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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

BIBLICAL STUDIES

BIBLICAL STUDIES

By E. H. PLUMPTRE, m.a.
RECTOR OF PLUCKLEY, KENT, AND PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY,
KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON

STRAHAN & CO., PUBLISHERS
56 LUDGATE HILL, LONDON
1870

CD"60 "P-7-57

PEEFACE.

The papers in the present volume have for the most
part appeared in Good "Words or the Sunday Maga
zine. That on " The Authorship of the Book of Job "
was printed as an appendix to a volume of sermons,
published under the title of Theology and Life. I
have thought it best to reprint them with hardly any
alteration. The subjects of some of them would, I
need hardly say, have admitted of more elaborate
treatment and almost indefinite expansion, but my
wish in writing them was to address myself to the
wider circle of intelligent readers of the Bible rather
than to the narrower circle of scholars, and so to
popularise some of the more interesting results of the
inquiries to which I had been led.
Fltjckley Rectoky, Dec. 28i/», 1869.

CONTENTS.

THE OLD TESTAMENT.
PAGE
I. THE LORD OP SABAOTH  3
II. THE MOST HIGH GOD  17
HI. SHILOH — IMMANUEL — THE LORD CUE,
RIGHTEOUSNESS  36
IV. THE TREE OF LITE ...... 56
V. CALEB, THE SON OP JEPHUNNEH ... 69
VI. THE EEVOLT OP ABSALOM. .... 87
VII. THE EARTHQUAKE IN THE DATS OP UZZIAH,
EING OP JUDAH  136
VIII. THE PSALMS OP THE SONS OP XOEAH . . 147
IX. THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE BOOK OP JOB . . 173
X. THE OLD AGE OP ISAIAH  189
XI. THREE GENERATIONS OF JEWISH PATEIOTISM . 214
XII. THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY .... 233
Xm. THE LAST OP THE PEOPHETS . . . .307
THE NEW TESTAMENT.
I. THE PEOPHETS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. . 323
II. STEPHEN THE PEOTO-MAETYE .... 347
III. MANAEN  376
IV. SIMON OP CYRENE  390
V. ST. PAUL AND THE SISTERHOOD AT PHILIPPI . 402
VI. AQUILA AND PRISCIXLA  417
VII. THE OLD AGE OP ST. PETEE .... 433

THE OLD TESTAMENT

I.

THE LOED OF SABAOTH.
~\~N inquiry into this as one of the promi
nent Divine names in the Old Testament
has a strong claim on our attention in
the fact that it was one of the Hebrew
words which, like Amen and Hallelujah and Ho-
sanna, passed in their original form, instead of
being translated, into the Greek of the New Testa
ment, and thence into the worship of the Church.
In the Latin version of the Te Dewm it has been
made familiar to the whole of Western Christendom.
The English version of that hymn in the Prayer-
Book has made it a household word to all our coun
trymen. I know not to what extent Mr. Grove's
statement in the " Dictionary of the Bible " {Art,
Sabaoth) that "it is too often considered to be a
synonym of, or to have some connection with, Sab
bath, and to express the idea of rest," is based on
evidence, but in whatever degree so erroneous an
impression prevails, it is well that it should be cor
rected.* And, lastly, as one of the motives that lead
* Mr. Grove citea three passages from illustrious writers as
showing that the mistake was not confined to the illiterate.
(1) Bacon. Advancement qf Learning, ii. 2&.
"Sacred and inspired Divinity, the Sabaoth and port of all
men's labours and perigrinations." (2)

4 BfBLfCAL STUDfES.
me to enter on the inquiry, I am obliged to mention
my own dissent from the explanation given to the
name in the article just referred to, to which, as
occurring in what is now among the highest recog-
(2) Spenser. Faery Queen, canto viii. 2 (The reference is incom
plete, and should be Fragment on Mutabilitie, canto viii. 2).
" But henceforth all shall rest eternally
"With Him that is the God of Sabaoth hight :
0 that great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabaoth' s sight."
(3) Walter Scott. Ivanhoe, I., ch. ii.
" A week — aye the space between two Sabaotlis.''
I must question the justice of the inference in each case.
(1) In the edition of Bacon which I have at hand (the folio of
1753), I find "the Sabbath and port," as in an earlier
passage of the same book, "the haven and Sabbath of all
men's contemplations;" and in the Latin of the De Aug-
mentis, iii. 1, " Portus et Sabbatum." Even if Sabaoth be
found in the first printed edition, it is more reasonable to
look upon it as an error of the press than to suppose that
Bacon, whose quotations from Scripture are always made
from the Vulgate, was not acquainted with the "Dominus
Exereituum" of Isaiah vi., or that he was ignorant of sg
common a word at a time when Hebrew was studied at
Cambridge far more than it is now, and many of his
fellow-students must have known it.
(2) The same remark holds good of Spenser. The edition
which I have (Pickering's) gives —
" 0 thou great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabbath's
sight."
And this is, I am persuaded, the true reading. The two
fragments were printed, it must be remembered, post
humously, and if "Sabaoth" stands in the first edition,
it may very well have been a printer's blunder. But
Spenser's thought, with a fantastic pleasure in playing
with the similarity of sound, is clearly .that of all the
"hosts" or armies of God resting after the changes of
time in the Sabbath of Eternity. Put Sabaoth or Sabbath
in both clauses of the line, and all the beauty vanishes.
Spenser, it should be remembered, had the "hierarchy"'
of the hosts of Heaven at his fingers' ends, and constantly
delights to dwell on it.
(3) My edition of "Ivanhoe" (1824) gives "two Sabbaths.'
Here, again, the mistake was, at all events, soon corrected.
It has come under my notice, since the above was in type',
that in the controversy between Sir Thomas More and William
Tyndale, the translator of the Bible, the former, writing of the
seventh day's rest, always calls it " Sabbaoth," and the latter
" Saboth." In the latter, who knew Hebrew well, a mistake is out

THE LORD OF SABAOTH. s
nised authorities on questions connected with the
Bible, most students would naturally turn for guid
ance. Mr. Grove's conclusion is that " there can be
no doubt that in the mouth and mind of an ancient
Hebrew Jehovah Tseoaoth was the leader and com
mander of the armies of the nation, who ' went forth
with them ' (Ps. xliv. 9), and led them to certain
victory over the worshippers of Baal, Chemosh,
Moloch, Ashtaroth, and other false gods." My own
conviction, based on the facts to which I now invite
the attention of the reader, is that that thought, if it
is found at all in the name as used in the Old Testa
ment, is comparatively subordinate, and that it dis
appears from it altogether as it passes into the ter
minology of the Christian Church. As constantly
happens in such investigations, the inquiry will be
found, if I mistake not, to throw light on many of
the obscure byeways of Biblical research, and to
gather round a word which has hitherto been to
many a name with little or no significance, a whole
cluster of historical associations.
1. It is on every ground remarkable that the
name in question does not occur even once in the
Pentateuch, or the Book of Joshua, or in Judges, or
in Proverbs, or in Ecclesiastes. In the Books of
Samuel, on the other hand, it meets ns eleven times ;
three times only in the two Books of Kings ; three
times in the two Books of Chronicles; fourteen
times in the Psalms. In the prophets it appears
with a prominence which, as compared with the
of the question, and the apparent ambiguity in the spelling is pro
bably due to his wish to represent the Hebrew vowel-point by a
broader sound than that of our Sabbath. I suspect that this be
wildered the printers, and, perhaps, misled some scholars. Sea
Tyndale's Works, ed. 1850, iii. p. 97.

6 BfBLfCAL STUDfES.
scantiness of previous usage, is almost startling :
sixty-one times in Isaiah; seventy-eight times in
Jeremiah ; not at all in Daniel ; fifteen times in the
minor prophets, from Hosea (once only in him) to
Zephaniah, inclusive ; fourteen times in the two
chapters of Haggai ; forty-eight times in Zechariah ;
twenty-five times in the four chapters of Malachi.
2. These numerical results are obviously signifi
cant. Those who, like Bishop Colenso, assign a com
paratively late date to the writings of the Pentateuch,
on the strength of the occurrence in it of the name
Jehovah, which they assume to have come into use
in the time of Samnel, are bound to deal with the
problem of the total absence from every one of the five
Books of Moses, and also from Joshua and Judges,
of a name which was in current use in the days of
Samuel, often in the lips of the psalmists who had
been trained in the schools of the prophets which he
established, often used by the chronicler, obviously
all but a contemporary writer, who tells the story of
his life. And this absence, we must remember, is
all the more remarkable from the fact that it was
then, far more than at any later period, that the
encampment of the Israelites with the Tabernacle
as their centre, embodied the thought which some
have connected so closely with the Name, of an un
seen King dwelling in that tent, as the Captain of
the " hosts " or " armies " of Jehovah. Those again,
who, with most German critics, with the school
whose most conspicuous representatives are Ewald
and Bunsen, assign a still later date to the Book of
Deuteronomy, and treat it as the work of Jeremiah,
or of his disciple Baruch, or of some unknown scribe
in the reign of Manasseh or Josiah, have to explain

THE LORD OF SABAOTH. 7
how it came to pass that the name which was cha
racteristic of the Josiah period, specially character
istic of the prophet of Anathoth himself, never once
appears in the book which they look upon as breath
ing in every chapter the spirit of that age. "Will
they contend that the writer who wished to pass the
book off as belonging to a remote time, had the
critical acuteness to see that the name was of such
late introduction that its presence would at once be
fatal to the reception of the book as genuine ? If
so, they must assume a far greater development of
critical sagacity than they commonly place to the
credit of the scribes of Judah, and then they have
to deal with the yet further question, If they saw
that the appearance of this one Divine name, the
Lord oe Sabaoth, would be incompatible with the
antiquity claimed for the Books of Moses, must we
not give some weight to the fact that they saw no
such incompatibility in the presence in them of that
other name of Jehovah, on the strength of which
they have been ascribed, partly to the time of Samuel,
and partly to that of Jeremiah ?
3. The argument, as it stands, therefore, is just
the converse of that which has been applied with so
much force to establish the antiquity of the great
mass of materials which we find in the Gospels, as
being not the after-growth of the current thoughts
and feelings of the apostolic age, but lying in a
past definitely behind them. In them there is one
name applied to our Lord by Himself — " the Son of
Man " — which meets us continually in St. John, as
well as in the first three. It is the all but invariable
title, rather than Christ or Lord, by which He
chooses to describe his relation to mankind. In the

8 BfBLTCAL STUDIES.
Epistles that name is never so applied. The reverence
of the Apostles for the Master whom they believed
to have ascended into heaven led them to speak of
Him as the Lord, the Lord Jesus, and the like, but
never (with the doubtful exception of Eev. i. 13 ;
xiv. 14) as the " Son of Man." And the inference
from this is plain and clear. Had the Gospels been
" mythical " in their character, had they embodied,
that is, the thoughts that were current in the Church,
they would have done so in its language. The con
stant presence in them of a name which had fallen
into disuse within a quarter of a century* is a pre
sumptive proof that they belonged in their substance,
though not, it may be, in their form, to an earlier
period. And so of this name of the Lord of Sabaoth,
it holds good, I believe, with nothing to set in the
scale against it, that its presence in the later books
of the Old Testament canon, and its absence from
the Pentateuch and the two historical books that are
connected with it, is a strong presumptive proof that
they belong in their substance, though not, it may
be, in their present form, to a much earlier date.
4. The name of the " Lord of Sabaoth " stands,
therefore, at the end of that series of Divine titles
which opened, as with the earliest name that meets
us in the history of the Bible, with that of Elion or
the Most High God. It remains for ns to see in
what way and with what significance it first came
into use. It would seem from 1 Sam. i. 3, 11, to
have been in use while the Tabernacle was at Shiloh.
It is the name which Hannah used in her prayer.
* Its use by St. Stephen (Acts vii. 56) is, of course, intelligible
enough on this hypothesis, and its presence in the narrative becomus
there also a proof of authenticity. In Bev. i. 13, xiv. 14, the ren
dering should probably be " like a son of man."

THE LORD OF SABAOTH. g
When the ark is carried forth as a talisman to secure
victory against the Philistines, it is as " the ark of
the Lord of Hosts that dwelleth between the cheru
bims " (1 Sam. iv. 4). At first sight, of course, this
seems to favour the view from which I have said
that I dissent, that Jehovah was thought of as the
God of the armies of Israel. It may seem to have
come into use with this significance, as Ewald con
jectures, under a warlike high-priesthood like that
of Eli. The answer of David to the taunting boast
of the Philistine giant, " Thou comest to me with a
sword, and a spear, and a shield, but I come to
thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts (Sabaoth),
the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast
defied" (1 Sam. xvii. 45), tends apparently to the
same conclusion.
5. Let us look, however, a little more closely into
the matter. Assuming, as we are justified in doing,
the earlier date of the substance of the Books of
Moses, what do we meet with there ? In the record
of the work of creation in Gen. ii. 1, we find it all
gathered up in the words, " Thus the heavens and
the earth were finished, and all the host of them."
Sun, moon, and stars, the living creatures of God in
all their boundless variety, are thought of as one
vast army obeying the command of a supreme Con
troller. That idea was stamped upon the thoughts,
and reappeared perpetually in the language, of Israel.
Men were warned, as in Deut. iv. 19, xvii. 3, against
worshipping these, or " any of the host of heaven."
When the idolatry of the Chaldeans, closely con
nected as it was with their astrology, found its way
into the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, their sin is
again and again described as that of bowing down or

10 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
offering incense to the " host of heaven " (2 Kings
xvii. 16 ; xxi. 3 ; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 3, 5 ; Jer. xix. 13).
So far, therefore, there seems sufficient reason for
looking on that meaning as, at least, the starting-
point of the associations that gathered round the
new name. It was a protest against the worship of
the " sun in its strength," and the " moon walking
in brightness." It was adopted by devout Israelites
at a time when the fascination of that worship came
to be the besetting peril of the nation. It rose into
a new prominence in proportion as the people came
into contact with the Assyrian and Chaldean races,
by whom that worship of the heavenly bodies was
systematized into a national religion, and was there
fore perpetually on the lips of Isaiah and Jeremiah.*
6. There is, it will be admitted, a grandeur in the
thought that looked up to the star-spangled firma
ment, and saw in all the bright multitudes the
"host" or army of the King of Heaven. Some
times, as in the Song of Deborah, this mingled with
the feeling that the storms and tempests which were
ascribed to their influence came at that King's com
mand. " They fought from heaven ; the stars in
their courses fought against Sisera" (Judg. v. 20).
But soon there mingled with this thought — perhaps
* At a later period we meet with that worship tinder the name
of "Sabaism." Older Oriental scholars, like Pococke, in dealing
with a word of unknown origin, adopted the not improbable con
jecture that it was derived from Saba, the singular of Sabaoth,
the " hosts of heaven," whom the Sabaites worshipped. The con
sensus of modem Semitic scholars, Benan, Chwolsohn, and others,
is on the other side, and connects the word with the idea of " bap
tism" or "ablution." In ecclesiastical history the Sabaites are
identified with a Gnostic sect who claimed to be disciples of John
the Baptist, and this is received as a more probable explanation of
the word. But I cannot say that it seems to me altogether satis
factory.

THE LORD OF SABAOTH. n
the two had been, as it were, born together — that
besides this visible host there was one of invisible
warriors — the guardians of the just, the chastisers of
evil-doers, and that these were the rulers of the stars
themselves. " The angels of God that did his plea
sure" were also his "host." In the vision of Micaiah,
the son of Imlah (1 Kings xxii. 19), the prophet saw
" the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of
heaven standing by Him on his right hand and on his
left." And these are described as "spirits" (ver. 21).
They are clearly identical with those who are called
" sons of God" in Job i. 6, and ii. 1. So in Ps. ciii.
20, 21, we have in parallel clauses " Bless the Lord,
ye his angels .... Bless the Lord, all ye his hosts :
ye ministers of his that do his pleasure ; " and in
Ps. cxlviii. 2, " Praise ye Him, all his angels : praise
ye Him, all his hosts." And this thought is probably
never absent from the word, even where, as in Isaiah
and Jeremiah, the first meaning is the more pro
minent. In the New Testament it supersedes the
other. The one angel who announces the Nativity
to the "shepherds abiding in the field" is joined
by " a multitude of the heavenly host." Our Lord's
words, " Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to
my Father, and He shall presently give me more
than twelve legions of angels" (Matt. xxvi. 53),
point to the same mode of thought. In the visions
of the Apocalypse the " armies 'of heaven " are seen
following their great leader "upon white horses,
clothed in fine linen white and clean (Eev. xix. 14).
7. It is interesting to note at this stage of our
inquiry the equivalents which the two great ver
sions, the Septuagint and the Yulgate, introduced
for the Hebrew word, in their endeavour to express

rz BIBLICAL STUDIES.
the ideas which thus gathered round it. In the
former we meet with a singular variety, sufficient in
itself to show that the work was done by different
hands, and, in some degree, on different principles.
Thus, in 1 Samuel and Isaiah, it is almost always
treated as a proper name, and "The Lord of
Sabaoth " appears in the Greek with no indication
of its meaning, and so passed into the language of
the New Testament, in Eom. ix. 29 and James v. 4.
In 2 Samuel, on the other hand, in many passages
of Jeremiah, and throughout the minor prophets,
we find " Pantokrator" the "Almighty," or rather
the "All-ruling," to express the sovereignty over all
things in the heavens or the earth, which the name
implies. In Jeremiah, as a rule, and in some pas
sages of other books, we have " the God of forces,"
or "powers," while the other Greek versions give
the more accurate rendering of " the God of armies."
In the Latin, on the other hand, " Sabaoth " appears
once, and only once, in the Old Testament, in Jer.
xi. 20, and "Dominus Ezercituum " is the equivalent
commonly chosen in the prophets, "Dominus," or
"Dens Virtutum" in the Psalms. The latter is, of
course, in the sense with which we are familiar
through Milton's line —
"Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,"
for one of the orders of the heavenly hierarchy.*
8. We are now able to understand in what way
the two ideas which have been connected with the
name coalesced with that other thought which Mr.
* It may be worth while to note also the equivalents given in the
chief modern versions. — (1) Luther, with the fondness for the grand
ring of the word shown in his well-known hymn, gives, I believe
invariably, "der Gott Zebaoth." (2) The French gives, "le Dieu
des armees." (3) The Italian, " il Signor, or Iddio degli esercite."

THE LORD OF SABAOTH. 13
Grove and others look upon as the root-conception
of the word. It was part of the spirit of the Theo
cracy of Israel that men thought of the same supreme
King of the visible host of heaven, of the invisible
hosts of the angels, as being also the commander of the
armies, or "hosts" of Israel. So in words which
really distinguish, instead of confounding, the two
thoughts, and place them in their right relation to
each other, David tells the Philistine that he comes
against him " in the name of the Lord of Sabaoth "
{i.e., "the heavenly hosts), the God of the armies
(lit. the ranks), of Israel " (1 Sam. xvii. 45). So,
when the king of Syria sends " horses and chariots
and a great host " to encompass the city in which
Elisha had taken refuge, the eyes of the prophet's
servant are opened to see a yet greater host, "horses
and chariots of fire" round about Elisha (2 Kings
vi. 15 — 17). So in the grand climax of Psalm xxiv.
the first answer to the question, — ¦
" "Who is the King of Glory ?"
speaks of the power of that King as manifested on
earth : —
" The Lord strong and mighty, even the Lord mighty in battle."
But the second answer, when the exulting praise
reaches its height, is more than a mere repetition of
that thought, and speaks of One who sits enthroned
in Heaven : —
" Who is the King of Glory ?
The Lokd of Hosts, He is the King of Glory."
9. The view which I have maintained is con
firmed, if I mistake not, by the appearance of another
Divine name, not previously used, at the close of the
Babylonian captivity, when the exiles of Judah had

14 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
come in contact with the Persians. In the decree of
Cyrus, as given in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23 ; Ezra i. 2 ;
in the prayer of Nehemiah, i. 4, 5 ; ii. 4, 20, we
meet with the name of " the God of Heaven." It
was adopted probably as a common ground between
them and the monotheistic Persians, in whom they
found so much sympathy, and who worshipped (comp.
Herodotus, ii. 131) the " Circle of Heaven " as God,
while at the same time it bore its witness to the
faith of their Hebrew fathers, and guarded against
any abandonment of their belief in the Divine per
sonality. They learnt to speak of " the God of
Heaven," just as they had previously, when brought
into contact with the Syrian and Chaldean astro-
latry, borne the same protest in the name of the
"Lord of Hosts," the "Lord of Sabaoth."
10. The name, like that of the Most High God,
seemed to have done its work, and to be on the point
of falling into disuse. In one section of the Old
Testament it had never appeared, even after it had
become familiar in the writings of Psalmists and
Prophets. The books in which "Wisdom" is the
key-note, and God thought of as the giver of wisdom,
leave it entirely on one side. Not one of the three
thoughts which it embodied fell in with their more
spiritual and ethical conceptions of the Divine nature.
It never once appears in the whole series of the
Alexandrian books, which we group together as the
Apocrypha, and which represent mainly the same
tendency. It is absent from the writings of Philo,
the Alexandrian Jew, and the great Alexandrian
fathers of the Christian Church.* It is never once
* It is right to say that this statement is the result of a general
impression as regards Philo and Origen. I write without the oppor-

THE LORD OF SABAOTH. iS
used in the New Testament, and was never used,
I believe, by the Jewish Eabbis as a name of the
Messiah* Once only does St. Paul introduce it, and
then only in a quotation from Isaiah (Eom. ix. 29).
St. James is the one apostolic writer who employs
it in any utterance of his own, and he is led to it,
apparently, because for the time his thoughts and
his words are like those of the older prophets who
had so constantly employed it. As Isaiah in his
utterance of " Woe to them that add house to house,
that lay field to field" by oppression and wrong,
had said, " In mine ears saith the Lord of Hosts,
of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great
and fair, without inhabitant " (v. 8, 9) ; as Jeremiah
had throughout uttered his predictions of like deso
lation following on like sins in the name of the Lord
of Hosts ; so the Bishop of Jerusalem, in one sense
the great representative of the Prophets of the New
Testament, as distinct from the Apostles, speaks in
the same name. The selfish and the proud are
warned that those who have reaped their fields and
whom they have robbed of their wages have still the
same "Lord of Sabaoth" as their protector and
avenger (James v. 4).
11. St. James is, as I have said, the one New
Testament writer who employs the name. It is, at
least, a noteworthy coincidence that it is through
the liturgy which is ascribed to him, and which

tunity of access to full Indices. Its absence from Suicer's Lexicon
is, however, fair evidence of the infrequency of its use by the Greek
Fathers. * It is mentioned by Schottgen (Sor. Hebr. ii. p. .9) in his
exhaustive Treatise De Messid, as occurring once in the Book Sohar.
But that book represents a terminology far later than that of the
" Talmud."

16 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
undoubtedly represents the usage of the Eastern
Churches from a very early period, that it passed
into the devotional language of Christendom. In
the Ter Sanctus which is found there, as in every
other ancient Communion Office, this word meets us,
as in our Te Deum. " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God
of Sabaoth " as the hymn of the cherubim of Isaiah vi.
And the words which precede it expand the thought
which it embodies with great fulness, as including
"the heaven and the heaven of heavens, and all
their host ; sun and moon, and all the band of stars ;
earth, and sea, and all that is therein ; the heavenly
Jerusalem, the general assembly and Church of the
first-born that are written in heaven ; the spirits of
just men and prophets, the souls of martyrs and
prophets, angels, archangels, thrones, principalities,
dominations, authorities, and dread powers, the many-
eyed cherubim, and the six- winged seraphim." From
the Liturgies of the East it passed to those of the
West, and though the Vulgate in its translation of
Isaiah vi. had given " Dominus Exercituum," the Ter
Sanctus of the Latin Church has always had, as if
from an independent source, the "Dominus Deus
Sabaoth." Thence it was taken up, probably in the
fifth century, into the Te Deum, and so like Hosanna,
and Hallelujah, passed into the common speech of
men. When the Latin Offices of the English Church
were translated at the time of the Eeformation, it
appeared unaltered in the Te Deum, while in the Com
munion Office, with the inconsistency which some
times characterizes the work of the compilers of the
Prayer-Book in these matters, it was brought into
harmony with the translation of the Bible, and
appeared as " the Lord of Hosts."

II.
"THE MOST HIGH GOD."
|HEEE is, if I mistake not, an interest
I of a peculiar nature, whether we look at
the matter historically or spiritually,
connected with this as one of the Divine
names which come to us through the Bible. If it
does not stand on the same lofty eminence as that
of Jah (Ps. lxviii. 4) or Jahveh (or, as we more com
monly write it, Jehovah), as being the incommuni
cable Name, representing the eternal, self-originated
Being of the I am that I am (Exod. iii. 14), — if it
is not brought into the same direct contrast with
that Name as being an earlier and less complete
apocalypse of the Divine nature, like El Shaddai, the
" God Almighty" (Exod. vi. 3), we shall find that
it has a wider range than either, and has passed
through more varied and more strange vicissitudes.
If it does not connect itself, as the word which we
translate "God" (with its strangely plural form,
Eio Mm) does, with intricate questions as to the
authorship of books or portions of books, according
as that Name or Jehovah predominates in either, its
history may perhaps throw an unexpected light upon
those questions, and help us to understand the rela
tion of those two Names to each other, and to this as,
in one sense, intermediate between them.
c

1 8 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
1. We have to note, as the first memorable fact in
tracing the history of the Name into which we are
inquiring, the comparative infrequency of its occur
rence. It does not appear once in the whole series of
what we commonly call the Historical Books of the Old
Testament, from Joshua to Esther.* It meets us only in
three chapters of the Pentateuch (Gen. xiv. 18, 19,20,
22,Num.xxiv. 16, Deut. xxxii. 18). The writers of the
Psalms, in the jubilant devotion which led them, as
it leads poets of all periods and nations, to delight
in bringing together every Divine name that was
not irretrievably tainted by idolatrous associations,
brought it more often into the songs of Zion ; and
we can reckon up not fewer than twenty- two passages
in which the word occurs, scattered through seven
teen Psalms. From the prophets of Israel it is
almost as entirely absent as from the writers of its
history (probably both writings came from the same
class of men), and the name of the " Most High"
meets us but once in Isaiah (xiv. 14), and twice in the
Lamentations of Jeremiah (iii. 35, 38). It is one of
the characteristics of the prophecy of Daniel, how
ever, whatever explanation may be given of it, that
in this respect he differs from his predecessors ; and
in two chapters of the book that bears his name, it
occurs in a plural form, but with a singular meaning,
not less than eight times (ch. iv. 21, 22, 29, 31 ; vii.
18, 22, 25, 27). When we come to the writings of
the so-called Apocrypha, on the other hand, there is
a marked increase in its frequency. It has come to
be, next to " the Lord," the favourite Name by which
the son of Sirach speaks of God, and we find its
* 2 Sam. xxii. 14 is only an apparent exception, as it there
occurs, not in the narrative, but in a transcript of Ps. xviii.

THE MOST HIGH GOD. ig
Greek equivalent in as many as forty passages in the
Book of Ecclesiasticus alone. If that book was, as
it professes to be, a translation from the Hebrew
(i.e., from the Aramaic form of it then spoken in
Palestine), this would show that the Name which
appears so seldom in the Old Testament had for some
reason or other become popular after the return from
Babylon. In the New Testament it falls once again
into the background. We have it twice in the mes
sage of Gabriel to the Virgin (Luke i. 32, 35) ; once
in the song of Zacharias, the father of the Baptist
(Luke i. 76) ; thrice as uttered by demoniacs (Mark
v. 7 ; Luke viii. 38 ; Acts xvi. 17) ; once in a quota
tion about Melchizedek from Gen. xiv., in Heb. vii.
1 ; once in St. Stephen's speech (Acts vii. 48). These
are the facts with which we have to deal. I proceed
to inquire to what inferences they lead us.
2. And, first, as to the name itself, which in the
Hebrew has the form Elion. The English reader
must not be misled by the apparent resemblance of
the word thus written to the other Divine names of
El or Elohim. The initial vowels, identical as we
write them, are in the Hebrew entirely distinct, and
are seldom, if ever, interchanged. There is no con
nection traceable or even possible between the two
words. The meaning of the name is clear enough,
and is rightly rendered in the Greek, Latin, English,
and other versions of the Old Testament, as " the
Highest," or the " Most High." The same word is
found in its lower, simply local sense quite often
enough (as in Gen. xl. 17 ; 1 Chron. vii. 24 ; 2 Chron.
viii. 5) to make its meaning clear. It expresses,
therefore, that earliest thought of God which rises in
the mind of man as he looks upwards to the firma-

20 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
ment of heaven, and is led to believe in One on
high, above him in the infinite distance, above him
and all created things in the infinite perfection of
his nature. He worships the " Most High." If he
is led to connect that thought with the idea of a
single, sovereign Power acting upon him and upon
the world, if he is not led first to personify and
then to deify the several forms of force which meet
him in the world around him, he will be true to the
monotheistic instincts of his nature. If he yields
to that temptation, it will still remain to bear its
witness of One who sits supreme over all gods and
men. 3. The history which first brings the name before
us is that remarkable episode in the history of Abra
ham which tells us of the attack of the five kings
from Mesopotamia, sweeping away many of the old
tribes of Canaan, plundering the Cities of the Plain,
and carrying off their spoil ; of their defeat by Abra
ham and the warriors whom he led in pursuit of the
retreating marauders. On his return to Mamre, he is
met at Salem (I leave the vexed question of its
locality untouched) by " Melchizedek the priest of
the Most High God" (El E lion). The description
is obviously one on which great stress is laid ; and
it is accompanied by another formula hardly less
significant. When Melchizedek blesses Abraham it
is in the name " of the Most High God, the possessor
of heaven and earth." And Abraham, the history
tells us, recognised at once the priesthood of Mel
chizedek and the name of the Divine Being whom
he worshipped. He, too (here and here only in his
life), when he solemnly refuses to take any part of
the recovered spoil, says to the king of Sodom, that

THE MOST HIGH GOD. 21
he has " lifted up his hands to the Most High God,
the possessor of heaven and earth" (Gen. xiv. 22).
4. Whatever view we take of the chapter in which
this narrative occurs, whether we adopt the very
probable hypothesis that the compiler of the Book of
Genesis has incorporated with his tale of the patri
archal family, a section of some lost chronicle of a
wider history, or take it as written by the same
author as the rest of the book, — whatever view we
take of the priest who is thus brought before us, and
whose name afterwards gains so mysterious a signifi
cance — it is, at all events, clear that he represents a
worship and a faith common to Abraham and to the
earliest inhabitants of the East. The patriarch who
had left Ur of the Chaldees because he had borne a
vain protest against the religious corruptions which
were taking root there, finds in "the Most High
God," to whose service Melchizedek had consecrated
himself, One whom he too can worship, and pays
tithes to him of the spoil. The ritual seems to have
been of the simplest type, free from the horrors of
human sacrifice, not needing even the symbolism of
the sacrifice of animals. The priest and the wor
shipper partook of bread and wine which had been
blest and offered, in token that their life was God's,
derived from Him, sustained by Him.
5. The inference that the name into which we are
now inquiring belonged to the earlier Canaanites, is
confirmed by the fact that it reappears in the reli
gion of the people who represented that race in later
history. The Phoenicians, we are told, among the
gods of their later system, worshipped a god or hero
named Elion* The name itself appears as late as
* Euseb. Brap. Evang., i. 10.

22 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
the time of Plautus, in the oaths of the Carthagi
nians, who derived their language and their religion
from Tyre and Sidon.* It is at least singular that
the only Greek poet who uses " the Most High " as
an epithet of the Olympian Zeus, is Pindar, f the
Boeotian, in singing the praises of that god as he was
worshipped at Thebes, the city which mythically
traced its origin to Cadmus the Phoenician, and
which clearly had some connection historically with
those men of the East, of whom his name (" the
Eastern") made him the representative.
6. The name which we are discussing meets us for
the second time in the Book of Numbers ; and it is
noticeable that there too it comes, as it were, from
without. It is not an Israelite name for God, but
comes from the lips of Balaam, the son of Beor. In
that lofty utterance, in which he seems to bring
together every one of the great thoughts of God,
which were the inheritance not of Israel only, but of
the whole Semitic race, he describes himself as the
Seer, the "man whose eyes were opened," "which
heard the word of God (El), and knew the know
ledge of the Most High (Elion), and saw the vision
of the Almighty (Shaddai)" (Num. xxiv. 16). And
the prophet who thus spoke came, let us remember,
from " Pethor, by the river of the land of the children
of his people ; " from Aram (Syria, in its widest ex
tent, including the plains of Mesopotamia), "out of
the mountains of the East" (Num. xxii. 5 ; xxiii.
7). He belonged, that is, to the region from which
Abraham had started on his religious emigration.
He was the prophetic representative of that wide
spread primeval faith, of which we have seen the
* Plautus, Pcen., v. i. 1. f Pindar. Nem., i. 90 ; xi. 2.

THE MOST HIGH GOD. 23
kingly and the priestly representative in Melchize
dek ; and of that faith the name of the Most High
God was still the accepted symbol.
7. Once more, and once more only, does the name
meet us in the Pentateuch, and that is in the Song
of Moses, in Deuteronomy xxxii. 8. I do not enter
now into the questions that have been raised as to
the date and authorship of that book. The point
with which we are now concerned may be discussed
quite independently of them. What we have to
note is that, in this solitary passage, where we find
it as coming from the lips of Moses himself, it con
nects itself with the thought of a wider, more uni
versal kingdom than that which was embodied in the
theocracy of Israel. "When the Most High divided
to the nations their inheritance, when He separated
the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people
according to the number of the children of Israel.
For the portion of Jehovah is his people : Jacob is
the lot of his inheritance." The words assert a
truth which the children of Israel were constantly
in danger of forgetting, the truth that God was not
their God only ; that the Gentiles also might claim
a fellowship in the blessedness of his kingdom, even
though He had chosen Jacob for special and peculiar
blessings. The Song of Moses proclaims what St.
Paul preached when he stood on Mars' Hill at
Athens, and told those who, in their scorn for all
barbarians, were as arrogant and exclusive as the
Jews, that " God had made of one blood all nations
of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and
had determined the times before appointed, and the
bounds of their habitation" (Acts xvii. 26). The
Lawgiver and the Apostle bore their witness to the

24 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
truth that the same Lord ordered the course of the
world's history and the history of Israel ; that the
distinctions of race, country, climate, were not arbi
trary and capricious, but had their root in the Divine
will, and were subservient to a Divine purpose. And
the name which is chosen as the fittest expression of
that truth is that which we have already found in
connection with the wider patriarchal faith which
was before Abraham, and which the Father of the
Faithful recognised.
8. The entire absence of the name from the whole
group of what we commonly speak of as the historical
books of the Old Testament is a fact which cannot
be passed over in silence. It indicates at once the
spirit in which they wrote, and the limits which,
consciously or unconsciously, they set before them
selves in the task they had undertaken. They
were not writing an universal history, tracing the
working of a Divine purpose in the disorders and
confusions of the world, recognising the education of
mankind. They were writing a history of God's
dealing with his people Israel, of the relations in
which they, kings, priests, and people, stood to the
Lord (Jehovah) their God. In such a history it was
natural and right that they should dwell upon the
name which bore witness of the covenant which God
had made with their fathers rather than on that
which had no such special significance.
9. The same explanation applies to the like ab
sence of the name of the " Most High God," with a
few exceptions, so striking that they prove the rule,
from the writings of the prophets. For they too
represented the religious life of Israel as a chosen
and peculiar people. They spoke as the word of

THE MOST HIGH GOD. 25
Jehovah came to them ; they were the servants of
the Lord of Hosts (Jehovah Sabaoth), and they spoke
in his name. Wherever we meet with an exception
to this law, there is discernible some point of contact
with the religion of the nations round them. In Isa.
xiv. 14 the name is put into the lips of the king of
Babylon. He it is who says in the pride of his
heart — "I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds : I will be like the Most High.'' The worship
of Elion, which had been recognised by the Father
of the Faithful, who had started from TJr of the
Chaldees, is recognised still by the king, who ap
pears as representing the same race at their highest
point of development. It is not till we come to a
prophet who had found in the Chaldean conqueror a
truer servant of God than the king of Judah, and to
whom it was given to see with some distinctness the
vision of a wider church than that of Israel, that
the name which had been used by Melchizedek and
Moses and Balaam, appears in prophetic language.
When Jeremiah spoke in his "Lamentations" of the
Lord, who " doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the
children of men," when, with special reference to
the ambition and the cruelty of the Chaldean king,
he proclaimed that " to turn aside the right of a
man before the face of the Most High, the Lord ap-
proveth not" (Lam. iii. 35), and asked, as asserting
his far-reaching Providence, the sovereignty that
extended over all the earth — " Who is he that saith,
and it cometh to pass, when the Lord approveth not ?
Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not
evil and good" (iii. 38). And if this were the case
with' one who came into contact with the Chaldeans,
and so was led to use the name which proved a bond

26 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
of union between them and Israel, we need not won
der that in a book like that of Daniel, in which the
Chaldean influence is so clearly traceable, we should
meet with it again. But with him too it is the
symbol of the sovereignty of God as the ruler of the
nations. He sees that Nebuchadnezzar's vision has
been sent to him " to the intent that the living may
know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of
men" (Dan. iv. 17) ; that the decrees that come from
kings and rulers come from Him (iv. 24) ; that He,
as by the supreme authority which that name ex
presses, " giveth the kingdom to whomsoever He
will " (iv. 32) . It is in that name that the king of
Babylon worships Him, when he has been taught
the lesson which he needed, as One who " doeth ac
cording to his will in the army of heaven and among
the inhabitants of earth" (iv. 35). Still more strik
ing is the manner in which the name mingles with
the Prophet's visions of the Messianic kingdom in
that chapter which, more than any other, determined
the form and language of the men of a later genera
tion. In the self-same vision in which he saw " one
like the Son of man brought to the Ancient of days,"
to take possession of " dominions and glory and a
kingdom, and that all people, nations, and languages
should serve him" (Dan. vii. 14), he sees also the
"saints of the Most High" as sharing in that do
minion, suffering for the truth, winning at last their
victory (vii. 18, 22, 25, 27). Still, as before, univer
sality is the main thought associated with the Name.
10. In the Psalms, in which, as we have seen, the
name occurs with far greater frequency, there does
not seem to be any well-defined law governing its
use. The tendency of all hymnic writing is to

THE MOST HIGH GOD. 27
greater freedom and less precision in such matters.
Each Divine name is brought in as it is suggested
by laws of rhythm, or subtle sense of harmony, or
associations which we cannot trace, or the love of
variety, or the desire to bring in all names that can
set forth the majesty of Him whom we are praising.
So far as we can recognise any principle as acted on,
consciously or unconsciously, by the writers of the
Psalms, it is as before, that of using it when the
wider sovereignty, the universal providence of God,
is what they have in view. It comes at the close of
an appeal to the righteousness of God (Ps. vii. 17) ;
at the opening of a hymn of victory over the heathen
nations, a victory given by one who " shall judge the
world in righteousness" (Ps. ix. 2) ; as part of the
greatness of Him who makes darkness his secret
place, and utters his voice in the thunder (Ps. xviii.
13) ; as the ground of confidence and hope, for the
true king who " trusteth in Jehovah, and in the
mercy of the Most High, shall not miscarry" (Ps.
xxi. 7). When he utters the cry, "Be merciful
unto me, 0 God ; be merciful unto me," it is unto
" God most High" that David turns for deliverance
(Ps. lxvii. 2). In the interesting group of Psalms
which are assigned to the sons of Korah, character
ized as they are throughout by this widening sense
of catholicity,* we find the Name used with the same
significance. In the midst of all terrors and confu
sions, the Psalmist remembers that " there is a river
the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God,
the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High "
(Ps. xlvi. 4). When hope is changed to exultation,
* I may refer the reader to the " Study " on these Psalms, in the
present volume.

28 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
and men " shout unto God with the voice of triumph,"
he adds that " the Lord Most High" (Jehovah Elion)
" is terrible, King over all the earth," reigning over
the heathen (Ps. xlvii. 2). When there is opened to
the mind of the Psalmist (suggested by the actual
admission of many proselytes from alien races) the
visions of a time when Egypt, Babylon, Philistia,
Tyre, and Ethiopia, shall come within the fellowship
of the covenant, and send their sons to be enrolled
as citizens of Zion, it is with the thought that " the
Most High " (" the highest," Authorised Version)
" shall stablish her" (Ps. lxxxvii. 5). It is charac
teristic of another group of Psalms, those which bear
the name of Asaph, that they, dealing, as they do,
with the wider aspects of the moral government of
the world, give a special prominence to the name
which forms the subject of this inquiry. When men
are perplexed with the seeming anomalies of that
government, they are led to utter their doubt in the
question, " How doth God know, and is there know
ledge in the Most High ?" (Ps. lxxiii. 11 ;) or they
meet that doubt and despondency with the reflection,
" This is my infirmity, but I will remember the years
of the right hand of the Most High" (Ps. Ixxvii. 10).
They confess that the sin of the people has been that
" they have tempted the Most High God, and kept
not his testimony" (Ps. lxxviii. 56). Once again,
when their thoughts turn to the oppression and
wrong which prevail among the princes and rulers
of the nation, they remind them that they are repre
sentatives of God, that that very name may be pre
dicated of them, " I have said, ye are gods, and ye
are all the children of the Most High " (Ps. Ixxxii.
6), children of Him whose attributes of truth and

THE MOST HIGH GOD. 29
righteousness, as the Supreme Euler of men, they
theoretically embodied and practically set at nought.
When from these they turn to the heathen nations
that at some period had entered into a great con
federacy against Israel, "Edom, and Ishmael, and
Moab, Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek, the Philis
tines with them that dwell at Tyre," it is with the
assurance that they too shall at last confess that He
" whose name alone is Jehovah, is the Most High over
all the earth" (Ps. lxxxiii. 18). Lastly, in the
Psalms which are, as to their authorship, anony
mous, the name meets us in one or two interesting
combinations. In that which gathers up all the
fullest expressions of trust in the government of God,
the writer opens his song of praise with proclaiming
that " he that dwelleth in the secret place of the
Most High shall abide under the shadow of the
Almighty" (Ps. xci. 1), the two names of which be
longed to the patriarchal religion, Elion and Shaddai
being thus brought together, and united, in the verse
that follows, with that of Jehovah, which specially
characterizes the covenant of Moses. A like union
meets in the psalm that follows, where we are told
"It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord"
(Jehovah), " and to sing praise unto thy name, 0
Most High " (Ps. xcii. 1). In the great hymn on the
Providence of God, which opens with the call to
" give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good : for his
mercy endureth for ever," the sin which has brought
men into darkness and the shadow of death, is that
they have " rebelled against the words of God, and
contemned the counsels of the Most High " (Ps. cvii.
11). 11. We are now able to see how it was that the

30 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
name which occurred comparatively seldom in the
canonical books of the Old Testament appears with
such frequency in the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach,
better known as Ecclesiasticus. In part, doubtless,
this may be traced to the influence of the prophecies
of Daniel, and the prominence given to it there.
But in part also, if I mistake not, we may recognise
the feeling that it was one of the names which
the Greeks, with whom the Alexandrian Jews came
in contact, could best understand, and were most
likely to reverence. It bore witness even in the
poets of the Greeks to the primeval faith in the
Divine Unity. It was a bond of union between
them and those who had kept that faith, or had it
restored to them in a new strength and purity.
Greece, Syria, Persia, Babylon, Alexandria, could
all join with Jerusalem in their worship of the
"Most High."*
12. So introduced and sanctioned, the name would
seem to have passed into common use wherever the
Jews were brought into contact with the Greek-
speaking nations of the Eoman Empire. And this
accounts clearly enough for the remarkable fact
already noticed, that it meets us in the Gospels and
the Acts as coming from the lips of demoniacs. It
entered, i.e., into the formulae used by the " vaga- ¦
bond Jews, exorcists," who undertook to cast out
evil spirits, and who swarmed over the whole East.
It was the name which they were most likely to em
ploy, which addressed itself to Jew and Greek, and
* So in the decrees of Cyrus (Ezra i. 21) and Nebuchadnezzar
(Dan. iv. 37) we find the names " God of Heaven," or " King of
Heaven," chosen as terms common to the two races. This also
seems a revival of the old title which meets us in the history of
Melchizedek — " the possessor of heaven and earth."

THE MOST HIGH GOD. 31
commanded the reverence of both. And so it was
the Divine name which dwelt most in the memory
of those unhappy persons ; and when they came in
contact with One whom they recognised with a
supernatural insight as having power to heal, they
cried out to him as the " Son of the Most High God."
So also when the "possessed" girl, with "a spirit
of divination," listened to the preaching of the
Apostles at Philippi, she bursts forth into the re
peated cry, " These men are the servants of the Most
High God, which show unto us the way of salvation"
(Acts xvi. 17).*
13. The last incident in the history of the word
is at once singular and interesting. Among the
rank growth of heresies which the Fathers and his
torians of the fourth century delighted to chronicle
and catalogue, we find a sect that claimed the title
of Hypsistarii,-\ or worshippers of the Most High.
They seem to have aimed at a kind of eclectic reli
gion, uniting some of the features of Judaism with
those of other Eastern monotheists ; and, true to the
traditional associations of the Name, they chose this
as their watchword. They rejected circumcision on
the one hand, and on the other kept the Sabbath
rigorously ; while, in their desire to conciliate the
worshippers of Mithras, they adored the sun and fire
as symbols of the Godhead. But that in which they
exulted was that they were true to the primeval faith
of the earliest patriarchs, to the precepts of the sons

* I have already called attention to my paper on " St. Paul and
the Sisterhood of Philippi," in the Sunday Magazine for July,
1868, to the probability of Jewish influence being traceable in this
instance also.
t Comp. Suicer, Hesychius, Suidas, s. v. v-tyusTapioi. Greg. Naz.
Orat. 19 ; Greg. Eyas. Or. ii. c. Eunom.

32 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
of Noah, worshippers, as Melchizedek had once been,
of the Most High God*
14. All that remains is to sum up briefly the re
sults to which the inquiry has led us as to the chief
Divine names that meet us in the Old Testament.
(1) As the earliest of all, the lowest stratum in the
language deposits of the religious history of the Se
mitic races, we have the name El (= God) as seen
in Beth-e^, _E7-Shaddai, Isra-e/, Samu-e/, and the like.
It indicates in its singular form that the primary
conception is that of unity. It is the witness of a
monotheistic faith. The original idea which it ex
presses is that of strength. That idea is intensified
in the name El-Shaddai, " God Almighty." It is
connected with the thought of an infinite elevation
above man, and earth, and the things of time, in El-
Elion, "the Most High God." If there is any
traceable distinction in the use of these two names,
it is that the former belongs specially to Abraham
and his descendants, that the latter is common to
them and to the tribes from which they had been
called to be a peculiar people, a " congregation," an
ecclesia. (2) In some way, we know not how, the
more common mode of using the name El came to be
in the plural form Elohim. It may be, as Christian
theologians have for the most part maintained, that
this implied the presence in the Divine nature of a
plurality mysteriously compatible with unity. It
may be, as Mr. Max Miiller has suggested, that
Elohim originated in the growth of a polytheistic
* An inscription found at Palmyra has been brought to my
notice by my friend, Dr. Deutsch, of the British Museum, which
indicates the same kind of eclectic monotheism. It belongs to the
time of Aurelian, and is a dedication to " Zeus, Most High, the
wielder of the thunder " (M'i virtpr'tpif xtpavviif).

THE MOST HIGH GOD. 33
tendency among the Semitic as among the other
races of mankind. In either case, when taken up
by the children of Abraham, and combined with lan
guage which unmistakably asserted the Divine unity,
it testified that He who was so named united within
himself all that men had imagined as belonging to
the " gods many and lords many " before whom they
bowed in worship. But the fact that it primarily
expressed plurality rather than unity led naturally
enough to a lower application of the name. It was
given to the earthly representatives of the Divine
government, as well as to the Divine King himself.
It was written of to the judges and rulers of Israel,
" I have said ye are Gods" (Elohim), "and all of you
are children of the Most High" (Ps. Ixxxii. 6).
When the Israelites met at a time of danger, looking
for new leaders, it is said of them that " they chose
new Gods" (Elohim) (Jud. v. 8). The name was
applied in common prose narrative (as in Exod. xxi.
6 ; xxii. 8, 9, 28) to those whom our Authorised
Version calls "judges." (3) Such a name was, there
fore, in danger of losing its power to bear witness to
the unity of God. It did not direct men to the
thought of God as the eternal, the ever-living,
the source of all life to men. What met their
want was found in Jah or Jahveh, or Jehovah,
from the time when it was revealed to Moses as
expressing the truth which in its moro expanded
form appeared in the I am that I am. Once adopted
(and its appearance in the Song of Deborah, Jud. v.
passim, with all its manifestly local and contempo
rary touches, is a proof that it. was in use then, and
not, as has been maintained, an after-thought of the
days of Samuel), it became, naturally enoirgh^he

34 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
distinctive name of the faith of Israel. In the com
bination of Jehovah- Sabaoth, "the Lord of Hosts,"
it testified of Him as the God of the armies of Israel,
the giver of victory in battle, as the God of the un
seen hosts of the stars of heaven and of the angels
that serve Him. Used in combination with Elohim
(" the Lord God") or interchangeably with it in
successive verses of the same chapter or the same
hymn, it rescued that name from any downward
tendency, and enabled men to use it even by itself,
as old associations or rhythmic influences might lead
them, without any risk of weakening the faith of the
people in the indivisible Unity, with no more defi
nite dogmatic purpose, it may be, than Christians
have when they speak in sermons or hymns or
meditations, of " God" and " the Lord," indiscrimi
nately. The relation of the two titles was fixed for
ever by the proclamation, " The Lord thy God is one
Lord;" "Jehovah thy Elohim is one Jehovah"
(Deut. vi. 4). (4) But, meantime, the older, prime
val name of the Most High God kept its ground even
amid the debasing polytheism of the Chaldeans,
Phoenicians, and other sections of the Semitic race.
When the Jews came in contact with them, or with
the Greeks, to whom the name had passed through
their instrumentality, or among whom it had sprung
into use through the parallelism of thought which
the history of the religions of the world so often
presents, even where there is no traceable derivation,
they were able to claim it as their inheritance, and
to take it as a common ground on which both alike
could stand. (5) It may seem strange at first that
the preachers of the new faith, which was in the
fullest sense that of a universal fellowship, they who

THE MOST HIGH GOD. 3S
proclaimed a covenant identical in its terms and con
ditions with that made with Abraham, should have
made so little use of a name which might have
seemed at first so suitable for their purpose ; but the
causes of their thus leaving it to drop into compara
tive disuse are not, I believe, far to seek. Its very
prevalence in the days of the decadence of Judaism
had rendered it less fit to be the vehicle of the truth
they preached. It had been tainted, so to speak, by
passing from the lips of exorcists and demoniacs ;
and at the best it would only have conveyed the
thought that the faith which the Apostles preached
was simply a revival of the religion of the patriarchs.
It might have led, as with the heretics above re
ferred to, to a hybrid, half-Jewish, half-Oriental
system. It seemed only, when men looked to its
significance, to express the infinite distance between
man and God. Another name had been given to
them, which expressed, not the distance, but the
nearness, the clearness of the relation in which He
had revealed Himself as standing to the children of
men. The name of the Most High God was to yield,
in the prayers and praises of the Christian Church,
to that of " Our Father which is in heaven," " the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

III.

SHILOH— IMMANUEL— THE LOED OUE
EIGHTEOUSNESS.
rSfj^lFlHESE three names are familiar to us as
Um slU connected, in varying degrees of close-
SH PPi ness> with our thoughts of Christ. They
^^^^^ are found in passages which are com
monly cited as prophecies fulfilled in Him. And
each of them, in the circumstances in which it took
its rise, in the conflicting interpretations which have
gathered round it, has a history worth studying for
its own sake by all who care for truth and accuracy
in their knowledge of the words of Scripture, sure
to lead us, I believe, if we follow its guidance faith
fully, to a fuller and clearer faith.
I. Shiloh. The word, as associated with what
are called Messianic predictions, meets us in one
passage only. In the prophetic benedictions which
we read in Genesis xlix., as spoken by the patriarch
Jacob before his death, we find him speaking thus
of Judah. I quote, of course, from the Authorised
Version : —
" Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise:
Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies ;
Thy father's children shall bow down before thee.
Judah is a lion's whelp ;
From the prey, my son, thou art gone up ;
He stooped down, he couched as a lion,
Arid as an old lion ; who shall stir him up ?

SHILOH. 37
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,
Nor a lawgiver from between his feet,
Until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the
gathering of the people be."
The current interpretation of the words is simple
enough. Shiloh is accepted, with more or less un
certainty as to its meaning, as a name of the Mes
siah. The prophecy was fulfilled in the appearance
of Jesus as the Christ at the time when the "sceptre"
and the "lawgiver" had indeed departed from Ju
dah by the transfer of sovereignty to the Idumsean
Herod, and afterwards to the Eoman emperor. In
the words, " We have no king but Caesar," men have
found the confession that the " sceptre" was, in very
truth, no longer theirs.
It may give us greater freedom in dealing with
the explanation thus offered to remember that it is
entirely traditional. No apostle or evangelist has
set his seal to it, or sanctioned it even by indirect
allusion. Be it accurate or inaccurate, we are deal
ing only with the meaning which critics of this or
that school have found in difficult and perplexing
words. There need be no shock given to any reader's
faith, if he finds that that meaning does not meet
the requirements of the passage.
And the difficulties connected with the received
interpretation are not slight. (1) It can hardly be
said that the " sceptre " had not " departed " from
Judah till the time of our Lord's birth. On any
fair interpretation of history its sovereignty had
ceased at the commencement of the captivity. On
the return of the Jews they were governed by Per
sian satraps, then by Syrian and Egyptian kings,
then by rulers of their own (who were, however,
of the tribe of Levi, not of Judah), lastly by the

38 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
dynasty of the Herods. (2) Nowhere throughout the
whole of the Old Testament is the prediction referred
to as pointing to the Anointed King. No psalmist
or prophet, however fully he may dwell on the great
ness of the house of David, or project his hopes into
the distant future in which he sees a " rod out of
the stem of Jesse," ever alludes to this as the ground
of his expectations. If the prophecy had been in
this sense directly Messianic, it would surely have
left some traces of itself in the prophetic speech of
those who followed, or in popular traditions. (3)
And the name itself, wherever else it occurs, is, as
its very form might lead a Hebrew scholar to expect,
the name of a place and not a person. It was at
Shiloh that the tabernacle was set up after the con
quest of Canaan. There during the whole period of
the Judges it remained, and men went to Shiloh for
the annual festivals and at other periods of great
national gatherings. Long after the ark had ceased
to be its glory, and the tabernacle itself had been
removed to Gibeon, after it had become a by- word
for a deserted sanctuary, it still retained a savour, as
it were, of its former greatness. It was the residence
of the Prophet Ahijah (1 Kings xi. 29), and of the
devout pilgrims who were going to the ruins of the
Temple at Jerusalem, when they were murdered by
Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah (Jer. xli. 5). There
can be but little doubt that any Jew reading the
words in the interval between the time when they
were uttered and the close of the Old Testament
canon, would have associated them, more or less
closely, with the place so named.
By many interpreters of our own time,* accord-
* Eichhorn, Hitzig, Ewald, and others.

SHILOH. 39
ingly, the passage has been rendered thus : — " The
sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver
from between his feet, until he comes to Shiloh."
Grammatically this construction is as tenable as the
other. So taken, the words find, it is said, an ex
planation in the fact that during the period of the
journey through the wilderness and the conquest of
Canaan Judah was foremost, leading the van on
march, occupying the post of honour in the camp
(Num. ii. 3 ; x. 14) ; while afterwards, for a long
period, Ephraim, from the very fact that it had the
tabernacle at Shiloh within its boundaries, rose to
something like pre-eminence, if not to sovereignty,
over the other tribes. Most of the critics who so
interpret them are disposed to look on the blessings
assigned in this chapter as of later date, inserted by
the compiler of the Pentateuch, and see in it ac
cordingly a prophecy after the event. Others, who
receive it as of the remote antiquity to which it pro
fesses to belong, still hold that the patriarch speaks
of the place, not of a person. There is in itself no
thing improbable in such a supposition. He who had
dwelt so long at Shechem, who had journeyed through
the length and breadth of Canaan, might well know
the name of a locality like Shiloh. He might men
tion it as he mentions Zidon (Gen. xlix. 13).
But the question still has to be answered, What
did the name mean as applied to the place ? Why
was the place chosen, out of all the conquered terri
tory, rather than Mamre, or Bethel, or Shechem, or
Gilgal, or Gerizim, as the centre of the religious life
of the nation, consecrated by the presence of the
Sacred Tent ? And the answer to the first question
is not far to seek. In the judgment of nearly all

40 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Hebrew scholars the word Shiloh, though in that
form used only as a proper name, is connected with
the idea of rest, peace, tranquillity. What Jacob
says accordingly, assuming the blessings to be what
they purport to be, is that the tribe of Judah shall
be fierce, warlike, dominant, till it gains its Shiloh,
its " home of peace," that then it shall be more con
spicuously than ever the elect ruler of the other
tribes, " to him," to the tribe in some living personal
representative, "shall the gathering of the people
be." It does not connect that "coming to Shiloh"
with shame and loss, but with the blessings of a time
of peace. The imagery with which the prophetic bene
diction ends is not, like that with which it opens, one
of war and terror, the lion leaping on its prey, but
of peace and plenty, the " ass tied to the vine," the
" teeth white with milk."
If such words as these had been actually spoken,
and lingered in the memories of men, they explain
why the Israelites, as soon as they had done their
work of conquest, chose Shiloh for the resting-place
of the tabernacle. They found a place that bore
that name, that probably had borne it in the days
of Jacob, and they accepted the omen. They had
found their " home of peace." There they would
worship the God of their fathers. And when Judah
had thus come to Shiloh, that which the blessing
of Jacob had proclaimed came to pass. The time
of pre-eminence in war was to be followed by a like
pre-eminence in peace. Great as was to be the glory
of the tribe of Ephraim, and the prophecy of Jacob
recognises it with abundant fulness (vv. 22  26),
yet the supremacy was to rest with Judah. The
words do not necessarily imply that the sceptre and

SHILOH. 41
the lawgiver should depart when Judah had come to
Shiloh, or even (if we take the current explanation)
when Shiloh had come to him, but make that the
starting-point of a career of yet greater glory.
And we may see, if I mistake not, in the acts of
David, as the king in whom the words received their
first great fulfilment, a yearning after one still
greater. His whole soul is filled, in the midst of all
the wars in which he passed his life, with the thought
of peace and rest. He gives to his first-born son the
name of Absalom, or " the Father of Peace" The
son who is to succeed him on the throne is to be a
"man of rest," in whose days there is to be " peace
and quietness," and therefore he is called Solomon,
or the "peaceful" one. The very city which is to
be what Shiloh had been, the dwelling-place of the
ark, the centre of the national religious life, bears the
name of Jerusalem, or " the inheritance of peace."
So understood, the words of the patriarch, though
they do not speak of a personal king known for some
reason or other by the name of Shiloh, may yet be
looked on as predictive of the future glory of the
tribe of Judah, the forerunner of the long line of
prophecies which, after the house of David had taken
its place as representing the might and majesty of
the tribe, spoke of its kingdom as peaceful and
blessed, divine and everlasting. And so, though in
another way than it had been commonly understood,
it took its place among Messianic predictions, and
prepared the way for one, who should be, in a higher,
ideal, spiritual sense, what Judah was here described
as being, historically, he "whom his brethren should
praise ;" to whom should be "the gathering of the
people."

42 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
It was not strange that when Shiloh had been
utterly laid waste, and was associated only or chiefly
with the memory of disgrace, that the whole passage
should appear perplexing. And traces of that per
plexity we find in the uncertainty which obviously
rested on its meaning, and the attempts consequently
made by translators to evade the difficulty. The
Jews of Palestine, brooding over Messianic expecta
tions, found the thought of the Anointed King
there, as they found it even in the blessing which
declared of another tribe that "Dan shall judge
his people," and without an attempt at explanation,
gave in the Targums, or paraphrastic versions of the
Pentateuch, which were in common use, the ren
dering " until the Messiah come." Some of them,
applying a system of cypner writing to the word,
found that "Shiloh" corresponded to "Messiah."
Those of Alexandria, in their Greek version, were
less bold, and following a different reading or a con
jectural etymology, gave " until the things reserved for
him shall come, and he is the expectation of the
nations." The Latin version, made by Jerome
under the guidance of the Palestine Jews of the
fourth century, gave an entirely different derivation
to the word, and there we read " till he shall come
who shall be sent." Later Jews have rendered it as
"his son." Luther, who probably followed the in
terpretation current among the German Jews of his
time, translated it by " the hero."
We are led, I believe, by a fair examination of
the evidence to abandon what has been for a lon°-
period the received interpretation of this prophetic
utterance. But it takes its place still, as I have
said, in the succession of Messianic prophecies. It

SHILOH.

43

connects with the name of Judah the future great
ness of the sons of Jacob. It points to it as being,
if not the greatest and strongest (that seems re
served for Ephraim), yet the representative tribe of
all the families of Israel. Till it should come to
Shiloh, the city of the nation's "rest," it should be
first in authority and pre-eminence. And that, as
has been said, was not to be necessarily the close of
its greatness. It was to be, in some way which the
patriarch knew not, still the object of the praises of
its brethren.
And it is at least historically interesting to note
how the very word thus connected with the great
ness of Judah reappears in the psalms of the wilder
ness and the monarchy. The word " lawgiver " is
one but seldom used in the Old Testament, and in
three out of the six other passages in which we meet
with it, it is associated more or less closely with the
tribe of Judah. (1) In that fragment of a warrior's
song which meets us in Num. xxi. 17, 18, we read
that when the people found water, apparently after
some united labour in digging through sand or
rocks, they welcomed its appearance with a hymn
of praise. " Spring up, 0 well, sing ye unto it :
The princes digged the well ;
The nobles of the people digged it,
By the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves."
We are so accustomed to speak of Moses as the
" lawgiver " of Israel, that we at once apply the
word to him, and think of him as giving the com
mand which the princes and the nobles carried into
execution. But if we remember that neither the
English nor the Hebrew word is ever applied to

44 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Moses in the Old Testament, and that it teas thus
associated with Judah, and that Judah was then
recognised precisely in this character of hegemony
over the other tribes, it will, I think, seem natural
to refer the word to that tribe as setting the ex
ample of free, spontaneous toil. Even the " law
giver " tribe (in Jud. v. 14 the word is rendered
" governor ") had not disdained to take its share in
the common labours. Others, however, render the
clause, " with their sceptre and their staves." The
reference to a personal authority is, I think, pre
ferable, and, though we cannot insist on the sense
of "lawgiver," yet the word was, at any rate, an
unusual one, and in some way or other specially
appropriated to the tribe of Judah. (2, 3.) In Ps.
Ix. 9, cviii. 9, its position is yet more remarkable.
Both psalms are ascribed to David, but both include
the same fragment of apparently some older hymn,
and the form in which it appears implies that it had
been received as an oracle marking out, after the
fashions of the blessings of Jacob and of Moses, the
characteristic features of the tribes of Israel. And
the words are as an echo of Gen. xlix. The great
ness of the tribes descended from Joseph is acknow
ledged. " Gilead is mine ; Manasseh is mine ;
Ephraim also is the strength of mine head."
But there remained for the tribe to which the kins
himself belonged its old supremacy.
"Judah is my lawgiver."
Other prophecies more specifically pointing to the
house of David might follow in rich succession, but
this remained as the subsoil out of which they grew.

IMMANUEL. 45
It could scarcely have been absent from the mind of
Isaiah when in one of the most glorious of his pre
dictions of the future glory of his people, he uttered
words which were to receive a higher fulfilment
than had come within the horizon of patriarch or
prophet. " The Lord is our Judge,
The Lord is our lawgiver'' — Isaiah xxxiii. 22.
(4) The only remaining passage in which the
word occurs is more difficult. In the blessings of
Moses (Deut. xxxiii. 21)' our version gives, " And
he" (the tribe of Gad) "provided the first part for
himself, because there, in a portion of the lawgiver,
was he seated" — i.e., as the passage is commonly
explained, he received an inheritance which Moses
had assigned him. But neither the Greek nor the
Latin version supports this translation ; and a more
probable rendering is, " He saw that the chief place
was his, for there a lawgiver's or ruler's portion was
assigned him " — i.e., he was to have the hegemony on
the east side of the Jordan as Judah had on the
west. II. Immanuel. This word, too, has a history of
its own, and, both as it meets us at the time when it
was first uttered (Isa. vii. 14), and as interpreted
by St. Matthew (i. 23), has a special prominence.
The worst and weakest of the kings of the house of
David was sitting upon the throne of Judah. Israel
and Syria were joined in alliance against him, and
aimed at deposing him, and appointing some " son of
Tabeal,"* otherwise unknown to us, as a tributary
* "Who the soldier of fortune was that thus aimed at taking pos
session of the throne of Judah we can only conjecture. M. Botta's
translation of one of the inscriptions of Sennacherib's monuments
may, perhaps, throw light on this obscure passage of Jewish his-

46 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
king. The king, and his nobles, and the people are
panic-stricken. Their hearts are moved " as the
trees of the forest are moved with the wind." And
then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, and bade
him go with his son Shear-Jashub to meet the king,
as he stood (probably superintending the preparations
for defence) " at the end of the conduit of the upper
pool." The name which Isaiah had given to that
son (" The remnant shall return") embodied at once
the threatening and the hope which had been re
vealed to him, when, as in the narrative of chap, vi.,
he was called to bear the burden of a prophet's work.
He goes to the king, whose cowardice takes the form
of a sullen despair, murmuring at the doom which
he looks on as inevitable, and bids him " fear not,
neither be fainthearted." The confederacy which
seemed so threatening should come to nothing.
There was another power mightier and more terrible
in the background, destined to be as a scourge for
the sins of Judah itself; but sure, before it did that
work, to sweep away the monarchies of Syria and
Israel altogether. The king listens in sullen silence :
and then, as if meeting the doubt and unbelief which
that silence showed, the prophet bids him ask "a
sign of the Lord thy God." The king may choose
the region of the sign. He may " ask it either in
the depths, or in the height above." Ahaz, still
with a moody impatience, which is almost a sneer,
and yet hypocritically hides itself under a show of

tory. Speaking of his victory over the Zidonians, the Assyrian
king appears as saying, " I placed Toubaal on the throne, and laid
a tribute upon him." We are led to think of some Phoenician
noble, aiming at making his son a subject-king, and foiled at first,
succeeding afterwards in getting a throne for himself. Comp. Le
Normand Hist, de i'Orient, i. p. 465.

IMMANUEL.

47

reverence, refuses, "I will not ask, neither will I
tempt the Lord." He will bear his doom as he may.
He will not bring himself under the censure of de
vout men by asking for any proof that the message
which speaks of deliverance is true. And then the
suppressed indignation of the prophet burst forth, as
kindled into a white heat.
" Hear ye now, 0 house of David : Is it a small
thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my
God also ? Therefore the Lord himself shall give
you a sign ; Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear
a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."
The words have been, as was natural, very va
riously interpreted. One school confines the whole
scope of the passage within the horizon of the pro
phet's own period. He points to some maiden not
yet a mother, some one, it might be, of those who
were among the king's handmaids, and predicts
that a child shall be born of her, whose name, like
those which the prophet gave his own children,
should be the witness of a divine truth, proclaiming
to a cowardly king and a despairing people, " God
is with us." So that child should be to Ahaz and
his house what Isaiah's sons were, " a sign and a
wonder," and as he grew to manhood, eating of
" butter and honey," the common food of infancy,
learning to "refuse the evil and to choose the good,"
the events that would come to pass should show that
the name was no idle boast. Before he grew to
man's estate, the land which Ahaz had good reason
to abhor should be "forsaken of both her kings."
Some who hold this view of the primary meaning
of the prediction accept it as having had a fulfilment
beyond that which came within the prophet's range

48 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
of vision, even as Keble says of other unconscious
prophecies : —
"As little children dream and lisp of Heaven,
So thoughts beyond their thoughts to those high bards were
given."
Others, more thorough in their unbelief, look on the
Gospel narrative itself as the after-growth of a mis
taken interpretation of what had originally only this
limited significance.
The general current of Christian interpretation
has, I need not say, set in the opposite direction.
It has seen, in Isaiah's words, the utterance of one
to whom was given, for the moment, a distinct fore
sight, both of the Incarnation itself and of the mira
culous birth through which it was to be accomplished.
He saw, as it were in vision, the Virgin-mother and
the Divine Child. The very proclamation of such a
wonder was itself a sign. The reference to contem
porary history is, on this explanation, equivalent to
saying, " Within such time as that wondrous child
would grow to maturity, this and that event, almost
as startling as that birth itself, will happen, and will
become in its turn a pledge for the greater marvel
which yet remains to be accomplished."
It would be at variance with the whole spirit in
which Scripture should be studied to pass a sentence
of condemnation upon the many devout Christian
thinkers who have adopted the first of these three
methods of interpretation. For many years I was
disposed to rest in it as affording an example of what
pervades the whole series of Messianic predictions,
the transfer to a higher region of words that had a
primary historical fulfilment — of the law that what
ever was spoken of king, or priest, or prophet, was

IMMANUEL. 49
true, with a perfected truth, of the Christ who had
united all three offices in Himself. But the last and,
if one may so speak, more supernatural rendering of
the passage has much, I believe, in its favour. On
the very ground occupied by those who reject the
Gospel history of the birth of Christ as mythical,
they, though they may look on the words of Isaiah
as telling of a baseless dream, cannot consistently
contend that the meaning which Christendom has
attached to them was necessarily foreign to the
circle of his thoughts. They argue that men in the
first century of the Christian era were so possessed
with the thought that the Messiah must be virgin-
born, and that thus only could He escape the he
reditary taint of human sin, that they read into the
words of Isaiah a meaning which was not there,
and half-framed, half-accepted, consciously or uncon
sciously, a history that corresponded to their ima
ginations. In no other way could they conceive of
a true Incarnation of the Divine Word. But if
so, it may be replied, if their sense of human guilt
led them to that thought, might not the same sense
have weighed on the mind of Isaiah ? Had not the
words of the Psalmist, telling men that they were
shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin (Ps. li. 5),
sunk deep into men's hearts ? Did not the prophet
himself feel that he was " unclean, and dwelt in the
midst of a people of unclean lips " (Isa. vi. 5) — " a
people laden with iniquity," " whose righteousnesses
were as filthy rags," from the crown of the head to
the sole of the foot, filled with "wounds, and bruises,
and putrefying sores " (i. 4 — 6) ? And with that
terrible sense of a clinging, ineradicable evil, how
was he, who was looking for a king to reign in

So BIBLICAL STUDIES.
righteousness, on whom "the Spirit of the Lord
was to rest" (xi. 2), whose name was to be called
" Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Ever
lasting Father, the Prince of Peace" (ix. 6), to
think of Him as born after the laws of the common
birth of all men, and so inheriting their corruption ?
But assuming that this was so, that the words, as
he spoke them, had the meaning which is commonly
assigned to them, it does not 'follow that he saw it
clearly. To the prophets of the Old Testament, as
to those of the New, it was not given to " know the
times and the seasons which the Father had set in
his own power" (Acts i. 7). They "inquired and
searched diligently what, or what manner of time
the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, did signify"
(1 Pet. i. 11). Each in his turn, Samuel when he
witnessed the rise of David, David when he watched
with hope the growth of Solomon, believed that they
saw already the dawning of the coming day. To
Isaiah it might well seem, as to other "men of
desires," that the time was at hand. When Heze-
kiah was born, though there was no marvel in the
manner of his birth, he would seem to have looked
on him as fulfilling, or at least foreshadowing the
fulfilment of, his Messianic hopes. Is it too bold a
conjecture that one who, being the child of so base
a father, grew up in such unstained righteousness,
must have had a mother who might well seem almost
to retain her maiden purity in her married state ?
And so he bore, in a true though a lower sense, the
name Immanuel, not as being commonly called by
it, but as Solomon bore the name Jedidiah (2 Sam.
xii. 25), as a mystic, inaugural title, the nomen et
omen of his reign. So, thinking of one who is to be

IMMANUEL. Si
on the throne of Judah when the Assyrian invader
is to sweep over the country like a flood, Isaiah
describes his progress : " He shall pass through
Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall
reach even to the neck ; and the stretching out of
his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, 0
Immanuel " (viii. 8). And then passing to the name
whose very syllables were as an oracle of hope, he
utters his defiance to conspirators and invaders
alike. " Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought ;
Speak the word, and it shall not stand :
For God is tvith us."
" Immanuel " is still our watchword, the strong
tower of our confidence and hope.
So the life of this king for whom Isaiah hoped,
came before him as the witness of God's presence
with his people. So Hezekiah was, in his day and
generation, as David had been in his, a partial
answer to men's hopes and cravings. So, with that
failure of perspective which was almost the inevit
able consequence of a clear intuition of future glories,
with no prevision of times and seasons, the highest
thoughts of redemption, the fullest Gospel promises
were associated with the places, persons, events, that
were most conspicuous in the prophet's own time.
As the Apostles, before they had been taught by
the experience of frustrated hopes, believed that the
second coming of their Lord and the end of the
world were indeed nigh at hand, to be looked for
before the generation in which they lived had passed
away, so was it with the great prophet. When the
true Immanuel came, when the Virgin Mother had
brought forth her first-born child in Bethlehem,

52 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
then those who wrote the record of the birth saw
how the old words had been fulfilled, and gave God
thanks, and confessed that "God" was "with"
them of a truth. The Immanuel had at last come.
III. The Lord our Eighteousness. We are
carried by this name to a later prophet, and to darker
and more troublous times. Jehoiakim sat on the
throne of his father Josiah, but was in all things
utterly unlike him, " building his house by unright
eousness, and his chambers by wrong," with " eyes
and heart " set upon his covetousness, to " shed inno
cent blood, and for oppression and for violence to do
it" (Jer. xxii. 13 — 17). And priests and princes
were, after the pattern of their king, destroying
and scattering the sheep of the Lord's pasture
(Jer. xxiii. 1). At such a time, the heart of the pro
phet of Anathoth might well have sunk within him in
despair. And therefore the " word of the Lord "
comes to him with a message which bids him hope.
Degradation, misery, exile, lie before his people.
But in the end there shall be a better time. Taking
up almost the very words of Isaiah, speaking of the
expected deliverer by the self-same title, he declares :
" Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will
raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King
shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment
and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall
be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is
his name whereby He shall be called, The Lord our
Eighteousness" (Jehovah Tsidkenu). Here, as in
the case of Immanuel, it was not meant that any
king should ever bear that name, or that even the
anointed heir of the house of David, the righteous
Branch, should be so known in the common speech

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 53
of men, but that this was what he should be. The
name should be the exponent of the nature. What
the prophet thought of, then, was a king who should
both be righteous and just himself, and the cause of
righteousness in others, one to whom a people laden
with iniquities might turn for deliverance, who
would satisfy the strong desire of all who hungered
and thirsted after a righteousness for which they
had hitherto sought in vain. This, too, as with
Isaiah's prophecies, was connected with what I have
called a failure of perspective, associated with the
return of Israel from the north country, just as the
promise of the " new covenant," the " new testa
ment," which received its fulfilment on the night of
the Last Supper, and has been identified by Christen
dom with the sum and substance of Christianity
(Jer. xxxi. 31), was connected in his thoughts with
the return of Ephraim, the populousness of the deso
lated cities of Judah, the rebuilding of Jerusalem
" from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the
corner" (Jer. xxxi. 18, 27, 38).
The words thus spoken seem to have made an
impression both on the prophet's own mind and on
those who heard them. He returns to them again
(xxxiii. 16), but they then appear as giving the
name, not of the king, but of the city over which
he rules.
" In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jeru
salem shall dwell safely, and this is the name where
with she shall be called, The Lord our Eighteous
ness." That name was to float over the walls of the New
Jerusalem as the watchword on its banner. The
holy city, that had become unholy as a den of

54 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
robbers, was to find her righteousness in accepting
the sovereignty of the righteous King. And the
prophetic oracle thus given, explains, if I mistake
not, what otherwise seems arbitrary and capricious.
When the last king of the house of David was placed
upon the throne by Nebuchadnezzar, he changed his
name, we are told, from Mattaniah to Zedekiah
(2 Kings xxiv. 17). The mere fact of a change of
name of some kind was, of course, as in the case of
that of Eliakim, altered by Pharaoh Necho to Je-
hoiakim, only the symbol of the fact that he reigned
by a new title, was the servant of a new master.
But the choice of the new name must have been a
matter of indifference to the Chaldean conqueror,
and may fairly be regarded as indicating a policy
or pretensions of some kind on the part of the king
himself. And the striking fact which we have to
note is, that the name so chosen, Zedekiah (the right
eousness of Jehovah), is, though not in sound, yet in
substance, identical with that which had become
famous by Jeremiah's prophecy. It was as though
he would present himself to the people as the
" righteous Branch," the king who was to raise up
the house of David that had fallen, and make Judah
and Jerusalem to dwell safely.
Not so was the promise to be fulfilled. Those who
had looked for the advent of the true king had still
to ask, "Why tarry the wheels of his chariot?"
But though He tarried, they still waited for Him,
and at last, in the " fulness of time," He came, and
then they found that what they had been looking for
had been given to them, though not as they looked
for it. There was One who left on men's minds the
impressions of a faultless righteousness, whom his

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 55
disciples learnt to speak of as being pre-eminently
the " Just," the " Eighteous " One (Acts iii. 15 ;
vii. 52; xxii. 14). They were led to see in Him,
though He had died a malefactor's death instead of
sitting on the throne of Judah, the true " Branch "
of the house of David, the " Eod out of the stem of
Jesse." Those who believed in Him, and loved Him,
were taught by a living personal experience, that
their inmost, highest life, was transmuted and trans
figured into the likeness of His life. Christ Jesus
was "made unto them wisdom, and righteousness,
and salvation" (1 Cor. i. 30). They were taught
how they might become " the righteousness of God
in Him" (2 Cor. v. 21). The words of the seer of
Anathoth, like those of Jacob and of Isaiah, were
raised as to a higher region, and shone as with a
new brightness. It was true at once of the Divine
King and of the New Jerusalem, the city of the
living God, that the one should be called by the
Name of the Lord our Eighteousness, and the other
accept it as the law of its existence.

IV.
THE TEEE OF LIFE.
IF the many symbols of truth, joy, holi
ness, which meet us in the great treasure-
house of truth itself, and therefore also
of all that foreshadows and represents
it, there is one which stands conspicuous above all
others. By what must have been, as far as man's
agency was concerned, an unforeseen result of the
order in which the books of the Bible have been
arranged, it meets us at the beginning of the sacred
Volume, and comes into fresh prominence at its close.
In the glimpse which is given us into the mysteries
of that perfection from which the human race has
fallen, and to the restoration of which, in those who
are willing to be restored, the whole plan and pur
pose of God's revelation of his will is made subser
vient, we find in the garden of Eden, the " paradise*
of joy," in which man was set to dress it and to keep
it, the Tree of Life growing side by side with the
Tree of Knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil.
The latter, representing, as it does, the expansion of
human thoughts and powers by the assertion of its
* The special meaning which we attach to the word Paradise
(originally Persian for a park or garden) comes from its use in the
Greek version of Gen. ii. and iii. "Eden," too, is treated by them
as a descriptive, not as a proper, noun, and the two words, by which
they render " the Garden of Eden," mean " the garden of luxurious
joy."

THE TREE OF LIFE. 57
self-will, by its experience of sensual pleasure, by its
knowledge of what were better left unknown, becomes
as it were a sacrament of evil. " The woman saw that
the tree was pleasant to the eyes, and good for food,
and a tree to be desired to make one wise." She was
tempted, as tens of thousands have been tempted
since, by the thought that it was a great thing that
her eyes, and those of the man who was her helpmate,
should be opened, and that they should be " as Gods,
knowing good and evil ; " and " she put forth her
hand, and took thereof and ate, and gave it to her
husband, and he did eat." But with that tree,
growing also in the Paradise of God, there was
another, the Tree of Life, of a life eternal and incor
ruptible, the sign and sacrament not only of immor
tality, but of the blessedness which the vision of God
brings to those who love Him and are obedient to
his will. By their own act the representatives of
mankind, the "man," and the "mother of all that
live," forfeited that immortality and lost the power
of entering into that blessedness. To them immor
tality would have brought but a perpetuity of evil,
and that vision of the infinite holiness of God been
identical with the never-ending misery of condemna
tion. And so they passed out of that Paradise of
God, the joy of a childlike innocence, into the rough
weary work of tilling the ground out of which were
to grow thorns and thistles, and of bringing forth
the children who were to replenish the earth and
subdue it. And the cherub with the flaming sword,
representing, as the mysterious cherubim do through
out the Bible,* the powers of nature in their might
* So in Ps. xviii. 10, they are connected with the storm-cloud
and thunder. With wings stretched over the ark of the covenant,

58 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
and majesty and terror, was placed at the entrance
of the garden to "keep the way of the tree of life."
Nature and man's work in nature were interposed, as
it were, between the soul and its Creator, and the
slow work of a painful discipline began.
In the closing vision of the Apocalypse, which with
a profound significance blends together in its gor
geous symbolism the two thoughts of the Paradise of
God and the heavenly Jerusalem, the same imagery
reappears. " Out of the throne of God and of the
Lamb" there flowed a "pure river of water of life
clear as crystal," and " in the midst of the street of
the city, and on either side of the river, was there
the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits,
and yielded her fruit every month." * No longer is
it guarded in that vision by the cherub's fiery sword,
for then there shall be no more curse, and He who
saith, " Behold, I come quickly," who is " Alpha
and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and
the last," even He saith, " Blessed are they that do
his commandments, that they may have right to the
tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into
the city,"f For those who are admitted to that
heavenly city, whose faith is perfected by love, there
is no longer the necessity for the discipline of suffer
ing. God's education of their spirits has reached
its completion. Instead of the words which implied
they shadow forth the thought that beneath all the marvel and
mystery of nature there lies the yet greater mystery of God's per
sonal relationship to man. In Ezekiel's vision (ch. i.) they are
blended with the wheels which represent the ever-varying and
unresting activity of the forces which underlie the phenomena of
the universe. In the Apocalypse, " the living creatures full of eyes
within and without " give a variation of the same type, with the
additional thought that the powers of nature work out the will of
an all-pervading Providence.
* Bev. xxii. 1, 2. t Bev. xxii. 13, 14.

THE TREE OF LIFE. 59
that there was a peril in the immortality for which
man was not prepared, — " lest he put forth his
hands, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and
live for ever," — there is now free access, and full
fruition. The redeemed who walk in the heavenly
city eat of its fruits, but its blessings are spread far
and wide beyond the innermost circle of those who
share the fulness of that heavenly joy — for " the
leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." *
We find, then, this profoundly suggestive symbol
at the beginning and the end of what is now for us
the Book. But, as might be expected, it is found
elsewhere also. Understood with greater or less
clearness, suggesting often to men's minds more than
they could explain to others or understand them
selves, it entered into their loftiest hopes and inspired
them with noble thoughts. Look, for example, at
the vision of Ezekiel, in this as in so many other
things the prototype of the seer of Patmos. He, too,
sees a mystic stream as of the water of life, deepen
ing more and more, from the ancles to the loins, and
then " as waters to swim in, a river that could not
be passed over," and " by the river upon the bank
thereof, on this side and on that," just as in the
Apocalypse, " shall grow all trees for meat, whose
leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be
consumed : it shall bring forth new fruit according
to his months . . . and the fruit thereof shall
be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine." f
As was natural in the language of those who saw
visions and dreamt dreams, who were caught up as
into " the third heaven and the paradise of God,"
and saw " unspeakable things which it was not lawful
* Bev. xxii. 2. t Ezek. xlvii. 2—12.

60 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
for a man to utter," the two prophets of the Old and
the New Testament give, as it were, the vision with
out the interpretation, and leave the symbol to do its
work of quickening man's spiritual life, and suggest
ing profoundest truths, without a formal explanation.
It was left for another writer, taught by the self
same Spirit, but endowed with different gifts, to
complete its teaching, and to unfold the meaning of
that which lay beneath the outward sign. He to
whom God gave wide thoughts and abounding
knowledge, and largeness of heart, as the sand upon
the sea-shore, showed that he had learnt the lesson,
and was able to lead others. He proclaims of wis
dom, the true wisdom, which has its beginning in
the fear of the Lord, among many other glorious
words, " that her ways are ways of pleasantness, and
all her paths are peace," that " she is a tree of life to
them that lay hold upon her, and happy is every one
that retaineth her."* Here, then, we get the key
to the parables and dark sayings which have occupied
our thoughts hitherto. The Tree of Life is wisdom,
bringing with it immortality, making that immor
tality a blessing to those who seek it rightly, as
contrasted with the tree oi knowledge. On the 'one
side, the restless, subtle, serpent-like activity of the
intellect, the feverish craving for excitement, the
passionate love of merely outward beauty, all tending
downwards, stimulating sense, and ending in a
boundless sensuality, working man's fall at first, and
evermore repeating its fatal work as with power
accumulated in its transmission; and on the other
side, the wisdom, which is also life, which begins
with awe, reverence, obedience, which leads to
* Prov. iii. 18.

THE TREE OF LIFE. 61
purity and holiness, to self-knowledge and self-
discipline, which ripens into love, and is one with
the eternal charity — this is the choice which was
offered to the first-created man, and which is offered
now to us. During the long centuries in which men
were led step by step, slowly, and in the darkness, as
on " the world's great altar- stairs," to the knowledge
of God, the thought of the blessedness which they
had forfeited, but which was not lost to them for
ever, was kept up in many divine forms. They were
led to think of the tree of life as still reserved in the
Paradise of God, though as yet they were shut out
from it, because they had made themselves unfit.
When the narrative which told them of it was
brought before them, as we find it in the book of
Genesis, they must have ceased almost, if not alto
gether, to think of it as still to be found in any
earthly region. We read of no pilgrims going forth
to seek it near the source of Hiddekel or Euphrates.
Whatever dreams may have haunted the hot fancies
of a later age, Hyperborean happiness in the far North
beyond the frozen snows, Islands of the Blessed in
the Western Ocean, those who "look for another coun
try, that is, a heavenly," for "a city that hath
foundations, whose builder and maker is God," must
have looked there also, and nowhere else, for the
Water and the Tree of Life.
So far the symbol and the truth which underlay it
have met us in the spoken or written Word. If I
mistake not, it entered also into those patterns of
heavenly things which were kept before men's minds
in the outward visible imagery of the tabernacle.
All interpreters agree that the golden lamp which
stood by the table of shewbread bore witness of the

62 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
divine, eternal, uncreated light, of that wisdom
which is " a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our
path," the flame being the outward manifestation of
wisdom in the life, the oil answering to the gifts and
graces of the Holy Spirit, without which the light
fails, and the. lamp goes out. But those who read
the elaborate directions in Exod. xxv. for the con
struction of that lamp, must be struck with the stress
laid on details and on words, all of which tend to
bring out its resemblance, in greater or less measure,
to a tree.* As with nearly all religious symbols, we
have not an imitative naturalism, but a conventional
type ; but the meaning of that typical form is
unmistakable. There is the central shaft growing
like a tall palm-tree, and on either side the three
branches that spring out.j- subdividing (as many
think) into smaller branches, or pendent ornaments,
and on each branch there are buds and flowers, and
almond-like fruits, % and into this fruit-like bowl the
oil flowed, and there the flame was kindled. To those
who, like the writer of the B ook of Proverbs, had learnt
the true meaning of the Tree of Life, this twofold
symbolism must have been pregnant with profoundest
meanings. It taught them that the light was also
the life of men. It was a perpetual witness that as
God was Light, and in Him was no darkness at all,
so in Him, and in Him only, was the eternal Life.
Nor is it without interest to note how, even in the
* The resemblance is worked out with great fulness in Bahr's
Treatise on the Symbolism of the Tabernacle, " Symbolik," i. p. 446.
t The seven main branches thus formed, like the seven lamps
before the throne in Bev. v. and vi., and the seven golden candle
sticks in Bev. i., represent the gifts of the Spirit in their manifold
variety and Divine perfection. See Bahr's " Symbolik," i. 443.
X The number of these has been calculated at from sixty-six to
seventy.

THE TREE OF LIFE. 63
earlier stages of the world's history, the Apocalyptic
words have been found true, and the leaves of that
tree have been for the healing of the nations. Echoes
of that primeval truth meet us in the religious tradi
tions of many ancient races, and we may well hope
that in the midst of the gradually thickening dark
ness it served to keep alive some reminiscences, and
to waken some thoughts which could not have been
wholly fruitless. Again and again in the monuments
of Egypt do we find this Tree of Life with many
branches and many fruits. Often from the midst of
its leaves and boughs a female arm is stretched (the
Wisdom of the Book of Proverbs?), pouring from a
golden urn streams of living water into the thirsty
lips of men and women and children.* Sometimes,
as if recognising a wider and more universal blessed
ness, even the stranger and the slave are seen
catching up some of the drops that trickle down as
from the overflowing stream which is bestowed upon
the wise and good. And it is the same more or less
with the hieroglyphs of other nations. On the ruins
of the great Assyrian cities which have been recently
laid open and brought among us, we find everywhere
the sacred tree, obviously the most holy of all
symbols, beneath which kings and priests stand in
veneration.! The religion of the Zend-Avesta looks
also to a mysterious tree as connected with all the
life, and joy, and blessedness which belonged to the
* Compare M. de Bunsen's " Keys of St. Peter," p. 418. What
ever judgment we may form of the inference drawn from it, the fact
that this representation is found, as I have described, remains unaf
fected, and is unquestionably at once interesting and suggestive.
t This has been made familiar to English readers partly by Mr.
Layard's book on Nineveh, yet more so by its being the device
chosen for the back of Dr. Smith's well-known " Dictionary of the
Bible."

64 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
kingdom of Ormuzd.* Even in the tree- worship of
Buddhism, in the legend which connects the sacred
fig-tree with its founder's attainment of that supreme
wisdom by which he became One with the impersonal
Intelligence of the universe, which he strangely
identified with the highest blessedness attainable by
man, we may possibly trace a dim, distorted refrac
tion of the beauty of the original symbol. -[•
Christian art and poetry have, as might be ex
pected, taken up the symbol, and developed it into
new and profounder meanings. The accursed tree
— the tree of shame and contumely and condemna
tion, of agony and death — this has been seen to be,
in the mystical imagery of the Apocalypse, as the tree
of life. Of the cross of Christ it is true that a man
may put forth his hand and eat of the fruit thereof,
and live for ever. The leaves of that tree, the
indirect influences, the remoter workings of the
truth which it shadows forth, " are for the healing
of the nations." J
We may not rest, however, in a merely historical
survey of the aspects which this symbolism presents
* " God," it was said, " had enclosed the spirit of the prophets,
through which the word and the law were given, in a tree. I
quote, at second hand, from Kleuker's "Zendavesta," through
Bahr, i. p. 448. In the later Persian legends of Firdousi, Zo
roaster was said to have brought a cypress tree from Paradise and
planted it before the door of a sanctuary in Kashmir. (Spiegel's
" Zendavesta," ii. p. 13). So, too, the tree known as the mystic
horn, is called the " destroyer of death," and grows "by the foun
tain of the water of life;"
f In the Buddhist legend the tree was the Ficus religiosa. It
was reverenced for centuries subsequent to the time of Sakya
Mouni, the prophet of Buddhism, as the "tree of understanding."
St. Hilaire's " Bouddha et sa Eeligion," p. 30.
% A whole page might be filled with references in Ulustration.
It will be enough here to mention Bishop Wordsworth's note
on Rev. xxii. 2, in his Greek Testament, and Mr. Neale's Mediaval
Hymns, " Laudes crucis attollamus," p. 140.

THE TREE OF LIFE. 65
to us. It has a permanent, a practical significance.
To every one of us there is the same choice offered
as of old. The Tempter comes to many among us
with the same subtlety. If there be a wisdom of
the serpent, cautious, reticent, judging rightly of
the proportion between means and ends, not incom
patible with the harmlessness of the dove which the
disciples of Christ are taught to strive after, there is
also that which cometh not from above, but is
earthly, sensual, devilish. We still have to choose,
all of us, between the tree of knowledge and the tree
of wisdom, which is also the Tree of Life. At every
step, from earliest boyhood to maturity, in the stir
and activity of man's working life, yes, even in the
weariness or the tranquillity of age, it is a question
of infinite importance for every one of us, which we
are seeking after, whether we eat of the fruit that
" brought death into the world, and all our woe,"
or of that which giveth life and immortality.
The distinction, I need hardly say, does not lie
wholly or chiefly in the subject-matter of what we
know. There are, indeed, regions of knowledge
upon which it is perilous to enter, and which yet
fascinate men's minds with the excitement of a new
sensation and an enlarged experience. Men's eyes
may be opened to look into the mysteries of evil, the
very depths of Satan, to plunge into the foulness of
the foul, or the scorn of the scorner, till the mind is
vexed and haunted as by spectres which it cannot
banish. Of many forms of art and literature it is
true that it were better never to have known them,
or having known, were it possible, to blot them
altogether from the tablets of our memory. The
trail of the serpent is upon them. Men are tempted

66 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
as by one who is more subtle than any beast of the
field — are led to doubt the eternal law of retribution,
that " whoso eats of that tree shall surely die," and
so they are left to the shame and confusion which
belong to a lost inheritance and a forfeited purity.
Their eyes are opened, but it is to see that they are
naked, and they hide themselves among the trees of
the garden, shrinking from that vision of the Holy and
Eternal Presence which beatifies the pure in heart.
But apart from those darker forms of a knowledge
in itself evil, and only obtainable by some forfeiture
in body, soul, or spirit, of our true blessedness,
there are in this world of ours many things which it
is good and right to know, which our intellect seeks
with a natural, blameless craving to comprehend,
which are compatible with a true and holy life,
while yet the knowledge, when gained, falls far
short of the wisdom which is also life. The marvels
and mysteries of the universe — the order of the
stars in their courses — the laws of the mighty forces
which surround us, extending through all space, and
having with each other strange affinities and capaci
ties for interchange of form, the countless types of
matter, organized and unorganized, of natures ani
mate and inanimate, that we see on every side — the
laws and limits of human reason, and the processes
by which we pass from the rude sensations of the
savage to the full-orbed vision of the masters of
those who know — the history in the remote past of
the earth in which we live, of the race to which we
belong — the many languages of the past and of the
present in their laws, their origin, and their affini
ties — the great master-pieces of art and genius which
the world will not willingly let die — the story of

THE TREE OF LIFE. 67
wars and dynasties, and laws and constitutions — all
these things it is good, according to our power, to
study and to know. It were ill done to banish any
one of them from the range of Christian study ;
though of many, perhaps of most of them, we must
be content, for the most part, to know but little.
And yet, if the knowledge end here, it does not sus
tain, it does not comfort, it does not purify. The
lives of men of letters and men of science show that
it hardly seems to raise them above the low ambi
tions and the petty jealousies of life. The wider
vision which it gives, or promises to give, is often
found united with the narrow aims and contracted
sympathies of a miserable selfishness. If it mounts
as to the Alpine heights from which men look out
upon fair valleys and fertile plains and great cities,
and stand at the fountain-head of mighty rivers, and
trace them in their winding course, it brings with it
too often the chill wind that benumbs and narcotises ;
and the light which is without love is like the glare
from the wild fields of snow that first bewilders and
then blinds utterly.
No ! there must be more than this. With know
ledge there must be also wisdom — the temper of
reverence, tranquillity, content, which sees things as
they are in their relation to the eternal life, which,
if it hate ignorance much, hates sin yet more ; which,
if it value largeness of heart as it should be valued,
gives a yet higher place to its purity. Knowledge
puffeth up ; but charity — love, the love which is
part of wisdom — buildeth up. Whatever may be
the worth of a man's work as a labourer in the great
mines of knowledge, even though he contribute new
discoveries in nature, or solve some of the dark

68 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
problems of human history, though the result of his
long years of labour be to add something to the in
heritance which his generation transmits to its suc
cessors, yet, as regards himself, if he has done
nothing more, the work is hollow and unsubstantial.
There is the semblance, but not the reality of growth.
The touch of pain, adversity, disappointment — the
remorse that follows on the sense of a misused life
— the shame and confusion of the thoughts that
accuse each other — these will make short work with
its pretensions, and it will collapse utterly. But to go
on day by day, walking in the light while we have
the light, using the knowledge which God has given
us to his glory, doing his work, not with eye-service,
as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, to perse
vere steadily with all patient continuance in well
doing — this it is to build surely and safely. Every
day we add stone by stone to that edifice of our lives ;
and if it is founded upon the eternal rock, then,
though the rains fall, and the winds blow, and the
floods beat upon it, yet it will not fall.
*** It seems worth while to add to what has been already said
a short account of the form which the identification of the Cross of
Christ with the Tree of Life assumed in the legends of Mediaeval
Christendom. When Adam was at the point of death, so the story
ran, he sent Seth to the gates of Paradise that he might gain access
to the Tree of Life and bring of the Oil of Mercy which flowed
from its branches to anoint his body for the burial. That oil he
was not allowed to have ; it might not be used for man till the
Eedemption was accomplished ; but the cherub that guarded the
gates of Paradise gave him a slip from the sacred Tree, and with
this he returned, and planted it on his father's grave in Golgotha
the centre of the earth, the "place of the skull." There it took
root and grew and became a tree. From it came the wood of the
rod with which Moses wrought signs and wonders in Egypt, of
that which budded in token of the Divine sanction given to the
priesthood of Aaron, of the pole on which the brazen serpent was
lifted up, and finally, that of the Cross itself. See Archbishop
Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry, p. 181, and a poem by Biickert, "The
Tree of Life."

V.

CALEB, THE SON OF JEPHUNNEH.

E are all familiar with the history of the
faithful hero of the tribe of Judah who
shared with Joshua the son of Nun the
glory of having been brave and stead
fast when the other ten who went with them to
search out the land of Canaan proved cowardly
and faint-hearted, — to whom, with Joshua as his
one companion out of all the host that had come out
of the land of Egypt, it was given to enter upon the
inheritance which the rest had forfeited. So far as
the ethical significance of the story is concerned, so
far as we read the Bible narrative for " example of
life and instruction of manners " only, we need not
perhaps go further. But here also, as in so many
other regions of biblical inquiry, there is a history
that lies below the surface, not without its signifi
cance as bearing upon the growth and fortunes of the
chosen people, fruitful also in materials for thought
as we track out the succession of events in that mar
vellous continuity which, in sacred history as in that
which we call profane, knits together events of
greatest moment, and those that are, apparently at
least, trivial. What I wish to dwell on in this
paper is the life and character of Caleb, the son of

70 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Jephunneh, as one of the first conspicuous proselytes
to the faith of Israel.
That he was a proselyte,* and not of the seed of
Jacob, perhaps not even of the seed of Abraham,
according to the flesh, is clear beyond the shadow of
a doubt. In Num. xiii. 6, he appears, it is true, as
one of the chief warriors of the tribe of Judah, and is
chosen to represent that tribe, as Joshua represents
Ephraim, in the expedition into Canaan. But in
Num. xxxii. 12, Josh. xiv. 6, 14, he is described by
another epithet as the " Kenezite ;" and this at once
throws a new light on his position. If we accept the
list of nations given in Gen. xv. 19 — 21, as be
longing to the time to which it purports to belong,
the Kenizzites take their place among the earliest
inhabitants of Palestine, along with the Kenites, the
Kadmonites,the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Ee'phaim,
the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, the
Jebusites. It is remarkable that we have no trace
of their existence as a people at the time of the con
quest of Canaan by the Israelites. They would
appear, i.e., to have been, in the meantime, either
exterminated or absorbed by some other race. The
list of the so-called " dukes " of Edom in Gen. xxxvi.
shows, in ver 42, the name of Kenaz as one of them ;
and hence it has been inferred that the Kenezites as
a tribe were descended from him and took his name.
This, however, assumes the later date of the apparently
earlier chronicle of Gen. xv., and, so far as one may
venture to conjecture in the midst of so much that is
uncertain, it is, I think, more likely that the name
* It is due to Lord Arthur Hervey to name him as having been
the firBt, if not to notice the fact, yet to bring it into the pro
minence it deserves. Comp. his article, "Caleb," in the "Dic
tionary of the Bible."

CALEB, THE SON OF JEPHUNNEH. 71
of the Edomite prince (connected as those princes
were with the wilder tribes of the wilderness) indi
cates some union, or alliance ending in incorporation,
with part of the older tribe, while the other was
drawn towards the descendants of Jacob. It will be
seen afterwards that the close juxtaposition in which
they stand to the Kenites is every way important,.
and connects itself with what we shall be able to
trace in the history of Caleb and his descendants.
It is noticeable that the genealogies of the tribe of
Judah given in 1 Chron. ii., give us the name of an
earlier Caleb as belonging to that tribe. It would
seem probable, accordingly, that the Kenezite con
vert, on his adoption of the faith and reception of the
covenant of Israel, was incorporated with one of its
chief families, and took a name that had already
become conspicuous. The fact of such an accession
to the numbers of the Israelites before the time of
the Exodus, is, as Lord Arthur Hervey has pointed
out, every way significant. It does not stand alone.
Among the children of Ashur the son of Hezron (of
the same family, i.e., as the older Caleb), we find the
name of " Temani," members, i.e., of the Edomite
nation (1 Chron. i. 36 ; iv. 6). The names of the
sons of Caleb, as given in 1 Chron. ii. 50 (" Shobal
and the sons of Manahath "), are identical with
Edomite names in the genealogy of Gen. xxxvi.
20 — 23.* I follow the same writer in noting two other
* I am compelled to admit, with Lord Arthur Hervey, the exist
ence of almost inextricable confusion in the genealogical tables of
the First Book of Chronicles, Names of persons and places are
mixed up together, and what appears to be a pedigree represents,
as far as we can judge, simply local relations. But in the midst of
this confusion, all the more striking, perhaps, because of it, the
connection of Caleb and his house with the Edomites, the Rechahites,
and the Kenites stands out distinctly.

72 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
suggestive peculiarities of expression. (1.) When
we come to the division of the land of Canaan among
the Israelites in Josh. xv. 14, we read that " Unto
Caleb the son of Jephunneh he gave a part among
the children of Judah ;" words which would be strange
and unmeaning, if he had been by lineal descent a
member of that tribe, but which become natural and
appropriate if we think of him as a proselyte.
(2.) That when the same fact is referred to in Josh.
xiv. 14, it is given in the statement that " Hebron
became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh
the Kenezite, because that he wholly followed Jehovah,
God of Israel." The contrast between the foreign
origin and the true faith is dwelt on as calling for
the special pre-eminence. The admission of prose
lytes, as in Ps. Lxxxvii., the blessing pronounced by
Isaiah on " the sons of the strangers who gave them
selves unto the Lord" (Isa. Ivi. 3), are thus, as it
were, anticipated in the earliest records of Israel. It
is clear (1.) that some considerable section of the
Edomite or yet older races were numbered as pro
selytes among the children of Israel ; (2.) that the
tribe of Judah was that which, as in its earlier and
later history — in the intercourse of Judah and his
sons with Tamar, in the marriages of Salmon with
Eahab, and of Boaz with Euth, was the most ready
to open its arms to receive such converts ; (3.) that
this addition to the number of the Israelites, pro
perly so called, is, at least, a partial explanation of
the startling magnitude of the numbers which meet
us in the census of the population taken at the time
of the Exodus.
The list of coincidences, pointing to results which
are at least interesting, and are, I believe, more

CALEB, THE SON OF JEPHUNNEH. 73
important in their bearing on the history of Israel
than has commonly been suspected, has not yet been
completed. (1.) In the genealogy of 1 Chron. ii. 19, 20,
Caleb is described, not as the " son of Jephunneh,"
but as " the son of Hur," the grandson of the earlier
Caleb. The probable explanation of the discrepancy
is that on his reception into the covenant, he, like
later proselytes, was adopted into a family as well as
into a tribe, was registered in formal genealogies as
the son of the adopting father. But, if so, then
there is something specially significant in the fact
that the man who thus adopts him is he who occu
pies a place co-ordinate with Aaron among the chief
tains of Israel, standing at the right hand of Moses
in the first combat with Amalek after the escape
from Egypt (Exod. xvii. 10), the grandfather of the
Bezaleel to whom was assigned the construction of
the tabernacle. The position occupied by Caleb at
once placed him, alien as he was by birth, among
those who were foremost in the government of Israel.
When he is chosen to be one of the twelve spies,
it is as a "prince" or "chieftain." (2.) Both in
1 Chron. ii. 50 — 55, and in 1 Chron. iv. 11 — 17,
there is a close connection indicated between Caleb
and the Kenites, and especially with that branch of
them which became conspicuous as the "house of
Eechab." Confusing and perplexing as the genea
logical tables are, with manifest dislocations and
other errors of transcription, it is yet clear that they
connect the Kenezite convert with the others whom
Gen. xv. 19 shows to have been of a kindred tribe,
and who first, under Hobab, the father-in-law of
Moses (Num. x. 25 ; Jud. i. 13 ; iv. 11), and then
under Jonadab the son of Eechab (2 Kings x. 14 ;

74 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Jer. xxxv.), became so prominent in the religious
history of Israel, and exercised, probably, so great
an influence on its growth. If we believe the
Kenites and the Kenezites to have represented, in
part, the older patriarchal system, and in part the
higher culture which had developed itself in Edom
during the long period of the degradation of the
Israelites in Egypt, it is interesting to trace their
connection with persons and places that played a
prominent part in the events that followed. And
this is clearly the case with the posterity of Caleb.
With whatever allowances for transpositions and the
like, or for the identification of persons and places
so common in Hebrew records of this nature, it is
clear that they are connected in the genealogy re
ferred to with the foundation of Ephrath, the city
to which Samuel's father belonged before he went
to reside at Eamathaim Zophim ; with that of Beth
lehem, the city of the family of David ; with that of
Kirjath-jearim, which served so long as the asylum
of the ark ; with " the families of the scribes," dis
tinctly specified as of Eechabite and Kenite origin.
Was there a Kenite element working in all these
instances ? Did they, as . a recent writer has con
tended, represent the more ascetic, prophetic, mystic
element in the religion of Israel, transmitting the
thoughts which were afterwards developed in their
completeness in the writing of the prophets and the
melody of the Psalms ?*
* Compare M. Ernest de Bunsen's " Keys of St. Peter," ch. 1.
If we go beyond the range of the canonical books of the Old Testa
ment, we get an unexpected confirmation of the conclusion aimed at
in the text. The Jerusalem Targum, whenever the Kenites are
named in Genesis or Numbers, uniformly designates them, not by
that name, but as Salmaites; obviously with a reference to the
statement in 1 Chron. ii. 51, which places "Salma tlie father of

CALEB, THE SON OF JEPHUNNEH. 75
The thoughts which thus gather round the name
of Caleb will give a new interest, if I mistake not,
to the facts of his history. He, the proselyte, before
the time when his name first meets us, must have
been already prominent among the chieftains of
Judah. The affinity of race which connected him
with Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses, and the
tribe of Kenites that followed him, must have given
him a special influence as a link between the two
nations that were thus united. The ties of adoption,
which bound him to the family of Bezaleel, would
tend to make him zealous in his allegiance to the
cultus of which the Tabernacle was the centre. And
so, accordingly, he is chosen as representing the tribe
of Judah, as one of the twelve who are to start on a
difficult and dangerous enterprise. For him it was
a journey to a land which his fathers had once occu
pied, but from which they had apparently been dis
possessed by the spread of the Amorites and the
Canaanites. He was now coming to it as to a
heritage which, according to his natural lineage, he
had renounced, in order that he might claim it as
belonging to himself and to his newly-adopted people.
They journey through the length and breadth of the
land, on to its northern Syrian frontier. They bring
back with them the gigantic cluster of the grapes of
Bethlehem" among the sons of Caleb. This last coincidence, which
M. de Bunsen does not seem to have noticed, gives some support
to his hypothesis that David himself was in some way or other
connected with the Kenite families of Judah. As regards his own
descent, it is, I think, clear that it was, in the male line, purely
Israelite ; but it may be noticed that by his marriage with
Abigail, the widow of Nabal, who was of "the house of Caleb"
(1 Sam. xxv. 3). he became connected with the Kenezites, and that
after his successful raid against the Amalekites, he sends gifts, as
to the cities of Judah, Hebron included, so also to the " cities of the
Kenites." (1 Sam. xxx. 29).

76 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Eshcol,* which was to be a sample of the fruitfulness
of the lands. They spend forty days in watching
the character of the people and the strength of their
fenced cities. Of all that they saw, Hebron was
that which most impressed them with its size and
strength. Inhabited by some remnant of a race yet
more ancient than the Kenites and Kenezites, the
Eephaim, or Giants, the tribe of the sons of Anak,
already venerable for an antiquity which went be
yond that of the oldest Egyptian city (Num. xiii. 22),
it was no wonder that then, as afterwards, it should
have seemed to Caleb and his companions the key of
the whole country. Others were faint-hearted, and
held that it was impregnable against any attacks
that could be made on it by a people of a physique
that had suffered from the debasing effects of slavery
and untrained to any warlike arts. When they came
back to the wilderness of Paran, and told their tale,
the people, who had counted on an easy victory,
gave way to a cowardly despair, even before the
report was brought to its conclusion. They heard
the words, " The people be strong that dwell in the
land, and the cities are walled and very great ; "
and there was an immediate outburst of panic and
confusion. Caleb, and at this point in the history he
alone, " stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let
us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to
overcome it." His associates in the exploration, how
ever, repeated their discouraging reports. The whole
work of the Exodus and of Sinai seemed on the
point of being frustrated : First, there was the de-
* It seems probable that these were gathered in one of the
valleys near Hebron, the district which has, throughout the his
tory of Palestine, been most famous for its vineyards.

CALEB, THE SON OF JEPHUNNEH. 77
spairing wish, "Would God we had died in the
land of Egypt ! Would God we had died in the
wilderness ! " Then there was the natural result of
that backward look, " Were it not better for us to
return into Egypt ?" Then the thought passed into
a deliberate purpose, "Let us make a captain, and
return into Egypt." And then the two who had not
yielded to the first impulse of fear — Caleb the son
of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun — stood
forward against the madness of the people. They
"rent their clothes" in passionate protest against
the rebellious cowardice of the people. They testified
once more that the land to which they had been
sent was an exceeding good land ; that the Lord
Jehovah was able to bring them into it, and give
it them; that the people of the land would be as
"bread" for them to devour. They ended with the
watchword of all true hero-souls, " The Lord is with
us : fear them not." They did this at the risk of
their lives. The first famous proselyte was on the
point of being also the proto-martyr of Israel, " All
the congregation bade stone them with stones."
I do not follow the history of that eventful time,
as it affects the lawgiver and the people of Israel.
I am concerned at present only with its bearing on
the history of the Kenezite convert. And that which
strikes us in this respect is the singular pre-eminence
given to him in the sentence, partly of condemnation,
partly of pardon, of which Moses is made the mouth
piece. Of the people who had tempted the Lord,
and had not hearkened to his voice, it was said,
" Surely, they shall not see the land which I sware
unto their fathers." And then there came what at
first seemed to be (though afterwards the name of

78 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Joshua was added to it) the one solitary exception,
" But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit
with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I
bring into the land whereinto he went, and his seed
shall possess it." Forty years afterwards, if we
accept the narrative of the Book of Deuteronomy
as substantially historical, the same testimony was
borne in all but the same words, and with the same
conspicuous pre-eminence (Deut. i. 36).
During these forty years of the wanderings of
Israel in the wilderness, we get no glimpse of the
personal history of the hero-proselyte of the tribe of
Judah. One by one he must have seen the genera
tion which had come with him out of Egypt pass
away, and another take its place. The Edomite
associations which clustered round him, if not his
own Edomite descent, must have strengthened the
appeal which Moses made to the king of Edom
(Num. xx. 14), in the name of his "brother" Israel,
for a free and unmolested passage through his terri
tory. If the interpretation of the battle-song from
the Book of the Wars of the Lord in Num. xxi. 16,
which has been given in a former paper (p. 43),
be correct, he must have been among the chieftains
of the "lawgiver" tribe who joined in setting
the example of zealous labour, digging with their
staves, or sceptres, the well which was to supply
the wants of the people. He must have taken part
in the wars against Sihon and Og, and seen the first
great fulfilment of his own words, when the giant
population and the fenced cities of Bashan fell before
them. When, as the result of that conquest, the
tribes of Gad and Eeuben, and the half-tribe of
Manasseh, were led to claim a settlement in the

CALEB, THE SON OF JEPHUNNEH. 79
goodly pasture-land which they had thus acquired,
instead of crossing over the Jordan, they were re
minded by Moses that they were repeating the old
sin of which their fathers had been guilty at Kadesh-
barnea, and their thoughts were directed to the con
duct of " Caleb the Kenezite " (a special stress is
obviously laid on the alien origin), as a pattern for
them to follow (Num. xxxii. 12). The prominence
thus given him is heightened by the fact that he,
and not the hereditary prince of Judah, is chosen by
Moses, before his death, to represent the tribe of
Judah in the division of the territory which yet re
mained to be conquered, and that his name stands at
the head of the whole list, the tribe of Judah in his
person taking precedence of the others (Num. xxxiv.
19). If we remember that he had seen, and that
Moses, so far as we know, had not seen the land in
question, the minute description which we find in
the same chapter may fairly be thought of as coming
from Caleb himself (Num. xxxiv. 1 — 12).
During the earlier stages of the conquest of Canaan,
his name does not appear ; but when the time came
for dividing the conquered country, the old hero,
now at the age of eighty- five, appeared before Joshua
and Eleazar, and reminded them of the long-past
days of Kadesh-barnea, and of the promise of Moses
that the land which his feet had trodden should be
his inheritance, because he had "wholly followed
the Lord his God." He warmly speaks of himself
as one whose strength for war has not yet failed :
"Lo, I am this day fourscore and five years. As
yet, I am as strong this day as I was in the day that
Moses sent me : as my strength was then, even so is
my strength now, for war, both to go out and to

80 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
come in." And his wishes turn now, as they had
done forty-five years before, to that "mountain
whereof the Lord spake on that day," to the " great
and fenced" city, where dwelt the Anakim, to
Hebron, where slept, in the cave of Machpelah, the
bones of the three great forefathers of Israel, of
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. And so the oldest
city of Palestine, perhaps one of the oldest cities in
the world, passed into the hand of the Kenezite,
precisely on the ground that he, the proselyte, had
"wholly followed the Lord" with a more perfect
heart than the children of Abraham according to the
flesh. A pledge was given, even thus early in the
history of the people, that " God was no respecter of
persons ; " that " many should come from the east
and from the west, and sit down with Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God."
It is every way noticeable that the city which
Caleb asked for still remained to be conquered.*
He had to drive thence the three sons of Anak, the
chieftains, that is, of the old giant race who made
Hebron their head-quarters ; and they took refuge
in the cities of the Philistine, to meet us once again
in the history of Goliath, and the other sons of the
giants, with whom David and his followers fought.
These are, it will be remembered, distinctly con
nected with Gath in 1 Sam. xvii. 4, 2 Sam. xxi.
15 — 22. From Josh. xii. 21 — 23, we learn that
Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod, the three Philistine cities,
were those in which the Anakim found refuge after
* Josh. x. 36 — 39, it is true, represents both Hebron and Debir
as taken at an earlier period. If we are anxious to reconcile the
two statements of a record where there is manifestly so much, both
of anticipation and repetition, we must assume that after the first
conquest; it fell again into the possession of the Anakim population.

CALEB, THE SON OF JEPHUNNEH. 81
Joshua's conquest. Jerusalem as yet remained in
the partial possession of the Jebusites ; and this left
Hebron in every way the chief city of the tribe. It
is significant of the relations that existed between
the Kenezite and the priesthood, that it was also
assigned, with its suburbs, to the sons of Aaron, to
be one of the six "cities of refuge" (Josh. xxi. 13) ;
while the " fields of the city and the villages there
of" were the special inheritance of Caleb. This,
however, was not the close of the history of the
Kenezite. Another of the same race, probably the
younger brother of Caleb, appears on the scene.
Another city, near Hebron, Kirjath-Sepher, came
within the limits of the territory assigned to him ;
and this still remained unconquered. Its name
(City of Scribes, or City of the Book) seems to indi
cate that it was the centre of an ancient civilisation,
inhabited by some sacerdotal or lettered caste. So
Caleb, in his eagerness to gain it, offers the hand of
his daughter Achsah to any warrior who shall ob
tain possession of it, and the prize is claimed by
Othniel.* It is followed, as in the striking story,
breathing in every word the spirit of a remote an
tiquity, by the grant with it of the " upper and
the nether springs," that the city might not be, in
every sense of the word, a barren and unfruitful
heritage. The story, it will be remembered, is twice told.
When we meet with it the second time, it is in close
conjunction with another fact, and the connection is
* The question whether Othniel was the brother or nephew
turns upon the construction of the words, ambiguous in Hebrew as
in English, which describe him as "the son of Kenaz, Caleb's
younger brother." I follow the interpretation adopted by Lord
A. Hervey. G

82 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
every way significant. " The children of the Kenite,
Moses' father-in-law," who had previously pitched
their tent on the site of the city of Palm-trees
(Jericho), now go with the children of Judah into
the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of
Arad, and dwelt among the people (Jud. i.). They
were obviously attracted by the presence and power
there of the Kenezites, who were so closely con
nected with them by race, and who with them, but
more entirely, had been received into the covenant
of Israel. A portion of these Kenites migrated,
under Heber, to Kedesh-Naphtali, in the north (Jud.
iv. 11) ; but the greater part remained in the district
which they then chose. They are there when Saul
bids them separate themselves from the Amalekites,
whom he was commissioned to destroy (1 Sam.
xv. 6) ; when David tells Achish that he has in
cluded them in the tribes which he attacked to the
south of Judah (1 Sam. xxvii. 10) ; when he sends
gifts to them (1 Sam. xxx. 29), before he takes
Hebron as the seat of his kingdom. And these are
clearly the Kenites, who are connected so closely
with the posterity of Caleb, and with the cities of
Bethlehem, and Kirjath-jearim, in the genealogical
tables of 1 Chron. ii. 50 — 55, who were represented
afterwards by the name of the hermit-prophet who
made their race illustrious, Jonadab, the son of
Eechab. But the name of Othniel was destined to be yet
more memorable as the first of the judges of Israel,
the first champion of the people against the oppres
sion of the invader. When the armies of Chushan-
rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, swept over the
lands, and the people paid the penalty of their apos-

CALEB, THE SON OF JEPHUNNEH. 83
tasy to Baalim and Ashtaroth by eight years of
bondage, " the Spirit of the Lord came upon him ;
and he judged Israel and went out to war ; and the
Lord delivered Chushan-rishathaim into his hand "
(Jud. iii. 8 — 11). The chosen "deliverer" of the
people, specially inspired to do the work at once of a
ruler and a general, was the Kenezite who, because,
like his brother, he had " followed Jehovah wholly,"
was thought worthy of so high a calling. We can
not wonder that the descendants of one so famous
should long have been held in honour. It is inter
esting to find that, as far down in the history as the
period represented by the Book of Judith (the time
of Nebuchadnezzar, if we look to the events which
it relates — probably of the Maccabees, if we look
to the date of its composition), the name of
Othniel, under the Grecised form of Gothoniel
(Judith vi. 15), should be found among the governors
of Bethulia.
The distinct history of the two Kenezites closes
with the death of Othniel ; but it is clear, as I have
already stated, that their posterity exercised a lasting
influence on the fortunes of the tribe of Judah, and
that they were connected in some way with its chief
cities. And when the time came when the other
chief house of the tribe of Judah was to rise to a new
power, and the rod out of the stem of Jesse first be
came a great tree, so that the tribes of Israel lodged
under the shadow of its branches, it is significant
that the first city which David, guided by the high
priest's oracular answer (2 Sam. ii. 1), chose as the
capital of his kingdom was Hebron, the city of the
Kenezites, the city of the priests. His own city
Bethlehem was clearly connected by some close ties

84 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
with the house of Caleb (1 Chron. ii. 52). So also
was Kirjath-jearim, the city where the ark found
shelter under the reverent care of Abinadab and
Eleazar (1 Sam. vii. 1 ; 1 Chron. ii. 51). So too
were the " scribes that dwelt at Jabez," connected,
probably, as the names that follow seems to indicate,
with the worship of the Temple.* So, lastly, were
the Kenites of the house of Eechab (1 Chron. ii.
53—55). Two inferences seem to be suggested by the result
of this inquiry : —
1. We learn to form a truer estimate of the earlier
stages in the history of the people who were to be
the religious teachers of mankind. We see how,
from the first, instead of being narrow and exclusive,
it opened its arms to those who would receive its
faith; how the Lord whom they worshipped gave
even then to the " sons of the stranger " who were
faithful, a place in his inheritance higher than that
of the sons of Abraham according to the flesh. The
history of Israel thus became, so to speak, a con
fluent history, gathering together the traditions and
the influences of those who followed the great father
of the faithful in his witness against the polytheism
and idolatry of the nations round them. There were
multiplied, in this way, points of contact through
which, while still remaining a separate people, they
were able to exercise some influence on their imme
diate neighbours. A gate was thrown open by this
admission of the first proselyte to the full preroga
tives of Israel, which no man afterwards could shut,
* So in the Vulgate rendering the verse is rendered "the families
of the scribes that dwell in Jabesh, that sing and play on instru
ments of music, and dwell in tabernacles." Comp. the article
" Bechabites," in the " Dictionary of the Bible," vol. ii.

CALEB,- THE SON OF JEPHUNNEH. 85
which was, in the order of God's providence, to be
thrown open more and more widely. Caleb, the son
of Jephunneh, remote as the connection may at first
appear, is the spiritual ancestor of Ebed- Melech the
Ethiopian, and of Cornelius the centurion.
2. I do not wish to lay any undue stress on a
single point of evidence, where there is so much that
is cumulative in its nature, so much indirect testi
mony, so many undesigned coincidences. But it
will have been felt, if I mistake not, that the con
sistency of these scattered notices of a family, not of
the race of Israel by birth, found as they are in dif
ferent portions of the Pentateuch and the Books of
Joshua and Judges — a consistency in facts so much
below the surface as itself to have escaped the notice
of most commentators, while others have refused to
admit their true significance, leaves an impression
that the books in which they are found cannot be
altogether the invention of a later age. Whatever
changes of form and structure they may have under
gone in the process of what we should call editorship,
these notices, and the history in which they are im
bedded, are clearly fragments from a remote past.
Nothing would have been more unlikely than for the
scribes of the time of Samuel, or David, or Hezekiah,
or Ezra, to dwell upon the past glories of the fami
lies of the Kenezites. But that history, the story of
Caleb's faithfulness and its reward, is bound up in
separably, if not with the present form of the Pen
tateuch, at all events with the substance of its history,
with the facts of the Exodus, with the wanderings
in the wilderness, with the victories over Canaan.
Over and above the ethical lessons which it teaches
— and they are deep and fruitful enough to reward

86 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
those who take them to their hearts — the history of
Caleb the son of Jephunneh may serve to deepen the
foundations of the faith of which he was an example,
by leaving with us the conviction that here also we
have not followed any " cunningly devised fables."

VT.
THE EEVOLT OF ABSALOM.*
IHE broad outlines of this dark episode
in the life of David are familiar enough
to most of us. We trace the righteous
retribution by which sin was made the
punishment of sin. We see the long, sad proces
sion as it winds up Olivet, the grey, discrowned
king weeping as he went. We hear the bitter
cry of the father who refuses to be comforted,
from whose lips there comes only the long, wailing
cry, " 0 Absalom, my son, my son, would God I had
died for thee ! 0 Absalom, my son, my son ! "
The history deserves, however, a closer study. In
its causes, its progress, its results, the motives of the
chief actors in it, the plots and counterplots which it
involved, it brings before us a revolution half-
* It has not been thought necessary in this paper to give refer
ences to the chapters (2 Sam. xiii. — xix.) upon which the narrative is
based. To do so would have been to encumber the page with them
at almost every sentence. They have been given, however, where
other passages of Scripture help to explain or illustrate. To another
book, for a like reason, it is more convenient to make a general re
ference at the outset, than to acknowledge stop by step the many
obligations which I owe to it. What is here attempted is little
more than a combination in one narrative of what may be found
under the names of persons and places in Dr. Smith's " Dictionary
of the Bible," and I can desire nothing better than that the readers
of this paper should refer to the articles, chiefly by Dean Stan
ley and Mr. Grove, to measure for themselves the amount of what
I owe to them. A like general acknowledgment must be made to
the " Scriptural Coincidences" of the late Professor Blunt.

88 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
accomplished, which, if it had been successful, would
have changed the whole course and character of
Jewish history, which, abortive as it was, was too
closely intertwined with the fortunes of the Psalmist
King of Israel, and had too prominent a place in the
discipline of his life, to be passed over heedlessly.
What was it, we may ask, in the first place, that
made such an attempt possible ? A king gathering
round him, as David had once gathered, the love
and sympathy of his people, firm, vigorous, politic,
maintaining order and redressing wrongs, would
have left no opening for it. If the rash ambition of
an impatient prince had prompted him to enter on
such an enterprise, it would have been crushed in a
moment. It would not have driven the king into
exile or endangered the safety of his throne. But
the fact may not be concealed, that the character of
David had altered for the worse. The dark sin of
which he had been guilty spoke of a character that
had lost its self-control, its truthfulness, its gene
rosity. His penitence for that sin — true and bitter
as the accents of the fifty-first Psalm, and yet more,
perhaps, of the thirty-second, prove it to have been
— was not able (what repentance is ?) to undo all its
consequences, and to bring back the old energy and
life. Over and above its direct results in alienating
(as we shall see) the hearts of his most trusted
counsellors, and placing him at the mercy of a hard
task-master, that dark hour left behind it the penalty
of an enfeebled will, the cowardice of a hidden crim«,
the remorse which weeps for the past, yet cannot
rouse itself to the duties of the present. He leaves
the sin of Amnon unpunished, in spite of the fearful
promise it gave of a reign of brutal passion, because

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 89
"he loved him, for he was his first-born."* Half
suspecting, apparently, that Absalom had some
scheme for revenging the wrong which he had failed
to redress, he has no energy to stop its execution.
He shrinks only from being present at a meeting
the meaning and issues of which he does not com
prehend, and yet dimly fears. When the exag
gerated report is brought back that Absalom had
slain all his brothers, sure sign, if it had been so,
that he was claiming the throne, and inarching to it
through the blood of his kindred, David's attitude is
that of passive, panic-stricken submission. " The
king arose, and tore his garments, and lay on the
earth." But a greater fault remained, to which,
more than to any other, we may trace the alienation
of the people. The policy which Absalom adopted
could not have been possible but for his father's fatal
neglect of the one great duty of an Eastern king —
that " sitting in the gate," as he himself had done
till lately, as Solomon did after him, to do judgment
and justice, to hear the complaints of any, however
humble, who had suffered wrong. Failing also, as
he did, to appoint any representative to take his
place, it was no wonder that the hearts of the people
should turn to one who had the cleverness to offer
his own services to fill up the gap which they felt so
keenly. Partly absorbed, it may be, in the plans
and preparations for the Temple which he was not
to build (2 Sam. vii. 2, 13 ; 1 Chron. xxix. 2), partly
looking to the future, with a sad foreboding of the
evils which the prophet had foretold (2 Sam. xii. 11),
* The words of the Septuagint Greek translation of 2 Sam.
xiii. 21, made about the year b.c. 271, and implying, of course, a
Hebrew original then extant.

9Q BIBLICAL STUDIES.
he shut himself up in the recesses of his palace. No
public procession or state ceremonial gave Absalom
any opportunity to see him (2 Sam. xiv. 28). None
but priests and ministers of state had access to
him. The influence of Joab and Bathsheba was
paramount. Not the armies of Israel, but the
Cherethites and Pelethites, mercenary troops of alien
origin, were his chosen body-guard. Foreigners,
Ammonites (1 Chron. xi. 39), men -of Gath (2 Sam.
xv. 19), Archites (Ibid. 32), Moabites (1 Chron.
xi. 34), were among his commanders and counsellors.
We cannot wonder that the national, the military,
the lay feeling of the people should be stirred up
against a king who must have seemed to them given
up to the influence of priests and prophets, of
foreigners and women.
On the other side, there was a rival with all that
could fascinate the affection of an Eastern people.
A kingly grace and beauty seem indeed to have
been hereditary in the family of Jesse. The elder
brothers of David, if the prophet had looked only on
the outward appearance, might each have seemed
worthy of a kingdom (1 Sam. xvi. 6). David him
self was " ruddy and of a beautiful countenance, and
goodly to look to" (1 Sam. xvi. 12). Adonijah is
described afterwards as "very goodly" (1 Kings i.
6). Solomon, if we may apply to him in their first
historical meaning the language of the Song of
Songs, must have been the " standard bearer," the
" chiefest among ten thousand," the " altogether
lovely" (Song of Sol. v. 10, 16). But Absalom bore
away the palm even in that noble race. "In all
Israel there was none to be praised for his beauty"
like him. " From the sole of his foot even to the

THE RE VOL T OF ABSALOM. 9 1
crown of his head there was no blemish in him."
The child of a marriage which it had been the policy
of David to contract during his reign at Hebron, in
order to secure the alliance of a neighbouring prince,
the King of Geshur, he was, so far as we know, the
only son of David who, on his mother's as well as his
father's side, belonged to a royal house (2 Sam. iii.
3), and so far he started with this advantage even
over his two elder brothers. The very name which
David gave him (Absalom- — father of peace), almost
identical in meaning with that which was afterwards
given to Solomon, indicated the hopes with which
his birth was hailed, and prepare us for the deep,
tender love which was shown even to the end.
Of his life up to the time of the dark and shame
ful history of Amnon's guilt we know but little. It
lay in the nature of the case that he should bear
some part in his father's victories over neighbouring
nations. The young, handsome hero, with his long,
flowing hair, golden yet dark, it may be, like his
father's (1 Sam. xvi. 12) and his brother's (Song of
Sol. v. 11), must have been conspicuous among the
soldiers of Israel, who told with wonder of "his
exceeding beauty," of the very weight of his bushy,
streaming locks. He must have taken his place
among the sons of David who were " chief rulers,"
to whom, if we give the Hebrew word the meaning
which it usually bears, were assigned some functions
more or less liturgical in solemn ceremonials (2 Sam.
viii. 18).* He married, probably about the age of
twenty, and had three sons and one daughter. The
* The Hebrew word Cohanim, elsewhere translated Priests, is
here, in the Authorised Version, rendered "chief rulers." See,
however, the article " Priests," in Dr. Smith's "Dictionary of the
Bible."

92 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
sons are not named, probably as having died in their
infancy (2 Sam. xviii. 18). The daughter inherited
her father's beauty, and was named after his much-
loved sister, Tamar (2 Sam. xiv. 27). But at the
age of twenty-seven or twenty-eight, he found him
self with no son upon whom his hopes could fasten.
There is something piteous in the sense of bereave
ment which leads him to cheat his sorrow with the
vision of a posthumous fame. Absalom's pillar
pointed, we may well believe (2 Sam. xviii. 18), as
it rose in the king's dale, to the secret source of his
ambition and his crimes. He had been denied the
blessings which fall to a father's lot, and had no son
to "keep his name in remembrance." The strongest
yearning of an Israelite's heart was thrown back
upon itself, after a short-lived joy, and his feelings
towards his own father were turned to bitterness
and hate.
The revenge which he took for the foul wrong
that his sister had suffered at the hands of Amnon,
did not shock the men of Israel as it shocks us. To
him, by the feeling of all Oriental nations, belonged
the special guardianship of her honour : and subtly
as the punishment was inflicted, it was nothing more
than the monstrous turpitude of the guilt deserved.
Had David been truer to his kingly calling, instead
of passing the crime over with a weak sorrow, and a
yet weaker leniency, there would have been no
occasion for the vengeance which Absalom felt him
self forced to take. The two long years of waiting
which followed on his revenge, must have been a
time in which disappointment, irritation, bitterness
against his father, were gaining, slowly but surely,
the mastery over him. As it was, the death of

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 93
Amnon left him (with the exception of Chileab, the
son of Abigail, who never appears to have been in
any way conspicuous (2 Sam. iii. 3), the eldest of the
royal house, and yet there is forced upon him a life
of exile. We know, indeed, through the record of
the sacred historian, how his father's heart yearned
to go forth after Absalom, but it does not follow that
Absalom himself knew it. All that came to his
knowledge, it may be, was the fact that the whole
nation was complaining of his father's harshness in
not bringing back his " banished one," that it was
necessary to have recourse to schemes, and disguises,
and parables, as in the case of the widow of Tekoah,
to bend the sternness of his resolve ; that when he
did return, there was no welcome such as might
have opened once again the fountains of a filial love,
nothing but the cold command, "Let him turn to
his own house, and let him not see my face." The
motive of David may have been the wish to carry
further the discipline of disapproval, to wait till his
son was more manifestly penitent. The end showed
how fatal that policy of expectation was, how terribly
it added bitterness to the sense of alienation that
had already been growing only too strong within
him. It must have been even more difficult for him, as
it is at first for us, to understand the conduct of
Joab in this matter. At one time he is doing every
thing to bring Absalom back, at another he will not
even see him, and' meets his advances with a con
temptuous silence. The contradiction was, how
ever, apparent only. Cruel, unscrupulous, crafty,
the policy of Joab, however tortuous it might seem,
was directed always to but one end. To make him-

94 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
self great, powerful, indispensable, was the object of
his life. He had already gained a tyrannous power
over the enfeebled king by his complicity in the
murder of Uriah, and knew well how to use to the
utmost the influence which the possession of that
fatal secret gave him. Might he not, as seeming to
be the only depository of power, bring Absalom also
to his feet, and make him beg and sue for favour ?
It is not till he finds that he has miscalculated, and
that he has to deal with a character wild, impulsive,
passionate, that he deems it necessary to change his
course. It would not do to irritate a prince who did
not hesitate to burn the standing crops of his father's
ministers, if his wishes were not complied with. At
last, after two years of waiting, two years of silence,
misunderstanding, jealousy, the breach is, outwardly
at least, healed. The father and the son met once
more, with all outward tokens of reverence on the
one side, the son " bowing himself on his face to the
ground," with a truer sign in the father's kiss of
returning love upon the other. It was, however, too
late. The mischief had been already done, and had
become incurable. Accustomed to think of himself as
the heir to the throne, Absalom must have seen with
alarm the growing love of David for Solomon, his latest
born, the indications that Solomon, and not himself,
under the training of Nathan and Bathsheba (2 Sam.
xii. 25 ; Prov. iv. 3), was destined to be David's
¦ successor. It would not do to wait any longer. It
was necessary to play a bolder game, if the prize
was to be a crown.

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 95

II.
The first sign of the new course to which Absalom
had now committed himself was, as has been said,
one which, but for the devout apathy into which
David had apparently fallen, would have been im
possible. To gather round him both the state and
the strength of kingly power, the chariots and horses
which gave him at once the nucleus of an army, the
fifty men who served as a king's body-guard, this
was with Absalom, as afterwards with Adonijah
(1 Kings i. 5), the first symptom of rebellion. It
would have roused a jealous or an energetic ruler to
immediate action. But the ground was left open, as
we have seen, for yet bolder approaches to the de
sired end. Inheriting the gifts of ready sympathy
and kindly speech, which had once made David the
idol of the nation (1 Sam. xviii. 5), he presented
himself to the people as the redresser of their wrongs.
Day by day he was to be seen, in the early dawn,
where the king ought to have been and was not, in
the " open place " at the " entering in of the gate,"
listening to every tale of wrong, pointing to his
father's neglect as the source of all the sufferings of
the people ; " None will hear thee, from the king
downward ;" holding out the hope of a better time
when he, if he were made judge, would do justice to
all men, winning, soothing, caressing, " stealing the
hearts of the men of Israel."
For some months, till the end of the third year
after his return to Jerusalem, the game was played
out steadily. At last the hour long waited for had
come — the plot was ripe. Seizing, probably, on the

96 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
very religiousness of the king as an instrument for
his destruction, he assumed himself the character of
a devotee. He, too, following his father's example,
had vowed a vow unto Jehovah in the time of his
affliction (Ps. cxxxii. 1), and that vow must be per
formed. With a subtle refinement of hypocrisy, he
pretended that his thank-offering was for his return
to Jerusalem. Strange as it may seem to us that
Hebron, not Jerusalem, was to be the scene of the
fulfilment of his vow, the circumstances of Absalom's
life might well remove that strangeness in the eyes
of David. In the unsettled state of the early years
of the monarchy, it had probably been customary to
offer sacrifices wherever the king might be ; and
the religion of Absalom's youth had been formed
at a time when Hebron was the royal city (2 Sam.
v. 5). Many sacred associations gathered round it.
It was a priestly city, a city of refuge (Josh. xxi.
11 — 13), the city of the "oak" of Mamre (Gen.
xiv. 13), and the cave of Machpelah (Gen. xxiii. 9).
The king, at any rate was known to have given his
consent. Absalom might go as openly and with as
many followers as he might choose, without exciting
suspicion. He had accordingly invited, besides those
on whom he could count as the ready instruments of
the sudden coup d'etat which he had planned, two
hundred men, representatives probably of the chief
families of Judah, who went with him " in their
simplicity," as if to witness the performance of some
stately sacrifice, — in reality entrapped, to be won
over, if that were possible, to his cause, and, if not,
to be held as hostages to enforce compliance with his
demands. In the meantime messengers who were
in the secret were sent through the tribes of Israel,

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 97
and at a given signal were to raise the cry, " Absalom
reigneth in Hebron."
At this stage of the history a new character ap
pears on the scene, and one whose part in it is a
conspicuous one. "Absalom sent for Ahithophel,
the Gilonite, David's counsellor." Some previous
concert is of course implied in that sending. The
counsellor, the companion, the familiar friend of
David would otherwise have been the last man to
whom the rebel prince would have entrusted the
secret of his conspiracy. The greater his reputation
for counsel, " as if a man had inquired at the oracle
of God," the more would Absalom have shrunk from
all contact with him, unless he had been well assured
that that counsel was at his service. The motives of
Ahithophel for this strange desertion of his master
we are left to conjecture. There may have been
jealousy of Joab, or the natural tendency to worship
the rising instead of the setting sun, or the impa
tience of a hypocrite at the round of religious
services in which he was compelled to bear a part,
affecting a devotion which he did not feel (Ps. Iv.
13, 14). But deeper than all these, there was, we
may well believe, the rankling sense of the shame of
a dishonoured house, the desire to revenge the double
guilt which had been the occasion of that dishonour.
Ahithophel was the father of Eliam, one of the
thirty-seven in David's chosen band of warriors
(2 Sam. xxiii. 4). To that band Uriah, the Hittite,
also had belonged (2 Sam. xviii. 39,) and Bathsheba,
the wife of Uriah, was the daughter of Eliam, and
therefore the grand-daughter of Ahithophel (2 Sam.
xi. 3). Whatever secrecy might shroud the guilt of
David from the eyes of the people, it could hardly
H

98 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
have remained unknown to the friend who shared
his inmost thoughts, who must have watched won-
deringly the outbursts of passionate repentance which
followed on the reproof of Nathan (2 Sam. xii. 15, 21).
And for Ahithophel at least, the subsequent eleva
tion of Bathsheba gave no satisfaction. She might
acquiesce in her own dishonour. He could not for
give the king who had murdered his son's friend,
and had made his son's daughter an adulteress. We
may trace in the counsel which he gave subsequently,
a vindictive exultation. The king should suffer in
kind as he had made others suffer. His remembrance
of the words of Nathan may have been instrumental
in bringing about their fulfilment (2 Sam. xii. 11 ;
xvi. 22).
His adhesion to the cause of Absalom was, at any
rate, accepted as the surest pledge of its success.
" The conspiracy was strong ;" fresh adherents
flocked in from all sides. In the palace at Jerusalem
there was terror and dismay. The king heard that
the people had gone after Absalom, and could not
count on any adequate defence. The one command
he had to give to those who yet remained faithful,
was the cry of alarm, " Arise, and let us flee." The
members of his household, the inmates of his harem
(Bathsheba and Solomon must have been among
them), followed him as he left the city. Ten women
only of the latter were left, probably because they
would have encumbered him in his flight (comp.
2 Sam. xi. 33), in charge of the palace. In the
midst of the general desertion, there were, however,
some who remained faithful. The priests, raised to
a new position by the policy of David, and looking
forward to the completion of the new temple, for

THE RE VOL T OF A BSALOM. 99
which he was year by year accumulating treasures ;
the mercenary troops, chiefly of Philistine origin,
attached to the person of the king, partly by the
real affection with which he still inspired those who
were in close contact with him, partly by the foreign
origin which cut them off from the national sym
pathies of Israel, and made them dependent on his
favour ; these, at any rate, remained steadfast. Un
expected proofs of fidelity came to comfort and
sustain him.
Looked at from one point of view, the conduct of
David at this crisis might appear wanting in energy
and manliness. He does not act as most Eastern
kings would have acted, resolved to crush the re
bellion or to perish. Interpreted by the words
which remain to tell us of the inner workings of his
soul, we may see in it the calm submission of a peni
tent to the discipline appointed for him. He has
sinned. This is the penalty of his sin, and he must
bear it. Out of this temper, so strikingly contrasted
with the hot eagerness of his youth (1 Sam. xxv. 22),
there grows a strange gentleness, an unselfish con-
siderateness for others, a winning and saintly meek
ness which has hardly a parallel to it in the history
of Israel, which draws near to the highest pattern
of all patient and meek endurance. He is reluctant
to draw into the partnership of his dangers the
foreigners who might otherwise find a home in their
own country. His offer to release them from their
ties had, as we might expect, the effect of making
them firmer and more loyal than before. The words
of Ittai of Gath speak of a heart roused to unwonted
nobleness : " In what place my lord the king shall
be, whether in life or death, even there also will thy

ioo BIBLICAL STUDIES.
servant be." He will not repeat the sin of which
the Israelites under Hophni and Phinehas had once
been guilty (1 Sam. iv. 3), and expose the sacred
Ark to the risk of warfare. He has risen above the
low forms of faith which saw in it a talisman ensur
ing victory, and has received the truth of which it
bore witness, the truth of an Unseen Euler guiding
men with a loving hand through the changes and
chances of their life. Solemnly, therefore, with all
his reverence for the symbol and for the ritual which
gathered round it, he sends back the procession of
Priests and Levites. The worship of the Tabernacle
shall not cease. The city shall retain that which
made it holy. If it is the will of Jehovah to restore
him, he will return to both.
We catch, however, at this moment a glimpse into
a policy of something besides mere resignation. The
priests remaining in Jerusalem may render him
more service than by following him into the wilder
ness. Abiathar, as High Priest, possessed the Urim
and the Thummim, and through them was gifted
with a supernatural insight. Zadok, also, was a seer,
divining plans and schemes with a marvellous acute-
ness, even in their earliest stages. If they could
remain in Jerusalem, apparently content to acquiesce
in Absalom's usurpation, much might come to their
knowledge which would be useful for David's guid
ance. Their two sons, Ahimaaz the son of Zadok,
and Jonathan of Abiathar, might, without much
risk, act as messengers to carry the information.
Without the ark, therefore, looking on the priests
as they bore it back over the brook of Kidron, the
king began the ascent of Olivet. Weeping, bare
foot, his head shrouded in his mantle, followed by

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 101
men imitating him in these outward signs of woe,
he and those who shared his flight made their way
up the hill. It was as one long funeral procession
of men wailing over the fall of all their hopes, not
knowing what evil more terrible than any that had
preceded it might come next.
The tidings which at this period reached David,
that Ahithophel had joined the revolt, made the
danger more formidable than ever. He met them
with the prayer which showed how much he dreaded
the subtle wiliness of his confidential minister : "0
Lord, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel
into foolishness." He met them also with a policy
which showed that he could fight that subtlety with
its own weapons ; that the quick resource, the
promptitude in act which had distinguished his
youth, were not yet departed. At the very moment
when he was halting in his march, " to worship
God " (a striking indication of the tenor of his
hidden life), there came up another counsellor,
second only in authority and in ability to Ahitho
phel, occupying, under the title of the king's friend,
a position not unlike that of the chief vizier of a
sultan or caliph. Like others of David's chosen
officers, like Uriah and Ittai, he was probably a
stranger and a proselyte, and bound both by interest
and attachment to the fortunes of the king. As it
was, he came as one who saw in the king's flight a
great personal calamity, with his linen robe rent,
with dust sprinkled on his hair, as if death had.
fallen on his first-born. The king, however, saw in
him one who could effectually aid in working the
counterplot of which the two priests were to be the
leaders. Hushai, in the council- chamber of Absalom,

102 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
fighting treachery with treachery, betraying all he
heard to Zadok and Abiathar,'' would render service
incalculably greater than anything which could
be gained by his presence in the field, or by his
sharing David's exile. He, too, was to return to
Jerusalem and welcome Absalom with a simulated
loyalty. Strange union, this, of faith, meekness, patience,
such as we think of as belonging to the noblest
temper, with falsehood, artifice, dissimulation, worthy
of the meanest. Slowly in the character of any people,
more slowly still in that of any Eastern people, most
slowly of all, perhaps, in that of Israel, have men
risen to the excellence of veracity. We must not
think that the king's religion was a hypocrisy be
cause it did not bear at once the fruit of the spotless
honour and unswerving truth which mark the highest
forms of Christian goodness. The Christian Church
herself has to notice many like inconsistencies among
her crowned martyrs. If Alfred and St. Louis were
free from them, they appear in men whom we must
yet respect— in men whose trials were like those of
David, in Charles I. of England, in Louis XVI. of
France. The arrival of Ziba, as they reached the brow of
the hill, brought at once a fresh succour and a fresh
trouble. In Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan,
the king found one who reminded him of the best
and brightest friendship of his youth. Lamed irre
mediably in his infancy, there seemed no fear of
rivalry. He was a constant guost at the palace.
The readiness and humility with which he accepted
his position, leaving, for the sake of it, the home
which he had found with one of the chieftains of the

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 103
Gilead country, seem to indicate that he inherited
something of his father's loving admiration for the
son of Jesse (2 Sam. ix. 1 — 13). Now, according
to the story which Ziba brought, he had shown him
self treacherous and false. In the general disturb
ance of the revolt, there might be a party, adherents
of the old dynasty, willing to restore the kingdom
to him, as its nearest representative. We know that
afterwards Mephibosheth indignantly denied the
charge, and pleaded his lameness as accounting for
his remaining at Jerusalem. In the absence of any
other evidence, we have simply to set the word of
the master against that of the servant, and to judge
by their previous history. That of Ziba does not
dispose us to place much confidence in him. Origi
nally a slave in the house of Saul, he had risen upon
its overthrow, had apparently taken possession virtu
ally of the lands of Saul, had amassed a fortune,
appeared as a man of some dignity in the tribe of
Benjamin, could boast of fifteen sons and twenty
slaves (2 Sam. ix. 10). By David's recall of Mephi
bosheth, and the grant to him of the lands he would
have inherited from his father, Ziba fell back to his
old status. As a slave, he could hold no property in
his own right. All that belonged to him came once
again under the ownership of the son of Jonathan.
There was everything to tempt such a man to make
a bold stroke to extricate himself from a position so
irritating. The strong interest which he had in
blackening the character of Mephibosheth deprives
his testimony of all value. It is utterly unsupported
by anything in the previous or later history of the
slandered prince. The supplies which Ziba brought
with him were, however, as we may well imagine,

104 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
eagerly accepted. Wine, bread, fruit (probably the
fresh young figs of the early summer), these were
welcome enough to those who had been forced to ex
change the luxury of the king's palace for the rough
life of the wilderness. In his gratitude for this ser
vice, in the impulse of his indignation against the
baseness and ingratitude of one whom he had so
cherished, David fell into the trap which Ziba had
so artfully set for him. The estates of the house of
Saul were cheaply purchased by the slave with the
two asses and their burden of provisions, of which he
had robbed Mephibosheth.
The roads to the Jordan valley, which they had
now to take, led them through the territory of Ben
jamin, and as the fugitives passed along one slope of
a ravine, they were seen by one Shimei of Bahurim,
who, like other members of the house of Saul, had
never forgotten or forgiven the transfer of sovereignty
to the house of Jesse and the rival tribe of Judah.
Surrounded by his friends and fellow-chieftains of
the Benjamites, shouting out across the narrow gorge,
he cursed, as none but an Oriental can curse, with a
foul-mouthed bitterness which David could never
forget, and which, even after he had once forgiven
it, came back upon his thoughts, eight years after
wards, in the hour of death, as demanding vengeance.
Words of the vilest reproach — " man of blood, man
of Belial," murderer and scoundrel — were hurled at
the king's head. Tone and gesture gave a malignant
sharpness to the cry, " Off with you ! — off with you ! "
He taunted the king with shedding the blood of the
house of Saul, and exulted over his present downfall.
Words were not enough. Seizing the stones and
dust that lay on his side of the ravine, he hurled

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. io5
them at David as he passed, as long as the roads
continued parallel with each other.
On David's side of the gorge there were divided
counsels. Abishai, the rough soldier, meets reviling
with reviling. As he had once before urged David
on to the murder of Saul, so his first impulse is to
take vengeance now. He will dart down, rush to
the other side and bring back the head of the " dead
dog" (no word of scorn could go further) who had
thus dared to curse the king. Here the better side
of David's character comes out. With a phrase
which, repeated as it is afterwards, seems to have
been an habitual, almost a proverbial expression of
impatience, he answers simply, " What have I to do
with you, ye sons of Zeruiah?" In the profound
feeling that nothing happened by chance' — that all
that was falling on him — the greater evil of his son's
disloyalty, the lesser evil of the Benjamite's curse —
were part of the punishment he had deserved, of the
discipline which he needed — he does not shrink from
speaking even of those foul reproaches as coming in
some sense from God. " The Lord hath said unto
him, Curse David." " Let him curse, for the Lord
hath bidden him." Now that the curse has come,
the lesson which it teaches is, for the time, at least,
patience and forbearance. That may win favour
while anger will but increase his guilt. " It may
be that the Lord will look on mine afflictions, and
that the Lord will requite me good for his cursing
this day."
So the travellers went on. The roads diverged.
The curses died away. The stones fell short of
their aim. The evening closed on that long day of
weariness and sorrow — the dreariest day that David

106 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
had ever known ; and he and the partners of his
exile rested for the night. The loaves, and fruit,
and wine of Ziba's bringing must have formed their
evening meal.
We have seen during the day the changes of
mood and feeling, mostly noble and true, sometimes
not wholly free from blame, which passed over
David's soul. It is given to us to enter, as in the
watches of the night, into the inner sanctuary of
his heart, and to see, with a distinctness which has
hardly any parallel in the history of other dethroned
or suffering kings,* the process of purification. In
Psalms which the freest criticism of our own time,t
not less than the traditions of the Jewish Church,
assigns to this period, almost to this very day of
David's life, we hear the prayer which followed that
day of shame, that short and broken rest. It is no
bold imagining to think of him as waking, after his
manner, before the first streaks of light were seen
in the eastern grey, preventing the very " night
watches" of the dawning day (Ps. xiii. 6), and
seizing on the hour of calm before the second day's
march began, to think out, and it may be to write,
the hymn which was to carry comfort through well-
nigh three thousand years to the hearts of sufferers.
Every word of that third Psalm speaks with a won
derful distinctness of the facts of the previous day's
experience. He thought of the conspiracy that had
grown so suddenly to a head. " Lord, how are they
increased that trouble me ? many are they that rise
* The Icon Basilike, the "royal portraiture " of Charles I., with
its prayers, meditations, aspirations, would be the nearest approach,
if it had been written by Charles.
t Ewald's "Poetical Books of the Old Testament," ii. p. 37.

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 107
up against me." He thought of Shimei's taunt that
he was at last forsaken by Jehovah. " Many there
be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in
God." But not the less did his faith continue firm and
fixed. More than his victories over Philistines and
Edomites, more than his kingly state, that yesterday
of flight and ignominy had taught him that he was
under the care of an unseen Protector. " But Thou,
0 Lord, art a shield for me, and the lifter up of my
head." If he had sent the ark, the token of Jeho
vah's presence, back to the tabernacle on the holy
hill of Zion, stronger than ever was his assurance
that the Lord, "out of that holy hill," had hearkened
to his prayers. Sleep had come with its power to
refresh and calm. " I laid me down and slept, for
the Lord sustained me." The mercies of the past
hours were a pledge for the day that was now dawn
ing, with all its unknown chances and calamities.
" I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that
have set themselves against me round about." To
that Protector he commits himself : "Arise, 0 Lord;
save me, 0 my God." It is as though the victory
were already won, as though that unseen Arm had
" smitten his enemies on the cheek-bone," had
" broken the teeth of the ungodly." The last thought
before the toils of the day began, was that " Salva
tion belongeth unto the Lord : thy blessing is upon
thy people."
We may for a moment anticipate the order of
events, in order to bring the close of that day into
its true relation to the beginning. The fourth Psalm
is as manifestly a hymn for evening, as the third
was for the break of day. The sameness of the
words used, " I will lay me down in peace and

108 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
sleep," is evidence that they were separated from
each other by the shortest possible interval. The
difference of the tense shows what that interval was.
And here, too, we have words which go back to the
special forms of suffering which we have been tracing.
Still his thoughts turn on the curses of Shimei and
his crew, and the treachery of Ahithophel. " 0 ye
sons of men ! " (the word is one of ironical honour
rather than open contempt) "0 ye princes and
chieftains, how long will ye turn my glory into
shame ? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after
leasing ?" For them, if his words could reach them
as they were lying down to rest in the pride of their
successful plots, his counsel would be, "Stand in
awe, and sin not : commune with your own heart
upon your bed, and be still." Let the watches of
the night be given to self- searching, let the voice of
scorn and reviling be hushed in silence. Then,
when that scrutiny and solemn awe have done their
work, and repentance comes, " Offer the sacrifices of
righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord."
Others, friends, but timorous and half-hearted, might
ask the question, "Who will show us any good?"
with no certain hope of an answer. David has learnt
that the answer comes when God "lifts up the light
of his countenance." Looking back either to the
time when he, according to the fashion of Eastern
kings, had shared with his people the rejoicings of
the harvest and the vintage, or, more probably, to
the time so recent when Ziba's welcome gifts had
refreshed his weary, travel-worn companions and
himself, he has to tell of a more abiding source of
joy, " Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more
than in the time when their corn and their wine in-

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 109
creased." Once again he can welcome slumber, " I
will lay me down in peace, and sleep : for Thou,
Lord, only makest me dwell in safety."

in.
Jerusalem had been abandoned by the king to the
mercies of the rebel prince. The great body of the
inhabitants acquiesced, it would seem, in the transfer
of power with not even the show of resistance.
David had been followed only by his own house
hold, and by the foreign mercenaries, and the latter
had probably as little favour with the mob of Jeru
salem as the Swiss body-guard of the French kings
had with the mob of Paris. The flight of David had
done little to enlist their sympathy. It must have
seemed to them almost as ignominious as that of
James II. from Whitehall seemed to our fathers, or
that of Louis Philippe from the Tuileries to the
present generation of Frenchmen. To those who
were not in the secret the presence of Zadok,
Abiathar, Hushai, not less than that of Ahithophel,
must have seemed a recognition, on the part of high
priests and minister, of the new regime. This rush
of homage from the courtiers of a fallen king startled
even Absalom himself. Ahithophel's conduct in
supporting him he could understand, but that of
Hushai, meeting him with the great Eastern form
of our " God save the King ;" " May the King live,
— may the King live ! " this all but revolted him.
Was this the kindness and the loyalty which were due
at once to the king, and to the friend ? The simu
lated baseness of the Archite, however, answered its
purpose. He was ready to raise the constant cry of

no BIBLICAL STUDIES.
time-servers and turn-coats in times of change, Le
Roi est mort, Vive le Hoi! He acknowledged the
king de facto. After the manner of Eastern thought,
he pretended to see in Absalom one whom "Jehovah,
and his people " (i.e., the inhabitants of Judah and
Jerusalem), " and all the men of Israel " had chosen.
" His will I be, and him will I serve." " As I have
served in thy father's presence, so will I be in thy
presence." There was, however, one exception in the midst
of this rush of real or apparent traitors, and it is
one to which writers of Jewish history have, for the
most part, done but scanty justice. One there was
who would not desert the exiled king — who would
not welcome and bow down before his rebel son.
At the very hour when David, too easily accepting
Ziba's slanderous tale, was reducing him to shame
and poverty, he, the crippled son of Jonathan, was
doing all he could in proof of his faithfulness and
love. At a time when such a course could bring on
him nothing but the frowns and disfavour of the
courtiers of the new king, he assumed the dress and
the demeanour of one who mourns as for a father
and a friend. Strange and spectral among the guests
that now tenanted the king's palace must have been
that apparition of the pale, lame form of Mephi
bosheth, still compelled, it would seem, to eat at the
king's table, but coming there with unwashed gar
ments, and feet bare and squalid, and shaggy and
neglected beard. Far enough from that poor cripple
must have been all thought of raising a party, and
gaining a crown in the midst of the confusion.
Much rather may we see in him, one in whom, dif
ferent as he was in outward form and circumstance,

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 1 1 1
there dwelt the very spirit, noble, loyal, true-hearted,
of his father Jonathan, the love which had been
wonderful and true, perpetuated even after death,
and, as it were, reviving in the son.
The first act of Absalom on taking possession of
the city was one from which the conscience of Chris
tian readers recoils as from an unutterable baseness.
Acting on the counsel of Ahithophel, prompted,
as we have seen, as that counsel was by intense
vindictiveness, the son, merging all duties in the
rights of a conqueror, took possession of the father's
harem. Strange and startling as it may seem, that deed
of shame met with no resistance. No voice was
heard uttering its clamorous protest. Jerusalem
and all Israel heard of it, and were as ready to
follow Absalom as before. To them it seemed only
a master-stroke of policy. They saw in it only the
last insult, making all compromise and reconciliation
impossible. The fact is a significant one. It has to be borne
in mind when we would take measure of the long
laborious task of the priests and yet more of the
prophets of Israel in the moral education of the
people. True it was that such accursed unions had
been forbidden in the strongest terms in the law
given from Sinai, but that law had become obsolete,
was apparently little known, and seldom read, and
the people had sunk in this as in other things to the
level of the Canaanite nations whom they had suffered
to remain among them. So little after all did the
teaching of the Prophets avail, that two centuries
afterwards the self-same sin was again common in
Israel, taking its place among the transgressions for

112 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
which Jehovah would not " turn away the punish
ment thereof" (Amos ii. 7). So, at any rate, it was
now. The counsel of Ahithophel was, in the lan
guage of the Historian, " as if a man had inquired at
the word or oracle of God," was, i.e., preternaturally
wise, even if also it was preternaturally wicked. It
placed Absalom and the people in a position from
which there was no retreat.
The malignity of Ahithophel was, however, not
yet satiated. He had avenged the dishonour of
Bathsheba. He had still to avenge the murder of
Uriah. With hardly an hour's delay he urges an
immediate pursuit. He himself will head it. They
will light on the fugitives while they are yet "weary
and weak-handed." He himself too with his own
hands will thrust his sword into the heart of the one
man for whose blood he thirsts. " I will smite the
king only ; and I will bring back all the people
unto thee." The scheme was all but adopted, and,
if adopted, we can hardly doubt that it would have
been successful. But the time was come for Hushai
to play his part. In a speech of unusual length as
compared with the pointed brevity of most Biblical
dialogues, he advocated a policy of delay. David
and his followers were men of war, trained in all its
arts. They might be in ambush and obtain a victory
in some sudden skirmish. That victory would be
magnified by report. Panic would spread through
the army of Absalom, and it would be difficult to
gather fresh recruits. It was better therefore to get
together a great army of all Israel, from Dan even
to Beersheba, and to take the field in force. Then,
in open battle, they were sure of success ; or, if the
king took refuge in some fortified city, they could

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 1 1 3
lay siege to it after the fashion of the time, and pull
down the walls and towers, stone by stone.
The advice had a show of prudence. It came
from one of David's most experienced counsellors,
supposed to be above all others acquainted with his
character. The confident assumption of superior
wisdom in tone and word added weight to the argu
ment. The votes of the council passed over to him.
He gained the delay which was wanted for the
counter-revolution. One result of this victory was the disappearance
from the scene of the arch-traitor. Whether it was
simply the mortification of finding himself second
only where he had counted on being first, the sting
of the defeat now being that it was the continuance
in the council-chamber of Absalom of a long-stand
ing rivalry that had begun in the council-chamber
of David, or whether (as seems more likely) it was
the loss of the moment of revenge, in the hope of
which he had plunged so deep in guilt — this we
know not. All that we see is the first suicide in the
history of the Bible ; * that solitary ride from Jeru
salem to Giloh, in which mortification wrought itself
into remorse, and remorse into frenzy, till at last the
blackness of darkness settled on his soul, and then,
with calm deliberate purpose, he "put his household
in order, and hanged himself and died, and was
buried in the sepulchre of his father."
We cannot wonder that men should have seen in
such a fate a parallel at once to the guilt and the
self-murder of the great traitor to a yet holier and
* The death of Saul, already " sorely wounded," and seeking
only to hasten by one short hour, the otherwise inevitable end,
and so to escape the equally inevitable outrage and torture of the
Philistines, can hardly be considered an exception to this statement.
I

ii4 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
diviner friendship. If, as is at least probable, we
may ascribe to this period of David's life the three
Psalms (lv., Ixix., cix.) which manifestly fit into it
with a wonderful adaptation, we have in them the
measure of the grief, bitter, poignant, burning, which
the treachery caused to the soul of David.
" It was not an enemy that reproached me ;
Then I could have borne it.
Neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself
against me ;
Then I would have hid myself from him.
But it was thou, a man mine equal,
My* guide and mine acquaintance.
We took sweet counsel together,
And walked unto the house of God as friends."
Psalm lv. 12—14.
Well might the sharp feeling of wrong, sharper
than a serpent's tooth, utter itself in words in which
we hear at once the belief that evil must fall upon
the evil-doer, and the prayer that it may fall, and
that God's righteous order may so fulfil itself.
"Pour out thine indignation upon them,
And let thy wrathful displeasure take hold on them.
Let their habitation be desolate ;
And let none dwell in their tents." Psalm Ixix. 24, 25.
" For my love they are my adversaries :
But I give myself unto prayer.
And they have rewarded me evil for good,
And hatred for my love.
Set thou a wicked man over him :
And let the adversary stand at his right hand."
Psalm cix. 4 — 6.
The words meet us, as we know, once again.
They were present to the mind of the Master and
his disciples as they spoke of the treachery of Judas.
Here, too, there had been closest companionship
followed by blackest ingratitude. Here, too, remorse

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 115
came too late, and was but the agony of conscious
guilt and baffled expectations.
We must return from these more solemn thoughts
to the plots and counter-plots at Jerusalem. While
Ahithophel was journeying to Giloh, the two priestly
youths, Jonathan and Ahimaaz, the first of them
already famous for his speed, were making their
way across the country on a very different errand.
They were to carry tidings, it will be remembered,
from the high priests to the king. But it would
not be safe for the sons of the high priests to be seen
leaving the city, and they therefore kept outside the
walls — at En-rogel ("the fountain of treading"),
the resort, it would seem, then as now, of women
who came to draw water, or to wash clothes after
the Eastern fashion by treading on them as they
lay in the running stream. As soon as Hushai
had carried his point, he went to inform Zadok and
Abiathar of his success. This, of course, he might
do without suspicion, but the next step required
caution. Neither the high priests nor any of their
order might be seen going on their secret errand to
the place of meeting. A message therefore was sent
by some unknown female slave, whose presence
among the other women of the city would, it was
thought, occasion no inquiry. Even as it was, how
ever, the precautions were not enough, and their
work was nearly frustrated. A boy recognised the
two sons of Aaron in the place of their concealment,
and carried word to Absalom. Happily, it came too
late. The active young priests had already started
on their way, and had got as far as Bahurim, before
they heard the footsteps of their pursuers on their
track. By a strange coincidence, they found kind-

n6 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
ness and shelter in the very spot where David had
encountered only the revilings of Shimei. Those
very revilings had, it may be, helped to rouse in
more kindly natures, feelings of reverence and sym
pathy ; and the woman of Bahurim was ready
without a moment's hesitation to conceal the two
messengers, because they had an errand to the king.
For them to scramble down the sides of the cistern-
well, for her to cover the mouth with its usual lid,
and the lid with a large heap of bruised corn, was
the work of an instant. When the pursuers came
with the eager panting question, " Where are
Jonathan and Ahimaaz ?" they were met with
the half-comic equivocation, " They are gone over
a little pool of water ! " and finding they had lost
their scent, they went back to Jerusalem. As soon
as they were out of sight, of course, the two couriers
emerged from their hiding-place and made their
way to David.
The news which they brought had obviously
been eagerly waited for. Upon it was to turn the
decision as to his future plans. If there was to be
an immediate pursuit, the only course open to him
,was to find what refuge he could in the hill country
of Gilead, or in the mountains of Ephraim, and
there, in some safe cavern, to renew the old life of
Adullam. The words of the 55th Psalm, already
seen to have grown out of this period of his history,
gave utterance also to this feeling, the earnest,
passionate longing for simple rest and safety.
" Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me,
And horror hath overwhelmed me ;
And I said, ' Oh that I had wings like a dove,
For then would I flee away, and be at rest.
Lo, then would I wander far off,
And remain in the wilderness.' "

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 117
As it was, however, the skill of Hushai had
secured for him the delay which was so precious.
It was now possible to gain a fortified city, and find
time to gather round him a fresh army. He and
his companions, including the body-guard of the
Cherethites and Pelethites, crossed the Jordan and
made their way to Mahanaim.

iv.
In the absence of distinct information in the
records now extant, probably only fragments from
a fuller history, we are left to conjecture what
length of time elapsed before the closing scenes of
the drama, and how it was employed by Absalom
and his followers at Jerusalem. There was, at any
rate, a solemn ceremonial anointing (2 Sam. xix. 2),
in which we are almost compelled to think of Zadok
and Abiathar as taking their ministerial part.
Some weeks must have passed while the messengers
of the new king were speeding over all Israel, from
Dan to Beersheba, to bid the tribes of the north and
the south rally round his standard. Over the army
so collected, a new general was appointed — Amasa,
connected, on his mother's side, with the house of
David, but belonging on his father's to the wilder
race of Ishmael (1 Chron. ii. 17). How well fitted
he was for the work with which he was now entrusted
we may judge from the fact that when the revolt
was crushed, David saw in him one who was able to
take Joab's place, and enable him to throw off the
subjugation which was becoming more and more
intolerable. Of David's progress at Mahanaim, we have fuller

118 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
details. There were many grounds which may have
led to his preference of that city over the other
towns on the Gilead side of the Jordan. From its
name (" The Two Camps"*), we may infer, as in the
parallel cases of our English -casters and -chesters,
that it was well fortified. For seven years and a
half it had enabled Ishbosheth to hold out against
the growing strength of David (2 Sam. ii. 8). At
first, indeed, it might seem as if this very fact would
have been agamst the king's choice. The Gilead
tribes had been firm supporters of the son of Saul,
and they might have been expected to look with
dislike on his successful opponent- — to exult, as
Shimei exulted, in his present calamity. There
were, however, facts on the other side sufficient to
outweigh these objections. At the very commence
ment of his reign, David had specially courted the
favour of the men of Jabesh- Gilead, one of the
leading cities of the district, thanking them for the
zeal which they had shown in rescuing the bodies of
Saul and Jonathan from the hands of the Philistines
(2 Sam. ii. 5). The victory over the Ammonites,
the capture of their royal city Eabbah, must have
been welcomed by the Gileadites as freeing them
from the attacks of a neighbour who had been
formidable before, and required to be kept con
stantly in check (1 Sam. xi. 1 ; 2 Sam. xii. 26).
Those who had been warmest in their loyalty to
Ishbosheth must have felt that David had more than
cleared himself of all complicity in his assassination
(2 Sam. iv. 11, 12). They had had the son of
* The name, in this instance, had a different origin (Gen.
xxxii. 1), but its continuance implied that the city was a " double
camp" in the usual signification of the word.

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 119
Jonathan among them, living for a time in the tent
of a chief sheikh, and his loving reverence for David
and David's kindness to him may have prepared the
way for the reception which was now given to the
king (2 Sam. ix. 5 ; xvii. 27). Lastly, Mahanaim
was a city of the Levites (Josh. xxi. 38), and they,
feeling how closely the interests of their order were
bound up with the continuance of the worship which
David had reorganized, and grateful for the lighter
services and larger honours which they had received
at his hands (1 Chron. xxiii. 25), were sure to be
themselves inclined in his favour, might form no
contemptible addition to his army, and were likely
to influence others.
Proof enough was, at any rate, given as soon as
David arrived at Mahanaim that he had fallen
among friends. Never was there a fuller measure
of the overflowing hospitality of the East. From
the lower arable land came wheat, barley, and flour,
the parched corn and parched pulse fresh gathered
from the now ripening harvest. From the higher
pastures and wood of the Hauran came " honey
and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine," the food
of a people still nomadic. The report had spread
through the country that the fugitives were " hungry
and weary and thirsty in the wilderness," and this
was the immediate result. Among those who were
foremost in these acts of kindness were " Shobi, the
son of Nahash of Eabbah of the children of Ammon,
and Machir the son of Ammiel of Lo-debar, and
Barzillai the Gileadite of Eogelim." Each of these
names, little known as they may at first seem to us,
has a history of its own, and leads, if we take the
trouble to put together facts that we find scattered

120 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
here and there, to a series of coincidences among the
most interesting even of this interesting period.
(a) What was there to draw Shobi there ? David
was the conqueror of his people, and had treated them
after the conquest with unusual harshness (2 Sam.
xii. 31). Should we not have expected here, at any
rate, enmity, or at least indifference ? The facts
which explain the seeming strangeness are, however,
not far to seek. The same woman, Abigail, the
mother of Amasa and sister of Zeruiah, is described
in one passage (2 Sam. xvii. 25) as the daughter of
Nahash, in another as the daughter of Jesse (2 Chron.
iii. 16). Either then we must infer, (1) that
Jesse bore the name of Nahash in addition to his
own, which would only be probable on the assumption
that there were some relations of kindred or hospi
tality uniting him with the king of Ammon, just as
like relationships connected him with the allied
dynasty of Moab (Euth iv. 10 ; 1 Sam. xxii. 3) — an
hypothesis which David's remembrance of the kind
ness shown to him by Nahash at some earlier period
of his life (2 Sam. x. 2) renders probable enough — or
else, (2) that by some chain of events unknown to
us, adoption or intermarriage, the two houses of Jesse
and Nahash had been linked together so closely that
the same woman might be described as the daughter
of each of them. In either case nothing is more
probable than that David, deposing or putting to
death the king, Hanun, who had so foully outraged
his ambassadors, should leave one member of the
family from whom he had once received kindness
in some sort of dependent chieftainship, and that
Shobi 's ready help was the fruit at once of gratitude
for the past, and calculation for the future. The

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 121
calculation was at all events not much at fault.
When Solomon adopted the policy of alliance by
marriage with neighbouring nations, Moab and
Ammon are the most conspicuous after Egypt
(1 Kings xi. 1). Eehoboam his successor was the
son of an Ammonitess (1 Kings xiv. 31).
(b) Machir, again, had many points of contact
with the house of David, and to these we may safely
trace the course which he pursued at this crisis.
(1) He had, as we have seen, given shelter to the
son of Jonathan, and the fact that they had both
shown a father's kindness to the same helpless
cripple could not fail to be a bond of union between
them. Machir may well have heard from Mephi
bosheth the praises of David, David the praises of
Machir. (2) Among the remoter ancestors of David
we find the name of Hezron (Euth iv. 8 ; 1 Chron.
ii. 5), and this Hezron, after becoming by one mar
riage the father of Caleb and the illustrious house
descended from him, became by another, with the
daughter of Machir, the father of Gilead (1 Chron.
ii. 21), the father or grandfather of Earn, the
name which stands next in order in the pedigree of
David. Making every allowance .for the confusion
into which the genealogical tables of the first book
of Chronicles have in some degree fallen, it may, at
any rate, be fairly inferred that there had been an
old family alliance between the two leading houses
of Judah and Gilead respectively, which the sheikh,
who now bore the old honoured name of Machir,
would not be slow to recognise. (3) There may
have been a yet closer tie. Machir, as we have seen,
is mentioned as the son of Ammiel. But that name
appears in 1 Chron. iii. 5, as the slightly altered

122 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
form of Eliam, the son of Ahithophel, and father of
Bathsheba. It is possible, therefore, that the kind
ness which he showed to David may have been
offered as to his sister's husband, though the equal
possibility that there may have been two men of the
same name makes it difficult to speak with greater
certainty. (c) A like doubt hangs about the identification of
Barzillai. If the Gileadite chief of Eogelim were
the same as Barzillai the Meholathite, the father of
Adriel who had married Saul's eldest daughter
(1 Sam. xviii. 17 ; 2 Sam. xxi. 8), we should see in
this case, as in the preceding, an instance of trans
ferred allegiance from the old to the new dynasty.
The fact of his influence at or near Mahanaim
would account for Ishbosheth's choice of it as a
place of refuge. Here, also, David's nobleness to
wards the house of Saul may have exercised an
attractive power. Apart from this, however,*
* I am indebted to a young friend and pupil (H. J. S. Cotton)
for the following series of suggestive hints, tending to establish the
identity. (1) Meholah is probably the same place as Abel-Meholah,
just as Shittim and Abel-Shittim are identical. (2) Abel, "the
moist meadow," implies nearness to a river ; and Judges vii. 22 — 24,
shows that that river must have been the Jordan. (3) Abel-
Meholah appears in 1 Kings iv. 12, as the extreme eastern boundary
of a district of the kingdom, probably, therefore, on the Jordan.
(4) Elijah, on his way to Damascus (1 Kings xix. 19), calls Elisha
of Abel-Meholah, keeping to the east side of the Jordan to avoid
the persecution of Jezebel, just crossing it to call the new prophet
as he ploughs his own land. (5) As Abel-Meholah was thus on
the borders of the Gilead country, the same man might naturally
be at once a Meholathite and a Gileadite. To these, yet another
may perhaps be added. (6) The literal translation of Song of
Songs vi. 13, would give as question and answer " What wiU ye see
in the Shulamite P The dance (meholah) of Mahanaim." Abel-
Meholah is therefore the "meadow of the dance," the scene pro
bably of some festive ritual of the maidens of the city. But if so,
then Bogelim, which signifies "the place of them that tread,"
may well have been identical with or near to the "meadow of the
dance."

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 123
enough remains to make the old chief of fourscore
years a living and real person. Eichest and most
powerful of the chiefs of Gilead, he could look
back to a time when the monarchy of Israel was
still new and untried, when the Tabernacle had
ceased to be at Shiloh and had not yet been erected
at Jerusalem. What he had seen of that monarchy
in its relation to his own province, might well make
him anxious to support it and its institutions. We
know, at any rate, that the influence of the Levites
of Mahanaim made itself felt, and that he allied
himself by personal ties to the sons of Aaron. Long
afterwards, as late as the return from Babylon, a
family of priests were found who gloried in tracing
their descent to a marriage with the Gileadite's
daughter, and bore as their distinctive title the
name of "the children of Barzillai" (Ezra ii. 61).
It may fairly be inferred that the army which
gathered round David consisted largely of the clans
that followed in the train of these three chieftains.
Now, as at the commencement of his reign, we may
think of the Gadites, " men of war, fit for the
battle, that could handle shield and buckler, whose
faces were like the faces of lions, who were swift
as the roes upon the mountains" (1 Chron. xii. 8),
and of Eeuben and Manasseh joining them " with
all manner of instruments for the battle " (1 Chron.
xii. 37).
The army with which Absalom crossed the Jordan
is described emphatically as the army of Israel ;
and where Israel is contrasted with Judah, we may
be quite sure that Ephraim was foremost. The
old tribal jealousy which had shown itself under
Gideon (Judg. viii. 2) and Jephthah (Judg. xii. 1),

124 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
and which was to burst forth again under Jeroboam,
was at work here, and for the time probably Ben
jamin (as in the case of Shimei, and Sheba, the son
of Bichri, the leader of a later revolt, 2 Sam. xx. 1)
followed in the wake of Ephraim. The approach of
Absalom had the effect of reviving the old warlike
energy of the king. That once lion-like heart glowed
for a moment with its earlier fire. He will go forth
with his people, fight at their head, and share their
dangers. Eeluctantly, however, he yields to the
entreaties of his army, with something of the passi
vity of age, something perhaps of the self-distrust of.
one who has forfeited the right to think and act for
himself. So he remains behind, " What seemeth
you best I will do." He stands at the gate of
Mahanaim as the army marches out to battle. One
special command is given to the leader of each divi
sion, to Joab, Abishai, and Ittai, " Deal gently, for
my sake, with the young man, with Absalom."
Of the battle which followed, we have no detailed
account. The very locality is a matter of conjec
ture. Everything leads to the conclusion that it was
fought in the Gilead country, not far from Mahanaim,
and yet it is described as taking place in the wood
of Ephraim, the whole 'territory of that tribe lying
on the west side of the Jordan. Most probably the
forest, hitherto without a name, became famous in
consequence of this very battle, and was known
afterwards as the wood of Ephraim,* just as in
another instance, one of the hills of Ephraim was
known as the mount of Amalekites (Judg. xii. 15),
apparently as having witnessed a defeat of the
* Possibly, however, it may have had the name, as the scene of
an earlier battle (Judg. xii. 4, 5).

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 125
nomadic horde by the heroes of that tribe (Judg. v.
14). The issue of the contest was not long doubtful.
Better disciplined, and under more experienced
generals, the forces of David broke the ranks of the
army of Israel. A hasty flight entangled them in
the dense labyrinth of the forest. Absalom, riding
on his mule at full speed, was caught by the
thick forked boughs of a terebinth, and jammed in
with the violence of the shock so as to be unable to
extricate himself.* How long he hung there we
know not. There was time for some wandering:
soldier to catch sight of him and to carry the news
to Joab, time for the parly in which the son of
Zeruiah sought in vain to tempt his informant to
become the tool of his murderous purpose, time for
him, when that scheme was baffled by the man's
stubborn loyalty, for Joab to make his way to the
tree, and still Absalom was alive. The hour was
however come. With his own hand, as brooking no
delay, Joab thrust three darts into the heart of the
defenceless prince. His ten followers rushed upon
the dying man and finished the work with their
swords. The maimed and bleeding carcase, once so
glorious in its beauty, without a blemish " from the
crown of the head to the sole of the foot," was
thrust into a large pit. They buried him there, not
as a king's son was buried, but " with the burial of
an ass." Not the " pillar in the king's dale," but
the cairn which men piled over the grave of the
accursed (as in the case of Achan, Joshua vii. 25),
was the monument of David's best-loved son. So

* There is, it need hardly be said, no support in the Scripture
narrative for the common belief that he was caught and suspended
by his hair.

126 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
perished the hope of the rebel army. The burnt
crops of Joab were avenged.
It remained to convey the news of what had hap
pened to the king, and from this Joab manifestly
shrunk. The young priest Ahimaaz, knowing only
of the victory, wished to act now, as before, as the
special courier in the king's service ; but Joab dared
not entrust him with the fatal secret, told him
vaguely only that the king's son was dead, and sent
another messenger, Cushi, probably — so the name
seems to indicate — an Ethiopian slave,* who know
ing less, and caring less for David's feelings, would
not shrink and hesitate, as Ahimaaz would, from
bringing out the fatal truth. The son of Zadok,
however, eager and impetuous, will not be restrained.
He must, at any rate, go after Cushi. Knowing the
country better, or more practised in a courier's
work, he is the first to reach the gate of Mahanaim.
There, "between the two gates," in the space, i.e.,
of the thickness of the walls, sat the old king, in
anxious expectation, the watchman standing on the
tower above, and shouting, as he saw any one
approach, to the king below. First one form, then
another, is seen speeding over the plain. The king
seizes on each fact, as it is reported, and catches at
an interpretation. If it is one man only, it shows
that it is a messenger with news, not the return of
straggling fugitives. If it is Ahimaaz, the news
cannot but be good. He hears the familiar joyful
salutation, " Peace be to thee ; " he is told of the
victory which that salutation implied. But this is
not what his thoughts, perhaps his prayers, have
* In the Hebrew the name has the article prefixed, "the Cushi,"
sc. the Cushite, or Ethiopian.

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM.

I27

been dwelling on. Is there peace to the young man
Absalom ?* Ahimaaz, as Joab had foreseen, shrinks
from the fatal word. He gives an evasive answer,
" I saw a great tumult, but I knew not what it was."
The Ethiopian slave then comes, tell the same news,
hears the same question ; and with no touch of
reverence for the father's sorrow, nakedly blurts out,
as if he were the bearer of good news, that which
filled up the measure of David's woe, " The enemies
of my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to
do thee hurt, be as that young man is."
Of all the hours of agony in David's life — of all
hours of merely human agony in the history of the
Bible, that was, beyond all doubt, the darkest.
First, in the loud bitter cry, as he rushed from the
awe-struck crowd of soldiers and messengers and
townsmen of Mahanaim, then from that chamber
of sorrow over the gateway, in the long protracted
wailing of a broken heart, did that agony find vent
— " 0 my son Absalom ; my son, my son Absalom !
Would God I had died for thee ; 0, Absalom, my
son, my son ! " Terrible was it to think that this
was the end of that bright morning of beauty and
joy in which his heart had exulted ; more terrible
still to feel that his own sins had wrought out that
fearful retribution. Had his own life been purer,
that son might have been free from the guilt of
incest ; had he done his duty as a father and a king,
punishing at the right time, forgiving at the right
time, all might have yet been well. And now all
was over. The doom of that great woe was irre-
* It is difficult to render in English the special force which
the meaning of the name gives to the Hebrew question, " Shalum
lana'ar le Abshaldm " — "Is there peace to the youth, the 'father
of peace' ?"

128 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
parable. Of him also it was true, within the limits
of man's vision, that " he found no place for repent
ance, though he sought it carefully with tears."
And yet not the less we may believe that, in that
hour of shattered hopes, and agony beyond words,
when there seemed to have fallen on him the horror
of great darkness, the life of David, all unconscious
as he was of it, was passing through the refiner's
fire, and becoming purer and brighter than it had
ever been in the days of his most glowing victories,
or the moments of his most ecstatic adoration. The
darkest of all human sorrows brings him into con
tact with that which is superhuman. Here, also,
in the truest and deepest sense, the life of David is
a type of a higher life, his agony a fore-shadowing
of the agony of Gethsemane. That passionate cry,
"Would God I had died for thee, — died in thy
stead, delivering, redeeming thee ; " that wonderful
union of a father's righteous hatred of the evil, with
a yearning, ever-deepening love for the poor way
ward doer of the evil, were leading him through
that living experience by which, and perhaps by
which alone, the mystery of Atonement ceases to be
a dogma of the schools, and becomes the most
precious of all realities. So it had been before with
Moses, when he cried in his intercession, " Blot me,
I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast
written" (Exod. xxxii. 32). So it was afterwards
with Paul, when he wrote in his great heaviness, " I
could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, for
my brethren, my kinsmen according to. the flesh"
(Eom. ix. 3). That craving of man's spirit when it
is most after the likeness of Christ, to sacrifice its
own peace, life, blessedness for the sake of others,

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 129
helps us to understand, vain and fruitless as it may
often seem to be (he who makes the sacrifice himself
needing pardon), the perfect sacrifice of the Sinless
One. " With men this is impossible, but not with
God." What kings and prophets desired to do and
could not, that the Son of God did, taking away sin
by the sacrifice of Himself.
David's lamentation on the death of Absalom, no
less than the command so solemnly given as the
armies went forth to battle, speaks however of more
than sorrow. It bears witness of a day of earnest,
passionate intercession. Dare we say that that in
tercession was unavailing ? Was there in those last
hours of struggling life a vision of the darkness of
the abyss, self-loathing, self-condemnation, the re
membrance of earlier days, the return of a child's
desire for pardon, the cry, " I have sinned against
Heaven and before Thee?" We know not. No
voice came out of the dread depths of silence to
reveal his fate to David, or to us. It seemed as
though all hope was gone. With him as with the
thousands in every age who depart and make no
sign, the answer to the question, Is there any hope ?
lies behind the veil, and that veil no man may
withdraw*

* The Jewish Rabbis of a later time, in their strange legendary
way, showed some sympathy with the yearnings of the father's
heart. For each time that the words " My son" came from the
lips of David, one of the seven gates of Gehenna (so they fabled)
rolled back, and with the last the spirit of Absalom passed into the
peace of Paradise. (Bartolocci, " Bibiioth. Rabbinica," ii. pp.
128 — 162.) Augustine, on the contrary, here, as too often else
where, placing himself on the judgment-seat of God, passes sen
tence of condemnation, chiefly, it might almost seem, because he
saw in Absalom's guilt a parallel to the rebellion of the Donatists
against the Catholic Church, and read their doom in his doom
(Contra Gaudentium Donatist. i. 12).

130 BIBLICAL STUDIES.

v.
We have followed this tragedy to its close. To
enter with any fulness into the events that came
after it would lead us into the opening of another
stage of history. Fresh intrigues and plots, fresh
actors in them, fresh outbursts of tribal jealousies
would once again pass before us. It will be enough
to trace briefly the immediate sequel of those who
had been actors in this.
The woe of David spread like a contagion over
his people. The victory was turned to mourning.
Instead of songs and dances and triumphal proces
sions, as was wont (1 Sam. xviii. 6, 7), the "people
gat them by stealth that day into the city, as people
being ashamed flee away in the day of battle." It
was no easy task for Joab by taunts, reproaches,
menaces to rouse David from his prostrate sorrow,
as he lay stretched on the ground, his face covered
with his mantle. At last, however — how pale and
worn and stricken we may well imagine — he ap
peared once again and "sat in the gate." The
courage of his followers revived. The scattered
and bewildered partisans of Absalom could look
nowhere but to him. His return to Jerusalem was
a thing of course. But the king was unwilling to
return till the men of his own tribe, whose trea
chery he had felt most painfully, had given some
proof of their returning loyalty. A message was
sent through Zadok and Abiathar to tell the elders
of Judah of his readiness to forgive. The offer of
pardon and preferment to Amasa withdrew from, the
rebellion the only general capable of maintaining it.

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. 131
The invitation so anxiously expected came, "Eeturn
thou and all thy servants."
The homeward journey began. The representa
tives of Judah waited at Gilgal to receive them.
The king and his followers made their way from
Mahanaim to the ford of Jordan. Before they
began their passage across it, they were met by
the two men who had had most to reproach them
selves with on the day of his flight, and who now
sought, by an affected eagerness, and yet more by
a display of their strength, to conciliate his favour.
Shimei was there at the head of a thousand men, as
one whose support was worth having. Ziba was
there with his fifteen sons and twenty slaves, ap
pearing in his new character as possessor of the
estates of Saul. Shimei's offence was open, and he
came with abject apologies. Abishai, eager for
blood as if Shimei's curses were still ringing in his
ears, again presses for vengeance, and again hears
the old answer, " What have I to do with you, ye
sons of Zeruiah?" David has learnt for the time,
at least, to forgive. No man shall that day be put
to death in Israel. Ziba had no forgiveness as yet
to ask. His object seems to have been rather to
pre-occupy the king's mind against the chances of
detection. He was only just in time. Mephibosheth,
as he probably knew beforehand, was on his way.
Haggard, squalid, sorrow- worn as he had been since
the day of David's flight, so he appeared now, wit
nessing even before he spoke agamst the slander
that had alienated David's heart from him. He
does not ask for restitution or revenge. True to his
noble, saintly nature, all that he desires is to love
and be loved again. " My lord the king is as an

132 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
angel of God : do therefore what is good in thine
eyes." The king's answer is not such as we would
gladly have heard from him, but neither was it so
iniquitous as it has sometimes been supposed to be.
If on the one hand there is some tone of impatience
and perplexity, as of one who knew not which to
believe, and shrank from going into the question
thoroughly, " Why speakest thou any more of thy
matters ? " if the sentence, " I have said, thou and
Ziba divide the land," seems like the rough and
ready solution of that perplexity, it must be remem
bered on the other, that Mephibosheth received
again all that he most cared for, the king's favour,
his old place at the king's table, and the formal re
cognition of his ownership, while Ziba fell back
nearly (probably even quite) to his old position,
looking after the culture of the lands, and paying
as rental half the produce to his master. This was
penalty enough. Beyond this David's recollection
of the services that had been rendered him would
not let him go. And with this Mephibosheth was
content. "Yea, let him take all." The king's
return in safety was enough for him.
We rest with more satisfaction on the parting
scene with the brave old Gileadite of Eogelim. He,
too, is at the ford of Jordan, and crosses over with
the king. But then he turns back to his home. In
vain David offers him a place in his court, a seat at
his table. He is too old to change his free life in
the wilderness for the closer air of a city and a
palace. What for him are the dainties of a royal
table, the singing-men of the king's services in the
Tabernacle, the singing- women of his feasts ? He
has heard of these things, and does not care to have

THE REVOLT OF ABSALOM. ' 133
them. He leaves it to his son Chimham to go and
taste the new life, to witness the wonderful magni
ficence of Solomon (1 Kings ii. 7), to become after
wards as famous as his father for the Eastern virtue
of hospitality, the founder of a caravanserai for
pilgrims, on the road between Bethlehem and Jeru
salem, which continued to bear his name, even
down to the very close of the monarchy (Jer. xli. 17).
So the king and the old chief parted with mutual
tokens of respect. The passage over the Jordan was
completed. The tribe of Judah received back their
king at Gilgal.
Here, for us, the history ends. It has taught its
own lessons. As an actual record of the past it has
its own interest. But here, as in so many other
instances, if we are to measure rightly the magni
tude of that interest, we must ask ourselves what
would have been the probable consequences if it
had ended otherwise than it did ? Only by pictur
ing to ourselves what might have been the state of
Europe had Charles Martel failed to stem the north
ward progress of the Saracenic hosts ; what might
have been the condition of England had there been
no storm or tempest to scatter the ships of Philip of
Spain, can we take a true estimate of all that was
involved in the issue of the battle of Tours, in the
fate of the Invincible Armada. And here, too, the
question, what would have been the history of
Israel if the revolt of Absalom had been successful ?
forces itself upon us, and (difficult as it is to con
struct any history on an hypothesis) demands an
answer. (1) First, then, there would have been all
the difference between a reign like that of Solomon,
opening, at least, with the love of truth, wisdom,

134 • BIBLICAL STUDIES.
right ; a time of culture, commerce, and intellec
tual progress, and one beginning with violence, and
.licence, and parricidal war. The wisdom of Solo
mon, the glory of Solomon, all the thoughts that
grew out of that wisdom and glory would have been
unknown to us. (2) The position of the priesthood
must have become in every way a false one. Either
Zadok and Abiathar, and their houses, must have
continued to play out in sad reality the part which
they had begun in subtle policy, and so the whole
order would have been degraded into the mere tools
of a despotic licence ; or else, if true to their alle
giance, they must have risen in rebellion, taking
with them the sacred Ark, and so, once again,
leaving a deserted sanctuary, compelling Absalom
to do as afterwards Jeroboam did, and to fill up their
places with " the lowest of the people." In either
case, the religious framework of the whole polity
would have been shaken. The priesthood would
have become, more rapidly than it did, contemptible
and base. The rebellion, from its very commence
ment an anti-sacerdotal movement, would have
brought back the lawlessness of the time of the
Judges. (3) More fatal still would have been the
influence of Absalom's success upon the order of the
prophets. They, at any rate, must have remained
faithful to the king whom the great founder of their
school had solemnly anointed, who found in Nathan
and Gad his chosen advisers, submitting at their
hands even to rebuke and shame. They would not
have paid their homage to one who had broken the
great laws of God. A wide schism between the
monarchy and the prophetic order at that early
period, would have been fatal to both. The schools

THE REVOL T OF ABSAL OM. 135
of the prophets suppressed, their disciples scattered,
the training in minstrelsy and song ceasing for lack
of teachers ; this, or hardly less than this, would have
followed from that antagonism. In that case, we
might have known little or nothmg of the history
of Israel. A few fragments of the wondrous story
and ancient laws that gathered round the name
of Moses, a few songs bearing the name of David,
might have escaped the wear and tear of time, but
we should have had an Old Testament (if' an Old
Testament had in that case been possible) without
the Prophets, without the Books of Solomon, with
out a History of the Monarchy of Judah.

VII.

THE EAETHQUAKE IN THE DAYS OF
UZZIAH, KING OF JUDAH.
fjALESTINE, it is well known, lies almost
in the centre of one great volcanic region
of the earth's surface, that, namely, which
includes the basin of the Mediterranean
and the provinces of Western or Central Asia.
Traces of that volcanic action are found in every
direction. The black basaltic rock of the Hauran,
the hot springs of Tiberias and Emmaus and Gadara,
the naphtha fountains near the Dead Sea, the dykes
of porphyry and other volcanic rocks that force
their way through the limestone, the many caves
in the limestone rock themselves, — all these show
that we are treading on ground where the forces
of the hidden fires of earth have been in times past
in active operation. We are, that is, in a zone
of earthquakes.*
Of some of these earthquakes, tremendous in their
phsenomena and the extent of the desolation caused
by them, we have full details, in earlier and even in
* Compare Ritter's " Geography of Palestine," vol. ii. pp.
242 — 244 (English translation) ; Dr. Pusey's note on Amos iv. 11 ;
and Tristram's " Land of Israel," pp. 457, S84.

EARTHQUAKE IN UZZIAH' S Jf AYS. 137
contemporary history. The Jewish writer, Josephus,
speaks of one which occurred B.C. 31 as having
destroyed many villages, and countless flocks and
herds, and human lives, which he estimates (with
somewhat, perhaps, of Oriental vagueness as to sta
tistics) now at ten, and now at thirty thousand.*
Herod and his army, who were then carrying on
war against the Arabs, were only saved by their
being encamped in tents, and so free from the perils
of falling houses. As it was, he had to • combat the
panic and depression which it spread through his
troops, and, with something of a sceptical epicu
reanism, to assure them that these natural phaeno-
mena were not signs of greater evils yet to come,
but were calamities by themselves, having no con
nection with any others that followed or preceded
them. Within the last thirty years again the shocks
of an earthquake were felt over the whole of Syria,
in Beirout, Damascus, Cyprus ; Safed was almost
utterly destroyed ; Tiberias was left little better
than a heap of ruins, and one-third of the population
perished, to the number of a thousand. Eivers for
sook their beds and left them dry for hours. The
hot springs that flow into the Sea of Tiberias were
largely swollen in volume, and the level of the lake
raised, f
One such convulsion has left its impress on the
history of the kingdom of Judah. The first verse of
the prophecy of Amos (perhaps from his own pen,
perhaps prefixed by some early compiler) tells us of
the " words which he saw concerning Israel, in the
days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of
* Ant., xv. 5, § 2 ; Bell. Jud., i. 19, § 3.
t Bitter, ii. p. 348.

138 . BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years
before the earthquake." * The calamity had become
a chronological era by which men reckoned, and the
proof which this gives of the impression it had made
speaks volumes for its destructive character. Neither
in the Books of Kings, nor in those of Chronicles, it
is true, do we find any records of it. They dwell
on the personal calamity which smote the king with
leprosy, and pass over in silence what must have been
at the time far more terrible. In the lost chronicles
of the kings of Judah, from which our extant his
tories were compiled, we should have doubtless found
it registered in the annals of Uzziah's reign. Jo-
sephus,f who seems to have followed some local tra
ditions independent of the Biblical narrative, con
nects the two events together. The earthquake, he
says, happened as the king entered the sanctuary to
burn incense, and the holy place was thrown open by
it, and a bright light like the sun flashed upon him,
and so he became a leper. This is probably erro
neous as to its chronology, but another fact which
the historian names shows in a vivid manner the
extent of the convulsion. A large mass of rock, he
says, rolled down from the mountain on the west of
the city (perhaps from the western side of the Mount
of Olives) and was carried for four stadia (half a
mile) till it reached the eastern slope, and there
stopped up the pathway which led to the king's
gardens. Two centuries later it still dwelt in men's
minds as the type of all such calamities. Zechariah
in painting the terrors of " the day of the Lord,"
which he sees in the uncertain distance of the future,
describes them by imagery clearly borrowed from
* Amos i. 1. t Ant., ix. 10, § 4.

EARTHQUAKE IN UZZIAH' S DAYS. 139
this catastrophe. The Mount of Olives is to cleave
" towards the east and towards the west ; " " There
shall be a very great valley, and half of the mountain
shall remove towards the north, and half of it to
wards the south." * All that had been witnessed in
the old convulsion was to be repeated on a greater
and more tremendous scale. And then follow words
which show what terror had been produced by that
convulsion, — " Ye shall flee to the valley of the
mountains  Yea, ye shall flee like as ye fled
before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king
of Judah." The population of Jerusalem, i.e., had
been driven in their terror from the walls and houses
that were falling on them, from the masses of rock
which were thus hurled upon the city, and had
sought refuge in the open country, f
And it was, so far as we know, the first great
earthquake in the history of Israel. There is no
trace of anything of the kind in the period of the
Judges, or the earlier history of the Kings. The
earthquake which rent the rocks when Elijah stood
on Horeb, that which had been felt at Sinai or in
Edom, when the " earth trembled and the heavens
dropped " (Judg. v. 4), (if indeed we are dealing here
with natural phaenomena at all), affected only that
locality, and were not felt in Judah. It is obvious
that this must have added greatly to its terribleness,
* Zech. xiv. 4, 6.
t As Ewald interprets the passage, the prophet represents the
people as fleeing, in their panic, from the valley of Jehoshaphat
and the slopes of the Mount of Olives, and finding refuge in the
courts of the Temple and the presence of Jehovah there. On either
view we have the picture of a great convulsion. It is singular that
there is no reference to this fact, and its probable connection with
the present form of the mountain, in Mr. Grove's admirable, and
otherwise exhaustive, article on the " Mount of Olives," in Dr.
Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible."

140 BIBLICAL STUDIES-
and to the awe which men felt in thinking of it.
To a people like the Israelites it would seem to be
the immediate action of the will of Jehovah, punish
ing them for their evil, the forerunner of other judg
ments like it in kind and, it might be, greater in
degree. Physical explanations of the phaenomena,
such as the Greek intellect, with its thirst for know
ledge, hunted after, would not be in their thoughts
at all. They had not as yet learnt to look on such
disasters with Herod's epicureanism. They had no
myths like those of Vulcan and the Titans and the
Cyclops, to take off the edge of their dismay. It
burst upon them as the eruption of Vesuvius and the
destruction of Pompeii burst upon the Italians in
a.d. 79 ; as the earthquake of Lisbon burst upon the
startled ears of Europe in a.d. 1755 ; and it found
them in the state in which men are most susceptible
to the " terrors of the Lord," as seen in the more
sudden, convulsive changes of the world around
them. Doubtless we may admit as part of the con
nection of interdependence, which makes the natural
and moral government of the world a great and
harmonious whole, that the impressions thus made
are meant to inspire men with the awe which may
ripen into reverence, with the sense that they live
in the midst of unknown, incalculable forces which
may burst out upon them at uncertain intervals, with
the feeling that these too are neither exempt from
the control of law nor exceptions to the sovereignty
of a righteous and loving Will. So received, they
form part of the education which man receives from
nature. We misread the lesson when we think that
those on whom the tower of Siloam fell were sinners
above all the Galileans, when we infer that the earth-

EARTHQUAKE IN UZZIAH 'S DAYS. 141
quake and the lightning come as proofs and punish
ments of special guilt. We misread it not less
fatally when we assume that the physical laws which
they obey can subserve no moral purpose, that earth
quakes, and pestilence, and famine have no part as
warnings, chastisements, tests, in the discipline of
nations. I return to my main purpose in this paper, that of
noting the traces which this earthquake in the reign
of Uzziah made upon the minds of contemporary
writers. And beyond all question the greatest of
those writers was the prophet whose vision of the
unseen began in the year that King Uzziah died.
In the words of Isaiah the son of Amoz, if anywhere,
we might expect to find recollections of what had
been so terrible at the time, and had received a new
significance so shortly afterwards.
1. I start with the prophet's solemn proclamation in
ch. ii. 10 — 22, of the day of the Lord that he saw in
all its apocalyptic terrors. The words are, it is true,
in part general enough. The day of the Lord is to
be upon " all the cedars of Lebanon and all the oaks
of B ashan, upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon
all pictures of desire." But if we read the words
that follow in the light of the history, we shall see,
if I mistake not, thoughts which grew out of the
ineffaceable impressions of that day of terror which
the prophet had himself witnessed : —
" And they shall go into the holes of the rocks
And into the caves of the earth,
For fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His majesty,
When Se ariseth to shake terribly the earth."
And the picture is repeated, as if to deepen the awe
and terror which it suggested : —

142 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
" In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver,
And his idols of gold,
Which they made each man for himself to worship,
To the moles and to the bats ;
To go into the clefts of the rocks,
And into the tops of the ragged rocks,
For fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His majesty,
When Se ariseth to shake terribly the earth."
We see, as it were, on a larger scale and in a more
awful form what the prophet had himself witnessed,
what Zechariah has, by a seeming accident, pre
served the record of, — the people of Jerusalem
fleeing from the city, with its tottering walls and
falling houses, and seeking refuge in the neigh
bouring hills, in rocks and caverns which seemed so
strongly fixed on their foundations that not even
the earthquake could bring them down.
2. Another reminiscence of it, not less distinct,
meets us, I believe, in ch. xxiv. 18 — 20 : —
" The windows from on high are open,
And the foundations of the earth do shake,
The earth is utterly broken down,
The earth is clean dissolved,
The earth is moved exceedingly.
The earth shall reel too and fro like a drunkard,
And shall be removed Uke a cottage,
And the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it,
And it shall fall, and shall not rise again."
The prophet appeals here also to no vague unknown
terrors, but to the memory of what had actually been
experienced. 3. The earthquake is noticed, as we have seen in
the opening words, the title-page, in fact, of the
prophecy of Amos. It is clearly mentioned there as
pointing to the facts that the prediction with which
the chapter opens had been fulfilled by it, that it was
uttered before, not after the event : —
" The Lord will roar from Zion,
And utter his voice from Jerusalem,

EARTHQUAKE IN UZZIAH'S DAYS. 143
And the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn,
And the top of Carmel shall wither."
In a later chapter, we may find, if I mistake not,
traces of the devastation which it caused, as extend
ing beyond the limits of Jerusalem, and, like other
more recent convulsions, spreading over the whole of
Palestine. Eecounting the chastisements which had
already come, and, as it would seem, come fruitlessly
upon the people, the prophet goes through various
forms of suffering : —
" I have withholden the rain from you
When there were yet three months to the harvest 
I have smitten you with blasting and mildew 
I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of
Egypt."
And then he passes on to the last and greatest
terror : —
" I have overthrown some of you,
As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha,
Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord."
The words clearly point, not to the capture of a
city by an invading army, nor to any casual conflagra
tion, but to some catastrophe like in kind to that
which had overthrown the Cities of the Plain — to
some shaking of the earth, accompanied, as such con
vulsions often are, by an outburst of the subterranean
fires. We know that such a convulsion did take
place in the prophet's time, at Jerusalem. A shock,
which made the people of the city flee to the hills,
and dislodged a large mass of rock from the Mount
of Olives, may well have laid some of the towns and
villages of Samaria in the dust.
4. But if the words, " The Lord will roar from
Zion," as we find them in Amos, are connected, as
they manifestly are, with the earthquake of King

144 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Uzziah, we cannot refuse to recognise a like connec
tion, whether it be that of prediction or fulfilment,
in the corresponding words of Joel iii. 14 : —
"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of judgment,
The day of the Lord is near in the valley of judgment,
The sun and the moon shall be darkened,
And the stars shall withdraw their shining.
The Lord also shall roar out of Zion,
And utter his voice from Jerusalem,
And the heavens and the earth shall shake."
The date of Joel's prophetic work is among the un
settled questions of biblical criticism. But there is
at least a strong preponderance of authority for the
opinion which makes him a contemporary of Hosea
and of Amos, and places the date of his written
prophecy in the reign of Uzziah. And if so, then
here, too, we may find a picture drawn from the
terrors of that memorable day. What the prophet
had actually seen, — the terror-stricken multitudes
rushing, in ghastly panic, into the valley of Jehosha-
phat (the valley that lay between the city and the
Mount of Olives, and through which the Kidron
flowed) ; the strange, bewildering darkness by which
earthquakes are commonly accompanied ; * the mut-
terings and crashes in the depths of the earth ; the
shaking of the mountains, — this became the type and
parable of a yet more dreadful day, of another valley
of judgment.f 5. The language of later prophets is, of course,
open to the criticism that it takes up the imagery
which earlier writers had introduced,- without the
same distinct reference to historical facts that we find
in them. If, however, the remembrance of Uzziah's
* Comp. Lyell's " Principles of Geology," c. xxix.
t Jehoshaphat means, I need scarcely say, " Jehovah shall
judge."

EARTHQUAKE IN UZZIAH'S DAYS. 145
earthquake lingered on in men's minds as late as the
time of Zechariah, we need not hesitate to recognise
it also in the language of Ezekiel. He, too, has a
vision of judgment upon the heathen, like that of
Joel. He sees the Scythian invaders (Gog, Magog,
Meshech, Tubal) gathered against the city, threaten
ing to lay it waste as Sennacherib had done, and
proclaims in the name of Jehovah (chap, xxxviii. 19,
20):— " In my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken,
Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land qf
Israel,
So that the fishes of the seas and the fowls of the heavens,
And the beasts of the field, and aU creeping things that creep
upon the earth,
And all the men that are upon the face of the earth,
ShaU shake at my presence,
And the mountains shall be thrown down,
And the steep places shall fall,
And every wall shall fall to the ground."
6. Lastly, as the closing vision of the Apocalypse
gathers up and reproduces other images of terror and
of glory from the writings of the older prophets, so
also does it reproduce this. But here too the refer
ences may have been not only the use of a familiar
imagery, but sharpened and deepened by the events
of recent history. One great earthquake, as we have
seen, had been felt in Palestine and Syria in B.C. 31.
Another overthrew twelve cities in Asia Minor in
a.d. 17. The whole period was indeed one of no
ordinary volcanic activity throughout the Eoman
Empire. There were "earthquakes" as well as
" famines and pestilences" in " divers places."* And
so in the pictures which the Eevelation of St. John
brings before us we may see, I believe, at once the
last vibration, as it were, of the earthquake of King
* Matt. xxiv. 7
L

146 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Uzziah, and the impression produced by these more
recent convulsions of the same nature. When he
speaks of the "great earthquake,* in which the tenth
part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain
of men seven thousand;" when he pictures the
affrighted " remnant " who " gave glory to the God
of heaven ; " confessed, i.e., as in his sight, their
deeds of evil ; f he is painting what he may himself
have witnessed or heard of in the cities of Syria or
Asia. In the picture which he draws J of the " great
earthquake" at the opening of the sixth seal, when
" every mountain and island were removed out of their
places," and the " kings and great men, and the rich
men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and
every bondman, and every free man hid themselves in
the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to
the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us," we have
the same scene, on a scale of greater magnitude and
more appalling terror, as that which had been drawn
in the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz.
* Rev. xi. 13.
t This is clearly the meaning of the phrase here, as it is in Josh.
vii. 19 ; John ix. 24.
X Chap. vi. 12.

VIII.

THE PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KOEAH.

HE student who reads the psalms in the
Bible version has one help in under
standing them which is wanting to one
who knows them only in the Prayer-
Book of the Church of England. He sees at a glance
that they are far from being exclusively, or even
chiefly, the Psalms of David — that many are ascribed
to other authors — that many appear without any
name at all.* The book, when it took its present
form, brought together the "Hymns Ancient and
Modern" which the Jewish Church inherited from
her many psalmists, — in many cases the special
tunes, some of foreign, some apparently of secular
origin, to which they were originally sung. We have
in it the anthology of a devotional literature spread
ing through some centuries, and connected with
widely varied stages in the history of the people.
Among the psalms which are neither assigned to
David nor left anonymous, we find a group of eleven
" The following table shows the proportion under each name : —
David  73
Moses  I
Solomon  2
Asaph  12
Sons of Korah .... 12
Ethan  1
Anonymous  49
150

H8 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
which bear the name of the Sons of Korah.* I wish
to call attention to these as presenting, I believe,
many features of interest which are commonly passed
over almost, or altogether, unnoticed. The conclu
sion to which I have been led, and which I now
submit to the judgment of my readers, is that they
belong, one and all of them, to the reign of Hezekiah.
If I mistake not, the study of the evidence, for the
most part internal and circumstantial, which seems
to me to establish that conclusion, will throw light
both upon the history of that reign and upon the
Psalms in question.
I start with calling attention to another fact of
which also it may be questioned whether it is as well
known and considered as it ought to be. As the
psalms were not written by one man, so neither do
they form one book. The Psalter is, in fact, a
Pentateuch, and the lines of demarcation which
divide the five books one from another are clear and
distinct enough. At the end of the 41st Psalm, of
the 72nd, of the 89th, and of the 106th, we meet
with the solemn Amen, single or redoubled, following
on a doxology, which indicates that one book ends
and that another is about to begin. A closer study
of the psalms shows that each book possesses charac
teristics of its own.. Jehovah (" the Lord"), for
example, is prominent as the Divine name in the
first book, Elohim ("God") in the second. Of
these, except so far as they connect themselves with
my present subject, I cannot now speak. What I
wish to dwell on is the fact that eight out of the
* The 43rd Psalm, which, though anonymous, is manifestly by
the same writer as the 42nd, oompletes the twelve of the preceding
note.

PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH. 149
eleven Psalms of the Sons of Korah are found in the
second of the five books, and the others in the third,
and that both the books are referred, by most recent
writers of repute,* to the reign of Hezekiah as the
time, if not of the composition, at least of the compila
tion of the psalms which they contain. That reign
was, it is clear, characterised by the desire to bring
together and preserve the scattered treasures of the
past, to restore and give fresh life to the long-
neglected, it may be, silenced, services of the Temple
choirs. As there were " proverbs of Solomon," which
were left to oral tradition till the " men of Hezekiah
king of Judah, copied them out" (Prov. xxv. 1) ; so,
as part of the same task we may believe them to
have arranged and transcribed many psalms of an
earlier date. But the time was also one of high
poetical activity, and of the musical culture which
was then all but inseparable from it. In the full
and vivid picture of the ritual that Hezekiah re
stored, with even more than its old magnificence,
special stress is laid (2 Chron. xxix. 25 — 30) on the
fact that he set "the Levites in the house of the
Lord with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps,
according to the commandment of David, and of Gad
the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet ; for so was
the commandment of the Lord by his prophets." ....
"Hezekiah, the king, and the princes commanded
the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the
words of David and of Asaph the seer." The words
which I have printed in italics have a special signifi
cance. The king's activity in this revival of psalmody
is ascribed to the impulse and guidance given by the
prophets. A moment's thought on the history of his
* See Mr. Perowne's " Commentary," Latroduction, p. lxxxvii.

ISO BIBLICAL STUDIES.
reign will remind us what prophet was most con
spicuous as the, king's friend and adviser. What
Gad and Nathan had been to David, that Isaiah, the
son of Amoz, was to Hezekiah ; and as the former,
over and above their direct prophetic action, had
superintended the hymnody and music of the Taber
nacle, when it was first set upon the holy hill of
Zion, so it was natural that the latter should direct
those of the Temple, when it was re-opened and
purified, after its desecration by Ahaz. And if so,
then it would be equally natural, according to the
analogy of the poetry of other countries, that a man
of such surpassing genius should at least leave his
impress upon the literature of his time. It would
not be strange that we should find echoes of the
language of Isaiah in the psalms which belong to
the reign of Hezekiah. If he were himself a priest
or Levite, as the narrative of his calling in the Temple
and the part he took in the restoration of worship
render probable enough, he may have been brought
into close personal contact with the sons of Korah.
The minstrels so described appear from Num.
xxvi. 58, 1 Chron. vi. 7, to have been Levites of the
family of Kohath. To that family belonged Samuel,
the founder of the School of the Prophets, and
through them the father of the music and psalmody
of Israel (1 Chron. vi. 28). Heman, whose name
appears as connected with Ps. lxxxviii.,* the grand-
* There is, however, some doubt whether " Heman the Ezra-
hite," of Psalm lxxxviii. and 1 Kings iv. 31, who there appears as
connected with the tribe of Judah, is identical with the Levite
grandson of Samuel. Some writers have supposed that he and his
children were adopted into the tribe of Levi on account of their
skill in minstrelsy ; others, that the seeming discrepancy might
be explained by the marriage of a Levite with an heiress of the
tribe of Judah, in which case his name would appear in the
genealogy of the latter tribe.

PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH. 151
son of Shemuel, or Samuel, was at the time of David
one of the most illustrious members of the choir
(1 Chron. vi. 53). They were " set over the service
of song in the house of the Lord," and were also
" keepers of the gates of the tabernacle" (1 Chron.
ix. 19). Like most of the Levites, they were war
riors in the camp as well as ministers in the sanc
tuary, and are named among those who came to
David in Ziklag, " armed with bows," and able to
"use both the right hand and the left in hurling
stones" (1 Chron. xii. 2, 6). Heman appears again
with Asaph and Ethan, as one of the chief minstrels
under David, as the "king's seer," "prophesying"
" in the words of God." He had fourteen sons and
three daughters, and all these, daughters as well as
sons, " were under the hands of their father for song
in the house of the Lord" (1 Chron. xxv. 5, 6), the
"teacher and the scholar" doing their respective
tasks. It is clear then, whether we take the word
"son" as implying lineal descent, or the succession
of a school or guild, that the house of Korah, in
spite of the rebellion and destruction of the leader
from whom it took its name, was, through the whole
history of the monarchy, conspicuous for its musical
skill, transmitted as an inherited treasure from one
generation to another. Two of that house of the
sons of Heman were foremost among the Levites
who helped Hezekiah in his work of reformation
(2 Chron. xxix. 14). The circumstances of the time
gave them a new prominence. They had to pass
beyond the usual work of singing and playing with
cymbals, and to become teachers. If they acted
under the guidance of the great prophet of the time,
if they inherited by family as well as tribal descent

152 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
what the schools of the prophets had received from
Samuel, we might expect to find traces of the in
fluence of both.
I may premise, further, that there is in this
instance a manifest truthfulness in the superscrip
tion. We cannot always be sure, where psalms are
ascribed to David, that the compiler of the book was
not in some degree influenced by the desire to con
nect what he had before him with that illustrious
name, and there are very few critical students of the
Old Testament who would maintain the accuracy of
all such conjectures or traditions. But with the
sons of Korah it was otherwise. There was no
individual to be glorified ; no reason for putting
their name rather than that of any other. If, too,
the final editing of the Book of Psalms was, as was
probable in itself, and as the Jewish tradition reports,
the work of a priest or Levite, we are, I believe, as
free from the chance of error as the nature of the
case admits of, in ascribing the superscriptions of
these Psalms to an authentic tradition.
I proceed now to the work of examining each,
and showing how entirely the hypothesis which I
have advanced fits in with whatever is most charac
teristic in them.
1. Ps. xlii. and xlhi. — I join these two psalms
because the latter, though it has no superscription of
any kind, is manifestly only a sequel to the former,
breathing the same prayer, ending with the same
burden. Both are the cry of one who has been a
devout worshipper, and is now cut off from access to
the "house of God." He "thirsts for the living
God, as the hart panteth after the water-brooks."
But he has not been in exile long. He remembers

PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH. 153
the time when he " went with the multitude to the
house of God." And he does not expect that diffi
culty of access to continue for more than a short
time. He is confident that he shall yet " praise
Him who is the help of his countenance." Incident
ally, as it were, he indicates the locality of his exile.
He is in the upland country of the Hauran, in " the
land of Jordan and of the Hermonites."
So far the psalm might come from any Israelite
kept away from the services of the tabernacle, and
accordingly it has been referred by some to the time
of David's flight from Absalom ; by others, to the
exiles by the waters of Babylon, or even to those who
fled from Jerusalem in the time of the Maccabees. I
venture to think that there are some touches which
indicate another authorship. It is characteristic of
David's psalms, that the name Jehovah is throughout
prominent in them. Here the name Elohim is used
throughout. David's sufferings were brought upon
him by individual traitors, by a rebellious son.
Those of the writer of this psalm are caused by an
"ungodly nation." He is one whose prayer points
to " the light and the truth," of which the Urim
and the Thummim, the special glory of the tribe of
Levi (Deut. xxxiii. 8), were the sacramental symbols.
When he thinks of returning to the holy hill, it is
as one who will "go to the altar" and praise God
" with the harp."
The reign of Hezekiah presents precisely the cir
cumstances which are thus implied. During the
"three years' siege of Samaria by the Assyrians, yet
more when the armies of Sennacherib were encamped
around Jerusalem, the worship of the Temple must
have been thrown into disorder. Israelites, whether

154 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
laymen or Levites, who lived on the east of the
Jordan, would find it impossible to go up to Jeru
salem to keep the feasts there. They woujd feel this
all the more acutely because but a little while before
they had shared in all the jubilant thanksgiving of
Hezekiah's great festival (2 Chron. xxx.). The
words of scorn which the psalmist reports as said to
him "daily," "Where is now thy God?" are iden
tical in spirit, almost in terms, with the taunts with
which the servants of the King of Assyria spake
against the Lord (2 Chron. xxxii. 16). The con
fidence which finally overcomes depression and
despondency is just what we should look for in one
who had at any time come within the range of
Isaiah's teaching.
2. Ps. xliv. — The invasion of Sennacherib fur
nishes again a perfectly adequate explanation of all
that is most characteristic of this dirge of lamenta
tion. It has, of course, much that is common to all
times of calamity and captivity ; but the confidence
that deliverance is near at hand, the thanksgiving
because it has come, would hardly seem appropriate
in the Babylonian exile. The conquests of the
Assyrian king, on the other hand, had brought
about the evils of which the psalm speaks. First the
three tribes on the east of the Jordan, then the
seven on the west, had been carried into exile. They
were " scattered among the heathen." They had be
come " a by- word among the heathen." Eailers like
Eabshakeh mocked them with their misfortunes;
yet they were able to say — and this was more true
of devout Levites in the time of Hezekiah than of
any earlier time — that they " had not forgotten the
name of their God, or holden up their hands to any

PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH. 155
strange god." The cry, " Awake, why sleepest Thou,
0 Lord?" the appeal to what had been done in
times of old, finds an exact echo in the words of
Isaiah (li. 9) : —
" Awake, awake, put on strength, 0 arm of the Lord ;
Awake, as in the ancient days, as in the generations of old."
3. Ps. xlv. — It may seem at first as if the joyous,
festive character of this psalm were not in harmony
with the " day of trouble, and rebuke, and blas
phemy," to which the previous three belong. The
long-standing Jewish tradition, accepted by many
Christian commentators, that it referred historically
to the marriage of Solomon's and Pharaoh's daughter
may seem to stop the way against any new hypothe
sis.* I believe, however, it will be found that of all
the psalms which bear the name of the sons of Korah,
this is one of which the facts of the reign of Heze
kiah offer the most satisfactory explanation. They
bring out its glowing hopes into daylight clearness.
It finds in them on every side echoes, coincidences,
illustrations. I can hardly think it probable, to begin with, that
the Levite minstrels of the temple would have wel
comed with such a hymn as this the marriage in
which the Levite chroniclers of the reign of Solomon
saw the beginning of all the evils of his time
(1 Kings xi. 1) . No marriage stands out in the reigns
that followed as one of special promise. There were
many, like that of Jehoram and Athaliah, that were
* It seems hardly worth while to discuss the theory of some
German critics, that the "ivory palaces" of ver. 8 are identical
with the "ivory house " which Ahab built (1 Kings xxiii. 39), and
that the psalm was therefore originally an epithalamium on the
marriage of that king with Jezebel. The conjecture which refers
it to the wedding of Jehoram and Athaliah has not much more in
its favour.

156 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
fraught with evil. But in the reign of Hezekiah, to
wards its close, after the destruction of the Assyrians,
there was a marriage, which, however disastrous in
its issue, might at the time well make the hearts of
the sons of Korah very hopeful. The marriage of
Hezekiah and Hephzibah was even to Isaiah, in the
very name of the bride, an omen for good.* It is
prominent in his later prophecies as the type of
something higher than itself. "As a young man
marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee, and
as a bridegroom rejoiceth over his bride, so shall thy
God rejoice over thee" (Is. lxii. 5). He utters his
fulness of joy in the same imagery.
" He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments,
And aa a bride adorneth herself with her jewels." (Is. lxi. 10.)
The coincidences multiply and become more strik
ing as we proceed. Of all the descendants of David
there was no one to whom the lofty words of the
psalm applied with anything like the same approxi
mation to completeness as to Hezekiah. Assume that
psalmist and prophet start from the same historical
type of the true Anointed, and the agreement is all
but verbal. If the king of the psalm is " beautiful
beyond the children of men," the promise of Isaiah
(Hi. 7) is that the eyes of the people shall " see the
King in his beauty." If " grace is poured upon the
lips of the one," of the other it is said that " the
Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him," and " make
Him of quick understanding" (Is. xi. 2, 3). If the
one rides on triumphantly " because of meekness and
* Thou shalt be called Hephzibah, .... for the Lord de-
lighteth in thee." — Isaiah lxii. i. Comp. the Study on " The Old
Age of Isaiah."

PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH. 157
righteousness," of the other it is declared " that
righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins and
faithfulness the girdle of his reins" (Is. xi. 5), If
the "arrows" of the one are " sharp in the heart of
the king's enemies," the other " shall smite the earth
with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his
lips shall he slay the wicked" (Is. xi. 4). Whatever
interpretation may be put upon the words, it will not
be' denied that even the prophecy which speaks of
"the mighty God (Elohim), of "the increase of
whose government and peace there shall be no end"
(Is. ix. 6, 7), stands parallel to the psalmist's ex
clamation — "Thy throne, 0 God (Elohim), is for
ever and ever ; the sceptre of thy kingdom is a sceptre
of righteousness !"*
I pass from the ideal aspect of the king's character
to the details and circumstances of the psalm, and
find the same correspondence. " The house of the
precious things" of Hezekiah (Is. xxxix. 2), if it
were after the type that Phoenician art had intro
duced into both Israel and Judah, would answer to
the " ivory palaces ; " the " oil of gladness," to
Hezekiah's " precious ointment ;" the " myrrh, aloes,
and cassia," to the " spices " which he exulted in.
The " clothing of wrought gold," the " raiment " or
tapestry " of needlework," belong to the same type
of gorgeous apparel as the elaborate picture of the
luxury of the daughters of Zion in Isaiah ii. 18 — 24.
The gift from the "daughter of Tyre" — i. e., from the
city itself, as acknowledging the sovereignty of the
* In both cases it must be remembered that the word Elohim
had not the same supreme incommunicable greatness which the
name of God has for us ; but was used not unfrequently for kings,
rulers, judges. See especially Psalm Ixxxii. 6, and our Lord's
reference to it in John x. 34.

158 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
king of Judah — belongs to the time when, after the
departure of Sennacherib, "many brought gifts to
the Lord and presents to Hezekiah, king of Judah "
(2 Chron. xxxii. 23), when the form which the pro
phet's vision of the future took was that " the mer
chandise of Tyre " should be " holiness to the Lord "
(Is. xxiii. 18). Even the opening words, " My
tongue is the pen of a ready writer," are specially
characteristic of a time of scribal activity like that
of Hezekiah. It may be added that the word which is
rendered " queen " in ver. 9 is not the same as that
used in the earlier historical books, and is the same
as that in Neh. ii. 6. In both cases the new term
came probably from contact with the phraseology
of Babylon, and the intercourse with that city opened
by Hezekiah explains its appearance in the psalm.
4. Ps. xlvi. — This, and the two following psalms,
have been referred by Mr. Perowne, in his recent
" Commentary," to the time of the invasion of Sen
nacherib, and there is, perhaps, on that account less
need for an elaborate proof that they tally with that
event, and are characterised by a very marked re
semblance, in tone of thought and language, to the
writings of Isaiah. It will not be disputed that in
all their broad features they speak of a time of won
derful and great deliverances at the hand of God.
Some special coincidences, however (some of them
already noticed by Mr. Perowne), may be pointed
out in each, which seem to make the evidence yet
more conclusive. Take, e. g., the contrast between
the " waters " that " roar and be troubled," and the
" river, the streams whereof shall make glad the
city of God," and what is it but an echo of the like
contrast in Isaiah (viii. 6, 7) between the " waters

PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH. 159
of the river, strong and many, even the king of
Assyria and all his glory," and " the waters of Shi-
loah that go softly?" The " breaking of the bow,
and snapping of the spear asunder, and burning of
the chariot in the fire " (ver. 9) — does not this
bring before us a picture identical with that pre
sented by the true rendering of the marvellous words
of Isaiah ix. 4, " All the armour of the armed men
in the tumult of battle, and the garment rolled in
blood, shall be for burning and fuel of fire ? " May
we not think of both as suggested by the scene of
destruction presented when the camp of Sennacherib
was left empty, and its chariots and weapons were
broken up and burnt?* Is not the last verse but
one of the psalm, " Cease ye, and know that I am
God ; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be
exalted upon the earth," the echo of the prophet's
words (ii. 22, 17), " Cease ye from man ; whose
breath is in his nostrils," " The Lord alone shall be
exalted in that day ?"
5. In a psalm like Ps. xlvii., with hardly any
definite historical allusions, little else but a prolonged
Hallelujah, the special evidence is, as might be
expected, comparatively scanty. Two expressions,
however, are striking enough to be characteristic.
(1) The land of Canaan is called the " excellency
of Jacob," and the self- same Hebrew word is used
by the prophet Amos in vi. 8, and viii. 7. (2) It is
said of God, in the last verse, that " the shields of the
earth " (i. e., the princes who shelter and defend it)
" are the Lord's ;" and the same word, in the same
* Compare also the words of Isaiah to Sennacherib, "By thy
servants thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, By the
multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the moun
tains." — xxxvii. 24.

160 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
sense, is used in Hosea iv. 18, where it is rendered by
"rulers." To this extent therefore, we have found
traces even here of the influence of the prophetic
schools upon the words and phrases of the psalms.
6. Ps. xlviii. — Here the coincidences thicken.
" The holy mountain — beautiful in elevation, the joy
of the whole earth," echoes the prophetic words of
Micah iv. 1, and Isaiah ii. 2, that " the mountain of
the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the
mountains, and all nations shall flow into it." The
strange, peculiar phraseology which speaks of " the
city of the Great King " as being " on the sides of
the North," meets us in this sense in only one other
passage of the Old Testament, and that is in the
boastful speech that Isaiah puts into the lips of the
Assyrian invader. " I will sit also upon the mount
of the congregation, upon the sides of the North "
(xiv. 13). Whatever may have been its meaning,
whether it simply referred to the position of the
Temple on the north side of the Holy City, or, as
some have thought, to its being in the thoughts of
Israel what the great mountain of the far north was
in the mythology of Assyria, the dwelling-place of
the Divine Presence, it is at least clear that the
phrase was specially characteristic of the time of
Hezekiah, and of the prophetic school of Isaiah.
All the other verses fit in with an equally close cor
respondence. What words could better describe
the consternation of the allies of the Assyrians, after
the destruction of Sennacherib's army, than those
which tell us —
" So the kings were assembled,
They passed by together ;
They saw it, and so they marvelled ;
They were troubled and hasted away f "

PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH. 161
Even the mention of " the ships of Tarshish," in
which some have seen a reason for referring the
psalm to the reign of Jehoshaphat (comp. 1 Kings
xxii. 48), and which others have taken as a bold
metaphor, involving the comparison of the destruc
tion of Sennacherib's army to a great shipwreck,
may refer, I believe, to some unrecorded catastrophe
affecting the Phoenician allies of Sennacherib, or the
ships that were bringing fresh troops to Palestine.
And the psalmist and the prophet agree here also. In
predicting the downfall of all tyrants and oppressors,
Isaiah proclaims among other signs of judgment, that
" the day of the Lord shall be upon all ships of Tar
shish" (ii. 16). The call of the psalmist to the
people —
" Compass Zion and go round about her,
Tell the towers thereof,
Mark well her bulwarks, consider her palaces,
That ye may tell it to the generation following,"
has a special appropriateness as belonging to the
time when Hezekiah was strengthening the fortifi
cations of Jerusalem,* and carrying an aqueduct into
the city (2 Chron. xxxii. 27 — 30), and when Isaiah
could reproach the people, " Ye have numbered the
houses of Jerusalem " (xxii. 10).
7. Ps. xlix. appears, at first sight, to be of alto
gether a different type from those that have preceded
it. It seems to connect itself with no historical
event, but to be the utterance of one who medi
tates on the vanity of man's hopes, and the insta
bility of his fortunes. And yet, if I mistake not,
it fits into one conspicuous fact in the reign of Heze-
* The fortifications of this period were continued on a yet
grander scale by Manasseh (2 Chron. xxxiii. 14), and are referred
to by the prophet Zephaniah (i. 10).
M

1 62 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
kiah, and one notable passage in Isaiah's prophecy.
The sharp, or bitter, complaint which the psalm
utters against the pride and haughtiness of the men
of new-made wealth had a special object. As the
sons of Korah paint their picture —
"Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever,
And their dwelling-places to all generations.
They call their lands after their own names ;
Nevertheless, man, being in honour, abideth not,
He is like the beasts that perish ;"
so does Isaiah point to one who, being a stranger,
perhaps a proselyte, in Judah, had risen high in the
king's favour, till he took upon himself to claim an
equal rank with the old nobles of the land : " Thus
saith the Lord God of hosts, Go, get thee unto this
treasurer, even unto Shebna, which is over the house
and say —
" What hast thou here, and whom hast thou here,
That thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here,
As he that heweth him out a sepulchre on high,
And that graveth an habitation for himself in a rock."
(Is. xxii. 15, 16.)
As the psalm pronounces sentence on this boastful
pride —
" Their beauty shall consume in the grave out of their dwelling,"
so does the prophet speak — ¦
" Behold, the Lord will carry thee away with a mighty captivity.
There shalt thou die,
And there the chariots of thy glory
Shall be the shame of thy Lord's house." (Is. xxii. 18.)
Even in the glorious promise to Eliakim, the son of
Hilkiah —
" I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy
girdle,"
we may find the special fact which gives point and

PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH. 163
significance to the seemingly general utterance of
the psalm — -
" The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning."
8. The next hymn belonging to this group is
Ps. lxxxiv. Like the two that stand first in order
(Ps. xiii. and xliii.), it is the articulate utterance of
the sighs of a devout worshipper who can no longer
worship, who remembers the solemn pilgrimages and
the glad festivals in which he had once been a sharer.
It is pitched in the same key as Ps. xiii., and here
and there echoes the very words : —
" My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord,
My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God."
(Ps. lxxxiv. 2.)
" As the hart panteth after the water-brooks,
So longeth my soul after Thee, 0 God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God." (Ps. xiii. 1, 2.)
It will hardly be questioned that if the explanation
given of the earlier of the two psalms is in any de
gree adequate, it applies also with equal force to this.
Here too it is enough to suppose that a devout Levite
or company of Levites was hindered by the presence
of Sennacherib's army from going up at the appointed
seasons to take their turn in the ministration of the
Temple. The later psalm has, however, some charac
teristic features which should not be passed over.
Note, for instance, the touch which indicates the
closest possible familiarity with the Temple precincts.
The Levite minstrel remembers " the sparrow and
the swallow" that fluttered about the courts of the
sanctuary there, and built their nests upon its eaves,
as they now love to haunt the enclosure of the
Mosque of Omar.* Or, see again the entirely new
* jomp. Tristram's " Land of Israel," p. 182. It may be worth
while to state that the notion that the words point to a temple ia

1 64 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
force which his words acquire when we remember
who and what he was that uttered them : —
" I had rather be a' doorkeeper in the house of my God,
Than to dwell in the tents of wickedness."
These words are not the vague, indeterminate wish
of a devout worshipper. They Lave a definite and
precise meaning. They apply to the sons of Korah
with a preciseness which does not attach to them
when referred to any one else, for it was, as we have
seen, their special function to be " keepers of the gate
of the tabernacle" in the time of David (1 Chron. ix.
19), and sure to be appointed therefore to an analogous
service in the Temple. The somewhat obscure verses
in which the psalmist pours out his reminiscences of
past pilgrimages will be found, I believe, to open to this
key. They run thus in the Authorised Version : —
"Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee,
In whose heart are the ways of them ;
Who passing through the valley of Baca, make it a well,
The rain also filleth the pools.
They go from strength to strength ;
Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God."
Some corrections will have to be made as we go on.
" Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee,
In whose heart are those ways — "
that is, who remember those old journeys, who can
not forget one step of that via sacra which led them
to the sanctuary itself. One scene comes before his
inner vision more vividly than any other. There is
a " valley of Baca," taking its name probably from
the trees which grew there — " mulberries," as the
word is translated in 2 Sam. v. 23 ; 1 Chron. xiv. 4 ;
ruins and a desecrated altar, rests upon an entire misinterpretation
of the passage. What the psalmist dwells on is the contrast
between the freedom and safe access which the birds of the air
enjoy, and his own exclusion.

PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH. 165
or more probably some species of balsam-tree, drop
ping its tears of balm, and so taking its name from
the Hebrew root which signifies " weeping." With
the love for detecting allusive and, as it were, omi
nous meanings in proper names, which was charac
teristic of Hebrew thought at all times, and specially
so (as throughout the prophecy of Micah) of the lite
rature of this period, he plays upon its etymological
significance. As they passed through that valley,
it had indeed been a valley of weeping to them.
Their tears — tears of vague, almost joyful emotion
rather than of sorrow — had flowed in torrents. It
was as though the rain had filled the water-courses.
But after that shower they had gone on their way
rejoicing, stronger and stronger as they advanced,
till they stood before the God of gods in Zion.
The coincidence to which I now proceed to call at
tention is a very simple one. 1. The resemblance of
tone, language, authorship between this psalm and
Ps. xiii. justifies the inference that it also was written
by some Levite detained against his will "in the
lands of Jordan," and " on the slopes of Hermon,"
somewhere, i.e., in the upland Gilead country. 2. If so,
then the recollection of the past journeys to Jerusalem
would bring back the scenes of travel through the
valley of the Jordan, and that valley, with its deep
depression and tropical climate, had from the earliest
date been famous for these balsam-weeping trees.*
* The true balsam, the "balm of Gilead," came from the
opobalsamum declaratum, which once aboimded in the plains of
Jericho, but has now disappeared. The " false balsam tree," the
zukkiim of the natives, the Balanites JEgyptiaca of botanists, still
remains. (Comp. Bitter's "Geography of Palestine," iii. 22.
Tristram's "Land of Israel," p. 202.) The question what tree is
meant by the Baca (" mulberry trees " in A. V.) of 2 Samuel v. 24,
must, however, remain, I fear, to perplex naturalists.

1 66 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Some parched rock-ravine on the way would be that
which the psalmist would think of as having been
watered by the tears of pilgrims.
9. Ps. lxxxv. seems at first to belong to a later
period. The opening words —
" Lord, Thou hast been favourable to our land ;
Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob,"
have not unnaturally led many mterpreters to refer
it to the period that followed the return from the
Babylonian exile. The conclusion is, however, I
believe, a hasty one. The more we know of the
Assyrian invasion in the time of Ahaz or Hezekiah,
the more we shall have reason to believe that the
great blow which fell upon Sennacherib's army was
welcomed throughout both Israel and Judah as a
mighty deliverance. The ten tribes had already
been led into captivity. Eabshakeh, half-tauntingly,
held out the prospect of a like fate to the inhabitants
of Jerusalem. It had already fallen on many men
of the kingdom of Judah. The language of the
prophet in reference to that invasion is, that the
" cities shall be wasted without inhabitant ; " that
" the Lord should remove men far away" (Is. vi. 11,
12). He speaks not only of the " remnant of Israel,"
the "remnant of Jacob," as returning (x. 20), but
in terms hardly less strong, at the very crisis of Sen
nacherib's invasion, of " the remnant that is escaped
of the house of Judah" (xxxvii. 32). When the
danger was over, it would not be strange that men
should speak of it as this psalm speaks. When the
alliance of Hezekiah was courted by Babylon, and
the murder of Sennacherib by his sons had thrown
the Assyrian monarchy into at least a temporary con
fusion, there would be ample opportunities for many

PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH. 167
of those who had been carried or had fled into exile
to return to the land of their fathers. It will hardly
be disputed that all the rest of the psalm reflects the
thoughts of Isaiah's time. The vision of mercy and
truth, righteousness and peace, is the same with the
psalmist as with the prophet. It may be added that
the prayer of the psalm, "Turn us, 0 God of our
salvation," is identical with that which is the ever-
recurring burden of Ps. lxxx. ; and that this, beyond
question, points to a time when what was prominent
in men's minds was the captivity of " Ephraim, and
Benjamin, and Manasseh," the captivity, i.e., as in
this psalm, of " Jacob," rather than that of Judah,
as would have been the case in the Babylonian exile.
The efforts which Hezekiah had made, at an earlier
period of his reign, to gather the remnant of those
tribes into his own kingdom (2 Chron. xxx. 1 — 12)
would scarcely fail to be renewed with yet greater
success when he occupied so glorious a position as that
which followed on the retreat of the Assyrian army
10. Ps. lxxxvii. is in many respects the most
striking of the whole group. Every word is preg
nant with historical significance. The hopes, the
prayers, the prophecies which it embodies, all bear
the stamp of Isaiah's mind. Both the importance
and, it must be added, the obscurity of the psalm call
for a more expanded treatment than I have applied
to the others. I correct the Authorised Version as
I go on.
(1.) "That which He hath founded is in the holy mountains."
The words might, of course, have been uttered at
any time in the history of the monarchy of Judah.
It will hardly be disputed that they have a special
force as belonging to the time when that "moun-

1 68 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
tain " was spoken of as it is in Isaiah xxv. 6, 7 : the
"mountain of the Lord's house," " exalted above the
hills" (Is. ii. 3), when the sons of Korah had already
spoken of it as in Psalm xlviii.
(2.) "The Lord loveth the gates of Zion,
More than all the dwellings of Jacob ;
(3.) Glorious things are spoken of thee,
0 thou city of God."
Here again the parallelism with Ps. xlviii. 2 is very
striking ; and we can hardly mistake the reference
to some burst of prophecy like that already referred
to in Isaiah ii.
(4.) " I will name Bahab and Babel as among those that know me."
The first of these two names, used as it is used here,
is nearly enough in itself to fix the date of the psalm.
Originally conveying the idea of pride and ferocity,
it meets us in Job ix. 13, where that meaning is at
least adequate. " The helpers of pride (Bahab) do stoop under him."
Possibly, however, even there, and with hardly any
doubt in Job xxvi. 12, it becomes the name of some
fierce monster of the deep, to be classed with levia
than, or the dragon.
" He divideth the' sea with his power,
And by his understanding he smiteth the proud monster"
(Bahab).
In nearly parallel language to this, but with a new
historical significance, and at the same time as the
psalm that we are now considering, we find in Psalm
lxxxix. 9, 10,
" Thou rulest the raging of the sea :
When the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them ;
Thou hast broken Bahab in pieces."
Here the marginal reading rightly explains Eahab
by Egypt; but it acquires that meaning by the

PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH. 169
poetic boldness which takes the crocodile of the Nile
as the symbol of that kingdom.* But the use of the
word in this sense is pre-eminently characteristic of
Isaiah (comp. li. 9) : —
"Awake, awake, put on strength, 0 arm of the Lord ;
Awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old :
Art thou not it that hast cut Bahab (i.e., smitten Egypt) and
wounded the dragon ?"
So again in a passage which our version obscures, and
which must therefore be re-translated (xxx. 7) : —
" The Egyptians shall help in vain and to no purpose,
Therefore have I cried concerning this :
They are Rahab (proud, mighty, ferocious as the monstrous
forms of their own river), and yet they sit still," (i.e., they
do nothing — no help will come from them).
We get, therefore, this clue to the meaning of the
words before us : "A time is coming, seen as if
already present, when Egypt and Babylon shall take
their place among the worshippers of Jehovah." We
get, that is, a hope identical in substance with that
of Isaiah xix. : —
"In that day shaU Israel be the third with Egypt and with
Assyria,
Even a blessing in the midst of the land ;
Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying :
' Blessed be Egypt my people,
And Assyria the work of mine hands,
And Israel my inheritance.' "
The substitution of Babylon for Assyria is pre
cisely what we might expect from the intercourse
with the former kingdom, and the seeming over
throw of the latter towards the close of Hezekiah's
reign. The religious zeal which had been so con
spicuous in the early part of that king's reign was
working yet more actively at its close. The gifts
that were brought to the king were, in part, tributes
* So in Psalm Ixxiv. 13, 14, the destruction of Pharaoh's hosts
is compared to that of the dragon and leviathan ; and in Psalm
lxviii. the power of Egypt is named as " the beast of the reed."

170 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
to the majesty of Jehovah. What had happened in
the time of David and Solomon happened once more.
Men of other races and creeds came to acknowledge
the great name of the God of Israel. The psalm,
written, as I believe, for some solemn reception of
such converts, looks forward to a time when the
Church of Israel shall be a church universal, includ
ing in it all peoples, and nations, and languages, old
enmities passed away, and the oppressors of the people
changed into fellow- worshippers and allies.
(4.) " Behold Philistia, and Tyre, and Ethiopia : *
They too are born there ; "
that is, are born again into a new and higher life,
and reckoned as citizens of the holy city. Here too
we get significant coincidences with Hezekiah's reign.
(1.) As Isaiah had foretold (xiv. 29), he smote the
Philistines, and reduced them to subjection (2 Kings
xviii. 3). This was a token that the Lord had
" founded Zion." (2.) The mention of Tyre falls in
with what has been already said in connection with
Ps. xlv. The reign of Hezekiah witnessed a renewal
of the intercourse with Tyre which had begun under
David and Solomon, and this was accompanied by a
partial conversion, and by gifts and tribute in token
of it. (3.) Ethiopia too had come in Hezekiah's
reign into fresh prominence in connection with Judah.
It was through the rumour of the approach of Tirha-
kah, king of Ethiopia, with an army mighty enough
to cope even with the hosts of Assyria, synchronizing
as it did with the destruction of the division of his
* Cush in the Hebrew. The " Morians' land " of the Prayer-
Book, is meant to be " the land of the Moors," and comes to us,
through Coverdale's translation of the Bible, from Luther's
"Mohrenland," which seemed to him a popular equivalent for
Ethiopia.

PSALMS OF THE SONS OF KORAH. 171
army engaged in the siege of Jerusalem, that Senna
cherib was led to give up his plans of conquest
(Is. xxxvii. 9). The words of Zephaniah (iii. 10)
show that the " dispersed" of Jacob were already
thought of as bearing their witness to the nations
" beyond the rivers of Ethiopia."
" And of Zion it shall be said,
(5.) ' These men, one by one, were born in her,'
And the Most High himself establisheth her ;
(6.) Jehovah counts them, as he registers the nations.
' They too were born therein ;
(7.) Singers and dancers shall be there.
Crying, ' All my fountains are in Thee.' "
The thought which had before been defined by the
names of individual nations now rises into a wider
catholicity. The Psalmist and his brother Levites
exult in this admission of converts, as they would do
in a national victory. It is a time for songs and
dances. They find in Jerusalem the fountains of
waters that make glad the city of God.
Traces of this admission of proselytes meet us, in
different directions, in the later history of the king
dom of Judah. Isaiah pronounced a solemn blessing
on "the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the
Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the
Lord." Of them he says, that " Jehovah will bring
them to his holy mountains and make them joyful
in his house of prayer" (Is. Ivi. 7). He calls "every
one that thirsteth" to the waters (lv. 1). In a later
reign, one of the truest and most devout of the king's
servants, the friend and protector of the prophet of
Anathoth, is Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian eunuch
(Jer. xxxviii. 7).
11. The hymns of the sons of Korah end with Ps.
lxxxviii., and plaintive and beautiful as it is, it pre
sents, in comparison with most of the others, but few

172 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
points of special historical interest. The singular
combination of names in the superscription, joining
the sons of Korah with Heman the Ezrahite, suggests
the thought that it was probably an elegy of ancient
date by the latter, revived and adapted by the former.
Direct references to passing history there are none.
And yet one can hardly read it, I think, without
feeling that it is pitched in the same key as the
psalm of Hezekiah, " when he had been sick and had
recovered from his sickness," with this difference
only, that there the danger and the calamity are
overpast, and that here they are present, pressing,
overwhelming. In both there is the vague shrinking
from death which overpowers even the hope of im
mortality. The king can only say —
" The grave cannot praise thee,
Death cannot celebrate thee :
They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.''
(Is. xxx viii. 16.)
The psalmist utters the same feeling just as
strongly : —
(11.) " Shall thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave ?
Or thy faithfulness in destruction ?
(12.) Shall thy wonders be known in the dark P
And thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness ? "
I do not wish to press the inference from this resem
blance beyond its proper limits. So far as it goes, it
at least falls in with the view which I have main
tained. There is, at all events, nothing in it to
militate against the conclusion which I have endea
voured to establish, that the Psalms of the Sons of
Korah, over and above their value ,as devotional
poems, have a definite historical significance, as
belonging to and illustrating the reign of Hezekiah.
That conclusion I now submit to those who find any
interest in such inquiries.

IX.
THE AUTHOESHIP OF THE BOOK OF JOB.
IHIS is not the place for a full inquiry into
the origin and character of the Book of
Job, but I am unwilling to let slip an
opportunity for stating briefly the grounds
on which I have been led to the conclusion that that
wonderful poem came into the literature of Israel
through the intercourse with the people of Southern
Arabia, of which the visit of the Queen of Sheba
was the great representative instance.
(1.) Part of the work I may fairly assume to be
already done. The theories which assign the book
in question to a comparatively late period, to the
time of the Babylonian captivity, or to that of the
Persian sovereignty, have been satisfactorily met by
Canon Cook (Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible," Art.
Job), and M. Eenan (" Livre de Job," p. xiii.). The
allusion to his name in Ezek. xiv. 14,* the manifest
reproduction of what has the stamp of originality in
the poem in the writings of Isaiah (comp. Job xiv. 11,
Is. xix. 5) and Jeremiah (comp. Job iii. 1 — 10
and Jeremiah xx. 14 — 18), f the archaic character of
* " Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it,
they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness."
t It will be well to subjoin the parallel passages referred to : —
Job xiv. 11. — "As the waters Isaiah xix. 5. — " And the
fail from the sea, and the flood waters shall fail from the sea,
decayeth and drieth up." and the river shall be wasted
and dried up."

174 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
thought and language, these are more than sufficient,
in M. Eenan's judgment, to counterbalance the
arguments drawn by Gesenius and others from the
presence of real or supposed Chaldaisms, and lead
him to fix on a period not later than the reign of
Hezekiah as its probable date. Mr. Cook rightly,
as I believe, sees in these and other phenomena
evidence of a yet more remote antiquity.
(2.) That antiquity has been carried up in a
Jewish conjecture (it does not deserve the name
of a tradition), which has almost become current
among inferior commentators, to a definite point.
" The book," it has been said, " was written by
Moses during the forty years in which he sojourned
with Jethro in the wilderness. It was prior to the
Exodus, and so the absence of any reference to the
work and law of Moses is accounted for. It repre
sents the patriarchal worship of which Jethro was a
priest. It shows a knowledge of Egypt such as

Job iii. 3 — 6. — "Let the day Jeremiah xx. 14, 15. — "Cursed
perish wherein I was born, and be the day wherein I was born :
the night in which it was said, let not the day wherein my
There is a man-child conceived, mother bare me be blessed.
Let that day be darkness ; let Cursed be the man who brought
not God regard it from above, tidings to my father, saying, A
neither let the light shine upon man-child is born unto thee,
it. Let darkness and the shadow making him very glad."
of death stain it; let a cloud
dwell upon it ; let the blackness
of the day terrify it. As for
that night, let darkness seize
upon it; let it not be joined
unto the days of the year ; let it
not come into the number of the
months." Job iii. 11.— "Why died I Jer. xx. 18. — "Wherefore
not from the womb ? why did I came I forth out of the womb to
not give up the ghost when see labour and sorrow, that my
I came out of the belly ? " days should be consumed with
shame."

AUTHORSHIP OF THE BOOK OF JOB. 175
Moses must have acquired." Admitting that so far
there is nothing self-contradictory in the hypothesis,
it must yet be said that it is purely conjectural, and in
the highest degree improbable. Differences of lan
guage, thought, character are all against it. There
is not the slightest approximation to a tradition of
any value in its favour. There is no trace of the
influence of the book in any portion of the Old Tes
tament earlier than the Psalms and Proverbs. It is
all but incredible that such a fact would have been
passed over, if known, in a life related so fully as
that of Moses.
(3.) We cannot, however, ignore the phenomena
which were the starting-point of this hypothesis.
There is an entire absence of any local Israelite
character in the poem. The name of Moses, those
even of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are as though
they were not. There is no recognition of any dis
tinctively Mosaic institutions, no knowledge of a law
written on tables of stone by which God had revealed
to man His will, or to any hereditary priesthood to
which the power of offering sacrifice exclusively
belonged. Of the three possible theories for ex
plaining these facts — (1.) that of Israelite author
ship prior in time to the Exodus ; (2.) that of the
book having come from the literature of some other
nation into that of Israel ; (3.) that of an Israelite
writer at some period subsequent to the Exodus
having divested himself of all that was distinctive in
the faith and life of his people, and thrown himself
into what was common to Israel and other Semitic
races, — the first and third must, it is believed, yield
in likelihood to the second. There is an almost
infinite improbability in supposing such a book to

176 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
have existed among the sons of Jacob, either on
their settlement in Egypt, or when they were
crushed under its bondage. It is hardly less
improbable that any Israelite, after the faith of
Israel had been defined by the Law of Moses,
would have had either the power or the will to
throw his mind (unless under conditions like those
discussed hereafter) into a different stage of belief
and life.
(4.) Before passmg on to the inquiry where we
may look for the birth-place of this great poem,
we have yet to note one other condition of the
problem. If the book does not bear the stamp of
Israelite religion, it is still essentially Semitic, we
might almost say, essentially Hebrew. It repro
duces in great things and small the religion and
the life of the patriarchal period, as they come
before us in the book of Genesis. The Divine
Name throughout the whole poem (with the excep
tion of the prologue and the epilogue, and the
words (xxviii. 28) which come as the oracle that is
to relieve the mind of the sufferer from its perplexity
and silence his rebellion) is God, the Almighty, the
name (El-Shaddai) by which Moses was told that
He had revealed Himself to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob.* Job offers burnt-offerings for his children, f
as Abraham had offered. The friends of Job sacri
fice seven bullocks and seven rams, as Balaam had
taught Balak to sacrifice.^ Divine knowledge was
spoken of as communicated in " thoughts from the
visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon
men," just as the great revelation to Abraham was
* Exod. vi. 3 ; Job xv. 25, xxii. 26, xxiii. 16, and passim.
t Job i. 5. X J°t> x^ 8 > Num. xxiii. 1.

AUTHORSHIP OF THE BOOK OF JOB. 177
made when a " deep sleep " and " horror of great
darkness fell upon him." * The spirit of the purest
Monotheism reigns throughout, protesting not so
much agamst the later and lower forms of idola
try, as against that adoration of the sun in his
strength and the moon in her brightness,! which
was the first downward step, even as Abraham,
in the Jewish legends, was said to have turned
in succession from sun and moon and stars to
worship their unseen Maker. It may fairly be
inferred from these points of agreement that we
must look for the origin of the Book of Job to
some branch of the Semitic family, connected more
or less closely with Israel, and that there is a
far greater probability of its being found within
the circle of the descendants of Abraham than
outside it.
(5.) It remains to be seen what light is thrown
upon the question by the names of persons and
places in the book itself. Some of these might at
first sight seem to suggest an Edomite origin. Te
man, to which Eliphaz belongs, is, in the genealogy
of the descendants of Esau, the name of one of his
grandsons, Eliphaz itself that of his eldest son. J
Teman was famed of old for its " wisdom" and its
counsel ; Edom, the whole which included Teman as
a part for its " wise men " and its " understanding." §
There may well have been in Edom, as it was before
David conquered it, a knowledge and a culture
capable of producing such a book as this. But the
very fact that it was so conquered, the natural hate and
antipathy which grew out of the conquest, waxing
* Job iv. 13 ; Gen. xv. 12. t Job xxxi. 26.
X Job ii. 11 ; Gen. xxxvi. 10, 11. § Jer. xlix. 7 ; Obad. 8.
N

178 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
stronger and stronger as the years passed on,* would
make the reception of a poem belonging to the van
quished people into the literature of their conquerors
all but incredible. The very name Teman, distin
guished as it is from Seir, brought into close connec
tion, in one case, with Arabia and Dedanim,f and in
the Book of Job itself with Sheba, points further to
the south-east, to some part of the wider country occu
pied by the descendants of Esau, the district probably
between the Nejd and the eastern shore of the
Eed Sea.
(6.) Other names point in the same direction, (a.)
That of Uz appears, obviously with an ethnological
rather than a personal significance, in the list of the
sons of Shem, in company with Asshur and Aram. J
With a slight variation we find it still in connexion
with Aram, and Haran the city of Nahor, in the
branch of the Semitic family, from which the migra
tion of Abraham was an offshoot,§ and again among
the descendants of Esau.|| (b.) Bildad the Shuite
stands probably in the same relation to Shuah that
Eliphaz does to Teman, and Shuah appears in the
list of the sons of Abraham by Keturah,^f along with
Midian, Sheba, Dedan, names essentially Arabian,
and somewhat more strangely with Asshurim. (c.)
Job is said to have been the greatest of all the Beni-
Kedem, the men or children of the East,** and these
children of the East (the name is in its very nature
somewhat wide in range and vague in meaning)
seem also to be connected, though less closely, with
Abraham. -ff They too were as famous for their wis-
* Compare the language of Ps. Ix. 8, 9 ; lxxxiii. 6 ; Amos i. 11 ;
and Obadiah throughout. t Isa. xxi. 11 — 14 ; Job vi. 19.
X 1 Chron. i. 17. § Gen. xxii. 21. || 1 Chron. i. 42.
H Gen. xxv. 2. ** Job i. 3. ft Gen. xxv. 6.

AUTHORSHIP OF THE BOOK OF JOB. 179
dom as the men of Teman or of Egypt.* (d.) The
names that appear incidentally point to the region
lying between the lower Euphrates and the Persian
Gulf, on the one side, and the Eed Sea on the other.
The Chaldaeans and Sabaeans attack the country, as
if it were exposed to hostile raids both from north
and south, f The troops of Teman and Sheba are
the representatives of all great armies. J When the
range of vision becomes wider, the thoughts of the
writer pass, not to Tarshish, or Hermon, or Lebanon,
but to Ophir and Ethiopia.! The conclusion to
which all these facts converge, is that the scene and
characters of the poem belong to some region in
which the tribes known as the descendants of Keturah
and those of Esau were neighbours ; and the presence
of the name of Sheba among the former, || no less
than the mention of it in Job, at least warrants the
supposition that the poem, even if it had an Edomite,
i.e., Temanite origin, was at any rate known also in
the land from which the Queen of the South,^[ the
Queen of Sheba, came.
(7.) Many other phenomena of the book fall in
with this conclusion, (a.) Assuming it to have been
written in a region in which tribes claiming a
descent from Abraham through Keturah were min
gled with those who traced it through Esau, we have
what explains the close affinity between the phase of
religious life which it exhibits and that which we
find in the Book of Genesis, — the strict Monotheism,
the name El-Shaddai, the mention of the Sons of
God as intermediate between God and man. It adds

* 1 Kings iv. 30. t Job i. 15, 17.
X Job vi. 19. § Job xxii. 24 ; xxviii. 19.
II Gen. xxv. 3. H Matt. xii. 42.

180 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
some force to the interpretation which sees in
ch. xxxi. 33,* a reference to the history of the Fall,
and in ch. xxii. 16 to that of the deluge.f (b.) The
forms of false religion which Job disclaims are not
those of the Canaanite nations, the worship of Baal,
Ashtaroth, Moloch, but, as I have said, the first down
ward step, the substitution of the visible for the in
visible, the Sabaean adoration of sun, moon, and stars. X
(c.) Bold as are the questionings of this book, we must
remember that they too had a parallel in the life of
Abraham. He also had set himself to face the ques
tion whether the world were governed righteously,
had recoiled from the thought of an indiscriminate
punishment, and had dared to ask the question,
" Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? "§
(d.) The noble description of the war-horse in ch.
xxxix. 19 — 25 is far more natural in the mouth of
an Arabian than it would have been in the early
history of a people whose chieftains and judges rode
on white asses, who used no horses, even in battle,
till the time of the monarchy, by whom the employ
ment of cavalry was looked upon as a necessary evil,
almost as a sin.|| The language of the Hebrew poets
on this subject is not in the tone of glory and exul
tation, but " a horse is counted but a vain thing."
" He hath no pleasure in the strength of an horse. "%
So, in like manner, the mention of the ostrich, native
in South Arabia, but not found in Palestine, of the
* "If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine
iniquity in my bosom."
t " Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have
trodden P which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was
overflown with a flood."
X Job xxxi. 26, 28. § Gen. xviii, 23—25.
j| Judg. v. 10 ; 1 Sam. viii. 11 ; Deut. xvii. 16.
11 Ps. xxxiii. 17 ; cxlvii. 10.

AUTHORSHIP OF THE BOOK OF JOB. 181
peacock, never seen by Israelites till Solomon ex
plored the Eed Sea and the Indian Ocean,* of the
mines which the writer might have seen in the
Sinaitic peninsula,! probably also that of the " wild
ass " and the " unicorn," all indicate that region
as the point of view from which the writer looked
out upon the world of nature.J Here he portrays
what he was familiar with at home. In the descrip
tion of the crocodile (leviathan) and the hippopota
mus (behemoth),§ which he must have seen probably
in the upper valley of the Nile, there is more the tone
of wonder and amazement, as of one on whom the
strange forms of animal life in another country
had made an ineffaceable impression, (e.) What is
true of the passages that bear upon the zoology of
the country in which the writer lived, is true also of
the knowledge of astronomy which appears in it.[|
The names of the constellations, Aisch, Cesil, Cimah,
Mazzaroth, are not Hebrew, and are, probably at
least, Arabic. (/.) When the Israelites take posses
sion of their inheritance they find no nations there
but the seven that are enumerated as belonging to
Canaan. The Philistines occupy the sea-coast. A
remnant of the Anakim are found in Hebron. But
the Book of Job describes fully a people of inferior
race and more brutal habits, a troglodyte tribe, living
a wretched life in caves, and subsisting on plunder,^!
the remnant probably of the old races, Eephaim,
Zuzim, Emim, Horim, which had once dwelt in and
around Seir.** Attacked on all sides, crushed by the
* Job xxxix. 13 ; 1 Kings x. 23. f Job xxviii. 1 — 10.
X Job xxxix. 5—12. § Job xl. 15—24 ; xli. 1—34.
|| Job ix. 9; xxxviii. 31, 32. IT Job xxiv. 1—12.
** Gen. xiv. 5, 6; Deut. ii. 10 — 12. We may note in connection
with this the mention of Bephaim in the Hebrew of Job xxvi. o.

1 82 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
northern hordes of Shinar, and by the Edomites,
they seem to have found refuge in the less accessible
southern border country of Edom, on the confines of
Sheba, and to have been looked upon with scorn and
loathing by the nobler Semitic tribes to which Job
and his friends belonged, (g.) Less decisive, but
not to be passed over, is the possible reference to the
Pyramids of Egypt in ch. iii. 13, 14.* One who
had seen the crocodile and the hippopotamus might
well have seen them also.
(8.) With this approximation to the birthplace of
the poem we may enter on the inquiry as to the time
and manner of its admission into the sacred literature
(to use the word Canon would be an anachronism) of
the Israelites. And here there is, it is believed, but
little room for doubt. (a.) Before the time of
Solomon, the Jews had but scanty knowledge of any
Edomites beyond the range of Seir. The conquests of
David carried them to the Gulf of Akaba, the com
merce of his son to the southern shores of the Bed
Sea. When the Queen of the South came as from
" the uttermost part of the earth," it is as one who
had heard in a far country of Solomon's wisdom.f
The "spices and the gold and the precious stones"
which she brought (the pearls and the coral of the
Eed Sea, the topaz and sapphire of Ethiopia, the gold
of Ophir, the spices of Arabia) were as things new
and startling. Then it was that the Israelites began
to compare the wisdom of Solomon with that of " all
the children of the east country.''^ The very dedi
cation prayer of the Temple supposes the presence
* " Then had I been at rest with kings and counsellors of the
earth, which built desolate places for themselves."
t 1 Kings x. 10. X * Kings iv. 30.

AUTHORSHIP OF THE BOOK OF JOB. 183
of " strangers " coming out of a far land for the
sake of the name of Jehovah,* proselytes to a wor
ship with which they were previously in sympathy,
probably therefore of the Semitic family of nations,
descendants of Esau, or Keturah, or Ishmael. It
was the conspicuous glory of that reign that West
and East should both bring their gifts, the " kings
of Tarshish and the isles," the " kings of Sheba and
Seba." The gold of Sheba is to be " given to him
continually."f (b.) After the reign of Solomon, on
the other hand, the intercourse was soon interrupted.
Even during its later years the strength of Edom
revived under Hadad, and when the monarchy had
been crippled by the disruption, the Kings of Judah
were not able to secure the approaches to the Eed
Sea. Jehoshaphat made an unsuccessful attempt to
revive it, and the attempt was never repeated. The
visit of the Queen of Sheba continued to stand alone,
with nothing parallel to it in the later history. At
no period before or after Solomon was there any
intercourse between the wisdom and culture of Israel
and those of Arabia, (c.) It may be noted that the
pilgrimage of the Queen of the South was far more
than the visit of the ruler of a half-barbarous people
to gaze on the magnificence of a higher civilisation.
She came "because she heard of the fame of Solomon
concerning the name of Jehovah ; " to "prove him
with hard questions," and she " communed with him
of all that was in her heart." J To suppose that these
questions were such as the base imagination of later
Judaism invented for her is to lose sight of the whole
meaning of her history. § To believe that questions
* 1 Kings viii. 41. f Ps. lxxii. 10, 15. J 1 Kings x. 1—3.
§ See Dr. Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible," Art. " Solomon."

1 84 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
like those which occupy the speakers in the Book of
Job were then hotly debated among the wise men of
the children of the East, and that her own mind was
full of them, is simply to rest in the conclusion to
which every fact converges.
(9.) We have yet to add indirect evidence of
another kind. It is precisely from this period that
we begin to find traces of the influence of this poem
on the thoughts and language of other sacred writers.
(a.) The questions and perplexities portrayed in
Ps. lxxiii. are precisely such as the Book of Job
might at once have suggested and answered. Ps xci.
is an echo, verse by verse almost, of the words in
which Eliphaz the Temanite describes the good
man's life.* (b.) The book of Proverbs presents yet
more striking parallelisms. The central truth of the
whole book, " The fear of Jehovah is the beginning
of wisdom," is but the reproduction, in the form of
a received maxim, of what meets us in Job with all
the freshness and power of an oracle from heaven. f
Here, as in Job, wisdom is compared with rubies.J
The use of the numerals "six, yea, seven," to express
indefinite multitude, is common to both.§ The
wonderful speech of Wisdom in her creative energy
in Prov. viii. is too closely parallel to that of Jehovah
in Job xxxviii. for the resemblance to be accidental.
(c) The expression of interest and wonder at the mar
vels of brute life appears, though in different forms
and with different applications, in Job xxxix. and
Prov. xxx. It has been thought probable by many
critics that in the words of Agur in Prov. xxx.,
* Job v. 17—23.
t Job xxviii. 28 ; Prov. i. 7 ; ix. 10. Another echo of it is found
in Ps. cxi. 10.
X Prov. viii. 11 ; Job xxviii. 18. { Prov. vi. 16: Job v. 19.

AUTHORSHIP OF THE BOOK OF JOB. 185
and those of King Lemuel in ch. xxxi., we have
direct importations from the gnomic literature of
Arabia, (d.) It would be unwise to lay much stress
on a point so questionable as the date and authorship
of Ecclesiastes, but here also, under all varieties of
form, the questions discussed are substantially the
same as those debated between Job and his friends, —
the real or apparent disorders of life, the unequal
distribution of its joys and sorrows ; and the answer
is also the same : as the " fear of Jehovah " is the
"beginning of wisdom," so is it also the "whole
duty " or work of man.* (e.) Later echoes of the
book, in Hezekiah's hymn,t in Isaiah's prophecy,J
in Jeremiah's imprecation,§ may be noticed as inter
esting, but do not add much to the evidence already
adduced, except as showing that a book to which men
went as to a fountain of noble thought and imagery
must have been well known and recognised.
(10.) The evidence is, it is believed, sufficiently
strong to justify the conclusion that in the Book of
Job we have the result of that short contact between
the religion and culture of the Hebrew and the
Arabian branches of the Semitic family which took
place during the reign of Solomon. Further than
this it is hardly possible to go. Whether it were
translated, with or without additions, from a poem
previously extant, or was the work of one of the
"strangers from a far country," after he had settled
in Israel as a proselyte, bringing forth out of his
treasure things new and old, the old thoughts and
questions and life, and the new faith, or was written
* Job xxviii. 28 ; Eccies. xii. 13.
t Job vii. 4 — 10 ; Isa. xxxviii. 10 — 15.
X Job xiv. 11 ; Isa. xix. 5.
§ Job iii. 1—10; Jer. xx. 14—18.

1 86 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
by a poet of Israel coming in contact with these
strangers and their literature, and capable of incor
porating what he thus heard into his own mind, and
fusing them by the fire of genius into a crystalline
whole, this we must leave uncertain. In either
case we have what explains phenomena that are
otherwise inexplicable, — the prevalence of the name
Jehovah in some parts of the book, of El and Shaddai
in others, its harmony with the earlier faith of Israel,
and the numerous indications of an entirely different
region from Palestine as that which the writer was
familiar with. In either case we may watch with
interest the welcome given, it may be, by Solomon
himself, it may be, by the thinkers and poets of his
time, to a wisdom which was not their own, but
which they recognised as having come from God to
their brethren, the impulse which it gave to thought
and imagination, the support which it supplied to
faith. (11.) It remains for us to notice briefly some
points which seem, at first sight, inconsistent with
this theory, and may probably be urged as objections
to it.* (a.) M. Eenan sees in the mention of the
Chaldaeans in ch. i. 17, a proof that the antiquity of
the book cannot be carried further back than the
reign of Hezekiah, when that people first came
to be formidable to Israel and Judah. The answer
is that it does not follow that they were also un
known to the inhabitants of central and southern
Arabia. The name of the Kasdim (the Hebrew
form of Chaldasan) meets us at a remote period, f
and raids like that of Gen. xiv. were possible at any
period after they had made their appearance on the
* Liwe de Job, S. I. p. xl. f Gen. xi. 28 ; xv. 7.

AUTHORSHIP OF THE BOOK OF JOB. 187
plain of the Euphrates, (b.) The appearance of
Satan has been thought by many commentators to
indicate a later date than the captivity, as having
grown out of close contact with Persian dualism.
Here, however, it is plain, as M. Eenan maintains,*
that the accusing angel of Job is as different as pos
sible from the Ahriman of the Ayesta, and, it may
be added, that the name Sheitan has, as far as we
can trace, been widely spread for ages throughout
Arabia, and that it is quite conceivable that, if it first
came into use outside the limits of Israel, it may have
originated there, (c.) The mention of the river
Jordan in the description of behemoth, f may seem
to indicate familiarity with the scenery of Pales
tine. But here the hypothesis in question precisely
explains the phenomenon. Nothing could be more
natural than that a stranger writing or translating
in Palestine should select a river with which his
hearers were familiar in order to help them to a true
conception of the strange beast (hippopotamus or
elephant), which they had not seen, (d.) Eeferences
to facts or ideas which we find in the Book of Genesis
are in like manner so far from being difficulties in
the way of receiving the theory, that they take their
place in the induction which led to it. So received,
they bring with them, in addition to the interest of
this re-appearance, whatever force may attach to a
remote tradition coming down from a given point of
divergence, through an independent channel.
* Livre de Job, S. I. p. xxxix.
t Job xl. 23, " He trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his
mouth;" or, as Renan translates it, "II serait sans crainte, si le
Jourdain montait a. sa gueule." The mention of the unicorn
(Job xxxix. 12), probably identical with Bos primigenius, Bison
priscus, or some extinct gigantic species of TJrus, points in the same
direction. (See Tristram's "Land of Israel," p. 11.)

1 88 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Note.' — It may be well to add a few words on the treatment of
this question by Dean Stanley, in his second volume of " Lectures
on the Jewish Church." It will be seen that he (p. 244), indi
cating with his usual force the points of contact between the Book
of Job and the Proverbs of Solomon, follows M. Benan in regarding
the former as derived "years or centuries afterwards" from the
latter. I own that there still seems to me an immense preponder
ance of evidence on the other side. At what period after Solomon
would an Israelite have been likely to throw himself so entirely
into the spirit of an earlier period and a distant country, or an
Idumaean to have turned to the Proverbs of Solomon as a text
book of wisdom P Would the Jews of the captivity, with the
intense hatred of Edom shown in Ps. cxxxvii. 7, have been likely
then to receive an Idumsean poem into their sacred books ? Apart
too from these historical difficulties, I must add that it seems to
me almost inconceivable that the overflowing grandeur of the
poem should have grown out of the calm precision of the proverb.
I could almost as soon accept the theory that the Gospel of
St. John was an echo of the teaching of the Apostolic Fathers and
the Gnostics of the second century.

X.

THE OLD AGE OF ISAIAH.
HE death of Hezekiah forms a dividins;-
point in the life of the great prophet of
glad tidings between what we know with
certainty and the obscurities of conjecture
and tradition. Up to that point we trace his history,
partly through his own writings, partly through
what is recorded of him in the Books of Kings and
Chronicles. We see the solemn call to his work as
the spokesman of the Lord of Hosts in the vision,
full of awe and sorrow, in the year that King Uzziah
died, the insight then given him into the evils that
were eating into the nation's life, the foresight of
the penalties sure to follow upon those evils (vi. 1 —
13) . After a period of comparative tranquillity under
Jotham," he comes before us in full activity, when the
weakness and wickedness of Ahaz were wearying
both men and God (vii. 13). He rebukes king and
people for their falsehood and cowardice ; bids them
look on without fear at the attempts of the kings of
Syria and Israel to depose the dynasty of David and
to set up an unknown ruler, some son of Tabeal, as
their own creature in its place (vii. 4 — 6) ; warns
them of the coming flood of fierce invaders from
Assyria, and tells them that, while it will sweep
away utterly the nations of which they were most
afraid (vii. 8), it would also be in God's hands an

1 90 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
instrument to punish them and make their land, the
land of Judah, desolate (vii. 17 — 25). With the
reign of Hezekiah the brightest phase of his life
begins. The king is young, and he is his chosen
friend and counsellor. We trace his influence in
the restored worship, the revived unity of national
life, the glorious Passover, the zeal against idolatry
and its defilements, perhaps also in the thoroughness
which did not shrink from the work of reform even
when it involved the destruction of a relic so vener
able and, as it might seem, so sacred, as the Brazen
Serpent (2 Kings xviii. 1 — 8 ; 2 Chron. xxix. 1 ;
xxx. 27). When the armies of Sennacherib fill
men's minds with terror it is to him that king and
people turn, and from his lips comes the assurance
of a marvellous deliverance (2 Kings xix. 2 ;
2 Chron. xxxii. 20; Isa. xxxvii.). When the king
is sick unto death he is at once prophet and physi
cian (2 Kings xx. ; Isa. xxxviii.). When Hezekiah,
in the glory and state of his later years, is tempted
to court the alliance of the rising kingdom of Baby
lon, just asserting its independence against the over
whelming power of Assyria, the prophet, faithful to
the last, rebukes even the devout and good king,
warns him of the coming judgments, and bids him
trust in no arm of flesh, but in the might of the
Lord of Hosts (2 Kings xx. 12 — 19 ; Isa. xxxix).
But here our knowledge ends. All that comes
later is wrapt in legend and tradition. Jewish
writers tell us that he protested against the sins of
Manasseh and was put to death with a singular re
finement of cruelty, and Christian commentators find
a reference to this in the mention, among the heroes
of faith, of those who " were sawn asunder " (Heb.

THE OLD AGE OF ISAIAH. 191
xi. 37). A wilder fable* reports that the ostensible
ground of the sentence was the charge of blasphemy
in having said that he had "seen the Lord" (Isa.
vi. 1), and that the king's baseness was aggravated by
the fact that his mother Hephzibah was the prophet's
daughter. It is now proposed to fill up the gap thus
left from notices scattered, fragmentary, incidental,
in what may well be described as the second volume
of Isaiah's writings, the great closing series of his
prophecies which, in our present division, fill the
last twenty-six chapters of the book that bears his
name. It is possible, I believe, to reconstruct out of
those fragments the personal history of the man, and
much of the history of a time of which we otherwise
know but little. Once again the pictures of the past,
long obscured and faded, will grow clear, and the
Old Age qf Isaiah will come before us with a new
completeness. At the death of Hezekiah, the prophet must have
been already far advanced in life. Sixty-one years
had passed since that vision in the temple in the
year that King Uzziah died, and he could hardly
have been under twenty when he entered on an
office that called for so much energy and insight.
What had been the last great interests of the old
man of fourscore during the reign of the king who
loved and honoured him ? The later chapters of
the first part of his works supply the answer. They
were (1) the prospect, long delayed, of an heir to
the throne of David ; (2) the vision, long familiar
to the prophet's mind, and recently revived, of a
calamity about to fall at no distant period on both
* See the article "Manasseh," in Dr. Smith's " Dictionary of
the Bible."

ig2 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
king and people, — a life of exile in the far lands
watered by the Tigris and the Euphrates.
(1.) Manasseh was but twelve years old at his
accession, and it is natural to infer that Hezekiah's
marriage with his mother had taken place compara
tively late in life. The name of that mother is
given as Hephzi-bah (2 Kings xxi. 1). The pro
minence given in the king's elegiac " writing, when
he had been sick and had recovered from his sick
ness," to the thought of doing a father's work, should
his life be spared, in the training of his child, in
dicates either that that child was as yet unborn or
still in his infancy. His passionate craving for life
appears in this light with a nobler aspect : —
" The living, the living he shall praise thee,
The father to the children shall make known thy truth."
Such a marriage, we may well believe, would have
been hailed by Isaiah at the time as likely to be
fruitful in blessing. All its circumstances would
acquire in the light of his hopes a new and mystical
significance. Even when the hopes had been dis
appointed he would yet turn to them as suggesting
the fittest imagery for the fuller and diviner hopes
which still remained. Throughout the later chap
ters this thought recurs again and again in varied
aspects : —
" I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
My soul shall be joyful in my God ;
For he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments,
And as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels." lxi. 10.
" As I live, saith the Lord,
Thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an
ornament,
And bind them on thee, as a bride doeth." xlix. 18.
" As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride,
So shall thy God rejoice over thee." lxii. 5.

THE OLD AGE OF ISAIAH. 193
And that there may be no doubt what marriage
is in his thoughts, he turns, with his characteristic
fondness for finding a deep significance in names
(as e.g., in Immanuel, vii. 14 ; Shear-jashub, vii. 3 ;
Maher-shalal-hash-baz,* viii. 3), to that of the queen
whose espousals he had witnessed : —
" Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken ;
Neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate :
But thou shalt be called Sephzi-bah (' my delight is in her '),
And thy land Beulah ('married') :
For the Lord delighteth in thee,
And thy land shall be married."f lxii. 4.
(2.) In the earlier days of his prophetic work,
Isaiah had foretold, distinctly, though with some
vagueness as to times and seasons, what was given
him to see of the great period of the world's history
then just opening, and the foreign policy of Heze
kiah had been guided for the most part by his fore
sight. First, Assyria was to be the scourge of God,
" the rod of his indignation " (vii. 17 — viii. 8 ; x.
1 — 11). Then that burden should pass away. The
great monarchy should crumble and fall (x. 12 — 19,
24 — 26). From Egypt, unstable and treacherous,
little was to be hoped or feared (xix. 1 — 25). But
another empire should rise in its place mightier and
more terrible. " The glory of kingdoms, the beauty
of the Chaldees' excellency," should become the
oppressor of the nations, and lead Israel into cap
tivity (xiv. 2). Babylon was to succeed Nineveh.
To Isaiah accordingly Hezekiah's policy in courting
* Another remarkable instance will be noticed later. Bahab
also becomes, in « text mistranslated, and much misquoted, both
nomen et omen.
t The credit of having made this coincidence familiar to English
readers must be assigned to the late Professor Blunt, " Scriptural
Coincidences," iii. 5. O

194 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
the king of Babylon seemed fatally suicidal (xxxix,
5 — 8), accelerating the destined end. But he saw
also, in his trust in a righteous Euler of the world,
that that empire, founded as it was on brute colossal
strength, could not stand. From those who had
come as messengers from the king of Babylon, or
from previous intercourse with Israelites who had
travelled there,* he had already heard the names of
new tribes, young and vigorous, that were hovering
on its frontiers, and had been led to see in those
tribes the future destroyers of the " Golden City "
that oppressed the world.
" I will stir up the Modes agamst them." xiii. 17.
" Go up, 0 Elam (= Persia) : besiege, O Media." xxi. 2.
We may infer then that before the death of Heze
kiah (probably about the year B.C. 713, when the
king's policy led him to put together his scattered
prophecies as witnesses to a later generation), the
Medes and Persians were already familiar to the
prophet's mind as destined to overthrow Babylon,
and so to be the deliverers of Israel. One who had
that knowledge might easily learn more. He might
hear that that people differed from Assyrians and
Chaldeans with a difference which brought them
into close sympathy with the faith of Israel. They
too were monotheistic, bowed down before no idols,
were worshippers of the God of Heaven, saw in
Light and the glory of the Sun the one visible sym
bol of the Divine Lord.f Assume only that Isaiah
* Jonah'sjourney to Nineveh (Jonah iii. 2), and Jeremiah's to
Euphrates (Jer. xiii. 5), may be mentioned as showing that such
intercourse was at least probable.
t See Ezra i. 2 ; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22 ; Herod, i. 131. Compare
also the aiticle "Magi" in Dr. Smith's "Dictionary of the
Bible."

THE OLD AGE OF ISAIAH. 195
learnt this, and can we wonder that his faith in
their future should become stronger ? Here at last
was a people before whom " Bel should bow down,
and Nebo stoop" (xlvi. 1). The leader of that
people, bearing what was probably a titular name
embodying their faith, Koresh, or in its Greek
form, Cyrus, the Sun* would come, whenever the
right time arrived, as a deliverer. With a wonder
ful expansion of thought, far above the narrowness
into which later Judaism stiffened, he could see in
such a king, heathen though he might be, " the
righteous man from the East" (xli. 2), the ally of
Israel as the true servant of the Lord (xli. 9), the
shepherd of the Lord, performing all his pleasure
(xliv. 28). f He does not shrink even from applying
to him a yet higher name. The heathen Cyrus
is the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed of the Lord
(xlv. 1), the true representative and type, even as
* The analogy of Pharaoh, as having the same meaning (Ra =.
the Sun), is at least interesting. The fact that such a name
should, in the case of the historical Cyrus, supersede for foreigners
like the Greeks and Jews the name (Agradates) which the ruler
had previously borne, has its exact counterpart in the looseness
with which Pharaoh is used as the proper name of Egyptian kings
by the earlier Jewish historians. The view here taken of the
occurrence of this name in Isaiah's prophecies is that maintained
by Havernick, "Introduction to Old Testament," ii. 2; by
Hengstenberg, " Christology of the Old Testament," ii. 192
(Mayer's translation in Clark's "Foreign Theological Library").
The English reader may find it well stated, though not accepted,
in Sir Edward Strachey's very interesting volume, "Hebrew
Politics in the Times of Sargon and Sennacherib." Gesenius also
(Lexicon) gives this as the meaning of the word. The fact of the
change of name was well known in the time of Herodotus (i. 114).
The previous name Agradates is given by Strabo (xv. 3). The
fact that the grandfather of Cyrus is said by Herodotus (i. Ill) to
have borne the same name makes it all the more probable that it
was titular, and, at all events, accounts for its being known lo
Isaiah in connection with Elam or Persia.
t So in like manner Jeremiah does not hesitate to speak of the .
Chaldean Nebuchadnezzar as " the servant of the Lord," xxv. 9 ;
xxvii. 6.

1 96 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
David and Solomon had been, of the greater anointed
One. With the thought of such a leader present to
his mind he sees the downfall of Babylon with a
new distinctness (xlvii. 1 — 9), and in spirit hears
the couriers as they travel through the desert, not
only as before, crying out, "Babylon is fallen, is
fallen " (xxi. 9), but with fuller joy —
" Go ye forth of Babylon,
Flee ye from the Chaldeans,
With a voice of singing declare ye,
Tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth ;
Say ye, The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob." xlviii. 20.
It was well for the prophet that he had this
glorious vision in the far horizon. The immediate
prospect, the actual surroundings of his life, were
dark and dreary enough. Of the two parties that
had been struggling for mastery under Hezekiah, —
one following the king and the prophet in their zeal
for Jehovah, the other courting foreign alliances and
favouring foreign idolatries, — the latter had got the
young king into its hands, and he threw himself into
its policy with a fanaticism which has no parallel but
in the history of the Zidonian queen of Israel. The
sins of Ahaz were revived. The ritual of Assyria and
Chaldaea, especially in its astrological and thauma-
turgic forms, superseded the worship of the temple.
Foul symbols of a yet fouler worship appeared in the
holy place. Women wove hangings, probably, i.e.,
wreaths or garlands for the " Grove " and its orgies,
and men gave themselves up to yet darker abomina
tions. Sabbaths and Sabbatical years were alike
neglected. The adherents of the old rigime kept up
for the most part the form without the life. A few
faithful ones among the inner circle of the late

THE OLD AGE OF ISAIAH. 197
king's household still remained. As they died out
it was but too evident that yet darker days were
close at hand.*
Such is the picture, traced in outline, of the open
ing years of the reign of Manasseh. It remains for
us to see whether the second volume (as we have
called it) of Isaiah's prophecies fits into it and throws
light on it. Our first illustration, however, must be
taken from the preface to the earlier collection of
his writings, written, we may well believe, like most
other prefaces, after the latest of them, and therefore
belonging to nearly the same period as the second.
Could the evils which have been spoken of be in
dicated more clearly than in the words which there
meet us ?
(1) Manasseh's youth made him a mere tool in the
hands of others, probably of the queen-mother.
"As for my people, children are their oppressors,
And women rule over them." iii. 4, 12.
" The child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient,
And the base against the honourable." iii. 5.
(2) There are the two concurrent evils, coexisting
then to a degree to which it would be difficult to
find a parallel in either earlier or later periods, of a
hypocritical formalism, the poor residuum of Heze
kiah's reformation, and an open, shameless adoption
of heathen usages ; and the language of the prophet,
in the earlier and later volumes, is pitched in the
same note as regards both of them.
" Your new moons and your appointed Sabbaths my soul hateth :
They are a trouble unto me ; I am weary to bear them.
And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes
from you ;
Yea, when ye make many prayers I will not hear." i. 13, 14.
* I must again refer to the article on "Manasseh," in Dr
Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible."

1 98 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
" Behold, ye fast for strife and debate,
And to smite with the fist of wickedness :
Is it such a fast that I have chosen ?
A day for a man to afflict his soul ?
Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush,
And to spread sackcloth and ashes under him f
Wilt thou call this a fast,
And an acceptable day to the Lord ? " lviii. 4, 5.
This was one side of the picture. On the other
was an abject imitation of Chaldaean soothsaying,
against which the prophet bears his protest : —
" They are soothsayers like the Philistines.
Their land also is full of idols." ii. 6, 8.
" Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer,
That frustrateth the tokens of the liars,
And maketh diviners mad ; ,
That turneth wise men backward,
And maketh their knowledge foolish." xliv. 25.
"But ye are they that forsake the Lord,
That forget my holy mountain,
That prepare a table for that Troop,
And offer a drink-offering unto that Number."* lxv. 11.
The reign of Hezekiah, honoured by surrounding
nations, and zealous for Jehovah, had been distin
guished — as that of Solomon was before, and that of
Josiah afterwards — by a large accession of proselytes
of alien birth ; and their attachment to their new
faith was stronger than that of many Israelites.
They were faithful, while others swam with the
stream of evil. Among these were some officers of
the king's harem, who, like Ebed-melech, the Ethio
pian eunuch, in the reign of Zedekiah (Jer. xxxviii.
7), were conspicuous for their steadfastness, f For
* The words Gad and Mem, thus rendered in the English
version, are probably names of the planets now known r s Jupiter
and Saturn, the givers of good or evil fortune.
t It is, I think, at least probable that we may see in Eliakim, of
whom such glorious praise is spoken in 2 Kings xviii. 20 — 25, one
of this class. He is described as being " over the house " (2 Kings

THE OLD AGE OF ISAIAH. 199
both such classes the prophet, rising above all na
tional and traditional feeling, has words of the fullest
sympathy. " Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to
the Lord, speak, saying,
' The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people : '
Neither let the eunuch say,
' Behold, I am a dry tree.'
For thus saith tho Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths,
And choose the things that please me,
And take hold of my covenant ;
Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls
A place and a name better than of sons and of daughters :
I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off."
Ivi. 3—5.
Idolatry was becoming darker and more cruel.
Moloch worship was revived (2 Kings xvi. 3, 4).
" They shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired,
And ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have
chosen." i. 29.
" Against whom do ye sport yourselves,
Inflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree,
Slaying the children in the valleys in the clifts of the rocks ?"
Ivii. 5.
As the prophet saw the men of his own genera
tion falling asleep, he looked, half wistfully, at their
end. " The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart :
And merciful men are taken away.
None considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to
come.
xviii. 18; Isa. xxxvi. 3), and is told that he shall one day
succeed Shebna in the office of scribe (xviii. 21). Now, in the
later history of the kingdom of Judah, as in other Eastern
monarchies, the confidential officers over the king's household
were, for the most part, as the case of Ebed-melech shows, eunuchs,
and in the monuments of Assyria the beardless face of the scribe at
once identifies him. On this hypothesis we get once again a
striking coincidence between the earlier and later utterances. The
man who has no hope of children of his own, to whom is promised
" a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters " (lv. 5),
is to have a "sure place" (xxii. 23), is to be "a father to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem and the house of Judah " (xxii. 22).

200 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
He shall enter into peace :
They shall rest in their beds, each one walking in their up
rightness." lvii. 1, 2.
The sense of being left alone, the last witness for
righteousness in an evil generation, mocked and
taunted, was almost more than he could bear.
" Yea, truth faileth ; and he that departeth from evil is accounted
mad:*
And the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no
judgment.
And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there
was no intercessor." lix. 15, 16.
The witness which he bore against the sins of
nobles and priests and people exposed him to shame
and contumely. He who had been the honoured
counsellor of kings was treated as the vilest outcast.
" The Lord God hath opened mine ear,
And I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.
J gave my back to the smiters,
And my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair :
I hid not my face from shame and spitting." 1. 5, 6.
We know that the fanatic cruelty of Manasseh did
not end here. He " shed innocent blood very much,
till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another"
(2 Kings xxi. 16). Foremost among the victims of
that persecution must have been the prophets who
with Isaiah had bravely borne their testimony,
" setting their faces as a flint," asking the question
which the martyrs of truth have asked in all ages, in
the same tones and with the same answer : —
" He is near that justifieth me ;
Who will contend with me f
Behold, the Lord God will help me ;
Who is he that shall condemn me ?" 1. 8, 9.
As one after another of that noble army was led
* The marginal rendering of the English version. Ewald's
translation, " became rare," gives nearly as good a meaning, and is
etymologically truer.

THE OLD AGE OF ISAIAH. 201
forth to die by all the strange tortures that Eastern
cruelty could invent, we may well think of the pro
phet's mind as learning new lessons which nothing
else could have so clearly taught him. His expecta
tions of the coming Christ were coloured and modi
fied by this new experience as they had been by
former ones. If he had been led to pass from the
weakness and cowardice of Ahaz to the thought of
the great battle and the mighty Conqueror " whose
name shall be called Wonderful " (ix. 5 — 7) ; if, in
contrast with man's injustice, there had risen before
him the vision of a righteous king, " the rod out of
the stem of Jesse," upon whom should rest "the spirit
of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom and understanding"
(xi. 1 — 9) ; if the hopes of Hezekiah's youth had
formed and fashioned his hopes of One greater than
Hezekiah in the far future, as the Psalmist's hopes
(Psalms xlv. and lxxii.) had had their historical
starting-point in the glory of Solomon, it might well
be that the Divine education through which the
eternal Spirit was leading him made the latter end
of his life as fruitful as the beginning, and gave him
yet deeper insight into the mysteries of God. So it
was that he learnt to see that as he and his fellow-
prophets were made perfect by suffering, as they
found that the road to the fullest victory and the
most perfect blessedness was through pain and sorrow,
there must be a like discipline, a like pathway to the
throne for Him, the greater Prophet, the redeeming
King. Through what he saw and felt in the reign
of Manasseh he was taught to think of the Christ
that was to come as one " whose visage was so marred
more than any man, and his form more than the
sons of men" (Iii. 14), growing up "as a tender

202 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
plant, and as a root out of a dry ground," with " no
form nor comeliness " (liii. 2). What had been true
in part of those who were now bearing his reproach,
suffering for sins not their own, should be true in its
completeness of Him.
" Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows :
Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities." liii. 4, 5.
The patient, silent suffering of the martyr-prophets
presented the type of the higher, more wonderful
silence — " He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
Yet he opened not his mouth :
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before her shearers is dumb,
So opened he not his mouth." liii. 7.
It may at first seem strange that the volume
which contains such notes of woe, pitched as it were
in the sad minor of a plaintive sorrow, should open as
this opens with such exulting consolation, " Comfort
ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God" (xl. 1).
It may be that we shall never know the full mean
ing of each separate portion of this prophecy, or the
reasons of its change from joy to sorrow, and back
again to joy. To do that we ought to be able to
connect each section with the events of the prophet's
life, and the thoughts which were working in his
heart, and these we have no data to decide on, and
can but suggest more or less probable conjectures.
Thus much, however, may be said, that the contrast
between the gloom and the brightness had been the
same throughout. Out of the disasters and defeat
and guilt of Ahaz rose the wonderful prophecies
of chapters ix. and xi. and xxv. Was it strange,

THE OLD AGE OF ISAIAH. 203
if he had been sustained in the midst of suffering,
foreseeing the captivity of his people, by the thought
of their restoration, that he should begin now with
words which would give to others the same help and
comfort with which he himself had been comforted
of God ? Was it not in harmony with all his
previous history that the strength of the consolation
should be proportionate to the depth of the distress,
that through the thickest night there should pierce
the rays of the far-off golden dawn ?
Other points indicating at once a continuity of
thought such as was natural in the writings of the
same man, and the influence as natural of new
circumstances, can only, within the limits of the
present paper, be touched on sparingly. The in
stances given will, however, be enough to show that
there is no difficulty in tracing the same man in the
two volumes of the prophecies that bear his name,
and may help others to continue the comparison for
themselves. (1.) Among the influences which were at work on
the mind of Isaiah in his earlier life, a very high
place must be assigned to the writings of Micah the
Morasthite. Living at the same time, witnessing
the same evils, we find the seer of Moresheth utter
ing noble words which the more conspicuous adviser
of Hezekiah took up and repeated. It would almost
seem as if the one prophet, living not in the capital
city, but in an obscure village, speaking, not in the
lofty language of Isaiah's poetry, but in half-
humorous allusions to the names of the towns of
Judah (i. 10 — 16), and in imagery drawn from the
scenery and occupations of shepherd life, had been
to the other as one who suggests thoughts after-

204 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
wards to be developed, and sets an example of
courage in denouncing evil afterwards to be followed.
The bold words of Micah in the days of Hezekiah,
which a hundred years afterwards were appealed to
as a precedent (Jer. xxvi. 18), may well be thought
of as influencing the thoughts and teaching of
Isaiah. Certain it is that the parallelisms between
them are more numerous and striking than between
any other two writers in the Old or New Testament.
The first great vision of a better time in Isaiah
ii. 2—4 :—
" It shall come to pass in the last days,
That the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in
the top of the mountains,
And shall be exalted above the hills ; and all nations shall
flow unto it.
And many people shall go and say,
Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the
house of the God of Jacob ;
And he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his
paths :
For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the
Lord from Jerusalem.
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many
people :
And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their
spears into pruninghooks :
Nation shall not lilt up sword against nation, neither shall
they learn war any more " —
is a verbal reproduction of what had been spoken by
Micah iv. 1 — 3. Other instances of a like connec
tion are as follows : —
" Behold, the Lord cometh out " Behold, the Lord cometh out
of his place to punish the in- of his place, and will come down."
habitants of the earth for their Mic. i. 3.
iniquity." — Isa. xxvi. 21.
" To what purpose is the mul- "Will the Lord be pleased
titude of your sacrifices unto with thousands of rams, or with
me P saith the Lord : I am full ten thousands of riverB of oil ?
of the burnt offerings of rams, shall I give my first-born for my
and the fat of fed beasts ; and I transgression, the fruit of my
delight not in the blood of body for the sin of my soul ? He
bullocks, or of lambs, or of he hath shewed thee, 0 man, what

THE OLD AGE OF ISAIAH. 205
goats .... Wash you, make is good ; and what doth the
you clean : put away the evil of Lord require of thee, but to do
your doings from before mine justly, and to love mercy, and to
eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn to walk numbly with thy God ? "
do well ; seek judgment, relieve Mic. vi. 7, 8.
the oppressed, judge the father
less, plead for the widow."
Isa. i. 11, 16, 17.
In their outward mode of teaching, in the strange,
portentous disregard of conventional order, the one
prophet reproduced the acted symbolism of the
other : —
"At the same time spake the "Therefore I will wail and
Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, howl, I will go stripped and
saying, Go and loose the sack- nuked." — Mic. i. S.
cloth from off thy loins, and put
off thy shoe from thy foot. And
he did so, walking naked and
—Isa. xx. 2.

Both bear their testimony against the same evils in
all but the same words : — >
"Thy princes are rebellious, "The heads thereof judge for
and companions of thieves: every reward, and the priests thereof
one loveth gifts and followeth teach for hire." — Mic. iii. 11.
after rewards." — Isa. i. 23.
Both look to the house of David as the stock from
which the deliverer shall come : —
" There shall come forth a rod " But thou, Beth-lehem Eph-
out of the stem of Jesse, and a ratah .... out of thee shall he
Branch shall grow out of his come forth unto me that is to be
roots." — Isa. xi. 1. ruler in Israel." — Mic. v. 2.
Materials for a sufficient induction have been
given as to the connection between the Prophet
Micah and the chaps, i. — xxxix. of Isaiah. Can we
trace any like connection with the remaining chaps.
xl. — lxvi. ? The following passages give the

"Behold, I will make thee a " Arise and thresh, 0 daughter
new sharp threshing instrument of Zion ; for I will make thine
. having teeth : thou shalt thresh horn iron, and I will make thy
the mountains, and beat them hoofs brass." — Mic. iv. 13.
small." — Isa. xli. 15.

206

BIBLICAL STUDIES.

" The righteous perisheth, and
no man layeth it to heart."
Isa. lvii. 1.

'.' The good man is perished out
of the earth : and there is none
upright among men." Mic. vii. 2.

" And dust shall be the serpent's " They shall lick the dust like
meat." — Isa. lxv. 25. a serpent." — Mic. vii. 17.
" His watchmen are blind.
.... They are greedy dogs
which can never have enough.
.... Come ye, say they, I will
fetch wine, and we will fill our-
; with strong drink."
Isa. Ivi. 10—12.

" If a man .... do lie, say
ing, I will prophesy unto thee of
wine and of strong drink ; he shall
even be the prophet of this
people." — Mic. ii. 11.
"Thus saith the Lord con
cerning the prophets that make
my people err .... and he that
putteth not into their months, they
even prepare war against him."
Mic. iii. 5.
Hardly less interesting is it to notice the re
appearance, in the later book, of the thoughts,
imagery, and even language of the earlier, just as
the old man might be supposed to dwell on the
intenser thoughts which he had cherished in his
youth : —

" Bring forth the blind people
that have eyes, and the deaf that
have ears." — Isa. xliii. 8.

"Yea, before the day was I
am he; and there is none that
can deliver out of my hand : I
will work, and who shall let it ? "
Isa. xliii. 13.
" For I will pour water upon
him that is thirsty, and floods
upon the dry ground: I will
pour my spirit upon thy seed,
and my blessing upon thine off
spring." — Isa. xliv. 3.
" Verily thou art a God that
hidest thyself, 0 God of Israel,
the Saviour." — Isa. xlv. 15.

"And he said, Go, and tell
this people, Hear ye indeed, but
understand not ; and see ye in
deed, but perceive not." Isa. vi. 9.
" For the Lord of hosts hath
purposed, and who shall dis
annul it ? and his hand is
stretched out, and who shall
turn it back?" — Isa. xiv. 27.
"And the parched ground
shall become a pool, and the
thirsty land springs of water :
in the habitation of dragons,
where each lay, shall be grass
with reeds and rushes." Isa. xxxv. 7.
"And I will wait upon the
Lord, that hideth his face from
the house of Jacob, and I will
look for him." — Isa. viii. 17.

THE OLD AGE OF ISAIAH.

207

"Therefore the redeemed of
the Lord shall return, and come
with singing unto Zion ; and
everlasting joy shall be upon
their head: they shall obtain
gladness and joy ; and sorrow
and mourning shall flee away."
Isa. li. 11.
"Enflaming yourselves with
idols under every green tree,
slaying the children in the
valleys under the clifts of the
rocks." — Isa. lvii. 5.
" The wolf and the lamb shall
feed together, and the lion shall
eat straw like the bullock : and
dust shall be the serpent's meat.
They shall not hurt nor destroy
in all my holy mountain, saith
the Lord." — Isa. Ixv. 25.

"And the ransomed of the
Lord shall return, and come to
Zion with songs and everlasting
joy upon their heads : they shall
obtain joy and gladness, and
sorrow and sighing shall flee
away." — Isa. xxxv. 10.
"For they shall be ashamed
of the oaks which ye have de
sired, and ye shall be confounded
for the gardens that ye have
1."— Isa. i. 29.

"The wolf also shall dwell
with the lamb, and the leopard
shall lie down with the kid ; and
the calf and the young lion and
the fatling together ; and a little
child shall lead them. And the
cow and the bear shall feed ;
their young ones shall lie down
together : and the lion shall eat
straw like the ox. They shall
not hurt nor destroy in all my
holy mountain: for the earth
shall be full of the knowledge of
the Lord, as the waters cover
the sea." — Isa. xi. 6, 7, 9.
The list might be enlarged indefinitely, but these
are sufficient for our present purpose. One instance
only may be added as obscured by the mistransla
tion of the received English version.
It will be a familiar fact to most students of
Scripture that at one period in the history of Hebrew
literature the word Eahab, signifying "the proud,
the haughty," makes its appearance as a poetical
synonyme for Egypt. Thus in Psalm lxxxvii. 4, 5,
belonging probably to this period, and describing
the admission of proselytes from many countries, we
find Egypt mentioned. " I will think upon Eahab
and Babylon, with them that know me."* In what

* Comp. p. 169. I cannot refrain from noticing the singular
agreement of this with Isa. xix. 24. " In that day shall Israel be

208 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
we have called Isaiah's second volume, the name
occurs with the same signification : —
"Awake, awake, put on strength, 0 arm of the Lord ;
Awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old.
Art not thou it that hath cut Rahab (sc. the haughty one), and
wounded the dragon p" li. 9.
But, in the first forty chapters as we read them in
the Authorised Version we do not find it. In the
Hebrew, however, it meets us in a very remarkable,
often quoted passage. This, in English, stands
thus —
" The Egyptians shall help in vain, and to no purpose,
Therefore I have cried concerning this,
'Their strength is to sit still.' "
But the true rendering, in the judgment of nearly
all critics, would be this : —
" Therefore I have cried concerning her,
She is Rahab sitting still "
(haughty, i.e., and impotent).
The self-same characteristic word, with the cha
racteristic play upon the etymology, is thus seen to
recur in both volumes of the prophecy.*
The object which I have chiefly aimed at in this
paper has been to make the later prophecies more
intelligible and more interesting by connecting them
with the life and feelmgs of a living man. They
are not Sibylline oracles, devoid of all impress of
third with Egypt and Assyria." Was the prophet, or some con
temporary of his, the writer of the psalm, rejoicing that in his own
time, or in the time to come, natives of both these countries, and
even of Philistia, Tyre, and Ethiopia, should he counted among
the citizens of Zion, " when the Lord writeth up the people ?"
* I am anxious to acknowledge my obligations to the writer ol
"A Plea for a new English Version of the Scriptures, by a
Licentiate of the Church of Scotland" (Macmillans), for having
recalled this fact to my remembrance, and so suggested the
argument which rests upon it."

THE OLD AGE OF ISAIAH. 209
human character, but are, as the utterances of a true
prophet should be, full of it to overflowing. But it
would be idle to conceal that another end besides
this has been kept in view. It is well known to
all scholars — it can scarcely be unknown to many
readers of this volume — that the chapters which
have furnished the materials for this picture of the
old age of Isaiah have by very many critics, English
as well as foreign, been assigned to a different and
later writer. The opening words, " Comfort ye,
comfort ye my people," have thus with many lost
their old divine power. They have come to be
associated with the discomfort of perplexity and
controversy. Instead of seeing, in the whole pro
phecy which they usher in, the completion of the
divine education which had up to that time led the
prophet to ever new heights of spiritual insight
and more glorious visions of the future, men have
been taught to ascribe them to some " great un
known," to a pseudo — or, where men shrank from
that epithet, to a deutero — Isaiah. I have no
desire to charge all such critics with irrever
ence or unbelief. Inquiries whether the books
which we find in the Old or New Testament were
written altogether by the writers whose names are
affixed to them cannot be excluded as lying outside
the province of legitimate criticism. The titles and
superscriptions given to books, and, in many cases,
the assignment of this or that book to an individual
writer, were the work of later compilers, and cannot
be thought of in any case as necessarily belonging
to words originating in inspiration. In this case,
however, I believe there is no sufficient ground for
rejecting the received belief. The difficulties con-
p

zio BIBLICAL STUDIES.
nected with it, though at first sight they may appear
formidable, are not so great as those which attend
the rival hypothesis. Into those difficulties it is not
my intention within these limits to enter at any
length. That which has been relied on as decisive,
the occurrence of the individual name of Cyrus, as
the future king of Persia, has been already met by
anticipation. Another, and, I am compelled to
admit, a more serious one, is found in lxiv. 10, 11 : —
" Thy holy cities are a wilderness ;
Zion is a wilderness, Judah a desolation ;
Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised Thee,
is burned up with fire,
And all our pleasant things are laid waste."
The first impression made by such words is, of
course, that they refer to the destruction of Jerusa
lem and its Temple as already completed. The man
who wrote them, we say, must have seen the desola
tion of which he speaks. But here again the close
connection which we have seen between the book of
Isaiah and his contemporary Micah supplies the
answer. The selfsame calamities of which the
former speaks had been foretold by the latter in
words which no one has thought of questioning as a
prophecy after the event.
" Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field,
And Jerusalem shall become heaps,
And the mountain of the house (sc. of the Temple) as the high
places of the forest." Micah iii. 12.
Assume these words to have been known to
Isaiah, remember that he, here also following Micah
(iv. 10), had a clear view of the coming exile in
Babylon, remember that he already saw the sanc
tuary profaned by the foul image which Manasseh
had set up (2 Chron. xxxiii. 2) and the Assyrian

THE OLD AGE OF ISAIAH. 211
armies ready to revenge, as they afterwards did
revenge, the disastrous retreat of Sennacherib
(2 Chron. xxxiii. 11), and we shall hardly wonder
that the desolation should seem to his prophetic
vision as actually present, the long-delayed judg
ment as already executed. The fact that Josiah on his
accession found the Temple in a condition altogether
ruinous, and that this state was owing in part to a
work of deliberate destruction at the hands of the
kings of Judah (2 Chron. xxxiv. 10, 11), may well
make it probable that he actually saw, in part at
least, what he here describes.
We may ask, on the other hand, at what period
towards the close of the Captivity would the mind
of a later writer have turned to so disastrous a
marriage, and so ill-omened a name as that of Heph
zibah, as suggestive of hope and gladness ? What
is there in the books that tell us of the return of
the exiles after Cyrus had appeared, to lead us to
think of them as presenting in strange combination,
the formal hypocrisy of a surface religion and a wild
craving after all forms of magical idolatry ? Was
Moloch worship with its infant sacrifices a pressing
danger then ? Was it likely, at a time when the
rigour of the teachers and leaders of the people was
setting them against any tolerance of mixed mar
riages (Ezra x. 2), or the presence among them of
men of other races (Ezra iv. 3), that any unknown
writer would have spoken as this writer speaks,
of the welcome to be given to the " sons of the
stranger ?" Why at such a time, when deliverance
was close at hand, should we have thought that the
" righteous was taken away from the evil to come,"
and not rather have mourned for him as cut off from

212 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
his share in the restoration ? Had there been such
a man so full of Divine insight, so capable of guiding
and teaching, after Cyrus had taken Babylon, is it
likely that there would have been no record of his
work in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, not even
in Jewish tradition ? Would it have been left to
Haggai and Zechariah to strengthen and stir up the
people ? Would such a writer, assuming his exist
ence, have been likely to come under the same
influences, to reproduce the thoughts of the same
prophet, to present the same images, allusions, play
upon words and names, as the historical Isaiah ?
Lastly, we may add that the very glory and
beauty of the language which speaks of the return
is against the notion of its having been written by
a contemporary. Let us think what that return
actually was, the poor remnant of 42,360 who repre
sented what had been a great nation, their struggle
with difficulties, disunion, want of means (Haggai i.
6, 11), the opposition of kings and princes (Ezra iv.
4, 5), the joy and praise mingling with weeping and
lamentations (Ezra iii. 13), and we shall hardly
think it likely that one who had that before him
would have spoken so rapturously as this writer
does. " Break forth into joy,
Sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem :
For the Lord hath comforted his people,
He hath redeemed Jerusalem.
The Lord hath made hare his holy arm in the sight of all the
nations ;
And all the ends of the world have seen the salvation of our
God." Iii. 9, 10.
No ! here as elsewhere, the prophet, beholding
what was far off, was led to see things in brighter
colours and in nobler forms than they actually ap-

THE OLD AGE OF ISAIAH. 213
peared in when the time of their historical fulfilment
came. Like other prophets, he was " a man of desires."
There came before his mind the vision of a Jeru
salem, a city of peace, beautiful and heavenly, which
no earthly Jerusalem ever did or ever can realise.
The yearning of his soul was to be satisfied else
where. He looked for " a city that hath founda
tions, whose builder and maker is God."
On these grounds, therefore, I submit to the
judgment of such students of Scripture as may care
to look into them, that the hypothesis of a deutero-
Isaiah, the charge of supposititious authorship,
which has found favour with so many eminent
critics, must be dismissed as not proven, as involving
those who accept it in a labyrinth of difficulties and
contradictions, as robbing one of the noblest books
of the Old Testament of half its life and power. To
separate that book from the old age of Isaiah is
hardly less perilous a venture than that which
separates the Pastoral Epistles from the old age of
St. Paul, or the Second Epistle which bears his
name from the old age of St. Peter.*
* I may refer to an admirable Essay on the Authorship of
Isaiah xl. — lxvi. appended to Professor Leathes's " Boyle Lec
tures" for 1868.

XI.
THEEE GENEEATIONS OF JEWISH
PATEIOTISM.
|HATEVEE interest may attach to the
lives of individual men who have played
a conspicuous part in the drama of a
nation's history, is in some strange way
heightened when we are able to trace a conti
nuity of principle and policy in the members of
the same family. There is a kind of atavism in
political history as well as in physical peculiarity.
A given line of feeling and character becomes he
reditary just as much as a given cast of features. So
we follow in Eoman history the ever-recurring arro
gance and recklessness of the Claudian gens, the
stainless courage of the Fabian, the sympathy with
the plebs which distinguished the Valerian. So in
our own history we recognise the great Whig houses
of the Cavendishes, the Eussells, the Howards, a
succession which, though modified and broken by
variations in individual character, is yet too marked
to be overlooked. It is not the least element in the
interest with which we watch the career of the
younger Pitt that he was the son of Chatham. Such
a succession, from the comparative scantiness of our
records, is not often traceable except in the royal

JEWISH PA TRIOTISM. 2 1 5
house, in Jewish history. One instance belonging
to the most interesting period of the monarchy, be
ginning in the reign of the most saintly king, and
connected with the life of perhaps the greatest of all
the prophets, I now purpose to examine.
2. The reign of which I speak is that of Josiah,
and the history which we have to trace opens in its
memorable eighteenth year. The king, who had
ascended the throne at the age of eight, was still in
the early years of manhood, and had entered on a
more active work of devout zeal than had been pos
sible in his early years. The temple of Jehovah,
which had fallen into decay during the long idolatry
of Manasseh, and had not been restored after his late
repentance, was to be brought back to something of
its old magnificence. And in this work the king's
chief agent and counsellor was " Shaphan, the son
of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, the scribe." To
him the king gave commandment that he should go
to Hilkiah the high priest, and urge that there should
be no more delay. For some years past apparently,
the people had brought their gifts, and the treasury
was now full. It was time to apply the funds that
had been so collected, and to engage "carpenters,
and builders, and masons," to buy "timber and
hewn stone to repair the house." It is noted as
characteristic of the confidence which existed between
the scribe and the priest, as men of like devotion and
integrity, that there was no audit of the accounts.
" There was no reckoning made with them of the
money that was delivered into their hands, because
they dealt faithfully" (2 Kings xxii. 7).*
* It is interesting to note that when a previous king, Joash, had
been engaged in a like work of temple restoration, the scribe and

216 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
3. This incident would be enough to show that
the position of Shaphan in the government of Judah
must have been a very prominent one. Over and
above his functions as scribe, drawing up the king's
edicts, keeping the decrees of his predecessors, con
trolling the finances of the king, he was also, if one
may use modern terms to express ancient facts, a
Minister of Eeligion as well as a Secretary of State
and a Chancellor of the Exchequer. A better analogy
would be found, perhaps, in saying that the scribe
of Judah was to the king as a vizier to a caliph. But
the reign of Hezekiah had probably added other func
tions to the office, and made the scribe not only the
custodian of the royal archives, but also the guardian
of the sacred books. When " the men of Hezekiah,
king of Judah," copied out the proverbs of Solomon,
which had not previously formed part of the book
that bears that name (Prov. xxv. 1), it is reasonable to
assume that their work was done under the directions
of the king's chief scribe. The long antagonism
of Manasseh to the faith of Israel, and the persecu
tion of the prophets, had doubtless, as the subsequent
history shows, thrown this part of his office into
abeyance, but it remained as ready to be revived
whenever occasion called for it. And with this high
official influence there was that of age also. At the
time when he comes upon the scene, his son Ahtkam
is in full activity, associated with him in his work.
Such a man must have been almost paramount in

the high priest (the former is not named, the latter was Jehoiada)
stood in precisely the same relation to each other. They " told
the money that was found in the house of the Lord," and gave it,
being told, " into the hands of them that did the work, and had
the oversight of the house of the Lord " (2 Kings xii. 10). Then
also there was no audit of the accounts.

JEWISH PA TRIOTISM. 2 1 7
authority during the long minority of Josiah ; must
have been to him as Jehoiada was to Joash, as
Cranmer was to Edward VI. ; must have done much
to form and foster the zeal and devotion for which
he was afterwards so conspicuous. It is probable
enough that he too had inherited the principles for
which he was thus conspicuous. At a very critical
moment in the life of Jeremiah, when the princes of
Judah defended him against the attacks of the
priests and prophets, when as foremost among those
princes we find the name of Ahikam, the son of
Shaphan, we read that they appealed to what had
occurred in the reign of Hezekiah as a decisive pre
cedent in favour of the " liberty of prophesying."
Micah the Morasthite had then predicted that Zion
should be ploughed as a field and Jerusalem become
heaps, and yet neither Hezekiah nor all Judah had
put him to death (Jer. xxvi. 18, 19). What more
likely than that the precedent referred to was one of
the traditions of the house to which Jeremiah's chief
defender belonged, and that some ancestor of his had
been among those on whom the words of Micah had
made a deep and lasting impression ? *
4. The work in which Shaphan and Hilkiah were
engaged had a strange and unlooked-for episode. In
the course of their work of restoration, secreted in
some corner of the Temple, Hilkiah the priest found
" a book of the law of the Lord given by Moses "
(2 Kings xxii. 8 ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14), and reported
his discovery to Shaphan. It was obviously a new
* The presence of an Achbor or Abdon, the son of Micah, among
the companions of Ahikam and Shaphan in the events that
followed the discovery of the law (2 Kings xxii. 14 ; 2 Chron.
xxxiv. 20), presents a coincidence too noticeable to be passed over
in dealing with this hypothesis.

218 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
book to them. It contained terrible threats of the
desolation which the sins of the people were drawing
down on them. When the king heard its denuncia
tions he rent his clothes. There seems scarcely room
for doubt from this description of its contents that
the book so called was that which we know under
the title of Deuteronomy. It is scarcely probable
that the whole law of Moses could have remained
unknown to the high priest and the king's chief
scribe. But the explanation of the strange discovery
is to be found in the fact that the present arrange
ment of the books of Moses is probably of later date,
that it may have existed before Ezra in detached
portions, and become a complete whole, as the Pen
tateuch, after his revision. And it might well be,
if this were so, that the Book of Deuteronomy (as
suming it to be an ancient and true record of the
words of Moses) had yet been treated as a supple
ment, and been comparatively little read — that the
copies made of it had never been very numerous —
that because it denounced idolatry in stronger lan
guage than any other portion of the law, it had been
hunted out and destroyed under Manasseh — that
some faithful priest or prophet had sought to save it
from perishing utterly by concealing it in the dust
of some dark corner of the desecrated sanctuary.*
* The predominant theory of German criticism, it is well known,
assigns the book itself to the reign of Josiah, and to the authorship
of Jeremiah, or Baruch, or Hilkiah. It comes before us on this
hypothesis as being, more or less, of the nature of a " pious fraud"
intended to stimulate the reforming zeal of the young king and his
advisers. I am not disposed to meet the theory by the a priori
objection that there can be no personated authorship in any
canonical book, but there are passages in the Book of Deuteronomy
which seem to me incompatible with the date thus assumed. Can
we think it probable that a work written by a priest of Judah
would have been so lavish in its language of praise and blessing on

JEWISH PA TRIOTISM. 2 1 9
5. The action that followed on these events is
prominent in the history of the period. Hilkiah,
Shaphan, and Ahikam, with the son of Micah
already referred to, and another servant of the
king's, are sent to " inquire of the Lord concerning
the words of the book," and they go to Huldah the
prophetess, the wife of Shallum, and commune with
her, and she utters her twofold prediction. Because
Josiah's heart has been " tender," and he has
humbled himself before the Lord, " the evil shall
not come in his days," but the city itself shall " be
come a desolation and a curse " (2 Kings xxii. 15
— 20). The words bore their fruit in the active,
zealous reformation of which we have the history in
2 Kings xxiii. The words of " the book of the cove
nant " against idolaters, and workers with familiar
spirits, and wizards were fulfilled to the very letter.
We may trace in the name of Shallum, which Josiah
gave to one of his sons (known also as Jehoahaz),
the influence which Huldah, the wife of Shallum,
exercised over the king's counsels, and the honour
in which he held her. The fact that a son of
Shallum, i.e., probably, of Huldah herself, was called
after Maaseiah, the governor of the city (Jer. xxxv.
4), shows how closely she was connected with the
party of zealous reformers. We are concerned now
with their bearing upon the history of the family of
Shaphan and those connected with them ; and the
more closely we examine the history, the more links

the house of Ephraim, and this after that kingdom had been
utterly destroyed (Deut. xxxiii. 13 — 17) P Can we believe that
such stress would have been laid on the Urim and Thummim as
the glory of the tribe of Levi, when there is no trace whatever of
the use or existence of the Urim after the accession of Solomon
(Deut. xxxiii. 8) ?

220 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
do we find between them, and the prophet who was
soon to be so conspicuous, Jeremiah of Anathoth.
(1) In close union with Shaphan in the work of
restoring the Temple, we find the name of Maaseiah,
the governor of the city (2 Chron. xxxiv. 8). In
the historical books we hear nothing more of him,
but by combining passages in the writings of Jere
miah (xxxvi. 4; li. 59) we find that the prophet's
two chosen disciples, Seraiah, and his more conspi
cuous brother, Baruch, the son of Neriah, were his
grandsons. (2) Jeremiah himself is described as
the son of Hilkiah, and although there is a pre
ponderance both of authority and evidence against
identifying him with the high priest who was
Shaphan's fellow- worker, the identity of name is,
as in so many other instances, presumptive evidence
of some near degree of consanguinity. (3) In the
remarkable passage in Jeremiah's history in which,
while the army of the Chaldeans was encompassing
the city, he purchased the reversion (in Hebrew
phrase, the redemption) of land which belonged
to a near kinsman, in his faith that the land should
one day be free again, and its fields cultivated and
houses built in it, we note that the name of that
kinsman was Hanameel, the son qf Shallum, and that
this Shallum was the prophet's uncle. If we identify
him, and here there is nothing against the identi
fication, with the husband of Huldah, we have a
connection which throws a flood of light on the
whole history. If this be left as simply conjectural,
there still remains evidence of some kind of intimacy
or relationship. (4) When Jeremiah writes by the
hands of the two ambassadors who were sent to
Babylon a letter exhorting the captive Jews to seek

JEWISH PATRIOTISM. 221
the peace of the city in which they lived, instead of
plunging into rash and profitless conspiracies, one
of those whom he entrusted with this perilous com
mission was Gemariah, the son of Hilkiah, either,
i.e., a brother of Jeremiah himself, or a son of the
reforming high priest. In either case it is a notice
able fact, pointing to the close union of the two
families, that he bears the same name as one of the
sons of Shaphan, and is accompanied in his mission
by another (Jer. xxix. 3).
6. The venerable head of the house passes from
the scene, taken away from the evil to come, and
leaves behind him four sons. Every one of them
is more or less prominent in the history of the down
fall of the kingdom. Ahikam, as we have seen, was
already in the full maturity of life, and high in the
king's favour, at the time of the discovery of the
book of the law by Hilkiah. He was one of those
sent to Huldah. He must, in the nature of the case,
have taken a leading part in the extirpation of idola
try which followed. Then came the rash opposition
of Josiah, as a tributary ally of the Chaldeans, to the
march of Pharaoh-nechoh, and his death at the battle
of Megiddo ; the short reign of Shallum, his depo
sition by the Egyptian king, the exile from which he
was never to return (Jer. xxii. 10 — 12) ; the ap
pointment of Jehoiakim as a satrap king, dependent
on the power of Egypt. The reign of that king was
the period in which Jeremiah, who seems to have
first drawn men's eyes on him by his lamentations
over Josiah's death, became active as a prophet.
And as soon as we enter on the history of that
activity coincidences that connect him with the
house of Shaphan, or the party to which Shaphan

222 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
belonged, multiply on every side, (a) At the very
commencement of Jehoiakim's reign, the prophet
appeared in the courts of the Lord's house, whither
the "word of the Lord" had bidden him go, and
proclaimed in the hearing of all the crowd that
worshipped there the awful message, that unless
they repented and hearkened to the Lord, He would
" make this house as Shiloh," would " make this
city a curse to all the nations of the earth." Priests,
prophets, and people rise up against him with a fury
which reminds of the rage with which the priests
and scribes of a later date "gnashed their teeth"
and rushed on Stephen. The princes of Judah are
summoned by the unwonted stir from the palace to
the Temple, and sit, as it were, in council " in the
entry of the new gate of the Lord's house." The
priests and the prophets are clamorous for Jeremiah's
condemnation : " This man is worthy to die, for he
hath prophesied against this city, as ye have heard."
The prophet appeals from them to the calmer judg
ment of the princes, and repeats that in all that he
said he had but uttered the words which the Lord
had given him to utter. And the appeal is success
ful. The judgment of the court is more than an
acquittal. His divine mission as a prophet is fully
recognised. "This man is not worthy to die, for
he hath spoken to us in the name of the Lord our
God." Certain of the elders of the land, encouraged
by this support, refer to the precedent (already
mentioned) of Micah the Morasthite in the reign of
Hezekiah. And so, for the present, the prophet
escapes. The closing words of the chapter explain
the powerful protection which was thus given him :
" Nevertheless the hand of Ahikam, the son of

JEWISH PATRIOTISM. 223
Shaphan, was with Jeremiah, that they should not
give him into the hands of the people to put him to
death " (Jer. xxvi. 24). (b) In the memorable inci
dent of the Eechabites, to whom Jeremiah offered
wine, after he had brought them into the pre
cincts of the Temple, we note that the room into
which he brought them was over that of Maaseiah,
the son of Shallum — possibly, i.e., of the very
governor of the city who acted with Shaphan,
more probably of a son of the prophetess Huldah,
who was named after him. The fact that the pro
phetess had a residence assigned to her in what is
called the " college " or " school " within the pre
cincts of the Temple, strengthens the inference
in favour of the latter hypothesis (Jer. xxxv. 4 ;
2 Kings xxii. 14). (e) When the prophet " took the
roll of a book," and wrote therein all the words which
he had spoken against Israel and Judah and Jeru
salem, and being imprisoned, sent Baruch to read it
in the house of the Lord, the place chosen for the
purpose was the chamber of Gemaeiah, the son of
Shaphan the scribe, in the higher court, at the
entry of the new gate of the Lord's house " (" the
new gate," probably, i.e., part of the building con
structed under Shaphan's superintendence). Ge
mariah himseK seems not to have been present, but
one of the third generation, his son Michaiah, was
left as his representative. He listened till the stern,
terrible message had reached its close, and then
hastened to report its substance to his father and
the other princes (among them a son of the Achbor,
who met us, as one of the colleagues of Shaphan, in
the mission to Huldah) as they sat in council. They
heard, and sent for Baruch, and made him repeat

224 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
the message, and listened to it with terror. They
went to the king to inform him, but before they did
so, they took measures for the safety of the prophet
and his disciples, with whom they were obviously
in sympathy. And then we have the strange scene
which is brought before us with such a dramatic
vividness. It was winter, and the king was in his
winter palace, and a charcoal fire was burning on
the hearth. As if half anticipating what actually
took place, the princes of Judah had placed the
written roll of the prophet, as well as the men who
had written it, in a place of safety, and confine
themselves to an oral report of its substance. But
the king will have the very words, and nothing else,
and sends Jehudi (apparently one of the royal pages)
to fetch the roll from the chamber of Elishama the
scribe, where it had been deposited. It is brought, and
Jehudi reads it. The king listens with ill-disguised
impatience, and after a little while (but three or
four leaves had been read) burst out into an impotent
rage against the parchment-roll, cuts it into strips
with his penknife, and throws it leaf by leaf into the
fire till the whole is burnt. Three of the princes
made intercession with the king that he would not
burn the roll ; and among the three we find the
name of Gemaeiah the son of Shaphan (Jer. xxxvi.).
7. There may have been one notable exception to
the general faithfulness of the family. In the vision
which came to Ezekiel by the banks of Chebar, he
is taken "in the spirit" to Jerusalem, and has to
look (this was in the reign of Zedekiah) into the
secret recesses of the Temple. He looks, and beholds
every form of "creeping things, and abominable
beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel,"

JEWISH PATRIOTISM. 225
portrayed upon the wall round about. " And there
stood before them seventy men of the ancients of
the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood
Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his
censer in his hand ; and a thick cloud of incense
went up " (Ezek. viii. 7 — 12). And this is followed
by a like vision of " women weeping for Tammuz "
at the north gate of the Temple, and of " five-and-
twenty men at the door between the porch and the
altar, with their backs toward the temple of the
Lord and their faces toward the east ; and they
worshipped the sun toward the east." Whether we
think of the son of Shaphan, thus brought before
us, as one of the same house who had apostatized, or
take the coincidence of name as accidental, the
evidence as to the religious state of Jerusalem
during the reign of Zedekiah is distinct enough,
and must be borne in mind as we trace the his
tory of the house of Shaphan in the events that
follow. 8. The reign of Jehoiakim lasted for eight years,
and then the supremacy of Egypt was changed for
that of the Chaldaeans. Nebuchadnezzar reigned
from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates. A
weak attempt at rebellion did but irritate the great
king ; and when Jehoiakim died, and his son Jehoia-
chin (otherwise Jeconiah, or Coniah) was placed on
the throne, the boy-king* had but a three-months'
reign. The city was taken, the Temple plundered,
the king deposed, and taken, with " all the mighty
men of valour and all the princes," into exile. The
captivity had begun. Zedekiah, a half-brother of
* In 2 Kings xxiv. 8, his age is given as eighteen ; in 2 Chron.
xxxvi. 9, with less probability, at eight.
Q

226 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Jehoiakim's, was placed on the throne by Nebu
chadnezzar as a tributary king. Among the cap
tives there must probably have been some at least
of the house of Shaphan, who were so conspicuous
among the princes of Judah. All that follows leads
to the conviction that they, or some of them, were
in Babylon, entering into relations more or less con
fidential with the Chaldaean king and his generals.
This explains the contrast which Jeremiah draws
(chap, xxiv.) between the good figs, which symbolize
those who have been carried to Babylon, and the
others, " evil, very evil," that answer to the king
and his princes, and the "residue of the land" at
home. This accounts for the prophet's sending a
special letter by Elasah the son of Shaphan, and
Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, when they went as
ambassadors from Zedekiah to Babylon, bidding
them seek the peace of the city to which they
had been carried captive (Jer. xxix. 3, 7). It is
perhaps connected with that mysterious visit to the
Euphrates, uncertain as to its date, and standing
apparently so isolated, that many commentators
have looked on it as done in vision only, of which
we read in chap. xiii. 1 — 11. Lastly, it accounts
for the far worse treatment of the prophet during
the reign of Zedekiah, " shut up in the courts of the
prison " (xxxii. 1 ; xxxiii. 1), with chains fettering
his limbs (xl. 4), in the house of Jonathan the
scribe, with its fetid dungeons and scant food endan
gering his life (xxxvii. 15 — 21), thrown down, after
the king had shown a momentary pity, into the
dungeon where " there was no water, but mire,"
where "he was like to perish for hunger," from
which he had to be dragged up by ropes as from the

JEWISH PATRIOTISM. 227
bottom of a well (Jer. xxxviii. 6 — 13). He had no
longer a protector at the court of Zedekiah, none
among the princes of Judah. The house of Sha
phan, with the possible exception of the apostate
Jaazaniah, were far away in the city on the banks
of the Euphrates.
9. The supposition which has thus so much in its
favour, accounts, lastly, for the manner in which the
representative of the third generation appears on
the scene, and for the care taken by the Chaldaean
generals at the command of Nebuchadnezzar, when
Jerusalem is captured, to protect the person of the
prophet. Their first act is to take him out of the
court of the prison, and commit him to the safe
keeping of Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son
of Shaphan. He, it is clear, has come with the
invading army. Through him Nebuchadnezzar has
heard of the line which the prophet has taken in
deprecating resistance to what he looked on as a
divine appointment. He comes as already appointed
by the king of Babylon to be satrap over the con
quered country. When the prophet, released from
his imprisonment, has to choose between the invita
tion to go to Babylon or to remain with Gedaliah,
he naturally chooses the companionship of his early
friend and protector — of one who, being compara
tively young, would be likely to look on him with
reverence. And we can scarcely fail to recognise in
the reception which the new governor met with, a
proof of the confidence inspired by his descent.
They gather round him — princes and peasants — and
receive his assurance of protection. Instead of the
lawless plunder which was almost the normal accom
paniment of an invasion, they are encouraged to

228 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
gather their wine and summer fruits and oil under a
promise of security. They flock from all the neigh
bouring countries — from Moab and Ammon and
Edom — in the belief that there is now some prospect
of tranquillity and order. The character of Geda
liah mspired them with hope. There is a touching
generosity, a noble simplicity of trust, in the way
in which he rejected the warning that was given
him as to the treachery with which, under the guise
of a loyal allegiance, he was surrounded. And with
him and the prophet we find once more united, in
principle and act, Baruch the son of Neriah. He
too is obviously absent from Jerusalem during the
whole reign of Zedekiah, neither sharing the pro
phet's sufferings nor able to relieve them : and, if
so, the most probable conjecture is that he too had
been carried off to Babylon, and had returned with
Gedaliah. The apocryphal book which bears his
name, though spurious, may reasonably be looked on
as embodying facts which were then known ; and it
purports to have been written in Babylon, and read
in the presence of Jechonias (Jehoiachin), on the
very day of the destruction of Jerusalem, " when
the nobles and the king's sons, and all the people
from the highest to the lowest, were gathered at
Babylon by the river Sud" (Baruch i. 1 — 4).
10. The warning which Gedaliah had received
was only too well grounded. When Johanan the
son of Kareah told him that Ishmael, the son of
Nethaniah, the son of Elishama,* sought his life,
* The names of Nethaniah and Elishama meet us as among the
servants of Jehoiakim (Jer. xxxvi. 12, 14), but they are clearly
not identical with Ishmael' s father and grandfather. They may,
however, as in other instances, be received as evidence of relation
ship, and so probably of inherited partizanship.

JEWISH PATRIOTISM. 229
and offered to avert the deed by the assassination of
the murderer himself, he had good reason for know
ing that " Baalis, the king of the Ammonites," had
instigated the crime. Each of the sharers in the
scheme had probably his own motives ; and it is not
difficult to guess them, (a) Ishmael was " of the
seed-royal," and with him were ten men, "the
princes of the king." As such, he and they might
naturally feel aggrieved that instead of his being
chosen, as Zedekiah had been, to remain as titular
king of the ruined cities and impoverished popula
tion left by the Chaldseans, the work of ruling was
given by Nebuchadnezzar to one whose fathers had
been the king's servants, in whose veins there flowed
no drop of royal blood, (b) And Baalis, too, had
his cause of quarrel against the prophet, and the
prophet's friends. Jeremiah had proclaimed in the
reign of Zedekiah* that the same yoke of bondage
which was to come on Jerusalem would fall also
upon the Ammonites. He had prophesied that
" Eabbah should be a desolate heap, and that her
daughters " (i.e., daughter-towns) " should be burned
with fire, that their king should go into captivity,
and his princes and his priests together " (Jer. xlix.
1 — 6). At first it seemed as if they might hope
to escape. The scourge fell on Jerusalem, and
let them go free. They might have exulted, as
Edom did, in the downfall of their rival, But
when they saw the prophet once more free and
active, able to assist in working out the fulfilment
of his own predictions, they felt that the danger

* Ch. xxvii. 1, refers the prophecy to the reign of Jehoiakim,
but vers. 3, 12, show that there must have been some error of
transcription.

z3o BIBLICAL STUDIES.
was pressing, and were ready to take any measures
to avert it.
11. The history of the assassination may be very
briefly told. Ishmael and his confederates came as
on a friendly visit to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and are
received by him as guests to " eat bread." Mizpah,
at the time, was probably a simple fortress, which
served as the residence of the satrap and a few sol
diers. The meal was clearly a private one, as if part
of some secret conference, and the number of men
in the fortress very small. Ishmael and his ten
adherents rose up suddenly, when the wine-cup had
done its work, against the unsuspecting Gedaliah,
and slew him, and this was followed by the massacre
of his adherents. Two days passed before the news of
the murder was known, and Ishmael took advantage
of the secrecy to work another deed of bloodshed,
which seems at first to have been one of mere wanton
atrocity, but which may have had a political sig
nificance. Eighty men were going from Shechem, from
Shiloh, and from Samaria, as pilgrims to the
desolated temple. They had their beards shaven,
their clothes rent : they had cut themselves after
the heathen fashion in token of their sorrow, and
now they were going "with offerings and incense
in their hands" (Jer. xli. 1 — 10). Let us remem
ber that these men must have been representatives
of the remnant of Ephraim, of the kingdom of
the Ten Tribes, mingled to some extent with the
foreign races which Esar-haddon had planted
there. Let us remember with what tones of yearn
ing and pity Jeremiah had turned to Ephraim, how
he had dwelt on the sin of "treacherous" Judah

JEWISH PA TRIOTISM. 2 3 1
as greater than the sin of "backsliding" Israel
(Jer. iii. 6 — 11) ; how he had dwelt on the hope
that they would one day turn and repent, and had
spoken, in the name of the Lord, of Ephraim as a
" dear son," a " pleasant child," "earnestly remem
bered still," one on whom the Lord had sworn that
He would have mercy (Jer. xxxi. 18 — 20). Bearing
this in mind, we can well imagine that the pil
grimage in which these men were engaged had at
once a religious and a political meaning. It declared
that they returned to the religion and the church of
their fathers, that they accepted the prophet as their
guide, that they were willing to accept the prophet's
friend as their ruler. In order to ensnare them Ish
mael has to pretend that he comes to join their
solemn litany with weeping and lamentations (Jer.
xli. 6), and that he is sent to lead them into the
presence of Gedaliah. They fall into the trap, as
though this were the very thing they came for, and
the deed of blood is perpetrated.
12. I do not care to go further into the story of
that crime. I am writing the history of a family,
not of a period, and with the death of Gedaliah the
last member of the house of Shaphan, of whom we
know anything, passes from our view. I note only
in conclusion, that just as this inquiry into one of
the by-paths of Jewish history has served to show us
what influences surrounded the prophet Jeremiah's
youth, and sustained him in the struggles of his man
hood, and consoled him in his sorrowing age, so it
may help us in some measure to estimate the bitter
ness of the closing years of his life, when he was left
all but friendless and alone. Baruch, indeed, was still
faithful in the midst of a stubborn and rebellious

z32 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
house. But with that exception all were gone who
had known and helped him. He was alone in the
solitude of age and of a work seemingly resultless,
sustained only by his trust in Jehovah otje Eight
eousness, and his belief in the New Covenant to
be made some far-off day with the house of Israel
and with mankind.

XII.
THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY.
PAKT I.  NEBTJCHADNEZZAE.
|HE seventy years of the Captivity were in
| many ways the most remarkable period
of a history which throughout was won
derful. They drew a broad line of de
marcation between the older and the later phases of
the religion and the culture of the chosen people.
The exile was at once the penalty of their past sins,
and the education by which they were, in part at
least, purified from them. This was what all their
previous history had brought them to. This con
tained the germs of all their future. Whatever was
most characteristic of later Judaism had its origin by
the banks of the Euphrates. There the Scribes rose
into prominence, as the Spirit that spake by the pro
phets came less frequently and with diminished
power. There the canon of the Old Testament first
assumed something of its present shape, and all else
that had belonged to the literature of Israel was left,
either by a deliberate process of selection and rejec
tion, or by the chances of conquest and of exile, to
perish and be forgotten. There the old forms of
idolatry, which had cleaved to the life of the nation,

Z34 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
like a leprous taint, from the time of the Exodus,
were laid aside never to be resumed. There the very
language which they spoke assumed a different
shape, and there, abandoning the written characters
which their fathers had used, they learnt to use those
which they have ever since employed with hardly
any alteration, the characters which we know as
Hebrew.* A period so fruitful in results of the greatest
moment might well claim a special investigation.
That claim is strengthened when we remember the
position which it occupies, not only in relation to the
fortunes of the chosen people, but in the contemporary
history of the world. It opens just after the over
throw of one of the great monarchies, and the de
struction of one of the great cities, of the ancient
world, which had kept its ground for upwards of a
thousand years. It ends with the fall of one that in
the colossal greatness of its power and the magnifi
cence of its buildings surpassed all others. It begins
with the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, and ends with that
of Cyrus. It was a time of vast migrations, and
struggles of races and of creeds. The religion of
Buddha was working its mighty change in India, not
altogether beyond the horizon of the Babylonian
empire. The religion of Zoroaster was entering on
a new and more energetic life, and the books which
embody that faith were assuming their present shape.
Not less wonderful was the synchronism of events in
regions that lay then entirely out of all contact with
the history of the Bible. Then it was that Epime-
* By one of the strange vicissitudes of history, the older Hebrew
writing has been preserved to our own time in the Pentateuch
MSS. of the Samaritans, whom the Jews despised as not being of
the stock of Abraham.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 235
nides, and the Orphic brotherhoods that traced their
origin to him, were altering the character of the
earlier creed of Greece, as represented by the Homeric
poems, that Pythagoras and his disciples were laying
the foundations of an asceticism which developed
into a philosophy, that Solon was building up the
intellectual and political life of Athens. In the far
West, Eome was already rising into greatness. The
walls of Servius Tullus, yet more the organization of
the constitution which bears his name, were marking
out the future destiny of the city of the Seven Hills
as different from that of any other town in Italy. In
the far East, Confucius was entering on his work as
the teacher of an ethical system which, whatever may
be its defects, has kept its ground through all the
centuries that have followed, and been accepted by
many millions of mankind, which, at present, modi
fied more or less by its contact with Buddhism,
divides with that system the homage of nearly all
tribes and nations of Turanian origin.
Of many of these great changes we can only think
with wonder at the strange parallelism with which
the great divisions of the human family were moving
on, far removed from each other, in the order which
had been appointed for them. Those which connect
themselves directly with the rise and fall of the great
Chaldaean monarchy will serve to show how, " in
sundry times and divers manners," God has taught
men to feel after Him, and, it may be, find Him.
They will throw a new light on many passages of
Scripture. Here, as in so many other regions of
history, we, at the distance of two thousand five
hundred years, are better qualified to judge and to
interpret than those who were removed from the

236 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
events of which they spoke by two or three short
centuries. The researches of the scholars of our own
time have compelled the records of Assyrian, Chal
daean, and Persian monuments, which were before as
a sealed book, to give up their treasures, and we are
now able to fill up the gaps in the fragmentary
notices of the Hebrew Scriptures, and to correct or
complete the narratives, often hazy and legendary, of
the Greek historians.
For centuries before the birth of Nebuchadnezzar,
Babylon had been carrying on with varying success
a struggle against the great Assyrian empire which
had its capital on the Tigris. For the most part it
was governed by an Assyrian satrap. Sometimes
the satrap tried to assert his independence. In the
eighth century b.c. the first great blow was struck at
the power of Nineveh. The Pul who appears in
2 Kings xv. 19 ; 1 Chron. v. 26, as a king of Assyria,
was in reality a Babylonian ruler, who, in conjunc
tion with a Median chief, attacked a king whom the
Greeks called Sardanapalus, and, on his defeat and
death, b.c. 788, took his throne and title.* This
brought him into contact with the kingdom of Israel,
which, from the days of Jehu, had paid tribute to
the Assyrian king,f and which some thirty or forty
years before had seen its chief prophet start on a
journey to the great city, in which he appeared as a
* In the Greek narratives the Babylonian king appears as
Belesis, the Median as Arbaces. Sardanapalus (on the Assyrian
monuments the name appears as AssourHkhous) is the monarch
whose effeminacy and luxury have become proverbial. When the
capture of Nineveh was inevitable he set fire to his palace, and
perished in its ruins with his concubines and eunuchs.
f "Jehu, the son of Khumri," on the monuments. The latter
name is identical with the " Omri " of the Bible, and shows that
the king of Israel was looked upon as continuing the dynasty of the
house of Ahab, which he had in fact overthrown.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 237
preacher of repentance, warning it of its coming
destruction. A thousand talents of silver had to be
paid by Menahem, who then filled the throne of
Israel, as a tribute (2 Kings xv. 19, 20). If we
identify the Tiphsah, which that king is said to have
taken (2 Kings xv. 14), with the city of the same
name founded by Solomon on the banks of the
Euphrates, we are led to the conclusion that he too
had taken advantage of the weakness of the Assyrian
king, and had endeavoured to regain possession of
what had once belonged to Israel, and that the in
vasion was to chastise him for this presumption. An
incidental notice shows (1 Chron. v. 26) that Pul
was the first to begin the system of deportation
which was afterwards carried on so ruthlessly. The
tribes on the east of the Jordan suffered most
severely. They were already made to taste the
bitterness of exile.
The hour of the downfall of Nineveh had not, how
ever, as yet arrived. The next king, Tiglath-Pileser,
was of the old Assyrian stock. The Chaldaeans were
driven back, and compelled to content themselves
with maintaining their independence in the province
of Babylon. The successor of Pul, Nabonassar,
stamped his name on a chronological era which
served as a starting-point for the later annalists of
Eastern history, and burnt the records of all the
alien kings who had ruled before him, but did little
else. Then followed a time of weakness and dis
order. The Assyrian kings, under Salmaneser and
Sargon (Isa. xx.l), raised their kingdom to its for
mer height of power. The kings of Israel strug
gled in vain against it, in vain sought to strengthen
themselves by an alliance with the Ethiopian dynasty

238 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
then ruling in Egypt.* They, too, were conquered
and carried to Halah, and Habor, and the cities of
the Medes. After an interval of eight years, and
a fruitless attempt to avert the danger by submis
sion and the payment of tribute, the armies of Sen
nacherib took the cities of Judah, and encompassed
Jerusalem itself. The city was blockaded, and threat
ened with the horrors of famine. It escaped only
by the sudden pestilence which in a single night
wrecked the hopes of the Assyrian king, and made
him retire to his own country, there to perish by the
hands of his own sons. The singularly interesting
history of Isaiah xxxix. throws light on the position
which Babylon occupied at this juncture, and the
way in which it was affected by the destruction of
Sennacherib's army. Merodach-Baladan, the king
who is there named, had carried on a long struggle
against him and his predecessor, Sargon. When he
heard of the marvellous deliverance which had thus
been granted to Hezekiah, and of what must have
seemed hardly less strikingly a proof of his being
under the protection of a divine power, his escape as
from the jaws of death, (possibly from the self-same
plague which had proved so fatal to the invaders), it
seemed to him that here was an ally whose support
would be invaluable. He sent his ambassadors with
the gifts which, according to Oriental usage, had the
character of tribute as from a subject prince. He
was willing to acknowledge Hezekiah as his titular
sovereign. The king of Judah, blinded by the
dream of being the head of a re-united monarchy,
reviving the old glories of David and Solomon, and
* The Ethiopian king appears in Herodotus under the name of
Sabaco. In 2 Kings xvii. 4, it is contracted into So.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 239
extending his power, as Menahem had tried to do,
once more to the banks of the Euphrates, fell into
the snare.* The voice of the prophet, who saw more
clearly into the perils which such an alliance was
sure to bring with it, compelled him to put aside that
thought. The prospect of an alliance between Baby
lon and Judah proved abortive ; and Esar-haddon,
successor of Sennacherib, first as viceroy during his
father's lifetime, and then as king, made Babylon at
times the seat of government, in order more com
pletely to ensure the subjugation of the rebellious
province. It was there that Manasseh, the son of
Hezekiah, who seems to have plunged rashly into the
policy against which Isaiah had protested, was carried
as a prisoner by Esar-haddon (2 Chron. xxxiii. 11).
It was from Babylon that the same king sent the
Cuthites and other tribes, who were to replace the
Israelites that had been carried away from the
northern provinces of Palestine, and who became
the ancestors of the Samaritans of later history
(2 Kings xvii. 24 ; Ezra iv. 2). For the next
ninety years the two great cities of the East con
tinued, with but slight interruptions, on the same
footing. They were so when, circ. b.c. 626, Nabo-
polassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, became the
satrap of Babylon under the last but one of the
Assyrian kings.
The attack on Nineveh began, as before, by an
* The summons addressed by the king in the earlier years of
his reign to the chief tribes of the northern kingdom, Ephraim,
Manasseh, Asher, Issachar, and Zebulun, shows that Hezelriah
had started with the hope of restoring the monarchy to its old
greatness. The name which, towards its close, he gave his son
(Manasseh) may fairly be regarded as evidence that that hope had
not been abandoned. The overthrow of Sennacherib's army had
naturally tended to revive it.

240 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
alliance between the Babylonian and the Median
kings, and the marriage of the daughter of Cyaxares
with Nebuchadnezzar was the seal of the compact
into which they entered to complete the work that
had been commenced by Pul and Arbaces. The
great migration of the Turanian tribes, Scythians,
Cimmerii, Massagetae, which led the hordes that
were grouped under the first name to pour down like
a flood upon the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates,
over the provinces of Asia Minor, and finally over
the lower valley of the Danube, imposed on the two
confederates, especially on the Median kings, the
task of defending their own kingdoms, and so for a
time the doom of Nineveh was delayed. In the
meantime, Nabopolassar and his queen Nitocris (the
name indicates an Egyptian origin,* and points pro
bably to an alliance with the Ethiopian dynasty, then
reigning at Sais), went on with the great engineering
works which made Babylon the wonder of the world.
Canals were dug which shortened the voyage from
one point of the winding course of the Euphrates to
another, embankments constructed to check the in
undations of the river, a large lake made to receive
its waters when they overflowed, a bridge thrown
across the stream, hanging or terraced gardens laid
out, it was said, to remind the Median wife of
Nebuchadnezzar of the scenery of her own land.
Gradually, without venturing as yet on the final
attack, he absorbed one after another the chief pro
vinces of the Assyrian empire, and left its king
Assaracus little more than Nineveh and its adjacent
territory. * The first syllable is identical with the name of the goddess
Neith.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 241
At this stage we get a point of contact with the
history of the Bible. Egypt under Psammitichus
seemed to have entered on a new stage of greatness,
and its king sought to regain the power which his
predecessors, Eameses and Sesostris, had exercised
over Syria, and the other western provinces of Asia.
The policy of Manasseh led him to court the alli
ance of a sovereign who seemed strong enough to
defend him against the Assyrian king. Jews were
sent as auxiliaries to defend the Ethiopian frontiers
on the upper valley of the Nile.* The name of
Manasseh's son, Amon, had a suspiciously Egyptian
sound, f As far as Manasseh himself was concerned,
the alliance ended, as the prophets had foretold it
would do, in shame and defeat. He was carried as
a prisoner by the Assyrian king to Babylon ; and
when he returned, it was as a subject-king tributary
to him, not as the ally of the king of Egypt. It is
in this relation that we have to seek the explanation
of the seeming rashness which led to the defeat and
death of the good king Josiah at the battle of
Megiddo. Necho, the son of Psammitichus, was
watching the gradual break-up of the Assyrian
empire, and sought to come in for some share of the
spoils of the " sick man," whose death seemed so
close at hand. With this view he marched his
armies into Palestine as the high road to the valley
of the Euphrates. Josiah, possibly, as loyal to his
alliance with the Assyrian king, possibly, as asserting
* The fact is stated in the narrative of the pseudo-Aristeas as to
the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. It is probably
referred to in the words in which Zephaniah speaks (iii. 10) of the
" suppliants," the " dispersed," who, when he wrote, were " beyond
the rivers of Ethiopia."
t Comp. the article "Manasseh" in the "Dictionary of the
Bible."

242 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
his neutrality, and resenting the use which Necho
had made of his territory as an attack on his inde
pendence, but possibly also, as wishing to see the
work in which Nabopolassar was engaged carried on
to its completion without interruption, led his troops
in person to stop the Pharaoh's progress. Necho's
professions of friendliness were in vain. In vain
also was the warning which the Biblical historian
recognises as sent from God through the lips of the
Egyptian king (2 Chron. xxxv. 20). The battle
was fought in the plain of Esdraelon, and the king
was slain. The conqueror pressed on to Carchemish
on the Euphrates, and so gained a position of
immense importance in his attack on either or both
of the Mesopotamian monarchies. On his return
within a few months, he deposed the king whom
the people at Jerusalem had set up, Shallum or
Jehoahaz, and, carrying him into Egypt, appointed
another of Josiah's sons, Jehoiakim, to reign as a
subject-ally. In the following year, b.c. 607, Nabopolassar
associated his son with him as a sharer in the kingly
power and title, left to him the task of watching
and checking the progress of the Egyptian con
queror, and gave himself to the long-delayed work
of the final attack on Nineveh. Assaracus, the last
sovereign of the mighty empire, reproducing, as he
did, the weakness of the Sardanapalus under whom
Nineveh had been taken before, offered but a feeble
resistance. The words of Jonah were at last ful
filled. The ten tribes, who dwelt in the cities of
the Medes, or by the Tigris and its tributaries, and
who had cherished the predictions of that prophet
in their memory, saw with exultation the downfall

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 243
of the city to which they owed their exile from the
land of their fathers.* The woe which Nahum —
himself, probably, one of the exiles — had pronounced
upon the " bloody city," was wrought out to the
uttermost. She was left " empty, and waste, and
void," and there was " no healing of that bruise."
The strength which this victory gave to the
Chaldasan monarchy enabled Nebuchadnezzar to
renew the struggle against the Egyptian king with
greater hope of success, and Carchemish, which had
before been the scene of Necho's victory, now wit
nessed the entire overthrow of his army. The great
host that " came up as a flood, whose waves were
moved as the rivers," with its chariots and horses,
its Ethiopians and Libyans, its heavy-armed troops,
and its Lydian archers, f became, as Jeremiah had
foretold (chap, xlvi.), a " sacrifice to the Lord God of
hosts in the north country, by the river Euphrates."
Nebuchadnezzar, after the battle, drove the defeated
army before him to the borders of Egypt. He was
at Pelusium when he heard of his father's death,
and returned to Babylon to take possession of the
throne. On his way southward, or on his return (it is not
certain which), he halted at Jerusalem. There he
found Jehoiakim, the vassal king, the tributary of
Egypt. He met, however, with no effectual resist
ance. The city was taken. The allegiance and the
* Comp. the language of the Book of Tobit, xiv. 15.
t It is doubtful whether these Ludim (to give the Hebrew form
of the name) were an African or Asiatic tribe. In favour of
identifying them with the Lydians of Greek history, we have the
fact that Psammitichus had begun the practice of engaging Greek
mercenaries, and that Ionians and Carians might naturally be
grouped together by a Jewish writer of this period under the
generic name of the most powerful race of Western Asia.

244 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
tribute were transferred. There was a Chaldaean
party within the walls of the holy city, — the party
of those who had been the friends and counsellors
of Josiah, and had lamented over his death, and who
saw less danger in that dependence upon a distant
power, than in a close alliance with a people from
whom the Israelites had so often caught the taint
of idolatry, and who had proved themselves so
treacherous and unfaithful. And at the head of
this party was Jeremiah, the prophet of Anathoth.
It is clear that he saw from the first that Nebuchad
nezzar was the appointed scourge of God for the
chastisement of the nations ; that his own people
needed, and would receive, the discipline of that
chastisement. So, as soon as Nebuchadnezzar had
entered on his reign as joint ruler with his father,
he had warned the people of the seventy years'
captivity that lay before them. So, in vision, he
took the " cup of the Lord's fury " (xxv. 15), and
made all the nations to drink thereof. Pharaoh and
the Philistines, Edom and Moab and Ammon, Tyre
and Zidon, Dedan and Arabia, Media and Persia,
all were in their turn to drink of that cup, and then
(this time the name hidden beneath the secret cipher
of an inverted alphabet*) the king of Sheshach —
i.e., the king of Babylon himself — was to drink
after them.
There seems little room for doubt that the prophet
and his friends must have become at this time per
sonally known, and known as friends and partizans,
to the Chaldaean king and his generals. It was
probably owing to their influence that the king,
* The letters would correspond as follows : [ ^ ^ ^

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 245
who had been taken prisoner, was not carried off to
Babylon with the other captives, as had been the
intention of the conqueror, but was for a time re
placed upon the throne. But the captivity had
already begun. Though Jehoiakim himself was
spared, yet four at least of the princes of the house
of David were carried off to be eunuchs in the
palace of the king of Babylon, and among them
were those whose names are so familiar to us, —
Daniel and his three friends, Hananiah, Azariah,
and Misael. With them, too, were the remnant
of the strange Kenite people, half-sect, half-tribe,
whom we know as the Eechabites, who had been
driven to take refuge in Jerusalem by the approach
of Nebuchadnezzar's army, and who were the first
to taste the bitterness of exile.*
For three years this state of things continued.
Jehoiakim paid his tribute and kept quiet. Then
(b.c. 603), either relying on the hope of help from
Egypt, or thinking he could venture to stand alone,
he rebelled and drew upon himself a swift punish
ment. Jeremiah, in the meantime, had again and
again warned the king and his nobles of the mad
ness of such an attempt, and had met with scorn
and outrage in return. There seems reason to
believe (unless we see in chap. xiii. the record of a
prophetic dream, like that of Ezekiel's journey to
Jerusalem, Ezek. viii. 3) that he had twice travelled
to the Euphrates during this period, and so had had
opportunities for renewing his acquaintance with
the Chaldaean king, or with his generals. And so
* This fact is gathered from Jer. xxxv., which shows that they
were in Jerusalem at the time of its capture, and from the super
scription of Ps. lxxi. in the Greek version, as written by or for
" the sons of Jonadab, the first that were led into captivity."

246 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
when the rebellion of Jehoiakim broke out, Nebu
chadnezzar does not seem to have thought it neces
sary to proceed himself and lead his own generals
against the city. It was enough to send some
"bands of Chaldees" to co-operate with the old
hereditary foes of Judah, the Syrians, the Moabites,
and the Ammonites (2 Kings xxiv. 2). The king,
who had made himself hated by his luxury and op
pression, building a palace, even at that time of
misery, "ceiled with cedar and painted with ver
milion," as if in ostentatious disregard of the suffer
ings of his people, died soon after the attack began,
and the state of parties in Jerusalem is shown by
the manner in which his death was received. Not
only were the usual honours of a kingly funeral
denied him, but there were none to lament him ; no
wailers to raise their cry — " Ah, Lord ! " or " Ah,
his glory ! " He was buried with the burial of an
ass, " cast out " (probably thrown over the wall to
show the invaders that he was really dead), "beyond
the gates of Jerusalem" (Jer. xxii. 18, 19). His
younger son, a boy of the age of eighteen, succeeded
him as Jehoachin or Jeconiah. The reign lasted
but three months. Nebuchadnezzar resented the
appointment of a king by any other than himself as
an act of rebellion. He led his armies in person
and besieged Jerusalem. The city was taken for
the second time, and now the captivity began on a
new and more terrible scale. The king himself was
carried to Babylon, thrown into a dungeon and left
there to languish for seven-and-thirty years, till the
death of Nebuchadnezzar, when he was released by
Evil-Merodach (Jer. Hi. 31). With him went his
nearest relatives, his eunuchs, his chief officers and

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 247
counsellors, ten thousand "men of might," the
flower of the host of Judah. With him, too, were
the false prophets who had been holding out hopes
of victory and freedom, some, at least, of the priests
and elders whom we find with Ezekiel by the banks
of Chebar, all the smiths and workmen who might
have helped to supply the troops of Judah with
swords and shields ; none remained but " the poorer
sort of the people of the land." In the prophet's
words, those who were taken were as the " best ripe
figs," those who were left, so vile and worthless that
they were as " figs vile and worthless, too bad to be
eaten" (Jer. xxiv. 1 — 10). Another vassal king, a
son of Josiah's, was appointed, and, in the nature of
the case, must have seemed at the time likely to be
faithful to the Babylonian king, the representative,
therefore, of the Chaldasan party of which Jeremiah
and Ahikam were the chief members. We may,
perhaps, trace their influence in the new name
which he assumed, Zedekiah, =Righteous is Jehovah,
as bearing witness in its very syllables of the truth
which Jeremiah was never weary of proclaiming.*
I do not follow the details of the eleven years of
Zedekiah's reign. The confused state in which the
prophecies of Jeremiah have come down to us makes
it difficult to arrange them and the events to which
they refer, in a right order. But it is well to note,
before we pass on to what will form the subject of a
second paper, the life op the Exiles at Babylon,
that during the whole period there are proofs that
Jeremiah and his party were in constant active com
munication with the exiles at Babylon and with
* Comp. the paper on " Shiloh — Emmanuel — the Lord our
Righieousnebs," in this volume.

248 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Nebuchadnezzar himself. He sends (and the letter
is carried by a son of Shaphan and a son of Hilkiah)
to bid the former seek the peace of the city to which
they had been carried captive (xxix. 7). He warns
them against any rash and premature attempt to
abridge the appointed term of the seventy years of
the captivity. It is obvious that he was the advo
cate of the same policy at home, that he and Baruch
his scribe were on that account the objects of the
hatred and persecution of the Egyptian party, that
for this he was thrown into the dungeon where he
nearly lost his life, that he was openly accused of
"falling away to the Chaldaeans " (Jer. xxxvii. 13).
The king himself oscillated between the two rival
parties. He had been placed on the throne, as we
have seen, by the Chaldaean king. Then under the
influence of those whose hopes had been excited by
the growing power and energy of the new king of
Egypt, Apries, the Pharaoh Hophra of the Bible
(Jer. xliv. 30), he ventured on rebellion, and ceased
to pay tribute. The Chaldaean army again besieged
the city, and the king in his panic turned to Jere
miah for help and counsel. The rumoured march
of the army of Apries led the invaders to raise the
siege for a time, and the hopes of the anti- Chaldaean
party were once again raised (Jer. xxxvii. 5 — 11).
But the relief was temporary only. A larger army
was sent under Nebuzaradan, and after a siege of
nearly eighteen months the city was once more
captured. This time the destruction was more
thorough than it had ever been before. The Chal
daeans slew the young men of Judah with the sword
in the court of the sanctuary. All that was perish
able in the temple was destroyed by fire. Only its

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 249
foundation stones remained. The king was carried
before Nebuchadnezzar at Eiblah on the east bank
of the Orontes, on the high road between Babylon
and Palestine, his children slain before his face, his
eyes put out, and he himself carried in chains to
Babylon.* The nobles of Judah who had been the
king's advisers when he ventured to assert his
independence were put to death, probably, as was
the usual Assyrian custom, by impaling. The cap
tivity was now completed. None but " the poor of
the people, which had nothing," were left behind,
and they entered upon the vineyards and fields of
the exiled princes.
The respect and consideration with which Jere
miah is treated at this crisis indicates a long-stand
ing acquaintance between him and the Chaldaean
generals. Nebuzaradan at once releases him from
his chains, and offers him the choice of settling at
Babylon under the king's protection, or remaining
in Jerusalem (Jer. xxxix. 11 ; xl. 4). On his choos
ing the latter alternative, he supplies him with pro
visions, and pays him, partly as a reward for
services, partly in compensation for his sufferings.
Gedaliah, the son of his chief friend and protector,
Ahikam, is made governor of the land. It was no
wonder that it should be so. When we remember
that Daniel, under his new name of Belteshazzar,
was already high in the king's favour, that Shad-
rach, Meshach, and Abednego were " set over the
affairs of the province of Babylon" — that they
shared the faith, the hopes, the policy of Jeremiah,
* The special form of punishment had been foretold, in no
ambiguous language, by Ezekiel, " I will bring him to Babylon,
the land of the Chaldseans, yet shall he not see it, though he dio
there " (xii. 13).

250 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
it is clear that there must have been a strong influ
ence in his favour at the court of Nebuchadnezzar.
Even Ezekiel's work among the captives by the
banks of Chebar, coinciding, as it did, in its general
spirit with that of the prophet of Anathoth, predict
ing the overthrow of Egypt and Tyre, the two
powers that as yet remained unsubdued by the Chal
daean king, may have tended to predispose him to
look favourably on the prophet who had all along
spoken and acted and suffered in his service. So at
all events it was. One long chapter in the prophet's
life was closed, a yet longer chapter in the history
of the people. The former I have in part noticed
in a previous Study.* With the fortunes of the
miserable remnant who fled to Egypt or remained
in Judah, I am not now concerned. The life of the
nation, the stock out of which was to spring the
new tree, was elsewhere. We must turn to see how
the captives lived at Babylon, what effect the exile
had on their thoughts, their hopes, their character,
their institutions. PAET II.  THE YEAES OP EXILE.
Oue impressions as to the life of those who were
carried off from the land of their fathers to end their
days in that of the Chaldseans, have, for the most
part, I imagine, a certain vague picturesqueness. We
bring before our mind's eye a few weary, sorrow-
worn exiles — grey-haired men, and tearful women —
sitting by the waters of Babylon, weeping in bitter
ness of soul as they remembered Zion, hanging on
the willows, which seem to weep as in sympathy
* Comp. "Thbee Generations op Jewish Patriotism," supra.

THE BABYL ONI AN CAPTIVITY. 2 5 1
with them, the harps which they had no longer the
heart to touch. They are called on by their con
querors to sing for their delight one of the songs of
Zion, and they will not sing the " Lord's song " in a
strange land ; but, instead of the old hymns of praise
that had echoed in the courts of the Temple, breathe
their prayers for the day of vengeance, when the
"daughter of Babylon" too should lie, "wasted with
misery," taking, in her turn, the woe she had meted
out to others, beholding her children dashed against
the stones (Ps. cxxxvii.).
Doubtless, as the psalm from which this descrip
tion is taken shows, there is truth in such a picture.
It was true as the poet's ideal of the exile, which
every day's experience more or less completely
realised. But in all such cases there is also the life
of every day with all its manifold variations, the
changing combinations of individual men and classes,
the interests which lie below the surface, not im
pressing themselves on the imagination of poet or
artist, yet in reality, by their secret, silent working,
moulding the people for their future And this was
especially the case with the lot of the Babylonian
captives. Their very number, with all the possi
bilities of companionship and sympathy which it
involved, brought with it some mitigation of the
bitterness of exile. And it must be remembered
that, with some exceptions (probably those only who
had obstinately taken part in the final rebellion of
Zedekiah), they were not carried into slavery. The
great monarchies of the East, cruel and hard as was
their sway, were in this respect more merciful than
the Athenians with all their culture, and the Bo-
mans with all their reverence for law. The message

252 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
of Eabshakeh, half-promising, half-threatening,
that his master, the king of Assyria, would first
permit those whom he conquered to eat of the fruit
of their vines and fig-trees, and then would carry
them away to a land like their own land — " a land
of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a
land of oil-olive and of honey " (Isa. xxxvi. 17)
— was not altogether a mocking taunt. And so it
was with the exile that followed on the Chaldaean
conquest. The captives, though transported from
the land of their fathers as a measure of policy,
were not taken into the market and sold as slaves,
but were left in possession of their freedom. They
lost, of course, the estates which they had possessed
in the land of Judah, though many, it may be,
cherished the hope of which the prophet of Anathoth
had given them so noble an example (Jer. xxxii.
1 — 15) that they should one day return to claim
them as their own again ; but their gold and their
silver they were allowed to take with them, and
they were, even the poorest of them, in possession of
a skill and knowledge in many things above that
of their conquerors, and, as artizans and traders, as
smiths and carpenters, as scribes and minstrels,
might rise to a new opulence. It was, if we may
illustrate the remote past by that which comes
nearer to our own experience, like the deportation of
the French Canadians of Grandpre which Long
fellow has depicted in his " Evangeline " — like the
removal of some of the tribes of the Caucasus which
has taken place within a comparatively recent period
— rather than like the hopeless and dreary lot which
we connect with the names of Siberia or Cayenne.
So it was that at the very outset of the captivity,

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 253
within four years of the time when Jeremiah and
the nobles of Judah had been carried to Babylon, we
find that prophet (xxix. 1 — 7) writing to the exiles,
bidding them " build houses and dwell in them, and
plant gardens and eat the fruit of them." They were
able to meet together and listen to the harangues of
false prophets, who, instead of seeking the peace of
the city to which they had been led, prompted them
tp a rash revolt. This was, indeed, their chief
danger. Two of these men stand out with an evil
prominence, and we get in connection with their
names a glimpse into one of the episodes of that
strange time. Ahab and Zedekiah, we read, two
men of profligate lives, gathered a party round them,
and held out the prospect of the speedy overthrow of
Babylon — probably, like their brethren at Jerusalem,
within two short years — trusting to the " broken
reed " of Egypt, as willing and able to support them.
Their predictions came to the ear of the Chaldaean
king, and they were sentenced to the horrible death
which seems at that time to have been the favourite
punishment at Babylon for political or religious
offences.* Their fate became a byword, and men
uttered as their curse against their deadliest enemies,
" The Lord make thee like Zedekiah and like Ahab,
whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire "
(Jer. xxix. 20 — 24). Another who appears as
Shemaiah the Nehelamite (the latter word probably
expressing, or at least alluding to, his pretensions as
a dreamer of dreams), sought to counteract the in
fluence which Jeremiah's counsels exercised over the
minds of the exiles, by conspiring with his enemies
* Compare the sentence passed on Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego.

254 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
at Jerusalem. He sent letters from Babylon to
Zephaniah, who stood next in authority to the high
priest Seraiah,* and to all the priests, urging them
in bitter and scornful language to do their work as
" officers in the house of his Lord, for every man
tbat is mad and maketh himself a prophet," and to
" put him in prison, and in the stocks," — and as the
first and chief victim to be thus crushed, naming
Jeremiah of Anathoth. He discloses to them what
till then had perhaps been kept secret — that the
prophet's letter had urged a policy of patient sub
mission and contented industry, and had thus baffled
the plans of those who reckoned on a simultaneous
rising against the Chaldaean power at Babylon and
Jerusalem (Jer. xxix. 24 — 32). It is probable from
the submissive tone which Zephaniah elsewhere takes
in his intercourse with Jeremiah (Jer. xxi. 1 ; xxxvii.
3), that he was more favourably disposed to the pro
phet than the writer of the letter thought. We read,
at all events, that he showed the letter, as soon as he
received it, to Jeremiah, and that a prophetic message
was uttered against Shemaiah also, pronouncing
failure and destruction upon him and his allies.
It is clear that Ezekiel had to contend with evils
of a like kind, as he did his prophetic work by the
banks of the Chebar. The prophets who saw a vain
vision and spoke a lying divination, crying, "Peace,
peace," when there was no peace, "building a wall
and daubing it with untempered mortar" — the
daughters of Israel who claimed to be among the
exiles what Huldah had been at Jerusalem in the
time of Josiah, wearing their "pillows" and "ker
chiefs " (probably the received insignia of women
* The relative position of the two is found in 2 Kings xxv. 48.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 255
who claimed a prophetic inspiration), doing their
wretched work for " handfuls of barley and pieces
of bread " (Ezek. xiii.) — these had to be resisted and
denounced by him, as Jeremiah had resisted and
denounced those whose ascendency would have been
fatal to all tranquillity and true discipline at Baby
lon. The writings of the same prophet show us
also something of the organization which was kept
up among the exiles. The " elders of Israel " were
still recognised as the representatives of the people
They watched the prophet's work with feelings in
which fear, suspicion, reverence were strangely
mingled, now whispering together, "by the walls
and in the doors of the house " in wonder what the
next word should be that came forth from Jehovah,
now coming in the name of the people to the pro
phet's dwelling and sitting down before him to hear
his message to the rebellious house (Ezek. viii. 1 ;
xiv. 1 ; xx. 1 ; xxxiii. 31). According to a pro
bable explanation of one passage, they had even
there, in the land of exile, a synagogue of some
kind, which was to them a " little sanctuary " to
remind them that God was as truly with them, there
as He had been in the Temple of Jerusalem (Ezek. xi.
16). From him we learn the way in which the less
loyal and faithful among the people submitted to
their punishment, when all hopes of averting it, or
of immediate deliverance had been reluctantly aban
doned. It was not, they said, their fault. They
took up the proverb, which seems to have become
current at Jerusalem at an earlier stage of the cala
mities from which their nation suffered, and said
one to another, " The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge " (Ezek. xviii.

256 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
2 ; Jer. xxxi. 29). As at other times, so now, this
condensed expression of one side of the law of retri
bution distorted till it became, not a paradox only,
but a falsehood, led to a yet clearer apprehension
and utterance of the truth than had been known
before, and it was given to Ezekiel to proclaim that
" the son should not bear the iniquity of the father,
nor the father bear the iniquity of the son," that
each man stood in the awful solitude of his respon
sibility before the presence of the Lord God:
" The soul that sinneth it shall die." But then,
also, with that sentence of condemnation there was
united the gospel of forgiveness : " I have no plea
sure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord
God ; " " The wicked, when he turneth away from
his wickedness that he has committed, and doeth
that which is lawful and right, .... shall surely
live; he shall not die" (Ezek. xviii.). So, too, we
cannot doubt that many of the captives carried with
them, as their stay and support, the promise which
they had heard from the prophet whom they had
reverenced as a friend and teacher, that the time
was drawing near (though they knew not the
appointed season) when God would make a " new
covenant " with the house of Israel, when that
which had been external, positive, ceremonial should
fall into the background, and there should be a law
of righteousness and truth, written on the hearts of
men (Jer. xxxi. 31). To such men the words of
Habakkuk (ch. ii. 4) spoken, primarily, in direct
reference to the Chaldaean invasion — " The just by
faith shall live," must have suggested thoughts like
those which they suggested afterwards to St. Paul.
Influences like these were, at any rate, at work,

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 257
all tending to prepare the way for the Truth which
was greater than they were and was to J embrace
them all. The Babylonian captivity, over and above
the discipline of suffering which was its most con
spicuous feature, was also a marked stage in the
spiritual education of the people of Israel.
It was hardly less a part of that education that
they were brought into closer contact than they had
ever been before with the darker elements of idola
try. They saw the worship which the Chaldaeans
paid to their serpent god Afraziab — the " dragon "
of the apocryphal addition to the Book of Daniel.
They beheld the licentious rites which made the
temple of Mylitta, the Babylonian Aphrodite, a
scene of systematic prostitution. They had to wit
ness the desecration of the vessels of the temple in
the feasts which the Babylonian kings held in
honour of Bel or Nebo. And all these evils they
were now led to connect, not with nations that were
their friends and allies, but with their conquerors
and oppressors. We cannot wonder that, year by
year, their abhorrence of the false religion and
corrupt worship with which they found themselves
in contact, should become deeper and more intense.
Whatever other evils they might afterwards yield
to, whatever " unclean spirits," more, and more
powerful than the first, might enter into the house
that had been left " empty and swept and gar
nished," this, at least, did not return. Those who,
during the long centuries that had preceded, had
been evermore lapsing into the worship of many
gods and of visible symbols, returned to the land of
their fathers a monotheistic and iconoclastic people.
Here, too, in that exile of seventy years, other

258 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
changes came over them. Living in the midst of a
people who had learnt, whatever might have been
their origin, to speak a language which differed
from their own only as one dialect of a common
stock differs from another, they came, by degrees,
to adopt new words, new phrases, new modes of
writing. The large square characters which we
know as Hebrew now, they learnt from their Chal
daean masters. The change had already begun
which, within a hundred years, made it necessary
for the people to have teachers who should interpret
their ancient books for them (Neh. viii. 7). Nor
can we think of the captivity as without a very
decisive influence on the canon of the Old Testa
ment. It was, in the nature of the case, inevitable
that many books that had once held a high place in
Hebrew literature should be destroyed when the
Holy City was taken and sacked. The official
chronicles of the kings of Judah, the histories of
individual reigns by Iddo or Ahijah, the book of the
wars of the Lord, the book of Jasher, the visions of
prophets, the songs of poets, the proverbs of the
wise — these, of which we find traces here and there
in the canonical books, must have been at the time
well remembered. The fact that we find traces
only, is a proof that then, or soon afterwards, they
were forgotten and ceased to be. It was the natural
task of the scribes of the people, at such a period, to
gather up the fragments that remained, that nothing
should be lost ; to collect, edit, epitomize, arrange,
the more precious records that were left, so as to
form a whole. It was, indeed, both in its nature
and its form, a library rather than a book ; but it
was a library within manageable compass, easily

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 259
carried from place to place, easily multiplied by
transcription. The final arrangement, the sealing,
as it were, of the sacred volume, did not take place,
as far as the Hebrew text was concerned, till the
time of Malachi, perhaps not till that of the Mac
cabees. The Jews of Alexandria looked on the
collection as one to which, even after the later of
those two dates, it was still lawful to add other
books of like interest or like utility, and the
writings which we know as the Apocrypha, were,
according to their subject-matter, placed in the
same volume with them.
But it is manifest that this very work of com
pilation led men to dwell upon the past with an
almost undue exclusiveness, and deadened the capa
city for original thought and action. The over
throw of Babylon did indeed call out something of
the old prophetic spirit. But it was bestowed in
scant measure as compared with the fulness of its
earlier manifestations. The age of scribes succeeded
to the age of prophets, and the first great repre
sentative of that age will meet us when we have to
deal with the return from Babylon in the person of
Ezra. The system — the school, if one may so
speak — of which he was the representative must
have been moulding the character of the people for
many years. In the earlier stages of the captivity,
however, there was enough in the hopes and fears,
the sorrow and the indignation, of the exiles to
utter itself in the lyric form which, with the
Israelites, in a yet greater degree than with most
other nations, was the natural expression for strong
emotions. The present structure of the Book of
Psalms, and the absence in most instances of any

260 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
historical criteria for fixing the date of individual
hymns, make all hypotheses about them more or
less conjectural; and Psalm cxxxvii. is, perhaps,
the only one of which it can be said, with no
shadow of doubt, that it came from the lips of those
who " sat down and wept " by the " waters ol
Babylon." But it is, at least, worth while to note
some others to which the same date has been as
signed, with, at least, great probability, by critics
of eminence, like Mr. Perowne in England, and
Ewald in Germany.* It gives a fresh interest to
the familiar words — " Like as the hart desireth the
water-brooks, so longeth my soul after Thee, 0 God"
(Ps. xiii.), to think of the man who remembered
how he had " gone with the multitude to the house
of God," who appealed to Jehovah to help him
against an "ungodly nation;" as one who was
dragged across the " land of Jordan " and the
heights of Hermon, away from the " courts " which
he had loved. The cry of the worshipper who can
no longer find access to the " tabernacles " that
were once so dear, who envies the very sparrows
and swallows that found a nest on the altars of the
Lord, who prays that God will once more " look on
the face of his anointed " (Ps. lxxxiv.), has in it a
deeper pathos, if we think of it as coming from that
" anointed of the Lord," the son of Jehoiakim, who
pined for so many years in his lonely prison. Tn
Psalm lxxix. we may hear the cry of one who re
members with shame and grief how the " heathen
have come into the inheritance of Jehovah " — how

* I name the two writers whose commentaries have been in this
reBpect most suggestive to me, without discussing the views which
they respectively take of individual psalms.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 261
they have " defiled the temple and laid Jerusalem on
heaps, giving the bodies of the saints to the fowls of
the heaven and the beasts of the earth," and " shed
ding their blood like water." In Psalm lxxx. we
may recognise a like lamentation from one who had
belonged to the northern kingdom of the Ten
Tribes, and had become an exile in the earlier
Assyrian captivity ; who thought accordingly of
Jehovah as of one " who leadeth Joseph like a
sheep," whose prayer was that " before Ephraim,
Benjamin, and Manasses," He would " stir up his
strength, and come to help " his people. The
closing prayer of Psalm li., that God would " do
good in his good pleasure to Zion " and " build
the walls of Jerusalem" may well be thought of
as having been added to the hymn which owed its
birth to David's penitence, by one who lived when
those walls were lying waste and desolate. In the
words of Psalm lxxiv., which bring before us the
havoc that men had made of all the carved work of
the Temple with their axes and hammers, the ruth-
lessness with which they had "burnt up all the
synagogues of God in the land," we have a picture
which, though it may possibly belong to the time of
Antiochus Epiphanes and his desecration of the
sanctuary, describes only too faithfully that which
had been wrought by the Chaldaean armies.
It remains only to note the succession of events
as they affected the condition or the feelings of the
exiles. Starting from b.c. 602, the year in which
Nebuchadnezzar carried off " many of the children
of Israel and of the king's seed " (Dan. i. 3), as the
date of the commencement of the captivity, we have
the first great depopulation of the kingdom of

262 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Judah in b.c. 599. The reign of Zedekiah over the
remnant that remained brings us to B.C. 588, and
then the work is completed. Only the poorest of
the land are left under Gedaliah. In B.C. 574, they
heard that Tyre, after an obstinate resistance of
thirteen years, had at last yielded to the arms of the
Chaldaean king. At some time, the date of which
cannot be fixed with certainty, but which was pro
bably towards the close of his reign, they were
exposed to the trial of their faith caused by the
king's insane and impious egotism, and apparently
were only delivered from it by the heroic faithful
ness of the three eunuchs, who, as the representa
tives of their nation, refused to bow down before the
golden image which the king, who had already
described himself on his monument as " begotten by
his God Merodach," had set up to be worshipped
and adored. A little while after this, the insanity
took the more terrible and startling form of lycan-
thropy, the state in which the man believes himself
to be a brute beast, and lasted, according to the
interpretation we give, to the " times " of Dan. iv.
25, for seven years or seven months. In B.C. 561,
the death of Nebuchadnezzar left his son, Evil-
Merodach, to succeed ; and the kindness which that
prince showed in releasing Jeconiah from his long
imprisonment implies, probably, a general temper
of indulgence towards the captives at large. The
period that followed was one of many changes.*
* The chronology of the whole period is too confused, the
identification of the Biblical names of Belshazzar and Darius the
Mede with those named by Greek historians, or the Babylonian
inscriptions, too uncertain, for any one to speak positively. I have
followed the arrangement adopted by Mr. Eawlinson and M.
Le Normant. The most conspicuous rival theory is that which
identifies the Belshazzar of the Book of Daniel with the Evil-

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 263
Evil-Merodach was assassinated in B.C. 559 by his
brother-in-law, Nergal-Sharezer, who died, in his
turn, after a short reign of four years, in battle
against Cyrus and the Persians, in B.C. 555, leaving
a child as his successor. After a few months, the
Chaldaean nobles felt the necessity of a warrior king,
and chose one whose name meets us in the two
forms of Labynetus and Nabonadius, who for seven
teen years carried on the defence of the Babylonian
monarchy against the arma of Persia. During all
this period, Daniel, and probably the other Jews
who with him had been promoted to high office,
continued to be held in honour. They remembered
at the time of Belshazzar's feast, that the old man
(he must have been then eighty at the least) had
been appointed by Nebuchadnezzar " master of the
magicians and astrologers " (Dan. v. 11). Belshaz-
zar himself, who appears in the Book of Daniel and
in Baruch (i. 11, 12) as the son of Nebuchadnezzar
and king of Babylon, was in reality the son of
Nabonadius (probably by a daughter of the great
king, and so more honoured than his brothers), and
shared the sovereignty with him, remaining to oc
cupy Babylon while his father defended Borsippa.
In b.c. 538, if we accept the commonly-received
chronology, the final blow was struck by " Darius
the Mede," probably the general in command of the
forces of Cyrus ; and he became king or satrap of
the conquered province. The relations in which he
and his master, Cyrus, stood to the prophet and his
people will form the subject of my third paper.
Merodach of Jeremiah Iii. 31, and Darius the Mede with Astyages.
But the objections to this are, I believe, insuperable.

264. biblical studies.

III.  THE EETTJEN FKOM EXILE.
Foe twenty-three years before the night in which
Babylon was taken, the Jewish exiles there must
have watched with the keenest interest the rapid
progress of the Persian king, who bore the name of
Koresh, better known to us in its Greek form of
Cyrus. With the legends which cluster round his
history in the narratives of Herodotus and Xenophon
we are not now concerned ; they were probably
altogether unknown to Daniel and Zerubbabel, and
their contemporaries. But the Babylonian Jews
must have felt, whatever hypothesis we adopt as to
minor points of detail, that every step in that pro
gress brought them nearer to the hour of their
deliverance. If we accept the received dates of the
books of the Old Testament, as we now have them,
they had heard from one whose authority they could
not doubt, that the Medes were to be instrumental
in the overthrow of Babylon, as they had been in
that of Nineveh (Isa. xiii. 17); that Elam (i.e.,
Persia) was to be joined with them in that work
(Isa. xxi. 2) ; that Bel should bow down, and Nebo
stoop before their destined conqueror (Isa. xlvi. 1) ;
that that conqueror was to bear the name of Koresh,
and was to restore Jerusalem and the Temple to
something of their old glory. He was to be thought
of under no less noble a title than the Messiah, the
Anointed, of the Lord (Isa. xliv. 28 ; xlv. 1). They
had heard from a later prophet, in words that were
as an echo of the older ones, that "Jehovah had
stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes," be
cause " his device was against Babylon to destrov

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 265
it" (Jer. li. 11). He had told them of the seventy
years which were to be the limit of their bondage
(Jer. xxv. 12) ; and those years, whatever point
might be taken as their commencement, were now
drawing to their close. To Daniel, whatever hopes
had been suggested by these intimations must have
been strengthened by the vision of the great image
with the head of gold, and the arms of silver, and the
thighs of brass, which came before the Chaldaean
king, and which he was called on to interpret (Dan. i.
31 — 45). When the time of fulfilment was ap
proaching, and he himself, in the third year of Bel-
shazzar (se. of his father Nabonadius), saw the " ram
with two horns pushing westward and northward
and southward," he was taught that it represented
the power of the kings of Media and Persia (Dan.
viii. 20). The way had been prepared for him to
understand the mysterious peees of the handwriting
on the wall ; and though the word, as such, meant to
the Hebrew ear " division" only, to see in it an inti
mation, through that play upon words and names of
which the Hebrew prophets were so fond, that the
Chaldaean kingdom was to be " divided" and to be
given to the Medes and Persians" (Dan. vi. 28).
But, apart even from these prophetic intimations
of the future, there was enough in the great move
ment of which the Persians were the representatives,
to rouse the eager interest and sympathy of the
Jewish exiles. They held a creed which was far less
remote from that of the Hebrews than was the reli
gion of the Assyrians or Chaldaeans. To whatever
periods we assign the work of Zoroaster, it is clear
that he transmitted to the nation who acknowledged
him as a prophet the highest form of heathenism

266 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
which the Jews had yet encountered. There was no
worship of the heavenly host as among the Chal-
daeans, nor of brute beast or bird or creeping thing
as among the Egyptians, nor of trees and serpents as
among the Turanian races. They acknowledged one
Lord of heaven, to whom, as the great Creating Spirit,
they gave the name of Ormuzd. They thought of
Him as effecting the work of creation by a divine
Word, which was the expression of his sovereign
Will, as governing the world by One consubstantial
with himself, Mithra, at once the guardian and the
judge of men. The sin and misery — the darkness,
moral and physical — in the world they ascribed to
the agency of Ahriman, the Evil Spirit ; but they
held that, in the end, he and his works would be
destroyed, and Ormuzd reign supreme in a world
restored to blessedness. They thought of various
orders of spiritual beings as engaged in fulfilling the
commands of Ormuzd, as the angels and archangels
of the Jewish Scriptures did the work of Jehovah.
And they worshipped Ormuzd without interposing
the likeness of any visible form. Fire was the only
symbol of the divine nature. The sun, as the source
of light, might come in a later age to be the object
of direct worship ; but in the earlier stages of the
religion of Zoroaster there is no trace of it. They
had, as the Jews had, a sacred caste, a tribe set apart
to repeat the appointed prayers, to watch over the
sacred fire, to teach the people.
The religion of Zoroaster had originated in a pro
test against the sensuous and polytheistic tendencies
of the Aryan tribes of Northern India, as that of
Israel had in the call which separated Abraham from
the polytheism of the Assyrians and Chaldseans.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 267
Through their admixture with the Medes, who were
more subject to Turanian influences, and had pro
bably a Turanian element in their population, it had
lost somewhat of its purity. Cyrus appeared as its
reformer ; and, in the name of Ormuzd, waged war
against the Turanian nations (Scythians, Massagetae,
and others) with whom he came in contact, as being
the servants of Ahriman. The whole period was
indeed, as I have said, one of struggle and fermenta
tion. Large hordes of Scythians had poured down
upon the plains of Mesopotamia, upon Syria and
Palestine, in the time of Josiah. The prophecies of
Ezekiel (chap, xxxviii., xxxix.) as to Gog and
Magog, Meshech and Tubal, obscure as they are in
their details, at least show the terror which that in
vasion had caused, the impression that had been left
on men's minds that they were the most formidable
enemies of Israel. The expeditions of Cyrus, at the
close of his reign, against the Massagetae, of Darius
against the Scythians that had found their way
round the Crimea to the plain of the Danube, were
more than the offspring of an insatiable ambition.
They were, we may well believe, the outgrowths of
the long struggle for supremacy, religious as well as
political, between the Iranian and Turanian races.
Of that struggle the exiles of Babylon had in
some sense been for fifteen years spectators. It was
natural, even if the guidance of prophecy had failed
them, that all their sympathy should be on the side
of the conqueror, in whom they found so much that
they could recognise as analogous to their own belief,
rather than on that which was identified with the
special form of idolatry, serpent worship, which they
most abhorred. It may well be that, as there had

268 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
been a Chaldaean party within the walls of Jeru
salem, so now there was a Persian party within the
walls of Babylon, playing into the hands of the
invader, helping him in the surprise by which the
city was captured. There may have been a human
element, as well as a divine prediction, in the words
which told the startled revellers of Belshazzar's feast
that Babylon was already at that very hour in the
hands of the Medes and Persians. The immediate
recognition of the exiled Jews by the Persian con
queror is at least significant, and reminds us of the
way in which Jeremiah was treated by Nebuzaradan
on the capture of Jerusalem. Daniel is placed by
Darius the Mede (Dan. vi. 2), apparently the satrap
left by Cyrus in command of Babylon, at the head
of the administration of the conquered province.
The first act of Cyrus is to permit the exiles to
return to their own land, and to rebuild their city
and their temple ; and the terms of the proclamation
implied a recognition of the fact that the God of
heaven, whom he worshipped, was identical with
Jehovah, the "Lord God" of Israel. The vessels
of which the Temple had been plundered, and which
we last read of as brought out in the frantic revelry
of Belshazzar's feast, were formally restored (Ezra i.
1 — 11). Are we not led to think of these favours
as at once tokens of sympathy and the reward of
services ? Is it not clear that the Jews must have
met him and his people with the blessings which
they invoked on those who should take the children
of the daughter of Babylon, and dash them against
the stones ? that they must have addressed him, as
Isaiah had done by anticipation, as the " Shepherd,"
the " Anointed," of Jehovah ?

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 269
We have now to trace the stages of the return
which Cyrus had thus sanctioned. Our materials
are found, partly in the writings of Ezra and Nehe-
miah, partly in those of the contemporary prophets
Haggai and Zechariah. The apocryphal books that
bear the name of Esdras or Ezra are, the first of
them, a historical romance, and the second a spurious
apocalypse, and introduce nothing but confusion.*
The narrative of Josephus, who follows and exag
gerates the former, is, for the same reason, utterly
untrustworthy. We must confine ourselves to the
records which are more nearly contemporary.
The Jews were, as I have said, treated with
exceptional favour. They were recognised as having,
in modern language, the rights of nationality. The
act of the king, in restoring the vessels of the
Temple, was followed by others, who helped on the
work with their silver and gold (Ezra i. 3, 4, 6), with
goods, and with beasts of burden. The representa
tive of the house of David, Zerubbabel (" born in
Babel"), the "son of Shealtiel" (reckoned as such
probably by adoption f), who, after the death of
Jeconiah and Shealtiel, had succeeded to the title of
" prince of Judah," was now appointed as satrap
over the province which he was sent to reorganize,
* The character of 1 Esdras is shown by its representing
Zerubbabel as a young man at the court of Darius, obtaining his
favour by a rhetorical speech in praise of truth. The genuine
book shows that he had been Sheshbazzar or governor of Judah
from tho reign of Cyrus onwards. The fondness for embellish
ments of this kind, the want of perception as to chronological
accuracy, were the besetting sin of the later Jewish historiographers.
f In 1 Chron. iii. 19, he appears as the "son of Pedaiah." In
Luke iii. 27, Shealtiel, or Salathiel, appears as the " son of Neri."
The probability is that the line of Solomon had failed altogether,
that Jeconiah, as Jeremiah had foretold, died childless, the last
of the royal house, and that the gap was filled up from the line oi
Nathan (Jer. xxii. 24).

270 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
with the title of Sheshbazzar, or governor. We can
well imagine the stir and excitement which the con
templated return would cause among the Babylonian
exiles. Some, indeed, preferred to remain on the
lands and in the houses where they had found a
home. Others attached themselves to the court of
the Persian king in Susa or Persepolis, and rose to
favour there. But the number who were registered
in the census taken on their return was enough to
give the migration the character of a national
movement. There were 42,360, including in that
number 4,289 priests, and 341 Levites.* They had
with them the Nethinim and Solomon's servants,
the remnant, i.e., of the Canaanite population which
had been dedicated to the more menial work of the
Temple, hewers of wood and drawers of water, —
upwards of 7,000 slaves of other races, horses and
mules, camels and asses in proportion.
Of the journey we have no record,f and can only
picture what it must have been to them to see the
hills and valleys, the meadows and the rivers which
some of them had known of old, and of which the
others had heard ; to retrace the boundaries of their
old possessions, to settle in the deserted and half-
ruined houses. When they arrived, Zerubbabel was
naturally, at once as heir of David and as the repre
sentative of the Persian king, the chief authority in
* The disproportion is curious and not easy to be explained.
Eor some reason or other the Levites were more ready to remain at
Babylon than the priests, and in the second stage of the return,
under Ezra, held aloof in much the same way, and had to be
pressed with some sternness to share the work of their brethren
(Ezra viii. 15—20).
t The account given of the later migration, under Ezra, makes
it probable that there was a great encampment of the whole host
on the banks of the Euphrates, with solemn prayers and thanks
givings, before they started. ,

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 271
the reconstituted province. The position which he
occupies in the genealogy given by St. Luke (iii. 27),
as descended from David through the line of Nathan,
as well as through that of Solomon, shows that he
had a double claim, as uniting in himseK the inhe
ritance of the two royal houses.* Such an one was
likely to raise in the people and their prophets, as
Solomon and Hezekiah and .others had done, Messi
anic expectations. They saw in him one in whom
the sentence passed upon Jeconiah was reversed.
So far from being flung away, as a man might fling
the signet ring from his right hand (Jer. xxii. 24),
he, as the chosen of the Lord, is to be as such a
signet for ever (Hag. iii. 23). He is to stand as one
of the two anointed ones through whom, as through
golden pipes, flows the oil of divine grace and bless
ing (Zech. iv. 14).
Conspicuous by the side of Zerubbabel, as being
also the " anointed of the Lord," was the representa
tive of the line of Aaron, Joshua the son of Josedech,
the high priest, f He too had been born in captivity.
His father, it would seem, had been too young at
the time when the Temple had been destroyed to
have entered on the functions of the priesthood.
* Comp. the significant prominence given at this time to the
" family of the house of Nathan," as well as to that of David, in
Zech. xii. 12.
t The name appears in 1 Esdras in its Greek form of "Jesus."
As with the case of the older hero who led the people into Canaan,
the identity of name with that of the greater Saviour is not to be
forgotten when we are dealing with the ideal, typical aspects of his
life and work. The name of Josedech too, identical in meaning
with Zedekiah, " Jehovah is righteous," is, like the name of that
king, itself the embodiment of a prophecy, the echo of the thought
which Jeremiah had uttered in the words, " The Lord our
Eighteousness." When he gave his son the name of" Joshua,"
it was, we may well believe, in the spirit of the hope which those
words suggested.

272 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
His grandfather, Seraiah, had then held the position
of " chief priest," and had been taken prisoner by
Nebuzaradan, carried to Eiblah, and there put to
death by order of Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings xxv.
18 — 21). On his death, Josedech, of course, suc
ceeded to the title, though the functions were in
abeyance, and was in his turn succeeded by Joshua.
Accompanying these twp leaders, though not appear
ing on the scene till fifteen years later, were the two
prophets, Haggai, bearing the name of the "mes
senger " or " angel " of the Lord (Hag. i. 13), and
Zechariah. The latter certainly, the former probably,
belonged to the priesthood. Iddo, the grandfather of
Zechariah, is named (Neh. xii. 4) among the sons of
Aaron who came up with Joshua and Zerubbabel.
The exiles had started, probably, in the spring,
and the first feast which they were able to keep after
their return to the holy city was that of Tabernacles.
It was kept as in fear and trembling. Their old
enemies — Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Philis
tines — were around them, and they were weak and
the city was defenceless. Their only security lay in
the protection given them by the Persian king. They
contented themselves at first with rebuilding the
altar of burnt offerings and renewing the daily
sacrifice, the observance of the Sabbath, and the
new moon festivals. Preparations were made in the
mean time for the great work of restoration. The
treaty between Hiram and Solomon (1 Kings v.
1 — 12) served as a precedent, and a contract was
made on nearly the same terms. The Phoenicians of
Tyre and Zidon were to bring cedar trees from
Lebanon to the harbour of Joppa, and were to
receive in return the corn and wine and oil which

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 273
the plains and valleys of Palestine produced abun
dantly, and upon which they in their narrow strip
of coast territory were, through all their history,
dependent (comp. Acts xii. 20). Whether the "ma
sons " and the " carpenters " who were employed in
the work were also Phoenicians, as they had been in
the days of David and Solomon, is left in some doubt.
Possibly the Jews had acquired since that period
sufficient skill in architecture to undertake the work
themselves. The work went on well, and within
thirteen months of their arrival they were able to
hold a solemn assembly for laying the foundation.
Once again the priests appeared in their apparel,
and blew their silver trumpets, and the Levites, the
sons of Asaph, made music with their cymbals. The
traditions of the Temple had not been forgotten, and
the service was renewed " after the pattern of the
ordinance of David," and the old antiphonal chants
were revived, and the people joined in the loud
Hallelujahs with a great shout. With that shout,
however, there was mingled a strangely discordant
sound of wailing and lamentation. Some there were
in that crowd old and grey-headed, "priests, and
Levites, and chiefs of the fathers," who had passed
the limit of the threescore years and ten, and with
them the memory of the past was stronger than their
exultation in the present. They had seen the " first
house," the "holy and beautiful" house. They had
gone with the " multitude that kept holy-day " to
the house of God ; and now they stood there, the
last survivors of a race that had passed away, and
they could not restrain their grief. " They wept
with a loud voice ; and many shouted aloud for joy :
so that the people could not discern the noise of the
T

274 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the
people : for the people shouted with a loud voice,
and the noise was heard afar off." The emotion was
natural and claims our sympathy, but it contained
in it the germ of a perilous evil. That brooding
over the vanished glory of the past led them, as it
has led so many others, to be negligent and inactive
in the present, and became an excuse for a selfish
and cowardly apathy.
There is one memorable Psalm, the 118th, which
gains every way in interest and meaning, if we
think of it as connected with the events just men
tioned.* It corresponds in every way to the account
given in the book of Ezra of the services of that
day. Its opening verses repeat four times over the
words which are given in the history as the burden
of that day's psalmody, " 0 give thanks unto the
Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth for
ever." It begins with the Hallelujah in which the
people joined as with the sound of many waters.
It is the psalm of those who have passed through
the discipline of suffering, and have been led be
yond all their expectations to liberty and peace.
The thrice-repeated words, " All nations compassed
me about," speak of the disquietude caused, as we
have seen, by the neighbouring tribes to the re
turning exiles. When we read, " The voice of joy
and health is in the tabernacles of the righteous,"
we can imagine with what special force the words
* The consensus of nearly all modern interpreters refers it to this
period. With regard to the special occasion there is less unanimity,
some referring it to the first laying of the foundation, some to the
dedication of the Temple, some to the Feast of Tabernacles under
Ezra. I am inclined to think of it as having been written for, and
sung at the first Feast of Tabernacles after the return, and then
used, with adaptations, at the later great gatherings of the people.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 275
would come to those who then were, or had but
recently been, keeping their Feast of Tabernacles,
dwelling in the temporary huts which they con
structed of the branches of the olive and the fir tree,
the myrtle and the palm, and rejoicing in the great
deliverance which God had given them. The words
that spoke of the " gates of righteousness," the
" gate of the Lord," were as a proclamation that
what David had declared, in Psalms xv. and xxiv.,
as to the nature and conditions of true worship for
the first Temple, was true also of the second. The
verse which acquired afterwards a higher and more
sacred meaning, " The stone which the builders
rejected is become the head of the corner. This is
the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes,"
manifestly draws its imagery from the work in which
the Psalmist, on this supposition, had so recently
taken part.* Some incident in the progress of the
works had probably served as the starting-point of
the parable. Some stone, a fragment, we may con
jecture, of the old Temple, rescued from its ruins,
had seemed to the architects unfit for the work of
binding together the two walls that met at right
angles to each other. They would have preferred
some new block of their own fashioning. But the
priests, it may be, more conversant with the tradi
tions of the Temple, knew that that was the right
place for it, and that no other stone would answer
* We may hazard the supposition that the Psalm was written
by one of the two prophets of the time. Comp. the prominence in
Zechariah of parables and illustrations drawn from the builder's
work, the "stone" of iii. 9; iv. 7 ; the "house" and "timber" of
v. 4, 11; the "line" of i. 16; the "carpenters" of i. 20; the
"measuring line for the walls of Jerusalem" of ii. 1 ; the "plum
met" in the hand of Zerubbabel of iv. 10. The prophet lives, as
it were, among the works of the rising Temple.

276 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
half as well. The trial was made, and the issue
answered their expectations. Could they fail to see
that this was a type and figure of what was then
passing in the history of their nation ? Israel had
been rejected by the builders of this world's empires,
and seemed now about to be once more the " head of
the corner." Men might be tempted to look for other
guidance than that given them in the two " anointed
ones," the representatives of the house of Aaron and
the house of David, but it was given to Zerubbabel to
bid the "great mountain" of prejudice, selfishness,
antagonism " become a plain," and he was to bring
forth the "head-stone," of the spiritual as of the
literal Temple, with shoutings of joy and triumph,
crying, " Grace, grace unto it ! " (Zech. iv. 7). The
Hosanna that follows (" Save now, I beseech Thee,
0 Lord "), as it continued to be through the cen
turies that followed, the great anthem of the Feast
of Tabernacles, may be thought of without much
risk of error, as having originated in that first cele
bration of the feast after the return from exile. It
may have formed part of the special ceremonial of
the great days connected with the construction of
the second Temple that this sacrifice was to be bound
to the horns of the altar, not, as we render the word,
"with cords," but with "twined garlands"* of the
boughs of trees, which were at all times so conspi
cuous among the accessories of that feast.
This, however, was the beginning, not the end.
The descendants of the mingled races who had been
* The word is translated "thick boughs," in Ezek. xxxi. 3, 10,
14, and in Lev. xxiii. 40, and Neh. viii. 15, is used with special
reference to the boughs that were used at the Feast of Tabernacles.
Luther renders it " mit Maien," and in a note maintains its con
nection with that festival.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 277
brought into Samaria by Esarhaddon claimed, as
worshippers of Jehovah, a share in the work that
was going on. They demanded, i.e., to be recognised
as Israelites. . To the Jewish priests and princes
they were simply the mongrel brood of an unclean
race, whom they might admit individually as prose
lytes, but whom they could not acknowledge as being
of the seed of Abraham. Foiled in this attempt, the
Samaritans retaliated by thwarting the work from
which they were excluded. The death of Cyrus in
his expedition against the Massagetae, deprived the
Jews of their protector. His successor, Cambyses,
the Ahasuerus of Ezra iv. 6, probably inherited his
father's iconoclastic scorn of the religions of Baby
lon and Egypt, but was too much occupied in his
Egyptian and Libyan campaigns to take any active
part in defence of the people whom Cyrus had held
in such high honour. But upon his death, in B.C.
522, there was, for the time, the prospect of a
counter-revolution, in favour of the sacerdotal caste,
throughout the Persian empire. A Magian priest,
Gomates, personated the character of a son of Cyrus,
Smerdis, who had been put to death by Cambyses,
and succeeded in getting himself recognised as king.
He began by undoing all that Cyrus had done,
giving prominence to the Median as distinct from
the Persian element in the cultus of the nation,
introducing new rites and prayers and hymns of a
lower and less spiritual type than those which had
been used under Cyrus.
To this usurper, who appears in the book of Ezra
under the name of Artaxerxes, the enemies of Judah
addressed themselves. They laid stress on their
eastern origin. As being descended from Baby-

278 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
lonians, Medes, Persians,* they might claim the
support of the Median king. They urged on him
the danger of permitting the " rebellious and bad
city " to raise its head again. They bade him turn
to the " book of the records " of his fathers for proof
that it had been as a thorn in the side of the
Assyrian and Chaldaean monarchies. The policy of
the king led him to return the answer which they
desired. He identified himself not with the reli
gious reform of which Cyrus had been the leader,
but with the sacerdotal reaction of the party among
the Medes which attached itself to the Chaldaean
system. An edict went forth that the building of
the city should cease. The Samaritans were strong
enough to enforce it, and Zerubbabel and Josedech
had to wait for the arrival of a better time. Hap
pily the change came soon. The Persian nobles
detected the fraud that had been practised on them,
conspired against the pseudo-Smerdis, and slew him
in his palace. Darius, whom they chose as his suc
cessor, married the daughter of Cyrus, and adopted
his policy in all things, reversed what had been
done by Gomates and the Magi, restored the purer
Persian ritual, f carried on the warfare against the
Turanian races. The hopes of the Jews revived.
The prophets Haggai and Zechariah, who, as such,
* The names of the tribes in Ezra iv. 9 are not easily identified
with any known geographical position, but Gesenius and many
other scholars refer most of them to some part of the Median
territory. The Assyrian king made the two conquered countries
interchange their inhabitants, and so the ten tribes were carried off
to the "cities of the Medes," who were in their turn sent to
Samaria. f Comp. the well-known inscription on the rock of Behistun.
Darius speaks — " The rites and prayers which Gomates the
Magian introduced I abolished  Thus did I by the grace of
Ormuzd."

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 279
had watched the signs of the time, and knew the
significance of the first steps that the new king had
taken, saw that the time had come. They stirred
Zerubbabel and Joshua to enter on the work again
(b.c. 520).
New difficulties, however, soon presented them
selves, both from without and from within. The
first love of the exiles had waxed cold. Hindered
in the work of building the house of Jehovah, they
occupied themselves in building houses for them
selves, and were content to let it lie waste. When
they were urged to give and labour for the Temple,
they pleaded for delay. " The time is not come,
the time that the Lord's house should be built."
The prophet had to call on them to " consider their
ways " — to remind them of the scanty harvests,
long-continued drought, blighted crops, which had
come to them as sent from God to chastise them for
their selfish luxury (Hag. i.). When this obstacle
had been overcome, there was yet another. The
feeling which had shown itself so touchingly on the
day when the foundation of the Temple was laid,
now became an excuse for procrastination. Do
what they would, they could never make the second
Temple equal to the departed glory of the first. It
was, " in their eyes, in comparison with it, as
nothing." Was it worth while to labour for so
unsatisfying a result ? But the prophet was ready
with an answer for this plea also. The watchword
for Zerubbabel and Joshua, and for all the people of
the land, was, " Be strong — be strong — be strong."
They were to believe that the Spirit of the Lord
was still with them to give them that strength.
They were assured (in words that were afterwards

28o BIBLICAL STUDIES. ¦
to receive a higher fulfilment than came within the
horizon of the prophet's vision) that " the glory of
the latter house should be greater than the glory
of the former ; " that the " desirable things of all
nations " * should come ; that in it the Lord should
bestow his peace on all faithful worshippers. Did
men question the sufficiency of the two leaders of
the people to carry on the work to its completion ?
They were told, as to Zerubbabel, that in the midst
of trouble and confusion, the " shaking of the earth
and of the heavens," he would be as the signet on
the right hand of Jehovah (Hag. ii. 1 — 23). Were
there whispers against Joshua that he, by his own
infirmities and sins, or those of the order of which
he was the head, or of the people whom he repre
sented, brought discredit on the work and hindered
it from prospering ? The vision of Zechariah (c. iii.)
taught them to see in such whispers the promptings
of the accusing spirit, the adversary, the " Satan "
of the people of the Lord. If Joshua were " as a
brand plucked out of the fire," was not that a token
that he was chosen of the Lord ? If he had been as
one clothed in filthy garments, they were now taken
from him, and the priestly mitre was on his head,
and he was clothed with the priestly robes (Zech. iii.)
In parables and dark sayings it was indicated that
the "stone which the builders rejected" should be
* The rendering of the Authorised Version, "the desire of all
nations," has become so much of a household word among us, and
is pregnant with so many deep and sacred thoughts, that one
cannot part from it without some reluctance; but the Hebrew
word is plural, and is the same as that which is elsewhere used for
"pleasant," or " precious" vessels. The reference that follows to
the " silver " and the " gold " shows that what the prophet had in
his mind was the glory that would accrue to the Temple from the
free-will offerings of Gentile converts.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 281
" graven with seven eyes," i.e., that the sevenfold
gifts of the Spirit should be bestowed on the true
leader of the people. That leader was to be known
by the prophetic title of the Branch ; and Zerub
babel and Joshua were each of them partial fbre-
shadowings of that future glory. Therefore it was
said of the heir of the house of David that he should
bring forth the headstone with shoutings, crying
"Grace, grace unto it" (Zech. iv. 7). Therefore
two crowns, the gift of three Jews who had arrived
from Babylon with offerings for the Temple, were
solemnly placed by the prophet's order on the high-
priest's head, in token that the future King should
be also the Priest and Euler, sitting on his throne —
a priest after the order of Melchisedech (Zech. vi. 11).
In darker language yet, there was a dim utterance
of the hope of a universal church, and of the calling
of the Gentiles. He, the Branch, the Priest, the
King, should build the Temple of the Lord ; and
those that were " far off" — the Israelites who were
scattered abroad, the heathen nations far and wide
— should join in that great work (Zech. vi. 15).
I have endeavoured to sketch the bearing of the
more prominent passages of the two prophets of the
period upon the history of the return of the exiles.
It is, of course, very far from being an exhaustive
treatment of it. It may, however, be enough to
teach us that the method of study in such cases is to
remember that every such prophetic utterance, how
ever difficult and dark to us, had its starting-point
in the events of history, and took its colouring from
the surroundings of time and place. It may often
transcend that in which it originated, for the pro
phets were " men of desires," and they were ever

282 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
expecting that the kingdom of God was " nigh at
hand," and would " immediately appear," and they
spoke words accordingly which were not fulfilled in
any earthly priest or king, or in the events of the
world's history. But the connection remains as the
solid ground on which to stand. From it alone can
we rightly pass to the higher significance.
The internal difficulties were, through the words
of the prophets and the spirit with which they ani
mated the people, overcome with no long delay.
Those from without presented no serious impediment.
The Samaritans tried to alarm the new satrap of the
provinces west of the Euphrates, and they came to
Jerusalem with the question, "Who hath com
manded to build this house and to make up this
wall ?" They took the names of the chief leaders of
the work ; but they did not proceed to any active
interference. They knew that the policy of Cyrus
had been readopted, and that the sympathies of
Darius were with the men of Judah. And so they
were contented with embodying the statements of
the Jews themselves, in which they gave, as might
be expected, due prominence to the decree of Cyrus,
and appealed to the records of the Persian kings.
The decree was found at Ecbatana, and republished
by order of Darius. The work of the house of God
was to go on. It was to be aided by grants from the
king's treasury. The priests were to be supplied
with all that they needed for the due maintenance of
their worship. The worship of Jehovah was recog
nised as the "established" religion of the province.
Acting on this edict, the priests and nobles went on
with their work. The walls rose in height, and the
building was restored to something of its old stateli-

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 283
ness. After four years it was once again solemnly
fe-opened with a special service of dedication, and
the old ritual was once more revived in its complete
ness. When the appointed season came round, they
kept, with greater joy than they had known since
their return from Babylon, their first great Pass
over. With the celebration of that feast we end the first
stage of the return of the exiles. It is followed by
a period of more than fifty years of which we know
but little, and in which all that can be attempted is
to sketch the outline of its history by inference and
conjecture. When it came to its close, there appear
on the scene the bearers of the three last great names
of the Old Testament. We are brought at least
near to the time of the last of the prophets. The
history of the Eeturn from the Captivity will not be
complete without the survey of the life and work of
Ezra, and Nehemiah, and Malachi.

PAET IV.  THE LATEE SEQUEL  EZRA  NEHEMIAH.
An interval of uncertain length — probably of
about fifty-eight years — comes in, as I have said,
between the 6th and 7th chapters of the book of
Ezra. We have no sufficient materials with which
to fill up the gap. But we may infer from the state of
things described when the history recommences that
the first eager hope and enthusiasm which animated
the exiles on their return soon died away. Zerub
babel and Joshua were gathered to their fathers.
The Messianic hopes which had clustered round their
names were destined to wait for their fulfilment.
Haggai and Zechariah also passed away or were

284 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
silent, and no prophet arose to take their place.
Priests and people fell into the way of conciliating
the neighbouring nations, Philistines, Edomites,
Samaritans, by intermarrying with them, and fore
most in the list of those who had been guilty of this
sin were the sons of Joshua, the High Priest (Ezra
x. 18).* But little energy was shown in the work
of restoration. The Temple, it is true, had been so
far completed as to admit of the revival of the old
services, but the walls of Jerusalem still remained
" broken down" as they had been left after the cap
ture of the city by the Chaldaeans, and the gates
were still charred with the flames which had con
sumed it. The "feeble Jews" became a byword to
their neighbours (Neh. iv. 2). And there were yet
worse evils pressing upon the people. Partly, per
haps, owing to the extent to which the land had
fallen out of cultivation during the seventy years of
the exile, partly also to a succession of unfavourable
seasons, the province of Judaea seems to have suffered
from a series of years of scarcity. Traces of famine
and distress from this source have met us in the pro
phecies of Haggai, as the consequence of a long-
continued drought (Hag. i. 11). Towards the close
of the period of which I am now writing they were
caused by excessive rains which, by their unprece
dented violence, struck terror into the hearts of the
people (Ezra x. 9, 13). One result of this had been
that the poorer freeholders had found it difficult to
pay the tribute to the Persian exchequer, and had
borrowed money from their richer brethren, the
* It is possible enough that this may be the scandal to which
reference is made in the " filthy garments" of Zechariah's vision
(Zech. iii. 4). The same tendency re-appears in a later generation
of the same family (Neh. xiii. 4, 28).

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 285
nobles and rulers of Judah. And then, the distress
continuing, the Jewish law of debt, neglected as
regards its prohibition of interest, was applied, as to
repayment, in all its strictness. The fields and vine
yards of the debtors passed into the hands of the
creditors. Not content with this, the latter carried
their claims further, and seized (without regard,
apparently, to the humane provisions of the law of
Moses as to the limitation of bondage in such cases
to seven years, and the emancipation of all such
slaves in the year of jubilee) on the sons and daugh
ters of the former (Neh. v. 1 — 14). There was the
danger of the growth of a pauperised and enslaved
population, such as that with which Eome was
threatened at the commencement of the republic.
The eager pursuit of wealth and the disregard of the
law shown in these evils displayed themselves in
other forms. Harvests were reaped, the grapes
gathered and pressed, markets held at the gates of
the city, burdens brought in and out, on the Sab
bath day. The Tyrians, who seem to have settled
in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and to have
carried on a trade in fish, in connection, probably,
with their fishing-boats at Joppa, naturally en
couraged this laxity (Neh. xiii. 15 — 22).* Every
thing seemed tending to chaos and disorder. The
priesthood, as we have seen, were setting the example
of indifference. There were no prophets to reprove
their vices and those of the people. And as yet no
great organizer, or teacher, or ruler had arisen to
cope with these growing evils. The age of scribes,
* I have grouped together facts that meet us at different stages
of the history. But the evils were in the nature of the case, all of
them of gradual growth, and had prevailed, more or less, for years.

286 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
with all its characteristics, and some of them we must
acknowledge to have worked for good, had not yet
set in.
We are able, if we accept the conclusions of the
most recent historical writers on this period, to fill
up the history of this interval, as regards the Jews
who remained in the land of their exile, with greater
ease and certainty. The Ahasuerus who appears in
the strange history of the Book of Esther, after
having been identified with almost' every Persian
king from Darius to Artaxerxes Longimanus, seems
now to be recognised by a fair consensus of inter
preters as one and the same with Xerxes.* It is
obvious that the petulance, the recklessness, the
selfish magnificence which meet us in the Hebrew
records agree with what we know of that king from
the Greek historians and poets. If we accept this
hypothesis, the dates of the Book of Esther become
of some significance, and throw light upon the con
temporary annals of Judah. The king's quarrel
with Vashti is in the third year of his reign, i.e., in
B.C. 483. Then came the expedition against Greece,
ending in the defeats at Salamis and Plataea in
b.c. 480 and 479. The choice of Hadassah, or
Esther, as the king's favourite queen, and the con
sequent favour shown to her uncle and guardian
Mordecai, falls, by the same reckoning, in b.c. 479,
on the king's return from Greece, and the conspiracy
referred to in Esther ii. 21 may probably have been
caused by the discontent of. the Persian nobles at the
* The name Ahasuerus is a modification of the Hebrew Achosh-
verosh, and this in its turn represents the Persian word which
appears in its Greek form in Xerxes and Artaxerxes. The
Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther cannot be the same with the king
of that name mentioned in Dan. ix. 1, nor with that of Ezra iv. 6.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 287
king's failure in his great schemes of conquest. The
attempt of Haman to destroy the man who refused
to show him honour and seemed likely to be his
rival, and with him to crush his race, the defeat of
that scheme, and the terrible retaliation inflicted by
the Jews on their enemies throughout the cities of
the empire, take their place in B.C. 474. It is clear,
if we receive these data, that during the later years
of the reign of Xerxes Jewish influence must have
been dominant at the Persian court, that the Jews
of Jerusalem must have heard of the perils and the
triumph of their brethren. It may be that they
began even then to commemorate the feast of Purim,
which afterwards rose into such an exaggerated pro
minence, and to curse the memory of Haman. The
effect jpf the triumph of their brethren in Persia
may have secured for them for some years a safe,
though obscure, tranquillity.
The hypothesis which has suggested these thoughts
has, at any rate, the merit of falling in happily with
the events that follow. If Mordecai occupied a posi
tion like that which he is described as filling in the
court of Xerxes — able, we may believe, to lend a
helping hand to his son and successor in the in
trigues that followed on the death of that king, and
to exercise his old ability in unravelling conspiracies
— we are able to understand how it was that early
in the reign of Artaxerxes we find the king's pro
tection extended to " Ezra the priest," and meet,
later on, with a devout Jew as his favourite cup
bearer. Of these two men, and of what they did,
partly separately, partly in conjunction, we have now
to speak.
The name of Ezra is in many ways remarkable.

288 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
What we have in the latter part of the book that
takes its title from him has the special interest
(which it shares, however, with Nehemiah) of being
in part an autobiographical memoir.* And the man
himself is the representative of a new order and a
new age. Though not high priest, he stood in close
relationship to the bearer of that title, and was
descended from the Seraiah, f who filled that office at
the time of the captivity, and who was the father of
Jozedek, the grandfather of Joshua. He had not
been among the exiles who had returned under
Cyrus or Darius, but had grown up among the
numerous and wealthy Jews who preferred remain
ing at Babylon, and had there devoted himself to
the study and interpretation of the law. He became
a " ready scribe" in it. It was natural that such a
man, living at such a time, should collect together
and arrange whatever writings in the literature of
his people bore a sacred character ; and though Scrip
ture is silent on the subject, there is a high proba
bility in favour of the Jewish tradition that the
volume of the Old Testament first began to assume
its present shape under him — that to him, or his
superintendence, we owe the historical books, which
are manifestly an epitome of older narratives, the
preservation of the Psalms, which are as manifestly
an anthology from older hymn-books. J In the later
* Both books are, however, in some respects, difficult. Made by
some scribe in a later age, they give us fragments from the original
memoir, not always in their right order, intersperse connective
paragraphs from some lost chronicle, and leave long lacuna; which
we have nothing to fill up.
t In Ezra vii. 1 he is described as the " son of Seraiah." But a
comparison of dates shows that this, in its literal sense, is impos
sible, and we must take the phrase with the latitude of meaning
which it bears in othi r Hebrew genealogies.
X If we admit with most modern critics, the existence of Psalms

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 289
legends of Judaism, incorporated in the post-Chris
tian apocryphal Second Book of Esdras, the tradition
takes a strangely legendary shape. The law is said
to have been utterly destroyed. Not a copy of it
remained. It was given to Ezra, by special inspira
tion, to remember the whole of it, and to dictate it
to five scribes. They wrote for forty days on their
box- wood tablets. And at the end of their labours,
some were to be made public, e.g., the canonical
books of the Old Testament, seventy were to be re
served, with their mysterious visions, for the initiated
few (2 Esdras xiv.). *
Leaving these wilder tales, we may return to what
Ezra actually was, and the state of things in which
he had grown up. It is clear, from the list given in
Ezra viii. of those who accompanied him to Jerusalem,
that the Babylonian Jews must have been a numerous
and influential body, that many Levites and priests,
Nethinim and singers, had remained there. And it
lies in the nature of things, that such a population
must have had some systematic means for maintain
ing the religion of their fathers. The organization
of the synagogue, destined to exercise so great an
influence on the later history of Judaism, and through
it on the constitution and ritual of the church, must
have had, if not its origin, at all events its full
development, among the exiles at Babylon. And

belonging to the age of the Maccabees, it will follow that the
present Pentateuchal division of the Psalter, and therefore the
arrangement of the whole, must have been of later date still.
* In 2 Esdras xiv. 44, the number of the books given is 204.
There is, however, a various reading giving 94 ; and if this be
accepted, then the books that were to be published are reduced to
24, the precise number of the books of the Old Testament, reckon
ing, as the Jews commonly did, the twelve minor prophets and the
five Books of Moses as severally single books.
U

2 go BIBLICAL STUDIES.
the narrative implies also that the Babylonian Jews
were in frequent communication with their brethren
in Jerusalem. What Ezra heard of the evils that
were showing themselves there stirred in him the
impulse to take up the work of a reformer. He
obtains a decree from the Persian king, based upon
the precedent of those of Cyrus and Darius. He
goes with an authoritative commission from Ar
cstaxerxes and his seven chief counsellors. He has
the gifts which they offer to the " God of Israel,"
whom they identify with the " God of heaven" that
their forefathers had worshipped. He receives for
himself and his companions the promise of immunity
from all forms of taxation. He is made almost, as it
were, a satrap of the province of Syria, with power
to appoint judges and inferior magistrates, and to
punish offenders with confiscation, or exile, or im
prisonment, or death.
There are two noticeable features in the list of
those who joined him in his undertaking. (1) As
one of the leaders of the expedition, we have again
the name of a son of David, but of one only. It
may be inferred that other members of the royal
line continued to remain as among the princes of the
captivity.* It may also be inferred, with some pro
bability, that the sons of Zerubbabel had not in
herited their father's virtues, and that the support
of another representative of the family was wanted
for the reform which Ezra had undertaken. (2)
We are struck by the unwillingness of the Levites
to join in the work which was initiated and directed
* The belief that the house of David was thus represented among
the Babylonian Jews is confirmed by the tradition that Hillel, the
great scribe, who came from Babylon, belonged to it.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 291
by the heads of the priesthood. The fact seems to
indicate that the interests of the two sections of the
national clerisy were becoming antagonistic. The
Levites at Babylon, where no sacrifices could be
offered and no incense burnt, stood practically on a
level with the priesthood, perhaps, as having a
higher culture in minstrelsy and the work of scribes,
were held in greater honour. At Jerusalem, they
would sink back to their old position as subordinate
ministers of the temple. So it was, at any rate, that
when the travellers gathered on the banks of the
Euphrates, at Ahava, no " sons of Levi" were to be
found among them. It was not till an urgent
message was sent that any came to join the caravan,
and then only thirty- eight answered to the sum
mons, bringing with them, however, by way of com
pensation, two hundred and twenty Nethinim, de
scendants, i.e., of the old Gibeonites and others who
had been consecrated to an hereditary bondage, as
slaves attached to the Tabernacle, the "hewers of
wood and drawers of water" of Joshua ix. 27.
When the travellers were all assembled, Ezra
proclaimed a solemn fast, and they offered up prayers
lor a safe journey. The gifts of gold and silver and
bronze were placed under the special guardianship
of the most trusted priests, and on the twelfth day
after their first meeting they started on their way.
In less than four months afterwards they reached
Jerusalem. The gifts were presented. The return
ing exiles offered their sacrifices, and then Ezra
entered on his work. The full extent of the evils
was brought before him. The nation was lapsing
into heathenism. People, priests, Levites, were
intermarrying with the idolatrous races round them,

292 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
and adopting their customs. The protest of Ezra
was delivered after the fashion of the East. In the
sight of all the people, in the court of the Temple,
he rent his clothes and tore the hair of his head and
his beard, and sat " as one astonied," in a trance of
horror (Ezra ix. 4). The rain fell on him in torrents,
yet he continued motionless. The report of what he
had done spread through the city. Crowds flocked
to see and waited to hear. At last, towards sunset,
at the hour of the evening sacrifice, when the pre
cincts of the Temple were filled with worshippers,
he rose, and once more rending his garments, uttered
what was at once a prayer and a denunciation, con
demning the evils which had filled him with such
dismay, stirring up the people to turn away from it.
His own confessions woke an echo in the hearts of
the people. They joined in his weeping and lamen
tation. The rain that threatened to deprive them of
their harvests was regarded as a divine judgment on
their offences, and gave weight to Ezra's words
(Ezra x. 9). It was resolved that there should be
a solemn assembly of all the citizens of Judah, and
that absence should involve the penalty of the con
fiscation of their property. The assembly met to
ratify the foregone conclusion. Four men were
appointed as commissioners to do what may be
described as a work of censorship, to detect the
cases of mixed marriages, which the reforming
party were resolved to crush, and to insist on their
being annulled. The priests, including the sons of
Joshua, the Levites, the princes who had contracted
such marriages, to the number of one hundred and
nine, came forward to put away their wives. The
latter probably returned to the protection of their

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 293
own kinsmen, but the historian does not think it
worth his while to take notice of their fate.
At this stage the memoir in which Ezra relates
his own work abruptly closes, and we hear nothing
of him until he appears twelve years later (b.c. 445)
in company with Nehemiah. What became of him
during the interval ? The state in which Nehemiah
found Jerusalem, the revival of the laxities against
which Ezra had protested, the apparent newness of
his work as a teacher described in Nehemiah viii.,
seem to exclude the possibility of his having con
tinued to reside there. We are driven to fall back
upon the supposition that his commission was a
temporary one, and that he returned to Babylon
with the conviction that its purpose had been ac
complished. We have now to inquire under what
circumstances he was summoned to return to it.
Of the lineage of Nehemiah we have no record
beyond the fact that he was the son of Hachaliah,
and that the " sepulchres of his fathers " were at
Jerusalem (Neh. ii. 5). The latter fact justifies the
inference that he belonged to the tribe of Judah,
but the absence of any genealogy all but excludes
the possibility of his having been descended, as has
been conjectured, from the royal or priestly lines.
He had found employment at Susa as the king's
cupbearer, and had gained the favour of his master,
Artaxerxes the Long-handed. He, too, heard, from
his brother Hanani and others who had come from
Jerusalem, of the state of the Jews there, and the
desolation of the city. He mourned and fasted and
prayed in secret. His sadness drew the notice of
the king, and he inquired its cause. He learnt that
the heart of his attendant was in the city where his

294 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
fathers slept, that he was grieved at its continued
desolation. The petition that he might be allowed
to go to Jerusalem with authority to remedy the
evils which distressed him, met with a ready com
pliance, subject to the condition of his returning
after a given time (Neh. ii. 6). He went with an
escort and with a letter enabling him to come upon
the keeper of the king's forests for the supply of
whatever timber he might want. The news of his
journey reached the ears of the old foes of Israel,
the Moabites and Ammonites, and they determined
to do what in them lay to thwart him. The former
were represented by Sanballat the Horonite,* who
seems to have occupied the position of a satrap in
Samaria ; the latter by Tobiah, who appears from
the way in which the epithet " slave " is attached
to his name, to have risen from that status to the
rank of a chief counsellor in the government of the
same province. He had contrived to form a party,
cemented by a double marriage, among the nobles
of Judah (Neh. vi. 18), and was, it may be, looking
forward to making himself master of the city and
ruling there at no distant day.
The cupbearer arrived at Jerusalem, waited for
three days (the customary interval, it would seem,
for purification after a journey), and then set forth,
attended by a few companions, he alone mounted on
horse or mule, on a night journey to survey the
walls and gates which he was seeking to restore.
We cannot follow him step by step in the details of
his inspection, but the result fully confirmed all
that he had heard of the wretchedly defenceless
condition of the city, and strengthened his resolve
* The name is probably derived from the Moabite city, Horonaim.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 295
to undertake its restoration. He called together
the priests and nobles, and laid his plans before
them. It is significant of the state of things with
which he had to deal, that Sanballat and Tobiah,
with Geshem, an Arabian ally, were actually in
Jerusalem at the time, and tried to frighten the
people with the assertion that their rebuilding the
walls would be looked upon as an act of rebellion
against the Persian king., The work went on,
however, in spite of their opposition, and in a
document (Neh. iii.), on which the researches of the
Palestine Exploration Society may possibly before
long cast some light, we have an official record of
the extent and distribution of the work, with the
fullest topographical minuteness. The progress of
the work led to more open opposition. Sanballat
and Tobiah, who had withdrawn from Jerusalem,
were joined by the Samaritans, and by the inhabi
tants of at least one of the cities of the Philistines,*
and threatened an attack. The citizens had to
defend the works which they were in the act of
raising, some fighting from the ramparts with
spears and bows and shields, while others continued
building. Even the builders had to do their work
sword in hand. The sound of the trumpet was to
be the signal in case of attack, calling all from
different parts of the city to rally to the defence.
They had to keep on the watch all night (Neh. iv.).f
So the walls rose, and the adversaries of Judah
* Ashdod seems about this time to have entered into specially
close relations with the population of Jerusalem. There was the
risk of a hybrid race, half-Philistines and half- Jews (Neh. xiii. 24).
f It will be seen that I pass over the narrative of ch. v. as
belonging to a later period. This is one of the instances in which
there has been a dislocation in the arrangement of the chapters.
Ver. 14 shows that it belonged to Nehemiah's second visit.

296 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
were foiled in their attack. They then had recourse
to stratagems. They mvited Nehemiah to a con
ference at one of the neighbouring villages, hoping
to get him into their power, and perhaps to assassi
nate him. Four times they sent messengers to him,
and four times received the same answer : " He was
engaged in a great work, and could not leave it."
The fifth time the messenger came with an open
letter (this, according to the habits of the East, was
a deliberate slight), which was intended to frighten
him. "It was rumoured that he meant to make
himself a king; that he had prophets in his pay
who were ready to proclaim him under that title.
Would it not be well for him to seek safety in flight?"
A prophet suborned by Sanballat and Tobiah told
him that his life was in danger, and urged him to
take refuge in the Temple, and remain within its
precincts. The patriot hero refused to purchase his
life by an act of cowardice which would have in
terfered with the completion of his work. Other
prophets, and a prophetess named Noadiah, who
apparently exercised an influence over the people
like that of Huldah in the days of Josiah, thwarted
him, and discouraged the people by their predictions
of danger. There were no prophets, it would seem,
working with him. The nobles who belonged to the
party of Tobiah, some of whom may have had a
special cause of quarrel against Nehemiah, as show
ing a manifest sympathy for the poor whom they
oppressed, helped, as far as they could, to thwart
him. Their attempts were, however, frustrated, and
the wall was finished within fifty- two days of the
time of commencement. The time allowed to Nehe
miah for his work was, however, near its conclusion.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 297
He had to return to the court of Artaxerxes to
resume his duties there.* He did what he could by
appointing his brother Hanani and another, possibly
also a kinsman, over the city, with strict charge to
close the gates at night, and to take all possible
precautions against a sudden attack. Before his
departure he took a census of the people, taking as a
basis that which had been made at the time of
Zerubbabel's return, f In the exercise of a general
censorship he excluded from the register of the
priesthood those who could not give satisfactory
proof of their descent from Aaron, and reserved the
decision of the doubtful question to the indefinitely
distant period when there should once again rise up
a priest with the Urim and Thummim. He left
Jerusalem with the feeling that he had not come
there in vain, that the city could now hold its own
against its enemies, and that sufficient provision had
been made for the maintenance of the Temple
ritual. Twelve years seem to have intervened between
his first visit and his second, and of these we have
no detailed account. It is clear, however, that no
open attack was made on the recently constructed
walls. It is equally clear that Tobiah and Sanballat
* This is distinctly stated in ch. xiii. 6. The only question is
where we are to place the events of ch. viii. — xii. Looking to the
character of ch. vii. as giving the arrangements made for the
government of the city during his absence, and to the startling
abruptness with which ch. viii. begins, it seems most natural to
suppose that the gap comes between them, and that ch. v., which
belongs to the second visit, has been, by some accident, transposed
from its right place.
t The case was a remarkable one in its connection with the older
history of Israel. The excluded priests bore the name of the house
of Barzillai, the Gileadite chieftain who had received David with
such princely hospitality, and whose daughter had married a
priest.

298 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
continued their intrigues, and strengthened their
party within the city. Eliashib, the high priest,*
connected himself in some way with the former, and
his son married the daughter of the latter. The
Ammonite slave had a chamber prepared for him in
the courts of the Temple, as though he had been a
prophet or a priest. The usurious extortion of the
nobles became more and more intolerable (Neh. v.
1 — 5). The priests apparently monopolized the
tithes and other offerings that flowed into the
treasury of the Temple, and the Levites and singers,
defrauded of their share, refused to do their work
(Neh. xiii. 10). Once again, after eleven years had
passed, Nehemiah had to apply to Artaxerxes for
permission to visit the city of his fathers. On this
occasion we may infer, so far as we can see our way
at all through the scanty and misplaced records,
that he travelled by way of Babylon, found Ezra
there, took counsel with him, invited his co-opera
tion, and went on with him to Jerusalem. When
they arrived, they commenced the work of reforma
tion. Nehemiah gained the hearts of the people by
a splendid hospitality maintained, not, as was cus
tomary, at the cost of the province, but at his own.
One hundred and fifty Jews were entertained daily,
besides foreigners. He stopped the exactions which
the slaves and underlings of provincial governors so
frequently practise. He expended part of his income
in purchasing the freedom of Jews who had been
It is noticeable that Eliashib nowhere appears as taking any
part in the measures of religious reform that were carried on by
Ezra and Nehemiah. He is the high priest, and yet his name is
not appended to the solemn league and covenant of ch. x. He was
manifestly a partisan of the Sanballat and Tobiah party, an advo
cate of mixed marriages and lax discipline.

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 299
sold to the heathen. With the influence and autho
rity which these acts gave him he appealed to the
nobles of Judah to follow his example, to give up
the usury which they had demanded (the rate had
been 12 per cent.), to restore the fields and vine
yards which had been mortgaged to them, and to
release the Israelites, male and female, whom they
had seized in satisfaction of their claims. It was a
demand like that which Solon, according to the
commonly received account, made at Athens upon
the nobles there, like that which the plebs insisted
on at Eome ; but either the weight of his name or
the dread of something worse led the nobles to
comply with the self-denying ordinance. In the
presence of priests and people they took a solemn
oath, confirmed by a solemn anathema on whosoever
should break it, that they would change their ways.
They renounced altogether their claims upon their
debtors. The measure seems, of course, somewhat
violent in its character, but, like its Eoman and
Athenian analogues, it probably had its justification
in the high rate of interest that had been exacted
for many years, and which it may be, in most cases,
exceeded the original debt.
In what follows the influence of Ezra is more dis
tinctly traceable. He had gone on at Babylon with
his work as a scribe, and had with him a complete
copy of the Law written in the old Hebrew of the
earlier days of the monarchy.* It is clear that
during his absence there had been no systematic
teaching of the people. There were as yet no
scribes or teaching priests. So on the first day of the
* Probably, however, in the new, square character which was
henceforth to be recognised as Hebrew.

300 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
seventh month the people were called together to
hear the teacher who had come from Babylon, and
they listened to him eagerly, as he, mounted on a
high platform, or pulpit, read out the Law in the
old speech of their fathers, while the Levites who
were around him repeated it in the Aramaic, which
had become the spoken language of the people. The
first emotion of the people, as in the time of Josiah,
was one of alarm and grief — " They wept when they
heard the words of the law." The two reformers
had, however, the wisdom to restrain this feeling.
They felt that it was better to lead their countrymen
in the first instance to the brighter side of a com
plete adherence to the religion of their fathers. The
day was holy to the Lord, and was not a time for
sorrow and lamentation. They were to " eat and
drink, and send portions, and make great mirth,"
in their joy at the recovery of a treasure which they
had lost so long (Neh. viii. 9 — 12). It would seem
as if what they read in the Law as to the celebration
of the Feast of Tabernacles fell on their ears as some
thing new either as to the form or degree of the rejoic
ing which accompanied it, and they determined that
they would celebrate it, as it had not been celebrated
within the memory of man. Never, the historian
bears record, since the days of Joshua the son of
Nun had such a feast been kept. With branches of
palm, and olive, and pine, and myrtle, they made
huts, or booths, on the flat roofs of their houses, in
the open area of their court- yards, in the precincts of
the Temple. And day by day, during the whole feast,
the work of instruction went on in the same way.*
* The Feast of Tabernacles was, it will be remembered, the
appointed season at which, in the Sabbatical year, the law was to

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 30 r
The labours of Ezra were indefatigable. At last
the time came when those labours were to bear
their fruit. The joy of the feast was over. There
was a solemn meeting of the people for repentance
and confession. Ezra is still their guide and teacher.
In a prayer which was also a sermon, he summed up
the past history of the Israelites, with all its sins on
their part, its mercies on the part of God, and in
the name of the people confessed their manifold
transgressions. So he led them to that which he
and his colleague had in view, and the princes,
and priests, and Levites, and people, entered into
an agreement with each other and with Jehovah.
The document with the names attached to it. is in
itself interesting enough (Neh. x. 1 — 27). To many
it will have a yet deeper interest as the obvious
pattern upon which the Solemn League and Covenant
that played so conspicuous a part in our own national
history was deliberately based. It went straight to
the evils which Ezra and Nehemiah were most
anxious to remedy. It forbade intermarriage with
the heathen, trading on the Sabbath, the exaction
of usury. It bound those who joined in it to make
a small but fixed contribution (one-third of a shekel)
to the maintenance of the Temple ritual, to secure
to the Levites and priests, as well as to the
singers, their share in the tithes and the first-fruit
offerings. The zeal thus quickened into action
showed itself in other ways. Jerusalem was as yet
but thinly peopled, and its inhabitants were too few
to defend it. The majority of those who had grown

be read aloud in the hearing of the people (Deut. xxxi. 10 — 15).
The practice had, probably, fallen into disuse long before the
captivity, perhaps had never been observed systematically at all,

302 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
up since the first return from Babylon preferred
residing on their lands and in their villages. It was
necessary to cast lots that one man in ten should
take up his abode in the holy city. Those who
volunteered for the arduous duty were counted
worthy of special honour. The time was now come
when Nehemiah could look upon his work as com
pleted. The walls and gates were ready for a
solemn dedication. Priests with trumpets, Levites
with musical instruments of various form and use,
singers in two great bands, were gathered on the
walls and in the open spaces of the gates, and women
and children joined in the strain, and once more
(this time with no discordant wailing to mar its
harmony) " the joy of Jerusalem was heard even
afar off" (Neh. xii. 48).
By these successive steps the people were led on
to the measures which Nehemiah and Ezra had in
view, and by which they were able to obtain a
decisive victory over their opponents. The law
which enacted that no Ammonite or Moabite should
enter into the congregation of the Lord, even to the
tenth generation (Deut. xxiii. 3), was solemnly
read to the people. The recent league and covenant
bound them to carry it into execution. It had the
effect of striking off the register of citizens all who
were the offspring of the mixed marriages that had
been recently contracted. The scene which had
been witnessed was re-enacted at the time of Ezra's
first visit. The Jews who had married wives
of Ashdod, and of Ammon, and of Moab, whose
children spoke a mongrel dialect, which the citizens
of purer blood could not or would not understand,
were anathematized, reviled, outraged, as transgres-

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 303
sors of the Law.* But it was not at the meaner
crowd that the blow was chiefly aimed. The high
priest, who had connected himself with the party
opposed to the measures of the reformers, was the
offender whom they meant to punish through the
new zeal of the people. One of his grandsons had
married the daughter of Sanballat the Horonite.
Tobiah, through his marriage with the daughter of
Meshullam, probably a priest, was also connected
with him, and had, as has been noticed above, been
allowed to instal himself in one of the chambers
of the Temple. Nehemiah was determined to take
no half-measures. The transgressing priest was
expelled from his office, and fled to Sanballat to
revenge himself, it may be, by laying the founda
tions of the rival worship on Mount Gerizim, which,
under another Sanballat, and another fugitive priest,
rose some hundred years later into prominence. f
Tobiah, with all his goods and chattels, was turned
out of the residence which his presence had dese
crated. Other reforms followed rapidly on the
heels of these. Measures were taken for securing
to the Levites and the singers the payments
of which they had been defrauded by the rapacity
of the priests. A board of finance, representing,
* The description, in its details, is painful enough. " I con
tended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and
plucked off their hair " (Neh. xiii. 25) ; but it must be judged of
by an eastern, not a western standard, 'and ecclesiastical history
presents but too many parallels to it.
t Josephus is our only authority as to the later Sanballat
(Antiq. xi. 8). He represents the apostate priest as bearing the
nume of Manasseh, marrying the daughter of the Samaritan chief,
and establishing the rival worship, and places this in the time of
Alexander the Great. The whole story has, however, somewhat of
a legendary character. So far as it goes, it implies the previous
existence of a cultus of some kind, though not of a temple, on
Gerizim.

304 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
apparently, priests, and scribes, and Levites, and
laymen, was appointed to prevent like abuses for the
future (Neh. xiii. 13). All Sabbath labour was
prohibited within the walls of the city. The gates
were closed from the sunset of Friday to that of
Saturday. The Tyrian dealers in fish, the tillers of
the soil who brought their figs and grapes for sale,
tried to hold a market outside the gates in the hope
of catching malcontents or stragglers, but were
foiled by more vigorous measures of police. The
Levites were summoned from their usual work as
watchmen of the Temple to take their station as
sentinels at the gates of the city.
With the record of these successes the Book of
Nehemiah ends. As with the full conviction that
he had done his utmost, he closes his memoir with
the prayer, which is half a boast, " Eemember me,
0 my God, for good." He could look back upon
his work during its whole course, with the feeling
that it had been tainted by no mean ambition, no
grasping self-aggrandisement. He had, from first
to last, declined, in the spirit which led St. Paul
afterwards to refuse the wages of his Apostleship, to
eat " the bread of the governor," the public pro
vision, i.e., for his maintenance, and had entertained
rich and poor with a large-handed hospitality (Neh.
v. 14 — 19). Out of his private resources he had
purchased the freedom of many of his countrymen
who had been reduced to slavery. If we accept the
statement of the Second Book of Maccabees, in itself
probable enough, he had added to these services,
following, it may be, the counsels of Ezra, that of
founding a library, in which he gathered together
" the acts of the kings, and the prophets, and of

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. 305
David, and the Epistles of the [Persian] kings con
cerning the holy gifts" (2 Mace. ii. 13). His own
writings and commentaries must have furnished
the materials out of which, with other documents,
at some later period, the Books of Ezra and
Nehemiah assumed their present form. A more
legendary tradition in the same book runs to the
effect that it was through him that the Jews re
gained their possession of the sacred fire. Devout
priests, it was said, at the time of the captivity, had
taken the fire of the altar and hid it in a cave
without water. The secret of the hiding-place had
been handed down from father to son. When Ne
hemiah came to Jerusalem, he sent those who knew
it, and they found no fire, but only " thick water."
But the water itself, like that which Elijah had
poured on Carmel, seemed to change its nature.
The sun shone on it, and it kindled into a flame,
first on the altar itself, then on the stones that
encompassed it (2 Mace. i. 19 — 36).
It is impossible to read the account of the work
done by the two men whose lives have formed the
subject of this paper without the feeling that history
does sometimes reproduce itself. One instance of
such parallelism I have pointed out in the analogy
between the covenant into which Nehemiah and
Ezra persuaded the more zealous portion of the
people to enter, and that which in a.d. 1638 marked
a great crisis in the history of Scotland, and became
at once a watchword and a nickname for generations.
Another must present itself, I believe, to every one
who reads the history of Calvin's sway — one might
almost say, his government — at Geneva. There is
the same zeal, the same nobleness of purpose, tho
x

306 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
same concentration of indignant anger at what
seemed violations of the law of God, something too,
it must be added, of the same spirit of jealous
exclusiveness in both. What mixed marriages were
in the one case, leanings to Eome, or to the wild
Socinianism of Servetus, or to general laxity of
morals, were in the other. In each there was a
long struggle with the intrigues of opposing parties
crowned by ultimate success. In each the work
was wanting in the wider thoughts, the far-sighted
freedom which alone can secure permanence. In
each, therefore, the reform was followed by a re
action. Old evils once again re-appeared, in their
old form, or but slightly disguised. New evils, the
inevitable growth of the defects of the reform itself,
mingled with them. What the nature of those
evils were in the older history, with what unavailing
protests the last of the prophets tried to stem them,
we shall see when we come to take a survey of the
book of M.VLACHL

XIII.
THE LAST OF THE PEOPHETS.
IHE narrative of the closing historical books
of the Old Testament connects itself, as I
have said, with that of the last of the
prophets, and cannot be fully understood
without studying its contents. Unhappily there is
no prophet in the whole history of Israel of whom
we know so little. It is doubtful whether the name
which is prefixed to the book was really borne by
the writer, or merely describes his function as the
" messenger of Jehovah." * In the Greek version of
the Old Testament the proper name disappears from
the opening verse, and the common noun takes its
place. In that which is known as the Targum, or
Paraphrase of Jonathan, the prophet is identified
with Ezra. Jewish traditions represent him as one
of the hundred and twenty who composed the Great
Synagogue, the companion of Haggai, and Zechariah,
and Zerubbabel.
Some points as to the date at which he wrote can,
however, be made out with tolerable certainty. (1.)
The whole book presupposes the completion of the
second Temple, and the restoration of the old ritual,
* "Malachi" itself is equivalent to "my messenger," but it
was probably contracted from the fuller form Mulachiah, and thu
would have the meaning given in the text.

308 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
and it must therefore be later than the first twenty
years after the return from Babylon. The absence
of the name of Malachi from the list of those who
then returned is, of course, explained in this way,
and would have been startling had one who was so
conspicuous had any claim to have appeared in it.
(2.) The consensus of late critics has made the pro
phet a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah, chiefly
on the ground that he protests, as they did, against
the evils of mixed marriages (Mal. ii. 11, 12) and
the sins of the priesthood. It is, however, difficult,
on this hypothesis, to explain the total absence of
Malachi's name from the memoirs of those two
writers. Had he been working then, his name
would probably have been as prominent as those of
Haggai and Zechariah had been in the earlier stages
of the Eeturn of the Exiles. If he was doing his
work as a prophet at the time, he must have been
one of their chief friends and fellow- workers. It is
more probable, on grounds of which the reader mav
judge, that he lived in the generation that immedi
ately followed them.
(I.) The name Malachi (= Malachiah) means, as
has been said, "the messenger of Jehovah." As
every Hebrew name, with hardly an exception,
embodied some religious thought or feeling, there is
no reason why this, like so many others formed after
the same pattern, should not have been that of an
individual man. But it throws some light on the
fact that it was given to him in his childhood, to
remember that the title had been claimed by one of
the two great prophets who immediately preceded
him. Haggai (i. 13) had described himself as " the
messenger of Jehovah." The name became, perhaps

THE LAST OF THE PROPHETS. 309
then for the first time, perhaps as the revival of an
older nomenclature,* the synonyme of prophet. It is
fair to infer from this fact that when it was bestowed
upon the child who was to be known by it hereafter,
it was with the thought that he was dedicated to
that work, that his father, if not Haggai himself,
was one who came under the personal influence of
that prophet, that the boy was trained as his disciple.
(II.) It is clear too, on a comparison of the pro
phecy and the history, that the former paints a more
advanced stage of corruption and decay than we find
in Ezra and Nehemiah. Weak and wicked as the
sons and grandsons of Josedek might be, intermarry
ing with the heathen, holding back from the League
and Covenant of the true worshippers, what we read
in Malachi speaks of a more hopeless degeneracy, a
more pervading hypocrisy. The prophet would
hardly have spoken, while Ezra the priest was doing
his great work as a scribe, as he does when he says,
as of something that was altogether past, that " the
priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should
seek the law at his mouth" (Mal. ii. 7). A large
number of the priests and Levites are found working
faithfully with Nehemiah, joining in the covenant,
dealing honestly with first-fruits and tithes. The
impression left by the history is hot that of a time
in which the priests had already " made the table of
the Lord contemptible," in which they " had cor
rupted the covenant," and were made " contemptible
and base" (Mal. ii.).
(III.) We may, I believe, go further. The work
of the prophet was not conceived in the same spirit
as that of the scribe and the ruler. They were
* Comp. the " Angel of the Lord " in Judges ii. 1 ; v. 23.

310 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
satisfied with the reforms that they had effected, gave
God thanks that they had seen the fruit of their
labours, tried to intensify the spirit of an exclusive
nationality, even at the cost of breaking up the life
of the family and cancelling the sacred ties of mar
riage. He was taught to see that there was an evil
very close at hand in connection with all this, per
haps inseparable from it. While it was sustained
by the true-hearted zeal and devotion of men like
Ezra and Nehemiah, the good might overbalance the
evil. When it was left to the control of an ignorant
and corrupt priesthood, the evil gained the mastery.
And so in the last of the prophets we have another
example of that which a comparison of the historical
and prophetical books of _ the Old Testament so often
shows us. The historian praises, or narrates with
out a word of censure. The prophet comes with a
clearer insight and deeper wisdom, and records his
protest against what had been looked upon as calling
only for admiration. So the massacre of the house
of Ahab and the worshippers of Baal appears in
2 Kings ix., x., as an instance of the " zeal for
Jehovah" which Jehu displayed, and which was
rewarded by the promise of the throne of Israel to
himself and his children for four generations. And
yet, when Hosea entered on his work as a prophet,
his first utterance was to condemn the treachery and
cruelty with which that zeal had been mingled —
" Yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of
Jezreel upon the house of Jehu" (Hosea i. 4). So,
as we read the Books of Kings and Chronicles, the
reign of Hezekiah seems to be, from beginning to
end, a time of national reformation. Eeligion is
re-established, the Temple of the Lord is crowded

THE LAST OF THE PROPHETS. 311
with worshippers, there has not been such devotion
since the days of David. Isaiah shows us that though
this was a true representation of one side of the
picture, there was another and a very different one.
The people were " laden with iniquity, a seed of
evil-doers" (i. 4). Their princes were "rebellious
and companions of thieves" (i. 23). Their " incense
was an abomination," their " new moons and ap
pointed feasts" were hateful to Jehovah (i. 13, 14).
A like contrast between the view of the his
torian and the teaching of the prophet is to be
found, if I mistake not, in the instance now before
, us. It presents many striking features. (1.) One
of the works on which Nehemiah looked back with
most satisfaction was that he had secured to the
Levites the payment of a sufficient remuneration for
their work. It was a right thing in itself. It
asserted what we have learnt to call the principle of
an " established" church, and of a fair division of its
income. But that spirit might easily pass, and had
actually passed, into the temper which is always
clamorous for rights and privileges, which will work
only when those rights and privileges are secured.
The spirit of the hireling takes the place of that of
the worshipper. And so, amongst the foremost sins
which the prophet is called on to condemn we find
this, noted with special reference to the functions of
those Levites over whose interests Nehemiah had
been so watchful. " Who is there even among you,"
he asks, "that would shut the doors for nought?
Neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought.
I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of Hosts,
neither will I accept an offering at your hand"
(Mal. i. 10). And the hireling spirit, once fostered,

312 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
showed itself, as it always does, in neglect, evasion,
dishonesty. The priests offered at the altar of the
Lord the " lame, the blind, and the sick," wretched
beasts which they would not have dared to present
to the Persian satrap. They offered "polluted
bread" upon the altar, and so they made the table of
the Lord contemptible.
(2.) Not less striking is the spirit of catholicity to
which Malachi gives utterance at a time when the
priests and scribes were stiffening into the most
exclusive nationality. Something of this is seen, as
I have pointed out elsewhere,* in the Divine name
which he proclaims with such reiterated emphasis,
" The Lord of hosts." In Ezra and Nehemiah that
name does not appear at all. We have, instead of
it, " our God," " the God of our fathers," " the Lord
God of Israel," and the like. The name which was
so significant of wider sympathies and hopes, ap
pears not less than twenty times in the four short
chapters of Malachi. But this was not all. It was
given to the last of the prophets to proclaim with
an entirely new distinctness, not only as Isaiah had
done, the accession of Gentile proselytes to the wor
ship and the faith of Israel, but the acceptance of
their worship wherever it might be offered. If we
remember that the form of heathenism with which
the prophet had come most closely into contact was
that of the followers of Zoroaster, and that it was an
express part of their ritual that sacrifices might be
offered by any one and anywhere, it is not too much
to say that he had been led to see a truth underlying
the corruptions of that creed, which would one day
coalesce with the truth which the corruptions of the
* Comp. Ihe Study on " The Lord of Sabaoth " in this volume.

THE LAST OF THE PROPHETS. 313
creed of Israel were stifling, and become the starting-
point of a new and better dispensation. " From the
rising of the sun even unto the going down of the
same my name shall be great among the Gentiles ;
and in every place incense shall be offered unto my
name, and a pure offering : for my name shall be
great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts"
(Mal. i. 11). Of all anticipations of higher truths
which meet us in the Old Testament, there is none
which approximates so closely as this does to that
higher revelation which proclaimed that neither in
the mountain of Samaria, nor in the Temple of Jeru
salem, should men worship the Father, as in an
exclusive sanctuary, that the hour was come " when
the true worshippers shall worship the Father in
spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to
worship Him" (John iv. 21 — 23).
(3.) But there remains another and yet more
striking contrast between the teaching of the pro
phet and the spirit in which Ezra and Nehemiah had
acted. They had dwelt with reiterated vehemence
on the sin of intermarrying with idolaters, on the
duty of divorcing wives of heathen parentage. They
record with exultation the number of women that
were thus separated from their husbands. He recog
nises, as clearly as they do, the sin of Judah in marry
ing " the daughter of a strange god." Those who had
contracted such marriages had profaned the covenant
of the Lord, and the sentence went forth against
them, "The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this,
the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of
Jacob " (Mal. ii. 11, 12). But it will be noticed that
the prophet introduces a limitation. His " daughter
of a strange god" is one who is actually an idola-

314 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
tress, and there could be no hope for purity and truth
in the children of one who continued to be a votary
of Chemosh or of Ashtaroth. He deliberately chooses
an expression which does not exclude the legitimacy
of such a marriage when the wife, though a heathen
in race, was a convert to the faith of Israel. But
the strong measures to which the scribe and the
governor had recourse were followed, justifiable as
they might seem at first, by an aftergrowth of evil.
A ground of divorce was introduced of which men
of hard and selfish natures were not slow to take
advantage. They contracted the forbidden mar
riages, treated the heathen wife, so long as they
chose to live with her, as a proselyte to Judaism, and
then, when they were weary of her, repudiated her
on the ground of her Gentile blood.* The thing was
done systematically, and was breaking down all the
sanctities of the life of home. The priests, in their
formal, hypocritical zeal, treated this case and the
other as standing on the same footing. The divorced
and abandoned wives went to the courts of the
Temple " with tears, with weeping, and with cry
ing." Their wail of lamentation mingled with the
prayers and hymns of the sacrificing priests. How
could the Lord " regard the offering any more, or
accept it at their hands," when attended by such
accompaniments ?
It was under such circumstances that Malachi
entered on his work, against such evils that he pro
tested. To him this facility for multiplying divorces
seemed the most fatal sign of an irretrievable cor-
* It is right to mention the other hypothesis, that Malachi is
speaking of the practice of repudiating wives of Israelitish birth, in
order to marry women of Gentile origin. It does not seem, how
ever, so probable as that given in the text.

THE LAST OF THE PROPHETS. 3 1 5
ruption. When the priests, in their blindness and
hardness, confessed themselves unable to understand
why their offering was thus rejected, he makes
answer as with fiery indignation, " Yet ye say,
Wherefore ? Because the Lord hath been witness
against thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom
thou hast dealt treacherously : yet is she thy com
panion, and the wife of thy covenant." In the case,
i.e., which the prophet had in view, the marriage
retained all its natural sanctity. The wife was the
divinely appointed " companion" or helpmate of the
husband. She had entered with him into a " cove
nant" with the Lord of hosts (Mal. ii. 14, 15).
The words which follow are abrupt and difficult,
but, rightly interpreted, they will be found, if I
mistake not, to point to a profound truth. " Did
not One make them ? " Is not the same Lord the
Creator of the husband and the wife ? Does not the
" residue of the spirit," i.e., the whole spiritual life
in all its special relationships, belong to Him ?
What is He, the ONE, seeking ? What but "a seed
of God," a righteous progeny? Therefore, because
marriage is so divine a thing, resting on such sacred
sanctions, " take heed to your spirit " (that spirit
which is given to man and woman alike), " and let
none deal treacherously against the wife of his
youth." When a man puts away his wife because
of hate, saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, " he
covers his garment with violence " (he is polluted,
i.e., not sanctified, by such a repudiation). "There
fore take heed to your spirit that ye deal not trea
cherously." So taken, the words contained, as I
have said, a protest against a growing evil. But
the protest was uttered in vain. The tendency to

316 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
multiplied divorces went on increasing under the
hands of priests and scribes. Even the wisdom of
the son of Sirach (Ecclus. xxv. 13 — 26), when he
comes to speak of marriage and its perils, passes
into a cynical bitterness, like that of the darkest
phase of thought depicted in Ecclesiastes as follow
ing on Solomon's life of sensual indulgence, and he
has no other counsel to give to a husband who finds
that his marriage has been a mistake than to advise
him to extricate himself from it with the least
possible delay. " If she go not as thou wouldst
have her, cut her off from thy flesh, and give her a
bill of divorce and let her go." Even the School of
Hillel, in other respects approximating to the higher
ethics of the Sermon on the Mount, was on this
point singularly lax. When the teacher came who
was himself that Messenger or Angel of the Cove
nant whom Malachi had foretold, it was to proclaim
in words which rested on the same deep eternal
truth as those of the prophet : " Have ye not read
that He which made them at the beginning made
them male and female ? . . . . Wherefore they are
no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God
hath joined together, let not man put asunder"
(Matt. xix. 4—6).
(IV.) Not less significant, as containing the germ
of what was afterwards to be developed, is the indi
cation given by Malachi of the growth of something
like a brotherhood or order, not claiming or pro
fessing the inspiration of the older schools of the
prophets, not entering, as they had done, on any
vigorous effort at correcting the corruptions that
were eating into the nation's life, but bearing a silent
witness by lives of holiness and devotion, associated

THE LAST OF THE PROPHETS. 317
by the bonds of prayer and mutual love, handing
down from generation to generation the tradition of
higher truths and better hopes. " They that feared
the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord
hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance
was written before him for them that feared the Lord
and thought upon his name" (iii. 16). Such in the
period that followed were the Chasidim, or Brothers
of Mercy, in whom Judas the Maccabee found his
most trustworthy supporters ; such in the time of
the New Testament, though not mentioned in it, were
the Essenes, who by the shores of the Dead Sea and
elsewhere passed their time in labour and prayer,
and exhibited in their social organization the pattern
of a devout communism. Such, with even a closer
resemblance, were those of whom St. Luke speaks,
who were just and devout, and " waiting for the
consolation of Israel," who "looked for redemption
in Jerusalem " (Luke ii. 25, 38), brooding over
Messianic hopes which had indeed been proclaimed
by earlier prophets, but to which the last of that
goodly fellowship had set his attesting seal in his
final utterances.
And it is not too much to say that the form in
which those expectations were fulfilled was deter
mined, in no small measure, by that utterance.
The words which then for the first time spoke of
the re-appearance of " Elijah the prophet before the
coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord "
(Mal. iv. 5), must have been brought to the mind of
Zacharias when he heard, in the vision of the
Temple, that the son whose birth was then an
nounced to him should go before the Lord " in the
spirit and power of Elias " (Luke i. 17). When the

318 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Baptist entered on his work as a preacher of re
pentance, sweeping away the hypocrisies and tradi
tions of Pharisees and Sadducees, bringing out of his
treasure things new and old, reproducing the earliest
fundamental truths of the faith of Abraham, and
giving his sanction to the hopes of a better age, after
which the young and ardent were aspiring, what
words could so well describe his office as those which
had told of one who should " turn the heart of the
fathers to the children, and the heart of the chil
dren to the fathers ? " (Mal. iv. 6.) The very words
of the "forerunner" as he preached to the people —
" The axe is laid unto the root of the trees : there
fore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit
is hewn down, and cast into the fire. . . . He will
gather his wheat into his garner ; but He will burn
up the chaff with unquenchable fire " (Matt. iii. 10,
12), were a substantial, all but a verbal, reproduction
of those of Malachi, " Behold, the day cometh that
shall burn as an oven ; and all the proud, yea, and
all that do wickedly, shall be stubble : and the day
that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of
hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor
branch" (Mal. iv. 1). The words of the song of
Zacharias, which spoke of the " tender mercy of our
God, whereby the dayspring from on high hath
visited us " (Luke i. 78), were but an echo of the
older prophecy, " Unto you that fear the Lord shall
the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his
wings " (Mal. iv. 2). Even without the statement
of the evangelist (Mark i. 12), and the express
attestation of our Lord (Matt. xi. 10), there would
have been enough to lead every thoughtful reader to
the conclusion that the Baptist did indeed embody

THE LAST OF THE PROPHETS. 319
all that had been predicted of the "messenger"
who should be " sent to prepare the way " before
the higher Messenger of the Covenant, who was to
come suddenly to his temple (Mal. iii. 1), that he
was indeed the Elijah that was to come (Matt. xvii.
11), and that all the dreams of earlier and later
Judaism as to a personal re- appearance upon earth
of the Tishbite prophet were but fantastic dreams.
Even the title which our Lord bestowed upon the
chosen disciples as the "Apostles" whom He "sent"
as delegates to do the prophetic work, which was
claimed for Himself as the great Apostle or Dele
gate of his Father, was in part a reproduction of
that name of " Messenger " to which Malachi, both
personally and in his written prophecy, had given
so new a prominence.
I have reserved to the last that which is perhaps
the most striking of all the features of this prophet's
work, the strange half-dramatic dialogue with which
it opens. With a startling reiteration, after every
specific denunciation of the sins of priests and
people, they are represented as asking, as if in
utter unconsciousness of their sin, " Wherein have
we polluted Thee ? " " Wherein have we despised
Thy Name ? " " Wherein have we wearied Him ? "
" Wherein shall we return ? " They have fallen
into the last stage of selfish formalism when con
science ceases to do its work as an accusing witness,
into the hypocrisy which does not even know itself
to be hypocritical, the hypocrisy, in other words, of
the Scribes and Pharisees. Out of this there comes
in some instances the denial of a righteous judgment
here or hereafter, the cynical scorn of all efforts
after a nobler life, which became characteristic of the

320 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
baser section of the Sadducees. Men said in their
utter scepticism, " Every one that doeth evil is good
in the sight of the Lord, and He delighteth in them.
Where is the God of judgment?" (Mal. ii. 17.)
The two tendencies were at work already which
went on till there was no soundness left in the
whole body spiritual of Israel according to the flesh.
The people and their rulers had eyes and yet they
saw not, ears and yet they heard not. The last of
the prophets, as he ends his work, does it with the
sense that the mission of his order is for a time over,
that there must be a revival of it in some age more
or less distant, accompanied by great and terrible
changes that should sweep away much that had
been held as venerable and holy, but leading to a
time of refreshment from the presence of the Lord, to
a purer worship and a wider sense of brotherhood.

THE NEW TESTAMENT.

I.
THE PEOPHETS OF THE NEW TESTA
MENT.

N examination of the closing years of the
lives of St. Peter and St. Paul, like that
suggested in the last paragraph of " The
Old Age of Isaiah " * presupposes a fuller
knowledge of the history of the Apostolic Church
than can be taken for granted in most readers.
What is wanted is not merely a survey of the great
broad facts of that history as we learn them from the
Acts of the Apostles, or as they are stated in manuals
and epitomes, but an insight into its inner life, clear
pictures before our mind's eye of what men were
doing, clear conceptions of what they were thinking
and feeling, sympathy with their hopes and fears.
I. As embodying one of the most prominent facts
in that inner life, and as being more than most
others, forgotten or misconceived, while yet without
it we can hardly get below the surface in studying
the writings of the two Apostles I have named, I
have chosen the subject which stands at the head
of this paper, the Prophets of the New Testament.
How indistinct our common notions about them are
may be shown, I believe, by a very simple test. Of
* See p. 213.

324 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
the many thousands who hear and repeat the words
that God " has built his Church upon the foundation
of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself
being the chief corner stone" (Eph. ii. 20, and
Collect for St. Simon and St. Jude in the Prayer-
Book of the Church of England), there are probably
very few, except among the professed students of
Scripture, who do not at once think of the Prophets
of the Old Testament as those spoken of. They
picture to themselves the unity of the older and the
newer dispensations, the " glorious company of the
Apostles," Peter and John and Paul, and the others,
joined with the " goodly fellowship of the Prophets,"
with Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, in a divine
and everlasting brotherhood. And yet it is de
monstrable to any thoughtful English reader that
those men of God of the older days of Israel were
not, and could not be, those of whom the Apostle
spoke. In this very Epistle St. Paul counts up how
and through what instruments God builds up his
Church, and the order in which he places them is
this : " Christ," he says, " ascended up on high, . . .
and gave gifts unto men, . . . and He gave some
Apostles, and some Prophets, and some evangelists,
and some pastors and teachers ; ... for the edifying
(sc. the building up) of the body of Christ " (Eph.
iv. 11). This is in itself decisive. Both offices
originate in gifts bestowed by the risen and ascended
Lord. The familiar, oft-quoted words refer to the
Prophets of the Christian, not to those of the Jewish
Church. But this is not all. In the First Epistle
to the Corinthians there is a like enumeration of
spiritual gifts, and functions resting upon them, and
the names occur there also in the same combination.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 325
" God hath set some in the Church, first Apostles,
secondarily Prophets, thirdly teachers " (1 Cor. xii.
28). Other instances confirming the inference, if
any confirmation be needed, will meet us as we go
further. II. We may assume then, the existence of a body
of men in the Apostolic Church, known as Prophets
and exercising prophetic functions. Leaving, for a
moment, the question what those functions were, we
shall gain something by getting a clear view of the
extent both of the gift and of the order. This was,
indeed, in every way the most striking fact connected
with it. Under the old covenant, they had been
confined within comparatively narrow limits. If we
may think of " the sons of the Prophets " as some
thing like a collegiate or monastic body, dwelling
together, trained in music and song, and so prepared
to receive divine revelations,* even they were but
few, and still fewer became recipients of the higher
forms of inspiration. And for four hundred years
even this had ceased, and the voice of the last mys
terious "messenger of theLord" (such is the signifi
cation of the name of the Prophet Malachi) had
closed the canon of Old Testament prophecy. The
people had even come to reckon the appearance of a
Prophet as an epoch of remote chronology, and
were looking forward anxiously to the time when
one should be raised up to guide and teach them
(1 Mace. iv. 46 ; ix. 27).
At last " the word of God came to John the son
of Zacharias in the wilderness" (Luke iii. 2), as it
had come to Isaiah or Ezekiel. He appeared, re-
* Compare especially 1 Sam. x. 6 ; xix. 20—24 ; 2 Kings iv. 38 ;
vi. 1.

326 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
producing the old life in all its austerity, clad in the
" rough garment " of a prophet (2 Kings i. 8 ; Zeeh.
xiii. 4) like Elijah, abstaining from wine like the
Nazarites and Eechabites, living on locusts and wild
honey like the wilder Arab tribes to which the
Eechabites belonged. So it was that the people
" counted John that he was a Prophet indeed"
(Matt. xiv. 5 ; xxi. 26), while others said of him as
men had said of the older prophets (Jer. xxix. 26),
that he "had a devil and was mad" (Matt. xi. 18;
compare John x. 20). So when the greater Teacher
came, though the outward form of life was different,
though he showed himself as the Master, the Teacher,
a Eabbi like other Eabbis (John i. 49 ; xx. 16), there
was this which, even apart from all signs and won
ders, made men hold that "a great Prophet had risen
up among them" (Luke vii. 16; xxiv. 19). He
spake as never man spake (John vii. 46) ; as having
power and " authority, and not as the scribes" (Matt.
vii. 29) . But up to the day of Pentecost, these were
the only two of whom this was said. No trace of
this energy shows itself in the wayward, question
ing, doubting disciples. But when that day had
fully come there was a great and marvellous change.
Over and above the mysterious gift of Tongues, with
their thrilling notes, and ecstatic doxologies, and
languages of many lands, there was the gift of Pro
phecy also. It was on this rather than on the other
that St. Peter laid stress as fulfilling the old predic
tion, both in its wonderful power and yet more in its
wonderful extent, " I will pour out my Spirit upon
all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy." Young men and old, yea, even the
lowest and most despised, were to share the gift.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 327
" On my servants {i.e., slaves) and on my handmaids
(i.e., female slaves) will I pour out in those days of
my Spirit, and they shall prophesy" (Acts ii. 17, 18).
And from that time, it spread with a wonderful
rapidity. Sometimes through the laying-on of the
Apostles' hands (Acts viii. 17 ; xix. 6), sometimes
with no human intervention (Acts x. 44 — 46 ; xi.
15), the Spirit came upon men, and they spake with
tongues, and magnified God, and prophesied. Many
of these became conspicuous enough to be named as
Prophets in the higher sense of the word — Barnabas,
the son of consolation, or, as we might literally in
terpret the new name thus given to him, the Son of
Prophecy (Acts iv. 36) ; Stephen speaking with the
Holy Ghost and with power, in the highest sense of
the word, a Prophet of the Lord (Acts vi. 10, 55) ;
and Agabus (Acts xi. 28 ; xxi. 10) ; and Silas or
Silvanus, and Judas (Acts xv. 32) ; and Manaen, and
Lucius of Cyrene (Acts xiii. 1) ; and Timothy, bear
ing the old prophetic title of "man of God" (1 Tim.
vi. 11 ; Deut. xxxiii. 1 ; 2 Kings iv. 7) ; the daugh
ters of Philip the Evangelist (Acts xxi. 8) ; and last
and greatest of them all, Saul of Tarsus, the Apostle
of the Gentiles. But even more striking than this
list of names is the abounding proof of the presence
of the gift in every church of the Gentiles. At Thes-
salonica men are warned not to " quench the Spirit"
which kindled the power, nor "despise" the utter
ances which flowed from it (1 Thess. v. 20). At
Corinth its excess almost threatened disorder, and
called for that full exhaustive discussion of it which,
more than any other portion of the New Testament,
gives us an insight into its nature (1 Cor. xii. and
xiv.). At Eome, even though as yet no Apostle had

328 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
visited that church, it is presupposed, and the dis
ciples are taught to "prophesy according to the
proportion, or analogy of the faith" (Eom. xii. 6),
At Ephesus, it stands all but highest in the list of
the gifts with which Christ had endowed the Church
(Eph. iv. 11). Strange as it may seem, there were
in that age some hundreds, it may be thousands, of
men as truly inspired as Isaiah or Jeremiah had
been, as St. Peter and St. Paul were then, speaking
words that were, as truly as any that were ever
spoken, inspired words of God, and yet of most of
them all record has vanished. Their voices smote
the air, and did their work, and died away, and we
catch but the faintest echoes of them. Their words
were written on the sand, and the advancing waves
of time have washed away all, or nearly all, traces of
what was once as awful as the handwriting on the
wall. III. What then was the nature of the gift so
widely spread ; what purpose did it serve ; how did it
contribute to building up the Church ?
(1.) It is obvious that (he gift of Prophecy was
very far from being identical with the gift of pre
diction. It had not been so in the Jewish Church,
nor was it so in the Christian. Even as the
Heathens used the word it meant something more
than that. The Prophet was the spokesman of God,
the man to whom the word of God came and who
spoke it out with power. What St. Paul dwelt on
most when he was speaking of the effects of prophecy
was not that it enabled men to foretell things to
come, but that by disclosing the secrets of their
hearts it made them fall down and worship God
(1 Cor. xiv. 24, 25). Outwardly the chief charac-

PROPHETS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 329
teristic of the New Testament Prophet would seem
to have been that he spoke burning words which
went straight to men's hearts, that he proclaimed
eternal truths which otherwise they would not have
known. We must not, however, think of the Pro
phets as some have thought, as being only earnest,
impassioned, enthusiastic preachers, mere interpre
ters of Scripture, or asserters of moral laws. Even
as preachers of righteousness, their power lay not in
skill, or even in earnestness of speech, but in the
marvellous, supernatural insight which they pos
sessed into the hearts of men. Inspired by the Divine
Word, "before whom all things are naked and
opened" (Heb. iv. 13), they too knew what was in
men, and read their most secret thoughts. They
could say to this one, " Thou art the man," " Why
hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart?"
(Acts v. 4), to that, "Thy sins are forgiven thee"
(John xx. 23) . They could say to another, as in the
case of Timotheus (1 Tim. i. 18), "Thou art called
to preach the gospel of thy Lord. Thou shalt have
the gift, do the work of an Evangelist," or, as at
Antioch, the Spirit through them could say, " Sepa
rate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto
I have called them" (Acts xiii. 2). So it was that
" the secrets of men's hearts were made manifest,"
and that " men fell down on their faces, and wor
shipped God, and reported that God was of a truth
present " with those who had so marvellous a power
(1 Cor. xiv. 24, 25).
(2.) But with this there was also, it must not be
forgotten, a distinctly predictive power, not put forth,
indeed, for its own sake, as a prodigy and wonder,
like the art of a soothsayer and diviner, but contri-

330 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
buting, like the other form of the gift, to build up the
Church, or to strengthen the life of individual men,
helping them to meet dangers which would otherwise
have come upon them as a snare. Foresight of the
famine that came upon the provinces of the Empire
in the days of Claudius roused the Gentile Churches
to active beneficence towards the poor Christians of
Jerusalem, and so served to knit together the bonds of
brotherhood between them (Acts xi. 27 — 30). Fore
sight of a persecution directed against an individual
teacher helped to test his courage and endurance.
So it was when at Tyre the disciples " said to Paul
through the Spirit that he should not go up to
Jerusalem " (Acts xxi. 4) ; when Agabus warned
him, " So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man
that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into
the hands of the Gentiles" (Acts xxi. 10 — 14).
Utterances of this kind, we cannot doubt, are re
ferred to when the Apostle tells the elders at Miletus
that " the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city that
bonds and afflictions abide him" (Acts xx. 23), when
he warns Timotheus that " the Spirit speaketh ex
pressly that in the latter days some shall depart from
the faith" (1 Tim. iv. 1). In this instance it is
interesting to note how the prophet reproduces the
symbolic forms of those of an earlier age. Agabus
took Paul's girdle and bound his own hands and feet,
just as Jeremiah " buried his girdle by the hole of a
rock in Euphrates" (Jer. xiii. 4 — 10), and appeared
among the people with " bonds and yokes " upon his
neck (Jer. xxvii. 2; xxviii. 10).
(3.) But beyond all special predictions that had a
historical fulfilment within the horizon of their own
age, the teaching of the Prophets of the New Testa-

PROPHETS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 331
ment was essentially apocalyptic. As in that whicl
is pre-eminently the Apocalypse, their eyes were
opened to see the things behind the veil, and the
ever new, inexhaustible theme of their discourse was
" the power and coming" i.e., the second coming " of
the Lord Jesus" (2 Pet. i. 16). There was no need
for them to fix "times and seasons" as others have
done since, for the one thing which they knew con
cerning them was " that the day of the Lord so
cometh as a thief in the night" (1 Thess. v. 2). All
that they could do was to point to a coming period,
of undefined length, of apostasy, and lawlessness,
and unbelief (2 Thess. ii. 3 ; 1 Tim. iv. 1 ; 2 Pet. iii. 3),
after which should come the glory of the kingdom.
In speaking of that glory, they were as men seeing
the reflection of heavenly things in the mirror of
their own minds, for they saw " as in a glass darkly"
and prophesied "in part only" (1 Cor. xiii. 9 — 12),
sometimes using outward symbols that were figures
of the true, — the heavenly Jerusalem, the paradise of
God, — and yet sometimes also revealing to men mys
teries that had been " hidden in silence since the be
ginning of the world" (Eom. xvi,. 25). Among these
mysteries one, and perhaps the most prominent,
was that of the brotherhood of mankind in Christ,
that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the
same body (Eph. iii. 5, 6) ; or, again, the mystery
of " Christ in them, the hope of glory" (Col. i. 27).
To them it was given to see glimpses, hardly to be
translated into words, of the " glory yet to be
revealed," the "manifestation of the sons of God,"
the freedom qf the glory of his children (Eom. viii.
13 — 21). Yes, in words which, if they are partly
an echo of a prophecy of the Old Testament, are yet

332 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
also, it may be, taken from a prophetic utterance of
the Apostolic Church, " as it is written, Eye hath
not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into
the heart of man, the things which God hath pre
pared for those that love Him. But God hath re
vealed them unto us by his Spirit" (1 Cor. ii. 9, 10).*
The vision of that glory, lying in the far future, was
to sustain the Church through all the long weariness
of persecution, conflict, and the sickness of a hope
deferred. Such then were the Prophets, speaking in every
church, at almost every meeting. Can we wonder
that St. Paul should speak as he does, of such a gift
as profitable "for edification, and exhortation, and
comfort" (1 Cor. xiv. 3) ? While Tongues were a
sign only to those that believed not, startling and
confounding them, Prophecy did the double work of
convincing the unbelievers and building up the
Church. While, a man speaking in the full ecstasy
of the Tongues might edify himself, by prophesying
he edified the Church (1 Cor. xiv. 2 — 4). Can we
wonder that they should occupy all but the foremost
place in the Church of Christ, second only to the
Apostles, hardly second even to them, seeing that
the Apostles themselves were also Prophets ; that
the two names should be placed together, as we have
seen them, the very order being interchangeable
* The words seem suggested by Isaiah lxiv. 4, "Since the
beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the
ear, neither hath the eye seen, 0 God, beside Thee, what He hath
prepared for him that waiteth for Him." On the other hand they
are referred by Chrysostom to a lost apocryphal book ascribed to
Elijah. Later critics have seen in them an extract from an
Apostolic Liturgy. The hypothesis that they were part of a
recorded (but no longer extant) " word of prophecy" that took its
starting-point from the words of Isaiah seems, at least, as probable
as any other.

PROPHETS OF THE NE W TESTAMENT. 3 3 3
(2 Pet. iii. 2), in the closest juxtaposition ? Of one
thing we may be quite sure, that wherever the
storms of persecution fell, they would have to bear
the brunt of it, just as Stephen, the foremost of the
" goodly company," was also the proto-martyr of the
Church. The ferocity which slew him was not likely
to spare them. Many disciples, we know, were
scourged and imprisoned (Acts viii. 3 ; xxii. 4) ; all
were scattered from Jerusalem, except the Apostles
(Acts viii. 1), and, although St. Luke does not follow
the history of the persecution into detail, all analogy
would lead us to think that some at least of those
who had been most conspicuous perished in it. Still
greater is the probability that others besides James,
the son of Zebedee, became martyrs to the faith when
Herod the king " stretched forth his hands to vex
certain of the Church" (Acts xii. 1). So indeed it
had been foretold, in words which bear distinctly on
this inquiry. The " Wisdom of God " speaking
through the Incarnate Son, had brought the two
names together as we find them united in the
Epistles, " I will send them Prophets and Apostles,
and some of them shall they slay and persecute"
(Luke xi. 49). "Behold, I send unto you Prophets,
and wise men, and scribes ; and some of them ye
shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall ye
scourge in your synagogues" (Matt, xxiii. 34). The
words, " 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that kill est the
Prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee"
(Matt, xxiii. 37), though present in their form, are
predictive rather than historic, look to the future
rather than to the past.
Traces of this lost page in the history of the
Apostolic Church we find, I believe, in passages

334 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
which are commonly referred to a remoter period,
but which receive, when thought of as belonging to
the very age in which the writers lived, a clearer
and more satisfying meaning. Of some such fiery
trial it was that St. Paul wrote when he said of the
Jews of Judaea that they " both killed the Lord Jesus,
and their own Prophets" (1 Thess. ii. 15). The stead
fast endurance of those martyrs it was that St. James
held up to the Twelve Tribes that were scattered
abroad, as a pattern. " Take, my brethren, the Pro
phets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for
an example of suffering affliction and of patience"
(James v. 10). In the one passage, the order of the
names, " the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets," in
the other their speaking in the name of the Lord,
the Lord whose coming drew nigh, the same Lord
Jesus, forbid our going back to the martyrdoms of
the persecutions under Joash, or Ahaz, or Manasseh,
and compel us to think of the Prophets of the Chris
tian Church. These also it was that the Seer of
Patmos saw when he looked on the " souls beneath
the altar that were slain for the word of God, and for
the testimony which they held" (Eev. vi. 9, 10). It
was of these Prophets that the Apocalyptic angel de
clared himself the " fellow- servant" (Eev. xxii. 9).
The Lord was "the God of their spirits" (Eev.
xxii. 6). Of their prophetic word it was true, that
" the testimony of Jesus," and " the spirit of Pro
phecy" were co-extensive terms (Eev. xix. 10).
We have seen, then, abundant proof of this ac
tivity in utterance among the Prophets of the Apos
tolic Church. Have we any reason to think of a like
activity showing itself either in recording the pro
phecies that were thus spoken, or in writings that

PROPHETS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 335
came from a direct prophetic inspiration ? Probabi
lities seem to be nearly equal on either side. On the
one hand, the age was one of wide-spread culture, and
in the Greek and Western Churches, at all events, there
must have been among the hearers many capable of
reporting at the time, or collecting afterwards, utter
ances which they must have counted precious. On
the other, it must be remembered that the majority
of the early converts belonged to the less educated
class, and that throughout the New Testament there
runs the feeling that the world was to be converted,
not chiefly by books, but by the living, personal
testimony of the Apostles of Christ. The mere ab
sence of such books from the extant literature of the
first century is not in itself decisive. In the Old
Testament we have traces left of many lost books,*
* It will be interesting and instructive to put together the titles
of such as are mentioned.
(1.) The Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num. xxi. 14).
(2.) The Book of Jasher (Joshua x. 13 ; 2 Sam. i. 18).
(3.) The Book of Nathan the Prophet (1 Chron. xxix. 29).
(4.) The Book of Gad the Seer (ibid.).
(5.) The Book of the Acts of Solomon (1 Kings xi. 41).
(6.) The Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite (2 Chron. ix. 29).
(7.) The Visions of Iddo the Seer (ibid.).
(8.) The Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah (1 Kings
xv. 29, and passim).
(9.) The Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel (1 Kings
xv. 31, esA. passim).
(10.) The Prophecy of Jonah (probably written) (2 Kings xiv.
25).
(11.} The Book of Shemaiah the Prophet (2 Chron. xii. 15).
(12.) The Book of Iddo the Seer concerning Genealogies (ibid.).
(13.) The Story of the Prophet Iddo (2 Chron. xiii. 22. Same
writer, but title of book different).
(14.) The Book of Jehu the son of Hanani (2 Chron. xx. 34).
(15.) The Acts of Uzziah by Isaiah the son of Amoz (2 Chron.
xxvi. 22).
(16.) The Lamentations of Jeremiah for Josiah (2 Chron. xxxv.
25). Probably different from the Lamentations now
extant, which are subsequent to the capture of Jerusalem
by the Chaldeans).
Is it too much to say that we possess but a portion of a wide

336 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
both historical and prophetic, written by the seers of
Israel. In the New Testament it is hardly con
ceivable that a man of St. Paul's wonderful energy
should have spent twenty years, doing the work of
an Evangelist, without writing a single letter to
either a Church or an individual convert. Traces of
such letters are found indeed even in the Epistles
that have come down to us. The notice that the
"salutation" in his own handwriting is "the token
in every Epistle" (2 Thess. iii. 17), is surely the lan
guage of one who has already written many letters.
In 1 Cor. v. 9, there is a reference to something that
had been said in a lost Epistle to the Church of
Corinth ; in Col. iv. 16, to another, also lost, to the
Church of Laodicea. St. Peter, in writing to the
Christians of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and
Bithynia, speaks of an Epistle which St. Paul had
written to them (2 Pet. iii. 2), in terms which are
not met by the extant letters to the Galatians or the
Ephesians. A reference to such writings, whether
by himself or other Prophets, may be found, I be
lieve, in the closing words of the Epistle to the
Eomans. St. Paul has been speaking (Eom. xvi. 25) of " his
Gospel, the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to
the revelation of the mystery that had been kept in
silence since the world began." Of this mystery he
adds that it was "now manifested, and by means
oi prophetic writings, according to the commandment .
of the Everlasting God, made known to all nations."
prophetic literature, and that we cannot think of the greater part
of what has been lost as less inspired and authoritative than the
Books which have come down to us ? Enough, at all events, has
been said, to show that there is no force in any a priori objection
to the hypothesis of the possible loss of a Gospel or Epistle.

PROPHETS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 337
It will be seen that I have given the words " pro
phetic writings" or Scriptures, where the Authorised
Version has " the Scriptures of the prophets," and the
absence of the definite article in the Greek makes
this change imperative. The words do not refer
then, necessarily, to a known collection like the pro
phetic Scriptures of the Old Testament, and, inas
much as the writers of the New Testament when
they do speak of the Prophets of the Old use the
article, the presumption would be that the words do
not refer to them at all. But bear in mind that the
Gospel of which St. Paul speaks was that given to
him "by revelation" (Gal. i. 12) ; that the mystery
was that which, having been "hid from ages and
generations," was then revealed to the Apostles and
Prophets of the Christian Church (Eph. iii. 5), even
that " the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs and of the
same body : " bear in mind, further, that St. Paul
both possessed (Acts xiii. 1) and claimed (1 Cor.
xiii. 2) the prophetic gift, and it will not be thought
strange that, in speaking of " prophetic writings" as
God's instruments for evangelising the world, he
should be referring to his own Epistles or to other
like statements of the Truth.
An unexpected light is thrown on this interpreta
tion by a remarkable passage in the works of the
earliest of the Apostolic Fathers, Clement of Eome,
the Clement, in all probability, of whom St. Paul
speaks in the Epistle to the Philippians (iv. 3). He
was a presbyter, or bishop of the Church of Eome ;
he wrote to the Church of Corinth. St. Paul, it will
be remembered, wrote from the latter city to the
Church at Eome. Whatever documents therefore
are quoted or referred to by the one may fairly be

338 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
assumed as probably known to both. If a quotation
by one, and an allusion by the other, point in the
same direction, the coincidence is at least strong
evidence of probable identity. Now it is, to say the
least, remarkable that Clement twice quotes, as if
from an authoritative and inspired book, what he
calls " the prophetic word," or (as the same words
are rendered in the English of 2 Peter i. 19), the
" word of prophecy." The passage is too interesting
to be passed over, and I therefore translate it. " Let
us serve God," the passage begins, " and we shall be
righteous, but if we do not serve because we do not
believe the promise of God, we shall be miserable.
For thus also speaks The Prophetic Word, ' miserable
are the double-minded, and they that doubt in their
heart, who say, " all these things we heard even in
the times of our fathers, but we, waiting from day to
day, have seen none of them." 0 ye foolish ones,
liken yourselves unto a tree ; take the vine as an
example. First of all it sheds its leaves, and then the
tender shoot comes out, and then the sour grape,
after that the ripe grape in its season. So likewise
my people endured wanderings and afflictions ; after
ward they shall receive their good things.' " (Clem.
Eom. ii. 11, a shorter quotation being given in i. 23).*
Here then we have the distinct recognition of a
written Prophetic Word, in the first century, speak
ing of the coming of the Lord, not fixing times and
seasons, exhorting men to patience, entirely in har
mony with what we find in the Canonical writings
of the New Testament. Is not the probability inde-
* The second Epistle ascribed to Clement is now regarded by
most critics as spurious. As the passage in question is found in
both Epistles, the doubtfulness of one is immaterial. In the first
it is cited as "this Scripture."

PROPHETS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 339
finitely great that this may have been among the
"prophetic writings" of which St. Paul speaks,
among the " other Scriptures " which St. Peter
classes as standing on the same level with St. Paul's
Epistles (2 Peter iii. 16) ? Does it not suggest the
thought that St. Paul's words, " Every Scripture,
being God-inspired, is also profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous
ness," may have been meant (their very form being-
car efully generalised for this express purpose*) to
include the inspired writings of the Christian Church
as well as those of the Jewish ?
Another side, and that a darker one, of the life
of the Apostolic Church has yet to be noticed. Side
by side with the true Prophets, there were in almost
every Church, numerous and powerful false prophets,
speaking words that came, not from the spirit of
holiness and truth, but from a counterfeit, or even,
it may be, a daemonic inspiration. So it had ever
been. The bitterest trial of the old Prophets of
Israel had been that they were thus thwarted and
opposed. " The prophets prophesy falsely, and the
priests bear rule by their means ; and my people
love to have it so" (Jer. v. 31). So it was now.
This also had been foretold by the Lord who sent
the true Prophets (Matt. vii. 15 ; xxiv. 11), and the
prediction was abundantly fulfilled. Speaking with
the same claim to authority, in the same thrilling
tones, their sensuous imagination roused, it may be,

* Here again the English version obscures the special distinc
tions of the Greek. " The Holy Scriptures," sacred writings or
records, of verse 15, describe the known collection of Books which
every Jewish scribe studied or interpreted. The "Scripture" of
verse 16 is a different word, and the "all" is distributive rather
than collective.

340 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
to an orgiastic frenzy, they spoke words from which
all true teachers shrank back in abhorrence. At
Corinth those who would not see the true Christ in
the crucified Nazarene were heard to utter the awful
words, "Jesus is Anathema" (1 Cor. xii. 3). Vainly
puffed up in their fleshly minds, they rushed blindly
into a region which they had not seen with any true
intuition (Col. ii. 18). Giving heed to seducing
spirits and teachings that came from demons, they
led men to a false, Manichean asceticism, sure to end
in a hideous and loathsome licentiousness, instead
of to a true holiness (1 Tim. iv. 1). They brought
in destructive heresies, even "denying the Lord that
bought them," denying that Jesus Christ had come
in the flesh, and therefore treating the flesh as if it
might have its own way, and lead them whither it
would, without affecting their salvation (1 John iv.
1-3). It was to guard against the perilous teaching of
such men as these that St. Paul laid down the rule
that no seemingly prophetic utterance was truly
such, unless the man spoke " according to the pro
portion," according, we may say, to the analogy " of
the faith," — in harmony, i.e., with the truth of which
the Church was " the pillar and the ground," the
great central "mystery of godliness, God manifest
in the flesh" (1 Tim. iii. 15, 16). With their denials
and perversions present to his mind, St. John warned
his readers to " try the spirits, whether they be of
God," and his test of Truth, like St. Paul's, lay in
the acknowledgment that Jesus Christ was Lord,
and had come truly in the flesh (1 John iv. 1, 2 ;
1 Cor. xii. 3). Therefore it was that there was to
be no blind acceptance even of inspired, or appa-

PROPHETS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 341
rently inspired, utterances ; but men were to sit by
and judge (1 Cor. xiv. 29). As the result of this
testing, we may well believe that the special utter
ances which approved themselves to the reason and
conscience of the Church, as in harmony with its
faith, gained a wider currency as in every way trust
worthy. Of all the explanations that have been
given of the "faithful sayings" which occur so fre
quently in the Pastoral Epistles, this appears the
most probable. Spoken by the Prophets of the
Church, as condensed expressions of the Truth, they
were now endorsed, as it were, with the Apostolic
imprimatur, as containing " sound," i.e., healthy doc
trine, in marked contrast to the morbid, doting
phantasies of the false prophets.
IV. Such are the broad patent facts on both sides.
They suggest some thoughts which it will be well
to put distinctly before our minds before we leave
the subject.
(1.) What we have seen is surely worth more,
even to the Apologist, than much that takes a high
place among the Evidences of Christianity. Here,
in every page of the New Testament, implied and
taken for granted, we have traces of a power myste
rious, wonderful, exceptional. It came to men least
prepared for it by birth or training. It gave them
a power over the hearts of men which no sophist, or
poet, or orator had ever exercised. It was at once a
" sign" for those who believed not, and it built up
those that did believe. This, more than physical
signs and wonders, more even than the ties of Chris
tian brotherhood and purity of life, was the secret
of the Church's power to overcome the world. That
victory stands as a great central fact in the world's

342 • BIBLICAL STUDIES.
history. This is the explanation given by those who
were fighting the battle, fighting it against over
whelming odds, and yet assured of victory. Can we
suggest any other as adequate ? And if we admit
this, is it not, at the least, a proof of a new force
breaking through the succession of physical, and
even of ethical causation, a force which, as we watch
its character and its working, we cannot think of as
other than divine ?
(2.) Does it not give us a fresh sense of the pre-
ciousness of the Apostolic writings to think of them
as relics of a time so full to overflowing in Divine
Gifts? They were inspired because the men who
wrote them were Prophets. Even the historic work
of the Evangelists has its counterpart in the nume
rous chronicles and histories that were written by
the older Prophets, and originated, as their labours
had done, in the impulse and guidance of the Spirit,
making memory more truthful, judgment more en
lightened, the imagination which the historian needs
more vivid. It is something to have received as our
inheritance what has come to us from an age when
the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and
new floods of Divine Truth rushed in upon the souls
of men. If we are tempted sometimes, as we well
may be, to wonder and grieve that we have so little,
we may also rejoice and give thanks that we have
so much. If the Church of Christ was careful to
gather up the fragments so that nothing might be
lost, those very fragments have shown themselves
to possess a marvellous and creative power. Through
all the centuries they have fed, through all the
Church's life they will continue to feed the souls
that hunger, meeting all wants — conforming them-

PROPHETS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 343
selves, we might almost say, to all true and healthy
tastes — milk to the child in age or heart, " strong
meat," solid food, to those that are of full age. They
retain undiminished the old power of the prophetic
word. They reveal to men the secrets of their own
hearts. They bring before the startled conscience
the terrors of the coming Judgment. They comfort
the penitent and the mourner with the thoughts of
the glory yet to be revealed.
(3.) What we have seen as to the mingling of
the evil and the good, the true and the counterfeit
prophecy, may well comfort us when our hearts fail
and sink at the doubts, errors, denials, which now
encompass us. We think that if our lot had been
cast in that first golden age, listening to the voice
of Apostles and Prophets, we should have believed
with the full assurance of faith, and there would
have been no room for doubt. Vain and foolish
thought ! There would have been the risk of more
utter denial, more portentous heresy, more abysmal
depths of evil. False prophets with all deceivable-
ness of unrighteousness, teachers calling themselves
Apostles though they were of the synagogue of
Satan (Eev. ii. 2, 9), men speaking in the name of
Peter and of James to bring believers back to the
"beggarly elements of Judaism," speaking in the
name of Paul to plunge them into the foulest law
lessness — this is what we should have had to en
counter. Amid these rocks and shoals and quicksands
we should have had to make our voyage, and we
might easily, "as concerning the faith, have made
shipwreck." And it may comfort us in the midst of
our perplexities to notice how, in that remoter age,
Time, as God's great instrument in the work of

344 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
judgment, sifted the true from the false, the precious
from the counterfeit, and brought about in due order
the vindication and the ascendency of the Truth.
The "day" came which "tried every man's work of
what sort it was" (1 Cor. iii. 13). The fire burnt
up the wood, hay, stubble, of man's devices and
imaginations. Much perished utterly, and much
even that was true and good has passed away. It
did its work and bore its fruit. But the gold and
the silver and the precious stones, the words of the
Apostles and Prophets as they stand in the New
Testament — this has been tried in the furnace and
has come out purified and brightened, an everlast
ing possession for mankind, the inheritance of the
Church of Christ even unto the end.
(4.) There remains yet another lesson which we
in this age need to learn. We know not fully why,
but so it is, the gifts that were then given have not
been given since in the same measure, or in like
form. " Tongues " and " prophecy " have alike
" failed." But not the less does it remain true
" that the Spirit divideth to every man severally as
He will" (1 Cor. xii. 11). The "word of wisdom"
has its counterpart in the wide thoughts of Origen
and Augustine, of Hooker and of Butler, the " word
of knowledge" in the labours of great interpreters,
"governments" in all true pastoral rule, "helps"
in all forms of loving sympathy and kindness, and
so too Prophecy has its analogue among us. Not
in formal decrees of synods, or elaborate teaching of
dogmatists, but when the "word of the Lord" comes
with power to the heart of a man, and goes forth
from it straight to the hearts of others, then the
prophet's work is, in its measure, renewed among

PROPHETS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 345
us. And what was true of the original is true also
of the analogue. With that we too are called to
overcome the world, and make men confess that
God is with us of a truth. We are panic-stricken
at the growth of unbelief around us. We snatch at
weapons which we have not proved, or which the
experience of the past has shown to be cumbrous
and useless, or which, if effectual, belong, like fire-
tipt and poisoned arrows, to savage and not to Chris
tian warfare. Here is the weapon which we need,
the " sword of the Spirit, which is the word of
God" (Eph. vi. 17), "piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and
marrow" (Heb. iv. 12). Not by cries of alarm, or
wailings of despondency, or railing accusations, may
the doubters around us be won over, and the gain-
sayers silenced. That power belongs only or chiefly
to the Prophetic Word. Let us speak that word of
reproof, of comfort, and of hope, as it was spoken,
of old, by Prophets and Apostles, by the thousands
who, since their time, have drunk of the same spirit,
—let us prophesy according to the proportion, the
analogy, the accordant harmony of the faith, and it
will not fail. It has done its work in past ages, in
spite of errors, excesses, mutual antagonism, and will
do it yet again. Not the doctors of the Schools, but
St. Bernard and St. Francis; not the system-builders
of Trent or Geneva, but Tyndale, and Luther, and
Xavier ; not the Laudian divines, but Leighton and
Taylor, and Baxter and Bunyan ; not the Georgian
Bishops, but Wesley and Whitefield and Simeon ; —
these are the names to which we now look back as
bright with the glory of the kingdom. So it will
be now. Let us strive to look at the questions that

346 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
are vexing us as we now look on those which vexed
our fathers. Amid the warfare of half truths and
rash denials, let us recognise the Prophetic Word,
whenever and by whomsoever it may be spoken,
accepting it as limited and tested by the analogy of
the faith. So we come back to the old words as
the truest and the best, " Covet earnestly the best
gifts : " " Seek that ye may excel to the edifying of
the church ; " " and yet show I unto you a more
excellent way" (1 Cor. xii. 31 ; xiv. 12).

rt.
STEPHEN THE PEOTO-MAETYE.
PART I.
E are familiar enough with the ethical and
spiritual thoughts which gather round
the name of the first disciple who sealed
his testimony with his blood. The words
of Keble in the " Christian Year " teach us to
connect his death with the yet greater martyrdom
that preceded his, and to think of him as one who,
for the sake of his dear Lord,
" Presses on and welcomes death,"
who — " Foremost and nearest to His throne,
And likest Him in look and tone,"
was the first to show the power of the Crucified to
impart His own long-suffering love to those that
follow in His steps. The saying attributed to Augus
tine — " Si Martyr Stephanus non sic orasset, Ec
clesia Paulum hodie non haberet,"* "If Stephen
had not prayed, the church would have lost St.
Paul" — leads us to look forward as well as back
ward. We find in the great change that trans
formed the persecutor into the Apostle, a proof of
* August. Serm. 382 : but the authorship is questionable.

348 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
the prevailing might of intercession. We see that the
death of Stephen, his blameless holiness, his willing
sacrifice of himself, were, as all such acts are, a par
tial reproduction of what had been finished, once
for all, in its completeness, on the cross, a " fillmg
up of that which is lacking of the afflictions of
Christ, for his body's sake, which is the Church "
(Col. i. 24), and thus had in them something of a
mediatorial, propitiatory character. But we fail for
the most part, I believe, to recognise the historical
significance of his teaching and his death. We look
on it, it may be, as the greatest of all martyrdoms
but One, but we do not ask ourselves what the
special truth was to which he bore his witness, how
he became the special object of attack, in what way,
by his teaching as well as by his prayers, he may
have influenced, directly or indirectly, the future
thoughts and words of the Apostle of the Gentiles.
A closer study will show, if I mistake not, that the
few verses that record his work and death take their
place among the chapters of Church History that
are most full of momentous import, that his own
teaching, as represented by his accusers, or embodied
in his speech, marked the first great step in the
expansion of the Church of Christ. Short as his
career was, it was that of an epoch-making life.
The incidents which first brought Stephen into a
position of prominence, seemed to belong to another
region of the Church's life than that of doctrine.
" In those days, when the number of the disciples
was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the
Grecians (Hellenists) against the Hebrews, because
their widows were neglected in the daily ministra
tions:" The fact is in itself significant. When the

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MARTYR. 349
"hundred and twenty" came forward on the day
of Pentecost, they were heard with the wondering
question, "Are not all these that speak, Galileans ?"
They were the peasant followers of One who, though
He had at times appeared and taught in Jerusalem,
and had had a secret following among the rulers of
the Jews there, had yet made that despised, half-
heathen district ("Galilee of the Gentiles") the chief
region of his labours, and appeared in men's eyes as
the prophet of a provincial sect. But the day of
Pentecost, perhaps also the direct activity of Bar
nabas, and others like him, had made a great change.
The Church was now Hellenistic as well as Hebrew.
These " Grecians," it may be well to state (for
inaccurate notions on this point have found favour
even with writers of high repute), were not converts
from heathenism. Our translators seem* to have
deliberately chosen that form of the word in this
passage, as distinct from the " Greeks " which they
use elsewhere, in order that they might express in
the English the distinction which is patent in the
Greek. The " Grecian " or " Hellenistic " Jews
were those who were scattered in countries where
Greek was spoken, and who themselves spoke it.
The crowd of pilgrims who came up to the three
yearly feasts, those consequently who were present
on the day of Pentecost, were predominantly Hel
lenistic. They were the "dispersed" among the
Greeks, f of whom the Jews spoke tauntingly to our
Lord in John vii. 35, those that "were scattered
* If this were so, it may be noted that they were the first to
notice the distinction. All the other English versions, from Tyn-
dale's to the ffhemish, have " Greeks" in this passage as in others.
t "Gentiles" in the Authorised Version ; but the word is the
samo as that elsewhere translated " Greeks."

3So BIBLICAL STUDIES.
abroad," those " of the dispersion," in 1 Peter i. 1.
And of these the most prominent were those who
are afterwards named as disputing with Stephen,
the " Libertines," or freed-men, i.e., emancipated
Jewish slaves from Eome, the Jews of Cyrene, of
Alexandria, of Cilicia, and the Eoman proconsular
province of Asia. It was characteristic of these
men that they used the Greek version of the Old
Testament Scriptures, that they were brought more
into contact with the habits and thoughts of the
heathen world, that some of them, at Alexandria
and elsewhere, were brought also under the influence
of its philosophy. In some cases this probably
helped to widen the horizon of their sympathies.
In most their very knowledge of the abominations
of heathen life, the scorn and insult to which they
and their religion were subjected, tended to make
them more bitter and arrogant even than the Hebrew
population of Judaea. The pilgrim • feeling was
strong in them, and their veneration for the Temple
might almost seem to have been measured by the
distance which they had to travel to keep their Pass
over or Pentecost within its walls. The Jews of
Asia, it will be remembered, were those who at a
later period raised an uproar agamst St. Paul on the
groundless charge that he had brought an uncircum
cised heathen within the sacred precincts (Acts
xxi. 27).
A large section, then, of the Church at Jerusalem
belonged to this class. They claimed their share in
the alms that were doled out in the first enthusiasm
of love which marked the new brotherhood. And so
suspicion and jealousy found their way into what till
then had been a society of one heart and soul. The

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MA RTYR. 3 5 1
Hellenists complained that their " widows were
neglected in the daily ministration," and murmured
against the " Hebrews," obviously on the ground
that the Apostles — probably also the whole body of
the original hundred and twenty disciples — were
Palestine Jews, and therefore belonging to the latter
section. It was, in modern phrase, a complaint that
they were not " represented " in the administration
of the Church. The difficulty could only be met
in two ways. Either the Twelve must personally
undertake the responsibility of distributing the alms,
and interpose the weight of their authority against
the murmurers, or else some new organization must
be devised for the special need. The former course
would withdraw them from their proper work of
teaching and directing, and absorb their time in that
of " serving tables," attending to the arrangement
of guests at the daily common meal, where they
met to " break bread," or presiding at the counters
where relief was given in coin. They rightly
rejected it on that ground, as interfering with their
higher duties, and appealed to the whole body of
the disciples to help them in adopting the other
alternative. They left the choice to them. The
men were to be seven in number, of well-established
repute, " full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom " —
men, i.e., who would command the respect of the
Church by their gifts as well as by their integrity,
who had, in various measures, some of the special
tokens of the Spirit's working, prophetic utterance,
fiery zeal, keen insight into character, the wisdom
which gives a right judgment in all things.
It has been often noticed as a token of the straiffht- o
forwardness and good feeling of the Jerusalem

352 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Church, that every one of the seven thus chosen bore
a Greek name, and that this (presumably, though
not certainly) was an indication that they belonged
to the Hellenistic section of the Church, and were
intended to be its special representatives. Either,
as is possible, the " Grecians " were a majority, or
the "Hebrews" also voted for them, in order to
disarm suspicion. The fact that one of them, Nicolas,
is described as " a proselyte of Antioch," suggests
the inference that that class had already risen to
some prominence. It lies in the nature of the
case that he was what the Jews called a "proselyte
of righteousness," circumcised, and acknowledging
his obligation to keep the whole law of Moses. Had
he been less than this, the question afterwards raised
and settled by the case of Cornelius would have been
already decided. It is obvious that Stephen was the
most conspicuous of the seven thus chosen. His
name stands first in order. He alone is described
as being full "of the Holy Ghost and of power."
The choice of the multitude is approved by the
Apostles, and the seven are solemnly appointed to
their office by prayer and the laying on of hands.
Popularly we speak of them as the " seven deacons,"
and it is of course true that they were appointed to
free the Apostles from the task of "serving" or
"ministering" (Smkovuv) at tables. It should be
remembered, however, that their position was one
of much greater importance than that commonly
occupied by the deacons of the later Church ; that
they were not confined to subordinate functions, but
entered, according to their gifts, upon the work of
evangelists and teachers ; that they are never called
"deacons" in the New Testament, but always

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MARTYR. 353
spoken of as a distinct body, under the title of " the
Seven." In some churches, notably perhaps at
Eome, where the number of deacons was limited
after this example to seven, when the presbyters
were as many as forty-eight, they may have occupied
a position more analogous to that of their prototypes,
and so have risen, as being, in modern phrase again,
the secretaries, chaplains, financial agents of the
bishop, into a prominence which led them to look
down on the more numerous presbyters, and tempted
them to the assumption of authority which called for
the reproof of Polycarp and Ignatius.
The natural desire to know something of the pre
vious life of the man who was thus placed at the
head of the new order, the primitive Arch-deacon, as
it were, is one which we have no materials for grati
fying with any certainty. We ask in vain, Was he
one of those who had heard Christ during his
ministry on earth, and followed Him as a disciple ?
Was he one of those who, like Nicodemus, and other
chief rulers, believed, but would not confess, because
they feared the reproach of men ? Was he one of
the three thousand who were converted and baptized
on the day of Pentecost, and, if so, from what
country had he come ? These are questions which
we cannot answer. I pass beyond the limits of
certainty into those of hypothesis in suggesting the
probability of his having been the first conspicuous
representative of the Christians of Borne. So far as I
know, the suggestion is a new one, and it is right
to state the grounds on which I have been led to
adopt it as at least tenable. (1) We have to bear
in mind the prominence of " strangers of Rome, Jews
and proselytes," who at this time were settled in
A A

354 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Jerusalem, and who are mentioned (Acts ii. 10) as
having been impressed by the marvels of the day of
Pentecost. By the decree of the senate under Tibe
rius, a.d. 19, they had been banished from Eome,
where they had been settled in large numbers in the
Trans-Tiberine districts. Four thousand of these
had been sent to Sardinia on military service. Others
had found their way to the city of their fathers.
They would naturally be among the most conspi
cuous sections of the Hellenistic Jews in the Holy
City, likely therefore to be represented in the new
brotherhood, and to have a special claim to a repre
sentative in the Seven who were chosen to watch
over the interests of that body. If they had one,
the very fact that he belonged to the imperial city
would lead to his having a priority over the others
with whom he was associated. (2) We know from
St. Paul's message of greeting in Eom. xvi. 7, that
there were at least two conspicuous Eoman disciples,
whom he calls his " kinsmen," Andronicus and
Junia,* and of whom he says that they were "in
Christ" before him, members of the church, i.e.,
while Stephen was in his highest activity, — " of note
among the Apostles." Here then we have an indirect
proof of the existence at Jerusalem of those who
afterwards became the nucleus of the Eoman Church.
This, at least, adds to the probability that they
would have a representative in a body which was
purposely chosen so as to give no cause of suspicion
on the score of local prepossessions. Eome would
not be treated worse than Antioch. The fact that
these two were kinsmen of Saul of Tarsus throws
* This, however, may also be a man's name, Junias contracted
from Junianus.

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MARTYR. 355
a side-light, hitherto unnoticed, on the motives that
made him so bitter in his hostility. (3) Foremost
among those with whom Stephen contended were
" they of the synagogue of the Libertines." Something
there was which brought him into direct, immediate
contact, and therefore conflict, with them. But
these, by the consent of nearly all Biblical scholars,*
were none other than those Jews, " libertini generis,"
as Tacitus (Annai., ii. 85) calls them, who had been
expelled from Eome, men who had been taken
prisoners and sold as slaves by Pompeius and other
generals, and had subsequently obtained their free
dom, who then had been allowed to take up their
abode at Eome and carry on their trades till they
provoked the jealousy of the senate by their zeal in
propagandism. If these were Stephen's chief adver
saries, it is natural to suppose that he stood in a
closer relation to them than to those of Alexandria
or Cilicia, that he may have himself been one of
them. (4) I add another coincidence, not, I think,
without significance. The name of Stephanus up to '
the time when it became famous through the martyr
was not a common one. But it appears at this very
period, in a Eoman inscription, as belonging to a
" freedman," or Libertinus, of Livia, the mother of the
Emperor Tiberius, and as belonging to one who
carried on the business of a goldsmith (aurifex).f
* See the article Libertines in Dr. Smith's " Dictionary of the
Bible." t See Gori's elaborate monograph on the Columbarium Liber-
torum Livia, p. 153. The " Stephanus " in question is described as
immunis, exempted, i.e., from the ritual services of some Collegium
or Sodalitium, some guild or club, that otherwise would have been
binding on him. Was this a privilege granted to Jewish freed-
men ? The same columbarium contains the name of Tyrannus as
a " physician " to the empress (p. 120). Can we trace a connection
between this bearer of the name and the Tyrannus whose lecture-

356 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Looking to the facts that the Jews then, as at a later
period, commonly occupied themselves in this and
other kindred lines of business, that they were
patronised by Augustus and his wife, that Herod
the Great paid special court to Livia, and that she
contributed largely to the expenses of his magnifi
cent games in the theatre at Caesarea, that he on his
death left as his legacy to her all his gold and silver
vessels (Joseph. Antiq., xvi. 5, 1 ; xvii. 8, 1), that
he sent two of his sons to be educated at Eome, that
the Jews who were at Eome were almost all of the
freedman class (i.e., "Libertines"), we have, I think,
sufficient points of agreement to make it probable
that the Stephanus of the inscription referred to was
of the sons of Israel, that some kinsman of his, trained
in habits of administration, may have borne his name,
and so to add another link to the circumstantial
evidence of the Eoman origin of the proto-martyr.*
It is evident that a new element of power was thus
brought into the service of the Church. Great as
was the marvel of the day of Pentecost, it did not
room was lent at Ephesus to the friend of one who was certainly a
"physician," and probably himself a freedman? The Columbarium
was a kind of pauper or slave cemetery, in which the ashes of the
dead, after the bodies had been burned, were kept in urns, which were
placed two and two together, as in the pigeon-holes of a dovecote.
* Yet another coincidence, hitherto, I believe, unnoticed, pre
sents itself. Commentators have been perplexed at the choice of
the number seven for the so-called deacons. In Jewish synagogues
the number of subordinate ministers was three. Lightfoot (Sorce
Sebraicce, in loc.) confesses himself unable to assign a reason. At
Borne, however, we find a body of seven men specially appointed
to preside over the heathen religious, banquets which were analo
gous to the Christian agapat. They were known as the Septemviri
Epulones, and, singularly enough, had been appointed to relieve
the Pontifices. Such an institution would, of course, be familiar to
the Libertini of the Imperial City. It may, perhaps, account for
the long-continued limitation of the deacons of the Boman Church
to the original number. Compare Smith's " Dictionary of Classical
Antiquities," s.v. Epulones.

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MARTYR. 357
cancel the difference in degree between the natural
gifts and the acquired knowledge of the Galilaean
peasants and those of the representative of the Hel
lenists of the imperial city. There is a higher culture,
a wider acquaintance with Jewish history or tradition,
a bolder freedom of interpretation, pervading every
portion of his speech. St. Luke seems lavish of words
that bring out the various aspects of his spiritual gifts.
He is " full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom" —
"full of faith and of the Holy Ghost" — "full of
faith and power" (Acts vi. 3, 5, 8). They were not
able to " resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he
spake." Add to this the singular majesty and beauty
implied in the words, almost solitary in the New
Testament, which tell us that all who looked on him
" saw his face as it had been the face of an angel " *
(Acts vi. 15), and it is not difficult to measure the im
pression made by the appearance of such a convert in
the ranks of the preachers of the new faith. St. Luke
sums up the result in one of those short, pregnant
sentences, every word of which is full of meaning,
" The word of God increased ; and the number of the
disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a great
company of the priests were obedient to the faith."
We are carried back to the state of Jerusalem at
the time that immediately preceded the commence
ment of Stephen's work. The chief opponents of the
Galilaean Apostles had been the higher section of the
priesthood, who were predominantly Sadducees in
their belief (Acts iv. 1 ; v. 17). Gamaliel, the Nasi,
or President of the Sanhedrim, the successor of

* The words were used in the speech of Babbis to describe the
looks of Moses and Aaron when they stood before Pharaoh. Comp.
Lightfoot and Schottgen in loc.

358 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Hillel in the great scribal succession, the represen
tative of the Pharisees, had appeared as the advocate
of a policy of toleration. His words, " Eefrain from
these men and let them alone : for if this counsel or
this work be of men, it will come to nought ; but if
it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it ; lest haply ye
be found even to fight against God" (Acts v. 38, 39),
seem almost to imply a latent conviction to which
he shrank, — like those chief rulers whom St. John
mentions (ch. xii.), — in his time-serving timidity,
from giving utterance. His tone is an exact repro
duction of that of Nicodemus. The countenance given
by such a man to the rising society was obviously
strongly in its favour. It accounts for that rapid
extension of its numbers, which made the appoint
ment of Stephen and his companions a necessity.
They entered on their work at a moment when all
things were in their favour. They had already
gained the confidence of the whole Church by their
integrity and discernment. Their action was now to
become aggressive.
And the result of Stephen's work especially was
an almost immediate expansion. " The word of God
increased." That phrase describes, we cannot doubt,
the inward life and power of the movement. It is
not a mere synonym for the addition of new converts
mentioned in the next clause. It means that which
was " the word of God" in the old prophetic sense,
the divine impulse, the apocalypse of new truths,
spread from soul to soul, as by an electric sympathy.
There was a stirring of the stagnant waters, a kin
dling of a new and holier flame than had burnt before.
There was a development of life and teaching, as well
as an increase of numbers; and its effect was to

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MARTYR. 359
change the attitude of parties altogether. A " great
multitude of the priests" who had at least acquiesced
in the opposition of the chief members of their order,
were now converted (Acts vi. 7). The Pharisees
who had before supported a policy of toleration are
now the most active in their antagonism.

11.
The character of Stephen's teaching might be in
ferred from the facts already given. It is brought
more clearly before us in the charges urged against
him by his accusers : " We have heard him speak
blasphemous words against Moses and against God.
. . . This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous
words against this holy place, and the law : for we
have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall
destroy this place, and shall change the customs
which Moses delivered unto us" (Acts vi. 11 — 14).
The words were spoken, it is true, by false witnesses ;
but falsehood, in such cases, is always at least a
colourable distortion of some actual fact. They point
to a new element of truth, which had not entered,
as yet, into the teaching of the Twelve. He had
taught, we must believe, that the hour was coming,
and had now come, when men should no longer
worship the Father at Jerusalem or Gerizim, as at a
sanctuary with special prerogatives above others, but
should worship Him everywhere alike, " in spirit
and in truth." This struck at the root of the pilgrim
feeling which led the Hellenistic Jews to take long
journeys, and incur a large expense, for what they
looked on as entitling them to special blessings,
gaining for them a fuller measure of God's favour

360 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
than they could attain to elsewhere. He had taught
that the law of Moses, whatever might be its political
or educational value, had been as a heavy yoke,
which neither that generation nor their fathers had
been able to bear ; that it did not help men to attain
the righteousness which it required as indispensable.
And lastly, in words which, rightly understood, are
more significant than any, he had entered his protest
against the " customs," as they were called, the vast
accumulation of rules and regulations, entering into
every act and every hour of life, which the Pharisees
had brought together, and which they ascribed to an
oral tradition that had its starting-point with the
great lawgiver. The very words " which Moses de
livered to us," are significant, as intended to distin
guish the " customs " thus referred to from the written
law. The preaching of Stephen was a protest against
the " traditions of the elders," which Christ had con
demned already, a protest by anticipation against
what was afterwards collected in the Talmud.
It might seem strange, at first, that such teaching
as this should have had any special attraction for the
priests* They, we might think, were likely to have
all their passions, interests, prejudices, roused into
full activity to defend the system with which they
were identified, and which was thus attacked. It is
probable, however, that the great body of the priests
at this period had little reason to be satisfied with
their position. The higher members of the order,
Sadducees like Annas and Caiaphas, men who courted
the favour of Eoman governors, and sought after the
* It is a singular instance of the disturbing effect of party pre
possessions, that Beza, in the teeth of aU evidence, without the
authority of a single MS., rejected the verse as spurious on the
ground of its improbability.

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MARTYR. 361
pontificate, tyrannized over them, and defrauded
them of their due share in the offerings made to the
temple treasury. Their relation to them was some
thing like that of the canons residentiary of a great
cathedral at the time of the Eeformation* to the
minor canons and pauperised mass-priests who went
through the routine of worship. And, on the other
hand, the Levites were at this very time encroaching
on their prerogative, and claiming the right to wear
the linen ephod, which had been their distinctive
dress. Nor were they better off as regards the
Pharisees. The tendency of Eabbinism had been
from the first to disparage the office of the priest
hood, to elevate that of the scribes. The sons of
Aaron had sunk into a degraded, impoverished class,
" priests of the people of the earth," as the Eabbis
called them, not even connected permanently, as in
the analogy just suggested, with the worship of the
temple, but coming up for their week's turn twice a
year, and then going down to reside in some city
within reach of the capital, living upon scanty
allowances and ill-paid tithes, eking out a main
tenance by copying phylacteries or writing bills
of divorcement, f And, further, it must be remem
bered that the Pharisees, interpreting the Levitical
law with all their wonted strictness in regions with
which they themselves were not personally concerned,
made it more than ever irksome to the priests who
came under its provisions, and that those who with
little heart and no enthusiasm, went through a daily
ritual like that of sacrifice, cutting the throats of the
* Comp. Dean Milman's "Annals of St. Paul's," ch. vii.
t Comp. the article Priests, in the "Dictionary of the Bible," ii.
p. 922.

362 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
struggling victims, catching the hot blood in basins,
paddling with naked feet in the gore that flowed
over the stone pavement of the temple, were not
unlikely to welcome as a message of emancipation
the teaching which told them that these things were
" decaying and waxing old," and " ready to vanish
away." The recollection of that rending of the
" veil " on the day of the crucifixion may have left
on some of them a dim, confused impression that the
end was near. Many must have heard the words
which the Prophet of Nazareth had spoken in
Solomon's porch or other precincts of the temple.
It is, at any rate, easy to conceive how the zeal of
the Hellenistic Jews was roused against the new
phase of truth. The reverence for holy places is
always strongest in those who are themselves pil
grims. Those "Libertines" who had been driven
from Eome for their religion's sake, those Jews of
Alexandria, Cyrene, Asia, who gloried in every
practice that served as a line of demarcation to sepa
rate them from the heathens, many of whom had
obtained from Julius or Augustus special edicts of
toleration or immunity,* — these were likely enough
to oppose a teaching which told them that they were
wasting their time and strength on that which did
not profit. And lastly, there were those of Cilicia,
and among them the commanding zeal of Saul of
Tarsus,f then in tne mll intensity of his Pharisaism,
excelling all his equals, exasperated, it may be, first
by the defection of Barnabas, whom there is good
* Comp. the singularly interesting documents given by Josephus,
Antiq., xiv. 10.
t The fact that Saul was also by birth a Soman citizen must not
be forgotten in its bearing on the main hypothesis of this paper.
He might have a point of contact with the Libertine, as well as
with the Cilician Synagogue.

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MARTYR. 363
reason to look upon as having been an early friend
and companion ; and then by the conversion of his
kinsmen, Andronicus and Junias ; and then, lastly,
by the disappointing calmness of Gamaliel, the
master at whose feet he had sat, from whom he had
imbibed the zealous devotion which had now, as it
would seem to him, so timidly and unworthily held
back. Every one of these incidents, doubtless,
shocked and startled him — told, more or less, upon
the stability of his convictions, took its place among
the "pricks" against which he continued to "kick;"
but the result of the first sense of insecurity, as we
have seen in a thousand instances, was a louder pro
fession of the shaken faith, a more vehement opposi
tion to that which seems to threaten it.
The fact that the attack on Stephen originated,
not in a popular outbreak or individual accusation,
but in a combination of synagogues, seems to indicate
the form and method of his teaching. He, like his
great successor, and his great Master, would appear
to have gone into the synagogues on the Sabbath,
and have risen when the Scriptures had been read,
to deliver his " word of exhortation," and so have
preached Jesus and His kingdom. The effect would
doubtless be like that of which we read afterwards
in the synagogues of Antioch in Pisidia, or Thessa-
lonica, or Corinth. Some would have their hearts
opened ; others would be hardened in their unbelief,
and stirred to a passionate hostility. The latter
section, baffled in discussion, had recourse to other
weapons. The charge of blasphemy which had been
brought against the Master, was brought against the
disciple also. It was connected, as it had been
before, with the charge of a threat that the temple

364 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
should be destroyed by the Nazarene prophet. The
two counts in the indictment before the Sanhedrim
were identical with those which had succeeded so
well already. The absence of the Eoman procurator
from Jerusalem accounts for the omission of the
other accusation of forbidding to give tribute to
Caesar, and exciting seditious tumults.
So it was that they " stirred up the people, and
the elders, and the scribes," and rose up against
him, and dragged him off to the Sanhedrim. It was
probably assembled in nearly its full force. Possibly
Gamaliel, and those who felt with him, may have
thought it better to adopt a policy of absence ; and,
as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea had done on
the previous great trial, they also, it may be, acting
in the same way now, remained at home. We can
hardly think of them as among those who " gnashed
their teeth " as they were cut to the heart by the
martyr's words. And, obviously, it was an open
court. The high priest, the same Caiaphas who had
already condemned our Lord, presided. The wit
nesses were present. The multitude stood eagerly
listening. The witnesses made their statements,
false in circumstance and detail, with just the degree
of falsehood which distorts the truth. The accused
stood calm, bright, undismayed. We have, it is
clear, the reminiscence of some one who had been
actually present when we are told that all who gazed
on him " saw his face as it had been the face of an
angel." He is called upon by the high priest for his
defence: "Are these things so?" and he proceeds
to what, had it been completed, would have taken its
place as the first Christian Apologia.
There is, perhaps, no document in the early history

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MARTYR. 365
of the Church which bears such internal evidence of
genuineness. Its very incompleteness ; the abrupt
transition from continuous argument to vehement
indignation in verse 51 ; its addition to, or discre
pancies from, the narrative of the Old Testament, all
these serve to show that we are reading a record
made probably by some scribe, or short-hand reporter
at the time.* This very incompleteness, however,
has made the speech of Stephen a problem, one might
almost say, the stumbling-block, of commentators.
They have not seen, for the most part, with any clear
sighted agreement, how this speech was an answer to
the accusations, how the argument would have gone
on, if the speaker had been allowed to pursue it to
its completion. Others have been content to dwell
on the details of the discourse, to make much of its
real or seeming inaccuracies, or misquotations, or
slips of memory in speaker or reporter, as fatal to the
theory of infallible, verbal inspiration, or to gloss
them over with explanations more or less plausible.
In a commentary it would be a duty to discuss those
points in detail. Here, I believe, it would be neither
profitable, nor within my limits. It seems better to
attempt to show the dominant thought which runs
through this colossal torso of a speech, this fragment
of a great whole, so far as that is possible.
What we may note, then, is that the defence of
Stephen proclaims indirectly the principle, after-
* Who this was is, of course, only matter of conjecture. Pos
sibly, Saul of Tarsus, .as the chief persecutor, may have taken notes
at the trial. I incline, however, to the belief that the writer of
the Acts was himself at Jerusalem at the time, already beginning
his work as the annalist of the Church, possibly himself a freedman,
and an Italian, and so one of the believing members of the syna
gogue of the Libertines, and drawn, therefore, to a special interest
in Stephen's character and work.

366 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
wards developed by St. Paul and the writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, of the divine education of
Israel through the successive stages of a revelation,
" in sundry times and divers manners" made unto
the " fathers." Each step did its work, and then
came something which seemed to supersede it, and
yet in reality took up and preserved whatever in it
was most precious and worthy of permanence. And
in harmony with what was afterwards the chief argu
ment of St. Paul, he begins with recalling them to
the faith of Abraham, and the covenant made with
Abraham as being, more even than the Law of
Moses, the ground of the life of Israel. This would
obviously have prepared the way for the further
thought that the Law, when it had done its work,
might pass away before the greater glory of the New
Covenant, itself a restitution and an expansion of
that which had been made with the great Father of
the Faithful. So far the argument was general. It
was obviously to have been followed by a proof, like
St. Paul's, that those who most boasted of the law,
and were most jealous for its honour, who received it
" as the ordinance of angels," yet did not " keep" it,
had therefore no claim to its rewards, and had a too
true witness in their own consciences that it was
powerless to give them life. The specific answer to
the charges brought against him would naturally
have come later. But incidentally we may note how
the speech, as it goes on, gives, as it were, side-
glances at the accusations, and meets them indirectly.
He had been charged with speaking " blasphemous
words against God," and his words utter the Divine
name in the forms which expressed the highest re
verence, as "the God of Glory," the "Most High

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MARTYR. 367
God." He had been charged with speaking blas
phemous words agamst Moses, and he dwells on
every circumstance, even though it was not written in
the Pentateuch, which exalted his fame ; on his being
" fair before God," " trained in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians," " mighty in words and in deeds." He
speaks of him as " a ruler and redeemer," as having
received "living oracles" from God. He had been
accused of speaking with reviling scorn of the Holy
Place, and he recognised the truth that even the
" tabernacle of witness" which had preceded it had
been full of divine meaning, and had been made
" after the pattern" that Moses had seen in vision
on the mount. But in the very act of asserting its
holiness he maintained, in the true prophetic spirit,
that both it and the Temple that followed it, were
witnesses, not of a localised presence, but of one that
transcended all limitations of space. " Howbeit the
Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands,
as saith the Prophet ;" and here, seeing the waxing
fierceness of his hearers, and already hearing the
murmurs that were on the point of bursting into
yells, he sums up in one the utterances of Solomon
himseK in his dedication prayer, and of Isaiah,
" Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool :
what house will ye build me, saith the Lord, and
what is the place of my rest ? Hath not my hand
made all things?"* Here there was manifestly a
wild roar of rage. The continuity of the speech was
broken off. The rest remained unspoken. He had
but time, ere the frenzied rush was made on him, to
speak a few burning words, to sum up the history of
the nation as one of high gifts misused, and an ever-
• 1 Kings viii. 27 ; 2 Chron. ii. 6 ; vi. 18 ; Isaiah lxvi. 1, 2.

368 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
recurring resistance to divine guidance. They, the
circumcised in the flesh, were "uncircumcised in
heart," " resisting the Holy Ghost," persecutors of
the prophets, betrayers and murderers of Him whom
the speaker proclaimed to be emphatically the " Just
One," not keeping the law of which they were per
petually boasting, and accusmg those who came " not
to destroy but to fulfil," of speaking blasphemous
words against it. Then came a yet wilder cry.
With all the rage of men who were half-conscious
that the words were true, they " gnashed upon him
with their teeth." Whatever we read in history of
the violence of church councils of the worst type, in
the fourth and fifth centuries, was outdone in that
session of the Sanhedrim. But it was given to
Stephen to pass in spirit into a region where they
could not follow or molest him, to see what they
could not see. Looking on the bright sky (the meet
ing was probably held in an open unroofed court), he
saw, in the fulness of spiritual intuition, the " opened
heavens" which the Baptist and the Christ had seen
when they went up together from the Jordan. He
saw "the glory of God," the ineffable brightness as
of the Shekinah cloud, and One whom he knew, by
the sure witness of the Spirit, to be none other than
the Lord Jesus. The whole man is as it were trans
figured by that vision. Argument ceases — vehement
rebuke is lulled. There is a " great calm" in the
midst of the wild storm that rages round him. As
one lost in ecstasy he burst into the cry, " Behold, I
see the heavens open, and the Son of Man standing
on the right hand of God." He names his Lord by
the title which He had always used in speaking of
Himself, but which no other apostle or disciple used

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MARTYR. 369
afterwards in speaking of Him.* It was a name as
yet familiar in men's ears. There was not as yet
the possibility of misconstruction, and therefore there
was nothing to lead the reverence of believers to
abandon it for the names that afterwards became
current in its stead, "Christ," "the Lord," "the
Lord Jesus." And the name, as Stephen used it,
had a special significance. It was connected, we must
believe, in his thoughts with the prophetic vision of
Daniel, when " one like the Son of Man came with
the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of
days" (Dan. vii. 13), with the citation of that pro
phecy by our Lord when He stood before the tribunal
which was now trying Stephen (Matt. xxvi. 64). It
was that reference of the words to His own future
glory which then made Caiaphas rend his clothes,
and led the packed meeting of the Sanhedrim to
pronounce Him to be worthy of death as a blas
phemer. Now they hear the self-same words from
the lips of Stephen, proclaiming that that prediction
was already in part fulfilled. Whatever passions of
rage and fanaticism had been kindled before, now
glowed like a furnace heated seven times beyond its
wont. As if the words were too dreadful for devout
ears to listen to, they " cried out with a loud voice,
and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one
accord." The absence of the Eoman procurator
made it easy for them to do now what they had
been afraid to do when Pilate was at hand. They
pass their sentence as by acclamation, and proceed
at once to put it into execution. He was a " blas
phemer," self-convicted, and the sin of blasphemy
was to be punished by being stoned to death. A
* Eev. i. 13 ; xiv. 14, are apparent, rather than real exceptions.
b b

370 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
few minutes sufficed to drag him out of the city,
and then the witnesses, after Easternfashion, stripped
themselves to the waist, that they might cast the
first stone at him. Standing by, as the chief pro
moter of the prosecution, though not apparently an
actual accuser, was the disciple of Gamaliel,* watch
ing, with all the intensity of his nature, the last
look and accents of his victim. The words of the
dying martyr were few and mighty, and both were
echoes of what had been spoken on the cross. One
short prayer for himself: — " Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit" — showed that he had lived and was dying in
the faith that he might pray to the Son of Man as
being One with the Father. One short prayer for
others (must we not think that his eye - fell on Saul
as he uttered it?), "Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge," showed that the mind of Christ was found
in him in its completeness. "And when he had
said this, he fell asleep."
The immediate history of the day was soon ended.
" Devout men carried the martyr to his burial, and
made great lamentations over him." The phrase is
specially significant. It seems certain that they
were not members of the church, for then St. Luke
would have called them "brethren," or "disciples;"
and they would have been exposed to outrage and
interruption in the act. It is almost equally certain
that they were not, as Eenanf and others have con
jectured, proselytes from heathenism, drawn by their
* St. Paul's own phrase afterwards, "consenting unto his death"
(xxii. 20), identical, as it is, with St;. Luke's account (viii. 1),
implies, of course, a hearty adoption of the side of Stephen's
persecutors, rather than mere acquiescence.
t Les Apotres, p. 145. The statement that the words a.vnp
tiXafljic mean a "proselyte," is, however, simply an obsolete
inaccuracy. Neither in Luke ii. 25, nor Acts ii. 5, can it bear that,
meaning.

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MARTYR. 371
special sympathy with Stephen's preaching. The
Greek word which St. Luke uses in this passage is
not that which he applies to such proselytes, and is
identical with that with which he describes Simeon
in his Gospel (ii. 25). It seems, therefore, probable
that these were devout Jews, distinguished by their
reverence, — as yet only half convinced, or only half
prepared to show their convictions, — acting towards
the body of Stephen as Nicodemus and Joseph of
Arimathea had done to the body of our Lord, show
ing honour to the dead, though they had lacked the
courage to come to his rescue when he was living.
To pay that honour was, in either case, a proof that
their hearts had been kindled into an unwonted
glow. In that of Stephen there was a special fea
ture, which ought not to be passed over. It was the
current feeling of the Jews at this time that no
lamentation was to be uttered over the body of one
who had been stoned to death. None were to say,
"Ah, lord!" or "Ah, his glory!" He was to be
" buried with the burial of an ass." Partly, of
course, this carried to the extremist point the igno
miny and shame which his crime deserved, but
partly, also, this very denial of funeral honours was
supposed to have something of an expiatory cha
racter, a penalty inflicted on this side the grave in
order to avert or mitigate the penalty in the world
to come.* And so this " great lamentation" was at
once a protest against the execution, and a declara
tion that those who lamented believed that there
was no crime in the condemned man that required
any such expiation, f
* Comp. Lightfoot, Sor. Sebraic, in loc.
t A strange story (which may be found in Alban Butler's " Lives

372 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
It remains to note, lastly, the influence which the
teaching and the death of Stephen exercised on the
growth of the Church of Christ and on the character
of her doctrine. (1) The persecution which, starting
from him, became general, would fall, if not exclu
sively, yet at least chiefly, on those who were like-
minded with him — the bolder, more liberal section
of the Hellenistic Jews. The Galilaean Apostles,
who seem to have accepted his work rather than co
operated with him, still remained in safety, appa
rently unmolested, at Jerusalem. From that time a
more marked Hebrew character is manifest in the
church there. It needs the special teaching of the
history of Cornelius to lead it to dispense with the
circumcision of Gentile converts. Even that was in
danger of being looked on as a special exception to
a law, not a representative example. St. Paul, when
he came there seventeen years afterwards, could only
of the Saints," Aug. 3rd, or in the Appendix to vol. vii. of Migne's
edition of Augustine) appeared about the end of the fourth century,
as accompanying the " translation " of the relics of St. Stephen from
Palestine to Aneona, Malta, and Africa. It purports to come from
a priest named Lucian, and. relates that the writer had seen in a
vision the form of a venerable old man, who declared himself to be
Gamaliel. He it was who had buried Stephen and other Christians.
He bids Lucian go to the village where he had lived, Caphar-
algama, and tells him that he will there find his own body, and
those of his son Abibas, who had become a disciple of Christ, and
with them those of Stephen and Nicodemus. Lucian relates that
he acted on the vision, and found a tomb on which were the four
names, Chaliel, Nassaon, Gamaliel, and Abibabel. The two former
names being interpreted as Aramaic equivalents for Stephanos and
Nicodemus. The whole story, though referred to and accepted,
with the addition of a long catalogue of relic miracles by Augustine
(De Civ. Dei, xvii. 8 ; Serm. 318, 319 ; Tract, in Joann. 120), is in
the worst style of legend ; but this last touch of the two Aramaic
names, seems to me to have about it a simplicity which suggests
that it may be the nucleus round which the marvellous history has
clustered. A man who was known as Stephanos (= garland) among
the HeUenistic Jews, would naturally be called " Chaliel " among
his Hebrew brethren.

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MARTYR. 373
venture to communicate the Gospel which he preached
" privately," in a secret conference, to the chief
apostles, who still guided it. The decree of the
council or assembly of Acts xv., as it was but a
partial assertion (valuable, indeed, as such, in the
way of compromise and conciliation) of the prin
ciples which St. Paul preached, so was it but a
hesitating, wavering approximation to the boldness
with which Stephen had proclaimed that the " cus
toms which Moses had delivered" were needless, and
would pass away. (2) The work of those who were
most conspicuous among the refugees is of special
interest. Philip, Stephen's fellow-worker among the
Seven, the only one of whose work we know any
thing, carries on his labours first among the hated
Samaritans, with whom the Jews of Palestine " had
no dealings ; " is then sent to the Ethiopian prose
lyte ; then to the port of Caesarea, where he would
be brought into constant contact with men of other
races, and predominantly, of course, with Eomans.
His preaching must have become known there, and
clearly prepared the way for the conversion, and yet
more for the reception, of Cornelius. It would seem,
indeed, to have been the method, one might almost
say the policy, of Philip's work, to labour in a new
field, upon which the Apostles, left to themselves,
were not likely to have entered, and then to bring it
before them as a, fait accompli, which they could not
hesitate to recognise as a divine work. (3) The
notice of the church's mission- work, in Acts xi. 19,
20, has a special interest in this connexion. The
majority of those who " were scattered abroad upon
the persecution that arose about Stephen," travelled
to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, "preaching

374 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
the word to none but unto the Jews only." So far
their work was simply a continuation of his, not an
expansion. But " some of them were men of Cyprus
and Cyrene," — men, i.e., who had been brought into
direct, close contact, which, if not of antagonism,
must have been of intimate fellowship, with Stephen ;
and " they, when they were come to Antioch, spake
unto the Greeks* preaching the Lord Jesus." That
work was the first true assertion of the church's
catholicity. Those wandering refugees were the first
evangelists of the Gentiles. It may be, for the
chronology is left unfixed, that their work preceded
even the conversion of Cornelius ; but, even if it
were after it in order of time, it was not like that,
apparently personal and exceptional, but wide and
systematic. Through these unknown, unnamed
teachers, f the disciples of Stephen, the work was
done in earnest, for which he had offered up his life.
Upon those "prophets" of the New Testament, no
less than upon the "Apostles" themselves, the Churoh
of Christ was to be built. (4) No study of St. Paul's
character can be complete which fails to take into
account the impression left on his life and teaching
by the words and by the martyrdom of Stephen.
True, not even they availed to slake the white heat
of the persecuting spirit. He " kicked against the
pricks" now, and resisted the promptings of pity and
sympathy, perhaps also the latent half-conviction
* The Authorised Version gives " Grecians," i.e., Hellenistic
Jews, but the balance of MSS. authority is clearly in favour of
" Greeks " (= Gentiles). The sense, indeed, absolutely requires it.
t I have elsewhere (see the Study on Simon op Cyiiene in this
volume) given my reasons for believing that that disciple may
have been one of them. Andronicus and Junia (or Junias) may
also be thought of. And this may be the explanation of St. Paul's
words about them as " of note among the Apostles."

STEPHEN THE PROTO-MARTYR. 375
that he was fighting against God, as he had resisted
the " leadings" of the divine will, manifested in the
conversion of Barnabas and the warnings of Gama
liel. Nothing less than the revelation to his own
soul of that Jesus whom he was persecuting, could
lead him to the knowledge of the truth. But when
once led, the remembrance of that face, which had
seemed " as it had been the face of an angel," must
have been ever present with him, humbling him to
the dust in self-abasement, making him feel as the
"chief" of sinners, "not meet to be called an
Apostle ; " and yet, for that very reason, doing the
work of an Apostle more abundantly than all others,
and that, too, in the very spirit in which Stephen
would have done it. Every accusation brought
against the proto-martyr was afterwards brought
against him. Every truth which Stephen had
preached came from his lips, developed and com
pleted. Echoes, even, of the martyr's very words
and phrases meet us again and again in the Epistles
of St. Paul.* If it be true that we owe the Apostle
to the prayers of the martyr, it is also true that the
martyr lived again in the Apostle. Men might
almost have said of him, "It is Stephen risen from
the dead ; and therefore mighty works do show forth
themselves in him." If it be the law of her growth,
that " the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church,"
it was in the highest degree true here that the blood
of the proto-martyr was as the " good seed," des
tined to bring forth a hundredfold in the harvest of
the Church Universal.
* The examination of these parallelisms would be interesting,
but I have not here time to go into detail. Comp., as the most
striking instances, Acts vii. 48, with St. Paul's words at Athens
(Acts xvii. 24) ; and Acts vii. 53, with Gal. iii. 19.

III.
MANAEN.
|ANAEN, who had been brought up with
Herod the tetrarch." * This is the one
solitary record which the history of the
Apostolic Church gives us of this man,
and any attempt to go further must be in great
measure conjectural. And yet it is hardly possible
for one who reads with any thought, not. to find a
strange half-melancholy interest in. this juxtaposi
tion of the names of two men whose characters and
lives must have been so strikingly contrasted. At
the very time when the one foster-brother is men
tioned by St. Luke, as prominent among the prophets
and teachers of Antioch who ministered to the Lord,
and sent out Paul and Barnabas to their first great
mission among the heathen, the other was living in
a dishonoured exile at Lyons, in the Eoman province
of Gaul,f in company with the temptress whose in
fluence over him had been so fatal, with a dark past
to look back upon, and, so far as we know, a hopeless
future. Taken by itself, this fact alone suggests the
* Acts xiii. 1.
t Joseph. Ant. xviii. 8, 2. In the same writer's " History of the
Jewish War," ii. 9, 6, Spain is given as the place of his exile ; and
this makes it probable that he ended his days in the more distant
province.

MANAEN. 377
thought which the daily experience of life but too
often brings before us, that the lives of men may
begin in the closest companionship, under as nearly
as possible the same conditions, and yet that the end
of one shall be peace, and holiness, and an inherit
ance incorruptible, and that of the other shame, and
sorrow, and confusion. There is a self-determining
power in the will which may over-ride all outward
influences for good or evil, which may receive or
resist even the grace of God. " The one is taken,
and the other left ; " this is often all that we can
know or say. We see the diverging issues of life or
death ; the judgments of God which award them are
often to us as a " great deep," and we cannot trace
the intermediate stages.
But in this case, the study of the history of the
time, and more particularly of the Gospel of St. Luke,
suggests many pregnant hints, and helps us, I be
lieve, by combinations and coincidences, not without
interest in themselves, and tending, as all such
coincidences do, to a stronger and more settled faith,
to fill up the outline. We shall be able, if I mistake
not, with as much probability as circumstantial
evidence admits of, to obtain a fairly distinct picture
of the life of the foster-brother of the tetrarch.
1. Most commentators have noticed the fact, that
the name Manaen was connected with an earlier stage
of the history of the Herodian dynasty. When
Herod the Great was yet a boy, and his father, Anti-
pater the Idumean, pushing himself into power under
Hyrcanus, the last prince of the Asmonaaan, or Mac-
cabee line of priestly rulers, there lived an Essene
who bore that name.* Eigorous, ascetic, given to
* The narrative is given by Josephus, Antiq. xv. 10, 5.

378 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
prayer and meditation, like the other members of
that brotherhood, he was believed to possess also
special gifts of prophecy. One day, meeting the
young Herod as he went to school, and reading, it
may be, in his features the signs of an insatiable
ambition and an indomitable will, he clapped him on '
the back, and hailed him as " King of the Jews;"
and when the boy disclaimed the royal title, told him
distinctly of the power and greatness, the sins and
punishments which should enter into his life. He
stood, i.e., in somewhat the same relation to him
that Ahijah the Shilonite did to Jeroboam* And
as with the son of Nebat, so with the son of Anti-
pater, the early prophecy was not forgotten. When
he attained the summit of his power, and had won
from friends and foes the title (Herod the Great)
which till then had been borne only by Alexander
and Pompey, he sent to fetch the aged seer from his
devout retirement, and sought to know the length of
life and power which he might yet count on, would
fain have attached him to his court as a friend and
counsellor, and ever afterwards honoured the Essenes
above all other Jewish sects. So far we follow the
narrative of Josephus. What the identity of name
renders probable, is that on the refusal of the old
man, the king transferred his offer of patronage (as
David did from Barzillai to Chimhamf) to his son,
or grandson, and had him brought up as one of his
own family, the companion of one of his favourite
sons. If so, the first great event in the life of the
teacher of Antioch must have been the change from
the stern purity of the life of the Essenes to the
pomp and luxury of the court of Herod. Soon this
* 1 Kings xi. 29—39. t 2 Sam. xix. 37, 38.

MANAEN. 379
would be followed by a yet greater change, and one
not without interest in its bearing on the life of
Manaen. Antipas and Archelaus were sent to receive
their education at Eome,* and were thus brought
into contact with heathen thoughts and habits. The
foster-brother of the former would naturally share
this training. He must have witnessed all the mag
nificence and the guilt of the later years of the elder
Herod's reign, his passionate love, and fatal jealousy
of Mariamne, his oppression and tyranny over his
people, the execution of his best-loved son, Aristo-
bulus. He may have heard of the arrival of the
" wise men" from the East, and of the massacre at
Bethlehem. He could not have been altogether
ignorant of the wide- spread Messianic hopes which
animated the people. A man like the elder Manaen
must have been among those who, like Simeon, being
"just and devout," looked for the "consolation of
Israel." The very name which he bore, and which
(on this hypothesis) he gave to his son (Menahem or
Manaen, the comforter), bore witness of this hope.
2. In the common course of things in the East,
one so brought up with the heir of kingly power
would continue to be attached to his household in
later years. He would eat at the king's table, be
esteemed as the " king's friend," would have, in this
way, an influence over him greater than that of his
generals or officers of state, would often be employed
on special service at home or abroad. The life of
Manaen, if it were not an exception to the rule, must
have been spent in this way ; some thirty years or
more passed, which are to us, in his life, as in that
of the tetrarch, and many others of that time and
* Joseph. Antiq. xvii. 3.

t>

380 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
country, all but a blank. It may be that he adopted
the life and the principles of those with whom he
lived, and took his place with those who were " gor
geously apparelled and lived delicately," " in kings'
nouses." He may have acquiesced, without a pro
test, in the king's incestuous marriage with the
daughter of a deceased, and the wife of a living,
brother. We can estimate, however, without much
risk of error, the effect which the teaching of the
Baptist must have had on one so situated. Here he
saw a life, like in form (though more rigorous in its
degree) to that Essene devotion which he had known
in his youth, the re-appearance of the prophetic
character, the protest of a Eechabite austerity against
luxury and softness, the open and fearless speech, as
of a new Elijah. If we find traces in the Gospels of
the influence of the Baptist's teaching within the
circle of Herod's immediate attendants, it is reason
able to think that he too must have come under it.
If, as we shall see, there is reason to believe that
much of St. Luke's history of the Baptist's work was
derived from his report, the probability becomes
almost a certainty. What these traces are, I now
propose to indicate.
3. The "soldiers" of whom St. Luke speaks in
chap. iii. verse 14, were literally "men on a march."
And the war in which they were on service was that
in which Herod had been involved with Aretas, king
of Petraea, the father of the wife whom the tetrarch
had divorced in order that he might indulge his
guilty passion for Herodias.* The line of their
march would take them down the valley of the
Jordan, and so they would pass by the chief scene of
* Joseph. Antiq. xviii. 6, 1,

MANAEN. 381
the Baptist's ministry. Let us remember, then,
what the stoppage of that march involved, what a
testimony it bears to the might of the prophet's voice
over officers as well as men. The latter could not
have halted without the permission of the former,
could hardly have presented themselves for baptism,
as the narrative implies they did, unless those who
commanded them had done the same. From that
hour there must have been many among the atten
dants of Herod who were numbered also, secretly or
openly, among the disciples of John.
4. The next trace meets us in the earliest period
of our Lord's ministry. We read in John iv. 46,
that there was a " certain nobleman, whose son was
sick at Capernaum," and " when he heard that Jesus
was come out of Judasa into Galilee, he went unto
him, and besought Him that He would come down,
and heal his son." The word which our version
translates as "nobleman" means more specifically
an attendant or follower of the king, i.e., as that
title was popularly used in Galilee, of the tetrarch
Antipas. I do not, of course, assume the identity of
this "nobleman" with the tetrarch's foster-brother,
but I point to it as one of the tokens of the Baptist's
work as "preparing the way of the Lord," even
among Herod's followers. The man thus described
came to Jesus with full confidence in his power to
heal. With a faith almost equal to that of the cen
turion, he believed that his mere word would be
enough, without his presence. When he found
that at the self-same hour in which Jesus said unto
him, " Thy son liveth," the fever had indeed left the
sufferer free, " himself believed, and his whole
house." The circle of Herod's court now included

382 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
some, at least, who were disciples, not of the Baptist
only, but of the Prophet of Nazareth.
5. The imprisonment of John, though it sprang
from the vindictiveness of Herodias and the cowardice
of Herod, and interrupted his work among the
people, brought him into yet closer contact with the
tetrarch's immediate followers. Even Herod himself,
as though some better influences were, for a time,
acting on him, " did many things and heard him
gladly," and " feared him," knowing him to be a
"just man and a holy."* Those whose minds were
not dragged downwards by lust and luxury must
have yielded to the prophet's words with a more
entire surrender. It is clear from the narrative of
Matt. xi. 2, 3, that some, at least, of the Baptist's
disciples were allowed free access to him, and went
to and fro with messages between him and the
greater One of whom he was the forerunner. What
disciples were so likely to have that access as those
who were themselves among the officers and atten
dants of the prince who had imprisoned him ? If
we believe, as we may well do, that every word
which our Lord spoke at such a time was full of a
deep and special meaning, we may find in that
thought a probable explanation of what he said,
as the Baptist's messengers were departing. " Be
hold, they which are gorgeously apparelled, and
live delicately, are in kings' houses." Primarily,
doubtless, as I have shown elsewhere, f there was a
reference here to the contrast between the half-
renegade Herodian scribes, Sadducean in teaching,
* Mark vi. 20.
t Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible," Art. Scribes. See also
"Christ and Christendom," p. 165.

MANAEN. 383
worldly and intriguing in their lives, and the noble
severity of the Baptist's life, the yet nobler benignity
of the life of Christ. But, on the supposition which
is here suggested, the words may have had a very
special significance for those very messengers who
were then going back. They may have been halting
between two opinions, swayed this way and that, now
by old associations, now by new and nobler influences,
waving to and fro, " like reeds shaken by the wind."
It may have been necessary to remind them that the
true servants of God were to be found, not in
" kings' houses," but in prison, or in the wilderness,
preaching the gospel to the poor, living with the
" common people" who "heard them gladly."
6. The traces of information derived through
channels such as I have pointed out now thicken on
us. The narrative of the circumstances of the Bap
tist's death is given with a minuteness and* vividness
which could hardly have come from any but an eye
witness. There at the feast of " lords, high-captains,
and chief estates of Galilee," must have been the
" nobleman" of Capernaum, and the " steward" of
Herod's household, and the king's "foster-brother
and friend." After the fashion of the heathen East,
which Antipas had adopted, his wife's daughter
submits, at her mother's prompting, to a degradation
from which a true Israelite maiden would have
shrunk, and comes in, before a company of men, as a
dancing-girl, to minister to the voluptuous tastes of
the revellers by a prostituted grace and beauty (Matt.
xiv. 1 — 12) . The snare is set by one who knows what
bait was surest to attract the tetrarch's baser nature,
and he is taken captive by it irretrievably. If there
were any among those who witnessed it who revered

384 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
and loved the Prophet that was thus sacrificed to a
prince's lust and a woman's hate, they must have
f-huddered with an unimaginable loathing. It was
time for them to make their choice.
7. At or about this time, some at least did make
it. Others, it may be, lingered still, in the hope that
the tetrarch's sorrow might be the starting-point of
a true repentance. Among the former we may note
the presence among those who followed the Christ
and " ministered to Him of their substance," of
"Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward."*
This she could hardly have done, according to the
Jewish law of property and marriage, without her
husband's knowledge and consent. From the latter
may have come the facts recorded by the first three
Evangelists, that when Herod heard of the works of
Jesus he was " perplexed," and " said unto his ser
vants, f This is John whom I beheaded, he is risen
from the dead." They were likely to know the
secret history of the enmity between Pilate and their
master, % the promptings of a morbid curiosity (con
science being now seared) which led the latter " for
a long time to desire earnestly to see Jesus, expect
ing to see some miracle wrought by Him," the
brutal scorn and mockery with which he mocked, as
if in retaliation, with the " gorgeous robe," the Pro
phet-King who had condemned those that were "gor
geously apparelled," and lived "in kings' houses." §
8. It may be, and what has been noticed makes it
probable enough, that up to this point the foster-
brother had continued faithful to the relationship
* Luke viii. 1 — 3.
t Matt. xiv. 2. The significance of this passage has been well
brought out in Blunt's "Scriptural Coincidences," iv. 10.
X Luke xiii. 1 ; xxiii. 12. § Luke xxiii. 11.

MANAEN. 385
which that name involved. But soon afterwards
(even if the guilt of that day had not "been enough)
the outward course of events brought about a dis
ruption of it. The ambitious intrigues of the first of
the Herodian Agrippas (the Herod of Acts xii., who
slew James, the brother of John, with the sword),
baffled under Tiberius, enabled him to secure the
favour of Caligula, and that emperor permitted him
to assume the disused title of king. This gave him,
of course, a higher dignity than that of his uncle the
tetrarch, and the pride of Herodias (sister to Agrippa,
both being children of the murdered Aristobulus)
was stung to the quick by this inferiority. Once
again working on her husband's feeble will, she gave
him no peace until he had taken the fatal step of
leaving his tetrarchy, in the hope of obtaining the
privilege of regal rank.* Like the nobleman in the
parable, he " went into a far country to receive for
himself a kingdom and to return." f But the attempt
failed. Accusations of misgovernment, fomented in
part by the discontent of his subjects, and in part by
the secret communications of his nephew, led the
emperor to depose him. He had the mortification
of seeing his tetrarchy merged in the kingdom ot
Agrippa, and was exiled first to Gaul and then to
Spain. Thither, as has been said, he retired with
the partner of his guilt, and we lose sight of him.
The tradition that Pilate also was banished to the
former province, suggests the probability that the
two may have met once again there, to test the value
of the friendship which had been purchased at so
terrible a price. %
* Joseph. Antiq. xviii. 8, 1. t Luke xix. 12.
t See Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible," art. Pilate.
C C

3 86 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
9. At or about this time we have the first actual
mention of the man whose life has thus been half-
conjecturally studied from the scanty materials of
scattered hints and shadowy indications. And now
he appears as foremost among the " prophets and
teachers" of the church of Antioch. Unknown as
he is to us, he stood then on the same level as Bar
nabas, in a higher position than St. Paul. Whatever
his past life had been, it had led him to this.
Through successive stages of the truth, faithful, we
must believe, to the light given him in each, he had
gone on till he too took his place among the light-
bearers of the world, and the prophetic word in him
was to the church in which he ministered as a
light " shining in a dark place." But what calls, I
think, for special notice, as showing the tendency of
the Baptist's teaching, is the fact that he is found at
Antioch, not at Jerusalem, in the mother church of
the Gentiles, not in that of the Circumcision. The
words of John, as he stood and pointed to the
pebbles of the Jordan, " God is able of these stones
to raise up children unto Abraham," contained by
implication the whole Gospel of the calling of the
heathen, and Manaen must have seen that they did
so. At Antioch, too, he must have taken upon him
self the new name which, we know, originated there.
To one who had seen Antipas and Jesus face to face,
or who had, at least, known them both, it must have
been a joy unspeakable to cast off all connection with
the Herodiani, to whom he had at one time outwardly
or in heart belonged, and to take his place among
the Christiani of the Syrian city. Little as he or
any man could then know of the future glories of
that name, he and his companions chose it as one

MANAEN. 387
that was for them above all names. And in other
things too, it would seem that he reproduced, even
while he transcended, the type of his earlier teacher.
As in others, so in him, the prophetic form of utter
ance which had reappeared after long centuries of
desuetude when the voice of John was heard in the
wilderness of Judaea, was powerful in the work of
evangelising. As the disciples of John fasted oft,
so he and those who were with him "fasted" as
they ministered to the Lord, and that solemn minis
tration was followed by new gifts of insight. From
his lips and theirs (as afterwards from the lips of
other prophets in the case of Timotheus) came the
words which marked out the fittest labourers for the
new and mighty work : " Separate me Barnabas and
Saul for the work whereunto I have called them."
One who had begun with the training of an Essene,
and the teaching of the Baptist, now gave the right
hand of fellowship to the two new Apostles, not of
" the Twelve," as they went forth to their work
among the heathen.
10. To such a man, in any case, the Gentile
Church, in its infancy, must have owed much. He
alone (if we adopt the hypothesis which has been
suggested above) of all the earlier teachers of the
Church, may have sojourned in the great imperial
city, and learnt to yearn for the time when it should
own Christ, and not Caesar, as its master. From him
the Apostle of the Gentiles must have had encourage
ment and support in his great struggle against the
Judaisers. There is, I believe, an indefinitely strong
probability that the debt is even greater. Every
thing that we know of St. Luke (traditional and
internal evidence in this case coinciding) indicates

388 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
that his life as a Christian must have begun at An
tioch. He it is who records the first arrival of the
preachers of the Truth in that city, the first adoption
of the new Name, the prophecy of Agabus there,
and the exertions of theAntiochene disciples to relieve
the poverty of their brethren at Jerusalem,* the
names of the prophets and teachers who were con
spicuous there, but were little known, most of them,
elsewhere. When the writer of the Acts unites
himself with St. Paul, as at Troas,f it is clearly as
one who had known and worked with him before.
But, if so, then he must have known Manaen too.
Among those whom he met with at Antioch, there
must have been one, at least, of the " eye-witnesses "
of much that he relates, from whose reports he pro
fesses to compile his Gospel. From him he may
have learnt many of the facts of the history of the
Baptist, some of those, the most characteristic of his
Gospel, in the Galilaean and Peraean ministry of our
Lord. Certain it is that of the features of his
Gospel one of the most striking is the knowledge
which he shows of the details of Herodian history,
the fulness with which he narrates many things in
that history which the other Gospels omit. He tells
us, as we have seen, of the soldiers on their march,
of the conversion of the wife of Herod's steward, of
the tetrarch's desire to see Jesus, of the massacre of
his subjects by Pilate, of the consequent enmity and
later reconciliation of the two rulers, of the righteous
scorn with which our Lord repelled the affected
sympathy or fear of the Pharisees, " Go ye, and tell
that fox." X He it is, again, who records the fact
that the brother of Antipas, Philip, was tetrarch of
* Acts xi. 20, '26, 27. + Acts xvi. 10. X Luke xiii. 32.

MANAEN. 389
Ituraea and Trachonitis,* who gives us in full the
history of Agrippa's death, f and knows the name of
the chamberlain of his court. Of all explanations
that can be given of these facts, the most probable is
that the Evangelist came into contact with some one
who, being a Christian like himself, had at one time
lived much in the circle of Herod's followers, and for
whom, therefore, all facts connected with that family
had an importance which they had not for others.
Whatever interest may attach, as I said at the out
set, to the juxtaposition of the two names of Manaen
and Antipas, whatever thoughts of awe, fear, wonder,
for ourselves or others, it may suggest to us, are
deepened and strengthened by this fuller study.
The danger of the weak will — untrue to its own
convictions, and therefore losing them altogether, or
keeping them only to its own condemnation — the
power of earnestness and faith to triumph over the
temptations of outward circumstances and perilous
companionship, are seen more clearly. Our inquiries,
over and above this result, will, I believe, have added
something to the conviction as we read the Gospels
that we are dealing, not with " cunningly devised
fables," but with true histories, dropping hints,
after the manner of all true histories, naturally and
incidentally, suggesting more than they tell, and
rewarding those who seek diligently with new insight
into the facts which they record.
* Luke iii. 1. t Acts xii. 20—23.

IV.
SIMON OF CYEENE.
IT is one of the characteristics of the history
of our Lord's passion, that it brings lives
and acts that would otherwise have passed
away unknown and unremembered within
the circle of its own surpassing glory. Every cir
cumstance, every person -connected with that divine
event is, as it were, transfigured and immortalised.
They can never be forgotten. The soldiers casting
lots upon the vesture of the Crucified ; the chief
priests mocking ; the two robbers, one persistent in
his hardness to the last, the other repentant and
forgiven ; the centurion confessing that this was a
" righteous man," the " Son of God ;" the by-stander
offering the sponge dipped in vinegar to quench the
thirst of the sufferer ; the soldier piercing the side of
the already lifeless corpse — all these stand before the
eyes of men for ever. We know nothing of their
previous — nothing of their subsequent history.
There is a moment of intense light in which the
good or the evil which was in them is brought out as
with marvellous clearness ; but on either side there
is a thick gloom which we seek in vain to penetrate.
The name which stands at the head of this paper
may seem to come within the same group. The only

SIMON OF CYRENE. 391
fact which we connect with it is that it was borne by
one on whom the Jewish priests and people laid
hold, as he was " coming out of the country," and on
whom they "laid the cross that he might bear it
after Jesus." It is inferred from this, inasmuch as
the common practice in such cases was that the con
demned prisoner should carry his own cross (either
the whole structure or the horizontal beam) to the
place of execution, that the long night of agony in
Gethsemane, and the cruel mockings and scourgings
that had followed, had so exhausted the bodily
strength of the Sufferer, that those who were leading
him to the " Place of a Skull," " outside the city,"
saw that in this case it was physically impossible to
act on the usual rule, and therefore seized on a sub
stitute. In the popular pictorial representations of
the history of the Passion, which the " Stations "
of Eoman Catholic churches have for centuries im
pressed on the mind of Europe, this inference has
been, as it were, dramatised. Our Lord is seen
fainting, fallen to the ground beneath the burden of
the cross. Then, and not till then, is it removed
from the back that could no longer bear it, and
placed upon another.
As we read these facts in the narratives of St.
Matthew and St. Luke, they present some questions
which it is not, at first, easy to answer. Why, out
of all those who are brought into this momentary
contact with the great Sufferer, do the three Evan
gelists name Simon of Cyrene, and him only ? Why,
instead of taking one of the multitude that stood
round, does the mingled crowd of priests, and priests'
attendants, and Eoman soldiers seize on this stranger ?
What made them fix on him for a task which must

392 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
have seemed so ignominious and degrading ? What
effect was produced on the mind of him who was
thus made, as by a constraint which he could not
resist, " a witness of the sufferings of Christ," by all
that he saw of the patience, holiness, meekness, love
of the Son of Man ? Here was one of whom it was
literally true, as it never had been before, and never
could be afterwards, that he took up his cross — yes,
the very cross of Christ, and followed Him ! Can
we think of one who was thus led to so full a share
in the glory and the shame of that day, and not wish
to know whether he was the better or the worse for
it ? To be simply as he had been before, to let the
routine of his life go on as it had done, with no fresh
spring of awe, reverence, love, on the one hand, and
yet with no increased hardness, scorn, hate, on the
other, must, we may well believe, have been im
possible. The narrative of St. Mark, here, as in so many
other instances, fuller— in spite of its general brevity
— than that of the other Gospels, adding significant
notices which we do not find in them, gives, in part,
an answer to these questions. "They compelled,"
so he tells the story, " one Simon, a Cyrenian, who
passed by, coming out of the country, the father
of Alexander and Bufus, to bear his cross " (xv. 21).
It is obvious that the two names are mentioned as
being well known both to the writer and the readers,
as giving the latter a new association with the less-
known name of Simon. Those for whom St. Mark
wrote had known, as conspicuous members of the
society to which they themselves belonged, two sons
of the man who bore the cross of Jesus. There is,
one might almost say, an indirect appeal to their

SIMON OF CYRENE. 393
testimony. They had heard from their father what
had passed on Golgotha, and could bear witness
whether the report which the Evangelist gave agreed
with it.
I am but following in the track of many commen
tators in suggesting the probable identity of one of
the sons of Simon of Cyrene with a disciple to whom
St. Paul sends a message of specially warm regard
in Eomans xvi. 13. " Salute Bufus, chosen in the
Lord, and his mother, and mine." External tradi
tion and internal evidence converge to the conclu
sion that the Gospel of St. Mark was written in the
first instance, as embodying the recollections of St.
Peter, and for the disciples of that Apostle in the
Church of Eome. Ih that church we find, as stand
ing among his foremost workers, " elect among the
elect," not only "called" in the Lord, but "chosen"
as for high gifts and a special work, one whom St.
Mark's readers would know and honour. Such an
one fulfils the conditions which were suggested by
the mention of Bufus in the narrative of the Evan
gelist. Worthless as are the apocryphal books that
profess to record the incidents of the apostolic age,
there is a slight addition to the probability of an
inference in itself sufficiently credible, from the fact
that in that which bears the title of " The Acts of
Andrew and Peter," both the names mentioned by
St. Mark appear as among the Christians that dwelt
at Eome.
So far, then, we have every reason for believing
that the two sons of him whom we may venture to
call the Cross-bearer, took their place in the goodly
fellowship of Eoman disciples whom St. Paul salutes.
With Priscilla, and Aquila, and Epaenetus, and

394 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Andronicus, with those who " laboured much in the
Lord," and were " beloved in the Lord," steadfast in
the faith, bringing forth the fruits of love, their
names were written in the book of life. We are led
almost irresistibly to the conclusion that he who
bore the cross and witnessed the crucifixion became
a believer in the Crucified; that he imparted this
faith to those who were nearest and dearest to him
in the ties of blood ; that he and his were baptized,
and that his sons, at least, devoted themselves to
the work of ministering to the saints ; — we should
hardly err, looking to the place in which we find
them, and the way in which they are spoken of, in
saying— to the work also of evangelists.
This, however, is but the first step in the inquiry.
We have to add — (1) that the way in which St.
Paul mentions the Bufus of whom he speaks implies
that he had known him personally, and felt to
wards him as a brother. But at the time when St.
Paul wrote to the Christians of Eome he had never
visited that city, and must, therefore, have been
acquainted with him elsewhere. At Antioch, or
Corinth, or Thessalonica, in some of the great
centres of his apostolic activity, the two had met,
and learnt to love each other. (2) But St. Paul's
words imply another fact of even greater interest.
" Salute," he says, " Eufus, chosen in the Lord, and
his mother, and mine." If the inference which has
been drawn as to Eufus be legitimate, then this was
none else than the wife or widow of Simon of
Cyrene, and it is of her that the Apostle of the
Gentiles writes as one who had shown a mother's
love towards him, and to whom, therefore, he looked
as with a son's reverence. In some time of need, in

SIMON OF CYRENE. 395
some attack of the mysterious and painful disease
from which he so frequently suffered, she, it may
well be, had ministered to his necessities, and soothed
the sharp hours of pain with a tenderness that he
could not forget. If he thus knew and honoured
the wife, he may well have known the husband.*
He, too, if a convert, must have been a conspicuous
one. We have enough — in the position which he
occupied in the Church of Jerusalem, or elsewhere
— to explain the prominence given to him in the
narratives of the first three Gospels.
But, starting from these conclusions, we may ask,
I believe, whether there is not an indefinitely strong
probability that Simon of Cyrene was, even before
the one incident which has made his name so me
morable, among the circle, if not of disciples, yet
of those who "believed secretly" that Jesus was a
Teacher sent from God, though they shrank from
confessing him as the Christ ? This hypothesis at
least supplies an explanation of some of the facts
that seemed perplexing. All the avowed disciples
of our Lord had forsaken Him and fled. If St. John
had left the palace of the high priest to follow his
Master to the place of execution, the fact that he
was known to Caiaphas, which had protected him
there, would protect him still. The Eoman centu
rion, or the priests who for the time usurped his
functions in arranging the details of the execution,
did not dare to seize one of the crowd of their own
partisans and compel him to undergo the ignominy
of bearing the malefactor's cross. But if, by a
* It is not without interest to remember, in this connexion, and
as strengthening the probability of some intercourse between
Simon and St. Luke at Antioch, the fact that Cyrene was famous
for its physicians.

396 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
seeming casualty, there fell in their way, " coming
from the country," and, therefore, unconscious of all
that had passed since the Passover of the previous
night, one whom they suspected of being a disciple,
how natural, in that case, would it be that they
should take the opportunity for wreaking their rage
on yet another victim ! He who had shrunk from
an open confession of his faith was now made
to take part in that procession, bearing the cross,
as a rebel or a robber might bear it, exposed to
the gaze of the multitude, listening to their gibes
and scoffs, bearing, in very deed, the " reproach of
Christ." Can we believe, if this were so, that the circum
stances which brought about such a result, and which
afterwards bore such fruit, were indeed fortuitous ?
If the man who passed through that strange disci
pline were indeed one of those who believed in their
hearts, but would make no confession with their lips,
one who, like many of the "chief rulers" of whom
St. John speaks, were disciples " secretly for fear of
the Jews," "lest they should be put out of the
synagogue" (xii. 42), loving the praise of men more
than the praise of God, must we not believe that this
was the very discipline which he needed ? For such
as he was the words had been spoken : " If any man
will come after me, let him deny himself, and take
up his cross daily, and follow me " (Luke ix. 23).
" He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after
me, is not worthy of me" . . . "cannot be my dis
ciple" (Matt. x. 34; Luke xiv. 27). If for a time
such warnings passed unheeded, the time which
brought with it a literal fulfilment of the words,
without or against the will of the wavering disciple,

SIMON OF CYRENE. 397
must have helped to fix on his mind their spiritual
significance, and, as the sequel showed, to realise it
in his life.
But the line of inquiry on which we have entered
carries us yet further. The fact that Simon of Cyrene
had thus been brought within the brotherhood of the
disciples connects itself with the history of the ex
pansion of the Apostolic Church. Cyrene, originally
a Greek colony in Western Africa, had come, after
the conquest of Carthage, under the power of Eome,
and, as with most other commercial cities in the
Empire, it had attracted a considerable Jewish po
pulation. The first settlers of that race had been sent
from Alexandria by Ptolemy Lagus. They multiplied
and prospered, occupied a district of the city as
their own, and were about one-fourth of the popula
tion. They were numerous and powerful enough,
in the time of Sylla, to make him send Lucullus to
suppress an insurrection there, at the time when he
was pressing on with all his forces to the Mithridatic
war. They were in the habit of sending up large
contributions to the Temple at Jerusalem, and having
been hindered in this by some of their fellow-
townsmen, obtained a special edict from Augustus,
authorising them to continue it. Like all the towns
of Western Africa, its people were in frequent inter
course with Eome. Pilgrims from the " parts of
Libya round about Cyrene " were present, as on the
day of Pentecost (Acts ii. 10), at all the great
festivals at Jerusalem. They were important enough
to have a synagogue in that city, either entirely to
themselves or in conjunction with the Libertines
(freedmen, i.e., emancipated Jews from Eome), the
Alexandrians, and those of Cilicia and of Asia.

398 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
They belonged, as this enumeration shows, to the
division of Hellenistic or Greek-speaking Jews, to
whom St. Stephen's teaching was mainly directed,
and with whom Saul of Tarsus (though also a
Hebrew of the Hebrews) was mainly associated. In
the case of the Cilician zealot, we know that that
teaching, though it raised him to the intense white
heat of the persecuting spirit at first, was afterwards
reproduced and expanded in many different ways.
If there were any of the Jews of Cyrene who had
been at all drawn towards the faith of Christ pre
viously, the work may well have gone on among
them with greater rapidity, and with no intervening
paroxysm of opposition. It is at all events notice
able that they are among the foremost labourers in
carrying on St. Stephen's work to its legitimate
conclusion, and are the first, together with those
of Cyprus (here, of course, we trace the influence
of Barnabas), in opening the " door of faith " to the
Gentiles. " They which were scattered abroad upon
the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled
as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preach
ing the word to none but unto the Jews only "
(Acts xi. 19). So far, i.e., they kept within the
limits which had bounded the work of the Apostles
at Jerusalem before the great crucial instance of the
conversion of Cornelius. But then came the stage
of expansion : " And some of them were men of
Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to
Antioch, spake unto the Greeks (i.e., the uncircum
cised heathen population), preaching the Lord Jesus."
Here, accordingly, we have Cyrenian disciples active
in the foundation of the Church of the Gentiles.
The work which they begin is carried on by Bar-

SIMON OF CYRENE. 399
nabas. After a short interval of time, he goes to
Tarsus to seek Saul, and returns with him to Antioch.
Here, accordingly, it is beyond all question that the
Apostle of the Gentiles would come into close fel
lowship with Jewish Christians of Cyrene, like-
minded with himself, taking the same view of the
conditions of salvation and the law of the Church's
life. The facts which came before us at starting
make it, in a very high degree, probable that those
Christians may have included Simon and Alexander
and Eufus. Here, then, may have begun that
intimacy which utters itself in the salutation in the
Epistle to the Eomans. Here, Mark the Evangelist,
sister's son to Barnabas, who was working in the
same city with those Cyrenian teachers, may have
become personally acquainted with the two sons of
Simon whom he names, and have learnt from Simon
himself the part which he took in the procession to
Calvary. Here the Apostle of the Gentiles may
have found in the new sympathy and love bestowed
on him that which made him feel that for the
natural relationships which he had lost he had
received a hundred-fold.
One of these Cyrenian teachers steps a little while
afterwards into fuller prominence. Among the pro
phets of the Church of Antioch, eager to extend the
Gentile Church, ministering to the Lord and fasting,
with their hearts set, in eager desire and expecta
tion, on that special work, we find with Barnabas
and Saul and Manaen, two others, "Simeon that
was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene." There
can hardly be a doubt that the latter was one of
those who had begun the good work, and was now
carrying it on to its completion; one, therefore,

400 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
whose heart and soul were in entire sympathy with
St. Paul. And if so, remembering how others in
that company gave themselves to the work of evan
gelists in distant lands, it will not seem strange to
find Lucius also as a fellow- worker with the Apostle
of the Gentiles. One of that name is, at all events,
with him when he writes the Epistle to the Eomans
(xvi. 21), and is spoken of in the same tone of
affection as Eufus had been, as one of his " kinsmen,"
bound to him (the mention of Jason and Sosipater,
one of Thessalonica and the other of Beroea, seems
almost to exclude natural relationship) by some
special ties of spiritual affinity, even as the mother
of Eufus was his mother also.
The name of " Simeon called Niger " suggests a
more striking, though a more precarious identifica
tion. For the two forms, Simon and Simeon, were
(as we see in Acts xv. 14 ; 2 Peter i. 1) interchange
able, and the epithet Niger might be applied na
turally enough to one who came from Africa. On
the other hand, it must, however, be remembered
that the name was one of the most common" then
current among the Jews of all countries, and the
name of Simon of Cyrene would probably have
been mentioned by St. Luke in the second part
of his history in the same form as in the first. If
I were to hazard any conjecture, it would be rather
that the presence of the one Simon made it ne
cessary to distinguish the other partly by the fuller
form of the name, and partly by a distinguishing
epithet. It may be added, as one step further in the chain
of coincidences, that the traditional accounts of St.
Mark's missionary work represent him as laying the

SIMON OF CYRENE. 401
foundation of the Christian Church in the Cyrenian
provinces of Libya. Taken by itself, such a tradi
tion is, of course, worth very little ; but in conjunc
tion with all that has been brought forward tending
to connect the nephew of Barnabas with eminent
disciples from that province, it can at least claim
the credit (not always due to such traditions) of
being in harmony with the acknowledged facts of
Scripture.

D D

ST. PAUL AND THE SISTEEHOOD AT
PHILIPPI.
v..:~ ;"w*T has been remarked by almost every
commentator on the Epistle to the Philip-
pians, that of all the churches which St.
^ Paul had founded, it was on this thdt his
thoughts rested with the most entire satisfaction.
From first to last there is not one word of censure.
It breathes throughout the spirit of thankfulness
and joy. In no other Epistle does the writer so often
speak to those whom he addresses as his " beloved."
He remembers them in every prayer, in every
thanksgiving. From the "first day," until the
time when he writes, their fellowship in the Gospel
had filled him with the hope that God, who had
begun so good a work, would also bring it to
perfection (i. 5, 6). The influence to which all this
was owing has not, I think, been recognised with
equal clearness, and in placing the title which I have
chosen at the head of this paper, I wish to indicate
my belief that the church of Philippi has, in addition
to other points of interest, this special characteristic,
— that we are able to trace in it the way in which
the new faith preached by the Apostles told in the
first instance upon the hearts and lives of women,

THE PHILIPPIAN SISTERHOOD. 403
and through them, and in proportion to their activity,
gained the power of attracting men by its purity and
beauty. It is hardly, I believe, an undue anticipa
tion of the phraseology of a later period to speak ot
those who were thus working in the cause of Christ,
as a sisterhood, bound together, if not by rules and
vows, yet by the consciousness of a common purpose.
1. It will be remembered that as this was the first
European city in which St. Paul had borne his
witness, so also it was, more entirely than any large
city which he had visited, free from the admixture
of a Jewish element in its population. In the vision
which had drawn the Apostle thither, working
together as it did with impulses which he recognised
as coming from a Spirit higher than his own, it was
no child of Abraham, but a " man of Macedonia,"
the representative of western heathenism, whom he
saw pleading as with outstretched hands, " Come
over and help us" (Acts xvi. 9). And when he
arrived at Philippi with Silas and Timotheus and
St. Luke, they found no synagogue which they could
take, as they had done in most Asiatic cities, as the
starting-point of their labours. In any case this
would imply that there were very few Jewish resi
dents there. If we believe that the rule of the
Jewish rabbis, that there should be a synagogue
wherever there were ten householders, was operative
in Europe as in Palestine, it would enable us to
estimate how few. It would appear, indeed, as if
there were absolutely none. When the preachers
go to that river-side, at which (as at Eome and
elsewhere) " prayer was wont to be made," in the
absence of a building set apart for the purpose, they
spake unto " the women who resorted thither " (Acts

404 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
xvi. 13). They do not seem, though it was the
Sabbath day, to have found a single Jewish listener
of the other sex. It seems to follow from this that
the women themselves were not Jewesses. Had
they been so, they would hardly have been there
without their brothers, their fathers, or their hus
bands. Of the only one who is named, indeed, and
whom we may fairly look upon as representing the
others, we are distinctly told that she " worshipped
God" (Acts xvi. 14), i.e., according to the established
sense of that phrase, that she was a Gentile proselyte,
who had come in contact with the faith of Israel and
had renounced idolatry.
2. The question how they had advanced thus far,
in the absence of any Jewish teachers at Philippi, is
one which we can only answer conjecturally. The
explanation is, I believe, to be found in the two facts,
(1) that Philippi was a Eoman colony ; (2) that the
decree of Claudius, commanding the Jews to depart
from Eome, had been but recently issued. Consist
ing, as a " colony" of this kind, of comparatively
recent foundation, necessarily did, of families who
came from Eome, and kept up, more or less, their
old relations with it, it might well contain those who
had there become acquainted with the Jews — whose
very zeal and success in making proselytes, especially
among the women of the upper classes, had been
one, at least, of the causes of their expulsion. And
it is, I think, probable enough, looking to the rigime
which identified the Eoman " colony " with the
mother city, so that the laws of the one were the
laws also of the other, that the edict of Claudius had
been acted on, with more or less rigour, at Philippi.
In other cities, not so identified, Judaism might still

THE PHILIPPIAN SISTERHOOD. 405
be a "relligio licita," a lawful, tolerated faith. It
had ceased to be so in Eome, and, by parity of reason,
in the cities which were constitutionally almost as
parts of Eome. Philippi is the one city in which
the precise ground of accusation against the apostolic
preachers is, that they " being Jews, do exceedingly
trouble our city, and teach customs" (they obviously
draw no distinction between Jewish and Christian
customs) " which are not lawful for us to receive,
neither to observe, being Bomans " (Acts xvi. 20, 21).
If this were so, then its effect would be to expel from
Philippi even the few Jews who had been there pre
viously, and so would explain their entire absence
from the scene when the Apostle's labours began.
3. The first convert there was Lydia, the purple
seller, of Thyatira. It may be noted in connection
with her presence there, that that city was itself
originally a Macedonian colony ; that here, too, the
intercourse between the mother country and the
families of the emigrants was likely to be kept up.
Some form, more or less complete, of Judaism or
Orientalism had found its way there, and outside the
walls there stood a shrine which contained what was
known as the Chaldean court, and was dedicated to
the Jewish or Chaldean Sibyl that bore the name
of Sambatha.* Lydia herself belonged to the guild
of the dyers of the purple for which the city, like
Miletus and other towns, was famous. They would
seem, from inscriptions which they have left, to have
been a wealthy body. The business required capital.
Everything seems to indicate that Lydia herself
was comparatively rich. She is the head of a
* Comp. the article Thyatira in Dr. Smith's "Dictionary of the
Bible," by Mr. Blakesley.

406 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
numerous household, possibly men and women work
ing under her orders. She receives St. Paul and his
three companions as guests. Her house becomes the
meeting-place of the brethren (Acts xvi. 15, 40).
She could hardly have been the only, though she
may well have been the chief, convert in that com
pany of women by the river-side. We may see in
her and her companions those who were the first-
fruits of the church, likely to exercise as much in
fluence there as Priscilla did at Corinth, or Ephesus,
or Eome.
4. The incident of the girl possessed with " a
spirit of divination " strikes us commonly only on its
wonderful and supernatural side. But let us think
for a moment what such a description implies.
Whatever view we take of the cause, the effect was,
that she, with her morbid, excited temperament, with
every nerve in extreme tension, and subject to pa
roxysms of wild prophetic fury, was precisely in the
state which is most susceptible to religious impres
sions. She, too, listens to the preaching of the
Apostle, and her heart also is opened. She catches,
convulsively, spasmodically, at the thought that here
there is " a way of salvation" from the misery in
which she found herself. She is drawn, "day by
day," to the same spot, listening to those whom she
recognises as " servants of the most high God,"*
proclaiming her faith in the wild frenzied manner
which belonged to her condition. The words of the
* It will be noticed that the possessed girl uses the self-same
Divine Name, "the Most High God," as that which we find
uttered by the demoniacs of Palestine in the Gospel history (Mark
v. 7 ; Luke viii. 28). This implies clearly that she had come in
contact with teaching of some kind higher than the popular
Polytheism of Greece. For the history of that Name and its special
significance at this period, compare Study IL, 0. T., in this volume.

THE PHILIPPIAN SISTERHOOD. 407
Apostle, indeed, spoken to the evil spirit, "I com
mand thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out
of her," brought calmness and peace to her (Acts
xvi. 16 — 18). The morbid excitement passed away.
Are we to believe that those words also robbed her
of her faith ? Does not the analogy of every work
of healing performed upon demoniacs in the Gospel
history warrant the belief that they must have
strengthened while they sobered it? Like Mary
Magdalene, " out of whom went seven devils," who
had been, i.e., not (as we often think) a sinner
against purity, but in this frenzied demoniac state,
she, too, would be eager to devote herself to Him in
whom she had found deliverance. All that had
made her valuable in the eyes of her masters was
gone from her, and it would not be difficult for any
one who wished, to help her to obtain her freedom,
even if she were not cast adrift as useless.
5. I pass over the history of the Philippian gaoler,
noting only what we should note, if such a conversion
occurred in the missionary work of our own times in
Madagascar or Japan, that here too, the fact that
the keeper of the prison and his household were
members of the new community would work dis
tinctly and directly in two ways. It would make
him a preacher of the faith to those, the poor and
the criminals, with whom his office brought him into
contact. It would open a wide sphere of activity to
those who had learnt the new law of life that, in
ministering to them that were " sick or in prison,"
they were ministering to their Lord. If the church
at Philippi consisted mainly, as we have seen it did,
of these devout women, it would be just such a
sphere of work as they would welcome. So, too, St.

408 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Luke's continued presence there (and everything
seems to indicate that he stayed after St. Paul's
departure, and remained till he returned some seven
years later*), the presence of the " beloved physician"
no less than of " one whose praise was in the Gospel
in all the churches"! must be thought of (if we would
judge once again of the mission work of the first
century as we judge of that of the nineteenth) as
specially likely to foster these ministrations. If we
remember what prominence he gives in his Gospel
and in the Acts, to what one might almost call the
communistic element of the life of the first disciples, %
what special mention he makes of the women who
followed Jesus, and ministered to Him of their sub
stance (Luke viii. 2, 3), of Dorcas and her clothing
club for the poor of Joppa (Acts ix. 36 — 39), of the
daily ministration to the widows at Jerusalem (Acts
vi. 1), we shall not wonder that his influence should
be traced in a society such as the Philippian church.
Certain it is that the hints dropped here and there
indicate that it was composed mainly of the lower
strata of society, of mechanics, small traders, slaves,
and that these continued, so far as we can trace the
church at all, to be predominantly Gentile. When
* I refer, of course, to the cessation of the first person plural in
the narrative after St. Paul's departure from Philippi (Acts xvii. 1),
and to its re-appearance when he returns there (Acts xx. 2).
t 2 Cor. viii. 18. The identification is, of course, not certain,
but it seems to me far more probable than any other. The date of
St. Luke's Gospel was probably, it is true, later ; and it is ques
tionable how far the word " gospel " was then applied to a narrative
of our Lord's life. On the other hand, Luke had been doing the
work of an evangelist in the wider sense, he was the natural repre
sentative of the Philippian church, he had been chosen to travel
with St. Paul. He fulfils all the conditions of the case far more
completely than either Trophirnus, or Tychicus, or Aristarchus.
X Luke iii. 11 ; ix. 3 ; x. 4 ; xii. 33 ; xvi. 11 ; xviii. 22 ; xix, 8 ;
Acts ii. 44, 45 ; iv. 32—34.

THE PHILIPPIAN SISTERHOOD 409
they contributed to the relief of the Christians (the
" saints ") of Jerusalem, their liberality stood out all
the more brightly because it was contrasted with
their "deep poverty" (2 Cor. viii. 1). When St.
Paul writes to them, eleven years later, he sends his
salutation to the " saints that are at Philippi with
the Bishops and Deacons " (Phil. i. 1), i.e., he chooses
of the two words which were then synonyms* for the
same office, not "presbyters" or " elders," the title
which came to the Christian church from the con
stitution of the Jewish synagogue, but Episcopi,
" overseers," " superintendents," the name which
belonged to the organization of the Imperial Go
vernment in its Greek and Eastern provinces. Of
all explanations of the application of the two names
to the same persons, this is the most natural in
itself, and the most in harmony with all the facts
with which we have to deal, and the result in this
instance confirms the conclusion already drawn from
other data as to the almost exclusively Gentile cha
racter of the Philippian church.
6. The subsequent history of that church pre
sented a contrast in many ways to that of most
others. They alone " communicated " with the
Apostle " as concerning giving and receiving."
Twice while he was at Thessalonica they sent con
tributions towards the expenses of his mission work
(Phil. iv. 15, 16). They continued the same li
berality when he was at Corinth. And he, in his
* The fact of their being synonymous is seen at once by com
paring (1), Acts xx. 17, 28, where St. Paul sends for the elders of
Ephesus, and then speaks to them as overseers or bishops; and (2),
Titus i. 5, 6, elders are to be appointed in every city fulfilling
certain conditions, " for a bishop must be blameless." The men
tion of the two " bishops and deacons " without any third name is,
of course, decisive as to the absence of a third order.

410 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
turn, as with a courtesy yielding to their strong
affection, relaxed in their favour the rule on which
he commonly acted, of receiving no payment in
money or in kind from the churches which he had
founded. He incurred, it would seem, in consequence,
some ill-will at the hands of the Corinthian dis
ciples, who complained that he was too proud to
accept their offerings, and yet could bring himself
to accept those of the Macedonians (2 Cor. xi. 7, 8).
7. The seeming strangeness of the absence of any
Philippian names from the list of those who were
sent as delegates of the western churches to accom
pany St. Paul to Jerusalem, is of course explained
by the fact that St. Luke himself (whose presence is
indicated by the reappearance of the pronoun " we "
in the narrative at this stage) was that delegate,
sent now on this errand, as he had, probably, been
sent before on one of a like nature, to the church of
Corinth. 8. For a time — during the imprisonment at Caesa-
rea, and the voyage to Italy, and the winter at Melita
— we find no traces of any further intercourse. They
had not, indeed, forgotten their spiritual father.
They were still " careful," but they " lacked oppor
tunity " (Phil. iv. 10). But when he was settled at
Eome the opportunities were renewed, and we have
indications that they were used to the full. Their
" care for him flourished again." They heard of the
hardships he had to undergo at Eome, and they sent
Epaphroditus with their gifts to relieve them (Phil.
iii. 25). Messengers brought back to Philippi the
tidings that the faithful delegate they had thus sent
had been seized with a sickness which brought him
" nigh unto death," the consequence, in some way or

THE PHILIPPIAN SISTERHOOD. 411
other, of his zeal in the work of Christ. Then there
came back to him, as he was regaining health, the
news that those tidings had caused in them a sorrow
so great that he was oppressed with the thought of
having caused it (Phil. ii. 26 — 30). To meet that
sorrow, the Apostle sends him with the letter from
which we learn these facts. He looks forward to
seeing yet once again those whom he loved so
dearly, every one of whom was in his heart, after
whom he longed, as in the very heart of Christ
(Phil. i. 8, 26 ; ii. 24).
9. All this emotional element in the relations be
tween St. Paul and the Philippians fits in naturally
with the conclusions that have been drawn as to the
predominant influence in it. But we are not left on
this matter to mere inference or hypothesis. In the
few personal salutations which the Epistle contains,
the two names which first meet us are those of Euodia
and Syntyche, whom he beseeches to be " of one
mind." Then, it may be, as in the experiences ot
other sisterhoods, some difference of temperament or
opinion between those who were zealously engaged
in the same work had threatened to pass into alien
ation. He appeals to some unnamed teacher as his
" true yoke-fellow " to help those women who had
laboured with him, the Apostle, in the Gospel.
Those who had most shared his actual work as an
evangelist were not the bishops and deacons, but the
devout women, who, in his several visits to Philippi,
had put themselves under his direction. And, if I
mistake not, we may find in one passage, the signifi
cance of which has not hitherto, I believe, been
noticed, an allusion to the active benevolence of one
of those two whose names have already met us. As,

412 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
in writing to Philemon, St. Paul plays upon the
meaning of the name of the runaway slave Onesimus
(the useful) as that of one who had before been
"unprofitable," but was now "profitable" to his
master (Philemon 10, 11), so we may find a like
playful and graceful paronomasia here. He speaks
of the gifts which the Philippians had sent him as
being " an odour of a sweet smell" (oa-^rjv euwSiac)
(Phil. iv. 18). It was, of course, a natural descrip
tion enough in any case ; but if we remember that
one of those who were most prominent in all works
of love herself bore the name of Euodia, or " Fra
grance," we shall see that in this instance there was
a special aptness and, so to speak, piquancy in its
use. The gift which he had received came to him
as with " sweet " memories from her whose name
was " sweetness."*
10. There are good grounds for believing that the
Apostle's hope that he should see his beloved Philip
pians once again was not unfulfilled, and we can also,
I believe, trace the influence of this sisterhood and
its organization in his later writings. Assuming,
with nearly all the better commentators on the
Pastoral Epistles, that the first Epistle to Timothy
was written between his two imprisonments at Eome,

* The remarks in the text are traced upon the so-called received
reading which makes the name Euodia. Euodias, which would be
a masculine form, is one of the instances in which the Authorised
Version is inferior in accuracy to both the Geneva and the Bhemish
translations which preceded it, and which give the forms " Euodia"
and "Euchodia" respectively. The strange insertion of the
guttural " ch " in the latter had appeared before in Wiclif, and
some MSS. of the Latin Vulgate. Many of the better MSS.,
however, give it with a short " o," Euodia, and this would have a
different meaning, the "prosperous" one, "one in the right way."
But even if this were the true name, the change would be so slight
as quite to come within the legitimate license of ajeu de mot.

THE PHILIPPIAN SISTERHOOD. 413
we may call to mind that when he wrote it he had
but a short while before been journeying from
Ephesus to Macedonia (1 Tim. i. 3) ; and if so, then,
in the common order of travel, Philippi would be his
first halting-place. May we not believe that the
rules which he lays down so emphatically for the
organization of women's labour in the Asiatic
churches (rules obviously new, at least in part, to
Timotheus and the church over which he presided)
were based upon what he had seen in the developed
working of that Philippian church where it was so
prominent ? Whether this were so or not, we may
at all events gather from the Pastoral Epistles what
that organization was. It was not meant, in the first
instance, to interfere with the duties and affections
of the life of the family. The very name by which
the order was known, that of the " widows," showed
that those who formed it had lost the tie which bound
them to the world. As long as they had strength
they maintained themselves from their own resources,
or by their own labours, or those of others, and gave
themselves to the work of bringing up children,
visiting the sick, clothing the naked, " washing the
saints' feet," receiving, that is, the Christian traveller
and ministering to his wants. At the age of sixty
they were entered on the register of the church as
entitled (in the absence of any children or grand
children able to support them) to a maintenance out
of the church's funds (1 Tim. v. 3 — 16). Their Hfe
was then to be looked on as devoted to " supplica
tions and prayers night and day." The generic
name seems then to have been used with a certain
latitude of application. There were (1) the " widows
indeed" above sixty, and living lives of devotion;

414 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
(2) those under that age, and still in the full activity
of service ; (3) the younger widows whom St. Paul
counsels Timothy to reject, for whom he expressed
the wish that they would "marry and bear children."
11. As far as the words go, there are no traces
here of any organized work (such as we read of a
little later in the post-apostolic age*) for women who
were still unmarried. It may be that none such
were at that time admitted into the list. I incline,
however, as to a more probable hypothesis, to the
belief that this name, like so many others, was at
first wide enough to take in these also, and that these
were those whom St. Paul had chiefly in view in the
wish just referred to. He would scarcely, we may
believe, have counselled a " widow " in the strict
sense of the term to marry again, and so to forfeit
all chance of the pension for old age, which was
given only to those who had been the wives of one
husband (1 Tim. v. 9).
12. Here our knowledge of St. Paul's relations to
the Philippian sisterhood ceases altogether. But we
have very clear and interesting evidence that it
continued its work there. When Polycarp, the
Bishop of Smyrna, wrote to that church in the
second century, he exhorted the "widows" to be
sound in the faith, incessant in their prayers, true
to their calling. They are to be, each of them, as
holy as an altar of God (c. 4). And then the neces
sity for drawing a distinction between the classes
that had all gone by one common name had led to a
change in the terminology. At Philippi, as a little

* Tertullian (De Virg. Veland., c. 9) mentions one instance of a
"virgin" admitted at the age of twenty into the ranks of the
" widows."

THE PHILIPPIAN SISTERHOOD. 415
later at the churches of Western Africa, and most
others, we read of "virgins " as well as "widows"
(c. 5).* The Epistle of Ignatius to the Philippians
is beyond all question spurious, and, therefore, no
value can be attached to its testimony historically.
Indirectly, however (as a forger would be likely to
adapt his work to the circumstances of the case), it
is mteresting to note that the writer who thus per
sonates the martyr of Antioch, sends his warm salu
tations to " the company of the virgins and the order
of the widows."
13. I notice, lastly, a coincidence a little less
certain, but not, I think, less striking. When St.
Paul sends his salutations to the women who had
worked with him in the Gospel, he couples with them
the name of " Clement and other his fellow-labourers
whose names were in the book of life " (Phil. iv. 3).
It has been a long-standing tradition that this was
none other than the Clement of Eome who has left
us two epistles to the church of Corinth, of which
the first, at least, is genuine, and to whom are
ascribed other writings undoubtedly spurious. The
name was, indeed, too common to be a sufficient
ground of identification, but the facts, so far as they
go, fit in with it. As St. Paul's mention of him
shows, his work at that time was chiefly at Philippi.
If we suppose him to have been permanently resident
there, he would yet, as the language of the owners
of the demoniac girl shows, be in the fullest sense of
the word, a " Eoman," by virtue of the " colonial"
right of that city, and this would explain the facts
* The words, however, are not very definite, and may refer to
unmarried women generally, not to such as enrolled themselves
under that title for labours of love in the cause of Christ.

4i 6 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
(1) that he wrote in Greek, not Latin, and (2) that
it was to the church of Corinth (between which and
Philippi there had been such constant intercourse
in the Apostle's lifetime) that this epistle was ad
dressed. And if this be a permissible hypothesis,
then the stress which he too lays on the service
of devoted women, and on their heroic endurance
of suffering and hardship in the work of Christ, has
something of the same kind of groundwork as that
which we find in Polycarp. Even the perplexing
words which have been the torment of commentators,
in which Clement refers in glowing phrase to the
heroic acts of " Danae and Dirce,"* in bearing wit
ness to the truth, may perhaps refer to some of those
who had gathered by the river-side at Philippi, and
had afterwards been called on to suffer (as St. Paul's
language implies they did) as well as labour for
the faith.f
* Clem. Eom., 1 Cor. c. 6.
f I gladly refer those who wish to pursue this inquiry further
to the Introduction to Dr. Lightfoot's masterly " Commentary on
the Epistle to the Philippians."

VI.
AQUILA AND PEISCILLA.
fMONG the subordinate workers of the
Apostolic Church, there are few that
occupy a more prominent position than
the two whose lives and characters I have
taken as the subject of this paper. It lies in the
very nature of the case that much of what I have to
say of them should have been already said by others,
I shall be satisfied if I remind some readers of what
they knew already, and bring before the minds of
others some facts, and inferences from facts, which, it
may be, are altogether new to them.
The first mention of the two names with which we
come in contact is in Acts xviii. 1, 2 : " Paul de
parted from Athens, and came to Corinth ; and found
a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately
come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla (because that
Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from
Eome) ; and came unto them ; and because he was of
the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought,
for by their occupation they were tentmakers."
Some facts of interest have to be noticed in connec
tion with each of these particulars.
I. The name Aquila meets us about three quarters
of a century later (circ. a.d. 130), in the time of the
E E

4i 8 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Emperor Hadrian, as belonging to another. Aquila,
who translated the Old Testament Scriptures into
Greek, aiming at a more literal accuracy than that
of the Septuagint, was also a native of Pontus. The
latter is said to have been a heathen by birth, to
have made profession of Christianity for a time, and
finally to have become a proselyte to Judaism, and
received the rite of circumcision. The history sug
gests, at least, the probability of some connection
between the earlier and later bearers of the name.
When St. Peter writes his letter to the Jews of the
Dispersion, those in Pontus stand first in order
(1 Peter i. 1), and it would have been alike natural
for the first Aquila to do the work of an evangelist
in his own country, and for his name to have been
adopted by those who owed their conversion, directly
or indirectly, to his teaching. The name itself had
been borne by a conspicuous member of an illustrious
Eoman house (Aquila Pontius, one of the murderers
of Julius Caesar), and so might have come to be
adopted by others.* On the other hand, it furnishes
an interesting instance at an early date of a practice
that afterwards became common, that is, the adop
tion by Jews who were settled among the heathens
of the names of animals instead of those which
gave direct evidence of Israelitish origin. Wolff,
Bar (Bear), Hirsch (Stag), Adler (Eagle, the exact
equivalent of Aquila), are familiar instances of this.
The question whether this Aquila were a Christian
at the time when St. Paul came in contact with him,
has been much debated. On the one hand it has

* The suggestion that we ought to think of Aquila as belonging
to the Pontian gens, instead of being of Pontus by birth, has little
to recommend it.

AQUILA AND PRISCILLA. 419
been urged that, if he had been, the narrator would
have named him as a disciple ; on the other, that,
if he had not been, there would have been, as in
the case of Lydia (Acts xvi. 14) and Crispus (Acts
xviii. 8), some mention of the fact of his conversion
and his baptism. So far the probabilities may seem
to be nearly balanced. But to this there must be
added, first, the unlikelihood of an unbelieving Jew
receiving a man like St. Paul into his employment,
and coming to be, as such, on terms of intimate
companionship with him ; and second, the series of
events that preceded the arrival of Aquila at Corinth.
II. These are given us, partly in St. Luke's words
already quoted, partly in the account of the same
fact given by Suetonius in his life of Claudius. It
formed part of the policy of that emperor, dictated
by his wives and freedmen, to foster all forms of
what may be called classical heathenism, and to
suppress religions that were of remoter origin, mys
terious and unintelligible. He endeavoured to im
port the Eleusinian mysteries from Attica to Eome.
He formally prohibited the continuance of Druid
ritual in Gaul. He also, as the historian relates,
" expelled the Jews from Eome, because of the fre
quent riots that took place among them, under the
leadership of Chrestus" (c. xxv.). I do but follow a
long series of scholars and commentators from the
seventeenth century downwards,* in seeing in this
more than at first meets the eye. For the three first
centuries of the history of Christianity, in common
* This view is taken, e.g., by Pitiscus in his edition of Suetonius
on the authority of yet earlier scholars. I do not, of course, wish
to suppress the fact that there are others who think differently,
and maintain that the name has no more significance than if it had
been Marcus, or Caius.

4zo BIBLICAL STUDIES.
conversation and in written documents, the name of
the founder of the new religion was perpetually spelt
in this way, Chrestus, and not Christus, and the fol
lowers were Chkestiani, not Christiani (Tertullian,
Apoi., c. 3 ; Lactant., De vera Sap., iv. 7). It is
perfectly incredible that any Jew would have called
himself Christus unless he had claimed to be the
Messiah, as incredible that any one would have taken
a name so certain to have been identified with Mes
sianic claims as Chrestus. The true explanation
follows almost as a thing of course. The Jewish
quarter at Eome had been disturbed by frequent
disputes in which the name of the Christ had been
bandied to and fro. Some had been claiming the title
of Messiah for One whom they followed ; others had
rejected the claims which were thus urged on them.
The contest broke out into open violence. It seemed
to the emperor's counsellors, actuated by the sus
picion and dislike with which Eoman statesmen for
the most part looked on all Oriental creeds that lay
outside the horizon of their knowledge, a wise mea
sure of police to banish both parties, to get rid of a
people whom they at once feared and hated.
What more natural explanation of these facts .can
be given than that which is suggested by the history
of the preaching of the Gospel in other cities of the
empire ? At Damascus, at Antioch in Pisidia, at
Lystra, at Iconium, at Thessalonica, at Beroea, at
Corinth itself, wherever Jesus was preached to the
Jews as the Christ, the result was that " some be
lieved and some believed not," and that the latter tried
by slander, false accusation, open violence, to crush
the former. And when we remember the constant
intercourse between Eome and the other cities of the

AQUILA AND PRISCILLA. 421
empire, between the Jews of Eome and the Jews of
Palestine ; when we take into account that among
the listeners on the day of. Pentecost there were so
journers of Eoman origin (" strangers of Eome"), it
would seem almost impossible that no tidings of the
new sect, no preachers of the new faith, should have
reached the imperial city, quite certain that if they
had come, the immediate result would be that there
would be discord and debate, " five in one house
divided, three against two, and two against three."
But if so, then Aquila's position as one of the Jews
banished from Eome would be that of one who had
had the momentous question whether Jesus were the
Christ brought before him, and could hardly have
remained neutral. If, when he comes in contact
with an apostle of that Jesus, preaching that faith in
its boldest and least Jewish form, he at once frater
nises with him, if (with no mention made of any
change in the interval) he is afterwards one of its
most zealous preachers and supporters, we have
surely enough to warrant the conviction that he had
avowed his belief before. We may see in him a
member of the earliest Christian congregation in the
capital of the empire. So far as we follow the records
of the New Testament, the Jew of Pontus has a
stronger claim to take his place among the founders of
the Church of Borne than either St. Peter or St. Paul.
In the long list of salutations which St. Paul sends
to that Church before his own visit there, the names
of Priscilla and Aquila stand first in order, as though
there were no members of it more prominent than they
were. If they occupied such a position when they
returned to that city, it is natural to infer that they
occupied one analogous to it before their expulsion.

422 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
III. We are now prepared to examine the ques
tions which connect themselves with the wife of
Aquila. Her name, Priscilla, or, as it meets us in
the better MSS. of 2 Tim. iv. 19, and Eom. xvi. 3,
Prisca, was that of one of the most illustrious families
of Eome. In the long list of those who bore it in its
masculine form, Priscus (as we find them, e.g., in
Dr. Smith's "Dictionary of Classical Biography"),
we meet with every variety of official rank : consuls,
legates, praetors, quaestors, knights. If we found the
feminine name in any chapter of Tacitus or Sueto
nius, the natural inference would be that she was
related by birth or adoption to some member of
the gens (the house or clan) of these Prisci. There
is no instance that I know of, of its being borne by
a woman of Jewish origin.
There would be nothing strange in the fact of one
so connected embracing either Judaism or Christi
anity. From the time of Augustus onwards, the
Jews of Eome had been successful in the work of
proselytising. It became almost a fashionable weak
ness to keep new moons and sabbaths. What had been
the Grove of Egeria was (later, if not already) let
out to them as an oratory. They did a large amount
of business as soothsayers and interpreters of dreams.
Women, in the superstition which rises out of the
absence of a true faith, came specially under their
influence. The desire to stop this kind of prose-
lytism was one motive in the steps taken by the
emperors to expel or coerce the Jewish residents
in Eome.
About this time too (a.d. 57), the remarkable case
of Pomponia Graecina, accused vaguely (under Nero)
of adopting some " foreign superstition," which was

AQUILA AND PRISCILLA. 423
apparently distinct from Judaism, and acquitted by
her husband after a formal trial (such as Eoman law
permitted), in the presence of his and her relations,
indicates that a new religion, feared and suspected,
was making its way into the upper ranks of society.
It may probably serve as an instance of the way in
which men were sometimes won, " without the
word," by the chaste life and " conversation" of the
wives.* The inference that Priscilla had in this way passed
from the life of Eoman ladies, such as it is depicted
in the historians and satirists of the time, to Judaism
or Christianity, is, of course, only hypothetical, but
it seems to offer a better explanation than is com
monly given of one rather noticeable fact. Twice,
when St. Paul sends messages to the husband and
the wife (Eom. xvi. 3 ; 2 Tim. iv. 19), he places the
name of the latter first. We may assume, if we like,
that this was in consequence of her greater activity
as a Christian worker, but there is nothing in the
facts of the case to warrant that assumption. If, on
the other hand, she was actually of higher birth than
her husband, then, in those common formulae of social
usage which St. Paul never disregarded, her name
would naturally take precedence. The Christians at
Eome would talk of " Priscilla and Aquila," not of
"Aquila and Priscilla," and St. Paul, writing to
them or in the midst of them, would follow their
example. * Tacit. Ann. xiii. 32. Of this Pomponia the historian goes on
to add that she lived for forty years after this trial, given up to a
'• gloomy devotion and a life of sorrow." If the interpretation
given of her history be true, it foUows that she must have witnessed
as a Christian the martrydom of St. Paul, and have been known
personally to other members of the infant Church, to Aquila and
Priscilla, to Claudia and Pudens.

424 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Under these circumstances, then, the husband and
wife, driven from Eome, find their way to Corinth.
They open business as makers of the coarse canvas
that was used for sails, or tents, or tarpaulin-;. The
business was one which apparently called for the
employment of many " hands." A stranger arrives
at Corinth, who came from the country which was, in
some sense, the home of the manufacture in question,
and had given its name (Cilicium*) to one variety of
the fabric. This is one point of contact. After what
has been said, it will not seem strange to add, that
there was also the other of their being like-minded in
faith and hope. Coming, as St. Paul did, preaching
that Jesus was the Christ, and that, because He was
so, the special prerogatives of priests had passed away,
he was scarcely likely to have been received as an
inmate and a partner by one who held the Messianic
claims of Jesus to be unfounded. As it was, they
worked with him in a higher sphere of activity, and
must have shared with him the enmity which led the
Jews of Corinth to "oppose themselves and blas
pheme." During the two years or more in which
they thus laboured, they must have become familiar
with every phase of his character and teaching.
They, if any at Corinth, might be regarded as ex
ponents of the Gospel which he preached. At some
stage in their friendship (we cannot say positively
whether at Corinth or Ephesus), in some popular
outbreak they risked their own lives in order to save
his (Eom. xvi. 4). When he left Corinth, probably
after some special deliverance either from peril of
this nature or from that of disease, and took upon
* The word was strictly applied to a cloth of goats' hair used
for rugs, cloaks, and tent-coverings.

AQUILA AND PRISCILLA. 425
himself accordingly the vow of the Nazarite (Acts
xviii. 18), they would not separate themselves from
him, but went with him to Ephesus.
It lies in the nature of the case that two men so
brought together would converse much of the things
which each had most at heart. Aquila could not
fail to tell the Apostle of the life of the infant
Church which he had left at Eome, and which, by
the decree of Claudius, had been emptied of its
Jewish members, and left, as it were, in possession
of the heathen converts. This intercourse between
the two explains what otherwise would seem strange,
the language of St. Paul in writing to the Eoman
Church, the fact that their "faith was spoken of
throughout the whole world " (Eom. i. 8, 9) ; that
he had for a long time prayed " without ceasing "
for them; that for "many years" he had had "a
great desire " to visit them (xv. 23). And if the
bright side of the picture may thus be traced to the
Jew of Pontus, so also the terrible words which
speak (Eom. i. 26 — 32) of the measureless debase
ment of the heathen world may in part be due to the
report which he had given of the actual phenomena
of that debasement in the social life of Eome.
The husband and wife are left at Ephesus to carry
on their missionary work, and they obviously do it
with success. Their house becomes the meeting-
place of one of the congregations of the Asiatic city
(1 Cor. xvi. 19). They make converts, and baptize,
and organize a church. It seems a necessary in
ference from the narrative of Acts xix. 1 — 7, that
Aquila possessed himself, and communicated to many
others, the special spiritual gifts of the utterance of
the "tongues" and prophecy. As a representative

426 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
instance of the kind of influence which they exer
cised there and elsewhere, we may take the history
of their intercourse with Apollos. He had arrived
at Ephesus in the same condition as the disciples
just referred to, knowing the "baptism of John,"
believing Jesus to be the Messiah, not knowing the
power of the Spirit, the universality of the Gospel,
the freedom of the Gentiles from the law of Moses.
He comes from one of the great seats of Jewish
wisdom ; he is himself eloquent and " mighty in the
Scriptures." They welcome him, and fill up what
was lacking. They hear his preaching in the syna
gogue, and then expound unto him the " way of the
Lord" (Acts xviii. 26) — (the true path in which
Christ was leading his people, that which led them
to speak of themselves as "those of the way") —
" more perfectly." A false stress has, perhaps, been
sometimes laid on the humility of the Alexandrian
teacher in thus submitting to be taught by a mere
" tentmaker." Mechanical work of this kind was,
it is well known, as in the case of St. Paul, com
patible with the highest education, and with the
position of a Eabbi in the Jewish, of an Apostle in
the Christian, Church. What the history does indi
cate is, that Aquila and his wife possessed in a very
high degree the gifts of " wisdom and knowledge,"
that they were thoroughly imbued with the teaching
which at that time was characteristically Pauline,
which became afterwards the faith of the whole
Church of Christ. The " mysteries " which they
had heard from St. Paul, the " form of sound
words," the "whole counsel of God," the "tradi
tions " which they had received from him, i.e., as
there seems reason to believe, the sum and sub-

AQUILA AND PRISCILLA. 427
stance of the life and teaching of our Lord — these
they in their turn communicated to Apollos. We
can hardly fail to trace their influence in the fact
that when he left Ephesus it was to go to the church
which they had so recently quitted, and which had
been left, it would seem, without any teacher of
commanding authority. Their names must have
been prominent in the "letter of commendation"
which went in his behalf from the Church of Ephesus
to that of Corinth.
They, however, remained at the former city. They
were there when St. Paul returned to it, and during
the two years and more in which he worked there.
They were with him when tidings came of the evils
that had sprung up in the church with which they
had once been so closely connected. When he writes
to the Corinthians they send a message of greeting.
But they must have left it almost at the same time
as he did. He takes his departure from Ephesus,
journeys through Macedonia, arrives at Corinth,
stays there for the winter, writes while he is there
to the Christians at Eome, and then (Eom. xvi. 5)
we find them at that city. The decree of Claudius
had either been formally rescinded, or tacitly allowed
to fall into disuse, and there had clearly been a rush
back of Jews from all quarters ; among others, of
Jewish Christians whom St. Paul had known at
Corinth or at Ephesus, and to whom therefore he
sends special messages of greeting. The estimate
which he had formed of his two " fellow- workers "
(he might so speak of them in both senses of the
word) is expressed in words than which nothing can
be stronger, nothing indicating more thorough sym
pathy with the mind of the Apostle. " To them,"

428 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
he says, " not only I give thanks, but all the churches
of the Gentiles." And it is clear that their pre
sence at Eome must have given a new impulse to
the work that was going on there. The personal
influence of Priscilla may probably be traced in the
very large number of feminine names * in the list
of those to whom the Apostle sends salutations, as
already known to him, and with whom, therefore,
he must have been brought into contact either at
Ephesus or Corinth. In this way the new faith
helped to gain a footing in the higher strata of
society in Eome. The conversion of Pomponia,
already referred to, of Claudia and Pudens (2 Tim.
iv. 21), of those of Caesar's household (Phil. iv. 22),
may be noted as successive stages in the progress of
the same work.f
* Mary, Junia, Tryphena, Tryphosa, Persis, the mother of
Bufus, the sister of Nereus, and Julia. The English reader may
need to be reminded that Urbane is a masculine name.
t Among these early Christians of Borne, a special notice is due
to those whom St. Paul mentions as " of the household of Nar
cissus" (Bom. xvi. 11). The more famous bearer of that name,
the freedman and favourite of the Emperor Claudius, had been put
to death by Nero, soon after his accession (a.d. 55) ; and if the
words refer at all to him, it must be to the familia that he left
behind him. There is, however, an inscription in the collections of
Muratori (No. 1325) and Orelli (No. 720) which throws light upon
this passage, and, so far as I know, has not yet been noticed in this
connection, lt was found at Ferrara, and purports to be a monu
mental tablet dedicated by Tiberius Claudius Narcissus to the
Manes of his wife. And the name which the wife bore was Claudia
Dicieosyne (Eighteousness). He speaks of her as "most devoted
and most frugal" (pientissima et frugalissimd). The two names
which precede Narcissus justify us in ascribing it (with Orelli) to
the time of Claudius or Nero. We are left in doubt as to its
coming from the Narcissus, or another of the same name. Orelli is
disposed to assign it to one of his freedmen. But the significant
part of the inscription is the name of the wife. In the whole range
of heathen and early Christian literature there is, I believe, but
one other example of it. This is in a Boman inscription given in
Gruter's collection (No. 887), and may, therefore, refer to the
. same person. Peace (Irene), Wisdom (Sophia), Mercy, Charity,
have, in various forms, been chosen as Christian names, but not

AQUILA AND PRISCILLA. 429
How long they continued at Eome must remain
uncertain. But we may well believe that as St.
Paul's earnest desire to visit the Christians of that
city was in . part traceable to his friendship with
them, so the welcome which the Apostle met with
on his arrival, and for which he " thanked God and
took courage" (Acts xxviii. 15), was due to their
influence, if not to their actual presence. If they
were at Eome at the time, we cannot doubt that
they would be among the brethren who came as far
as Appii Forum and the Three Taverns to meet
him. There is, however, no trace of their being
with the Apostle in the letters which he wrote
during his first imprisonment. The mention of the
few names of those of the "circumcision" who had
"been a comfort" to him in Col. iv. 11, would seem

this. But it clearly belongs to the class of names which a Chris
tian convert might naturally choose as significant of the new life.
We may add that no ideal name would better answer to the faith
and feeling of one who had been brought under St. Paul's teachmg
as to the "righteousness which is of faith." The virtues which
the husband recognises in her are precisely those which Christian
women were exhorted to strive after, that their husbands might
"without the word be won by the conversation of the wives."
Putting these facts together, it is, I think, but natural to infer (1)
that we have here the Narcissus of whom St. Paul speaks ; (2) that
his wife was one of those who were "in the Lord," and that other
Christian members of the familia found protection under her ; (3)
that she changed her name, at or soon after her baptism, for one
that should be more in harmony with the Christian calling ; (4)
that in her case the husband was "won" by her devotion and
simplicity. The occurrence, in close juxtaposition with the house
hold of Narcissus, of two names like Tryphasna and Tryphosa
(each meaning Wanton), that might seem to have been soubriquets,
so to speak, of women whose life had once been stained with evil,
makes it probable that this Dicseosyne may have had previously a
name like theirs, or even that she may have been one of them. It
is interesting to note in this connection the fact that in the inscrip
tions recording tho names of the imperial household in the Colum
barium of Livia (see p. 355), the names of Tryphsena and Tryphosa
both occur, the first in union with Claudia. (Lightfoot on the
Philippians, p. 194.)

430 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
to imply that they had already left. When he
writes, shortly before his death, the last letter extant
to his beloved disciple, they are again at Ephesus.
He includes them in the last greetings that he ever
sent (2 Tim. iv. 19).
What circumstances led to this fresh change of
residence we can, of course, only conjecture. The
Jews of the "dispersion" were a migratory race,
with little sense of a fixed home, now banished from
Eome by a decree of the emperor, now driven from
the cities in which they took refuge by popular out
break, settling as strangers and pilgrims wherever
they found a temporary shelter or an opening for
their activity in trade. The movements of Aquila
and Priscilla may have been determined by some
such motives. There may have been, besides, the
wish to return to a place in which they had many
friends, to resume the work in connection with the
Christian society of Ephesus, in which they had
been so conspicuous. One fact, however, may throw
some light on what must still remain doubtful. They
are coupled in St. Paul's salutation with the house
hold of Onesiphorus (2 Tim. iv. 19), and Onesi-
phorus (as we find from 2 Tim. i. 16) was an Asiatic
Christian, who had gone to Eome during St. Paul's
first imprisonment, and had "refreshed" the Apostle's
spirit by hearty and ready sympathy — had " sought
him" in the streets and lanes of the city, and at last
had found him in the " hired house" in which he lived
in military custody. The service which he then ren
dered was but the continuation of like acts of loyal
friendship at Ephesus. He had been there, i.e.,- at
the time when Aquila and Priscilla were also there
— opening their house as the meeting-place of the

AQUILA AND PRISCILLA. 431
Church. Apparently when St. Paul wrote the Epistle
in which he names him, Onesiphorus was no longer
living. His prayer is primarily, "The Lord have
mercy upon the household of Onesiphorus : " as for
those who were dear to him for their father's sake ;
then for the man himself, " that he may find mercy
of the Lord in that day" — the day of the coming of
the Lord as the Judge of quick and dead. But if
this were so, then there would be, at least, one well-
defined reason which might have influenced Aquila's
choice. His friend's death had left his family in
need of guidance and protection. If they went to
Ephesus, they would be able to help those for whom
they themselves— not less than the great Apostle
— cared so much.
Beyond this all traces fail us. The vaguest tradi
tions of Greek hagiography report nothing more
than that they suffered martyrdom. They may have
passed away in the fierce storm of persecution which
fell upon the churches of Asia, at the time when St.
Peter wrote his Epistles, and which had not ceased
when the seer of Patmos wrote to them. They may
have been among those who having known, by a
living experience, what a true Apostle was like, were
afterwards able to " try those who said they were
apostles, and were not" (Eev. ii. 2). It formed no
part of the purpose of the New Testament writer
to give a complete biography of these or of any
others, even the highest, among the workers of the
Apostolic Church. But it is well sometimes, while
we acquiesce in this reticence of Scripture, to note
all that may be gained by coincidences and scattered
hints, and so to form a true estimate of the nature
and extent of the work done by those even who at

432 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
first sight seem least conspicuous, leaving behind
them a name and nothing more. By such men or
women as these, in a thousand instances, hardly less
effectually than by Apostles and Evangelists, the
foundations of the Church were made deep and
wide. A man who could unite activity in outward
business with zeal, devotion, open-handed liberality,
a woman who united matron-like purity with spirit
ual discernment, and the capacity to teach others
— these must have presented a striking contrast to
the lives of the heathen round them, and been,
wherever they were, as the " salt of the earth," as
" lights shining in the darkness,"

VII.
THE OLD AGE OF ST. PETEE.
|HE life of the great Apostle, to whom the
Lord of the Church assigned this name
as at once characteristic and prophetic,*
may be divided both naturally and con
veniently, into four distinct periods. Of these, the
last only forms the special subject-matter of the
present inquiry ; but as it can hardly be considered
except in its relations to the antecedent history, it
will be necessary so far to take a brief glance at
the others also.
(1.) Of the years, probably between thirty and
forty, that preceded the preaching of the Baptist,
we are told little or nothing, and are left to infer
ence or conjecture. Within certain limits there is
little risk of error in the picture that suggests itself.
The boyhood at Bethsaida (Johni. 44), spent chiefly in
his father's calling : the experience of all the chances
* The two occasions on wlrich the name was solemnly bestowed
are both of them significant. First, when as yet his faith had only
showed itself in accepting the testimony of Andrew, that he had
"found the Christ," and coming for the first time before his Lord,
he was greeted with the strange words, " Thou art Simon, the son
of Jona, thou shalt be called Cephas " (John i. 42). And secondly,
when he had been led, this time through no human testimony, but
by a direct apocalypse to the yet higher truth, " Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God," and then heard the meaning of the
name brought out, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build
my Church" (Matt. xvi. 13).

434 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
and perils of the fisherman's life, stormy nights, and
labour often fruitless ; intercourse with the peasants
of the villages, and the publicans or douaniers of the
towns of Galilee ; visits, annual, or it may be more
frequent, to the great feasts of Jerusalem ; the weekly
Sabbath service in the synagogue ; this must have
been his life, as it was that of the thousands that
were living round him. Education there was pro
bably none but of the most elementary character.
When the two, Peter and John, stood before the
Sanhedrim, those who listened wondered at their
boldness, because " they were unlearned and ignorant
men," had received, i.e., no training like that which
was given in the schools of Jerusalem (Acts iv. 13).
It was, however, one great blessing of the synagogue
system, one which was transmitted to the Christian
Church, and has been perpetuated in our own paro
chial machinery, that it did provide even in the
smallest village, wherever there were as many as
ten householders, some means for raising the youth
of Israel out of the brute ignorance in which the
masses in heathen countries were left to live and
die. The resident Eabbi was of necessity qualified
to be a teacher, and often gathered the boys of the
town into an actual school. Few were left in total
ignorance of the law, which, at the age of twelve,
every Jewish youth was bound to observe.* They
learnt to repeat their Shemd, the great creed of
* At this age, in the popular language of the Jews, after an
examination in the elements of religious knowledge, they became
Children of the Law, and shared with their parents in the observ
ance of Jewish feasts. Our Lord's journey to Jerusalem, then
apparently for the first time going up to Jerusalem, to keep the
passover, and his " sittmg in the midst of the doctors, both hearing
them and asking them questions," give us the analogous stage in
the unfolding of the perfect life.

THE OLD AGE OF ST. PETER. 435
Israel : " Hear, 0 Israel : The Lord our God is one
Lord." The verses written on their phylacteries
were committed to memory.* The Book of Deutero
nomy and the Proverbs of Solomon were probably
the chief text-books of education. It was no excep
tional case when the Apostle, speaking to the off
spring of a mixed marriage in a heathen country,
said emphatically, " From a child thou hast known
the Holy Scriptures daily " (2 Tim. iv. 15).
Of the events of St. Peter's life we of course know
nothing ; but we may surmise without much risk of
error, that the wild insurrection of the Zealots, who,
under Judas of Galilee (a.d. 6), in the days of the
taxing (Acts v. 37), dared to defy the whole power
of Eome, must have stirred the feelings of his boy
hood or early youth. One of these Zealots, once
probably a follower of Judas, we have even in the
number of the Twelve, j- and to the confused hopes
and dreams thus formed we may look as the source
of that longing expectation of "a kingdom to be
restored to Israel," to which even the Apostles clung
with so strange a tenacity (Acts i. 6). More dis
tinctly we may think of the companionship with his
* The passages so written were the following : —
I. " Sanctify unto me all the first-born," &c. (Exod. xiii. 2—10).
2. " And it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee," &c. (Exod.
xiii. 11—16).
3. "Hear, 0 Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord," &e.
(Deut. vi. 4—9).
4. "Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God," &c. (Deut. vi. 13—22).
The ground of selection in the first three appears to have been
the occurrence of the words "they shall be a sign upon thine
hand," "frontlets between thine eyes." There is something
striking and instructive in the fact that words from 3, 4, were the
weapons with which our Lord baffled the attacks of the tempter,
and that they formed throughout the keynote of his teaching.
t Simon, called "Zelotes" (Luke vi. 15). The name inac
curately given as " Canaanite," in the Authorised Version of St.
Matthew and St. Mark, means the same thing.

436 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
elder brother, Andrew ; of his marriage with some
Galilean maiden, probably of his own rank in life ;
of their purchase of a house in Capernaum, and, it
may be, a small farm on the shores of the Sea of
Galilee ; of the children prattling at their knees, the
joy of their father's heart.* But above all, in those.
early years must have been laid the deep foundations
of that friendship with the son of Zebedee, which
lasted even to the end, and of which the Gospel of
the beloved disciple bears so many traces. f The hot
impetuosity of Simon, and the fiery energy of the
Son of Thunder, must have drawn them together,
as kindred natures are attracted to each other, and
we can hardly doubt that they, sharing the restless
fever of the time, looked for the Son of David, who
was to come before long and claim his father's
throne. Their words of joy at finding the Messiah,
imply a long and yearning expectation (John i. 41).
(2.) With.the preaching of the Baptist there came
the first great change. The rumour spread that a
great prophet had arisen ; and Simon, with other
Galileans, chiefly, it would seem, those who shared
his Messianic hopes, went to Bethabara, on the east
side of Jordan, where John was baptizing (John i. 28).
They were among the multitudes who, moved by
* This seems the natural inference from our Lord's answer to
St. Peter's boast, "We have left all, and have followed thee,"
"Verily I say unto yon, There is no man that hath left house, or
brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or
lands" (Mark x. 29). The marriage is more distinctly recorded
Mark i. 30 ; Matt. viii. 14.
t The assumption that the feeling which shows itself in St.
John's Gospel is one of poor rivalry and jealousy, is almost the
most groundless as it is almost the most offensive hypothesis in
M. Benan's " Life of Jesus." Such a thought could scarcely have
commended itself to any one in whom the capacity for friendship
had not been extinguished by sentimentalism.

THE OLD AGE OF ST. PETER. 437
that strong, earnest preaching, confessed their sins,
and plunged into the waters of the Jordan, as wash
ing away the evil of their past deeds, and entering
on a better life. What followed is familiar to every
reader of the Gospel, and need not be repeated here,
except in its leading outlines. To find the new teacher
who was greater than John, and to feel, before any
sign or wonder had been wrought, that this was
indeed the Christ, — to receive the new name, Cephas,
or Peter, witness not of the strength which he then
had, but of the work to which he was called, and the
character that was needed for it, — to return for a
time to the old life, then to leave it, and with it to
leave, without abandoning, home, and wife, and
children, in order to take his place among the fishers
of men, — to be led gradually out of earthly dreams
and poor ambitions to the true thought of a kingdom
of God, — to take his place first within the circle of
the Twelve, and among the Twelve to be called to
the foremost rank, to pass into the inner circle, the
elect of the elect, — to be present with those other
chosen ones in the moment of highest glory on the
Mount of the Transfiguration, and the moment of
deepest humiliation in the garden of Gethsemane, —
after those divine experiences, to forsake and deny
his Master through a coward fear of the rough
tongues of Eoman soldiers and Jewish housemaids,
to meet his Lord's reproachful yet forgiving glance,
and to rush into the dark, throw himself on the
ground, and weep bitterly; — this was what lay
before him in the future which then he saw not.
Through all these changes we see the natural cha
racter of the man breaking out ever and anon, and
showing its evil and its good. He is foremost in his

438 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
confession, and the first to retract ; he alone throws
himself into the waves to join the loved Form that
he saw through the darkness of the night, and then,
his faith failing him, begins to sink ; prominent in
all questionings and murmurings, impetuous, zeal
ous, but also wavering and inconstant ; in years a
man, but in character a wayward boy, needing the
education of a Divine guide. That guidance was
necessary to lead him to the true thoughts of
God, and of the Kingdom, and of Christ ; it was
needed also to prevent the friendship which had
been the blessing of his life from passing into bitter
ness. Peter's question, " What shall we have there
fore ? " — the prayer of the sons of Zebedee, that they
might sit, one on their- Lord's right hand, the other
on his left, in his kingdom, the vexed displeasure to
which that prayer gave rise, — all this gives tokens
of a jealous rivalry which, but for the lesson which
checked it, might have passed on into the bitterness
which M. Eenan traces, and may claim as the first
discoverer, in the Gospel of the beloved disciple. But
the lesson was learnt effectually. On the night of
the last Supper their words and glances show the full
confidence of friendship (John xiii. 24, 25). Peter,
in the shame or confusion of his repentance, turns to
John for help, and is not repelled. With him he must
have spent the hours of that solemn Sabbath that
followed the Crucifixion.* With him he went, as if
* The two had been together in Gethsemane. Both had gone,
John taking Peter, into the High Priest's palace (John xviii. 15).
John must have been cognisant of the denial, if not an actual wit
ness of it ; and yet they are once again together, within less than
two days, on the morning of the Besurrection. What passed
between the two in that solemn interval which the Gospels shroud
in silence we know not, but the inference that they must have
been together is irresistible.

THE OLD AGE OF ST. PETER. 439
after a midnight vigil, "very early in the morning,"
to the sepulchre in the garden. When Peter hears of
the trial in the far future which is to test the thrice-
asserted love, and cancel, as it were, the thrice-
repeated denial, he turns with eager affection to ask,
" Lord, and what shall this man do ? " (John xxi.
21). (3.) The next period of the Apostle's life is that
of highest activity and fame. He takes the place
assigned to him as the spokesman of the Twelve ; the
holder of the Keys, binding and loosing, forgiving
and retaining sins. The Spirit descends on him as
on the others. He shares with them the marvellous
power of the Gift of Tongues, but he stands forth
conspicuous among the rest as the chief prophet in
that " goodly fellowship." The man who had quailed
in the porch of the High Priest's palace, stands un
abashed before the High Priest himself, and all the
priests, elders, and scribes of the great Sanhedrim,
denounces their guilt, reasons with them out of their
own Scriptures. His voice we cannot doubt was
listened to in the Church with most reverence. By
his hands signs and wonders were wrought in the
name of God's "holy servant,* Jesus." Men brought
their sick and laid them in the streets, that even the
very " shadow of Peter," as he passed by, might
"overshadow some of them" (Acts v. 15). And
still the old friendship lasts. Peter and John go up
together to the temple, together stand before the
council. For a time, it may be, the new element
brought into the Church by the admission of the
* Not " child," as in the Authorised Version. The Greek word
corresponds to " the Servant of the Lord " in Isaiah xiii. 1, 19 ;
xliii. 10 ; Iii. 13.

440 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
" Grecians," or Hellenistic Jews,* tended a little to
diminish his influence. They could not feel the same
confidence in the Galilean Apostle as had been felt
by those who had seen and known him during the
ministry of his Lord (Acts vi. 1) ; and the very fact
that the whole brunt of the persecution raised by
Saul fell not on him, but on Stephen (Acts vi. 9, 11),
shows at once, both that there must have been a new
element in the teaching of the latter, and that he
must have occupied for the time a more commanding
position among the preachers of the Faith even than
the chief of the Apostles. The death of the great
martyr, and the dispersion of the greater part of the
disciples, f must have restored the old pre-eminence ;
and the work assigned to him in the history of
Cornelius raised him to a position, if possible, yet
more commanding. At Joppa, the great sea-port of
the south of Palestine, where the crowd of sailors,
traders, artizans of other nations, mingled with the
Jewish population, living in the house of a man
whose calling in the eyes of the stricter Jews was
looked on as unclean, his thoughts may well have
turned with hope, perplexity, and fear, to the wide
Western Sea which spread out before him, and the
vision which taught him to think of no man, circum
cised or uncircumcised, as " common and unclean,"
* Not proselytes from Greek countries, but Jews who were
settled in them, spoke Greek habitually, and used the Septuagint
or Greek version of the Old Testament. Contrasted with these in
the Apostolic Church were the Hebrews, sc. the Jews of Palestine,
who spoke only or chiefly the Aramaic or degenerate Hebrew of
their own country.
f The fact that the Apostles remained at Jerusalem during this
crisis, and could remain safely, while it was in part a proof of theii
courageous love, shows also that, in some way or other, their
teaching was not so directly antagonistic to the system of the
Pharisees as that of Stephen had been.

THE OLD AGE OF ST. PETER. 441
gave him the guidance which he needed. In quite
another sense than that which mediaeval credulity
gave to the words, he had the keys of the kingdom,
and, thus taught, he opened the door of faith unto
the Gentiles, so wide that no man afterwards, not
even he himself, could shut it. It was given to him
to be the human instrument of the foundation of the
Gentile as well as of the Jewish Church. In another
than the Eomish sense, the Catholic Church, the
Communion of Saints, the Universal Fellowship of
Believers, may look to him as to the Eock on which
its Lord has built it.
(4.) It would be interesting with an unsurpassed
interest to trace step by step the history of the years
that followed, but here our materials all but fail us.
We see him indeed exposed to the sharp persecu
tion which, under the revived monarchy of Herod
Agrippa, and the consequent ascendency of the
Sadducees' faction, attacked the Apostles who had
hitherto escaped. We watch what may have been
the first step in a life of missionary activity, or
more probably of a falling back for a time into the
shelter of a hiding-place. Obviously the one great
fact, or rather series of facts, in them, of which we
should watch the unfolding with absorbing eager
ness, would be the relation between the two teachers
whose names are foremost in that great period of the
Church's history, between the one who was to be
known as the " greatest," and him who was content
to be thought of as the "least" of the Apostles
(1 Cor. xv. 9). Contrasted in many ways, they un
doubtedly were from the first. On the one side, a
youth and manhood spent in the rough toil of the
fisherman and the peasant ; on the other, the in-

442 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
struction of the schools of Tarsus, and the full train
ing of a scribe in those of Jerusalem, sitting at the
feet of Gamaliel : on the one side, as far as we can
gather, a frame indicating strength and energy, a
stature that commanded respect, a voice clear and
powerful (Acts ii. 14) ; on the other, a " bodily
presence weak," and "a speech contemptible"
(2 Cor. x. 10). On the one side, again, not the
claim only, but the actual possession of a fuller
knowledge of the teaching of Christ on earth,
through three years of close companionship ; on the
other, not the claim only but the actual possession of
a fuller knowledge of the mind of Christ as the Lord
and Teacher of His Church. In the early stages,
however, the contrast did not pass into any real, or
even apparent antagonism. In spite of the distrust
of the disciples he received the persecutor Saul into
his house, as a brother in the faith (Gal. i. 18).
Fourteen years afterwards (years of which we
know absolutely nothing of his life), when the
work of Paul was already coming to be known as
wider and mightier than his own, he was found still
faithful to the lesson which the history of Cornelius
had taught him. In the great controversy whether
circumcision, and with it the whole yoke of Judaism,
was to be imposed on the Gentile converts, he gave
no grudging or half-hearted support to the cause of
which Paul was the great leader, extended to him
and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, brought
forward his own experience, and entered his protest
against the Judaizing party, as putting a yoke upon
the neck of the disciples which the Jewish Christians
themselves and their fathers had been unable to bear
(Acts xv. ; Gal. ii.).

THE OLD AGE OF ST. PETER. 443
Between the council at Jerusalem, and the pro
bable date of the Epistles, our knowledge is still
scantier and dimmer. St. Paul is the foremost figure
in the Church's work, and all others, even the chiei
of the Apostles, fall into the background. Here and
there we get glimpses of work limited in its range,
partly by his acceptance of the " Gospel of the cir
cumcision" as his special trust (Gal. ii. 9), and
partly also by the fact that in his mission-work he
was accompanied by his wife — like himself no longer
young, and unequal, we may well believe, to the
more perilous and laborious journeys which marked
the activity of St. Paul* Another influence, how
ever, was at work only too successfully, which tended
at once to give him a spurious prominence, and to
reduce him, so far as it operated, to a real insigni
ficance. The converted Pharisees, who had brought
their Phariseeism into the Church of Christ (Acts
xv. 5), the Judaizing party who dogged the foot
steps of St. Paul at every turn, slandering his cha
racter for truth and purity and consistency and
common honesty (2 Cor. i. 17 ; vii. 2 ; viii. 20 ; xi. 12 ;
Gal. i. 10), undoing, as far as it was possible for them
to undo, his work, were at this time making desperate
efforts to claim St. Peter as their leader. Emissaries
from that section of the Church appeared in Galatia
and at Corinth, speaking in the name of Cephas,
claiming themselves .to be special delegates, f clothed
with extraordinary power, from the foremost of the
* May we not trace an unconscious embodiment of his own expe
rience in the words which bid husbands to " give honour unto the
wife as unto the weaker vessel ?" (1 Peter iii. 7 ; comp. 1 Cor. ix. 5.)
t " The very chiefest Apostles." There is a touch of sarcasm
in the phrase — " the envoys extraordinary" of the Mother Church
at Jerusalem (2 Cor. xi. 5; xii. 11).

444 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Twelve. It was easy to represent this recognition
of the Church of the Circumcision as the region of
his own activity as showing a want of sympathy
with St. Paul's work among the Gentiles, his own
adherence to the customs of Moses as a protest
against the conduct of one who became to those that
were " without the Law," as " without the Law "
himself. So accordingly it was that the cry, " I am
of Cephas," was heard among the watchwords of
wild debate at Corinth (1 Cor. i. 12). It lies ih
the nature of all party warfare, that those who thus
used his name would try to force him into accepting
the position which they thus assigned to him. They
would repeat to him every slander against the rival
teacher, which they circulated among the churches.
He would hear as James heard, that the Apostle of
the Uncircumcision was not only proclaiming to the
Gentiles their freedom in the Gospel, but was going
beyond the limits marked out by the Synod of Jeru
salem, " teaching all the Jews which are among the
Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought
not to circumcise their children, nor to walk after
their customs" (Acts xxi. 21). It would not be
difficult for them, by tearing words from the con
text of thought, or acts from the context of the life,
to justify the charge. He had said repeatedly and
emphatically, that " circumcision was nothing "
(1 Cor. vii. 19; Gal. v. 6; vi. 15), that the Law
tended to increase sin (Gal. iii. 19 ; Eom. iii. 20 ;
v. 20 ; vii. 7). He had taught men (here, as it might
be argued, in direct contravention of the decrees of
the Council), that they might without scruple, ex
cept in one special case, eat of things sacrificed to
idols (1 Cor. x. 27, 28;.

THE OLD AGE OF ST. PETER. 445
It was natural that such resolute persistency
should have some result, and for a moment the
effect was that of placing the two great Apostles in
a real, as well as seeming, antagonism to each other.
At some period, probably two or three years after
their meeting at Jerusalem, and St. Paul's departure
from Antioch on his second missionary journey, and
in order, it may be, to fill up the gap left by the
departure of so many teachers (Paul, Barnabas,
Silas, Mark), Peter came down to the city which
was, as it were, the mother of all the churches of the
Gentiles, as Jerusalem was of all the churches of the
Jews. At that city the disciples had just received
the name which has since risen to such a world-wide
glory, but which was then comparatively unknown,
which was never used by the disciples of each other,
or by the unbelieving Jews of the believing, which
does not occur once in the whole teaching of St.
Paul.* The question which was now at issue was
whether he would find in that new name a stronger
tie of brotherhood than that of Abraham or Israel, or
fall back within the old barriers, behind the old wall
of partition. At first he was consistent with himself.
He acted as the vision of Joppa and the history of
Cornelius had taught him to act. He counted no
man common and unclean. He mingled freely with
the Gentile Christians, entered into their family life,
shared their meals, partook of their agapw, or feasts
* " The disciples were caUed Christians first at Antioch "
(Acts xi. 26). It was natural, therefore, that there chiefly the
persecution to which the Church was exposed should first turn
upon the name so given, and in St. Peter's words, "If any man
suffer as a Christian, let him not he ashamed" (1 Peter iv. 16), we
may see the natural result of that residence in Antioch which we
learn neither from his own Epistles nor yet from the Acts, but only
from St. Paul's incidental mention of it in Gal. iii. 11.

446 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
of charity, united with these feasts the higher Supper
of the Lord (Gal. ii. 12). But the Judaizing party,
with the reckless and restless tenacity which marked
their policy, were determined to counteract this pro
test against their own exclusiveness. Whether those
who came as delegates from James were abusing his
name as they had done once before (Acts xv. 24 ;
Gal. ii. 12), or whether they had so far worked on
him as to draw from him the expression of some wish,
forgetting the different circumstances of the two
churches, that Peter at Antioch would follow the
same line of action as he was following at Jerusalem,
we do not know. In either case it might have been
plausibly argued that there was no inconsistency with
the decrees of the Council, that the Gentile converts
were left free to do as they liked in all things morally
indifferent, that the Law was recognised as binding
upon Jews only. The result of the argument, and
of the real or alleged authority of James, was to
throw Peter into a state of melancholy vacillation.
The scene in the gateway of the High Priest's palace
was acted over again, and the Apostle who had been
bold before the danger came, or when backed by a
numerous following, shrank from standing alone
against the violence and yells and anathemas of the
Judaizers. "Fearing them of the circumcision, he
separated himself," and by that single act undid his
former work, went backwards to a standing- ground
that he had forsaken, built again the things that he
had destroyed, helped, so far as in him lay, to make
the chasm between the Jewish and Gentile Churches
wider and more lasting.
Such was the position of the two parties at Antioch
when Paul arrived there, probably during the jour-

THE OLD AGE OF ST. PETER. 447
ney briefly mentioned but not narrated in Acts xviii.
22.* He saw at once, with his wonted clearness
of insight, all that was at stake, and resolved once
more, as before in the case of Titus, " to give way by
subjection, no, not for an hour" (Gal. ii. 5). To do
so would have been to acquiesce in a condemnation
of his own conduct, to sanction a lasting division
between the Jewish and Gentile Churches, to make
the glorious reality of a Church Universal, the
brotherhood of mankind in Christ, an unattainable
ideal. He found public feeling outside the narrow
limits of the party which St. Peter was identifying
with the Church, strongly against him,f but no one,
it would seem, had as yet ventured to stand forth in
open opposition to the Apostle to whom the keys of
the kingdom of heaven had been entrusted, to the
rock upon whom the Church was to be built. Yet
so skilfully had the faction played its part, profess
ing here at least to recognise the rights of the
Gentile believers, and taking their stand on what all
had agreed to as a compact, that even "Barnabas
was carried away with their dissimulation" (Gal. ii.
13). Unconscious of any inconsistency, perhaps
priding himself on returning to the same ground
that he had occupied before, he too withdrew from
those with whom he had lived previously in closest
bonds of brotherhood. It was a crisis that called for
the spirit of an Athanasius or a Luther, and that
spirit was found in St. Paul. Eegardless of all the
* On this hypothesis, more probable in itself than any other, he
came fresh from Jerusalem, better informed perhaps than Peter as
to the real wishes and feelings of St. James, and the scene on
which he dwells so emphatically in Gal. ii. 13, 14, was then of
comparatively recent date, and still fresh in his memory.
t Not, as in the Authorised Version, " because he was to bo
blamed," but "because he had been condemned."

448 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
prestige of authority that gathered round the great
name of Peter, regardless for the time, though not
forgetful, of the great work which he had done for
the Church of Christ, he " withstood him to the face
before all." He and those who acted with him were
" not walking uprightly according to the truth of
the Gospel" (Gal. ii. 14) ; were dwelling on the
words of a compact with the hair-splitting dexterity
of casuists, not entering into the heart and spirit of
the life of brotherhood in Christ. With sharp burn
ing words he pressed home the charge of inconsis
tency against the great Apostle. " If thou, being a
Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not
as do the Jews" (Peter continued, it would appear
from this, to adhere to the letter of the vision at
Joppa, while he lost sight of its significance, eating
meats which the Jew would look on as unclean, yet
shrinking from the society of the uncircumcised as
polluting, or at least unfitting for him), " why com-
pellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews ? "
This was the real question at issue. It was easy to
say that the Gentiles were left free, that the yoke of
the Law was not imposed on them ; but in reality
they were brought under a coercion of the most
stringent kind. They were practically told that the
adoption of Judaism was the condition of their com
munion with the Church of the Apostles. Without
this, there might indeed be a formal recognition of
their membership in the Church, but practically
they would be treated still as members of a different
and inferior body, still outside the barrier, still as
" heathens and publicans."
What followed this startling antagonism between
the two great preachers of the faith, what other

THE OLD AGE OF ST. PETER. 449
scenes brought the great drama of St. Peter's life
towards its conclusion, we know not. The silence
of St. Luke as to the contest itself, and as to the
whole period of St. Peter's history to which it be
longed, is every way significant. Writing as the
friend and companion of St. Paul, he wrote, we may
well believe, what that teacher would have him
write, — would not dwell on the momentary weak
ness and inconsistency of the Apostle whose name
had been set up in rivalry with his, would much
rather seek to show how it had been given to him to
open the door of faith unto the Gentiles, how he had
been a chief instrument in assuring them their free
dom. The Acts of the Apostles do not profess to
give us any full record of the work of the Twelve.
Their labours, journeyings, martyrdoms, are left to
the dim uncertainties of tradition. We have but the
Acts of St. Peter and St. Paul, and even of these
only enough to enable us to see how each worked
according to the measure of the gift of Christ, — how,
in spite of temporary estrangement, they were one in
heart and mind, joined in a brotherhood indivisible.
Beyond this, then, our knowledge of the old age
of St. Peter is traditional and conjectural. All that
we can do is to compare the traditions with notices
and hints dropped unconsciously in the Epistles, to
see how far the one confirm the other, and to in
dicate the salient points in the closing pages of the
life that thus comes to stand out clearly from the
darkness. (1.) There is a probability indefinitely great that
at some period subsequent to the scene at Antioch,
Peter found his way, journeying probably through
the provinces of Asia, to the great Imperial city.
G G

450 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
There, still accompanied by his wife, and by the
disciple who was as his own son by adoption, still
true to his calling as the Apostle of the Circum
cision, he preached to his brethren of the stock of
Abraham, and became not indeed the founder, but
in part the organizer of the Eoman Church. Difficult
as it is to arrive at chronological accuracy, it seems
probable that we may ascribe the journey through
the Asiatic churches to the period of two years and
upwards of St. Paul's imprisonment at Caesarea and
at Eome, and his arrival at the latter city between
St. Paul's first and second imprisonments. Neither
the Acts of the Apostles nor St. Paul's Epistles, nor
yet St. Peter's, give any trace of the two having met
again. Once, however, it may be they did meet, or,
stranger and more touching still, knew of each
other's presence in the Imperial city, perhaps in the
same prison, without meeting. There, as the old
legend tells, Peter, seeking to escape the pressing
danger, passing out of the gate of Eome upon the
Appian Way, saw in vision the same face that had
once before turned and looked upon him in the
High Priest's palace, and turned back with a new
confidence to bear his testimony unto the death.*
There, as he passed to the place of execution,
" girded" by another's hand, and carried " whither
he would not" (John xxi. 18), he turned to the wife
who had been so long the faithful sharer of all the
chances and changes of his life, and bade her be of
good cheer as being an heir together with him of
* The legend may possibly find a partial confirmation in 2 Peter
i. 14. The life of St. Paul gives us repeated instances of this
personal manifestation of the Lord's presence (Acts xviii. 9 ;
xxii. 18; xxiii. 11). St. John had a like vision in Patmos (Eev.
i. 13). Was it strange that the same should be given to St. Peter?

THE OLD AGE OF ST. PETER. 451
the grace of life. There sentenced to die, not as a
Eoman citizen like St. Paul, but as a Jewish male
factor, he too was crucified, choosing, as the legend
rims, which art has made familiar, to be nailed to
the cross, not as his Lord had been, but with his
head downwards.
The Epistles confirm much that tradition thus
reports to us. " She that is at Babylon saluteth
you " (1 Peter v. 13). Of the three views which have
been taken of this passage, that which rests on by
far the strongest grounds is that which sees in
"Babylon" not the old half-desolate city on the
Euphrates, nor a town of the same name in Egypt,
but the mystical name of Eome. The language of
the Apocalypse shows how familiar such hidden
meanings were, how natural it would be to the
Asiatic Christians to understand that by it was meant
the new Babylon, the mistress of the nations (Eev.
xiv. 8 ; xvi. 19 ; xvii. 8).* If, as seems probable
enough, we see in the Eevelation of St. John the
great ingathering of prophecies and visions that had
before been presented singly, we may well believe
that St. Peter's use of the word was significant.
He taught the believers of the dispersion, i.e., chiefly
the Jewish converts, to look forward to a judgment
upon the city of the Caesars as searching and over
whelming as that which had broken up the vast
* So in later Babbinic writings Edom is the received synonyme
for Borne, possibly because Babylon had been preoccupied, as it
were, by Christian writers. So, even in the time of Jeremiah,
prophecies against the historical Babylon were conveyed, by a
strange use of cipher-writing, through the otherwise unmeaning
name of Sheshach (Jer. xxv. 26 ; li. 41). So also Eahab had been
the prophetic name for Egypt (Ps. lxxxvii. 4; lxxxix. 10; Isa.
H. 9 : and (in the Hebrew) xxx. 7) ; and Jareb of the King of
Assyria (Hos. v. 13; x. 6).

452 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
monarchy of the Chaldaeans. In this case, therefore,
we have in the Epistle what coincides with the tra
dition ; and the mention, not of the Church * but
of the woman that was elect, with those to whom she sends
her greeting, adds yet another link. She, her hus
band's companion in travel, might well send a salu
tation to those whom she had known, whose wives
and daughters she had probably taught to aspire after
a higher and purer life, to whom she had presented a
type of womanhood as yet new and strange to them.f
The mention of Mark, whom St. Paul's Epistles
show to have been at Eome during his first impri
sonment (Col. iv. 10 ; Philemon 24), and of Silvanus,
his friend and fellow- worker, not under the Hebrew
name by which Peter had once known him (Acts
xv. 22, 23), but under its new Latinised form, leads
to the same conclusion.
(2.) To this period of his life also we may assign,
without much risk of error, the work which a very
early tradition ascribes to him of putting on record,
through St. Mark's help as an interpreter and ama
nuensis, what he remembered and thought it right
to publish of his Lord's work and teaching. To trace
the internal evidence of that origination of the
Gospel which bears St. Mark's name — to show the
signs of a vividness of perception and the touches of
graphic power which indicate the testimony of an eye
witness, before whose mind the old past was living
once again — to point out the hundred points of con
tact between that Gospel and the Epistles of St. Peter

* The word " Church," as the italics show, is interpolated by
the translators.
t Here again, as before, we are free to trace a personal element
in 1 Peter iii. 1 — 7.

THE OLD AGE OF ST. PETER. 453
— might well form the subject of a separate study.
Here we can only point to words in the Epistles which
fall in with the tradition, as indicating something
like the purpose which was in this manner carried
into effect. These we find in close connection with
his recollections of the past, of the vision on the
Mount of Transfiguration, of the last recorded scene
on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Once and again
we have the words, " I will not be negligent to put
you in remembrance of these things  Yea, I
think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to
stir you up by putting you in remembrance." Yet
further, " Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be
able after my decease to have these things in remem
brance " (2 Peter i. 12 — 15). Would not this purpose
ripen naturally into act, and lead him to place on
record the acts and words which would help to con
vince others, as they had convinced him, that he
had not followed " cunningly devised fables ?"
(3.) But at some time or other in this period of his
life we must think of him as coming into contact for
the first time with what must have been a new trea
sure of wisdom and knowledge, equivalent almost to
a new apocalypse of truth. During the thirty years
or so that had passed since the conversion of Saul of
Tarsus, the two, as we have seen, had but seldom
met. True, he had once heard in brief outline the
substance of the Gospel which St. Paul preached to
the Gentiles (Gal. ii. 2). True, he had publicly
recognised his teaching and his work ; but, after this,
there had been an interval of separation and distrust,
for a time, of actual antagonism, brought about, as
we have seen, by ignorance and misrepresentation.
During all those years, the only time in which he

454 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
listened to St. Paul's voice was when it spoke in
sharp reproof at Antioch. We have no reason to
think it likely that any of St. Paul's Epistles had
at that time come within his reach. But two indeed
of those now extant were then written. But now, in
his old age, he came in contact with Silvanus, who
for years had been St. Paul's companion, who was
joined with him in the salutations to the churches of
Thessalonica, who possibly acted as his amanuensis
in writing the Epistle to the Eomans.* From him,
therefore, Peter may well have obtained a copy of
some at least of the great Epistles in which the
teaching of the Apostle of the Gentiles has come
down to us for an everlasting possession. f Can we
not picture to ourselves the flood of new feelings and
thoughts which would rush in upon his soul as he
sat and read them ? Delight to find a heart that
beat so entirely in unison with his own, loving
Christ as he himself loved Him, a truth essentially
the same, though presenting here and there different
phases, and including " some things hard to be under
stood," — a new warmth of affection towards the
"beloved brother Paul," who, when they last met,
had reproved him so sharply — wider thoughts, it
may be, than he had before known as to the
mystery of Christ and the hidden symbolism of the
types and shadows of the Law, — all these are trace
able in his Epistles ; and this also, the influence of the
* Tertius, equivalent in meaning to the Hebrew Silas, has been
by some writers identified with Silvanus (Bom. xvi. 22).
t Possibly also of some that have not come down. We have no
Epistle from St. Paul to the Churches of Pontus, Cappadocia, and
Bithynia, yet St. Peter speaks of letters written to them. The
extant Epistles to the Galatians and Ephesians treat but scantily
of the subjects in connection with which he mentions St. Paul's
teaching (2 Peter iii. 15).

THE OLD AGE OF ST. PETER. 455
teaching of St. Paul on the mind of St. Peter, would
well repay a distinct and full inquiry.
(4.) Lastly, we must not forget that in every church
which he visited he would come under the influence
of men speaking by special inspiration, of prophets
dwelling fully and in burning words on the sufferings
that were coming on the Church and on the glories
that were to follow, — glories which they saw as
certain in the far horizon, and which to them seemed
near and coming quickly, as men count nearness and
quickness. One who heard such words again and
again, and was persuaded of their truth, could not
remain indifferent to them ; and yet it might well be
that words true in themselves might excite in men's
minds unfounded hopes, and so expose them to dis
appointment and derision. It was needful for him,
in the last words of counsel which he, an elder,
sent forth to his brother elders, to speak distinctly
as to the nature, office, limits of the "prophetic
word." With such fruits fresh gathered into the garner of
his old age, with a mind illumined at once by a long
experience and by the guidance of the Spirit of
Truth, soaring far above the strife and contention
with which faction and party had sought to identify
his name, looking back upon the past, to the days
when his Lord had been with him upon earth, and
he saw His glory and listened to His words, looking
forward to the time as already near when he
would have to put off his tabernacle as that Lord
had showed him, — all the fear and vacillation and
self-confidence of the natural man, the Simon Bar-
jona, having passed away, — the true Peter, at last
worthy of his name, sends forth the great encyclical

456 BIBLICAL STUDIES.
Epistles which were then the stay and bulwark of
the Church against the hosts of dark and dangerous
errors, and which continue to give light to all
seekers after truth, and comfort to all penitents and
mourners.

THE END.

TBIHTED BY VIETUE ABD CO., CITV B0AII, LOKDON.

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