There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  un- 
leavened bread  eaten  in  the  Passover  and  that  used  on  other  religious  oc- 
casions were  of  the  same  nature.  It  might  be  made  of  wheat,  spelt,  barley, 
oats  or  rye,  but  not  of  rice  or  millet.  It  appears  to  have  been  usually  made 
of  the  finest  wheat  ilonr.  It  was  probably  formed  into  dry,  thin  biscuits, 
not  unlike  those  used  by  the  modern  Jews. 

(c.)  The  Bitter  Herbs  and  the  ASa2<ce.— According  to  the  Mishna,  the  bitter 
herbs^^  might  be  endive,  chicory,  wild  lettuce,  or  nettles.  These  plants 
were  important  articles  of  food  to  the  ancient  Egyptians,  The  sauce,  into 
which  the  herbs,  tlie  bread,  and  the  meat  were  dipped  as  they  were  eaten, *'^ 
is  not  mentioned  in  the  Pentateuch. 

(f/.)  The  Four  Cups  of  Wine. — There  is  no  mention  of  wine  in  connection 
with  the  Passover  in  the  Pentateuch  ;  but  the  Mishna  strictly  enjoins  that 
there  should  never  be  less  than  four  cups  of  it  provided  at  the  paschal  meal 
even  of  the  poorest  Israelite.  Two  of  them  appear  to  be  distinctly  mention- 
ed in  Luke  xxii.  17,  20.  "The  cup  of  blessing"®*  was  probably  the  latter 
one  of  these,  and  is  generally  considered  to  have  been  the  third  of  the  series, 
after  which  a  grace  was  said  ;*^  though  from  the  designation,  '■'cup  of  the 
Hallel,^^  it  may  have  been  the  fourth  and  last  cup. 

(e.)  The  Ilallel. — The  service  of  praise  sung  at  the  Passover  is  not  men- 
tioned in  the  law.  The  name  is  contracted  from  Hallelujah.  It  consisted 
of  the  series  of  Psalms  from  cxiii.  to  cxviii.  The  first  portion,  comprising 
Ps.  cxiii.  and  cxiv.,  was  sung  in  the  early  part  of  the  meal,  and  the  second 
part  after  the  fourth  cup  of  wine.  This  is  supposed  to  have  been  the 
"  hymn  "  sung  by  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles.*" 


'«  Deut.  xxvii.  7. 

''"'  Luke  xxii.  7-9;   Mnrkxiv.  12-16. 

"8  Ex.  xii.  5.  "9  See  Mai.  i.  14. 

fo  2  Chron.  xxx.  17.       ^i  Deut.  xvi.  2. 

82  Ex.  xii.  8. 


88  John  xiii.  20  ;  Matt.  xxvi.  23. 

f 4  1  Cor.  X.  16. 

f5  Comp.  Luke  xxii.  20,  where  it  U  called 

the  cup  after  supper." 

86  Matt.  xxvi.  30;  Mark  xiv.  26. 


Sect.  VI. 


The  Passover. 


263 


(/.)  Mode  and  Order  of  the  Paschal  Meal. — Adopting  as  much  from  Jew- 
ish tradition  as  is  not  inconsistent  or  improbable,  the  following  appears  to 
have  been  the  usual  custom  : — All  work,  except  that  belonging  to  a  few  trades 
connected  with  daily  life,  was  suspended  for  some  hours  before  the  evening 
of  the  fourteenth  Nisan.  It  was  not  lawful  to  eat  any  ordinary  food  after 
midday.  No  male  was  admitted  to  the  table  unless  he  was  circumcised, 
even  if  he  was  the  seed  of  Israel."  Neither,  according  to  the  letter  of  the 
law,  was  any  one  of  either  sex  admitted  who  was  ceremonially  unclean  :^* 
but  this  rule  was  on  special  occasions  liberally  applied.  The  Rabbinists  ex- 
pressly state  that  women  were  permitted,  though  not  commanded,  to  par- 
take ;  but  the  Karaites,  in  more  recent  times,  excluded  all  but  full-grown 
men.  It  was  customary  for  the  number  of  a  party  to  be  not  less  than  ten. 
When  the  meal  was  prepared,  the  family  was  placed  round  the  table,  the 
paterfamilias  taking  a  place  of  honor,  probably  somewhat  raised  above  the 
rest.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  ancient  Hebrews  sat  as  they  were 
accustomed  to  do  at  their  ordinary  meals.  Our  Lord  and  His  Apostles  con- 
formed to  the  usual  custom  of  their  time,  and  reclined. ^^  When  the  party 
was  arranged,  the  first  cup  of  wine  was  filled,  and  a  blessing  was  asked  by 
tlie  head  of  the  family  on  the  feast,  as  well  as  a  special  one  on  the  cup.  The 
bitter  herbs  were  then  placed  on  the  table,  and  a  portion  of  them  eaten,  cither 
with  or  without  the  sauce.  The  unleavened  bread  was  handed  round  next, 
and  afterward  the  lamb  was  placed  on  the  table  in  front  of  the  head  of  tho 
family.  Before  the  lamb  was  eaten  the  second  cup  of  wine  was  filled,  and 
the  son,  in  accordance  with  Ex.  xii.  26,  asked  his  father  the  meaning  of  the 
feast.  In  reply,  an  account  was  given  of  the  sufferings  of  the  Israelites  in 
Egypt,  and  of  their  deliverance,  with  a  particular  explanation  of  Deut.  xxvi. 
5,  and  the  first  part  of  the  HalleP°  was  sung.  This  being  gone  through,  the 
lamb  v/as  carved  and  eaten.  The  third  cup  of  wine  was  poured  out  .«ind 
drunk,  and  soon  afterward  the  fourth.  The  second  part  of  the  HalleP^  was 
then  sung.  A  fifth  wine-cup  appears  to  have  been  occasionally  produced, 
but  perhaps  only  in  later  times.  What  was  termed  the  greater  HalleP^  was 
sung  on  such  occasions.  The  Israelites  who  lived  in  the  country  appear  to 
have  been  accommodated  at  the  feast  by  the  inhabitants  of  Jci-usalem  in 
their  houses,  so  far  as  there  was  room  for  them.^^  Those  who  could  not  bo 
received  into  the  city  encamped  without  the  walls  in  tents,  as  the  pilgrims 
now  do  at  Mecca. 

{g.)  The  first  Sheaf  of  Harvest. — Tlie  oflfering  of  the  Omer,  or  sheaf,  is 
mentioned  nowhere  in  the  law  except  Lev.  xxiii.  10-14.  It  is  there  com- 
manded that  when  the  Israelites  reached  the  land  of  promise,  they  should 
bring,  on  the  sixteenth  of  the  month,  "  the  morrow  after  the  Sabbath  "  {i.  e., 
the  day  of  holy  convocation),^*  the  first  sheaf  of  the  harvest  to  the  priest,  to 
be  waved  by  him  before  the  Lord.  The  sheaf  was  of  barley,  as  being  the 
grain  which  was  first  ripe.*** 

Qi.)  The  Chagigah. — The  daily  sacrifices  are  enumerated  in  the  Pentateuch 


87  Ex.  xii.  48.  88  Num.  ix.  6. 

89  Luke  xxiL  14,  etc.        »"  Pa.  cxiii.  cxiv. 

91  Pi.  cxv.-cxviii. 

5"  Ps.  cxx.-cxxxviii. 

83  Lnke  xxii.  10-12  ;  Mutt.  xxvi.  IS. 


9*  This  sense  of  Sabbath  is  -vrell  establish- 
ed ;  but  the  opinion,  tliat  the  calendar  was 
so  arranged  as  to  make  the  first  of  Nisan, 
and  therefore  tlie  fifteentli,  fall  on  the  weekly 
Sabbath,  deserves  consideration. 


85  2  K.  iv,  42. 


264:  2'he  Pentecost.  Appendix. 

only  in  Num.  xxviii.  19-23,  but  reference  is  made  to  tliem  Lev.  xxiii.  8.  Be- 
sides these  public  ofFvirings,  there  was  another  sort  of  sacrifice  connected  wiili 
the  Passover,  as  well  as  with  tlic  other  great  festivals,  called  in  the  Talmud 
Chagigak,  i.e.,  "festivity,"  It  was  a  voluntary  peace-oftering  made  by  pri- 
vate individuals.  The  victim  might  be  taken  either  from  the  flock  or  the 
herd.  It  miglit  be  either  male  or  female,  but  it  must  be  without  blemish. 
The  offerer  laid  his  hand  upon  its  head,  and  slew  it  at  the  door  of  the  sanc- 
tuary. The  blood  was  sprinkled  on  the  altar,  and  the  fat  of  the  inside,  with 
the  kidneys,  was  burned  by  the  priest.  The  breast  was  given  to  the  priest 
as  a  wave -offering,  and  the  right  shoulder  as  a  heave-oftering.^'^  What  re- 
mained of  the  victim  might  be  eaten  by  the  offerer  and  his  guests  on  the  day 
Qn  which  it  was  slain,  and  on  the  day  following;  but  if  any  portion  was  left 
till  the  third  day  it  was  burned. ^^  The  eating  of  the  Chagigali  was  an  oc- 
casion of  social  festivity  connected  with  the  festivals,  and  especially  with  the 
P.issover. 

{i.)  Release  of  Prisoners. — It  is  a  question  whether  the  release  of  a  pris- 
oner at  the  Passover'^*'  was  a  custom  of  Roman  origin  resembling  what  took 
place  at  the  lectisternium,®^and,  in  later  times,  on  the  birthday  of  an  emper- 
or ;  or  whether  it  was  an  old  Hebrew  usage  belonging  to  the  festival,  which 
Pilate  allowed  the  Jews  to  retain. 

(Jc.)  The  Second,  or  Little  Passover. — When  the  Passover  was  celebrated 
the  second  year  in  the  wilderness,  certain  men  w^ere  prevented  from  keeping 
it,  owing  to  their  being  defiled  by  contact  with  a  dead  body.  Being  thus 
prevented  from  obeying  the  Divine  command,  they  came  anxiously  to  Mo- 
ses to  inquire  what  they  should  do.  He  was  accordingly  instructed  to  in- 
stitute a  second  Passover,  to  be  observed  on  the  fourteenth  of  the  folloAving 
month,  for  the  benefit  of  any  who  had  been  hindered  from  keeping  the  regu- 
lar one  in  Nisan.^^"     The  Talmudists  called  this  the  Little  Passover.^*" 

§  11.  (2.)  The  Pkntecost,^"^  or  Harvest  Feast,  or  Feast  of  Weeks, 
may  be  regarded  as  a  supplement  to  the  Passover;  and  accordingly  its  com- 
mon Jewish  name  is  Asartha,  the  concluding  assembly.  It  lasted'  only  for 
one  day ;  but  the  modern  Jews  extend  it  over  two.  The  people,  having  at 
the  Passover  presented  before  God  the  first  sheaf  of  the  harvest,  departed  to 
their  homes  to  gather  it  in,  and  then  returned  to  keep  the  harvest  feast  be- 
fore Jehovah.  From  the  sixteenth  of  Nisan  seven  weeks  were  reckoned  in- 
clusively, and  the  next  or  fiftieth  day  was  the  Day  of  Pentecost,  which  fell 
on  the  sixth  of  Sivan  (about  the  end  of  il/aj/).  ^°*  The  intervening  period 
included  the  whole  of  the  grain  harvest,  of  which  the  wheat  was  the  latest 
crop.  Its  commencement  is  also  marked  as  from  the  time  when  "thou  be- 
ginnest  to  put  the  sickle  to  the  corn." 

The  Pentecost  was  the  Jewish  harvest  home,  and  the  people  were  espe^ 

»«  I^v.  iii.  1-5,  vii.  29-34.  i  coT.^ing  to  the  Law,  is  discussed  in  the  \\\3r- 

»7  Lev.  vii.  IC-IS.  toiy  of  our  Lord's  life. 

»8  Mjitt.    xxvii.    15;    Mark  xv.  6 ;  Luke  I      102  This  Greek  name  is  not  the  translation 

xxli'.  17;  Jolin  xviii.  ij;).  [  of  any  corresponding  word  in  the  Pentateuch  ; 

°°  Li\%  v.  13.  but  the  later  name  of  the  feast,  which  nat- 


"0  Num.  ix.  11 

101  On  the  meaning  of  the  Passover,  see 

JS'o'es  and  Illustrations  at  the  end  of  this 


urally  grew  out  of  the  calculation  of  its  in- 
terval from  tlie  Passover. 

''3  Ex.  xxiii.   IG,  xxxiv.   22;    Lev.  xxiii. 


pection.  The  question  whether  the  meat  |  15-22 ;  Num.  xxviii.  2G-31;  Dent.  xvi.  9- 
at  whicli  our  Lord  instituted  the  Sacrament !  12;  2  Mace  xii.  32;  Acts  ii.  1,  xx.  16;  1  Cor. 
of  tlie  Eucharist  was  tlie  paschal  supper  ac- ;  xvi.  8. 


Skct.  VI.  The  Feast  of  Tabernacles.  265 

cially  exhorted  to  rejoice  before  Jehovah  with  their  families,  their  servants, 
the  Levite  within  their  gates,  the  stranger,  the  fatherless,  and  the  widow,  in 
the  place  chosen  by  God  for  His  name,  as  they  brought  a  freewill-offering 
of  their  hand  to  Jehovah  their  God.'"*  That  offering  of  course  included 
the  Chagigah  ;  but  the  great  feature  of  the  celebration  was  the  presentation 
of  the  two  loaves^  made  from  the  first-fruits  of  the  wheat-harvest,  and  leaven- 
ed, that  is,  in  the  state  fit  for  ordinary  food.  In  this  point,  as  contrasted 
with  the  unleavened  bread  of  the  Passover,  we  see  the  more  homely  and 
social  nature  of  the  feast ;  while  its  bounty  to  the  poor  is  connected  with  the 
law  which  secured  them  plenty  of  gleanings.'"^  With  the  loaves  two  lambs 
were  offered  as  a  peace-offering ;  and  all  were  waved  before  Jehovah,  and 
given  to  the  priests:  th  ■  loaves,  being  leavened,  could  not  be  offered  on  the 
altar.  The  other  sacrilices  were,  a  burnt-offering  of  a  young  bullock,  two 
rams,  and  .seven  lambs,  with  a  meat  and  drink  offering,  and  a  kid  for  a  sin- 
offering.'"®  Till  the  Pentecostal  loaves  were  offered,  the  produce  of  the  har- 
vest might  not  be  eaten,  nor  could  any  other  first-fruits  be  offered.  The 
whole  ceremony  was  the  completion  of  that  dedication  of  the  harvest  to  God, 
as  its  giver,  and  to  whom  both  the  land  and  the  people  were  holy,  which  was 
begun  by  the  offering  of  the  wave-sheaf  at  the  Passover.  The  interval  is 
still  regarded  as  a  religious  season. 

The  Pentecost  is  the  only  one  of  the  three  great  feasts  which  is  not  men- 
tioned as  the  memorial  of  events  in  the  history  of  tb.e  Jews.  But  such  a 
significance  has  been  found  in  the  fact,  that  the  Law  was  given  from  Sinai 
on  the  fiftieth  day  after  the  deliverance  from  Egypt. '°^  In  the  Exodus,  the 
people  were  offered  to  God,  as  living  first-fruits ;  at  Sinai  their  consecration 
to  Him  as  a  nation  was  completed.  The  point  is  noticed  by  several  of  the 
Christian  fathers,  and  the  modern  Jews  connect  with  the  Pentecost  special 
thanks  for  the  giving  of  the  Law. 

The  typical  significance  of  the  Pentecost  is  made  clear  from  the  events  of 
the  day  recorded  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles."**  The  preceding  Passover 
had  been  marked  by  the  sacrifice  upon  the  cross  of  the  true  Paschal  Lamb, 
and  by  his  offering  to  his  Father  as  "  the  first-fruits  of  them  that  slept."  The 
Day  of  Pentecost  found  his  disciples  assembled  at  Jerusalem,  like  the  Israel- 
ites before  Sinai,  waiting  for  "  the  promise  of  the  Father."  Again  did  God 
descend  from  heaven  in  fire,  to  pour  forth  that  Holy  Spirit,  which  gives  the 
spiritual  discernment  of  His  law ;  and  the  converts  to  Peter's  preaching 
were  the  first-fruits  of  the  spiritual  harvest,  of  which  Christ  had  long  before 
assured  his  disciples.  Just  as  the  appearance  of  God  on  Sinai  was  the  birth- 
day of  the  Jewish  nation,  so  was  that  Pentecost  the  birthday  of  the  Christian 
Church.  "As  the  possession  of  the  Law  had  completed  the  deliverance  of 
the  Hebrew  race,  wrought  by  the  hand  of  Moses,  so  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  per- 
fected the  work  of  Christ  in  the  establishment  of  His  kingdom  upon  earth. "'°* 
It  has  been  observed  that  the  Pentecost  was  the  last  Jewish  feast  that  Paul 
was  anxious  to  keep, "°  and  that  Whitsuntide,  its  succes.sor,  was  the  first  an- 
nual festival  adopted  in  the  Christian  Church. 

§  12.  (3.)  The  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  or  Feast  of  Ingathering,  com- 
pleted the  cycle  of  the  festivals  of  the  year,  and  was  celebrated  with  great 

if*  Deut.  xvi.  1ft,  11.  I  de  Jure  Nat.  ct  Gent.  iii.  11.      '"*  Acts  iL 

"5  Lev.  xxiii.  2'>.        los  Lev.  xxiii.  IS,  19.        lo^  Bih.  Diet.  nrt.  Pentecost. 
10^  Comp.  Ex.  xii.  anrt  xix. ;  and  Selden,  I      ^i'  1  Cor.  xvi.  8. 

M 


266 


The  Feast  of  Tahernades. 


Appendix. 


rejoicings.  It  was  at  once  a  thanksgiving  for  the  harvest,  and  a  commemo- 
ration of  the  time  when  the  Israelites  dwelt  in  tents  during  their  passage 
through  the  wilderness.  "^  It  fell  in  the  autumn,  when  the  whole  of  the  chief 
fruits  of  the  ground,  the  corn,  the  wine,  and  the  oil,  were  gathered  in."'* 
Its  duration  was  strictly  only  seven  days."^  But  it  was  followed  by  a  day 
of  holy  convocation,  distinguished  by  sacrifices  of  its  own,  which  was  some- 
times spoken  of  as  an  eighth  day."''  It  lasted  from  the  fifteenth  till  the 
twenty-second  of  the  month  of  Tisri. 

During  the  seven  days  the  Israelites  were  commanded  to  dwell  in  booths 
or  huts  (tabernacles)  formed  of  the  boughs  of  trees,  etc.  The  boughs  were 
of  the  olive,  pine,  myrtle,  and  other  ti-ees  with  thick  foliage."^  The  com- 
mand in  Lev.  xxiii.  40  is  said  to  have  been  so  understood,  that  the  Israelites, 
from  the  first  day  of  the  feast  to  the  seventh,  carried  in  their  hands  "the 
fruit  "  (as  in  the  margin  of  the  A.V.,  not  branches,  as  in  the  text)  "  of  good- 
ly trees,  with  branches  of  palm-trees,  boughs  of  thick  trees,  and  willows  of 
the  brook." 

The  burnt -offerings  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  were  by  far  more  numerous 
than  those  of  any  other  festival.  There  were  offered  on  each  day  two  rams, 
fourteen  lambs,  and  a  kid  for  a  sin-offering.  But  what  was  most  peculiar 
was  the  arrangement  of  the  sacrifices  of  bullocks,  in  all  amounting  to  seven- 
ty. Thirteen  were  offered  on  the  first  day,  twelve  on  the  second,  eleven  on 
the  third,  and  so  on,  reducing  the  number  by  one  each  day  till  the  seventh, 
when  seven  bullocks  only  were  offered. "°  When  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles 
fell  on  a  Sabbatical  year,  portions  of  the  law  were  read  each  day  in  public 
to  men,  women,  children,  and  strangers."'' 

There  are  two  particulars  in  the  observance  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles 
which  appear  to  be  referred  to  in  the  New  Testament,  but  are  not  noticed  in 
the  Old.  These  were,  the  ceremony  of  pouring  out  some  water  of  the  Pool 
of  Siloam,  and  the  display  of  some  great  lights  in  the  court  of  the  women. 

We  are  told  that  each  Israelite,  in  holiday  attire,  repaired  to  the  Temple 
with  a  palm  branch  in  one  hand  and  the  citron  in  the  other,  at  the  time  of  the 
ordinary  morning  sacrifice.  One  of  the  priests  fetched  some  water  in  a 
golden  ewer  from  the  Pool  of  Siloam.  At  the  top  of  the  brazen  altar  were 
fixed  two  silver  basins  with  small  openings  at  the  bottom.  Wine  was  pour- 
ed into  that  on  the  eastern  side,  and  the  water  into  that  on  the  western  side, 
whence  it  was  conducted  by  i)ipes  into  the  Cedron.  The  Hallel"^  was 
then  sung.  In  the  evening,  both  men  and  women  assembled  in  the  court 
of  the  women,  expressly  to  hold  a  rejoicing  for  the  drawing  of  the  water  of 
Siloam.  In  this  court  were  set  up  two  lofty  stands,  eacli  supporting  four 
great  lamps.  These  were  lighted  on  each  night  of  the  festival.  JNIany  in 
the  assembly  carried  flambeaux.  A  body  of  Levites,  stationed  on  the  fifteen 
steps  leading  up  to  the  women's  court,  played  instruments  of  music,  and 
chanted  the  fifteen  psalms,  called  in  the  Authorized  Version  Songs  of  De- 
grees."^ Singing  and  dancing  were  afterward  continued  for  some  time. 
The  same  ceremonies  in  the  day,  and  the  same  joyous  meeting  in  the  even- 
ing, were  renewed  on  each  of  the  seven  davs. 


m  Ex.  xxiii.  1(5.  and  Lev.  xxiii,  43. 
"2  Ex.  xxiii.  IC;   Lev.  xxiii.  39;    Dent, 
xvi.  13-15.      113  Pent.  xvi.  13;  Ez.  xlv.  25. 
1"  Lev.  xxiii.  30 ;  Neh.  viii.  18, 


115  Nell.  viii.  15,  1G, 

lis  Num.  xxix.  12-38. 

iiT  Deut.  xxxi.  10-13.        "8  See  p.  202. 

118  Ps.  cxx.^xxxiv. 


Sect.  VI.  The  Day  of  Atonement.  267 

It  appears  to  be  generally  admitted  that  the  words  of  our  Saviour""— 
"  If  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me  and  drink.  He  that  believeth 
on  me,  as  the  Scripture  hath  said,  out  of  his  belly  shall  flow  rivers  of  living 
water" — were  suggested  by  the  pouring  out  of  the  water  of  Siloam,  The 
Jews  seem  to  have  regarded  the  rite  as  symbolical  of  the  water  miraculous- 
ly supplied  to  their  fathers  from  the  rock  at  Meribah.  But  they  also  gave 
to  it  a  more  strictly  spiritual  signification,  in  accordance  with  the  use  to 
which  our  Lord  appears  to  turn  it.  Maimonides  applies  to  it  the  verv'  pas- 
sage which  appears  to  be  referred  to  it  by  our  Lord"^ — "Therefore  with  joy 
shall  ye  draw  water  out  of  the  well  of  salvation."  The  two  meanings  are  of 
course  perfectly  harmonious,  as  is  shown  by  the  use  which  St.  Paul  makes  of 
the  historical  fact"^ — "  they  drank  of  the  spiritual  rock  that  followed  them  : 
and  that  rock  was  Christ."  It  is  also  probable  that  our  Lord's  words'"^ — 
"  I  am  the  light  of  the  world  " — refer  to  the  great  lamps  of  the  festival. 

HI. — The  Day  or  Atonement. 

§  J3.  The  Day  of  Atonement^'*  is  the  one  single  fast,  or  day  of  humili- 
ation prescribed  by  the  Mosaic  law;  whence  it  is  called  the  Fast, ^'^^  and 
by  the  Talmudists  the  Day.  It  was  observed  on  the  tenth  of  Tisri,  the  sev- 
enth sacred  and  first  civil  month,  five  days  before  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles. 
Thus  it  was  interposed  between  the  Feast  of  Trumpets,  which  ushered  in  the 
Sabbatic  month,  and  the  most  joyous  festival  of  the  year. 

It  was  kept  as  a  most  solemn  Sabbath,  when  all  must  abstain  from  work, 
and  "  alflict  their  souls"  on  pain  of  being  "  cut  off  from  among  the  people." 
Its  ceremonies  signified  the  public  humiliation  of  the  people  for  all  the  sins  of 
the  past  year,  and  the  remission  of  those  sins  by  the  atonement  which  the 
high-priest  made  within  the  A'eil,  whither  he  entered  on  this  day  only.  All 
the  sacrifices  of  the  day  wei-e  performed  by  the  high-priest  himself.  He  first 
washed  his  body  in  the  Holy  Place,  and  put  on  his  white  linen  garments,  not 
the  robes  of  state.  "'^  Coming  out  of  the  Tabernacle,  he  first  brought  for- 
Avard  the  sacrifices  for  himself  and  his  family,  which  wer3  provided  at  his 
own  cost  ;  a  young  bullock  for  a  sin-offering,  and  a  ram  for  a  burnt-offer- 
ing. This  part  of  the  ceremony  set  forth  the  imperfection  of  the  Levitical 
priesthood,  even  in  its  highest  representative.  Sanctified  by  God  himself, 
washed  witli  pure  water,  and  clad  in  spotless  garments,  the  nigh-priest  was 
the  type  of  the  true  Intercessor  and  eternal  Priest ;  but  still,  as  himself  a 
sinner,  he  was  infinitely  below  the  "high-priest  needed  by  us,  who  is  holy, 
harmless,  undcfiled,  separate  from  sinners,  who  needeth  not,  as  those  high- 
jyriests,  to  offer  up  s^cxi^ca,  Jirst  for  his  own  sins,  and  then  for  the  peo- 
ple's."^-^ 

The  high-priest  then  led  forward  the  victims  for  the  people's  sins,  which 
were  provided  at  the  public  cost.  There  were  a  ram  for  a  burnt-offering, 
and  two  young  goats  for  a  sin-offering.  Presenting  the  two  goats  before 
Jehovah,  at  the  door  of  the  Tabernacle,  he  cast  lots  upon  them,  the  one 
lot  being  inscribed  For  Jehovah,  the  other  For  Azazel.  The  latter  was 
called  the  Scape-goat. 


120  John  vii.  37,  33.        121  j,,.  xii.  3. 
122  1  Cor.  X.  4.  123  John  viii.  12. 

12*  Lev.   xvi.,   xxiii.   2G-32 ;    Num.   xxix. 
7-11.  125  Acts  xxvii.  '.>, 

^2*  The  Mislma  says,  in  its  account  of  the 


ceremonies  of  tlie  second  Temple,  that  ha 
first    performed  the    daily  Fervice,  namely, 
the  ?acrifi?ei?,  lighting  the  lamps,  and  offer- 
ing incense,  in  his  colored  robes. 
127  Heb.  vii.  2G-28 


268  The  Memission  of  Sins.  Appendix. 

The  victims  being  thus  prepared,  the  high-priest  proceeded  to  offer  the 
young  bullock  as  the  sin-oftering  for  himself  and  his  family.  Having  slain 
it  at  the  altar,  he  took  some  of  its  blood,  with  a  censer  filled  with  live  coals 
from  the  altar,  and  a  handful  of  incense :  and  entering  into  the  Most  Hohj 
Place,  he  threw  the  incense  on  the  coals,  thus  enveloping  the  ark  in  a  fragrant 
cloud,  and  partially  shrouding  it  from  his  own  eyes  lest  he  should  die  for  a 
profanely-curious  gaze,  and  then  sprinkled  the  blood  seven  times  before  the 
mercy-seat,  on  the  east  side  of  the  ark.'^^ 

The  goat  "of  Jehovah"  was  then  slain  as  a  sin-offering  for  the  people, 
and  the  high-priest  again  went  into  the  Most  Holy  Place  and  performed 
the  same  ceremonies  with  its  blood.  As  he  returned  through  the  Holy 
Place,  in  which  no  one  else  was  present,  he  purified  it  by  sprinkling  some  of 
the  blood  of  both  victims  on  the  altar  of  incense.  This  completed  tlie  puri- 
fication of  the  sanctuary,  the  second  stage  of  the  atonement.  ^-^ 

Then  followed  the  remission  of  the  people's  sins  by  the  striking  ceremony 
of  devoting  the  Scape-goat,  i\iQ,  one  on  which  the  lot  had  fallen  ^^for  AzazeL" 
The  high-priest  having  laid  his  hands  upon  its  head,  and  confessed  over  it 
the  sins  of  the  people,  the  victim,  loaded  as  it  were  with  those  sins,  was  led 
out,  by  a  man  chosen  for  the  purpose,  to  the  wilderness,  into  "  a  land  not 
inhabited,"  and  there  let  loose.  Unwise  curiosity  has  attempted  to  follow 
its  fate.  Scandalized  apparently  by  the  idea  of  its  being  free  to  mix  with 
other  creatures,  the  llabbis  say  that  the  man  who  had  charge  of  the  goat 
threw  him  backward  from  the  top  of  a  precipice,  and  so  dashed  him  to 
pieces,  in  palpable  contradiction  of  the  law.  Nor  is  there  any  ground  for 
the  beautiful  conception  of  the  great  painter,  who  shows  us  the  scape-goat 
on  the  shore  of  the  Dead  Sea,  expressing  the  load  of  its  devotion  in  every 
lineament.  The  simple  meaning  of  the  rite  is  the/«^/  remission  of  sins ;  and 
the  animal  who  bore  them  away  was  thenceforth  as  free  as  the  pardoned 
sinner.  To  trace  it,  or  to  endeavor  to  identify  it,  would  be  a  profanation ;. 
just  as  the  idea  of  remission  is  expressed  by  not  inquiring  for  sins,  not  Jind- 
in(]  them,  casting  them  behind  the  back.  "  As  far  as  the  east  is  from  the 
west,  so  far  hath  He  removed  our  transgressions  from  us."  The  "  escaped 
goat"  must  be  viewed  in  connection  with  the  one  which  gave  up  its  life  "  for 
Jehovah;"  the  death  of  the  one  being  the  price  of  the  liberty  of  the  other; 
and  both  together  formed  a  type  of  Christ,  who,  by  his  death  and  resurrec- 
tion, "took  away  the  sin  of  the  world."  This  idea  of  remission  seems  to  be 
involved  in  the  name  to  which  the  scape-goat  was  devoted;  "for  Azazel" 
signifying  "for  complete  removal.""" 

The  great  ceremony  of  the  remission  of  sins  being  thus  completed,  the 
high-priest,  after  again  washing  his  body  in  the  Holy  Place,  and  resuming 
his  robes  of  state,  completed  the  offering  of  the  slain  victims.  The  two  rams 
were  burnt  upon  the  altar,  with  the  fat  o^  the  two  sin-offerings ;  but  the  flesh 

12'  The  Mishna  says  eight  times,  once  to-  I  129  Xothing  is  said  of  the  purification  of 
ward  the  ceiling,  and  seven  times  on  the  I  the  brazen  altar ;  but,  according  to  Josephus 
floor.  It  makes /oit>-  entrance:",  one  with  the  I  and  the  Mishna,  what  was  left  of  the  blood 
incense,  and  a  second  with  the  blood  of  the  1  of  the  two  sin-offerings  was  poured  out  at  its 
bullock,  a  third  with  the  blood  of  the  goat,     foot. 

And  a  fourth  to  fetch  away  the  censer.     Only  j      i^o  'phe  commoner  view,  which  takes  Aza- 
(wo  are  implied  in  Lev.  xvi.  1'2, 14,  15.     The  ,  zrl  for  the  proper  name  of  an  evil  spirit,  lies 
phrase  ''once  each  year"  (lleb.  vii.  7)  evi-  1  nt  the  root  of  tlie  raisconceptiona  above  no- 
dently  refers  to  the  one  day  and  ceremony,  j  ticed. 
not  to  the  number  of  entraxicea.  1 


Sect.  VI. 


Festivals  after  the  Captivity. 


269 


of  the  latter  was  carried  away  and  burnt  without  the  camp.  Those  who 
performed  this  office,  and  the  man  who  had  led  away  the  scape-goat,  washed 
their  bodies  and  their  clothes  before  returning  to  the  camp. 

The  significance  of  these  types  of  the  true  atonement,  not  by  the  blood  of 
hulls  and  goats,  but  by  the  precious  blood  of  Christ  himself,  our  high-priest, 
is  set  forth  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  ^^^ 

IV. — Festivals  after  the  Captivity. 

§  14.  (I.)  The  Feast  of  Purim,  or  of  Lots,  was  an  annual  festival  insti- 
tuted to  commemorate  the  preservation  of  the  Jews  in  Persia  from  the  massa- 
cre with  which  they  were  threatened  through  the  machinations  ofllaman.^*^ 

The  festival  lasted  two  days,  and  was  regularly  observed  on  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  of  Adar.  It  is  not  easy  to  conjecture  what  may  have  been 
the  ancient  mode  of  observance,  so  as  to  have  given  the  occasion  something 
of  the  dignity  of  a  national  religious  festival.  According  to  modern  custom, 
as  soon  as  the  stars  begin  to  appear,  when  the  fourteentli  of  the  month  has 
commenced,  candles  are  liglited  up  in  token  of  rejoicing,  and  the  people  as- 
semble in  the  synagogue.  After  a  short  prayer  and  thanksgiving,  the  read- 
ing of  the  Book  of  Esther  commences.  AVhen  tlie  reader  comes  to  the 
name  of  Haman  the  whole  congregation  cry  out,  "  May  his  name  be  blotted 
out,"  or  "Let  the  name  of  the  ungodly  perish."  When  the  names  of  the 
sons  of  Haman  are  read,  ^^^  the  reader  utters  them  with  a  continuous  enunci- 
ation, so  as  to  make  them  into  one  word,  to  signify  that  they  were  hanged  all 
at  once.  When  the  Megillah  is  read  through,  the  whole  congregation  ex- 
claim, "Cursed  be  Haman;  blessed  bo  Mordecai ;  cursed  be  Zoresh  (the 
wife  of  Haman);  blessed  be  Esther  :  cursed  be  all  idolaters;  blessed  be  all 
Israelites,  and  blessed  be  Harbonah,  who  hanged  ILiman."  In  the  morning 
service  in  the  synagogue,  on  the  fourteenth,  after  the  prayers,  the  passage  is 
read  from  the  law^^*  which  relates  the  destruction  of  the  Amalekites,  the 
people  of  Agag,^^^  the  supposed  ancestors  of  Haman. "°  The  Book  of  Esther 
is  then  I'ead  again  in  the  same  manner,  and  with  the  same  responses  from 
tlie  congregation  as  on  the  preceding  evening. 

The  fourteenth  of  Adar,  as  the  very  day  of  the  deliverance  of  the  Jews, 
is  more  solemnly  kept  than  the  thirteenth.  But  when  the  service  in  the 
synagogue  is  over,  all  give  themselves  up  to  merry-making. 

§  15.  (2.)  The  Feast  of  Dedication  was  the  festival  instituted  to  com- 
memorate the  purging  of  the  Temple  and  the  rebuilding  of  the  altar  after 
Judas  Maccabaeus  had  driven  out  the  Syrians,  B.C.  1C4.  It  is  named  only 
once  in  the  Canonical  Scriptures,  John  x.  22.  Its  institution  is  recorded  in 
1  Mace.  iv.  52-59.  It  commenced  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  Chisleu,  the  anni- 
versary of  the  pollution  of  the  Temple  by  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  B.C.  167. 
Like  the  great  Mosaic  feasts,  it  lasted  eight  days,  but  it  did  not  require  at- 
fendance  at  Jerusalem.  It  was  an  occasion  of  much  festivity.  The  writer 
of  2  Mace,  tells  us  that  it  was  celebrated  in  ncarlv  the  same  manner  as  the 


131  Chap,  ix.-x. 

122  It  was  probably  called  Purim  by  the 
Jews  in  irony.  Their  great  enemy  Haman 
appears  to  have  been  very  superstitious  and 
much  given  to  casting  lots  (Esth.  iii.  T). 
They  gave  the  name  Purim,  or  Lots,  to  the 
Commemorative    festival,    because    he    had 


tlirown  lots  to  ascertain  what  day  would  be 
auspicious  for  him  to  cany  into  efi'ect  the 
bloody  decree  which  tlie  king  had  issued  at 
his  instance  (Esth.  ix.  24). 

133  Esth.  ix.  T,  8,  9.         is*  Ex.  xviL  o-\Q, 

135  1  Sam.  XV.  8. 

136  Esth.  iii.  1. 


270 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Appendix. 


Feast  of  Tabernacles,  with  the  carrying  of  branches  of  trees,  and  with  much 
singing  (x.  6,  7).  Josephus  states  that  the  festival  was  called  "Lights.*- 
In  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  the  "  Hallel "  was  sung  every  day  of  the  feast. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


(A.)  MEANING  OF  THE  FASS- 
OVEK. 

In  the  interpretation  of  this  most 
significant  of  all  the  types  of  the 
Mosaic  dispensation,  we  must  trace 
the  double  reference  to  its  immediate 
occasion  and  to  its  wider  spiritual 
meaning  ;  its  twofold  aspect,  to  the 
devout  Israelite  then,  and  to  the 
Christian  now.  The  following  are 
the  chief  and  obvious  points  :  many 
more  have  been  suggested  by  the 
sometimes  too  refined  ingenuity  of 
commentators. 

I.  In  its  jmmary  meaniruj, — (1.) 
The  Faschal  Lamb  was  a  sacrifice. 
The  chief  characteristics  of  a  sacrifice 
are  all  distinctly  ascribed  to  it.  It 
was  offered  in  the  Holy  Flace  (Deut. 
xvi.  5,  6) ;  the  blood  was  sprinkled 
on  the  altar,  and  the  fat  was  burned 
(2  Chron.  xxx.  10,  xxxv.  11).  The 
language  of  Ex,  xii.  27,  xxiii.  18; 
Num.  ix.  7;  Deut.  xvi.  2,  5,  together 
with  1  Cor,  V.  7,  would  seem  to  decide 
the  C[uestion  beyond  the  reach  of 
doubt.  The  lamb,  the  gentlest  of  all 
creatures,  must  be  without  hlevrisb,  to 
teach,  not  only  the  general  principle 
of  offering  our  best  to  God,  but  also  the 
special  doctrine,  that  an  expiatory 
sacrifice  must  be  that  of  the  innocent 
for  the  guilty. 

(2,)  The  Faschal  Lamb  was  also  a 
feast.  Even  amid  the  confusion  of 
that  awful  night,  they  ate  it  with  joy 
for  their  deliverance.  But  it  was  also 
their  last  feast  in  Egypt,  from  whose 
"flesh-pots"  they  were  now  forever 
parting.     The  bread  which  they  had 


not  had  time  to  leaven,  the  bitter 
herbs,  their  haste,  and  their  travelling 
equipment,  all  taught  them  that  it  was 
no  season  of  sensual  pleasure,  and 
that  henceforth  they  were  dependent 
on  God  alone  for  food, 

II,   In  its  perpetual  spiritual  sense : 
Christ  OUR  Fassover  is  sacrificed 
FOR  US  (I  Cor,  v,  7).     The  blood  of 
the  first  paschal  lambs  sprinkled  on 
the  doorways  of  the  houses  has  ever 
been  regarded  as  the  best  defined  fore- 
shadowing of  that  blood  which  has 
redeemed,   saved,   and    sanctified   us 
(Heb.  xi.  28).     The  lamb  itself,  sac- 
rificed by  the  worshiper  without  the 
intervention  of  a  priest,  and  its  flesh 
being  eaten  without  reserve  as  a  meal, 
exhibits  the  most  perfect  of  peace-of- 
ferings, the  closest  type  of  the  aton- 
ing Sacrifice  who  died  for  us  and  has 
made  our  peace  with  God  (Is.  liii,  7 ; 
John  i,  29  ;    cf.  the  expression  "  my 
sacrifice,"  Ex.  xxxiv.  25;     also   Ex. 
xii.  27  ;    Acts  viii,  32  ;    1   Cor.  v,  7  ; 
I    Fet.  i.  18,   19).     The    unleavened 
bread  is  recognized  as  the  figure  of 
'  the  state  of  sanctification  which  is  the 
[  true  element  of  the  believer  in  Christ 
I  (1  Cor.  v,  8).     The  haste  with  which 
I  the  meal  was  eaten,  and  the  girt-up 
loins,  the  staves  and  the  sandals,  are 
fit  emblems  of  the  life  of  the  Christian 
pilgrim,  ever  hastening  away  from  the 
I  world  toward  his  heavenly  destination 
'(Luke    xii.  35;    1  Fet.  i.  13,  ii.  1 1  : 
|Eph.  V.  15;  Heb.  xi.  13). 

The  offering  of  the  Omer  (see  p. 
263)  found  full  expression  only  in 
that  First-born  of  all  creation,  who, 


Sect.  VI. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


271 


having  died  and  risen  again,  became 
"  the  first-fi'uits  of  them  that  slept" 
(I  Cor.  XV.  20).  As  the  first  of  the 
first-fruits,  no  other  ottering  of  this 
sort  seems  so  likely  as  the  Omer  to 
have  immediately  suggested  the  ex- 
pressions used  (Rom.  viii.  23,  xi.  16; 
James  i.  18  ;  Rev.  xiv.  4). 

The  crowning  application  of  the 
paschal  rites  to  the  truths  of  which 
they  were  the  shadowy  promises  ap- 
pears to  be  that  which  is  afforded  by 
the  fact  that  our  Lord's  death  occurred 
during  the  festival.  According  to 
the  Divine  purpose,  the  true  Lamb  of 
God  was  slain  at  nearly  the  same 
time  as  "the  Lord's  Passover,"  in 
obedience  to  the  letter  of  tlie  Law. 


(B.)  THE  JEWISH  CALENDAR. 

The  Jewish  year  being  strictly  lu- 
nar, and  the  day  of  the  new  moon 
common  to  the  preceding  and  suc- 
ceeding month,  the  correspondences 
with  our  month  vary  in  different 
years  according  to  the  intercalation. 
Generally  speaking,  the  months  ap- 
pended below  to  the  Jewish  are  to  be 
taken  with  ten  days  (or  less)  of  the 
jtreceding  month  ;  but  sometimes  the 
overrunning  is  the  other  way.  For 
example,  according  to  the  present  cal- 
endar of  the  Jews,  the  1st  of  Nisan 
fell  on  March  21st.,  April  7th,  and 
March  28Mi,  in  1863,  18G4,  and  1865, 
respectively. 


(B.)  THE  JEWISH  CALENDAll. 


COEBEBPONDTNG  DaTES  FOR  ThEEE  YeAES. 

Jewibfi  Cat.emd\e. 

A.M.  5323. 
A.i>.  1S63. 

A.M.  5624. 
A.D.  18J4. 

A.M.  5325. 
A.n.  1SG5. 

(In  the  Sacred  Order  of  tlie  Months.? 

Mar.    21 

Apr.  4,  5, 10,  U 

Apr     19     

Apr.      7 

Apr.  21,  22,  27,  28 

Mar. 
Apr. 

28 

11,12,17,18 

I.  ABIB  or  NISAN.     April. 
1.  New  Moon. 
15, 10,  21,  22.   Bassover  Days,  1,  2,  7, 

last. 
39.  New  Moon. 

Apr.    20 

Apr     29 

May      7 

May    "4 

Apr. 
May 

27 :. 

14 

II.  JYAR  (Yiali).     May. 
1.  New  Moon. 
10.  Death  of  Elijah    (Lag  B'   Omer). 

Fast. 
12. 

May      1 

May    17 

'.8.  Death  of  Samuel.     Fast. 

May    19 1 

30.  New  Moon. 

May    19 

May    24,25... 
June   17 

May 
May 

26 

31,  June  1. 

III.  SI  VAN.    June. 

June   10,11 

G,  7.  Pentecost  or  Sebuoth. 
30.  New  Moon. 

June   IS 

July      5 

July    17 

July    20 

July    31 

July      5 

July    21 

Aug.      3 

Aug.    11 

June 
July 

July 
Aug. 

25 

11 

24 

1 

IV.  THAMMUZ.     July. 
1.  New  Moon. 
17.  Taking    of   Jerusalem    by    Titus, 
Fast. 

V.  AB.     August. 
1.  New  Moon. 

9.  Destruction  of  Temple.     Fast. 
15.  Tubeah.     Little  Festival. 

Aug.    15 

30.  New  Moon. 

Aug.    16 

Au"'.   22 

Sept.     2 

Aug. 

VI.  ELUL.     September. 
1.  New  Moon. 
7.  Dedication  of  Walla  by  Nehemiah. 

Sept.     1 

Fcafit. 
17.  Expulsion  of  the  Greeks. 

■ITl 


Laios  of  the  Jews. 

(B.)  THE  JEWISH  CALENDAR— CoJifmJtfcf. 


Appendix, 


COKREBPONDING   DaTES   FOK   TcREE   YEARS. 


A.M.  5024. 

A.I),  1S63-4. 


A.M.  56-25. 
A  I).  1S64-5. 


Sept.  14,15. 

•Sept.   16 

Sept.   23 

Sept.  28,29.. 

Oct.       1 

Oct.       4 

Oct.       5 

Oct.       6 


Oct.     14. 


Nov.    12... 
Dec.      6. . . 


Dec.    11. 


Dec.    20.. 

1SG4. 

Jan.       9.. 


A.M.  562J. 
A.n.  1SC5-6. 


1,2 Sept.  21,22. 

3 ISept.   24. 


10.... 
15,16. 


Feb.       8. . . . 
Feb.    21 1 


Oct, 
Oct. 
Oct, 


Oct. 

Xov. 
Dec, 

Dec. 

Jan, 

Jan. 

Feb, 


Sept,   30.... 
Oct.      5,  6. . 


Oct.     11 
12 


30.., 
24.. 


30... 
18_5. 


Mjir,     9 ' 

Mar.    21 'Mar. 

Mar.    22,  23...!  Mar. 


9.... 
12,13, 


Apr. 


Oct. 

13 

Oct. 

21 

Nov. 
Dec. 

19 

13 

Dec. 

19 

Dec. 

Jan. 

28 

isac. 

17 

Jewish  Calendar. 
(B-iginniug  of  Civil  Year.) 


VII.  TISRI.     October. 

1,  2.  New  Year  and  New  Moon. 

3.  Death  of  Gedaliah.     Fad. 
10.  Kipiir.   Day  of  Atonement.  Fasu 
15,10.  Feast  OF  Tabernacles. 
18.  Hosanna  Rabba. 

21.  Feast  of  Branches  or  of  Palms. 

22.  End  of  Feast  of  Tabernacles, 

23.  Feast  of  tlie  LaAv. 

VIII.  CHESVAN  (?>Iarchesvan).      No. 

veniber. 
1.  New  Moon. 

IX.  CHISLEU.     December. 
1.  New  Moon. 
25.  Ilaniica.     Dedication  of  Temple. 
X.  TIIEBET.     January. 
1.  Now  ]SIoon. 


10.  Siepre  of  Jerusalem.     Fast. 

XI.  SEBAT.     February. 
1.  New  Moon. 

Xil.  ADAR.     March. 
1.  New  Moon. 
14.  Little  Purim. 

XII.*  VEADAR  (Intercalary.)     letter 
part  of  March   and  beginning  of 
April. 
1.  New  Moon. 

13.  Feast  of  Esther. 

14,  15.  Feast  of  Purim   and   Shusham 

Purhn. 
Last  Day  of  the  Y''ear. 


Mem.— The  Jewish  year  contains  354  days,  or  12  lunations  of  the  moon  ;  but  in  a  cycle  of  19  years  an  in- 
tercalary month  (  Vtadar)  is  seven  times  introduced  to  render  the  average  length  of  the  year  nearly  correct. 


SECTION  VII. 

Laws  Constitutional,  Civil,  and  Criminal. 

§  1. — B.  Laws  Constitutional  ani>  Political  :  First  Stage— The  government  theocratic- 
5  2.  Second  Stage^Continuance  of  tlie  theocracy — The  Judges.  §  3.  Third  Stage — Ap 
polntinjent  of  a  king.  §  4.  Tlie  princes  of  the  congregation.  §  5.  Judges.  §  6.  The 
neventy  elders.  5  7. — C.  Laws  Citil:  I.  /^nras  of  persons — Father  and  Son.  §  8.  Hus- 
band and  wife.  §  9.  Master  and  slave.  §  10.  Strangers.  §  11. — II.  Laivs  of  thi7igs-~ 
Lavts  of  land  and  property.  §  12.  Laws  of  debt.  §  13.  Ta.xation.  §  14. — D.  Laws 
Criminat — Offenses  against  God — The  first  four  Commandments.  §  15.  Offensea 
against  man — The  last  six  Commandments. 


B.  LAWS  CONSTITUTIONAL  AND  POLITICAL.^ 

§  ].  The  Political  Constitution  of  the  Jewish  Commonwealth,  as  we  have 

seen,  is  founded  entirely  upon  a  religious  basis.    In  its  form  it  is  Theocrat- 

1  The  Laws  Religious  and  CJeremonial  have  formed  the  subject  of  the  preceding  six  sec* 
tions.     For  the  division  of  the  law,  see  p.  223. 


Sect.  VII.       Government  of  tlie  Judges  and  Kings.  27b 

ic — a  vionarclty ,  with  Jehovah  for  the  only  king,  all  magistrates  and  judges 
being  His  ministers  :  in  its  substance  and  spirit^  it  is  a  cominomvealth,  in  the 
strict  sense,  its  object  being  the  liighest  welfare  of  the  whole  people,  who  en- 
joy equal  rights  as  being  all  the  childi-en  of  God,  and  united  by  the  bond  of 
lioliness.  The  formal  constitution  grew  out  of  the  wants  of  the  people. 
When  the  people  left  Egypt,  they  could  not  be  called  a  nation,  in  the  politi- 
cal sense;  but  a  body  of  tribes,  nnited  by  the  bonds  of  grace  and  religion, 
and  especially  by  "  the  promise  given  to  the  fathers." 

Each  of  these  tribes  had  its  own  patriarchal  government  by  the  "princes" 
of  the  tribe,  and  the  "  heads  "  of  the  respective  families,  and  we  find  their 
authority  subsisting  through  the  whole  history  of  the  nation.  But  no  cen- 
tral government  was  as  yet  provided.  God  preserved  it  in  his  own  hands, 
and  committed  its  administration  to  Moses  as  His  servant.  The  people 
were  all  collected  in  one  encampment  around  the  tabernacle  of  Jehovah, 
their  ever  present  king.  They  were  commanded  by  His  voice,  whether  di- 
rectly or  through  Moses,  and  their  movements  were  guided  by  His  visible 
signs.  If  acy  doubtful  case  arose  of  law  or  policy,  there  was  His  oracle  to 
be  consulted.  If  any  opposition  was  made  to  the  authority  of  His  minister, 
Jehovah  summoned  the  rebels  to  His  presence  at  the  door  of  the  tabernacle, 
smote  them  with  leprosy,  consumed  them  with  pestilence,  devoured  them 
with  fire,  or  sent  them  down  alive  into  the  pit.  Such  was  the  simple  con- 
stitution of  tins  period  ;  God  governing  by  His  will,  while  embodying  that 
will  in  the  Law. 

§  2.  In  the  second  stage  of  their  history,  their  first  settlement  in  Canaan, 
the  constitution  was  essentially  the  same.  Jehovah  was  still  their  king, 
present  in  His  tabernacle  to  exercise  the  supreme  government,  and  to  give 
oracles  for  all  doubtful  cases,  and  committing  the  executive  power  to  Joshua, 
who  is  distinctly  recognized  as  the  successor  of  Moses,  only  he  was  a 
military  leader  instead  of  a  lawgiver.  He  ends  his  course,  like  Moses,  by 
gathering  the  people  together  at  Gilgal,  around  the  sanctuary  of  Jeho- 
vah, and  binding  them  once  more  to  the  covenant  of  their  God  and 
King. 

All  this  time,  no  distinct  provision  had  been  made  in  the  Law  for  any 
successor  to  tlie  authority  of  Moses  and  Joshua,  except  the  prospective  law 
of  the  kingdom,  which  does  not  yet  come  into  force.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  de- 
termine the  form  which  the  Theocracy  would  have  assumed,  had  the  people 
remained  faithful  to  its  principles ;  whether  a  hierarchy,  or  a  senate  of  the 
princes,  or  the  government  of  a  chief  magistrate,  not  as  a  king  in  his  own 
right,  but  as  the  vicegerent  of  Jehovah.  By  omitting  to  refer  the  case  to 
the  oracle  of  Jehovah,  the  nation  settled  down  into  a  disorderly  compound 
of  the  first  and  second  forms,  so  far  as  they  had  any  central  government  at 
all.  But,  in  truth,  the  several  tribes  were  so  occupied  in  securing  their  new 
possessions,  that  it  required  a  common  danger  to  bring  them  together  at  all. 
Meanwhile  they  neglected  the  sanctuary,  and  began  to  worship  the  gods  of 
the  country ;  and  so  their  oppressions  by  the  neighboring  nations  were  at 
once  the  fruit  of  their  disunion,  and  a  judicial  punishment  for  their  disloy- 
alty to  Jehovah. 

'£\ie.  judges  were  temporary  and  special  deliverers,  sent  by  God  to  meet 
these  several  emergencies,  not  supreme  magistrates,  succeeding  to  the  author- 
ity of  Moses  and  Joshua.     Their  power  only  extended  over  portions  of  the 

M  2 


271  Administration  of  Justice.  Appendix. 

country,  and  some  of  them  were  contemporaneous.^  Still  they  supi)licd.  to 
some  extent,  the  want  of  a  chief  magistrate  ;  and  the  house  of  Gideon  found- 
ed a  brief  dynasty  in  the  centre  of  the  country.  But  the  only  recognized  cen- 
tral authority  was  still  the  oracle  at  Shiloh,  which  sunk  into  a  system  of  priest- 
ly weakness  and  disorder  under  Eli  and  his  sons.  Even  while  the  administra- 
tion of  Samuel  gave  something  like  a  settled  government  to  the  south,  there 
was  scope  for  the  irregular  exploits  of  Samson  on  the  borders  of  the  Philis- 
tines ;  and  Samuel  at  last  established  his  authority  as  judge  and  prophet, 
but  still  as  the  servant  of  Jehovah,  only  to  see  it  so  abused  by  his  sons  as  to 
exhaust  the  patience  of  the  people,  who  now  at  length  demanded  a  King, 
after  the  pattern  of  the  surrounding  nations. 

§  3.  This  demand  was  treated  as  an  act  of  treason  to  Jehovah,  who  pun- 
ished it  by  granting  such  a  king  as  they  desired.  The  government  of  Saul 
was  an  experiment,  in  which  the  self-will  of  the  king  was  ever  attempting 
to  set  him  free  from  his  true  position  as  the  minister  of  the  theocracy ; 
and  Jehovah's  supreme  authority  was  as  constantly  asserted  by  the  inter- 
vention of  His  prophet  Samuel,  and  finally  by  Saul's  disastrous  end  and  the 
extinction  of  his  family. 

The  monarchy  of  the  people's  own  choice  being  thus  cast  down,  "God 
found  David,  the  son  of  Jesse,  a  man  after  God's  own  heart"  (that  is,  of 
His  own  choice) ;  and  his  elevation  marks  the  establishment  of  the  true  He- 
brew vionarchy,  in  which  the  king,  though  externally  on  an  equal  footing 
with  other  monarchs,  acknowledged  himself  the  servant  of  Jehovah,  and  the 
guardian  of  His  law,  and  submitted  to  guidance  and  rebuke  by  the  prophets. 
This  constitution  was  designed  to  reconcile,  in  condescension  to  the  wants 
of  the  people,  the  government  of  man  with  the  authority  of  God,  and  so  to 
be  a  type  of  Clirist's  kingdom.  How  hard  it  was  for  human  nature  to  con- 
form to  this  model  was  proved  by  Solomon,  wliose  character  exhibits  both 
the  good  and  bad  sides  of  royal  power;  and  the  same  conflict  was  worked 
out  in  the  separate  kingdoms  of  Israel  and  Judah  ;  the  former  developing 
the  consequences  of  open  rebellion  against  Jehovah,  though  checked  by  the 
prophets,  especially  Elijah  and  Elisha,  the  latter  preserving  the  profession 
of  godliness,  and  having  its  true  spirit  from  time  to  time  revived  by  su(;h 
kings  as  Hezekiah  and  Josiah,  and  privileged  to  continue  the  line  of  Mes- 
siah's kingdom,  but  surely  though  slowly  tending  to  the  retribution  of  the 
people's  original  disloyalty,  in  the  captivity  at  Babylon.  The  lesson  was  so 
far  elfective,  that  the  principle  of  the  theocracy  was  never  again  violated  till 
Herod's  usurpation,  which  only  formed  a  contrast  to  the  kingdom  of  Christ 
now  "at  hand." 

The  state  of  things  thus  exem])lified  was  provided  for  in  the  law  of 
Moses  ;  and  there  can  be  no  better  example  of  the  prospective  adaptation 
of  the  law  to  the  people's  wants.  Even  while  forbidding  them  to  desire  a 
king,  because  Jehovah  was  their  king  already,  Moses  traced  out  the  con- 
stitution of  the  future  kingdom.^  The  king  was  to  be  chosen  by  God  him- 
self. The  manner  in  which  he  was  elected  and  anointed  is  seen  in  the 
cases  of  Saul  and  David,  Solomon,  and  several  of  the  later  kings.  The 
principle  of  a  covenant  or  viutual  contract  between  the  king  and  the  people 
is  distinctly  recognized.'* 

The  positive  law  of  the  kingdom  was  summed  up  in  the  one  great  dut^ 

a  See  chap.  xvii.  3  Dent,  xvi,  14-20,  '  2  Sam.  v.  3  ;  2  K.  xi.  17. 


Sect.  VIL 


Administration  of  Justice. 


275 


of  governing  according  to  the  law  of  God,  of  which  the  king  was  to  write 
out  a  co])y  in  a  bool<,  and  read  therein  all  the  days  of  his  life,  that  by  his 
obedience  his  kingdom  and  life  might  be  prolonged.  He  was  warned 
against  assuming  despotic  authority  over  his  brethren  ;  and  we  find  the 
princes  and  the  congregation  not  only  using  remonstrance/  but  exercising 
control  over  him.®  He  was  forbidden  to  maintain  a  cavalry  force — a  check 
on  aggressive  warfare,  designed  especially  to  guard  against  any  attempt  to 
return  to  Egypt.''  Neither  was  he  to  have  many  wives  or  great  treasures; 
and  the  case  of  Solomon  is  an  example  of  the  fatal  effect  of  transgressing 
this  prohibition.  To  these  laws  of  Moses  the  first  king  added  the  preroga- 
tive of  compulsory  service,  of  making  war,  and  of  exacting  a  tithe. ^  From 
the  first,  the  king  assumed  judicial  power,  and  exercised  summary  juris- 
diction, even  to  the  extent  of  deposing  the  high-priest.^  In  religious  mat- 
ters, he  might  guide  the  nation,  as  in  building  and  dedicating  the  Temple, 
but  the  attempt  to  enter  the  sanctuary  was  punished  as  impiety,  as  in  Uz- 
ziah's  case. 

§  4.  The  Princes  of  the  Congregation,  or  heads  of  tribes,  seem  to  have  al- 
ways retained  a  certain  power  in  the  State,  in  the  desert  they  appear  as 
representatives  of  their  several  tribes.  They  unite  with  Joshua  in  making 
the  treaty  with  the  Gibeonites.^"  Under  David  they  are  named  next  to 
the  captains  of  the  host.^^  In  later  times,  as  already  stated,  they  are  found 
controlling  the  king. 

§  5.  The  Judges. — There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  in  the  old  patriarchal  con- 
stitution, justice  was  administered,  as  among  the  Arabs  to  the  present  day, 
by  the  heads  of  houses  or  "patriarchal  seniors.'*'^  In  Egypt  these  must 
have  been  the  only  judges  among  the  people  ;^^  and  from  the  important 
place  afterward  assigned  to  them,  it  may  be  inferred  that  they  never  quite 
forfeited  this  privilege."  Their  authority  was  superseded  by  the  mission  of 
Moses,  for  justice  was  regarded  as  proceeding  from  God  himself.  But 
when,  finding  the  burden  of  justice  too  great  for  him,  he  appointed  judges 
over  tens,  fifties,  hundreds,  and  thousands,  with  an  appeal  to  himself,  these 
official  judges  seem  to  have  been  chosen  out  of  the  former  class.  ^^  Under 
Joshua  we  find  a  similar  order  of  judges,  forming  a  supreme  court  of  judi- 
cature.^°  These  seem  to  be  the  judges  to  whom,  in  conjunction  with  the 
priests,  there  was  an  appeal  from  the  inferior  magistrates ;"  but  in  what 
manner  they  were  chosen  we  are  not  informed,  except  in  the  case  of  the  ref- 
ormation of  government  by  Jehoshaphat.^"  They  were  required  to  be  able, 
godly,  truthful,  and  incorrupt  ;^^  their  persons  and  characters  were  sacred 
from  attack  or  slander,  and  they  are  dignified  with  the  title  of  "gods."^* 
The  Levites  were  associated  with  them,  as  local  judges,  from  the  settle- 
ment in  Canaan.  The  supreme  judicial  authority  was  vested  in  the  higli- 
]>riest,  as  the  organ  for  "inquiring  of  Jehovah,"  and  under  the  monarchy 
in  the  king.     There  seems  to  have  been  no  material  distinction  between 


6  1  K.  xii.  1-6. 

^  Jerem.  xxvi.  10-14,  xxxviii.  4,  5,  etc. 

■^  Deut.  xvL  16;  comp.  Josh.  xi.  6;  3  Sam. 
viii.  4  ;  1  K.  X.  26-29.      8  i  g^ni.  viii.  foil. 

»  1  Sam.  xxii.  11-19;  2  Sam.  xii.  1-5,  xiv. 
4-11;  1  K.  ii.  26-27,  iii.  16-2S. 

"  Josli.  ix.  15.       m  Chr.  xxvii.  16-22. 

"  Job  xxix.  7,  S,  9,         \^  Seg  K.v.  ii.  14. 


H  Num.  vii.  2,  10,  11,  xvii.  6,  xxxiv.  13; 
Josh.  xxii.  14. 

15  p:x.  xriii. ;  Deut.  i.  15,  16. 

i«  Josh.  iv.  2,  4,  xxii.  14,  xxiv.  1. 

17  Deut.  xvii.  S-13.         i<*  2  Chr.  xix.  8. 

19  Ex.  xviii.  21;   Deut.  xvi.  lS-20. 

20  Ex.  xxi.  6,  xxii.  8,  9,  28;  Ps.  Ixxxii.  6; 
John  X.  34;  Acts  xxili.  5, 


276  Laws   Civil.  Appendij:. 

civil  and  criminal  procedure,  as  both  fell  under  the  same  principle  of  obe^ 
dience  to  God's  law. 

§  G.  The  Seventy  Elders  associated  with  Moses  were  a  special  council,  not 
only  for  the  administration  of  justice,  but  to  assist  in  the  government.^ 
They  must  not  be  confounded  Avitli  the  Sanhedrim,  or  great  ecclesiastical 
council  of  Seventy  (so  often  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament),  which  was 
only  founded  after  the  Captivity. 


C.  LAWS  CIVIL. 
§  7.  It  has  already  been  observed  that  the  principles  of  the  civil  law  or 
Moses  are  based  on  the  religious  position  of  the  people,  as  the  holy  children 
of  God  and  brethren  to  one  anotlier.  Its  details  doubtless  embodied  much 
of  the  old  patriarchal  law,  and  in  some  instances  the  circumstances  are  re- 
corded out  of  which  new  laws  arose.  Our  limits  will  permit  us  to  give  only 
a  brief  analysis  of  these  laws,  as  well  as  of  the  criminal  laws.  Their  chief 
provisions  may  be  classified  as  follows  : — 

I.  The  Law  of  Persons. 

§  8.  (a)  Of  Father  and  Son, — The  power  of  a  Father  to  be  held  sacred ; 
cursing,  or  smiting  (Ex.  xxi.  15,  17;  Lev.  xx.  9),  or  stubborn  and  willful 
disobedience,  to  be  considered  capital  crimes.  But  uncontrolled  power  of 
life  and  death  was  apparently  refused  to  the  father,  and  vested  only  in  the 
congregation  (Dent.  xxi.  18-21). 

Right  of  the  First-horn  to  a  double  portion  of  the  inheritance  not  to  be  set 
aside  by  partiality  (Deut.  xxi.  15-17).-'^ 

Inheritance  by  Davghters  to  be  allowed  in  default  of  sons,  provided  that 
heiresses  married  in  their  own  tribe  (Num.  xxvii.  6-8  ;  comp.  xxxvi.). 

Daughters  unmarried  to  be  entirelv  dependent  on  their  father  (Num.  xxx. 
3-5). 

§  9.  (I))  Husband  and  Wife.  —  The  power  of  a  Husband  to  be  so  great  that 
a  wife  could  never  be  sui  juris,  or  enter  independently  into  any  engagement 
even  before  God  (Num.  xxx.  6-15).  A  widow  or  divorced  wife  became  in- 
dependent, and  did  not  again  fall  under  her  father's  power  (ver.  9), 

Divorce  (for  uncleanness)  allowed,  but  to  be  formal  and  irrevocable  (Deut. 
xxiv.  1-4). 

Man-iage  ivithin  certain  degrees  forbidden  (Lev.  xviii.  etc.). 

A  Slave  Wife,  whether  bought  or  captive,  not  to  be  actual  property,  nor 
to  be  sold  ;  if  ill-treated,  to  be,  ipso  facto,  free  (Ex.  xxi.  7-9  ;  Deut.  xxi. 
10-U). 

Slander  against  a  wife's  virginity  to  be  punished  by  fine,  and  by  deprival 
of  power  of  divorce  ;  on  the  other  hand,  ante-connubial  uncleanness  in  her 
to  be  punished  by  death  (Deut.  xxii.  13-21). 

The  raising  up  of  seed  (Levirate  law)  a  formal  right  to  be  claimed  by  the 
widow,  under  pain  of  infamy,  with  a  view  to  preservation  of  families  (Deut- 
XXV.  5-10). 

§  10.  (c)  Master  and  Slave. — Power  of  master  so  far  limited,  that  death 

-1  Num.  xi.  lG-25.  i  first-boin,  see  1  Sara.  xx.  £9  ("^my  brother, 

■<i2  For  an  example  of  the  authority  of  the  '  he  hath  commanded  roe  to  be  there"). 


Sect.  VI L  Laws   Civil.  277 

nnder  actual  chastisement  was  punishable  (Ex.  xxi.  20) ;  and  maiming  waa 
to  give  liberty  ipsofacio  (ver.  26,  27). 

The  Hebrew  Slave  to  he  freed  nt  the  Sabbatical  yeai-j^^nnd  provided  with 
necessaries  (his  wife  and  children  to  go  with  him  only  if  they  came  to  his 
master  with  him),  unless  by  his  own  formal  act  he  consented  to  be  a  perpet- 
ual slave  (Ex.  xxi.  1-6  ;  Deut.  xv.  12-18).  In  any  case  (it  would  seem),  to 
be  freed  at  the  Jubilee  (Lev.  xxv.  10),  with  his  children.  If  sold  to  a  resi- 
dent alien,  to  be  always  redeemable,  at  a  price  proportional  to  the  distance 
if  the  Jubilee  (Lev.  xxv. 47-54). 

Foreign  Slaves  to  be  held  and  inherited  as  property  forever  (Lev.  xxv.  45, 
46) ;  and  fugitive  slaves  from  foreign  nations  not  to  be  given  up  (Deut. 
xxiii.  15). 

§  11.  {d)  Strangers. — They  seem  never  to  have  been  sid  juris,  or  able  to. 
protect  themselves,  and  accordingly  protection  and  kindness  toward  them  are 
enjoined  as  a  sacred  duty  (Ex.  xxii.  21  ;  Lev.  xix.  33,  34).  These  strangers 
correspond  to  the  class  afterward  called  Prosehjtes. 

II.  Law  of  Things. 

§  12.  (a)  Laws  of  Land  (and  Property). — (1.)  All  Land  to  he  the  prop^ 
erly  of  God  alone,  and  its  holders  to  be  deemed  His  tenants  (Lev.  xxv.  23). 

(2. )  All  sold  Land  therefore  to  return  to  its  original  owners  at  the  Jubilee, 
and  the  price  of  sale  to  be  calculated  accordingly ;  and  redemption  on 
equitable  terms  to  be  allowed  at  all  times  (xxv.  25-27). 

A  House  sold,  to  be  redeemable  within  a  year  ;  and,  if  not  redeemed,  to  pass 
away  altogether  (xxv.  29,  30). 

But  the  Houses  of  the  Levites,  or  those  in  unwalled  villages,  to  be  redeem- 
able at  all  times,  in  the  same  way  as  land  ;  and  the  Levitical  suburbs  to  be 
inalienable  (xxv.  31-34). 

(3.)  Land  or  Houses  sanctified,  or  tithes  or  unclean  firstlings,  to  be  capable 
of  being  redeemed,  at  the  addition  of  one-fifth  their  value  (calculated  accord- 
ing to  the  distance  from  the  Jubilee-year  by  the  priest)  ;  if  devoted  by  the 
owner  and  unredeemed,  to  be  liallowed  at  the  Jubilee  forever,  and  given  to 
the  priests  ;  if  only  by  a  possessor,  to  return  to  the  owner  at  the  Jubilee 
(xxvii.  14-34). 

(4.)  Inheritance. 

1 , 

I  I  ! 

(1)  Sons.  I 

(2)  Daughters.'^*  \ 

(3)  Brothers. 

(4)  Uncles  on  the  father'' s  side. 

(4)  yext  kinsmen,  generally. 

§  13.  (h)  Laws  of  Debt. — (1.)  All  Debts  (to  an  Israelite)  to  be  released  at 
the  7th  (Sabbatical)  year ;  a  blessing  promised  to  obedience,  and  a  curse  on 
refusal  to  lend  (Deut.  xv.  1-11). 

(2.)  Usury  (from  Israelites)  not  to  be  taken  (Ex.  xxii.  25-27 ;  Deut. 
xxiii.  19,  20). 

(3.)  Pledges  not  to  be  insolently  or  ruinously  exacted  (Deut.  xxiv.  6,  10-13, 
17,  18). 

-3  The  difficulty  of  enforcing  this  law  is  seen  I  24  Heiresses  to  marry  in  their  own  triba 
in  Jer.  xxxiv.  8-16.  I  (Num.  xxvii  6-8,xxxvL). 


278  Laws    Civil.  Appendix. 

§  14.  (c)  Taxation, — (1.)  Census-money,  a  poll-tax  (of  a  half-shekel)  to  be 
paid  for  the  service  of  the  tabernacle  (Ex.  xxx.  12-16). 

All  spoil  in  war  to  be  halved  ;  of  the  combatant's  half,  5^0^^^'  °^  ^^^® 
people's,  3\ith,  to  be  paid  for  a  "  heave-oftering  "  to  Jehovah. 
(2.)  lithes/ 

(a)  Tithes  of  all  produce  to  be  given  for  maintenance  of  the  Levites 

(Num.  xviii.  20-2-1). 

(Of  this,  Jjjth  to  be  paid  as  a  heave-oftering  for  maintenance  of 

the  ])riests,  Exod.  xxx.  24-32.) 
(/3)  Second   Tithe  to  be  bestowed  in   religious  feasting  and   charity, 

either  at  tlie  Holy  Place,  or  every  3d  year  at  home  (?)  (Deut.  xiv. 

22-28). 
(>')  First- fruits  of  corn,  wine,  and  oil  (at  least  Jj^tli,  generally  J^th,  for 

the  priests)  to  be  offered  at  Jerusalem,  with  a  solemn  declaration 

of  dependence  on  God  the  King  of  Israel  (Deut.  xxvi.  1-15  ;  Num. 

xviii.  12,  13). 
Firstlings  of  clean  beasts;  the  redemption-money  (5  shekels)  of  man, 

and  (half-shekel,  or  one  shekel)  of  unclean  beasts,  to  be  given  to  the 

priests  after  sacrifice  (Num.  xviii.  15-18). 
(3.)  Poor  Laics. 

(a)  Gleanings  (in  field  or  vineyard)  to  be  a  legal  right  of  the  poor 

(Lev.  xix.  1),  10;  Dent.  xxiv.  19-22). 
(3)  Slight  Trespass  (eating  on  the  spot)  to  be  allowed  as  legal  (Deut. 

xxiii.  24,  25). 
(>')  Second  Tithe  (see  2  j3)  to  be  given  in  charity. 
(c5)  Wages  to  be  paid  day  by  day  (Deut.  xxiv.  15). 
(4.)  Maintenance  of  Priests  (Num.  xviii.  8-32). 
(a)  Tenth  of  Levites'  Tithe.     (See  2  a.) 
(f-i)  'The  heave  and  ivave  offerings  (breast  and  right  shoulder  of  all 

peace-ofterings). 
(7)  The  meat  and  sin  offerings  to  be  eaten  solemnly,  and  only  in  the 

Holy  Place. 
(0)  First-fruits  and  redemption-money.     (See  2  7.) 
(f)  Price  of  all  devoted  things,  unless  specially  given  for  a  sacred  ser- 
vice.    A  man's  service,  or  that  of  his  household,  to  be  redeemed 

at  50  shekels  for  man,  30  for  woman,  20  for  boy, and  10  for  girl. 

D.  LAWS  CRIMINAL. 

§  15.  (u)  Offekses  against  God  (of  the  nature  of  treason). — First  Com- 
viandment. — Acknowledgment  of  false  gods  (Ex.  xxii.  20),  as,  e.  (7.,  Moloch 
(Lev.  XX.  1-5),  and  generally  all  idolatry  (Deut.  xiii.,  xvii.  2-5). 

Second  Commandment. —  Witchcra/tanii/alse  prophecy  (Ex.  xxn.  18;  Deut. 
xviii.  9-22;  Lev.  xix.  31). 

Third  Commandment. — Bla.'i}>hemy  (Lev.  xxW.  15,  16). 

Fourth  Commandment. — Sabbath-breaking  (Nmn.  xv.  32-36). — Punishment, 
in  all  cases,  death  by  stoning.     Idolatrous  cities  to  be  utterly  destroyed. 

§  16.  (6)  Offenses  against  Man. — Fifth  Commandment. — Disobedience  to, 
or  cursing  or  smiting  of  parents  (Ex.  xxi.  15,  17  ;  Lev.  xx.  9  ;  Deut.  xxi. 
18-21),  to  be  punished  by  deatli  by  stoning,  publicly  adjudged  and  inflicted; 


Sect.  VII.  Lciios   Civil.  279 

so  also  of  disobedience  to  the  priests  (as  judges)  or  Supreme  Judge. — Comp. 
1  K.  xxi.  10-14:  (Naboth)  ;  2  Chr.  xxiv.  21  (Zechariah). 

Sixth  Commandment. — (1.)  Murder,  to  be  punished  by  death  without  sanc- 
tuary or  reprieve,  or  satisfaction  (Ex.  xxi,  12,  14  ;  Deut.  xix.  11-13).  Death 
of  a  slave  actually  under. the  rod  to  be  punished  (Ex.  xxi.  20,  21).  (2.) 
Death  by  Negligence  to  be  punished  by  death  (Ex.  xxi.  28-30).  (3.)  Acd- 
dental  Homicide,  the  avenger  of  blood  to  be  escaped  by  flight  to  the  cities 
of  refuge  till  the  death  of  the  high-priest  (Num.  xxxn''.  9-28  ;  Deut.  iv.  41- 
43,  xix.  4-10).  (4.)  Uncertain  Murder,  to  be  expiated  by  formal  disavowal 
and  sacrifice  by  the  elders  of  the  nearest  city  (Deut.  xxi.  1-9).  (5.)  Assault 
to  be  punished  by  lex  talionis,  or  damages  (Ex.  xxi.  18,  19,  22-25  ;  Lev. 
xxiv.  19,  20). 

Seventh  Commandment. — (1.)  Adultery  to  be  punished  by  death  of  both 
offenders  ;  the  rape  of  a  married  or  betrothed  woman,  by  death  of  the  offend- 
er (Deut.  xxii.  13-27).  (2.)  Rape  or  Seduction  of  an  unbetrothed  virgin,  to 
be  compensated  by  marriage,  with  dowry  (50  shekels),  and  without  power 
of  divorce  ;  or,  if  she  be  refused,  by  payment  of  full  dowry  (Ex.  xxii.  16,  17  ; 
Deut.  xxii.  28,  29).  (3.)  Unlaiv/ul  Mar?-iages  (incestuons,  etc.)  to  be  punish- 
ed, some  by  death,  some  by  childlessness  (Lev.  xx.). 

Eighth  Commandmc7it. — (1.)  The/t  to  be  punished  by  fourfold  or  double  res- 
titution ;  a  nocturnal  robber  might  be  slain  as  an  outlaw  (Ex.  xxii.  1-4). 
(2.)  Trespass  and  injury  of  things  lent  to  be  compensated  (Ex.  xxii.  5-15). 
(3.)  Perversion  of  Justice  (by  bribes,  threats,  etc.),  and  especially  oppression 
of  strangers,  strictly  forbidden  (Ex.  xxiii.  9,  etc.).  (4.)  Kidnapping  to  be 
punished  by  death  (Deut.  xxiv.  7). 

Ninth  Commandment. — False  Witness  to  be  punished  by  lex  talionis  (Ex. 
xxiii.  1-3  ;  Deut.  xix.  lG-21).  Slander  of  a  wife's  chastity  by  fine,  and  loss 
of  power  of  divorce  (Deut.  xxii.  18,  19). 

Tenth  Commandment. — The  sin  of  coveting  could  not  be  brought  under  the 
scope  of  a  definite  criminal  law.  But  the  numerous  acts  of  meanness,  injus- 
tice, oppression,  and  unkindness,  which  are  its  consequences,  are  repeated- 
ly forbidden,  and  their  punishment  is  referred  to  the  curse  which  God  would 
bring  on  the  disobedient.  Indeed  the  final  and  highest  system  of  rewards 
and  punishments  is  to  be  found  in  the  "  Blessing  and  the  Curse"  which  Mo- 
ses set  before  the  people. 


BOOK    IV. 

JOSHUA  TO  SAUL;  OK,  TRANSITION  FROM  THE  THEOCRACY 
TO  THE  MONARCHY.     A.M.  2r)r)3-29^8.     B.C.  1451-101)5. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


THE  GEOGRAPHY  OF  THE  HOLY  LAXD. 

§  1.  Names  of  the  land.  §  2.  Its  size.  §  H,  Its  position  on  the  map  of  the 
Avorld.  §  4.  Its  mountainous  character.  §  5.  Divided  by  jNIount  Car- 
mel— Plain  of  Esdraelon.  §  G.  Exact  limits  of  the  Holy  Land— Galilee, 
Samaria,  Judaea.  §  7.  The  water-shed  of  the  country  and  the  valleys 
on  each  side.  §  8.  Aspect  of  the  south  country  (Judia).  §  9.  Aspect 
of  JudcTea  in  ancient  times.  §  10.  Aspect  of  the  central  country 
(Samaria),  §  11.  Aspect  of  the  northern  countrv  (Galilee).  §  12. 
Habitations  of  the  Israelites  on  the  hills.  §  13.  The  maritime  plains— 
The  Philistine  Plain  and  the  Plain  of  Sharon.  §  U.  The  Philistine 
Plain  continued  independent  of  the  Israelites.  §  15.  The  port  of  the 
Israelites — Jojipa.  §  IG.  The  Jordan.  §  17.  Appearance  of  the  coun- 
try to  the  Israelites. 

§  1.   Before  accompanyiiii^  tlie  Israelites  into  the  Z>a?id  of 
I^romise,'  it  will  be  well  to  take  a  brief  survey  of  its  pliysi- 

'  Heb.  xi.  9. 


Chap.  XV. 


A'ames  of  tlie  Holy  Land. 


281 


cal  features,  since  they  exercised  an  important  influence  upon 
the  history  of  the  chosen  peoj^le.     But  first  as  to  its  name. 

The  name  of  the  "  Holy  Land,"  which  has  been  most  fre- 
quently used  to  designate  the  country  from  the  Middle  Ages 
down  to  our  own  time,  occurs  but  once  in  Scripture.^  The 
name  of  "Palestina"  or  "Palestine,"  which  was  applied  to 
the  country  soon  after  the  Christian  era,  is  used  in  Scripture 
as  equivalent  to  "  Philistia,"  or  the  land  of  the  Philistines.^ 
The  ordinary  names  by  which  the  land  is  designated  in  the 
Bible  are  the  following  : — 

(1.)  During  the  Patriarchal  Period,  the  Conquest,  and  the 
Age  of  the  Judges,  and  also  where  those  early  periods  are  re- 
ferred to  in  the  later  literature,^  it  is  spoken  of  as  "  Canaan," 
or  more  frequently  "  the  land  of  Canaan,"  meaning  thereby 
"  the  country  west  of  the  Jordan,  as  opposed  to  "  the  land 
of  Gilead"  on  the  east.^ 

(2.)  During  the  Monarchy  the  name  usually,  though  not 
frequently,  employed,  is  "  the  land  of  Israel.""  It  is  Eze- 
kiel's  fovorite  expression.  The  pious  and  loyal  aspirations 
of  Hosea  find  vent  in  the  expression  "  land  of  Jehovah."^  In 
Zechariah  it  is,  as  we  have  already  seen,  "the  Holy  Land  ;"" 
and  in  Daniel  "  the  glorious  land."'  Occasionally  it  appears 
to  be  mentioned  simply  as  "  the  land  ;"   as  in  Ruth  i.   1  ; 


^Zech.  ii.  12. 

^  rnlestina  and  Palestine  occur  in 
tlic  Authorized  Version  but  four  times 
iti  all,  always  in  poetical  passages: 
the  first  in  Ex.  xv.  14,  and  Is.  xiv. 
21),  31  ;  the  second,  Joel  iii.  4.  In 
each  case  the  Hebrew  is  Pelesheth,  a 
word  found,  besides  the  above,  only 
in  Ps.  Ix.  8,  Ixxxiii.  7,  Ixxxvii.  4,  and 
cviii,  9,  in  all  which  our  translators 
have  rendered  it  by  "Philistia"  or 
"Philistines."  The  apparent  ambi- 
pnity  in  the  different  renderings  of  the 
A.  V.  is  in  reality  no  ambiguity  at 
all,  for  at  the  date  of  that  translation 
"Palestine"  was  synonymous  with 
"Philistia."  Thus  Milton,  with  his 
usnal  accuracy  in  such  points,  men- 
tions Dagon  as 

"Dreaded  throujjh  the  coast 
Of  Palestine,  in  Gath  and  Ascalon, 
And  Accaron  and  Gaza's  frontier  hounds" — 
{Par.  Lost,  i.  464), 

and  again  as 

" That  twice-battered  god  of  Palestine"— 
{IJi/mn  on  Nat.  V.  9). 


*  Ps.  cv.  11. 

'•'  Thus  :  "  Our  little  ones  and  our 
wives  shall  be  here  in  the  cities  of 
Gilead  ....  but  we  will  pass  over 
armed  into  the  land  of  Canaan " 
(Num.  xxxii.  26-32),  and  see  xxxiii. 
51  :  "  Phineas  ....  returned  from 
the  children  of  Reuben  and  the  chil- 
dren of  Gad  out  of  the  land  of  Gilead 
into  the  land  of  Canaan  to  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  "  (Josh.  xxii.  32.  See 
also  Gen.  xii.  5,  xxiii.  2,  19,  xxxi. 
18,  xxxiii.  18,  xxxv.  6,  xxxvii.  1, 
xlviii.  4,  7,  xlix.  30  ;  Num.  xiii.  2,  1 7, 
xxxiii.  40,  51  ;  Josh.  xvi.  2;  Judg. 
xxi.  12). 

"  1  Sam.  xiii.  19;  2  K.  v.  2,  4,  vi. 
23;  1  Chrnn.  xxii;  2  Chron.  ii.  17. 
Of  course  this  must  not  be  confound- 
ed with  the  same  appellation  as  ap- 
plied to  the  northern  kingdom  only 
(2  Chron.  xxx.  25  ;  Ex.  xxvii.  17). 

''  Hos.  ix.  3  ;  comp.  Is.  Ixii.  4,  etc., 
and  indeed  Lev.  xxv.  23,  etc. 

«Zech.  ii.  12. 

»Dan.  xi.  41. 


282  Position  of  the  Holy  Land.  Chap.  XV. 

Jer.  xxii.  27;  1  Mace.  xiv.  4  ;  Luke  iv.  25,  and  perlir.ps  even 
xxiii.  44. 

(3.)  Between  the  Ca23tivity  and  the  tmie  of  our  Lord  the 
name  "  Judaea  "  had  extended  itself  from  the  southern  por- 
tion to  the  whole  of  the  country,  even  that  beyond  Jordan.'" 
In  the  Book  of  Judith  it  is  applied  to  the  portion  between 
the  plain  of  Esdraelon  and  kSamaria,''  as  it  is  in  Luke  ;'^ 
though  it  is  also  used  in  the  stricter  sense  of  Judaea  proper,'* 
that  is,  the  most  southern  of  the  three  main  divisions  west 
of  Jordan.  In  this  narrower  sense  it  is  employed  through- 
out the  1st  Book  of  Maccabees.'* 

(4.)  The  Roman  division  of  the  country  hardly  coincided 
with  the  biblical  one,  and  it  does  not  appear  that  the  Romans 
had  any  distinct  name  for  that  which  we  understand  by  Pal- 
estine. • 

§  2.  The  Holy  Land  is  not  in  size  or  physical  characteris- 
tics proportioned  to  its  moral  and  historical  position,  as  the 
theatre  of  the  most  momentous  events  in  the  world's  history. 
It  is  but  a  strip  of  country  about  the  size  of  Wales,  less  than 
140  miles  in  length,  and  barely  40  in  average  breadth,  on  the 
very  frontier  of  the  East,  hemmed  in  between  the  Mediterra- 
nean Sea  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  enormous  trench  of  the 
Jordan  Valley  on  the  other,  by  which  it  is  eftectually  cut 
oft'  from  the  main-land  of  Asia  behind  it.  On  the  north  it  is 
shut  in  by  the  high  ranges  of  Lebanon  and  Ante-Lebanon,  and 
by  the  chasm  of  the  Litany.  On  the  south  it  is  no  less  en- 
closed by  the  arid  and  inhospitable  deserts  of  the  ujDper  part 
of  the  Peninsula  of  Sinai. 

§  3.  Its  position  on  the  map  of  the  world— as  the  world 
was  when  the  Holy  Land  first  made  its  appearance  in  histo- 
ry—is a  remarkable  one.  (1.)  It  is  on  the  very  outpost— 
on  the  extremest  western  edo-e  of  the  East.  On  the  shore 
of  the  Mediterranean  it  stands,  as  if  it  had  advanced  as  far 
as  possible  toward  the  West,  separated  therefrom  by  that 
Avhich,  when  the  time  arrived,  proved  to  be  no  barrier,  but 
the  readiest  medium  of  communication— the  wide  waters  of 
the  "  Great  Sea."  Thus  it  was  open  to  all  the  gradual  m- 
fluences  of  the  rising  communities  of  the  West,  Avhile  it  was 
saA'ed  from  the  retrogression  and  decrepitude  which  have  ul- 
timately been  the  doom  of  all  purely  Eastern  States  whose 
connections  were  limited  to  the  East  only.  (2.)  There  was, 
however,  one  channel,  and  but  one,  by  which  it  could  reach 
and  be  reached  by  the  great  Oriental  empires.     The  only 

'«  Matt.  xix.  1  ;  Mark  x.  1.  I      ''  John  iv.  3,  vii.  1.        "  See  espe- 

''  Judith  xi.  11).     "-  Luke  xxiii.  5.    !  cially  ix.  50,  x.  30,  38,  xi.  84. 


Cn.vi'.  XV'.  Description  of  the  Holy  Land.  283 

road  by  which  the  two  great  rivals  of  the  ancient  world 
could  approach  one  another — by  which  alone  Egypt  could 
get  to  Assyria,  and  Assyria  to  Egypt — lay  along  the  broad 
riat  strip  of  coast  which  formed  the  maritime  portion  of  the 
Holy  Land,  and  thence  by  the  plain  of  the  Lebanon  to  the 
Euphrates.  (3.)  After  this,  the  Holy  Land  became  (like  the 
Netherlands  in  Europe)  the  convenient  arena  on  which,  in 
successive  ages,  the  hostile  powers  Avho  contended  for  the 
empire  of  the  East  fought  their  battles. 

§  4.  It  is  essentially  a  mountainous  country.  Not  that  it 
contains  independent  mountain  chains,  as  in  Greece,  for  ex- 
ample, but  that  every  part  of  the  highland  is  in  greater  or 
less  undulation.  But  it  is  not  only  a  mountainous  country. 
The  mass  of  hills  which  occupies  the  centre  of  the  country  is 
bordered  or  framed  on  both  sides,  east  and  west,  by  a  broad 
belt  of  lowland,  sunk  deep  below  its  own  level.  The  slopes 
or  cliffs  which  form,  as  it  were,  the  retaining  walls  of  this 
depression,  are  furrowed  and  cleft  by  the  torrent  beds  which 
discharge  the  waters  of  the  hills,  and  form  the  means  of 
communication  between  the  upper  and  lower  level.  On  the 
west  this  lowland  interposes  between  the  mountains  and  the 
sea,  and  is  the  Plain  of  Philistia  and  of  Sharon.  On  the 
east  it  is  the  broad  bottom  of  the  Jordan  Valley,  deep 
down  in  Avhich  rushes  the  one  river  of  Palestine  to  its  grave 
in  the  Dead  Sea.'^  Such  is  the  first  general  impression  of 
the  physiognomy  of  the  Holy  Land.  It  is  a  physiognomy 
compounded  of  the  three  main  features  already  named — the 
plains,  the  highland  hills,  and  the  torrent  beds  :  features 
which  are  marked  in  the  Avords  of  its  earliest  describers,^^  and 
which  must  be  comprehended  by  every  one  who  wishes  to 
understand  the  country,  and  the  intimate  connection  existing 
between  its  structure  and  its  history.  In  the  accompanying 
sketch-map  (p.  285)  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  exhibit 
these  features  with  greater  distinctness  than  is  Usual,  or  per- 
liaps  possible,  in  maps  containing  more  detail. 

§  5.  About  half-way  up  the  coast  the  maritime  plan  is  sud 
denly  interrupted  by  a  long  ridge  thrown  out  from  the  cen- 
tral mass,  rising  considerably  above  the  general  level,  and 
terminating  in  a  bold  promontory  on  the  very  edge  of  the 
Mediterranean.  This  ridge  is  Mount  Carmel.  On  its  upper 
side,  the  plain,  as  if  to  compensate  for  its  temporary  displace- 
ment, invades  the  centre  of  the  country  and  forms  an  undula- 
ting hollow  right  across  it  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Jor- 

*^  See  §§  15,  18.  ^^  Num.  xiii.  29  ;  Josh.  xi.  16,  xii.  8. 


284:  Description  of  the  Holy  Land.  Chap,  XV. 

dan  Valley.  This  central  lowland,  which  divides  with  its 
broad  depression  the  mountains  of  Ephraim  from  the  moun- 
tains of  Galilee,  is  the  PlxUN  of  Esdraelon  or  Jezreel,  the 
great  battle-field  of  Palestine.  North  of  Carmel  the  lowland 
resumes  its  position  by  the  sea-side  till  it  is  again  interrupted, 
and  finally  put  an  end  to,  by  the  northern  mountains  wdiich 
push  their  way  out  of  the  sea,  ending  in  the  white  promon- 
tory of  the  Mas  N^akhiira.  Above  this  is  the  ancient  Phoeni- 
cia. Behind  Phoenicia — north  of  Esdraelon,  and  enclosed  be- 
tween it,  the  Litany^  and  the  upper  valley  of  the  Jordan — is 
a  continuation  of  the  mountain  district,  rising  gradually  in 
occasional  elevation  until  it  reaches  the  main  ranges  of  Leba- 
non and  Ante-Lebanon  (or  Hermon),  as  from  their  lofty  heights 
they  overlook  the  whole  land  below  them. 

§  6.  The  country  thus  roughly  portrayed,  and  which,  as 
before  stated,  is  less  than  140  miles  in  length,  and  not  more 
than  40  in  average  breadth,  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  the 
Avhole  land  of  Israel.  The  northern  portion  is  Galilee  ;  the 
centre,  Samaria;  the  south,  Judaea.  This  is  the  land  of 
Canaan  which  was  bestowed  on  Abraham ;  the  covenanted 
home  of  his  descendants.  The  two  tribes  and  a  half  remained 
on  the  uplands  beyond  Jordan  ;'^  and  the  result  was,  that 
these  tribes  soon  ceased  to  have  any  close  connection  with 
the  others,  or  to  foi-m  any  virtual  part  of  the  nation.  But 
even  this  definition  might  without  impropriety  be  further  cir- 
cumscribed ;  for  during  the  greater  part  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment times  the  chief  events  of  the  history  were  confined  to 
the  district  south  of  Esdraelon,  which  contained  the  cities  of 
Hebron,  Jerusalem,  Bethel,  Shiloh,  Shechem,  and  Samaria,  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  and  Mount  Carmel.  The  battles  of  the  Con- 
quest and  the  early  struggles  of  the  era  of  the  Judges  once 
passed,  Galilee  subsided  into  obscurity  and  unimportance  till 
the  time  of  Christ. 

§  7.  The  highland  district,  surrounded  and  intersected  by 
its  broad  lowland  plains,  preserves  from  north  to  south  a  re- 
markably even  and  horizontal  profile.  Its  average  height 
may  be  taken  as  1500  to  1800  feet  above  the  Mediterranean. 
It  can  hardly  be  denominated  a  plateau,  yet  so  evenly  is  the 
general  level  preserved,  and  so  thickly  do  the  hills  stand  be- 
hind and  between  one  another,  that,  when  seen  from  the  coast 
or  the  western  part  of  the  maritime  plain,  it  has  quite  the  ap 
pearance  of  a  wall.  This  general  monotony  of  profile  is,  how- 
ever, accentuated  at  intervals  by  certain  centres  of  eleva- 

''  See  pp.  200,  210. 


;ip   of   l\cle;liu. 


Chap.  XV.  Descrii:)tion  of  the  Hohj  Land.  287 

tion.^*  Between  these  elevated  points  runs  the  water-shed  of 
the  country,  sendmg  oft'  on  either  hand — to  the  Jordan  Valley 
on  the  east,  and  the  Mediterranean  on  the  west — the  long 
tortuous  arms  of  its  many  torrent  beds.  The  valleys  on  the 
two  sides  of  the  water-shed  differ  considerably  in  character. 
Those  on  the  east  are  extremely  steep  and  rugged.  This  is 
the  case  during  the  whole  length  of  the  southern  and  middle 
portions  of  the  country.  It  is  only  when  the  junction  between 
the  plain  of  Esdraelon  and  the  Jordan  Valley  is  reached,  that 
the  slopes  become  gradual,  and  the  ground  ht  for  the  ma- 
noeuvres of  any  thing  but  detached  bodies  of  foot-soldiers. 
But,  rugged  and  difficult  as  they  are,  they  form  the  only  ac- 
cess to  tlie  upper  country  froin  this  side ;  and  every  man,  or 
body  of  men,  who  reached  the  territory  of  Judah,  Benjamin, 
or  Ephraim,  from  the  Jordan  Valley,  must  have  climbed  one 
or  other  of  them.     The  western  valleys  are  more  gradual  in 


Section  of  the  Country  from  Jaffa  to  tlie  Mountains  of  Moab. 

their  slope.  The  level  of  the  external  plain  on  this  side  is 
higher,  and  therefore  the  fall  less,  while  at  the  same  time  the 
distance  to  be  traversed  is  much  greater.  Here,  again,  the 
valleys  are  the  only  means  of  communication  between  the 
lowland  and  tlie  highland.  From  Jaffa  aiid  the  central  part 
of  the  plain  there  are  two  of  these  roads  "  going  up  to  Jeru- 
salem ;"  the  one  to  the  right  by  Ramleh  and  the  Wady  Aly  ; 
the  other  to  the  left  by  Lydda,  and  thence  by  the  Beth-'horons, 
or  the  Wady  Sideimcui,  and  Gibeon.  The  former  of  these  is 
modern,  but  the  latter  is  the  scene  of  many  a  famous  incident 
in  the  ancient  history. 

§  8.  When  the  highlands  of  the  country  are  more  closely 
examined,  a  considerable  difference  Avill  be  found  to  exist  in 
the  natural  condition  and  appearance  of  their  different  por- 


'®  Beginnin{T  from  the  south,  these 
elevations  are,  Hebron,  3029  feet 
above  the  Mediterranean  ;  Jerusalem 


Bethel,  2400  ;  SinjH  2685  ;  Ebal  and 
Gerizim,  2700;  "'Little  Hermon  " 
and  Tabor  (on  the  north  side  of  the 


2610;    and  Mount  of  Olives,  2724,   plain   of  Esdraelon),    1900  ^    Sajtd, 
with  Nehy  Samwilon  the  north,  2650  ;   2775  ;  Jebel  Jurmuk,  4000. 


258  Description  of  the  Holy  Land.  Chap.  XV. 

tions.  Tlie  south,  as  being  nearer  the  arid  desert,  and  farther 
removed  from  the  drainage  of  the  mountains,  is  drier  and  less 
productive  than  the  north.  The  tract  below  Hebron,  which 
forms  the  link  between  the  hills  of  Judah  and  the  desert,  was 
known  to  the  ancient  Hebrews  by  a  term  originally  derived 
from  its  dryness  {Negeb).  This  was  the  south  country. 
As  the  traveller  advances  north  of  this  tract  there  is  an  im- 
provement ;  but  perhaps  no  country  equally  cultivated  is 
more  monotonous,  bare,  or  uninviting  in  its  aspect,  than  a 
great  part  of  the  highlands  of  Judah  and  Benjamin  during 
the  largest  portion  of  the  year.  The  spring  covers  even 
those  bald,  gray  rocks  with  verdure  and  color,  and  fills  the 
ravines  Avith  torrents  of  rushing  water ;  but  in  summer  and 
autumn  the  look  of  the  country  from  Hebron  up  to  Bethel  is 
very  dreary  and  desolate.  At  Jerusalem  this  reaches  its  cli- 
max. To  the  west  and  north-west  of  the  highlands,  where 
the  sea-breezes  are  felt,  there  is  considerably  more  vegetation. 

Hitherto  we  have  spo.ken  of  the  central  and  northern  por- 
tions of  Judaea.  Its  eastern  portion — a  tract  some  nine  or 
ten  miles  in  width,  by  about  thirty-five  in  length — which  in- 
tervenes between  the  centre  and  the  abrupt  descent  to  the 
Dead  Sea,  is  far  more  wild  and  desolate,  and  that  not  for  a 
portion  of  the  year  only,  but  throughout  it.  This  must  have 
been  always  what  it  is  now — an  uninhabited  desert,  because 
uninhabitable. 

Xo  descriptive  sketch  of  this  part  of  the  country  can  be 
complete  Avhich  does  not  allude  to  the  caverns,  characteristic 
of  all  limestone  districts,  but  here  existing  in  astonishing 
numbers.  Every  hill  and  ravine  is  pierced  with  them,  some 
very  large,  and  of  curious  formation — perhaps  partly  natural, 
partly  artificial — others  mere  grottoes.  Many  of  them  are 
connected  with  most  important  and  interesting  events  of 
the  ancient  history  of  the  country.  Especially  is  this  true  of 
the  district  now  nnder  consideration.  Machpelah,  Makkedah, 
Adullam,  Engedi,  names  inseparably  connected  with  the  lives, 
adventures,  and  deaths  of  Abraham,  Joshua,  David,  and  other 
Old  Testament  worthies,  are  all  within  the  small  circle  of  the 
territory  of  Judtea.  Moreover,  there  is  perhaps  hardly  one 
of  these  caverns,  however  small,  which  has  not  at  some  time 
or  other  furnished  a  hiding-place  to  some  ancient  Hebrew 
from  the  sweeping  incursions  of  Philistine  or  Amalekite. 

The  bareness  and  dryness  which  prevail  more  or  less  in 
Judsea  are  oWing  partly  to  the  absence  of  the  wood,  partly 
to  its  proximity  to  the  desert,  and  partly  to  a  scarcity  of  wa- 
ter, arisinor  from  its  distance  from  the  Lebanon.     But  to  this 


CiiAP.  XV.  Description  of  the  Holy  Land.  289 

discouraging  aspect  there  are  some  imjDortant  exceptions. 
The  valley  of  tl'tds,  south  of  Bethlehem,  contains  springs 
which  in  abundance  and  excellence  rival  even  those  of  JVa- 
bMs  ;  the  huge  "  Pools  of  Solomon  "  are  enough  to  supply  a 
district  for  many  miles  round  them  ;  and  the  cultivation  now 
o-oino;  on  in  that  nei2:hborhood  shows  what  mio:ht  be  done 
with  a  soil  which  requires  only  irrigation  and  a  moderate 
amount  of  labor  to  evoke  a  boundless  produce. 

§  9.  It  is  obvious  that  in  the  ancient  days  of  the  nation, 
when  Judah  and  Benjamin  possessed  the  teeming  population 
indicated  in  the  Bible,  the  condition  and  aspect  of  the  coun- 
try must  have  been  very  different.  Of  this  there  are  not 
wanting  sure  evidences.  There  is  no  country  in  Avhich  the 
ruined  towns  bear  so  large  a  proportion  to  those  still  exist- 
ing. Hardly  a  hill-top  of  the  many  within  sight  that  is  not 
covered  with  vestiges  of  some  fortress  or  city.  But,  besides 
this,  forests  appear  to  have  stood  in  many  parts  of  Judtea  un- 
til the  repeated  invasions  and  sieges  caused  their  fall ;  and 
all  this  vegetation  must  have  reacted  on  the  moisture  of  the 
climate,  and,  by  preserving  the  water  in  many  a  ravine  and 
natural  reservoir  Avhere  now  it  is  rapidly  dried  by  the  fierce 
sun  of  the  early  summer,  must  have  influenced  materially  the 
look  and  the  resources  of  the  country. 

§  10.  Advancing  northward  from  Judrea,  the  country  (Sama- 
ria) becomes  gradually  more  open  and  pleasant.  Plains  of 
good  soil  occur  between  the  hills,  at  first  small,  but  afterward 
comparatively  large.  The  hills  assume  here  a  more  varied 
aspect  than  in  the  southern  districts,  springs  are  more  abun- 
dant and  more  permanent,  until  at  last,  when  the  district  of 
Jebel  JVciblus  is  reached — the  ancient  Mount  Ephraim — the 
traveller  encounters  an  atmosphere  and  an  amount  of  vege- 
tation and  water  which  is  greatly  superior  to  any  thing  he 
has  met  with  in  Judrea,  and  even  sufficient  to  recall  much  of 
the  scenery  of  the  West.  Perhaps  the  springs  are  the  only 
objects  which  in  themselves,  and  aj^art  from  their  associations, 
really  strike  an  English  traveller  with  astonishment  and  ad- 
miration. Such  glorious  fountains  as  those  of  Ain-jaMd  or 
the  Has  el-Mukdtta^  where  a  great  body  of  the  clearest  water 
wells  silently  but  swiftly  out  from  deep  blue  recesses  worn 
in  the  foot  of  a  low  cliff  of  limestone  rock,  and  at  once  forms 
a  considerable  stream,  are  very  rarely  to  be  met  with  out 
of  irregular,  rocky,  mountainous  countries  ;  and  being  such  un- 
usual sights,  can  hardly  be  looked  on  by  the  traveller  without 
surprise  and  emotion.  The  valleys  whicli  lead  down  fi-om  the 
upper  level  in  this  district  to  the  valley  of  the  Jordan  are 


290  Description  of  the  Holy  Land.  Chap.  XV. 

less  precipitous  than  in  Judaea.  The  eastern  district  of  the  Je- 
belNctblus  contains  some  of  the  most  fertile  and  vahiable  spots 
in  the  Holy  Land.  Hardly  less  ricli  is  the  extensive  region 
which  lies  north-west  of  the  city  of  Shechem  (N(iblils),he- 
tween  it  and  Carmel,  in  which  the  mountains  gradually  break 
down  into  the  plain  of  Sharon.  But  with  all  its  richness, 
and  all  its  advance  on  the  southern  part  of  the  country,  there 
is  a  strange  dearth  of  natural  wood  about  this  central  dis- 
trict. It  is  this  which  makes  the  wooded  sides  of  Carmel 
and  the  park-like  scenery  of  the  adjacent  slopes  and  plains  so 
remarkable. 

§  11.  No  sooner,  however,  is  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  passed, 
than  a  considerable  improvement  is  perceptible.  The  low 
hills  which  spread  down  from  the  mountains  of  Galilee,  and 
form  the  barrier  between  the  plains  of  Akka  and  Esdraelon, 
are  covered  with  timber,  of  moderate  size,  it  is  true,  but  of 
thick  vigorous  growth,  and  pleasant  to  the  eye.  Eastward  of 
these  hills  rises  the  round  mass  of  Tabor,  dark  with  its  copses 
of  oak,  and  set  off  by  contrast  with  the  bare  slopes  of  Jebelel- 
Dahy  (the  so-called  "  Little  Hermon")  and  the  white  hills  of 
Nazareth.  North  of  Tabor  and  Nazareth  is  the  plain  of  M- 
Buttaiif  an  upland  tract  hitherto  very  imperfectly  described, 
but  api)arently  of  a  similar  nature  to  Esdraelon,  though  much 
more  elevated.  The  notices  of  this  romantic  district  in  the 
Bible  are  but  scanty  ;  in  fact,  till  the  date  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, when  it  had  acquired  the  name  Galilee,  it  may  be  said, 
for  all  purposes  of  history,  to  be  hardly  mentioned.  And 
even  in  the  New  Testament  times  the  interest  is  confined  to 
a  very  small  portion — the  south  and  south-west  corner,  con- 
taining Nazareth,  Cana,  and  Nain,  on  the  confines  of  Esdrae- 
lon, Capernaum,  Tiberias,  and  Gennesareth,  on  the  margin  of 
the  lake. 

§  12.  Few  things  are  a  more  constant  source  of  surprise  to 
the  stranger  in  the  Holy  Land  than  the  manner  in  which  the 
hill-tops  are,  throughout,  selected  for  habitation.  A  town  in 
a  valley  is  a  rare  exception.  On  the  other  hand  scarce  a  sin- 
gle eminence  of  the  multitude  always  in  sight  but  is  crowned 
with  its  city  or  village,  inhabited  or  in  ruins,  often  so  placed 
as  if  not  accessibility  but  inaccessibility  had  been  the  object 
of  its  builders.  And  indeed  such  was  their  object.  These 
groups  of  naked  forlorn  structures,  piled  irregularly  one  over 
the  other  on  the  curve  of  the  hill-top,  are  the  lineal  descend- 
ants, if  indeed  they  do  not  sometimes  contain  the  actual  re- 
mains, of  the  "  fenced  cities,  great  and  walled  up  to  heaven," 
which  are  so  frequently  mentioned  in  the  records  of  the  Is- 


Chap.  XV. 


Description  of  the  Holy  Lomd. 


291 


raelite  conquest.  These  hill-towns  were  not  what  gave  the 
Israelites  their  main  difficulty  in  the  occupation  of  the  coun- 
try. Wherever  strength  of  arm  and  lleetness  of  foot  avail- 
ed, there  those  hardy  warriors,  fierce  as  lions,  sudden  and 
swift  as  eagles,  sure-footed  and  fleet  as  the  wild  deer  on  the 
hills,''  easily  conquered.  It  was  in  the  plains,  where  the 
horses  and  chariots  of  the  Canaanites  and  Philistines  had 
space  to  manoeuvre,  that  they  failed  in  dislodging  the  aborig- 
ines. "  Judah  drove  out  the  inhabitants  of  the  mountain,  but 
could  not  drive  out  the  inhabitants  of  the  valley,  because 
they  had  chariots  <>f  iron  .  .  .  neither  could  Manasseh  drive 
out  the  inhabitants  of  Bethshean  .  .  .  nor  Megiddo,"  in  the 
plain  of  Esdraelon  ..."  nor  could  Ephraim  drive  out  the 
Canaanites  that  dwelt  in  Gezer,"  on  the  maritime  plain  near 
Ramleh  ..."  nor  could  Asher  drive  out  the  inhabitants  of 
Accho " .  .  .  "  and  the  Amorites  forced  the  children  of  Dan 
into  the  mountain,  for  they  would  not  sufler  them  to  come 
down  into  the  valley.'""  Thus  in  this  case  the  ordinary  con- 
ditions of  conquest  were  reversed — the  conquerors  took  the 
hills,  the  conquered  kept  the  plains.  To  a  people  so  exclu- 
sive as  the  Jews  there  must  have  been  a  constant  satisfac- 
tion in  the  elevation  and  inaccessibility  of  their  highland  re- 
gions. This  is  evident  in  every  page  of  their  literature,which 
is  tino;ed  throus^hout  with  a  highland  coloring.  The  "moun- 
tains "  were  to'"  bring  peace,"" the  "  little  hills,  justice  to  the 
people :"  when  plenty  came,  the  corn  was  to  flourish  on  the 
"  top  of  the  mountains.""  In  like  manner  the  mountains  w^ere 
to  be  joyful  before  Jehovah  when  He  came  to  judge  His  peo- 
ple." What  gave  its  keenest  sting  to  the  Babylonian  con- 
quest, was  the  consideration  that  the  "  mountains  of  Israel," 
the  "  ancient  high  places,"  were  become  a  "  prey  and  a  de- 
rision ;"  wdiile  on  the  other  hand,  one  of  the  most  joyful  cir- 
cumstances of  the  restoration  is,  that  the  mountains  "  shall 
yield  their  fruit  as  before,  and  be  settled  after  their  old  es- 
tates."" We  have  the  testimony  of  the  heathens  that  in 
their  estimation  Jehovah  was  the  "  God  of  the  mountains,"'" 
and  they  showed  their  appreciation  of  the  fact  by  fighting, 
when  possible,  in  the  lowlands.  The  contrast  is  strongly 
brought  out  in  the  repeated  expression  of  the  psalmists. 
"  Some,"  like  the  Canaanites  and  Philistines  of  the  lowlands, 
"  put  their  trust  in  chariots,  and  some  in  horses  ;  but  we  "-^ 
we  mountaineers,  from  our  "  sanctuary  "  on  the  heights  of 


"  I  Chron.  xii.  8 ;  2  Sam.  i.  23,  ii. 
18.  ^°  Judg.  i.  19-35. 

^' Ps.  Ixxii.  3.  16. 


2-Ps.  xcviii.8. 
"Ezek.  xxxvi.  1,8,  11. 
^  I  K.  XX.  28. 


292  Description  of  the  Holy  Land.  Chap.  XV. 

^'  Zion  " — "  will  remember  the  name  of  Jehovah  our  God," 
"  the  God  of  Jacob  our  Father,"  the  shepherd-Avarrior,  whose 
only  weapons  w^ere  sword  and  bow — the  God  who  is  noAV  a 
high  fortress  for  us — "  at  Avhose  command  both  chariot  and 
horse  are  fallen,"  "  w^ho  burnetii  the  chariots  in  the  JSre."" 

§  13.  A  few  words  must  be  said  in  general  description  of 
the  maritime  lowland,  which  intervenes  betw^een  the  sea  and 
the  highlands.  This  region,  only  slightly  elevated  above  the 
level  of  the  Mediterranean,  extends  without  interruption  from 
El-Avish.^  south  of  Gaza,  to  Mount  Carmel.  It  naturally  di- 
vides itself  into  two  portions,  each  of  about  half  its  length  : 
— the  lower  one  the  wdder  ;  the  upper  one  the  narrower.  The 
lower  half  is  the  plain  of  the  Philistines — Philistia,  or,  as  the 
Hebrew^s  called  it,  the  Shefelah^  or  low^land.  The  upper  half 
is  the  Sharon  or  Saron  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  The 
Philistixe  Plain  is  on  an  average  fifteen  or  sixteen  miles  in 
w^idth  from  the  coast  to  the  first  beginning  of  the  belt  of  hills, 
which  forms  the  gradual  approach  to  the  high  land  of  the 
mountains  of  Judah.  The  larger  towns,  as  Gaza  and  Ashdod, 
which  stand  near  the  shore,  are  surrounded  with  huge  groves 
of  olive,  sycamore,  and  palm,  as  in  the  days  of  King  David.^" 
The  whole  plain  appears  to  consist  of  brown  loamy  soil,  light, 
but  rich,  and  almost  without  a  stone.  It  is  now,  as  it  was 
when  the  Philistines  possessed  it,  one  enormous  cornfield ;  an 
ocean  of  wheat  covers  the  wide  expanse  between  the  hills 
and  the  sand  dunes  of  the  sea-shore,  without  interruption  of 
any  kind — no  break  or  hedge,  hardly  even  a  single  olive-tree. 
Its  fertility  is  marvellous;  for  the  prodigious  crops  which 
it  raises  are  produced,  and  probably  have  been  produced  al- 
most year  by  year  for  the  last  forty  centuries,  without  any 
of  the  appliances  which  we  find  necessary  for  success.  The 
Plain  of  Shakon  is  much  narroAver  than  Philistia.  It  is 
about  ten  miles  wdde  from  the  sea  to  the  foot  of  the  mount- 
ains, Avhich  are  here  of  a  more  abrupt  character  than  those  of 
Philistia,  and  Avithout  the  intermediate  hilly  region  there  oc- 
curring. 

§  14.  It  is  probable  that  the  Israelites  never  permanently 
occupied  more  than  a  small  jjortion  of  this  rich  and  favored 
region.  Its  principal  towns  Avere,  it  is  true,  allotted  to  the 
different  tribes  -^^  but  this  AA^as  in  anticipation  of  the  intended 
conquest.^^  The  five  cities  of  the  Philistines  remained  in  their 
possession  ;""  and  the  district  Avas  regarded  as  one  independ- 

-*  Ps.  XX.  1,  7,  xlvi.  7-11,  Ixxvi.  2, 1  "  Josh.  xv.  45-47,  xvi.  3,  Gczer  ; 
G.  -"  1  Chron.  xxvii.  28.      |xvii.  11,  Dor,  etc. 

=^  Josh.  xiii.  3-G.  '^  1  Sam.  v.  xxi.  10,  xxvii. 


Chap.  XV. 


Description  of  the  Holy  Land. 


293 


ent  of  and  apart  from  Israel.'"  In  like  manner  Dor  remained 
in  the  hands  of  the  Canaanites,^^  and  Gezer  in  the  hands  of 
tlie  Philistines  till  taken  from  them  in  Solomon's  time  by  his 
father-in-law.^"  We  find  that  toward  the  end  of  the  mon- 
archy the  tribe  of  Benjamin  was  in  possession  of  Lydd,  Jimzu, 
Ono,  and  other  places  in  the  plain  ;^^  but  it  was  only  by  a 
gradual  process  of  extension  from  their  native  hills,  in  the 
rough  ground  of  which  they  were  safe  from  the  attack  of 
cavalry  and  chariots.  But,  though  the  Jews  never  had  any 
hold  on  the  region,  it  had  its  own  population,  and  towns 
probably  not  inferior  to  any  in  Syria.  Both  Gaza  and  Aske- 
lon  had  regular  ports.  Ashdod,  though  on  the  oj^en  plain,  re- 
sisted for  twenty-nine  years  the  attack  of  the  whole  Egyp- 
tian force  :  a  similar  attack  to  tliat  which  reduced  Jerusalem 
without  a  blow,^*  and  was  sufficient  on  another  occasion  to 
destroy  it  after  a  siege  of  a  year  and  a  half,  even  when  forti- 
fied by  the  works  of  a  score  of  successive  monarchs,^^ 

§  15.  Tlie  one  ancient  port  of  the  Jews,  the  "beautiful" 
city  of  Joppa,  occupied  a  position  central  between  the  Shef- 
elah  and  Sharon.  Iloads  led  from  these  various  cities  to  each 
other,  to  Jerusalem,  Neapolis,  and  Sebaste  in  the  interior,  and 
to  Ptolemais  and  Gaza,  on  the  north  and  south.  The  com- 
merce of  Damascus,  and,  beyond  Damascus,  of  Persia  and  In- 
dia, passed  this  way  to  Egypt,  Rome,  and  the  infant  colonies 
of  the  West ;  and  that  traffic,  and  the  constant  movement  of 
troops  backward  and  forward,  must  have  made  this  plain  one 
of  the  busiest  and  most  populous  regions  of  Syria  at  the  time 
of  Christ. 

§  16.  The  cliaracteristics  already  described  are  hardly  pe- 
culiar to  Palestine.  Her  hilly  surface  and  general  height, 
her  rocky  ground  and  thin  soil,  her  torrent  beds  wide  and 
dry  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year,  even  her  belt  of  mari- 
time lowland — these  she  shares  Avith  other  lands,  though  it 
would  perhaps  be  difficult  to  find  them  united  elsewhere. 
But  there  is  one  feature,  as  yet  only  alluded  to,  in  which  she 
stands  alone.  This  feature  is  the  Jordax — the  one  river  of 
tlie  country.  The  valley  through  which  the  Jordan  rushes 
down  its  extraordinary  descent  begins  with  the  river  at  its 
remotest  springs  of  Hasheiya,  on  the  N.  W.  side  of  Hermon, 
and  accompanies  it  to  the  lower  end  of  the  Dead  Sea,  a  length 
of  about  150  miles.  During  the  whole  of  this  distance  its 
course    is  straight,  and  its  direction  nearly  due  north  and 


^  1  Snm.  xxvii.  2;   IK.  ii.  39;  2 
K.  viii.  2,  3.  "  Judg.  i.  27. 

^2  1  K.  ix.  16. 


Neh.  xi.   3-i  ;     2  Cliron.  xxviii. 


^'  2  Chron    x 


2  K.  XXV.  1-3. 


29i  Descrqjtion  of  the  Holy  Land,  Chap.  XV. 

south.  The  springs  of  Hasbeiya  are  1700  feet  above  the  level 
of  the  Mediterranean,  and  the  northern  end  of  the  Dead  Sea  is 
1317  feet  below  it,  so  that  between  these  two  jioints  the  val- 
ley foils  with  more  or  less  regularity  through  a  height  of  more 
than  3000  feet.  But  though  the  river  disapj^ears  at  this 
point,  the  valley  still  continues  its  descent  below  the  waters 
of  the  Dead  Sea  till  it  reaches  a  further  depth  of  1308  feet. 
So  that  the  bottom  of  this  extraordinary  crevasse  is  actually 
more  than  2600  feet  below  the  surface  of  the  ocean.  In 
width  the  valley  varies.  In  its  upper  and  shallower  portion, 
as  between  Banias  and  the  Lake  of  Merom  {HCileh)^  it  is  about 
five  miles  across.  Between  the  Lake  of  Merom  and  the  Sea 
of  Galilee  it  contracts,  and  becomes  more  of  an  ordinary  ra- 
vine or  glen.  It  is  in  its  third  and  lower  portion  that  the 
valley  assumes  its  more  definite  and  regular  character.  Dur- 
ing the  greater  part  of  this  portion,  it  is  about  seven  miles 
wfde  from  the  one  wall  to  the  other.  The  eastern  mountains 
preserve  their  straight  line  of  direction,  and  their  massive 
horizontal  wall-like  aspect,  during  almost  the  whole  distance. 
The  western  mountains  are  more  irregular  in  height,  their 
slopes  less  vertical.  Xorth  of  Jericho  they  recede  in  a  kind 
of  wide  amphitheatre,  and  the  valley  becomes  twelve  miles 
broad,  a  breadth  Avhich  it  thenceforward  retains  to  the  south- 
ern extremity  of  tlie  Dead  Sea.  Buried  as  it  is  between  such 
lofty  ranges,  and  shielded  from  every  breeze,  the  climate  of 
the  Jordan  Valley  is  extremely  hot  and  relaxing.  Its  enerva- 
ting influence  is  shown  by  the  inhabitants  of  Jericho.  All 
the  irrigation  necessary  for  the  towns,  or  for  the  cultivation 
which  formerly  existed,  is  obtained  from  the  torrents  and 
springs  of  the  western  mountains.  For  all  purposes  to  which 
a  river  is  ordinarily  applied,  the  Jordan  is  useless.  So  rapid 
that  its  course  is  one  continued  cataract ;  so  crooked  that,  in 
the  whole  of  its  lower  and  main  course,  it  has  hardly  half  a 
mile  straight ;  so  broken  with  rapids  and  other  impediments, 
that  no  boat  can  swim  for  more  than  the  same  distance  con- 
tinuously ;  so  deep  below  the  surfixce  of  the  adjacent  country 
that  it  is  invisible,  and  can  only  with  difticulty  be  approach* 
ed;  resolutely  refusing  all  communication  with  the  ocean, 
and  ending  in  a  lake,  the  peculiar  conditions  of  which  render 
navigation  impossible — with  all  these  characteristics,  the  Jor- 
dan, in  any  sense  which  we  attach  to  the  word  "  river,"  is  no 
river  at  all : — alike  unless  for  irrigation  and  navigation,  it  is 
in  fact,  what  its  Arabic  name  signifies,  nothing  but  a  "  great 
watering-place." 
The  Dead  Sea,  which  is  the  final  receptacle  of  the  Jordan, 


Chap.  XV.  Description  of  the  Holy  Land.  295 

is  about  46  miles  in  length,  and  10^  miles  in  its  greatest 
width.  The  depression  of  its  surface,  and  tlie  dejith  which 
it  attains  below  that  surface,  combined  with  the  absence  of 
any  outlet,  render  it  one  of  the  most  remarkable  spots  on  the 
globe.  The  surface  of  the  lake  is  1316  feet  below  the  level 
of  the  Mediterranean  at  Jaffa,  and  its  greatest  depth  1308 
feet. 

§  17.  Monotonous  and  unviting  as  much  of  the  Holy  Land 
will  appear  from  the  above  description  to  English  readers, 
accustomed  to  the  constant  verdure,  the  succession  of  flow- 
ers, lasting  almost  throughout  the  year,  the  ample  streams 
and  the  varied  surface  of  our  own  country,  we  must  remem- 
ber that  its  aspect  to  the  Israelites  after  that  weary  march 
of  forty  years  through  the  desert,  and  even  by  the  side  of 
the  brightest  recollections  of  Egypt  that  they  could  conjure 
lip,  must  have  been  very  different.  After  the  "  great  and 
terrible  wilderness,"  with  its  "  fiery  serpents,"  its  "  scorpi- 
ons," "  drought,"  and  "  rocks  of  flint  " — the  slow  and  sultry 
march  all  day  in  the  dust  of  that  enormous  procession— the 
eager  looking  forward  to  the  Avell  at  which  the  encampment 
was  to  be  pitched — the  crowding,  the  fighting,  the  clamor, 
the  bitter  disappointment  round  the  modicum  of  water  when 
at  last  the  desired  spot  Avas  reached— the  "  light  bread  "  so 
long  "  loathed  " — the  rare  treat  of  animal  food  when  the 
quails  descended,  or  an  approach  to  the  sea  permitted  the 
"  fish  "  to  be  caught ;  after  this  daily  struggle  for  a  painful 
existence,  how  grateful  must  have  been  the  rest  aflbrded  by 
the  land  of  yjromise !  —  how  delicious  the  shade,  scanty 
though  it  were,  of  the  hills  and  ravines,  the  gushing  springs 
and  green  plains,  even  the  mere  wells  and  cisterns,  the  vine- 
yards and  olive-yards  and  "  fruit-trees  in  abundance,"  the 
cattle,  sheep,  and  goats,  covering  the  country  with  their  long 
black  lines,  the  bees  swarming  round  their  pendant  combs  in 
rock  or  wood  !  Moreover,  they  entered  the  country  at  the 
time  of  the  Passover,  when  it  was  arrayed  in  the  full  glory 
and  freshness  of  its  brief  spring-tide,  before  the  scorching  sun 
of  summer  had  had  time  to  wither  its  flowers  and  embrown 
its  verdure.  Taking  all  these  circumstances  into  account, 
and  allowing  for  the  bold  metaphors  of  Oriental  speech,  it  is 
impossible  not  to  feel  that  those  way-worn  travellers  could 
have  chosen  no  fitter  Avords  to  express  what  their  new  coun- 
try was  to  them  than  those  which  they  so  often  employ  in 
the  accounts  of  the  conquest — "  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and 
honey,  the  glory  of  all  lands,"       v 


Jericho. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  CONQUEST  AND   DIVISION  OF  THE   HOLY  LxVND.       B.C.    1451- 

1426. 

§  I.  Joslina,  the  leader  of  Israel.  §  2.  Two  s])ics  sent  to  Jericho,  and  saved 
by  llahab.  §  3.  Passage  of  tlie  Jordan.  §  4.  Circumcision  and  Pass- 
over at  GiLGAL — Cessation  of  rhe  iManna— State  of  the  country.  §  5. 
Jehovah  appears  to  Joshua — Jericho  taken,  and  devoted  to  Jehovah — 
The  curse  on  the  city,  and  the  l^lessing  on  Raliab.  §  6.  Sin  of  Achan 
and  capture  of  Ai — Ivesults  of  the  first  campaign — The  blessing  and 
the  curse  at  Shecliem.  §  7.  The  Gibeonites  obtain  a  treaty  by  a  strat- 
agem. §  8.  Confederacy  of  five  kings  against  Gibeon — Battle  of  Beth- 
boron — Conquest  of  the  south.  §  9.  Confederacy  of  the  north  under 
Jabin — Conquest  of  the  whole  laud — Considerable  exceptions.  §  10. 
Division  of  the  land  east  of  Jordan — Keuben,  Gad,  Manasseh.  §11. 
West  of  Jordan — Judah,  Ephraim,  Manasseli.  §  12.  The  Tabernacle 
setup  at  Shiloh — Possessions  of  Benjamin,  Simeon,  Zebulun,  Issachar, 
Asher,  Naphtali,  and  Dan — Lot  of  Joshua.  §  13.  Cities  of  Refuge 
and  of  the  Levites.  §  14.  Altar  of  the  two-and-a-half  tribes  —  The 
schism  healed.  §  15.  Last  exhortations  of  Joshua.  §  IG.  The  cove- 
nant renewed  at  Shechem — Deaths  of  Joshua  and  Elcazar — Burial  of 
Josej)h's  bones — Bright  period  of  national  fidelity. 


B.C.  1451.  Joshua  Leader  of  Israel.  297 

§  1.  Moses,  the  lawgiver,  vv^as  succeeded  by  Joshua,  tne 
military  chief,  on  whom  devolved  the  work  of  leading  the 
people  into  their  inheritance,  and  giving  them  "  rest."^  He 
was  the  son  of  ]S"un,  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim."  His  name  at 
first  was  Oshea  {helj)  or  Saviour) ,  ^Yh.\c\\  Moses  changed,  by 
prefixing  the  name  of  Jehovah,  to  Joshua,^  that  is,  God  is  the 
Saviour ;  and  this  name,  so  descriptive  of  his  work,  was  a 
type  of  the  higher  work,  of  Jesus,  in  "  saving  his  people  from 
their  sins."*  He  was  probably  above  eighty  years  of  age, 
having  been  above  forty  at  the  beginning  of  the  wandering 
in  the  wilderness.^  He  had  grown  up  to  mature  age  in  the 
state  of  Egyptian  bondage ;  he  had  shared  the  experience  and 
trials  of  the  wilderness,  as  the  chosen  servant  of  Moses;  he 
had  proved  his  military  capacity  at  Rephidim  and  in  the  con- 
quest of  the  land  east  of  Jordan  ;  and  his  steadfast  obedience 
at  Kadesh,  when  he  stood  alone  with  Caleb,  "  faithful  among 
the  faithless ;"  and  he  lived  for  about  twenty-five  years  more 
to  finish  his  allotted  work.  These  three  periods  of  his  life 
thus  embrace  the  whole  history  of  the  moulding  of  the  na- 
tion from  its  state  of  hopeless  bondage,  when  Moses  fled  to 
Midian,  till  Gt)d  "  brought  them  in  and  planted  them  in  the 
mountain  of  his  inheritance."^  His  character  was  in  accord- 
ance with  his  career :  a  devout  warrior,  blameless  and  fear- 
less, Avho  has  been  taught  by  serving  as  a  youth  how  to  com- 
mand as  a  man ;  who  earns  by  manly  vigor  a  quiet,  honored 
old  age  ;  who  combines  strength  with  gentleness,  ever  look- 
ing up  for  and  obeying  the  Divine  impulse  with  the  simplici- 
ty of  a  child,  while  he  wields  great  power,  and  directs  it  calm- 
ly, and  without  swerving,  to  the  accomplishment  of  a  high 
unselfish  purpose.  He  is  one  of  the  very  few  worthies  of  the 
Old  Testament  on  whose  character  there  is  no  stain,  though 
his  history  is  recorded  with  unusual  fullness.  We  have  al- 
ready noticed  his  ap23ointment  and  consecration  as  the  suc- 
cessor of  Moses. 

§  2.  As  soon  as  the  mourning  for  Moses  was  ended,  God 
appeared  to  Joshua,  and  commanded  him  to  lead  the  people 
over  Jordan,  with  a  renewed  description  of  their  land,  an  as- 
surance of  victory,  an  exhortation  to  courage  and  to  obe- 
dience maintained  by  meditation  on  the  book  of  the  law,  and 
a  promise  of  God's  presence.''      Joshua  prepared  the  host 


^  Heb.  iv.  8.         =  ^  ^hron.  vii.  27. 

^  The  fuller  form  is  Je.hosh.ua  ;  an- 
other form  is  Jeshua,-  and  in  Greek 
tlie  name  is  Jesus,  as  in  Acts  vii.  45  ; 
Heb.  iv.  8.  *  Matt.  i.  21. 

X  2 


*  The  Jewish  tradition  made  him 
eighty -five :  Joseph.  Ant.  v.  1,  §  29, 
which  agrees  with  his  age  at  hil 
death,  Josli,  xxiv.  29. 

"Ex.  XV.  17.  ^  Josh.  i.  1-10. 


298  Conquest  of  the  Holy  Land.  Chap.  XVI. 

a<^ainst  the  third  day,  and  summoned  the  two  tribes  and  a 
half  to  perform  their  promise  of  marching  in  the  van.  He 
had  ah-eady  sent  two  spies  to  Jericho,  which  was  to  be  the 
first  object  of  attack.  This  great  city®  stood  in  a  spacious 
plain,  about  six  miles  west  of  Jordan,  and  opposite  to  the 
camp  of  Israel,  in  the  midst  of  a  grove  of  noble  palm-trees, 
whence  it  was  called  "Jericho,  the  city  of  palms."^  It  had  a 
"king,"  like  all  the  great  cities  of  Canaan.  The  description 
of  its  spoil  proves  the  wealth  it  derived  from  its  position  on 
the  high  road  of  the  commerce  that  passed  from  the  East  over 
the  Jordan  to  Philistia  and  Egypt ;  and  the  "goodly  Baby- 
lonish garment"  in  particular  attests  its  use  of  the  products 
of  the  Chaldoean  capital.  It  appeared  to  possess  advantages 
for  a  capital  far  exceeding  those  of  Jerusalem,  to  which  it 
might  have  become  a  formidable  rival,  but  for  the  curse  laid 
upon  it  by  Joshua.  It  was  strongly  fortified  and  well  guard- 
ed, the  gates  being  shut  at  night.  ^^  The  houses  on  the  walls 
indicate  the  solidity  of  the  walls  themselves. 

The  two  spies  were  received  into  one  of  these  houses  by  a 
harlot  named  Rahab,  in  whose  mind  the  terror  that  had  fall- 
en on  the  Canaanites,  when  they  heard  all  that  God  had 
done  for  Israel,  had  produced  belief  in  Jehovah,  as  the  God  of 
heaven  and  of  earth,  and  in  his  i:>urpose  to  give  them  the  land. 
In  this  faith  she  hid  the  spies;  misdirected  the  ofiicers  of  the 
king,  who  came  in  search  of  them,  and  sent  them  out  of  the 
city  in  fruitless  pursuit ;  and  then  let  down  the  spies  from 
a  window  of  her  house  over  the  city  wall,  after  they  had 
sworn  to  save  her  family  in  the  destruction  of  the  city.^^  A 
scarlet  thread,  in  the  Avindow  from  which  she  had  let  them 
down,  was  the  sign  by  which  the  house  was  to  be  known. 
The  spies  fled  to  the  mountain  for  three  days,  to  avoid  the 
pursuers  v\'ho  had  gone  out  in  search  of  them,  and  then  re- 
turned to  Joshua,  with  the  report  that  Jehovah  had  delivered 
the  land  into  their  hands ;  for  all  the  inhabitants  were  faint- 
ing with  fear  because  of  them.^^ 

§  3.  The  next  morning  Joshua  broke  up  the  camp  at  Shit- 
tim,  and  moved  down  to  the  edge  of  the  Jordan,  which  at  this 
season,  the  harvest  {Aprit)^'^  overflowed  its  banks,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  melting  of  the  snow  about  its  sources  in  the 
Antilibanus.     On  the  third  day,  the  officers  instructed  the 


*  The  name  is  derived  either  from 
a  root  signifyinfr  fragrance^  or  from 
one  meaning  to  be  broad. 

^  Deut.  xxxiv.  3. 

*°  Josh,  ii.-vii. 


"  It  was  in  the  same  way  that  St. 
Paul  escaped  from  Damascus  (2  Oor. 
xi.  32,  33). 

^'  Josh.  ii. ;  comp.  Ex.  xv.  14, 15. 

^^  Josh.  iii.  15. 


B.C.  1451. 


Passage  of  the  Jordan. 


299 


people  in  the  order  of  their  march,  and  Joshua  bade  them 
sanctify  themselves  in  preparation  for  the  wonder  that  God 
should  do  on  the  morrow.  In  the  morning,  tlie  priests  that 
bore  the  ark  advanced  in  front  of  the  host  to  the  water's 
edo-e ;  and  their  feet  Avere  no  sooner  dipped  in  the  water,  than 
the  river  was  divided,  the  waters  that  came  down  from  above 
beino-  heaped  up  as  a  wall,  and  the  lower  portion  flowing 
down  toward  the  Dead  Sea,  and  leaving  the  channel  bare.'* 
The  priests  advanced  into  the  midst  of  the  river's  bed  with 
the  ark,  and  there  stood  firm  till  all  the  people  had  passed 
over/^  Meanwhile  twelve  chosen  men,  one  from  each  tribe, 
took  twelve  stones  from  the  spot  where  the  priests  stood  firm, 
and  brought  them  out  of  the  river,  leaving  in  their  place 
twelve  other  stones  from  the  dry  land.  When  all  this  was 
done,  Joshua  commanded  the  priests  to  come  up  out  of  Jor- 
dan ;  and  the  moment  that  their  feet  were  lifted  over  the 
margin  of  the  water  into  the  dry  land,  the  waters  of  the  river 
returned,  and  overflowed  the  banks  as  before. 

The  host  encamped  that  night  at  Gilgal,  in  the  plains  of 
Jericho,'"  and  there  Joshua  set  up  the  twelve  stones  that 
had  been  brought  out  of  the  river's  bed,  for  a  perpetual 
memorial  of  tlie  division  of  the  waters  before  the  ark  of  Je- 
hovah, to  let  his  people  pass  into  their  land,  just  as  the  Red 
Sea  had  been  divided  to  let  them  pass  out  of  Egypt.'^ 

§  4.  The  passage  of  the  Jordan  was  completed  on  the  tenth 
day  of  the  first  month  (Nisan=April,  b.c.  1451).^^  This  was 
the  day  appointed  for  the  selection  of  the  Paschal  Lamb, 
and  on  the  evening  of  the  fourteenth  the  people  kept  the 
Passover  for  the  first  time  on  the  sacred  soil  of  their  inher- 
itance, exactly  forty  years  after  their  fathers  had  first  kept 
it  before  leaving  Egypt.'^  But  first,  God  commanded  Josh- 
ua to  circumcise  the  people  ;  for  the  circumcised  generation, 
who  had  left  Egypt,  had  died  in  the  wilderness,  and  none 
of  the  present  generation  had  been  circumcised.'^"  It  seems 
strange  that  this  essential  seal  of  the  covenant  should  have 
been  neglected  under  the  leadership  of  Moses  himself;  but 
his  attention  may  have  been  too  closely  occupied  with  the 


'*  Joshua  iii.  16.  Comparing  tliis 
passac^e  with  Ex.  xiv.  22,  we  see  how 
exactly  the  two  descriptions  suit  the 
two  cases  of  the  river  and  the  sea. 

^^  The  passage  of  the  Israelites 
was  probably  near  the  present  south- 
ern fords,  crossed  at  the  time  of  the 
Christian  era  by  a  bridge  (Stanley, 


Jewish  Church,  p.  229,  First  Se- 
ries). 

"  Gilgal  was  at  the  eastern  side, 
Jericho  at  the  western  side  of  the 
plain.  Gilgal  was  about  five  miles 
from  the  Jordan 

^'  Josh.  iii.  iv.       "*  Josh.  iv.  10. 

'''  Josh.  V.  10.        '"  Josii.  V.  2-9. 


300  vonquest  of  the  Holij  Land.  Chap.  XVI 

public  affairs  of  the  people  to  inquire  into  a  matter  which 
]-ested  with  the  heads  of  families.  Be  this  as  it  may^  the 
omission  led  to  a  great  national  observance,  Avhich  may  be 
reo-arded  as  a  renewal  of  the  covenant  with  Abraham  in  the 
very  land  the  promise  of  which  had  been  sealed  with  the 
same  sign.  Perhaps  this  is  implied  in  the  terms  of  the  com- 
mand to  Joshua  to  "  circumcise  the  people  aga.iny  In  mem- 
ory of  the  "  rolling  away  of  their  reproach,"  the  place  was 
called  Gilgal,  i.  e.,  roll  lit  (j. 

Here,  on  the  morrow  after  the  Passo\'er,  the  new  genera- 
tion tasted  bread  for  the  first  time.  They  ate  unleavened 
bread  and  parched  corn  of  the  old  crop  of  the  land ;  and  at 
the  same  time  tlie  manna  ceased.  From  that  day  forward 
they  began  to  eat  the  fruits  of  tlie  year.^' 

We  must  not  fail  to  notice  the  picture  of  their  security 
and  their  command  of  the  open  country,  implied  in  these 
proceedings.  They  Avere  not  only  unmolested  during  their 
circumcision  and  the  Passover,  but  they  were  supplied  with 
old  and  new  corn,  Avhether  by  the  agency  or  by  the  flight 
of  the  country  people,  while  the  cities  were  "  closely  shut  up 
for  fear  of  them  ;"  and  the  news  of  their  passage  of  the  Jor- 
dan had  so  terrified  the  kings  of  tlie  Amorites  and  the  Ca- 
naanites,  from  the  Jordan  to  the  sea,  "  that  their  heart  melt- 
ed, neither  was  there  any  spirit  in  them  any  more,  because 
of  the  children  of  Israel." 

§  5.  As  Joshua  was  meditating  how  to  attack  Jericho,  a 
vision  was  vouchsafed  to  him,  to  teach  him  that  the  work 
Avas  God's.  Looking  up  toward  the  city,  he  saw  a  Avarrior 
opposite  to  him  Avith  a  drawn  SAvord  in  his  hand,  Avho,  in  re- 
ply to  Joshua's  challenge,  announced  that  he  had  come  forth 
as  the  "  Captain  (or  prince)  of  the  host  of  Jehovah."  This 
title,  so  often  afterward  applied  to  the  Son  of  God,  rcA'ealed 
him  to  Joshua,  Avho  fell  down  before  him  to  Avorship,  and  to 
receive  the  commands  of  his  supreme  general.  After  bid- 
ding him  to  put  off  his  shoe,  for  the  place  Avas  holy,^*  Jeho- 
vah promised  him  the  conquest  of  Jericho,  and  prescribed 
the  manner  of  its  capture.  The  host  were  to  compass  the 
city  for  seven  days :  the  first  six  days  once,  the  chosen  Avar- 
riors  marching  in  front  of  the  ark,  before  Avhich  scA'en  priests 

^' Josh,  V.  12.  "  Josh.  vi.  1.      land    the    mere   parenthesis   in  vi.  1 

^^Josh.  V.  1.  j  tnado    to    begin    a   chapter,  but   the 

"^^  Josl).  V.  13,  15.    Of  all  the  many    break  obscures  the    identity    of  the 

faults  in  tlie  division  of  our  chapters,    personage  who  appears  to  Joshua  in 

this    is  perha])s  the   most   unhappy,    chap.  v.  with    Jehovah,  wlio   speaks 

Not  onlv  is  the  narrative  cut  in  two,  |  to  him  in  chap.  vi. 


B.C.  U91.  Destruction  of  Jericlio.  801 

bore  seven  trumpets  of  ram's  horns  ;  the  rest  of  the  people 
followmg,  and  all  preserving  silence,  while  the  trumpets 
alone  sounded  a  continued  defiance.  On  the  seventh  day 
the  circuit  was  repeated  seven  times  ;  and  at  the  seventh, 
the  trumpets  pealed  forth  one  long  loud  blast ;  the  people 
raised  a  mighty  shout ;  the  wall  of  the  city  fell  down  flat ; 
and  each  man  rushed  in  straight  from  the  place  where  he 
had  stood,  as  Joshua  had  commanded."  Before  its  capture, 
the  city,  with  all  its  inhabitants,  was  "  accursed,"  or  "de- 
voted," as  the  first-fruits  of  the  spoil  of  Canaan — a  thing 
"  most  holy  to  Jehovah ;"  and  the  law  prescribed  that  all 
living  beings  so  devoted  should  be  put  to  death  without  re- 
demption, and  all  the  property  destroyed,  or  dedicated  to 
God/"  Only  the  household  of  Rahab  weie  excepted  from 
the  curse  ;  and  the  two  spies  were  sent  to  bring  her  and  her 
kindred  safe  out  beyond  the  camp.  Then  the  men  and  wom- 
en, young  and  old,  and  the  oxen,  sheep,  and  asses  were  put 
to  the  edge  of  the  sword :  the  city  was  burnt  with  fire,  and 
its  buildings  razed  to  the  ground  ;  the  silver  and  gold,  and 
vessels  of  brass  and  iron,  were  placed  in  the  sacred  treasury; 
and  Joshua  imprecated  a  solemn  curse  on  the  man  who 
should  rebuild  Jericho."  The  curse  was  literally  fulfilled  in 
the  fate  of  Hiel,  the  Bethelite,  who  rebuilt  Jericho  in  the 
reign  of  Ahab  (about  b.c.  925)  :  his  first-born  son,  Abiram, 
died  as  he  was  laying  the  foundation,  and  his  youngest  son, 
Segub,  while  he  was  setting  up  the  gatcs.^'* 

No  less  striking;  was  the  blessing  which  followed  Rahab 
for  her  conduct,  which  is  recorded  as  the  greatest  example 
o^  faith,  and  of  the  ivories  which  spring  from  faith,  in  the  old 
heathen  world."^  Besides  being  a  heathen,  she  was  a  liarlot, 
for  there  is  no  ground  for  the  niterpretation  of  the  word  as 
meaning  an  inn-keeper ;  though  there  is  much  to  prove  that 
she  Avas  not  utterly  depraved.  But  her  mind  and  heart  re- 
ceived in  simple  faith  the  proofs  of  Jehovah's  power  and  pur- 
])Oses  ;  she  served  his  people  with  courage,  ingenuity,  and  de- 
votion ;  and  so  she  "entered  into  the  kingdom  of  God.'"" 
She  was  rewarded  by  a  most  distinguished  place  among  the 
families  of  Israel."'  She  married  Salmon  (perhaps  one  of  the 
s])ies),  and  became  the  mother  of  Boaz,  the  great-grandfather 
of  David. -''^     Hers  is  thus  one  of  the  four  female  names,  all  of 

rv  of  Jericho,  see  Notes  and  lUus- 


^"^  Josli.  vi. 

'^"  Lev.  xxvii.  28.  29  ;  Josh.  vi.  17. 
"Josh.  vi.  21-27. 
^*  1  K.  xvi.  84  :   for  the  after  his- 
'''  Josh.  vi.  25. 


toi 
trofions. 

2''  Heh.  xi.  31  :  James  ii.  25. 

''  Matt.  xxi.  31. 

^^M.itt.  i.  5. 


302  Conquest  of  the  Holy  Land.  Chap.  XVI. 

them  foreigners,  recorded  in  tlie  genealogy  of  Christ  ;^^  and 
it  is  one  of  the  profoundest  moral,  as  well  as  spiritual,  lessons 
of  His  Gospel,  that  He  did  not  disdain  such  an  ancestry. 

The  fall  of  Jericho  itself  is  placed  by  the  Apostle  among  the 
great  triumphs  offait/i.^*  It  was  an  example  of  the  power 
of  simple  obedience  to  plans  of  action  prescribed  by  God ; 
and  an  earnest  of  the  conquests  to  be  achieved  by  the  same 
principle.  And  this  is  true  also  of  the  destruction  of  the  city. 
Not  only  as  the  first  which  the  Israelites  took,  but  as  perhaps 
the  most  conspicuous  city  of  Canaan  for  the  advantages  of  its 
position,  its  commerce,  wealtli,  and  luxury,  and  unquestion- 
ably also  for  the  abominable  vices  that  had  now  "  filled  up  the 
iniquity  of  the  Canaanites,"  its  doom  was  the  pattern  of  that 
denounced  on  the  cities  of  the  land. 

§  6.  There  was,  however,  one  man  among  the  Israelites, 
wliose  lust  of  spoil  made  him  unfiiithful.^^  His  act  brought 
a  curse  upon  all  Israel,  so  that  they  failed  in  their  next  enter- 
prise, the  attack  on  Ai.  This  was  the  place  east  of  Bethel, 
between  which  and  Bethel  Abraliam  had  pitched  his  tent  :^° 
it  lay  among  the  hills,  probably  at  the  head  of  one  of  the  pass- 
es leading  up  from  the  valley  of  the  Jordan.  The  spies  whom 
Joshua  had  sent  reported  it  an  easy  conquest;  and  only 
about  3000  men  were  detached  to  take  it.  They  were  rejjulsed 
and  chased  to  Shebarim,  with  the  loss  of  thirty-six  men. 
The  hearts  of  the  people  melted,  and  Joshua,  Avith  all  the  eld 
ers,  fell  down  before  the  ark  as  mourners,  and  uttered  earnest 
expostulations  to  Jehovah.  The  oracle  re^^lied  that  Israel 
had  sinned  in  taking  of  the  accursed  thing  and  concealing  it 
among  their  goods.  Joshua  Avas  commanded  to  sanctify  the 
people  against  the  morrow,  and  then  to  cast  lots  for  the  of- 
fender, who  was  to  be  slain  and  burned,  with  all  belonging  to 
him.  This  decision  by  lot  involved  no  chance,  but  in  the 
whole  history  of  the  Jews  it  was  one  of  the  most  regular  meth- 
ods of  revealing  the  will  of  God,  especially  in  reference  to 
some  individual.  "  The  lot  is  cast  into  the  lap,  but  the  wdiole 
disposal  thereof  is  Jehovah's.""  Accordingly,  the  lot  fell 
first  on  the  tribe  of  Judah,  then  on  the  fiimily  of  Zerah,  then 
on  the  house  of  Zabdi,  whose  members  were  brought  individ- 
ually before  Jehovah,  and  Achan  the  son  of  Carmi  was  taken. 
Exhorted  by  Joshua  to  give  glory  to  God,  Achan  confessed 
that  he  had  taken  from  the  spoil  of  Jericho  a  goodly  Baby- 
lonish garment,  and  200  shekels  of  silver,  and  a  Avedge  of  gold 

"  The  four  are  Thamar,  a  Canaan-  I  Ruth,  tlic  Moabitess ;  and  Bathsheba, 
ite,  the  concubine  of  Judali ;  liahab ;  1  the  Hittite.  ^  Heb.  xi.  30. 

•'  Josh.  vii.  ''  Gen.  xii.  8.  "  Prov.  xvi.  33. 


B.C.  ur>i. 


Destruction  of  Ai. 


303 


of  fifty  shekels'  weight,  and  had  hid  them  in  the  earth  in  his 
tent,  where  they  were  found  by  men  sent  by  Joshua.  The 
offender  was  stoned,  and  afterward  burned,  with  his  children, 
his  cattle,  and  his  tent,  and  a  great  heap  of  stones  was  raised 
over  them  to  mark  the  place,  which  received  the  name  of 
Achor  {trouble).^^  His  case  is  a  striking  example  of  the  effect 
of  sin,  as  involving  the  destruction  of  the  guiltless :  "  That 
man  perished  not  alone  in  his  iniquity. "^^ 

Encouraged  anew  by  God,  Joshua  formed  a  plan  for  taking 
Ai  by  stratagem,  which  met  with  complete  success.  The 
city  was  destroyed,  with  all  its  inhabitants,  the  cattle  only 
being  reserved  as  the  spoil  of  Jehovah.  The  King  of  Ai  was 
hanged  on  a  tree,  and  buried  under  a  great  heap  of  stones, 
the  only  memorial  of  the  city."  It  seems  to  be  implied  that 
Bethel  was  taken  at  the  same  time." 

The  victory  at  Ai  secured  the  passes  from  the  valley  of 
the  Jordan,  and  gave  the  Israelites  access  to  the  open  country 
in  the  centre  of  Palestine.  Joshua  now  marched  to  Shechem, 
where  he  held  the  solemn  ceremony  of  the  Blessing  and  the 
Curse  on  Mounts  Gerizim  and  Ebal,  as  prescribed  by  Moses. ''^ 
On  his  return,  a  force  was  doubtless  left  at  Ai  to  secure  the 
passes,  but  the  main  body  of  the  army  remained  encamj^ed  at 
Gilgal,  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan." 

The  above  events  form  the  first  stage  in  the  conquest  of 
Canaan. 

§  7.  A  great  league  was  now  formed  by  all  the  kings  west 
of  Jordan,  in  the  hills,  the  valleys,  and  the  sea-coasts,  as  far 
north  as  Lebanon,  against  the  Israelites."*  The  people  of  Gib- 
eon  alone  sought  for  peace  by  a  curious  stratagem.  Gibeon 
(now  El- Jib) ^  "  a  royal  city,  greater  than  Ai,'"'^was  the  chief 
of  the  four  cities  of  the  Hivites,"®  lyi^^g;  immediately  oppo- 
site the  pass  of  Ai,  and  at  the  head  of  the  pass  of  Beth-horon. 
It  would  therefore  have  been  the  next  object  of  the  attack 
of  the  Israelites.  Assuming  the  appearance  of  wayAvorn 
travellers,  with  old  shoes  and  sacks,  rent  and  patched  wine- 
skins, and  dry  and  mouldy  bread,  an  embassy  of  the  Gibeon- 
ites  v^^ent  to  Joshua,  and  declared  that  they  had  come  from  a 
very  far  country,  where  they  had  heard  the  name  of  Jehovah 
and  the  fame  of  His  mighty  deeds,  to  seek  for  a  league  with 


"^  Tlie  meaning  common  to  the 
words  Achan  and  Achor  is  alluded  to 
by  Joshua :  "Why  hast  thou  troubled 
us  ?  The  Lord  shall  trouble  thee  this 
day  "  (Josh.  vii.  25). 

'"  Josh.  xxii.  20. 


^^  Josh.  viii.  1-29.     *'  Josh.  v.  17- 
*2  Josh.  viii.  30-35.     See  p.  211. 
"Josh.  ix.  6.     "  Josh.  ix.  1,2. 
^^  Josh.  X.  2. 

^^  The  others  were  Chephirah,  Bee- 
roth,  andKirjath-jearim  (Josh.  x.  17). 


80J:  Battle  of  Beth-horon.  Cuap.  XVI. 

His  people.  Their  bread  had  been  hot,  they  said,  and  their 
garments  and  wine  and  skins  new  when  they  started. 

The  trick  imposed  upon  Joshua  and  the  princes  of  the  con- 
gregation, Avho  omitted  to  consult  the  oracle."^  They  made 
peace  with  the  Gibeonites,  and  swore  to  them  by  Jehovah 
to  save  their  lives.  Three  days  afterward  they  learned  the 
truth,  and  reached  their  cities  by  a  three  days'  march.  The 
oath  was  held  sacred,  in  spite  of  the  murmurs  of  the  congre- 
gation ;  but,  to  punish  their  deceit,  Joshua  put  the  Gibeonites 
under  a  curse,  by  which  they  became  devoted  to  Jehovah  in 
irredeemable  bondage,  and  they  were  employed  as  "  hewers 
of  wood  and  drawers  of  water  for  the  house  of  God  "  forever.''^ 
The  treaty  evidently  included  all  the  four  cities,  of  which 
Gibeon  was  the  chief.  The  transaction  affords  a  memoi-able 
example  of  a  principle  more  than  once  insisted  on  in  the  law, 
and  expressed  by  the  Psalmist  in  his  blessing  on  the  man 
"  who  sweareth  to  his  own  hurt,  and  changeth  not."** 

§  8.  Alarmed  by  the  defection  of  Gibeon,  Adoni-zedek,^" 
king  of  Jerusalem,  made  a  league  with  the  kings  of  Hebron, 
Jarmuth,  Lachish,  and  Eglon,  and  laid  siege  to  the  city.  The 
Gibeonites  sent  for  help  to  Joshua,  who  marched  by  night 
from  the  camp  at  Gilgal,  took  the  confederated  Amorites  by 
surprise,  and  utterly  routed  them  near  Beth-horon.^'  "The 
battle  of  Beth-horon  or  Gibeon,"  remarks  Dean  Stanley,  "  is 
one  of  the  most  important  in  the  history  of  the  world ;  and 
yet  the  very  name  of  this  great  battle  is  far  less  known  to 
most  of  us  than  that  of  Marathon  or  Cannae.""'^  Beth-horon 
(the  house  of  Caverns)  was  the  name  of  tAvo  villages,  an  "  up- 
per "  and  a  "  nether,"  or  loAver,^^  on  the  steep  road  from  Gibeon 
to  Azekah  and  the  Philistine  plain,^*  which  is  still  the  great 
road  of  communication  from  the  interior  of  the  country  to  the 
sea-coast." 

From  Gibeon  to  the  Upper  Beth-horon  is   a  distance  of 

^^  Josh.  X.  14,  ](Dlct.  of  Blhk,   art.  Beth  -  iiokon  ; 

*"  They    formed   the    class    called  { JStanlev,  ]).  208). 
Nethinim.  1      '"''Jewish     Church,    p.     238,    First 

"^  Ps.  XV.  4.  I  Series. 

=*"  That  is,  "  Lord  of  Righteous-  "^  Josh.  xvi.  3,  .5  ;  1  Chron.  vii.  24. 
Tiess."  The  significance  of  the  name  j  ^*  Josh.  x.  H),  1 1  ;  1  Mace.  iii.  24. 
seems  an  argument,  thougli  not  a  \  "  The  two  Bcth-horons  still  sur- 
decisive  one,  for  the  identification  of  vive  in  the  modern  villages  of  Beit'- 
liis  kingdom  with  that  of  Melchise- j  wr,  et-Tahta,  and  El-Foka.  On  the 
dek.  mountain  which  lies  to  the  south- 

'^  The  exact  place  is  the  steep  road  ward  of  the  nether  village  is  still  pre- 
between  the  two  villages  of  the  name,  served  the  name  {Yalu)  and  the  site 
the  Upper   and   Lower    Beth-horon    of  Ajalon. 


B.C.  H51. 


Battle  of  Beth-horoii.  30^ 


about  four  miles  of  broken  ascent  and  descent.  The  ascent, 
however,  predominates,  and  this  therefoi-e  appears  to  be  the 
"  o-oino*  up  "  to  Beth-lioron,  which  formed  the  first  stage  of 
Joshua's  pursuit.  With  the  upper  village  the  descent  com- 
mences ;  the  road  is  rough  and  difficult,  even  for  the  mountain- 
paths  of  Palestine,  now  over  sheets  of  smooth  rock  flat  as  the 
flag-stones  of  a  London  pavement,  now  over  the  upturned 
edc^es  of  the  limestone  strata,  and  now  among  the  loose  rec- 
tangular stones  so  characteristic  of  the  whole  of  this  district. 
After  about  three  miles  of  this  descent,  a  slight  rise  leads  to 
the  lower  village  standing  on  the  last  outpost  of  the  Benjani- 
ite  hills. 

This  rough  descent  from  the  Upper  to  the  Lower  Betli-ho- 
ron  is  the  ''  going  down  to  Beth-horon,"  which  formed  the 
second  stage  of  Joshua's  pursuit.  As  they  fled  down  this 
steep  pas8,"the  Canaanites  were  overtaken  by  a  miraculous 
hail-storm,  which  slew  more  than  had  fallen  in  the  battle.  It 
was  then  tliat  Joshua,  after  a  prayer  to  Jehovah,  who  had 
promised  him  this  great  victory,  "  said  in  the  sight  of  Isra- 
el— 

"  'Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon  Gibeon ; 

And  thou,  Moon,  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon.' 

And  the  sun  stood  still,  and  the  moon  stayed,  until  the  people 
liad  avenged  themselves  of  their  enemies.  Is  not  this  writ- 
ten in  the  Book  of  Jasher  .^"^®  The  miraculous  suspense  of 
the  "  greater  and  the  lesser  light "  in  their  full  course"  enabled 
Joshua  to  continue  his  pursuit  to  Makkedah,  a  place  in  the 
Shefelali^  or  maritime  plain, ^**  Avhere  the  five  kings  hid  them- 
selves in  a  cave.  Joshua  stayed  not  even  then,  but,  bidding 
the  people  roll  great  stones  to  the  mouth  of  the  caA^e,  and  set 
a  guard  over  it,  he  pressed  the  rear  of  the  fugitives,  and 
"  made  an  end  of  slaying  them  with  a  very  great  slaughter 
till  they  were  consumed,  that  the  rest  which  remained  of  them 
entered  into  fenced  cities.  And  all  the  people  returned  to 
the  camp  to  Joshua  at  Makkedah  in  peace  ;  none  moved  his 
tongue  against  any  of  the  children  of  Israel. "^'^ 

^^  Josh.  X.  12,  13.  On  the  samej  "  The  miracle  must  bo  understood 
spot  Judas  Maecabasus  won  a  great  as  phenomenal^  namely,  that  the  sun 
victory  over  the  forces  of  Syria  under  and  moon  appeared  to  the  Israelites 
Seron  (1  Mace.  iii.  13-24)  and,  later   to  stand  still. 

still,  the  Roman  army  under  Cestius  I  ^**  The  interruption  in  ver.  15  is 
Gallus  was  totallv  cut  up  (.Joseph.  I  probably  a  transposition,  or  a  part 
B.J.  ii.  19,  §§  8, '9).  The  Book  of  |  of  the  quotation  from  the  Book  of 
Jasher    is    mentioned    in    only    one  I  Jasher. 

other  passage  (2  Sam.  i.  18).  It  ^'^  Josh.  x.  20,  21;  comp.  Ex.  xl 
seems  to  have  been  written  in  verse.    7. 


806  Conquest  of  Ihe  Holy  Land.  Chap.  XVI. 

The  five  kings  were  now  brought  forth  from  the  cave,  and 
Joshua  bade  all  the  captains  place  their  feet  upon  their  necks, 
in  token  of  what  Jehovah  would  do  to  all  their  enemies. 
Then  he  slew  them,  and  hanged  them  on  live  trees  till  the 
evening.^"  Their  bodies  were  cast  into  the  cave,  and  its 
mouth  was  closed  with  great  stones,  just  as  that  most  memo- 
rable sun  at  length  went  down,  and  closed  the  day,  "  like 
which  there  was  none  before  it  or  after  it,  tluit  Jehovah 
hearkened  unto  the  voice  of  a  man ;  for  Jehovah  fought  for 
Israel."^^ 

This  great  battle  was  followed  by  the  conquest  of  the  seven 
kings  of  Makkedah,  Libnah,  Lachish,  Gezer,  Eglon,  Hebron, 
and  Debir,  whose  cities,  chief  and  dependent,  were  utterly  de- 
stroyed, with  all  their  inhabitants,  and  all  creatures  that 
breathed,  as  Jehovah  had  commanded. '^^  In  this  one  cam- 
paign*'^ Joshua  subdued  the  southern  half  of  Palestine,  both 
highlands  and  lowlands,  from  Kadesh-barnea  to  Gaza,  the 
eastern  and  western  limits  of  the  southern  frontier;  and  lie 
led  back  the  people  to  the  camp  at  Gilgal. 

§  9.  Our  attention  is  now  called  to  the  north,  the  country 
about  the  "Sea  of  Chinneroth"  (the  Lake  of  Galilee),  the 
Upper  Jordan,  and  the  bases  of  Mount  Lebanon."  Jabin,^* 
king  of  Hazor,  the  chief  city  of  N'orthern  Palestine,  formed  a 
league  against  Israel  with  all  the  kings  of  the  north  as  far  as 
Mount  Ilei-mon,  and  with  all  the  nations  that  were  still  un- 
subdued. Their  army  was  "as  the  sand  on  the  sea-shore  for 
multitude,"  and  they  had  many  chariots  and  horses. ^^  Joshua 
routed  tliem  by  the  waters  of  Merom,  and  chased  them  as  far 
as  "  Great  Zidon "  and  the  valley  of  Mizpeh  (probably  the 
great  valley  of  Coele-Syria).  In  obedience  to  God's  prohibi- 
tion of  cavalry,  Joshua^  cut  the  hoof-sinews  of  the  horses  and 
burnt  the  chariots,  which  he  might  have  been  tempted  to  keep 
as  the  choicest  prizes  of  victory."  Joshua  next  "  turned 
back,"  perhaps  on  some  new  provocation,  and  took  Hazor, 
putting  its  king  and  all  the  inhabitants  to  the  sword,  and 
likewise  with  the  other  cities  of  the  confederates ;  but  the 
cities  themselves  were  left  standing  except  Hazor,  which  he 

rcditary  title  (Judges  iv.).  Hazor 
stood  on  an  eminence.  These  north- 
ern Canaanites  seem  to  have  been 
for  the  most  part  of  the  same  race  as 
the  Phoenicians,  who  were  called  Ca- 
naanites in  their  own  tongue. 

'"'Josephus  gives  them  300,000 
foot,  10,000  horse,  and  20,000  chari- 
ots.  ^^  Josh.  xi.  9. 


^°  Josh.  X.  22-27.      ^'  Josh.  x.  U. 

•^2  Josh.  X.  28-39.  It  may  he  in- 
ferred from  Josliua  xi.  13,  14,  that 
this  destruction  extended  only  as  far 
as  the  entire  desolation  of  the  cities, 
and  that  they  were  not  burnt. 

"^  Josh.  X.  42  :  "at  one  time." 

^  Josh.  xi. 

"  This  seems  to  have  been   a  he- 


B.C.  1445.  Conquest  of  the  North.  307 

burnt,  as  being  "the  head  of  all  those  kingdoms.'"'  As  the 
result  of  this  third  campaign^  Israel  was  master  of  the  whole 
land  from  Mount  Halak  (the  smooth  mountain)^  at  the  ascent 
to  Mount  Seir,  on  the  south,  to  Baal-gad,®'*  under  Mount  Her- 
mon,  on  the  north.  But  a  much  longer  time  was  required  for 
the  subjugation  of  the  numerous  kings,  who  held  each  his 
own  fortified  city,  and  "  Joshua  made  war  a  long  time  with 
all  those  kings.'""  It  was  five  years  at  least,  and  probably 
six,  before  the  land  rested  from  war  (b.c.  1445).'''  Even  then 
the  okl  inhabitants  held  out  in  many  separate  parts,  for  the 
further  trial  of  Israel's  faith  and  courage,  as  Moses  had  fore- 
told. 

The  results  of  the  whole  conquest,  besides  the  previous  vic- 
tories over  Sihon  and  Og,  are  summed  up  in  the  subjugation 
of  thirty-one  kings  of  cities  on  the  west  of  the  Jordan,  be- 
longing to  the  seven  nations,  which  had  been  mentioned  in 
the  first  promise  to  Abraham,  the  Amorites,  Canaanites,  Gir- 
gashites,  Hittites,  Hivites,  Jebusites,  and  Perizzites.'^  Special 
notice  is  taken  of  the  extermination  of  the  giant  Anakim, 
who  had  struck  such  terror  into  the  spies,  and  who  were  only 
left  in  the  Philistine  cities  of  Gaza,  Gath,  and  Ashdod,  though 
they  had  before  occupied  the  whole  of  the  central  highlands, 
with  Hebron  and  other  cities." 

The  defeat  of  these  thirty-one  kings  did  not  involve,  in 
every  case,  the  capture  of  their  cities.  Jerusalem,  for  exam- 
ple, was  not  taken  till  after  the  death  of  Joshua,'"  and  its  citadel 
1  emained  in  the  hands  of  the  Jebusites  till  the  time  of  David. 
Many  other  cities  held  out  for  a  long  time. 

But,  besides  such  isolated  posts,  there  were  whole  tracts  of 
country — "  very  much  land" — yet  to  be  subdued,  within  the 
limits  which  God  had  originally  named,  and  which  He  now 
once  more  promised."  These  were,  speaking  generally,  the 
plains  along  the  Mediterranean,  the  coast  of  Phoenicia,  and 
the  ranges  of  Lebanon.     On  the  south-west,  there  was  the 

''^  Joshua  xi.  10-14.      It   was  aft- |  ward   Paneas,  at  the  source  of  tlie 


erward  rebuilt  (Judges  iv.),  and  be- 
came a  frontier  fortress  under  Solo- 
mon (1  K.  ix.  15).  It  is  mentioned 
as  Asor  or  Nasor  in  1  Mace.  xi.  67, 
and  Joseph.  Ant.  xiii.  5,  §  7.  Its 
nitc  may  be  that  of  Tell  Kfmraibeh, 
"the  ruins"  (Robinson,  \o\.  iii.  pp. 
3G4,  365), 

^^  The  name  indicates  a  sanctuary 
of  Baal  as  Gad,  "fortune."  Its  site 
is   uncertain,  perhaps  Banias,  after 


'^  Josh.  xiii.  1. 


Jordan.     Baal  bee  is  too  remote. 

^°  Josh.  xi.  18. 

■'^  Josh.  xi.  23,  comj)arcd  with  xiv. 
6-15.  Caleb  was  forty  years  old  in 
1490,  and  eighty-five  when  the  war 
ceased.  "  Josh.  xii. 

"Josh.  xi.  21,  22.  Of  this  race 
were  Goliath  and  his  three  brother?, 
who  were  killed  by  David  and  luM 
mighty  men  (I  Sam.  xvii.  4;  2  Sara, 
xxi.  15-22).  '■•  Judg.  i.  8. 


308 


Division  of  the  Holy  Land.  Chap.  XVI. 


wliole  country  and  five  cities  of  the  Philistines,  who  Vv-ore  des- 
tined to  be  such  formidable  enemies  to  Israel,  from  h^ihor,  on 
the  frontier  of  Egypt,  to  Ekron.'"  Next  were  the  Canaanites 
of  the  west  coast,  as  far  as  Aphek,  which  seems  to  have  been 
near  Sidon,  the  Sidonians,  "  and  all  Lebanon,"  which  is  how- 
ever so  described  as  to  include  only  the  southern  slopes,  or 
foot-hills."  These  conquests  were  not  reserved  for  Joshua, 
who  was  now  ''old  and  stricken  in  years  ;"'^  but  he  was  com- 
manded to  include  them  in  the  division  of  the  land. 

§  10.  Joshua  was  now  commanded  to  divide  the  land  by  lot 
among  the  nine  tribes  and  a  half;''  the  two  and  a  half  hav- 
ing: already  received  their  allotment  from  Moses  on  the  east 
oftordan ;'"  and  the  Levites  receiving  no  inheritance  among 
their  brethren,  "  for  Jehovah,  God  oflsrael,  Avas  their  inheri- 
tance.'"' Tlieir  withdrawal  from  the  number  of  the  tribes  was 
compensated  by  the  division  of  Josepli  into  the  two  tribes  of 
Ephraim  and  Manasseh.^^  In  describing  the  allotment  gen- 
erally, we  follow  the  order  of  the  Book  of  Joshua,  in  which, 
says  Dean  Stanley,  "  we  have  what  may  without  oifense  be 
termed  the  Domesday  Book  of  the  conquest  of  Canaan.'' 

First,  the  territories  of  the  two  and  a  half  tribes  on  tlie 
east  of  Jordan  :^^ 

i.  Reubex  lay  first  on  the  south  from  the  Arnon,  over  the 
kingdom  of  Sihon,  the  northern  boundary  being  a  little  above 
the  latitude  of  Jericho.®* 

ii.  Gad  came  next  to  the  north,  possessing  Mount  Gilead 
and  half  of  Amnion.  On  the  side  of  Jordan,  their  northern 
border  just  touched  the  Sea  of  Chinneroth,  and  was  drawn 
thence  toward  the  south-east.  ^^  The  Jabbok  divided  their 
territory  into  two  nearly  equal  parts. 

iii. — 1.  The  half-tribe  of  Manasseh  had  all  the  kingdom 
of  Og,  king  of  Bashan,  including  half  of  Mount  Gilead,  which 
was  the  special  inheritance  of  Machir,  the  son  of  Manasseh, 
and  reacliing  to  the  base  of  Mount  Hermon  on  the  north.^" 
In  all  tliree  cases,  the  eastern  frontier  toward  the  desert  and 


'"  Josh.  xiii.  2-4.  Willi  them  are 
named  the  Gcshuri,  a  tribe  of  the 
desert  between  Arabia  and  Philistia. 

"■^  Josh,  xiii.  5,  6. 

"  An  interesting  proof  of  the 
shortening  duration  of  hnman  life. 
So  Caleb  speaks  of  his  being  "kept 
alive  by  Jehovah "  to  the  age  of 
ciejhty-five,  but  still  in  the  full  vigor 
of  his  strength  fJosh.  xiv.  10,  11). 

'"Joshua  xiii.  7,  xiv.  I,  2;    com- 


pare Num.  xxvi.  55,  xxiii.  5t,  xxxiv. 
13. 

^^  Josh.  xiii.  8-13,  xviii.  7. 

^'  Josh.  xiii.  14,  33,  xviii.  7. 

^'^  Josh.  xiv.  3-5. 

^^  The  following  account  of  the  set- 
tlement of  the  tribes  should  be  read 
in  connection  with  Jacob's  prophecy. 
See  p.  1 2 1  seq.     ***  Josh.  xiii.  1 5-23. 

"  Josh.  xiii.  24-28. 

"^  Josh.  xiii.  29-33. 


B.C.  \U5. 


Division  of  the  Holy  Land. 


309 


the  Hauran  was  necessarily  indefinite.     These  allotments  are 
expressly  mentioned  as  having  been  made  by  Moses. 

§  11.  The  division  of  the  land  among  the  nine  and  a  half 
tribes  west  of  Jordan  was  made  by  Eleazar  the  high-priest 
and  Joshua,  with  "  the  heads  of  the  fiithers  of  the  tribes,"  by 
a  solemn  lot  cast  before  Jehovah."  It  took  place  on  two  dit- 
ferent  occasions.  First,  while  the  people  were  still  encamped 
at  Gilgal,  and  perhaps  before  the  conquest  of  the  north  was 
finished,  the  tribes  of  Judah  and  Joseph  received,  as  their  i-e- 
spective  allotments,  the  greater  part  of  the  south  and  the 
centre  of  the  land. 

iv.  Judah  seems  to  have  had  the  first  share  in  consequence 
of  Caleb's  laying  claim  to  Hebron,  the  special  inheritance 
promised  by  Moses  as  a  reward  of  his  fidelity.  His  claim 
Avas  admitted,  and  Joshua  added  his  blessing.  Caleb,  who  at 
the  age  of  eighty-five  was  still  as  strong  for  war  as  when  he 
was  forty,  drove  out  the  Anakim  from  Hebron,  and  then  at- 
tacked Debir,  which  was  taken  by  his  nephew  Othniel,  whose 
valor  Avas  rewarded  with  the  hand  of  Caleb's  daughter,  Ach- 
sah.  Her  demand  of  a  special  inheritance  from  her  father, 
who  gave  her  the  upper  and  the  nether  springs,  is  an  inter- 
esting picture  of  patriarchal  life.""  The  general  inheritance 
of  Judah  began  at  the  wilderness  of  Zin,  on  the  border  of 
Edom,  while  their  southern  border  stretched  across  the  wil- 
derness to  "  the  river  of  Egypt."  The  Dead  Sea  formed  their 
east  coast,  and  the  northern  border  was  drawn  from  the 
mouth  of  Jordan  westward,  past  the  south  side  of  the  hill  of 
Jerusalem  (which  lay  therefore  outside  the  boundary^")  to 
Kirjath-jearim,  in  Mount  Ephraim,  whence  the  western  bor- 
der skirted  the  land  of  the  Philistines,  and  touched  the  Med- 
iterranean.''" 

V.  The  tribe  of  Joseph  had  the  centre  of  the  land  across 
from  Jordan  to  the  Mediterranean.  Ephraiai  lay  north  of 
Judah  ;  but  between  them  were  the  districts  afterward  allot- 
ted to  Benjamin  and  Dan.  The  southern  border  was  drawn 
from  the  Jordan  along  the  north  side  of  the  plain  of  Jerichc 
to  Bethel,  whence  it  took  a  bend  southward  to  Beth-horon, 
and  thence  up  again  to  the  sea  near  Joppa.  The  northern 
border  passed  west  from  the  Jordan  opposite  the  mouth  of 


"Josh.  xiv.  1,  2,  xviii.  G,  10. 

''''  Josh.  xiv.  G-15,  XV.  13-19. 

''^  This  was  not  because  it  bolong- 
ed  to  another  lot,  but  because  it  was 
not  yet  conquered.  See  Josh.  xv. 
63.     In  the  second  division  it  was 


allotted  to  Benjamin,  but  it  was 
secured  to  Judah  by  David's  con- 
quest. 

^"  Josh.  XV.  1-12.  The  many  cit- 
ies included  in  the  lot  of  Judah  nro 
enumerated  in  vs.  21-63- 


810  Division  of  the  Holy  Land.  Chap.  XVI. 

the  Jabbok  past  Michmethali  to  the  mouth  of  the  river  Kanah 
(the  "  reedy,"  probably  the  Nahr  Falaik  or  Wady  al-JChassab, 
which  has  the  same  signification).  Besides  the  sacred  valley 
of  Shechem,  it  included  some  of  the  finest  parts  of  Palestine, 
the  mountains  of  Ephraim,  and  the  great  and  fertile  maritime 
plain  of  Sharon,  proverbial  for  its  roses.®^ 

iii. — 2.  Manasseh,"  in  addition  to  the  land  of  Bashan  and 
Gilead,  east  of  the  Jordan,  which  had  been  allotted  to  Machir 
and  his  son  Gilead,  had  a  lot  on  the  west  of  Jordan,  north  of 
Ephraim."  The  extent  of  the  territories  of  this  tribe  is  ac- 
counted for,  first,  by  the  reward  due  to  the  valor  of  Machir, 
and  next  by  the  right  established  by  the  daughters  of  Zelo- 
phedad  to  a  share  of  the  inheritance.''*  The  northern  frontier 
is  very  diificult  to  determine,  some  very  important  towns  of 
Manasseh  being  expressly  named  as  within  the  lots  of  Asher 
and  Issachar.'^  Further  we  find  the  children  of  Joseph  com- 
plaining to  Joshua  that  they  had  only  one  lot,  namely,  Mount 
Ephraim,  instead  of  the  two  given  them  by  Jacob,  and  that  they 
could  not  drive  out  the  Canaanites  from  Beth-shean  and  the 
valley  of  Jezreel,  because  of  their  chariots  of  iron,  and  Joshua 
assigns  to  them  "  the  wooded  mountain,"  which  can  hardly 
be  any  other  than  Carmel.^^ 

§  12.  During  the  long  time  that  the  encampment  at  Gilgal 
remained  the  "head-quarters  of  the  Israelites,  they  seem  to 
have  preserved  the  military  system  organized  in  the  desert, 
with  the  Tabernacle  in  the  centre  of  the  camp.  But  at  length 
they  removed  to  Shiloh,"  south  of  Shechem,  in  the  territory 
of  Ephraim,  and  there  they  set  up  the  Tabernacle,  where  it 
remained  till  the  time  of  Samuel.''  There  Avere  still  seven 
tribes  that  had  not  received  their  inheritance;  and  Joshua 
reproved  them  for  their  slackness  in  taking  possession  of  the 
land.  We  are  not  told  on  what  princij^les  the  portions  al- 
ready allotted  had  been  divided,  except  that  on  the  east  of 


®^  Josh.  xvi. 

°^  Comp.  §  10  (iii.  1). 

'*'''  Josh.  xvii. 

°*  Comp.  Num.  xxvi.  33,  xxvii.  1, 
xxxvi.  2.  '-"^  Josh.  xvii.  11. 

"•^  Josh.  xvii.  14-18. 

"  Judges  xxi.  19.  Shiloh  is  said 
to  be  "on  the  north  side  of  Bethel, 


Jerusalem,  lodges  the  first  night  at 
Bntin,  the  ancient  Betliel ;  the  next 
day,  at  the  distance  of  a  few  hours, 
turns  aside  to  the  right,  in  order  to 
visit  Seilun,  the  Arabic  for  Shiloh  ; 
and  then  passing  through  the  narrow 
wady,  which  brings  him  to  the  main 
road,  leaves  El-Lehbdn^  the  Lebonah 


on  the  east  side  of  the  highway  that  of  Scripture,  on  tlie  left,  as  he  pur- 
goeth  up  from  Bethel  to  Shechem,  j  sues  "the  highway"  to  xYoWms,  the  an- 
and  on  the  south  of  Lebonah."     In  |  cient  Shechem. 

agreement  with  this,  the  traveller  at|  ^^  Josh,  xviii.  1 ;  Judg.  xviii.  31 ;  1 
the   present   day,  going  north  from  i  Sam.  iv.  3. 


B.C.  1415.  Division  of  the  Holy  Land.  811 

Jordan  the  boundaries  were  assigned  to  Moses.  Now,  how- 
ever, three  men  were  appointed  from  each  tribe  to  make  a 
survey  of  the  rest  of  the  land,  and  to  divide  it  into  seven 
portions,  which,  Avith  their  several  cities,  they  described  in 
a  book.  The  survey  being  finished,  Joshua  cast  lots  for  the 
seven  portions  before  the  Tabernacle  in  Shiloh.^^  The  result 
was  as  follows,  the  tribes  being  named  in  the  order  in  which 
their  lots  came  out : 

vi.  Benjamin  had  the  eastern  part  of  the  territory  that 
lay  between  Judah  and  Ephraim,  embracing  the  plain  of 
Jericho  and  the  northern  higiilands  of  the  later  Judaea,  a  re- 
gion admirably  suited  to  the  wdld  and  martial  character  of 
the  tribe. ''"' 

vii.  SiMEOX  had  an  inheritance  taken  out  of  the  portion 
already  allotted  to  Judah,  for  whom  it  was  found  to  be  too 
large,  namely,  the  south-Avestern  part  of  the  maritime  plain, 
Avith  the  land  bordering  on  the  desert,  as  far  eastward  as 
Beer-shbba.  Their  Avestern  coast  lay  along  the  Mediterra- 
nean to  the  north  of  Ascalon.'"' 

viii.  Zebulun  received  the  mountain  range  Avhich  forms 
the  northern  border  of  the  great  plain  of  Jezreel  or  Es- 
draelon,  between  the  eastern  slopes  of  Carmel  on  the 
Avest,  and  the  south-Avest  shore  of  the  Sea  of  Chinneroth  and 
the  course  of  the  Jordan,  to  about  opposite  the  mouth  of  the 
Hieromax  on  the  .east."^  The  rich  mountain  passes  Avhich 
led  doAvn  to  the  valley  of  Jezreel  seem  to  be  referred  to  in 
the  blessing  of  Moses,  "  Rejoice,  O  Zebulun,  in  thy  goings 
out." 

ix.  Issachar's  inheritance  corresponded  almost  exactly  to 
the  great  valley  of  Jezreel,  otherAvise  called  the  plain  of 
Esdraelon,  Avhich  opened  to  the  Jordan  on  the  east,"'  and 
was  enclosed  on  the  south  by  the  hills  of  Gilboa,  and  on  the 
north  by  the  highlands  of  Issachar,  among  Avhich  Mount  Ta- 
bor Avas  conspicuous  on  the  frontier.'"*  The  territory  seems 
to  have  been  taken  out  of  that  of  Manasseh,  as  Simeon's  AA\as 
out  of  Judah.  The  effect  of  its  richness  and  seclusion  on 
the  character  and  history  of  the  tribe  has  been  noticed  in 
connection  Avith  Jacob's  blessing."^ 

X.  AsHER  had  the  rich  maritime  plain  extending  from 
Mount  Carmel  to  "  great  Sidon "  and  "  the  strong  city 
Tyre :"  the  territory  of  the  former  Avas  included  in  their  in- 
heritance, though  they  failed  to  possess  it.     In  their  case 

^^  Josh,  xviii.  1-10.  I      "' Josh.  xix.  1-9. 

^0°  Josh,  xviii.  11-28.  I      '"'  Josh.  xix.  10-lG. 

^"^  Josh.  xix.  22.  ^""^  Josh.  xix.  17-23.  '"'  Sec  p.  121. 


812  Division  of  the  Holy  Land.  Chap.  XVI. 

too,  both  Jacob  and  Moses  had  given  a  prophetic  intimation 
of  the  influence  of  the  tribe's  position."® 

xi.  Napiitali,  the  most  powerful  of  the  nortliern  tribes, 
obtained  tlie  highlands  which  form  the  southern  prolonga- 
tion of  tlie  range  of  Lebanon,  bounded  on  the  east  by  the 
Upper  Jordan,  the  "  w\aters  of  Merom,"  and  the  Sea  of  Chin- 
neroth ;  and  looking  down  on  the  west  upon  the  maritime 
plain  of  Asher,  just  as  Zebulun  looked  down  from  the  south- 
ern part  of  the  same  highlands  into  the  valley  of  Esdrae- 
lon/" 

xii.  Dan  had  at  first  a  very  small  territory  north-west  of 
Judah,  from  Japho  (Joppa)  to  the  border  of  Simeon,  almost 
entirely  occupied  by  the  JPhilistines.  For  this  reason,  and 
because  they  found  their  lot  too  small  for  them,  they  made 
an  expedition  against  Leshem,  or  Laish,  in  the  extreme  north 
of  the  land,  at  the  sources  of  the  Jordan.  They  took  the 
city  and  destroyed  the  inhabitants,  and  gave  it  the  name  of 
Dan.  It  became  one  of  the  two  landmarks  in  the  phrase 
wliich  was  used  to  describe  the  whole  extent  of  the  land 
Irom  north  to  south,  "  from  Dan  even  to  Beersheba."  In  the 
Book  of  Judges^  we  have  a  fuller  account  of  the  expedition 
at  the  time  wdieii  it  took  place  (about  b.c.  1406).'°^ 

Lastly,  Joshua  himself  received,  as  his  personal  inlierit- 
ance,  the  place  he  asked  for,  namely,  Timnath-serah,  in  Mount 
Ephraim,  and  he  built  tlie  city  of  that  name. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  allotments  were  made 
not  only  to  the  tribes  as  a  whole,  but  to  the  families  of  each 
tribe,  as  is  expressly  stated  in  each  case:  "This  is  the  inher- 
itance of  the  tribes  by  their  families.''^  Thus  we  shall  expect 
to  find  the  possessions  of  each  tribe  proportional  to  the  num- 
ber of  its  families,  as  determined  by  the  census  taken  in  the 
plains  of  Moab."^  This  is  generally  the  case  ;  but  there 
still  remain  inequalities  which  can  only  be  accounted  for  by 
the  relative  importance  assigned  to  the  tribes,  on  principles 
already  indicated  in  the  dying  prophecy  of  Jacob.  The 
great  preponderance  of  Judah  and  Joseph  relates  to  their 
respective  pre-eminence  as  the  prince  and  heir  of  the  whole 
family."" 

§13.  Each  of  the  twelve  tribes  having  received  the  lot  of 
its  inheritance,  provision  was  next  made  for  the  habitation 
of  the  Levites  and  the  cities  of  refuge.  Six  cities  of  refuge 
were  appointed  by  the  people  themselves:"^     three  on  the 

^"^  Josh.  xix.  24-31.  "^  Numb.   xxvi.       See    cliap.  xiv. 

1"  Josh.  xix.  32-39.  §  8.  "^  See  chap.  x.  §  3. 

^"^  Judg.  xviii.  [      "^  Josh.  xx. 


B.C.  \Ui.  Cities  of  Refuge.  313 

west  of  Jordan,  namely,  Kedesh.,  in  Galilee,"^  in  the  highlands 
of  Naphtali ;  Shechem.,  in  Mount  Ephraini,  and  Hebron,  in  the 
mountains  of  Judah  ;  and  three  on  the  east  of  Jordan,  name- 
ly, for  Reuben,  Bezer,  in  the  wilderness  ;  for  Gad,  Eamoth,  in 
Gilead;  for  the  half-tribe  of  Manasseh,  <9o/«;i,  in  Bashan.''^ 

The  Levites  having  claimed  the  right  given  to  them  by 
Moses,  received  forty-eight  cities  and  their  suburbs,  which 
were  given  up  by  the  several  tribes  in  proportion  to  the 
cities  they  possessed/'*  Their  allotment  among  the  three 
families  of  the  Levites  has  already  been  describexl.'^^ 

Thus  did  Jeho\ah  give  Israel  the  land  which  He  had 
sworn  to  their  father,  and  they  dwelt  in  it.  They  had  ob- 
tained their  promised  rest  in  this  vv^orld,  though  a  better 
rest  remained,  and  still  remains/'*'  Their  enemies  were  de- 
livered into  their  hand;  and  all  open  resistance  ceased. 
"  There  failed  not  aught  of  any  good  thing  which  Jehovah 
had  spoken  to  the  house  of  Israel :  all  came  to  pass."^  The 
failures  afterward  brought  to  light  were  in  the  people  them- 
selves. 

§  14.  Their  peace  was,  however,  soon  threatened  by  the 
danger  of  a  religious  schism.  The  two  tribes  and  a  half, 
having  kept  their  promise  to  their  brethren,  w^ere  dismissed 
by  Joshua  with  a  blessing,  and  with  an  earnest  exhortation 
to  cleave  to  Jehovah  their  God,  and  keep  his  command- 
ments.''^ Abundantly  enriched  with  their  share  of  the  spoil 
of  Canaan,  they  crossed  the  Jordan  into  the  land  of  Gilead. 
Close  to  the  ford,  "  the  passage  of  the  children  of  Israel,"  they 
built  a  great  altar  (doubtless  a  huge  erection  of  earth  and 
stones),  of  the  same  form  as  the  altar  of  burnt-ofiering.  Hasti- 
ly inferring  their  intention  to  establish  a  separate  place  of  sac- 
rifice, in  violation  of  God's  command,  the  other  tribes  prepared 
for  war.  But  first  they  sent  Phinehas,  the  son  of  the  high- 
priest  Eleazar,  with  ten  princes  of  the  respective  tribes,  to 
remonstrate  with  their  brethren,  and  to  remind  them  of  the 
consequences  of  former  public  sins.  The  two  tribes  and  a 
half  replied  that  they  had  not  acted  in  the  spirit  of  rebellion 
against  Jehovah.  They  had  feared  lest  a  time  should  come 
when  their  more  favored  brethren  might  forget  their  com- 
mon interest  in  Jehovah,  the  God  of  Israel ;  and  therefore 
they  had  erected  the  altar,  not  to  burn  sacrifices  upon  it,  but 
as  a  perpetual  memorial  of  their  part  in  the  altar  of  which  it 
was  the  likeness.     Thus  interpreted,  their  act  was  accepted 

"^This  name  occurs  here  for  the  I      "*  Josh,  xxi.;   coinp.  Num.  xxxv 
first  time.      "'  Comp.  Num.  xxxv.      1 1-8.  "'  See  pp.  240,  241. 

'-'«  Heb.  iv.  8,  9.  "^  Josh.  xxi.  43-45.  "'  Josh.  xxii.  1-6. 

O 


314  Division  of  the  Tlohj  Land.  Chap.  XVL 

by  the  envoys,  and  afterward  by  all  the  people,  as  a  new 
proof  that  Jehovah  was  among  Israel ;  and  the  children  of 
Reuben  and  Gad  called  the  altar  Ed  (a  untness) :  "  for,"  said 
they,  "  it  shall  be  a  witness  between  us  that  Jehovah  is 
God.'"'"  We  hear  nothing  further  of  this  erection  :  its 
meaning  may  have  been  forgotten  in  later  times. 

§  15.  The  closing  records  of  the  history  of  Joshua  show 
us  a  solemn  pause  and  crisis  in  the  career  of  Israel.  They 
had  now  attained  that  first  success  which  is  always  a  trial 
of  human  power  and  endurance,  and  which,  in  their  case, 
was  the  test  of  their  faithfulness  to  Jehovah.  In  Joshua 
they  had  a  leader  equal  to  the  crisis.  Pie  lived  long  after 
God  had  given  them  rest  from  theii-  enemies  ;  and  he  was 
now  "going  the  way  of  all  the  earth.'"""  Plis  last  care  was 
to  set  clearly  before  the  people  their  true  position,  and  to 
bind  them  to  Jehovah  by  another  solemn  covenant.  The 
last  two  chapters  of  Joshua  seem  to  refer  to  two  distinct 
transactions. 

First,  he  sent  for  all  the  heads  of  the  tribes,  the  judges  and 
the  officers,  and  gave  them  an  exliortation,  which  may  be 
summed  up  in  the  words,  "  Be  ye  therefore  very  courageous 
to  keep  and  to  do  all  that  is  Avritten  in  the  book  of  the  law 
of  Moses."  He  knew  the  danger  of  their  resting  satisfied 
with  Avhat  was  done,  or  of  their  thinking  it  hopeless  to  do 
more  ;  and  he  knew  that,  if  once  they  ceased  before  the 
heathen  remnant  was  destroyed  out  of  the  land,  they  would 
be  corrupted  by  their  idolatries  and  vices.  He  well  remem- 
bered all  the  experience  of  the  desert,  and  all  the  warnings 
of  Moses.  He  reminds  them  of  all  that  God  had  done  to  tho 
Canaanites  for  their  sakes;  and  promises  that  the  land  di- 
vided to  them  should  be  wholly  theirs,  and  the  heathen  be 
driven  out  before  them.  On  their  part  they  had  thus  far 
been  fiiithful ;  let  them  still  thus  cleave  to  Jehovah  their 
God  !  L'Ct  them  not  mix  with  the  people  that  remained  ; 
nor  name  their  gods,  nor  swear  by  them,  nor  worship  them  1 
If  once  they  began  this  course,  and  if  they  intermarried  witli 
them,  God  would  cease  to  drive  out  those  nations,  which 
would  become  to  them  as  snares  and  scourges  and  thorns, 
till  they  themselves  should  perish  from  the  land.  In  the  pros- 
pect of  his  own  death,  he  testifies  that  not  one  good  thing 
had  failed  of  all  that  God  had  spoken  ;  and  that  God  would 
be  as  faithful  to  His  word,  in  bringing  upon  them  all  the 

™  Josh,  xxii. :  conip.  Keil's  commentary  on  the  passage. 
"Mosh.  xxiii.  1,  U. 


B.C.  U:>l.  All  Israel  gathered  at  Shechem.  815 

evils  that  He  had  spoken.  The  distinctly-prophetic  charac- 
ter of  this  last  warning  deserves  special  notice ;  for  he  does 
not  say  if\  but  "  wheii  ye  have  transgressed  the  covenant  of 
Jehovah  your  God,  and  served  other  gods,  ye  shall  perish 
from  off  the  good  land  which  he  hath  given  you." 

§  16.  This  exhortation  was  followed  up  by  a  great  public 
transaction  between  Joshua  and  all  Israel.  He  gathered 
them  together  at  Shechem,  the  sacred  home  of  Abraham  and 
Jacob.  From  out  the  mass  he  called  forth  the  elders,  the 
heads  of  families,  the  judges  and  the  officers,  who  "  presented 
themselves  before  God;"  that  is,  not  before  the  Tabernacle, 
which  was  then  at  Shiloh,  but  at  the  place  which  Abraham 
and  Jacob  had  sanctified  by  their  altars  to  God.'^^  Joshua 
addressed  them  in  the  same  strain  as  before  ;  but,  going  back 
to  the  call  of  Abraham,  he  reminded  them  of  the^ime  when 
their  fathers  "  on  the  other  side  of  the  flood"  of  Euphrates 
had  served  other  gods.  Briefly  mentioning  the  history  of 
Abraham,  Isaac,  Esau,  and  Jacob,  till  the  descent  into  Egypt, 
he  recounts  the  mission  of  Moses  and  Aaron,  the  passage  of 
the  Red  Sea,  and  the  sojourn  in  the  wilderness,  the  conquest 
of  the  Amorite  kings,^"  and  the  turning  of  Balaam's  intend- 
ed curse  into  a  blessing ;  the  passage  of  the  Jordan,  the 
capture  of  Jericho,  and  the  deliverance  of  the  nations  of 
Canaan  into  their  hands,  "but  not  with  thy  sword,  nor  with 
thy  bow ;"'"  and  he  reminds  them  that  all  they  possessed 
w^as  the  gift  of  God,  and  the  fruit  of  others'  labors  :  "  I  have 
given  you  a  land  for  which  ye  did  not  labor,  and  cities  which 
ye  built  not,  and  ye  dwell  in  them ;  of  the  vineyards  and 
olive-yards  which  ye  planted  not,  do  ye  eat.""'^*  From  all 
this  he  deduces  the  exhortation  to  fear  Jehovah,  and  serve 
him  in  sincerity  and  in  truth,  and  to  put  away  the  gods 
which  their  fathers  had  served  beyond  the  flood,  and  in 
Egypt.  This  is  not  a  demand  to  purge  themselves  from 
actual  idolatry,  into  which  they  had  not  yet  fallen,  but  to 
renounce  forever  the  examples  which  might  seduce  them  to 
it.  He  ends  ^\\t\\  an  appeal,  unequaled  in  simple  force  ex- 
cept by  that  of  Elijah  to  Israel;  if  they  found  fault  with 
the  service  of  Jehovah,  let  them  at  once  choose  whom  they 
would  serve,  whether  the  idols  of  their  fathers,  or  the  gods 

^-'  Josh.  xxiv.  1  ;  conip.  Gen.  xii.  these  kinps,  as   predicted  by  Moses 

6,  7,  xxxiii.  20  ;  the  same  phrase  is  (Ex.  xxiii.  28  ;   Deut.  vii.  20). 

used  in   1   Sam.  x.  19  of  the  sacred  ^-^  Josh,  xxiv,  12  ;  cf.  Ps.  xliv,  3,  6. 

place  of  Mizpeh.  '^*  Josh.   xxiv.   13.     This   passage 

'^  In  Josh.  xxiv.  12  the  ^^  hornet''  is  exquisitely  treated  by  Keble  (CArz's- 

is  said  to  have  been  sent  to  drive  out  tian  Year :  Third  Sunday  in  Lent). 


316  Deatli  of  Joshua.  Chap.  XVI, 

of  the  Amorites  ;  but  his  own  choice  was  made,  "  As  for  me 
and  my  house,  we  will  serve  Jehovah." 

The  appeal  was  irresistible  :  the  people  swore  by  God,  not 
to  forsake  Him  who  had  done  all  these  w^onders  for  them. 
Thus  did  Joshua  make  a  covenant  with  the  people,  and  set 
them  a  statute  and  an  ordinance  in  Shechem.  It  was,  for  that 
generation  and  their  posterity,  the  counterpart  of  the  cove- 
nant which  Moses  had  made,  on  the  part  of  God,  with  their 
fathers  in  Mount  Horeb.  Joshua  added  the  record  of  this 
great  transaction  to  the  book  of  the  law  of  God,  and  set  up  a 
monument  of  it  in  the  form  of  a  great  stone  under  an  oak  by 
the  sanctuary  of  Jehovah ;  perhaps  the  very  oak  beneath 
whose  shadow  Abraham  and  Jacob  had  pitched  their  tents. 

The  people  w^ere  dismissed  to  their  homes,  and  Joshua  soon 
after  died  at  the  age  of  110  (about  b.c.  1426-5),  and  was  bur- 
ied in  the  border  of  his  own  inheritance  at  Timnath-serah.'" 
His  decease  was  soon  followed  by  that  of  Eleazar,  the  high- 
priest,  the  son  of  Aaron  :  he  was  also  buried  in  Mount  Ephra- 
im,  in  a  hill  belonging  (as  a  burying-place)  to  his  son  and 
successor,  Phinehas.^^^  The  bones  of  Joseph,  which  the  Israel- 
ites had  brought  up  out  of  Egypt,  were  duly  interred  at 
Shechem,  in  the  ])lot  of  ground  which  Jacob  had  bought  of 
Hamor.'^'  This  bright  period  of  Jewish  history  is  crowned 
by  the  record  that  ''Israel  served  Jehovah  all  the  days  of 
Joshua,  and  all  the  days  of  the  elders  that  overlived  Joshua, 
and  which  had  known  all  the  works  of  Jehovah  that  He  had 
done  for  Israel.'""  The  lessons  of  the  wilderness  had  not 
been  lost  upon  them.  Not  in  vain  had  they  seen  their  fa- 
thers drop  and  die  till  they  were  all  consumed  for  their  rebel- 
lion. We  search  the  sacred  history  in  vain,  from  the  Exodus 
to  the  Captivity,  for  another  generation  that  was  so  wholly 
faithful  to  Jehovah. 

^  Josh.  xxiv.  29,  30.  |      '"  Josh.  xxiv.  32. 

,     "«  Josh.  xxir.  38.  "'  Josh.  xxiv.  81. 


Chap.  XVI. 


Notes  and  Illustrations, 


317 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS 


LATER  HISTORY  OF  JERICHO. 

The  city,  rebuilt  by  Hlel  (see  p. 
301),  rose  a^axw  slowly  into  conse- 
quence. In  its  immediate  vicinity  the 
sons  of  the  prophets  sought  retirement 
from  the  world:  Eiisha  "healed  the 
spring  of  the  waters  ;"*  and  over  and 
against  it,  beyond  Jordan,  Elijah 
"went  up  by  a  whirlwind  into  heav- 
en "  (2  K.  ii.  1-22).  In  its  plains  Zed- 
eliiah  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Chal- 
dceans  (2  K.  xxv.  5 ;  Jer.  xxxix.  5). 
Under  Herod  the  Great  it  became  an 
important  place.  He  built  a  fort 
there,  wiiich  he  called  "  Cyprus,"  in 
honor  of  his  mother;  a  tower,  which 
he  called,  in  honor  of  his  brother,  Pha- 
sealis  ;  and  a  number  of  new  palaces, 
which  he  named  after  his  friends. 
He  even  founded  a  new  town,  higher 
up  the  ])lain,  which  he  called,  like  the 
tower,  Phasealis.  If  he  did  not  make 
Jericho  his  habitual  residence,  ho  at 
least  retired  thither  to  die,  and  it  was 
in  the  amphitheatre  of  Jericho  that 
the  news  of  his  death  was  announced 
to  the  assembled  soldiers  and  ])eople 
by  Salome.  Soon  afterward  the  pal- 
ace was  burnt,  and  the  town  plunder- 

*  No  doubt  theexiiberant  fmintain  bursting 
forth  close  to  Ihe  site  of  the  old  city. 


ed  by  one  Simon,  slave  to  Herod ; 
but  Archelaus  rebuilt  the  former 
sumptuously,  and  foumled  a  new  town 
in  the  ])laiu  that  bore  his  own  name  ; 
and  most  important  of  all,  diverted 
water  from  a  village  called  Netera,  to 
irrigate  the  plain  which  be  had  jilant- 
ed  with  palms.  Thus  Jericho  was 
once  more  "a  city  of  jialms"  when 
our  Lord  visited  it.  It  is  supposed 
to  have  been  on  the  rocky  heights 
overhanging  it  (hence  called  by  tra- 
dition the  Qiiarentana)  that  He  was 
assailed  by  the  Tempter ;  and  over 
against  it,  according  to  tradition  like- 
wise, He  had  been  previously  ba])tizcd 
in  the  Jordan.  Here  He  restored 
sight  to  the  blind  ;  here  He  did  not 
disdain  the  hospitality  of  Zaccli?ens 
the  publican.  Finally,  between  Je- 
rusalem and  Jericho  was  laid  the 
scene  of  His  story  of  the  good  Samar- 
itan. 

The  site  of  ancient  (the  first)  Jeri- 
i  cho  is  with  reason  ])laced  by  Dr. 
Robinson  (Bihl.  Res.  i.  552-5G8)  in 
the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the 
fountain  of  Eiisha  ;  and  that  of  the 
second  (the  city  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  of  Josephus)  at  the  opening 
of  the  Wadij  Kelt  (Chcrith),  half  an 
hour  from  the  fountain. 


tujie.l  .-yuiLulic  Tive  of  the  AsHyiiai;s.     S  e  p.  U42. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE  EARLIER  JUDGES  TO  DEBORAH  AND  EARAK  B.C.  1426-1256. 


§  1.  Ditficuliics  in  ilie  liistorv  of  the  jiid^e? — The  Books  of  Jiidj^es  nnJ 
Kiith,  §  2.  General  character  of  this  period.  §  'S.  Efforts  to  diive  nut 
the  heathen  tuitions.  §  4.  Scenes  of  iilohitrv  ajid  wickedness — i.  Tlie 
story  of  Micah  and  the  Danites — ii.  Extermination  of  tiie  Benjaniites. 
§  rt.  The  reverse  of  the  jiictnrc — Story  of  Ruth  and  Boa/..  §  (5.  Tiie 
Fifteen  .Tn(iges — Servitude  to  Cushan-Risiiathaini — Otinii.l,  the  first 
Jnd^e.  §  7.  Oppression  by  Fglnn.  king  of  Moab — Ehud,  tlie  second 
judge.  §  8.  Shamgar.  the  third  judge.  §  0.  Tyraimy  of  Jahiu  and 
Sisera — l)el)orah  and  Barak  jointly  :is  fourth  judge — The  Song  of  Deb- 
orah.    5  10.  Concluding  remarks— Moral  difticulties  of  the  narrative. 

§  1.  The  period  of  Jewish  history  fi'om  the  death  of  Joshua 
to  the  choice  of  Saul  as  kiiio^  was  one  of  fri*e<^t  disoriranization, 
and  the  records  of  it  involve  consider.ahle  difficnlties.  Our 
8ole  aiitliority,  besides  a  few  incidental  alhisions,  i-<  the  Jjook 
of  Judges^  to  which  Jluth  forms  a  supplement,  liaving  been 
originally  a  part  of  it.  Some  passages  in  the  book  bear  inter- 
nal evidence  of  a  contemj^orary  authorshi]),  but  it  was  not 
composed  as  a  whole  till  the  time  of  the  Kings.  The  more 
serious  difficulties  of  chronology  we  reserve  for  subsequent 
discussion,' giving  meanwhile  the  received  chronolo2:y  of  the 
English  Bible. 

§  2.  The  history  of  the  whole  period  is  summed  np  in  a 
passage  which  connects  the  Book  o^  Judges  with  that  of  Josh- 
ua.^ After  the  death  of  Joshua,  the  people  remained  fxithful 
to  Jehovah  so  long  as  the  generation  lasted  which  had  seen 
all  His  mighty  works.^     "  And  there  arose  another  generation 

'  See  Azotes  and  Illustrations  (A.),  Ox  THE  Chroxoi.ogy  of  tiir  Jcdges. 
'^Judg.  ii.  6-19.  Mudg.  ii.  7. 


B.C.  n.o  ?  The  Earlier  Judges.  319 

after  them  which  knew  not  Jehovah,  nor  yet  the  works  which 
he  had  done  for  Israel.'"  They  fell  into  the  worship  of  "  Baal- 
im," the  idols  of  the  country,  and  especially  of  Baal  and  Ash- 
taroth  f  and  they  were  given  over  into  the  hands  of  the  en- 
emies whose  gods  they  served.  Their  career  of  conquest  was 
checked,  and  heathen  conquerors  oppressed  them ;  but,  though 
punished,  they  were  not  forsaken  by  God.  As  often  as  they 
were  oppressed.  He  raised  up  "  Judges,'"^  who  delivered  them 
from  their  oppressors.  But,  as  often  as  they  were  delivered, 
tiiey  disobeyed  their  judges,  and  declined  into  idolatry  ;  and, 
"  when  the  judge  was  dead  they  returned,  and  corrupted 
themselves  more  than  their  fathers.'"  For  this  unfaithfulness 
on  their  part  to  the  covenant,  God  kept  back  the  full  accom- 
plishment of  His  promise  to  drive  out  the  nations  before  them, 
who  were  left  at  Joshua's  death ;  indeed,  it  was  in  foresight 
of  their  sin  that  He  had  not  entirely  delivered  those  nations 
into  the  hand  of  Joshua.® 

Such  is  the  summary  which  is  filled  up  in  the  first  sixteen 
chapters  of  Judges :  the  rest  of  the  book  (ch.  xvii.-xxi.)  is  oc- 
cupied with  two  or  three  striking  examples  of  the  idolatry 
and  anarchy  thus  generally  described. 

§  o.  The  history  of  the  Judges  is  prefaced  by  some  account 
of  the  efforts  of  the  several  tribes  to  drive  out  the  heathen  na- 
tions after  the  death  of  Joshua.  In  these  efforts  Judah  took 
the  lead,  by  the  direction  of  God's  oracle,  and  in  association 
with  SiMEOx.  These  two  tribes  gained  a  great  victory  over 
the  Canaanites  and  Perizzites  in  Bezek,^  and  took  prisoner 
Adoni-bezek  (the  jLord  of  I^ezek),  one  of  those  tyrants  who 
have  become  famous  for  some  special  ci-uelty  to  their  captives. 
He  had  cut  ofi"  the  thumbs  and  great  toes  of  seventy  kings, 
and  amused  himself  with  their  attempts  to  pick  up  the  food 
that  fell  from  his  table  ;  and  now,  himself  thus  mutilated,  he 
confessed  that  God  had  requited  him  justly.  He  died  at  Je- 
rusalem, the  lower  city  of  which  the  men  of  Judah  succeeded 

^  Judg.  ii.  10.  I  Hebrew   word   is    the  same   as   that 

^  See  Noles  and  Jlluslrations  (B.),  j  of  the  Carthaginian   "SufFeles,"  the 

O.v  Baal  and  Ashtaroth.  i  name    of  the   magistrates   whom  we 

^  Jiidg.  ii.  16.     The  Hebrew  word    find  in  the  time  of  tlie  Funic  wars. 
Shophet  (pi.  Shophetim)  is  the  same        ^  Jndg.  ii.  19. 

as  that  for  an  ordinary  judge,  nor  is  ^  Judg.  ii.  20-23.  The  nations  left 
it  here  used  in  a  diflierent  sense.  For,  unsubdued  are  enumerated  in  Judg. 
though  their  first  work  was  that  of    iii.  1-4. 

deliverers  and  leaders  in  war,  they  ^  Judg.  i.  4.  This  place,  in  the  lot 
then  administered  justice  to  the  peo-  of  Judah,  seems  to  have  been  dis- 
ple,  and  their  authority  supplied  the  ;  tinct  from  the  Bezek  named  in  I 
want  of  a  regular  government.     The    Sam.  xi.  8,  which  was  more  central. 


820  Effo^^i^  io  Drive  out  the  Heathen.     Chap.  XVH. 

in  taking/"  This  example  of  the  wanton  cruelty  of  the  chiefs 
of  Canaan  throws  a  light  on  the  state  of  the  country  before 
its  conquest. 

Next  we  have  the  account  of  the  exploits  of  Caleb  and 
Othniel,  already  anticipated  in  Joshua  ,*''  and  of  the  settle- 
ment of  the  Kenites,  the  children  of  Jethro,  the  father-in-law 
of  Moses,  in  the  Avilderness  of  Judah,  to  the  south  of  Arad. 
Here  they  dwelt  as  a  free  Arab  tribe,  among  the  people  of 
the  desert,  but  in  close  alliance  with  Israel.'^  Judah  then 
aided  Simeon  in  recovering  his  lot.  Thfey  took  Zephath 
(which  they  called  Hormah),  and  fulfilled  by  its  utter  destruc- 
tion the  vow  long  since  made  by  Israel. ^^  They  also  took 
Gaza,  Askelon,  and  Ekron,  from  the  Philistines ;  but  the 
strength  of  those  people  in  war-chariots  j^revented  their  ex- 
pulsion, and  enabled  them  soon  to  regain  these  cities.  The 
tribe  of  Benjamin  failed  to  drive  out  the  Jebusites  from  Je- 
bus,  the  citadel  of  Jerusalem,  which  belonged  to  their  lot.'* 
The  men  of  Ephraim  took  Bethel  by  the  treachery  of  an  in- 
habitant, whom  they  caught  outside  the  gate  of  the  city.  It 
was  now  finally  called  by  the  name  of  Bethel,  which  was  first 
given  to  it  by  Jacob,  and  had  been  commonly  applied  to  it 
by  the  Jews.  Its  old  name  of  Ziuz  Avas  given  to  a  city  which 
its  betrayer  went  and  built  among  the  Hittites.^^  Ephraim 
failed,  however,  to  drive  out  the  Canaanites  from  Gezer  ;  and 
Manasseh  only  reduced  those  of  the  valley  of  Esdraelon  to 
tribute  after  some  time."^  Several  cities  of  the  northern  liigh- 
lands  proved  too  strong  for  Zebulun  and  Naphtali,  but 
some  of  them  were  made  tributaries,  as  Beth-shemesh  and 
Beth-anath.  Asher  did  not  even  attempt  to  take  Accho, 
Zidon,  and  the  other  cities  of  the  Phoenician  sea-board  and 
the  Lebanon,  but  they  dwelt  among  the  people  of  the  land. 
Lastly,  the  men  of  Dax  were  forced  back  by  the  Amorites 
from  the  valleys  of  their  lot  into  the  mountains  ;  and  even 
there  the  Amorites  retained  some  strongholds,  which  were 
ultimately  reduced  to  tribute  by  the  power  of  Ephraim. 
This  was  no  doubt  the  chief  motive  of  the  northern  expedition 


^*  Judg.  i.  5-8.  That  it  was  only 
flie  lower  city  which  was  taken  is  ex- 
pressly stated  by  Josephus   (Ant.  v 


"  Judg.  i.  9-15  ;  comp.  chap.  xvi. 
^^  Judg.  i.    IG;    comp.   iv.   11;    I 


2,  §  23);  and  we  also  learn  from  the    Sam.  xv.  6,  xxvii.  10,  xxx.   19  ;    1 

biblical  narrative  that  the  upper  city    Chron.  ii.  55, 

remained  in  the  hands  of  the  Jebu-        ^^  Judg.   i.    17;    comp.  Num.  xxi 

sites  till  the  time  of  David,     Comp.    3;   1  Chron,  iv.  30. 

Josh.  XV,  C3;  Judg,  i,  21;  and  chap.        "  Judg.  i.  21.     See  note  ^\ 

xvi.  §  11.  I      1^  Judg.  i.  22-26. 

'^  Here  again  we  find  Manasseli  in  the  lot  of  Issacliuv 


B.C.  1-125?  TJie  Earlier  Judges.  321 

of  the  Danites,  which  has  been  already  mentioned,  and  to 
which  we  shall  have  to  recur.  The  Amorites  also  kept  pos- 
session of  the  "  Pass  of  Scorpions''''  (Akrabbim),  from  "  Selah  " 
(the  cliff,  Petra  ?)  upward,  south  of  the  Dead  Sea." 

These  fitful  efforts  were  reproved  by  a  prophet,'®  who  went 
forth  from  Gilgal  to  some  solemn  assembly  of  the  people  in 
its  neighborhood  ;  and  told  them  that,  as  they  had  failed  to 
keep  God's  covenant,  He  v\'ould  not  drive  out  the  people  be- 
fore  them.  They  kept  a  great  act  of  public  humiliation,  with 
sacrifices  to  Jehovah  ;  and  from  their  cries  of  repentance  the 
place  received  the  name  oi BocJdrn  (the  iceepers).''' 

§  4.  After  this  introduction  we  have  the  general  summary 
of  the  vicissitudes  of  idolatry  and  repentance,  servitude  and 
deliverance,  which  we  have  already  noticed.^"  It  ends  with 
the  enumeration  of  the  heathen  nations  Avho  were  still  left, 
"  to  prove  Israel  by  them :"  a  trial  in  which  they  failed,  in- 
termarrying with  them,  worshiping  their  gods,  doing  evil  in 
the  sight  of  Jehovah,  forgetting  their  own  God,  and  serving 
"  Baalim  and  the  groves."'"^'  These  statements  are  illustrated 
by  the  dark  records  of  idolatry,  vice,  and  cruelty,  which  oc- 
cupy the  closing  chapters  of  the  book,  and  which  may  be 
most  fitly  noticed  here,  especially  as  they  seem  to  belong  to 
the  earlier  part  of  the  period  of  the  judges.^*  They  are  ex- 
pressly mentioned  as  examples  of  the  disorder  of  those  days 
when  "there  was  no  king  in  Israel,  but  every  man  did  that 
which  w^as  right  in  his  own  eyes."" 

i.  The  Story  of  Micah  and  the  Danite^.^^  A  man  of  Mount 
Ephraim,  named  Micah,  had  stolen  from  his  mother  1100 
shekels  of  silver.  She  cursed  the  unknown  thief,  and  devoted 
the  silver  to  Jehovah,  to  make  a  graven  and  a  molten  image; 
a  sign  of  that  first  step  in  idolatry,  when  forbidden  symbols 
w^ere  intruded  into  the  worship)  of  the  true  God.  Micah  con- 
fessed the  theft,  and  restored  the  silver  to  his  mother,  who 
dedicated  200  shekels  of  it  to  the  fulfillment  of  her  vow.  The 
two  images  were  set  up  in  the  house  of  Micah,  w^ho  made  also 

^■^  J uflg.  i.  27-3(5.  ]  tliey  luid  taken  possession  of  Canaan, 

'®  Such  seems  to  be  the  meaning  it  must  liave  ;>rece<ie(/ the  offenses  for 

of  the  phrase  "  an  angel  (messenger)  which  they  were  enslaved  to  the  sur- 

of  Jehovah  "  (Jiidg.  ii.  1).  rounding   nations.     See   further,  on 


Judg.   ii.  1-6.      Its    site 
known. 

=*"  Judg.  ii.  6-iii.  7. 
'^  Judg.  iii.  6,  7. 

^  Since    the    deed    at    Gibeah   is 
mentioned  by  Hosea  (x.  9)  as  the 
first  open  wickedness  of  Israel  after 
O  2 


the  Chronology,  Notes  and  Illustra- 
tions (A.). 

^^  Judg.  xvii.  6,  xviii.  1,  xix.  1, 
xxi.  25.  These  passages  show  that 
the  authorship  of  this  part  of  the 
book  belongs  to  the  regal  period. 

'^*  Judg.  xvii. -xviii. 


822  Micah  and  the  Daiiiks.  Chap.  xvii. 

an  epliod  (the  garment  of  a  priest)"  and  teraphim  (minor 
household  gods),  and  consecrated  one  of  his  sons  as  priest ; 
thus  making  a  complete  patriarchal  establishment  for  the 
worship  of  Jehovah,  but  with  the  addition  of  idolatrous  sym- 
bols/'' He  soon  obtained  for  his  priest  a  young  Levite  who 
had  removed  from  Bethlehem-judah,  and  wlio  was  no  less  a 
person  than  the  grandson  of  Moses  (see  below).  Micah 
hired  him  for  ten  shekels  a  year,  besides  garments  and  food  ; 
and,  though  the  law  forbade  a  Levite  to  intrude  into  the 
priests'  otHce,  Micah  felt  sure  that  Jehovah  would  bless  him, 
now  he  had  a  Levite  for  his  priest." 

About  this  time  the  Danites  sent  out  five  spies,  to  prepare 
for  their  great  expedition  against  Laish.  In  passing  the 
house  of  Micah,  the  spies  recognized  the  A^oice  of  the  Le- 
vite, who  received  them,  inquired  of  Jehovah  respecting  the 
issue  of  their  journey,  and  gave  them  a  favorable  response." 
Tlie  spies  having  accomplished  their  mission,  600  men  of  war 
started  from  the  Danite  cities  of  Zorah  and  Eshtaol,  and,  after 
a  halt  at  Kirjath-jearim  in  Judah,  they  entered  Mount  Eph- 
raim  ;  and  as  they  passed  by  the  house  of  Micah,  they  stole 
his  carved  image,"'  ephod,  and  teraphim,  and  enticed  his  priest 
to  go  with  them.  Having  taken  the  city  of  Laish  by  sur- 
prise, and  called  it  by  the  new  name  of  Dax,^"  they  set  up 
there  the  graven  image,  and  established  a  sanctuary  for 
themselves,  and  probably  for  others  of  the  northern  tribes,  all 
the  time  that  the  tabernacle  remained  at  Shiloh.  The  fam- 
ily of  the  Levite,  whose  name  was  Jonathan,  the  son  of  Ger- 
shom,  the  son  of  Moses,  continued  to  be  priests  to  the  tribe 
of  Dan  down  to  the  Captivity. ^^  The  circumstance  of  the 
priest's  being  the  grandson  of  Moses  helps  to  fix  the  time  of 

"^^  This  was,  no  donbf,  an  imitation  I  vention  of  tlic  liireliiig.  The  Levite 
)f  the  sacred  epliod  of  the  liifili-priest,  I  is  snp])oscd  to  have  hccn  recognized 


-with  tlie  "  breastplate  of  judgment" 
and  the  Urim  and  Thummim,  the 
use  of  which  for  divination  is  referred 
To  in  Judg.  xviii.  5,  6.  Gideon  made 
a  similar  e])hod  (Jiulg.  viii.  27). 


from  being  —  as  tiie  grandson  of 
Moses — a  well-known  person. 

^^  The  molten  image  seems  to  have 
baen  left  behind. 

^"  The    citv    of  Dan  is  identified 


The  phrase  "  Micah  had  a  honse    with     Tell   rl-Kadi,    a    mound    from 
of  idols"  (xvii.  .'))  may  refer  eitlier  to    which  gushed  out  one  of  the  main 
his  own  house,  or  to  a  separate  chapel  I  sources  of  the  Jordan, 
for  the  idol  figures.  ^Mudg.  xviii.  30,  81.     TheMas- 

^'  Micah's  devout  belief  in  Jeho-  oretic  text,  followed  hy  our  version, 
vah  forms  a  striking  contrast  to  the  I  has  changed  the  name  of  Moses  to 
])anites'  mere  acknowledgment  of  a  Manasseh  ;  inventing  an  absurd  gene- 
God  (Elohim).  j  alogy    to    cover    the    disgrace    of   a 

^"  It  can  not  be  supposed  that  this  grandson  of  Mose«  !  See  Dictionarjf 
response  was  any  thing  but  the  in-   of  the  Bible,  vol.  ii.  p.  225. 


B.C.  1406?  The  Earlier  Judges.  323 

the  transaction  to  the  earlier  part  of  the  period  of  the  judg- 
es.^^  The  whole  narrative  affords  a  lively  picture  of  the 
frightful  state  of  anarchy  into  which  the  nation  had  fallen  ; 
while  it  presents  us,  in  the  case  of  Micah,  with  a  specimen  of 
the  family  life  of  the  Israelites  in  the  country  districts. 

ii.  The  Extermination  of  the  Benjamites.^^  A  certain  Le 
vite  of  Mount  Ephraim  had  taken  a  concubine  from  Bethle- 
hem-judah.  Having  proved  unfaithful  to  him,  she  returned 
to  her  father's  house  at  Bethlehem,  and  remained  there  four 
months.  At  length  the  Levite  went  to  propose  a  recon- 
ciliation and  to  fetch  her  home.  He  was  gladly  welcomed 
by  his  father-in-law ;  and  we  are  presented  with  another  in- 
teresting jiicture  of  Hebrew  interior  life.  After  three  days' 
feasting  together,  and  another  two  days'  prolongation  of  the 
visit  at  the  pressing  instance  of  the  host,  the  Levite  at  length 
resisted  his  entreaties  to  remain  another  night,  and  departed 
toward  the  evening  of  the  fifth  day.  He  travelled  with  his 
concubine,  his  servant,  and  two  saddled  asses;  and  as  night 
came  on,  they  found  themselves  over  against  Jebus.^*  Ke- 
fusing  the  proposal  of  his  servant  to  ask  hospitality  from 
the  natives,  the  man  entered  Gibeah^^  at  sunset,  to  meet  with 
worse  treatment  than  he  could  have  feared  from  the  most 
licentious  heathen.  It  would  seem  that  the  tribes  had  al- 
ready begun  to  regard  each  other  with  the  mutual  jealousy 
of  foreigners.  Proverbial  as  is  the  hospitality  of  those  coun- 
tries and  races,  the  little  party  sat  down  in  the  street  or  open 
square  of  the  city,  without  being  offered  a  lodging  (which 
was  all  they  needed,  for  they  had  food  and  provender  with 
them)  by  any  of  the  Benjamites.  At  length  an  old  fellow- 
countryman  from  Mount  Ephraim,  who  lived  in  the  city,  as 
h'e  was  returning  from  his  work  in  the  field,  found  the  way- 
farers in  the  street,  and  learning  who  they  were,  took  them 
home  and  showed  them  all  the  duties  of  hosi^itality.     Now 

^'  The  mention  of  Mahaneh-dan  and  the  Levite  are  culled  father-in- 
(Jndg.  xviii.  12)  ])roves  that  it  was  ' /(i?y  and  so«-?«-/aw, 
at  least  earlier  than  the  birth  of  Sam- !  ^^  The  citadel  of  Jerusalem,  still 
son,  when  the  place  already  had  that  held  by  the  Jebusites. 
name  (Judg.  xiii.  25);  but  it  seems!  ^^  This  celebrated  town,  called 
to  have  been  much  earlier  still.  See  more  fully  Giheah  of  Benjamin,  stood, 
Notes  and  Illustralions  (A.).  \  as  its  name  implies,  on  a  height  near 

^^  Judg.  xix.-xxi.  In  this  whole  the  road  from  Jerusalem  to  Shechem. 
narrative  it  is  important  to  remember  It  seems  to  correspond  with  the 
how  different  the  status  of  a  concu-  height  called  Tuleil  el-Ful,  four  miles 
bine  was  among  the  Jews  from  what  north  of  Jerusalem,  and  to  the  riglit 
seems  to  resemble  it  among  our-  of  the  high-road.  Near  the  base  of 
selves.  In  this  case,  too,  the  concu-  the  hill  is  a  cave,  in  which  the  am^ 
bine  was  not  a  slave ;  and  her  father  biiscado  may  have  been  concealed. 


82-i  Extermination  of  tlie  Benjamites.      Chap.  XVII. 

the  men  of  the  city  were  "  men  of  Belial,"  and  had  fallen  into 
the  worst  vices  which  had  brought  down  fire  from  heaven  on 
the  ancient  cities  of  the  land.  When  night  came  on,  they 
beset  the  old  man's  house,  and  what  followed  may  be  best 
alluded  to  in  the  words  in  which  Milton  describes  the  power 
of  Belial  over  his  votaries  : — 

"  In  courts  and  palaces  he  also  reigns, 
And  in  luxurious  cities,  where  the  noise 
Of  riot  ascends  above  their  loftiest  towers, 
And  injury,  and  outrage :  and  when  night 
Darkens  the  streets,  then  wander  forth  the  sons 
Of  Belial,  flown  with  insolence  and  wine. 
Witness  the  streets  of  Sodom,  and  tJiat  ni<jht 
In  Gibeali,  when  the  hospitable  door 
Exposed  a  matron,  to  avoid  worse  rapc."^^ 

In  the  morning  the  Levite  carried  home  his  half-dead  concu- 
bine ;  and  having  cut  her  body  into  twelve  pieces,  he  sent 
them  to  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  who  cried  with  one  voice 
that  no  such  deed  had  been  done  or  seen  since  the  children 
of  Israel  came  up  out  of  Egypt.  With  a  unanimity  which 
recalls  the  spirit  shown  in  resenting  the  supposed  defection 
of  the  two  and  a  half  tribes,  the  whole  congregation  of  Isra- 
el, from  Dan  to  Beersheba,  gathered  together  at  Mizpeh, 
where  all  the  men  of  war,  to  the  number  of  400,000,  present- 
ed themselves  before  Jehovah.  Having  called  upon  the  Le- 
Adte  to  recount  his  wrong,  they  bound  themselves  by  a  sol- 
emn vow  of  vengeance ;  resolved  not  to  separate  till  it  Avas 
fulfilled  ;  and  chose  by  lot  one  man  in  every  ten  to  find  pro- 
visions for  the  host.  First,  however,  they  sent  messages 
through  all  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  to  demand  the  surrender 
of  the  culprits ;  but  the  Benjamites  espoused  the  cause  of 
the  men  of  Gibeah  with  that  fierceness  and  obstinacy  which 
appear  so  often  in  their  history,  justifying  the  prophecy  of 
Jacob,  "  Benjamin  shall  ravin  as  a  Avolf "  They  drew  to  a 
head  at  Gibeah,  to  the  number  of  26,000  fighting-men,  be- 
sides those  of  the  city,  who  numbered  VOO.  It  is  particularly 
recorded  that  there  were  700  left-handed  men,  who  could 
sling  stones  to  a  hair-breadth." 

The  other  tribes  assembled  at  the  sanctuary  of  Shiloh, 
where  the  ark  then  Avas,  Phinehas,  Aaron's  grandson,  being 
high-priest  f^  and  in  reply  to  their  inquiry  of  the  oracle  of 

^^  Paradise  Lost,  hook  i.  vs.  497- 1  1')),  and  of  the  brethren  of  Saul- 
SOS.  I  himself,  bv  the  wav,  a  man  of  Gibeah 

^■'Thc  skill   of  the  Benjamites  in   (1  Chron.'xii.  2).  " 
the  use  of  the  left-hand  is  again  men- 1      '"  Judg.  xx.   18,  23,  26-28.     It  is 
tioned  in  the  case  of  Ehud  (Judg.  iii.  i  not  clear  whether  Shiloh  or  BetheJ 


B.C.  UOG?         Extermination  of  the  Benjamites.  325 

God,  Judah  was  directed  to  lead  the  attack  on  Benjamin. 
Then  followed  a  struggle  almost  unexampled  in  the  history  of 
civil  wars.  The  army  of  Israel  having  been  arrayed  against 
Gibeah,  the  Benjamites  sallied  out  and  defeated  them,  slay- 
ing 22,000  men.  They  rallied  their  forces  in  the  same  place, 
and  spent  the  next  day  in  weeping  before  God  ;  while  the 
tone  of  their  inquiry,  "  Shall  I  go  up  again  to  battle  against 
the  children  of  Benjamin  mj  brother  f^^  seems  to  show  some 
misgiving.  But  the  oracle  bade  them  renew  the  attack,  and 
for  the  second  time  they  were  defeated,  with  the  loss  of  18,000 
men.  Again  the  whole  congregation  assembled  at  Shiloh  to 
keep  a  solemn  fost,  with  burnt-oiferings  and  peace-offerings, 
and  again  they  consulted  the  oracle  "through  Phinehas  the 
high-priest.  They  were  bidden  to  fight  again,  and  assured 
of  victory  on  the  morrow.  They  arranged  a  stratagem,  like 
that  by  which  Joshua  took  Ai.  An  ambush  Avas  set  near 
Gibeah,  while  the  main  army  were  drawn  up  as  before.  This 
time  their  flight  was  feigned*^  The  Benjamites  pursued  them, 
slaying  about  thirty  men,  till  they  were  drawn  from  the  city, 
over  which  was  now  seen  to  rise  the  column  of  smoke,  whicli 
first  apprised  them  of  the  stratagem,  and  was  the  signal  of 
its  success.  The  Israelites  turned  upon  their  pursuers,  who 
were  stricken  with  a  panic,  and  fled  toward  the  Avilderness. 
They  were  met  by  the  other  body,  who  had  sacked  Gibeah, 
and  18,000  of  them  were  left  dead  upon  the  field.  5000  fell 
on  the  highways;  and  2000  more  were  slain,  apparently  in  a 
last  rally  at  Gidom.^^  The  600  men,  who  were  all  now  left 
of  the  25,700  warriors  of  the  tribe,  fled  to  the  rock  ofRim- 
mon,  in  the  wilderness,  and  remained  there  four  months; 
while  the  Israelites  burnt  their  cities,  and  put  the  inhabitants 
and  the  cattle  to  the  sword. 

At  length  their  anger  began  to  turn  to  pity ;  and  they  as- 
sembled again  at  the  sanctuary  to  mourn  before  God,  because 
a  tribe  was  cut  off  from  Israel.  Its  total  extinction  seemed 
inevitable  ;  for,  when  they  made  the  league  at  Mizpeh,  they 
had  bound  themselves  by  a  curse  not  to  give  their  daughters 
in  marriage  to  the  Benjamites.  But  a  remedy  was  found  in 
another  curse  which  they  had  imprecated  on  any  of  the  tribes 
who  neglected  to  come  up  to  the  battle.  On  numbering  the 
people,  it  was  found  that  the  men  of  Jabesh-gilead"  were  ab- 


is  meant.  Phineas  is  mentioned  in 
two  passages  as  being  already  priest 
in  the  time  of  Joshua  (Josh,  xxii,  13, 
xxiv.  33).  It  is  to  be  observed  that 
in  the  whole  of  this,  as  of  the  pro- 


ceding  narrative,  there  is  no  hint  of 
a  judge. 

"^^  Tliese  arc  round  numbers  :  in  v. 
35  the  total  of  the  slain  is  25, 100. 
^'^  This  is  the  city  in  Mount  Gilead, 


326  Tlie  Earlier  Judges,  Chap.  XVII. 

sent.  That  city  was  devoted  to  destruction:  12,000  men 
were  sent  against  it,  witli  orders  to  destroy  all  the  men  and 
women,  except  virgins ;  and  these,  amounting  to  400,  were 
o;iven  for  wives  to  the  remnant  of  the  Benjamites.  The  re- 
mainino-  200  were  provided  for  by  the  Benjamites  seizing  the 
maidens  of  Shiloh,  who  came  out  of  the  city  to  dance  at  one 
of  the  great  annual  feasts ;  the  elders  of  Israel  suggested  the 
scheme,  and  made  peace  with  the  fathers  of  the  maidens.  The 
children  of  Israel  then  departed  to  their  homes.  The  Benjam- 
ites returned  to  their  inheritance,  and  repaired  their  cities. 
They  regained  something  of  their  old  martial  fame,  and  gave 
Israel  its  second  judge,  Ehud,  and  its  first  king,  Saul,  the  son 
of  Kish ;  but  they  never  recovered  from  this  terrific  blow. 
After  liesitating  between  the  two  powerful  tribes  whose  ter- 
ritories they  parted,  and  ranging  themselves  at  first  on  the  side 
of  Ephraim,  they  at  last  subsided,  like  the  Simeonites,  into 
a  position  entirely  subordinate  to  Judah,  and  their  territory 
was  absorbed  in  Judi^a.  Down  to  the  latest  period  of  Jewish 
history  their  crime  was  remembered  as  marking  the  time  from 
which  Israel  began  to  sin,  and  the  righteous  indignation  of 
the  other  tribes  was  commemorated  as  "  the  battle  in  Gibeah 
((gainst  the  children  of  iniquity. '^^'^^ 

§  5.  We  must  guard,  however,  against  the  impression  that 
such  scenes  as  these  describe  the  whole,  or  even  the  chief  part, 
of  the  history  of  Israel  under  the  Judges.  In  the  book  itself^ 
the  intervals  during  which  "the  land  had  rest"  make  up  a 
large  aggregate  of  years,  though  we  are  apt  to  overlook  them 
from  the  brevity  of  each  notice.  These  hints  are  in  some  de- 
gree filled  up  to  a  finished  picture,  in  the  exquisite  scenes  of 
rural  tranquillity  set  before  us  in  the  Book  oi  Ruth.  The 
events  there  related  are  merely  said  to  have  happened  "in 
the  time  of  the  Judges ;"  but  from  the  genealogies  we  gath- 
er that  they  fell  in  the  i^-eneration  after  the  troubles  above 
related.*- 

A  man  named  Elimelech,  an  Ephrathite  of  Bethlehem-judah, 
liad  been  driven  by  a  famine"  into  the  country  of  Moab,  with 
his  wife  Naomi,  and  their  two  sons,  Mahlon  and  Chilion.  The 
sons  married  women  of  Moab,  named  Orpah  and  Ruth  ;  and 
the  family  resided  in  that  country  for  about  ten  years.     The 

east  of  Jordan,  afterward  so  celcbra- :  of  Judges  is  that  caused  by  the  inroad 
ted  in  the  wars  of  Saul  (I  Sarn.  xi.  of  the  Midianitcs  in  the  time  of  Gid- 
xxxi.).  "  Hos.  X.  9.        con  (Judg.vi.).     But  in  the  state  of 

*' i^cQ,  Notes  and  Illustrations  (iK.).    iv^Aivs    whiclx    prevailed    during   the 
^^  Bishop  Patrick  observes  thnt  tlie    whole  period  such  famines  can  not 
only  famine  mentioned  in  th;;  Bouk   have  been  unfrequent. 


B.C.  1312?  Ruth.  327 

father  died,  and  both  his  sons  ;  and  Naomi  rose  up  to  return 
to  her  own  bind.  She  gave  leave  to  her  daughters-in-law  to 
go  back  to  their  families ;  but  both  declared  they  would  re- 
turn with  her.  On  her  urging  the  point,  for  their  own  sakes, 
Orpah  bade  her  an  affectionate  farewell,  and  went  back  "  to 
her  people  and  her  gods ;"  but  Ruth  cast  in  her  lot  wholly 
with  Naomi."  They  reached  Bethlehem  at  the  beginning  of 
barley  harvest,  and  Ruth  sought  subsistence  as  a  gleaner. 
What  followed  turns  entirely  upon  the  provisions  of  the  Mo- 
saic laAv  for  the  "Levirate"  marriage  of  a  widow  and  the  re- 
demption of  her  husband's  inheritance  by  the  "  Goel,"  or 
nearest  kinsman.  A  wealthy  and  powerful  man  of  Bethle- 
hem, named  Boaz,  whose  grandfather,  Nahslion,  was  prince 
of  the  tribe  of  Judah,*^  was  a  very  near  kinsman  (though  not 
the  nearest)  to  Naomi's  deceased  husband  Elimelech,  and  con- 
sequently to  Ruth,  as  the  widovr  of  his  son.  It  chanced  that 
Ruth  Avent  to  glean  in  this  man's  field  ;  and  the  mind,  dis- 
tressed with  the  fatal  story  of  other  inhabitants  of  the  same 
city,"  finds  exquisite  relief  in  the  picture  of  Boaz  visiting  the 
gleaners,  not  like  a  grudging  farmer,  but  in  the  spirit  of 
kindness  prescribed  by  Moses ;  blessing  them,  and  blessed 
by  them  in  the  name  of  Jehovah.  Ruth  attracted  his  atten- 
tion ;  and  when  he  learned  Avho  she  was,  he  bade  her  glean 
only  in  his  field,  and  enjoined  the  reapers  to  shoAv  her  kind- 
ness. In  reply  to  her  thanks,  he  praised  her  devotion  to  hei 
mother-in-law,  and  her  coming  to  place  her  trust  under  the 
wings  of  Jehovah,  God  of  Israel.  Thus  passed  the  Avhole 
iiarvest,  Ruth  folloAving  the  reapers,  who  Avere  instructed  by 
Boaz  to  throAV  handfuls  of  corn  in  her  Avay,  and  sharing  their 
daily  meal.^^  MeauAvhile  Naomi,  full  of  gratitude  to  God, 
Avho  had  thus  guided  her  to  her  husband's  nearest  kinsman, 
instructed  Ruth  to  claim  her  rights  under  the  Levirate  laAA^" 
Boaz  blessed  her  in  the  name  of  Jehovah  ;  praised  her  virtue 
and  her  fidelity  to  him  AA-hom  the  laAv  had  made  her  rightful 
husband;  guarded  the  most  scrupulous  delicacy  toward  her; 
and  promised  to  do  the  part  of  a  kinsman  by  her. 

In  the  morning  he  kept  his  Avord.^^     We  have  a  truly  pa- 
triarchal picture  of  this  Avealthy  and  poAverful  man  of  Bethle- 


**  Her  words  are  among  the  most 
pathetic  in  all  the  records  of  litera- 
ture (Rnth  i.  15-18). 

"  1  Chron.  ii.  10. 

"It  is  a  most  interesting  link  be- 
tween these  three  concluding  stories 


other  Levite  of  the  second,  and  the 
chief  persons  of  the  third,  belong  to 
Bethlehem.  *''  Ruth  ii. 

^^  Rutli  iii.  We  may  safely  assume 
that  Naomi  knew  enough  of  the  one 
still  nearer  kinsman  to  be  aware  that 


of  the  Books  of  Judges  and  Ruth  that  j  the  appeal  to  him  -vould  be  fruitless., 
the  Levite  Jonathan  of  the  first,  the  j      *'^  Ruth  iv. 


828  The  Earlier  Judges.  Chap.  XVn. 

hem  sitting,  like  Job,  in  the  gate  of  the  city  ;  and,  as  all  the 
inhabitants  came  forth,  calling  iirst  the  "  Goel,"  or  nearest  kins- 
man of  Elimelech,  to  sit  beside  him,  and  then  asking  ten  of  the 
elders  to  take  their  seats,  to  witness  and  ratify  the  transaction. 
In  their  presence,  he  informed  the  "Goel"  that  Naomi  had 
a  field  to  sell,  which  must  be  redeemed  either  by  him  or  by 
Boaz  himself;  and  the  Goel  consented  to  redeem  it,  thus  ad- 
mitting the  claim  of  kindred.  But  when  Boaz  went  on  to  say 
that,  if  the  Goel  took  the  field,  he  must  take  also  Rutli,  the 
Moabitess,  the  wife  of  the  dead,  "  to  raise  up  the  name  of  the 
diad  upon  his  inheritance,"  the  kinsman  found  an  excuse,  and 
transferred  the  right  of  redemption  to  Boaz.  The  ceremony 
prescribed  by  the  law  was  then  performed.^"  The  sandal  of 
the  kinsman  was  taken  oft*  in  the  presence  of  the  elders  and 
the  people  ;  and  Boaz  called  them  to  witness  that  he  had 
bought  of  Naomi  all  that  had  belonged  to  Elimelech,  and  to 
his  sons  Chilion  and  Mahlon,  and  that  he  had  purchased  Ruth, 
the  Moabitess,  the  wife  of  Mahlon,  to  be  his  wife,  to  raise  up 
the  name  of  the  dead  upon  his  inheritance.  The  elders  rati- 
fied the  deed,  invoking  upon  Ruth  the  blessing  of  Rachel  and 
Leah,  who  had  built  the  house  of  Israel,  and  that  the  house  of 
Boaz  might  be  made  like  that  of  his  ancestor  Pharez,  the  son 
of  Judah.  The  blessing  was  fulfilled  more  highly  than  they 
thought.  Ruth  bore  to  Boaz  a  son,  named  Obed,  the  father 
of  Jesse,  the  fiithcr  of  David  ;  and  so  Christ,  "  the  son  of  Da- 
vid," derived  his  lineage  from  a  Moabitish  woman,  who  had 
shown  a  faith  rarely  found  in  Israel,  and  whose  husband  was 
the  son  of  the  harlot  Rahab.^' 

§  6.  From  these  scenes  of  Jewish  life  during  this  period  w^e 
turn  to  the  history  of  the  Judges  themselves.  They  were 
fifteen  in  number, 'Deborah,  the  prophetess,  being  reckoned 
with  her  male  associate,  Barak : — (1.)  Othniel ;  (2.)  Ehud ;  (3.) 
Shamgar;  (4.)  Deborah  and  Barak;  (5.)  Gideon;  (6.)  Abim- 
elech;  (7.)  Tola;  (8.)  Jair ;  (9.)  Jephthah  ;  (lO.)Ibzan;  (11.) 
Elon;  (12.)  Abdon;  (13.)  Samson;  (U.)  Eli;  (15.)  Samuel. 
Tlie  mission  of  each  judge  was  preceded  by  a  period  of  op- 
pression under  a  foreign  conqueror,^' 

The  first  of  these  conquerors  was  Chushan-rishathaim,  king 

^"  Comp.  Dcut.  XXV.  7,  9.  radites  got  their  chief  idols  (Baal  and 

^' Ruth  iv.  17-22  ;  I  Chron.  ii.  10-  Ashtavoth)  from  one  quarter — the 
12;  Matt.  i.  T) ;  Luke  iii.  32.  On  north  (Phoenicia),  and  their  chief 
the  close  connection  implied  in  the  j  punishments  from  another — the  east 
narrative  between  Bethlehem  and  the ;  and  south.  Tiie  remark  is  not  uni- 
countrv  of  Mnab,  see  Dictionary  of  versa],  for  they  also  worshiped  the 
the  Bible,  art.  Bethlehem.  I  gods  of  Moab,  Chemosh,  etc. 

"  It  has  been  observed  that  the  Is- 1 


B.C.  1394,  foil.  Othnid — Ehud.  329 

of  Aram-naharaim  {Aram  of  the  two  rivers^  ^.e.,  Mesopotamia), 
the  original  home  of  the  family  of  Abraham."  Looking  at 
the  fact  that  Balaam  was  brought  from  Aram  to  curse  the 
people,  we  may  perhaps  infer  that  this  king  was  allied  with 
those  constant  enemies  of  Israel,  the  Miclianites  andMoabites. 
After  the  people  had  served  him  eight  years,  b.c.  1402-1394), 
God  raised  up  Othjviel,^*  Caleb's  nephew,  whose  valor  has 
already  been  mentioned,  to  be  their  deliverer,  and  the^rs^ 
judge.  Of  him  it  is  recorded,  what  is  not  said  of  all  the 
judges,  that  "  the  spirit  of  Jehovah  Avas  upon  him."  The 
land  had  rest  under  his  government  for  forty  years  (b.c.  1394- 
1354);"  or  rather,  if  our  suggestion  respecting  the  chronolo- 
gy be  adopted,  the  whole  period  of  the  contest  Avith  Chu- 
shan-rishathaim  and  the  judgeship  of  Othniel  extended  over 
a  total  of  forty  years. 

§  7.  The  next  enemy  AA'ho  prevailed  against  Israel  Avas  Eg- 
lon^  king  of  Moab,  Avho  formed  a  great  league  Avith  the  Am- 
monites and  Amalekites.  He  crossed  the  Jordvan,  defeated 
the  Israelites,  and  took  possession  of  "  the  city  of  palm-trees," 
that  is,  probably  the  site  on  Avhich  Jericho  had  formerly 
stood. ^*'  His  poAA^er  endured  for  eighteen  years"  till  a  de- 
liverer Avas  raised  up  in  Ehud,  the  son  of  Gera,  Avho  is  reck- 
oned the  second  judge!"^  He  Avas  one  of  those  left-handed, 
or  ambidextrous  Benjamites,  already  alluded  to,  and  his  skill 
Avith  the  left  hand  Avas  fatal  to  the  King  of  Moab.  As  a  Ben- 
jamite,  he  Avas  naturally  deputed  to  carry  a  present  toEglon 
at  Jericho,  Avhich  lay  Avithin  the  territory  of  that  tribe.  He 
prepared  a  double-edged  dagger,  a  cubit  long,  and  girded  it 
on  his  right  thigh  under  his  garment.  Having  offered  the 
present,  he  Avent  aAvay  as  far  as  "  the  graven  images  "^^  at 
Gilgal,  Avhere  he  dismissed  his  attendants,  and  returned  to  the 
king,  whom  he  found  in  the  retirement  of  his  summer  parlor. 

^^  Judg.  iii.  8;  comp.  Hah.  iii.  7,  would  agree  with  the  pvobabiliiies  of 
where  the  context  makes  it  jiiubablc  !  the  case. 


the  Cushan  of  the  prophet  is  the  same 
as  Chushau-rishathaim. 

^' His    name    signifies    "  Lion  of 
God  :"    on  the  question,  whether  he 


Comp.  Dent,  xxxiv.  3 ;   Judges 
i.  16. 

^Judges   iii.  12-14.     B.C.   1354- 
1336. 
^'^  The  name  was  hereditary  among 
brother,  see    Biblical  Dictionary,  art.  I  the  Benjamites.     See  Gen.  xlvi.  21  ; 
Othniel.  i2  Sam.xvi.  5;  1  Chron.  vii.  10,  viii. 

"  We  give  the  dates  of  tlie  received  i  3,  6. 
chronology  :  but  see  the  Notes  and  II-  '  ^^  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  word 
lustrations.  The  scheme  there  sug- j  rendered  "quarries''  (Jiulg.  iii.  10, 
gested  would  place  Othniel's  death  26)  ;  it  may  refer  to  tlie  twelve  stones 
about  B.C.  1371,  or  eighty  years  after  taken  out  of  the  bed  of  the  Jordan 
the    passage    of  the    Jordan,   which  ;  and  set  up  there  (Josh.  iv.  20). 


830  TJte  Earlier  Judges.  Chap.  XVII. 

On  Ehud's  telling  him  that  he  had  a  secret  message  to  him 
from  God,  Eglon  dismissed  his  attendants  and  rose  to  receive 
it  with  reverence,  when  Ehud  plunged  his  dagger  into  the 
body  of  the  king,  whose  obesity  was  such  that  the  weapon 
vv^as  buried  to  the  handle,  and  Ehud  could  not  draw  it  out 
again.  Ehud  locked  the  doors  of  the  summer  parlor,  and 
went  out  through  the  porch.  It  Avas  long  before  the  attend- 
ants ventured  to  break  in  upon  the  king's  privacy  ;  and  mean- 
while Ehud  escaped  beyond  the  graven  images  at  Gilgal  to 
Seiratli,  in  Mount  Ephraim.  The  children  of  Israel  rallied  at 
the  sound  of  liis  trumpet  in  those  highland  fastnesses;  and 
he  led  them  down  into  tlie  plain.  Eirst  seizing  the  fords  of 
tlie  Jordan,  he  fell  upon  the  Moabites,  who  were  completely 
defeated,  with  the  loss  of  10,000  of  their  best  warriors.  And 
so  the  land  had  rest  for  eighty  years. '^'^  It  is  to  be  observed 
that  Ehud  is  not  called  a  judge  throughout  the  narrative,  but 
only  a  deliverer;  still  the  way  in  which  his  death  is  mention- 
ed at  the  beginning  of  tlie  next  chapter  seems  to  imply  that 
lie  held  the  regular  power  of  a  judge  to  the  end  of  his  life.*' 

§  8.  The  place  of  third  judge  is  commonly  assigned  to 
SiiAMGAR,  the  sonof  Anath,  who  delivered  Israel  from  the  tyr- 
anny of  the  PhlUstines,  and  displayed  his  strength  by  killing 
GOO  of  them  with  an  ox-goad.''^  But  there  seems  no  reason 
for  reckoning  this  as  a  deliverance  of  the  whole  land  from  a 
positive  subjection.  The  Philistines  were  a  constant  "thorn 
in  the  side  "  to  Israel  on  the  south-west  frontier,  in  addition 
to  all  the  other  enemies  they  had  to  encounter ;  and  it  was 
not  till  the  time  of  Eli  and  Samson  and  Samuel  that  they  be- 
came the  chief  oppressors  of  the  people.  Shamgar  is  not  call- 
ed a  judge  ;  and  his  exploits  seem  to  have  been  of  the  same 
nature  as  those  of  Samson,  irregular  acts  of  personal  prowess, 
having  but  little  lasting  effect  on  the  condition  of  the  people 
at  large.  His  time  and  acts  may,  therefore,  be  safely  includ- 
ed in  the  jireceding  period  of  eighty  years.  Accordingly  the 
next  captivity  is  said  to  have  begun  "  after  the  death  of 
Ehud."^'^ 

J<  9.  After  the  death  of  Ehud,  the  people  were  again  sold, 
for  their  sins,  into  the  hand  of  the  Canaanite  Jahin^hing  of 
Ilazor  ;  who,  like  his  ancestor  of  the  same  name,  was  the  head 

*"'^  B.C.  13oG-12r>G,  Vulg.,  or,  no- |  to  fall  within  tliis  period  of  tranquii- 
cnrdiiifjj  to  tlie  view  sugirested  in  the    lity. 

Note^  and  IKuslrationR,  the  whole  pe-  ^^  On  the  chronological  relation  of 
rioil  from  tlic  death  of  Othniel  to  that  Ehud's  judgeship  to  the  massacre  of 
of  Eglon  was  eifrlity  years,  B.C.  1371-  the  B'Mijamites,  ?,qc.  Notes  and  Jllustr. 
1291.     The  history  of  Ruth  appears  I      *'- Judg.  iii.  31.        "^^  Judg.  iv.  1 


B.C.  1316.  Sliamjar — Dtborah — Barak.  331 

of  a  great  confederacy  in  Northern  Palestine."  He  had  900 
war-chariots  of  iron,  and  his  host  was  commanded  by  a  mighty 
captain,  named  Sisera,  who  dwelt  in  Harosheth  of  the  Gentiles, 
a  city  in  the  north,  deriving  its  epithet  probably  from  its 
mixed  popnlation  (like  Galilee  in  later  times),  over  whom 
Sisera  ruled  as  a  chieftain.  Its  site  is  supposed  to  have  been 
on  the  western  shore  of  the  "  waters  of  Merom,"  in  the  ter- 
ritory of  Naphtali,  in  which  also  Hazor  was  situated.  Here 
then  we  have  not,  as  in  the  two  former  cases,  an  invasion  from 
without,  but  the  rebellion  of  a  state  already  once  subdued,  a 
sad  sign  of  the  decay  of  Israel.  For  twenty  years  Jabin 
"  mio;htily  oppressed"  the  land  ;  but  both  his  ])0\ver  and  the 
life  of  his  captain  Sisera  were  given  as  a  spoil  to  the  hands 
of  women. 

At  this  time  Israel  was  judged  by  a  prophetess  named  Deb- 
ORAH,""  the  wife  of  Lapidoth,  Vvho  is  reckoned  witli  Barak  as 
t\\^  fourth  judge .^^  Her  abode  was  under  a  palm-tree  which 
bore  her  name,  a  well-known  solitary  landmark,"  between 
Ramah  and  Bethel ;  and  thither  the  people  cam.e  to  her  for 
judgment.  She  sent  an  inspired  message  to  Barak, ^^  the  son 
of  Abinoam,  of  Kedesh,  in  Naphtali,  bidding  him  assemble 
10,000  men  of  Naphtali  and  Zebulun  at  Mount  Tabor;  for 
Jehovah  would  draw  Sisera  and  his  host  to  meet  him  at  the 
river  Kishon,  and  would  deliver  them  into  his  hand.  Barak 
consented,  only  on  the  condition  that  Deborah  would  go  Avith 
irnn  to  the  battle,  though  she  warned  him  that  he  would  reap 
no  honor,  for  Jehovah  would  sell  Sisera  into  the  hands  of  a 
woman.  The  forces  of  Zebulun,  Naphtali,  and  Issachar  were 
gathei'ed  together  at  Kadesh,  with  some  help  fj-om  the  cen- 
tral tribes,  Ephraim,  Manasseh,  and  Benjamin,  as  well  as  from 
the  half-tribe  of  Manasseh  beyond  Jordan.  Those  of  the  east 
and  south  took  no  part  in  the  contest ;  Sisera  advanced  from 
Harosheth  to  the  great  plain  of  Esdraelon  or  Jezreel,  which 
is  drained  by  the  river  Kishon.''  He  took  up  his  position  in 
the  south-west  corner  of  the  plain  near  "  Taanach  by  the  wa- 
ters of  Megiddo,'""  which  w^ere  numerous  rivulets  flowing 
into  the  Kishon.  Barak  marched  down  from  his  camp  on 
Mount  Tabor  with  his  10,000  men»     "It  was  at  this  critical 

"  Jiulg.  iv.  ;   comi).  Josh.  xi.  i      "M'erliaps   tlie  Rnal-tamar  (a^wc- 

"^  Her  name  means  hec — a  very  an-   tvary  of  the  Palm)  of  Jiidir.  xx.  33. 
ci'nt  symbol  both  of  royal  power  and  i      ^^  His  name  sij;niii;'s  lajhtnin;/,  and 
of  inspired  poetry.  j  is  cotjnate  wiih  ihat  of  B</rca,  the  fa- 

"^  Ir.  seems  more  proper  to  consider  ^  thor  of  Hannibal, 
lior  as  tlie  prophetess,  inspiring  and  i      ^^  For  an  account  of  this  plain,  see 
directing    Barak     the    judge.       ^iic\  Notes  and  Illustrations  {C.). 
Ilc'b.  xi.  32.  .  I      '"  Judg.  V.  19. 


332  TJie  Earlier  Judges.  Chap.  XVII. 

moment  that  (as  we  learn  directly  from  Josephus  and  indi- 
rectly from  the  song  of  Deborah)  a  tremendous  storm  of  sleet 
and  hail  gathered  from  the  east,  and  burst  over  the  plain, 
driving  full  in  the  face  of  the  advancing  Canaanites.  'The 
stars  in  their  courses  fought  against  Sisera.'  The  rain  de- 
scended, the  four  rivulets  of  Megiddo  were  swelled  into  pow- 
erful streams,  the  torrent  of  the  Kishon  rose  into  a  flood,  the 
plain  became  a  morass.  The  chariots  and  the  horses,  wliicli 
should  have  gained  the  day  for  the  Canaanites,  turned  against 
them.  They  became  entangled  in  the  swamp  ;  the  torrent 
of  Kishon — the  torrent  famous  through  former  ages — swept 
them  away  in  its  furious  eddies;  and  in  that  wild  confusion 
'  the  strength'  of  the  Canaanites  '  was  trodden  down,'  and  the 
'  horse-hoofs  stamped  and  struggled  by  the  means  of  the  plung- 
ings  and  plungings  of  the  mighty  chiefs '  in  the  quaking  mo- 
rass and  the  rising  streams.  Far  and  wide  the  vast  army  fled 
far  through  the  eastern  branch  of  the  plain  by  Endor.  There, 
between  Tabor  and  the  Little  Ilermon,  a  carnage  took  place 
long  remembered,  in  which  the  corpses"  lay  fattening  the 
ground.  "^'^ 

Sisera  escaped  by  dismounting  from  liis  chariot,  and  fled 
on  foot  to  the  tent  of  Heber  the  Kenite.  This  Arab  sheikh 
had  sepai'ated  from  the  encampment  of  his  brethren,  the 
children  of  Hobab,  the  father-in-law  of  Moses,  and  removed 
northward  to  "the  oaks  of  the  wanderei's"  {Zaanaim),  near 
Kedesh,  preserving,  it  should  seem,  friendly  relations  both 
with  the  Jews  and  tlie  Canaanites.  At  all  events,  it  is  dis- 
tinctly stated  that  there  was  peace  between  Jabin  and  Heber; 
and  Sisera  fled  to  the  tent  of  Jael  the  wife  of  Heber.  Jael 
met  him  at  the  tent  door,  and  pressed  him  to  come  in.  He 
accepted  the  invitation,  and  she  flung  a  mantle  "  over  him  as 
lie  lay  wearily  on  the  floor.  When  thii'st  prevented  sleep, 
and  he  asked  for  water,  she  brought  him  buttermilk  in  her 
choicest  vessel,  thus  ratifying  the  sacred  bond  of  Eastern  hos- 
pitality. But  anxiety  still  prevented  Sisera  from  composing 
himself  to  rest  until  he  had  exacted  a  promise  from  his  pro- 
tectress that  she  would  faitlifully  preserve  the  secret  of  liis 
concealment ;  till  at  last,  with  a  feeling  of  perfect  security, 
the  w'eary  and  unfortunate  general  resigned  himself  to  the 

''  "Wlncli  perished  at  Endor,  and  became  as  dung  for  tlie  eanli "  (Ps. 
Ixxxiii.  10). 

"  Stanley,  Jewish  Church,  p.  322,  First  Series.  His  whole  account  of 
this  battle  is  a  living  picture. 

''^  "Mantle"  is  here  inaccurate.  The  Hebrew  word  probably  signifies 
some  part  of  the  regular  furniture  of  the  tent. 


B.C.  1296. 


Song  of  Deborah  and  Barak. 


833 


deep  sleep  of  misery  and  fatigue.  Then  it  was  that  Jael  took 
in  her  left  hand  one  of  the  great  wooden  pins  (in  the  Author- 
ised Version  "  nail ")  which  fastened  down  the  cords  of  the 
tent,  and  in  her  right  hand  the  mallet  (in  the  Authorized  Ver- 
sion "  a  hammer  ")  used  to  drive  it  into  the  ground,  and  creep- 
ing up  to  her  sleeping  and  confiding  guest,  with  one  terrible 
blow  dashed  it  through  Sisera's  temples  deep  into  the  earth. 


With  one  s 


pae 


of  fruitless  agony,  with  one  contortion  of 


sudden  pain,  "  at  her  feet  he  bowed,  he  fell ;  where  he  bowed, 
there  he  fell  down  dead.'"*  She  then  waited  to  meet  the 
pursuing  Barak,  and  led  him  into  her  tent  that  she  might  iu 
his  i^resence  claim  the  glory  of  the  deed. 

Tlie  narrative  closes  with  the  Song  of  Deborah  and  Ba- 
rak^^  one  of  the  most  picturesque  remains  of  Hebrew  poetry, 
and  deserves  to  rank  Avith  the  song  of  Moses  and  Miriam. 
After  praising  God  for  the  avenging  of  Israel,  and  for  the 
willingness  Avith  which  tlie  people  offered  themselves,  it  goes 
back  to  the  glories  displayed  by  Jehovah  amid  the  hills  of 
Seir  and  the  mountains  of  Sinai.  It  describes  the  desolation 
of  the  land  in  the  time  just  past,  when  the  highways  were 
empty,  and  travellers  passed  through  by-ways ;  when  the  vil- 
lages Avere  deserted,  and  not  a  spear  or  shield  was  to  be  found 
among  40,000  in  Israel  till  Deborah  arose,  a  mother  in  Israel. 
The  princes,  who  had  willingly  offered  themselves,  are  called 
on  to  bless  Jehovah,  Avith  the  judges  riding  on  their  white 
asses,"  and  the  people  avIio  could  now  draAV  Avater  at  the  Avells 
unmolested  by  the  archers  of  the  enemy,  and  could  go  up  in 
security  to  the  gates  of  JehoA^ah.  The  high  notes  of  victory 
are  then  pealed  forth  : — 

"  Awake  !  awake,  Deborali ! 
Awake  !  awake,  utter  a  song  ! 
Arise,  Barak  ! 

And  lead  tliy  captivity  captive, 
Thou  son  of  Abinoam  !" 

The  tribes  are  celebrated  that  joined  in  the  battle,  Ephraim, 
Benjamin,  Machir  the  son  of  Manasseh,  Zebulun,  and  the 
princes  of  Issachar ;  and  reiDroaches  are  cast  upon  the  seces- 
sion of  Reuben,  who  staid  among  the  sheepfolds,  to  hear  the 
bleating  of  his  sheep ;  on  the  men  of  Gilead,  Avho  abode  be- 
yond Jordan  ;  on  Dan,  Avho  kept  to  his  ships  ;  and  on  Asher, 
who  continued  on  the  sea-shore,  by  the  banks  of  his  creeks." 
The  chief  praise  is  given  to  Zebulun  and  Naphtali : — 

'*  Judg.  V.  27.  "  Judg  V,  "  It  is  remarkable  that  not  a  word 

■"'  The  liorse  was  never  used  by  tl  e  is  said  of  Jndah  and  Simeon  through- 
Hebrews  for  peaceful  purposes.  out    the    narrative.       Perhaps    they 


su 


^Jong  of  Deborah  and  Barak.         Chap.  XVII. 


"  A  people  that  jeoparded  their  lives 
Unto  the  death  in  the  high  ])laccs  of  the  field."' 

Then  the  battle  is  described,  in  which 
'•  Tlicy  fought  from  heaven  — 
The  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against  Sisera," 

till  the  ancient  river  Kishon  swept  away  the  slain,  and  their 
horse-hoofs  were  broken  by  their  prancings.  Meroz"*  is  de- 
voted with  a  double  curse, 

"Because  they  came  not  to  the  help  of  Jeliovah  — 
To  the  help  of  Jehovah  against  the  mighty  ;" 

and  Jael  is  pronounced  "  blessed  above  women  "  for  the  slaugh- 
ter of  Sisera,  which  is  described  in  the  most  ])oetic  language. 
But  the  gem  of  the  whole  piece  is  the  concluding  description 
of  Sisera's  mother  opening  her  lattice  to  look  for  his  return, 
and  wondering  why  the  wheels  of  his  chariots  tarry  ;  Avhile 
her  ladies  remove  her  fears  and  contirm  her  hopes  of  victory 
and  spoil. 

"  So  let  all  thy  enemies  perish,  O  Jehovah  ! 
But  let  tlieni  that  love  Him  be 
As  the  sun  when  he  goeth  forth  in  his  might."' 

The  land  had  rest  forty  years.  The  conclusion  of  this  pe- 
riod, in  the  received  chronology  (b.c.  1256),  coincides  nearly 
with  the  date  as.signed  by  our  proposed  scheme  (b.c.  1251). 
To  reconcile  this  with  the  reckoning  of  the  twenty  years  of 
captivity  to  Jabin  and  Sisera,  as  a  distinct  period,  its  com- 
mencement is  thrown  back  twenty  years  into  the  time  of  Ehud, 
and  it  is  assumed  that  the  oppression  of  Jabin  only  aifected 
the  northern  tribes.  But,  besides  what  we  deem  the  obvious 
inconsistency  of  this  assumption  with  the  whole  tenor  of  the 
narrative,  the  matter  seems  to  be  decided  by  the  express 
statement,  that  the  beginning  of  Jabin's  oppression  was  after 
the  death  of  Ehud."' 

§  10.  At  this  point,  half-way,  according  to  our  view,  be- 
tween the  Exodus  and  the  beginning  of  the  kingdom,  we  may 
divide  the  history  of  the  Judges.  Besides  the  chronological 
difficulties,  reserved  for  separate  discussion,  one  or  two  ques- 
tions demand  our  notice.     Many  persons  have  pointed  to  the 


were  fully  occupied  with  their  con- 
stant enemies,  the  Philisrincs. 

''^  Meroz  was  evidently  near  the 
Kishon,  perhaps  at  M&'asas,  four 
miles  north-west  of  Be'isnn,  on  the 
southern  slope  of  the  hills  called  the 
Little  Hermon,  and  commanding  the 
chief  pass  from  the  valley  of  Jezrcel 


to  that  of  Jordan.  The  offense  of 
the  people  may  have  consisted  in 
their  neglecting  to  stop  this  pass. 
The  fact  that  the  city  is  not  mention 
ed  again  makes  it  probable  that  it 
was  destroyed  in  consequence  of  its 
devotion  by  Deborah. 
*°  Judges  iv.  1, 


B.C.  1296.  Tlie  Earlier  Judges.  335 

treachery  of  Ehud  and  Jael,  as  impossible  to  be  mentioned 
without  indignant  reprobation.  It  is  not  quite  clear  whether 
the  same  \  iew  would  be  taken  of  similar  actions,  when  per- 
petrated by  the  patriot  deliverers  of  other  countries,  whose 
names  are  not  free  from  the  blots  of  treachery  and  assassina- 
tion. Nor  is  it  easy  to  draw  the  line  of  moral  demarcation 
between  the  deeds  which  are  permitted  against  an  enemy  in 
open  war,  however  slight  may  be  the  cause  involved,  and 
those  which  are  forbidden  even  Avhen  the  salvation  of  our 
country  is  at  stake.  For  example,  Jael  herself  is  requested 
by  Sisera  to  tell  a  lie  to  save  his  life. 

But  even  if  the  conduct  objected  to  be  morally  indefensi- 
ble, it  does  not  follow  that  the  discredit  of  it  belongs  to  the 
God  of  Israel  or  to  the  Bible,  as  claiming  to  be  His  word. 
Here,  again,  comes  in  the  principle  on  which  we  have  had  to 
insist  in  the  history  of  the  patriarchs,  that  the  Bible  does  not 
adopt  the  morality  of  all  the  acts  that  it  records,  not  even  of 
those  done  by  the  servants  of  God.  We  must  look  through 
the  record  to  the  influences  under  which  the  actors  lived,  and 
not  expect  chivalrous  honor  from  a  fierce  Benjamite,  or  scru- 
pulous  fidelity  from  a  Bedouin  woman.  Had  such  qualities 
been  ascribed  to  them,  the  record  would  have  been  assailed 
on  the  ground  of  its  untruthfulness  to  nature. 

But,  it  is  said,  these  acts  are  more  than  simply  recorded. 
Ehud  is  immortalized  as  a  deliverer  and  ruler  in  Israel ;  Jael 
receives  the  magnificent  eulogy  of  the  inspired  prophetess. 
But  the  employment  of  the  former  for  the  work  for  which  he 
was  fitted  does  not  imply  approval  of  all  his  acts  ;  and  the 
latter  is  honored  for  her  services  to  Israel,  without  any  judg- 
ment being  passed  on  the  means  by  which  they  were  ren- 
dered. 


336 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  XVtL 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTEATIONS. 


(A.)     CHRONOLOGY     OF    THE 
FEKIOD  OF  THE  JUDGES. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  difficult 
problems  of  Scripture  clironology.  In 
the  earlier  books  we  have  had  a  con- 
secutive series  of  numbers,  which  give 
by  their  addition  results  possessing  a 
jtrimd  facie  authority,  though  needing 
further  discussion.  Sucli  data  are  of- 
fered also  in  the  Book  of  Judges;  but 
there  seem  to  be  important  gaps  at 
the  beginning  and  the  end,  no  num- 
ber of  years  being  fixed  for  the  time 
of  Joshua  and  the  elders  who  outlived 
him,  nor  for  the  judgeship  of  Samuel. 
The  doubt  has  also  been  raised  wheth- 
er the  numbers  given  in  Judges  are 
properly  consecutive  ;  and  it  has  been 
supposed  that  some  of  the  servitudes 
and  of  the  judgeships  were  contem- 
poraneous in  different  parts  of  the 
land.  Under  these  difficulties,  we 
have  to  seek  for  additional  data  •  and 
we  find  such  partly  in  the  distinct 
computation  of  the  whole  period,  and 
partly  in  the  Scripture  genealogies. 

1.  The  commencement  of  the  build- 
ing of  tlie  Temple,  in  the  fourth  year 
of  Solomon's  reign,  is  expressly  stated 
to  have  been  in  the  480th  year  after 
the  children  of  Israel  left  Egypt  (1  K. 
vi.  1).  A  computation  like  this  pos- 
sesses the  Highest  authority.  It  must 
have  been  made  with  scrupulous  care 
from  the  ancient  records  ;  and  critics 
have  sought  in  vain  for  any  trace  of 
error  in  the  text.  The  epoch  of  Solo- 
mon's accession  is  fixed  by  the  inde- 
pendent evidence  of  the  subsequent 
annals  of  the  kingdom  at  B.C.  lOlG, 


and  consequently  the  commencement 
of  the  building  of  the  Temple  falls  iu 
B.C.  1012,  current;  and,  reckoning 
back  the  480  years,  we  obtain  the  be- 
ginning (spring)  of  B.C.  1491  for  the 
epoch  of  tlie  Exodus,  the  date  adopt- 
ed in  the  received  chronology  of  Ussh- 
er. 

2.  There  is,  however,  another  total 
Avhich  seems,  jn-hnd  facie,  irreconcil- 
able with  the  former.  In  St.  Paul's 
discourse  at  Antioch,  in  Pisidia,  ho 
says  :  "After  that  " — the  division  of 
the  land  by  lot — "he  gave  them 
judges  about  the  space  of  450  years, 
until  Samuel  the  prophet :  and  after- 
ward they  desired  a  king."*  This 
clearly  makes  the  interval  from  the 
division  of  the  land  to  the  election  of 
Saul  as  king  about  450  years.  Add- 
ing to  this   forty  years  for  the  time 

!  spent  in   the   wilderness,  with  seven 

'years   for   the    conquest   of  Canaan, 

j  and,  at  the  other  end,  eighty  years 

I  for  the  reigns  of  Saul  and  David,  with 

j  the  first   three  years  of  Solomon,  or 

130  years  in  all,  we  obtain  580  years 

from  tlie  Exodus  to  the  building  of 

the  Temple. t     The   difi'erenco   of  jv 

round    100  years  fairly  suggests  the 

hypothesis  of  a  textual  error  ;  but  the 

other  elements  must  first  be  carefully 

examined. 

3.  Supposing,  for  the  moment,  that 
the   numbers  given   in  the  Book  of 

»  Acts  xiii.  20,  21.  Tlie  word  '■'■  abaiiV 
should  not  be  overlooked  in  reasonings  based 
on  tills  passage. 

t  Josephiis  makes  tlie  fame  period  5"3 
years,  which  seems  to  show  that  some  such 
computation  was  the  received  one  among  the 
learned  Jews  about  the  Christian  era. 


Chap,  XVII. 


Xotes  and  Illustrations. 


337 


Judges  arc  consecutive,  we  have  the 
following  results  : —  i 


From  the  division  of  tlie  land  to  tlie      y« 

death  of  the  elderd  who  outlived 

Joshua 

rii"st  Servitude,  to  Mesopotamia 

First  Judge  :  Otuniel 

Second  Servitude,  to  Moab 

Second  Judge:  Fiicd 

Tliird  Judge :  Suamgau 

Third  Servitude,  to  Jabin  and  Sisera 

Fourth  Judge  :  Deborah  and  Barak.  . 
Fourth  Servitude,  to  Midian 

Fifth  Judge  :  Gideon 

Sixth  Judge :  AuiMELEcn 

Seventh  Judge  :  Tola 

Eighth  Judge  :  Jair , 

Fifth  Servitude,  to  Ammon 

iS'iuth  Judge  :  Jepiitiiaii 

Tenth  Judge  :  Ibzan 

Eleventh  Judge:  Elon 

Twelfth  Judge :    Abdon 

Sixth  Sei-vitude,  to  the  Philistines 

Thirteentli  Judge  :  Samson 

Fourteenth  Judge:  Eli 

Fifteenth  Judge  :  Samuel 


Total  period  of  the  Judges 450 

Tiic  exact  agreement  of  this  total  with 
the  computation  of  Acts  xiii.  20,  21, 
suggests  that  the  "latter  was  obtained, 
by  the  same  process  of  simple  addi- 
tion, from  the  numbers  as  they  stand 
in  the  Hebrew  text ;  but  whether  the 
computation  was  made  by  the  Apostle 
himself,  or  whether  it  is  a  gloss,  is  a 
question  fairly  open  to  further  exami- 
nation. There  is  an  obvious  incon- 
sistency between  these  numbers  and 
the  whole  period  of  480  rears  given 
in(l). 

4.  Before  subjecting  these  results 
to  criticism,  let  us  sec  what  we  obtain 
from  the  genealogies.  In  four  dis- 
tinct passages  we  have  the  following 
four  generations  between  the  passage 
of  the  Jordan  and  the  birth  of  David 
(Ruth  iv.  17,  21,  22  ;  1  Chron.  ii.  11, 
12 ;  Matt.  i.  5  :  Luke  iii.  32). 

Salmon  =rvahab. 


Eoaz— Paith. 

I 
Obet>. 


Jesse. 

I 
David. 

P 


In  the  face  of  this  agreement,  it  seems 
impossible  to  treat  the  genealogies 
as  of  little  consequence  in  determin- 
ing the  chronology  of  the  period.  Con- 
clusions should,  of  course,  be  drawn 
from  them  only  with  great  caution. 
Meanwhile,  their  inconsistency  with 
the  longer  period  is  self-evident.* 

Such  are  tlie  chief  materials  of  the 
argument.  We  do  not  encumber  it 
with  the  statements  of  the  ancient 
chronologers,  Eusebius,  Africanus, 
Syncellus,  and  the  rest,  because  they 
are  only  opinions  resting  on  these  data. 
These  writers  all  agree  in  a  long  pe- 
riod ;  and  it  may  be  observed  that 
they  all  follow,  with  a  professional 
narrowness,  the  tendency  of  chronolo- 
gers to  make  their  science  a  matter  of 
arithmetic,  without  sufficient  regard 
to  the  broader  historical  criticism,  in 
the  light  of  which  alone  the  numbers 
cf  chronology  become  intelligible  and 
consistent. 

5.  In  applying  such  criticism  to  the 
scheme  of  numbers  derived  from  tlie 
Book  of  Judges  in  (3),  we  discover  the 
following  defects  of  principle,  besides 
others  of  detail.  The  threefold  process 
of  declension,  punishment,  and  deliv- 
erance, has  been  already  described. 
For  each  of  these  three  steps  time 
must  be  allowed ;  and  the  scheme  in 
question,  while  affecting  to  compute 
the  second  and  third  Avith  numerical 
exactness,  makes  no  allowance  for  the 
first.  It  seems  as  if  the  people  fell 
into  sin  and  captivity  simultaneously 
immediately  on  the  death  of  each 
judge  ;  that  this  state  lasted  for  a  def- 
inite number  of  years,  at  the  end  of 
which  a  new  judge  is  raised  up,  for 
whose  work  of  deliverance  no  distinct 
period  is  allowed ;  and  then,  that  de- 
liverance being  effected,  the  land  has 

*  We  speak  here  without  reference  to  the 
proposed  interpolation  of  generations  sup- 
posed to  be  wanting — a  device  only  jiistifi:i- 
ble  by  necessity,  except,  of  course,  in  the 
well-known  cases  where  they  are  certainly 
passed  over. 


338 


Notes  and  Illustraiions. 


Chap.  XVII. 


rest  for  a  certain  number  of  years. 
For  this  is,  in  several  cases,  the  state- 
ment of  the  text ;   and,  if  we  are  to 
insist  on  taking  each  phrase  literally, 
we  must  allow  four  divisions  of  each 
period — first,  the   declension  ;    then, 
the  punishment ;  thirdly,  the  deliver- 
ance;   and,  last,  the  period  of  rest,^ 
which  would  give  us  &  total  far  ex- 
ceeding the  longest   of  the   above.* 
But,  in  truth,  if  we  look  at  the  ques- 
tion in  the  light  of  ordinary  history, 
we  shall  see  that  this  whole  system  of 
definite  divisions  rests  on  a  false  prin- 
ciple.    The  real  process  must  rather 
have  been  such  as  this  :  when  the  peo 
pie   forsook   Jehovah   and   began   to 
abandon  their  attitude  of  opposition 
to  the   heathen   around  and  among 
them,  the  power  of  the  latter  against 
them  would  begin  to  increase,  by  a 
natural  process  as  well  as  by  a  judi- 
cial retribution,  till  they  obtained  a 
decided  superiority.     From  the  first 
moment  that  the  tide  turned,  many  of 
the  Israelites  would  grieve  over  their 
fate,  and  some  few — men  of  the  spirit 
of  Othniel  and  Gideon — would  begin 
to  plan  their  enterprises  of  patriotism 
till  a  struggle  of  greater  or  less  lengtii 
was  crowned  by  a  signal  victory.     But 
even  after  this  victory,  much  work 
would  remain  to  complete  the  deliv- 
erance and  to  secure  the  "rest,"  with 
which  each  narrative  concludes.     All 
this  is  true,  more  or  less,  from  the  very 
nature  of  the  case,  and  from  our  ex- 
perience of  similar  conflicts  ;  but  in- 
dications of  it  are  not  wanting  in  the 
narrative   itself.     We    are   expressly 
told  that  the  deliverer  Avas  raised  up 
as  soon  as  the  people  cried  to  Jeho- 
vah ;   and  we  know  that  the  Israelites 
were  never  slow  to  cry  out  under  suf- 
fering.    Othniel's  whole  history  is  one 
of  conflict   Avith    the   Amorites,  Ca- 

*  As  a  proof  that  common  ponse  demands 
some  latitude  of  interi'retation,  we  may  cite 
tlie  curirm:^  phi-a?e:  "And  that  year  they 
vexed  and  oppresnod  the  children  of  Israel 

aghtccn  y  ar-i^  (Judg.  ::.  S). 


naanites,  and  their  allies.  How  could 
Ehud's  enterprise  have  been  supported 
at  once  by  the  forces  that  rallied  at 
the  sound  of  his  trumpet  in  Mount 
Ephraim,  unless  there  had  been  bands 
already  in  resistance  to  the  tyrant? 
We  can  not  suppose  that  Hazor  was 
raised  again  from  its  ruins,  and  the 
tyranny  of  the  second  Jabin  estab- 
lished, without  a  hard  resistance  from 
the  warriors  of  Zebulun  and  Naphtali, 
who  seem  to  have  been  already  in 
arms  among  their  mountains  under 
Barak,  when  he  was  summoned  by 
Deborah  ;  and  she  is  expressly  stated 
to  have  judged  Israel  in  Mount  Eph- 
raim during  the  oppression  of  Jabin 
(Judg.  iv.  14).  In  the  cases  of  Gideon 
and  Samson,  we  have  the  whole  his- 
tory, from  the  birth  to  the  death  of 
the  deliverer  ;  and  the  period  during 
which  the  latter  judged  Israel  is  ex- 
pressly included  in  the  forty  years' 
tyranny  of  the  Philistines.  That  tyr- 
anny, too,  Avas  triumphant  during  the 
time  of  Eli,  and  lasted  over  the  ad- 
ministration of  Samuel  into  the  reign 
of  Saul. 

From  all  these  considerations  we 
draw  the  conclusion  that  the  number 
of  years  given  at  the  end  of  the  histo- 
ry of  each  judge  is  the  total  of  the  pe- 
riod from  the  death  of  the  preceding 
judge,  including  the  declension,  op- 
pression, deliverance,  and  rest  —  in 
one  word,  that  these  periods  are  inclu- 
sive ;  and  it  appears  plain  on  the  face 
of  the  book  that  they  are  consecutive* 
We  may  even  reconcile  this  view  with 
the  most  literal  construction  of  tlie 
text,  by  reading — "  And  the  land  had 
rest:  [it  was] /ort>/  i/ears"  (Judg.  iii. 
11,  etc.) — that  is,  regarding  the  date 
as  appended  to  the  Avhole  narrative. 
*  The  exception  in  the  case  of  Shamgar  con- 
firms the  argument,  for  no  number  of  years  is 
assigned  to  him,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  tlie  op- 
pression of  Jabin  is  dated  from  the  death  of 
Ehud.  This  care  to  mark  Shamgar' s  period 
as  not  consecutive  with  the  one  named  before 
it  confirms  the  general  principle  of  the  con. 
secutiveness  of  the  rest. 


CuAP.  XVII. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


839 


We  have  seen  a  case  precisely  sim- 
ilar in  the  prophecy  to  Abraham  of 
the  fortunes  of  his  posterity  (Gen.  xv. 
13),  where  the  words  "  four  hundred 
years  "  most  clearly  describe  the  whole 
period  from  the  call  of  Abraham  to 
the  Exodus,  and  must  not  be  read  ex- 
clusively with  the  preceding  phrase, 
"  they  shall  afflict  them." 

6.  Looking  at  the  narrative  from 
this  point  of  view,  we  are  struck  by 
two  curious  facts  :  first,  the  prevalence 
of  the  number  forty,  which  we  have 
already  had  in  the  three  forties  of  the 
life  of  Moses,  and  which  we  meet  with 
again  in  the  forty  years  of  Saul  and 
the  forty  years  of  David  ;  and,  second- 
ly, that  the  total  of  480  years  in  the 
Book  of  Kings  is  equal  to  twelve  times 
forty  years.  On  turning  to  the  Book 
of  Judges  to  see  how  far  it  is  possible 
to  make  out  twelve  periods  of  forty 
years  each,  we  have  found  the  follow- 
ing results :  all  the  numbers,  except 
those  in  brackets,  are  taken  directly 
from  the  Book  of  Judges  itself;  only 
the  periods  of  servitude  are  passed 
over  as  being  included  in  the  others. 


Periods. 


Years.* 


i.  From  tlie  Exodus  to  the  pas- 
sage of  Jordan 40 

ii.  To  the  death  of  Joshua  and 
the  surviving  elders [40] 

iii.  Judgeship  of  Othniel 4(J 

iv.  V.  Judgeship  of  Ehud  (Sham- 
gar  included) 80 

vi.  Judgeship  of  Deborah  and 
Barak 40 

vii.  Judgeship  of  Gideon 40 

Viii.  ix.  Abimelech  to  Abdon,  to- 
tal  [SO] 

X.  Oppression  of  the  Philistines, 
contemporary  with  the  judge- 
ships of  Eli,  Samson  (aud 
Samuel)  ?...... 40 

xi.  Reign  of  Saul  (including  per- 
haps Samuel) 40 

xii.  Reign  of  David 40 


Ending 
about 
B.C. 


1451 


1411 
1371 


1291 


1251 
1211 


1131 


1091 


1051 
1011 


Total. 


iii.-x.  belong    properly  to    the 

Judges 320 

With  regard  to   the  numbers  in 

•  It  is  an  essential  part  of  our  argument  to 
regard  these  as  only  i-ound  numbei-s. 


!  brackets.  The  length  assigned  to  pe- 
I  riod  ii.  seems  probable  in  reference  to 
the  course  of  the  history,  and  consist- 
I  ent  with  the  analogy  of  the  preceding 
i  period ;  for,  as  forty  years  were  al- 
lowed for  the  extinction  of  the  older 
j  generation  in  the  wilderness,  it  seems 
natural  that  the  same  period  should 
be  allowed  for  the  decease  of  the  eld- 
ers of  the  next  generation.  An  ob- 
jection may  be  raised,  however,  from 
the  length  given  to  the  life  of  Othniel, 
who  must  have  been  upward  of  twen- 
ty  years  old  at  the  time  of  the  division 
of  the  land,  and  therefore  upward  of 
one  hundred  at  his  death ;  but  this  is 
not  inconsistent  with  the  duration  of 
life  among  the  most  vigorous  men  of 
that  age,  as  we  see  in  the  case  of 
Joshua  and  Caleb.  The  double  pe- 
riod of  eighty  years  (viii.  and  ix.), 
from  Abimelech  to  Abdon,  agrees 
nearly  enough  with  the  sum  of  the 
separate  numbers  assigned  to  the 
judges  of  that  period,  which  make  up 
seventy-nine  years.  About  period  xi. 
there  is  some  difficulty.  We  do  not 
find  forty  years  distinctly  assigned  to 
the  reign  of  Saul  in  the  Old  Testament, 
but  it  is  expres.sly  mentioned  by  St. 
Paul  (Acts  xiii.  21);  and  all  the 
chronologers  agree  in  accepting  the 
number,  either  for  the  reign  of  Saul 
himself,  or  for  the  whole  ])eriod  from 
the  death  of  Eli  to  that  of  Saul.  An 
interesting  confirmation  of  the  scheme 
is  furnished  by  one  of  those  coinci- 
dences of  independent  passages,  which 
are  of  the  utmost  value.  In  the  re- 
monstrance of  Jephthah  against  the 
hostilities  of  the  King  of  Amnion,  it 
is  stated  that  the  Israelites  had  pos- 
sessed the  land  east  of  the  Jordan  500 
years.  This  period,  reckoned  from 
B.C.  1452,  brings  us  to  B.C.  1152,  which 
agrees  with  the  date  assigned  to  Jeph- 
thah by  our  scheme. 

The  scheme  makes  no  allowance 
for  the  first  three  years  of  Solomon, 
which  preceded  the  building  of  the 


b-iO 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  XVII, 


Temple.  Nor  is  this  of  .any  conse- 
quence ;  for  if  tlie  number  of  480 
years  be  made  up  in  the  way  supposed, 
\vc  must  take  it  for  granted  that  the 
numbers  given  are  tlie  nearest  round 
numbers  to  the  true  ones,  purposely 
arranged  in  multiples  of  10  and  4,  and 
submultiples  of  12  X  10,  for  ease  and 
simplicity  of  computation  and  remem- 
brance, but  preserving,  in  tlieir  aver- 
ages and  their  total,  an  agreement 
with  the  actual  numbers.  We  can 
not,  however,  pretend  to  answer  all 
possible  objections.  We  only  offer  it 
as  a  highly  probable  solution  of  a  prob- 
lem which  has  hitherto  baffled  chro- 
nologers ;  a  solution  recommended 
not  only  by  its  simplicity,  but  especial- 
ly by  its  preserving  the  grand  total 
which  rests  on  the  high  authority  of 
the  passage  in  Kings,  without  de- 
manding arbitrary  assumptions  or  im- 
probable transpositions  in  the  story  of 
the  Judges. 

7.  It  remains  to  compare  this 
scheme  with  the  genealogies.  As 
they  stand,  they  arc  quite  inconsistent 
with  the  longer  period  ;  but  are  they 
long  enough  even  for  the  shorter? 
Assuming  the  birth  of  David  to  be 
about  contemporary  with  tlie  election 
of  Saul  (and  it  may  have  been  later), 
we  have,  as  above  (4),  four  complete 
generations  from  the  conquest  of  Ca- 
naan to  the  birth  of  David,  or  from 
80  to  90  years  for  a  generation.  This 
is  certainly  a  long  period,  but  not  too 
long  for  the  duration  of  life  in  that 
age,  nor  for  what  we  know  of  the  in- 
dividuals. Except  Obed,  there  is 
nothing  to  show  that  they  were  first- 
born sons  ;  and,  in  the  case  of  David, 
we  know  the  contrary,  and  that  Jesse 
was  an  old  man  when  he  was  very 
young.  It  is  most  probable  that  Sal- 
mon and  Rahah  were  both  young  at 
thctime  of  tlic  taking  of  Jericho.  As 
to  Boaz,  we  see  him  using  the  author- 
ity of  an  elder  nt  the  time  of  his  mar- 
riage with  Ruth;    and  there  is  one 


distinct  intimation  of  his  advanced 
age  (Ruth  iii.  10).  Of  Obed's  age 
when  Jesse  was  born  we  know  simply 
nothing.  On  the  whole,  then,  the  in- 
tervals of  80  years  may  be  accepted, 
though  with  the  caution  which  is  al- 
ways needed  in  using  the  genealogies 
as  chronological  evidence. 

8.  Finally,  there  is  the  question, 
What  becomes  of  the  authority  of  St. 
Paul  in  favor  of  the  longer  period  ? 
The  difficulty  is  certainly  a  grave  one 
for  those  who  liold  that  the  Avholc 
weight  of  inspired  authority  attaches 
to  every  report  of  every  statement 
made  by  the  Apostles,  even  in  re- 
gard to  matters  of  which  their  knowl- 
edge was  obtained  from  the  ordinary 
sources  of  information.  For  such 
persons  the  suggestion  may  be  of 
some  weight  that  the  numbers,  which 
certainly  form  no  essential  part  of  the 
Apostle's  argument,  may  have  been 
added  as  a  gloss  uix)n  the  text,  though 
there  is  no  critical  authority  in  sup- 
port of  this  possibility.  Others  may 
be  content  with  the  consideration  that 
the  disciples  of  Gamaliel  would  adopt, 
in  an  incidental  allusion  to  a  point 
of  chronology  made  in  a  Jewish  syn- 
agogue, the  opinion  held  by  the  learn- 
ed Jews  of  his  day,  without  raising  the 
question  of  its  accuracy. 

Chronology  of  Judges  xvii.-xxio 
0.  It  is  generally  admitted,  as  plain 
on  the  face  of  the  book  itself,  that 
these  chapters  form  one  complete  nar- 
rative, and  refer  to  the  same  period. 
Besides  various  indications  of  a  time 
not  long  after  the  death  of  Joshua, 
especially  the  cordial  agreement  of 
the  tribes  in  i)unishing  the  sin  of  Ben- 
jamin, we  have  the  certain  guide  that 
the  first  story  belongs  to  the  time  of 
Jonathan,  the  grandson  of  Moses,  then 
a  young  man,  and  the  second  to  the 
high-priesthood  of  Phinehas,  grand- 
son of  Aaron,  whose  father,  Eleazar, 
died  soon  after  the  death  of  Joshua. 


Chap.  XVII. 


Notes  cmd  Illustrations. 


3-il 


All  these  indications  concur  in  point- 
ing to  the  latter  part  of  the  period  of 
the  elders  who  outlived  Joshua,  that 
is,  according  to  our  scheme,  about  for- 
ty years  after  the  conquest  of  the  land  ; 
and  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  the 
oppression  of  Chushan-rishathaim  was 
the  punishment  of  these  very  disorders. 
It  agrees  with  this  view,  that  in  the 
story  of  the  expedition  against  Benja- 
min there  is  no  mention  of  a  judge,  but 
the  leaders  are  the  high-priest  Phinc- 
has  and  the  princes  of  the  tribes.  An- 
other interesting  consequence  would 
be  that  the  judgeship  of  Ehud  was  sub- 
sequent to  the  punishment  of  Benja- 
min, and  this  elevation  may  be  regard- 
ed as  a  mark  of  divine  favor  to  the  re- 
stored tribe.  The  time  of  Ruth,  com- 
puted by  the  genealogies,  would  fall  in 
the  judgeship  of  Deborah  and  Barak. 

(B.)  BAAL  AND  ASHTORETH. 
Baal  was  the  supreme  male  divin- 
ity of  the  Phoenician  and  Canaan- 
itish  nations  —  as  Ashtoretii  was 
their  supreme  female  divinity.  Both 
names  have  the  peculiarity  of  being 
used  in  the  plural;  and  it  seems 
certain  that  these  plurals  designate 
not  statues  of  the  divinities,  but  dif- 
ferent modifications  of  the  divini- 
ties themselves.  The  plural  Baal- 
im is  found  frequently  alone  (e.  g., 
Judg.  ii.  11,  X.  10;  I  K.  xviii.  18; 
Jer.  ix.  14;  Hos.  ii.  17),  as  well  as 
in  connection  with  Ashtoreth  (Judg. 
X.  G ;  1  Sam.  vii.  4).  In  the  earlier 
books  of  the  O.  T.,  only  the  plural, 
Ashtaroth,  occurs ;  and  it  is  not  till 
the  time  of  Solomon,  who  introduced 
the  worship  of  the  Sidonian  Astarte, 
and  only  in  reference  to  that  partic- 
ular goddess,  Ashtoreth  of  the  Sido- 
nians,  that  the  singular  is  found  in 
the  O.  T.  (I  K.  xi.  5,  33  ;  2  K.  xxiii. 
13).  Baal  signifies  Lord,  not  so 
much,  however,  in  the  sense  of  Ruler, 
as  of  Master,  Owner,  Possessor.  Bel 
is  the  Babylonian  name  of  the  god. 


The  worship  of  these  deities  was 
of  great  antiquity.  We  find  the 
worship  of  Baal  established  among 
the  Moabites  and  their  allies,  the 
Midianites,  in  the  time  of  Moses 
(Num.  xxii.  41);  and  through  these 
nations  the  Israelites  were  seduced 
to  the  worship  of  this  god  under  the 
particular  form  of  Baal-peor  (Num. 
XXV.  3,  sqq. ;  Deut.  iv.  3).  Not- 
withstanding the  fearful  punishment 
which  their  idolatry  brought  upon 
them  in  this  instance,  the  succeed- 
ing generation  returned  to  the  wor- 
ship of  Baal  (Judg.  ii.  10-13;  and, 
with  the  exception  of  the  period  dur- 
ing which  Gideon  was  judge  (Judg. 
vi.  26,  sqq.  viii.  33),  this  form  of  idol- 
atry seems  to  have  prevailed  among 
them  up  to  the  time  of  Samuel  (Judg. 
X.  10;  1  Sam.  vii.  4),  at  whose  re- 
buke the  people  renounced  the  wor- 
ship of  Baalim.  Solomon,  as  wc 
have  already  said,  introduced  the  wor- 
ship of  the  Sidonian  Astarte.  The 
worship  of  Baal,  together  with  that 
of  Asherah,  became  the  religion  of 
the  court  and  people  of  the  ten  tribes 
under  Ahab,  king  of  Israel,  in  conse- 
quence of  his  marriage  with  Jezebel 
(L  K.  xvi.  31-33,  xviii.  19,  22;  and 
though  this  idolatry  was  occasionally 
put  down  (2  K.  iii.  2,  x.  26),  it  ap- 
pears never  to  have  been  permanent- 
ly or  effectually  abolished  in  that 
kingdom  (2  K.  xvii.  16).  In  the 
kingdom  of  Judah,  also,  Baal-wor- 
ship extensively  prevailed.  During 
the  short  reign  of  Ahaziah  and  the 
subsequent  usurpation  of  his  mother 
Athaliah,  the  sister  of  Ahab,  it  ap- 
pears to  have  been  the  religion  of  the 
court  (2  K.  viii.  27;  comp.  xi.  18), 
as  it  was  subsequently  under  Ahaz 
(2  K.  xvi.  3 ;  2  Chr.  xxviii.  2),  and 
Manasseh  (2  K.  xxi.  3). 

The  worship  of  Baal  among  the 
Jews  appeai-s  to  have  been  appoint- 
ed with  mucii  pomp  and  ceremonial. 
Temples  were  erected  to  him  (IK. 


842 


Notes  and  lUasirations. 


Chap.  XVII. 


xvi,  32;  2  K.  xi.  18);  his  images 
were  set  up  (2  Iv.  x.  26) ;  his  altars 
were  very  mimerous  (Jer.  xi.  13), 
were  erected  particularly  on  lofty 
eminences  (I  K.  xviii.  20),  and  on 
the  roofs  of  houses  (Jer.  xxxii.  29) ; 
there  were  priests  in  great  numbers 
(1  K.  xviii.  19),  and  of  various  class- 
es (2  K.  X.  19) ;  the  worshipers  ap- 
pear to  have  been  arrayed  in  appro- 
priate robes  (2  K.  x.  22)  ;  the  wor- 
ship was  performed  by  burning  in- 
cense (Jer.  vii.  9)  and  offering  burnt- 
sacrifices,  which  occasionally  consist- 
ed of  human  victims  (Jer.  xix.  .5). 
The  officiating  priests  danced  with 
frantic  shouts  around  the  altar,  and 
cut  themselves  with  knives  to  excite 
the  attention  and  compassion  of  the 
god  (1  K.  xviii.  26-28). 

Throughout  all  the  Phoenician  col- 
onies we  continually  find  traces  of  the 
worship  of  Baal  and  Astarte.  The 
name  of  Baal  occurs  in  the  names  of 
men  such  as  Adher-b:il,  Asdru-bal, 
Hanni-bal. 

Baal  and  Ashtoreth  symbolized  the 
generative  and  productive  powers : 
the  former  was  also  regarded  as  the 
sun-god,  and  the  latter  as  the  moon- 
goddess. 

There  is  a  Hebrew  word,  Asherah, 
which  is  always  translated  "grove" 
in  our  version  ;  but  it  is  certain  that 
an  idol  or  image  of  some  kind  must 
be  intended,  as  seems  sufficiently 
proved  from  such  passages  as  2  K. 
xxi.  7,  xxiii.  6,  in  the  latter  of  which 
we  find  that  Josiah  "brought  out 
tlie  Asherah"  (or,  as  our  version 
reads,  "  the  grove  ")  "  from  the  house 
of  the  Lord."  There  can,  moreover, 
be  no  doubt  that  Asherah  is  very 
closely  connected  with  Ashtoreth 
and  her  worship ;  indeed,  the  two 
are  so  placed  in  connection  witli  each 
otlier,  and  each  of  them  with  Baal 
(e.  g.,  Judg.  iii.  7  ;  comp.  ii.  3  ;  Judg. 
vi.  25;  1  K.  xviii.  19),  that  many 
critics  have  regarded  tliem  as  iden- 


I  tical.  There  are  other  passages, 
however,  in  which  these  terms  seem 
to  be  distinguished  from  each  other, 
as  2  K.  xxiii.  13,  H,  15.  Ashtoreth 
is  perhaps  the  proper  name  of  the 
goddess,  while  Asherah  is  the  name 

j  of  the  image  or  symbol  of  tlie  god- 
dess. There  was  perhaps  a  connec- 
tion between  the  symbols  or  image 
and  the  sacred  symbolic  tree,  the  rep- 
resentation of  which  occurs  so  fre- 
quently on  Assyrian  sculptures,  and 
is  shown  in  the  wood-cut  on  page 
318. 

(C.)  PLAIN  OF  ESDKAELON. 

Esdraelon  is  the  Greek  form  of 
the  Hebrew  word  Jezreel  (Judith 
iii.  9,  iv.  6).  In  the  Old  Testament 
the  plain  is  colled    the  valley  op 

!  Jezreel  ;  and  the  name  is  derived 
from  the  old  royal  city  of  Jezreel^ 
which  occupied  a  commanding  site 
near  the  eastern  extremity  of  the 
plain,  on  a  spur  of  Mount  Gilboa. 

"The  great  plain  of  Esdraelon" 
extends  across  Central  Palestine  from 
the  Mediterranean  to  the  Jordan, 
separating  the  mountain  ranges  of 
Carmel  and  Samaria  from  those  of 
Galilee.  The  western  section  of  it 
is  properly  called  the  plain  of  Accho, 
or  'Akka.  The  main  body  of  the 
plain  is  a  triangle.  Its  base  on  the 
east  extends  from  Jenin  (the  ancient 
Engannim)  to  the  foot  of  the  hills  be- 
low Nazareth,  and  is  about  fifteen 
miles  long  ;  the  north  side,  formed 
by  the  hills  of  Galilee,  is  about  12 
miles  long  ;  and  tlie  south  side,  form- 
ed by  the  Samaria  range,  is  about  18 
miles.  The  apex  on  the  west  is  a 
narrow  pass,  opening  into  the  plain 
of  'Akka.  This  vast  expanse  has  a 
gently  undulating  surface — in  spring, 

\  all  green  with  corn  where  cultivated, 
and  rank  weeds  and  grass  where  neg- 
lected— dotted  with  several  low,  gray 
tells,  and  near  the  sides  with  a  few 
olive-groves.     This  is  that  valley  of 


Chap.  XVII. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


343 


Megiddo,  so  called  from  the  city  of 
Megiddo,  whicli  stood  on  its  south- 
ern border,  where  Barak  triumphed, 
and  where  King  Josiah  was  defeated, 
and  received  his  death-wound  (Judg. 
V.  ;  2  Chr.  xxxv.)  Probably,  too,  it 
was  before  the  mind  of  the  Apostle 
John  when  he  figuratively  described 
the  final  coiifiict  between  the  hosts 
of  good  and  evil  who  were  gathered 
to  a  place  called  Ar-mageddon^  that 
is,  the  city  of  Megiddo  (Rev.  xvi.  16). 
Tiie  river  Kishon — "that  ancient 
river,"  so  fatal  to  the  army  of  Sisera 
(Judg.  v.  21)  drains  the  plain,  and 
flows  oflF  through  the  pass  westward 
to  the  Mediterranean. 

From  the  base  of  this  triangular 
plain  three  branches  stretch  out  east- 
ward, like  fingers  from  a  hand,  di- 
vided by  two  bleak,  gray  ridges,  one 
bearing  the  familiar  name  of  Mount 
Gilboa,  the  other  called  by  Franks 
Little  Hermon,  but  by  natives  Jebel 
ed-Lkdnj.  The  nortliern  branch  has 
Tabor  on  the  one  side,  and  Little 
Hermon  on  the  other ;  into  it  the 
troops  of  Barak  defiled  from  the 
heights  of  Tabor  (Judg.  iv.  6),  and 
on  its  opposite  side  are  the  sites  of 
Nain  and  Endor.  The  southern  branch 
lies  between  Jenin  and  Gilboa,  ter- 
minating in  a  point  among  the  hills 


to  the  eastward ;  it  was  across  it 
Ahaziah  fled  from  Jehu  (2  K.  ix.  27). 
The  central  branch  is  the  richest,  as 
well  as  the  most  celebrated ;  it  de- 
scends in  green  fertile  slopes  to  the 
banks  of  the  Jordan,  having  Jezreel 
and  Shunem  on  opposite  sides  at 
the  western  end,  and  Bethshean  in 
its  midst  toward  the  east.  This  is 
the  "valley  of  Jezreel"  proper — the 
battle-field  on  which  Gideon  triumph- 
ed, and  Saul  and  Jonathan  were 
overthrown  (Judg,  vii.  1  sq ;  1  Sam. 
xxix.  and  xxxi.). 

The  whole  borders  of  the  plain  of 
Esdraelon  are  dotted  with  places  of 
high  historic  and  sacred  interest.  On 
the  east  we  have  Exdok,  Nain,  and 
Shunem,  ranged  round  the  base  of 
the  "hill  of  MoREii ;"  then  Beth- 
shean in  the  centre  of  the  "valley 
of  Jezreel;"  then  Gilboa,  with  the 
"well  of  Harod,"  and  the  ruins  of 
Jezreel,  at  its  western  base.  On 
the  south  are  Engannim,  Taanach, 
and  Megiddo.  At  the  western  apex, 
on  the  overhanging  brow  of  Carmel, 
is  the  scene  of  Elijah's  sacrifice  ;  and 
close  by  the  foot  of  the  mountain  be- 
low runs  the  Kishon,  on  whose  banks 
the  false  prophets  of  Baal  were  slain. 
On  the  north,  among  places  of  less 
note,  arc  Nazareth  and  Tabor. 


S-A  Oj^pression  of  the  Midianites.      Chap.  XVIII. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE    JUDGES,  FROM    GIDEON   TO    JEPHTHAH.        B.C.    1256-1112. 

§  I.  Oppression  of  the  Midianites.  §  2.  Call  of  Gideon,  the  fifth  judge — 
The  Angel  Jehovah — Gideon  overthrows  the  Altar  of  Baal — Surnamed 
Jeuubbaal.  §  3.  Gideon  musters  Israel — The  signs  of  the  fleece. 
§  4.  Choice  of  300  men — The  trumpets,  lamps,  and  pitchers — Slaugh- 
ter of  Midian  in  Jezreel — Pursuit  beyond  the  Jordan — Fate  of  Succoth 
and  Penuel.  §  5.  Gideon  refuses  the  crown — Makes  an  Ephod.  §  G. 
Abimelech  murders  Gideon's  sons,  and  becomes  king  at  Shechem — 
The  parable  or  fable  of  Jotham.  §  7.  Revolt  against  Abimelech — De- 
struction of  Shechem — His  death — Erroneously  ranked  as  the  sixth 
judge.  §  8.  Tola  and  Jair  the  seventh  and  eighth  judges,  §  9.  Op- 
pression of  the  Philistines  and  Amorites*— llise  of  Jepiithah,  the  ninth 
judge — Embassy  to  Ammon — Jephthah's  vow — The  Ammonites  sub- 
dued— The  fate  of  Jephthah's  daughter — Massacre  of  Ephraim — Shib- 
boleth and  Sibboleth — Death  of  Jephthah.  §  10.  Ibzan,  Elon,  and  Ab- 
DON,  the  tenth,  eleventh,  and  twelfth  judges. 

§  1.  The  peace  purchased  by  the  victory  of  Deborah  and 
Barak  was  again  misused  by  Israel,  and  the  next  scene  of 
their  history  opens  upon  a  more  sliameless  idolatry,  and  a 
more  complete  subjection  to  their  enemies.  The  worship  of 
Baal  was  publicly  practiced,  and  the  people  were  ready  to 
display  zeal  for  the  false  god.^  They  Avere  now  delivered 
over  to  their  old  enemies  of  the  desert,  the  Midianites  and 
the  Amalekites,  who  came  up  every  year  in  entire  hordes, 
"  as  locusts  for  multitude,"  with  their  cattle  and  their  tents, 
covering  the  whole  breadth  of  the  land  as  far  as  Gaza  and 
devouring  its  produce,  so  that  the  Israelites  had  no  food 
left,  nor  sheep,  nor  ox,  nor  ass.  The  only  refuge  of  the  peo- 
ple was  in  dens,  and  caves,  and  fortresses  in  the  mountains. 
This  oppression  lasted  for  seven  years.  Once  more  the  peo- 
ple cried  to  Jehovah,  who  sent  a  prophet  to  reprove  them 
for  the  evil  return  they  had  made  for  their  deliverance  from 
Egypt.*     But  the  reproof  was  the  prelude  to  effectual  aid. 

§  2.  As  in  the  former  oppressions,  there  were  still  stout 
hearts  in  Israel  ready  to  come  forth  at  the  call  of  Jehovah. 
Such  a  man  was  Gideox,  the  son  of  Joash,  of  the  distin- 
guished family  of  the  Abi-ezrites,  at  Ophrah,  in  the  tribe  of 
Manasseh.^     He  was  grown   up,  and  had  sons,  and  had  ob- 

"  .Judg.vi.  25-32.     ^  Judg.  vi.  1-10.  |  the  name  Gideon  is  a  "hewer, "that 
'The  most   jirobable   meaning  of  |  is  "a  brave  warrior."     Ophrah  was 


B.C.  1256.  Gideon.  345 

tained  the  character  of  "  a  mighty  man  of  valor."^  Gideon 
was  threshing  corn  in  his  fatlier's  wine-press  to  hide  it  from 
the  Midianites,  when  he  saw  an  "  angel  of  Jehovah"  sitting 
under  an  oak  which  formed  a  landmark,  wlio  saluted  him 
with  the  words  "  Jehovah  is  Avith  thee,  thou  mighty  man  of 
valor."  "  If  Jehovah  be  with  us,"  pleaded  Gideon,  "  why  is 
all  this  befiiUen  us,  and  where  are  all  His  wonders  that  our 
fathers  told  us?"  The  reply  was  a  command  to  go  in  liis 
might  and  save  Israel  from  the  Midianites,  for  he  was  sent 
by  God.  Gideon  pleaded  the  poor  estate  of  his  family,  and 
his  OAvn  lowly  position  in  his  father's  house ;  but  the  reply 
Avas  a  renewed  promise  of  God's  presence,  and  an  assurance 
that  lie  should  smite  the  Midianites.  These  words,  spoken 
by  the  angel  in  his  own  name,  could  have  left  little  doubt  in 
Gideon's  mind  concerning  the  quality  of  his  visitant.  He 
-prayed  him  to  give  a  sign  of  his  favor  by  accepting,  not  any 
ordinary  refreshment,  but  a  "  meat-offering  "  of  unleavened 
cakes,  with  a  kid,  and  the  broth  in  which  it  was  boiled  for 
a  drink-offering.  These  things  the  angel  commanded  him  to 
lay  upon  a  rock  in  the  very  form  of  a  sacrifice  prescribed  by 
the  law,  and  at  the  touch  of  the  angel's  staff  they  were  con- 
sumed by  fire  Avhich  burst  out  of  the  rock,  and  the  angel 
vanished  from  his  sight.  When  Gideon  knew  that  he  had 
spoken  with  the  Axgel  Jehovah  he  feared  that  he  should 
die,  because  he  had  seen  Jehovah  face  to  face  ;  and  on  re- 
ceiving the  divine  assurance  of  peace,  he  built  an  altar  on 
the  spot  where  the  sacrifice  had  been  offered,  and  called  it 
Jehovah  Shalom,  Jehovah  [is  our]  peace.  It  was  still  to  be 
seen  at  Ophrah  when  the  Book  of  Judges  was  written.^ 

The  altar  thus  directly  sanctified  by  God  himself  became, 
of  course,  a  lawful  place  of  sacrifice,  and  Gideon  Avas  invest- 
ed for  the  time  Avith  a  sort  of  priesthood,  apparently  in 
contrast  Avith  his  father's  position  as  priest  of  Baal,  for  the 
altar  of  Baal  in  Ophrah  belonged  to  Joash.  By  a  dream  or 
vision  in  the  foUoAving  night,  Gideon  Av^as  commanded  to 
take  his  father's  "  second  bullock  of  seven  years  old  "  (prob- 
ably one  devoted  to  Baal),  and,  having  overthrown  the  altar 
of  Baal,  and  cut  up  the  Asherah^  or  Avooden  image  of  the 
goddess  Ashtoreth,  to  use  its  fragments  for  burning  the  bul- 
lock as  a  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  Jehovah.     Aided  by  ten 


in  Manasseh  west  of  Jordan,  nortli  of 
Shechem,  among  the  liills  south  of 
the  plain  of  Jezreel.  The  city  be- 
longed to  the  descendants  of  Abi-ezer, 
the  eldest  son  of  Gilead. 
P  2 


"  Judg.  vi.  12,  viii.  2'> 

'  Judg.  vi.  11-24. 

•  This  is  the  word  wrongly  render- 
ed qrove  in  ouv  A'ei'sion,  see  page 
342; 


346 


Tlie  Jiiclfjes — Gideon  to  Jeplitliah.    Chap.  XVIII 


of  his  servants,  he  performed  this  deed  by  night,  for  fear  of 
his  father's  household  and  the  men  of  the  city.  In  the 
morning  all  was  discovered,  and  the  men  of  the  city  came 
to  Joash,  demanding  the  life  of  Gideon.  But  Joash  replied 
by  the  argument,  so  conclusive  against  idols,  and  so  often 
since  repeated  both  in  Avord  and  deed,  "  Let  Baal  plead  his 
own  cause."  The  citizens  seem  to  have  shared  the  convic- 
tion which  led  Joash  to  take  his  son's  part ;  and  Gideon's 
new  name  of  Jerubbaal,  that  is,  Let  JKaal  plead.,  at  once 
commemorated  th.e  triumph  of  the  day,  and  became  a  watch- 
word to  deride  the  impotence  of  the  false  god.' 

§  3.  Whether  in  consequence  of  this  deed,  or  in  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  their  annual  invasion,  the  Midianites  and 
Amalekites,  with  all  the  nomad  nations  east  of  Palestine, 
mustered  their  forces  and  pitched  in  the  valley  of  Jezreel." 
Then  "the  spirit  of  Jehovah  clothed  Gideon,"  and  his  trum- 
pet called  round  him  the  house  of  the  Abi-ezrites.  By 
means  of  messengers,  he  gathered  Manasseh  and  the  north- 
ern tribes  who  had  followed  Barak ;  but  now  even  Asher 
came  with  Zebulun  and  Naphtali ;  and  he  encamped  on 
Mount  Gilboa,  overlooking  the  myriad  tents  that  whitened 
the  plains  of  Esdraelon.  Before  the  conflict,  Gideon  prayed 
for  a  sign  that  God  would  save  Israel  by  his  hand.  He 
spread  a  fleece  of  wool  on  his  threshing-floor,  and  asked  that 
it  might  be  wet  with  dew  while  the  earth  around  was  dry, 
and  in  the  morning  he  wrung  a  bowlful  of  water  from  the 
fleece. 

At  Gideon's  renewed  prayer,  put  up  in  the  same  spirit  in 
which  Abraham  pleaded  for  Sodom,''  the  sign  was  repeated 
in  a  form  which  puts  the  miracle  beyond  all  cavil.  Heavy 
dews  are  common  enough  in  the  highlands  of  Palestine,  and 
water  has  been  wrung  out  of  clothes  that  have  been  exposed 
throughout  the  night ;  but  when  the  fleece  remained  dry, 
while  the  earth  around  was  wet  with  dew,  there  could  be 
no  doubt  that  the  required  sign  had  been  vouchsafed  by  God. 

So  remarkable  a  test  must  surely  have  been  more  than 
merely  arbitrary ;  but  its  significance  is  not  very  evident. 
"  His  own  character,"  says  Dean  Stanley,  "  is  well  indicated 
in  the  sign  of  the  fleece — cool  in  the  heat  of  all  around,  dry 


'  Judg.  vi.  25-32.  The  irony  was 
the  more  keen  if,  as  Winer  supposes, 
the  name  was  ah-eady  used  as  an  ep- 
ithet of  Baal  by  the  Phoenicians  (Wi- 
ner, B'lhl.  Realworterbuch^  s.  v. ;  Mo- 
vers, PlKcnic.  vol.  i.  p.  434). 


^  Judg.  vi.  35.  Their  force  amount- 
ed to  120,000  warriors,  for  this  num- 
ber seems  to  be  inclusive  of  the  rem- 
nant of  15,000  (Judg.  viii.  10). 

^  Comp.  Gen.  xviii.  32,  and  Judg. 
vi.  39. 


B.C.  1256. 


Gideon. 


847 


Avhen  all  around  were  clamped  with  fear.  Throughout  we 
see  three  great  qualities,  decision,  caution,  and  magnanim- 
ity."'" 

§  4,  On  the  morning  of  the  decisive  day  Gideon  was  en- 
camped by  the  "  well  of  trembling  "  {Ilarod,  probably  Ain 
Julud),Vi^  the  spring  was  called  from  what  ensued,  at  the 
head  of  32,000  men.'^  But  these  forces  were  not  destined  to 
gain  another  such  victory  as  that  over  Sisera  in  the  same 
plain.  The  repetition  of  Deborah's  eulogy  on  the  men  of 
the  north  woidd  have  made  them  vaunt  themselves  against 
Jehovah,  saying,  "Mine  own  hand  hath  saved  me,"  when  in 
truth  they  were  wanting  in  the  first  requisite  of  courage. 
Accordingly,  when  Gideon  proclaimed  at  God's  command, 
"  Whosoever  is  fearful  and  afraid,  let  himself  return  and  de- 
part early  from  Mount  Gilead,"''  22,000  slunk  away.  We 
feel  sure  that  Asher  went,  to  a  man ;  and,  by  a  curious  coin- 
cidence, those  who  remained  were  the  same  number  as  the 
10,000  chosen  warriors  of  Zebulun  and  Naphtali  that  had 
fol'lowed  Barak.  Still  Jehovah  said  that  the  people  were  too 
many,  and  they  were  brought  to  another  test  by  tlieir  man- 
ner of  drinking  at  the  "well  of  trembling."  All  those  who 
knelt  down  to  drink  were  rejected,  and  those  who  lifted  the 
water  in  their  hands  and  lapped  it  like  a  dog  were  set  apart 
for  the  service.  They  proved  to  be  only  300,  and  thus  Gid- 
eon was  left  with  the  same  number  that  remained  with  Le- 
onidas  at  Thermopylae."  They  took  their  provisions  and 
trumpets,  and  waited  for  the  night. 

At  nightfall  God  commanded  Gideon  to  go  down  with  his 
servant  Phurah  to  the  host  of  Midian,  where  he  overheard  a 
man  relate  a  dream  to  his  comrade,  from  which  he  learned 
that  God  had  already  stricken  the  Midianites  with  terror  at 
"  the  sword  of  Gideon,  the  son  of  Joash,"  and  he  returned  to 
tell  the  Israelites  that  Jehovah  had  delivered  Midian  into 
their  hand.  He  formed  a  plan  admirably  adapted  to  cause 
in  the  demoralized  host  one  of  those  panics  to  which  the  un- 
disciplined armies  of  the  East  have  always  been  liable.  Di- 
viding his  300  men  into  three  bands,  he  furnished  each  man 
with  a  trumpet  and  a  torch  shrouded  by  a  pitcher,  thus  form- 


-°  Lectitres  on  the  Jeicish  Church,  p. 
3+1,  first  series.  "  Judg.  vii. 

^"^  Some  have  proposed  to  read  "/o 
Gilead  ;"  others  would  change  "  Gile- 
ad  "  to  "  Gilboa ;"  but  the  phrase  seems 
to  have  been  a  proverbial  war-cry  of 
Manasseh. 


"The  foncy  of  the  Rabbins  that 
tliese  300  were  the  most  cowardly  in 
the  army,  is  inconsistent  with  the  first 
test,  as  well  as  a  merely  willful  exag- 
geration of  a  miracle  which  needs 
no  such  help  (Josephus,  Antiq.  v.  6^ 
§3. 


3-i8  Tlie  Jadjes — Gidton  to  Jephthali.    Chap.  XVIIL 

iiig  a  dark  lantern/*  and  bade  them  all,  at  the  signal  of  his 
trum2>et,  to  sound  their  trumpets  too,  and  to  shout  his  bat- 
tle-cry, ''  The  sword  of  Jehovah  and  of  Gideon,"  at  the  same 
time  breaking  the  pitchers  that  covered  their  lights.  Just 
as  the  middle  Avatcli  was  set,  they  took  their  posts  on  three 
sides  of  the  host  of  Midian.  The  sudden  shouts  and  flashing 
lights  bewildered  the  Midianites  ;  and  as  Gideon's  handful 
of  men  stood  firm  with  the  torches  in  their  left  hands  and 
the  trumpets  in  their  right,  they  "  ran  and  cried  and  fled." 
No  attack  was  needed.  Their  own  SAVords  were  turned 
against  each  other  as  they  fled  down  the  pass  leading  to  the 
Jordan  to  the  "  house  of  the  acacia  "  {Beth-shittah)  and  the 
"  meadow  of  the  dance  "  {Abel-meholaJi). 

While  Naphtali,  Asher,  and  Manasseh  gathered  them- 
selves in  pursuit  of  the  Midianites,  Gideon  sent  word  to  the 
men  of  Ephraim  to  seize  the  "waters"  as  liir  as  Beth-barah 
and  Jordan. ^^  There  a  second  battle  ended  in  the  capture 
of  the  chieftains  Oreb  and  Zeeb  (the  Haven  and  the  Wolf\ 
names  doubtless  answering  to  their  standards).  They  were 
slain  at  spots  which  thenceforth  bore  their  names,  and  their 
heads  Avere  sent  to  Gideon.^® 

That  leader  had  already  passed  the  Jordan  in  pursuit  of 
Midian,  after  pacifying,  by  one  of  those  proverbial  phrases 
which  in  the  East  serve  for  conclusive  arguments,  the  com- 
plaints of  the  men  of  Ephraim  because  he  had  not  called 
them  to  the  battle.''  The  two  great  sheikhs  of  Midian, 
Zebah  and  Zalmunna,  had  escaped  to  the  eastern  side  of  Jor- 
dan with  15,000  men,  all  that  were  left  of  their  hosts. 
Faint,  but  still  pressing  the  pursuit,  Gideon  and  his  chosen 
300  arrived  at  Succoth  (Sakut),  whose  princes  refused  them 
supplies  for  fear  of  the  Midianites.  The  like  scene  was  re- 
peated at  Penuel,  the  city  whose  name  commemorated  Ja- 
cob's wrestling  with  Jehovah ;  and  Gideon  left  both  places 

"  It  is  curious  to  find  "lamps  and  not  required  to  give  light"  (Lane's 
pitcliers  "  in  use  for  a  similar  purpose  '  Mod.  Eg.  i.  eli.  iv.). 
sit  this  very  day  in  the  streets  of  Cai-  j      ^^  Beth-barah  {House  of  the  Ford; 
ro.     The  Zahit  or  Agha  of  the  police  |  Bethbera)  seems    to   have   been   tho 
carries  with  him  at  night   "  a  torch  j  chief  i)assage  of  tlie  Jordan  between 


which  burns  soon  after  it  is  lighted 
without  a  flame,  excepting  when  it  is 
waved  through  the  air,  when  it  sud- 
denly blazes  forth :  it  therefore  an- 
swers the  same  purpose  as  our  dark 
lantern.  The  burning  end  is  some- 
times concealed  in  a  smoll  ])ot  or  jar, 
or  covered  with  sometliing  else,  when 


Central  Palestine  and  the  East ;  prob- 
ably the  same  by  which  Abraham  and 
Jacob  entered  the  land,  and  at  which 
Jephthah  slow  the  Ephraimitcs.  (See 
p.  357.)  The  "waters"  seized  were 
perhaps  the  wadys  leading  down 
from  the  highlands  of  Ephraim  ta 
this  ford.. 


''  Judg.  vii.  25.  ''  Jut!g.  viii.  1-3. 


B.C.  1249.  Victory  of  Oideon.  349 

with  threats  of  signal  vengeance.  He  found  the  Midianites 
encamped  in  careless  security  at  Karkor,  somewhere  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  desert  highlands  east  of  the  Jordan, 
frequented  by  the  pastoral  tribes  "  that  dwelt  in  tents."^* 
Passing  up  out  of  the  Jordan  Valley  by  one  of  the  lateral 
wadys  east  of  Nobah  and  Jogbehah,  he  fell  upon  them  un- 
awares and  gained  a  third  great  victory.  Zebah  and  Zal- 
munna  were  taken  prisoners,  and  led  back  in  triumph  before 
sunrise  to  be  shown  to  the  men  of  vSuccoth  and  Penuel,  who 
now  suffered  the  penalty  of  their  cowardice  in  the  form 
which  Gideon  had  promised.  At  Succoth  he  "  taught "  the 
l^rinces  who  had  refused  him  succor  "  with  thorns  and  briers 
of  the  wilderness,"  and  at  Penuel  he  broke  down  the  great 
tower  which  was  its  strength  and  pride,  and  slew  the  men 
of  the  city.^^  "  It  is  not  clear  that  he  did  not  subject  the 
men  of  Succoth  to  the  same  doom,  after  having  dealt  with 
them  according  to  his  threat.  He  might  have  done  it  in- 
deed in  the  execution  of  his  threat,  for  there  was  an  ancient 
punishment  in  which  death  was  inflicted  by  laying  the  naked 
bodies  of  the  offenders  under  a  heap  of  thorns,  briers,  and 
prickly  bushes,  and  then  drawing  over  them  threshing-sledges 
and  other  heavy  implements  of  husbandry."^"  Dr.  Kitto  adds 
that  the  idea  of  a  j^unishment  which  must  appear  so  strange 
to  us  is  not  unnaturally  suggested  in  the  East,  where  men 
are  continually  lacerating  their  half-  clothed  bodies  with 
thorns  in  passing  through  thickets. 

Gideon  dealt  next  Avith  Zebah  and  Zalmunna.  Bringing 
them  to  a  sort  of  trial,  he  asked  what  kind  of  men  they  were 
whom  they  had  slain  at  Mount  Tabor.  "  Such  as  thou  art ; 
each  one  like  the  children  of  a  king,"  was  the  reply  by  which 
they  sealed  their  fate  while  seeking  to  flatter  their  conqueror. 
"They  were  my  brethren,  the  sons  of  my  mother,"  exclaim- 
ed Gideon  ;  and  he  called  on  Jethel,  his  flrst-born  son,  to  rise 
up  and  slay  them.  The  youth  hesitated,  and  the  kings  prayed 
Gideon  to  slay  them  with  his  own  manly  hand.  Having  kill- 
ed them,  he  took  off  the  ornaments  shaped  liked  the  moon, 
which  hung  upon  their  camels'  necks,^^  for  a  use  which  will 
presently  appear. 

.  This  deliverance  was  the  greatest,  and  the  three  victories 
the  most  signal  that  Israel  had  known  since  the  time  of  Josh- 

^  Jiulg.  viii.  10,  11.  Foraminntcl  'Mvitto,  Dailj  Bible  Illustrations, 
discussion  of  the  localities,  see  Diet.     vol.  ii.  p.  421. 

of  Bible,  arts.  Karkor,  Jogbehah,  |  -^  Jndg.  viii,  18-21.  They  were 
NoBAH.  I  probably  pold  crescents  worn  in  hon' 

'''JiKlf]^.  viii.  13-17.  !  orof  Ashtoreth. 


350 


Offer  of  the  Crown  to  Gideon.       Chap.  XVIII 


ua,  and  they  are  often  referred  to  in  the  after  records  of  the 
nation,  and  celebrated  in  their  hymns  of  praise." 

§  5.  The  j^eople's  gratitude  to  their  deliverer  displayed  it- 
self  in  a  form  Avhich  shows  how  fast  they  were  approaching 
the  revolution  Avhich  Moses  had  foreseen  and  provided  for, 
even  while  he  warned  them  against  it.  Tliey  olfered  Gideon 
tlie  rank  of  a  hereditary  king  : — "  Rule  thou  over  us ;  both 
thou,  and  thy  son,  and  thy  son's  son  also.""  The  answer 
shows  that  Gideon  himself  remembered  with  reverence  the 
great  principle  of  the  theocracy  : — "  I  will  not  rule  over  you, 
neither  shall  my  son  rule  over  you :  Jehovah  shall  rule  over 
you.''''  He  was  content  with  the  position  of  a  judge,  and,  in 
the  succession  of  the  judges,  he  is  reckoned  as  t\\Q  Jifth  and 
greatest,  being  excelled  by  Samuel  in  holiness  of  character, 
but  by  none  in  dignity  and  prowess.  His  princely  appear- 
ance has  been  already  mentioned,^*  and  he  dwelt  in  his  own 
house  in  all  the  dignity  of  a  numerous  harem.  He  had  a 
family  of  seventy  sons,  besides  Abimelech,  the  son  of  his  con- 
cubine at  Shechem.  This  departure  from  domestic  simplicity 
brought  its  retribution  in  the  next  generation.  The  only 
other  blot  on  the  character  of  Gideon  was  his  mistaken, 
though  doubtless  well-intentioned,  innovation  on  divine  wor- 
ship. Presuming,  probably,  on  his  having  been  permitted  to 
build  an  altar  and  to  offer  sacrifice,  he  made  a  jeweled  eph- 
od,"  adorned  with  IVOO  shekels  of  gold,  which  the  people 
gave  him  from  their  share  of  the  spoils  of  Midian,  besides 
the  ornaments  he  had  taken  from  off  the  kings  and  their  cam- 
els. The  Israelites  came  from  all  quarters  to  consult  the 
ephod,  and  Gideon  and  his  house  w^ere  thus  enticed  into  a 
system  of  idolatrous  Avorship.^'' 

The  rule  of  Gideon  or  Jerubbaal  lasted  forty  years,"  dur- 
ing which  time  the  Midianites  never  lifted  their  heads  again. 
The  complete  tranquillity  of  the  period  from  the  defeat  of 
the  Midianites  to  the  death  of  Gideon  is  expressed  in  the 
statement  that  Jehovah  had  delivered  the  people  "  out  of 
the  hands  of  «//  their  enemies  on  every  skle,''^  which  seems  quite 
to  exclude  the  notion  of  wars  going  on  at  the  same  time  in  oth- 
er parts  of  Israel.     He  died  in  a  good  old  age,  and  w^as  buried 


^-  1  Sam.  xii.  11  ;  Ps.  Ixxxiii.  11  ; 
Is.  ix.  4,  X.  2G ;  Heb.  xi.  32. 

-^  Judg.  viii.22. 

-^  Judp;.  viii.  18. 

^^  Conip.  chap.  xvii.  §  4. 

■"  Jiidg.  xviii,  24-27.  Some  com- 
mentators suppose  the  ephod  to  have 
been  an  image,  on  account  of  the 


vast  amount  of  gold  used  in  makinjj 
it ;  but  that  amount  might  have  been 
lavislied  on  the  bi-cast-plate. 

2"  B.C.  1249-1209,  according  to  the 
common  chronology,  or,  as  a  total  in- 
cluding the  previous  oppression,  B.C. 
1251-1211,  on  the  scheme  proposed  in 
the  notes  to  chap.  xvii. 


B.C.  1240. 


Usurpation  of  Ahimelech. 


851 


at  his  native  city  of  Ophrah.  After  his  death  the  children 
of  Israel  returned  to  the  worship  of  Baalim,  and  installed 
Baalberith  as  their  national  god.  They  forgot  alike  Jehovah, 
who  had  delivered  them,  and  Gideon,  whose  sword  had  been 
God's  instrument.  Their  ingratitude  to  the  house  of  their 
late  ruler  was  shown  by  the  events  that  happened  soon  after 
his  death.^^ 

§  6.  The  royal  power  which  Gideon  had  refused  w^as  cov- 
eted after  his  death  by  Abimelech,  the  son  of  his  concubine 
at  Shechem,  who  really  succeeded  in  establishing  a  kingdom 
at  that  place,  though  only  for  three  years.^^  But,  from  the 
limited  extent  of  his  rule,  and  from  the  absence  of  a  general 
consent  of  the  people,  it  is  incorrect  to  reckon  Abimelech, 
and  not  Saul,  as  the  first  King  of  Israel.  It  seems  indeed 
not  improbable  that  the  usurpation  of  Abimelech  was  eifect- 
ed  by  the  support  of  the  old  Amorite  population  of  Shechem. 
The  point  can  not  be  decided  clearly,  as  we  have  no  further 
information  about  the  "  house  of  Millo,"  who  were  his  chief 
adherents.  Having  formed  a  conspiracy  with  his  mother's 
family,  who  seem  to  have  been  of  great  weight  in  Shechem, 
he  harangued  the  men  of  that  city  on  the  absurdity  of  com- 
mitting the  supreme  power  to  the  seventy  sons  of  Gideon, 
and  the  advantage  of  intrusting  it  to  a  single  hand,  and  he 
reminded  them  that  he  was  one  of  themselves.  Meanwhile 
his  mother's  brethren  intrigued  privately  among  the  Shech- 
emites,  who  were  at  last  gained  over.  They  gave  Abime- 
lech money  out  of  the  sacred  treasury  of  Baalberith,  with 
which  he  hired  "  vain  and  light  persons,"  the  refuse  of  socie- 
ty, to  form  a  band  of  attendants.^"  Abimelech  led  them  to 
his  father's  house  at  Ophrah,  and  there  he  slew  Gideon's  sev- 
enty sons  on  one  stone,  except  Jotham,  the  youngest,  Avho 
had  hidden  himself  ^^  All  was  now  prepared  for  the  crown- 
ing measure  of  universal  suffrage.  The  men  of  Shechem, 
headed  by  the  house  of  Millo,  assembled  and  made  Abime- 
lech king  at  the  very  oak  where  Joshua  had  set  up  the  pil- 
lar that  commemorated  Israel's  solemn  engagement  to  Je- 
hovah.^**  The  election,  however,  did  not  pass  unchallenged. 
Jotham,  the  surviving  son  of  Gideon,  had  the  courage  to  show 
himself  upon  Mount  Gerizim  and  call  the  men  of  Shechem  to 
listen  to  that  parable,  or  rather /«5/e,^^  the  most  ancient  upon 


^'  Judg.  viii.  28-35. 

"  Judg.  ix.  The  name  Ahimelech 
signifies  My  father  is  a  king. 

^^  Judg.  ix.  1-4.  The  arts  of  usur- 
pation are  alike  in  all  ages. 


^'  Judg.  ix.  5.  ^  Judg.  ix.  G. 

^^  The  fable  differs  from  the  parable 
by  its  use  of  physical  impossibilities, 
as  the  conversations  of  trees,  beasts, 
etc. 


852  The  Judges — Gideon  to  JejMhah.     Chap.  XVIII. 

record,  Avliich  has  become  celebrated  under  his  name.  It  is  a 
most  interesting  example  of  parabolic  wisdom,  but  there  is 
not  a  hint  of  its  having  the  authority  of  inspiration. 

The  trees  once  went  forth  to  anoint  a  king  over  them,  and 
their  choice  fell  first  upon  the  best  and  the  most  useful. 
They  asked  the  olive-tree  to  reign  over  tliem.  But  the  olive- 
tree  said,  "Should  I  leave  my  fatness,  wherewith  by  me  they 
honor  God  and  man,  and  go  up  and  down  for  other  trees  ?" 
They  next  applied  to  the  fig  -  tree ;  but  the  fig  -  tree  said, 
"  Should  I  forsake  my  sweetness,  and  my  good  fruit,  and  go  up 
and  down  for  other  trees  ?"  Then  they  asked  the  vine ;  but  the 
vine  said,  "  Should  I  leave  my  wine,  which  cheereth  God  and 
man,  and  go  up  and  down  for  other  trees  ?"  Thus  rebufted, 
they  turned  to  the  worthless  and  thorny  bramble  (or  thorn), 
and  said  to  it,  "  Come  thou,  and  reign  over  us."  Instead  of  re- 
fusing, like  the  rest,  the  bramble  gave  them  fair  warning  of 
the  consequences  of  his  election  hi  words  both  of  irony  and 
terror : — "  If  in  trutli  ye  anoint  me  king  over  you,  come  and 
put  your  trust  in  my  shadow ;  and  if  not,  let  fire  come  out 
of  the  bramble,  and  devour  the  cedars  of  Lebanon." 

The  general  meaning  of  the  table  is  obvious.  Tlie  trees  that 
have  any  virtue  in  them  prefer  its  cultivation  and  enjoyment 
to  the  thankless  ofiice  of  "  going  up  and  down,"  bearing  all 
the  cares  of  government  for  the  rest ;  but  the  thorn,  which  has 
nothing  to  give,  and  is  itself  fit  for  nothing  but  the  fire,  ac- 
cepts the  dignity,  in  return  for  which  it  ironically  ofiers  the 
protection  of  its  shadow,  and  more  seriously  threatens  that 
the  fire  to  wliich  it  is  destined  will  consume  the  nobler  trees. 
So  the  men  who  are  endoAved  with  beneficent  qualities  will 
hesitate  to  bestow  them  on  an  ungrateful  populace,  while  he 
Avho  accepts  the  tyrant's  throne  will  first  deceive,  and  then 
destroy  those  who  put  their  trust  in  liim. 

Such,  added  Jot  ham,  should  be  the  reward  of  the  Shechem- 
ites.  If  they  had  dealt  well  with  the  house  of  Jerubbaal, 
w^ho  had  saved  them,  in  killing  his  sons  and  choosing  the  son 
of  his  maid-servant  to  rule  over  them,  then  let  them  rejoice 
in  their  king  !  But  if  not,  let  fire  come  out  from  Abimelech 
and  devour  the  men  of  Shechem  and  the  house  of  Millo,  and 
let  them,  in  their  turn,  devour  him  !  Having  said  these  things, 
Jotham  fled  to  Beer,  and  we  hear  of  liim  no  more. 

§  7.  His  curse  was  not  long  in  being  fulfilled.  After  three 
years  God  sent  an  evil  spirit  between  Abimelech  and  the 
men  of  Shechem,  to  avenge  upon  both  the  murder  of  the  sons 
of  Jerubbaal.  The  Shechemites  revolted  from  Abimelech, 
and  plotted  against  his  life.     Bands  of  men  lay  in  wait  for 


B.C.  1209. 


Usurpation  of  Ahimelech. 


353 


him  ill  the  passes  on  the  neighboring  hills,  and  robbed  all 
travellers  while  Abimelech  was  absent  from  the  city.  The 
insurgents  found  a  leader  in  Gaal,  the  son  of  Ebed,  Avho,  in 
the  excitement  of  a  vintage  feast  in  the  temple  of  Baal,  while 
the  people  mingled  curses  on  Abimelech  with  their  songs  and 
merriment,  openly  declared  that  it  would  be  better  to  serve 
the  old  princes  of  the  city,  the  family  of  Hamor,  the  father 
of  Shechem,  and  declared  that  he  w^ould  dethrone  Abimelech. 
But  Abimelech  had  still  a  strong  party  in  the  city  ;  and  Ze- 
bul,  the  governor,  sent  privately  to  inform  him  of  the  words 
of  Gaal,  and  of  the  preparations  to  defend  the  city.  Abime- 
lech surrounded  Shechem  by  night,  and  defeated  Gaal  and  the 
Shechemites  with  great  loss  when  they  came  out  to  meet  him. 
What  follows  is  obscure.  While  Abimelech  remains  at  Aru- 
mah,  Zebul  expels  Gaal  and  his  party,  but  the  city  is  still  hos- 
tile to  Abimelech.  It  w^ould  seem  as  if  the  old  Amorite  popu- 
lation had  now  got  the  upper  hand,  and  had  resolved  to  hold 
it  to  the  last.  But  Abimelech  took  the  city  by  a  stratagem, 
and  utterly  destroyed  it,  slaying  all  the  inhabitants,  except 
about  a  thousand  men  and  women,  w^ho  had  taken  refuge  in 
a  tower  sacred  to  Baalberith.  Abimelech  led  his  army  to 
Mount  Zalmon,  and,  ordering  his  men  to  follow  his  example, 
he  cut  down  a  bough,  and  each  of  the  men  having  done  the 
same,  they  piled  up  the  wood  against  the  tow^er  and  burnt  it, 
with  all  who  were  within. 

The  cruel  deed  was  soon  avenged.  Abimelech  had  besieged 
Thebez,^"  where  also  there  was  a  tower  to  which  the  peo- 
ple fled  when  the  city  was  taken.  Abimelech  had  approach- 
ed the  wall  to  apply  lire  as  at  Shechem,  when  a  woman  threw 
down  a  piece  of  a  millstone  upon  his  head  and  broke  his  skull.  ^^ 
In  the  agony  of  death,  he  had  just  time  to  call  upon  his  ar- 
mor-bearer to  dispatch  him  with  his  sword,  that  it  might  not 
be  said  of  him  "  a  w^oman  slew  him."  Thus  God  rendered 
both  to  Abimelech  and  the  Shechemites  their  wickedness  in 
slaying  the  sons  of  Jerubbaal.  "  The  bramble  Abimelech, 
the  only  one  in  the  line  of  the  judges  who  attained  to  great- 
ness without  any  public  services,"  ^^  had  devoured  the  men 
who  elevated  him,  and  had  been  devoured  by  them. 


^^  Thebez  was  situated  13  Roman 
miles  from  Sheciiem,  on  the  road  to 
Scythopolis.  There  it  still  is ;  its 
name — Tubas — hardly  changed  ;  the 
village  on  a  rising  ground  to  the  left 
of  the  road  a  thriving,  compact,  and 
strong-looking  place,  surrounded  by 
immense  woods  of  olives. 


^^  Judg.  ix.  53.  The  reader  should 
remember  that  "all"  is  an  adverb, 
signifying  entirely,  and  "  to-brake  " 
is  the  preterit,  with  the  old  English 
intensive  prefix  "  to :"  "  all  to  break" 
is  altogether  wrong,  and  broken  En- 
glish. 

3«  Kitto,  p.  482. 


854  The  Judges — -Gideon  to  Jepliiliali.    Chap.  XVIIL 

He  is  commonly  reckoned  as  the  sixth  judge ^  but  it  may  be 
questioned  whether  his  lawless  usurpation,  extending  but  lit- 
tle beyond  Shechem,  justifies  the  title:  and  not  a  Avord  is 
said  of  his  being  raised  up  by  Jehovah,  or  of  the  spirit  of  God 
coming  upon  him.  Of  his  relations  to  Israel  in  general  we 
are  tofd  nothing,  for  no  conclusion  can  be  fairly  drawn  from 
the  isolated  mention  of  his  reigning  "  over  Israel.""  But  the 
conclusion  of  his  story  seems  to  imply  a  combined  action 
against  the  tyrant :  "  And  when  the  men  of  Israel  saw  that 
Abimelech  was  dead,  they  departed  every  man  unto  his 
place.'"*^ 

§  8.  Among  the  six  judges  who  succeeded  Abimelech,  Jeph- 
thah's  is  the  only  conspicuous  name.  Of  the  two  who  prece- 
ded him,  the  first  was  Tola,  the  son  of  Puah,  the  son  of  Dodo, 
of  the  tribe  of  Issachar,  who  dwelt  at  Shamir,  in  Mount  Ej^hra- 
im,  and  judged  Israel  twenty-three  years.^^  He  was  the  seii- 
enth  judge  ;  and,  though  he  is  said  to  have  arisen  to  defend 
(or  deliver)  Israel,  there  is  no  mention  of  any  enemy  who  op- 
pressed them  in  his  time.  Ilis  judgeship  may  therefore  be 
regarded  as  a  continuance  of  the  period  of  quiet  obtained  by 
the  victories  of  Gideon. ■*" 

This  is  true  also  of  the  eighth  judge^  Jair,  a  man  of  Gilead, 
on  the  east  of  Jordan,  who  is  not  even  called  a  deliverer. 
The  peaceful  character  of  his  twenty-two  years'  rule*^  is  fur- 
ther indicated  by  the  dignified  state  in  which  he  maintained 
his  family  of  thirty  sons,  who  rode  on  Avhite  asses,  and  had 
dominion  over  thirty  cities  of  Mount  Gilead,  which  retained 
the  name  of  the  "  villages  of  Jair"  {Havoth-jair).^'^ 

§  9.  The  whole  analogy  of  this  period  of  the  history  of 
Israel  leaves  no  doubt  that  so  long  an  interval  of  rest  would 
involve  a  more  serious  declension  than  any  of  those  before  it. 
Accordingly  we  find  them  serving  all  the  gods  of  all  the  na- 
tions around  them,  "  Baalim  and  Ashtaroth,  and  the  gods  of 
Syria,  of  Sidon,  of  Moab,  of  the  Beni-ammi,  and  of  the  Philis- 
tines," except  Jehovah ;  Him  they  forsook,  and  served  not." 
This  time  the  punishment  was  as  signal  as  the  crime.  Two 
nations  at  once  attacked  Israel  on  the  west  and  on  the  east — 
the  Philistines  and  the  children  of  Amnion.  Of  the  former 
we  shall  soon  hear  again.  The  oppression  of  the  latter  lasted 
for  eighteen  years,"  especially  in  the  land  of  Gilead,  on  the 
east  of  Jordan.     But  they  also  passed  the  Jordan,  and  fought 

'^'^  Judg.  X.  3,  5.  comp.  V.  10 ;   xii. 
4  ;  Num.  xxxii.  41 ;  Deut.  iii.  14. 
'^  Judg.  X.  6. 


Judg.  ix.  22.        ^  Judg.  ix.  55. 
B.C.  120G-1183.  ""  Judg.  X.  1,  2. 
B.C.  1183-1161. 


B.C.  llGl-1143,  in  the  common  chronology. 


B.C.  1U3.  Jephthah.  355 

against  the  tribes  of  Judah,  Benjamin,  and  Ephraim,  so  that 
Israel  was  sore  distressed." 

Nor  was  their  cry  of  penitence  at  once  successful.  They 
were  told  (probably  by  the  mouth  of  a  prophet)  to  cry  to  the 
gods  whom  they  had  chosen.  Once  more  they  humbled 
themselves  before  Jehovah,  confessing  their  sin,  and  praying 
Hiiii  to  deliver  them  only  this  once  ;  and  they  proved  their 
repentance  by  putting  away  the  false  gods  froni  among  them 
and  serving  Jehovah  ;  "  And  His  soul  was  grieved  for  the 
misery  of  Israel,"  is  the  powerful  figure  of  the  sacred  record. 
The  two  nations  gathered  their  forces  for  a  decisive  contest ; 
the  sons  of  Amnion  in  Gilead,  and  the  Israelites  in  Mizpeh. 
A  captain  alone  was  wanting,  and  the  people  and  princes  of 
Gilead  offered  to  make  the  man  who  would  lead  them  against 
the  Ammonites  the  head  over  all  the  inhabitants  of  Gilead." 

Now  there  was  in  Gilead  a  man  who  had  given  proofs  of 
the  highest  valor  in  a  predatory  war  against  the  neighboring 
tribes.  This  was  Jephthah,  the.  son  of  Gilead*'  by  a  concu- 
bine of  the  lowest  class.  On  his  father's  death,  he  had  been 
thrust  out  by  his  legitimate  brethren,  and  fleeing  to  the  land 
of  Tob,  apparently  on  the  border  of  the  Beni-ammi,  he  became 
the  leader  of  a  band  of  "  vain  persons,"  such  as  afterward 
resorted  to  David  at  Adullam,  and  who  obtained  their  living 
as  freebooters,  preying  on  the  Ammonites  —  a  mode  of  life 
not  disgraceful  in  the  East  then,  any  more  than  noAV.  When 
Avar  broke  out  with  the  Beni-ammi,  the  elders  of  Gilead  sent 
to  Jephthah,  and  prevailed  on  him,  with  some  difficulty,  to 
become  their  leader.  He  exacted  from  them  an  oath,  in  con- 
firmation of  the  promise  that  their  deliverer  should  be  head 
over  all  Gilead  ;  and  when  he  joined  the  army  at  Mizpeh,  the 
oath  was  ratified  before  Jehovah  at  that  sacred  place.'' 

Jephthah  first  sent  messengers  to  the  King  of  Amnion  to 
demand  by  what  right  he  made  war  on  Israel,  and  the  dis- 
cussion that  followed  is  an  important  passage  for  the  history 
of  the  war  under  Moses  on  the  east  of  Jordan.  The  Ammon- 
ite averred  that  Israel  had  at  that  time  taken  away  his  land 
along  the  Jordan  between  the  Arnon  and  the  Jabbok,  and 
demanded  its  restoration.     Jephthah  replied  that  Israel  had 

*^  Jndg.  X.  7-9.  I  fairly  suppose  that  Jephthah's  f^ither 

*^Judg.  X.  10-18.      It  should  be  |  was  his  descendant,  and  the  prince  of 

pavticularlv  noticed,  that  nothinfj  is,  the  half-tiibe. 

here  said  of  authority  over  Israel  as       ^'*  Judg.  xi.  1-11.      These  present 

a  whole.  i  important    evidences    of   Jephthnh  s 

"^  As  this  was  the  name  of  Machir's!  adherence  to  the  worship  of  Jeho* 

son,  Manasseh's    grandson,  we   may  vah. 


Sd6  The  Judges— Gideon  to  JejMicdi.    Chap.  XVlIi: 

taken  nothing  either  from  Moab  or  from  Amnion.  Tliey  had 
driven  out  Sihon,  king  of  the  Amorites,  and  possessed  his 
land  from  the  Arnon  to  the  Jabbok,  and  from  Jordan  to  the 
wilderness.  Since  Jehovah  had  dispossessed  the  Amorites 
before  Israel,  was  Amnion  to  take  the  land  ?  No  !  let  them 
take  wdiat  Chemosh,  their  god,  would  give  them,  and  we  will 
hold  all  that  Jehovah  our  God  shall  give  us.  Israel  liad 
dwelt  for  300  years^^  in  the  territories  of  Heshbon,  Aroer, 
and  all  the  cities  north  of  the  Arnon :  why  had  not  Ammon 
recovered  them  within  that  time  ?  In  fine,  said  Jephthah,  we 
have  not  wronged  you,  but  you  wrong  us  in  making  war : 
let  "Jehovah  the  Judge"  be  judge  between  us  ! 

The  appeal  was  in  vain.  Then  the  spirit  of  Jehovah  came 
on  Jephthah,  and  he  went  through  Gilead  and  Manasseh,  and 
mustered  their  forces  at  Mizpeli,  whence  he  marched  against 
Amnion.  As  he  set  forth,  he  made  that  rash  vow  which  has 
ever  since  been  associated  with  his  name,  devoting  to  Jeho- 
vah, as  a  burnt-oftering,  whosoever  should  come  forth  out  of 
his  door  to  meet  him,  if  he  returned  in  peace  a  victor  over 
the  Beni-ammi.  His  expedition  was  crowned  with  complete 
success :  Jehovah  delivered  Amnion  into  his  hands :  he  de- 
feated them  with  great  slaughter;  and  he  took  from  them 
twenty  cities,  from  Aroer  on  the  Arnon  to  Minnith  and  the 
"  plain  of  the  vineyards  "  (Abel-keramim),  and  entirely  sub- 
jected them  to  Israel  from  that  time  to  the  reign  of  Saul. ^" 

Jephthah  returned  a  victor  to  his  house  at  Mizpeh,  to  re- 
ceive the  promised  supremacy  over  Gilead,  and,  alas  !  to  pay 
his  rash  vow  to  Jehovah.  For,  as  he  approached  his  house, 
his  own  daughter  came  out  to  meet  him  with  timbrels  and 
with  dances,  like  another  Miriam  ;  and,  to  make  the  blow 
more  terrible,  she  was  his  only  child.  Our  natural  horror  at 
the  consequences  of  such  a  meeting  is  mitigated  by  the  sub- 
lime scene  of  resignation  that  j^assed  between  the  rash  father 
and  the  submissive  daughter.  "Alas!  my  daughter!  thou 
hast  brought  me  very  low,"  cried  Jephthah,  as  he  rent  his 
clothes;  "and  thou  art  one  of  them  that  trouble  me:  for  I 
have  opened  my  mouth  unto  Jehovah,  and  I  can  not  go  back." 
"  My  father  I"  she  replied,  "  if  thou  hast  opened  thy  mouth 
unto  Jehovah,  do  to  me  according  to  the  word  which  hath 
proceeded  out  of  thy  mouth."  To  crown  such  a  victory  as 
God  had  given  to  Israel,  she  grudged  not  her  own  sacrifice. 
She  only  prayed  for  a  respite  of  two  months,  that  she  might 
wander  over  the  mountains  of  Gilead  with  the  companions 

""  A  most  inipoitant  and  decisive]  ^"  Jndg.  xi.  32,  33;  comp.  1  Sani. 
4ate  for  the  nliule  chronology.  \x'i. 


B.C.  1143.  JephthaJu  857 

■whom  she  had  fondly  led  out  to  swell  the  chorus  of  her  fa- 
ther's victory,  bewailing  that  w  hich,  to  a  Hebrew  woman, 
was  the  w^orst  part  of  her  doom,  the  loss  of  the  hope  of  off- 
spring, and  so  of  the  possible  honor  of  being  the  mother  of  the 
Messiah.  At  the  end  of  the  two  months  she  returned  to  her 
father,  "  who  did  vyith  her  according  to  his  vow  ichich  he  had 
vov^ed^''  w^ords  wdiich  can  leave  no  possible  doubt  of  her  fate. ^^ 
The  custom  w^as  established  in  Israel  that  the  daughters  of 
Israel  went  out  every  year  for  four  days  to  lament  the  daugh- 
ter of  Jephthah  the  Gileadite.^" 

Some  persons,  mindful  of  the  enrollment  of  Jephthah  among 
the  heroes  of  faith  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,"  as  w^ell  as 
of  the  expression  "the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  came  upon  him,"^* 
have  therefore  scrupled  to  believe  that  he  could  be  guilty  of 
such  a  sin  as  the  murder  of  his  child.  But  the  deed  is  re- 
corded without  approval,  and  it  becomes  only  a  moral  diffi- 
culty to  those  who  persist  in  the  false  principle,  already  more 
than  once  referred  to,  of  identifying  the  record  of  actions  in 
Scripture  with  their  adoption.  It  should  be  recollected  that 
Jephthah  was  a  rude  Gileadite,  whose  spirit  had  become  hard- 
ened by  his  previous  life  as  a  freebooter. 

The  victory  over  the  Beni-ammi  was  followed,  like  Gideon's 
over  the  Midiauites,  by  fierce  jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  men 
of  Ephraim  because  they  had  not  been  called  to  share  the 
enterprise,  and  the  j'ough  w^arrior  had  not  the  same  skill  to 
turn  aside  their  wrath.  They  threatened  to  burn  Jephthah's 
house  over  bis  head,  and  taunted  the  men  of  Gilead  with  be- 
ing outcasts  of  the  tribe  of  Joseph,  appaisently  in  allusion  to 
their  predatory  habits.  The  Ephraimites  w^ere  utterly  defeat- 
ed in  Gilead,  and  the  men  of  Gilead,  seizing  the  fords  of  Jor- 
dan, put  the  fugitives  to  that  curious  test  which  shows  that 
differences  of  dialect  already  existed  among  the  tribes,  and 
which  has  passed  into  a  proverb  for  minor  differences  in  the 
Church.  Every  one  wdio  demanded  a  passage  westward  was 
asked,  "Are  you  an  Ephraimite  ?"  If  he  said,  "  No,"  he  was 
required  to  pronounce  the  Shibboleth  {^  stream  ox  flood) ^  and, 
on  his  betraying  himself  by  saying  Sibboleth^  he  w^as  put  to 
death,  "  for  he  could  not  frame  to  j^ronounce  it  right.""^^     The 

^^  It  has  been  said  that  the  sue-  j  rashness  of  Jeplithah  and  the  hero- 
ceeding  clause,  "and  she  knew  no 
man,"  suggests  an  escape  from  such 
a,  conclusion  in  a  sentence  of  perpetu- 
<il  virginity  :  but  it  seems  almost  cer- 
tain that  U>is  circumstance  is  added 
to  set  forth  in  a  stronger  light  the 


ism  of  his  daughter. 

^2  Judg.  xi.  84-40. 

^3  Heb.  xi.  32.       **  Judg.  xi.  29. 

^^  Judg.  xii.  1-6.  The  confusion 
of  the  sounds  of  the  letters  Shin,  and 
Sin  exists  among  ourselves  when  s/ 


858 


The  Judges — Gideon  to  Jepldhah.    Chap.  XVIIL 


whole  loss  of  Ephraim  in  this  campaign  was  42,000  men.  it 
seems  to  have  been  characteristic  of  that  tribe  to  hold  back 
from  great  enterj^rises,  and  yet  arrogating  to  themselves  a 
sort  of  snpremacy  as  the  representatives  of  Joseph,  to  be 
bitterly  jealous  of  their  brethren's  success.^" 

Jephthah  lived  only  six  years  to  judge  Israel,"  and  was 
buried  in  Mount  Gilead. 

§  10.  A  bare  mention  Avill  suffice  of  the  tenth.,  eleventh^  and 
ticelfth  judges.,  who  came  between  Jephthah  and  Samson. 

X.  Ibzan,  of  Bethlehem,  in  Zebulun,  judged  Israel  for  seven 
years,  and  was  buried  in  Bethlehem.  ^^  Like  Jair,  he  used  his 
position  for  the  aggrandizement  ofhis  family,  which  consisted 
of  thirty  sons  and  thirty  daughters.  He  married  his  daugh- 
ters abroad,  and  took  Avives  for  his  sons  from  abroad,  that  is, 
among  the  surrounding  nations. 

XI.  He  -was  succeeded  by  another  Zebulonite,  Elox,  who 
judged  Israel  ten  years,  and  was  buried  at  Aijalon,  in  Zebu- 
lun,^" which  seems  to  have  been  named  after  him.  The  two 
words  only  differ  in  the  A^owel  points,  and  the  Vulgate  iden- 
tifies tliem. 

XH.  Abdox,  the  sonof  Hillel,  the  Pirathonite,  judged  Isra- 
el for  eight  years  (b.c.  1120-1112).  He  also  had  a  family  of 
forty  sons  and  thirty  nephews,  who  rode  on  seventy  white 
asses'  colts.  He  is  perhaps  identical  with  Bedan,  who  is 
enumerated  by  Samuel  among  the  judges.®" 


comes  before  a  liquid :  f^ruh  is  a  com- 
mon provincialism  for  shrub. 

^°  Ps.  Ixxviii.  9  ;  Is.  xi.  13  ;  IIos. 
vii.  8. 

"  B.C.  1143-1137,  Judges  xii.  7. 

^^  Judg.  xii.  8-10.  The  locality  of 
Bethlehem  is  determined  by  the  ab- 
sence of  either  of  the  titles  Judah  or 
Ephratah,  B.C.  1 1 37-1130.  The  idea 
of  Ibzan's  identity  with  Boaz  is  ab- 
surd. 

^Vudges  xii.  11,  12,  b.c.  1130- 
1120. 

^^  Judg.  xii.  13,  It ;  1  Sam.  xii.  11. 
Pirathon,  which  is  nowhere  else  men- 
tioned, was  "  in  the  land  of  Ephraim, 
in  tiie  mount  of  the  Amalekites," prob- 
ably an  ancient  stronghold  of  that 
tribe.  It  has  been  identified  with  Fer- 
ata,  on  an  eminence  six  miles  west  of 
JShechem  (Robinson,  vol.  iii.p.  131). 

The  common  chronology  makes 
these  three  judges  follow  Jephtliah. 


In  our  proposed  scheme,  they  close 
the  ninth  of  the  twelve  periods  of 
forty  years  between  the  Exodus  and 
the  building  of  the  Temple.  The 
seventh  of  these  periods  ends  witli 
Gideon  ;  the  eighth  and  ninth  include 
the  seven  judges,  from  Abimelech  to 
Abdon,  of  whom  the  times  of  Abim- 
elech, Tola,  and  Jair  make  up  forty- 
eight  years ;  and  Jephthah,  Ibzan, 
Elon,  and  Abdon,  thirty-one  years ; 
or  seventy-nine  together.  The  eight- 
een years'  oppression  of  the  Ammon- 
ites is  included  in  the  latter  period 
of  thirty-one  years  ;  and  therefore,  if 
the  three  last  judges  followed  Jeph- 
thah, twelve  years  of  the  eighteen 
would  fall  after  his  death,  which  ap- 
pears quite  inconsistent  with  the  com- 
pleteness of  their  defeat.  But,  con- 
sidering that  Jephthah's  power  only 
extended  over  Mount  Gilead,  while 
Ibzan  and  Elon  ruled  in  the  north. 


B.C.  1U3. 


Jephthah. 


Zb^ 


There  is  one  feature  in  the  history  of  this  period  which 
should  not  be  overlooked :  the  remarkable  silence  of  the 
Scripture  narrative  respecting  the  tribe  of*  Judah,  and  those 
whose  lot  fell  within  its  territory  in  the  wider  sense,  namely, 
Simeon  and  Dan.  While  the  scene  changes  between  the 
highlands  of  Zebulun  and  Naphtali,  the  valley  of  Jezreel,  the 
mountains  of  Ephraim,  and  those  of  Gilead,  and  while  we 
have  a  succession  of  judges  belonging  to  the  northern,  central, 
and  eastern  tribes,  Judah  is  only  once  mentioned  as  suft'ering 
from  the  incursions  of  the  Ammonites  in  the  time  of  Jeph- 
thah. Only  two  explanations  of  this  silence  appear  possible ; 
that  Judah,  retaining  its  distinction  as  the  princely  tribe, 
loyal  to  Jehovah,  enjoyed  a  comparative  exemption  both 
from  the  sins  and  the  sufferings  of  the  other  tribes,  or,  that  it 
was  occupied  by  its  own  conflicts  with  the  Philistines.  Nor 
do  these  alternatives  necessarily  exclude  each  other.  We 
may  well  believe  that  there  was  a  state  of  war,  more  or  less 
constant,  with  the  Philistines,  sustained  chiefly  by  Simeon 
and  Dan,  within  whose  lots  they  lay,  while  Judah  formed  a 
compact  government  under  its  own  princes,  in  loyal  union 
with  the  high-priest  at  Shiloh.  The  truth  of  this  view  will 
be  seen  in  the  subsequent  history. 


and  Abdon  in.  Ephraim,  which  was 
in  open  hostility  to  Jephthah,  we 
may  safely  conjecture  that  Jephthah 
was  at  least  in  part  contemporary 
with  these  three  judges,  and  that  his 
six  years  belong  to  the  latter  part  of 
the  whole  period  of  thirty-one  years. 


This  is  confirmed  by  the  fact,  evident 
from  the  narrative,  that  there  was  an 
unusually  long  interval  before  a  de- 
liverer was  raised  up.  The  end  of 
the  whole  period,  which  is  placed  by 
the  common  chronology  at  B.C.  1112, 
falls  in  our  scheme  at  b.c.  1131. 


Dagon,  the  Fish-god.     From  Khorsabad.     (T^yard.) 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE    JUDGES ELI,  SAMPSON,  AXD    SAMUEL.        THE    PHILISTIN3 

OPPRESSION.       B.C.  1161-1095. 

§  1.  Chronology  of  the  period,  and  relation  of  Eli,  Samson,  and  Samuel  to 
each  other.  §  2.  State  of  Southern  Palestine — Eli,  ]iip:h-priest  and 
judge  —  Kise  of  Samson  and  Samuel.  §  3.  Birth  of  Sa3ison,  the 
Nazarite.  §  4.  His  first  exploits  and  establishment  as  judge,  §  5. 
The  gates  of  Gaza — Delilah — Captivity  and  death  of  Samson.  §  G. 
Parentage  and  birth  of  Samuel — His  dedication  to  God.  §  7.  Wick- 
edness of  Eli's  sons,  Hophni  and  Phinehas — A  prophet  sent  to  Eli — 
The  call  of  Samuel — His  establishment  as  a  prophet.  §  8.  The  first 
two  battles  of  Eben-ezer — Death  of  Eli  and  his  sons — Capture  of  the 
ark — "Ichabod."  §  9.  The  ark  among  the  Philistines — Its  return  to 
Beth-shemesh  and  Kirjath-jearim.  §  10.  Third  battle  and  victory  of 
Eben-ezer — End  of  the  Philistine  oppression — Judgeship  of  Samuel 
and  his  sons. 

§  1.  We  have  now  reached  a  point  at  which  the  history 
becomes  most  interesting  and  tlic  chronology  most  difficult. 
We  read  that  the  children  of  Israel  did  evil  again  in  the 
sight  of  Jehovah;  and  he  delivered  them  into  the  hand  of 
the  Philistines /or^^  years.^  Then  we  have  the  story  of  the 
birth  and  exploits  of  Samson,  the  thirteenth  judge,  who  is 
expressly  said  to  have  judged  Israel  twenty  years,  in  the 
days  of  the  Philistines.'^  The  fair  inference  from  these  words 
is,  that  the  forty  years'  oppression  of  the  Philistines  is  to  be 
reckoned  from  the  beginning  of  Samson's  exploits  against 
them,  and  that  the  story  of  his  birth  is  retrospective.  The 
narrative  of  the  Book  of  Judges  ends  Avith  the  death  of  Sam- 
son ;^  but  the  interposition  of  the  supplemental  chapters  and 
of  the  Book  of  Ruth  breaks  the  connection  of  the  story  with 

^  Judg.  xiii.  1.      This  follows  \\\e    death,  as   in  some  other  cases,  e.  ^., 
death  of  Abdon  ;   but  it  is  not  ex-    Judg.  iv.  1. 
pressly  said  to  have  been  after  his  \      '  Judg.  xv.  1.       ^  Judg.  xvi.  31. 


B.C.  1161.  Chronology  of  the  Period.  361 

its  continuation  in  the  Book  of  Samuel.  There  we  find  Isra- 
el under  the  government  of  Eli,  wlio  resided  at  Shiloh,  by 
the  tabernacle  of  Jehovah,  and  who  Avas  at  once  the  high- 
priest,  and  the  fourteenth  judge,  an  office  which  he  is  said 
to  have  held  for  forty  years,  dying  at  the  age  of  ninety-eight, 
at  the  time  of  the  capture  of  tlie  ark  by  the  Philistines/ 
Meanwhile  Samuel  liad  been  born  and  dedicated  to  Jehovah, 
who  made  to  him,  while  yet  a  youth,  that  signal  revelation 
which  established  his  character  as  a  prophet  of  Jehovah.^ 
This  revelation  may  be  regarded  also  as  Samuel's  designa- 
tion to  his  future  c-ffice  as  the  fifteenth  judge  of  Israel,  and 
hence  we  may  explain  the  statement  that  "  Samuel  judged 
Israel  all  the  days  of  his  life.'''"^ 

The  time  of  his  actual  entrance  on  his  office  is  not  express- 
ly named.  If,  as  is  commonly  supposed,  the  first  revelation 
of  God  was  made  to  him  shortly  before  the  death  of  Eli,  he 
would  be  too  young  to  be  Eli's  immediate  successor.  But 
there  is  no  necessity  to  make  the  interval  so  short.  At  all 
events,  it  was  long  enough  to  give  time  for  Samuel  to  grow 
up  and  to  establish  his  character  as  a  prophet  throughout 
all  Israel  ;^  and  if  he  was  able  to  fulfill  the  part  of  a  prophet, 
surely  he  could  discliarge  the  duties  of  a  judge.  We  see  no 
difficulty,  therefore,  in  supposing  that  he  at  once  succeeded 
Eli,  and  that  he  was  then  in  his  full  manhood,  about  thirty 
years  old,  the  period  for  entrance  on  public  duties.  The 
great  victory  which  his  prayers  obtained  at  Eben-ezer,  wdien 
"  the  Philistines  were  subdued,  and  came  no  more  into  the 
coast  of  Israel  ...  all  the  days  of  Samuel,"®  seems  clearly 
to  mark  the  end  of  the  forty  years'  servitude  to  them ;  and 
it  seems  equally  clear  that  this  victory  was  gained  twenty 
years  after  the  capture  of  the  ark.^  This  victory  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  culminating  point  of  Samuel's  administration ; 
and  there  seems  no  difficulty  in  supposing  him  to  have  been 
at  least  fifty  years  old  at  this  time. 

twenty  years  ;  at  all  events,  they  do 
not  affect  the  computation  in  round 
numbers.  Some  writers  have  most 
strangely  confused  this  twenty  years, 
during  which  the  Israelites  mourned 
for  the  ark  before  making  an  effort 
to  shake  off  the  yoke  of  the  Philis- 
tines, with  the  whole  space  of  its 
abode  at  Kirjath-jearim,  whence  it 
was  only  removed  by  David  after  he 
had  reigned  ten  years,  thus  making 
its  abode  there  about  seventy  years 
(2  Sam.  vi.  1  ;    1  Chron.  xiii.  5,  6). 


*  1  Sam.  iv.  15,  18.  The  LXX. 
give  twenty  years  instead  of  forty. 

^  1  Sam.  iii.  Josephus  says  that 
Samuel  was  twelve  years  old  at  the 
time. 

«  1  Sam.  vii.  15. 

'  1  Sam.  iii.  19-21,  iv.  1. 

^  1  Sam.  vii.  13,  comp.  v.  3  :  "  Je- 
hovah will  deliver'  jjou  out  of  the  hand 
of  the  Philistines." 

""  1  Sam.  vii.  1,  2.  The  seven 
months  of  its  abode  among  the  Phil- 
istines   may    be    included    in     the 

Q 


862  EU^  Samson^  and  Samuel.  Chap.  XIX. 

From  these  views  it  would  follow  that  the  forty  years' 
domination  of  the  Philistines  (the  tenth  of  the  twelve  peri- 
ods of  forty  years  from  the  Exodus  to  the  building  of  the 
Temple)  was  about  equally  divided  at  the  death  of  Eli, 
whose  last  twenty  years  (or,  according  to  the  LXX.,  his 
whole  administration)  would  thus  be  contemporary  with  the 
twenty  years  of  Samson's  judgeship. 

There  is  nothing  surprising  in  this  result.  The  exploits  of 
Samson  were  so  entirely  of  a  personal  character,  as  episodes 
in  the  constant  war  between  the  Philistines  and  the  tribe  of 
Dan,  that  his  position  is  not  at  all  inconsistent  with  the 
judgeship  of  Eli  over  Israel  in  general.  Nor  need  we  hesi- 
tate, if  necessary,*"  to  carry  back  the  first  twenty  years  of 
Eli  into  the  period  of  Jephthah  and  the  three  northern 
judges;  for  it  is  a  natural  supposition  that  the  southern 
tribes  enjoyed  a  settled  government,  except  as  they  were 
disturbed  by  the  Philistines,  under  their  own  princes,  sub- 
ject to  the  authority  of  Jehovali  as  interpreted  by  the  high- 
priest.  It  is  also  quite  natural  that  the  Philistines  should 
have  seized  the  occasion  of  Samson's  death  to  make  that 
great  attack  on  Israel  which  led  to  the  capture  of  the  ark, 
and  the  death  of  Eli  and  his  sons ;  for  the  loss  of  3000  men 
by  the  fall  of  the  Temple  of  Dagon,  though  a  terrible  bloAV 
for  the  moment,  would  soon  stimulate  them  to  seek  revenge. 

But  a  difficulty  arises  at  the  other  end.  The  Scripture  nar- 
rative assigns  no  exact  period  to  the  judgeship  of  Samuel, 
from  the  battle  of  Eben-ezer  to  the  election  of  Saul.  We 
have  a  general  description  of  his  circuits  as  a  judge;"  and 
then  follows  the  misgovernment  of  liis  sons  in  liis  old  age, 
Avhich  led  the  people  to  desire  a  king.  We  may  fairly  sup- 
pose that  the  complete  establishment  of  his  power  Avould 
soon  lead  to  that  association  of  his  sons'  in  the  administra- 
tion which  caused  such  disastrous  results  ;  and  he  was  already 
getting  old,  if  the  above  computations  be  correct.  Still  the 
interval  could  hardly  be  contained  within  our  proposed 
scheme,  if  we  must  accept  literally  the  forty  years  which  St. 
Paul  assigns  to  the  reign  of  Saul.  But  the  peculiar  relations 
between  Samuel  and  Saul  make  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
the  whole  time  in  which  they  led  Israel,  with  more  or  less 
success,  against  the  Philistines  was  reckoned  as  one  period, 
and  that  the  forty  years  assigned  to  Saul  include  also  the 
government  of  Samuel  from  the  victory  over  the  Philistines 
at  Eben-ezer,'^ 

^^  The  forty  vears  piven  to  Eli  in  the  Hebrew  text  would  involve  this 
necessitv.  '^  1  Sara.  vii.  ]5-17>  ^- ^ae  Notes  and  Illustrations  (^A.). 


B.C.  IIGI. 


State  of  Southern  Palestine. 


§  2.  We  return  to  the  narrative,  which  could  scarcely  have 
been  made  intelligible  without  this  discussion  of  the  connection 
of  its  several  threads.  We  have  seen  that  the  fierce  conflicts 
in  which  the  northern  tribes  and  those  east  of  Jordan  were 
engaged  with  the  heathen,  under  Barak,  Gideon,  and  Jeph- 
thah,  only  partly  involved  the  tribe  of  Ephraim,  and  scarcely 
touched  the  southern  tribes  of  Judah,  Dan,  and  Simeon. 
The  part  of  the  country  which  may  be  roughly  marked  off 
by  a  line  drawn  south  of  the  valley  of  Shechem  has  a  history 
of  its  own,  upon  which  we  have  little  light  till  the  period 
we  have  now  reached.  In  this  region,  though  unquestiona- 
bly not  free  from  idolatry,  the  authority  of  the  high-priest  at 
Shiloh  seems  to  have  been  generally  respected.  That  oflice 
was  now  held  by  Eli,  a  man  of  venerable  age,^^  of  the  house 
of  Ithamar,  Aaron's  younger  son.^*  We  are  not  told  when 
the  high-priesthood  was  transferred  from  the  house  of  Eleazar 
to  that  of  Ithamar ;  but  we  And  that  the  arrangement  had 
the  divine  sanction,  and  Avas  only  reversed  as  a  judgment  on 
the  house  of  Eli.' ^  Himself  a  man  of  the  most  sincere  piety, 
he  was  guilty  of  sinful  weakness  in  the  indulgence  he  show- 
ed to  the  vices  of  liis  sons,  whose  profligacy  disgraced  the 
priesthood  and  ruined  the  people.  ^^  To  the  office  of  high- 
priest,  Eli  added  that  of  judge;  and,  if  the  above  comimta- 
tions  are  correct,  he  should  be  reckoned  the  thirteenth,  rath- 
er than  the  fourteenth  judge,  having  entered  on  his  oflSce 
about  or  soon  after  the  birth  of  Samson.  The  postponement 
of  Eli's  history  to  that  of  Samson  is  the  natural  result  of  his 
intimate  connection  with  Samuel,  whose  life  begins  the  book 
that  bears  his  name. 

While  Eli  was  high-priest,  it  pleased  God  to  raise  up  two 
champions  for  Israel  whose  characters  form  a  contrast  far 
more  remarkable  than  any  of  Plutarch's  parallels.  Alike  in 
the  divine  announcement  of  their  birth,  in  being  devoted  as 
Nazarites'^  from  the  womb,  and  in  being  early  clothed  with 
the  spirit  of  Jehovah,  Samson  and  Samuel  exhibit  the  two  ex- 
tremes of  physical  energy  and  moral  power,  with  all  the  in- 
herent weaknesses  of  the  former,  and  the  majestic  strength  of 
the  latter.     In  Samson  we  see  the  utmost  that  human  mifrht 


"  According  to  the  above  compu- 
tation, he  was  seventy-eight,  and  had 
ruled  already  for  twenty  years,  if  we 
follow  the  numbers  of  the  Hebrew 
text, 

"  1  K.  ii.  27 :  conip.  with  1  Chron. 
xxiv.  3. 


^^  1  Sam.  ii.  30.  These  words  agree 
very  well  with  the  notion  that  Eli  was 
the  first  of  the  new  line. 

^°  1  Sam.  ii.  12-17. 

"  On  the  laws  respecting  the  Naza^ 
rites,  see  Num.  vi.  1-21. 


364 


Elij  Samson^  and  Samuel. 


Chap.  XIX. 


can  do,  even  as  the  instrument  of  the  divine  will ;  in  Samuel 
we  behold  the  omnipotence  of  prayer.  The  great  faults  of 
the  former  seem  almost  inseparable  from  his  physical  temper- 
ament :  the  faultlessness  of  the  latter  is  the  fruit  of  a  nature 
early  disciplined  into  willing  subjection  to  the  laws  of  God. 

§  3.  Samson/^  who  is  commonly  considered  the  thirteenth 
judge^  though  more  properly  the  fourteenth,  belonged  to  that 
part  of  the  tribe  of  Dan  which  had  not  migrated  from  its  origi- 
nal allotment  on  the  borders  of  the  Philistines  between  Ju- 
dah  and  Ephraim.  His  father  was  Manoah,  a  man  of  Zorah, 
on  the  confines  of  Judah.  Manoah's  wife  had  long  been  bar- 
ren, when  she  was  favored  with  the  visit  of  the  Angel-Jeho- 
vah, announcing  the  birth  of  a  son,  who  was  to  be  devoted 
by  the  vow  of  "  a  Nazarite  from  the  womb,"  and  who  should 
begin  to  deliver  Israel  from  the  Philistines.  She  herself  was 
to  abstain  from  wine  and  strong  drink,  and  from  all  unclean 
food ;  and  the  child  was  to  practice  the  same  abstinence,  and 
no  razor  was  to  come  upon  his  head.  The  woman  having 
called  her  husband,  the  angel  revealed  his  divine  character 
by  a  sign  similar  to  that  A'ouchsafed  to  Gideon ;'"  and  while 
Manoah  dreaded  death,  because  they  had  seen  God,  his  wife 
drew  that  juster  inference  of  God's  favor  wdiich  has  often 
since  consoled  His  people :  "  If  Jehovah  Avere  pleased  to  kill 
us,  he  would  not  have  received  a  burnt-offering  and  a  meat- 
offering at  our  hands,  neither  would  He  have  showed  us  all 
these  things."  The  child  thus  promised  was  born,  and  named 
Samson,  and  he  grew  up  blessed  by  Jehovah.^° 

The  promise  that  Samson  should  begin  to  deliver  Israel 
from  the  Philistines  implies  that  their  power  was  already 
severely  felt  by  the  tribe  of  Dan."  From  the  very  first  the 
Philistines  had  kept  them  out  of  their  possessions  on  the 
maritime  plain  and  driven  them  into  the  hills ;  and  we  may 
be  sure  that  there  was  a  constant  state  of  war,  in  which  the 
Israelites  had  certainly  not  the  better.  We  have  seen  that 
the  power  of  the  Philistines  was  severely  felt  at  the  same 
time  that  the  Ammonites  oppressed  those  east  of  the  Jordan. ^^ 
By  the  time  that  Samson  reached  manhood  their  power  was 


^^  Properly  Sham-sun,  i.e.,  ^'^ Uitle- 
sun,^'  or  "sun-like,"  from  s/iemcsh, 
the  sun.  Some  derive  his  name  from 
the  ultimate  meaning  of  the  root 
"awe"  or  "astonishment,"  in  allu- 
sion to  the  awe  of  his  parents  at  the 
angel  who  announced  his  birth.  The 
appearance  of  the  angel  to  Manoah 


was  the  last  "open  vision"  till  the 
voice  which  called  Samuel. 

^^  See  page  345. 

^"  Judg.  xiii. 

"^^  On  the  origin  of  the  Philistines 
and  the  growth  of  their  power,  see 
Notes  and  Jllnatrations  (B,), 

22  Chap,  xviii.  §  9. 


B.C.  1141.  Birth  and  Call  of  Samson.  865 

established,  and  their  forty  years'  opj^ression  had  begun; 
"  At  that  time  the  Philistines  had  dominion  over  Israel."" 
The  princely  tribe  of  Judah  had  sunk  into  submission,  as  we 
see  from  their  readiness  to  deliver  up  Samson,  and  from  their 
plain  avowal  on  that  occasion,  "  Knowest  thou  not  that  the 
Philistines  are  rulers  over  us?"'"  The  hardy  warriors  of 
Dan  lived  as  soldiers  in  the  field,  in  the  permanent  camp 
which  they  had  formed  at  Mahaneh-Dan  {the  camp  of  Dan) ^ 
near  Kirjath-jearira,  in  the  central  highlands,  between  Zorah 
and  Eshtaol.  Here  "  the  spirit  of  Jehovah  began  to  move 
Samson  at  times."" 

§  4.  This  divine  inspiration,  which  is  often  mentioned  in 
his  history,  and  which  he  shared  with  Othniel,  Gideon,  and 
Jephthah,  assumed  in  him  the  unique  form  of  vast  personal 
strength,  animated  by  undaunted  bravery.  It  was  inse23ara- 
bly  connected  with  the  observance  of  his  vow  as  a  Nazarite ; 
"his  strength  was  in  his  hair."  Conscious  of  this  power,  he 
began  to  seek  a  quarrel  with  the  Philistines ;  and  wath  this 
view  he  asked  the  hand  of  a  Philistine  woman  whom  he  had 
seen  at  Timnath.  One  day,  as  he  passed  by  the  vineyards  of 
the  city  on  a  visit  to  his  intended  bride,  a  young  lion  rushed 
out  upon  him :  the  spirit  of  Jehovah  came  on  Samson,  and, 
without  a  weapon,  he  tore  the  lion  as  he  would  have  torn  a 
kid,  but  he  told  no  one  of  the  exploit.  As  he  passed  that 
way  again,  he  saw  a  swarm  of  bees  in  the  carcass  of  the  lion  ; 
and  he  ate  of  the  "honey,  but  still  he  told  no  one."  He  avail- 
ed himself  of  this  circumstance,  and  of  the  custom  of  propos- 
ing riddles  at  marriage-feasts,  to  lay  a  snare  for  the  Philistines. 
Thirty  young  men  had  been  assigned  to  him  as  companions 
or  groomsmen,  and  to  them  he  proposed  a  riddle,  to  be  solved 
within  the  seven  days  of  the  marriage-feast,  for  a  stake  of 
thirty  tunics  and  thirty  changes  of  raiment.  This  was  the 
riddle : — 

"Out  of  the  eater  came  forth  food, 
And  out  of  the  strong  came  forth  sweetness." 

On  the  seventh  day  they  asked  Samson's  wife  to  entice  her 
husband  to  tell  her  the  riddle,  threatening  to  burn  her  and 

^^  Judg.  xiv.  4.  ^*  Judg.  XV.  11.1  "^^  We  have  here  a  curious  instance 
^^  Judg.  xiii.  25,  comp,  Judg.  xviii. '  of  the  habit  on  which  Virgil  founds 
12.  The  assumption  involved  in  our  his  recipe  for  obtaining  a  new  swarm 
chronological  system,  that  Samson  of  bees.  The  eating  of  honey  was  a 
began  his  active  career  at  the  age  of  breach  of  the  Nazarite's  vow,  which 
thirty,  seems  more  probable  than  that  shows  Samson  for  the  first  time  tri- 
of  Ussher,  which  makes  him  but  twen- 1  fling  with  temptation.  Josephus,  by 
ty,  the  former  age  being  supported  by  making  him  give  the  honey  to  his 
the  analogy  of  the  priestly  office.        '  wife,  evades  this  point. 


EU^  Sam  soil   and  Samuel.  Chap.  XIX. 

her  father's  house  if  she  refused.  With  that  fatal  subjection 
to  a  woman's  wiles  and  tears  Avhich  at  last  destroyed  him, 
Samson  told  the  riddle  to  his  wife,  and  she  told  it  to  the  men 
of  the  city,  so  that  before  sunset  on  the  seventh  day  they 
came  to  Samson  and  said,' 

"Wliat  is  sweeter  than  honey? 
And  what  is  stronger  than  a  lion  ?" 

"  If  ye  had  not  ploughed  Avith  my  heifer,"  rejoined  Samson, 
"  ye  had  not  found  out  my  riddle."  The  spirit  of  Jehovah 
came  again  upon  him ;  and,  going  down  to  Askelon,  he  slew 
thirty  men  of  the  city,  and  gave  their  spoil  to  their  fel- 
loAv^-countrymen  of  Timnath.  He  then  returned  to  his  OAvn 
house." 

His  wife  was  given  to  one  of  the  groomsmen,  and,  on  Sam- 
son's visiting  her  soon  after,  her  father  refused  to  let  him  see 
her.  Samson  revenged  himself  by  taking  300  foxes  (or  rather 
jackals)  and  tying  them  together  two  by  two  by  the  tails, 
with  a  firebrand  between  every  pair  of  tails,  and  so  he  let 
them  loose  into  the  standing  corn  of  the  Philistines,  which  was 
ready  for  harvest.  The  Philistines  took  vengeance  by  burn- 
ing Samson's  wife  and  her  father ;  but  he  fell  upon  them  in 
return,  and  smote  them  "  hip  and  thigh  with  a  great  slaugh- 
ter," after  which  he  took  refuge  on  the  top  of  the  rock^of 
Etam,  in  the  territory  of  Judali. 

The  Philistines  gathered  an  army  and  marched  against  the 
men  of  Judah,  who  hastened  to  make  their  peace  by  giving 
up  Samson.  Three  thousand  of  them  went  up  to  the  rock  of 
Etam  to  bind  him,  and  he  submitted  on  their  promise  not  to 
fall  upon  him  themselves.  Bound  with  two  new  cords,  he 
Avas  brought  down  to  the  camp  of  the  Philistines,  who  re- 
ceived him  with  a  shout  of  triumph  ;  but  the  spirit  of  Jeho- 
vah came  upon  him,  he  broke  the  cords  like  burnt  flax,  and 
finding  a  jawbone  of  an  ass  at  hand,  he  slew  with  it  a  thou- 
sand of  the  Philistines.  The  place  Avas  henceforth  called  Ra- 
math-lehi  (the  height  of  the  jawbone).  The  supernatural 
character  of  the  'exploit  Avas  confirmed  by  the  miraculous 
bursting  out  of  a  spring  of  Avater  to  revive  the  champion  as 
he  AA^as  ready  to  die  of  thirst.  He  called  the  spring  En- 
hakkore,  that  is,  the  v^ell  of  him  that  cried.  This  achievement 
raised  Samson  to  the  position  of  a  judge,  Avhich  he  held  for 
twenty  years." 

§  5.  After  a  time  he  began  to  fall  into  the  temptations 
vvhich  addressed  themselves  to  liis  strong  animal  nature,  but 
"  Jiidg.  xiv.  2B  j^jg^  XV. 


B.C.  1141.  Birtli  and  Call  of  Samson.  367 

he  broke  through  every  snare  in  which  he  was  caught  so  long 
as  he  kept  his  Nazarite's  vow.  While  he  Avas  visiting  a  har- 
lot in  Gaza,  the  Philistines  shut  the  gates  of  the  city,  intend- 
ing to  kill  him  in  the  morning  ;  but  at  midnight  he  went  out 
and  tore  away  the  gates,  with  the  posts  and  bar,  and  carried 
them  to  the  top  of  a  hill  looking  toward  Hebron. 

Next  he  formed  his  fatal  connection  with  Delilah,  a  wom- 
an who  lived  in  the  valley  of  Sorek.  She  was  bribed  by  the 
lords  of  the  Philistines  to  entice  Samson  to  tell  her  the  secret 
of  his  strength ;  and  though  not  at  once  betraying  it,  he  play- 
ed with  the  temptation.  Thrice  he  suffered  himself  to  be 
bound  with  green  withes,  with  new  ropes,  and  by  weaving 
the  seven  locks  of  his  hair  to  the  beam  of  a  loom ;  and  each 
time,  when  Delilah  gave  the  signal,  "  The  Philistines  are 
upon  thee,  Samson,"  he  burst  the  withes  and  ropes,  and  tore 
away  the  beam,  with  its  j^in.  Instead  of  resenting  Delilah's 
evident  treachery,  he  seems  to  have  enjoyed  the  certainty  of 
triumph  over  each  new  snare,  till  he  was  betrayed  into  the 
presumption  that  perhaps  his  strength  might  survive  the  loss 
of  his  Nazarite's  locks.  Wearied  out  with  her  importunity, 
he  at  last  "  told  her  all  his  heart,"  and,  while  he  was  asleej), 
she  had  him  shaven  of  his  seven  locks  of  hair.  For  the  last 
time  he  was  awakened  by  her  cry,  "  The  Philistines  are  upon 
thee,  Samson,"  and  thought  he  liad  only  to  go  out  and  shake 
himself,  as  at  the  other  times,  for  "  he  wist  not  that  Jehovah 
was  departed  from  him."  They  put  out  his  eyes,  and  led  him 
down  to  Gaza,  bound  in  brazen  fetters,  and  made  him  grind 
in  the  prison.  The  silence  of  the  Scripture  on  this  period  of 
his  life  is  supplied,  as  far  as  is  possible  by  sanctified  human 
genius,  in  Milton's  Samson  Agonistes.  God  had  not  deserted 
liis  champion,  though  he  had  so  severely  rebuked  his  confi- 
dence in  his  own  strength,  and  punished  the  violation  of  his 
vows.  It  is  very  instructive  that  the  last  triumph,  the  price 
of  which  was  his  own  life,  was  not  granted  to  his  cries  of 
penitence  until  he  was  again  restored  to  the  state  of  a  ISTaza- 
rite.  As  his  hair  grew,  his  strength  returned ;  but  his  infatu- 
ated foes  only  saw  in  this  the  means  of  their  diversion.  The 
lords  and  chief  people  of  the  Philistines  held  a  great  festi- 
val in  the  Temple  of  Dagon  to  celebrate  their  victory  over 
Samson.  They  brought  forth  the  blind  champion  to  make 
sport  for  them  ;  and,  after  he  had  shown  his  feats  of  strength, 
they  placed  him  between  the  two  chief  pillars  which  support- 
ed the  roof  that  surrounded  the  court,  which,  as  well  as  the 
court  itself,  was  crowded  with  spectators  to  the  number  of 
3000.     Samson  asked  the  lad  who  oruided  him  to  let  him  feel 


368  Eli^  Samson^  and  Samuel.  Chap.  XIX 

the  pillars,  to  lean  upon  them.  Then,  with  a  fervent  prayer 
that  God  would  strengthen  him  only  this  once  to  be  avenged 
on  the  Philistines,  he  bore  with  all  his  might  upon  the  two 
pillars  :  they  yielded,  and  the  house  fell  upon  the  lords  and 
all  the  people.  "  So  the  dead  which  he  slew  at  his  death 
were  more  than  they  which  he  slew  in  his  life."  His  kins- 
men took  up  his  body,  and  buried  him  in  his  father's  burying- 
place  between  Zorah  and  Eshtaol.'^^  His  name  is  enrolled 
among  the  worthies  of  the  Jewish  Church  who  '■''through 
faith  obtained  a  good  report,  stopped  the  mouths  of  lions, 
out  of  weakness  were  made  strong,  turned  to  flight  the  armies 
of  the  aliens.'"" 

§  6.  The  loss  of  Samson  was  more  than  supplied  by  the 
other  leader  of  whom  we  have  spoken,  as  nearly  of  the  same 
age,  Samuel,^' the  ^i'ee^z^A  and  last  oi  t\\Q  judges ;  the  Jlrst 
in  that  regular  succession  of  2^^'ophets,^^  which  never  ceased 
till  after  the  return  from  the  Babylonian  Captivity,  and  the 
founder  of  the  monarchy.  His  name  is  expressive  of  the 
leading  feature  of  his  whole  history,  the  2^owe7'  of  prayer. 
Himself  the  child  of  prayer,  he  gained  all  his  triumphs  by 
prayer ;  he  is  placed  at  the  head  of  those  "  who  called  upon 
Jehovah,  and  He  answered  them;"  and  he  is  placed  on  a 
level  with  Moses  as  an  intercessor.^^  Nor  should  we  over- 
look in  him  one  striking  character  of  sincere  prayer — the  pa- 
tient waiting  to  hear,  and  the  readiness  to  obey  the  voice  of 
God  :  "  Speak,  Lord,  for  thy  servant  heareth."  The  attitude 
and  expression  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds's  well-known  picture 
is  that  of  Samuel's  whole  life. 

His  descent  is  uncertain.  His  father  is  called  an  Ephrath' 
ite,  or,  according  to  another  reading,  an  Ephraimite  ;^*  but 
it  seems  certain,  from  the  evidence  of  the  genealogies,  that 
he  was  a  descendant  of  Korali  the  Levite,  of  the  family  of  the 
Kohathites.^'  The  two  statements  are  easily  reconciled  by 
assuming  that  his  family  were  settled  in  Mount  Ephraim. 


2«  Judg.  xvi. 

^  Heb.  xi.  2,  32,  33,  34. 
^^  Properly  Shemuel,  ^■.e.,  asked  of 
God  (1  Sam."!.  20)  ;  though  other  ety 


after."  There  had  been  great  proph- 
ets before,  as  Moses,  Miriam,  and 
Deborah,  and  others  who  are  men- 
tioned without  tlieir  names  :  but  the 


mologies  liave  been  given,  as  ^c«r<i  continuous   series  began  with   Sam- 
of  God  and  nmne  of  God.      Ussher  uel. 

makes  Samuel  ten  years  older  than!      ^^  1  Sam.  vii.  8,  9,  xii.  18,  19,  23, 
Samson.     On  our  view,  he  would  be  xv.  11 ;  Ps.  xcix.  G ;  Jer.  xv.  1. 


somewhat  more  than  ten  years  young- 
er than  Samson. 

^^  Acts  iii.  24  :  *'  All  the  prophets, 
from  Samuel  and  them  that  follow 


1  Sam.  i.  1.    If  it  could  be  proved 
that  Ramah  was  near  Bethlehem,  the 
reading  "  Ephrathite  "  would  stand. 
2*  1  Chron.  vi.  22-28. 


B.C.  lUi.  Parentage  and  Birth  of  Samuel.  369 

The  place  of  their  abode  was  Ramathaim-zophirri^^  (the 
double  heights  of  the  heaco7i  or  vxitch)^  elsewhere  called  Ma- 
mah^  and  identified  by  tradition  with  the  lofty  hill  of  JSFehy 
Samwil  (the  Prophet  Samuel),  4  miles  N.W.  of  Jerusalem. 
It  is  now  crowned  by  a  mosque  (itself  the  successor  of  a 
Christian  church),  where  Samuel's  sepulchre  is  still  reverenced 
alike  by  Jews,  Moslems,  and  Christians.  If  this  be  its  true 
site,  it  lay  within  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  and  sufficiently  near 
to  Beth-horon  to  as^ree  with  the  statement  that  Beth-horon 
and  its  suburbs  were  allotted  to  the  Kohathites."  But  the 
site  is  very  uncertain.  It  was  Samuel's  usual  residence  to  the 
end  of  his  life. 

His  father,  Elkanah,  had  two  wives,  an  instance  of  polyg- 
amy rare  in  a  private  family,  and  entailing  the  usual  conse- 
quences of  bitterness  and  jealousy.^**  The  one  wife,  Peninnah. 
had  borne  several  children,  but  the  other,  Hannah,  was  bar- 
tice  With  a  pious  regularity  which  deserves  especial  nO' 
ren.  in  those  times  of  disorder,  the  whole  family  went  up 
yearly  to  worship  and  sacrifice  to  Jehovah  at  Sliiloh,  where 
Eli  ministered  as  high-priest,  assisted  by  his  sons,  Hophni 
and  Phinehas,  as  priests.  As  they  feasted  on  their  freewill- 
ofiering,  according  to  the  law,^*  Elkanah  gave  Peninnah  and 
her  children  their  due  portions,  but  to  Hannah  he  gave  a 
double  portion.  This  proof  of  his  aflection  brought  on  her 
the  jealous  provocations  of  her  rival ;  so  that  she  wept,  and 
could  not  eat,  and  her  husband  tried  in  vain  to  console  her, 
asking,  "  Am  not  I  better  to  thee  than  ten  sons  ?"  In  her 
bitterness  of  soul,  she  went  and  stood  before  the  entrance  of 
the  tabernacle,  where  Eli  sat  in  his  usual  place  by  one  of  the 
pillars,"  and  with  many  tears  she  prayed  for  a  son,  whom 
she  devoted  to  Jehovah  as  a  Nazarite.  She  prayed  silently, 
in  her  heart,  but  her  lips  moved,  and  Eli,  thinking  that  she 
w^as  drunk  after  the  feast,  reproved  her  severely ;  but  on  her 
assurance  that  she  was  a  woman  of  sorrowful  spirit,  and 
poured  forth  her  soul  before  Jehovah,  he  gave  her  his  bless- 
ing, praying  that  God  would  grant  her  petition.  She  de- 
parted with  joy,  and  returned  to  Ramah ;  and  in  due  time 
she  bore  a  son,  and  called  him  Samuel.  She  waited  to  go 
up  again  to  Shiloh  till  the  child  was  w^eaned,  when  she  pre- 
sented him  before  Jehovah,  to  abide  there  forever.     Her  bus- 


'"  1  Sam.  i.  1 .  The  full  name  is 
found  only  in  this  place,  but  the 
LXX.  always  give  'Ap/iadatju.  The 
question  of  the  site  is  fullv  discussed 

*"'l  Sam.  i.  10  ;  comp.  iv.  18 
Q  2 


in  the  Diet,  of  the  Bible,  arts.  Ramah 
and  Ramathaim-Zophim. 

2^  Josh.  xxi.  22.      3"  1  Sam.  i.  6. 
Deut.  xii.  17,  18,  xvi.  11. 


370  Eli^  Samson,  and  Samuel.  Chap.  XIX. 

band,  who  cordially  entered  into  her  pious  designs,*^  pro- 
vided  a  freewill-offering  of  three  bullocks,  an  ephah  of  flour, 
and  a  skin  of  wine ;"  and  Hannah  presented  her  son  to  Eli 
for  the  service  of  Jehovah,  telling  him  of  the  fulfillment  of 
the  prayer  he  had  witnessed.  She  uttered  a  hymn  of  praise, 
■\vhich  served  long  after  as  a  model  for  the  "  Song  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin.""  Elkanah  returned  with  his  family  to 
Ramah,  leaving  behind  Samuel,  who  abode  in  the  tabernacle 
and  ministered  before  Jehovah,  clad  in  a  linen  ephod,  like 
those  Avorn  by  the  priests.  At  their  annual  visit,  Hannah 
brought  Samuel  a  little  coat,  or  mantle,  a  miniature  of  the 
ofiicial  priestly  robe.''*  Eli  blessed  Elkanah  and  Hannah, 
who  bore  three  sons  and  two  daughters. ^^ 

§  7.  Samuel's  growth  in  favor  with  God  and  man  formed  a 
striking  contrast  to  the  shameful  profanation  of  the  taber- 
nacle by  the  sons  of  Eli,  who  were  "  sons  of  Belial."  Listead 
of  contenting  themselves  with  the  parts  of  the  sacrifices  al- 
lotted to  them  by  the  law,  they  invented  strange  and  disor- 
derly methods  for  obtaining  Avhat  they  pleased ;  and  they 
practiced  licentiousness  at  the  very  doors  of  the  tabernacle." 
Tlieir  aged  father  rej^roved  them  in  vain,*^  and  he  was  too 
indulgent  to  use  his  authority  as  high-priest :  "  His  sons 
made  themselves  vile,  and  he  restrained  them  not."*^  There- 
fore a  prophet  was  sent  to  denounce  the  destruction  of  the 
house  of  Eli,  as  a  sign  of  which  both  his  sons  should  be  slain 
in  one  day  ;  a  faithful  priest  sliould  be  raised  up  in  his  place ; 
and  those  who  remained  of  Eli's  house  should  come  crouch- 
ing to  him  with  the  prayer  to  be  put  into  one  of  the  priest's 
offices  to  earn  a  morsel  of  bread.'*"  The  judgment  was  ful- 
filled when  Solomon  deposed  Abiathar,  the  last  high-priest 
of  the  house  of  Ithamar,  and  restored  the  priesthood  to  the 
house  of  Eleazar  in  the  person  of  Zadok.^° 

Another  warning  was  sent  to  Eli  by  the  mouth  of  the 
youthful  Samuel.  "  The  word  of  God  was  precious  in  those 
days  ;  there  Avas  no  open  vision  ;"^^  and  this  made  tlie  rev- 
elation to  Samuel  a  more  decided  proof  of  his  call  to  the  of- 
fice of  a  i^rophet.     Eli's  sight  was  now  failing,  through  old 


*'  1  Sam.  i.  23.  i  fied   by    Saul    when    raised   by   the 

"  1  Sam.  i.  24.     This  offering  is  a   witch  of  Endor  (I  Sam.  xxviii.'U). 


proof  of  his  wealth.  *'■'  1  Sam.  ii.  18-21  ;  comp.  1  Chr. 

"  1  Sam.  ii.  1-10 ;  Luke  i.  4G-55.  |  vi.  2G 


^■^  This  robe  was  the  same  that 
Samuel  wore  in  mature  years  (1  Sam, 
XV.  27),  and  bv  which  he  was  identi- 


'"''  1  Sam.  ii„  12-10,  22. 
"'  1  Sam.  ii.  22-25. 
'"  1  Sam.  iii.  13. 


Sam.  ii.  27-3G.  ^"  1  K.  ii.  27.  '•"  1  Sam.  iii.  1. 


B.C.  1141.  The  Israelites  go  to  Battle.  371 

age,  and  he  had  laid  himself  down  to  sleep  in  a  chamber  at* 
tached  to  the  tabernacle.  Samuel  had  also  lain  down  in  the 
Holy  Place  itself,  and  the  sacred  lamp  lighted  at  the  time  of 
the  evening  sacrifice  was  near  expiring,  when  Jehovah  call- 
ed Samuel  by  name,  and  he  answered  "  Here  am  I."  He 
knew  not  as  yet  that  "  still,  small  voice,"  and  he  ran  to  Eli, 
thinking  that  he  had  called  him.  This  was  repeated  thrice ;. 
but  the  third  time  Eli  knew  that  Jehovah  had  spoken  to  the 
child,  and  he  bade  him  reply  to  the  next  call  by  saying, 
"Speak,  Lord,  for  thy  servant  heareth."  Then  the  word 
of  God  came  to  Samuel,  confirming,  in  more  terrible  terms 
the  sentence  already  uttered  on  the  house  of  Eli,  and  de- 
claring that  the  iniquity  of  his  house  should  not  be  purged 
with  sacrifice  forever.  In  the  morning  Samuel  opened  the 
doors  of  the  tabernacle  as  usual ;  and,  being  solemnly  adjured 
by  Eli,  he  told  him  all  that  Jehovah  had  said ;  and  the  old 
man  exclaimed,  like  Job,  "  It  is  Jehovah  !  let  Him  do  what 
seemeth  him  good  !"^*  From  that  day  Samuel  was  a  proph- 
et of  Jehovah.  His  fame  grew  with  his  growth,  and  none 
of  his  w^ords  failed.  Whatever  difficulty  we  have  felt  before 
as  to  the  extent  of  the  influence  of  the  judges  disappears  en- 
tirely now:  '"'' All  Israel,  from  Dan  even  to  Beersheba,  knew 
that  Samuel  w^as  established  to  be  a  prophet  of  Jehovah," 
and  the  words  uttered  by  him  at  Shiloh  came  to  pass  through- 
out all  Israel." 

§  8.  Encouraged,  it  wo-uld  seem,  by  this  reappearance  of 
the  prophetic  gift,  and,  at  the  same  time,  by  the  blow  inflict- 
ed on  the  Philistines  in  Samson's  dying  effort,  the  Israelites 
went  out  to  battle  against  their  oppressors.  The  Israelites 
encamped  at  the  place  which  afterward  became  so  memorable 
by  the  name  of  Eben-ezer,^*  and  the  Philistines  at  Aphek 
(the /*«5^ne55),  places  in  the  highlands  of  Benjamin  not  far  to 
the  north  of  Jerusalem.  In  the  first  of  the  three  great  bat- 
tles which  signalized  this  neighborhood  the  Israelites  were 
defeated,  with  the  loss  of  4000  men.  The  elders  of  IsraeP^ 
then  formed  the  rash  project  of  fetching  the  ark  of  the  cove- 
nant into  the  camp,  that  it  might  save  them  from  their  ene- 
mies.    Thus  all  their  memory  of  God's  mighty  deeds  of  old 

^2  I  Sam.  iii.  1-19.  I      ^^  1  Sam.  iv.  3.     This  is  an  inter- 

"  1  Sam.  iii.  19-iv.  1.  esting  proof  that  the  patriarchal  form 

'*  1  Sam.  iv.  1,  v.  1,  vii.  12.  It '  of  government  was  still  in  existence, 
was  between  Mizpeh  (the  loatch-toicer)  Eli,  though  judge,  seems  to  have  been 
— one  of  the  eminences  a  few  miles  now  a  mere  cipher,  and  Samuel  kept 
north  of  Jerusalem — and  Shen  (the  I  nloof  from  the  whole  proceeding. 
tooth  or  crag),  the  site  of  which  is  un-  |  Eli's  disapproval  of  the  profanation 
known.  I  pf  the  ark  is  clear  from  1  Sam.  iv.  13. 


372 


jbJli^  )Sa7nson,  and  Samuel. 


Chap.  XIX. 


was  summed  up  in  a  superstitious  hope  from  the  mere  symbol 
of  His  presence,  which  they  profaned  even  while  they  trust- 
ed to  its  help.  The  ark  was  brought  from  Shiloh  by  Hophni 
and  Phinehas,  the  sons  of  Eli,  fit  ministers  of  such  a  sacrile- 
gious act.  The  shout  with  which  the  ark  was  welcomed  ap- 
palled the  Philistines,  who  thought  the  gods  of  the  Hebrews 
liad  come  into  the  camp,  those  mighty  gods  "that  smote  the 
Egyptians  with  all  the  plagues  in  the  wilderness."^'*  But, 
instead  of  panic  fear,  they  assumed  the  courage  of  despair, 
while  the  God  they  so  much  feared  w^as  only  present  in  the 
Hebrew  camp  to  punish  the  presumption  of  the  rulers  and 
the  wickedness  of  the  priests.  Israel  was  smitten  with  a 
panic  rout ;  30,000  men  were  slain,  and  among  them  Hophni 
and  Phinehas,  and  the  ark  of  God  was  taken.  The  news 
was  carried  to  Shiloh  by  a  Benjamite,  who  escaped  from  the 
battle,  and  arrived  with  his  clothes  torn  and  earth  iipon  his 
head,  in  sign  of  the  deepest  mourning.  As  Eli  sat  by  the 
side  of  the  road,  at  the  gates  of  the  tabernacle,  waiting  for 
tidings  and  trembling  for  the  ark  of  God,  he  heard  the  cry 
of  grief  and  terror  raised  by  the  whole  city.  The  messen- 
ger w^as  brought  to  Eli,  who  listened  to  the  fate  of  the  army 
and  his  own  sons ;  but  when  he  heard  that  the  ark  of  God 
was  taken,  he  fell  back  from  his  seat  and  broke  his  neck  and 
died,  for  he  was  an  old  man  and  heavy.  He  was  ninety- 
eight  years  old,  and  had  judged  Israel  forty  years."  But  the 
troubles  of  the  day  were  not  yet  ended.  The  wife  of  Phine- 
has, on  hearing  the  news,  was  seized  Avith  premature  labor, 
and  died  in  giving  birth  to  a  son,  whom  she  named  with  her 
last  breath  I-cha-bod  {lohere  is  the  glory) ^  for  she  said, "  The 
glory  is  departed  from  Israel,"  because  the  ark  of  God  was 
taken.  That  one  phrase  is  the  best  description  of  the  fear- 
ful issue  of  the  second  battle  of  Eben-ezer.^* 

§9.  The  captured  ark  was  carried  by  the  Philistines  to 
Ashdod  (the  later  Azotus),to  be  laid  up  as  a  trophy  in  the 
temple  of  their  national  deity : — 

"  Dagon  his  name,  sea-monster,  upward  man 
And  downward  fish  :  3'et  had  his  temple  high 
Keared  in  Azotus,  dreaded  through  the  coast 
Of  Palestine,  in  Gath,  and  Askelon, 
And  Accaron,  and  Gaza's  frontier  bounds."^* 


'°  1  Sam.  iv.  8.  Such  was  the 
vivid  but  vague  vecollection  handed 
down  by  tradition. 

'*'  B.C.  1141,  in  the  common  chro- 
nology. 


"^  1  Sam.  iv. 

"  Milton,  Paradise  Lost,  Book  I. 
vs.  462-466.  The  five  cities  hero 
named  formed  tlie  Pentapolis  of  the 
Philistines.     Accaron  is  Ekron. 


B.C. 1141. 


The  Ark  with  the  Philistines. 


873 


But  Jehovah,  in  punishing  His  people,  was  still  jealous  of  His 
own  glory.  The  comfort  of  His  presence  was  withdrawn  from 
Israel,  but  its  terror,  so  often  felt  by  them,  was  transferred  to 
their  foes.     First,  their  god  was  laid  j^rostrate — 

"  When  the  captive  ark 
Maimed  his  brute  image,  liead  and  hands  lopped  off, 
In  his  own  temple,  on  the  grunsel  edge, 
Where  he  fell  flat,  and  shamed  his  worshipers."^" 

The  memory  of  his  humiliation  was  perpetuated  at  Ashdod 
by  the  custom  of  the  priests  not  to  tread  on  the  threshold  of 
his  temple.  Next  the  men  of  Ashdod  were  smitten,  many 
with  death,  and  others  by  a  complaint  shameful  as  well  as 
painful,®^  and,  as  we  afterward  find,  their  land  was  ravaged  by 
swarms  of  mice.  They  refused  to  keep  the  ark  any  longer, 
and,  by  the  decision  of  the  lords  of  the  Philistines,"  it  was 
carried  first  to  Gath  and  then  to  Ekron,  only  to  inflict  the 
like  plagues  and  slaughter  on  those  cities."^ 

For  seven  months  the  ark  was  thus  carried  about  through 
the  cities  of  the  Philistines  ;  and  at  length  they  resolved  to 
send  it  back.  Under  the  advice  of  their  priests  and  diviners, 
whom  it  is  most  interesting  to  find  remonstrating  with  them 
for  hardening  their  hearts  as  the  Egyptians  and  Pharaoh  had 
done,  they  sent  with  it  five  golden  images  of  mice,  and  five 
such  of  the  emerods,  as  a  trespass-offering.  They  made  a 
new  cart,  on  which  they  placed  the  ark,  with  a  cofler  contain- 
ing the  jewels  of  gold  ;  and  to  prove  the  hand  of  God  in  its 
return,  they  harnessed  to  the  cart  two  milch-cows  that  had 
never  borne  the  yoke,  and  took  home  theu-  calves.  The  cows 
went  straight  up  the  road  leading  from  Ekron  to  Beth-shemesh 
{House  of  the  Sun,  now  Ain-Shems),^'^  lowing  after  their  calves, 
but  never  turning  aside  ;  the  five  lords  of  the  Philistines  fol- 
lowing after,  to  see  the  result.  As  the  cart  reached  the 
field  of  Joshua,  the  Bethshemite,  the  men  of  Beth-shemesh 
paused  from  their  harvest-work,  rejoicing  at  the  sight ;  the 
Levites  took  down  the  ark  and  coffer,^^  cut  up  the  cart,  and 


•°  Milton,  I.  c. 

^'  Emerods,  i.  e.,  haemorrhoids. 

®^  These  were  a  supreme  council  of 
the  five  princes  of  the  five  cities  (1 
Sam.  vi,  4). 

®^  Judg,  V.  Gaza  and  Askelon  are 
not  named,  probably  for  brevity :  it 
is  evident  that  they  suffered  in  like 
manner  (vi.  4). 

**  This  "suburb  city  "  of  the  priests 
stood  on  the  north-west  slopes  of  the 


mountains  of  Jndah,  on  a  low  pla- 
teau at  the  junction  of  two  fine 
plains,  about  two  miles  from  the  edge 
of  the  great  Philistine  plain,  and  sev- 
en from  Ekron  (Josh.  xxi.  16;  I 
Chron.  vi.  59  ;  Robinson,  ii.  224-6, 
iii.  158  ;  Diet,  of  Bible,  s.  v.). 

®^  The  "  Abel "  in  our  version, 
"great  stone,"  on  which  they  set  it 
down,  has  not  been  satisfactorily  ex- 
plained. 


874  Eli^  Samson,  and  Samuel  Chai-.  XIX. 

used  the  wood  in  sacrificing  the  cows  as  a  burnt-offering. 
Overcome,  however,  by  curiosity,  the  men  of  Beth-shemesh 
looked  into  the  ark,  and  Jehovah  smote  50,070  of  them  with 
death/^  In  their  terror  they  sent  to  the  men  of  Kirjath- 
jearini  to  fetch  away  the  ark,  and  in  that  city  it  remained  till 
David  removed  it  to  Jerusalem.  Its  abode  was  in  the  house 
of  Abinadab,  a  Levite,  on  the  summit  of  the  hill ;  and  his  son 
Eleazar  was  consecrated  as  the  keeper  of  the  ark." 

§  10.  For  twenty  years  the  people  mourned  for  the  absence 
of  the  ark  from  Shiloh,  and  beneath  the  oppression  of  the 
Philistines,  till  Samuel  summoned  them  to  repentance  and  ex- 
ertion. He  bade  them  to  put  away  Baalim  and  Ashtaroth, 
and  all  false  gods,  and  prepare  their  hearts  to  serve  Jehovah, 
and  he  would  deliver  them  from  the  hand  of  the  Philistines. 
He  gathered  all  Israel  at  Mizpeh,  that  he  might  pray  for 
them  to  Jehovah.  There  they  held  a  solemn  fast-day,  con- 
fessing their  sins,  and  pouring  out  libations  of  water,  which 
seem  to  represent  a  "  baptism  of  repentance,"  as  well  as  a  re 
newal  of  the  covenant;"®  after  which  Samuel  judged  the  peo- 
ple, their  repentance  being  thus  connected  with  the  redress 
of  wrongs."^  This  assembly  was  the  signal  for  a  new  mus- 
ter of  the  Philistines,  and  the  frightened  Israelites  entreated 
Samuel  not  to  cease  to  cry  to  God  on  their  behalf  He  was  in 
the  very  act  of  offering  a  burnt-ofl:ering  and  uttering  his  cries 
of  prayer,  when  the  Philistines  drew  near  in  battle  array. 
Then  God  answered  the  prayers  of  Samuel  by  a  violent  storm 
of  thunder,  which  discomfited  the  Philistines,  and  Israel  pur- 
sued them  with  great  slaughter  to  Bethcar  (the  house  of 
lambs).  This  spot,  at  which  the  pursuit  ceased,  seems  to  have 
been  the  place  where  Samuel  set  up  a  stone,  as  a  memorial 
of  the  victory,  between  Mizpeh  and  Shen,  and  called  it  Eben- 
EZER  (the  stone  of  help),  sayino^,  "  Hitherto  hath  Jehovah  help- 
ed us  !'"° 

This  third  battle  of  Eben-ezer  put  an  end  to  the  forty  years' 
oppression  of  the  Philistines,  who  "  were  subdued,  and  came 
no  more  into  the  coast  of  Israel,  and  the  hand  of  Jehovah 
was  against  the  Philistines  all  the  clays  of  Samuel."  The 
prophet  was  now,  if  not  before,  constituted  the  judge  of  Israel, 
the  last  who  held  that  office  before  the  monarchy ;  for  though 

^^  The  odd  seventy  may  have  been  r  ^®  A  treaty  \ras  always  accompa- 
elders ;  but  we  can  not  hope  to  solve  nied  with  libations  of  watery  and  in 
all  the  difficulties  presented  by  the  i  Greek  the  name  of  the  former  was 
numbers  in  our  present  text.  derived  from  the  latter. 

''"  1  Sam.  vi.,  vii.  1  ;  2  Sam.  vi.  ;  1  «M  Sam.  vii.  S-O  ;  comp.  Matt.  iii. 
Chron.  xiii.  8  ;  Luke  iii.  8.       "  1  Sam.  vii.  7-12. 


B.C.  1120.  ■  Eli^  Samson,  and  Samuel.  875 

he  is  said  to  have  made  his  sons  Joel  (or  Vashni)  and  Abiah 
judges,  they  must  be  regarded  simply  as  his  deputies,  like 
the  sons  of  Jair  and  of  Abdon."  Their  seat  of  judgment 
was  at  Beersheba ;  while  Samuel  himself  dwelt  at  Ramah, 
and  made  a  circuit  of  the  neighboring  cities,  judging  the 
people  of  Bethel,  Gilgal,  and  Mizpeh,  all  four  places  being  in 
the  highlands  of  Benjamin.  We  have  incidental  pictures  of 
this  part  of  Samuel's  life  in  the  early  history  of  Saul  and  Da- 
vid. We  see  the  prophet  receiving  those  who  desired  to  in- 
quire of  Jehovah,  and  who  came  to  him  with  a  customary 
present,  presiding  at  the  sacrifices  of  his  own  city,  and  enter- 
taining a  select  number  of  the  most  distinguished  elders  at  the 
ensuing  banquet,  or  going  to  hold  a  special  sacrifice,  as  at 
Bethlehem,  where  the  awe  inspired  by  his  pi-esence  bears  wit- 
ness to  the  authority  of  the  judge.  At  this  time,  too,  we  first 
hear  of  those  "  Companies  (or  as  our  version  gives.  Schools)  of 
the  I^rophetSj''^  where  the  young  men  on  whom  the  Spirit  of 
God  had  descended  were  trained,  under  Samuel's  eye,  in  the 
art  of  sacred  song,  and  doubtless  in  the  knowledge  of  the 
Scriptures ;  in  which  David  improved  his  powers  as  the  great 
psalmist,  and  of  which  we  learn  more  under  Elijah  and  Eli- 
sha.'^  How  long  this  state  of  things  lasted  we  are  not  in- 
formed :  it  was  brought  to  an  end  by  the  misconduct  of  Sam- 
uel's sons  in  his  old  age. 

■'^  Judg.  X.  4,  xii.  14  ;   1   Sam.  viii.  j  Illustrations  to  cli.  xx.  (p.  425),  "The 
1,  2  ;  comp.  1  Chron.  vi.  28.  i  Schools  of  the  Prophets." 

"  1  Sam.  ix.,  xvi.     See  Notes  and\ 


376 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  XIX. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


(A.)  CHRONOLOGY  OF  ELI, 
SAMSON,  AND  SAMUEL. 
The  arguments  which  have  been 
offered  in  the  text  as  a  probable  sohi- 
tion  of  a  case  where  certainty  can  not 
be  hoped  for,  lead  to  the  following  re- 
sults : — 

J5.C. 

Birth  of  Samson  (about) 1 161  * 

Judgeship  of  Eli  beginsf 1151 

Birth  of  Samuel  between  this  and  the 
next  date. 

Death  of  Abdon "^ 

Tenth  period  of  forty  years !    ,  ^q-j^ 

Philistine  oppression  begins f 

Judgeship  of  Samson  begins J 

Death  of  Samson '^ 

Capture  of  tlie  ark | 

Death  ofEli )■   1111 

Samuel,    already     established     as  | 
prophet,  succeeds  him  as  judge.     J 
Second  half  of  the  Philistine  domina- 
tion, ending  with  the  victory  of  Eb- 

en-ezer 1091 

Eleventh  period  of  forty  yearx,  in- 
cluding the  later  administration  of 
Samuel,  the  mi^^government  of  his 
sons,  and  the  whole  of  tlie  reign  of 

Saul,  ending 1C51 

Or,  correcting  the  result  by  computa- 
tions derived  from   the  succeeding 

period  t 1055 

Since,  however,  these  conclusions, 
however  probable,  remain  to  be  sub- 
jected to  criticism,  we  have  followed, 
for  the  convenience  of  the  student, 
the  general  principle  of  giving  in  the 
text  the  received  dates  of  Ussher's  sys- 
tem. 

Townsend    proposes  the   following 

*  Supposing  that  he  did  not  begin  his  pub- 
lic work  till  thirty  ;  but  he  may  very  proba- 
bly have  done  so  nearer  twenty,  M'hich 
would  place  liis  birth  near  Samuel's. 

t  According  to  the  Hebrew  text :  according 
to  the  LXX.,  it  would  be  twenty  ye.ars  later, 
simultaneous  with  the  beginning  of  the 
Philistine  oppression,  and  contemporaneous 
throughout  with  the  judgeship  of  Samson. 

t  We  have  kept  in  view  throughout  the  ne- 
cessity of  introducing  this  correction  at  some 
point  (see  ch.  xvii.  Notes  atid  Illustrations). 


arrangement,  which   is    based    upon 
Calmet  and  others  : — 


B.C. 

1155. 


1143. 
1126- 


1117. 
1116. 


1096. 


Death   of  Abbon.     Servitude  to  the 

Philistines. 
The  forty  years'   administration  of 

Eli  begins. 
Births  of  Samuel  and  Samson. 
Call  of  Sanmel ;  at  the  age  of  twelve 

years,  according  to  Josephus. 
1117.  The  career  of  Samson — twenty 

years. 
The  prophet  sent  to  warn  Eli. 
Capture  of  the  ark  and  death  of  Eli. 
The  sole  administration  of  Samuel  be- 
gins,   and    continues    twenty-one 

years  till 
The  ark  is   recovered,  and   brought 

from  Kirjath-jearim  to  the  house 

of  Abinadab. 
The  people  demand  a  king. 
Saul's  reign  begins,  and  lasts  forty 

years. 
1055.  Death  of  Saul. 

The  administration  of  Samuel  lasted, 

either  solely  or  in  conjunction  with 

Eli  and  Saul,  eighty  years 

(B.)  THE  PHILISTINES. 
The  word  Philistines  means  "stran- 
gers" or  emigrants,  and  is  translated 
by  'A?26(f)vXoi  in  the  Septuagint. 
According  to  Gen.  x.  14,  they  were 
connected  with  the  Casluhim,  and  ac- 
cording to  Jer.  xlvii.  4.  and  Am.  ix.  7 
(comp.  Deut.  ii.  23),  with  the  Caph- 
torim.  As  these  two  tribes  were 
closely  allied,  it  is  possible  that  tlie 
Caphtorim  immigrated  into  the  coun- 
try of  the  Casluhim  at  a  later  period. 
Caphtor  is  identified  by  most  mod- 
ern scholars  with  Crete,*  and  it  is 

*  Others  identify  Caphtor  with  Coptos  ia 
Egypt,  which  siems  to  be  confirmed  by  the 
fact  that  the  Caphtorim  are  mentioned  among 
the  descendants  of  Mizraim  (Gen.  x.  14). 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  strong  rea- 
sons for  believing  the  Philistines  to  hav« 
i  been  a  Semitic  people. 


Chap.  XIX:. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


377 


therefore  supposed  that  the  Philistines 
emigrated  from  that  island,  either  di- 
rectly or  through  Egypt,  into  Pales- 
tine. This  is  rendered  more  probable 
by  the  mention  of  the  Cherethites  in 
the  Philistine  plain  (1  Sam.  xxx.  14), 
which  name  in  its  Hebi-ew  form  bears 
a  close  resemblance  to  Crete,  and  is 
rendered  Cretans  in  the  Septuagint. 
But  whatever  was  their  origin,  we 
find  these  "strangers"  settled  in  the 
time  of  Abraham  ;  for  they  are  no- 
ticed in  his  day  as  a  pastoral  tribe  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Gerar(Gen.  xxi. 
32,  34,  xxvi.  1,8);  and  this  position 
accords  with  the  statement  in  Deut. 
ii.  23,  that  the  Avim  dwelt  in  Haze- 
rim,  i.e.,  in  nomad  encampments ;  for 
Gerar  lay  in  the  south  country,  which 
was  just  adapted  to  such  a  life.  At 
the  time  of  the  Exodus  they  were  still 
in  the  same  neighborhood,  but  grown 
sufficiently  powerful  to  inspire  the  Is- 
raelites with  fear  (Ex.  xiii.  1 7,  xv.  14). 
When  the  Israelites  arrived,  they  were 
in  full  possession  of  the  Shephelah,  or 
maritime  plain,  from  the  "river  of 
Escypt "  in  the  south  to  Ekron  in  the 
north  (Josh.  xv.  4,  47),  and  had  form- 
ed a  confederacy  of  five  powerful  cit- 
ies— Gaza,  Ashdod,  Ashkelon,  Gath, 
and  Ekron  (Josh.  xiii.  3).  The  in- 
terval that  elapsed  between  Abraham 
and  the  Exodus  seems  sufficient  to  al- 
low for  the  alteration  that  took  place 
in  the  position  of  the  Philistines,  and 
their  transformation  from  a  pastoral 
tribe  to  a  settled  and  powerful  nation. 
The  richness  of  the  soil  of  the  Shephe- 
lah has  been  in  all  ages  remarkable, 
and  the  crops  which  it  yielded  were 
alone  sufficient  to  insure  national 
wealth.  It  was  also  adapted  to  the 
growth  of  military  power  ;  for  while 
the  plain  itself  permitted  the  use  of 
war-chariots,  which  were  the  chief 
arm  of  offense,  the  occasional  eleva- 
tions which  rise  out  of  it  ofi'ered  se- 
cure sites  for  towns  and  sti'ongholds. 
The  Philistines  had  at  an  early  period 


attained  proficiency  in  the  arts  of 
peace  ;  they  were  skillful  as  smiths 
{\  Sam.  xiii.  20),  as  armorers  (1  Sam. 
xvii.  5,  6),  and  as  builders,  if  we  may 
judge  from  the  prolonged  sieges  which 
several  of  their  towns  sustained.  Their 
images  and  the  golden  mice  and  eme- 
rods  (1  Sam.  vi.  1 1)  imply  an  acquaints 
ance  with  the  founder's  and  gold- 
smith's art.  Their  wealth  was  abun- 
dant (Judg.  xvi.  5,  18),  and  they  ap- 
pear in  all  respects  to  have  been  a 
prosperous  people.  Possessed  of  such 
elements  of  power,  the  Pliilistines  had 
attained  in  the  time  of  the  judges  an 
important  position  among  Eastern 
nations ;  we  can  not,  therefore,  be 
surprised  tiiat  they  were  able  to  ex- 
tend their  authority  over  the  Israel- 
ites, devoid  as  these  were  of  internal 
union,  and  harassed  by  external  foes. 
The  history  of  the  struggles  of  the 
Israelites  against  these  formidable 
foes  has  been  narrated  in  the  preced- 
ing chapter,  and  it  was  in  order  to  re- 
sist them  more  effectually  that  the 
Israelites  mainly  desired  a  king.  It 
was  not  till  the  latter  end  of  David's 
reign  that  the  Philistines  were  finally 
subdued,  as  will  be  told  in  its  proper 
place.  The  whole  of  Philistia  was 
included  in  Solomon's  empire,  the  ex- 
tent of  which  is  described  as  being 
"  from  the  river  unto  the  land  of  the 
Philistines,  unto  the  border  of  Egypt" 
(I  K.  iv.  21;  2  Chron.  ix.  26),  and 
again  "  from  Tipsah  even  unto  Gaza  " 
(I  K.  iv.  24  ;  A.V.  "  Azzah").  The 
several  towns  probably  remained  lui- 
der  their  former  governors,  as  in  the 
case  of  Gath  (1  K.  ii.  39),  and  the  sov- 
ereignty of  Solomon  was  acknowl- 
edged by  the  payment  of  tribute  (I 
K.  iv.  21).  There  are  indications, 
however,  that  his  hold  on  the  Philis- 
tine country  was  by  no  means  estab- 
lished ;  for  Ave  find  him  securing  the 
passes  that  led  up  from  the  plain  to 
the  central  district  by  the  fortification 
of  Gezer  and  Beth-horon  (1  K.  ix. 


378 


Notes  and  IRustrations. 


Chap.  XIX. 


17),  while  no  mantion  is  made  either 
of  Gaza  or  Ashdod,  which  fully  com- 
manded the  coast-road.  The  division 
of  the  empire  at  Solomon's  death  was 
favorable  to  the  cause  of  the  Philis- 
tines, and  they  again  appear  as  formi- 
dable enemies  to  the  kings  of  Judah 
and  Israel. 

With  regard  to  the  institutions  of 
tlie  Philistines  our  information  is 
scanty.  The  five  chief  cities  had,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  constituted 
themselves  into  a  confederacy  as  early 
as  the  days  of  Joshua,  restricted,  how- 
ever, in  all  probability,  to  matters  of 
offense  and  defense.  Each  was  un- 
der the  government  of  a  prince.  Gaza 
may  be  regarded  as  having  exercised  a 
hegemony  over  the  others  ;  for  in  the 
lists  of  the  towns  it  is  mentioned  the 
first  (Josh.  xiii.  3  ;  Am.  i.  7,  8),  except 
where  there  is  an  especial  ground  for 
giving  prominence  to  another,  as  in 
the  case  of  Ashdod  (I  Sam.  vi.  17). 
Ekron  ahvavs  stands  last,  while  Ash- 


dod, Ashkelon,  and  Gath  interchange 
places.  Each  town  possessed  its  own 
territory,  and  each  possessed  its  de- 
pendent towns  or  "  daughters  "  (Josh. 
XV.  45-47  ;  1  Chr.  xviii.  1  ;  2  Sam. 
i,  20  ;  Ez.  xvi.  27,  57)  and  its  villages 
(Josh.  I.e.).  The  gods  whom  they 
chiefly  worshiped  were  Dagon,  who 
possessed  temples  both  at  Gaza  (Judg. 
xvi.  23)  and  at  Ashdod  (1  Sam.  v.  3- 
5  ;  1  Chr.  x.  10 ;  1  Mace.  x.  83) ; 
Ashtaroth,  whose  temple  at  Ashkelon 
was  far-famed  (1  Sam.  xxxi.  10); 
Baal-zebub,  whose  fame  at  Ekron  was 
consulted  by  Ahaziah  (2  K.  i.  2-C). 
Priests  and  diviners  (I  Sam.  vi.  2) 
were  attached  to  the  various  seats  of 
worship. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  Philis- 
tines, the  great  enemy  of  the  chosen 
people,  have  given  their  name  to  the 
whole  of  the  Holy  Land,  for  Pales- 
tine is  merely  another  form  of  Phil 
istia.     See  p.  281. 


A5syii:m  Kiug  ia  his  Robes. 

BOOK  V. 

THE  SINGLE  MONARCHY.     B.C.  1095-975. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE  KEIGN  OF  SAUL  AND  EAKLY  HISTORY  OF  DAVID. 

1056. 


B.C.  1095- 


§  1 ,  End  of  the  Theocracy :  the  people  desire  a  king.  §  2.  Saul :  his  char- 
acter and  family.  §  3.  His  visit  to  Samuel,  designation,  aiointing,  and 
the  signs  of  God's  favor.  §  4.  His  election  as  king  by  lot,  acceptance 
by  the  people,  and  inauguration  in  tlie  kingdom  by  Samuel.  §  5.  His 
relief  of  Jabesh-gilead  from  Nahash  the  Ammonite — Second  inaugura- 
tion of  the  kingdom,  and  retirement  of  Samuel,  at  Gilgal.  §  6.  Saul's 
second  year — The  "  War  of  Michmash  "  with  tiie  Philistines— The  first 
case  of' Saul's  disobedience,  and  the  first  sentence  of  rejection — Jona- 
than surprises  the  camp  of  the  Philistines— Their  rout,  and  Saul's  foolish 
vow — Jonathan  saved  by  the  people — Other  enemies  subdued — Saul's 
kingdom  fully  established— His  family,  guards,  officers,  and  regal  state. 


380  The  Reign  of  Saul.  Chap.  XX 

§  7.  Second  period  of  Saul's  reif;;n — His  mission  arrainst  Amalek,  disc 
bedience,  and  final  rejection — Samuel's  last  parting  witli  Saul,  and 
mourning  for  him.  §  8.  Samuel  sent  to  Bethlehem  to  anoint  David 
the  son  of  Jesse  as  the  first  true  King  of  Israel — His  lineage,  character, 
and  early  life — Sources  of  inform.ation.  §  9.  The  war  of  Ephes-dammim 
with  the  Philistines — David's  visits  to  the  camp:  liis  character  for  cour- 
age and  prudence — He  soothes  Saul's  madness  with  his  harp — Slays 
Goliath,  and  becomes  Saul's  armor-bearer — Beginning  of  his  friendship 
with  Jonathan,  and  of  Saul's  jealousy — David  marries  Michal,  and  be- 
comes captain  of  the  body-guard.  §  10.  Saul's  open  plots  against  Da- 
vid's life — David's  flight  to  Ramah,  to  Achish,  to  the  Cave  of  Adullam, 
and  to  the  wilderness — His  visit  to  Nob,  and  Saul's  slaughter  of  the 
priests — Saul's  pursuit  of  David  :  their  two  interviews — Death  of  Sam- 
uel— The  story  of  Nabal,  and  David's  double  marriage  to  Abigail  and 
Ahinoam — His  final  flight  to  the  Philistines,  and  settlement  at  Ziklag. 
§  11.  Gathering  of  the  Philistines  at  Jezreel — Saul  and  the  witch  of 
Endor — David  returns  from  the  Philistine  camp  and  avenges  the  sack 
of  Ziklag.  §  12.  Battle  of  Mount  Gilboa — Death  of  Saul  and  his  sons — 
David's  lamentation  for  Saul  and  Jonathan — The  Psalms  of  this  second 
period  of  David's  history. 

§  1.  The  Philistine  yoke  was  broken,  and  the  attacks  of 
enemies  on  the  other  frontiers  had  ceased.  Peace  was  re- 
stored to  Israel  nnder  the  wisest  and  holiest  ruler  they  had 
had  since  Joshua,  and  it  might  have  seemed  that  the  theocra- 
cy was  safely  re-established.'  And  yet  it  is  not  surprising 
that  the  people  should  have  thought  less  of  their  present  se- 
curity than  of  their  past  dangers,  and  that  the  season  of  tran- 
quillity was  used  as  an  opportunity  for  obtaining  what  they 
deemed  a  stronger  and  more  permanent  government.  The 
offer  of  the  crown  to  Gideon  proves  that  this  desire  had  long 
been  growing,  from  envy  of  the  splendor  and  power  of  the 
surrounding  monarchies,  and  from  a  bitter  sense  of  the  dis- 
orders of  those  times  when  "there  was  no  king  in  Israel,  and 
every  man  did  what  was  right  in  his  own  eyes."  And,  just 
as  we  often  see  the  effect  of  some  inveterate  evil  reach  its 
climax  at  the  very  moment  when  the  cause  itself  seems  to 
have  been  subdued,  so  the  settlement  of  the  government  by 
Samuel  failed  to  avert  the  revolution  for  which  the  miscon- 
duct of  his  sons  gave  the  immediate  occasion.  The  elders  of 
Israel  came  to  him  at  his  house  at  Ramah,  and  pleading  his 
own  great  age,  and  the  evils  growing  up  again,  their  sense  of 
which  would  be  the  keener  from  the  remembrance  of  Ho phni 
and  Phinehas,  they  plainly  made  the  request,  "3Iake  us  a 
KING,  to  judge  us,  like  all  the  nations.''''^ 

Their  idea  of  a  king*  may  be  summed  up  in  the  tliree  points 

^The   passage   in  1   Sam.  ix.  16,    threatening   to  recover  the   ascend- 
however,  indicates  a  state  of  things    ency.  ^  1  Sam.  viii,  5. 
in  which  the  Philistines  were  always        ^  See  especially  v.  20. 


B.C.  1095.  Demand  for  a  King.  881 

of  a  leader  always  ready  at  their  head  in  war,  a  judge  pro- 
vided without  interruption  by  the  law  of  hereditary  descent,* 
and  a  court  invested  with  dignity  and  magnificence.  Their 
reference  to  the  prophet  proves  that  they  wished  to  have  the 
divine  sanction  to  their  desire. 

It  w^as  a  trying  moment  for  Samuel,  as  a  man,  a  father,  and 
a  prophet  of  Jehovah :  "  The  thing  was  evil  in  the  eyes  of 
Samuel."  At  his  age,  and  with  his  spirit,  we  can  not  suppose 
him  to  have  been  much  concerned  at  the  loss  of  his  own  pow- 
er. The  slight  to  his  government  w^as  excused  by  the  mis- 
conduct of  his  sons ;  and  keenly  as  w^e  see  that  he  felt  the  im- 
plied rebellion  against  Jehovah,  the  case  was  beyond  the  reach 
of  mere  reproof,  and  the  people  would  not  have  been  content- 
ed wdth  the  simple  reply  of  Gideon,  "  Jehovah  shall  rule  ovei 
you."  Samuel  applied  himself  to  the  resource  that  never 
failed  him,  he  prayed  unto  Jehovah.  *  His  indignation  was  at 
once  justified  and  chastened  by  the  assurance,  "  They  have 
not  rejected  thee^  but  they  have  rejected  me  from  reigning 
over  them." 

These  w^ords  are  the  key  to  the  w'hole  history  of  the  He- 
brew monarchy ;  but  they  must  not  be  viewed  as  entirely 
words  of  anger.  God  pitied  the  infirmities  of  His  people, 
even  while  He  punished  their  self-will  by  granting  their  de- 
sire. So  Samuel  is  instructed  to  grant  them  their  request, 
but  not  till  he  had  first  solemnly  warned  them  of  its  immedi- 
ate results,  in  the  oppression  w^hich  their  king  w^ould  exercise 
till  they  should  cry  out  to  Jehovah  against  the  master  of  their 
own  choice.^  The  prophet's  description  of  a  self-willed  king 
should  be  compared  with  the  law  laid  down  by  Moses,  in 
anticipation  of  the  kingdom.'  The  expostulation  had  no  ef- 
fect ;  and,  after  once  more  laying  before  Jehovah  their  reply, 
"  We  loill  have  a  king  over  us,"  and  again  receiving  the  com- 
mand to  make  them  a  king,  Samuel  sent  them  back  to  their 
cities,  to  await  the  man  selected  for  them  in  the  providence 
of  God.^  We  must  not  suppose  that  that  man  w^ould  be  a 
ferocious  tyrant,  at  once  beginning  to  inflict  the  retribution 
of  their  folly.  Like  their  own  idea  of  a  monarchy,  he  cover- 
ed, under  a  fair  exterior,  great  possibilities  of  good,  and  the 
seeds  of  still  greater  evil. 

§  2.  Saul,  a  name  rendered  memorable  in  the  annals  of  the 
tribe  of  Benjamin  and  of  the  world,  by  the  king  and  the  apos- 

*  In  ancient  times  and  Eastern  |  stood  by  the  Jews,  is  clear  from  the 
countries  this  notion  was  inseparable  offer  of  the  crown  to  Gideon  (Judg. 
from  royalty.     That  it  was  so  under- 1  viii.  22).  ^  1  Sam.  viii.  6. 

*  1  Sara.  viii.  7-18.  ■"  Deut.  xvii.  16-20.  *  1  Sam.  viii. 


S82  The  Reign  of  Saul  Cnxv.  XX. 

tie,  its  first  and  last  owners  named  in  Scripture,  Vvas  the  son 
of  Kish,  a  wealthy  and  powerful  Benjamite,  though  of  a  fam- 
ily not  conspicuous  in  the  tribe,  whose  descendants  can  be 
traced  to  the  time  of  Ezra."  Saul  is  described  as  "  a  choice 
young  man,  and  a  goodly :  there  was  not  among  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  a  goodlier  person  than  he  ;'"  from  his  shoulders 
and  upward,  he  was  taller  than  any  of  the  2>eople."^^  To 
this  physical  excellence,  characteristic  of  his  tribe,  he  added 
no  small  share  of  its  ungovernable  temper,  which  opposition 
and  disappointment  aggraA^ated  to  madness,  the  common  fate 
of  despots,  as  Ave  see  in  Cambyses,  Caligula,  and  Paul  of  Rus- 
sia. He  Avas  the  creature  of  impulse ;  often  kindly,  as  in  his 
loA'e  for  David  and  Jonathan,  often  noble,  as  in  his  patriotic 
zeal  for  God,  but  always  Avanting  the  control  of  steady  prin- 
ciple. 

His  birthplace  is  uncertain.  Zelah  was  the  place  of  his  fa- 
ther's sepulchre, ^^  buthis  royal  residence  Avas  at  Gibeah,  thence 
called  "  Gibeah  of  Saul ;"  and  this  to^Yn  seems  to  have  been 
the  abode  of  at  least  a  part  of  the  family.'^  His  age  at  the 
time  of  his  election  is  not  stated ;  but  Ave  can  hardly  suj^pose 
so  great  a  dignity,  inA^olving  the  chief  command  in  Avar  and 
the  judgeship,  to  have  been  conferred  on  a  man  under  forty; 
and  this  agrees  Avith  Avhat  Ave  knoAV  of  the  ages  of  his  sons. 
Jonathan,  his  eldest  son,  appears  as  a  Avarrior  the  year  after 
Saul's  accession,'*  and  Ish-bosheth,  his  younger  son,  Avas  for- 
ty years  old  at  his  father's  death. '^  The  chronology  of  his 
accession  is  obscured  by  the  absence  of  any  clear  indication 
of  the  period  of  Samuel's  judgeship  after  the  deliA^erance  from 
the  Philistines,  from  Avhich  epoch  Ave  have  already  shoAvn  that 
the  forty  years  which  St.  Paul  assigns  to  Saul  should  prob- 
ably be  dated.**'  We  can  scarcely  suppose  him  to  have  been 
so  old  as  scA'enty  at  his  death,  in  b.c.  1050,  according  to  the 
common  chronology. 

§  3.  Saul  was  led  to  Samuel  to  be  anointed  to  his  future 
office  by  AAdiat,to  the  eyes  of  men,  might  have  seemed  an  ac- 
cident.'^ His  father  Kish,  having  lost  his  asses,  sent  Saul 
Avith  a  serA^ant  in  search  of  them.  They  passed  through 
Mount  Ephraim,  and  by  Shalisha  and  Shalim,  till  they  came 
on  the  third  day  to  the  neighborhood  of  Samuel's  abode,  here 

^  1  Sam.  ix.  1,  21.  See  the  pedi-  I  where  lie  andJonathan  are  described 
gree  in  the  Notes  and  J /lustrations  as  "swifter  than  eagles  and  stronger 
(A.).  than  lions." 

'"  Conip.  2  Sam.  i.  19  ;  where  he  is  ^-  2  Sam.  xxi.  14.  ^M  Sam.x.  13, 
called  "the  gazelle  of  Israel."  "  1  Sam.  xiii.  1,  2.  ^^  2  Sam.  ii.  8.. 

"  1  Sam.  ix.  2 ;  comp.  2  Sam.  i.  23,        '^  Acts  xiii.  21.         "1  Sam.  ix. 


B.C.  1095.  Saul  Anointed  by  Samuel.  383 

called  the  land  of  Zuph/®  Saul  now  proposed  to  return,  lest 
his  father's  care  for  the  asses  should  pass  into  anxiety  for  him 
and  the  servant — a  mark  of  his  aifectionate  disposition.  The 
servant,  however,  told  him  that  in  the  city  which  they  were 
approaching  there  dwelt  a  man  of  God  who  was  held  in  the 
highest  honor,  and  all  whose  words  came  to  pass  ;  perhaps  he 
might  direct  them  where  to  find  the  asses.  Saul's  difficulty 
about  the  present  which  it  Avas  usual  to  offer  when  consult- 
ing a  seer  (for  such  was  the  name  of  a  x>rophet  in  those  days) 
was  removed  by  the  servant,  who  had  with  him  the  fourth  part 
of  a  skekel  of  silver.  As  they  ascended  the  hill  on  which  the 
city  stood,  they  learned  from  the  maidens  who  had  come  out  to 
draw  water  that  the  seer  had  just  returned  from  one  of  his  judi- 
cial circuits,  and  was  expected  to  bless  the  sacrifice  and  festival 
which  the  people  were  holding  on  that  day  in  the  high  place 
above  the  city;  and, just  as  they  entered  the  city, they  met 
Samuel  coming  forth  for  that  purpose.  Samuel  was  prepared 
for  the  interview.  God  had  forwarned  him  the  day  before 
that  he  would  send  to  him  on  the  morrow  a  Benjamite,  whom 
he  should  anoint  to  be  captain  over  Israel,  to  deliver  them 
out  of  the  hand  of  the  Philistines  ;  and  now,  as  Saul  approach- 
ed, the  word  of  Jehovah  came  to  Samuel :  "  Behold  the  man 
whom  I  spake  to  thee  of!  this  same  shall  reign  over  my  peo- 
ple." Samuel  made  himself  known  to  Saul,  and  having  told 
him  that  his  father's  asses  were  found,  he  astonished  him  by 
the  salutation,  "  On  whom  is  all  the  desire  of  Israel?  Is  it  not 
on  thee,  and  on  all  thy  father's  house  ?"  Waiting  as  the  peo- 
ple were  for  their  destined  king,  Saul  could  not  but  suppose 
what  Samuel  meant ;  and  he  pleaded  that  his  family  was  the 
least  in  Benjamin,  itself  the  smallest  tribe  in  Israel.  Post- 
poning further  explanation,  Samuel  led  Saul  and  his  servant 
into  the  banqueting-chamber  on  the  high  place,  and  seated 
them  above  all  the  thirty  guests  who  were  assembled,  per- 
sons whose  limited  number  proves  their  consequence  in  tho 
city.  Samuel  then  ordered  the  cook  to  place  before  Saul  the 
portion  w^hich  he  had  told  him  to  reserve  for  an  expected 
guest,  namely,  a  boiled  shoulder^  at  once  the  choicest  part  of 
the  sacrifice,  and  the  emblem  of  the  w^eight  of  government 
which  he  was  to  sustain. ^^  After  the  banquet  they  went 
down  from  the  high  place  to  the  city,  and  Samuel  lodged  Saul 
on  the  top  of  his  house,  a  favorite  sleeping-place  in  the  East. 

'®  Some  connect  this  name  with  the  nppellation  of  Samuel's  city,  ^^^' 
m^ihiixm-Zophhii .  It  perhaps  indicates  that  tlie  whole  region  was  a  rango 
of  heacon-heights. 

"  Comp.  Lev.  vii.  32  ;  Ezek.  xxiv,  4  ;   Is.  ix.  6, 


884:  The  Reign  of  Saul.  Chap.  XX 

At  daybreak  the  prophet  aroused  his  guest  and  led  hira 
out  of  the  city ;  and  then,  the  servant  having  been  sent  on 
before  them,  Samuel  bade  Saul  stand  still  to  hear  the  word 
of  Jehovah.  Thereupon,  producing  a  vial  of  oil,  he  poured 
it  on  his  head,  adding  the  kiss  of  homage,  and  telling  him 
that  Jehovah  had  anointed  him  to  be  captain  over  His  in- 
heritance. The  prophet  named  three  incidents  which  would 
happen  to  Saul  on  his  return,  as  signs  that  Jehovah  was  with 
him ;  the  first,  an  assurance  of  the  safety  of  his  father's  cat- 
tle, as  the  prophet  had  said;  the  second,  a  present  which 
was  to  be  an  earnest  of  the  future  ofi:erings  of  the  people  ; 
the  third,  the  descent  of  the  spirit  of  Jehovah  upon  liim, 
causing  him  to  prophesy,  and  turning  him  into  another  man. 
The  promised  change  began  at  the  moment  that  Saul  turned 
to  leave  Samuel:  he  felt  that  God  had  given  him  another 
heart,  and  the  appointed  signs  were  fulfilled  in  their  order. 
The  only  remaining  care  of  his  past  life  was  relieved  by  two 
men  who  met  him  by  Rachel's  sepulchre  at  Zelzah,  and  told 
him  that  the  asses  were  found,  and  that  his  father  Avas  anx- 
ious about  him.  At  the  oak  of  Tabor  he  met  three  men, 
who  presented  to  him  two  loaves  of  bread  out  of  the  offer- 
ings which  they  were  carrying  up  to  God  at  Bethel.  And, 
in  fine,  when  he  reached  "the  hill  of  God"  (probably  Gib- 
eah),  which  was  occupied  by  a  garrison  of  the  Philistines, 
a  company  of  propliets  came  down  from  the  high  place  with 
the  instruments  of  music  which  they  were  taught  to  use  in 
the  service  of  God  ;  and,  as  they  began  to  prophesy,  the 
spirit  of  God  fell  upon  Saul,  and  he  prophesied  among  them. 
This  sign  of  his  inspiration  was  the  more  decisive,  as  he 
seems  to  have  been  a  man  unlikely  to  exhibit  religious  fer- 
vor. Those  who  had  known  him  before  expressed  their 
amazement  by  the  question,  which  passed  into  a  proverb, 
"  Is  Saul  also  among  the  prophets  ?"  and  there  were  some 
who  went  so  far  as  to  question  the  source  of  such  inspira- 
tion by  suggesting,  "  But  who  is  their  father  ?"^''  Saul  then 
went  up  to  the  high  place,  apparently  the  hill  of  Gibeah,  to 
the  residence  of  his  uncle  (or  his  grandfather),  IS^er,  in  reply 
to  whose  curious  inquiries  he  told  what  Samuel  had  said 
about  the  asses,  but  said  nothing  about  the  matter  of  the 
kingdom.  After  this  private  designation  to  his  office,  he  re- 
turned to  his  home.''^ 

§  4.  The  time  soon  came  for  his  public  manifestation  to 
Israel.     Samuel  convened  the  people  at  Mizpeh ;  and,  after 

^  Comp.  Matt.  xii.  24-27.  '^^  1  Sam.  ix.,  x.  1-16. 


B.C.  1095.  Saul  Accei^ted  by  t/ie  People.    '  385 

once  more  reproving  them  for  rejecting  God  and  resohdng 
to  have  a  king,  he  called  on  them  to  present  themselves  be- 
fore God  by  their  tribes  and  their  thousands.  Then,  wheth- 
er by  lot,  or  by  the  Urim  and  Thummim,  or  by  any  other 
mode  of  expressing  the  choice  of  God,  the  tribe  of  Benjamin 
was  taken."  The  tribe  was  brought  by  its  families,  and  the 
family  of  Matri  was  taken ;  and  lastly,  out  of  that  family, 
the  choice  fell  on  Saul,  the  son  of  Kish,  but  he  was  no- 
where to  be  found.  Again  they  consulted  the  oracle,  whicli 
revealed  his  hiding-place  ;  and  he  was  found  concealed  among 
the  baggage  of  the  camp — so  little  eager  was  he  to  thrust 
himself  into  the  oiidce  to  which  he  knew  his  call.  He  was 
brought  into  the  midst  of  the  congregation,  and  there  he 
towered  above  all  the  people  from  his  shoulders  upward. 
His  goodly  presents  won  universal  favor ;  and  when  Samuel 
presented  him  as  the  king  whom  Jehovah  had  chosen,  the 
like  of  whom  was  not  to  be  found  among  all  the  people,  they 
shouted  w4th  one  voice  "God  save  the  king.""^  From  this 
whole  scene  it  is  clear  that  what  is  said  of  the  choice  ot  God 
is  not  to  be  understood  as  an  absolute  preference  for  Saul  as 
being  the  man  best  fitted  for  the  king  of  Israel,  but  as  the 
selection  of  one  possessing  the  endowments  which  would  rec- 
ommend him  to  the  people  as  the  king  that  they  desired. 
He  is  commended  to  the  people  for  the  goodliness  of  his  out- 
ward form ;  and  in  this  very  same  matter  of  the  choice  of  a 
king,  the  same  prophet  was  afterward  instructed  by  God  to 
"  look  not  on  his  countenance  or  the  height  of  his  stature : 
.  .  .  for  man  looketh  on  the  outward  appearance,  but  Jeho- 
vah looketh  on  the  heart. '"^^  Throughout  the  whole  transac- 
tion, God  was  giving  the  people  their  own  desire,  and  the 
history  of  Saul  is  the  working  out  of  the  experiment. 

In  another  sense,  however,  he  was  the  king  of  Jehovah's 
choice.  The  whole  circumstances  of  his  selection,  and  his 
anointing  by  the  prophet,  invested  him  with  authority  which 
bound  the  people  to  be  subject  to  him  as  an  ordinance  of 
God.  But  he  was  also  himself  subject  to  a  law.  That  law 
had  been  given  through  Moses,  in  anticipation  of  this  day," 
and  now  Samuel  wrote  it  in  a  book  and  laid  it  up  before  Je- 
hovah in  the  sanctuary,  after  he  had  rehearsed  it  to  the  peo- 
ple, whom  he  then  dismissed  to  their  homes.     Saul  retired 


^^  It  is  most,  important  to  clistin- 
pnish  this  choice  from  an  election  by 
the  people. 

"  Literallv,  "Let  the  kinj;  live!" 

^^  Deut.  xvii.  14,  foll- 
R 


but  the  case  is  one  of  those  in  which 
the  popular  phrase  has  passed  beyonJ 
the  power  of  alteration. 
1  Sam.  xvi.  7. 


386 


The  Reign  of  Saul. 


Chap.  XX. 


at  the  same  time  to  his  home  at  Gibeah,  with  no  other  ret- 
inue than  a  band  of  vohmteers,  whose  hearts  God  had  touch- 
ed. Some  murmurs  of  contempt  Avere  heard  against  him  at 
Gibeah,  Avhere  his  prophetic  gifts  had  already  been  derided, 
and  some  few  "  men  of  Belial "  neglected  to  bring  him  pres- 
ents ;  but  he  held  his  peace,  waiting  for  an  opportunity  to 
prove  himself  w^orthy  of  the  crown  by  his  services  to  his 
people." 

§  5.  That  opportunity  soon  arrived.  During  the  later 
years  of  Samuel  the  enemies  of  Israel  had  gained  strength, 
and  this  w^as  one  chief  reason  of  the  desire  for  a  king."  We 
have  seen  the  Philistines  in  possession  of  the  citadel  of  Gib- 
eah, and  now  we  meet  again  with  the  enemy  whom  Jeph- 
thali  had  subdued.  Nahash^**  the  Ammonite  marched  against 
Jabesh-gilead,  and  would  only  listen  to  the  oifer  of  a  capitu- 
lation on  the  cruel  and  shameful  terms  of  j^utting  out  the 
right  eyes  of  all  the  people  and  laying  it  as  a  disgrace  on 
Israel.  The  men  of  Jabesh  obtained  a  delay  of  seven  days, 
and  sent  for  help  to  Saul  at  Gibeah.  Saul  w^as  returning 
with  his  cattle  from  the  field  when  he  heard  the  cry  of  the 
people  at  the  tidings.  Then,  as  we  read  of  the  other  cham- 
pions of  Israel,  the  spirit  of  Jehovah  came  upon  him,  and  he 
sunynoned  Israel  to  the  field  by  a  token  as  pow- erful  as  the 
"  fiery  cross  "  of  the  G^lic  chiefs.  Cutting  a  yoke  of  oxen 
into  small  pieces,  he  sent  them  througliout  all  Israel,  declar- 
ing that  so  it  should  be  done  to  the  oxen  of  him  w^ho  came . 
not  out  after  Saul  and  Samuek^^  When  the  forces  w^ere 
numbered  in  Bezek,  there  were  300,000  warriors  of  Israel, 
and  30,000  of  Judah.  On  the  sixth  day  of  the  truce,  the 
men  of  Jabesh  received  Saul's  promise  of  help  before  to-mor- 
roAv's  noon,  and  they  sent  Avord  to  Nahash  that  they  would 
place  themselves  in  his  hands.  In  the  morning  Avatch,  Saul, 
Avith  his  army  in  three  divisions,  fell  upon  the  unsuspecting 
Ammonites,  and  slaughtered  them  till  the  heat  of  the  day 
put  an  end  to  the  pursuit.  His  triumph  Avas  adorned  by  an 
act  of  regal  clemency.  The  people  called  on  Samuel  to  put 
to  death  the  men  Avho  had  despised  the  new^-made  king ;  but 
Saul  declared  that  not  a  man  should  be  put  to  death  on  that 
day,  in  Avhich  Jehovah  had  saved  Israel.^" 


^^  1  Sam.  X.  17-27. 

^^  Comp.  1  Sam.  xii.  12. 

'^^  The  name  signifies  serpent,  and 
furnishes  an  indication  of  Ophite 
worship  among  the  Ammonites. 

"  This  association  of  Samuel  with 


himself  should  be  particularly  ob- 
served ;  as  should  also  the  separate 
enumeration  of  Judah,  which  agrees 
with  what  we  have  before  noticed.  It 
may  also  indicate  the  time  wben  the 
narrative  was  v.ritten      ^'  1  Sam,  xi. 


B.C.  1095.     Second  Inauguration  of  the  Kutrjdom.  387 

Having  thus  given  proof  of  his  merit,  Saul  was  again  soi* 
enmly  inaugurated  into  his  kingdom.  For  this  purpose  Sam- 
uel called  the  assembled  hosts  to  follow  him  to  Gilgal,  and 
there  they  held  a  high  festival,  with  sacrifices  to  Jehovah. 
But  their  joy  was  not  unmingled.  The  time  was  come  for 
Samuel  to  lay  down  his  judicial  office  ;  and  the  hoary  proph- 
et, protesting  his  own  integrity  in  the  sight  of  those  before 
whom  he  had  Avalked  from  his  childhood  to  that  day,  and 
whose  voice  now  bore  Avitness  to  his  words,  reasons  with 
them  of  all  that  God  had  done  for  them  from  the  time  that 
Jacob  went  down  to  Egypt  till  that  hour.  He  recalls  their 
deliverance  from  Egypt,  from  Sisera,  from  the.  Philistines, 
and  from  the  King  of  Moab ;  their  idolatries  and  -their  re- 
pentances, and  the  missions  of  Jerubbaal  and  Bedan,^'  and 
Jephthah  and  Samuel ;  and  yet,  he  adds,  when  Nahash  came 
against  them,  they  must  needs  have  a  king,  though  Jehovah 
their  God  was  their  king.  Now  then  they  had  their  king, 
set  over  them  by  Jehovah,  and  it  rested  with  them  Avhether 
his  kingdom  should  be  established.  If  they  would  fear  Je- 
hovah and  serve  Him,  and  keep  His  law,  both  king  and  peo- 
ple should  continue  to  be  His ;  but  if  they  were  rebellious, 
His  hand  would  be  against  them,  as  it  had  been  against  their 
fathers.  Then  pointing  to  the  sky,  which  had  been  brilliant 
with  the  unchanging  clearness  of  an  eastern  June  (for  it  was 
the  season  of  the  wheat-harvest),  he  prayed  to  God,  who 
sent  the  portent  of  a  thunder-storm  to  confirm  his  words. 
The  terrified  people  confessed  their  latest  sin,  and  besought 
Saxiiuel  to  pray  for  them  that  they  might  not  die.  He  com- 
forted them  with  the  promise  of  the  future,  warning  them 
not  to  let  the  sense  of  past  guilt  lead  them  into  further  sin, 
and  protested  that  he  would  never  cease  to  pray  for  them, 
and  to  teach  them  the  good  and  right  way. 

With  these  words  of  comfort,  Samuel  closed  his  public  life 
as  the  sole  judge  of  Israel.  But  his  office  did  not  entirely 
cease  ;  for,  as  we  have  seen,  "  he  judged  Israel  all  the  days  of 
his  life."  In  his  subsequent  relations  to  Saul,  there  is  clear- 
ly more  than  the  sort  of  r.uthority  whicli  the  later  prophets 
never  ceased  to  exercise  as  special  messengers  of  Jehovah  to 


^^  Jerubbaal  is  a  surname  of  Gide- 
on. As  the  name  of  Bedan  occurs 
in  the  Book  of  Judges,  various  con- 
jectures have  been  formed  as  to  the 


other  name  for  Samson.  But  as  it 
is  clear  that  the  Book  of  Judges  is 
not  a  complete  record  of  the  period 
of  which  it  treats,  it  is  possible  that 


person  meant.     Some  maintain  him    Bedan  was  one  of  the  judges  whose 
to  be  the  Jair  mentioned  in  Judg.  x.    names  are  not  preserved  in  it. 
3 ;  others   suppose  Bedan  to  be  an- 1 


388  The  Reign  of  Saul  Chap.  XX. 

reprove  the  sins  of  the  king  and  direct  him  on  great  occa- 
sions. Samuel's  is  a  power  constantly  present  to  check  the 
waywardness  of  Sanl,  and  at  last  reversing  his  election  and 
designating  his  successor. 

§  6.  The  preceding  events  occupied  the  first  year  of 
Saul's  reign.^^  In  the  second,  he  set  to  Avork  systematical- 
ly to  deliver  Israel  from  their  enemies.  He  gathered  a 
chosen  band  of  3000  men,  two-thirds  being  with  him  in  the 
camp  at  Michmash  and  the  hills  of  Bethel,^^  and  the  other 
1000  at  Gibeah,  with  his  son  Jonathan,  whose  name  now 
first  appears  in  the  history.  Jonathan's  successful  attack  on 
the  Philistine  garrison  in  the  hill  of  Geba  opposite  Michmash 
was  the  signal  for  Saul's  summoning  the  Israelites  to  the  war. 
His  trumpet  sounded  through  all  the  land,  and  his  camp  was 
fixed  at  Gilgal,  the  scene  of  his  inauguration,  and  the  old 
camp  of  Joshua.  The  Philistines  answered  the  challenge 
Avith  an  immense  army,  comprising  30,000  chariots  and  6000 
horsemen,  besides  infantry  without  number,  and  encamped  at 
Michmash,  on  the  highlands  Avhich  Saul  had  abandoned.  The 
Israelites  lied  to  w^oods  and  caves  and  the  fastnesses  of  the 
rocks,  while  even  the  warriors  trembled  as  they  followed 
Saul.  The  king  Avaited  impatiently  at  Gilgal  for  the  seven 
days  within  which  Samuel  had  promised  to  come  and  ofi:er 
sacrifice,  while  his  forces  were  rapidly  disj^ersing.^*  On  the 
seventh  day  he  ventured  to  begin  the  sacrifices  himself; 
and  he  had  just  ended  the  burnt-oflfering,  when  Samuel  ar- 
rived, and  asked  him  what  he  had  done.  Saul  pleaded  the 
danger  of  the  Philistines  coming  down  the  pass  to  attack  him 
at  Gilgal ;  but  Samuel  declared  that  he  had  acted  with  sinful 
folly,  and  uttered  the  first  intimation  thus  early  in  his  reign 
of  wdiat  lie  had  already  threatened  in  case  of  disobedience,^^ 
that  his  kingdom  should  not  be  lasting,  for  Jehovah  had  al- 
ready sought  out  "a  man  after  his  own  heart,  to  be  captain 
over  his  people."  After  this  threat,  which  seems  to  have 
been  uttered  privately  to  Saul,  Samuel  went  away  to  Gibeah, 

'^  1  Sam.  xiii.  1.  I  Bethel"  of  the  text.      On  the  other 

^^  Miclimash  is  probably  the  mod-  side  of  the  ravine  was  Geba,  with  its 
ern  Mukhmas,  a  village  about  seven  Philistine  garrison,  the  furthest  post 
miles  north  of  Jerusalem,  on  the  which  they  held  toward  the  east, 
northern  edge  of  a  ravine  which  Geba  and  Gibeah  were  very  near 
forms  the  chief  pass  between  the]  each  other,  and  it  is  difficult  to  dis- 
bighlands  of  Benjamin  and  the  val-  1  tinguish  them  clearly.  The  names 
ley  of  the  Jordan  about  Jericho  and  are  evidently  confounded  in  two  of 
Gilgal.  Bethel  is  about  four  miles  three  passages  of  the  Hebrew  text. 
north  of  Michmash,  and  the  intervcn- 1  ^'  Comp.  I  Sam.  x.  8. 
ing  hills  seem  to  form  the  "Mount!      ^'^  Comp.  1  Sam.  xii.  25. 


B.C.  1093.        Jonathan  Surprises  the  Philistines. 


889 


and  Saul  followed  with  his  little  band  of  only  600  men  and 
encamped  on  the  south  side  of  the  ravine,  on  the  north  of 
which  lay  the  Philistines.  He  w^as  joined  at  Gibeah  by  the 
high-priest  Abiah,  the  son  of  Abitub,  son  of  Phinehas,  son  of 
Eli,  and  it  would  seem  that  the  ark  was  brought  up  for  the 
time  from  its  house  at  Kirjath-jearim.^°  Meanwhile  the  Phil- 
istines overran  the  country  from  their  head-quarters  at  Mich- 
mash,  w^hence  three  bands  of  spoilers  issued  forth.  No  smith 
was  suffered  to  work  in  Israel,  but  the  people  went  to  the 
camps  of  the  Philistines  to  sharpen  their  tools;  Saul  and 
Jonathan  alone  had  swords  and  spears." 

An  unhoped-for  deliverance  w^as  effected  by  God's  blessing 
on  the  courage  of  Jonathan.  Familiar  as  he  must  have  be- 
come during  the  encampment  at  Michmash  with  the  ravine 
at  its  foot,  he  planned  a  surprise  of  the  Philistine  camp  with- 
out the  knowledge  of  his  father  or  the  high-priest,  but  trust- 
ing in  Jehovah,  with  whom,  said  he,  "  there  is  no  restraint  to 
save  by  many  or  by  few.'"^  With  one  faithful  comrade,  his 
armor-bearer,  who  fully  shared  his  spirit, ^^  he  climbed  up  the 
opposite  side  of  the  ravine  between  two  sharp  crags,  named 
Bozez  and  Seneh.  They  had  resolved  to  show  themselves  to 
the  Philistines,  and  to  draw  an  omen  from  the  words  witli 
which  they  might  be  received ;  and  accordingly  when  the 
Philistines,  who  took  them  for  two  Hebrews  wandering  out 
of  their  hiding-places,  said  to  them,  "  Come  up,  and  we  will 
show  you  something,"  Jonathan  concluded  that  Jehovah 
had  delivered  them  into  the  hands  of  Israel.  Climbing  with 
hands  and  feet  up  the  face  of  the  precipice,  which  was  sup- 
posed to  make  the  camp  impregnable,  Jonathan  fell  upon  the 
enemy,  his  armor-bearer  slaying  after  him.*"  They  killed  at 
this  first  onset  about  twenty  men,  and  the  rest  were  seized  by 
a  panic,  which  was  increased  by  an  earthquake,  so  that  they 
went  on  striking  down  each  other.  The  Hebrews  who  fre- 
quented the  camp  of  the  Philistines  now  turned  against  them ; 
and  others  came  out  of  the  caves  with  w^hich  those  rocks 
abound  to  join  in  the  slaughter.  The  scene  was  witnessed 
with  amazement  by  the  watchmen  in  Saul's  camp  at  Gibeah ; 
and  on  counting  the  people,  it  was  discovered  that  Jonathan 
and  his  armor-bearer  had  left  the  camp.  Saul  bade  the  high- 
priest  to  bring  the  ark,  that  he  might  consult  Jehovah  ;  but, 


3"  1  Sam.  xiii.  1-16,  xiv.  2,  3,  18. 
^'  1  Sam.  xiii.  17-23. 
3«  I  Sam.  xiv.  6.    ''  1  Sam.  xiv.  7. 
^^  1  Sam.  xiv.   13,    ]4.     The   ob- 
scure words  of  V.  14  mav  mean  that 


they  bore  down  the  enemy  like  a 
yoke  of  oxen  ploughing,  or,  as  tlie 
LXX.  translate  it,  that  they  slew 
them  with  the  arrows  and  stones  from 
their  bows  and  slings. 


^90  The  Reign  of  Saul.  Chap.  XX. 

as  the  noise  in  the  Philistine  camp  increased,  he  rushed  to 
the  pursuit,  driving  the  foe  down  the  pass  of  Bethaven  as  far 
as  Aijalon,  the  very  ground  over  which  Joshua  had  pursued 
the  Oanaanites  in  his  most  memorable  victory.  The  pursuit 
was,  how^ever,  hindered  by  the  exhaustion  of  the  people,  con- 
sequent on  Saul's  rash  vow  devoting  to  a  curse  the  man  who 
should  taste  food  till  sunset,  They  were  passing  through 
one  of  those  woods  where  the  wild  bees  build  their  combs  in 
the  branches  in  such  numbers  that  the  honey  drops  from  the 
trees,  and  no  man  dared  even  to  carry  his  hand  to  his  mouth 
for  fear  of  Saul's  oath,  when  Jonathan,  who  had  now  rejohi- 
ed  the  army,  dipped  the  end  of  his  staff  in  a  honey-comb  and 
put  it  to  his  mouth.  His  sense  of  new  life  caused  him  to  in- 
veigh bitterly  against  his  father's  vow,  of  which  he  was  now 
informed  for  the  first  time.  When  evening  came,  the  famish- 
ed people  flew  upon  the  spoil,  and  began  to  eat  the  cattle 
w^ith  the  blood.  Saul  reproved  their  sin,  and,  building  an 
altar,  the  first  that  he  built  to  Jehovah,  he  bade  the  people 
bring  each  his  ox  or  sheep  and  slay  it  there.  He  then  pre- 
pared to  continue  the  pursuit  by  night ;  but  the  high-priest 
reminded  him  that  all  this  time  they  had  not  asked  counsel 
of  God.  Saul  now  inquired  if  he  should  pursue  the  Philis- 
tines, but  the  oracle  was  silent.  He  set  himself  to  find  the 
hidden  sin,  swearing  by  the  life  of  Jehovah  that  the  man 
should  die,  were  it  Jonathan  his  own  son.  As  no  one  answer- 
ed, he  cast  lots,  with  prayer  to  God,  between  the  i)eople  on 
one  side,  and  himself  and  Jonathan  on  the  other,  and  Saul 
and  Jonathan  were  taken.  A  second  lot  fell  on  Jonathan,  and 
Saul  would  have  kept  his  oath,  but  the  people  interposed  to 
save  their  champion's  life.  So  Saul  returned  from  the  2)ur- 
suit  of  the  Philistines." 

The  "  War  of  Michmash,"  as  the  above  campaign  is  called, 
was  followed  by  a  series  of  victories  over  all  the  other  ene- 
mies of  Israel,  Moab,  Amnion,  Edom,  the  kings  of  Zobah, 
the  Philistines  again,  and  the  Amalekites,  of  Avhom  more 
will  presently  be  said.  This  is  the  brightest  period  of  the 
life  of  Saul,  who  now  assumed  his  full  royal  state :  he  "  took 
the  kingdom."*^  His  own  fiimily  made  a  goodly  show. 
Besides  Jonathan,  his  court  was  graced  by  two  sons,  Ishui 
and  Melchi-shua,  and  two  daughters,  Merab  and  Michal,  the 
children  of  his  wife  Ahinoam,  daughter  of  his  father's  sister 
Ahimaaz.*^     His  standing  army  of  3000  men  was  command- 

"  1  Gam.  xiv.   1-4G.      There  are  |      ''-  1  Sam.  xiv.  48,  40. 
many    points    of    likeness    between        ^^  He   liad  other   children   by    his 
Jephthah's  vow  and  Saul's.  |  second  wife  Kizpali,  who  was  also  his 


B.C.  lO'JO.  SaiiVs  Court  and  Royal  State.  391 

eel  by  his  uncle,  Abner,  the  son  of  Ner,  one  of  the  noblest 
men  and  greatest  warriors  in  the  history  of  Israel ;"  and  he 
had  a  body-guard  of  Benjamites,  chosen  for  their  beauty  and 
stature,  as  runners  and  messengers,  of  Avhom  David  after- 
ward became  the  chief"  These  two  commanders  sat  at  the 
king's  table^^  with  Jonathan,  whose  seat  was  opposite  his 
father's.  In  recruiting  these  guards,  the  king  acted  in  the 
arbitrary  manner  which  Samuel  had  predicted ;  "  when  he 
saw  any  strong  man,  or  any  valiant  man,  he  took  him  to 
him.self""  The  herds  of  cattle,  which  formed  the  chief  part 
of  the  royal  Avealth,  and  the  servants  who  had  the  charge 
of  them,  were  under  a  chief  officer,  corresponding  to  the  con- 
stable {comes  stabuli)  of  the  mediaeval  monarchies,  who  had 
constant  access  to  the  king's  presence.  Saul  gave  this  office 
to  an  Edomite,  named  Doeg,  who  became  infamous  as  the 
slayer  of  the  priests.*®  Even  the  high-priest,  as  we  have 
seen,  attended  the  commands  of  the  king,  both  in  the  camp 
and  court,  with  the  sacred  ej^hod,  as  a  means  of  consulting 
the  divine  will ;  and  Saul  assumed  the  power  of  giving  him 
orders  at  all  times  througli  his  messengers  ;*"  so  far  had  the 
theocracy  sunk  from  tliat  state  in  which  the  people  used  to 
stand  before  the  tabernacle,  to  receive  the  sole  behests  of 
Jehovah  their  king  through  the  prophet  and  the  priest ! 

Whether  sitting  at  table  w^ith  these  officers,  whose  attend- 
ance was  especially  required  on  the  new  moon  and  other 
festive  days,  or  whether  he  appeared  in  public,  surrounded 
by  his  body-guard,  the  king  was  distinguished  by  a  tall 
spear,  suited  to  his  stature,  which  was  placed  beside  his 
chair  when  he  rested,  and  by  his  pillow  when  he  slept,  and 
which  he  wielded  with  terrible  effiect  in  battle,  where  the 
mightiest  weapons  of  Israel  were  the  spear  of  Saul  and  the 
bow  of  Jonathan. ""  He  wore  over  his  arms  a  royal  diadem 
and  a  golden  armlet.^'  He  loved  to  hear  the  acclamations 
of  the  people,  and  the  songs  with  which  the  women  greeted 
him  as  they  came  out  of  the  cities  of  Israel,  to  welcome  his 
return  from  battle  and  to  receive  robes  of  scarlet  and  orna- 
ments of  gold  from  the  spoil." 


cousin  (see  the  pedigree  in  Notes  and 
Jllustrations). 

^*  1  Sam.  xiii.  2,  xiv.  50,  xxiv.  2, 
xxvi.  2 ;  comp.  1  Chr.  xii.  29. 

"  1  Sam.  xvi.  15,  17,  xxii.  7,  U, 
17,  xxvi.  22  ;  Joseph.  Ant.  vi.  G,  §  6, 
vii.  U. 

^^  1  Sam.  XX.  25. 


•^^  A  Syrian,  accordins  to  the  LXX 
(I  Sam.  xxi.  7,  xxii.  9-19). 

*^  1  Sam.  xxi.  2.  The  practice 
may  be  infen-ed  from  David's  pre- 
tense of  such  a  commission. 

^«  1  Sam.  xviii.  10,  xix.  9,  xx.  33, 
xxvi.  11  ;   2  Sam.  i.  6. 

^'2  Sam.  i.  10. 


*^  1  Sam.  xiv.  52 ;  comp.  viii.  11.     \      '^M  Sam.  xviii.  G ;  2  Sam.  i.  24. 


892  The  Reign  of  Saul.  Chap.  XX. 

§  7.  Such  was  Saul's  outward  state  during  the  first  of  the 
three  periods  into  which  we  may  divide  his  reign.  But  be- 
neath  it  all  was  the  remembrance  of  the  doom  pronounced 
by  Samuel  at  Gilgal,  and  rendered  irrevocable  by  SauPs  con^ 
duct  during  the  second  stage  of  his  career.  He  seems  like 
one  impelled  by  the  intoxication  of  power  to  brave  the  very 
fear  that  haunted  him,  and  an  act  of  open  disobedience  to 
God  determined  his  fate. 

Amid  his  career  of  victory  over  the  surrounding  heathen, 
which  tended  to  the  twofold  object  of  giving  Israel  the 
promised  bounds  of  their  possession  and  of  punishing  those 
nations  for  their  past  sins,  Saul  received  a  special  commis^ 
sion  to  execute  the  vengeance  long  since  denounced  on 
Amalek  for  their  treacherous  attack  on  Israel  in  the  wilder- 
ness of  Sinai. ^^  The  command  was  given  by  the  mouth  of 
Samuel,  and  enforced  by  an  appeal  to  Saul's  allegiance  to 
Jehovah's  word  by  the  prophet  who  had  anointed  him.  He 
was  commanded  to  destroy  Amalek  utterly,  man  and  woman, 
infant  and  suckling,  ox  and  sheep,  camel  and  ass.  He  mus- 
tered the  forces  of  Israel,  200,000  infantry,  besides  10,000 
of  Judah,  at  -Telaim,  on  tlie  edge  of  the  southern  desert. 
Having  first  warned  the  old  allies  of  Moses,  the  Kenites,  to 
depart  from  among  the  Amalekites,^*  he  fell  upon  the  tents 
of  the  tribe,  and  pursued  them  with  great  slaughter  from 
Havilah  to  Shur,  on  the  frontier  of  Egypt."  Agag,  their 
king  or  sheikh,  was  taken  prisoner ;  but  all  the  rest  of  the 
people  Avere  put  to  death,  clearly  showing  that  Saul  Avas  not 
moved  to  disobedience  by  any  feelings  of  humanity.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  Agag  was  spared  to  add  splendor  to 
Saul's  triumphant  return,  as  a  king  making  war  for  himself 
rather  than  as  the  servant  of  Jehovah.  The  spoil  was  dealt 
with  in  like  manner ;  and  here  the  people  shared  the  sin, 
sparing  all  the  best  of  the  cattle  and  all  that  was  valuable, 
and  destroying  all  that  Avas  vile  and  refuse.  It  Avas  doubt- 
less true  in  part,  as  Saul  afterAvard  declared,  that  he  Avould 
have  offered  some  of  the  cattle  in  sacrifice  to  God ;  but  the 
chief  motive  in  sparing  them  Avas  clearly  to  enrich  his  fol- 
lowers Avith  the  spoil.  Instead  of  pursuing  the  campaign 
and  finishing  the  destruction  of  the  fugitives,  he  returned  by 
Avay  of  CarmeP"  to  the  old  camp  of  Gilgal. 

MeauAvhile  Samuel  had  been  commanded  to  meet  him  at 

^^  I  Sam.  XV.  1--3;  comp.  Ex.  xvii.  |  **'  A  place  in  the  extreme  sonth  of 
8;  Num.  xxiv.  20;  Dent.  xxv.  17-19.   Judali,  which  of  course  must  not  be 

"Comp.  Num.  xxiv.  21  ;  Judg.  i.  confounded  with  Mount  Carmel  in 
IG,  iv.  11.  ^M  Sam.  xv.  4-7.        the  north. 


B.C.  1079.  Samuel  reproves  Saul's  Sin.  393 

that  place  for  the  second  time.  The  word  of  Jehovah  had 
declared  to  the  prophet  that  mysterious  change  in  the  divine 
purpose  which  is  so  often  expressed  by  one  striking  word : 
"  It  repenteth  me,  that  I  have  set  up  Saul  to  be  king."  The 
old  man's  affection  for  Saul  overflowed  in  tears  and  cries  of 
prayer  all  the  night,  but  in  the  morning  he  rose  up  to  fulfill 
his  hard  commission.  No  interview  recorded  in  history  has 
a  deeper  moral  significance.  Elated  with  his  victory,  and  re- 
solved to  brave  out  the  voice  of  conscience,  Saul  meets  Sam- 
uel  with  aft'ected  pleasure,  and  anticipates  inquiry  by  claim- 
ing the  praise  of  a  duty  well  discharged  :  "  Blessed  be  thou 
of  Jehovah  !  I  have  performed  the  commandment  of  Jeho- 
vah !"  "  What  meaneth,  then,"  rejoined  Samuel, "  this  bleat- 
ing of  sheep,  and  this  lowing  of  oxen  ?"  Descending  one 
more  step  in  prevarication,  and  trying  to  evade  the  responsi- 
bility of  the  act,  Saul  replied  that  the  people  had  reserved 
these  for  sacrifice,  while  they  had  destroyed  the  rest ;  but 
Samuel  cuts  short  his  excuses  by  bidding  him  hear  the  word 
of  Jehovah.  Before  pronouncing  the  fatal  sentence,  he  re- 
minds liim  of  his  low  estate  before  God  exalted  him,  and 
asks  why  he  had  disobeyed  the  command  of  God.  Saul  re- 
peats the  same  excuse,  with  another  attempt  to  throw  the 
responsibility  on  the  people,  and  a  word  thrown  in  to  propi- 
tiate the  prophet,  "  to  sacrifice  unto  Jehovah,  thy  God^  in  Gil- 
gal."  Then  Samuel  proclaims  that  eternal  principle  of  mor- 
al  duty  in  condemnation  of  every  attempt  to  propitiate  God, 
and  yet  to  retain  our  sin  and  have  our  own  way  :  "  Hath  Je- 
hovah as  great  delight  in  burnt-offerings  and  sacrifices,  as  in 
obeying  the  voice  of  Jehovah !  Behold,  to  obey  is  better 
THAN  SACEiFiCE,  and  to  hearken  than  the  fat  of  rams.  For 
rebellion  is  as  the  sin  of  witchcraft,"  and  stubbornness  is  as 
iniquity  and  idolatry.  JBecause  thou  hast  rejected  the  loord  of 
Jehovah.,  He  hath  also  rejected  thee  from  being  hingP  Over- 
w^helmed  with  remorse,  Saul  confessed  his  fault,  though  still 
pleading  that  he  had  done  it  for  fear  of  the  people,  and  pray- 
ed Samuel  to  pardon  his  sin,  and  to  turn  back  and  join  hira 
in  worshiping  Jehovah.  Samuel  refused,  and  reiterated  the 
sentence.  As  he  turned  to  depart,  Saul  caught  at  his  proph- 
et's mantle,  but  only  to  receive  a  new  sign  of  his  fate.  The 
mantle  was  rent,  and  Samuel  said  that  even  so  had  Jehovah 
rent  the  kingdom  of  Israel  from  Saul,  and  given  it  to  a  neigh- 
bor of  his,  who  was  better  than  himself.  He  confirmed  the 
sentence  by  a  solemn  asseveration :  "  The  Strength  of  Is* 

"  A  sin  against  which  Saul  was  most  zealous. 
R2 


S94  Tlie  Reign  of  Saul.  Chap.  XX 

RAEL  will  not  lie  nor  repent,  for  He  is  not  a  man  that  he 
should  repent !"  It  is  beyond  the  power  of  human  judgment 
to  decide  what  might  have  been  the  result,  even  at  this  last 
moment,  if  Saul  had  betaken  himself  to  public  humiliation 
and  imj^ortunate  prayer ;  but  his  only  prayer  was  to  be  saved 
from  public  humiliation.  He  entreated  Samuel  to  honor  him 
before  the  people  by  turning  again  to  join  in  the  sacrifices. 
Samuel  consented,  but  he  used  the  opportunity  to  inflict  the 
sentence  of  death  on  Agag.  He  sent  for  the  King  of  Amalek, 
wiio  approached  with  every  mark  of  outward  deference,  be- 
lieving that  "  the  bitterness  of  death  was  past."  The  pity  w^e 
are  tempted  to  feel  for  him  is  silenced  by  Samuel's  declara- 
tion of  the  justice  of  his  doom :  "  As  thy  sword  hath  made 
women  childless,  so  shall  thy  mother  be  childless  among 
women."  And  Samuel  hewed  Agag  in  pieces  before  the  Lord 
in  Gilgal. 

This  was  Samuel's  last  interview  with  Saul,  for  w^hom  he 
still  retained  that  aflTection  which  is  a  strong  tribute  to  the 
better  features  of  Saul's  character.  While  Saul  went  to  his 
royal  residence  at  Gibeah  Samuel  returned  to  his  house  at 
Ramah,  where  he  mourned  for  Saul  with  a  prolonged  bitter- 
ness which  at  last  incurred  the  reproof  of  God,  who  had  new 
work  for  him  to  perform  in  Ihe  designation  of  Saul's  succes- 
sor. Meanwhile  Jehovah's  repentance  at  having  made  Saul 
king  is  emphatically  repeated.  ^^ 

§  8.  Samuel  was  recalled  from  the  indulgence  of  his  grief 
by  a  command  to  fill  a  horn  with  the  consecrated  oil  laid  up 
in  the  tabernacle,  and  to  go  to  Bethlehem,  where  God  had 
chosen  a  king  among  the  sons  of  Jesse,  the  grandson  of  Boaz 
and  Ruth,^^  and  the  heir  of  their  wealth  and  distinction  in  the 
city.  To  remove  his  fear  of  Saul's  anger,  the  prophet  is  di- 
rected to  take  with  him  a  heifer,  and  to  invite  Jesse  to  a 
sacrifice.  His  arrival  caused  much  alarm,  but  he  assured  the 
elders  that  he  came  in  peace,  and  bade  them  and  the  house 
of  Jesse  to  sanctify  themselves  for  the  sacrifice.  There  the 
family  of  Jesse  made  a  goodly  show.  To  his  distinction  as 
the  chief  man  of  the  city,  he  added  that  of  an  age  remarkable 
in  those  degenerate  days,**"  and  he  was  surrounded  by  all  his 
eight  sons,  except  the  youngest,  who  seems  to  have  been  of 
small  consideration  in  the  family,  and  accordingly  was  sent 
abroad  to  tend  the  sheep.  Struck  with  the  noble  figure  of 
the  eldest  son,  Eliab,  the  very  counterpart  of  Saul,  Samuel 

"^  1  Sam.  xv.,xvi.  1. 

'"  1  Sam.  xvi.     See  the  pedigree  in  the  No(es  and  Illustrations  (B). 

«''2  Sam.  xvii.  12. 


B.C.  1063.  David  Anointed  hij  Samuel.  395 

said  to  himself,  "  Surely  the  anointed  of  Jehovah  is  before 
me :"  but  he  was  warned  not  to  judge  a  second  time  by  so 
false  a  standard.  Jehovah  said  to  him,  "Look  not  on  his 
countenance,  or  on  the  height  of  his  stature^  because  I  have 
refused  him  ;  for  it  is  not  as  man  seeth  ;  for  man  looketh  on 
the  outward  appearance,  but  Jehovah  looketh  on  the  heart.'''* 
In  like  manner  the  prophet  rejected  Abinadab,  the  second, 
Shammah,  the  third,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  seven.  Samuel 
asked  Jesse,  "Are  all  thy  children  here?"  No;  there  still 
remained  the  youngest,  who  was  with  the  sheep.  "  Send  and 
fetch  him,"  said  the  j^rophet,  "  for  we  will  not  sit  down  till 
he  come."  Soon  there  entered  a  fair  youth,  with  reddish  or 
auburn  hair,  and  keen  bright  eyes,"^  his  beautiful  countenance 
flushed  with  his  healthy  occupation,  and  his  whole  aspect 
pleasant  to  behold.  Then  Jehovah  said  to  Samuel,  "  Up  and 
anoint  him  :  for  this  is  he  !"  In  the  presence  of  his  brethren 
Samuel  poured  the  horn  of  sacred  oil  upon  his  head,  and  then 
returned  to  his  house  at  Ramah,  having  performed  his  last 
public  act.  From  that  day  forth  the  Spirit  of  Jehovah  came 
on  David  {^^  the  beloved''''),  for  such  was  the  name  of  Jesse's 
youngest  son,  the  new  "  root "  of  the  princely  tribe  of  Judah, 
the  first  true  King  of  Israel,  and  the  greatest,  since  Abraham, 
of  the  progenitors  of  the  Chkist,  who,  as  David's  son,  was 
"  anointed  "  in  his  anointing. 

This  is  all  that  we  are  distinctly  told  of  David's  early  life 
in  Scripture,  the  simple  records  of  which  must  not  be  con- 
taminated with  the  Oriental  legends,  nor  even  illustrated, 
without  the  greatest  caution,  from  the  Jewish  traditions 
which  are  recorded  by  Josephus.  It  may  be  well  here  to  no- 
tice the  true  authorities  for  the  life  of  David. 

1.  Each  of  the  three  prophets,  with  whom  David  lived  in 
the  closest  intimacy,  Samuel,  Gad,  and  Nathan,  wrote  a  me- 
moir of  that  part  of  his  life  which  came  respectively  under 
their  notice.  ^^  We  may  be  quite  sure  that  Samuel,  Irom  the 
time  of  his  mission  to  Bethlehem,  would  watch  David's  ca- 
reer wdth  the  deepest  interest,  and  that  he  w^ould  recoi'd  all 
that  he  could  learn  of  him  and  his  ancestry  in  the  history  of 
his  own  times,  which  we  can  not  doubt  to  have  heen  the  oc- 
cupation of  his  last  years  at  Ramah,  "  the  Book  of  the  Proph- 
et Sa^nueV  The  close  relation  maintained  between  David 
and  the  prophet  is  shown  by  the  former  taking  refuge  with 
the  latter  when  he  fled  from  the  court  of  Saul.  Gad  joined 
him  in  his  wanderings,  and  lived  at  his  court,  and  Nathan 

'■'*  1  Sam.  xvi.  12,  in  the  Hebrew^  ''^  .1  ChroD.  xxix.  29. 


396 


The  Reign  of  Saul. 


Chap.  XX. 


was  the  faithful  mentor  of  his  later  years.  Though  these 
books  have  not  come  down  to  us  in  their  original  form,  we 
can  not  doubt  that  we  have  their  substance,  and  generally 
their  actual  contents,  in  the  First  and  Second  Books  of  Sam- 
uel^ with  1  Kings  i.  ii.  Indeed  it  is  strictly  in  accordance  with 
the  HebrcAV  idiom  to  \'ead  the  passage  in  Chronicles^  "  the 
book  (or  history)  of  Samuel  the  seer,  and  Nathan  the  prophet, 
and  Gad  the  seer,"  that  is,  theii' joint  composition,  which  could 
tlien  hardly  be  other  than  that  which  we  still  have  under  the 
double  title  of  the  Books  of  Samuel  and  of  the  Kings. 

2.  Another  contemporary  authority  was  the  '''' Chroyiicles 
{or  State  Papers)  of  King  David^^^^  a  record  which  David 
undertook  with  his  characteristic  love  of  truth  and  order. 
That  the  substance  of  this  work  is  preserved  in  the  ^^First 
Booh  of  Chronicles''''  is  clear  from  its  very  form.  Beginning 
from  Adam,  with  the  genealogies,  which  the  Jews  justly  re- 
garded as  the  basis  of  all  history,  and  in  them  giving  the 
most  minute  account  of  the  tribe  of  Judah  and  the  line  of 
David,^*  it  dismisses  Saul  with  the  genealogy  of  his  family, 
and  only  breaks  out  into  the  form  of  a  consecutive  narrative 
Avith  the  battle  in  which  he  died,  and  from  which  the  reign 
of  David  began.'''  The  rest  of  the  book  is  occupied  entirely 
with  the  history  of  David. 

3.  Of  still  deeper  interest  for  the  true  knowledge  of  Da- 
vid as  a  man  and  as  the  servant  of  Jehovah  are  his  Psalms, 
which  serve  as  a  mirror  for  his  very  nature,  Avhich  we  would 
venture  to  compare  in  this  respect  to  Cicero's  letters,  were 
there  not  a  sort  of  profanation  in  naming  the  most  earnest 
strains  in  which  the  heart  of  man  has  ever  been  poured  out 
as  in  the  sight  of  God,  beside  such  revelations  as  a  man  of 
many  infirmities  chose  to  make  to  his  familiar  friends.  There 
are  many  critical  difficulties  in  deciding  which  of  the  Psalms 
are  David's  and  on  what  occasions  they  were  written  ;  what 
weight  should  be  given  to  the  titles  (many  certainly  errone- 
ous), and  what  to  internal  evidence  ;  but  there  remains  an 
ample  store  of  his  own  undoubted  utterances,  of  the  deepest 
interest  not  only  for  his  own  life,  but  in  which  his  is  the  very 
pattern  of  the  experience  of  humanity,  and  himself  the  type 
of  the  "  Son  of  Man,"  the  true  head  of  the  human  race.     The 

)  •'  threefold  cord  "  of  personal  experience,  sympathetic  utter- 
V^nce  on  behalf  of  humanity  in  general,  and  Messianic  prophe- 
q!ji^  must  not  be  loosed  in  the  vain  attempt  to  discriminate 


63  \  ^Dhron.  xxvii.  24. 

6*  Of  t?ourse   the   continuation    of 

this    f^'^^    "^    nthpv    crpr>f>nlociPa    be- 


longs  to    the   uhimate   form   of  tho 
book. 
^^  1  Chron.  x. 


B.C.  10G3. 


.David's  Person  and  Character. 


397 


each  strand.  In  some  sense  all  that  David  says  of  himself 
belongs  to  every  servant  of  Jehovah,  and  to  the  chief  servant 
and  son,  who  was  the  antitype  of  all  the  rest. 

From  these  sources  of  information  we  can  gather  that  Da- 
vid was  of  a  beautiful,  though  not  a  commanding  person, 
strong  and  agile,  and  endowed  with  the  exquisite  organiza- 
tion of  the  poet  and  the  musician.  As  the  youngest  in  a  large 
family,  he  was  subject  to  the  scorn  of  his  elder  brothers,  and 
his  occupation  as  a  shepherd,  was  that  which  is  usually  allot- 
ted in  the  East  to  servants,  women,  and  dependents,  as  we  see 
in  the  cases  of  Rachel  and  Zipporah,  Jacob  and  Moses.  But 
these  apparent  disadvantages  became  the  very  life-springs 
of  his  manly  and  devout  character.  It  is  of  course  impossi- 
ble to  draw  the  Ime  of  distinction  between  his  life  before  and 
after  his  designation  by  Samuel ;  but  w^e  may  well  believe 
that  those  elements  of  character  were  already  forming  which 
began  to  shine  forth  when  the  Spirit  of  Jehovah  came  upon 
him.  The  lonely  watches  which  he  kept  by  night,  amid  the 
pastures  for  which  Bethlehem  was  famed,  opened  his  mind  to 
revelations  only  surpassed  by  those  made  to  later  shepherds 
in  the  same  fields  at  the  advent  of  his  Son  and  Lord.  If  he 
did  not,  like  them,  actually  hear  the  heavenly  host  praising 
God  and  saying,  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest !  Peace  on 
earth,  good-will  to  man  !"  he  was  taught  by  the  inward  voice 
of  God's  Spirit  to  utter  the  same  strains  to  the  music  of  his 
harp  ;  and  his  Psalms  show  how  he  used  the  imagery  spread 
out  before  his  eyes  by  day  and  night. ^^  At  this  time  he  must 
have  first  acquired  the  art  which  gave  him  one  of  his  chief 
claims  to  mention  in  after  times,  "  the  sweet  singer  of  Israel."" 
But  the  character  thus  formed  was  not  that  of  a  religious  re- 
cluse, unfitted  for  the  active  work  of  life.  The  personal  prow- 
ess which  he  proved  by  his  celebrated  combat  with  a  lion  and 
a  bear  in  defense  of  his  father's  ilocks,^^  appears  to  have  been 
also  exercised  in  conflicts  with  Bedouin  robbers  or  Philistine 
marauders ;  for,  on  his  first  introduction  to  Saul,  he  is  already 
known  as  "  a  mighty  valiant  man,  and  a  man  of  war,"^*  At 
the  same  time  he  had  already  a  reputation  for  the  prudence 
which  distinguished  him  in  after  life,  and  which  was  doubtless 
the  fruit  of  the  self-reliance  demanded  by  his  position  in  his  fa- 
ther's house.     It  seems  probable  that  he  found  congenial  com- 


'®  See  Psalms  vii.,  viii.,  xix.,  xxii., 
xxiii.,  xxix.,  xlii.,  Ixiii.,  cxlvii.,  and 
many  others. 

"'  2  Sam.  xxiii.  1. 

^^  1  Sara.  xvii.  34,  35 


^^  1  Sam,  xvi.  ]8.  Even  if  we 
adopt  another  explanation  of  these 
words  (see  §  9),  we  must  suppose  him 
to  have  had  a  natural  aptitude  and 
early  training  for  war. 


398  TJie  Reign  of  Saul  Chap.  XX, 

panions  in  his  nephews,  Abishai,  Joab,  and  Asahel,  the  sons  of 
Zeruiah,  and  Amasa  the  son  of  Abigail,  who  were  probably 
about  his  own  age,  and  who  afterward  became  his  most  fa- 
mous champions  in  war,  though  the  cause  of  many  a  trouble, 
from  their  want  of  sympathy  with  the  gentler  side  of  his 
character. 

§  9.  To  complete  his  qualifications  for  his  future  dignity, 
David  was  introduced  to  the  court  of  Saul ;  and,  after  being 
displayed  to  the  nation  as  a  rival  of  the  king  even  in  warlike 
fame,  his  character  Avas  braced  by  a  long  persecution.  The 
difficulties  Avhich  appear  on  the  comparison  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  chapters  of  Samuel,  as  they  stand  in  our 
text,'°  may  arise  from  the  interweaving  of  difterent  narratives 
in  an  order  not  strictly  chronological.  There  is  an  evident 
reason  for  placing  the  departure  of  Jehovah's  spirit  from  Saul 
in  immediate  contrast  with  its  descent  on  David  ;^^  but  the 
natural  order  of  the  events  after  David's  anointing  will  be 
found,  we  think,  in  the  i^assage  which  occurs  as  a  retrospect- 
ive episode  in  the  story  of  Goliath."  The  narrative  is  com- 
monly misunderstood  by  its  not  being  seen  that  this  victory 
w^as  the  crowning  incident  of  a  long  campaign. 

We  are  told  that  "  there  was  sore  war  against  the  Philistines 
all  the  days  of  Saul;""  and  the  whole  system  of  God's  deal- 
ings with  Israel  justifies  our  supposing  that  Saul's  crowning 
act  of  disobedience  was  followed  by  a  fresh  assault  of  these 
enemies.  The  Philistines  gathered  their  armies  at  Ephes- 
dammim  (the  Bowids  o/*^/oor/),  between  Shochoh  and  Aze- 
kah,  on  the  border  between  their  own  great  plain  and  the 
highlands  of  Judah.'*  Saul  and  the  men  of  Israel  Avere  gath- 
ered to  oppose  them  f  ^  and  among  those  who  followed  him 
Avere  the  three  eldest  sons  of  Jesse — Eliab,  Abinadab,  and 
Shammah.''^  Not  on  one  occasion  only,  but  habitually,  as 
we  judge  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  Jesse  sent  David  to  in- 
quire of  his  brothers'  welfare  and  to  supply  their  Avants.'^ 
With  his  natural  courage  animated  by  the  knoAvledge  of  his 


'"The  Vatican  MS.  of  the  LXX. 
omits  xvii.  12-31,  and  tilso  xvii.  54- 
xviii.  5.     See  note  ''\ 

''  I  Sam.  xvi.  13,  14. 

"'•  1  Sam.  xvii.  12. 

"  1  Sam.  xiv.  52. 

■'^  1  Sam.  xvii.  1.  Ephes-dammim 
lay  on  the  mountain  forming  the  Pas-dammim  (I  Chron.  xi.  13). 
south  side  of  tlie  valley  of  EU\h  (  Fa/- 1  ''^  1  Sam.  xvii.  2. 
IcT)  of  the  Terebinth),  which  is  proba- |  "  1  Sam.  xvii.  13. 
bly  that  now  called   Wady  e^-Smut       '^  1  Sam.  xvii.  17. 


(Valley  of  the  Acacia).  It  lies  about 
fourteen  miles  south-west  of  Jerusa- 
lem, on  the  road  to  Gaza,  and  is  in- 
tersected by  a  torrent  whose  bed  is 
full  of  round  pebbles,  like  those  which 
David  picked  out  of  the  brook. 
Ephes-dammim    is   elsewhere  called 


B.C.  1063.  The  Reign  of  Saul.  399 

high  destiny,  we  may  be  assured  that  David  would  not  neg- 
lect the  opportunity  afforded,  by  his  visits  to  the  camp  to 
begin  irregular  essays  in  the  art  of  Avar.  The  taunt  of  his 
brother  Eliab  that  he  had  come  down,  in  "  the  pride  and  naugh- 
tiness of  his  heart,  to  see  the  battle,'"^  seems  to  breathe  jeal- 
ousy rather  than  contempt.  The  supposition  that  he  had  en- 
gaged in  successful  skirmishes  with  the  Philistines  as  a  vis- 
itor to  the  camp,  and  that,  like  King  Alfred,  he  had  relieved 
the  tedium  of  the  watches  by  his  minstrelsy,  will  account  for 
his  being  known  to  Saul's  servants  as  "  a  mighty  valiant  man, 
and  a  man  of  war,  and  prudent  in  affairs,"  as  well  as  "  cun- 
ning in  playing  on  the  harp.'"® 

Meanwhile  the  mind  of  Saul  was  oppressed  by  this  new 
war,  and  by  the  foresight  of  the  fate  denounced  by  Samuel. 
"  The  spirit  of  Jehovah,"  which  had  descended  upon  him 
when  he  was  anointed,  now  "  departed  from  him,  and  an  evil 
sj)irit  from  Jehovah  terrified  him."^"  His  servants,  who  be- 
gan to  experience  the  terrible  caprices  of  a  despot's  incipient 
madness,  advised  him  to  try  the  charms  of  music,  always 
powerful,  against  melancholy,  and  believed  in  the  East  to 
possess  a  magical  influence  over  wild  and  venomous  beasts  as 
well  as  savage  men.  Saul  consented,  and  sent  to  Bethlehem 
for  David,  who  was  recommended  to  him  on  the  grounds  just 
now  stated.  Jesse  sent  his  son  with  a  present  to  the  king ; 
and  that  harj^,  which  has  since  cheered  many  a  perturbed 
spirit,  refreshed  the  soul  of  Saul  and  dispelled  his  evil  fancies.^^ 
The  narrator  of  this  incident  very  naturally  connects  the  fa- 
vor gained  by  David's  success  with  his  ultimate  advancement 
at  the  court  of  Saul,  wiio  obtained  Jesse's  consent  to  David's 
remaining  with  him,  and  made  him  his  armor-bearer.^^  But 
it  does  not  follow  that  this  took  place  at  once ;  and  such  a 
view  is  quite  inconsistent  with  the  plain  statement  that  Da- 
vid returned  from  Saul  to  feed  his  father's  sheep  at  Bethle- 
hem.^^ His  departure  from  the  court  explains  Saul's  forget- 
fulness,  and  Abner's  ignorance  of  his  person  and  family.®* 
The  commander  of  the  forces  was  not  likely  to  trouble  him- 
self about  the  young  shepherd-minstrel ;  and,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  proverbially  short  memory  of  kings  for  their  benefac- 
tors, Saul  had  chiefly  seen  him  in  his  hours  of  madness.  Such 
is  what  we  may  safely  infer  to  have  been  the  course  of  events 
before  the  encounter  with  Goliath,  without  professing  to  dc- 


78 


1  Sam.  xvii.  28. 
'"  1  Sam.  xvi.  18. 
"^  I  Sam.  xvi.  U. 


S4 


1  s« 


"  I  Sam.  xvi.  15-20,  23. 
"  1  Sam.  xvi.  21,  22. 
^^  1  Sam.  xvii.  15. 


m.  XVII.  oo. 


400 


The   CJtampion  of  the  Philistines. 


Chap.  XX 


cicle  whether  they  all  occurred  during  the  encampment  oppo- 
site to  Ephes-dammim,  or  in  part  at  an  earlier  period  of  the 
campaign/^ 

Let  us  return  to  the  hostile  armies  at  Ephes-dammim.  The 
camps  of  Philistia  and  Israel  were  pitched  upon  two  heights, 
separated  by  the  valley  of  Elah,  across  which  the  hosts  con- 
fronted one  another  in  battle  array  morning  after  morning. 
A  strange  cause  delayed  their  conflict.  Every  morning  a 
champion  of  Gath,  named  Goliath/^  came  forth  out  of  the 
camp  of  the  Philistines,  and  stalked  down  into  the  valley  to 
offer  single  combat.  His  height  w^as  six  cubits  and  a  span ; 
he  was  armed  in  full  panoply  of  brass  (a  rare  thing  in  those 
days,  and  especially  among  the  Israelites),"  and  a  coat  of 
mail  weighing  5000  shekels.     His  spear-head  of  iron,  a  metal 


"  The  above  view  of  the  course  of  I 
events  assumes  the  correctness  of  the 
received  text.  That  of  the  Vatican  ' 
MS.  of  the  LXX.  would  lead  us  to  \ 
suppose  that  David  was  retained  at 
the  court  of  Saul  from  his  first  intro- 
duction, growing  in  his  favor  and  be- 
coming his  armor-bearer  (1  Sam.  ; 
xvi.  14-23).  In  that  capacity  he 
was  about  the  king's  person  when 
Goliath  defied  the  armies  of  Israel  (1 
Sam,  xvii.  1-11),  and  he  stepped 
forth  in  the  midst  of  the  veteran  war- 
riors to  accept  the  challenge  (1  Sam. 
xvii.  32).  Saul's  remonstrance  is 
certainly  capable  of  being  vmderstood 
as  addressed  to  a  youth  known  and 
loved,  and  for  whose  safety  he  feared  ; 
though,  if  David  had  been  Saul's 
armor- bearer,  we  can  scai'cely  un- 
derstand his  not  having  proved  the 
weight  of  his  armor,  or  his  preference 
for  tlie  simple  weapons  of  a  shepherd 
(I  Sam.  xvii.  38-40).  The  difficul- 
ties seem  to  be  very  plausibly  re- 
moved by  the  omission  of  xvii.  12-31, 
and  xvii.  55-xviii.  5;  but  whence 
did  the  Hebrew  and  the  other  MSS. 
Mf  the  LXX.  obtain  those  passages? 
If  not  integral  parts  of  the  text  in 
the  place  where  tliey  stand,  they  must 
at  least  be  portions  of  some  of  the 
ancient  records  of  David's  life ;  and 
we  still  have  to  encounter  the  diffi- 
culty of  finding  their  proper  place  in 
the  narrative,  for  we  can  not  treat 
them  as  apocryphal. 


^^  It  has  been  conjectured  that  he 
was  one  of  the  giant  race  oftheKeph- 
aim,  some  of  whom  took  refuge  from 
the  Ammonites  with  the  Philistines 
(Deuteron.  ii.  20,  21 ;  2  Samuel  xxi. 
22).  His  height  is  variously  stated  ; 
in  the  Hebrew  text  six  cubits  and  a 
;  span  (or  1 1  feet  4^  inches,  taking  the 
'cubit  at  21  inches);  by  the  LXX. 
and  Josephus,  four  cubits  and  a  span 
I  (7  feet  lOj  inches).  There  is  also  some 
confusion  about  his  name ;  as  Elha- 
nan  is  said  to  have  slain  a  Goliath  of 
Gath  whose  description  is  like  that 
!  of  the  text  (2  Sam.  xxi.  19)  ;  but  the 
i  parallel  passage  in  1  Chron.  xx.  5 
:  gives  "Lahmi,  the  brother  of  Go- 
j  liath  the  Gittite."  From  these  two 
■passages  we  may  infer  that  a  certain 
I  giant  of  Gath,  whose  name,  Rapha, 
[seems  to  connect  liim  with  the  Reph- 
i  aim,  had  five  sons,  Goliath,  Ishbibe- 
j  nob,  Saph,  Lahmi,  and  a  fifth  who 
I  is  not  named,  but  distinguished  as 
having  six  fingers  and  toes  on  each 
hand  and  foot.  We  may  here  men- 
I  tion  the  ancient  poem  on  David's 
I  victory  over  Goliath,  which  is  ap- 
ipended  to  the  Psalms  in  the  LXX., 
but  which  scarcely  reads  like  David's 
own  composition. 

^^  Comp.  1  Sam.  xiii.  19-22.  Even 
when  Saul  gives  David  his  own  ar- 
mor, we  read  of  a  brazen  helmet  and 
a  coat  of  mail,  but  not  of  the  greaves 
and  target  of  brass  (comp.  1  Sam. 
xvii.  5,  C,  with  1  Sam.  xvii.  38). 


B.C.  1063.  The  Reign  of  Saul.  401 

then  much  rarer  than  brass,  weighing  600  shekels,  and  its 
shaft  was  like  a  weaver's  beam.  Before  him  marched  an  ar- 
mor-bearer, carrying  his  shield ;  and  the  whole  description 
resembles,  what  it  perhaps  suggested,  the  poet's  moon-like 
orb  of  Satan's  shield,  and  his  spear  like  "  the  mast  of  some 
great  ammiral."  With  a  voice  answering  to  his  form,  he  de- 
manded of  "  the  servants  of  Saul  "  to  find  a  warrior  to  meet 
him,  a  free-born  Philistine,  and  proposed  that  the  nation 
whose  champion  was  defeated  should  serve  the  other.  His 
appearance  struck  dismay  into  Saul  and  all  his  people ;  they 
stood  motionless  throughout  the  day  ;  and  at  length,  the  de- 
fiance having  been  repeated  in  the  evening,  both  armies  re- 
tired to  their  camps. 

This  scene  had  been  repeated  for  forty  days,  when  David 
returned  to  the  camp,  on  a  visit  to  his  brethren.  He  reached 
the  circle  of  baggage  outside  the  camp  at  the  moment  when 
both  armies  were  drawn  up,  and  the  battle-cry  was  already 
raised.  The  temptation  was  irresistible.  He  left  the  bread 
and  parched  corn  and  cheeses,  which  he  had  brought  as  pres- 
ents for  his  brothers  and  their  captain,  with  the  guard  of  the 
baggage,  and  ran  into  the  ranks  where  his  brethren  stood. 
As  he  spoke  to  them,  the  champion  of  Gath  approached  and 
uttered  his  defiance,  and  all  who  stood  near  fled  before  him. 
The  Spirit  which  rested  upon  David  moved  him  with  indig- 
nation at  such  a  reproach  on  Israel.  "  Who,"  he  asked,  "  is 
this  Philistine,  that  he  should  defy  the  armies  of  the  living 
God?"  The  by-standers  told  him  that  Saul  would  give  his 
daughter  to  the  man  who  should  kill  the  Philistine,  and  en- 
riclihim  greatly,  and  make  his  house  free  in  Israel.  Heed- 
less of  the  taunts  of  Eliab,  Avho  rebuked  his  presumption  with 
the  authority  of  an  elder  brother,  David  repeated  his  inquir- 
ies till  his  words  came  to  the  ears  of  Saul.  When  brought 
before  the  king  he  bade  Israel  dismiss  their  fear,  for  he 
would  go  and  "fight  with  the  Philistine.  Not  with  proud 
contempt,  but  with  generous  anxiety,  Saul  reminded  him 
that  he  was  but  a  youth,  and  the  Philistine  a  warrior  from 
his  youth.  But  David  had  a  shepherd's  exploits  against 
wild  beasts,  not  to  boast  of,  but  to  plead  in  support  of  his 
faith,  that  "Jehovah,  who  had  delivered  him  out  of  the  paw 
of  the  lion,  and  out  of  the  paw  of  the  bear,  would  deliver  him 
out  of  the  hand  of  the  Philistine."  "  Go  !  and  Jehovah  be 
with  thee  !"  said  Saul,  his  own  early  trust  in  God  revived  by 
the  contagion  of  example.     He  armed  David  for  the  combat 

«*  1  Sam.  xvii.  4-1  U 


402 


David  slays   Goliath. 


Chap.  XX. 


ill  his  own  armor,  and  girded  him  with  his  own  swoid  ;  but 
David,  after  the  first  few  stej^s,  cast  them  oif  as  an  untried 
encumbrance  and  betook  himself  to  those  shej^herds'  weapons, 
for  their  skill  in  which  we  have  already  seen  that  his  country- 
men were  famous.  The  only  arms  of  David  were  his  shep- 
herd's staiF  and  sling,  with  hve  pebbles  which  he  took  from 
the  w^ater-course  r.nd  placed  m  his  pouch.  The  Philistine's 
scorn  for  the  ruddy  youth  swelled  into  rage  at  the  mode  of 
his  attack:  "Am  I  a  dog,"  he  asked,  "that  thou  comest  to 
me  Avith  staves  ?"  He  seems  to  have  overlooked  the  sling, 
"and  he  cursed  him  by  his  gods."  David  answered  his 
threats  with  the  calm  certainty  of  victory  which  befitted  a 
champion  who  avowed  that  the  battle  Avas  Jehovah's.  Both 
advanced,  David  with  the  swiftness  of  foot  for  which  he  was 
famous ;  but  before  his  foe  came  close,  he  took  a  stone  from 
his  bag  and  slung  it  into  the  forehead  of  the  Philistine,  Avho 
fell  to  the  ground  upon  his  fiice.  David  rushed  in  and  stood 
upon  him,  and,  drawing  the  Philistine's  own  sword  from  its 
sheath,  cut  off  his  head.  At  this  sight  the  Philistine  army 
fled,  pursued  by  Israel  with  great  slaughter  as  far  as  Gatli, 
and  even  to  the  gates  of  Ekron,  whence  the  victors  returned 
to  spoil  their  camp.  David's  own  trophies  were  the  head, 
the  armor,  and  the  sword  of  the  fallen  champion.  The  first 
he  exposed  at  Jerusalem ;  the  second  he  put  in  his  own  tent ; 
and  the  last  he  laid  up  in  the  tabernacle  at  Nob,  till  he  took 
it  for  his  own  weapon  in  his  time  of  need. ^^ 

As  David  had  gone  forth  to  the  encounter,  Saul  had  asked 
Abner  whose  son  the  young  man  was,  but  Abner  could  not 
tell  him.  Saul  repeated  the  inquiry  of  David  himself  Avhen 
Abner  ushered  the  youth  into  his  presence,  with  the  head  of 
the  Philistine  in  his  hand  ;  and  on  learning  his  father's  name, 
Saul  sent  to  ask  Jesse  to  let  David  remain  in  his  presence, 
and  he  made  him  his  armor-bearer.  But  Saul  gave  him  more 
than  the  sunshine  of  royal  favor,  the  warm  love  of  his  im- 
pulsive nature ;  while  his  son  Jonathan  conceived  for  David 
an  affection  which  at  once  ripened  into  one  of  those  friend- 
ships that  liave  become  proverbial  in  history — the  perfect 
union  of  the  "  friend  that  sticketh  closer  than  a  brother." 
They  made  a  covenant,  which  was  faithfully  observed  even 
when  Saul  became  David's  enemy,  and,  according  to  the  cus- 
tom in  such  cases,  Jonathan  clothed  David  with  his  own  gar- 
ments, to  his  sw^ord  and  bow,  and  girdle."" 

^^  1  Sam.  xvii.  20-54.  xviii.  2  seems  a  decisive  proof  of  the 

^^  1  Sam.  xvi.  21,  22,  xvii.  25-xviii.    true  order  of  the  story. 
4.     The  comparison  of  xvi.  22  with 


B.C.  1063.  Songs  of  the  Wome?i  of  Israel.  403  • 

In  this  new  position,  David  confirmed  tlie  character  for 
prudence  which  had  at  first  been  given  him.  Employed  by 
the  king  in  various  important  matters,  he  is  repeatedly  said 
to  have  "  behaved  himself  wisely  in  all  his  Avays,"  "  more 
wisely  than  all  the  servants  of  Saul,"  and  the  reason  is  giv- 
en, "  Jehovah  was  with  him.""  He  needed  all  his  prudence, 
for  Saul's  love  began  soon  to  turn  to  jealousy.  It  is  a  very 
interesting  question,  whether  any  tidings  of  Samuel's  visit  to 
Bethlehem  had  reached  the  court.  It  is  alike  difficult  to  un- 
derstand the  keeping  of  such  a  secret,  and  the  conduct  of  Saul 
and  Jonathan  to  David  if  it  had  transpired.  But  something 
may  be  ascribed,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the  jealousy  between 
Judah  and  Benjamin,""^  which  would  lead  the  elders  of  Beth- 
lehem to  keep  a  secret  so  vital  to  their  tribe ;  or  something, 
on  the  other  supposition,  to  the  fatalism  of  Saul  and  the  ro- 
mantic generosity  of  Jonathan,  combined  with  his  faith  in 
the  providence  of  Jehovah.  On  the  Avhole,  we  can  hardly 
think  that  David  was  yet  viewed  as  Saul's  anointed  succes- 
sor, though  Jonathan  afterward  recognizes  him  in  that  char- 
acter, and  Saul  openly  denounces  him  as  a  rival. "^  The  first 
occasion  for  this  jealousy  was  given  by  the  songs  of  the  He- 
brew women,  who  came  out  of  every  city  to  greet  the  vic- 
tors on  their  return  from  the  war  with  the  Philistines  ;  and, 
as  they  trooped  forth  "singing  and  dancing,  with  tabrets, 
with  joy,  and  instruments  of  music,"  they  added  to  their 
wonted  acclamation, 

'^  Saul  hath  slain  his  thousands,^^ 

the  resjDonse  of  the  whole  chorus, 

"And  David  his  ten  thousands." 

From  that  hour  Saul  viewed  David  with  the  evil  eye,  and 
his  fits  of  melancholy  became  charged  with  impulses  of  mur- 
der. On  the  very  next  day  he  twice  cast  his  spear  at  David 
as  he  sat  at  the  royal  table,  and  David  only  escaped  by  flee- 
ing from  Saul's  presence.  The  king's  saner  hours  were 
haunted  by  a  jealous  fear,  which  increased  with  David's 
prosperity."*  He  removed  him  from  his  ofiice  about  his  per- 
son, and  made  him  captain  over  a  thousand ;  but  the  only  re- 
sult Avas  that  David  became  better  known  and  more  beloved 


«'  1  Sam.  xviii.  5,  14,  15,  30.  The 
margin  of  our  version  gives  "he 
prospered ;''  and  we  may  well  undei- 
stand  it  of  that  perfect  union  of  pru- 
dence and  success  which  marks  the 
rery  prosperous  man, 


"  1  Sam.  xviii.  12,  li 


°^  Besides  other  proofs  of  this,  Ju- 
dah had  been  the  leader  in  the  mas- 
sacre of  Benjamin  (Judg.  xx.  18). 

«^  1  Sam.  XX.  15,  31 .  Still  later  he 
acknowledges  David  as  his  destined 
successor  (1  Sam.  xxiv.  20,  xxvi.  25). 


40-i  The  Reifjn  of  Saul  Chap.  XX 

by  all  the  })eople.°^  Saul  then  began  to  plot  more  system- 
atically  against  his  life.  He  oflered  to  perform  the  promise 
held  out  to  the  conqueror  of  Goliath  by  giving  him  his 
daughter  Merab ;  urging  him  to  win  the  prize  by  new  enter- 
prises, in  which  he  hoped  he  might  fall  by  the  hand  of  the  Phil- 
istines. After  all,  when  the  time  for  the  marriage  arrived, 
Merab  was  given  to  another.  Meanwhile  Saul's  second 
daughter,  Michal,  had  become  enamored  of  David  ;  and  Saul, 
with  the  low  cunning  of  a  diseased  mind,  saw  another  op- 
portunity for  his  destruction.  He  employed  his  servants  to 
demand  of  David  a  dowry  which  could  only  be  procured  by 
the  slaughter  of  a  hundred  Philistines ;  but  David  went 
down  with  his  own  trooj^  and  slew  two  hundred,  and  laid 
their  bloody  spoils  at  Saul's  feet,  thus  at  once  disappointing 
the  hope  of  his  destruction,  and  leaving  him  no  excuse  for 
breaking  his  word.^^  He  became  the  king's  son-in-law ;  and, 
as  Saul  would  naturally  keep  up  appearances,  this  was  prob- 
ably the  occasion  of  his  elevation  to  the  command  of  the 
bocly-guard,  a  post  only  second  to  that  of  Abner."  David's 
wife  proved,  like  Jonathan,  his  faithful  friend ;  for  which 
Saul  only  hated  him  the  more,  and  "  became  his  enemy  con- 
tinually." He  no  longer  concealed  his  thoughts,  but  order- 
ed Jonathan  and  his  courtiers  to  kill  David.  Jonathan,  how- 
ever, tried  the  eifect  of  an  earnest  remonstrance  Avith  his 
father,  contriving  that  David  should  overhear  the  conversa- 
tion, so  as  to  be  assured  of  Saul's  real  feelings,  and  the  result 
Avas  the  restoration  of  David  to  Saul's  favor. °^ 

§  10.  This  reconciliation  lasted  only  for  a  short  time.  Da- 
vid's exploits  in  a  ncAv  war  Avith  the  Philistines  again  pro- 
A'oked  the  fury  of  Saul,  Avho  nearly  pinned  him  to  the  Avail 
Avith  his  spear  for  the  second  time.  David  Hed  to  his  house, 
round  Avhich  Saul  set  a  watch  during  the  night,  intending  to 
kill  him  in  the  morning.^^  Michal  saved  her  husband's  life 
by  letting  him  doAvn  out  of  a  AvindoAA\  She  placed  an  im- 
age^"" in  ills  bed,  and  told  Saul's  messengers  that  he  Avas  sick. 
Saul's  persistent  demand  to  have  him  brought  to  him  exposed 
the  deception,  AAduch  Michal  boldly  justified.  MeauAvhile 
David  Avent  to  Samuel  at  Ramah,  and  dAvelt  Avith  him  at 

^5  1  Sam.  xviii.  13,  U,  IG.  [     °^  Psalm  lix.  is  referred  to  this  oc^ 

'"*"'  1  Sam.  xviii.  17-27.  jCasion,  on  the  authority  of  the  title. 

^'  1  Sam.  xviii.  5.  Here,  as  be- 1  ^"°  In  Hebrew  teraphim,  a  proof 
fore,  the  connection  of  thought  in  that  Michal  had  brought  into  tlic 
the  writer's  mind  may  have  been  house  of  David  that  domestic  idolatry 
jn-efcrrcd  to  the  exact  chronological  which  has  often  come  under  our  no- 
order.       -'*  1  Sam.  xviii.  28-xix.  7.      [tice. 


B.C.  1062.  David's  FlUjht  to  Ramah.  405 

Naiotb  (the  pastures),  near  the  city,  among  the  "  schools  of 
the  prophets,"  where  David  doubtless  cultivated  his  native 
gifts  of  psalmody  by  more  systematic  instruction  than  he 
had  yet  received.  When  the  messenger  sent  by  Saul  to  take 
him  saw  the  company  of  the  prophets  prophesying,  with 
Samuel  at  their  head,  the  Spirit  of  God  fell  upon  them  also, 
and  they  prophesied.  This  was  repeated  thrice ;  and  at  last 
Saul  went  himself.  No  sooner  had  he  reached  the  well  of 
Sechu,  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  of  Ramah,  than  the  Spirit  of 
God  came  upon  him,  and  he  prophesied  all  the  way  as  he 
went  to  Naioth.  There  he  stripped  oft' his  outer  clothes,  and 
fell  down  before  Samuel,  prophesying  all  that  day  and  night. 
Well  might  this  melancholy  exhibition  of  reluctant  homage, 
so  difterent  from  his  first  Avilling  reception  of  the  divine  spirit, 
cause  the  repetition  of  the  surprise  then  uttered  in  scornful 
incredulity,  but  now  grounded  in  sad  experience,  which  gave 
new  force*  to  the  proverb,  "  Is  Saul  also  among  the  proph- 
ets ?""^ 

Saul  seems  to  have  returned  from  Ramah,  professing  to 
be  reconciled  to  David,  whom  he  expected  to  resume  his  j^lace 
at  court  ;"^  but  David  only  left  his  refuge  at  Ramah  to  ap- 
peal to  Jonathan  against  his  father's  persecution."^  He  ob- 
tained his  friend's  consent  to  a  decisive  experiment  on  Saul's 
intentions,  and  they  arranged  a  meeting,  at  which  David  was 
to  learn  his  fate.  At  the  same  time  they  renewed  their  cov- 
enant, with  the  remarkable  addition  of  the  oath  which  Jon- 
athan required  of  David,  evidently  in  anticipation  of  his  suc- 
ceeding to  the  crown  :  "  Thou  shalt  not  cut  off  thy  kindness 
from  my  house  forever ;  no !  not  when  Jehovah  hath  cut  off 
the  enemies  of  David  every  one  from  the  face  of  the  earth ;" 
and  David  solemnly  ratifxcd  this  coA^enant  for  his  descend- 
ants as  well  as  himself,  and  afterward  observed  it  faithful- 
ly.^"* The  next  day  was  the  feast  of  the  new  moon  ;  and  in- 
stead of  appearing  at  the  king's  table,  David  hid  himself  in 
the  place  agreed  upon  with  Jonathan,  a  great  heap  of  stones, 
called  Ezel,  in  a  field  near  the  residence  of  Saul.  Saul  sat 
down  to  the  banquet  with  Abner  and  Jonathan,  and  said 
nothing  of  David's  absence,  but  found  an  excuse  for  him  in 
his  own  mind  on  the  ground  of  ceremonial  uncleanness.  On 
the  second  day,  however,  his  suspicions  w^ere  thoroughly 
roused,  and  he  demanded  of  Jonathan  the  cause  of  David's 
absence.  Jonathan's  reply  that  he  had  given  David  leave 
to  attend  a  family  feast  at  Bethlehem  (where,  in  fact,  David 

^"  1  Sam.  xix.  I      ^°'  I  Sam.  xx,  1-24. 

^"^  1  Sam.  XX.  25-29,  lo*  2  Sam.  ix.  xxi.  7. 


406  2' he  Reign  of  SauL  Chap.  XX. 

may  have  spent  these  two  clays),  brought  down  his  father's 
rage  upon  his  own  liead.  With  the  deej^est  insult  upon  his 
birth,  Saul  taunted  him  w4th  his  friendship  for  David,  told 
him  that  his  kingdom  would  never  be  established  during  Da- 
vid's life,  and  ordered  him  to  fetch  him,  that  he  might  be 
slain.  When  Jonathan  remonstrated,  Saul  hurled  his  spear 
at  him,  as  he  had  done  twice  before  at  David,  and  Jonathan 
left  the  room  in  fierce  anger.  The  next  morning  he  Avent 
out  to  the  field  where  David  was  hiding ;  and  his  manner  of 
directing  his  attendant  to  gather  up  the  arrows  he  shot  gave 
David  the  signal  to  fly  for  his  life.  But  first  he  came  out  from 
his  hiding-place ;  and  the  friends  renewed  their  covenant  be- 
fore parting,  and  with  embraces  and  tears,  in  which  David 
was  the  more  vehement,  they  parted  only  to  meet  again  for 
one  brief  interview.'"^  It  was  reserved  for  David  to  give  the 
last  proof  of  his  afiection  for  Jonathan  by  his  lamentation 
over  his  untimely  fate,  and  the  protection  which  he  gave  to 
his  son  Mephibosheth.  Meanwhile  he  found  himself  a  soli- 
tary exile,  soon  to  be  hunted  "  like  a  partridge  on  the  mount- 
liins." 

The  conqueror  of  Goliath  now  sought  shelter  from  the  Phil- 
istines ;  but  first  he  betook  himself  to  Nob,  where  the  taber- 
nacle then  stood.  The  high-priest,  Ahimelech,"*^  was  alarm- 
ed at  his  coming  alone  ;  but  David  pretended  an  urgent  com- 
mission from  Saul ;  and  saying  that  he  had  appointed  his  serv- 
ants to  meet  him  at  a  certain  place,  he  asked  five  loaves  of 
bread  for  himself  and  these  imaginary  attendants.  The  high- 
priest  had  none  but  the  old  show-bread,  which  had  just  been 
removed  and  replaced  by  the  hot  loaves,  for  it  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Sabbath  ;  and  he  gave  this  to  David,  on  his  assur- 
ance that  he  and  his  attendants  were  undefiled.  This  act  was 
in  direct  violation  of  the  law  ;  but  our  Lord  refers  to  it  as 
justified  by  necessity,  in  illustration  of  the  great  principle, 
"  I  will  have  mercy,  and  not  sacrifice,"  which  overrides  the 
mere  letter  of  the  positive  law."'  David's  next  care  was 
to  arm  himself  With  the  ambiguous  explanation  that  he 
had  had  no  time  to  take  his  weapons  because  the  king's  husi- 
ness  required  haste,  he  asked  for  a  sword  or  spear ;   and  the 

^^  1  Sam.  XX.  ;  compare  xxiii.  16-  were  with  David  "  are  spoken  of  as 
18.  if  his  pretended  appointment  with  his 

"^  Called  Ahiah  in  1  Sam.  xiv.  3,  followers  to  meet  him  had  been  real, 
and  Abiathar  in  Mark  ii.  20.  In  the  "^  Matt.  xii.  3  ;  INIark  ii.  25  ;  Luke 
latter  passatje  avc  have  an  interesting  vi.  3,  4.  Often  as  David  is  men- 
exam])le  of  that  truth  to  the  spirit,  |  tioned  in  the  N.T.  as  the  ancestor  of 
rather  than  tlie  letter,  which  marks  |  Christ,  this  is  the  only  allusion  to  the 
the   sacred    writings.      "Those    who  I  incidents  of  his  life. 


B.C.  10G2.  David  in  the   Cave  of  AdaUam.  407 

high-priest  gave  him  the  sword  of  Goliath,  which  had  been 
laid  up  behind  the  ephod.  We  can  not  think  that  David's 
excuses  imposed  upon  the  high-priest,  but  rather  that  Ahim- 
elech's  readiness  to  aid  him  was  a  sign  of  his  attachment  to 
David's  cause,  founded,  perhaps,  on  some  knowledge  of  his 
divine  designation.  If  any  such  feeling  influenced  him,  how- 
ever, he  kept  it  to  himself,  and  did  not  consult  the  oracle  on 
David's  behalf,  as  Saul  afterward  charged  him  with  doing, 
on  the  report  of  Doeg,  his  chief  herdsman,  who  happened 
to  witness  the  transaction."'' 

From  Nob  David  fled  to  Achish,  king  of  Gath  ;  but  the 
Philistine  chieftains  showed  so  quick  a  memory  of  his  slaugh- 
ter of  Goliath'"^  that  he  only  saved  his  life  by  feigning  the 
madness  of  a  slavering  idiot,  and  Achish  dismissed  him  with 
contempt.  He  found  a  refuge  for  himself  in  the  largest  of 
the  caA^es  in  the  limestone  rocks  which  border  the  ShefelaJi, 
or  great  maritime  plain  near  Adullam,  a  city  of  Judah,  not 
far  from  Bethlehem.^"  Here  he  became  established  as  an  in- 
dependent outlaw.  Besides  his  brethren,  who  fled  to  him 
from  their  neighboring  native  city,  he  was  joined  by  all  those 
classes  who  are  ever  ready  for  revolt — debtors,  malcontents, 
and  persons  in  distress,  such  as  those  who  had  gathered  round 
Jephthah  in  his  outlawry. ^^^  His  father  and  mother  he  placed 
in  safety  with  the  King  of  Moab,  a  people  with  whom  the  fam- 
ily were  connected  through  Ruth.  We  must  not  think  of 
David  in  the  Cave  of  Adullam  as  a  rebel  against  Saul,  but 
rather  as  an  independent  chieftain,  making  war  from  his  own 
stronghold  against  the  Philistines.  Among  his  band  of  400 
men,  some  performed  deeds  of  valor  which  gave  them,  a  per- 
manent precedence  among  his  warriors.  Two  such  trios 
were  especially  distinguished ;  and  among  the  second  three 
was  Abishai,  the  son  of  David's  sister  Zeruiah,  whose  two 
other  sons,  Joab  and  Asahel,  probably  joined  David  at  this 

'"•^  1  Sam.  xxi.  1-7,  xxii.  14,  15.       I  Promise,  p.  244  ;    Stanley,  Sinai  and 
The  sword  of  Goliath  may  have   Palestine,  p.  259).     We  see  no  reason 


been  the  means  of  his  discovery.  The 
title  of  Psalm  Ivi.  states  that  he  was 
made  prisoner  by  the  Philistines  of 
Gath. 

"°  I  Sam.  xxii.  1,  2 ;  2  Sam.  xxiii. 
13;  1  Chr.  xi.  15;  Gen.  xxxviii.  1, 
12,  20;  Josh.  xii.  15,  xv.  35;  2 
Chron.  xi.  7 ;  Neh.  xi.  30 ;  2  Mace, 
xii.  38.  It  was  probably  the  cave 
now  called  Khureitun,  the  onh'-  very 
large  cavern  in  Palestine  (Robinson, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  23,  51-53;  Bonar,  Land  of 


for  regarding  the  "  hold  "  (^Matzed, 
literally  lair)  mentioned  in  1  Sam. 
xxii.  4,  5,  as  a  fastness  distinct  from 
the  cave,  as  Joseph  us  makes  it  {Bell. 
Jud.  vii.  8,  §  3).  Dean  Stanley 
adopts  this  view,  identifying  the  for- 
tress with  that  afterward  called  Hero- 
diiim,  or  with  Masnda,  in  whicli  Her- 
od placed  his  mother  and  bride. 

"^That  some  of  these  were  Ca- 
naanites  appears  from  the  mention  of 
Ahimelech  the  Hittite,  1  Sam.  xxvi.  6- 


408  The  Reign  of  Saul  Chap.  XX 

time,  thoagh  not  yet  mentioned  by  name.  To  this  period 
belongs  the  romantic  story  ofthe  water  of  the  well  of  Beth* 
lehem.  David  expressed  a  longing  for  the  water  of  which  he 
used  to  drink  as  a  boy ;  and  the  three  chief  heroes  cut  their 
way  through  the  army  of  the  Philistines,  which  lay  encamp- 
ed in  the  valley  of  Rephaim,  to  the  gate  of  Bethlehem,  and 
brought  the  water  to  David.  But  with  self-denial  like  that 
of  Alexander  in  the  desert  of  Oedrosia,  and  Philip  Sidney  in 
his  thirst  of  death  at  Zutphen,  David  poured  the  water  on 
the  ground,  exclaiming,  "  Shall  I  drink  the  blood  of  these  men, 
that  have  put  their  lives  in  jeopardy?'"''^  Another  band 
joined  him  here  of  men  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  under  Ama- 
sai,  the  sou  of  his  other  sister  Abigail,  and  eleven  men  of  Gad 
crossed  the  Jordan  to  his  camp.^'^  With  them  perhaps  came 
the  prophet  Gad,  who  is  now  lirst  mentioned.  He  had  prob- 
ably been  David's  companion  in  the  prophetic  school  at  Ra- 
mah,  and  may  now  have  been  sent  by  Samuel  to  counsel  Da- 
vid by  the  word  of  Jehovah. 

By  his  direction,  David  left  his  concealment  at  Adullam 
for  the  forest  of  Hareth,  among  the  hills  of  Judah  ;"*  and  Saul 
no  sooner  heard  of  his  appearance,  than  he  set  out  in  person 
to  hunt  him  down.  The  king  had  begun  to  distrust  his  own 
immediate  followers.  As  he  stood  with  them  under  a  grove 
at  Ramah  he  taunted  the  men  of  his  own  tribe  as  having  no 
feeling  for  him,  and  as  conspiring  with  his  own  son  on  be- 
half of  David,  from  whom  theu  could  not  expect  the  bene- 
iits  which  would  doubtless  be  reserved  for  Judah. ^^^  None 
responded  to  the  appeal  but  his  Edomite  officer,  Doeg.  He 
recounted  what  he  had  witnessed  at  Nob,  artfully  suppress- 
ing the  tale  by  Avhich  David  had  deceived  Ahimelech,  and  add- 
ing that  the  high-priest  had  asked  counsel  of  the  oracle  for 
David.  Ahimelech,  summoned  to  Saul's  presence,  denied  the 
latter  charge,  and  protested  his  ignorance  of  any  treason  on 
the  part  of  David,  whom  he  had  treated  as  the  king's  son-in- 
law,  honored  in  his  court  and  intrusted  with  his  confidence. 
Saul's  fury  regarded  this  plea  as  little  as  Ahimelech's  sacred 
character,  and  he  called  on  his  guards  to  slay  him,  with  all 
the  priests  of  Nob.  When  none  obeyed,  he  repeated  the  or- 
der to  Doeg,  and  this  son  Esau  put  to  death  eighty-five  priests 
on  that  one  day.  Nor  was  this  all.  The  city  of  Nob  was 
given  up  to  massacre,  and  men,  women,  children,  and  suck- 
lings, oxen,  asses,  and  sheep,  were  all  put  to  the  sword.     One 

"-  2  Sam.  xxiii.  13-10  ;  1  Chr.  xi.  j  "'  I  Sam.  xxii.  (5-8  :  the  appeal  to 
15-21.  "^  1  Chr.  xii.  8,  lG-18.      |  tlie  jealousy  of  the  two  tribes  is  clear- 

'"  1  Sam.  xxii.  5.  |  ly  implied. 


B.C.  )0G0.  David  and  Saul  at  EngedL  409 

only  of  the  sons  of  Ahimelech,  named  Abiathar,  escaped  and 
fled  to  David,  who  now  saw  with  remorse  the  effect  of  the 
deceit  he  had  practiced  on  the  high-priest  in  Doeg's  presence, 
and  promised  Abiathar  his  protection.  We  can  not  fail  to 
see  in  this  massacre  the  working  of  the  curse  on  the  house  of 
Eli."' 

David  had  now  in  his  camp  not  only  a  j^rophet,  but  the 
successor  to  the  high-priesthood ;  and  he  placed  his  move- 
ments under  the  guidance  of  the  oracle  of  Jehovah.  With 
this  divine  sanction,  he  overbore  the  fears  of  his  followers 
and  fell  upon  the  1  hilistines,  who  had  plundered  the  thresh- 
ing-floors of  Keilah,  and  were  besieging  the  city.  Having 
utterly  defeated  the  Philistines,  and  gained  great  booty  from 
them  in  cattle,  David  established  himself  in  Keilah.  Here 
Saul  imagined  he  had  caught  him,  as  in  a  trap ;  and  David, 
learning  from  God,  by  means  of  the  sacred  ephod,  that  the 
men  of  Keilah  would  give  him  up,  left  the  city,  with  his  little 
band,  now  amounting  to  600  men,  wdio  were  obliged  to  dis- 
perse themselves  for  safety.''^  David  moved  from  one  lurk- 
ing-place to  another  in  the  wilderness  of  Ziph,  while  Saul  was 
in  constant  search  of  him.  It  was  at  this  juncture  that  the 
last  interview  took  place  between  David  and  Jonathan,  who 
found  his  friend  in  a  certain  wood,  "  and  strengthened  his 
hand  in  God,"  assuring  him  that  he  should  be  king  over  Is- 
rael, and  expressing  the  vain  hope  that  he  himself  would  be 
next  to  him.  When  they  had  again  renewed  their  covenant, 
Jonathan  retired  to  his  house  instead  of  rejoining  his  father. 
The  Ziphites  betrayed  David's  movements  to  Saul,  w^ho  left 
Gibeah  in  quest  of  him,  preceded  by  the  Ziphites,  tracking 
his  very  footsteps  like  beaters  after  game.  Thus  hunted  like 
a  partridge  over  the  hills  of  Judah,  David  fled  to  the  wilder- 
ness of  Maon,  beyond  Jeshimon,  in  the  extreme  south.  Here 
Saul  followed  him  so  close  that  David  fled  from  his  rock  of 
refuge  to  one  side  of  a  mountain,  while  the  king  was  hunting 
for  him  on  its  other  side;  whence  the  place  obtained  the 
name  of  Sela-hammahlekoth  {the  rock  of  divisions).  At 
length  Saul  was  called  away  by  the  news  of  an  invasion  of 
the  Philistines,  and  David  betook  himself  to  the  dreary  fast- 
nesses of  the  wilderness  of  Engedi,  on  the  margin  of  the  Dead 
Sea.^'®      Saul,  having   repelled  the  invaders,  returned  with 


'••  I  Sam.  xxii.  9-23. 

"^  1  Sam.  xxiii,  1-15. 

"•*  Engedi,  "the  fountain  of  the 
kid,"  was  originally  named  Hazazon- 
tamar,  "the  pruning  of  the  palm," 
S 


on  acconnt  of  the  palm-groves  which 
surronnded  it  (2  Chr.  xx.  2  ;  Eeclus. 
xxiv.  14).  It  is  about  the  middle  of 
the  western  shore  of  the  lake,  and  at 
an  elevation  of  some  400  feet  abcve 


410  TJie  Reign  of  ^SauL  Chap.  XX. 

3000  men,  chosen  out  of  all  Israel,  to  the  jDursuit  of  David 
and  his  little  band,  who  were  now  hunted  from  rock  to  rock 
like  the  wild  goats  of  that  desert.  It  happened  that  Saul 
went  alone  into  a  cave  where  David  and  his  men  were  hid- 
den in  the  lateral  caverns.  Urged  to  use  so  favorable  an  op* 
portunity,  David  contented  himself  with  creeping  behind  the 
king  and  cutting  off  the  skirt  of  his  robe.  But  his  heart 
smote  him  even  for  this  insult  to  the  anointed  of  Jehovah. 
Following  Saul  out  of  the  cave,  he  cried  after  him,  "My  lord 
the  king,"  and  bowing  down  before  him,  he  showed  him  his 
skirt,  as  a  proof  that  he  had  spared  his  life,  and  made  a  most 
pathetic  appeal  to  the  king's  forbearance,  and  protestation 
of  his  own  innocence.  The  old  impulsive  affection  of  Saul 
burst  the  barriers  of  jealous  hatred.  David  had  called  him 
"  Father,"  and  with  tears  he  responds,  "  Is  this  thy  voice, 
my  son  David  ?"  He  confesses  his  injustice  and  David's 
magnanimity,  acknowledges  the  divine  decree  Avhich  had 
given  the  kingdom  of  Israel  into  the  hand  of  David,  and 
takes  an  oath  of  him  not  to  cut  off  his  name  and  house  in 
Israel.  Saul  returned  home,  but  David  remained  in  his  fast- 
nesses.^^^ 

About  this  time  Samuel  died  ;  and  all  Israel  joined  to 
mourn  for  him,  with  a  bitterness  doubtless  enhanced  by  the 
fulfillment  of  his  warnings  concerning  their  chosen  king. 
They  buried  him  at  his  house  at  Ramah  ;  and  David,  prob- 
ably feeling  that  the  last  restraint  on  Saul  was  now  removed, 
retired  southward  to  the  fastnesses  of  the  wilderness  of  Paran. 
Here  occurred  a  very  interesting  episode  in  his  adventures. 
There  lived  at  Maon  a  descendant  of  Caleb,  named  Nabal,  pos- 
sessed of  great  wealth.  His  flocks  of  3000  sheep  and  1000  goats 
fed  on  the  pastures  of  Carmel.  His  wife  Abigail  was  intelli- 
gent and  beautiful,  but  the  man  himself  was  a  mean,  miserable 
churl.  As  his  own  wife  said,  he  was  Nabal  (nfool^  implying 
wickedness)  by  nature  and  by  name.  Amid  the  festivities  of 
liis  sheep-shearing  David  sent  ten  young  men,  with  a  friendly 
greeting,  to  ask  Nabal  for  a  present.  The  request  was  found- 
ed on  the  security  of  his  flocks,  while  David's  band  had  been 
near  them  ;  and  it  seems  probable  that  Xabal  had  .not  only 
enjoyed  immunity  from  any  injury  by  the  outlaAVS,  but  had 
even  been  protected  by  them  from  the  Bedouin  marauders. 
Such  appears  to  have  been  David's  mode  of  occupying  his 
followers,  and  obtaining  subsistence  in  return  for  their  serv- 

thc  plain  is  ilie  tountain  of  .4««  ./iVij/,  I  plain  and  lower  declivity  of  the 
from  which  the  place  gets  its  name,  mountain,  on  the  south  bank  of  the 
IVnces  of  the  o!'l  citv  exist  upon  <-he  '  brook.  ^^®  1  Sam.  xxiv. 


B.C.  1058.  Death  of  Nahal.  411 

ices.  But  Nabal  spurned  the  request  and  denied  the  claim 
with  contempt.  "  Wlio  is  David  ?"  he  asked,  "  and  who  is  the 
son  of  Jesse  ?  There  be  many  servants  nowadays  that  break 
away  every  man  from  his  master  !"  David  received  the 
message,  and  prepared  to  avenge  the  insult,  vowing  the  death 
of  every  man  of  Nabal's  house.  He  took  400  men  with  him, 
and  left  200  to  guard  the  baggage — the  first  example  of  a  pro- 
portion which  afterward  became  a  rule.^^"  Meanwhile  the 
prudent  Abigail,  being  informed  by  a  servant  of  her  hus- 
band's behavior,  hastened  to  provide,  without  his  knoAvledge, 
an  abundant  present  of  bread,  parched  corn,  sheep  ready 
dressed,  skins  of  wine,  clusters  of  raisins,  and  cakes  of  figs. 
Sending  forward  her  servants  with  the  asses  thus  loaded,  she 
went  to  meet  David  just  as  he  emerged  from  the  passes  of 
the  hills.  Not  content  with  entreating  his  forbearance,  she 
acknowledged  him  as  the  champion  who  fought  the  battles  of 
Jehovah,  and  as  the  future  leader  of  Israel.  Deploring  the 
persecution  he  suffered  from  Saul,  she  used  those  powerful 
and  oft-quoted  figures :  "  The  soul  of  my  lord  shall  be  bound  in 
the  bundle  of  life  with  Jehovah  thy  God  :  and  the  souls  of  thine 
enemies,  them  shall  He  sling  out^  as  out  ofthemiddle  ofasUncjP 
Her  beauty  and  sense  made  a  deep  impression  upon  David. 
For  the  present,  he  sent  her  home  in  safety,  accepting  her 
gift,  and  thanking  her  for  keeping  him  from  shedding  blood. 
Nabal  had  meanwhile  feasted  like  a  king  till  he  Avas  drunk  ; 
so  his  wife  kept  her  news  till  the  morning.  The  shock  was 
too  great  for  his  cowardice  and  avarice :  "  his  heart  died  with- 
in him,  and  he  became  as  a  stone ;"  and  in  ten  days  he  died. 
Abigail  found  a  new  husband  in  David,  whose  wife  Michal 
had  been  given  by  Saul  to  another;  and  about  the  same  time 
David  also  married  Ahinoam  of  Jezreel.^^^ 

Meanwhile  Saul  had  forgotten  the  promises  made  under 
his  transient  impulse  of  kindness  and  repentance.  David's 
old  enemies,  the  Ziphites,  came  to  tell  the  king  that  he  was 
again  in  the  stronghold  of  Hachilah,  east  of  Jeshimon,  and 
Saul  again  led  his  chosen  army  of  3000  men,  under  Abner, 
in  pursuit  of  him.  Once  more  Saul  fell  into  the  power  of 
David,  and  was  magnanimously  spared.  Informed  by  his 
spies  of  the  position  of  Saul's  camp,  David  went  down  with 
his  nephew  Abishai  by  night,  and  found  Saul  asleep  by  the 
side  of  Abner  in  the  midst  of  his  body-guard,  with  his  well- 
known  spear  stuck  into  the  ground  beside  his  bolster.  Abi- 
shai proposed  to  smite  Saul  to  the  earth  with  that  spear  which 

^2°  Comp.  1  Sam.  xxx.  24. 

^^^  1  Sam.  XXV.     See  the  pedigree  in  Notes  and  Illustrations. 


412  The  Reign  of  Saul.  Chap.  XX. 

had  twice  been  hurled  at  David;  but  David  left  his  fate  in 
the  hands  of  God,  and  refused  to  stretch  forth  his  hand 
against  Jehovah's  anointed.  They  took  the  spear  and  the 
cruse  of  water  that  was  by  his  side  and  left  the  camp,  where 
all  were  still  sunk  in  a  sleep  sent  by  God.  Retiring  a  safe 
distance  to  the  top  of  a  hill,  David  shouted  to  the  people  and 
to  Abner,  w^hom  he  taunted  for  the  little  care  with  which  so 
valiant  a  man  had  watched  over  the  king's  life  !  Saul  knew 
the  voice,  and  the  scene  of  remonstrance,  confession,  and  for- 
giveness was  again  repeated,  but  with  some  striking  varia- 
tions. Saul  begged  David  to  return  to  him,  promising  not  to 
harm  him,  and  confessing  that  "he  had  played  the  fool;"'^* 
and  when  David  would  only  trust  his  life  to  God  and  not  to 
him,  he  parted  from  him  Avitli  the  Avords  of  prophetic  blessing : 
"Blessed  be  thou,  my  son  David,  thou  shalt  both  do  great 
things,  and  also  shalt  still  prevail."^'^ 

This  was  their  last  interview  ;  for  David,  despairing  of 
safety  while  within  reach  of  Saul,  resolved  finally  to  seek 
shelter  among  the  Philistines.  Their  power  was  now  such 
that  Saul  could  scarcely  make  head  against  them,  much  less 
pursue  David  into  their  country ;  and,  in  fact,  he  abandoned 
the  attempt. ^^^  David  Avent,  as  before,  to  Achish  king  of 
Gath,  no  longer  as  a  solitary  fugitive,  but  with  his  whole 
household,  and  his  band  of  600  men.  This  force,  and  still 
more,  perhaps,  the  knowledge  that  he  had  finally  broken  with 
Saul,  secured  him  respect,  though  the  Philistine  chieftains 
withheld  from  him  their  confidence.  Achish  assigned,  for  his 
residence  and  maintenance,  the  frontier  city  of  Ziklag,  which 
consequently  belonged  ever  after  to  the  kings  of  Judah.^^" 
We  have  here  the  only  note  of  time  in  the  history  of  David's 
w^anderings.  The  whole  time  he  spent  in  the  country  of  the 
Philistines,  that  is,  to  his  departure  for  Hebron  after  the 
death  of  Saul,'^"  was  a  year  and  four  months,  or,  according 
to  the  LXX.  and  Josephus,  four  months,  or  a  little  more. 
Whichever  be  the  true  reading,  it  suggests  a  reflection  on 
the  evils  that  sprang  from  his  want  of  faith  and  patience  for 
so  short  a  period.  His  presence  in  Judah  would  have  given 
an  opportunity  which  Saul  could  hardly  have  refused  for 
calling  him  forth  as  the  champion  of  Israel.     At  all  events, 

'-^  Here,  as  in   otlier  passages,  lliel      '"'  1  Sam.  xxvii.  1,  4, 
present   sense    of  the    English    word  i      ^-^  1  Sam.  xxvii.  4,  5.     Here  is  an 
quite  fails   to   express  the   degraded  indication  that  the  book,  in  itij  pres- 
wickedness  implied  bv  the  Hebrew,      j  cnt  form,  belongs  to  a  period  after  the 

'"^  1  Sam.  xxvi.  !  division  of  the  kingdom. 

'-•'  2  Sam.  ii.  I. 


B.C.  105G.  SauVs  Decline.  413 

he  would  have  been  at  hand  to  retrieve  the  disaster,  and 
would  doubtless  have  been  hailed  as  king  by  the  united  voice 
of  Israel.  As  it  was,  however,  his  nation  suffered  a  terrible 
defeat,  which,  instead  of  doing  his  best  to  avert,  he  narrowly 
escaped  taking  a  share  in  inflicting ;  his  recognition  as  king 
of  Israel  was  postponed  for  seven  years  and  a  half,  at  the 
cost  of  a  civil  war  and  the  permanent  alienation  of  Judah 
from  the  rest  of  Israel,  and  meanwhile  he  was  involved  in  a 
course  of  pitiable  deceit.  He  could  not  enjoy  the  protection 
of  Achish  without  rendering  him  service  against  his  country. 
So  he  sallied  forth  from  Ziklag,  but  instead  of  attacking  Israel, 
he  fell  upon  the  tribes  of  the  southern  desert  of  Shur,  toward 
the  confines  of  Egypt,  the  Geshurites,  the  Gezrites,  and  the 
Amalekites,  and  exhibited  their  spoil  to  Achish  as  havmg 
been  won  in  the  south  of  Judah,  and  from  the  allied  tribes  of 
the  Jerahmeelites  and  the  Kenites.  To  guard  against  de- 
tection, he  put  to  the  sword  every  man  and  woman  of  each 
settlement  that  he  attacked.  Achish  himself  was  thorough- 
ly imposed  upon,  and  put  such  unlimited  confidence  m  David 
that  he  summoned  him  to  join  in  a  grand  attack  which  the 
Philistines  were  preparing  against  Israel,  and  David  sank  so 
low  as  to  boast  of  the  courage  he  would  display.'"  The  dis- 
trust of  the  other  lords  of  the  Philistines  saved  him  from 
this  dilemma. 

8  11.  We  must  now  look  back  to  Saul.'''  Since  the  death 
of  Samuel  and  the  flight  of  David,  darkness  had  gathered 
about  his  declining  path  like  clouds  around  the  setting  sun 
The  prophetic  inspiration  which  had  once  marked  him  as  the 
servant  of  Jehovah  found  vent,  as  we  have  seen  at  Ramah,  in 
ravino-s  scarcely  to  be  distinguished  from  those  of  his  mad- 
ness. °  His  religious  zeal,  always  rash,  as  in  the  vow  which  so 
nearly  cost  the  life  of  Jonathan,  was  now  shown  m  deeds  ol 
sancruinary  violence.  If  the  slaughter  of  the  witches  and 
necromancers  be  defended  by  the  strict  letter  of  the  Mosaic 
law,  which  however  Saul  himself  had  long  permitted  to 
slumber,'"'  the  massacre  of  the  Gibeonites  was  the  violation 
of  a  covenant  which  formed  one  of  the  sacred  traditions  of 
the  nation,  and  was  afterward  visited  as  such  on  "  the  bloods 
stained  house  of  Saul.'"'"  This  deed  may  have  been  a  sequel 
to  Saul's  inexpiable  crime,  the  massacre  of  the  priests  at  Nob, 
The  day  of  retribution  now  came. 


'"  1  Sam.  xxvii.,  xxviii.  1,  2. 

'-**  I  Sam.  xxviii.  3. 

^^^  1  Sam.  xxviii.  4,  9 ;   comp.  Ex 


xxii.  18  ;  Lev.  xix.  31,  xx.  27;  Deut. 
xviii.  10,  11.  It  seems  clear  that  thii 
was  a  late  act  of  Saul's  reign. 


2  Sam.  xxi.  1-9. 


4U 


The  Reign  of  Saat 


Chap.  XX 


The  hosts  of  the  Philistmes  had  assembled  at  the  great 
battle-field  of  Palestine,  the  valley  of  Jezreel/^^  They  occu- 
pied the  southern  slopes  of  the  "  Little  Hermon,"  by  Shu- 
nera,  while  Saul  and  the  Israelites  were  encamped  on  the  op- 
posite hills  of  Gilboa.  A  panic  fear  seized  Saul  at  the  sight 
of  the  army  of  the  Philistines.  Fain  would  he  have  inquired 
of  Jehovah ;  but  the  high-j^riest  was  a  fugitive  from  his 
murderous  wrath ;  he  had  alienated  the  prophets,  and  their 
chief  was  in  the  camp  of  David  ;  and  God  gave  him  no  an- 
swer, "  neither  by  dreams,  nor  by  Urim,  nor  by  prophets." 
In  his  extremity,  he  resorted  to  the  very  impostors  who  had 
been  tlie  victims  of  his  zeal.  Among  those  who  had  escaped 
him  was  a  woman  who  lived  at  Endor,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Little  Hermon. '^^  Her  supernatural  pretensions  are  de- 
scribed by  the  epithet  "  a  woman  of  Ob "  (the  skin  or  blad- 
der), which  the  LXX.  explain  as  a  ventriloquist. ^^^  Saul 
went  to  her  abode  by  night  and  in  disguise,  with  only  two 
attendants,  and  desired  her  to  bring  up  from  the  dead  the 
person  whom  he  should  name.  Fearing  a  snare,  and  having 
perhaps  already  some  suspicions  as  to  the  quality  of  her  visit- 
ors, the  woman  only  consented  on  Saul's  taking  an  oath  that 
she  should  not  be  punished.  She  then  inquired  whom  she 
should  bring  up,  and  Saul  asked  for  Samuel.  Then  (to  fol- 
low the  narrative  and  reserve  criticism  for  the  end)  the  wom- 
an saw  (or  professed  to  see)  the  form  of  Samuel  rising  from 
the  earth ;  and,  uttering  a  loud  cry,  she  charged  Saul  with 
having  deceived  her,  for  she  now  knew  him  to  be  the  king. 
He  calmed  her  fears,  and  demanded  what  she  had  seen.  "  I 
saw,"  she  answered,  "  a  god-like  form^^^  rising  up  out  of  the 
earth."  In  reply  to  Saul's  inquiries,  she  further  described  the 
apparition  as  that  of  "  an  old  man  covered  with  a  mantle," 
doubtless  the  prophetic  robe  always  worn  by  Samuel. ^^^  By 
these  tokens  Saul  recognized  Samuel,  and  bowed  his  face  to 
the  ground,  while  Samuel  asked,  "  Why  hast  thou  disquieted 


"'  On  the  topography,  see  p.  471. 

"-  The  name  still  lingers  attached 
to  a  considerable  but  now  deserted 
village  to  the  north  of  the  Little  Her- 
mon {Jehel  Duhy).  The  rock  of  the 
mountain,  on  the  slope  of  which  En- 
dur  stands,  is  hollowed  into  caves,  one 
of  which  may  well  have  been  the 
scene  of  the  incantation  of  the  witch. 
The  distance  from  the  slopes  of  Gilboa 
to  Endor  is  seven  or  eight  miles,  over 
difficult  ground. 


"^  1  Sam.  xxviii.  7.  A  tradition 
preserved  by  Jerome  makes  her  the 
mother  of  Abner — an  invention,  prob- 
ably, to  account  for  her  life  having 
been  spared.  Another  tradition  names 
Abner  and  Amasa  as  Saul's  two  com- 
panions. 

^^^  Elohim,  the  plural  of  majesty. 
The  word  may  denote,  as  we  have 
seen,  any  person  of  dignity,  and  es« 
pecially  a  judge. 

^^^  See  note  on  p.  370. 


B.C.  105G.  The  Witch  of  Endor.  415 

me,  to  bring  me  up  ?"  Saul  poured  forth  his  sore  distress, 
attacked  as  he  was  by  the  Philistines  and  abandoned  by  Je- 
hovah. Samuel  replied  that  it  was  in  vain  to  resort  to  him, 
for  this  was  but  the  fulfillment  of  liis  prophetic  word ;  that 
Jehovah  had  torn  the  kingdom  out  of  his  hand,  and  given  it 
to  David,  because  he  had  disobeyed  him  in  sparing  the  Ama- 
lekites.  He  foretold  his  defeat  by  the  Philistines,  and  added 
that  on  the  morrow  Saul  and  his  sons  should  be  with  him 
among  the  dead.  At  this  sentence,  Saul  fell  prostrate  his 
whole  length  upon  the  earth,  and  fainted  away  with  fear  and 
exhaustion,  for  he  had  fasted  all  the  day  and  night.  Having, 
at  the  urgent  pressure  of  the  woman  and  his  attendants,  par- 
taken of  a  meal,  the  best  that  she  could  prepare  for  him,  Saul 
returned  to  the  camp  the  same  night.  ^^® 

Such  is  the  plain  narrative  of  Scripture,  which  certainly 
conveys  the  impression  that  there  was  a  real  apparition  in 
the  form  of  Samuel,  and  that  the  words  heard  by  Saul  were 
uttered  by  the  spectre.  But,  when  we  remember  that  the 
Scripture  relates  things  as  they  appear  to  the  witnesses,  with- 
out necessarily  implying  their  reality,  tlie  question  still  re- 
mains, whether  the  apparition  was  real  or  an  imposture.  On 
this  point,  opinions  have  been  divided  in  every  age.  All  the 
analogy  of  experience,  all  the  deductions  of  reasoning,  and 
all  the  general  lessons  of  Scripture,  unite  in  branding  every 
form  of  magic  and  necromancy  as  an  imposture;  and  the 
safest  conclusion  is  to  reject  every  claim  to  supernatural 
power  or  knowledge,  in  any  other  form  than  as  a  revelation 
from  God  himself,  from  the  arts  of  the  Egyptian  priests  and 
the  oracles  of  the  Greeks  down  to  the  pitiful  absurdities 
which  find  credence  in  our  own  day.  Least  of  all  can  we 
admit  the  hypothesis  of  diabolical  agency  in  such  matters, 
except  as  tempting  the  impostors  to  deceive,  and  the  dupes 
to  believe.  Satan  is  permitted  to  tempt  men  through  their 
own  desires,  and  even,  as  in  the  case  of  Job,  to  direct  the 
powers  of  nature  for  mischief,  under  the  special  control  of 
God,  and,  as  in  the  frenzy  of  the  demoniacs  and  of  Saul  him- 
self, to  work  up  an  ungovemed  mind  to  madness,  till  it  dis- 
torts the  body  with  epileptic  fury ;  but  his  power  over  the 
other  world,  and  his  communication  to  men  of  superhuman 
knowledge,  are  inventions  unsanctioned  by  the  word  of  God, 
while  sober  criticism  pronounces  the  evidence  in  their  support 
to  be  inadequate.  If  these  principles  be  established  by  gen- 
eral reasoning  on  the  whole  question,  we  are  no  longer  bound 

'^"  1  Sam.  xxviii. 


416  The  Reign  of  Saul.  Chap.  XX. 

to  clear  up  the  difficulties  of  each  particular  case ;  and  it  is 
by  committing  themselves  to  this,  in  which  the  practiced  im- 
postor foils  them,  that  many  are  made  confirmed  dupes.  It 
must  be  admitted,  however,  that  the  case  before  us  has  some 
j^eculiar  features  which  suggest,  not  that  the  w^oman  was 
other  than  an  impostor,  but  that  her  juggleries  were  over- 
ruled by  God  in  a  way  as  surprising  to  herself  as  to  the 
other  witnesses  of  the  scene.  Her  shriek  of  terror  at  Samuel's 
appearance,  if  it  proves  the  reality  of  the  apparition,  equally 
disproves  her  claims  to  have  raised  him,  for  she  evidently  ex- 
pected no  such  result.  On  the  other  hand,  the  circumstance 
that  Saul  did  not  himself  see  Samuel,  but  only  recognized 
him  from  the  woman's  description — a  description  of  a  very 
safe  generality — agrees  Avith  the  usual  arts  of  these  impos- 
tors, who  invariably  (except  w^hen  optical  delusions  are  em- 
ployed) profess  to  see,  or  to  cause  a  third  party  to  see,  what 
the  inquirer  himself  is  not  permitted  to  behold.^"  But  is  it 
possible  to  explain  the  vrords  of  Samuel  as  a  delusion  ?  Only 
on  the  supposition  that  the  belief  that  Samuel  had  come  to 
revisit  him  from  the  dead  so  worked  upon  Saul's  mind  as  to 
suggest  through  his  conscience  what  seemed  to  be  spoken  in 
liis  ear.  Such  cases  of  oral  deception  are  common  in  the  his- 
tory of  apparitions,  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  matter  of  the 
denunciation  which  might  not  be  thus  accounted  for.  Saul 
had  long  been  aware  of  his  rejection,  and  known  that  David 
was  to  succeed  him :  the  allusion  to  his  disobedience  in  spar- 
ing Amalek  is  but  an  echo  of  Samuel's  reproof  at  the  time  : 
and  the  prediction  of  his  defeat  and  death  on  the  morrow 
may  have  been  equally  an  echo  of  his  fear.  We  should  have 
liacl  the  materials  for  a  more  decisive  judgment,  had  we  been 
told,  as  in  the  narrative  of  St.  Paul's  conversion,  whether  the 
king's  companions  heard  the  voice  that  spoke  to  him :  it  is 
clear  that  they  did  not  see  the  apparition.  And  this  ques- 
tion involves  another,  as  to  the  testimony  from  which  the 
Avhole  narrative  Avas  derived.  The  only  witnesses  of  the 
scene  were  the  witch,  who  had  every  motive  to  keep  it,  as 
well  as  herself,  in  close  concealment,  and  Saul's  two  compan- 
ions, who  would  speak  freely  of  it  after  Saul's  death.  Their 
relation  would  be  founded  partly  on  what  they  themselves 
witnessed,  such  as  the  whole  circumstances  of  the  scene  and 
the  conversation  between  Saul  and  the  witch,  and  partly  on 
what  the  king  chose  to  communicate  to  them,  as  his  only  re- 
maining confidants,  on  their  way  back  to  the  camp.     Difter- 

"^  As    in    the    case    of   the   mod- 1  known,    and    afterward    finally    ex- 
ern  Egyptian   magicians,  first   made  [  posed  by  Mr.  Lane. 


B.C.  1056.  David  defeats  the  Amaleldtes.  417 

ent  readers  will  of  course  form  diiferent  opinions,  whethei 
the  words  introduced  by  the  simple  phrase,  "And  Samuel 
said  to  Saul,"  were  heard  by  the  witnesses  of  the  scene,  or 
were  repeated  to  them  by  Saul  as  the  confidence  of  an  over- 
burdened heart ;  but  we  incline  to  the  opinion  that,  had 
they  been  audible  to  all  present,  we  should  have  had  some 
notice  of  the  fact,  as  w^e  have  in  the  case  of  the  words  spoken 
to  St.  Paul.*'' 

Such  a  night  w^as  a  dismal  preparation  for  the  ensuing 
day,  which  sealed  the  fate  of  Saul.  But  while  the  two  ar- 
mies still  hang,  like  thunder-clouds,  on  the  opposing  heights, 
let  us  see  what  is  passing  in  the  rear  of  the  Philistines. 
There  is  David  and  his  band,  with  the  forces  of  Gath  under 
Achish,  no  doubt  hoping  that  his  position  would  secure  him 
from  taking  any  decisive  part  in  the  battle.  But  he  was 
soon  relieved  from  his  false  position.  The  princes  of  the 
Philistines  no  sooner  saw  him  than  they  asked,  "  What  do 
these  Hebrews  here  ?"  In  vain  did  Achish  plead  his  perfect 
confidence  in  David :  the  other  lords  called  to  mind  again 
the  old  songs  of  the  ten  thousand  slain  by  David ;  and,  de- 
claring that  he  would  side  against  them  in  the  battle  to  rec- 
oncile himself  with  Saul,  they  insisted  on  his  dismissal.  Aft- 
er a  show  of  great  reluctance,  and  renewed  expressions  of 
confidence  from  Achish,  David  and  his  men  departed  with  the 
morning  light. 

Having  thus  escaped  the  great  danger  of  having  to  fight 
against  Israel,  he  found  that  another  disaster  had  been  occa- 
sioned by  his  march  with  the  Philistines.  The  Amalekites 
had  seized  the  opportunity  to  take  vengeance  for  David's 
forays  ;  and  when  he  and  his  men  arrived  at  Ziklag  the  third 
day  after  leaving  the  Philistine  camp  they  found  the  city 
burnt,  and  their  wives  and  children  carried  away  as  captives, 
including  the  two  wives  of  Pavid  himself.  They  wept  over 
the  ruin,  and  began  to  threaten  David's  life ;  "  but  David 
encouraged  himself  in  Jehovah  his  God."  He  summoned 
Abiathar  with  the  oracular  epliod,  and  received  the  direction 
of  Jehovah  to  pursue,  with  the  promise  of  success.  By  means 
of  a  straggler,  an  Egyptian  slave  of  one  of  the  Amalekites, 
whom  they  found  half  dead  with  fatigue  and  hunger,  thev 
fell  upon  the  enemy,  who  were  feasting  in  all  the  disorder  of 
security,  and  slaughtered  them  for  a  whole  night  and  day, 
only  400  of  the  whole  tribe  escaping.  Besides  recovering 
their  wives  and  children  and  all  their  property  without  any 

"« Acts  ix.  7. 
S2 


418  The  Reign  of  fSaut.  Chap.  XX. 

loss,  they  obtained  a  great  booty  in  cattle  from  the  enemy. 
A  question  noAV  arose  about  the  division  of  the  spoil.  It 
had  happened  that  one-third  of  David's  600  men  were  too 
weary,  after  their  long  march,  to  keep  up  with  the  rest,  and 
they  had  been  left  behind  at  the  brook  Besor  with  the  bag> 
gage.  As  they  exchanged  congratulations  with  David  on  his 
return,  the  worser  part  of  David's  followers,  "  all  the  men  of 
Belial,"  proposed  that  they  should  have  no  share  in  the  spoil. 
David  sternly  forbade  this  injustice,  and  laid  down  what 
thenceforth  became  a  law  in  Israel,  that  those  who  staid  with 
the  baggage  should  have  an  equal  share,  man  for  man,  with 
those  who  went  to  the  fight.  From  his  own  share  of  the 
spoil  he  sent  presents  to  the  elders  of  Judah,  to  Bethel,  He- 
bron, and  other  cities  that  he  had  frequented  with  his  bands, 
and  to  the  friendly  Arabs  of  the  desert,  the  Jerahmeelites 
and  the  Kenites.^^" 

§  12.  On  the  third  day  after  this  victory,  David  received 
news  of  the  terrible  overthiow  of  Saul  and  his  army  in  Mount 
Gilboa  on  the  day  of  his  departure.  The  Philistines  had 
occupied  the  valley  of  Jezreel,'*"  and  the  Israelites  were 
driven  before  them  up  the  sloj^es  and  over  the  crest  of  Mount 
Gilboa  with  immense  loss.^^'  The  hottest  pursuit  was  made 
after  Saul  and  the  band  who  kept  round  him.  His  three 
sons,  Jonathan,  Abinadab,  and  Melchishua,  were  slain,  and 
he  himself  Avas  mortally  wounded  by  the  Philistine  archers. 
Disabled  from  flight,  he  begged  his  armor-bearer  to  draw  his 
sword  and  slay  him,  that  his  last  moment  might  not  be  in- 
salted  by  the  uncircumcised  foes  of  God.  On  his  refusal, 
Saul  fell  upon  his  own  sword  and  died,  and  his  faithful 
attendant,  who  had  feared  to  raise  his  hand  against  God's 
anointed,  did  not  hesitate  to  share  his  fate.  On  the  next 
day  the  Philistines  found  the  bodies  of  Saul  and  his  three 
sons  among  the  dead,  and  messengers  were  instantly  dis- 
patched through  all  the  cities  of  Philistia  to  command  re- 
joicings in  the  idol  temples.  They  carried  Saul's  remains 
from  city  to  city,  and  at  last  deposited  the  trophy  in  the 
temple  of  Ashtaroth.  His  head  was  struck  from  his  body, 
and  placed  in  the  temple  of  Dagon,  probably  at  Aslidod, 
while  the  headless  trunk  Avas  exposed,  with  those  of  his  son?, 
on  the  wall  of  the  Canaanitish  city  of  Bethshan.  In  this  ex* 
tremity  of  shame  and  ruin,  there  was  one  city  whose  heroic 
people  remembered  that  Saul  had  saved  them  from  a  fate  as 
shameful.     While  the  Israelites  west  of  Jordan  were  aban- 

"^  1  Sam.  xxix.  "°  1  Sam.  xxix.  11.  "M  Sam.  xxxi.  1. 


B.C.  1056. 


History  of  Davia. 


419 


doning  their  cities  to  be  possessed  by  the  Philistines,  the  men 
of  Jabesh-gilead  made  a  night  march  across  the  river  and 
took  down  the  bodies  of  Saul  and  his  sons,  which  they  car- 
ried to  Jabesh  and  burnt/"  They  buried  the  bones  under  a 
tamarisk-tree,  and  observed  a  fast  for  seven  days/"  The 
ashes  were  removed  long  afterward  by  David  to  the  sepul- 
chre of  Kish  at  Zelah.'" 

The  sad  tidings  were  brought  to  David  at  Ziklag  by  an 
Amalekite,  who  arrived  w^ith  his  clothes  rent  and  earth  upon 
his  head,  and  said  that  he  had  escaped  out  of  the  camp  of 
Israel,  and  had  been  an  eye-witness  of  Saul's  death/*^  He 
told  the  tale  of  the  hot  pursuit ;  and  then  added  (whether  as 
an  invention  to  please  David,  or  whether  he  had  really  come 
up  to  the  place  where  Saul  had  fallen  upon  his  sword,  w^hile 
he  was  still  alive)  that  the  king,  despairing  of  escape,  had 
begged  to  be  dispatched  by  his  hand,  and  that  he  had  dealt 
the  last  fatal  blow.  He  produced  the  crown  and  armlet 
which  Saul  used  to  wear  in  battle  and  gave  them  to  David. 
The  news  was  received  with  an  unfeigned  grief  and  conster- 
nation worthy  of  the  reverence  and  affection  which  David 
had  never  lost  for  Saul,  and  of  his  deep  love  for  Jonathan. 
He  rent  his  clothes,  and,  with  all  his  band,  mourned  and 
wept  and  fasted  till  the  evening.  Then  he  sent  for  the  Am- 
alekite, and  asking  how  he  had  dared  to  put  forth  his  hand 
to  slay  the  anointed  of  Jehovah,  he  caused  him  to  be  put 
to  death  as  guilty  by  his  own  confession.  Finally,  he  took 
his  harp,  and  poured  forth  a  lamentation  over  Saul  and  Jon- 
athan, which  is  the  finest  as  well  as  the  most  ancient  of  all 
dirges.  Under  the  title  of  "  The  Bow,"  the  favorite  weap- 
on of  Jonathan,  it  was  recorded  in  "  The  Book  of  Jasher,"^46 
and  taught  as  a  standing  lesson  to  the  children  of  Judah. 
Its  spirit  is  alike  worthy  of  the  poet  and  of  the  objects  of 

'^"^  Bethshan,  elsewhere  called  Beth- 
sbean  (Josh.  xvii.  11;  1  Chron.  vii. 
9;,  one  of  the  towns  from  which  the 
Canaanites  were  not  driven  out  ( Judg. 
i.  27),  still  hears  the  name  o(  Beisdn. 
It  lies  in  the  Ghor,  or  Jordan  Valley, 
about  twelve  miles  south  of  the  Sea 
of  Galilee,  and  four  miles  west  of  the 
Jordan,  on  the  brow  of  the  descent, 
by  which  the  great  plain  of  Esdraelon 
(Jezreel)  drops  down  to  the  level  of 
the  Ghor.  A  few  miles  to  the  south- 
west are  the  mountains  of  Gilboa,  and 
close  beside  the  town  runs  the  wa- 
ter of  the  Ain-Jalud,  the  fountain  of 


•which  is  by  Jezreel,  and  is  in  all  prob- 
ability the  spring  by  which  the  Is- 
raelites encamped  before  the  battle 
in  which  Saul  was  killed  (1  Sam. 
xxix,  1). 

If  Jabesh-gilead  was  where  Dr. 
Robinson  conjectures — at  ed-Deir,  in 
the  Wady  Ydbis — the  distance  from 
thence  to  Beisan,  which  it  took  the 
men  of  Jabesh  "  all  night"  to  trav- 
erse, can  not  be  less  than  twenty  miles, 

"=^  1  Sam.  xxxi. ;  1  Chron.  x. 

'•'*  2  Sam.  xxi.  14. 

»^  2  Sam.  i. 

"®  See  note  on  p.  305. 


420 


Second  Period  of  David^s  History.        Chap.  XX 


his  eulogy.  A  less  generous  heart,  and  one  less  devoted  ta 
duty,  might  have  been  content  with  the  tribute  of  affection 
to  his  friend  Jonathan,  and  have  left  the  memory  of  his  un- 
just master  to  perish  in  silence.  But  David  was  not  so  in- 
sensible to  Saul's  better  qualities,  to  his  old  affection,  and  to 
the  claim  of  the  King  of  Israel  to  be  celebrated  in  death  by 
the  same  harp  that  had  soothed  his  tortured  mind  while  he 
lived.  And  so  the  poem  has  verified  to  every  succeeding 
age  its  own  most  beautiful  and  touching  words  : — 

*'  Saul  and  Jonathan  were  lovely  and  pleasant  in  their  lives, 
And  in  their  death  they  were  not  divided.'^ 

Together  they  are  celebrated  as  "  swifter  than  eagles,  and 
stronger  than  lions ;"  and  equal  prowess  is  ascribed  to  the 
bow  of  Jonathan  and  to  the  sword  of  Saul.  The  mourner 
depicts  the  joy  of  the  Philistines  over  "the  mighty  who  were 
■'alien  "  in  strains  which  have  ever  since  been  proverbial : — 

"  Tell  it  not  in  Gath, 
Publish  it  not  in  the  streets  of  Askelon ; 
Lest  the  daughters  of  the  Philistines  rejoice, 
Lest  the  daughters  of  the  uncircumcised  triumph." 

Nature  is  called  to  sympathize  with  the  sorrow  of  Israel  by 
devoting  the  scene  of  the  disaster  to  a  curse : 

"  Ye  mountains  of  Gilboa,  let  there  be  no  dew. 
Neither  rain  upon  you,  nor  fields  of  offerings  : 
For  there  the  shield  of  the  mighty  is  vilely  cast  away, 
The  shield  of  Saul,"^  as  though  he  had  not  been  anointed  with  oil." 

Each  of  the  fallen  receives  his  special  tribute.  Saul  is  liken- 
ed to 

"  The  gazelle  of  Israel,  slain  upon  the  high  places  ;'* 

and  the  daughters  of  Israel,  who  once  celebrated  the  slayer 
of  his  thousands,  are  called  to  weep  for  him 

"  Who  clothed  them  in  scarlet,  with  other  delights  ; 
Who  put  ornaments  of  gold  on  their  apparel." 

But  the  grand  outburst  of  love  and  grief  is  reserved  for 
Jonathan  : 

*'0  Jonatlian,  thou  wast  slain  in  thy  high  places. 
I  am  distressed  for  thee,  my  brother  Jonathan : 


"^  This  is  a  figure  for  the  utter  de- 
struction of  Saul's  power,  as  in  Psalm 
Ixxvi.  3  ;  not  a  mere  literal  statement 
that  Saul  left  his  shield  on  the  field 
of  battle,  like  a  (jreeian  piipac-ig.  It 
is  superfluous  to  multiply  examples 
of  the  shield  as  the  emblem  of  mar- 
tial power,  under  which  the  people 


dwell  in  safety — a  figure  used  in  the 
highest  sense  in  Ps.  Ixxxiv.  11,  "Je- 
hovah God  is  a  sun  and  shield ;"  and 
in  Ps.  cxv.  9,  "  He  is  their  help  and 
their  shield."  Thei'e  is  an  interest- 
ing various  reading: — "The  sliield 
of  Saul,  the  weapons  of  the  anointed 
with  oil." 


B.C.  105G.  History  of  David.  42^1 

Very  pleasant  hast  thou  been  unto  me : 
Thy  love  to  me  was  wonderful, 
Passing  the  love  of  women." 

This  noble  utterance  of  grief,  in  wriich  David  is  the  mouth- 
piece of  Israel,  forms  a  fit  conclusion  to  the  second  period  of 
his  own  life,  as  well  as  to  the  fatal  experiment  undertaken  by 
the  Israelites  and  Saul,  of  establishing  a  kingdom  on  the  prin- 
ciples of  self-will,  and  after  the  model  of  the  nations  around, 
in  place  of  the  royalty  of  Jehovah. 

To  this  period  we  owe  several  of  those  Psalms  which,  while 
attesting  the  constancy  of  David's  piety,  have  been  ever  since 
the  manual  for  the  afflicted  and  the  oppressed.  The  simpK 
songs  of  the  shepherd  "  had  prepared  the  w^ay  for  his  future 
strains,  w^hen  the  anointing  oil  of  Samuel  came  upon  him,  and 
he  began  to  drink  in  special  measure,  from  that  day  forward, 
of  the  Spirit  of  Jehovah.  It  was  then  that,  victorious  at 
home  over  the  mysterious  melancholy  of  Saul,  and  in  the 
field  over  the  vaunting  champion  of  the  Philistine  hosts,  he 
sang  how  from  even  babes  and  sucklings  God  had  ordained 
strength  because  of  His  enemies.^*®  His  next  Psalms  are  of 
a  different  character :  his  persecutions  at  the  hands  of  Saul 
had  commenced.  Psalm  Iviii.  was  probably  written  after 
Jonathan's  disclosure  of  the  murderous  designs  of  the  court : 
Psalm  lix.  when  his  house  was  being  w^atched  by  Saul's  em- 
issaries.*" The  inhospitality  of  the  court  of  Achish  at  Gath 
gave  rise  to  Psalm  Ivi. ;  Psalm  xxxiv.  w^as  David's  thanks- 
giving for  deliverance  from  that  court,  not  unmingled  with 
shame  for  the  unworthy  stratagem  to  which  he  had  there 
temporarily  had  recourse.  The  associations  connected  with 
the  Cave  of  Adullam  are  embodied  in  Psalm  Ivii.  :  the  feel- 
ings excited  by  the  tidings  of  Doeg's  servility  in  Psalm  lii. 
The  escape  from  Keilah,  in  consequence  of  a  divine  warning, 
suggested  Psalm  xxxi.  Psalm  liv.  Avas  written  Avhen  the 
Ziphites  officiously  informed  Saul  of  David's  movements. 
Psalms  xxxiv.  and  xxxvi.  recall  the  colloquy  at  Engedi. 
Kabal  of  Carmel  was  probably  the  original  of  the  '  fool '  of 
Psalm  liii. ;  though  in  this  case  the  closing  verse  of  thai 
psalm  must  have  been  added  when  it  was  further  altered 
by  David  himself  into  Psalm  xiv.  The  most  thoroughly 
idealized  picture  suggested  by  a  retrospect  of  all  the  dan* 
gers  of  his  outlaw-life  is  that  presented  to  us  by  David  in 
Psalm  xxii.  But  in  Psalm  xxiii.,  w^hich  forms  a  side-piece- 
to  it,  and   the  imagery  of  which   is  drawn  from  his  ear- 

"^  Psalm  viii.  I  by  Ewald  to  refer  to  the  plots  which 

"^  Psalms  vi.  and  vii.  are  supposed  I  he  fled  to  escape. 


422  The  Psalms  of  David's  Historij.         Chap.  XX, 

lier  shepherd  days,  David  acknowledges  that  his  past  caree? 
had  had  its  brighter  as  well  as  its  darker  side  ;  nor  had  the 
goodness  and  mercy  Avhich  Avere  to  follow  him  all  the  days 
of  his  life  been  ever  really  absent  from  him.  Two  more 
psalms,  at  least,  must  be  referred  to  the  period  before  David 
ascended  the  throne.  Psalms  xxxviii.  and  xxxix.,  which  natu- 
rally associate  themselves  with  the  distressing  scene  at  Zik- 
lao-  after  the  inroad  of  the  Amalekites.'"'" 


^^o  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  vol.  i.  p. 
956.  Other  Psalms  referred  by  their 
traditional  titles  to  this  period  are,  Ps. 
liiii:  "When  he  was  in  the  wilder- 


ness of  Jiidah  (or  Idumaga,  LXX.)," 
and  Psalm  cxlii.,  "A  prayer  when 
he  was  in  the  cave." 


Chai>.  XX. 


Notes  and  lllasiraiions. 


423 


■6     go 


2      c      o      o  c 


^.2 ® 

Si    I 


J   «■ 


CO  g 


S      I 


II -g 


■^1 


.g_g_2_J_|. 
K    S    I    I   s 


^24: 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  XX. 


< 

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lu 

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w 

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li 

hH 

P 

tf 

H 

P4 

11^ 


x> 


y.S'tcjaK  =^ 


1^  :» 


Jill 


5wc.J5 


1< 


o  —  s  o        H 


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Chap.  XX. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


425 


(C.)  THE  SCHOOLS  OF  THE 
PKOPHETS. 

The  sacerdotal  order  was  originally 
the  instrument  by  which  the  members  j 
of  the  Jewish  theocracy  were  taught 
and  governed  in  things  spiritual.  But  I 
during  the  lime  of  the  judges  the 
priesthood  sank  into  a  state  of  degen- 
eracy, and  the  people  were  no  longer 
affected  by  the  acted  lessons  of  the 
ceremonial  service.  They  required 
less  enigmatic  warnings  and  exhorta- 
tions. Under  these  circumstances  a 
new  moral  power  was  evoked  —  the 
Prophetic  Order.  Samuel  was  the  in- 
strument used  at  once  for  effecting  a 
reform  in  the  sacerdotal  order  (1  Chr. 
ix.  22),  and  for  giving  to  the  prophets 
a  position  of  importance  which  they 
had  never  before  held.  So  important 
was  the  work  wrought  by  him  that  he 
is  classed  in  Holy  Scripture  with  Mo- 
ses (Jer.  XV.  1 ;  Ps.  xcix.  G  ;  Acts  iii. 
24),  Samuel  being  the  great  religious 
reformer  and  organizer  of  the  pro- 
phetical order,  as  Moses  was  the  great 
legislator  and  founder  of  the  priestly 
r,.le. 

Samuel  took  measures  to  make  his 
work  of  restoration  permanent  as  well 
as  effective  for  the  moment.  For  this 
purpose  he  instituted  companies,  or 
colleges  of  prophets.  One  we  find  in 
his  lifetime  at  Ramah  (1  Sam.  xix.  19, 
20)  ;  others  afterward  at  Bethel  (2 
K.  ii.  3),  Jericho  (2  K.  ii.  5),  Gilgal  (2 
K.  iv.  38),  and  elsewhere  (2  K.  vi.  1). 
Their  constitution  and  object  were 
similar  to  those  of  theological  colleges. 
Into  them  were  gathered  promising 
students,  and  here  they  were  trained 
for  the  office  which  they  were  after- 
ward destined  to  fulfill.  So  success- 
ful were  these  institutions,  that  from 
the  time  of  Samuel  to  the  closing  of 
the  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament,  there 
seems  never  to  have  been  wanting  a 
due  supply  of  men  to  keep  up  the  line 
of  official  prophets.     The  apocryphal 


books  of  the  Maccabees  (i.  iv.  46,  ix. 
27,  xiv.  41)  and  of  Ecclesiasticus 
(xxxvi.  15)  represent  them  as  extinct. 
The  colleges  appear  to  have  consist- 
ed of  students  differing  in  number. 
Sometimes  they  were  very  numerou* 
(1  K.  xviii.  4,  xxii.  G;  2  K.  ii.  IG). 
One  elderly,  or  leading  prophet,  pre- 
sided over  them  (I  Sam.  xix.  20),  call- 
ed their  father  (1  Sam.  x.  12),  or  mas- 
ter (2  K.  ii.  3),  who  was  apparently 
admitted  to  his  office  by  the  ceremony 
of  anointing  (1  K.  xix.  IG  ;  Is.  Ixi.  1  ; 
Ps.  cv.  15).  They  were  called  his 
sons.  Their  chief  subject  of  study 
was,  no  doubt,  the  law  and  its  inter- 
pretation ;  oral,  as  distinct  from  sym- 
bolical, teaching  being  henceforward 
tacitly  transferred  from  the  priestly  to 
the  prophetical  order.  Subsidiary  sub- 
jects of  instruction  were  music  and 
sacred  poetry,  both  of  which  had  been 
connected  with  prophecy  from  the  time 
of  Moses  (Ex.  xv.  20)  and  the  judges 
(Judg.  iv.  4,  V.  1).  The  prophets  that 
meet  Saul  "  came  down  from  the  high 
place  with  a  psaltery,  and  a  tabref, 
and  a  pipe,  and  a  harp  before  them  " 
(I  Sam.  X.  5).  Elijah  calls  a  min- 
strel to  evoke  the  prophetic  gift  in  him- 
self (2  K.iii. 15).  David  "separates  to 
the  service  of  the  sons  of  Asaph  and  of 
Heman  and  of  Jeduthun,  who  should 
prophesy  with  harps  and  with  psalter- 
ies and  with  cymbals.  .  .  .  All  these 
were  under  the  hands  of  their  father 
for  song  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  with 
cymbals,  psalteries,  and  harps  for  the 
service  of  the  house  of  God  "  (1  Chr. 
XXV.  1-6).  Hymns,  or  sacred  songs, 
are  found  in  the  Books  of  Jonah  (ii. 
2),  Isaiah  (xii.  1,  xxvi.  1),  Habakkuk 
(iii.  2).  And  it  was  probably  the  d  uty 
of  the  prophetical  students  to  compose 
verses  to  be  sung  in  the  Temple  (see 
Lowth,  Sacred  Poetry  of  the  Hehreivs, 
Lect.  xviii.).  Having  been  themselves 
trained  and  taught,  the  pro])hets,  whe- 
ther still  residing  within  their  college, 
or  having  left  its  precincts,  had  the 


426 


Notes  cuid  Illustrations. 


Chap.  XX. 


task  of  tcnchiiig  others.  From  the 
question  Addressed  to  the  Shunaramite 
i)y  lier  husband,  "Wherefore  wilt 
tliou  go  to  him  to-day  ?  It  is  neither 
new  moon  nor  Sabbath  "  (2  K.  iv.  23), 
it  appears  that  weekly  and  monthly 
religious  meetings  were  held  as  an  or- 
dinary practice  by  the  prophets.  Thus 
we  find  that  "  Elisha  sat  in  his  house," 
engaged  in  his  oflBcial  occupation  (cf. 
Ezek.  viii.  1,  xiv.  1,  xx.  1),  "  and  the 
elders  sat  with  him  "  (2  K.  vi.  32), 
when  the  King  of  Israel  sent  to  slay 
him.     It  was  at  these  meetings  prob- 


ably that  many  of  the  wnniings  and 
exhortations  on  morality  aud  spir- 
itual religion  were  addressed  by  the 
prophets  to  their  countrymen.  The 
general  appearance  and  life  of  the 
prophet  were  very  similar  to  those  of 
the  Eastern  dervish  at  the  present  day. 
His  dress  was  a  hairy  garment,  girt 
with  a  leathern  girdle  (Is.  xx.2  ;  Zech. 
xiii.  4  ;  Matt.  iii.  4).  He  was  married 
or  unmarried,  as  he  chose,  but  his 
manner  of  life  and  diet  were  stern  and 
austere  (2  K.  iv.  10;  38  ;  1  K.  xix.  6; 
Matt.  iii.  4). 


llabbali,  the  chief  City  of  the  Ammouite^.     (Slc  uote  on  p.  449.) 


CHAPTER  XXI. 


THE  REIGN  OF  DAVID.       B.C.  1056-1015. 

§  1.  David  king  of  Judah  at  Hebron — Ish-bosheth  proclaimed  king  of  Isra- 
el by  Abner — Civil  War — Deaths  of  Asahel,  Abner,  and  Ish-bosheth. 
§  2.  David  king  of  all  Israel — His  army  at  Hebron — He  takes  Jerusalem 
— Alliance  with  Hiram  king  of  Tyre — Forms  a  harem — Victories  over 
tlie  Philistines.  §  3.  Removal  of  the  ark  from  Kirjath-jearim — Death 
of  Uzzah — Second  removal  from  the  house  of  Obed-edom  to  Zion — 
Psalms  on  this  occasion — Divine  service  arranged — The  building  of 
God's  house  postponed  by  Divine  command — Messianic  Psalms.  §  4. 
David's  victories  over  the  Philistines,  Moabites,  Syrians,  and  Edomites 
— Israel  reaches  its  fullest  limits.  §  5.  Character  and  Constitution  of 
the  kingdom  —  i.  The  Royal  Family  —  ii.  Military  Organization — ii. 
Civil  Administration  —  iv.  The  Religious  Institutions — David's  Pro- 
phetic character  —  Psalmody  —  Levites  —  Double  High-priesthood  — 
Courses  of  the  Priests — Order  of  Prophets.  §  6.  David's  kindness  to 
Mephibosheth — Touching  story  of  Rizpah.  §  7.  War  with  the  Am- 
monites and  Syrians — VictoriesofJoab  and  David — Siege  of  Rabbah — 
David  and  Bathsheba — Murder  of  Uriah— Mission  of  Nathan— David's 
repentance — Death  of  David's  child — Birth  of  Solomon— Final  con- 
quest of  Ammon.  §  8.  Second  Period  of  David's  Reign— Family 
troubles— Amnon,  Tamar,  and  Absalom— Rebellion  of  Absalom — He  is 


428 


The  Reign  of  David. 


Chap.  XXI. 


crowned  at  Hebron.  §  9.  David's  flight  from  Jerusalem — The  priests 
and  ark  sent  back — Ahithophel  and  Hushai — Ziba  and  Shiraei — Absa- 
lom at  Jerusalem — David  at  Mahanaim — Disappointment  and  death  of 
Ahithophel — Absalom  pursues  David.  §  10.  Battle  in  the  wood  of 
Ephraim — Death  and  burial  of  Absalom — David's  lamentation — His  re- 
turn to  Jerusalem — The  farewell  of  Barzillai.  §  11.  Discord  of  Judah 
and  Israel — Rebellion  of  Sheba — Joab  kills  Amasa — Death  of  Sheba 
— War  with  the  Philistines — David's  Psalm  of  Victory.  §  12.  Thiud 
Period  of  David's  Keign — The  numbering  of  the  people,  and  the 
three  davs'  pestilence — The  place  of  the  sanctuary  determined — Prej)- 
arations  for  its  building,  and  designation  of  Solomon.  §  13.  Rebellion 
of  Adonijah — Proclamation  of  Solomon — David's  last  congregation. 
§  H.  His  final  charge  to  Solomon— Fate  of  Adonijah,  Abiathar,  Joab, 
and  Shimei — David's  last  words,  deatii,  and  burial.  §  15.  His  char- 
acter. 

§  1.  The  battle  of  Gilboa  left  Israel  in  a  state  as  forlorn  as 
that  which  ensued  upon  the  defeat  of  Aphek,  except  that 
the  ark  was  not  lost,  and  David  was  ready  to  be  her  deliver- 
er. The  country  west  of  Jordan  was  overrun  by  the  Philis- 
tines, who  occupied  the  cities  from  which  their  inhabitants 
had  fled.'  The  surviving  members  of  the  house  of  Saul  took 
refuge  on  the  east  of  Jordan,  while  David,  at  the  command 
of  God,  removed  with  his  band  and  all  his  family  from  Zik- 
lag  to  Hebron,  the  ancient  sacred  city  of  the  tribe  of  Judah. 
Here  the  men  of  Judah  came  to  him,  and  anointed  him 
king  over  their  tribe. '^  Thence  he  sent  a  message  to  the 
men  of  Jabesh-gilead  to  thank  them  for  the  honor  paid  to 
Saul's  remains  and  to  announce  his  accession  to  the  throne. 
He  was  now  thirty  years  old,  and  he  reigned  in  Hebron  7^ 
years  (b.c.  1056-1048).  The  next  event  recorded  is  Abner's 
proclamation  of  Ish-bosheth,^  the  eldest  surviving  son  of 
Saul,  as  king  over  Gilead,  the  Ashurites,  the  valley  of  Jez- 
reel,  Ephraim,  and  Benjamin,  and  nominally  over  all  Israel : 
his  residence  was  at  Mahanaim,  east  of  Jordan.  It  is  added 
that  Ish-bosheth  was  forty  years  old  when  he  began  to  reign 
over  Israel,  and  that  he  reigned  two  years.  Now,  as  we  can 
not  suppose  an  interval  of  five  years  from  his  death  to  Da- 
vid's full  recognition,  and  as  the  Philistines  were  in  full  pos- 
session of  all  Israel  west  of  Jordan  except  where  David's 
power  extended,  it  would  seem  that  Abner  was  occupied  for 
five  years  or  more  (n.c.  1056-1050)  in  recovering  the  territory 
of  the  other  tribes  from  them,  after  which  the  two  years  of 
Ish-bosheth  begin  to  be  reckoned,  so  as  to  end  just  before 
David's  full  recognition  as  king  of  all  Israel  (b.c.  1048). 

baal  in  1  Chron.  viii.  33,  ix.  30.  See 
the  pedigree  in  Notes  and  Illustrations 
to  chap.  XX. 


'  1  Sam.  xxxi.  7. 

''2  Sam.i.  1-7,  11. 

»  2  Sam.  i.  8-10 :  he  is  called  Esh- 


B.C.  105G.  David  King  of  Jadah  at  Hebron.  429 

When  Abner  had  established  Ish-bosheth's  power  west  of 
the  Jordan,  he  endeavored  to  conquer  Judah,  and  a  civil 
war  ensued,  which  was  only  ended  by  his  own  death  and 
that  of  Ish-bosheth.  The  war'was  commenced  by  Abner's  ad- 
vancing to  Gibeon,  where  he  was  met  by  the  forces  of  Judah 
under  Joab,  the  son  of  David's  sister  Zeruiah,  who  now  takes 
a  foremost  place  in  the  history.  The  Pool  of  Gibeon,  on  the 
opposite  sides  of  which  the  armies  encamped,  was  made  mem- 
orable by  the  deadly  combat  of  twelve  Benjamites  against 
twelve  men  of  Judah,  in  which  each  man  seized  his  adversary 
by  the  head  with  one  hand,  and  with  the  other  thrust  his 
sword  through  his  side,  so  that  all  of  them  fell  down  dead 
together.  The  scene  of  this  mutual  slaughter  received  the 
name  of  Helkath-hazzurim  {the  field  of  the  strong  7ne?i),*  In 
the  battle  which  ensued,  the  men  of  Israel  were  routed.  Ab- 
ner himself  was  closely  pursued  by  Asahel,  one  of  the  three 
sons  of  Zeruiah,  who  were  as  swift-footed  as  the  wild  roe. 
Unable  to  escape,  and  unwilling  to  kill  Asahel,  Abner  twice 
entreated  him  to  go  after  some  one  else,  that  he  might  have 
spoils  to  carry  back  with  him  ;  but,  as  Asahel  persisted,  Ab- 
ner thrust  him  through  with  a  back  stroke  of  his  spear,  and 
he  fell  dead,  to  the  dismay  and  grief  of  all  who  came  up  to 
the  spot.  His  brothers,  Joab  and  Abishai,  pressed  on  the 
pursuit  as  far  as  the  hill  of  Ammah,  east  of  Giah,  in  the  wil- 
derness of  Gibeon.  There,  at  sunset,  the  Benjamites  rallied 
round  Abner,  and,  after  a  parley  between  him  and  Joab,  the 
latter  sounded  the  trumpet  ot  recall,  and  both  parties  retired 
during  the  night — Abner  to  Mahanaim,  and  Joab  to  Hebron. 
The  former  had  lost  360  men,  the  latter  only  sixteen,  besides 
Asahel,  whom  they  buried  in  his  father's  sepulchre  at  Beth- 
lehem.' 

The  war  went  on  long  without  any  decisive  action,  but 
with  a  constantly  increasing  advantage  to  the  side  of  David ; 
"  David  waxed  stronger  and  stronger,  and  the  house  of  Saul 
waxed  weaker  and  weaker.""  At  length  Abner,  on  an  insult 
i-eceived  from  Ish-bosheth,  who  was  a  mere  puppet  in  his 
hands,  made  overtures  to  David,  Avho  required,  as  a  prelim- 
inary, the  restoration  of  his  wife  Michal.  David  made  the 
demand  of  Ish-bosheth,  who  took  Michal  from  her  second 
husband,  Phaltiel,  and  sent  her  to  Hebron.  Abner  now 
treated  Avith  the  elders  of  Israel,  and  especially  with  the  tribe 
of  Benjamin,  reminding  them  of  David's  designation  by  Je- 

*  2  Sam.  ii.  12-lG.  The  left-handedness  of  the  Benjamites  may  have  con- 
tributed to  tlie  resulr. 

*  2  Sam.  ii,  17-32.  ^  2  Sam.  iii.  1. 


430  The  Reign  of  David.  Chap.  XXjl 

hovah,  and  of  his  services  against  the  Philistines.  So  favor- 
able was  the  response  that  he  resolved  to  go  in  person  to  He- 
bron, with  a  gnard  of  only  twenty  men,  to  represent  to  Da- 
vid the  feelings  of  Israel  and  Benjamin.  Having  been  wel- 
comed and  feasted  by  David,  he  promised  to  gather  all  Israel 
to  his  standard,  and  went  away  in  peace.  But  both  his  jour- 
ney and  his  scheme  were  doomed  to  a  sad  miscarriage.^ 

Joab,  who  stood  to  Abner  in  the  relation  of  the  avenger 
of  blood  on  account  of  the  death  of  Asahel,  only  returned  to 
Hebron  from  an  expedition  against  the  Bedouins  of  the  desert 
after  Abner  had  departed.  He  accused  the  king  of  dismiss- 
ing an  enemy  who  had  come  only  as  a  spy ;  and  without  Da- 
vid's knowledge,  he  sent  messengers  after  Abner,  who  brought 
him  back  to  Hebron  under  the  pretense  of  further  conference. 
Drawing  Abner  aside  under  the  gateway  ot  the  city  for 
private  converse,  Joab  smote  him  under  the  fifth  rib,  so  that 
he  died.  In  this  treacherous  revenge  for  blood  shed  most 
unwillingly,  and  in  fair  fight,  Joab  was  aided  and  abetted 
by  his  brother  Abishai.^ 

Calling  Jehovah  to  witness  that  he  and  his  kingdom  were 
guiltless  for  all  future  time  of  Abner's  blood,  David  impre- 
cated a  terrible  curse  on  Joab  and  his  house.  He  then  call- 
ed his  followers  to  bury  Abner  at  Hebron  Avith  the  honors 
due  to  a  prince  and  chieftain.  Joab  was  obliged  to  join  in 
the  universal  mourning,  "  and  King  David  himself  followed 
the  bier."  David's  conduct  formed  the  climax  of  his  favor 
with  the  people,  who  well  knew  his  innocence :  "  as  whatso- 
ever the  king  did  pleased  all  the  people."  But  he  bitterly 
felt  his  impotence  to  restrain  his  too  powerful  relations,  and 
vented  his  indignation  in  the  words  which  have  become 
proverbial :  "  These  men,  the  sons  of  Zeruiah,  be  too  hard  for 
me."  He  added  threats  that  the  doer  of  evil  should  be  re- 
warded according  to  his  wickedness  ;  but  it  was  not  till  Joab 
had  again  mortally  provoked  him  by  killing  Absalom,  that 
he  deposed  him  from  his  ofKce  of  captain  of  the  guard,  and 
gave  it  to  Amasa,  whose  treacherous  murder  filled  up  the 
measure  of  Joab's  crimes.  Even  then  David  left  his  punish- 
ment as  a  legacy  to  Solomon,  by  whom  he  was  put  to  death." 

Ish-bosheth,  left  helpless  by  the  loss  of  Abner,  fell  a  victim 
to  the  conspiracy  of  two  of  his  captains,  who  slew  him  on  his 
bed,  intending  to  proclaim  Jonathan's  son,  Mephibosheth  (or 
Merib-baal),  who  Avas  not  only  an  infant,  but  lame.  Being  a 
child  of  five  years  old  when  the  tidings  were  brought  of  the 

'  2  Sam.  iii.  G-21.  ^2  Sam.  iii.  22-27,  30. 

^  2  Sam.  iii.  31-39.  xix.  ;  I  K.  ii.  5,  G,  33,  3i. 


B.C.  1018.  David  King  of  all  Israel.  431 

death  of  Saul  and  Jonathan,  he  was  carried  oft'  by  his  nurse, 
who  let  him  fall  in  the  hurry  of  the  flight,  and  so  lamed  him 
for  life.  His  royalty  was  as  impotent  as  his  person  ;  but  yet 
he  was  the  least  unfortunate  of  Saul's  house,  from  the  favor 
which  David  showed  him  for  his  father's  sake,  and  in  fulfill- 
ment of  their  covenant.  We  shall  hear  much  of  him  after- 
ward; but  meanwhile  it  is  not  clear  from  the  narrative 
whether  he  was  even  proclaimed  or  brought  out  from  his 
place  of  refuge,  which,  according  to  Josephus,  Avas  in  the 
house  of  Machir  ben-Ammiel,  a  prince  of  Gad  or  Manasseh, 
at  Lo-debar,  near  Mahanaim.'" 

The  murderers  of  Ish-bosheth  carried  his  head  to  David  at 
Hebron,  only  to  meet  the  fete  of  the  messenger  of  Saul's  death. 
They  were  put  to  death  ;  their  hands  and  feet  cut  off*,  and  their 
bodies  hanged  over  the  Pool  of  Hebron,  while  the  head  of  Ish- 
bosheth  was  buried  in  the  sepulchre  of  Abner." 

§  2.  The  minds  of  all  the  people  were  not  united  in  favor 
of  David.  The  elders  came  to  him  at  Hebron,  recognizing 
him  as  their  brother,  recalling  his  leadership  of  Israel  in  the 
time  of  Saul,  and  acknowledging  that  God  had  appointed 
him  "  to  feed  His  people  Israel."  So  they  anointed  him  as 
king  of  Israel  at  Hebron,  and  lie  made  with  them  a  cove- 
nant, based  doubtless  on  the  law  given  by  Moses  for  the  con- 
stitution of  the  kingdom,  and  the  event  was  celebrated  by  a 
three  days'  feast.^^  David  was  now  at  the  head  of  a  power- 
ful army,  composed  of  the  best  warriors  of  all  the  tribes, 
who  came  ready  armed  to  him  at  Hebron.  Judah  sent  6800, 
Simeon  7100,  Levi  4600,  besides  3700  priests,  under  Jehoiada, 
w4th  whom  came  the  young  Zadok,  already  famous  for  his 
valor,  and  destined  to  bring  back  the  high-priesthood  into  the 
house  of  Eleazar.  Even  Benjamin,  which  had  hitherto  stood 
fast  by  the  family  of  Saul,  contributed  3000  men  ;  Ephraim, 
20,800,  and  the  half-tribe  of  Manasseh,  1 8,000.  Two  hundred 
captains  led  the  whole  tribe  of  Issachar,  whose  decision  gain- 
ed for  them  the  praise  that  "  they  had  understanding  of  the 
times,  to  know  what  Israel  ought  to  do."  The  50,000  of 
Zebulan  were  all  "  expert  in  war,  well  armed,  firm  in  their 
ranks,  and  of  no  double  heart ;"  Naphtali  furnished  37,000 
such  warriors,  under  1000  captains;  Dan,  28,600;  and  Ash- 
er,  40,000.     The  tribes  of  Reuben,  Gad,  and  half-Manassel'. 


^°  I  Sam.  iv.  4  ;  1  Chron.  viii.  34, 
ix.  40  ;  Joseph.  A)it..  vii.  5,  §  5. 

"  1  Sarn.  iv.  It  deserves  notice 
that  all  tliesc  transactions  between 
the  death  of  Saul  and  David's  eleva- 


tion to  the  kingdom  of  all  Israel  nni 
omitted  in  the  First  Book  of  the  Clnon 
ickft. 

12  2  Sam.  v.  1-3  ;  1  Chron.  xi.  1-3, 
xii.  39. 


X 


432 


The  Reign  of  David. 


Chap.  XXI. 


sent  120,000  -well-armed  warriors  across  the  Jordan.  The 
sum  is  337,000  men,  besides  the  whole  tribe  of  Issachar." 

Having  this  j^owerful  army,  David  resolved  to  remove  the 
seat  of  government  from  the  remote  Hebron  nearer  to  the 
centre  ot  the  country,  and  his  choice  at  once  fell  upon  Jeru- 
salem, the  strong  city  of  the  Jebusites,  situated  on  a  rocky 
height  2600  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  But  another  rea- 
son also  probably  recommended  Jerusalem  to  David  as  the 
capital  of  his  kingdom.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  desert 
the  great  tribe  to  which  he  belonged,  and  over  which  he  had 
been  reigning  for  some  years.  Now  Jerusalem  was  the  nat- 
ural escape  out  of  this  difficulty,  since  the  boundary  between 
Judah  and  Benjamin  ran  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  on  which  the 
city  stands. "*  Jerusalem  consisted  of  an  upper  and  a  lower 
city ;  and  though  the  latter  was  taken  by  the  men  of  Judah 
in  the  time  of  Joshua,  the  upper  city  defied  their  attacks,  and 
the  whole  remained  a  Jebusite  city  till  the  period  at  which 
we  have  arrived. 

David  now  advanced  against  the  place  at  the  head  of  the 
formidable  army  already  described.  No  doubt  he  approach- 
ed the  city  from  the  south.  As  before,  the  lower  city  was 
immediately  taken,  and,  as  before,  the  citadel  held  out.^°  The 
undaunted  Jebusites,  believing  in  the  impregnability  of  their 
fortress,  manned  the  battlements  "  with  lame  and  blind." 
But  they  little  understood  the  temper  of  the  king  or  of  those 
he  commanded.  David's  anger  was  thoroughly  roused  by 
the  insult,  and  he  at  once  proclaimed  to  his  host  that  the 
first  man  who  would  scale  the  rocky  side  of  the  fortress  and 
kill  a  Jebusite  should  be  made  chief  captain  of  the  host.  A 
crowd  of  warriors  rushed  forward  to  the  attempt,  but  Joab's 
superior  agility  gained  him  the  day,  and  the  citadel,  the  fast- 
ness of  ZioN,  Avas  taken  (1046  B.C.).  It  is  the  first  time  that 
that  memorable  name  appears  in  the  history.  The  fortress, 
Avhich  now  became  the  capital  of  the  kingdom,  received  the 
name  of  "  the  city  of  David ;"  and  David  fortified  its  whole 
circuit  round  about  from  Millo,  while  Joab  repaired  the  rest 
of  the  city.'"  In  this  capital,  the  power  of  the  king  was  now 
thoroughly  established :  "  David  went  on,  and  grew  great ; 
for  the  Lord  of  liosts  was  with  liim."^^  His  power  was  ac- 
knowledged by  Hiram  king  of  Tyre,  who  sought  for  the  al- 


"  I  Chvon.  xii.  23-40. 

''  The  city  itself  Avas  .ictually  in 
Benjamin,  but  by  crossinj^  the  narrow 
ravine  of  Ilinnom  you  set  foot  on  the 
territory  of  Judah.     On  tlic  topogra- 


phy of  Jerusalem,  see  Notes  and  Il- 
lustrations. 

'^  Joseph.  Ant.  vii.  3,  §  1 . 

^°  2  Sam.  V.  G-9 ;   1  Cliron.  xi.  4-8. 

'■  2  Sam.  V.  10  ;    1  Chron.  xi.  9. 


B.ai048.  David  at  Jerusalem.  433 

liance  which  he  henceforth  steadily  maintained  with  David 
and  Solomon,  and  who  now  sent  cedar-timber  from  Lebanon, 
with  masons  and  carpenters,  to  build  David  a  palace.  But 
there  was  already  "  a  worm  in  the  bud,"  which  afterward 
blighted  all  David's  happiness.  Disregarding  the  express 
command  of  Moses,^*  he  formed  a  numerous  harem.  Already, 
while  at  Hebron,  he  had  added  to  his  first  wife  (l),  Michal, 
restored  to  him  by  Ish-bosheth,  and  to  (2),  Ahinoam,  and  (3), 
Abigail,  the  two  wives  of  his  wanderings,  four  others,  name- 
ly (4),Maacah,the  daughter  of  Talmai,  king  of  Geshur  (5), 
Haggith  (6),  Abital,  and  (7),Eglah;  and  each  of  them,  ex- 
cept Michal  who  was  childless,  had  borne  him  one  son  at  He- 
bron, namely  (1),  Amnon  ^2),  Chiliab  (3),  Absalom  (4),  Ado- 
nijah  (5),  Shephatiah,  and  (6),  Ithream,and  one  daughter,  Ta- 
mar,  who  was  full  sister  to  Absalom  by  Maacah."  At  Jeru- 
salem he  took  more  wives,  whose  names  and  number  are  not 
stated,  and  who  bore  him  ten  more  sons.  Besides  these,  he 
had  ten  concubines,  whose  children  are  not  named.  This  list 
does  not  include  Bathsheba,  whose  story  will  be  related  pres- 
ently. She  bore  David  five  sons,  of  whom  the  youngest,  Solo- 
mon, was  his  successor.''"  In  all  this  David  stopped  short  of 
that  fixtal  step  contemplated  in  the  warning  of  Moses,  and 
taken  by  Solomon,  of  multiplying  to  himself  wives  from  hea- 
then nations,  so  as  to  turn  away  his  heart  from  God  ;^'  but 
the  miseries  he  suffered  in  his  family  give  the  best  answer  to 
the  folly  which  quotes  Scripture  in  sanction  of  polygamy. 
He  reigned  at  Jerusalem  for  thirty-three  years,  besides  the 
seven  years  and  a  half  in  Hebron,  making  his  whole  reign, 
in  round  numbers,  forty  years  (b.c.  1056-1015).  He  was 
thirty  years  old  at  his  first  accession,  and  seventy  at  his 
death."  It  is  emphatically  stated  that  "  David  perceived 
that  Jehovah  had  established  him  king  over  Israel,  and  that 
he  had  exalted  his  kingdom /br  his  people  IsraeV s  saX;e."" 

A  twofold  work  had  been  given  him  to  perform :  to  estab- 
lish the  worship  of  Jehovah  in  the  place  which  he  had  chosen 
above  all  others  for  his  abode,  and  to  extend  the  kingdom  of 
Israel  to  the  bounds  promised  to  their  fathers.  With  the 
former  object  first  in  his  thoughts,  he  had  proposed  to  the 
tribes  who  gathered  at  Hebron  that  the  ark  should  be  brought 
up  from  Kirjath-jearim,  but  the  project  was  delayed  by  war. 
The  Philistines  resolved  not  to  give  up  without  an  effort  their 

"  Deut.  xvii.  17.  [5-9.     S;^o  the  pedip;ree  in  Notes  and 

^^  2  Sam.  iii,  2-5  ;  1  Chron.  iii.  1-4.  \ Illustrations  to  chap.  xx. 
'°  2  Sam.  V.  13-lG;     1  Chron.  iii.  \      ^i  Dent.  xvii.  17. 
"  1  Sara.  V.  4,  5  ;  1  Chron.  iii.  4,  xx^ri.  31,  xxix.  27.     "  2  Sam.  v.  12. 
T 


43 i  The  Rtign  of  David.  Chap.  XXI. 

long  doinvnation  over  Israel,  gathered  their  hosts  in  the  val- 
ley of  Rephaim,  or  the  valley  of  the  Giants.^^  At  the  com- 
mand of  God,  David  fell  upon  them  with  a  fury  as  resistless 
as  the  outburst  of  water  through  a  broken  dike,  whence  the 
scene  of  slaughter  was  called  Baal-perazim  {the  "  height "  of 
the  outbursts).  The  Philistines  were  not  only  routed,  but  dis- 
graced by  the  burning  of  their  idols,  which  were  left  on  the 
held  of  battle.  A  second  victory  was  gained  in  the  same 
valley  by  a  stratagem  prescribed  by  God,  whose  presence 
was  indicated  to  the  army  of  Israel  by  a  rustling  in  the  tops 
of  the  mulberry-trees,  and  the  Philistines  were  smitten  from 
Gibeon  to  Gazer.  "  And  the  fame  of  David  went  out  into 
all  lands  ;  and  Jehovah  brought  the  fear  of  him  upon  all  na- 
tions."'" Henceforth  David  is  found  acting  on  the  offensive 
against  the  Philistines  ;  and  meanwhile  their  defeat  and  the 
friendship  of  King  Hiram  secured  peace  along  the  whole 
maritime  coast. 

§  3.  David  had  now  the  long  desired  opportunity  for  the  rC' 
moval  of  the  ark.  He  had  ''  sworn  to  Jehovah,  and  vowed 
to  the  mighty  God  of  Jacob.  Surely  I  will  not  come  into 
the  tabernacle  of  my  house,  nor  go  up  into  my  bed  ;  I  will  not 
give  sleep  to  mine  eyes,  nor  slumber  to  mine  eyelids,  until  I  find 
out  a  place  for  Jehovah,  an  habitation  for  the  mighty  God  of 
Jacob."^"  Since  its  restoration  by  the  Philistines,  the  sym- 
bol of  Jehovah's  presence  had  had  its  stated  abode  at  Kir- 
jath-jearim,  here  called  Baalah,  under  the  care  of  Abinadab 
and  his  family."  Thither  David  went  with  30,000  men, 
chosen  from  all  the  tribes,  and  transported  the  ark,  Avith  mu- 
sic and  singing,  from  Abinadab's  house  in  Gibeah  (the  cita- 
del of  Kirjath-jearim)  on  a  new  cart,  driven  by  Uzzah  and 
Ahio,  the  two  sons  of  Abinadab.  But  its  progress  to  Jeru- 
salem suffered  a  melancholy  interruption.  As  the  procession 
reached  the  threshing-floor  of  Nachon  (or  Chidon),  the  oxen 
shook  the  cart,  and  Uzzah  laid  his  hand  upon  the  ark  to  steady 
it,  forgetting  that  Jehovah  needed  not  his  aid.  The  profana- 
tion was  punished  by  his  instant  death,  to  the  great  grief  of 
David,  who  named  the  place  Perez-uzzah  (the  breaking -forth 
on  Uzzah).  But  Uzzah's  fate  was  not  merely  the  penalty  of 
his  own  rashness.  The  imjiroper  mode  of  transporting  the 
ark,  which  ought  to  have  been  borne  on  the  shoulders  of  the 
Levites,  was  the  primary  cause  of  his  unholy  deed ;  and  Da- 

"^  Tlie  sire  of  the  valley  is  uncev-j      "^2  Sam.  v.  18-2;'!i;   1  Chron.  xiv. 
fain, but  it  probably  extended  toward  :  8,  17;   comp.  Isa.  xxviii.  21. 
Bethlehem.  I     ^^  Ps.  cxxxii.  1-5. 

"  ]  Sam.  vL  21,  vii.  }. 


B.C.  1042. 


Removal  of  the  Ark. 


435 


vid  distinctly  recognized  it  as  a  punishment  on  the  people 
in  c^eneral,  "  because  we  sought  Him  not  after  the  due  or- 
der>'^« 

The  terror  of  this  proof  of  Jehovah's  jealousy  stayed  fur- 
ther progress  for  the  time,  and  the  ark  was  carried  aside  to 
the  house  of  Obed-edom,  the  Gittite.  There  it  remained 
three  months,  and  brought  to  the  family  of  this  Philistine  a 
blessing  like  that  which  had  long  crowned  the  house  of 
Abinadab.^" 

Meanwhile  David  prepared  for  its  final  transport  to  Jeru- 
salem with  a  care  suitable  to  the  awful  lesson  he  had  re- 
ceived. Instead  of  removing  the  old  tabernacle,  which  was 
doubtless  much  impaired  by  age,  he  set  up  a  new  tent  for  it 
in  the  city  of  David.  In  the  first  j^rocession,  the  king  and 
his  warriors  had  perhaps  held  too  prominent  a  place,  to  the 
injury  of  the  religious  solemnity,  which  was  now  duly  pre- 
served. David  intrusted  the  duty  of  carrying  it  to  those 
whom  Jehovah  had  appointed.  He  assembled  the  three  fami- 
lies of  the  house  of  Levi,  with  the  sons  of  Aaron,  and  the  high- 
priests  of  both  the  branches,  Zadok,  of  the  house  of  Eleazar, 
and  Abiathar,  of  the  house  of  Ithamar,^"  and  bade  them  sanc- 
tify themselves  to  bring  up  the  ark  of  God;  and  so  they  car- 
ried it  on  their  shoulders  after  the  manner  prescribed  by  Mo- 
ses. They  were  escorted  by  David  and  his  chosen  Avarriors, 
with  the  elders  of  Israel,  and  the  procession  started  with 
every  sign  of  joy.  The  first  movement  was  watched  with 
deep  anxiety,  lest  there  should  still  be  some  fault  to  provoke 
God's  anger :  but  when  the  Levites  had  taken  six  stejis  in 
safety,  it  was  seen  that  God  helped  them  ;  and  the  procession 
halted,  while  David  sacrificed  seven  bullocks  and  seven  rams. 
He  then  took  his  place  before  the  ark,  clothed  only  Avith  the 
Hnen  ephod  of  the  priestly  order,  without  his  royal  robes,  and 
danced  with  all  his  might,  playing  upon  the  harp  as  he  led 
the  way  up  to  the  hill  of  Zion,  amid  the  songs  of  the  Levites, 
the  joyful  shouts  of  all  the  people,  and  the  noise  of  cornets, 
and  trumpets,  and  cymbals,  and  psalteries,  and  harps.  Hav- 
ing placed  it  in  the  tabernacle  he  had  prepared,  and  having 
offered  burnt-offerings  and  peace-offerings,  he  blessed  the  peo- 
ple in  the  name  of  Jehovah,  and  dealt  to  each  of  the  multi- 
tude, women  as  well  as  men,  a  loaf  of  bread,  a  large  piece  of 


I  Chron.  XV.  13. 

1    Samuel    vi.    1-11: 


1  Chron. 


^"^  Comp.  3  Sam.  viii.  16.     The  pre- 
cedence given  to  Zadok  in  1  Chron. 


XV.  11,  may  be  due  to  the  state  of 
things  when  the  book  was  composed. 
Perhaps  Zadok  liad  been  recognized 
as  high-priest  by  Saul  after  Abia- 
thar's  flight  to  David. 


436 


'The  lieign  of  David. 


Chai-.  XXI. 


meal,  and  a  flagon  of  wine,  doubtless  from  the  offerings.  He 
then  returned  to  bless  his  household ;  but  his  reception  cast 
a  shade  even  over  this  most  joyful  day  of  all  his  reign.  His 
enthusiastic  dance  before  the  ark  had  been  observed  with 
scorn  by  his  wife  Michal  from  a  window  of  the  new  palace  ; 
she  met  him  on  his  return  with  insulting  reproaches,  to  which 
he  made  an  indignant  answer ;  and  she  remained  barren  to 
the  day  of  her  death. ^^ 

In  both  these  ceremonials  a  prominent  feature  was  the 
ringing  the  praises  of  Jehovah  to  the  music  of  various  instru- 
ments.    On  the  first  removal  of  the  ark,  we  are  told  that 
"  David    and   all  Israel   played  before  God  with  all  their 
might,  and  with  singing,  and  with  harps,  psalteries,  timbrels, 
cymbals,  and  trumpets."      On  the   second  occasion  David 
made  a  complete  arrangement  of  the  musical  service,  placing 
it  under  the  direction  of  the  priests,  Zadok  and  Abiathar,  and 
appointing  the  Levites  for  its  performance,  with  AsArii^^  at 
their  head.     The  First  Book  of  Chronicles  describes  the  order 
of  this  "  service  of  song,"  and  preserves  tlie  Psalm  of  thanks- 
giving wiiich  David  first  delivered  into  the  hand  of  Asaph 
and  his  brethren. ^^     The  comparison  of  this  with  several  in 
the  Book  of  Psalms  shows  that  it  is  either,  an  outline  which 
was  afterward  expanded  into  separate  poems,  or  an  epitome 
of  the  Psalms  used  on  the  occasion.     For  there  are  many 
Psalms  to  be  referred  to  the  removal  of  the  ark  to  Jerusalem, 
both  on  the  ground  of  tradition  and  of  their  own  internal  evi- 
dence.    At  the  head  of  these  is  the  132d,  in  which  David  in 
his  own  name  describes  the  removal  of  the  ark  from  the  first 
desire  of  his  heart  to  its  final  accomplishment,  records  God's 
eternal  covenant  with  him  and  his  house,  and  celebrates  Je- 
hovah's choice  of  Zion  for  his  abode.     The  68th  is  equally 
suitable  for  the  first  removal  of  the  ark,  for  the  solemn  pause 
in  which  David  offered  sacrifice  when  the  Levites  had  lifted 
it  at  its  second  removal,  or  for  its  entrance  into  the  city  of 
David ;  it  begins  with  the  words  appointed  by  Moses  to  be 
sung  when  the  ark  was  lifted, "  Let  God  arise,  let  his  enemies 
be  scattered,"  and  it  advances  from  the  record  of  victory 

have  remained  hereditary  in  his  f:un- 
ily,  unless  he  was  the  founder  of  a 
school  of  poets  and  musical  composers, 
who  were  called  after  him  "  the  sons 
of  Asaph  "  (comp.  tlie  Homerida;)  ( I 
Chr.  XXV.  1  ;  2  Cln*.  xx.  14;  Ezra  ii. 
41). 

^'  1  Chron.  xvi.  ;  comp.  Ps.  cv.  1- 
15,  xcvi.,  cvi.,  cvii.,  cxviii.,  cxxxvi. 


^^  2  Sam.  vi.  ;   1  Chron.  xv.,  xvi. 

'^  Psalms  1.  and  Ixxiii.  to  Ixxxiii. 
are  attributed  to  Asaph,  but  probably 
all  except  the  1.,  Ixxiii.,  and  Ixxvii. 
are  of  later  origin.  He  was  in  after- 
times  celebrated  as  a  seer  as  well  as 
a  musical  composer,  and  was  put  on 
ft  par  with  David  (2  Chr.  xxix.  30; 
Neh.  xii.  46).     The  office  appears  to 


B.C.  1042.  Psalms  on  the  Occasion.  437 

after  victory  to  the  final  e-stablishment  of  God's  honse  at  Je- 
rusalem, and  the  prediction  of  the  worship  He  should  receive 
from  all  nations  of  the  earth.  The  24th  marks  the  entrance 
of  the  ark  into  the  citadel  of  Zion  by  its  grand  refrain, 

"Lift  up  your  heads,  O  ye  gates  ; 
And  be  ye  lift  up,  ye  everlasting  doors; 
And  the  King  of  glory  shall  come  in": — 

words  wliich  clearly  set  fortli  the  idea  which  runs  through  all 
these  psalms,  of  victory  as  well  as  praise.  They  celebrate 
not  only  the  inauguration  of  the  place  of  religious  worship, 
but  the  installation  of  Jehovah,  the  glorious  King,  who  has  at 
length  completed  the  victory  over  the  heathen  enemies  of  his 
people,  in  the  citadel  from  which  he  shall  still  go  forth  to 
conquer  all  the  world.  He  is  marked  as  the  God  of  battles 
by  the  new  name  which  heralds  his  entrance  : — 

*'  Who  is  this  King  of  glory? 

Jehovah  strong  and  mighty, 

Jehovah  mighty  in  battle." 
"  Who  is  this  King  of  glory  ? 

The  Lord  of  Hosts,  ^ 

He  is  the  King  of  glory." 

The  96th,  105th,  lOGth,  as  we  have  seen,  are  pro'bably  the 
full  form,  adapted  to  the  Temple  service,  of  the  Psalm  which 
David  delivered  to  Asaph  and  his  brethren  at  the  close  of 
this  great  ceremony.  Of  others  less  certainly  belonging  to 
this  occasion,  the  15th  describes  the  character  of  a  true  citi- 
zen of  Zion,  and  forms  a  sort  of  proclamation  against  impi- 
ety in  the  new  city  ;  the  101st  is  in  a  similar  vein,  with  more 
especial  reference  to  David's  conduct  of  his  own  house ;  the 
29th  (in  the  LXX.)  and  the  30th  have  titles  referring  them 
to  this  time. 

All  other  arrangements  were  m.ade  by  David  with  equal 
care  for  the  whole  order  of  divine  worship,  according  to  the 
law  of  Moses.  Asaph  and  his  brethren  were  appointed  to 
minister  in  the  daily  service  before  the  ark.  The  office  of 
chief  doorkeeper  was  committed  to  Obed-edom,in  whose  house 
the  ark  had  rested.  Zadok  and  the  priests  were  charged  with 
the  daily  and  other  sacrifices  at  the  Tabernacle,  which  remain- 
ed at  Gibeon.^**^ 

David's  zeal  for  the  house  of  God  was  still  only  fulfilled 
in  part.  His  new  city  was  blessed  with  the  symbol  of  Je- 
hovah's presence,  but  that  sacred  object  had  itself  no  worthy 

^  Properly  Jehovah  of  Armies  ;  but  we  preserve  the  phrase  so  famil- 
iar to  our  ears.  ^^'^  1  Chron.  xvi.  37-43. 


438  The  Reign  oj  David.  Chap.  XXI. 

abode.  Tlie  palace  built  for  the  king  by  Hiram's  workmen 
was  now  finished,  and  no  war  summoned  him  from  its  halls ; 
but,  as  he  sat  in  it,  he  was  troubled  by  the  thought,  which 
has  so  often  since  lighted  up  the  "  Lamp  of  Sacrifice ;" — "  See 
now,  I  dwell  in  a  house  of  cedars,  but  the  ark  of  the  cove- 
nant of  Jehovah  dwelleth  within  curtains."  He  uttered  his 
feelings  to  the  proj^het  Nathan,  who  now  first  appears  as 
David's  chief  counselor ;  and,  as  if  there  could  be  but  one 
response  to  so  pious  a  desire,  without  waiting  to  consult 
God,  Nathan  replied,  "  Do  all  that  is  in  thy  heart,  for  God 
is  with  thee."^^  But  that  same  night  the  word  of  God  came 
to  Nathan,  bidding  him  tell  David  that  he  was  not  to  build 
jv  house  for  God  to  dwell  in.  He  is  reminded  that  Jehovah 
had  been  content  to  dwell  in  a  tent  ever  since  the  Exodus, 
and  that  He  had  not  spoken  a  Avord  to  any  of  the  tribes  or 
the  judges  about  building  him  a  house  of  cedar.  In  these 
words,  which  sound  like  a  gentle  rebuke  for  a  tendency  to 
materialism  in  God's  worship,  we  see  the  same  princij^le 
which  Solomon  recognizes  in  the  very  act  of  dedicating  his 
temple  :  "  Behold  !  the  heaven  and  heaven  of  heavens  can 
not  contain  Thee  ;  how  much  less  this  house  that  I  have 
built  !"^^  But  the  design  was  only  postponed,  not  forbidden. 
Just  as  God  condescended  to  the  wish  of  the  people  for  a 
king,  and  then  made  the  stability  of  David's  throne  the  new 
basis  of  the  commonwealth,  so  he  chose  a  habitation  for  him- 
self in  tlie  city  of  David,  as  a  sign  that  the  period  of  pilgrim- 
age was  ended,  and  that  his  home  was  Avith  the  king  and 
people  of  His  choice.  So  Nathan  was  commissioned  to  tell 
David  that  Jehovah,  who  had  been  with,  him  hitherto,  would 
first  establish  his  house,  and  would  raise  up  one  of  his  sons, 
whose  kingdom  should  be  established  forever,  and  who  should 
build  the  house  of  God  in  the  place  chosen  by  Himself" 
This  prediction,  referring  first  to  Solomon,  is  expressed  in 
terms  tliat  could  only  be  fulfilled  in  the  Messiah  ;  and  it  is 
clear  that  David  understood  it  so,  from  the  wonderful  prayer 
which  he  poured  out  before  God  in  thanksgiving  for  the  hon- 
or put  upon  him.^*  Similar  feelings  are  uttered  in  several 
of  the  "  Messianic  Psalms,"  which  have  therefore  been  regard- 
ed as  written  on  tlie  occasion  of  Nathan's  prophecy,  such  as 
the  2d,  45th,  22d,  16th,  118th,  and  110th,  in  all  of  which  the 
promises  of  God  to  David  and  his  house  are  celebrated  in 

^=  2  Sam.  vii.  1-3  ;    1  Chron.  xvii.  1      ^'  2  Sam.  vii.  4-17  ;   1  Chron.  xvii. 


1,  2. 

3«  1  K.  viii.  27;  2Chr.  ii.  G:  comp. 
Is.  Ixvi.  1  :  Acts  vii.  49,  xvii.  24, 


3-15. 

''"^  2  Sam.  vii.  18-29  ;  1  Chron.  xviL 
lG-27. 


B.C.  1040-  Victories  ovet  the  Heathen.  439 

that  wonderfully  expressive  language  which  reveals  Him  who 
Avas  at  once  David's  Son  and  Lord.'" 

§  4.  His  own  throne,  and  the  service  of  God's  sanctuary, 
being  thus  established,  David  advanced  to  the  final  subjuga- 
tion of  the  enemies  of  Israel. 

i.  We  have  already  mentioned  the  two  last  invasions  of 
the  Philistines  :  they  Avere  now,  in  their  turn,  invaded  and 
subdued  by  David,  who  took  the  proud  frontier  city  of  Gath, 
"  The  bridle  of  the  mother-city,"  with  its  "  daughter  towns."" 
Except  one  or  two  minor  combats,  we  hear  of  no  further 
trouble  from  the  Philistines  during  David's  reign.  This  con- 
quest secured  to  Israel  its  promised  boundary  on  the  south- 
west, the  "  river  of  Egypt." 

ii.  Turning  to  the  eastern  frontier,  David  exacted  Irom 
MoAB  a  sio'iTal  vengeance  for  all  her  enmity  against  Israel 
down  from  the  time  of  Balak.  Two-thirds  of  the  people 
were  put  to  death,  and  the  other  third  reduced  to  tribute."' 
David's  personal  relations  to  this  nation,  Avhose  blood  he 
shared,  had  been  so  friendly  that  we  have  seen  him  commit- 
ting his  father  and  mother  to  the  care  of  the  King  of  Moab. 
A  Jewish  tradition  says  that  tlicv  were  foully  murdered. 
There  is  not  a  word  of  this  in  the  Scripture  narrative  ;  but 
we  may  be  quite  sure  that  David's  vengeance  Avas  provoked 
by  some  treacherous  insult,  as  in  the  later  case  of  Amnion 
Thus  was  Balaam's  prophecy  fulfilled  :— "  Out  of  Jacob  shall 
come  he  that  shall  have  dominion,  and  shall  destroy  him  that 
remaineth  of  Ar"  (the  metropolis  ot  Moab). 

iii.  The  eastern  frontier  being  now  secured,  for  Nahash  the 
Ammonite  Avas  his  friend.  David  advanced  to  the  conquest 
of  tlie  promised  boundary  on  the  north-east,  "  the  great  river 
Euphrates.'"'  Two  Syria^t  kingdoms  lay  between  him  and 
his  purpose.  Ttiat  of  Zobah,  which  has  been  mentioned  more 
than  once  before,  was  then  o-overned  by  Hadadezer,  the  son 
of  Rehob,  whom  David  defeated,  taking  from  him  his  force 
of  1000  chariots,  700  horse,  and  20,000  infantry.  The  char- 
iot-horses Avere  hamstrung,  according  to  the  command  ot 
Moses,  but  David  could  not  resist  the  temptation  of  reserv- 
ing 100  chariots  as  an  ornament  for  his  royal  state.*      ^he 

33  Comp.  Matt.  xxii.  44 ;  Mark  xii 


?6  ;  Luke  xx.  42. 

"2  Sam.  viii.  1  ;  1  Chron.  xviii. 
1  :  the  above  is  Gesenius's  explana- 
tion of  the  obscure  phrase  "Metheg- 
ammah,"  wliich  Ewnld  renders,  "  the 
bridle  of  the  fore-arm." 

"^  2  Sam.  viii.  2 ;  1  Chron.  xviii.  2. 


To  this  war  belong  the  exploits  of  Bc- 
naiah,  the  son  of  Jehoiada  (2  Sam- 
xxiii.  20;   1  Chron.  xi.  22). 

^2  2  Sam.  viii.  3;  1  Chron.  xviii.  3; 
comp.  Gen.  xv.  18. 

"  2  Sam  viii.  3,  4  ;  1  Chron.  xvni. 
3.4. 


440 


The  Reign  of  David, 


Chap.  XXI. 


Syrians  of  Damascus,  coming  to  the  help  of  Hadadezer,  weie 
defeated  with  the  loss  of  22,000  men ;  and  that  fairest  ana 
oldest  of  the  cities  of  the  Avorld  was  made  tributary  to  Da- 
vid, and  garrisoned  by  his  troops.  "Thus  did  Jehovah  pre- 
serve David  whithersoever  he  went."" 

These  victories  led  to  an  alliance  with  Toi,  king  of  Ha- 
MATii  (the  Coele-Syria  of  the  Greeks),"  who  sent  his  son 
Jorani  to  congratulate  David  on  the  defeat  of  Hadadezer, 
Ills  own  enemy.  This,  together  with  the  old  friendship  of 
Iliram  king  of  Tyre,  secured  the  northern  frontier  ;  and 
David  returned  to  Jerusalem,  laden  with  the  golden  shields 
of  Iladadezer's  body-guard,  the  brass  taken  from  his  cities, 
and  the  vessels  of  gold  and  silver  and  brass  which  Joram 
had  brought  as  presents.  All  these,  together  with  the  sj^oils 
of  Moab  and  the  Philistines,  the  plunder  formerly  tak,en  from 
Amalek,  and  that  gained  afterward  from  Edom  and  the  sons 
of  Ammon,  he  dedicated  for  the  service  of  the  future  Tem- 
ple.^^ 

iv.  Tlie  long  conflict  of  Edom  with  his  brother  Israel  was 
now  brought  to  its  first  decision  by  a  great  victory  gained 
by  Abishai,  the  son  of  Zeruiah,  in  "  the  valley  of  Salt "  (on 
the  south  of  the  Dead  Sea),  in  which  the  Edomites  lost  18,000 
men."'  David  was  probably  in  Syria  at  the  time  of  this 
battle,  which  was  followed  up  by  a  great  army  under  Joab, 
who  in  six  months  almost  exterminated  the  male  population. 
David  tlien  visited  the  conquered  land,  and  placed  garrisons 
in  all  the  cities.  The  young  king,  Hadad,  however,  escaped 
to  Egypt,  and  became  afterward  a  formidable  enemy  to  Solo- 
mon/" 

These  victories,  which  David  celebrates  in  the  60th  and 
llOtli  Psalms,''^  carried  the  southern  frontier  of  Israel  to  the 
eastern  head  of  the  Red  Sea ;  and  from  that  point  to  the 
frontier  of  Egypt,  the  Arab  tribes  had  felt  enough  of  his 
power  as  an  exile  not  to  molest  him  in  the  hour  of  his  tri- 
umph. Tlie  bounds  of  the  promised  land  Avere  now  fully 
occupied,  tliough  not  even  now  so  completely  as  if  Israel 
had  been  faithful  from  the  first.  For,  besides  the  scattered 
remnants  of  the  old  inhabitants,  several  of  Avhom  (as  Ittai 

xviii.  12,  13:  the  word  "Syrians'* 
in  the  former  passage  is  due  to  an 
obvious  error  of  the  text,  Aram  for 
Edom.  ■•«  1  K.  xi.  14-22. 

*"  The  title  of  the  former,  and  the 
contents  of  both,  fix  their  composi- 
tion to  the  time  of  the  oonquest  of 
Edom. 


5-7. 


2  Sam.  viii.  5,  G  ;  1  Chron.  xviii. 


*^  In  its  fullest  sense  it  extended 
still  further  north,  to  the  valley  of  the 
Orontes. 

^«  2  Sam.  Tiii.  7-12;  1  Chron. 
xviii.  7-11. 

*^  2  Sam.  viii.   13,  14;    1  Chron. 


B.C.  1040.  Constitution  of  the  Kingdom.  441 

the  Gittite,  Uriah  the  Hittite,  and  others)  were  conspicuous 
among  the  king's  great  men  ;  besides  that  the  Philistines  and 
others,  who  had  been  devoted  to  extermination,  were  only- 
reduced  to  tribute ;  there  was  one  fair  province  unsubdued, 
the  whole  coast  of  Phoenicia,  the  great  cities  of  which  still 
flourished  under  their  native  kings,  the  chief  of  whom  was 
David's  firm  ally. 

These  extended  limits  were  only  preserved  during  the 
reigns  of  David  and  of  Solomon,  a  period  of  about  sixty 
years.  For  that  time,  however,  the  state  formed  no  longer 
a  petty  monarchy,  barely  holding  its  own  among  the  sur- 
rounding nations,  as  under  Saul ;  but  it  was  truly  one  of  the 
great  Oriental  monarchies  ;  too  truly,  indeed,  for  the  mag- 
nificence of  Solomon  sapped  its  strength,  and  ])repared  its 
speedy  dissolution.  Meanwhile  David's  position  is  thus  de- 
scribed by  the  prophet  Nathan  : — "  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of 
hosts,  I  took  thee  from  the  sheepcote,  from  following  the 
sheep,  to  be  ruler  over  my  people,  over  Israel :  and  I  was 
with  thee  whithersoever  thou  wentest,  and  have  cut  off"  all 
thine  enemies  out  of  thy  sight,  and  have  made  thee  a  great 
name,  like  unto  the  name  of  the  great  men  that  are  in  the 
earth."^"  Thus  "  David  reigned  over  all  Israel,  and  executed 
judgment  and  justice  among  all  his  people."^* 

§  5.  The  constitution  which  David  established  for  his 
kingdom  was  preserved,  in  its  main  forms,  to  the  end  of  the 
monarchy. 

i.  The  Hoyal  Family. —  We  have  already  spoken  of  Da- 
vid's goodly  progeny,  which  well  entitled  him  to  the  epithet  of 
"patriarch."'^  The  princes  were  under  the  charge  of  Jehiel, 
probably  the  Levite  of  that  name  :"'^  but,  when  Solomon 
was  born,  he  was  committed  to  the  care  of  the  prophet  Na- 
than.^* The  warm  love  of  David  for  his  sons"  was  shown  in 
an  indulgence  that  was  the  proximate  cause  of  the  family 
calamities  which  were  visited  on  him  as  a  judgment  for  his 
one  great  sin.  But  those  dark  clouds  had  not  yet  gather- 
ed ;  and  he  had  nothing  to  mar  his  pleasure  in  his  children, 
two  of  whom,  at  least,  Absalom  and  Adonijah,  inherited  his 
beauty. 

ii.  The  Military  Organization  was  based  on  that  of  Saul. 

(1.)  "  The  IIosV  was  composed,  from  the  first  formation 

^^  2  Sam.  vii.  9.  1     ^n  Chron.  xxvii.   32,   xv.  21;    2 

^^2  Sam.  viii.  15;  1  Chron.  xviii.  Chron.  xx.  14. 
14.  ^*  2  Sam.  xii.  25,  according  to  oao 

"  Acts  ii.  29.  I  interpretation. 

'"  2  Sam.  xiii.  31,  33,  36,  xiv.  33,  xviii.  5,  33,  xix.  4 ;  1  K.  i.  6. 
T  2 


U2 


The  Reign  of  David. 


Chap.  XXI, 


of  the  nation  in  the  desert,  of  all  males  capable  of  bearing 
arms,  who  were  summoned  to  war  by  the  judges  or  princes 
of  tribes  when  the  necessity  arose.  Saul  formed  a  chosen 
band  of  3000  as  a  standing  army,  the  nucleus  of  the  whole 
force,  under  Abner,  as  commander-in-chief  The  same  post 
was  held  under  David  by  Joab,  who  won  it  by  the  capture 
of  the  citadel  of  Jerusalem.  He  letl  out  the  host  to  war 
when  the  king  did  not  take  the  field  in  person.^"  The  stand- 
ing organization  was  improved  under  David  by  the  division 
of^the  whole  host  into  twelve  bodies  of  24,000  each  (288,000 
in  all),  whose  turn  of  service  came  every  month,  and  each 
of  which  had  a  commander  chosen  from  David's  band  of 
mighty  men  of  valor."  In  accordance  with  the  institution 
prescribed  by  Moses,  the  force  was  entirely  of  infantry  :  the 
100  chariots  reserved  by  David  from  the  Syrians  seem  to 
have  been  only  for  purposes  of  state.  The  weapons  con- 
stantly alluded  to  in  the  history  and  the  Psalms  are  spears 
and  shields,  swords  and  bows.  The  use  of  body  armor  is 
mentioned  in  the  story  of  Goliath. 

(2.)  The  Body-guard  was  recruited  to  so  great  an  extent 
from  foreigners  (and  chielly  Philistines,  a  practice  dating 
probably  from  David's  exile)  that  the  force  bore  a  foreign 
name,  like  the  Scottish  archers  and  the  Smss  guards  of  the 
French  kings  and  the  Pope.  At  least  it  seems  most  proba- 
ble that  "Cherethites  and  Pelethites"  are  proper  names, 
the  former  of  a  Philistine  tribe, ^^  and  the  latter  a  form  of 
the  word  Philistines.  They  are  mentioned  in  close  connec- 
tion with  the  "  Gittites,"  a  body  of  600  men  who  came  to 
David  from  Gath,  under  Ittai ;  but  these  seem  only  to  have 
joined  him  on  the  special  occasion  of  his  flight  from  Absa- 
lom/" The  commander  of  the  Cherethites  and  Pelethites 
was  Benaiah,  the  son  of  Jehoiada,  the  priest  of  the  line  of 
Eleazar.'^'* 

(3.)  The  Heroes^  or  Mighty  Meyi  {Gihhorim)^  were  a  pecu- 
liar and  favored  body  (like  the  Cent  Gardes  of  Napoleon), 
composed  originally  of  the  600  warriors  who  joined  David 
in  his  exile,  and  afterward  maintained  at  the  same  number. 
They  were  formed  into  three  great  divisions  of  200  each,  and 
thirty  bands  of  twenty  each,  with  their  respective  leaders. 
The  captains  of  twenties  formed  "the  thirty,"  and  the  com* 


»"  2  Sam.  xii.  26;  I  K.  xi.  15. 

"^  1  Chron.  xxvii.  1-15. 

'""^  1  Sam.  XXX.  14.  The  words  are 
otlierwise  interpreted  "execution- 
ers "  and    "  couriers,"  functions  cer- 


tainly performed  bv  the  bodv-guard. 
See  2  K.  xi.  4  ;   1  K.  xiv.  27."^ 

'^2  Sam.  XV.  18-22. 

''"  2  Sam.  viii.  18,  xx.  23  ;  IK.  I 
38,  44;  1  Ciiron.  xviii.  17. 


B.C.  1040. 


Constitution  of  the  Kingdom. 


443 


mandcrs  of  tAv^o  hundreds  "  the  three,"  above  whom  was 
"the  captain  of  the  mighty  men."  This  post  was  held  by 
Abishai,  the  son  of  Zeruiah ;  but,  though  first  in  rank,  he 
was  inferior  in  prowess  to  "  the  three,"  who  were  Jasho- 
beam  (or  Adino)  the  Hachmonite,  Eleazar,  son  of  Dodo  the 
Ahohite,  who  was  with  David  at  Ephes-dammim,  and  Sham- 
mah,  son  of  Agee  the  Hararite.  We  have  also  a  list  of  "  the 
thirty,"  some  of  whose  names  occur  also  in  other  passages : 
it  opens  with  the  name  of  Asahel,  the  brother  of  Joab,  who 
was  slain  by  Abner,  and  closes  with  that  of  Uriah  the  Hit- 
tite,  who  fell  by  the  treachery  of  David  himself  ^^ 

iii.  The  Civil  Administration  was  conducted  under  the 
eyes  of  the  king  himself,  assisted  by  a  council,  of  which  the 
chief  members  were  Jonathan,  the  king's  nephew,  son  of  his 
brother  Shimeah,  Avho  seems  to  have  been  his  chief  secre- 
tary ;"  Ahithophel  of  Gilo,  afterward  so  famous  as  Absalom's 
adviser;  his  rival  Hushai  the  Archite,  the  king's  "friend" 
or  "  companion ;"  Jehoiada,  the  son  of  Benaiah ;  and  Zadok 
and  Abiathar,  the  high-priests ;  together  with  Joab,  and 
probably  Benaiah,  whose  military  rank  gave  them,  like  Ab- 
ner and  David  under  Saul,  a  high  place  at  the  court.  Then 
there  were  the  great  officers  of  state,  Sheva  or  Seraiah,  the 
"scribe"  or  public  secretary;  Jehoshaphat,  the  "recorder" 
or  historian;  Adoram;  and  Ira,  the  Jairite,  who  was  "a 
chief  ruler  about  David,'"'^  with  functions  probably  judicial, 
and  the  same  rank  was  held  by  David's  sons.^*  The  royal 
possessions  in  the  fields,  cities,  villages,  and  castles,  compris- 
ing farms,  vineyards,  olive  and  other  trees,  stores  of  wine  and 
oil,  herds  of  oxen  and  camels,  and  flocks  of  sheep,  besides 
treasure,  were  intrusted  to  officers  for  each  branch,  all  undei 
a  chief  treasurer,  Azmaveth,  the  son  of  Adiel."  But  a  place 
was  still  found  for  the  patriarchal  government  of  the  tribes, 
whose  princes  are  enumerated  -^^  the  prince  of  Judah  being, 
not  David  himself,  but  his  brother  Elihu  (doubtless  the  same 
as  Eliab)®^  by  the  right  of  primogeniture. 

iv.  The  Religious  Institutions  were  in  part  mixed  ujn  with 


•"  2  Sum.  xxiii.  8-39  ;  1  Chron,  xi. 
11-4:7.  The  comparison  of  the  two 
lists  affords  an  interesting  example 
of  the  minor  variations  of  the  sacred 
text.  The  excess  above  the  number 
of  thirty  is  naturally  accounted  for  by 
the  new  appointments  required  to  fill 
up  vacancies. 

^'^  1  Chron.  xxvii.  32  .  ir,  seems  that 
"nephew"  is  tlie  tnu-r  meaning  of 


the  word  translated  uncle,  and  that 
this  is  the  same  Jonathan  as  in  2 
Sam.  xxi.  21  ;  1  Chron.  xx.  7. 

^^  The  LXX.  translate  the  word 
"ruler"  as  "  priest." 

«^  2  Sam.  viii.  16-18,  xx.  23-26  ;  1 
Chron.  xviii.  14-17,  xxvii.  32-34 

^^  1  Chron.  xxvii.  25-31. 

^^  1  Chron.  xxvii.  16-2? 

"  1  Sam.  xvi.  16- 


444 


The  Reign  of  David. 


Chap.  XXI. 


the  constitution  of  the  monarchy  itself.  Like  Saul  and  some 
of  the  judges,  we  see  David  offering  sacrifices — an  apparent 
usurpation  of  the  priestly  office,  to  be  explained  perliaps  by 
the  patriarchal  priesthood,  which  was  vested  in  the  chief  of 
a  family,  and  therefore  by  a  natural  analogy  in  the  chief  of 
the  state  ;''^  and  he  even  gives  the  priestly  benediction/* 
But  his  peculiar  character,  as  the  religious  head  of  the  state, 
is  seen  in  his  inspiration  as  a  prophet  and  psalmist.  ''''JSeing 
a  propliet^''  as  St.  Peter  explicitly  declared,'"  he  foretold,  iu 
plainer  and  more  glowing  language  than  any  that  had  yet 
been  used,  thos©  great  events,  of  which  the  whole  ceremonial 
of  the  Jewish  Church,  and  even  his  own  kingdom,  were  but 
types,  "  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  and  the  glory  that  should 
follow."  As  a  prophet  too,  he  taught  the  peoj^le  those  prin- 
ciples of  religious  and  moral  truth  of  which  the  Psalms  are 
full,  and  which,  in  the  Proverbs,  were  to  a  great  extent  learnt 
by  Solomon  from  him.  As  "  the  sweet  Psalmist  of  Israel," 
who  said  of  himself  "  The  Spirit  of  Jehovah  spoke  by  me,  and 
His  word  was  in  my  tongue,"  it  was  his  peculiar  honor,  not 
only  for  the  Jewish  Church,  but  for  the  Church  Universal  to 
the  end  of  time,  to  direct  that  part  of  God's  worship  which 
is  the  best  utterance  of  the  heart,  the  tuneful  notes  of  jDraise, 
inseparably  blended  Avith  prayer  and  with  the  utterance  of 
divine  truth.  His  pre-eminence  in  this  respect  is  unaffected 
by  the  doubts  about  the  authorship  of  many  of  the  Psalms. 
A  great  truth  is  expressed  by  the  common  title  which  names 
the  whole  book  "  The  Psalms  of  David ;"  for  he  founded 
psalmody  as  an  institution,  taught  it  to  Asaph  and  his  other 
immediate  successors,  and  gave  the  model  which  all  later 
psalmists  followed.''^ 

While  he  thus  furnished  the  matter  of  psalmody,  he  regu- 
lated its  manner,  by  arranging  for  the  first  time  a  full  choral 
service.  To  this  office  David,  in  conjunction  with  the  chiefs 
of  the  Levites,  set  apart  three  families,  one  from  each  of  the 
three  houses  of  the  tribe,  the  Gershonites,  Kohathites,  and 
Merarites.  They  were  2jro])}iets  as  well  as  singers, "  to  proph- 
esy with  harps,  with  psalteries,  and  with  cymbals ;""  and 
they  handed  down  their  art  from  generation  to  generation 


°®  Even  Samuel,  though  a  Levite, 
was  not  a  priest. 

"^  2  Sam.  vi.  6. 

"  Acts  ii.  30. 

'^  It  is  not  meant  to  be  implied  that 
David  did  not  himself  work  upon 
more   ancient   models   such   as   the 


"Hymn  of  Miriam"  (Ex.  xv.),  the 
"Prayer  of  Moses  the  Man  of  God" 
(Ps.  xc),  the  "Song  of  Deborah" 
(Judg.  v.),  and  the  " Thanksgiving^ 
of  Hannah"  (1  Sam.  ii.). 

"  1  Chron.  xv.  10-22,  xxv.  1,  2, 
comp.  xxiiL  6. 


B.C.  1040. 


The  Religious  Institutions. 


445 


by  a  systematic  course  of  instruction,  "  the  teacher  as  well 
as  the  scholar.""  These  families  were  those  of  Asaph,  the 
son  of  Berechiah  the  Gershonite,  the  chief  singer,  and  also  dis- 
tinguished as  a  seer  ;^*  of  Heman  the  Kohathite,  son  of  Joel, 
and  grandson  of  the  prophet  Samuel,  and  himself  "  the  king's 
seer  in  the  words  of  God  ;'"*  and  of  Jeduthun  (or  Ethan),  a 
Merarite,  who  is  also  called  "  the  king's  seer.""  The  names 
of  each  of  these  leaders  are  found  in  the  titles  of  particular 
Psalms  ;  and  the  tripartite  division  was  observed  till  the  Cap- 
tivity," and  probably  restored  after  the  return."'^  At  first 
they  were  divided  between  the  ark  at  Jerusalem  and  the  tab- 
ernacle at  Gibeon,  the  family  of  Asaph  being  assigned  to  the 
former,  and  those  of  Heman  and  Jeduthun  to  the  latter/" 
The  three  families  numbered  288  principal  singers,  divided 
by  lot  into  twenty-four  courses  of  twelve  in  each  ;  but  the  to- 
tal of  the  Levites  engaged  in  praising  Jehovah  "  with  the  in- 
struments which  David  made  "  Avas  4000/°  The  rest  of  the 
Levites,  amounting  to  34,000,  were  arranged  into  the  three 
families  of  Gershon,  Kohath,  and  Merari.  Six  thousand  bore 
the  dignity  of  officers  and  judges,  4000  were  set  apart  to  tlie 
humbler  office  of  doorkeepers,"^^  and  the  general  service  of  the 
sanctuary,  "  the  work  of  the  house  of  Jehovah,"  was  commit- 
ted to  the  remaining  24,000/^  They  were  relieved  of  the 
hardest  part  of  that  work,  the  carrying  the  tabernacle  and  its 
vessels,  now  that  God  had  given  rest  to  his  people,  to  dwell 
at  Jerusalem  forever;®^  and  as  the  offices  which  remained, 
though  numerous,  were  comparatively  light,  David  assigned 
them  to  the  Levites  above  twenty  years,  though  the  census 
was  still  taken  according  to  the  ancient  standard  of  thirty 
and  upward.^*  Their  offices  were  to  wait  on  the  priests  for 
the  service  of  the  house  of  Jehovah,  purifying  the  holy  place 
and  the  holy  things,  preparing  the  show-bread  and  the  meat- 
offerings, praising  God  at  the  morning  and  evening  service, 


"  1  Chron.  xxv.  3-8 ;  2  Chron. 
xxiii.  13.  The  profession  of  art  was 
commonly  hereditary  among  all  the 
nations  of  antiquity  ;  as  we  see  in  the 
case  of  music  and  poetry  in  the  Ho- 
meridae. 

^*  2  Chron.  xxix.  30:  "the  words 
of  Asaph  "  in  this  passage  may  mean 
his  tunes.  The  question  of  his  au- 
thorship of  any  of  the  Psalms  is 
doubtful.     See  note  on  p.  436. 

'^  1  Chron.  xxv.  5;  comp.  1  Chron. 
vi.  33-38,  with  the  commentaries  of 


Lord  Arthur  Hervey,  Genealogies  of 
our  Lord,  p.  214. 

^^  2  Chron.  xxx.  15. 

■'^  2  Chron.  xxix.  xxx. 

"Neh.  xi.  17;  1,  Chron.  ix.  16. 

"  1  Chron.  xvi.  37-42  ;  1  Chron. 
xxv.  8-31. 

«°  1  Chron.  xxiii.  5. 

^*  1  Chron.  xxiii.  4,  5 ;  comp.  Vs. 
Ixxxiv.  10. 

^"^  1  Chron.  xxiii.  4. 

""^  1  Chron.  xxiii.  25,  26. 

^  1  Chron.  xxiii.  3.  23.  27. 


446  *  Tlie  Reign  of  David.  Cuap.  XXI. 

and  assisting  in  offering  the  burnt  sacrifices  on  the  Sabbaths 
and  the  stated  feasts."" 

For  the  higher  duties  allotted  by  the  law  of  Moses  to  the 
priesthood,  the  sons  of  Aaron  were  arranged  according  to  the 
two  houses  of  Eleazar  and  Ithamar  ;  his  two  elder  sons,  Na- 
dab  and  Abihu,  having  died  childless  for  their  profanity.®" 
We  have  seen  that  Eleazar  succeeded  his  father  as  high-priest ; 
but  it  is  clear  that  the  head  of  the  house  of  Ithamar  was  in 
some  sense  co-heir  to  the  office.  In  the  person  and  family  of 
Eli  this  state  of  things  was  reversed  :  the  high-priesthood  was 
vested  in  the  house  of  Ithamar ;  while  that  of  Eleazar  did  not 
abdicate  its  claims.  So,  under  David,  we  find  both  Zadok 
and  Abiathar  recognized  as  priests,  the  former  being  named 
first,  by  the  right  of  primogeniture,  while  the  latter  actually 
held  the  office  of  higli-priest.  This  double  priesthood  was  in 
fact  connected  with  a  twofold  service  ;  Zadok  ministering  at 
the  old  tabernacle  in  Gibeon,  and  Abiathar  before  the  ark  at 
Jerusalem.  By  the  census  taken  toward  the  close  of  David's 
reign,  it  appeared  that  the  families  of  the  house  of  Eleazar 
were  twice  as  many  as  those  of  the  house  of  Ithamar,  there 
being  sixteen  of  the  former  and  eight  of  the  latter.®^  The 
twenty-four  chiefs  of  these  families  were  made  the  heads  of 
twenty-four  "  courses,"  who  were  arranged  in  order  by  lot  for 
the  performance  of  the  services  of  the  sanctuary,  and  named 
ever  afterward  from  their  present  chiefs.^®  The  courses  were 
as  follow: — 


I. 

Jehoiarib. 

7. 

Ilakkoz. 

13. 

Huppoli. 

19. 

Pethnhiah. 

2. 

Jedaiah. 

8. 

Abijah. 

U. 

Jeshebeah. 

20. 

Jehczekel. 

3. 

Harini. 

9. 

Jeslmah. 

15. 

Bilgah. 

21. 

Jachin. 

4. 

Seorim. 

10. 

Shecaniah. 

16. 

Imnier. 

22. 

Gam  III. 

f). 

Malchijali. 

11. 

Kliashib. 

17. 

Hezir. 

23. 

Delaiah. 

G. 

Mijamiii. 

12. 

Jakim. 

IS. 

Aphses. 

24. 

Mahaziah.^ 

To  the  eighth  course  (that  of  Abijah,  or  Abia)  belonged  Zach- 
arias,  the  father  of  John  the  Baptist/"  The  tci'm  for  which 
each  course  was  on  duty  is  not  expressly  stated ;  but  from 
the  analogy  of  the  service  of  the  porters,"'  and  from  the  tes- 
timony of  the  Jewish  writers,  it  seems  to  have  been  Aveekly, 
beginning  on  the  Sabbath,  the  services  of  the  week  being 

•"^  1  Chron.  xxiii.  24-32.  |      ^'^  Even  when,  after  the  Captivity, 

^"^  Lev,  X.  ;  Numb.  xxvi.  GO,  61.  the  courses  were  found  to  be  reduced 
''^  The    disparity    niay    have   been '  to  4,  tliese  were  apjain  divided  into 

caused  in  part  by  the  slaughter  of  the  24,  whicli  were  called  by  the  ancient 

priests   with  Ilophni  and   Phinehas,  'names.  *"  1  Chron.  xxiv. 

and  in  part   by    Saul's  massacre  at       "'^  Luke  i.  5-10,  23. 

Nob.  I     *M  Chron.  '-<.  25  ;  2  K.  xi.  5. 


B.C.  low. 


Courses  of  the  Priests. 


447 


arranged  among  the  members  of  the  course  by  lot.^^  The 
twent}^-four  courses  of  singers  were  associated  respectively 
with  those  of  the  priests.^^ 

These  arrangements  formed  the  model  of  the  Temple  serv- 
ice under  Solomon,  except  that  the  separate  worship  of  Gib- 
eon  was  discontinued ;  and  the  house  of  Ithamar  was  finally 
excluded  from  the  high-priesthood  by  the  deposition  of  Abi- 
athar/" 

Lastly,  a  special  intercourse  was  maintained  by  David  with 
Jehovah  through  the  prophets;  first,  Samuel,  who  anointed 
him,  and  afterward  protected  him  at  Ramah ;  next  Gad,  who 
joined  him  in  his  exile  ;  and  lastly,  Nathan,  the  counselor 
of  his  throne,  and  faithful  reprover  of  his  grievous  sins. 

§  6.  Thus  established  in  his  kingdom,  David  had  no  further 
fear  of  rivalry  from  the  house  of  Saul,  and  he  was  anxious  to 
find  an  opportunity  of  performing  his  covenant  with  Jona- 
than. He  learnt  from  Ziba,  who  had  been  one  of  Saul's  court- 
iers, that  Mephibosheth,  the  lame  son  of  Jonathan,  was  liv- 
ing in  the  house  of  Machir  at  Lo-debar  ;  and,  having  sent  for 
him,  he  restored  to  him  all  the  land  of  Saul  and  his  family. 
Committing  the  charge  of  this  property  to  Ziba,  David  re- 
tained Mephibosheth  "at  Jerusalem,  and  gave  him  a  place  at 
the  royal  table,  like  his  own  sons.''  We  do  not  know  how 
long  afterward,  but  probably  earlier  than  it  stands  in  the  or- 
der of  the  narrative,  the  king  protected  Mephibosheth  from 
a  great  danger.  The  land  was  visited  with  a  famine  for  three 
years ;  the  cause  of  which  was  declared  by  the  oracle  of  Je- 
hovah to  be  "  for  Saul  and  for  his  bloody  house,  because  he 
slew  the  Gibeonites."""  This  massacre,  in  shameful  violation 
of  the  oath  of  Joshua  and  the  elders  of  Israel,  was  one  of 
those  acts  of  passionate  zeal  in  which  Saul  tried  to  drown 
the  remorse  of  his  later  years.  In  reply  to  David's  ofter  of 
satisfaction,  the  Gibeonites  demanded  the  lives  of  seven  of 
Saul's  sons ;  and  the  king  gave  up  to  them  the  two  sons  of 
Saul  by  his  concubine  Rizpah,  and  the  five  sons  that  Michal 
had  borne  to  Adiiel,  to  whom  she  was  married  Avhen  Saul 
took  her  from  David.  These  seven  were  hanged  by  the  Gib- 
eonites on  the  hill  of  Gibeah,  Saul's  own  city.  They  hung 
there  from  the  beginning  of  barley  harvest  till  the  rains  set 
in,  though  the  law  provided  that,  in  such  cases,  the  bodies 


^^  Still  the  numbers  raise  the  sus- 
picion that  the  first  arrangement 
may  have  been  monilihj :  two  courses 
being  engaged  each  month,  one  at 
Gibcon  and  one  at  Jerusalem. 


''^  1  Chron.  XXV. 

^^  1  K.  ii.  2G,  27.      ^^2  Sam.  ix. 

^^  2  Sam.  xxi.  That  this  was  ear- 
lier than  it  stands,  ai)pears  from  the 
allusion  in  xix.  28. 


448 


The  Reirjn  nj  David. 


Chap.  XXt 


should  be  buried  by  sunset.®^  But  Rizpah  took  her  station 
upon  tlie  rock,  with  only  a  covering  of  sackcloth,  to  keep  the 
bodies  from  the  birds  of  prey  by  day  and  from  the  wild  beasts 
by  night,  till  the  rain  began  to  fall.  Touched  with  her  de- 
votion, David  caused  their  remains  to  be  taken  down  and  in- 
terred in  the  sepulchre  of  Kish  at  Zelah,  together  with  the 
bones  of  Saul  and  Jonathan,  which  he  transported  from  Ja- 
besh-gilead.^^  Mephibosheth,  the  son  of  Jonathan,  whom  Da- 
vid had  refused  to  give  up  to  the  Gibeonites,"  was  now  the 
f>ole  survivor  of  the  house  of  Saul,  with  his  infant  son  Micali, 
through  whom  the  family  was  continued  to  the  latest  period 
of  the  nation's  history.'""  We  hear  of  him  again  before  the 
end  of  David's  reign. 

it  has  been  observed  that  this  famine  was  the  first  of  those 
three  great  adversities  of  David's  reign  which  are  described 
in  the  alternative  proposed  by  the  prophet  l^athan  :  a  three 
years'  famine,  a  three  months'  lliglit,  or  a  three  days'  pesti- 
lence ;  when  David,  having  had  bitter  experience  of  the  first 
vwo,  chose  the  third,  as  a  dispensation  direct  from  God.'" 

§  7.  This  first  period  of  David's  reign  is  marked  by  another 
great  success  in  war,  and,  in  connection  therewith,  by  the  fall 
which  embittered  the  rest  of  his  life,  and  which,  as  the  proph- 
et declared  at  the  time,  has  ever  since  "  given  great  occasion 
to  the  enemies  of  Jehovah  to  blaspheme.'""^  Nahasii,  king 
of  the  children  of  Amnion,  avIio  had  been  David's  ally,  and 
some  suppose  his  relation,  died,  leaving  the  throne  to  his 
son  Hanun."*^  David  sent  an  embassy  of  condolence  and 
friendship  to  the  new  king  ;  but  Hanun,  persuaded  by  his 
counselors  that  the  ambassadors  only  came  as  spies,  sent 
them  back  with  shameful  personal  insults.  In  anticipation 
of  David's  vengeance,  the  Ammonite  obtained  help  from  the 
Syrians  of  Beth-rehob,  Zobah,  Maacah,  and  Ish-tob,  who  join- 
ed him  with  33,000  men.'"'  On  the  other  side,  Joab  took  the 
field,  with  all  the  host  of  Israel.     A  decisive  battle  was  fought 


"  Deut.  xxi.  22,  23.  Perhaps  the 
Gibeonites  had  made  a  vow  that  they 
should  hang  till  the  return  of  rain 
promised  the  end  of  the  famine. 

'"'  Comp.  1  Sam.  xxxi.  10-13.  The 
charge  made  against  David  of  con- 
senting to  this  deed  in  order  to  hasten 
the  extinction  of  the  rival  house,  is 
refuted  by  his  treatment  of  Mephi- 
bosheth. "^  2  Sam.  xxi.  7. 

*""  See  the  pedigree,  in  2iotes  and 
Illustrations  to  cha)).  xx. 


^'^^  2  Sam. xxiv.  13  ;  reading  "three 
years  of  famine,"  as  in  the  LXX.  and 
in  1  Chron.  xxi.  12. 

^°2  2  Sam.  xii.  U. 

^°'  2  Sam.  X.  ;   1  Chron.  xix. 

^"^  According  to  Chronicles,  there 
were  nearly  as  many  chariots,  32,000, 
besides  those  of  Maacah.  It  seems 
probable  that  the  numbers  in  Samuel 
ought  also  to  be  referred  to  the  char- 
iots. 


B.C.  1036. 


Ammonite  and  Syrian  War. 


449 


before  Rabbah,  the  capital  of  Ammon.  While  the  Israelites 
had  followed  the  Beni-ammi  up  to  the  gates,  the  Syrian  allies 
had  enclosed  them  in  the  rear.  Joab  took  front  against  the 
Syrians,  with  all  the  chosen  warriors  of  Israel,  leaving  the 
rest  under  Abishai  to  make  head  against  the  Beni-ammi. 
The  Syrians  were  routed,  and  the  Ammonites  then  fled,  and 
shut  themselves  up  in  their  city,  while  Joab  returned  to  Je- 
rusalem. The  defeated  Syrians  formed  a  grand  confederacy 
under  Hadarezer,  with  their  brethren  beyond  the  Euphra- 
tes ;  but  David  crossed  the  Jordan  with  the  whole  force  of 
Israel,  and  defeated  them  in  a  pitched  battle,  in  which  they 
lost  7000  charioteers,  40,000  infantry,  and  their  captain, 
Shophach.  The  Syrians  became  tributary  to  David,  and 
abandoned  the  cause  of  Ammon. 

The  next  year,  at  the  return  of  the  campaigning  season, 
Joab  again  took  the  field,  and  ravaged  the  lands  of  the  Beni- 
ammi,  and  shut  them  up  in  Rabbah,  their  chief  city,  and  a 
strongly  fortified  place. '°^  David  remained  at  Jerusalem; 
and  if  this  inaction  arose  from  a  growing  inclination  to  a  lux- 
urious enjoyment  of  his  royal  state,  his  self-indulgence  led 
him  into  a  terrible  temptation  and  wrought  his  fall.  In  the 
restlessness  which  follows  a  day  of  such  indolence,  he  rose  one 
evening  from  his  bed  to  enjoy  a  walk  upon  the  roof  of  his 
lofty  palace  of  cedar,  which  overlooked  the  woman's  court 
of  a  neighboring  house  ;  and  there  he  saw  a  fair  woman  in 
liar  bath,  and  became  at  once  enamored.  On  inquiry,  he 
found  that  she  was  Bathsheba  (or  Bathshua),  the  daughter 
of  Eliam  (or  Ammiel),^"^  son  of  his  counselor,  Ahithophel,  and 
the  w^fe.of  one  of  his  "thirty  mighty  men,"  Uriah  the  Hit- 
tite,  who  was  then  fighting  the  king's  battles  under  Joab. 
Such  a  discovery  might  have  checked  the  passion  even  of  a 
heathen  despot,  but  David  fell ;  and,  when  the  consequence 
of  his  crime  exposed  himself  to  discovery  and  Bathsheba  to 
a  shameful  death,  the  king,  after  a  vain  attempt  to  conceal 
his  guilt,  which  only  showed  more  of  the  noble  nature  of  the 


'°^  2  Sam.  xi.  1 ;  1  Chron.  xx.  1. 
Rabbah,  now  called  Amndm,  lies  on  a 
river  about  22  miles  from  the  Jordan, 
and  on  the  road  from  Hesbon  to  Bos- 
ra.  It  consisted  of  an  upper  and  a 
lower  city,  the  latter  being  called  by 
Joab  "the  city  of  waters"  (2  Sam. 
xii.  27).  The  upper  city  rose  abrupt- 
ly on  the  north  side  of  the  lower 
town,  and  was  a  place  of  very  great 
strength.    Rabbah  afterward  received 


from  Ptolemy  Philadelphus  (b.c.  285- 
247)  the  name  of  Philadelphia,  and 
in  the  Christian  times  became  the 
seat  of  a  bishopric.  Its  site  is  marked 
by  several  magnificent  ruins  of  build- 
ings, probably  erected  during  the  2d 
and  3d  centuries  of  the  Christian  era. 
The  drawing  at  the  head  of  this 
chapter  shows  the  stream  and  part  of 
the  hill  on  which  the  upper  city 
stood.  ''^  I  Chron.  iii.  5, 


450  The  Reign  of  David.  Chap.  XXI. 

man  he  had  outraged/"  added  treacherous  murder  to  his 
adultery.  He  made  Uriah  the  bearer  of  his  own  death-war- 
rant to  Joab,  who  exposed  the  brave  man  to  a  sally  from  the 
best  warriors  of  the  Ammonites,  and  he  fell  in  happy  igno- 
rance of  his  sovereign's  guilt  and  his  own  wrongs.  The  arti- 
iice  was  kept  up  by  a  message  from  Joab  to  the  king,  excus- 
ing the  apparent  rashness  of  his  attack  by  the  significant 
conclusion,  "  Thy  servant,  Uriah  the  Hittite,  is  dead  also," 
and  the  messenger  was  sent  back  to  comfort  Joab  with  a 
cold-blooded  allusion  to  the  fortune  of  war.  After  the  cus- 
tomary mourning  for  her  husband,  Bathsheba,  who  seems 
throughout  to  have  consented  to  the  sin,  was  taken  to  the 
house  of  David,  and  became  his  wife,  and  soon  afterward 
bore  him  a  son.'"** 

Thus  tar  man's  share  in  this  drama  of  lust  and  blood.  But 
now  another  voice  is  heard  :  "  The  thin(>  that  David  had 
DoxE  DISPLEASED  Jeiiovah."'"^  He  Sent  the  prophet  Nathan 
to  the  king  with  that  well-known  parable  of  tlie  rich  man, 
who  spared  his  own  abundant  flocks  and  herds,  and  seized 
for  his  guest  the  one  ewe-lamb  of  the  poor  man,  his  darling 
and  his  children's  pef "  Our  surprise  that  David's  con- 
science was  not  at  once  awakened  may  yield  to  the  consid- 
eration that  his  heart  was  not  yet  hardened  in  guilt,  so  that 
his  natural  sense  of  justice  broke  forth  in  the  indignant  sen- 
tence, "  As  Jehovah  liveth,  the  man  that  hath  done  this  thing 
is  a  son  of  death ;"  and  he  Avas  going  on  to  describe  the  res- 
titution he  would  exact,  when  the  lips  of  Nathan  uttered 
those  words,  which  have  from  that  day  been  echoed  by  every 
sinner's  awakened  conscience,  "  Thou  art  the  man  !"  Then 
the  prophet  pronounced  the  sentence  of  the  King  of  kings  on 
him  wlio  had  just  been  sentencing  the  nnknoAvn  culprit.  Re- 
proaching David  with  his  ingratitude  for  all  that  Jehovah 
had  done  and  would  yet  have  done  for  him,  he  denounced 
the  appropriate  punishment ;  that,  as  his  sword  had  broken 
up  the  house  of  Uriah,  the  sword  should  never  depart  from 
his  own  house  ;  and  that,  as  he  had  outraged  the  sanctities 
of  domestic  life,  his  own  should  be  likewise  outraged,  but 
with  the  difference  which  God  always  makes  between  the  se- 
cret sin  and  the  public  punishment :  "  For  thou  didst  it  se- 

^"^  2  Sam.  xi.  6-13.  l  that  tlie  public  may  have  only  viewed 


''"*  2  Sam.  xi.  The  whole  story  is 
omitted  in  the  Book  of  Chronicles  (see 
1  Chron.  xx.  1),  except  tlie  bare  men- 
tion of  Bathsheba's  family  (1  Chron. 
iii.  5).     It  was  probably  so  managed 


it  as  a  somewhat  hasty  marriage  of 
the  kinir  to  Uriah's  widow. 

"''  2  ^Sam.  xii.  27.  The  original 
word  implies  the  very  height  of  burn- 
ing indignation.     ^'"  2  Sam.  xii.  1-4, 


B.C.  1034.  2Vie  Repentance  of  David.  451 

cretly,  but  I  will  do  this  thing  before  all  Israel,  and  before 
the  sun."  Then  follow  the  few  simple  words  of  repentance 
and  forgiveness  :  "  And  David  said  unto  Nathan,  I  have  sin- 
ned against  Jehovah.  And  Nathan  said  unto  David,  Jeho- 
vah also  hath  put  away  thy  sin  ;  thou  shalt  not  die."  But 
the  path  of  repentance,  however  plain,  is  a  "  straight  and 
narrow  way,"  and  how  David  "agonized"  to  enter  into  it, 
we  may  read  in  the  lifty-first  Psalm.  In  the  bitterness  of 
his  anguish,  as  well  as  in  the  fullness  of  his  pardon,  David 
once  more  appears  as  the  type  of  the  sinning,  suffering,  re- 
penting, and  forgiven  man,  who  has  ever  since  found  in  that 
one  psalm  the  perfect  utterance  of  his  deepest  feelings: — 

"  The  rock  is  smitten,  and  to  ftitnre  years 
Springs  ever  fresh  the  tide  of  holy  tears, 
And  holy  music,  whispering  peace 
Till  time  and  sin  together  cease, "^" 

But  even  the  "  godly  sorrow,  which  worketh  repentance 
unto  life,"  does  not  avert  the  temporal  consequences  of  sin, 
whether  in  the  form  of  its  natural  fruits  or  of  special  judg- 
ments. And  so  Nathan  not  only  does  not  i-ecall  the  woes  de- 
nounced on  David's  house,  which  were  in  part  the  natural 
consequence  of  his  polygamy,  and  of  that  Aveak  parental  in- 
dulgence Avhich  has  been  the  besetting  sin  of  many  a  great 
man,^^^  but  he  goes  on  to  declare  a  special  punishment  for 
that  consequence  of  David's  sin  which  Ave  still  see  in  action : 
"  Because  by  this  deed  thou  hast  given  great  occasion  to  the 
enemies  of  Jehovah  to  blaspheme,  the  child  also  that  is  born 
unto  thee  shall  surely  die."  And  noAv  David  was  called  to 
prove  the  sincerity  of  his  repentance  by  his  submission  to 
the  punishment  which  began  to  Avork.  No  sooner  had  Nathan 
gone  home,  than  God  struck  the  ncAV-born  child  Avith  a  mor- 
tal sickness  ;  and  David  prayed  and  fasted,  and  lay  all  night 
on  the  ground,  refusing  all  comfort  from  his  attendants.  On 
the  seventh  day  David  learnt  the  child's  death  from  the  Avhis- 
perings  of  the  courtiers,  Avho  feared  to  crush  him  Avith  the 
ncAvs.  To  their  great  surprise,  he  put  off  all  signs  of  mourn- 
ing, AA''ent  to  Avorship  in  the  house  of  God,  and  then  sat  doAvm 
to  eat ;  explaining  to  his  attendants  that,  Avhile  there  remain- 
ed any  hope  of  the  child's  life,  he  fasted  and  Avept  in  the  for- 
lorn hope  that  God  might  yet  grant  him  its  life  ;  but  now 
mourninoj  could  not  brins:  it  back  from  the  dead ;  and  he 
added  those  memorable  Avords,  which  Ave  can  not  but  under- 
Btand  as  expressing  the  higher  hopes,  with  AA'hich  they  have 

"^  Chnsfinn  Year,  Sixth  Sunday  after  Trinity. 
"^  Eli  and  Samuel,  for  instance. 


452  The  Reign  of  David.  Chap.  XXi. 

so  often  been  echoed  by  bereaved  Christian  parents:  "jT 
shall  go  to  1dm ;  but  he  shall  not  return  to  me."^'*  And 
"  God,  who  comforteth  them  that  are  cast  down,"  ordained 
that  his  relation  to  Bathsheba  should  be  the  source  not  only 
of  comfort  to  David  himself,  but  of  glory  to  his  kingdom,  and 
of  blessing  to  all  generations  of  mankind,  by  the  birth  of  a 
son,  whom  he  named  Solomon,  in  memory  (di\\\Q  peace  which 
was  established  at  the  same  time,  and  whom,  at  the  command 
of  Nathan,  he  also  named  Jedidiah  (beloved  of  Jehovah),  in 
token  of  the  special  flivor  which  God  showed  him  from  his 
birth."*  He  became  the  successor  of  David,  and  the  progen- 
itor of  the  Messiah,  of  Avhose  kingdom,  as  "  the  Prince  of 
Peace,"  his  peaceful  reign  was  a  conspicuous  type. 

The  peace,  which  the  name  of  Solomon  commemorates,  had 
been  established  by  the  final  conquest  of  the  Ammonites. 
Joab,  having  reduced  Rabbah  to  the  last  extremities  by  tak- 
ing the  lower  city,  with  its  waters,"^  reserved  the  honor  of 
the  victory  for  David,  who  marched  out  at  the  head  of  all 
Israel  and  took  the  city.  He  placed  on  his  own  head  the  sa- 
cred crown,  called  the  "crown  of  Milcolm  (or  Moloch)," 
weighing  a  talent  of  gold,  and  set  with  precious  stones,  and 
added  the  spoil  of  the  city  to  the  treasures  prepared  for  the 
house  of  God.'^®  The  long  resistance  of  the  city,  and  the  in- 
sult which  had  provoked  the  war,  were  punished  by  a  cruel 
massacre,  in  which  all  the  cities  of  the  Beni-ammi  were  in- 
volved. "David  brought  out  the  people, and  put  them  un- 
der (or,  cut  them  with)  saws,  and  harrows  of  iron,  and  axes, 
and  made  them  pass  through  the  brick-kiln,""^  the  fire,  per- 
haps, through  which  their  children  passed  "  to  their  grim  idol." 

The  triumphant  return  of  David  and  his  army  to  Jeru- 
salem concludes  the  first  period  of  his  reign,  the  glory  of 
which  is  overshadowed  by  that  great  sin,  the  punishment  of 
which  was  to  render  its  second  part  so  disastrous. 


"3  The  32d  Psalm  expresses  David's 
return  to  hoi)e  and  peace. 

"*  2  Sam.  xii.  24,  25.  In  1  Chron. 
iii.  5,  three  other  sons  are  mention- 
ed, Shimea,  Shobab,  and  Nathan,  and 
Solomon  is  the  fourth.  The  infer- 
ence that  Solomon  was  the  youngest 
seems  hardly  reconcilable  with  the 
plain  order  of  the  narrative  in  Sam- 
uel, or  with  the  probable  duration  of 
the  Ammonite  war. 

"^  See  note  on  p.  449. 

"»  2  Sam.  xii.  2G,  80 ;  1  Chron.  xx. 
1,  2.      The    crown   is    said    to   have 


been  worn  by  David  ever  afterward  ; 
but  this  could  only  have  been  on  rare 
ceremonies,  and  then  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, from  its  enormous  weight, 
114  pounds. 

"'  2  Sam.  xii.  31  ;  1  Chron.  xx.  2. 
There  is  no  good  ground  for  any 
milder  interpretation  of  the  passage. 
Dr.  Kitto  has  pointed  out  the  proba- 
bility that  it  was,  as  in  the  case  of 
Adoni-bezek,  one  of  those  retaliatory 
acts  by  which  alone  such  enemies 
could  be  taught  to  respect  the  laws  of 
war. 


B.C.  1030.  Murder  of  Amnon  6 y  Absalom.  453 

§  8.  Before  his  marriage  with  Bathsheba,  David  had  six- 
teen sons,  who  lived  as  princes  among  the  people,  each  in  his 
own  house.  Only  three  of  them  are  of  any  note  in  history ; 
the  eldest,  Amxon^,  son  of  Ahinoam  of  Jezreel ;  the  third,  Ab- 
salom, son  of  Maacah  of  Geshur ;  and  the  fourth,  Adonijah, 
son  of  Haggith.  For  the  precedence  due  to  Amnon  as  the 
tirst-born  he  was  likely  to  have  a  formidable  rival  in  Absalom, 
whose  mother  was  a  king's  daughter,  and  who  was  himself 
unequaled  for  beauty  among  the  people.  But  we  do  not 
hear  of  any  jealousy  or  dissension  among  the  king's  sons  till 
the  following  occasion  led  to  fatal  results.  Absalom  had  a 
sister  named  Tamar,  who  shared  his  beauty,  and  of  whom 
Amnon  became  so  violently  enamored  that  he  fell  sick."* 
Marriage  with  a  half-sister  w^as  forbidden  by  the  Mosaic 
law,'"*  though  Tamar,  in  pleading  with  Amnon,  suggested 
that  David  might  have  consented  to  that  alternative  to  avoid 
the  crime  which  Amnon  eifected  by  a  base  stratagem.'" 
Amnon  incurred  the  anger  of  David,  who  probably  spared 
his  life  because  he  was  his  iirst-born,  and  the  hatred  of  Ab- 
salom, who  waited  in  silence  an  opportunity  for  revenge. 
When  two  years  had  thus  passed,  Absalom  invited  the  king 
Avith  all  his  sons,  and  Amnon  in  particular,  to  a  sheep-shear- 
ing feast  at  Baalhazor,  on  the  border  of  Ephraim.  David 
seems  to  have  had  suspicions,  even  after  such  an  interval  of 
time  ;  but  in  the  end  he  consented  to  his  son's  going,  though 
he  himself  remained  at  home.  Amid  the  mirth  of  the  feast, 
Absalom's  servants,  having  received  their  orders  beforehand, 
slew  Amnon  when  he  was  merry  with  wine.  The  king's  sons 
fled,  preceded  by  the  rumor  that  they  were  all  slain  ;  but  they 
soon  arrived,  weeping  for  Amnon,  when  the  king  and  all  his 
servants  joined  them  in  their  mourning.  Absalom  fled  to 
his  grandfather,  Talmai,  king  of  Geshur,  and  remained  there 
three  years ;  while  David,  comforted  for  the  irrecoverable  fate 
of  Amnon,  grieved  for  the  loss  of  his  living  son. 

To  end  this  state  of  things,  Joab  employed  a  "  wise  woman" 
of  Tekoah  (afterward  the  birthplace  of  the  prophet  Anios), 
who  appeared  before  the  king  in  mourning,  with  a  fictitious 
tale  similar  to  the  case  of  his  own  family.''^'  One  of  her  two 
sons,  she  said,  had  slain  the  other  in  a  quarrel,  and  all  the 
family  demanded  the  death  of  the  homicide,  which  would 
leave  her  childless,  and  cut  ofl"  her  husband's  name.  When 
the  king  promised  her  protection,  she  applied  the  parable  to 

"'2  Sam.  xiii.  1.     We  must  not!      "'•' Lev.  xviii.  9,  11. 
infer  that  Tamar  was  David's  only       '-°  2  Sam.  xiii.  1-14. 
daughter.  '  1     '^'  2  Sam.  xiv. 


4:54:  The  Reign  of  David.  Chap.  XXI. 

him,  and  reproved  liim  because  lie  did  not  "  fetch  home  again 
his  banished."  She  enforced  her  request  by  the  oft-quoted 
proverb,  "  We  must  needs  die,  and  are  as  water  spilt  on  the 
ground,  which  can  not  be  gathered  up  again,"  and  pleaded 
that  God,  in  sparing  the  young  man's  life,  had  given  the  means 
for  his  recall. '^^  Learning  from  the  Avoman  by  whom  she  had 
been  prompted,  David  sent  for  Joab,  and  bade  him  bring  back 
Absalom,  whom  however  the  king  refused  to  see.  Absalom 
dwelt  for  two  years  in  his  house  at  Jerusalem  with  his  three 
sons,'^^  and  his  beautiful  daughter  Tamar,  gaining  favor  with 
the  people  by  his  handsome  person.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  he  was  already  meditating,  perhaps  not  the  dethronement 
of  his  father,  but  his  own  association  in  the  kingdom  as  his 
heir.  At  length,  impatient  of  his  exclusion  from  the  court, 
he  sent  for  Joab,  who  was  too  cautious  to  go  to  him  ;  upon 
which  Absalom  compelled  him  to  come  by  setting  tire  to  one 
of  his  fields  of  standing  corn.  Joab  interceded  with  the  king, 
Avho  received  his  son  and  gave  him  the  kiss  of  peace.  We 
may  suppose  that  the  interview  put  an  end  to  Absalom's 
hopes  of  sharing  his  father's  throne,  for  he  now  began  to  pre- 
pare for  rebellion. ^^*  He  surrounded  himself  with  a  body  of 
fifty  foot-runners,  besides  chariots  and  horsemen  ;  and,  taking 
his  station  beside  the  city  gate,  he  met  the  suitors  who  came  to 
the  king  with  expressions  of  his  regret  that  their  causes  were 
neglected,  and  with  the  wish  that  he  were  judge  over  the 
land,  to  give  them  redress,  while  every  reverence  made  to 
him  was  returned  with  an  embrace.  "  So  Absalom  stole  the 
hearts  of  the  men  of  Israel."  This  may  partly  be  accounted 
for  by  the  common  love  of  change,  and  impatience  at  long- 
continued  prosperity  ;  but,  besides  this,  Absalom's  unchecked 
proceedings  prove  that  David  was  not  living  as  of  old  in 
sight  of  the  people — a  certain  cause  of  loss  of  popularity : 
the  affair  of  Bathsheba,  though  only  known  in  part,  and  his 
treatment  of  Absalom,  may  have  bred  discontent ;  and  it  has 
been  conjectured,  from  the  choice  of  Hebron  as  the  head- 
quarters of  the  rebellion,  that  the  men  of  Judahwere  offend- 
ed at  finding  themselves  merged  with  the  other  tribes.  Ab- 
salom's chief  captain  and  chief  counselor,  Amasa  and  Ahitho- 
phel,  were  of  that  tribe,  and  there  are  symptoms  of  discord 

^"  This  seems  to  be  the  meaning  of  j      ^-^  They  seem  all  to  have  died  be  ■ 
2  Sam.  xiv.  14,  a  passage  from  which, 
besides  the  proverb  above  quoted,  we 
derive  a  ])hrase  of  a  favorite  hymn  : 

'^  O  let  the  dead  now  hear  thy  voice : 
Now  bid  thij  banished  cms  rejoice." 


fore  Absalom  (2  Sam.  xviii,  18). 

^-''  2  Sam.  XV.  We  mny  piobably 
infer  from  the  silence  of  8ci-ij)tnro 
that  David's  second  son  Chilcab  waa 
dead. 


B.C.  1023. 


jRebeUion  of  Absalom. 


455 


between  Judah  and  the  other  tribes  at  the  time  of  the  king's 
return/"^ 

When  the  plot  was  ripe,^"  Absalom  obtained  leave  from 
the  king  to  go  to  Hebron,  the  ancient  sanctuary  of  his  tribe, 
to  pay  a  vow  Avhich  he  had  made  at  Geshur  in  case  he  should 
return  to  Jerusalem.  He  took  with  him  200  men,  not  yet 
privy  to  his  design,  and  sent  round  secret  messengers  to  all 
the  tribes,  warning  the  adherents  whom  we  have  seen  him 
gaining  at  Jerusalem  that  the  trumpet  would  give  the  sig- 
nal of  his  having  been  proclaimed  king  at  Hebron.  But  per- 
haps his  most  prudent  step  was  his  sending  for  Ahithophel, 
David's  most  able  counselor,  from  his  own  city  of  Giloh.  It 
is  natural  to  suppose  that  Ahithophel  had  resented  David's 
conduct  to  his  grand-daughter  Bathsheba ;  and  his  absence 
from  Jerusalem,  to  sacrifice  at  his  own  city,  may  have  been 
but  a  preparation  for  joining  Absalom. 

§  9.  The  first  news  of  the  conspiracy  reached  David  as  ti- 
dings of  its  success.  He  at  once  I'esolved  to  fly  from  Jeru- 
salem, lest  the  city  should  be  stormed,  and  his  servants  con- 
sented. His  departure  from  Jerusalem  is  related  with  a 
minuteness  to  which  we  have  no  parallel  in  the  Scripture  his- 
tory of  any  single  day,  except  that  of  which  this  was  the 
type,  when  the  son  of  David,  betrayed  by  "  his  own  familiar 
friend,"  and  rejected  by  his  own  people,  went  out  by  the 
same  path  "  bearing  his  reproach."  It  was  early  in  the 
morning  when  the  king,  leaving  his  palace  in  the  care  of  his 
ten  concubines,  went  forth  by  the  eastern  gate  with  all  his 
household  and  a  crowd  of  people  ;  for  there  Avere  still  many 
who  showed  him  the  deepest  attachment.  Among  his  faith- 
ful guard  of  Cherethites  and  Pelethites,  and  his  chosen  he- 
roes, the  600  who  had  followed  him  ever  since  his  residence 
at  Gath,'^'  was  Ittai  the  Gittite.  David  released  him  and 
his  countrymen  from  their  allegiance ;  but  Ittai  vowed  that 
he  would  follow  the  king  in  life  or  death,  and  David  bade 
him  lead  the  way.  They  passed  over  the  brook  Kidron  (the 
Cedron  of  the  New  Testament),  by  the  way  that  led  over 
the  Mount  of  Olives  to  Jericho  and  the  wilderness,  while  "  all 
the  country  wept  with  a  loud  voice."  As  David  halted  in 
the  valley  to.  let  the  people  pass  on,  he  was  joined  by  Zadok 


"=*  2  Sam.xix.  41. 

^"^  2  Sam.  XV.  7.  "  After  fortij 
3'ears"  is  probably  an  error  of  the 
text.  Josephus  says  ^^/our  yenrs;" 
and  the  only  possible  epoch  fi-om 
which  to  date  the  forty  years,  namely, 


David's  accession,  brings  the  rebellion 
into  the  last  year  of  his  reign,  which 
is  clearly  untenable. 

^-^  2  Sam.  XV.  18,  reading  Gihhorim 
for  (jiuim  (Ewald,  Geschichte,  iil 
177> 


456  The  Reign  of  David.  Chap.  XXL 

and  Abiathar,  with  all  the  Levites,  bringing  with  them  the 
ark  of  God.  With  self-renouncing  reverence,  David  refused 
to  have  the  ark  removed,  for  his  sake,  from  the  sanctuary 
where  he  had  fixed  its  abode,  and  exjjosed  to  share  his  per- 
ils. If  Jehovah  willed  to  show  him  favor,  he  would  bring 
him  back  to  see  both  the  ark  and  His  habitation  ;  if  not — 
"  Behold  here  am  I !  let  Him  do  to  me  as  seemeth  good  to 
Him !"  He  reminded  the  priests  that  they  could  do  him  ef- 
fectual service  in  the  city  by  employing  their  two  sons,  who 
were  both  swift  runners,  to  bring  him  tidings,  and  so  he  sent 
them  back  with  the  ark.  The  weeping  troop  then  ascended 
the  Mount  of  Olives  in  the  garb  of  the  deepest  mourning,  the 
king  himself  walking  barefoot ;  and  just  as  the  grief  reached 
its  height,  at  the  last  view  of  the  towers  of  Jerusalem,  word 
was  brought  to  David  that  Ahithophel  was  among  the  con- 
spirators. He  had  scarcely  uttered  the  prayer  that  God 
would  turn  the  wise  counsel  of  Ahithophel  into  foolishness, 
when  the  means  of  its  fulfilment  was  presented.  At  the  sum- 
mit of  the  mount,  he  was  met  by  his  other  counselor  and 
chosen  "  friend,"  Hushai  the  Archite,  in  the  garb  of  mourn- 
ing. David  bade  him  to  return  into  the  city  and  ofier  his 
services  to  Absalom,  in  order  to  defeat  the  counsel  of  Ahith- 
ophel, and  to  place  himself  in  communication  with  Zadok  and 
Abiathar,  whose  sons  would  bring  his  messages  to  the  king. 
Hushai  returned  to  Jerusalem  just  as  Absalom  was  entering 
the  city,  and  was  received  by  him  Avith  taunts  for  his  de- 
sertion of  his  "  friend,"  which  must  have  confirmed  him  in 
his  purpose,  though  he  answered  them  with  professions  of 
fidelity  to  his  new  master  as  the  chosen  of  Jehovah  and  of 
Israel.'^'' 

Meanwhile,  just  at  the  height  of  noon,  David  passed  over 
the  brow  of  the  hill  into  the  territory  of  Benjamin,  where  he 
found  himself  among  the  friends  of  Saul.  One  of  these, 
Ziba,  the  servant  of  Slephibosheth,  met  David,  with  two  ass- 
es laden  with  refreshments,  and  by  an  artful  story  of  his  mas- 
ter's treason,  obtained  a  gift  of  all  his  property.  The  other 
member  of  the  house  of  Saul,  Shimei,  the  son  of  Gera,  a  na- 
tive of  Bahurim,  came  out  from  that  village  as  David  passed 
by,  and  pelted  him  and  his  retinue  with  stones,  cursing  liim 
as  the  bloody  murderer  of  SauFs  house.  Abishai  would  have 
avenged  the  insult ;  but  the  king,  Avith  an  outburst  of  impa- 
tience at  the  overbearing  sons  of  Zeruiah,  let  him  curse  on, 
as  the  messenger  of  the  curse  of  God — a  submission  which 

"'  2  Sam.  XV.  37,  xvi.  16-19= 


B.C.  1023.  Absalom  at  Jerusalem.  457 

seems  to  express  the  voice  of  David's  conscience  for  the  mur- 
der of  Uriah.  And  what  was  there,  he  asked,  so  strani^e  in 
the  curses  of  a  Benjamite  when  his  own  son  soui^ht  his^life  ? 
Uttering  a  hope  that  Jehovah  would  requite  hmi  good  for 
this  cui-sing,  he  sufi'ered  the  man  to  continue  his  insults  down 
the  hill-side.  At  the  close  of  the  day  he  reached  the  Jordan 
and  rested  at  its  fords,  the  place  he  had  appointed  with  the 
l^riests.'"  Here  they  were  roused  at  midnight  by  Ahimaaz, 
the  son  of  Zadok,  and  Jonathan,  the  son  of  Abiathar,  who  had 
narrowly  escaped  with  their  lives,  bringing  a  warnino-  to  cross 
the  river  the  same  nighf "  "^ 

For  the  day  had  been  a  busy  one  at  Jerusalem.  Absalom 
had  no  sooner  entered  the  city  than,  by  the  advice  of  Ahitho- 
phel— who  acted  on  the  favorite  maxim  of  conspirators,  to 
commit  their  party  by  some  unpardonable  crime— he  per- 
petrated the  outrage  which  had  been  foretold  by  the  proph- 
et Xathan.^"  Ahithophel's  next  advice  proved  the  sao-acity 
tor  which  he  was  unrivaled. '^^  He  proposed  to  pursife  Da- 
vid with  12,000  chosen  men,  and  to  fall  upon  him  when  weary 
and  dispirited  :  his  followers  would  be  sure  to  flv,  the  kino-'s 
hie  only  should  be  sacrificed,  and  the  rest  would  return  aTid 
dwell  m  peace.'''  Absalom  and  the  elders  of  Israel  did  not 
shrink  from  the  atrocity  of  the  scheme,  but  it  was  thought 
better  first  to  consult  Hushai.  With  consummate  art,  he^in- 
spired  Absalom  with  the  fear  that  David  had  chosen  some  hid- 
ing-place, where  he  and  his  men  of  war  Avould  be  found  chaf- 
ing like  a  bear  robbed  of  her  whelps;  and  the  first  pursuers 
would  certainly  be  smitten  with  an  overthrow  which  would 
cause  a  panic  through  all  the  land.  Let  Absalom  rather 
gather  the  whole  multitude  of  Israel  from  Dan  to  Beersheba, 
and  take  the  field  in  person,  with  the  certainty  of  fallino;  upon 
David  as  the  dew  covers  all  the  ground  ;  or,  if  he  had*taken 
refuge  in  a  city,  the  force  of  Israel  would  drag  it  bodily  with 
ropes  into  the  river.  The  result  was  that  which  is  usual 
with  councils  of  war.  The  more  daring  plan,  and  the  first 
thoughts,  which  are  generally  best,  were  abandoned  for  the 
'  safer  "  course  :  •'  For  Jehovah  had  appointed  to  defeat  the 
good  counsel  of  Ahithophel,  to  the  intent  that  Jehovah  mio-ht 
bring  evil  upon  Absalom.'"''  * 

^  Before,  however,  this  decision  was  fully  taken,  Hushai  ad- 
vised the  priests  to  send  David  warning  of  the  plan  of  Ahith- 


^"^  2  Sam.  xvi.  U  ;  comp.  xv.  28, 
xvii.  22,  xix.  18  ;  Joseph.  Ant.  vii.  9, 
§4.  "°  2  Sam.  xvii.  15-22. 

'''  2  Sam.  xvi.  20-22.     In  the  East 

u 


the  harem  of  a  king  passes  to  his  sne- 
cessor.  ^^2  g  gam.  xvi.  23 

"'  2  Sam.  xvii.  1-3. 

''*  2  Sam.  xvii.  I-H. 


458 


The  Reign  of  David. 


Chap.  XXI 


ophel.  On  receiving  it,  as  we  have  seen,  David  crossed  the 
Jordan,^^"  with  all  his  people,  before  the  morning,  and  took 
up  his  abode  at  Mahanaim,  the  very  place  which  had  been 
the  capital  of  his  rival,  Ish-bosheth,  while  he  himself  reigned 
at  Hebron.  Here  he  was  visited  by  Shobi,  the  son  of  Na- 
hash,  whom  David  had  no  doubt  set  up  as  a  vassal  king  of 
Ammon,  in  place  of  his  brother  Hanem,  and  by  Machir,  the 
former  protector  of  Mephibosheth,  and  by  Barzillai  the  Gile- 
adite,  of  Rogelim,  whose  touching  farewell  is  recorded  later. 
These  faithful  friends  brought  him  all  the  supplies  needful  for 
the  rest  and  refreshment  of  his  exhausted  followers/^® 

Meanwhile  Hushai  was  without  a  rival  at  the  court  of  Ab- 
salom. Ahithophel  was  so  mortified  at  the  rejection  of  his 
advice,  and  so  convinced  of  the  consequent  ruin  of  Absalom's 
party,  that  he  took  his  departure  to  his  native  city ;  and,  hav- 
ing set  his  house  in  order,  he  hanged  himself,  and  was  buried 
in  the  sepulchre  of  his  fathers.^^'  His  name  has  passed  into  a 
byword  for  the  truth  that  "  God  taketh  the  wise  in  his  own 
craftiness  ;"  and  his  unscrupulous  treason  forbids  all  sympa- 
thy with  his  fate.  We  may  apply  to  him  what  was  said  of 
one  of  our  own  party  leaders  : — "  His  great  crimes  were  en- 
hanced by  his  immense  talents,  of  which  God  gave  him  the 
use,  and  the  devil  the  application."  Absalom  assumed  the 
royal  state,  and  Avas  solemnly  anointed  as  king.^"°  Joab's 
office  of  captain  of  the  host  Avas  conferred  by  him  uponAma- 
sa,  the  son  of  Ithra  by  Abigail,  the  daughter  of  Nahash,  step- 
daughter to  Jesse,  and  sister  to  Zeruiah  :  he  was  half-cousin 
to  David,  and  own  cousin  to  Joab  and  Abishai.'^^  Absalom 
then  crossed  the  Jordan  in  pursuit  of  David,  and  pitched  his 
camp  in  Mount  Gilead.^" 

§  10.  David  prepared  to  receive  the  attack  with  his  usual 
skill.  ^^^  He  divided  his  forces  into  three  bodies,  under  Joab, 
Abishai,  and  Ittai ;  and  yielding  to  the  people's  entreaties, 
he  himself  remained  to  hold  out  the  city  in  case  of  a  defeat. 
Confident,  however,  in  his  tried  veterans,  and  still  more  in 


"^The  3d  Psalm  was  probably 
composed  in  the'morninsj  after  cross- 
ing the  Jordan.  ]'s.  cxliii.  by  its  ti- 
tle in  the  LXX.,  "  When  his  son  was 
pursuing  him,"  belongs  to  this  time. 
Also,  by  long  popular  belief,  Fs.  xlii. 
lias  been  supposed  to  have  been  com- 
posed in  the  trans-Jordanic  exile  of 
David,  and  the  complaints  of  Ps.  Iv., 
Ixix.,  and  cix.,  to  be  leveled  against 
Ahithophel.       '^^  2  Sam.  xvii.  15-29. 


'"  2  Sam.  xvii.  23.  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  dismiss  the  name  of  Aliithophel 
without  some  allusion  to  Dryden's  cel- 
ebrated poem  "Absalom  and  Ahith- 
ophel," in  Avhicli  the  former  stands  for 
Monmouth,  and  the  latter  for  Shaftes- 


bur' 


2  Sam.  xix.  10. 


"^^  2  Sam.  xvii.  25.  See  the  pedi- 
gree of  David  in  Notes  and  Illustra- 
tions to  chap.  XX.     "<^  2  Sam.  xvii.  26. 

"'  2  Sam.  xviii. 


B.C.  1023. 


Death  of  Absalom. 


459 


the  help  of  God,  he  was  chiefly  solicitous  for  the  safety  of 
his  rebellious  son.  "  Deal  gently  for  my  sake  with  the  young 
man,  even  with  Absalom,"  was  his  charge  to  the  captains  in 
the  hearing  of  all  the  people,  as  he  sat  in  the  gate  to  see  them 
march  out  to  the  battle.  The  armies  met  in  "  the  forest  of 
Ephraim,'"*'  in  Mount  Gilead,  where  the  entangled  ground 
was  most  unfavorable  to  the  untrained  hosts  of  Absalom. 
They  were  overthrown  with  a  slaughter  of  20,000  men,  more 
of  whom  perished  in  the  defiles  of  the  forest  than  in  the  bat- 
tle itself;  if  that  might  be  called  a  battle,  which  consisted 
in  a  number  of  partial  combats  spread  over  the  fiice  of  the 
country.  Amid  this  scattered  fight,  Absalom  w^as  separated 
from  his  men  ;  and  as  he  fled  from  a  party  of  the  enemy,  the 
mule  on  which  he  rode  carried  him  beneath  the  low  branches 
of  a  spreading  terebinth,  and  left  him  hanging  by  the  luxuri- 
ant hair  Avhich  formed  his  pride.  ^"  Tlie  first  soldier  who 
came  up  spared  his  life,  because  of  the  king's  command,  and 
went  to  tell  Joab.  The  unscrupulous  chief  hurried  to  the 
spot,  and  thrust  three  javelins  into  Absalom's  heart,  while 
his  ten  armor-bearers  joined  in  dispatching  him.  Having 
sounded  the  trumpet  of  recall,  Joab  took  down  the  body  and 
cast  it  into  a  pit,  over  w^hich  the  people  raised  a  great  heap 
of  stones,  as  a  mark  of  execration  ;'''^  a  burial  which  the  his- 
torian contrasts  with  the  splendid  monument  which  Absalom 
had  prepared  for  himself  in  Shaveh,  or  the  "  King's  Dale.'""^ 
David  waited  at  Mahanaim  with  an  impatience  which  his 
knowledge  of  Joab  must  have  rendered  doubly  painful. 
Joab's  manner  of  sending  the  message  has  been  explained 
from  a  desire,  which  even  he  felt,  to  spare  the  feelings  of 
Ahimaaz,  the  young  friend  and  messenger  of  the  king.  Bid- 
ding him.  wait  till  the  morrow,  Joab  sent  a  Cushite  follower 
of  his  OAvn  unknown  to  the  court,'"  with  no  other  orders 
than  to  tell  what  he  had  seen.  The  blunt  soldier,  conscious 
of  having  done  the  king  good  service  even  by  his  disobedi- 


"^  No  very  satisfactory  explanation 
has  been  given  of  the  use  of  this 
name  on  the  east  of  Jordan.  See 
Stanley,  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  329, 
note. 

"3  Comp.  2  Sam.  xiv.  26.  Two 
things  are  to  be  noted  as  contributinp 
to  Absalom's  fate  :  the  ostentation  of 
going  into  battle  on  the  mule,  whicli 
marked  his  rank  as  prince,  instead  of 
on  foot,  like  David  and  all  the  great 
warriors,  and  the  vanity  of  wearing 


his  hair  in  a  style  only  becoming  to 
a  Nazarite. 

"■•  As  in  the  case  of  Achan  (Josli. 
vii.  26). 

"*  2  Sam.  xviii.  1-18  ;  Joseph.  Ant. 
vii.  10,  §  3.  The  so-called  "Tomb 
of  Absalom,"  just  outside  Jerusalem, 
in  the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat,  is  a 
late  Roman  edifice. 

"®  See  V.  26,  27,  where  the  watch- 
man recognizes  Ahimaaz,  but  not  the 
Cushite. 


460  The  Reign  of  David.  Chap.  XXt 

ence,  makes  no  attempt  to  break  the  news.  But  Ahimaaz 
was  more  considerate.  Having  prevailed  on  Joab  to  let  him 
run  after  the  Cushite,  he  outstripped  him  by  his  better  knowl- 
edge of  the  ground.'*'  David  was  sitting  in  the  gateway 
of  Mahanaim,  when  the  watchman  on  the  tower  above  an- 
nounced first  one,  and  then  a  second  runner.  He  presently 
recognized  Ahimaaz  by  his  style  of  running,  and  David  felt 
sure  that  his  favorite  messenger  must  bring  good  tidings. 
And  so  at  first  it  seemed ;  for  he  offered  his  breathless  con- 
gratulations on  the  king's  deliverance  from  his  enemies. 
But  the  eager  question,  "  Is  the  young  man  Absalom  safe  ?" 
was  evaded  by  the  mention  of  some  strange  confusion  that 
prevailed  when  the  runner  left.  Before  the  king  had  time  to 
ascertain  his  meaning,  the  Cushite  entered  with  his  news  of 
the  victory.  The  inquiry  about  Absalom  was  repeated,  and 
called  forth  the  answer,  "  The  enemies  of  my  lord  the  king, 
and  all  that  rise  against  thee  to  do  thee  hurt,  be  as  that 
young  man  !"  Then  burst  the  floodgates  of  a  father's  heart. 
No  scene  in  all  history  appeals  to  deeper  feelings,  and  none 
is  related  in  such  simple  and  pathetic  words  as  this  :  — "  And 
the  king  was  much  moved,  and  went  up  to  the  chamber  over 
the  gate,  and  wept :  and  as  he  went,  thus  he  said,  O  my  son 
Absalom  !  my  son,  my  son  Absalom !  would  God  I  had  died 
for  thee,  O  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son  !""^ 

The  king's  grief  turned  the  victory  into  mourning,  and  the 
people  stole  back  into  the  city  like  the  remnants  of  a  defeated 
army.  David  shut  himself  up,  repeating  the  same  mournful 
cry.'*'  The  hand  that  had  struck  the  blow  roused  him  from  his 
grief.  Joab  went  into  his  presence,  and  upbraided  him  with 
lamenting  for  his  enemies,  instead  of  encouraging  his  friends, 
who  would  soon  be  driven  away  by  his  neglect.  Most  had 
already  dispersed  to  their  tents,  but  they  returned  on  hear- 
ing that  David  had  resumed  his  post  at  the  gate  of  Maha- 
naim. Confusion  prevailed  throughout  the  tribes.  They 
remembered  that  it  was  David  who  had  delivered  them  from 
the  Philistines  ;  and,  now  that  Absalom,  their  anointed  king, 
was  dead,  they  asked  each  other,  "Why  speak  ye  not  a 
w^ord  of  bringing  the  king  back  ?'"'"''  At  this  crisis  David 
sent  for  the  priests,  Zadok  and  Abiathar.  Through  them  he 
appealed  to  the  tribe  of  Judah,  as  his  brethren,  while  he 
promised  to  make  Amasa  captain  of  the  host  in  the  place  of 


"'  2  Sam.  xviii.  23.  This  disputed 
passaprc  seems  to  mean  that,  while 
tlie    Cushite   followed   a   direct   line 


over  the  hills,  Ahimaaz  took  a  more 
circuitous  hut  easier  course  along  the 
vallev  of  the  Jordan. 


2  Sam.  xviii.  33.  ''''  2  Sam.  xix.  1-4.  ^'°  2  Sam.  xix.  5-10. 


B.C.  1023.  David's  Return  to  Jerusalem.  461 

Joab.  The  tribe,  thus  gained  over  as  one  man,  invited  him 
to  cross  the  Jordan,  and  met  liini  at  the  ancient  camp  of 
Gilgal.  David's  triumphant  return  is  related  as  fully  as  his 
sad  departure.  With  the  men  of  Judah  came  a  thousand 
Benjamites  under  Shimei,  who  was  eager  to  make  his  peace 
with  his  insulted  king ;  and  Ziba,  with  his  fifteen  sons  and 
twenty  servants,  crossed  the  river  to  antici2:>ate  liis  master's 
claim  for  restitution.  The  ferry-boat,  Avhich  carried  over  the 
king  and  his  household,  had  scarcely  touched  the  shore,  when 
Shimei  fell  doAvn  before  him  to  confess  his  guilt  and  entreat 
pardon,  Avhich  was  granted,  with  another  impatient  rebuke 
of  Abishai's  remonstrances.  The  clemency,  which  David 
deemed  becoming  to  the  hour  of  victory,  was  sound  policy 
toward  Benjamin.  He  swore  to  preserve  Shimei's  life,  but 
he  kept  a  close  watch  on  a  man  who  had  proved  so  danger- 
ous, and  warned  Solomon  against  him  on  his  death-bed ;  and 
Sliimei  justified  David's  distrust  and  provoked  his  own  fate, 
by  a  new  act  of  disobedience.^^* 

David  was  next  met  by  Mei3hibosheth,  whose  supposed 
ingratitude  was  only  noticed  by  a  gentle  rebuke.* ^^  Mephi- 
bosheth,  however,  had  a  different  tale  to  tell  from  that  of  Ziba, 
whom  he  accused  of  having  compelled  him  to  remain  at  Je- 
rusalem while  he  went  to  slander  him  to  the  king.  But  he 
submitted  all  to  David's  disposal,  since  his  life  had  been 
spared,  when  all  Saul's  family  were  but  dead  men ;  and  now 
he  had  come  to  meet  the  king  in  the  deep  mourning  which 
he  had  Avorn  since  his  departure.  Ziba  seems  not  to  have 
denied  the  truth  of  Mephibosheth's  statement ;  but  David, 
weary  of  the  case,  and  unwilling  to  leave  any  one  discontent- 
ed on  that  joyful  day,  divided  the  proj^erty  between  Ziba  and 
Mephibosheth,  who  thus  received  half  when  he  thought  he 
had  lost  the  whole.'" 

The  most  affecting  incident  of  the  day  was  the  farewell  of 
Barzillai,  the  wealthy  Gileadite,  who  had  supplied  David's 
wants  while  he  was  at  Mahanaim.  He  accompanied  David 
over  the  Jordan,  and  the  king  invited  him  to  Jerusalem  that 
he  might  return  his  hospitality.  "  How  long  have  I  to  live  ?''' 
asked  Barzillai,  who  had  reached  his  eightieth  year,  "  that 
I  should  go  up  with  the  king  to  Jerusalem  ?"  Contenting 
himself  with  escorting  David  a  little  beyond  the  Jordan,  he 


"'  1  K.  ii.  8,  9,  36-46.  That  Da- 
vid's injunction  is  only  to  be  undei*- 
stood  as  a  warning  conditional  on 
Shimei's   own   conduct  is  proved  by 


the  course   actually   taken  by  Solo- 
mon. 

^^-  2  Sam.  xix.  25 ;  where  we  must 
read  '■'■from  Jerusalem." 


2  Sam.  xix.  24-30. 


462  T]ie  Reign  of  David.  Chap.  XXI. 

left  his  son  Chimhara  to  receive  the  favors  which  he  himself 
was  too  old  to  enjoy ;  and  one  of  David's  last  acts  was  to  com- 
mend the  fiimily  to  the  generosity  of  Solomon.'^* 

§  11.  The  joy  of  the  king's  return  was  disturbed  by  the 
angry  jealousy  of  the  rest  of  Israel  against  Judah  for  begin- 
ning the  movement  without  them.^^^  The  fierce  tone  of  Ju- 
dah seems  to  have  provoked  the  old  animosity  of  Benjamin ; 
and  Sheba,  the  son  of  Bichri,  a  Benjamite,  proclaiming  that 
the  tribes  had  no  interest  in  tlie  house  of  Jesse,  blew  the 
trumpet  of  revolt,  and  raised  the  cry,  "  Every  man  to  Ids 
tents,  O  Israel !"  The  king,  who  had  now  returned  to  Jeru- 
salem, ordered  his  new  captain,  Amasa,  to  muster  the  forces 
of  Judah  in  tliree  days,  that  the  rebellion  might  be  crushed 
while  it  was  confined  to  Benjamin.  Amasa's  slowness  com- 
pelled  David  to  have  recourse  again  to  the  sons  of  Zeruiah, 
and  Abishai  led  forth  the  body-guard  of  Cherethites  and 
Pelethites  and  the  heroes,  accompanied  by  Joab.  Gibeon 
once  more  became  the  scene  of  battle.  They  found  Amasa 
there  before  them  with  the  main  army,  and  under  the  show 
of  an  embrace,  Joab  dealt  his  favored  rival  one  fatal  blow, 
and  then  pressed  on  tlie  pursuit  after  Sheba  with  his  brother 
Abishai.  One  of  Joab's  followers  stood  over  Amasa  as  he 
lay  wallowing  in  his  blood  on  the  highway,  bidding  all  the 
friends  of  Joab  and  of  David  to  go  forward  ;  but,  when  he 
saw  their  hesitation,  he  carried  the  corpse  aside  into  a  field, 
and  covered  it  witli  a  mantle,  and  so  tlie  pursuit  went  on.'^° 
Sheba  fled  northward,  raising  the  tribes  of  Israel  on  his  way, 
to  Abel-beth-maachah,  near  the  sources  of  the  Jordan,  "  a  city 
and  metropolis  in  Israel."^"  The  forces  of  Sheba  seem  to 
have  melted  away  before  Joab's  hot  pursuit,  and  he  Avas  be- 
sieged in  Abel.  This  city  was  proverbial  for  the  oracular  wis- 
dom of  its  inhabitants ;  and  "  a  wise  woman"  now  saved  it  by 
first  learning  Joab's  demands  in  a  parley,  and  then  inducing 
the  people  to  comply  witli  them  by  throwing  the  head  of 
Sheba  over  the  Avail. '^^  The  suppression  of  this  rebellion 
closes  the  second  period  of  David's  reign.  Its  remaining  part 
was  only  disturbed  by  a  Avar  Avith  the  Philistines  at  Gezer,  the 

'^*  2   Sara.  xix.  31-40.      See   the  ground  round  the  "Waters  of  Me- 

rom."  Comp.  1  K.  xv.  20  ;  2  K.  xv. 
29  ;  2  Chron.  xvi.  4  (Stanley's  S.  Sf 
P. ,  p.  390,  note). 

^^^  The  whole  history  of  Ahsalom's 
rebellion  and  the  events  that  followed, 
^'■''  2  Sam.  XX.  14-22;    also  called  down  to  tlic  death  of  Sheba,  is  omit- 
Abel-maim  (the   meadow  of  lya/ers).  I  ted  in  Chronicles. 
Its  site  was  probably  in  the  marshy 


beautiful  use  made  of  this  incident  by 
Keble  :  Chj-istian  Year,  Restoration  of 
the  Royal  Family. 

'^^  2  Sam.  xix.  41-43. 

^^^  2  Sam.  XX.  1-13. 


B.C. 1021 


Rebellion  of  Sheba. 


463 


date  of  which  is  unknown,  and  in  which  several  of  David's 
heroes  signalized  their  individual  strength  and  prowess.  ^^^ 

To  this  epoch  ought  probably  to  be  referred  the  remarkable 
Psalm,  which  is  recorded  in  the  Second  Hook  of  Samuel,  as 
"a  song  spoken  by  David  to  Jehovah  in  the  day  that  Je- 
hovah delivered  him  out  of  the  hand  of  all  his  enemies  and 
out  of  the  hand  of  Saul.'"""  It  stands  in  the  Book  of  Psalms 
as  the  eighteenth,  with  the  description  of  David  in  the  title 
as  "  the  servant  of  Jehovah ;"  words  no  doubt  intended  to 
ascribe  to  Him  all  David's  glories.  Needless  difficulty  has 
been  felt  about  the  mention  of  Saul  in  the  title,  which  even 
recent  events  might  have  suggested,  as  Sheba's  rebellion  was 
the  dying  effort  of  Saul's  party  ;  but,  what  is  more  natural 
than  that,  in  thanking  God  for  deliverance  from  all  his  ene- 
mies, David  should  lay  the  greatest  emphasis  on  the  earliest 
and  the  most  dangerous  of  them  all  ?'"^ 

§  12.  David's  life,  in  the  very  character  of  its  separate 
parts,  is  typical  of  that  whole  course  of  experience  which  is 
seen  in  the  men  who  best  represent  humanity :  a  youth  of 
promise,  a  manhood  of  conflict,  trouble,  and  temj^tation,  not 
free  from  falls,  and  a  serene  old  age.  The  work  which  was 
properly  his  own  was  now  done,  and  the  third  and  closing 
period  of  his  reign  was  occupied  in  preparing  for  the  culmi- 
nating glories  of  the  earthly  kingdom  of  Israel  under  his  suc- 
cessor. But  the  parallel  would  scarcely  have  been  true,  had 
the  evening  of  his  life  been  perfectly  unclouded.  As  has 
been  remarked  before,  the  three  periods  of  his  reign  were 
stamped  each  with  a  great  external  calamity,  the  lesson  of 
which  God  made  plainer  by  the  numerical  parallel;  three 
years  of  famine,  to  avenge  the  cruelties  of  Saul,  three  months 
of  flight  before  rebellious  Absalom,  and  now  three  days  of 
pestile7ice,  Si  form  of  judgment  analogous  to  the  oftense  that 
called  it  down. 

"  Satan  stood  up  against  Israel,  and  provoked  David  to 
number  the  people.'"^^     That  this  was  no  ordinary  census,  is 


''='  2  Sam.  xxi.  15-22  ;  1  Chron.  xx. 
4-8. 

'^^  2  Sam.  xxii.  Perhaps  it  may  be 
placed  after  the  pestilence;  but  the 
absence  of  any  allusion  to  that  deliv- 
erance, and  tlie  specific  reference  to 
success  in  war,  both  in  the  title  and 
the  Psalm  itself,  best  accord  with  the 
place  here  given  to  it.  The  title 
must  be  regarded  as  an  integral  part 
of  the  Psalm. 


^"  This  view  is  confirmed  by  the 
allusions  in  2  Sam.  xxii.  5-7, 17-20; 
Psalm  xviii.  4-6,  16-19,  and  especial- 
Iv  the  words  "my  strong  enemy,''  v. 
1*8  (17  of  the  Psalm). 

^^'^  1  Chron.  xxi.  1.  We  learn  from 
the  parallel  passage,  2  Sam.  xxiv.  1, 
that  Satan  was  the  allowed  agent 
of  Jehovah's  anger,  excited  doubtless 
by  the  spirit  which  the  act  display- 
ed. 


i64 


The  Reign  of  David. 


Chap.  XXL 


clear  not  only  from  the  punishment  that  followed  it,  but  from 
the  remonstrances  of  Joab,  to  whom  the  business  was  in- 
trusted/^^ and  to  whom  it  was  so  "abominable"  that  he 
omitted  the  tribes  of  L&vi  and  Benjamin  altogether/"  By- 
David's  own  desire,  all  under  twenty  were  omitted  "  because 
Jehovah  had  said  that  he  would  increase  Israel  like  to  the 
stars  of  tlie  heavens.'"'^  And  that  some  distrust  of  this 
trutli  was  at  the  root  of  David's  sin,  is  implied  in  the  terms 
of  Joab's  remonstrance.  The  transaction  seems  to  have 
sprung  from  a  self-coniident  desire  to  consolidate  the  forces 
of  the  kingdom,  to  exult  in  their  greatness,  and  to  hold  them 
in  the  readiness  of  a  full  military  organization  for  new  enter- 
prises. Nor  is  it  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  some  specific 
conquest  was  meditated  beyond  the  limits  of  the  promised 
land.  And  so  God  sent  a  punishment  wdiich  showed  how 
easily  He  who  had  promised  that  Israel  should  be  increased 
like  the  stars  of  heaven  and  the  sand  by  the  sea-shore,'"®  and 
who  could  have  added  unto  the  people,  how  many  soever 
they  might  be,  a  hundred-fold,'"  could  cut  down  their  num- 
bers at  a  stroke. 

Early  in  the  morning  after  the  work  was  finished,  the  proj)h- 
et  Gad  was  sent  to  David,  whose  conscience  had  already  pre- 
pared him  for  the  visit,  to  offer  the  choice  of  three  modes 
of  decimating  the  people,  a  three  years'  famine,  a  three 
months'  flight  before  his  enemies,  or  a*  three  days'  pestilence. 
The  king,  who  had  experienced  the  two  former  calamities, 
now  chose  the  latter  with  pious  resignation,  saying,  "  Let  us 
fall  now  into  the  hand  of  Jehovah ;  for  His  mercies  are  great, 
and  let  me  not  fall  into  the  hand  of  man."  The  pestilence 
raged  for  the  appointed  time,  and  70,000  of  the  peojDle  died, 
from  Dan  to  Beersheba."^  Its  cessation  was  a  turning-point 
in  the  history  of  the  nation.  The  breaking  out  of  the  plague 
in  Jerusalem  itself  was  accompanied  by  the  awful  appearance 
of  an  angel  hovering  in  the  air  just  outside  of  the  wall,  and 
stretching  out  a  drawn  sword  toward  the  city.  At  this 
sight,  David  cried  to  Jehovah,  praying  that  He  would  let 
the  punishment  fall  on  him  and  his  house, "  but  these  sheep, 

'^^  2  Sam.  xxiv.  3  ;  1  Chron.  xxi.  3. 

'^*  I  Chron.  xxi.  G,  xxvii.  24.  The 
latter  passage  seems  to  imply  that  the 
j)lague  began  before  Joab  came  to 
these  two  tribes;  but  it  a])pears  from 
2  Sam.  xxiv.  9,  that  Joab  completed 
all  he  intended. 

"'^  1  Chron.  xxvii.  23.  The  result 
of  the  census  was  not  recorded  in  the 


Chronicles  of  tlie  Kings  of  Judah. 
From  2  Sam.  xxiv.  9,  we  learn  that 
it  gave  800,000  valiant  warrioi's  for 
Israel,  and  500,000  for  Judah.  It 
occupied  Joab  9  months  and  20 
davs. 

'^'^  Gen.  XV.  5.      ^"  2  Sam.  xxiv.  3. 

'''  2  Sam.  xxiv.  10-15;  1  Chron. 
xxi.  9-13. 


B.C.  1017.  Place  of  the  Sanduarij.  465 

what  have  they  done  ?"  His  intercession  was  accepted.  The 
prophet  Gad  came  to  him  again,  bidding  him  to  erect  an  al- 
tar to  Jehovah  on  the  spot  over  Avhich  the  angel  had  been 
seen.  That  spot  was  occupied  by  the  threshing-floor  of 
Araunaii,  or  Ornan,  one  of  the  old  Jebusites  of  the  city. 
He  was  evidently  a  man  of  the  highest  consideration ;  and, 
from  certain  expressions,  it  has  even  been  supposed  that  he 
had  been  the  king  of  Jebus  before  its  capture  by  David.^^* 
Araunah  was  engaged,  with  his  four  sons,  in  threshing  corn 
by  means  of  sledges  drawn  by  oxen,  Avhen  the  vision  of  the 
angel  caused  them  to  hide  themselves  for  fear  ;  but  on  seeing 
the  king  approach,  with  his  courtiers,  Araunah  came  forth 
and  bowed  down  before  him,  offering,  as  soon  as  he  learned 
his  wish,  to  give  him  the  threshing-floor  as  a  free  gift,  and 
the  oxen  and  the  implements  for  a  burnt-offering.  But  Da- 
vid refused  to  offer  to  Jehovah  that  which  had  cost  him 
nothing,  and  paid  to  Araunah  the  royal  price  of  600  shekels 
of  gold  for  the  ground,  and  50  shekels  of  silver  for  the  oxen. 
There  he  built  an  altar  to  Jehovah,  and  offered  burnt-offer- 
ings and  peace-ofle rings,  and  the  plague  ceased.'^" 

This  altar  first  distinctly  marked  the  hill  as  the  sacred 
spot  which  Jehovah  had  long  promised  to  choose  for  his 
abode.  The  ark  had  indeed  been  placed  for  some  time  in 
the  city  of  David,  but  the  stated  sacrifices  had  still  been  of- 
fered on  the  original  brazen  altar  before  the  tabernacle  of 
Gibeon  ;^^'  and  even  after  the  removal  of  the  ark,  God  had 
spoken  to  David  of  His  choice  of  a  place  to  build  His  house 
as  yet  to  be  made.^^^  That  choice  was  now  revealed  by  the 
descent  of  fire  from  heaven  on  David's  sacrifice,  as  upon  the 
altar  of  burnt-offering  in  the  wilderness  ;^^^  and  David  recog- 
nized the  sign,  and  said,  "  This  is  the  House  of  Jehovah  God, 
and  this  is  the  altar  of  the  burnt-offering  for  Israel.'"^*  The 
place  received  the  name  of  Moriah  {vision)  from  the  appear- 
ance of  God  to  David,  as  the  first  destroying  angel,  and  then 
by  the  sign  of  fire.  ^'^ 

David  at  once  commenced  his  preparations  for  the  edifice. 
"VVe  have  seen  him  long  ago  devoting  to  this  use  the  spoils 
of  his  victories,  Avhich  now  amounted  to  100,000  talents  of 
gold  and  1,000,000  talents  of  silver  ;^'^  and  now  he  collected 


'"'  2  Sam.  xxiv.  23.  "All  these 
things  did  Araunah,  a  hing^  give  unto 
the  king." 

"°2  Sam.  xxiv.  18-25;  1  Chron. 
xxi.  18-30.  ^'^  2  Chron.  i.  3. 

''"2  Sam.vii.  10,  13. 

'"  1  Chron.  xxi.  26. 
U2 


^'*  I  Chron.  xxii.  1. 

"^  2  Chron.  iii.  1.  Respecting  the 
supposed  identity  of  this  Moriah  with 
the  place  of  Israel's  sacrifice,  see  Notes 
and  Illustrations,  p.  92,  93. 

^^^  There  has  been  much  discussion 
concerning  the  enormous  and  seem- 


466  The  Reign  of  David.  Chap.  XXI 

all  the  skilled  foreign  workmen  that  could  be  found  in  the 
land,  to  hew  stones  and  to  do  all  other  Avovk :  he  prepared 
iron  and  brass  without  weight,  and  procured  the  cedar-wood 
of  Lebanon  from  the  Sidonians  and  Tyrians.  But  the  work 
itself  was  destined  to  another  hand.  To  his  son  Solomox, 
now  designated  as  his  successor,  he  gave  the  charge  to  build 
a  house  for  Jehovah,  God  of  Israel.  He  told  his  son  how 
God  had  denied  him  this  desire  of  his  heart,  because  he  had 
been  a  man  of  war,  and  had  shed  much  blood  upon  the  earth  ; 
and  how  He  had  promised  its  fulfillment  by  a  son,  who  was 
to  be  named  Solomon  {peaceful\  because  under  him  Israel 
should  have  peace,  and  whose  throne  should  be  established 
over  Israel  forever.  He  also  charged  the  princes  of  Israel  to 
help  Solomon,  and  to  set  their  heart  and  soul  to  seek  Je- 
hovah.^" 

§  13.  The  designation  of  Solomon  gave  the  deathblow  to 
the  hopes  of  Adoxijah,  the  son  of  Haggith,  David's  fourth, 
and  eldest  surviving  son,  a  man  of  great  personal  beauty, 
whom  his  father  had  always  treated  with  indulgence.  ^^^  Tak- 
ing advantage  of  David's  increasing  feebleness,^"  he  resolved 
to  make  himself  king.  Like  Absalom,  he  prepared  a  guard 
of  chariots  and  horses  and  fifty  foot-runners,  and  he  gained 
over  Joab  and  Abiathar.  Zadok,  however,  with  Benaiah,  the 
captain  of  the  body-guard,  and  David's  heroes,  and  the  proph- 
et Nathan,  remained  faithful  to  the  king.  When  Adonijah 
thought  his  project  ripe,  he  invited  his  adherents,  with  all 
the  king's  sons  (except  Solomon),  who  seem  to  have  shared 
his  jealousy,  to  a  great  banquet  at  the  rock  of  Zoheleth,  near 
Enrogel,  where,  amid  the  mirth  of  the  festival,  the  ciy  was 
raised, "  Long  live  King  Adonijah." 

ingly  incredible  amount  of  the  gold  1  scribes ;  but  we  can  not  be  sure  that 
and  silver;  though,  considering  the  i  they  have  been  accurately  transmitted 
way  in  which  treasures  have  always  j  to  us,  or,  if  they  have,  that  we  perfect- 
been  amassed  in  the  East,  it  is  hard  ly  understand  their  value  in  our  de 


to  assign  the  limits  of  credibility. 
One  suggestion  is  to  adopt  some  other 
talent  than  the  Babylonian.  But  the 
safest  way  is  to  avoid  attaching  undue 
importance  to  exact  arithmetical  com- 
putations, as  comparatively  indiffer- 
ent, and  to  be  content  with  the  gen- 
eral impression  produced  by  the  Jari^e 


nominations  either  of  weight  or  money. 
^■^  1  Chron.  xxii.,  xxviii.  2-8.  The 
comparison  of  these  passages  with  2 
Sam.  vii.  suggests  that  David's  renew- 
ed desire  to  build  the  Temple  had 
called  forth  fuller  intimations  of  God's 
will  both  in  respect  to  himself  and  to 
Solomon.     In  another  passage,  Solo- 


nvmber  of  what  we  know  to  have  been  \  mon  himself  assigns  the  constant  occu- 
very  considerable  miits.     We  may  be  -pation  of  David  in  war  as  the  reason 
quite  sine  that,  in  the  original  docu-  iof  the  delay  CI  K.  v.  3). 
ments,  the  exact  quantities  were  faith-  j      "*  1  K.  i.  6. 
fully  copied  from  the  registers  of  the  |      •"  1  K.  i.  1-4. 


B.C.  1015.  Rebellion  of  Adonijah.  467 

The  prophet  Nathan  informed  Bathsheba  of  these  proceed- 
ings, and  arranged  with  her  a  plan  to  secure  the  interests  of 
her  son,  Bathsheba  went  into  David's  chamber,  followed 
soon  after  by  Nathan,  to  tell  him  that  Adonijah  reigned,  in 
spite  of  his  promise  to  Solomon.  The  aged  king  had  lost 
nothing  of  his  prudence  and  decision.  At  his  command, 
Zadok  the  priest  and  Nathan  the  prophet,  supported  by 
Benaiah,  with  the  body-guard  of  Cherethites  and  Pelethites, 
proclaimed  Solomon  king  amid  the  rejoicings  of  the  joeople, 
and  anointed  him  with  the  sacred  oil,  which  Zadok  took  out 
cf  the  tabernacle.  The  guests  of  Adonijah  dispersed  at  the 
news,  which  was  brought  by  Jonathan,  the  son  of  Abiathar, 
and  Adonijah  himself  lied  for  sanctuary  to  the  horns  of  the 
altar ;  but  on  Solomon's  assurance  that  his  life  should  be 
spared  if  he  proved  Avorthy  of  his  clemency,  he  retired  to  his 
own  house.  ^"^  David  gathered  all  the  people  to  an  assembly, 
in  which  he  gave  a  solemn  charge  to  them  and  their  new 
king,  to  wdiom  also  he  delivered  patterns  for  the  house  of 
God,  and  the  materials  he  had  collected  for  the  building. 
These  were  greatly  increased  by  the  freewill-offerings  of  the 
princes  and  the  people.  After  David  had  offered  thanksgiv- 
ing and  prayer  for  Solomon,  all  the  people  feasted  together, 
and  Solomon  was  inaugurated  into  his  kingdom  for  the  second 
time,  while  Zadok  was  publicly  anointed  as  high-priest.  The 
new  king  was  established  in  prosperity  and  in  favor  with  the 
people  before  his  father's  death.  "  And  Jehovah  magnified 
Solomon  exceedingly  in  the  sight  of  all  Israel,  and  bestowed 
upon  him  such  royal  majesty  as  had  not  been  on  any  king 
before  him  in  Israel.""*'  A  constant  memorial  of  this  so- 
lemnity is  preserved  in  that  most  magnificent  of  the  Psalms 
of  David,  the  seventy-second,  in  which  the  blessings  predict- 
ed for  the  reign  of  Solomon  form  a  transparent  veil  for  the 
transcendent  glories  prophesied  for  Christ's  kingdom,  and 
which  is  marked  as  the  crowning  contribution  of  its  author 
to  the  service  of  the  sanctuary  by  its  concluding  words, 
"  The  prayers  of  David,  the  son  of  Jesse,  are  ended  !" 

§  14.  Amid  these  happy  omens  for  his  house,  David  ap- 
proached the  end  of  his  life.  His  last  act  was  to  send  for 
Solomon  and  renew  the  charge  to  him  to  keep  the  statutes  of 
Jehovah,  as  written  in  the  law  of  Moses,  that  so  he  might 
prosper  in  all  his  deeds. ^*^^  He  added  directions  in  reference 
to  the  men  w^ith  whom  the  young  king  might  not  know  how 
to  deal.     JoAB  was  named  as  a  just  object  of  vengeance  fcr 

'^  1  K.  i.  ^"  2  Chron.  xxiii.-xxix.  ''''  1  K.  ii.  1-4. 


468  The  Reign  of  David.  Chap.  XXI. 

his  two  treacherous  murders  of  Abner  and  Amasa,  which  are 
described  in  very  striking  figurative  language/^^  Barzil- 
LAi  and  his  house  are  commended  to  Solomon's  favor.  The 
denunciation  of  Shimei  has  been  already  noticed.  We  may 
here  anticipate  the  first  acts  of  Solomon's  reign,  and  see  how 
lie  dealt  with  these  and  his  other  enemies.  No  sooner  was 
David  dead,  than  Adonijah  had  the  audacity  to  solicit, 
through  the  intercession  of  Bathsheba,  the  hand  of  Abishag 
the  Shunammite,  who  had  been  the  companion  of  David's 
old  age,  though  not  exactly  his  concubine.  In  the  latter 
case,  marriage  with  her  would  have  been  only  23ermitted  to 
the  king's  successor ;  and  in  this  light  Solomon  seems  to  have 
viewed  the  request.  Indeed  we  can  only  understand  what 
followed  on  the  supposition,  that  this  was  a  first  insidious  step 
in  a  new  conspiracy  of  Adonijah  with  Abiathar  and  Joab, 
as  Solomon's  answer  clearly  implies.^**  Adonijah  was  put 
to  death  by  the  hand  of  Benaiah;  but  Abiathar,  in  consider- 
ation of  his  oftice  and  his  old  comjianionship  with  David, 
was  only  banished  to  his  home  at  Anathoth,  and  deposed 
from  the  high-priesthood,  which  thus  passed  from  the  house 
of  Ithamar,  according  to  God's  sentence  against  Eli.^^^  Upon 
this  Joab  fled  for  sanctuary  to  the  horns  of  the  altar ;  and 
there,  refusing  to  come  forth,  he  Avas  slain  by  the  hand  of 
Benaiah.  His  death  is  regarded  as  a  satisfaction  for  the  blood 
of  Abner  and  Amasa,  the  guilt  of  which  w^as  thus  removed 
from  the  house  of  David,  but  his  fate  w^as  sealed  by  his  ac- 
cession to  Adonijah's  conspiracy.  He  was  buried  in  his  own 
house  in  the  Avilderness,  and  Benaiah  succeeded  to  his  com- 
mand. ^^^  Shimei  Avas  ordered  by  Solomon  to  dwell  in  Jeru- 
salem, Avith  the  express  w^arning  that  his  departure  from  the 
city,  on  AvhatcA^er  pretext,  Avould  seal  his  fate.  Three  years 
afterward  he  Avent  to  Gath  in  pursuit  of  tAvo  of  his  servants, 
Avho  had  fled  to  Achish,  and  on  his  return  Solomon  caused 
him  to  be  put  to  death. "^ 

To  return  to  David :  the  short  Psalm,  entitled  "  The  last 
Av^ords  of  DaA^id,"^^*^  seems,  from  its  closing  sentences,  to  haA^e 
been  uttered  in  connection  Avith  his  final  Avords  to  Solomon. 
Its  opening  sums  up  the  chief  features  of  his  life :  "  DaA'id, 
the  man  raised  up  on  high,  the  anointed  of  the  God  of  Jacob, 
and  the  SAveet  Psalmist  of  Israel."  After  a  reign  of  forty 
years,  seven  in  Hebron,  and  thiyty-three  at  Jerusalem,  "  he 
died  in  a  good  old  age,  full  of  days,  riches,  and  honor,  and 

^"  1  K.  ii.  5,  G.       '''  1  K.  ii.  18-25.  |      '"'  1  K.  ii.  28-35. 

'^'^  1  K.  ii.  26,  27 ;  corap.  1  Sam.  ii.       ^"^  1  K.  ii.  36-46. 

31-35.  ''*3  2  Sam.  xxiii.  1-7. 


B.C.  1015. 


Death  of  David. 


469 


Solomon  his  son  reigned  in  his  stead."  He  was  buried  "  in 
the  city  of  David."  After  the  return  from  the  Captivity, 
"  the  sepulchres  of  David  "  were  still  pointed  out  between 
Siloah  and  "  the  house  of  the  mighty  men,"  or  "  the  guard- 
house."'^^ His  tomb,  which  became  the  general  sepulchre 
of  the  kings  of  Judah,  was  known  in  the  latest  times  of  the 
Jewish  people.  "  His  sepulchre  is  with  us  unto  this  day," 
says  St.  Peter  at  Pentecost.^^"  His  acts  were  recorded  in  the 
Book  of  Samuel  the  seer,  and  of  Nathan  the  prophet,  and  of 
Gad  the  seer,  "  Avith  all  his  reign  and  his  might,  and  the 
times  that  went  over  him,  and  over  Israel,  and  over  all  the 
kingdoms  of  the  countries."  The  substance  of  these  records 
is  preserved  in  the  Books  of  Samuel  and  the  beginning  of 
the  First  Book  of  Kings.''' 

§  15.  The  character  of  David  has  been  so  naturally  brought 
out  in  the  incidents  of  his  life  that  it  need  not  be  here  de- 
scribed in  detail.  In  the  complexity  of  its  elements,  passion, 
tenderness,  generosity,  fierceness — the  soldier,  the  shepherd, 
the  poet,  the  statesman,  the  priest,  the  prophet,  the  king — 
the  romantic  friend,  the  chivalrous  leader,  the  devoted  father 
— there  is  no  character  of  the  Old  Testament  at  all  to  be 
compared  to  it.  Jacob  comes  nearest  in  the  variety  of  ele- 
ments included  within  it.  But  David's  character  stands  at 
a  higher  point  of  the  sacred  history,  and  represents  the  Jew- 
ish people  just  at  the  moment  of  their  transition  from  the 
lofty  virtues  of  the  older  system  to  the  fuller  civilization  and 
cultivation  of  the  later.  In  this  manner  he  becomes  nat- 
urally, if  one  may  so  say,  the  likeness  or  portrait  of  the  last 
and  grandest  development  of  the  nation  and  of  the  monarchy 
in  the  person  and  the  period  of  the  Messiah.  In  a  sense  more 
than  figurative,  he  is  the  type  and  prophecy  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Christ  is  not  called  the  son  of  Abraham,  or  of  Jacob,  or  of 
Moses,  but  he  was  truly  "the  son  of  David." 

To  his  own  people  his  was  the  name  most  dearly  cherish- 
ed after  their  first  ancestor  Abraham.  "  The  city  of  David," 
"  the  house  of  David,"  "  the  throne  of  David,"  "  the  seed  of 
David,"  "  the  oath  sworn  unto  David  "   (the  pledge  of  the 


""Nsh.iii.  IG. 

^^°  Acts  ii.  29.  The  edifice  shown 
as  such  from  the  Crusades  to  the  pres- 
ent day  is  on  tlie  southern  hill  of 
modern  Jerusalem,  commonly  called 
Mount  Zion,  under  the  so-called  "  Coe- 
naculum."  The  so-called  "Tombs of 
the  Kings  "  have  of  late  been  claimed 
as  the  royal  sepulchre  by  De  Saul- 


cy,  who  brought  to  the  Louvre  (where 
it  may  be  seen)  what  he  believed  to  be 
the  lid  of  David's  sarcophagus.  But 
these  tombs  are  outside  the  walls,  and 
therefore  can  not  be  identified  with 
the  tomb  of  David,  which  Avas  em- 
phatically icithin  the  walls. 

^"  1  K.  ii.  10,  11  ;   1  Chron.  xxix. 
26-30.     See  chap.  xix.  §  1. 


470  The  Reign  of  David.  Chap.  XXI. 

continuance  of  his  dynasty),  are  expressions  which  pervade 
the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament  and  all  the  figurative  lan- 
guage of  the  New,  and  they  serve  to  mark  the  lasting  signii- 
icance  of  his  appearance  in  history/" 

His  Psalms  (whether  those  actually  written  by  himself  be 
many  or  few)  have  been  the  source  of  consolation  and  in- 
struction beyond  any  other  part  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures. 
In  them  appear  qualities  of  mind  and  religious  perceptions 
not  before  expressed  in  the  sacred  writings,  but  eminently 
characteristic  of  David — the  love  of  nature,  the  sense  of  sin, 
and  the  tender,  ardent  trust  in  and  communion  with  God. 
No  other  part  of  the  Old  Testament  comes  so  near  to  the  spir- 
it of  the  New.  The  Psalms  are  the  only  expressions  of  devo- 
tion which  have  been  equally  used  through  the  whole  Chris- 
tian Church — Abyssinian,  Greek,  Latin,  Puritan,  Anglican. 

The  difficulties  which  attend  on  his  character  are  valuable 
as  proofs  of  the  impartiality  of  Scripture  in  recording  them, 
and  as  indications  of  the  union  of  natural  power  and  weak- 
ness which  his  character  included.  The  Rabbis  in  former 
times,  and  critics  (like  Bayle)  in  later  times,  have  seized  on 
its  dark  features  and  exaggerated  them  to  the  utmost.  And 
it  has  been  often  asked,  both  by  the  scofi^ers  and  the  serious, 
how  the  man  after  God's' ^^  own  heart  could  have  murdered 
Uriah,  and  seduced  Bathsheba,  and  tortured  the  Ammonites 
to  death  ?  An  extract  from  one  who  is  not  a  too  indulgent 
critic  of  sacred  characters  expresses  at  once  the  common 
sense  and  the  religious  lesson  of  the  w^hole  matter.  "  Who 
is  called  '  the  man  after  God's  own  heart  ?'  David,  the 
Hebrew  king,  had  fallen  into  sins  enough — blackest  crimes — 
there  was  no  Vv^ant  of  sin.  And  therefore  the  unbelievers 
sneer,  and  ask  '  Is  this  your  man  according  to  God's  heart  ?' 
The  sneer,  I  must  say,  seems  to  me  but  a  shallow  one.  What 
are  faults,  what  are  the  outward  details  of  a  life,  if  the  inner 
secret  of  it,  the  remorse,  temptations,  the  often  baffled,  never- 
ended  struggle  of  it  be  forgotten  ?  .  .  .  David's  life  and  his- 
tory, as  written  for  us  in  those  Psalms  of  his,  I  consider  to 
be  the  truest  emblem  ever  given  us  of  a  man's  moral  progress 
and  warfare  here  below.     AH  earnest  souls  will  ever  discern 


"^  It  may  be  remarked  that  the 
name  never  appears  as  given  to  any 
one  else  in  the  Jewish  history  ;  as  if, 
like  "Peter"  in  the  Papacy,  it  was 
too  sacred  to  be  appropriated. 

'^^  This  expression  has  been  perhaps 
too  much  made  of.     It  occurs  onlv 


once  in  the  Scriptures  (1  Sam.  xiii. ,  l:;xxix.  20-28. 


14,  quoted  again  in  Acts  xiii.  22), 
where  it  merely  indicates  a  man  whom 
God  will  approve,  in  distinction  from 
Saul  who  was  rejected.  A  much 
stronger  and  more  peculiar  commen- 
dation of  David  is  that  contained  in 
I    K,  XV.  3-5,  and   implied   in    Ps. 


Chap.  XXL 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


471 


in  it  the  faithful  struggle  of  an  earnest  human  soul  toward 
what  is  good  and  best.  Struggle  often  baffled— sore  baffled 
— driven  as  into  entire  wreck,  yet  a  struggle  never  ended, 
ever  with  tears,  repentance,  true  unconquerable  purpose  be- 
gun anew.'^* 

^^*  Cailyle's  Heroes  and  FJero- Worship,  p.  72.     The  preceding  character 
of  David  is  taken  from  Dean  Stanley's  art.  David,  in  the  I}ict.  of  the  Bible. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTKATIONS 


TOPOGRAPHY  OF  JERUSA- 
LEM. 

Jerusalem  stands  in  latitude  31° 
4G'  35"  north,  and  longitude  35°  18' 
30"  east  of  Greenwich.  It  is  32  miles 
distant  from  the  sea,  and  18  from  the 
Jordan ;  20  from  Hebron,  and  30 
from  Samaria.  "  In  several  respects," 
pays  Professor  Stanley,  "  its  situation 
is  singular  amonp:  the  cities  of  Pales- 
tine. Its  elevation  is  remarkable ; 
occasioned  not  from  its  being  on  the 
summit  of  one  of  the  numerous  hills 
of  Judaea,  like  most  of  the  towns  and 
villages,  but  because  it  is  on  the  edge 
of  one  of  the  highest  table-lands  of 
the  country.  Hebron  indeed  is  high- 
er still  by  some  hundred  feet,  and 
from  the  south,  accordingly  (even 
from  Bethlehem),  the  approach  to 
Jerusalem  is  by  a  slight  descent.  But 
from  any  other  side  the  ascent  is  per- 
petual ;  and  to  the  traveller  approach- 
ing the  city  from  the  E.  or  W.  it  must 
always  have  presented  the  appearance 
beyond  any  other  capital  of  the  then 
known  world— we  may  say  beyond 
any  important  city  that  has  ever  ex- 
isted on  the  earth — of  a  mountain 
city ;  breathing,  as  compared  with  the 
sultry  plains  of  Jordan,  a  mountain 
air ;  enthroned,  as  compared  with  Jer- 
icho or  Damascus,  Gaza  or  Tyre,  on  a 
mountain  fastness  "  (5.  ^-  P.  170,  1 ). 


The  elevation  of  Jerusalem  is  a 
subject  of  constant  reference  and  ex- 
ultation by  the  Jewish  Avriters.  Their 
fervid  poetry  abounds  with  allusions 
to  its  height,  to  the  ascent  thither  of 
the  tribes  from  all  parts  of  the  coun- 
try. It  was  the  habitation  of  Jeho- 
vah, from  which  "He  looked  upon 
all  the  inhabitants  of  the  world  "  (Ps. 
xxxiii.  14);  its  kings  were  "higher 
than  the  kings  of  the  earth "  (Ps. 
Ixxxix.  27), 

In  exemplification  of  these  remarks, 
it  may  be  said  that  the  general  eleva- 
tion of  the  western  ridge  of  the  cit}', 
which  forms  its  highest  point,  is  about 
2G00  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea. 
The  Mount  of  Olives  rises  slightly 
above  this — 2724  feet.  Beyond  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  however,  the  de- 
scent is  remarkable,  Jericho — 13  miles 
off — being  no  less  than  3624  feet  be- 
low, A'iz.,  900  feet  under  the  Mediter- 
ranean. On  the  north.  Bethel,  at  a 
distance  of  11  miles,  is  419  feet  below 
Jerusalem.  On  the  west,  Ramleh — 
25  miles — is  2274  feet  below.  Only 
to  the  south  are  the  heights  slightly 
superior — Bethlehem,  2704  ;  Hebron, 
3029. 

Jerusalem,  if  not  actually  in  the 
centre  of  Palestine,  was  yet  virtually 
so.  "  It  wa,s  on  the  ridge,  the  broad- 
est and  most  strongly  marked  ridge 
of  the  backbone  of  the  complicated 


472 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  XXI. 


hills  which  extend  through  the  whole 
country  from  the  plain  of  Esdraelon 
to  the  desert.  Every  wanderer,  every 
conqueror,  every  traveller  who  has 
trod  the  central  route  of  Palestine 
from  N.  to  S.  must  have  passed 
through  the  tahle-land  of  Jerusalem. 
It  was  the  water-shed  between  the 
streams,  or,  rather,  the  torrent  beds, 
which  find  their  way  eastward  to  the 
Jordan,  and  those  which  pass  west- 
ward to  the  Mediterranean  "  (Stan- 
ley, S.  4'  P.  176).  This  central  po- 
sition,  as  expressed  in  the  words  of 
Ezekiel  (v.  5),  "I  have  set  Jerusalem 
in  the  midst  of  the  nations  and  coun- 
tries round  about  her,"  led  in  later 
ages  to  a  definite  belief  that  the  city 
was  actually  in  the  centre  of  the  earth 
— in  the  words  of  Jerome,  "umbili- 
cus terras,"  the  central  boss  or  navel 
of  the  world. 

To  convey  an  idea  of  the  position 
of  Jerusalem,  we  may  say  roughly, 
and  with  reference  to  the  accompany- 
ing plan,  that  the  city  occupies  the 


the  upper  plateau  from  which  they 
commenced  their  descent.  Thus, 
while  on  the  north  there  is  no  mate- 
rial difierence  between  the  general 
level  of  the  country  outside  the  walls, 
and  that  of  the  highest  parts  of  the 
city,  on  the  other  three  sides,  so  steep 
is  the  fall  of  the  ravines,  so  trench-like 
their  character,  and  so  close  do  they 
keep  to  the  promontory  at  whose  feet 
they  run,  as  to  leave  on  the  beholder 
almost  the  impression  of  the  ditch  at 
the  foot  of  a  fortress,  rather  than  of 
valleys  formed  by  nature. 

The  promontory  thus  encircled  is 
itself  divided  by  a  longitudinal  ravine 
running  up  it  from  south  to  north,  ris- 
ing gradually  from  the  south  like  the 
external  ones,  till  at  last  it  arrives  at 
the  level  of  the  upper  plateau,  and  di- 
viding the  central  mass  into  two  un- 
equal portions.  Of  these  two,  that 
on  the  west  is  the  higher  and  more 
massive — the  Mount  Zion  of  modern 
tradition.  It  was  the  citadel  of  the 
Jebusites,  and   the   fortress  of  Zion, 


southern  termination  of  a  table-land,    which  David  built.     The  hill  on  the 


which  is  cut  off  from  the  country 
round  it  on  its  west,  south,  and  east 
sides,  by  ravines  more  than  usually 
deep  and  precipitous.  These  ravines 
leave  the  level  of  the  table-land,  the 
one  on  the  west  and  the  other  on  the 
north-east  of  the  city,  and  fall  rapid- 
ly until  they  form  a  junction  below 
its  south-east  corner.  The  eastern 
one — the  valley  of  the  Kedron,  com- 
monly called  the  Valley  of  Jehosha- 
phat,  runs  nearly  straight  from  north 
to  south.  But  the  western  one — the 
Valley  of  Hinnom — runs  south  for  a 
time,  and  then  takes  a  sudden  bend 
to  the  east  until  it  meets  the  Valley 
of  Jehoshaphat,  after  which  the  two 
rush  off  as  one  to  the  Dead  Sea.  How 
sudden  is  their  descent,  may  be  gath- 
ered from  the  fact  that  the  level  at  the 
point  of  junction — about  a  mile  and  a 
quarter  from  the  starting-point  of  each 


east  is  considerably  lower  and  smalK 
er,  so  that,  to  a  spectator  from  the 
south,  the  city  appears  to  slope  sharp- 
ly toward  the  east.  Here  was  the 
lower  city  of  the  Jebusites,  Mount 
Moriah,  the  *'  Akra," or  "lower  city," 
of  Joseph  us,  now  occupied  by  the 
great  ISIohammedan  sanctuary,  with 
its  mosques  and  domes.  This  central 
valley,  at  about  half-way  up  its  length, 
threw  out  a  subordinate  on  its  left  or 
west  side,  the  "  Tyropceon  Valley  "  of 
Joseph  us. 

One  more  valley  must  be  noted.  It 
was  on  the  north  of  Moriah,  and  sep- 
arated it  from,  a  hill  on  which,  in  the 
time  of  Josephus,  stood  a  suburb  or 
part  of  the  city  called  Bezetha,  or  the 
New-town.  Part  of  this  depression 
is  still  preserved  in  the  large  reservoir 
with  two  arches,  usually  called  the 
Pool  of  Bethesda,  near  the  St.   Ste- 


--is  more  than  600  feet  below  that  of  I  phen's  Gate. 


SOO    400  300  200    100       0 


I'Uin  of  Jerur^alein 


Mnnnt  Zion.  2,  Moriah.  3.  The  Temnle.  4.  Antonia.  5.  Probable  site  of  Golsrntha.  6.  Ophel.  7. 
Bszetha.  8.  Church  of  the  Hnly  Sepulchre.  9.  10.  The  Upper  and  Lower  Pools  of  Gihon.  11.  Enrogrel. 
12.  Pool  of  Hezekiah.  13.  Fountain  of  the  Virgin.  14.  Siloam.  15.  Bethesda.  16.  Mount  cf  OUvea. 
17.  Gethsemane. 


Tomb  of  DariuF,  near  rersepolis. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

THE    REIGN    OF    SOLOMON.       B.C.   1015-975. 

§  1.  Character  of  Solomon's  rcij^'n.  §  2.  His  marriage  with  Pharaoh's 
daughter — Alliance  with  Ilirnm — The  High  Places  retained — God  ap- 
pears to  him  at  Gibeon — His  choice  of  wisdom — The  Judgment  of 
Solomon.  §  3.  Solomon's  court  and  revenues — His  personal  qualities — 
His  knowledge,  writings,  and  conversation — The  Proverbs.  §  4.  Build- 
ing of  the  Temple — Arrangements  Avith  King  Hiram — Materials  for  the 
house — Hiram  the  architect.  §  o.  Description  of  the  edifice.  §  G. 
Dedication  of  the  Temple — The  prayer  of  Solomon.  §  7.  Completion 
of  Solomon's  buildings — God's  second  appearance  to  him.  §  8.  His 
works  in  the  provinces — Conquest  of  Hamath — Building  of  Tadmor — 
Solomon's  commercial  enterprises — Voyages  to  Tharshish  and  Ophir — 
His  works  in  gold,  ivory,  etc.  §  9.  Visits  of  foreign  kings — The  Queen 
of  Sheba.  §  10.  Solomon's  declension — His  tyrannical  government  and 
idolatries.  §  11.  Troubles  from  Hadad,  Rezon,  and  Jeroboam — Proph- 
ecy of  Ahijah.  §  12.  Last  days  of  Solomon — Book  of  Ecdesiastes — 
Death  and  burial  of  Solomon — Records  of  his  reign. 

§  1.  The  epoch  of  Solomon's  reign  marks  the  climax  of  the 
Hebrew  monarchy,  and,  according  1:o  the  usual  law  of  human 


476  The  Reign  of  Solomon.  Chap.  XXn. 

greatness,  the  beginning  of  its  decline.  Starting  from  the 
vantage-ground  on  which  tlie  kingdom  had  been  placed  by 
the  conquests  of  David,  through  the  favor  of  Jehovah,  he  pre- 
served its  ascendency  by  a  wisdom  Avhich  has  become  pro- 
verbial, and  prepared  its  downfall  by  his  luxury  and  arro- 
gance. Having  achieved  the  greatest  work  done  by  any  ruler 
of  Israel  since  Moses,  the  building  of  the  house  of  God  upon 
Mount  Moriah,  and  the  settlement  of  His  worship,  he  left  to 
after  times  the  name  of 

"  That  uxorious  king,  whose  licart,  though  largo, 
Beguiled  by  fair  idolatresses,  fell 
To  idols  foul." 

The  author  and  compiler  of  the  richest  maxims  of  wisdom  in 
the  literature  of  the  world,  he  so  used  up  the  resources  of  in- 
tellectual as  well  as  sensual  pleasure,  as  to  end  with  the  confes- 
sion "Vanity  of  vanities  !  All  is  emptiness  and  vexation  of 
spirit !" 

The  life  of  Solomon  presents  a  striking  contrast  to  his  fa- 
ther's in  its  uneventful  character.  His  great  work  was  the 
building  of  the  House  of  God,  commonly  called  the  Tem}^^ 
at  Jerusalem.  The  rest  of  the  history  of  his  reign  is  chiefly 
occupied  with  the  description  of  his  magnificence  and  wealth, 
as  the  sovereign  of  what  was  then  the  greatest  monarchy  of 
Western  Asia. 

We  have  already  related  his  birth  as  the  son  of  Bathsheba, 
his  proclamation  as  king  at  the  time  of  the  rebellion  of  Adoni- 
jah,  his  second  and  more  solemn  anointing  at  the  last  assem- 
bly held  by  David,  and  the  measures  of  severity  forced  upon 
him  by  the  new  conspiracy  of  Joab  and  Abiathar  with  Adoni- 
jah  after  his  father's  death,  as  well  as  the  punishment  of 
Shimei,  though  this  was  full  three  years  after  his  accession. 
We  now  return  to  the  narrative  of  his  reign. 

§  2.  The  date  of  Solomon's  accession  as  sole  king  can  be 
fixed  with  precision  to  the  year  1015  b.c.^  Jewish  tradition 
makes  him  eighteen  years  old  at  this  epoch,  which  agrees 
with  the  date  of  the  Scripture  narrative.  He  reigned  forty 
years,  or,  more  precisely,  thirty-nine  years  and  a  half,^  the 
sum  of  his  own  and  his  father's  reign  being  eighty  years. 


'  The  distinction  here  implied  is  not 
merely  one  of  words  ;  for  the  use  of 
the  name  borrowed  from  heathen  an- 
tiquity   tends    to    conceal    the    fact, 


chosen  nhode.  of  Jchovali  in  the  midst 
of  his  chosen  people.  Thus  St.  Ste^ 
phen  says,  "But  Solomon  built  him 
an  house''  (Acts  vii.  47). 


which  is  made  prominent  in  the  scrip- 1      ^  Sen   note  to  chap.  iii.  On  Scrip- 
tural  phr.Tse,  that  the  edifice  was  the!  ture  Chronologij.         ^  B.C.  1015-J)75. 


B.C.  1015.  Solomon  at  Gibeon.  477 

The  first  act  of  the  foreign  policy  of  the  new  reign  must 
have  been  to  most  Israelites  a  very  startling  one.     Solomon 
showed  the  desire  to  strengthen  his  throne  by  forei2:n  alli- 
ances in  a  manner  which  marks  the  great  difference  of  spirit 
between  the  new  monarchy  and  the  ancient  theocracy.     He 
made  an  alliance  with  Pharaoh,  king  of  Egypt,  and  took  his 
daughter  to  be  his  wife.*     This  Pharaoh  was  probably  a  late 
king  of  the  xxist  (Tanite)  dynasty  ;  for  the  eminent  head  of 
the  xxiind  dynasty,  Sheshonk  I.   (Shishak),  belongs  to  the 
latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Solomon,  and  to  that  of  Rehoboam.^ 
That  this  flagrant  breach,  not  only  of  a  general  principle,  but 
of  the  specific  law  against  intercourse  with  Egypt,  passed 
unpunished  for  the  time,  is  an  example  of  that  great  system 
of  forbearance  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  each  new  dispensa- 
tion of  God's  moral  government.     But  the  law  of  retribution 
for  sinful  actions  by  their  natural  effects  Avas  working  from 
the  very  first,  and  this  marriage  of  Solomon  Avas  the  first  step 
toAvard  his  fall  into  idolatry.     MeauAvhile  "Solomon  loved 
Jehovah,  Avalking  in  the  statutes  of  David  his  father,"  and 
"  God  Avas  Avith  him,  and  magnified  him  exceedingly ;"  and 
the  only  blot  upon  the  outward  purity  as  Avell  as  prosperity 
of  the  kingdom  Avas  the  retention  of  the  "high  places,"  Avhich 
had  been  the  seats  of  the  ancient  Avorship,  for  sacrifice,  in  the 
absence  of  any  house  of  God.    The  hill  of  Gibeon,  Avhere  stood 
the  tabernacle  and  the  altar  of  burnt-offering,  seems  only  to 
haA^e  been  regarded  as  the  chief  of  these  high  places  ;  and  it 
Avas  probably  in  the  course  of  a  series  of  sacrifices  at  the  dif- 
ferent sacred  heights  that  Solomon  visited  Gibeon,  "  the  great 
high  place,"  and  there,  in  the  midst  of  a  great  convocation  of 
the  people,  sacrificed  a  tenfold  hecatomb — a  thousand  burnt- 
offerings — upon  the  altar.  ° 

This  Avas  the  occasion  chosen  by  Jehovah  for  His  first  per- 
sonal revelation  to  Solomon.  In  the  folloAving  night  God 
appeared  to  him  in  a  dream,  and  asked  him  to  choose  Avhat 
He  should  give  him.  After  a  thanksgiving  for  the  mercies 
shoAvn  to  David,  and  a  prayer  that  the  promise  made  to  him 
might  be  established,  Solomon,  confessing  himself  to  be  but  a 
little  child  in  comparison  to  the  great  Avork  committed  him 
in  governing  and  judging  the  people,  asked  for  the  Avisdom 
and  knowledge  that  might  fit  him  for  the  office—"  an  under- 
standing heart  to  judge  Thy  people,  to  discern  betAveen  good 

*  1  K.  iii.  1.  But,  as  Behoboam|his  father's  death,  and  therefore  be- 
was  forty-one  years  old  at  his  acces-jfore  he  married  tlic  daughter  of  Pha- 
sion,  Solomon  must  have  married  his|raoh.  ''  See  cliap.  xxiii.  §  2. 

mother — Naamah  of  Ammon— before !      ®  1  K  iii,  2-4  ;   1  Chron.  i.  1-6. 


478  The  Reign  of  Solomon.  Chap.  XXII. 

and  bad."  The  desire,  thus  expressed  in  Solomon's  own  words, 
does  not  seem  to  have  so  high  a  meaning  as  is  often  assigned 
to  it.  He  does  not  ask  that  profound  spiritual  wisdom,  wliich 
would  teach  him  to  knoAV  God  and  his  ow^n  heart :  in  this  he 
was  always  far  inferior  to  David.  His  prayer  is  for  practi- 
cal sagacity,  clear  intelligence,  quick  discernment,  to  see  the 
right  from  the  wrong  amid  the  mazes  of  duplicity  and  doubt 
which  beset  the  judge,  especially  among  an  Oriental  people. 
And  this  gift  he  received.  His  aspirations,  if  not  for  the  high- 
est spiritual  excellence,  were  for  usefulness  to  his  subjects 
and  fellow-men,  not  for  long  life,  riches,  and  victory  for  him- 
self; and  because  he  had  not  selfishly  asked  these  things,  they 
were  freely  granted  to  him  in  addition  to  tlie  gift  he  had 
chosen.  Assured  of  God's  favor,  he  returned  to  Jerusalem, 
and  renewed  his  sacrifices  before  the  ark,  and  made  a  feast 
to  all  his  servants.'' 

An  occasion  soon  arose  to  prove  his  divine  gift  of  sagacity. 
Two  women  appeared  before  liis  judgment-seat  with  a  dead 
and  a  living  infant.  The  one  who  appealed  to  tlie  king  for 
justice  alleged  that  they  hadbotli  been  delivered  in  the  same 
house,  the  other  woman  three  days  after  herself;  tliat  the 
other  had  overla'd  her  child  in  the  night,  and  had  exchanged 
its  corpse  for  the  li\'ing  child  of  the  first  while  she  slept.  The 
second  declared  that  the  living  child  Avas  hers,  and  both  w^ere 
alike  clamorous  in  demanding  it.  The  king  resolved  to  ap- 
peal to  the  maternal  instinct,  as  a  sure  test  even  in  the  de- 
graded class  to  Avhicli  both  the  women  belonged.  Calling 
for  a  sword,  he  bade  one  of  his  guards  di^dde  tlie  living  child 
in  two,  and  give  half  to  one  Avoman  and  half  to  tlie  other. 
It  is  a  strange  proof  of  the  progress  of  the  monarchy  toAvard 
despotic  poAver  that  the  command  should  have  been  taken  in 
earnest,  but  so  it  seems  to  have  been.  The  Avoman  Avho  liad 
borne  the  living  child  noAV  prayed  that  it  might  be  given  to 
the  other  to  save  its  life,  Avhile  the  latter  consented  to  the 
cruel  partition;  and  the  king  had  noAV  no  difiiculty  in  de- 
ciding the  dispute.  The  fame  of  the  decision  spread  through 
all  Israel,  inspiring  fear  of  the  king's  justice,  and  a  convic- 
tion that  God  had  giA^  en  him  that  Avise  discernment  Avhich  is 
prized  in  the  East  as  a  ruler's  highest  quality.® 

§  3.  Solomon  arranged  his  court  on  the  same  general  basis 
as  his  father's,  but  on  a  scale  of  much  greater  magnificence. 

"  1  K.  iii,  .5- IT) ;   2  Chron.  i.  7-13. 

•■  1  K  iii.  lG-28.  Sen  the  story  of  a  similar  judgment  by  an  Indian  king 
in  Kitto's  Daili]  Bible  Illustrations ,  vol.  iv.  in  loc. 


B.C. 1015. 


Solomon^s  Magnificence. 


479 


Among  the  names  of  his  chief  officers  we  find  several  of  his 
father's  most  distinguished  servants  and  their  sons.  There 
were  "  princes  "  or  chief  governors,  two  "  scribes  "  or  secreta- 
ries, a  "recorder,"  a  "caj^tain  of  the  host,"  "  officers"  of  the 
court,  the  chief  of  whom  had,  like  Hushai  under  David,  the 
title  of  "  the  king's  friend ;"  there  was  a  chief  over  the  house- 
hold, and  another  over  the  tribute.  The  priests  were  Zadok 
and  Abiathar,  though,  as  we  have  seen,  the  latter  was  de- 
posed.* The  supplies  needed  for  the  court  were  levied  through- 
out the  whole  land  by  twelve  officers,  to  each  of  whom  Avas 
allotted  a  particular  district  to  supply  one  month's  provisions.'" 
But  these  contributions  were  increased  by  the  subject  king- 
doms between  the  Euphrates,  which  was  the  eastern  border 
of  Solomon's  dominions,  from  Tiphsah  (Thapsacus)  to  Azzah, 
and  the  land  of  the  Philistines  and  the  Egyptian  frontier. 
The  provision  for  each  day  consisted  of  thirty  measures  of 
line  ilour  and  seventy  measures  of  meal,  ten  fat  oxen  and 
twenty  from  the  pastures,  and  100  sheep,  besides  venison  and 
fowl.''  Judah  and  Israel,  increasing  rapidly  in  numbers, 
gave  themselves  up  to  festivity  and  mirth,  and  "  dwelt  safely, 
every  man  under  his  vine  and  under  his  fig-tree,  from  Dan 
even  to  Beersheba,  all  the  days  of  Solomon.""  _  In  the  great 
military  establishment,  which  Solomon  maintained  for  state 
as  well  as  for  defense,  he  set  at  naught  the  law  against  keep- 
ing up  a  force  of  cavalry.  He  had  40,000  stalls  of  horses 
for  his  1400  chariots  and  12,000  cavalry  horses,''  and  their 
supplies  of  straw  and  provender  were  furnished  by  the  twelve 
officers  just  mentioned.  The  horses  and  chariots  Avere  brought 
from  E^ypt,  Avhence  also  the  kings  of  the  Hittites  and  the 
kinjrs  of  Syria  obtained  theirs.  A  chariot  cost  600  shekels 
of  silver,  and  a  horse  150.  The  chariots  and  cavalry  were 
placed  in  garrison  in  certain  cities,  called  "  chariot  cities," 
and  partly  with  the  king  at  Jerusalem.  The  commerce  Avith 
E<Typt  supplied  also  linen  yarn,  Avhich  Avas  made  a  royal 
monopoly.  As  the  result  of  this  and  other  commerce  (to  be 
spoken  of  presently),  silver  and  gold  are  said,  in  the  hyper- 
bolical language  of  the  East,  to  have  been  as  stones  at  Jeru- 
salem, and  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  as  abundant  as  the  syca- 
more, the  common  timber  of  Palestine.'* 

But  all  this  magnificence  AA^as  transcended  by  the  person- 
al qualities  of  Solomon  himself     We  have,  it  is  true,  no  di- 


IK.  iv.  l-G. 
1  K.iv.  7-10. 
1  K.iv,  21-24. 


1  K.  iv.  20,  25. 


"  This  is  the  proper  sense  of  the 


word  rendered  "horseman''  in  1  K. 
iv.  2(3.  The  "dromedaries"  of  ver. 
28  are  properlv  "swift  horses"  used 
for  posts.  '■*  2  Chron.  i.  14-17. 


480 


The  Reign  of  Solomon. 


Chap.  XXII 


rect  description  of  his  personal  appearance,  bnt  the  wonder- 
ful impression  which  he  made  upon  all  Avho  came  near  hini 
may  well  lead  us  to  believe  that  with  him  as  with  Saul  and 
David,  Absalom  and  Adonijah,  as  with  most  other  favorite 
princes  of  Eastern  peoples,  there  must  have  been  the  fascina- 
tion and  the  grace  of  a  noble  presence.  Whatever  higher 
mystic  meaning  may  be  latent  in  Ps.  xlv.,  or  the  Song  of 
Songs,  we  are  all  but  compelled  to  think  of  them  as  having 
had,  at  least,  a  histoiical  starting-j^oint.  They  tell  us  of  one 
who  was,  in  the  eyes  of  the  men  of  his  own  time,  "  fau-er 
than  the  children  of  men,"  the  face  "bright  and  ruddy"  as 
his  father's  ;'^  bushy  locks,  dark  as  the  raven's  wing,  yet  not 
without  a  golden  gloAv,  the  eyes  soft  as  "  the  eyes  of  doves," 
the  "countenance  as  Lebanon,  excellent  as  the  cedars,"  "the 
chiefest  among  ten  thousand,  the  altogether  lovely.""  Add 
to  this,  all  gifts  of  a  noble,  far-reaching  intellect,  large  and 
ready  sympathies,  a  playful  and  genial  humor,  the  lips  "  full 
of  grace,"  the  soul  "  anointed "  as  "  with  the  oil  of  glad- 
ness,'"^ and  we  may  form  some  notion  of  what  the  king  was 
like  in  this  dawn  of  his  golden  prime.  He  used  these  gifts 
not  only  for  the  government  of  his  people,  but  for  the  acqui- 
sition and  the  embodiment  in  writing  of  all  the  learning  of 
the  age.'^  He  gave  equal  attention  to  the  lessons  of  practical 
morals  and  to  tTie  facts  of  natural  science.  "  He  spake  3000 
proverbs,  and  his  songs  were  a  thousand  and  five."  "And 
he  spake  of  trees,  from  the  cedar-tree  that  is  in  Lebanon,  even 
unto  the  hyssop  that  springeth  out  of  the  wall :  he  spake 
also  of  beasts,  and  of  fowl,  and  of  creeping  things,  and  of 
fishes;"  in  short,  of  the  whole  cycle  of  natural  history.^''  We 
must,  however,  avoid  misconceptions,  both  as  to  the  matter  of 
Solomon's  knowledge,  and  as  to  the  form  of  its  utterance. 
It  does  not  aj^pear  that  he  possessed  what  would  now  be 
considered  great  proficiency  in  natural  science,  nor  even  such 
knowledge  as  Aristotle's,  Avhose  works  on  natural  history  the 
Rabbis  pretend  to  have  been  derived  from  a  copy  of  the  writ- 
ings of  Solomon  sent  to  him  from  the  East  by  Alexander ! 
Solomon's  natural  science,  like  that  of  Oriental  philosophers 
in  general,  consisted  rather  in  the  observation  of  the  more 


'"  Cant.  v.  10;    1  Sam.  xvii.  42. 

^f' Cant.  V.  9-1 G.  "  Ps.  xlv. 

"®  The  four  sons  of  Mahol,  Etham, 
Iletnan,  Chalcol,  and  Darda,  whose 
proverbial  wisdom  was  surpassed  by 
that  of  Solomon,  were  the  sons  of  Ze- 
rah,  son  of  Judah  (I  K.  iv.  31 ;  comp. 


1  Chron.  ii.  G).  The  word  Mahol  is 
supposed  to  be  an  appellative  denoting 
them  as  "sons  of  song,"  in  reference 
to  their  skill  in  music  and  poetry,  the 
organs  of  wisdom  in  early  times. 
Heman's  name  is  prefixed  to  the  88th 
Psalm.  '"  1  K.  iv.  32,  33. 


B.C.  lOU.  Bidldinn  of  the   Temple.  481 

obvious  facts  in  the  common  life  and  habits  of  God's  creatuiGS, 
Avitli  an  especial  view  to  use  them  for  the  poetical  illustra- 
tion 01  moral  lessons :  and  in  this  way  we  tind  such  knowl- 
edge used,  not  only  in  the  Proverbs  ascribed  to  him,  but  in 
many  of  the  Psalms,  and  throughout  the  Book  of  Job.  The 
discourses  in  the  latter  part  of  that  book  about  Behemotli 
and  Leviathan  are  probably  a  type  of  the  manner  in  wliich 
"  Solomon  spake  of  beasts."  It  clearly  follows  that  we  ought 
not  to  suppose  that  Solomon  wrote  elaborate  treatises  on  these 
subjects  which  are  now  lost.  Such  forms  of  communicating 
knowledge  do  not  belong  to  his  age  or  country.  His  3000 
proverbs  and  1005  oongs  probably  contained  nearly  all  that 
he  wrote  upon  such  matters  in  the  form  of  poetical  illustra- 
tion. For  the  rest,  it  should  be  remembered  that  instruction, 
in  his  time  and  long  after,  was  chiefly  oral.  Tiie  tents  of 
tiie  patriarchs  and  the  abodes  of  their  descendants  Avitnessed 
many  an  hour  when  the  ancient  father  Avould  discourse  to 
his  descendants  on  the  lessons  of  his  experience  and  the  tra- 
ditions handed  down  by  his  fathers  ;  and  such  we  conceive 
to  have  been  the  converse  held  by  Solomon  in  the  midst  of 
his  splendid  court,  only  on  a  much  grander  scale,  and  cover- 
ing a  much  v/ider  field.  Thus,  amid  the  public  life  of  an 
Eastern  monarch,  not  in  the  seclusion  of  the  retired  student, 
he  poured  out  tlie  knowledge  Avhich  attracted  the  subjects 
of  other  kings  from  all  nations  of  the  earth,  to  hear  for  them- 
selves that  wisdom  the  fame  of  which  had  reached  them  in 
their  distant  countries.^"  In  one  celebrated  instance  the  at- 
traction proved  sufficient  to  bring  one  of  those  sovereigns 
themselves  from  the  remotest  regions  :  but  this  visit  of  the 
Queen  of  Sheba  belongs  to  a  later  period  of  Solomon's  reign. 
§  4.  The  king  was  meanwhile  occupied  with  three  great 
works — the  biitlding  of  the  house  of  God,  of  his  own  house, 
ai>d  of  the  v^^all  of  Jerusalem.  We  have  seen  the  vast  prep- 
arations that  David  had  made  for  the  erection  of  the  Temple, 
the  designs  for  which  he  had  given  into  the  hands  of  Solomon, 
and  how  he  had  been  aided  by  Hiram,  king  of  Tyre.  That 
faithful  ally  sent  an  embassy  of  congratulation  on  his  son's 
accession,*'  and  Solomon  sent  back  an  answer  informing  Hiram 
of  his  prosperity,  declaring  his  intention  of  building  a  house 
for  God,  and  requesting  his  assistance,  which  Hiram  gladly 
promised  in  a  letter." 

"  1  K.  iv.  3-t.  On  the  writings  cf  I  "2  Chror;.  ii.  11.  The  second  re- 
Solomon,  sec  Notes  and  Illustrations  \  corded  instance  of  epistolary  corrc- 
(B.).  I  spondence,  the  first  being  David's  let- 

"  1  K.  V.  ;   2  Chron.  ii.  !  ter  to  Joab  by  Uriah. 

X 


482 


The  Reijn  of  Solomon. 


Chap.  XXII. 


An  arrangement  was  made  by  which  Hiram  gave  cedars 
and  fir-trees  out  of  Lebanon,  which  his  servants  felled,  while 
those  of  Solomon  squared  and  fitted  them  for  their  places  in 
the  building.  The  provisions  for  both  parties  were  supplied 
by  Solomon  ;  for  then  as  in  the  time  of  Herod  Agrippa,^''  the 
maritime  region  of  Phoenicia  derived  its  supplies  of  food  from 
Palestine.  The  prepared  timber  was  brought  down  to  the 
sea,  and  floated  round  to  Joppa,  under  the  care  of  the  Tyrian 
sailors,  whence  Solomon  undertook  the  thirty  miles'  transport 
to  Jerusalem.  He  raised  the  laborers  required  for  this  great 
work  by  a  levy  of  the  strangers  who  lived  in  various  parts 
of  the  land.  All  the  remnant  of  these  had  been  finally  sub- 
dued by  David,  who,  instead  of  exterminating  them,  retained 
them  in  a  condition  similar  to  that  to  which  Joshua  had  re- 
duced the  Gibeonites.  Solomon  found  their  number  to  be 
153,600  ;  he  appointed  70,000  for  the  Avork  of  transport,  80,000 
as  hewers  in  Lebanon,  and  the  remaining  3600  as  overseers.^* 
Li  addition  to  these,  he  raised  a  levy  of  30,000  men  out 
of  all  Israel,  whom  he  sent  to  work  in  Lebanon  by  relays  of 
10,000,  each  relay  serving  for  one  month  and  returning  home 
for  tAVO,"  Besides  the  timber,  they  hewed  the  great  stones 
which  were  to  form  the  foundation  of  the  house;  stones 
Avhich  by  the  time  they  reached  Jerusalem,  must  have  well 
earned  the  name  of  "  costly  stones,"  which  is  applied  to  them 
in  tlie  narrative.^"  Some  of  these  great  stones  are  still,  in 
all  probability,  those  visible  among  the  old  substructions  of  , 
the  Temple. 

Besides  these  contributions  of  materials  and  labor,  Hiram 
supplied  Solomon  with  a  chief  architect,  a  namesake  of  his 
own,forAvhom  the  King  of  Tyre  expressed  the  reverence  of 
a  disciple  for  an  artist  by  calling  him  "Hiram,  my  father."" 
This  Hiram  was  the  son  of  a  widow  of  Xaphtali  (or  Dan), 
and  his  father  had  been  a  Tyrian  artist.  He  devoted  his  he- 
reditary skill  to  the  service  of  the  God  whom  his  mother  had 
doubtless  taught  him  to  reverence,  in  the  spirit  of  Eezaleel, 
whom  he  resembled  in  the  great  variety  of  his  accomplish- 
ments. Besides  his  principal  pi'ofession  as  a  worker  in  brass, 
he  Avrought  in  gold,  silver,  and  iron,  iii  stone  and  timber,  in 
purple,  blue,  fine  linen,  and  crimson;  in  short,  his  great  gift 
seems  to  have  been  that  of  design  in  all  its  branches.     The 


""^  Cotnp.  Acts  xii.  20. 

"^^  1  K  V.  15,  IG;   2  Chron.  ii.  17, 


2^  iK.v.  13,  U. 
'■''  2 Chron.  ii.13,  iv. 


'M  K.v.  17. 
16.    "Huram 


is  only  another  form  of  ' '  Ilirani, "  and 
is  applied  to  the  kingc  as  well  as  to  the 
artist  in  the  original  text  (1  Chron. 
xiv.  1  ;  2  Chron.  ii.  3,  11,  12,  viii.  2, 
18,  ix.  10,  21). 


B.C.  1005.  Solomon's   Temple.  483 

master-pieces  of  his  art  were  the  two  pillars  of  cast  brass, 
called  Jachin  and  Boaz,  which  stood  on  each  side  of  the 
porch  in  front  of  the  Holy  Place."  The  workmen  under  him 
had  already  been  provided  by  David,  who,  as  we  have  seen, 
secured  the  services  of  all  the  foreign  artists  residing:  in  the 
land. 

§  5.  The  actual  building  of  the  Temple  was  commenced  in 
the  fourth  year  of  Solomon's  reign,  and  the  four  hundred  and 
eightieth  year  from  the  Exodus,  on  the  second  day  of  the 
month  Zif  (afterward  Jyar=:April  and  May),  the  second  of 
the  ecclesiastical  year,  b.c.  1012.''-'  So  complete  were  the  prep- 
arations that  no  sound  of  axe  or  hammer  was  heard  about  the 
buildinsc  durinsj  its  whole  erection — 

"Like  some  tall  palm,  the  noiseless  fabric  grew :" 

and  it  was  completed  in  seven  and  a  half  years,  in  the  eighth 
month  (Bui,  afterward  Marcheshvan  — Oct.  and  Nov.)  of  the 
eleventh  year  of  Solomon,  b.c.  1005.  It  occupied  the  site  pre- 
pared for  it  by  David,  which  had  formerly  been  the  threshing- 
floor  of  the  Jebusite  Oman  or  Araunah,  on  Mount  Moriah. 
The  whole  area  enclosed  by  the  outer  walls  formed  a  square 
of  about  600  feet ;  but  the  sanctuary  itself  was  comparatively 
small,  inasmuch  as  it  was  intended  only  for  the  ministrations 
of  the  priests,  the  congregation  of  the  peoj^le  assembling  in 
the  courts.  In  this,  and  all  other  essential  points,  the  Tem- 
ple followed  the  model  of  the  Tabernacle,  from  which  it  dif- 
ered  chiefly  by  having  chambers  built  about  the  sanctua- 
ry for  the  abode  of  the  priests  and  attendants,  and  the  keep- 
ing of  treasures  and  stores.  In  all  its  dimensions,  length, 
breadth,  and  height,  the  sanctuary  itself  Avas  exactly  double 
of  the  Tabernacle,  the  ground-plan  measuring  80  cubits  by 
40,  while  that  of  the  Tabernacle  was  40  by  20,  and  the  height 
of  the  Temple  being  30  cubits,  while  that  of  the  Tabernacle 
was  15/" 

As  in  the  Tabernacle,  the  Temple  consisted  of  three  parts, 
the  Porch,  the  Holy  Place,  and  the  Holy  of  Holies.  The 
Porch  of  the  Temple  was  10  cubits  deep  (in  the  Tabernacle, 
5  cubits),  the  width  in  both  instances  being  the  width  of  the 
house.  The  front  of  the  porch  was  supported,  after  the  man- 
ner of  some  Egyptian  temples,  by  the  two  great  brazen  pillars 
Jachin  and  Boaz,  18  cubits  high,  with  capitals  of  5  cubits 

"  1  K.  vii.  13,  foil. ;  2Chr.  ii.  13, 14.  I      ^°  These  are  the  extreme  onter  di- 
"  1  K.  vi.  1 ;  2  Chron.  ill.  2.      Sec  mensions  in  both  cases  :  for  a  fuller 

p.  336,  in  Notes  and  Illustrations  "  On   explanation,  see  Diet,  of  Bible,  vol.  iii. 

the  Chronology  of  the  Judges."  |  p.  1455  scq. 


484 


The  Reign  of  Solomon. 


Chap.  XXII. 


more,  adorned  with  lily-work  and  pomegranates.^'    The  Holy 
Flcoce,  or  outer  hall,  was  40  cubits  long  by  20  wide,  being  in 


Coinice  of  Lilv-work  at  Pers 


the  Tabernacle  20  by  10.  The  Holy  of  Holies  was  a  cube 
of  20  cubits,  being  in  the  Tabernacle  10.  The  places  of  the 
two  "  veils  "  of  the  Tabernacle  were  occupied  by  partitions, 
in  which  were  folding-doors.  The  whole  interior  was  lined 
with  wood- work  richly  carved  and  overlaid  with  gold.  In- 
deed, both  within  and  without,  the  building  was  conspicu- 
ous chiefly  by  the  lavish  use  of  the  gold  of  Ophir  and  Par- 
vaim.  It  glittered  in  the  morning  sun  (it  has  been  well  said) 
like  the  sanctuary  of  an  El  Dorado. ^^  Above  the  sacred  ark, 
which  was  placed,  as  of  old,  in  the  Most  Holy  Place,  were 
made  new  cherubim,  one  pair  of  whose  wings  met  above  the 
ark,  and  another  pair  reached  to  the  walls  behind  them.  In 
the  Holy  Place,  besides  the  Altar  of  Incense,  which  was  made 
of  cedar,  overlaid  with  gold,  there  Avere  seven  golden  candle- 


^^  I  Kv.  ii.  15-22.  Some  have  sup- 
posed that  Jachin  and  Boaz  were  not 
pillars  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
term,  but  obelisks.  But  for  this  there 
is  no  authority  ;  and  as  the  porch  was 
fifteen  cubits  (thirty  feet)  in  width,  a 
roof  of  that  extent,  even  if  composed 
of  a  wooden  beam,   would  not  only 


j  look  painfully  weak  without  some 
!  support,  but,  in  fact,  almost  impossi- 
jble  to  construct  with  the  imperfect 

science  of  those  days.  "The  chap- 
I  iter  of  lily-work"  on  these  columns 

may  have  borne  some  resemblance  to 
■  the  cornice  of  lilv-work  figured  above. 
I      ^'"'MWmv^n,  Hist,  of  Jews,  \  259. 


B.C.  lOOi 


Solomon's  Temple. 


485 


sticks  instead  of  one,  and  the  table  of  show-bread  was  replaced 
by  teH  golden  tables  bearing,  besides  the  show-bread,  the  innu- 
merable golden  vessels  for  the  service  of  the  sanctuary."  The 
Outer  Court  was  no  doubt  double  the  size  of  that  of  the  Taber- 
nacle ,•  and  we  may  therefore  safely 
assume  that  it  was  10  cubits  in 
height,  100  cubits  north  and  south, 
and  200  east  and  west.  It  contain- 
ed an  inner  court  called  the  "  court 
of  the  priests ;"  but  the  arrangement 
of  the  courts  and  of  the  porticoes 
and  gateways  of  the  enclosure, 
though  described  by  Josephus,  be- 
long apparently  to  the  Temple  of 
Herod.  There  was  an  eastern  porch 
to  Herod's  temple,  which  was  called 
Solomon's  Porch,  and  Josephus  tells 
us  that  it  was  built  by  that  mon- 
arch ;  but  of  this  there  is  absolutely 
no  proof,  and  as  neither  in  the  ac- 
count of  Solomon's  building  nor  in 
any  subsequent  repairs  or  incidents 
is  any  mention  made  of  such  build- 
ings, we  may  safely  conclude  that         i---''''"-A.  "      I     "  ico 

they   did    not  exist  before   the  time    rian  of  Solomon's  Temple,  sliowmg 

of  the  great  rebuilding  immediate 
ly  preceding  the  Christian  era. 

In  the  outer  court  there  was  a  new  altar  of  burnt-offering 
much  larger  than  the  old  one.  Like  the  latter,  it  was  square  ; 
but  the  length  and  breadth  were  now  twenty  cubits  and  the 
height  ten.^*  It  differed,  too,  in  the  material  of  which  it  was 
made,  being  entirely  of  brass. ^^  It  had  no  grating  :  and  in- 
stead of  a  single  gradual  slope,  the  ascent  to  it  was  probably 
made  by  three  successive  platforms,  to  each  of  which  it  has 
been  supposed  that  steps  led,  as  in  the  figure,  page  486.  In- 
stead of  the  brazen  laver,  there  was  "  a  molten  sea  "  of  brass, 
a  master-piece  of  Hiram's  skill,  for  the  ablution  of  the  priests. 
It  was  called  a  "  sea  "  from  its  great  size,  being  five  cubits  in 
height,  ten  in  diameter,  and  thirty  in  circumference,  and  con- 
taining 2000  baths.^^     It  stood  on  twelve  oxen,  three  toward 


he  disposition  of  the  chambers  in 
two  stories. 


^^  This  is  probably  to  be  explained 
by  the  statement  of  Josephus  {Ant. 
viii.  3,  §  7),  that  the  king  made  a 
number  of  tables,  and  onep-eat  gold- 


3^2Chron.iv.  1. 

^^  1  Kings  viii.  64;    2  Chron.  vii. 

^®  The  bath,  according  to  Josephus, 
en  one,  on  which  they  placed  the  was  equal  to  72  attic  xest(e,  or  1  we- 
loares  of  God.  I  tretes  —  8  gallons  512  pints. 


486 


The  Reirjn  of  Solomon. 


Chap.  XXII. 


each  quarter  of  the  heavens,  and  all  looking  outward.  The 
bi-im  itself  or  lip  was  Avrought  "  like  the  brim  of  a  cup,  with 
flowers  of  lilies,"  ^.  e.,  carved  outward  like  a  lily  or  lotus 


Hypothetical  Restoration  of  the  Brazen  Altar. 

flower.  There  were  besides  ten  smaller  lavers  for  the  ablu- 
tion of  the  burnt-oflerings.  The  chambers  for  the  priests 
were  arranged  in  successive  stories  against  the  sides  of  the 
sanctuary ;  not,  however,  reaching  to  the  toj),  so  as  to  leave 
space  for  the  Avindows  to  light  the  Holy  and  Most  Holy  Places. 
We  are  told  by  Josephus  and  the  Talmud  that  there  was  a 
superstructure  on  the  Temple  equal  in  height  to  the  lower 
part ;  and  this  is  confirmed  by  the  statement  in  the  Books  of 


Hypothetical  Kestoration  of  the  Molten  Sea. 

Chronicles  that  Solomon  "  overlaid  the  iqjjm-  chambers  with 
gold.""  Moreover,  "  the  altars  on  the  top  of  the  upper  cham- 
ber," mentioned  in  the  Books  of  the  Kings,'^  were  apparently 


"2  Cliron.iii.O. 


2  K.  xxiii.  12. 


J5.C.  1005.  Solomon^ s  Temjple.  487 

upon  the  Temple.  It  is  probable  that  these  upper  chambers 
bore  some  analoi^y  to  the  platform  or  Talar  that  existed  on 
the  roofs  of  the  Palace-temples  at  Persepolis,  as  shown  in  the 
woodcut  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  which  represents 
the  Tomb  of  Darius.  It  is  true  this  was  erected  five  centuries 
after  the  building  of  Solomon's  Temple ;  but  it  is  avowedly 
a  copy  in  stone  of  older  Assyrian  forms,  and  as  such  may 
represent,  with  more  or  less  exactness,  contemporary  build- 
ings. Nothing,  in  fact,  could  represent  more  correctly  "  the 
altars  on  the  top  of  the  upper  chamber,"  which  Josiah  beat 
down,  than  this,  nor  could  any  thing  more  fully  meet  all  the 
architectural  or  devotional  exigencies  of  the  case.  Such  were 
the  chief  features  of  this  sacred  edifice. 

§  6.  The  dedication  of  Solomon's  Temple  was  the  grand- 
est ceremony  ever  performed  under  the  Mosaic  dispensation  ; 
for  the  giving  of  the  law  from  Sinai  was  too  solemn  to  be 
called  a  ceremony.     Solomon  appeared  in  that  priestly  char- 
acter, which  we  have  seen  borne  by  his  father,  to  perform 
this  great  act  on  behalf  of  the  people,  leaving  to  the  priests 
and  Levites  the  care  of  the  ark  and  the  details  of  the  service, 
especially  the  psalmody.    The  time  chosen  was  the  most  joy- 
ous festival  of  the   Jews,  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  in  the 
seventh  month  (Tisri  or  Ethanim= September  and  October) 
of  the  sacred  year.     Having  done  the  labors  of  the  field,  and 
gathered  in  the  vintage,  the  people  assembled^  at  Jerusalem 
from  all  parts  of  Solomon's  wide  territories.     The  full  body 
of  the  priests  attended,  the  usual  courses  being  suspended, 
and  they  brought  the  ark  in  a  grand  and  joyous  procession 
from  the  city  of  David  to  the  rest  prepared  for  it  in  the  Holy 
of  Holies.    There  they  placed  it  beneath  the  spreading  wings 
of  the  cherubim,  and  drew  out  the  ends  of  the  staves,  that 
they  might  be   seen  as  in  the  Tabernacle,  behind  the  ved. 
Amid  all  the  new  splendors  of  its  dwelling,  the  ark  of  the 
covenant  was  the  same  as  of  old ;  it  contained  nothing  but 
the  two  tables  of  the  law,  which  Moses  had  placed  in  it  at 
Sinai.     As  the  priests  retired  from  within  the  veil,  the  Levites 
and  their  sons,  arranged  in  their  three  courses  of  psalmody, 
with  all  instruments^of  music,  and  clad  in  wdiite  linen  robes, 
burst  forth  with  the  sacred  chorus  praising  Jehovah,  "  For 
He  is  good ;  for  His  mercy  endureth  forever."      It  was  at 
this  very  moment,  "just  as  the  trumpeters  and  singers  Avere 
as  one,  to  make  one  sound  to  be  heard  in  praising  and  thank- 
ing Jehovah,"  that  He  gave  the  sign  of  His  coming  to  take 
possession  of  His  house  :  "  The  house  was  filled  with  a  cloud 
even  the  house  of  Jehovah,  so  that  the  priests  could  not  stand 


488  The  Reign  of  Solomon.  Chap.  XXIL 

to  minister  because  of  the  cloud;  for  the  Glory  of  Jeiioyah 
had  filled  the  House  of  Jeiiovah."^^  As  that  sacred  cloud 
spread  through  the  open  doors  over  the  sanctuary,  the  voice 
of  Solomon  Avas  heard  recognizing  the  presence  of  the  God 
who  had  said  that  he  would  dwell  in  the  thick  darkness,  and 
for  whom  he  had  now  built  a  habitation  forever.  Then  turn- 
ing to  the  people  from  the  great  platform  of  brass,  Avhich  he 
had  erected  in  the  midst  of  the  court,  in  front  of  the  brazen 
altar,  the  king  blessed  Jehovah  the  God  of  Israel,  who  had 
chosen  Jerusalem  as  the  place  sacred  to  His  name,  and  had 
performed  His  promises  to  David  and  fulfilled  his  desire  to 
build  him  a  house.  And  now,  kneeling  down  before  the  whole 
congregation,  with  his  face  toward  the  sanctuary,  Solomon 
poured  forth  a  prayer,  unequaled  for  sublimity  and  compre- 
hensiveness, in  which  the  leading  thought,  repeated  with  beau- 
tiful variety  and  minuteness,  is  this  :  that  the  abode  which 
Jehovah  had  now  deigned  to  sanctify  with  His  presence, 
might  prove  the  centre  of  blessing  and  forgiveness  to  Plis  peo- 
ple ;  that  whatever  prayer  for  help,  whatever  penitent  con- 
fession in  the  time  of  suffering  and  exile  they  might  offer 
toward  that  house,  God  would  hear  it  from  His  true  dwell- 
ing-place in  heaven,  and  forgive  His  j^eople  who  had  sinned 
against  Him.  The  prayer  is,  indeed,  a  prophecy  of  the  history 
of  Israel,  and  of  God's  chastisements  of  their  sins,  even  to 
the  Captivity.  We  see  it  still  answered  when  Daniel  opened 
his  window  at  Babylon,  and  prayed  toward  the  site  of  the 
ruined  Temple  ;  and  at  this  hour  its  repetition  by  the  out- 
casts of  Israel  awaits  a  better  restoration.  He  concluded 
with  a  blessing  and  exhortation  to  the  people.*" 

The  prayer  of  Solomon  was  followed  by  another  sign  of 
God's  i^resence.  The  fire  came  down  from  heaven,  as  on  the 
first  altar  of  burnt-offering,  and  consumed  the  sacrifices, 
while  the  Shekinah  again  filled  the  house,  preventing  the  en- 
trance of  the  priests,  as  if,  for  that  one  day,  God  claimed  the 
sanctuary  as  His  very  own,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  mere  creat- 
ures. Then  Solomon  and  all  the  people  offered  their  sacri- 
fices on  the  altar,  22,000  oxen  and  120,000  sheep,  the  priests 
executing  their  office,  while  the  Levites  played  and  sang  in 
the  order  and  to  the  words  of  David.  A  great  feast  follow- 
ed for  twice  seven  days,  seven  for  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles, 
and  seven  for  the  dedication,  and  on  the  twenty-third  day 
of  the  month  Solomon  dismissed  the  people.  They  returned 
to  their  homes,  "  glad  and  merry  in  heart  for  all  the  good- 

^  1  K.  vii;.  Ill;  2  CI. ion.  v.  *"  1  K.  viii.  :  2  Chron.  vi. 


SCALE    OF     FEET. 


Plan  of  Solomon's  Palace. 


X  2 


B.C.  1000. 


Solomon^s  other  Buildings. 


491 


ness  that  Jehovah  had  sliewed  unto  David,  and  to  Solomon, 
and  to  Israel  His  people."*' 

§  7.  Four  years  more  were  occupied  in  the  completion  of 
the  king's  "  own  house,"  and  of  his  other  great  works  at  Je- 
rusalem. His  palace  consisted  of  a  number  of  magnificent 
buildings,  the  general  arrangement  of  which  has  been  re- 
stored by  Mr.  Fergusson,  with  considerable  probability,  from 
the  analogy  of  the  Assyrian  palaces. 

The  principal  building  situated  within  the  palace  Av^as,  as 
in  all  Eastern  palaces,  the  great  hall  of  state  and  audience, 
called  "  The  House  of  the  Forest  of  Lebanon,"  apparently 
from  the  four  rows  of  cedar  pillars  by  which  it  was  support- 
ed. It  was  100  cubits  long,  50  Avide,  and  30  high.  Next  in 
importance  was  the  Hall  oi*  "  Porch  of  Judgment,"  a  quad- 
rangular building  supported  by  columns,"^  which  apparently 
stood  on  the  other  side  of  the  great  court,  opposite  the  House 
of  the  Forest  of  Lebanon.  The  third  edifice  is  merely  call- 
ed a  "Porch  of  Pillars."  Its  dimensions  were  50  by  30  cu- 
bits. Its  use  can  not  be  considered  as  doubtful,  as  it  was  an 
indispensable  adjunct  to  an  Eastern  palace.  It  was  the  or- 
dinary place  of  business  of  the  palace,  and  the  reception-room 
when  the  king  received  ordinary  visitors,  and  sat,  except  on 
great  state  occasions,  to  transact  the  business  of  the  kingdom. 
Behind  this,  we  are  told,  was  the  inner  court,  adorned  with 
gardens  and  fountains,  and  surrounded  by  cloisters  for  shade  ; 
and  there  were  other  coui'ts  for  the  residence  of  the  attend- 
ants and  guards,  and  for  the  women  of  his  harem ;  all  of 
which  are  shown  in  the  plan  with  more  clearness  than  can  be 
conveyed  by  a  verbal  description. 

Apart  from  this  palace,  but  attached,  as  Josephus  tells  us, 
to  the  Hall  of  Judgment,  was  the  palace  of  Pharaoh's  daugh- 
ter :  too  proud  and  important  a  personage  to  be  grouped 
with  the  ladies  of  the  harem,  and  requiring  a  residence  of  her 
own.  On  the  completion  of  this  palace,  he  conducted  her  to 
it  in  state  from  the  city  of  David."  The  palace  of  Solomon 
was  below  the  platform  of  the  Temple,  and  he  constructed 
an  ascent  from  his  own  house  "  to  the  house  of  Jehovah,"** 
which  was  a  subterranean  passage  250  feet  long  by  42  feet 
wide,  of  which  the  remains  may  still  be  traced.  Among  his 
other  buildings  may  be  mentioned  a  summer-palace  in  Leb- 
anon,*^ stately  gardens  at  Etham,  paradises  like  those  of 
the  great  Eastern  king^s,''Hhe  foundation  of  something  like  a 


^'  1  K.  viii.  62-GG  ;  2  Chron.  vii. 
^'^  Seo  Joseph.  Ant.M\\\.  5,  §  2, 
"  1  K.  vii.  1-12. 


iK.x.T). 

1  K.  ix.  19;  Canr.  vii.  4. 

Eccl.  ii.5,  G. 


492  The  Reign  of  Solomon.  Chap.  XXII. 

stately  scliool  or  college,  costly  aqueducts  bringing  water, 
it  may  be,  from  the  well  of  Bethlehem,  dear  to  David's  heart, 
to  supply  his  j^alace  in  Jerusalem.  It  was  about  the  same 
time  that  Solomon  undertook  the  repair  of  the  walls  of  the 
fortress  of  Zion,  which  David  had  "  built  round  about  from 
Millo  and  inward,""  as  well  asof  Millo  itself  These  works 
were  under  the  superintendence  of  Jeroboam,  the  son  of  Ne- 
bat,  of  whom  more  will  be  heard  presently.^^ 

After  the  completion  of  these  works,  God  appeared  a  sec- 
ond time  to  Solomon,  as  at  Gibeon,  by  night,  and  assured 
him  that  the  prayers  he  had  offered  at  the  dedication  of  the 
Temple  were  accepted,  while  the  renewal  of  the  covenant 
with  David  and  his  house  Avas  accompanied  Avith  the  most 
impressive  warnings  of  the  ruin  which  disobedience  would 
bring  upon  king,  people,  and  the  sanctuary  itself,  which 
would  be  made,  as  it  has  indeed  become,  "  a  proverb  and  a 
by-word  among  all  nations."*^  Solomon  arranged  the  Tem- 
ple service  according  to  the  courses  appointed  by  David ; 
and  he  set  the  example  of  sacrifice  to  the  people  by  his  own 
stated  offerings  on  the  brazen  altar  daily,  and  on  the  Sab- 
baths and  new  moons,  and  at  the  three  great  festivals.^" 

These  great  Avorks,  all  connected  Avith  the  establishment 
of  God's  house,  and  of  his  OAvn  royal  state  at  Jerusalem,  to 
Avhich  city  they  added  an  entirely  new  quarter,  occupied  the 
first  half  of  Solomon's  reign,  a  period  of  tAventy  years,  1015- 
996  B.C.  The  services  of  the  King  of  Tyre  Avere  acknoAvl- 
edged  by  the  cession  of  tAventy  cities  along  the  sea-coast  of 
Galilee,  a  gift  at  Avhich  Hiram  expressed  his  discontent  by  a 
play  upon  the  name  of  one  them,  Cabul^  a  Avord  signifying 
dirt  in  the  Phoenician  dialect.^'  NotAvithstanding  his  dis- 
pleasure, Hiram  returned  the  present,  according  to  the  cus- 
tom of  the  East,  by  the  gift  of  120  talents  of  gold,  and  the 
alliance  of  the  tAvo  kings  remained  unimpaired.  The  cities 
seem  to  have  been  restored  by  Hiram,  and  fortified  by  Solo- 
mon." 

§  8.  The  second  half  of  Solomon's  reign  Avas  inaugurated 
by  magnificent  Avorks  in  other  parts  of  his  dominions,  and 
by  enterprises  of  foreign  commerce.     In  the  south-west,  he 

^^  2  Sam.  V.  9.  This  Millo  nppears|  ""  1  K.  ix.  23  ;  2  Chron.  viii.  12-16. 
to  have  been  a  fort  in  or  near  the  Ty- '  ^^  1  K.  ix.  1 1-U.  The  city  of  Ca- 
ropoeon  and  identical  with  the  "  house' bul  is  mentioned  as  a  landmark  on 
of  Millo,"  where  Joash  was  murderedi  the  boundary  of  Asher  (Josh.  xix.  27), 
(2K.  xii.20).  and  its  name  is  preserved  at  Kabul, 

^^  1  K.  ix.  ].'>,  21,  xi,  27.  eight  or  nine  miles  E.  of  Akka  (Rob- 

*^  1  K.  ix.  1-9,  21;  2  Chron.  vii.   inson,  iii.  87,  88). 
12-22.  »2  2  Chron.  viii.  2. 


B.C.  995.  The  Navy  of  Solomon.  493 

rebuilt  Gezer,"  which  the  King  of  Egypt  had  taken  from  the 
Canaanites  and  destroyed,  but  which  he  gave  to  Solomon  as 
his  wife's  dowry.  He  also  fortified  Baalath,  Beth-horon  (the 
upper  and  the  lower),  as  well  as  all  the  cities  where  he  kept 
his  stores  and  chariots.^*  On  the  north  he  made  a  new  con- 
quest, the  only  one  recorded  in  his  reign,  of  Hamath-Zobah. 
It  is  not  clear  w^hether  this  was  the  same  or  distinct  from 
the  capital  of  Hamath,  the  kingdom  of  Toi,  who  was  an  ally, 
and  probably  afterward  a  subject  of  David  ;  but,  at  all 
events,  this  Hamath,  which  appears  to  include  the  valley  of 
the  Orontes  as  far  as  the  defile  above  Antioch,  belonged  to 
the  kingdom  of  Solomon,  who  built  in  it  several  of  his  store- 
cities,'"^  which  formed  depots  for  commerce.  In  the  midst 
of  the  great  Syrian  Desert,  half-way  between  Damascus  and 
Thapsacus  (Tiphsah),  Avhere  his  kingdom  reached  the  Euphra- 
tes, and  where  Avas  the  great  passage  of  that  river,  after- 
w^ard  called  the  "  fatal  ford,"  here,  in  a  beautiful  oasis,  he 
built  the  city  of  Tadmor,  which  became  long  after,  under 
the  name  of  Palmyka,^^  the  seat  of  Zenobia's  brief  empire, 
and  whose  ruins  are  among  the  most  striking  in  the  world : 
but  travellers  have  sought  in  vain,  among  the  stately  relics 
of  the  Roman  period,  for  any  vestiges  of  the  architecture  of 
Solomon.  While  thus  linking  his  dominions  with  the  great 
highways  of  commerce  to  the  north  and  north-east,  he  open- 
ed the  path  of  maritime  enterprise,  both  in  the  Mediterra- 
nean and  the  Indian  Ocean,  in  conjunction  w^ith  the  Tyrian 
fleets  of  Hiram.  On  the  one  side,  it  seems  to  be  implied  in 
Kings.,  and  is  expressly  stated  in  Chronicles,^''  that  the  king 
sent  a  navy  every  three  years,  probably  by  w^ay  of  Joppa, 
to  trade  with  the  distant  regions  of  the  west,  wiiich  were 
vaguely  described  by  the  name  of  Tharshish.^^     The  phrase 

"  The  exact  site  of  Gezer  has  not 
been  discovered;  but  it  must  have 
been  between  the  lower  Beth-horon 
and  the  sea  (Josh.  xvi.  3 ;  1  K.  ix. 
17);  therefore  on  the  great  maritime 
plain,  and  as  commanding  the  com- 
munication between  E;jypt  and  the 
new  capital,  Jerusalem,  it  was  an  im- 
portant point  for  Solomon  to  fortify. 

^*  1  K.  ix.  15-19  ;  2  Chron.  viii.  5, 
6,  Some  suppose  the  Baalath  of  this 
passage  to  be  the  celebrated  Baalbek 
(Heliopolis)  in  Coele-Syria;  while 
others  identify  it  with  the  Philistine 
city  in  the  teiTitory  of  Dan  (Josh.  xix. 
44).  On  the  importance  of  the  posi- 
tion of  Beth-horon,  see  pp.  304,  305. 


5^  2  Chron.  viii.  3,  4. 

^^  The  word  Tadmor  has  nearly 
the  same  meaning  as  Palmyra,  signi- 
fying probably  the  "  City  of  Palms," 
from  iamar,  a  palm. 

"  IK.  x.  22;  2  Chron.  ix.  21. 

^**  Tharshish,  or  Tarshish,  repre- 
sents Tartessus,  a  city  and  emporium 
of  the  Phoenicians  in  the  south  of 
Spain.  The  articles  which  Tarshish 
is  stated  by  the  prophet  Ezekiel 
(xxvii.  12)  to  have  supplied  to  Tyre 
— silver,  iron,  lead,  and  tin — are  pre- 
cisely such  as  we  know  through  class- 
ical writers  to  have  been  productions 
of  the  Spanish  Peninsula. 


494  lite  Reign  of  Solomon.  Chap.  XXII. 

"  ships  of  Tharshish  "  is  however  not  confined  to  ships  that 
actually  went  to  those  regions  :  but  like  our  "  East-India- 
men,"  it  rather  describes  a  class  of  vessels  fit  for  the  most  dis- 
tant and  difficult  voyages  :  and  the  products  Avhich  that  navy 
brought  seem  rather  to  have  come  from  Solomon's  Oriental 
traffic.  This  was  conducted  from  the  two  ports  of  Elath 
(^lana,  Akabah),  and  Ezion-geber,  at  the  head  of  the  eastern 
gulf  of  the  Red  Sea  (Sinus  ^Elaniticus,  Gulf  of  Akabah)^ 
wdiich  the  conquest  of  Edom  had  added  to  the  kingdom,  and 
which  were  visited  by  Solomon  in  person.  From  these  ports 
the  fleet  built  by  Solomon,  and  navigated  by  the  skilled 
sailors  of  Hiram,  sailed  to  Ophir,  a  place  in  the  Indian  Ocean, 
probably  on  the  eastern  coast  of  Arabia,  and  returned  after 
a  three  years'  voyage,  bringing  gold,  silver,  ivory,  and  pre- 
cious stones  for  wealth  and  ornament,  almug  (or  algum)  trees, 
the  rare  wood  of  which  was  used  for  terraces  (or  A' erandas) 
to  the  Temple,  and  lastly  (for  Solomon  added  to  his  magnif- 
icence the  whims  of  luxury),  apes,  and  peacocks."'' 

The  amount  of  gold  brought  to  Solomon  by  this  navy  is 
variously  stated  at  420,  450,  and  in  one  year  as  much  as  666 
talents,  besides  what  was  brought  by  merchants,  and  the 
tribute  of  gold  and  silver  from  the  chieftains  of  Arabia. 
Silver  was  so  abundant  as  scarcely  to  be  esteemed  a  precious 
metal,  and  all  the  kins^'s  drinkinsj-vessels  Avere  of  gold.  The 
"  House  of  the  Forest  of  Lebanon"  too  had  all  its  vessels  of 
pure  gold ;  and  in  it  were  hung  200  targets  of  beaten  gold, 
each  weighing  600  shekels,  and  300  shields  of  three  pounds 
each.  But  the  most  magnificent  work  made  from  these  pre- 
cious things  was  Solomon's  throne  of  ivory  and  gold.  It  was 
a  chair  of  state,  such  as  we  still  see  in  the  Assyrian  thrones, 
with  a  round  back  and  two  lions  supporting  the  arms,  and 
was  elevated  on  six  steps,  each  flanked  by  a  pair  of  lions,  the 
symbols  of  the  tribe  of  Judah.  The  chair  seems  to  have 
been  made  of  ivory  inlaid  Avith  gold,  the  steps  of  plates  of 
ivory,  and  the  lions  of  beaten  gold.'"' 

g  9.  Seated  "  high  on  this  throne  of  royal  state,"  which  shone 
Avith  "  the  Avealth  of  Ormuz  and  of  Ind,"  and  "  exceeding 
all  the  kings  of  the  earth  for  riches  and  for  AA'isdom,"  Solomon 
dispensed  justice,  and  received  the  A'isitors  from  all  parts  of 
the  Avorld,  Avho  came  to  hear  his  Avisdom,  bringing  their 
presents  of  vessels  of  gold  and  silver,  garments,  armor,  spices, 
horses  and  mules."     Among  them  came  one,  Avhose  visit  has 

''^  On  Ophir,  see  Notes  and  JlJmtra-  j      ^°  1    K.  ix.  2G  -  28,  x.  11-27;    2 
tions{^,)^,  1  K.  ix.  26-28,  x.  '-'2 ;   2|cliron.  viii.  17,  18,  ix.  10,  13-22. 
Chron.  viii.  17,  18.  ''I  K.  x.  23-25. 


B.C.  995,  foil.  Idolatnj  of  Solomon.  495 

been  rendered  doubly  memorable  by  the  allusion  made  to  it 
by  Christ.  Far  to  the  south,  on  the  shores  of  the  Arabian 
Gulf,  the  country  of  Sheba  (probably  the  modern  M- Yemen) 
was  ruled  by  a  queen,  Avho  seems  to  have  enjoyed  among 
the  tribes  of  Arabia  a  reputation  like  Solomon's  for  wisdom. 
His  fame  reached  her  ears,  and  she  determined  to  judge  for 
herself.  With  an  immense  caravan  of  camels,  bearing  gold 
and  precious  stones  and  spices,  she  came  to  Jeriisalem,  to  try 
Solomon  with  those  "  hard  questions,"  which  have  always 
formed  the  favorite  exercise  of  Oriental  ingenuity.  "She 
communed  with  him  of  all  that  was  in  her  heart."  The  per- 
fect wisdom  of  the  king's  replies  in  this  conflict  of  wit  and 
learning,  the  magnificence  of  his  buildings,  the  sj^lendor  of 
his  royal  state,  the  order  of  his  court,  completely  overwhelm- 
ed the  queen  :  "  there  was  no  more  spirit  in  her."  She  con- 
fessed that  all  was  true  which  she  had  heard,  and  refused  to 
believe,  in  her  own  country  ;  nay,  the  half  had  not  been  told 
her :  and  she  blessed  Jehovah,  and  the  people  to  whom  He 
had  given  such  a  king.  Having  given  and  received  magnif- 
icent presents,  she  departed  to  her  own  country;  and  the 
odor  of  her  visit  was  long  preserved  by  such  an  abundance 
of  spices  as  was  never  known  at  Jerusalem  before  or  since.*'^ 
Whether  she  went  back  a  convert  to  the  true  faith,  as  her 
praises  of  Jehovah  seem  partly  to  imply,  and  how  far  her  visit 
tended  to  the  planting  of  the  numerous  proselytes  whom  we 
afterward  find  in  Arabia,  can  only  be  matter  of  conjecture  ; 
and  the  traditions,  by  which  the  simj^le  narrative  of  her  visit 
is  overlaid,  scarcely  deserve  notice.  But  the  zeal  with  which 
she  journeyed  from  the  ends  of  the  earth,  to  prove  for  her- 
self the  wisdom  of  which  she  had  heard  so  much,  stands  re- 
corded by  "  One  greater  than  Solomon  "  for  the  eternal  shame 
of  those  who  neglect  to  hear  Him,  when  he  stands  in  their 
very  midst ;  Him  who  is  the  incarnate  Wisdom  that  formed 
the  noblest  subject  of  Solomon's  discourse.*'^  The  visit  of 
the  Queen  of  Sheba  marks  the  culminating  point  of  Solomon's 
glory.  It  remains  for  us  to  relate  the  lesson  which  his  later 
years  give  of  the  vanity  of  all  human  splendor  and  the  in- 
herent defects  of  despotism,  even  when  based  on  the  recog- 
nition of  the  true  religion. 

§  10.  The  faults  of  Solomon  were  both  personal  and  polit- 
ical. The  fruit  of  the  latter  scarcely  appeared  till  the  reign 
of  his  son  ;  but  that  reign  commenced  with  a  protest  against 
"  the  heavy  yoke  "  of  Solomon,  and  the  whips  with  which  ho 

«2  1  K.x.  1-13;  2  Chron.  ix.  1-12. 

f'3  xj,.ov.  viii.  :  Matt.  xii.  42  ;  Luke  xi.  31. 


496 


The  Reign  of  Solomon. 


Chap.  XXII. 


chastised  tlie  people  f^  and,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  the  dis- 
content had  begun  to  show  itself  before  his  death.  His  per- 
sonal faults  were  the  natural  result  of  unbounded  wealth  and 
luxury.  That  his  fall  was  not  more  abject  and  irreparable, 
proves  that  "  large  heart "  which  Milton  gives  him,  and  still 
more  God's  faithfulness  to  His  covenant  with  David. ^^  He 
began,  as  we  have  seen,  by  taking  a  foreign  and  heathen 
wife,  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh:  to  her  he  added  wives  from 
the  Moabites,  Ammonites,  Edomites,  Zidonians,  and  Hittites, 
in  short,  from  all  the  nations  with  wiiom  God  had  expressly 
forbidden  intermarriages ;  and  in  defiance  of  the  charge  of 
Moses  to  the  king,  he  had  VOO  wives  and  300  concubines, 
with  the  result  vv^hich  Moses  had  foretold.  In  his  old  age, 
his  Avives  turned  away  his  heart  from  Jehovah  to  their  gods, 
and  induced  him  to  provide  places  for  their  worship.  He 
served  Ashtoreth,  the  moon-goddess  of  the  Zidonians, 

*' Astaite,  queen  of  heaven,  with  crescent  horns," 

and  Moloch  (or  Milcolm),  the  "  horrid  king  "  whom  the  Am- 
monites worshiped  with  human  sacrifices.  The  Mount  of 
Offense,  forming  the  south  summit  of  the  Mount  of  Olives, 
which  rises  directly  opposite  to  Mount  Moriah  on  the  east, 
was  made  the  sanctuary  of  this  deity  : — 

"The  wisest  heart 
Of  Solomon  he  led  by  fraud  to  build 
His  temple  right  against  the  temple  of  God 
On  that  opprobrious  hill ;  and  made  his  grove 
The  pleasant  valley  of  Hinnon — Tophet  thence 
And  black  Gehenna  called — the  type  of  Hell." 

"  Next  Chemos,  the  obscene  dread  of  Moab's  sons," 

had  likewise  his  temple  built 

**Even  on  that  hill  of  Scandal,  by  the  grove 
Of  Moloch  homicide — Lust  hard  by  Hate — 
Till  good  Josiah  drove  them  thence  to  Hell  ;'* 

and  similar  fanes  w^ere  erected  for  other  gods,  at  which  his 
wives  burned  incense  and  oiFered  sacrifice."" 

§  11.  These  outrages,  the  more  flagrant  in  the  king  who 
liad  himself  built  the  Temple,*  and  to  whom  Jehovah  had 
twice  given  solemn  Avarnings  mingled  with  His  promises, 
called  down  the  wrath  of  God,  whose  covenant  with  David 


"  1  K.xii.4,9,  10,  11,14. 
"  See  especially   the   words   in   2 
Sam.  vii.  14,  15. 

««  1  K.  xi.  1-8  :  Milton's  Par.  Lost, 


l)k.  i.  vs.  392-436.  These  matters, 
like  David's  sins,  are  not  recorded  in 
the  Clironicles.  The  purification  by 
Josiah  will  be  related  in  its  placa 


B.C.  995,  foil. 


Idolatry  of  Solomon. 


497 


alone  saved  Solomon  from  the  fate  of  Saul."  The  judgment 
was  denounced  upon  him,  that  his  kingdom  should  be  "rent " 
from  him  and  given  to  his  servant ;  and  his  last  years  were 
troubled  with  the  beginnings  of  the  revolution.  He  had  al- 
ready some  formidable  enemies.  One  of  these  was  Hadad, 
prince  of  Edom,  who  had  escaped  to  Egypt  from  the  massa- 
cre of  Joab,  and  had  married  the  sister-in-law  of  Pharaoh, 
who  at  last  gave  a  reluctant  consent  to  Hadad's  return  to  his 
own  country,  where  he  began  a  harassing  war  against  Solo- 
mon.®* A  still  more  formidable  adversary  was  raised  up  in 
the  person  of  Rezon,  who  had  been  a  servant  of  Hadadezer, 
the  Syrian  king  of  Zobah,  upon  whose  defeat  by  David,  Re- 
zon  gathered  a  band  of  outlaws,  maintained  himself  against 
the  whole  power  of  Solomon,  and  finally  succeeded  in  found- 
ing the  Syrian  kingdom  of  Damascus,  the  relations  of  which 
to  Israel  were  afterward  so  important. "^^ 

But  the  great  danger  denounced  on  Solomon  for  his  sin 
arose  from  one  of  his  own  servants,  Jeroboam,  the  son  ofNe- 
bat,  an  Ephraimite^"  of  Zereda,  whose  mother,  Zeruah,  was 
early  left  a  widow.  He  grew  up  to  be  "  a  mighty  man  of 
valor;"  and  was  employed,  as  a  young  man,  upon  the  fortifi- 
cations of  Millo.  His  energy  attracted  the  notice  of  Solo- 
mon, who  made  him  overseer  of  the  works  imposed  upon  the 
tribe  of  Joseph  (Ephraim).  According  to  the  LXX.,  Jero- 
boam had  the  whole  honor  of  completing  the  fortifications  of 
tlie  city  of  David ;  having  done  which,  lie  aspired  to  the  king- 
dom, and  courted  popularity  by  the  same  means  which  Ab- 
salom had  used.  There  is  nothing  of  this  in  the  Hebrew 
text ;  and  his  designation  by  the  prophet  Ahijah  seems  as 
great  a  surprise  to  himself  as  that  of  Saul  to  Samuel.  Jero- 
boam had  gone  out  of  Jerusalem,  when  he  was  met  on  the 
road  by  Ahijah  the  Shilonite,  Avho  snatched  the  new  garment 
oflf  his  own  back,  and,  tearing  it  in  twelve  pieces,  gave  ten  of 
them  to  Jeroboam,  telling  him  the  word  of  God,  that  He  would 
rend  the  kingdom  out  of  the  hand  of  Solomon  except  one 
tribe,  which  should  remain  for  the  sake  of  David,  and  to  pre- 
serve God's  worship  at  Jerusalem ;  Avhile  the  other  ten  should 
be  given  to  Jeroboam,  but  only  after  the  death  of  Solomon. 
The  matter  reached  the  ears  of  Solomon,  who  sought  the  life 
of  Jeroboam  ;    but  the  latter  fled  to  Egypt,  and  remained 


"  1  K.  xi.  9-13  ;   comp.  2  Sam.  vii. 
J  4,  1.5. 

'«  1  K.xi.  14-22. 
"3  1  K.  xi.  23-25. 
'°  "Ephrathite,"  by  a  not  uncom- 


mon corruption,  in  1  K.  xi.  2G.  Be- 
sides tlic  Received  Text,  we  haA-e  a 
remarkable  account  of  the  life  of  Jero- 
boam inserted  in  the  Septuagint  at  1 
K.  xi.  43,  and  xii.  24. 


498 


The  Reign  of  Solomon. 


Chap.  XXII. 


there  with  Shishak  (whose  name  is  now  mentioned  for  the 
first  time)  till  the  death  of  Solomon.'^  According  to  the 
LXX.,  Shishak  gave  him  the  sister  of  his  wife  and  of  Ha- 
dad's  wife,  as  an  inducement  to  his  remaining  in  Egyjot. 

§  12.  Amid  such  beginnings  of  impending  trouble,  Solo- 
mon approached  the  end  of  his  course.  The  history  says 
nothing  of  his  rej^entance,  nor  indeed  of  any  result  produced 
by  God's  w^arnings  and  chastisements.  His  whole  character 
had  probably  become  too  worldly  for  the  heartfelt  penitence 
of  his  father."  But  yet  we  have  in  the  Book  of  Ecdesiastes 
a  review  of  the  whole  experience  of  his  life,  based  on  the 
recognition  of  the  fear  of  God  ;  the  review  of  a  religious 
philosopher,  rather  than  of  a  spiritual  believer.  It  gives  the 
experience  of  a  man  who  has  tasted  every  form  of  pleasure, 
and  pronounces  all  to  end  in  disappointment ;  and  from  this 
restless  search  after  excitement — in  which  every  supposed 
novelty  is  found  to  be  the  same  thing  over  and  over  again, 
generation  after  generation,  the  Royal  Preacher  comes  back 
to  this  simple  result — that  true  life  consists  in  the  discharge 
of  duty  from  religious  motives :  "  Fear  God,  and  keep  his 
commandments  ;  for  this  is  the  whole  [life]  of  man."" 

Solomon  died  at  Jerusalem  in  the  40th  year  of  his  reign, 
and  was  buried  in  the  royal  sepulchre  in  the  city  of  David. 
The  history  of  his  reign  was  written  by  the  prophets  Nathan 
and  Ahijah,  by  Iddo  the  seer,  in  his  "Visions  against  Jero- 
boam," and  in  the  "  Book  of  the  Acts  of  Solomon."''  The 
first  three  works  probably  formed  the  basis  of  the  narrative 
in  the  First  Book  of  Kings ;  while  the  substance  of  the  last 
is  preserved  in  epitome  in  the  Seco7id  Book  of  Ghronides. 
Notwithstanding  his  immense  harem,  we  only  read  of  his 
having  one  son,  his  successor  Rehoboam,  the  son  of  Naamah, 
a  princess  of  Amnion. 


''  1  K.  xi.  26-40. 

'^  It  is  noticeable  and  characteris- 
tic that  Chrysostom  and  the  theolo- 
gians of  the  Greek  Church  are,  for 
the  most  parf,  favorable,  Augustine 
and  those  of  the  Latin,  for  the  most 


part,  adverse  to  his  chances  of  salva- 
tion. 

■'^  Eccles.  xii.  13.  See  further 
Notes  and  Illustrations  (B.). 

^^  B.C.  975.  1  K.  xi.  41-43;  2 
Chron.  ix.  29-31. 


CuAP  xxir. 


Notes  and  Illuatratlons. 


499 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTEATIONS. 


(A.)  OPHIR. 

Ophir  is  a  sea-port  or  region  from 
which  the  Hebrews  in  the  time  of 
Solomon  obtnined  gold  in  vessels 
wliich  went  thither  in  conjunction  with 
Tyrian  ships  from  Ezion-geber,  near 
Elath,  on  that  branch  of  the  Red  Sea 
which  is  now  called  the  Gulf  of  Aka- 
bah.  The  gold  was  proverbial  for  its 
fineness,  so  that  "gold  of  Ophir"  is 
several  times  used  as  an  expi-ession  for 
fine  gold  (Ps.  xlv.  10  ;  Job  xxviii.  IG  ; 
Is.  xiii.  12  ;  1  Chron.  xxix.  4);  and 
in  one  passage  (Job  xxii.  2-t)  the  word 
"  Ophir  "  by  itself  is  used  for  gold  of 
Ophir,  and  for  gold  generally.  In 
addition  to  gold,  the  vessels  brought 
from  Ophir  alraug-wood  and  precious 
stones. 

The  precise  geographical  situation 
of  Ophir  has  long  been  a  subject  of 
doubt  and  discussion.  The  two  coun- 
tries which  have  divided  the  opinions 
of  the  learned  have  been  Arabia  and 
India,  while  some  have  placed  it  in 
Africa.  There  are  only  five  passages 
in  the  historical  books  which  mention 
Ophir  by  name  :  three  in  the  Books  of 
Kings  (J  K.  ix.  26-29,  x.  11,  xxii.  48), 
and  two  in  the  Books  of  Chronicles 
(2  Chron.  viii.  18,  ix.  10).  The  latter 
were  probably  copied  from  the  former. 
In  addition  to  these  passages,  the  fol- 
lowing verse  in  the  Book  of  Kings  has 
very  frequently  been  referred  to  Ophir : 
*'  For  the  king  {i.  e.,  Solomon)  had  at 
8ea  a  navy  of  Tharshish  with  the  navy 
of  Hiram  :  once  in  three  years  came 
the  navy  of  Tharshish  bringing  gold 


and  silver,  ivory,  and  apes,  and  pea- 
cocks "  (I  K.x.  22).  But  there  is  not 
sufficient  evidence  to  show  that  the 
fleet  mentioned  in  this  verse  was 
identical  with  the  fleet  mentioned  in 
1  K.  ix.  2G-29,  and  I  K.  x.  11,  as 
bringing  gold,  almng-trees,  and  pre- 
cious stones  from  Ophir.  If  the  three 
passages  of  the  Book  of  Kings  are 
carefully  examined,  it  will  be  seen  that 
all  the  information  given  respecting 
Ophir  is,  that  it  was  a  place  or  region 
accessible  by  sea  from  Ezion-geber  on 
the  Red  Sea,  from  which  imports  of 
gold,  almug-trees,  and  precious  stones 
were  brought  back  by  the  Tyrian  and 
Hebrew  sailors.  Now  the  author  of 
the  10th  chapter  of  Genesis  certainly- 
regarded  Ophir  as  the  name  of  some 
city,  region,  or  tribe  in  Arabia.  And 
it  is  almost  equally  certain  that  the 
Ophir  of  Genesis  is  the  Ophir  of  the 
Book  of  Kings.  There  is  no  mention 
either  in  the  Bible  or  elsewhere,  of 
any  other  Ophir;  and  the  idea  of 
there  having  been  two  Ophirs  evident- 
ly arose  from  a  perception  of  the  ob- 
vious meaning  of  the  10th  chapter  of 
Genesis,  on  the  one  hand,  coupled  with 
the  erroneous  opinion  on  the  other, 
that  the  Ophir  of  the  Book  of  Kings 
could  not  have  been  in  Arabia.  Hence 
the  burden  of  proof  lies  on  any  ono 
who  denies  Ophir  to  have  been  in 
Arabia.  There  do  not,  however,  ap- 
pear to  be  sufficient  data  for  determin- 
ing in  favor  of  any  one  emporium  or 
of  any  one  locality  rather  than  an- 
other in  Arabia,  as  having  been  the 
Ophir  of  Solomon.      The   Book  of 


500 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  XXII. 


Kings  certainly  suggests  the  inference! 
tliat  there  was  some  connection  be- , 
tween  the  visit  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba 
and  the  voyage  to  Ophir,  but  this 
would  be  consistent  with  Ophir  being  i 
either  contiguous  to  Saboea,  or  situated 
on  any  point  of  the  southern  or  eastern  j 
coasts  of  Arabia  ;  as  in  either  of  these 
cases  it  would  have  been  politic  in 
Solomon  to  conciliate  the  good-will 
of  the  Sabaeans,  who  occupied  a  long 
tract  of  the  eastern  coast  of  the  Red 
Sea,  and  who  might  possibly  have 
commanded  the  Straits  of  Bab-el- 
mandeb.  In  answer  to  objections 
against  the  obvious  meaning  of  the 
tenth  chapter  of  Genesis,  the  alterna- 
tives may  be  stated  as  follows.  Either 
Ophir,  although  in  Arabia,  produced 
gold  and  precious  stones  ;  or,  if  it  shall 
be  hereafter  proved  in  the  progress 
of  geological  investigation  that  this 
could  not  have  been  the  case,  Ophir 
furnished  gold  and  precious  stones  as 
an  einponum. 

It  has  been  already  remarked  that 
there  is  no  evidence  that  the  navy  of 
Tharshish,  which  brought  "gold,  sil- 
ver, ivory,  aj)es,  and  peacocks"  (1  K. 
X.  22),  went  to  Ophir.  It  is  more 
reasonable  to  conclude  that  it  went  to 
India.  The  gold  might  possibly  have 
been  obtained  from  Africa,  or  from 
Ophir,  in  Arabia,  and  the  ivory  and 
the  apes  might  likewise  have  been  im- 
ported from  Africa  ;  but  the  peacocks 
point  conclusively,  not  to  Africa,  but 
to  India.  The  inference  to  be  drawn 
from  the  importation  of  peacocks  is 
confirmed  by  the  Hebrew  name  for 
the  ape  and  the  peacock.  Neither  of 
these  names  is  of  Hebrew,  or  even 
Semitic,  origin  ;  and  each  points  to 
India.  Thus  the  Hebrew  word  for 
ape  is  Kopli,  while  the  Sanscrit  word 
is  kapi.  Again,  the  Hebrew  word  for 
peacock  is  tukki,  which  can  not  be  ex- 
plained in  Hebrew,  but  is  akin  to  toka 
in  the  Tamil  language.     There  are 


not,  however,  sufficient  data  for  deter- 
mining what  were  the  ports  in  India 
or  the  Indian  Islands  which  were 
reached  by  the  fleet  of  Hiram  and 
Solomon,  though  the  suggestion  of 
Sir  Emerson  Tennant  is  very  proba- 
ble, that  they  went  to  Point  du  Galle^ 
in  Celyon,  on  the  ground  that,  from 
three  centuries  before  the  Christian 
era,  there  is  one  unbroken  chain  of 
evidence  down  to  the  present  time,  to 
prove  that  it  was  the  grand  emporium 
for  the  commerce  of  all  nations  east 
of  the  Red  Sea. 

(B.)  THE  WRITINGS  OF  SOLO- 
MON. 

Three  Books  in  the  Old  Testament 
bear  the  name  of  Solomon.  They,  no 
doubt,  form  a  portion  of  the  3000 
Proverbs  and  the  1005  Songs  ascribed 
to  Solomon  in  the  Book  of  Kings  (1 
Kings  iv.  32),  to  which  reference  has 
been  already  made  (see  p.  480).  The 
Jews  ascribed  the  composition  of  the 
Song  of  Solomon  to  the  youth  of  the 
monarch ;  the  Proverbs  to  his  mature 
manhood  ;  and  the  Ecclesiastes  to  his 
old  age ;  but  tliis  is  only  conjecture. 

I.  The  Song  of  Solomon. 

In  the  Hebrew  this  Book  is  called 
the  Sonrj  of  Songs ;  that  is,  the  most 
beautiful  of  Songs ;  in  the  Vulgate  it  is 
entitled  Canticum  Canticoritin  ;  whence 
it  is  frequently  termed  Canticles  in 
English  ;  while  in  the  English  version 
it  has  the  name  of  the  Song  of  Solomon. 
The  Book  forms  a  poem,  and  of  the 
many  opinions  that  have  been  held  re- 
specting its  meaning  the  most  proba- 
ble is,  that  the  Song  is  intended  to 
display  the  victory  of  humble  and  con~ 
slant  love  over  the  teniptations  of  wealth 
androyalty.  The  tempter  is  Solomon  : 
the  object  of  his  seductive  endeavors 
is  a  Shulamite  shepherdess,  who,  sur- 
rounded by  the  glories  of  the  court, 
and  the  fascinations  of  unwonted  splen- 
dor, pines  for  the  shepherd-lover,  from 


Chap.  XXII. 


Notes  and  Illustrations, 


501 


whom  she  has  been  involuntarily  sep- 
arated. 

The  drama  is  divided  into  five  sec- 
tions, indicated  by  the  thrice  repeat- 
ed formula  of  adjuration  (ii.  7,  iii.  5, 
viii.  4),  and  the  use  of  another  closing 
sentence  (v.  ]). 

Section  1  (ch.  i.-ii.  7):  scene  —  a 
country-seat  of  Solomon.  The  shep- 
herdess is  committed  to  the  charge  of 
the  court-ladies  ("  daughters  of  Jeru- 
salem ") ;  who  had  been  instructed  to 
prepare  the  way  for  the  royal  ap- 
proach. Solomon  makes  an  unsuc- 
cessful attempt  to  win  her  affections. 

Sect.  2  (ii.  8-iii.  5)  ;  the  shepherd- 
ess  explains  to  the  court-ladies  the 
cruelty  of  her  brothers,  which  had  led 
to  the  separation  between  herself  and 
lier  beloved. 

Sect.  3  (iii.  G-v.  1):  entry  of  the 
royal  train  into  Jerusalem.  The  shep- 
herd follows  his  betrothed  into  the 
cityj  and  proposes  to  rescue  her. 
Some  of  her  court  companions  are  fa- 
vorably impressed  by  her  constancy. 

Sect.  4  (v.  2  -  viii.  4) :  the  shep- 
herdess tells  her  dream,  and  still  fur- 
tlier  engages  the  sympathies  of  her 
companions.  The  king's  flatteries  and 
promises  are  unavailing. 

Sect.  5  (viii.  5-14):  the  conflict  is 
over;  virtue  and  truth  have  won  the 
victory  ;  and  the  shepherdess  and  her 
beloved  return  to  their  happy  home ; 
visiting  on  the  way  the  tree  beneath 
whose  shade  they  first  plighted  their 
troth  (viii.  5).  Her  brothers  repeat 
the  promises  which  they  had  once 
made  eonditionally  upon  her  virtuous 
and  irreproachable  conduct. 

Many  eminent  writers,  however, 
have  maintained  that  the  Book  is  an 
allegory,  intended  to  set  forth  the  love 
of  Christ  for  the  Church. 

II.  The  Book  of  Proverbs. 
The  superscriptions  which  are  affix- 
ed to  several  portions  of  the  Book,  in 
i.  1,  X.  1,  XXV.  1,  attribute  the  author- 


!ship  of  those  portions  to  Solomon,  tlje 
son  of  David,  king  of  Israel.  Willi 
the  exception  of  the  last  two  chapters, 
which  are  distinctly  assigned  to  other 
authors,  it  is  probable  that  the  state- 
ment of  the  superscriptions  is  in  the 
main  correct,  and  that  the  mnjority  of 
the  Proverbs  contained  in  tlie  Book 
were  uttered  or  collected  by  Solomon. 
Speaking  roughly,  the  Book  consists 
of  three  main  divisions,  with  two  ap- 
pendices. 1.  Chapters  i.-ix.  form  a 
connected  didactic  poem,  in  which 
Wisdom  is  praised,  and  the  youth  ex- 
horted to  devote  himself  to  her.  This 
portion  is  preceded  by  an  introduction 
and  title  describing  the  character  and 
general  aim  of  the  Book.  2.  Chaps. 
x.-xxiv.,  with  the  title,  "the  Proverbs 
of  Solomon,"  consists  of  three  parts: 
— x.  1-xxii.  \(y,  a  collection  of  single 
proverbs,  and  detached  sentences  out 
of  the  region  of  moral  teaching  and 
worldly  prudence  ;  xxii.  17-xxiv.  21, 
a  more  connected  didactic  poem,  with 
an  introduction,  xxii.  17-22,  which 
contains  precepts  of  riirhteousncss  and 
prudence;  xxiv.  23-34,  with  the  in- 
scription, "these  also  belong  to  the 
wise,"  a  collection  of  unconnected 
maxims,  which  serve  as  an  appendix 
to  the  preceding.  Then  follows  the 
third  division,  xxv.-xxix.,  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  supersciiption,  profess- 
es to  be  a  collection  of  Solomon's 
proverbs,  consisting  of  single  senten- 
ces, which  the  men  of  the  court  of 
Hezekiah  copied  out.  The  first  ap- 
pendix, ch.  XXX.,  "the  words  of  Agur, 
the  son  of  Jakeh,"  is  a  collection  of 
partly  proverbial  and  partly  enigmat- 
ical sayings ;  the  second,  ch.  xxxi.,  is 
divided  into  two  parts,  "  the  words  of 
king  Lemuel  "  (1-6)  and  an  alphabet- 
ical acrostic  in  praise  of  a  virtuous 
woman,  which  occupies  the  rest  of  the 
chapter.  Who  was  Agur,  and  who 
was  Jakeh,  are  questions  wliich  have 
been  often  asked,  and  never  satisfac- 
torily answered.     All  that  can  be  said 


502 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  XXII. 


of  him  is  ilint  he  is  nn  imlmown  He- 
brew sage,  t!ie  son  of  an  equally  un- 
known Jake!),  and  that  he  lived  after 
the  time  of  Ilezekiah.  Lemuel,  like 
Agur,  is  unknown.  It  is  even  uncer- 
tain whether  he  is  to  be  regarded  as 
a  real  personage,  or  whether  the  name 
is  merely  symbolical.  If  the  present 
text  b3  retained  it  is  difficult  to  see 
Avhat  other  conclusion  can  be  arrived 
at.  If  Lemuel  were  a  real  personage 
he  must  have  been  a  foreign  neigh- 
bor-king or  the  chief  of  a  nomad 
tribe,  and  in  this  case  the  proverbs 
attributed  to  him  must  have  come  to 
th.c  Hebrews  from  a  foreign  source, 
which  is  highly  improbable  and  con- 
trary to  all  we  know  of  the  people. 
The  proverbs  are  frequently  quoted 
or  alluded  to  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  the  canonicity  of  the  Book  there- 
1  /  confirmed.  The  following  is  a 
list  of  the  principal  passages: — 

Prov.    i.    10    com  pa  e  rtmi.  iil,  10,  15. 
iii.    7  *•'  \'-'y.r\.  xii.  10. 

iii.   11,  12    ^'         ll-b.  xii.  5,  0;  sec 
also  Rev.  ill.  It', 
ill.    il  '=  '•  Jam.  iv.  G. 

X.    1  i  "  1  Pet.  iv.  8. 

xi.   o2         "         1  Pet.  iv.  IS. 
xvii.    13         "•         Piom.    xii.    17 ;     1 
Tlie.ss.  V.  15;    1 
Pet.  iii.  0. 
xvii.    27  "■         Jam.  i.  ID. 

XX.    '.)  '■'•         1  John  i.  8. 

XX.   20         '•         Matt.  XV.  4;  Mark 
vii.  10. 
xxii.    8  (LXX.)       2  Cor,  ix.  7. 
sxv.   21,  2i  •■•         Jiom.  xii.  2  •. 
xxvi.    11  '^  2  Pet.  ii.  2-2. 

x.vvii.    1  '■•         Jam.  iv.  13,  1  J. 

III.  Book  of  Ecclksiastes. 

Tlu:i  Book  is  called  in  Hcbrev.-  Kn- 
hekih,  or  the  Prcachrr.  Commenta- 
tors differ  most  widely  as  to  the  plan 


and  purpose  of  tiie  wliole  Book.  The 
variety  of  the  opinions  held  resj)ecting 
it  indicates  sufficiently  that  it  is  as  far 
removed  as  po.ssible  from  the  charac- 
ter of  a  formal  treatise.  It  is  that 
which  it  professes  to  be — the  confes- 
sion of  a  man  of  wide  experience  look- 
ing back  upon  his  past  life  and  look- 
ing out  upon  the  disorders  and  ca- 
lamities which  surround  him.  The 
writer  is  a  man  wiio  has  sinned  in  giv- 
ing way  to  selfishness  and  sensualit\-, 
who  has  paid  the  penalty  of  that  sin  in 
satiety  and  weariness  of  life,  but  who 
has  through  all  this  been  under  the 
discipline  of  a  divine  education,  and 
I  has  learned  from  it  the  lesson  which 
God  meant  to  teach  him.  It  is  tol- 
'  erably  clear  that  the  recurring  burden 
of  "  Vanity  of  vanities  "  and  the  teach- 
ing which  recommends  a  life  of  calm 
enjoyment,  mark,  whenever  they  oc 
cur,  a  kind  of  halting-place  in  the  suc- 
cession of  thoughts.  The  writer  con- 
cludes by  pointing  out  that  the  secret 
of  a  true  life  is  that  a  man  should  con- 
secrate the  vigor  cf  his  youth  to  God 
(xii.  ]).  It  is  well  to  do  that  before 
the  night  comes,  before  the  slow  de- 
cay of  age  benumbs  all  the  faculties 
of  sense  (xii.  2,  G),  before  the  spirit 
returns  to  God  who  gave  it.  The 
thought  of  that  end  rings  out  once 
more  the  knell  of  the  nothingness  of 
all  things  earthly  (xii.  8) ;  but  it 
leads  also  to  "the  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter,"  to  that  to  which  all 
trains  of  thought  and  all  the  experien- 
ces of  life  had  been  leading  the  seeker 
after  wisdom,  that  "to  fear  God,  and 
keep  his  commandments"  was  the 
highest  good  attainable. 


Seljiistiyih,  the  ancient  Samariii,  from  the  I'LN.IC. 
Behind  the  city  are  tlie  mountains  of  Ephraim,  verging  on  the  Plain  of  Sliaron. 
Mediterraucan  Sea  id  in  the  farthest  distance. 


Tne 


BOOK  VI. 

THE  DIVIDED  MONARCHY.     THE  CAPTIVITY  AND  THE 
liETURN.     B.C.  975-400. 


CHAPTER  XXni. 


THE  KINGDOMS  OF  JUDAII  AXD  ISRAEL.  FROM  THE  DIVISION" 
OF  THE  MONARCHY  TO  THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  HOUSE 
OF    AHAB.       B.C,   975-884. 

§  1.  Kinj:;cloms  of  Juclah  and  Israel — Their  respective  characters — Superi- 
ority of  Jiulah.  §  2.  Accession  of  Rehoboam — Assembly  of  Shechem 
— Revolt  of  the  Ten  Tribes  under  Jeroboam — Judah  and  Benjamin 
adhere  to  Rehoboam — War  forbidden  by  the  prophet  Shemaiah — Gov- 
ernment of  Rehoboam — Religious  declension — Jerusalem  taken  by 
Shishak — Death  of  Rehoboam.  §  3.  Reign  of  Aiujah,  second  king  of 
Judah — Defeat  of  Jeroboam — Prosperity  of  Judah.  §  4.  Jeroboam  I. 
king  of  Israel — Extent  of  the  kingdom — Idolatry  of  the  golden  calves 
—The  prophet  nt  Bethel — Abijah,  son  of  Jeroboam — The  prophet 
Ahijah.  §5.  Nadab,  second  king  of  Israel — His  murder,  and  extinc- 
tion of  the  house  of  Jeroboam.     §  6.  Baasha,  third  king  of  Israel — 


504  The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Isuiel.    Cuap.  xxjii. 

Tlie  prophet  Jehu — War  with  Judah  and  Syria — Elah,  fourth  king  of 
Israel — Murdered  by  Ziniri — Extinction  of  the  house  of  Baaslia,  §  7. 
ZiMRi,  fifth  king  of  Israel,  reigns  only  seven  days — Deatlis  of  Zimii 
and  Tibni,  his  competitor — Omri,  sixth  king  of  Israel — Building  of  the 
new  capital  Samaria — Dependence  of  Israel  on  Syria — Wickedness  and 
death  of  Omri.  §  8.  Asa,  third  king  of  Judah — Reformation  of  religion 
— Asa's  great  army — Defeat  of  Zerah  the  Ethiopian — the  prophet  Az- 
ARIAH — Second  reformation — War  with  Baasha,  and  alliance  with  Ben- 
hadad  I. — The  prophet  Hanani  reproves  Asa — Religious  persecution — 
Death  of  Asa.  §  9.  Jehoshapiiat,  seventh  king  of  Judah — His  piety 
and  prosperity — Alliance  with  Ahab.  §  10.  Ahab,  seventh  king  of  Is- 
rael, and  his  wife  Jezebel — Worship  of  Baal,  and  persecution  of  Jeho- 
vah's worshipers  —  Elijah  the  Tishbite  denounces  a  three  years' 
drought  —  Elijah  nourished  at  Cherith  by  ravens,  at  Zarephath  by  a 
starving  widow — His  appearance  to  Ahab,  and  contest  with  the  prophets 
of  Baal  at  Mount  Carmel — Victory  of  Elijah — The  people  confess  Jeho- 
vah— The  prophets  of  Baal  slain — Elijah's  prayer  for  rain — Fury  of  Jez- 
ebel— Flight  of  Elijah  to  the  Wilderness — His  vision  of  Jehovah's  glory 
— His  mission  to  anoint  Hazael,  Jehu,  and  Elisha — The  murder  of  Na- 
both,  and  the  judgment  pronounced  by  Elijah.  §  11.  Wars  of  Ahab 
with  Syria — Benliadadll.  defeated  at  Samaria  and  Aphek — Expedition 
of  Ahab  and  Jehoshaphat  to  recover  Ramoth,  in  Gilead — The  prophet 
MiCAiAH — Defeat  of  the  two  king.s,  and  death  of  Ahab.  §  12.  Jehosh- 
aphat reproved  by  Jehu — His  great  reformation  of  Justice — War  with 
Moab  and  Amnion — The  prophet  Jahaziel — Great  victory  of  Berachah 
— Alliances  with  Ahaziah  and  Jehoram — Maritime  enterprise  of  Jehosh- 
aphat, denounced  by  the  pro])het  Eliezer  —  Death  of  Jehoshaphat, 
§  13.  Ahaziah,  eighth  king  of  Israel — Last  appearance  of  Elijah — His 
Translation — Ministry  of  Elisha.  §  14.  Jehoram,  ninth  king  of  Israel 
— iVllies  with  Jehoshaphat  against  the  revolt  of  the  INIoabites — Miracle 
of  Elisha,  and  defeat  of  Moab — Siege  of  Kir-haraseth  and  human  sac- 
rifice by  the  King  of  Moab — Elisha  and  the  widow — The  Shunammite 
woman — The  healing  of  Naaman's  leprosy — War  with  Syria — Elisha 
and  the  Syrians — The  siege  of  Samaria  miraculously  raised.  §  15. 
Jehoram,  iifth  king  of  Judah — Marriage  with  Athaliah,  daughter  of 
Ahab — Idolatry  and  wickedness — Revolts  of  Edom,Libnah,  the  Thilis- 
tines,  and  Arabians.  §  IG.  Ahaziah,  sixth  king  of  Judah  —  Elisha 
anoints  Hazael,  who  murders  Bonhadad  H. — Anointing  and  revolt  of 
Jehu — Slaughter  of  Jehoram,  Jezebel,  Ahab's  seventy  sons,  the  princess 
of  Judah,  the  worshipers  of  Baal,  and  Ahaziah.  §  17.  Usurpation  of 
Athaliah,  and  murder  of  the  royal  family  of  Judah,  except  Joash, 
who  is  saved  by  Jehoiada — Restoration  of  Joash,  and  death  of  Athaliah 
— Extinction  of  the  house  of  Ahab  in  both  its  branches  of  Israel  and 
Judah. 

§  1.  Very  shortly  after  the  death  of  Solomon,  the  prophecy 
of  Ahijah  was  fulfilled;  his  kmgdom  Avas  rent  in  twain,  and 
the  parts,  both  greatly  weakened  by  the  disruption,  formed 
the  separate  kingdoms  of  Judah  and  of  Israel.  It  may  be 
well  to  take  a  preliminary  view  of  the  somewhat  intricate 
annals  of  those  kingdoms,  and  of  the  very  diflTerent  character 
which  marked  each.  To  a  superficial  observer,  the  northern 
kingdom,  including  ten  tribes,  about  two-thirds  of  the  popu 


B.C.  97").  Characters  of  the  Two  Kinrjdoms.  605 

lation,  and,  with  the  region  east  of  Jordan,  more  than  the 
same  proportion  of  the  land,  and  that  much  the  best  in  quali- 
ty, would  seem  to  have  had  all  the  elements  of  greater 
strength.^  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Judah  retained,  the  capi- 
tal, the  centre  of  the  organized  system  of  government  and  oi' 
the  material  interests  of  the  nation,  together  with  the  accu- 
mulated treasures  of  Solomon.  And,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
energy  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  which  was  perhaps  equaled  by 
Ephraim.  Zebulun,  and  Naphtali,  all  the  moral  and  religious 
elements  of  greatness  were  on  the  sides  of  the  southern  king- 
dom. 

From  the  very  iirst,  the  blot  of  rebellion  clung  to  the 
cause  of  Israel ;  the  divine  selection  of  Jeroboam  to  punish 
the  sins  of  Solomon  was  not  held  to  justify  his  rebellion.  He 
was  indeed  assured  that  obedience  to  God's  law  would  be  re- 
warded by  the  establishment  of  his  kingdom  and  his  dynas- 
ty \^  but  his  very  first  acts  severed  every  religious  bond  to 
Jehovah  and  his  worship,  and  his  course  Avas  followed  by  his 
successors,  of  whom,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  we  read 
the  emphatic  sentence,  "  he  did  evil  in  the  sight  of  Jeho- 
vah, and  walked  in  the  way  of  Jeroboam,  who  made  Israel 
to  sin." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  kingdom  of  Judah  was  preserved 
from  the  defection  of  the  other  tribes,  expressly  for  the  sake 
of  God's  covenant  with  David,  and  to  maintain  His  worship 
at  its  chosen  seat ;  and  the  immediate  consequence  of  Jero- 
boam's religious  revolt  was  to  drive  all  the  priests  and  Le- 
vites  to  Jerusalem.^  AVith  the  line  of  David  remained  God's 
promise  of  a  permanent  kingdom,  made  doubly  sure  by  its 
ultimate  reference  to  the  Messiah ;  in  that  family  the  crown 
was  handed  on,  generally  from  father  to  son ;  while,  in  Israel, 
the  dynasty  of  Jeroboam  ended  with  his  son  ;  and  there  fol- 
lowed a  series  of  murders  and  usurpations,  amid  which  the 
longest  dynasties,  those  of  Omri  and  Jehu,  only  numbered 
four  and  five  kings  each.  From  the  disruption  to  the  epoch 
at  which  Ahaziah,  king  of  Judah,  and  Jehoram,  king  of  Israel, 
were  killed  at  the  same  time  by  Jehu,  a  period  of  ninety  years 
(b.c  975-884),  Judah  had  only  six  kings  (though  Ahaziah 
reigned  but  one  year),  while  Israel  had  nine ;  and,  in  the 
whole  period  of  255  years,  from  the  disruption  to  the  cap- 

*  The  areas  of  the  two  kingdoms  j  ter  a  little  less  than  Northumberland, 
were  respectively,  Israel  about  9375  (Durham,    nnd    Westmoreland.     The 
square  miles,  Judah  about  3435.    The  whole  of  Palestine  was  nearl^^  equa] 
former  was  a  little  less  than  Yorkshire,  '  in  area  to  Holland,       ^  1  K.  xi.  38, 
*].ancashire,  and  Cumberland,  the  lat- !      ^  2  Chron.  xi.  13,  14. 

Y 


506  The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Isrctel    Chap.  XXHI. 

tivity  of  Israel/  twelve  kings  of  Judah  occupy  the  same  space 
as  nineteen  kings  of  Israel ;  a  striking  indication  of  the  great- 
er stability  of  the  former  dynasty.^  The  moral  superiority  is 
equally  striking,  not  only  in  the  preservation  of  the  worship 
of  Jehovah  at  Jenisalem,  while  Israel  was  sunk  in  idolatr}^, 
but  even  on  the  comparatively  weak  ground  of  the  personal 
character  of  the  kings.  It  is  true  that  the  house  of  David 
was  deeply  corrupted,  chiefly  by  its  connection  with  the 
wicked  house  of  Ahab ;  but  it  boasts  the  names  of  Asa,  Je- 
hoshaphat,  Uzziah,  Jotham,  the  godly  Hezekiab,  the  penitent 
Manasseh,  the  pure  Josiah ;  while  not  one  of  the  kings  of 
Israel  is  free  from  the  blot  of  foul  wickedness;  for  even  the 
fierce  zeal  of  Jehu  had  no  purity  of  motive.  The  two  king- 
doms were  equally  distinguished  in  their  final  fate.  The  sen- 
tence of  captivity  was  executed  upon  Israel  about  130  years 
sooner  than  on  Judah;  and  while  the  ten  tribes  never  re- 
turned to  their  land,  and  only  a  scattered  remnant  of  them 
shared  the  restoration  of  Judah,  the  latter  became  once  more 
a  small  but  powerful  nation,  not  free  from  the  faults  of  their 
fathers,  but  worshiping  God  with  a  purity  and  serving  Him 
with  a  heroic  zeal  unequaled  since  the  days  of  Joshua,  and 
preparing  for  the  restoration  of  the  true  spiritual  kingdom 
under  the  last  great  son  of  David. 

The  part  of  the  history  thus  reviewed,  down  to  the  Cap- 
tivity at  Babylon,  may  be  marked  out  into  three  great  pe- 
riods : — I.  From  the  disruption  to  the  simultaneous  deaths 
of  the  kings  of  Judah  and  Israel  by  the  liand  of  Jehu,  in  b.c. 
884  : — II.  To  the  captivity  of  Israel  by  Shalmaneser  (or  Sar- 
gon),  in  B.C.  721 : — III.  The  remaining  history  of  Judah,  down 
to  the  Captivity  at  Babylon,  in  b.c.  586.  We  return  to  the 
thread  of  the  history  from  the  death  of  Solomon. 

§  2.  Rehoboam*^  or  Roboam  (LXX.)  was  the  son  of  Solo- 
mon by  Xaamah,  an  Ammonite  princess.  As  he  was  forty- 
one  at  his  accession,  he  must  have  been  born  about  the  time 
of  his  father's  association  with  David  in  the  kingdom.  The 
luxury  in  which  he  Avas  trained  seems  to  have  given  him  a 
light  and  headstrong  character,  on  which  his  father's  precepts 
were  thrown  away ;  he  was  quite  unequal  to  the  difficulties 
bequeathed  to  him  by  Solomon ;  and  he  was  scarcely  seated 
on  the  throne,  before  the  old  jealousy  between  Judah  and  the 


"B.C.  975-721. 

^  See  the  Clironological  Tables  at 
the  end  of  the  volume. 

^  The  name  signifies  enlarger  of  the 
people  (Ex.  x.xxiv,  2i).  and  is  near- 


ly synonymous  with  Jeroboam,  tcho.te 
people,  is  mamj.  Both  names  seem  to 
have  originated  in  the  time  of  Solo- 
mon, as  signs  of  the  great  increase  ot 
the  nation. 


B.C.  975.  Revolt  under  Jeroboam.  607 

other  tribes  broke  out  anew.  It  Avas  probably  to  conciliate 
such  feelings,  as  well  as  to  comply  Avith  the  form  of  popular 
recognition  which  had  been  observed  in  the  case  of  Solomon, 
that,  not  content  with  his  accession  to  the  throne  at  Jerusa- 
lem, he  held  an  assembly  of  all  Israel  at  the  ancient  sanctuary 
of  Shechem;  unless  indeed  that  assemblage  were  rather  the 
act  of  the  Israelites  themselves,  and  of  Ephraim  in  particular, 
with  a  view  to  resist  his  claims.^  At  all  events,  such  an  op- 
position seems  to  have  been  prepared  from  the  first  convo- 
cation of  the  assembly;  and  JerobOxVM  was  sent  for  out  of 
Egypt  by  the  malcontents.^  His  appearance  at  the  head  of 
the  congregation  may  be  taken  as  a  proof  that  their  demand 
for  the  redress  of  the  grievances  they  had  suffered  under  Solo- 
mon was  a  pretext  for  revolt,  Rehoboam  took  three  days  for 
deliberation.  He  was  advised  by  his  father's  old  counselors 
to  take  away  the  pretext  by  a  conciliatory  answer.  This 
step,  they  thought,  would  have  satisfied  the  majority  of  the 
people,  Avith  Avhom  the  names  of  David  and  Solomon  had  not 
yet  lost  their  prestige.  But  the  king  Avould  not  yield  a  jot ; 
and  he  took  counsel  A\ith  the  younger  men,  Avho  had  grown 
up  Avith  him  at  the  court.  Urged  on  by  them,  he  refused 
the  petition  Avitli  reckless  insolence.  "You  complain  of  my 
father's  heavy  yoke ;  I  Avill  add  to  its  Av^eight !  my  little  fin- 
ger shall  be  thicker  than  his  loins !  He  chastised  you  Avith 
Avhips ;  I  Avill  chastise  you  Avith  scorpions  !"  Then  Ephraim 
and  all  Israel  raised  again  the  old  cry  of  Sheba,"  disclaiming 
all  part  in  the  house  of  David,  and  calling  Israel  to  their  tents. 
Adoram,  the  chief  ofiicer  of  the  tribute,  being  sent  to  appease 
the  tumult,  Avas  stoned  to  death,  and  Rehoboam  only  escaped 
by  fleeing  hi  his  chariot  to  Jerusalem.^" 

The  rebellion  Avas  complete,  and  Jeroboam  Avas  proclaim- 
ed  king  OA'er  all  Israel  at  Shechem.  The  cities  of  Judah, 
however,  adhered  to  Rehoboam,  and  the  tribe  of  Benjamin 
soon  espoused  his  cause.  Ever  since  the  great  blow  inflicted 
on  that  tribe,  it  seems  to  have  been  more  or  less  subordinate 

■^  1  K.  xii.  1;   2  Chron.  x.  1  :  the  I  home   at   tlie  invitation  of  his  own 
case  would  be  clearer  if  we  might  read  {  party,  and  only  have  appeared  at  the 
"to  make  a  king,"  instead  of  "to 
make  him  king." 

«  1  K.  xii.  2 :  but  in  ver.  20  he 
seems  to  have  already  returned  from 
Egypt  to  his  home,  and  to  be  sum- 
moned thence  to  the  crown  after  the 
rebellion  had  broken  out ;  and  this  is 
in    agreement   with   the   LXX,     He 


assembly  when  all  was  ripe  for  the  re- 
volt. Ver.  3,  however,  is  not  found 
in  the  LXX.,  which  also  omits  the 
name  of  Jeroboam  in  ver.  12.  The 
narrative  of  the  LXX.  also  requires 
at  least  a  year  to  have  elaj)sed  before 
the  meeting  at  Shecliem. 
^  Comp.  2  Sam.  XX.  1. 


mny  have  come  from  Egypt  to  hisj      ^^  1  K.  xii.  1-16;   2  Chron.  x. 


508 


The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.     Chap.  XXIIL 


to  Judah.  The  appearances  to  the  contrary  are  rather  proofs 
of  the  impatience  with  which  the  yoke  was  borne.  The  cap- 
ture of  Jerusalem,  Avhich  lay  Avithin  the  bounds  of  Benjamin, 
from  the  Jebusites,  by  the  great  king  of  Judah,  gave  his  house 
a  powerful  hold  upon  the  feelings  of  the  tribe  ;  and  it  is  not 
improbable,  from  the  similar  course  afterward  taken  by  Re- 
hoboam,^^  that  David  may  have  established  his  sons  in  the 
fortified  cities  of  Benjamin.  Perhaps  too  Jeroboam's  profa- 
nation of  their  sacred  city  of  Bethel  may  have  offended  the 
tribe.  At  all  events,  we  iind  them  answering  the  summons 
of  Rehoboam  to  a  war  for  the  subjugation  of  the  rebels,  with 
all  their  military  force.  The  united  army  of  Judah  and  Ben- 
jamin amounted  to  180,000  Avarriors;  but  the  enterprise  was 
forbidden  by  the  prophet  Shemaiah,  as  God  had  Avilled  the 
separation  of  the  kingdoms.  ^'^  A  desultory  Avarfare  Avas  hoAV- 
ever  kept  up  between  the  tAvo  kingdoms,  under  Rehoboam 
and  his  two  successors,  for  a  period  of  sixty  years,  and  its 
cessation  AA^as  foUoAved  by  a  most  disastrous  alliance  Avith  the 
house  of  Ahab.  MeauAvhile  Rehoboam  made  every  effort  to 
strengthen  his  diminished  kingdom  ;  fortifying  several  of  the 
most  important  cities  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  and  furnishing 
them  Avith  arms  and  provisions.'^  When  the  boundaries  of 
the  kingdom  of  Judah  became  settled,  they  embraced  the 
territories  of  Dan  and  Simeon,  Avhich  Avere  originally  includ- 
ed in  the  lot  of  Judah,  and  ultimately  even  a  part  of  Ephra- 
im.'*  On  the  south,  Edoni  Avas  still  retained  till  the  reign  of 
Jehoram,  the  fifth  king ;  but  Ave  are  not  told  Avhether  Hadad 
was  defeated  or  made  tributary.  The  cause  of  Rehoboam 
Avas  strengthened  by  the  resort  to  him  of  the  great  body  of 
priests  and  Levites  from  all  parts  of  Israel,  Avhom  Jeroboam 
had  deposed  from  their  functions  ;  and  the  first  three  years 
of  his  reign  Avere  exceedingly  prosperous.  But  he  was  cor- 
rupted, like  his  father,  by  his  numerous  harem,  AA'hich  Avas 
composed  of  18  Avives  and  60  concubines;  he  had  20  sons  and 
60  daughters.  His  three  chief  Avives  AA'ere  all  of  his  own  fam- 
ily; Mahalath,  the  grand-daughter,  and  Abihai),  the  niece  of 
David,  and  Maachah,  the  daughter  of  Absalom.'^  The  last 
was  his  liiA'orite  Avife,  and  the  mother  of  Abijah,  his  successor. 
He  provided  for  his  other  sons,  and  guarded  Abijah  from  their 
rivalry,  by  giving  them  splendid  establishments  in  the  forti- 
fied cities  of  Judah  and  Benjamin. '°     MeauAvhile  both  king 


"  2  Ciiron.  xi.  23. 

'-  1  K.xi.21-2-t;  2  Cliron.xi.  1-4. 

"  2  Chron.xi.  1-12. 

^*  2  Chron.  xiii.  19.  xv,  8,  xvii.2. 


^^  Or  perhaps  grnnd-cluiifrhter ;  for 
she  is  called  tlie  daughter  of  Uriel  of 
Gibeah  in  2  Chron.  xiii.  2. 

^''  2  Chron.  xi. 


B.C.  958. 


Death  of  Reliohoain. 


509 


and  people  declined  into  idolatry,  and  practiced  the  most 
abominable  vices  of  the  nations  around,' '  and  their  punish- 
ment was  speedy. 

In  the  fifth  year  of  Rehoboam,^®  Shishak  (Sheshonk  I.),  king 
of  Egypt,  whom  wx  have  already  seen  as  the  protector  of 
Hadad  and  Jeroboam,  made  an  expedition  against  Jerusalem 
with  all  the  forces  of  his  empire.  Pie  took  the  strong  cities 
of  Judah,  and  had  reached  Jerusalem,  when  the  king  and 
people,  reproved  by  the  prophet  Shemaiah,  humbled  them- 
selves before  Jehovah,  who  saved  them  from  captivity.  Shi- 
shak, however,  spoiled  the  Temple  and  the  king's  palace  of 
their  treasures,  and  carried  off  the  celebrated  golden  shields 
of  Solomon,  which  Rehoboam  replaced  by  shields  of  brass,  to 
keep  up  the  old  display  when  they  were  carried  before  him 
in  processions.'^  The  kingdom  of  Judah  became  for  a  time 
tributary  to  Shishak,  that  the  people  might  learn  the  differ- 
ence between  the  service  of  God  and  the  service  of  heathen 
kings.^"  The  expedition  of  Shishak  is  one  of  the  chief  points 
of  contact  between  sacred  history  and  the  records  of  the 
Egyptian  monuments.  On  the  wall  of  the  great  temple  of 
Karnak  are  the  sculptured  figures  of  captains  with  features 
clearly  Jewish,  and  the  appended  inscription  contains,  among 
a  long  list  of  conquests,  the  name  of  "  Yuda  Melchi"  {the 
kingdom  of  Judah). "^ 

The  lesson  seems  not  to  have  been  lost  on  Rehoboam  and 
his  people.  "  There  were  yet  good  things  in  Judah ;"  but 
the  sum  of  the  king's  character  is  this  :  "  He  did  evil,  because 
he  fixed  not  his  heart  to  seek  Jehovah.""^  He  died  after  a 
reign  of  seventeen  years,"  and  was  buried  in  the  city  of  Da- 
vid. His  acts  were  recorded  by  the  prophet  Shemaiah,  by 
the  seer  Iddo,  in  his  book  of  genealogies,  and  in  the  Chroni- 
cles of  the  Kings  of  Judah. ^* 

§  3.  Abijah,  the  son  of  Rehoboam,  was  the  second  king  of 
Judah.  He  succeeded  his  father  in  the  eighteenth  year  of 
Jeroboam's  reign,  and  reigned  three  years  at  Jerusalem." 
He  continued  the  war  with  Jeroboam,  and  gathered  the 


^^  1  K.  xiv.  21-24  ;  2  Cliron.  xii.  1. 

*^  B.C.  972.  Sheslionk  I.  was  the 
first  king  of  the  twenty-second  dynas- 
ty of  Bubastites.  The  ehanpe  of  dy- 
nasty exphiins  the  rupture  of  the  old 
alliance  with  Solomon.  Shishak  was 
probably  incited  by  Jeroboam. 

"  I  iv.  xiv.  25-28 ;  2  Chron.  xii. 
2-11. 

2°  2  Chron.  xii.  8. 


^'  Rawlinson's  Herodotus,  ii.  37G. 

^2  2  Chron.  xii.  1 2,  U.     ""^  B.C.  9.58. 

""^  1  K.  xiv.  29-31  ;  2  Chron.  xii. 
13-lG. 

'^B.c.  958-955:  2  Chron.  xiii.  1, 
2  ;  IK.  XV.  1,  2  :  the  name  in  the  lat- 
ter passage  is  Abijam,  probably  an  er- 
roneous form.  Abijah  signifies  n-ill 
of  Jehovah,  or  he  ichose  father  is  Jeho- 
vah. 


510  The  Kingdonv}  of  Judah  and  Israel.     Chap.  XXIIl. 

whole  force  of  Judah  and  Benjamin  for  the  subjugation  of 
the  ten  tribes.  According  to  our  present  text,  he  brought 
into  the  field  400,000  chosen  warriors,  and  Jeroboam  met  him 
with  800,000,  of  whom  500,000  fell  in  the  rout  at  Zemaraim, 
in  Mount  Ephraim,  where  the  favor  of  God  prevailed  against 
the  skillful  tactics  which  Jeroboam  imitated  from  Joshua, 
Tlie  loss  of  the  men  of  Judah  is  not  stated.  In  consequence 
of  this  victory,  Abijah  took  Bethel,  Jeshanah,  and  Ephrain, 
with  their  dependent  towns ;  and  Jeroboam  never  again  made 
head  against  him.^°  This  success,  granted  to  the  arms  of 
Judah  "  because  they  relied  upon  Jehovah,  the  God  of  their 
fathers,"  proved  His  forbearance  with  the  sins  of  Abijah  for 
David's  sake."  The  fact  that  Abijah  upbraids  the  men  of 
Israel  with  their  rebellion  and  idolatry,  and  relies  on  the 
goodness  of  the  cause  of  Judah,  who  had  Jehovah  for  their 
God  and  the  priests  keeping  His  charge,^^  is  no  proof  that 
his  personal  vices  are  exaggerated  in  the  Booh  of  Kings. 
Abijah  followed  the  example  of  his  predecessors  in  his  nu- 
merous harem.  He  had  fourteen  wives,  and  was  the  father 
of  tAventy-two  sons  and  fifteen  daughters.  His  history  was 
written  by  the  prophet  Iddo,  and  in  the  Chronicles  of  the 
Kings  of  Judah.  He  died,  and  was  buried  in  the  city  of 
David,  leaving  the  kingdom  to  his  son  Asa  in  such  a  state  of 
strength  and  prosperity,  that  Jeroboam  did  not  venture  to 
resume  the  vrar  ;  and  the  confusion  Avliich  soon  ensued  in  the 
royal  family  of  Israel  insured  Judah  a  ten  years'  peace. ^'' 
Abijalf s  death  was  followed  in  less  than  two  years  by  that 
of  Jeroboam,  to  whose  history  we  now  return. 

§  4.  Jeroboam  I.,  the  first  king  of  the  separate  kingdom  of 
Israel,  was  inaugurated  (like  Abimelech)  at  Shechem,  by  the 
choice  of  the  men  of  Israel.  He  fortified  that  city^°  and  Pe- 
nuel  for  his  two  capitals,  west  and  east  of  Jordan,  but  fixed 
his  own  residence  at  the  beautiful  town  of  Tirzah."'     The  ten 

^^  2  Chron.  xiii.  3-20  ;  1  K.  xv.  G.  ^  bers  were  in  his  original  Greek  text 
For  tiic  varions  conjectures  about  the  j  also. 


site  of  Ephrain,  see  llobinson,  i.  447, 
and  Stanley,  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p. 
21-t.  As  to  the  incredible  numbers 
given  in  tiie  text,  Kennicott  has  shown 
that  our  MSS.  are  frequently  incor 


"  2  Chron.  xiii.  18  ;   1  K.  xv.  3-5. 
2«  2  Chron.  xiii.  4-12. 
""  1  K.  XV.  8;  2  Chron.  xiv.  1. 
^^  Shecliem  had  been  destroyed  by 
Abimelech  after  its  revolt. 


rect  as  to  numbers,  and  has  given  rea-  ^^  1  K.  xiv.  1  7  ;  comp.  Cant.  vi.  4. 
sons  for  reducing  these  to  40,000,  !  Its  site  is  uncertain.  It  has  been  con- 
80,000  and  50,000,  as  we  actually  |  jectured  to  occupy  the  position  of  7V/-- 
find  in  the  Vulgate  printed  at  Ven-  -luzah,  a  plain  in  the  mountains  north 
ice  in  148G,  and  in  the  old  Latin  ver- |  of  Nablus.  Tirzah  continued  to  bo 
sion  of  Josephus,  while  there  is  some  the  royal  residence  till  the  destruction 
reason  to  think  that  the  smaller  num- 1  of  the  palace  in  the  siege  by  Omri, 


B.C.  958.  Extent  of  Jeroboam's  Kingdom.  511 

tribes  which  adhered  to  him  are  probably  to  be  reckoned  by 
taking  Joseph  (Ephraim  and  Manasseh)  as  one,  and  exchidnig 
Levi  "and  Judah.  The  secession  of  Benjamin  still  left  the 
number  ten,  by  counting  Ephraim  and  Manasseh  separately. 
Dan  remained  in  the  number,  in  virtue  of  its  possessions  m 
the  north.  Simeon  was  actually  included  in  the  kingdom  of 
Judah;  but  the  tribe  seems  to  have  sunk  into  such  insignif- 
icance as  to  be  numbered  among  the  ten  only  by  a  sort  of 
neo-ative  computation.  Beyond  the  old  limits  of  Palestme, 
Moab  was  attached  to  Israel  f  and  Amnion  would  naturally 
preserve  its  family  alliance  with  Rehoboara,  to  whom,  as  we 
have  seen,  Edom  was  also  subject ;  but  a  common  interest 
soon  promoted  these  tribes  to  union,  against  both  the  kmg- 
doms."  As  for  the  allies  and  tributaries  of  Solomoji  ni  Phoe- 
nicia and  Syria,  though  now  cut  otF  from  Judah,  they  are 
not  at  all  likely  to  have  submitted  to  the  Kmg  of  Israel. 
We  hear  of  no  further  connection  with  Phoenicia,  Coele-Syria, 
and  the  Lebanon ;  and  we  soon  find  the  Syrian  kingdom  of 
Damascus,  whose  rise  we  have  already  noticed,  a  most  for- 
midable enemy  of  Israel. 

After  all  these  deductions,  Jeroboam  was  at  the  head  ot  a 
fine  kinf^dom,  populou?,  powerful,  and  fertile,  and  aboundmg 
in  the  resources  which  Solomon  had  developed.  The  proph- 
et Ahijah  had  promised  the  establishment  of  his  kingdom 
on  the  condition  of  obedience  to  Jehovah.  But  Jeroboam 
had  no  faith  in  his  political  security  so  long  as  his  subjects 
continued  to  resort  to  the  capital  of  his  rival  as  their  relig- 
ious home.  There  were  ancient  sanctuaries  within  his  do- 
minions, and  the  erection  of  one  of  these  into  a  new  centre 
of  worship,  thouoh  illegal,  might  not  perhaps  have  been  al- 
together inexcusable.  Or  he  might  have  allowed  the  priests 
to"^  continue  their  domestic  ministrations,  and  the  people 
would  only  have  been  too  ready  to  break  oif  their  visits  to 
Jerusalem.  But  his  fear  prompted  a  more  violent  and  fatal 
course,  which  added  a  religious  schism  to  the  political  dis- 
ruption, and  brought  down^the  divine  wrath  on  his  house  and 
kino-dom.  Resorting  to  the  idolatry  Avhich  he  had  witness- 
ed fn  Egypt,  and  following  the  example  of  Aaron,  whose  very 
words  he  used,^* 

*'The  rebel  king 
Doubled  that  sin  in  Bethel  and  in  Dan, 
Likening  his  Maker  to  the  grazed  ox." 


who  transferred  the  capital  to  Sania- 1      ''  2  K.  iii.  4.     ''  2  Chron.  xx.  1. 
,.:.-,  i      34  1 1^_  xii.  28  ;  comp.  Exod.  xxxii. 


512  The  Kingdoms  of  JudaJi  and  Israel.    Chap,  XXIII. 

He  set  up  two  golden  calves,  the  symbols  of  the  Heliopolitan 
deity  Mnevis,  in  the  two  extremities  of  his  kingdom.  Dan 
w^as  probably  chosen  as  having  been  tlie  sanctuary  of  the 
northern  tribes,  ever  since  the  Danites  had  sat  up  there  the 
images  of  Micah ;  Bethel  as  the  "  liouse  of  God"  for  all  Is- 
rael since  its  consecration  by  Jacob.  The  latter  was  the 
chief  seat  of  the  new  worship,  which  the  king  himself  inau' 
gurated  on  the  loth  day  of  the  8tli  month,  in  imitation  of 
the  dedication  of  the  Temple  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles, 
but  a  month  later,  "  in  the  month  which  he  had  devised  of  his 
own  hearV^^'''  Having  appointed  priests  "from  the  lowest 
of  the  people,"  in  place  of  the  Levites,  whom  he  deposed 
and  drove  from  their  cities  to  Jerusalem,  he  erected  an  altar 
at  Bethel,. upon  which  he  burned  incense  in  the  feast  he  had 
appointed.  In  the  very  midst  of  the  ceremony,  a  man  of 
God,  sent  by  the  word  of  Jehovah  out  of  Judali,  confronted 
Jeroboam  at  his  altar,  on  which  he  prophesied  that  a  son  of 
David,  named  Josiah,  should  one  day  offer  the  bones  of  the 
idolatrous  priests  who  sacrificed  upon  it;  and  he  added  a 
sign,  that  the  altar  should  be  rent  and  the  ashes  on  it  poured 
out  ujDon  the  ground.^"  The  enraged  king  called  on  his  guarvls 
to  seize  the  prophet,  and  put  out  liis  own  hand  to  lay  hold 
of  him;  but  the  hand  was  withered  and  fell  helpless,  and  au 
earthquake  rent  the  altar.  On  the  prophet's  prayer,  entreat- 
ed by  the  king,  his  hand  was  restored,  and  he  begged  the 
man  of  God  to  accept  his  hospitality  and  a  reward,  Avhich 
he  refused,  and  departed  by  another  way,  as  lie  had  been  com- 
manded. How  he  yielded  to  an  aged  brother  prophet  the 
consent  he  had  refused  the  king,  how  he  was  slain  by  a  lion 
for  his  disobedience  and  buried  by  the  old  prophet,  who 
entreated  that  his  bones  might  be  laid  beside  him,  to  pre- 
serve them  from  the  fate  denounced  on  the  idol  priests,  is 
one  of  those  beautiful  episodes  of  Scripture  familiar  to  our 
earliest  recollections."  But  the  warning  had  no  permanent 
effect  on  Jeroboam,  who  persisted  in  his  idolatrous  worship, 
and  consecrated   any  one  as  a  priest  Avho  could  afford  to 


4,  8  :— "Behold  thy  gods,  O  Israel, 
Avhich  brought  thee  up  out  of  the  land 
of  Egypt." 

2»  1  K.  xii.  2G-33,  xiii.  33 ;  2  Chron. 
xiii.  9.  The  diffei'cnce  of  a  month 
may  have  been  to  allow  for  the  later 
rintagc  of  tiie  northern  districts;  but 
we  can  not  doubt  Jeroboam's  wish  to   IG. 

'"'  1  K.  xiii.  7-32  ;  comp.  2  K.  xxiii.  1 7-1 8 


make  a  marked  distinction  from  the 
worship  at  Jerusalem. 

^•^  1  K.  xiii.  1-G.  Jewish  tradition 
identified  him  with  the  prophet  Iddo, 
or  ladon  as  he  is  called  by  Josephus, 
Ant.  viii.  8,  §  o.  For  the  fulfillment 
of  the  prophecy,  see  2  K.  xxiii.  15, 


B.C.9o4.  The  Propliet  Ahijali.  513 

bring  the  prescribed  offering  of  a  young  bullock  and  seven 
rams.^^ 

So  another  chastisement  befell  him  in  his  own  family.  His 
son  Abijah,  the  only  one  of  his  house  "  in  whom  there  was 
found  some  good  thing  toward  Jehovah  the  God  of  Israel," 
was  mercifully  removed  by  death  from  tlie  wickedness  around 
him.  On  his  falling  ill,  Jeroboam  sought  help  secretly  from 
the  God  whom  he  had  openly  forsaken.  It  is  an  interesting 
point  in  the  history  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel,  and  one  which 
most  impressively  teaches  God's  long-suffering,  that  in  spite 
of  the  apostasy  under  Jeroboam,  there  were  never  wanting 
prophets  to  testify  for  Jehovah  ;  and,  while  the  chief  pro- 
jihetic  writers  of  a  later  age  belong  to  Judah ;  those  most 
distinguished  for  their  actions,  as  Elijah  and  Elisha,  proph- 
esied in  Israel.  Thus  Ahijah,  the  Shilonite,  who  had  desig- 
nated Jeroboam  to  the  kingdom,  was  still  at  Shiloh ;  and  to 
him  the  king's  wife  resorted  in  disguise,  with  a  present  of 
bread  and  honey.  The  prophet  was  blind,  but  God  had  warn- 
ed him  of  her  coming,  and  given  him  a  terrible  answer  for 
her.  At  the  sound  of  her  feet  upon  the  threshold,  Aliijah 
addressed  her  by  name,  and  recounting  all  the  sins  of  Jero- 
boam, foretold  the  speedy  extinction  of  his  race  and  the  com- 
ing captivity  of  Israel.  The  child  was  to  die,  but,  as  the  re- 
ward of  liis  piety,  he  alone  of  all  his  house  should  be  buried 
in  peace  ;  the  rest  should  be  the  food  of  dogs  and  vultures. 
The  queen  returned  to  Tirzah,  and  the  child  expired  as  she 
crossed  the  threshold.  He  was  buried  and  lamented  by  all 
Israel,  as  their  last  hope  amid  the  vices  of  the  royal  house 
and  the  calamitous  defeat  in  the  great  battle  with  Judah. 
Not  long  after  Jeroboam  died,  and  was  buried  in  the  sepul- 
chre of  his  fathers,  after  a  reign  of  twenty-two  years.  He 
was  succeeded  by  his  son  Nadab.^" 

§  5.  ISTadab,""  the  second  and  last  king  of  the  dynasty  of 
Jeroboam,  succeeded  his  father  in  the  second  year  of  Asa, 
king  of  Judah,  and  reigned  for  parts  of  two  years  (b.c.  954- 
953),  imitating  the  sins  of  Jeroboam.  The  only  recorded 
action  of  his  reign  is  the  siege  of  Gibbethon,  a  city  in  the 
territory  of  Dan,  which,  having  been  abandoned  by  the  Le- 
vites,  to  whom  it  belonged,  w^hen  they  were  driven  out  by 


^«  1   K.  xiii.  33^    comp.  2  Chron. 
xiii.  9;  Ex.  xxix.  1,  35;    Lev,  viii. 

o 

"^  I  K.  xiv.  1-20.     Tl  c  version  of 
the  LXX.,  placing  the  sickness  and 
death  of  Abijah  before  Jeroboam's  ac- 
Y2 


cession,  is  entirely  opposed  to  the  or- 
der of  events  in  the  Hebrew  text. 

^^  The  name  is  identical  with  that 
of  Aaron's  eldest  son.  Nebut,  the 
name  of  Jeroboam's  father,  is  jierhaps 
onlv  another  form  of  the  same  word. 


514  The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.    Chap.  XXIII, 

Jeroboam,  had  been  occupied  by  the  Philistines.  Its  posses^ 
sion  was  eagerly  contested  by  the  kings  of  Israel,  who  be- 
sieged it  again  and  again/^  Nadab  here  fell  the  victim  to 
a  military  conspiracy  under  Baasha,  his  captain  of  the  host, 
who  killed  tlie  king  and  all  the  house  of  Jeroboam,  and  so 
fulfilled  the  prophecy  of  Ahijah/^ 

§  6.  With  the  extinction  of  the  first  dynasty,  the  crown  of 
Israel  passed  from  the  tribe  of  Ephraim  to  that  of  Issachar; 
but  the  second  dynasty  also  lasted  for  only  two  generations. 
Baasha,  the  son  of  Ahijah,  became  the  third  king  of  Israel  in 
tlie  third  year  of  Asa,  king  of  Judah,  and  reigned  at  Tirzah 
four-and-twenty  years."  His  entire  addiction  to  the  sins  of 
Jeroboam  brought  upon  his  house  the  same  fate  as  theirs, 
which  was  denounced  upon  him  by  the  prophet  Jehu,  son  of 
Hanani."  His  whole  eftbrts  seem  to  have  been  devoted  to 
the  w^ar  with  Judah.  In  the  thirteentli  year  of  his  reign  (the 
fifteenth  of  Asa),"  alarmed  by  the  defection  of  the  worship- 
ers of  Jehovah  to  the  pious  king  of  Judah,  he  attempted  to 
blockade  the  frontier  by  fortifying  Ramah ;  but  Asa  called  in 
the  help  of  Benhadad  I.,''"  the  Syrian  king  of  Damascus,  who 
invaded  the  north  of  Israel,  and  took  Ijon,  Dan,  Abel-maim, 
and  the  store-cities  of  Naphtali.  This  diversion  recalled 
Baasha  from  Judah,  against  which  he  seems  to  have  made 
no  more  serious  attempts.  He  died  and  was  buried  at  Tirzah, 
in  the  twenty-sixth  year  of  Asa,  leaving  the  kingdom  to  his 
son  Elaii,  the  fourth  king  of  Israel,  who  reigned  for  only  parts 
of  two  years  (b.c.  930-929),  and  was  then  killed  at  Tirzah,  in 
a  state  of  intoxication,  by  Zimri,  the  commander  of  half  his 
force  of  chariots.  With  him  perished  all  the  house  of  Baasha, 
who  were  massacred  by  Zimri,  as  Jehu  had  foretold.^^ 

§  V.  At  this  point  the  annals  of  Israel  bear  a  curious  resem- 
blance to  the  events  which  led  to  the  accession  of  the  Fla- 
vian dynasty  at  Rome. 

ZiMKi,  the  fifth  king,  enjoyed  his  usurpation  at  Tirzah  only 
seven  days.  The  whole  military  array  of  Israel  were  now 
engaged  in  the  siege  of  Gibbethon  ;  and  having  elected  Oniri, 
the  captain  of  the  host,  as  king,  they  marched  to  besiege 

dated  from  the  disruption  of  the  king- 
doms : — "In  the  thirty-sixth  year 
(Asa  being  king)." 

^®  The  Syrian  dynasty  at  Damascus 
will  be  noticed  in  another  place.  Ben- 
hadad was  in  alliance  with  Baasha 
when  he  was  bribed  by  Asa  (I  K.  XT. 
19;  2  Chron.xvi.  3). 

^^  1  K.  xvi.  8-H. 


^'See  1  K.  xvi.  15-17. 

"-  1  K.  XV.  25-30. 

"  B.C.  953-030 ;  1  K.  xv.  33,  34. 
The  etymology  of  the  name  is  uncer- 
tain. From  1  K.  xvi.  2,  it  may  be  in- 
ferred that  Baasha  was  of  low  extrac- 
tion. "*  1  K.  xvi.  1-7. 

*^  3  Chron.  xvi.  1.  The  thirty-six 
yearn  of  this  passage  are   evidently 


B.C.  929-925.       Zimri^  Tibnij  Omrl—^ Civil  War,  515 

Tirzah.  The  walls  were  soon  taken,  and  Zimri  shut  himself 
up  in  the  palace,  which,  like  Sardanapalus,  he  burned  over  his 
head.  Another  competitor  for  the  crown  appeared  in  the 
person  of  Tibni,  son  of  Ginath,  who  was  followed  by  half 
the  people.  He  was  defeated  and  killed,  after  a  civil  war 
of  four  years,  from  the  twenty-seventh  to  the  thirty-first  of 
Asa."' 

Omri  was  the  sixth  king  of  Israel,  and  the  founder  of  the 
third  dynasty,  which  lasted  for  three  generations  and  four 
kings.  His  father's  name  and  tribe  are  unknown.  The 
twelve  years  of  his  reign  are  probably  to  be  dated  from  the 
death  of  Elah,"^  as  his  full  recognition  is  placed  in  the  thirty- 
first  year  of  Asa,^°  and  the  accession  of  his  son  Ahab  in  the 
thirty-eighth  of  Asa  ;'^'  so  that  his  six  years'  reign  at  Tirzah 
Avould  include  the  civil  war.'^  He  abandoned  that  residence, 
which,  besides  that  the  palace  was  burned,  had  proved  inde- 
fensible in  a  siege,  and  built  the  new  and  long-famous  capi- 
tal of  Samaria,^^  which  remained  the  seat  of  government  to 
the  end  of  the  kingdom.  The  dynasty  which  he  founded 
surpassed  all  that  had  gone  before  in  wickedness,  so  that "  the 
statutes  of  Omri  "  became  a  by-word  for  a  course  opposed  to 
the  law  of  Jehovah.^''  Of  the  particular  events  of  Omri's 
reign,  we  are  only  able  to  infer  from  a  subsequent  allusion, 
that  the  Syrian  king  of  Damascus,  Benhadad  I.,  continued 
the  war  Avith  Israel,  and  forced  his  own  terms  on  Omri,  who 
consented  to  receive  a  resident  envoy  in  his  new  capital  of 
Samaria."  Israel  was  fast  losing  the  power  of  an  independ- 
ent state ;  but  the  kingdom  was  still  adorned  with  much 
wealth  and  luxury,  when  Omri  left  it  to  his  son  Ahab,  in  the 
thirty-eighth  year  of  Asa,  king  of  Judah,  to  whose  long  reign 
we  must  now  return.^*' 

§  8.  Asa,  the  third  king  of  Judah,  succeeded  his  father  Abi- 
jah,  in  the  twentieth  year  of  Jeroboam  I.,  king  of  Israel,  and 


"**  B.C.  929-925:  1  K.  xvi.  15-22. 
According  to  the  LXX.,  his  brother 
Joram  fought  and  died  with  him. 

'^  B.C.  929-918.  ^°  B.C.  925. 

"^'8.0,918.  'n  K.  xvi.  23,  29. 

^^  The  Hebrew  name  is  Shomeron 
(afterward  corrupted  into  the  Greek 
Samaria),  so  called  from  Shemer,  from 
whom  Omri  bought  the  hill  on  which 
he  built  the  city.  It  stands  in  the 
centre  of  a  wide  basin-shaped  valley, 
about  six  miles  to  the  north-west  of 
Shechem,  encircled  with  high  hills, 
and  almost  on  the  edge  of  the  great 


plain  which  borders  upon  the  Medi- 
terranean. 

^^  Micah  vi.  IG :  the  phrase  is  a  par- 
allel to  "the  works  of  the  house  of 
Ahab,"  and  the  more  immediate  ref- 
erence is,  no  doubt,  to  the  latter. 

"  1  K.  XX.  3-t.  The  "making 
streets  in  Samaria"  hast  his  meaning. 
The  cities  referred  to  by  Benhadad  II. 
as  taken  by  his  father  from  Ahab's 
father,  may  be  those  taken  from  Baa- 
sha,  or  later  conquests.  Benhadad 
treats  Ahab  quite  as  a  vassal  (1  K, 
XX.  2).     '-''  B.C.  918  ;   1  K.  xvi.  23-29. 


516  Tlie  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.    Ch; 


reigned  for  the  long  period  of  forty-one  years.  ^^  His  name, 
which  signifies  curing  or  j)hysiclan^  Avas  significant  of  Iiis 
work.  Himself  a  worthy  son  of  David,  and  having  "  his 
heart  perfect  with  Jehovah  all  his  days,"  he  reformed  the  re- 
ligions and  moral  abnses  of  the  three  preceding  reigns.  He 
pnt  down  the  nnnatural  vices  which  had  grown  np  nnder 
Rehoboam,  and  destroyed  the  idols.  Even  his  mother  Maa- 
chah  was  deposed  from  the  rank  of  "  queen-mother  " — which 
was  reckoned  a  great  dignity  in  the  East^® — because  she  had 
set  up  an  Asherah  (or  idol),  probably  for  the  impure  orgies 
of  Ashtoreth  '^'^  and  Asa  cut  down  and  burned  her  Asherah., 
and  strewed  its  ashes  on  the  brook  Kidron,  just  as  Moses 
had  treated  the  golden  calf  Still,  however,  the  old  hill-sanc- 
tuaries were  retained  as  places  of  worship.  They  were  sup- 
pressed by  Jehoshaphat  but  partially ;  and  again  long  after 
by  the  zeal  of  Josiah.''"  Asa  repaired  Shishak's  plunder  of 
the  temple  by  rich  offerings  of  gold  and  silver,  in  addition  to 
those  dedicated  by  his  father,  probably  in  the  early  part  of 
his  reign,  but  since  transferred  to  the  heathen  shrines.  It  is 
indeed  curious  to  observe  how  soon  the  treasures,  of  which 
the  Temple  was  repeatedly  stripped — by  Shishak,  by  Asa 
himself  at  a  later  time,  and  by  other  kings — were  again  sup- 
plied. The  commerce  established  by  Solomon  with  Arabia 
and  the  East,  and  with  the  silver-producing  regions  of  West- 
ern Europe,  must  have  continued  to  flourish.  The  great  vic- 
tory of  Abijah  over  Jeroboam  secured  peace  to  Judah  for  the 
first  ten  years  of  Asa's  reign  ;  and  he  used  it  in  building  new 
fortifications  to  his  cities.'^  He  raised  an  army  of  580,000 
men  (if  we  might  trust  the  numbers  of  our  common  text),  of 
Avhom  300,000  were  men  of  Judah,  armed  Avith  spear  and 
shield,  and  280,000  Benjamite  archers."  This  military  prep- 
ai-ation  Avas  probably  connected  Avith  an  attempt  to  throAV 
off  the  tributary  yoke  which  Shishak  had  imposecl  upon  Reho- 
boam ;  and  it  brought  upon  Asa  the  Avhole  force  of  the  Egyp- 
tian monarchy.  At  least  it  is  probable  that "  Zerah,  the  Cush- 
ite"  (or  Ethiopian),  Avas  a  king  of  Egypt."  He  invaded  Ju- 
dah at  the  head  of  a  million  of  men  ;  but  Asa  encountered  him 

"  B.C.  955-9 U  :   1  K.  xv.  9-2i  ;    2 
Chron.  xiv.,  xv. 

^^  Comp.  1  K.  ii.  19  ;  2  K.  xxiv.  12  ; 
Jev.  xxix.  2;   Dan.v.  10. 

"^  1  K.  XV.  13.     See  the  Vulgate. 

^"  1  K.  xvii.  G  :  2  K.  xxii.  8,  13. 

^'  At   the    beginning,   however,  of 
his  reign,  Asa  seems  to  have  taken  |  soldiers  were  in  a  great  measure  lithi* 
from  Jeroboam  some  cities  of  Mountlopians  (2  C.hron.  xii.  3). 


Ephraim.  See  2  Chron.  xv.  8,  xvii. 
2, 
'««  2  Chron.  xiv.  1-8. 
"  2  Chron.  xiv.  9.  Ewald  and  oth- 
ers identify  Zerah  with  Osorkon  I., 
the  second  king  of  the  twenty-second 
dvnasty,  and  son   of   Shishak,  whoso 


B.C.  940.  Reign  of  Asa  in  Judah.  617 

at  Maresliah  (near  the  later  Eleuthcropolis)  in  the  S.W.  of 
Judah ;  and,  after  a  fervent  prayer  to  God,  he  routed  the 
Ethiopian  host  and  pursued  them  to  Gerar.  He  returned  to 
Jerusalem  with  the  spoil  of  the  cities  round  Gerar,  and  with 
innumerable  sheep  and  cattle."  A  solemn  appeal  was  made 
by  God  to  king  and  people,  while  their  hearts  were  still  warm 
with  the  victory.  The  prophet  Azariaii,  son  of  Oded,"  met 
Asa  on  his  return,  and  exhorted  him  and  his  subjects  to  be 
strong,  lieart  and  hand,  in  seeking  God.  He  gave  an  affect- 
ing description  of  the  former  state  of  Israel : — "  For  a  long- 
season  Israel  hath  been  (or  was)  without  the  true  God,  and 
without  a  teaching  priest,  and  without  law."  His  words 
roused  the  liearers  to  a  new  and  more  thorough  reformation. 
The  idols  were  removed  from  all  the  cities  of  Judah  and  Ben- 
jamin, and  those  which  had  been  won  from  Ephraim.  The 
altar  of  burnt-ottering,  which  had  probably  been  polluted, 
was  renewed,  and  Asa  called  a  great  convocation  at  Jerusa- 
lem in  the  third  month  of  the  fifteenth  year  of  his  reign  (b.c. 
940).  It  was  attended  not  only  by  all  Judah  and  Benjamin, 
but  by  many  of  Ephraim,  Manasseh,  and  other  tribes  ;  and  a 
covenant  was  made,  witli  solemn  oaths  and  joyful  shouts  and 
music,  to  serve  God  with  all  their  hearts,  and  to  punish  all 
idolatry  with  death.'"'  This  general  defection  to  Asa  of  tht 
worshipers  of  Jehovah  throughout  the  kingdom  of  Israel 
must  have  added  great  strength,  especially  moral  strength, 
to  Judah.  It  alarmed  Baasha,  the  king  of  Israel,  who  renew- 
ed the  war  with  all  his  forces,  and  as  we  have  seen,  forti- 
fied liamah,  as  a  sort  of  blockading  station"  on  the  frontier 
of  Judah,  to  prevent  his  subjects  from  going  over  to  Asa. 
It  was  then  that  the  good  king  of  Judah  committed  the  one 
great  error  of  his  life.  He  not  only  resorted  to  the  heathen 
king  of  Damascus,  Benhadadl,  but  he  took  the  treasures  of 
the  house  of  God  to  purchase  his  alliance.  Benhadad's  inva- 
sion of  Northern  Israel  recalled  Baasha  from  liamah,  and  the 
stones  and  timber  which  he  had  collected  were  carried  away 
by  Asa  to  build  the  frontier  forts  of  Geba  (the  hill)  and  Miz- 
peli  (the  icatch-toicer)  in  Benjamin.  The  great  well  of  Miz- 
peh  was  still  remembered  as  Asa's  work  in  the  time  of  Jere- 
miah.'^ 

Asa's  want  of  faith  was  reproved  by  the  seer  Hanajni,  the 

"  2  Chron.  xiv.  9-15.  '"•«  2  Cliron.  xv. 

"  2  Chron.xv.  1.     That  this  is  the       "MVimt    tlie    Greeks    call    iinTd. 
true  reading  also  in  ver.  8  is  clear  from  j/(T//a. 

the  Alexandrian  MS.  of  the  LXX.,       ««  2  Chr.  xvi.  1-6;  1  K.  xv.  16-22. 
the  Vulgate,  and  the  Peshito-Syriac.    Jer.  xli.  9. 


518  The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.    Chap.  XXIII. 

father  of  that  Jehu  who  prophesied  both  to  Baasha  and  Je- 
hoshaphat.  He  told  Asa  that  he  had  lost  the  honor  of  con- 
quering Benhadad  by  seeking  his  alliance,  and  denounced 
against  him  constant  war  for  the  rest  of  his  days.  It  is  a 
sign  of  the  growing  loss  of  reverence  for  the  supreme  au- 
thority of  Jehovah,  that  even  in  Judah  the  discharge  of  a 
prophet's  office  had  now  come  to  involve  danger  to  his  per- 
son. Hanani  was  imprisoned  by  Asa  in  his  rage,  and  others 
of  the  people  were  oppressed  for  the  same  cause.  The  king's 
conduct  is  to  be  ascribed  partly  to  unbroken  prosperity,  and 
partly  to  the  irritation  of  disease,  for  in  his  last  years  he  suf- 
fered from  the  gout.  The  censure  cast  on  him  for  "  seeking 
not  to  Jehovah,  but  to  the  physicians,"  is  no  doubt  founded 
on  the  principle,  on  Avhich  the  whole  retributive  system  of 
the  Mosaic  law  is  based,  that  every  form  of  temporal  suifer- 
ing  was  to  be  viewed  as  a  chastisement  from  God,  and  to  be 
met  first  by  humiliation  and  prayer  to  Ilim,  who  would  then 
permit  the  physician  or  any  other  secondary  agent  to  do  his 
office  with  such  success  as  it  might  be  His  will  to  grant. 
Asa  sank  under  the  disease  in  the  forty-first  year  of  his  reign, 
having  been  contemporary  with  all  the  first  seven  kings  of 
Israel.  His  body  was  laid  in  a  bed  of  spices""  in  a  sepulchre 
he  had  prepared  for  himself  in  the  city  of  David,  and  pre- 
cious odors  Avere  burned  for  him  in  great  abundance,  as  was 
the  custom  at  the  funerals  of  worthy  kings.'" 

§  9.  Jehoshaphat,  the  fourth  king  of  Judah,  was  the  son 
of  Asa  and  Azubah.  At  the  age  of  thirty-five  lie  succeeded 
his  father  in  the  fourth  year  of  Ahab,  king  of  Israel,  and  reign- 
ed at  Jerusalem  twenty-five  years.''  He  followed  his  father's 
piety,  and  possessed  an  energy  which  makes  him  the  most 
like  David  of  all  the  other  kings  of  Judah.  He  raised  the 
kino-dom  to  the  highest  point  that  it  had  reached  since  the 
disruption  ;  but  his  unhappy  alliance  with  Ahab  went  far  to 
neutralize  all  his  excellences,  and  brought  ruin  upon  his  suc- 
cessors. He  was  contemporary  with  Ahab  and  his  two  sons, 
Ahaziah  and  Jehoram. 

Jehoshaphat  began  his  reign  by  fortifying  the  cities  of 
Judah  and  Benjamin,  as  well  as  those  taken  by  his  father  in 
Mount  Ephraim,  while  he  became  rich  by  the  presents  which 
attested  the  confidence  of  his  subjects  ;  and  Jehovah  was 
with  him.'^     He  carried  on  his  father's  reformation  by  re- 

"^  Comp.  John  xix.  30,  40.  [      "  e.g.  914-889 :  1  K.  xv.  24,  xxiL 

'°  IK.  XV.  23,  24;  2  Chr.  xvi.  7-14;  j  41,  42;  2  Chron.xvii.  1-xx.  31. 
comp.  2  Chr.  xxi.  19  ;  Jcr.  xxxiv.  ;">.   I      "  2  Chrou.  xvii.  1-0. 


B.C.  918.  Ahah  King  of  Israel  519 

moving  the  groves  and  high  pLaces ;  but  this  was  only  im- 
perfectly accomplished,  "  for  as  yet  the  people  had  not  pre- 
pared their  hearts  unto  the  God  of  their  fathers.""  In  the 
third  year  of  his  reign,  he  gave  a  commission  to  his  chief 
princes,  in  conjunction  with  certain  Levites  and  priests,  to 
teach  the  people  and  to  read  the  book  of  the  Law  in  all  the 
cities  of  Judah.  His  piety  was  rewarded  with  prosperity. 
He  had  peace  with  all  the  surrounding  nations.  Even  the 
Philistines  paid  him  tribute,  and  the  Arabians  brought  the 
immense  flocks  of  rams  and  goats  which  David  had  described 
in  the  7 2d  Psalm.  He  continued  to  fortify  and  garrison  the 
cities  ;  at  Jerusalem  he  had  a  band  of  captains,  Tike  those  of 
David ;  and  under  their  command  was  a  greater  army  than 
had  yet  been  raised,  though  the  numbers  in  our  text  are  very 
much  too  large. ■'^  His  i)ower  had  become  too  great  for  the 
King  of  Israel  to  hope  for  success  in  a  new  war ;  and  the  grow- 
ing strength  of  the  Syrian  kingdom  of  Damascus  may  have 
prompted  the  alliance  which  was  now  formed  betAveen  Je- 
hoshaphat  and  Ahab,  and  which  requires  us  to  look  back  to 
the  history  of  Israel.''^ 

g  10.  AiiAB  (properly  Achab),  the  seventh  king  of  Israel, 
and  the  second  of  the  dynasty  of  Omri,  succeeded  his  father 
in  the  thirty-eighth  year  of  Asa,  and  reigned  twenty-two  years 
at  Samaria.'"  His  name  has  attained  an  evil  eminence  in  the 
world's  history.  Like  Antiochus  Epiphanes  and  Nero,  he 
had  a  love  of  art,  and  he  was  not  destitute  of  generous  im- 
pulses ;  but  he  stands  forth  an  example  of  the  lengths  of 
wickedness  to  which  a  weak  selfishness  may  be  driven  by  the 
influence  of  a  stronger  will.  His  fate  was  decided  by  his 
marriage  with  Jezebel,  a  name  even  more  infamous  than  his 
own,  the  daughter  of  Ethbaal,  king  of  the  Zidonians.  The 
very  name  of  this  prince  (the  Man  of  BaaT)  suggests  the  con- 
sequences of  the  alliance.  In  place  of  the  worship  of  Jero- 
boam's calves,  which,  monstrous  idols  as  they  Avere,  yet  pro- 
fessed to  be  symbols  of  Jehovah,  the  service  of  Baal  was  es- 
tablished throughout  Israel.  Ahab  built  him  a  temple  and 
an  altar  at  Samaria,  and  made  him  a  grove  for  the  impure 
orgies  of  Ashtoreth.  There  was  a  great  college  of  his  priests, 
or  prophets,  who  numbered  450,  besides  400  prophets  of  the 
groves ;  and  all  these  were  maintained  at  Jezebel's  table. 
By  her  orders,  the  prophets  of  Jehovah  were  put  to  death, 
except  a  hundred,  who  were  hid  and  fed  in  a  cave  by  Oba- 

"  1  K.  xxii.  43  ;  2  Chron..xix.  3,  |      "2  Chron,  xviii.  1. 
XX.  33.       •  ■'^  2  Chron.  xvii.  13-19.     I      '«  B.C.  918-897  ;    1  K.  xvi.  29. 


520  T  lie  Kingdoms  of  J  a:  lull  and  Israel.   Chap.  XXIIt 

diah,  the  governor  of  Ah.ab's  house :  for  even  at  his  court 
tnere  was  at  least  one  servant  of  Jeliovah,  as  there  were  Chris- 
tians in  Nero's  household.  The  influence  of  the  court  and 
the  force  of  j^ersecution  completed  the  apostasy  of  the  people, 
so  that  it  Avas  an  unexpected  consolation  for  the  great  prophet 
of  the  age  to  be  assured  that  Jehovah  had  7000  left  in  Israel, 
whose  knees  liad  not  bowed  to  Baal,  and  their  lips  not  kiss- 
3d  him." 

This  darkest  night  of  Israel's  spiritual  declension  was 
broken  by  the  appearance  of  the  greatest  of  all  the  prophets 
since  Moses,  and  the  type  of  that  great  preacher  of  repent- 
ance who  was  the  forerunner  of  the  Christ. 

Elijah  the  Tishbite  has  been  well  called  "  the  grandest 
and  the  most  romantic  character  that  Israel  ever  produced.'" 
He  meets  us  with  a  suddenness  as  startling  as  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  John  the  Baptist  preaching  repentance  in  the 
wilderness  of  Judsea.  There  is  not  a  word  of  his  parentage; 
and  of  his  birthplace  we  only  know  that  it  was  in  the  land 
of  Gilead  east  of  Jordan.'''  But  this  one  fact  accounts  for 
the  prophet's  outward  peculiarities.  Like  Jephthah  among 
the  judges,  he  came  of  a  wild,  uncultured,  pastoral  race,  whose 
mode  of  life  had  become  more  and  more  assimilated  to  that 
of  the  Bedouins  of  the  neighboring  desert,  and  who  retained 
great  force  of  character  and  power  of  physical  endurance. 
His  only  clothing  was  a  girdle  of  skin  I'ound  his  loins,  and 
the  "mantle,"  or  cape,  of  sheepskin,  the  descent  of  whicli 
upon  Elisha  has  passed  into  a  proverb.  Sheltered  from  Jeze- 
bel's persecution  in  the  solitudes  of  Mount  Gilead,  he  liad 
been  prepared  by  Jehovah  for  his  mission  to  the  apostate 
king  and  people. 

It  was  probably  about  the  tenth  year  of  Ahab's  reign,^" 
that  Elijah  suddenly  appeared  before  the  king  to  declare,  as 
the  word  of  Jehovah,  confirmed  by  an  awful  oath,  that  there 
should  be  no  rain  in  the  land  for  three  years  but  at  his  word.'' 
From  the  New  Testament  Ave  learn  *that  the  prophet  Avas 
more  than  a  mere  messenger  of  the  judgment.     "He^^myec^ 

"2K.  xvi.  28-33,  xviii.3,  4, 13, 19, 'osition,  the  truth  which  he  brought 
xix.  18.  Israel   to    confess,    "Jehovah  is   my 

"Stanley,  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  God,"  just  as  St.  John  was  called 
327.  *  Qeo2.oy6r,  as  the  great  advocate  of  the 

"  1  K.  xvii.  1 .  Tliere  has  been  no  doctrine  Oedc?/v  6  /idyoc  The  Hebrew 
probable  conjectui-e  even  as  to  the  site  form  is  generally  EHjahu ;  the  Greek 
of  his  city,  which  was  certainly  not  I  is  Klhis. 

the  Thisbe  of  Tobit  i.  2,  for  that  was  I  *°  This  is  according  to  the  received 
in  Naphtali.  His  name  is  one  of  chronology  ;  but  perhaps  the  true  date 
those  which  signify  a  complete  prop- 1  should  be  earlier.       ^'  1  K.«xvii.  1. 


B.C.  908. 


Mission  of  Elijah. 


521 


earnestly  that  it  might  not  rain :  and  it  rained  not  on  the 
land  by  the  space  of  three  years  and  six  months.  And  he 
2'jrayed  again.,  and  the  heaven  gave  rain,  and  the  earth  brought 
foi-th  her  fruit.'"^^  This  passage,  introduced  to  shoAv  the  power 
with  God  exerted  by  "men  alFected  like  ourselves,"  may  help 
to  guard  us  against  too  mechanical  a  view  of  the  prophet's 
functions.  In  his  agonizing  prayer  upon  Mount  Carmel,  at 
the  close  of  the  drought,  we  see  how  his  own  desire  went 
forth  to  meet  the  will  of  God ;  and,  though  the  history  is  si- 
lent as  to  all  that  preceded  his  message  to  Ahab,  the  words  of 
James  justify  the  supposition  of  a  like  scene  ;  when  the  proph^ 
et,  brooding  over  the  state  of  Israel,  as  we  see  him  at  a  later 
period,  and  preparing  to  stand  forth  as  the  champion  for  God, 
like  Luther  in  his  cell,  put  up  fervent  prayers  for  the  sign 
tliat  might  attest  his  mission.  Like  Luther  again,  who  of 
all  men  beyond  the  records  of  Scripture,  had  most  of  Elijah's 
spirit,  he  was  saved  from  the  immediate  risk,  at  which  he 
discharged  his  mission,  by  the  command  of  God  to  hide  him- 
self in  the  wady  of  the  Cherith,  whose  position  is  uncertain. 
The  history  leaves  the  court,  to  follow  the  prophet ;  but  it 
has  been  supposed  that  Jezebel's  slaughter  of  the  prophets 
Avas  in  revenge  for  the  denunciation  of  Elijali.  He  remained 
in  his  hiding-place,  fed  by  the  ravens  morning  and  evening 
Avitli  bread  and  meat,  till  the  brook  dried  up,  and  he  had  to 
sock  another  refuge."  The  word  of  Jehovah  sent  liim,  as  our 
Lord  empliatically  declares,  not  to  any  of  the  secret  worship- 
ers of  God  in  Israel,  nor  to  any  city  of  Judah,  perhaps  lest 
he  should  appear  to  be  a  partisan  of  the  rival  kingdom ;  but 
the  honor  of  nourishing  God's  prophet  was  granted  to  a  wom- 
an, a  poor  widow  of  the  heathen  city  of  Zarephath,  in  the  ter- 
ritory of  Zidon.®*  Elijah  went  thither,  and  found  at  the  city 
gate  a  poor  Avoman  gathering  a  few  sticks,  to  bake  a  cake 
made  of  her  last  liandful  of  meal  and  her  last  drop  of  oil, 
that  she  and  her  only  son  might  share  it  and  then  die.  We 
need  not  repeat  the  familiar  story  of  the  faith  Avith  Avhich 
she  consented  to  sustain  Elijah,  the  miraculous  replenishing 
of  the  barrel  of  meal  and  the  cruse  of  oil,  as  long  as  the  famine 
lasted,  and  the  restoration  of  the  AvidoAv's  son  to  life  at  the 
prophet's  prayer.  ^^ 

In  the  third  year,  Elijah  was  bidden  to  leave  his  conceal- 
ment and  shoAV  himself  to  Ahab.     The  drous^ht  had  now  be- 


"  James  V.  17, 18. 
«3  1  K.xvii.  ]-7. 

^*  1  K.  xvii.  8,  9  ;   Obad.  20 ;  Luke 
iv.  2G ;  this  passage  and  the  history 


both   favor  the  supposition  that  she 
was  a  Hebrew  widow,  like  the  mothei 
of  Hiram  the  artist. 
''^  1  K.  xvii.  8-24. 


622  T lie  Kingdoms  of  Judali  and  Israel.    Chap.  XXIU 

ccme  so  disastrous,  that  the  greatest  exertions  were  needed 
to  find  grass  enough  to  save  the  lives  of  the  king's  horses  and 
cattle.  Ahab  undertook  the  search  in  person,  taking  one  way 
himself,  and  sending  his  chief  officer,  Obadiah,  by  another. 
The  latter,  w^lio  has  been  mentioned  as  a  zealous  worshiper 
of  Jehovah,  Avas  encountered  by  Elijah,  and  reluctantly  un- 
dertook the  risk  of  announcing  to  Ahab  the  prophet's  reap- 
pearance. The  king  met  Elijah  with  the  threatening  ques- 
tion, "Art  thou  he  that  troubleth  Israel?" — and  the  prophet 
retorted  the  charge  upon  himself  for  his  apostasy  and  idola- 
try. He  then  challenged  tlie  king  to  a  decisive  trial  between 
Baal  and  Jehovah,  and  a  scene  ensued  upon  Mount  Carmel 
which  has  no  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  world.  On  the 
one  side  were  Baal's  prophets,  to  the  number  of  450,  sup- 
ported by  the  court  and  followed  by  the  people ;  for  neither 
the  few  secret  worshipers  of  Jehovah,  nor  the  many  Avhom 
His  judgments  had  rendered  dissatisfied  with  their  idolatry, 
dared  to  show  sympathy  with  the  prophet.  Elijah  stood 
alone  :  but  God  w^as  with  him.  His  challenge  is  all  the  bold- 
er, considering  the  juggling  tricks  with  which  the  heathen 
priests  were  familiar,  and  which  the  king  would  be  ready  to 
abet.  But  it  is  on  the  side  of  Elijah  that  we  find  precautions 
taken  against  such  tricks,  and  taken  by  his  OAvn  desire.  He 
proposed  a  test  of  the  simplest  kind ;  that  each  party  should 
prepare  a  bullock  and  wood,  and  pray  to  their  respective 
gods  to  send  down  fire  upon  the  sacrifice, "  And  the  god  that 
answereth  by  fire,  let  him  be  God."  All  the  people  assented 
to  so  fair  a  trial.  Elijah  gave  Baal's  prophets  the  choice  be- 
tween the  victims,  and  the  first  trial.  At  early  morn  they 
prepared  the  sacrifice,  and  the  air  resounded  till  high  noon 
with  their  wild  chorus,  growing  more  and  more  excited,  "  O 
Baal,  hear  us  !  Baal,  hear  us  !  Hear  us  !"  The  stillness  of 
the  summer  noon  Avas  unbroken  by  an  answer,  and  they 
leaped  on  their  altar  with  frantic  gesticulations.  As  the  sun 
bent  over  the  meridian,  Elijah  assailed  both  priests  and  god 
Avith  that  irony  Avhich  the  prophets  often  levelled  at  idola- 
try : — "  Cry  aloud  !  for  he  is  a  god  !  He  is  only  abstracted 
in  his  OAvn  thoughts  !  Or  he  has  gone  hunting,  or  upon  a 
journey.  Or  perhaps  he  is  asleep  and  must  be  aAvaked  I" 
The  priests  rencAved  their  cries,  as  if  they  half  believed  the 
last  taunt,  and  cut  their  flesh  Avith  knives  according  to  their 
custom,  till  their  blood  streamed  doAvn.  ]>ut  there  Avas  not 
a  sign  that  their  god  so  much  as  noticed  them.  And  noAV 
the  declining  sun  had  reached  the  sacred  hour  of  the  evening 
sacrifice  ;  and  the  exhausted  priests  ceased  their  "  vain  repe- 


B.C.  90G. 


Aliss  10 n  of  Elijah. 


528 


titions."  With  the  utmost  deliberation  Elijah  repaired  the 
broken  altar  of  Jehovah,  and  replaced  the  twelve  unhewn 
stones  that  had  formed  it;  for  (Jarmel  was  a  spot  sure  to 
have  been  a  sanctuary,  though  the  tact  is  not  previously  re- 
corded. Having  made  a  trench  round  the  altar,  and  laid  the 
bullock  in  pieces  upon  the  w^ood,  he  for  the  first  time  com- 
mands the  assistance  of  the  people,  to  exclude  all  possibiUty 
of  fraud.  Thrice  they  poured  water  over  the  victim,  the 
wood,  and  the  altar,  till  the  trench  Avas  full ;  so  that  no  fire 
could  possibly  be  concealed.  At  the  very  moment  of  the 
evening  sacrifice,  Elijah  invoked  the  God  of  the  fathers  to 
show  His  divinity,  and  to  turn  back  the  people's  hearts;  and 
the  fire  came  down  from  heaven  in  sight  of  all  the  people ; 
consuming  not  only  the  sacrifice  and  the  wood,  but  the  very 
stones  and  dust  of  the  altar,  and  licking  up  the  water  in  the 
trench.  All  the  people  fell  upon  their  faces  crying  out,  "  Je- 
hovah, He  is  the  God  !  Jehovah,  He  is  the  God  !"  Their 
new-awakened  zeal  Avas  at  once  turned  by  Elijah  against  the 
idolaters.  "  Take  the  prophets  of  Baal !"  he  exclaimed — 
"  let  not  one  of  them  escape !"  He  Avas  obeyed  ;  and  they 
Avere  slain  to  a  man  on  the  bank  of  the  river  Kishon,  a  sacri- 
fice to  Baal  in  place  of  their  vain  oftering.^^  Ahab,  A\iio  seems 
to  haA^e  been  a  passive  spectator  of  the  scene,  noAV  yields  him- 
self to  the  direction  of  the  prophet,  Avho  assures  him  that  he 
hears  the  sound  of  abundant  rain,  and  retires  to  his  tent  to 
eat  and  drink,  Avhile  Kishon  runs  red  Avith  the  blood  of  his 
priests.  As  he  is  thus  engaged,  Elijah  AvithdraAvs  to  the 
summit  of  Carmel,  and  sits  Avith  his  head  boAved  doAvn  be- 
tAveen  his  knees,  Avhile  his  servant  looks  out  over  the  sea  for 
the  first  sign  of  rain  in  the  Avest.  ,  Six  times  the  lad  reports 
that  the  sky  is  clear,  and  the  prophet  bids  him  look  again; 
but  at  the  seventh  he  brought  back  the  message,  Avhich  has 
ever  since  passed  into  a  proverb  : — "  Behold  there  ariseth  a 
little  cloud  out  of  the  sea,  like  a  man's  hand."  At  this  sig.n 
the  prophet  sent  the  king  Avord  to  prepare  his  chariot.  The 
heaven  grcAV  black  Avith  clouds ;  and  amid  the  cataracts  of 
a  rain-storm  in  that  climate,  Elijah  ran  before  the  king's  char- 
iot to  the  gates  of  Jezreel,  a  distance  of  sixteen  miles." 

The  fierce  spirit  of  Jezebel  remained  unsubdued,  and  her 
threats  drove  Elijah  again  to  fly  for  his  life.  He  traversed 
all  Israel  and  Judah  to  Beersheba ;  and  there  he  left  his  seiw- 
ant,  Avhile  he  himself  Avent  forAvard  under  the  impulse  of  the 


""  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  these 
priests  of  Baal  were,  for  the  most  part 
at  least,  apostate  Israelites,  who  had 


brouglit  themselves  under  the  penal' 
ties  of  the  law  against  idolatry. 
**'  1  K.  xviii. 


524:  The  Kingdoms  of  J uda] I  and  Israel.   Chap.  XXIIL; 

same  Spirit  wliich  long  after  drove  Christ  into  the  wilderness. 
After  one  day's  journey,  he  was  overcome  by  fatigue  and  de- 
spair ;  and  he  sat  down  under  a  juniper-tree,  and  prayed  for 
death.  His  Avords  betray  that  deep  consciousness  of  individ- 
ual weakness,  to  which  the  chosen  servants  of  God  have  often 
yielded : — "  I  am  not  better  than  my  fathers."  But  an  angel 
touched  him,  and  bade  him  arise  and  eat :  he  looked  up,  and 
saw  a  fire,  with  a  cake  of  bread  baked  upon  it,  and  a  cruse 
of  water  by  his  head  ;  and  in  the  strength  of  that  food  he 
passed  40  days  and  nights  in  the  wilderness  of  Sinai.  There, 
like  Moses,  he  was  favored  with  a  vision  of  the  glory  of  Je- 
hovah. From  that  Avell-known  scene  of  terrible  convulsion, 
followed  by  an  awful  stillness,  lie  learned  the  great  lesson,  that 
God's  presence  is  to  be  felt,  not  so  much  in  the  grand  displays 
of  power  which  strike  our  senses,  as  in  the  "  still  small  voice" 
that  speaks  directly  to  the  heart.  Pie  liad  seen  the  fire  come 
down  from  heaven,  heard  the  people  confess  their  God,  and 
slain  Baal's  prophets ;  and  yet  the  work  seemed  all  to  be  done 
again ;  but  noAV  he  learned  that  the  quiet  power  of  God's  spirit 
was  working  in  the  people's  hearts,  and  there  Avere  7000  men 
who  had  not  done  homage  to  Baal.  Thus  reanimated  for 
his  remaining  Avork,  he  Avas  sent  to  prepare  for  three  great 
changes  aftecting  the  state  of  Israel;  to  anoint  Hazael  as  the 
future  king  of  Syria,  in  place  of  Benhadad  ;  Jehu,  the  son  of 
Nimshi,  as  king  of  Israel,  in  place  of  Aliab's  house ;  and  Eli- 
sha,  the  son  of  Shaphat,  to  be  prophet  in  succession  to  liimself. 
These  three  Avere  to  folloAV  each  other  in  the  destruction  of  the 
Avorshipers  of  Baal.  Elijah  only  performed  in  person  the 
last  of  the  three  acts,  the  designation  of  Elislia,  leaving  to 
him  the  other  two,  Avliich  he  himself  found  no  opportunity  to 
execute.^^ 

Elisha's  native  place  Avas  at  Abel-meholah  (the  meadow 
of  the  da?ice),  a  place  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  near  its 
junction  Avith  the  plain  of  Jezreel.'''  He  Avas  plowing  Avith 
tAvelve  yoke  of  oxen,  himself  guiding  the  twelfth,  a  proof  of 
the  Avealth  he  abandoned  to  "  put  his  hand  to  the  ploAv  " 
of  Jehovah,  Avhen  Elijah  arrived  on  his  Avay  up  the  valley 
tOAvard  Damascus,  and,  Avithout  saying  a  Avord,  cast  his 
prophet's  mantle  upon  Elisha,  as  if  claiming  him  for  a  son.'" 
Elisha,  Avith  a  heart  prepared  by  God,  only  begged  to  give 
his  father  and  mother  a  parting  embrace,  and  Elijah  consent- 
ed, in  words  implying  a  keen  feeling  of  Elisha's  separation 

*^^  tlnless  we  may  infer  from  1  K.  [  taken  for  granted,  and  that  they  were 
xix.  15,  16,  that  tlie  acts  are  to   be  i  repeated  bv  Elislia. 

"^^  Judg.  vii.  22  ;   IK.  iv.  12.  ^'  Comp.  Kutli  iii.  4-1-1. 


B.C.  901, 


Elijah  at  Mount  Sinai. 


525 


from  the  ties  of  affection.  Elisha  celebrated  the  sacrifice  of 
himself  by  ofiering  the  yoke  of  oxen  with  which  he  had  been 
plowing,  tiie  ilesh  of  which  he  boiled  with  the  wood  of  the 
yoke  and  the  plow,  and  made  a  parting  feast  for  the  people 
of  the  village.  He  then  followed  Elijah  and  became  "his 
servant,"  for  such  was  the  relation  betAveen  a  prophet  and 
his  nearest  comrade,  as  afterward  in  the  case  of  Elisha  and 
Gehazi.  It  was,  indeed,  an  honor  Avhich  the  first  minister 
of  the  greatest  king  might  have  coveted,  to  be  known  as 
"  Elisha,  the  son  of  Shaphat,  who  poured  water  on  the  hands 
of  Elijah."  These  events  comprise  the  first  period  of  Elijah's 
course.  He  disappears  from  the  scene  for  a  considerable  time, 
occupied  possibly  with  the  journey  to  Damascus  to  anoint 
Hazael."'^  The  King  of  Israel,  who  no  doubt  supposed  that 
he  had  got  rid  of  his  great  "  troubler,"  seized  the  opportuni- 
ty to  perpetrate  a  deed  of  enormous  wickedness. 

Ahab's  capital  was  at  Samaria ;  but  he  had  a  favorite  resi- 
dence at  the  beautiful  city  of  Jezreel  (now  Zerin),"  "the 
Versailles  of  Israel,"  vrhere  we  have  already  seen  him.  His 
regal  lust  of  improving  his  fair  domain  was  checked  by  a 
vineyard,  the  property  of  a  man  of  Jezreel,  named  I^aboth, 
who  clung  like  a  true  Israelite  to  his  patrimony,  though 
the  king  offered  him  its  price  in  money,  or  a  better  vine- 
yard." With  the  petulance  of  a  despot  crossed  in  his  will, 
Ahab  took  to  his  bed,  and  refused  to  eat ;  but  he  was  roused 
by  Jezebel  from  despondency  so  unworthy  of  a  king  who 
had  power  to  make  law  for  himself  So  abject  was  the  deg- 
radation of  the  people,  so  shameless  the  tyranny  of  the  crown, 
that  the  elders  of  Israel  at  once  obeyed  the  written  orders 
of  Jezebel  to  proclaim  a  fist,  and  in  the  name  of  religion  and 
loyalty,  to  put  their  fellow-citizen  to  death  on  the  evidence 
of  witnesses  of  their  own  suborning.  Naboth  was  dragged 
out  of  the  city,  and  stoned  as  a  blasphemer  against  God  and 
the  king,  and,  at  the  call  of  Jezebel,  Ahab  arose  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  vineyard.     But  God  sent  Elijah  to  meet  him 


"'  1  K.  xix.  We  follow  the  ordei' 
of  the  LXX.  and  Joseph  us,  in  placing 
the  twentieth  chapter  after  the  twen- 
ty-first. 

.  °^  The  modern  village  of  Zeriri 
stands  on  one  of  the  gentle  swells 
which  rise  out  of  the  fertile  plain  of 
Esdraelon  ;  hut  with  two  peculiarities 
which  mark  it  out  from  the  rest.  One 
is  its  strength.  On  the  north-east  the 
bill  presents  a  steep  rocky  descent  of 


at  least  100  feet.  The  other  is  its 
central  locality.  It  stands  at  the 
opening  of  the  middle  hranch  of  the 
three  eastern  forks  of  the  plain,  and 
looks  straight  toward  the  wide  west- 
ern level ;  thus  commanding  the  view 
toward  the  Jordan  on  the  east  (2  K. 
ix.  17),  and  visible  from  Carmel  on 
the  west  (IK.  xviii.  46). 

"  1  K.  xxi.  1-3  ;    comp.  Lev,  xxv, 
23;   Numb,  xxxvi.  7  ;  Ezek.  xlvi.  18. 


526  The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.    Chap.  XXIIL 

there  ;  and  the  king's  conscience  betrayed  itself  in  the  cr^^ 
"Hast  tlioii  found  me,  oh  mine  enemy?"  "I  have  found 
thee,"  answered  the  prophet,  and  went  on  to  mark  the  scene 
of  this  last  crime  as  that  of  God's  judgment  for  all  his  sins ; 
"  in  the  place  where  the  dogs  licked  the  blood  of  Naboth, 
shall  dogs  lick  thy  blood,  even  thine."  Jezebel's  fate  was 
to  be  still  more  terrible ;  the  dogs  would  eat  her  under  the 
walls  of  Jezreel ;  and  the  whole  house  of  Ahab  should  be  ex- 
terminated, and  their  flesh  given  to  the  dogs  and  vultures.^* 
This  was  Elijah's  last  mission  to  Ahab,  and  he  does  not  ap- 
pear again  till  the  next  reign.  For  once  Ahab  repented  and 
humbled  himself  with  fasting  and  sackcloth,  and  God  post- 
poned the  full  execution  of  the  sentence  till  after  his  death. ^^ 
§  11.  The  last  years  of  Ahab's  reign  were  chiefly  occupied 
by  two  great  wars  with  Syria.  His  signal  victories  in  the 
first  of  these  wars  may  be  viewed  as  a  token  of  the  acce])t- 
ance  of  his  penitence  for  Naboth's  murder.°°  Benhadad  II. 
had  treated  him  as  a  vassal,  and  the  King  of  Israel  had  com- 
plied with  his  demands ;  but  when  Ahab  was  required  to 
give  up  his  wives  and  children,  he  saw  that  it  Avas  but  a  pre- 
text for  a  final  quarrel.  He  refused  with  spirit ;  and  it  is  to 
the  mouth  of  this  infamous  king  that  we  owe  the  noble  prov- 
erb,"  Let  not  him  that  girdeth  on  boast  himself  as  he  that 
putteth  ofl*.""  The  Khig  of  Damascus  received  the  message 
as  he  was  carousing  with  the  thirty-two  confederate  kings, 
who  had  followed  him  to  the  siege  of  Samaria  ;  and  he  bade 
them  set  their  immense  forces  in  array  against  the  city,  and 
returned  to  his  cups  secure  of  an  easy  victory.  At  this 
juncture  a  prophet  came  to  tell  Ahab  that  God  had  deliver- 
ed these  hosts  into  his  hand.  His  little  army  of  7000  men 
went  out  of  the  city,  preceded  by  the  232  young  princes  of 
the  tribes  ;  and  Benhadad,  who  was  drinking  in  his  tent  at 
the  noontide  banquet,  with  a  contemptuous  indiflerence  as 
to  whether  they  came  out  for  a  sally  or  a  surrender,  ordered 
them  to  be  taken  alive.  But  each  of  the  princes  killed  the 
man  who  laid  hands  upon  him  ;  their  followers  rushed  to  the 
attack;  the  panic-stricken  Syrians  were  pursued  with  great 
slaughter,  Benhadad  hardly  escaping  on  his  horse.  The  same 
prophet  warned  Ahab  to  expect  a  new  attack  the  following 
year,     Benhadad's  servants  persuaded  him  to  fight  in  the  low 

•^  1  Kings  xxi. ;  conip.  2  Kings  ix.  "^  1  K.  xxi.  27-29  ;  2  K.  ix.  25. 

7,  2G,  30,  37.     It  is  well  worthy  of  no-  «"  1  K.  xx. 

tice  that  Jehu,  the  anointed  avenger,  "^  1  K.  xx.  11.     No  doubt  it  wasi 

was  in   tlie  train   of  Ahab  when  he  then  .i  current  proverb.     Its  terseness 

went  to  take  possession  of  Nabotli's  is  somcwliat  injured  by  the  insertion 

vineyard.  of  the  words  "his  harness." 


B.C.  901. 


Wars  of  Ahah  with  Syria. 


527 


country,  as  tlie  gods  of  Israel  were  gods  of  the  hills  ;  but 
they  added  the  good  advice  to  replace  the  confederate  kings 
by  chosen  captains.  So  the  Syrians  oftered  battle  at  Aphek, 
a  walled  city  which  they  had  taken  from  Israel  in  the  low 
country  east  of  the  Jordan."®  Ahab  divided  the  whole  force 
of  Israel  into  two  bodies,  Vvhich  looked  like  two  flocks  of  kids 
in  presence  of  the  vast  armies  of  Syria ;  but  a  prophet  an- 
nounced to  him  that  Jehovali  would  prove  himself  the  God 
of  the  A'alleys  as  well  as  of  the  hills.  After  watching  each 
other  for  seven  days  the  armies  joined  battle ;  the  Syrians 
were  routed  with  a  slaughter  of  100,000  men,  and  2  7,000  more 
Avere  crushed  by  the  fall  (perhaps  in  an  earthquake)  of  the 
wall  of  Aphek,  in  Avhicli  they  had  taken  refuge.  Benhadad 
now  resolved  to  tlirow  himself  on  the  mercy  of  Ahab,  whose 
impulsive  nature  was  shown  in  a  generosity  which  proved 
fatal  to  himself.  Instead  of  seizing  the  opportunity  to  regain 
the  frontier  of  Solomon  on  the  north-east,  and  to  restore  the 
kingdom  of  Israel  m  the  fear  of  God,  he  was  content  with 
Benhadad's  promise  to  give  back  the  towns  taken  from  Omri 
by  Benhadad  I.  and  to  receive  a  resident  envoy  in  Damascus."^ 
For  the  fourth  time  in  this  Avar,  a  prophet  was  sent  to  Ahab  ; 
and,  after  obtaining  the  king's  judgment  against  himself  by 
the  ingenious  preparation  of  a  supposed  case,  he  told  the 
king  that  God  would  take  his  life  in  place  of  the  life  of  Ben- 
hadad.    So  Ahab  returned  to  Samaria  in  displeasure.'"'' 

The  peace  Avith  Syria  lasted  for  three  years,'"  but  it  does 
not  appear  that  Benhadad  restored  the  cities  as  lie  had 
promised.  At  length  Ahab  seized  the  opportunity  of  a  visit 
from  his  ally,  Jehoshaphat,  AA^hom  he  entertained  sumptuous- 
ly,"^ to  i^ropose  a  joint  expedition  for  the  recovery  of  Ramoth- 
gilead. ,  The  pious  King  of  Judah  proposed  to  consult  the 
word  of  Jehovah  ;  and  Ahab  tried  to  satisfy  him  by  summon- 
ing his  OAvn  400  prophets,  men  Avho  seem  to  have  been  trained 
as  prophets  of  Jehovah  and  to  have  spoken  in  His  name, 
Avhile  prostituting  their  ofiice  to  the  king's  pleasure.'"^  With 
one  A'oice  they  promised  Ahab  the  A^ctory  in  the.  name  of 
JehoA'ah.  Still  Jehoshaphat  asked  if  there  Avere  no  more 
prophets  of  JehoA^ah  ;  and  Ahab  remembered  a  certain  Mi- 
CAiAH,  tlie  son  of  Imlah,  Avliom,  hoAVCA'er,  he  hated,  as  he  Avas 


^'^  Now  Fik,  six  miles  east  of  the 
Lake  of  Galilee,  on  the  great  road 
from  Damascus  to  Samaria  and  Jeru- 
salem. Other  battles  were  fouglit 
there  with  Svria  (2  K.  xiii.  17). 

"^  1  K.  XX.  22-34. 


^""^  1  K.  XX.  35-43.    ^''  1  K.  xxii.  1. 

^"2  2  Chron.  xviii.  2. 

^^^  They  can  hardly  be  A'iewed  as 
pi'ophets  of  Baal,  whose  woi-ship  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  publicly  re- 
r.tored  after  its  overthrow  by  Elijah. 


628  The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.  Chap.  XXIII. 

always  a  prophet  of  evil.  He  sent  for  him,  apparently  out 
of  prison,  and  Micaiah  Avent,  declaring  that  he  must  speak 
the  vrord  which  Jehovah  should  put  into  his  mouth.  He 
found  the  two  kings  upon  their  thrones  in  their  robes  of 
state,  and  all  the  prophets  before  them,  one  of  whom,  Zede- 
kiah,  the  son  of  Chenaanah,  had  placed  horns  of  iron  on  his 
head-  .V  P'jhow  how  Ahab  should  push  the  Syrians  to  destruc- 
tiorec  Whether  through  fear  or  in  irony,  Micaiah  at  first 
chore  '  in  with  them  ;  but,  adjured  by  Ahab  to  tell  the  truth, 
Ipssemb-  )ld  the  king's  death  by  likening  Israel  to  a  flock 
without  a  shepherd  ;  and,  in  the  form  of  a  vision  like  that  at 
the  opening  of  the  Book  of  Job,  he  denounced  the  other 
prophets  as  possessed  by  a  l3ang  spirit  sent  by  God  to  de- 
ceive Ahab.  Upon  this  Zedekiah  struck  and  taunted  him, 
and  the  king  sent  him  back  to  the  dungeon,  while  Micaiah 
warned  both  of  their  coming  fate,  and  called  the  people  to 
witness  his  words. ^"  The  words  of  Micaiah  induced  Ahab 
to  disguise  himself  in  the  ensuing  battle  at  Ramoth-gilead, 
while  Jehoshaphat  wore  his  royal  robes.  Benhadad  had 
commanded  his  chariots  to  direct  all  their  force  against  the 
king,  and  Jehoshaphat  Avas  so  hard  pressed  that  he  only  es- 
caped by  crying  out  that  he  Avas  not  Ahab.  In  spite  of  his 
precautions,  Ahab  AA^as  mortally  Avounded  by  a  chance  shot 
from  a  boAV.  He  Avas  supported  in  his  chariot,  Avhile  the  bat- 
tle raged,  till  sunset,  and  then  he  died.  At  his  fall  the  cry 
"went  through  the  host,  "  Every  man  to  his  city  and  to  his 
country."  His  body  Avas  brought  to  Samaria,  and  there  bur- 
ied, but  not  till  the  Avords  spoken  by  Elijah  at  Naboth's  vine- 
yard were  fullilled  ;  for  as  his  chariot  Avas  Avashed  out  at  the 
pool  of  Samaria,  the  dogs  licked  \\\)  his  blood.  He  Avas  suc- 
ceeded by  his  son  Ahaziah."^ 

§  12.  Jehoshaphat  returned  to  Jerusalem  unmolested. 
The  severe  lesson  of  Ramoth-gilead  Avas  enforced  by  the 
prophet  Jehu,  Avho  met  him  on  the  AA^ay,  upbraiding  him  for 
his  alliance  Avith  those  Avho  hated  God,  but  praising  him  for 
his  piety.  The  king  addressed  himself  Avith  rencAved  zeal 
to  the  Avork  of  reformation.  He  went  in  person  through  liis 
kingdom  from  Beersheba  to  Mount  Ephraim,  reclaiming  the 

*'"  1  K.  xxii.  1-28  ;  2  Chron.  xviii.  in  such  a  manner  as  to  show  that  the 

1-27.  curse  foretold  l)y  Joshua  was  fulfill- 

^"*  About  B.C.  897  :  1  K.  xxii.  29-  ed  :— "  lie  laid  the  foundation  there- 

40;    2    Chron.  xix.  28-3-1.     Among  of  in  Abiram  his  first-born,  and  set  up 

The  events  of  Aliab's  reign,  the  sacred  the  gates  thereof  in  his  youngest  son 

historian  specially  records  the  rebuild-  Segub"  (I  K.  xvi.  o-i  ;    comp.  Josh, 

insf  of  Jericho  bV  Hid  the  Bethelite  vi.  20). 


B.C.  897.  The  Prophet  J aliaziel.  529 

people  to  the  God  of  their  fathers.  He  appointed  judges  in 
all  the  fortified  cities,  and  in  Jerusalem  he  established  a  court 
of  priests  and  Levites  and  heads  of  houses,  for  the  final  de- 
cision of  all  cases  relating  to  the  law  of  Jehovah.  At  the 
head  of  the  latter  he  set  the  high-priest  Amariah  for  all  re- 
ligious causes,  and  Zebadiah,  son  of  Ishmael,  tlie  prince  of 
Judah,  for  matters  relating  to  the  king.  To  both  ^^^,^^t.^ve  a 
charge  worthy  of  his  name.""  The  judges  throughou  „the 
land  were  reminded  that  they  judged  not  for  man  /ij.^i' 
God,  and  in  the  fear  of  Jehovah,  with  whom  "  there  [^^\^1> 
iquity^  nor  respect  of  persons^  nor  taking  of  gifts ;^''  anu  the 
supreme  court  was  Admonished  to  "  deal  courageously,  and 
Jehovah  shall  be  with  the  good.'"" 

Meanwhile  the  disaster  of  Ramoth-gilead  encouraged  the 
old  enemies  on  the  eastern  frontier.  The  Moabites,  the  Am- 
monites, with  the  people  of  Mount  Seir,  and  the  tribes  of  the 
neighboring  desert,  threw  oif  the  yoke  which  they  had  borne 
since  the  time  of  David.  We  read  of  two  campaigns,  the 
first  against  Jehoshaphat  by  a  league  of  all  these  tribes,  and 
the  second  against  Jehoram,  king  of  Israel,  and  Jehoshaphat 
as  his  ally,  by  the  King  of  Moab,  who  was  the.  vassal  of  Is- 
rael, as  Amnion  and  Edom  were  of  Judah.^*^* 

"When  word  was  brought  that  the  hordes  of  the  enemy 
were  at  En-gedi,  on  the  west  side  of  the  Dead  Sea,  Jehosha- 
phat proclaimed  a  fast  through  all  the  land,  and  in  a  congre- 
fation  of  all  Judah,  with  their  wives  and  children,  before  the 
emple,  he  ofiered  a  prayer  which  is  the  echo  of  Solomon's, 
appealing  to  God  not  to  let  the  heathen,  whom  he  had  driven 
out  before  His  people,  cast  them  out  of  His  possession  ;  for  so, 
m  the  true  spirit  of  the  covenant,  he  calls  their  land.  The 
answer  was  at  once  given  in  a  most  striking  and  unusual 
jorm.  In  the  midst  of  the  congregation,  the  Spirit  of  Jeho- 
vah fell  upon  Jahaziel,  the  son  of  Zechariah,  a  Levite  of  the 
family  of  Asaph,  and  he  cried  out  to  the  king,  with  all  Judah 
and  Jerusalem,  to  go  forth  on  the  morrow  to  a  victory  with- 
out a  battle ;  their  part  w^ould  be  only  to  "  stand,  and  see 
the  salvation  of  Jehovah."  The  king  bowed  his  face  to  the 
ground,  while  the  Levites  raised  a  lofty  song  of  thanksgiv- 
ing."^ With  renewed  songs  of  praise,  they  marched  forth 
in  the  morning  toward  the  wilderness  of  Tekoa,  Avhere,  at 
that  very  time,  a  strange  scene  of  slaughter  was  enacting. 


"^  Jehoshaphat=Jeliovah-shaphat, 
"  Jehovah  is  jndjie,"  or  "  the  judg- 
ment of  Jehovah." 

"^  2  Chron.  xix. 

z 


^"8  2  Chron.  xx.  ;  2  K.  iii. ;  comp- 
1  K.  xxii.  47. 

'°^  Some  refer  Vs.  xlviii.  and  xcii. 
to  this  occasion. 


530 


The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.   Chap.  XXIII, 


Confused  by  the  ambuscades  they  had  set  for  the  men  of 
Judah,  the  ditferent  nations  fell  one  upon  the  other.  The 
people  of  Moab  and  Ammon,  having  first  cut  to  pieces  the 
inhabitants  of  Mount  Seir,  turned  to  mutual  slaughter  ;  and, 
Avhen  the  men  of  Judah  approached,  and  their  scouts  looked 
out  from  the  watch-tower  over  the  wilderness,  the  whole  face 
of  the  "ground  was  covered  with  dead  bodies.  No  less  than 
thi:^c3  days  were  occupied  in  gathering  the  spoil,  which  was 
TOovQ  than  they  could  carry  away,  and  on  the  fourth  they 
-tRsemb.led  to  renew  their  songs  of  praise  in  the  valley  which 
was  thence  called  Berachah  (blessmr/)  ;  and  they  continued 
them  as  they  marched  back  to  Jerusalem,  and  up  to  the  house 
of  God,  with  Jehoshaphat  in  their  van.^^°  This  great  deliv- 
erance struck  terror  into  all  the  nations,  and  secured  peace 
to  Judah  for  the  rest  of  his  reign.  The  campaign  in  which 
he  aided  Jehoram  against  Moab  had  a  very  similar  issue."^ 
He  also  joined  Ahaziah  in  an  attempt  to  renew  the  maritime 
enterprises  of  Solomon  by  way  of  the  Red  Sea  ;  but  the  fleet 
was  Avrecked  at  Ezion-geber,  as  a  punishment  for  his  alliance 
with  Ahaziah,  according  to  the  word  of  the  prophet  Eliezek, 
son  of  Dodavah,  of  Mareshah,  and  Jehoshaphat  refused  Aha- 
ziah's  proposal  to  renew  the  attempt.  He  died,  and  was 
buried  with  his  fathers  in  the  city  of  David, ''^  leaving  his 
kingdom  to  his  unworthy  son  Jehoram,  who  had  already  been 
associated  in  the  government  during  the  last  years  of  his 
father's  life  (see  2  Kin^s  i.  17,  viii.  16).  His  name  is  pre- 
served in  the  "  valley  of  Jehoshaphat,"  the  deep  ravine  be- 
tween Jerusalem  and  the  Mount  of  Olives.  But  it  seems 
more  than  doubtful  whether  the  name  is  derived  from  him, 
and  is  not  rather  an  appellative,  signifying  the  great  judg- 
ment of  which  the  scene  is  laid  by  the  prophet  Joel  in  the 
"  Valley  of  the  Judgment  of  Jehovah.""' 

§  13.  Ahaziah,  the  eighth  king  of  Israel,  began  to  reign  in 
the  17th  year  of  Jehoshaphat,  and  reigned  two  years  in  Sa- 
maria."* He  was  the  son  of  Ahab  and  Jezebel ;  and  his  char- 
acter is  emphatically  described  by  the  words, "  he  walked  in 
the  way  of  his  father  and  of  his  mother,"  as  well  as  in  the 
way  of  Jeroboam.  Besides  worshiping  Baal,  he  sent  to  con- 
sult Baal-zebub,  the  god  of  Ekron,  when  he  Avas  dangerously 
ill  from  a  fall  through  a  lattice  of  his  palace.""  This  brings 
Elijah  again  upon  the  scene.     He  Avas  sent  by  God  to  meet 


'""  2  Chron.  xx.  1-28. 
^"  See  p.  r,3-t. 

"2  About  B.C.  889:   1  K.  xxii.  41- 
50  ;  2  Chron.  xx.  31-xxi.  1. 


"-'Joel   iii.  2;  sec   Bib.  Diet,  art, 
Jehoshaphat,  Valley  of. 

"•  B.C.  897-896:   1  K.  xxii.  51. 
^^^  2  Kings  i. 


B.C.  889. 


Last  Appearance  of  Elijah. 


531 


the  king's  messengers,  and  to  denounce  their  master's  death, 
because  he  had  inquired  of  an  idol,  as  if  there  were  not  a 
god  in  Israel.  The  prophet  was  not  personally  known  to  the 
messengers ;  but  from  their  description  of  him  as  "  a  hairy 
man,  girt  with  a  girdle  of  leather  about  the  loins,"  Ahaziah 
at  once  recognized  Elijah  the  Tishbite,  whcse  wild  form  and 
sharp  w^ords  had  been  the  terror  of  his  father's  court.  He 
sent  a  captain  of  fifty  wdth  his  band  to  seize  the  prophet. 
They  found  him  sitting  on  "  the  top  of  the  mount  "''®  (prob- 
ably Carmel),  and  the  captain,  seemingly  in  a  mocking  tone, 
called  to  him, "  Thou  man  of  God,  the  king  hath  said,  Come 
down."  "  If  I  be  a  man  of  God,"  said  Elijah,  "let  fire  come 
down  from  heaven,  and  consume  thee  and  thy  fifty :"  and  it 
was  done.  A  second  captain  of  fifty  went  and  repeated  the 
order  in  a  more  peremptory  form,  "  Come  dowm  qidckly^''  and 
he  had  the  same  fate.  The  third  implored  the  mercy  of  Eli- 
jah, who  at  God's  command  went  with  him,  and  repeated  to 
the  king  himself  w^hat  he  had  already  said  to  his  messengers. 
This  was  Elijah's  last  appearance  to  the  house  of  Ahab.  As 
he  had  predicted,  Ahaziah  never  rose  again  from  his  bed,  but 
died,  leaving  liis  kingdom  to  his  brother  Jehoram."^  His 
commercial  league  with  Jehoshaphat  has  already  been  men- 
tioned. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  sacred  narrative  introduces  one 
of  the  greatest  events  of  the  old  dispensation,  the  ascent  of 
Elijah.  The  chronology  is  intricate,  but  the  event  seems  to 
have  taken  place  about  the  time  of  Ahaziah's  death.  The 
chief  difticulty  arises  from  the  letter  which  Elijah  sent  to  Je- 
horam,  king  of  Judah,  prophesying  his  destruction  because  he 
followed  the  sins  of  the  house  of  Ahab,  This,  by  the  way,  is 
the  only  point  of  connection  between  Elijah  and  the  house  of 
David,  and  the  only  mention  of  his  name  in  Xh^Chroyiides^^^ 
Now  Jehoshaphat,  the  father  of  Jehoram,  took  part  in  the 
campaign  which  is  related  after  Elijah's  ascension,  and  in 
which  too  Elisha  appears  as  the  prophet.  That  Elisha  ever 
left  his  attendance  upon  Elijah  to  act  in  public,  before  he  re- 
ceived the  prophet's  mantle,  is  a  supposition  quite  unwar- 
ranted by  the  history.  That  the  letter  of  Elijah  to  Jehoram 
was  written  before  but  delivered  after  his  ascension,  is  a  vio- 
lent assumption."'  The  true  and  simple  exjilanation  is,  that 
Jehoram  began  to  reign  over  Judah  some  years  before  his 


"^  In  onv  version,  erroneonslv,  "an 
hill."  "'2K.1.17. 

^'«  2  Chron.  xxi.  12-15.  This, 
"writing,"  is  quite  in  Elijah's  tone, 


and  its  style   is  materially  different 
from  that  of  the  context. 

"^  See    the    marginal    note    to    2 
Chron.  xxi.  12,  in  our  version. 


532  The  Kingdoms  of  Jadah  and  Israel.  Chap.  XXIII. 

father's  death,  as  we  have  ah-eacly  seen.  There  is  therefore 
no  reason  to  depart  from  the  order  of  the  narrative  in  Kings. 
When  the  time  had  come  that  God  had  appointed,  to  "  take 
up  Elijah  into  heaven  by  a  whirlwind,"  the  prophet  was  Avith 
Elisha  at  Gilgal.'^"  We  know  not  what  intimation  he  had 
received  of  tlie  manner  of  his  departure ;  but  thus  much  is 
clear,  that  he  desired  to  end  his  life,  as  he  had  passed  its 
greater  portion,  in  solitude  with  God.'^'  But  his  devoted 
servant  had  also  been  forewarned  of  his  loss,  and  persisted  in 
foUownig  him  to  Bethel.'^''  There  the  sons  of  the  prophets 
meet  Elisha  with  the  words,  "  Knowest  thou  that  Jehovah 
will  take  away  thy  master  from  thy  head  to-day  ?"  and  lie 
answers,  "J  do  Jcnoio  it :  liold  ye  your  peace."  The  same 
scene  is  repeated  at  Jericho,  where  Elijah  again  fruitlessly 
asks  Elisha  to  stay  behind.  They  went  on  to  Jordan,  while 
fifty  of  the  sons  of  the  prophets  came  out  to  gaze  after  them 
across  the  plain.  Arrived  at  the  river's  edge,  Elijah  rolled 
up  his  sheepskin  mantle,  and  smote  the  water,  which  parted, 
as  long  ago  before  the  ark,  and  they  walked  through  on  dry 
ground.  At  the  moment  of  passing  the  river,  they  exchanged 
their  last  words.  Elisha,  desired  to  name  a  parting  gift,  asks 
that  a  double  portion  of  Elijah's  spirit  may  rest  upon  him ; 
that  is,  that  he  may  not  only  succeed  to  the  prophetic  office, 
but  be  made  the  true  heir  of  the  power  to  work  miracles, 
and  turn  the  hearts  of  Israel  to  their  forsaken  God.^^^  "  Thou 
hast  asked  a  hard  (or  bold)  thing,"  said  Elijah;  "if  thou  see 
me  taken  from  thee,  it  shall  be  so  unto  thee ;  but  if  not,  it 
shall  not  be  so."  They  were  still  talking  as  they  walked  for- 
ward, when  Elisha  found  himself  separated  from  his  master 
by  a  chariot  and  horses  of  fire;  and  Elijah  was  borne  up  on 
the  wings  of  the  storm  to  the  vault  of  heaven.^"     Elisha  saw 

^^"  Apparently  not  the  celebrated'.  ^"^  This  seems  to  be  the  true  mean- 
place  near  Jordan,  but  one  of  thejinp:,  according  to  the  analo^^y  of  the 
same  name  on  the  western  edge  of  ^  ancient  law  of  inheritance)  Dcut.xxi.). 
Mount  Ephraim,  fifteen  miles  north  i  Taking  it  more  literally,  S.  Peter  Da- 
of  Diospolis  (Lydda),  the  ruins  of  i  mianus  and  others  have  endeavored 
which  still  bear  the  name  o?  Ji/jilieh.  !  to  show  that  all  that  Elijah  did  was 


Wliy  should  we  faint,  and  fear 
to  live  alone, 
Since  all  alone,  so  Heaven 
has  willed,  we  die  ? 
Not  even  tlie  tenderest  heart, 
and  next  our  own, 
Knows  lialf  the  reasons  why 
we  smile  and  sigh." 
Keble,  Christian  Ye-xr,  Twenty-fourth 
Sunday  after  Trinity.   '-''  2  K.  ii.  2,  3. 


donbled  by  Elisha  ;  that  the  former 
wrought  twelve  miracles,  the  latter 
twenty-four,  and  so  forth. 

^'^  Some  readers  may  need  to  bo 
reminded  that  "heaven,"  in  this  pas- 
sage and  in  the  accounts  of  Christ'^ 
Ascension,  means  the  visible  sky. 
Into  that  alone  were  they  seen  to  en- 
ter; all  beyond  is  the  province  of 
faith. 


B.C.  80G.  Ministry  of  Elisha.  5o3 

him  before  he  vanished  in  the  sky,  and  rending  his  clothes 
uttered  the  bitter  outcry  of  a  bereaved  son,  "My  father! 
my  father !  The  chariot  of  Israel,  and  the  horsemen  thereof!" 
He  saw  the  meaning  of  the  chariot  sent  to  convey  him  who 
had  been  the  true  strength  of  Israel  against  her  own  kings, 
who  trusted  in  forbidden  chariots  and  horses.  He  saw  too 
that  his  last  prayer  to  his  master  was  granted :  he  took  up 
the  mantle  which  Elijah  had  let  fall,  and  at  once  put  his  pow- 
er to  the  proof  by  again  dividing  the  waters  of  Jordan  on 
his  return  to  Jericho,  where  the  prophets,  who  had  remained 
Avatching,  welcomed  him  as  the  successor  of  Elijah.  The 
prophets  sent  fifty  active  men  in  search  of  Elijah,  thinking 
that  God  might  have  carried  him  away  to  some  lonely  mount- 
ain, though  Elisha  warned  them  that  it  would  be  in  vain ; 
and  his  word  was  confirmed  by  the  return  of  the  messengers 
after  three  days.  Elisha's  stay  at  Jericho  was  marked  by  a 
miracle,  which  the  local  tradition  commemorates  to  the  pres- 
ent day,  the  cure  of  the  bitter  Avater  of  one  of  the  two  springs 
that  rise  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  behind  the  town  by  casting 
into  it  a  new  cruse  of  salt.  Thence  he  returned  by  the  way  he 
had  followed  with  Elijah  to  Bethel ;  and  at  this  seat  of  the 
calf-worship  of  Jeroboam,  he  received  an  insult  which  is  thus 
related  by  one  familiar  with  the  spot.  The  road  to  the  town 
Avinds  up  the  defile  of  the  Wady  Smceiriit  under  the  hill 
Avhich  still  bears  Avhat  in  all  probability  are  the  ruins  of  Ai, 
and  which,  even  noAV  retaining  some  trees,  Avas  at  that  date 
shaded  by  a  thick  forest,  the  haunt  of  saA^age  animals.  Here 
the  boys  of  the  tOAvn  Avere  clustered,  Avaiting,  as  they  still 
Avait  at  the  entrance  of  the  A^Uages  of  Palestine,  for  the  chance 
passer-by.  In  the  short-trimmed  locks  of  Elisha,  hoAV  Avere 
they  to  recognize  the  successor  of  the  prophet,  Avith  Avhoso 
shaggy  hair,  streaming  over  his  shoulders,  they  Avere  all  fa- 
miliar ?  So,  Avith  the  license  of  the  Eastern  children,  they 
scoflf  at  the  ncAA^-comer  as  he  Avalks  by,  "  Go  up,  roundhead  !'"^ 
go  up,  roundhead !"  For  once  Elisha  assumed  the  stern- 
ness of  his  master.  "  He  turned  back,  and  looked  on  them, 
and  cursed  them  in  the  name  of  Jehovah,  and  there  came 
forth  two  she-bears  out  of  the  Avood,  and  tore  forty-and-two 
children  of  them.'""  There  is  nothing  to  shoAV  that  these 
"  children  "  AA^ere  too  young  to  be  responsible  for  their  Avan- 
tonness,  Avhich  Avas  probably  meant  to  try  Avhether  the  ncAV 
prophet  might  be  more  safely  insulted  than  his  predecessor. 
From  Bethel  Elisha  returned  to  Carmel,  and  thence  he  AA^ent 

^-'  This  is  the  true  translation,  not  "  baldliead,"  as  in  our  version. 
"«  2  K.  ii.  23-24. 


53-J:  The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel,  Chap.  XXIII. 

to  dwell  at  Samaria/"  being  fully  recognized  as  the  new 
prophet. 

§14.  Jehoram  (abbreviated  Joram),  the  ninth  king  of  Is- 
rael, was  the  son  of  Ahab  and  Jezebel,  and  the  successor  of 
his  brother  Ahaziah.  His  accession  is  marked  by  a  twofold 
date — in  the  eighteenth  year  of  Jehoshaphat,  king  of  Judah, 
and  the  second  year  of  Jehoram,  the  son  of  Jehoshaphat,  that 
is,  the  second  year  of  Jehoram's  association  with  his  father 
in  the  kingdom.  He  reigned  twelve  years  at  Samaria.'""'* 
He  maintained  a  close  alliance  with  Judah,  and  it  Avas  per- 
haps by  the  influence  of  Jehoshaphat  that  he  was  a  shade 
better  than  his  father  and  his  brother.  He  removed  Ahab's 
image  of  Baal,  but  he  still  maintained  the  idolatries  of  Jero- 
boam.'" 

The  defeat  of  Ahab  at  Ramoth,  and  the  consequent  do- 
minion of  the  Syrians  in  the  country  east  of  Jordan,  had  en- 
couraged Mesha,  the  king  of  Moab,  to  revolt  from  Israel,  and  to 
refuse  his  annual  tribute  of  100,000  lambs  and  100,000  rams. 
Ahaziah's  illness  had  prevented  him  from  taking  the  field, 
but  Jehoram  applied  for  help  to  Jehoshaphat,  through  whose 
territory  it  was  now  necessary  to  march  to  reach  Moab  on 
the  east,  by  way  of  the  wilderness  of  Edom.  The  King  of 
Edom,  the  vassal  of  Judah,  joined  the  expedition.  After  a 
seven  days'  march  through  the  desert,  the  armies  were  with- 
out water.  The  pious  Jehoshaphat  longed  to  consult  a  j^roph- 
et  of  Jehovah,  and  it  was  found  that  Elisha,  the  son  of  Sha- 
phat, "  which  poured  water  on  the  hands  of  Elijah,"  Avas  in 
the  camp  of  Israel.  It  Avas  only  after  sternly  bidding  Jeho- 
ram to  resort  to  the  prophets  of  his  father  and  mother  that 
Elisha  consented,  for  the  sake  of  Jehoshaphat,  to  give  an  an- 
swer. He  called  for  a  minstrel,  and  as  he  played,  the  Spirit 
of  Jehovah  came  upon  the  prophet.  Bidding  them  dig  trench- 
es all  over  the  plain,  he  promised  that  God  Avould  give  them 
not  only  AA^ater,  but  a  complete  victory  over  Moab.  In  the 
night  the  trenches  Avere  dug,  and  at  the  time  of  the  morning 
sacrifice  Avater  floAved  into  them  from  the  hills  of  Edom,  so 
that  the  Avhole  plain  looked  like  a  lake.  As  the  Moabites  ad- 
vanced to  meet  the  enemy,  the  red  rays  of  the  rising  sun,  re- 
flected from  the  Avater,  thrcAV  a  liue  of  blood  on  the  wliole 


^"  2  K.  ii.  25. 

^=«B.c.  896-884;  2  K.  i.  17,  iii.  1. 
The  occurrence  of  the  same  names 
(as  ajjain  Ahadah)  marks  the  connec- 
tion of  the  two  families  ;  and  the  in- 
fluence of  Jehoshaphat  is  pi-obably  to 
be   traced   in  the   choice   of  such  a 


name  as  Jehoram  {Exalted  by  Jehovah, 
or  Jehovah  is  exalted).  May  it  not  be 
that  the  birth  of  Jehoram,  and  the 
alliance  of  Ahab  with  Jehoshaphat, 
took  place  about  the  time  of  l*^lij:ih'ri 
victory  over  the  prophets  of  Baal  ? 
'2^  2  K.  iii.  2,  3. 


J3.C.  895.  Miraculous  Defeat  of  Moajb.  535 

plain.  They  remembered  the  recent  slaughter  which  they 
had  shared  with  the  Ammonites  and  Edomites,  and  thought 
that  the  allied  armies  had  been  destroyed  by  a  like  panic,  and 
raised  the  cry,  "  Now,  therefore,  Moab,  to  the  spoil !"  Rush- 
ing in  disorder  upon  the  camp,  they  were  met  by  the  whole 
army,  and  were  pursued  into  their  own  country  with  immense 
slaughter.  The  victory  was  followed  uj)  by  an  exterminat- 
ing war.  The  cities  of  Moab  were  razed,  and  their  stones 
thrown  into  the  corn-fields ;  the  wells  were  filled,  and  the 
fruit-trees  were  cut  down.  The  only  refuge  left  Avas  the 
city  of  Kir-haraseth ;  and  even  this  was  on  the  point  of  be- 
ing taken  by  storm,  when  the  King  of  Moab,  with  700  chosen 
Avarriors,  tried  to  cut  his  way  through  to  reach  the  King  of 
Edom,but  he  was  driven  back  into  the  city.  He  resorted  to 
the  forlorn  hope  of  his  horrid  superstition.  Mounting  the 
wall,  in  sight  of  the  besiegers,  he  oftered  his  eldest  son  and 
heir  as  a  burnt-ofiering  to  Moloch.  It  would  seem  that  this 
act  of  despair  roused  the  sympathy  of  the  Edomites,  as  well 
as  the  horror  of  Jehoshaphat :  "  There  was  great  indigna- 
tion against  Israel ;  and  they  departed  from  him,  and  return- 
ed to  their  own  land :"  and  the  next  Ave  hear  of  the  relations 
between  the  allies  is  the  revolt  of  Edom  from  the  King  of 
Judah.^^" 

To  Elisha's  aid  in  this  Avar  may  probably  be  ascribed  those 
friendly  relations  betAveen  Jehorara  and  the  prophet  Avhicli 
belong  to  the  history  of  the  latter.  Indeed  the  deeds  of  Elisha 
filled  the  greater  part  of  the  annals  of  Israel  under  Jehoram. 
We  need  not  repeat  here  the  simple  and  familiar  narratiA^e 
of  his  multiplying  the  oil  of  a  prophet's  AA^doAV,  to  saA'e  her 
and  her  two  sons  from  the  hard  creditor ;  the  hospitality  he 
received  fromji  great  lady  of  Shunem,  to  Avhom  a  son  was 
first  granted  at  the  prophet's  prayer,  and  by  the  same  prayer 
her  dead  son  Avas  bi'ought  to  life  again ;  his  healing  of  the 
poisoned  pottage  for  the  sons  of  the  prophets  at  Gilgal ;  his 
multiplication  of  the  tAventy  barley-loaA^es  and  ears  of  corn 
for  the  famished  people  of  that  place  ;''^  and  his  causing  the 
iron  axe-head  that  had  fallen  into  the  Jordan  to  SAvim  to  the 
surface."*  The  exquisite  narrative  of  the  healing  of  Naaman's 
leprosy,  and  the  punishment  of  Gehazi's  covetousness,  brings 
us  back  to  the  affairs  of  the  state,  and  shoAVS  Israel  harassed 
by  predatory  incursions  from  Damascus,  and  the  King  of 

^^°  2  K.  iii. ;  comp.  viii.  20.  ;  fr-od,  and  healing  the  leper.     Two  of 

"*  2  K.  iv.     Three  of  Elisha's  mir-   these  had  been  performed  also  by  Eli- 

acles  foreshadowed  those  of  Christ;  i  jab,  bnt  the  last  by  Elisha  only. 

raising  the  dead  to  life,  multiplying  j      ^=- 2  K.  vi.  1-7. 


536  The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.  Chap.  XXIII. 

Syria  issuing  his  mandates  in  a  tone  which  the  King  of  Israel 
bitterly  resents/^^  During  these  incursions  Jehoram  was 
saved  more  than  once  by  the  warning  of  Elisha  from  being 
taken  prisoner  by  the  Syrian  bands.  Enraged  at  being  thus 
baffled  by  the  prophet,  who,  as  a  courtier  told  the  King  of 
Syria,  could  "  tell  the  King  of  Israel  the  Avords  that  thou 
speakest  in  thy  bed-chamber,"  Benhadad  sent  a  great  force 
to  seize  him  at  Dothan.  During  the  night  the  Syrian  chariots 
encompassed  the  base  of  the  hill,  on  which  the  ruins  of  the 
city  still  stand,  and  in  the  morning  Elisha's  terrified  servant 
came  to  tell  him  that  they  were  surrounded.  The  young- 
man's  eyes  were  opened  at  the  prophet's  prayer,  and  he  saw 
the  whole  mountain  full  of  chariots  of  fire  and  horses  of  fire, 
guarding  his  master ;  the  oft-quoted  emblem  of  those  bands 
wherewtth  "  the  angel  of  Jehovah  encampeth  round  about 
them  that  fear  Him  and  delivereth  them.'"'*  As  the  Syrians 
drew  near,  they  were  struck  blind,  and  Elisha  led  them  to 
Samaria,  where  he  restored  their  sight.  By  his  command  the 
King  of  Israel  fed  them  and  sent  them  home  again,  and  the 
result  was  a  cessation  of  the  predatory  attacks  from  Syria. '^^ 
Thus  far  we  see  Jehoram,  who  had  put  down  the  worship 
of  Baal,  upheld  against  all  his  enemies  by  the  power  of  Je- 
hovah through  the  friendship  of  Elisha.  But  now  comes  a 
great  change,  which  we  can  not  well  be  wrong  in  ascribing 
to  his  relapse  into  the  idolatry  which  we  find  restored  at  the 
close  of  his  reign.  Not  yet  however  is  he  forsaken  by  God. 
His  great  enemy  j^resses  him  harder  than  CA'er :  Samaria 
suffers  a  siege,  unequaled  in  horror  till  the  final  catastrophe 
of  Jerusalem :  the  king  vents  his  rage  upon  Elisha,  who  had 
probably  foretold  the  visitation  ;  but  the  cruel  purpose  of 
"  this  son  of  a  murderer,"  as  the  prophet  terms  him,  is  re- 
buked by  Elisha's  prophecy  of  the  plenty  that  is  to  visit  the 
famished  city  on  the  morrow — a  prophecy  fulfilled  by  the 
panic  flight  of  the  Syrian  host  during  the  night.  No  inci- 
dent in  Scripture  history  is  more  picturesque  than  the  de~ 
spairing  visit  of  the  four  lepers  to  the  deserted  camp.  "  If 
we  sit  still  here,  we  die  !  If  they  save  us  alive,  we  shall  live ; 
and  if  they  kill  us,  we  shall  but  die  !'"''  The  date  of  these 
events  may  be  fixed,  with  great  probability,  to  the  fifth  year 
of  Jehoram's  reign  ;  on  the  assumption  that  his  last  seven 
years  coincided  with  the  seven  years'  famine  foretold  by  Eli- 


"^  2  K.  V.  Neither  king  is  named, 
but  they  were  clearly  Benhadad  II. 
and  Jehornin, 


"*  Ps.  xxxiv.  7,  Ixviii.  17;    Gen. 
xxxii.  1,2;  Zech.  vi.  1-7,  ix.  8. 


1  K.  vi.  8-23. 


K.  vi.  vil 


B.C.  892.  fJoram  King  of  Judali.  637 

sha,  probably  as  another  visitation  for  the  king's  apostasy.'" 
And  now  the  time  was  come  for  the  judgments,  long  since 
revealed  by  God  to  Elijah,  to  fall  upon  all  the  chief  actors  in 
the  horrid  drama  of  which  the  family  of  Ahab  is  the  centre, 
and  Jezebel  their  evil  genius ;  on  that  house  itself,  on  its 
enemy  Benhadad,  and  its  allies  of  the  apostate  family  of  Da- 
vid, to  w^hom  we  must  now  turn,  to  understand  their  share  in 
the  catastrophe. 

§  15.  Jehoeam,  the  fifth  king  of  Judah,  seems  to  have  reign- 
ed in  conjunction  with  his  father  for  about  three  years.  We 
have  seen  how  the  necessity  of  this  supposition  is  involved 
in  the  date  assigned  to  his  namesake  of  Israel ;  and  it  is  ex- 
pressly stated  that  Jehoshaphat  was  still  King  of  Judah 
when  his  son  Joram  began  to  reign,  at  the  age  of  thirty-two, 
in  the  fifth  year  of  Joram,  king  of  Israel.  He  reigned  eight 
years  at  Jerusalem. ^^^  Through  his  ill-fated  marriage  with 
Athaliah,  the  daughter  of  Ahab  and  Jezebel,  he  thoroughly 
imbibed  the  spirit  of  that  evil  house.  He  set  up  the  worship 
of  Baal  in  the  high  places,  and  prostituted  the  daughters  of 
Judah  to  the  infamous  rites  of  Ashtoreth.  His  reign  would 
liave  been  the  last  of  the  Jewish  monarchy,  had  not  God  re- 
membered his  covenant  with  David,  and  forborne  to  cut  off 
his  house.  But  he  was  visited  with  judgments  only  short  of 
such  a  catastrophe.^^"  Elijah's  last  public  act  was  to  send 
him  the  letter  we  have  already  mentioned,  predicting  his 
death  by  a  loathsome  disease,  ancl  the  destruction  of  his  whole 
house.  The  latter  was  a  fit  retribution  for  his  own  atrocity 
to  his  father's  house.  Jehoshaphat  had  placed  his  six  young- 
er sons  in  fortified  cities  of  Judah,  besides  giving  them  large 
presents  in  gold,  silver,  and  jewels,  while  he  gave  the  king- 
dom to  Jehoram.^""  But  as  soon  as  Jehoshaphat  was  dead, 
Jehoram  murdered  all  his  brothers — the  first  example  of  that 
abominable  mode  of  avoiding  a  disputed  succession.  The  first 
calamity  of  his  reign  was  the  revolt  of  Edom.  Marching  with 
his  whole  force,  he  got  hemmed  in  by  the  Edomites ;  and, 
though  he  extricated  himself  by  a  successful  night  attack,  the 
province  was  lost.  Edom  became  again  an  independent  state 
under  its  own  king,  as  Isaac  had  predicted ;  and  though,  fifty 
years  later,  Amaziah  overran  the  country,  took  Petra,  and 
massacred  many  of  the  people,  they  were  never  again  sub- 
jugated to  Judah.     Next  came  the  revolt  of  Libnah,  a  forti- 

"^  1  K.viii.  ]-G.  ^""^  1  K.viii.  18,  19;  2Chr.  xxi.  6,  7. 

"«  B.C.  892-885  :   2  K.  viii.  1 7  ;  2  "°  2  Chron.  xxi.  2.    The  terms  used 

Chron.  xxi.  5.     lie  began  to   reign  seem  to  imply  a  division  made  during 

alone  in  B.C.  889.  tlie  lifetime  of  Jeliosliaphat. 

z  ^. 


538 


TJie  Kingdoms  of  Judali  and  Israel,  (''hap.  XXIIt 


fied  city  of  Judali,  perhaps  one  of  those  that  had  belonged  to 
the  princes,  rising  to  avenge  their  murder.  Then  the  kingdom 
was  nearly  overthrown  by  a  great  invasion  of  the  Philistines 
and  Arabians,  who  had  been  tributary  to  Jehoshaphat,'"  and 
who  now  stormed  and  plundered  the  king's  palace,  and  mas- 
sacred or  carried  oif  all  his  wives  and  children  except  his 
youngest  son  Ahaziah.  The  last  infliction  Avas  a  loathsome 
and  incurable  disease  of  the  bowels,  of  Avhich  he  died,  "  and 
departed  without  being  regretted."  He  was  buried  in  the 
city  of  David,  but  not  in  the  sepulchre  of  the  kings,  and  no 
odors  were  burned  at  his  funeral.  He  died  in  the  tAvelfth  year 
of  Joram,  king  of  Israel,  and  Avas  succeeded  by  his  son  Aha- 
ziah.'" 

§  16.  Ahaziah  (properly  Achaziah),  the  sixth  king  of  Ju- 
dah,  was  twenty-tAvo  years  old  at  his  accession,  and  reigned 
only  one  year.'"  Being  the  son  of  Athaliah,  daughter  of 
Ahab,  he  Avas  nephew  to  Jehoram,  king  of  Israel,  a  conjunc- 
tion Avhich  threatened  the  establishment  of  idolatry  in  botli 
kingdoms ;  for  Ahaziah  Avas  addicted  to  all  the  evil  practices 
of  the  house  of  Ahab.  But,  as  if  the  presence  of  Ahab's 
grandson  on  the  throne  of  David  had  filled  up  the  measure 
of  God's  forbearance,  both  kings  Avere  cut  off  by  one  stroke. 
Toward  the  end  of  the  seven  years'  famine  already  mentioned, 
Elisha  Avas  sent  to  Damascus  to  designate  Hazael,  a  high  of- 
ficer at  the  court  of  Benhadad  II.,  as  the  future  king  of  Syr- 
ia.'^* There  is  something  strange  in  this  appointment  of  a 
heathen  king,  the  murderer  of  his  master,  and  the  cruel  ene- 
my of  Israel,  by  the  prophet  of  Jehovah.  Nor  Avas  Elijah 
himself  insensible  of  this,  for  he  shed  tears  of  grief  and  shame 
as  he  thought  of  the  Avork  to  Avhich  Hazael  Avas  ordained. 
He  was  appointed  by  God  the  minister  of  his  proA'idence  to 
execute  His  A\"i"ath  on  the  house  of  Ahab ;  and  so  Cyrus,  as 
the  destroyer  of  Babylon  and  the  restorer  of  Judah,  is  called 
"  the  anointed  of  Jehovah,"  though  he  knew  him  not.     Ben- 


"'  Comp.  2  Chron.  xvii.  11. 

"^  B.C.  885:  2  K.  viii.  16-19;  2 
Clivon.  xxi, 

"'  B.C.  885-4.  He  had  already 
reigned  one  year,  daring  his  father's 
illness  (2  K.  ix.  29  ;  2  Chron.  xxii.  1- 
4).  His  age,  foriy-two,  in  the  latter 
passage,  is  a  manifest  error  of  a  copy- 
ist. It  makes  him  older  than  his  fa- 
ther. The  name  Azariah,  in  2  Chron. 
xxii.  G,  is  a  similar  error.  In  2 
Chron.  xxi.  1 7  he  is  called  Jehoahaz  : 


hut  the  LXX.  has  '0;i;oC'fif  =  Achazi- 
ah, and  the  Peshito,  Chaldce.  and 
Arabic  have  similar  forms. 

"•*  Probably  B.C.  886  or  885  :  2  K. 
viii.  7-15.  The  question  whether  this 
was  the  long-deferred  execution  of  the 
command  to  Elijah  (1  K.  xix.  15),  or 
a  second  anointing,  both  in  the  case 
of  Hazael  and  Jehu,  can  iiardly  be 
determined.  An  argument  for  the  lat- 
ter view  is  absence  of  any  mention  of 
anointiny  in  this  part  of  the  narrative. 


B.C.  885.  Hazael  murders  Benliadad.  53^ 

hadad  was  lying  ill,  when  he  heard  of  Elisha's  coming ;  and 
he  sent  Hazael,  with  presents  that  loaded  forty  camels,  to  in- 
quire of  the  man  of  God  about  his  recovery.  The  reply  was 
an  enigma,  suited  not  to  suggest,  but  to  unveil  the  treacher- 
ous thoughts  of  Hazael.  "  Tell  him  he  may  recover  " — his 
illness  is  not  mortal — "but  Jehovah  hath  showed  me  that  he 
shall  die,"  said  the  prophet,  with  a  look  that  made  Hazael 
blush  for  shame.  Then,  with  a  burst  of  grief,  the  prophet 
foretold  the  cruelties  that  would  be  inflicted  on  God's  people 
by  Hazael,  who  exclaimed, "  What,  is  thy  servant  a  dog,  that 
he  should  do  these  monstrous  deeds?"  "And  yet  he  did 
them,"  says  one  of  our  old  divines,  pointing  the  moral  lesson 
for  all  ages.  Elisha  replied  by  plainly  announcing  that  Ha- 
zael should  be  king  of  Syria.  Then  followed  the  catastrophe, 
of  which  history  gives  many  other  examples,  and  which  our 
great  poet  has  idealized  in  the  tragedy  of  Macbeth,  when 
ambition  plunges  men  into  crime  under  the  specious  pretext 
of  destiny.  Hazael  gave  Benhadad  the  assurance  that  he 
should  recover,  and  the  next  day  he  suflbcated  him  with  a 
cloth  dipped  in  water,  and  usurped  the  kingdom. 

It  was  probably  amid  the  confusion  of  this  change  of  dy- 
nasty that  Jehoram,  king  of  Israel,  with  Ahaziah  as  his  ally, 
took  possession  of  Ramoth-gilead,  the  scene  of  Ahab's  death. 
•Jehoram  was  wounded  in  a  battle  Avith  the  Syrians,  and  re- 
turned to  Jezreel  to  be  healed,  and  Ahaziah  soon  afterward 
went  to  visit  him.  Their  absence  from  the  army  gave  the 
opportunity  for  their  destruction.  Elisha  sent  one  of  the 
sons  of  the  prophets  to  Ramoth-gilead  to  anoint  Jehu,  son 
of  Jehoshaphat  son  of  Nimshi,  one  of  the  captains  of  the  army, 
to  be  king  of  Israel,  according  to  the  word  of  God  to  Elijah. 
Calling  Jehu  out  of  the  court  where  the  captains  were  as- 
sembled into  an  inner  room,  the  prophet  discharged  his  office 
and  then  fled.  Jehu  returned  to  his  comrades,  and,  after  try- 
ing to  pass  ofl"  the  visit  as  a  madman's  freak,  he  told  them 
what  had  happened.  This  was  the  signal  for  revolt.  The 
captains  spread  their  cloaks  as  a  carpet  of  state  on  the  toj) 
of  the  stairs  which  mount  from  the  inner  court  of  an  Eastern 
house  to  the  roof;  there  they  placed  Jehu  in  sight  of  the 
army,  blew  the  trumpets,  and  shouted  "  Jehu  is  king."  After 
taking  precautions  to  prevent  any  one  leaving  Ramoth-gilead 
to  carry  the  news,  Jehu  mounted  his  chariot  and  drove  head- 
long to  Jezreel.  The  approach  of  his  party  was  announced 
by  the  watchman,  and  Joram  sent  out  a  horseman  to  meet 
them.  To  the  question, "  Is  it  peace  ?"  Jehu  answered,  "  What 
hast  thou  to  do  with  ueace  ?  turn  thee  behind  me  I"     A  sec- 


540  The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.  Chap.  XXIII. 

end  messenger  was  seen  to  follow  Jehu  in  the  same  fashion. 
By  this  time  they  were  near  enough  for  the  watchman  to 
recognize  Jehu  by  his  furious  driving,  the  sign  of  his  impetu- 
ous character.  Joram  ordered  his  chariot  in  haste,  and  went 
forth  with  Ahaziah.  They  met  Jehu  at  a  fatal  spot,  the  field 
of  Xaboth  the  Jezreelite.  Jehoram,  who  perhaps  still  thought 
that  Jehu  had  come  with  tidings  from  the  army,  again  ask- 
ed, "  Is  it  peace  ?"  "  What  peace,"  retorted  Jehu,  "  so  long 
as  the  whoredoms  of  thy  mother  Jezebel  and  her  witchcrafts 
are  so  many  ?"  Crying  to  Ahaziah,  "  there  is  treachery,"  Jo- 
ram  fled ;  but  an  arrow  from  Jehu's  bow  entered  his  back  and 
came  out  through  his  heart,  and  he  fell  dead  in  his  chariot. 
Then  Jehu  reminded  Bidkar.  his  charioteer,  how  they  had 
ridden  together  behind  Ahab  when  Elijah  laid  upon  him  the 
burden  of  judgment  at  that  spot,  and  bade  him  cast  Joram's 
body  into  the  plot  which  his  father  had  seized  by  Naboth's 
murder,  to  be  devoured  by  the  dogs,  while  he  himself  rode 
on  to  Jezreel  to  execute  vengeance  upon  Jezebel.  Even  then 
the  spirit  of  the  aged  queen,  who  had  defied  Elijah  in  the 
hour  of  his  triumph,  did  not  quail.  In  her  royal  head-dress, 
and  with  painted  eyebrows,  she  looked  down  from  the  lat- 
ticed window  of  her  palace  on  the  city  wall,  and  saluted  Jehu 
with  the  taunt,  "Had  Zimri  peace,  who  slew  his  lord?"'*^ 
But  she  too  had  traitors  in  her  palace  ;  and,  at  the  call  of 
Jehu,  two  or  three  of  her  eunuchs  dashed  her  down  from  the 
lattice.  Her  blood  bespattered  the  city  wall,  and  Jehu  drove 
his  chariot  over  her  mangled  corpse,  which  was  left  in  the 
space  before  the  city  into  which  ofial  is  thrown  from  the  walls 
to  be  devoured  by  the  dogs.  It  was  not  till  Jehu  had  sat 
down  to  feast  with  his  comrades  that  he  bade  some  of  his 
soldiers  to  "  go  and  see  after  the  cursed  woman  and  bury  her, 
for  she  was  a  king's  daughter."  They  went,  and  found  that 
the  dogs  had  left  nothing  but  her  skull  and  feet,  and  the 
palms  of  her  hands.  Her  fate  recalled  to  Jehu's  memory  the 
words  of  Elijah  concerning  her,  which  he  repeats  with  even 
greater  minuteness  than  the  original  historian,  so  strong  an 
impression  had  they  made  upon  him.^^"  Thus  perished  this 
remarkable  woman,  distinguished  above  all  the  other  mon- 
sters of  her  sex  for  never  having  betrayed  a  feeling  of  re- 
morse. Her  name  is  used  by  St.  John  as  a  type  of  the  worst 
form  of  spiritual  wickedness,  and  after-ages  have  made  it  a 
proverb.  There  were  still  seventy  sons  of  Ahab  left  at  Sa- 
maria; and  Jehu  sent  letters  to  their  governors  and  to  the 

"^  Or,  "  Is  it  peace,  O  Zimri,  slaver  of  his  lord  ?"  (LXX.). 
""  '2  K.  ix.  30-37  ;  comp.  1  K.  xxi.  23. 


B.C.  S84.  JjJxtinction  of  Allah's  House.  541 

elders  of  Samaria,  ironically  challenging  them  to  set  up  one 
of  the  seventy  for  king.  On  their  promising  submission,  a 
second  letter  ordered  them  to  bring  liim  the  heads  of  all  the 
seventy  to  Jezreel  on  the  morrow.  They  were  brought  and 
piled  in  two  heaps  on  each  side  of  the  gate,  and  when  the 
people  assembled  in  the  morning,  Jehu  appealed  to  them,  "  I 
conspired  against  my  master  and  slew  him,  but  who  slew  all 
these  ?" — thus  committing  them  to  a  full  share  in  the  massa- 
cre. AH  that  remained  of  the  family  of  Ahab  in  Jezreel  were 
hunted  doAvn  and  slain,  with  the  officers  of  the  court  and  the 
priests.  Jehu  then  went  to  reside  at  Samaria.  At  the  shear- 
ing-house beside  the  road  he  met  forty-two  of  the  kinsmen 
of  Ahaziah  coming  on  a  visit  to  Jezreel,  in  evident  ignorance 
of  these  events.  AH  were  seized  by  his  order  and  slain  at  the 
well  of  the  shearing-house.  Proceeding  on  his  way,  Jehu 
met  Jehonadab,  the  son  of  Recliab,  who  was  afterward  fa- 
mous as  the  founder  of  the  ascetic  sect  of  the  Rechabites.  Aft- 
er mutual  assurances  that  their  hearts  were  "  right,"  Jehu 
invited  the  zealot  to  mount  the  chariot  and  witness  his  zeal 
for  Jehovah.  Arrived  at  Samaria,  he  finished  the  slaughter 
of  the  house  of  Ahab,  and  then  planned  with  Jehonadab  one 
crowning  act  of  zeal  to  destroy  the  worship  of  Baal  at  a 
stroke.  He  declared  that  "Ahab  served  Baal  little,  but  Jehu 
shall  serve  him  much,"  and  proclaimed  throughout  Israel  a 
solemn  assembly  for  Baal  in  the  temple  which  Ahab  had 
built  at  Samaria.  The  worshipers  of  Baal  took  the  bait,  and 
assembled  to  a  man.  As  if  to  give  more  dignity  to  the  fes- 
tival, but  in  reality  to  mark  the  votaries  of  Baal,  he  had  them 
clothed  in  the  sacred  vestments,  and  himself  went  into  the 
temple  with  Jehonadab,  to  charge  the  Baalites  to  see  that 
no  servant  of  Jehovah  remained  to  pollute  the  ceremony. 
Eighty  men  were  stationed  at  the  gates  to  prevent  escape  at 
the  peril  of  their  own  lives.  The  sacrifices  were  ofiered,  and 
the  orgies  of  the  feast  had  begun,  when  Jehu  gave  the  signal 
to  the  guards,  who  rushed  in  and  slew  the  Baalites,  and  cast 
out  their  bodies  to  the  dogs  and  vultures.  They  then  storm- 
ed the  fortified  sanctuary;  they  broke  to  pieces  the  great 
stone  statue  of  Baal,  and  burned  the  other  images,  razed  the 
temple  to  the  ground,  and  assigned  its  site  to  the  vilest  uses. 
Amid  all  the  sins  of  the  later  kings  of  Israel,  the  worship  of 
Baal  was  never  openly  restored. 

§  17.  The  fate  of  the  King  of  Judah  is  variously  related. 
According  to  the  account  in  the  Chronicles^  he  fled  to  Sama- 
ria when  Joram  was  killed,  was  found  hidden  there,  and  was 
brought  to  Jehu,  who  put  him  to  deatli,  but  granted  him  an 


542  The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.  Chap.  XXIII 

honorable  burial  from  respect  to  the  memory  of  Jehoshaphat. 
The  narrative  in  Kings  certainly  conveys  the  impression  at 
first  sight  that  Jehu,  after  mortally  wounding-  Joram,  turned 
to  pursue  the  King  of  Judah  (a  step  improbable  in  itself,  and 
inconsistent  with  the  rest  of  the  same  narrative),  and  that  Aha- 
ziah  was  mortally  Avounded  at  the  pass  of  Gur,  near  Ibleam, 
and  die-d  when  he  reached  Megiddo.  This  pursuit  may  have 
taken  place  in  consequence  of  his  being  pointed  out  to  Jehu 
Avhile  attempting  to  escape  from  Samaria,  but  we  can  not 
expect  to  clear  up  every  difficulty  in  such  brief  and  ancient 
histories.  This  much  is  clear,  that  his  body  was  carried  to 
Jerusalem  and  buried  in  the  sepulchre  of  the  kings. 

One  member  of  the  house  of  Ahab  was  still  left,  his  daugh- 
ter Athaliah,  the  queen-mother  of  Judah,  and  the  heir  to  her 
mother's  %rce  and  dauntless  spirit.  By  lier  means  it  seemed 
as  if  the  Baal-worship,  destroyed  in  Isi-ael,  was  to  be  restored 
in  Judah.  On  hearing  of  her  son's  death,  she  sIcav  all  the 
royal  seed  of  Judah  except  Joash,  the  youngest  son  of  Aha- 
ziah,  a  new-born  infant,  who  Avas  hidden  by  his  aunt  Jehosha- 
beath,  the  daughter  of  Jehoram,'"  and  Avife  of  the  high-priest 
Jehoiada.  Athaliah  usurped  the  crown  for  six  years,'"®  Avhich 
may  be  passed  OA^er,  for  they  are  barren  of  CA'ents,  to  finish  the 
story  of  the  Jiouse  of  Ahab.  She  does  not  seem  to  have 
brought  OA'er  the  people  to  idolatry ;  for  it  Avas  tlie  regular 
order  of  the  Temple-service  that  enabled  the  high-priest  to 
effect  the  revolution  by  Avhich  Joash  Avas  restored. 

In  the  seA'enth  year  Jehoiada  took  counsel  Avith  five  "  cap- 
tains of  hundreds,"  by  Avliose  means  the  Levites  and  heads 
of  houses  Avere  assembled  from  all  the  cities  of  Jerusalem  to 
SAvear  allegiance,  in  the  Temple,  to  the  sole  remaining  scion 
of  the  house  of  David,  a  child  seven  years  old.  It  Avas  the 
custom  on  the  Sabbath  for  the  guard  of  priests  and  Levites 
to  divide  themselves  into  three  bodies,  of  Avhom  one  kept  the 
doors  of  the  Temple,  another  the  gate  called  "  Sur  "  (or  "  the 
gate  of  the  foundation"),  Avhile  the  third  Avere  on  duty  at  the 
royal  palace.  To  aA^oid  suspicion,  the  last  occupied  their 
usual  post,  but  the  other  two-thirds  formed  a  close  line  across 
the  court  of  the  altar  round  the  person  of  Joash,  armed  Avith 
spears  and  David's  sacred  shields,  Avith  orders  to  cut  doAvn 
any  Avho  should  attempt  to  enter,  Avhile  the  rest  of  the  people 
Avere  in  the  outer  court.  When  all  AA\as  prepared,  Joash  Avas 
brought  forward  and  croAvned  with  full  ceremony. 

The  acclamations  of  the  people  reached  the  ears  of  Athaliah, 

"'  Probably  by  another  wife  than  Arhali.ah.  '^^  B.C.  88-t-878. 


B.C.  884.  Extinction  of  AhcJJs  House.  543 

who  hastened  to  the  Temple,  and  found  the  king  standing  by 
the  entrance  amid  the  princes,  the  trumpets  blowing  and  the 
singers  praising  God.  She  rent  her  clothes  and  cried  out 
"  Treason !"  But  Jehoiada  commanded  the  five  captains  to 
carry  her  out  of  the  Temple,  and  to  cut  down  any  who  tried 
to  follow  her ;  and  they  slew  her  at  the  entrance  of  "  the 
horse-gate  "  by  the  royal  palace.  Jehoiada  then  renewed  the 
covenant,  as  in  the  time  of  David,  of  the  people  and  the  king 
with  each  other  and  Jehovah.  The  Temple  of  Baal  was  razed, 
the  idols  destroyed,  and  Iris  priest  Mattan  slain  before  his 
own  altar.  The  service  of  the  Temple  was  arranged  accord- 
ing to  the  order  prescribed  by  David.  The  king  was  brought 
in  solemn  procession  from  the  Temple  through  the  great  gate 
to  the  royal  palace,  and  set  upon  the  throne  of  Solomon.  By 
the  death  of  Athaliah  the  last  member  of  Ahab's  house  had 
perished :  "  all  the  people  of  the  land  rejoiced,  and  the  city 
was  quiet." 


Israelites  bringiug  Tribute  to  Shalmaneser.     (Nimroud.) 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE  KINGDOMS  OF  JUDx\H  AND  ISUAEL— Continued 

FROM    THE     DESTRUCTIOX     OF    THE    HOUSE     OF    AHAB    TO    THE 
CAPTIVITY    OF   THE    TEX   TRIBES.       B.C.  884-721. 

§  1.  State  of  the  two  kingdoms — Israel:  Fourth  D\'nasty;  Tenth  king, 
Jehu — Mentioned  on  an  Assyrian  monument — Eleventh  king,  Jehoahaz. 
§  2.  JuDAH  :  Eiglith  king,  Joash — Tlie  high-priest  Jehoiada — Restora- 
tion of  the  Tem])le — Apostasy — The  Prophets — Martyrdom  of  Zecha- 
riah — Syrian  invasion  of  Jadah.  §  3.  Israel  :  Twelfth  king,  Jehoash — 
Death  of  Elisha.  §  4.  Jddah:  Ninth  king,  Amazhilt — Victory  over 
Edom — Jerusalem  taken  by  Jehoash.  §  5.  Israel  :  Thirteenth  king, 
Jeroboam  II. — Political  revival  of  the  kingdom — The  prophet  Jonah — 
Fourteenth  king,  Zachariah — Supposed  Interregnum — The  prophet  Ho- 
sea — End  of  Jehu's  dynasty — Fifteentli  king,  Shalfiwi—CA\i\  War.  §  C. 
Fifth  Dynasty — Sixteenth  and  seventeenth  kings,  Menahem  and  Peka- 
hiah — First  invasion  of  Israel  by  Assyria  under  Pul — Sixth  Dynasty — 
Eighteenth  king,  Pekah — State  of  Israel  as  described  by  the  prophets 
Amos  and  Hosea.  §  7.  Judaii  :  Tenth  king,  Uzziah — His  good  reign 
and  successful  wars — Profanes  the  Temple  and  dies  a  leper — Eleventh 
king,  Jothani — His  piety  and  prosperity.  §  8.  Twelfth  king,  Ahaz — 
War  with  Syria  and  Israel — Elath  taken  by  Syria — Jewish  captives  re- 
stored by  Israel — Ahaz  calls  in  Tiglath-pileser — Destruction  of  the 
kingdom  of  Damascus — Captivity  of  the  Trans-jordanic  and  northern 
tribes — Ahaz  goes  to  Damascus — His  shameless  idolatries.  §  9.  Thir- 
teenth king,  Hezekiah — Reform  of  Religion — His  great  Passover — He 
destroys  tiie  Brazen  Serpent — Defeats  the  Philistines — Revolts  from 
Assyria.  .  §  10.  Israel:  Nineteenth  and  last  king,  Hoshea ;  the  best 
of  the  kings  of  Israel — Symptoms  of  a  revival — Revolts  from  Shalmane- 
ser — First  Assyrian  invasion — Hoshea's  secret  league  with  Egypt,  and 
imprisonment — Siege  and  capture  of  Samaria — End  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Israel  and  Captivity  of  the  Ten  Tribes — Geosiraphical  extent 
of  the  Captivity — Subsequent  history  of  the  captives — New  colonization 
of  Samaria. 


B.C.  884.  State  of  the  two  Kingdoms.  545 

§1.  The  fair  promise  of  a  new  reign  of  religion  in  both 
kingdoms  was  soon  overcast.  The  zeal  of  which  Jehu  so 
loudly  boasted,  and  which  led  him  through  such  seas  of  blood, 
was  too  hot  to  last,  and  the  character  of  Joash  was  yet  to  be 
formed.  Turning  lirst  to  Israel,  Jehu,  the  tenth  king,  reign- 
ed twenty-eight  years,^  and  founded  the  fourth  dynasty, 
which  consisted  of  five  kings,  but  lasted  a  much  longer  time 
than  Omri's,  namely,  111  years.^  This  prolongation  of  his  dy- 
nasty was  expressly  granted  as  the  reward  of  his  zeal  against 
the  house  of  Ahab.  Nor  was  this  all.  Under  the  house  of 
Jehu,  Israel  became  almost  as  great  as  she  had  been  imme- 
diately after  the  disruption.  Jelioash,  the  grandson  of  Jehu, 
entered  Jerusalem  as  a  conqueror.  He  also  drove  back  the 
Syrians,  and  his  son  Jeroboam  II.  recovered  the  eastern  fron- 
tier from  Hamath  to  the  Dead  Sea.  Jehu,  however,  became 
heedless  of  God's  law,  and  declined  into  the  sins  and  idolatry 
of  Jeroboam.  From  his  reign  began  the  loss  of  those  territo- 
ries which  had  been  first  occupied  in  the  conquest  of  the  land. 
"Jehovah  began  to  cut  Israel  short."  Hazael  overran  the 
whole  land  of  the  two  and  a  half  tribes,  in  Gilead  and  Bashan, 
east  of  the  Jordan,  as  far  south  as  the  Amon.  Such  are  the 
few  brief  records  of  Jehu's  long  reign.  He  died  and  Avas  bur- 
ied at  Samaria,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Jehoahaz.^ 

In  Jehu's  reign  Ave  are  brought  into  contact  for  the  first 
time,  at  least  since  the  mention  of  Chedorlaomer  and  his  al- 
lies, with  the  great  monarchies  of  Western  Asia.  We  pos- 
sess in  the  British  Museum  an  obelisk  of  black  basalt,  brought 
by  Mr.  Layard  from  Nimroud,Avhich  was  set  up  by  Shalmane- 
SER  I.,  king  of  Assyria,  to  commemorate  his  victories.  It  ap- 
pears that,  while  Benhadad  II.  and  Hazael  Avere  warring 
against  Israel,  they  had  to  sustain  a  conflict  Avith  Assyria ; 
and  among  the  tributaries  to  Shalmaneser  appears  the  name 
of  "  Jehu  (or  Yahua),  the  son  of  Khumri  "  (Omri).  The  er- 
roneous patronymic  is  accounted  for  by  Omri's  being  regard- 
ed as  the  founder  of  the  kingdom  of  Samaria,  the  name  of  the 
city  itself  appearing  on  the  obelisk  in  the  form  "  Beth-khum- 
ri"  {house  of  Omri.y 

Jehoahaz,^  the  eleventh  king  of  Israel,  and  the  second  of 
the  house  of  Jehu,  succeeded  his  father  in  the  twenty-third 

'  B.C.  884-85G  :    1  K.  x.  3G.  |  46."; ;    Dr.  Ilinck's   Translation  of  the 

"^  B.C.  884-773.     Omri's  dynasty  of  i  Inscriptions,  in  the  "  Dublin  Universi- 

four  kings  lasted  forty-two  years.         j  ty  Magazine,"  Oct.  1853. 

^  2  K.  X.  29-30.  I      M'roperly  ./eAoac/^os,  "Possession 

*  Layard,  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  p.    of  Jehovah,"  or  "  Jehovah  is  the  own- 

643  ;  liawlinson's  Herodotus,  vol.  i.  p. .  cr." 


o4:G  The  Kingdoms  of  J-udah  and  Israel.  Chap.  XXI v. 

year  of  Joash,king  of  Judali,  and  reigned  seventeen  years  in 
Samaria.^  He  followed  the  sins  of  Jeroboam,  and  suftered 
from  constant  and  unsuccessful  wars  with  the  kings  of  Syria, 
Hazael  and  liis  son  Benhadad  III.  So  low  was  Israel  re- 
duced that  Jehoahaz  was  only  suffered  to  maintain  a  force 
of  fifty  horsemen,  ten  chariots,  and  10,000  foot.  "  The  King 
of  Syria  had  destroyed  them,  and  had  made  them  like  the 
dust  by  threshing.'"  Still  God  did  not  w^itlidraw  all  his 
compassion  from  them,  for  the  sake  of  his  covenant  with 
Abraham ;  and  in  answer  to  the  prayers  of  Jehoahaz,  He 
raised  up  deliverers  for  them  in  this  king's  son  and  grandson, 
Jehoash  and  Jeroboam  II. "^  Jehoash  seems  to  have  reigned 
two  years  in  conjunction  with  his  father.^  The  death  of  Je- 
hoahaz was  simultaneous  with  that  of  Joash,  king  of  Judah, 
and  very  little  before  that  of  Hazael,  king  of  Damascus. 

§  2.  Joash  (abbreviated  fromjEiiOASH),"*  the  eighth  king  of 
Judah,  was  the  youngest  son  of  Ahaziah,  the  sixth  king,  and 
of  Zibiah,  of  Beersheba.  In  the  year  B.C.  884  he  Avas  left  ap- 
parently the  sole  survivor  of  the  stem  of  David,  lopped  as  it 
had  been  by  repeated  massacres.  Jehoshaphat's  sons  Avere 
all  slain  by  their  eldest  brother  Jehoram.  All  Jehoram's 
sons  AA'ere  killed  by  the  invading  Philistines  and  Arabians 
except  Ahaziah.  Ahaziah's  collateral  kindred  Avere  put  to 
death  by  Jehu,  and  his  sons  Avere  all  massacred  by  their 
grandmother  Athaliah  except  Joash,  Avhose  escape  and  ele- 
vation to  the  kingdom  Ave  have  already  related.''  He  Avas 
proclaimed  in  the  seventh  year  of  Jehu,  being  himself  seven 
years  old,  and  he  reigned  forty  years  at  Jerusalem.'^  For 
the  first  tAventy-three  years  and  more  he  kept  his  piety,  and 
enjoyed  high  prosperity,  under  the  guidance  of  his  early 
guardian,  the  high-priest  Jehoiada.  His  reign  began,  as  Ave 
have  seen,Avith  the  destruction  of  the  idols,  and  the  renewal 
of  the  covenant  of  Jehovah,  but  the  people  still  worshiped  in 
the  high  places.'^  In  conjunction  Avith  Jehoiada,  Joash  un- 
dertook the  reparation  of  the  Temple,  Avhich  had  not  only 
been  plundered  of  its  A'essels  for  the  service  of  Baal,  but  in- 
jured in  its  fabric,  during  the  reign  of  Athaliah.  The  king's 
zeal  Avas  not  satisfied  Avith  the  progress  made  by  Jehoiada 
and  the  priests  in  using  the  free  contributions  of  the  people, 

®n.c.  856-839.  jTIie    abbreviated    form    is    used    in 

'  2  K.  xiii.  1-7,  22;  comp.  Amosj  Chronicles;  and  \vc  keep  it  as  a  con- 

i.  3.  j  venient  distinction  from  Jehoasii,  king 

«  2  K.  xiii.  5,  22-24,  xiv.  25,  27.         of  Israel.  "  Chap,  xxiii.  §  J  5. 

-  »B.c.  841-839.  !      '"  B.C.  878-839;    2    K.  xii.   1;    2 

10  "  Fii-o^  or  sacrifice,  of  Jehovali."  Cliron.xxiv.  1.  ^'^  2  K.  xii.  2,  3. 


B.C.  878.  Joash^  King  of  Judah.  547 

and  there  seems  even  to  be  a  charge  of  peculation  against 
the  Levites.  So  the  king  constructed  the  first  "  money- 
box "  in  the  well-known  form  of  a  chest  with  a  hole  in  the 
lid,  which  was  placed  at  the  gate  of  the  Temple  for  offer- 
ings, and  each  day  its  contents  were  counted  by  the  king's 
officers  and  handed  over  at  once  to  the  artificers.  This  was 
done  in  the  twenty-third  year  of  Joash :  the  repairs  of  the 
Temple  Avere  soon  finished,  and  there  was  enough  money  left 
to  provide  vessels  for  the  service  of  the  sanctuary.  The 
money  brought  for  trespass  and  sin  offerings  belonged  to  the 
priests.'^ 

The  order  of  the  Temple-service  was  maintained  during 
the  life  of  Jehoiada,  the  high-priest,  who  died  at  the  age  of 
130,  and  was  buried,  among  the  kings,  for  his  services  to  the 
house  of  God.^"  A  most  unhappy  change  ensued.  The 
princes  of  Judah,  who  had  doubtless  been  jealous  of  the  high- 
priest's  unbounded  influence,  seem  to  have  persuaded  the  king 
that  it  was  time  to  be  his  own  master  ;  and  the  first  use  that 
he  and  they  made  of  this  new  liberty  was  to  neglect  the  house 
of  Jehovah,  and  to  serve  groves  and  idols.^^  But  not  with- 
out warning  and  remonstrance.  At  this  point  of  the  history 
occurs  that  remarkable  passage  which  introduces  the  line  of 
prophets  whose  writings  remain  to  us,  and  who  began  to 
appear  about  this  time,  Elisha  being  still  alive : — "  Yet  He 
sent  prophets  unto  them,  to  bring  them  again  unto  Jehovah ; 
and  they  testified  against  them:  but  they  Avould  not  give 
ear.'"^  Nay  more,  by  adding  to  their  sins  the  blood  of  the 
martyr  whom  Christ  names  with  "  righteous  Abel " — both 
victims  to  the  passion  that  knows  the  truth  and  hates  it — 
they  made  themselves  a  type  of  the  generation  that  slew  the 


"  2  K.  xii.  4-1 G;  2  Chron.  xxiv. 
4-14. 

^^  2  Chron.  xxiv.  1 5,  1 6.  The  com- 
mon chronology  places  his  death  at 
B.C.  850,  and,  as  the  subsequent  events 
show,  it  must  have  been  some  time 
before  841  or  840,  when  Hazael  died. 
This  would  mako  him  about  ninety- 
five  at  the  time  of  tlie  insurrection 
against  Athaliab.  Those  who  con- 
sider this  incredible  have  suggested 
emendations  which  reduce  the  num- 
ber to  103  or  even  eighty-three  (Lord 
Arthur  Ilervey,  Genealogies  of  our 
Lord,  p,  304 ;  and  Diet,  of  Bih'le,  art. 
Jehoiadi). 


'•'2  Chron.  xxiv.  17,  18. 

^^  2  Chron.  xxiv.  19.  Jonah  was 
probably  the  earliest  of  the  extant 
prophets ;  but  there  is  great  uncer- 
tainty as  to  the  King  of  Nineveh  to 
whom  lie  was  sent.  Some  suppose  it 
was  Adrammelech  II.  (about  B.C. 
840),  others  Pul,  as  late  as  B.C.  750. 
But  he  certainly  prophesied  under  or 
before  Jeroboam  II.,  B.C.  825-784  (I 
Kings  xiv.  25).  Joel,  who  prophe- 
sied in  Judah,  has  been  placed  as 
early  as  the  reign  of  Joash  ;  but  the 
majority  of  critics  place  him  under 
Uzziah. 


5^8  TJie  Kingdoms  of  Jadah  and  Israel.  Chap.  XXIV. 

Lord.  The  Spirit  of  Jehovah  came  upon  Zeehariah  the  son 
of  Jehoiada,  and  probably  high-priest,  Avho  told  them  that 
they  could  not  prosper,  because  they  had  forsaken  God  ;  and 
even  in  the  court  of  the  sanctuary,  which  they  were  perhaps 
attempting  to  profane  by  a  sacrifice  to  Baal,  they  stoned  him 
to  death,  by  the  king's  order,  between  the  Temple  and  the 
altar.  This  was  the  very  space  within  which  Joash  had  been 
guarded  by  Jehoiada  and  his  line  of  Levites ;  and  the  nar- 
rative lays  stress  on  the  king's  ingratitude  to  the  son  of  the 
man  who  had  saved  his  life.  The  dying  cry  of  Zeehariah, 
"  Jehovah  look  upon  it,  and  require  it,"  never  ceases  to  echo 
through  the  annals  of  the  Jews,  till  they  "  filled  up  the  meas- 
ure of  their  fathers  "  by  invoking  the  guilt  of  Christ's  blood 
upon  their  heads.  Meanwhile  it  found  an  immediate  response 
in  the  calamities  of  the  last  years  of  Joash.'** 

Hazael,  the  king  of  Syria,  had  overrun  the  trans-jordanic 
provinces  of  Israel  during  the  disastrous  reign  of  Jehoahaz, 
which  began  about  the  time  that  Joash  finished  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Temple,  and  was  now  drawing  to  a  close.  After 
a  campaign  against  the  Philistines,  Hazael  marched  toward  Je- 
rusalem. His  small  force  defeated  the  whole  host  of  Judah  ; 
and  the  princes,  who  had  seduced  Joash  into  idolatry,  Avere 
either  killed  in  the  battle  or  given  up  to  Hazael  and  put  to 
death,  as  the  ransom  of  the  people  from  massacre.  Jerusalem 
itself  was  only  saved  from  the  horrors  of  a  sack  by  the  sur- 
render of  all  the  consecrated  vessels  and  treasures  both  of  the 
Temple  and  the  king's  palace.  Thus,  within  a  year  of  the 
murder  of  Zeehariah,  "  they  executed  judgment  upon  Joash.'"* 
Scarcely  had  the  Syrians  retired,  leaving  Joash  grievously  ill 
in  the  fortress  of  3Iillo,  whether  from  a  wound  or  from  A'ex- 
ation  (for  the  cause  is  not  stated),  than  he  was  slain  in  his  bed 
by  two  of  his  servants,  of  Ammonite  and  Moabite  extraction, 
at  the  age  of  forty-seven.  Thus  ended  a  reign  that  had  prom- 
ised to  restore  the  purity  of  David's  kingdom.  Joash  was 
buried  Avith  his  fathers  in  the  city  of  David,  and  was  succeed- 
ed by  his  son  Amaziah.  He  died  in  the  same  year  las  Jehoa- 
haz, king  of  Israel." 

And  now  it  seemed  as  if  God  had  sufficiently  punished  the 
personal  faults  of  the  first  kings  of  both  the  restored  monarch- 
ies; for  a  new  era  of  prosperity  began  for  Israel  and  Judah 

'^  2  Chron.  xxiv.  20-22;  ISIatt.  { prophet  Zeehariah,  the  son  of  Bere- 
xxiii.  32,  35,  wliere  tlie  words  "son   chiah. 

of  Barachias  "  are  a  manifest  interpo- 1  ^'^  About  B.C.  8-40  ;  2  K.  xii.  17,  18 ; 
lation,   from    a   confusion    witli    the   2  Cln-on.  xxiv.  23,  24. 

■-"  B.C.  839  ;  2  K.  xii.  19-21  ;  2  Chron.  xxiv.  25-27. 


B.C.  839.  Jehoash^  King  of  Israel.  549 

under  Jehoash  and  Amaziah,  the  histories  of  whose  reigns  are 
closely  interwoven. 

§  3.  Jehoash  (or  Joash)/'  the  twelfth  king  of  Israel,  and 
the  third  of  the  line  of  Jeliu,  began  to  reign,  in  conjunction 
with  his  father  Jehoahaz  in  the  thirty-seventh  year  of  Joash, 
king  of  Judah  (b.c.  841),  and  alone  two  years  later  (b.c.  839) ; 
his  entire  reign  lasted  sixteen  years."  There  is  an  apparent 
discrepancy  between  his  character  and  his  actions.  It  would 
seem  as  if  the  calf -worship  of  Jeroboam  had  become  so  in- 
veterate in  Israel  that  a  king  who  practiced  it  might  yet  be 
chosen  as  a  deliverer  from  foreign  oppression  if  he  did  not 
serve  Baal ;  or  it  may  be  that  God  willed  to  give  Israel  a 
hnal  opportunity  of  restoration,  irrespective  of  the  character 
of  the  king,  "  and  would  not  destroy  them,  neither  cast  he 
them  from  his  presence  as  ye?.""  We  find  Jehoash  received 
with  favor  when  he  visited  Elisha  upon  his  death-bed,  and 
he  mourned  over  him  in  his  own  words  when  he  lost  Elijah, 
"  O  my  fother !  my  father  !  the  chariot  of  Israel,  and  the 
horsemen  thereof!"  The  prophet  assured  him  of  victory 
over  the  Syrians  by  significant  actions.  He  bade  him  shoot 
an  arrow  from  the  open  window  toward  Syria,  and  himself 
laid  his  hands  with  the  king's  upon  the  bow,  as  if  to  give 
divine  power  to  the  shot,  which  he  called  "  the  arrow  of  Je- 
hovah's deliverance  from  the  Syrians,"  who  were  to  be  smit- 
ten in  Aphek.  Then  he  bade  the  king  strike  the  ground  with 
the  arrows.  The  three  strokes  signified  three  victories ;  and 
the  prophet  was  angry  with  the  king  for  not  striking  five  or 
six  times,  as  he  would  then  have  consumed  them  utterly. 
The  whole  was  a  parable  of  the  co-operation  of  human  ef- 
fort with  the  divine  counsels.  It  was  fulfilled  by  three  great 
victories  which  Jehoash  gained  over  Benhadad  III.,  the  son 
of  Hazael,  and  by  which  he  recovered  the  cities  which  Hazael 
had  taken  from  his  father.  Meanwhile  Elisha  died,  and  a  last 
miracle  was  wrought  by  his  remains.  A  man  was  about  to 
be  buried  in  the  same  rock  in  which  the  prophet's  sepulchre 
was  hewn,  when  the  bearers  were  alarmed  by  the  approach 
of  one  of  the  predatory  bands  of  Moabites  that  now  infested 
Israel.  They  thrust  the  body  hastily  into  the  first  open  tomb 
in  the  face  of  the  rock.  It  was  that  of  Elisha,  and  upon  touch- 
ing his  remains,  the  dead  man  came  to  life  and  stood  upon 
his  feet.  All  these  events  happened  in  the  early  years  of  Je- 
hoash. The  other  great  event  of  his  reign  was  the  conquest 
of  Jerusalem  which  is  related  under  the  reign  of  Amaziah. 

"  See  note  to  §  2  (b.c.  841-825).  1      "  2  K.  xiii.  23 ;   coinp.  ver.  5,  and 
''^  2  K.  xiii.  10 ;  comp.  xii.  1,  xiv.  1. 1  xiv.  27. 


550 


The  Kingdoms  of  Judali  and  Israel.  Chap.  XXIV. 


He  died,  and  was  buried  in  tlie  royal  sepulchre  at  Samaria, 
and  was  succeeded  bv  his  son  Jeroboam  II.,  the  greatest  king 
of  Israel." 

§  4.  Amaziaii,  the  ninth  king  of  Judah,  was  twenty-five 
years  old  when  he  succeeded  his  father  Joash,  in  the  second 
year  of  Jehoash,  king  of  Israel,  and  he  reigned  twenty-nine 
years  at  Jerusalem."  His  mother  was  Jehoaddan  of  Jeru- 
salem. His  was  a  mixed  character,  like  his  lather's  : — "  He 
did  that  which  was  right  in  the  sight  of  Jehovah,  but  not 
with  a  perfect  heart"  —  "not  like  David  his  father;"  and 
the  people  still  sacrificed  in  the  high  places.*^  He  put  his 
lather's  murderers  to  death,  but  spared  their  children,  in  obe- 
dience to  the  law  of  Moses — an  act  of  clemency  which  is  re- 
corded probably  because  it  was  then  unusual."  He  prepared 
a  great  expedition  for  the  recovery  of  Edom,  which  had  re- 
volted from  Jehoram.  To  the  whole  force  of  Judah  and 
Benjamin,  numbering  300,000  Avarriors  of  twenty  years  old 
and  upward,  he  added  100,000  picked  men  of  Israel,  whom 
he  hired  for  100  talents  of  silver.  But,  at  the  command  of  a 
prophet,  he  dismissed  these  mercenaries,  who  returned  in  an- 
ger, and  sacked  several  of  the  cities  of  Judah.  Meanwhile 
Amaziah  advanced  into  the  "Valley  of  Salt"  (the  Ghor), 
south  of  the  Dead  Sea,  and  there  defeated  the  Edomites,  with 
the  slaughter  of  1 0,000  men.  Ten  thousand  more  were  dashed 
to  pieces  from  the  rocks  of  Sela  (Petra),the  Idumaean  capital, 
which  Amaziah  took,  and  called  Joktheel  {Possession  of 
God.)  To  assert  the  more  strikingly  his  dominion  over  the 
country,  Amaziah  sacrificed  to  the  idols  of  Mount  Seir ;  and 
he  silenced  the  reproof  of  a  prophet  with  threats  and  Avith 
the  taunt,  "Art  thou  made  of  the  king's  counsel?"  "I 
know,"  rejoined  the  prophet, "  that  God  hath  determined  to 
destroy  thee ;"  and  misfortune  filled  up  the  rest  of  Amaziah's 
reign.  Whether  urged  on  by  arrogance,  or  provoked  by  the 
conduct  of  the  disbanded  mercenaries,  he  sent  a  challenge  to 
the  King  of  Israel.  Jehoash  replied  by  a  parable  : — "  A  thistle 
in  Mount  Lebanon  demanded  the  daughter  of  the  cedar  in 
marriage ;  but  a  wild  beast  that  was  passing  by  trod  on  the 
thistle  and  crushed  it :  let  not  the  King  of  Judah  boast  be- 
cause he  had  smitten  Edom,  but  stay  quietly  at  home,  lest 
he  and  Judah  should  perish  together."  Amaziah  persisted, 
and  the  armies  met  at  Beth-shemesh.  Judah  was  utterly  de- 
feated, and  Amaziah  taken  prisoner.     Jehoash  led  him  in  tri- 


**  2  K.  xiii.  10-28. 
"  B.C.  839-810:   2  K.  xiv.  1,  2  ;   2 
Chron.  xxv.  1. 


'"  2  K.  xiv.  3,  4  ;   2  Clirnn.  xxv.  2. 
^'  2  K.  xiv.  5,  6 ;    2    Chron.  xxv. 
1-4. 


B.C.  825.  Jeroboam  11.^  King  of  Israel.  551 

umph  to  Jerusalem,  the  north  wall  of  which  he  broke  down 
from  the  gate  of  EjDhraim  to  the  corner  gate,  a  space  of  400  cu- 
bits ;  and  having  taken  all  the  treasures  of  the  Temple  and  the 
palace,  besides  hostages,  he  returned  to  Samaria,^**  where  he 
died  not  long  after.  Amaziah  survived  Jehoash  fifteen  years, 
seemingly  of  continued  declension,  till  his  government  be- 
came so  hateful  that  he  had  to  fly  for  his  life  from  a  conspira- 
cy formed  against  him  at  Jerusalem.  He  was  overtaken  and 
killed  at  Lachish.  His  body  was  borne  back  by  horses  to 
Jerusalem,  and  buried  with  the  kings.  He  was  succeeded 
by  his  son  Uzziah  (misnamed  Azariah).^® 

§  5.  Jeroboaa[  H.,  the  thirteenth  king  of  Israel,  and  the 
fourth  of  the  house  of  Jehu,  succeeded  his  father  Jehoash  in 
the  fifteenth  year  of  Amaziah,  and  reigned  forty-one  years 
at  Samaria.^"  His  reign  is  by  far  the  most  prosperous  in  the 
annals  of  Israel.  To  him  even  more  than  to  his  father  is  the 
statement  applied  that,  in  Israel's  decline,  God  gave  them  a 
saviour,  in  remembrance  of  His  covenant  with  their  fathers ; 
though  he  also  followed  the  sins  of  Jeroboam,  the  son  of 
!Nebat.  He  not  only  recovered  from  Syria  the  whole  district 
east  of  the  Jordan  from  Hamath  to  the  Dead  Sea,  and  recon- 
quered Amnion  and  Moab,  but  he  attacked  Damascus  itself; 
and  if  he  did  not  actually  take  the  city,  he  regained  a  large 
part  of  its  territory  for  Israel.^^  The  apparent  ease  of  these 
conquests  may  be  explained  by  the  sufferings  of  Syria  from 
the  constant  attacks  of  the  great  Assyrian  Empire,  now  at 
the  height  of  its  power.  The  same  prophet  who  had  j^redict- 
ed  the  recovery  of  the  cities  of  Gilead  and  Bashan  from  Syria, 
Jonah,  the  son  of  Amittai,  of  Gath-hepher,^^  was  sent  by  God 
to  the  great  city  of  Nineveh.  There  is  no  more  striking  i:)roof 
of  the  moral  grandeur  of  the  religion  of  Jehovah  than  this 
mission  of  a  solitary  prophet  from  the  petty  kingdom  of  Israel 
to  warn  the  great  monarch  of  Western  Asia  that  he  and  his 
city  should  perish  unless  they  repented  before  God.  The 
brevity  of  the  narrative  leaves  us  in  doubt  whether  the  re- 
pentance required  had  respect  to  the  vices  which  corrupt  a 
great  and  luxurious  city,  or  to  some  sj^ecific  evil.  We  can 
hardly  suppose  that  it  was  the  idolatry,  which  had  long  been 
a  part  of  their  national  customs,  and  which  was  certainly  not 
abandoned  in  consequence  of  Jonah's  preaching,  that  incurred 
the  threat  of  immediate  destruction  of  this  particular  time. 
Looking  at  the  recent  inroads  of  Assyria  upon  Syria,  nothing 

''''  About  B.C.  820  :   2  K.  xiv.  8-U  ;  t      ^^  2  K.  xiv.  17-21 ;  2  Chron.  xxv, 
2  Chron.  xxv.  17-24.  |  25-28. 

^  B.C.  825-784  :  2  K.  xiv.  23.  ^^  2  K.  xiv.  23-29.  ^'  2  K.  xiv.  25, 


552  The  Kingdoms  of  Jiidah  and  Israel.  Chap.  XXIV. 

seems  more  probable  than  that  Israel  Avoiild  be  next  attack- 
ed ;  and  having  regard  to  the  repeated  statements  of  God's 
forbearance  Avith  Israel  at  this  crisis,  when  "  Jehovah  said 
not  that  he  would  blot  out  the  name  of  Israel  from  under 
heaven  '"^ — "  He  would  not  destroy  them,  neither  cast  he 
them  from  His  presence  as  yet " — the  mission  of  Jonah  might 
well  be  to  bid  the  King  of  Assyria  desist  from  such  an  enter- 
prise. In  its  moral  aspect  it  would  then  be  analogous  to  the 
mission  of  Moses  to  Pharoah — "  Touch  not  mine  anointed, 
and  do  my  people  no  harm  ;"  and  the  repentance  of  the  King 
of  Assyria  would  be,  not  a  religious  reformation,  of  which  his- 
tory gives  no  evidence,  but  the  abandonment  of  a  purpose 
which  displeased  a  divinity  whom  he  had  learned  to  rever- 
ence, whether  as  the  supreme  deity  or  as  the  God  of  Israel : 
in  one  word,  he  yielded  on  the  very  point  on  which  Pharoah 
hardened  his  heart  and  said,  "I  know  not  Jehovah."  This 
view  strengthens,  instead  of  weakening,  the  deeper  meaning 
of  the  transaction,  as  pointed  by  our  Saviour : — "  The  men  of 
Nineveh  repented  at  the  preaching  of  Jonas  :" — though  they 
were  heathens,  and  only  saw  in  him  the  messenger  of  an  "  un- 
known God,"  they  believed  his  word,  and  yielded  to  his  de- 
mands as  God's: — "but  a  greater  than  Jonas  is  here:"  you, 
as  Jews,  know  me  to  be  the  Messiah  spoken  of  by  the  proph- 
ets, and  yet  you  resist  God  in  resisting  me ! 

As  to*^the  motive  of  Jonah's  reluctance  to  undertake  the 
mission,  and  his  disappointment  at  its  result,  which  some 
have  ascribed  to  his  jealousy  of  Nineveh  as  a  future  enemy 
to  Israel,  surely  that  would  have  spurred  his  zeal  to  denounce 
her  destruction,  so  that  the  two  parts  of  the  explanation 
hardly  cohere.  The  popular  view  seems  truer  that  his  feel- 
ings were  personal  in  both  cases:  in  the  first, "the  fear  of 
man ;"  in  the  second,  displeasure  at  his  prediction  having 
seemed  to  fail,  as  is  clearly  implied  by  himself  The  story 
itself,  as  recorded  in  the  short  book  which  bears  the  prophet's 
name,  is  too  familiar  to  need  repeating.  The  narrative  is 
simple  and  consistent :  its  truth  is  endorsed  by  the  express 
testimony  of  our  Saviour;''  and  the  objections  simply  re- 
solve themselves  into  a  disbelief  in  miracles  at  all.  One 
needless  difficulty  has  been  raised  by  the  use  of  the  word 
"  whale  "  in  our  version  of  the  New  Testament  in  place  of  the 
"great  fish,"  as  it  is  correctly  given  in  the  old;'"  and  then 
the  climate  of  the  Mediterranean  and  the  anatomy  of  the 

*^  2  K.  xiii.  23,  xiv.  27.  |      *  Matt.  xii.  39-41,  xvi.  4  ;    Luke 

2"  Jonah  iv.  1-3.  !xi.  29-32. 

^  Jonah  i.  17;  Malt.  xii.  40. 


B.C.  784.  Zachariah — Supposed  Interregnum,  553 

vrhale  are  triumphantly  appealed  to  in  disproof  of  the  whole 
story.  But  idolatry  itself  bears  witness  in  the  worship  of 
Dagon  to  the  fact,  which  naturalists  have  proved,  that  there 
are  sharks  in  the  Mediterranean  quite  capable  of  swallowing 
a  man  whole.  On  the  other  hand,  we  find  incidental  allusions 
which  no  impostor  would  have  dared  to  insert.  The  prophet's 
three  days' journey  through  the  city"  is  not  only  now  known 
to  be  consistent  with  the  vast  area  covered  by  the  scattered 
houses  and  gardens  of  the  great  cities  of  the  East,  but  has 
been  confirmed  by  the  space  over  which  the  remains  of  Nine- 
veh extend;  and  I'.ie  vast  population  implied  by  its  600,000 
persons  of  tender  years^®  has  several  parallels  both  in  ancient 
and  modern  Asia.  The  prophetic  character  of  the  book, 
though  its  form  is  narrative,  is  seen  in  the  use  made  of  it  by 
our  Lord,  as  an  example  of  repentance  in  a  heathen  nation, 
and  a  sign  of  His  own  three  days'  abode  in  the  earth.  N  ay, 
"  the  sign  of  the  prophet  Jonas  "  must  have  been,  even  with- 
out an  interpretation,  a  striking  emblem  of  the  resurrection, 
the  doctrine  of  which  is  clearly  implied  in  one  passage  of 
Jonah's  "  prayer  to  God  out  of  the  fish's  belly :"— "  The 
earth  with  her  bars  was  about  me  forever:  yet  hast  thou 
brought  up  my  life  from  corruption,  O  Jehovah,  my  God."^^ 

Jeroboam  11.  died  in  B.C.  784,  and  was  buried  with  the 
kings  of  Israel,  and  we  are  told,  according  to  the  usual  for- 
mula, that  "  Zachariah  his  son  reigned  in  his  stead  "" — the 
fourteenth  king  of  Israel,  and  the  fifth  and  last  of  the  dynas- 
ty of  Jehu.  But  a  little  further  on  it  is  said  that  Zachariah 
began  to  reign  in  the  thirty-eighth  year  of  Azariah  (XJzziah), 
and  reigned  six  months  in  Samaria.^^  Since  the  forty-one 
years  of  Jeroboam  expire  in  the  twenty-seventh  year  of  XJz- 
ziah, there  must  eitlier  have  been,  as  Ussher  supposes,  an  in- 
terregnum of  eleven  years,  or  there  must  be  some  error  in 
the  numbers.  An  interregnum  is  scarcely  credible  during 
the  lifetime  of  a  king  of  whose  exile  and  captivity  we  hear 
nothing  ;  and  the  first  text  seems  clearly  to  imply  Zachari- 
ah's  immediate  succession  to  his  father.  The  other  explana- 
tion involves  the  correction  of  the  numbers  in  the  second 
text  by  reading  twenty-eight  for  thirty-eight,  and  ten  years 
and  six  months  for  six  months ;  or  else  the  prolongation  of 
Jeroboam's  reign  for  ten  years  and  six  months,  in  wdiich  case 
the  forty-one  years  of  his  reign  will  not  require  alteration,  for 
Zachariah  may  have  been  associated  with  him  at  the  end  of 
the  forty-one  years,  in  b.c.  784,  while  liis  separate  reign  of 

•'  Jonah  iii.  3.  ^'^  Jonah  iv.  11.  ^^  Jonah  ii.  6. 

^'  2  K.  xiv.  29.  ^'  2  K.  xv.  8. 

A  A 


554 


The  Kingdoms  of  Judali  and  Israel.  Chap.  XXIV. 


six  months  would  fall  in  B.C.  773.  This  view  is  supported 
by,  and  tends  to  remove  a  difficulty  from,  the  title  of  the  proph- 
ecies of  Hose  A,  which  places  the  prophet  "  in  the  days  oflJz- 
ziah,  Jotliam,  Ahaz,  and  Hezekiah,  kings  of  Judah,  and  in  the 
days  of  Jeroboam.,  the  son  of  Joash,  king  of  Israel."  Now 
from  the  last  year  of  Jeroboam  (b.c.  784)  to  t\\Q  first  of  Hez- 
ekiah (b.c.  726)  is  close  upon  sixty  years,  and  if  we  add  at 
each  end  a  sufficient  time  to  make  the  prophet  flourish  un- 
der each  of  these  kings,  the  result  is  hardly  Cx'edible ;  but 
the  addition  often  or  eleven  years  to  Jeroboam's  reign  brings 
it  Avithin  the  compass  of  probability,  and  accounts  for  the 
omission  of  Zachariah's  name. 

Of  Zachariah  liimself  we  are  only  told  that  he  walked, 
like  liis  fathers,  in  the  sins  of  Jeroboam,  the  son  of  Nebat. 
He  died  the  victim  to  a  conspiracy  by  Shallum,  the  son  of 
Jabesh,  who  usurped  the  crown  in  the  thirty-ninth  year  of 
Uzziah.'*'^  Thus  ended  the  dynasty  of  Jehu,  having  lasted 
111  years  ;  and  the  promise  was  fulfilled,  that  his  descend- 
ants should  reign  to  the  fourth  generation ;  and  so  also  was 
the  prophecy  of  Amos  against  Jeroboam.  A  civil  war  now 
ensued,  as  in  the  time  of  Oniri. 

Shallum,  the  fifteenth  king  of  Israel,  had  enjoyed  his  usur- 
pation only  a  month  when  he  was  overthrown  and  killed, 
like  Zimri,  by  another  competitor,  Menahem,  the  son  of  Gadi, 
who  marched  from  Tirzah  and  took  Samaria.  It  seems  prob- 
able that,  like  Omri,  Menahem  was  a  general  of  the  murdered 
king.  Another  incident  of  the  civil  Avar  Avas  the  sack  of 
Tiphsali,  a  city  Avhich  refused  to  open  its  gates  to  Menahem, 
Avitli  the  most  horrid  cruelties  of  Avar." 

§  6.  Mexahem,  the  sixteenth  king  of  Israel,  and  his  son 
Pekahiah,  the  scA'cnteenth  king,  compose  the  fifth  dynasty, 
Avhich  lasted  only  tv/eh^e  years.  Of  these,  Menahem  began 
to  reign  in  the  thirty-ninth  year  of  Uzziah,  and  reigned  ten 
years,^^  Avith  the  character  Avhicli  noAV  becomes  a  formula,  "  He 
departed  not  all  his  days  from  the  sins  of  Jeroboam,  the  son 
of  Xebat.'"^  The  great  point  of  interest  in  his  reign  is  the 
first  direct  attack  upon  Israel  by  the  Assyrians — a  presage 
of  tlie  catastrophe  which  Avas  finished  fifty  years  later.  The 
steps  of  the  process  have  often  been  repeated  in  history. 
The  first  danger  is  aA'-erted  by  a  bribe,  Avhich  only  serves  as  a 
temptation  to  ncAV  aggression.     Each  ncAv  attack  leav-es  tliG 


B.C.  7<: 


2  K.  XV 


-12. 


"  2K.  XV.  13-1(5.  IfthisbcTliap- 
sacus  on  the  Eiiplirates,  the  con- 
quests of  Jehuash  in  the  north-east 


must  have  been  kept  by  his  succes- 
sors.    But  the  context  rather  points 
to  some  unknown  ])lace  near  Tirzah, 
"b,c.772-7G1.     "^  2  K.  XV.  17,  18, 


B.C.  772. 


Israel  and  Assyria. 


ooo 


doomed  state  weaker  and  weaker,  till  it  is  reduced  to  trib- 
ute ;  and  at  last  a  despairing  elibrt  to  shake  off  the  yoke 
brings  down  destruction.  The  King  of  Assyria  who  began 
the  attack  on  Israel  under  Menahem  is  named  Pul,  and  is 
the  first  Assyrian  king  mentioned  in  Scripture."  But  there 
are  indications  that  this  was  not  the  first  contact  between 
Assyria  and  the  kingdoms  of  Palestine.  We  have  seen  that 
Jehu  appears  as  a  tributary  on  the  black  obelislv  of  Shalma- 
neser  1.,  and  it  would  seem  that  Menahem  had  neglected  to 
apply  to  the  King  of  Assyria  for  the  usual  "  confirmation  of 
liis  kingdom.""  Menahem  submitted,  and  paid  Pul  1000  tal- 
ents of  silver,  as  the  price  of  his  confirmation,  Avhich  he  ex- 
acted by  a  forced  contribution  of  fifty  shekels  apiece  from 
the  rich  men  of  Israel."''  The  name  of  the  king,  who  is  sup- 
posed to  correspond  to  Pul,  is  read  on  the  Assyrian  monu- 
ments (though  very  doubtfully)  as  Yul-lush  or  Iva-lush. 
He  reigned  at  Calali  {JVimrud)  from  about  B.C.  800  to  b.c. 
'750 ;  warred  against  Syria,  and  took  Damascus ;  received 
tribute  from  the  Medes,  Armenians,  Phoenicians,  jSa7nari- 
tans^^'^  Damascenes,  Philistines,  and  Edomites ;  and  was  the 
last  of  the  older  dynasty  of  Assyrian  kings.  His  successor, 
Tiglath-pileser,  Avas  a  usurper.  Menahem's  name  appears 
on  an  obelisk  of  the  latter,  perhaps  by  mistake.^" 

Pekahiait,  the  son  of  Menahem,  was  killed,  after  a  reign 
of  only  two  years,^'  by  Pekah,  the  son  of  Remaliah,  and  the 
eighteenth  king  of  Israel,  whose  reign  of  twenty  years^^  is 
closely  interwoven  with  the  history  of  Judah.  His  league 
with  Rezin,  king  of  Syria,  against  Judah,  and  the  consequent 
destruction  of  the  kingdom  of  Damascus,  and  captivity  of  a 
large  part  of  Israel,  are  related  under  the  reign  of  Ahaz  (§  8). 
He  was  put  to  death  by  Hoshea,  Avho  succeeded  him  as  the 
last  king  of  Israel  (§  10). 

To  this  period  of  Jeroboam  II.  and  his  successors  belong 
the  prophets  Amos  and  Hosea,  wdiose  writings  aid  us  in  fill- 
ing up  the  brief  narrative  of  Kmgs  by  the  light  they  throw 
on  the  internal  condition  of  the  state,  the  prevalence  of  idol- 
atry, the  maintenance  of  "  the  king's  sanctuary  "  at  Bethel 


^^  2  K.  XV.  19,  20  ;  LXX.  ^aliox  or  i 

"  Tin's  is  i\Ir.  Rawlinson's  inference 
from  2  K.  xv.  19  ;  and  he  also  infers 
from  the  similar  phrase  in  2  K.  xiv. 
5,  that  Amaziah  stood  in  the  like  re- 
lation to  Assyria.  It  is  highly  prob- 
able that  both  kingdoms  would  league 
>vith  Assyria  against  Syria. 


*«2  K  XV.  17-22. 

*^  They  appear  under  the  name  of 
Beth-Khumri  (House  of  Oinri). 

^°  Rawlinson,  in  Bib'.  Diet.  art.  Pui, 
and  Bampton  Lectures  for  1859,  p 
133. 

"  B.C.  761-759:  2  K.  xv.  23-26, 

'"b.c,  759-739:  2  K.  27-31 


556  The  Kingdoms  of  Jaclah  and  Israel.     Chap.  XXIV. 

under  its  priest  Amaziah,  who  tried  to  silence  Amos,  and  the 
abnost  universal  drunkenness,  licentiousness,  and  oppression. 

Amos  prophesied  the  judgments  of  God  upon  the  surround- 
ing nations,  and  upon  Israel  itself;  and,. in  particular,  the  de- 
struction of  the  house  of  Jeroboam  by  the  sword,  and  the  cap- 
tivity of  the  people.  Amaziah  accused  him  of  conspiring 
against  Jeroboam,  and  bade  him  to  betake  himself  to  Judah, 
his  native  country ;  but  he  did  not  shrink  from  predicting 
the  full  restoration  of  the  house  of  David,  while  he  promised 
the  ultimate  return  of  Israel  from  captivity,  and  their  final 
establishment  in  their  land.  His  probable  date  is  about  the 
middle  of  Jeroboam's  reign." 

The  prophecies  of  Hosea  are  addressed  almost  equally  to 
Israel  and  Judah,  whose  dissensions  are  deeply  deplored, 
their  captivity  foretold,  and  their  final  restoration  promised. 
With  resjDCCt  to  Israel,  we  are  especially  struck  by  the  same 
tone  of  affectionate,  nay,  agonizing  forbearance,  Avhich  we 
have  had  occasion  to  notice  repeatedly  in  the  sacred  narra- 
tive of  the  period.  Like  a  father  in  the  last  struggle  of  na- 
ture against  necessity,  Jehovah  dwells  upon  the  good  points 
in  the  character  of  Ephraim,  the  heir  of  Jacob's  favorite  son, 
before  He  will  consent  to  cast  him  off"  as  incorrigible,  and 
the  same  spirit  is  shown  to  Judah : — "  O  Ephraim,  what  shall 
I  do  unto  thee  ?  O  Judah,  what  shall  I  do  unto  thee  ?  for 
your  goodness  is  as  a  morning  cloud,  and  as  the  early  dew 
it  goetli  away."°*  "  How  shall  I  give  thee  up,  Ephraim  ? 
how  shall  I  deliver  thee,  Israel  ?  How  shall  I  make  thee  as 
Admah?  how  shall  I  set  thee  as  Zeboim  ?'^  Mine  heart  is 
turned  within  me ;  my  repentings  are  kindled  together." 

§  7.  UzziAH,  the  tenth  king  of  Judah,  was  set  on  the  throne 
by  the  people,  after  the  murder  of  his  father  Amaziah,  in  the 
twenty-seventh  year  of  Jeroboam  II.  He  was  then  sixteen 
years  old,  and  reigned  for  the  long  period  of  fifty-two  years. 
His  mother  was  Jecholiah  of  Jerusalem. ^^  He  was  contem- 
porary with  nearly  half  the  reign  of  Jeroboam  II.,  with  Zach- 
ariah,  Shallum,  Menahem,  and  Pekahiah,  and  the  last  year 
of  his  reign  was  the  first  of  Pekah's.  He  was  one  of  the 
ablest  of  the  kings  of  Judah,  serving  Jehovah  and  enjoying 
unbroken  prosperity,  till  he  profaned  the  Temple,  though  still 
the  high  places  were  not  removed.     Like  his  grandfather  Jo- 


^^  Bict.qfthe  Bib/e,s.v. 
"  Hosea  vi.  4. 

"  Cities  of  tlic  plain  destroyed  ^vith 
Sodom  and  Goniorrha  (Hosea  xi.  8,  9). 


B.C.  810-758:  2  Chron.  xxvi.  1-|  17j. 


3;  2  K.  xiv.  21,  xv.  1,  2.  The  name 
ajiven  to  liim  in  Kings,  Azariah,  arises 
probably  from  a  confusion  with  the 
iiiph-pricst  Azariah  (2  Chron.  xxvi. 


B.C.  758. 


Eeign  of  Uzziah. 


557 


ash  in  relation  to  Jehoiacla,  he  was  at  first  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Zechariah,  a  prophet  "  who  had  understanding  in  the 
visions  of  God.""  He  began  his  reign  by  recovering  and  re- 
building Eloth  (JElana :  Akabah)^  the  old  port  of  Solomon 
and  Jehoshaphat,  at  the  eastern  head  of  the  Red  Sea.^" 
His  successful  wars  restored  Judah  nearly  to  the  power  she 
had  possessed  under  the  latter  king.  He  received  tribute 
from  Amnion,  and  subdued  the  Philistines,  razing  the  fortifi- 
cations of  Gath  and  Ashdod,  and  building  fortresses  through- 
out their  country.  The  Arabs  of  the  southern  desert,  whom 
we  have  seen,  with  the  Philistines,  first  as  tributaries  and 
then  as  enemies  of  Judah,  were  reduced  to  the  former  condi- 
tion. Towers  were  built  and  wells  Avere  dug,  both  in  the 
maritime  plain  {Shefelah)  and  the  Idumsean  desert  {Arabah)^ 
for  the  king's  numerous  flocks  :  and  he  had  husbandmen  and 
vine-dressers  in  the  plains  about  Carmel  (in  the  south)  and 
in  the  mountains.  While  thus  improving  the  resources  of 
his  country,  Uzziah  made  preparations  for  its  defense,  wheth- 
er against  Israel,  Syria,  or  Assyria.  He  repaired  the  wall  of 
Jerusalem,  Avhich  had  been  broken  down  after  his  father's 
defeat  by  Jehoash,  building  towers  at  the  corner  gate,  and 
the  valley  gate,  and  the  angle  of  the  wall.  He  armed  the 
fortifications  with  newly-invented  military  engines,  the  first 
of  which  we  read  in  Jewish  history,  like  the  balista  and  cat- 
apult, for  shooting  arrows  and  great  stones.  He  kept  on  foot 
an  army  of  307,500  men  "that  made  war  Avith  mighty  pow- 
er," under  2600  captains,  "  the  chief  of  the  fathers  of  the 
mighty  men  of  valor,"  with  Hananiah  as  commander-in-chief. 
They  went  forth  to  war  by  bands,  the  roll  of  Avhich  was 
kept  by  the  king's  scribe,  Jeiel,  and  the  ruler  of  his  house, 
Maaseiah.  By  the  care  of  Uzziah,  all  the  soldiers  were  arm- 
ed with  spears  and  shields,  helmets  and  coats  of  mail,  bows 
and  slings.  "  And  his  name  spread  far  abroad,  for  he  was 
marvelously  helped,  till  he  was  strong."^^  But,  deprived 
probably  of  the  counsel  of  Zechariah,  he  could  not  bear  his 
prosperity.  In  his  arrogance,  he  claimed  the  functions  of  the 
priests ;  not  those  which  we  have  seen  always  exercised  by 
~udges  and  kings,  of  offering  burnt  sacrifices,  but  those  which 
elonged  exclusively  to  the  sons  of  Aaron.  He  entered  into 
the  Holy  Place  to  burn  incense  on  the  golden  altar.  He  was 
followed  by  the  high-priest  Azariah,  Avith  eighty  of  the  most 


i 


^'  2  Chron.  xxvi.  4,  5.  This  Zecli- 
ariah  must  of  course  not  be  confound- 
ed with  the  priest  martyred  under 
Joash,  nor  with    the   prophet   wliosc 


book  is  extant,  and  who  prophesied 
after  the  Captivity. 

^"  2  K.  xiv.  22  ;'  2  Chron.  xxvi.  2. 

^^2  Chron.  x.wi.  1-15. 


558  T Ice  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.     Chap.  XXIV. 

courageous  of  the  priests,  prepared  to  resist  the  profanation 
by  force.  The  high-priest  reproved  the  king  with  all  the 
boldness  of  his  office,  and  warned  him  to  leave  the  sanctuary, 
predicting  that  dishonor  would  befall  him.  What  reply  or 
deed  Uzziah  meditated  in  his  rage,  we  are  not  told ;  but  as 
he  stood,  censer  in  hand,  there  rose  Avitli  the  flush  of  anger 
to  his  forehead  the  spot  of  leprosy,  the  sign  of  his  exclusion 
even  from  the  court  of  the  house  of  God.  When  the  priests 
saw  it  they  thrust  him  out;  nay,  he  himself  was  so  struck 
with  the  judgment  that  he  hastened  from  the  sanctuary.  He 
remained  a  leper  to  the  day  of  his  death,  secluded  in  a  sepa- 
rate house,  according  to  the  directions  of  the  law,  while  the 
government  was  committed  to  his  son,  Jotham.  When  he 
died,  he  was  not  received  into  the  sepulchre  of  the  kings, 
but  buried  in  a  field  attached  to  it.""  His  life  was  written  by 
the  prophet  Isaiah,  as  well  as  in  the  Chronicles  of  Judah. 

Jotham,  the  eleventh  king  of  Judah,  was  twenty-five  years 
old  when  he  succeeded  his  father  TJzziah,  in  the  second  year 
of  Pekah,  king  of  Israel,  and  he  reigned  sixteen  years  at  Je- 
rusalem,^' having  been  previously  regent  about  seven  years. 
His  mother  was  Jerushah,  the  daughter  of  Zadok.  He  Avas 
one  of  the  most  pious  and  most  prosperous  of  the  kings  ;  but 
the  people  grew  more  and  more  corrupt.  He  carried  on  his 
father's  works,  both  in  peace  and  war.  He  built  the  high 
gate  of  tlie  Temple,  and  the  tower  called  Ophel  on  the  city 
wall,  fortified  cities  in  the  mountains  of  Judah,  and  castles 
and  towers  in  the  forests.  War  w^as  renewed  with  the  Beni- 
ammi,  who  were  compelled  to  pay  him  an  annual  tribute  of 
100  talents  of  silver,  10,000  measures  of  wheat,  and  10,000  of 
barley.  "  So  he  became  mighty,  and  established  his  ways  be- 
fore Jehovah  his  God."  Tov\^ard  the  close  of  his  reign,  Re- 
zin,  king  of  Damascus,  began,  in  alliance  with  Pekah,  king  of 
Israel,  those  attacks  on  Judah,  which  proved  so  disastrous 
under  Jotham's  weak  successor  Ahaz.'^^ 

§  8.  AiiAZ,  the  twelfth  king  of  Judah,  succeeded  his  father 
in  the  seventeenth  year  of  Pekah,  king  of  Israel,  and  reigned 
sixteen  years  at  Jerusalem.'^  He  departed  entirely  from  the 
virtues  of  the  last  three  kings,  and  plunged  into  all  the  idola- 
tries of  the  surrounding  nations,  making  molten  images  for* 

«°  2  K.  XV.  5-7  ;  2  Chron.  xxvi.  IG- 
2."),  The  date  of  Uzziah's  leprosy  is 
pinced  bv  Ussher  about  B.C.  765. 

"'  B.C."  758-742. 

'■''  2  K.  XV.  32-37  ;   2  Chron.  xxvii. 


"B.C.  742-726:   2  K.  xvi.  1,2;   2 


twenty,  winch  must  be  wrong,  as  it 
would  make  Hczekiali  only  eleven 
years  younfrer  than  his  father.  But 
twenty-five  is  found  in  one  Hebrew 
MS.,  and  in  the  LXX.,  the  Peshito, 
and    Arabic    versions    of    2    Chron. 


Chron.  xxviii.  1.     His  age  is  given  as   xxviii.  1. 


B.C.  758.  War  luith  Syria  and  Israel.  559 

Baal,  and  sacrificing  his  children  to  Moloch  in  the  valley  of 
Ilinnom,  besides  offering  sacrifice  in  the  high  places,  on  every 
hill,  and  under  every  green  tree.  His  punishment  quickly  fol- 
lowed. The  war  already  begun  by  Fekah  and  Rezin  was 
vigorously  prosecuted,  with  a  view  to  set  on  the  throne  of 
Judah  a  creature  of  their  own,  the  son  of  Tabeal."  The  or- 
der of  the  events  that  followed  is  obscure.  Ussher  suj^poses 
two  campaigns,  in  the  first  of  which  the  invaders  were  re- 
pelled, while  in  the  second  they  were  more  successful.  But 
it  is  not  likely  that  they  could  lay  siege  to  Jerusalem  before 
they  had  forced  the  strongholds  built  by  Uzziah  and  Jotham, 
and  the  story  of  the  war  in  Isaiah  seems  to  refer  to  only  one 
series  of  events.  It  was  therefore  most  probably  on  the  march 
to  Jerusalem  that  the  allies  defeated  Judah,  with  the  slaugh- 
ter of  120,000  men,  in  a  great  battle,  in  which  a  champion  of 
Ephraim,  named  Zichri,  slew  Maaseiah,the  king's  son,  and  two 
of  his  chief  ofiicers ;  and  on  their  retreat  they  carried  off 
200,000  women  and  children  from  the  cities  which  were  now 
left  undefended. 

Their  attack  upon  Jerusalem  itself  was  unsuccessful,  chief- 
ly in  consequence  of  the  spirit  infused  into  the  people  by  Isa- 
iah. To  this  epoch  belongs  the  celebrated  prophecy  in 
which  the  birth  of  the  child  Immanuel,  whose  very  name  ex- 
pressed the  devout  confidence,  "  God  is  %dith  its,''''  was  a  sign 
of  the  speedy  overthrow  of  both  the  hostile  kings  by  Assyria. 
A  second  sign  was  given  by  the  birth  of  a  child  who  re- 
ceived the  significant  name  of  Maher-shalal-hash-baz,  "  Make 
speed  to  the  spoil !  hasten  to  the  prey  !"  And,  in  that  exalt- 
ed style  of  pregnant  meaning,  which  has  given  Isaiah  the 
name  of  "  the  evangelic  prophet,"  these  passing  wars  are  dig- 
nified by  the  most  glowing  prophecies  of  the  Messiah's  king- 
dom.^' 

It  is  a  melancholy  comment  upon  some  of  the  grandest 
passages  of  Scripture  that  they  seem  to  have  made  no  lasting 
impression  on  the  king  to  whom  they  Avere  delivered.  His 
persistence  in  sin  insured  the  continuance  of  God's  judg- 
ments. It  w^ould  seem  that  Pekah  and  Rezin  retired  from 
Jerusalem  by  different  routes.  While  the  latter  took  from 
Judah  the  lately  recovered  part  of  Elath  and  gave  it  to  the 
Edomites,  the  former  returned  toward  Samaria  with  his  mis- 
erable captives.  The  dying  glory  of  Israel  burns  up  with  an 
expiring  flame  in  the  deed  of  mercy  that  followed.  The 
prophet  Oded  went  out  to  meet  the  army,  reproved  them 

"Is.vii.  G  «5  Is.  vii.  full. 


560  The  Kingdoms  of  Jadah  and  Israel    Chap.  XXIV. 

for  their  puri^ose  of  enslaving  the  children  of  their  brethren, 
and  commanded  them  to  restore  the  captives.  The  appeal 
touched  the  heart  of  the  princes  of  the  people,  and  they  re- 
fused  to  let  the  prisoners  be  brought  Avithin  their  borders. 
The  soldiers  left  them  in  their  hands,  and  arrangements  were 
at  once  made  for  their  relief  They  were  fed  and  anointed, 
clothed' and  shod  from  tlie  booty,  the  feeble  were  placed  on 
asses,  and  so  tliey  were  conducted  to  Jericho  and  delivered 
to  their  brethren?" 

The  retreat  of  Pekah  and  Rezin  gave  Ahaz  no  permanent 
relief  In  the  words  of  Isaiah,  God  had  raised  up  against 
him  the  Syrians  in  front  (tlie  East),  and  the  Philistines  be- 
hind (the  West).  They  overran  the  whole  maritime  plain 
{Shefelah)  and  the  highlands  that  border  it,  taking  Beth-she- 
mesh,  Ajalon,  and  other  cities.  The  Edomites,  set  free  by  the 
Syrians,  invaded  Judah  and  carried  off  many  captives,  Avhile 
the  Syrians  and  Israelites  threatened  to  return.  Ahaz  now 
applied  for  help  to  Tiglatii-pileser,  king  of  Assyria,  against 
Syria  and  Israel ;  declaring  himself  his  vassal,  and  sending 
him  all  the  treasures  that  were  left  in  the  Temple,  the  roy- 
al palace,  and  the  houses  of  the  princes.  The  "Tiger  Loi'd 
of  Asshur"  marched  first  against  Damascus,  which  he  took, 
killing  Rezin,  and  transporting  the  inhabitants  to  Kir,  as 
Amos  had  foretold."  Thus  ended  the  great  Syrian  kingdom 
of  Damascus,  after  a  duration  of  about  235  years.  Israel  was 
stripped  of  the  whole  country  east  of  the  Jordan,  and  the 
tribes  of  Reuben,  Gad,  and  half  Manasseh  at  length  reaped 
the  fruit  of  their  hasty  desire  to  have  the  first  settlement  in 
the  land  by  being  the  first  who  were  carried  into  captivity. 
Their  fate  was  shared  by  their  brethren  in  Galilee,  but  the 
captivity  of  these  northern  tribes  was  only  partial."'^  Ahaz 
gained  little  by  the  intervention  of  his  too  powerful  ally,  who, 
says  the  narrative,  "helped  him  not."  He  went  to  meet  the 
Assyrian  king  at  Damascus :  we  know  not  what  hard  condi- 
tions were  imposed  upon  him,  but  we  are  told  that  "  in  the 
time  of  his  distress  he  trespassed  yet  more  against  Jehovah;'* 
for  he  saw  at  Damascus  an  altar  w^hich  incited  him 

"God's  altar  to  disparapre,  and  displace 
For  one  of  Syrian  moulH,  whereon  to  burn 
His  odious  offerings,  and  adore  the  gods 
Whom  he  liad  vanquished." 

"*  2  Chron.xxviii.  6-15.  I      2    Chron.  xxviii.   lG-22;     Amosl. 

"  About  B.C.  74 :   2  K.  xvi.  7-9 ;  U,  5. 

^«  2  K.  XV.  29  :   see  below. 


B.C.  740.  Thirteenth  King^  HczekiaJi.  561 

He  sent  its  pattern  to  Jerusalem,  where  Urijah  the  high-priest 
prepared  an  altar  of  the  same  form  against  the  king's  return 
from  Damascus,  when,  with  a  profanity  on  which  Athaliah 
even  had  not  ventured,  Ahaz  put  it  in  the  place  of  the  brazen 
altar,  and  commanded  Urijah  to  offer  on  it  all  the  burnt-offer- 
ings and  other  sacrifices.  Superstition  led  him,  however,  to 
preserve  the  brazen  altar  for  oracular  uses,  and  he  placed  it 
on  the  north  of  his  great  altar.  The  great  brass  sea  of  Solo- 
mon was  dismounted  from  its  supporting  oxen,  and  the  lavers 
from  their  bases,  which  were  sent  to  the  King  of  Assyria, 
together  with  the  coverings  which  had  been  built  for  the 
king's  entry  to  the  house  and  for  the  shelter  of  the  worshipers 
on  the  Sabbath.  The  golden  vessels  of  the  house  of  God 
were  cut  in  pieces  and  sent  with  the  rest,  and  the  sanctuary 
itself  was  shut  up;  while  idol  altars  Avere  erected  in  every 
corner  of  Jerusalem,  and  high  places  in  every  city  of  Judah.*^^ 
It  was  not  for  want  of  provocation  to  Jehovah  that  Judah 
did  not  at  once  share  the  captivity  of  Israel ;  but  for  the 
sake  of  "the  sure  mercies  of  David"  another  respite  was 
given,  and  a  new  era  of  godliness  throws  its  light  over  the 
reign  of  Hezekiah,  amid  all  the  pressure  of  invasion  and  the 
threats  of  approaching  captivity. 

§  9.  Hezekiah,'"  the  thirteenth  king  of  Judah,  succeeded 
his  father  Ahaz  in  the  third  year  of  Hoshea,  the  nineteenth 
and  last  king  of  Israel.  He  was  twenty-five  years  old,  and 
reigned  twenty-nine  years  at  Jerusalem.''^  His  mother  Avas 
Abi  (or  Abijah),  the  daughter  of  Zechariah.  His  character  is 
marked  by  the  commendation  which  has  not  been  repeated 
since  Jehoshaphat,  "  He  did  that  which  was  right  in  the  sight 
of  Jehovah,  according  to  all  that  David  his  father  had  doneP'''' 
The  son  of  Sirach  reckons  him,  with  David  and  Josiah,  as  the 
only  three  kings  who  did  not  forsake  the  law  of  the  Most 
High ;"  and  the  historian  gives  him  this  panegyric, "  He  trust- 
ed in  Jehovah,  God  of  Israel ;  so  that  after  him  Avas  none  like 
him  among  all  the  kings  of  Judah,  nor  any  that  were  before 
him."'* 

In  the  very  first  month  of  his  reign"  he  began  the  refor- 
mation of  religion  by  reopening  and  repairing  the  doors  of 
the  Temple,  which  had  been  closed  by  Ahaz,  and  cleansing 


.     ^^  2  K.  xvi.  10-18  ;  2  Chron.  xxviii. 
22-25. 

■"•  *'  Strength  of  (or  in)  Jehovah," 
like  the  German  Gotthard.  The  usu- 
al form  of  the  name  is  HizJciyahu. 

"  B.C.  726-697. 

A  A  2 


"2  K.  xviii.  1-3;  2  Chron.  xxix. 
1,2. 

"  Ecclus.  xlix.  4.     ■"  2  K.  xvin.  5. 

'*  2  Chron.  xxix.  3  :  tliis  may,  how- 
ever, mean  the  first  inontli  of  the  first 
ecclesiastical  new  year  of  his  reign. 


562 


The  Kingdoms  of  Judali  and  Israel.    Chap.  XXIV. 


the  sacred  edifice.  The  details  of  the  work  and  of  tlie  sacri- 
fices that  followed,  with  the  exhortations  of  the  king  to  the 
priests  and  Levites,  are  related  at  length  in  the  Chronicles.'^ 
Then  follows  the  account  of  the  great  Passover  (the  first  re- 
corded since  the  time  of  Joshua),  which  was  kej^t  in  the  sec- 
ond month,  for  the  reason  expressly  allowed  in  the  law,  the 
ceremonial  impurity  both  of  priests  and  people  in  the  first 
month.  The  king  had  sent  posts  through  all  Israel  as  well  as 
Judah  to  invite  the  people  to  return  to  God,  that  He  might 
return  to  the  remnant  who  were  escaped  from  the  King  of 
Assyi"ia,  and  be  merciful  to  those  who  had  been  carried  cap- 
tive?^ The  message  w\as  treated  with  general  contempt: 
still,  many  came,  not  only  from  Ephraim  and  Manasseh,  but 
from  the  distant  tribes  of  Issachar,  Zebulun,  and  Ashei-,  to 
unite  with  their  brethren  of  Judah,  to  whom  God  had  given 
one  heart  to  obey  Him.  Several  of  these  visitors  being  still 
unpurified,  the  paschal  lambs  Avere  slain  by  the  Levites  for 
the  people  ;  and  Hezekiah  implored  pardon  for  those  who  ate 
the  Passover  otlierwise  than  according  to  the  law,  but  whose 
hearts  were  prepared  to  seek  the  God  of  their  fathers.  The 
seven  days  of  the  feast  were  doubtless  much  interrupted 
through  these  causes,  as  well  as  by  the  occupation,  to  which 
the  people  zealously  applied  themselves,  of  destroying  the  idol 
altars  throughout  Jerusalem.  By  the  spontaneous  impulse 
of  the  worshipers,  the  feast  was  prolonged  to  fourteen  days, 
amid  such  joy  as  had  not  been  seen  in  Jerusalem  since  the 
time  of  Solomon,  and  God  heard  their  prayers.  Departing  to 
their  homes,  they  broke  to  pieces  the  idols,  cut  down  the 
groves,  and  threw  down  the  high  places  and  altars  through 
Ephraim  and  Manasseh,  as  well  as  through  Judah  and  Ben- 
jamin, while  the  king  arranged  the  service  of  the  Temple.'^ 
One  instance  of  consummate  wisdom,  mingled  with  Heze- 
kiah's  zeal  against  idolati-y,  deserves  to  be  especially  men- 
tioned. The  brazen  serpent,  Avliich  Moses  had  lifted  up  in 
the  wilderness,  had  long  been  an  object  of  worship,  not  only 
as  the  memorial  of  a  great  deliverance,  but  probably  in  con- 


"2  Chron.xxix. 

''"'  Eminent  modern  critics  sec  here 
(especially  in  2  Chron.  xxx.  G-9,  xxxi. 
1)  a  proof  that  this  Passover  was  not 
kept  till  after  the  captivity  of  Israel  in 
the  sixth  year  of  Hezekiah.  But  the 
languaf;e  seems  clearly  to  apply  to  a 
remnant  still  existinfj  as  a  people, 
whose  repentance  might  yet  avert  the 
fate  that  had  hefallon  their  brethren 


in  the  east  and  north.  Nor  is  their 
general  scorn  of  the  message  (xxx. 
10)  credible  immediately  after  such  a 
judgment.  Nor  does  the  description 
at  all  correspond  to  the  utter  desola- 
tion described  in  2  K.  xvii.  See  es- 
pecially the  mention  of  th^  Israelites 
returning  "every  man  to  his  posses- 
.sio;?,  into  their  own  cities." 
'^  2  Clnon.  xxx.,  xxxi. 


B.C.  726. 


Hezekiah  revolts  from  Assyria, 


563 


nection  with  the  serpent-worship  prevalent  in  the  East.  No 
regard  for  so  curious  a  relic  of  their  early  history  prevented 
Hezekiah  from  breaking  it  in  pieces  like  any  other  idol  and 
speaking  of  it  as  only  "a  piece  of  brass"  (JVehushtan).''^ 
We  can  well  believe  that  this  phrase  was  addressed  to  the 
"  scornful  men,"  certain  rulers  at  Jerusalem,  probably  the  old 
friends  and  counselors  of  Ahaz,  of  whose  opposition  w^e  learn 
from  Isaiah,  the  king's  great  supporter  and  counselor  by  the 
word  of  Jehovah.*"  The  head  of  this  party  Avas  Shebna 
(probably  a  foreigner),  who  seems  to  have  been  degraded,  at 
the  instance  of  Isaiah,  from  the  office  of  treasurer  to  that  of 
scribe  (or  secretary),  the  former  post  being  conferred  on  Elia- 
kim,  the  son  of  Hilkiah.^' 

The  reunion  of  the  people  in  the  fear  of  God  infused  new 
life  into  their  national  policy.  The  Philistines,  Avho  had 
made  such  inroads  during  the  last  reign,  were  beaten  back 
again  as  far  as  Gaza  with  great  slaughter.*''  Trusting  in 
God's  protection,  Hezekiah  even  ventured  to  refuse  the  trib- 
ute wdiich  his  father  had  paid  to  the  King  of  Assyria.  The 
momentous  character  of  such  a  step  at  the  existing  crisis 
will  be  seen  by  turning  to  the  history  of  the  kingdom  of  Is- 
rael. If  it  was  taken  alter  the  overthroAV  of  Samaria,  or  even 
after  the  beginning  of  the  siege,  it  might  seem  to  have  been 
the  height  of  rashness.  But  it  Avas  more  truly  one  of  those 
acts  of  "  considerate  courage"  by  Avhich  nations  are  rescued 
in  their  extremity ;  and,  Avith  prudence  on  the  part  of  Ho- 
shea,  it  might  have  proved  the  salvation  of  both  kingdoms. 
The  revolt  may  be  safely  placed  about  the  third  year  of 
Hezekiah  (b.c.  724). 

§  10.  HosHEA,  the  son  of  Elah,  the  nineteenth  and  last  king 
of  the  separate  kingdom  of  Israel,  had  conspired  against  Pe- 
kah  and  killed  him  "  in  the  tAventieth  year  of  Jotham,  the  son 
of  Uzziah,"  by  Avhich  we  must  understand  the  tAventieth  year 
from  Jotham's  accession,  Avhich  is  the  fourth  of  Ahaz.  ®^  But 
he  Avas  not  established  in  the  kingdom  till  the  tAvelfth  year 
of  Ahaz  (b.c.  730;)**  and  there  is  no  error  in  the  numbers, 
since  his  seventh  year  Avas  the  fourth  of  Hezekiah  (b.c.  723)."" 
The  best  chronologers  (as  Ussher)  called  the  interA^ening  nine 


^^  2  K.  xviii.  4.  Some  see  in  the 
word  a  play  on  Nahash  (a  serpent). 
It  is  curious  that  the  brazen  serpent 
is,  or  was  till  lately,  worshiped  in  the 
Church  of  St.  Ambrose  at  Milan,  with 
the  belief  that  it  would  hiss  at  the  end 
of  the  world.         **  Is.  xxviii.  U,  foil. 


'^  Is.  xxii.  ]5-25  ;  2  K.  xviii.  18. 

**-  2  K.  xviii.  8.  According  to  Jo- 
sephus  all  their  cities  were  taken  ex- 
cept Gath  and  Gaza.  (Ant.  ix.  13,  §3). 

'^  B.C.  739  :  2  K.  xv.  30  :  comp.  the 
similar  reckoning  in  1  K.  xvi.  1. 

"  2  K.  xvii.  1.  '^  2  K.  xviii.  9. 


564  The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.    Chap.  XXIV; 

years  an  Interregnum.  Perhaps  they  should  rather  be  regard- 
ed as  a  struggle  of  Hoshea,  at  the  head  of  a  reform  party 
against  the  idolaters  and  enemies  of  Judah,  the  party  to 
which  the  late  king  belonged.  That  such  a  reform  party  ex- 
isted may  be  inferred  from  the  noble  scene  related  above  of 
the  restoration  of  the  Jewish  captives,  and  from  the  response 
made  to  Hezekiah's  invitation  to  the  Passover.  Its  rise  may 
be  accounted  for  by  the  earnest  pleadings  of  the  prophets,  and 
especially  of  the  new  king's  namesake,  Hosea,^^  whose  affect- 
ing pleas  for  union  can  not  have  been  entirely  unheeded. 
The  character  ascribed  to  Hoshea  agrees  Avith  this  hypothe- 
sis. Though,  corrupted  by  the  long  prevalence  of  idolatry 
and  wickedness,  "he  did  evil  in  the  sight  of  Jehovah,"  the 
record  is  qualified  by  the  addition,  "  but  not  as  the  kings  of  Is- 
rael that  were  before  himP^''  We  have  seen  the  freedom  with 
which  the  posts  of  Hezekiah  traversed  his  kingdom,  and  with 
which  the  worshipers  from  Israel  went  up  to  Jerusalem  ;  nor 
do  we  read  of  any  opposition  to  their  zealous  destruction  of  the 
idols  and  altars  in  Ephraim  andManasseh.  In  fine,Hoshea's 
revolt  from  Shalmaneser  seems  to  have  been  no  less  an  act 
of  patriotism  than  Hezekiah's,  though  not  prompted  by  such 
purely  religious  motives.  Hoshea  was,  in  fact,  the  best  king 
in  the  whole  line  from  Jeroboam. 

Nor  ought  we  to  be  surprised  that  the  final  catastrophe 
came  in  his  reign.  Speaking  humanly,  the  state  was  past  re- 
demption ;  the  utter  corruption  and  impenitence  of  the  peo- 
ple are  attested  by  the  denunciations  of  Hosea,  and  confirm- 
ed by  their  scornful  rejection  of  Hezekiah's  call  to  repent- 
ance and  union.  Even  the  king  was  only  some  shades  bet- 
ter than  his  predecessors,  and  it  was  no  partial  reform  that 
could  save  and  renew  the  state.  Viewing  the  case  from  the 
higher  ground  taken  throughout  the  Scripture  history — the 
inseparable  connection  between  national  prosj^erity  or  adver- 
sity and  religious  obedience  or  rebellion — we  can  not  say 
that  it  was  too  late  for  Israel  to  be  saved ;  as  Sodom  would 
have  been,  if  five  righteous  men  had  been  found  in  her ;  as 
Nineveh  was,  when  her  people  repented  at  the  preaching  of 
Jonah.  They  had  only  forty  days  of  grace  :  Hoshea  and  his 
people  had  three  years  :  let  us  now  see  how  they  used  them. 
In  the  third  year  of  Hoshea  (b.c.  726)  Shalmaneser,  who  had 
succeeded  Tiglath-pileser,  in  b.c.  730  marched  against  Ho- 
shea to  enforce  payment  of  the  tribute,  the  refusal  of  which, 
in  the  very  year  of  Hezekiah's  accession,  is  perhapj;  another 

^"^  In  Hebrew  both  names  are  Hoshea.  '  2  K.  xvii.  2. 


B.C.  726.  Rebellion  of  Hoshea.  56a 

proof  of  a  common  feeling/^  The  cruelties  perpetrated  at 
the  storming  of  the  fortress  of  Beth-arbel  evidently  belong 
to  this  campaign/^  Hoshea  submitted,  and  became  tributa- 
ry to  Assyria.  His  second  revolt  is  morally  justified  by 
patriotism ;  and  even  politically,  the  favorite  test  of  success 
might  not  have  been  wanting,  as  we  see  in  the  case  of  Heze-^ 
kiah.  But,  in  the  religious  point  of  view,  it  was  an  utter 
wrong  and  failure.  Had  Hoshea  made  common  cause  w^th 
Hezekiah,  and  thrown  himself  on  the  protection  of  Jehovah, 
w^e  have  a  right  to  believe  that  the  times  of  David  might 
have  returned.  But  Hoshea  took  the  very  course  denounced 
by  the  law  of  Moses,  reliance  upon  Egypt.  The  long  contest 
had  begun  between  the  sovereigns  of  Egypt  and  Western 
Asia  for  the  frontier  province  of  Palestine,  and  both  had 
their  partisans  at  the  court  of  Samaria.  The  King  of  Egypt, 
who  is  called  So  in  the  Scripture  narrative,  was  either  She- 
bek  L,  the  Sabaco  of  Herodotus,  or  his  son  Shebek  H.,  the 
Sevechus  of  Manetho.  He  belonged  to  the  warlike  xxvtb 
(Ethiopian)  dynasty,  who  opposed  the  progress  of  Assyria 
wath  all  their  force.  Hoshea  formed  a  secret  league  with 
him,  and  withheld  the  accustomed  tribute  from  Shalmaneser  ; 
w^ho,  informed  of  the  conspiracy,  seized  the  King  of  Israel, 
and  shut  him  up  in  prison,  wdiere  he  Avas  bound  with  fetters 
and  treated  with  cruel  indignity.^"  His  sudden  destruction 
is  compared  by  the  prophet  Hosea  to  the  disappearance  of 
the  foam  upon  the  water.^^  The  imprisonment  of  Hoshea 
clearly  preceded  the  siege  of  Samaria :  it  may  be  that  he 
w^as  seized  on  a  visit  to  Nineveh  for  the  purpose  of  excusing 
his  conduct.  Shalmaneser  then  marched  against  Israel ;  and 
after  overrunning  the  country,  laid  siege  to  Samaria  in  the 
seventh  year  of  Hoshea,  the  fourth  of  Hezekiah  (b.c.  723)." 
Then  followed  one  of  those  memorable  defenses, the  despair- 
ing efforts  of  dying  nations.  We  have  no  details  of  the 
siege  ;  but  Isaiah  gives  a  glowing  description  of  the  mighty 
instrument  of  Jehovah  smiting  like  a  hailstorm  the  glorious 
beauty  of  the  city,  which  towered  on  its  hill  like  a  crown  of 
pride,  the  head  of  the  fat  valleys  of  the  drunkards  of  Ephra- 
im."  Its  strong  position  enabled  the  city  to  hold  out  for 
three  years,®*  during  which  w^e  learn  from  the  Assyrian  monu- 
ments that  Shalmaneser  died  and  was  succeeded  by  his  son 
Sargox,  a  change  not  noticed  in  the  Scripture  narrative, 
which,  after  the  first  mention  of  Shalmaneser,"^  only  speaks 

««2K.  xvii.3.       *»  Hosea  X.  14.      I      "  2  K.  xvii.  5,  xviii.  fi. 
»°  2  K.  xvii.  4  ;    Micali  v.  1  :  b.c.       ^'  Is.  xxviii.  1-4.        '^  2  K.  xvii.  5. 
725.  "*  Hosea  x.  7.      '      ^"2  K.  xvii.  3 ;   comp.  vs.  4,  5,  & 


566  The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.    Chap.  XXIV. 

of  the  "King  of  Assyria."  Tlie  city  was  taken  in  the  ninth 
year  of  Hoshea,  the  sixth  of  Hezekiah."®  Sargon  himself  re- 
cords the  capture  of  Samaria  in  the  following  terms  : — ■ 
"Samaria  I  looked  at,  I  captured"  (like  Caesar's  vidl^  vie?)  ; 
"  27,280  men  (or  families)  who  dwelt  in  it  I  carried  away."" 
According  to  the  Scripture  narrative,  he  "carried  Israel 
away  into  Assyria,  and  placed  them  in  Halah  and  in  Habor 
by  the  river  of  Gozan  and  the  cities  of  the  Medes."'^  This  de- 
portation of  the  people  extended  to  Samaria;  and  its  depend- 
ent towns,  a  region  small  in  comparison  to  the  original  king- 
dom of  the  ten  tribes.  The  region  east  of  Jordan  had  already 
been  so  treated  by  Tiglath-pileser,  who  had  also  carried 
away  the  northern  tribes,  but  not  to  the  same  extent ;  for  a 
remnant  Avere  left,  who  form  the  nucleus  of  the  mixed  popu- 
lation of  the  later  Galilee.  The  cities  in  the  south  of 
Ephraim,  which  had  been  attached  to  Judah  by  conquest,  or 
by  the  bond  of  religion  under  Ilezekiah,  probably  shared  the 
fortunes  of  the  southern  kingdom.  The  removal  was  of  that 
complete  character,  which  vv'e  have  seen  in  the  case  of  Da- 
mascus, and  which  was  frequently  practiced  by  the  conquerors 
of  Western  Asia.®^  The  process  is  compared  to  the  act  of 
"  wiping  out  a  dish  and  turning  it  upside  down."^°°  Jose- 
phus  states  that  the  King  of  Assyria  "  transplanted  all  the 
people."""  These  statements,  Avhich  have  the  most  impor- 
tant bearing  on  the  national  character  of  the  later  "  Samari- 
tans," are  confirmed  in  various  ways.  Not  a  word  is  said  of 
any  remnant,  as  in  the  case  of  the  captivity  of  Judah,  when 
"  the  poor  of  the  land  were  left  to  be  vine-dressers  and  lius- 
bandmen;"'"^  nor,  if  such  a  remnant  had  been  left,  could  the 
new  population  have  been  so  ignorant  of"  the  manner  of  the 
God  of  the  land"  as  to  need  one  of  the  captive  priests  to  be 
sent  from  Assyria  to  teach  them  to  fear  Jehovah.'"^  The  ten 
tribes  never  returned  to  their  land  as  a  distinct  people:  and 
the  contrast  between  their  fate  and  that  of  Judah  in  both 
these  points  marks  the  favor  of  God  to  the  house  of  David, 
r.nd  to  the  people  Avho  never  entirely  cast  off  His  worship. 

r'lirsory  readers  arc  liable  to  confound  described  by  the  very  expressive  words 
tlic  three  kings,  Shalmnneser,  Sargon,  cayr/veveiv,  "to  drag"  as  a  pond,  and 
and  Sennacherib,  and  the  name  of  f7c^;yp£i'en',  "  to  hunt  out  "  the  inhabit' 
the  last  takes  them  by  surprise.  ants.     The  former  image  is  the  moro 

^' B.C.  721:  2  K.  xvii.  Cxviii.  10.    |  perfect,  as  the  people  were  not  dis* 

"'  lVincks,\nJoHni(ilo/'Sticre(lLit-  persed, 
CTdiiire,  Oct.  IS'.S;    Lavard,  Nineveh        ^"^  2  K.  xxi.  13. 
and  Babylon,  p.  148.       °''*  2  K.  xvii.  G.        ^'"  Ant.  ix.  14,  §  1. 

''^  As  "in  the  case  of  Samos  In-  the!      ^""'^  2  K.  xxv.  12. 
Persians   (Herod,  iii.  149),  which   i.       '^=^  2  K.  xvii.  25-28. 


B.C.  721.  Final  Captivitij  of  Israel.  567 

Thus  ended  the  kingdom  of  Israel,  after  a  duration  of  just 
255  years/"*  under  nineteen  kings  and  seven  dynasties,  not 
reckoning  among  the  latter  the  ephemeral  usurpations  of  Zimri 
and  Shallum.  The  last  two  of  these  dynasties  perished  with 
their  founders,  Pekah  and  Hoshea :  three,  those  of  Jeroboam, 
Baasha,  and  Mehanem,  had  two  kings  each ;  the  house  of  Omri 
numbered  four  kings  in  three  generations  :  Jehu's,  the  longest 
of  all,  reigned  for  five  generations  from  father  to  son,  and  all 
its  kings  died  a  natural  death  except  the  last,  Zachariah. 
Of  the  other  kings,  onlj^  Jeroboam  I.,  Baasha,  Omri,  Ahaziah, 
and  Mehanem  had  the  same  lot ;  the  rest  were  slain  by  trai- 
tors or  in  battle,  or  died  in  captivity.  Their  character  was 
even  worse  than  their  fate.  Not  one  in  the  whole  list  is  com^ 
mended  either  for  morality  or  piety  :  all  were  idolaters,  and 
traitors  to  Jehovah.  Even  the  zeal  of  Jehu  ended  in  idol- 
worship,  and  the  patriotism  of  Hoshea  was  marred  by  dis- 
loyalty to  God.  The  sacred  historian  concludes  their  history 
Avith  an  impressive  and  aifecting  summary  of  their  sins,  in 
which  they  were  followed  by  Judah,  provoking  the  anger  of 
Jehovah  till  "  He  removed  them  out  of  his  sight."  First, 
"  there  was  none  left  but  the  tribe  of  Judah  only ;"  but  their 
sins  had  already  caused  Jehovah  to  "  rend  Israel  from  the 
house  of  David;"  and  at  last  "Jehovah  rejected  all  the  seed 
of  Israel."  But  not  till  He  had  given  them  abundant  invita- 
tions to  return  to  God  by  the  long  line  of  pkophets,  the 
preachers  of  repentance  and  reformation.  Besides  the  many 
whose  names  are  too  often  forgotten  because  their  writings 
are  not  extant,  Elijah  and  Elisha  shine  amid  the  darkest 
night  of  Israel's  idolatry ;  Zechariah,  the  son  of  Jehoiada,  seals 
his  testimony  against  the  apostasy  of  Judah  with  his  mar- 
tyrdom ;  and  the  century  before  the  fall  of  Samaria  is  glori- 
fied by  the  names  of  Joxah,  Amos,  and  Hosea  in  Israel,  and 
Joel,  Isaiah,  and  Micah  in  Judah. 

The  end  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel  involves  two  questions 
of  great  interest — the  fate  of  the  captives  who  were  carried 
away,  and  the  condition  of  the  country  after  their  removal. 
Respecting  the  first  point,  we  have  had  the  statement  of 
their  transplantation  to  certain  districts  of  Assyria  and 
Media,  Avhere  we  almost  lose  sight  of  them.  Nor  is  this 
surprising.  The  gradual  contraction  of  the  limits  of  the  Sa- 
maritan kingdom  suggests,  what  the  inscription  of  Sargon 
confirms,  that  the  numbers  carried  captive  at  last  were  far 
less  considerable  than  is  commonly  supposed.     Their  absorp 

""B.C.  975-721. 


568  2Vie  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.    Chap.  XXIV. 

tion  ill  the  surroimding  population  would  be  aidea  by  theij 
long  addiction  to  the  practices  of  idolatry,  and  the  loss  of 
reverence  for  their  religion  involved  the  absence  of  care  for 
the  records  of  their  national  existence.  As  they  furnished 
no  confessors  and  martyrs,  like  Daniel  and  "  the  three  chil- 
dren," so  neither  did  they  preserve  the  genealogies  on  which 
Judah  based  the  order  of  the  restored  commonwealth."^  But 
yet  their  traces  are  not  utterly  lost.  The  fact  that  a  priest 
was  found  among  them  to  teach  the  Samaritans  to  fear  Jeho- 
vah, proves  that  they  maintained  some  form  of  worship  in 
liis  name.  The  Book  of  Tobit  preserves  the  record  of  do- 
mestic piety  among  captives  of  the  tribe  of  Naphtali.  The 
lirst  Jewish  exiles,  who  were  carried  away  by  Sennacherib, 
seem  to  have  been  settled  in  the  same  districts  as  their 
brethren  of  Israel,  on  whom  their  influence  would  be  saluta- 
ry ;  and,  after  the  great  captivity  of  Judah,  it  is  most  inter- 
esting to  see  how  continually  Ezekiel  addresses  the  captives 
by  the  name  o^  Israel.  The  prophetic  symbol  of  the  rod  of 
Judah  and  "the  rod  of  the  children  of  Israel,  his  compan- 
ions^^ being  joined  into  one,  in  order  to  their  restoration  as 
one  nation,  as  Isaiah  also  had  predicted,"''  seems  to  imply 
that  all  that  Avas  Avorth  preserving  in  Israel  became  amal- 
gamated with  Judah,  and  either  shared  in  the  restoration,  or 
became  a  part  of  the  "  dispersion,"  who  were  content  to  re- 
main behind,  and  who  spread  the  knowledge  of  the  true  God 
throughout  the  East.  It  is  an  important  fact  that  St.  James 
addresses  the  "  dispersion  "  as  "  the  twelve  tribes."  The  edict 
of  Cyrus,  addressed  to  the  servants  of  Jehovah,  God  oi  Israel, 
would  find  a  response  beyond  the  tribe  of  Judah ;  and  though 
none  of  the  ten  tribes  appear,  as  such,  among  the  returned 
exiles,  there  is  room  for  many  of  their  families  in  the  number 
of  those  who  could  not  prove  their  pedigrees."^  As  for  the 
rest,  according  to  the  very  images  of  the  prophet, 

"Like  the  deiv  on  the  inonntain,^"^ 
Like  the  foam  on  ilie  river,  ^°^ 
Like  the  bubble  on  the  fountain, 
T/iey  are  (/one,  and  FORiiVER." 

^le  very  wildness  of  the  speculations  of  those  who  have 
sought  them  at  the  foot  of  the  Himalayas  and  on  the  coast 


*"*  See  Ezra  and  Nehemiah. 

^"^  Ezek.  xxxvii.  15-28 ;  Is.  xi.  13, 
16. 

'"  At  the  time  of  Christ  there  were 
Jews  known  to  belong  to  other  tribes 
than  Judah,  Benjamin,  and  Levi;  as 


Anna,  of  the  tribe  of  Asher  (Luke  ii 
36).  Such  may  have  been  descended 
either  from  returned  captives,  or  from 
those  left  in  the  north  beyond  the  lim- 
its of  Samaria. 

'''  Hosea  xiii.  3.         '''  Ilosea  x.  7. 


B.C.  C78.  Condition  of  Samaria.  569 

of  Malabar  among  the  Nestorians  of  Abyssinia  and  the  In- 
dians of  North  America,  proves  sufficiently  the  hopelessness 
of  the  attempt.  Have  then  the  promises  of  God  concerning 
their  restoration  failed  ?  No  !  tliey  were  represented,  as  we 
liave  seen,  in  the  return  of  Judah ;  and  for  the  rest,  though 
they  are  lost  to  us, "the  Lord  knoweth  them  that  are  His." 
We  do  not  enter,  in  this  work,  into  the  controversy  respecting 
the  return  of  Israel  to  their  own  land.  But  of  this  there  is  no 
cpiestion,  that  when  God  shall  reveal, "  out  of  every  nation, 
those  who  have  feared  God,  and  wrought  righteousness,"  all 
the  tribes  of  believers  in  Israel  will  be  owned,  in  some  especial 
manner,  as  His  people.  That  this  restoration  will  be  not  tem- 
poral, but  spiritual,  seems  to  be  the  plain  teaching  of  St.  Paul, 
in  the  passage  which  forms  the  great  New  Testament  author- 
ity  on  the  whole  subject.^'" 

We  turn  back  to  the  condition  of  their  deserted  land,  guard- 
ing first  against  the  common  error  of  confusing  its  limits  with 
those  of  the  old  kingdom  of  the  ten  tribes.  The  final  deporta- 
tion by  Shalmaneser  (or  Sargon),  following  upon  that  made  by 
Tiglath-pileser,  justifies  our  speaking  of  the  captivity  of  the  ten 
tribes ;  but  the  depopulation  in  the  earlier  captivity  was  much 
less  complete  than  in  the  latter,  at  least  on  the  west  of  Jordan. 
This  has  already  been  seen  in  the  description  of  Hezekiah's  ref- 
ormation. It  Avas  only  the  region  immediately  round  Sama- 
ria that  was  utterly  depopulated.  The  description  of  its  re- 
l)eopling  follows  immediately  upon  the  narrative  of  the  Cap- 
tivity in  the  Second  Book  of  Kings  f^^  but  it  is  clear  that 
there  was  a  very  considerable  interval.  The  new  colonization 
is  expressly  ascribed  to  Esar-haddon,  the  grandson  of  Sargon, 
and  "  the  great  and  noble  Asnapper,"  either  his  officer,  or  a 
title  of  the  king  himself"^  This  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that 
some  of  the  colonists  came  from  Babylon,  which  only  became 
subject  to  Assyria  under  Sennacherib,  the  father  of  Esar-had- 
don. It  is  probable  that  the  colonization  was  suggested  by 
Esar-haddon's  observation  of  the  state  of  the  country  during 
his  campaign  against  Manasseh,  about  b.c.  678.  It  was  efiect- 
ed  by  the  usual  Assyrian  method  of  removing  the  whole 
population  of  other  conquered  cities  or  districts  in  a  distant 


"°  Romans  ix-xi. 

^"2K.  xvii.  24-41.  Josephns(^?2^ 
ix.  14,  X.  9)  is  misled  by  this  into  mak- 
ing it  the  work  of  Shalmaneser ;  and 


rors  should  make  us  very  cautious  how 
we  accept  his  statements  as  derived 
from  independent  sources.  Like  the 
Greek  scholiasts,  he  often  seems  to  bo 


in  the  preceding  narrative  he  knows  giving  us  information,  when  he  is  only 
nothing  of  tiie  distinction  between  making  glosses  on  the  text  of  Script- 
Shalmaneser  and  Sargon.     Such  er- '  ure.  "^  Ezra  iv.  2,  10. 


670  The  Kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.    Chap.  XXIV. 

part  of  the  empire,  "  from  Babylon,  Cuthah,  Ava  {ov  Ival), 
Hamath,  and  Sepharvaim,"  the  three  last  being  places  men- 
tioned among  the  conquests  of  Sennacherib.''^  The  new  in- 
habitants imported  their  idolatrous  worship ;  and  God  showed 
his  jealousy  for  His  own  land  by  plaguing  them  with  lions, 
which  had  doubtless  multiplied  during  nearly  half  a  century 
of  desolation.  They  ascribed  the  intliction  to  their  ignorance 
of  "  the  manner  of  the  God  of  the  land,"  and  the  King  of 
Assyria  sent  back  one  of  the  captiye  priests,  who  established 
himself  at  Bethel,  and  "taught  them  how  to  fear  Jehoyah." 
His  teaching  was  probably  mixed  with  no  little  error,  but  it 
seems  to  haye  been  free  Irom  the  old  idolatry  of  Jeroboam. 
The  worship  thus  established  was  regarded  by  the  people  as 
merely  local,  and  they  none  the  less  set  up  their  own  idols  in 
the  old  high  places  of  tlie  Israelites  :  Succoth-benoth,  the  god 
of  Babylon  ;  Nergal,  Ashima,  Nibhaz,  and  Tartak,  the  gods  of 
Cuth,  Hamath,  and  the  Aryites,  while  the  Sepharyites  burnt 
their  children  to  Adram-melech.  Priests  were  appointed  for 
the  high  places  from  the  lowest  of  the  people.  Th.e  compro- 
mise between  their  new  religion  and  their  old  idolatries  is 
thus  summed  up :  "  They  feared  Jehoyah,  and  seryed  their 
own  gods."  The  writer  lays  the  greatest  stress  on  their  en- 
tire departure  from  the  law  of  Moses,  and  concludes  by  stat- 
ing that  these  practices  were  followed  by  "  their  children  and 
their  children's  children :  as  did  their  fathers,  so  do  they  unto 
this  day."''* 

These  are  eyidently  the  words  of  a  writer  disowning  all 
religious  communion  with  the  devotees  of  such  degrading 
superstitions.  The  date  to  which  they  lead,  their  tone  and 
spirit,  and  the  part  ascribed  to  Ezra  in  making  up  the  Canon 
of  the  Old  Testament,  all  point  to  their  having  been  written 
by  him  at  the  time  when  these  people  were  doing  all  they 
could  to  thwart  the  exertions  of  the  restored  Jews  to  build 
up  the  Temple  and  city  of  Jerusalem.  They  explain  that 
long  course  of  mutual  hostility  which  the  subsequent  history 
develops,  and  which  is  summed  up  in  the  saying, "  The  Jews 
have  no  dealings  with  the  Samaritans,"  not  so  much  as  to 
ask  and  receive  a  cup  of  cold  water  at  a  well-side  in  the  noon- 
day lieat  of  travel. 

"■■*  2  K.  xvii  2i,  xviii.  13.  "^  1  K.  xvii.  4L 


The  City  of  Lacliish  repelling  the  Attack  of  Sonnache.ib      From  Layavd's  Monuments 
of  Nineveh,  'Jd  Sents,  Plate  21. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

FROM  THE  END  OF  THE  KINGDOM  OF  ISRAEL  TO  END  OF 
THE  KINGDOM  OF  JUDAH.   B.C.  721-586. 

S  1  Progress  of  Assvria-Siege  of  Tyre  by  Savgon— His  invasion  of  Egypt 
S  2  Illness  and' recovery  of  Hezekiah— Embassy  from  Babylon— Fn-st 
Fi-o'phecy  of  the  Babylonish  Captivity.  §  3.  Sennacherib  succeeds 
Saro-on— Egyptian  pai'ty  in  Jiulah  denounced  by  Isaiah— Invasion  o 
Sennacherib  and  submission  of  Hezekiah-War  of  Sennacherib  xv^th 
E<^vpt— Rabshakeh  summons  Jerusalem— Destruction  of  the  Assyrian 
ai°niv— Death  of  Sennacherib-Prosperity  and  death  of  Hezekiah.  §  4. 
MA^JASSEH,  fourteenth  king  of  Judah— Anti-religious  reaction-Im- 
prisonment of  Manasseh  by  Esar-haddon  at  Babylon— His  repentance 
and  restoration-His  probable  relations  ^vith  Egypt— His  death.  4?  .'>. 
Amox,  fifteenth  king  of  Judah.  §  G.  Josiah,  sixteenth  king  of  Judali 
— Pveli^ious  degradation  of  the  people— Josiah  begins  to  seek  the  Lord 
— Rescoration  of  the  Temple  and  Ark— Book  of  the  Law  discovered— 
The  prophetess  Huldah— Destruction  of  the  idols— Gehenna— Isaiah  s 
great  Passover.  §  7.  Fall  of  Assyria,  and  rise  of  Media  and  Babylon 
—Rivalry  of  Ba])ylon  and  Egvpt— Expedition  of  Necbo— Death  of 
Josiah  at  Megiddo— The  mvstic  battle  of  Armageddon— Revival  ot 
prophecv  under  Josiah  :  Nahcm,  Zkphamah.  Habakkdk,  and  Jere- 
Mi\H  "§  8  The  successors  of  Josiah  but  nominal  kings— Jehoahaz, 
ihe  seventeenth  king  of  Judah,  set  up  by  the  people,  and  deposed  by 
Necbo—"  Cadytis  "  taken  bv  Necho.  §  9.  Jehoiakim,  the  eighteenth 
king  of  Judah-Defeat  of' Necho  by  NEBUCHADNEZZAR-Jeremiah 
prophesies  the  seventv  vears'  Captivity  at  Babylon-Stor^v  of  the  Rech- 
abites-Nebuchadnezzar  takes  Jerusalem-The  Fu-st  CapUmty  ofJu^ 
tiiA-DANiEL  and  his  comrades-Public  reading  of  Jeremiah  sprophe- 
ecies  by  Baruch— R'-;bellion  and  death  of  Jehoiakim.     ^  10.  Jehoia- 


572  The  Kingdom  oj  Judali.  Chap.  XXV. 

CHIN,  the  nineteentli  king  of  Jiidah — Set  up  and  deposed  by  Nebuchad- 
nezzar— The  Second  and  great  Capticitij  of  Judah — Subsequent  history 
of  Jelioiachin  and  the  line  of  David.  §  11.  Zedekiah,  the  twentieth 
and  last  king  over  the  remnant  of  Judah — Parties  at  Jerusalem — Jere- 
miah advises  submission — The  seditious  false  prophets — Predictions  of 
the  restoration  of  Israel  and  the  fall  of  Babylon — Ezekiel  prophesies 
at  Babylon — Zedekiah  conspires  with  Egypt.  §  12.  eTerusalem  besieged 
by  Nebuchadnezzar — Advance  and  retreat  of  Pharaoh-hophra — Impris- 
onment of  Jeremiah — Capture  and  destruction  of  Jerusalem — Exulta- 
tion of  the  neighboring  nations — Prophecy  of  Ob  adiah — Third  Capticitij 
— Summary  of  the  Captivities — The  land  left  uncolonized.  §  13.  The 
remnant  in  Judosa — Gedaliah,  Ishmael,  and  Johanan — Flight  into 
Egypt  under  Johanan — Nebuchadnezzar  invades  Egypt — His  other 
conquests. 

§  1.  There  is  a  gap  in  the  Scripture  narrative,  from  the 
taking  of  Samaria  in  the  sixth  year  of  Hezekiah  to  the  attack 
from  Assyria  in  his  fourteenth  year  (b.c.  721-713).  But  from 
an  alhision  in  Isaiah  as  well  as  from  the  direct  testimony  of 
an  ancient  historian  preserved  by  Josephus,  we  know  how 
the  King  of  Assyria  employed  the  interval.  It  may  seem 
strange  that  Sargon  should  not  at  once  have  marched  to  sub- 
due Hezekiah.  But  he  was  evidently  preparing  for  a  more 
important  campaign,  of  which  the  reduction  of  Judah  would 
be  merely  an  incident,  against  Egypt,  the  ally  of  Hoshea,  and 
the  probable  supporter  of  Hezekiah.  To  conduct  such  a  war 
to  a  successful  issue,  and  to  accomplish  a  cherished  object  of 
Assyrian  policy,  it  was  necessary  to  secure  the  great  port  of 
Western  Asia  on  the  Mediterranean.  Sargon  overran  Phoe- 
nicia and  laid  siege  to  Tyre,  then  at  the  height  of  its  power, 
under  its  king  Elulaeus.  Having  retired  the  first  time  with- 
out success,  Sargon  renewed  the  attempt  with  the  aid  of  six- 
ty ships  furnished  by  other  Phoenician  cities,  as  Sidon,  Ace 
(Accho),  and  Paloe-tyrus  (old  Tyre  on  the  main  land)  wheth- 
er from  compulsion,  or  from  jealousy  of  the  island  queen. 
This  navy  was  defeated  by  the  Tyrians,  who  had  only  twen- 
ty ships ;  and,  thus  secured  against  a  storm,  they  held  out 
for  five  years  (b.c.  720-71 5)  with  the  same  constancy  that  they 
afterward  displayed  against  Nebuchadnezzar  and  Alexander, 
and  probably  with  better  success.^  The  issue  of  the  blockade 
is  not  recorded  ;  but,  if  it  had  been  successful,  "  the  gods  of 
Tyre  "  Avould  doubtless  have  been  included  in  the  boast  of 
Rabshakeh.'^  We  can  not  be  wrong  in  referring  to  this  occa^ 
sion  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  against  Tyre,  warning  "the  mer- 
chant city  "  that  though  she  had  escaped  this  time,  she  was 
doomed  to  utter  destruction.^ 

*  Menander,  np.  Josej)h.  Ant.  ix.  14.  As  before,  Josephus  confounds  Sar- 
gon with  Shnlmaneser.  ^  2  K.  xviii.  33,  3t.  ^  Is.  xxiii. 


B.C   713. 


Hezekiah's  Illness. 


573 


Sargon  sent  an  army  against  Judah  and  Egypt,  under  a 
"  Tartan  "  (or  general)  in  the  tenth  year  of  his  reign,  which 
was  the  fourteentli  of  Hezekiah  b.c.  713)."  How  this  expedi- 
tion aftected  Judah  we  do  not  know,  for  in  our  present  text 
it  is  manifestly  confused  witli  the  celebrated  incursion  of  Sen- 
nacherib several  years  later;  but  it  inflicted  a  great  blow 
on  Egypt.  While  the  Assyrian  army  was  detained  near  the 
frontier  by  the  siege  of  Ashdod,  which  probably  belonged 
then  to  Egypt,  Isaiah  uttered  his  remarkable  prophecy  of  the 
defeat  and  captivity  of  the  Egyptians,^  Avhich  appears  from 
Nahum  to  have  been  soon  fulflUed  by  the  capture  of  Thebes 
(No-amon).^  We  learn  from  Herodotus  that  Sebechus  (the 
So  who  conspired  with  Hoshea)  was  succeeded  by  a  priest  of 
Vulcan  (Phthah),  wiiose  neglect  of  the  military  caste  reduced 
hii:i  to  great  danger  in  an  invasion  by  the  King  of  Assyria.'' 

§  L\  About  this  time  must  have  occurred  the  mortal  illness 
of  Hezekiah :  "  In  those  days  was  Hezekiah  sick  unto  death," 
and  lisaiah  w^as  sent  to-  Avarn  him  of  his  approaching  end.* 


*  2  K.  xviii.  13 ;  2  Chron.  xxxii.  1  ; 
Is.  XX.  1.  To  make  the  narrative 
consistent  with  itself,  and  with  the 
Assyrian  monuments,  wc  must  sup- 
pose that,  by  the  confusion  indicated 
above,  the  name  of  Sennacherib  has 
crept  into  2  K.  xviii.  13,  and  Is. 
xxxvi.  1,  which  is  the  more  easily  un- 
derstood from  the  evident  ignorance 
of  the  authorities  who  settled  the  re- 
ceived text,  of  the  interposition  of  Sar- 
pon  between  Shalmaneser  and  Senna- 
cherib. The  confusion  can  scarcely 
be  quite  disentangled  ;  but  we  incline 
to  take  only  the  words,  *'  Now,  in  the 
fourteenth  year  of  King  Hezekiah, 
the  King  of  Assyria  came  up  against 
Judah,"  as  referring  to  Sargon's  ex- 
])edition  in  b.c.  713,  and  to  take  all 
the  rest  as  applying  to  the  much  later 
expedition  of  Sennacherib  somewhat 
thus  :  *'  Sennacherib  came  up  against 
all  the  fenced  cities  of  Judah,  and 
took  them."  The  mention  of  the 
siege  of  Lachish  seems  to  make  the 
capture  of  these  cities  a  part  of  the 
same  transaction  as  the  submission 
of  Hezekiah  ;  and  that  this  could  not 
have  been  made  (at  least  in  the  form 
stated  in  vs.  14-16)  before  his  illness, 
is  clear  from  the  display  of  his  riches 
to  the  Babylonian  ambassadors  (2  K. 


XX.  1 3).  Again,  the  illness  must  have 
followed  close  upon  the  expedition  of 
Sargon,  and  long  before  lliat  of  Scn« 
nacherib,  because — (1),  Fifteen  years 
were  added  to  the  king's  life;  and  as 
he  died  in  b.c.  698,  the  illness  was  in 
B.C.  713  (2  K.  XX.  1),  (2),  Sennache- 
rib did  not  succeed  his  father  till  B.C. 
702  ;  (3),  Hezekiah  is  promised,  at 
the  time  of  liis  recovery,  a  deliverance 
from  Assyria,  which  can  be  none  oth- 
er than  the  destruction  of  Sennache- 
rib's army,  the  story  of  which  is  ])rc- 
ceded  by  the  very  same  promise  (2  K. 
xix.  34).  Ussher  saw  that  cliap.  xx. 
must  be  i)laced  before  chap.  xix. 

^  This  prophecy  may  perhaps  indi- 
cate the  triumph  of  the  anti-Egyptian 
party  in  the  councils  of  Judah,  and 
their  ascendency  may  have  been  the 
cause  for  Sargon's  refraining  from  at- 
tacking Judah  on  this  occasion. 

"  Nahum  iii.  8. 

''  Herod,  ii.  141.  The  account  of 
his  miraculous  deliverance  is  evident- 
ly an  appropriation  by  the  Egyptian 
priests  of  Hezekiah's  deliverance  from 
Sennacherib,  whose  name  has  thus  got 
into  the  story  of  Herodotus  in  place 
of  Sargon's. 

^2  K.  XX.  1,  2;  2  Chron.  xxxii. 
24  ;   Is.  xxxviii.  1.     - 


574  The  Kingdom  of  Judah.  Chap.  XXV. 

The  record  of  his  feeliDgs,  Aviitten  by  his  own  hand  when  he 
recovered,  is  preserved  for  us  by  Isaiah  in  language  liighly 
poetical.  In  the  same  dismal  tone  as  the  patriarch  Job,  he 
deplores  the  end  of  life  but  chiefly  as  the  end  of  all  opportu- 
nities for  serving  God: — "The  grave  can  not  praise  Thee; 
death  can  not  celebrate  Thee ;  they  that  go  down  into  the 
pit  can  not  hope  for  Thy  truth.'"®  He  thought  doubtless  of 
his  unfinished  work,  of  the  danger  still  im23ending  over  Ju- 
dah, but,  above  all,  of  the  Temple  Avhich  he  had  restored,  and 
where  he  had  hoped  long  to  worship  God.'"  He  turned  his 
face  to  the  wall,  and  prayed  and  wej^t  sore.  The  prophet, 
who  had  but  just  left  him,  Avas  sent  back  to  promise  that  he 
should  recover  and  go  up  to  the  house  of  God  on  the  third 
day :  at  the  same  time  he  directed  a  poultice  of  figs  to  be 
laid  upon  the  boil  or  carbuncle,  for  such  Avas  the  king's  dis- 
ease.^' As  Avas  so  usual  Avith  the  Jews,  Hezekiah  asked  for  a 
sign  ;  and  the  shadoAv  of  the  sun  Avent  back  ten  degrees  upon 
the  dial  of  Ahaz,  signifying  a  proportionate  addition  to  the 
days  of  his  life.'^  But  alas  !  for  the  Aveakness  of  our  nature, 
t'.iis  deliverance  engendered  a  rash  confidence,  Avhich  brought 
new  judgments  on  Judah  and  Jerusalem. ^^  The  neAvs  of 
Hezekiah's  recovery  brought  an  embassy  of  congratulation 
fi'om  Merodach-baladan,  king  of  Babylon,  a  poAver  Avhich  noAV 
appears  for  the  first  time.^''  The  ostensible  object  Avas  to 
make  inquiries  respecting  the  astronomical  marvel.'^  But 
its  real  purpose  Avas  probably  to  form  a  league  against  As- 
syria. The  kings  of  the  loAver  Assyrian  dynasty  held  Baby- 
lon by  an  insecure  grasp,  and  Merodach  Avas  at  the  head  of 
the  party  of  independence.     From  the  records  of  Sargon  and 

^  Is.  xxxviii.  18.    '"  Is.  xxxviii.  22.    sliadon-  (perhaps  of  some  column  or 
"  2  K.  XX.  7;   Is.  xxxviii.  21.  'obelisk  on  the  top)  fell  on  a  f^reater 

'-  2  K.  XX.  8-11 ;  Is.  xxxviii.  7,  8.  '  or  smaller  number  of  them  according 
The  Ileb.  word  transhxted  by  "  dial  "j  as  the  sun  was  low  or  high.  Tiic 
is  the  same  as  that  rendered  "  steps '*  j  terrace  of  a  palace  might  easily  be 
in  A.  V.  (Ex.  XX.  26;  IK.  x.  19),  !  thus  ornamented.  Ahaz's  tastes  seem 
and  "degrees"  in  A.  V.  (2  K.  xx.  9,  !  to  have  led  him  in  pursuit  of  foreign 
10,  11;  Is.  xxxviii.  8),  where,  to  give  '  curiosities  (2  K.  xvi.  10),  and  his  inti- 
a  consistent  rendering,  we  should  read  macy  with  Tiglath-pileser  gave  him 
with  the  margin  the  ''degrees"  rath-  probably  an  op])ortunity  of  procuring 
or  than  the  "  dial  "  of  Ahaz.  In  the  |  h'om  Assyria  the  pattern  of  some  such 
absence  of  any  materials  for  deter- 
mining the  shape  and  structure  of  the 
solar  instrument,  which  certainly  ap- 
pears intended,  the  best  course  is  to  form  "  Berodach  "  is  merely  a  dialec- 
foUow  the  most  strictly  natural  mean-  tic  variety.  Tiie  name  of  the  god 
ing  of  the  word,  and  to  consider  that  Merodach  has  invnriMbly  the  M. 
the  dial  was  reallv  stairs,  and  that  the  \      ^^  2  Chron.  xxxii.  31. 


structure. 

^^  2  Chron.  xxxiii.  25. 

"  ">  K.  XX.  12;  Is.  xxxix.  1.     Th-^ 


B.C.  702.  Marriage  of  Hezehiak.  575 

Sennacherib  wc  learn  that  he  was  twice  expelled  from  liis 
kingdom  •  by  the  former  in  the  twelfth  year  both  of  Sargon 
and  of  Merodach  (b.c.  V09),  and  by  the  latter  in  his  first  year 
(b.c.  702),  when  Merodach  had  only  recovered  his  kingdom 
for  six  months/'^  The  embassy  to  Hezekiah  falls  during  his 
first  tenure  of  power ;  and  if  its  object  be  rightly  understood, 
the  King  of  Judah's  eagerness  to  show  the  ambassadors  his 
treasures  would  have  another  motive  besides  mere  ostenta- 
tion to  prove  his  ability  to  enter  on  a  great  and  dangerous 
war.  Whatever  the  motive,  the  display  was  made  in  a  spirit 
of  self-glorification,  which  called  down  a  divine  judgment; 
and  it  must  have  been  doubly  bitter  for  Hezekiah  to  hear 
from  Isaiah's  lips  that  his  kingdom  was  to  fall  a  prey,  not  to 
Assyria,  but  to  the  very  power  whose  alliance  he  was  court- 
ing. There  had  already  been  several  predictions  of  the  cap- 
tivity of  Judah  ;  but  this  was  the  first  distinct  intimation  of 
the  quarter  from  which  the  judgment  was  to  fall.  Hezekiah 
humbled  himself  before  God,  and  he  was  comforted  by  the 
assurance  that  the  sentence  should  not  be  executed  in  his 
days.»^ 

tip  to  the  time  of  his  mortal  illness,  Hezekiah  seems  to  have 
been  childless — a  circumstance  which  would  embitter  his  dis- 
tress at  the  prospect  of  death.  He  now  married  Hephzibah, 
the  daughter  of  a  citizen  or  prince  of  Jerusalem, ^^  in  whose 
name,  which  signifies  dellfjhtsome,  Isaiah  traces  a  figure  of 
the  future  glories  of  Jerusalem.  ^^  The  son  born  of  this  union 
received  the  name  of  JIanasse/i,  which  never  occurs  elsewhere 
in  the  history  of  Judah.  The  adoption  of  the  name  of  a  rival 
tribe  may  be  taken  as  a  sign  of  the  policy  pursued  by  Heze- 
kiah, from  the  time  of  the  destruction  of  Samaria,  to  rally 
the  remnant  of  the  ten  tribes  in  a  religious  union  with  Judah.^" 

§  3.  The  remainder  of  Sargon's  icign  was  fully  occupied  by 
rebellions  in  the  heart  of  his  empire.  Herodotus  places  the 
revolt  of  the  Medes  and  Babylonians  in  b.c.  711.  The  former 
maintained  their  independence,  and  founded  the  power  by 
which  Babylon,  after  overthrowing  Assyria,  ^vas  herself  sub- 
dued. As  to  the  latter,  we  have  seen  that  Merodach  was  ex- 
pelled in  B.C.  709  ;  but  his  return  at  the  death  of  Sargon  proves 
the  unsettled  state  of  the  province  in  the  mean  time.     From 

^'^  The  Cano7i  of  Ptolemy  frivcs  him  j  '•''  2  Chron.  xxxii.  31  ;  2  K.  xx.  12- 
twelve  years,  b.c.  721-709,  and  Poly-  19  ;  Is.  xxxix, 

histor  six  months  in  B.C.  702  (Euseb.  |      '**  2  K.  xxi.  10  ;  Joseph.  Ant.  x.  3, 
Chron.  p.  1,  V.  1 :   see  Bi/>.  Diet.  s.  r.).  !  §  1 . 
His  restomtion  may  have  been  cnused  |      ^^  Is.  Ixii.  4,  .">. 
by  Sargon's  death.  \      -°  2  Chron.  xxx.  G,  xxxi.  1. 


676  Th(^  Kingdom  of  Jadah.  Chap.  XXV. 

both  quarters  Sargon  must  have  had  enough  upon  his  hands 
for  the  rest  of  his  reign.  In  b.c.  702  Sargon  was  succeeded 
by  his  son  Sennacherib  (or  Sanherib),  a  monarch  as  warlike 
and  able  as  himself  After  crushing  the  revolt  of  Merodach 
and  placing  Belib,^^  a  creature  of  his  own,  on  the  throne  of 
Babylon,  he  undertook  a  great  expedition  against  Judah  and 
Egypt.  This  was  the  crisis  of  the  history  of  the  men  of  Judah 
to  prove  whether  the  religious  revival  under  Hezekiah  would 
inspire  them  with  faith  in  God,  or  whether  they  Avould  seek 
safety  by  forbidden  means.  There  was  a  strong  party  in  fa- 
vor of  an  alliance  with  Egj' pt,  the  help  of  which  they  seem 
to  have  sought  only  to  be  repulsed  with  contempt."  Isaiah 
vehemently  denounces  this  party,  and  lays  down  the  law — 
"Their  strength  is  to  sit  still ;"  "In  quietness  and  confidence 
shall  be  your  strength  " — in  a  series  of  his  most  magnificent 
prophecies,  describing  the  destruction  of  the  Assyrian  by  su- 
pernatural means  when  he  should  encamp  against  Ariel  [Lion 
of  God)^  the  city  of  David,  the  establishment  of  Messiah's 
kingdom,  and  the  privileges  of  his  people.  These  chapters 
stand  in  the  Book  of  Isaiah  immediately  before  the  history 
of  Sennacherib's  invasion,  for  which  they  were  evidently  de- 
signed to  prepare  the  minds  of  king  and  people."  The  king 
proved  worthy  of  such  a  prophet.  Though  he  may  have 
tampered  Avith  Egyj^t,  a  point  on  which  we  have  no  certain 
knowledge,  and  though  he  was  driven  to  one  act  of  disgrace- 
ful submission,  his  fliith  revived  in  the  supreme  crisis.  En- 
couraged by  Isaiah,  lie  committed  his  own  and  his  people's 
safety  to  Jehovah,  who  wrought  for  them  a  deliverance  as 
signal  as  the  destruction  of  Pharaoli  and  his  army  in  the  Red 
Sea. 

The  campaign  was  opened  by  an  attack  on  the  fortresses 
of  Judah,  of  which  several  were  taken."  Isaiah  describes 
the  progress  of  Sennacherib  through  Benjamin  and  the  dis- 
tress of  the  cities  on  his  route.^^  He  was  engaged  in  the 
siege  of  Lachish,  a  city  in  the  south-west  of  Judali  (apparent- 
ly with  tlie  view  of  securing  the  whole  country  toward  Egypt 
before  attacking  Jerusalem),  when  Hezekiah  sent  him  a  mes- 
sage of  complete  submission  : — "  I  have  offended ;  return  from 
me  ;  what  thou  puttest  upon  me  I  will  bear."^'     The  Assyr- 

^' Tlie  Bclibus  of  Polyhistor  and  of  calamitous  and  disgraceful  events, 
the  Canon.  "  Is.  xxx.  1-5.      i  which  is  so  often  found  in  the  Chron- 

"  Is.  xxix.-xxxv.  A  similar  proph- ; /c/e.s,  no  mention  is  made  of  the  cap- 
ecy  is  contained  in  chs.  x.-xii.  tare  of  these  cities,  nor  of  Hezekiah's 

'"^^  2   K.  xviii.  13;  Is.  xxxvi.  1  ;   2  message  of  submission. 
Chron.  xxxii.  1 ;  by  that  suppression,      '^^  Is.  x.  28-32.         -^  2  K.  xviii.  14. 


B.C.  702.  Accession  of  Sennacherib.  577 

ian  exacted  a  contribution  of  300  talents  of  silver  and  thirty- 
talents  of  gold ;  to  meet  which,  Hezekiah  took  all  the  silver 
vessels  of  the  Temple  and  of  his  own  palace,  and  cut  off  the 
gold  with  which  he  himself  had  overlaid  the  doors  and  pil- 
lars of  tlie  Temple,  and  sent  it  to  Sennacherib." 

But  this  spoliation  was  only  a  preliminary  to  the  intended 
extirpation  of  the  Jewish  people  and  the  destruction  of  Je- 
rusalem. Sennacherib  sent  an  army  against  Jerusalem  under 
a  Tartan  (or  captain),  Rabsaris  (the  chief  eunuch),  and  Rab- 
shakeh  (the  chief  cup-bearer),^^  expecting  apparently  the  sur- 
render of  the  dis'iL'.irtened  city  without  a  siege.  We  are  in- 
formed of  the  exact  spot  where  the  envoys  stood  to  deliver 
their  message,  "  the  conduit  of  the  upper  pool  in  the  highway 
of  the  fuller's  field."  Hezekiah  sent  to  the  conference  the 
chief  of  his  household,  his  secretary,  and  recorder.  Rab- 
shakeh,  who  acted  as  spokesman,  asked  on  whom  the  King 
of  Judah  relied.  Was  it  on  Egypt,  a  broken  reed,  that  would 
pierce  tlie  hand  of  him  who  leaned  on  it  ?  Was  it  on  Je- 
hovah ? — the  God,  said  the  orator,  with  a  strange  confusion 
of  ideas,  Avhose  high  jjlaces  and  altars  Hezekiah  had  taken 
away.  Nay,  his  master  even  claimed  to  have  been  sent  up 
against  Jerusalem  by  the  word  of  Jehovah,  referring  proba- 
bly to  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah."  Thus  far  he  had  spoken  in 
Hebrew  ;  but  now  the  officers  of  Hezekiah  entreated  him  to 
speak  in  the  Syrian  language,  so  as  not  to  be  understood  by 
the  people  on  the  wall.  "They,"  rejoined  Rabshakeh,  "are 
the  very  persons  to  whom  I  am  sent,  to  warn  them  of  the 
consequences  of  resistance."  Then,  raising  his  voice,  he  cried 
to  the  men  upon  the  wall  to  come  forth  to  make  their  peace 
with  him,  promising  that  they  should  be  unmolested  till  he 
came  again  to  remove  them  to  a  land  as  good  as  their  own. 
Let  them  not  listen  to  Hezekiah,  persuading  them  that  Je- 
hovah would  deliver  them,  but  look  upon  tlie  nations  sub- 
dued before  Assyria,  and  see  if  the  gods  of  Samaria  and  the 
rest  had  delivered  them  out  of  his  master's  hand.  The  peo- 
ple, as  Hezekiah  had  bidden  them,  returned  no  answer,,  and 
the  servants  of  Hezekiah  reported  to  him  the  words  of  Rab- 
shakeh. He  sent  them  to  Isaiah,  while  he  betook  himself  to 
prayer.     The  prophet  replied  that  God  took  the  blasphemies 


/      "  2  K.  xviii.15,  16. 

f  -*  In  the  A.  V.,  Tartan,  Kabsaris, 
and  Rabshakeh  are  treated  as  prop- 
er names,  but  they  are  probably  rath- 
er names  of  offices  than  of  persons  ; 
Tartan  signifying  a  "captain,"  Rab- 
B  B 


saris  "chief  eunuch,"  and  Rabshakeh 
"chief  cup-bearer."  There  are  sev- 
eral other  Assyrian  and  Babyloninn 
names  found  with  the  prefix  "Rab," 
in  the  sense  of  "chief." 
-«  Is.  viii.  X. 


578  The  Kingdom   of  Judah.  Chap.  XXV. 

of  Rabshakeh  as  uttered  against  Ilim,  and  predicted  that,  in 
consequence  of  a  "  blast  "  sent  upon  him  by  God,  and  a  "  ru- 
mor "  Avhich  he  should  hear,  the  king  would  retreat  to  his 
own  land,  and  there  perish  by  the  sword. 

Sennacherib  had  now  left  Lachish,  probably  having  taken 
it,^°  and  his  messengers  found  him  besieging  Libnah,  a  city 
in  the  same  vicinity.  The  news  of  the  approach  of  Tir- 
hakah,  king  of  Ethiopia,  compelled  him  to  postpone  his  re- 
venge for  the  defiance  of  Hezekiah  ;  but  he  gave  vent  to 
his  rage  in  a  letter  in  the  same  tone  as  Rabshakeh's  speech. 
Hezekiah  spread  the  letter  before  God,  with  a  solemn  prayer 
to  Him  to  prove  the  diiference  between  Jehovah,  the  only 
God,  and  the  "no  gods"  whom  the  Assyrian  had  justly  re- 
proached ;  and  the  answer  was  given  by  the  mouth  of  Isa- 
iah in  a  sublime  prophecy  of  the  destruction  of  the  Assyrian 
and  the  future  glory  of  the  remnant  of  Judah.  On  that 
very  night  the  well-known  catastrophe  followed,  not,  as  is 
too  often  supposed  by  cursory  readers,  before  Jerusalem, 
which  Sennacherib  had  never  approached,  but  only  "  shaken 
his  fist  at  her  "  from  the  distance. ^^  His  army  still  lay  be- 
fore Libnah,  not  having  even  moved  to  meet  Tirhakah,  when 
in  one  night  "  the  angel  of  Jehovah  went  out,  and  smote  in 
the  camp  of  the  Assyrians  185,000  men."  When  the  watch- 
men looked  forth  in  the  early  moi'ning,  the  plain  was  covered 
with  their  corpses  : — 

"And  tlic  might  of  the  Gentiles,  untouched  by  the  sword, 
Had  melted  like  snow  at  the  'blast'  of  the  Lord." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  some  secondary  cause  was  employ- 
ed in  the  accomplishment  of  this  miracle.  AYe  are  certainly 
"  not  to  suppose,"  as  Dr.  Johnson  observed,  "  that  the  angel 
went  about  with  a  sword  in  his  hand  stabbing  them  one  by 
one,  but  that  some  powerful  natural  agent  was  employed." 
The  Assyrians  may  have  been  sufibcated  by  the  hot  wind 
of  the  desert,  or  they  may  have  fallen  by  tens  of  thousands 
before  "the  pestilence  that  walketh  in  darkness.""^      It  is 


^°  The  siege  of  Lachish  is  consider- 
ed by  Layard  and  Hincks  to  be  de- 
picted on  the  slabs  found  by  the  for- 


sion  for  its  slaughter"  (Layard,  A^j/?. 
and  Bah.  149-52,  and"  153,  note). 
These  slabs  contain  a  view  of  a  city 


mer  in  one  of  the  chambers  of  the  pal-  which,  if  the  inscription  is  correctly 
ace  of  Kouyunjik,  which  bear  the  in-  interpreted,  must  be  Lachish  itself, 
scription    "Sennacherib,  the  mighty   Sec  wood-cut,  p.  571.  '^  Is.  x.  32. 

king,  king  of  the  conntry  Assyria,  sit-  1  ^^  Fs.  xci.  G,  7.  The  whole  Psalm 
ting  on  the  throne  of  judgment  before  \  is  most  suitable  for  the  crisis,  though 
(or  at  the  entr;ince  of)  the  city  of  |it  may  have  been  composed  on  the 
Lachish  (Lakhisha).     I  give  perrnis- i  occasion    of  some   other    pestilence. 


B.C.  698.  The  Reign  of  Manasseh.  579 

enough  for  us  to  remember  that  God,  who  at  first  "  breathed 
into  man's  nostrils  the  breath  of  life,"  has  the  power,  in  a 
thousand  w\ays,  to  "  breathe  "  death  on  whom  He  pleases. 
Sennacherib  himself  returned  into  Assyria,  and  was  there 
slain,  as  Isaiah  had  foretold.  But  his  death,  which  is  men- 
tioned at  the  end  of  the  Scripture  narrative,  did  not  take 
place  till  some  years  later.  He  was  murdered  in  the  Temple 
of  Nisroch  by  two  of  his  sons,  Adrammelech  and  Sharezer, 
who  fled  into  Armenia,  and  was  succeeded  by  another  son, 
EsAR-HADDON,  ouc  of  the  most  powerful  of  the  Assyrian  mon- 
archs  (b.c.  680).'' 

The  fame  of  Hezekiah's  deliverance  brought  him  congrat- 
ulations and  presents  from  all  the  surrounding  nations  ;  and 
the  remainder  of  the  days,  which  God's  special  grace  had 
added  to  his  life,  were  spent  in  prosperity  and  wealth. 
Like  XJzziah,  he  possessed  numerous  flocks  and  herds,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  treasures  that  he  collected  at  Jerusalem. 
Yv'hen  he  died,  he  was  honored  with  the  chief  place  in  the 
sepulchres  of  the  kings  (b.c.  698).'*  The  glorious  promise  of 
his  reign  was  terribly  eclipsed  under  his  successor. 

§  4.  Manasseh,  the  fourteenth  king  of  Judah,  was  only 
twelve  years  old  Avhen  he  succeeded  his  father  Hezekiah, 
and  he  reigned  fifty-five  years  (b.c.  698-643).  But  of  tnis, 
the  longest  reign  hi  the  annals  of  Judah,  our  accounts  are  ex- 
tremely scanty.  In  the  Seco7ul  Booh  of  Kings^  it  fills  only 
eighteen  verses,'^  which  are  occupied  with  a  general  descrip- 
tion of  the  monstrous  evils  of  the  period,  almost  co  the  exclu- 
sion of  particular  incidents.  It  would  seem  as  if  the  sacred 
Avriter  abstained  from  recording  more  of  a  reign  so  disgrace- 
ful than  was  sufficient  to  point  the  lesson  of  retribution.'" 
The  narrative  in  the  C/ironides  is  scai-cely  longer ;  but  it  is 
distinguished  from  the  other  by  one  remarkable  feature,  the 
story  of  Manasseh's  captivity,  repentance,  and  restoration." 

The  reign  of  Manasseh  Avas  a  period  of  fatal  reaction  in 
the  religious  policy  of  the  state,  which  has  been  well  com- 
pared to  that  of  Mary  in  our  own  history.  We  have  Been 
indications  that  the  idolatrous  party,  who  had  been  triumph- 
ant under  Ahaz,  did  not  yield  without  a  struggle  to  Hezekiah. 


The  huge  masses  of  men  packed  to- 
gether in  great  Oriental  armies,  and 
exposed  to  all  kinds  of  physical  and 
moral  pollution,  have  always  been  pe- 
culiarly exposed  to  pestilence  ;  and 


as  sudden  as  the  case  before  us,  though 
on  a  smaller  scale, 

^^  2  K.  xviii.,  xix. ;  2  Chron.  xxxii. 
I  i'2; ;  Is.  xxxvi.,  xxxvii. 

'*2  Chron.  xxxii.  23-33. 


the  records  of  the  Asiatic  cholera  con- 1      '"^  2  K.  xxi,  1-18.   ^^  2  K.  xxiv.  1-4. 
tain  examples  of  attacks  as  fatal  and        "^  Vj  Chron.  xxxiii.  1-20. 


680  The  Kingdom  of  JudaJi.  Chap.  XXV. 

Such  a  reform  as  tliat  king  wrought  must  have  been  in  a  great 
degree  superficial  among  a  people  so  corrupted  as  the  testimo- 
ny of  the  prophets  proves  that  the  Jews  had  now  become. 
The  history  of  religious  conflicts  shows  how  well  the  losing 
party  can  succumb  and  bide  their  time,  like  the  Romanists  un- 
der Edward  VI. ;  and  the  accession  of  a  king  too  young  to 
have  had  his  character  established  by  his  father's  teachmg, 
but  not  too  young  to  desire  the  gratification  of  his  self-will, 
gave  them  a  new  oj^jjortunity.  The  princes  of  Judah,  whose 
influence  would  naturally  be  great  during  the  king's  minori- 
ty have  been  seen  more  than  once  on  the  side  of  idolatry,  es- 
pecially in  the  apostasy  of  Joash.  It  has  been  suggested  that 
the  policy  which  drew  Hczekiah  toward  Babylon  in  the  lat- 
ter part  of  his  reign  may  have  had  an  evil  influence  over  his 
young  son.  Certain  it  is  that  Babylonian  superstitions  are 
conspicuous  among  the  religious  errors  of  Manasseh,  and  his 
punishment  came  from  the  same  quarter. 

The  description  of  Manasseh's  idolatries  includes  every 
form  of  false  religion  and  abominable  vice  that  Israel  had 
ever  learned  from  the  heathen  nations.  He  restored  the  high 
places  and  groves  which  Hezekiah  had  removed,  established 
the  worship  of  Baal  in  a  manner  worthy  of  the  house  of  Ahab, 
and  added  to  the  obscene  rites  of  Ashtoreth  those  unutterable 
abominations,  which  made  princes  and  subjects  "rulers  of 
Sodom  and  people  of  Gomorrah."'®  The  Temple  was  pro- 
foned  in  a  manner  that  even  Ahaz  had  not  attempted.  An 
idol  figure  was  set  up  in  the  sanctuary,  and  altars  for  the 
worship  of  the  heavenly  bodies  hi  the  two  courts  of  the  Tem- 
ple, while  the  ark  was  displaced  from  its  abode.  The  king 
made  his  son  pass  through  the  fire  to  Moloch,  to  whom  he  ap- 
pears to  have  reared  a  stately  temple  in  the  valley  of  Hin- 
nom.  He  dealt  with  wizards  and  necromancers,  and,  in  short, 
"  seduced  the  people  to  do  more  wickedness  than  the  nations 
whom  Jehovah  destroyed  before  them."^* 

This  great  apostasy  was  not  consummated  without  warnings 
from  the  prophets  who  had  flourished  under  Hezekiah.  As 
the  king  and  people  had  repeated  the  sins  of  Ahab,  the  proph- 
ets denounced  the  doom  of  Samaria  on  Judah  and  Jerusalem 
in  the  most  striking  figurative  language."  The  king  at- 
tempted to  silence  them  by  the  fi.ercest  persecution  recorded 
in  the  annals  of  Israel.  We  are  only  told  in  the  sacred 
history  that  Manasseh  "  filled  Jerusalem  with  innocent  blood, 
which  Jehovali  would  not  pardon  ;"  and  that  this  was  the 

»^  Is.  i.  10.  ^''  2  K.  xxi.  y.  "''  2  K.  xxi.  10-15. 


B.C  677. 


ManasseJi's  Captivily. 


m\ 


crowning  sin  which  doomed  the  nation  to  captivity."^  Fuller 
particulars  of  the  persecution  are  preserved  by  Josephus,  who 
tells  us  that  executions  took  place  every  day/^  Its  effect  is 
thus  described  by  Jeremiah  :  "  Your  own  sword  hath  de- 
voured your  prophets,  like  a  destroying  lion.""  After  the 
death  of  Isaiah,  whom  tradition  makes  the  first  victim  of  this 
persecution,**  the  prophetic  voice  Avas  no  more  heard  till  the 
reign  of  Josiah.*^ 

These  crimes  were  not  long  left  unavenged.  It  is  inferred 
from  passages  in  the  prophets  of  the  next  age  that  the  Phi- 
listines, Moabites,  and  Ammonites,  who  had  been  tributary 
to  Hezekiah,  revolted  from  his  son."  But  the  great  blow 
came  from  Assyria.  Sennacherib's  successor,  Esar-haddon, 
one  of  the  most  powerful  of  all  the  Assyrian  kings,  soon  put 
down  the  revolt  of  Evil-merodach  and  abolished  the  vice- 
royalty  of  Babylon,  fixing  his  own  residence  at  that  city  for 
about  thirteen  years  (b.c.  680-667).  Esar-haddon  is  the  only 
Assyrian  monarch  whom  we  find  to  have  actually  reigned 
at  Babylon,  where  he  built  himself  a  palace,  bricks  from 
which  have  been  recently  recovered  bearing  his  name.  This 
fact  accounts  for  Manasseh  being  taken  to  Ba'bylon,  and  not 
to  Nineveh.  To  that  city  he  carried  Manasseh  captive  on 
a  charge  of  rebellion ;  and  it  would  seem  that  Jerusalem 
was  taken  at  the  same  time.  The  date  of  this  event  is  placed 
by  a  Jewish  tradition  at  the  twenty-second  year  of  Ma- 
nasseh (b.c.  67V),  which  agrees  very  well  with  the  account 
of  the  new  colonization  of  the  country  of  Samaria  by  set- 
tlers whom  Esar-haddon  (or  Asnapper)  sent  from  Babylon 
and  other  places. 

And  now  it  seemed  as  if  the  time  had  come  for  the  Baby- 
lonish captivity  which  Isaiah  had  foretold ;  but,  by  a  new 
proof  of  Jehovah's  long-suffering  Avith  the  house  of  David, 
the  end  was  postponed  for  another  century.  The  severity  of 
Manasseh's  imprisonment  brought  him  to  repentance.     God 


^'  2  K.  xxi.  16;  xxiv.4. 

*2  Joseph.  yl«/.x.  3,  §  1. 

^^  Jerem.  ii.  30. 

**  Rabbinical  tradition  says  that 
Isaiah  was  sawn  asunder  in  a  trunk 
of  a  tree  by  order  of  Manasseh,  to 
which  it  is  supposed  that  reference  is 
nmde  in  Hebrews  xi.  37.  But  Isaiah 
must  have  been  80  or  90  ^ears  of  age 
at  Manasseh's  accession.  See  Diet, 
of  Bible,  vol.  i.  p.  876. 

■^^  The  Rabbinical  traditions  place 


Joel,  Nahum,  and  Habakkuk  in  the 
reign  of  Manasseh.  But  Joel  is  cer- 
tainly much  earlier;  Nahum  proba- 
bly belongs  to  the  reign  of  Hezekiah  ; 
and  the  best  critics  place  Habakkuk 
under  Josiah.  Even  the  prolonga- 
tion of  Isaiah's  life  beyond  the  time 
of  Hezekiah,  and  of  his  martyrdom 
under  Manasseh,  is  of  very  doubtful 
truth. 

^^  Zeph.  ii.  ,  Jerem.  xlvii.,^  xlviii., 
xlix. 


582  The  Jvuijdom  of  JudaJi.  Chap.  XXV. 

heard  his  prayer,  and  restored  him  to  liis  kingdom  at  Jeru- 
salem, where  he  again  reigned  long  and  prosperously/^  He 
removed  the  idols  and  their  altars  from  the  Temple  and  the 
city,  repaired  the  altar  and  sacrificed  upon  it,  and  command- 
ed the  people  to  serve  Jehovah.  There  was,  however,  no 
tliorougli  reformation  of  religion  ;  the  ark  was  not  restored, 
and  the  people  still  sacrificed  in  the  high  places.  At  the 
same  time  Manasseh  put  Jerusalem  in  a  state  of  defense. 
He  protected  its  weak  side  by  a  new  wall  "on  the  west  side 
of  Gihon,  in  the  valley  to  the  entrance  of  the  fish-gate."  He 
heightened  the  tower  of  Ophel,  wdiich  Jotham  had  begun, 
and  he  placed  garrisons  in  the  fortified  cities  of  Judah. 
That  these  proceedings  were  permitted  by  Assyria  can  be 
easily  understood  from  the  unwarlike  character  of  Esar-had- 
don's  successor,  Sardanaj^alus  II.,  whose  monuments  confirm 
the  character  given  to  lum  by  Greek  writers.  But  they 
were  doubtless  also  connected  with  the  new  position  of 
Egypt,  the  history  of  which  now  emerges  from  its  long  ob- 
scurity. 

After  the  usurpation  of  the  xxvth  (Ethiopian)  dynasty,  and 
the  anarchy  of  the  "Twelve  Kings,"  Psamatek  (Psammelichus 
I.)  founded  a  native  dynasty  (the  xxvith,  Saite)  in  B.C.  664, 
the  thirty-fifth  year  of  Manasseh.  He  at  once  renewed  the 
old  contest  with  Assyria,  and  took  Ashdod,  after  a  siege  of 
twenty-nine  years."  We  have  already  seen  that  there  was  a 
powerful  Egyptian  party  in  Judah,  and  the  denunciations  of 
the  prophets,  who  began  to  prophecy  under  Josiah,  prove 
that  it  had  gained  great  strength.  The  name  of  Manasseh's 
son,  Amon,  who  was  born  about  the  time  of  the  accession  of 
Psammetichus,  though  not  incapable  of  explanation  as  a  He- 
brew word,  points  to  a  connection  with  Egypt.  On  these 
grounds  it  has  been  supposed  that  Manasseh  sought  the 
Egyptian  alliance  to  strengthen  him  against  Assyria.  When 
he  died,  he  was  buried  in  the  garden  of  Uzza,  attached  to  his 
own  house,  and  not  in  the  sepulchres  of  the  kings,  and  his 
memoiy  is  held  in  detestation  by  the  Jews.^^ 

§  5.  Amox,  the  fifteenth  king  of  Judah,  succeeded  his  fa- 
ther at  the  age  of  twenty-two ;  and  after  a  reign  of  two 

*^  2  Chron.  xxxiii.  ]l-13.  The  [later  age.  The  writer  was  well  ac- 
mention  of  Babylon  as  the  place  of  quaintcd  with  the  Septuagint,  but  be- 
ManassehV:  captivity  is  a  strong  argil-  yond  this  there  is  nothing  to  deter- 
meni;    for    its  authenticitv.     An    in-   mine  tlie  date  at  which  he  lived. 


ventor  wonld  have  placed  it  at  Nine- 
vah.  Its  duration  is  unknown.  The 
apocryphal  "Trayer  of  Manasseh" 
is  an    imaginative    production    of   a 


•^^  Ilerod.  ii.  157. 

"''  2  K.  xxi.  1 7,  1 8  ;  2  Chrcn.  xxxJil 
20,  Sanhedr.  c.xi.  1. 


B.C.  G13.  The  Reign  of  Josiah.  583 

years,  during  Avliich  he  followed  Manasseh's  idolatries,  with- 
out sharinii;  his  repentance,  he  fell  the  victim  of  a  court  con- 
spiracy, Tlie  conspirators  were  slain  by  the  people,  who 
raised  Josiah,  the  infant  son  of  Anion,  to  the  throne.  Anion 
was  buried  with  his  father  in  the  garden  of  Uzza.  His  moth- 
er was  Meshullemeth,  the  daughter  of  Ilaruz,  of  Jotbah.^" 

§  6.  Josiah,  the  sixteenth  king  of  Judah,  was  eight  years 
old  at  liis  accession,  and  reigned  thirty-one  years  at  Jerusa- 
lem.^' His  mother  was  Jedidah,  the  daughter  of  Adaiah  of 
Boscath.  Though  he  fell  in  battle  before  he  had  completed 
his  fortieth  year,  he  left  the  brightest  name  for  piety  and  re- 
ligious zeal  among  all  the  successors  of  David.  He  shares 
with  Hezekiah  the  praise  of  walking  perfectly  in  the  way  of 
liis  father  David. ^^  His  reign  marks  the  last  dying  glory  of 
tlie  earthly  kingdom  of  David.  It  may,  indeed,  seem  mys- 
terious that  a  doom,  so  often  postponed  by  the  repentance 
and  faith  of  earlier  kings,  should  have  followed  so  close  upon 
the  reign  of  the  best  and  most  zealous  of  them  all,  and  that 
he  himself  should  have  fallen  by  a  premature  and  violent 
death.  But  we  must  look  beyond  the  personal  character  of 
the  king  to  the  state  of  the  people  and  their  rulers.  We  have 
seen  that  the  great  reform  of  Hezekiah  Avas  probably  super- 
ficial ;  the  apostasy  under  3Ianasseh  and  Amon  was  the  last 
and  lowest  stage  in  the  long  course  of  national  degeneracy ; 
and  the  deep  corruption  tliat  prevailed  during  the  minority 
of  Josiah.  is  drawn  in  the  blackest  colors  by  the  proj^hets 
Zephaxiaii  and  Jeremiah.  The  very  violence  of  Josiah's 
reformation  indicates  the  absence  of  true  and  spontaneous 
sympathy  among  the  people.  In  short,  they  were  past  puri- 
fying except  by  the  fiercest  fires  of  affliction. 

Josiah  must  not  be  regarded  as  an  example  of  the  quiet 
growth  of  youthful  piety  under  favorable  culture.  So  evil 
were  tlie  influences  about  him  that  he  only  "  began  to  seek 
after  the  God  of  David  his  father "  in  his  sixteenth  year. 
Plis  religion  was  his  own  decided  choice,  as  the  first  act  of 
his  opening  manhood  ;  a  choice  prompted  by  that  loyalty  to 
his  high  calling  as  the  son  of  David,  which  marks  every  act 
of  his  reign.  Doubtless  he  was  aided  and  encouraged  by 
some  among  the  priests,  and  by  prophets,  such  as  Zephaniah 
and  Jeremiah ;  but  it  is  a  striking  feature  of  his  history,  that 
the  king  himself  is  the  prime  mover  in  every  act  of  reforma- 
tion.    In  the  twelfth  year  of  his  reign,  at  the  age  of  twenty,^' 

^^  B-c.  G43-641  :  2  K.  xxi.  19-26  ;  |  ^^  2  K.  xxii.  1,  2  ;  2  Chron.  xxxiv. 
2  Chron.  xxxiii.  21-25.  {1,2. 

^'u.c.  Gtl-610.  1      "B.C.  630. 


584  The  Kingdom  of  Judah.  Chap.  XXV. 

he  made  a  progress  not  only  through  Judah,  but  through 
those  parts  of  Israel  which  Ave  have  before  seen  recognizing 
Hezekiah  as  their  religious  head — Simeon,  Ephraim,  Manas- 
sell,  and  even  as  far  as  Naphtali — to  put  away  all  objects  of 
idolatry.  The  altars,  groves,  and  statues  were  thrown  down 
and  destroyed,  the  molten  and  chased  images  Avere  ground 
to  powder,  and  their  dust  sprinkled  on  the  graves  of  their 
Avorshipers  in  the  king's  presence,  and  the  bones  of  the  idola- 
trous priests  Avere  disentombed  and  burned  upon  their  own 
altars.^*  These  proceedings  Avere  continued  for  six  years, 
during  which  the  zeal  of  Josiali  Avas  quickened  by  a  most 
important  discoA'ery.  He  had  issued  a  commission  to  his 
cliief  officers  to  co-operate  Avith  the  high-priest  Hilkiah  in  a 
thorough  renovation  of  the  Temple."  Money  had  been  col- 
lected by  the  priests  from  all  the  tribes  that  the  king  had 
visited;  and  it  Avas  delivered Avithout  reckoning  to  the  Avork- 
men,  aa^Iio  proved  faithful  to  the  trust — a  striking  contrast  to 
the  checks  Avhich  Avere  found  necessary  in  tlie  time  of  Joash. 
Tlie  ark,  AA^hich  appears  to  have  been  removed  by  Manasseh 
Avhen  he  set  up  a  carA^ed  image  in  the  Holy  of  Holies,  Avas 
restored  to  its  place  by  Josiah.^°  During  these  repairs,  tlie 
high-priest  Hilkiali  found  the  sacred  copy  of  the  book  of  the 
laAv,  and  delivered  it  to  Shaphan  the  scribe,  Avho  read  it  be- 
fore the  king.  It  is  hard  for  us  to  realize  the  full  force  of 
this  discovery.  We  can  scarcely  conceiA'e  of  a  state  of  things 
in  Avhich,  during  centuries  of  the  nominal  establishment  of 
Christianity,  the  people  should  still  observe  solemn  festiA^als 
at  the  old  sites  of  Druidical  Avorship  ;  the  altars  of  Thor,  and 
Woden,  and  Freya  should  smoke  Avith  sacrifices  in  CA^ery  city, 
town,  and  A'illage,  their  statues  be  set  up  in  our  cathedrals, 
and  the  heights  round  London  should  be  croAvned  Avith  the 
temples  of  Sivah  and  Juggernaut :  all  this  lasting  for  centu- 
ries, Avith  an  occasional  and  partial  return  to  the  purer  form 
of  Avorship,  Avhile  the  Bible,  ncA'er  multiplied  by  printing, 
and  only  knoAAm  in  older  and  purer  times  through  infrequent 
readings  by  the  clergy,  should  haA'e  been  utterly  lost  and 
forgotten  !     Add  to  this  the  supposition  that  the  lost  volume 

^*  2  Chroti.  xxxiv.  3-7.  [all's  years  from  the  beginning  of  the 

"2  K.  xxii.  3,  foil.;  2  Chron.  civil  year,  six  months  would  not  be 
xxxiv.  8,  foil.  The  date  prefixed  tot  nearly  enough  for  all  these  proceed- 
both  passages  (Josiah's  18th  year)  ings.  Even  if,  Avirh  Clinton,  we  be- 
must  surely  have  arisen  from  a  con-  gin  the  ISth  year  of  Josiah  from  May, 
fusion  with  the  e]ioeh  at  wliich  the  bo.  623,  so  as  to  make  the  Passover 
repairs  were  completed  and  the  Pass-  fiiU  in  March — April,  B.C.  622,  thfl 
over  kept;  for,  even  if  we  date  Josi-  interval  is  short. 
^^  2  Chron.  xxxiii.  7,  xxxv.  3. 


B.C.  G24. 


JosiaKs  Reformation. 


585 


contained,  not  the  dark  symbols  of  the  AjDocalypse,  but  the 
clear  warning  of  national  destruction  and  captivity  to  befall 
us  because  of  these  idolatries,  and  then  let  us  imagine  our 
feelings  on  its  sudden  discovery  !  No  wonder  that  Josiah 
rent  his  clothes,  and  could  not  rest  till  he  found  a  prophet 
to  expound  these  terrible  denunciations !  For  the  first  time 
since  the  days  of  Deborah,  we  meet  with  a  prophetess,  Hul- 
DAH,  the  wife  of  Shallum,  keeper  of  the  sacred  vestments,  who 
had  her  abode  in  the  suburb  of  Jerusalem."  Her  reply  to 
the  high-priest  and  officers  whom  Josiah  sent  to  consult  her 
confirmed  his  worst  fears  for  the  fate  of  the  city  and  the  king- 
dom, but  she  added  a  message  of  comfort  to  the  king.  As 
he  had  shown  a  tender  heart,  and  had  humbled  himself'before 
God  when  he  heard  His  words  of  threatening,  he  should  be 
gathered  to  his  fathers  in  peace,  and  not  see  the  evil  that 
was  coming  on  Jerusalem/^ 

Josiah  convened  a  solemn  assembly  at  the  Temple  for  the 
public  reading  of  the  law  and  the  rencAval  of  the  nation's 
covenant  with  Jehovah.  With  new  zeal  the  people  set  to 
the  work  of  purging  Jerusalem  from  idolatry.  All  the  monu- 
ments of  false  worship  were  destroyed,  from  the  temples  built 
by  Solomon  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  the  horses  and  char' 
iots  which  successive  kings  had  dedicated  to  the  sun  at  the 
temple  gates,  to  the  altars  set  up  by  Ahaz  and  Manasseh. 
The  images  were  brought  out  of  the  Temple  and  ground  to 
powder,  and  their  dust  strewn  on  the  brook  Kishon.  The 
houses  devoted  to  the  orgies  of  Ashtoreth  and  the  worser 
abominations  of  Sodom  were  pulled  down.  Tophet,  the  seat 
of  the  worship  of  Moloch,  in  the  valley  of  Hinnom,  was  defiled 
with  the  bones  of  the  idol-priests,  and  the  fire  of  the  god  was 
used  for  consuming  the  refuse  of  the  city.^^ 

Jerusalem  being  thus  purified,  the  king  went  to  Bethel,  be- 
ing now,  it  would  seem,  better  informed  of  the  events  that 
had  occurred  there  under  Jeroboam.     He  broke  down  and 


"  liosenmiiller,  Sch.  ad  Zeph,  i.  10. 

^«  2  K.  xxii.  3-20  ;  2  Chron.  xxxiv. 
8-28.  The  peaceful  end  promised  to 
Josiah  stands  in  contrast  to  captivity 
and  the  ruin  of  the  kingdom,  and  is 
in  no  way  inconsistent  with  the  event 
of  his  deatli  in  battle. 

^'•2K.xxiii.  1-U;  2  Chron.  xxxiv. 
29-33.  Hence  tlie  powerful  fijrnre 
by  which  ^^  Gehenna''  (i.e.,  Ge  Hin- 
nom, the  Valley  of  Hinnom),  with  its 
carcasses  consuming  by  worms  and 
Bn  d 


fire,  became  the  type  of  the  place  of 
final  punishment  and  destruction, 
"where  their  worm  dieth  not,  and 
their  fire  is  not  quenched  "  (Matt,  v. 
22,  29,  30,  X,  2S,  xviii.  9,  xxiii.  15, 
33 ;  Mark  ix.  43,  45,  47 ;  Luke  xii. 
5;  James  iii.  G).  The  Talmudists 
placed  here  the  mouth  of  hell :  "There 
are  two  palm-trees  in  the  valley  of 
Hinnom,  between  which  a  smoka 
arisetli  ....  and  this  is  the  door  of 
Gehenna." 


586  The  Kingdom  of  Judah.  Chap.  XXV. 

burned  the  his;!!  place,  the  altar,  and  the  grove,  and  fulfilled 
the  word  of  tlie  disobedient  prophet  by  taking  the  bones  of 
the  priests  out  of  the  sepulchres  and  burning  them  upon  the 
altar  while  he  spared  the  remains  of  the  prophet  and  of  the 
other  who  was  buried  with  him.  The  priests,  who  still  dared 
to  sacrifice  in  the  high  places,  were  put  to  death,  according 
to  the  law  against  idolatry.  Tlie  wizards  and  necromancers 
shared  their  fate."" 

Returning  to  Jerusalem  in  the  eighteenth  year  of  his  reign 
(b.o.  622),  Josiah  kept  the  passover  according  to  the  directions 
of  the  newly-discovered  Book  ot  the  Law.  This  passover 
was  the  greatest  and  the  most  exact  that  had  been  kept  since 
the  time  of  Moses.  It  is  the  last  great  united  act  of  religion 
in  the  time  preceding  the  Captivity.®^ 

§  7.  The  foreign  relations  of  Judah  were  most  favorable  to 
these  great  reforms.  The  friendship  of  "Egypt  had  been  se- 
cured by  tlie  preceding  kings,  though,  as  we  shall  soon  see, 
Josiah  had  kept  from  the  entanglement  of  a  close  alliance. 
The  Assyrian  Empire  Avas  tottering  to  its  fall,  which  was 
consummated  at  the  very  time  that  Josiah  had  completed  his 
reforms.  It  Avas  about  b.c.  625  that  the  allied  forces  of  Media 
and  Babylon  finally  laid  siege  to  Nineveh,  and  after  a  long 
and  obstinate  resistance,  Saracus,  the  last  Assyrian  king, 
gathered  his  wives  and  treasures  into  his  palace,  and  perished 
with  them  in  tlie  fire,  kindled  by  his  own  hand.  He  was  the 
grandson  of  Esar-haddon,  and  the  son  of  Sardanapalus  II., 
with  whom  he  is  confounded  by  the  classical  liistorians.  The 
fall  of  Assyria  fulfilled  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah,  and  the  more 
recent  predictions  of  Nahum  and  Zepiianiah.'^^ 

Upon  its  ruins  rose  two  great  empires,  the  one  destined 
to  overthrow  and  the  other  to  restore  the  Jewish  common- 
wealth. Speaking  roughly,  they  were  divided  from  each 
other  by  the  highlands  that  bound  the  great  valley  of  the 
Tigris  and  Euphrates  on  the  east  and  north.  While  the 
Medes  sought  the  extension  of  their  power  beyond  the  mount- 
ains of  Armenia,  and  disputed  with  the  Lydians  the  suprem- 
acy of  Asia  Minor,  the  King  of  Babylon  laid  claim  to  the 
provinces  that  had  owned  the  sovereignty  of  Assyria  west  of 
the  Euphrates.  During  most  of  the  reign  of  Nabopolassak, 
the  first  king  (b.c.  625-604),  Josiah  probably  paid  the  accus- 
tomed tribute.  But  the  powerful  dynasty  that  now  ruled 
in  Egypt  resolved  to  dispute  the  supremacy  with  Babylon. 

*°  2  K.  xxiii.  15-20,  24,  25  ;  comp.  2  K.  xiii. 

^'  2  K.  xxiji.  21-23  ;  the  details  are  piven  in  2  Chron.  xxxv. 

^-  Is.  X.  5-19;  Nahiim,  tlie  whole;  Zephaniah  ii.  13-15. 


J3.C.  610.  Death  of  Josiah.  587 

Pharaoh-nechoh,"  the  son  of  Psammetichus,  having  finished 
the  conquest  of  the  Philistines,  advanced  with  a  great  army 
to  attack  Carchemish,"'  whicli  commanded  a  chief  ford  of  the 
Euphrates.  His  line  of  march  was  through  the  great  mari- 
time plain  and  the  valley  of  Esdraelon.  Not  only  did  he  thus 
avoid  Judah,  but  when  Josiah  showed  signs  of  hostility, 
Necho  sent  him  an  emphatic  but  friendly  warning  to  remain 
at  peace.  There  has  been  much  speculation  on  Josiah's  mo- 
tives for  hostility.  Some  ascribe  it  to  an  honorable  loyalty 
to  Babylon  as  his  sovereign ;  but  we  incline  to  think  that  he 
was  carrying  into  action  the  patriotic  principles  he  had  learn- 
ed from  the^Book  of  the  Law,  though  miscalculating  his  own 
strength  and  mistaking  the  Diviiie  will.  Marching  down 
from  the  highlands  of  Manasseh  into  the  ])lain  of  Esdraelon 
by  the  pass  which  issues  near  Megiddo,"  he  encountered  the 
whole  force  of  the  Egyptian  army.  He  had  so  far  deferred  to 
the  remonstrance  of  Necho  as  to  try  to  conceal  his  being  pres- 
ent in  person,  but  his  disguise  did  not  serve  him.  The  Egyp- 
tian archers,  shooting  in  their  serried  ranks,  as  we  still  see 
them  on  the  monuments,  Avounded  Josiah  mortally  in  his  char- 
iot. He  was  removed  in  his  second  chariot  to  Jerusalem,^® 
and  was  buried  among  the  sepulchres  of  the  kings.  His  fall 
caused  a  universal  mourning.  Jeremiah  wrote  a  lamentation 
for  him,  the  spirit  of  which  may  be  gathered  from  a  passage 
in  his  larger  Book  of  Lamentations : — "  The  breath  of  our  nos- 
trils, the  Anointed  of  Jehovah,  was  taken  in  their  pits,  of 
Avhom  Ave  said,  under  his  shadoAV  shall  Ave  live  among  the 
heathen.""  His  loss  formed  the  burden  of  regular  songs  even 
after  the  Captivity,  Avhen  "  the  mourning  of  Hadad-rimmon 
in  the  A^alley  of  Megiddon"  Avas  still  the  type  of  the  deepest 
national  affliction.^^ 


"2  2  K.  xxiii.  29  :  in  2  Chron.  xxxv. 
20,  lie  is  called  simply  Necho  ;  by  the 
Greek  writers,  Necos  (ve/v-wr)  ;  in  the 
iiieroglyphics,  NECU. 

"  Carchemish  is  not  the  classical 
Circesium,  but  lay  much  higher  up 
the  Euphrates,  occui)ying  nearly  the 
site  of  the  later  Mal)0(j,  or  Hierapolis. 
The  word  means  "the  fort  of  Che- 
mosh,"  the  well-known  deity  of  the 
Moabites. 

®^  Megiddo  is  the  modern  eI~Lejjun, 
which  is  undoubtedly  the  Legio  of 
Eusebius  and  Jerome.  It  commands 
one  of  the  passes  into  the  hill-coun- 
try.    The  topography  is  illustrated  in 


the  history  of  the  defeat  of  Sisera  and 
Barak.     See  p.  343. 

^^  In  2  K.  xxiii.  30,  his  dead  body 
is  said  to  have  been  carried  to  Jeru- 
salem ;  in  2  Chron.  xxxv.  24,  he  ap- 
pears to  have  died  after  reaching  Je- 
rusalem :  another  of  those  slight  dis- 
crepancies which  are  far  more  im- 
portant as  proofs  of  honesty  than 
their  reconciliation  could  be  valuable. 

«'  2  Chron.  xxxv.  25  ;  Lam.  iv.  20. 

^'^  Zech.  xii.  11.  Hadad-rimmon 
seems  to  have  been  a  sanctuary  of  the 
Syrian  god,  where  the  first  mourning 
was  made  for  Josiah  on  the  spot  where 
he  fell. 


588  The  Kingdom  of  Judah.  Chap.  XXV. 

"Well  might  such  feelhigs  be  excited  by  the  battle  of  ]\Ic- 
giddo.  That  great  valley  of  Esdraelon,  the  lists  of  Palestine, 
the  scene  of  the  great  victories  of  Barak  and  of  Gideon,  was 
now  stained  with  a  second  defeat  more  disastrous  than  that 
in  which  Saul  lost  his  life.  Then  it  had  witnessed  the  fall 
of  the  short-lived  dynasty  of  the  people's  choice,  but  now  it 
saw  the  virtual  end  of  the  earthly  monarchy  of  the  house  of 
David.  Hence  may  be  traced  the  mystic  significance  which 
surrounds  the  name  of  this  battle-field.  The  prophet  Zecha- 
riah  employs  the  mourning  at  Megiddo  as  a  type  of  the  more 
wholesome  sorrow  of  Judah  in  the  day  when  God  shall  pour 
out  upon  them  the  spirit  of  grace  and  prayer,  as  a  preparatiou 
for  his  final  destruction  of  all  the  nations  that  come  up  against 
Jerusalem ;  and  his  imagery  is  adopted  in  the  visions  of  the 
Apocalypse.  On  the  very  scene  cd:'  the  two  most  signal  de- 
feats of  Israel  and  Judah  by  their  most  inveterate  enemies, 
the  Philistines  and  Egypt,  the  seer  beholds  the  mystic  "  Bat- 
tle of  Armageddon,"  which  avenges  all  such  defeats  by  the 
final  overthrow  of  the  kings  of  all  the  world  in  the  great 
day  of  God  Almighty.'' 

The  reign  of  Josiah  was  marked  by  the  revival  (^i prophecy ^ 
which  had  long  been  silent  under  Manasseli  and  Amon.  To 
this  period  belong  Nahum,  Zephaniah,  Habakkuk,  and  the 
greatest  of  all,  Jeremiah.  I^ahum's  splendid  prophecy  of  the 
destruction  of  Nineveh  seems  to  have  only  preceded  the 
event  by  a  short  time.  The  date  of  Habakkuk,  though  far 
from  certain,  has  been  placed,  upon  strong  internal  evidence, 
about  the  twelfth  or  thirteenth  year  of  Josiah  (b.c.  630-629). 
Tlie  title  of  Zephaniah's  prophecy  places  him  in  the  reign  of 
Josiah  ;  and,  though  it  has  been  inferred  from  one  passage'" 
that  he  wrote  after  the  restoration  of  Jehovah's  worship,  his 
vehement  denunciations  of  the  sins  that  prevailed  in  Judah 
seem  rather  applicable  to  an  earlier  period.  Jeremiah's  long 
career  began  in  the  thirteenth  year  of  Josiah  (b.c.  629)^'  with 

""  Zech.  xii.  9-14  ;  Rev.  xvi.  14-16. 1  and  botli  with  the  scenes  and  events 
"  Armageddon  "  is  the  "fortress  "  or  I  that  suggested  it.  Thus,  when  the 
"height  of  Megiddo,"  according  as;  great  spiritual  victory  which  is  to  end 
we  take  the  prefix  for  the  Hebrew  Ar !  man's  rebellion  against  God  is  to  be 
or  Har  (=Hor).  The  absurdities  of  I  revealed  to  John,  lie  beholds  in  vision 
certain  prophetical  schools  might  have  I  the  armies  of  the  world  mustered  in 
been  avoided  if  they  would  only  have  |  the  great  valley  of  his  native  Galilee, 
recognized  the  essential  character  of  as  they  had  been  against  Deborah  and 
the  Apocalypse  that  it  is  i/z/rtver?/ see?*  Gideon,  against  Saul  and  Josiah. 
in  vision,  not  /lisfory  foretold  in  /ovica/  That  the  victory  is  spiritual,  is  per- 
languafje ;  ana  if  they  would  have  haps  more  clearly  seen  in  Zechariah 
compared  John's  imagery  with  the  than  in  the  Apocalypse  itself. 
Hebrew  prophets  who  first   used  it,        ■"•  Zcph.  iii.  5  ''^Jer.  i,  2. 


B.C.  608. 


The  Successors  of  Josiah. 


589 


reproaches  for  sin  and  warnings  of  coming  jnclgment,  min- 
gled with  exhortations  and  encouragements  to  repentance, 
and  promises  of  restoration.  Though  he  is  only  once  men- 
tioned in  the  history  of  Josiah's  reign,  the  language  of  his 
own  book  assures  us  that,  both  as  priest  and  prophet,  he  an- 
imated the  king  and  people  in  the  Avork  of  reformation,  and 
most  vigorously  denounced  the  policy  of  the  Egyptian  party. 
His  final  lamentation  for  the  fate  of  Josiah  must  have  been 
doubly  embittered  by  seeing  Israel  again  prostrate  beneath 
her  old  oppressor."  In  his  prophecies  we  also  trace  that 
strange  perplexity  concerning  the  ultimate  fate  of  the  peoj^le, 
Avhicli  even  now  weighs  upon  the  student  of  their  history,  and 
which  must  have  been  terribly  felt  while  the  event  was  still 
unknown.  Was  it  possible  for  a  state  that  had  sunk  so  low, 
not  only  politically  but  morally,  to  be  restored  even  by  re- 
pentance and  reformation  ?  His  only  refuge  from  the  despair 
involved  in  the  true  answer  is  in  contemplating  the  past 
proofs  of  Jehovah's  goodness  to  the  nation,  and  uttering  his 
inspired  predictions  of  future  glory. 

§  8.  The  death  of  Josiah,  in  b.c.  610,  or  rather  608,"  marks 
the  virtual  end  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah.  The  four  kings 
who  followed  him  were  the  mere  puppets  of  Egypt  and  Bab- 
ylon, and  the  twenty-two  years  of  their  nominal  reigns  are 
occupied  with  successive  conquests  and  deportations.  These 
twenty-two  years  are  divided  into  two  equal  parts  by  the 
captivity  of  Jehoiachin.  To  follow  their  events,  we  must 
first  have  a  clear  view  of  the  family  of  Josiah,  the  stem  of 
which  is  as  follows  i^* — 

Josiah  (b.  li.c.  650,  d.  b.c.  610). 
I 


I  I  I 

Johanan  Eliakim  Mattaniali 

(Jehoahaz  ?)  or  Jehoiakim,  or  Zedekiah, 

b.  B.C.  635  b.  B.C.  620 

(2  K.  xxiii.  36  ;     (2  K.  xxiv.  1 7,  18). 

2  Chron.  xxxv.  5). 


Sliallum 
(Jehoahaz  ?). 


Jehoiachin, 
Jeconiah, 
or  Coniah. 


Zedekiah  ? 


"  Jer.  ii.l8,  36 ;  2  Chron.  xxxv.  25. 

"'^  This  is  the  most  convenient  place 
to  adopt  the  correction,  required  by 
recent  investigations,  of  lowering;  by 
two  years  the  dates  of  the  received 
chronology. 


''*  1  Chron.  iii.  15.  The  second 
Zedekiah  is  probably  inserted  by  the 
common  confusion  between  "broth- 
er" and  "uncle,"  which  is  made  in 
2  Chron.  xxxvi.  11,  as  the  age  of  Zed- 
ekiah shows. 


590  The  Kingdom  of  Judali.  Chap.  XXV 

The  place  of  Jelioahaz,  the  successor  of  Josiah,  is  purposely 
left  douljtfiil  in  this  pedigree.  If  the  question  were  to  be  de- 
cided only  by  probability,  we  could  scarcely  hesitate  to  iden- 
tify Jehoahaz  with  Johanan,  as  in  the  margin  of  our  version. 
The  name'^  and  the  succession  both  favor  this  view ;  and  it 
involves  no  necessary  alteration  of  the  dates,  though  it  is  at 
least  suspicious  to  iind  that  Jehoiakim  was  born  when  his 
father  was  only  fifteen.  But  it  seems  to  have  been  overlook- 
ed that  Jehoiakim  had  a  different  mother  from  Jehoahaz  and 
Zedekiah  :  his  mother's  name  was  Zebudah,  the  daughter  of 
Pedaiah,  of  Ruma ;  theirs  was  Hamutai,  the  daughter  of  Jer- 
emiah, of  Libnah.'"  If  Hamutai  was  the  first  wife  of  Josiah, 
her  eldest  son  would  take  precedence  of  the  eldest  son  of  the 
second  wife,  even  though  younger,  both  in  the  statement  of 
the  pedigree  and  in  the  succession  to  the  kingdom.  We  have, 
however,  the  express  authority  of  a  passage  in  Jeremiah,  un- 
less there  be  some  corruption  of  the  text,  for  identifying  Je- 
hoahaz with  Shallum."  In  this  case,  we  must  transpose  his 
place  in  the  genealogy,  and  make  him  the  third  instead  of 
the  fourth  son  of  Josiah  ;  for  Jehoahaz  was  twenty-three 
years  old  in  B.C.  GIO,  and  Avas  therefore  born  in  b.c.  633,  thir- 
teen years  before  Zedekiah.  The  absence  of  any  mention  of 
Johanan  is  accounted  for  by  the  supposition  that  he  died  be- 
fore his  fither,  or  fell  with  him  at  Megiddo  ;  and  the  prefer- 
ence of  Shallum  to  Eliakim  may  have  been  due  to  the  supe- 
rior rank  of  his  mother. 

Jehoahaz,  the  seventeenth  king  of  Judah,  was  raised  to 
the  throne  by  the  people  after  Josiah's  death,  while  Pharaoh- 
necho  proceeded  on  his  expedition  against  Carchemish.  Hav- 
ing (it  seems)  taken  that  city,  he  summoned  Jehoahaz  to  Rib- 
lah  in  Hamath  (on  the  Orontes)  and  there  kept  him  as  a  pris- 
oner till  his  return  to  Egypt.  Entering  Jerusalem  as  a  con- 
queror, he  placed  on  the  throne  Eliakim  (the  brother  of  Je- 
hoahaz), to  whom  he  gave  the  name  of  Jehoiakim,'*'  and  im- 
posed a  tribute  of  100  talents  of  silver  and  a  talent  of  gold 
(about  £40,000),  which  Jehoiakim  collected  by  a  tax  on  the 
land.     Jehoahaz  was   carried   by  Pharaoh-necho  to  Egypt, 

'^Johanan,    the    common    Hebrew  The  clmmre  of  tlic  lust  letter  would 
namcfamiliur  to  us  in  the  shorter  form   be  nntunilly  made  at  his  accession. 
of  John,  is  an  abbreviation  of  Jchoha-        ""'  2  K.  xxiii.  31.  36,  xxiv.  18:  this 
7ian  (the  6'//?  o/'  Jehovah,  cf^uivalent  Jeremiali  is  a  different  person  from 
to  the    Greek    Theodore):  hence   Its   the  prophet.  ''''^  Jer.  xxii.  11. 

application  to  John  tlie  Baptist  (Luke  "  The  name  itself  looks  more  as  if 
i.  13,  60-63  ;  for  othei' Johns,  fioe  Bih.  \  it  had  been  given  by  the  priests.  The 
Dirt.  arts.  Jehohanan  and  Johnnnn).  \  change  is  from  JSl  (God)  to  Jeho  {Je- 
Jehoahaz  means  possession  of  Jtliocah.   hovnh). 


B.C.  G08.  Reign  of  Jehoiahim.  591 

wliere  he  died  soon  afterward.  His  brief  reign  was  charaC' 
terized  by  Avickedness  and  oppression,  but  he  was  lamented 
as  the  last  king  of  the  people's  choice.  Jeremiah,  who  had 
mourned  so  bitterly  for  Josiah,  now  says  : — "  Weep  ye  not 
for  the  dead,  neither  honor  him:  w^eep  sore  for  him  that  goeth 
away ;  for  he  shall  return  no  more,  nor  see  his  native  coun- 
try.'"® The  fortunes  of  Jehoahaz  and  his  two  successors  are 
described  in  highly  poetical  imagery  by  Ezekiel.^" 

The  expedition  of  Pharaoh-necho  is  related  by  Herodotus, 
wdio  places  the  victory  over  "  the  Syrians,"  as  he  calls  the 
people  of  Josiah,  at  Magdolus,  evidently  by  a  confusion  be- 
tween Migdol  and  Megiddo.  After  the  battle  he  took  Ca- 
dytis,  a  great  city  of  the  Syrians,  and  he  sent  the  garment 
lie  had  worn  in  the  campaign  as  an  oftering  ;o  the  Temple  of 
Apollo  at  Branchidae  of  the  Milesians.'*^  It  is  commonly  as- 
sumed that  Cadytis  is  Jerusalem,  the  name  being  derived 
from  its  ancient  appellation  "  Kodesh "  (the  Holy  City), 
wdiich  it  still  bears  in  Arabic  {el-Khuds.)  But  this  is  scarce- 
ly to  be  reconciled  with  another  passage,  in  which  Herodo- 
tus makes  the  country  of  "  the  Syrians  of  Palestine  "  extend 
from  Phoenice  to  Cadytis  (a  city  not  much  smaller  than  Sar- 
dis),  after  Avhich  are  the  places  of  traffic  along  the  .<?e«  belong- 
ing to  the  Arabian  king.**^  It  is  not  improbable  that  Gaza 
may  be  the  city  which  Herodotus  calls  Cadytis. 

§  9.  Jehoiakim,  the  eighteenth  king  of  Judah,  was  twenty- 
five  years  old  when  he  was  placed  on  the  throne  by  Pha- 
raoh-necho, instead  of  his  brother  Jehoahaz  ;  and  he  reigned 
eleven  years  at  Jerusalem,  doing  evil  in  the  sight  of  Jeho- 
vah.^^  Jeremiah  sternly  rebukes  his  injustice  and  oppression, 
his  cruelty  and  avarice,  and  his  reckless  luxury  in  building 
himself  a  magnificent  palace,  and  contrasts  all  this  with  his 
father's  justice  to  the  poor:^*  and  m  the  Chronicles  his  name 
is  dismissed  with  an  allusion  to  "  all  the  abominations  that 
he  did.""  From  the  very  commencement  of  his  reign,  the 
voice  of  Jeremiah  is  heard  plainly  predicting,  and  preiig- 

•ing  by  striking  signs,  the  captivity  at  Babylon  as  a  judg- 

ent  rendered  inevitable  by  the  people's  sins,  but  adding  the 
nomise  of  their  future  restoration.®''     Attempts  were  made 


:^2   K.  xxiii.   31-34;     2    Chron. 
,ixvi.l-4;  Jer.  xxii.  10-12. 
*°  Ezek.  xix.  1-9. 
"  Herod,  ii.  159. 

^"^  Herod,  lii.   5.      The    arccuments 
against   Jerusalem  apply  still   morel      ''^  2  Chron.  xxxvi.  8. 
"^  Jer.  xiii,  -xix. 


strongly  ^o  Kedesh  on  the  Orontes, 
which  has  been  suggested  by  sonic 
Orientalists. 

«=*  2    K.  xxiii.   30,   37;  2    Chron. 
xxxvi.  .^..  "Jer.  xxii.  13-17, 


592  The  Kingdom  of  Judah.  Chap.  XXV. 

to  silence  hiiu  by  the  princes,  priests,  and  false  prophets  of 
the  Egyptian  party,  who  represented  him  as  a  traitor.  He 
often  complains  of  these  enemies,  and  he  expressly  predicts 
the  captivity  of  Pashur,  the  priest  and  governor  of  the  Tem- 
ple, who  had  beaten  him  and  put  him  in  the  stocks  (or  pil- 
lory.)**" Still  he  faithfully  delivered  the  messages  which  Je- 
hova:i  now  gave  him  to  the  King  of  Judah  by  name,  as  plain- 
ly as  Nathan  had  been  sent  to  David.  This  directness  of 
language  is  a  striking  character  of  the  prophecies  of  Jeremiah, 
and  indeed  of  most  of  the  historical  j^rophecies.  In  one  of 
these  prophecies,  after  mourning  the  death  of  Josiah  and  the 
hopeless  captivity  of  Jehoahaz,  he  predicts  the  fate  of  Jelioi- 
akim  to  the  very  details  of  his  dishonored  end.®^  On  anoth- 
er occasion  the  prophet  took  his  stand  in  the  court  of  the 
Temple,  amid  an  assemblage  from  all  the  cities  of  Judah,  to 
proclaim  that  God  would  even  yet  repent  him  of  the  coming 
evil  if  they  turned  to  Him,  but  if  not,  that  His  house  should 
be  destroyed  like  the  tabernacle  at  Shiloh,  and  the  city  made 
a  curse  to  all  nations. ^^  The  priests  and  prophets  now  re- 
solved on  Jeremiah's  death :  and  they  had  a  precedent  in 
the  case  of  Ueijah,  the  son  of  Shemaiah  of  Kirjath-jearim, 
who,  having  uttered  prophecies  like  those  of  Jeremiah,  had 
been  pursued  by  the  envoys  of  Jehoiakim  into  Egypt,  and 
brought  back  to  suffer  an  ignominious  death.  The  princes 
of  Judah,  however,  before  whom  Jeremiah  was  arraigned,  ap- 
pealed to  the  better  precedent  of  the  times  of  Hezckiah,  Avho  ■ 
allowed  Micah  to  prophesy  with  impunity,  and  Jeremiah's 
life  was  saved  by  the  influence  of  Ahikam,  the  son  of  Sha- 
phan,  and  other  old  counselors  of  Josiah.^"  These  warnings 
were  given  in  the  beginning  of  Jehoiakim's  reign,  and  their 
fulfillment  was  soon  begun  by  the  overthrow  of  his  Egyp- 
tian protector. 

The  fourth  year  of  Jehoiakim  (b.c.  605-4)  is  a  marked 
epoch  both  in  secular  and  sacred  history,  though  the  de- 
struction of  Nineveh,  once  assigned  to  it  by  chronologers,  is 
now  referred  to  an  earlier  date.  In  this  year  we  first  meet 
witliNEBucHADXEZZAR,'*^  the  greatest  of  the  Babylonian  kings, 
and  the  destined  destroyer  of  the  Jewish  monarchy.     His 

®^  Jer.  XX.  ^^  Jer.  xxii.  1-23.       protector    against    misfortune).      T'' 

*^  Jer.  xxvi.  1-7.  'year  b.c.   605,  the  fourth  of  Jehoia 

*°  Jer.  xxvi.  kirn,  is  rcchoned  the  first  year  of  hisv 

"' Also  callcil  Nabiicliodonosor,  and   rei<:;n    by   Jeremiah    (xxv.    1).     The^- 
by  Jeremiah,  Nebuchadrezzar.     The  date  is  further  fixed  as  the  twenty- 
last  form  is  the  nearest  to  his  native  third  year  from  the  13tli  of  Josiah, 
name  Nabu-Kuduri-utsur  (Nebo  is  the  [when  Jeremiah  began  to  prophesy. 


B.C.  G05. 


Reign  of  Jehoiakim. 


593 


father,  Nabopolassar,  appears  to  have  been  still  alive  when 
he  led  a  great  army  against  Carchemish,  which  was  still  held 
by  the  Egyptians,  and  inflicted  a  decisive  defeat  on  Pharaoh- 
necho.  This  blow  put  an  end  to  the  hopes  of  the  Egyptian 
party  at  Jerusalem,  as  well  as  to  all  fears  of  subjugation  from 
that  quarter,  and  left  the  city  defenseless  against  Nebuchad- 
nezzar. "  The  King  of  Egypt  came  not  again  any  more  out 
of  his  land  ;  for  the  King  of  Babylon  had  taken  from  the  riv- 
er of  Egypt  unto  the  River  Euphrates  all  that  pertained  to 
the  King  of  Egypt."^  Meanwhile  Jeremiah,  having  predict- 
ed the  overthrow  of  the  Egyptians,"  uttered  that  memorable 
prophecy,  in  which  he  fixes  the  duration  of  the  coming  Cap- 
tivity at  seventy  years,  and  predicts  the  fall  of  Babylon  and 
the  other  nations  hostile  to  the  Jews.  It  was  from  this 
prophecy  that  Daniel  was  enabled  to  calculate  the  time  of 
the  2>romised  restoration,  and  it  was  fulfilled  by  the  decree 
of  Cyrus  in  B.C.  SSG."" 

The  interesting  episode  of  the  flight  of  the  Rechabites  to 
Jerusalem  also  belongs  to  the  time  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  ad- 
vance from  Carchemish  to  Jerusalem.  Their  fidelity  to  the 
patriarchal  laAVS  of  their  ancestor,  Jonadab  the  son  of  Re- 
cliab,  is  used  by  Jeremiah  as  a  powerful  reproof  of  the  faith- 
lessness of  the  Jews  toward  Jehovah."^ 

Nebuchadnezzar  advanced  to  Jerusalem,  Avhich  he  took 
after  a  brief  siege,^''  dethroned  Jehoiakim,  and  put  him  in  fet- 
ters, with  a  view  to  carry  him  to  Babylon.  For  some  rea- 
son this  intention  was  abandoned,  and  Jehoiakim  was  restored 
to  his  throne  as  a  vassal.  His  treasures  were  carried  ofl"  to 
Babylon,  where  the  vessels  of  the  sanctuary  were  dedicated 
in  the  Temple  ofBelus."  At  the  same  time  Nebuchadnezzar 
commissioned  Ashpenaz,  the  chief  of  his  eunuchs,  to  choose 
a  number  of  royal  and  noble  Hebrew  youths,  excelling  alike  in 
beauty  and  mental  accomplishments  to  be  brought  up  at  his 
court  and  trained  in  the  learning  of  Chaldsea.  Among  those 
thus  selected  were  Daniel,  with  his  three  companions,  Han- 
aniah,  Mishael,  and  Azariah,  to  whose  well-known  history  we 
shall  soon  return.®'* 


•'^  2  K.  xxiv.  7.      ^"^  Jer.  xlvi.  1-12. 

"  Jer.  XXV.  ;  Daniel  ix.  1,  2  ;  2 
Chron.  xxxvi.  22;  Ezra  i.  1.  Here 
again  we  notice  the  literal  directness  of 
a  chronological  and  historical  proph- 
ecy : — Jerusalem,  Babylon,  Cyrus  (Is. 
xliv,),  seventy  years,  have  all  their  lit- 
ernl  meanings.  ®^  Jer.  xxxv. 

""Dan.i.  1. 


"  2  K.  xxiv.  1 ;  2  Chron.  xxxvi. 
G,  7;  Dan.i.  1,2. 

'"^  Dan.  i.  3-7.  A  difficulty  arises 
from  the  date  in  this  passage,  tlie 
thij-d  year  of  Jehoaikim,  instead  of 
the  fourth,  as  in  Jeremiah.  The  sim- 
plest exi)lanntion  is  that  the  advance 
of  Nebucliadnezzar  from  Babylon  be- 
gan in  the  third  year  of  Jehoiakim, 


59-i  TJie  Kingdom  of  Judah.  Chap.  XXV. 

"VYhile  the  long  train  of  Syrian,  Jewish,  and  Egyptian  cap- 
tives were  led  by  the  usual  route,  Nebuchadnezzar  hastened 
back  across  the  Syrian  desert,  in  consequence  of  his  father's 
death,  and  ascended  the  vacant  throne  without  opposition.®'' 
His  accession  is  fixed  by  the  Canon  of  Ptolemy  at  January 
21,B.c.  604,  which  corresponds  to  the  fourth  year  of  Jehoia- 
kim,  the  received  chronology  being  two  years  too  high.^"" 
The  state  in  which  Jerusalem  was  left  can  be  learned  from 
Jeremiah,  though  there  is  great  difficulty  not  only  in  deter- 
mining the  order  of  his  prophecies,  but  in  deciding,  among 
those  that  belong  to  this  period,  which  were  delivered  be- 
fore, and  which  after,  Nebuchadnezzar's  first  capture  of  the 
city.  It  seems  to  have  been  after  his  retreat  that  a  great 
fast  was  appointed  for  the  ninth  month,  in  the  fifth  year  of 
Jehoiakim.'"^  The  occasion  was  seized  by  Jeremiah,  at  the 
command  of  God,  to  make  a  solemn  appeal  to  the  people  to 
return  from  their  evil  Avay,  that  they  might  even  yet  be  for- 
given. With  the  aid  of  his  disciple  and  secretary,  Baruch  the 
son  of  Neriah,  he  had  written  in  a  volume  the  whole  of  the 
j^rophecies  that  he  had  uttered,  from  the  days  of  Josiah  down- 
ward, against  Israel,  Judah,  and  other  nations.  Being  pre- 
vented, perhaps  by  the  command  of  God  to  insure  his  safety, 
from  going  up  to  the  Temple  himself,  he  commissioned  Ba- 
ruch to  read  the  volume  to  the  ]^eople  .assembled  out  of  all 
the  cities  of  Judah.  Baruch  took  liis  station  in  a  chamber 
above  the  new  gate  of  the  Temple,  beit)nging  to  Michaiah  the 
scribe,  who  was  the  grandson  of  Shaphan,  and  a  friend  to  Jer- 
emiah. When  Baruch  had  read  the  book  to  the  people  in 
the  court  below,  Michaiah  reported  the  whole  to  the  princes 
who  were  assembled  in  the  scribe's  chamber  at  the  palace. 
Having  sent  for  Baruch  and  heard  him  read  the  volume, 
they  advised  him  and  Jeremiah  to  hide  tliemselves  while 
they  laid  the  matter  before  the  king.  Jehoiakim  was  sitting 
in  his  winter  palace,  with  a  fire  burning  in  a  brazier  (for  it 
was  cold),  and  the  prince  Jehudi  read  the  roll  at  his  com- 
mand. As  fast  as  he  read,  tlie  king  cut  off  the  leaves  with  a 
penknife  and  threw  them  into  the  fire  till  the  whole  volume 
was  consumed,  in  spite  of  the  intercession  of  Gemaliah  and 
others.  Jeremiah  and  Baruch  only  escaped  arrest  througli 
having  followed  the  advice  of  the  princes.  But  this  earliest  ( 
example  of  Bible-burning  was  as  unsuccessful  in  suppressing  ^^ 
the  word  of  God  as  later  feats  of  the  same  kind.     Jeremiah 


but  that  Jerusalem  was  not  taken  till 
the  fourth. 

"' Berosus,  Fi .  7. 


'"'  November    to    December,    B.C. 
GOt:  Jer.  xxxvi.  9. 


B.C.  G04. 


Mehellion  of  Jehoiahim. 


595 


was  bidden  to  take  another  roll,  and  to  write  in  it  the  same 
words, with  a  further  prophecy  of  the  utter  desolation  of  Judah, 
and  of  the  king's  disgraceful  end.  So  Baruch  wrote  in  the  next 
volume,  at  the  dictation  of  Jeremiah,  all  the  words  of  the 
book  which  the  king  had  burned,  "  and  there  were  added  be- 
sides unto  them  many  like  words."  Both  king  and  j^eople, 
however,  remained  obdurate. ^"^ 

Tlie  failure  of  this  last  appeal  can  scarcely  have  surprised 
Jeremiah,  but  it  liad  a  deep  eifect  on  his  more  youthful  and 
ardent  disciple.  Baruch  seems  to  have  hoped  that,  amid  the 
solemnity  of  the  fast,  the  people  Avould  have  been  stirred  up 
])y  his  words  to  a  movement  of  new  national  and  religious 
life,  and  Jeremiah  addresses  him  in  words  fitted  to  chasten 
the  despair  of  the  too  sanguine  patriot.  He  reminds  him  of 
God's  sovereign  right  to  break  down  what  He  liad  built,  and 
to  pluck  up  what  He  had  planted,  and  adds  : — "  Seekest  thou 
great  things  for  thyself?  seek  them  not:  for,  behold,  I  will 
bring  evil  upon  all  flesh,  saith  Jehovah  :  but  thy  life  will  I 
give  thee  for  a  prey  " — as  if  snatched  from  the  net  of  the  de- 
stroyer— "  in  all  places  whither  thou  goest.'""^  The  promise 
was  fulfilled  by  Baruch's  sharing  with  Jeremiah  the  j^rotec- 
tion  of  Nebuchadnezzar  when  Jerusalem  was  taken,  and  by 
his  afterward  finding  a  refuge  in  Ec^ypt  with  the  remnant  of 
the  Jews.'"' 

The  burning  of  Jeremiah's  prophecies  indicates  that  spirit 
of  defiance  Avhich  led  Jehoiakim  to  rebel  against  Nebuchad- 
nezzar, after  reigning  for  three  years  as  a  vassal  of  Babylon.'"* 
He  relied,  if  we  may  believe  Josephus,  on  the  aid  of  Egypt. 
The  Scripture  narrative  is  here  so  brief  that  we  have  to  fol- 
low other  authorities,  whose  statements  are  conflicting  and 
uncertain.  It  seems  that  Nebuchadnezzar  was  too  much  oc- 
cupied with  the  great  conflict  between  the  Lydian  and  Me- 
dian empires  to  march  against  Jerusalem ;  but  his  governors 
roused  the  surrounding  nations,  the  Syrians,  Moabites,  and 
Ammonites,  who  joined  with  such  forces  of  the  Chaldseans  as 
could  be  spared  to  harass  Judah.  At  length,  in  the  seventh 
year  of  his  reign  (b.c.  598),  he  took  the  field  in  person,  with 
Cyaxares,  king  of  Media,  as  his  ally,  and  marched  first  against 


"-  Jer.  xxxvi.  There  is  no  occa- 
sion for  the  supposition  of  Ussher  and 
Prideaux,  that  the  first  roll  was  read 
twice.  It  was  written  in  the  fourth 
year  of  Jehoiakim,  which  ended  (ac- 
cording to  the  Canon)  in  August,  in 
preparation  for  the  fast  which  fell  in 


the  following  November  to  December 
in  the  king's  fifth  year. 

"^  Jer.  xlv.  1-5,  See  the  exquisite 
paraphrase  in  the  ChristianYear,  11th 
Sunday  after  Trinity. 

'"•'  Jer.  xliii.  6. 

^°^  2  K.  xxiv.  1 :  b.c.  602. 


596  The  Kingdom  of  Judali.  Chap.  XXV. 

Tyre,  which  had  rebelled  about  the  same  time  as  Jiidah. 
Having  invested  the  city,  he  marched  with  a  part  of  his  forces 
against  Jerusalem,  put  Jehoiakini  to  death,  as  Jeremiah  had 
prophesied,  and  placed  his  son  Jehoiachin  upon  the  throne/"* 

§  10.  Jehoiachin,  Jeconiah,  or  Coxiah,'"'  the  nineteenth 
king  of  Judah,  was  eight  years  old  when  he  Avas  placed 
on  the  throne  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  reigned  only  three 
months  and  ten  days.^""*  Considering  his  infancy,  "  the  evil 
which  he  did  in  the  sight  of  Jehovah"  must  be  understood 
of  the  policy  pursued  by  those  who  ruled  in  his  name,  the 
old  idolatrous  and  Egyptian  party.  The  fate  Avhich  they 
brought  upon  the  young  king  is  vividly  described  by  Jere- 
miah, who  compares  Jeliovah's  rejection  of  "  Coniah  "  to  the 
plucking  oft'  and  throwing  away  a  signet  ring,  and  the  king 
himself  to  a  despised  broken  idol,  foretells  his  captivity  and 
his  mother's,  without  hope  of  return,  and  solemnly  invokes 
the  whole  earth  to  hear  the  sentence  of  Jehovah,  pronounc- 
ing this  man  childk^ss,  and  the  last  of  his  line  who  should  sit 
upon  the  throne  of  David. ^°9  But  even  this  terrible  burden 
is  accompanied  with  the  promise  of  Messiah's  kingdom  and 
of  the  people's  restoration. ^^"^ 

The  machmations  of  the  Egyptian  party  at  Jerusalem  were 
at  once  crushed  by  Nebuchadnezzar,who  again  turned  from 
the  siege  of  Tyre  to  Jerusalem,  in  the  eighth  year  of  his  reign 
(b.c.  598,  Clinton;  597,  Rawlinson).  The  city  was  saved 
from  a  storm  by  the  surrender  of  Jehoiachin,  with  his  mother, 
Nehushta,  and  the  royal  harem,  and  all  his  princes  and  ofii- 
cers.  They  were  all  carried  oft*  to  Babylon,  with  all  the 
mighty  men  of  the  country,  and  all  the  skilled  artisans,  none 
being  left  behind  but  the  poorest  sort  of  the  people.  The  to- 
tal number  of  the  captives  was  10,000,  of  whom  7000  were 
soldiers,  and  1000  smiths  and  other  craftsmen :  it  would  seem 
that  the  royal  family,  the  princes,  and  the  priests,  made  up 
the  other  2000."'  Among  the  captives  Avere  Ezekiel,  who 
had  not  yet  received  his  prophetic  commission,  and  the  grand- 

'"®  2  K.  xxiv.  G  ;  Jcr.  xxii,  18,  19,  [and  Joakin,  by  confusion  with  Jehoi- 
xxxvi,  30  ;  Folyliistor,  Fi'.  xxiv. ;  Jo- 1  akim.     There  seems  to  be  an  allusion 


seph.  Antiq.  x.  G,  7,  8,  c.  Ap.  i.  21 
llawlinson's  Herodotus,  vol.  i.  pp.513, 
514.  Clinton  places  the  end  of  Je- 
lioiakim's  reign  in  March,  B.C.  598; 
Rawlinson  in  B.C.  597 ;  the  common 
ChronolQgy,  in  B.C.  599. 

'"  Apjtointed  of  Jehovah:  other 
forms  of  the  name  are  Joiachin,  Joi- 
achim,  and   Joachim  ;  also  Joiakim 


to  the  meaning  of  his  name  in  Jer. 
xxii.  24. 

^°«  March  to  June,  B.C.  597  (C]in-( 
ton,  B.C.  598).     2  K.  xxiv.  8,  9 ;    2;^ 
Chron.  xxxvi.  9  ;  the  age  given  in  the  \ 
latter  passage,  eight  years,  is  clearly   v*. 
preferable  to  that  of  the  former,  eight- 
een. '"«  Jer.  xxii.  24-30. 

"°  Jer.  xxiii.     '"  2  K.  xxiv.  10-1 6. 


B.C.  597. 


Subsequent  History  of  Jehoiachin. 


597 


father  of  Mordecai,  Shimei,  the  son  of  Kish,  a  Benjamite. ' ''  At 
the  same  time  all  the  remaining  treasures  of  the  Temple  and 
palace  were  carried  oft",  and  the  golden  vessels  of  the  sanctuary- 
were  cut  in  pieces/*^  Mattaniah,  the  youngest  son  of  Josiah, 
and  uncle  of  Jehoiachin,  was  made  king  over  the  wretched 
remnant  of  Judah,  under  the  new  name  of  Zedekiah/'^ 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  circumstances  of  this  event 
is  that  Nebuchadnezzar  abstained  from  the  utter  destruction 
of  the  rebellious  city.  AVe  shall  see  that,  in  all  probability, 
the  king  had  already  received  the  first  of  those  great  revela- 
tions of  Jehovah's  power  and  majesty  which  Avere  made  to 
liim  through  Daniel, ^'^  and  it  seems  impossible  not  to  refer 
liis  moderation  to  this  lesson.  Ezekiel  expressly  states  what 
Avas  tlie  policy  of  Nebuchadnezzar  in  thus  continuing  the  ex- 
istence of  the  state  :  "  He  hath  taken  away  the  mighty  of  the 
land,  that  the  kingdom  might  be  base,  that  it  might  not  lift  it- 
self up,  but  that  by  keeping  of  his  covenant  it  might  stand.""® 
The  covenant  referred  to  is  the  oatli  which  Nebuchadnezzar 
exacted  of  the  new  king,'''  and  which  Zedekiah  shamefully 
broke. 

Jehoiachm  survived  for  many  years  after  the  fall  of  Zede- 
kiah. For  a  long  time  his  imprisonment  at  Babylon  was  rig- 
orous :  he  was  closely  confined  and  clad  in  a  prison  dress. 
The  plots  of  the  Egyptian  party  and  the  hopes  of  his  return 
held  out  by  the  false  prophet  Hananiah  (b.c.  595)  exjDlain 
this  severity  as  well  as  Hananiah's  cruel  execution ;''"  but  in 
the  thirty-seventh  year  of  his  cajDtivity  (on  the  25th  or  27th 
day  of  the  twelfth  month,  Adar=Feb.  b.c.  561)  he  was  re- 
leased by  Evil-merodach,  Avho  had  just  succeeded  to  the 
throne  of  Babylon  (Jan.  11,  b.c.  561)."^  He  was  received 
with  kind  words,  Avas  placed  in  the  royal  presence  on  a  throne 
aboA'e  all  the  other  captive  kings,  received  a  robe  of  honor, 
and  a  portion  for  his  daily  diet,  until  his  death.  With  him 
expired  the  royal  line  of  Solomon.  "  Tliis  man  Avas  Avritten 
childless,"  as  Jeremiah  had  declared ;  and  "  no  man  of  his 
seed  prospered,  sitting  upon  the  throne  of  David,  and  ruling 


"'^  Joseph.  Ant.  X.  G,  §  3  ;  Esth.  ii. 
5,  G. 

i'^"  2  K.  xxiv.  13;  2  Chron.  xxxvi. 
19.  The  vessels  are  described  as 
"those  that  Solomon  had  made." 
Either  tliey  were  too  massive  for  re- 
moval on  the  many  previous  occasions 
when  the  Temple  had  been  plundered, 
or  tliey  had  been  made  to  replace  the 
originals. 


"*  2  K.  xxiv.  7.  In  2  Chron. 
xxxvi.  10,  "  brother  "  means  "  father's 
brother." 

"^  B.C.  603.     See  chap.  xxvi. 

''^  Ezek.  xvii.  13,  U. 

"'  Comp.  2  Chron.  xxxvi.  13. 

"*^  Jer.  xxviii.     See  p.  .'')99. 

"«  2   K.  XXV.  27-30  ;  Jcr.  Hi. 
34.     Clinton,  Fasti,  vol.  i.  pp. 
329. 


§2. 


31- 
319, 


59'^  The  Kingdom  of  Judah.  Chap.  XXV. 

any  more  in  Judah. '"^^  The  inheritance  of  David  passed  on 
to  the  line  of  his  son  Nathan,  whose  re2:)resenlative,  Salathiel, 
is  therefore  inserted  in  the  genealogies  as  the  son  of  Jehoia- 
chin,  and  the  ancestor  of  Christ/'^' 

§  11.  Zedekiah,  the  twentieth  and  last  king  of  Judah,  and 
the  youngest  son  of  Josiah  and  Hamutai,  was  twenty  years 
old  at  his  accession,  and  reigned  eleven  years,  till  the  final 
destruction  of  Jerusalem.'*^  His  proper  name,  Mattaniah, 
was  changed  to  Zedekiah  at  his  accession.  The  only  events 
of  his  reign,  except  the  brief  record  of  the  fall  of  Jerusalem, 
are  those  connected  with  the  history  of  Jeremiah,  from  whose 
book  we  learn  the  spirit  of  the  times.  Zedekiah  accepted 
his  royalty  over  the  impoverished  remnant  of  the  Jews,  as 
the  vassal  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  to  whom  he  was  bound  by 
every  principle  of  good  flxith.  The  fate  of  his  brother  and 
his  nephew  had  proved  the  hopelessness  of  rebellion  even  be- 
fore the  whole  strength  of  the  nation  had  been  carried  mto 
captivity.  The  miserable  remnant  might  well  envy  the  con- 
dition of  their  captive  brethren,  and  the  time  had  at  length 
cjme  for  piety  and  patriotism  to  show  themselves  in  a  wise 
submission  to  what  was  proved  to  be  the  will  of  God.  Of 
such  a  course  Jerjmiah  was  the  assiduous  adviser.  His  par- 
able of  the  two  baskets  of  figs  showed  the  goodness  that  God 
had  in  store  for  the  captivity,  but  the  hopeless  state  of  the 
remnant  left  behind.^^^  His  letter  to  the  elders,  priests,  and 
prophets  at  Babylon  warned  them,  in  opposition  to  the  false 
prophets  who  promised  their  speedy  restoration,  to  make  all 
their  arrangements  for  a  prolonged  residence  there,  and  re- 
peated the  former  statement  that  their  captivity  should  last 
seventy  years  ;  adding  that  those  left  behind  should,  after 
suffering  from  the  sword,  the  famine,  and  the  pestilence,  be 
dispersed  over  all  the  world,  and  'become  a  by-word  and  re- 
proach.'^* From  what  follows  we  learn  more  of  the  false 
prophets  whom  Jeremiah  denounced.  Two  among  them, 
Ahab,  the  son  of  Kolaiah,  and  Zedekiah,  the  son  of  Maase- 
iah,  Avhose  lives  were  as  profligate  as  their  principles,  were 
seized  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  "  roasted  in  the  fire,"  an  eX' 
ample  which  must  have  been  the  more  striking  from  its  con- 
trast with  the  deliverance  of  Shadrach,  Meshach,  and  Abed- 


^'"  Jer.  xxii.  30.  There  are  allu- 
sions to  him  in  the  apocryphal  books  : 
Barnch  i.  3  ;  1  Esdr.  v.  5  ;  Susannah. 

'■^  I  Chr.  iii.  17;  Matt.  i.  12;  Luke 
iii.  31. 

™  From  June,  B.C.  598  to   June, 


B.C. 587,  Clinton  ;  b.c.  597-586,  Ila^v- 
linpon. 

^^^  Jer.  xxiv. 

^-^  Jer.  xxix.  1-U,  16-20:  ver.  15 
should  be  placed  as  in  thcLXX.,  aft, 
cr  ver.  21. 


B.C.  594. 


Jeremiah  and  the  False  Prophets. 


599 


nego.  Another  of  the  same  party,  Shemaiah  the  Nehelamite 
(or  the  dreamer),  dared  to  write,  as  if  by  the  word  of  Jehovah, 
to  Zephaniah  and  the  other  priests  at  Jerusalem,  complaining 
of  Jeremiah's  letter,  and  demanding  his  imj^risonment.'^"  •  Con- 
stant in  his  opposition  to  these  false  prophets,  whether  at  Bab- 
ylon or  at  home,  Jeremiah  nttered  his  grand  prophecies  of  the 
restoration  of  Israel  in  God's  OAvn  time,  but  not  till  then,'^" 
and  of  the  judgments  that  awaited  all  her  enemies.^"  His 
great  prophecy  against  Babylon,  for  the  consolation  of  the 
exiles,  was  rendered  the  more  impressive  by  the  sign  which 
foUow^ed  it.  Seraiah,  the  son  of  Neriah,  who  carried  this 
prophecy  to  Babylon,  was  directed,  after  reading  it,  to  tie  a 
stone  to  the  volume  and  to  sink  it  in  the  Euphrates,  saying, 
"Thus  shall  Babylon  sink,  and  shall  not  rise  from  the  evil 
that  I  will  bring  "upon  her."^*^  The  occasion  found  for  ex- 
ecuting this  commission  was  a  visit  which  Zedekiah  paid  to 
Babylon  in  the  fourth  year  of  his  reign  (b.c.  594-3),  probably 
to  pay  his  tribute  to  Nebuchadnezzar,  or  perhaps  to  defend 
himself  against  the  first  suspicions  of  treasonable  dealings 
with  Egypt.  For  in  the  same  year  Pharaoh-necho,  who  seems 
never  to  have  ventured  to  meet  ISTebuchadnezzar  after  the 
defeat  of  Carchemish,  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Psammetichus 
II.  (the  Psammis  of  Herodotus).  From  the  Book  of  Ezekiel, 
who  began  in  this  year  to  enforce  upon  the  exiles  at  Babylon 
the  same  lessons  that  Jeremiah  was  teaching  at  Jerusalem, 
we  learn  that  Zedekiah  entered  into  a  treasonable  correspond- 
ence with  the  new  King  of  Egypt,  which  the  prophet  denoun- 
ces as  a  gross  violation  of  his  plighted  faith,  destined  to  end  in 
the  king's  being  brought  to  Babylon  for  punishment,  while  his 
people  should  fall  by  the  sword  or  be  scattered  to  the  winds,'"'' 
The  terms  of  the  agreement  with  Egypt  are  expressly  stated 
by  the  prophet : — "He  rebelled  against  him  in  sending  his  am- 
bassadors into  Egypt,  tliat  they  might  give  him  horses  and 
much  people  ;"  and  we  are  forbidden  to  give  Zedekiah  credit 
for  a  patriotic  resistance  by  the  declaration  of  the  historian  : — 
"  He  rebelled  against  King  Nebuchadnezzar,  who  had  made 
him  f:<wear  by  God  ;  but  he  stiiFened  his  neck  and  hardened 
his  heart  from  turning  unto  Jehovah,  God  of  Israel.'"''' 

At  Jerusalem  the  plot  appeared  so  far  ripe  that  the  false 
prophet  Hananiah  promised  the  return  of  Jehoiachin  within 
two  years,  and  publicly  broke  oif  the  neck  of  Jeremiah  the 


-^Jer.xxix.  21-32. 
'^  Jer.  XXX.,  xxxi. 
-''  Jer.  xlviii.,  xlix. 
-«  Jcr.  1.,  li.     The 


fifrurc  is 


used  to  portend  the  fall  of  ihe  niystio 
Babylon,  in  Rev.  xviii.  21. 

»-'J  Ezek.xrii.  11-21. 

^2^  2  Chron.xxxvi.  13, 


600  The  Kingdom  of  Judah.  Chap.  XSV. 

yoke  which  he  wore,  as  a  sign  of  the  hopeless  subjection  of 
Judah  and  the  surrounding  nations,  who  seem  to  have  joinea 
the  Egyptian  league.  Jeremiah  replied  that  the  yoke  of 
wood  (the  present  vassalage  of  Babylon)  should  be  replaced 
by  a  yoke  of  iron  (the  final  destruction  of  the  nation),  and 
predicted  the  death  of  Hananiah,  Avhich  happened  within  the 
year/^^  We  find  further  evidence  of  the  progress  of  the  con- 
spiracy in  the  Book  of  Ezekiel.  His  vision  of  the  Temj^le  at 
Jerusalem,  in  the  fifth  day  of  the  sixth  month  of  the  sixth 
year  of  the  Captivity  (b.c.  594-3),  reveals  the  idol  abomina- 
tions which  would  soon  be  punished  by  the  destruction  of 
all  but  a  small  chosen  remnant,''^  and  other  visions  and  types 
follow  to  the  like  efiect/^^  The  plainer  language  of  Ezekiel, 
about  a  year  later  (on  the  tenth  of  the  fifth  month  of  the  sev- 
enth year  of  Zedekiah),^^*  Avhen  the  elders  of  Judah  came  to 
him  to  inquire  of  Jehovah  concerning  the  state  of  Jerusalem, 
serves  to  show  that  the  rebellion  had  broken  out.'^^  The  utter 
corruption  of  the  people  at  this  time,  their  persecution  of  God's 
prophets  and  rejection  of  his  word,  so  that  his  wrath  came 
upon  them  "  till  there  teas  no  o^emedyf  the  wickedness  of 
Zedekiah  in  not  humbling  himself  before  the  Avord  of  God 
by  Jeremiah ;  his  fiiithlessness  to  the  oath  he  had  SAVorn  to 
Nebuchadnezzar,  and  that  not  from  religious  patiiotism,  for 
"  he  stiffened  his  neck  and  hardened  his  heart  from  turning 
unto  Jehovah  God  of  Israel ;  and  the  result  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem  and  the  captivity  of  the  people  till  the  time 
of  the  Persian  Empire,  so  that  the  land  kept  her  sabbaths 
for  70  years  as  Jeremiah  liad  foretold ;  these  outlines  of  the 
catastrophe  are  draAvn  by  the  Avriter  of  the  Chronicles/^^ 

§  12.  It  Avas  still  tAA'o  years  before  Nebuchadnezzar  laid 
siege  to  Jerusalem,  Avith  the  resolution  to  destroy  it  utterly 
forZedekiah's  treason.  From  this  point  the  dates  of  Ezeki- 
el's  prophecies  accompany  the  events  at  Jerusalem.  The 
city  Avas  iuA'ested  in  the  ninth  year  of  Zedekiah,  on  the  tenth 
day  of  the  tenth  month;'"  and  on  the  same  day  Ezekiel  Avas 
commissioned  to  foretell  its  utter  destruction,  by  striking 
images,  to  the  exiles  at  Babylon. '^^     The  forces  marshaled 

the  vernal  equinox,  mny  be  taken  as 
a  normal  year. 


Jer.  xxvii.,xxviii. 


"'  Ezek.  viii.,  ix.     "^  Ezek.  x.-xii. 

"*  The  lOtli  of  Ab=July  2G  (about) 
B.C.  591.  It  was  on  this  very  day, 
live  years  later,  that  the  Temple  was 
destroyed.  The  days  of  our  calendar 
are  the  annivei'saries  of  the  Jewish  cal- 
endar in  18Go,  which,  beginning  with  ;  ry  is  kept  as  a  fast  by  the  Jews. 
"^  2  K.  XXV.  1,2;  Jcr.  xxxix.  I,  Hi.  4  ;  Ezek.  xxiv 


^^^  Ezek.  XX.,  xxii.,  xxiii.  ( 

^=°  2    Chron.  xxxvi.  11-21;  comp.  i. 
Jer.  xxxvii.  1,  2. 

"^  The  tenth  of  Thebet=December 
20  (about),  B.C.  589.     This  annivcrsa- 


B.C.  589.  Siege  laid  to  Jerusalem.  601 

against  Jerusalem  comprised  Nebuchadnezzar's  whole  army, 
all  the  vassal  kings  of  his  empire,  and  all  the  nations  around, 
Ammonites,  Moabites,  Edomites,  and  others,  who  came  up  to 
avenge  the  quarrels  of  a  thousand  years.  ^^^  All  the  fortified 
cities  of  Judah  had  already  been  taken  except  Lachish  and 
Azekah.;" 

In  this  extremity  Zedekiah  proclaimed  freedom  to  all  He- 
brew slaves,  and  sent  Zephaniah  the  priest,  with  another 
messenger,  to  entreat  the  prayers  of  Jeremiah.  In  reply,  he 
announced  the  coming  destruction  of  the  city  and  the  fate 
of  the  king  himselrV*^  The  king  now  attempted  to  silence 
him  by  a  mild  conliiiement  in  the  court  of  the  j^rison  in  the 
palace,  where  he  had  the  society  of  Baruch.  While  thus 
shut  up,  and  that  in  a  city  environed  by  a  mighty  enemy, 
Jeremiah  purchased,  as  the  "  Gocl,"  a  field  at  his  native  vil- 
lage of  Anathoth  in  Benjamin,  as  a  sign  of  that  return  which 
he  went  on  to  prophesy,  together  with  the  glories  of  Messiah's 
kingdom.^"  This  act  of  faith  has  been  compared  to  that  of 
the  Roman  who  bought,  at  its  full  value,  the  ground  on  which 
Hannibal  was  encamped.*" 

And  now  there  broke  forth  a  deceptive  ray  of  hope.  Pha- 
raoh-hophra,'"  Avho  had  just  succeeded  to  the  throne  of 
Egypt,  led  the  forces  which  his  father  had  collected  to  the 
relief  of  Zedekiah.  His  capture  of  Gaza'*"  caused  Nebuchad- 
nezzar to  suspend  the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  and  to  march  against 
him.  And  now  Jerusalem  exulted  with  the  joy  of  a  citydeliv- 
ered  from  a  hopeless  siege.  But  Jeremiah  forbade  them  to 
deceive  themselves,  while,  on  the  distant  banks  of  the  Euphra- 
tes, Ezekiel  also  foretold  the  ruin  of  Egypt.'"  The  princes 
of  Judah  now  broke  their  solemn  covenant  to  release  their 
Hebrew  slaves ;  and  Jeremiah,  having  denounced  their  con- 
duct, left  the  city  for  his  home  in  Benjamin.  He  was  de- 
tained by  one  of  his  enemies,  who  happened  to  be  captain  of 
the  gate.     The  princes  accused  him  of  deserting  to  the  Chal- 


'^^  Jer.  xxxiv,  1. 

^■'^  Jer.  xxxiv.  7. 

'^' Jer.  xxxvii.  1-4,  xxxiv.  1-10. 
This  arrangement  is  based  on  the 
statement  in  xxxvii.  4,  that  Jeremi- 
ali  was  not  yet  imprisoned,  Ver.  7 
of  the  same  chapter  may  refer  to  a 
later  message.     "^  Jer.  xxxii.,  xxxiii. 

"^Liv.  xxxvi.  11. 

"*  The  Vaphres  or  A  pries  of  Man- 
etho  and  Herodotus,  and  tl:e  Uaphra 
of  (he  Egvi)toIogers. 
C  c 


"^  See  Jer.  xlvii.  1-7. 

""  Jer.  xxxvii.  6-10  ;  Ezek.  xxix., 
XXX.,  xxxi.  The  dates  of  these 
prophecies  are  given  :  tlie  twelfth  day 
of  the  tenth  month  of  the  tenth  year 
of  Zedekiah  =end  of  December,  b.c, 
588;  the  seventh  of  the  first  month 
of  the  eleventh  year  =  April,  b.c.  oSG. 
and  the  first  of  the  third  month =end 
of  May,  B.C.  586.  These  dates  are 
all  two  years  higher  in  the  receired 
chronology. 


602  The  Kingdom  of  Judah.  Chap.  XXV. 

dseans,  a  course  which  had  now  become  common ;  and  he 
was  hnprisoned  in  the  house  of  Jonathan  the  scribe,  where  he 
remained  for  some  time.'*^  Meanwhile  liis  warnings  were 
fulfilled  by  the  return  of  the  army  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  Avho, 
according  to  Josephus,  had  defeated  the  Egyptians ;  though 
more  probably  the  enemy  retired  without  a  battle/"'^ 

Zedekiah  now  sent  secretly  for  Jeremiah,  and  asked  him, 
"  Is  there  any  word  from  Jehovah  ?"  "  There  is,"  replied 
rlie  prophet ;  "  thou  shalt  be  delivered  into  the  hand  of  the 
King  of  Babylon."  Hoping,  it  would  seem,  for  a  more  fa- 
vorable answer,  the  king  sent  him  back  to  the  court  of  the 
prison,  and  ordered  him  to  be  fed  while  any  bread  was  left 
in  the  city.'"  In  reply  to  another  request  which  the  king 
sent  to  him  by  Pashur  and  Zephaniah  to  inquire  of  Jehovah, 
the  prophet  pointed  out  a  surrender  as  the  only  hope  of 
safety. ^^^  Upon  this  the  princes  demanded  his  death  as  a 
traitor,  and  the  king  confessed  himself  too  weak  to  withstand 
them.  They  threw  Jeremiah  to  perish  in  a  hideous  pit  of 
the  prison,  where  he  sank  into  the  mire  ;  but  the  better  feel- 
ings of  the  king  came  to  his  rescue  at  the  intercession  of  the 
Ethiopian  eunuch  Ebed-melech,  to  whom  he  promised  his  life 
"for  a  prey"  in  the  destruction  of  the  city.'"^  Once  more 
adjured  by  Zedekiah,  in  private,  to  give  him  counsel  from 
God,  the  prophet  pressed  him  to  surrender;  but  the  king 
was  afraid  of  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  Jews  who  had  re- 
volted to  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  who  had  doubtless  many  a 
wrong  to  avenge.  So  he  entreated  Jeremiah  to  keep  the  in- 
terview a  secret,  and  sent  him  back  to  the  court  of  the  pris- 
on, where  he  remained  till  Jerusalem  was  taken. *^" 

That  catastrophe  was  now  at  hand ;  the  ruin  foreseen  by 
Moses  from  the  very  birth  of  the  nation,  foretold  by  the 
prophets,  and  postponed  for  the  sake  of  pious  kings,  as  often 
as  it  was  provoked  by  their  degenerate  successors ;  held  in 
suspense  in  remembrance  of  God's  oatli  to  David,  but  brought 
down  at  last  by  the  shameless,  persistent,  inveterate  violation 
of  His  covenant  of  piety  and  purity  by  the  chosen  people. 
Jehovah  had  done  all  he  could  by  his  prophets,  whose  w^ords 
they  despised  and  misused  their  persons,  "  until  the  wrath  of 
Jehovah  arose  against  his  people  till  there  was  no  remedy P^'''^ 

In  the  nineteenth  year  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  as  the  eleventh 
year  of  Zedekiah  drew  to  a  close,  Jerusalem,  which  had  been 

"^  Jer.  XMxiv.  11-22,   xxxvii.  11-,  "Mcr.  xxxvii.  11-21.     ^^°Jer.  xxi. 

15.  I  ^^*  Jer,  xxxviii.  1-13,  xxxix  15-18. 

"®  It  is  eviflent  from  Jer.  xxxvii. )  ^^-  Jer.  xxxvii.  14-28. 

21,  that  the  citv  Avas  again  invested.   !  ^-^^^  2  Chron.  xxxvi.  IG. 


B.C.  o8G. 


Capture  of  Jerusalem. 


603 


besieged  for  two  years  and  a  half,  with  no  rehef  except  the 
brief  diversion  made  by  Pharaoh-hophra,  was  reduced  to  the 
last  extremities  of  famine.  On  the  ninth  day  of  the  fourth 
month^"  an  entrance  was  effected  at  night  through  a  breach 
in  the  city  wall,  probably  on  the  northern  side,  and  the  great 
officers  of  Nebuchadnezzar  entered  the  Temple  and  took  their 
station  in  the  middle  court,  as  was  the  custom  of  the  Ass}^'- 
ians  at  the  conclusion  of  a  siege/"  Zedekiah,  with  all  his 
men  of  war,  fled  by  the  garden  gate  of  the  royal  j^alace  on 
the  south  side,  near  the  present  Bab-el-Mugharibeh,  and  took 
the  road  over  the  Mount  of  Olives  to  the  valley  of  the  Jordan. 
They  were  hotly  pursued  with  the  morning  light.  Zede- 
kiah was  overtaken  in  the  plain  of  Jericho,  his  army  dis- 
persed, and  himself  taken.  He  was  carried  to  Nebuchadnez- 
zar at  Kiblah,  in  Hamath,  whither  the  king  had  gone  to 
watch  the  siege  of  Tyre.  Zedekiah  spoke  with  his  conquer- 
or face  to  face,  as  Jeremiah  had  predicted.  Having  seen  the 
slaughter  of  all  his  sons  and  the  princes  of  Judah,  his  eyes 
were  put  out,  and  he  was  sent  to  Babylon,  where  he  remain- 
ed a  close  prisoner  till  his  death.  The  pity,  which  might  be 
felt  for  the  sad  fate  of  the  last  king  who  wore  the  crown  of 
David  at  Jerusalem,  must  be  withheld  from  the  forsworn 
vassal,  who  accepted  his  nephew's  throne  at  the  hand  of  a 
conqueror,  only  to  prove  a  traitor  alike  to  his  earthly  mas- 
ter and  to  his  king,  Jehovah. 

Other  victims  were  selected  for  the  vengeance  of  Nebu- 
chadnezzar. The  high-priest  Seraiah,  the  second  priest  Zeph- 
aniah,  and  three  door-keepers  of  the  Temple,  the  command- 
er-in-chief, Avho  was  an  eunuch,  and  iive  (or  seven)  of  the 
principal  courtiers,  the  scribe  or  mustering  officer  of  the 
array — and  sixty  representatives  of  the  people,  were  carried 
by  Nebuzar-adan,  the  captain  of  the  guard,  to  Riblah,  where 
Nebuchadnezzar  sentenced  them  to  death,  probably  by  im- 
palement and  even  by  worse  tortures,  if  we  may  judge  by 
the  customs  that  still  shock  our  eyes  on  the  monuments  of 
Assyria  and  Babylon.  Amid  all  these  horrors,  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  deliberate  justice  of  the  Eastern  conqueror  Avhicli 
bears  a  favorable  contrast  with  the  general  massacre  that  at- 
tended the  second  great  capture  of  Jerusalem  by  the  virtu- 
ous Titus.  Our  involuntary  respect  for  the  grand  King  of 
Babylon  is  confirmed  by  the  treatment  Avhich  Jeremiah  met 
with  in  obedience  to  his  orders.     As  soon  as  the  city  was 


'^*  Ninth  of  Thammuz=  June  to 
•Tnly,  B.C.  586,  The  day  is  still  kept 
us  a  fast. 


^^^  Layard,  Nineveh,  vol.  ii.  p.  375  ; 
respectina:  the  forms  of  a  siege,  sea 
ibid,  pp.  36G,  foil 


601  The  Kingdom  of  Jndali.  Chap.  XXV. 

taken,  Nebiizar-adan,  with  the  other  chief  officers,  sent  for 
the  prophet  out  of  the  prison,  and  committed  him  to  the  care 
of  Gedaliah,  the  son  of  Ahikam,  son  of  Shaphan,  Avho  j^lays 
a  most  important  part  in  the  subsequent  transactions. 

Meanwliile  the  King  of  Babylon  decided  on  the  fate  of 
the  rebellious  city,  which  he  had  twice  spared.  On  the  sev- 
enth day  of  tlie  following  month  (Ab,  the  fifth  month)  Neb- 
uzar-adan  returned  to  Jerusalem,  charged  to  carry  out  the  in- 
structions of  his  master.  Two  clear  days  Avere  occupied  in 
collecting  the  booty  that  was  still  to  be  found  in  the  Tem- 
ple and  the  city  after  their  former  spoliations,  including  the 
ornaments  of  the  Temple  which  had  been  considered  too  bulky 
for  removal,  and  tlie  vessels  which  aj^pear  to  have  been  left, 
out  of  religious  respect,  for  the  necessary  service  of  the 
sanctuary.  Among  the  former  were  the  two  great  pillars 
of  the  Temple-porch,  Jachin  and  Boaz,  and  the  brazen  sea, 
Avith  the  twelve  bulls  on  which  it  rested,  all  of  Avhich  Avere 
broken  to  pieces,  and  their  brass  trans])orted  to  Babylon. 
On  the  third  day  the  Temple  and  city  Avere  committed  to 
the  flames,  Avith  the  palaces  of  the  king  and  princes,  and  all 
the  chief  houses  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  Avails  Avere  leveled 
Avith  the  ground.  The  day  of  the  catastrophe  Avas  the  tenth 
day  of  the  fifth  month  (Ab),  in  the  nineteenth  year  of  Neb- 
uchadnezzar, just  after  the  completion  of  the  eleventh  year 
of  Zedekiah.  It  is  still  obserA^ed  by  the  Jcavs  as  a  fast  only 
second  to  the  great  Day  of  Atonement.'^" 

While  the  Avork  of  destruction  Avas  carried  on  by  the 
Chaldnean  army,  it  Avas  viewed  Avith  malignant  exultation  by 
the  nations  Avhich  had  so  long  chafed  beneath  the  yoke  of 
their  kinsman  Israel.  The  Ammonites  "  cried  Aha  !  against 
the  sanctuary,  Avhen  it  Avas  profaned ;  and  against  the  land 
of  Israel,  Avhen  it  Avas  desolate  ;  and  against  the  house  of  Ju- 
dah,  Avhen  they  Avent  into  captivity."'"  Moab  and  Seirsaid, 
"  Behold,  the  house  of  Judah  is  like  unto  all  the  heathen.'"'^ 
The  more  active  enmity,  Avhich  Avas  but  natural  in  the  Phi- 
listines, Avho  "  took  A'engeance  AA^th  a  despiteful  heart,  to  de- 
stroy it  for  the  old  hafred,'"'"  Avas  emulated  by  Edom,  the 
nearest  kinsman  and  bitterest  rival  of  his  brother  Israel. 
"  Edom  hath  dealt  against  the  house  of  Judah  by  taking 
vengeance,  and  hath  greatly  oftended,  and  revenged  himself 

^^^  B.C.  586,  about  the  end  of  Jnlylimry,  B.C.  604.     The  same  fast  com- 
(July  26,  in  1863),     Clinton   places  memorates  the  (Instruction  of  the  sec- 
it  in  B.C.  587,  and  Ussher  in  B.C.  588;  ond  Temple  by  Titns. 
but  the  first  date  is  fixed  by  the  epoch       ^^^  Ezek.  xxv.  ?>.       ^'""^  Ezok.  xxv.  8. 
Df  Nebuchadnezzar's  accession,  Jan-       ^^^  Ezek,  xxv.  15. 


B.C.  58G.  Sammary  of  the  Captivities.  605 

upon  them.'"'"  How  deeply  this  blow  Avas  felt,  is  seen  in  the 
well-known  passage  in  which  the  Psalmist  joins  Eclom  with 
Babylon  herself  in  a  common  imprecation,  prefacing  the  most 
terrible  words  in  which  retribution  was  ever  called  down 
upon  a  cruel  foe,^"  with  the  indignant  prayer : — "  Remem- 
ber, O  Lord,  the  children  of  Edom  in  the  days  of  Jerusalem  ; 
who  said,  Hase  it!  rase  it!  even  to  the  foundation  thereof!'''' 
All  these  nations  soon  fell  victims  to  the  like  fate,  which  the 
prophets  again  and  again  denounce  upon  them  ;  and  thp  pun- 
ishment of  Edom,  in  particular,  forms  the  whole  burden  of 
the  prophecy  of  Obadiah,  which  may  be  placed,  by  internal 
evidence,  between  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  b.c.  586, 
and  the  conquest  of  Edom  by  Nebuchadnezzar  in  B.C.  583. 
This  brief  prophecy  of  only  twenty-one  verses  is  chiefly  re- 
markable lor  the  closing  prediction  of  the  coming  "  day  of 
Jehovah,"  in  which  the  restoration  and  enlargement  of  Ju- 
dah  and  the  final  destruction  of  Edom  are  clearly  but  figures 
of  the  great  consummation  that  still  remains  to  be  fulfilled, 
when, "  Saviours  shall  come  upon  l^Iount  Zion  to  judge  the 
mount  of  Esau  ;  and  the  kingdom  shall  be  Jehovah's.'"''^ 

The  captives  who  were  carried  away  on  this  occasion  were 
but  the  gleanings  of  those  who  had  been  led  off*  with  Jehoi- 
achin.  After  the  escape  of  the  warriors,  the  people  left  in 
the  city  and  those  who  had  deserted  to  the  Chaldieans  num- 
bered only  832  persons  fit  to  bear  the  march.  A  remnant  of 
the  very  poorest  class  were  left  to  till  the  ground  and  dress 
the  vineyards  ;  and  to  these  must  be  .added  a  few  objects  of 
the  royal  favor,  as  Jeremiah,  and  those  of  the  fugitive  sol- 
diers and  other  roving  bands,  who  had  escaped  pursuit  in  the 
fastnesses  of  Judaea  and  the  desert.  At  the  end  of  the  Book 
of  Jeremiah  Ave  have  the  following  summary  of  the  captivi- 
ties under  Nebuchadnezzar : 

1.  In  the  sexentlx  (eighth)  year  of  liis  reifjc"  (b.c.  .")97)  3023  Jews. 

2.  "   "    ciqhtcenth  (nineteentli)    "        "     (b.c.  586)     832     " 

3.  "   "     twenty-third        "  "        "     (B.C.  582)     745     " 

Total 4G00  Je\vs.^^=^ 


^^°  Ezek.  XXV.  of  the  date  and  interpretation  of  the 

^"  "O  daughter  of  Babylon,  who  prophecy,  see  Dktionanj  of  the  Bible^ 
art  to  be  destroyed;  happy  shall  he  art.  Ohadiah. 

be,  that  rewardeth  thee  as  thou  hast  ^'^^  Jer.  Hi.  28-30.  They  are  ex-, 
served  us.  Happy  shall  he  be,  that  pressly  called  Jews,  apparently  to  dis- 
taketh  and  dashcth  thy  little  ones  j  tingui'sh  them  from  resident  foreign- 
against  the  stones"  (Ps.  cxxxvii.7-9).  ers  slaves  and  others  who  shared  their 
^®^Obad.  21.     For  a  full  discussion !  captivity.      The    discrepancy  of   the 


GOG 


TJie  Kiwjdoin  of  Jadah. 


Chap.  XXV. 


Those  last  mentioned  were  carried  away  by  Nebuzar  adan  at 
the  time  of  the  war  with  Egypt. 

It  deserves  especial  notice  that  the  land  which  we  may 
henceforth  call  Jud.ea,'''  to  distinguish  it  from  the  other  parts 
of  Palestine,  was  not  subjected,  like  that  of  Samaria  had  been, 
to  a  new  colonization  by  heathen  settlers.  It  lay  ready  to 
be  occupied  by  those  to  whom  God  ]iad  given  it,  after  it  had 
rested  for  the  sabbatic  years  of  which  it  had  been  deprived, 
and  when  they  tliemselves  had  been  chastened  by  affliction. 
This  hope  sustained  those  of  the  captives  who,  like  Daniel, 
had  still  the  feith  to  pray  with  their  faces  turned  toward 
Jerusalem :  it  is  mingled  with  the  sad  complaints  of  the  pa- 
thetic Psalms  that  belong  to  the  time  of  the  Captivity,  and 
it  even  breathes  through  the  more  dismal  wailing  of  Jere- 
miah's JLamentations.  These  choice  utterances  of  Hebrew 
poetry  may  well  excuse  the  vain  attempt  to  point  the  moral 
of  a  catastrophe,  whose  long-accumulating  causes  and  sure  ap- 
proach have  been  traced  at  every  step  of  the  history  of  the 
Jewish  people. 

§  13.  Before  pursuing  the  story  of  the  Jews  at  Babylon  to 
the  end  of  the  Captivity,  we  may  conclude  the  history  of  Ju- 
d^a  itself  during  the  last  twenty-five  years  of  Nebuchadnez- 
zar's reign  (b.c.  586-561),  comprising  the  fate  of  the  people 
left  beliind,  and  the  fortunes  of  Jeremiah.  The  desolated 
land  was  not  abandoned  to  anarchy.  Xebuzar-adan  appoint- 
ed Gedaliah,  the  son  of  Ahakim,  as  governor  at  Mizpah,and 
Jeremiah  joined  him,liaving  been  left  at  liberty  by  Nebuzar- 
adan  to  go  to  Babylon  or  wherever  he  pleased. ^*^^  The  dis- 
persed soldiers  and  people  soon  gathered  about  the  new^  gov- 
ernor, who  prudently  exhorted  them  to  live  quietly  as  the 
subjects  of  the  King  of  Babylon.^''''  Many  Jews  appeared 
from  the  countries  of  Moab,  Ammon,  and  Edom,  and  the  peo' 
pie  were  soon  peacefully  engaged  in  gathering  the  vintage 
and  summer  fruits  throughout  their  cities.'"  But  the  brief 
rest  from  trouble  was  cut  short  by  the  envy  of  the  King  of 


numbers  of  tlie  first  captivitv,  and  the 
10,000  reckoned  in  2  K.^xxiv.  U, 
seems  to  result  from  Jeremiah's  not 
counting  in  the  soldiers.  The  great 
difference  between  even  the  largest 
total  and  the  number  who  returned 
from  the  Captivity,  42,360,  seems  to 
show  how  large  an  accession  was  re- 
ceived from  previous  captivities,  and 
especially  from  the  Ten  Tribes. 
^"  The  name  of  Jews  (i.  e.,  men  of 


Jndah), which  rarely  occurs  up  to  the 
time  of  the  Captivity  (2  K.  xvi.  G ; 
Jer.  xxxviii.  19,  xl.  II,  lii.  28),  seems 
to  have  now  become  the  common  des- 
ignation of  tlie  people  by  their  con- 
querors (Dan.  iii.  8,  12;  Ezra  iv.  12). 
Its  gradual  adoption  by  themselves  is 
easily  traced  in  the  books  o^ Neheminh 
and  Esther. 

'"''  2  K.  XXV.  22  ;  Jer.  xl.  1-6. 

*«"  2  K.  XXV.  24.      ^"  Jer.  xl.  7-12 


B.C.  586.  History  of  the  Remnant.  607 

Amnion  and  the  ambition  of  a  Jewish  prince  of  the  royal 
blood,  Ishmael,  the  son  of  Nethaniah.  They  had  the  incredi- 
ole  audacity  to  attempt  a  new  insurrection.  Ishmael  and 
ten  Jewish  princes  came  to  Mizpah  as  friendly  guests ;  and 
Gedaliah,  who  had  refused  to  credit  a  warning  of  his  treach- 
ery, was  murdered  with  the  Jew^s  and  Chaldeans  Avho  were 
with  him  at  Mizpah,  only  two  months  after  the  departure  of 
Nebuzar-adan.**^**  Tw^o  days  later  a  band  of  eighty  mourners 
appeared  on  the  frontier,  from  Shechem,  and  Shiloh,  and  Sa- 
maria, bringing  oiferings  for  the  desolated  house  of  God,  a 
touching  proot  of  the  religious  patriotism  which  was  still  to 
be  found  even  in  the  most  heathenized  part  of  Israel.  By  a 
treacherous  artifice,  Ishmael  slew  them  all  but  ten,  and  cast 
their  bodies,  with  those  of  his  former  victims,  into  a  pit  which 
Asa  had  dug  at  Mizpah  for  a  hiding-place  during  his  war 
with  Baasha,  and  which  may  rank  in  history  with  the  Gla- 
ciere  of  Avignon  and  the  well  of  Cawnpore.  He  then  collect- 
ed the  people  who  were  at  Mizpah,  including  the  daughters 
of  Zedekiah,  who  had  been  intrusted  to  Gedeliah's  care,  and 
carried  them  oif  as  captiv^es  toward  Amnion.  He  was  pur- 
sued by  the  Jewish  captains,  headed  by  Johanan,  the  son  of 
ivareah,  the  same  who  had  inefiectually  warned  Gedeliah. 
They  overtook  him  by  the  great  waters  at  Gibeon,  and  res- 
med  the  captives,  while  Ishmael,  with  eight  comrades,  fled 
to  Amnion.  Tlieii,  instead  of  returning  to  Mizpah,  they 
marched  southward  to  Bethlehem,  intending  to  take  refuge  in 
Egypt  from  I^ebuchadnezzar's  vengeance  tor  the  murder  of 
liis  governor. ^^^  First,  however,  they  asked  Jeremiah  for 
counsel  from  Jehovah.  In  ten  days  the  answer  came,  for- 
bidding them  to  go  to  Egypt,  promising  them  the  protec- 
tion of  God  if  they  remained,  and  assuring  them  that,  if  they 
persisted  in  departing,  the  famine,  and  sword,  and  pestilence, 
from  which  they  fled,  would  overtake  them  in  their  new  ref- 
uge.'^" So  faithful  was  the  prophet  to  the  long-standing 
command  that  the  people  should  never,  Under  any  pressure, 
seek  to  return  by  the  way  of  Egypt.  His  warning  only 
brought  upon  him  a  charge  of  conspiring  with  Barucli  to 
speak  falsely  in  God's  name ;  and  both  he  and  Baruch  were 
carried  to  Egypt  against  their  will,  with  all  the  remnant 
who  had  been  left  under  Gedaliah.  Many  of  the  Jews  had 
already  taken  refuge  there  during  the  whole  time  that  Egypt 
was  regarded  as  their  help  against  Assyria.     They  now  form- 

'^^  In    the  seventh   month,  Tisri=  this  montli  is  still  a  Jewish  fast  fof 
September  to  October,     The  third  of  i  the  murder  of  Gedaliah. 

'«3  Jer.  xli.  '  ''■'  Jer.  xlii. 


608 


The  Kingdom  of  Judah. 


Chap.  XXV. 


ed  a  large  community,  living  at  Migdol,  Tahpanlies,  Noph, 
and  Pathros — a  community  which  had  afterward  an  impor- 
tant history  of  its  own.  Meanwhile  they  fell  into  idolatry, 
and  Jeremiah  denounced  both  on  them  and  on  Egypt  itself 
the  vengeance  of  Nebuchadnezzar — a  prophecy  echoed  from 
the  banks  of  the  Euphrates  by  Ezekiel,  whose  warnings,  prom- 
ises, and  exhortations  to  the  exiles  at  Babylon  still  kej^t  pace 
with  the  current  of  events  in  Judaea. 

The  threatened  blow  soon  fell.  In  B.C.  585  Tyre  surren- 
dered, after  a  siege  of  thirteen  years.  After  a  brief  repose 
Nebuchadnezzar  led  his  victorious  army  into  Egypt,  proba- 
bly on  some  new  provocation  by  Apries.^"  In  the  absence  of 
his  own  annals  or  other  direct  testimony,  Ave  can  only  infer 
from  the  statements  of  Josephus,''^  and  from  the  prophecies 
of  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  that  the  chastisement  he  inflicted 
on  Egypt  reached  the  Jews  who  had  taken  refuge  there.  It 
was  at  this  time,  as  we  have  already  seen,  that  his  general 
Nebuzar-adan  carried  off  another  remnant  from  Judaea,  there- 
by probably  almost  completing  the  depopulation  of  the  land.^^^ 
There  is  some  evidence,  though  far  from  certain,  that  Nebu- 
chadnezzar invaded  Egypt  a  second  time,  ten  years  later 
(b.c.  571),  deposing  Apries  and  setting  up  Amasis;  and  this 
may  be  the  occasi<ui  of  Ezekiel's  last  prophecy  against  that 
power. ^^*  At  some  time  during  the  interval  it  is  almost  cer* 
tain  that  the  King  of  Babylon  subdued  the  nations  border- 
ing upon  Judah,  and  for  whose  exultation  in  her  destruction 
the  prophets  had  denounced  on  them  the  heaviest  woes,  such 
as  the  Ammonites,  Moabites,  and  Edomites.  There  is  a  very  re- 
markable passage  in  Avhich  Jeremiah  comforts  the  Jews  amid 
all  these  judgments  by  contrasting  His  destruction  of  the 
other  nations  and  of  their  present  oppressors  with  His  cor- 
rection of  themselves  : — "  Fear  thou  not,  O  Jacob  my  serv- 
ant, saith  Jehovah :  for  I  am  with  thee ;  for  I  will  make  a 
full  end  of  all  the  nations  Avhither  I  have  driven  thee :  hut 
Ivnll  not  make  a  full  end  of  thee,  hut  correct  thee  in  measure; 
yet  will  I  not  leave  thee  wholly  impunished.'"^^  No  words 
could  express  more  fully  the  principle  of  Jehovah's  dealings 
with  the  Jews,  as  the  type  of  his  dealings  with  his  own  peo- 
ple in  every  age. 


'''  Herod,  ii.  IGl:  B.C.  581. 
^■^  Ant.  X.  9. 

"' Jer.   lii.    30:    the   twenty-third 
year  of  Nebuchadnezzar==B.c.  582. 
^'*  Ezek.  xxix.  17,  xxx.  lU.     The 


date,  the  twenty-seventh  year  of  the 
captivity  of  Jchoiacliin,  answers  to 
the  thirty-fourth  of  Nebuchadnezzar, 
B.C.  576. 

''^  Jer.  xlvi.  28. 


The  Kasr^  or  Remains  of  the  ancient  Palace  at  Babylon. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

FROM  THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  KINGDOM  OF  JUDAH  TO  THE 
CLOSE    OF   THE    CAPTIVITY    AT    BABYLON.       B.C.  586-536. 

^  1.  The  captives  at  Babylon — Daniel  and  his  companions.  §  2.  Nebuchad- 
nezzar's dream — The  Imperial  statue — The  fiery  furnace.  §  3.  Nebu- 
chadnezzar's humiliation — His  death.  §  4.  The  successors  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar. §  5.  Rise  of  Cyrus  the  Great,  and  foundation  of  the  Per- 
sian Empire.  §  G.  Coalition  of  Lydia,  Eo;ypt,  and  Babylon  against  Cy- 
rus— Defeat  of  Croesus,  §  7.  Cyrus  attacks  Babylon — Siege  of  Babylon— 
Belshazzar's  feast — The  city  surprised  and  taken — End  of  the  Babylo- 
nian Empire.  §  8.  Reign  of  "  Darius  the  Median,"  probably  Astyages. 
§  9.  Daniel  under  Darius — The  den  of  lions.  10.  Prophecies  of  Daniel 
— i.  Dream  of  the  Jmnge — ii.  Dream  of  Nehuc.luidnezzar' s  madness — iii. 
Dream  of  the  Four  Beasts — iv.  Vision  of  the  Ram  and  He-goat — v. 
Prophecy  of  the  Seventy  Weeks — vi.  Vision  of  the  Son  of  God,  and 
Prophecy  of  the  Last  Daijs.  §  11.  Subsequent  history  and  final  desola- 
tion of  Babylon. 

§  1.  Of  all  historic  figures,  Nebuchadnezzar  most  striking- 
ly represents  the  power  of  destruction.  Like  his  own  image 
on  the  plain  of  Dura,  he  towers  over  the  ground  he  has  cleared 

C  c  2 


610  The  Captivity  at  Bahylon.  Chap.  XX Vi. 

of  every  opponent  from  the  Nile  to  the  Euphrates.  Above 
all,  he  had  been  the  instrument  in  the  hand  of  God  to  root 
out  His  people  for  their  sins  from  the  good  land  given  to  their 
fathers,  but  he  had  yet  to  learn  that  he  himself  was  subject 
to  their  God.  This  lesson  Avas  taught  him  while  he  enjoyed 
the  fruit  of  his  victories  in  the  city  of  Babylon,  which  he 
had  made  the  wonder  of  the  world  by  his  "  hanging  gardens  " 
and  other  splendid  works  ;  and  the  appointed  teacher  Avas  a 
young  Hebrew  of  the  first  captivity,  whose  career  at  Baby- 
lon was  almost  a  repetition  of  that  of  Joseph  at  the  court  of 
Pharaoh. 

We  have  seen  that  when  Nebuchadnezzar  first  took  Je- 
rusalem, in  the  third  year  of  Jehoiakim  (b.c.  605),  he  com- 
missioned Ashpenaz,  the  master  of  his  eunuchs,  to  select  the 
most  comely  youths  of  roj^al  and  noble  birth,  possessed  of 
natural  grace  and  acquired  learning,  to  be  educated  in  the 
language  and  wisdom  of  the  Chaldseans.  They  were  to  re- 
ceive their  food  and  Avine  from  the  king's  table,  and  after 
three  years'  training  they  Avere  to  be  brought  before  him. 
Among  them  Avere  four  belonging  to  the  tribe  of  Judah,  AA'hose 
names  Avere  Daniel,  Hananiah,  Mishael,  and  Azariah,  Avhich, 
according  to  Oriental  custom  (as  in  the  case  of  Joseph),  were 
changed  by  the  prince  of  the  eunuchs  into  Belteshazzar,  Shad- 
rach,  Meshach,  and  Abednego.  In  sacred  history,  however, 
Daniel  has  retained  his  own  name,  Avhile  the  other  three, 
being  only  mentioned  on  one  important  occasion,  are  knoAvn 
by  their  Jxibylonish  appellations.^  Daniel  resolved  that  he 
Avould  not  defile  himself  Avith  the  king's  food  and  Avine,  things 
that  had  been  oftered  to  idols  :  and,  through  the  tender  re- 
gard Avith  Avhich  he  had  inspired  the  prince  of  the  eunuchs, 
he  obtained  the  favor  of  an  experiment  on  himself  and  his 
three  friends.  After  being  fed  for  ten  days  Avith  pulse  and 
Avater,  they  Avere  found  in  better  condition  than  their  com- 
rades Avho  had  been  nourished  on  the  king's  dainties  ;  so  this 
diet  Avas  continued  to  the  end.  Meanwhile  God  endoAved 
them  Avith  all  knowledge  and  Avisdom,  and  to  Daniel  in  partic- 
ular he  granted  the  same  insight  into  dreams  and  visions  that 
had  distinguished  Joseph.  AVhen  the  time  came  for  them  to 
appear  before  the  king,  he  found  them  the  fairest  of  all  their 
felloAV-captives,  and  ten  times  better  in  Avisdom  and  discern- 
ment than  all  the  magicians  and  astrologers  of  Chaldrea.  So 
they  stood  before  him  among  the  courtiers.'^     We  must  not 

^  So  imich  is  tliis  the  case,  tliat  meant  by  "Ananins,  Azarias,  and  Mi- 
many  persons  quite  forget  who  arc  sael,"  in  the  i>ertec?/r/e  of  our  Liturgy. 

2  Dan.  i. 


B.C.  603.  The  Imperial  Statue.  611 

fail  to  notice  that  law  of  God's  providence,  by  which,  at  every 
crisis  of  His  people's  history,  he  raised  up  for  them  a  leader 
skilled  in  all  the  accomplishments  of  their  adversaries ;  Abra- 
liam,  the  stately  prince,  among  the  Arab  sheiks  ;  Joseph,  the 
diviner  and  statesman  ;  Moses,  the  warrior,  and  learned  in  all 
the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians  ;  Daniel,  the  most  learned  sage 
and  faultless  governor  in  the  realm  of  Chaldsea.  Well  might 
South  reply  to  the  flii^pant  objection  that  God  has  no  need 
of  our  learning — "  Much  less  has  He  need  of  your  ignorance." 
§  2.  The  great  opportunity  for  the  use  of  Daniel's  power 
as  an  interjireter  of  dreams  for  the  glory  of  God  occurred  in 
a  manner  very  similar  to  the  case  of  Joseph.  The  date  as- 
signed to  this  event  is  the  second  year  of  the  reign  of  Neb- 
uchadnezzar/ Lightfoot  and  others  take  this  to  mean  the 
second  year  after  the  full  settlement  of  his  empire,  or  about 
B.C.  570.  But  as  the  captivity  of  Daniel  commenced,  as  we 
have  seen,  a  year  before  the  accession  of  Nebuchadnezzar, 
the  three  years  of  his  probation  would  expire  in  the  second 
year,  and  the  date  may  be  taken  literally.  This  result  throws 
a  flood  of  light  on  the  career  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  espe- 
cially on  his  repeated  forbearance  toward  Jerusalem,  and  his 
kindness  to  Jeremiah.  It  is  needless  to  recount  in  detail 
those  pictures  which  are  so  vividly  impressed  on  our  earliest 
recollections,  the  king's  troubled  sleep  and  dreams,  which  ho 
forgot  when  he  awoke  in  the  morning ;  liis  despotic  demand 
of  the  Chaldgean  soothsayers,  scarcely  too  severe  a  test  of 
their  extravagant  pretensions,  to  tell  him  the  dream  itself,  as 
well  as  the  interpretation  ;  the  simplicity  with  which,  for  once 
in  their  lives,  they  confess  their  impotence  to  discover  what 
was  not  first  told  them,  instead  of  boldly  avowing,  like 
Daniel,  that  God  would  not  conceal  from  the  man  divinely 
inspired  to  reveal  His  counsels  the  far  lesser  knowledge  of 
the  signs  chosen  to  exhibit  them.  When  their  failure  had 
all  1but  involved  in  their  sentence  of  death  the  Hebrew  men 
of  learning  too,  Daniel  obtained  from  the  king  a  respite,  which 
he  and  his  companions  spent  in  prayer ;  and  he  received  the 
revelation  with  one  of  those  grand  utterances  of  praise  and 
prayer  that  form  the  great  charm  of  his  book.  The  vision, 
which  he  was  inspired  to  expound  to  Nebuchadnezzar,  is  one 
of  several  by  which,  at  this  epoch,  when  the  great  monarch- 
ies of  Asia  were  about  to  come  into  collision  with  the  powers 
of  the  West,  God  revealed  the  steps  by  which  the  successive 
empires  were  to  give  way  before  His  kingdom.     The  symbol 

3  Dan.  ii.  1. 


612  The  Ccqjtivity  at  Babylon.  Ciiap.  XXVI. 

of  a  colossal  statue  was  perhaps  connected  with  the  image 
which  Nebuchadnezzar  soon  afterward  set  up  on  the  plain  of 
Dura.*  As  he  was  meditating  the  erection  of  that  monument 
of  his  victories,  God  showed  him  a  statue  whose  composition 
and  end  revealed  the  fate,  not  only  of  his  own  empire,  but  of 
all  the  other  attempts  at  universal  dominion  to  the  end  of 
time.  The  lesson  was  the  same  as  that  which  was  taught  to 
the  first  Babel-builders  on  that  very  spot — that  all  such  at- 
tempts are  futile,  for  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  are  reserved 
to  be  the  kingdoms  of  our  God,  and  of  his  Christ.  And  now 
we  can  look  back  on  the  almost  complete  fulfillment  of  the 
sign : — 

*'  Quenched  is  the  golden  statue's  ray, 

The  breath  of  heaven  has  blown  away 
What  toiling  earth  had  piled  ; 

Scattering  wise  heart  and  crafty  hand, 

As  breezes  strew  on  ocean's  sand 
The  fabrics  of  a  child. "^ 

There  now  only  remain  the  last  relics  of  the  system  of  un- 
godly force,  the  fragments  of  the  mingled  iron  and  clay  which 
represent  what  was  the  last  empire  that  claimed  to  be  uni- 
versale— 

"  Ambition's  boldest  dream  and  last 
Must  melt  before  the  clarion  blast 
That  sounds  the  dirge  of  Rome." 

The  confession  which  Daniel's  exposition  of  his  dream  drew 
from  Nebuchadnezzar  is  scarcely  the  language  of  a  convert 
to  the  true  religion,  but  rather  of  a  heathen  yielding  to  the 
God  of  the  Jews  an  exalted  place  among  the  gods.  Accord- 
ing to  his  promise,^  he  loaded  Daniel  with  rewards,  made  him 
ruler  over  the  province  of  Babylon,  and  master  of  the  Chal- 
dsean  sages,  and  appointed  his  three  companions,  at  his  re- 
quest, to" high  ofl[ices  in  the  province  of  Babylon. 

Their  fidelity  to  Jehovah  soon  underwent  a  terrible  trial, 
but  came  out  as  unscathed  -as  their  persons  from  the  fiery 
furnace.''  That  Nebuchadnezzar  should  have  condemned 
them  for  such  a  reason  so  soon  after  the  lesson  he  had  learn- 
ed, is  a  more  striking  than  surprising  example  of  a  despot's 
impatience  of  opposition  and  readiness  to  take  the  bait  of 
flattery.  Daniel  would  seem  to  have  been  too  firmly  estab- 
lished in  the  royal  favor  for  his  enemies  to  venture  to  at- 

*  Townsend,  Chronological  Arrange-  '■      ^  Dan.  ii.  4. 
mentoftheBU)k,\o\.\\.T^.(3\2.  j      "' Dan.  iii.     We  have   met   before 

'  Keble.  Christian  Year,  Monday  in '  with  an  instance  of  this  modo  of  exe- 
Whitsun  Week.  Icution.     See  p.  598. 


B.C.  561.  Nebuchadnezzar'^ s  Humiliation.  613 

tack  him  till  they  had  first  made  an  example  of  his  compan- 
ions. There  has  been  much  discussion  respecting  the  vis- 
ion of  the  "  Son  of  God"  Avith  the  three  Hebrews  in  the  fiery 
furnace.  His  walking  with  them  there  seems  to  imply  that 
they  Avere  conscious  of  His  presence  and  sustained  by  His 
comfort,  like  Stephen  in  the  agony  of  his  martyrdom,  and 
they  would  doubtless  recognize  in  him  the  "Angel  Jehovah," 
who  had  so  often  shown  himself  to  their  fathers,  and  who 
had  promised, "  When  thou  Avalkest  through  the  fire,  thou 
shalt  not  be  burned;  neither  shall  the  fiame  kindle  upon 
thee."^  But  we  must  not  ascribe  such  divine  knowledge  to 
Nebuchadnezzar.  To  him  the  vision  was  that  of  some  un- 
known deity,  "  a  Son  of  the  Gods  " — but  it  was  enough  first 
to  petrify"  him  Avith  astonishment,  and  then  to  extort  from 
him  a  Avarmer  acknowledgment  of  the  God  of  the  HebrcAvs. 
Their  enemies  were  silenced  by  a  terrible  decree,  and  they 
themselves  Avere  promoted  to  higher  stations  in  the  province 
of  Babylon.'" 

§  3.  A  third  lesson,  by  which  the  King  of  Babylon  Avas  final- 
ly boAved  in  submission  to  Jehovah,  is  recorded  in  his  OAvn 
rescript  to  all  the  provinces  of  his  empire."  Another  dream, 
Avhicli  Daniel  again  interpreted  Avhen  the  Chaldsean  soothsay- 
ers had  failed,  Avarned  the  king  that  his  reason  should  depart, 
and  he  should  be  driven  from  among  men  to  herd  Avith  the 
beast  of  the  field,  till  "seven  times"'"  had  passed  over  his 
head.  The  judgment  came  upon  him  at  the  expiration  of  a 
year.  His  enemies  had  been  subdued  on  every  side,  his  great 
Avorks  of  art  and  power  had  been  completed,  and,  as  he  sur- 
veyed them  from  the  roof  of  his  palace,  he  forgot  God,  of 
whose  might  he  had  had  such  proofs,  and  exclaimed,  "  Is  not 
this  great  Babylon  that  I  have  built  for  the  house  of  the 
kingdom,  by  the  might  of  my  poAver,  and  for  the  honor  of  my 
majesty?"  The  Avords  had  scarcely  mounted  toward  the 
A^ault  of  heaven,  Avhen  a  voice  replied,  "  O  King  Nebuchadnez- 
zar, to  thee  it  is  spoken ;  The  kingdom  is  departed  from 
THEE ;"  adding  the  details  of  his  exile  from  among  men,  all 

^  Is.  xliii.  2.  I  so  much  trouble  to  expositors  of  Dan- 

"  Nebuchadnezzar  the  king  was  as- 1  iel  and  the  Apocalypse.  In  the  case 
tonied  (Dan.  iii.  24).  This  express-  before  us  the  word  "times"  clearly 
ive  word  is  used  by  our  translators  in  ,  signifies  complete  revolutions  of  the  sea- 
two  other  passages  of  Daniel  (iv.  19,   sons ;  in  one  word,  years.     It  seems 


V.  9),  two  of  Job  (xvii.  8,  xviii.  20), 
and  two  others  (Ezra  ix.  8  ;  Ezek.  iv. 
17).  1°  Dan.  iii.         "Dan.iv. 

^^  This  is  the  first  example  of  the 
mode  of  reckoning  which  has  given 


always  to  be  used  for  years — literal 
or  symbolical — where  it  has  a  definite 
chronological  meaning,  the  great  ques- 
tion being  to  decide  when  this  is  tho 


614  Tlie  Caiitiviiy  at  Babylon.  Chap.  XXVI. 

which  were  fulfilled  for  a  space  of  seven  years.  Assuredly 
Kebuchadnezzar  is  the  grandest  of  all  despots ;  but  the  climax 
of  his  grandeur  is  seen  in  his  j^ublishing  the  history  of  his  own 
humiliation,  in  order  to  give  glory  to  the  most  high  God.'^ 

The  seven  years  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  madness  may  safely 
be  placed  in  the  last  decade  of  his  reign,  b.c.  571-561  ;  and, 
as  he  was  again  "  established  in  his  kingdom  and  excellent 
majesty  was  added  to  him,"  a  few  years  must  be  allowed 
after  his  recovery.  The  date  of  Ussher  (b.c.  569-563)  is  there- 
fore quite  late  enough.  After  a  reign  of  forty-three  years  he 
was  succeeded,  in  b.c.  561,  by  his  son  Evil-merodach  (the 
Illoarudamus  of  the  Greek  Avriters),  whose  release  of  Jehoia- 
chin  from  prison  is  the  last  event  mentioned  in  the  books  of 
Kings.  ^' 

§  4.  For  the  twenty-three  years  between  the  accession  of 
Evil-merodach  and  the  fall  of  Babylon  (b.c.  561-538)  there  is 
a  gap  in  the  Scripture  history.  The  Book  of  Daniel  passes 
at  once  to  the  capture  of  the  city  and  the  death  of  Belshazzar, 
who  is  called  the  son  of  Xebuchadnezzar  f  but  this  Avord  need 
not  signify  more  than  a  direct  successor-  Jeremiah,  whose 
prophecies  of  this  period  arc  almost  as  definite  as  histories, 
predicts  that  all  nations  should  serve  Nebuchadnezzar,  and 
Ids  son,  and  his  so)i^s  son,  until  the  very  time  of  the  land 
came  ;''^  and  the  Chronicles  state  that  the  Jews  were  servants 
to  him  and  his  sons,  until  the  reign  of  the  kingdom  of  Persia. 
Our  chief  secular  authorities  for  the  period,  Berosus,  Herodo- 
tus, Ctesias,  the  Canon,  and  Josephus,  amid  many  discrepan- 
cies of  detail,  yet  agree  sufficiently  to  guide  us  to  probable 
conclusions,  Avith  the  aid  (here  unfortunately  very  scanty)  of 
the  inscriptions  on  the  monuments. ^^  The  succession  of  kings 
seems  to  have  been  as  follows: — 

B  C.  Years  of  Rei^. 

501.  EviL-MEEODAcn,  the  son  of  Nebuchadnezzar 2 

553.  Nerigi.issae,  sister's  husband   to   Evil-merodach,  a    usurper ;    perhaps 

the  same  as  Nergal-sharezer,  the  Kab-mag  {Chief  of  the  Mngi?    Jer. 

xxxix.  3,  13) 3^ 


'^  See  the  magnificent  ascription  of 
y)raisc  in  Dan.  iv.  34,  35.  Tlie  king's 
dificase  was  that  type  of  madness 
known  as  Lyconllirojni,  in  which  the 
patient  fancies  himself  a  wild  or  do- 
mestic beast.  It  took  the  latter  and 
milder  type  with  Nebuchadnezzar : 
lie  did  not  "raven  as  a  wolf,"  but 
"  ate  grass  as  oxen."     His  being  al 


prudential,  to  thwart  the  inclinations 
of  a  madman.  "  2  K.  xxv.  27-30. 
^^  Dan.  V.  2,  11,  13.  It  must  be  ob- 
served that  the  narrative  part  of  the 
book  ends  with  chap.  vi.  ;  the  latter 
half  containing  the  prophetic  visions 
which  Daniel  saw  under  Belshazzar, 
Darius,  and  Cyrus.  Respecting  the 
allusions  to  Belshazzar  in  vii.  1  and 


lowed  to  live  out  of  doors  in  squalid  |  viii.  see  jip.  620,  621 

neglect  must  be  traced  to  the  rolnc- 1      ^'^  Jer.  xxvii.  7;  2  Chron.  xxxvi.  20. 

tance.  partly  supeislitious  and  |  ai tly       '"  Mr.  Rawlinson's    discussion    of 


B.C.  558.  Cyrus  founds  the  Persian  Empire.  615 

B  C.  Years  of  Kcign. 

566.  Labokosdaechoi),  \\U  son,  killed  by  a  conspiracy,  and  the  family  of 

Nebuchadnezzar  restored CJ 

555.  Nabonauius  or  Nabonedus  {Nabu-nit),  the  Labynetus  II.  of  Herodo- 
tus, i«  probably  the  £on  or  grandson  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  the  last 
king  of  Babylon 17 

539.   (about).     Belsiiazzar  (Bil-shar-tizur),  son  of  Nabonadius,  becomes  his 

associate  in  the  kingdom,  and  governor  of  Babylon 2 

535.  Babylon  taken  by  Cyrus,  and  governed  by  bis  grandfather  (?)  Astyages, 

Darius  the  Mede 2 

536.  Death  of  Darius — Cyrus  reigns  alone — Restoration  of  the  Jews 

52i).  Death  of  Cyrus,  after  a  reign  of  nine  years  from  the  taking  of  Babylon..  9 

§  5.  It  was  during  the  reign  of  Neriglissar  that  the  great 
revolution  occurred  which  was  destined  to  change  the  fate 
of  Western  Asia  and  to  act  powerfully  on  Europe,  the  over- 
throw of  the  old  dynasty  in  Media  and  the  foundation  of  the 
Persian  Empire  by  Cyrus  the  Great.  Taking  the  length 
assigned  to  the  reign  of  Cyrus  by  Herodotus,  twenty-nine 
years,  his  accession  falls  in  b.c.  558. 

As  the  restorer  of  the  Jews,  and  as  "  called  by  his  name  " 
by  the  prophet  Isaiah,  no  heathen  monarch  fills  a  more  impor- 
tant place  in  sacred  history.  But  we  must  not  confound  his 
high  destiny  with  his  personal  character.  Even  Avhen  God, 
by  the  mouth  of  Isaiah,  says  of  Cyrus  "he  is  my  shepherd,  to 
perform  all  my  pleasure,"  "  my  anointed,  Avhose  right  hand  I 
have  holden  to  subdue  nations  before  him,"  he  adds,"  I  have 
surnamed  thee,  though  thou  hast  not  knovyn  me."'^  The  prej- 
udice raised  in  his  favor  by  his  appearance  in  the  Scriptures 
has  been  confirmed  by  the  choice  made  of  him  by  Xenophon, 
in  his  romance  of  the  "  Cyropaedia,"  for  the  ideal  model  of  a 
king  trained  up  and  governing  on  Socratic  principles.  But 
the  Cyrus  of  history  is  an  Asiatic  conqueror  in  an  age  of  des- 
potic force,  though  a  favorable  specimen  of  his  class.  His  his- 
tory proves  that  he  had  many  of  the  virtues  of  a  hero  and  a 
king ;  but  if  we  seek  further  for  his  likeness,  we  must  look 
rather  at  Zingis  Khan  or  Timour,  than  at  the  Cyrus  of  the 
"  Cyropgedia." 

Of  the  many  conflicting  versions  of  his  history  which  were 
derived  from  the  romantic  stories  of  the  Persian  poets,  that 
of  Herodotus  is  the  most  probable  and  consistent.  Passing- 
over  the  fables  of  his  exposure  and  preservation,  we  come  to 
the  fact  in  which  all  his  historians  concur,^"  that  he  dethroned 
Astyages,  the  last  king  of  Media  (and  according  to  some  au- 

tliese  authorities  is,  npon  the  whole,  [  directly  {AmiJ).  iii.  4,  §§  8,  11).  It 
satisfiictorv  (Herod,  vol.  i.,  essnyviii.).   should  be  remembered  that  the  Medo- 

^^  The  iiiterchanfze  of  the  dental ;  Persian  Erni)ire  was  always  regarded 
liquids  N  and  L  is  a  mere  dialectic  va-j  as  one,  and  tlie  united  nations  are  con- 
riety.  "  Is.  xliv.  28-xlv.  4.        tinually  called  Medcs,  even  after  the 

^"^  Even  Xenophon  confirms  it  in- j  revolution. 


616  The  Caj^iiicitij  at  Babylon.  Chap.  XXVI. 

thorities,  as  Herodotus,  his  mother's  fjitlier),  and  transferred 
the  rule  over  the  Medo-Persian  Empire  to  the  royal  family 
of  Persia.  This  revolution  transferred  the  Medo-Persian  Em- 
pire from  an  eifete  dynasty  to  a  family  of  hardy  mountain- 
eers,^^ both  being  of  that  Aryan  race  which  had  not  yet  oc- 
cupied a  leading  place  in  history.  The  capital  was  fixed  at 
Agbatana  (Ecbatana). 

§  6.  The  change  was  naturally  alarming  to  the  three  great 
monarchies  of  Lydia,  Babylon,  and  Egypt.  The  first  Avas  the 
ancient  rival  of  the  Medes  in  Asia  Minor,  Avhere  the  river 
Halys  had  been  fixed  as  the  boundary  of  the  two  empires, 
after  the  great  battle  between  Alyattes,  king  of  Lydia,  and 
Cyaxares,  king  of  Media,  which  was  broken  off  by  the  same 
solar  eclipse  that  was  predicted  by  Thales  of  Miletus.*^ 
While  Astyages,  or  Aspadas,  the  successor  of  Cyaxares  in 
Media,  reigned  quietly  and,  as  it  seems,  weakly,  Croesus 
(b.c.  568),  the  son  of  Alyattes,  subdued  all  the  independent 
nations  of  Asia  Minor  west  of  the  river  Halys  (except  the 
Lycians  and  Cilicians,  who  were  protected  by  the  chain  of 
Taurus),  and  obtained  that  power  and  wealth  which  make 
him  so  conspicuous  a  figure  in  the  history  of  Herodotus.  The 
news  of  the  revolution  efi:ected  by  Cyrus  decided  him  on  an 
attempt  to  check  the  growth  of  the  Medo-Persian  power.^^ 
AVhile  seeking  encouragement  from  the  oracles  of  Greece,  he 
sent  envoys  to  Amasis,  king  of  Egypt,  and  to  Nabonedus, 
wdio  had  just  obtained  the  throne  of  Babylon,  to  form  an  alli- 
ance against  Cyrus.  It  seems  to  liave  been  at  this  time  that 
Kabonedus  constructed  those  great  works  for  the  defense  of 
Babylon  and  for  the  inundation  of  the  surrounding  country, 
Avhich  Herodotus  ascribes  to  an  otherwise  unknown  Queen 
Nitocris.  Meanwhile  the  rapid  advance  of  Cyrus  and  the 
impetuosity  of  Croesus,  who  crossed  the  Halys,  deceived,  ac- 
cording to  the  well-known  story  of  Herodotus,  by  an  ambigu- 
ous oracle,  brought  the  conflict  to  an  issue.  Croesus  Avas  de- 
feated and  shut  up  within  the  walls  of  Sardis.  His  pressing 
messages  to  his  allies  had  scarcely  arrived,  when  they  were 
followed  by  the  tidings  that  Sardis  had  been  surprised  and 
Croesus  taken  prisoner,  and  that  Cyrus  was  master  of  his 
kingdom  to  the  ^^gean  Sea." 

-'  Persia  Proper,  or  Persis,  includes  j  authorities  have  identified  it  with  cal- 
tlie  liighlands  on  the  N.E.  of  the  Per-  culated  eclipses  in  B.C.  025,  610,  G03, 
sian  Gulf.  j  and  585.     The  date  of  b.c.  610  seems 

-"^  This  eclipse,  the  turning-point  of  j  best  to  meet  all  the  conditions  of  the 
Asiatic   chronology,  is  unfortunately  I  history.  "  Herod,  i.  46. 

still  a  subject  of  dispute.     Different]      *^  B'c.554r,Ra\vlinson:  butihcd.-itc 


B.C.  538.  Siege  of  Babylon,  61 7 

The  interval  of  nearly  fifteen  years  before  the  final  conflict 
with  Babylon  was  probably  occupied  by  Cyrus  in  finishing 
the  conquest  of  the  tribes  of  Asia  Minor,  strengthening  his 
power  in  Media,  and  subduing  the  more  distant  portion  of 
the  Babylonian  Empire  in  Upper  Assyria.  Nabonedus  seems 
to  have  remained  on  the  defensive,  completing  the  great 
works  around  Babylon.  At  length  Cyrus  marched  from  Ec- 
batana,  and  crossed  the  river  Gyndes  by  a  diversion  of  its 
channel,  Avhich  must  have  prepared  his  engineers  for  their 
greater  operation  of  the  same  kind  on  the  Euphrates.  Na- 
bonedus  tried  the  fate  of  one  battle,  and,  on  his  defeat,  retired 
to  Borsippa  {Birs  Nimrlld)^  "the  Chaldaean  Benares,  the  city 
in  which  the  Chaldaeans  had  their  most  revered  objects  of 
religion,  and  where  they  cultivated  their  science.*""  Here 
he  surrendered  after  the  capture  of  Babylon.  Cyrus  spared 
his  life,  and  gave  him  a  principality  in  Carmania,  where  he 
died. 

§  7.  Meanwhile  the  people  of  Babylon  remained  in  fancied 
security  behind  their  immense  fortifications.  The  city  form- 
ed a  vast  square,  divided  diagonally,  and  almost  equally,  by 
the  Euphrates.  Each  side  of  the  square  was  about  fourteen 
miles  long.^°  The  double  walls  are  said  to  have  been  about 
three  hundred  feet  high  and  eighty-five  feet  broad;  dimen- 
sions which  cease  to  be  incredible  Avhen  we  remember  that 
they  were  vast  mounds  of  earth  and  brickwork,  the  remains 
of  which,  and  others  like  them,  are  still  traced  by  travellers. 
These  Avails  were  strengthened  by  two  hundred  and  fifty 
towers,  and  pierced  with  a  hundred  gateways,  the  lintels  and 
side-posts,  as  well  as  the  gates  themselves,  being  of  brass. 
The  river  Avas  enclosed  on  both  banks  by  the  quays,  which 
Avere  likcAvise  protected  by  Avails  and  brass  gates.  Tliese 
walls  and  gates  are  particularly  referred  to  in  that  striking 
prophecy  of  Jeremiah,  Avhich  is  almost  a  history  of  the  siege.^' 
The  A'ast  area  of  tAvo  hundred  square  miles,  interspersed,  as 
is  usual  in  Eastern  cities,  Avith  large  open  spaces,  gave  oppor- 
tunities for  growing  corn,  in  addition  to  the  immense  supplies 
of  food  Avhich  had  been  laid  up  for  a  siege  of  many  years. ^^ 

is  fixed  by  most  other  authorities  in  the  circuit;  each  side,  therefore,  120 
B.C.  54G  ;  and  Cyrus  is  supposed  to  stadia  =  12  geographical  niiles  =  near- 
have  been  engaged  in  consolidating  ly  14  statute  miles.  The  dimensions 
his  empire  before  the  war  with  Croe-[  given  by  Ctesias  are  one-fourtii  less. 
8US.  Perhaps  he  refers  to  the  inner  of  the 

"^^  Niebuhr,  Lectures  on  Ancient  His-  two  walls  mentioned  hv  Herodotus, 
tor?/,  lect.  xii.  27  jp,.  ]    ]r,^  ]j   53^  53 

^^  Herodotus  gives  480   stadia   as[     ^'^  Herod,  i.  190. 


618  The  Captivity  at  BabyloJi.  Chap.  XXVL 

The  two  banks  of  the  river  were  connected  by  a  stone  bridge, 
about  a  thousand  yards  in  length,  at  each  end  of  which  stood 
a  royal  palace.  The  chief  was  that  on  the  east,  a  fortress  in 
itself,  surrounded  by  triple  Avails,  of  which  the  outer  had  a 
circuit  of  seven  miles,  the  middle  of  four  and  a  half,  and  the 
latter  of  two  and  a  half  miles :  the  middle  wall  was  three 
hundred  feet  high,  and  its  tOAvers  four  hundred  and  twenty 
feet,  and  the  inner  one  was  higher  still.  Such  statements 
may  diminish  our  surprise  at  the  security  in  Avhich  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  city  and  palace  lived  under  their  reckless  young 
prince,  Belshazzar. 

Cyrus  Avasted  no  efforts  on  the  impregnable  defenses,  but 
resolved  to  divert  the  stream  of  the  Euphrates,  and  to  enter 
the  city  by  its  bed.  When  the  Avork  Avas  complete,  Belshaz- 
zar gave  him  the  opportunity  for  a  surprise  by  that  great 
feast,  of  which  Ave  have  so  graphic  an  account  in  tlie  Book  of 
Daniel.^''  A  thousand  of  his  lords  Avere  assembled  at  the 
banquet;  and  the  prince,  inflamed  Avith  Avine  and  flattery,  or- 
dered the  gold  and  silver  vessels  of  the  temple  to  be  brought, 
that  he  and  his  Avives  and  concubines  and  courtiers  might 
drink  in  them  to  the  praise  of  their  gods.  At  that  moment 
a  hand  Avas  seen  Avriting  upon  the  Avail  in  the  full  light  of 
the  candelabra.  Belshazzar,  his  joints  umierved  by  fear,  cried 
out  for  the  Chaldean  astrologers  and  soothsayers  to  be 
brought  before  him,  and  proclaimed  that  the  man  Avho  could 
read  the  Avriting  should  be  invested  Avith  the  insignia  of  roy- 
alty, and  made  third  ruler  in  the  kingdom.^''  While  the  hand 
moved  slowly  on  from  letter  to  letter,  they  confessed  their 
inability  to  read  the  nnknoAvn  characters.  The  king  Avas  be- 
side himself  Avith  terror,  Avhen  a  ncAv  personage  appeared  upon 
the  scene.  The  "queen,"  Avho  addresses  Belshazzar  in  the 
tone  of  authority,  Avas  probably  his  mother  or  his  grandmoth- 
er, and  may  perhaps  be  the  Nitocris  of  Herodotus.  She  alone 
of  all  the  court  remembered  the  Avonders  that  had  been  re- 
vealed to  Nebuchadnezzar  by  Daniel,  Avho  seems  to  have  been 
deposed  from  his  post  as  master  of  the  soothsayers.  By  her 
advice  the  king  sent  for  him,  and  repeated  his  oflers  of  rcAvard. 
Rejecting  thejii  Avith  disdain,  Daniel  reproached  Belshazzar 
for  not  learning  from  the  example  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  and 
for  the  crowning  insult  of  that  night  against  God.  By  this 
time  the  hand,  Avhich  had  been  slowly  moving  OA^er  the  wall, 
had  completed  its  awful  inscription : — 

"^  Dan.  vi.  ihis  own  position  was  that  of  second 

^^  A  confirmation  of  the  view  that  ruler. 


B.C.  538. 


End  of  the  Bahylonish  Empire. 


61S 


MENE,  MENE,  TEKEL,  UPHARSIN  : 

Numbered!  numbered!  Weight!  and  Division  {ov  the  Persians).^' 
"  The  days  of  thy  kingdom  are  numbered  and  Jinished, 
Thou  art  tveicjhed  in  the  balances,  and  found  wanting : 
Thy  kingdom  is  divided,  and  given  to  the  Medes  and  Persians." 

Belshazzar's  last  act  of  sovereignty  was  to  confer  the  prom* 
ised  reward  on  Daniel.  All  that  is  added  in  the  Scripture 
narrative  is  this : — "  In  that  night  was  Belshazzar  the  king 
of  the  Chaldaeans  slain."  We  learn  from  other  sources 
that,  while  the  city  Avas  sunk  in  revelry,  Cyrus  led  his  army 
along  the  empty  bed  of  the  Euphrates  and  entered  by  the 
water-gates,  whicli  it  had  not  been  thought  worth  while  to 
secure.^  The  soldiers  fled.''  The  more  distant  regions  of  tho 
vast  city  were  taken  and  set  on  fire  long  before  the  news 
reached  the  palace,  perhaps  before  Daniel  had  done  expound- 
ing the  writing  on  the  Avail.  "  One  post  ran  to  meet  another, 
and  one  messenger  to  meet  another,  to  show  the  King  of 
Babylon  that  the  city  was  taken  at  one  end,  and  that  the 
passages  were  stopped,  and  the  reeds  they  had  burnt  with 
fire,  and  the  men  of  Avar  Avere  afifrighted.'"'  At  last  the  ene- 
my reached  the  citadel,  in  the  storm  of  Avhich  Belshazzar 
seems  to  have  met  the  fate  Avhich  so  nearly  befell  Croesus  at 
Sardis,  being  slain  by  some  soldiers  Avho  did  not  knoAV  him 
for  the  king.  Nabonadius,  his  father,  Avas  taken,  as  Ave  have 
seen,  at  Borsippa ;  and  thus  fell  the  empire  of  Babylon,  little 
more  than  twenty  years  after  tho  height  of  its  splendor  under 
Nebuchadnezzar.  Its  fate  furnished  not  only  a  great  exam- 
ple of  the  fulfillment  of  ancient  and  recent  prophecies,  espe- 
cially those  of  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  and  Ezekiel,  but  also  a  type 
of  the  Avorldly  splendor  and  poAver,  the  unbridled  insolence, 
and  the  conspicuous  ruin  of  the  future  oppressors  of  the 
Church  of  God,  and  especially  of  that  one — Avhatever  it  be — 
w^hich  is  called  in  the  Apocalypse  "  Babylon  the  Great,  Mys- 
tery of  Iniquity,  Mother  of  Harlots." 

^  §  8.  Instead  of  following  the  progress  of  Cyrus,  the  sacred 
history  remains  Avith  the  Jcavs  at"  Babylon,  Avhere  Ave  read, 
simultaneously  Avith  the  death  of  Belshazzar,  that  "  Darius 
THE  Median  took  (or  received)  the  kingdom,  being  about 
fiixty-tAvo  years  old.""  This  personage  is  one  of  the  eni^rmas 
of  sacred  history.  Till  lately  it  was  the  fashion  to  idel'afy 
him  with  the  Cyaxares,  Avhom  Xenophon  introduces,  in  the 

'^' The  hist  word  has  this  double  •'' Darius,  the  son  of  Ahasnerus,  of  the 
monning.  '^"^  Jer.  11.  30.       seed  of  the  Medcs,  which  was  made 

^^  Jer.  li.  31,  82.  king  over  the  realm  of  the  ChaldflB- 

**  Daniel,  v,  31.    Compare  i.v.  1  : —  ans." 


620  The  Captiviiy  at  Babylon.  Chap.  XXVI 

"  CyropaBdia,"  as  the  son  of  Astyages ;  and  great  was  the 
triumph  in  this  confinnation  of  Scripture  by  so  philosophic  a 
writer^  against  the  united  testimony  of  Herodotus  and  all 
the  other  profane  historians.^*  But  not  only  does  the  consent 
of  all  these  historians  overbear  the  romance  of  Xenophon, 
who  evidently  imagined  the  character  of  Cyaxares  as  a  foil 
to  the  virtues  of  Cyrus ;  but  their  testimony  is  confirmed  by 
Scripture.  In  the  great  prophecy  of  Isaiah  it  is  Cyrus  that 
takes  Babylon ;  and  even  in  Daniel  the  Persians  are  the  con- 
querors. Darius  is  too  old  to  be  identified  with  Xenophon's 
Cyaxares,  and  his  father's  name  is  Ahasueriis,^^  which  has  no 
affinity  Avith  Astyages,  but  which  is  the  very  name  of  Cyaxa- 
res, the  father  of  Astyages.  This  is  but  one  of  many  argu- 
ments in  favor  of  identifying  Darius  the  Mede  with  Astyages 
himself  "VVe  know  that  Cyrus  treated  his  dethroned  j^rede- 
cessor  with  the  greatest  honor,  Avhich  he  may  have  carried 
so  far  as  to  yield  liini  the  outward  rank  of  supreme  king  dur- 
ing his  lifetime ;  for  the  Darius  of  Daniel  certainly  appears 
to  exercise  an  authority  over  the  whole  kingdom  more  exten- 
sive than  could  have  belonged  to  a  mere  governor  of  Baby- 
lon." The  testimony  of  Herodotus,  and  indeed  of  his  own 
fate,  to  the  weak  character  of  Astyages,  agrees,  entirely  with 
the  impulsive  and  vacillating  conduct  of  Darius  toward  Dan- 
iel and  his  enemies.  Some  chronological  difficulties  still  re- 
main ;  but,  on  the  whole,  it  seems  most  probable  that  Cyrus 
committed  the  civil  government,  with  the  whole  royal  author- 
ity, to  Astyages  (Darius),  while  he  himself  was  completing 
his  new  conqiicst,  for  a  period  of  two  years  (b.c.  538-536), 
and  that  on  the  death  of  Darius  he  assumed  the  sole  sovereign- 
ty (b.c.  536).  The  two  years  of  Darius  are  included  in  the 
nine  years  which  are  assigned  to  Cyrus  in  the  Babylonian 
annals  (b.c.  538-529),  as  his  real  position  was  known  to  the 
scribes ;  while  the  close  relations  of  Darius  with  the  captive 
Jews  account  for  their  speaking  of  him  as  the  king,  and  dat- 
ing the  year  of  his  death  as  the  Jtrst  year  of  Cyrus.     This 

^  See  Hales,  Analysis  of  Clironol- 
ogy,  vol.  iv.  p.  87.  Joseplms,  who  first 
made  the  identification,  is  the  only 
ancient  writer,  except  Xenophon,  that 
recognizes  this  Cyaxares  II. 

^^  Dan.  ix.  1,  Ahasuerus,  or  Ach- 
ashi^erosh.  is  the  same  word  as  the 
Sanscrit  Kshatra,  a  l:in(],  Kshdrshe  in 
the  Persepolitan  inscriptions,  with  the 
Hebrew  prosthetic  &<.  Its  Greek  form 
is  Xerxes^  which  Herodotus  explains 


by  apr/ing  (vi.  98).  Ci/ctxares  is  the 
same  name  with  the  prefix  Xai,  which 
is  seen  also  in  the  Persian  name  of 
Cyrus,  Kai  K/iosru.  In  Scripture 
Ahasueriis  is  tlic  name  of  several 
kings.  1.  The  father  of  Darius  the 
jVIede,  ])robiibly  Cyaxares,  king  of  Me- 
dia (Dan,  ix.  1).  2.  Camhyses,  son  of 
Cyrus,  who  probably  assumed  tho 
name  (Ezra  iv.  G).  3.  Xerxes^  Esther, 
3'  Dan.  vi.  I. 


B.C.  538. 


Daniel  under  Darius. 


621 


was  the  giorious  year  of  their  own  restoration  to  their  land. 
But  before  opening  that  new  page  of  their  history,  we  must 
glance  at  the  last  days  of  Daniel  and  the  final  fate  of  Babylon. 

§  9.  AYe  read  that  Daniel  continued  "  even  unto  the  first 
year  of  King  Cyrus ;"  that  is,  as  the  margin  of  our  Bible  well 
puts  it,  "  he  lived  to  see  that  glorious  time  of  the  return  ot 
his  people  from  the  Babylonian  captivity,  though  he  did  not 
die  then."^®  Again  we  read,  "  This  Daniel  prospered  in  the 
reign  of  Darius,  and  in  the  reign  of  Cyrus  the  Persian.'"' 
After  the  death  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  or  in  the  dynastic  contests 
which  followed  the  reign  of  Evil-merodach,  he  seems  to  have 
retired  into  obscurity  till  he  Avas  called  forth  to  interpret  the 
handwriting  on  the  wall.  That  proof  of  prophetic  power 
would  insure  him  respect  from  the  conquerors,  who  seem  also 
to  have  recognized  the  rank  conferred  on  him  by  Belshazzar. 
Shortly  after  the  capture  of  Babylon  we  find  him  employed 
by  the  king  in  some  commission  to  Susa  (Shushan),  one  of 
the  Median  capitals."  When  Darius  made  a  settlement  of. 
the  provinces,  in  which  we  trace  the  germ  of  the  satrapies 
of  Darius,  the  son  of  Hystaspes,  Daniel  was  made  the  first 
of  the  three  "presidents"  who  were  placed  over  the  120 
"  princes  "  of  the  provinces.  The  Medo-Persian  princes  Avere 
doubly  offended  at  being  placed  under  a  Jew  by  birth  and 
a  servant  of  the  late  dynasty.  His  administration  Avas  too 
faultless  to  give  an  opening  to  their  envy ;  so  they  set  one 
of  those  ingenious  traps  in  Avhich  religious  persecution  is  con- 
cealed under  the  guise  of  loyalty.  Tavo  of  the  grandest  pict- 
ures in  the  Bible  are,  the  faithful  servant  of  Jehovah  continu- 
ing his  prayers  thrice  a  day,  neither  diminishing  their  number 
nor  AvithdraAving  from  his  open  AvindoAV  Avhieh  looked  to- 
Avard  Jerusalem,  and  the  confessor  calmly  sitting  in  the  den 
of  lions,  Avhose  mouths  God  had  shut,  Avhile  the  king,  who  had 
consented  to  his  death,  remains  restless  and  fasting.  It  is 
superfluous  to  relate  his  deliverance  from  the  lions,  the  pun- 
ishment of  his  enemies,  and  the  proclamation  of  Darius  in 
honor  of  Daniel's  God. 

§  10.  After  this  Daniel  enjoyed  unbroken  prosperity  under 
Darius  and  Cyrus,  and  doubtless  had  a  share  in  advising  the 
restoration  of  the  Jcavs.     His  last  vision  is  dated  in  the  third 


'^  Dan.  i.  21.  Compare  the  use  of 
till  in  Ps.  ex.  ] ,  cxii.  8. 

"'  Dan.  vi.  28. 

*"  Dan.  viii.  1,2.  "I  was  at  Shn- 
shnn,  in  the  palace ;"  comp.  ver.  27, 
"I  rose  up,  and  did  the  king's  bns- 


incss."  The  date  in  ver.  1,  "the 
third  year  of  King  Belshazzar,"  is  ev- 
idently the  last  unfinished  year  of  his 
reign.  We  have  met  w'lih  several 
previous  examples  of  such  a  mode  of 
computation. 


622  The  Captivity  at  Babylon.         Chap.  XXVL 

year  of  Cyrus,  b.c.  534."'  The  following  is  a  summary  of  his 
Visions,  dreams,  and  prophecies : 

i.  In  the  second  year  of  Nebuchadnezzar^  b.c.  603."  The  in- 
terpretation of  the  king's  dream  of  the  image  representing  the 
four  great  empires,  namely — 

(1.)  The  Golden  Head:  —  the  Assyrio  -  Babylonian  mon- 
arcliy. 

(2).  The  Silver  Breast  and  Arms: — the  Medo-Persian  Em- 
pire. 

(3.)  T\\Q  Brazen  Belly  a7id  Thighs:  —  the  Greco -Macedo- 
nian kingdoms,  especially,  after  Alexander,  those  of  Egypt 
and  Syria. 

(4.)' The  Legs  of  Iron,  the  power  of  Rome,  bestriding  the 
East  and  West,  but  broken  up  into  a  number  of  states,  the  ten 
toes,  which  retained  some  of  its  warlike  strength  (the  iron\ 
mingled  with  elements  of  Aveakness  (the  soft  potter's  clay), 
which  rendered  the  whole  imperial  structure  unstable. 

(5.)  The  St07ie  cut  without  hands  out  of  the  Living  Bock, 
dashing  down  the  image,  becoming  a  mountain  and  filling  all 
t'le  earth  : — the  Spiritual  Kingdom  of  Christ. 

ii.  In  Nebuchadnezzar's  reign,  about  b.c.  5V0.  The  inter- 
pretation of  the  king's  second  dream  concerning  his  mad- 
ness.*^ 

iii.  In  the  first  year  of  Belshazzar,  b.c.  540.''*  Daniel's 
dream  of  the  Four  Beasts,  another  symbol  of  the  Four  Em- 
pires, the  ten  horns  of  the  fourth  corresponding  to  the  ten  toes 
of  the  image  ;  ending  wath  the  judgment  of  the  fourth  beast 
by  the  "Ancient  of  days,"  and  the  establishment  of  the  king- 
dom of  the  Son  of  man.  Throughout  this  vision,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  "  little  horn  "  which  rose  up  among  the  ten  horns 
as  the  symbol  of  some  blaspheming  enemy  of  God,  we  meet 
with  those  images,  common  to  Daniel  and  the  Apocalypse, 
which  are  still  involved  in  the  obscurity  of  unfulfilled  proph- 
ecy. 

iv.  In  the  third  year  of  Belshazzar,  probably  soon  after  the 
fall  of  Babylon,  B.C.  538/' 

The  vision  which  Daniel  saw  at  Shushan  of  a  conflict  be- 
tween a  ram  and  he-goat,  the  symbols  of  the  Medo-Persian 
and  Macedonian  powers.  The  peculiar  character  of  the  for- 
mer is  represented  by  its  two  horns,  of  which  the  higher  came 
up  last.  Alexander  is  plainly  represented  by  the  "notable 
horn  "  of  the  he-goat,  and  his  successors  by  the  four  horns 
which  replaced  it.     The  "  little  horn  "  springing  out  of  one  oi 

^'  Dan.  X.  1.  I  '^  Dan.  iv.        "*  Dan.  vii. 

**  Dan.  ii.  1  ''  Dan.  viii. 


B.C.  538. 


Prophecy  at  the  Seventij  Wechs. 


623 


the  others,  and  representing  "  a  king  of  fierce  countenance 
and  understanding  dark  sentences,"  prosj^ering,  persecuting, 
and  opposing  the  Prince  of  princes,  till  he  is  broken  without 
hand,  seems  to  correspond  to  the  "  little  horn"  of  the  preced- 
ing dream,  and  to  involve  similar  difficulties.'" 

V.  In  the/r,<?^  year  of  Darius,  B.C.  538.''  Daniel,  having 
read  in  the  prophecies  of  Jeremiah  that  God  would  accom- 
plish seventy  years  in  the  desolations  of  Jerusalem,  set  him- 
self to  seek  God  with  fasting  and  the  garb  of  mourning.  His 
prayer  and  confession  on  this  occasion  forms  a  model  of  all 
such  supplications.  It  was  answered  by  the  mission  of  the 
angel  Gabriel,  who  now  appears  for  the  first  time  as  the  spe- 
cial herald  of  God's  purposes."  He  comes  to  Daniel  to 
announce  the  beginning  of  the  period,  the  close  of  which  he 
proclaimed  to  Zacharias.  His  message  constitutes  the,  cele- 
brated Prophecy  of  the  Seventy  TFeeA-5,'"  the  leading  idea  of 
which,  regarded  as  an  answer  to  Daniel's  prayer,  seems  to  be 
that  God  would  mercifully  recompense  his  people  for  their 
captivity  at  Babylon  by  a  new  possession  of  their  land  for 
seven  times  that  period,  until  the  whole  history  of  the  nation 
should  be  crowned,  and  its  religious  institutions  finished,  by 
the  advent  and  sacrifice  of  Messiah  the  prince. 
^  We  can  not  here  enter  into  the  minute  details  of  the  4xpo- 
sition.  It  is  enough  to  point  out  that,  from  the  final  and  ef- 
fectual edict  of  Artaxerxes  Longimanus  for  the  rebuilding 
of  Jerusalem  (b.c.  457)  to  the  death  of  Christ  (a.d.  33)  wal 
just  four  hundred  and  ninety  years. 

vi.  In  the  third  year  of  Cyrus,  b.c.  534.  The  vision  of  the 
Son  of  God  to  Daniel  on  the  banks  of  the  Hiddekel  (Tigris), 
in  the  same  glorious  form  in  which  he  appeared  to  St.  John 
in  Patmos,  and  the  prophecy  that  followed.'"  Throughout 
this  prophecy  both  the  imagery  and  the  substance  bear  a  close 
analogy  to  the  Apocalypse.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
the  earlier  part  relates  to  the  contests  between  the  two  Greek 
kingdoms  of  Syria  and  Egypt,  which  disputed  the  mastery  of 


^^  The  symbol  is  commonly  infer- 
pretcd  of  Antiochus  Epipliane?,  but 
it  seems  to  have  a  deeper  meaning. 

"'  Dan.  ix. 

*^  Gabriel  (the  Man  of  God)  is  a  ti- 
tle exactly  descriptive  of  the  angelic 
office,  and  not  necessarily  a  proper 
name. 

^^  Literally,  Seventy  Sevens.  It 
must  not  be  supposed  that  the  expo- 
sition rests  on  the  general  assumption 


that  a  day  stands  for  a  year  in  the 
symbolical  language  of  pi-ophecy.  It 
is  rather  a  plain  inference  from  the 
whole  bearing  of  the  prophecy,  that 
the  sevens  spoken  of  are  sevens  of 
years;  just  as  the  word  Sabbath  is 
often  used  for  the  Sabbatic  year.  In 
fact,  the  phrase  seems  best  intei-preted 
as  seventy  cycles  of  Sabbatic  years= 
490  vears. 

^°ban.  x.-xii. 


624  The  Captivity  at  Babylon.  Chap.  XXVI 

Judsea ;  but  it  is  clear  that  at  some  point  a  transition  is  madt 
to  the  final  mysteries  of  God's  government  and  judgment. 
How  the  study  of  those  mysteries  ought  to  be  approached, 
we  learn  from  the  prophecy  itself  Daniel  is  bidden  to  "  shut 
tip  the  words  and  seal  the  book,  even  to  the  time  of  the  end." 
When  that  time  is  so  near  that  God  reveals  his  purj^oses  to 
his  people,  as  he  did  to  Daniel  from  the  books  of  Jeremiah, 
the  Lamb  in  the  midst  of  the  throne  will  open  the  volume, 
seal  by  seal,  and  page  by  page,  while  his  servants  "  run  to  and 
fro  on  the  earth,  and  knowledge  shall  be  increased."  Then 
all  conflicting  guesses  will  cease  respecting  the  "  time  and 
times  and  dividing  of  a  time,"  the  1290  and  the  1335  days. 
"  None  of  the  wicked  shall  understand,  but  the  wise  shall 
understand."  Meanwhile  "Blessed  is  he  that  ?o«z^e?A,"  and 
blessed  especially  the  man  who  is  distinguished  above  all 
others  by  the  assurance  in  God's  own  word  of  his  personal 
salvation : — 

"  ITo  only  of  tlie  sons  of  men 
Named  to  be  heir  of  glory  then." 

But,  though  he  alone  is  named.,  all  who  share  his  faith  and 
follow  his  piety  may  take  the  comfort  of  the  words  with 
which  this  most  perfect  of  all  Scripture  characters  is  dismiss- 
ed from  the  scene : — "  But  thou,  go  thy  way  to  the  end  :  for 
thou  shalt  rest,  and  stand  in  thy  lot  at  the  end  of  the  days."^^ 
§11.  How  different  the  end  of  the  great  city  in  which  he 
delivered  his  testimony  for  God !  Its  fill  was  delayed  for 
many  years.  It  must  have  suftered  greatly  in  its  capture  by 
Cyrus,  and  again  in  the  reign  of  Darius,  the  son  of  Hystaspes, 
when  it  was  the  seat  of  a  rebellion  under  a  person  who  called 
himself  "Xebuchadnezzar,  the  son  of  Xabonadius."  But  it 
remained  the  second  city  of  the  Persian  Empire,  and  the 
residence  of  the  king  during  the  greater  part  of  the  year. 
Alexander  ended  his  career  in  the  city,  Avhich  he  had  designed 
to  renovate  for  his  capital.  The  Seleucid  kings  of  Syria  trans- 
ferred the  capital  to  Antioch,  while  they  chose  a  more  eligible 
site  on  the  Tigris  for  the  frontier  city  of  Seleucia,  to  which 


"  Daniel  xii.  13.  The  distinction 
of  Daniel  in  being  named  by  Ezekiel 
(xiv.  14)  with  Noah  and  Job,  for  his 
righteousness,  is  an  honor  the  more 
conspicuous  from  its  being  conferred 
by  the  inspired  prophet  upon  a  living 
man.      "  The  order  of  the  names — 


first  and  last.historic  types  of  righteous- 
ness, before  the  law  and  under  it,  com- 
bined with  the  ideal  type  "  (Delitzsch, 
p.  271 ).  Some  critics  account  for  Dan- 
iel's omission  to  speak  of  the  actual 
return  of  the  Jews,  though  he  dates  a 
prophecy  two  years  huer(in  the  third 


Noah.  Daniel,  and  Job — seems  to  sug-  year  of  Cyrus),  by  ngarciing  the  first 
g;cst  the  idea  that  they  represent  theichaptcr  oi  E(^a  as  his  composition. 


B.C.  r)3G  Desolation  of  Bahjlon.  625 

most  of  the  inhabitants  of  Babylon  removed.  The  houses 
were  deserted,  and  the  walls  became  quarries  for  building- 
materials.  The  site  of  the  city  was  gradually  swept  over  by 
the  neglected  river,  while  the  mounds  around  it  crumbled  into 
the  moat  from  which  they  were  dug.  "  Babylon  became  heaps, 
a  dwelling-place  for  '  dragons,'  an  astonishment  and  a  hissing, 
without  an  inhabitant ;""  fulfilling  to  the  very  letter  the  pro- 
phetic visions  of  its  utter  desolation,  and  presenting  a  lively 
image  of  the  fate  reserved  for  the  mystic  Babylon  of  later 
days.  Only  in  our  own  days  have  those  "  heaps  "  given  up  the 
monuments  of  the  city's  grandeur,  and  the  records  from  which 
we  may  hope  to  gain  confirmations  and  illustrations  of  Script- 
ure history  as  signal  as  the  witness  borne  by  the  ruins  them- 
selves to  the  truth  of  Scripture  prophecy. 

Not  only  the  site  of  Babylon  herself,  but  the  whole  plain 
of  Babylonia,  covered  with  the  shapeless  heaps  under  w^hich 
the  great  Chaldsean  cities  lie  hidden,  bears  a  perpetual  wit- 
ness to  the  truth  of  the  prophecy  every  word  of  which  is  a 
historic  description : — "  Her  cities  are  a  desolation,  a  dryland, 
and  a  wilderness,  a  land  wherein  no  man  dwelleth,  neither  doth 
any  son  of  man  pass  thereby."^^  "  Besides  the  great  mound," 
says  the  most  distinguished  investigator  of  the  site,  "  other 
shapeless  heaps  of  rubbish  cover  for  many  an  acre  the  face 
of  the  land.  The  lofty  banks  of  ancient  canals  fret  the  coun- 
try, like  natural  ridges  of  hills.  Some  have  been  long  choked 
with  sand ;  others  still  carry  the  waters  of  the  river  to  dis- 
tant villages  and  palm-groves.  On  all  sides  fragments  of 
glass,  marble,  pottery,  and  inscribed  brick  are  mingled  with 
that  peculiar  nitrous  and  blanched  soil  whicii,  bred  from  the 
remains  of  ancient  habitations,  checks  or  destroys  vegetation, 
and  renders  the  site  of  Babylon  a  naked  and.  hideous  waste. 
Owls  start  from  the  scanty  thickets,  and  the  foul  jackal  skulks 
through  the  furrows."^* 

"  Jer.  li.  37.  "  Jer.  li.  43.  ^  Layard,  Kin.  and  Bab.,  p.  484. 

Dd 


Tomb  of  Cyrus  at  Murg-Aub^  the  ancient  rasarg.ida?. 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

THE  RESTORED  JEWISH  NATION  AND  CHURCH. 

FKOM    THE     DECREE     OF    CYRUS    TO     THE    CLOSE     OF     THE     OLD 
TESTAMEXT    CA^SO^S.       B.C.   536-400? 

§  1.  The  decree  of  Cyrns— Moral  gains  of  the  Captivity — CesScation  of  idola- 
try— More  spiritual  worship — Germs  of  new  declension.  §  2.  Numbers 
of  the  first  caravan — The  new  nation  composed  of  all  the  tribes — Arri- 
val at  Jerusalem,  and  foundation  of  the  Temple.  §  3.  Opposition  to  the 
building — Series  of  Persian  kings — The  Avork  interrupted  under  the 
Pseudo-Smerdis,  and  resumed  under  Darius  Hystaspis — The  prophets 
Haggai  and  Zechariah — Dedication  of  the  second  Temple.  §  4.  Ac- 
cession of  Xerxes,  the  Ahasuerus  of  the  Book  of  Estlicr — The  feast  of 
Purim — Esther  not  Amestris.  §  5.  Artaxerxes  Longimanus — Commis- 
sion of  Ezra — The  second  caravan  of  returned  exiles — Reformation  by 
Ezra.  §  G.  Commission  of  Nehemiaii — Building  of  the  walls — Opposi- 
tion of  Sanballat  and  Tobiah — Nehemiah's  Reformation — Completion  of 
the  wall — Reading  of  the  Law  by  Ezra — Feast  of  Tabernacles — Day  of 
Atonement — Covenant  of  the  people — Peopling  of  Jerusalem — Dedica- 
tion of  the  wall.  §  7.  Nehemiah  returns  to  Persia — His  second  com- 
mission to  Jerusalem — Misconduct  of  the  high-priest  and  princes — 
Nehemiah's  Second  Reformation — Book  of  Nehemiah.  §  8.  Prophecy 
of  Malachi.  §  9.  Last  days  of  Ezra,  and  works  ascribed  to  him — The 
great  Synagogue — The  Old  Testament  Canon — The  cxixth  Psalm. 
S  10.  Schism  of  the  Samaritans,  and  their  temple  on  Mount  Geri/im. 


B.C.  536.  Decree  of  Cyrus.  627 

§  1.  In  the  first  year  of  his  sole  reign  at  Babylon  (b.c.  536)/ 
Cyrus  issued  a  decree  for  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple,  in 
the  language  of  which  we  trace  the  advice  of  Daniel.  We 
are  not  only  assured  that  the  king's  spirit  was  stirred  up  to 
this  measure  by  God,  that  the  word  spoken  by  Jeremiah 
might  be  fulfilled,  but  the  proclamation  itself  acknowledged 
the  God  of  Israel  as  the  God,  and  that  He,  who  had  given 
Cyrus  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth,  had  charged  him  to  build 
Him  a  house  at  Jerusalem,  in  Judah.  He  therefore  invited 
the  people  of  God  throughout  his  empire  to  go  up  to  the 
work,  and  charged  those  among  Avhom  they  dwelt  to  help 
them  with  gold  and  goods  and  cattle. 

The  response  to  this  act  of  noble  generosity — for  such  is 
its  true  character,  whatever  secondary  motives  may  have 
been  mixed  up  with  it^ — was  the  more  easy,  as  the  captive 
Jews  had  preserved  their  genealogies,  and  their  patriarchal 
constitution  under  their  princes.  It  is  even  said  that  they 
had  a  kind  of  ruler,  called  the  "Plead  of  the  Captivity,"  or 
"Captain  of  the  people  ;'"  but  this  is  very  doubtful.  So  the 
chief  of  the  fathers  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  with  the  j^riests 
and  Levites,  whose  families  are  enumerated  by  Ezra,  rose  up 
to  the  work.  Their  neighbors  made  them  liberal  presents, 
beside  freewill  ofiPerings  for  the  Temple ;  and  Cyrus  caused 
his  treasurer  Mithredath  to  deliver  the  vessels  of  the  Temple 
which  ISTebuchadnezzar  had  carried  away,  5400  in  number, 
to  Sheshbazzar,  or  Zeeubbabel,  the  prince  of  Judah,  who  was 
the  leader  of  the  migration.  Thus,  as  the  Israelites  had  gone 
forth  from  the  first  captivity  laden  with  the  spoils  of  Egypt, 
so  now  they  returned  from  the  second  enriched  with  the  free- 
will ofierings  of  Assyria,  to  be  consecrated  to  the  service  of 
Jehovah.* 

But  they  carried  back  greater  riches  than  all  the  treasures  of 
Persia,  in  the  moral  gains  of  their  captivity.  Throughout  the 
history  of  the  monarchy  we  have  never  lost  sight  of  the  fact 
that  that  form  of  government  was  itself  a  departure  from  the 
will  of  God.  The" attempt  to  consolidate  the  nation  violated 
the  constitution  of  the  Church,     Though,  on  the  great  princi- 


^  At  this  point  wc  at  length  obtain 
a  sure  chronological  epoch,  from  the 
united  testimony  of  the  sacred  and 
secular  writers. 

^  Just  as  the  removal  of  the  tur- 


lon,  so  their  restoration  placed  a  peo- 
ple friendly  to  Persia  on  the  frontier 
of  Egypt. 

5  2  Esdras  v.  16  ;  the  Talmud. 

"  2  Chron.  xxxvi.  22,  23 ;   Ezra  i., 


bulent  and  rebellious  Jews,  always  lil.:  the  Ixxxvth  and  cxxvith  Psalms 
disposed  to  side  with  Egypt,  was  a 'are  referred  to  this  occasion  by  their 
PfMind   m^a^nre   of  polic}'  for  Bnby-  opening  words. 


628  The  Restored  Jewish  Nation.       Chap.  XXVIT. 

pie  of  condescension  and  forbearance,  God  made  this  defection 
the  occasion  of  His  new  covenant  with  David,  the  inherent 
vices  of  the  monarchy  broke  out  into  that  long  course  of 
idolatry  and  worldly  pride,  which  was  cut  short  by  the  cap* 
tivities  of  both  branches  of  the  nation.  After  the  captivity 
we  hear  no  more  of  these  fonns  of  evil.  Too  soon,  indeed,  we 
lind  the  commencement  of  other  corruptions  natural  to  fallen 
man,  the  spiritual  pride  and  moral  iniquity,  which  had  utterly 
corrupted  the  people  before  the  coming  of  Christ.  But  the 
seeds  of  those  vices  were  as  yet  hidden  in  individual  hearts. 
The  people  again  presented,  as  in  the  wilderness,  the  outward 
aspect  of  the  Church  of  the  living  God.  Owing  their  revived 
political  existence  to  the  will  of  Persia,  they  could  not  at  first 
establish  a  new  monarchy ;  nor  was  the  attempt  ever  made,^ 
till  the  usurpation  of  an  alien — Herod  the  Idumasan — seemed 
to  challenge  their  true  King,  the  Christ,  to  assert  His  rights. 
The  people  seem  to  have  learned  to  Avait  for  His  kingdom,  and 
their  political  dependence  gave  freer  scope  to  their  religious 
organization.  Religion  had  shared  the  evils  of  the  kingdom. 
Our  admiration  for  the  magnificence  of  Solomon's  Temple  iss 
not  unmingled  with  a  misgiving  of  some  loss  of  spirituality, 
and  its  destruction  broke  through  a  tradition  which  leaned 
toward  an  undue  reliance  upon  ceremonies.  The  second  Tem- 
ple, so  strikingly  inferior  in  outward  splendor,"  nay,  wanting 
even  the  visible  sign  of  Jehovah's  presence  in  the  Shekinah, 
became  the  centre  of  a  more  spiritual  worship.''  While  the 
great  festivals,  like  the  other  Mosaic  institutions,  were  for  the 
first  time  punctually  observed,  the  experience  of  the  Captivi- 
ty, and  the  examples  of  such  men  as  Daniel,  had  taught  the 
people  that  God  might  be  worshiped  not  at  Jerusalem  only; 
and  their  local  meetings  in  the  Synac;ogues,  which  some  sup- 
pose to  have  begun  during  the  Captivity,  became  a  regular 
institution.  The  Scriptures,  collected  into  a  "Canon ""soon 
after  the  return,  superseded  the  prophetic  ofiice ;  their  regu- 
lar reading  in  the  synagogues  prevented  that  ignorance  which 
had  been  so  fatal  under  the  monarchy;  and  the  "scribes," 
who  devoted  themselves  to  their  exposition,  shared  the  re- 
spect paid  to  tlie  priests  and  Levites.  Prayer^  private  as  well 
as  public,  regained  that  supreme  place  in  God's  worship, 
which  had  been  usurped  by  rites  and  ceremonies.     The  Sah- 

^  The  assumption  of  the  royal  title  by  tlie  Asmonrean  princes  was  only 
an  addition  of  dignity  to  the  head  of  a  confessedly  theocratic  constitution. 

^  See  Notes  and  Illustrations  (A.).     The  Temple  of  Zernbbabel. 

''  The  return  of  only  four  out  of  the  twenty-four  courses  of  priests  musJ 
have  placed  a  great  check  on  pomp  in  the  Temple-service. 


I3.C.03G.  The  journey  to  Judtp.a.  620 

bath,^\\\\Q\i  the  prophets  never  cease  to  represent  as  the  key- 
stone both  of  religion  and  of  the  charities  of  social  hfe,  was 
firmly  established,  after  a  sharp  contest  Avith  worldly  selfish- 
ness. Idolatry  was  henceforth  unknown ;  and  the  attempt 
of  the  Syrian  kings  to  impose  its  practice  adorned  the  Jewish 
Church  with  a  cloud  of  martyrs,  whose  constancy  confirms 
the  many  other  proofs  that  the  people  had  attained  to  a 
more  spiritual  faith.  The  shades  of  this  fair  picture  were  as 
yet  in  the  background,  and  the  current  of  the  history  brings 
them  into  prominence  soon  enough.  They  are  the  vices  which 
our  corrupt  nature  distills  from  these  very  virtues ;  spiritual 
pride,  perverting  the  uses  of  God's  vrorship ;  oppression  and 
immorality,  excused  by  the  privileges  of  God's  people. 

§  2.  The  number  o±'  the  people  forming  the  first  caravan, 
whom  Ezra  reckons,  not  only  by  their  families,  but  by  the  cit- 
ies of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  and  other  tribes,  to  which  they 
belonged,  Avith  the  priests  and  Levites,  amounted  in  all  to 
42,360,'  besides  YSGY  men-servants  and  maid-servants.  They 
had  736  horses,  245  mules,  435  camels,  and  6720  asses.  These 
numbers  may  seem  small,  in  contrast  to  the  former  population 
of  Judaea  ;  but  they  arc  large,  as  compared  Avith  the  enumer- 
.♦ition  given  above  of  the  several  captivities.  They  no  doubt 
included  many  of  the  Ten  Tribes,  for  Cyrus  addressed  his  proc- 
lamation to  all  the  servants  of  God  throughout  the  empire ; 
and  it  Avas  responded  to,  not  only  by  the  fathers  of  Judah  and 
Benjamin,  but  "by  all  Avliose  spirit  God  had  raised.'"  In 
fact,  thougli  the  new  nation  are-  called  Jews,  the  distinction 
of  the  tribes  disappears  (except  in  their  pedigrees),  and  sub- 
sequent jealousies  are  religious  and  local,  as  those  against 
Samaria  and  Nazareth.  Those,  however,  who  undertook  the 
journey  Averc  doubtless  a  considerable  minority  of  the  cap- 
tives, Avho,  as  directed  by  Jeremiah,  had  settled  doAvn  quietly 
in  the  land  of  their  captivity,  built  houses,  and  planted  vine- 
yards.  Some  followed  at  a  later  period.  Others  remained 
behind,  forming  Avhat  was  called  the  "  Dispersion  :"  and  hoAV 
numerous  these  Avere  in  all  the  provinces  of  the  empire  avc 
^ee  in  the  Book  of  Esther. 

The  little  band  of  50,000,  so  fcAV  and  weak  in  comparison  ot 
the  host  that  crossed  the  Jordan  under  Joshua,  Avere  led  by 
Zerubbabel,  prince  of  Judah,  and  grandson  of  Jehoiachm, 
who  Avas  appointed  Tlrshatha,  or  governor  of  Judaea. ''    With 

8  Ezi-a  H.  G-t,  nr).  [Ten  Tribes  witli  tlic  retmned  Jews. 

*  Ezra  i.  5.   '  On  the  mixture  of  the  |  see  ohap.  xxiv.  §  10. 
"  Ezra  iii.  G3. 


630 


llie  Restored  Jewish  Nation.       Chap.  XXVIl. 


him  were  associated  the  high-priest  Jeshua,"  and  ten  of  the 
chief  elders.  We  have  no  record  of  the  journey ;  but  the 
Ixxxivth  Psalm  describes  the  triumph  of  their  pious  zeal  to 
behold  the  house  of  God  over  all  the  hardships  of  the  way^' 
After  visiting  their  desolate  cities,  they  assembled  in  the 
seventh  month  (Tisri  — Sept. -Oct.)  at  Jerusalem,  to  rebuild  the 
altar  and  offer  their  first  sacrifices  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles. 
Tlunigh  dreading  the  hostility  of  the  surrounding  nations, 
they  prepared  to  build  the  Temple,  hiring  masons  and  car- 
penters witli  the  money  they  had  brought,  and  preparing  pro- 
visions for  the  Tyrians  and  Sidonians,  who  had  been  com- 
manded by  Cyrus  to  bring  cedar-trees  from  Lebanon  by  sea 
to  Joppa,  as  Hiram  had  done  for  Solomon. ^^ 

In  the  second  month  of  the  following  year  (Jyar— Apr.-May, 
B.C.  535),  the  foundation  of  the  Temple  was  laid  Avith  great 
solemnities,  amid  the  sound  of  trumpets  and  the  chorus  of  the 
sons  of  Asaph,  "  praising  and  giving  thanks  unto  Jehovah,  be- 
cause he  is  good,  for  his  mercy  endureth  forever  toward 
Israel."  But  the  shouts  of  the  people  were  mingled  with 
the  v>'eeping  of  the  j^riests  and  elders  who  had  seen  tlie  glo- 
ry of  the  first  house,  so  that  the  cries  of  joy  could  hardly  be 
distinguished  from  those  of  sorrow.^* 

§  3.  The  work  was  not  long  permitted  to  proceed  in  quiet. 
The  descendants  of  the  Cutlisean  colonists  whom  Esar-haddon 
had  settled  in  Samaria,  and  whose  strange  mixture  of  idola- 
try with  the  worship  of  Jehovah  has  already  been  related, 
were  not  slow  to  claim  affinity  with  a  people  so  favored  by 
Cyrus.  Their  request  to  join  in  building  the  Temple  was 
indignantly  rejected  by  the  Jews,  who  regarded  them  as 
idolaters  and  "adversaries;"  and  they  used  all  their  efforts 
to  earn  the  latter  title.  By  hired  influence  at  the  court,  as 
Avell  as  by  their  opposition  on  the  spot,  the  building  of  the 
Temple  was  hindered  till  the  reign  of  Darius,  the  son  of  Ilys- 
taspes.  The  narrative  of  these  transactions  is  somewhat  per- 
plexed by  the  different  opinions  held  respecting  the  Persian 
kings  whose  names  are  mentioned  in  the  books  of  Ezra,  Es* 
ther,  and  Xehemiah.     The  followimr  table  exhibits  the  sue- 


"  It  is  remarkable  tliat  tlie  lii^li- 
|)viest,  tlic  sii])renie  authority  in  tlie  re- 
stored religious  conimonwealtli,  bore 
the  name  at  once  of  the  captain  who 
at  first  led  Israel  into  the  Holy  Land, 
and  of  the  Messiah  whose  type  he  is 
made  in  the  prophecies  of  Zechariah. 

"  Other  Psalms  which  seem  to  be- 


long to  this  period  are  Ixxxvii.,  cvii., 
cxi.,  cxii.,  cxiii.,  cxiv.,  cxvi.,  cxvii., 
cxxv.,  cxxvii.,  cxxviii.,  cxxxiv. 

"  Ezra  iii.  1-7. 

"  Ezra  iii.  8-13.  Though  it  was 
seventy  years  from  the  first  beginning 
of  the  Captivity,  it  was  only  fifty  since 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem. 


B.C.  529. 


Series  of  Persian  Kings. 


631 


cession  of  these  kings  by  their  ordinary  Greek  names,  with 
the  names  which  most  probably  correspond  to  them  in  Script- 
ure/* 

Beginning  of  each  reign,  B.C. 

1.  Ctaxaees,  king  of  Media OUl 

Ahasuerus:  Dan.  ix.  1. 

2.  AsTYAGES,  liis  son,  last  kiug  of  Media 594 

Darius  tha  Medc. 

3.  Cyrcs,  son  of  his  daughter  and  Cambyses,  a  Persian  uoble,  founder  of  tlie  Per- 

sian ICmpire 551 

Cjyus  begins  to  reiga  at  Babylon Jan!  5,  5S8 

4.  Camuvbes,  hi-i  son Jan.  3,  529 

A  hasiwrus :  Ezra  iv.  G.i^ 

5.  GoMATES,  a  Magian  usurper  (about  Jan.  1),  wlio  parsonated  Smcrdis,  the  younger 

son  of  Cyrus.     (Reigns  seven  months) 522 

A  rtaxerxes :  Ezra  iv.  7,  etc. 

6.  Darids,  the  son  of  Hystaspes.     A  Persian  noble,  r.aised  to  the  throne  on  the  over- 

throw of  Gomates Jan.  1,  521 

Darius:  Ezra  iv.  5,  24,  v.,  vi. 

7.  Xerxes,  hi.s  son Dec.  23,  483 

A  hasuerus :  Esther. 

8.  Aktaxerxes  LoNGiM.vNtr8,  hi^  son Dec.  7,  4G5 

Artaxerxzs:  Ezra  vii.,  Neliemiah End  of  liis  reign,  Dec.  17,  4-3 

The  subsequent  kings,  Xerxes  II.  (Sogdianus),  Darius  II. 
(Nothus),  Artaxerxes  II.  (Mnemon),  Artaxerxes  III.  (Ochus), 
and  Darius  III.  (Codomannus),  are  not  named  in  Scripture. 

Cyrus  does  not  seem  to  have  wavered  in  his  Jewish  poli- 
cy, but  his  wars  in  Asia  will  account  for  the  impediments 
permitted  to  delay  the  building  of  the  Temple  during  the  re- 
mainder of  his  reign. 

His  son,  Cambyses,  was  too  much  occupied  with  his  one 
great  enterprise  against  Egypt  to  take  any  notice  of  the  let- 
ter of  accusation  against  the  Jews  which  the  "  adversaries  " 
sent  to  him  at  the  beginning  of  his  reign,  b.c.  529." 

They  were  more  successful  with  the  usurper  Gomates,  to 
whom  they  artfully  suggested  a  search  in  the  records  of  the 
kingdom,  to  prove  that  Jerusalem  had  been  destroyed  for  its 
continual  rebellions.  The  answer  was  a  rescript  bidding  the 
work  to  cease,  armed  with  which,  the  officers  of  Samaria, 
Rehum,  Shimshai,  and  their  companions  went  up  to  Jerusa- 
lem, and  put  an  end  for  the  time  to  the  building  of  the  Tem- 
ple, B.C.  522.'^ 

The  restoration  of  order  under  Darius,  the  son  of  Hystas- 


*^  The  dates  of  those  of  Clinton,  F. 
/T.,  vol.ii.  312. 

"  The  id'Mitific.ations  of  this  Ahas- 
uerus with  Xerxes  or  Artaxerxes  Lon- 
gimanus,  besides  other  objections,  in- 
volve most  violent  transpositions ;  and 
the  same  remark  applies  to  the  iden- 
tification of  Artaxerxes  in  Ezra  iv.  7 
with  Longimanns. 


"  E.^ra  iv.  G.  Cambyses,  who  was 
named  after  his  grandfather,  would 
naturally  assume  the  royal  name  of 
Axares  or  Cyaxares  (Ahasuerus),  and 
we  have  independent  evidence  that  ho 
bore  that  name  (Xenophon,  Cyrop, 
vjii.). 

^"  Ezra  iv.  7-24. 


632  The  Restored  Jewish  Nation.       Chap.  XXVII. 

pes,  was  the  signal  for  new  hopes  and  efforts.  In  the  second 
year  of  his  reign  (b.c.  520),  the  prophets  Haggai  and  Zecha- 
RiAH,  the  son  of  Iddo,  commenced  the  exhortations  and  prom- 
ises, mingled  with  reproofs  and  warnings,  which  we  read  in 
their  books. '^  The  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  was  resumed 
by  Zerubbabel  and  Jeshua,  who  appear  in  the  prophecies  of 
Zechariah  as  types  of  the  great  Prince  and  Priest  of  the  ap- 
proaching reign  of  holiness.  They  had  to  deal,  not  with  ma- 
lignant adversaries,  but  with  the  just  authorities  of  a  settled 
government.  Being  called  to  account  for  their  conduct  by 
Tatnai,  the  Persian  governor  west  of  the  Euphrates,  they  ap- 
pealed to  the  edict  of  Cyrus,  which  was  found  among  the 
records  at  Ecbatana,  and  the  discovery  brought  a  new  edict 
from  Darius,  not  only  permitting  the  work,  but  bidding  his 
officers  to  aid  them  with  supplies,  and  threatening  all  who 
hindered  them  with  the  severest  j^enalties.  So  tlie  work 
went  on  and  prospered,  under  the  constant  encouragement 
of  the  prophets  Haggai  and  Zechariah ;  and  the  house  was 
finished  on  the  third  of  the  twelfth  month  (Adar= Feb. -March) 
in  the  sixth  year  of  Darius  (b.c.  515),  twenty-one  years  after 
its  commencement. 

The  Feast  of  Dedication  was  kept  with  great  joy.  Besides 
the  700  victims  offered  for  a  burnt-offering,  twelve  goats 
were  offered  for  a  sin-offering  "/or  all  Israel,''^  one  for  each 
tribe — a  decisive  proof  that  the  returned  "  children  of  the 
captivity  "  regarded  themselves  as  the  representatives  of  all 
Israel.  The  courses  of  the  priests  and  Lcvites  were  set  in 
order,  according  to  the  law  of  Moses  and  tlie  institutions  of 
David.  It  was  found  that  only  four  of  the  original  courses 
of  priests  were  represented ;  but,  by  the  division  of  each 
into  six,  the  number  of  twenty-four  was  restored,  and  the  old 
names  were  adopted.  The  solemnities  were  concluded  by 
the  keeping  of  the  Passover  on  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  first 
month  and  of  the  seven  days  of  the  unleavened  bread." 

§  4.  In  B.C.  48G  Darius  was  succeeded  by  Xerxes,  whose 
repulse  from  Greece  fills  so  memorable  a  page  in  the  history 
of  Europe,  but  whose  place  in  the  annals  of  the  Jews  depends 
on  his  identification  with  the  Ahasuerus  of  the  Book  of  Es- 
ther. The  story  of  the  offense  given  to  the  king  by  the 
haughty  Queen  Yashti,  which  led  to  her  divorce,  and  to  ,the 

^  The  reproofs  of  Haggai  for  the!      -°  Ezra  vi.     The  following  Psalms 
people's  slowness  in  building  the  house  are  supposed  to  refer  to  the  dcdioa- 
of  God,  while  making  haste  to  build ition   of  the  second  temple:    xlviii., 
their  own,  areamongthe  most  impress-  Ixxxi.,  and  cxlvi.-cl. 
ive  passages  of  the  Hebrew  prophets,  j 


B.C.  4:86.  Accession  of  Xerxes.  633 

choice  of  the  Jewess,  Hadassah,  or  Esther/*  as  liis  consort, 
four  years  afterward;  the  spite  of  Haman  the  Agagite,  be- 
cause Mordecai,  the  guardian  of  Esther,  refused  to  do  him  rev- 
erence, and  his  plot  to  destroy  all  the  Jews  throughout  the 
127  provinces  of  the  empire  on  one  day  ;  the  self-devotion  of 
Esther  for  her  people  ;  the  rewards  heaped  on  Mordecai  for 
his  ancient  services  to  the  kingdom,  and  the  hanging  of  Ha- 
man on  the  gallows  he  had  built  for  the  hated  Jews;^the  per- 
mission to  the  Jews  to  defend  themselves,  and  the  consequent 
slaughter  of  75,000  of  their  enemies  on  the  thirteenth  of  Adar 
(Feb.-March),  besides  800  slain  at  the  palace  of  Shushan 
(Susa)  on  that  and  the  following  day ;  and  the  appointment 
of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  of  Adar,  on  which  they  rested 
from  slayino-  their  enemies,  for  the  great  Feast  of  JAirim  r' 
all  these  incidents  are  familiar  to  us  in  the  beautiful  narra- 
tive of  the  Book  of  Esther ;  and  no  scene  of  Scripture  his- 
tory is  more  often  applied  to  a  spiritual  use,  than  her  bold 
venture  into  the  presence  of  the  "  king  of  kings,""  and  his 
reaching  out  to  her  the  golden  sceptre  as  the  sign  of  grace 
(B.C.  474). 

^A  natural  reluctance  to  identify  this  noble  woman  w^ith 
Xerxes's  cruel  wife  Amestris,  whose  name  bears  some  resem- 
blance to  Esther,  is  the  chief  objection  to  the  identification 
of  Ahasuerus  with  Xerxes.  But  the  former  hypothesis  is 
quite  unfounded,  as  will  presently  appear.  The  description 
of  the  Persian  Empire  as  containing  127  provinces,  and  reach- 
ing from  India  to  Ethiopia,^*  can  apply  to  no  reign  before 
that  of  Darius,  the  son  of  Hystaspes,  who  is  therefore  taken 
by  Ussher  and  others  for  Ahasuerus.  But  Darius  is  a  genu- 
ine royal  name,  as  distinct  from  Ahasuerus  as  his  character  is 
from  the  capricious  tyrant  of  the  Book  of  Esther,  and  liis 
two  wives  were  the  daughters  of  Cyrus  and  Otanes.  Others 
fix  on  Artaxerxes  Mnemon,  whose  name  is,  like  Xerxes,  the 
equivalent  of  Ahasuerus.  But  this  hypothesis  is  negatived 
by  the  relations  of  Artaxerxes  to  the  Jews,  to  whom  he  is- 
sues a  favorable  decree  in  the  seventh  year  of  his  reign, 
while  Ahasuerus,  in  his  twelfth  year,  is  so  ignorant  of  the 
character  of  the  nation  as  to  be  imposed  upon  by  the  calum- 
nies of  Haman  ;  nor  does  the  character  of  the  latter  agree  with 


'^  Esther  U  tlic  Persian  name  which 
was  given  to  her,  derived  froqi  the 
planet  Venus. 

22  That  is.  Feast  of  Lois,  from  the 

lots  cast  by  Haman  when  he  was  plan-   ,  , ,  ._ 

ningthedestructionof  the  Jews (Esth.  !      "4  Ks^h.  i.  ]^  viii.  0,  ix.  30. 
D  D  2 


iii.  7,  ix.  24).     For  an  account  of  ihia 
feast,  see  p.  2G9. 

2^  Such  is  the  proud  title  of  the  Per- 
sian monarchs  on  their  own  inscrip- 
tions ;  that,  for  instance,  of  Behistnu 


634  Tlie  Restored  Jewish  Nation.       Chap.  XXVII. 

that  of  Artaxerxes.  Any  later  king  is  out  of  the  question. 
Being  thus  brought  back  to  Xerxes,  whose  name  is  the  Greek 
form  of  Ahasuerus,  it  only  remains  to  compare  the  dates  of 
the  Book  of  Esther  Avith  the  history  of  his  reign,  the  leading 
events  of  which  are,  his  accession  in  B.C.  486  (Dec.  23),^^  his 
expedition  to  Greece  in  liis  sixth  year,  b.c.  480,  and  his  death 
at  the  end  of  his  twenty-first  year,  b.c.  465  (Dec.  17).^°  Now 
the  great  feast  of  Ahasuerus,  at  which  Yashti  refused  to  ap- 
pear, was  in  the  third  year  of  his  reign,  b.c.  483,"  the  very 
year  in  which  Xerxes  held  a  great  assembly  to  arrange  the 
Grecian  war,  and  his  marriage  with  Esther  was  in  his  seventh 
year,  b.c.  479,^®  the  year  after  the  expedition  to  Greece,  when 
Xerxes  might  naturally  seek  in  his  harem  some  consolation 
for  his  repulse.  But  Amestris,  who  was  the  daughter  of 
Otanes,  the  uncle  of  Xerxes,  had  been  his  wife  long  before 
the  expedition  to  Greece,  in  which  her  sons  were  old  enough 
to  accompany  him,  and  the  eldest  of  them,  Darius,  married 
at  the  very  time  of  his  fxther's  marriage  to  Esther."  For  all 
these  reasons  Esther  can  not  be  Amestris  ;  and,  considering 
the  polygamy  of  the  Persian  kings,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
Herodotus  should  mention  only  two  of  the  wives  of  Xerxes, 
and  the  Book  of  Esther  two  others.  The  affaii-s  of  Xerxes 
afler  his  flight  from  Greece  are  only  noticed  by  the  Greek 
historians  as  they  aftect  the  Hellenic  race.^° 

§  5.  These  events  at  the  court,  and  the  elevation  of  Mor- 
decai  to  the  post  of  prime  minister,  must  have  had  a  favora- 
ble influence  on  tlie  affairs  of  the  restored  Jews  ;  but  we  have 
no  further  details  of  their  history  till  Ezra  appears  upon  the 
scene,  in  the  seventh  year  of  Artaxerxes  I.  (Longimanus),  b.c. 
458.  Ezra  occupies  a  place  toAvard  the  end  of  the  history  of 
the  Old  Covenant,  resembling  in  many  respects  that  of  Moses 
at  the  beginning.  He  was  a  priest  descended  from  the  line 
of  the  later  high-priests.  His  father  Seraiah^^  was  the  grand- 
son of  Hilkiah,  high-priest  in  the  reign  of  Josiah.  Ezra  was 
especially  distinguished  for  his  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures, 
"  a  ready  scribe  in  the  law  of  Moses."^^  Living  at  Babylon, 
he  gained  the  favor  of  Artaxerxes,  and  obtained  from  him  a 
commission  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem.     The  restored  Jews  had 

"Clinton,  F.  //.,  vol.  ii.  p.  312.  |  Grecian  war  would  very  well  account 
Hence  b.c.  485  is  his  first  year.  I  for  the  tribute  which  Ahasuerus  laid 


*=  Clinton,  /.  c. 

'"''  Y.si\\.  i.  3;  Herod,  vii.  7,  foil, 

'^"Esth.  ii.  IG. 

'"Herod,  vii.  31,  69,82. 

*°  The  expenditure  caused  by  tlie 


"upon  the  land  and  the  isles  of  ihe 
sea  "  (Esth.  x.  1 ). 

^*  He  must  be  distinguished  from 
Seraiah,  who  was  high-priest  when 
Jerusalem  was  destroyed. 


^^  Ezra  vii.  1-6. 


B.C.  458. 


Commission  of  Ezra. 


685 


already  fallen  into  great  declension,  and  Ezra's  study  in  God's 
law  had  stirred  biin  up  to  a  work  of  reformation  ;  "  For  Ezra 
had  prepared  his  heart  to  seek  the  law  of  Jehovah,  and  to 
do  it,  and  to  teach  in  Israel  statutes  and  judgments. "^^  Every 
step  he  takes  is  marked  by  some  devout  acknowledgment 
of  the  help  of  God  "  according  to  the  good  hand  of  his  God 
upon  him."^* 

The  king's  commission  invited  all  the  Israelites  and  priests 
and  Levites  in  the  whole  empire  who  so  wished  to  go  with 
Ezra,  who  was  sent  by  the  king  and  his  seven  councilors  to 
inquire  concerning  Judah  and  Jerusalem ;  bearing  offerings 
from  the  king  and  his  councilors  and  freewill-offerings  from 
the  people,  to  buy  sacrifices  and  to  decorate  the  Temple,  be- 
sides vessels  for  its  service.  All  the  treasures  beyond  the 
Euphrates  were  commanded  to  supply  his  wants,  and  the 
priests  and  ministers  of  the  temple  were  exempted  from  tax- 
ation. Ezra  was  commanded  to  appoint  and  instruct  magis- 
trates and  judges  over  the  people  beyond  the  river,  with  au- 
thority to  punish,  even  to  death,  all  who  broke  the  law  of 
God  and  the  king.^^ 

Ezra  set  out  from  Babylon  with  his  companions,  to  the  num- 
ber of  six  thousand,  including  many  children,  on  the  first  day 
of  the  first  month  (end  of  March,  b.c.  458).  The  journey  oc- 
cupied exactly  four  months,  including  a  halt  for  three  days 
at  Ahava,^°  where  he  collected  his  caravan,  and  obtained  an 
accession  of  two  hundred  and  twenty  Nethinim  from  Iddo, 
the  chief  of  the  Levites  at  Casiphia.  Ashamed  to  ask  a  guard 
from  the  king,  whom  he  had  assured  of  God's  power  to  pro- 
tect them,  Ezra  kept  a  fast  at  Ahava  to  pray  for  a  prosperous 
journey  ;  and  this  second  caravan  arrived  safe  at  Jerusalem 
on  the  first  day  of  the  fifth  month  (end  of  July,  b.c.  458). 
After  resting  three  days  the  treasure  and  vessels  were  deliv- 
ered to  the  priests,  burnt  sacrifices  were  ofiered  by  the  re- 
turned exiles,  and  the  king's  commissions  were  delivered  to 
all  the  satraps  west  of  the  Euphrates." 

On  applying  himself  to  the  work  of  reformation,  Ezra  found 
the  people  already  infected  with  the  evil  that  had  proved  the 
root  of  all  former  mischief,  intermarriage  with  the  idolatrous 
nations  around  them.     His  first  care  was  to  impress  them 


"Ezra  vii.  10. 
^Ezrav   ii.  G,  9, 


!7,  28,  viii.   22, 


^^  Ezra  vii.  Tlie  terms  of  this  de- 
cree, advised  no  doubt  by  Ezra  him- 
self, seem  to  contemplate  a  religious 


jurisdiction  as  v»ide  as  the  kingdom 
of  David  and  Solomon. 

^'^  Probably  the  modern  Hit,  on  the 
Euphrates,  east  of  Damascus  (Raw- 
linson,  Herodotus,  vol.  i.  p.  316,  note). 
Casiphia  is  unknown.         ^'  Ezra  viii. 


036  The  Restored  Jewish  Nation.       Chap.  XXVIt 

with  the  enormity  of  the  sin.  The  example  of  his  public 
mourning  and  prayer  led  some  of  the  chief  persons  to  come 
forward,  and  at  their  suggestion  the  whole  people  were  sum- 
moned to  Jerusalem  on  penalty  of  forfeiture  and  expulsion 
iVom  the  congregation.  They  assembled  on  the  twentieth 
day  of  the  ninth  month  (December,  b.c.  458)  amid  a  storm  of 
rain,  and,  having  confessed  their  sin,  they  proceeded  to  the 
remedy  with  order  and  deliberation.  All  the  strange  wives 
were  put  away,  including  even  those  who  had  borne  chil- 
dren, by  the  beginning  of  tlie  new  year  (end  of  March,  b.c. 
457).^®  At  this  point  the  account  of  Ezra's  proceedings  ends 
abruptly  with  the  book  that  bears  his  name,  and  he  docs 
not  appear  again  till  thirteen  years  later,  as  the  associate  of 
Nehemiah.^^  To  the  period  of  Ezra's  reform  should  proba- 
bly be  referred  the  later  prophecies  of  Zechariah,  Avhicli  relate 
to  the  declension,  rejection,  and  ultimate  restoration  of  the 
Jews,  and  to  the  glories  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ." 

§  6.  In  the  twentieth  year  of  Artaxerxes  (b.c.  445)  griev- 
ous tidings  from  Jerusalem  reached  the  royal  winter  resi- 
dence at  Shushan.  Whether  Ezra  had  returned  after  execu- 
ting his  commission,  or  whether  the  instability  of  the  Jews 
and  the  malice  of  their  enemies  had  been  too  much  for  him, 
things  were  in  a  worse  state  than  at  any  time  since  the  Cap- 
tivity. The  people  of  Judaea  were  in  affliction  and  reproach, 
the  wall  of  Jerusalem  was  still  broken  down  and  the  gates 
burned,  as  they  had  been  left  by  Nebuchadnezzar.  This 
news  was  brought  by  Hanani  and  other  Jews  of  Judaea  to  Xe- 
HEMiAH,  the  son  of  Hachaliah,  who  appears  to  have  belonged 
to  the  tribe  of  Judah,  and  who  held  the  office  of  cup-bearer  to 
Artaxerxes.  Overwhelmed  with  the  tidings,  he  fasted,  and 
prayed  God  to  incline  the  khig's  heart  to  grant  his  desire  to 
help  his  brethren."'  At  the  end  of  four  months  (Chisleu  to 
Nisan,  November  to  March,  B.C.  444)  an  opportunity  offered 
itself,  on  the  king's  observing  his  cup-bearer's  sadness.  Ne- 
hemiah  explained  its  cause,  and  obtained  leave  of  absence  for  a 
fixed  time,  with  letters  to  the  governors  west  of  Euphrates  to 
aid  his  journey,  and  to  Asaph, T:he  keeper  of  the  king's  forest, 
to  supply  liimwith  timber.  Already,  before  his  arrival  at  Je- 
rusalem, he  became  aware  of  the  hostility  of  Sanballat  the 
Horonite,  and  Tobiah  the  Ammonite,  but  he  only  resolved  to 
do  his  work  with  the  greater  speed.  After  the  usual  three 
days  of  rest  or  purification  he  took  a  private  view  of  the  city 

^^  Ezra  ix.,  x.  I  '°  Zoch.  ix.-xiv. 

3^  B.C.  444:  Nch.  viii.  1.  I  ''  Neh.  i. 


B.C.  444.  Nehemialis  Reformation.  637 

by  night,  and  then  summoned  the  rulers  to  the  work."  Led 
on  by  the  high-priest  Eliashib,  all  of  them,  except  the  nobles 
of  the  Tekoites,  labored  heart  and  hand  at  their  regularly  ap- 
pointed stations.  The  wall  soon  lose,  and  the  gateways  were 
rebuilt."  ^     ' 

But  now  Sanballat  and  Tobiah,  who  had  at  first  scorned  the 
idea  of  the  feeble  Jews  fortifying  their  city,  and  liad  mocked 
at  their  wall  as  too  weak  for  a  fence  against  jackals,  became 
seriously  alarmed.  A  conspiracy  Avas  formed  of  the  Arabians 
and  Ammonites  and  the  Philistines  of  Ashdod,  for  an  attack 
upon  Jerusalem  before  the  fortification  was  complete.  Warn- 
ed by  the  Jews  who  dwelt  among  them,  Nehemiah  called 
the  people  to  arms  behind  the  halt-finished  bulwarks.  This 
attitude  of  resistance  disconcerted  the  plot ;  but  henceforth 
half  of  the  people  remained  under  arms,  while  the  other  half 
labored  at  the  work,  girded  with  their  swords.  Nehemiah 
kept  a  trumpeter  always  by  his  side  to  sound  tlie  alarm,  and 
neither  he  nor  his  guard  put  oft'  their  clothes  except  for  wash- 
ing."* 

Amid  all  this  anxiety,  he  found  time  for  internal  reform, 
The  unsettled  state  of  the  nation,  and  the  pressure  of  the 
king's  tribute,  had  reduced  the  poorer  citizens  to  destitution. 
They  had  mortgaged  their  lands  and  vineyards  to  their  breth- 
ren, who  moreover  exacted  usury  from  them  contrary  to 
the  law,  and  many  of  them  were  sinking,  with  their  families, 
into  slavery  through  their  debts.  In  a  solemn  assembly  Ne- 
hemiah rebuked  the  unmerciful  creditors  and  usurers,  and 
bound  them  by  an  oath  to  release  the  persons  and  lands  of 
their  debtors.  He  himself  set  the  example  of  disinterested' 
ness  ;  keeping  a  table  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  Jews,  be- 
sides any  who  returned  from  exile  from  time  to  time,  and  yet 
declining  to  draw  the  allowance  which  had  been  paid  to  pre- 
vious governors,  during  the  whole  twelve  years  of  his  rule  (b.c. 
445-433)."' 

When  Sanballat,  Tobiah,  and  Geshem  saw  that  the  walls 
were  finished,  the  breaches  repaired,  and  that  only  the  gates 
remained  to  be  hung,  they  began  new  plots.  Unhappily  they 
were  aided  by  a  party  ot*  the  nobles  of  Judah,  turbulent  and 
rebellious  as  ever,  with  whom  Tobiah  and  his  son  Johanan 
were  connected  by  family  alliances.  Their  scheme  was  to 
frighten  Nehemiah  with  a  charge  of  suspected  treason.  Hav- 
ing failed  to  entrap  him  by  the  proposal  of  a  conference,  they 
wrote  te  him  four  times,  and  the  fifth  time  they  sent  an  open 

*""  Xeli.  ii.  "  Neh.  iii.  *'  Neh.  iv.         •         *'  Neh.  v. 


638  Tlie  Restored  Jewish  Kation.       Chap.  xxvn. 

letter,  that  the  charge  miglit  be  made  public,  declaring  that 
it  was  rej^orted  among  the  heathen  nations  round  about  that 
the  Jews  intended  to  rebel,  and  that  Xehemiah  was  fortify- 
ing the  city  witli  the  intention  of  making  himself  king.  They 
charged  him  with  appointing  prophets  to  preach  the  news, 
"There  is  a  king  in  Judah,"  and  threatened  to  report  the 
whole  matter  to  the  king  unless  Nehemiah  would  grant  them 
a  conference.  The  prophet  Shemaiah  was  hired  to  frighten 
Nehemiah  into  a  step  for  his  own  protection,  which  would 
have  amounted  to  an  act  of  treason.  He  contented  himself 
with  an  indignant  denial  of  the  charge  made  in  the  letters, 
and  with  appealing  to  the  judgment  of  God  against  Shemaiah, 
the  pro])hetess  Koadiah,  and  the  others  who  tried  to  fright- 
en him." 

The  walls  being  finished  and  the  gates  hung,  and  the  j^or- 
ters  and  singers  and  Levites  appointed  to  their  stations,  Ne- 
hemiah  committed  the  charge  of  the  city  to  his  brother  Ha- 
nani  and  to  Hananiah,  the  ruler  of  the  palace.  The  gates 
were  kept  barred  till  the  sun  was  hot,  and  the  people  were 
arranged  in  watches.  Such  care  was  the  more  needful,  as 
the  city  Ava&  still  much  too  large  for  its  inhabitants,  and  few 
houses  were  yet  built.  By  the  seventh  month  (Tisri= Sep- 
tember-October, B.C.  444),  that  is,  the  beginning  of  the  civil 
new  year,  the  people  were  settled  in  their  city,  and  Nehe- 
miah  had  completed  the  register  of  their  genealogies." 

The  ensuing  month,  the  one  especially  allotted  by  Moses  to 
joyful  religious  celebrations,  was  celebrated  as  an  inaugura- 
tion of  the  people  into  their  new  life.  If  not  according  to  the 
calendar  "  the  year  of  release,"  in  which  the  law  was  to  be 
read  before  all  the  people,  it  well  deserved  that  title  in  their 

^^  Lord  Arthur  Ilervey,  who  follows  ,  ishcJ  in  fifty-two  days,  on  the  25th  of 
Prideaux  and  Townsend  in  consider-  |  Elul  (Sept.  B.C.  444).  As  to  the  ques- 
ing  the  Artaxerxes  of  Ezra  iv.  7  as  '  tion  which  is  mixed  up  with  this,  of 
ArtaxerxesLongimanus,  connects  the  Nehemiah's  return  to  Persia,  and  his 
interruption  of  the  building,  related  second  commission  to  Jerusalem,  at  a 
in  Ezra  iv.  7-23,  with  the  plot  of  point  between  chap.  vi.  and  vii.  (or 
Sanballat  and  Tobiah,  on  the  ground  ^  rather,  as  Townsend  places  it,  between 

vii.  4,  and  vii.  5),  there  seems  no  clear 
proof  that  Nehemiah  left  Judeea  til! 
the  close  of  the  twelve  years  which  he 
himself  names  as  the  duration  of  his 
commission  (comp.  v.  14  and  xiii.  6), 
notwithstanding  the  contrary  infer- 
ence which  might  be  drawn  from 
chap.  ii.  6.  The  time  may  have  been 
lengthened  at  Nehemiah's  request. 
^^  Neh.  vii,  ;  comp.  Ezra  ii. 


that  the  walls  ai'e  especiallv  mention- 
ed {Bib.  Diet.  art.  Ezra).  But  be- 
sides tlie  general  objection,  already 
taken,  to  the  trans])osition  of  the  pas- 
sage, it  seems  incredible  that  Nehe- 
miah should  not  have  mentioned  the 
appeal  to  the  king,  and  the  conse- 
quent cessation  of  the  works.  On  the 
contrary,  he  speaks  of  the  opposition 
as  unsuccessful,  and  the  wall  as  fin- 


B.C.UL  Ezra  reads  the  Law.  689 

annals.  Now,  for  the  first  time  since  the  decree  of  Cyrus 
for  their  return,  they  could  meet  to  worship  God  under  the 
protection  of  their  ramparts,  with  their  new  liberties,  nay, 
their  very  existence  as  a  nation,  no  longer  at  the  mercy  of  their 
inveterate  enemies.  On  the  first  day  of  the  month  the  peo- 
ple were  gathered  as  one  man  in  the  street  before  the  water- 
gate,  and  Ezra  again  appears  among  them.  At  their  desire 
he  produced  the  J3ook  of  the  Laii\  and  having  opened  it  amid 
marks  of  the  deepest  reverence  from  all  tlie  people,  he  read 
it  to  an  audience  wrapped  in  attention  from  morning  to  mid- 
day. The  manner  of  reading  was  this  :  Ezra  stood  on  a  pul- 
pit,*® with  six  Scribes  ov  Levites  on  his  right  hand  and  seven 
on  his  left,  who  seem  to  have  relieved  him  in  the  reading; 
for  it  is  said,  "  tliey  read  in  the  book  in  the  law  of  God  distinct- 

The  people  stood  in  their  ranks  in  front  of  the  pulpit ;  and 
among  them  were  thirteen  other  ministers,  who,  with  the  as- 
sistance of  the  Levites,  "caused  the  people  to  understand  the 
law."  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  phrase  refers  to  a 
translation  of  what  Ezra  read  in  Hebrew  into  the  mixed 
Chaldee  dialect,  which  had  become  the  vernacular  tongue 
during  the  Captivity.  The  book  Avhich  was  thus  read  was 
probably  not  merely  the  Pentateuch,  but  the  whole  body  of 
sacred  writings,  which  had  been  collected  into  one  volume 
by  the  care  of  Ezra,  the  first  great  Scribe,  and  which  formed 
in  substance  what  we  call  the  Book  of  the  Old  Covenant.^" 

The  reading  produced  an  impression  like  that  made  on 
Josiah.  All  the  people  wept  at  what  they  heard  ;  not  only, 
we  may  well  believe,  with  regret  at  the  past  glories  of  their 
nation,  but  at  the  recital  of  the  sins  for  which  that  glory  had 
departed,  not  unmixed  with  a  penitent  consciousness  of  their 
own  guilt.  But  Nehemiah  (who  is  now  first  mentioned  in 
the  transaction),  supported  by  Ezra  and  the  Levites,  bade 
them  cease  their  sorrow,  and  go  home  to  "  eat  the  fat,  and 
drink  the  sweet,  and  send  portions  to  those  for  whom  noth- 
ing was  prepared,  for  the  day  was  holy  to  Jehovah."  The 
people  went  away  to  make  great  mirth,  because  they  under- 
stood the  words  that  were  declared  unto  them.  When  the 
reading  Avas  resumed  on  the  following  day,  they  came  to  the 
institution  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  in  this  very  month  of 
Tisri.  Their  excited  minds  caught  the  signal  for  fresh  re- 
joicing in  Jehovah.     They  went  forth  into  the  mount  to  fetct 

*®  Heb.     A  towev  of  wood .  |  recitative,  in  which   tlie  thirteen  nc 

■'^  Neh.    viii.    1-8:    the   last   word !  companied  Ezra. 
se«ras  to  include  the  idea  of  a  choral  I      ^'^  Or,  erroneouslv,  Testament. 


640  The  Restored  Jewish  Nation.       Chap.  XXVII. 

branches  of  olive,  and  pine,  and  myrtle,  and  palm,  and  thick 
trees,  and  made  booths  on  the  roofs  and  in  the  courts  of  their 
houses,  in  the  Temple  court  and  along  the  streets  to  the  city 
o-ates.  Such  a  Feast  of  Tabernacles  had  not  been  kept  since 
The  days  of  Joshua.  The  reading  of  the  law  was  continued 
for  all  the  seven  days  of  the  feast,  and  the  eighth  was  a  sol- 
emn assembly,  as  Moses  had  commanded/' 

After  the  burst  of  joy  for  God's  mercy  in  restoring  them, 
they  turned  to  the  solemn  duty  of  humiliation  and  repentance 
for  their  sins.  The  Day  of  Atonement  ought  to  have  been 
kept  on  the  tenth  of  this  month."  It  liad  probably  been 
passed  over,  as  requiring  more  solemn  preparation  and  a  more 
orderly  arrangement  of  the  Temple-service  than  v>^as  yet  pos- 
sible. In  its  place  a  fast  was  held  two  days  after  the  Feast 
of  Tabernacles,  on  the  24th  day  of  Tisri.  All  who  were  of 
the  seed  of  Israel,  carefully  separating  themselves  from  the 
strangers,  appeared  in  the"^  deepest  mourning,  clad  in  sack- 
cloth, and  with  earth  upon  their  heads.  The  day  seems  to 
have  been  divided  into  four  equal  parts,  only  broken  by  the 
intervals  necessary  for  refreshment.  The  first  three  hours 
were  devoted  to  the  reading  of  the  law.  The  morning  sac- 
rifice fitly  introduced  the  second  quarter,  Avhich  was  spent  in 
silent  confession  and  prayer.  Wlien  the  hour  of  noon  was 
past,  the  Levites,  arranged  on  the  steps  of  the  Temple  porch, 
or  on  a  scafi'old  erected  for  the  purpose,  called  upon  the  people 
to  stand  up  and  bless  Jehovah.  Then  in  a  solemn  hymn,  the 
epitome  of  which  is  a  fit  model  for  all  such  services,  they  re- 
cited God's  mercies  from  the  first  call  of  Abram  ;  they  con- 
fessed the  sins  of  their  forefathers,  and  God's  forbearance  in 
punishing  without  utterly  consuming  them  :  and  they  ac- 
knowledged his  justice  in  their  present  state  of  humiliation 
and  great  distress,  as  servants  to  the  kings  set  over  them 
for  their  sins,  to  whom  their  land  yielded  its  increase,  and 
who  had  dominion  over  their  bodies  and  cattle  at  their  pleas- 
ure. Submissive  to  God's  will,  they  ended  by  making  a  new 
covenant  with  Him  ;  and  before  the  sun  set,  it  Avas  recorded 
in  writing,  and  sealed  by  the  princes,  priests,  and  Levites, 
whose  names  are  recorded  by  Nehemiah,  while  the  rest  of 
the  people  bound  themselves  by  a  curse  and  an  oath  to  walk 
in  the  law  which  God  had  given  by  Moses.  The  chief  points 
of  this  covenant  were :  To  make  no  intermarriages  Vv^ith  the 
heathen ;  to  abstain  from  traftic  on  the  Sabbath,  and  to  keep 
the  sabbatic  year,  with  its  release  of  all  debts;  to  pay  a  year- 

^'Neh.  viil  "Lev.  xxiii.  2G. 


B.C. 444. 


Peoipling  of  Jerusalem. 


641 


ly  tax  of  a  third  of  a  shekel  for  the  services  of  the  sanctuary, 
which  are  carefully  enumerated ;  to  oifer  the  first-fruits  and 
first-born,  and  the  tithes  due  to  the  Levites  and  the  priests  ; 
and,  in  one  final  word,  "  We  will  not  forsake  the  house  of  our 
God.""  To  most  points  of  this  covenant  they  remained  faith- 
ful in  the  letter.  The  sins  of  the  Jewish  nation  took  hence- 
forth a  direction  altogether  difterent  from  the  open  rebellion 
and  apostasy,  of  their  fathers.  The  more  scrupulous  their  ob- 
servance of  the  law,  the  more  did  they  make  it  void  by  their 
traditions  and  pervert  it  to  serve  their  selfishness. 

Before  the  people  departed  to  their  homes,  it  was  necessa- 
ry to  decide  who  of  them  should  fix  their  abode  at  Jerusa- 
lem, which  would  have  been  left  almost  without  inhabitants, 
had  all  taken  up  their  residence  on  their  old  family  allotments 
about  the  several  cities  and  villages.  It  is  a  striking  proof 
of  the  attachment  of  the  Jews  to  their  j^atrimonial  posses- 
sions, that  the  safer  residence  behind  the  Avails  of  Jerusalem 
should  not  have  been  the  object  of  competition.  But  it  was 
regarded  as  a  sacrifice  to  live  there ;  "And  the  people  bless- 
ed all  the  men  that  willingly  oftered  themselves  to  dwell  at 
Jerusalem.  The  rulers  took  up  their  abode  in  the  capital : 
and  for  the  rest  every  tenth  man  Avas  chosen  by  lot  to  live 
there."'*  The  language  of  jSTehemiah  would  almost  seem  to 
imply  that  those  of  the  people  Avho  belonged  to  Israel  (the 
Ten  Tribes)  had  their  possessions  assigned  in  the  cities  of 
Judah,  and  that  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  were  taken  from 
the  tribes  of  Judah  and  Benjamin.  The  priests  and  Levites 
were  divided  in  due  proportions  betvreeu  the  city  and  the 
country.^" 

On  the  completion  of  all  these  arrangements  a  great  festi- 
val was  held  for  the  Dedication  of  the  Wall  of  Jerusalem. 
The  priests  and  Levites,  called  together  from  all  the  cities  of 
Judah,  purified  the  walls  and  the  people.  The  rulers  were 
divided  into  two  parts,  which  went  round  the  walls  in  pro- 
cession to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  the  one  headed  by  Ezra 
and  the  other  by  Nehemiah,  each  with  liis  train  of  priests 
and  Levites,  blowing  the  trumpets  and  singing  thanks  to  God. 
The  day  was  crowned  with  great  sacrifices,  and  their  shouts 
of  joy  sounded  from  the  rock  of  Zion  far  and  wide  over  the 
hills  of  Judah.^"     The  only  remaining  records  of  Nehemiah's 


Nell.  xi.  1,  2. 


"  Nell,  ix.,  X.  '' 

^'Neh.  xi.,  xii.  ]-2G. 

"  Neh.  xii.  27-43.  Townsend  as- 
snmos  this  festival  to  have  been  held 
imiDcdiately  ;;frer  tlio  completion  of 


the  wall ;  but  ver.  27  proves  that  it 
was  after  the  Levites  had  been  dis- 
tributed over  the  country,  from  whieh 
they  had  to  be  bro'.iglu  togethe? 
agnin. 


642  The  Restored  Jewish  Nation.       Chap.  XXVII. 

twelve  years'  government  relate  to  the  provision  made  for 
the  priests  and  Levites  and  singers,"  and  the  separation  of 
the  Ammonites  and  Moabites  from  the  congregation,  accord' 
ing  to  the  sentence  pronounced  on  them  by  Moses  *^ — another 
indication  of  the  reconstitution  of  the  Church  of  Jehovah. 

§  7.  In  the  thirty-second  year  of  Artaxerxes  Longimanus, 
B.C.  433,  Nehemiah  returned  to  the  Persian  court.  After  an 
interval,  of  what  length  we  know  not,^^  he  obtained  the  king's 
permission  to  go  and  visit  Jerusalem  again,  in  order  to  reform 
serious  abuses  which  had  grown  up  through  the  weakness  of 
the  high-j>riest  Eliashib  and  the  rapacity  of  the  princes.  The 
former  had  not  only  yielded  ihe  claims  of  Tobiah,  Avhich  iSTe- 
hemiah  had  so  firmly  resisted,  while  his  grandson  had  mar- 
ried a  daughter  of  the  other  adversary,  Sanballat,^"  but  Eli- 
ashib had  also  prepared  for  Tobiah  a  large  chamber  in  the 
court  of  the  Temple,  which  had  been  used  as  a  store-house 
for  the  sacred  vessels,  the  meat-oiferings,  and  frankincense, 
and  the  tithes  of  corn,  Avine,  and  oil  for  the  Levites,  all  of 
which  had  been  removed  to  make  room  for  the  furniture  of 
Tobiah.  Nehemiah  cleared  out  the  furniture,  and  caused  the 
chambers  of  tlie  Temple  to  be  purified,  and  restored  to  their 
uses."  The  Levites,  defrauded  of  their  tithes,  h?.d  betaken 
themselves  to  the  Levitical  cities,  so  that  the  Temple  waa 
deserted.  Nehemiah  gathered  them  together  again,  com- 
pelled the  rulers  to  do  them  justice,  and  the  people  to  bring 
the  tithes,  and  appointed  fiiithful  treasurers. ^^  He  most  indig- 
nantly reproved  the  nobles  for  the  profanation  of  the  Sabbath, 
as  the  sin  which  had  brought  the  wrath  of  God  upon  their 
fathers.  Li  the  cities  of  Judah  wine-presses  were  trodden  on 
the  holy  day,  and  the  gates  of  Jerusalem  were  crowded  witli 
Tyrian  and  other  merchants,  Avho  carried  in  the  supplies  of 
luxury  for  a  great  city.''^     Nehemiah  had  the  city  gates  shut 

"  Neb.  xii.  41-4:7.  conditions,  we  are  brought  to  the  last 

^'^  Neb.  xiii.  13.  The  inference, 
that  many  of  these  two  nations  were 
minp;led  with  the  Jews,  both  in  their 
captivity  and  return,  is  confirmed  by 
their  previous  history. 

^^  Neh.  xiii.  G.  ""After  the  end  of 
days,"  is  the  only  note  of  the  time 


year  of  Artaxerxes  (b.c.  423)  as  a 
probable  date  of  this  visit.  Prideaux 
allows  five  vears,  placing  it  in  b.c. 
428. 

«°  Neh.  xiii.  28.     '^  Neh.  xiii.  4-9. 

^2  Neh.  xiii.  10-14. 

"  Neh.  xiii.  IG.    Besides  the  profa- 


but  the  phrase  "all  thi3  time,"  as  nation  of  the  Sabbath  by  the  carry- 
well  as  the  extent  of  the  abuses,  would  ing  of  burdens,  the  passage  implies  a 
seem  to  imply  a  considerable  interval.  |  course  of  self-indulgent  luxury  on  the 
The  inference  is  still  stronger  from  part  of  the  wealthy  nobles,  and  an  utter 
the  allusion  in  xiii.  24  to  the^children  disregard  of  the  law  against  kindling 
of  the  mixed  marriages.  As  ten  years  fire  and  preparing  food  on  the  Sab- 
does  not  seem  too  long  to  satisfy  these  bath. 


B.C.  400?  Proijhecy  of  MalacM.  643 

from  dusk  till  the  end  of  the  Sabbath,  and  guarded  by  his 
servants.  At  first  the  merchants  pitched  their  tents  round 
the  wall;  but  Nehemiah  called  the  Levites  to  guard  the 
gates,  and  the  Sabbath  trading  was  abolished.  His  last  re- 
form dealt  with  the  old  evil  of  the  mixed  marriages,  which 
had  again  been  contracted  with  women  of  Amnion,  Moab, 
and  Ashdod  to  such  an  extent  that  children  were  heard  talk- 
in<>'  in  a  dialect  half  Jewish  and  half  in  the  language  of  Ash- 
dod.®* By  the  most  energetic  measures,  Nehemiah  exacted 
an  oath  of  the  offenders  to  abstain  from  all  such  alliances; 
and  he  expelled  from  the  priesthood  a  son  of  Joiada,  the  son 
of  the  high-priest  Eliashib,  for  his  marriage  with  the  daugh- 
ter of  Sanballat  the  Horonite.'^^ 

Xehemiah's  narrative  of  these  reforms  is  interspersed  with 
the  frequent  appeal, '  Remember  me,  O  my  God,  for  good,  and 
spare  me  according  to  the  greatness  of  thy  mercy;  wipe  not 
out  my  good  deeds  that  I  have  done  for  the  house  of  my  God, 
and  for  the  observances  thereof"®^  His  prayer  has  been  an- 
swered ever  since  in  the  preservation  of  his  book  as  a  part 
of  Holy  Scripture : — the  record  of  pure  religious  zeal,  tem- 
pered with  that  prudence  Avhich  is  one  of  the  highest  duties 
of  a  governor,  of  unbending  fidelity  and  self-denying  liberali- 
ty, all  for  the  glory  and  in  the  fear  of  God." 

§  8.  We  have  no  further  information  of  Nehemiah's  life ; 
and,  before  returning  to  the  imj^ortant  but  uncertain  ques- 
tions relating  to  Ezra,  a  few  words  must  be  said  of  the  Proph- 
et, whose  book  ends  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Covenant,  and 
who  is  thence  called  by  the  Jews  "the  seal  of  the  prophets." 
Malaciii  (the  angel  or  messenger  of  Jehovah) ^^^  closes  the 
canon  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures  with  words  rendered  doubly 
impressive  by  our  entire  ignorance  of  his  personal  history. 
Like  the  first  prophet  of  the  New  Covenant,  whose  preaching 
is  an  echo  of  his  warnings,  he  is  simply  "  the  voice  of  one  cry- 

^  Neh.  xiii.  23,  24.  Wc  can  not  [  and  smote  certain  of  them,  andphich- 
bs  sure  tliat  this  was  the  Pliilistine|ec?  off  their  hair.''  This  is  said  to 
tongue,  since  Ashdod  had  been  taken  have  been  the  one  fault  of  Gustavu3 
and  perhaps  colonized  by  Nebuchad-i  Adol])hns,  Avho  once  dragged  a  ma- 
iiczzar.  rauder  from  the  ranks  by  the  hair  of 

^^  Neh.  xiii.  23-29.  It  is  not  quite  his  head  and  ordered  him  for  execu- 
^lear  whether  the  title,  "the  high-  tion,  saying,  "It  is  better  that  I 
priest,"  refers  to  Eliashib  or  Joiada.     should  punisli  thee,  than    that   God 

®®  Neho  xiii.  14,22,  31.  jshould  punish  thee  and  me  and  all 

"^  His  only  infirmity  seems  to  have  of  us  on  thy  account." 
been  a  hasty  temper  wlien  provoked  I      "**  Contrncted  from  Malachijah,  liko 
by  iniquity,  Neh.  xiii.  25.       "I  con-' Abi  from  Abijah. 
tended  with  them,  and  reviled  them,  i 


644  The  Restored  Jewish  Nation.       Chap.  XXVII. 

ing  in  the  wilderness^''  and  preaching  repentance  from  flagrant 
sin  as  the  one  indispensable  preliminary  to  the  reception  of 
the  expected3Iessiah.  In  this  view  his  prophecy  links  the  Old 
Covenant  with  the  New ;  and  the  connection  is  made  closer 
by  his  prediction  of  the  coming  of  John  the  Baptist,  as  the, 
Elijah  of  the  new  dispensation,  and  the  forerunner  of  the  An^ 
gel-Jehovah,  the  messenger  of  the  Covenant/^  Already  was 
the  Jewish  Church  groaning  under  the  dissolution  of  the  first 
and  most  sacred  bonds  of  social  life  ;  and  the  new  Elijah  was 
needed  to  "  turn  the  heart  of  the  fathers  to  the  children,  and 
the  heart  of  the  children  to  their  fathers,"  lest  the  expected 
Messiah  should  come  only  "  to  smite  the  earth  with  a  curse." 
"We  have  only  to  read  the  prophet's  denunciation  of  rulers, 
priests,  and  people,  to  see  that  he  is  describing  present  evils, 
and  not  merely  predicting  some  future  declension.  These  de- 
scrij^tions  serve  to  fix  the  date  of  the  prophecy.  They  agree 
so  exactly  with  the  state  of  things  which  Nehemiah  found  on 
the  occasion  of  his  last  visit  to  Jerusalem,  that  the  prophecy 
may  be  safely  referred  either  to  that  period,  or  to  a  second 
declension,  which  soon  followed  the  reforms  of  Nehemiah. 
The  latter  is  the  more  probable  ;  for  had  Malachi  labored,  as 
some  have  suggested,  in  conjunction  with  Kehemiah,  in  the 
same  way  in  which  Isaiah  supported  the  reforms  of  Hezekiah, 
Nehemiah  would  surely  have  referred  to  him,  as  he  does  to 
the  snares  of  the  false  prophets  and  to  the  support  of  Ezra, 
and  as  Ezra  himself  mentions  Haggai  and  Zechariah.  In  any 
case,  the  date  of  Malachi  falls  before  the  end  of  this  century 
(b.c.  400) ;  and  it  is  not  at  all  impossible  that  Ezra,  if  he  was 
really  the  author  of  the  Scripture  Canon,  may  have  lived  long 
enough  to  include  in  it  the  Book  of  Malachi  as  well  as  that 
of  Nehemiah. 

§  9.  It  is  disappointing  to  confess  that  the  question  just 
started  must  be  left  without  a  satisfactory  solution.  Certain 
it  is  that  we  can  not  implicitly  follow  the  Jewish  traditions, 
either  about  Ezra's  personal  history  or  about  his  Biblical  la- 
bors. Josephus,  whose  positive  statements  are  too  often 
adopted  without  inquiry,  would  have  been  generally  believed 
Avhen  he  says  that  Ezra  died  an  old  man,'^"  and  was  buried 
magniriccntiy  at  Jerusalem,  had  he  not  placed  his  death  be- 
fore the  government  of  Nehemiah  !'^  Another  very  preva- 
lent tradition  places  his  death  in  Persia,  som.e  even  going  so 
far  as  to  name  the  place  where  lie  died  on  his  return  from 

^'^  Mill.  iii.  1.  'w.  5,  G.  ^^  Some  make  liim  reach  the  age  of  120. 

""  Am.  xi,  5,  §  5. 


B.C.  400?  The  Old  Testament  Cancm.  645 

Jerusalem  to  the  court  of  Artaxerxes,  and  where  his  sepulchre 
might  be  seeu.'^ 

The  works  ascribed  to  him  by  Jewish  tradition  were :  The 
foundation  of  the  "  Great  Synagogue"  of  120  members,  the 
very  mention  of  whose  names  proves  the  more  than  doubtful 
authenticity  of  the  institution  ;^^  the  establishment  of  Syna- 
gogues  ;  the  authorship  of  the  Books  of  Chronicles,  Ezra,  Ne- 
hemiah,  and  Esther ;  and  the  collection,  editing,  and  arrange 
ment  of  the  whole  Jewish  Scriptures  in  one  "  Canon,"  under  the 
threefold  division  of  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Hagio- 
grapha.'*  In  performing  this  work,  he  is  assumed  to  have  add- 
ed those  passages  which  can  not  have  been  written  by  the 
authors  whose  names  the  books  bear;  such  as  the  allusion  to 
kings  of  Israel  in  Gen.  xxxvi.  31;  the  account  of  the  death  and 
burial  of  Moses  in  the  last  chaj^ter  of  Deuteronomy ;  and  the 
many  references  to  the  state  of  things  "  at  this  day."  He  is 
also  said  to  have  introduced  the  Chaldee  character  (in  which 
Hebrew  is  still  written)  in  place  of  the  old  Hebrew  character 
which  is  retained  in  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch,  and  to  have 
added  the  vowel  points  (handed  down  by  tradition  from 
Moses),  the  divisions  of  "the  Pesukim^  or  verses,  and  the  emen- 
dations of  the  Keri.  Many  of  these  details  are  the  mere  ex- 
pressions of  a  desire,  natural  in  those  Avho  seek  for  the  au- 
thority of  Scripture  rather  in  the  structure  of  the  whole  book 
than  in  the  vitality  of  its  every  member,  to  place  under  the 
sanction  of  one  great  name  the  changes  wdiich  must  have  been 
made  on  many  different  occasions.  But  the  main  question  is, 
whether  the  present  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament  was,  in  sub- 
stance, the  work  of  Ezra.  It  must  be  remembered  that  such 
a  work  involved  much  more  than  the  collection  into  one  vol- 
ume of  books  already  existing  in  a  separate  form  ;  it  included 
the  selection  from  the  whole  number  of  those  which  bore,  and 
were  to  bear  forever,  the  stamp  of  divine  authority:  for  no 
one  imagines  that  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament  form 
a  complete  collection  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  literature.  That 
such  a  work,  having  such  authority,  had  been  completed  be- 

"  Benjamin  of  Tudela:  sec  Z5i6. 'plied  to  Scripture,  tlie  word  indicates 
Did.  art.  Ezra.  jtlie  rule  by  which  the  contents  of  the 

^^  On  the  Great  Synagogue,  see  Bible  must  be  determined,  and  thus 
Notes  and  Illustrations  (B,).  [secondarily  an  index  of  the  constitu- 

''*  The  word  Canon  {aavuv)  in  clas-lent  books.  The  Canon  of  Scripture 
sical  Greek  signifies  properly  a  6<ra/V/A<  may  be  generally  described  as  "the 
rod,  as  a  carpenter's  rule  ;  and  hence  i  collection  of  books  which  forms  the 
is  applied  metaphorically  to  a  testing  original  and  authoritative  written 
rvle  in  ethics,  or  in  art,  or  in  language  rule  of  the  faith  and  practice  of  the 
(the   Canons   of  Grammar),     As   ap-  Church." 


Q4:6  The  Restored  Jewish  Nation.       Chap.  XXVII. 

fore  the  Christian  era,  is  clear  from  the  alhisions  to  the  Holy 
Scriptures  in  the  New  Testament ;  and  it  was  most  probably 
accomplished  during  the  Persian  domination,  which  ended 
B.C.  323.  There  is  every  reason  for  its  having  been  perform- 
ed at  as  early  a  period  as  possible.  Ezra's  care  to  make  the 
people  well  acquainted  with  the  word  of  God  is  as  conspicu- 
ous as  his  own  knowledge  of  it,  No  man  could  be  more  qual- 
ified, as  no  time  could  be  more  fit,  for  a  work  which  was  most 
needful  to  establish  the  people  in  their  faith.  That  the  work 
must  have  been  performed  by  an  inspired  man,  is  an  axiom 
lying  at  the  foundation  of  the  whole  question,  unless  we  be- 
lieve, on  the  one  hand,  that  the  Church  is  endowed  in  every 
age  with  power  to  decide  what  Scriptures  are  canonical,  or 
unless,  on  the  other  hand,  we  give  up  a  canon.,  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  word,  and  reduce  the  authority  of  Scripture  to 
that  which  literary  criticism  can  establish  for  its  separate 
books.  On  this  ground,  none  but  Ezra  can  be  the  author  of 
the  Canon  ;  for  no  one  has  ever  thought  of  ascribing  the  woi'k 
to  Nehemiah,  the  civil  governor  and  man  of  action  ;  and  the 
only  claim  made  for  Malachi  is  the  addition  of  his  own  proph- 
ecy to  the  Canon  already  framed  by  Ezra,  and  even  this  sup- 
position we  have  seen  to  be  unnecessary,  as  Ezra  may  have 
been  the  survivor.  The  attempt  to  ascribe  the  work  to  some 
unknown  inspired  person  later  than  Malachi  is  an  example  of 
the  argumentum  ah  ignorantid.,  which  has  no  w^eight  against 
the  evidence  of  what  is  known. 

It  is  generally  supposed  that,  in  connection  with  the  work 
of  completing  the  Canon,  Ezra  composed  or  collected  that 
wonderful  series  of  meditations  on  the  worth  and  power  of 
the  Word  of  God  which  are  contained  in  the  cxixth  Psalm. 
The  whole  tenor  of  that  Psalm  is  a  powerful  argument  for 
the  existence  of  a  Canon  of  Scripture  at  the  time  of  its  com- 
position.    Some  also  ascribe  the  first  Psalm  to  Ezra. 

§  10.  While  the  restored  Jews  were  thus  completing  the 
fabric  of  their  religion,  the  irregular  worship  of  the  Samari- 
tans assumed  the  form  of  an  organized  schism  by  the  erection 
of  a  rival  temple  on  Mount  Gerizim.  The  circumstances  un- 
der which  this  happened  are  so  obscured  by  Josephus  Avith  fab- 
ulous details  and  chronological  inconsistencies,  that  we  can 
depend  on  him  for  little  more  than  the  existence  of  such  a 
temple,  a  fact  of  which  we  have  ample  confirmatory  evidence. 
He  transposes  to  the  reign  of  Darius  Codomannus,  the  last 
king  of  Persia,  transactions  which  seem  to  have  arisen  out  of 
those  recorded  in  the  Book  of  Nehemiah.  We  have  seen  that 
the  ruler's  last  act  of  reform  was  the  expulsion  of  one  of  the 


B.C.  400?  Schism  of  the  Samaritans.  6i7 

sons  of  Joiacla,  the  son  of  Eliashib,  who  had  married  a  daugh- 
ter of  Sanballat  the  Horonite  ;  and  here  our  information  from 
the  Scripture  narrative  ceases.  Now  Josephus  is  altogether 
silent  about  Sanballat,  the  great  adversary  of  Nehemiah,  but 
he  gives  a  long  account  of  another  Sanballat,  a  governor  of 
Samaria  under  Darius  Codomannus,  who  had  a  daughter  mar- 
ried to  Manassch,  the  brother  of  the  high-j^riest  Jaddua 
(grandson  of  Joiada).  This  Manasseh,  he  says,  being  expelled 
from  the  priesthood  for  his  marriage,  fled  to  his  father-in-law, 
Sanballat,  and,  after  negotiations  with  Darius  and  Alexander, 
they  erected  a  temple  on  Mount  Gerizim.  Manasseh,  who 
became  the  first  high-priest,  was  joined  by  numerous  priests 
and  Levites,  who  had  refused  to  put  away  their  heathen 
wives,  and  a  system  of  worship  was  organized  on  Mount 
Gerizim  resembling  that  of  the  Jewish  Temple.''  The  silence 
of  Josephus  about  the  Sanballat  of  Nehemiah's  time,  and  the 
resemblance  between  the  banishment  of  his  Manasseh  and 
that  of  the  son  of  Joiada,  added  to  the  very  improbable  de- 
tails with  which  he  has  embelHshed  his  story,  make  the  con- 
clusion almost  irresistible  that  his  Manasseh  was  the  son  of 
Joiada,  and  his  Sanballat  the  contemporary  of  Nehemiah ;  but 
the  time  of  the  erection  of  the  temple  on  Gerizim  may  still  be 
an  open  question.  This  much  is  certain,  that  such  a  temple 
was  built  as  an  assertion  of  the  religious  independence  of  the 
Samaritans,  and  that  thi&  act  of  schism  formed  the  climax  to 
the  hpstility  between  them  and  the  Jews.  The  temple  was 
destroyed  by  John  Hyrcanus  (about  b.c.  109)."  It  was  to  this 
sanctuary,  as  well  as  to  the  ancient  sacrifices  of  the  patriarchs 
at  Shechem,that  the  Samaritan  woman  referred  in  the  words 
«— "  Our  fathers  worshiped  in  this  mountain.'"' 

«  Jo5/?ph.  Ant.  xi.  8,  §§  2-4.  ''  Joseph.  Ant.  xiii.  9,  §  1. 

"  John  ir.  20. 


648 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


Chap.  :!i\Yil. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


(A.)  TEMPLE  OF  ZEKUBBABEL. 

Wk  have  very  few  particulars  re- 
garding the  Temple  which  the  Jews 
erected  after  their  return  from  the 
Captivity,  and  no  description  that 
would  enable  us  to  realize  its  appear- 
ance. But  there  are  some  dimen- 
sions given  in  the  Bible  and  else- 
where which  are  extremeLy  interest- 
ing, as  affording  points  of  comparison 
between  it  and  tlie  Temples  of  Solo- 
mon and  Herod  after  it. 

The  first  and  most  authentic  are 
those  given  in  the  Book  of  Ezra  (vi. 
3),  when  quoting  the  decree  of  Cyrus, 
wherein  it  is  said,  "Let  the  house  be 
builded,  the  place  where  they  offer- 
ed sacrifices,  and  let  the  foundations 
thereof  be  strongly  laid  ;  the  height 
thereof  threescore  cubits,  and  the 
breadth  thereof  threescore  cubits, 
with  three  rows  of  great  stones  and  a 
row  of  new  timber."  Josephus  quotes 
tins  passage  almost  literally  (xi.  4,! 
§  6),  but,  in  doing  so,  enables  us  with ! 
certainty  to  translate  the  word  herei 
called  row  as  "story  "  {(Ufxo^) — as  in-! 
deed  the  sense  would  lead  us  to  in-! 
fer — for  it  could  only  apply  to  the 
three  stories  of  chambers  that  sur-! 
rounded  Solomon's,  and  afterward 
Herod's  Temple,  and  with  this  again ' 
we  come  to  the  wooden  Talar  which: 
surmounted  the  Temple,  and  formed 
a  fourth  story.  It  may  be  remarked, 
in  passing,  that  this  dimension  of  60 1 


cubits  in  height  accords  perfectly  with 
the  words  which  Josephus  puts  into 
the  mouth  of  Herod  (xv.  11,  §  ]) 
when  he  makes  him  say  that  the 
Temple  built  after  the  Captivity  want- 
ed 60  cubits  of  the  height  of  that  of 
Solomon,  For  as  he  had  adopted,  as 
we  have  seen  above,  the  height  of  120 
cubits,  as  written  in  the  Chronicles, 
for  that  Temple,  this  one  remained 
only  60. 

The  other  dimension,  of  60  cubits 
in  breadth,  is  20  cubits  in  excess  of 
that  of  Solomon's  Temple,  but  there 
is  no  reason  to  doubt  its  correctness, 
for  we  find  both  from  Josephus  and 
the  Talmud  that  it  was  the  dimension 
adopted  for  the  Temple  when  rebuilt 
or,  rather,  repaired  by  Herod.  At  the 
same  time  we  have  no  authority  for 
assuming  that  any  increase  was  made 
in  the  dimensions  of  either  the  Holy 
Place  or  the  Holy  of  Holies,  since  we 
find  tliat  these  were  retained  in  Her- 
od's  Temple.  And  as  this  Temple 
of  Zerubbabel  was  still  standing  in 
Herod's  time,  and  was,  more  strictly 
speaking,  repaired  than  rebuilt  by 
him,  we  can  not  conceive  that  any  of 
its  dimensions  were  then  diminished. 
We  are  left,  therefore,  with  the  alter- 
native of  assuming  that  the  porcli  and 
the  chambers  all  round  were  20  cu- 
bits in  width,  including  the  thickness 
of  the  walls,  instead  of  10  cubits,  as 
in  the  earlier  building.  This  may 
perhaps,  to  some  extent,  bo  accounted 


Chap.  XXVII. 


Notes  and  Illustrations. 


649 


for  by  the  introduction  of  a  passage 
between  the  Temple  and  the  rooms 
of  the  priests'  lodgings,  instead  of 
each  being  a  thoroughfare,  as  mast 
certainly  have  been  the  case  in  Solo- 
mon's Temple. 

This  alteration  in  the  width  of  the 
Pteromata  made  the  Temple  100  cu- 
bits in  length  by  60  in  breadth,  with 
■a  height,  it  is  said,  of  60  cubits,  in- 
cluding the  upper  room,  or  Talar, 
though  we  can  not  help  suspecting 
that  this  last  dimension  is  somewhat 
in  excess  of  the  truth. 

The  only  other  description  of  this 
Temple  is  .  found  in  Hecataus  the 
Abderite, -^  ho  wrote  shortly  after  the 
death  of  Alexander  the  Gi'eat.  As 
quoted  by  Josephus  {cont.  Ap.  i.  22), 
he  says,  that  "  In  Jerusalem  toward 
the  middle  of  the  city  is  a  stonewall- 
ed enclosure  about  500  feet  in  length 
(o/C  izevrdizledpoq'),  and  100  cubits  in 
width,  with  double  gates,"  in  which 
he  describes  the  Temple  as  being  sit- 
uated. 

The  last  dimension  is  exactly  what 
is  obtained  by  doubling  the  width  of 
the  tabernacle  enclosure  as  applied  to 
Solomon's  Temple  (see  p.  485),  and 
may  therefore  be  accepted  as  tolera- 
bly certain,  but  the  500  feet  in  length 
exceeds  any  thing  we  have  yet  reach- 
ed by  200  feet.  It  may  be  that  at  this 
age  it  was  found  necessary  to  add  a 
court  for  the  women  or  the  Gentiles, 
a  sortof  Narthex,  or  Galilee,  for  those 
who  could  not  enter  the  Temple.  If 
this,  or  these  together,  were  100  cu» 
bits  square,  it  would  make  up  the 
"neai'ly  5  plethra"  of  our  author. 
Hecatseus  also  mentions  that  the  al- 
tar was  20  cubits  square  and  10  high. 
And  although  he  mentions  the  Tem- 
ple itself,  he  unfortunately  does  not 
supply  us  with  any  dimensions. 

From  these  dimensions  we  gather, 

that  if  **  the  Priests  and  Levites  and 

Elders  of  families  were  disconsolate 

at  seeing  how  much  more  sumptuous 

E  E 


the  old  Temple  was  than  the  one 
which  on  account  of  their  poverty 
they  had  just  been  able  to  erect " 
(Ezr.  iii.  12 ;  Joseph  Ant.  xi.  4,  §  2), 
it  certainly  was  not  because  it  was 
smaller,  as  almost  every  dimension 
had  been  increased  one-third  ;  but  it 
may  have  been  that  the  carving  and 
the  gold,  and  other  ornaments  of  Sol- 
omon's Temple  far  surpassed  this,  and 
the  pillars  of  the  portico  and  the  veils 
may  all  have  been  far  more  splendid, 
so  also  probably  were  the  vessels ;  and 
all  this  is  what  a  Jew  would  mourn 
over  far  more  than  mere  architectur- 
al splendor. 

(B.)  THE  GREAT  SYNAGOGUE. 

According  to  the  traditions  of  Eab- 
binic  writers,  a  great  council  was  ap- 
pointed on  the  return  of  the  Jews 
from  Babylon  to  reorganize  the  re- 
ligious life  of  the  people.  It  consist- 
ed of  120  members,  who  were  known 
as  the  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue, 
the  successors  of  the  prophets — them, 
selves,  in  their  turn,  succeeded  by 
scribes  prominent  individually  as 
teachers.  Ezra  was  recognized  as 
president.  Among  the  other  mem- 
bers, in  part  together,  in  part  success- 
ively, were  Joshua  the  high -priest, 
Zerubbabel,  and  their  companions, 
Daniel  and  the  three  "children,"  the 
prophets  Haggai,  Zechariah,  Malachi, 
the  rulers  Nehemiah  and  Mordecai. 
Their  aim  was  to  restore  again  the 
crown,  or  glory  of  Israel,  i.  e.,  to  rein- 
state in  its  majesty  the  name  of  God 
as  Great,  Mighty,  Terrible  (Deut.  vii. 
21,  X.  17;  Neh.  i.  5,  ix.  32;  Jer. 
xxxii.  18  ;  Dan.  ix.  4).  To  this  end 
they  collected  all  the  sacred  writings 
of  former  ages  and  their  own,  and  so 
completed  the  Canon  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. Their  work  included  the 
revision  of  the  text,  and  this  was  set- 
tled by  the  introduction  of  the  vowel 
points,  which  have  been  handed  down 


650 


Notes  and  lUustrattons. 


Chap.  XXVH, 


to  us  by  the  Masoretic  editors.  They 
instituted  the  Feast  of  Purim.  They 
organized  the  ritual  of  the  synagogue. 
Their  decrees  were  quoted  afterward 
as  those  of  the  elders  (the  Trpea^vrepoi 
of  Mark  vii.  3,  the  apxa'toi  of  Matt.  v. 
21,  27,  33),  the  Dibre  Sopherim  (  = 
words  of  the  scribes),  which  were  of 
more  authority  than  the  law  itself. 

Much  of  this  is  evidently  uncertain. 
The  absence  of  any  historical  men- 
tion of  such  a  body,  not  only  in  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  Apocrypha, 
but  in  Josephus  and  Philo,  has  led 


some  critics  to  reject  the  whole  state- 
ment as  a  llabinic  invention,  resting 
on  no  other  foundation  than  the  ex- 
istence, after  the  exile,  of  a  Sanhe- 
drim of  71  or  72  members,  charged 
with  supreme  executive  functions. 
The  narrative  of  Neh.  viii.  13  clearly 
implies  the  existence  of  a  body  of  men 
acting  as  councilors  under  the  presi- 
dency of  Ezra,  and  these  may  have 
been  an  assembly  of  delegates  from 
all  provincial  synagogues  —  a  synod 
(to  use  the  terminology  of  a  later 
time)  of  the  National  Church. 


APPENDIX  I. 


THE  BOOKS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

$  1.  Language  of  the  Old  Tcstameut.  §  2.  Collection  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament- 
Jewish  arrangement  under  tlie  three  heads  of  the  Lau\  the  Prophets,  and  the  Hagio- 
grapha.  §  3.  Names  given  to  the  collected  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  §  4.  Arrange- 
ment of  the  books  in  the  present  Appendix.— I.  THE  PENTATEUCH.  §  5.  Name— 
Object— Authorship.     §  G.  Tlie  Book  of  Genesis.     §  7.  The  Book  of  Exodus.     §  8.  The 

Book  of  Leviticus.    §  i>.  The  Book  of  Numbers.    §  10.  The  Book  of  Deutekonomy H. 

THE  HISTORICAL  BOOKS.  §  11.  The  Book  of  JosuuA.  §  12.  Authorship  of  the 
Books  of  Judges,  Ruth,  Samuel,  and  Kings.  §13.  Books  of  Judges  and  of  Rutu.  §14. 
The  Books  of  Samuet,.  §  15.  The  Books  of  Kings.  §  10.  The  Books  of  Chronicles. 
§  17.  Relation  of  the  Books  of  Chronicles  to  those  of  Kings.  §  IS.  The  Book  of  Ezra. 
§  19.  The  Book  of  Nkiiemiaii.  §  20.  The  Book  of  Estiier.— IIL  THE  PROPHICTS. 
§  21.  The  Prophetic  Order.  (A.)  The  Four  Grcai:  Propliets.  §  22.  Isaiah.  §  23. 
Jebemiaii.  The  Book  of  Lamentations.  §  24.  Ezekiel.  §  15.  Daniel.  (B  )  The 
Twelve  Minor  Prophets.  §  26.  Hosea,  §  27.  Joel.  §  28.  Amos.  §  29.  Obadiah. 
§30.  JoNAU.  §31.  MicAH.  5  32.  Naiium.  §  33.  Habakkuk.  §  .S4.  Zvphaniaii.  §35. 
Hagqai.  §  36.  Zeoiiabiail  §  37.  Malaciii.  IV.  THE  POETICAL  BOOKS.  §  38. 
The  Book  of  Psalms.     §  39.  Song  of  Solomon,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  Job. 

§  1.  We  have  thus  carried  down  the  History  of  the  Old  Testament  from 
the  earliest  times  to  the  close  of  the  Jewish  Canon.  But  our  task  Avould  be 
incomplete  without  giving  a  brief  account  of  those  books  which  form  the 
chief  and,  during  the  greater  period,  the  sole  authority  for  this  history. 

All  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  are  written  in  the  Hebrew  language, 
with  the  exception  of  the  following  passages — Daniel,  ii.  4-vii.,  Ezra,  iv.  8-vi. 
]8,  and  vii.  12-26,  Jeremiah,  x.  11 — which  are  in  Chaldee.  Both  Hebrew 
and  Chaldee  are  sister  dialects  of  a  great  family  of  languages,  to  which  the 
name  of  Semitic  is  usually  given,  from  the  real  or  supposed  descent  of  the 
people  speaking  them  from  the  patriarch  Shem.  The  dialects  of  this  Semitic 
family  may  be  divided  into  three  main  branches : — 1.  The  Northern,  or 
Aramaean,  to  which  the  Chaldee  and  Syriac  belong.  2.  The  Southern,  of 
which  the  Arabic  is  the  most  important,  and  which  also  includes  the  Ethiopic. 
3.  The  Central,  which  comprises  the  Hebrew  and  the  dialects  spoken  by  the 
other  inhabitants  of  Palestine,  such  as  the  Canaanites  and  Phoenicians. 

§  2.  The  collection  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  into  one  body,  and 
the  formation  of  the  Canon,  probably  by  Ezra,  after  the  return  of  the  Jews 
from  their  captivity  in  Babylon,  has  been  already  narrated.  ^  The  arrange- 
ment of  the  books  into  the  three  classes,  which  was  adopted  by  the  later  Jews, 
and  is  still  retained  in  the  printed  Hebrew  Bibles,  is  indicated  even  before 
the  completion  of  the  Old  Testament  Canon. ^  When  the  Canon  was  looked 
on  as  settled,  in  the  period  covered  by  the  books  of  the  Apocrypha,  it  took  a 
more  definite  form.  The  Prologue  to  Ecclesiasticus  mentions  "  the  law  and 
the  prophets  and  the  rest  of  the  Books. "     In  the  New  Testament  there  is  the 

^  fee  p  G14  r=q,  -  Zech.  vii  12. 


652  Books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Appendix  I. 

same  kind  of  recognition.  "The  Law  and  the  Prophets"  is  the  shorter,' 
"the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms,"'*  the  fuller  statement  of  the  divis- 
ion popularly  recognized.  The  arrangement  of  the  books  of  the  Hebrew 
text  under  these  three  heads  requires  however  a  further  notice. 

i.  The  Law,  called  Toruh  in  the  Hebrew,  contained  the  Pentateuch,  the 
five  books  of  Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers,  and  Deuteronomy. 
These  titles  are  those  of  the  LXX.  In  the  Hebrew  the  titles  are  taken  from 
the  initial  words,  or  prominent  words  in  the  initial  verse. 

ii.  ThePiiOPHETS,  called  Aeim/i  in  Hebrew,  were  thus  arranged: — 

fjoshun. 

J  Judges. 

1.  The  former I  1  and  2  Samuel. 


1  ^  ° 


and  2  Kings. 

^Isaiah. 
f(i.)  Greater    .     .      •<  Jeremiah. 
!  (Ezckiel. 

2.  The  latter '| 

\JX\.)  Minor   .      .     .     The  twelve  Minor  Prophets. 

The  Hebrew  titles  of  these  books  correspond  to  those  of  the  English  Bibles. 

The  grounds  on  which  books  simply  historical  were  classed  under  the  same 
name  as  those  which  contained  the  teaching  of  prophets,  in  the  stricter  sense 
of  the  word,  are  not  at  first  sight  obvious,  but  the  Old  Testament  presents 
some  facts  which  may  suggest  an  explanation.  The  Sons  of  the  Prophets,* 
living  together  as  a  society,  must  have  occupied  a  position  as  instructors  of 
the  people,  even  in  the  absence  of  the  special  calling  which  sent  them  as 
God's  messengers  to  the  people.  A  body  of  men  so  placed  become  naturally 
historians  and  annalists.  The  references  in  the  historical  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  show  that  they  actually  Mere  so.  Nathan  the  prophet.  Gad,  the 
seer  of  David,"  Ahijali  and  Iddo,^  Isaiah,**  are  cited  as  chroniclers.  The 
greater  antiquity  cf  the  earlier  historical  books,  and  perhaps  the  traditional 
belief  that  they  had  originated  in  this  way,  were  likely  to  co-operate  in  rais- 
ing them  to  a  high  place  of  honor  in  the  arrangement  of  the  Jewish  Canon, 
and  so  they  were  looked  on  as  having  the  prophetic  character  which  was 
denied  to  the  histoiical  books  of  the  Hagiographa.  The  greater  extent  of 
the  prophecies  of  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  no  less  than  the  prominent  posi- 
tion which  they  occupied  in  the  history  of  Israel,  led  naturally  to  their  being 
recognized  as  the  Greater  Prophets.  The  exclusion  of  Daniel  from  this  sub- 
division is  perhaps  to  be  explained  on  the  ground  that,  though  the  utterer  of 
predictions,  he  had  not  exercised,  as  the  others  had  done,  a  prophet's  office 
among  the  people. 

iii.  The  IIagiograpiia,^  called  in  Hebrew  Cetuhim  (from  a  Hebrew  word, 
to  ivrite)^  included  the  remaining  books  of  the  Hebrew  Canon,  an-anged  in 
the  following  order,  and  with  subordinate  divisions  : 

(a.)  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Job. 

(6. )  The  Song  of  Songs,  Ruth,  Lamentations,  Ecclesiastes,  Esther,  called 
tlie  five  Megi/loth,  or  the  five  rolls,  as  being  written  for  use  in  the  synagogues 
on  special  festivals  on  five  separate  rolls. 

(c.)  Daniel,  Ezra,  Kehemiah,  1  and  2  Chronicles. 

3  Matt.  xi.  13,  xxii.  40;  Acts  xiii.  15,  etc.     I      «  1  Chron.  xxiv.  2D.         '  2  Chvon.  ix.  2?, 

4  Luke  xxv'i.  44.  ^2  Chron.  xxvi.  22,  xxxii.  32, 
8  1  Sam.  X.  5;  2  K.  v.  ^2,  vi,  1.  I      ^  'Ayi6ypa<pn. 


Appendix  I.  General  Arrangement  653 

The  LXX.  presents  some  striking  variations  in  point  of  arrangement  as 
well  as  in  relation  to  the  names  of  books.  Both  in  this  and  in  the  insertion 
of  the  books  which  Ave  now  know  as  the  ApocrA-pha  among  the  other  books, 
«e  trace  the  absence  of  that  strong  reverence  for  the  Canon  and  its  tradition- 
al order  which  distinguished  the  Jews  of  Palestine.  Tlie  Law,  it  is  true, 
stands  first,  but  the  distinction  between  the  Greater  and  Lesser  Prophets,  be- 
tween the  Prophets  and  the  Hagiographa,  is  no  longer  recognized.  Daniel, 
with  the  Apoci-vphal  additions,  follows  upon  Ezekiel;  the  Apocryphal  1st  ov 
3d  Book  of  Esdras  comes  as  a  2d,  following  on  the  Canonical  Ezra.  Tobit 
and  Judith  are  placed  after  Nehemiah,  Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus  after  Can- 
ticles, Baruch  before  and  the  Epistle  of  Jeremiah  after  Lamentations,  the 
twelve  Lesser  Prophets  before  the  four  Greater,  and  the  two  Books  of  ^Lic- 
cabees  come  at  the  close  of  aU.  The  Latin  version  follows  nearly  the  same 
order,  inverting  the  relative  position  of  the  Greater  and  Lesser  Prophets. 
The  separation  of  the  doubtful  books  under  the  title  of  Apociypha,  in  the 
Protestant  versions  of  the  Scriptures,  left  the  others  in  the  order  in  which  we 
now  have  them. 

§  3.  When  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were  fonned  into  a  Canon,  it 
was  natural  to  give  a  general  name  to  the  collection.  The  earliest  instance 
of  such  a  title  occurs  in  Daniel,  who  refers  to  "the  books"'"  in  a  manner 
which  seems  to  mark  the  prophetic  writings  as  already  collected  into  one 
whole.  The  same  word  was  applied  by  the  Jews  in  Alexandria  to  the  col- 
lected books  of  the  Old  Testament— ai  /3^;5/.o^  more  frequently  ra  SiS/.la-^ 
whence  the  word  Bible,  or  2Vie  Booh,  has  been  given  to  the  collected  books 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  The  writers  of  the  New  Testament  call  the 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  either  The  Sa-ipture,'' or  The  Scriptures,^- or 
The  Holij  Scriptures. '^  The  use  of  the  phrase  ;/  na/ma  dLadrjur],  in  2  Cor.  iii. 
U,  for  the  law  as  read  in  the  synagogues,  led  gradually  to  the  extension  of 
the  word  to  include  the  other  books  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  and  to  the  ap- 
plication of  tlie  latter  as  of  the  former  to  a  book  or  coUection  of  books.  Of 
the  Latin  equivalents,  which  were  adopted  by  ditferent  yvxxiQXS^Insti^vientuw 
Testamentuvi),  the  latter  met  ^^\\h  the  most  general  acceptance,  and  pei-petu- 
ated  itself  in  the  languages  of  modem  Europe,  whence  the  terms  Old  Testa- 
ment and  Neio  Testament,  though  the  Greek  word  properly  signifies  "  Cove- 
nant"  rather  than  "  Testament. " 

§  4.  In  the  following  account  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  instead 
of  adopting  the  Jewish  order,  it  will  be  more  convenient  to  speak  of— 

I.  The  Pentateuch. 

II.  The  Historical  Books,  namely,  Joshua,  Judges,  Euth,  Samuel,  Kings, 
Chronicles,  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  and  Esther. 

III.  The  Prophets,  comprising,  (A.)  The  Four  Great  Prophets;  (B.) 
The  Twelve  ^Nlinor  Prophets. 

IV.  The  Poetical  I5ooks,  namely,  the  Psalms,  the  Writings  of  Solomon, 
and  Job. 

I.  THE  PENTATEUCH. 
§  5.  The  Pentateuch  is  the  Greek  name  given  to  the  five  books— commonly 

10  Dan   ix.  2  I      12  „i  ^pa<pai,  Matthew  xxi.  42  ;  Luke  xsiv. 

11  h  tpa^ii,  Acts  viiU  32;  Gal.  iii.  22  ;  2   27.  , 

rim.  iiL  16  I      '^  Ti  'ep^  7P«MMaTa,  2  Tim.  la.  \o. 


654  Boohs  of  the  Old  Testament  Appendix  I. 

called  the  Five  Books  of  Moses."  In  the  time  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  it  was 
called  "  the  Law  of  Moses,  "^^  or  "  the  Book  of  the  Law  of  Moses,  "^^  or 
simply  "  the  Book  of  Moses.  "^^  This  was  beyond  all  reasonable  doubt  our 
existing  Pentateuch.  The  book  which  was  discovered  in  the  Temple  in  the 
]-eign  of  Josiah,  and  which  is  entitled^**  "the  Book  of  the  Law  of  Jehovah 
by  the  hand  of  Moses, "  was  substantially,  it  would  seem,  the  same  volume, 
though  it  may  afterward  have  undergone  some  revision  by  Ezra.  The  pres- 
ent Jews,  as  we  have  already  seen,  usually  call  the  whole  by  the  name  of 
Torah,  i.  e.,  "the  Law,"  or  Torath  Moshe/i,  "  the  Law  of  Moses." 

The  division  of  the  whole  work  into  five  parts  was  probably  made  by  the 
Greek  translators,  for  the  titles  of  tlie  several  books  are  not  of  Hebrew  but  of 
Greek  origin.  The  Hebrew  names  are  merely  taken  from  the  first  words 
of  each  book,  and  in  the  first  instance  only  designated  particular  sections,  and 
not  whole  books.  The  MSS.  of  the  Pentateuch  form  a  single  roll  or  volume, 
and  are  divided,  not  into  books,  but  into  the  larger  and  smaller  sections,  call- 
ed Pershiyoth  and  Sedarim. 

The  Five  Books  of  the  Pentateuch  form  a  consecutive  whole.  The  woik, 
beginning  with  the  record  of  Creation  and  the  history  of  tlie  primitive  world, 
passes  on  to  deal  more  especially  with  the  eai-ly  history  of  the  Jewish  family. 
It  gives  at  length  the  personal  history  of  the  three  great  fathers  of  the  family : 
it  then  describes  how  the  fiimily  grev/  into  a  nation  in  Egypt,  tells  us  of  its 
oppression  and  deliverance,  of  its  forty  years'  wandering  in  the  wilderness,  of 
the  giving  of  the  Law,  with  all  its  enactments  both  civil  and  religious,  of  the 
construction  of  the  tabernacle,  of  the  numbering  of  the  people,  of  the  rights 
and  duties  of  the  priesthood,  as  well  as  of  many  important  events  which  befell 
them  before  their  entrance  into  the  land  of  Canaan,  and  finally  concludes  with 
Moses's  last  discourses  and  his  death.  The  unity  of  the  work  in  its  existing 
form  is  now  generally  recognized.  It  is  not  a  mere  collection  of  loose  frag- 
ments carelessly  put  together  at  different  times,  but  bears  evident  traces  of 
design  and  purpose  in  its  composition.  Even  those  who  discover  different 
authors  in  the  earlier  books,  and  who  deny  tliat  Deuteronomy  was  written  by 
Moses,  are  still  of  opinion  that  the  work  in  its  present  form  is  a  connected 
whole,  and  was  at  least  reduced  to  its  present  shape  by  a  single  reviser  or 
editor. 

Till  the  middle  of  last  century  it  was  the  general  opinion  of  both  Jews  and 
Christians  that  the  wliole  of  the  Pentateuch  was  written  by  Moses,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  manifestly  later  additions— such  as  the  S-ith  chapter  of 
Deuteronomy,  which  gives  the  account  of  Moses's  death.  The  first  attempt 
to  call  in  question  the  popular  belief  was  made  by  Astruc,  doctor  and  profes- 
Ror  of  medicine  in  the  Koyal  College  at  Paris,  and  court  physician  to  Louis 
XIV. '^  He  had  observed  that  throughout  the  Book  of  Genesis,  and  as  far  as 
tlie  6th  chapter  of  Exodus,  traces  were  to  be  found  of  two  original  documents, 
each  characterized  by  a  distinct  use  of  the  names  of  God  ;  the  one  by  tlie 
name  Elohim,  and  the   other  by  the   name  Jehovah.      Besides   these  two 


>I  Trei'Taxei'Xo? 


PC.  (iift\o<:,  Pentateuchus  ]      i^  i,>^ra  vi.  18  ;  Neli.  xiii.  1:  2  Chron.  x.xv. 


Bc.  liber,  the  fivefold  book;  from  Tre^xor,  wliich 
meaning  originally  "•vessel,  instrnment," 
etc.,  came  in  Alexandrine  Greek  to  mean 
"■  book." 

15  Kzi'a  vii.  6. 

1^  Nell.  viii.  1. 


4,  XXXV.  12 

18  2  Chron.  xxxiv.  14.     See  p.  5S4. 

19  His  work  was  published  at  Brussels  in 
175.3  under  the  title  of  "  Conjectures  sur  lea 
Memoires  originaux,  dont  il  paroit  que  Moyso 
s'est  servi  pour  composer  le  Livre  de  Genese." 


Appendix  I.  The  Book  of  Genesis.  655 

principal  documents,  he  supposed  Mosee  to  have  made  use  of  ten  others  in 
the  composition  of  the  earlier  part  of  his  work.  The  path  traced  by  Astruc 
has  been  followed  by  numerous  German  writers ;  but  it  would  be  foreign  to 
the  purpose  of  this  work,  and  would  far  exceed  its  limits,  to  enumerate  and 
explain  the  various  hypotheses  which  have  been  formed  upon  the  subject.  It 
is  sufficient  here  to  state  that  there  is  sufficient  evidence  for  believing  that  the 
main  bulk  of  the  Pentateuch,  at  any  rate,  was  written  by  Moses,  though  he 
probably  availed  himself  of  existing  documents  in  the  composition  of  the 
earlier  part  of  the  work.  Some  detached  portions  would  appear  to  be  of 
later  origin  ;  and  when  we  remember  how  entirely,  during  some  periods  of 
Jewish  history,  the  Law  seems  to  have  been  forgotten,  and  again  how  neces- 
sary it  would  be  after  the  seventy  years  of  exile  to  explain  some  of  its  archa- 
isms, and  to  add  here  and  there  short  notes  to  make  it  more  intelligible  to 
the  people,  nothing  can  be  more  natural  than  to  suppose  that  such  later  addi- 
tions were  made  by  Ezra  and  Nehemiah.^° 

We  now  pass  on  to  a  brief  consideration  of  the  separate  books  of  which 
the  Pentateuch  is  composed, 

§  6.  The  Book  of  Genesis^'  (with  the  first  chapters  of  Exodus)  describes 
the  steps  which  led  to  the  establishment  of  the  Theocracy.  In  reading  it,  we 
must  remember  that  two  prominent  ideas  give  a  characteristic  unity  to  the 
whole  composition,  viz.,  the  people  of  God  and  the  promised  land.  It  has  a 
character  at  once  special  and  universal.  It  embraces  the  world ;  it  speaks  of 
God  as  the  God  of  the  whole  human  race.  But  as  the  introduction  to  Jewish 
history,  it  makes  the  universal  interest  subordinate  to  the  national.  Its  de- 
sign is  to  show  how  God  revealed  Himself  to  the  first  fathers  of  the  Jewish 
race,  in  order  that  he  might  make  to  himself  a  nation  who  should  be  His 
witness  in  the  midst  of  the  earth.  This  is  the  inner  principle  of  unity  which 
pervades  the  book.  In  its  external  frame-work  five  principal  persons  are  the 
pillars,  so  to  speak,  on  which  the  whole  superstructure  rests — Adam,  Noah, 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob. 

i.  Adam. — The  creation  of  the  world,  and  the  earliest  history  of  mankind 
(ch.  i.-iii.).     As  yet,  no  divergence  of  the  different  families  of  man. 

ii.  Noah. — The  history  of  Adam's  descendants  to  the  death  of  Noah 
(iv.-ix.).— Here  we  have  (1.)  the  line  of  Cain  branching  off  while  the  his- 
tory follows  the  fortunes  of  Seth,  whose  descendants  are  (2.)  traced  in  genea- 
logical succession,  and  in  an  unbroken  line  as  far  as  Noah,  and  (3.)  the  his- 
tory of  Noah  himself  (vi.-ix.)  continued  to  his  death. 

iii.  Abraham. — Noah's  posterity  till  the  death  of  Abraham  (x.-xxv.  18). — 
Here  we  have  (1.)  the  peopling  of  the  whole  earth  by  the  descendants  of 
Noah's  three  sons  (xi.  1-9).  The  history  of  two  of  these  is  then  dropped,  and 
(2.)  the  line  of  Shem  only  pursued  (xi.  10-32)  as  for  as  Terah  and  Abraham, 
where  the  genealogical  table  breaks  off.  (3.)  Abraham  is  now  the  prominent 
figure  (xii.-xxv.  18).  But  as  Terah  had  two  other  sons,  Nahor  and  Haran 
(xi.  27),  some  notices  respecting  their  families  are  added.  Lot's  migration 
with  Abraham  into  the  land  of  Canaan  is  mentioned,  as  well  as  the  fact  that 
he  was  the  father  of  Moab  and  Ammon  (xix.  37,  38),  nations  whose  later  his- 
tory was  intimately  connected  with  that  of  the  posterity  of  Abraham.  Nahor 
remained  in  Mesopotamia,  but  his  family  is  briefly  enumerated  (xxii.  20-24), 

'0  For  a  full  discussion  of  the  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch,  fee  DicK  of  Biblr,  arti 
PeniaUuch,  *^  Tiviaiv  in  the  LXX.,  that  is,  Creation. 


656  Books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Appendix  I 

chiefly  no  doubt  for  Rebekah's  sake,  who  Avas  afterward  the  wife  of  Isaac. 
Of  Abraham's  own  children,  there  branches  oft'  first  the  line  of  Ishmael  (xxi. 
9,  etc.),  and  next  the  children  by  Keturah;  and  the  genealogical  notices  of 
these  two  branches  of  his  posterity  are  apparently  brought  together  (xxv.  1-6. 
and  xxv.  12-18),  in  order  that,  being  here  severally  dismissed  at  the  end  of 
Abraham's  life,  the  main  stream  of  the  narrative  may  flow  in  the  channel  of 
Isaac's  fortunes. 

iv.  Isaac. — Isaac's  life  (xxv.  19-xxxv.  29),  a  life  in  itself  retiring  and  un- 
eventful. But  in  his  sons  the  final  separation  takes  place,  leaving  the  field 
clear  for  the  great  story  of  the  chosen  seed.  Even  when  Nahor's  family 
comes  on  the  scene,  as  it  does  in  ch.  xxix.,  we  hear  only  so  much  of  it  as  is 
necessary  to  throw  light  on  Jacob's  history. 

V.  Jacob. — The  history  of  Jacob  and  Joseph  (xxxvi.  1).  Here,  after  Isaac's 
death,  we  have  (1.)  the  genealogy  of  Esau,  xxxvi.,  who  then  drops  out  of  the 
narrative,  in  order  that  (2.)  the  history  of  the  Patriarchs  may  be  carried  on 
without  intermission  to  the  death  of  Joseph  (xxxvii.-l.). 

§  7.  The  Book  of  Exodus'^^  may  be  divided  into  two  principal  parts,  I. 
Historical,  i.  1-xviii.  27  ;  and  II.  Legislative,  xix.  1-xl.  38.  The  former  of 
these  may  be  subdivided  into  (1.)  the  preparation  for  the  deliverance  of  Israel 
from  their  bondage  in  Egypt ;  (2.)  the  accomplishment  of  that  deliverance. 

i.  (1.)  The  first  section  (i.  1-xii.  3G)  contains  an  account  of  the  following 
particulars :  The  great  increase  of  Jacob's  posterity  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  and 
their  oppression  under  a  new  dynasty,  which  occupied  the  throne  after  the 
death  of  Joseph  (ch,  i.)  ;  the  birth,  education,  and  flight  of  Moses  (ii.)  ;  his 
solemn  call  to  be  the  deliverer  of  his  people  (iii.  1-iv.  17),  and  his  return  to 
Egypt  in  consequence  (iv.  18-31)  ;  his  first  ineffectual  attempt  to  prevail  upon 
Pharaoh  to  let  the  Israelites  go,  Avhich  only  resulted  in  an  increase  of  their 
burdens  (v.  1-21)  ;  a  further  preparation  of  Moses  and  Aaron  for  their  office, 
together  with  the  account  of  their  genealogies  (v.  22-vii.  7) ;  the  successive 
signs  and  wonders,  by  means  of  which  the  deliverance  of  Israel  from  the  land 
of  bondage  is  at  length  accomplished,  and  the  institution  of  the  Passover  (vii. 
8-xii.  36). 

(2.)  A  narrative  of  events  from  the  departure  out  of  Egypt  to  the  arrival 
of  the  Israelites  at  Mount  Sinai.  We  have  in  this  section  (a.)  the  departure 
and  (mentioned  in  connection  with  it)  the  injunctions  then  given  respecting 
the  Passover  and  the  sanctification  of  the  first-born  (xii.  37-xiii,  16);  the 
march  to  the  Red  Sea,  the  passage  through  it,  and  the  destruction  of  Pharaoh 
and  his  host  in  the  midst  of  the  sea,  together  with  Moses's  song  of  triumph 
upon  the  occasion  (xiii.  17-xv.  21) ;  (6.)  the  principal  events  on  the  journey 
from  the  Red  Sea  to  Sinai,  the  bitter  waters  at  Marah,  the  giving  of  quails 
and  of  the  manna,  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  the  miraculous  supply  of 
water  from  the  rock  at  Rephidim,  and  the  battle  there  with  the  Amalekites 
(xv,  22-xvii,  16)  ;  the  an-ival  of  Jethro  in  the  Israelitish  camp,  and  his  ad- 
vice as  to  the  civil  government  of  the  people  (xviii,). 

ii.  The  solemn  establishment  of  the  Theocracy  on  Mount  Sinai,  The  peo- 
ple are  set  apart  to  God  as  "a  kingdom  of  priests  and  a  holy  nation  "  (xix, 
<5) ;  the  Ten  Commandments  are  given,  and  the  laws  which  are  to  regulate 
the  social  life  of  the  people  are  enacted  (xxi.  1-xxiii,  19) ;  an  angel  is  prom* 

22  In  the  LXX.  "Uobo^,  that  i3,  gcing  out  (of  Kgypt). 


Appendix  I.  Exodiis^  Leiiticus^  Numbers.  657 

ised  as  their  guide  to  tlie  promised  land,  and  the  covenant  between  God 
and  Moses,  Aaron,  Nadab,  and  Abihn,  and  seventy  elders,  as  the  representa- 
tives of  the  people,  is  most  solemnly  ratified  (xxiii,  20-xxiv.  18);  instruc- 
tions are  given  respecting  the  tabernacle,  the  ark,  the  mercy-seat,  the  altar 
of  burnt-ottering,  the  separation  of  Aaron  and  his  sons  for  the  priest's  office, 
the  vestments  which  they  are  to  wear,  the  ceremonies  to  be  obsen-ed  at 
their  consecration,  the  altar  of  incense,  the  laver,  the  holy  oil,  the  selection 
of  Bezaleel  and  Aholiab  for  the  work  of  the  tabernacle,  the  observance  of  the 
Sabbath  and  the  deliveiy  of  the  two  tables  of  the  Law  into  the  hands  of 
Moses  (xxv.  1-xxxi.  ]  8)  ;  the  sin  of  the  people  in  the  matter  of  the  golden 
calf,  their  rejection  in  consequence,  and  their  restoration  to  God's  favor  at 
the  intercession  of  Moses  (xxxii.  1-xxxiv.  35)  ;  lastl}^  the  construction  of 
the  tabernacle,  and  all  pertaining  to  its  service  in  accordance  with  the  in- 
junctions previously  given  (xxxv.  1-xl.  38). 

This  book,  in  short,  gives  a  sketch  of  the  early  history  of  Israel  as  a  na- 
tion, and  the  history  has  three  clearly  marked  stages.  First,  we  see  a  nation 
enslaved ;  next,  a  nation  redeemed ;  lastly,  a  nation  set  apart,  and,  through 
the  blending  of  its  religious  and  political  life,  consecrated  to  the  service  of 
God. 

§  8.  The  Book  of  Leviticus^^  consists  of  the  lollowing  principal  sections  : 

i.  The  laws  touching  sacrifices  (chap,  i.-vii.), 

ii.  A  historical  section,  containing,  first,  the  consecration  of  Aaron  and  his 
sons  (chap,  viii.);  next,  his  first  offering  for  himself  and  his  people  (chap, 
ix.);  and  lastly,  the  destruction  of  Nadab  and  Abihu,  the  sons  of  Aaron, 
for  their  presumptuous  off^ense  (chap.  x.). 

iii.  The  laws  concerning  purity  and  impurity,  and  the  appropriate  sacri- 
fices and  ordinances  for  putting  away  impurity  (chap,  xi.-xvi,), 

iv.  Laws  chiefly  intended  to  mark  the  separation  between  Israel  and  the 
heathen  nations  (chap,  xvii.-xx.). 

V.  Laws  concerning  the  priests  (xxi.,  xxii.),  and  certain  holy  days  and 
festivals  (xxiii.,  xxv.),  together  with  an  episode  (xxiv.).  The  section  ex- 
tends from  chap.  xxi.  1  to  xxvi.  2. 

vi.  .Promises  and  threats  (xxvi.  2-46). 

vii.  An  appendix  containing  the  laws  concerning  vows  (xxvii.). 

The  principles  and  details  of  this  book  are  explained  and  illustrated  in  an- 
other part  of  the  present  work.^* 

§  9.  The  Book  of  Numbers'^^  takes  its  name  from  the  double  numbering 
or  census  of  the  people,  the  first  of  which  is  given  in  chaps,  i.-iv.,  and  the 
second  in  chap.  xxvi. 

It  contains  generally  the  history  of  the  Israelites  from  the  time  of  their 
leaving  Sinai,  in  the  second  year  after  the  Exodus,  till  their  arrival  at  the 
borders  of  the  promised  land,  in  the  fortieth  year  of  their  journeyings.  It 
consists  of  the  following  principal  divisions  : — 

i.  The  preparations  for  the  departure  from  Sinai  (i.  1-x.  10). 

ii.  The  joumey  from  Sinai  to  the  borders  of  Canaan  (x.  1 1-xiv,  45). 

iii.  A  brief  notice  of  laws  given  and  events  which  happened  during  the 
thirty-seven  years'  wandering  in  the  wilderness  (xv.  1-xix.  22). 

23  Aei^rTiKOf  in  the  LXX.,  because  it  relates  principally  to  the  Levites  and  priests. 

24  See  appendix  to  book  iii.  p.  21S  sq. 

26  'ApiOnoi  in  the  LXX.,  Szi-iiieri  in  the  Vulgate,  whence  our  ^'Number*" 
E  E  2 


t)Ob  Books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Appendix  1. 

iv.  The  history  of  the  last  year,  from  the  second  arrival  of  the  Israelites  in 
Kadesh  till  they  reach  "  the  plains  of  Moab  by  Jordan  near  Jericho"  (xx. 
1-xxxvi.  13). 

§  10.  The  Book  of  Deuterokomy'^®  consists  chiefly  of  three  discourses 
delivered  by  Moses  shortly  before  his  death.  They  were  spoken  to  all  Israel 
in  the  plains  of  Moab,  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Jordan  (i.  1 ),  in  the  eleventh 
month  of  the  last  year  of  their  wanderings,  the  fortieth  year  after  their  exo- 
dus from  Egypt  (i.  3).  Subjoined  to  tliese  discourses  are  the  Song  of  Moses, 
ih.e  Blessing  of  Moses,  and  the  story  of  his  death. 

An  account  of  the  contents  of  this  book  is  given  elsewhere.'^' 

II.  THE  HISTOKICAL  BOOKS. 

§  11.  The  Book  of  Joshua  has  been  regarded  by  many  critics  as  a  part 
of  tlie  Pentateuch,  forming  with  the  latter  one  complete  work  ;  but  there  do 
not  appear  to  be  sufficient  grounds  for  this  opinion.  The  fact  that  the  first 
sentence  of  Joshua  begins  with  a  conjunction  does  not  show  any  closer  con- 
nection between  it  and  the  Pentateuch  than  exists  between  Judges  and  it. 
The  references  in  i.  8,  viii.  31,  xxiii.  6,  xxiv.  2G,  to  the  "book  of  the  law" 
rather  show  that  that  book  was  distinct  from  Joshua.  Other  references  to 
events  recorded  in  the  Pentateuch  tend  in  the  same  direction.  No  quotation 
(in  the  strict  modern  sense  of  the  Avord)  from  the  Pentateuch  can  be  found 
in  Joshua. 

The  book  may  be  regarded  as  consisting  of  three  parts  :  (1.)  The  conquest 
of  Canaan ;  (2.)  The  partition  of  Canaan  ;  (3.)  Joshua's  farewell. 

i.  The  preparations  for  the  war  and  the  passage  of  the  Jordan,  ch.  i.-v.  ;  the 
capture  of  Jericho,  vi.;  the  conquest  of  the  south,  vii.-x.;  the  conquest  of 
the  north,  xi.  ;  recapitulation,  xii. 

ii.  Territory  assigned  to  Reuben,  Gad,  and  half  Manasseh,  xiii.;  the  lot  of 
Caleb  and  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  xiv.,  xv.;  Ephraim  and  half  Manasseh,  xvi., 
xvii.;  Benjamin,  xviii. ;  Simeon,  Zebulun,  Issachar,  Asher,  Naphtali,  and 
Dan,  xix.;  the  appointment  of  six  cities  of  refuge,  xx.;  the  assignment  of 
forty-eight  cities  to  Levi,  xxi.;  the  departure  of  the  transjordanic  tribes  to 
their  homes,  xxii.  This  part  of  the  book  has  been  aptly  compared  to  the 
Domesday-book  of  the  Norman  conquerors  of  England.  The  documents  of 
which  it  consists  were  doubtless  the  abstract  of  such  reports  as  were  supplied 
by  the  men  Avhom  Joshua  sent  out^**  to  describe  the  land.  In  the  course  of 
time  it  is  probable  that  changes  were  introduced  into  their  reports  by  tran- 
scribers adapting  them  to  the  actual  state  of  the  country  in  later  times,  when 
political  divisions  were  modified,  new  towns  sprang  up,  and  old  ones  disap- 
peared.*^ 

iii.  Joshua's  convocation  of  the  people  and  first  address,  xxiii.  ;  his  second 
addi'ess  at  Shechem,  and  his  death,  xxiv. 

Nothing  is  really  known  as  to  the  authorship  of  the  book.  Joshua  himself 
IS  generally  named  as  the  author  by  the  Jewish  writers  and  the  Christian  fa- 
thers ;  but  no  contemporary  assertion  or  sufficient  historical  proof  of  the  fact 
exists,  and  it  can  not  be  maintained  without  qualification.  The  last  verses 
(xxiv.  29-33)  Avere  obviously  added  at  a  later  time.     Some  CA-ents,  such  as 

2^  AeuTepovoAKOf  in  the  LXX.,  as  bsicg  a  [      -^  Josli.  xviii.  8. 
repetition  of  the  Law.  I      "^  Comp.  tlie  two  lists  of  Levitical  towns, 

27  See  p.  210  sq.  I  Josli.  xxi.  and  1  Chr.  A'i,  54,  etc. 


Appendix  L  Joslma,  Judf/es,  Ruth.  659 

the  capture  of  Hebron,  of  Debir  (Josh.  xv.  13-19,  and  Judg.  i.  10-15),  of 
Leshem  (Josh.  xix.  47,  and  Judg.  xviii.  7),-  and  the  joint  occupation  of  Je- 
rusalem (Josh.  XV.  G3,  and  Judg.  i.  21),  probably  did  not  occur  till  after 
Joshua's  death. 

§  12.  While  the  Book  of  Joshua  seems  to  be  an  independent  work,  the 
books  of  Judges,  Kuth,  Sanmel,  and  Kings  present  the  appearance  of  one 
work,  giving  a  continuous  history  of  Israel  from  the  times  of  Joshua  to  the 
death  of  Jehoiachin.  It  must  suffice  here  to  mention,  in  support  of  this  as- 
sertion, the  frequent  allusion  in  the  Book  of  Judges  to  the  times  of  the  kings 
of  Israel  (xvii.  6,  xviii.  1,  xix.  1,  xxi,  25);  the  concurrent  evidence  of  ch.  ii. 
that  the  writer  lived  in  an  age  when  he  could  take  a  retrospect  of  the  whole 
time  during  which  the  judges  ruled  (ver.  16-19),  i.  e.,  that  he  lived  after  the 
monarchy  had  been  established  ;  the  occurence  in  the  Book  of  Judges,  for 
the  first  time,  of  the  phrase  "the  Spirit  of  Jehovah"  (iii.  10),  which  is  re- 
peated often  in  the  book  (vi.  3-1,  xi.  29,  xiii.  25,  xiv.  6,  etc.),  and  is  of  fre- 
quent use  in  Samuel  and  Kings,  (e.  ,7.,  1  Sam.  x.  G,  x^-i.  13,  U,  xix.  9;  2 
Sam.  xxiii.  2;  IK.  xxii.  24  ;  2  K.  ii.  10,  etc.);  the  allusion  in  i.  21  to  the 
capture  of  Jebus,  and  the  continuance  of  a  Jebusite  population  (see  2  Sam, 
xxiv.  10);  the  reference  in  xx.  27  to  the  removal  of  the  ark  of  the  covenant 
from  Shiloh  to  Jerusalem,  and  the  expression  "  in  those  days,"  pointing,  as 
in  xvii.  6,  etc.,  to  remote  times;  the  distinct  reference  in  xviii.  30  to  the 
captivity  of  Israel  by  Shalmaneser,  with  the  fact  that  the  books  of  Judges, 
Ruth,  Sanmel,  Kings,  form  one  unbroken  narrative,  similar  in  general  charac- 
ter, which  has  no  beginning  except  at  Judg.  i.,  while,  it  may  be  added,  the 
Book  of  Judges  is  not  a  continuation  of  Joshua,  but  opens  with  a  repetition 
of  the  same  events  with  which  Joshua  closes.  In  like  manner  the  Book  of 
Ruth  clearly  forms  part  of  those  of  Samuel,  supplying,  as  it  does,  the  essen- 
tial point  of  David's  genealogy  and  early  family  history,  and  is  no  less  clearly 
connected  with  the  Book  of  Judges  by  its  opening  verse,  and  the  epoch  to 
which  the  whole  book  relates.  And  generally  the  style  of  the  narrative,  or- 
dinarily quiet  and  simple,  but  rising  to  great  vigor  and  spirit  when  stirring 
deeds  are  described  (as  in  Judg.  iv.,  vii.,  xi.,  etc.;  1  Sam.  iv.,  xvii.,  xxxi., 
etc.;  1  K.  viii.,  xviii.,  xix.,  etc.),  and  the  introduction  of  poetry  or  poetic 
style  in  the  midst  of  the  narrative  (as  in  Judg.  v.,  1  Sam.  ii.,  2  Sam.  i.  17, 
etc.;  1  K.  xxii.  17,  etc.),  constitute  such  strong  features  of  resemblance,  as 
lead  to  the  conclusion  that  these  several  books  form  but  one  work.  If  this 
conclusion  is  accepted,  the  final  arrangement  of  the  whole  must  have  been 
after  the  thirty-seventh  year  of  Jehoiachin's  captivity,  or  B.C.  562,^°  and  may 
be  ascribed  to  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  who  was  probably  the  compiler  of  the 
Books  of  Kings.  ^'  This,  however,  does  not  exclude  the  supposition  that 
Judges,  Samuel,  and  Kings  may  have  been  composed  separately,  and  subse- 
quently formed  into  one  whole  by  Jeremiah. 

§  13.  The  Book  or  Judges,  of  which  the  Book  of  Ruth  foi-med  origi- 
nally a  part,  contains  the  history  from  Joshua  to  Samson,  and  may  be  di- 
vided into  two  parts. 

i.  Ch.  i.-xvi.— The  subdivisions  are— (a.)  i-ii.  5,  which  may  be  considered 
as  a  first  introduction,  giving  a  summar}^  of  the  results  of  the  war  carried  on 
against  the  Canaanites  by  the  several  tribes  on  the  west  of  Jordan  aftet 

83  2  K.  XXV.  27.  ^'  See  p.  6G1,  GG2. 


660  Boohs  of  the  Old  Testament  Appendix  I. 

Joshua's  death,  {b.)  ii.  6-iii.  G. — This  is  a  second  introduction,  standing  in 
nearer  relation  to  the  following  history.  It  informs  us  that  the  people  fell 
into  idolatry  after  the  death  of  Joshua  and  his  generation,  and  that  they 
were  punished  for  it  by  being  unable  to  drive  out  the  remnant  of  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  land,  and  by  falling  under  the  hand  of  oppressors,  (c. )  iii.  7-xvi. — 
The  words,  "  and  the  children  of  Israel  did  evil  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord," 
which  had  been  already  used  in  ii.  11,  are  employed  to  introduce  the  history 
of  the  thirteen  judges  comprised  in  this  book.  An  account  of  six  of  these 
thirteen  is  given  at  greater  or  less  length.  The  account  of  the  remaining 
seven  is  very  short,  and  is  merely  attached  to  the  longer  narratives.  These 
narratives  are  as  follows: — (I.)  The  deliverance  of  Israel  by  Othniel,  iii. 
7-11.  (2.)  The  history  of  Ehud,  and  (in  31)  that  of  Shamgar,  iii.  12-31. 
(3.)  The  deliverance  by  Deborah  and  Barak,  iv,-v.  (4.)  The  whole  passage 
in  vi.-x.  5.  The  history  of  Gideon  and  his  son  Abimelech  is  contained  in 
vi.-ix.,  and  is  followed  by  the  notice  of  Tola,  x.  1,  2,  and  Jair,  x.  3-5.  (5.) 
The  histoiy  of  Jephthah,  x.  6-xii.  7  ;  to  which  is  added  the  history  of  Ibzan, 
xii.  8-10;  Elon,  11,  12  ;  and  Abdon,  13-15.  (6.)  The  mention  of  Samson, 
xiii.-xvi. 

ii.  Ch.  xvii.-xxi. — This  part  has  no  formal  connection  with  the  preced- 
ing, and  is  often  called  an  appendix.  No  mention  of  the  judges  occurs  in  it. 
It  contains  allusions  to  "the  house  of  God,"  the  ark,  and  the  high-priest. 
The  period  to  which  the  narrative  relates  is  simply  marked  by  the  expres- 
sion, "  when  there  was  no  king  in  Israel"  (xix.  1 ;  cf  xviii.  1).  It  records 
(a.)  the  conquest  of  Laish  by  a  portion  of  the  tribe  of  Dan,  and  the  estab- 
lishment there  of  the  idolatrous  w^orship  of  Jehovah  already  instituted  by 
Micah  in  Mount  Ephraim.  (6.)  The  almost  total  extinction  of  the  tribe  of 
Benjamin  by  the  whole  people  of  Israel,  in  consequence  of  their  supporting 
the  cause  of  the  wicked  men  of  Gibeah. 

From  the  above  account  it  will  be  obseiTed  that  the  history  ceases  with 
Samson,  excluding  Eli  and  Samuel ;  and  then  at  this  point  two  historical 
pieces  are  added,  xvii.-xxi.,  and  the  Book  of  Ruth,  independent  of  the  gen- 
eral plan  and  of  each  other.  This  is  sufficiently  explained  by  the  supposi- 
tion mentioned  above  that  the  books  from  Judges  to  2  Kings  form  one  work. 
In  this  case  the  histories  of  Eli  and  Samuel,  so  closely  united  between  them- 
selves, are  only  deferred  on  account  of  their  close  connection  with  the  rise  of 
the  monarchy.  And  Judg.  xvii.-xxi.  is  inserted  both  as  an  illustration  of 
the  sin  of  Israel  during  the  time  of  the  judges,  in  which  respect  it  agrees  with 
i.-xvi.,  and  as  presenting  a  contrast  with  the  better  order  prevailing  in  the 
time  of  the  kings. 

§  14.  The  Books  of  Samuel  are  not  separated  from  each  other  in  the 
Hebrew  MSS.,  and  from  a  critical  point  of  view  must  be  regarded  as  one 
book.  The  present  division  was  first  made  in  the  Septuagint  translation, 
and  was  adopted  in  the  Vulgate  from  the  Septuagint. ^^  The  book  was  called 
by  the  Hebrews  "  Samuel,"  probably  because  the  birth  and  life  of  Samuel 
were  the  subjects  treated  of  in  the  beginning  of  the  Avork. 

The  Books  of  Samuel  commence  with  the  history  of  Eli  and  Samuel  and 
contain  an  account  of  the  establishment  of  the  Hebrew  monan'hy  and  of  the 
reigns  of  Saul  and  David,  with  the  exception  of  the  last  days  of  the  latter 

32  It  was  not  till  the  year  151S  thnt  the  di-l  Hebrew,  in  the  edition  of  the  Bible  printad 
vision  of  the  Septuagint  was  adopted  in  the!  by  the  bomberg^  at  Venice. 


Appendix  I.  The  Booha  of  Samuel  and  Kings.  661 

monarch,  which  are  related  in  the  beginning  of  the  Books  of  Kings,  of  which 
those  of  Samuel  form  the  previous  portion,  as  ah-eady  explained.  As  the 
history  of  this  period  has  been  fully  narrated  in  the  present  work,  it  is  un- 
necessary to  give  any  analysis  of  the  contents  of  the  books.  With  respect  to 
the  authorship,  the  common  opinion  is,  tliAt  the  first  twenty-four  chapters 
were  written  by  the  prophet  himself,  and  the  rest  by  the  prophets  Nathan  and 
Gad.  But  this  rests  upon  a  mistranslation  of  an  ambiguous  passage  in  the 
First  Book  of  Chronicles  (xxix.  29),  which  ought  to  be  rendered: — "Now 
the  history  of  David  first  and  last,  behold  it  is  written  in  the  histoiy  of  Sam- 
uel the  seer,  and  in  the  history  of  Nathan  the  prophet,  and  in  the  history  of 
Gad  the  seer  " — which  does  not  imply  that  the  books  were  written  by  these 
persons.  But  although  the  authorship  can  not  be  ascertained  with  certainty, 
it  appears  clear  that,  in  its  present  form,  it  must  have  been  composed  subse- 
quent to  the  secession  of  the  Ten  Tribes.  This  results  from  the  passage  in 
1  Sam.  xxvii.  6,  wherein  it  is  said  of  David,  "Then  Achish  gave  him  Ziklag 
that  day :  wherefore  Ziklag  pertaineth  unto  the  kings  of  Judah  to  this  day  :" 
for  neither  Saul,  David,  nor  Solomon  is  in  a  single  instance  called  king  of 
Judah  simply.  Before  the  secession,  the  designation  of  the  kings  was  that 
they  were  kings  of  Israel  (I  Sam.  xiii.l,  XV.  1,  xvi.  1 ;  2Sam.  v.  17,  viii.  15;  I 
K,  ii.  1 1,  iv.  1 ,  vi.  1,  xi.  42).  On  the  other  hand  it  would  hardly  \\q.vq  been  writ- 
ten later  than  the  reformation  of  Josiah,  since  it  seems  to  have  been  compos- 
ed at  a  time  when  the  Pentateuch  was  not  acted  on  as  the  rule  of  religious  ob- 
servances. According  to  the  Mosaic  law,  sacrifices  to  Jehovah  were  not  lawful 
anywhere  but  before  the  door  of  the  tabernacle  of  the  congregation,  whether 
this  was  a  permanent  temple,  as  at  Jerusalem,  or  otherwise  (Deut.  xii.  13, 
14;  Lev.  xvii.  3,  4  ;  but  see  Ex.  xx.  24).  But  in  the  Book  of  Samuel,  the 
offering  of  sacrifices  or  the  erection  of  altars,  which  implies  sacrifices,  is 
mentioned  at  several  places,  such  as  Mizpeh,  Ramah,  Bethel,  the  threshing- 
place  of  Araunah  the  Jebusite,  and  elsewhere,  not  only  without  any  disap- 
probation, apology,  or  explanation,  but  in  a  way  which  produces  the  impres- 
sion that  such  sacrifices  were  pleasing  to  Jehovah  (I  Sam.  vii.  9,  10,  17,  ix. 
13,  x,  3,  xiv.  35  ;  2  Sam.  xxiv.  18-25).  Now  we  know  that  after  the  refor- 
mation of  Josiah  the  worship  upon  high-places  was  abolished  by  the  king's 
orders  (2  K.  xxii.  8,  xxiii.  8,  13,  15,  19,  21).^^  All,  therefore,  that  can  be 
asserted  with  any  certainty  is,  that  the  book,  as  a  whole,  can  scarcely  have 
been  composed  later  than  the  reformation  of  Josiah,  and  that  it  could  not 
have  existed  in  its  present  form  earlier  than  the  reign  of  Rehoboam. 

§  15.  The  Books  of  Kings,  like  the  Books  of  Samuel,  form  only  one  book 
in  the  Hebrew  MSS.  They  contain  the  history  from  David's  death  and  Solo- 
mon's accession  to  the  destruction  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah  and  the  desola- 
tion of  Jerusalem,  with  a  supplemental  notice  of  an  event  that  occurred  after 
an  intei-A'al  of  twenty-six  years,  viz.,  the  liberation  of  Jehoiachin  from  his 
prison  at  Babylon,  and  a  still  further  extension  to  Jehoiachin 's  death,  the 
time  of  which  is  not  known,  but  which  was  probably  not  long  after  his 
liberation.  The  history  therefore  comprehends  the  whole  time  of  the  Israel- 
itish  monarchy,  exclusive  of  the  reigns  of  Saul  and  David. 

As  regards  the  authorship  of  the  books,  but  little  difficulty  presents  itself. 
The  Jewish  tradition  which  ascribes  them  to  Jeremiah,  is  borne  out  by  the 

33  See  aUo  d.  583. 


662  Books  of  the  Old  Testament  Appendix  1. 

strongest  internal  evidence,  in  addition  to  that  of  the  language.  The  last 
chapter,  especially  as  compared  with  the  last  chapter  of  the  Chronicles,  bears 
distinct  traces  of  having  been  written  by  one  who  did  not  go  into  captivity, 
but  remained  in  Judeea  after  the  destruction  of  the  Temple.  This  suits  Jere- 
miah. The  events  singled  out  for  mention  in  the  concise  narrative  are  pre- 
cisely those  of  which  he  had  personal  knowledge,  and  in  which  he  took  special 
interest.  The  writer  in  Kings  has  nothing  more  to  tell  us  concerning  the 
Jews  or  Chaldees  in  the  land  of  Judah,  which  exactly  agrees  with  the  hy- 
pothesis that  he  is  Jeremiah,  who  we  know  was  carried  down  to  Egypt  witK 
the  fugitives.  In  fact,  the  date  of  the  Avriting  and  the  position  of  the  writer 
seem  as  clearly  marked  by  the  termination  of  the  narrative  at  v.  26,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  But  though  the  general  unity  and  conti- 
nuity of  plan  lead  us  to  assign  the  Avliole  history  in  a  certain  sense  to  one  au- 
thor, yet  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  authorship  of  those  parts  of  the 
history  of  Avhich  Jeremiah  was  not  an  eye-witness,  that  is,  of  all  before  the 
reign  of  Josiah,  would  have  consisted  merely  in  selecting,  arranging,  inserting 
the  connecting  phrases,  and,  when  necessaiy,  slightly  modernizing  the  old 
histories  which  had  been  drawn  up  by  contemporary  prophets  through  the 
whole  period  of  time.  See,  f.  ^.,  1  K.  xiii.  32.  For,  as  regards  the  sources 
of  information,  it  may  truly  be  said  that  we  have  the  narrative  of  contempo- 
rary writers  throughout.  There  was  a  regular  series  of  state-annals  both  for 
the  kingdom  of  Judah  and  for  that  of  Israel,  which  embraced  the  whole  time 
comprehended  in  the  Books  of  Kings,  or  at  least  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of 
Jehoiakim  (2  K.  xxiv.  5).  These  annals  are  constantly  cited  by  name  as 
"  the  Book  of  the  Acts  of  Solomon,"  1  K.  xi.  41 ;  and,  after  Solomon,  "  the 
Book  of  the  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Judah,  or  Israel,"  e.  g.,  1  K.  xiv.  29, 
XV.  7,  xvi.  5, 14,  20  ;  2  K.  x.  34,  xxiv,  5,  etc.,  and  it  is  manifest  that  the  au- 
thor of  Kings  had  them  both  before  him  while  he  drew  up  his  history,  in  which 
the  reigns  of  the  two  kingdoms  are  liarmonized,  and  these  annals  constantly 
appealed  to.  But  in  addition  to  these  national  annals,  there  were  also  extant, 
at  the  time  that  the  Books  of  Kings  were  compiled,  separate  works  of  the 
several  prophets  who  had  lived  in  Judah  and  Israel.  Thus  the  acts  of  Uz- 
ziah,  written  by  Isaiah,  were  very  likely  identical  with  the  history  of  his  reign 
in  the  national  chronicles  ;  and  part  of  the  history  of  Hezekiah  we  know  is 
identical  in  the  chronicles  and  in  the  prophet.  The  chapter  in  Jeremiah  re- 
lating to  the  destruction  of  the  Temple  (lii.)  is  identical  with  that  in  2  K. 
xxiv.,  XXV. 

§  IG.  The  Books  of  Chronicles  are  so  called  as  being  the  record  made 
by  the  appointed  historiographers  in  the  kingdoms  of  Israel  and  Judah. ^ 
The  constant  tradition  of  the  Jews,  in  which  they  have  been  followed  by  the 
great  mass  of  Christian  commentators,  is  that  these  books  were  for  the  most 
]:art  compiled  by  Ezra.  In  fact,  the  internal  evidence  as  to  the  time  when  the 
Book  of  Chronicles  was  compiled  seems  to  tally  remarkably  with  the  tradi- 
tion concerning  its  authorship.  As  regards  the  plan  of  the  book,  of  which  the 
Book  of  Ezra  is  a  continuation,  forming  one  work,  it  becomes  apparent  im- 
mediately we  consider  it  as  the  compilation  of  Ezra,  or  some  one  nearly  con- 

3*  In  the  LXX.  these  books  are  called  x\a- 1  Books  of  King?.  Tlie  Vulgate  retains  both 
paXejiro^evctJv  npwTov  and  tievrepov,  which  is  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  name  in  Latin  cliar- 
understood,  after  Jerome's  explanation,  as  acters,  Dibre  jammira,  or  hajamim,  and  Pa* 
meaning  that  they  are  supplementary  to  the  |  ralipomenon. 


Appendix  I.  The  Book  of  Chronicles.  663 

temporary  with  him.  One  of  the  greatest  difficulties  connected  with  the  cap* 
tivity  and  the  return  must  have  been  the  maintenance  of  that  genealogical 
distribution  of  the  lands  which  yet  was  a  vital  point  of  the  Jewish  economy. 
Another  difficulty,  intimately  connected  with  the  former,  was  the  maintenance 
of  the  Temple-services  at  Jerusalem.  This  could  only  be  effected  by  the  resi- 
dence of  the  priests  and  Levites  in  Jerusalem  in  the  order  of  their  courses  ;  and 
this  residence  was  only  practicable  in  case  of  the  payment  of  the  appointed 
tithes,  first-fruits,  and  other  offerings.  But  then  again  the  registers  of  the 
Levitical  genealogies  were  necessary,  in  order  that  it  might  be  known  who 
were  entitled  to  such  and  such  allowances,  as  porters,  as  singers,  as  priests, 
and  so  on,  because  all  these  offices  went  by  families :  and  again  the  payment 
of  the  tithes,  first-fruits,  etc.,  was  dependent  upon  the  different  families  of 
Israel  being  established  each  in  his  inheritance.  Obviously,  therefore,  one 
of  the  most  pressing  wants  of  the  Jewish  community  after  their  return  from 
Babylon  would  be  trusty  genealogical  records.  But  further,  not  only  had 
Zerubbabel,  and  after  him  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  labored  most  earnestly  to  re- 
store the  Temple  and  the  public  worship  of  God  there  to  the  condition  it  had 
been  in  under  the  kings  of  Judah,  but  it  appears  clearly  from  their  policy, 
and  from  the  language  of  the  contemporary  prophets,  Haggai  and  Zechariah, 
that  they  had  it  much  at  heart  to  re-infuse  something  of  national  life  and 
spirit  into  the  heart  of  the  people,  and  to  make  them  feel  that  they  were  still 
the  inheritors  of  God's  covenanted  mercies,  and  that  the  captivity  had  only 
temporarily  interrupted,  not  dried  up,  the  stream  of  God's  fiivor  to  their  na- 
tion. Now  nothing  could  more  effectually  aid  these  pious  and  patriotic  de- 
signs than  setting  before  the  people  a  compendious  history  of  the  kingdom  of 
David,  which  should  embrace  a  full  account  of  its  prosperity,  should  trace 
the  sins  which  led  to  its  overthrow,  but  should  carry  the  thread  through  the 
period  of  the  captivity,  and  continue  it,  as  it  Avere,  unbroken  on  the  other 
side ;  and  those  passages  in  their  former  history  would  be  especially  impor- 
tant which  exhibited  their  greatest  and  best  kings  as  engaged  in  building  or 
restoring  the  Temple,  in  reforming  all  corruptions  in  religion,  and  zealously 
regulating  the  services  of  the  house  of  God.  As  regards  the  kingdom  of 
Israel  or  Samaria,  seeing  it  had  utterly  and  hopelessly  passed  away,  and  that 
the  existing  inhabitants  were  among  the  bitterest  "adversaries  of  Judah  and 
Benjamin,"  it  would  naturally  engage  very  little  of  the  compiler's  attention. 
These  considerations  explain  exactly  the  plan  and  scope  of  that  historical 
work,  which  consists  of  the  two  Books  of  Chronicles  and  the  Book  of  Ezra. 
For  after  having  in  the  first  eight  chapters  given  the  genealogical  divisions 
and  settlements  of  the  various  tribes,  the  compiler  marks  distinctly  his  own 
age  and  his  own  purpose  by  informing  us,  in  ch.  ix,  1 ,  of  the  disturbance  of 
those  settlements  by  the  Babylonish  captivity,  and,  in  the  following  verses, 
of  the  partial  restoration  of  them  at  the  return  from  Babylon  (2-34) ;  and 
that  this  list  refers  to  the  families  who  had  returned  from  Babylon  is  clear, 
not  only  from  the  context,  but  from  its  re-insertion  (Neh.  xi.  3-22),'^  with  ad- 
ditional matter  evidently  extracted  from  the  public  archives,  and  relating  to 
times  subsequent  to  the  return  from  Babylon,  extending  to  Neh.  xii.  27,  where 
Nehemiah's  narrative  is  again  resumed  in  continuance  with  Neh.  xi.  2.  Hav- 
ing thus  shown  the  re-establishment  of  the  returned  families,  each  in  their  owr 

S5  Compare  alao  I  Chroa.  ix.  19,  with  Ezra  i!.  42 ;  Neh.  vii.  45. 


664:  Books  oj  the  Old  Testament.  Appendix  I. 

inheritance  according  to  the  houses  of  their  fathers,  the  compiVer  proceeds  to 
the  other  part  of  his  plan,  which  is  to  give  a  continuous  history  of  the  kingdom 
of  Judah  from  David  to  his  own  times,  introduced  by  the  closing  scene  oi' 
Saul's  life  (eh.  x.),  which  introduction  is  itself  prefaced  by  a  genealogy  of  the 
house  of  Saul  (ix,  35-44). 

As  regards  the  materials  used  by  Ezra,  they  are  not  difficult  to  discover. 
The  genealogies  are  obviously  transcribed  from  some  register,  in  which  were 
preserved  the  genealogies  of  the  tribes  and  families  drawn  up  at  different 
times ;  while  the  history  is  mainly  drawn  from  the  same  documents  as  those 
used  in  the  Books  of  Kings.  As  regards  the  language  of  these  books,  as  of 
Ezra,  Nehemiah,  Esther,  and  the  later  prophets,  it  has  a  marked  Chaldee 
coloring,  and  Gesenius  says  of  them,  that  "as  literary  works,  they  are  de- 
cidedly inferior  to  those  of  older  date." 

§  17.  Relation  of  the  Books  of  Kings  to  those  of  Chronicles. — It  is  manifest, 
and  is  universally  admitted,  that  the  former  is  by  far  the  older  work.  The 
language,  which  is  quite  free  from  the  Persicisms  of  the  Chronicles  and  their 
late  orthography,  and  is  not  at  all  more  Aramaic  than  the  language  of  Jere- 
miah, clearly  points  out  its  relative  superiority  in  regard  to  age.  Its  subject 
also,  embracing  the  kingdom  of  Israel  as  well  as  Judah,  is  another  indication 
of  its  composition  before  the  kingdom  of  Israel  was  forgotten,  and  before  the 
Jewish  enmity  to  Samaria  (which  is  apparent  in  such  passages  as  2  Chr.  xx. 
37,  xxv.,  and  in  those  chapters  of  Ezra  [i.-vi.]  which  belong  to  Chronicles) 
was  brought  to  maturity.  While  the  Books  of  Chronicles  therefore  were 
written  especially  for  the  Jews  after  their  return  from  Babylon,  the  Book  of 
Kings  was  written  for  the  whole  of  Israel  before  their  common  national  ex- 
istence was  hopelessly  quenched. 

Another  comparison  of  considerable  interest  between  the  two  histories  may 
be  drawn  in  respect  to  the  main  design,  that  design  having  a  marked  relation 
both  to  the  individual  station  of  the  supposed  w  riters,  and  the  peculiar  circum- 
stances of  their  country  at  the  times  of  their  writing. 

Jeremiah  was  himself  a  prophet.  He  lived  while  the  prophetic  office  was 
in  full  vigor,  in  his  own  person,  in  Ezekiel  and  Daniel,  and  many  others  both 
true  and  false.  In  his  eyes,  as  in  truth,  the  main  cause  of  the  fearful  calami- 
ties of  his  countrymen  was  their  rejection  and  contempt  of  the  Word  of  God 
in  his  mouth  and  that  of  the  other  prophets  ;  and  the  one  hope  of  deliverance 
lay  in  their  hearkening  to  the  prophets  who  still  continued  to  speak  to  them 
in  the  name  of  the  Lord.  Accordingly  we  find  in  the  Books  of  Kings  great 
l)rominence  given  to  the  prophetic  office. 

Ezra,  on  the  contrary,  was  only  a  priest.  In  his  days  the  prophetic  office 
had  wholly  fjillen  into  abeyance.  That  evidence  of  the  Jews  being  the  peo- 
ple of  God,  which  consisted  in  the  presence  of  prophets  among  them,  w^as  no 
more.  But  to  the  men  of  his  generation,  the  distinctive  mark  of  the  continu- 
ance of  God's  favor  to  their  race  was  the  rebuilding  of  the  Tem])le  at  Jerusa- 
lem, the  restoration  of  the  daily  sacrifice  and  the  Levitical  worship,  and  the 
wonderful  and  providential  renewal  of  the  Mosaic  institutions.  The  chief 
instrument,  too,  for  preserving  the  Jewish  remnant  from  absorption  into  the 
mass  of  heathenism,  and  for  maintaining  their  national  life  till  the  coming 
of  Messiah,  was  the  maintenance  of  the  Temple,  its  ministers,  and  its  serv- 
ices. Hence  we  see  at  once  that  the  chief  care  of  a  good  and  enlightened 
Jew  of  the  age  of  Ezra,  and  all  the  more  if  he  were  himself  a  priest,  would 


Appendix  I,     Relation  of  Kings  to  Chronicles — Ezra.         665 

naturally  be  to  enhance  the  value  of  the  Levitical  ritual,  and  the  dignity  of 
the  Levitical  caste.  And  in  compiling  a  history  of  the  past  glories  of  his 
race,  he  would  as  naturally  select  such  passages  as  especially  bore  upon  tho 
sanctity  of  the  priestly  office,  and  show  the  deep  concern  taken  by  their  an- 
cestors in  all  that  related  to  the  honor  of  God's  house,  and  the  support  of  His 
ministering  servants.  Hence  the  Levitical  character  of  the  Books  of  Chron- 
icles, and  the  presence  of  several  detailed  narratives  not  found  in  the  Books 
of  Kings,  and  the  more  frequent  reference  to  the  Mosaic  institutions,  may 
most  naturally  and  simply  be  accounted  for,  without  resorting  to  the  absurd 
hypothesis  that  the  ceremonial  law  Avas  an  invention  subsequent  to  the  Cap- 
tivity. ^  Moreover,  upon  the  principle  that  the  sacred  writers  were  influenced 
by  natural  feelings  in  their  selection  of  their  materials,  it  seems  most  api^ro- 
priate  that  while  the  prophetical  writer  in  Kings  deals  very  fully  with  the  king- 
dom of  Isi-ael,  in  which  the  prophets  were  much  more  illustrious  than  in  Ju- 
dah,  the  Levitical  writer,  on  the  contrary,  should  concentrate  all  his  thoughts 
round  Jerusalem,  where  alone  the  Levitical  caste  had  all  its  power  and  func- 
tions, and  should  dwell  upon  all  the  instances  preserved  in  existing  muni- 
ments of  the  deeds  and  even  the  minutest  ministrations  of  the  priests  and 
Lsvites,  as  well  as  of  their  faithfulness  and  sufferings  in  the  cause  of  truth. 

From  the  comparison  of  parallel  narratives  in  the  two  books,  it  appears 
that  the  results  are  precisely  Avhat  would  natui-ally  arise  from  the  circumstan- 
ces of  the  case.  The  writer  of  Chronicles,  having  the  Books  of  Kings  before 
him,  and  to  a  great  extent  making  those  books  the  basis  of  his  own,  but  also 
having  his  own  personal  views,  predilections,  and  motives  in  writing,  com- 
posing for  a  different  age,  and  for  people  under  veiy  different  circumstances, 
and,  moreover,  having  before  him  the  original  authorities  from  which  tlie 
Books  of  Kings  were  compiled,  as  well  as  some  others,  naturally  rearranged 
the  older  narrative  as  suited  his  purpose  and  his  tastes,  gave  in  full  passages 
which  the  other  had  abridged,  inserted  what  had  been  wholly  omitted,  omit- 
ted some  things  which  the  other  had  inserted,  including  nearly  every  thing 
relating  to  the  kingdom  of  Israel,  and  showed  the  color  of  his  own  mind,  not 
only  in  the  nature  of  the  passages  which  he  selected  from  the  ancient  docu- 
ments, but -in  the  reflections  which  he  frequently  adds  upon  the  events  which 
lie  relates,  and  possibly  also  in  the  turn  given  to  some  of  the  speeches  which 
he  records. 

§  18,  The  Book  of  Ezra,  is,  as  already  remarked,  manifestly  a  continua- 
tion of  the  Books  of  Chronicles.  Like  these  books,  it  consists  of  the  contem- 
porary historical  journals  kept  from  time  to  time,  which  were  aftenvard  strung 
together,  and  either  abridged  or  added  to,  as  the  case  required,  by  a  later 
hand.  That  later  hand  in  the  Book  of  Ezra  was  doubtless  Ezra's  own,  as 
appears  by  the  four  last  chapters,  as  well  as  by  other  matter  inserted  in  the 
previous  chapters.  The  chief  portion  of  the  last  chapter  of  2  Chron.  and 
Ezra  i.  was  probably  written  by  Daniel.^"    As  regards  Ezra  ii.,  and  as  far  as 


3*  2  Chron.  xxix.,  xxx.,  xxxi.,  compared 
with  2  K.  xviii.,  is  perhaps  as  good  a  speci- 
imen  as  can  be  selected  of  the  distinctive 
spii-it  of  the  Chronicles.  See  also  2  Cliron. 
xxiv.  16-21  :  conip.  with  2  K.  xv.  5 ;  2 
Chron.  xi.  13-17,  xiii.  9-20,  xv.  1-15,  xxiii. 
2-8;  comp.  with  2  K.  xi.  .5-0,  and  vers.  IS, 
19 ;  comp.  with  ver.  IS,  and  many  other  pas- 


^''  The  evidences  of  this  as  to  Ezra  i.  may 
be  briefly  stated.  Daniel  parses  over  in  ut- 
ter silence  the  first  year  of  Cyrus,  to  which 
pointed  allusion  is  made  in  Dan.  i.  21,  and 
proceeds  in  chap.  x.  to  the  third  year  of  Cy- 
rus. But  Ezra  i.,  if  placed  between  Dan.  ix. 
and  X.,  exactly  fills  up  the  gap,  and  records 
tlie  event  of  the  first  year  of  Cyrus,  in  which 
Daniel  was  so  deeply  interested.     And  not 


Q6Q  Books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Appendix  l 

iii.  1,  it  is  found  (with  the  exception  of  clei'ical  errors)  in  the  seventh  chapter 
of  Nehemiah,  where  it  belongs,  beyond  a  shadow  of  doubt.  The  next  portion 
extends  from  iii.  2  to  the  end  of  ch.  vi.  With  the  exception  of  one  large  ex- 
planatory addition  by  Ezra,  extending  from  iv.  6  to  23,  this  portion  is  the 
work  of  a  writer  contemporaiy  with  Zerubbabel  and  Jeshua,  and  an  eye-wit- 
ness of  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  in  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Darius 
Hystaspis.  That  it  was  the  prophet  Haggai,  becomes  tolerably  sure  when  we 
observe  further  the  remarkable  coincidence  in  style.  Ezra  iv,  6-23  is  a  par- 
enthetic addition  by  a  much  later  hand,  and,  as  the  passage  most  clearly 
shows,  made  in  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  Longimanus.  The  compiler  who  in- 
serted ch.  ii.,  a  document  drawn  up  in  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  to  illustrate 
the  return  of  the  captives  under  Zerubbabel,  here  inserts  a  notice  of  two  his- 
torical facts — of  which  one  occurred  in  the  reign  of  Xerxes,  and  the  other  in 
the  reign  of  Artaxerxes — to  illustrate  the  oi)position  otlored  by  the  heathen  to 
the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  in  the  reign  of  Cyrus  and€ambyses.  The  last 
four  chapters,  beginning  with  ch.  vii.,  are  Ezra's  own,  and  continue  the  his- 
tory after  a  gap  of  fifty-eight  years — from  the  sixth  of  Darius  to  the  seventh 
of  Artaxerxes. 

The  book  is  written  partly  in  Hebrew  and  partly  in  Chaldee.  The  Chal- 
dee  begins  at  iv.  8,  and  continues  to  the  end  of  vi.  18.  The  letter  or  decree 
of  Artaxerxes  vii.  12-20  is  also  given  in  the  original  Chaldee. 

§  19.  The  Book  op  Nehemiah,  like  the  preceding  one  cf  Ezra,  is  clearly 
and  certainly  not  all  by  the  same  hand.  By  for  the  principal  portion,  in- 
deed, is  the  work  of  Nehemiah ;  but  other  portions  are  eitlier  extracts  from 
various  chronicles  and  registers,  or  supplementary  narratives  and  reflections, 
some  ajiparently  by  Ezra,  others,  perhaps,  the  work  of  the  same  person  who 
inserted  the  latest  genealogical  extracts  from  the  public  chroni<:les.  The 
main  history  contained  in  the  book  covers  about  12  years,  viz.,  from  the  20th 
to  the  32d  year  of  Artaxerxes  Longimanus,  i.  e.,  fromB.c.  4-15  to  433.  The 
whole  narrative  gives  us  a  grapliic  and  interesting  account  of  the  etate  of 
Jerusalem  and  the  returned  captives  in  the  writer's  times,  and,  incidentally, 
of  the  nature  of  the  Persian  government  and  the  condition  of  its  remote  prov- 
inces. The  documents  appended  to  it  also  give  some  further  information  as 
to  the  times  of  Zerubbabel  on  the  one  hand,  and  as  to  the  continuation  of  the 
genealogical  registers  and  the  succession  of  the  high-priesthood  to  the  close 
of  the  Persian  Empire  on  the  other.  The  view  given  of  the  rise  of  two  fac- 
tions among  the  Jews— the  one  the  strict  religious  party,  the  other  the  gen- 
tilizing  party,  sets  before  us  the  germ  of  much  that  we  meet  with  in  a  more 
developed  state  in  later  Jewish  history.  Again,  in  this  history  as  well  as  in 
the  Book  of  Ezra,  we  see  the  bitter  enmity  between  the  Jews  and  Samaritans 
acquiring  strength  and  definitive  form  on  both  religious  and  political  grounds. 
The  book  also  throws  much  light  upon  the  domestic  institutions  of  the  Jews. 

§  20.  The  Book  of  Esther  is  one  of  the  latest  of  the  canonical  books 
of  tlie  Old  Testament,  having  been  probably  written  late  in  the  reign  of 
Xerxes,  with  whom  Ahasuerus  may  be  identified.^"    The  author  is  not  known, 

only  so,  but  the  manner  of  the  record  is  ox-  the  givinp;  the  Chaldee  name  of  Zerubbabel, 

nctly  D.initi's.     The  giving  the  text  of  the  vers.  S,  11  (cf.  D.in.  i.  7),  and  the  wh«\e  locua 

decree,  vers.  2-4  (cf.  Dan.  iv.),  the  mention  of  standi  of  the  narrator,  who  evidently  wrote 

the  name  of  '•'■  Mithredath    tlie   treasurer,"  at  Babylon,  not  at  Jerusalem,  are  all  circum- 

rer.  8  (cf.  Dan.  i.  3,  11),  the  allusion  to  the  stances  which  in  a  marked  manner  point  to 

sacred  vessels  placed  by  Nebuchadnezzar  in  Daniel  as  the  writer  of  lizra  L 

the  house  of  his  god,  ver.  7  (cf.  Dan.  i.  2),  I     88  See  rp-  03? -4. 


Appendix  I.  The  Prophets.  667 

but  may  very  probably  liaA'e  been  Movdecai  bimself.  Those  who  ascribe  it  to 
Ezra,  or  the  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue,  may  have  merely  meant  that  Ezra 
edited  and  added  it  to  the  canon  of  Scripture,  which  he  probably  did.  The 
Book  of  Esther  appears  in  a  ditierent  form  in  the  LXX.,  and  the  translations 
thei'efrom,  from  that  in  which  it  is  found  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.  In  speaking 
of  it,  we  shall  first  speak  of  the  canonical  book  found  in  Hebrew,  to  which 
also  the  above  observations  refer,  and  next  of  the  Greek  book,  with  its  apoc- 
ryphal additions.  The  canonical  Esther,  then,  is  placed  among  the  hagio- 
grapha  by  the  Jews,  and  in  that  first  portion  of  them  whfch  they  call  "the 
five  rolls."  It  is  sometimes  emphatically  called  Mefjillah  ("roll"),  without 
other  distinction,  and  is  read  through  by  the  Jews  in  their  synagogues  at  the 
Feast  of  Purim.  It  has  often  been  remarked,  as  a  peculiarity  of  this  book, 
that  the  name  of  God  does  not  once  occur  in  it.  The  Hebrew  is  very  like 
that  of  Ezra  and  parts  of  the  Chronicles ;  generally  pure,  but  mixed  with 
some  words  of  Persian  origin,  and  some  of  Chaldee  affinity.  In  short,  it  is 
just  what  one  would  expect  to  find  in  a  work  of  the  age  to  which  the  Book 
of  Esther  professes  to  belong.  As  regards  the  LXX.  version  of  the  book,  it 
consists  of  the  canonical  Esther  with  various  interpolations  prefixed,  inter- 
spersed, and  added  at  the  close.  Though,  however,  the  intei-polations  of  the 
Greek  copy  are  thus  manifest,  they  make  a  consistent  and  intelligible  story. 
But  the  Apocryphal  additions,  as  they  are  inserted  in  some  editions  of  the 
Latin  Vulgate,  and  in  the  English  Bible,  are  incomprehensible,  the  history  of 
which  is  this: — When  Jerome  translated  the  Book  of  Esther,  he  first  gave 
the  version  of  the  Hebrew  alone,  as  being  alone  authentic.  He  then  added 
at  the  end  a  version  in  Latin  of  those  several  passages  which  he  found  in 
the  LXX.,  and  which  were  not  in  the  Hebrew,  stating  where  each  passage 
came  in,  and  marking  them  all  with  an  obelus.  Having  annexed  this  con- 
clusion, he  then  gives  the  Prooeininm,  which  he  says  forms  the  beginning  of  the 
Greek  Vulgate,  beginning  with  what  is  now  verse  2  of  chapter  xi.,  and  so 
proceeds  with  the  other  passages.  But  in  subsequent  editions,  all  Jerome's 
explanatory  matter  has  been  swept  away,  and  the  disjointed  portions  have 
been  ])rinted  as  chapters  xi.,  xii.,  xiii.,  xiv.,  xv.,  xvi.,  as  if  they  formed  a  nar- 
rative in  continuance  of  the  canonical  book. 


III.  THE  PROPHETS. 

§  21.  The  Old  Testament  contains  the  writings  of  sixteen  Prophets,  of 
which  four  are  usually  called  the  Great  Prophets,  namely,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah, 
Ezekiel,  and  Daniel,  and  twelve  the  Minor  Prophets,  namely,  Hosea,  Joel, 
Amos,  Obadiah,  Jonah,  Micah,  Nahum,  Habakkuk,  Zephaniah,  Haggai, 
Zechariah,  Malachi. 

An  account  of  the  prophetic  order  and  the  schools  of  the  Prophets  has  been 
already  given  (pp.  425,  426) ;  but  to  belong  to  the  prophetic  order  and  to 
possess  the  prophetic  gift  are  not  convertible  terms.  There  might  be  mem- 
bers of  the  prophetic  order  to  whom  the  gift  of  prophecy  was  not  vouchsafed. 
There  might  be  inspired  prophets  who  did  not  belong  to  the  prophetic  order. 
Generally,  the  inspired  prophet  came  from  the  College  of  the  Prophets,  and 
belonged  to  the  prophetic  order,  but  this  was  not  always  the  case.  In  the 
instance  of  the  Prophet  Amos,  the  rule  and  the  exception  are  both  mani- 
fested.    When  Amaziah,  the  idolatrous  Israeli  tish  priest,  thi'eatens  the  proph- 


668  Boohs  of  the  Old  Testament.  Appendix  i. 

et,  and  desires  him  to  "  flee  away  into  the  land  of  Judah,  and  there  eat  bread 
and  prophesy  there,  but  not  to  prophesy  again  anymore  at  Bethel,"  Amos  in 
reply  says,  "I  "vvas  no  prophet,  neither  Avas  I  a  prophet's  son  ;  but  I  was  a 
herdman,  and  a  gatherer  of  sycamore-fruit ;  and  the  Lord  took  me  as  I  fol- 
lowed the  flock,  and  the  Lord  said  unto  me,  Go  prophesy  unto  my  people  Is- 
rael*' (vii.  14).  That  is,  though  called  to  the  prophetic  office^  he  did  not  be- 
long to  the  prophetic  order,  and  had  not  been  trained  in  the  prophetical  col- 
leges ;  and  this,  he  indicates,  was  an  imusual  occurrence. 

The  sixteen  pro])hets  whose  books  are  in  the  Canon  have  therefore  that 
place  of  honor,  because  they  were  endowed  with  the  prophetic  (jift,  as  well  as 
ordinarily  (so  far  as  we  know)  belonging  to  the  prophetic  order.  There  were 
hundreds  of  pi'ophets  contemporary  with  these  sixteen  prophets ;  and  no  doubt 
numberless  compositions  in  sacred  poetry  and  numberless  moral  exhortations 
were  issued  from  the  several  schools,  but  only  sixteen  books  find  their  place 
in  the  Canon.  Why  is  this  ?  Because  these  sixteen  had  what  their  brother- 
collegians  had  not,  the  Divine  call  to  the  oflfice  of  prophet,  and  the  Divine  illu- 
mination to  enlighten  them.  It  was  not  sufficient  to  have  been  taught  and 
trained  in  preparation  for  a  future  call.  Teaching  and  training  served  as  a 
preparation  only.  When  the  school-master's  work  was  done,  then,  if  the  in- 
strument was  worthy,  God's  work  began,  Moses  had  an  external  call  at  the 
buiTiing  bush  (Ex.  iii.  2).  The  Lord  called  Samuel,  so  that  Eli  perceived, 
and  Samuel  learned,  that  it  was  the  Lord  who  called  him  (I  Sam.  iii.  10). 
Isaiah  (vi.  8),  Jeremiah  (i.  5),  Ezekiel  (ii.  4),  Amos  (vii.  15),  declare  their 
special  mission.  Kor  was  it  sufficient  for  this  call  to  have  been  made  once 
for  all.  Each  prophetical  utterance  is  the  result  of  a  communication  of  the 
Divine  to  the  human  spirit,  received  either  by  "  vision  "  (Is.  vi.  1)  or  by  "  the 
word  of  the  Lord  "  (Jer.  ii.  ]).  What  then  are  the  characteristics  of  the  six- 
teen prophets,  thus  called  and  commissioned,  and  intrusted  Avith  the  mes- 
sages of  God  to  his  people  ? 

1 .  They  were  the  national  poets  of  Judsea.  Music  and  poetry,  chants  and 
hymns,  were  a  main  part  of  the  studies  of  the  class  from  which,  generally 
speaking,  they  wei'e  derived.  As  is  natural,  we  find  not  only  the  songs  pre- 
viously specified,  but  the  rest  of  their  compositions,  poetical  or  breathing  the 
spirit  of  poetry. 

2.  They  were  annalists  and  historians.  A  great  portion  of  Isaiah,  of  Jer- 
emiah, of  Daniel,  of  Jonah,  of  Haggai,  is  direct  or  indirect  history. 

3.  They  were  preachers  of  patriotism,  their  patriotism  being  founded  on 
the  religious  motive.  To  the  subject  of  the  Theocracy  the  enemy  of  his  na- 
tion was  the  enemy  of  God,  the  traitor  to  the  public  weal  was  a  traitor  to 
his  God ;  a  denunciation  of  an  enemy  was  a  denunciation  of  a  representative 
of  evil,  an  exhortation  in  behalf  of  Jerusalem  was  an  exhortation  in  behalf 
of  God's  kingdom  on  earth,  "the  city  of  our  God,  the  mountain  of  holiness, 
beautiful  for  situation,  the  jov  of  the  whob  earth,  the  city  of  the  great  King  " 
(Ps.  xlviii.  1,2). 

4.  They  Avere  preachers  of  morals  and  of  spiritual  religion.  The  symbol- 
ical teaching  of  the  Law  had  lost  much  of  its  effect.  Instead  of  learning 
the  necessity  of  purity  by  the  legal  washings,  the  majority  came  to  rest  in 
the  outward  act  as  in  itself  sufficient.  It  was  the  Avork,then,  of  the  prophets 
to  hold  up  before  the  eyes  of  their  countrymen  a  high  and  pure  morality,  not 
veiled  in  symbols  and  acts,  but  such  as  none  could  profess  to  misunderstand. 


Appendix  I. 


Tlie  Fov.r  Great  Prophets. 


669 


5.  They  were  extraordinary,  but  yet  authorized,  exponents  of  the  Law. 
As  an  instance  of  this,  we  may  take  Isaiah's  description  of  a  true  fast  (Iviii. 
3-7);  Ezekiel's  explanation  of  the  sins  of  the  fathers  being  visited  on  the 
children  (ch.  xviii.)  ;  Micah's  preference  of  "doing justly,  loving  mercy,  and 
walking  humbly  with  God,"  to  "thousands  of  rams  and  ten  thousands  of 
rivers  of  oil "  (vi.  6-8).  In  these  as  in  other  similar  cases  (cf  Hos.  vi.  6 ; 
Amos  v.  21),  it  was  the  task  of  the  prophets  to  restore  the  balance  which  had 
been  overthrown  by  the  Jews  and  their  teachers  dwelling  on  one  side  or  on 
the  outer  covering  of  a  truth  or  of  a  duty,  and  leaving  the  other  side  or  the 
inner  meaning  out  of  sight. 

6.  They  were  a  political  power  in  the  state.  Strong  in  the  safeguard  of 
their  religious  character,  they  were  able  to  serve  as  a  counterpoise  to  the  roj'al 
authority  when  wielded  even  by  an  Ahab. 

7.  But  the  prophets  were  something  more  than  national  poets  and  annal- 
ists, preachers  of  patriotism,  moral  teachers,  exponents  of  the  Law,  pastors, 
and  politicians.  Their  most  essential  characteristic  is,  that  they  were  instru- 
ments of  revealing  God's  will  to  man,  as  in  other  ways,  so,  specially,  by  pre- 
dicting future  events,  and,  in  particular,  by  foretelling  the  incarnation  of  the 
Loi'd  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  redemption  effected  by  Him. 

The  sixteen  Prophets  may  be  divided  into  four  groups :  the  prophets  of 
the  Northern  Kingdom — Ilosea,  Amos,  Jonah  ;  the  Prophets  of  the  South- 
ern Kingdom — Joel,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Obadiah,  Micah,  Nahum,  Habakkuk, 
Zephaniah  ;  the  Prophets  of  the  Captivity — Ezekiel  and  Daniel ;  the  Proph- 
ets of  the  Eeturn — Haggai,  Zechariah,  Malachi, 

They  may  be  arranged  in  the  following  chronological  order :  namely,  Joel, 
Jonah,  Hosea,  Amos,  Isaiah,  Micah,  Nahum,  Zephaniah,  Habakkuk,  Obadi- 
ah, Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  Daniel,  Haggai,  Zechariah,  Malachi.  But  it  will  be 
more  convenient  to  take  them  in  the  order  in  which  they  stand  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, speaking  first  of  the  Four  Great  Prophets,  and  then  of  the  Twelve 
Minor  Prophets. 

A.  THE  FOUR  GREAT  PROPHETS. 

§  22.  Isaiah, ^^  who  is  the  principal  prophet  in  the  first  or  Assyrian  period 
of  prophecy,  was  the  son  of  Amoz,  and  prophesied  concerning  Judah  and 
Jerusalem  in  the  days  of  Uzziah,  Jotham,  Ahaz,  and  Hezekiah,  kings  of  Ju^ 
dah  (Is.  i.  1).  Isaiah  must  have  been  an  old  man  at  the  close  of  Hezekiah's 
reign.  The  ordinary  chronology  gives  758  B.C.  for  the  date  of  Jotham's  ac- 
cession, and  698  for  that  of  Hezekiah's  death.  This  gives  us  a  period  of  six- 
ty years.  And  since  his  ministry  commenced  before  Uzziah's  death  (how  long 
we  know  not),  supposing  him  to  have  been  no  more  than  twenty  years  old 
when  he  began  to  prophesy,  he  would  have  been  eighty  or  ninety  at  Manas- 
seh's  accession.^" 

Chs.  i.-v.  contain  Isaiah's  prophecies  in  the  reigns  of  Uzziah  and  Jotham. 
Ch.  i.  is  very  general  in  its  contents.  The  seer  stands  (perhaps)  in  the  Court 
of  the  Israelites,  denouncing  to  nobles  and  people,  then  assembling  f6r  di- 


3^  The  name,  of  whirh  the  fiillei*  form  is 
•Jesaiah,  Jeshaiah,  signifies  Silvatinn  ofjahu 
(a  shortened  furni  of  Jehovah).  Reference  is 
plainly  made  by  the  prophet  hiriiself  (Is.  viii. 


18)  to  the  significance  of  his  own  name  as 
well  as  of  those  of  his  two  sons. 

<"  As  to  the  tradition  respecting  the  death 
of  Isaiah,  see  p.  581,  note 


670  Boohs  of  the  Old  Teszament  Appendix  I, 

vine  worship,  the  whole  estimate  of  their  character  formed  by  Jehovah,  and 
his  approaching  chastisements.  Chs.  ii.-iv.  are  one  prophesying,  the  leaaing 
thought  of  which  is  that  the  present  prosperity  of  Judah  should  be  destroyed 
for  her  sins,  to  make  room  for  the  real  glory  of  piety  and  virtue  ;  while  ch.  v. 
forms  a  distinct  discourse,  whose  main  purport  is  that  Israel,  God's  vine- 
yard, shall  be  bi'ought  to  desolation. 

Ch.  vi.  describes  an  ecstatic  vision  that  fell  upon  the  prophet  in  the  year 
of  Uzziah's  death. 

Chs.  vi.,  Aii.,  delivered  in  the  reign  of  Ahaz,  when  he  was  threatened  by 
the  forces  of  Tekah,  king  of  Israel,  and  Rezin,  king  of  Syria.^^  Under  Je 
h'ovah's  direction  Isaiah  goes  forth  to  meet  Ahaz,  taking  with  him  the  child 
whose  name,  Shearjashub  (that  is.  Remnant  shall  return),  was  so  full  of  mysti- 
cal promise,  to  add  greater  emphasis  to  his  message.  As  a  sign  tliat  Judah 
was  not  yet  to  perish,  he  announces  the  birth  of  the  child  Immanuel,  who 
should  not  yet  "  know  to  refuse  the  evil  and  choose  the  good,"  before  the  land 
of  the  two  hostile  kings  should  be  left  desolate. 

Ch.  viii.-ix.  7. — As  the  Assyrian  Empire  began  more  and  more  to  threat- 
en the  Hebrew  commonwealth  with  utter  overthrow,  the  prediction  of  the 
Messiah,  the  Restorer  of  Israel,  becomes  more  positive  and  clear.  The 
king  was  bent  upon  an  alliance  with  Assyria.  This  Isaiah  steadfastly  op- 
poses (x.  20).  The  court  was  for  Assyria,  and  indeed  formed  an  alliance 
with  Tiglath-pileser ;  but  a  popular  party  was  for  the  Syro-Ephraimitic  con- 
nection formed  to  resist  Assyria.  *'  Fear  none  but  Jehovah  only !  fear  Him, 
trust  Him  ;  He  will  be  your  safety." 

Ch,  ix.  8-x.  4  is  a  prophecy  delivered  at  this  time  against  the  "kingdom  of 
Israel  (ix.  8-x.  4.)  As  Isaiah's  message  was  only  to  Judah,  we  may  infer 
that  the  object  of  this  utterance  Avas  to  check  the  disposition  shown  by  many 
to  connect  Judah  with  the  policy  of  the  sister  kingdom. 

Ch.  X.  5-xii.  6  is  one  of  the  most  highly-wrought  passages  in  the  whole 
book,  and  Avas  probably  one  single  prophecy.  It  stands  wholly  disconnected 
with  the  preceding  in  the  circumstances  which  it  presupposes ;  and  to  what 
period  to  assign  it  is  not  easy  to  determine. 

Chs.  xiii.-xxiii.  contain  chiefly  a  collection  of  utterances,  each  of  which  is 
styled  a  "burden."  (a.)  The  first  (xiii.  1-xiv.  27)  is  against  Babylon.  The 
ode  of  triumph  (xiv.  3-23)  in  this  burden  is  among  the  most  poetical  pas- 
sages in  all  literature.  (6.)  The  short  and  pregnant  *' burden  "against  Phi- 
listia  (xiv.  29-32)  in  the  year  that  Ahaz  died  was  occasioned  by  the  revolt  of 
the  Philistines  from  Judah,  and  their  successful  inroad  recorded  in  2  Chr. 
xxviii.  18.  (c.)  The  "burden  of  Moab  "  (xv.,  xvi.)  is  remarkable  for  the 
elegiac  strain  in  which  the  prophet  bewails  the  disasters  of  Moab,  and  for 
the  dramatic  character  of  xvi.  1-6.  ((/.)  Chs.  xvii.,  xviii.  This  prophecy 
is  headed  "  the  burden  of  Damascus;"  and  yet  after  ver.  3  the  attention  is 
withdrawn  from  Damascus  and  turned  to  Israel,  and  then  to  Ethiopia,  (e.) 
In  the  "burden  of  EgA^jt "  (xix.)  the  prophet  prophesies  the  utter  helpless- 
ness of  Egypt  under  God's  judgments,  probably  to  counteract  the  tendency 
which  led  both  Judah  and  Israel  to  look  toward  Egypt  for  succor  against 
Assyria,  {^f.)  In  the  midst  of  these  "burdens"  stands  a  passage  which 
presents  Isaiah  in  a,  new  aspect,  an  aspect  in  which  he  appears  in  this  io- 

41  See  r-  55\ 


Appendix  I.  Isaiah.  671 

stance  only.  The  more  emphatically  to  enforce  the  warning  already  con- 
veyed in  the  ' '  burden  of  Egypt, "  Isaiah  was  commanded  to  appear  in  the 
streets  and  Temple  of  Jerusalem  stripped  of  his  sackcloth  mantle,  and 
wearing  his  vest  only,  with  his  feet  also  bare,  (y.)  In  ''the  burden  of  the 
desert  of  the  sea,"  a  poetical  designation  of  Babylonia  (xxi.  1-10),  the  im- 
ages in  which  the  fall  of  Babylon  is  indicated  are  sketched  with  ^schylean 
grandeur.  (Ji.)  "The  burden  of  Dumah"  and  "  of  Arabia"  (xxi.  11-17,^ 
relate  apparently  to  some  Assyrian  invasion.  (?.)  In  "the  burden  of  the 
valley  of  vision"  (xxii.  1-1 1)  it  is  doubtless  Jerusalem  that  is  thus  designat- 
ed. The  scene  pi-esentedis  that  of  Jerusalem  during  an  invasion.  (/:.)  The 
passage  in  xxii,  15-25  is  singular  in  Isaiah  as  a  prophesying  against  an  in- 
dividual. Shebna  was  one  of  the  king's  highest  functionaries,  and  seems  to 
have  been  leader  of  a  party  opposed  to  Jehovah  (ver.  25).  (/.)  The  last 
"  burden  "  is  against  Tyre  (xxiii.).  Her  utter  destruction  is  not  predicted  by 
Isaiah  as  it  afterward  was  by  Ezekiel. 

Clis.  xxiv.-xxvii,  form  one  prophecy,  essentially  connected  with  the  pre- 
ceding ten  "burdens"  (xiii. -xxiii.),  of  which  it  is  in  effect  a  general  sum- 
mary. In  XXV. ,  after  commemorating  the  destruction  of  all  oppressors,  the 
prophet  gives  us  in  vers,  6-9  a  most  glowing  description  of  Messianic  bless- 
ings. In  xxvi.,  vers.  12-18  describe  the  new,  happy  state  of  God's  people 
as  God's  work  wholly.  In  xxvii.  1,  "Leviathan  the  fleeing  serpent,  and  Le- 
viathan the  twisting  serpent,  and  the  dragon  in  the  sea,"  are  perhaps  Nine- 
veh and  Babylon — two  phases  of  the  same  Asshur — and  Egypt  (comp.  ver. 
13)  ;  all,  however,  symbolizing  adverse  powers  of  evil. 

Chs.  xxiii. -XXXV.  predict  the  Assyrian  invasion.  The  prophet  protests 
against  the  policy  of  courting  the  help  of  Egypt  against  Assyria  (xxx.  1-17, 
xxxi.  1-3). 

Chs.  xxxvii.-xxxix.  At  length  the  season  so  often,  though  no  doubt  ob- 
scurely foretold,  arrived.  The  Assyrian  was  near,  with  forces  apparently  ir- 
resistible. In  the  universal  consternation  which  ensued,  all  the  hope  of  the 
state  centred  upon  Isaiah ;  the  highest  functionai-ies  of  the  state  —  Shebna 
too — wait  upon  him  in  the  name  of  their  soA'ereign.  The  short  answer 
which  Jehovah  gave  through  him  was,  that  the  Assyrian  king  should  hear 
intelligence  which  should  send  him  back  to  his  own  land,  there  to  perish. 
How  the  deliverance  was  to  be  effected  Isaiah  was  not  commissioned  to  tell, 
but  the  very  next  night  (2  K.  xix.  35)  brought  the  appalling  fulfillment.  A 
divine  interposition  so  marvelous,  so  evidently  miraculous,  was  in  its  mag- 
nificence worthy  of  being  the  kernel  of  Isaiah's  whole  book. 

The  last  27  chapters  are  supposed  by  many  critics  to  have  been  written  in 
the  time  of  the  Babylonian  captivit}^,  and  are  therefore  ascribed  to  a  "later 
Isaiah."  It  is  evident  that  the  point  of  time  and  situation  from  which  the 
prophet  here  speaks  is  that  of  the  captivity  in  Babylon  (comp.,  e.  ^.,  Ixiv.  10, 
11),  but  this  may  be  adopted  on  a  principle  which  appears  to  characterize 
"vision," viz,,  that  the  prophet  sees  the  future  as  if  present.  This  second 
part  falls  into  three  sections,  each,  as  it  happens,  consisting  of  nine  chapters ; 
the  two  first  end  with  the  refrain,  "There  is  no  peace,  saith  Jehovah  {or 
*'my  God"),  to  the  wicked;"  and  the  third  with  the  same  thought  ampli- 
fied. (1,)  The  first  section  (xl.-xlviii.)  has  for  its  main  topic  the  comfort- 
ing assurance  of  the  deliverance  from  Babylon  by  Koresh  (Cyrus),  who  is 
even  named  twice  (xli.  2,  3,  25,  xliv.  28,  xlv.  1-4,  13,  xlvi.  11,  xHii.  14,  15). 


672  Books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Appendix  I. 

It  is  characteristic  of  sacred  prophecy  in  general  that  the  "vision"  of  a 
great  deliverance  leads  the  seer  to  glance  at  the  great  deliverance  to  come 
through  Jesus  Christ.  This  principle  of  association  prevails  in  the  second 
part,  taken  as  a  whole ;  but  in  the  first  section,  taken  apart,  it  appears  as  yet 
imperfectly.  (2.)  The  second  section  (xlix.-lvii.)  is  distinguished  from  the 
first  by  several  features.  The  person  of  Cyrus  as  well  as  his  name,  and  the 
specification  of  Babylon,  disappear  altogether.  Return  from  exile  is  indeed 
spoken  of  repeatedly  and  at  length  (xlix.  9-26,  li.  9-lii.  12,  Iv.  12,  13,  Ivii. 
14),  but  in  such  general  terms  as  admit  of  being  applied  to  the  spiritual  and 
Messianic,  as  Avell  as  to  the  literal  restoration.  (3.)  In  the  third  section 
(Iviii.-lxvi.),  as  Cyrus  nowhere  appears,  so  neither  does  "  Jehovah's  servant " 
occur  so  frequently  to  view  as  in  the  second.  The  only  delineation  of  the 
latter  is  in  Ixi.  1-3,  and  in  Ixiii.  1-6,  0.  He  no  longer  appears  as  suffering, 
but  only  as  saving  and  avenging  Zion.  The  section  is  mainly  occupied  with 
various  practical  exhortations  founded  upon  the  views  of  the  future  already 
set  forth. 

§  23.  Jeremiah,  who  is  the  principal  prophet  in  the  second  or  Babylo- 
nian period  of  prophecy,  lived  in  the  reigns  of  Josiah,  Shallum,  Jehoiakim, 
Jeconiah,  and  Zedekiah.  His  long  career  began  in  the  thirteenth  year  of 
the  reign  of  Josiah  (b.c.  629),  and  continued  till  the  eleventh  year  of  Zede- 
kiah (B.C.  586),  when  Jerusalem  Avas  taken  by  Nebuchadnezzar  (Jer.  i.  2,  3), 
though  he  continued  to  prophesy  even  after  that  event.  He  is  described  as 
"  the  son  of  Hilkiah,  of  the  priests  that  were  in  Anathoth,"a  town  not  three 
miles  distant  from  Jerusalem.  His  personal  history  is  closely  united  with 
that  of  the  times  in  which  he  lived,  and  has  been  already  related. ^^  After 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  he  continued  for  a  time  in  the  city ;  but  he 
was  afterward  carried,  against  his  will,  into  Egypt,  along  with  his  foithful 
friend  and  amanuensis,  Baruch."^  There,  in  the  city  of  Tahpanhes,  we  have 
the  last  clear  glimpses  of  the  prophet's  life.  After  this  all  is  uncertain.  If 
we  could  assume  that  lii.  31  Avas  written  by  Jeremiah  himself,  it  would  show 
that  he  reached  an  extreme  old  age,  but  this  is  so  doubtful  that  w^e  are  left 
to  other  sources.  On  the  one  hand  there  is  the  Christian  tradition,  resting 
doubtless  on  some  eariier  belief,  that  the  Jews  at  Tahpanhes,  irritated  by  his 
rebukes,  at  last  stoned  him  to  death.  On  the  other  side  there  is  the  Jewish 
statement  that  on  the  conquest  of  Egypt  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  he,  with  Ba- 
ruch,  made  his  escape  to  Babylon  or  Judaea,  and  died  in  peace. 

The  absence  of  any  chronological  order  in  the  present  structure  of  the  col- 
lection of  Jeremiah's  prophecies  is  obvious  at  the  first  glance.  In  tlie  pres- 
ent order,  we  have  two  great  divisions  :  — (1.)  Chs.  i.-xlv.  Prophecies  de- 
livered at  various  times,  directed  mainly  to  Judah,  or  connected  with  Jere- 
miali's  personal  history.  (2.)  Chs.  xlvi.-li.  Prophecies  connected  with  other 
nations.  Ch.  lii.,  taken  largely,  though  not  entirely,  from  2  K.  xxv.,  may 
be  taken  either  as  a  supplement  to  the  prophecy,  or  as  an  introduction  to 
the  Lamentations.  Looking  more  closely  into  each  of  these  divisions,  we 
have  the  following  sections  :  — 

1.  Chs.  i.-xxi. — Containing  probably  the  substance  of  "the  book  "of 
xxxvi.  32,  and  including  prophecies  from  the  thirteenth  year  of  Josiah  .rf 
the  fourth  of  Jehoiakim :   i.  3,  however,  indicates  a  later  revision,  and  the 

«  Se3  pp.  53S-603.  -   *^  See  p.  607. 


Appendix  I.     Jeiemiah — Lamentations — Ezekiel.  673 

whole  of  ch.  i.  may  possibly  have  been  added  on  the  prophet's  retrospect  of 
his  whole  work  from  this  its  first  beginning ;  ch.  xxi.  belongs  to  a  later  peri- 
od, but  has  probably  found  its  place  here  as  connected,  by  the  recurrence 
of  the  name  Pashur,  with  ch.  xx. 

2.  Chs.  xxii.  -  XXV.  —  Shorter  prophecies,  delivered  at  different  times, 
against  the  kings  of  Judah  and  the  false  prophets;  xxv.  13,  14,  evidently 
marks  the  conclusion  of  a  series  of  prophecies  ;  and  that  which  follows, 
xxv.  15-38,  the  germ  of  the  fuller  predictions  in  xlvi.-xlix.,  has  been  placed 
here  as  a  kind  of  completion  to  the  prophecy  of  the  Seventy  Years  and  the 
subsequent  fall  of  Babylon. 

3.  Chs.  xxvi.-xxviii. — The  two  great  prophecies  of  the  fall  of  Jerusalem, 
and  the  history  connected  with  them.  Ch.  xxvi.  belongs  to  the  earlier, 
ch.  xxvii.  and  xxviii.  to  the  later  period  of  the  prophet's  work.  Jehoiakim, 
in  xxvii.  1,  is  evidently  (comp.  ver.  3)  a  mistake  for  Zedekiah. 

4.  Chs.  xxix.-xxxi. — The  message  of  comfort  for  the  exiles  in  Babylon. 

5.  Chs.  xxxii.-xliv. — The  history  of  the  last  two  years  before  the  capture 
of  Jerusalem,  and  of  Jeremiah's  work  in  them  and  in  the  period  that  fol- 
lowed. The  position  of  ch.  xh\,  unconnected  with  any  thing  before  or  after 
it,  may  be  accounted  for  on  the  hypothesis  that  Baruch  desired  to  place  on 
record  so  memorable  a  passage  in  his  own  life,  and  inserted  it  where  the  di- 
rect narrative  of  his  master's  life  ended.  The  same  explanation  applies  in 
part  to  ch.  xxxvi. 

6.  Chs.  xlvi.  -li. — The  prophecies  against  foreign  nations,  ending  with  the 
great  prediction  against  Babylon. 

7.  The  supplementary  narrative  of  ch.  Hi, 

The  Book  of  Lamentations  contains  the  utterance  of  Jeremiah's  sorrow 
upon  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  and  the  destruction  of  the  Temple.  It  con- 
sists of  five  chapters,  each  of  Avhich,  however,  is  a  separate  poem,  complete 
in  itself,  and  having  a  distinct  subject,  but  brought  at  the  same  time  under  a 
plan  which  includes  them  all.  The  book  has  supplied  thousands  with  the 
fullest  utterance  for  their  sorrows  in  the  critical  periods  of  national  or  indi- 
vidual suff"ering.  We  may  well  believe  that  it  soothed  the  Aveary  years  of 
the  Babylonian  exile.  On  the  ninth  day  of  the  month  of  Ab  (July-Au- 
gust), the  Lamentations  of  Jeremiah  were  read,  year  by  year,  with  fasting 
and  weeping,  to  commemorate  the  misery  out  of  which  the  people  had  been 
delivered.  It  enters  largely  into  the  order  of  the  Latin  Church  for  the  serv- 
ices of  Passion-week. 

§  24.  Ezekiel,  the  son  of  Buzi,  the  great  prophet  during  the  Babylonian 
captivity,  was,  like  his  predecessor  Jeremiah,  a  priest.  One  tradition  makes 
Ezekiel  the  servant  of  Jeremiah.  He  Avas  taken  captive  in  the  captivity  of 
Jehoiachin,  eleven  years  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  He  was  a 
member  of  a  community  of  Jewish  exiles  who  settled  on  the  banks  of  the 
Chebar,  a  "river"  or  stream  of  Babylonia.  It  was  by  this  river  "in  the 
land  of  the  Chaldaeans"  that  God's  message  first  reached  him  (i.  3).  His 
call  took  place  "in  tho  fifth  year  of  King  Jehoiachin's  captivity,"  B.C.  595 
(i.  2),  "  in  the  thirtieth  year,  in  the  fourth  month."**     We  learn  from  an  in- 

**  This  is  probably  the  30th  year  from  the  \  gives  a  Jewish  chronology  in  ver.  2.  The  de- 
new  era  of  Nabopolassar,  father  of  Nebuchad-  ;  ciaion  of  the  question  is  the  less  important, 
aezzar,  who  began  to  leign  b.c.  625.  The  use  because  in  all  other  plnccs  Ezekiel  dates  from 
r^i  this  Chaldee  epoch  is  the  more  appropriate  the  year  of  Jehoiachhi's  ciptivjty  (xxix.  IT, 
JiB  the  prophet  wrote  in  Babylonia,  and  he  xxx.  20,  et  passim). 

Fr 


674  Books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Avpv^ms.  r. 

cidental  allusion  (xxiv.  18) — the  only  reference  which  he  makes  to  his  per- 
sonal histoiy — that  he  was  man-ied,  and  had  a  house  (viii.  I)  in  his  place 
of  exile,  and  lost  his  wife  by  a  sudden  and  unforeseen  stroke.  He  lived  in 
file  highest  consideration  among  his  companions  in  exile,  and  their  elders 
consulted  him  on  aU  occasions  (viii.  1,  xi.  25,  xiv.  1,  xx.  1,  etc.).  The 
last  date  he  mentions  is  the  27th  year  of  the  Captivity  (xxix.  17),  so  that 
bis  mission  extended  over  twenty-two  years,  during  part  of  which  period 
Daniel  was  probably  living,  and  already  famous  (Ez.  xiv.  14,  xxviii,  3). 
He  is  said  to  have  been  murdered  in  Babylon  by  some  Jewish  prince  whom 
he  had  convicted  of  idolatry,  and  to  have  been  buried  in  the  tomb  of  Shem 
and  Arphaxad,  on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates. 

The  predictions  of  Ezekiel  are  marvelously  varied.  He  has  instances  of 
visions  (viii.-xi.),  symbolical  actions  (as  iv.  8),  similitudes  (xii.,  xv.),  par- 
ables (as  xvii.),  proverbs  (as  xii.  22,  xviii.  1  sq.),  poems  (as  xix.),  allego- 
ries (as  xxiii.,  xxiv.),  open  prophecies  (as  vi.,  vii.,  xx,,  etc.).  The  depth  of 
his  matter^  and  the  marvelous  nature  of  his  visions,  make  him  occasionally 
obscure.  Hence  his  prophecy  was  placed  by  the  Jews  among  the  "treas- 
ures, "  those  portions  of  Scripture  which  (like  the  early  part  of  Genesis,  and 
the  Canticles)  were  not  allowed  to  be  read  till  the  age  of  thirty. 

The  book  is  divided  into  two  great  parts — of  which  the  destruction  of  Je- 
rusalem is  the  turning-point :  chapters  i.-xxiv.  contain  predictions  delivered 
before  that  event,  and  xxv.-xlviii.  after  it,  as  we  see  from  xxvi.  2.  Again, 
chapters  i.-xxxii.  are  mainly  occupied  with  correction,  denunciation,  and  re- 
proof, while  the  remainder  deal  chiefly  in  consolation  and  promise.  A  par- 
enthetical section  in  the  middle  of  the  book  (xxv.-xxxii.)  contains  a  gi'oup 
of  prophecies  against  seven  foreign  nations,  the  septenary  arrangement  being 
apparently  (as  elsewhere  in  Scripture)  intentional.  The  book  may  further 
be  divided  into  nine  sections,  distinguished  by  their  superscriptions,  as  fol- 
lows: — 1.  Ezekiel's  call,  i.-iii.  15.  2.  The  ^re^^^ra/ carrying  out  of  the  com- 
mission, iii.  16-vii.  3.  The  rejection  of  the  people,  because  of  their  idola- 
trous worship,  viii.-xi.     4.  The  sins  of  the  age  rebuked  in  detail,  xii. -xix. 

5.  The  nature  of  the  judgment,  and  the  guilt  which  caused  it,  xx. -xxiii. 

6.  The  meaning  of  the  now  commencing  punishment,  xxiv.  7.  God's  judg- 
ment denounced  on  seven  heathen  nations  (Ammon,  xxv.  1-7 ;  Moab,  8-11 ; 
Edom,  12-14;  the  Philistines,  15-17;  Tyre,  xxvi.  -  xxviii.  19;  Sidon, 
20-24;  Egypt,  xxix.-xxxii.).  8.  Prophecies,  after  the  destruction  of  Jeru- 
salem, concerning  the  future  condition  of  Israel,  xxxiii.-xxxix.  9.  The 
glorious  consummation,  xl.-xlviii. 

Chronological  order  is  followed  throughout  (the  date  of  the  prediction  be- 
ing constantly  referred  to),  except  in  the  section  devoted  to  prophecies 
against  heathen  nations  (xxix.-xxxii.),  where  it  is  several  times  abandoned 
(xxix.  17;  cf.  xxvi.  1,  xxix.  1),  so  that  in  the  prediction  against  Egypt,  one 
uttered  in  the  twenty-seventh  year  of  the  Captivity  is  inserted  between  two 
uttered  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  years. 

§  25.  Daniel. — The  personal  history  of  Daniel  is  related  in  the  26th 
chapter  of  this  work,  which  also  contains  a  summary  of  his  visions,  dreams, 
and  prophecies.^^  It  is  only  necessary  here  to  allude  to  the  assaults  made 
in  modern  times  upon  the  prophetic  worth  of  the  book.     A  large  number  of 

«»Seep.622. 


Appkkdix  I.  The  Twelve  Minor  Prophets.  675 

modern  critics  reject  the  book  as  the  work  of  an  impostor  who  lived  in  the 
time  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes.  Externally  it  is  as  well  attested  as  any  book 
of  Scripture  ;  but  it  brings  the  belief  in  miracle  and  prediction,  in  the  divine 
power  and  foreknowledge  as  active  among  men,  to  a  startling  test,  and  ac- 
cording to  the  character  of  this  belief  in  the  individual  must  be  his  judg- 
ment upon  the  book. 

The  Greek  translations  of  Daniel,  like  that  of  Esther,  contain  several 
pieces  which  are  not  found  in  the  original  text.  The  most  important  of 
these  additions  are  contained  in  the  Apocrypha  of  the  English  Bible,  under 
the  titles  of  The  Song  of  the  three  Holy  Children,  The  History  of  Susannah^ 
and  The  History  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon. 

The  first  of  these  pieces  is  incorporated  into  the  narrative  of  Daniel. 
After  the  three  confessors  were  thrown  into  the  furnace  (Dan.  iii.  23),  Aza- 
rias  is  represented  as  praying  to  God  for  deliverance  {Song  of  Three  Children^ 
3-22) ;  and  in  answer  the  angel  of  the  Lord  shields  them  from  the  fire  which 
consumes  their  enemies  (23-27),  whereupon  "the  three,  as  out  of  one 
mouth,"  raise  a  triumphant  song  (29-68),  of  which  a  chief  part  (35-66)  has 
been  used  as  a  hymn  (Denedicite)  in  the  Christian  Church  since  the  fourth 
century. 

The  two  other  pieces  appear  more  distinctly  as  appendices,  and  offer  no 
semblance  of  forming  part  of  the  original  text.  The  History  of'  Snsarmah  (or 
The  judgment  of  Daniel)  is  generally  found  at  the  beginning  of  the  book, 
though  it  also  occurs  after  the  12th  chapter.  The  History  of  Bel  and  the 
Dragon  is  placed  at  the  end  of  the  book.  The  character  of  these  additions 
indicates  the  hand  of  an  Alexandrine  writer ;  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the 
translator  of  Daniel  wrought  up  traditions  which  were  already  current,  and 
appended  them  to  his  work. 

B.  THE  TWELVE  MINOR  PROPHETS. 

§  26.  HosEA  is  the  first  of  the  Minor  Prophets,  as  they  appear  in  our 
version,  but  more  probably  the  third  in  order  of  time.  He  is  described  as 
the  son  of  Beeri,  but  we  know  nothing  of  his  life.  The  title  of  the  book 
gives  for  the  beginning  of  his  ministry  the  reign  of  Uzziah,  king  of  Judah, 
but  limits  this  A-ague  definition  by  reference  to  Jeroboam  IL  king  of  Israel; 
it  therefore  yields  a  date  not  later  than  B.C.  783.  The  pictures  of  social  and 
political  life  which  Hosea  draws  so  forcibly  ai-e  rather  applicable  to  the  in- 
terregnum which  followed  the  death  of  Jeroboam  (b.c.  782-772),  and  to  the 
reign  of  the  succeeding  kings.  It  seems  almost  certain  that  very  few  of  his 
prophecies  were  written  until  after  the  death  of  Jeroboam  (b.c.  783),  and 
probably  the  life,  or  rather  the  prophetic  career  of  Hosea,  extended  from 
B.C.  784  to  725,  a  period  of  fifty-nine  years. 

There  seems  to  be  a  general  consent  among  commentators  that  the  proph- 
ecies of  Hosea  were  delivered  in  the  kingdom  of  Israel. 

It  is  easy  to  recognize  t\vo  great  divisions  in  the  book : — (1.)  chap.  i.  to  iii.; 
(2.)  iv.  to  the  end.  The  subdivision  of  these  several  parts  is  a  work  of 
greater  difficulty.  (1.)  The  first  division  should  probably  be  subdivided  in  tc 
three  separate  poems,  each  originating  in  a  distinct  aim,  and  each  after  its 
own  fashion  attempting  to  express  the  idolatry  of  Israel  by  imagery  borrowed 
from  the  matrimonial  relation.  The  first,  and  therefore  the  least  elaborate  ot 
these,  is  contained  in  chap,  iii..  the  second  in  i.  2-1 1,  tlie  third  in  i.  2-9,  an^ 


676  Books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Appendix  I. 

ii.  1-23.  These  three  are  progressively  elaborate  developments  of  the  same 
reiterated  idea.  Chap.  i.  2-9  is  common  to  the  second  and  third  poems, 
but  not  repeated  with  each  severally.  (2.)  Attempts  have  been  made  to  sub- 
divide the  second  part  of  the  book.  These  divisions  are  made  either  accord- 
ing to  the  reigns  of  contemporary  kings,  or  according  to  the  subject-matter 
of  the  poem.  The  prophecies  were  probably  collected  by  Ilosea  himself  to- 
ward the  end  of  his  career.*®  Hosea  is  refen-ed  to  in  the  following  passages 
of  the  New  Testament : — Matt.  ix.  13,  xii.  7,  Hos.  vi.  G;  Luke  xxiii.  30,  Eev. 
vi.  IG,  Hos.  X.  8  ;  Matt.  ii.  15,  Hos.  xi.  1 ;  Rom.  ix.  25,  26,  1  Tet.  ii.  10, 
Hos.  i.  10,  ii.  23;  1  Cor.  xv.  4,  Hos.  vi.  2 ;  Heb.  xiii.  15,  Hos.  xiv.  2. 

§  27.  Joel,  of  whom  we  only  know  for  certain  that  he  was  the  son  of  Pe- 
thuel.  It  is  most  likely  that  he  lived  in  Judah,  for  his  commission  was  to 
Judah,  and  he  makes  frequent  mention  of  Judah  and  Jerusalem.  He  prob- 
ably lived  in  the  reign  of  Uzziah,  thus  being  contemporary  with  Hosea  and 
Amos.  We  find,  what  wc  siiould  expect  on  the  supposition  of  Joel  being 
the  first  prophet  to  Judah,  only  a  grand  outline  of  the  whole  terrible  scene, 
which  was  to  be  depicted  more  and  more  in  detail  by  subsequent  prophets. 
The  scope,  therefore,  is  not  any  particular  invasion,  but  the  Avhole  day  of  the 
Lord.  The  proximate  event  to  which  the  prophecy  related  was  a  public  ca- 
lamity, then  impending  on  Judah,  of  a  twofold  character :  want  of  water, 
and  a  plague  of  locusts  continuing  for  several  years.  The  prophet  exhorts 
the  people  to  turn  to  God  with  penitence,  fasting,  and  prayer,  and  then  (he 
says)  the  plague  shall  cease,  and  the  rain  descend  in  its  season,  and  the  land 
yield  her  accustomed  fruit.  Nay,  the  time  will  be  a  most  joyful  one  ;  for 
God,  by  the  outpouring  of  His  Spirit,  will  impart  to  His  worshipers  increased 
knowledge  of  Himself  (comp.  Acts  ii.  IG,  foil.),  and  after  the  excision  of  the 
enemies  of  His  people,  v.ill  extend  through  them  the  blessings  of  true  relig- 
ion to  heathen  lands.  This  is  the  simple  argument  oi  the  book  ;  only  that 
it  is  beautified  and  enriched  with  a  great  vaiiety  of  ornament  and  pictorial 
de.-cription. 

§  28.  Amos  was  a  native  of  Tekoa,  in  Judah,  about  six  miles  south  of 
Eerhleliem,  originally  a  shepherd  and  dresser  of  sycamore-trees,  who  was  call- 
ed by  God's  Spirit  to  be  a  prophet,  although  not  trained  in  any  of  the  reg- 
\\h\x  jjrophetic  schools  (i.  1,  vii.  14,  15).  He  traveled  from  Judah  into  the 
northern  kingdom  of  Israel,  or  "  Ephraim,"and  there  exercised  his  ministr}', 
apparently  not  for  any  long  time.  His  date  can  not  be  later  than  the  15th 
year  of  Uzziah's  reign  (b.c.  808)  ;  for  he  tells  us  that  he  prophesied  "  in  the 
reigns  of  Uzziah,  king  of  Judah,  and  Jeroboam,  the  son  of  Joash,  king  of 
Israel,  two  years  before  the  earthquake."  This  earthquake  (also  mentioned 
Zech.  xiv.  5,  can  not  have  occurred  after  the  17th  year  of  Uzziah,  since  Jero- 
boam II.  died  in  the  15th  of  that  king's  reign,  Avhich  therefore  is  the  latest 
year  fulfilhng  the  three  chronological  indications  furnished  by  the  prophet 
himself.  But  his  ministry  probably  took  place  at  an  earlier  period  of  Jero- 
boam's reign,  perhaps  about  the  middle  of  it,  for  on  the  one  hand  Amos 
>;peaks  of  the  conquests  of  this  warlike  king  as  completed  (vi.  13;  cf.  2  K. 
xiv.  25),  and  on  the  other  the  Assyrians,  who  toward  the  end  of  his  reign 
were  approaching  Palestine  (Hos.  x.  6,  xi.  5),  do  not  seem  as  yet  to  have 
caused  any  alarm  in  the  country.      Amos  predicts  indeed  that  Israel  and 

«°  See  also  pp.  5.')5,  556. 


Appendix  I.      Amos — Obadiah — Jonah — Micah.  677 

other  neighboring  nations  \\\\\  be  punished  by  certain  wild  conquerors  from 
the  I^orth  (i.  5,  v.  27.  vi.  U),  but  he  does  not  name  them,  as  if  they  were  still 
unknown  or  unheeded.  In  this  prophet's  time  Israel  was  at  the  height  of  pow- 
er, wealth,  and  security,  but  infected  by  the  crimes  to  which  such  a  state  is 
liable.  The  source  of  these  evils  Avas  idolatry,  that  of  the  golden  calves. 
Amos  went  to  rebuke  this  at  Bethel  itself,  but  was  compelled  to  return  to 
Judah  by  the  high-priest  Amaziah,  who  procured  from  Jeroboam  an  order 
for  his  expulsion  from  the  northern  kingdom.  The  book  of  the  prophecies 
cf  Amos  seems  divided  into  four  principal  portions  closely  connected  together. 
(1.)  From  i.  1  to  ii.  3  he  denounces  the  sins  of  the  nations  bordering  on  Israel 
and  Judah,  as  a  preparation  for  (2.),  in  which,  from  ii.  4  to  vi.  U,  he  de- 
scribes the  state  of  those  two  kingdoms,  especially  the  former.  This  is  fol- 
lowed by  (3.)  vii.  1-ix.  10,  in  which,  after  reflecting  on  the  previous  proph- 
ecy, he  relates  his  visit  to  Bethel,  and  sketches  the  impending  punishment  of 
Israel  v.hicli  he  predicted  to  Amaziah.  After  this  in  (4.)  he  rises  to  a  loftier 
and  move  evangelical  strain,  looking  forward  to  the  time  when  the  hope  of 
the  Messiah's  kingdom  will  be  falfilled,  and  His  people  forgiven  and  establish- 
ed in  the  enjoyment  of  God's  blessings  to  all  eternity.  The  chief  peculiarity 
of  the  style  consists  in  th3  number  of  allusions  to  natural  objects  and  agricul- 
tural occupations,  as  might  be  expected  from  the  early  life  of  the  author.  ^^ 

§  29.  Obadiah  has  been  spoken  of  already  (p.  G05).  It  is  unnecessaiy  to 
discuss  the  view  which  assigns  to  him  an  earlier  date. 

§  30.  Of  Jonah,  who  was  probably  the  earliest  in  point  of  time  of  the  Minof 
Prophets,  and  of  his  prophecies,  we  have  already  spoken  in  the  body  of  the 
work.*" 

§  31.  Micah  is  distinguished  from  Micaiah,  the  son  of  Imlah,  the  contem- 
porary of  Elijah,  by  the  epithet  the  Morasthite,  that  is,  a  native  of  Moresheth, 
or  some  place  of  similar  name.'*^  The  period  during  which  Micah  exercised 
the  prophetical  office  is  stated,  in  the  superscription  to  his  prophecies,  to  have 
extended  over  the  reigns  of  Jotham,  Ahaz,  and  Hezekiah,  kings  of  Judah,  giv- 
ing thus  a  maximum  limit  of  fifty-nine  years,  (b.c.  756-697),  from  the  acces- 
sion of  Jotham  to  the  death  of  Hezekiah,  and  a  minimum  limit  of  1 6  years  (b.  c. 
742-726),  from  the  death  of  Jotham  to  the  accession  of  Hezekiah.  In  either 
ease  he  would  be  contemporary  with  Hosea  and  Amos  during  part  of  their 
ministry  in  Israel,  and  with  Isaiah  in  Judah.  AVith  respect  to  one  of  his 
prophecies  (iii.  1 2),  it  is  distinctly  assigned  to  the  reign  of  Hezekiah  (Jer. 
xxvi.  18),  and  was  probably  delivered  before  the  great  passover  which  in- 
augurated the  reformation  in  Judah.  The  date  of  the  others  must  be  deter- 
mined, if  at  all,  by  internal  evidence,  and  the  periods  to  which  they  are  as- 
signed are  therefore  necessarily  conjectural. 

The  following  arrangement  may  be  adopted  :— ch.  i.  was  delivered  in  the 
contemporary  reigns  of  Jotham,  king  of  Judah,  and  of  Pekah,  king  of  Israel ; 
ii.  1-iv.  8  in  those  of  Ahaz,  Pekah,  and  Hoshea  ;  iii.  12  being  assigned  to 
the  last  year  of  Ahaz,  and  the  remainder  of  the  book  to  the  reign  of  Heze- 
kiah. But  at  whatever  time  the  several  prophecies  were  first  delivered,  they 
appear  in  their  present  form  as  an  organic  whole,  marked  by  a  certain  regu- 
47  See  Amo3  i.  3,  ii.  13,  iii.  4. 5,  iv.  2,  7,  9,  v.  near  Eleutheropilis  to  the  east,  where  fonner- 
8, 19,  vi.  12,  vii."  1,  ix.  3, 9, 13, 14.  ly  the  propliet'.s  tomb  was  shown,  though  in 

'  4«  See  pp.  551-553.'  .  the  daj'rf  of  Jerome  it  had  hesn  succeeded  by 

49  Jerome  and  Eusebius  call  tliis  plac  >  Mo-    a  church.    , 
rasthi,  and  identify  it  with  a  small  village  i 


678  Books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Appendix  I. 

larity  of  development.  Three  sections,  omitting  the  superscription,  are  in- 
troduced by  the  same  phrase,  "hear  ye,"  and  represent  three  natural  divis- 
ions of  the  prophecy  —  i.-ii. — iii.-v. — vi.-vii. —  each  commencing  with  re- 
bukes and  threatenings,  and  closing  with  a  promise. 

The  predictions  uttered  by  Micah  relate  to  the  invasions  of  Shalmaneser  (i. 
G-8;  2  K.  xvii.  4,  6)  and' gennacherib  (i.  9-lG  ;  2  K.  xviii.  13),  the  de- 
struction of  Jerusalem  (iii.  12,  vii.  13),  the  captivity  in  Babylon  (iv.  10),  the 
return  (iv.  1-8,  vii.  11),  the  establishment  of  a  theocratic  kingdom  in  Jeru- 
salem (iv.  8),  and  the  Kuler  who  should  spring  from  Bethlehem  (v.  2). 

The  language  of  Micah  is  quoted  in  Matt.  ii.  5,  G,  and  his  prophecies  are 
alluded  to  in  Matt.  x.  35,  36  ;  JNIark  xiii.  12  ;  Luke  xii.  53;  John  vii.  42. 

§  32.  Nahum,  "the  Elkoshite." — His  personal  history  is  quite  vmknown. 
The  site  of  Elkosh,  his  native  place,  is  disputed,  some  placing  it  in  Galilee, 
others  in  Assyria.  Those  who  maintain  the  latter  view  assume  that  the  proph- 
et's parents  Mere  carried  into  captivity  by  Tiglath-pileser,  and  that  the  prophet 
was  born  at  the  village  of  Alkush,  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Tigris,  two  miles 
north  of  Mosul.  But  there  is  nothing  in  the  prophecy  of  Xahum  to  indicate 
that  it  was  ■written  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  Nineveh,  and  in  full 
view  of  the  scenes  which  are  depicted,  nor  is  the  language  that  of  an  exile  in 
an  enemy's  country.  No  allusion  is  made  to  the  captivity ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  imagery  is  such  as  would  be  natural  to  an  inhabitant  of  Pal- 
estine (i.  4),  to  whom  the  rich  pastures  of  Bashan,  the  vineyards  of  Carmel, 
and  the  blossom  of  Lebanon,  were  emblems  of  all  that  was  luxuriant  and 
fertile.  The  language  employed  in  i.  15,  ii.  2,  is  appropriate  to  one  who 
wrote  for  his  countrymen  in  their  native  land.  In  fact,  the  sole  oiigin  of  the 
theory  that  Nahum  flourished  in  Assyria  is  the  name  of  the  village  Alkush, 
which  contains  his  supposed  tomb,  and,  from  its  similarity  to  Elkosh,  was 
apparently  selected  by  mediseval  tradition  as  a  shrine  for  pilgrims.  The  date 
of  Nahum's  prophecy  can  be  determined  with  as  little  precision  as  his  birth- 
place. It  is,  however,  certain  that  the  prophecy  was  written  before  the  final 
downfall  of  Nineveh,  and  its  captuie  by  the  Medes  and  Chaldreans  (cir.  B.C. 
625).  The  allusions  to  the  Assyrian  power  imply  that  it  was  still  unbroken  (i. 
12,  ii.  13,  14,  iii.  15-17).  It  is  most  probable  that  Nahum  flourished  in  the  lat- 
ter half  of  the  reign  of  Hezekiah,  and  wrote  his  prophecy  either  in  Jerusalem  or 
its  neighborhood.  The  subject  of  the  prophecy  is,  in  accordance  with  the 
superscription,  "the  burden  of  Nineveh,"  the  destruction  of  which  he  pre- 
dicts. 

§  33.  Habakkuk  perhaps  delivered  his  prophecy  about  the  12th  or  13th 
year  of  Josiah  (b.c.  630-629),  though  the  date  is  only  conjectural,  and  of 
his  personal  history  nothing  is  known.  The  prophet  foretells  the  doom  of 
the  Chaldseans,  and  the  announcement  is  followed  by  a  series  of  denuncia- 
tions pronounced  upon  them  by  the  nations  who  had  suff"ered  from  their  op- 
pression (ii.  6-20).  The  strophical  arrangement  of  these  "woes"  is  a  re- 
markable feature  of  the  prophecy.  The  whole  concludes  with  the  magnifi- 
cent psalm  in  ch.  iii. 

§  34.  Zephaxiah  also  lived  in  the  reign  of  Josiah,  as  Ave  learn  from  the 
superscription  to  the  book,  where  the  prophet  traces  liis  pedigree  to  his  fourth 
ancestor,  Hezekiah,  supposed  to  be  the  celebrated  king  of  that  name.  In 
chap.  i.  the  utter  desolation  of  Judah  is  ]iredicted  as  a  judgment  for  idolatry 
and  neglect  of  the  Loid,  the  luxury  of  the  princes,  and  the  violence  and  de* 


Appendix  I.  Haggai — ZechariaJi,  '  679 

ceit  of  their  dependejits  (3-9).  The  prosperity,  security,  and  insolence  of 
the  people  is  contrasted  with  the  hoiTors  of  the  day  of  wrath  (10-18).  Ch. 
ii.  contains  a  call  to  repentance  (1-3),  with  a  prediction  of  the  inin  of  the 
cities  of  the  Philistines  and  the  restoration  of  the  house  of  Judah  after  the 
visitation  (4-7).  Other  enemies  of  Judah,  Moab,  and  Ammon  are  threaten- 
ed with  perpetual  destruction  (8-15).  In  ch.  iii.  the  prophet  addresses  Je- 
rusalem, which  he  reproves  sharply  for  vice  and  disobedience  (1-7).  He 
then  concludes  with  a  series  of  promises  (8-20).  The  general  tone  of  the 
last  portion  is  Messianic,  but  without  any  specific  reference  to  the  pei'son  of 
our  Lord. 

§  35.  Haggai  is  the  first  of  the  Minor  Prophets  who  prophesied  after  the 
Captivity.  With  regard  to  his  tribe  and  parentage,  both  history  and  tradi- 
tion are  alike  silent.  In  the  absence  of  any  direct  evidence  on  the  point,  it 
is  more  than  probable  that  he  was  one  of  the  exiles  who  returned  with  Zerub- 
babel  and  Jeshua.  The  rebuilding  of  the  Temple,  which  was  commenced 
in  the  reign  of  Cyrus  (b.c.  535),  was  suspended  during  the  reigns  of  his  suc- 
cessors, Cambyses  and  the  Pseudo-Smerdis,  in  consequence  of  the  deter- 
mined hostility  of  the  Samaritans.  On  the  accession  of  Darius  Hystaspis 
(b.c.  521),  the  prophets  Haggai  and  Zechariah  urged  the  renewal  of  the  un- 
dertaking, and  obtained  the  permission  and  assistance  of  the  king  (Ezra  v.  1, 
vi.  14). 

The  style  of  his  writing  is  generally  tame  and  prosaic,  though  at  times  it 
rises  to  the  dignity  of  severe  invective,  when  the  prophet  rebukes  his  coun- 
trymen for  their  selfish  indolence  and  neglect  of  God's  house.  The  prophe- 
cies were  delivered  in  the  second  year  of  Darius  Hystaspis  (b.c.  520),  at  in- 
tervals from  the  first  day  of  the  6th  month  to  the  24th  day  of  the  9th  month 
in  the  same  year.  The  closing  prediction,  addressed  to  Zerubbabel,  prince 
of  Judah,  the  representative  of  the  royal  family  of  Da\ad,  and,  as  such,  the 
lineal  ancestor  of  the  Messiah,  foreshadows  the  establishment  of  the  Mes- 
sianic kingdom  upon  the  overthrow  of  the  thrones  of  the  nations  (ii.  20-23). 

§  36.  Zechariah  is  called  in  his  prophecy  the  son  of  Berechiah,  and  the 
grandson  of  Iddo,  whereas  in  the  Book  of  Ezra  (v.  1,  vi.  14)  he  is  said  to 
have  been  the  son  of  Iddo.  It  is  natural  to  suppose,  as  the  prophet  himself 
mentions  his  father's  name,  whereas  the  Book  of  Ezra  mentions  only  Iddo, 
that  Berechiah  had  died  early,  and  that  there  was  now  no  inteiTcning  link 
between  the  grandfather  and  the  grandson.  Zechariah,  like  Jeremiah  and 
Ezekiel  befoi*e  him,  was  priest  as  well  as  prophet.  He  seems  to  have  en- 
tered upon  his  office  while  yet  young  (Zech.  ii.  4),  and  must  have  been  bom 
in  Babylon,  whence  he  returned  with  the  first  caravan  of  exiles  under  Ze- 
i-ubbabel  and  Jeshua.  It  was  in  the  eighth  month,  in  the  second  year  of 
Darius,  that  he  first  publicly  discharged  his  office.  In  this  he  acted  in  con- 
cert with  Haggai.  Both  prophets  had  the  same  great  object  before  them  ; 
both  directed  all  their  energies  to  the  building  of  the  Second  Temple.  To 
their  influence  we  find  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  in  a  great  measure  as- 
cribed. "And  the  elders  of  the  Jews  builded,"  it  is  said,  "and  they  pros- 
pered through  the  prophesying  of  Haggai  the  prophet,  and  Zechariah,  the 
son  of  Iddo"  (Ezra  vi.  14).  If  the  later  Jewish  accounts  may  be  trusted, 
Zechariah  as  well  as  Haggai  was  a  member  of  the  Great  Synagogue. 

The  Book  of  Zechariah,  in  its  existing  form,  consists  of  three  principal 
parts,  chaps,  i.-viii.,  chaps,  ix.-xi.,  chaps,  xii.-xiv.    I.  The  first  of  these  di- 


680  Books  of  the  Old  Testament  Appendix  i- 

visions  is  allowed  by  all  critics  to  be  the  genuine  work  of  Zechariah,  the  soft 
of  Iddo.  It  consists,  first,  of  a  short  introduction  or  preface,  in  which  the 
prophet  announces  liis  commission ;  then  of  a  series  of  visions,  descriptive  of 
all  those  hopes  and  anticipations  of  which  the  building  of  the  Temple  was 
the  pledge  and  sure  foundation ;  and  finally  of  a  discourse,  delivered  two 
years  later,  in  reply  to  questions  respecting  the  observance  of  certain  estab- 
lished fasts. 

II.  The  remainder  of  the  book  consists  of  two  sections  of  about  eqtial 
length,  ix.-xi.  and  xii.-xiv.,  each  of  which  has  an  inscription.  1.  In  the  first 
section  he  threatens  Damascus  and  the  sea-coast  of  Palestine  with  misfor- 
tune, but  declares  that  Jerusalem  shall  be  protected.  The  Jews  who  are 
still  in  captivity  shall  return  to  their  land.  2.  The  second  section,  xii.-xiv., 
is  entitled  "  the  burden  of  the  word  of  Jehovah  for  Israel."  But  Israel  is 
here  used  of  the  nation  at  large,  not  of  Israel  as  distinct  from  Judah.  In- 
deed the  prophecy  which  follows  concerns  Judah  and  Jerusalem.  In  this 
the  prophet  beholds  the  near  approach  of  troublous  times,  when  Jerusalem 
should  be  hard  pressed  by  enemies.  But  in  that  day  Jehovah  shall  come  to 
save  them,  and  all  the  nations  ^Yhich  gather  themselves  against  Jerusalem 
shall  be  destroyed.  Many  modern  critics  maintain  that  the  later  chapters, 
from  the  ixth  to  the  xivth,  were  written  by  some  other  prophet,  who  lived  be- 
fore the  exile.  The  arguments  both  for  and  against  the  genuineness  of  the 
later  chapters  are  set  forth  fully  in  the  "  Dictionary  of  the  Bible, ''^*'  to  which 
we  must  refer  the  reader, 

§  37.  Malachi  (that  is,  the  angel  ov  messenger  of  Jehovah)  \s  the  last,  and 
is  therefore  called  ''the  seal"  of  the  prophets,  and  his  prophecies  constitute 
the  closing  book  of  the  Canon.  Of  his  personal  history  nothing  is  known. 
That  Malachi  was  contem]jorary  with  Nehemiah  is  rendered  probable  by  a 
comparison  of  ii.  8  with  Neh.  xiii.  15;  ii.  10-16  with  Neh.  xiii.  23,  etc.  ; 
and  iii.  7-12  with  Neh.  xiii,  10,  etc.  That  he  prophesied  after  the  times  of 
Haggai  and  Zechariah  is  infeiTed  from  his  omitting  to  mention  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Temple,  and  from  no  allusion  being  made  to  him  by  Ezra.  The 
Captivity  was  already  a  thing  of  the  long  past,  and  is  not  referred  to.  The 
existence  of  the  Temple-senice  is  presupposed  in  i.  10,  iii.  1, 10.  The  Jew- 
ish nation  had  still  a  political  chief  (i.  8),  distinguished  by  the  same  title  as 
that  borne  by  Nehemiah  (Neh.  xii.  26).  Hence  we  may  conclude  that  ]\Ial- 
achi  delivered  his  prophecies  after  the  second  return  of  Nehemiah  from  Per- 
sia (Neh.  xiii.  6),  and  subsequently  to  the  32d  year  of  Artaxerxes  Longi- 
manus  (b.c.  420).  Prom  the  striking  parallelism  between  the  state  of  things 
indicated  in  Malachi's  prophecies  and  that  actually  existing  on  Nehemiah's 
return  from  the  court  of  Artaxerxes,  it  is  on  all  accounts  highly  probable 
that  the  efforts  of  the  secular  governor  were  on  this  occasion  seconded  by  the 
preaching  of  "Jehovah's  messenger,"  and  that  Malachi  occupied  the  same 
position  with  regard  to  the  reformation  under  Nehemiah  which  Isaiah  held 
in  the  time  of  Hezekiah,  and  Jeremiah  in  that  of  Josiah.  The  last  chapter 
of  canonical  Jewish  history  is  the  key  to  the  last  chapter  of  its  prophecy. 
The  whole  prophecy  naturally  divides  itself  into  three  sections,  in  the  first  of 
which  Jehovah  is  represented  as  the  loving  father  and  ruler  of  His  people 
(i.  2-ii.  9)  ;  in  the  second,  as  the  supreme  God  and  father  of  all  (ii.  10-16)  j 

«"  Art.  Zechariah. 


Appendix  I.  The  Poetical  Books.  681 

and  in  the  third,  as  their  righteous  and  final  judge  (ii.  17-end;.  The  proph- 
ecy of  Mahichi  is  alhided  to  in  the  N.  T.  (comp.  Mark  i.  2,  ix,  11,  12; 
Lukei.  17;  Rom.  ix.  13). 

IV.  THE  POETICAL  BOOKS. 

§  38.  The  Book  of  Psalms^^  contains  150  separate  Psalms,  and  may  he 
parted  into  five  great  divisions  or  books,  which  were  formed  at  different  pe- 
riods. There  is  a  remarkable  difference  between  the  several  books  in  their 
use  of  the  divine  names  Jehovah  and  Elohim,  to  designate  Almighty  God. 
In  Book  I.  (Pss,  i.-xli.)  the  former  name  prevails;  it  is  found  272  times, 
while  Elohim  occurs  but  15  times,"  In  Book  II.  (Pss.  xlii.-lxxii.),  Elo- 
him is  found  more  than  five  times  as  often  as  Jehovah.  In  Book  III.  (Pss. 
Ixxiii.-lxxxix.),  the  preponderance  of  Elohim  in  the  earlier  is  balanced  by 
that  of  Jehovah  in  the  latter  psalms  of  the  book.  In  Book  IV.  (Pss.  xc.- 
cvi.)  the  name  Jehovah  is  exclusively  employed ;  and  so  also,  virtually,  in 
Book  V.  (Pss.  cvii.-cl.),  Elohim  being  there  found  only  in  two  passages  in- 
corporated from  earlier  psalms.  We  find  the  several  groups  of  psalms  which 
form  the  respective  five  books  distinguished,  in  great  measure,  by  their  su- 
perscriptions from  each  other. 

Book  I.  is,  by  the  superscriptions,  entirely  Davidic  ;  nor  do  we  find  in  it  » 
trace  of  any  but  David's  authorship.  We  may  well  believe  that  the  compi- 
lation of  the  book  was  also  David's  work. 

Book  II.  appears  by  the  date  of  its  latest  psalm,  Ps.  xlvi.,  to  have  been 
compiled  in  the  reign  of  King  Hezekiah.  It  would  naturally  comprise,  1st, 
several  or  most  of  the  Levitical  psalms  anterior  to  that  date  ;  and  2dly,  the 
remainder  of  the  psalms  of  David  previously  uncompiled.  To  these  latter 
the  collector,  after  properly  appending  the  single  psalm  of  Solomon,  has  af- 
fixed the  notice  that  "the  prayers  of  David  the  son  of  Jesse  are  ended" 
(Ps.  Ixxii.  20)  ;  evidently  implying,  at  least  on  the  prima  facie  view,  that  no 
more  compositions  of  the  royal  psalmist  remained.  How  then  do  we  find,  in 
the  later  Books  III.,  IV.,  V.,  further  psalms  yet  marked  with  David's  name  ? 
The  name  David  is  used  to  denote,  in  other  parts  of  Scripture,  after  the  orig- 
inal David's  death,  the  then  head  of  the  Davidic  family  ;  and  so,  in  prophe- 
cy, the  Messiah  of  the  seed  of  David,  who  was  to  sit  on  David's  throne  (I 
K.  xii.  16;  Hos.  iii.  5;  Is.  Iv.  3;  Jer.  xxx.  9;  Ez.  xxxiv.  23-2i).  And 
thus  then  we  may  explain  the  meaning  of  the  later  Davidic  superscriptions 
in  the  Psalter.  The  psalms  to  which  they  belong  were  written  by  Hezeki- 
ah, by  Josiah,  by  Zerubbabel,  or  others  of  David's  posterity.  The  above  ex- 
planation removes  all  serious  difficulty  respecting  the  history  of  the  later 
books  of  the  Psalter. 

Book  III. ,  the  interest  of  which  centres  in  the  times  of  Hezekiah,  stretch- 
es out,  by  its  last  two  psalms,  to  the  reign  of  Manasseh  :  it  was  probably 
compiled  in  the  reign  of  Josiah. 


^1  Tlie  present  Hebrew  name  of  the  book 
is  Tehillivi,  '•'•  Praises."  But  in  the  actual 
superscriptions  of  the  Psalms  the  word  2\- 
hilldh  is  applied  only  to  one,  Ps.  cxlv.,  which 
is  indeed  emphatically  a  praise-liymn.  The 
LXX.  entitled  them  ^PoXmoi',  or  "•Psalms." 
The  Christian  Church  obviously  received  tlie 
Psalter  from  the  Jews  not  only  as  a  constit- 

Ff2 


uent  portion  of  the  eacreJ  volume  of  Holy 
Scripture,  but  also  as  the  liturgical  hymn- 
book  which  the  Jewisii  Church  had  regularly 
used  in  tlie  Temple. 

52  We  here  take  no  account  of  the  euper- 
scriptions  or  doxology,  nor  yet  of  the  occur- 
rences of  f'lohim  wiieu  inflected  with  a  pos 
sersive  sutilx. 


682  Boohs  of  the  Old  Testament.  Appendix  I 

Book  IV.  contains  the  remainder  of  the  psalms  up  to  the  date  of  the  Cap- 
tivity ;  Book  v.,  the  Psalms  of  the  Return.  There  is  nothing  to  distinguish 
these  two  books  from  each  other  in  respect  of  outward  decoration  or  arrange- 
ment, and  they  may  have  been  compiled  together  in  the  days  of  Nehemiah. 

It  would  manifestly  be  impossible,  in  the  compass  of  the  present  work,  to 
exhibit  in  detail  the  divergent  views  which  have  been  taken  of  the  dates  of 
particular  psalms.  The  time  at  Avhich  most  of  David's  Psalms  were  com- 
posed has  been  ali'ead}^  mentioned  in  connection  with  his  personal  history.^^ 
For  a  time  the  single  psalm  of  Solomon  remained  the  only  addition  to  those 
of  David.  If,  however,  religious  psalmody  were  to  revive,  somewhat  might 
be  not  unreasonably  anticipated  from  the  great  assembly  of  King  Asa  (2 
Chr.  XV.);  and  Ps,  1.  suits  so  exactly  with  the  circumstances  of  that  occa- 
sion that  it  may  well  be  assigned  to  it.  The  great  prophetical  ode,  Ps.  xlv., 
connects  itself  most  readily  with  the  splendors  of  Jehoshaphat's  reign.  And 
after  that  psalmody  had  thus  definitely  revived,  there  would  be  no  reason 
why  it  should  not  thenceforward  manifest  itself  in  seasons  of  anxiety,  as 
well  as  of  festivity  and  thanksgiving.  Hence  Ps.  xlix.  Yet  the  psalms  of 
this  period  flow  but  sparingly.  Pss.  xlii.-xliv.,  Ixxiv.,  are  best  assigned  to 
the  reign  of  Ahaz.  The  reign  of  Hezekiah  is  naturally  rich  in  psalmody. 
Pss.  xlvi.,  Ixxiii.,  Ixxv.,  Ixxvi. ,  connect  themselves  with  the  resistance  to  the 
supremacy  of  the  Assyrians  and  the  divine  destruction  of  their  host.  We 
are  now  brought  to  a  series  of  psalms  of  peculiar  interest,  springing  out  of 
the  political  and  religious  history  of  the  separated  ten  tribes.  In  date  of  act- 
ual composition  they  commence  before  the  times  of  Hezekiah.  The  earli- 
est is  probably  Ps.  Ixxx.,  a  supplication  for  the  Israelitish  people  at  the  time 
of  the  Syrian  oppression.  All  these  psalms  (Ixxx.-lxxxiii.)  are  referred  by 
their  superscriptions  to  the  Levite  singers,  and  thus  bear  Avitness  to  the  ef- 
forts of  the  Levites  to  reconcile  the  two  branches  of  the  chosen  nation.  The 
captivity  of  Manasseh  himself  proved  to  be  but  temporary  ;  but  the  sentence 
which  his  sins  had  provoked  upon  Judah  and  Jerusalem  still  remained  to  be 
executed,  and  precluded  the  hope  that  God's  salvation  could  be  revealed  till 
after  such  an  out])ouring  of  His  judgments  as  the  nation  never  yet  had 
known.  Labor  and  sorrow  must  be  the  lot  of  the  present  generation  ;  through 
these  mercy  might  occasionally  gleam,  but  the  glory  which  was  eventually 
to  be  manifested  must  be  for  their  posterity  alone.  The  psalms  of  Book  IV. 
bear  generally  the  impress  of  this  feeling.  We  pass  to  Book  V.  Ps.  cvii. 
is  the  opening  psalm  of  the  Return,  sving  probably  at  the  first  Feast  of  Tab- 
ernacles (Ezra  iii.).  The  ensuing  Davidic  psalms  may  well  be  ascribed  to 
Zerubbabel.  We  here  pass  over  the  questions  connected  with  Ps.  cxix.  ;  but 
a  directly  historical  character  belongs  to  Pss.  cxx.-cxxxiv.,  styled  in  our  A. 
V.  "  Songs  of  Degrees. "^^  Internal  evidence  refers  these  to  the  period  when 
the  Jews  under  Nehemiah  were,  in  the  veiy  face  of  the  enemy,  repaiiing  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  title  may  well  signify  ' '  Songs  of  goings  up  upon 
the  walls,"  the  psalms  being,  from  their  brevity,  well  adapted  to  be  sung  by 
the  workmen  and  guards  while  engaged  in  their  respective  duties.  Of  some- 
what earlier  date,  it  may  be,  are  Pss.  cxxxvii.  and  the  ensuing  Davidic 
psalms.  Of  these,  Ps.  cxxxix.  is  a  psalm  of  the  new  birth  of  Israel,  from 
the  womb  of  the  Babylonish  captivity,  to  a  life  of  righteousness ;  Pss.  cxl.- 

«3  See  especially  pp.  420-422,  436,  437,  444,  445,  451,  463,  46S. 

*<  Of  these,  Ps.  cxxxii.  may  perhaps  be  ascribed  to  David's  reraoTal  of  the  ark.    See  p  436. 


Appendix  II. 


Songs  of  Solomon^  Etc. 


683 


cxliii.  may  be  a  picture  of  the  trials  to  which  the  unrestored  exiles  were  still 
exposed  in  the  realms  of  the  Gentiles.  Henceforward,  as  we  approach  the 
close  of  the  Psalter,  its  strains  rise  in  cheerfulness  ;  and  it  fittingly  termi- 
nates with  Pss.  cxlvii.-cL,  which  were  probably  sung  on  the  occasion  of  the 
thanksgiving  procession  of  Neh.  xii.,  after  the  rebuilding  of  the  walls  of  Je- 
rusalem had  been  completed. 

§  39.  The  writings  of  Solomon,  namely,  the  Song  of  Solomon,  Prov- 
erbs, and  EccLESiASTES,  and  the  Book  of  Job,  have  been  already  spoken 
of  in  the  body  of  the  work.  ^^ 

65  See  pp.  500-502  for  the  -vrritings  of  Solomon,  and  pp.  129-133  for  the  Book  of  Job. 


APPENDIX  II. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLES  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  HISTORY. 

For  the  Patriarchal  Period  we  have  no  certain  chronological  data. 
The  Genealogies,  which  form  the  only  basis  for  computation,  and  the  results 
founded  upon  them  in  the  "■  Received  Chronology  "  of  Archbishop  Ussher, 
have  been  given  in  the  text.  (See  especially  the  Note  on  Scripture  Chro- 
nology, pp.  38-40,  and  the  note  on  the  Chronology  of  the  Period  of  the  Judges^ 
pp.  336,  foil.)  The  period  of  the  Hebrew  monarchy,  though  still  beset  with 
difficulties,  is  settled  with  sufficient  probability  to  be  reduced  to  a  tabular 
form.  The  dates  are  those  of  the  Received  Chronology,  except  where  a  cor- 
rection is  indicated. 

Table  I. — The  Undivided  Monarchy.^ 


1095 
[1075?] 


1C50? 


BCRIPTUEE  UISTOKY. 


1048 


1042 
1040 

1023 
1015 
1015 
1012 
1006 


Sacx,  chosen  king 

Scimuel  dies  during  his  reign. 
Death  of  Saul  and  Jonathan. 

David  king  at  Hebron 

The  Ten  Tribes  resist  under  Abner. 
Ishbosheth  king  at  Mahanaim. 


David  king  over  all  Israel -{ 

He  takes  Jebus  (Jerusalem). 

Removal  of  the  Ark. 

Victories  over  the  Philistines,  Moab- 

ites,  and  Syrians. 
Revolt  of  Absalom. 
Death  of  David. 

Accession  of  Solomon 

Foundation  of  the  Teviple, 
Dedication  of  the  Temple. 


973  Death  of  Solomon. 
Revolt  of  Jeroboam. 


VKS.  OF 
KEIGN. 


S2i 

40 

in  all. 


40 


SYNCHRONISMS. 


Ttee  flourishes  under  Hiram. 
Syrian  Kingdoms  of  Zobah  and 
Hamatil 


The    21st    (Tanite)    Dynasty    in 
Egypt. 


The  22d  (Bubaatite)  Dynaaty  in 

Egypt- 
Syrian     Kingdom    of    Damascus 

founded  by  Rezon. 


1  Kings'  names  ia  small  capitals.    Prophets*  names  in  italics ;  which  also  denote  some  im* 
portant  events. 


684 


Chronological  Tables. 


Appendix  IL 


Table  II. — The  Divided  Kingdoms. 


IJ.C. 

JUUAII. 

1 

B.C. 

ISRAEL. 

VR8. 

SXNCHBONIBMS. 

{On'tj  one  Dynasty.) 

{First  Dynasty.) 

975 

i.  Kehoboam 

Shtmaiah  forbids  war. 

17 

975^ 

i.  Jeroboam  I 

Idolatry  of  the  Calves.  1 

22 

Siiirhak       (Sheshonk 
I.),  king  of  Egypt. 

970 

Invasion  of  Shishak. 

A  hijah  prophesies. 

957 

li,  Abijau 

3 

ISth  year. 

Tabrtmmon,  king  of 

Defeats  Jeroboam. 

War  witli  Judah. 

Damascus. 

955 

iii.  Asa 

41 

955 

20th  year. 

954 

2d  year. 
Reformation. 

L54 

ii.  Nadab 

2 

{Second  Dynasty.) 

953 

C41? 

3d  year. 

953 

iii.  Baasha 

24 

Defeats  ZerahtheCush- 

Removes     from     She- 

Zerah  =  Osorkon    I., 

ite. 

chem  to  Tirzah. 

fon  of  Shishak? 

Azariah  prophesies. 

Fortifies  Ram  ah. 

Benhadad  I.,  king  of 

Alliance  with  Syria. 

War  with  Judah. 

Damascus. 

llanani  prophesies. 

Jehu.,  son  of  Hanani. 

930 

26th  year. 

930 

iv.  EI.AH 

2 

929 

27th     " 

929 

V.   ZiMRI 

[7 
d's.] 

Civil  War. 

Omii  and  Tibni. 

(Third  Dynasty.) 

9:5 

31st     " 

925 

vi.  Ombi     

C 
or 
12 

fr' 
f30 
22 

} 

{ 
Builds  Sanmria  . .   .' 

918 

38th     " 

918 

vii.  Ahab 

Kthbaal        (Ithobal), 

Consults  magicians. 

Marries  Jezebel, dau. 
of  Eth-baal. 

king    of    Tyre    and 
Sidon. 

914 

iv.  Jehosiiaphat 

Reformation. 

25 

914 

4th  year. 
Baal-wor?hip. 

Cities  of  Judah  fortified. 

910? 

Mission  of  mijah. 
Tliree  years'  famino. 

Benhadad  II.,  king  of 
Damascus. 

Judges  appointed. 

901- 

Successful    war    with 

Moab    and    Philistines 

900 

Syria. 

tributary. 

897 

Alliance  with  Alinb. 
Jehoshaphat  at  Kamotli- 

gilead. 
The  prophet  Jehit. 
17th  year. 
Naval  enterpris-". 
Eli^zcr^  son    of    Doda- 

vah. 
18th  year. 
Defeat  of  Amnion  and 

Moab. 

897 
8S6 

New  war  with  Syna. 
Micaiah,  son  of  Irala. 
Death  of  Ahab. 

viii.  Ahaziah 

Consults  Baal-zebub. 
Ascent  of  Elijah. 

ix.  Jehoram 

Mission  of  Eli.<<ha. 
Xaaraan  the  Syrian. 

2 
12 

892 

Associates  Jeiioram. 

8 

889 

V.  Jkhokam  silone. 

889 

8th  year. 

886 

"      with  Ahaziah. 

886 

11th    " 

885 

.vi.  Ahaziah  alone. 
Alliance  with  Israel. 

1 

885 

12th    " 

War  with  Syria. 

Hazaet.  murders  and 
succeeds  Benhadad. 

854 

Slain  by  Jehu. 

8S4 

Slain  by  Jehu. 

Extinction  r/Ahah's  house,  in  both  kingdoms. 

The  Older  Dynasty  is 
reigning  in  Assyr- 

viL Athat-iah   (usurp- 

{Fnrirth Dynasty.) 

ia:— 

er) 

6 

X.  Jehu 

28 

Shalmaneser. 
Jehu's    name    on    the 

Murders   all   the   royal 

Slays  Jezebel  and  the 

house  except  Joash. 

Bflalites. 

"black   obelisk,"  as 

87? 

viii.  J0A8U 

Jehoiada  regent 

Great  reformation. 

40 

878 

7th  year. 

Worships    the   golden 
calves. 

tributary  to  Assyria. 
PTGMAMONat  Tyre,    j 

Appendix  II.  Chronological  Tables.  685 

Table  II. — The  Divided  Kingdoms — continued. 


B.C. 

853 

JUDAH. 

TKS. 

B.C. 

ISRAEL. 

VRS. 

8YNCHBONISM3. 

Repairs  of  Temple  fin- 

Hazael gains  the  coun- 

Carthage founded  143 

ished. 

try  east  of  Jordan. 

years  after  the  Tem- 
pleof  Solomon;  about 
IJ.C,  870  (Josephus). 

23d  year. 

856 

xi.  Jehoahaz 

17 

85ay 

Death  of  Jelioiada. 
Worship  of  Baal. 
Zechariah  stoned. 
llazael  threatens  Jeru- 
salem. 

Hard  pressed  by  Syria. 

[The  last  two  years  of 
his  reign  are  the  first 
two  of  liis  son's,] 

841 

3Tth  year. 

841 

xii.  Jehoash 

10 

839 

Death  of  Joash. 

839 

Death  of  Jehoahaz. 

Benhauad  III.,  king  of 

ix.  Amaziaii 

29 

2d  year  of  Jehoash. 

Damascus. 

Victory  over  Edom. 

838 

Death  of  Elisha. 

Worships  gods  of  Edom. 

Victories  over  Benha- 

dad. 
Takes  Jerusalem. 

826 

Defeated  by  Jehoasli. 

820 

825 

15th  year. 

825 

xiii.  Jeroboam  11 

41 

Declension  and  misfor- 

Victories   over   Syria, 

tune  during  the  rest 

Ammon,  and  Moab. 

of  his  reign. 

Acme  of  Kingdom  of 

Slain  by  his  servants. 

Israel, 

810 

X,  U/.ZIAH 

52 

810 

808? 

Jonah  propliesies. 
27th  year. 
Awos  and  Hosea. 

Zechariah  (as  tutor). 

800? 

Joel. 

784  [Interregnum?] 

;i 

776.  Era  of  the  Olym- 

773 

■3Sth  year. 

Great  prosperity  of  Ju- 
dah. 

773 

xiv.  Zacuaeiah 

End  0/ Jehu's  DjncR- 
ty.) 

[6 
ras.] 

piads. 
Greek  History  begins. 

1 

772 
705? 

3ath  year. 

His   sacrilege  and  lep- 
rosy. 

772 

XV.  Shallum 

{Fifth  Dynasty.) 

CI 
m] 

Pin.  (Vul-lush,  or  Iva- 
lusli?),  the  first  As- 

xvi. Menauem 

10 

syrian   king  named 

Tributary  to  Assyria. 

in  Scripture. 

761 

50th  year. 

761 

xvii.  Pekahiau 

(Sixth  Dynasty). 

2 

He  takes  Damascus. 

759 

52d     " 

759 

xviii.  Pekau 

20 

75S 

Xi,    JOTHAM 

16 

758 

2d  year. 

753.  Era  of  the  foun- 

dation of  Rome. 

747 

10th  year. 
Micah  prophesies. 

747 

12th  " 

747.  L.\TBB   AssvrianI 
Empire,  founded  by 

742 

xii.  AiiAZ 

16 

742 

17th  " 

Alliance  with  Rezin. 

^VlOX  ATH    -    T^TT  ■pRPTl  • 

Worst  king  of  Judah, 

and     Kingdom     of 

iMiak,  chap.  vii. 

Invasion  of  Judah. 

Babylon  by  Nabo- 

741 

Defeat  of  Ahaz. 
20a,000  captives  carried 

to  Samaria,  and  many 

to  Damascus. 

741 

Second  invasion. 

Jewish  captives  releas- 
edthrough the proph- 
et Oded. 

NA8SAR. 

Era  of  Nabonassar. 
Rezin,  king  of  Damas- 

740 

Calls  in  Tiglath  -  pile - 

ser. 
Syrian  altar  in  Temple. 
Sacrei   vessels  sent   to 

Assyria. 

740 
739 

Tributary  to  Assyria. 

Captivity    of    the    21 
tribes  east  of  Jordan, 
and    partly    of    the 
northern  Israelites. 

Pekah    slain  by    llo- 
shea. 

[  -econd  interregnum?] 
(Seventh  Dynasty.) 

9 

cus,  cir.  742. 
Syrian      kingdom     of 
Damascus  destroyed 
by   Tiglath  -  pileaer, 
740. 

730 

12th  year. 

730 

xix,  Hosuea 

9 

Shalmaneseb,  king  of 

T26 

xiii.  Hezektah 

Religious  reformation. 
Great  Passover, 

23 

3d  year. 

llezekiah'3       messen- 
gers influence  Israel. 

A8.?yria. 
He  attacks  Elul^cb, 
king  of  Tyre, 

686  Chronological  Tables.  Appendix  IL 

Table  II. — The  Divided  Kingdoms — continued. 


B.C. 

JTJDAH. 

V.S. 

B.C. 

ISRAEL. 

YES. 

1 

SYNCHRONISMS, 

725 

Revolts  from  Assyria. 
Defeats  the  Philistines. 
Mic.ah  and  Imiah  con- 

725 

League     with    Egypt, 
and  revolt  from  As- 
syria. 

725.  Sabaco  I.  (the  So 
of   SS.),  of  the  25th 
dynasty,     king     of 

tinue  to  prophesy  un- 

723 

Imprisoned    by    Shal- 

Egypt. 

der  Hezekiah. 

mantser. 
Samaria  besieged. 

721  Samaria  taken;  its  peo- 

721.  Sarqon,  king  of 

pie  carried  captive. 

Assyria. 

End  of  the  Kingdom  of 

MeRODACH  -  BALAPAN, 

Israel. 

king  of  Babylon. 

[678  Colonization  of  Sama- 

War   of  Sargon   with 

iria  by  Esar-haddon.] 

Kgypt. 

Table  III. — Later  Kingdom  of  Judah 

B.C. 

JIJDAH. 

YRS. 

ASSYRIA    AND 
BABYLON. 

EGYPT. 

OTHER    NATIONS. 

720 

7th  year  of  Hezeki- 

AU. 

Sargon        besieges 
Tyre. 

715 

■  .  .  • 

Sabaco  II? 

Date     assigned     to 

713 

Illness  of  Hezekiah. 

Embassy    of  Mero- 
dach-baladan. 

NUMA  PO-MPILirS. 

710 

Sargon  takes  Ash- 
dod. 

709 



Expels     Merodach- 

baladan. 

702 
700 

Sennacherib 
again  expels  Me- 

Invasion   of   Judah 

(rto.or 

—  submission    of 

rodach,  and  sets 

Hezekiah. 

up     Belibus      at 

698? 

Second   attack   and 
destruction  of  the 
Assj'rian  army. 

Babylon.     Flight 
from    Judah      to 
Nineveh. 

698 

xiv.  Manasseh. 
Anti  -  religious   re  - 

55 

Assyrian     viceroys 
and    much    con- 

action and  idola- 

fusion at  Babylon 

690.    TlBHAKAU. 

tries. 

till 

680 

Carried  prisoner  to 

680.       EsAR  -  HAD  - 

abo't 

Esar  -  haddon   at 

DON,      becoming 

Babylon. 

king  of  Assyria, 

671  ?      Dodechae- 

678 

Colonization  of  Sa- 

reigns in  person 

€HY. 

maria. 

at    Babylon    till 

664.            PSAMMETI- 

Manasseh's  repent- 

about 6G7. 

CHU8  I. 

ance. 

660.     ASSHFR-BANI- 

PAL    (Sardanapa- 

Scythian  Invasion  of 
W.  Asia. 

642  XV.  Amon. 

2 

lus). 

639ijxvi.  JosiAH.    Great 

31 

Saraccs,  last  king 

683.  Median  Empire 

refoimation. 

of  Assyria. 

founded  by  Cyax- 

62a 

Jeremiah    prophe  - 
sies. 

ares  (rhe  Ahasue- 
rusof  Dan.  ix.  1). 

625 

15th  year.  Nahum, 
Habakkuk,     and 

Xabo-polassab 
founds  the  Baby- 

Alyattes, king  of 
Lydia. 

Zephamah. 

lonian  Empire,  & 

616 

with     Cyaxares, 
takes  Nineveh. 

Tarquinics  Peis- 
ccs. 

1  The  correction  of  the  received  chronology,  referred  to  at  p.  589,  is  introduced  at  thi§  point. 


Appendix  II.  Chronological  Tables.  687 

Table  III  — Later  Kingdom  op  Judah — continued. 


ASSYRIA  AND 

B.O. 

JTTDAU. 

TES. 

I3AUYL0N. 

EGYPT. 

OTHER  NATIONS. 

615 

Media  and  Lydia. 
War   of  Cyaxares, 

and        Alyattes : 

610 

Neko  (or  PHABAon- 
NECHO)    marches 

ended  by  the  me- 
diation of  Nabo 

60S 

kiiied"  in"  battle 

witli  Necho. 

against     Babylo- 

polassar. 

xvii.  Jeiioaiiaz 

3  m. 

Babylox. 

nia.     Takes  (Jar- 

Eclipse  of  Thales: 

xviii.  Jeuoiakim. 

11 

chemish.      Depo- 

probably in  b.o. 

605 

Jeremiah's  prophe- 

Xebuchadnezzar 

ses  Jehoahaz.  De- 

610.      ^ 

cy  of  tlie  TO  years' 

sent  against   Ne- 

feated    by    Neb- 

captivity. 

cho.      Takes   Je- 
rusalem.    Sacred 

uchadnezzar     at 
Carchemish. 

First  Captivity. 

vessels  carried  to 
Babylon. 

604 1  Jeremiah's          roll 

Jan.  21.  Nebtjciiad- 

read. 

NEZZAR. 

603 

603.  Danie?,  etc.,  at 
Babylon. 

602 

Revolts  from  Baby- 
lon. 

598.    Nebuchadnez- 

Cyaxaros aids  Neb- 

597 

Jerusalem  taken. 

zar  besieges  Tyre 

uchadnezzar. 

xix.  Jeuoiaciiin. 

3  m. 

and          marches 

ilebels   and  is   de  - 

against     Jerusa- 

posed. 

lem. 
Resumes    siege    of 
Tyre  and  thence 
returns  to  Jerusa- 
lem. 

Great  Captivity. 

Ezekiel  carried   to 
Babylon  with  Je- 

594.  Solon,  legisla- 
tor at  Athens. 

XX.  Zedektah. 

11 

lioiacliin. 

593 

Jeremiah's  prophe- 

Ezekiel's vision  of 

593.            FSAMMETI- 

593.    ASTYAGES, 

cy  against  Baby- 
lon 

the  Temple. 

cncs  II. 

king  of  Media. 

5S8 

Jerusalem  besieged. 

Marches       against 
Jerusalem       and 

Pharaoh    uopiiba 
(Apries)        takes 

5S7 

Hope  of  relief  from 

Kgypt. 

Egypt. 

Gaza,     but     re- 
treats before  Neb- 

586 

Jerusalem        taken 
and  destroyed. 

End  of  Kingdom  of 
Judah. 

Gedai-iah,  govern - 
orof  tlie  remnant. 

Zedekiah  carried  to 
Babylon,     where 
he  dies. 

uchadnezzar. 

Murdered  by  Ish- 

585.   Nebuchadnee- 

The  "Seven  Wise 

mael. 

zar  takes  Tyre, 

Men  "  flourish  in 

Johanan  carries  Jer- 

Greece. 

emiah  and  others 

into  Egypt. 

5S2 

Further     Captivity 

by  Nebiizar^adan. 

.581.  and    oveiTuns 

Aprieg  defeated  by 

Epoch  of  the  settle- 

Egypt. 

Nebuchadnezzar. 

ment  of  the  Hel. 

570.    Second    inva- 

lenic States. 

sion  of  Egypt. 

539.     Madness     of 

569.  Amasis. 

Nebuchadnezzar? 

.568.  Ce(bscs,  king 

561 

[Jehoiachin,  at  Bab- 
ylon, released.] 

Evil-Meeodach. 
559.  Neeigussab. 

of  Lydia. 

530.    Epoch  of  the 

Greek  tyrants. 
Pisistr.itus            at 

Athens. 

688 


Chronological  Tables. 


Appendix  II, 


Table  III. — Later  Kingdom  of  Judaw. — continued. 


538 


[Daniel's  Dream  of 
the  Four  Beasts.] 


[Daniel's  Vision, 
at  Shushan,  of 
the  Kam  and  He- 
goat.] 

[Prophecy  of  the  TO 
weeks.] 

Return  of  the  Jews. 


Laboeosoaeciiod. 
Nabonedus. 


[.539.  Associates  Bel- 
shazz^r.] 

Surrenders  to  Cy- 
rus. 

Babylon  taken,  and 
Belshazzar  slain. 

538.  Daeius,  the 
Mebian  (proba- 
bly Astyagris). 

Daniel  governor. 


Cyrus  alone. 


Alliance  of  Babylon 


OTHEE  KATIONS. 


558.  Cyrus  depose 

Astyages. 
Egypt,  and  Lydia. 
554.  Cyrusconquers 

Lydia. 
Cyrus  defeats  Na 

bonedus. 


Table  IV. — The  Restored  Commonwealth. 


B.C. 

JUD.EA. 

PERSIA  AND  EGYPT. 

GREECE. 

ROME. 

536 

Return  of  the  first  car- 
avan under  Zerub- 
babel  and  Jeshua. 

1st  year  of  Cyrus. 
Edict  for  the  return 
of  tlie  Jews. 

535 

Rebuilding     of     the 
Temple. 

Tliespis  first  exhib- 
it i  tragedy. 

534 

Opposition  of  Samar- 
itans. 

Daniel  x.-xii. 

Taequinius       Su- 

PELBUS. 

529 

Letter  to  the  Persian 

Cambyses  (tlie  Aha- 

king  fiom  the  ad- 

suerus of  Ezra  iv. 

52T.  Death  of  Plsis- 

versaries. 

6.     Artaxerxes  in 
Ezra  iv.  7). 

Iratus. 

525 

Conquest  of  Egypt. 

522 

Tlie  building  stopped 

The  Pseudo-Smer- 

Death  of  Polycrates 

by  a  royal  decree. 

Dis    (the    Magian 
Gomates.) 

of  Stimos. 

521 

Haggai  and  Zechari- 

Darius    L,   son     of 
IIy.«taspes,        con- 

520 

Building  resumed. 

firms  the  edict  of 

515 

Temple  dedicated. 

Cyrus. 
Attacks    India    and 
European  Scythia. 

514.        Hipparchus 

slain. 
510.     llippias     ex- 

510.     Kings      ex- 

499. Ionian  revolt. 

pelled. 
Republicof Athens. 

4S0.     Marathon. 

pelled,  llepublic 
(f  Rome. 

495.  Patricians  op- 
press Plebeians. 

494.  Secession  to 
the  Sacred  Mt. 

4S6 

Xerxeb    (the    Aha- 
suerus  of  Esther.) 

480.  Salamis. 

Tribunes            and 
^diles  of  Plebs. 

479.     Plataea     and 

Wars  with  Italians. 

Mycile. 

476.  Ciraon. 

4T4 
465 

Esther  &  Mordecai. 
Artaxerxes  I. 
Lo>g;manu8. 

4C6.  Battles  of  the 
Eurymedon. 

Appendix  II.  Chronological  Tables,  689 

Table  IV. — The  Restored  Commonwealth. — continued. 


B.O. 

JCD^A. 

PERSIA  AND  EGYPT. 

GREECE, 

HOME.               j 

460.   Revolt  of  Ina- 

460.  Athenians    in 

ro3  in  Egypt. 

Egypt. 

458 

Commission  of  Ezra. 

457 

Great  reformation. 

454.       Egypt     con- 

454. Pericles. 

454.     Patricians 

quered. 

yield  to  Plebs. 

451.  Laws  of  the 
XII.  Tables. 

449.  Decemvirs  de- 
posed. 

445.    Tribuni  MilL. 

^44 

Commission  of  Xehe- 
miah. 

444.  Herodotus. 

turn.                      i 

to 

The  walls  rebuilt. 
Reading  of  the  Law. 

i 

433 

Opposition  of  Sanbal, 
lat. 

431.    Peloponnesiaii 

428 

Second  commission  of 

war. 

or  423 

Neheraiah. 

425.   Xerxes  II. 

POGDIANUS, 

426.      War      with 
VelL 

424 

Darius  II.:  Nothus. 
405.       Artaxerxes 

II.  :  Mnemon. 
401.     Expedition  of 

404.  End  of  ditto. 

• 

400 

Malachi. 

Cyms  the  younger. 

iOO.  Xenophon.  Re- 

about 

0.  T.  Canon  fixed. 

treat  of  the  10,- 
000. 
399.  Death  cf  Soc- 

1 

rates. 

396.CaminuB  takes 
Veii. 

1                                          ! 

390.      Gauls     take 

1                                           1 

Eomp. 

Egyptian  weighing  Rings  for  Money. 

from  Lepsiu3,  Denkmdler^  Ablh.  iii.  Bl.  39,  No.  3.     See  also  Wilkinson's  ^nc.  Eg.  ii.  10,  for 
weights  in  the  form  of  a  crouching  antelope ;  and  comp.  Layard's  Nin.  and  Bab.  pu 


APPENDIX  III. 
TABLES  OF  WEIGHTS  AND  ]MEASURES. 


A.  HEBREW  WEIGHTS. 

The  chief  Unit  was  the  Shekel  (i.  e.,  weight),  called  also  the  Hoh/  Shekel 
ox  Shekel  of  the  Sanctuary;  subdivided  into  the  Beka  (i.  e.,  half)  or  ha/f-shek- 
c/,'and  the  Gerah  (i.  e.,  a  c/min  or  bean). 

The  chief  multiple,  or  higher  unit,  was  the  Kikknr  (i,  e.,  circle  or  glohe, 
probably  for  an  aggregate  sum),  translated  in  our  Version,  after  the  LXX. 
Talent;  subdivided  into  the  Maneh  (i.  g., part,  portion,  or  number),  a  word 
used  in  Babylonian  and  in  the  Greek  fiva,  or  Mina. 

1 .  The  relations  of  these  weights,  as  usually  employed  for  the  standard  of 
weighing  silver,  and  their  absolute  values,  detennined  from  the  extant  silver 
coins,  and  confirmed  from  other  sources,  were  as  follows,  in  grains  exactly, 
and  in  avoirdupois  weight  approximately  :^ 

»  A  qnnrter-sliekel  is  mentioned  in  one  pas- 1  mo=t  generally  nsefiil.  They  are  obf  nined  by 
saga  (1  Sam.  ix.  8).  taking  the  ounce  avoirdupois  at  440  grains 

2  These  approximate  values  are  given  as  1  instead  of  437  5,  its  actual  ralue. 


Appendix  III.     Tables  of  WeighU  and  Measures. 

Tabli:  I. 


691 


1 

Silver  Weiguts. 

Grains,  j  I-bs. 

Oz. 

Correction. 

Gerah  . 

11 

110 

220 

13,2C0 

660,000 

2 

100 

i 

+•06  gr.  nearly. 
+•6  gr. 
+1-75  gr. 
—2  oz.  nearly. 
-6  lb.  nearly. 

Beka 

10 

20 

2 

Shekel 

1,200 

120 

CO 

Maneh 

60,000 

C,C00 

3,000 

50      Talent  (Kikkar) 

2.  For  Gold  a  diflferent  Shekel  was  used,  probably  of  foreign  introduc- 
tion. Its  value  has  been  calculated  at  from  129  to  132  grains.  The  former 
value  assimilates  it  to  the  Persian  JJaric  of  the  Babylonian  standard.  The 
Talent  of  this  system  was  just  double  that  of  the  silver  standard ;  it  Avas  di- 
vided into  100  vianehs^  and  each  vianeli  into  100  shekels,  as  follows:^ — 

Table  II. 


Gold  Weights. 

Grains. 

Lbs. 

Oz. 

Correction- 

Shekel. 

132 

13,200 

1,320,000 

2 
200 

•3 

+.75  gr. 

— 2  oz.  nearly. 

—1-2  lb.  nearly. 

100 

Mane 

\,           



10,000 

100 

Talent  (Kikkar) . 

3.  There  appears  to  have  been  a  third  standard  for  Copper,  namely: — a 
shekel  four  times  as  heavy  as  the  Gold  Shekel  (or  528  grains),  1500  of  which 
made  up  the  Copper  Talent  of  792,000  grains.  It  seems  to  have  been  sub- 
divided, in  the  coinage,  into  halves  (of  264  grains),  quarters  (of  132  grains), 
and  sixllis  (of  88  grains).^ 


B.  HEBREW  MONEY. 

1.  We  have  no  evidence  of  the  use  of  coined  money  before  the  return  from 
the  Babylonian  captivity  ;  but  siloer  was  used  for  money,  in  quantities  deter- 
mined by  weight,  at  least  as  early  as  the  time  of  Abraham ;  and  its  earliest 
mention  is  in  the  generic  sense  of  the  price  paid  for  a  slave  (Gen.  xvii.  13). 
The  \0Q0  pieces  of  silver  -paid  by  Abimelech  to  Abraham  (Gen.  xx.  16),  and 
the  20  pieces  of  silver  for  which  Joseph  was  sold  to  the  Ishmaelites  (Gen. 
xxxvii,  28)  were  probably  rings  such  as  we  see  on  the  Egyptian  monuments 
in  the  act  of  being  weighed.^  This  circumstance  seems  to  prove  that  they 
were  not  of  a  sufficiently  determinate  value  to  pass  by  number  merely ; 
though,  on  the  other  hand,  the  mention  of  so  many  pieces  for  definite  sums 


3  The  Tyianeh  is  alike  in  both  systemp!. 

4  For  the  (JaM  on  which  thp  calculation^^ 
are  based,  and  for  farther  infoi-mation  on  the 
whole  subject,  see  i>jcf.  of  Bible,  &rt.  Weights 
and  Measures. 


5  See  cut  as  delineated  on  the  precedinji 
page.  The  gold  rings  found  in  Celtic  coun- 
tries are  also  supposed  to  have  been  used  tor 
money. 


692  Weiglits  and  Measures.  Appendix  III. 

implies  a  unit  by  which  they  could  be  counted.  The  history  of  Joseph  and 
the  famine  seems  to  shew  that  the  Canaanites  and  P^gyptians  had  a  similar 
currency ;  and  it  clearly  proves  that  barter  was  only  resorted  to  when  the 
stock  of  money  was  exhausted. 

In  the  first  recorded  transaction  of  conmierce,  the  cave  of  IMachpelah  is 
purchased  by  Abraham  for  400  shekels  of  silver,  and  it  was  this  jf".?^  iveUjht 
that  was  recognized  as  current  icith  the  merchant  ("  money  "  is  not  in  the  orig- 
inal: Gen.  xxiii.  15,  IG).^  The  shekel  ivehjltt  of  silver  Avas  the  unit  of  value 
through  the  whole  age  of  Hebrew  history  down  to  the  Babylonian  captivity. 
In  only  one  place  is  there  a  mention  of  so  many  shekels  of  gold  as  a  sum  of 
money  (I  Chr.  xxi.  25),  and  even  here,  in  the  older  parallel  passage,  silver 
only  is  mentioned  (2  !^am.  xxiv.  9).  In  the  transaction  between  Naaman 
and  Gehazi,  the  "  six  thousand  of  gold  "  (2  K.  v.  5,  where  ;«'eces  is  not  in  the 
original)  probably  denotes  shekels,  like  the  "six  hundred  of  gold"  in  I  K. 
X.  16. 

2.  After  the  Captivity  we  have  the  earliest  mention  of  coined  money,  in  al- 
lusion, as  might  have  been  expected,  to  the  Persian  coinage,  the  gold  Daric 
(Heb.  darhnon,  LXX.  dpaxfJ-U  and  jpt'croi-c,  Vulg.  drachma  and  solidris,  A.V. 
dratn:  Ezra  ii.  GO,  viii.  27;  Keh.  vii.  70,  71,  72).  The  actual  weight  of 
these  Darics,  about  128  grains,  corresponds  nearly  enough  to  the  gold  shekel 
of  132  grains.'' 

No  native  Jewish  coinage  appears  to  have  existed  till  Antiochus  VII. 
Sidetes  granted  Simon  MaccabiBus  the  license  to  coin  mcniy  (b.c.  140); 
and  it  is  now  generally  agreed  that  the  oldest  Jewish  silier  cjins  belong  to 
this  period.  They  are  shekels  and  half-shekels,  of  the  v  eights,  as  already 
stated,  of  220  and  110  grains,  AYith  this  silver  there  was  associated  a  cop- 
per coinage,  some  pieces  of  which  have  been  supposed  to  reach  as  high  as  Ju- 
das Maccabaius  ;  but  probably  none  are  really  older  than  John  Hyrcanus 
(B.C.  135),  from  whom  the  series  is  continued,  almost  without  interruption, 
to  the  end  of  tlie  Asmonrean  house.  Most  of  them  are  marked  as  the  half 
or  quarter  (doubtless  of  the  shekel),  their  average  weights  being  235|  and 
132  gi-ains ;  and  there  is  a  third  piece  of  about  82  grains,  which  seems  to  be 
the  sixth  of  a  shekel. 

The  abundant  money  of  Herod  the  Great,  which  is  of  a  thoroughly  Greek 
character,  and  of  co/)per  only,  seems  to  have  been  a  continuation  of  the  cop- 
per coinage  of  the  Maccabees,  with  some  adaptation  to  the  Roman  standard. 
It  appears  to  be  of  three  denominations ;  the  smallest  being  a  piece  of  brass 
(xaAKol'c),  of  which  the  next  was  the  double  ((5i,taA\-oc),  and  the  third  the 
treble  (T/Hxa/Moc).  The  first  and  commonest  of  these,  some  specimens  of 
<  In  the  pecond  transaction  another  term  is  I  interestinp:  contirmation  of  Ezra's  authorFhip 


used  :  Jacob  purclia.ses  a  field  at  Slialeni,  near 
Sliecliem,  for  100  kesitafis,  a  word  whicli 
freins  to  be  connected  with  an  Arabic  root 
sii;nifying  equal  division.  Were  we  to  accept 
the  older  interpretation,  laitibs,  it  Avould  be 
explained  not  of  money  coined  with  that  fig- 


of  the  Chronick  s.  Here  it  seems  to  signify  a 
iveight^  namely,  the  shekel ;  but  in  the  pas- 
sages of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  gold  coins  arc 
evidently  meant.  Tlie  common  derivation 
of  the  Daric  (cttoti/p  Aaf}€iK6<.),  from  Darius, 
the  pon  of  llyr=taspes,  is  very  doubtful:  and 


nre.  but  of  weights  made  in  that  shape ;  for  '  the  form  darkmon  (used  in  all  the  passages 
we  iiave  numerous  pictures  and  specimens  of  1  except  tliat  from  the  Chronicles)  suggests  an 
Egyptian  and  Assyrian  weights  in  the  forms  |  affinity  with  drachma,  in  tlie  cognate  Persic 
of  lions,  bulls,  antelopes,  geese,  and  ducks;  j  and  Greek.  Tlie* coins  may  be  referred  to 
and  it  may  have  been  through  a  similar  step  :  the  same,  standard,  the  Persian  Daric  being 
that 2iecu;iia  was  derived  from  pccus.  I  the  eiuivnlent  of  the  Lydian  and  Attic  gold 

^  The  mention  of  wliat  is  doubtless  also  \  s'a'er,  and  equal  in  weight  to  the  Attic  silver 
the  daric  {adarko  )  in  1  (Jhroa.  xxix.  7,  is  an  '■  didracfnn. 


Appendix  III.  Hebrew  Monei/.  693 

which  are  much  like  the  abundant  copper  coinage  of  Alexander  Jannseus, 
seems  to  have  been  connected,  on  the  one  hand,  with  the  quarter-shekel  of  the 
old  coinage,  and  on  the  other  with  \.\\q  far  thine j  (quadrans)  of  tlie  New  Tes- 
tament. 

3.  In  the  money  of  the  Neic  Testament  we  see  the  native  copper  coinage 
side  by  side  with  the  GraBco-Eoman  copper,  silver,  and  gold.  An  interesting 
illustration  occurs  in  our  Lord's  first  commission  to  the  Apostles.  St.  Mat- 
thew (x.  0),  A\itli  comprehensive  generality,  mentions  all  the  three  metals ; 
"  Provide  neither  f/o/tZ,  nor  silver,  nor  brass,  in  your  girdles.'"*  St.  Mark  (vi, 
8)  names  only  the  copper  (;^;a/l/coi')  which  foraied  the  common  native  cm-ren- 
cy.     St.  Luke  (ix.  3)  uses  the  general  word  for  money  (apyvpiov'). 

a.  Copper  or  brass  money. — The  word  Farthing  is  used  in  our  Version  for 
two  different  coins: — (1.)  The  Assarius  Nummus  {aauapiov),  or  Roman  As, 
as  the  Vulgate  correctly  renders  it  (Matt.  x.  29).  In  Luke  xii.  G,  the  Vul- 
gate translates  aoaapiiov  duo  by  dipondio,  i.  e.,  the  coin  which  was  originally 
two  pounds  of  copper,  or  the  double  As.  But,  by  the  successive  reductions 
of  the  Koman  copper  coinage,  the  As  had  come  to  signify  merely  the  16th 
part  of  the  reduced  denarius  of  the  early  imperial  age,  or  less  than  a  half- 
penny (see  below). 

(2.)  The  other  Jarthinq  (K^dpdvTTjg,  Vulg.  quadrans)  is  defined  as  two  mites 
(XsKTa,  Vulg.  minuta,  Mark  xii.  42  ;  Luke  xxi.  2).  Both  these  are  foreign 
names  ;  but  they  are  used  to  describe  the  native  copper  coinage.  The  prop- 
er AeTTTw  was  a  small  Attic  copper  coin,  seven  of  which  went  to  the  x('^?.Koix, 
and  was  worth  about  one-tenth  of  our  farthing ;  and  the  Roman  quadrans 
or  ieruncius  Avas  the  quarter  As — originally  a  piece  of  three  undo;,  worth 
about  half  a  farthing.  But  at  this  time  there  were  no  Roman  coins  current 
in  Palestine  of  a  smaller  value  than  the  As ;  and  this  farthivg  and  mite  are 
doubtless  to  be  referred  to  the  Maccabs^an  and  Herodian  copper  coinage. 
The  mite  may  have  been  that  smallest  copper  coin,  which  is  supposed  to  have 
been  the  sixth  of  a  shekel,  and  the  farthinj  was  probably  the  smallest  Her- 
odian coin,  reduced  from  the  Asmonsean  quarter-shekel,  the  cuiTent  speci- 
mens of  which  would  pass  at  the  value  fixed  by  Herod.  The  name  of 
quadrans,  Hellenized  into  Ko6pdvT7jg  {farthing,  i.  e.,  fourth  part),  may  have 
referred  both  to  the  origin  of  the  coin,  as  the  fourth  part  of  the  shekel,  and  to 
its  current  value,  as  the  fourth  part  of  the  Roman  As. 

Both  pieces  were  probably  supplied  by  the  abundant  coinage  of  Alexan- 
der Jannffius,  besides  Herod's  farthings.  The  use  of  the  mite  among  the 
poorest  sort  of  the  people  is  indicated  by  the  affecting  circumstance,  that  the 
poor  widow  cast  tivo  such  pieces  into  the  treasury,  to  make  up  the  insignifi- 
cant sum  of  a  farthing  ;  nor,  we  may  observe  in  passing,  did  she  yield  to  the 
temptation  of  giving  only  one.  If  the  farthing  was  the  quarter  of  the  .4.';, 
its  value  would  be  about  half  a  farthing,  or  one-eighth  of  a  penny,  and  the 
vdte  a  quarter  of  a  farthing,  or  one-sixteenth  of  a  penny. 

b.  Of  Silver  money,  two  standards  are  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament, 
one  Hellenistic  and  the  other  Roman. 

(1.)  At  the  time  Avhen  the  Maccabees  coined  their  silver  shekels,  the  or- 
dinary Greek  silver  was  the  drachma^  and  its  multiples,  the  didrachm  (2  dr.) 

^  xpvcrov,  upyvpov,  xa^Kov  ;  not  tlio  moiK^ijf, '  fiv,  the  drachma  -vras  the  onp-hundredth  part 
xpi'criov,  apfvptov,  xa^novv.  j  of  the  Mino,  and  the  six-tliousandth  of  the 

*  In  the  Greek  systems  of  weight  and  men-  pTaZe^?. 


694 


Weights  and  Measures. 


Appendix  III. 


and  the  tetradrachm  (4  dr.).  .But  these  were  of  two  different  standards,  the 
Attic,  which  was  universal  in  Europe  and  general  in  Asia  Minor;  and  the 
Ptolemaic,  which  prevailed  in  the  commercial  cities  of  Egypt  and  Phoenicia. 
That  the  tetradrachm,  didrachm,  and  dracfana  of  this  latter  scale  were  equiv- 
alent to  the  Jewish  shekel,  halj'-shekel,  and  quarter-shekel,  may  be  inferred 
from  the  fact  that  the  LXX.  translate  the  half -shekel,  which  was  the  poll- 
tax  for  the  Temple-service,  as  a  didrachm.  At  the  time  of  Jesus  Christ  the 
didrachms  had  fallen  into  disuse,  though  the  name  was  still  preserved  as 
money  of  account,  and  the  tetradrachm  was  the  stater  (J.,  e.,  standard  coin) 
of  the  Greek  imperial  silver.  Such  a  tetradrachm  was  the  stater  (araTf/p, 
Vulg.  stater,  A.  V.  piece  of  money),  which  St.  Peter  was  directed  by  our 
Lord  to  take  out  of  the  fishs  mouth,  and  to  i:»ay  "the  receivers  of  di- 
drachms "  for  Jesus  and  himself,  as  equal  to  two  half-shekels  (Matt.  xvii.  24- 
27).  The  simple  drachma  occurs  in  the  Maccabjean  history  (2  Mace.  iv.  19, 
X.  20,  xii.  43) ;  and  once  in  the  Gospels,  in  the  parable  of  the  lost  "piece  of 
silver  "  (Luke  xv.  8  :  dpaxfJ-a^  6eKa,  Spaxjur/v  fiiav,  Vulg.  drachmas  decern, 
drachmam  unam).  In  this  passage  it  probably  denotes  the  denarius,  to  which 
the  Greek  drachmae  of  this  period  were  regarded  as  equivalent. 

(2.)  The  ordinary  silver  currency  of  Palestine  was  the  Roman  denarius, 
(6r,vapiov),  the  '•''^enny'''  so  frequently  mentioned  iu  the  Gospels.  Origi- 
nally, as  its  name  implies,  it  was  a  silver  piece  equal  to  ten  Ases ;  but,  with 
the  successive  reductions  of  the  As,  it  had  become,  after  the  time  of  Augus- 
tus, equal  to  sixteen  Ases. 

Under  Augustus  eighty-four  <ie«ani  Avere  coined  from  the  Roman  pound 
of  silver,  i.e.,  seven  from  the  Roman  ounce  (which  only  fell  short  of  the 
ounce  avoirdupois  by  about  seven  grains)  ;  and  the  denarius  weighed  a  little 
over  sixty  grains.  "^ 

The  "penny," bearing  "  Csesar's  image  and  superscription,'' which  was 
brought  to  Christ  on  his  demand  to  see  the  tribute-money,  was  a  denarius 
of  Tibei-ius  (Matt,  xxii.  15-21 ;  Mark  xiii.  15-17 ;  Luke  xx.  19-25).  From 
the  parable  of  the  laborers  in  the  vineyard,  it  would  seem  that  the  rate  of 
wages  was  a  denarius  a  day  (Matt.  xx.  2,  9,  13).  In  Rev.  vi.  6,  a  prophe- 
cy of  famine  gives  the  prices  of  "  a  choeyjix  (or  quart)  of  wheat  for  a  penny,  and 
three  chcenices  of  barley  for  a  penny.""  Other  passages  in  which  the  denari- 
us is  mentioned  are  Matt,  xviii.  28;  Mark  vi.  37,  xiv.  5;  Luke  vii.  41,  x. 
35 ;  John  vi.  7,  xii.  5.  As  the  drachma  was  reckoned  the  equivalent  of  the 
denarius,  the  latter  was  considered  the  fourth  part  of  the  silver  stater  or  tet- 
radrachm, which,  in  its  turn,  was  considered  the  equivalent  of  the  shekel. 

The  *' thirty  pieces  of  silver"  (apyvpia),  promised  to  Judas  as  the  price 
■of  his  treachery  (Matt.  xxvi.  1 5,  xxvii.  3-(),  9),  in  all  probability  denote 
shekels,  as  in  those  passages  of  the  O.  T.  where  numerals  are  given  without 
Bpecific  A-alues,  like  the  "  thirty  of  silver  "  in  Zechariah's  prophecy  of  this  very 


1"  Nero  reduced  the  denarius  to  about  f)2| 
praini!,  coining  90  from  the  pound,  or  8  from 
the  ounce.  The  value  of  the  old  denarii  is 
iisually  reckoned  at  Sirf.,  that  of  the  later  at 
7jrf. ;  value,  that  is,  as  compared  with  the 
present  worth  of  silver,  a  computation  which 
requires  elaborate  con-ections  with  reference 
to  the  comparative  prices  of  tlie  precious  met- 
•ils  and  of  commodities,  before  it  can  become 
any  measure  of  wealth.     I  f,  however,  we  take 


the  maximum,  instead  of  the  average,  of  ex- 
isting denarii  (for  it  was  not  the  practice  of 
the  Komans  to  strike  their  money  too  heavy, 
and  coins  lose,  but  do  not  gain  weight  in 
course  of  time),  the  wortli  of  the  older  dena^ 
rii  wouhl  be  about  9d.  This  therefore  is  the 
value  of  the  '•'■penny  "  of  the  New  Testament. 
11  Taking  the  i-ediiced  denarius  of  Nero, 
this  would  make  the  wheat  about  a  guinea  a 
bushel,  or  S4  shillings  a  quarter. 


Appendix  III. 


Hebrew  Money. 


695 


transaction  (Zech.  xi.  12,  13).  It  can  scarcely  ba  a  mere  coincidence  that 
thirty  shekels  was  the  price  of  blood  in  the  case  of  a  slave  accidentally  killed 
(Ex.  xxi.  32).  As  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  old  Maccabaean 
shekels  were  still  in  circulation,  we  must  understand  their  equivalent,  the 
current  staters. 

Now  to  obtain  the  approximate  values  of  these  varieties  of  money  (in  the 
sense  explained  above),  we  may,  at  the  one  end  of  the  scale,  calculate  the 
value  of  a  shekel's  weight  of  silver,  and,  at  the  other  end,  the  value  of  the 
existing  denarii.  The  latter  method  gives  us,  as  we  have  seen,  9c?.  for  the 
Augustan  denarizis ;  and  as  this  was  the  quarter  of  the  stater  or  tetradrachm, 
the  latter  would  be  just  35.  (the  value  of  a  Prussian  thaler)  ;  and  this,  again, 
was  regarded  as  the  equivalent  of  the  old  shekel.  On  the  other  method,  the 
mint  pi-ice  of  standard  silver,  5s.  6d.  per  ounce  troy  of  480  grains,  gives  us 
the  value  of  rather  more  than  2s.  Qd.  (an  English  half-crown)  for  the  shekel 
of  220  grains.  But  as  three  parts  out  of  forty  of  standard  silver  are  alloy, 
the  worth  of  a  shekel  of  pure  silver  will  be  raised  to  just  2s.  9c/.  ;  and  the 
difference  of  3d.  between  this  and  the  later  value,  as  computed  from  the  de- 
narii, may  be  further  reduced  by  an  allowance  for  loss  of  weight  in  the  Mac- 
cabsean  shekels,  of  which  also,  it  should  be  remembered,  220  grains  is  the 
average,  not  the  maximum.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  we  can  not  be  far  in 
excess  of  the  true  values,  if  we  take  3s.  as  the  appioximate  value  of  the 
shekel. 

On  this  basis,  then,  the  following  tables  are  cal.ailated: — 


Table  III. — Old  Hebrew  Money.     (By  weight.) 


i.  Of  Silver. 

£    s.    d. 

Half-Shftk'^1  (^Poll 

0    16 
0    3    0 
9    0    0 

450    0    0    J 

1 

2 

Shekel. ,  - 

120 

60 

Maneh 

■ 

GOOO 

3000 

50       Talent 

ii.  Of  Gold  (at  £4  per  oz. 

troy). 

£    s.  d. 

Shekel. 
100 

1    2    0 

110    0     0 
11,000     0    0 

Maneh . 

Talent 

10,000 

100 

Note. — As  the  Gold  Talent  was  twice  the  weight  of  the  silver,  and  the  ra'io  of  gold  (o 
silver  was  rather  more  than  12  to  1,  these  results  agree  closely  enougli. 


696  Weights  and  Measures.  Appendix  III. 

Table  IV. — Monet  of  the  Asmon^an  Period. 


Copper,  Silver,  and  Gold. 


?  Sixth  (of  Shekel)— Copper 

Quarter  (of  Shekel) — Copper. 


U 


2      I  Half  (of  Shekel)— Copper  and  Silver. 


Shekel— Silver. 


Dane- Gold. 


Note. — Herod's  three  Copper  Pieces:— 

(1)  Probably  equal  to  the  Quarter-shekel 

(2)  '•  Half  ''      

(3)  '•'■  three  liraes  the  first 


£   8.  d. 


0 

0 

G 

© 

0 

9 

0 

1 

6 

0 

3 

0 

1 

2 

0 

0 
0 
0 

0 

1 
2 

9 
6 
3 

Table  V. — Currency  in  the  Time  of  Christ. 


i.  Jewish  and  Koman  Copper. 


Ijepton  (Mite). 


Quadrans  (Farthing) 

4         Assarion  or  As  (Pennv). 


£    f.  d. 


0 

0 

'i-J. 

0 

0 

Oi      I 

0    0    Oi      j 


ii.  Roman  and  Greek  Silver. 


Denarius  (Penny),  IG  times  the  As=Drachma 

2       I  Didrachm  (of  account)::;^Half-3hekel 

4  2         Stater  or  Tetradrachm=iShekel. 


Gold  Money  is  referred  to  in  the  New  Testament,  without  reference  to 
specific  vahies.     The  following  were  the  pieces  in  circulation : — 

£    R. 

(1.)  The  Imperial  Attreus,  worth  about 11 

(2.)  Greek  Stateus,  of  probably  about  the  same  standard  ae  the  Peman  Daric 1  2 

The  Talent  is  often  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament,  but  in  a  manner 
which  leaves  it  quite  undetermined  whether  the  word  is  a  translation  of  the 
old  Hebrew  kikkar^  or  whether  it  refers  to  the  Greek  or  other  systems  which 
prevailed  throughout  the  East.     Of  these  systems  the  most  general  was  :  — 

(1.)  The  Attio  Talent  of  Silvek,  worth  about  £243  15s.,  or  approximately £250 

But  there  were  also-::;       -^ 

(^.)  The  Eur.oic  Tai.emt,  worth  £33S  l(\s.  lOf/.,  or  nearly £340 

(3.)  The  .^GiNETAN.  worth  £40!j  5s.,  or  approximately £410 


Appendix  III.  Measures  of  Length.  697 

In  all  cases  the  Talent  signifies  money  of  account.,  the  largest  coins  being  the 
staters ;  and  it  must  be  taken  to  denote  a  talent  of  stiver,  unless  (jold  is  speci- 
fied. 

C.  HEBREW  MEASURES  OF  LENGTH. 

In  the  Hebrew,  as  in  every  other  system,  these  measures  are  of  two  class- 
es ;  length,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  for  objects  whose  size  we  wish  to  deter- 
mine, and  distance,  or  itinera?^  measures ;  and  the  two  are  connected  by 
some  definite  relation,  more  or  less  simple,  between  their  units. 

1 ,  The  measures  of  the  former  class  have  been  universally  derived,  in  the 
first  instance,  from  the  /mrts  of  the  human  body ;  but  it  is  remarkable  that,  in 
the  Hebrew  system,  llic  only  part  used  for  this  purpose  is  the  hand  and  fore- 
arm, to  the  exclusion  of  ihe  foot,  which  was  the  chief  unit  of  the  Western 
nations.  Hence  arises  the  difficulty  of  determining  the  ratio  of  ihafoot  to 
the  CeBIT,  which  appears  as  the  chief  Oriental  unit  from  the  very  building  of 
Noah's  ark  (Gen.  vi.  15,  IG,  vii.  20). 

The  Hebrew  lesser  measures  were  the  etsha  (^(^clktvIoc,  digitus),  or  finr/er's 
breadth  (^Jev.  lii.  21,  only);  iha  tejthach (TialaiGT/j, palmus),palm  or hand-breadtk 
(Ex.  XXV.  25 ;  I  K.  \n.  26  ;  2  Chr.  iv.  5,  used  metaphorically  in  Ps.  xxxix. 
5).  The  zereth  (aTiBafxi],  palinus  major,  or  span),  i.  e.,  the  full  stretch  between 
the  tips  of  the  thumb  and  the  little  finger  (Ex.  xxviii.  10 ;  1  Sam.  xvii.  4; 
Ez.  xliii.  13,  and  figuratively  Is.  xl.  12).  '- 

It  is  not  merely  that  all  such  measures  lequire  more  exact  determination 
than  the  human  frame,  with  its  great  A'arieties  of  length,  can  furnish,  but 
that  the  word  cubit  itself  has  naturally  three  different  senses,  namely,  the 
length  of  the  fore-arm  by  itself /row  the  elbow  to  the  wrist,  or  the  full  length 
from  the  elbow  to  the  tij)  of  the  outstretched  middle  fim/er,  or  the  intermediate 
length  (or  lengths) .//oj/t  tlie  elbow  to  one  of  the  knuckles,  especially  the  mid- 
dle knuckle  of  the  hand ;  and  cubits  of  all  three  standards  appear  to  have 
been  actually  in  use.  Two  of  them  at  all  events  were  in  common  use,  and 
are  distinguished  by  Herodotus  as  the  moderate  or  of  the  ordinary  measiire, 
common  or  Asiatic  Qitrpto^  idiuriKoc,  Koivoi),  which  Avas  the  same  as  the  Sa- 
mian  or  Egyptian,  and  equal  to  24  digits  (about  18|-  inches),  and  the  royal  ox- 
Persian  (iSaat/J/ioc),  which  was  three  digits  longer,  or  27  digits  (about  20^ 
inches).  So  in  the  O.  T.,  Ezekiel  mentions  a  gi-eat  cubit,  or  a  cubit  to  the 
knuckles  (though  the  latter  word  may  mean  edge  or  tip),  as  equal  to  a  cubit 
and  a  hand-breath  (xl.  5,  xli.  8,  the  passages,  however,  besides  being  prophet- 
ic, are  confessedly  difficult).  This  gi-eat  or  long  cubit  is  that  which  he  uses 
hi  measuring  the  temple  of  his  vision  ;  and  reverence  would  scarcely  permit 
him  to  use  any  other  than  the  old  Mosaic  or  legal  standard,  after  which  the 
Tabernacle  and  the  Temple  were  constructed,  and  to  which  the  measure- 


'2  The  'Latin  citbilus  (from  cubj turn.,  the 
elbow,  so  called  because  it  supported  a  person 
in  the  recnvibznt  posture  common  at  meals) 
is  in  Greek  nrix''^i  '•  ^-i  probably  Trax"?,  the 
thick  part  of  the  arm.  The  three  senses  in 
which  it  yras  n?ed  as  a  measure  are  seen  in 
the  Greek  irv-^fxt],  wv^wv,  (names  derived  from 
the  fist),  and  ttTixi'v,  '■•  Jich  are  respectively 
II,  li,  and  li  of  Ihe  Greek  foot,  or  a  little 
more  than  1ft.  li  in.,  1  ft.  3  in.,  and  1  f .  G  in. 
English.     In  a  person  of  full   stature  {i.  <>., 

Gg 


whose  outstretched  arms  measure  G  ft.  from 
tip  to  tip  of  the  middle  finger),  the  measures 
are  about  1  ft.  1-2  in.,  1  ft.  3-4  in.,  and  1  ft. 
8-9  in.  'J'lie  Hebrew  word  for  the  cubit  {aiv- 
mah)  appears  to  have  been  of  Egyptian  ori- 
gin, as  some  of  the  measures  of  capacity  (the 
hin  and  ejyiiali)  certainly  were.  (The  Greek 
ciiifjia  was  a  Inud-measure  of  40  cubits,  or  GO 
feet.)  The  rod  ((jonied)  named  as  the  measm-e 
of  Eglon's  dirk,  was  perhaps  only  another 
name  for  the  cubit  (Judg.  iii.  16). 


698 


Weights  and  Measiwes. 


Appendix  III. 


ments  of  the  Ark  are  referred.  If  so,  tlie  other  cubit,  which  it  exceeded  by 
a  hand-breadth,  would  naturally  be  the  ordinary  Chaldrean  measure  of  the 
country  in  wliich  the  propliet  dwelt.  This  legal  cubit  is  distinguished  in  the 
time  of  Moses  himself  from  tJie  cubit  of  a  man^  in  which  the  measures  of  the 
giant  Og's  bedstead  are  given  (Dent.  iii.  1 1 ),  and  which  we  may  infer  to 
have  been  in  common  use  among  the  Canaanites,  and  therefore  to  have  been 
of  the  Chaldi^ean  standard,  or  the  lesser  cubit  of  Ezekiel.  Again,  as  the  di- 
mensions of  the  Temple  were  "after  the,  first  (or  older)  measure"  (2  Chr. 
iii.  3),  there  would  seem  to  have  been  another,  or  neiv  cubit,  in  use  under  Sol- 
omon ;  and  the  question  arises  whether  this  was  different  from  both  the  oth- 
ers. The  data  for  determining  the  actual  length  of  the  Mosaic  cubit  involve 
peculiar  difficulties  ;  and  absolute  certainty  seems  unattainable.  The  follow- 
ing, however,  seem  the  most  probable  conclusions: — first,  that  three  cubits 
were  used  in  the  times  of  the  Hebrew  monarchy ;  namely : — 

(1.)  The  cubit  of  a  vmn^  cr  the  common  cubit  of  Canaan  (in  contradis- 
tinction to  the  Mosaic  cubit)  of  the  Chaldajan  standard  : 

(2.)  The  old  Mosaic  or  legal  cubit,  a  hand-breadth  larger  than  the  first,  and 
agreeing  with  the  smaller  Egyptian  cubit : 

(13.)  The  new  cubit,  Avhich  was  still  larger,  and  agreed  Avith  the  larger 
Egyptian  cubit,  of  about  20-G  inches,  used  in  the  Nilometer : 

And,  secondly,  that  the  ordinary  cubit  of  the  Bible  did  not  come  up  to  the 
full  length  of  the  cubit  of  other  countries.  The  reed  (Jccineh)  for  measuring 
buildings  (like  the  Roman  dccempeda)  was  equal  to  6  cubits.  It  only  oc- 
curs in  Ezekiel  (xl.  5-8,  xli.  8,  xlii.  IG-ID).^^  The  values  given  in  the  fol- 
lowing table  (from  Thenius)  are  to  be  accepted  with  reservation,  for  want  of 
greater  certainty : — 

Table  VI. 


IIedrew  Measl'uks  of  Length. 


4       P.ilm. 


12     I        3  Span 

24  G  2       I  Cnl.it. 

144 


oG 


12 


Keed. 


Inches. 

Approximate      j 

Feet. 

Incdes. 

•7988 

•8ori| 

3-1752 

*" 

Stg 

9-5257 

Oi 

19-0515 

1 

7 

114-3090 

' 

G                 1 

Some  authorities  add — 

Ft.  In. 

The  Arabian  Poleo{  8  cubits 12  G 

The  Meusurhvj  Line  of  flax  (or  Schcenus),  of  Ezek.  xl.  3,  of  80  cubits. .  .125  0 

Note. — According  to  the  more  common  view,  which  malces  the  cubit  nearly  22  inche.=. 
these  measures  would  have  to  be  increased  in  proportion. 


'3  The  golden  reed  (xaXajuof  xpvaoZv)  by 
which  St.  John  nic:tr=ures  the  New  Jerusalem 
(Rev.  xxi.  15)  is,  of  course,  like  the  other 
features  of  the  vi-^lon,  the  counterpart  of 
Ezekiel's  rccd  :  but  it  is  worth  noticing  that 


the  Greek  system  liad  also  a  reed  (Ka\a/uor, 
aKaiva,  deKcnrov^),  and  the  Romans  a  decemjje- 
da  or  pertica,  equal,  in  each  case,  to  ten/eet^ 
the  Greek  being  10  ft.  1-35  in.,  and  the  Ro- 
man, 0  ft.  8 -490  in. 


Appkndix  III.  Measures  of  Distance.  '  699 

II.  Of  Measures  of  distance  the  smallest  is  the  pace  {Isaad),  and  the  larg- 
est the  day's  journey:  besides  which,  the  Cibrath  hddrets  (A.  V.  "  a  little 
wav  "or  "a  little  piece  of  ground"  seems  to  denote  some  definite  measure 
(Gen.  XXXV.  IG,  xlviii.  7  ;  2  K.  v.  ID). 

(a.)  As  to  the  last,  the  LXX.  retain  the  Hebrew  word  in  the  form  Xa- 
BtiaOd  as  though  it  ^\el■e  the  name  of  a  place,  adding,  in  Gen.  xlviii.  7,  the 
words  Kara  rbv  'nr-oSfjofiov,  which  is  thus  a  second  translation  of  the  expres- 
sion. If  a  certain  distance  was  intended  by  this  translation,  it  would  be 
either  the  ordinary  length  of  a  race-course,  or  such  a  distance  as  a  horse 
could  travel  without  being  over-fatigued  ;  in  other  words,  a  stage.  But  it 
probably  means  a  locality,  either  a  race-course  itself,  as  in  3  Mace.  iv.  11,  or 
the  space  outside  the  town  walls  Avhere  the  race-course  was  usually  to  be 
found.  The  LXX.  gives  it  again,  in  Gen.  xlviii.  7,  as  the  equivalent  for 
Ephrath.  The  Syriac  and  Persian  versions  render  cibrath  by  parasang,  a 
well-known  Persian  measure,  generally  estimated  at  30  stades  (Herod,  ii.  6, 
V.  53),  or  from  3^  to  4  English  miles,  but  sometimes  at  a  larger  amount,  even 
up  to  GO  stades  (Strab.  xi.  518).  The  only  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the 
Bible  is  that  the  cibrath  did  not  exceed,  and  probably  equaled  the  distance 
between  Bethlehem  and  Rachel's  burial-place,  which  is  traditionally  identi- 
fied with  a  spot  one  and  a  half  miles  north  of  the  town. 

(/>.)  The  Pace  (2  Sam.  vi.  13),  whether  it  be  single,  like  our  pace,  or  double, 
like  the  Latin  passus,  is  defined  by  nature  within  certain  limits,  its  usual 
length  being  about  thirty  inches  for  the  former,  and  five  feet  for  the  latter. 
In  the  Roman  system,  which  was  founded  on  the  march  of  soldiers,  the  pace 
was  exactly  defined,  to  bring  it  into  harmony  with  the  ordinary  measures  of 
length  ;  but  this  does  not  appear  to  have  been  done  by  the  Jews."  There  is 
some  reason  to  suppose  that  even  before  the  Roman  measurem.ent  of  the 
roads  of  Palestine,  the  Jews  had  a  Mile  of  1000  paces,  denoted  in  the  Tal- 
mud by  the  Roman  name,  b'^'Q,  and  alluded  to  in  Matt.  v.  41.  It  is  said  to 
have  been  single  or  double,  according  to  the  length  of  the  pace ;  and  hence 
the  peculiar  force  of  our  Lord's  saying : — "  Whosoever  shall  press  thee  as  a 
courier  for  one  mile,  go  with  him  tivain .-"  put  the  most  liberal  construction  on 
the  demand. 

{c.)  The  derec  yam,  or  mahdlac  yom,  a  Days  Journey,  was  the  most  usual 
method  of  calculating  distances  in  traveling  (Gen.  xxx.  3G,  xxxi.  23  ;  Ex.  iii. 
18,  V.  3 ;  Num.  x.  33,  xi.  31,  xxxiii.  8  ;  Dent.  i.  2  ;  1  K.  xix.  4 ;  2  K.  iii.  9  ; 
Jon.  iii.  3  ;  1  Mace.  v.  24,  28,  vii.  45  ;  Tob.  vi.  1),  though  but  one  instance  of 
it  occurs  in  the  New  Testament  (Luke  ii.  44).  The  distance  indicated  by  it 
was  naturally  fluctuating  according  to  the  circumstances  of  the  traveler  or 
of  the  country  through  Avhich  he  passed.  Herodotus  variously  estimates  it 
at  200  and  150  stades  (iv.  101,  v.  53)  ;  Marinus  {ap.  Ptol.  i.  11)  at  150  and 
172  stades :  Pausanias  (x.  33,  §  2)  at  150  stades ;  Strabo  (i.  35)  at  from  250 
to  300  stades  ;  and  Vegetius  {De  Re  Mil.  i.  11)  at  from  20  to  24  miles  for 
the  Roman  army.  The  ordinary  day's  journey  among  the  Jews  was  30  miles  ; 
but  when  they  traA^eled  in  companies,  only  10  miles.  Neapolis  formed  the 
first  stage  out  of  Jerusalem,  according  to  the  former,  and  Beeroth,  according 
to  the  latter  computation  (Lightfoot,  Exerc.  in  Luc.  ii.  44).     It  is  impossible 

»4  The  pace  of  the  T.ilmudists  is  the  Ro-  i  635  feet=:12.5  pacesrrl  stadium,  Arhich  was 
man  pa.i^ms,  and  their /oof  tlie  Roman  ;je.s  one-eighth  of  tlie  Roman  mile  cf  1000  paces,  j 
5  of  which  malie  up  the  passus.     Tliey  make  ; 


700  '  ]Vei(/hts  and  Measures.  Appendix  III. 

to  assign  any  distinct  length  to  the  day's  journey.  Jahn's  estimate  of  33 
miles,  172  yards,  and  4  feet,  is  based  upon  the  false  assumption  that  it  bore 
some  fixed  ratio  to  the  otiier  measures  of  length. 

((i.)  Ihe  Sabbath-day  s  Journey  of  2000  cubits  {I^ajSfiaTov  666g,  Acts  i.  ]2] 
is  peculiar  to  the  New  Testament,  and  arose  from  a  Kabbinical  restriction 
which,  as  we  may  infer  from  one  case  at  least, ^"^  did  not  exist  in  olden  times. 
It  was  founded  on  a  universal  application  of  the  prohibition  given  by  Moser 
for  a  special  occasion: — "  Let  no  man  go  out  of  his  place  on  the  seventh 
day  "  (Ex.  xvi.  29).  An  exception  was  allowed  for  the  purpose  of  worship- 
ing at  the  Tabernacle;  and  as  2000  cubits  was  the  prescribed  space  to  be 
kept  between  the  Ark  and  the  people,  as  well  as  the  extent  of  the  suburbs 
of  the  Levitical  cities  on  every  side  (Numb.  xxxv.  ,'")),  tliis  Avas  taken  for  the 
length  of  a  Sabbath-day's  journey,  measured  from  the  icall  of  the  city  in 
which  the  traveler  lived.  Computed  from  the  value  given  above  for  the  cubit, 
the  Sabbath-day's  jouniey  would  be  just  six-tenths  of  a  inile.  The  larger 
value,  usually  taken  for  the  cubit,  gives  seven-tenths  of  a  mile. 

(e.)  After  the  Captivity,  the  relations  of  the  Jews  to  the  Persians,  Greeks, 
and  Romans  caused  the  use,  probably  of  the  parasang^  and  certainly  of  the 
stadium  and  the  mile.  Though  the  first  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Bible,  it  is 
well  to  exhibit  the  ratios  of  the  three.  The  universal  Greek  standard,  the 
stadium  of  600  Greek  feet,  which  was  the  length  of  the  race-course  at  Olym- 
pia,  occurs  first  in  the  Maccabees^  and  is  common  in  the  New  Testament. 
Our  version  renders  it  furlong ;  it  being,  in  fact,  the  eighth  part  of  the  Ro- 
man mile,  as  the  furlong  is  of  ours^^  (2  Mace,  xi.  5,  xii.  9,  17,  29  ;  Luke 
xxiv.  13;  John  vi.  19,  xi.  18;  Rev.  xiv.  20,  xxi.  16).  The  Roman  7/a7e, 
thougli  there  is  only  one  doubtful  mention  of  it  (Matt.  v.  4 1 ,  see  above),  was 
applied  to  the  roads  of  Palestine  under  the  empire,  and  the  results  are  not 
only  recorded  in  the  Antonine  and  Jerusalem  Itineraries^  but  in  some  cases 
the  milestones  are  still  to  be  seen. 

One  measure  remains  to  be  mentioned.  The /ai/jom,  used  in  sounding  by 
the  Alexandrian  mariners  in  St.  Paul's  voyage,  is  the  Greek  opyvia,  i.  e.,  the 
full  stretch  of  the  two  arms  from  tip  to  tip  of  the  middle  finger,  which  is 
about  equal  to  the  height,  and  in  a  man  of  full  stature  is  six  feet.  For  the 
sake  of  completeness,  the  values  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  foot  are  shown  in 
the  following  table :  — 

^5  2  K.  iv.  2.0,  where  it  seoni;;  tli.nt  Elisha  '  pcxagcsimal  measure  of  the  earth's  dreum- 
lived  farther  than  a  Sabbath-day's  journey  ference  (the  only  natural  standard  of  mcas' 


from  Shunem.  The  cases  of  l?avi(l'.s  flight 
from  Saul,  and  Elijah's  from  Jezebol,  may 
perhaps  be  considered  as  exceptional,  on  the 
ground  of  necessity. 

1®  By  an  approximation  so  close  as  to  leave 
no  doubt  that  it  is  more  than  accidental,  the 
Greek  and  Eoman  eystemo  arc  related  to  the 


tires  of  distance)   by  these  simple  propor* 
tions: — 

1  degreer=63  geogi'aphical  mil3Szz:G0O  Eta- 

diai=T5  Koman  milcf?. 
1  minute:=:l  geographical  mile^r^lO  stadia 

—6000  Greek  ft. 
1  s:cond=100  Greek  ft. 


Appendix  III.  Measures  of  CaiMcity.  701 

Table  NIL — Foreign  Measures  of  Length  and  Distance. 


Miles. 

Feet. 

INCUES. 

KomanFoot  (Pes') — 96  of  Greftk  foot 

-9193 
3i  nearly. 

*• 
1 

4 
6 

6C6 
=4854 

.. 

11-6496 
0  135 

10-248 
0  81 
9 

'^h 

Greek  Foot  rn-ouO 

^  \           ^ 

RoniaTi  Pace  (oatistis) 

^ 

6  1          C 

U 

Greek  Fathom  (oo-.vici) 

625          COJ 

125 

ICO 

Roman  Mils 

5,000  1    4.800 

1000 

800 

8 

IS,  750 

1S,<)00 

3750 

3000 

30 

31 

I'ersiaa  Parasang 

For  estimating  Area,  and  especially  Laud,  there  is  no  evidence  that  the 
Jews  used  any  special  system  of  Square  Measures,  but  they  -were  content  to 
express  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  surface  to  be  measured  by  the  culji't 
(Num.  XXXV.  4,  5  ;  Kz.  xl,  27)  or  by  the  reed  (Ex.  xlii.  20,  xliii.  17,  xlv.  2, 
xlviii.  20 ;  Rev.  xxi.  1 6).  For  a  discussion  of  the  difficulties  arising  from  this 
mode  of  measurement,  see  Diet,  of  Bible,  vol.  iii.  p.  1739,  b. 


D.  MEASURES  OF  CAPACITY. 

1.  The  measures  of  capacity  for  Liquids  were: — {a)  The  log  (Lev.  xiv. 
10,  etc.),  the  name  originally  signifying  a  "  basin,"  {b)  The  Inn,  a  name  of 
Egyptian  origin,  frequently  noticed  in  the  Bible  (Ex.  xxix.  40,  xx.\.  24  ; 
Num.  XV.  4,  7,  9  ;  Ez.  iv.  11,  etc.).  (c)  The  bath,  the  name  meaning  "meas- 
ured," the  largest  of  the  liquid  measures  (IK.  vii.  26,  38;  2  Chr.  ii.  10; 
Ezra  vii.  22  ;  Is.  v.  10).  With  regard  to  the  relative  values  of  these  meas- 
ures we  learn  nothing  from  the  Bible,  but  we  gather  from  Josephus  {Ant.  iii. 
8,  §  3)  that  the  batli  contained  6  hins  (for  the  bath  equaled  72  Greek  xestae  or 
1 2  choes,  and  the  bin  2  choes),  and  from  the  Rabbinists  that  the  hin  contain- 
ed 12  lo(js  (Carpzov,  Aj)pnr.  p.  085).  The  relative  values  therefore  stand 
thus  : — 


2.  The  L>ri/  measure  contained  the  following  denominations  :— («)  The 
fnb,  mentioned  only  in  2  K.  vi.  25,  the  name  meaning  literally  hol/oio  or  con- 
cave, (b)  The  omer,  mentioned  only  in  Ex.  xvi.  1 G-3G.  The  same  measure 
i3  elsewhere  termed  issdron,  as  being  the  ie7ith  part  of  an  ephah  (comp.  Ex. 
xvi.  30),  whence  in  the  A.  V.  "  tenth  deal"  (Lev.  xiv.  10,  xxiii.  13;  Num. 
XV.  4,  etc.).  The  word  omer  implies  a  heap,  and  secondarily  a  sheaf,  (c) 
The  sedh,  or  "  measure,"  this  being  the  etymological  meaning  of  the  term, 
and  appropriately  ajiplied  to  it,  inasmucli  as  it  was  the  ordinarv  measure  for 


702 


WeujiiU  and  Measures. 


Appendix  III. 


household  purposes  (Gen.  xviii.  G;  1  Sam.  xxy.  18  ;  2  K.  vii.  1,  IG).  The 
Greek  equivalent  occurs  in  Matt.  xiii.  33  ;  Luke  xiii.  21.  The  seah  was  oth- 
erwise termed  slidlish,  as  being  the  third  part  of  an  ephah  (Is.  xl.  12  ;  Vs. 
Ixxx.  5).  (d)  The  ejihcdi,  a  word  of  Egyptian  origin,  and  of  frequent  recur- 
rence in  the  Bible  (Ex.  xvi.  30  ;  Lev.  v.  11,  vi.  20  :  Num.  v.  15,  xxviii.  5; 
Judg.  vi.  19;  Ruth  ii.  17  ;  1  Sam.  i.  24,  xvii.  17  ;  Ez.  xlv.  11,  13,  14,  xlvi. 
5,  7  11,  14).  (e)  The  lethec,  or  "half-homer,"  literally  meaning  what  is 
poured  out:  it  occurs  only  in  Hos.  iii.  2.  (/")  The  homer,  meaning  heap 
(Lev.  xxvii.  16;  Num.  xi.  32;  Is.  v,  10;  Ez.  xlv.  13).  It  is  elsewhere 
termed  cor,  from  the  circular  vessel  in  which  it  was  measured  (I  K.  iv.  22, 
v.  11  ;  2  Chr.  ii.  10,  xxvii.  5  ;  Ezra  vii.  22  ;  Ez.  xlv.  14).  The  Greek  equiv- 
alent occui-s  in  Luke  xvi.  7. 

The  relative  proportions  of  the  dry  measures  are  to  a  certain  extent  ex- 
pressed in  the  names  issdron,  meaning  a  tenth,  and  shulish,  a  third.  In  addi- 
tion we  have  tlie  Biblical  statement  that  the  omer  is  the  tenth  part  of  the 
ej)hah  (Ex.  xvi.  36),  and  that  the  ephah  was  the  tenth  part  o{  a  homer,  and  cor- 
responded to  the  hath  in  liquid  measure  (Ez.  xlv.  11).  The  Rabbinists  sup- 
plement this  by  stating  that  the  ephah  contained  three  seahs,  and  the  seah  six 
cabs  (Carpzov*  p.  G^?>).  We  are  thus  enabled  to  draw  out  the  following  scale 
of  relative  values  :  — 


Cub. 

Seal.. 

Ephah. 

Homer. 

n 

1  Omer. 

G 

i             3^ 

IS 

10 

ISO 

1        lUO 

1 

30 

10 

The  above  scale  is  constructed,  it  will  be  observed,  on  a  combination  of 
decimal  and  duodecimal  ratios,  the  former  prevailing  in  respect  to  the  o/«er, 
ephah,  and  homer,  the  latter  in  respect  to  the  cab,  seah,  and  ejJiah.  In  the 
liquid  measure  the  duodecimal  ratio  alone  appears,  and  hence  there  is  a  fair 
presumption  that  this  was  the  original,  as  it  was  undoubtedly  the  most  gen- 
eral, princijjle  on  which  the  scales  of  antiquity  were  framed  (Boeckh,  p.  38). 
Whether  the  decimal  division  was  introduced  from  some  other  system,  or 
whether  it  was  the  result  of  local  usage,  there  is  no  evidence  to  show. 

The  absolute  values  of  the  liquid  and  dry  measures  form  the  subject  of  a 
single  inquiry,  inasmuch  as  the  two  scales  have  a  measure  of  equal  values, 
viz.,  the  bath  and  the  ejdiah  (Ez.  xlv.  11):  if  either  of  these  can  be  fixed,  the 
conversion  of  the  other  denominations  into  their  respective  values  readily 
follows.  Unfortunately  the  data  for  determining  the  value  of  the  bath  or 
ephah  are  both  scanty  and  conflicting.  Attempts  have  been  made  to  deduce 
the  value  of  the  bath  from  a  comparison  of  the  dimensions  and  the  contents 
of  the  molten  sea  as  given  in  1  K.  vii.  23-26.  If  these  ]iarticulars  had  been 
given  with  greater  accuracy  and  fullness,  they  would  have  furnished  a  sound 
basis  for  a  calculation  ;  but,  as  the  matter  now  stands,  uncertainty  attends 
every  statement.  The  diameter  is  given  as  10  cubits,  and  the  circumference 
as  30  cubits,  the  diameter  being  stated  to  be  "  from  one  brim  to  the  other." 


Appendix  III.  Measures  of  Capacitij.  703 

Assuming  that  the  vessel  was  circuhir,  the  proportions  of  the  diameter  and 
circumference  are  not  sufficiently  exact  for  mathematical  purposes  ;  nor  are 
we  able  to  decide  whether  the  diameter  was  measured  from  the  internal  or 
the  external  edge  of  the  vessel.  The  shape  of  the  vessel  has  been  variously 
conceived  to  be  circular  and  polygonal,  cylindrical  and  hemispherical,  with 
perpendicular  and  with  bulging  sides.  The  contents  are  given  as  2000  baths 
in  1  K.  vii.  26,  and  3000  baths  in  2  Chr.  iv.  5,  the  latter  being  a  corrupt 
text.  Lastly,  the  length  of  the  cubit  is  undefined,  and  hence  every  estimato 
is  attended  with  suspicion.  The  conclusions  drawn  have  been  widely  ditfer- 
ent,  as  might  be  expected.  If  it  be  assumed  that  the  form  of  the  vessel  was 
cylindrical  (as  the  description  p)-i//m  facie  seems  to  imply),  that  its  clear 
diameter  was  10  cubits  of  the  value  of  19-05 L  English  inches  each,  and 
that  its  full  contents  Avere  2000  baths,  then  the  value  of  the  bath  would  be 
4-8965  gallons;  for  the  contents  of  the  vessel  would  equal  2,715,638  cubic 
inches,  or  9793  gallons.  If,  however,  the  statement  of  Josephus  {Ant.  viii. 
3,  §  5),  as  to  the  hemispherical  form  of  the  vessel,  be  adopted,  then  the  es- 
timate would  be  reduced.  Saigey,  as  quoted  by  Boeckh  (p.  261),  on  this 
hypothesis  calculates  the  value  of  the  bath  at  18-086  French  litres,  or  3-9807 
English  gallons.  All  the  other  computations  agree  in  one  point,  viz.,  that 
the  bath  fell  far  below  tlie  value  set  on  it  by  Josephus,  and  by  modern  writ- 
ers in  Hebrew  archaeology  generally,  according  to  whom  the  hath  measured 
between  8  and  9  English  gallons. 

Josephus  identifies  the  hath  Avith  the  vietretes,  the  chief  Attic  liquid  meas- 
ui-e(:=8  galls.  5-12  pints).  The  cor  (ox  hovier)  is  made  by  him  equal  to 
10  Attic  viedinmi  (the  viedimnus  being  nearly  a  bushel  and  a  half),  and  by 
Jerome  to  30  IJoman  viod'd  (the  modius  being  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  bushel). 
But  the  statements  of  these  writers,  and  of  Epiphanius  {de  Mensuris)  are  full 
of  such  glaring  errors  and  inconsistencies,  as  to  raise  the  question  whether 
the  identification  of  the  hath  with  the  metretes  did  not  arise  out  of  the  cir- 
cumstance that  the  two  measures  held  the  same  relative  position  in  the 
scales,  each  being  subdivided  into  72  parts  ;  and  again,  Avhether  the  assign- 
ment of  30  modii  to  the  cor  did  not  ari$e  out  of  there  being  10  seahs  in  it. 
Assuming,  however,  that  Josephus  was  right  in  identifying  the  hath  with  the 
metrites,  its  value  would  be,  according  to  Boeckh's  estimate  of  the  latter, 
1993-95  Paris  cubic  inches,  or  8-7053  English  gallons;  but  according  to  the 
estimate  of  Bertheau  {Gesch.^.  73),  1985-77  Paris  cubic  inches,  or  8-6696 
English  gallons. 

The  Rabbinists  furnish  data  of  a  diffei-ent  kind  for  calculating  the  value  of 
the  Hebrew  measures.  They  estimated  the  log  to  be  equal  to  six  hen  Qgg», 
the  cubic  contents  of  which  were  ascertained  by  measuring  the  amount  of 
water  they  displaced  (Maimonides,  in  Cel.  17,  §  10).  On  this  basis  Thenius 
estimated  the  log  at  U-088  Paris  cubic  inches,  or  -06147  English  gallons,  and 
the  hath  at  1014-39  Paris  cubic  inches,  or  4-4286  gallons  {St.  u.  Kr.  pp.  101, 
121).  Again,  the  log  of  water  is  said  to  have  weighed  108  Egyptian  drach- 
mre,  each  equaling  61  barleycorns^^  (Maimonides,  in  Peak,  3,  §  6,  ed.  Guisius). 
Thenius  finds  that  6588  barleycorns  fill  about  the  same  space  as  6  lien  eggs 
(St.  u.  Kr.  p.  112).     And  again,  a  log  is  said  to  fill  a  vessel  4  digits  long,  4 

"•  In  the  table  the  weight  of  the  log  is  i  The  relative  weighti  of  water  and  wine  were 
given  as  104  drachm^;    but  in  this  case  the  j  ns  27  to  1Q>. 
contents  of  the  log  are  siipp-jsed  to  be  wine,  i 


04  Weights  and  Measures.  Appendix  111. 


broad,  and  2^^J  liigli  (Maimonides,  in  Prief.  Menachota).  This  vessel  would 
contain  2L-G  cubic  inches,  or  'OUryi  gallon.  The  conclusion  arrived  at  from 
these  data  would  agree  tolerably  well  with  the  first  estimate  formed  on  the 
notices  of  the  molten  sea. 

As  we  are  unable  to  decide  between  Josephus  and  the  Rabbinists,  we  gWe 
a  double  estimate  of  the  various  denominations,  adopting  Bertheau's  estimate 
of  the  metreles :  — 

Table  VIII. 

[,/05c/.Am«.]         iRallini3ts.-\ 

Gallons.  Gallons. 

Homer  or  Cor SO-6%  or  44*280      10J~  or  5}  bushela. 

Epluih  01- Bath 8-6696  or  4-4283 

Heah 2-S8J8  or  1-4T62 

llin 1-1449  or  -7381 

.Omer -5069  or  4428 

(Jab -4816  or  -24',; 

Log -1204  or  -OaiS 

In  the  New  Testament  we  have  notices  of  the  following  foreign  meas- 
ures : — (rt)  The  metreles  (John  ii.  6;  A.  V.  "firkin")  for  liquids.  (/>)  Tlie 
choenix  (Kev.  vi,  6  ;  A.  V.  "measure"),  for  dry  goods,  (r)  The  xestes,  ap- 
plied, however,  not  to  the  particular  measure  so  named  by  the  Greeks,  but  to 
any  small  vessel,  such  as  a  cup  (Mark  vii.  4,  8  ;  A,  V.  "pot"),  (d)  The 
■iiiodi'us,  similarly  applied  to  describer  any  vessel  of  moderate  dimensions 
(Matt.  V.  15  ;  Mark  iv.  21  ;  Luke  xi.  33  ;  A.  V.  "  bushel  ")  ;  though  ]ni>\)- 
erly  meaning  a  Eoman  measure,  amounting  to  about  a  peck. 

The  value  of  the  Ai^ic  metretes  has  been  already  stated  to  be  8-GG9G  gal- 
lons, and  consequently  the  amount  of  liquid  in  six  stone  jars,  containing  on 
the  average  2.}  metretce  each,  would  exceed  1 10  gallons  (John  ii.  6).  Very 
possibly,  however,  the  Greek  term  represents  the  Hebrew  bath,  and,  if  the 
bath  be  taken  at  tha  lowest  estimate  assigned  to  it,  the  amount  would  be  re- 
duced to  about  GO  gallons.  Even  this  amount  fiir  exceeds  the  requirements 
for  the  purposes  of  legal  pui-ification,  the  tendency  of  Pharisaical  refinement 
being  to  reduce  the  amount  of  Mater  to  a  minimum,  so  that  a  quarter  of  a 
/of/  Avould  suffice  for  a  person.  The  question  is  one  simply  of  archaeological 
interest,  as  illustrating  the  customs  of  the  Jews,  and  does  not  affect  the  char- 
acter of  the  miracle  with  which  it  is  connected. 

The  choenix  was  l-4:8th  of  an  attic  viediinnus,  and  contained  nearly  a  quart. 
It  represented  the  amount  of  corn  for  a  day's  food  ;  and  hence  a  choeinx  for 
a  penny  (or  denarius)^  which  usually  purchased  a  bushel  (Cic.  Verr.  iii.  81), 
indicated  a  great  scarcity  (Rev.  vi.  G). 


»-. 


^  WIA 


CrS 


B^-iS?    fT    -S  H      p^ii5?  D- 


^KT.j'    ?  ms 


"  Denarius  of  Tiberius=:The  Tribute  Penny." 

Obv.  TI  CAESAR  DIVI  AVG  F  AVGVSTV5.     Head  of  Tiberiu?,  laureate,  to  the  right 
(Matt.  xxii.  19,  20,  21).     Kev.  PONTIF  MAXIM.     Seated  female  figure  to  the  right. 

''  "Whose  is  this  imnge  and  superscription  ?    They  say  unto  him,  C»-ar's." — Matt.  xxii.  21. 


INDEX 


A. 

Aaron,  137.  Appointed  one 
of  the  leaders  of  Jsrael,  1.12. 
Oppressed  by  Pharaoli,  142 
Sees  God,  171.  VVitli_  hi- 
sons  anointed  to  the  priest- 
hood, 175.  llis  opposition 
to  Moses,  183.  His  disobe- 
dience, 197.  His  death,  193. 
ilis  tomb,  200.  As  liigh- 
priost,  225,  237. 

Abarim,  mountains  of,  202. 

Abdon,  tlie  twelfth  judge,  35S. 

Abednego,  Gli». 

AbL'l,  hid  name,  31.  His  sacii- 
lice  and  death,  32. 

Abel-beth-maacali,  its  posi- 
tion. 4G>, 

Abel-shittim,  its  position,  205 

Abi  (or  Abijah),  motlier  of 
Ifezekiah,  5(51. 

Abiah,  son  of  Samuel,  375. 

■ -,  tlie  high-priest,  389. 

Abiathar,  son  of  Ahimelech,  in 
D.avid's  camp,  40D.  High- 
priest,  435,  436,  443,  44(5. 
He  supports  Adonijah,  4U5. 
Banished,  and  deposed  from 
tlie  priesthood,  463,  479. 

Abib,  2G0. 

Abigail,  David's  sister,  403. 

,  wife  of  Nabal,  410,  411. 

Married  to  David.  411. 

Abihail,  wife  of  liehoboam, 
503. 

Abihu,  sees  G-oJ,  171.  De.atl) 
of,  131. 

Abiiah,  son  of  Rehoboam,  503. 
liis  reign,  509. 

,   son    of   Jeroboam,    hi^ 

early  deatli,  513. 

Abimclech,  king  of  Gi  rar, 
85. 

,  son  of  preceding,  05,  96. 

,  son  of  Gideon,  350.  Suc- 
ceeds in  establishing  a  king- 
dom at  Shechem,  351.  His 
death,  353.  Commonly  reck- 
oned as  the  sixth  judge,  353, 

Abinadab,  a  Levite,  374 

,  son  of  Jesse,  395,  3:8. 

,  son  of  Saul,  418. 

Abiram,  rebellion  of,  191 

. ,  son  of  Hie),  301. 

Gg  2 


Ablshag  the  Shunammite,  4C8. 

Ab  sl»ai,  nephew  of  David, 
3.!S,  407,  411,  429,  430.  Hl- 
victory  over  the  Kdomites, 
440,  4 13,  44:t,  453,402, 

Abital,  wife  of  David,  433. 

Abner,  uncle  of  Saul,  3.)1, 411 
I'rochiims  Ish-bosheth  as 
king,  428.  l':ndeavors  to 
Conquer  Judnh,  42'J.  Hi.- 
death,  430,  443. 

.-Abraham,  (57,  69,  71.  His  call. 
70.  God's  second  promise  to 
him,  71.  Thirl  promi  e,  73 
He  lescuc.-?  Lot,  74.  (jlofT: 
fourtli  promise  to  him,  75, 76 
Caange  of  his  name,7S.  Ke 
newal  of  the  covenant,  73, 
HI'S  title  of  '•'•  tlie  friend  ol 
God,"  82.  Appearance  ol 
the  "•  three  men"  to  him,  8.3, 
Dwells  at  Beer-sheba,  85 
Birth  of  his  son  Isaac,  85, 
80.  Commanded  to  saciifice 
Isaac,  86,  87.  His  return 
from  Beer-sheba,  83.  Pur 
chases  the  cave  of  Machpe- 
lab,  83.     His  death,  89. 

.\bram  (see  Abraiiam). 

Absalom,  son  of  David,  433. 
453,  454.  His  plot  against 
his  father,  454-460. 

Accad,  foundation  of,  62. 

.\ccho,  or  'Akka,  plain  of,  342. 

Achaziah  {sea  Ahaziah). 

Achish,  kingof  Gath,  412,  413, 
417. 

Achon,  unfaithfulness  of,  302. 
303. 

.\chor  {see  Achon,  254). 

Achsah,  daughter  of  Caleb,30:). 

Adam,  his  creation,  20,  21. 
Placed  in  Paradise,  22.  H  i- 
temptation  and  fall,  26,  '  7. 
His  punishment,  27.  His 
descendants,  34. 

Adar,  26X 

Adino  {fi^e  Jashobeam). 

Admah,  73.  Destruction  of,  84. 

Adonai,  24. 

Adoni-bezek,  319. 

Adoni-zedec,  king  of  Jerusa- 
lem, makes  a  league  against 
Gibeon,  304.  His  death,  306. 

Adonijah,  son  of  David,  433, 
4.5:^.  His  conspiracy,  466. 
467.     His  death,  463. 


Adoram,  443. 

.\drammelecli,  son  of  Sen. 
nacherib,  579. 

.\dullam,  cave  of,  288. 

\gag,  taken  pri-oner  by  Saul, 
392.     Slain,  394. 

Agur,  son  of  Jakeh,  501. 

iVhab,  king  of  Israe  ,  reign  of, 
519-528. 

,  son  of  Kolaiah,  508. 

Ahasuerus,  633,  634. 

.\h!iz,  king  of  Judah,  558. 

.Vhaziah,  king  of  Judah,  hU 
reign,  533.     His  death,  511. 

,  king  of  Israel,   son    of 

Ah.ib,  his  league  with  Je- 
ho.-ht»phat,  530.  His  reign, 
530,  5ol. 

Miijah  the  Shilonite,  497,  514. 

.\hik:im,  counselor  of  Josiab, 
592. 

Ahimaaz,  459,  4G0. 

.\himelech  the  liigh  -  priest, 
406-408. 

Ahinoam,  wife  of  Saul,  390. 

,  wife  of  David,  411. 

Ahio,  son  of  Abinadab,  434. 

Ahithophel  of  Gilo,  440,  455, 
453. 

.^holiab,  175,  226. 

Ai,  attacked  by  the  Israelites, 
312.     Taken,  303. 

Vin  Awarah,164. 

Ain-esh  Shebabeh,  195. 

.\in-jalud,  fountain  of,  289. 

Akabah,  G  ulf  of,  193,  200.    * 

'.A.kka,  plain  of  {see  Acclio). 

"•Akr.a,"  the  (see  Moriahi. 

.A.ltar  of  Burnt-offering  in  the 
tabernacle,  229.  In  Solo- 
mon's temple,  485. 

Alt.'ir  of  Incense  in  the  taber- 
nacle, 229.  In  Solomon's 
temple,  434. 

.Vlu>h,  165. 

Amalek,  106. 

.\malekites,  their  origin,  166. 
Doomed  to  nUimite  extinc- 
tion, 166.  Def'at  the  Israel- 
ites, IS ).  Saul  commanded 
to  destroy  the,  392. 

.\mariah  the  higli-pnest,  529. 

Amnsa,  captain  of  the  host, 
458,  460,  462.  His  death, 
462. 

.\masai,  David's  nephew,  408, 

Amasis,  king  of  Egypt,  616. 


'08 


Index. 


Eldad,  1S5. 

Polders,  appointmentof  the  Sev- 
enty, 1S5,  276. 
Eleazar,    succeeds   Aaron    as 
high-priest,  199.    His  death,  t 
310.  I 
,  son  of  Ahinadab,  conse- 
crated as  keeper  of  the  Ark, : 
374.  ! 
— ,  son  of  Dodo,  the  Ahohite,! 
443.     House  of,  440.  1 
Eli,  tlie  thirteenth  judge,  363,  | 
360.   "VVickednes.sofhissons,! 
370.  KebukedbyG-od through 
Samuel,  371.  His  death,  372.  | 
Clironology  of,  361,  362,  370, 
l^liab,  son  of  Jesse,  394,  398. 
Eliakim  (sec  Jehoiakini). 

,  son  of  Hilkiah,  563. 

Elia-hib,  the  high-priest,  037 

642.  I 

Eliezer,  steward  of  the  housej 

of  Abraham,  71,  75.  | 

, .140.  I 

Elihu,  brother  of  David,  443.   | 
Elijah  the  Tishbite,  520.     His| 
mis?ion,520,521.  Challenges 
Ahab  to  a  trial  between  ,le-' 
liovah  and  Baal,  522.     Flies| 
for  his  life,  523.     Dwells  in] 
the  wilderness,  52  i.     Takes 
IClisha  as  his  servant,  524. 
Denounces  Ahab's  sin,  526. 
Sent  to  denounce  the  death 
of.\haziah.5j0,  531.  Ascent 
of,  531-533! 
Elim,  164. 
JOliuielech,  326. 
Eliphaz,  friend  of  Job,  132. 
Elisha,  becomes  Elijah's  .serv- 
ant, 524.      Succeeds  Elijah, 
533.     Pei-form-  a  miracle  at 
Jericho,  533.    Prophesies  the 
victory  over  Moab,  534.    Re- 
lations    between     Jehoram 
and,  -535.     His   deeds,  530. 
Designates  Hazael  :'s  futuie 
kingof  Syria,  53S,  539.     His 
death,  549. 
Elisheba,  wife  of  Aaron.  200. 
Elkanah,  father  of  Samuel,  309, 

370. 
El-Mukrah,  195. 
Elohim,  23,  24,  25. 
Elon,  the  eleventli  ju1ge  35S. 
Eloth,  recovered  and  rebuilt 

by  Uzziah,  .557. 
El-Shaddai,  23,  7S. 
Elula?us,  king  of  Tyre,  572. 
IClymseans,  the,  60. 
Endor,  witch  of,  414-410. 
Engedi,  cave  of,  2S8. 
Enoch,  son  of  (Jain,  r.5.     City 

named  after  him,  35. 
. ,  son  of  Jared,  iiis  transla- 
tion, 30,  37. 

,Book  of,  41. 

l^nos,  son  of  Seth,  36. 
En-Nukb,  194. 


Ephali,  the,  702. 

or  Bath,  704. 

Ephod,  the,  230,  237. 
Ephraim,  birth  of.  111,  119, 

Children  of,  115,  110. 
Ephron  the  Hittite,  88. 
Erech,  foundation  of,  62. 
Esau,  birth  of,  89. 

birthright,  94, 95. 


Gath,  taken  by  David,  439. 

Gaza,  292,  293. 

Gedaliah,  son  of  Ahikam,  604, 
000. 

Gehazi's  covetousness,  535. 

Genesis,  Book  of,  055. 

Gerah,  tlie,  595. 
SfUs  his'Gerizim,  Mount,  211.    Templ« 
Marries,!     on,  646,  047. 


96.     His  reconciliation  withiGershom,  birth  of,  140. 

Jacob,  101.  Gershonites,  the,  240,  241. 

Esar-haddon,  king  of  Assyria,  IGeshem,  037. 

539,  570,  579,  5'^1.  JGezer,  291,      Destroyed,  30G. 

Esdraelon  {see  Jtzreel),  plain      Rebuilt  by  Solomon,  493. 

of,  342.  iGibbethon,  besieged  by  Nadab, 

Eshcol,  Amorite  prince,  187.  513. 

Es-Sufah,  194.  Gibborim,  442. 

Esther,  032-634.  Book  of,  032,  Gibeah  of  Saul,  382. 

606.  jGibeon,  battle  of  (.see  Bethho- 

Etham,  101.  1     ron). 

Ethbaal,kingoftheZidonians,  Gibeonites,  the,  241     Obtain 


519. 

Et-Tih,  desert  of,  184. 

Euphrates,  09. 

Eve,  creation  of,  2"!,  22.  Tempt- 
ed by  Satan,  27.  The  curse 
upon  her,  27.  The  promise  to 
her,  28. 

Evil-raerodach.  king  of  Baby- 1 
Ion,  597,  014.' 

Exodus,  Book  of,  130,  056. 

Exodus,  the,  153. 

Ezek,  well  of, !  6 


peace  by  a  stratagem,  303, 
304.     Massacre  of  the,  413. 

Gideon,  341.  Commanded  to 
savelsi-ael  from  the  Midian- 
ites,  345.  Overthrows  the  al- 
tar of  Baal,  345.  The  sign  of 
the  fleece,  340.  Defeats  the 
Milianites,  347.  P^ank  of 
king  offered  to  him,  350.  Ilia 

i     death,  350. 

iGilboa,  battle  of,  418, 

'Gilgal,  300,  303. 


Ezekiel,  530.  Book  of,  600,  073.  Girgashites,  thje,  SO. 

Prophecies  of,  000,  608.  j  "•  Gittiti',"  442. 

Ezion-gaber,orgebor,  200,494. '"Goel,"  327,  328. 
Ezra,  034-030, 1339-011,  045,  Golan,  313. 
040.  [Goliath,  storv  of,  400-402. 

,  Book,  of,  005.  iGomates,  king  of  Persia,  031. 

jGomer,  00. 

I  Gomorrah,  73.  Spoiling  of,  74. 

F.  j     Destruction  of,  84. 
Goshen,  land  of,  117. 

Fall,  the,  20-28. 

Famines  in  Egypt,  116, 

Fathom,  Greek,  701. 

Festivals,  the  three  great  his- 
torical, 259.  After  the  Cap 
tivity,  269.  Habakkuk,  the  prophet,  5S3. 

Firmament,  19.  ,  Book  of,  078. 

Flood,  the,  40-48.     Traditions  Hadad, 440.  Makeswaragamst 
of  the,  52.  Solomon,  497. 

Foot,  Roman,  701.  Hadadezer,  the  son  of  Rehob, 

Furlong,  701.  439. 

iHadarezer,  44S-. 
Hadassah  (nw  Esther). 

G.  Hagar,  77,80. 
Illaggai,  the  prophet,  632. 

Gaal,  leader  of  the  insurgents! ,  Book  of,  679. 


against  Abimelech,  353. 

Gabriel  the  angel,  his  mission 
to  Daniel,  023. 

Gad  receives  hid  father's  bless- 
ing, 122. 


Haggith,  wife  of  David,  433. 

Hagiographer,  652. 

Hallel,  the,  261-203. 

Halleluiah,  262. 

Ham,  45,  4^.     Race  of,  6;-63. 


,  tribe  of,  210.  IHaman,  the  Agigite,  633. 

i theprophet,  385,  403.  SentjHamath-zobali  conquered  by 

to  David,  464.  Solomon,  493. 

Galeed,  100.  Hamutai,  mother  of  Jehoahaz 

Galilee,  284,  286.  \    and  Zedekiah,  590. 


Index. 


709 


ISKAELITE8. 


JEUOASII. 


Hanjini,  brother  of  Nehemiah,!Hor,  Mount,  19S. 

038.  JHoreb,  Mount,  140,156.     Rock 
,  the  seer,  reproves  Asa'sj     in,  wiiter  flowing  from,  1C5. 

want  of  faitli,  517.  Horinah  {see  ZepliathV 

llananiali,      commander  -  in  - 

chief  under  Uzziah,  557. 

,  593,  010. 

the  false  prophet,  597, 


599. 


the  ruler  of  the  palace, 

Hannah,  wife  of  Elkanah,  369. 

370. 
Ilanun,  son  of  Niihasli,  447. 
llarau,  68,  09,  79. 
Harvest  feast  {see  Pentecost). 
Hasbeiya,  springs  of,  293. 
Hazael,  designated  as  future 

king  of  Syria,  533,  5i9,  540, 

547,  54S. 
Hazeroth,  1S4, 186. 
Hazor,  city  of,  burnt,  300. 
Heave-shoulder,  248. 
Heber,  the  Keuite,  332. 
Hebrew,  meaning  of  name,  70. 
- — — ,  language,  051. 
Hebron,  city  of,  destroyed,  300, 

313. 


nai  to  the  borders  of  Canaan, 
159.  Advance  from  Sinai, 
178-192.  Tiieir  final  march 
from  Kadeah  to  the  Jordan, 
Hosea,  the   prophet,  553,  564.1     19i(. 

His  propllecie^',  550.  ilssacliar  receives  his  father'd 

,  Book  of,  675.  blessing,  122. 

Hoshea,  king  of  Israel,  503-560.  jithamar,  200.     House  of,  440. 
"•  Host,  The,"  441.  Ithream,  son  of  David,  433. 

Huldah,  the  prophetess,  585.    |  Ittai,  the  Gittite,440,  441,455. 
Hur,  husband  of  Miriam,  100,'lva-lush  (set;  Vul-lush). 

171.  I 

llusliai,  the  Archite,  443,  450  i 
45S.  J. 


Ibzan,  the  tenth  judge,  358. 

Ichabod,  birth  of,  372. 

Iddo,  tlie  seer,  509. 

Idumsea  {see  Kdom). 

Ije-abarini,  202. 

Immanuel,    prophecy    of    tlie 
birth  of,  559. 

Incense,  249. 

Ingathering,  Feast  of  (.see  Tab- 
ernacles). 

jlra,  tlie  Jairite,  443. 
king    of,  enters    into   a  Isaac,  why  to  be  ^o  named,  78. 


league  against  Gibeon,  304. 

His  death,  300. 
Helkath-hazzurim,  429, 
Heman,  241. 
,  the  Kohathite,  family  of, 

445. 


I  Jaazer,  taken  by  the  Israelites, 
204. 

Jabal,  son  of  Cain,  35. 

Jabin,  king  of  Hazor,  forms  a 
league  against  Israel,  300. 
His  defeat,  300,  307,  334. 

Jacob,  birth  of,  89.  Obtains 
his  brother's  birthright, 95, 
iO.  His  dream,  98.  llu 
marriage,  99.  Returns  to 
his  father,  99.  His  fear  of 
l':sau,100,  101.  Theirrecon- 
ciliation.  101.  His  return  to 
Bethel,  102.  List  of  sons  of, 
103.  Settles  in  Egypt,  114. 
His  blessing  on  his  sons, 
118-124.     His  death,  124. 


His  birth,  S.').  Trial  of  his 
faith,  87.  His  marriage,  89. 
Inherits  his  father's  wealtii,i 

89.     Driven  from  Lahai-roi  Jael,  wife  of  Heber,  332. 
by  a  famine,  95.     His  death,!  Jahaz,  battle  at,  203. 
Iii2.  jjair,  the  eighth  judge,  ."54. 

Hephzibal,  wife  of  Ilezekiah,  Isiiali,  counselor  of  Hezeki:ih,Jakeh,  father  of  Agur,  501. 
575.  533.     Death  of,  .581.  |Jambres,  the  magician,  146. 

Hermon  (.'^ee  Lebanon).  .,  prophecies  of,  559,  572,  Jannes,  the  magician,  145. 

Heshbon,  203.  576,  577.  ijaphetli,  45,  50. 

Jlezekiah,  king  of  Jndah,  501. 1 ,  Book  of,  C09-672.  ,  race  of,  55-01. 

His  illness,  573.      Receivesjlsh-bosheth,  Fon  of  Saul,  3S2.|Jared,  son  of  Seth,  30. 
the  embassy  from  Merodach,      Reign  of,  4.8.     His  death,!jarmuth,  king  of,  enters  into 
5T4.     His  kingdom  invaded      430.  I     a  league  figainstGibeon,304. 

by    Sennacherib,    570  -  578.  Ishmael,    birth    of,  78.       His!     His  death,  3ii0. 


Deliverance  of,  578,  579. 
Hiel,  the  Bethelite,  301. 
High-priest,  207. 
Hilkiah,  the  high-priesf,  584. 
Hin,  the,  701,  704. 
Hinnom,  vallev  of,  472. 


re  in  the  promise  of  God,  Jashobeam    the   Hachmonite, 
443. 


I     si 

I     79, 86.     His  death,  89. 

I -^  son  of  Nethaniah,  insur 

I     recti  on  of,  007. 

Ish-tob,  447. 

Ilshui,  son  of  Saul,  390 


Hiram,  king  of  Tyre,  432.    His  Israel,  new  name  of  Jacob,  101. 
assistance   in   the    huildingj     Settlement  of  in  Egypt,  114, 
of  the  Temple,  481,  482,  492,!     115. 
493. 


Hiiam,  the  architect,  482,  483. 

Hittites,  the,  80. 

llivites,  the,  80.  240. 

Hobab,  107, 182. 

Holiness   of  the   people,  250- 

252. 
Holy  Land,  Abraham    enters 

the,  71. 
,  the,  281.   Description  of, 

282-295. 
Holy  of  Holies,  the,  227. 
Holy  Place,  227-230. 
Homer,  the,  702. 

,  cr  Cor,  704. 

Hophni,  son  of  Eli,  370. 


Israel,  land  of,  division  of  Ca- 
n.aan  .among,  309-312.  Their 
efforts  to  drive  out  the  hea- 
then, 319,  320, 

.,  kingdom  of,  50 1.    End  of 

kingdom  of,  5*5-507.  Amal- 
gamation of,  with  Judah, 
507. 

Israelites,  period  of  their  so- 
journ in  Egypt,  120,  135. 
Their  oppression  by  the 
Egyptians,  139,  140,  144. 
Their  departure  from  Egypt, 
153,  154.  Their  march  out 
of  Egypt  to  Mount  Sinai, 
15S.     Tlieir  march  from  Si- 


•Jav.in,  CO. 
Jcbel-atnk.ah,100. 
Jebel-ed-Duliv,  '290. 

Nablus  289,  290. 

Jebus  {nee  Jerusalem). 

Jebusite-',  the,  SO. 

Jecholiah,  mother  of  Uzziah, 

553. 
Jeconiah  (.see  Jehoiachin). 
Jedidah,  mother  of  Josiah,  58.3. 
Jedidiah,   name   of    Solomon, 

452. 
Jeduthun,  a  Merarite,  family 

of,  445. 
Jehaziel,  529. 
Jehiel,  has  charge  of  David's 

sons,  441. 
Jehoadd.an,  mother  of  Ama- 

ziah,  550. 
Jehoahaz,    eleventh    king   of 

Israel,  545,  540. 

.,  king  of  Judah,  590. 

Jehoash    (or    Joash),  twelfth 


710 


Index. 


king  of  Israel,  his  reign,  549- 
551. 
Jehoiada,  431,443, 

,  the  high-priest,  542,  546, 

54S. 
Jehoiakim,  kingof  Judah,  500. 

His  leign,  5'J  1-597. 
Jehonadab,  son  of  Kechab,  541.  |     as  king,  394, 3:  5 
Jelioram  {nee  Joram).  (Jethel,  son  of  Gideon,  349. 

,  kingof  Judali,  his  reign,  jjetliro,  13.).     His  visit  to  Mo- 
^  ^^-  ses,  1()7. 

''-■■'    --•'•    -'    *'"•-     519, 


JO,'5IlU.\. 


537,  53 
Jeliosliabeatli,  dauglitcr  of  Je 

horam,  54"?. 
Jehcsliaphat,  443. 
■ -,  king  of  Judah,  cnccaed: 

to  the  thion.',  518,     Forms 


an  alliance  with  Ahab,  519,lJoab,  nephew  of  David,  3r 


407.  Commands  the  forces 
of  Judah,  429.  Slays  Ahn-r. 
430,  4o2.  His  victories  over 
the  Edomitps,  439,  440,  443 


5i7,  528.     Tries    to   reform 

tlie   people,  528,  529,      11  i.-^ 

death,  530. 

, ,  valley  of,  472-530. 

Jehovali,  meaning  of  name,  23. 

24,  3(5,     Keveuls  himself  to 

Mo-^es,  141. 
,  Angel,  24,  25, 170.     Ap- 
pears to  Gideon,  345. 
Jehovah-nissi,  166. 
Jehovah-shalom,  345. 
Jehu,  king,  his  reign,  53D,  545. 

,  the  prophet,  514. 

Jehudi,  594. 

Jeiel,  scribe  of  Uzziah,  .557. 

Jephthah,   the    ninth   judge, 

355.      The   sacrifice   of  his 

daughter,  353.     His  death, 

l]5S. 
Jeremiah,    the    prophet,  533. 

His  lamentatidn  for  Josiah, 

5S7.     Bookof,5>S,  5S.),  5:18, 

r>y^.       His    ])n.phec!es,  502, 

594,  505,  598,  60.t,  001,  614, 

617.       His     imprisonments, 

601,  602.     His  treatment  l)y 

Nebuchadnezzar,  603.  Joins 

Gedaliah,  606.     Carried   to 

ICgypt,  607. 

,  Book  of,  672,  673. 

Jericho,  294,  298.     Conquered 

by    the    Israelite.^,  300-302.  jjoppa,  203. 

Later  history  of,  317.              Ijoram,  .«on  of  Toi,  440. 
Jeroboam,  son  of  Nebat,  492,  j ,    ninth    king    of    Israel 

497.     Visions  against,  498.         reign  of,  5C4-r)40. 
,   his    revolt,  5 17.      Pro-'jordan,   the    river,   £93,  2C4 


Jenishah,  mother  of  Jotham,  the  furcessor  of  Moses,  200, 
55S.  [     211,214.     Succeeds  Moses  as 

Jeshua,  the  high-priest,  630,  the  leader  of  Israel,  297.  His 
632.  fonner  name,  207.     March- 

Jeshimon,  the,  203.  es  toward   the  Jordan,  298. 

Jeshurun,  213.  |     Takes  Jericho,  301.     Holds 

Jesse,  his  son  David  anointed  theeeremonyof  the  Blessing 
and  the  Cur.-e  on  Mounts 
Gerizim  and  Ebal,  303.  De- 
feats the  Amorites,  304. 
Subdues  the  southern  half 
of  Palestine,  3(;6.  Defeats 
Jabin,  306.  Commanded  to 
divide  the  land  by  lot,  3(  S, 

311,  312.  Receives  as  his 
inherit.-mce  Timnath-serah, 

312.  11  is  exhortation  to  the 
tribes,  314.  His  covenant 
wit! I  the  people,  316.  IJii 
de:ith,  316. 

-,  Book  of,  658, 


Jezebel,  wif3    of   Ahab 
525.     Her  death,  540. 

Tezreel,  city  of,  525.      Plain 
and  valley  of,  284,  342,  5S7. 

limzu,  293. 


447,  453,  458-461,  4G4,  4J6.|Josiah,kingof  Judah,  583-589. 

Slain,  468.  Jotiiain,  son  of  Gideon,  escapes 

Joash,  father  of  Gideon,  3^4.      wlien  his  brothers  are  slain, 

346.  351.  Relates  a  parable,  £52. 
■    (or    Jehoash),   king    of ,  king  of  Judah,  558. 

Judah,     son     of     Ahaziah,  Jubal,  son  of  Cain,  C5. 

crowned,  542.      His    reign.  Jubilee,  year  of,  258. 

546-548.  jJudfBa,  282,  283,  288.     At  tlie 

rTob,  the  Book  of,  12.-133.  !     time  of  the  destruction  of  Je- 


Jochebed,  wifeof  Amram,  137, 
138. 

Joel,  son  of  Samuel,  375. 

. ,  Book  of,  676. 

Johanan  (sec  Jehoahaz). 

,  son  of  Kareah,  607. 

Joktheel,  550. 

Jonah,  sent  to  Nineveh,  551. 
Book  of,  1 52,  553,  677, 

Jonathan,  the  Levite,  sou  of 
Gershom,  322. 

,  son  of  Saul,  382.  At- 
tacks the  Philistines,  388,  j 
38 ».  His  life  saved  by  the 
people,  300.  His  bow,  391.1 
His  friendship  with  David,; 
402-4(;0.  His  death,  418 
,  D  ividls  nephew,  443, 


claimedking,507.  Hisreign, 
510-513. 

Jeroboam  IT.,  king  of  Israel, 
his  reign,  551-553. 

Jerubbaal,  new  name  of  Gide- 
on, 346. 

Jerusalem,  SO.  Taken  by  Da- 
vid, 432,  433.  Topography 
of,  471.  Plan  of,  473.  Tak- 
en by  Nebuchadnezzar,  503. 
Besieged  by  Nebucbadnez- 
Eai-,  600.  Taken,  602,  603. 
Burnt,  604.  Fortified  by  Ne- 
hemiah,  636,  637.  Peopling 
of,  641.  Dedication  of  tlie 
wall  of,  641. 


Tiisalem  by  Nebuchadnez- 
zar, 606. 

Judah  receives  his  father's 
blessing,121.  Tribeof, takes 
tiie  lead  in  driving  out  the 
heathen  nations,  319.  Aids 
Simeon  iu  recovering  his  lot, 
320. 

Judah,  kingdom  of,  504.  End 
of,  589. 

Judges,  Books  of,  318, 659,  660. 

,  chronoloL'y  of  the  period 

ofthe,3;;6--41. 

,  the,  273--75. 

.,  the  earlier,  318-3.5. 

,  Eli,  Samuel,  and  Sam- 
son, 360-375, 

,  the,  from  Gideon  to  Jeph- 
thah, 344-354. 

— ,  the,  list  of  their  names, 


Kadesh,  186, 187, 1C4, 1C5. 


'assage  of  the,  290. 

,  Valley,   283,   284,    293, 

294. 

Joseph,  birth  of,  99.     The  fa-|Kedesh,  313. 
vorite  of  his  father,  100, 107.  Kedion,  valley  of  (.see  Jehosha- 
Conspiracy  of  his  brothers,      iihat). 

108.     Carried  to  Egypt,  108.  iKenites,  167.  Their  settlement 
Impri.-oned,  109.    InterpretsI     in  the  wilderness  of  Judah, 
■        -  -■  ■   ^^^       3.2Q 

Keturah,  concubine  of  Abra- 
ham, 80. 

Keturaite  Arabs,  89. 

Kibroth-hattaavah,  184. 

King,  a,  demanded  by  the  Jews, 
274. 

Kings,  Books  of,  659, 661. 


Pharaoh's  dream?,  110,  111 
Marriage  of.  111.  His  broth- 
ers settle  in  i:gypt,  113.  Re- 
ceives his  fathei-'s  bUssin^. 
119,  123.  Death,  124.  Di- 
vision rf  triljfi  of,  .308. 
Joshua,  liivt  mention  of,  166, 
171,187,183.  Consecrated  as 


Index. 


7U 


KiaJATlI-lirZOTlI. 

Klrjath-huzotli,  207. 
Kirfh,  father  of  Saul,  3S2, 
Koliathites,  the,  240,  241. 
Korah,  rebellion  of,  191. 


Laban,  son  of  Bsthiiel,  S9,  99. 

Hiscovenant  witli  Jacob,  100. 
Laboiosoirchod,  king  of  Baby- 
Ion,  615. 
Lachish,  king  of,  enters  into  a 

league  against  Gibeon,  301. 

llis  deatli,30G. 

,  siege  of,  57(5. 

,  destroyed,  306. 

I^aliai-roi,  well  of,  SJ. 
Lai.^h  (.<e3  Dan). 
Lamb  of  God,  S3. 

-,  Paschal,  152. 

Lamech,  polygamy  of,  34. 

,  song  of,  40. 

,  son  of  Seth,  3S. 

Landof  Israel,  the,  281. 

of  Jehovah,  2S1. 

Language,    Adam      endowed 

with,  23. 
Lapidoth,  the  husband  of  Dab- 

orah,  331. 
Laver,  brazen,  229. 
Law,  l?ook  of  the,  discovered 

by  Hilkiah,  5S4. 

,  Mosaic,  21S-224. 

LawH,  Civil,  of  the  Jews,  276- 

27a. 

,  Criminal,  of  the  Jews, 

27S,  279. 
,  Constitutional  and  Polit- 
ical, of  the  Jews,  272. 
Leah,  wife  of  Jacob,  99. 
Lebanon, 2S4. 
Lemuel,  5  I2. 
Leprosy,  253. 
Levi,  102.     Tribe  of,  conseci-a- 

tel  to  the  priesthood,  121, 

173. 
Levites,  their  substitution  for 

tlie  first-born,  ISO,  240-242. 

Provision    made   for    tiieir 

habitation,  318. 

,  under  David,  44">,  446. 

Leviticus,  Book  of,  (J57. 
Libnah,  city  of,destroyed,  306. 

lievolt  of,  537.  Sicgj  of,  57S. 
Light,  19, 
»■'  Lights"  (.ee  Dadication,  feast 

of) 
Litany,  the,  2f>4. 
Log,  the,  701,704. 
Lot,  G'J,  70,  72,  74.    His  escap? 

fiom  So.iom,  84. 
Lots,  tlie  Feast  of  (wePurim). 
liubim,  60. 
Luz  (^v'c  Bethel). 
Lydd,  293. 
Lydians,  the,  60. 


MEE.OD.\CU-l!.\.LAI)AN. 


Maacah,  wife  of  David,  433. 

,  447. 

.Maachah,  mother  of  Asa,  516. 

-,  wife  of  Kehoboam,  50S. 

.Maaseiah,  ruler  of  the  house 

under  L'zziah,  557. 

,  .son  of  Ahaz,  55J. 

Moab,  two-thirds  of  the  paople 

of,  put  to  death  by  David, 

439. 
Machir-ben-ammiel,  431,  45S.  |Micaiah,  the  prophet,  527. 
Machpelah,caveof,SS,r24,2S8.!Mich.ni;ih,  the  scribe,  594. 
Madai,  6».                                  |Mi.-  m1,  daughter  of  Saul,  390, 
Malialaleel,  son  of  Seth,  36.           404  411. 
Vlahalath,  wife  of  Kelioboam,! ,  wife  of  David,  429. 

598.  iMichmash,  390. 

Mahanaim,  100.  JMidianites,  205.    Slaughter  of 

Maher-slialal-hash-baz,  55D.         tlie,  209. 
Vlahloa,  son  of  Naomi,  326 


MOSES. 

Mesha,  king  of  Moab,  revolt* 
fiom  Israel,  534. 

Meshach,  610. 

MeshuUemeth,  mother  of 
Amon,  583. 

Messiah,  first  prophecy  of  the, 
28.  Promise  of  the,  involved 
in  the  divine  words  to  Abra- 
ham, 70. 

.Methuselah,  37. 

Micali  and  the  Danites,  story 
of,  321-323. 

,  son  of  Mephibosheth,448. 

Book  of,  677. 


-Vlakkedah,  cave  of,  '-88. 

-,  city  of,  destroyed,  306. 

Malachi,  643,  644. 

.,  Book  of,  080. 

Mamre,  altar  at,  73. 

-,  Amoiite  prince,  1S7. 

Man,  creation  of,  21,  22.     llif^ 

likeness  to  God,  2L    His  fall, 

26. 
Manasseh,  birth   of,  111,  119. 

Children  of,  114,  115.    Triba 

of,  210. 
,  son  of  Hezekiali,  birtli  of, 

575.    Jteign  of,  579-532. 
Maneh,  the,  691,  6J5. 
Manetho,  134, 135. 
Manna,  Israelites  fed  with,  164, 

177.  I 

.'.lanoah,  fathr-r  of  Samson,  364. 1 


Migdol,  176,177. 

••'  Milcolm,  crown  of,"  452. 

Mile,  Roman,  701. 

Minchali,  247. 

Miracles  of  Moses  and  Aaron, 
145. 

Miriam,  137, 138.  Her  opposi- 
tion toMoses,183.  Herdeatli, 
197. 

Mishael.  593,  610. 

Mithredatli,  treasurerof  Cyrus, 
627. 

Mizpeh,  Avell  of,  517. 

Mizraim,  60. 

Moab,  oriijin  of  race  of,  84. 

— -,  territory  of,  202. 

,  cities  of,  razed,  535. 

Moabites,  91, 92,  205,  20:). 

Monarchy,  Hebrew,  establish- 
ment of  the,  274. 


Mareshah,   Ethiopians  routed  Money,  Hebrew,  691. 


at,  516,  517. 
.Massah,  165. 

Mattan,  priest  of  Baal,  5!3. 
.Mattaniah  (Zadekiah),  537. 
Medad,185. 
Medes,  the,  5S6. 
Mediator,  Moses  as,  16\ 
Megiddo,  valley  of,  343.  Battle 

of,  587,  588. 
Melchi-shr.a,  son  of  Saul,  390, 

418. 
Melchizedek,  74,  75. 
Memphis,  134. 
Monahem,  kinir  of  Israel,  his 

rdign,  554,  555. 
Menes,  king  of  Egypt,  l."4. 
Mephibo-heth,sonofJo!iathan, 

430,447,448,461 


Moon,  first  appearance  of  the, 
20. 

Moriah,  origin  of  the  name, 
4(35. 

,  Mount.  471,  472. 

MordecMi,  633,  634. 

Moses,  birth  of,  137.  Adopted 
by  Pharaoh's  daughter,  138. 
Decides  to  cast  in  liis  lot  with 
his  own  people,  138.  Kills  an 
Egyptian,  139.  Commanded 
to  lead  the  Israelites  out  of 
Egypt,  141, 142.  Oppressed 
by  Pharaoh,  144.  God  ap- 
pears to  him  on  Mount  Sinai, 
163,  1C9.  Called  into  the 
cloud,  171.  Goes  a  second 
time  into  the  Mount,  174. 
Merab,  daughter  of  Saul,330,j  His  disobedience,  197.  Bles.^- 
404.  ing  of,  210-213.      Curse  of, 


Merarites,  the,  240,  241. 

Meribah,  165. 
JMeribah-kadah,  108. 

Merodacli  -biJadrm,  king 
I     Babylon,  574,  576. 


210,  211.     Song  of,  210-212. 
Three    discourses    of,    210. 
Death  of.  21-3.     His  characr 
ter,  214-217. 
Moses,  Boiks  of,  654-C58. 


712 


Index. 


KAAMAU.  I'ENTATEUCU.  PUR  M. 

;  Pentecost,  the   Fenst  of,  2  :(•, 

26-t,  205. 
N.  0.  Penuel,  city  of ;  itsinhabitauta 

I  slain  by  Gideon,  Mi. 

Naaraali,  mother  of  Rehoboani/Obadiah,  govn-nor  of  Ahab's  Peor,  208. 

4  S.     '  !     house,  511),  5J0,  522.    proph- Perez-uzzah,  4  >4. 

Niiaman's  leprosy,  535.  ecv  of,  (5u5.  iPerizzites,  tlie,  8J. 

Nabal,  stoiy  of,  410,  41 1 .  \  Book  of,  GIT.  I  Persian  empire,  foundation  of 

Isaljonadius  (sec!  Nab.'nedus).   JObed,  bon  of  lioaz  and  Ruth,!     the,  C15. 

Nabouedus,  kiug  of  Babylon,  I     328.  | kin<;s,  G31. 

GIG.  iObed-edom  the  Gittite,  the  ark  Petra,  195, 197. 

Nabopolassar,  king  of  Babylon,!     in  hishouse,435.  Made  chief !  Pharaoh,  tiile  of,  103, 

587, 51)3.  I     door-keeper,  437. 

Kaboth,  5-G.  Oblations  (nee  Sacrifices), 

Nadab  sees  God,  171.     Deathloboth,  202. 

of,  181.  lOded,  th3  prophet,  mx 

., ,    son    of  Jeroboam,    his  [offerings  (-.e*;  Sacrifices). 

reign,  513.  jOg,  king,  153,  203,  204. 

Nalia.h   the  Ammonite,  38J,  lOld  Testament  canon,  051. 
439.     Death  of,  44S.  |olive.?.  Mount  of,  471. 

iOmer,  the,  270,  702, 704. 
5SS.jOmn,  dynasty  of,  505. 

I ,  king  of  Israel,  riiirn  of, 

i    515.     The  statutes  of,  515. 

Ono,  393. 

()p!iel,  tower  of,  55S. 


Nalior,  GS,  70. 

Nahum,    the      prf  phet. 

Prophecies  of,  5S4. 

,  Book  of,  G7S. 

Name,  the,  24. 

Naomi,  32«-32S. 

Naphtali  receives  his  father'siOphir,  494,  499^  500. 

b:essing,  123.  joreb,  the  chieftain,  348, 

Nathan,  the  prophet,  395,  438.  'Or-fah  (set!  T'r). 

lias  charge  of  Solomon,  441.  Oman  (s"/'  Araunah). 

Senttodenouucc David's  sin,  (Jrpali,  32G. 

450,  451,  4G7.                            jcjsliea  (sec  Joshua). 
Nazarites,  institution  of  order' -,  187. 


Pharaoh's  command  to  destroy 
the  new-born  sous  of  the  Is- 
raelites, 137. 

Pharaoh's  dreams,  ll't. 

Pharaoh-hophra,  king  of  ligypt, 
GUI. 

Pharaoh -nechoh,     king      of 

i     Egypt,  587,  590,  501,  5J3. 


of  the,  ISO. 
Ntbo,202. 
Nebuchadnezzar,5  2-594,5  G. 

Takes  Jerusalem,  602,  G03. 

His  relations  with   Daniel, 

G10-G13.    Madness,  614. 
Nebuzar-adan,  603,  G04,  003. 
Neby  Samwil,  369. 
Necho  (nee  Pharnnh-necholi). 
Nehemiah,  G3G-G44. 

,  Book  of.  GOG. 

Nehnslita,  mother  of  Jehoia-  Paradise,  22, 

chin,  59G.  ;Paran,  desert  of,  1G3 

Nehushtan  (.§-c  Perpent),  I     nes3   of,  184.     I.-i 

Nejd,  desert  of,  2Jl.  |     the,  ISG. 


Otnnes,  uncle  of  Xerxes,  034. 
Othniel,  309,  320.      The   first 
judge,  329. 

P. 


Palestina,  name  of,  231 

ography  of,  282,  (,q. 
Palm,  the,  098. 
Palmyra  (sc3  Tadmor). 


Philistia,  281,  i8J,  292. 
iPhilistines,  tlieir  settlement  iii 
Bjer-sheba,  S5,  95.      Their 
origin,  370.    SubJued  by  Da- 
vid, 43  J. 

Phinehas,  son  of  Ele:izar,  209, 
313. 

■,  son  of  Eli,  370. 

Phoenicia,  284. 

Ph urah, servant  of  G  ideon,347. 

Phut,  GO. 

Pi-hahiroth,  102, 170, 177. 

Pisgah,  202,  20S. 

Plagues  of  Egypt,  14G-153. 

Plain,  destruction  of  cities  ot 
the,  90,  91. 

Poeticiil  books,  the,  CS1-6S3. 

i  I'ools  of  Solomon,  289. 

jPotipliar,  108,  109.      His  wife, 

I     l()-». 
Ge-  Potiphcrah,  father  of  Joseph^ 
wife,  111. 

Priest,  High,  2.^,5-238. 

Piiests,  High,  history  of  the, 
242-244. 

Wilder-l ,  the,  2:8-240. 

lelites   ini  Priesthood,  institutim  of  the, 

i     2£5. 


Nephilim,  43.  |Parasang,  Persian,  701. 

Npriglis.sar,  king  of  Babylon,  Partition  of  the  nations 

014. 
Nethinim,  235. 
New  Moon,  L-Y-ast  of  the,  257. 
Night,  19. 
Nimrnd.  03. 
Nineveh,   foimdation    of,    02. 

Siege  of,  580. 
Nisan  (sr<' Abib). 
Nitocris,  018. 
Noachic  precepts,  48, 
Noadiah,  the  prophetess,  038. 
Noah,  42.  44-51.    D.scendanfs 


iPronhets,  oompnnies  or  schools 
-02.1     of  the,  375.  425. 

chal  Eamb,  202,  205,  270.     I -,  the,  (07. 

Pashur,  priest,  592.  ,  the  Four  Great,  G63-G75. 

Passover,  institution  of  Feast .  the  Twelve  Minor,  075- 

I     ofthe,151,152.     Meaning  ofi     081, 

'     the,  270.  The,  2eO-2(:4.   The! Proselytes,  277. 

1     Second,  or  Eittle,  204.    The,Troverbs,  Book  of,  501,  5^)2. 

!     kept  by  ]  lezekiah,  5  J2.  '•'•  Psalms,  Me.ssianic,"  438, 

i  Patriarchal  government,  143.    P.salms  of  D.avid,  390. 

! period,  review  of,  127.        -,  Book  of,  081-683. 

1  Patriarch.?,  tables  of  the  ante-  P-ametek,  king  of  Fgypt,  583. 
I     diluvian  and  post-diluvian,!  Psainmetichus     11.,  king    of 

,05.  i     Egypt,  599. 


of,  55-57.     Table  of  nations  Pekah,  king  of  Israel,  5.5.'».  5''»3.1  Piiah,  131. 

descended  from  the  sons  of,  Pekahiah,  king  of  Israel,  555,  'Pul,  king  of  Af-syrin,  attacks 

57.  jPeleg,  GO.  1     Isr  lel,' 5.55. 

Nod,  land  of,  W>.  iPelethites  (.s'-e  Cherethites).      Pun^n,  202. 

Nukb  Hawy,  167.  jPeninnah.wife  of  Elkanah,363.!Pnrim,  the  Feast  of,  263. 

Numbers,  Book  of,  C57.  i  Pentateuch,  C54-65S.  \ 


Index. 


713 


Qu-iil:^,  given  to  the  Israelites, 
1S4. 


Rab-sai  is,  577. 

Kab-hhakeh,  577. 

Racliel,  wife  of  Jacob,  90, 100. 

Uer  death,  lO'J. 
Raliab,  298,  301. 
llamathaim-zopiiim,  303. 
Kameses,  city  of,  IGl. 

the  Great,  134. 

Kanioth,  313. 

Ramoth-gilead,  battle  of,  52S. 
Uari   cl-Mukatta,  fountaiu  of, 

283. 

Nakhura,  2>>4. 

Sufeafeh,  107. 

liebekah,  wife  of  Isaac,  S?.  Ileijsanballat 

deceit,  90,  97.  G37. 

Recliabiles,  flight  of  thr-,  593.iSanhedrim,  the,  185,  238,270 
lied  Sea,  encampment  by  the,  Saracus,  king  of  Assyria,  580. 


SUALMANESEK. 

Sacrifice,  place  of,  92.     Of  liv- 
ing animals,  28. 
Sacrifices  and  Oblations,  245- 

249. 
Sagan,  the,  238. 
Salathiel,  598. 
Salem,  SO. 

Salmon  marries  Rahab,  301. 
Samaria,  284,  289.     Capital  of, 

built  by  Omri,  515.      Siege 

(if,  530, 565. 
Samaritans,  500,  5 .7.     lirect  a 

temple  on  Mount  Gerizim, 

647. 
Samson,  the  fourteenth  judge, 

3C4-30S.     Chronolog  of  (set 

Eli). 
Samuel,  the   fiftee",th  judge, 

308-375.       ]lis    connection 

with    Saul,    LS>-3SS.       His 

death,  410.     Chronology  of 

(^ee  Mi). 
,  Fii-st  and  Second  Book? 

of,  3  5,  t5;l,  COO. 

the   lloronite,  030. 


103, 

Reed,  the,  698. 
Rehoboani,son  of  Solomon,  408. 

llis  character  and  reign,  50  J- 

509. 
Rehol)  th,  foundation   of,  02. 

Wtll  of,  90. 
Rehum,  03t. 

]'  'lease  o^jirisoncr.?,  204. 
iL^phaim,  race  of  tlie,  204. 
Rophidim,165.     B.ittlein,  100. 
Uesen,  foundation  of,  02. 
Reuben,  saves   Jo.^eph's    life, 

108.     Receives  his   father's 

blessinir,  120. 

,  tribe  of,  210. 

Reuel  (s'*??  Jethr.i) 


Rezin,  king  of  Damascus,  at-  Seba  Biar,  101. 


Sarah,  wife   of  Abraham   {net 

Sarai). 
Sarai,  wife  of  Abraham,  70,  71 

72,  77.     Her  name  changed, 

78.     Gives  birth  to  Isaac,  85. 

Deatii  of,  88. 
Sardanapalus  II.,  58 
Sargon,  king  of  Assyria,  535, 

572,  573,  575. 
Saron  (see  Sliaron), 
Satan,  27. 
Saul,   pedigree    of,   422,   423. 

Reign  of,  381-418. 
Scape-goat,  267,  l^GS. 
Scriptures,  the,  C->?,. 
Seah,  the,  702,  704. 
Seas,  20. 


tacks  Judah,  .5.59.  Retreat 
of,  560.     Death.  560. 

Rezon  founds  the  Syrian  king- 
dom of  Dauiascu-!,  497. 

Rizp.'ih,  concubine  of  Saul,  447, 

Rod  of  Aaron,  l'.!2. 

Rod  of  Moses,  143,  l.:0. 

Ruth,  320-328. 

,  Book  of,  318.320,059, 6:0. 


Segub,  son  of  Hid,  301. 
Seir,  Mount  (sve  lOdom). 
Sennacherib,  .508-570,  573,570. 

577,  578.     Death  of,  579. 
Seraiah,  father  of  Ezra,  0.^4. 

,  son  of  Neriah,  599,  003. 

(sefi  Sheva). 

Serbal,  Mount,  105. 
Serpent,  the,  27,  29. 

,  Brazen,  201,  202. 

Serpents,  fiery,  201,  202. 
S.  Seth,  3  J.   His  descendants.  r4 

38. 
Sabb ith,   festivals    coinected  Sethi  I.,  134. 

with  tlie,  254-200.     Jnstitu-lSethite  race,  40,  41, 43. 
tion  of  the,  21.     Revival  of  iShadrach,  010. 
the,  1C5.  iShallum,  son  of  Jabesh,  usurp; 

Sabbatic  Year,  252,  257,  258.         the  crown  of  Israel.  554. 

S.abbatical     Month     and    the ,  keeper  of  the  sacred  vest 

Feast  of  Trumpets,  257.         |     ments,  585. 
Sacred  Seasons,  254.  jShalmaneser,  king  of  Assyria 

feacrifice,  Isaac's,  86,  87.  I     534^00. 


Shamgar,  the  third  judge,  330. 

Shammah,  son    of  Agee    the 
Hararite,  443. 
— ,  son  of  Jesse,  395,  398, 

Shaphan,  the  scribe,  584. 

Sharezei-,  son  of  Senuaciierib, 
579. 
baron  (see  Philisiia). 

,  plain  cf,  292. 

Shaveii,  80. 

Sheaf  of  harvest,  the  first,  C03. 

Sheba,  son  of  liiciiri,  rt b-llion 
of,  462 

— ,  the  queen  of,  495. 
— ,  well  of,  1)0. 

Shebna,  scribe  under  Ileze- 
kiah,  563. 

Shechem,  citv  of,  102,  2:0,  313. 

,  valley  of,  71. 

Shechinah,  the,  225. 

Shefelah  {^c  Philistia). 

Shekel,  the,  091, 094. 

Shekiuah,  tlic,  153. 

Shem,  45,  50. 

,  race  of,  00-0-3. 

Shemaiah,  the  prophet,  508, 
509,  038. 

,  the  Nehelamite,  598. 

Shephatiah,  .«on  cf  David,  433. 

Sheshbazzar  (.n.  e  Zerubbabel). 

Slieva,  443. 

Shimeali,Davi  "I's  brother, 443. 

Shimei,  the  son  of  Gera,  450, 
401.     His  death.  409. 

,  son  of  Kish,  597. 

Shimsliai,  031. 

Shinar,  01. 

,  plain  of,  02. 

Slnphrah,  137. 

Shishak,  king  of  Egypt,  498. 
Makes  an  expedition  against 
Jerusalem,  5o9. 

Shobi,  son  of  Nahasli,  458. 

Shophach,  448. 

Show-bread,  241. 

,  Table  of,  230. 

Sichem  (see  Siiechem). 

Sihon,  159,  203.  Kingdom  c.i, 
2ii3. 

Siloani,  pool  of,  pouring  out 
water  of  the,  206,  207. 

Simeon,  102.  His  imprison- 
ment, 113.  Receives  his  fa- 
ther's bles.<ing,  120. 

,  tribe  of,  associated  v.ith 

Judah   in    driving  out   thj 
heathen  nations,  319. 

Sinai,  140,  154-15T.  Wilder- 
ness of,  107. 

Sisera,  331-3C3. 

^itnah,  well  of,  90. 

Sivan,  204. 

Slave,  Hebrew.  258,  276,  277. 

Slaves,  2T(),  277. 

So,  king  of  Egypt,  50.5. 

Sodom,  destruction  of,  S3,  8', 
<0.       AV'ickedness     of,    73. 

/     Spoiling  of,  74. 


u 


Index. 


80L0.M0X. 

Solomon,  birth  of,  452.  Re- 
ceives his  father'd  charge  to 
build  a  house  for  Jehovah, 
'^06.  Proclaimed  king,  467. 
His  reign,  475-49S.  Marries 
Pharaoh's  daughtei-,  477. 
God's  appearance  to  him  in 
a  dream,  477.  Receives  the 
gift  of  wisdom,  477.  Hi-' 
decision  in  the  case  of  the 
two  women,  47S.  His  mag- 
nificence, 479.  Personal 
qualities,  4S0.  Builds  tliej 
Temple,  4S1-4SS.      His  pal 


ace,   4S9,   490. 
buildings,  410. 


Hi 


494.     His  faults,  4j5. 
deatli,  498. 

,  Book  of  the  Acta  of,  498. 

,  palace  of,  plan  of,  491. 

,  writings  of,  500. 

Son,  the,  17. 

Soug  of  the  three  Holy  Chil- 
dren, 675. 

Span,  the,  69S. 

Stars,  first  appearance  of  the, 
20. 

Stations   in   the   Wilderness, 
176. 


Tamar,  daughter  of  David, 433, 
453. 

Tarsliisli,  CO. 

Tatnai,  Persian  governor,  632. 

fekoali, "  wise  woman"  of, 453. 

Temple,  building  of  the,  4S1- 
4S3.  Description  of  the,4S3- 
4S7.  Plan  ot  the;  4S5.  Dedi- 
cation of  the,  4S7,  4SS.  lie- 
building  of  the,  imder  Cv- 
rus,  627-630.  Descriptioi: 
of  the  temi)le  of  Zerubbabel, 
647. 

Pen  C iimmandments,  169,  221. 
His  otheriTerah,  63.  His  genealogj',C8. 
His  throne,  ITestament,  Old,  language  of, 


ZALMUNNA.. 


V. 


Strangers   amon_ 
277. 

Succotli,  161. 

,  city  of,  its   inhabitants 

chastised  by  Gideon,  349. 

Succoth-benoth,  god  of  Baby- 
lon, 570. 

Suez,  Gulf  of,  162. 

Sun,  first  appearance  of  the,20. 


651. 

,  Booka  of  the  Ol-I,  651- 

6S3. 

,  Canon  of  the  Old,  646. 

'^Tharshish,  ships  of,"  4:3, 
500. 

Theocracy  of  the  Jews,  272- 
275. 

Tibni,  sou  of  Ginath,  a  com- 
petitor for  the  crown  of  Is- 
rael, 515. 

riglath-pileser,    king    of  As- 

I     Syria,  5i50. 
the    Jews,  iTimnatli-serah,    Joshua's    in- 
heritance, 312. 

Tirhakah,  king  of  Ethiopia, 
57S. 

Tirzah,  becomes  the  residence 
of  King  Jeroboam,  510.  Be- 
sieged by  Omri,  514. 

Tisri,  month  of,  257. 


Vashni  (or  Joel),  375. 
Vashti,  the  queen,  632. 
Vegetation,  20. 
Veil,  the,  228. 
Vul-lush,  555, 


W. 


Titlies,  278. 


Tobi.ah  the  Ammonite,636,C37, 

642. 
Tobit,  Book  of,  5G8. 
Toi,  king  of  Hamath,  440,  403. 
Tola,  the  seventh  judge,  351. 


Susannah,  history  of,  675. 
Synagogue,  the  Great,  649. 
Synagogue.?,  628. 
Syriac  langunge,  651. 
Syrians,  David's  defeat  of  the, 

439.      Become  tributary   to  Torah,  the  Law,  652.  I 

David,  44S.      Defeated    byjTree  of  Life,  26,29. 

Israel,  527.  i of  the  Knowledge  of  GoodI 

I     and  Evil,  26. 

jTrumpets,  Feast  of  (see  Sab- 
T.  I    batieal  Month). 

Tubal-Cain,  35. 
T.il  erah,  184.  |Tyre,  surrenders  to  Nebnchad- 

T:ibernacle,  covered  with  the!     nezzar,  60S. 

cloud,    175.       Cloud    lifted  "Tyropoeon  Valley,"  the,  472. 

from  it,  182. 

,  First,  227. 

,  history  of  the,  233.  U. 

,  made  after  the  pattern! 

shown  to  Mo.^es,  175.  Ur  of  the  Ciialdees,  69. 

of  the  Con<i;regation,  173.  Uriah  the  Hittite. 441,4(3,448. 

,  the,  225-232.  iUrijah,  tlie  hit;h-priest,  561. 

,  the.  set  up  at  Shiloh,310. ,  th-  prophet,  592. 

Tabernncles,  Feast  of,  159,257,  Urim  and  Thummim,  236. 

258,  260,  265-267.  jUrtas,  valley  of,  288. 

Tables  of  stone,  172.  iUzzali,  son  of  Abinad.ab,  434. 

T.ibor,  290.  jUzziah,  king   of  julah,  556- 

Tadmor,    built    by    Solomon,!     55S. 


Wady  el-'.\marah,  163o 

el-Jeib,  194. 

el-Jerafeh,  194. 

er-Rahah,  167. 

esh  Sheikh,  167. 

— -  et-Tih,  160. 

et-Tumeylah,  161. 

Feiran,  165. 

Ghurundel,  164. 

Mukatteb,  1G5. 

Shellal,  165. 

Taiyibeh,  164. 

Useit,  164. 

Wandering  in  the  Wilderness, 

the,  59,  sq. 
Wave-breast,  248. 
Weeks,  Feast  of  (.'<«<;  Pentecost). 
Weights   and   Measures,  Ta. 

bles  of,  690-704. 
Well,  Jacob's,  102. 
''  Well  of  Trembling,"  the,347. 
Wells    of   Moses   {see    Ayun 

Mousa). 
Whitsuntide,  265. 
Wilderness  of  Sin,  164. 
Wilderness   of   the   Wander- 

ings,  194. 
Wine,  the  four  cups  of,  262. 
Woman,  creation  of,  22. 
Word  of  God,  19. 
Word,  the,  17. 


Xerxes,  king  of  Persia,  632, 
633,  631. 


493. 
Talent,  the,  691,  69r 


G9G. 


Year  of  Jubilee,  254. 


Zabad.  expedition  of,  126. 
Zachariah,  king  of  Israel,  bla 

reign,  55-,  554. 
[Zacharias,  443. 

jZad.-k,  431,  435-437,  443,  446, 
I     406,  4G7,  479. 
IZalmonah,  202. 
jZalmuunM,  sheikh  of  Midian, 
[    348.    Slain  by  Gide«n.  349. 


Index. 


715 


ZAPIlNATU-rAANK.VH. 

Zaphnath-paaneah,  name  giv- 
en to  Joa.^pli,  111. 
^ared,  valley  and  brook  of, 202. 
Zebadiah,  529, 
Zebah,  sheikh  of  Midian,  34S. 

Slain  by  Gideon,  349. 
Zeboiim,  73.     Destruction  of, 

84. 
Zebudah,  mother  ofJehoiakIm, 

590. 
Zebul,  governor  of  Sliechem, 

353. 
Ze'buliin,  receive.?  liis  father's 

bless  i!ij7, 122. 
Zechariali,  a  prophet  at  the 

time  of  Uzziah,  556. 

• ,  son  of  Jehoiada,  548. 

,  the  prsphet,  son  of  Iddo, 


ZERUmSAnEL. 

632.   Prophecies  of,  5S3,  636. 

Book  of,  079. 
Zedekiah,  king  of  Judah,  507- 

603. 

,  son  of  Chenaanah,  5i8. 

,  son  of  Manseiah,  598. 

jZaeb,  tlie  chieftain,  348. 
jZemaraim,  rout  at,  510. 
Z?phaniah,  the  prophet,  583, 
I     5SS.  Prophecies  of,  586.  Book 
I     of,  678. 

I ,  the  priesl,  001,003. 

IZephath,  takfn  by  Judah  and 
I     Simeon,  i.2  ). 
"  Zerah  the  Cushite,"  510. 
Zered  (see  Zared). 
iZerubbabel,  prince  of  Judah, 

027,629,032. 


ZOBAn. 

Zerubbabel,  temple  of,  647. 

jZeruiali,  David's  sister,  407. 

'Ziba,44T. 

j ,  servant  of  Mephibosheth, 

456,  401. 
Zibiah,  mother  of  Joash,  546. 
iZicliri,  559. 

IZilpah,  103.  Children  of,  114. 
Zimri,  kills  Klah  and  succeeds 
1     him,  514. 

IZin,  wiidernes-s  of,  194. 
IZion,  432. 

' ,  Mount,  471,  472. 

Zipporah,  wife  of  Moses,  140, 

186. 
Zoar  {see  Bela). 
Zobah,  kingdom  of,  430. 


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